Nothing gets American citizens all supportive of the Thin Blue Line than when one of its members who holds a position of authority says out of one side of his mouth that citizens should respect the law, yet out of the other side that he will ignore any law with which he does not agree.

The law is the great equalizer, or so we are told, as everyone must follow it and everyone is, theoretically, punished equally for breaking a law, but what assurance is there that this is true, if a county sheriff makes it clear that everyone must follow the law, but he can decide which ones he will enforce and which he will follow.

The importance of the rule of law was made clear when a few years ago when the idea of Safe Communities and Sanctuary Cities were discussed as a protection against sheriff’s exercising their personal, political, and religious beliefs through their jobs and how they treat people in their facilities, and Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson saw it as a threat to his own agenda.

Testifying at a meeting of the Massachusetts House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, he declared that arrest warrants should be issued for elected officials of such communities even though no law bans them from supporting Sanctuary Cities as correctly defined.

“At best, sanctuary cities are a direct violation of trust between the legal residents and the elected officials who took an oath to protect them at all costs. At the worst, it’s careless, illegal and extremely dangerous.”

This he can claim because he has his finger on the pulse of the people and, in spite of the state’s rejection of much of what Trump called an immigration policy he can speak for the people for whom he has no right to speak.

“If these sanctuary cities are going to harbor and conceal criminal illegal aliens from [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], federal arrest warrants should be issued for their elected officials.”

The fact that the leaders of “sanctuary cities” cooperate with ICE when it comes to apprehending serious criminals, but do not collect immigration status information or use local municipal funds to do federal government work for which it has a whole department, these leaders are in compliance with Title 8 and are violating no laws.

But lock’em up anyway.

When ICE agents began going into court houses to make arrests over civil immigration violations, seeing that among other things such a practice could keep people who had an important role in a court proceeding from going to court thus interfering with the proper execution of justice, Boston-area public safety officials and advocates filed a lawsuit to stop ICE from doing this practice that had, among other things, an adverse effect on enforcing the law.

Either he did not see the whole picture, which is not that difficult to see, simply chose to misrepresent facts to support his own agenda, or does not actually agree with enforcing the law, unless there are qualifiers, but Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson had something to say about that,

“Shame on the elected officials and pro-illegal advocates for filing this frivolous lawsuit, which seeks to make it more difficult for federal law enforcement officers to apprehend criminal illegal aliens.”

This past election season, helping in setting up the planned ability to claim that in the event Trump lost the election it was because the election was rigged or fraudulent, Sheriff Hodgson, the honorary state co-chair of the Trump re-election campaign, made it clear that he and his deputies and specialty units were prepared to go to the polls to guarantee a fair election.

This exercise in bravado was unnecessary as each polling station had had a police officer or two going back centuries with no problem, and by state law no one other than the local law enforcement department performed security duties at polling places, and other groups could only join if the locals called for help.

Not only did he not like that law and boasted about ignoring it, but when, because of his bravado indicating a need to make the existing law more obvious even to the most dense among us, a state representative proposed an amendment to add sheriffs to those who needed to stay at least 300 feet away from a polling station, over to where me and all the other people from all parties and for all candidates stand with our signs, but the sheriff was going to have none of that. He wanted to just go right in where he had absolutely no reason to be as there was already security watching over the voters and poll workers.

The problem also existed that if he entered any polling place, being as he was known as the honorary co-chair of one candidate’s re-election campaign, this could cause a legal complication, and since he could not understand the obvious intent of the original law that was spelled out and that of the amendment to make it even more obvious, perhaps, it also shielded him from a complication he did not see himself weaving.

The aim of the amendment was to guarantee that local police departments have jurisdiction over any problems at the polls.

And while voicing his objections to this amendment, he also announced that if the law were to be amended, he would ignore it.

As the man who insists the public should respect the law put it,

“No legislator is going to tell me when I can and cannot respond to someone who needs protection. I will not stand down!”

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Well, again, the law says he can respond to someone who needs protection, and this case the person requesting such protection would be local law enforcement calling for back up, so he is going out of his way to perform logically fallacious gymnastics to justify his only obeying laws with which he agrees.

The report from the state Attorney Generals Office dealing with the disturbance at the ICE detention center on the sheriff’s main facility campus found,

”The Bristol County Sheriff Office’s calculated use of force included the use of a variety of less-lethal but dangerous weapons— including a flash bang grenade, pepper-ball launchers, pepper spray canisters, anti-riot shields, and canines—against detainees who had exhibited calm and nonviolent behavior for at least an hour before this operation. The BCSO deployed these weapons both indiscriminately upon entry and also specifically against particular detainees who were not combative, assaultive, or otherwise actively resisting staff. Informing our conclusion that the BCSO’s use of force was excessive.”

“The BCSO violated the civil rights of the detainees …… by using excessive force against the ICE B detainees and by acting with deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious injury or harm to the detainees and their health.”

And, because,

“Our investigation revealed that the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office violated the rights of detainees by using excessive force and by seriously risking their health and safety. This callous disregard for the well-being of immigration detainees is unacceptable and must be addressed through the significant reforms we outline in our report,”

The report included a list of recommendations to improve conditions and avoid potential repeats.

This paragon of law and order and respect for those who enforce it responded with,

“shame on Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey for demonizing the corrections and law enforcement professionals at the Bristol County Sherriff’s Office with her latest politically motivated stunt” that was “littered with baseless allegations and assumptions, and was clearly written and released to advance her long-documented anti-ICE, pro-illegal immigrant political agenda.”

Although the day after the incident, at a hastily called press conference, the sheriff welcomed any investigation because all evidence would show that while the detainees were the spawn of Satan, he had been the paragon of order ad reason, because the report did not agree with his projected image and the evidence showed to opposite, he told the public that he will take any of the AG’s recommendations about as seriously as trash that was

He then demanded the state’s highest lawyer and law enforcement official justify herself by angrily spitting,

“halfway down the sewer pipe. That’s about how much value I put into the attorney general’s recommendations.”

 “How dare she say she expects me to follow them.” 

The basis of his attitude, and the inherent danger in it is clear from his being one of the first six county sheriffs across the country to join the Protect America Now organization whose founder justified its need because,

“I had a lot of fellow sheriffs that felt the same way. We want to be able to stand up for the rule of law in this country. We want to be able to fight against bad policies and orders like we’re seeing with the immigration stuff.”

But, somehow choosing which laws you enforce, which policies you consider bad, and which orders you do not see worthy of obeying because you agree with some and not others doesn’t seem to support wanting to stand up for the rule of law.

So that is our sheriff, the man who insists he keeps the people of the county safe by enforcing the laws with the necessary toughness and wanting only the toughest of laws to be passed when it comes to those he looks down on either brazenly while insisting the citizens must obey the law and those who enforce it, telling those same citizens either because he knows he can get away with it, or foolishly by letting his words get ahead of deep thinking, that he himself only obeys those laws with which he agrees

and will continue to do so with all future laws.