California’s Criminal Cops

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/10/californias-criminal-cops-convicted-but-stay-on-the-job/

by danso • 7 years ago

249 140 7 years ago

danso2• 7 years ago

Previous discussion, before the list was released and looked into: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19257434

rolltiide• 7 years ago

amazing how investigative reporting is so rare that they felt comfortable dedicating the whole article to heralding that they even did actual research to begin with

they went to places where the records were supposed to be instead of merely googling and being content with the poor information? Two pages to describe that experience coming right up

danso2• 7 years ago

My mistake, it looks like I linked to the About page and not the story page: https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/10/californias-criminal-...

jacquesm• 7 years ago

Paging dang... link change?

dang• 7 years ago

Changed now from https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/10/californias-criminal-....

mehrdadn• 7 years ago

They encountered numerous hurdles including poor record keeping, uncooperative clerks and hundreds of destroyed files.

Well this is terrible... I'd have expected courts to do things by the book.

flyGuyOnTheSly2• 7 years ago

Give "Making a Murderer" on Netflix a watch.

It's a real eye opener if you thought that courts do things by the book imho.

late2part2• 7 years ago

Last time I plead innocent for a speeding ticket, the clerk asked me to sign a blank form, which they would later fill in for me (!!!!).

umvi• 7 years ago

I did watch that but the documentary seemed very biased toward the defense.

Like... Avery's dna was found in the victim's car, and the victim's charred bones were found in Avery's fire pit. But the show plays these off and makes it seem like a police conspiracy.

wallace_f• 7 years ago

“When I see an actual flesh-and-blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman, I do not have to ask myself which side I am on." -George Orwell

Saw this on front page of reddit today: https://www.reddit.com/r/Wellthatsucks/comments/dua2bh/hong_...

AJ007• 7 years ago

One would presume past convictions would greatly increase the potential liability of any officer behavior involved lawsuits. Perhaps some of these municipalities will suddenly find their insurance policies dropped.

sunflowerfly• 7 years ago

The simple solution is to have officers carry their own liability insurance, similar to other professionals. Bad officers would become uninsurable.

iknowalot3• 7 years ago

Absolutely and if their insurance doesn't cover the damage they've done, the liability should overflow into their pensions.

MrMorden• 7 years ago

That is exactly the reason large cities self-insure.

YokoZar• 7 years ago

Are you saying large cities self-insure so that they can hire officers who are uninsurable due to committing crimes? That doesn't sound like a reasoned policy decision.

jeffdavis4• 7 years ago

One thing weird to me about the gun debate is that it always seems to exclude police -- on duty or off, current or former -- and nobody questions that in the slightest.

For instance, California has a handgun roster. If a citizen buys a handgun, it needs to be on a special list. The last time a model was added was 2013 [1]. Supposedly it's to make sure pistols are safe. But if you are a police officer, go ahead and buy a 2019 model! In fact, go ahead and buy a 2019 model, and then sell it for 2X to a normal citizen, if you want. A good side business!

How does any part of that make sense?

I guess the theory is that officers are well-trained and responsible, but where is the evidence of that? And why can't anyone else take the same magical steps to show their worthiness?

[1] Due largely to the "microstamping" requirememt, which is impractical to meet, but required for new models (some very minor variants are still allowed without microstamping). See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microstamping

huffmsa• 7 years ago

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

It's just the way things are when you "trust the government" to work in your best interest.

If you're not on them like stink on a turd, they'll go tyrannical

dsfyu404ed3• 7 years ago

One thing weird to me about the gun debate is that it always seems to exclude police -- on duty or off, current or former -- and nobody questions that in the slightest.

Other commenters have already covered possible motives I will cover the practicality side.

