After Tuesday night’s arrest of a Lansing police officer for drunken driving, how can area police expect people to heed their teaching and demands concerning sober driving?

When defenders of the law breaks the law they, maybe more than anybody, need to answer for that mistake.

Any police officer is a public official and therefore should set the example for all members of a community.

As of Tuesday, Lansing police Capt. Ray Hall said the department is not sure what will be done with the officer who already was on paid suspension for violating procedure on Sept. 11.

“When you are placed on suspension, we take away your badge and gun,” Hall said. “Now he could be suspended without pay or face termination.”

What’s he mean suspended without pay? The officer should be fired.

Not only did he embarrass the institution he works for, he endangered the people’s lives that he was hired to protect by going to the streets under the influence.

He further embarrassed his position by trying to use another police officer’s badge to get out of the crime he had committed.

People at any position should not be able to get out of a crime - especially one as serious as drunken driving.

Nobody in this country is above or exempt from the law, including those who enforce it.

“We take each alleged misconduct and investigate that on its own merit,” Hall said. “It just adds one more item that we need to investigate, and we have the staff to do that.”

What the officer did was wrong.

It contradicted his duty it set a bad example for the community and it took away a lot of respect for the police force.

The officer should get a pink slip.

This is the only way the police force can show the community it is serious about law enforcement and doing its duty to protect and serve.

Anything less than termination only will discredit the force.