WASHINGTON — Two reports from WTTG-TV (Fox 5 DC) this week highlight the Metropolitan Police Department’s blatant disregard for human life.
At a community meeting earlier this week, Assistant Chief Chanel Dickerson revealed that, when she was a pregnant cadet, she was given the ultimatum to have an abortion or quit her post as a cadet. Now another MPD officer, Karen Arikpo, has come forward to say that she, too, received a similar ultimatum.
In response to the revelations by Assistant Chief Dickerson and Officer Arikpo, the DC Metro Life Alliance, the District affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee, released the following statement:
To force a young cadet to sacrifice either her career in public service or her unborn child’s life is beyond reprehensible. The actions by Metropolitan Police Department officials showed callous disregard for human life, brutal discrimination towards their recruits, and contempt for the Washington DC community they have sworn to protect. Anyone responsible for this tremendous abuse of authority, if they are still on the force, should be relieved of duty immediately.
The careers of Assistant Chief Dickerson and Officer Arikpo were not expendable, neither were the lives of their unborn children, or the lives of any child, born or unborn. When the institutions that society is built upon cast off basic respect for the intrinsic value and dignity of human life in the womb, it spreads, and soon more and more lives can come to be seen as unworthy and expendable. It is extremely alarming that such a culture exists within the MPD, and we hope that District residents join our call for sincere apologies, swift amends, and transparent remediation from the Department.
DC Metro Life Alliance offers our prayers of continued healing for Assistant Chief Dickerson and Officer Arikpo, and any other officer who had such an unconscionable choice forced upon her.
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