It would be impossible to pass gun control with that massive voting block (law enforcement and everyone that supports them) against you. Public safety or something along those lines is one of the reasons people advocate for gun control. If you don't exempt the police then basically every police chief will go on record saying your gun control will be terrible for public safety.

devnulloverflow2• 7 years ago

A public safety rationale would be about cops service weapons. The parent post sounds like he means individual cops can buy guns on the open market as private citizens would be allowed to do in states with looser gun laws.

joe_the_user• 7 years ago

Well, the problem with your argument is you seem to be arguing that any gun control is good gun control so it's reasonable to push for a completely ineffective gun.

hackerbrother• 7 years ago

There are plenty of people who question that in the slightest! There is lots of activism going on about police violence

jeffdavis4• 7 years ago

Browse the mainstream coverage of anything related to gun control. It will be hard to find anything skeptical of police and their special gun privileges and exceptions to gun control.

There may be a nearby article about police brutality, negligence, incompetence, corruption, favortism, or even murder. The article may even suggest that the problems are sustemic in some departments.

But as far as the media can tell, they are completely unrelated topics. It's just assumed that gun control excludes police, and that's obvious and normal and right.

madengr• 7 years ago

Cops are more likely to commit crimes than CCW licensees.

some_random3• 7 years ago

To be clear, this handgun roster is justified by claiming that new handguns needed to be tested to make sure they're "safe". Of course, only dirty civilians need to have "safe" guns, police departments can and do purchase untested guns with taxpayer money and as mentioned above cops can and do buy and flip untested guns. Obviously, this testing isn't free and is required on an SKU by SKU basis, so you can get a black Gen 2 Glock 17, but not a tan one because Glock only ponied up for the one model.

solidsnack900016• 7 years ago

Many gun control advocates see removing guns from private hands as a first step towards disarming the police. This is often couched in terms of a comparison with British policing: the argument is that British police are not as afraid, so don't engage in excessive force as often, because there aren't guns around that could be used to kill them.

However, most American police and sheriff's departments tend to support gun ownership. Maybe because they are as aware as anyone of the saying: "When seconds count, police are only minutes away.".

roenxi• 7 years ago

The gun control advocates currently don't have the numbers to disarm the population. That suggests that if they do get the numbers it will be in an alliance with the people who like centralised government power - ie, the sort of people who look at Hong Kong and think that it is a better state of affairs than open rebellion. Not an invalid view, and not as unpopular as people might expect - there is a big chunk of the population that trusts authority and values stability.

From that perspective, it is likely that any gun control legislation will increase the power difference between individuals and the state.

pmoriarty• 7 years ago

"the argument is that British police are not as afraid, so don't engage in excessive force as often, because there aren't guns around that could be used to kill them"

From what I've read, this has been changing in recent years, with British police getting more and more armed, apparently in response to terrorists and organized crime being better armed.

So the US and British police are converging, but perhaps not in the way that gun control advocates might have hoped.

zipwitch• 7 years ago

The Dayton Ohio shooter earlier this year was killed by police officers 32 seconds after he opened fire. He killed nine people in those 32 seconds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Dayton_shooting

welder3• 7 years ago

When seconds count, police are only minutes away

... to shoot you in your home.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-police-officer-sh...

But really, I never comprehend why police support civilians having guns since it just makes their job more dangerous.

mindslight3• 7 years ago

That is common view, but unfortunately it ignores the straightforward answer of just disarming everyday police right now. Things like routine traffic stops should not be performed by armed officers. Parking enforcement generally doesn't worry about whether the person they're writing a ticket to is armed - it takes two to escalate.

onion2k• 7 years ago

This is often couched in terms of a comparison with British policing: the argument is that British police are not as afraid, so don't engage in excessive force as often, because there aren't guns around that could be used to kill them.

It's becoming more and more common to see British police with guns at events, central stations, etc (and not just handguns.. they carry MP5s). It's apparently to give the public confidence that terrorists won't attack but in reality it just makes me more scared of being shot by the police.

jedberg• 7 years ago

The three most powerful entities in California politics are the police union, the nurses union, and the teachers union. It’s important to remember that the teachers union fights for the rights of teachers, not students. The nurses union fights for the rights of nurses, not patients.

