On The Beat
It's About Priorities... And The Rules By Alex Teach
I
love the NAACP. No, really. If I didn’t find stupid shit fascinating, I would have quit being a cop at least a decade ago. I had a handful of witty tales to tell this week, but between the local news coverage of the East Lake Courts shooting and the national coverage of the devastating loss of the King of Accused Pedophiles, I can’t seem to get away from those five magical letters…and historically if I can’t get away from a thing, I tend to try to eat it or aggravate it. (In this case I choose the latter, but only due to time constraints.) By the “East Lake Courts Shooting”, I am of course referring to the second shooting, not the first shooting. The NAACP has no interest in the young black male shooting at a car and its occupants along the roadside and into the purely residential area that served as his bullets’ back drop; heck, they aren’t even interested in why he had a gun in the first place before he shot it, which prompted the lawful interaction afterwards that ultimately led to his death. That’s why the NAACP is a failure as an organization in my opinion; they have no interest in the causation of a thing, only a reaction to it. NAACP: “No Actual Accountability Can Persist.” They want an independent investigation, though the investigation is already being conducted by an independent agency. They want all the reports though they are not yet complete, and background records of every Housing Authority cop employed there though only one was involved…but not a single request for reports or background information on parents that would let their child get tattooed up, be a documented and selfproclaimed gang leader, and walk
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The Pulse 7.16.09 www.chattanoogapulse.com 95.3 Pulse News
around a neighborhood packing a loaded gun and shoot at folk. No request for the criminal record of the “child” himself despite his burgeoning violent criminal career in the Juvenile Court System. No request for a picture of him within the last five years, or at 5’11” and 200 pounds, they would see he was larger than me when I went through the Police Academy. They’re not even asking where the gun the “child” was shooting that night had come from or who supplied him with it, so they could be charged with contributing to his death. No. By their own statement, the NAACP is only interested in the cop on foot who was paid and trained to react to the young man’s shots being fired up the street, who on tape and by witness ordered him to stop and drop the gun, and who felt he was forced to shoot when the “child” insisted instead on pointing the gun at him as he ran, which was also witnessed. (I am aware of the fact he was shot in the back; I am also aware I can kick your ass even when I am handcuffed. And I am aware I can shoot at you while running away, and I don’t have to run backwards to do it. People have been raising their arms behind them for years it turns out, just ask the people who saw the “child” doing it that night.) That cop is the one guy present who had any accountability in his life, and he’s the one they are demanding detailed information about because…well, “No Actual Accountability Can Persist.” I almost admire their business model for comedic purposes, because why work to prevent problems when you can “blame someone” instead? Yes…fun times. That’s a lot of ranting, but I feel particularly experienced with accountability as a cop. I’m not just talking about getting sued or threatened or fired, I’m talking about explaining yourself and your actions in general to the world for even the most mundane events.
“Policing is one of the only professions in the world in which you can come home to your wife from work and have a perfectly reasonable explanation for having a hooker’s vomit on your pants.” Think about it: Policing is one of the only professions in the world in which you can come home to your wife from work and have a perfectly reasonable explanation for having a hooker’s vomit on your pants. It’s because of this higher expectation that a lack of accountability in others pisses me off, but never more so than when someone makes a living at it. I mean, that’s just plain rude. In a civilized society…there are Rules. And preferring prevention over reaction is pretty close to the top of the list. In MY organization, anyway. When officer Alexander D. Teach is not patrolling our fair city hot on the heels of the criminal element, he is an occasional student of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and in his spare time enjoys carpentry, auto mechanic work, boating, and working for the Boehm Birth Defects Center.