nbc AWOL cops in NO nbc

Here's an article that really riles me. I can sympathize with the
problems these cops are having, and I assume that some have very good
reasons for NOT being there. Apparently that isn't the case for all of
them. So putting aside the possible justifications for some absences,
I'd have to say that NO is much better off without ever again seeing
the others. I know their morale has been bad, their pay is shitty and
they've been pretty much ignored by the city administration down there.

On our last trip to NO, my wife and I stayed at a hotel called the
"W"...which is a Sheraton in the French Quarter. Right across the
street was a small open air restauraunt where we used to eat breakfast.
Each day there was four or five cops in there, and I used to get on
their *** for gathering up in an eating place and told them I was
gonna call their Captain. Once they got to know us we used to sit there
and eat breakfast with them. It went on for about 8 or 9 days, and we
used to trade stories and talk about police departments. They had some
real morale problems down there.

I'm not a person who considers being a cop the same as being a priest.
I look at it as a job, not as a vocation. I seldom, if ever, carry a
gun off-duty, and I ain't gonna cite my neighbor for putting out their
trash too early. Cops do however, like soldiers, take an oath. That
oath includes protecting those you serve, and doesn't allow one an
option of deciding whether or not you like the conditions. Sure cops
can quit, and the oath might seem silly to some, but it's not. It's
what cements you to the badge you wear and the history of what you've
chosen to do.

I've seen cops beaten. I've seen cops killed. I've been to about 50
some on-duty death police funerals in my 30+ years. I've seen their
wives and kids they've left behind. I used to have a "spiel" I would
give all the rookie cops when they reported in on their first day in
the precint. I'd tell 'em to look at the badge they wore every time
they took it off and placed it on their dresser at night. Then I'd tell
them to think about those 50 cops who died ONLY because they pinned
that thing on in the morning. Then I'd tell them to think about the day
that had just passed, and ask themselves, "Would anything I did today
have prevented me from looking each one of those cops square in the eye
and saying 'I did my job today.'"

Cops sometimes die. That's a fact of life. You might get killed. You
knew that when you took the oath. If you don't like it, quit. If you
want to remain a cop then get over it. Life ain't a bowl of fucking
cherries and it'll be even more fucked up when you're a cop. But you
might be expected to die someday, so learn to live with that and don't
whine about it.

All that being said, I wonder if some of these cops can look the cops
that died in the WTC in the eye. They died terrible deaths. Messy
deaths, stupid deaths and there's nothing noble about getting crushed
by an 86 story building. They were THERE though. That's where cops are
supposed to be.....THERE.


September 4, 2005
Law Officers, Overwhelmed, Are Quitting the Force
By JOSEPH B. TREASTER
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 3 - Reeling from the chaos of this overwhelmed city,
at least 200 New Orleans police officers have walked away from their
jobs and two have committed suicide, police officials said on Saturday.

Some officers told their superiors they were leaving, police officials
said. Others worked for a while and then stopped showing up. Still
others, for reasons not always clear, never made it in after the storm.

The absences come during a period of extraordinary stress for the New
Orleans Police Department. For nearly a week, many of its 1,500 members
have had to work around the clock, trying to cope with flooding, an
overwhelming crush of refugees, looters and occasional snipers.

P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police, said most of his
officers were staying at their posts. But in an unusual note of
sympathy for a top police official, he said it was understandable that
many were frustrated. He said morale was "not very good."

"If I put you out on the street and made you get into gun battles all
day with no place to urinate and no place to defecate, I don't think
you would be too happy either," Mr. Compass said in an interview. "Our
vehicles can't get any gas. The water in the street is contaminated. My
officers are walking around in wet shoes."

Fire Department officials said they did not know of any firefighters
who had quit. But they, too, were sympathetic to struggling emergency
workers.

W. J. Riley, the assistant superintendent of police, said there were
about 1,200 officers on duty on Saturday. He said the department was
not sure how many officers had decided to abandon their posts and how
many simply could not get to work.

Mr. Riley said some of the officers who left the force "couldn't handle
the pressure" and were "certainly not the people we need in this
department."

He said, "The others are not here because they lost a spouse, or their
family or their home was destroyed."

Police officials did not identify the officers who took their lives,
one on Saturday and the other the day before. But they said one had
been a patrol officer, who a senior officer said "was absolutely
outstanding." The other was an aide to Mr. Compass. The superintendent
said his aide had lost his home in the hurricane and had been unable to
find his family.

Because of the hurricane, many police officers and firefighters have
been isolated and unable to report for duty. Others evacuated their
families and have been unable to get back to New Orleans.

Still, some officers simply appear to have given up.

A Baton Rouge police officer said he had a friend on the New Orleans
force who told him he threw his badge out a car window in disgust just
after fleeing the city into neighboring Jefferson Parish as the
hurricane approached. The Baton Rouge officer would not give his name,
citing a department policy banning comments to the news media.

The officer said he had also heard of an incident in which two men in a
New Orleans police cruiser were stopped in Baton Rouge on suspicion of
driving a stolen squad car. The men were, in fact, New Orleans officers
who had ditched their uniforms and were trying to reach a town in north
Louisiana, the officer said.

"They were doing everything to get out of New Orleans," he said. "They
didn't have the resources to do the job, or a plan, so they left."

The result is an even heavier burden on those who are patrolling the
street, rescuing flood victims and trying to fight fires with no
running water, no electricity, no reliable telephones.

Police and fire officials have been begging federal authorities for
assistance and criticizing a lack of federal response for several days.


"We need help," said Charles Parent, the superintendent of the Fire
Department. Mr. Parent again appealed in an interview on Saturday for
replacement fire trucks and radio equipment from federal authorities.
And Mr. Compass again appealed for more federal help.

"When I have officers committing suicide," Mr. Compass said, "I think
we've reached a point when I don't know what more it's going to take to
get the attention of those in control of the response."

The National Guard has come under criticism for not moving more quickly
into New Orleans. Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, the head of the National
Guard Bureau, told reporters on Saturday that the Guard had not moved
in sooner because it had not anticipated the collapse of civilian law
enforcement.

Some patrol officers said morale had been low on the force even before
the hurricane. One patrolman said the complaints included understaffing
and a lack of equipment.

"We have to use our own shotguns," said the patrolman, who did not want
to be identified by name. "This isn't theirs; this is my personal gun."

Another patrol officer said that many of the officers who had quit were
younger, inexperienced officers who were overwhelmed by the task.

Some officers have expressed anger at colleagues who have stopped
working. "For all you cowards that are supposed to wear the badge," one
officer said on Fox News, "are you truly - can you truly wear the
badge, like our motto said?"

The Police and Fire Departments are being forced to triage the calls
they get for help.

The firefighters are simply not responding to some fires. In some
cases, they cannot get through the flooding. But in others, they decide
not to send trucks because they are needed for more serious fires.

"We can't fight every fire the way we did in the past and try to put it
out," Superintendent Parent told a group of firefighters on Saturday
morning at a promotion ceremony in the Algiers section of New Orleans,
a dry area.

Even facing much more work than could possibly be handled, he said, it
was important for him to take time out for two promotion ceremonies.

"The men need reinforcement," said Mr. Parent, who put on his last
clean uniform shirt for the ceremonies elevating 22 officers to the
rank of captain. "They need to see their leader and understand that the
department is still here and not going to pot."

Susan Saulny contributed reporting from Baton Rouge, La., for this
article, and John DeSantis from New Orleans.

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