Police Secrecy

For the life of me, I do not understand this need that police officers apparently have to defend other police officers, no matter what.

As an attorney, I don't want there to be bad attorneys out there practicing law. Those attorneys give all of us a bad reputation. If an attorney violates the law or the Rules of Professional Responsibility, I want that attorney to be sanctioned appropriately. And if it's serious enough, I want that attorney to be disbarred.

For some reason, though, it seems to be just the opposite with police officers. Whenever there is any accusation of wrong-doing on the part of a police officer, it seems that other police officers will believe whatever that officer says, and defend whatever they see the officer do on video.

Police officers don't seem to understand that their jobs are made easier when they are dealing with a community that trusts them. People are more willing to come forward to discuss an incident if they trust the officers involved. But as more people realize that police officers are willing to lie for each other, community support for them will go down, juries will believe what they say less and less, and conviction rates will drop as a result.

A few years ago, a mentally ill man was shot (but not killed) by a Dallas police officer. The officer claimed the man had a knife raised and was walking towards him in an aggressive manner. The officer had no choice but to fire his weapon. That man was charged with the attempted assault of the police officer. What the officer didn't know when he wrote the report was that a residential security camera recorded the whole thing, and the video clearly showed the mentally ill man standing still, with his hands to his side, nowhere near the officer.

Now, here's the kicker to that story. The officer who did the shooting had a partner with him. That second officer arrived in the same squad car, got out, and saw the whole thing happen. Instead of going to his superior and reporting the truth about what the first officer had done, this officer also wrote a report, confirming that the man came toward them in an aggressive manner, with a knife raised. In other words, the second cop lied to cover up for an officer who shot a man who posed absolutely no threat to them.

With not one, but two police officers saying that this man was coming at them with a knife, they would have had no problem convicting this man of a very serious charge, and probably sending him to prison for a very long time.  Luckily, the video cleared the man and the officer was charged with shooting him (I don't know the outcome of that case).

Frankly, I'm a little tired of hearing the argument that not all cops are bad, and that it's unfair to paint them all with that same brush. Once I hear that police officers are reporting the inappropriate conduct of other police officers, I'll accept that argument. Perhaps there is a story somewhere about a police officer who reported the bad actions of a fellow officer who otherwise would have got away with it. I have never heard of such a story. Until that becomes the norm, and police officers stop covering up for each other -- sometimes to ridiculous stretches of the imagination and logic -- they are all responsible for the massive amount of distrust more and more people are placing in them.