March 11, 2010 @ 4:08 PM
Sorry about the recent outage folks. While our hosting service is still trying to figure out exactly what happened, they’ve moved our site to a different server and we appear to be back up, for the most part at least. There still seems to be some database issues affecting some functionality, like the polls for example. No real idea on when or if I’ll be able to fix that.
In any case, sorry for the inconvenience.
March 7, 2010 @ 4:12 PM
Think back, if you’re as old as I am then think way back, to when you were a kid in school. In my day, at least, when kids did something stupid they got a detention or got sent to the principal’s officer for a swat from old woody or got to spend a few Saturdays with some quiet reflection time.
Times have changed with the introduction of police in schools nationwide though. Things that used to be handled in school with a usually-reasonable degree of, despite what they told you about permanent records, temporary discipline are now handled as life-altering criminal cases complete with handcuffs, tasers, mace, arrests, court, jail, criminal records, and all the other grief that comes with being swallowed by the US criminal justice system.
The use of sworn police officers in US schools has skyrocketed in the last 10 years over concerns heightened by rare, but high profile, school shooting incidents like Columbine. These officers, often referred to as “School Resource Officers”, are typically pulled from the ranks of patrol officers who were originally trained to deal with adult suspects, not children.
While some departments actually do try to select officers with the proper temperament for dealing with children and commit them to additional training to transition from aggressive crime-fighting on the streets to patrolling the hallways of a school… others use School Resource Officer programs as a place to send problematic officers, a worst-than-desk-duty assignment to send the cops that other cops don’t want to work with anymore, and send them there with no additional training.
In those places, again in the name of “school safety”, we have been turning our schools into something more resembling prison camps, mini police states, complete with lock-downs, spot searches, armed officers, and harsh punishments for minor offenses. If we needed a reminder of this, New York City NY with its 5,000+ armed and sworn “school safety agents” happily obliged, as Bob Herbert with the New York Times explains.
The list of incidents described by Herbert continues with even more stories of abuse in his article about a class-action lawsuit filed by the NY ACLU against New York City over the mistreatment of children in schools by these “School Safety Agents”… including one story about a 5-year-old child in kindergarten handcuffed and shipped off to a psych ward for acting out in class in 2008.
But, if you’ve been following the National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project for a while you’ll know that this isn’t a uniquely “New York” problem, or even a big-city problem. In fact, over the last 10 months the NPMSRP tracked 52 police misconduct incidents involving school resource officers or regular duty officers who were patrolling schools, including elementary schools.
In fact, there have been 16 incidents recorded in the first couple of months of this year alone, most of these involving sexual misconduct with students. In fact, most cases of police misconduct involving school resource officers that are tracked by the NPMSRP involve criminal sexual acts against students ranging from sending sexually-oriented text messages via cell phone to outright sexual assaults.
Dolton Illinois, for example, isn’t a big city by any means with 48 officers in a department that serves around 24,000 people. But Dolton serves as a well-known example that that illustrate how some departments are lax about who they place in schools. After all, Dolton Illinois is where police officer Christopher Lloyd, who was involved in the questionable shooting death of his ex-wife’s husband during his previous stint with the Robbins Illinois PD, was placed in a school for developmentally challenged children where he was caught on camera assaulting a 15-year-old student over a minor dress code violation in May of 2009.
Yet, despite the story making national news, ill-supervised and ill-trained school resource officers continue to make the news. For example, some of the other cases tracked in just the last few months include:
While it’s unlikely that many school districts will rethink the approach of placing police officers in schools and police departments will be reluctant to relinquish that expansion of authority and revenue that school resource officer programs bring, it’s clear that at least schools and police departments must stop thinking of schools as a place to put their problematic officers out to pasture.Additionally, law enforcement agencies should retrain officers or specifically recruit officers for school duty in order to ensure that they don’t apply aggressive tactics learned in the academy for use against adults on the streets to children in schools where those tactics are excessive and result in unnecessary injuries and arrests.
Finally, school resource programs must have additional oversight that is tailored to watch for inappropriate relationships between officers and under-aged children that also monitor for unnecessary aggression or arrests since many of these programs don’t have the same reporting and oversight requirements that officers on the street have to deal with.
Placing officers at schools bring not only the risk of harm to the students that are unnecessarily arrested or victimized by problematic police officers, but they can also risk the trust that police work so hard to cultivate with students. Each story reported doesn’t only violate the victim cited, but also every child in that school where there officer worked as well.
After all, where are children, some of the most vulnerable members of our society, going to turn to for help if they are shown in real life that they cannot trust the police? Ask yourself, if you were one of these kids in these stories, who would you turn to for help first? A police officer, or a local gang looking to recruit new members?
Again, we must ask, since law enforcement agencies won’t… what did your local school resource officer teach your child in school today?
