
California’s Criminal Cops - danso
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/10/californias-criminal-cops-convicted-but-stay-on-the-job/
======
jeffdavis
One thing weird to me about the gun debate is that it always seems to exclude
police -- on duty or off, current or former -- and nobody questions that in
the slightest.

For instance, California has a handgun roster. If a citizen buys a handgun, it
needs to be on a special list. The last time a model was added was 2013 [1].
Supposedly it's to make sure pistols are safe. But if you are a police
officer, go ahead and buy a 2019 model! In fact, go ahead and buy a 2019
model, and then sell it for 2X to a normal citizen, if you want. A good side
business!

How does any part of that make sense?

I guess the theory is that officers are well-trained and responsible, but
where is the evidence of that? And why can't anyone else take the same magical
steps to show their worthiness?

[1] Due largely to the "microstamping" requirememt, which is impractical to
meet, but required for new models (some very minor variants are still allowed
without microstamping). See
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microstamping](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microstamping)

~~~
solidsnack9000
Many gun control advocates see removing guns from private hands as a first
step towards disarming the police. This is often couched in terms of a
comparison with British policing: the argument is that British police are not
as afraid, so don't engage in excessive force as often, because there aren't
guns around that could be used to kill them.

However, most American police and sheriff's departments tend to support gun
ownership. Maybe because they are as aware as anyone of the saying: "When
seconds count, police are only minutes away.".

~~~
pmoriarty
_" the argument is that British police are not as afraid, so don't engage in
excessive force as often, because there aren't guns around that could be used
to kill them"_

From what I've read, this has been changing in recent years, with British
police getting more and more armed, apparently in response to terrorists and
organized crime being better armed.

So the US and British police are converging, but perhaps not in the way that
gun control advocates might have hoped.

~~~
HatchedLake721
They are not converging, not even close, please don’t spread misinformation.

In 12 months up to March 2018, there were 18,746 armed police operations in
the UK. Weapons were fired on 12 occasions. In comparison, 1,147 people were
shot dead by police in the US in 2017.

Since 1990, a total of 70 people were fatally shot in the UK.

12 occasions of guns used vs 1,147 people shot by the police during the same
time frame. 70 people killed in 30 years vs 1,147 in 1 year.

So please, UK and US police are not converging, do not spread misinformation.

~~~
logicchains
Using raw numbers without adjusting for population is spreading
misinformation. America's population is ~5x greater.

Using numbers from 1990 is also meaningless for addressing the claim that gun
use by UK police is increasing, as low numbers could just represent it being
low in past.

~~~
in_cahoots
Just looking at the 2017 numbers, a 5x population difference cannot account
for a nearly 100x difference between uses of armed force vs people being
killed by the police.

------
idoubtit
In which countries are law officers accountable for their crimes? I can't name
any.

Two weeks ago in France, 2 policemen were sentenced for beating up students.
This kind of conviction is extremely rare, but they were caught on CCTV
beating up "for fun" two students that were walking back home. It was probably
a racist beating, since they first attacked the colored guy. Their sentences
were symbolic. Both are still policemen, and one of them has been promoted.
[https://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/prison-avec-sursis-
pour-d...](https://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/prison-avec-sursis-pour-des-
policiers-qui-avaient-agresse-des-etudiants-20191014) (in French)

De facto, policemen are above the law. And of course, many of them abuse that
system. Yet most people don't care. They want law and order, even if the law
is not the same for everyone, and even if the order is not just, and sometimes
criminal.

~~~
joaksl
Policemen are above the law because that's how the system was created. At
least in the US, police departments were primarily created by the elites to
protect the elites from immigrant masses. When the elites were all mostly
anglo-saxon protestant, we didn't have a need for police. But when cities
started attracting immigrants - particularly german and irish, the elites
needed a forceful mechanism by which to suppress and control these people. Of
course when the germans and irish moved up the social ladder and the new
arrivals were italians and blacks, the germans and irish suppressed and
controlled these people. Now in a "post-race" age, police exist primarily to
serve and protect the rich elites against the less wealthy masses.

The idea of police existing to protect you ( Protect and Serve nonsense ) is
just PR/marketing. Just like "Don't be evil".

I suspect in most countries, these same pattern holds.

~~~
iknowalot
>At least in the US, police departments were primarily created by the elites
to protect the elites from immigrant masses.

They were created first and foremost for slaves, not immigrant masses. History
gets too sanitized for my liking in this country and we miss important lessons
because of it.

~~~
iknowalot
"The Texas Rangers are the earliest form of state law enforcement in the
United States, first organized by Stephen F. Austin in 1823. The original
ranger force consisted of ten men charged with protecting settlers from Native
American attacks." ...and slaves escaping to Mexico...

The down voters are why sanitizing history is a bad idea. It also allows the
criminal past of many families/institutions to be swept under the rug.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_police_(United_States)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_police_\(United_States\))

[https://www.history.com/news/underground-railroad-mexico-
esc...](https://www.history.com/news/underground-railroad-mexico-escaped-
slaves)

------
js2
This is only tangentially related, but This American Life did an episode about
a month ago about how difficult it is to reform an institution. Specifically
it was about fire fighters in Amsterdam:

[https://www.thisamericanlife.org/684/burn-it-
down/prologue-a...](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/684/burn-it-
down/prologue-and-act-one-3)

[https://www.thisamericanlife.org/684/transcript](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/684/transcript)

This was just one department in one city, and it was mostly just bad behavior
("macho, frat house culture"), nothing criminal. The effort failed.

------
mehrdadn
> They encountered numerous hurdles including poor record keeping,
> uncooperative clerks and hundreds of destroyed files.

