Worcester Police Problems

It's been a very sad and disappointing period of cop corruption in Worcester over the past several months. And it's not like the reputation of the Worcester Police Department would have suffered any less if there was only one cop over this past year that was getting nailed for violating the public trust. That it's more than one just makes it stick all that more tenaciously...

Between the public and the police force, there's always that gap, anyway. But it just gets exacerbated in situations like this. There's just no getting around it.

Some people don't like the idea of the "thin blue line" and they don't agree that the society is running on that paradigm at all. In some respects, I agree that it's an irrelevant model with which to view our police force's place in our lives. But to quote the Ghostbuster's hook: Who Ya Gonna Call?

The fact is, somebody's got to take these jobs as police officers. The idea that a kid would grow up and answer the call to be a police officer is something that many parents would find very difficult to accept. Why? Well, every dissenting parent would have to answer that for themselves.

But it wasn't always this way. The badge was an honor, and it still should be. We entrust the cops with extraordinary powers, and we trust they won't abuse those powers in any way. But all it takes is one cop to violate that trust, and it brings massive shame upon every single one of their fellow officers.

What we're seeing right now is the difficult decision to turn fellow officers over to the snarling public process of discipline, possible legal consequences, and expulsion from the police force. This is no small thing. It's like being on a ship at sea and tossing someone overboard. They stand a very serious chance of not surviving. If they can't be police, it may well be over for them...

This will all pass, sooner or later, and the axe will fall wherever it will. But this police force in Worcester will continue to be there, and hopefully they will all be able to recognize the difference between loyalty and integrity, and strive to bring the honor and respect that, as we can all agree, is deserved by the majority of police officers in our city.

We need good people, and we need strong people, and we need talented people to become police officers in our city. Will Worcester's future police officers be the best and brightest? The answer to that question is everybody's problem to figure out.