Drug Testing of Police Officers

Does Chief Gates really believe the problem of narcotics usage within the rank and file of the Los Angeles Police Department is so bad he needs to implement a mandatory drug-testing program, or is he just trying to hedge his bet with ultra-right wing conservatives for the time when he retires and enters the political area?

Granted, his argument sounds good on paper, but under closer scrutiny it has the all-too-familiar ring of loyalty oaths from the McCarthy era. Even if the chief wants to overlook the issue of the Fourth Amendment (as he stated he does), the fact remains that police officers are no less entitled to the same privileges and protections they are sworn to uphold for everyone else.

To espouse a different set of rules for a select group of individuals because they happen to be public servants attempts to set an unhealthy precedent that borders on the same interpretation of law that, for many years, justified the doctrine of “separate but equal.”

We are either all protected by the same constitutional guarantees or none of us are. It’s as simple as that.

It is probably safe to say that of the many thousands of fine officers who have served this city, very few--if any of them--ever performed their duties under the influence of illegal drugs. On the contrary, the effects of alcohol abuse has no doubt been a far greater threat to the department’s professional standards.

But if Chief Gates has his way on this issue, the men and women of the LAPD would have to stand up and pledge their allegiance to his code of ethics, urinate in a jar to prove their innocence, and ostracize those among them who balk at the chance to bare themselves before the altar of Chief Gates’ sense of morality.

That kind of blind obedience leads to far greater problems than the chief is trying to campaign against.

FRED ROMERO

Simi Valley