March 5, 2010 @ 2:58 AM
It’s long past time for another Police Misconduct NewsWatch, where we take a look at a few of the stories the National Police Misconduct News Feed uncovered during the week that merit a little bit more detail than the slightly over 100 letter (after link) limit that Twitter puts on us.
While we missed a week or two, the 79 reports that were captured since March 1 still leave a lot of reports to discuss… So without further wait, here we go.
Pittsburgh Says “Perjury Schmergery”
A judge in Pittsburgh PA dismissed charges against a high school student that made national headlines after he was beaten by 3 undercover cops when it appeared as though the cops perjured themselves in their testimony and sworn affidavits when a witness contradicted what they wrote in their reports about what she told them.
However, instead of looking into filing charges against the officers, the DA is caving to demands by the police union by looking into refiling charges against the kid… after the officers work on changing their story while enjoying their taxpayer funded paid vacation that would probably be more enjoyable if they weren’t under investigation by the FBI and if two of them weren’t facing civil rights lawsuits in two other seperate, but similar, cases.
Florida Says “Pattern Schmattern”
Oak Hill Florida police sergeant Michael Ihnken seems as though he might have a bit of a sticky finger problem after he resigned from the Volusia County Sheriff’s Department under allegations that he stole $400 from a prisoner he was transporting and then was accused of stealing a flashlight from a motorist last year.
All that didn’t seem like it would help his case when he was accused of stealing keys and a wallet containing $55 from a man police found dead in July. But, the state attorney’s office decided that there still wasn’t sufficient evidence the charge the officer with a history of theft allegations with a crime and it’s not likely that he’ll face any internal discipline either.
Fort Wayne Indiana Cop Strives for Record
Fort Wayne Indiana police officer Scott Morales has an impressive record, though not one he’s likely to get a plaque for. It seems as though this 19 year veteran of the police force has racked up 14 career suspensions during his time with the Fort Wayne PD that range from the use of excessive force to unwarranted searches and falsified reports. Last month he was suspended for a mere 3 days for tasering a handcuffed detainee and this month he was given a 5 day suspension for supposedly leaving his assigned post while on duty in a case of “alertness on duty”.
If it seems odd to you that the officer would be punished more for that minor policy violation than he would for a case of excessive force, the Fort Worth police chief explains that they use a “progressive system” of discipline where each subsequent disciplinary action results in more severe punishment… which begs the question of just how many more complaints will it take for him to progress his way out the door?
…apparently more than 14 more than 15. I wonder if that Guinness book has a record for career police officer suspensions? If they didn’t, maybe they do now.
Would You Like To Sign His Paycheck?
In Baltimore Maryland, a jury trial has ended in a $123,000 award to two sisters who were violently strip searched after they were falsely arrested by a police officer who is now barred from testifying in city courts due to dishonesty.
Apparently, Baltimore PD Sgt Allen Adkins falsified evidence to justify arresting the two sisters in a bar on allegations of drug trafficking, after which he forcibly strip searched them in such a violent manner that Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Wanda Heard declared that “In my 30 years of practice I have never seen such an emotionally distraught witness”.
Sergeant Adkins is still employed with the Baltimore Police Department, though they claim that he doesn’t have the ability to arrest anyone anymore… if that makes the citizens of Baltimore feel better about continuing to pay his salary.
Even When It’s Police vs Police, We Still Lose
You know how cops always complain that all police brutality lawsuits are frivolous, especially in Chicago where they’ve vowed never to settle a police misconduct lawsuit again? Well, in a strange case of the pot calling the kettle black, a Chicago Illinois police officer is suing the Forest Park IL police department on allegations of excessive force.
Chicago IL police officer Richard Schmidt is suing over an incident in 2008 when police were called to a local bar after Schmidt allegedly started tearing the place apart during an apparent St Patrick’s Day bender. Schmidt, facing seven felony charges including aggravated battery to a police officer, says officers needlessly punched, kicked, and tasered him seven times that night. However, the responding officers say Schmidt elbowed one of them in the face and that he spit in a paramedic’s face who tried to treat his injuries afterward.
Either way, seems like one of those cases where nobody wins… well, by nobody I mean taxpayers since they’ll be stuck paying all the lawyer fees at the least…
Quote of the week:
“It was sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you show up in riot gear, you’re going to get a riot.”
-University of Maryland English major Roxy Shorrock on her experience after Prince George’s County MD riot police suppressed a student celebration of their win over Duke. Via The Diamondback
March 4, 2010 @ 2:36 AM
As we’re in the third month of this year, I’ve already started thinking about our Q1 Police Misconduct Statistical Report that I hope to put out sometime next month. In a departure from the way I did these in the past, I want to add some trending data to the reports, especially since the Q2 report will actually have some year-to-year comparisons available.
