Raise the hiring IQ for cops: Off-duty Erlanger police officer accidentally shoots self in Over-the-Rhine

WCPO Staff

CINCINNATI - CINCINNATI -- An off-duty police officer from Erlanger, Kentucky was accidentally shot in Over-the-Rhine on Saturday when his weapon discharged in an elevator. The incident happened about 8:30 p.m. at the Mercer Commons Parking Garage near the intersection of Vine and Mercer streets. Erlanger police officer Darryl Jouett had just had dinner and was heading back to his car with his wife when his duty-issue .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun discharged inside the elevator. The bullet ricocheted off the wall and struck him in the stomach, according to Capt. Mike John "It's very unusual. Obviously you have somebody that's used to handling firearms," John said. "It's very unusual to see somebody discharge a firearm, accidentally, in a confined space like that. It's very unusual."  The next day, Erlanger police said Jouett went to adjust his belt when the service weapon fired in its holster. It's unclear if he had the safety on.

10 to o one he gets away with it

Former Tequesta police chief says he accidentally shot wife in Ga., investigators say

By Marisa Gottesman and Adam Sacasa

Cops say former Delray police deputy chief shot his wife in Georgia

An Atlanta-area police chief who previously helped lead two agencies in Palm Beach County says he accidentally shot his wife early New Year's Day inside their Georgia home.

William McCollom, the Peachtree City, Ga., police chief, had served as a major at Delray Beach Police Department until 2006, and then served as chief of the Tequesta Police Department until 2010.

y in Georgia, McCollom called 911 to report accidentally shooting his wife, Margaret, while moving a handgun that was in their bed inside the couple's bedroom, Peachtree City Police Lt. Mark Brown said.

McCollom's wife was flown to Atlanta Medical Center, where she was in critical condition.

A 911 dispatcher asked McCollom, "Who shot her?"

"Me," McCollom said. "The gun was in the bed, I went to move it, and I put it to the side and it went off."

McCollom's wife can be heard crying in the background. He told the dispatcher he shot her in the back.

"Oh my God," the police chief said. "How the hell did this happen?"

McCollom has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation and an internal review. He has not been charged with any crimes.

Longtime Delray Beach residents say they were surprised to hear McCollom, their former Delray deputy chief, shot his wife.

"People are praying for his wife and also praying for a plausible explanation," said former Delray Mayor Jeff Perlman. "There is a lot of emotion. There is a lot of disbelief and concern."

Perlman was mayor when McCollom worked for Delray's police force until he left the city.

"He was actually a major, but they called him a deputy chief," Perlman said. "He was No. 2."

But Perlman remembers McCollom from years before Perlman became an elected official in 2000. When Perlman was a newspaper reporter, he said, McCollom worked as a Delray canine officer.

"I did stories on the canine unit," Perlman said. "I knew him early in his career and watched him move up the ladder."

Perlman said McCollom wasn't about just law and order. He said he promoted community policing, which meant getting out of the patrol car and interacting with residents to help solve problems.

Perlman said McCollom encouraged his fellow officers to attend homeowners' association meetings and develop relationships with residents.

"He was a deep-thinking kind of guy," Perlman said. "He was really interested in trying to break the cycle of poverty and crime in the Northwest Southwest neighborhood."

He said McCollom was instrumental in creating a program to help at-risk youth learn how to fix cars after he saw a pattern of kids stealing cars. Perlman said the program ran for 10 years.

Perlman said he turned to McCollom for advice during the seven years when he was in office. "He was a huge help to me," Perlman said. "He was on the top of the list of people I relied on and really looked up to."

In Georgia, investigators would not discuss what led McCollom to open fire. The police turned the criminal probe over to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the prosecutor's office there.

Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Sherry Lang said initial reports suggested that McCollom shot his wife twice, but later information revealed she was shot once. Authorities said the police chief fired his department-issued firearm, a 9-mm Glock handgun.

During McCollom's 911 call, he told the dispatcher he and his wife were asleep when the gun went off. He also identifies himself as police chief of Peachtree City during the phone call.

"He is fully cooperating at this point, and he has been interviewed," said Lang, who declined to comment on what McCollom told investigators.

Want to cut down on police brutality? Make police pay for their own misbehavior. It would be good for taxpayers — and justice

By Bonnie Kristian | December 29, 2014

Eric Garner's family plans to sue the New York Police Department for $75 million. Tamir Rice's parents have filed a wrongful death lawsuit. Michael Brown's family may likewise launch a civil suit against the St. Louis police.

No matter the outcome of these three legal actions, they're already guaranteed to have at least one thing in common: Any settlement award would be overwhelmingly (if not completely) paid by taxpayers, while the police officers responsible for the deaths of Garner, Rice, and Brown would be mostly or entirely let off the financial hook.

This phenomenon is not unique to these cases or locales. Indeed, it is common practice for the monetary costs of suits alleging police misconduct — however grave — to be shifted away from the officers responsible.

One study from June 2014 calculated that taxpayers picked up the tab for no less than 99.98 percent of the $730 million paid to victims of civil rights violations by 44 of the largest police departments from 2006 to 2011. New York City is relatively unusual in that it requires "officers to contribute small amounts when officers have been found to be acting outside of policy." Elsewhere, even when the police departments involved agreed with the courts' decisions and fired or otherwise punished the cops in question, officers' bank accounts remain untouched.

