Finding Morality in the Line of Fire

We all seem to think we know what is wrong with the Los Angeles Police Department, especially the Rampart Division. We are a city of grumbling cynics, preoccupied with lambasting Rampart, sometimes unfairly berating all Los Angeles Police Department officers.

Current hysteria ignores the distinction between collective guilt and collective responsibility. It is just and reasonable to demand that the Los Angeles Police Department confront those who have engaged in criminal activities and dismiss or discipline those guilty of misconduct. It is neither just nor reasonable to subject all LAPD officers to the almost daily vitriolic criticism now being imposed on the men and women in blue. The recent public distrust of police officers is the negative side of recognizing their necessity in society.

Chief Bernard C. Parks and his staff are trying to rid the department of rogue officers and resolve the moral tension that exists in the Los Angeles community.

The department is reviewing and revising its code of professional responsibility. Yet however necessary such reform may be as a remedy and a prohibition against future misconduct, it can do little to help the officer when he or she encounters a true moral problem in professional practice.

To resolve moral dilemmas, the police officer has to put himself on the line intellectually and morally. He must say to himself and to others that he not only understands his proper role and responsibilities in a given situation but that others must trust him in the type of action he chooses.

All the police hierarchy, as well as others in the city government, can do is to set limits on the range of permissible choices. It cannot give directions as to how much of oneself to put at risk on any single occasion. In the final analysis, the resolution of moral questions in police work is, in reality, “an act of self-creation,” as Father Christopher Mooney puts it in his book, “Public Virtue.”

As a police chaplain, I understand the fine line a police officer must walk in the line of duty. I also see the daily spiritual struggles of men and women trying to live ethically. And I see those who try to support their families in a demanding profession. They receive pressure from all sides. Most of the pressures are internal matters. Most of the pain is trying to deal with the bureaucracy.

The hardest challenge is to remain a person of faith in a faithless world. Many officers courageously show faith in light of no affirmation. A good officer should exhibit the values of fairness, truthfulness and self-restraint. The officers who take these values to heart and live by them are, in my view, heroes. Their faith provides them with a moral compass, a framework. A person of faith is more likely to show compassion.