And the police union fights for the rights of police, not citizens.

Their rhetoric might say otherwise, but their underlying motives are clear. And they often scratch each other’s backs.

When the teachers union says that a new gun control law will protect kids, everyone just believes them.

sneak• 7 years ago

I guess the theory is that officers are well-trained and responsible, but where is the evidence of that?

Police beat their spouses at 4x the rate of the general population. The extremely well-armed police (who themselves demonstrate that they tend toward the more violent part of society) are one of the primary reasons that widespread civilian gun ownership is essential.

Without it, you get situations like what happened during the RNC in 2004, where the peaceful are denied defense, yet the oppressors are armed to the teeth.

some_random3• 7 years ago

The map[1] of the 5 states without the power to remove a cop's badge for misconduct also happens to have some of the most strict gun control in the country. Seems this is what happens when safety is valued above all else.

[1] https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/SJM-L...

MrMember• 7 years ago

Politicians will, without a hint of irony, give a speech claiming that "assault weapons" are only useful for murdering crowds of people as quickly as possible, and then introduce legislation that bans them for everyone except the police.

idoubtit• 7 years ago

In which countries are law officers accountable for their crimes? I can't name any.

Two weeks ago in France, 2 policemen were sentenced for beating up students. This kind of conviction is extremely rare, but they were caught on CCTV beating up "for fun" two students that were walking back home. It was probably a racist beating, since they first attacked the colored guy. Their sentences were symbolic. Both are still policemen, and one of them has been promoted. https://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/prison-avec-sursis-pour-d... (in French)

De facto, policemen are above the law. And of course, many of them abuse that system. Yet most people don't care. They want law and order, even if the law is not the same for everyone, and even if the order is not just, and sometimes criminal.

icelancer• 7 years ago

> In which countries are law officers accountable for their crimes? I can't name any.

Basically none, if you mean as a rule. There are exceptions of course in all countries, including the United States, but by and large, officers are above the law.

Yet the answer is rarely "less government / oversight" when it comes to these issues. It's just a race to get their preferred candidate into office who will wield the expanding power in a more efficient and effective manner, of course.

samstave• 7 years ago

The "officers" being shown in /r/HongKong disgust and enrage me.

My dad was Oakland PD in the 70s - he quit after OPD killed several black panthers. He said he had to quit, as, "When you spend your whole life looking for bad, soon, thats all you can see"

https://old.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/dujohq/1111_hong_...

Kostchei• 7 years ago

There is a more insidious problem at work here. Police are, by dint of their daily work, good at understanding how the law works and how people get away with crimes.

This means that if you treat them equally to a random person, they have the knowledge to/will get away with more crimes.

The only problem with holding them to a higher standard once you understand this, is that it generates resentment, and the higher standard becomes a different system they learn and game.

I say this as someone committed to justice for who 15 years in policing is receding into the past.

I don't have a perfect solution or I might have stayed in policing, at least kept my badge- I work in security now which scratches the itch that got me into law-enforcement in the first place. (don't tell my coworker devs that- some already think infosec is out to get them- we are not) It is hard to stay justice oriented no matter where you are- in gov law enforcement or the private sector, startup or big-corp.

joaksl• 7 years ago

Policemen are above the law because that's how the system was created. At least in the US, police departments were primarily created by the elites to protect the elites from immigrant masses. When the elites were all mostly anglo-saxon protestant, we didn't have a need for police. But when cities started attracting immigrants - particularly german and irish, the elites needed a forceful mechanism by which to suppress and control these people. Of course when the germans and irish moved up the social ladder and the new arrivals were italians and blacks, the germans and irish suppressed and controlled these people. Now in a "post-race" age, police exist primarily to serve and protect the rich elites against the less wealthy masses.

The idea of police existing to protect you ( Protect and Serve nonsense ) is just PR/marketing. Just like "Don't be evil".

I suspect in most countries, these same pattern holds.

