Capitol Police Update

Yesterday, Chuck Canterbury, National President of the Fraternal Order of Police issued a press release about the Kennedy crash scandal. Here's the key portion of that statement:
Chuck Canterbury, National President of the Fraternal Order of Police, sharply criticized the management of the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) for their mishandling of two high profile incidents involving Members of Congress. "First, we had Representative McKinney attack a police officer, and now we allegedly have Representative Kennedy narrowly miss striking a police cruiser before crashing into a security barrier," Canterbury said. "In both cases, Capitol Police management favored politics over protocol."
I appreciate Canterbury's forthrightness. Management has to scrap their 'protect the politicians' policies and start acting like real law enforcement officers. Their protections weren't a big deal in a pre- 9/11 world but they're totally unacceptable in a post 9/11 world.

ABC is reporting that, as I suspected, Canterbury's statement, along with the clamor throughout the media, has had an effect.
Capitol Police have taken disciplinary action against a watch commander for the handling of Rep. Patrick Kennedy's car accident, acting Capitol Police Chief Christopher McGaffin said. McGaffin said the incident was improperly delayed due to "poor judgment" on the part of police managers and that a field sobriety test should have been administered to Kennedy after his car hit a barrier near the Capitol at 2:45 a.m. on Thursday.
According to ABC's article, the watch commander wasn't fired. At least it's a step in the right direction, though alot more questions need to be answered. Here's just a few questions I'd have:

Why didn't the watch commander let the patrolmen do their jobs? Was this the first time they interfered in the patrolmen doing their job? If not, what other incidents have gone unreported?

Until those and other questions are answered, we can't put this behind us.



Posted Saturday, May 6, 2006 12:03 PM

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