Well, no. He is a Czarist, though. The correspondent in question is not at all satisfied with the Czar’s putting the majority of the blame for Mark Fiorino’s difficulties with Philadelphia authorities at his own feet. Quoth the correspondent:

I would have thought that the audio of the Fiorino exchange, in which the cops talk like bad movie characters, would have been dispositive. I would have thought that Fiorino merely posting the evidence of their behavior, without comment, might not quallify as “humiliation.” After all, if the cops had just apologized and said, “Hey, our mistake. No hard feelings.” Then they would not have been humiliated by the audio being posted.

I would have thought that the DA’s response in sending a flotilla of police to Fiorino’s workplace to arrest him would have been ample evidence of bad faith on the part of the state.

Most of all, I would have thought that the response of the police department—putting citizens on notice that if they follow the rights accorded them by the law, the police will inconvenience them and humiliate them might have convinced the good Czar that in this case, the law enforcement establishment is behaving very, very badly indeed.

But apparently not. Some conservatives will excuse just about anything cops do because our side is supposed to be for law and order and it’s only dirty hippies who hate the po-po. [Not the Czar, however, who explicitly made this point himself. —ŒV]

I like cops about as much as I like public school teachers: Which is to say, some of them are very good and lots of them are not. Both jobs are not entirely pleasant. But then again, if you don’t like the work, there’s lots of other jobs out there. Be a welder or a consultant or a priest.

But the real problem I have is that while cops and teachers are both ostensibly the employees of us all, cops are given the life-and-death power of the state. That is an awesome responsibility and it demands that cops perform their duties to a much, much higher standard because the power is so enormous. When a plumber has a bad day on the job, a pipe might burst. When a cop has a bad day on the job, he could kill a citizen in the name of the all the rest of us. It demands much, much higher standards of professional behavior.

I treat my professional life with the assumption that every interaction I have, at any time, could conceivably become public. Police should do the same. Contrary to the Philly cops who are furious at being recorded, if I was a cop I’d want every second of my time on duty recorded as insulation against having my words and actions distorted. A cop who conducts himself beyond reproach would welcome recorded supervision for his own protection.

The fact that cops in general loathe being recorded tells you a lot about their professional mindset.

I hope the Ancient and Noble Order is conducting its own internal investigation.

Our correspondent has a good point. It’s not clear that Fiorino was egging on the police at all, or that he was doing anything else to escalate the situation, unless his being overly matter-of-fact and casual in the face of a gun-pointing cop’s furious commands is considered provocative. (Which would be a problematic standard.)

As one concerned with Right Relations and their maintenance, Confucius has a ton of sympathy for cops, based on watching lots of Cops, because they’re constantly dealing with low-lifes and idiots, often at great danger to themselves.

Buuuut, these cops seem to have been (a) trigger-happy and (b) completely contemptuous of the guy, and it was their overreaction which created a crisis where there was none. They drew their weapons before Fiorino declined to kneel down at their orders.

Even if Fiorino is a Second-Amendment James O’Keefe-style provocateur, their response was over the top. (And if he’s risking his life to make a point, I think he’s probably got a screw loose, but the fact is, he was legally within his rights and nowhere did he make any aggressive move towards the cops other than not complying immediately with their commands to act like a felon under arrest.)

Even if we let the cops off as dumb and panicky (which their captain probably should, though with some minor administrative punishment—reprimand or a week’s pay or something), the D.A.’s coming down with both feet on what was fundamentally a misunderstanding is vindictive and punitive. “By acting within his rights and engaging the police in civil conversation instead of following their arrest-style orders, he caused the police to overreact,” seems to be the premise. That seems to be an unjustified bias in favor of the custodes in this situation.

Having mentioned Cops, Confucius should mention that our correspondent’s point about recordings is underscored by the way the show generally works out. One suspects that both the police and the idiot low-lifes they’re having to take in constrain their behavior because of the presence of TV cameras. One wonders how long it will be until cops, over their quite pragmatic objections, are given their own hat- or epaulet-borne version of dashboard cams to document their stops, bringing Werner Heisenberg to the mean streets.

For Confucius, the bottom line in Fiorino’s case is that he probably should have complied more readily with the police to establish that he was not a threat, even given the police’s overreaction. Similarly, once the complete legality of his behavior was established, the cops should have simply apologized and shaken his hand. At that point, there’s not even a need to discipline them—though clearly internal Philly PD briefings on the city’s gun laws should be put in place post-haste.

Handle it all through the Unwritten Law of civility. Fiorino is understanding of the cops’ panic, however misplaced; the cops eat a little crow and say, “Sorry, man, you just scared the crap out of us. You don’t know the kind of lunatics we deal with.” As the Philly PD’s spokesman said about cops’ interacting with armed citizens, “You can use caution, but you don’t need to curse them up and down and put a gun in their face.”

Meanwhile, some federal prosecutor should be looking at the Philly D.A. for abusive prosecution…

Confucius, Œc. Vol.

Don’t ask impertinent questions like that jackass Adept Lu.