This week's lesson regarding Police Misconduct

[SavannahMann]

Salt Lake CIty Utah, and Georgia had something in common this week. Both states were the subject of police misconduct stories that went national. Both also tell us something about the determination to hold officers accountable that is always said when these stories do start trending. The determination is always affected by how much of the Public is informed.

The Traffic Stop in Cobb County where the cop made the asinine statement was almost a year ago. Yet the decision to fire the cop only came after the "investigation" was launched whe the news went public. When the eyes of the public were on the cop, and his statement, then the command staff were outraged and disgusted enough to do something.

In Utah, again everyone knew what had happened, and there had been meetings with Nurse Wubble, and the lawyers, and of course the City. But once the story went public, the cop who had been on active duty, but not on the blood draw team, was suspended while they investigated.

The Police Defenders always tell us these amazing stories about how the system works to weed out the bad cops, and this week we have two such examples. Once the news got the story, and the public was informed, then the bad cops were held accountable. The Georgia Cop retired, and the Salt Lake City cops were suspended.

The police are like children, they'll clean the room like they promised, while you are standing there making sure they are. But that is true of far too many people. Yes, the departments will hold misconduct accountable, but only if the story gets too big to sweep under the rug.

That is why I snort when I read that good cops, the supposed vast majority, are disgusted by bad cops. I've seen no proof of that. What I have seen proof of is that these "bad cops" will be expunged from the ranks of the good cops, if there is enough public outcry. Then the defenders of the "Good Cops" will gnash their teeth wailing that a good cop was thrown to the wolves over one tiny mistake.

We are the ones who have to make sure that the bad cops are exposed, and held accountable. Not through some insane vigilante justice. But through our elected officials. We hired them to do a job, and that job was not to maintain the status quo and let misconduct go wild unless a Reporter decides it's newsworthy. But to make sure the misconduct is stamped out long before it gets to that point.

 

[Montrovant]

Salt Lake CIty Utah, and Georgia had something in common this week. Both states were the subject of police misconduct stories that went national. Both also tell us something about the determination to hold officers accountable that is always said when these stories do start trending. The determination is always affected by how much of the Public is informed.

The Traffic Stop in Cobb County where the cop made the asinine statement was almost a year ago. Yet the decision to fire the cop only came after the "investigation" was launched whe the news went public. When the eyes of the public were on the cop, and his statement, then the command staff were outraged and disgusted enough to do something.

In Utah, again everyone knew what had happened, and there had been meetings with Nurse Wubble, and the lawyers, and of course the City. But once the story went public, the cop who had been on active duty, but not on the blood draw team, was suspended while they investigated.

The Police Defenders always tell us these amazing stories about how the system works to weed out the bad cops, and this week we have two such examples. Once the news got the story, and the public was informed, then the bad cops were held accountable. The Georgia Cop retired, and the Salt Lake City cops were suspended.

The police are like children, they'll clean the room like they promised, while you are standing there making sure they are. But that is true of far too many people. Yes, the departments will hold misconduct accountable, but only if the story gets too big to sweep under the rug.

That is why I snort when I read that good cops, the supposed vast majority, are disgusted by bad cops. I've seen no proof of that. What I have seen proof of is that these "bad cops" will be expunged from the ranks of the good cops, if there is enough public outcry. Then the defenders of the "Good Cops" will gnash their teeth wailing that a good cop was thrown to the wolves over one tiny mistake.

We are the ones who have to make sure that the bad cops are exposed, and held accountable. Not through some insane vigilante justice. But through our elected officials. We hired them to do a job, and that job was not to maintain the status quo and let misconduct go wild unless a Reporter decides it's newsworthy. But to make sure the misconduct is stamped out long before it gets to that point.

I don't know how much the average officer knows about these kinds of things until they get media attention. The chiefs, the higher-ups, perhaps IA, but I don't know if the majority of a police force will have any idea these situations have occurred, or if they find out the same way as the rest of us, on the news.

Still, there is truth to your point, that police abuse and corruption too often only seems to be addressed when it is too visible not to be.

 

[william the wie]

The problem with police is that they are not being kept up with technology, so they do ignorant/stupid things.

 

[Windparadox]

`
`
King shit cops exist because of "police unions". It forces "good cops" to be part of the blue wall of silence.

 

[Fenton Lum]

The problem with police is that they are not being kept up with technology, so they do ignorant/stupid things.

So they've been doing stupid and ignorant things all along then.

 

[SavannahMann]

`
`
King shit cops exist because of "police unions". It forces "good cops" to be part of the blue wall of silence.

Remember Harry Potter, the first book? In it Neville stood up to Harry, Hermoine, and Ron to stop them. He stood up to his friends believing he was doing the right thing. That is a very rare thing. It is hard not to go along, and be a part of it. Imagine the young cop, idealistic perhaps, being mentored about what is really going on, how you always back the fellow officer, it's us versus them. That's just the way it is.

But there is the rub. When it's "Us versus Them" then you have to pick a team, and the team you're on is the one you believe in. You may even get the talk about how sometimes the rules get bent, but only for a good reason.

Remember the discussions and debate on torture. We were subjected endlessly to the idea that the ticking time bomb would be stopped only if we let the Military and CIA torture people. Allan West was Courts Martialed for torturing a prisoner to get information. The information was bogus, the prisoner made it up to stop the torture, but that just proves that torture works, or something.

We as a people have been inundated with examples of bad things done for good reasons being necessicary. The recent movie Deadpool had Wade Wilson killing and torturing people to find out where his nemesis was. Wade was the good guy, the one looking to right the wrong, stop the baddies. Wade claimed in the narrative that he was a bad guy, who went after even worse guys.

In the television series Numbers, they tortured a kid to get information on where his partner was. Now, even in the series, they were able to tell the truth about what they did, and face no repercussions. They had a good reason to break the rules you see.

I could name every television series with cops, and show where this was done. One of the longest running shows, NCIS. Every single episode they hack computer systems that they aren't supposed to in order to find the evidence they need to get the guilty. They break all the rules all the time, but it's Gibbs, and he's the Uber Good Guy. Who murdered someone, but hey, he had a good reason.

Now, imagine growing up with this sort of propaganda. Then imagine you join the cops and find out that in their own way, the cops are doing that very thing. They are planting drugs, but that makes sure the guilty guy goes away. They only do the bad things, for good reasons. They lie about what they saw, to protect the other good guys, who are doing bad things, but for good reasons.

In the show Burn Notice, Michael tells us that being a spy means having bad people do bad things for the greater good. Who gets to decide that? In the television shows, it's the heroes we are invested in. In the movies, it's the cops facing a huge conspiracy of baddies who want to destroy everything. In the series 24, the second season starts out with Keifer Southerland murdering a baddie and cutting his head off to use as an in with a Terrorist Cell.

These are the good cops. They lie, they either plant evidence, or turn their backs when others are planting evidence. They back each other up, because they believe that they have to do bad things, to get the good result. We the civilians just don't understand. We are not walking a mile in their combat boots we can't understand the evil that is out there, and the only thing stopping that evil, is a slightly lesser evil.

The young idealistic types are taught that this is the real world, and this is the way it really is, and you're either with us, or against us.

Serpico exposed widespread criminal conduct in the police. How many were fired? How many went to jail? If you answered none. You got it right. Nothing changed. It just got a little smaller, a little less obvious. But it is still happening.