Policeman and Prison Guard or Rapists?

Rapist policeman and prison guard arrested
Greg hardesty & Jon Cassidy (Orange Country Register, April 5, 2010)
WESTMINSTER – An off-duty Westminster police officer and an off-duty state [prison guard] corrections officer were arrested Saturday night in connection with a carjacking, kidnapping, and rape of a 25-year-old restaurant employee in Ontario, police said. Anthony Nicholas Orban, 30, a five-year police officer assigned to investigations with the Westminster Police Department, has been relieved of duty pending an investigation, a department spokesman said Monday morning. The other suspect is Jeff Thomas Jelinek, 30, an officer with the California Department of Corrections, said Sgt. David McBride of the Ontario Police Department.

• PHOTO: What rapists really look like -- a police officer and prison guard brutally kidnap, carjack, and rape woman at gunpoint (Ontario P.D.)

COMMENTARY

One has to wonder what's happening in the world when the most trusted authorities in a society flagrantly violate that trust. Police, priests, guards, monks, cardinals, bishops, teachers -- is it any wonder? Everyone is exposed to the same arousing media and the same out-of-control celebrities. And when we think "everyone else is doing it," we have a tendency to want in. We may not. But people in authority seem to be all too eager to jump on board and get away with:

1. drugs (ingesting and dealing)
2. lying (perjury and fraud)
3. sexual-misconduct (ruining and raping)
4. theft (thievery and embezzlement)
5. murder (in anger and for hire)

These five run exactly counter to Buddhism's Five Precepts. The Buddha saw that these intentional-actions (karma) led to extremely painful results. They are not capable of pleasant results. Although one may certainly enjoy doing them, that is only because they have not yet borne fruit. When they do the fruit and results (phala and vipaka) of such karma is painful, hard to bear, and unwelcome.