See if you can spot a pattern here: Just yesterday, we reported that disgraced Canton cop Daniel Harless was fired for threatening to murder a lawfully armed motorist.  And that Harless is now trying desperately to hold on to his job and his pension by claiming that he suffers PTSD . . .

Now comes word that fellow busted badge and IGOTD honoree Ed Owens is playing a similar gambit.  He was fired back in November for improperly storing a personal firearm, (with which his three year-old son killed himself) and then abusing his 11 year-old stepdaughter until she recorded an obviously coerced ‘confession’ which the real cops didn’t believe for a split second.

Unlike Harless, Owens isn’t claiming PTSD (for now); instead he’s claiming that his firing was in retaliation for complaining to the Sheriff about the quality of the Stack-On gun safes that he and other deputies were issued for weapon storage.  The Vancouver Columbian reports:

A former Clark County sheriff’s deputy fired over violations relating to the accidental fatal shooting of his son has filed a tort claim against the county, alleging his termination was in retaliation for questioning the viability of department-issued gun safes.

Ed Owens is seeking reinstatement and compensation for monetary and emotional damages, his Vancouver attorney, Greg Ferguson, said Thursday.

Owens, a seven-year veteran of the sheriff’s office, was fired Nov. 29 following a lengthy investigation into his 3-year-old son’s death and his ensuing conduct. Sheriff’s internal affairs investigators found that he violated six department policies, most of them relating to his behavior with his 11-year-old stepdaughter.

Owens’ son, Ryan, died Sept. 14, 2010, after he got into his father’s malfunctioning gun safe, picked up a Kel-Tec pistol and accidentally shot and killed himself. Investigators said Owens tried to blame his son’s death on the stepdaughter and coerced a false confession from her, according to police reports.

Owens was not prosecuted for any wrongdoing.

Are we to believe that Owens was so distraught over the quality of his gun safe that he bullied and threatened his stepdaughter, lied to other investigators about her actions, allowed his wife to beat the child into a false confession, and forcibly sent her to a mental hospital?

Sorry; not buying it.  If he knew the department-issued safe was so dangerous, what kept him from buying his own?  After all, his salary was nearly $5,000 a month.

And are we to believe that the real reason he lost his job was a minor dust-up with his superiors about the quality of his issued equipment?  And that making false statements to investigators and abusing his stepdaughter aren’t reason enough to send him packing?

Not buying that, either.

At this rate, we’ll need to create a new award here at TTAG called ‘Irresponsible Disgraced Former Cop Of The Day.’  Sadly, there seems to be pretty stiff competition for it.

 

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31 COMMENTS

  1. Cops, the biggest welfare queens out there. The tax payers must provide them with a gun, a vest, a safe, and a car. Its funny how I make less, actually create value, and can manage to pay for all of that stuff by myself. And just wondering, but how did a 3 year old get in to a safe or strong box if its locked and they dont know the combo? How exactly was it “malfunctioning” and why didnt the cop get it repaired? Was the malfunction, not having mechanism to auto lock the safe when you close the door? I’m guessing he never bothered to teach his son about guns either.

    Does anyone have a copy of the video he had his daughter make? Ralph, any chance of the video being introduced as evidence, and thus be a part of the public record?

    • “Cops, the biggest welfare queens out there. The tax payers must provide them with a gun, a vest, a safe, and a car. “

      Matt, I think we can level due criticism of the police onto the police without resorting to this sort of foolish hyperbole.

      Cops do provide a valuable service to the community, though I do not believe the collective value of the police ought to be a shield for bad individuals.

      • While this particular cop is not so classy, there are millions out there who do their job to the best of their abilities. It is an inherently dangerous job, because of the risk they take, they earn that paycheck. Risk and reward…

        • there are millions out there who do their job to the best of their abilities

          I’m not buying it. When “one of their own” goes rogue, the rest form a blue wall around him and the public be damned. I consider that type of conduct to be anything but “doing their job to the best of their abilities.”

          The same guys who are supposedly protecting us are still fighting to get Officer Harless’ job back. I understand. Being rude, obnoxious, violent and dangerous, he’s the poster boy for the modern LEO.

          You good cops — and I know there are some, right here on this forum — you don’t have to wonder why there’s so much mistrust of the police. You brought this upon yourselves. When we are more important to you than your union, maybe we’ll change our minds.

        • You clearly have no idea what your talking about, there are not millions, according to the BLS there were 883,000 as of 2008.
          http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos160.htm

          Just because they do it to the best of their abilities isnt enough. If a retard was given a badge and a gun, is whatever he does ok so long as he does it to the best of his abilities?

          Most jobs are inherently dangerous, as I’ve said in other threads, i’ve been almost killed on the job, had people try to rob me twice, and have gotten stiches a couple times. All this from working in IT. The number 1 cause of LEO deaths is from traffic accidents, because they think they know to drive 100+ mph just because the law says they can. Like this IL state trooper who killed 2 girls and injured himself because he was driving 120+ MPH while sexting his girlfriend:
          http://www.tomsguide.com/us/texting-sexting-emailing-state-trooper,news-8085.html

      • Really? Spending the majority (if not all, depending on the officer) of their time harassing people just trying to safely get from point A to point B is a “valuable service”? Then when it comes time for them to do the actual job that we want them to do (go after murderers, rapists, and others who harm people against their will), they claim that “it’s not their job to protect you” merely to write up some reports after the fact.

