National police misconduct list of events!

PHOENIX, Arizona - August 31, 2010 -  Here are the latest in a growing series of incidents in which police officers commit egregious violations of the rights of those they are supposed to protect.
 
A Washington DC police officer has pled guilty to second degree murder and conspiracy charges for his role in the botched robbery and kidnapping of a suspected drug dealer, he’s currently on indefinite suspension without pay which is a fancy term for being fired in some departments.

Two Morganton, North Carolina police officers are on paid leave after fatally shooting a 17-year-old boy who answered the door with a rifle in his hands when officers were responding to a noise complaint. Witnesses say that the officers never announced who they were after knocking on the door of the home, despite being asked by the boy’s mom and the teen, which apparently prompted the teen to answer the door while armed. The boy’s mother say the boy didn’t point the weapon at the officers when he was shot about four or five times. Neighbors say he was a good kid and that the call was made by someone complaining about how the younger kids in that home, ages 6, 3, and 4 months, were “making a racket”.

A now-former Saint Louis, Missouri police officer has pled guilty to a reduced charge of aggravated discharge of a firearm after he originally faced aggravated battery with a firearm charges for shotting a man in the chest while off-duty at a bar where he accidentally shot a man who was coming to his aid after he got into a fight in the parking lot.

Three Pittsburgh Pennsylvania police officers who are currently the subject of a federal investigation into allegations that they used excessive force on a teenage arts student and then falsely charged him to cover it are now the subject of a lawsuit filed by the young man over the incident as well.

At least three Troy, New York police officers are accused of using excessive force during the arrest of a college student and then accused of falsely arresting another student who took a video of the incident with his cell phone. The video, by the way, is not clear enough to make any determination of whether the allegations of excessive force have merit.

A Houston, Texas police officer who was responding to an urgent call without his lights or siren activated t-boned an elderly couple’s car, killing a 67-year-old woman. The department claims that their policy permits officers to speed without their lights or siren activated while responding to urgent calls. The initial word from investigators is that the officer didn’t even attempt to stop before striking the couple’s car.

A Williams, Arizona police lieutenant has been fired after an investigation into an incident where he apparently threatened to arrest KFC employees over their policy of never issuing a refund when they didn’t have the kind of chicken he wanted. He apparently went so far as to call other officers for backup but those officers refused to arrest anyone, saying the issue was a civil matter, to which the lieutenant, second in command at the time, called the officers “lazy fuckers”. The now-former lieutenant claims he plans to sue for wrongful termination even though a transcript has him telling the chief that he screwed up, to which he claims he was talking about an unrelated problem he had with a computer. Sometimes I couldn’t make these up if I tried.

A presumed New York, NY police officer is accused of failing to render aid to the mother of a 11-year-old girl and delaying her for five minutes while she tried to rush her daughter to the hospital before she died of an asthma attack. The officer was quoted by witnesses as smirking when he told the mother he didn’t know CPR as she begged for help though a good Samaritan at the scene did try to resuscitate the girl. We say presumed because, while the woman in question says she’s sure it was a NYPD police officer, department officials say they’re still trying to figure out if it really was an officer or some sort of security guard or traffic officer.

Also in the NYPD, Two New York, NY plainclothes police officers are the subject of a lawsuit filed by two sisters who claim that they were falsely arrested when they insisted on calling 911 to verify that the officers were really officers after they were treated rudely during a questionable traffic stop. Incidentally, most departments recommend that you call 911 to verify an officer’s identity when you suspect that you might be dealing with a police impersonator.

The police chief of Cattaraugus, New York has been charged with 2nd degree aggravated harassment after he allegedly left a number of threatening phone messages at the home number of a pastor who was on vacation in an apparent attempt to retrieve what he thought was stolen property that was left at the pastor’s home related to a foster child the pastor had taken in. The DA said the chief just went too far, even filing for a warrant against the minister for possession of stolen property at one point.

A Charlotte, North Carolina police detective is the subject of an investigation into as many as 18 homicide cases that he worked on when he revealed that he threw out his notes, recopied notes, and plagiarized the notes of another detective in the trial of a man accused of killing two police officers. Even though the original notes were allegedly found this week, the officer may still face perjury charges if those notes don’t match his recopied notes verbatim. Those notes are believed to deal with a witness who claimed that it was a different man who shot the officers.

