Justin Volpe deserves whatever prison term he’ll get for beating and sodomizing Abner Louima, says a former NYPD deputy commissioner whose ideas helped cut the city’s crime rate.
“If this is war, Justin Volpe is no shell-shocked soldier,” Jack Maple writes in the current issue of Newsweek.
“He’s a war criminal who deserves to do the prison time awaiting him now.”
Volpe, 27, pleaded guilty to attacking Louima in what lawyers called a desperate attempt to avoid a possible life prison term. He’s now awaiting sentencing.
Volpe’s dad Robert suggested the combat analogy when he said of the scene outside the social club where cops arrested Louima: “It was war outside that night”
“I think that’s bull,” Maple writes, adding: “I feel sorry for Robert Volpe as a parent. But his son is not a victim.”
Maple said he agrees that there’s a war on crime – but says nothing about life on the street should stress cops as much as it stresses citizens they serve.
“If you want to talk about being overly stressed, try being a cleaning lady armed with a scrub brush going home at night in a bad neighborhood. That’s much worse than what a cop faces,” Maple writes.
Maple also says cops everywhere should have their salaries raised “tremendously” – and that New York cops have a right to complain about going two years without raises at a time when city property values are soaring.
Also, Maple says the police need to do a far better job recruiting minorities – and that the police training program needs to be extended from six months to three years.
“People will say we don’t have the time or the money,” Maple writes. “If you want professionals, you have to spend both.”