In midsize and smaller cities, the same study noted, officers "never contributed to settlements or judgments in lawsuits brought against them." In fact, in jurisdictions where it is illegal to shield police from paying (or at least contributing to) their own settlement costs, many local governments simply ignore the law and financially shield cops anyway.

Proponents of this system argue, as the Supreme Court did in Forrester v. White (1988), that "the threat of personal liability for damages can inhibit government officials in the proper performance of their duties." Police who are preoccupied with protecting their pocketbooks may be overly cautious while pursuing criminals, the reasoning goes, so it's important to protect them from frivolous lawsuits which could ruin them financially.

But in practice, police already exist as a special legal class, enjoying many protections not afforded to the rest of us. Cops are significantly less like to be indicted or convicted than regular citizens, and they are often afforded an extra measure of privacy in any tangle with the justice system. In Chicago specifically, police officers accused of the worst types of abuse, like rape and excessive force, face a one in 500 chance of experiencing any consequences more serious than a one-week suspension.

And in the meantime, the costs of these settlement payments quickly pile up, as victims and their families in the more shocking or widely publicized cases may successfully sue for hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. New York City taxpayers paid out some $735 million for police misconduct settlements in 2012 alone, and the NYPD expects annual settlement spending to top $800 million by 2016.

Cleveland recently agreed to pay $3 million to the families of two men who were killed by police. In August, L.A. settled the death of an unarmed veteran for $5 million. By comparison, Denver has gotten off easy, spending not quite $11 million on police settlements involving brutality or civil rights violations in the last decade.

But it gets worse. Taxpayers "in some cities, such as New York and Philadelphia, are paying three times for officers who repeatedly commit abuses: once to cover their salaries while they commit abuses; next to pay settlements or civil jury awards against officers; and a third time through payments into police 'defense' funds provided by the cities," according to research from Human Rights Watch. Suffice it to say taxpayers aren't getting a good deal.

Of course, some suits do manage to make officers pay. This typically requires a special demand by the victims or their families in pursuit of accountability, and it frequently results in a far smaller settlement. "[These victims] want an acknowledgment that the police did them wrong or hurt them," says Craig Futterman, a professor at University of Chicago Law. "That's why some of these settlements are for such small amounts."

Maybe more important than the size of the award, however, is the incentive provided by mandating police contribution to settlements.

While requiring cops to wear body cameras seems like a necessary step toward accountability post-Ferguson, the lack of indictment for Eric Garner's death (which was caught on camera) suggests video alone may not do the trick. Cynical though it might sound, making police officers more financially responsible for their behavior could be a stronger incentive for justice — not to mention a boon to taxpayers now paying thrice over for systemic police brutality.

With a fixed requirement of, say, 50 percent officer contribution, settlement awards would be far lower to ensure they could be collected. Yet what these awards might lose in size they would gain in meaning, giving the victim and his family a greater sense of justice.

Even more important, however, is to avoid instances of police brutality in the first place. And if monetary penalties can effectively (and literally) raise the cost of police engaging in abusive behavior, this reform is definitely worth a try.

Anti-brutality activists aim to ‘evict’ St. Louis police from headquarters

Anti-police violence movement 'taking it up a notch,' organizers say; St. Louis cops respond with pepper spray, arrests

by Massoud Hayoun

Scores of protesters at the helm of the ongoing nationwide movement against police violence stormed the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Wednesday, aiming to “evict” officers they accused of “perpetrating police brutality on our citizenry.”

Five of the roughly 25 demonstrators who linked arms in the lobby of the police department were arrested in the headquarters, the St. Louis Police Department told Al Jazeera. Police pepper-sprayed and forced other protesters off the premises.

The detainees — four women and one man — were charged with “trespassing and peace disturbance,” said Leah K. Freeman, the department's spokeswoman.  The man was charged with “assault 3rd [degree] for assaulting a City Marshall inside the lobby of police headquarters.”

Among the protesters was a white couple who pretended to open an account at the St. Louis Police Credit Union, located inside the building. The arrested included a white college student, a young Mexican-American man, one black woman and a Palestinian-American mother in her 50s. Organizers said the detained activists — like the rest of the demonstrators who stormed police headquarters — were peaceful and did not conduct themselves differently from their fellow activists.

“We got a lot of people in there because we didn’t look like what they think protesters look like,” said Elizabeth Vega, 48, one of the organizers, explaining that the police were likely expecting more black demonstrators. Originally from Mexico, Vega has lived in the St. Louis area for 14 years.

Protesters who were driven outside erected a makeshift “barricade” at the headquarters’ main entrance, organizers said. By mid-afternoon local time, that barrier separated a small line of police from the demonstrators, whose ranks swelled to 75 from the original 25. Another 18, including 12 females and 6 males, "were arrested for impeding the flow of traffic" outside the station, Freeman said. One was charged with "interfering with an officer" after allegedly hurling a projectile at the police.

“We specifically chose this date, because we knew it would be a skeleton crew,” said one of the protesters, Jessie Sandoval, 41, of the police being short-staffed on New Years eve. Sandoval travelled to Ferguson, Missouri in August to protest police brutality after a white police officer, Darren Wilson, shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, on Aug. 9, sparking an outcry against the policing of communities of color across the country.

