Assistant Chief of Police Anuta Najiy, a women of color, stood next to her colleagues and proceeded to not salute the United States flag. Doing so caused a lot of the men and women around her to feel such strong emotions toward Anuta. Her movement was to try to show how she is feeling about the way America is going right now. Not covering her heart with her right hand was the best way that she thought would help bring some attention to the growing problems in America. The Chief of Police did nothing wrong according to the United States Military code and her department leaders. Which is later proven to be true.
The image of Najiy, with her arms to her side surrounded by her colleagues with their hands covering their hearts have been going around online and causing a bit of reaction to the American citizens. The picture had started bringing some more negative attention to the police. Fraternal Order of Police President Javier Ortiz heard and has seen the picture of the Chief of Police and wants her reprimanded for not doing and saying the pledge he would have liked it done. Even though, she did not break any laws or rules by not doing so. Ortiz, however, was fired from his position due to pretending that he was a man of color, but this action made him really outraged. He decided that writing a letter to her boss throwing Najiy under the bus would get someone’s attention to somehow get her fired. He was found stating that the image was “distasteful” and that “since she clearly has no respect for the flag or the United States, on behalf of the Fraternal Order of Police, I am requesting that Assistant Chief Najiy is removed as the commander of the MPD Honor Guard Detail”.
Police Chief Rodolfo Llanes decided to take to media himself and share some of the lines from the United States Military code. The lines basically explained that due to the code it overrides the basic officer conduct, so therefore the Chief of Police did absolutely nothing wrong leaving her arms to her sides instead of proceeding to salute the flag. She did exactly what the code had said to do, which is “when in uniform, indoors, stand at attention, remain silent, and face the flag”. Police Chief Llanes had proved Ortiz wrong which caused him to hide away when he started getting asked to have interviewed about all of this. Najiy, also, refused any requests to do any interviews since she didn’t feel like it was a need to do so. She much rather would like to keep her attention to the American citizens and serve her duty as a police officer and try to make a difference in The United States.