Nasrudith3• 7 years ago

It would be more accurate to describe police as 'in group' vs 'out group' for their bias as opposed to the straightforward rich elite narrative. While they may overlap the region and its politics may vary heavily. Still often servants of a status quo in an ugly way but certainly not wealth alone. "Carpetbaggers" with the gall to move south to provide goods and services in Post Bellum south sure as hell didn't benefit from police protection much less favoritism. Nor did Greenwood District, Tulsa a.k.a. "The Black Wall Street" or the other pogrom victims of what were euphemistically and victim blamingly termed 'Race Riots'.

And there was the old summing up of cliches as the cops went from beating up the Irish for 'not fitting into society' to being the Irish beating up Hippies for 'not fitting into society'. Indeed part of why historically gay neighborhoods and districts exist in many cases is because they congregated under friendlier enforcement jurisdictions.

Putting aside the ancient police 'expecting the city to mob accused and restrain or kill them' the military largely were what we call the police essentially - at least with European history although they weren't homogeneous and there was some nuance to it and memetic factors. English highwaymen for instance could thrive better in the isles than on the Continent where they had Gendarme where as in England using cavalry for that was viewed as tyrannical.

Their longbow practice also had some 'citizen army' and ancestral 2nd Amendment rhetorical factors while still not exactly 'free' it still provided a check to power in a 'don't piss off the armed peasantry enough that they decide an armed rebellion is worth it'. Meanwhile France and others specifically didn't adopt the practice because the rebellion concerns made the idea anathema to their worldview.

iknowalot3• 7 years ago

At least in the US, police departments were primarily created by the elites to protect the elites from immigrant masses.

They were created first and foremost for slaves, not immigrant masses. History gets too sanitized for my liking in this country and we miss important lessons because of it.

Ambele• 7 years ago

Singapore.

Amazon's had an episode in their tv series: The Giant Beast that is the Global Economy where they covered corruption throughout the world. It showed who's living with it and who's stamping it out better.

Direct link to the episode: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B07NVPSSK7/ref=stream...

rb808• 7 years ago

They drove drunk, cheated on time cards, brutalized family members, even killed others with their recklessness on the road. But thanks to some of the weakest laws in the country for punishing police misconduct, the Golden State does nothing to stop these officers from enforcing the law.

Honestly I dont like the American enthusiasm for restricting employment of criminals that have served their time. If someone had a DUI or cheated on time cards in their past I have no problem with them being a cop. Brutalizing family members sounds more serious but I'd like to find out more before judging someone on a brief description.

ohashi• 7 years ago

Why are cops getting special privilege that normal citizens aren't? I'm not a fan of the criminal justice and reform system either. But police should be held to a higher standard, not lower one.

dsfyu404ed3• 7 years ago

It's a lot harder to find motivation to go hard enforcing this or that law when you know that if you broke this or that law they'd receive the same treatment.

Nasrudith3• 7 years ago

Because the system was messed up by mistake or design that they are effectively a bloc of power instead of being properly subordinate to its citizens. "Law and Order", "Tough On Crime", and other DA election scare tactics have resulted in them having too much electoral power to be accountable - which media coverage also shares blame in. And this is before stupid human tricks of those completely unprivileged by the existing system judging those who are higher up to a lower standard.

Ididntdothis• 7 years ago

I think being in the justice system like law enforcement or judiciary where decisions are made about life and death should require higher standards than other jobs.

I know somebody whose cop ex-husband first beat her and then terrorized her for years. No local cop would ever do anything about it. She moved away a few hundred miles and even there he managed to get other cops to harass her constantly. This should just not be possible and people who behave like that simply aren’t fit to be a cop.

From what I know stuff like this is quite common.

Addition: the abusive ex-husband retired with 50 and pulls a 150k pension now.

s1artibartfast• 7 years ago

It would be interesting to see how the rates compare to other professions.

