NYPD cop whines that he's no longer a "good cop" and shamed his uniform by kneeling with protesters.

[DetlefK]

https://nypost.com/2020/06/11/nypd-lieutenant-apologizes-for-kneeling-alongside-protesters/

A Manhattan NYPD lieutenant sent an email to his fellow officers apologizing for kneeling alongside George Floyd protesters late last month — telling them that “the cop in me wants to kick my own ass.”

In a June 3 email obtained by The Post Thursday, Lt. Robert Cattani of the Midtown South Precinct said he regrets his “horrible decision to give into a crowd of protesters’ demands” and kneel at Foley Square in Lower Manhattan, with several other cops.

“The conditions prior to the decision to take a knee were very difficult as we were put center stage with the entire crowd chanting,” Cattani wrote. “I know I made the wrong decision. We didn’t know how the protesters would have reacted if we didn’t and were attempting to reduce any extra violence.”

...

“I thought maybe that one protester/rioters who saw it would later think twice about fighting or hurting a cop,” Cattani wrote. “I was wrong. At least that [sic] what I told myself when we made that bad decision. I know that it was wrong and something I will be shamed and humiliated about for the rest of my life.”

“We all know that a–hole in Minneapolis was wrong,” Cattani added, referring to fired cop Derek Chauvin, who has been charged with murdering Floyd.

“Yet we don’t concede [sic] for other officers’ mistakes,” he added. “I do not place blame on anyone other than myself for not standing my ground.”

...

“I spent the first part of my career thriving to build a reputation of a good cop,” he said. “I threw that all in the garbage in Sunday.”

...

“I could not imagine the idea of ever coming back to work and putting on the uniform I so wrongly shamed,” he wrote. “However, I decided that was the easy way out for me and I will continue to come to work every day being there for my personnel.”

Not standing up against bad cops who brutalize people? That's fine.

Giving in to peer-pressure to kneel? That brings shame on your uniform!!!!

[uponit7771]

1. Dallas PD fired nearly all of its PD and rehired new ones with a different culture that included ...

... serving the public

[patphil]

2. This guy is a lieutenant?

He's acting like a reed blowing in the wind...he'll bend whichever way the wind blows.

[Jamastiene]

3. I see the point flew right over his thick skull. n/t

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. This is one big reason why it's so hard to reform police departments.

The peer pressure is enormous. Here's a cop who feels like he has to apologize for kneeling with the protesters (even if his reason for doing so was to reduce some tension and not because he agreed with them) only because he was getting shit from other cops. He says he's not responsible for the bad acts of other officers, but he and all cops are responsible if all they ever do is fold like cheap lawn chairs under pressure from other cops. Nothing will ever change if they don't have the guts to actively oppose the wrongful acts of others.

[The Magistrate]

5. A Coward Doubly Damned, Sir

A coward to kneel before a crowd whose power he feared.

A coward to recant a right action (however wrongly motivated) before the disapproval of a crowd he belongs to.

A useless waste of a human shape.

[padah513]

8. Please tell me you are a writer

If not I think you're missing your calling. Superb prose.

[Bettie]

6. Sounds to me like he should

find himself a new line of work, since he's so ashamed of acting like a human being for a moment.

[Patterson]

7. He knows he will catch hell from all the other cops.

[grumpyduck]

9. Yup, peer pressure.

[Baitball Blogger]

10. Poor guy. Living in two worlds must really be hard on me.

[Crunchy Frog]

11. I bet he's gotten heavily bullied by his fellow cops for that.

There must be some pretty intense peer pressure there.