You have got to be fucking kidding me...

[MrScorpio]

We found 85,000 cops who’ve been investigated for misconduct. Now you can read their records.
USA TODAY is leading a national effort to obtain and publish disciplinary and misconduct records for thousands of police officers.

John Kelly and Mark Nichols, USA TODAY
Updated 35 minutes ago

At least 85,000 law enforcement officers across the USA have been investigated or disciplined for misconduct over the past decade, an investigation by USA TODAY Network found.

Officers have beaten members of the public, planted evidence and used their badges to harass women. They have lied, stolen, dealt drugs, driven drunk and abused their spouses.

Despite their role as public servants, the men and women who swear an oath to keep communities safe can generally avoid public scrutiny for their misdeeds.

The records of their misconduct are filed away, rarely seen by anyone outside their departments. Police unions and their political allies have worked to put special protections in place ensuring some records are shielded from public view, or even destroyed.

Reporters from USA TODAY, its 100-plus affiliated newsrooms and the nonprofit Invisible Institute in Chicago have spent more than a year creating the biggest collection of police misconduct records.

Obtained from thousands of state agencies, prosecutors, police departments and sheriffs, the records detail at least 200,000 incidents of alleged misconduct, much of it previously unreported. The records obtained include more than 110,000 internal affairs investigations by hundreds of individual departments and more than 30,000 officers who were decertified by 44 state oversight agencies.

Among the findings:

Most misconduct involves routine infractions, but the records reveal tens of thousands of cases of serious misconduct and abuse. They include 22,924 investigations of officers using excessive force, 3,145 allegations of rape, child molestation and other sexual misconduct and 2,307 cases of domestic violence by officers.

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2019/04/24/usa-today-revealing-misconduct-records-police-cops/3223984002/

[FM123]

1. 85,000

That is a shocking number! You read about individual cases of misconduct in the news all the time, but when the total numbers are put in front of you it is a jaw dropping moment...

[Lucky Luciano]

56. 85000 is a lower bound...the actual number is probably much higher. nt

[LiberalLovinLug]

80. Yup Those are just the ones that got c caught

[Rambling Man]

2. Uniforms do not a hero make . . .

[DBoon]

54. Sometimes they do the opposite

A uniform may help hide misdeeds that would in a civilian be prosecuted

[uponit7771]

3. Make a standard for hiring and conduct and stick to them or fines paid via cops retirement and

... no through insurance.

Bout that easy

[marble falls]

4. We've been waiting for years for something like this data base, great post!

[Sherman A1]

12. Agreed

this is a great find.

[spicysista]

5. 3,145 allegations of sexual misconduct!!! WTH???

I'm super happy to hear someone's been keeping up with all this stuff. Although I am not surprised, the numbers are still staggering.

[dalton99a]

6. Kick

[USALiberal]

7. Cops protect bad cops! The Blue wall! Nt

[Texin]

25. They're are well known to look the other way when they know a man is beating his wife and or kids.

[tblue37]

28. And their union is so powerful that it's almost impossible to fire a bad cop. nt

[tazkcmo]

43. "Good" cops.

Are you really a good cop if you turn the other eye or don't report misconduct?

[A HERETIC I AM]

50. No.

[mahina]

77. Not true

Obviously

[moreland01]

8. When cops get caught doing wrong,

everyone says "It's one bad seed." and "Most cops are GREAT.". I don't know what the total number of cops is in this country, but this 85,000 number shows a systemic problem. It's a career that requires strength of mind, character and sometimes, body. All three have to be in control at all times. Guess that's hard to find in a person.

[sop]

16. Cop apologists always use the "one bad apple" excuse

They forget the complete aphorism is "one bad apple spoils the whole barrel," meaning a rotting apple can cause other apples in close proximity to begin to rot as well. And when rotten cops (excuse me, they're all called "first responders" now) are allowed to remain on the force, the rot spreads throughout the entire system.

[True Dough]

20. I happen to believe the majority of police officers are good people

That said, police forces protecting officers who are found guilty of misconduct happens way too often and it's inexcusable. That has to change.

