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OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Flashing lights pierced the black of night, and the big white letters made clear it was the police. The woman pulled over was a daycare worker in her 50s headed home after playing dominoes with friends. She felt she had nothing to hide, so when the Oklahoma City officer accused her of erratic driving, she did as directed.
She would later tell a judge she was splayed outside the patrol car for a pat-down, made to lift her shirt to prove she wasn't hiding anything, then to pull down her pants when the officer still wasn't convinced. He shined his flashlight between her legs, she said, then ordered her to sit in the squad car and face him as he towered above. His gun in sight, she said she pleaded "No, sir" as he unzipped his fly and exposed himself with a hurried directive.
"Come on," the woman, identified in police reports as J.L., said she was told before she began giving him oral sex. "I don't have all night."
The accusations are undoubtedly jolting, and yet they reflect a betrayal of the badge that has been repeated time and again across the country.
_________________"It's happening probably in every law enforcement agency across the country," said Chief Bernadette DiPino of the Sarasota Police Department in Florida, who helped study the problem for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. "It's so underreported and people are scared that if they call and complain about a police officer, they think every other police officer is going to be then out to get them."
Even as cases around the country have sparked a national conversation about excessive force by police, sexual misconduct by officers has largely escaped widespread notice due to a patchwork of laws, piecemeal reporting and victims frequently reluctant to come forward because of their vulnerabilities — they often are young, poor, struggling with addiction or plagued by their own checkered pasts.
In interviews, lawyers and even police chiefs told the AP that some departments also stay quiet about improprieties to limit liability, allowing bad officers to quietly resign, keep their certification and sometimes jump to other jobs.
___________________
[More After the Break]
On a checkerboard of sessions on everything from electronic surveillance to speed enforcement, police chiefs who gathered for an annual meeting in 2007 saw a discussion on sex offenses by officers added to the agenda. More than 70 chiefs packed into a room, and when asked if they had dealt with an officer accused of sexual misdeeds, nearly every attendee raised a hand. A task force was formed and federal dollars were pumped into training.
Eight years later, a simple question — how many law enforcement officers are accused of sexual misconduct — has no definitive answer. The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, which collects police data from around the country, doesn't track officer arrests, and states aren't required to collect or share that information.
To measure the problem, the AP obtained records from 41 states on police decertification, an administrative process in which an officer's law enforcement license is revoked. Cases from 2009 through 2014 were then reviewed to determine whether they stemmed from misconduct meeting the Department of Justice standard for sexual assault — sexual contact that happens without consent, including intercourse, sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling and attempted rape.
___________________Milwaukee Police Officer Ladmarald Cates was sentenced to 24 years in prison in 2012 for raping a woman he was dispatched to help. Despite screaming "He raped me!" repeatedly to other officers present, she was accused of assaulting an officer and jailed for four days, her lawyer said. The district attorney, citing a lack of evidence, declined to prosecute Cates. Only after a federal investigation was he tried and convicted.
It's a story that doesn't surprise Penny Harrington, a former police chief in Portland, Oregon, who co-founded the National Center for Women in Policing and has served as an expert witness in officer misconduct cases. She said officers sometimes avoid charges or can beat a conviction because they are so steeped in the system.
"They knew the DAs. They knew the judges. They knew the safe houses. They knew how to testify in court. They knew how to make her look like a nut," she said. "How are you going to get anything to happen when he's part of the system and when he threatens you and when you know he has a gun and ... you know he can find you wherever you go?"
First found on RT - https://www.rt.com/usa/320437-police-officers-sexual-misconduct/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
A search for verification found this - http://bigstory.ap.org/article/fd1d4d05e561462a85abe50e7eaed4ec/ap-hundreds-officers-lose-licenses-over-sex-misconduct
RT is a short read, the AP story is a wall of text. The WOT is worth reading because it is eye opening, and because it helps to justify statements that I've made about cops in the past.
Again - probably 85% of all cops are "good guys". But, the system attracts the bad guys. And, the good guys, being indoctrinated into the system, tend to want to protect their "brothers".
(Score: 2, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:48AM
they repeatedly pounded my head into concrete in retaliation for my having urinated on the floor of a holding cell that was not equipped with a toilet.
I was in there for many hours, I was not offered any food nor water, nor access to a telephone, nurse call button nor legal counsel. I was imprisoned there by OHSU Officer Angel who made no pretense of evaluating me in any way. Despite that I pointed out that I suffered from Psychogenic Polydipsia - a raging unquenchable thirst that is a side effect of the medicine I take - and that I had been drinking water all morning long, I was not provided with any means to urinate other than onto the floor.
By slamming my skull into cement the two OSHU "To Protect and to Serve" alleged public servants put me into a coma for two and a half days. For several days after regaining consciousness, while I could visualize the correct spelling of my own name when I thought about it I could not spell it when I tried to write it with a pencil on paper.
As a result of a physicians diagnosis of Aphasia - for which I was hospitalized on a different occasion - despite having been quite a successful software engineer for over two decades I recently applied for Social Security Disability Insurance. The Social Security Administration clerk who took my application was confident it would be approved; most SSDI applications are rejected repeatedly and so often require civil lawsuits before one can get on the Government Dole.
The problems that affect me the most if that I have lost the ability to read entire chapters of books - not just entire books, I cannot even read just one chapter - and so am unable to read the technical books we all require to keep our skills up-to-date. The result is that my resume lists none of the skills that today's employers require - I don't have the first clue about Javascript, for example, though I'm quite good with Assembly Code.
Depending on the tone of their voice I cannot understand other people when they speak. I hear just fine, it's just that some other people sound to me just like dogs barking, so I can pick up the emotional content of their speech just fine. The voices of most men give me more trouble than do the voices of most women.
Despite having had perfect spelling most of my life nowadays I am quite a poor speller. If I write something then return to it a week later I can fix all the spelling errors but my first drafts are often riddled with errors.
The reason I have not already sued OSHU for millions of dollars is that they do very good work with cancer research and treatment there. Quite likely I will sue them, not for "Monetary Relief" but for "Injunctive and Declaratory Relief". The Declaratory Relief in that I will petition the Federal Court to find they violated my rights against unlawful search and seizure - Officer Angel required me to empty my pockets - also they violated my Constitutional Right not only to use a toilet, but also to use that toilet unobserved.
By not suing for money, actually OHSU will find themselves completely screwed: if I don't sue for money they have no hope of settling with me.
But by having the eventual judgement entered into the court record, OHSU will be liable for similar lawsuits on the part of hundreds, perhaps thousands of other mentally ill Portland residents.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @10:39PM
Tl;dr... I'm a whiny bitch.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Thursday November 12 2015, @09:54PM
Sorry to say, I'm not sure if I believe your story. While I'm perfectly aware there are problems with the people we put in positions of authority in this country, the random gibberish you've posted at times makes it hard for me to know whether your story full of complicated details is true, or you're just yanking my leg across the internet again. Occam's razor will not favor your credibility this time, even though you've changed your sig to match.
If it is true, though... ACLU [aclu.org]. Contact them ASAP. Make something good come out of your misfortune.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"