Law enforcement jobs can be very isolating. Police officers are often seen and treated as outsiders because they step back from life, observe human behavior and then intervene when that behavior violates the laws society has agreed upon.

This isolation comes about, too, because many officers work evening and overnight shifts, plus weekend hours, making it difficult to be in sync with the Monday-to-Friday working world.

Such disconnection can make officers prone to a circle-the-wagons mentality when one of their own is under attack from the outside.

Anne E. Kirkpatrick was hired as Spokane’s police chief last summer. As a young officer in Memphis, she paid her dues as a beat cop and understood why officer loyalty is so important. But she also understood when she took the high-profile job here that the department needed to shift its focus outward – to the public the officers are sworn to protect and to the taxpayers who pay their salaries.

Kirkpatrick said she would be more open about the department’s public records, and the department is making some progress toward this stated goal. And Kirkpatrick said she would carry into the new job the “cardinal rules” she insisted upon for the officers she led in Federal Way, Wash. Those rules, she said, include no sex on duty, no lying and no insubordination.

“People are going to make mistakes,” she said when she was a candidate for the top job in Spokane. “But character-based mistakes are not tolerable.”

Kirkpatrick turned those candidate words into on-the-job action last week when she fired Cpl. David Freitag. The 15-year veteran of the Police Department had been on paid leave for four months after federal agents arrested, on child pornography possession charges, 65-year-old Thomas R. Herman – a sex offender and convicted felon. Herman was living in Freitag’s basement.

Freitag apparently violated one of Kirkpatrick’s cardinal rules. Reports indicate that he lied to internal investigators about knowing Herman’s sex-offender status. He also violated department policies and rules of code prohibiting conflicts of interest and actions that discredit the law enforcement profession.

In a letter to Freitag, Kirkpatrick didn’t mince words. She called him on his negligence, poor judgment and reckless behavior.

Changing an entrenched workplace culture is never easy. The change begins with clear statements of vision and even clearer statements of what will and won’t be tolerated on the job. Kirkpatrick made it clear that poor judgment, conflicts of interest and actions with the potential to taint the entire department won’t be tolerated. Culture-change language was written throughout her statements.

Spokane celebrates its 125th anniversary this week. The city is trying hard to shed its provisional, insular image. The Freitag firing, though painful to the officer and his family, as Kirkpatrick also acknowledged, is a sign the Police Department is part of this plan for municipal maturity.