Today the chief was afforded the opportunity to respond to the recent decision of the FOP to take a vote of no confidence in him and his administration. We will take some time to highlight and respond to a few of his quotes.
"I think the bottom line is what I hear is that officers want to come to a place where they're respected. And that's the environment - and some people are not comfortable with that change."
Chief White, are you saying that you are providing an environment where officer's are respected and that officer's are not comfortable with that? If that is what you are implying then the rank and file will disagree with you.
"We made a lot of changes and changes are tough"
Yes, they are, but every administration that has occupied your offices in the past and who will in the future has and will make changes. Changes are not an excuse for the current state of morale.
"You can't lie and be the police."
Actually, we can, state law even says we can lie while involved in an undercover investigation. If you are referring to lying in the context of an internal affairs investigation, you are correct. Policy and procedure does prohibit lying to an investigator or commander when being questioned about conduct. We neither refute or negate this policy and your duty to impose discipline upon those officers who break it. The problem lies with you being the purveyor of judgement about what is a lie in the absence of evidence. Quite simply put, if there is no proof of a lie, you cannot arbitrarily decide that the officer lied. Using "Truthfulness" as a broadsword to discipline officers is not acceptable and does not exude the "respect" you spoke of previously.
"You can't rape and be the police."
We agree. This is a statement you made to the media to overshadow the real complaints of officers. No officer would ever want a rapist in their ranks. It is actually offensive that you would include this as part of your "Change is tough" reasoning.
"You can't take drugs and be the police, and I'm not backing off those things."
We couldn't agree more, and we will dive further into this issue in the near future.
Of course we openly invite you to respond, since you stated to the media that the opportunity to respond was not previously afforded to you.