Who are you to be questioning us? Is anybody shocked the attitude exists?

I have written about enough governmental entities throughout the years to know that officials really don’t like being questioned.

Questioning the coppers? None of ya bizness!

By anybody! About anything!

SO I CAN’T say I’m shocked to learn of the Chicago Tribune report detailing how the Chicago Police Board did a pseudo-investigation about everyone who, in the mindset of the coppers, had the nerve to think they could speak out at their public meetings.

Those laws requiring that governmental entities do their business in public? That doesn’t really mean people are enthused about the possibility of having their actions scrutinized. Or as one-time Mayor Richard M. Daley once put it, “Go scrutinize yourself. I get scrootined every day.”

In fact, I don’t doubt that police in particular don’t want anybody else looking all that closely to the ways and means by which they enforce the laws. Which, sadly enough, are just like sausages – it would sicken you to know some of the things that occur in the name of justice.

So according to the Tribune, it seems that some 60 people who filed the requests to speak before the Police Board were actually investigated prior to being permitted to speak.

THE POLICE KNEW in advance if there was anything they could use against the individuals who wanted to speak out against police practices. I suspect that in their mindset, they were prepared to arrest anyone who tried to speak out – if they could get “the goods” on them to back up a charge.

And then we wonder why some people are less-than-trusting of law enforcement personnel in general, and uniformed police officers in particular.

The Tribune actually pointed out that the 60 people whom they found were investigated date back to 2018, but found officials admitting that the background checks, which is how police prefer to think of them, actually date back years further.

It reeks of intimidation, almost as though people are supposed to know better than to want to question the police. Which actually reminds me of a Cook County sheriff’s deputy I once knew who complained about how some officers took their authority far too seriously.

AS I REMEMBER him asking theoretically, “Who really polices the police? It’s nobody.”

Although like I said, it seems public officials in general really don’t care for scrutiny.

I remember one board of education I used to write about on a regular basis that always made a point of publicly disclosing every single person who sought information through the Freedom of Information Act, which is supposed to be about making the details of government operations easier to obtain.

But instead, this school board viewed it as a trouble-maker list; those people who had the nerve to think they were entitled to find out what was really happening. Just think how dangerous those people would have been if they had police powers just like the coppers themselves?

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