More than 80 law enforcement officers working today in California are convicted criminals

So 80/80,000 have some sort of misdemeanor conviction. I wonder how many of those are serious and how the rate compares to doctors, politicians, and engineers

jonathankoren2• 7 years ago

You also have to keep in mind that cops also by statute have a much higher bar for conviction, which not only means they are more likely to not to be found guilty, but not even prosecuted for acts that would be an open and shut case for anyone else. Also, let’s not forget sovereign immunity also applies to cops.

And this on top of the the fact that cops underreport cop crimes, and prosecutors use their discretion to not prosecute cops by a huge margin.

chrisweekly• 7 years ago

Those were examples of POLICE MISCONDUCT. Which is to say, crimes committed WHILE THEY WERE EMPLOYED AS POLICE OFFICERS. This has precisely nothing to do with employment discrimination against former felons. It has to do with enabling ongoing criminal behavior by police officers -- those very people entrusted with a sacred privileged duty to uphold the law -- without fear of consequence. Police officers (and judges and others granted power by our society to wield life-and-death power over other citizens) must be held to the highest standards in their conduct.

big_chungus• 7 years ago

I'd break drunk driving and cheating on time cards into separate categories, as there are different reasons to deny each a job.

Drunk driving can reveal poor judgement and a lack of foresight. Cheating on time cards can reveal a lack of ethics. It could also reveal a personal struggle with gambling, drugs, or other other financial problems. These sorts of problems constantly demand more money and might cause future fraud or theft issues due to on-going or escalating financial desperation.

Of course, all that aside, it's often easy to tell if someone's "turned toward the light" and grown up a bit, usually making him okay to hire. I'd agree that brutalizing family members probably reveals a pretty screwed-up guy, and probably wouldn't ever hire such a person. It's worse than murder; one has to be more of a psychopath to hurt those he loves than walk walking into a store and shoot a man as part of an armed robbery.

aidenn02• 7 years ago

A DUI for someone who spends much of their work hours behind the wheel is a significant issue, IMO. 2 DUIs bans you for life from getting a CDL in California, and the BAC level to be considered a DUI is half that as someone without a CDL, even when not driving a commercial vehicle.

Muuuchem• 7 years ago

What do you know, the most common offenses are alcohol related. People that cant control their own drug use are the front-line warriors in the war on drugs arresting people for not abusing the same drugs they abuse. I know things have obviously gotten better in regards to prohibition in California, but there is still no excuse for people being caged, harrassed, and lightly abused for taking a substance to try and feel better in this shitstorm of pain and suffering that we call life. As long as people arent hurting anyone other than themselves, then no reason to cage them and ruin their ability to get jobs and progress out of the hole that our drug laws put them in.

Idk i just thought that it was incredibly telling that the group of people that continuously arrest others for drugs putting them in situations where they are unable to find employment, do not suffer from the same penalties when they get caught abusing the drug that they say is OK (and is arguably one of the most destructive of all drugs).

It truly sucks to hate and fear the group of people that are supposed to help and protect you in emergency. Even now that I am a professional, long removed from my days of risky behavior like fearing the police while leaving a rave with personal amounts of drugs, they still prove they dont care about helping and are more concerned about their bonuses from finding drugs. The last time I called police because my roommate was drunk and yelling and threatening me, they saw a single syringe cap on the bathroom floor from where my roommate had thrown the bathroom trash can. They got aggressive and started threatening and looking around the apartment and in open rooms without express permission. I work in a biochemistry lab and use syringes, mostlyneedl3less everyday at work, had accidentally thrown some minor trash in my pocket and emptied it out while changing clothing in the bathroom. But this apparently was probable cause enough to be an asshole and search around mildly and forget about the actual reason i called

solidsnack900016• 7 years ago

California cops are definitely not on the front lines of the drug wars. Many departments have standing orders to ignore all but the largest quantities of drugs.

tyxodiwktis• 7 years ago

Stepping back, societies often struggle with managing the behavior of the instruments of public order. There seems to be an inherent tension between tasking people with dealing with society’s “undesirables” and bad behavior and also having them behave as model citizens themselves.

