Police/correctional officers behaving badly

Maphistos_Sidekick · May 26, 2024, 1:51pm

While the chyron focuses on one cop having 3 DUIs thrown out, the real gist of the story seems to be:

Greater reliance on field sobriety tests, rather than breathalyzers, due to breathalyzers not being useful for so many forms of “influence”.
Tennessee is backlogged in processing blood tests for intoxicating substances.
Field sobriety tests are imperfect, resulting in sober drivers being arrested and charged with DUI.

In fairness, this isn’t necessarily police behaving badly…but I didn’t want to start a thread just for limitations of our justice system that cause headaches for innocent people.

The_Polymath · May 28, 2024, 1:00pm

I think this belongs here?

Freed murder convict sues Chicago over eyewitness who turned out to be blind

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/28/chicago-blind-witness-murder-sued/

dr_t_non-fan · May 28, 2024, 2:55pm

Should have been that one guy on the jury…

Maphistos_Sidekick · July 15, 2024, 5:10pm

That sting was run back in May by Millersville Assistant Police Chief Shawn Taylor and a colorful cast of characters he assembled for the operation.

Among the revelations, the recordings show:

Taylor did not involve other law enforcement agencies with more experience in such operations because of his unfounded conspiracy theories that prominent state officials are involved in child sex trafficking.

Members of a private group posed online as minors — despite Millersville police being told by prosecutors that the sting would be legal only if sworn law enforcement officers were the ones doing the work.

Shawn Taylor told one operative that investigators would be using “pre-signed search warrants,” which would likely be illegal, according to experts.

Police arrested one suspect then, when he refused to talk to investigators, they turned him over to the private group for questioning.

A Millersville detective boasted that the suspect was being taken to a jail where it was likely that he might not come out alive.

The_Polymath · August 19, 2024, 9:33am

I would fry them for this one.

Alaska troopers brutally beat man in mistaken arrest, prosecutors say

At no time during the encounter did officers ask the man what his name was, according to charging documents.

August 17, 2024 at 9:00 p.m. EDT

Two Alaska State Troopers have been charged with assault for pepper spraying, beating and ordering a dog to bite a man who they wrongly believed had a warrant out for his arrest in an allegation of police violence that the state’s top public safety authority called unprecedented.

Joseph Miller, 49, and Jason Woodruff, 42, were charged with fourth-degree assault, a misdemeanor, for beating 37-year-old Ben Tikka in Kenai, Alaska, according to charging documents filed this week.

After the incident, Tikka reported an open bite on his left arm, multiple fractures and lacerations on his triceps and head. The troopers mistook Tikka for his cousin, who has the same last name.

James Cockrell, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Public Safety, said in a news conference Thursday that he put both troopers on administrative leave and had been the one to refer their cases for a criminal investigation.

“I was totally sickened by what I saw,” he said, adding that they caused significant injuries. “I’ve been with this department for 33 years, and I’ve never seen any action like this before.”

https://wapo.st/3AqEBuW

knoath · August 19, 2024, 2:23pm

These police just get dumber and dumber. How do you expect a police officer to catch a criminal if they’re dumber than the criminal?

Maphistos_Sidekick · August 21, 2024, 3:27pm

While this isn’t strictly speaking Police behaving badly yet…

Google-translated article

The police were issued an order in which they are advised to offer the detainees to go to war with Ukraine, writes Baza. In the Kirov region, for example, for each contract soldier, the police are promised to pay 10 thousand rubles from the regional budget. This will happen after the detainee is in a military unit.

In other regions, including Crimea, the approach of the police to detainees is different: they are obliged to report to the management about each detainee with whom work was carried out to sign a contract. The priority of the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is to send the detainee to war, and not to court.

In total, the Russian authorities set the task of recruiting 30 thousand people a month into the army, sources familiar with the situation told Bloomberg. Such a number of volunteers and contract soldiers is needed to replenish the losses in Ukraine, which, according to Western data, exceeded 500 thousand people killed and wounded.

