OPINION: Where is leadership on WPD?

Maybe WPD chief Stanley Rodgers wasn’t being disingenuous when he said that he tells officers, “If it isn’t written down, it didn’t happen.”

Apparently, the WPD policy is: If you screw up, don’t make a record of it.

But the lack of documentation doesn’t mean the WPD is in the clear. One lawsuit has been filed and a second person at another house both claim that the WPD searched their homes without a warrant.

This is serious business, folks. One of the very things our forefathers fought for was the freedom to be secure in their own homes from unwarranted government intrusion.

But WPD officials apparently failed to read that bit of American history. The denials and lax attitude from Rodgers and other city leaders appears to condone illegal searches by WPD officers.

Anytime government officials break the law, it’s serious. But it’s especially bad when complaints are made against law enforcement officers.

Police officers have special powers in our society. Those powers have to be used carefully and judicially, not casually and callously.

While society generally supports law enforcement, there are some bad apples. Look at the video made recently at a Maryland college confrontation where several police beat the daylights out of a student, then wrote a report saying a horse of the mounted police kicked the student.

They didn’t know at the time that someone had videoed the incident that clearly shows bad cops being abusive: www.breitbart.tv/video-allegedly-shows-maryland-police-beating-student.

So it’s very important for law enforcement leaders to cull their own ranks when officers violate the law they’re sworn to uphold.

Unfortunately, the culture of law enforcement is too often a “protect our own” attitude. Circle the wagons. Deny the obvious. Attack the critics.

So far, that appears to be what is taking place in Winder. The WPD is in shutdown mode. Deny, obfuscate, slam critics: Those are all sure signs that the department is trying to hide the truth.

But here’s a bigger question: Where are Winder’s city officials in all of this? Why aren’t they concerned about the apparent misconduct of their officers?

Does anybody in Winder care if the WPD has some rogue officers who violated peoples’ homes?