Friday, August 22, 2008

We're the Only Ones Giving You an Option Enough

An incident that led to an Indianapolis police officer being charged with rape Thursday began, prosecutors say, with a proposition.

"I'm going to give you an option," officer Anthony S. Smith reportedly told a woman with an outstanding misdemeanor warrant. "I can lock you up, but I really don't want to . . . or you can ride with me for an hour."
So now we're up to 11 in four months?

Think about that: We're constantly reminded by "Only Ones" apologists that we're only dealing with "a few bad apples." I don't know 11 co-workers in my entire career, which spans decades and private sector companies of all sizes, who have been charged or arrested for this kind of crap. I can't recall even one.

Via Shermlock Shomes, who writes:
I'm tempted to start posting this stuff to my blog and go into competition with you for daily posts of "Only Ones." Thanks to the fine officers of the IMPD, I think I'd beat you hands-down!
Don't compete--enhance! I WANT people to take and spread the "Only Ones" concept far and wide, and have said so from the start--after all, I don't own the concept: we owe that to Lee Paige, the Patron Saint of the Only Ones. Make it part of the wider debate--that'll never happen if it's confined to this one small blog.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Leather gear, boots, handcuffs, nightstick. "Command presence." Flip a switch and people pull over for you. Pull out a ticket book and they start to sweat for you. The power of life and death.
Not everyone joins law enforcement to keep the community safe and help people.

Anonymous said...

And not every community has safety and helping as its police's Number One goal.

Shermlock Shomes said...

Excellent suggestion given in response to a gentle jibe from your humble correspondent. I will follow your challenge and help spread the word.

And as I reflect on all the news that you, David, have pass on through your blog, I grow deeply worried that this is only the 'tip of the iceberg.'

David Codrea said...

It is--as I've said numerous times, I never go looking for these stories, and I pass many of them up because I don't want the focus of WarOnGuns to be totally dominated by the "Only Ones."

So if more of you out there pick up continued abuses from other sources, the wider the exposure it will get--and it won't all be coming from one place, so the "isolated cop-hater" misdirection won't be as likely to wash.