People do the wrong things for any number of reasons. Sometimes they use bad judgment. Sometimes they try to rationalize bad thinking into a twisted self-justification.
When it comes to right and wrong for police officers, there isn't any gray area. A police officer holds the public trust like a delicate glass statute -- to be cradled and protected against the temptation of breakage. Knowing what is right, acting with the side of justice, and making tough, unpopular decisions in the face of criticism can be a difficult and lonely path for a police officer. The satisfactions are internal for the most part, but they are there.
This profession is grounded in ethics, integrity, courage, and leadership; and without those attributes for a foundation, the structure of the whole being, the public trust and the community support collapses, and there is nothing.
Its important to point out, too, there is a difference between doing the wrong thing, and doing the thing wrong. The first instance is a conscious, willful, and deliberate choice. the second thing is a mistake that may be attributed to ignorance or misinformation or a host of other possibilities. Doing the wrong thing is bad. Doing the thing wrong is a mistake that can be corrected.
In a favorite classic movie, John Wayne, playing the role of Davy Crockett, says:
"There’s right and there’s wrong. You got to do one or the other. You do the one and you’re living. You do the other and you may be walking around, but your dead as a beaver hat."
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