Shouldn’t standards be higher for those trusted to enforce our laws?

More than two years after a drunken Tony Logan crashed his car into a city-owned police car — in his own driveway — Logan is still the police chief in Tuscumbia, Ala.

Logan was finally sentenced Tuesday on his DUI conviction. It was in December of 2009 when he ran over his mailbox and smashed into a police car. It was March of 2010 when a jury first convicted him of DUI. And he finally found out his punishment this week — which amounts to almost nothing.

The judge sentenced Logan to a year in jail, but then reduced it to the two days he’s already spent locked up. (Why bother to impose a sentence if you don’t really mean it anyway?) In addition, he’ll lose his driver’s license for 90 days and be subject to random drug screening for two years. There’s also a $761 fine.

In sentencing Logan Tuesday, the judge made it clear that he wasn’t going to treat him harshly because the guy is a police chief.

“Chief Logan, I have never sentenced a police chief for DUI,” the judge said. “You can be assured I’m not going to treat you any differently or any harsher because of your position.”

Why not? Shouldn’t we hold the people put in positions of enforcing laws to a higher standard? And if we’re not going to hold him to a higher standard, shouldn’t we at least make sure he’s no longer in the position to enforce laws over other people?

There’s a double standard in this country when it comes to law enforcement. In too many cases, police officers are allowed to get away with behavior that would never be tolerated from other people. If police officers make mistakes that kill people or destroy property, the worst that usually happens to them is that they have to say, “Ooooops. My bad.” If the same mistake were made by an everyday citizen, he would be held responsible.

The mayor of Tuscumbia says the city isn’t going to do anything about the chief until he’s exhausted all of his appeals. So in the meantime, he’s still the police chief. He’s still the one in charge of making sure that other people obey laws and using force against them if they don’t.

I assume the city’s attorney is telling the mayor that the city can’t take any action against the chief right now, but that doesn’t make it any less obscene. The people we entrust with deadly force should be held to a higher standard. Logan has failed to hold himself to a high standard. He should be disgraced and fired.