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How do these police keep their jobs? I understand that there is corruption and the thin blue line nonsense, but 62 arrests of the same employee for alledgedly t

• toomuchtodo 13y ago
  Unions. EDIT: If you want to downvote, please prove me wrong. I'm happy to provide citations where law enforcement is responsible for criminal conduct, up to and including theft and shooting people's dogs for no reason, and where they're defended by their unions.
  • moocowduckquack 13y ago
    Other groups have unions as well and you can fire them all day long for criminal gross misconduct.
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  • erichocean 13y ago
    Government Unions.
  • saraid216 13y ago
    > I'm happy to provide citations I don't believe you. I think you'd be sad to do it. Otherwise you would have already. And having lied about one small thing, why should I believe that you haven't lied about other, bigger things?
    • toomuchtodo 13y ago
      I know you're sarcastic, but what the hell. http://www.policemisconduct.net/ http://www.policemisconduct.net/ http://www.policemisconduct.net/maps/searchable-map-2009-2010-misconduct-incidents/ http://www.policemisconduct.net/maps/searchable-map-2009-201... There are plenty of incidents in Seattle you might be interested in.
      • kafkaesque 13y ago
        Does anyone know why Oregon has a higher misconduct rate than California and Washington? It goes against my admittedly stereotype of Portland, which I know may not be representative of the entire state. Plus, I understand big/major cities tend to be more progressive and cosmopolitan. I'm just wondering what is at play in this state.
        • raintrees 13y ago
          I live next to the Oregon border in California (along the coast) and our local papers carry stories at least once per month about drastic budget problems north of us. Our local Sheriff gave a Neighborhood Watch talk and mentioned the drastic down-sizing of law enforcement officers in the Oregon counties adjacent to us as a major concern and a potential source of problems for us. Far more South than Portland...
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  • moocowduckquack 13y ago
    reply to the edit - the existence of collective legal representation via a union does not by itself explain why these people feel they can act with impunity. I agree that having access to good lawyers does help a lot in employment cases, however I would say that either the police union is almost superhumanly competent in its legal defense of its members, or it is not the primary reason for police being allowed to behave like this.
    • toomuchtodo 13y ago
      My argument is you believe you can act with impunity if you don't believe there will be any repercussions for your actions. So if it isn't police/LEO unions protecting officers from dismissal due to gross misconduct, who is it?
      • moocowduckquack 13y ago
        Other than union lawyers, the other folk involved could be other officers, heads of department, members of internal review boards, judges, magistrates, lab workers, district attorneys, politicians, etc. I agree that lawyers can help, but the lawyers are a mere formality if the process is corrupt in the first place. Unions are not normally some kind of magic shield, they are collective bargaining and pooled legal fees and have not provided the same level of protection that the police enjoy, in the other areas in which they exist.
      • consonants 13y ago
        Look around the system that enables this behavior. The department itself, his peers, the judges he stands before regularly, the thin blue line, his constituency, and you'll see that even if the officers in question knew they didn't have legal impunity through their unions the same bullshit would happen with the same results. The system of checks and balances ensures that its executors have covered their ass and their friends' asses before justice is 'served'.
    • neurotech1 13y ago
      A similar issue happens in medicine where to discipline or reprimand a doctor becomes a question of "Why is this doctor exceptionally bad" to warrant action. It can take a lot to get actual board sanctions against a marginally proficient doctor. Most major Hospitals have peer review processes known as a Morbidity and Mortality conference where doctors behind closed doors can speak freely about poor outcomes and ways to avoid future occurrences. The lack of major reprimands for marginal doctors is sometimes why people rush to lawsuits because standard review processes are usually avoid a doctor apologizing or admitting any blame. In aviation, near misses in airline or transport category flights are sometimes investigated as "serious incidents" even if no damage to the aircraft or injuries occurred. It seems if police adopted a similar review process where problems and potential misconduct are addressed in a non-adversarial way (M&M conference style) then attitudes and community relationship will benefit.
  • crdoconnor 13y ago
    This is kind of like saying that defense lawyers are the reason why some violent criminals walk free.
