Metroblogging contributor and occassional MnSpeaker JACC posts a very interesting story about a lawsuit against the Minnesota State Patrol: Have you heard about the latest lawsuit against the Minnesota State Patrol? It’s based on a checklist they created to determine if a Commercial Driver is fatigued and should be taken off the road.
On the surface this seems like a good idea, but there are some problems.
One problem is, The Department of Transportation already has rules and guidlines for determining what constitutes driver fatigue. A second problem is The Mn State Patrol created their own criteria and then attempted to keep it a secret.
2 Reader Comments
2:45 pm
The role of the police is enforce the law, not to “improvise” or to make it up as they go along. The fact the tried to keep this under wraps is rather damning — they knew they were in the wrong on this, no matter how good their intentions may have been.
4:16 pm
I agree. This is an example of the Bush-Cheney hangover we’ll be living for years to come, i.e. law enforcement taking matters into their own hands.
Law enforcement are civil servants; not God.