Philly Police Scandal Needs Sober Analysis, Not Rev. Al’s Bullhorn
Tesler and the Atlanta Narcotics unit is a perfect example of official corruption, perjury, and a colossal police leadership failure. That easily qualified as a gross violation of the public trust by a bad of thugs with badges, and the worst aspect is that without the death of the elderly, it may not have come to light. It is clear those narcotics officers were willful in their violation of the public trust and their direct actions resulted in at least one unlawful homicide. What should be done with them? They should be fired, tried in court, and if found guilty, jailed. No question about it.
There does appear to be a subtle difference between the Atlanta officers and the Philadelphia officers. Both qualify as violations of the public trust. The Atlanta officers were on the wrong side of the law from the start and it appears that unit comprised itself of corrupt liars that fabricated probable cause for search and arrest warrants, perjured themselves to Court officers for the sake of arrests and convenience. The story line in Philadelphia seems quite different. The Atlanta officers did not find themselves in a high-speed pursuit with armed shooting suspects and then reacted to what they observed. I am not defending the actions of the Philadelphia officers because as I have previously written I believe the actions of some were illegal. But the difference is clear to me. In Atlanta, an innocent elderly woman was killed by the police and that was the result of Tesler and his units’ premeditated malfeasance. In Philadelphia there was a high-speed pursuit with shooting suspects it appeared there was a free-for-all at the end of a pursuit where suspects were unnecessarily hit, struck with batons, kicked, etc. It is clear there was official misfeasance, but the degree of actual injury to the suspects is relevant. The Philadelphia violation of trust is evident, but to me it is slightly less than Atlanta because of the actual damage caused, the end result is that it does not appear to have resulted in serious injury or death to the suspects that were struck by the officers.
Therefore, even though the violation of trust is evident in both cases, just and sober reflection by police management and the Courts are necessary for the respective branches of government to ensure that public officials are responsive to their oaths of office so public trust can be restored. When there is evidence of the violations, as in both cases above, there should be action taken by police leaders, district/county attorneys, and if necessary, the Federal legal system.
