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Sunday, June 25, 2006
Police exhibit a double standard
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Not even my darkest side would permit me to kill another human being.
For sake of discussion, though, say I flip out. Someone gets shot to death. Basic police work calls for investigators to gather information, to name the shooter.
I doubt the Gwinnett County cops would identify me on an incident report as a “Gwinnett County columnist.”
They might list that as my alias, but definitely not my real name. Rest assured, “Rick Badie” would be printed in the offender’s box.
But if I were a Gwinnett County police officer, things might be different. A double standard might be applied. The authorities might invoke a hybrid code of silence that rivals any cinematic plot.
Unfortunately for us, the script is a reality.
On June 10, a Gwinnett police sergeant shot and killed an unarmed man on Hamilton Mill Road in Buford. Police say 41-year-old Jeffrey Hugh Cantrell was intoxicated. Cantrell apparently knew he was too tanked to drive. He’d called some co-workers and was en route to a gas station to meet them so somebody could take the wheel.
He didn’t make it. A veteran police officer who tried to stop Cantrell shot him from a moving vehicle. He died before his truck even left the road.
We know lots about Cantrell, thanks to Sheriff’s Department records. Since 1997, he’d been jailed in the county detention center 10 times on various charges, DUI among them. And just this April, he spent time in the pen on a disorderly conduct charge.
His criminal history is an open book. He doesn’t enjoy the blue-shield luxury of the officer, who apparently failed to follow departmental policy when he shot at Cantrell from a moving vehicle.
In public records, the cops declined to list the officer’s name. Homicide Detective S.K. Shaw, who is handling the internal investigation, listed him on the incident report as “GCPD Officer.”
How clever.
The authorities have told us zilch about this officer, a 20-year veteran. All we know is that he’s been placed on administrative leave while an internal inquiry continues.
This practice of selective anonymity makes a mockery of what cops are sworn to represent and uphold. It spits in the face of Cantrell’s family as well as the general public’s lawful right to know who this cop is and what his service record says.
It tells us something else, too. A double standard exists. Fraternal loyalty matters. Character, ethics and full disclosure are expendable when cops are involved. Do as I say. Not as I do. We are the law, and when it comes to shielding one of our own, we’ll skirt it.
This week, details of the internal investigation into the shooting are supposed to be turned over to District Attorney Danny Porter.
How are we to accept the police investigation of one of its own, when the department’s first instinct was to shield him?
I expect a paper tiger that, if it includes any recommendations for charges, taps the offender on the wrist and sends him on his way.
On Friday, I called Detective Shaw as well as Cpl. Darren Moloney, the police spokesman, to see what they had to say about the decision to shield the officer’s identity. Shaw referred me to Maloney.
Moloney didn’t return a page.
By the way, I used my real name as well as my professional title.
