Tolerance is not enough, you must submit

[TitanTiger 20,482]

Didn't this officer join the team knowing that he would be asked to participate in functions that the group participates in? I'll admit that the Chief was a little fast on the trigger, yanking the guy's equipment, but he was a team member.

As I mentioned, something of this nature likely never came up before. When he signed up they probably typically rode in rather innocuous events like July 4th and Veterans Day parades and the like.

Again, this didn't have to be a big deal. His request was not unreasonable or something that created some great burden on the police department. It only became a big deal because his chief decided that the bigotry detector stick shoved up his butt had sounded off and he needed to bring the offending party to heel.

And it was a request. The chief jumped straight from "I can't fulfill this request" to "Simply for asking such a thing, you are now branded as a bigot that can't be trusted to perform the duties of a police officer."

Like I said. I don't think we are getting the full story.

This reminds me of when the "helper dog" story was first coming out.

The difference being, the "helper dog" story came out within 2 hours of the incident. We're barely past a week since that happened and there has been a response.

This issue with the SLC police officer happened in June 2014. The police dept side has been the only one talking for 8 months. The officer in question just resigned and moved on until a newspaper investigation uncovered his identity. So he finally gave his side of events.

Well, I know you are wanting to see this the way it's being portrayed, but it sounds fishy to me.

If the policy of providing "drill team" shows exists and the "Gay Pride" parade qualifies, then the guy should certainly have been removed from the motorcycle squad. But to fire an otherwise good officer for this alone, doesn't sound right. I suspect it's more likely being used as an excuse to get rid of him.

Anyone who would take a moral stand on something like this likely has other issues. Course, that's just my opinion.

Well, as he said, it's not like he asked to be excused from serving on parade duty at all. He just requested to be moved to something more in line with traditional police responsibility on the parade. The man doesn't read like some raving loony and it's not like Deseret News is some hard-right ultra conservative hyperventilating blog site.

[TitanTiger 20,482]

Here are stories from the time of the incident.

The SLPD says he was placed on leave for "refusing" the assignment:

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58036918-78/jones-officer-police-officers.html.csp

The officer's lawyer responds, and says he never refused, he requested reassignment and would have participated if they ordered him to. But the SLPD suspended him instead. So he resigned:

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58050771-78/parade-officer-rawson-police.html.csp

Then he went on with his life. He didn't sue. He didn't grandstand. Only when he was about to be named anyway did he speak out.

Sorry, that doesn't read like a guy with some track record of bad work history or being a kook.