Tin Badge Officer Club is Alive And Well in Boston
A Police Lieutenant from Boston, was reinstated to his job after a plea agreement and probation. I take issue with domestic violence crimes. Especially, if one is a law enforcement officer. In 1998, a law was passed, the Lautenberg act. It included law enforcement and military who were convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence to be removed from their jobs or assignments. Understand that domestic violence first and foremost is a crime, period. Just like driving drunk. Only society at large still does not view spousal abuse between two people dating or married, often as a crime. As you have seen in my prior posts and books, laws were enacted because people lost their lives. They were seriously injured or murdered. And Officer Murphy in this crime was paid during the entire time while on probabtion. In my opinion, the State's attorney who plea bargined and the judge violated a federal law. The good old boys network clearly is protecting their own. And for the victims in Boston married to those in blue it is a slap in the face.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS - Police officers who physically abuse their spouses or intimate partners too often elude justice. That certainly would apply to Boston Police Lieutenant David Murphy, who returned to work last week after spending eight months on paid administrative leave.
In May, a Maryland judge ordered Murphy to serve 18 months probation for punching his wife in a Baltimore bar. The officer’s conviction for second-degree assault will be expunged when he fulfills the conditions of his probation. The plea deal was sadly typical of domestic violence cases involving police officers.
Prosecutors and judges need to put an end to the inside game that favors batterers with badges. Strong federal laws forbid anyone, including police officers, to own a gun if convicted of a misdemeanor or felony domestic violence offense. But officers routinely avoid such career-ending consequences through favorable plea bargains.
Some cases never come to light because fellow officers look the other way. And spouses often refuse to testify, fearing possible physical or economic consequences. Yet police are no strangers to domestic violence, on or off the job. Last year, the journal Police Quarterly cited several studies in which 24 percent to 41 percent of male officers and their wives reported some level of physical violence in their relationship. That’s roughly three times the national average.
The Murphy case is especially galling because the plea deal appears to handcuff Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis, who would like nothing more than to fire the officer. Davis terminated three officers for domestic violence-related offenses when he led the Lowell Police Department. He says flat-out that batterers are “unsuitable” for the job. But he also says that Murphy would almost surely be reinstated by an arbitrator or the Civil Service Commission after his sentence is vacated in Maryland. So Davis is loath to enter into a lengthy termination battle with Murphy - one that would likely end with an award, based on Murphy’s annual salary, of almost $170,000 in back pay, overtime, and police details. Davis calls that a “burden to the taxpayer.” Instead, he issued a short suspension, disarmed Murphy for the duration of his probation, and stuck him on a desk away from the public.
Davis’s take on the likelihood of reinstatement is probably accurate. There is a long history of arbitrators overturning sound terminations or punishments of police officers. But the public wouldn’t have objected if Davis rolled the dice. There would be a chance, at least, that Civil Service or an arbitrator might reinstate Murphy, but with partial or even no back pay. Also, Davis should have found a way to send a stronger message. One possibility would be to demote Murphy in rank. The disgraced officer, at least, would have to fight to win it back.
Unlike many major police departments, the Boston police boasts a comprehensive written policy on officer-involved domestic violence, including restraining-order protocols and precise responsibilities of police supervisors. But the Murphy case reveals the holes in even the most carefully crafted policies.
Many police officers are especially wary of domestic violence calls, because the perpetrators are often both emotionally unstable and drunk or drugged. It requires great skill to control the batterer. But it shouldn’t take one to know one. All efforts to rid the police force of domestic abusers, even failed efforts, are in the public’s interest.
Lautenberg Act
A person can lose his or her guns forever under the Lautenberg gun ban for "the use or attempted use of physical force" against a family member.(1) Notice that you can lose your Second Amendment rights even for the "attempted use" of force.
Moreover, in some cases, you can lose your gun rights without even a jury trial! Many misdemeanors do not guarantee a jury trial, and the new law does not require that one must be tried by a jury before losing his or her gun rights.
The organization www.http://www.gunowners.org/klrepana.htm wants the act should be repealed. (to view the entire federal law visit their site at the link above. Any domestic violence misdemeanor, no matter how minor or insignificant, will now revoke one's God-given right to use arms for self-defense. Consider what is already happening:
* In Ohio, one GOA member had an intense verbal argument with his father ten years ago. The father landed his son in jail for one night to "teach him a lesson." But he was surprised to learn the next morning that he could not drop the charges against his son. The resulting domestic violence misdemeanor against the son is now preventing this 27 year old from becoming a law-enforcement officer and from ever again defending his life with a gun.
