When Law Enforcement Is Above the Law

Two Mount Vernon (NY) police officers, Leonard Cooper and Robert Burke, decided to have a little bit of fun last year. They held a drag race. On a public street. Burke drove an unregistered, uninsured car. He promptly crashed it, causing a back injury to his passenger, another cop.

The two officers raced each other, driving more than 65 mph — more than twice the limit — in a "speed contest" about 6 a.m. on North Macquesten Parkway in Mount Vernon, authorities said. They drove on the wrong side of the road, over the double yellow line. Burke, operating a 1990 Ford Mustang with one passenger, lost control and crashed, injuring his passenger — an off-duty state trooper who suffered a hairline fracture of a vertebra.

The car was not impounded after the accident. Neither were the officers asked to undergo a sobriety test.

Mount Vernon's police chief, Joseph Pizzutti, gamely took a stab at pretending to be mad at Cooper and Burke. He assigned the two men to desk duty for a while and may still punish them further (pending disciplinary hearings) — but it's clear that his heart's not in it. The chief told the local newspaper that

"The charges they pleaded guilty to [reckless driving and assault] are relatively minor, compared to many other things that people do wrong."

You have to wonder if that standard applies to anyone who doesn't happen to have a badge. "Yes officer, I did expose myself to a gaggle of nuns right before I stole that TV set, but that's minor compared to what Jack the Ripper did." Think that'll fly?

More special consideration for lawbreaking cops here, here, and here. It wouldn't take very long to expand this paragraph with a hundred or more similar links, but I'm disgusted enough as it is.

[via the Newspaper]

Comments

[David]

I'm suprised they didn't haul out the "police have a difficult, dangerous, and stressful job" chestnut, too.