        Now if we passed some laws that mandated that police stations don’t add staff to do nothing but write traffic tickets to generate revenue and that they actually have a duty to try to protect people, then we could say that the police provided a truly valuable service without wasting taxpayers money.

      • And what value do they create?

        They provide a service most in the community would do without had they been given a chance rather than have it coerced. Your really saying that most members of the community would want tickets, or have some asshole kick down their door because they were arguing with their spouse? The only service they do provide is for politicians, to uphold their laws.

        Its funny how the “good” deeds of the officers are collective, but the “evil” deeds are individual. The evil deeds are just as much as a part of the collective, and far outnumber the good.

        And regarding my quote, why don’t they pay for what they need for their job? I know that I work in IT for private companies, and generally have to supply my own tools even though i’m a W2 employee. Same with any of the trades. As I said, they are welfare queens, paid far beyond what they would make in the private sector, and then have the audacity to demand we pay for their toys.

  3. Owens was not prosecuted for any wrongdoing.

    And I’m sooooooooo sure that a civilian in the same circumstances would never face prosecution. Never ever.

    • This is the most frustrating thing about this… I wonder, what’s the mandatory minimum for threatening to kill a police officer?

      • Around me if you actually did something rather than idle threats it would at least be Agg. Battery which is a class 3 felony, 3 – 5 years and a $10k fine. Although they would go thru the books, look for anything they could charge you with, and offer you a plea bargin for several decades or face enough charges to be an effective life sentence.

  4. This man represents the true monsters and threats of everyday life. They should sell Halloween masks of him.

    But hey, the gun-grabbers would sooner have this guy have the monopoly on gun ownership over law-abiding, decent citizens.

      • Okay, I think I know then what his allegation about the safe was, and it’s bullshit. With solenoid based safes, you can “bounce” them, which can allow you to open the safe without having the key or knowing the combination. The thing is that it requires a big impact and since we know that the story of the 11 year old opening the safe is crap, it’s something that a 3 year old definitely couldn’t do.

  7. The subject of this blog, along with my ‘day job, both require me to question and often criticize some of the things that law enforcement does. This is not a condemnation of police in general, nor of the job that *almost* all of them do professionally and diligently.

    The profession may be rightly criticized for its reluctance to expose or prosecute any but the most corrupt or sadistic officers, but even the most surly, lazy and borderline-dishonest cop in uniform still runs *toward* the sound of gunfire and danger.

    • even the most surly, lazy and borderline-dishonest cop in uniform still runs *toward* the sound of gunfire and danger.

      Chris, I respect you highly, but that statement almost made me laugh. If such a cop were to run toward the gunfire, which I cannot even imagine, it would be because he really wanted to shoot somebody — anybody — today.

  8. I hate reading about police officers who have abused authority. They certainly do exist, and stories like these affirm the fact that the police need to be ‘policed’ themselves. What kind of supervision did these officers have before this incident, and what prior citizen’s complaints were filed? I doubt these guys got this far out of line over night. Incidents like these are probably the result of several malfunctions within the chain of command. The vehicle – mounted audio / visual systems in police cars are supposed to increase officer safety and accountability, and that clearly did not happen here.

    But if the police in the US are so bad, I invite you to get pulled over in Mexico or another third-world country. I bet that would give some of the readers here some valuable perspective.

    • The otherside of that coin is that you can at least bribe the cops in those countries. I would rather give one of them $5 worth of their local currency rather than pay a $150 fine in the US because I didnt renew my city sticker on time.

    • Hooray for US cops! They’re better than the Mexican federales!

      Geez, talk about damning with faint praise. The rent-a-cops at the local mall are better than the Mexican police.

  10. Somebody on a forum once told me that everyone has a shitty cop story. He also told me to get over it(I’m assuming he was cop). This made me think, if every one has a shitty cop story then isn’t about time we fixed it? When is enough enough?

  11. I was a policeman when we carried revolvers, it’s been a while. Rural setting where we were pretty much hand-picked based on our childhood accomplishments. Very little training, common sense was the rule of thumb. But even then the wrong element would manage to get badges on occasion I think we did a better job of pushing the wrong minds out back then.
    I now live in an urban setting and have been on ride along, it’s a different world than I worked in up to a point. The difference I see is we had “protect and serve” drummed into our heads just like it says on the badge. I’m afraid that todays police and in no small part have lost the connection with who they really work for and why.

  12. This is such a stupid lawsuit by and stupid person. Most departments don’t issue safe’s for their duty weapons. His just happened to have some extra budget and got something for all their officers.

    If he didn’t trust the quality of the safe. His son was killed by his own personal weapon which shouldn’t have been loaded to begin with. And it’s his personal weapon, he could have bought a pistol strap lock, i think guns are supposed to come with them anyways? Instead he relies on a safe provided for his duty weapon, not his personal ones.

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