Idiot

Every time I introduce myself to someone new, and they ask me what I do for a living, I eventually get the same reaction......"there was this one time I got pulled over..." or "there was this cop who came to my house one time..."

The second part of this story is usually followed by some horror story of some police officer who treated this person badly. Now sometimes I can explain why the officer interacted with the citizen in this way. Sometimes I can tell the person that police officers are human, and have human emotions like everyone else. Its not easy to go from a high stress moment like arresting a child molester (or two) and then having to listen to someone think their world is over because their car stereo was stolen . I actually like to hear these stories because I take pride in my job, and I hope to change the persons opinion about the officer they dealt with.

But every once in awhile, officers do things that are completely unexplainable. This is one of those times. The link provided is to an AZ central article on the Phoenix Police Officer tazed by Gilbert PD in January. The Phoenix Officer is now suing Gilbert for half of a million dollars. The Phoenix Officer was more than twice the legal limit and was passed out in his car. There is also an audio tape of the incident where the Phoenix Officer can be heard being belligerent and threatening. He was removed from his car, and after being non compliant, was tazed. I believe the Gilbert Officer did nothing wrong. He was put in a bad situation due to no fault of his own. Gilbert probably even saved this guy's career because they didn't charge him with any felonies. A felony arrest is automatic grounds for termination. They could have easily charged him with resisting arrest. They ultimately charged him with the misdemeanor crime of failing to obey a lawful order.

Its cops like this that give the rest of us a bad name.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/07/13/20100713phoenix-officer-arrested-for-dui-seeking-damages.html