![Medford cops pretend to arrest Hillary Clinton](https://universalhub.com/files/styles/main_image_-_bigger/public/images/2016/medfordyucks.jpg)
Screen captures by Joan Marshall.
UPDATE: Union president says it was just a joke, apologizes.
Today was the Haines Square Fall Festival in Medford and some members of the Medford Police Patrolmen's Association joined the festivities by "arresting" somebody in a Hillary outfit and palling around with a Trump pretender.
The union thought the photos were so funny they posted them to their Facebook page - until some gloomy Gusses started complaining about fairness and impartiality on the part of an armed constabulary, and so the union took down the photos.
Of course, this is the Internet and nothing goes away, including the photo on the left featuring union President Harold MacGilveray (the one on the right), which I know is him thanks to firing-squad lover Al Baldasaro.
@universalhub Here's a screenshot since they locked their FB account down. pic.twitter.com/dkYXnijbbi
— Mike Roberts (@ecopoesis) October 30, 2016
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Comments
As a cop, I'd guesstimate
By anon
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 8:24am
As a cop, I'd guesstimate that 90% of police officers don't vote democrat. I actually used to be very far left, but then I became a cop.
No preaching or politicking or anything, but I think it's because we see an ugly side of America that most people will never see. And it was enough to discourage me and make me go from liberal to moderate. If I were moderate to begin with, I'd probably be far right.
I truly feel that the Democratic Party is making this country more dangerous for police officers. But what's the alternative? A racist, sexist nutjob? Awful.
Depends where you work anon.
By Pete Nice
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 10:26am
I'd say the Boston police is 50/50. You also have to remember that veterans who work for the police are probably close to 100% Trump voters.
"far left"
By Cutriss
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 10:45am
That sounds highly suspect. Almost nobody ever says they are far-anything.
In the US, far-left basically means slightly left of center anyway.
Let's put this into perspective
By anon
Sat, 10/29/2016 - 10:58pm
This is probably NOT the only photo these officers took with community members. I'll take a wild guess, there are dozens of photos of them with others dressed up, however these just rubbed YOU the wrong way. (Community outreach much)!
I looked at your twitter and you seem to hold no grudge torwards the pics with the individual wearing the Trump mask. Though to your defense, the person with the trump mask was in a cheep suit not an orange jumpsuit and he's not under federal Investigation.
AND I AM IN NO WAY ENDORSING EITHER OF THESE @$$ HATS!
The issue isn't photos that didn't get posted
By adamg
Sat, 10/29/2016 - 11:44pm
The issue is that the president of the patrolmen's union chose these specific photos to post on his union's Facebook page. What does that say about him? No, I don't really care about them palling around with the faux Trump by itself; yes, I care about what men with guns are saying about "arresting" a political candidate.
The question is however
By anon
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 12:33am
Would you hold issue if said officers posed with BLM or some other organization which held views you agreed with. Probably not.
You're upset because you dislike the photo. How is this any different than say Kapernick kneeling?
You need to learn how analogies work
By adamg
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 12:54am
Ths things have to be comparable. Posing next to a Hillary in chains would only work with your analogy if the BLM people were also in chains (or in a chokehold). And, yeah, I'd look at that the same way.
Also, nlike football players, police officers can do things like arrest you. They have a far greater potential impact on somebody's life than a guy who throws a football for a living. That power brings a responsibility with it.
So analogies
By anon
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 1:04am
Are when you compare two similar things? I had no idea.
Do you have an issue with publicly funded teachers endorsing Hillary!
https://btu.org/legislation-politics/endorsed-cand...
What about teachers placing "no on 2" poster in school windows?
You have an issue because you hold different views.
Actually ...
By adamg
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 10:39am
I would have a problem with No on 2 signs in a school window - same as I did with the pro-charter people pulling kids out of class to lobby at the State House.
But a teacher on a corner is just different from a cop with a cuffed Hillary stand-in. One has a uniform and a gun and can arrest or shoot you . In an election in which one candidate has vowed to lock up his opppnent, that's not a good look.
