85,000 cops misconduct records to be made public

[UCFWayne]

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/n...ng-misconduct-records-police-cops/3223984002/

USA TODAY is leading a national effort to obtain and publish disciplinary and misconduct records for thousands of police officers.

At least 85,000 law enforcement officers across the USA have been investigated or disciplined for misconduct over the past decade, an investigation by USA TODAY Network found.

Officers have beaten members of the public, planted evidence and used their badges to harass women. They have lied, stolen, dealt drugs, driven drunk and abused their spouses.

Despite their role as public servants, the men and women who swear an oath to keep communities safe can generally avoid public scrutiny for their misdeeds.

The records of their misconduct are filed away, rarely seen by anyone outside their departments. Police unions and their political allies have worked to put special protections in place ensuring some records are shielded from public view, or even destroyed.

 

[UCFWayne]

Among the findings:

• Most misconduct involves routine infractions, but the records reveal tens of thousands of cases of serious misconduct and abuse. They include 22,924 investigations of officers using excessive force, 3,145 allegations of rape, child molestation and other sexual misconduct and 2,307 cases of domestic violence by officers.
• Dishonesty is a frequent problem. The records document at least 2,227 instances of perjury, tampering with evidence or witnesses or falsifying reports. There were 418 reports of officers obstructing investigations, most often when they or someone they knew were targets.
• Less than 10% of officers in most police forces get investigated for misconduct. Yet some officers are consistently under investigation. Nearly 2,500 have been investigated on 10 or more charges. Twenty faced 100 or more allegations yet kept their badge for years.

 

[NinjaKnight]

I have never met a cop that is looking to kill someone, and I know lots of cops. Nowadays, the departments of the officer and deputies that I know tend to weed out the overly aggressive cops through retirement or early in training/ probation.

.

It is sad. My son graduates in August from UCF and wants to be a LEO.

yeah, but I was told by sk8 that that they get weeded out, and fab said it's sad how cops are treated these days.

 

[chemmie]

Blue lives matter.

 

[NinjaKnight]

Wayne posts a decent topic for once, and it gets ignored. Sad!

 

[sk8knight]

There are around 800,000 sworn police officers in any given year. Given attrition rates, that is well north of a million officers over that 10 year period, I’m guessing more than 2 million. This article says that 85,000 have been investigated and I didn’t see how many of those investigations actually resulted in discipline. I can tell you of more than a few IA’s at local agencies that were frivolous at best if not ridiculous. A number were warranted.

As far as the article goes, maybe I’m missing where it says how many of the IA’s were warranted. If not, this is a biased and irresponsible article.