The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is infamous for stacking charges on defendants and arresting individuals for seemingly minor possessions. However, when it comes to its own agents, there appears to be an endless level of leniency. In 2012, DEA carried out a raid on a home and arrested a group of young people who were smoking marijuana. One was Daniel Chong. Despite the minor violation, Chong was arrested and interrogated. He was told that he would be released but DEA agents simply forgot about him and left him in a cell for five days without food or water. At one point, as the 23-year-old cried and begged for help, someone with the DEA came in and turned off the light in his cell to leave him in the dark. He was given no food or water. Someone was charged, right? Someone was fired, right? No, the DEA has decided that a few reprimands and short suspensions is fine for starving and almost killing Chong.
I earlier wrote a column on how the U.S. government seems to be gradually adopting the legal standards of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. This case seem to fit that storyline all too neatly.
Even the Justice Department has questioned “the DEA’s failure to impose significant discipline on these employees.”
Chong was never charged with a crime and ultimately received a $4.1-million settlement.
The three DEA agents and supervisor responsible will continue to work for the government even though they almost killed Chong who was hospitalized for days after his ordeal. Four reprimands were issued and the supervisor was given a seven-day suspension. Case closed.
Source: LA Times
The police bill of rights, or so it is colloquially known, stems from due process rights that the U.S. Supreme court recognized in Gardner v. Broderick and Garrity v. New Jersey. Bot of these cases are from the late 1960s.
Since then several states codified it into statutory law. Some departments rely on these due processes through adoption by reference in the department policies. In either case it is a requirement of departments to follow as it is a requirement for those accused of crimes or those who are victims or for that matter those seeking public disclosures.
It is no more a shield for criminal activity then the 5th amendment rights guaranteed to a criminal defendant or suspect. It is a right retained by those provided through the bill of rights as interpreted by the courts.
Despite what many have voiced in this and other forums every citizen or person within the territorial claims of the United States or otherwise subject to its jurisdiction has inalienable rights to due process. It is not deprecated by virtue of one’s employment. To do so otherwise would invite depreciation of rights on account of employment or other form of association or class.
Another fallacy that is being argued is that, in aggregate, police departments and its employees are out of control and attacking segments of the population. The evidence shown is incidents that have occurred on individual bases.
The CSLLEA identified that there were 765,000 commissioned law enforcement officers on the state and local levels in 2012 and another study in 2008 had 120,000 on the federal. Now look at the number who have been found guilty of corruption and criminal activities. All that you can articulate, and it will be a small fraction of what the total number are. Double digit perhaps?
In terms of abuse and corruption one only has to look from the 1970’s and before to see that the abuses and corruption were much higher per capita than they are today.
As for the argument that police hide behind the thin blue line and do not take, as a whole definitive action against errant or wayward officers, know that most of the actions taken by departments or outside agencies do not rise to the level of what the news considers important enough to print outside perhaps a local level. The departments nearly always wash out bad employees before they turn into murderers as what it is in some circles assumed that law enforcement officers all are. Why? because the liability is so great the municipality or the state does not want to pay out for some incompetent working for them.
Look at the population in general and compare it with what has happened in the past. A couple decades ago, there was this widespread misconception that US Postal Service employees were apt to go on shooting rampages. In fact, the phrase “going postal” originated from this and has entered into the vernacular. The truth of the matter is that while there have been a few murderers who were employed by the USPS, there were over 700,000 postal workers employed and that number represented close or slightly less than the average homicide rate with that of the general population.
We are seeing an analog of this again. The news is whipping up the issue like it does most things. After the 9/11 attacks people were practically seeing terrorists in all cities in America. Was it founded? Certainly not. There is also a culture of people fearing a their child will be kidnapped and raped and that there are pervs everywhere. The truth is that the nation isn’t replete with marauding child molesters at every corner. A child’s chance of being struck by lightening is higher. Parents cloister their children in the house fearing abuse by strangers, but they are probably a hundred times more likely to be molested or harmed by a relative than a stranger.
Could things improve, most certainly. But people need to be realistic about what is actually going on.
I never hear of any whistleblower teachers. Has anyone? Maybe those Atlanta teachers going to prison got turned in by a whistleblower?
Bad teachers do more harm than bad cops, since all their victims are children. They don’t kill kids, usually, but they rape a lot of them, steal their youth, and provide horrible education to mostly poor kids. I think the damage from bad teachers is much more pervasive and insidious.
There is actually a Nurses Bill of Rights, but alas it’s not legal, unlike the Police Bill of Rights. So again, not comparable.
The bad culture of RIL?
That simply doesn’t follow here and is nothing more than a desperate distraction. “Bad” nurses don’t act with impunity. They actually face real consequences. Other nurses can and do turn them in and testify against them. “Bad” nurses (like most citizens) are subject to to a criminal justice system that isn’t corrupted by conflicts of interest in their favor. A good defense lawyer can be an asset to any defendant, but friendly investigators and a prosecutor willing to bury or throw the case is an outright bank- a corrupt bank in which cops hold very large accounts.