Buy why are you still defending the Medford cops? The union president apologized. I'm willing to take him ay his word. You?
A man on national television
By anon
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 8:27am
A man on national television every single week not kneeling for the flag has a far greater impact and platform on EVERYONE's lives than a cop that you'll most likely never interact with.
He does kneel
By Michael
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 1:16pm
That's the problem. He's supposed to be standing, the same way you're supposed to be standing and looking at the flag instead of taking attendance of the players on the sideline
Oh please
By Anon
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 10:40am
Cops have greater impact than celebrities, especially star athletes? gaffin, are you for real?
The only misery Kaepernick can inflict on me is through the NFL
By Cutriss
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 11:02am
A cop can royally fuck up my life just because he doesn't like me.
Cops that have no problem taking public photos in uniform with a "Convict Hillary" are probably less inclined to be worried about whether or not I did something wrong if they decide that they don't like me and want to make my life miserable.
Kapernick
By anon
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 10:47am
He isn't required to follow the laws and regulations of public employees, last I checked.
I was staffing a neighborhood event, on duty, as a public employee yesterday. If I handed out campaign flyers or wore an inappropriate costume, or was at all involved in a "tar and feather Trump" skit, I would be fired or, at least, severely reprimanded and my union would not back me up.
Well
By Anon
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 12:40pm
The whole idea is to prevent those in a position of power from using that power to force their political views on others. Now, can you tell me with a straight face that a random cop has more influence on others than a major celebrity who could send millions of lemmings off a cliff with a single tweet? If you're calling for the heads of those cops, shouldn't we have a bowling party with a whole bunch of star athlete and celebrity heads at this point?
Except that the picture with
By anon
Sat, 10/29/2016 - 11:50pm
Except that the picture with Hillary was taken at a Fall Festival, not a Halloween event, and I don't recall anyone there that was in costume.
Really
By anon
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 12:50am
Its PC BS that makes them call it a "Fall Fest"; its Halloween weekend.
Tell me with a straight face you didn't see dozens of people in costume today.
Your PC is very FI (factually incorrect)
By SwirlyGrrl
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 12:53pm
That must be why the party in another area of the city was called the "West Medford Halloween Block Party".
Can you feel it?
By anon
Sat, 10/29/2016 - 11:06pm
Hillary is going to pull a Coakley.
Perhaps
By adamg
Sat, 10/29/2016 - 11:42pm
But that still wins over her opponent pulling a Goldwater.
Lets take a look at those poll and compare shall we?
By FredQuimby
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 2:31am
You seem to be under the impression that somehow Baker was behind in the polls and eked out a surprising win. That was never the case.
Here are the Baker/Coakley polls before the election.
RCP average poll of polls had Baker ahead by 3.7 points.
He won by 1.9 points
Baker was ahead of Coakley for just about all the campaign except where they ran about even in September and October.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2014/gover...
Now here are the Trump/Clinton polls one week before election
RCP average has Clinton ahead by 4.6 points
Clinton has been ahead just about the entire time of this election except for one week in July. She is more in common with Baker.
So your analogy is wrong to say the least.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/presi...
Coakley-Brown
By anonism
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 8:20am
, not Coakley-Baker, is what came to mind.
I never laughed so much at a candidate's loss. So VERY satisfying!
Clinton supporter here
By Edith
Sat, 10/29/2016 - 11:41pm
I chuckled.
no edith you dont get humor
By Scumquistador
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 1:36am
obviously you just dont understand it. this is a dire offense and is very much against ethics laws which are very clearly written but nobody seems to be able to provide!
For the federal government
By faegirl
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 7:31am
For the federal government employees like me, it is called the Hatch Act. We are not allowed to talk about our opinions about the election, wear political things to work, campaign while at work, or use our positions while campaigning to influence people.
This can be a very tricky law to stick to when you add in the public and the more public you add in, the harder it gets. Many people want to speak with me about the current election and I am unable to and they often get upset over their perceived curtailing of my 1st amendment rights or that I obviously don't support their candidate. One woman told me once how she hoped that a candidate would lose and was insulted when I told her that I couldn't discuss it with her because I could lose my job.