    • mayanksinghal 13y ago
      Since you are qualifying the statement with "some", a lot of people (including me) will have no qualms about agreeing to it.
      • moocowduckquack 13y ago
        I'd need a lot more qualification than that. If defense lawyers have only just been invented then perhaps you can say that someone walked free because of defense lawyers, otherwise it is just the actions of a particular defense lawyer and in that case if those actions are a primary cause, then a different defense lawyer could have had a different outcome, so it is not the existence of defence lawyers per se, that caused that person to walk free.
    • philwelch 13y ago
      If defense lawyers formed a cartel, got people loyal to the cartel elected prosecutor, and colluded with the prosecutor, you'd be goddamn right.
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  • whyenot 13y ago
    > EDIT: If you want to downvote, please prove me wrong. Your original post was a single word with no explanation and did not contribute in any meaningful way to the discussion. It's not a question of whether I agree or disagree with you, it was a crappy post and not the level of content I expect to find on HN. I gave your post, not you, not your ideas, a thumbs down.
    • toomuchtodo 13y ago
      Entirely fair. In hindsight, I regret not including citations and expounding more on how I came to that conclusion. I try to contribute to the discourse of this forum in a meaningful and positive way, and reflexive, emotional posts don't forward that agenda. Your downvote was warranted.
  • mjn 13y ago
    The mere existence of a union shouldn't prevent dismissal cases from prevailing, though, unless something else is seriously wrong with the adversarial process. I'm represented by a union [1], and as a result I could ask my union for advice and/or support, if my job was terminated or if I were otherwise disciplined. Their lawyers would look into it and determine: 1) what advice to give me; and 2) whether there is a violation of rights serious enough to threaten the collective interest of the union members, thereby justifying the union themselves lodging an objection. But the union would not defend me if their lawyers thought the dismissal was according to procedures and with sufficient evidence; it's not considered in the union's interest to defend clearly bad employees, and in practice they object in only a minority of dismissals. Even when they do lodge an objection in a given case, there is hardly any guarantee they will prevail. Why don't police unions work like that? My guess is a mixture of factors, relating to both cultural aspects (the "no snitching" culture) and ineffective oversight or even outright collusion from people who are supposed to be their adversaries in such procedures, such as judges. [1] http://www.dm.dk/da/OmDM/Organisationen/English http://www.dm.dk/da/OmDM/Organisationen/English
    • philwelch 13y ago
      And who exactly determines the procedures? Isn't this something public sector unions routinely negotiate? American public sector unions (teachers as well as police) routinely convince the public that they represent the public interest rather than the private interests of their members so there is no one left to lobby against them, giving them a blank check to make it impossible to dismiss a union member for misconduct.
      • mjn 13y ago
        Yes, the procedures are negotiated between the unions and the employers. In the case of public-sector unions, the elected government is responsible for representing the public interest in the negotiations. The legislature can also pass laws directly mandating certain procedures, if they wish, since ultimately the whole union system operates within parameters specified by the labor laws. Imo public opinion has to align against police misconduct for it to be dealt with. If the public is offended by misconduct not being punished, this provides both an incentive for elective officials to make sure that can be done, and to police unions to be pragmatic about which kinds of interests they wish to defend; it may not be in the members' collective interest to defend a few bad apples, especially if doing so greatly angers the public. Of course, it might be in their interest if the whole lot of them are bad apples... My impression, though, is that the majority of Americans are hardly concerned about police misconduct, and generally support the police against complaints, which doesn't provide very fertile ground for anyone interested in pushing reforms. You can win an election by being tough on crime, but can you win an election by being tough on police misconduct?
  • jlanter 13y ago
    "and where they're defended by their unions." It's worth pointing out that unions are legally compelled to defend all of their members regardless if that person is in the wrong or not.
  • SkyMarshal 13y ago
    >please prove me wrong. The onus is not on anyone else to prove a 1-word assertion wrong, it's on you to prove it right. More generally, every assertion is wrong by default, the asserter has to prove it true.
