Senator urges protection for troopers

[flashl]

COLUMBIA — Finding and protecting troopers courageous enough to speak up is the key to resolving problems within the state Highway Patrol because troubles have festered for years under the threat of demotions, a glass ceiling or transfers to South Carolina back roads, a state senator said Thursday.

Sen. Jake Knotts, a 30-year law enforcement veteran, relayed his message to colleagues as the senators opened their investigation into the patrol and its parent agency, the Department of Public Safety.

"The people who know best are the people who have had to live it," said Knotts, R-West Columbia. "We need to make sure they have assurance there will be no repercussions."

Troopers have come forward privately over the years and more frequently recently, Knotts said. The fear of retribution, though, has stopped many from voicing their concerns publicly, he said.

Their concerns have been highlighted in the past month as a handful of videos, recorded by troopers' dashboard cameras, surfaced showing troopers mistreating motorists during traffic stops. Among the wrongdoings caught on tape are troopers hitting fleeing suspects with their cruisers and using excessive force on suspects, some of whom were not charged with committing crimes.

The Post and Courier

Background:
New videos show SC troopers kicking, hitting suspects
Senate panel to probe how black motorists are treated

[flor de jasmim]

1. And meanwhile another child shoots himself/herself in the head

Unfortunately, I don't have time to watch the CNN video right now, but there is YET ANOTHER story. Why the HELL can't we get guns out of the homes?! Or at least get them under lock and key, unloaded? The parents should be shot with their own gun--not fatally--perhaps in the foot? But they ought to know what it feels like to be shot.

end rant begin fireworks

[flashl]

2. OK, what is the relationship to troopers story? nt

[benEzra]

3. A disproportionate number of child shootings...

occur in the homes of people who are legally barred from owning guns.

In non-criminal households, fatal accidents involving children are among the rarest of all accidents; swimming pools kill about a hundred times as many children on a per-owning household basis, if you run the numbers.

My wife and I own guns, lawfully and responsibly (half of U.S. gun owners are Dems and indies). We are keeping them.

FWIW, our guns are kept in a safe or a quick-access lockbox when not in use, which our children cannot access; at the moment, one 9mm is loaded, locked up, and on "safe," and one 9mm and one carbine in the safe are magazine inserted, chamber empty.

I'm not sure what all that has to do with a story about state troopers abusing unarmed citizens, though.