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Arizona Cop Who Encouraged Shooting Obama Claims It is a Victimless Crime
Pat Shearer, the Arizona police officer who posted a photo of an Obama t-shirt riddled with bullet holes is claiming encouraging violence against the president is a victimless crime.
After Officer Shearer posted this photo of seven young men with guns holding up a bullet hole filled Obama t-shirt with the caption, “Another trip to the ranch” to his Facebook page on January 20, the Secret Service launched an investigation. It was only after the Secret Service began looking into the matter that Shearer took the photo down.
What was Shearer’s punishment?The former Sgt. Shearer was demoted, and now works the graveyard shift beside his former subordinates.. He was also given a two week suspension, but Shearer’s mind this is all excessive punishment.
Stunningly Shearer thinks his punishment is excessive because in his mind no one was hurt, “I was an idiot for putting it on Facebook, but to have all the pluses in my career forgotten over this one incident, which harmed no one, I think, is taking things too far," said Shearer, who in 2007 received a departmental medal of honor for extraordinary courage and has multiple other positive commendations and citations reflected in his personnel file.”
Shearer was punished for discrediting the department and exhibiting poor judgment, which is a bit of an understatement when a law enforcement officer who has taken an oath to protect and serve the public posts an image that promotes violence against the President of the United States. The Peoria, AZ police department’s reaction to his appeal something like, “STFU, and consider yourself lucky that you weren’t fired.”
In the state where Gabby Giffords was shot, on the day of the special election to fill her seat, Pat Shearer is arguing that posting bullet riddled images of President Obama is a victimless crime. One might be tempted to chalk this one up to Arizona being Arizona, the state that has given the nation papers please immigration laws, and you might be a Kenyan if, you are the nation’s first black president and you are trying to get on our ballot, but Shearer’s thought process is prevalent throughout the right.
To many on the right, it is fine to promote violent language and imagery against the president, so long as nobody actually gets shot. It’s just talk, right? They put a tea bag on their heads, wrap themselves in the flag and shout about the First Amendment, all the while ignoring the fact that words have consequences.
Subtle and not so subtle encouragements of violence against the president may not be a crime, but Pat Shearer all of his fellow right wingers will all be culpable if/when the violence occurs.
Image: Phoenix New Times Blogs
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32 Responses to Arizona Cop Who Encouraged Shooting Obama Claims It is a Victimless Crime
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Ned Champlain
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 12:04 pm
Well when his job is eliminated to balance the budget, I won't count him as enemployed, just stupid
sam
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 12:11 pm
He should have been fired. The idiot.
Debbie Perry
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 1:46 pm
Sam, I agree with you!
j
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 12:37 pm
When did it become acceptable for a public employee to be this
disgusting about the president?
KarenJ
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 12:37 pm
Every one of those moronic kids should have been assigned to public service for a year taking care of brain damaged people who've survived gunshot wounds to the head…
Vernette Griffee
Jun. 13th, 2012 at 12:48 am
KarenJ, I like the way you think! It's beyond me how these people walk and talk and drive cars with their heads up thier rears!
Reynardine
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 12:54 pm
This misses a point. It’s not the President himself who will ever wear this kind of T-shirt. It’s the rank-and file campaign workers and Obama voters. Are these the targets such “boys” are being conditioned to hit?
Jo Hargis
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 7:06 pm
Exactly, therein lies the problem. Out of rage toward Obama, some nutjobs will take it out on Obama supporters or lower level legislators (like Giffords) because they cannot *get* to the president.
Personally, he should have been fired imo also. He got a lucky break, now he should shut his mouth.
Reynardine
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 9:30 pm
It’s a mistake to think the campaign workers and Obama supporters are displacement targets. They’re the primary targets. All it takes is a couple of T-shirt wearers (and bumper-sticker drivers, and sign-displayers) getting shot, and partisan advocacy on the Democratic side will be dampened considerably. The meek only inherit the earth when it’s six feet under.
Dismissia
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 1:01 pm
Hey there is a poll on Yahoo: www.yahoo.com/ (bottom of page on the right) in regards who would we vote for right now for President of the United states. Romney is winning the poll, over 81,000 votes completed so far. Get the word out, we need to show our support! I have been seeing these polls everywhere, and Mitt is always winning, where is our VOICE? VOTE!
JJM
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 3:28 pm
Yahoo's website is the absolute land of wing-nuttery.
Dale Thomas
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 7:03 pm
I'm glad somebody else sees that. Yahoo itself is too. They do a good job of making their fascist commentaries look like legit news. NOthing but negative stuff about Obama
Jo Hargis
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 7:21 pm
Heck, I have to get out the hand sanitizer to even GO to a yahoo political page. Ugh. Not counting true-red republican websites like Breitbart, etc., I consider Yahoo second only to the White House thread in trashiness. I wish the WH thread would use a moderator, but I understand why they don't. The nutjobs would cry and whine about bias.
