I continuously
recommend that anyone involved in Internal Affairs matters should daily check
out a website: policemisconduct.net.
This site was taken over by the CATO Institute about a year ago. Every day it uses twitter to capture news
reports concerning police misconduct.
Every day there are 7 to 15 incidents summarized in a one or two line
narrative with a link to the actual news story and/or video. Most of these incidents are investigations,
arrests, pleas or convictions of officers for various acts of misconduct. Unfortunately, it seems like sexual
misconduct is the most frequent. What
are some of the lessons that can be learned from this nationwide perspective?
First,
it is not an infrequent event. The age
of officers involved does not seem to be a significant factor with senior
officers being charged as often as newer officers. The size of the agency also isn’t a
factor. Small, medium and large agencies
as well as urban and rural are commonly involved. One common denominator appears to be the
victim – vulnerable women. Most of the
time it’s a male officer and the victim is female. Occasionally it is a male on male
incident. Rarely do these accounts
involve a female officer.
What
do I mean by the victim being a vulnerable woman? In some way the authority of the officer is
used to facilitate the sexual encounter.
It might be a traffic ticket, DUI arrest, heavily intoxicated person,
drug addict, street prostitute, suicidal person or student. Of course there are the cases involving
police groupies. Probably the most
despicable is the victim of domestic violence who is consoled by the
investigating officer who later flips it into a sexual relationship.
I’m
sure that some of the officers would simply contend that these are consensual
encounters. That’s from the officer’s
viewpoint. The fact that the victim
doesn’t scream, fight or protest doesn’t mean that it’s not an abuse of
authority by the officer. The officer
has control of that woman. Any
subsequent sex is not consensual!
The
other common element in these occurrences is that rarely do they involve just
one victim. Once the incident is out of
the bag, more victims commonly come forward.
What
concerns me the most is that this misconduct is rarely done in isolation. Others on the police or sheriff department
know or suspect what’s happening. During
our agency audits we frequently know within days who the “skirt chasers”
are. If those of us on the audit team
can learn that in just a couple of days, why don’t those on the department step
forward? When this misconduct is
discovered, it’s a black mark on everyone in the agency. There is commonly a breakdown of field
supervision when the officer can engage in this type of misconduct on duty and
not become noticed. The supervisor is
not looking or is simply not out on the street where s/he should be.
This
is something that should not continue!
This is a scab on professional policing.
It’s time to stand up and be vocal.
It’s time to use real life examples during basic and in-service
training, rather than philosophical points of view. This is the dirty side of law enforcement and
it can be stopped!
