Disclosure: During my rookie days back in the sixties as a San Diego police officer I used excessive force, more than once. I remember most of the incidents, though I'm sure I've conveniently forgotten some. I'm ashamed, wish to hell I hadn't done it. But I did, and visceral memories of these incidents help shape an answer to the question of why certain cops engage in brutal behavior, and others don't.
As police brutality cases go, it may not be one for the annals.
In late February, King County, WA sheriff's deputy Paul Schene deposited a slender 15-year-old girl into a holding cell and ordered her to remove her shoes. The teen used her right toe to loosen the heel of her left sneaker, which she then cast off, the rubber-soled shoe apparently striking Schene in the shin.
As she began the mirror process with the other shoe, Schene stormed the holding cell, kicked the girl in (what appears to be) the groin, chased her across the cell, grabbed her by her hair, flung her to the concrete floor, burrowed his knees into her back, slugged her twice in (what appears to be) the head, and handcuffed her, all of this on camera. He then yanked her by her hair to her feet and "escorted" her out door, and out of our view.
The girl, who had offered no resistance, reported trouble breathing. Paramedics were called. Schene's report declared that the teenager had suffered a "panic attack."
Pretty bad. But does it stand up to the LAPD Rodney King beating? Or the NYPD torture of Abner Louima? Or the countless other videotaped police attacks we've seen in recent years?
Yes.
The Schene attack didn't last nearly as long the King beating. It wasn't as sadistic as the broom-handled, sodomizing case of Louima in Brooklyn's 70th Pct. But it's just as painful to watch: a six-two, 195-pound man pummeling a frightened child.
Who cares whether the girl was "lippy," or that she may have referred to the officers as "fat pigs." Any excessive police force violates agency policy, not to mention state and/or federal laws. Not only does such "official" violence inflict pain, often causing lasting physical and emotional injury, it greatly undermines public confidence in the police (as evidenced by reader reactions to the original post).
Cops are allowed, in the language of Schene's own agency, to use physical or lethal force only as "necessary to effect an arrest, to defend themselves or others from violence, or to accomplish other police duties according to law."
Apart from the question of why in the world they'd do it with today's omnipresent cameras rolling, why do certain cops resort to excessive force?
Schene claims he was assaulted (the girl maintains that she was not aiming for the deputy when she flipped off the shoe). He claims the sneaker caused him "bruising, bleeding, and pain" as well as a "blood filled pocket," though it's hard to imagine that statement passing as truth. Schene's injury appears to have been caused by his self-propelled collision with the cell's shin-high stainless steel commode--caught clearly on the tape. The deputy will no doubt assert he used only that amount of force necessary to overcome the girl's physical aggression. It doesn't take a trained observer to see he's wrong.
So, how do we prevent this kind of behavior in the future?
Please don't say through (1) more thorough screening of law enforcement candidates, or (2) better training. They're both important, of course. Critical, in fact. But law enforcement, for the most part, doesn't pick bad apples. It makes them, and not through academy training.
Forty-three years ago I was an idealistic, vaguely liberal 21-year-old when the San Diego Police Department hired me. The last thing on my mind was taking to the streets to punish people. And lest there be any doubt about the department's policy, the police academy, even then, drove it home: excessive force was grounds for termination.
So, why did I abuse the very people I'd been hired to serve?
Not to get too psychological, I did it because the power of my position went straight to my head; because other cops I'd come to admire did it; and because I thought I could get away with it. Which I did--until a principled prosecutor slapped me upside the head and demanded to know whether the U.S. Constitution meant anything to me.
It comes down to this: real cops, those with a conscience, those who honor the law, must step up and take control of the cop culture.
Video of Police Beating Released in Washington State - The Lede ...
The answer to this question is getting simpler and simpler.
REQUIRE COPS TO WEAR AUDIO VIDEO RECORDERS WHILE ON DUTY.
Have you seen the size of the latest iPod and Cellphones with cameras? Some manufacturer should easily be able to build a clip-on AV recorder that can store DAYS worth of video. This should be done, officers should be required to wear them. Failing to wear one should be a firing offense.
Cops should want to wear them too. The fact is that 99% of the lies come from accused criminals, not the cops. The recorders would help the vast majorty of cops. They would deter or expose the few bad ones. Everybody wins.
"While now a freelance journalist, once I was a successful businessman and political figure, had a net worth of about $1 million, and also wrote US police accountability laws. My scope was national; I lived in Connecticut. "
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0411-27.htm
Former Norwalk, Connecticut, Mayor William "Bill" Collins talks about police officers abducting citizens while wearing ski masks to beat the suspects at abandoned waterfront warehouses. Police we...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmdqiUE7Gfw&feature=PlayList&p=5C0ED82BE92FA2EA&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=40
Ritt Goldstein, a Connecticut businessman active in attempts to institute a statewide civilian police review board, was harrassed by police to the point that he fled to Sweden and asked for asylum in Sweden.
One of my old school friends is an attorney in my hometown and knows of cases where these old classmates of ours have planted drugs in people's cars. He's told me if I'm ever stopped to never, ever consent to having my car searched. I don't do drugs. I don't drink and drive. There's no reason at all for them to search my car.
It's sad. When I was a little kid my parents used to tell me that if I was in trouble I should go to the police. Nowadays, you just don't know for sure.
Sorry. But the facts are there is no Constitutional right to anything in this country. If you are not rich you are dogmeat.
While this instance was mild compared to what so many have experienced, for me it exemplifies the opportunistic aggression far too many cops feel entitled to inflict as a function of their normal duties. I don't even want to know what would've happened had I been running my mouth or resisting arrest, or a racial minority in a run down neighborhood instead of a white guy in an affluent neighborhood.
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I was going to say, jail time.
We're coming to a point in this country where certain groups of people, think they are above the law.
You know it isn't right and so do I.
Unfortunately, those able to do something about this appear to think themselves part of the entitled.
The question should be "why do those who are supposedly not sociopaths (some individual policemen, police administrators and government officials) allow abuses to happen and cover up the crimes?" Or does police work attract latent abusers and induce all to become sociopaths?
But I think it is also a matter of tradition with senior law enforcement personnel, and a superficially accepted aspect of American pop culture, through the fictional glorification in the mediums of books, film and TV; by now it is ingrained in us as a nation to expect cops to be tough characters, and to at least half-believe that maverick cops who break the rules are really necessary ot get the really bad guys.
But like many things in American culture, the reality is far less cut-&-dried and far more brutal, dishonest and selfish, tolerated for the sake of the almighty dollar.
Thanks for your piece here. I must respectfully disagree with how you propose we deal with the issue of police brutality. If simply BEING in law enforcement creates "bad apples", then I certainly don't feel very safe with your solution of "real" cops policing other cops. As we've seen in the past, cops tend to PROTECT each other, not scold them on their behavior (if they do, it must be completely behind closed doors, which, again, is not reassuring). What needs to happen is PRISON time for cops who abuse their authority. With great power comes great responsibility. You all have a duty to NOT abuse your powers. And when you all do, the penalties should be severe.
Also, these brutality complaints should be taken more seriously...both by the public and by law enforcement.
How are you supposed to simultaneously be a humble servant/protector AND expect absolute, when-I-say-jump-you-say-how-high "respect"? Neither the cops nor the public seem fully able to resolve both.
But I've worked security at conventions, and I say the same thing - the people who WANT to work security are almost never the ones who SHOULD be doing it. I try to draft competent people from other areas and usually find that that works better