And although the regions have quadrupled one-time bonuses for recruits on average, and in 15 regions they exceed 1 million rubles, the plan for contract soldiers is missing by about a third, Bloomberg sources said. According to the agency’s interlocutors, this could push the Kremlin to a new mass mobilization this year.

Ted_Hoffman · August 29, 2024, 2:35pm

The headline is bad enough. This makes it that much worse.

And it gets even worse as you go down from there. Solid candidates for the “people who do bad stuff and I say fry 'em” thread.

Fish_Actuary · September 8, 2024, 2:22pm

Seems like we’ll likely be seeing this story in the news at some point in the future. At the moment, it’s just a one-sided thread of tweets.

Rastiln · September 20, 2024, 3:22pm

Sheriff shoots and kills the judge in his chambers.

Details are fuzzy, but there was a sheriff from the same county recently alleged to have coerced sex from a woman in exchange for leniency. May be the same person, or related.

knoath · September 20, 2024, 3:38pm

According to a tourism website, the county is renowned for its judge shooting, Appalachian mountain hiking trails, horseback riding, fishing and outdoor camping.

I fixed their website.

ArthurItas · December 12, 2024, 1:43pm

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/12/12/justice-department-school-police-child-sex-abuse-guidelines/

Posting an excerpt below in case this gets paywalled. If more than 200 police officers were criminally charged, I have to think a multiple of that were not charged. Likely a huge number of victims.

Article:
The agency began drafting the new guidance in September, after a Washington Post investigation
revealed that predatory school police officers have used their positions to meet, groom and exploit students, while the Justice Department and many law enforcement agencies and school systems have failed to take basic steps to prevent sexual misconduct and root out abusive cops.

The Post identified more than 200 elementary, middle and high school police officers who were charged with crimes involving child sexual abuse from 2005 through 2022. Dozens of these cops were accused of violating children on school grounds, including in their offices.

now_samantha · December 12, 2024, 1:49pm

But let’s arm those same people to prevent school shootings. Because what can go wrong?

Rastiln · December 12, 2024, 4:16pm

Somewhere in one of these GoA threads I remember being against liberal use of school resource officers and somebody being extremely for them. Wish it were easier to find.

Ted_Hoffman · December 20, 2024, 12:42am

Is it just “enforcing the law” or behaving badly by being an incredible asshat while under the guise of enforcing the law? Doesn’t matter, we should all have better than this.

3rookie · December 20, 2024, 3:26pm

What started out as a biased article eventually told a more complete story and was fairly balanced.

The_Polymath · December 24, 2024, 3:57am

NYPD officers have been caught inflating their overtime hours.

This has been going on for a long time, but even for them…this was a pretty brazen instance of this type of fraud.

Maphistos_Sidekick · December 26, 2024, 12:26pm

How about a state’s entire prison system behaving badly?

Most jobs are inside facilities, where the state’s inmates — who are disproportionately Black — can be sentenced to hard labor and forced to work for free doing everything from mopping floors to laundry. But more than 10,000 inmates have logged a combined 17 million work hours outside Alabama’s prison walls since 2018, for entities like city and county governments and businesses that range from major car-part manufacturers and meat-processing plants to distribution centers for major retailers like Walmart, the AP determined.

While those working at private companies can at least earn a little money, they face possible punishment if they refuse, from being denied family visits to being sent to higher-security prisons, which are so dangerous that the federal government filed a lawsuit four years ago that remains pending, calling the treatment of prisoners unconstitutional.

Though they make at least $7.25 an hour, the state siphons 40% off the top of all wages and also levies fees, including $5 a day for rides to their jobs and $15 a month for laundry.

ArthurItas · December 31, 2024, 5:25pm

FFS how can it be legal in 35 states for police to have sex with someone in custody?

Maphistos_Sidekick · December 31, 2024, 6:43pm

Consider who we just elected to be President.