However, if police policy on undercover officers has some publicly-known constraint that doesn’t apply to the people that they are aiming to impersonate, one has an easy litmus test for whether someone is a police officer or not.
It’s not like gangs are like “commit sexual assault or we’re going to shoot you for being a cop.”
Doesn’t mean that the officer is going to be shot, but they might not be trusted by whoever they’re trying to investigate.
All that being said, this is just in the abstract. I don’t have any idea of whether it’s warranted in this situation. But it’s going to be something to keep in mind when designing policy for undercover officers – one cannot permit for that easy litmus test to exist.
We don’t need to be abstract, because these police have been accused of sexual assault. If you need to sexually assault someone to catch the bad guys, you’re the bad guys.
Sure.
However, if police policy on undercover officers has some publicly-known constraint that doesn’t apply to the people that they are aiming to impersonate, one has an easy litmus test for whether someone is a police officer or not.
Doesn’t mean that the officer is going to be shot, but they might not be trusted by whoever they’re trying to investigate.
All that being said, this is just in the abstract. I don’t have any idea of whether it’s warranted in this situation. But it’s going to be something to keep in mind when designing policy for undercover officers – one cannot permit for that easy litmus test to exist.
We don’t need to be abstract, because these police have been accused of sexual assault. If you need to sexually assault someone to catch the bad guys, you’re the bad guys.
I don’t think there’s ever the case where sexual assault should be sanctioned or warranted. None. Zero.