Tag Archives: Cops Behaving Badly

Via WizardPC comes this tale.

Now, Minick’s widow and mother are filing a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Nashville, the Metro Police Department, sheriff’s office, the hospital and the deputies, claiming false arrest, false imprisonment, cruel and unusual punishment and inhumane treatment.

But no crime was committed, according to investigations by Metro Police, the sheriff’s department and the grand jury. They concluded that deputies used proper force in restraining a violent man in a hospital.

This is a nasty one.  Why?  Because honestly as we’ve seen lately people do get that violent while on drugs.  It is a chaotic scene that is dynamic and while one may not intend for something to be lethal it does happen.  I think in this case, it’s a very grey area where blame cannot be clearly established.  So why would I include it in the count?

The answer is simple, they investigated the incident themselves.  That does not bode well for the departments faith that their officers did no wrong.  If they really had faith they would call in an independent third party.  Am I really that wrong when the FAA and NTSB did exactly that recently?

The midair collision of two small planes about 50 miles from Washington is under investigation by Canadian officials because one plane was owned by an FAA employee and the other by an NTSB employee, federal officials said Tuesday.

Why not ask the state patrol, or another county to investigate the incident.  It would have helped keep the whole incident on the up and up.  Instead they investigated themselves, when honestly an external investigation is the only way they could have had a prayer of actually surviving.

State Sponsored Criminal #345: John Doe

Because that independent third party thing is never needed unless both parties involved are “anointed”.

Via Ry comes another instance of sheer stupidity that evidently is business as usual and nothing significant.

But within minutes, he said, one of the two officers became enraged —
and the judge became his target. The officer screamed and cursed at the
onlookers, some of whom were complaining about what they said was his
violent treatment of the suspect, and then he focused on Justice
Raffaele, who was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. The judge said the
officer rushed forward and, using the upper edge of his hand, delivered a
sharp blow to the judge’s throat that was like what he learned when he
was trained in hand-to-hand combat in the Army.

After reading the article it makes me think that the onlookers probably had reason to be upset with the officer.  The officers biggest mistake was striking anyone without cause.  But see, in New York, officers can assault anyone they want for any reason they want.  Don’t believe me?

The episode, Friday morning just after midnight — in which the judge
says his initial complaint about the officer was dismissed by a
sergeant, the ranking supervisor at the scene — is now the focus of
investigations by the police Internal Affairs Bureau and the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

The civilian review board might be able to accomplish something but I doubt it. 

Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief
spokesman, said in an e-mail that all force complaints, whether they
involve serious injuries or not, are referred to the Civilian Complaint
Review Board, an independent agency that investigates allegations of
police misconduct that does not rise to the level of a crime. The
department’s Internal Affairs Bureau investigates complaints of
excessive force that involve serious injuries.

“In this instance,” he said, Internal Affairs “is reviewing the
complaint because it was brought to its attention by the judge, not
because of the level of injury.”

So in other words, your officers can commit assault with impunity unless they severely injure their victim.  It’s no wonder why officers dislike people with video cameras.  It helps prove assault when they don’t cause permanent injury.  Too bad it doesn’t appear that the department would actually do anything about it.

State Sponsored Criminal #344: John Doe

Because being a cop means that when you’re in the ‘roid rage’ you can beat the hell out of and threaten whoever you want.  Even a sitting a judge.*

*Note I don’t think they should get any different treatment than the rest of the general populace.  However when even the judge isn’t getting traction to deal with the issue, you know there’s a serious problem.