“A Denver police officer has asked the city’s ethics board whether it’s appropriate for President Barack Obama to promote his gun control proposals Wednesday at the department’s training facility, saying it creates the impression that Denver police support Colorado’s recently passed gun-control laws,” denverpost.com reports. “Danny Veith, a technician and 18-year-veteran [and career suicide victim], said he and several officers have discussed the situation with each other and on social media. ‘My concern is our police department is being used as a vehicle for partisan political influence,’ Veith said.” Check this: Denver Board of Ethics director Michael Henry responded to Veith’s concern. Publicly . . .
[Henry] thanked Veith for his “very valid and interesting questions and concerns” but pointed out in an e-mail that the board doesn’t meet until April 18. Veith said he plans to ask for an advisory opinion at that time.
What’s the hurry? Anyway, officer Veith is not alone. Police union officials told the Post that they received complaints from other officers who feel pressured to attend the President’s presser.
That is not the case, Police Chief Robert White said.
“If they want to attend, we’re going to try to find a way for them to attend,” the chief said. “If they don’t want to go, that’s perfectly fine also.”
White said the department accommodated the White House’s request for the use of a police facility but would not say whether officials asked for a certain number of officers to be present. White said police from other departments would be on hand, as well.
“It is the president. This puts our department, our city, our state on a national level. It gives us some positive exposure,” White said.
Or not.
Police Chief Robert White illustrates a critical difference between police chiefs and sheriffs. Tthe Chiefs are appointed by the city politicians, so they are political beasts – they will mouth whatever position on gun control that the politicians want. Sheriffs are elected officials, responsible only to the voters, so they are not controlled by other politicians. They will generally respond to the wishes of their county electorate, which makes a whole bunch of sheriffs favor civilian ownership of guns. (Your results may differ if you live in an urban cesspool city/county such as Frisco.)
It’s a Hickenlooper-Bloomberg-Obama three-way – not suitable for family viewing, I tell ya!
It’s a Triangle Jerk!
A Trijercta if you will…
Then after obama and doomberg will team up to turn hickenlooper’s brown eye blue.
A veritable Tricumvirate I tell you!
(I can do this all day)
Please do, double-dog dare ya!
And to LEO338 – Reminiscent of the great Crystal Gayle song + OUCH!!
Good point. Hope he didn’t totally screw himself; it seems gun prohibitionists don’t really care about ethics as long as they ‘win’, at least to me.
That’s basically human history in a nutshell. A noble defeat is still a defeat. Unless of course it’s propaganda to inspire a new victory.
“Danny Veith, a technician and 18-year-veteran [and career suicide victim],
What is a career suicide victim?
This seems to be a reference to someone who has committed “career suicide” by bringing up a politically-charged point like this to their superiors/management, potentially limiting his upward mobility through the ranks in the future.
He’s pointing out that by speaking up, Veith has made himself a target. If his superiors favor the gun grabbers, it is possible that they will find reasons to “weed out” those that do not.
Chief White speak with forked tongue.
Danny, thank you for standing up against the liberal take over of your state and the parading by the President to promote this. However, it does give the total impression Denver is a supporter of this takeover and does not support the rights of the free citizenery.
In most police departments, in fact every police department I have ever seen in my 24 years of service, an officer does not simply ‘decide’ to go anywhere or do anything. Taking breaks, going to the bathroom, leaving your patrol area, patrolling a district area and most certainly anything associated with standing in front of a camera only happens after receiving authorization and direct orders. Those officer’s can not disobey direct orders, doing so is one of the most serious offenses in our disciplinary code. Just as it is in the military. You can be sure there will be a wall of blue standing behind the prez. How many actually want to be there is another story.
As long as there’s one blue uniform, the press will report
that the entire LE community turned up to support
the Prez. LEOs can still choose not to go, but like Veith
there will be repercussions. Progressives are nothing
if not vindictive.
Rydak,
I understand the disobedience thing, but unless told specifically, I would turn around and face the wall! I mean as Robert wrote, he has already sealed his fate with the Denver Police Department! How embarrassing would it be if during the press conference if those that were forced to be there turned around?
