Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Officer Hugs-a-lot

Many of us thought, or at least were hoping, that the main function of law enforcement was to enforce our laws. Apparently we are wrong.

Perspectives of Washington County Communities of Color
Rubenstein was hired in 1980 as a bilingual (Spanish) and bi-cultural police officer by the city of Hillsboro. The relationship between law enforcement and the Hispanic community was not well-developed at that time.

Officer Hugs-a-lot is there to make people feel better. I'm not positive but I'm guessing that the relationship between law enforcement and the Drug Using community is not well-developed either.

El Centro Cultural is used, at international, national, state and local levels, as a tool for outreach to the community where members can be heard without fear of retribution, regardless of their immigration status.

Rubenstein stated his belief that the Washington County community, especially in Hillsboro and Cornelius, truly knows that the police follow Oregon state law regarding immigration status. This is a key issue in law enforcement agencies’ ability to provide basic police services to their communities.

My definition of "basic police services" is: arrest criminals.

Officer Hugs-a-lot's definition of "basic police services" is: listen to the concerns of criminals.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

By "relationship between law enforcement and the Hispanic community was not well-developed at that time." I hope they mean Hispanics (where is Hispania anyway?) are actually a higher precentage of arrests in the community. Most of the problems in my Beaverton 'hood are perpetrated by Mexicans or their spawn. We just got rid of a meth dealer next door to me, but a few weeks ago we had our first gun-related incident. (over a drug deal of course). It would be nice if the Beaverton PD had a "well-developed" relationship with the Hispanic community as well.

Daniel said...

I'm just not sure why the police would have a different relationship with one "community" than another unless it is presumtive that one "community" is committing more crimes.

Anonymous said...

Well, the problem is that we need to see the root cause of their crime, which is poverty.

Thats "mule fritters" as Col. Potter would say. Try greed and lazyness.