Article first appeared at The Free Thought Project.

A North Carolina mother put aside her reluctance to allow a middle-aged man to connect with her troubled 14-year-old daughter because he wanted to show the family, ‘Hey, policemen are good.’ On the contrary, Lowell Police Officer James Blair proved the opposite by opportuning on his position of authority to initiate a ‘relationship’ with the teen — leaving her pregnant under circumstances inadequately described as disturbing.

“If you keep that baby, I’m done and you know it,” one of Blair’s texts to the teen — discovered by her startled mother — stated with somewhat ominously threatening overtones.

“Do whatever you wanna do, just remember I love you and name it after me,” read another. Both texts are included among those handed over to North Carolina’s State Bureau of Investigation, which is now examining the relationship between the minor child and Blair — who has now been arrested for statutory rape, with more charges likely to follow.

Local Channel 9 initially broke the story which led to Blair’s arrest.

“My heart was broken,” the mother, whose name Channel 9 withheld in the interest of protecting the teen victim’s identity, said upon discovering the series of texts.

According to the mother, Blair essentially weaseled his way into the family’s trust under the auspices of ‘connecting’ with the the 14-year-old one-time runaway and her sibling, frequently visiting and even bringing all of them on a trip.

Instead of mentoring or counseling the young girl, however, Blair “tore my life apart,” the mother lamented.

According to Channel 9, the mother stumbled upon the texts two weeks ago and contacted the Gaston County police, who alerted the district attorney. Upon request, the SBI launched an investigation.

Furious over Blair’s manipulation, the woman confronted him.

“I did meet with him,” she explained. “I told him how bad he broke my heart. How he betrayed my family.”

She said the 51-year-old officer confessed to having inappropriate relations with her daughter in her home and his patrol car.

“He told me he took her virginity. He told me it was his baby,” she said. “He told me things happened and he said he was sorry. And he kept saying, ‘Please forgive him.’”

Forced to deal with the consequences of his salacious and sick behavior, the cop asked the mother to do something she found absolutely untenable — take her daughter for an abortion.

“‘Get rid of the baby or I’ve lost my life. I’ve lost my life,’” the mother said Blair told her. Appalled, she said, “How do I kill a baby? I don’t kill no baby. I don’t believe in abortion.”

Blair, who had been on medical leave for 80 days prior to his arrest, has been suspended without pay by the department. He is being held on $1 million bond and is slated to appear in court sometime today.

“I’m in shock. I really am in shock,” said a neighbor of Blair’s whose grandson had frequent contact with the officer.

“I would definitely not stop my grandson from going over there. That’s for sure,” she explained, according to a local NBC affiliate, adding her family had known Blair’s for years and hadn’t noticed any untoward behavior between him and her grandson.

SBI has requested anyone with evidence of inappropriate conduct by Blair to contact the agency.

Blair’s twisted use of his badge to gain the trust of a mother in order to sexually exploit a teenage girl stands as yet more evidence of the thriving police state in the U.S. Those who fanatically defend the actions of officers pontificate on respecting the badge, but fail to grasp that respect must be earned.

A growing number of officers, like Blair, have been responsible for heinous crimes — such as beating a motorist in need of medical aid, lying about murdering another, killing a K9 officer by leaving it in a sweltering patrol car for 38 hours, and plenty more. Until police begin actually policing their own, or ‘good’ cops begin speaking out en masse against the errant and their ilk, less and less of the public will have reason to respect the oft-manipulated badge.