But, before I spend too much time on that, I thought I would gauge what readers thought about trending data, so I’ve prepped a sort of preliminary preview based on data gathered from April 2009 to February 2010…
The first thing I thought might be interesting would be to compare last year’s localized incident map with the year-to-date incident map. I still don’t have any way to make these interactive since it would cost me thousands to buy the commercial version of the apps needed to do that. But I think these might do…
First, here’s last years localized reporting map, followed by the reporting map for the last two months:
Next, here’s a look at the general officer’s reported data over the length of the project so far along with some breakdown of that data in front so that you can see the ratios between types of reports.
Update:
Now that I’ve had a little sleep, I should explain a little about what you’re seeing in the graph. The December numbers are low since we were only able to do half a month due to financial issues. January and February are trending lower than last year’s average but this is likely due to a combination of my missing stories since my time has been so stretched lately and because reports probably trend lower in winter months because there isn’t as much contact between police and the public when it’s snowing and cold outside.
Since this is only looking at data in a time frame of less than one year, we can’t make any real comparisons from year to year yet, but that will change next quarter when we can do that kind of comparison to see if there is any actual trending worth discussing. So, while including trending data in the Q1 report might not yield much results, that should change in the Q2 report and beyond. So, to keep the reports uniform, I was considering adding this kind of data, though maybe not in this way, to the reports.
First, I probably won’t do the incident mapping comparison but do a Police Misconduct Rate map comparison or a trend map which can show where misconduct rates are trending up or down. There may be other changes by the time I get to the Q2 report, but I did want to gauge what general reactions to including trend data were before I spent my limited time on it.
So, let me know what your thoughts are, thanks!
So, do you think adding trending data to the NPMSRP reports would be useful?
Let me know!
[poll id="17"]
March 2, 2010 @ 5:18 PM
Sorry about the recent outage, it lasted a little over an hour during which time the site would only come up with a blank page. I’m still working with our provider to figure out exactly what happened, but it was really interesting that the last recorded visit to the site prior to the outage was from the Maricopa County AZ government network a little after our news feed recorded that the Maricopa County sheriff was under investigation.
Hopefully it was just rather coincidental… but we’re checking to see what happened in the meantime. Thanks!
February 25, 2010 @ 3:06 AM
In what is the biggest story of the week so far, New Orleans LA police Lt Michael Lohman has plead guilty to a federal obstruction charge concerning his testimony to federal agents about his role in a cover up of the Sept 4, 2005 post-huricane Katrina officer-involved shooting incident on the Danziger bridge that left 2 dead and 4 seriously injured. Lohman was not there when the shootings took place, but instead had responded afterward to direct an investigation into the incident and he found out pretty quickly that it was a “bad shoot”… in other words, it was an unjustified shooting incident.
The factual basis document signed by Lohman goes into detailing a rather convoluted process by which he conspired not only with the officers involved in the shooting incident, but also the officers that he had assigned to investigate the shooting incident to develop a plausible false story to justify the shooting that included a planting a gun since none were found at the scene of the shooting.
The conspiracy to cover up the unjustified shooting went so far as to involve Lohman not only telling the officers to get their stories straight before being interviewed, but to also sit down with all of them to help them get their falsified stories together… and when that failed, he rewrote the entire report on his own to make it more convincing.
If anyone ever wondered at what extent law enforcement officers might go to concoct a cover up, the Danziger bridge incident now offers us a rare view into that depth, and it’s pretty deep. At each point in the process, from the time he arrived on the Danziger bridge to the point where he finally agreed to cooperate with federal investigators and plead guilty, he knew he was building a lie to hide the murder of two people and attempted murder on several others.
The scope of this conspiracy to obstruct justice involved no only Lohman and the 7 officers involved in the incident, but also the officer that he assigned to investigate it, bringing the total number of officers involved up to at least 9, if not more. While headline-worthy not only for the history of the case, but also for the scope of the subsequent cover-up, this type of conspiracy to obstruct justice is not unique by any stretch… in fact, there have been several other similar cases recently:
On February 16, 2010, Stoughton MA police officer Anthony Bickerton plead guilty to obstructing a federal investigation into corruption within the Stoughton Police Department that involved theft when Bickerton hid evidence at his home for another officer targeted by the probe. Bickerton was the third officer ensnared by this particular probe that had another officer plead guilty in January and a third turn over and cooperate with federal agents. All three had resigned abruptly late last year.
On December 15, 2009, federal authorities indicted the Shenandoah PA police chief and two of his officers for conspiracy to obstruct justice, witness tampering, and evidence tampering in a racially motivated murder case involving several local teens that the officers allegedly helped concoct stories to prevent their prosecution for the crime. Not only this, but the police chief and a fourth officer were indicted for extortion charges in a separate case. On top of this, a lawsuit was filed alleging yet another cover up where officers allegedly beat a detainee to death then hung the man in an effort to make the beating death appear to be a suicide.
