California Police Chief- Fall 2013 CPCA_2018_Spring Magazine_Final | Page 8

When Management
of a Police Department
INTERSECTS WITH THE CONSTITUTION
By Jim Touchstone, General Counsel for California Police Chiefs Association
You are a chief of a municipal police department. You notice during a department picnic that one of your
sergeants has a double lightning bolt tattoo (“SS”) on his upper forearm as he reaches for a hamburger on
a tray and his sleeve slips up to expose the tattoo. Can you require that he cover the tattoo while on duty?
The situation is troublesome for you on many different levels, including management of your department’s
image and potential civil and/or criminal case repercussions.
The intersection of legitimate police management
issues with an officer’s First Amendment rights currently is
one of the most complicated and troublesome matters for
determination in both the police and legal communities.
In our example above, “SS” tattoos, in particular, also raise
serious implications from a risk management standpoint.
The Anti-Defamation League lists the “SS” symbol as a
symbol that has been adopted by neo-Nazis and white
supremacists since World War II. The display of this
tattoo by one of your officers could negatively impact the
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department because members of the public could conclude
that your officer, and therefore your department in general,
are racists or anti-Semitic.
From a risk management standpoint, if your officer
who is displaying a “SS” tattoo on his arm is involved in a
critical incident, he would likely be subject to impeachment
of his character in either a civil or a criminal context. The
tattoo would be particularly troubling if the incident
involved injury to someone from the Jewish or another
minority community. Moreover, since the department is