[A HERETIC I AM]

48. I read a piece by a former police officer who said...

That on any given large police department there are about 20% who get up every single day and honestly try their best to uphold their oath and protect the rights of citizens. Then there is another 20% who actually relish their ability to lord their authority over others. These are the worst of the worst and constitute the vast majority of citizen complaints and lawsuits. The remaining 60% however, want to be decent cops and have the desire to do the right thing, but can easily be swayed by whichever of the two preceding groups have the most influence in the department.

Entirely too often, it is the second group.

[Mariana]

64. I'd be a lot more convinced

if we didn't have the countless videos of police abuse that we have. We see the same thing almost every time there's a vid of abuse with more than one cop involved. They rarely step in to protect the victims of their "bad" colleagues, and more often than not, they join in the fun themselves.

[A HERETIC I AM]

69. Oh, I agree

When a cop starts to beating the crap out of someone, they never seem to have any difficulty in finding another 2 or 3 or more of his buddies to lend a hand.

[JonLP24]

68. It depends on the police department some are corrupt to their core

You used to be able to read their articles in full but you need to be a member.

http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/unconstitutional-policing-the-ethical-challenges-in-dealing-with-noble-cause-corruption/


Dealing with the pitfalls of noble cause corruption

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/dodging-the-pitfalls-of-noble-cause-corruption-and-the-intelligence-unit/&ved=2ahUKEwjGmbiw8uvhAhVms1QKHaSKBuYQFjABegQIBxAG&usg=AOvVaw2L9tTfnWPT-boVXWBg9VxX&cshid=1556217693535

Baltimore PD

Web results
Baltimore Police Department - Findings Report - August 10, 2016 - Department of Justice
PDFDepartment of Justice (.gov) › download

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.justice.gov/crt/file/883296/download&ved=2ahUKEwiChef08uvhAhV2HDQIHWZzAgQQFjAAegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw2cjPRpJ4TnSMCwC6jEanE-&cshid=1556217783472

Baltimore Police officers found guilty of racketeering, robbery in Gun Trace Task Force corruption case

ederal jury convicted two Baltimore police detectives Monday for their roles in one of the biggest police corruption scandals in city history.



Detectives Daniel T. Hersl, 48, and Marcus R. Taylor, 31, were found guilty of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy and robbery. Prosecutors said they and their comrades on the Gun Trace Task Force had acted as “both cops and robbers,” using the power of their badges to steal large sums of money from residents under the guise of police work.

“Their business model was that the people that they were robbing had no recourse,” acting U.S. Attorney Stephen Schenning said after the verdict. “Who were they going to go to?”

Acting Police Commissioner Darryl De Sousa said the trial — in which several unindicted officers were also accused of wrongdoing — had uncovered “some of the most egregious and despicable acts ever perpetrated in law enforcement.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gttf-verdict-20180208-story,amp.html

Lawsuit claims Baltimore police retaliated against whistleblower officer

Taylor says he was accused of being a "rat" after emailing a superior out of his chain of command. He says the unit leader retaliated after he filed notice of intent to sue.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-police-whistleblower-suit-20190102-story,amp.html

It is common for cops to call whistle blower cops "rats"

CHICAGO POLICE BOSSES TARGETED COPS WHO EXPOSED CORRUPTION


https://www.google.com/amp/s/static.theintercept.com/amp/chicago-police-bosses-targeted-cops-who-exposed-corruption.html

RAMPART

The Rampart scandal refers to widespread police corruption in the Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) anti-gang unit of the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division in the late 1990s. More than 70 police officers either assigned to or associated with the Rampart CRASH unit were implicated in some form of misconduct, making it one of the most widespread cases of documented police corruption in U.S. history, responsible for a long list of offenses including unprovoked shootings, unprovoked beatings, planting of false evidence, stealing and dealing narcotics, bank robbery, perjury, and the covering up of evidence of these activities.[1]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampart_scandal

In the 1980s, Brooklyn, New York was suffering from a crack epidemic. Michael Dowd worked in the NYPD's 75th Precinct in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, which was considered to be one of the most dangerous precincts in the United States at the time. The 75th Precinct had one of the highest murder rates in the country during the late 1980s. Dowd describes being under-appreciated for the amount of work he put in and hurting for money as the reasons for taking money from drug dealers. He initially began taking bribes from drug dealers on the streets before moving on to protecting a drug cartel leader and robbing from other drug dealers at gunpoint. Dowd and his then-partner Henry "Chicky" Guevara recount the first time walking into a domestic dispute in an apartment and seeing bags of marijuana, a duffle bag filled with approximately $20,000 in cash and two guns. Dowd communicated that he and his partner would take $8000 from the duffle bag and both guns. Dowd continued to rob drug dealers for thousands of dollars. Guevara resigned shortly after multiple police officers were arrested in the 77th Precinct for corruption related offenses.

