Being a cop is a discipline, but what if the system is soft?

Veteran CBS newsman Bob Schieffer, busy reminiscing these days as his retirement approaches, paused during a recent "Face the Nation" broadcast to reflect on bygone days as a cub police reporter — the "best training" for a journalist "or anything else," he said.

Schieffer wanted to add something "to the rash of stories lately about cops gone wrong." He worried that people who have never seen cops' everyday reality up close can easily "overlook … just how difficult [it] can be" to deal humanely, as cops must, even "with the dregs of our society — the schemers, the murderers, those who prey on the weak."

It takes "a lot of professional training and strong character not to respond in anger," Schieffer added. "I know, because I spent my early years listening to some of these awful people. Sometimes I wanted to hit them myself."

Schieffer's candor adds more to the "cops gone wrong" discussion than just another platitude about how tough officers' job is and how most of them do it well. He confirms a worrisome truth.

It's the daunting reality that what we really need is for each and every cop to be an exceptional, even an improbable, kind of person.

We need cops to be abnormally capable of both aggression and restraint. They must be people with above-average physical courage — folks who won't flinch from "mixing it up" and applying force when "awful people" (or just awfully mixed-up people) make force necessary.

But at the very same time, while making split-second decisions under duress, cops must be unusually calm, prudent and in control of their emotions — especially fear and, as Schieffer says, anger.

The "rash of stories about cops gone wrong" that is disturbing America today (even though some of the most repeated "stories" have been faulty) makes it soberingly clear that not all officers on the beat are up to their extraordinarily demanding job.

It's typical of our time that we seem to be hoping for a technological solution. More body cams and dash cams — and ever more ubiquitous smartphones — could, many hope, deter police misconduct and make it easier to criminally prosecute cops gone wrong. That hope was reinforced when shocking cellphone video from South Carolina led to quick murder charges against an officer who might otherwise have explained away his fatal shooting of a fleeing suspect.

But video won't always be unambiguous. And surely we don't want to wait until problem officers abuse or kill before we deal with them.

A question too seldom asked is whether the disciplinary systems that govern most police officers under union contracts and civil-service rules enable departments to try to ensure that officers possess the exceptionally "strong character" they (and we) need on the streets.

As it happens, revisiting an unusual local case of cops gone wrong on video sheds light on the disciplinary issue.

The officers appealed their firings to the Civil Service Commission — one of the options cops typically have for appealing discipline. Last July, the commission upheld Harteau's decision.

But appeals don't always turn out that way. Just a few months later, last November, another Minneapolis cop appealed his 32-day suspension to a labor arbitrator — the other main avenue for appeal that disciplined cops commonly enjoy.

The arbitrator ruled that officer's punishment too harsh and reduced his suspension to 10 days.

What was this patrolman's offense? He had gotten into an off-duty "altercation" at an Apple Valley bar, pleading guilty to disorderly conduct. Then barely six months later, he was arrested in Bloomington for drunken driving, again pleading guilty.

Minneapolis department leaders told the arbitrator they had considered termination, but hoped a monthlong suspension would convince this officer of the need to get a grip on himself. Yet the arbitrator thought even that too severe.

But what made the disciplinary system see the Green Bay trash talk as so much more serious than the repeat boozy misdeeds in Apple Valley and Bloomington?

Embarrassing video, perhaps?

At all events, this is one more glimpse of a public-employee disciplinary system that operates mainly out of public sight and may not maintain the clear and consistent standards we need if we're serious about combating the problem of "cops gone wrong."

D.J. Tice is at Doug.Tice@startribune.com.