Should @KathyGriffin be arrested for her actions?

Just yesterday comedian Kathy Griffin published a horrific photograph of a bloodied President Donald J. Trump mask as if he was decapitated.  The photo hit the internet in a frenzied storm as people were shocked and outraged at the comedian’s offensive gesture. Griffin’s gory picture reminded me of the Daniel Pearl beheading video I watched late one night in 2002.

I was repulsed, incensed, and infuriated.

During my 25-year law enforcement career in the Baltimore County Police Department, I had the pleasure of working with the agency’s Dignitary Witness Protection Team for eight years as an ad hoc assignment. When I was first accepted into the unit, I underwent 40 hours of training, most of which was conducted by the United States Secret Service (USSS), where we engaged in practical exercises enhancing our knowledge of the defensive practices used to protect the President of the United States (POTUS).

@SecretService tweet.

The USSS assisted our agency in this training due primarily to the fact that our jurisdiction was relatively close to Washington D.C. and afford the POTUS the opportunity to make an appearance outside of DC and return with little interruption in their itinerary. During my duration of service in the DWPT, I helped supplement USSS protection details for several distinguished dignitaries, to include President William J. Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who visited Baltimore County, Maryland for various reasons.

The number of hours that goes into the preparation, facilitation, and assessment of each event is enormous. In anticipation of each detail, members of the USSS and the DWPT would work through known threats and assess their potential for bringing harm to an event. Due to the necessity to complete this task with our responsibilities, we were versed in the federal laws concerning threatening the POTUS.

According to the Cornell Law School website, threatening the POTUS is a class E felony, and defined under Title 18, U.S. Code § 871, paragraph (a) as:

(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. [emphasis added]

In evaluating Kathy Griffin’s published photograph of a beheaded POTUS, her actions are tantamount to a violation of the federal statute. However, some would raise the flag of “Freedom of Speech” to Griffin’s defense. After all, early colonist hung politicians in effigy and still do today as recent news articles have accounted for George W. Bush and Barrack Obama hung in effigy.

While the debate remains if Griffin’s actions fall under her First Amendment right to speech, the USSS has indicated in a recent tweet that they are investigating the incident.

For me, Griffin’s actions were repulsive and crossed the criminal line.  SCOTUS has reviewed a myriad of cases through the decades defining the lines of our freedom speech.  In the infamous 1919 Schenck v. United States case, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. gives a summation of the concept that remains today. While people have the right to express themselves through their speech, shouting “fire” in a public place and inciting the potential to bring about harm to others is not protected speech.

This simple premise remains foundational today.

Kathy Griffin crossed a line, and for that, she should be held accountable. Whether through legal channels, our society, or both, Griffin needs to understand that the message conveyed through her fiery speech can never be taken back. They will forever resonate in our minds as hateful. We should recall the Proverb that says: “Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble.”

Even with her apology, Griffin has forever left an indelible imprint on me that will cast her in a dark shadow. In the future, whenever I will hear her name or see her in the limelight, her accomplishments will be diminished by this one reckless indiscretion.

Perhaps some valuable words of advice I learned many years ago would be appropriate:

“Think before you speak.”

HAS PC GONE TOO FAR IN POLICE AGENCIES?

Just some weeks ago the Seattle Police Department announced they would no longer be calling offenders as 'suspects' in their police reports and would now be referring to these individuals as 'community members.' You can read more about the story here.

Has political correctness (PC) finally gone too far?

I say 'yes'! Especially when it comes to our police agencies. 

Without question, our police are required to be upstanding citizens who are will to be held accountable for their actions to a higher standard than your average citizen. Officers are also required to take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution as it pertains to the citizens they serve. However, political correctness has the tendency to fluctuate with trends, and this could potentially bring about favoritism towards one group over another.

What happens when a targeted group is in favor or is the fad?

Will the police hesitate to enforce the law equitably, using ‘police discretion’ as a crutch?

What happens when that same group falls out of favor?

Will the police then enforce the law overbearingly against them?

While this aspect of PC seems trivial to some, it does raise the issue of validity with regards to impartially enforcing the laws of our states and nation. It is plausible that an officer, who may be considering a ‘community member’ as a suspect in a crime they are investigating, could hesitate in taking appropriate investigative measures to determine if, in fact, the subject is the actual offender.

Such inequities already occur nationwide when people of notoriety or prestige are suspect of crimes.

For example, while serving as an officer, I was privy to a case where a City Council representative neglected to watch their toddler grandchild. After realizing that they had not seen the youngster for some time, they found their grandchild floating dead in the unsecured backyard swimming pool. While any average citizen would have been charged with child neglect under the state statutes, this City Council rep was not, the police calling the incident an ‘unfortunate accident.' At the time, it was politically incorrect to think of such esteemed persons as suspects and offenders.   

Merriam-Webster’s (2017) dictionary defines a suspect as: “regarded or deserving to be regarded with suspicion.” Notice this definition does not indicate that a suspect is a perpetrator or offender. It merely shows that the person is under suspicion. Suspect is exactly what they are if police are considering the individual as a person possibly responsible for the crime.

Another contingency concerning the issue of changing this terminology stems from the protocol of court procedures. The investigating officer needs to carefully weigh at what juncture during the investigation the subject becomes a suspect, and then the perpetrator, during a criminal investigation with an identified offender. During trials I was often asked by defense counsel, “Detective, at what point in the investigation did you consider my client a suspect?”

Clarity of the individual’s role in the investigation becomes inherently important as individual rights may automatically attach to the suspect at certain points in any given investigation to include the need for Miranda in given statements and search warrants for seeking evidence.

For example, let’s say an officer is investigating a burglary in the neighborhood where the suspect broke out a rear basement window to gain entry into the house. The officer, who may be privy to information that a convicted burglar was recently released back into the community following a jail sentence, where the subject’s m.o. is kicking out basement windows to gain entry. The officer has no physical evidence to establish probable cause to charge the suspect, but would logically suspect them of the crime until further information put the suspect in or out of the offense.

If later that same day of taking the report the officer saw the suspect walking down the street in the neighborhood and stopped them to ask questions, a host of rights may attach to the suspect. The courts would wrangle over whether or not the officer’s actions were a stop or detention, which would dictate if and when Miranda rights would attach.

Imagine the officer having such an encounter with the suspect on the street. Here are two possible ways documenting the encounter in a police report narrative could occur:

“While on patrol, this officer observed community member Danny Dirtball* walking in the neighborhood and spoke with him about the recent burglary.”

or

“While on patrol, this officer observed suspect Danny Dirtball* walking in the neighborhood and spoke with him about the recent burglary.”

  

The former example sounds like a casual encounter and conversation between an officer and a law-abiding citizen. Where, the latter gives notice to other officers, supervisors, attorneys, juries, and judges, who are reading the report, that the subject is a suspect, and that in determining whether Constitutional rights were applicable in the given instance due consideration needs to be considered.

PC has indeed become a way of life for many in our society. I understand the need for one to choose their words as so not to offend others. I would expect this courtesy extended to me. However, I believe that exercising PC in regards to re-framing the nomenclature of suspects softens one's perception of an individual and their involvement in criminal activity to a point where Constitutional rights may be overlooked or denied.

The Seattle Police Department should give this idea more thought before implementing it into practice.

*Danny Dirtball is a fictitious name used for the example.

References:

Merriam-Webster (2017). Suspect. Retrieved from

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/suspect.