Ken Eurell, a police officer at the 75th Precinct, was then assigned as Dowd's new partner in June 1987. Eurell had a drinking problem and frequently drank on the job. Dowd and Eurell met a Dominican gang leader named Adam Diaz. Diaz ran The Diaz Organization, a gang that was responsible for countless murders and drug trafficking throughout New York City. He used several supermarkets in East New York as fronts to traffic drugs, mainly cocaine. Dowd and Eurell began a working relationship with Diaz, where they provided protection, inside information about raids, and moving kilos of cocaine.

After numerous complaints and a prolonged investigation, the Suffolk County Police Department arrested Dowd and Eurell on drug trafficking charges. Dowd and Eurell came out on bail. While out on bail, Dowd concocted a plan with the Colombian gang to kidnap and rob a woman. His plan was to hand the woman over to the gang and for him and Eurell to take the money and flee the United States. Eurell agreed to Dowd's kidnapping scheme but instead went to Internal Affairs. Shortly after, in July 1991, Dowd was arrested and sent to trial. He was the main focus of the 1992 Mollen Commission that investigated police corruption in the NYPD.[4] In the wake of Dowd's arrest, Mayor David Dinkins appointed the Mollen Commission to investigate police corruption within the NYPD. As a result, dozens of officers across the city's precincts were arrested.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Five

Speaking of the Millen Commission

In December 1993, the New York Times reported that the "special mayoral panel asserted ... that the New York City Police Department had failed at every level to uproot corruption and had instead tolerated a culture that fostered misconduct and concealed lawlessness by police officers."[2]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mollen_Commission

NOPD

Antoinette Frank (1995)
Edit
On 4 March 1995, Officer Antoinette Frank robbed a local restaurant, killed two of the owner's children, as well as her own partner who was working security at the business. She was sentenced to death.[12]

Murder of Kim Groves (1994)
Edit
Officer Len Davis was found guilty and was sentenced to death for ordering hit-man Paul Hardy to murder Kim Groves, a 32-year-old mother of three children. Groves had filed a police brutality complaint against Davis with Internal Affairs the previous day, and a fellow officer tipped Davis about the charge.[13] Hardy was sentenced to life in prison.

Hurricane Katrina (2005)
Edit
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, ninety-one officers resigned or retired and another two hundred and twenty-eight were investigated for abandoning their posts.[14]

Danziger Bridge shootings
Edit
One report of violence involved a police shooting of six citizens on the Danziger Bridge, which carries the Chef Menteur Highway (US 90) across the Industrial Canal. These citizens were reportedly attacking contractors of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers involved in the 17th Street Canal repair. Other reports alleged people seeking refuge on the bridge from the flood were fired on without provocation.[15] The shootings left two dead and four injured. Subsequently, seven NOPD officers were indicted on murder charges in connection with the incident known as the "Danziger 7". The case was dropped when the prosecutor who brought the charges, Eddie Jordan, resigned his position following charges of corruption and a judgment against him in a racial discrimination lawsuit. On August 13, 2008, District Judge Raymond Bigelow dismissed the case based on misconduct by the prosecution.[16] On August 5, 2011, a New Orleans Federal Court jury convicted five police officers of a myriad of charges related to the cover-up and deprivation of civil rights.[17]

Jeff Winn
Edit
In late May, 2011, Captain Jeff Winn was fired and a number of other officers reassigned for concealing details concerning the killing of Henry Glover in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.[18]

Joshua Colclough (2012)
Edit
In August 2012, Officer Joshua Colclough pleaded guilty to manslaughter in his killing of an unarmed man during a drug raid. He was sentenced to four years in jail.[19]

