Detective Tom Murphy spoke during the council’s public comment period, a week after Sheline and Councilor Linda Scott announced the formation of the committee on the heels of two public forums on the topic.
Murphy said “certain politicians” are trying to “pit the community against the Police Department,” and are “spinning a tragic situation into a political game for their reelections.”
“We are not your enemy,” he said. “We only care about the well-being of this city and its safety.”
I’m not the enemy, but my speed is checked by radar, my license plate read by automatic scanners cameras on police cars, my internet activity monitored for DMCA violations, etc.
Join the rest of us, you don’t deserve to be an exception.
Murphy said “certain politicians” are trying to “pit the community against the Police Department,” and are “spinning a tragic situation into a political game for their reelections.”
“We are not your enemy,” he said. “We only care about the well-being of this city and its safety.”
Funny how listening to constituents is a "political game," and making sure our civic employees aren't murdering people or destroying lives makes us "enemies."
"we only care about the well being of this city and it's safety, now leave us alone, and we don't want you bastards looking over our shoulder all the time regardless of how often we prove this not to be the case"
It's so childish and transparent. If there's nothing untoward happening, then this should not be an issue.
The trouble is police seem to like to think about it as some kind of weird privacy issue, and somehow getting in the way if functioning. It is not. Police are public servants who oftentimes have forgotten their role as such. If they can't function as a public service with public oversight, they should find a different line of work more suited to them.
At least when it's in response to oversight. When the task is not being an enemy, it should be real easy to say, "we are not your enemy" and then accept the oversight with open arms. It's extra help towards the same goal, right? Oversight should be welcome.
Yeah if they weren’t the enemy and were facing accusations like they are on the job they’d welcome it. Like I hate being surveilled too, even at work. But when someone might get hurt I want my actions and everything visible and if people were arguing differently about events I’d welcome cameras involved.
Hell, these are people saying they’re running up against criminals in the act all the time, who want to prove that these people are committing crimes in front of them, and they’re saying that they don’t want cameras to show their perspective on the job.
Why don't they just comply? Don't they want to comply with the law that was created by the people voted into power by the people the police are supposed to protect?