Among the many unwritten rules of the job is the courtesy one cop shows another. The perk was that cops could ignore the “minor” rules, driving faster than others, getting a cup of joe and a donut from an appreciative shopkeeper, parking where only disabled people are allowed, give way. After all, they protect us from criminals, and shouldn’t they be allowed a bit leeway? Don’t they deserve a break?

In 2011, Florida Trooper Donna “Jane” Watts broke the rules.  From the Sun-Sentinel :

Watts made national news in October 2011 when she pulled over off-duty Miami Police Officer Fausto Lopez for speeding in his marked patrol car on Florida’s Turnpike in Broward County.

She followed him for seven minutes and later wrote in a report that he was darting in and out of lanes at speeds exceeding 120 mph. She approached his cruiser with her gun drawn, yelling, and then handcuffed him.

Lopez, who regularly averaged more than 100 mph on his drive between Miami and his home in Coconut Creek, was fired in September.

Yes, if that was you, the price would be steeper than losing your job. Unless you’re a cop.

When Watts pulled over Lopez, the incident was caught on the trooper’s dashboard camera. “This is not a first-time occurrence with y’all,” Watts told Lopez after pulling him over. “Y’all come from that way all the time, this Miami police car, and we never catch it.”

Lopez apologized and tried to explain he was running late. “With all due respect …,” he said, but Watts cut him off. “You don’t respect me, sir,” she said. “You don’t respect these people out here.”

Sadly, the problem isn’t quite Lopez’s lack of respect for the lives of other people on the road, but that he pushed the envelope too far too many times. Much as I would like to laud Watts as a hero, putting the safety of the public ahead of the perk of cop courtesy, there remains a nagging sense that she would have overlooked it had Lopez not pushed so hard.

In November, 2011, police officers from around the state accessed Watts’ personal information from a police database.  This is a violation of regulations, absent an official law enforcement justification for doing so, and Watts has brought suit against more than 100 cops and agencies.  But the violation is technical.  The real concern is not.

Watts began opening her mailbox from the side instead of from the front in case there was something in it.

The suit states that Watts’ supervisors “do not believe that it would ever be safe for her to return to road patrol” and that Watts believes if she ever need police backup in an emergency, it would not be provided. More than a dozen troopers from her own agency also looked up her personal information.

Like Serpico before her, Watts fears for her life. Accessing her personal information was merely the means of learning where to find the traitor. What to do about the traitor was another story.

That police officers, other than Lopez or his pals from the Miami police department, were sufficiently outraged and angered by Watts’ breaking ranks goes a long way toward revealing the depth of entrenched police culture. They show each other courtesy, so that they get courtesy in return.  They do not publicly humiliate a fellow officer under any circumstances. If the problem is so bad that it compels action, they do so within the ranks.  They do not break ranks.

A number of the officers who accessed Watts’ personal data were punished for it. Some were given written reprimands. Others verbal.  After all, they only pushed some computer keys and looked. No real harm done, unless one considers that the purpose of looking was to locate a cop who violated the code and needed to be taught a lesson.  Whether the lesson was the delivery of a prank pizza or taking her life isn’t clear.  After all, the pizza arrived, but she’s still alive.

Yet, Watts’ fear serves a larger purpose: it reminds every cop who thinks that she’s had enough, that the envelope has been pushed too far, that another cop’s lack of respect for the public is more than she can tolerate, that there will be a very steep price to pay.  Maybe that price will be her life. Clearly, the price will include her job.  For years to come, Watts is likely to have a violent, visceral reaction to flashing lights in her rearview mirror when she’s driving on a dark road at night.

The message to cops is clear.  And really, what sort of cop does this to one of her brethren?  What cop doesn’t appreciate the courtesy shown others who are part of that elite corp of men and women who believe themselves absolved of the responsibility to control themselves that keeps us lesser mortals in line?

And the opportunity of governments large and small to shut down the culture that enforces the unwritten rules was there, by firing every cop who unlawfully accessed Watts’ personal records, because they know what it really means, what the real purpose was.  But they didn’t.  And the culture survives. And the next cop who decides she’s had enough of cops owning their world will ask herself, do I want to live like Watts?  Do I want to become the next law enforcement pariah and fear that every time I open my mailbox, I take my life in my hands?

Nobody wants to live that way.  And police can now safely drive home at excessive rates of speed with a free donut in their hand.  Problem solved.

H/T FritzMuffKnuckle