• tehwebguy 13y ago
  Internal affairs is probably the reason - each department seems to have a way to investigate their own complaints. Here's more from the Miami Herald article: > Saleh added that after he filed the internal affairs complaint in August 2012, one of the officers he complained about, Michael Malone, confronted a customer who was part of the complaint. > Saleh said that after the officers started harassing him, his employees and customers, he began to doubt that police were conducting an impartial investigation, and he did stop cooperating. He said that should not have stopped them from collecting their own evidence, given the seriousness of the complaint. > “What about their own video, the videos that officers are supposed to take from their cars?” Saleh asked, contending that each time an officer turns on his lights, the vehicle’s dashboard cam is supposed to activate. Saleh said he requested copies of the police videos corresponding to the arrests he recorded and was told the videos didn’t exist. http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/22/3772817/miami-gardens-defends-cops-accused.html http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/22/3772817/miami-gardens-...
  • millzlane 13y ago
    This I can confirm this. Internal affairs never finds fault unless you call a lawyer or the news. I live in Baltimore city and I've experienced the same treatment as well. A couple of years ago I moved from the rural county of Baltimore back to my moms in the city. Since I've been back I've been stopped and frisked more than 20 times, my mom was assaulted by police officers on our street (they forced a nightstick into her mouth because they were convinced she swallowed drugs.) My house raided once with a fabricated warrant. I've also experienced a similar situation where I've called for a shift commander and the officers that stopped my mom showed up. Or Another when I called internal affairs because they destroyed/ vandalized my computer equipment in my room, including opening brand new beers and pouring them on my laundry. I called a shift commander and the officers of the raid showed up at my house while I was on the phone with internal affairs. It Baltimore they don't call it Stop & Frisk. They don't check that box off. They check the box called Citizen/Police Contact. The last time I had "Citizen/police contact" I was with my friend who's an eagle scout on our way from the Loyola/Hopkins Lacrosse game when we were stopped by 4 police cars with guns drawn, demanding to see our hands forcing us out of the car, and putting us in hand cuffs while they searched us and the car. The officers reasoning was "You were a black guy (I'm mixed and very light) and a white guy in a beat up car driving through the hood". I still carry the Citizen Copy of that paper ticket/notice/citation whatever it is because that's the day I was almost shot. It's a reminder that we're not safe anywhere. The only thing we can do is try to stay out of their way.
• codeonfire 13y ago
  You don't think their boss isn't telling them to harass those people? Clearly there is something going on at this location. The article is one sided. It could just as easily be the case that the store is a drug operation as it is that the police are all racists. 62 arrests makes me think drug dealer. Criminals and police tend to tolerate each other because that's part of their jobs. Normal people would have left somewhere before the first 50 arrests.
  • justanother 13y ago
    I am uncertain as to which part of this argument rationalizes arresting an employee for 'trespassing' as he is carrying out his duties. As a glance at HN any day of the week will tell you, American LEOs have more legal tools at their disposal than ever before, to lawfully investigate a suspect. This is not one of them.
    • codeonfire 13y ago
      You're uncertain because no part of my argument attempts to rationalize it. You're taking the debate approach that asks 'should they or shouldn't they arrest or harass the person?' Who cares. The fact is that they can and will harass people. What's up for debate is whether is there some missing information in this article that is leading to false conclusions about corrupt cops. Is there a doubt about whether this is random police harassment. Yes there is.
      • justanother 13y ago
        An all-too-valid point whose realism I was unprepared to consider. Just because harassment isn't a proper or efficient means to stop drug trafficking, doesn't mean it isn't the case here.
• incision 13y ago
  >"Even if you were a total bastard you would get rid of anyone you were responsible for who was pulling that kind of crap, as long as you had even the slightest instinct for self-preservation." You're assuming that real accountability exists somewhere short of escalation to the national news. That's not necessarily or even (anecdotally) likely the case and really, what are the chances? How many years, decades and victims did this county have before now? In my experience, law enforcement is dominated by a culture of deference to seniority, dreams of retiring with a pension and an "at war" attitude. Self-preservation is keeping your mouth shut and toeing the line.
  • moocowduckquack 13y ago
    It is also making sure that when the folk under you are abusing their power, they are doing it in a way that you can at least slightly, when looked at on a foggy day from a distance, possibly claim might be legitimate business.