The Kentucky State Police are taking heat from their presence at a church on Easter Sunday and the media accounts along with the so called outrage that has followed are calling the police everything from the example of a police state to leading christian persecution.
The incident on Sunday began days earlier when Maryville Baptist Church Pastor Jack Roberts defied an order by Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear that prohibited mass gatherings.
Roberts argued that he had a constitutional right to continue church services in person. Dozen of families attended the Easter service.
Media outlets along with social media personalities pointed to a “notice” placed on the cars at church by the Kentucky State Police as examples of enforcement action by law enforcement.
Author of “The Courageous Police Leader: A Survival Guide for Combating Cowards, Chaos & Lies” and National Trainer Travis Yates noticed the outrage early Sunday but as he told us the actual details of the “notice” were missing from all of the outrage.
“I wouldn’t call it fake news but it’s just the way that the majority of news is operated today,” Yates told us.
“The news media uses emotion and outrage to make money. The more clicks and the more engagement they can create, the better for them but a half truth is not the truth and until law enforcement realizes this, they will continue to be at the losing end of these stories”, Yates told us.
Yates gives three pieces of advice to law enforcement leaders in the wake of COVID-19 and some of the stories that have emerged across the country with law enforcement intervening in the wake of stay at home orders across the country.
First, Yates says that there is a stark difference in law enforcement enforcing rules versus laws.
“The unfortunate truth is law enforcement was not prepared for the role they were thrown in following this pandemic. That is no excuse but it is patently unfair to blame line officers without the accountability being placed on police leadership and the politicians that oversee law enforcement”, Yates says.
Yates says that law enforcement has always played a role in enforcing rules. Citing examples such as asking citizens to get in their correct seat at sports events, Yates said that rules imposed on citizens during this pandemic should be met with requests and education and in extreme circumstances turned over to civil authorities.
Yates tells us that law enforcement is placing themselves in a bad position both in potential litigation but also with public opinion by taking a criminal stance against rules.
“Arrests or citations given by law enforcement should be for crimes and while there have certainly been instances of citizens committing crimes in recent weeks, we have seen far too many police officers treating the civil action by government officials as a crime,” according to Yates.
In the case of the incident involving the Kentucky State Police, the blame they have taken is uncalled for and after examining the order, Yates calls it completely appropriate although without any response from that agency when the outrage happened, Yates says that he doubts that the truth or the facts could ever be won by law enforcement in the court of public opinion.
The troopers placed notices under cars’ windshield wipers that say, in part, “This vehicle’s presence at this location indicates that its occupants are present at a mass gathering prohibited by Orders of the Governor and the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. As a result, this vehicle’s occupants, and anyone they come into contact with, are at risk of contracting COVID-19, a respiratory illness that can be severe and lead to death, particularly for older adults and those with underlying heart, lung, kidney and immunity issues.”
As Yates told us, the intent of this notice was educational. There were no citations issued, no arrests and church attendees were not even contacted by law enforcement and for that reason, Yates wants to see plans in departments to take “law enforcement” officers out of participating in the enforcement of civil orders when there is no need for law enforcement to be there.
“If there is not a possibility that someone is committing a crime and it is educational in nature, we are placing law enforcement in a bad spot and we saw that today in Kentucky,” Yates said.
According to Governor Beshear, the license plate information will be forwarded to local health departments, which will then present orders to self-quarantine for 14 days at the car owners’ homes.
Yates acknowledges that law enforcement has not gotten everything right in the last month in regard to this pandemic but to compare an education flyer on the cars at churches along with letting the health officials know about the situation is a far cry from church persecution or the gestapo actions that have been leveled by some.
Governor Beshear told WDRB that “people have focused on the license plates, but all I’m trying to do is say if you make the decision to go to a mass gathering, your decision should stay with you…….If you put yourself at risk, fine. Just self-quarantine for 14 days. I know some people might disagree with it. And it sounds however it sounds. But they don’t have to read out the number of deaths every day. They don’t have to do that. And while this is a worldwide pandemic, I feel responsible for those deaths, for better or worse.”
Yates calls on law enforcement to train their officers in the different actions that are acceptable in responding to “rule violations” versus “crime violations” and says that law enforcement leaders can no longer let the media or social media trolls direct the narrative.
“It really is unacceptable that the Kentucky State Police did not inform the citizens prior to their action or when the outrage broke on why they were doing it. Citizens are fearful and the more information we can give them on why we are doing what we are doing, the better,” claims Yates.
In closing, Yates does take issue with the last statement on the flyer: “Please be advised that KRS39A.990 makes it a class A Misdemeanor to violate an emergency order.”
Saying that this is a true statement in many states, it was inappropriate to place that statement on the notice.
According to Yates, “Here you have the police doing this the right way. They are educating the citizens to the danger being created and 99% of that flyer is appropriate and all of it ruined with one last sentence that comes across to citizens that police are going to arrest individuals for going to church. That simply was not true. The Kentucky State Police had no intention to enforce anything criminal and they acted accordingly but someone, somewhere thought that last sentence was a good idea.”
Unfortunately, law enforcement doesn’t get the grace of other professions. One officer in one city makes a bad decision and it falls on every cop in the country.
Our profession needs to learn from this. Our leaders need to lead and our politicians quite frankly need to get out of telling law enforcement what to do.
The Kentucky State Police were right but no one will ever believe it. That should be the true outrage.