Homeless in Arizona

John S. Leonardo who is a United States Attorney for the District of Arizona sounds like one of the reasons the Founders gave us the 2nd Amendment.

In this editorial John S. Leonardo who sounds like he has been a life time government bureaucrat seems to be telling us we should always trust the government and the police.

Sadly all the smart crooks tend to understand that government is the one place they can get away with their crimes and they get jobs either as elected officials or cops. If you ask me a cop or an elected official is the last person on the planet you should blindly trust.

Yes, many times you gut feelings are wrong, but that doesn't mean the police and government shouldn't be forced on a daily basis to justify anything and everything they do.

If something a cop does sounds like it stinks, it probably will stink when it is closely examined.

Source

My Turn: Why you should never rush to judge a police shooting

John Leonardo, AZ I See It 4:29 p.m. MST October 6, 2016

U.S. Attorney: It's irresponsible to make a judgment hours or days after a police-involved shooting.

Far too frequently, encounters between police and community members have resulted in the officer or the community member being shot, sometimes fatally. This has led to an increasing erosion in this country of trust in the police by the communities they serve.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey have characterized this trend as a “slow rolling crisis.” It is a crisis because the police are the ones we have entrusted with ensuring the peace and keeping us safe — all of us, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity.

It does not bode well for any of us if we do not trust those sworn to protect us.

The reality is, the vast majority of law enforcement officers perform their jobs faithfully and honorably every day under incredibly difficult and dangerous conditions. A very few do not.

Unfortunately, the damage done by these few to community trust in and support for the police is incalculable.

But we must not allow the highly publicized misdeeds of a very few to overshadow the service of an overwhelming majority of law enforcement officers.

Why it's a mistake to assume

To assume the worst of the police whenever an incident occurs not only insults the commendable service of most police officers, but also undermines their ability to continue to do their jobs to protect us all.

The growing atmosphere of distrust can, in part, be attributed to a rush to judgment about police-involved shooting incidents by the news media, social media and some politicians.

Premature conclusions and speculation about what actually happened in these incidents, made within hours of their occurrence and often based on unreliable sources, are frequently inaccurate and inflammatory. The resulting agitation and passions sometimes overshadow the facts when they eventually do emerge after a full investigation.

We all want accountability. However, before we jump to conclusions about what happened, who is responsible and what the motivation may have been, it would be best for all of us to take a deep breath, suspend judgment and remind ourselves that we are a rule-of-law nation.

We have a well-established criminal justice system in this country devised to deal with the question of guilt and innocence. Remember that this system is designed to run its course not at the speed of a news cycle, but to operate thoughtfully, deliberately and impartially to achieve colorblind justice.

Don't weigh in on anything under investigation

While this system may not be perfect, it is remarkably and consistently fair and just. Even with all of its shortcomings, it remains the envy of the world.

When the shooter has perished — leaving no one to prosecute — let us await the complete report of trained, professional investigators before we decide who was at fault.

We cannot afford to allow race, a media frenzy based on speculation and misinformation, or political considerations to interfere with the systematic, thoughtful uncovering of the facts. The rule of law, at the core of our democracy, requires no less.

Public turmoil — fueled by suspicion, fear, racial resentment, frustration, anger and vengeance — only compounds the tragedy of these shootings.

Politicians and the media should not publicly and prematurely weigh in on the merits of any matter under criminal investigation.

During this week, which the president has designated National Community Policing Week, we should keep this perspective in mind as we continue to engage in a serious collective reflection on how we can strengthen trust between the men and women in blue and the communities they serve.

John S. Leonardo served as a Pima County Superior Court judge from 1993 to 2012, and has been the United States Attorney for the District of Arizona since July 2012. Follow on Twitter, @USAO_AZ.