No one hates a dirty cop more than good cops. As a law enforcement officer, the community is supposed to be able to trust us, and when one of us screws up, no matter how slight, it makes the rest of us look bad. BUT when one of us goes full-blown criminal dirtbag pedophile, it is even worse. Sadly, that is exactly what appears to have happened in the case of Mike Zeug, who just so happens to be the Chief of Police for a very small police department in Walnut Grove, MN.
He was arrested on June 9, 2017 as part of a sting operation, and the charges are listed on the Brown County Jail Roster as 1) Prostitution and 2) Use minors in sexual performance/pornographic.
“Zeug, who is the police chief of Walnut Grove, is accused of initiating communication with who he believed to be a 17-year-old girl. The charges state he told the girl it wasn’t his first time and wanted reassurance she wasn’t working with law enforcement. He asked the girl sexual questions and asked her to send him nude photos. He also asked her to stand at the front of the house and flash him as he drove by to prove she wasn’t involved with law enforcement.
Zeug was spotted doing multiple laps around the residence and the area once he was given the address of the supposed girl. He was arrested near the residence in Redwood Falls.” – CBS Minnesota
Now before anyone screams about the bad cops doing bad things, stop and realize who investigated and arrested this sexual predator. It was other cops, doing what 99.9% of us cops do, taking bad guys off the street. Sadly, for all involved, this bad guy wore (past tense) the same uniform as those who put him behind bars. Furthermore, who is sitting here writing about the whole incident, but another cop.
Getting hired as a cop is not an easy task. There is an academy, an in-depth background, a psychological exam, multiple interviews, a criminal history check, and more. The point behind the entire long, drawn out hiring process is to try and prevent the wrong people from being put in a position of power. As this case demonstrates, that process is not perfect and sometimes, albeit rarely, a dirtbag slips through. There was recently a recommendation by Obama’s justice department, that in order to “diversify” America’s police forces, law enforcement needs to streamline the hiring process, lower standards and overlook past criminal history. If people like Mike Zeug are slipping through now, with the hiring process as stringent as it is, what would it look like if we were to loosen standards for the completely arbitrary purpose of diversifying law enforcement?