skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Friday, December 6, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

7.0 magnitude earthquake reported off Northern California coast, tsunami warning canceled; Fewer Hoosiers vote in 2024 amid early voting tensions; 'ALICE at Work' paycheck-to-paycheck struggle; New push for protection for manatees, Florida's 'gentle giants.'

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The Senate Indian Affairs chair says a long-imprisoned activist deserves clemency, Speaker Mike Johnson says they may end funding for PBS and Planned Parenthood, and Senate Republicans privately say Hegseth's nomination is doomed.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Limited access to community resources negatively impacts rural Americans' health, a successful solar company is the result of a Georgia woman's determination to stay close to her ailing grandfather, and Connecticut looks for more ways to cut methane emissions.

Police Accused of Violence Have History of Complaints

play audio
Play

Tuesday, June 2, 2020   

By Jill McCorkel for The Conversation
Broadcast version by Diane Bernard for Maryland News Connection
Reporting for The Conversation-Public News Service Collaboration


BALTIMORE -- As protests against police violence and racism continue in cities throughout the U.S., the public is learning that several of the officers involved in the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville share a history of complaints by citizens of brutality or misconduct.

Decades of research on police shootings and brutality reveal that officers with a history of shooting civilians, for example, are much more likely to do so in the future compared to other officers. A similar pattern holds for misconduct complaints.

Officers who are the subject of previous civilian complaints - regardless of whether those complaints are for excessive force, verbal abuse or unlawful searches - pose a higher risk of engaging in serious misconduct in the future.

A study published in the American Economic Journal reviewed 50,000 allegations of officer misconduct in Chicago and found that officers with extensive complaint histories were disproportionately more likely to be named subjects in civil rights lawsuits with extensive claims and large settlement payouts.

In spite of this research, many law enforcement agencies not only fail to adequately investigate misconduct allegations, they rarely sustain citizen complaints. Disciplinary sanctions are few and reserved for the most egregious cases.

Complaints, lawsuits - but few consequences

Derek Chauvin, the ex-officer who has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for killing Floyd, is no stranger to situations in which deadly force has been deployed.

During a 2006 roadside stop, Chauvin was among six officers who, in just four seconds, fired 43 rounds into a truck driven by a man wanted for questioning in a domestic assault.

The man, Wayne Reyes, who police said aimed a sawed-off shotgun at them, died at the scene. The police department never acknowledged which officers had fired their guns, and a grand jury convened by prosecutors did not indict any of the officers.

Chauvin is also the subject of at least 18 separate misconduct complaints and was involved in two additional shooting incidents. According to The Associated Press, 16 of the complaints were "closed with no discipline" and two letters of reprimand were issued for Chauvin related to the other cases.

Tou Thao, one of three Minneapolis officers at the scene as Floyd pleaded for his life, is named in a 2017 civil rights lawsuit against the department. Lamar Ferguson, the plaintiff, said he was walking home with his pregnant girlfriend when Thao and another officer stopped him without cause, handcuffed him and proceeded to kick, punch and knee him with such force that his teeth shattered.

The case was settled by the city for $25,000, with the officers and the city declaring no liability, but it is not known if Thao was disciplined by the department.

In Louisville, Kentucky, at least three of the officers involved in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor while serving a no-knock warrant at her home - allowing them to use a battering ram to open her door - had previously been sanctioned for violating department policies. One of the officers, Brett Hankison, is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit alleging, according to news reports, that he harassed suspects and planted drugs on them.

Hankison has denied the charges in a response to the lawsuit.

Another officer in the Taylor case, Myles Cosgrove, was sued for excessive force in 2006 by a man whom he shot seven times in the course of a routine traffic stop. The judge dismissed the case. Cosgrove had been put on paid administrative leave as his role in the shooting was investigated by his department, and returned to the department after the investigation closed.

Patterns of misconduct and abuse

I am a scholar of law and the criminal justice system. In my work on wrongful conviction cases in Philadelphia, I regularly encounter patterns of police misconduct including witness intimidation, evidence tampering and coercion. It is often the same officers engaging in the same kinds of misconduct and abuse across multiple cases.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that across the nation fewer than one in 12 complaints of police misconduct result in any kind of disciplinary action.

