I think we can agree that when a public servant carries out their duties, they generally get a pass. But when the servant is put in a position of power over other people, there’s much more on them to not act like a colossal smeghead.

Let’s have a look at one way a person could fail catastrophically in that regard: The officer who attempted to arrest a paralyzed man over an allegation that he kicked in a door.

You’ll likely find it evident what was wrong. But that’s assuming a typical level of intellect. The arresting officer was a special kind of savant who knows that skepticism is a sign of intellect, so he decided to take it to a whole other level.

When he met the man who was falsely accused, a man who was in a wheelchair, he called him out, saying that his alleged paralysis was a ruse.

Here he is, the arresting officer, Markenley Bolette:

This is the officer who wouldn’t extend the benefit of the doubt to a paralyzed man, who he knocked out of his wheelchair as he arrested him, insisting that he had to have somehow kicked in a door, then get into an altercation with a resident before somehow making a getaway on foot.

Before we jump to the conclusion that Bolette had already herped every last derp that was available on the market, then hocked them on eBay at scalper prices, let’s turn a look to the woman who made the complaint. Katherine Jensen had previously dated the accused, though it had been decades since the two last saw each other.

There are many reasons why you don’t date crazy. Among them being that there’s no telling how long she’ll stew over old wrongs and decide to get revenge in the most characteristically crazy way possible: with a bullshit allegation.

I don’t know why the relationship ended, but considering the facts surrounding this case, I think it’s reasonable to suspect that it was her fault.

For a bit more irony, let’s consider the name of the accused: Charles Read. For the arresting officer, the name Read probably triggered repressed memories of his time in the education system, when those judgemental teachers insisted that he develop a particular skill as a requirement for a middle school education.

To drive the point home that officer Bolette is something special, he insisted that Read’s paralysis was a ruse as he apparently sought assistance on how to proceed with the arrest, and another officer had to lay out for him just why it was unreasonable to expect a paralyzed man to invade a home. By kicking a door in. Then attempting to strangle its resident. Then make a getaway on foot.

I used to think that stupid people were harmless. They’d do stuff like lose track of how much is in their food stamp account before going to the store, or pour energy drinks into their lawnmowers, or leave their clothes to sit in a washer for days to find them crusted in mildew. They naturally harvest the consequences of their own unwise behaviors.

But I see now that I was wrong. Stupid people have a corrosive effect on the world around them. They’re the ones who nearly cause vehicular homicides because they pull out at intersections, assuming that other motorists also have a stop sign. They’re the ones who hot box in their apartments, creating the risk that their neighbors fail drug tests. Also, Hamas supporters.

Their effect is more corrosive still when they’re put into a position of power over other people.

I know that this is a bit of an old story, at this point. But that doesn’t mean that anyone should think it’s safe from my scrutiny. There may be a statute of limitations for crimes, but there is no statute of limitations for having the stupid.