November 15, 2003
The Strange World Of Police Discipline
Today's Oregonian includes a curious article about the recommendation that a captain in the Portland Police Bureau be fired:
Portland Assistant Chief Stan Grubbs has proposed firing Capt. C.W. Jensen for seeking as much as $150 in reimbursements for meal expenses that he did not incur on a business trip and for directing a subordinate to do the same.
Why is this curious? Well, as the paper has it:
Some in the Police Bureau said they were surprised by the severity of the discipline. They wondered how Jensen could be fired, when Scott McCollister, who shot and killed an unarmed black woman, was suspended for 51/2 months.
This is, indeed, the first thing that occurred to me. But not in and of itself. As reported here in September, a letter written by then-Chief Mark Kroeker detailing the reasons for his suspension of McCollister in essence concluded that nearly every single decision made by McCollister during that incident was wrong.
In other words, looking at the continuity (or lack thereof), an officer can make a string of utterly wrong decisions which lead to someone's death, and merely be suspended. But another officer can stiff the City on the costs of meals and potentially be fired.
Hopefully, I'll be forgiven for wondering how this makes any sort of consistent sense.
Comments (1)
alan on 16 Nov 2003
New management?