Henry Nicolle
California state Citizen Candidate
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Revised 29 August
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Robertson Quote
Conflict of Purpose
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"You understand of course, that the law enforcement community does not view our statutes from the same perspective as did the Legislature when they wrote the law."
      Senior Deputy David Robertson - Chief of Records Division, Ventura County Sheriff, California

This comment was made during our conversation regarding Los Angeles judges defiant re-construction of the language of the Public Information Act in order to accommodate the desire of the Los Angeles Police Department to prevent release of records which were believed to incriminate Peace Officer of their command and provide exculpatory evidence for the plaintiffs in a police misconduct suit. Deputy Robertson excpressed no concern when I asserted that I would name him as the source of this quotation.

This is a single incident and a comment by only one person in government. But the point is well made. The internal communities of people in government hold their own purpose and welfare above their duty to obey our constitutions and laws. Their perspective has become "Us against Them", without regard to our purpose for their service. The result is their general abandonment of lawful conduct in public service and the adoption of extra-constitutional policies and extra-legal conduct which preserve personal unaccountable independence within their community. Unauthorized detentions, unnecessary interrogations and investigations, false arrests, false imprisonment, perjured reports and testimony, abuse during detention and incarceration and other criminal conduct are not perceived as contrary to public policy, because the conduct is inherent in the structure of their community.

For those who are a part of the communities that I criticize, and who may object that the perpetrators described by my comments are aberrations and are quickly weeded out when discovered, I reply that your argument is fatuous. Internal discipline is weak, and mostly applied only for egregious, repeated and offensive conduct. The community's propensity to overlook, deny or defend individual misconduct and criminality until it can no longer be hidden from public view is the standard and not the unusual. Unfortunately, this condition is rarely within the perception of those within the community.
 

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Contact Henry Nicolle:
Mail: c/o POB 5633 Ventura, California (93005) - -  Tel: 805-758-4446 - - e-Mail: henry@henrynicolle.org


Last Revision: 29 August, 2004