Drinking while armed

Sheriff's deputies perform difficult and often dangerous jobs, and the department has pursued a policy of helping troubled employees when possible. This is appropriate and should continue, but it's not enough. Sheriff Lee Baca has acknowledged that stronger measures are in order and has proposed increasing the penalties for alcohol-related incidents. Of those, the most important from a public safety standpoint is a rule that would bar deputies from carrying their guns when they are drinking to the point of intoxication.

Baca tried to impose this rule two years ago, but the deputies union challenged it at the county Employee Relations Commission. The union says it would infringe on officers' constitutional rights. But that is nonsense. The rule would not stop deputies from drinking. It would simply require them to put down their guns before they reach for the drink that makes them legally drunk. It asks them to plan ahead. It is no different from, say, requiring that an intoxicated person turn over his car keys to a designated driver. Two years have lapsed without a decision by the commission on what is clearly a common-sense rule, and the delay is baffling. What will it take for the commission to act — the death of a civilian at the hands of an intoxicated deputy?