U.S. Department of Justice consent decree (2012)
Edit
The NOPD entered into a consent decree in 2012 with the U.S. Department of Justice. A U.S. DOJ investigation led to a 2011 written report alleging unconstitutional conduct by the NOPD and describing concerns re NOPD policies and procedures.[20]

Maurice Palmer (2013)
Edit
In April 2013, former Officer Maurice Palmer was sentenced to five years' probation for failing to file federal income tax forms.[21]

Quincy Jones and Rafael Dobard (2014)
Edit
In February 2014, Officers Quincy Jones and Rafael Dobard pleaded guilty to charges relating to faking time sheets and embezzling money from the department.[22]

Desmond Pratt (2014)
Edit
In March 2014, Detective Desmond Pratt pleaded guilty to sexual assault of three underaged girls. He was sentenced to three years in state custody.[23]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans_Police_Department

[EX500rider]

70. "I don't know what the total number of cops is in this country"

There are over 18,000 Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies around the United States, and it is estimated that there are between 750,000 and 850,000 sworn officers. If you count non-sworn personnel who work for police departments, you get over 1 million.

[The Mouth]

79. No cop is any better than the worst officer they cover for

If they don't want to be tarred with the same brush, help get rid of the bad ones.

[Odoreida]

9. Ay least some of this misconduct ...

... are things right wingers would call "doing their job".

[lunasun]

17. +Remember when trump said he wished cops would rough up people they arrested ? As if

they were not doing a good enough job yet.

[CaptYossarian]

21. It sounded weird coming from a crime boss.

[Odoreida]

33. How so? Maybe I'm more cynical, but you know ...

... every Boss has enforcers.

[CaptYossarian]

46. True. We're back to Hitler's Brown Shirts--without the benefit of a DeLorean or a flux capacitor.

[Yavin4]

10. Yes, it's bad cops, but it's more about using the police and our criminal justice system to solve...

our various social problems, lack of mental health care, poor performing schools, lack of jobs, distressed families, etc. Instead of solving these problems we throw cops at them.

Just like we want our military to solve our foreign relations problems.

[DemocracyMouse]

32. Yavin4, that is the golden truth.

Well said!

How's this:

We must rebuild our civic infrastructure so our economy can grow stonger, and more civilized, around it.

[Yavin4]

36. Exactly. The conditions that cops have to work under attracts a certain element to the job.

Cops are the garbage men of our failed civic institutions primarily our education and mental health systems.

[DemocracyMouse]

47. And in addition to paying teachers less than plumbers...

(and no offense to plumbers, teachers should at least reach their level of pay per hour)... we've abandoned the teaching of "the whole child". No recess, no media studies, no media arts (all the arts are now media, etc.), and certainly not enough civic studies. We used to teach comportment and ballroom dancing. Now kids are treated like job nobs... no wonder they hate life and we send the cops on them after they leave school and self-medicate on hate and drugs, etc.

We should be teaching most kids to build up our towns and inner cities with small business skills and the arts. It takes a design awareness and THE ART of good communications skills to run an attractive business. We don't teach such skills. Our country has become a big, ugly hellhole because of it. (The growing gap between overpaid and underpaid plus dependence on fossil fuels and a psycho-sized military system is a big part of it too)

[Yavin4]

65. We've reduced education to a series of standardized tests which advatange certain learning abilities

and certain groups.

[c-rational]

39. Agreed - good point.

[mountain grammy]

11. Bad cops. Who knew?

Everyone, that’s who. Waiting for action from the DOJ. Riiiiight!

[harumph]

13. I applaud USA Today and the Invisible Institute for doing the heavy lifting...

to bring these instances to light.
Please join me in an effort to praise online or offline those that work to shine a light on
law enforcement misconduct. Such work needs support.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. Those are only the ones we know about. . . . nt

[FakeNoose]

26. Until recently the info was never available

The police in this country had made a concerted effort to keep stuff like this out of the media so that people couldn't know. Now it's available as a searchable database for the first time, and that's a big thing. For one thing it will change how civil lawsuits get presented, when attorneys can back up their cases with pertinent data from other states.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

27. Yup. But how much else was unreported, undiscovered, covered up, never investigated?

[mountain grammy]

41. The Guardian did a series a couple of years ago

called "the Counted." It's a searchable series documenting everyone who died at the hands of the police in 2015 and 2016..age, name, race, location and whether they were armed (most were, but so many were not.)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database#

From what I've read, the trump administration has ended all DOJ oversight of suspect police departments..

https://psmag.com/social-justice/jeff-sessions-last-act-in-office

[liberalnarb]

15. Excessive force number seems WAY low.

Think of how many (millions?) go unrecorded.