Protests have spread from the St. Louis area across the nation since Brown’s killing, one of several police killings of black men this year that focused international scrutiny on the use of lethal force as a law enforcement tactic.

Among a list of demands the protesters delivered Wednesday to police before officers arrested and pepper sprayed protesters was a meeting with police officials and the immediate dismissal of white officers they identify as having unjustly killed young black men. VonDerrit D. Myers Jr., 18, was reportedly brandishing a jammed gun in a standoff with white police officer Jason H. Flanery when Flanery shot and killed him in St. Louis. People at Wednesday’s protest cite Flanery’s online diatribes against gays and Muslims as a sign of his discriminatory policing.

Kajieme Powell, 25, was killed by St. Louis police on Aug. 19. The police officer told the media at the time that the officer had followed protocol and killed him in self-defense, but they have yet to reveal the name of the officer involved in the incident.

“There are too many young people getting shot by police. We’re just taking back” the police department, Vega said.

“We’ve not been listened to. So we’re just taking it up a notch and doing traditional acts of disobedience.”

Witness who filmed Delray melee describes chaotic scene

Cory Provost, a witness of the Delray Beach melee says the situation started over an argument with police

By Kate Jacobson 

A witness to a melee that broke out in Delray Beach on Saturday said the situation became heated when police officers approached a birthday party at a house in the Southwest neighborhood..

It lead to a 50-plus person melee that included a group of people forming a human shield to keep officers from a man who police wanted to detain.

Raw video of a melee that broke out in Delray Beach on Saturday, after Officers say they smelled marijuana in the area.

Cory Provost, a New York City resident who is visiting Delray Beach over the holidays, said about 30 people were at a birthday party on the corner of Southwest Eighth Avenue and Southwest Third Court just after 7:30 p.m. when an unmarked police car pulled up to the house.

He said two officers wearing uniforms got out of the car, walked onto the lawn and accused the partygoers of smoking marijuana. Provost said that wasn't true.

"There was a lot of shouting back and forth," he said. "The residents were asking the cops to leave the yard and they didn't do so."

Part of the exchange was caught on camera, which Provost uploaded to his YouTube channel.

Police Sgt. Nicole Guerriero late Wednesday said the footage doesn't show the entire incident. And because only a portion is being shown, police said, it's not a fully accurate depiction of what happened.

Officers smelled marijuana in the area, saw someone who they thought was smoking and followed him into the yard, Guerriero said Tuesday. In an arrest report, officers said the man they saw was a known drug user with whom they've had contact in the past.

Provost said the situation did get out of hand — for both the partygoers and the police. He said at first, people formed a semi-circle around police questioning them as to why they were there. When police started yelling at them, he said, the people became more agitated and began shuffling around.

"Then, a little later on, something was thrown," he said. "You heard a glass crack, I think a bottle or something was thrown, and I believe it hit the police vehicle."

Guerriero said the police vehicle's windshield was damaged in the skirmish.

In the arrest report, police said they were patrolling the area because it is an area known for high drug use.

Guerriero said Tuesday the officers were afraid of what could happen in the situation and called for backup. There were four officers and an estimated group of 70 people involved by the end of the scuffle, she said. It lasted for more than an hour.

Provost said police should've tried to calm down the group in this situation. When the partygoers questioned why the police were on private property, Provost said they should've gotten answers, not yelling from the police.

"There's a lot of rhetoric going around that if you question police you're anti-police, and I don't think that's the case," he said. "I think we want to have police approach situations with a little more compassion and respect because we, too, are human beings. If there was more trust in the community of our police, a lot of these situations wouldn't happen."

Is the NYPD Engaged in a Massive Temper Tantrum, Refusing to Write Tickets As Payback Against the Mayor?

by Nick Chiles

Are NYPD officers in Brooklyn in the midst of a massive temper tantrum to show their displeasure with Mayor Bill de Blasio?

Officers in the two precincts connected to murdered Officers Winjian Liu and Rafael Ramos have virtually stopped issuing tickets, according to a story in the New York Daily News, basically conducting an enormous work stoppage.

The precincts are the 84th, where Liu and Ramos worked, and the 79th, where they were murdered. The News said just one summons was issued in the 84th in the seek since they were killed. There were no summonses written in the 79th. In the previous week leading up to their death, the precincts issued a total of 626 parking, moving and criminal summonses.

In fact, the entire force of 34,000 cops appears to be engaged in the work stoppage, according to News figures. Across the entire city, just 2,128 summons were issued in the past week, compared to 26,512 for the previous week.

Arrests also have plummeted—115 in the past week for drugs, compared to 523 the previous week. Transit arrests have dropped from 662 to 20 and housing arrests fell from 258 to 65.

“Guys are on edge,” an unidentified police supervisor told the newspaper. “They’re still angry at the mayor and they’re not about to do anything they don’t absolutely have to do.”

If the numbers are telling a true story, it is a massive case of insubordination, affecting city revenue and ultimately affecting all city residents. It is, in effect, a paid strike—officers receiving their salaries without doing the jobs they are paid for.

The police force is demonstrating its extreme disrespect for the mayor of the city, showing him that he dare not express sympathy for the darker residents in their midst—even if some of those darker residents happen to be his children.

