And John Dillinger Feared the "Chilling Effect" of the FBI

Today's front page of the Baltimore Sun interviews a number of current and former members of the Baltimore Police Department, noting ominously that,  "The result could have a "chilling effect" on officers, preventing them from making "good faith judgments" when making arrests".

If we eliminate the most significant issue in the whole Freddie Gray case, the fact that a 25 year old man was killed by the callous, brutal, and unprofessional behavior of members of the BPD, we still have the following:

• A bogus arrest (you cannot tell if a knife is legal or illegal from seeing the clip sticking out of his pocket).
• Deliberate brutality on the part of the police.
• The senior officer involved has had multiple incidents which were the juxtaposition of abuse of his position and serious mental illness.
• The police department leaking false reports to the public of the incident.
• There is a pattern of abuse in the department, as evidence by the steady stream of settlements of police misconduct lawsuits.

I think that it's well past time for police to follow the laws that they are sworn to uphold.

I am well aware that the job of being a policeman is a tough one, and I know that it involves tough calls, and I know that human beings make mistakes.

This goes well beyond mistakes.

That's not the problem.  The problem is the fact that there is a culture of impunity that is nearly universal among law enforcement officers in the United States, and this ill serves both the citizenry and the constabulary.

The Baltimore PD is generating over a million dollars in brutality and misconduct settlements every year, and the very small minority of officers who are responsible for this suffer no consequences.

BTW, I think that one of the things that would help here is if cops got a mandatory 6 paid months off every 3 years, and officers were required to attend mandatory counseling on at least a monthly basis.

I have a friend in the psychological biz, and his assessment is that most police officers who have been on the job for more than a few years suffer from PTSD.

This does not make for a well functioning civil society.