When Faith and Duty Collide

from the New York Times:

As someone who believes Jesus Christ can be seen even in the grimy faces of those living in the city's shadows and crawl spaces, Police Officer Eduardo Delacruz says he obeyed a higher authority when he refused to arrest a homeless man in November 2002.

On the beat, however, the police commissioner trumps the Almighty, as Officer Delacruz learned when he was suspended for his action. Charged with refusing to comply with a lawful order, he faces a departmental trial in late July that could cost him his job and pension.

I found this article through Sojourners. I can't believe it.

A spike in arrests of homeless people in the fall of 2002 led advocates and civil libertarians to sue the Bloomberg administration, contending that the police were singling out the homeless. Over one month that ended in mid-November that year, the police arrested 580 homeless people, compared with 288 over the same period the previous year, on charges from sleeping in public to assault. The city settled the lawsuit by instructing the police not to focus on homeless people when enforcing violations.

Advocates for the homeless are stunned that the department would seek any further punishment of Officer Delacruz beyond the suspension.

"They're going to go to trial on that?" asked Doug Lasdon, the executive director of the Urban Justice Center, an advocacy group for the poor. "They're going to make this guy a hero."

Seriously. There's more:

Officer Delacruz said he was not opposed to arresting homeless criminals: his first arrest was a homeless man who jumped a turnstile. And he would arrest anyone who posed a danger of violence. But he said someone just down on his luck was not a criminal. That was why he thought his unit's original mission of helping the homeless find services was a noble cause.

"My position in life is to treat people like I want to be treated," he said. "That's what Jesus taught. That's what I instill in my children."

(emphasis mine)