On January 21, 2010, the city of Marlow OK fired two officers and continues to investigate the chief of police on allegations that they had lied about a drug bust at trial which forced prosecutors to drop all charges in the case. Furthermore, allegations of rampant corruption within the department includes missing drug evidence, warrantless raids, motorists being robbed by officers, a cover up of an officer-involved fatality, and allegations of child molestation made by 8 minors against one officer still on active duty. The police chief has been on paid leave since late October.
On February 11, 2010, four Manhattan Beach CA police officers where placed on paid leave while investigated on allegations that they attempted to cover up a DUI hit and run accident that involved a fellow officer’s vehicle. The vehicle in question caused a three car pileup and fled the scene before officers arrived. While it was later located, abandoned at a nearby gas station, officers never filed a report once they discovered it was registered to a Manhattan Beach cop.
On February 11, 2010, the town of Dolton IL was ordered to pay $110,000 in damages to a man who had been beaten and threatened with a loaded rifle pointed at his head, then was wrongfully arrested to cover for the incident when officers allegedly planted drugs on him to justify the arrest. While the victim was later cleared of all charges, the police chief was accused of purposefully withholding exculpatory evidence that would have cleared him sooner. After all was said and done, 5 officers and the police chief were implicated in the assault and subsequent attempted cover up.
The list of similar cases tracked by the NPMSRP over the last 10 months goes on even further, including the well-known “Walt Disney the Truth” case in Hollywood Florida to the the recent cover up of a DUI accident involving the police chief of Riverside California… and many more beyond that.
All of these cases share the commonality of conspiracy in which multiple officers work in concert to cover up illicit or improper activity through falsified statements and/or evidence tampering. What make these different is that the cover up involves officers who were not a party to the original incident, but who do engage in criminal acts through the act of conspiracy. It is, at it’s essence, a practical application of the blue wall of silence to the Nth degree. Not only is it that the officers refuse to “rat out” a fellow cop, but that they are willing to take it a step further and become criminals to cover for another officer actively.
The problem, of course, is that these kinds of cases demonstrate one of the most frustrating, and frightening, aspects of police misconduct in that, for every case of conspiracy to obstruct that is ultimately uncovered… how many more were such conspiracies were successful in hiding the truth?
How many victims of police misconduct will never see justice and how many officers will continue to operate in a state of pure impunity because of it?
We cannot ever hope to find out so long as law enforcement agencies are permitted to operate in secret by keeping internal investigations and misconduct records from the public as is the law in a majority of US states. Worse yet, the frequency of such conspiracies can only grow as more and more states continue to join the others in creating exemptions to public records laws which close police disciplinary records from public records requests.
Yes, the latest development in the Danziger bridge case should be lauded as a step towards justice, but for every success in uncovering such conspiracies, we can’t help but wonder at how many more never see the light of day, and how many more will continue to occur in the future in the darkness of governmentally-enforced secrecy.
Ultimately, this is nothing to cheer about until such cases lead to reforms that open up the disciplinary processes in our law enforcement agencies and improves the level of accountability that the public should expect from the same police officers charged to hold the public accountable for their misdeeds. Because, in the end, these kinds of cover-ups are indicative of a problematic system of police accountability that is permissive of such behavior.
It’s not just a problem with few bad apples, but a problem of those apples stewing together inside a bad barrel that the public is rarely allowed to peer inside of.
February 22, 2010 @ 10:18 AM
Late last week a federal jury in Brooklyn NY awarded $16,600,000 to a man who lost a leg after a Nassau County NY Sheriff’s Detective crushed his legs with his police cruiser when arresting him on allegations that he was making harassing phone calls his ex. In making their decision, the jury decided that the detective had acted with malice and intent when he hit the man with his cruiser to make the arrest.
Of course, when people think about police misconduct civil lawsuits, it’s this kind of case that they think about, generally because the cases where there is a large sum of money involved tend to make the most headlines and tend to alarm the public, who generally have to pay that bill one way or another. But, are all police misconduct lawsuits like this and are they as common as most people think?
Our National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project (NPMSRP) indicates that lawsuits as a result of police misconduct allegations aren’t actually as common as you would think and, when they do happen, aren’t nearly as beneficial to the victim as this one was.
In the last 10 months, the NPMSRP tracked 925 civil lawsuits regarding police misconduct reported in the media, this represents about 27% of all reports of police misconduct that were captured during that time period. What about all those other cases? As I mentioned in our Police Misconduct Victim’s Guide, getting an attorney to take a police misconduct lawsuit on is a lot more difficult than most people are led to believe.
Why?
