Follow up to THIS STORY – Confirming the Alabama cop didn’t protect himself against the beating by the suspect because he didn’t want to be the next Darren Wilson.

…”A lot of officers are being too cautious because of what’s going on in the media.” “I hesitated because I didn’t want to be in the media like I am right now.”…

alabama cop1(CNN)  A Birmingham, Alabama, police detective who was pistol-whipped unconscious said Friday that he hesitated to use force because he didn’t want to be accused of needlessly killing an unarmed man.
“A lot of officers are being too cautious because of what’s going on in the media,” said the officer, who asked to remain anonymous for the safety of his family. “I hesitated because I didn’t want to be in the media like I am right now.”
Details of last week’s incident in the Birmingham enclave of Roebuck remain sketchy — such as how did the suspect get the officer’s weapon — but the six-year police veteran said he didn’t shoot the man who attacked him during a traffic stop because of the outcry surrounding a spate of police shootings nationally.
“We don’t want to be in the media,” he said. “It’s hard times right now for us.”

Heath Boackle, a sergeant with the Birmingham Police Department and president of the city’s Fraternal Order of Police, said Thursday that cops are “walking on eggshells because of how they’re scrutinized in the media.”

“We should be thanking the good Lord because he could be dead right now.,” Boackle said of the detective who was beaten.

Police Chief A.C. Roper sees the episode — as well as the reaction, including celebratory and vitriolic comments posted online alongside images of the wounded officer — as symptomatic of a larger problem, in which some don’t respect law enforcement.

“The nobility and integrity of policing has been challenged,” Roper said. “As a profession, we have allowed popular culture to draft a narrative which is contrary to the amazing work that so many officers are doing everyday across this nation.”  (read more)

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