Fitness for Duty Is the Key

If certain medications can impair a person’s ability to drive a car or operate heavy machinery, shouldn’t their use be enough to keep a police officer from strapping on his or her belt of weapons and heading out into public streets to work a shift?

Common sense says yes--but the policies of most Ventura County police departments say otherwise. The lone exception is the Oxnard Police Department, which learned the hard way that prescription drug use can be a factor in tragic and expensive mistakes.

The department instituted the county’s strictest drug policy following the 1996 death of SWAT Officer James Jensen, who was accidentally shot three times in the back by Sgt. Daniel Christian during an early morning drug raid. Last week the city agreed to pay $3.5 million to Jensen’s family, believed to be the largest such settlement in city history.

In its lawsuit, Jensen’s family accused Christian of being an overly aggressive officer whose judgment was often clouded by regular use of prescription medication, particularly the painkiller Vicodin, which he took for migraine headaches and sinus pain.

While declining to confirm Christian’s drug use, citing confidentiality rules, the department did adopt a policy that requires all officers to report to their supervisors if they are taking prescription medication. If a supervisor suspects an officer is under the influence of a drug, prescription or not, he or she can require the officer to take a drug test.

Other departments in the county do not require officers to report taking prescription medication. They rely instead on a set of more general guidelines requiring an officer to be fit for duty whenever he or she reports to work. That includes being free from the influence of drugs or alcohol.

“The privacy of medical records may take precedence over reporting any prescription drug use,” Sheriff’s Department spokesman Capt. Keith Parks told The Times. Nonetheless, other departments should examine their policies in light of the role drugs may have played in the Jensen tragedy.

The alleged drug impairment was only one of several factors involved in this case. We are concerned by another point raised in the lawsuit: Christian had been written up twice for “poor judgment” and “unprofessional conduct.” Each time, an internal report recommended he be removed from the SWAT team. But only after the Jensen shooting and a subsequent argument with a fellow officer was Christian finally reassigned to patrol duty.

We salute the department for taking a tangible step toward ensuring the safety of its officers and the public by tightening its policy controlling prescription drug use on the job. And we encourage Chief Art Lopez to take similar action to improve the way his department responds to its own internal reports of officers who have shown themselves to be argumentative or overly aggressive.

Whatever the cause, an officer who isn’t fully in control of his or her actions and reactions is a tragedy waiting to happen.