During the same 10 month period, the NPMSRP statistical analysis indicated that, of the police misconduct lawsuits filed, only 1/3 of those resulted in an award for the plaintiff. Of the 33% of police misconduct lawsuits that resulted in a win for the victim, 74% were settled out of court and only 26% resulted in a favorable judgment for the victim.
So, police misconduct lawsuits are very difficult to win. Not only this, most police misconduct lawsuits are taken on a contingency basis since the victims are usually in debt already from the cost of defending themselves against criminal charges along with medical bills and sometimes even the loss of employment that can come from a false arrest, which occurs in many of the cases. When lawyers lose a contingency case it’s costly, they spend months developing these cases and spend a lot hiring detectives and professional witnesses like medical experts and former officers.
So, many lawyers are very selective about what cases they take, not because many of the cases don’t have merit, but because the risks of losing money on the case are greater than the potential win. This may seem like a surprise, but remember that not all cases result in large wins like the case in Nassau County. In fact, most don’t even come close.
Again, in that same 10 month period, the median award for all successful police misconduct litigation was $225,000. This means that half the cases won more than $225k and the other half won less than $225k. While whether a case was won in court or outside of court did affect the median outcome, it wasn’t as significant as you would think. Of the cases resulting in judgments the median award was $330,000 and settled cases had a median award of $207,500.
So, how much of that do lawyers take home? Well, it varies. Sometimes lawyers win legal costs as part of the settlement or judgment, but on a contingency basis they can stand to win a portion of the total award depending on the contract agreed upon between the victim and lawyer taking the case. In general, from my own experience, I’ve seen these range from a low 35% up to 60%, but generally stick around 40%.
So, an average judgment payout for a lawyer is around $133k, but remember that attorneys usually work on cases for several years when they are forced to go to trial, which is why they tend to prefer settlement offers and even tend to write this into contracts by taking a lower percentage cut when a case settles as opposed to a win, even though the payout tends to be less.
But, this isn’t the total cost of police misconduct litigation as the city has to pay it’s lawyers too, and they often turn to outside help to defend themselves against police misconduct litigation and that can be quite costly. In fact, more often than not the legal fees the government pays out are more expensive than the awarded amount, some documented cases indicate that the cost of a $300k judgment can cost taxpayers over a million dollars when all is said and done. Even when we don’t count legal fees and other associated costs of police misconduct litigation, the total cost to taxpayers over the last 10 months has been $245,606,510 in known settlements and judgments alone, though, over 10% of awards are unspecified due to non-disclosure settlement agreements.
There you have it, police misconduct lawsuits are a lot less common than you think, lawyers don’t come out of the woodwork whenever police misconduct happens, and the victims of police misconduct probably don’t win nearly as much as you think, despite what police organizations might try to tell you. This is why victims of police misconduct really need to understand what to expect once they become victims, because it’s not as easy as most people think to get compensation for the harms done by police misconduct.
February 18, 2010 @ 4:29 PM
The story of former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik being sentenced to 4 years prison for tax fraud and lying to White House officials has headlined a lot of news reports today, but misbehavior by people in law enforcement leadership positions isn’t unusual by any stretch. In fact, the issue has been a bit of a running theme here on this site. (see here and here)
Last year, the NPMSRP tracked 261 reports of police misconduct and criminal activity that involved people in police leadership positions, which averaged to about 30 reports per month for the 8.5 months we tracked last year. So far this year that trend doesn’t appear to have changed much since we tracked 44 such reports so far this year.
Given that there are an estimated 17,000 law enforcement agencies in the US, that gives us a roughly estimated misconduct rate of 2167 per 100,000 police leaders, which is significantly higher than our NPMSRP police misconduct rate of 980.6 per 100,000 officers last year.
Law enforcement leadership problems aren’t isolated to large cities like New York either, they range the gambit from sheriff’s running large county operations to small town police chiefs that also work as the sole officer in town. But, one thing is clear, when the leader of an entire department goes bad, you have to wonder at how good a job those leaders did at disciplining the officers underneath their command. Which is troubling if the misconduct rate for police leadership is over double the standard misconduct rate.
Some of the police leadership issues the NPMSRP has tracked so far this year include:
As I always say when these cases come up on a nearly daily basis, how can we expect law enforcement officers to be accountable for their actions when so many law enforcement leaders aren’t?
February 17, 2010 @ 11:19 AM
There is no shortage of advice out there about what you should do when you are forced to interact with the police. Just do a search and you’ll find a multitude of sites devoted to explaining what your rights are when dealing with law enforcement and how you should go about asserting those rights…
But, strangely enough, there is an absolute lack of advice available out there about what you should do once a police officer violates those rights… and there will be no shortage of questions you’ll have once it happens to you. I know this because there is no shortage of people who write me asking those questions when they become victims of police misconduct.
