This one's a tough one.
In addition to New Orleans losing their police chief, it was announced that 249 police officers who walked off the job in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will face special tribunals.
Many of their fellow officers consider them traitors. When the moment of truth came, the ones who were the cowards were nowhere to be found.
Some of the officers are dead; some are still missing; others have turned up alive and well; some couldn't handle it. According to Mayor Nagin and other officials, each case will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
On one hand, you can't help but feel for what was going on down there. On the other hand, their fellow officers and many New Orleans residents needed them badly, and they did not answer the call.
They betrayed their oaths as police officers. Those oaths were not simply words to be discarded when the going got tough, and hopefully the tribunal will remember that when dealing with the ones who were legitimate cowards.
1,300 officers chose their duty first, then their families. Or they managed to balance their family's needs with their duties as police officers. The deserters chose not to follow that same path, and for that, they SHOULD face punishment for abandoning their posts.
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