POLICE: Unchecked power is dangerous

What traits do we value out of our law enforcement officers? Honor, integrity, oath-swearing individuals, altruistically aligned with cultivating peace keeping principles for a liberated, morally prosperous society? Or do we timidly tolerate unashamedly overt abuses by our authorities that we have trustingly assigned with prodigious power?

Such contemplations came into sharp focus on the night of Saturday, Aug. 4, when an officer of the Coeur d’Alene Police Department illegally entered my private garage, falsely accusing me of being under the influence of drugs. For 30 minutes, he put me through humiliating sobriety tests, abusively screaming at me like a drill sergeant, repeatedly threatening to arrest me. In the end, he reluctantly relented his rabid mission to add another notch in his belt for an arrest, in his greedy pursuit to become head of the DUI Task Force. For he had attempted to implicate someone who has never touched alcohol or drugs in his life.

This abbreviated synopsis is intended to not only report abhorrently unacceptable behavior by a member of the Coeur d’Alene Police Department, but also to challenge the public to hold all law enforcement officers of our combined agencies to their initially sworn oaths to serve and protect the people of this community. To recognize that compromised, disparaging officials dilute the entire efficacy of our police force. Unequivocally, we should support honorable, law-abiding participants, but turning a blind eye to abusive officers stains the whole law enforcement community, and ultimately, the city of Coeur d’Alene.

DAVID MONTANDON

Coeur d’Alene