So, I’ve compiled a general guide for victims of police misconduct that gives some general guidelines that, hopefully, answer a lot of those questions you’ll have once you become a victim of police misconduct… and I do hope that you’ll never have to follow this advice.
First, I must make it clear that I am not a lawyer, please keep this in mind. The following advice is based on my experiences as a victim of police misconduct, an advocate for other victims, and a researcher studying the issues of police misconduct. Therefore, the following tips should not be considered as legal advice and are merely general recommendations that may or may not apply equally in all states or localities.
So, before I even start, let me give one piece of advice, talk to an attorney in your area that has experience with civil rights and police misconduct litigation before doing anything and remember that there is a difference between what you should do as a victim of police misconduct vs what you should do as a victim of mistreatment in jail or prison (see comments below).
With that out of the way… Let’s get started.
Generally, once your rights have been violated by a police officer, whether it was an issue of excessive use of force, a false arrest, or any other of the multitudes of types of misconduct out there, you’ll more likely than not be arrested, even if only as a means to cover for the original rights violation. So, first things first, the right to be silent is your best friend.
Do not start mouthing off that you are going to sue, don’t say anything except that you need medical attention if you were injured during the incident. Once you make the claim that you believe your rights were violated, the officer(s) in question will begin to operate in cover-up mode and start to build their defense immediately.
So, the best thing you can do is wait and answer only the questions that you absolutely have to answer, like your name. If you’re lucky, the police won’t go into CYA mode right off the bat, which increases your chances that they’ll not be as diligent about covering themselves in their report or lawyer-up with help from their union right off the bat.
But, while you’re doing that you also need to start with step 2 right away.
One of the most common problems in cases of police misconduct come about when the narrative is cloudy or when victims cannot describe clearly or remember the details of what happened to them. So, while you are enforcing your right to remain silent, also begin to make all the mental notes that you possibly can and, as soon as you have a chance, start writing all of it down.
Becoming a victim of police misconduct is a very overwhelming experience and shock will set in at some point or another, in one form or another. One of the most common symptoms of this sense of shock and/or post traumatic stress is disorganized thoughts and memory problems, this will be especially pronounced if the incident involved physical violence.
So, the sooner you start documenting everything the better. Even if it’s all a jumble at first, at least if you have everything noted down you can organize it later with help… but you can’t organize what you don’t remember. So, document everything ASAP before you forget something important.
Some important details to document:
Documentation is important not only for the victim, but for any witnesses of police misconduct as well. If you see police misconduct, immediately write down exactly what happened as soon as you can, before you call anyone.
Before you even start thinking about a civil lawsuit or filing a complaint, deal with the important stuff first. If you were arrested, get a criminal defense lawyer and start focusing on dealing with the criminal charges. If you were hurt, get medical attention as soon as you possibly can. If you are denied medical care in custody then the very first place you should visit after your release should be a doctor or hospital.
Not only is it important for your own well-being to get that important stuff taken care of, it’s also important for any shot you might have at filing a lawsuit later. Again, continue to document everything, like how much that lawyer cost, how much that time off you had to take cost, how much the calls from the jail cost, medical bills, etc…
Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t start looking for a civil rights lawyer while your criminal case is pending, but make sure you’ve got your defense in place first because a civil lawsuit won’t do you much good while you’re sitting in prison or dead because you didn’t get medical care.
So, you’ve been documenting everything, you took care of your medical and criminal defense needs, and you’ve had a chance to clear your head a little bit… Now it’s time to start organizing your notes and your thoughts before you do anything else…
Why? Again, as a person who has received a lot of letters from police misconduct victims seeking help, 9 out of 10 times they are writing while still in a state of shock and what they write barely makes sense, is missing a lot of necessary information, and is not going to help them find a lawyer who will want to take their case. Usually, it’s all a confusing jumble, but that’s mostly a symptom of the trauma and shock caused by the incident, so it’s understandable, but it can cripple their chances at finding help.
So, it’s important to take time to organize your thoughts, especially when you’re a victim of police misconduct. Take time to write a more refined summary of the important items and details that you documented so far, and then use that to craft the letter that you can later use to make your case to a lawyer because, believe it or not, odds are you’ll have to work hard to sell your case. Especially if you’ve already gone broke defending yourself against criminal charges and paying medical bills for what happened and need to find a lawyer who will take your case without payment up front.
If possible, don’t do this alone. Get the help of family or friends who believe what happened to you and can be trusted to help without talking about it. Have them read what you wrote or talk to them about what happened until you feel comfortable with how you describe it and they can tell you that it’ll make sense to someone who wasn’t there.
By the time you’re done you need to have two things:
Why a short pitch? Because nothing puts off a prospective lawyer more than a long run-on paragraph that is so jumbled that they can’t make sense of it. Anything that takes a lawyer more than a couple minutes to read or listen to during your first contact will more than likely be ignored out of hand.