Hmm
By cybah
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 7:41am
Does that apply to all agencies? I have some friends who work for the fed who are pretty out spoken about their political leanings. (One, so much so, I had to block his crap from my feed.. he was doing it so much!). I know this one department is pretty lax when compared to other parts of the fed. (so yeah it's not the FBI, CIA, IRS, etc)
Different agencies have
By faegirl
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 9:23am
Different agencies have different rules about everything, which is why it is so hard to keep them straight! haha. Each agency within the government has a different culture, as well, so some things are tolerated in one more so than another.
If it is on your own time, you can do whatever you want on your facebook/twitter feed. Also, if you don't represent the gov thru that feed you can do different things.
If you are politician, obviously you have different rules about talking about politics than a person who works in an office or with the public.
Can confirm
By Cutriss
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 11:11am
This applied to my wife working for the USACE, which falls under the DOD. I quailed about it at first when I first learned about it. There's basically an explicit exception you have to agree to on hire which has all manner of anti-first amendment provisions in it. This was a long time ago so I don't recall the specifics of it, but yeah, it's definitely a thing.
All MA State and other Public Employees
By anon
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 10:59am
They are all subject to the rules of the State Ethics Commission.
This skit clearly violates the following:
Cops are covered by this, too. All MA Public employees are. Even volunteers for town commissions have to do the training and sign forms.
If this were actually brought
By anon
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 2:17pm
If this were actually brought up as an issue, I find it very unlikely that taking pictures with folks dressed up for Halloween runs afoul of the rules. Certainly it can be said that it is inadvisable and probably shouldn't be done again, but it's really just a thing to shrug over.
Only the most overtly partisan folks are in an uproar. It's a popular costume this Halloween. They probably shouldn't have a picture taken with sexy nurse/witch/vampire either. *shrug*
Deal.
They weren't "taking pictures with people in costumes"
By anon
Mon, 10/31/2016 - 9:59am
I was there.
This was a loud skit that involved apprehension, arrest, and chaining of an effigy of a candidate, followed by pictures.
That's terrorism in my book. It isn't funny. It isn't a joke. It is childish at best but jaw-droppingly horrifying when you consider these same high school forever jock losers will be at the polls.
I'm sure Hitler was just taking pictures and joking, too?
Which impairment do you suffer from?
By lbb
Mon, 10/31/2016 - 10:04am
So...are you stupid, or illiterate, or disingenuous? One photo: cops palling around with someone dressed as a political figure. Other photo: cops pretending to arrest someone dressed as another political figure. So, which impairment do you suffer from that prevents you from seeing a difference between them?
The basic premise of ethics laws
By anon
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 10:10am
is "appearance of impropriety", as opposed to actual impropriety. In other words, we think you may have done something wrong, so you actually did something wrong. Seems a little extreme response to take for a joke.
For What It's Worth
By BostonDog
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 7:19am
If the opposite skit was posted and it was Medford Police arresting Trump for his fraudulent university or alleged sexual assault he'd be using that an example of "how the election is rigged" and some of his supports would be sending death threats to the police.
The skit was dumb as paid government employees shouldn't engage in anything which even seems political while on the clock.
If only these Medford police-idiots
By anonism
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 8:25am
had skipped the part where they're palling around with Donald, it would have STILL been most inappropriate, but it would have been much more accurate.
That is, Hillary in chains and wearing orange is as it should be.
Further, it shows that the cops (with their politicking) and Hillary (with her long list of lifetime lies, etc.) have something in common: Breaking the law.
Someday
By APB
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 10:43am
Someday, someone will sit me down and explain to me about all of Hillary's alleged crimes. Then I'd like to know why no one — since 1992 and through massive high-level investigations that cost millions upon millions of tax dollars, initiated by one Republican Congress after another — has EVER been able to pin a single "crime" on her.
Are all the Republicans who are busy shouting "Lock her up" aware that, if they had a single LEGITIMATE claim of some law broken, they COULD have at least indicted or charged her, if not actually locked her up by now? They've had 24 years to accomplish this. They apparently sucked at follow-through.
