Flag flap gives Salt Lake no glory

Before reading any further, let's get one thing straight — Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse has no problem with his officers displaying Old Glory on their patrol cars.

Dinse has spent the past few days trying to explain that to a lot of people, including CNN's Lou Dobbs.

"The national news has been beating us up over this thing," Dinse said Wednesday. "I heard it again on CNN this morning."

That "thing" Dinse referred to was an incident in which one of his employees, presumably a supervisor, told officer Thomas Potter he needed to remove the American flags he had displayed on both sides of his patrol car because they could be offensive to the public.

Potter obliged, but before shipping out with his Army Reserve Unit, he sent out an e-mail last Thursday detailing the encounter.

He might as well have opened a can of night crawlers right on Dinse's desk. By Friday the e-mail had circulated through most of the police department and was also leaked to the press.

Potter's message sparked numerous e-mails to police administrators, and after the story broke in the media, calls from the public. One local flag shop has even offered a free window flag sticker to all law enforcement officers who show up at its Sandy store.

Dinse returned from his holiday vacation over the weekend with the controversy still brewing.

The last time Dinse was on CNN he was talking about the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping, a story that garnered unprecedented media coverage nationwide. But this time, all the cable news networks wanted to talk about was the flag.

"This was almost more perplexing to me," Dinse said. "I kept thinking, 'Why am I talking about this?' "

Still, Dinse didn't take his chances. During his interview with CNN's Lou Dobbs, Dinse stood in front of an American flag and wore an American flag pin on his lapel.

"I'd like to try to get it behind us and move on," Dinse said.

On Monday, the chief issued a department-wide e-mail of his own, stating his support for officers displaying flags on their patrol cars and accepting responsibility for failing to make that policy more known.

"Both before and after 9/11, I have been fully aware that some of our personnel have been respectfully displaying the American flag on their City assigned police vehicles, and I have given tacit or unspoken approval for such displays," Dinse stated in his e-mail.

Later in the e-mail, Dinse added, "If there is fault to be had on the issue of displaying the Flag then the fault is mine for not making it absolutely clear to everyone that a respectful and reasonable display (of) the American Flag on your police vehicle is appropriate and approved by the Department."

To this day, Potter continues to withhold the flag flogger's name, and Dinse said that even if he knew who the individual was, the person wasn't guilty of any misconduct.

Chances are, though, the guilty party got the message.

"That individual," Dinse said, "pretty well knows right now that it was probably not the wisest thing to do."

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E-MAIL: djensen@desnews.com