The Baltimore Sun:

A third of Baltimore Police recruits set to leave the academy and hit the streets lack a basic understanding of the laws governing constitutional policing and are being pushed through by the department nonetheless, according to the academy’s head of legal instruction.

“We’re giving them a badge and a gun tomorrow, the right to take someone’s liberty, ultimately the right to take someone’s life if it calls for it, and they have not demonstrated they can meet [basic] constitutional and legal standards,” said Sgt. Josh Rosenblatt Friday.

After a gun and badge ceremony at the academy Saturday, the recruits will receive eight weeks of training on the street before formally becoming Baltimore police officers, department officials noted.

But Rosenblatt, an attorney by training, said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun that 17 of those 50 recruits failed to pass scenario-based practical tests on legal standards related to basic police work, such as the need for probable cause before making arrests.

He said all did pass eventually, but only after he and other legal instructors were removed from administering the tests.

Some of the recruits, he said, have not been able to master basic material. Four have been in the academy for 18 months, having been recycled back from previous classes to continue their training, and still haven’t grasped the legal concepts, he said.

“With 18 months of training, they’re still failing to meet very basic legal standards,” he said. “Don’t illegally arrest people. Don’t illegally search people. These are not high standards.”

So we learn a number of things from this interesting report.  First of all, the legal instructor is an idiot.  He says, “We’re giving them a badge and a gun tomorrow, the right to take someone’s liberty, ultimately the right to take someone’s life if it calls for it.”

But if we’ve covered anything over these past years, it’s that rights and liberty come from God, not the state.  A constitution is a covenant, or solemn and sacred agreement between parties.  That covenant stipulates how the state will treat citizens.  No one can take rights.

For example, the right of due process must not be violated, period.  There is no excuse for violating the right of due process, and the Patriot Act is just such a violation.  In fact, with regards to taking a life, the Supreme Court decided in Tennessee versus Garner that a cop cannot shoot an escapee who is running from the police.  Cops can only discharge their weapons under the same circumstances I can, i.e., if a life is in danger.  In this case, a right isn’t being taken, it’s being protected.

And the very reason that the Supreme Court decided that a cop cannot shoot an escapee?  Because it bypasses the right of due process and places the cop in the position of removing a right, the very thing the legal instructor is saying cops can do under certain circumstances.  Do I need to drop what I’m doing and come up there to teach the course?

Second, the recruits cannot even come up the level of this idiot’s understanding of the law.  They’re going to make them all cops regardless of the fact that they cannot pass basic competency tests.  And why do we know this?  Why are they going to make them cops anyway?

Well, because of the third thing we learn.  This department is full of liars.  They did all pass the tests in spite of the fact that they hadn’t learned the material, they just had to do it without being proctored by the legal instructor.  Wink, wink.

But remember boys and girls.  The police are there to serve and protect, and they are the only ones qualified to handle firearms.