An interesting read is, “The Faithful Executioner” about 16th century Nuremberg. The book is heavily based on contemporary sources. The town archers, who are responsible for law enforcement, often cause trouble through drunkenness, excessive violence, and general bad behavior, and are rarely held accountable except for the most egregious offenses. An interesting parallel that points to that broader tension.

js2• 7 years ago

This is only tangentially related, but This American Life did an episode about a month ago about how difficult it is to reform an institution. Specifically it was about fire fighters in Amsterdam:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/684/burn-it-down/prologue-a...

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/684/transcript

This was just one department in one city, and it was mostly just bad behavior ("macho, frat house culture"), nothing criminal. The effort failed.

crb002• 7 years ago

Iowa’s Governor Kim Reynolds has had several drunk driving convictions. Why should police be held to a higher standard than the Governor?

0_gravitas• 7 years ago

Perhaps they should all be held to the same higher standard, this whataboutism is coming at it from the wrong angle imo

toomanybeersies• 7 years ago

There is a very good argument to be made that disallowing people with convictions from running for office would allow the police force to be weaponised against political opponents.

Nasrudith3• 7 years ago

Because the Governor actually had to be elected for one - the positions are apples and oranges.

Simply allowing people to be barred from office because of conviction past or present is dangerous as it gives a very abusable tool to disqualify political rivals. This isn't a theoretical thing - many dictatorships and sham-democracies use it regularly. Now politicians shouldn't have impunity but it is ultimately up to the voters to decide what does and doesn't disqualify someone from governorship. If the voters know of their record and decide to elect them anyway it is within their right. Mathew Lyon got re-elected after being jailed for violation of the Sedition act where his whole defense was 'this law is blatantly unconstitutional'.

Meanwhile a police position employeed is supposed to be subordinate to the laws and by the books. Demonstrating questionable judgement and keeping them on isn't fair to /everyone else/. Having every last police officer elected wouldn't be very logistically plausible nor would voters be as well equipped to evaluate candidates so having a 'bureaucratic' process makes sense for those sorts of roles.

rmason• 7 years ago

What I am left wondering is how many are kicked off a police force in another state and then get hired on in California? This report only looked at officers California records.

I know there are cases where doctors lose their medical license and there's a handful of states where they can move and regain a license. Is the same true for police officers?

jonathankoren2• 7 years ago

Happens all the time

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/investigations/...

https://www.news5cleveland.com/despite-crimes-misconduct-fir...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/officer-fired-twice-from-one-po...

RickJWagner2• 7 years ago

I've got a neighbor that's a cop.

And a nephew who is a detective.

And the gym I work out at is crawling with cops. There's a judge and some school police, too.

All of them are very good people. I think the few bad apples get a lot of press.

PhantomGremlin2• 7 years ago

All of them are very good people.

Just how "good" are they if the "blue wall of silence" is rule #1 in terms of ignoring what you call "bad apples" and what civilians call criminal misconduct?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_of_silence

RickJWagner2• 7 years ago

You don't know these people, do you?

I am not aware of any bad behavior from any of them, and I am first-hand witness to good deeds done by them.

Do you have any first-hand knowledge of police misbehaving? I mean people you actually know?

aidenn02• 7 years ago

One thing that is clear: Many of the officers on the state’s secret convictions list who are still working today likely wouldn’t be cops in other states.

That's not how it always works. The officers pled to misdemeanors because they knew they could keep their jobs with a misdemeanor. In other states they would plea to a non-criminal charge instead, or manage to not get convicted at all.

willyt• 7 years ago

Cops should lose their jobs if they commit crime. But, recklessness, drinking and domestic violence are common symptoms of PTSD. Police see a lot of bad stuff. Maybe the police department should look after their people better before their officer’s conduct gets out of hand.

California’s Criminal Cops

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