News-Record.com

Thank you, Representative Blust, for taking a stand on this issue. I agree with you completely.

And I am sad that you don't represent my district anymore.

I agree with John Blust 100%+. There is no room for a secret police. Oppressive nations hold control over the citizens with an iron fist of fear with the secret police.

After a career in law enforcement both sworn and unsworned, I have the highest respect for all law enforcement. I have total disrepect for anyone in the profession that uses their position of power for selfish personal gain.

I have found the Greensboro Police Department has some of the highest values a department can posses. The standards for GPD are equally high. But, I have identified some problems, as well.

First of all, it seems that the rank and file of the officers fear for their positions. They are always guarded on what they say and what they do. It seems that they feel they are being judged negatively, no matter what they do. Not only by the public, but even by their fellow officers. Valor and heroism are being judged as recklessness and stupidity??

Here's a personal perspective that occurred when I was hosting the TV show Piedmont Crime Control. I would give out information on a wanted local fugitive with a photo of the creep. Someone would call Greensboro's Crimestoppers with information on the bad guys whereabouts. When they told the person at CS that they saw the TV show, they were then told that CS did not work with PCC. They would have to call PCC directly. During this lapse in time and coordination, several bad guys either slipped thought the net, or they were free long enough to commit new crimes. I could share several times this happened, including a case where the bad guy committed a murder during the several days that I was trying to get GPD to act on the information we were supplying. We finally got him apprehended and he is doing a life sentence. I believe that an innocent victim would be alive today if they had acted 3 days earlier. This has certainly left me with a personal bitterness that I failed the community. And, this attitude was one of the reasons we stopped doing the TV show.

The purpose of this comment, in my perspective, is that the individual workings of GPD fear total openness and working with anyone outside the confines of the police department.

It seems to me that from the Chief down, everybody's job is at risk and on the line if they open up, even slightly. As a result, we get "lip service" and a feeling that the police are holding back. The Dog's outa here.
Crime Dog

Since when is one obligated to disprove allegations?

I don't like what's going in Greensboro- the perception of malfeasance is there, and the allegations made by Bledsoe are well-reasoned and certainly might have merit, but they're being promulgated by noted muckrakers in a tabloid that makes no claim to fair-minded journalism. Now, here we have a man who makes laws indicating his impatience with due process and insisting government trot forth rebuttals to as-yet unadjudicated allegations.

Responses of that nature inflame inuendo, not douse it. Ask Roger Clemens about that. He certainly would have been well advised to respect his own rights and kept his yam shut.

Blusty's a lawyer. What I'm reading here is a contradiction of Constitutional ethos.

Maybe Raleigh's too close to Durham. Seems you've stepped in a pile of Nifong along your power-walking route, JB.

Wow, some actual calm and reason from somebody!! It's absolutely ridiculous to say that anyone has to answer to unsubstantiated claims from a weekly rag that adheres to only the lowest of journalistic principles. Anything showing up in that printed rumor mill is a one sided and highly politically biased slant on almost every issue. There is accuracy is some of the information, and I agree with the general sentiment in a wide array of stories that show up in the Rhino. I do not, however, fool myself at all by thinking that any of it is strictly unbiased investigative journalism. It is simply one big op/ed section pieced together with whatever side of the story that supports the editor. Everyone who claims that the Rhino or Jerry Bledsoe is uncovering vast corruption and stomps their feet for action is just another lemming jumping over the edge of reason.

The vast majority of officers think that the department would be a lot better off if the current and former co-workers on BOTH sides of these issues were not around anymore. Maybe that's why officers don't talk so much in person about it, because there is nothing good to say about either side.

unbiased, have you even READ Bledsoe's articles?

"Those who demand open government cannot simply be dismissed as 'naysayers.' Advocating for open government is a positive thing.

And yet we continue to hear the regurgitated line from the Enablers on the City Council, backed up by the Deniers/"Business As Usual" crowd:

"If you only knew what we knew about David Wray".

That's totally unacceptable.

Thanks for putting a clear perspective on this issue, John. We've come to depend on you to provide that.