Where does this “only a few bad officers” come from? Blind faith? Hope? Personal knowledge of the hundreds of thousands of LEO’s out there? It surely doesn’t come from any actual study of the problem. It’s 2015 and we can’t even determine how many people cops are killing nationwide (but we do know how many babysitters have killed). Good cops wouldn’t have a problem with determining that number. They’d encourage it. It’s hardly difficult. But the cops we have haven’t even calculated it. Why?
Sure, not all cops are bad, but I’m still waiting for the “good ones” to start arresting and testifying against the “bad ones.” Six cops were between a healthy Freddie Gray and, after 45 minutes in their control, a Freddie Gray with a crushed larynx, a broken neck, and a mostly severed spinal cord. But it happened, under their watch, and in their exclusive control. In other words Res Ipsa Loquitur, “the thing speaks for itself.”
If there were only a few bad cops, you might figure one out of the six (still a terrifying percentage) might break a guy’s neck, crush his larynx, and sever his spinal cord for kicks (or as punishment for making a cop exert himself). But the other five “good cops” would, of course, either try to prevent it or at least testify against the murderer.
How many of those five “good cops” have come forward?
Professor Turley posted video here (linked below) of a guy on a horse surrendering to police – face down on the ground, arms out to the side then behind the back. What did the cops do? They beat the living heck out of him. Since there is only so much room to beat on a guy, they actually took turns tasering, kicking, punching and clubbing him. About a dozen of them. Taking turns. None intervened to stop the assault. None.
http://jonathanturley.org/2015/04/10/san-bernardino-sheriff-deputies-under-investigation-after-release-of-police-beating-suspect-in-desert/
Believe in the good cops when they start turning in the bad ones. If the vast majority were “good cops” this would have been happening frequently for quite some time and “bad cops” would have been purged or at least forced to conform their behavior to the law.
(and no, the absurd attacks on nursing weren’t to make any legitimate point; they were merely a bunch of guys ganging up on one woman to feel tough. hmm… come to think of it, that actually does make a very good point in this context)
Sigh…..
Out.
Good grief, Annie. Again with the broad statements that cannot be verified.
Have you not seen what has happened in Wisconsin because of motivated voters who wanted change? Walker got elected three times in four years in a mostly Democrat state. Ron Johnson defeated Russ Feingold. Sean Duffy defeated David Obey. The majority Dem state assembly flipped to majority Republican. The majority Dem state senate flipped to Majority Republican.
Organized voters can change things, if it’s their will to do so, and if they bust their butts to make it happen.
Or they can just type wishful thinking into a computer.
Well thanks for a civil discussion, that was refreshing.
There sure as hell isn’t a nurses bill of rights and there are far less unions representing nurses than cops. I’m pro union but not one that will not hold their own members accountable.
Okay, I’m done. Early morning obligations tomorrow.
The bad culture of PDs has been in the making for many many years, though numerous elections and administrations, putting blame on one adminstration isn’t accurate. I will say police unions are also partly to blame. A police bill of rights giving police more rights than average citizens is also dangerous and doesn’t help the situation. Better reporting and statistics. So many things could be improved if we were willing to take a good hard look.
As far as the DEA example JT used to form this topic, Obama is responsible for the DEA. And Obama and his immediate past AG have done a good job of shielding the DEA from accountability. Change the administration in 2016.
Who is responsible for how police departments are run? Police chiefs.
Who appoints police chiefs? Mayors (and possibly elected aldermen and appointed commissioners)
Who elects mayors and aldermen? Citizens.
“Speak to an individual’s behavior, and don’t impose an expansion of the behavior onto others, either directly or indirectly.”
Haz, if individual cops are not held accountable because of a bad police culture, what is to be done then? When PDs routinely start policing themselves and their bad apples we can then hone in on the individual cop who did the wrongdoing and excuse the PD.
Darren, Thanks for the link to Baltimore fallen cops page. You have handled this assault on cops w/ a lotta class.
I’ve heard just as many people on the right condem the police culture in this country
I’ll be your mother here. “Annie, darling, if all the other kids jump off a cliff, that doesn’t mean that you should, too,”
It’s not a stretch by any means to extrapolate this to PDs all over the nation.
Yes it IS a stretch to “extrapolate” what happened in one police department to PDs all over the nation. Do you have data to prove that the police in Boise are exactly like the police in Ferguson? Of course you don’t.
Continuing with my earlier example: if you go to a neighborhood block party and say repeatedly that all men are jerks (because of a bad breakup you experienced), or all women are sluts (because of something you saw in a bar) people will start to get angry, especially the non-jerk men and the non-slut women.
And if you explain that maybe some men are good, but they live in a jerk culture, and maybe all women aren’t sluts but they live in a slut culture, people aren’t going to feel any better. You are using the notion of culture to label people who don’t merit or deserve being so labeled.
Speak to an individual’s behavior, and don’t impose an expansion of the behavior onto others, either directly or indirectly.
And Haz, this is beyond politics and rightly so. I’ve heard just as many people on the right condem the police culture in this country. It’s not simply liberals calling for reform.