Lots of people probably missed it because it came out on Christmas Day, but Idaho was
in the national news again recently -- actually, the
Police Academy just up the road from me here in Meridian
made the news. Excerpt:
Idaho law enforcement leaders say they were "mortified" when a group of state police academy graduates chose a slogan that many felt was just too gung-ho.
The slogan, "Don't suffer from PTSD, go out and cause it," was emblazoned on the Dec. 14 graduation programs for 43 officers who completed the Idaho Police Officer Standards and Training Academy's latest course...
...Apparently, each class at the academy is allowed to vote on its own slogan.
The latest group, with officers bound for 19 police agencies around the state, included military veterans interested in issues such as mental survival.
"Our class president was ex-military," Black said. "It slipped in."
Lots of people have expressed extreme moral and righteous indignation, including commenters in
various newspaper forums and at least
one local blogger, who wrote:
The decision by the current class of the Police Academy to send a message that they’re sadists who want to afflict others with PTSD will only make their jobs harder when they get on the streets of Idaho’s city and towns.
Sorry, but I really don't think that local police officers are out there to hurt and abuse the law-abiding citizens of Idaho -- they're here to protect their communities. And I really don't think there are a bunch of law-abiding citizens who will no longer cooperate with the police because a class motto made it out into the civilian world. Maybe I've led a sheltered life, but I've never had a problem with police officers wanting to hurt me for no reason at all, and I don't think there is a huge problem with police going out of their way to pick on people just innocently living their lives. I mean, c'mon, it's a class slogan from a "boot camp"-style course of instruction -- no one takes those things seriously! No one, that is, I guess, except for people here in Idaho with way too much time on their hands and too little sense of
intentional irony. (Believe it or not, military people don't actually revel in causing unnecessary bloodshed and destruction, even if we joke about it once in a while.)