The detailed chronological notes are only for after a lawyer takes your case or if you’re asked for more details.
Once that’s done, then you’re ready for the next step…
So, you believe your civil rights have been violated… now you want justice and so you’ve started to look for a lawyer to consider your case in that pursuit. Odds are you’re going to soon find that it is much more difficult than you were led to believe.
Sure, you were probably told that the ACLU takes any case they hear about or that lawyers would be crawling out of the woodwork to take your case… Well, you were misled. The ACLU only takes a fraction of cases, usually based on whether the case will make precedent or make a lot of headlines, they are very selective about what they take and not helpful otherwise.
Lawyers don’t like to take on police misconduct cases either. They are difficult to win and take a lot of time to build… and most police misconduct victims don’t have the money to pay them up front. So, when lawyers aren’t being paid upfront lawyers have to gauge the risks involved in taking your case against how likely it is they would win and if what they would stand to win would pay for all that time and expense they’d spend on your case. Don’t feel bad if they turn you down, it’s all business since they have to make a living too.
So, you must be prepared to sell your case and be ready for a lot of rejection in the process. This is why I recommend that victims contact as many lawyers as possible about their case and have their brief pitch ready. Each time you talk to a lawyer, write down what they ask and use that to prepare for the next call from another lawyer so you have answers ready.
Even if one says yes, make sure you feel comfortable with that lawyer before signing anything and keep trying if you don’t. Sure, it’s not fair that you have to do all this work after being victimized already, but if you want justice, it’s what you have to do. Don’t be discouraged and don’t get mad, just keep using each attempt to make your case stronger, don’t give up… but also make sure you know what your statute of limitations are in your state, don’t waste time.
If you do get a lawyer, be prepared to wait and understand that the process you’re about to go through is very slow and somewhat torturous. Most cases take years, not months, and some can drag on for over 5 years after appeals.
So don’t expect the government to call as soon as you file and offer a settlement out of fear… they usually don’t and lately there’s been a big push in a lot of cities to fight every single case… and the government doesn’t have any problem victimizing you a second time by dragging you through the mud in the press and in the court. Be ready for it.
Follow your lawyer’s advice, don’t talk to anyone without talking to your lawyer first, and keep documenting everything that is related to your case if any new bills come up or you get a call from the police.
…also, you might have noticed that at no point did I recommend that you file a complaint with the police. Well, like I said, don’t do anything without talking to your lawyer first, that includes filing a complaint with the police department about your mistreatment.
Why?
1. Police Complaints
I usually recommend against filing a complaint with a police department over police misconduct unless the case is minor, would not result in a civil suit, or doesn’t involve you as a victim. Why? While some departments do honestly make an effort to investigate complaints to determine if misconduct occurred, some also use the investigation as a method to prepare their defense against police misconduct lawsuits.
When police departments use investigations as a cover for building a defense against legal action it gives them a head start in the civil case you might be planning and, sometimes, it even lets them start intimidating witnesses or manipulating facts involving the case to favor their case. You have to assume the worst and act accordingly. After all, one officer just violated your rights, why wouldn’t the others do it while presumably investigating your case?
This is why it is best to rely on your attorney to tell you whether or not to file a complaint. They will have a better idea on the reputation of the department’s internal affairs department and have experience with how the city defends itself from civil suits. Again, don’t do anything without asking your attorney first.
Of course, if you end up failing in getting an attorney, there is little harm in filing a complaint… but also be mindful of the deadlines your police department may have for filing complaints. If you file late they might still investigate it but even if they do find fault with the officer they can’t do anything to discipline the officer if it’s past their deadline.
2. Going Public
Again, always talk to your attorney before doing anything. This includes going public and talking to anyone about your case… Including someone like me.
The only time I recommend that someone go public is when they’ve run out of options and have tried every lawyer they could find with no results. Then it doesn’t hurt to go public and, who knows, a lawyer out there that you missed might take up your case once they read about it in a public forum. But again, this is a last resort, don’t do it until all other options have run out or your lawyer gives the ok.
Why? Because going public takes some incentive away from the government settling the suit instead of taking it to court and dragging it out. After all, what have they got to gain by keeping you quiet with a settlement if you’ve already told your story. So, keep quiet until you can’t keep quiet anymore.
3. Rebuilding Your Reputation
Many victims of police misconduct had clean records before their fateful encounter with the police. These victims face the additional injustice of the harms done to their reputation via a criminal record. Even if the charges filed against you are dropped, you will now have an arrest on your record and this can affect your ability to find work or even get housing.
It may not seem fair, after all, you weren’t found guilty so why should people treat you like you were? Unfortunately, that’s just the way people are biased in the US, so you have to be ready for it and why, again, it’s important to get the help of a lawyer with experience in expungements, especially if the charges were dropped against you.
