Weston Lawyers: Who Will Watch The Watchers?

Another day and another sad story. We opened the papers recently only to see another sad story, fortunately, this one didn’t end in tragedy. Reports alleged that a police car took a shortcut through a gas station in order to avoid a red light. In the process, the officer struck a child with the patrol car. The child was taken to the hospital for observation but thankfully didn’t sustain serious injuries.

While this story did not end in tragedy, the questions of police culpability and responsibility comes to the forefront once again. If the police car was indeed taking a short cut to avoid the traffic light, the officer at the wheel acted irresponsibly and in fact, broke the law. But will the police department take any serious action against one of their own? We are sure there will be internal investigations, etc., but the question remains – who is watching the watchers?

With 24 hour a day news stations we become witnesses to high speed chases and at times, brutality by the police on the individuals they are arresting. While it is true that they have a tendency to protect their own and band together to support their “brothers”, misconduct needs to be reported and the perpetrator held accountable.

Perhaps it’s a natural reaction – after all the police are easy whipping boys and scapegoats when they have done nothing wrong. The key is balance in the approach. They, like all others accused of misconduct (or a crime for that matter) are innocent until proven guilty. In most cases of police misconduct or criminal behavior, the only reason that the story sees the light of day is because someone mustered the courage to speak out.

What will happen in this particular incident? Of course it is not a major accident (although it could have ended in tragedy). Will the matter be placed in a “cold case file” and be forgotten? Or will the police investigate what really happened? And if they investigate, will they do a proper job or work towards a cover up? This is such a minor incident that the news channels and papers will probably drop it as being of no continuing interest.

The road to preventing such problems is the future is, once again, accountability. It is the key to keeping tabs on those who are keeping tabs on us. It’s true that we need these protectors in our society and it is imperative that we be defended by them. But every once in a while we may need to be defended from them. Either way, we will be safer and better because of it.