Oh that would be luscious and legendary. Would love for some cop in the voluntary retirement window pull this off (because face it anybody in their normal career age would be toast).
Would be a great stepping stone for the next elections if they want to go into politics.
Just waiting for an act of civil disobedience like this to occur to illustrate the stupidity of BHO.
Is that why they look so glum?
For all the bad mouthing of cops I have seen here I yet to meet one who had a problem with citizen gun ownership.
Word….
I don’t know where you live TD, but here in northern Illinois I have met plenty who are either totally against citizen gun ownership or think it is perfectly fine to disallow us MSR’s and standard capacity magazines. Because, after all, they are the “only ones” who are trained and qualified enough to have them.
As the last two letters of the screen name says Virginia
As tdi says, most cops in Virginia don’t play that gun control bullshit. I’ve only had one bad experience with police officers in Virginia that was about weapons.
The officer pulled me over, and after informing me that I was driving recklessly. After that, he asked if there were drugs or weapons in my vehicle. Of course, I said no. The officer then asked if he could take a look through my vehicle to make sure. Of course, I said no. The officer became visibly agitated at my refusal, and informed me that he found my response to be highly suspicious. To which I replied, “Good thing exercising my rights is not probable cause.”
The officer then decided to call for a K-9 officer to check my car for drugs. The dog alerted several times, signalling that there were drugs on my drivers side, passenger’s side, trunk, and on my person. The officers (by this time we were up to 4 officers at the scene I believe) searched my vehicle and myself. Of course, they didn’t find anything. The officers very disrespectfully gave me my possessions back, gave me my ticket, and let me go on my way.
In court my reckless driving was dropped to defective equipment.
Wondering how fast I was going to get a reckless driving ticket? 83 in a 70. Yep, 13 over the limit. Virginia’s traffic laws are ridiculously screwed up.
Come to NJ or CT and I will be happy to introduce you to plenty.
That’s what I was thinking. He obviously does not live in a blue state.
Me either, but I don’t know any police chiefs.
As a Law Enforcement Agent, it pains me to say this, I have. They are generally few and far between and in many cases they are cops in big-liberal-cities who have been fed a steady stream of statist lies since childhood. But they are out there. These sh*theads, who shouldn’t be trusted to be mall security let alone law enforcement officers, truly believe that lowly citizens have absolutely no business touching or owning a firearm. Period. They are oftentimes those same sh*theads who can barely qualify on their assigned weapons (which given the simplicity of most police quals, is REALLY saying something) and who use their authority to push people around and intimidate law aiding folk.
They are a disgusting breed of human (I use the term loosely) who, if identified, should be avoided at all costs. They cannot even be trusted to do the right thing without supervision, let alone safeguard your rights and your safety.
TDIINVA_That may be in your particular case, so I ask you how many cops in your state, and of these how many have you asked how they feel about the issue? I live in a state where if stopped by police, one must inform the officer about any weapons one may have in the vehicle or on themselves, failure to do so can result in arrest. When I hand over my license and CWP to the cop as the law mandates-The First Thing that comes out of his/her mouth is usually “why do you need a gun?” I just handed him a CWP that pretty much confirms-the state I live in finds me to be a person safe to own and carry, the state never asked me about my “need”-why should he? Did that make a difference to him? No, otherwise the question would have never been asked, that demonstrates to me this particular officer has an issue with regular folk having guns. Now, I know this does not apply to all cops because I have met cops that are indeed pro-2A, and their way of dealing with me has been much more professional.
I believe your answer should be in the form of a question – “why do you need yours?”
I have gotten one ticket while carrying (Ohio) and I trooper just told me to keep my hands on the wheel and he would get back to me. After finishing his official duties he asked me what I usually carried. We had a nice conversation.
So essentially you have dealt with ONE cop, and you derived from that encounter that ALL cops are OK with it?
I’ve heard a few make the “officer safety” argument. “I don’t want to worry about whether someone is armed when I pull them over at 2AM.”
Which I would point out is a straw man. Whether you want to worry about that or not, if you DON’T worry about it, regardless of the law, you are asking to become a statistic.
