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The Berkeley Police Department has seen better days. As reported in the Daily Cal and several other media outlets, two officers—the subjects of separate misconduct investigations into alleged dumbassedness— “recently resigned from the department”:http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=23289.
Far from alleged “Vic Mackeys”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vic_Mackey, the officers were respectively accused of drunken off-duty firearm discharge and stealing from suspects.
Compared to the various police scandals in Oakland, these allegations didn’t impress us. But coming off the heels of former narcotics Sgt. Cary Kent’s “dope theft conviction”:http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=20827, the department’s reputation for impeccable officer behavior is seriously in question.
The Berkeley Police Department is known as one of the most progressive and innovative police agencies in the country. It’s also very selective when it comes to new officers, most of whom have four-year college degrees and earn a starting annual salary of just more than $80,000.
With its selective hirings, the department reputedly has little tolerance for anything resembling questionable behavior. Alleged theft and drunken shooting generally don’t happen out of the blue in otherwise impeccable character, which is why we wonder if the department could have taken action sooner.
Indeed, there are intermediate steps on the dumbass scale, which allow problem elements to be dealt with before they do anything especially embarrassing.
We have a possible solution beyond just taking out the trash. Since these recent misconduct investigations all involved male officers, perhaps the Berkeley Police Department should expand its already-healthy ranks of female officers. Frankly, boys have enough toys to play with as it is—why add a gun to the mix?
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