
In a turnabout, police are the good guys in post-quake Haiti - DavidSJ
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012904144_pf.html
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koanarc
If a 7.0 magnitude quake hit Maricopa County, AZ, and a sizable percentage of
the local population was buried alive, the otherwise abominable cops there
might act like human beings, too, under the watchful eyes of the rest of the
world. From TFA:

"The foreigners need to understand the earthquake did the same thing to the
police it did to the population," said Antoine Franck, an officer on duty at
the Champ du Mars park. "My house fell down. I lost everything. Everyone's
house fell down. My dear brother's house fell down, and he is dead under
there. Every policeman has dead family."

When will we realize that when it comes to government, at any level, there are
no "good guys" or "bad guys"? There are only people, acting in their own
interest, as broad or as narrow as that may be. Sometimes -- more often when
we find ourselves in a national crisis -- we will act with compassion towards
one another.

All other things being equal, though, give a man a uniform, a loaded gun, the
security of the "blue wall of silence", and a judicial system inclined to take
him at his word no matter what (or worse, no effective judicial system at all,
as is the case in many countries), and you might as well just have gang rule.

It's great that the people with the "official" capacity to exercise force in
Haiti have opted to look out for their countrymen, rather than loot and
pillage. But let's not assume (one way or the other!) that, had there been no
disaster, they would be acting so nobly.

------
mynameishere
_the once notoriously corrupt Haitian National Police have been doing their
jobs and are keeping something approaching law and order in a capital of
chaos._

Blah blah.
[http://eastdallasblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/01/dallas...](http://eastdallasblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/01/dallas-
business-man-helping-at.html)

