stirring the pot

[OneGuy67]

Wow...where to begin...

Okay. In law enforcement, you are expected to do your job, unless there is a compelling reason not to be able to. All the agencies I know, will immediately take a female off patrol duty if she is pregnant, not necessarily for the sake of the pregnancy, but to avoid a lawsuit later if she was to be injured and lose the child.

Now, having said that, larger agencies have places and duties they can stick someone like that to work during their 9 months. Very similar to what they would do with any officer who injured themselves on duty; a light duty status. That could be desk officer answering phones or assisting in investigations or evidence. My old agency, it was desk duty, handling the walk in complaints and telephone reports. After a week or so of that, you wanted to lie and say you were fit for duty and get away from the station! I know of a friend of mine who is pregnant and she is doing that for her Denver area department. She hates it! I personally had shoulder surgery with 6 months of rehab and I forced the rehab to get out of it early, in order to get a doctor's clean bill of health and back on the street and away from all the damn lost or stolen cell phone report requests for the people who misplaced their damn cell phones and the carriers wouldn't replace it without a police report. I was taking 5-10 of them a day.

However, smaller agencies may need that body on the street and may not have enough non-street work for a person to do to justify paying them a salary while pregnant or on light duty. If the department has 5-10 employees, what does an agency like that do? I think that is what is going on with this department.

While it sounds wrong, that female was hired to do a job and she can't do that job. Do they put her on unpaid leave (but still with a job) and hire a temp until she returns from FMLA (and then what do you do with the temp?), or do they permanently terminate her for not being able to do the job she was hired for?

If she was a good employee, I would hope they would work with her, possibly hiring a part time person, authorizing overtime or whatever else is needed to cover her patrol shifts, but also only pay her a salary in which she earns through working at the department. If that is 4 hours a day, then she should only be paid for 4 hours a day. She shouldn't be able to sit around the department for 8-10 hours a day and do nothing and collect a paycheck solely for being pregnant. She should be allowed to burn her sick time and vacation if she chose, in order to make up for the loss of income from a normal 40 hour work week.

For the computer people here; you were hired for your skills and knowledge with computers. What would happen if you broke both hands and couldn't type due to casts? Would your company allow you come into work and sit around and watch your fellow employees work and collect a paycheck for six to nine months?

[Byte Stryke]

Wow...where to begin...

Okay. In law enforcement, you are expected to do your job, unless there is a compelling reason not to be able to. All the agencies I know, will immediately take a female off patrol duty if she is pregnant, not necessarily for the sake of the pregnancy, but to avoid a lawsuit later if she was to be injured and lose the child.

Now, having said that, larger agencies have places and duties they can stick someone like that to work during their 9 months. Very similar to what they would do with any officer who injured themselves on duty; a light duty status. That could be desk officer answering phones or assisting in investigations or evidence. My old agency, it was desk duty, handling the walk in complaints and telephone reports. After a week or so of that, you wanted to lie and say you were fit for duty and get away from the station! I know of a friend of mine who is pregnant and she is doing that for her Denver area department. She hates it! I personally had shoulder surgery with 6 months of rehab and I forced the rehab to get out of it early, in order to get a doctor's clean bill of health and back on the street and away from all the damn lost or stolen cell phone report requests for the people who misplaced their damn cell phones and the carriers wouldn't replace it without a police report. I was taking 5-10 of them a day.

However, smaller agencies may need that body on the street and may not have enough non-street work for a person to do to justify paying them a salary while pregnant or on light duty. If the department has 5-10 employees, what does an agency like that do? I think that is what is going on with this department.

While it sounds wrong, that female was hired to do a job and she can't do that job. Do they put her on unpaid leave (but still with a job) and hire a temp until she returns from FMLA (and then what do you do with the temp?), or do they permanently terminate her for not being able to do the job she was hired for?

If she was a good employee, I would hope they would work with her, possibly hiring a part time person, authorizing overtime or whatever else is needed to cover her patrol shifts, but also only pay her a salary in which she earns through working at the department. If that is 4 hours a day, then she should only be paid for 4 hours a day. She shouldn't be able to sit around the department for 8-10 hours a day and do nothing and collect a paycheck solely for being pregnant. She should be allowed to burn her sick time and vacation if she chose, in order to make up for the loss of income from a normal 40 hour work week.

