I disagree. It becomes an issue for law enforcement as a whole because:
A. It’s not just those officers. Those are just the ones that I can honestly say I’m being totally objective about. There’s definitely a culture that told them “it’s okay to break the rules to catch the rule breakers” because most of those guys went on to get promoted.
I can assure you in the agencies ive worked in or with, promotions have NOTHING to do with rule breaking, and usually has to do with seniority and politics/friendships. If you had a leadership structure that routinely promoted those who were known to be liars, cheaters, etc. purposefully, the rank and file would not support that and many would leave or try to change it.
B. There is a complete lack of acknowledgement that it is a cultural problem within the profession.
And
I think the biggest impediment to change you what are perceiving to be "bad" cops is three things:
1 - Just like in THIS thread, a lot of perfectly legal and understandable police response to certain things are deemed as "brutality, fascist, overreaction, racism" etc. when it really isn't, and because some of the public is uneducated about law/police procedure and stick to their feelings of what they think "should be fair",etc. It's hard for a police officer, supervisor, trainer, chief, etc. to take a complaint of racist police brutality seriously when 95% of all the complaints and stories of such are embellished or half-told or even made up by the media/public/offender. So the LEGIT complaints sometimes get looked at through THAT prism because it's crying wolf every time the police do anything.
2 - In the larger cities especially, because of politics and trouble in recruitment, they have lowered the standards to BE a police officer in the name of diversity and need. So you get officers without much education and training and those with histories of drugs/criminal behaviors, etc. Those officers are likely to have issues for obvious reasons compared to normal officers so in cities like NYC, you have more corruption and bad officers because you are trying to fill 40,000 spots with a "diverse group"
3 - The other legit impediment i have seen a few times (not just in law enforcement but in the private sector as well of ALL businesses) is that agencies would be more transparent with their discipline or investigations if the media and lawyers weren't so eager to jump on the "this rookie officer made a small error, let's sue them for millions and brand him a racist or evil criminal the rest of his life for news clicks".. I have personally witnessed a small county in West TN that wanted to arrest an officer who was caught stealing evidence, that the mayor and sheriff refused to even talk about and simply fired him because they were worried about the reaction, which the public SHOULD be saying "good job for weeding out a bad officer" instead of "man you all are criminal a**holes".
C. (Maybe this infringes on B, but) The fraternal code of silence among officers brooks absolutely no internal dissent or accountability. From what I’ve seen, you’re much more likely to get cast out for speaking out against one of your brothers in blue than you are for beating some grandma to a pulp and shooting her dog, unless the grandma story goes viral and your chief feels the heat. (In which case, even if grandma opened fire with an Uzi and her 90lb dog bit a chunk out of your leg, your ass is grass.)
I don't agree with this...when it comes down to nuts and bolts, the vast majority of officers will not support an officer who truly is committing crimes, doing brutality, etc. because they know those officers aren't going to make it long in the profession, and they get weeded out sooner than you might think. In 20 years, i have personally witnessed 1 (maybe 2 which is a stretch) of officers using inappropriate or unreasonable force and the other officers on scene not only stopped them but wrote in their reports of what happened. I can't speak for every small redneck city police force with 10 good ole boys, but i can speak for most of the larger agencies in Knoxville and the surrounding 20-30 counties, that a rogue officer of that nature would be ostracized pretty quickly.
Those become compounding issues when you look back at this thread and see somebody in the profession sticking up for every single one of these officers with a “totally by the book, nothing to see here.” The response is an increasing number of eye rolls. Whether it’s their chief or a union rep, people are just losing faith in police procedures and are losing faith in the police to tell us straight about what happened.
The thing is, i try to call it fairly down the middle, when i see things like "this officer had no legal right to arrest her", or "this officer shot this poor burglar with a gun" etc. i simply point out what the legal and reasonable standard for the actions of the officers are. If i see a true violation/crime (like Walter Scott shooting), or when i agreed that the restraint chair in the jail was probably unnecessary for that woman prisoner, i will call out things like that....People usually "lose faith" in police procedures due to one of the following points:
1 - They are a criminal or criminal/drug use enabler themselves
2 - They are normal person who one time had a really bad experience with a police officer who may or may not have been in the wrong and are bitter about it
3 - They don't like authority of ANY kind and have those type issues (i.e. same kind who are atheist because their parents made them go to church as a kid)
4 - They are sovereign citizen types (the government has no right to ever tell or make me do anything)
5 - They are emotional and easily swayed by FB and anti-police stories because they don't understand the law or police procedures in general
It’s why cops are being outfitted with body cameras. It’s why some communities are moving to citizen review panels. The community is losing faith in the honesty of the profession and it’s ability to govern itself. Which, IMO, is going to be a bad thing when “the book” gets rewritten without sufficient input from the profession.
I love body cams, they ALWAYS help the officer and it's hilarious to watch a lawyer/criminal complainant tell a judge something and you play the video and show the truth. I have no issues with them at all, and if an officer is seen on there actually doing something wrong, hold them accountable. Citizen Review Panels are ok as long as they are just an advising committee with internal affairs. In the large cities, there are cases where citizen review panels have made agencies not ever arrest any gang members, even for serious felonies, if they are working, going to church, with their families. Some of that stuff is ridiculous and that's why crime soars in those places.
Not casting stones from our glass house here in the profession of attorney, not saying you’re bad or you’re all bad, and not saying you have to be the one to do something about it. Just explaining why I don’t agree with your statement about the nature or pervasiveness of the problem.
