Bloggers have reacted with rage to a Washington Post op-ed by a Los Angeles cop, Sunil Dutta, under the headline, “I'm a cop. If you don't want to get hurt, don't challenge me.” “Here is the bottom line,” Dutta writes, “if you don't want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you. Don't argue with me, don't call me names, don't tell me that I can't stop you, don't say I'm a racist pig, don't threaten that you'll sue me and take away my badge. Don't scream at me that you pay my salary, and don't even think of aggressively walking towards me.”
Writing in Salon, Joanna Rothkopf called the attitude “outrageous.” She said, “The problem with institutionalized positions of authority is exactly what Dutta accidentally demonstrated — individuals in dominant social positions think that they are absolved of any criminal or otherwise malevolent impulse just because of their title.” In Gawker, Jordan Sargent called Dutta’s argument “purely insane.” He writes, “Cops can deal with hurt feelings without beating people up, just like the rest of us.” At Reason, J.D. Tuccille writes that cops are not owed deference. “The law enforcement problem in this country goes well beyond boys with toys,” he writes. “It’s much deeper, and needs to be torn out by the roots.”