2 Oregon Police Officers Charged in Incident Involving Home With Black Lives Matter Flag Being Vandalized
Cops be like: “Follow the law or pay the consequences! But also, if you hurt my feelings, I’m definitely going to break the law.”
Last year, a Forest Grove, Oregon, police officer was charged with second-degree criminal mischief and second-degree disorderly conduct after he allegedly vandalized a home that displayed a Black Lives Matter flag on Oct. 31. On Thursday, a second police officer was indicted because he allegedly failed to arrest the first officer and instead drove him home. Perhaps the second cop figured the first cop wasn’t actually a criminal but was dressing as one for Halloween, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say police officers are just less likely to be dedicated to doing their jobs when the job requires them to arrest other cops.
The Associated Press reports that Officer Bradley Schuetz was indicted by a grand jury on one count of first-degree official misconduct for declining to arrest Officer Steven Teets.
Teets was off-duty when he allegedly came across the BLM flag displayed at the residence and his little fragile blue feeling couldn’t take the (well earned) disrespect so he reportedly walked into the driveway, set off the car alarm on the residents’ truck, beat up the flag like it was an actual Black life and kicked and pounded on the front door of the home.
The owners of the home called the police and an unnamed officer arrived and identified Teets as the vandal. Schuetz apparently got wind of the situation and arrived at the scene to drive Teets home instead of taking his ass to jail like he would any civilian who had committed the same crime.
According to AP, Beaverton police Sgt. Kevin MacDonald said by failing to arrest Teets, Schuetz “prevented the investigation from happening.”
Despite having been indicted on criminal charges, Schuetz is currently on paid administrative leave and Teets has been placed on administrative duty while the Washington County Sheriff’s Office continues its investigation of the incident.
All of this leaves me with one question: What does a criminal cop have to do to be treated like a criminal by cops?
All of this happened because the very thought that Black lives matter is enough to send certain police officers into a rage of blue tears. That energy would be better spent by the good apples weeding out the bad so the movement is less necessary.
But then there would need to actually be good apples.
