The majority of law enforcement officers in this country perform their difficult occupations with a respect for the law and the community. However, there are some officers who believe that the power of their job elevates them to a different position then you and me…above the law. When an officer acts in a manner contrary to the law, he or she is engaging in police misconduct.
It is a violation of your rights for an officer acting under the “color of law” to deprive you of any right protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States. Police misconduct prohibited by these laws includes excessive force, sexual assault, intentional false arrest, and the intentional creation of evidence resulting in a loss of liberty to another.
Most of us think that we could never be a victim of police misconduct because we obey the law. In my practice, I commonly encounter the mentality that only criminals have run-ins with law enforcement officers. Bad things only happen to bad people right? The scary truth is that we are all potential victims.
Consider a California woman, who in 2007, was pulled over by an LAPD officer for allegedly violating a traffic ordinance. After detaining the woman for the traffic violation, the officer sexually assaulted her and held his firearm to her head. The LAPD officer pled guilty to this crime. Clearly, this woman was not a bad person nor was she a criminal in any sense. Just as you and I do every day, she was simply driving her car down the road.
You could also become a victim of police misconduct performing your job. A nurse in a busy Chicago emergency room learned this lesson the hard way. She was arrested by the police for failing to perform a blood test on a man suspected of driving under the influence. The nurse explained to the officer that she had no problem performing the test; however, hospital policy required that the suspect be admitted to the hospital before the test could be administered. Annoyed that he did not get special treatment, the officer placed the nurse in handcuffs, walked her outside and placed her in the back of a patrol car for 45 minutes. She was later released because requiring the police to follow hospital policy is not a crime, nor is failing to perform tests ordered by a cop. The nurse was treated for injuries to her wrists as a result of the arresting officer placing the cuffs too tightly. Despite her requests, the officer refused to loosen the handcuffs during his brash display of power. Handcuffs are known to cause nerve damage to the hands when placed too tightly. Incidentally, the arresting officer was caught on video laughing about her arrest.
Imagine becoming a victim of police misconduct while you are trying to report a crime. It happened in Oklahoma City. A 35-year-old social worker was arrested after she attempted to alert the police to a crime in progress. Eyewitness accounts describe her as being placed in handcuffs and lying on the ground when the police deployed a Taser on her. The police admit to tasering her at least 5 times but witnesses describe that she was tasered 20 times. The social worker died on the scene and it remains unclear as to why the officers arrested her in the first place.
The above stories describe people who in the course of their everyday lives became victims of police misconduct. Not one of them committed a single criminal act, yet the victimization they suffered at the hands of law enforcement was in fact criminal. These victims are more like you and me and less like the hardened thugs who “get what they deserve” like we see on popular television shows.
Police misconduct can also occur when officers make false statements. Take for example a Hillsborough County, Florida Sheriff’s deputy who recently resigned after an internal affairs investigation revealed that he forged the signatures on sworn reports at least 36 times. Basically, he fabricated the statements of witnesses and victims in order to arrest and charge at least 36 people.
Take into account a series of incidents that occurred in Cook County, Chicago. There, an officer who had just received commendations for the most DUI arrests in the department. This officer was himself arrested and now faces felony perjury charges for lying in his arrest reports. His untruthfulness led to the conviction of at least 37 people. The Cook County State’s Attorney’s office had to drop 156 arrests made by this officer once his dishonesty was discovered.
If you were on a jury deciding the fate of someone charged with a crime, would you believe that the arresting officer was lying about what happened? What if you were one of those unfortunate 37 people in Cook County? Do you feel confident that a jury would believe your story over that of an officer’s if your liberty was at stake?
Think about how disturbing the following scenario is: You are driving home from work and get pulled over by an officer. Although you did not have a drop of alcohol to drink, the officer tells you that he “detects a strong odor of alcohol coming from your body.” How could you disprove it? What evidence could you come up with to show that the officer was wrong and that he did not smell alcohol? You can not refute a sense of smell. You would be arrested and facing criminal charges which at the least would cost you thousands of dollars to defend. This happened to a client of mine who was returning home late one night after he had been called to the hospital to perform emergency surgery on a patient.
These are just a small sampling of the reports of police misconduct in this country. I have represented doctors, pilots, military officers and even other police officers who have been victims of police misconduct. The bottom line is that a police officer’s misconduct represents a danger to you and your community. You, your mother, your father, a friend, or your child could be the next victim. A society that allows its citizens to be victimized by the police is not a safe society in which to live.
So who is policing the police? You are. As citizens, victims, voters and jurors, we determine how severely and frequently law enforcement departments can violate our rights before we stand up and make them stop. We set the standards for safety in the community and we determine when enough is enough.
As a citizen, if you observe misconduct, you need to report it. You need to let the media know what you saw. You need to make our elected officials aware of what is happening and place them on notice of what is going on in their agencies. Furthermore, you need to ask that this conduct be investigated by reporting it to the FBI and the Internal Affairs departments within the agency in question. If you choose not to get involved, you ratify the conduct and become part of the problem.
As a victim, you need to enforce your rights. Otherwise, you send the message that you don’t care about your constitutional rights or the rights of your friends and family. You are telling the law enforcement agency that is ok to brutalize us, fabricate evidence against us, or simply arrest us to teach us a lesson. Police officers are often asked, not why they acted in violation of someone’s rights, but why they thought they could get away with it. The answer is simply that they have gotten away with it many times before.
As a voter, you can elect politicians who enforce discipline within our law enforcement agencies, investigate complaints, and punish violators. As a voter, you can choose not to vote for, or even campaign against, a politician who allows his law enforcement agencies to victimize the public without punishment.
As a juror, you need to make sure the victims are compensated fully. Violators must know that their misconduct will result in having to make their victims whole. A jury who refuses to compensate a victim fully sends the message to the police that their conduct is tolerable in our society. Jurors who provide full justice for victims and against those who violate our rights deter future misconduct. Complete justice for the victim puts the police on notice that they are not going to get away with what they know is wrong—not even a little bit. When violators know that they will be held fully accountable it makes society safer for all of us.
CA23T2CM5TMJ
Tags: civil rights, Keith Weidner, police abuse, police brutality, Police Misconduct
