Well Suffolk County certainly isn’t a good case study for my point that if you pay cops enough, you’ll avoid scandal. Though I’d still like to think that’s true, WTF? The former Chief of Police (how much did he make?) pled guilty: to federal charges stemming from accusations that he beat a suspect in custody, threatened to kill him and…
Tag: corruption
Former LA Sheriff Baca Pleads Guilty
I don’t know much about LA county. The LA Sheriff’s Department has 18,000 employees and 9,100 sworn officers. And running a huge jail system ain’t easy. But Sheriff Baca and his cronies have been in trouble for a long while. His people tried to strong-arm an FBI agent investigating his department. Not cool. Perhaps we shouldn’t be electing top law…
The 1 percent
Out of 12,000 Chicago Cops, 124 are responsible for a third of misconduct lawsuits settled by the city since 2009, costing $34 million. The Tribune(behind a paywall unless you good for the article) reports that 82 percent of the department’s officers were not named in any settlements. (Keep in mind that a good chunk of that 82 percent haven’t interacted…
Snitching for Dollars
This is what the War on Drugs looks like. Just another day. From the Chicago Sun-Times: One of Chicago’s most notorious informants — who provided drug tips to the police while secretly killing and robbing people and doing drug deals — was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for his information with the approval of police supervisors who have since…
NYPD Discipline
Some stats about the NYPD in the New York Times. Bratton is giving more discretion to local commanders for disciplining cops for minor offenses. That’s good. It’s another move away from the micro-managed overly top-down approach of former Commissioner Ray Kelly. The article then tries to say Bratton is not applying Broken Windows within his own department… but that once…
Corruption in the Baltimore Police Department
When I hear people, Commissioner Batts including, talk about the horrible institutional problem of Baltimore police corruption, I know they have never spent any time working on the streets of Baltimore. Batts certainly hasn’t. He’s the chief. He’s separated by five thick layers of chain of command from the rank-and-file. And he didn’t work his way up through that chain…
“Cop of the Year”?
I was recently asked for comments about a “Cop of the Year.” It doesn’t matter which. I didn’t know the cop, so I didn’t say much. I have no clue what he did (or didn’t) do. But I am suspicious of “cops of the year.” Are my suspicions justified? I’ll presume there are lots of nice “cops of the year”…
David Durk thought I was crazy…
…at least at first. David Durk died last month. And I didn’t even know it. That really would have pissed him off. (My excuse for missing the obits was that I was en-route to a conference in Chicago. Here’s one. And another. And a third.) Let me take you back a bit. In October, 2009, there was this strange voice…
Prohibition Corrupts Cops
Funny how a few illegal searches for drugs might cost your job and next thing you know, you, the “good guy,” is in prison. Why did you do it, Sarge? Was it worth it? Did you really think you going to win the drug war? From the Times: Mr. Eiseman, who lost his job as a result of his guilty…
Criminal Officers plead guilty
From the New York Times: Mr. Ortiz and Mr. Trischitta helped transport three M-16 rifles, one shotgun and 16 handguns from New Jersey to New York. Many had been defaced to remove or alter the serial number. In another scheme, the officers — along with Mr. Mahoney, Mr. Melnik and others — helped transport what they believed to be stolen…