Police Ethical Dilemmas

Looking back on my eleven years of being a Memphis police officer, there has been several times in which I have been faced with an ethical dilemma. A police officer can encounter these types dilemmas on a daily basis. I remember one of the first ethical issues I faced, was during my probationary phase. We had been dispatched to a one car accident. The dispatcher advised the complaint was a motorist who observed a vehicle severe off the road hit a guardrail and split a pole. My partner who had relinquished all his duties that night because he had a rookie riding with him. Once we made it to the scene, the only thing left was twisted vehicle, a heavily damaged guardrail, and a split concrete pole. My partner, the paramedics, and I spent about fifteen to twenty minutes searching the area for someone who may have been thrown from the vehicle. We were in the area for a few minutes when one of
the paramedics handed my partner what appeared to be an off-duty weapon holster. I observed my partner grab the holster, along with the keys for the vehicle and throw everything in the trunk then slammed it shut. He then came over to me like he was angry, took my paper report and ripped to shreds. The ethical issue was that my partner believed the vehicle had belonged to an off-duty police officer because of the gun holster with the employee number engraved on it. My partner did two things that night he completely removed me from the situation by not telling me about what he had discovered in the vehicle and not allowing me to finish the report. It was not until fews years later I saw my one day partner at in-service, and we talked about the whole situation. During the conversation, he mentions that it did turn out to be an off-duty officer's vehicle and he is no longer with the department because of similar issues. We spoke at length about consideration for your fellow officers, doing what you can to maintain a positive perception of police officers, and the bad officers will usually "weed" themselves out.

My partner’s actions leaned towards an ethically challenging action to consider. From my perspective, if I were aware of all the facts in the situation, I would have been lost on the right course of action to take. My first thought would that I do not want to get another office in trouble, especially if alternatives are possible. However, I would have to consider that I should complete my obligations as a police officer. Considering all of the facts will it be a good thing for the masses, or simply a personal fulfillment of doing what I taught was right.

My partner took a utilitarian approach to the situation. When the holster was introduced into the equation and the possibility of it belonging to a fellow officer, my partner immediately started to consider the consequences. From a utilitarian perspective, they will weigh the advantages of making choices that will have a negative impact that will far greater outnumber the positive reward. Their approach is to focus on maximizing happiness and limit punishment. His perspective on the events after the accident was that out of all the available actions. The morally preferred action would yield more good than harm (William & Arrigo, 2012). Fulfilling the utilitarian point of view my senior partner felt that he would endure the pain or punishment if any to reduce any suffering of the masses. He took the responsibility of taking the report and completing all task associated with the incident so that no one else would be affected by the someone else’s bad judgment.

I respect the deontological perspective to this ethical dilemma. In law enforcement, there will be instances where you have a duty or obligation to handle a situation in a certain way by law or by departmental policies. The deontological approach focuses on the actions being right or wrong, not whether the consequences are right or wrong. They believe that some actions are wrong no matter what the consequences are (The Basics of Philosophy, 2017). You could make the argument that my partner had a duty to act on the information that was presented to him. At the very least there was an accident, and the responsible party involved left the scene. Not to mention if this individual does this again next weekend and hurts someone else other than himself.

For this ethical dilemma, one could make the argument for both utilitarian and deontological ethics.
Also in this scenario, it could be discussed the differences in the moral development of a younger officer versus a senior officer. As a younger officer, a lot of your decisions made during your tour of duty are according to what is right and what is wrong, along with your ego. Newer officers, in my opinion, are more fascinated with the power and authority, rather making a lasting impact in the community they serve. That also could have been the approach of my senior partner, making the decision for me, knowing that I would have chosen to do my duty and that action would have lead to negative consequences especially when it comes to relationships with other police officers. Therefore putting me in a position to choose between what is right for me as an individual and what is good for the masses. While I was talking with my senior partner at in-service, I became upset for a brief moment, but I got over it. My senior was probably considering someone else before considering
himself.

References

The Basics of Philosophy. (n.d.). Retrieved March 7, 2017, from http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_deontology.html.

Williams, C. R., & Arrigo, B. A. (2012). Ethics, crime, and criminal justice (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.