but, ultimately, police officers should not be making selective judgments about the relative quality of the people they arrest (Fuller, 2001). They have a moral obligation to enforce the law fairly and consistently. If police officers were allowed to make such selective judgments, perhaps they would never arrest a mother, for fear she would lose her children, or a religious figure, for fear of its impact on the community. Such a policy potentially would put certain classes of people above the law. As a result, we can conclude that the Rampart police officers who covered up their colleagues crimes committed a serious ethical breech. As with the case of Officer Malone in the Untouchables, the Rampart investigation revealed that ethics can be an amorphous thing, bent and shaped by police officers to defend questionable actions. but, ultimately, the high...

Retrieved March 25, 2007, at http://ethics.iit.edu/codes/coe/int.assoc.chiefs.police.canons.html.
De Palma, B. (Director). (1987). The Untouchables [Film]. [With Kevin Costner, Robert De Niro, & Sean Connery]. United States: Paramount Pictures.

Fuller, John (2001). "Street Cop Ethics." The Law Enforcement Trainer. Retrieved March 25, 2007, at http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/ethics/street_cop.html.

"LA to pay $70m in police corruption cases" (2005, April 1). Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 25, 2007, at http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/04/01/la_to_pay_70m_in_police_corruption_cases.