Lancaster Police Rookie Beats Teenager At Drinking Party

A new Lancaster NY police department employee decides he can beat the stew out of someone using the “I am a cop” theory. Here is a recent and obvious example of how the perfect storm of police misconduct occurs.

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First, a misguided young mind, barely old enough to know who and what he is, and more importantly, who and what he isn’t, realizes he can’t hack it in life on his own, and asks himself,

“What am I gonna do? I have to make a living, but I have no skills. I could break the law for a living but I might end up in jail, and, not having social skills either, I wouldn’t be able to hack jail. What will become of me?”

Then the light dawns.

“I know! I’ll become a police man and join a police department. I can break the law, get unearned consessions everywhere I go, drive my car too fast, intimidate people, have a license to kill, wear a uniform, (girls love that), and beat people up whenever I feel like it. And best yet, get paid! Where do I sign??”

Well, it isn’t too hard to find a police academy. The academy welcomes new recruits with open arms, and tells them everything they want to hear. The academy confirms the graduate can lie and cheat, even in court, steal the possessions and rights of others, and be adored for it. They can be assured they will always be believed. (Oh, and get paid too.) Hey, they will even get a title, “Officer”. Right up there with doctors, astronauts, and some Nobel Prize winners. The word “hero” may be rightfully bantered about in their presence. It is better than a TARP bailout.

What happens to these misguided individuals? Meet Andrew Gill, 23 mature years old, and, you guessed it, a cop. He’s still on job probation, with only a few weeks’ experience so far, but hey, close enough to strut one’s stuff. Located in Lancaster NY, Andrew went to a party on New Years Eve that was attended by some people who drank alcohol without the benefit of 21 years of previous life. Seeing the potential for applying an advantage, Andrew, with his Academy experience still fresh in his mind, stated to a fellow party goer:

“I’m a cop. I can kick your ass and get away with it!”

Brilliant. He is a credit to his daddy, who is also a cop, a lieutenant to be exact, and a role model to three-year-olds everywhere. This is what the Academy does to recruits. Take a confused and underdeveloped mind off the street and give it an attitude, a gun, a TASER and a false sense of importance, put a uniform on it, and send it out there to make a living as a hero. That’s just great.

After verbally introducing his superiority to the victim during a drinking game, and observing the victim retreat without offering a retort, Andrew Gill followed him to the other side of the room where, again calling on his extensive vocabulary as provided by the Academy, stated, “I’ll kill you!”. A beating commenced. The victim, knowing that Andrew Gill was in fact a cop, offered no physical defense, and the condition of his face proves it. Andrew Gill meanwhile, remained unscathed.

While some events like this happen daily throughout the cop community, many of which are domestic violence, the real problem here is rarely addressed. Personality types that make the worst cop material are the ones most often attracted to the PD jobs. Further, police academies don’t know the good from the bad, they only know the willing and the anxious. In fact, PDs themselves are lowering standards for hiring new cops to create a more diverse looking department.

This really is the perfect combination of cop recruitment, training, and deployment, assuming we want to see a disaster movie come to life. First, unemployment is high, and cities and towns are being inundated with young, substandard mentalities looking for a job. Second, the Academy is the fertile farmland for bad police, and their crop cycle is only a few weeks in length. Third, PDs hire and equip academy graduates with deadly weapons and misunderstood authority. Disaster ensues. This serves no one well.

A Civilian Review Board needs to look at the training methods if they ever want to sculpt a working police department. When a machine produces bent, broken, and defective parts, it is the machine’s fault. We must address the academy’s training manual before we blame the cops who have been duped into a job that never was their calling. Don’t expect the police department to review the Academy training methods. The citizen must do it.