Four now-former or currently suspended Greensboro, North Carolina police officers are accusing the department of being corrupt and discriminatory in videotaped testimonies that were played during a community meeting in a church for a group of pastors who plan to take their request for a federal investigation into that department straight to federal officials in Washington DC themselves.

Shortly after that meeting it was released that the Greensboro, North Carolina police captain who participated in that meeting had been fired for helping officers file grievances and for going public with those allegations of corruption within the department. However, at the same time, another officer who was suspended for filing an excessive force complaint against two fellow officers for their handling of a suspect was reinstated.

A Richmond, Virginia police lieutenant with the internal affairs unit is on paid leave after being arrested on domestic assault and brandishing a firearm charges involving an alleged dispute with his wife.

A Los Angeles County, California deputy has been charged with filing a false report alleging that her ex-husband sexually assaulted a teenage relative and for discharging a firearm with gross negligence when she fired a gun inside her home and the round exited the home and hit near where several children were playing outside of their homes. She was also apparently on probation for a number of DUI charges including one case where officers stopped her with an open bottle of wine while she was driving around a parking lot naked from the waist down.

The Albany, Georgia police public information officer has been arrested on a battery of a minor charge for allegedly repeatedly hitting her 16-year-old daughter in the head with a high-heeled shoe.

Hudson County, New Jersey sheriff’s detective has been arrested on an aggravated assault charge for slicing a man’s thumb with a knife during a domestic dispute. The man was also arrested for allegedly pushing the female detective to the floor, injuring her head.

Brooklyn, Illinois officials say they are now reviewing the record of a former Venice Illinois police officer that they had hired on his word that he had an exemplary record after an investigation by a local paper uncovered that the officer was forced to resign after a number of complaints against him that included sexual assault allegations that didn’t result in charges only because paperwork didn’t make it to the state police and firing shots at a pickup truck being driven by an unarmed driver who was never charged with anything as well as a number of other cases.

Four University of Central Florida police officers are accused of racially profiling, falsely arresting and denying medical care to a biracial lesbian professor who claims the officers treated her like a crackhead instead of a professor and falsely accused her of being on drugs after they stopped her on allegations she had a faulty tail light that she claims worked properly. University officials claim that they are investigating the incident.

A New Jersey State trooper who has been suspended without pay on allegations that he was double dipping by working an insurance job while he was on-duty is now suing alleging that the suspension is in retaliation for him blowing the whistle on alleged financial waste within the state police solid hazardous waste unit.

A Lee County, Florida detective and a sergeant were demoted for their roles in a botched investigation in association with a robbery case that was tied to a deadly car chase where the charges against two men had to be dismissed when it became clear that the officers never visited the crime scene or even interviewed the alleged victim.

Santa Clara County, California has settled the last suit associated with a deputy who fell asleep at the wheel and ran over three bicyclists, killing two of them. This suit settled for $500,000 to the one cyclist who was injured but survived, bringing the total cost in settlements to $4,800,000 for that incident.

The scandal in Indianapolis, Indiana revolving around an officer who was apparently drunk when he ran over three motorcyclists, killing two of them while responding to a call has just become even stranger now that records show that the police supervisors who were demoted by the public safety director for failing to properly supervise the flawed investigation into that incident were actually called away from the investigation by the police chief in order to attend a meeting to discuss how to improve the public image of the public safety director, a meeting where the incident that happened just hours earlier wasn’t even brought up.

The Trenton, Tennessee police chief’s flawed practices are being blamed by an audit into how $70,000 in fines and fees collected by the department went missing over a period of years. Nobody knows where the money went though and it doesn’t look like the chief is facing any charges either.

A Virginia Beach, Virginia police officer has been sentenced to 30 days in jail, a $750 fine and had his license suspended for 3 years for his recent DUI conviction.

Finally, an Ansonia, Connecticut police officer is refusing to return to work and now faces being put on leave without pay after he was cleared of allegations that he stole a garden hose from the police department. The officer is claiming that he is suffering from severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that was brought on by having to suffer being accused of theft… Again, folks, I just can’t make some of these up.