The city has not seen this level of disrespect since the mayoralty of David Dinkins, the city’s first African-American mayor, who was often at odds with the force in the 1990s after controversial shootings when he would visit the families of victims—taking sides with the enemy, in the eyes of many police officers.

It is also showing disrespect to city residents, who have every right to expect their police force to do its job. If the force feels such little compunction about exhibiting such massive levels of misbehavior, one wonders what kind of message they are getting from the police commissioner. He said he didn’t approve of the turning of their backs on the mayor during Ramos’ funeral. What does he think about them forgetting that they are police officers for the past two weeks?

Perhaps there is a silver lining in a city where the force stopped and frisked millions of Black and Hispanic males over the course of a decade: Black and brown boys could finally walk the streets in a small measure of peace.

"We Need Our Police to be Better Than This"

Nick Gillespie|

You've probably already heard about  the work-stoppage that members of the New York Police Department are apparently staging (as Scott Shackford  noted here yesterday, that's not clearly a bad thing). That's one sign that New York's Finest—and police around the country—are reacting extremely negatively to a wave of criticism in the wake of a series of controversial deaths and related legal proceedings.

That cops bristle at outrage directed at them is understandable (all the more so in the wake of the ambush-killing of two NYPD members by a deranged gunman). But it still isn't acceptable, especially if it leads law enforcement to publicly disparage elected leaders, as the NYPD did when members turned their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio at the funeral of Rafael Ramos and heckled him at a swearing-in service on Monday.

In  a new Daily Beast column, I recall that Harry Truman fired Douglas MacArthur in 1951 not because of personality or even policy clashes (though there were loads of those), but "because he wouldn’t respect the authority of the president.” NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton has echoed those sentiments, saying it was wrong of police to disrespect the mayor at Ramos' funeral "he is the mayor of New York [and] he was there representing the citizens of New York to express their remorse and their regret at that death.”

The NYPD—and cops more generally—have a public relations problem in the wake of the Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and a long string of other cases. Acting like a bunch of high-school jocks protesting a ban on keg parties isn’t exactly going to win over many hearts and minds. It’s exactly the inability of the cops who killed Garner to restrain themselves that bothered so may of us who watched the video of the encounter. The same goes for the hysterical overreaction and escalation of force used against protesters in Ferguson over the summer.

Yes, cops are under stress and tension (though their jobs are far less dangerous than normally supposed). But they are trained to rise above mere emotional responses; that’s one of the reasons they are given a state-sanctioned monopoly on force. Yet even after the funeral protest, de Blasio was booed and heckled while addressing a new class of recruits as well....

It's precisely the highly emotional and unrestrained responses by police in tough situations (Ferguson, Eric Garner, etc.) that make people worry that cops are governed not by rationality and training but aggression and impulse. The stunts the NYPD is pulling underscore those fears, as do wild claims by spokesmen that Bill de Blasio has "blood on his hands" for the killing of Officers Ramos and Liu at the hands of a nutcase.

Until police learn to accept that criticism of specific policies and actions doesn't constitute a mortal insult, they will continue to have problems maintaining public support. Yes, there may be a few professional anti-cop activists who are always ready to blame the police for all the sins of the world, but the overwhelming majority supports law enforcement when it functions with a proper respect for civil liberties and the rule of law.

Bratton and de Blasio are sitting down with representatives of the rank and file to repair relations, which The New York Post and others note range far beyond issues of race to union contracts and the like. The widely acclaimed leader of the NYPD during the 1990s under Rudy Giuliani and of the Los Angeles Police Department in this century, Bratton is in a particularly strong position to make cops understand that they are in fact held to a higher standard than regular citizens and even most public-sector employees. And that change will start with them, not the body politic.

As Bratton and the NYPD start talking among themselves, the commissioner will do well to paraphrase another Trumanism: “The buck stops here.” The police cannot ultimately control public opinion unilaterally. What they can do, though, is acknowledge that a change in their attitudes, behavior, policies, and willingness to engage in discussions about how people see them can help them win back the public trust.

Nick Gillespie is the editor in chief of Reason.com and Reason TV and the co-author of The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong With America, just out in paperback.

A Chattanooga Police Officer Arrested While on Administrative Leave

A Chattanooga Police officer, who's currently on administrative leave,  is arrested early Wednesday morning and charged with domestic assault.

According to the arrest affidavit, Chattanooga police detective David Catchings,34, was taken to jail after allegedly hitting his mother in law.

The woman told police she woke up and found Catchings drunk on the couch after heavy drinking the night before. The woman then told Catchings that he needed to leave. According to the report, Catchings got upset and hit the woman in the face with an open hand.

The report states the two then got into an argument and the victim threatened to call police.

The woman says Catchings told her to "go ahead and call the cops, they will believe me before you because I'm a cop."

The woman did call police who arrived shortly after. They arrested Catchings and charged him with domestic assault.

This is Catchings second run in with police in the last six months.

On September 8th, while still active within the Chattanooga Police Department, Catchings was arrested for driving under the influence.

He was placed on administrative leave and is being investigated by internal affairs.

If the NYPD treats the mayor this bad in public, imagine what they do to black men when no one is looking

If the NYPD treats the mayor this bad in public, imagine what they do to black men when no one is looking

Opinion

by David A. Love |

et’s talk about the police, specifically the NYPD. New York’s finest have not been acting so fine in recent days, disrespecting Mayor Bill de Blasio and residents of the Big Apple in the process.

