Cops Losing their Jobs for Criticizing the Drug War
“I was terminated not because my service was inadequate, but because I hold certain opinions that are shared by millions of my fellow Americans,” [former border patrol agent Bryan] Gonzalez is quoted as saying in an ACLU press release. “I am no less patriotic or dedicated to excellence in my work because I respectfully disagree with some of our current border enforcement policies. It was wrong for the U.S. Border Patrol to retaliate against me for exercising my free speech rights guaranteed by the very Constitution I swore to uphold”…
Last September, Joe Miller, a probation officer in Arizona’s Mohave County, near the California–Mexico border, joined 32 members of LEAP in signing a lettersupporting last year’s failed California ballot measure to legalize and tax marijuana. Two months later, Miller was notified that he was under investigation for failing to “indicate that [his] opinion was not the opinion of the Mohave County Probation Department,” even though the LEAP letter included a disclaimer at the bottom that specified that that “all agency affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.” Miller was ultimately terminated.
The majority of the people who signed the petition that Joe Miller was fired for were retired police officers. Think about that for a moment: the majority of the people who signed a petition stating how much damage the drug war has done were police officers who didn’t feel comfortable enough to speak out until they retired (for good reason- look at what happened to Officer Miller).
The threat is implicit, but never deny that it is there. It is there to stifle criticism of the Drug War, and to continue the militarization of the police. A civilian police force should be filled with people in touch with their community and willing to say what policies negatively affect them. Instead, we’ve filled our police force with soldiers who aren’t allowed to question orders.
