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OT: Police overstepping their jurisdiction?

This topic might be a little too edgy for NewsHawks, but I think she has a valid case against the Police Dept. for revealing her relationship to the Air Force.
 
I don't think it was necessary either. It reminds me of that guy of the Belgian special forces (sort of...can't say we have a decent army here) who was officially married as first gay commando, it was in the news for a while a couple of years ago.
 
I thought the most entertaining part of that was the name of the Exec Director of the ACLU-SD. The guy's last name is Doody! If the guy's a lawyer, then if fits like a glove!
 
As I mentioned elsewhere - It was much more than "not necessary". It was absolutely NOT the job of civilian law enforcement to make such a notification to the AF simply because they incidentally noticed a marriage certificate - completely unrelated to their purpose for being there. It was a malicious act on the part of the local police that cost a higly trained, veteran weapons systems specialist her career in the AF. Who wins here ?

No one. Not the AF, our society and certainly not her. Even as a former police officer, I would LOVE to be her attorney and vigorously prosecute this department in civil court.
 
it was uncalled for and vindictive. i'm not pro-gay but they cost this woman her career when they had no right. i hope she sues for big buck, and wins.
 
Whether you agree or not with gays in the military,she followed the rules to the letter of don't ask,don't tell. As such this is a serious invasion of her privacy and I hope she runs these clowns into the ground.
 
Failure of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"...

Figures it happened in Rapid City.
Seem to be a lot of failures out there recently.
 
If we cannot talk about the IRS coming after four cents, then we cannot talk about this topic -- and that's a 100% fact!

Ken
 
i have no argument with that, although i must admit, i often have this compulsion to watch threads like these and see how long they last. to the credit of the members, i am frequently surprised.
 
yup, not right.

It must be mentioned that in USAF towns, law enforcement will tell the USAF anything and vice versa. They call it a mutually beneficial relationship, but that's bull. If you're USAF and dealing with the law over something that you have no fault in, like a ticket or even an arrest, they'll still call the base and make sure your 1st Sgt knows. Then, no matter what you did or didn't do wrong, you're still in huge trouble and it has a gigantic effect on your career. Most USAF bases' law enforcement front desks call the jails once an hour to ask if there are any military personnel inside.


I'm not super pro-gay either, but our rights are rapidly diminishing everywhere.
 
Toastmaker said:
As I mentioned elsewhere - It was much more than "not necessary". It was absolutely NOT the job of civilian law enforcement to make such a notification to the AF simply because they incidentally noticed a marriage certificate - completely unrelated to their purpose for being there. It was a malicious act on the part of the local police that cost a higly trained, veteran weapons systems specialist her career in the AF. Who wins here ?

No one. Not the AF, our society and certainly not her. Even as a former police officer, I would LOVE to be her attorney and vigorously prosecute this department in civil court.
Click to expand...

Hold on a second.

Let's not lose sight of the fact that her domestic partner was a felony fugitive from justice and this standing Air Force NCO refused to cooperate with law enforcement.

Under the moral codes of being an NCO in the US military, her conduct was not in accordance with conduct becoming an NCO.

There was no presumption of privacy involved here.

She could have been subject to an Article 32 investigation for having material facts pertaining to a felony crime and refusing to bear witness. Considering this is the kind of fate she could have faced, with its associated general discharge or discharge under less than honorable conditions, to get the boot under honorable service status is relatively light treatment.

While civilians are not required to testify or cooperate with law enforcement, other than the Constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination, members of the US military are not accorded such privilege. In the military, if you know of a crime, you are obligated to report all you know to law enforcement.

In this duty, she failed miserably. Regardless of the circumstances, she got off light and should run quiet with her honorable discharge.

Ken
 
tigisfat said:
yup, not right.

