If I had done the same thing, I would imagine I would have already been indicted by the Grand Jury.
The good agents are the ones who will suffer on the LE side. Especially if there is no accountability. These things can't be covered up.
Sadly you are correct. The damage to the public confidence in the FBI caused by this is so great that I am not certain they can recover. The reality is all law enforcement must rely on public cooperation and there are two ways to get that cooperatiion intimidation or public respect. Shooting innocent kids does away the earned respect side of the coin so that leaves them intimidation.
On another thread an agent said to a former agent investigating "You are either with us or against us." Well that about sums it up. how is the typical state or local LEO going to react to a Febbie when they see one them walk on this one. They already have a rep as being arrogant sob's who try to grab the glory without doing the work. The perception of them being an arbitray secret police force that exists to wreck havoc on American citizens is already there. The perception that they may be dropping the ball on national security is already there. Hey somebody in a position to exercise authority ought to at least have the B*lls to say bad Fibbie no donut. Instead this will ikely be used to gain a political club over a large part of the agency by Angelos and we shall pay a subsequent price nationally.
On another thread you pointed out that even local LEO's are facing some major anti-gun pressures combined with unaccountable federal police this does not bode well for our Republic. I only hope Travis gets out his book before it is a historical novel.
Stay well - stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown
I question the policy of these LEAs in withholding names and details of the "bad apples" every time there is an incident. While we know that there are some good apples (not many anymore, unfortunately), anonymity for the bad apples leaves the public in a position where they can only focus their outrage against "an FBI agent", or "an BATF agent". Since public outrage cannot focus on an identifiable individual such as Lon Horiuchi (perhaps rightly so), the entire agency and all of its agents get tarred with the same brush.
So what is the result? Public opinion of all LEOs generally falls, justifiably or not. Good officers are perceived as providing cover and anonymity for the bad.
I notice that in this case, the agents in question were quickly named, but not before the "anonymous officer" damage had been done. I guess they decided it was more important that the shooter take the fall for the FBIs lack of proper training and procedure, than it was to protect him from reprisal.
Am I giving them too much credit, or do you think that the double edged sword of anonymity is a well recognized dynamic within police and law enforcement circles?