Policeman’s Badge Shouldn’t Shield Him From the Law

You’re driving down the street in Fountain Valley when something in your lane makes you reflexively swerve into the path of another car. You cut a guy off and he leans on the horn. Soon, you and he are going at it through the open windows of your vehicles.

As you’re pulling away in the next intersection, you take a bullet in the shoulder. By the sheer grace of the gods, you can still drive to a nearby hospital.

So far, it’s not hard to imagine yourself in that situation; we know there’s nothing like marriage or traffic to bring out the temporary insanity in people. But now imagine that the guy who shot you follows you to the hospital, apparently to say he’s sorry. Now imagine the cops talking to him at the hospital while you’re being prepped for surgery for the bullet that lodged in your chest, just missing your heart.

And then imagine the cops letting the gunman go home.

How would you like to see that just before you headed for the operating room?

But when the shooter is an off-duty cop and tells the other cops that it was an accident, that’s what happens.

Picture yourself explaining the same incident: “Well, officers, what happened was we got into this argument and I shot him while he was driving off, but it was just an accident. Can I go now?”

Yeah, you can go now. You can go right down to the county jail.

The Us versus Them mentality that police have developed was never more in evidence than last weekend, when Fountain Valley police let off-duty Long Beach cop Alan Ice go home after he admitted to shooting Neil Cramer of Santa Ana in a Fountain Valley intersection.

Not only that, Fountain Valley police initially wouldn’t identify Ice as the suspect, contrary to their policy in other shootings. Only after media insistence did they identify Ice, a 20-year veteran of the Long Beach force and a Fountain Valley resident.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Guy Ormes defended the actions, saying that Ice was cooperative and well-established in Fountain Valley and probably would have bailed himself out of jail quickly, anyway. So what’s the big deal?

Unlike the deputy D.A., I won’t insult you by asking why you’d be upset if someone who just shot a private citizen in a busy intersection was allowed to go home to watch the ballgame or stoke up the barbecue or whatever Ice did the rest of Saturday afternoon.

I suppose the fact that the bullet hit Cramer in the shoulder and not the head made everything all right.

Ice was treated preferentially because he was a cop, as if somehow graduating from the police academy and joining the force exempts him from society’s laws when he’s off duty. He was also treated preferentially because district attorneys and police departments have to work together to get the bad guys and you don’t develop good relations with police departments by sending their guys to jail.

The law enforcement nexus of police and prosecutors have done a good job in recent years convincing the public that the “liberal press” loves to bash police. The harmful effect of that PR campaign has been to shield from the public the cops who don’t deserve the public’s trust.

Maybe the Rodney King video will change some of that. Maybe people will ask themselves if an off-duty Alan Ice gets this incensed over a traffic hassle, what’s he like when he’s got the authority of a badge and a uniform to back him up and he’s having a bad day.

Demanding that police officers be treated like everyone else when they’re off duty and out of uniform doesn’t undercut respect for law enforcement. Meting out fair and equal justice for cops will go a long way in winning legitimate public support for the cops who go to work every day because they want to help people.

Despite their historic unwillingness to prosecute cops, it’s going to be interesting to see how the district attorney handles Ice’s case. Ormes has already said he sees no grounds for attempted murder, despite the admitted existence of an argument, a drawn gun and a bullet in Cramer’s back.

Let’s be clear: There’s no public thirst for vengeance or a rush to judgment in this case--just some assurance that getting shot while driving down the street is a situation where playing favorites doesn’t enter the picture.

Ormes was quick to assure the public that Ice didn’t get preferential treatment.

You’d like to believe that, but on the same day that a follow-up story appeared on the incident The Times carried another routine crime story--the kind you see practically every day in the paper.

Here are the relevant details:

“A woman believed distraught because of a divorce proceeding shot her estranged husband in their back yard. . . . “We don’t know exactly what the motive was,” (a police lieutenant) said. . . . (The woman) was arrested without incident.”

The victim was listed in stable condition. The story went on to say that the woman, who was arrested Tuesday, was to be arraigned today and is being held on $250,000 bail in Orange County Jail.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.