One of the things I love to write about most is the double-standard of treatment for we “mere citizens” and our brothers and sisters in law enforcement. The reason is simple.

The mere presence of a stripe down your leg, regardless of that stripe’s color, inevitably means those wearing the stripes are treated far differently than those of us without them.

It’s a double-standard and it simply must stop.  If it is a crime for a mere citizen then it’s a crime for a police officer too.  Plain and simple.

Ottawa Police Service Constable Christian Nungisa’s story is rather incredible though, even I must admit.

Constable Nungisa managed to do pretty much everything wrong and compounded his errors with even more stupidity as time went on.

Recently Ottawa Police Service Constable Christian Nungisa apparently went out and got really, really drunk recently in Kingston, Ontario.  So drunk he couldn’t remember where he parked his car.

When he finally woke up and couldn’t find his car he called the Kingston Police and reported his vehicle stolen.  The problem is that  Constable Nungisa had stored all his “use of force options” in his personal vehicle, including his service pistol.

Turns out his vehicle wasn’t stolen at all and Constable Nungisa managed to find it some time later.  He failed to report that fact to Kingston Police, however, who found his “stolen” vehicle and pulled it over, only to find Constable Nungisa at the wheel.

Wow.

When he finally returned to Ottawa he handed his service pistol to some third party to store instead of returning it to where it belonged, his locker at his Ottawa Police Service detachment.

Wow again!

So imagine, if you will, what would happen to a mere citizen who went out, got so wasted they couldn’t find their car, all while leaving a handgun in their personal vehicle and they reported this to police.

First, a search warrant would be issued for the person’s home.  That warrant would be executed by, in all probability, a SWAT team and all his firearms would be seized.  So would anything else the cops felt could be used to charge that person with a crime.

Second, their firearms license would be revoked.

Third, they would face charges of unsafe storage of firearms.  Should anything else be found the police thought was evidence of a crime the individual would face charges for that as well.

Fourth, they would spend a small fortune defending themselves in court and should they be fortunate enough to prevail in court, they would then face another long battle to get their firearms back.

Should they be found guilty they would also face a Firearms Prohibition Order of between 2 years and the rest of their life, depending on how the judge felt about someone going out to get really drunk while leaving handguns in their car.

That’s what you face as a mere citizen.  That’s NOT what you face when you’re a member of the striped leg club.

Ottawa Police Service Constable Christian Nungisa is currently suspended with pay, or what I prefer to call a paid vacation, for an indefinite period of time.

That is a glorious double-standard, isn’t it?  Constable Christian Nungisa faces no criminal charges and receives a suspension from active duty while retaining his full paycheck.

He’s rewarded with a paid vacation of indeterminate length.

It’s offensive.

The most egregious case of this police paid vacation stupidity is, of course, RCMP Corporal Monty Robinson.  Monty Robinson went a full 4 years without working and received his full salary the entire time.

Did I mention offensive?

If a cop has done something to warrant a suspension his paycheck should be suspended too.  Otherwise all you do is reward bad cops and encourage further bad behaviour.