Now, if the police will openly defy and disrespect their boss and commander in public, can you imagine what they do to black men when the cameras are nowhere in sight?

One of the more conspicuous voices of defiance and disrespect emanating from the NYPD is Patrick Lynch, the leader of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association. Following the December 20 execution of police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos by crazed gunman Ismaaiyl Brinsley in Brooklyn, Lynch placed the blame for the murders on Mayor de Blasio. Lynch said “There’s blood on many hands tonight,” adding, “That blood on the hands starts at City Hall in the Office of the Mayor.” The PBA head also talked of the NYPD becoming a “wartime police department,” as if he is planning a coup, and declaring war against the citizens of New York City, particularly its black residents.

The ultimate humiliation for the mayor came when hundreds of officers turned their backs on him while he spoke at the funeral of Officer Ramos. Meanwhile, the same police who have opposed the anti-police brutality demonstrations chose the funeral of a fallen cop to protest the mayor and call for his ouster, all while drinking in uniform. And on Monday, de Blasio was greeted with boos and jeers as he spoke at the police academy graduation ceremony.

What’s going on here? We must remember why a certain segment of the force is angry at Mayor de Blasio. He has supported the #BlackLivesMatter protests and spoken out on the need for reform in the police department and made this one of his campaign themes. Moreover, as a father of a young black man, he did what any parent would do, which is instruct his son on how to conduct himself when in the presence of the police.

“Chirlane and I have had to talk to Dante for years about the dangers that he may face. A good young man, law-abiding young man who would never think to do anything wrong,” de Blasio said.  “And yet, because of a history that still hangs over us, the dangers he may face, we’ve had to literally train him — as families have all over this city for decades — in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him.”

And why would anyone — in this case, police officers — object to the mayor’s heartfelt words, his truth telling, unless they truly lack sensitivity to the challenges facing the black community? Why would they take offense to the mayor unless they carry around a sense of entitlement, a belief they can do whatever they want to whomever they please, and no one should tell them what to do?

The NYPD, like other police departments around the country, suffers from a toxic culture problem and a leadership crisis. And if nothing else is clear, it is most certain the swamp must be drained.

Although some sources would spin the data differently, the fact remains that New York City is a predominantly black and brown city with a majority white police department. And the reactionary culture of that department — based not only on recent events but by years of evidence — is dominated by white working-class bullies who operate through intimidation and with utter contempt for the communities of color they purportedly serve.

For years, through the infamous “stop and frisk” policy, the NYPD maintained an illegal tactic that amounted to the nearly exclusive harassment of black and Latino men. For example, in 2011, of the 685,724 people stopped and questioned by police, around 9 in 10 were members of so-called minority groups.

One former narcotics detective, Stephen Anderson, admitted it was common practice for cops to plant evidence and frame innocent people in order to inflate the arrest stats and meet their quotas.  A high-ranking police officer was caught on tape ordering a Latino cop, a whistleblower, to target “male blacks 14 to 21” for stop and frisk because they commit crimes. One federal judge said the force is plagued by “widespread falsification” on the part of arresting officers. The corruption is put into its proper context when one considers that 5 percent of NYPD officers make 4o percent of resisting arrest charges, and 15 percent of cops account for nearly three-quarters of such arrests.

Meanwhile, of the 179 fatalities by NYPD officers over 15 years — 86 percent of whom were black or Latino where information on race was available — only three cases led to indictments, and only one resulted in a conviction. Given these unresolved and unaddressed racial problems in the department, it is no wonder that NYPD Chief of Department Philip Banks — the highest ranking black cop on the force — resigned. And it is no wonder that black officers feel threatened when they are off duty, out of uniform, and racially profiled by their white peers.

“As an officer, I’ve been thrown against the wall. As an officer, I’ve been shown no respect,” said NYPD Officer Adhyl Polanco on Democracy Now! “And I’ve been thrown against the wall off-duty, because…the mentality that Patrick Lynch and many other officers don’t want to hear about. They don’t have to speak to their kids,” he added. Polanco spoke out against stop and frisk and taped department conversations detailing the policy, which punished officers that failed to meet a quota of stops.

Speaking of de Blasio, Polanco said the mayor inherited a police department with many issues:  “Mayor de Blasio came with the attitude that ‘I can fix this police department.’ But this police department has a culture that is going to make whoever tried to change that culture and life impossible, including the mayor. It’s absolutely wrong to turn their back on the mayor.”

He elaborated: “How can a parent who has a black child… that [has] seen millions of kids being stopped by stop-and-frisk… how can parents [who] see black kids get killed by police over and over, how can parents that see kids being summonsed illegally, being arrested in their own building for trespassing…not from all officers, because not all officers are the same — how can you not responsibly…have that conversation with your son? You have to.”

Abusive police who unleash violence against black or brown bodies may also do the same to their spouses or girlfriends. According to the National Center for Women and Policing, studies have found between 24 and 40 percent of police officer families experience domestic violence, making domestic abuse 2 to 4 times more common among law enforcement families than in the general population. Often, these cases are swept under the rug by fellow cops, with few abusive officers arrested, prosecuted or fired, but many promoted.

