I blew a gasket over the idiotic coverage of New Mexico State Trooper Bert Lopez, caught on surveillance cam in uniform, having sex with a woman on the hood of a car. (TYT’s coverage was among the most obnoxious — surprise!). Many civilian males, including Cenk, thought that was awesome, no harm no foul. At most they were annoyed about the waste of tax dollars. ::face palm::
Now we have Santa Fe PD Sergeant Mike Eiskant, forced into retirement after being caught on dash cam masturbating. Fortunately there were some actual journalists involved in this, and they did their homework instead of giving him a big pat on the back and a gift subscription to Brazzers.
From the Huff Po article (which got tagged “weird news,” though it’s common as dirt IMO):
On Thursday, he entered a plea of no contest before Bernalillo County District Court Judge Reed Sheppard to two counts of attempt to commit a felony (false imprisonment), one count of stalking, two counts of harassment and other charges including larceny and possession of marijuana, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican.
Seven of the charges occurred in 2011 and the counts of false imprisonment, stalking and harassment relate to traffic stops involving female drivers, according to the criminal complaint.
This is why the Bert Lopez thing was not OK, in case you’re still not clear on this concept. Or if you still think Cenk makes the team.
Former officer Shannon Brady told KOB-TV in a follow-up report that … she … tried to bring a harassment complaint against Eiskant years ago to the Santa Fe police department’s human resource division that was handled by then human resource compliance officer Raymond Rael, who has since been promoted to chief of police.
“They had plenty of opportunities over the course of many years to do something about it and they refused to,” Brady told the station.
Almost as if there were a down side to the whole “boys will be boys” culture, go figure. Note that Brady is now a “
former officer” (like Calvin Chang, who complained about UC Davis’ own “Sergeant Pepperspray” Lt. Pike) and Eiskant retired a sergeant.
The former officer said when she went to file her claim, Rael … offered mediation with Eiskant which she declined.
So Rael, instead of supporting this female officer against a male co-worker, about whom there were many rumors of sexual misconduct, wanted her to have a sit-down with him; he accused her of just making it up because so many other women had also complained about him doing the same things. Then when the local news caught him on tape, Rael had no knowledge of any misconduct.
He gets away with that because of people like Cenk.
Rael also denied knowing why Eiskant was given the badge number 69 when he was promoted to sergeant.
“Is it possible that it is coincidental?” Rael said. “I suppose, but I can’t speak to that issue one way or another.”
From my amateur observation, the three main self-destruct mechanisms for public safety personnel are alcoholism, PTSD, and sexual misconduct. When you see one of those, be on the lookout for the others. This job kills people, understand that. Any unhealthy tendencies the person already had are likely to increase. Once any of these issues becomes a problem, it’s not going to get better without help — which doesn’t happen in our broken system.
The kicker, though, is this:
In return for pleading no contest, Eiskant agreed he “will never again become a law enforcement officer anywhere in the United States,” according to a statement from Attorney General Gary King’s office.
Why is that necessary? Because bad cops get re-hired through the good old boy network all the time.
Especially in New Mexico. For example, if you work in the City of Albuquerque, that’s in the County of Bernalillo, in the State of New Mexico; those have three separate, large police departments. Then there are neighboring jurisdictions you can bounce to, if nobody’s interested in finding out what a bad cop you are, which they aren’t. There should be no question of him "agreeing not to," he should be "automatically and permanently barred."
Eiskant does not face any jail time, but the attorney general’s agreement states “probation length, at initial sentencing, shall not exceed one year, and may be converted to unsupervised probation, in the discretion of the court, after any mandatory counseling has been completed.”
Is that OK with you folks, especially you fans of The Young Turks? This cop pulls women over, falsely detains them for his sexual gratification, takes their personal information from their driver’s licenses and stalks them, intimidates female co-workers, does whatever he wants to any woman he encounters, and nobody does a damned thing. Does that work for you?
You may be saying, “C’mon, Xave, this is a New Mexico thing.” Check out the Cop Talk Radio show about Charlie Hoeffer, (among other dirtbags) still on the job doing pretty much the same things Eiskant did, but in Florida. This stuff is deeply ingrained in the culture. Don’t take my word for it, take it from a cop on the anonymous police boards for Palm Beach County:
Anonymous poster: Everybody seems shocked that this Hoeffer is still a cop? It’s real simple, he’s one of many examples of the bad cops that the PBA [PBSO's union, linked to the Colombo family] protects. Just look no further than their reps and lawyers for Christ’s sake. The background checks and job performance history are as bad or worst than the cops in the Shores. He has been a union rep in every department he has worked and is now one here at Palm Beach Shores. These dirty cops continue to hide behind the PBA’s badge of protection unfortunately mostly just the bad cops need defense mechanisms.