Why? Well, even if you did understand enough about the law to get your official record cleared, once your name is in the database your name also goes into private databases all over that are used by background investigation companies and they don’t always erase your name once the official record is cleared. So, you’ll need a lawyer on hand in case your record follows you even after you clear it.
4. Police Harassment
So, what do you do if you did file a complaint and the investigator starts calling to tell you to drop it? What about if the officer who harmed you comes to visit your workplace or stops you on the street?
Again, document everything, and this includes keeping a video camera or something you can use to record anything that happens in case you are harassed or pressured. Make sure friends or family are with you as much as possible so they can be witnesses if any harassment occurs. Just be prepared before something happens instead of after it happens.
While many departments have policies prohibiting interaction with complainants, that doesn’t stop investigators from applying pressure or doesn’t help if your department doesn’t have such a policy. So best be prepared just in case… it’s not paranoia, it’s just being better safe than sorry.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully some of this information will help you if you become yet another victim of police misconduct. Understand that you’re not alone, that it happens a lot more often than you ever thought, and that there are going to be a lot of people who will judge you because of it. The best way to deal with this isn’t to get angry, but to get prepared and do your best to focus on making something positive happen from it.
There are no support groups out there for victims of police misconduct, little research has been done on the unique psychological effects of it even though being a victim of police misconduct is a unique kind of trauma that erodes one’s own sense of security in ways unlike other kinds of crimes. So mostly you’re going to be on your own and ,from my own experience, I can tell you that this is why it’s vitally important that you surround yourself with friends and family that believe you and believe in you. Don’t isolate yourself just because others isolate you.
People are going to victimize you afterward, some people might even be hostile to you just because you became a victim of police misconduct. Be prepared for it emotionally, don’t be surprised when people you thought were friends suddenly doubt you. As I said, it’s important to not waste time with them, stick with people who believe in you and don’t waste time with the others. Save your arguments for the court of law, not the court of public opinion.
It’s going to be a long road to get back to where you were before this happened. But never give up hope that it’ll get better, and keep fighting to find justice for yourself and for other victims too.
…that’s what I’m trying to do by putting this advice out there. While I hope that you never have need for my advice… it’s there for you in case you do.
February 15, 2010 @ 2:28 AM
I received a request for information yesterday from someone in a city where there have been a few high-profile cases of fatal officer-involved shootings which, to say the least, generated a great deal of concern within that community.
As I do any time I receive such a request, I did what I could to distill the information I had down to what that person wanted to find out. To which the person replied:
“Thanks, again. It is remarkable that you have this much info given the difficulty of finding it in the first place. Amazing there is no expectation to produce the numbers.”
That got me thinking about just what’s been accomplished so far with this project, (which I came up with about this time last year and started a trial run of it in March ’09 incidentally), and whether or not it’s really much of an accomplishment or not…
The National Police Misconduct News Feed is, to my greatest surprise, seemingly the most popular byproduct of this project. All it does is post up a description of each reported case of alleged or confirmed misconduct with a verifiable link to the source. Yet, strangely, it gets a lot of praise and a following of over 800 users… I never would have believed it.
Then there’s the aggregate list of police misconduct reports that come as a result of that news feed, which we then use to create…
…the 2009 NPMSRP Police Misconduct Statistical Report itself that gives details about police misconduct stats in general in addition to a breakdown of how states, and even agencies, compare with the average.
We produced a wide array of maps based on that report that not only show how police misconduct incidents are distributed across the US, but how that translates into police misconduct rates per-capita through a comparison with how many officers there are in a given area.
We created a list of each state’s laws that govern public access to police misconduct and disciplinary records that is easy to understand and easily accessible to everyone, not just lawyers and reporters. We even used that list to examine whether keeping police misconduct a secret helps protect police officers from harm or not.
We developed a method that could be used to determine how likely the police misconduct rate in a given area might increase or decrease based on how effective government is at dealing with misconduct.
We also showed how differently the justice system treats police officers accused of crimes when compared to the general public by comparing what our statistics found with what the government tracks for general crime rates.
…and we were able to at least help one person find a little bit of justice, at least the one we’re allowed to talk about. I think that is probably the one thing that made this most worthwhile to me.
Looking back at it all, I can’t help but think that, this time last year, I wouldn’t have been able to find any of this information anywhere… and that should worry everyone.
Well, at the least it worried me enough to find a way to track this information myself and share it as best I could.
…and while I usually don’t think I’m doing a good enough job of it, I guess it is better than the amount of information we had about police misconduct before, which was pretty much nothing at all. So I guess, in a way, I have done a lot so far, and I hope to keep doing more.
Is that something to be proud of? You know, actually, I still think that’s something to be worried about more than anything else.
What do you think?
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