And it would seem some violent cops have unleashed their hostility and aggression on Mayor de Blasio and black New Yorkers in general. We’ve been down this road before. In September 1992, then-mayoral candidate Rudolph Giuliani participated in a drunken police union protest against the black mayor, David Dinkins. Around 10,000 officers participated in the PBA-led riot on City Hall, hurling racial epithets, beating journalists and blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, incensed that Dinkins would propose an independent civilian agency to investigate police misconduct.

After Giuliani was elected, racism and brutality thrived in the NYPD. Anthony Baez was choked to death in 1994 for hitting a police car with a football. Abner Louima was tortured and sodomized with a broom handle inside a Brooklyn precinct bathroom in 1997, and an unarmed Amadou Diallo was killed in a hail of 41 police bullets outside his home in 1999. Countless others were violated while in police custody, and the city paid out $70 million in awards for police abuse claims between 1994 and 1996 alone.

At their best, police are partners with the community. But at their worst, their actions are reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan. A police leadership that threatens coups and race wars must be replaced, if public confidence in law enforcement is to be restored. Mayor de Blasio must be supported in his quest for reform, but he has his work cut out for him.

The weekly rape by cop report...why doesn't the federal government act?

  

A New Mexico police officer and a former security officer are behind bars after sexually assaulting a woman on Christmas Eve, authorities said.

 Cook County sheriff’s officer charged with attempted sexual assault

A New Mexico police officer and a former security officer are behind bars after sexually assaulting a woman on Christmas Eve, authorities said.

Milan Police officer James Watters, 25, and former court security officer Jessie Terrazas, 28, were arrested after plying a 20-year-old woman with alcohol and forcing her to perform sex acts, police said.

The two men and Grants Police sergeant Jessie Nieto picked up the woman and drove to Grants High School to drink alcohol Thursday, police said.

The men badgered the victim to perform oral sex or have a threesome or foursome after exchanging sexual texts, police said. The girl said no.

When she mentioned rape, Nieto asked to be taken home and got dropped off, according to KOAT.

Watters and Terrazas took the victim to New Mexico State University Grants Campus and gave her alcohol, she told police.

Terrazas forced her to touch him sexually and Watters pulled her hair and made her perform oral sex on him, she told police.

Terrazas told police it was consensual, according to KRQE.

Watters worked for the Milan Police Department for about five months. Watters worked for the Milan Police Department for about five months.Watters' mother, Angela Hendrick, is distressed by the charges. James Watters and Jessie Terrazas drove the woman to Grants High School to drink, police said. James Watters and Jessie Terrazaz have been accused of getting an underaged woman drunk and forcing her to perform oral sex on Christmas Eve.

“This isn’t James,” his mother, Angela Hedrick, said. “A part of me wants to have so much faith in James, but then something happened because why would he be in there?”

Watters was charged with second-degree criminal penetration and providing alcohol to minors.

Terrazas was charged with fourth-degree criminal sexual contact and providing alcohol to minors.

Watters is on paid leave from the Milan Police Department, where he has worked for about five months, his mother said. The father of three small children worked as a firefighter for four years.

Terrazas was fired from his job with the Cibola County Sheriff's Department because of a domestic violence incident, the department said.

Terrazas' bond was set at $50,000 and Watters' was set at $100,000 Friday.

  

Cook County sheriff’s officer charged with attempted sexual assault

A Cook County sheriff’s officer who was in bond court Thursday is facing a charge of attempted sexual assault, authorities said.

Fernando Rodriguez, 52, was charged with attempted aggravated criminal sexual assault; aggravated unlawful restraint; and official misconduct — all felony counts, Chicago Police said.

Rodriguez was arrested after he allegedly persuaded a 37-year-old woman to enter his vehicle about 1 a.m. Dec. 31 in the 1500 block of North Avers, police said. When she tried to leave, he stopped her and attempted to sexually assault her while armed with a handgun, police said.

According to a police report, Chicago Police officers questioned Rodriguez when they spotted an orange Dodge Charger double parked at that location, but he responded to them by showing his Cook County sheriff’s office badge and saying, “It’s ok guys, I’m on the job.”

A woman, who is a “known prostitute,” then exited the Charger’s passenger seat and told the officers that Rodriguez had invited the woman to get into his car, showed her his holstered handgun and implied a sexual act, the police report said.

The police report states that Rodriguez told the woman, “Take care of me the right way and I’ll let you walk.” When officers arrived, Rodriguez “grabbed her left arm and stated: ‘Be cool.’”

Rodriguez was a deputy sheriff in the Civil Process unit and was not on duty at the time of the incident, said Sophia Ansari, spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office. He has been de-deputized, and the sheriff’s office has launched a disciplinary investigation, Ansari said.

Rodriguez, who lives in River Grove, was given an I-bond and released on his own recognizance Thursday, Ansari said. He is expected to appear in court again Friday.

The cop crime wave continues with the endless litany of drunk and drugged up cops

Berkeley County Sheriff Wayne DeWitt charged with DUI, leaving scene of wreck

Cop pleads guilty in DUI injury crashDUI

NC police officer charged with driving while impaired

Views clash on naming Boston officers in drunken driving cases

NC police officer charged with driving while impaired

Samuel Bradford Kilgore

RALEIGH, N.C. — An officer with the Raleigh Police Department was charged with DWI early Friday morning, according to WTVD.

