Yesterday, a monster in human skin, a man known as the East Area Rapist or Golden State Killer, or several other names, was arrested after more than 40 years of investigations done by hundreds, if not thousands of cops throughout the state of California and across the nation. Lots of those cops have spent their entire careers working aspects of this case, many of them on their own time. The number hours of invested in this case is astronomical.
Yesterday, some of the agencies involved held a press conference to share some of the information with the news media. The suspect is now 72 years old. Way back in the 1970’s, he was employed as a cop for two different agencies for a total of about 7 years. His last agency was the police department of Auburn, CA, and that was his last agency because he was fired from his job for stealing. He was a dirty cop who got fired. The good cops did the right thing and got rid of the trash.
Here we are, more than 40 years later, and the news agencies are writing headlines that call him an “ex-cop.”
You know what you never hear? “Ex-plumber arrested for…” or “ex-carpenter” or ex anything else. But god forbid the person ever worked in the slightest degree for the shortest amount of time as a cop, because forever thereafter the news will refer to them as an “ex-cop.” Even if they were fired from their cop job for being dirty.
Christopher Dorner is the perfect example of this. Dorner was never a full fledged cop. He was a cop trainee who was released from his employment because he could not pass training. He was a trainee. He was not a cop. He never held a California POST certificate as a law enforcement officer, only as an academy graduate. Yet what did the headlines read with him?
“Rogue ex-cop Christopher Dorner…” – San Bernardino Sun
“Ex-LAPD cop accused of going on killing spree” – CBS News
“Los Angeles Manhunt: Ex-Cop Christopher Dorner Sought for Killing Spree” – ABC News
The media will do anything they can to disparage law enforcement because it makes them money. Who cares if this constant bashing erodes the community’s trust in the cops. Who cares if this constant bashing of the career is making it impossible to fill vacancies. Who cares if there is even an ounce of truth to the allegations against a cop (Ferguson and many others). If it gets people to click the link, watch the story or buy the paper, then by all means bash the cops, society be damned.