[lunasun]

18. Rec this post and the research published. Required reading

And only tip of what’s going on

[mopinko]

19. if lori lightfoot doesnt fire at least a dozen cops on her first day,

imma regret my vote.
gonna dig through this to see what chicago's numbers are.

[MH1]

22. Set higher standards AND pay more. (like teachers, in some places)

I may be wrong but I think in most places, especially urban police departments, the pay is rather low.

If you want higher quality, PAY MORE. Then enforce higher quality. (Hard to enforce high quality when you can't keep slots filled due to low pay for dangerous work).

Btw my comment about "like teachers" is in reference to people wanting to gripe about "poor teaching" but then don't want to pay a decent salary. Happening in too many places in this country. Same situation as police. Except police work is a little more flagrantly dangerous. (leaving out stress of 32-kid classrooms etc)

[mackdaddy]

49. Many are low pay, but some places pay pretty well.

In the rural SE Ohio county I live in the Sheriff's deputies have a base salary of about $35k.

I know an officer on the Las Vegas Metro PD that although his base is about $65k his total compensation package including OT, insurance and retirement contributions is over $150 thousand. The pay packages are public record and on-line for LVMPD. I actually find some of their pay packages a little shocking.

https://transparentnevada.com/salaries/las-vegas-metro-police-department/

[MH1]

67. Interesting, thanks. The 150K jobs should have high standards.

If someone is being paid that much, there should be very low tolerance for bad behavior.

[stillcool]

63. cops around here make extra..

by doing the road work thing, and all kinds of events, event parking, etc. The reasons why cops across this nation are brutalizing and killing citizens has nothing to do with their pay. It has to do with their effing minds.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the average salary of a police officer is $58,320. That's for a BLS category that encompasses police officers and sheriff's patrol officers. Detectives and criminal investigators are in a separate category and earn an average salary of $77,210

[MH1]

66. I'm not blaming behavior on low pay. I'm saying hire more selectively in the first place.

Which may require paying better, where the current pay is too low to attract a high quality candidate pool.

Also, it is a dangerous job. It SHOULD pay well.

[stillcool]

76. they don't even make the top 25

funny.

25 most dangerous jobs in America
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/careers/2018/01/09/workplace-fatalities-25-most-dangerous-jobs-america/1002500001/

These are the 10 most dangerous jobs of 2019, as reported by Newsweek:
Logging Workers. ...
Fishers and Related Fishing Workers. ...
Aircraft Pilots and Flight Engineers. ...
Roofers. ...
Refuse and Recyclable Material Collectors. ...
Structural Iron and Steel Workers. ...
Truck Drivers and Other Drivers. ...
Farmers, Ranchers and Agricultural Managers.
https://www.themarlincompany.com/blog-articles/dangerous-jobs-2019/

[MH1]

82. Yes, ACTUALLY, they are #14 - right there in the article you posted. (USA Today article)

14. Police and sheriff’s patrol officers
Fatal injuries in 2016: 14.6 per 100,000 workers
Total: 108 fatal injuries, 28,740 nonfatal injuries
Most common accident: Intentional injury by other person
Median annual wage: $59,680
Some 108 police and sheriff’s patrol officers died in action in 2016, the most of any year since 2011 and among the most of any profession when adjusted for the number of people in the profession. The most common cause of death on the job were intentional shootings, which claimed the lives of 46 officers last year. Almost as many officers died in car accidents.

Police officers also suffered 28,740 nonfatal injuries, which required a median of nine days off to recover — on day more than the national median recovery time. Police officers often work around the clock, and 1.6% of nonfatal injuries in 2016 occurred at least 12 hours into an officer’s shift.

