What do Cops Teach their Children about Lying?

A week or so ago, sentence was passed on two Los Angeles Police officers convicted of perjury for lying in court.  They fabricated a story to convict a gang member of possession of narcotics.

The gang member was well on the way to prison based upon the testimony of these two officers.  Then a video of his arrest surfaced and showed a completely different story.  The video showed that a number of other officers, while not charged with perjury, didn’t exactly acquit themselves as LA’s finest either. The video seemed to show that the evidence was planted at the scene and “discovered” by one of the other officers.  At least that was what the judge in the criminal case against the gang banger seemed to think when he threw the charges out.

As we have all seen from watching COPS, lying is a very valuable tool in law enforcement, and you could count on hearing at least one lie by COPS during any investigation of a crime more serious than a traffic stop.  It even became a college drinking game.  Spot the lie and down a shot.

The courts have ruled that police can lie about anything and everything, except presumably while under oath in court. But we found out that the penalty for lying under oath for police is pretty minor. In this case, the officers were sentenced to a few hours of graffiti cleaning and other community service.  The sentence was based on the fact that, according to the LAPD, the officers had exemplary records.  And who in any police department does not have an exemplary record, at least according to their own department.

COPS really taught us is never to believe anything police tell you when you are being questioned about a possible crime, even if you are just an innocent bystander.  And, oh yes, we also all know never, ever say anything to the police if they investigating you for committing a crime.

And then there is Paula Deen.  She admitted in a deposition, under oath, that at some point in the distant past, she dropped an N-bomb.  I think we have all heard a lot about this, her empire seems to be crumbling over outrage that she would utter such a vile word. 

But what nobody seems to consider is that Paula Deen was testifying under oath, sworn to tell the truth.  I have seen extensive commentary detailing 1) she is a very bad person for using the epithet and 2) she shouldn’t have said it, it has destroyed her vast cooking empire.  Is the lesson here that we should lie when testifying under oath when that will hide us from consequences of what we have said or done?

And then there is the great quote from National Intelligence Director James Clapper who admitted that while testifying under oath, “I told the least untruth.”  Which I guess is another way of saying that his testimony was a lie.

The decision to lie or to tell the truth under difficult circumstances is a dilemma that we all face and it is one that is not spared of children either.  How we react to this dilemma teaches our children well. 

But the positive side of lessons about truthfulness we learn from these news stories is our tendency not to believe much of what anyone tells us. 

I think this is our best, maybe our only defense against the wholesale violation of our privacy by the three letter government agencies that gather intelligence on our digital life:  Don’t believe anything they tell you about what they are up to.