I am at odds with PBA President Patrick Lynch’s opinion on field sobriety testing of officers involved in a shooting. He sites constitutional grounds of unreasonable search and seizure and in effect likens an officer's need for reasonable suspicion to test a motorist for intoxication to being tested after a shooting. The distinction I see is that an officer is sworn to uphold the law, and we as citizens are expected to obey it. If the law states that officers must succumb to these required tests, then as sworn officers, they must uphold it. Heroics aside, police shootings are not the norm of everyday police work. Hence, the pulling and firing of a gun for law enforcement purposes must be held to a higher scrutiny, as would be, a crash investigation is to a routine drive home from work. Many people drink and engage in their jobs; police officers are no different and may in fact have a higher penchant/propensity for drinking as a result of the work they do.
I support the departments plan to test officers immediately after a shooting.
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