[MH1]

83. AND, SERIOUSLY !!! ** OSHA lacks enforcement (slips trips falls occupations); Overexertion??

Before I even got to cops being #14 on the list, I was shaking my head that the many of the occupations listed involved high fatalities due to highly preventable situations. Sure "standards" (regulations) may technically have gotten more strict over the years, BUT OSHA enforcement is clearly not doing its job.

Police, fire, and other emergency responders SHOULD be among the most hazardous occupations. They are going into unpredictable situations where time is of the essence. Tragedies will happen. Roofers, on the other hand?? Not so much. Sure, it will happen that a structure is unexpectedly unsafe, or someone simply makes a mistake. But if the fatalities are that high, either someone isn't routinely following safety precautions, or there need to be better check protocols in place.

[AllaN01Bear]

23. compund this by decades . this has been ongoing for years

and not just the above , the constant harrasment .

[boston bean]

24. I am not besmirching people who have served in the armed services.

But it is not a community policing mindset they bring to the job. And they receive hiring preference all over the country.

I sort of see it as a negative. too authoritarian.

[bitterross]

31. "Going postal"

Remember how the phrase "Going Postal" originated? I always heard that one of the reasons that happened is the USPS gave Viet Nam vets preference in hiring. Now, I'm not dissing Viet Nam vets or ANY vets. Back when "going postal" became a term though, we didn't have the term PTSD in common usage. Maybe the mental health field did.

I see your point that law enforcement is not the same as the battlefield. That the people who have served are honorable and deserve our respect. HOWEVER, it's not the same job as being a police officer. Not even close.

[Wounded Bear]

38. The militarization of the law enforcement organizations is a real problem...

and you're right. Military ops and police work are only tangentially related.

We need much more stringent psych evals for people entering law enforcement.

[bitterross]

29. I'm FOR Unions in general. But I'd like the Police Unions squashed

I am a strong supporter of unions. They are what made the work place a decent environment.

The police unions have become a barrier to progress and reform in that field. They need to be squashed, or, at the very least, curtailed.

[Quemado]

30. Wow!

Wow!

[Wounded Bear]

34. Serpico...

Or Lone Star.

This isn't new, and it has been depicted many times on film, in books, and on TV. Art imitates life, and vice versa.

I'm not sure about releasing the info to the public, but something needs to be done. This kind of shit is what leads to LEO's supporting authoritarians like Trump. Nation of 325 million people, literally thousands of jurisdictions, the number seems low. 200,000 allegations seems to indicate there is much more out there.

[GetRidOfThem]

35. 85,000 compared to what?

Q: What did the economist answer when he was asked "how is your wife?"
A: "Compared to WHAT?!"

That 85,000 statistic only becomes meaningful when you tell us what the total population of police officers is in the U.S.

This could be 1%, or 10%, or whatever, but meaning only arrives when you have a yardstick to compare this with.

[Duppers]

44. Article stated less than 10%

I'd say roughly a bit over 10% since there are roughly 790k police in the country.
Average salary: $66,223.

https://datausa.io/profile/soc/333050/

1% is too many.

[Takket]

37. 85000 in a decade...

8500 per year

24 per day

One EVERY HOUR.

[Hortensis]

73. Or 1 per 38,824 people per year? I'm thinking

two things:

One, yes, even if one sliced the population in half to eliminate some young and old, they really aren't nearly as common OVERALL as some people imagine. Just like misconceptions of the dangers of street crime and murder.

Two, very much otoh, large numbers of police criminal activities are not being investigated. Big surprise there.

[Duppers]

40. Wow! Thank You, MrS.

Even child molestation!! Damn!!
"Twenty faced 100 or more allegations yet kept their badge for years." Sick sick authoritarians with badges. So glad it's being documented.

And it's impressive that this centralist paper published this. And so, wingers can't disparage this since it's USA Today, and not the Times or WaPo.


I personally know some Baltimore cops are bad.

[mountain grammy]

42. Jeff Sessions: nothing to see here folks..

https://psmag.com/social-justice/jeff-sessions-last-act-in-office

Elections have consequences, some bigger than others.

