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    Source: The American Spectator, May, 1995
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                                 Photo-Op Cops
                               by John A. Barnes

         The day after the House of Representatives unexpectedly rejected
    President Clinton's gun-controlling, pork-laden crime bill last August,
    the president made a trip to Minneapolis in a desperate and ultimately
    successful effort to revive it. As the centerpiece of the visit, the
    White House wanted to repeat a trick that had worked well tor the admin
    istration in the past: pose the president in front of a wall of uni
    formed local police officers, symbolically backing the president's poli
    cies.

         The Minneapolis Police Department--which became a byword for "pro
    gressive" policing under the tenure of liberal activist ex-commissioner
    Anthony Bouza--sought to oblige. The call went out among off-duty offi
    cers for volunteers to pose in the photograph. Panic struck when the
    president arrived, and not enough volunteers had availed themselves of
    this opportunity to help Bill Clinton look tough on crime. On-duty offi
    cers, some assigned to the president's security detail, were then
    ordered to mount the platform and "fill in the gaps."

         "They cleaned the 'office rats' out of headquarters and ordered
    them out to the event to pose with the president," says Mike Sauro, a
    20-year veteran lieutenant who says he was fired from the force because
    of his outspokenness on this and other matters, and is suing to get his
    job back. "The whole thing was a sham. There isn't a real street cop
    that I know of in Minneapolis who supports Clinton. The guys with the
    desk jobs and the higher-ups might, but they're politicians themselves.
    Most of them do what they're told no matter what they really think."

         Police, of course, are not generally noted for their liberal polit
    ical sympathies. "Liberal cops exist only on 'Cagney and Lacey,'" was
    the assessment of one ten-year veteran of the New York Police Depart
    ment.

         The "wall of blue" tableau has been used so frequently by the Clin
    ton White House (which employed it yet again in February as House Repub
    licans began revising the crime bill) that more than a few observers
    have begun to wonder just how it is arranged. A little exploration rev
    eals the "wall of blue" to be what police officers call a "loaded
    lineup."

         One such lineup took place May 5, 1994, when the Clinton adminis-
    tration was pushing Congress to enact a ban on semi-automatic "assault
    weapons." Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen was on Capitol Hill lobbying
    for the bill, which eventually passed the House by two votes. He wanted
    some police officers--armed and in uniform--to pose with him and liberal
    Rep. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) for pictures.

         William K. "Smokey" Stover, long-time chief of the Arlington (VA.)
    Police Department, obliged. He asked for volunteers for an undefined
    "special detail" in Washington. Participants would be paid overtime for
    their services. Ten officers eagerly volunteered, some believing the
    event was connected with the upcoming annual "Police Week" gathering in
    Washington. The officers were dispatched to Capitol Hill where they were
    met by a lobbyist from the International Association of Chiefs of Police
    (IACP), which supports many gun control measures, including the assault
    weapons ban. The officers were then posed with Bentsen--and the results
    were everything the White House could have wanted. The "CBS Evening
    News" led off with the event that night, declaring that "cops came to
    hate assault guns [sicl and joined Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen
    today in a last-ditch bid to sway crucial votes."

         What viewers did not know was that many of the officers were see
    thing at having been used this way. Few of them, however, were willing
    to risk retaliation by speaking their minds. One who did so was Andrew
    Hays, who complained to the county government. Arlington County law pro
    hibits its employees from engaging in political activity. After a tense
    confrontation with Stover in Stover's office, Hays resigned from the
    department, and returned to his previous job as an airline pilot.
    Another Arlington officer, John Donaggio, has filed suit against the
    chief and remains on the force. Chief Stover compelled officer Donaggio
    to "further a political cause against his will," according to papers he
    has filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. The suit is pending.

         This is hardly the end of the story.  During President Clinton's
    efforts to resuscitate the crime bill last August, the White House
    called the Washington, D.C. city government and asked that twelve D.C.
    officers, in uniform, be sent to Capitol Hill to "answer questions" from
    members of Congress about the crime bill. From the context of the
    request, it is plain what sort of "answers" the White House was expect
    ing. Several of the officers, however, complained to their superiors
    that no one had even asked them their views of the legislation before
    sending them up to speak in favor of an assault weapons ban. When the
    twelve appeared on Capitol Hill, they were spotted by a passing D.C.
    Police Inspector, Thomas C. Hammett, who had not been let in on the
    political field trip and ordered them to return to patrol.

         Why do police chiefs and organizations such as IACP, the national
    leadership of the Fraternal Order of Police, and other law enforcement
    groups willingly participate in such events? The leadership of these
    organizations might genuinely believe that such legislation is in the
    interest of its members, of course. But there might be other reasons,
    financial and political, as well.

         Since 1986, the IACP has been the recipient of millions of dollars
    in grants from the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Programs.
    One grant, which was made in 1992 and ran until 1994, was for $750,000
    to study "community-oriented policing."

         "Most city politicians tend to be pretty liberal," says John Chap
    man, an out-spoken 15-year veteran former police officer in Killeen,
    Texas. Since he had been one of the first officers on the scene in 1991
    when a crazed gunman shot up Luby's Cafeteria, he has been much in the
    limelight, especially since the event was seized upon to build momentum
    for banning so-called assault weapons. Chapman's opinions did not jibe
    with those who saw the incident as a vindication of gun control. "Even
    though my fellow officers and many of my superiors supported my stance
    [against banning assault weapons], my perception of them changed. There
    were some supervisors who made my life miserable for some time."
    (According to Chapman, whenever he spoke in public on the issue, he was
    forbidden by his department from identifying himself as a Killeen police
    officer.)

         Only one organization, the Law Enforcement Alliance of America
    (LEAA)--which represents rank and file officers and supports the rights
    of gun owners, both police and civilian--has spoken out against the
    staged lineups. It has sought to publicize the pressures brought on
    police officers to participate in them, but has had only limited suc
    cess.

         "When our members lobby Congress or anyone else, we have to do it
    on our own time and in civilian clothes," says Ted Deeds, a spokesman
    for the LEAA. "As a result, the public just isn't aware that there are
    police officers out there--I think most of them--who support the pub
    lic's Second Amendment rights."

         With a new GOP Congress rewriting the crime bill, it seems few
    Americans were fooled. Certainly no police officers were. In late Febru
    ary, a white rookie police officer in Paterson, New Jersey, shot and
    killed a black 16-year-old suspected crack dealer who had been arrested
    for the first time when he was eight. The Clinton administration's
    response? It immediately dispatched a team of Justice Department lawyers
    to investigate possible civil rights violations. As one New York City
    police officer acidly observed, "That tells you what they really think
    about cops."

                                     * * *

         John A. Barnes is a national issues reporter in New York for
         Investor's Business Daily.
