Ethics begins at the top! No question about it. No possible argument against it.
A police officer in the Central Texas town of Hearne who shot and killed a 93-year-old woman has been fired. Police were called to the home of Pearlie Golden who, according to her nephew, was “brandishing a gun.” When Officer Stephen Stem arrived, he told the woman several times (according to the nephew) to drop the gun. She then fired two shots into the ground. The officer returned fire killing her.
I don’t know any more than this:
- The day after the shooting the mayor said that he would “recommend the officer be fired.”
- A news website headline read: “Cop with History of Fatal Shootings Guns Down 93-year-old Woman.”
- The officer was fired by city council members on a 6-0 vote four days after the incident and before an investigation had even been conducted.
- Rusty Russ, the city’s attorney said in a statement: “We had to make a decision based on what was best for the city as a whole.” He added that “the city felt it needed to move past this,” saying that the city did not feel it necessary to wait for a report by the Texas Rangers, which is investigating the shooting.
Questions Linger
I don’t have a clue what really transpired, but neither does anyone else. Not yet.
Following are some ethical questions about this incident.
- Why is the officer fired four days after the incident without an investigation being completed?
- What was the motivation of the six people who voted to end his career: their careers? Politics? Or justice?
- Is this an example of ethical behavior by the powers that be?
- What will be the attitudes of other officers in this agency about the swift firing of this particular officer?
- What did they learn about ethics from the chief, the city attorney and the six councilmembers?
But I’m sure ethics training is an integral part of the overall education of city employees.
Why the Derision?
Ethics training in law enforcement—why is it met with such derision?
“Any police officer who takes a free cup of coffee is no better than a whore!”
That’s how an eight-hour ‘Ethics Training’ class began in our village council chambers about 15 years ago.
The room was packed with more than 100 of the most disinclined police officers I’d ever seen. Cops from agencies all around the Chicagoland area were forced to attend mainly because their departments may have needed to prove to somebody at some time that we did indeed embrace and participate in ethics training. At least that was the attitudes of the officers in attendance.
Honestly, I thought the “whore” comment was just his way of getting our attention. It wasn’t. The entire day was about slippery slopes and the chipping away of moral fiber by participating in bits of unethical behavior, blah, blah, blah, blah … You’d have thought that taking a free Diet Coke offered by a business owner was exactly the same as robbing a bank. And according to the clueless intellectual conducting the course, it was!
If I wasn’t at my own police department I would have done what the other 75% of the class did: disappeared at lunch time.
Waste of Time
In my experience most ‘Ethics Training’ is a total waste of time. Why? Two reasons.
- Because in most cases it isn’t done correctly. Trying to teach ethics to adults is ridiculous. The meaning of the word itself, ethics, is ambiguous: just ask history’s greatest philosophers. What we should be doing is having honest discussions about behavior and how it affects organizational missions, leadership and how a lack of ethics destroys trust at every level.
- There is a lack of both honest assessment and ethical behavior at the top of many organizations (and in society as a whole). The “do as I say, not as I do” philosophy is destroying agencies and our collective culture. To police officers the hypocrisy is laughably outrageous.
Plenty of the leaders in organizations walk the ethical talk. But a common theme among street cops—all around the country—is the double standards they see, on an all-too-frequent basis, at the top of their respective organizational food chains.
When I made sergeant my father told me the day I got my gold badge: “At some point, and I guarantee this will happen, you’re going to have to make a choice. That choice will be between backing up the actions of your officers or to hang them out to dry in order to please your boss, who is acting for purely political and selfish reasons. You will be pressured by bosses who care about only one thing: their careers. So decide now what you will do.”
I have been teaching ethics courses for over 15 years. As a fallible human being, I’m embarrassed and ashamed when I think of some of the behaviors I participated in both personally and professionally during my lifetime, things I’ll have to deal with when I meet my maker. However, none of this precludes me or anyone else from discussing and teaching ethics. Our failings probably make the classes more real and interesting. And quite frankly if our profession is waiting for someone without sin to teach the subject, it missed its chance by about 2,000 years.
When I’m asked to include ethics in my leadership training or to simply present an eight-hour ethics course for a particular agency my first question is: “Will everybody of every rank attend?”
The answer I loathe is: “No, this is just for line-level officers.”
So I’ll say it clearly. If your organization is experiencing unethical behavior at the line-level, look up. All you have to do is read the papers or watch the news to see examples of the people at the top establishing the norm.
You can’t go a day without seeing some major example of someone in power avoiding responsibility and looking out for No. 1. Making excuses, pointing fingers, blaming others, screaming bias, refusing to admit mistakes, throwing people under the bus—all are the behaviors of preadolescents!
Why is it that elected officials, the political class, chiefs, sheriffs and so forth scream about ethics while violating the most basic of ethical tenants: “Do what is right at the right time.”
Here’s my take on two issues.
Ethical Responsibilities for Leaders
- Make their safety the top priority (let them know it & make them responsible for it also);
- Lead by example and walk your talk;
- Be involved and engage them as individuals (know them, their talent, their passions);
- If they’re wrong, then do what needs to be done: coach, counsel, train, discipline and, if need be, fire them!; and
- If they’re right—BACK THEM UP, no matter how that impacts your career.
Ethics Training
- Make it realistic, relevant, timely and current when it comes to ethical issues;
- Encourage and in fact demand discussion;
- All members of the organization, especially the bosses, need to be involved;
- Recognize that the word ethics is ambiguous, confusing and worthy of examination;
- Don’t bore them; and most importantly …
- Ethics training should be a constant and done daily in one form or another. It needs to be exemplified by leadership.
Conclusion
That’s the only way to change the culture. It can’t rely on an eight-hour-class. The true measure of ethics is when the leaders put their careers behind the ethical standards the organization claims to champion!
To me the biggest violation of ethics is the failure of leaders to take responsibility and do what they should know is right.
Is it more than lip service in your organization?