Officer’s Behavior Insults Good Cops

I doubt that even the indefensible maiming and killing by “lawmen” of some 20 unarmed individuals in Orange County over the past few years has outraged me as much as the shooting of an innocent motorist by an off-duty policeman.

Official reaction has been predictable, as fellow officers and various officials scramble to cover their respective hides and wish the problem away (“Police Defend Embattled Officer’s Record,” Oct. 7).

What will never go away is the irrefutable fact that the officer, Alan Ice, has no place on any police force, anywhere. It’s patently obvious that this man has been a walking time bomb; the explosion occurred when a motorist had the misfortune to cross his path just as the ticking stopped.

To excuse Ice’s past violent behavior, pointing to the absence of recent complaints as proof of a bad cop gone good, is to merely reinforce the fact that the “code of silence” is alive and well and that virtually any conduct by officers such as Ice will be tolerated within the law enforcement community.

Ice’s behavior is an insult to the majority of excellent police officers who go about doing a difficult job with calm responsibility. Perhaps it’s time for these good officers to decide that the only way to clean their house is to break the silence and expose the bad cops within their ranks.

But until the house is cleaned, and until private citizens constitute a majority on police review boards, we can expect more undisciplined and disgraceful violence against the public by those charged with its protection.

DON COULSON, Orange