St. Ann lieutenant resigns, Glendale officer fired after actions during Ferguson protests

[applegrove]

St. Ann lieutenant resigns, Glendale officer fired after actions during Ferguson protests

by Joel Currier at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-ann-lieutenant-resigns-glendale-officer-fired-after-actions-during/article_4e9f0ee5-a8ab-5cc8-ab1a-5e8be57612ca.html

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Two police officers are no longer working at their departments due to their actions during the protests in Ferguson.

A Glendale police officer suspended last Friday after commenting on Facebook that he thought Ferguson protesters should be "put down like rabid dogs," has been fired, officials say.

Meanwhile, a St. Ann police lieutenant resigned Thursday after he pointed an assault rifle at protesters and cursed at them, officials said. Lt. Ray Albers had worked for the department for 20 years.

Matthew Pappert, suspended with pay last week, was fired Thursday after an internal investigation wrapped up Wednesday, said Glendale City Administrator Jaysen Christensen.




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[BillZBubb]

1. Wow, at least some departments are being cleaned up.

Hats off to them for doing the right thing.

[applegrove]

2. I think if the police approach their role as partially there

to help out the people exercise their first amendment rights and to keep people safe, it will be a great relief to them. Those porous lines the police in Ferguson had with the protestors near the end were great: the protestors pointed out outside actors who were there to bait the police and start violence so the police could walk them away; the protestors sent a shot/wounded protestor to the police to be more quickly medically treated. That was poignant. And a celebration of democracy for both the protestors and the police.

[FuzzyRabbit]

3. Sacrificial lambs to appease the citizens.

These two officers were disciplined, but only because the authorities think that if these two are punished then outraged citizens will be satisfied. But nothing short of a systemic overhaul of these police departments will solve the problems.

Don't cry for Pappert. He will have another job in another police department in just a few days. Bullies like him are in high demand in small town police departments.

[applegrove]

4. I think we've seen a permanent change in policing. Ferguson will mean something.

Color me too optimistic if you will. But I think it has changed the USA. And started a discussion that was desperately needed. We owe the people of Ferguson and Michael Brown a lot.

[bvf]

5. I hope you're right.

I have the same suspicion about being overly optimistic, but a turning point has to be reached eventually. Let's hope this is it, or at least part of it.

[Live and Learn]

8. Only if we keep catching them and spreading the word. nt

[cascadiance]

11. I think the groundwork was laid out by the institutional violence towards Occupy protesters...

and many who drew the correlation on how right wing tea partiers and Bundyland protesters who were carrying guns and even pointing them at police weren't taken to task for doing so when liberals and people of color would be shot and killed for doing so in other contexts. I think that got many of other races conscious of the brutality that many people of color had to endure for years in the past before them that was more unnoticed earlier, with a few exceptions like Trayvon Martin, etc.

Ferguson is another step forward in that we've finally I think gotten a public awareness by a majority of Americans how horrible the situation has become over time, and that it NEEDS fixing. Now the next big challenge is how we fix things.

We thought Sandy Hook was a breakthrough to get meaningful gun legislation passed, but that still hasn't happened yet either, though it was a significant building block for what hopefully ultimately will get done to fix that problem too.

You know this has brought back memories for me when I had a job when I took a little time off from college as a young person working as a store detective for a while. The other more experienced store detectives were in to looking more at people of color, or watching the Persian women with the "big purses" to find someone they could catch stealing stuff.

Me, I just looked at behavior, and the first day of work I caught a white couple stealing an Atari game machine hidden in an empty baby crib box. Not too long after that, I saw another white guy stacking record albums next to big pizza boxes, and sure enough that was an avenue for stealing them later too that I helped catch. But given that, I wonder how many people even in the store I worked at were caught more because they were of a race that was deemed more likely to steal and therefore being scrutinized moreso. I guess it happens everywhere.

[applegrove]

12. Sure. Now for the much harder problem on racism against

AA boys and men. Tests show we all treat AA men differently when put in a tricky situation. Nicholas Kristoff took the test and even he had some bias. Even AA people do. So we need to acknowledge this and start trying to figure out what it means. For policing. For minding your own business. For being human. And how we can stop or mitigate it.

[Live and Learn]

7. +1 nt

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. Officer "Go Fuck Yourself" is fired???

Great.

Now he's free to be on FOX "News" as their police expert.

[Cha]

9. Of course! fox "news" grabs up all the so-called "experts" of such calibre.

[Tarheel_Dem]

10. Do these assholes get relieved of duty and leave with their full benefits/pensions intact?

If so, that really blows. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they're no longer "protecting and serving", but it would be awful if this is just an early retirement for these creeps.