Sally
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 1:01 pm
So I guess Palin's bullseyes over Gifford's district, with her name in bold print, was also a victimless crime? Until she was almost killed. These men have no business in law enforcement. None. He and Arpaio need to go.
Keith Walsh
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 1:14 pm
FIRE the idiot!
Debbie Perry
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 1:45 pm
This ass, a supposed pillar of the community is teaching our children what? He taught them that he's an asshole.
Shiva (Moderator)
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 1:46 pm
the right wing nut job method of thinking. wishing they were back in the 1820s when everyone had a gun and you could shoot anyone you want.
Reynardine
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 1:48 pm
Well, as long as they were black.
PR_one
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 3:27 pm
Now if this "peace" officer had been a Muslim we can all be sure that he would be facing terrorism charges along with his terrorist cell.
JJM
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 3:29 pm
I recall when even the whiff of a threat of violence against the President of the United States was a severely punished offense. But I guess IOKYAR.
Charles
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 4:35 pm
Should have fired him…
Idrea
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 7:05 pm
I don’t give a rat’s a** how this SOB tries to justify his crime of HIGH TREASON. Wake up everybody!
Mags
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 8:18 pm
I think he was dealt with leniently. It is a federal offense to merely threaten the life of the President, even if no one is ever hurt. If the shoe was on the other foot, he offender would be in jail and this cop would be advocating severe punishment. He should be down on the ground thanking the Lord that he still has a job, isn’t
Stuffed in a prison somewhere on a high bail, and facing Federal charges.
Joe Justice
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 8:25 pm
So hate speech from the pulpit toward homosexuals that has encouraged drunk young men to commit murder to prove to their friends how straight they really are by how much they hate gays and to what extent they are willing to go to demonstrate their hatred. We in the gay community have been telling people for decades how the victimless act of hate speech can have some horribly vile consequences. Nice to see when it starts affecting our favorite candidate it’s finally getting some traction in the media. But, our deaths have always been easy to ignore as not impacting anyone in your world. Wake up. Hate speech hurts us all and it needs to be outlawed regardless of any religious convictions or free speech protections. If you advocate or intimate that another person or a group of people are worth killing because of who they are, then fines to start and jail terms if anyone appears to have acted on your words. Make people take oersonal responsibility for what they are saying. Period.
A Walkaway
Jun. 12th, 2012 at 9:56 pm
I read this, and think about the fact that one of the "Christian" groups, through their "Good News Clubs", is planning on having a theme for their after-school meetings this fall: The Biblical justification and reasons for killing unbelievers.
The closer we get to the election, the more I worry for our president and about the dominionists/Tea Party.
Reynardine
Jun. 13th, 2012 at 12:26 am
It is getting creepy. The approach to the upcoming election feels like flying on a tobaggon towards a brick wall.
A Walkaway
Jun. 14th, 2012 at 11:21 am
A toboggan with a suicidal nutcase at the controls and no brakes.
SinghX
Jun. 13th, 2012 at 8:27 am
Arizona used to be a nice place to live…used to be lots of neighborhoods around both 2 major cities and the small towns (like Sedona, Flagstaff, Prescott) where large neighborhoods resembled Berkeley, CA.; some still do and are "quiet" due to the dirt bags, mostly low level drug dealer/crack trailers are allowed to roam the country side freely.
In Maricopa County (5th largest in the US, patrolled by Shar'iff Jo-Sama) the child protective service have been trumped; it is not "legal" to remove a child from an environment if the parents have a drug (or alcohol) induced "lifestyle"…why you may ask? Because, about 10 years ago, it was determined that if you had to remove ALL the children under the age of 12 in Maricopa County. and, put them in another home (foster or other wise), it would take 2 years just to remove ALL of them…mind you, that was over 10 years ago when that decision was made…in other words, if CPS/DPS can't find the crack lab, the kids aren't showing bruises, it's are alright, they're just fine…like these find upstanding young men in the picture. And if CPS/DSP looks like they're moving in, they just move to one of the areas surrounding the little towns named above (or the ones right out side the county lines).
Ken
Jun. 13th, 2012 at 11:51 am
He should be bunkmates with Hinckley. Or Manson.
lois crank
Jun. 13th, 2012 at 6:03 pm
what a bunch of morons, grow up already. better yet, read a book.
thepoliticalcat
Jun. 16th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
Perhaps he would understand his egregious behaviour if someone published photographs of his children, their home phone numbers and addresses, with bullet-riddled pictures of them.
Somebody please send this moron a copy of 18 USC S871 and make him read it aloud with a dictionary so that he understands that there is a law against what he was doing, and that law provides for MUCH harsher penalties than he received. If he had any sense, he would keep his mouth shut and do his fucking taxpayer-funded job. Before somebody figures out that he’s supposed to be in jail.
Reynardine
Jun. 16th, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Thank you, Cat. I was familiar with the treason, sedition, and riot sections, but didn’t think of looking in extortion. Of course, get him on a second thing, you might have…¡ay, que RICO!