Three officers from the Pigeon Forge, Tennessee Police Department have been fired after recordings revealed they had been discussing killing fellow officers including the department's chief.
The contents of the recordings were revealed when investigators began looking into a harassment complaint.
The officers had been dispatched to check on the welfare of a visitor to the town at a local campground, and made contact with that person's girlfriend. They obtained her information and left, but a short time later she began receiving numerous text messages and Facebook friend requests. She subsequently filed a harassment complaint. During the investigation of that complaint investigators listened to the regular recordings made by equipment installed in the police cars, and heard the officers discussing killing other officers in explicit detail.
The officers were fired for misconduct, but criminal charges were not pursued by the district attorney or the U.S. attorney's office.
District Attorney General Jimmy Dunn excused the officers from criminal wrongdoing saying, "Even though they were sitting there talking about killing people... we haven't found there was any overt action taken. We have to prosecute using the law. No matter what we want it to be, or what we think it ought to be."
He went on to indicate that even though his office has considered a charge of official misconduct, he didn't believe a jury could be convinced there had been a crime.
Meanwhile, in other parts of the country, children are being treated as terrorists for far less than the overt planning of mass murder.
In one case a teenager was arrested, jailed for a month, and faced
20 years in prison for posting rap lyrics on Facebook. In another case, a teenager has been
sitting in jail since February on charges of making terrorist threats stemming from a comment on a Facebook video game. The comment was admittedly violent sounding but also quite clearly meant as sarcasm. In Pennsylvania, school officials alleged that a five-year old made terror threats when she threatened to shoot classmates with a
Hello Kitty bubble gun. In New York, a man's
guns were confiscated and his permits revoked after his ten-year old son threatened to shoot classmates with a water pistol. Not a water pistol posing as a real gun mind you, just a water pistol. Authorities in Suffolk county have told the man he can't have his guns back until his son is 18 or moves out of the home.
Even when their own are the target of violence, it seems that police hypocrisy knows no bounds. Time and time again we see that police officers are not held to the same standard of justice as the people, when they should actually be held to a higher standard of justice, not given special privilege in the face of gross wrongdoing.
You can read more on that case at:
WBIR.com
TriCities.com
Also see:
Are American Cops Out of Control?
Top Cop Threatens to Kill After Fellow Officer Gunned Down
