> Standard police practice. After a 60-day suspension, he'll be back on the streets.
this seems to be the standard response to any policy brutality or corruption article. what can ACTUALLY be done?
this seems to be the standard response to any policy brutality or corruption article. what can ACTUALLY be done?
Philadelphia is particularly bad:
"Through arbitration about nine of every 10 officers Ramsey has let go have found their way back onto the force, the Fraternal Order of Police told Hairston. And, about 75 of reinstated officers also get their full benefits and full back pay, according to the FOP." [1]
[1] http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Police-Officers-Ge...
(Police unions get blamed a lot, and certainly might restrict internal departmental discipline, but they can't constrain criminal prosecution.)
Perhaps establish separate offices only to prosecute crimes by law enforcement officers detached entirely from regular prosecutors offices. (But then, they'd need their own investigation and arrest force, and who prosecutes their misconduct? The regular prosecutors office?)
It might have to be Federal, but not the Justice Department. And frankly that function should not even fall under the executive branch, or not completely.
I propose a Department of Liberty, lead by a Liberator General that is set up as a check against the Attorney General. It would be tasked with prosecuting crimes committed only by police and government agents, with no power to prosecute private citizens. It would be equipped with its own force of agents who likewise can only arrest police and other agents. The department would also serve as a central voice and funding umbrella for our woefully neglected public defenders. Finally, it would be partly overseen by a Congressional 'grand jury committee', which would be presided over by a sitting SCOTUS Justice on a rotating basis.
Federate that model at the state and local level, with appropriate modifications such as actual grand jury oversight.
'Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno said he supports the commissioner’s decision to suspend Bigda because of the likelihood firing him would not survive a civil service appeal and the city would be ordered to rehire the cop with back pay.
" I am not happy about it. This is what was recommended," Sarno said. " It is a most severe suspension of 60 working days without pay and retraining."
Barbieri told The Republican newspaper that Bigda will be reassigned to uniform duty on a day shift when his suspension ends.'
The people in charge here do not sound happy, so I suspect his career prospects will be fairly limited going forward, but who knows for sure.
That said, I agree the focus should be on what can be changed. The primary difficulty appears to be the Civil Service Commissions - why are these organizations defending civil servants who are clearly in the wrong?
Likely because their members want it, some because they perceive the evidence to be stacked against them, so instinctively mistrust what their employers are presenting. Put another way, there are instances where the rank-and-file police become the scapegoats for officers higher in the hierarchy, or for mistakes made by the judicial branch, and their union is expected to protect them in these instances. Unfortunately, deciding when to defend an officer and when not to is often problematic because the information available may not be perfect, due to the nature of the agency and the power of those involved at all levels. Defaulting to defending the officer in question except in the more egregious cases is actually a sane policy in that case, even if it leads to the defense of the apparently indefensible.
In other words, they are too afraid of being sued, they say. But I'm pretty sure the reality is that they could fire him anyway. Prosecute him under the same sorts of laws they would prosecute someone else commiting an act of violence in a similar situation. Fight the civil suit, and ask that it be held until after the criminal case is over with.
In the longer term, have better training for police, not just the ones that happened to get caught. If anything, the training clearly outlines how they expect their employees to act so that they have better outcomes in civil cases in the future.
A better solution would be to require all police brutality cases to be immediately reviewed by a federal court, with a guilty verdict resulting in immediate suspension of duties and benefits, as well as criminal charges. Defendants have the right to appeal, but they cannot use public funds for their case.
Essentially, this would reverse this current system which makes it easy for bad people to get away with bad things, and hard to punish them for it. Changing this system ensures a fairer and safer society for everyone.
Which is entirely the point of law, and law enforcement.
Obviously that's not always true, but as a generalization it definitely got me thinking. I wish we had more (any?) LEOs posting here, I would really appreciate their perspective on these issues.
This presupposes that enough people care.
2. Federal investigation of police misconduct.
3. A DA who will build his career on rooting out corruption and criminality in the police force.
Pick any of the three.
But any politician who takes up the task will be tagged with unfriendly to cops, putting the lives of cops in danger, or not tough on crime
And because cops tend to vote as a unit, there's very little incentive for any politician to take on the task.
So the solution is there, but who's going to take the lead?