Email sent by King County sheriff’s captain is harmless
Aug 19, 2014, 2:33 PM | Updated: Aug 20, 2014, 7:37 am
(MyNorthwest file)
Taken from Tuesday’s edition of The Dori Monson Show.
Amidst all the criticism of cops, something happening here locally is ridiculous. A King County sheriff’s captain is getting flack for something he wrote in an email.
The department was doing an emphasis patrol in the Skyway area and the captain sent out an email looking for deputies willing to volunteer for the patrol.
In the email, he wrote: “This overtime will be an emphasis designed to kick ass and take names in the K8.” He also said: “Bad guys get contacted and go to jail for anything, period.”
Now, this area of Skyway is an area where crime has been rampant. But now groups are coming and trying to get this captain disciplined.
Charles Gaither is on the panel that oversees the sheriff’s office and he told KING 5 he was very disturbed by this: “Am I a bad guy? If I’m driving my car 10 o’clock at night, if I slowly pass an intersection, am I a bad guy? Does that give you a reason to stop me? I think the justification to stop someone like me or anyone else should be based on the law, not based on how we look or not the perception of me being a bad guy.”
You can criticize cops all you want, but the fact is the cops who patrol neighborhoods, they know who the bad guys are, they know who the criminals are, and on an emphasis patrol, they know who the people are that cause problems. But now groups like the ACLU are trying to gin up all kinds of anger against the King County Sheriff’s office for this.
“It seems outrageous. In this situation, you’re talking about sending out armed police officers into a particular community and telling them that the reason they’re out there during these emphasis patrols is to kick ass on certain people. That sounds to me like really in addition to a call for racial profiling, it’s a call for use of force,” ACLU Deputy Director Jennifer Shaw told KING 5.
That’s just absolute nonsense. Go after them if there is excessive use of force. Also note her language ‘You’re talking about sending out armed police officers.’ What other kind of cops would we send out? Are we going to send out our cops unarmed? Stop being so inflammatory ACLU.
King County Sheriff John Urquhart is also publicly at least taking a stand against his captain’s emails. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk about kicking ass and taking names in an email that obviously became public,” the sheriff said.
Now I know that is what the sheriff has to say publicly, but that’s how cops talk, and people are trying to make this into some big controversy that doesn’t exist.
In a crime-infested neighborhood, sometimes cops do have to kick ass and take names. I have called out cops for acting badly but as I’ve said many times I’ll defend cops when they’re worth defending, and in this case this email is absolutely harmless.
Taken from Tuesday’s edition of The Dori Monson Show.