By Matt Essert January 17, 2014
On Monday, two California
police officers were found not guilty for the 2011 murder of a homeless man.
Kelly Thomas, 37, died five days after being violently beaten and tasered by
six police officers. Video surveillance footage showed the on-duty officers
confront the homeless and mentally handicapped man before pushing him to the
ground and beating him with their knees, fists, batons and electric stun guns —
the jury took less than two days to acquit the two officers on trial.
The National Police Misconduct
Statistics and Reporting Project's 2010 (NPMSRP) Police Misconduct Statistical
Report (the most recent data available because of the scarcity of available
statistics) shows that from January 2010 through December 2010, there were
4,861 unique reports of police misconduct that involved 6,613 sworn law
enforcement officers and 6,826 alleged victims.
1. A Tennessee patrolman forced
a woman to perform oral sex on him
Hamilton County Sheriff's
patrol officer Willie Marshay Greer, 33, pulled a woman over for speeding at 1
a.m. and after running her name through a database and discovering she had an
open warrant for arrest, offered to "strike a deal."
"I could let you go, but
you'd owe me," the woman said Greer told her.
Greer then forced the woman to
perform oral sex on him while handcuffed.
2. A Chicago cop sodomized a
man they wanted to turn into a drug informant
Angel Perez, a 32-year-old
Chicago man, is suing the Chicago Police Department after accusing several
officers of beating him and sodomizing him with a gun to force him to cooperate
as a drug informant in 2012.
According to a report in VICE,
"One of the officers 'inserted a cold metal object, believed to be one of
officer's service revolvers, into the plaintiff's rectum.' The complaint
continued: "The two officers laughed hysterically while inserting the
object' and Sergeant Cline joked, 'I almost blew your brains out.'"
3. Police in Minnesota shot and
killed a man who was handcuffed
A man in Brooklyn Center, Minn. was shot and
killed while in handcuffs. Edmond Fair, 24, was pulled over at a traffic stop
when officers discovered he was a wanted man and handcuffed him. According to
the police, he struggled and reached for the officers' guns, prompting them to
retaliate and shoot him. The details of the case are not totally clear, but it
is hard to attack a cop and reach for his gun while in handcuffs.
4. An Illinois deputy had sex
with a 9-year-old boy
Following federal investigations by the U.S.
District Attorney's Office and the FBI, former Illinois sheriff's deputy,
38-year-old Gregory M. Pyle, plead guilty to charges involving sex with a
minor. Pyle had been with the McHenry County Sheriff's Department for 10 years
and spent some of his time leading the department's child pornography
investigations.
In court, Pyle admitted to
taking a 9-year-old boy from Chicago to Milwaukee, sexually abusing him and
posting the photos online.
5. Police in Nebraska beat a
man senseless
Omaha, NE Police using
excessive force
A sixth officer has been fired
after an illegal parking incident escalated into a brutal confrontation. When
police discovered an illegally parked car with expired tags, 28-yea-old Octavius
Johnson got into a confrontation with several officers that ended with his
beating. Johnson's brothers caught the incident on videotape, which was
confiscated by an officer. The police officers involved were investigated and
eventually dismissed for use of excessive force, warrantless search and seizure
and destroying evidence.
6. A Pennsylvania cop
pepper-sprayed a 13-year-old because he didn't want to go to school
Pennsylvania state trooper Ernest Boatright
was charged with child endangerment and harassment and placed on unpaid leave
after pepper-spraying his girlfriend's 13-year-old son when the boy stayed in
bed and refused to go to school.
7. A North Carolina cop shot
and killed a subdued schizophrenic as his parents watched
This past weekend in Boiling Spring Lakes,
N.C. the parents of 18-year-old Keith Vidal called police for assistance when
their son was suffering from a schizophrenic episode while carrying a
screwdriver in his hand. Scared for their child's safety, three officers responded
to the call and attempted to subdue the teenager. While the officers were
holding Keith down during his episode and tasing him repeatedly, one officer
reportedly said, "We don't have time for this," and shot between the
two other officers, killing the boy.
"There was no reason to
shoot this kid," Vidal's step-father Mark Wilsey said. "They killed
my son in cold blood. We called for help and they killed my son."
One of the officers involved
has been placed on leave — the others have been cleared of wrongdoing by their
departments.
Matt is a writer and editor
living in New York City. A philosophy graduate of McGill University, he enjoys
politics, television, and IPAs.
