These are challenging times for the Renton Police Department and its leadership.

Two deputy chiefs have been disciplined for their conduct in two wildly disparate situations. Animated cartoons cast the department in an obscene light, where the truth is fleeting at best.

But Police Chief Kevin Milosevich has taken the right initial steps to investigate the actions of his deputy chiefs and discipline them and to find out who’s responsible for creating videos that he and his legal advisers maintain amount to cyberstalking.

Nothing is swept under the rug, even the embarrassing details of a relationship at an end and the revelation that there are some Police Department employees disgruntled with their department and its leadership and policies.

We ask our police to investigate crimes; this is what Milosevich is doing.

Saddest is the emotional impact these disturbing videos have had on three Police Department rank-and-file employees who are not public officials, in our view. Frankly the innuendo is sickening and the veiled identifications are amateurish, by intent.

But Milosevich better have a fallback plan to punish the cartoons’ creator(s) if his investigation does determine that punishment by a court is warranted. Whether the videos amount to cyberstalking has drawn national attention, much of it questioning the city’s position.

Many in the legal community – and the American Civil Liberties Union – are of the opinion that the videos are protected free speech under the Constitution. The First Amendment is not to be tread on without good reason, which is rare.

It doesn’t matter that the cartoons are obscene. It doesn’t matter whether they are untrue. We, in America, get to voice our thoughts without prior restraint. Public officials and public policy are fair game, the key being public officials. Of course, just be aware of libel and slander laws.

The World Wide Web has complicated those legal issues, as much has changed, including the rules of engagement on the Internet, since the state’s cyberstalking law went into effect in 2004. But it’s the law and it contains no definition of a victim.

So, enter Larry Warren, Renton’s city attorney who for more than 30 years has tried First Amendment cases as part of his duties. The landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1986 that allows for a government to use zoning regulations to place adult uses was made possible in part by his legal analysis.

In other words, he knows what he’s talking about. His staff has advised the  Police Department to move forward with the cyberstalking investigation as a crime. He says free speech and cyberstalking are completely separate.

He made his point succinctly in an interview with the Renton Reporter.

“That’s my belief that the videos are not protected free speech,” he said. “Someone who doesn’t have all the facts could disagree with that.”

So where does this leave Chief Milosevich. He needs to continue his investigation; a King County Superior Court judge should lift a stay on a search warrant that allows him to do so aggressively.

There are certainly other avenues he can take for discipline that are under his control and not a court’s. He will make decisions that will affect the careers of people with whom he works side-by-side.

He’s in a tough spot. He has to balance our right to speak freely about our leaders and their policies, even in a distasteful way, with this primary obligation to protect us against crime. For sure, he has some healing to do within his department.

So until all the facts are known, let’s not rush to judgment. Cherished principles are at stake.