Samuel Bradford Kilgore, 33, was arrested around 1:30 a.m., according to officials.

A department spokesperson said 33-year old Samuel Bradford Kilgore is currently assigned to the Special Operations Division.

He has been employed by the department since 2005.

Details surrounding the circumstances of the incident have not been released

Cop pleads guilty in DUI injury crashDUI

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK/KBFX) - A former police officer pleaded guilty Friday to a drunken driving charge, stemming from a crash that left a woman injured.

Kristofer Randall Carter crashed last April into a gas station off Merle Haggard Drive. He plowed over gas pumps and severely injured 20-year-old Leann Katherine Harris, who was pumping gas at the time.

Right before crashing into the Shell gas station, police say the drunken Carter drove onto the roadway median, ran over bushes and sped through red lights at both Pegasus Drive and Highway 65.

As part of the guilty plea on a single charge - DUI alcohol/drugs causing bodily injury - four other charges were dismissed.

Sentencing is slated for Feb. 18.

Carter served as a Bakersfield police officer from July 2006 to March 2012, according to the city's Human Resources Division.

 Berkeley County Sheriff Wayne DeWitt charged with DUI, leaving scene of wreck

By Andy Paras and Melissa Boughton

Berkeley County Sheriff Wayne DeWitt was booked into the Charleston County detention center Sunday morning.

Polk asked Robert Wyndham, DeWitt's attorney, if he would like to make an argument regarding the arrest, but he declined and said that would be reserved for later court proceedings. A February 11 court date was set for the DUI charge. The hit and run charge court date has not yet been set.

DeWitt, 63, of Stratford Drive in Goose Creek, did not make any statements during the bond hearing, and Wyndham requested the personal recognizance bond on his behalf. Wyndham said all of DeWitt's personal and professional ties were in Berkeley County and that he was neither a flight risk nor a danger to society.

The victim in the crash, identified as 21-year-old Robert B. Gonzales, could not be reached by phone during the hearing. A trooper told the judge the extent of the victim's injuries were unknown, but that he was treated and released from Trident Medical Center.

The trooper also told Polk that he was unaware that only a coroner could arrest a sheriff.

DeWitt was arrested Sunday morning and charged with DUI and leaving the scene of a wreck involving injury.

Troopers responded at 5:50 a.m. to a hit and run at Red Bank Road and Henry E. Brown, Jr. Boulevard, Highway Patrol Sgt. Bob Beres said. A 2010 Ford F-150 had struck the rear of a 2013 Nissan four-door and left the scene.

As the trooper arrived at the wreck, she was told Hanahan Police officers had stopped a pickup truck matching the description of the one involved in the crash. She then drove to the traffic stop at Bankton Circle in Hanahan - about four and a half miles from the crash - and identified DeWitt as the driver, Beres said.

Hanahan Police Lt. Michael Fowler declined to comment about the traffic stop, deferring all questions to the Highway Patrol.

Beres would only say that it was determined after examining physical evidence at the traffic stop that the Berkeley County-owned truck was the same one involved in the wreck. A subsequent field sobriety test determined DeWitt was under the influence, he added.

The traffic stop in Hanahan where DeWitt was arrested is just under 10 miles from his residence in Goose Creek.

DeWitt was taken to the Al Cannon Detention Center in Charleston, where Beres said he refused the "Datamaster Breathalyzer" breath test. He was released almost 12 hours later from the Hill-Finklea Detention Center in Berkeley County after his bond hearing.

Polk said DeWitt is facing up to a year in jail for the charges, and, because he refused a breath test, his license was automatically suspended for six months. "With a little legwork," however, the sheriff could get a provisional license, Polk added.

In November, the S.C. Department of Public Safety's Office of Highway Safety awarded the Berkeley County Sheriff's Office a $62,569 federal grant to bolster its efforts to reduce drunk driving. It's the third year the Sheriff's Office has participated in the program.

DeWitt's arrest came during his office's "sober or slammer campaign," in which deputies step up DUI enforcement as part of the grant award.

DeWitt has been sheriff since 1994 and was re-elected to the position this year. He had a challenger in the primary race, but not in the general election.

"I have known Wayne most of my life and I believe he has done an exemplary job as sheriff," said Berkeley County Republican Party Chairman Josh Whitley. "My thoughts and prayers go out to all of those involved in this."

He did not comment further. Berkeley County Supervisor-elect Bill Peagler also did not speak to the arrest.

"Until all of the facts are presented, I will refrain from issuing judgment and will join my family in prayer for all of those involved in this unfortunate incident," Peagler said.

DeWitt is the ninth sheriff in South Carolina to be charged or investigated while in office since 2010. Of that number, six have pleaded guilty or been convicted, and another died while under investigation.

Only two of those sheriffs have been sentenced to prison.

A Change.org petition had already been created by mid-Sunday asking Gov. Nikki Haley to remove DeWitt from office. It had 230 of 8,629 needed signatures by 9:30 p.m.

If DeWitt were indicted as a result of the DUI crash, Haley could suspend him from office until acquitted or until the case was otherwise disposed of, according to state law. She could also appoint a "suitable person" to hold office during that time.