It must be mentioned that in USAF towns, law enforcement will tell the USAF anything and vice versa. They call it a mutually beneficial relationship, but that's bull. If you're USAF and dealing with the law over something that you have no fault in, like a ticket or even an arrest, they'll still call the base and make sure your 1st Sgt knows. Then, no matter what you did or didn't do wrong, you're still in huge trouble and it has a gigantic effect on your career. Most USAF bases' law enforcement front desks call the jails once an hour to ask if there are any military personnel inside.


I'm not super pro-gay either, but our rights are rapidly diminishing everywhere.
Click to expand...

I would submit that this heightened sense of public accountability and scrutiny has a lot to do with the fact we handle powerful weapons. The public earns this higher accountability, and it is merely one aspect of duty we face when we raise the right hand and take the oath of office.

Whether you get drunk in public, earn a traffic citation, or refuse to cooperate with law enforcement in a felony investigation, as a mliitary member, your obligations remain clear. You are always required to keep good faith with the public and its institutions. This NCO did not. And in my view that's why she rightly was drummed out of the service. In my view, the police simply found a convenient option to exercise. In my view, the more honoralbe option should have been used by the USAF. Once it became known she refused to cooperate with law enforcement, her commander should have brought her into his office and made it clear where, as an NCO, her duty lay. If she refused to cooperate afterward, I would have started administrative action to result in her involuntary separation from the USAF.

Ken
 
Ken Stallings said:
Hold on a second.

Let's not lose sight of the fact that her domestic partner was a felony fugitive from justice and this standing Air Force NCO refused to cooperate with law enforcement.
Click to expand...


aaaahhhhh,

so there's more to this story. Touche, good sir.
 
Hey All,

I think she should win her case against the police because a marriage certificate has nothing to do with being cooperative or not and there was no basis for reporting it to the Air Force. The cooperation issue should have been settled on it's own merits or lack thereof within the Air Force as described by Ken. The issues of cooperation and being gay should not be mixed to achieve a punishing result for the wrong reason. I do not know the Air Force policy on gays/lesbians revealed as such by third parties. That is a separate question.

-Ed-
 
Ken Stallings said:
Hold on a second.

Let's not lose sight of the fact that her domestic partner was a felony fugitive from justice and this standing Air Force NCO refused to cooperate with law enforcement.

Under the moral codes of being an NCO in the US military, her conduct was not in accordance with conduct becoming an NCO.

There was no presumption of privacy involved here.

She could have been subject to an Article 32 investigation for having material facts pertaining to a felony crime and refusing to bear witness. Considering this is the kind of fate she could have faced, with its associated general discharge or discharge under less than honorable conditions, to get the boot under honorable service status is relatively light treatment.

While civilians are not required to testify or cooperate with law enforcement, other than the Constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination, members of the US military are not accorded such privilege. In the military, if you know of a crime, you are obligated to report all you know to law enforcement.

In this duty, she failed miserably. Regardless of the circumstances, she got off light and should run quiet with her honorable discharge.

Ken
Click to expand...


Now that we know the rest of the story, I would agree it was proper action if she was in fact failing to cooperate in a felony matter, Ken.
However, if the incident had only been based on a purely civil matter, where there was no criminal law jurisdiction, then frankly I still feel it would have been wrong.
But that's just my opinion.
 
I've been doing a bit of reading around the issue as I was unaware what the USAF's policies were on the subject of gay relationships. Isn't this whole "don't ask, don't tell" policy rather archaic and liable to cause more problems than it solves?

A persons sexuality has no more bearing on their ability to do a job than their skin colour.

Apologies for the thread creep, but I was genuinely shocked when I found out that the USAF have such an apparently ludicrous policy in place.
 
All kind of mute anyway....

She would have lost her clearance. She's obliged by virtue of having a clearance to inform the SSO of any status that could lead to her being manipulated by any outside agency or foreign government. In today's force, you can't hold a clearance, you can't do much of anything....

Incidentally, the SSO is not normally obliged to inform the commander on a report like this this unless there's another factor (there almost always is when the military pursues a homosexual related chapter).
 
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