Try living in New York or Chicago, were they think you should only be armed with a whistle…
A “call box” every 20 feet…
Seems clear, North east united states, California, Colorado and Illinois are the poster child states for tyranny. They will all go to hell in a hand basket soon.then we can start over…
Not PA. We’re keeping it real. They don’t call us the Keystone State for nothing!
Did they name the state after the beer? Because that would be cool.
Well, they named it after Keith Stone but later on the wording became misinterpreted… 🙂
@littlegunguy – it’s called acute infectious lib-tarditis, and seems to be prevented from moving westward at the Continental Divide, with the exception of a minor rash in Durango. Looks like treatment is available with a dose of “recall2014,” which is being tested in Colorado Springs and Westminster. Keep you posted on how well it works.
If there can be a West Virginia; by God, there can be a West Colorado!
This actually sounds amazingly similar to what went on with Mitt Romney at that one Coal Mine. There were news articles saying that Coal Miners felt they were being forced to attend, even tho they did not support Romney, and a statement from management saying they were not required to attend, but if they wished to attend they were just making sure they could be accommodated.
I wonder if Obama would recommend using the same choke for the goose as for the gander?
I’ll buy this man a beer if I ever run in to him here… all too often, especially in Denver, the cops are nothing more than tools wielded by the government to get things done any way they can. I am glad to see that not every Denver cop is a bad apple (though you still won’t catch me in LODO after dark since I don’t know which is worse the criminals down there or the cops assigned to patrol!!)
I ask you whats positive having obama at your facility? He is not an honorable man.
Having a public presidential appearance at a police facility is going to make the entire department look like supporters of Obama’s gun policies, regardless of individual officers’ opinions. There will be enough officers there who agree with the Prez, or just want to get on TV, or agree with the Prez AND want to be on TV, that it will appear that the department backs Obama 100%. Of course if not explicitly ordered to appear, those officers who disagree should not attend. But to attend, if ordered to do so, and turn one’s back to the Prez/cameras? That seems to be a childish way to go about showing one’s disagreement, and not the way I wish gun rights advocates to be portrayed. If anything, that would depict the behavior exhibited more often than not by our gun-grabbing opposition. Leave the whiny, immature behavior to them please. The longer we present mature, logical opposition to the infringement of our rights, the more desperate the other side becomes, as evidenced by their recent frantically emotional appeals to ‘just DO something!’ after yet more ludicrous legislation has been dismissed. If the President himself is more agitated about the lack of progress on the side of gun control, clearly we are doing something right. Now is not the time to be immature in the advocation of our position. Let the other side huff and puff all they want, we’re winning because we’re smarter and classier (most of the time!) than they are.
I’ve been a fan of Farago ever since finding his original The Truth About Cars. Was saddened when he left but perked up when he fired up TTAG. As a retired cop after 40+ years ranging from a Federal investigatior in D.C. to a sheriff’s deputy in Arizona and finally retiring as a lieutenant in a small mining town PD I just want the readers to know that not all cops fear guns in the hands of good citizens. Now I realize that my personal data bank is small and consists of only the cops/deputies/highway patrol officers I’ve personal met and/or worked with here in the southeastern section of Arizona but I can’t recall any of them taking the position that I hear from big city chiefs and some officers from the larger eastern and California cities that only they should have weapons. The guys I’ve worked with out here don’t fear guns in the hands of good citizens and think CCW permits are one of the greatest things to come down the pike since sliced white bread. I do agree that many chiefs and even some sheriffs will follow the position of the local politcos and sway in what ever direction the perceived wind is blowing but I really feel that the average street cop doesn’t want to disarm citizens. If anybody knows we don’t stop violent crimes but arrive afterwards to pick up the pieces and, hopefully, sometime later be able to present to the court somebody we feel may have committed the crime, it’s us. We fully understand that when the flag goes up the only thing between you and serious injury or death is whatever defense you can bring to the furball. I am depressed when ever I read comments to various articles in both TTAC and TTAG attacking cops in general and the low opinion and even hatred shown by many of the readers. I hope I never run into the kind of LEOs they must have to have developed such enmity towards a profession I’ve been proud to have been a member off for more than half my life.
we are all props…