As my colleague Maxine Bernstein points out, the Portland police marched yesterday to express solidarity with a cop who was already complicit in the 2006 death in custody of a schizophrenic and now is in dutch for shooting a bean bag one night last week at a violent 12-year-old girl. Two things: That march only further demonstrated to me the wisdom of keeping the paramilitary under civilian control. If the cops were really in charge, they would have engineered a coup de etat on Fourth Avenue. (A "no confidence" vote is, what? A scare tactic? A tantrum?) Cop work is hard, no question. But we've got a crowd in Portland that itself has become hard, and to a dangerous degree.
And then, we have this dandy item from my other colleague Jim Mayer. Far be it from me to tell an old firehouse dog not to jump on the truck. And yet, I think I must. OK, a 25-year career eating smoke does confer some cred. But if you're not really up to speed on your training, doesn't you imperil your boys who are?
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