[Duppers]

45. Damn!! Thanks for this...

"JEFF SESSIONS' LAST ACT: PREVENTING THE DOJ FROM INVESTIGATING DISCRIMINATORY POLICE DEPARTMENTS"

[33taw]

51. Wait, is William Barr or Jeff Sessions on the list?

I hate the “We Back the Badge” posters. Do they back the FBI or just the local cop who bullies someone else’s kid?

[CrispyQ]

52. Occupations where one has power & authority over others

attract many of the very people who shouldn't have power & authority over others.

[matt819]

53. Hang on. . .

85000 over a decade.

That's only an average of 8500 per year.

And, for the sake of argument, let's spread that over 50 states and DC. That's only 166 or so per year per state/DC.

Heck, that's only 3 investigated law enforcement officers per week, on average.

That's not so bad.



Add in prosecutorial misconduct and investigations of corrections officers. We're pretty much a lawless society.

[Faux pas]

55. Sheesh

[underpants]

57. And the Boys Scouts had a running "Perversion File"

Wow 85,000. That’s horrible

[MadDAsHell]

58. 100% agree. We need to do this for all public servants. Cops, teachers, firefighters, etc.

As the article says, no longer should unions and their political allies be able to shield the public from vital information about their public servants.

[shanti]

59. They let their buddies drive drunk

With a visible bottle too. I had a deputy sheriff tell me just that years ago, when he was stopped on the way back from Napa.

[librechik]

60. Yes. Certain jurisdictions can't seem to find this info on their new hires.

Let's make sure they know WE KNOW about each and every one that is a problem.

[Hekate]

61. Kick

[Honeycombe8]

62. Claims of misconduct aren't necessarily indicative of misconduct.

Anyone who has encountered law enforcement can claim misconduct.

All fields of work with the public have people who have been claimed to have acted inappropriately.

85,000 out of how many law enforcment officers in the field? I'd like to know the percentage. And in what states and cities.

[erronis]

71. Look also at a series of articles ProPublica has published over the years.

Originally centered on the INfamous Chicago PD but now covering courts and PD around the country.
https://www.propublica.org/

[erronis]

72. Ex-Florida policeman gets 25 years in prison for killing black motorist

This just in. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-shooting/ex-florida-policeman-gets-25-years-in-prison-for-killing-black-motorist-idUSKCN1S11UI

A former Florida police officer was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday for fatally shooting a black motorist who was awaiting a tow truck in October 2015.
FILE PHOTO: Family and supporters attend the funeral for Corey Jones at the Payne Chapel AME of West Palm Beach, Florida October 31, 2015. REUTERS/Mike Stocker/Pool/File Photo/File Photo

Nouman Raja, 41, was fired from the Palm Beach Gardens Police Department shortly after he killed Corey Jones, 31, while on plainclothes duty, and was convicted last month by a jury of manslaughter and first-degree murder.

The conviction was unusual in a country in which police officers kill roughly 1,000 people each year, a disproportionate number of them black men, usually without facing prosecution, according to a Washington Post database on police shootings.

Jones’ relatives asked Judge Joseph Marx to give Raja the maximum sentence of life in prison during the sentencing hearing. The judge said it was a “heartbreaking” case before handing down the sentence of 25 years, the minimum required under state law, for both counts, to run concurrently.

Police said Raja was in plainclothes and driving an unmarked van when he encountered a car he thought was abandoned on a West Palm Beach highway exit ramp on Oct. 18, 2015, a few hours before sunrise.

Jones was in the car, waiting for a tow truck. Prosecutors said Raja never identified himself as a police officer and that the officer acted aggressively in a way that likely led Jones to mistake him for a robber.

Police said Jones pulled out a handgun that he had legally purchased three days earlier before Raja fired at him six times within 13 seconds. Raja hit Jones three times and Jones died of a gunshot wound to his chest.

Raja’s defense team has argued that their client feared for his life when Jones drew his gun.

[Locrian]

74. looks like those few "bad apples" have been busy spoiling the bunch - n/t

[Kind of Blue]

75. Kick!

[Skittles]

78. HOWDY MrScorpio

keep on fighting the good fight

[IndyOp]

81. This is good - people are afraid to go to cops

about a crime that implicates a cop.

Amy Klobuchar supports requiring charges against an officer be investigated by law enforcement from another precinct/division.

I am not currently supporting Klobuchar, but I think it is a smart idea