Clinton's America/Photo-Op Cops
Barnes, John A.
CLINTON'S AMERICA Photo-Op Cops by John A. Barnes T he day after the House of Representatives unexpectedly rejected President Clinton's gun-controlling, pork-laden crime bill last August, the...
...Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen was on Capitol Hill lobbying for the bill, which eventually passed the House by two votes...
...When our members lobby Congress or anyone else, we have to do it on our own time and in civilian clothes," says Ted Deeds, a spokesman for the LEAA...
...The suit is pending...
...Police, of course, are not generally John A. Barnes is a national issues reporter in New York for Investor's Business Daily...
...But there might be other reasons, financial and political, as well...
...One who did so was Andrew Hays, who complained to the county government...
...The officers were dispatched to Capitol Hill where they were met by a lobbyist from the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), which supports many gun control measures, including the assault weapons ban...
...After a tense confrontation with Stover in Stover's office, Hays resigned from the department, and returned to his previous job as an airline pilot...
...Police Department, obliged...
...There were some supervisors who made my life miserable for some time...
...The "CBS Evening News" led off with the event that night, declaring that "cops came to hate assault guns [sic] and joined Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen today in a last-ditch bid to sway crucial votes...
...Several of the officers, however, complained to their superiors that no one had even asked them their views of the legislation before sending them up to speak in favor of an assault weapons ban...
...As one New York City police officer acidly observed, "That tells you what they really think about cops...
...officers, in uniform, be sent to Capitol Hill to "answer questions" from members of Congress about the crime bill...
...Since he had been one of the first officers on the scene \in 1991 when a crazed gunman shot up Luby's Cafeteria, he has been much in the limelight, especially since the event was seized upon to build momentum for banning so-called assault weapons...
...One grant, which was made in 1992 and ran until 1994, was for $750,000 to study "community-oriented policing...
...Participants would be paidovertime for their services...
...Most city politicians tend to be pretty liberal," says John Chapman, an outspoken 15-year veteran former police officer in Killeen, Texas...
...This is hardly the end of the story...
...Chief Stover compelled officer Donaggio to "further a political cause against his will," according to papers he has filed in U.S...
...Chapman's opinions did not jibe with those who saw the incident as a vindication of gun control...
...There isn't a real street cop that I know of in Minneapolis who supports Clinton...
...Certainly no police officers were...
...He wanted some police officers—armed and in uniform—to pose with him and liberal Rep...
...According to Chapman, whenever he spoke in public on the issue, he was forbidden by his department from identifying himself as a Killeen police officer...
...Another Arlington officer, John Donaggio, has filed suit against the chief and remains on the force...
...Even though my fellow officers and many of my superiors supported my stance [against banning assault weapons], my perception of them changed...
...The American Spectator May 1995 51...
...city government and asked that twelve D.C...
...What viewers did not know was that many of the officers were seething at having been used this way...
...The Minneapolis Police Department—which became a byword for "progressive" policing under the tenure of liberal activist ex-commissioner Anthony Bouzasought to oblige...
...During President Clinton's efforts to resuscitate the crime bill last August, the White House called the Washington, D.C...
...50 The American Spectator May 1995 From the context of the request, it is plain what sort of "answers" the White House was expecting...
...William K. "Smokey" Stover, longtime chief of the Arlington (Va...
...As a result, the public just isn't aware that there are police officers out there—I think most of them—who support the public's Second Amendment rights...
...It has sought to publicize the pressuresbrought on police officers to participate in them, but has had only limited success...
...noted for their liberal political sympathies...
...As the centerpiece of the visit, the White House wanted to repeat a trick that had worked well for the administration in the past: pose the president in front of a wall of uniformed local police officers, symbolically backing the president's policies...
...The whole thing was a sham...
...Only one organization, the Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA)—which represents rank and file officers and supports the rights of gun owners, both police and civilian—has spoken out against the staged lineups...
...Police Inspector, Thomas C. Hammett, who had not been let in on the political field trip and ordered them to return to patrol...
...for pictures...
...A little exploration reveals the "wall of blue" to be what police officers call a "loaded lineup...
...The guys with the desk jobs and the higher-ups might, but they're politicians themselves...
...They cleaned the 'office rats' out of headquarters and ordered them out to the event to pose with the president," says Mike Sauro, a 20-year veteran lieutenant who says he was fired from the force because of his outspokenness on this and other matters, and is suing to get his job back...
...Why do police chiefs and organizations such as IACP, the national leadership of the Fraternal Order of Police, and other law enforcement groups willingly participate in such events...
...With a new GOP Congress rewriting the crime bill, it seems few Americans werefooled...
...On-duty officers, some assigned to the president's security detail, were then ordered to mount the platform and "fill in the gaps...
...District Court in Alexandria...
...When the twelve appeared on Capitol Hill, they were spotted by a passing D.C...
...CLINTON'S AMERICA Photo-Op Cops by John A. Barnes T he day after the House of Representatives unexpectedly rejected President Clinton's gun-controlling, pork-laden crime bill last August, the president made a trip to Minneapolis in a desperate and ultimately successful effort to revive it...
...The "wall of blue" tableau has been used so frequently by the Clinton White House (which employed it yet again in February as House Republicans began revising the crime bill) that more than a few observers have begun to wonder just how it is arranged...
...It immediately dispatched a team of Justice Department lawyers to investigate possible civil rights violations...
...The Clinton administration's response...
...Arlington County law prohibits its employees from engaging in political activity...
...The leadership of these organizations might genuinely believe that such legislation is in the interest of its members, of course...
...Most of them do what they're told no matter what they really think...
...Liberal cops exist only on `Cagney and Lacey,' " was the assessment of one ten-year veteran of the New York Police Department...
...Charles Schumer (D-N.Y...
...Since 1986, the IACP has been the recipient of millions of dollars in grants from the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Programs...
...He asked for volunteers for an undefined "special detail" in Washington...
...In late February, a white rookie police officer in Paterson, New Jersey, shot and killed a black 16-year-old suspected crack dealer who had been arrested for the first time when he was eight...
...Few of them, however, were willing to risk retaliation by speaking their minds...
...Ten officers eagerly volunteered, some believing the event was connected with the upcoming annual "Police Week" gathering in Washington...
...Panic struck when the president arrived, and not enough volunteers had availed themselves of this opportunity to help Bill Clinton look tough on crime...
...The officers were then posed with Bentsen—and the results were everything the White House could have wanted...
...0 ne such lineup took place May 5, 1994, when the Clinton administration was pushing Congress to enact a ban on semi-automatic "assault weapons...
...The call went out among off-duty officers for volunteers to pose in the photograph...
Vol. 28 • May 1995 • No. 5
