Friday, August 17, 2012

Bad decisions all around


The city of Sun Valley has employees who have been suspended from their duties for months while accountants and lawyers comb through city records to see whether any wrongdoing occurred.

Yet, nearly a week after the city's assistant police chief was cited in Hailey for misdemeanor driving under the influence of alcohol, he's still on the job.

The assistant chief was off duty last Saturday when he allegedly drove his pickup into downtown Hailey, backed into another car and was arrested. His blood-alcohol level came in at .17, more than double the legal limit of .08 in Idaho.

Sun Valley leaders are heaping bad judgment upon bad judgment in failing to suspend the assistant chief from active duty. The city's police chief says only that the officer is innocent until proven guilty, and Mayor Dwayne Briscoe says he's looking into the matter.

Police officers are trained in the use of deadly force. They carry guns and must exercise good judgment in stressful situations. Sun Valley's assistant chief gave up the right to continue to exercise that judgment when he chose to drink and drive. Technically, he is innocent until proven guilty. However, he should be suspended from active duty until the justice system makes that determination.

The failure to suspend him endangers the public and erodes confidence in law enforcement. It sets one standard for the public and a far lower one for sworn officers of the law—even lower than the one in Sun Valley for employees who don't carry guns for a living.




About Comments

Comments with content that seeks to incite or inflame may be removed.

Comments that are in ALL CAPS may be removed.

Comments that are off-topic or that include profanity or personal attacks, libelous or other inappropriate material may be removed from the site. Entries that are unsigned or contain signatures by someone other than the actual author may be removed. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or any other policies governing this site. Use of this system denotes full acceptance of these conditions. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

The comments below are from the readers of mtexpress.com and in no way represent the views of Express Publishing, Inc.

You may flag individual comments. You may also report an inappropriate or offensive comment by clicking here.

Flagging Comments: Flagging a comment tells a site administrator that a comment is inappropriate. You can find the flag option by pointing the mouse over the comment and clicking the 'Flag' link.

Flagging a comment is only counted once per person, and you won't need to do it multiple times.

Proper Flagging Guidelines: Every site has a different commenting policy - be sure to review the policy for this site before flagging comments. In general these types of comments should be flagged:

  • Spam
  • Ones violating this site's commenting policy
  • Clearly unrelated
  • Personal attacks on others
Comments should not be flagged for:
  • Disagreeing with the content
  • Being in a dispute with the commenter

Popular Comment Threads



 Local Weather 
Search archives:


Copyright © 2024 Express Publishing Inc.   Terms of Use   Privacy Policy
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.