For the computer people here; you were hired for your skills and knowledge with computers. What would happen if you broke both hands and couldn't type due to casts? Would your company allow you come into work and sit around and watch your fellow employees work and collect a paycheck for six to nine months?

or how about if I had a critically ill child in NICU and could not concentrate on critical military communications circuits.

Yes

[OneGuy67]

or how about if I had a critically ill child in NICU and could not concentrate on critical military communications circuits.

Yes

Then your company would most likely put you on FMLA, have you burn your vacation and sick time and then likely put you on unpaid leave.

Some companies have the luxury to allow you that time off without losing pay, but as many here on the forum howl about their .gov wasting money, isn't that also a waste of money? To have an employee on the payroll who isn't actually working (I just opened that up for ALL the comments about .gov employees never working! Go ahead Elhuero, take your shot! ) getting a paycheck for nothing?

[Byte Stryke]

Then your company would most likely put you on FMLA, have you burn your vacation and sick time and then likely put you on unpaid leave.

Some companies have the luxury to allow you that time off without losing pay, but as many here on the forum howl about their .gov wasting money, isn't that also a waste of money? To have an employee on the payroll who isn't actually working (I just opened that up for ALL the comments about .gov employees never working! Go ahead Elhuero, take your shot! ) getting a paycheck for nothing?

I am pretty sure they have an office position for her somewhere.
you mention Cost..
wonder what its going to cost to retrain her partner to another officer?
If it even works, depending on the program and how long she has been with her K-9 it may well just be a wash.

Wish I had $300-500K to throw away

[KevDen2005]

how so?

have I bashed police in this thread?

one of the anti police arguments folks have is the "blue line", how police look out for their own.

it would appear from the video that they don't.

imagine she wasn't a street cop, that she just had a desk job. does that change your opinion?

Patrol and low ranking officers look out for their own. Officers are caught in a constant battle between their administrations and the public. Both don't like them and think they are a problem so the blue line has to look out for its own to protect each other at both ends.

I had a subject fight me once and he was tazed. There was an automatic use of force investigation launched by the department, not because the individual complained, but because they thought they should (I should point out that this is not mandatory). After everything was said and done I was cleared of the force issue but was in trouble for cussing. I said "fuck" three times during this fight and was given an official reprimand.

[KevDen2005]

But I also should point out to answer your question without reading the article (so I am not fully educated here) is that if they fired here merely on being pregnant that is wrong and should be fought. I imagine there might be more but am not going to speculate on it just yet, having not read it.

[hammer03]

I'm still not really sure how the whole "at will employment" thing in colorado works in cases like this... Had they terminated her for "no reason" would there be an issue? Or was she told that it was because she was pregnant"

[gnihcraes]

For the computer people here; you were hired for your skills and knowledge with computers. What would happen if you broke both hands and couldn't type due to casts? Would your company allow you come into work and sit around and watch your fellow employees work and collect a paycheck for six to nine months?

Yep, Government Employee. That should stir the pot some more.

I also have my own disability, been paying it for years for this exact reason.

[OneGuy67]

I am pretty sure they have an office position for her somewhere.
you mention Cost..
wonder what its going to cost to retrain her partner to another officer?
If it even works, depending on the program and how long she has been with her K-9 it may well just be a wash.

Wish I had $300-500K to throw away

You are guessing about a office position; you don't know that. Depending on the size, they easily could not. Seen far too many small departments in the southern part of Colorado who could not gainfully employ someone in a light duty capacity for that length of time.

We don't know the specifics on the dog. It could be hers or it could be the department's. If it is a narcotics only dog, a new handler isn't that hard to do.

Where'd you get the $300-500K figure and what is it for?

[OneGuy67]

Yep, Government Employee. That should stir the pot some more.

I also have my own disability, been paying it for years for this exact reason.

My old agency had people who milked their injury for months (or years) and were given deadlines to get medical clearance to go back to full duty or get laid off on a disability. The agency was required to offer a job that the employee could do, given their limited physical ability (most were dispatch), and they would give up their cop pay for the lower pay of the position offered. One or two took the job offers in dispatch, but most left on disability. The fact is, that agency was large enough to allow light duty positions.