And then there is the problem of "gypsy cops" - a derogatory ethnic slur used in law enforcement circles to refer to officers who are fired for serious misconduct from one department only to be rehired by another one.

Timothy Loehmann, the Cleveland officer who shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, resigned before he was fired from his previous department after they deemed him unfit to serve. A grand jury did not indict Loehmann for the killing, but he was fired by the Cleveland Division of Police after they found he had not disclosed the reason for leaving his previous job.

In the largest study of police hiring, researchers concluded that rehired officers, who make up roughly 3% of the police force, present a serious threat to communities because of their propensity to re-offend, if they had engaged in misconduct before. These officers, wrote the study's authors, "are more likely ... to be fired from their next job or to receive a complaint for a 'moral character violation.'"

The Newark model

The Obama administration's Task Force on 21st Century Policing recommended the creation of a national database to identify officers whose law enforcement licenses were revoked due to misconduct. The database that currently exists, the National Decertification Index, is limited, given state level variation in reporting requirements and decertification processes.

Analysts agree that this is a useful step, but it does not address underlying organizational and institutional sources of violence, discrimination and misconduct.

For example, in the aftermath of the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the Department of Justice found that the department had a lengthy history of excessive force, unconstitutional stop and searches, racial discrimination and racial bias.

The report noted that the use of force was often punitive and retaliatory and that "the overwhelming majority of force - almost 90% - is used against African Americans."

One promising solution might be the creation of independent civilian review boards that are able to conduct their own investigations and impose disciplinary measures.

In Newark, New Jersey, the board can issue subpoenas, hold hearings and investigate misconduct.
Research at the national level suggests that jurisdictions with citizen review boards uphold more excessive force complaints than jurisdictions that rely on internal mechanisms.

But historically, the work of civilian review boards has been undercut by limitations on resources and authority. Promising models, including the one in Newark, are frequently the target of lawsuits and harassment by police unions, who say that such boards undermine the police department's internal disciplinary procedures.

In the case of civilian review board in the Newark, the board largely prevailed in the aftermath of the police union lawsuit. The court ruling restored the board's ability to investigate police misconduct - but it made the board's disciplinary recommendations nonbinding.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news organization dedicated to unlock knowledge from academic experts.

---

Jill McCorkel, Ph.D. wrote this article for TheConversation.com McCorkel is Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Villanova University and the founding director of the Philadelphia Justice Project for Women and Girls. Follow her at jillmccorkel.com and @JillMcCorkel.






get more stories like this via email

more stories
The Georgia Senate Study Committee on Artificial Intelligence has released a report featuring input from experts in higher education, law and business. The goal is to get ahead of AI and how it will impact various industries. (Kevin Ruck/Abode Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

Georgia lawmakers are mapping out the state's future in artificial intelligence. This week, the Senate Study Committee on Artificial Intelligence …


Social Issues

play sound

As word has spread about President-elect Donald Trump's mass deportation plans, advocates for immigrants in Oregon are working to educate people …

Social Issues

play sound

Wisconsin has lost almost one in five of its newspapers in the past year. The state of newspapers has been dismal for years, and the 2024 figures are …


Antimicrobial consumption in farm animals is on the rise in the U.S., while declining in Europe by 44% from 2014 to 2021. (pressmaster/Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

By Sophie Kevany for Sentient.Broadcast version by Roz Brown for New Mexico News Connection reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaborati…

Social Issues

play sound

This month marks the 25th anniversary of a federal law designed to give states flexibility in helping older kids transition out of foster care…

ALICE families say while wages have increased, it hasn't been enough to keep up with inflation and is sometimes hard to put food on the table. (Konstantin Yuganov/Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

By Wesley Brown for the Arkansas Delta Informer.Broadcast version by Freda Ross for Arkansas News Service reporting for The Arkansas Delta Informer-Wi…

Environment

play sound

As President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in next month, the farming community wonders if he'll follow through on tariff threats. One expert says for …

Environment

play sound

By Frida Garza for Grist.Broadcast version by Chrystal Blair for Michigan News Connection reporting for the Rural News Network-Public News Service Col…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021