Excusing police misconduct in Frisco

The San Francisco police chief is proposing an amnesty plan for officers that have been charged with various types of minor misconduct, basically telling his own cops that while they can't do anything really big or mean, insulting others or "minor" incompetence and the likes are acceptable.

Discipline cases against dozens of San Francisco police officers would be dismissed under an amnesty program proposed by Chief George Gascón.

The new police chief told The Chronicle on Wednesday that he wants to see "the great majority" of roughly 75 discipline cases pending before the civilian Police Commission end with little or no punishment for officers accused of minor misconduct.

Those cases, he said, include charges such as use of inappropriate language, being discourteous, failing to properly fill out a police report or a first-time misdemeanor drunken-driving arrest. They would also most likely involve first-time offenders rather than officers with a long history of complaints against them.

"We don't get anything out of taking a pound of flesh," Gascón said.

Yeah, you do. You give officers who work for you the idea that there's an actual code of professionalism and discipline in place to keep their loudmouthed and lazy tendencies in check. Not doing so sends them the message that they can do any minor infractions they want, just as long as they don't actually get into big trouble, and they'd be excused.

(via The Agitator)

Technorati tags: law enforcement · dishonesty · police · san francisco