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Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Which Is Worse: Incompetence or Manipulation?

When you watch decisions manifest from officials and politicians, and their outcomes are less than optimal, never mind positive, you ask why things screwed up. There's the benefit of the doubt that Murphy's Law kicked in, then there's the other two realms of possibility. That a screw-up happened because they didn't know what they were talking about (or actually doing) or they had their own agenda and manipulated circumstances to fit their needs. With the latter, they usually didn't expect the outcome to be so bad anyone would notice a poor outcome. (Although our federal level officials have shown they simply can deny the reality everyone else can see, so what's the problem?)

Lafayette's taser death report unsurprisingly found no fault on the part of the officer involved. Today the Camera reports that the video camera typically functioning in the police car "somehow turned off", according to the investigation.

When someone unarmed and on foot dies in a police chase, and protocols to film the action somehow didn't work, which way should the public sway: incompetence, manipulation, or Murphy's Law?

2 comments:

Doktorbombay said...

Although public opinion was split as to the officer's actions, it will turn sharply against the officer with this revelation.

The average guy on the street believes the police will protect their own, and that government in general is not to be trusted.

Is this driven by the fact news stories are predominantly negative for police and government? Not much news in how police do good work every hour of the day, or how government works well more often than not.

Anonymous said...

Police are guilty of murder and they are covering it up.