 Views clash on naming Boston officers in drunken driving cases

Department maintains secrecy

By Todd WallackG

Two specialists in the state’s public records law say that the Boston Police Department is violating the statute by refusing to release the names of five officers who were caught driving drunk. But Mayor Martin J. Walsh said he has no plans to order police to release the information.

Department officials declined to release the names in response to requests from the Globe as part of a review of off-duty drunken driving involving law enforcement officers. Using public records and interviews, the Globe counted at least 30 officers in Massachusetts since 2012 who have been caught driving drunk, including five from Boston.

In several cases, police departments attempted to withhold records even when the officers had been in serious crashes. The Globe also found that at least 10 officers were kept on the police payroll after their driving privileges were suspended and they could not perform their normal duties.

“There is no exception in the public records laws for information embarrassing to the police,” said Jeffrey Pyle, an attorney at Prince Lobel Tye LLP in Boston who specializes in the First Amendment, public records, and media law.

Another First Amendment and public records attorney, Peter Caruso Sr. of Andover, added, “These are public records as clear as the nose on your face.”

The attorneys said the decision to withhold the names was particularly hard to justify since Boston police have published the names of dozens of civilians who were arrested for drunken driving on its website. The withholding of names makes it difficult for the press and public to determine whether the officers had been accused of drunken driving or other misconduct before.

“Without names, these records pose more questions than answers,” Caruso said.

Defending authority

Boston Police Lieutenant Michael McCarthy said the city believed names of the officers were protected under a law set up to restrict access to the state’s centralized database of criminal records, commonly called CORI for Criminal Offender Record Information.

“The department does not have discretion when deciding to release this type of information,” McCarthy said.

He explained that the department is free to release names of people who are arrested shortly after the incidents but are prohibited from doing so when someone requests the information later on. He declined to cite a court ruling or statute that spells out that difference.

After initially withholding most of the documents related to the five officers, McCarthy agreed to release reports with the names blacked out, including two additional incident reports showing that the officers had been in collisions.

According to one report, the unnamed officer was severely hurt in an early morning one-car crash in Boston’s Readville neighborhood and taken directly to the hospital instead of being arrested. The officer was disoriented, semi-conscious, had cuts on the head and a “large amount of blood on head, face, neck, shoulder and chest area,” according to the report on the Dec. 13, 2012, wreck.

Boston Police withheld the name, but the Suffolk District Attorney’s office identified the officer as Stephen Roe, who city records showed was a canine officer. The office said Roe’s criminal case was continued without a finding in 2013 after he admitted to facts sufficient for a guilty verdict and agreed to attend a drunken driving education program and give up his license for 45 days, a common resolution for first-time offenders.

In a second incident, an officer was arrested after crashing into a parked car in Jamaica Plain in February 2013, damaging the side door and mirror. In that case, the officer admitted he had been drinking and that he hit the car, according to the police report. The officer was glassy eyed, unsteady on his feet, and slurred his speech, the report said.

But police claimed it was too dark to safely conduct sobriety tests and the officer refused a breath analysis test. Though Boston Police blacked out the name, other records show Boston Police officer Robert P. Carr was charged with operating under the influence and refused a breath test on the same date.

Carr automatically lost his license for 180 days for refusing the breath test and couldn’t perform his normal duties, but Boston Police confirmed they kept him on the payroll. McCarthy said the officer was given administrative duties that didn’t require him to drive. The criminal case is slated to go to trial in March. Carr, meanwhile, retired from the department after turning 65 last month.

The name of a third Boston Police officer became public after a woman who was nearly killed by a drunk police officer contacted the media. Richard Jeanetti was required to resign as part of a plea bargain with prosecutors last year.

Police have yet to produce records for two other cases where officers were accused of drunken driving outside the city. McCarthy said the incidents involved a hit and run in January 2013 where the officer was later charged with driving drunk and another case where the officer was accused of driving drunk in June 2012.

McCarthy said police have not decided the punishment for the officer involved in the hit and run and never disciplined Jeanetti because he resigned. But in the other three cases, the officers agreed to 30-day suspensions; in two of those cases, the officers served 10 days of the suspension and the rest was set aside.

The Globe has appealed the withholding of the records to the secretary of state’s public records division. The agency has not ruled.

Boston’s decision to withhold the names contrasts with some other departments, such as Fall River and Springfield, which released the names of officers arrested for drunken driving.

But Boston isn’t alone in limiting the release of information. Newton blacked out the name of a Newton officer who was arrested by Brookline Police, saying it was confidential personnel information. And in several other instances, the Middlesex district attorney’s office blacked out officer names on court records in drunken driving cases, citing CORI restrictions.

Walsh said he deferred the decision to withhold the names to the Police Department. “I have no real understanding of what we should do or can’t do,” he said.

But Walsh defended the department’s authority to put Carr on paid administrative duty while his license was suspended for refusing a breath test. While officers continue to earn their usual salary on desk duty, Walsh noted, they can’t earn extra overtime money.

Walsh also said the department considers the individual circumstances when deciding how to punish officers who drive drunk. “I think the way the police department handles drunk driving cases is one case at a time,” he added.

The head of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts said she was concerned about the decision to keep the names secret, particularly when the police regularly release the names of ordinary residents who are arrested.

“When police officers treat their own differently by keeping secrets about the department,” said Carol Rose, the group’s executive director, “it undermines community trust and public safety.”