Were all the Republicans accusing her of various crimes since 1992 unaware of their legal responsibility to catch and try this alleged criminal — or did they simply not have a leg to stand on? Or were they too wimpy, or inept, or stupid, or scared? Or were they just WRONG WRONG WRONG?
Why is she able to run for president if she is supposed to be in chains, please?
Oh, right.... it's because she's so clever and powerful. She's a lawyer for heaven's sake. And you know how sneaky they are. (Odd that many of the GOP politicians screaming about her crimes are lawyers, too.) Oh, and she and her husband, a former president — eternally beloved by all — can pull every string, even in a Republican Senate and House, even in the FBI and CIA . They can even do it during Republican administrations. (Because everyone secretly adores them, I guess?)
Okay, yes. I'll buy all that. One smart lawyer versus 24 years of hundreds of dumb, nervous ones plus the FBI and CIA who shiver in their boots at the idea of arresting a former first lady.
And I have just voted for Hillary because if she's that clever, powerful and resourceful a woman, she'll make a great president. If all of you people screaming "Lock her up" haven't managed to get your elected officials to do so in 24 years, it's time to give it up.
Oh...well, um...
By anonism
Mon, 10/31/2016 - 6:14am
read some more recent news...and stay tuned.
The Clintons are sleazebags of the lowest order. Slickness and their influence may keep them out of jail.
"Extreme carelessness" = "gross negligence"
The "recent news"
By lbb
Mon, 10/31/2016 - 10:07am
The "recent news" seems to further support the ongoing finding of no evidence of wrongdoing by Clinton. Sorry to burst your bubble, but you "lock her up" types keep promising a bombshell that'll take Hillary out once and for all, you betcha, and instead delivering a wet fart that only further stains your skivvies. Forgive me if I stop jumping to attention every time you cry wolf.
(and before you go there, I was and am a Sanders supporter, and am still unsure of what I'll do on Election Day, but I sure as hell won't be voting for some bloated orange fascist)
medford police are good,
By neguy
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 9:01am
medford police are good, honest people.
Hate to burst everyone's
By Lee
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 10:36am
Hate to burst everyone's bubble but isn't that a Martha Stewart costume?
Now that you mention it.
By anon
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 2:21pm
Yes, it does look like Martha Stewart.
And the other one is none other than
By Ralph Boston
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 9:24pm
Bill Weld.
Can't wait to hear the whining
By anon
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 12:32pm
When President Clinton visits Tufts and the Medford Cops are excluded from any details because of this Fourth Reich stuff, THAT will be funny!
OMFG
By anon
Sun, 10/30/2016 - 6:00pm
As Hillary herself said about 'progressives': 'They need to get a life'
A police officer never ceases to be a citizen
By O-FISH-L
Mon, 10/31/2016 - 7:05am
A police officer never ceases to be a citizen and the union is not a public entity, so they can say and do what they want politically. No apology needed, in fact federal law strictly protects unions and political activity.
The support for Trump and disdain for Clinton is nationwide in law enforcement. She is a criminal, even if not yet charged. The photos merely reflect that. Posing with citizens in Halloween costumes is a form of community policing. Didn't Secretary of State John Kerry pose with a bachelorette party and their sexual toys on Nantucket?
Special thanks to Trump supporter and Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke (African-American) who received a standing ovation this week at the Massachusetts Police Association convention, demanding prison for Clinton. No apology from him.
Re: Question
By Angel
Mon, 10/31/2016 - 9:06am
Why is it important to note Clarke is black? I have my suspicions why you think it's relevant. But, explain it.
Cops want to act as citizens?
By lbb
Mon, 10/31/2016 - 10:10am
Cops want to act as citizens? There's nothing stopping them. After work, take off your uniform, hang up your gun, dress in civvies, leave your badge home, and go and citizen to your heart's content, without throwing your cop weight around.
Wasn't he the one that Trump called a "thug" and had thrown out because, you know, black people?
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