Well this is terrible... I'd have expected courts to do things by the book.

~~~
flyGuyOnTheSly
Give "Making a Murderer" on Netflix a watch.

It's a real eye opener if you thought that courts do things by the book imho.

~~~
umvi
I did watch that but the documentary seemed very biased toward the defense.

Like... Avery's dna was found in the victim's car, and the victim's charred
bones were found in Avery's fire pit. But the show plays these off and makes
it seem like a police conspiracy.

~~~
Redoubts
> Like... Avery's dna was found in the victim's car,

Yeah, smeared blood that looked like it came from a q tip. And a vial of his
blood in the evidence locker was found punctured by a syringe with no record
as to when or why.

Not surprised that was looked at suspiciously.

~~~
crummy
apparently the syringe punctures are just how they work.

[https://onmilwaukee.com/movies/articles/makingamudererbloodv...](https://onmilwaukee.com/movies/articles/makingamudererbloodvial.html)

> two national experts – including the chair of the committee that writes the
> industry standards on drawing blood samples – told OnMilwaukee that such
> blood vials are supposed to have holes pierced in their rubber stoppers.
> According to the experts, that's how the blood gets into the vial.

~~~
flyGuyOnTheSly
There were undocumented broken seals surrounding the vial as well iirc,
however.

~~~
sjg007
How do you know this if they were undocumented?

~~~
kingbirdy
I believe GP means the reasons the vial was punctured were undocumented, not
that the punctures were undocumented (as you said, it wouldn't make sense if
that were the case).

------
tyxodiwktis
Stepping back, societies often struggle with managing the behavior of the
instruments of public order. There seems to be an inherent tension between
tasking people with dealing with society’s “undesirables” and bad behavior and
also having them behave as model citizens themselves.

An interesting read is, “The Faithful Executioner” about 16th century
Nuremberg. The book is heavily based on contemporary sources. The town
archers, who are responsible for law enforcement, often cause trouble through
drunkenness, excessive violence, and general bad behavior, and are rarely held
accountable except for the most egregious offenses. An interesting parallel
that points to that broader tension.

------
rb808
> They drove drunk, cheated on time cards, brutalized family members, even
> killed others with their recklessness on the road. But thanks to some of the
> weakest laws in the country for punishing police misconduct, the Golden
> State does nothing to stop these officers from enforcing the law.

Honestly I dont like the American enthusiasm for restricting employment of
criminals that have served their time. If someone had a DUI or cheated on time
cards in their past I have no problem with them being a cop. Brutalizing
family members sounds more serious but I'd like to find out more before
judging someone on a brief description.

~~~
ohashi
Why are cops getting special privilege that normal citizens aren't? I'm not a
fan of the criminal justice and reform system either. But police should be
held to a higher standard, not lower one.

~~~
Nasrudith
Because the system was messed up by mistake or design that they are
effectively a bloc of power instead of being properly subordinate to its
citizens. "Law and Order", "Tough On Crime", and other DA election scare
tactics have resulted in them having too much electoral power to be
accountable - which media coverage also shares blame in. And this is before
stupid human tricks of those completely unprivileged by the existing system
judging those who are higher up to a lower standard.

------
danso
Previous discussion, before the list was released and looked into:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19257434](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19257434)

------
Muuuchem
What do you know, the most common offenses are alcohol related. People that
cant control their own drug use are the front-line warriors in the war on
drugs arresting people for not abusing the same drugs they abuse. I know
things have obviously gotten better in regards to prohibition in California,
but there is still no excuse for people being caged, harrassed, and lightly
abused for taking a substance to try and feel better in this shitstorm of pain
and suffering that we call life. As long as people arent hurting anyone other
than themselves, then no reason to cage them and ruin their ability to get
jobs and progress out of the hole that our drug laws put them in.

Idk i just thought that it was incredibly telling that the group of people
that continuously arrest others for drugs putting them in situations where
they are unable to find employment, do not suffer from the same penalties when
they get caught abusing the drug that they say is OK (and is arguably one of
the most destructive of all drugs).

It truly sucks to hate and fear the group of people that are supposed to help
and protect you in emergency. Even now that I am a professional, long removed
from my days of risky behavior like fearing the police while leaving a rave
with personal amounts of drugs, they still prove they dont care about helping
and are more concerned about their bonuses from finding drugs. The last time I
called police because my roommate was drunk and yelling and threatening me,
they saw a single syringe cap on the bathroom floor from where my roommate had
thrown the bathroom trash can. They got aggressive and started threatening and
looking around the apartment and in open rooms without express permission. I
work in a biochemistry lab and use syringes, mostlyneedl3less everyday at
work, had accidentally thrown some minor trash in my pocket and emptied it out
while changing clothing in the bathroom. But this apparently was probable
cause enough to be an asshole and search around mildly and forget about the
actual reason i called

~~~
solidsnack9000
California cops are definitely not on the front lines of the drug wars. Many
departments have standing orders to ignore all but the largest quantities of
drugs.

------
wallace_f
“When I see an actual flesh-and-blood worker in conflict with his natural
enemy, the policeman, I do not have to ask myself which side I am on." -George
Orwell

Saw this on front page of reddit today:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Wellthatsucks/comments/dua2bh/hong_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Wellthatsucks/comments/dua2bh/hong_kong_cop_pours_water_to_put_out_candles/)

------
rmason
What I am left wondering is how many are kicked off a police force in another
state and then get hired on in California? This report only looked at officers
California records.

I know there are cases where doctors lose their medical license and there's a
handful of states where they can move and regain a license. Is the same true
for police officers?

~~~
jonathankoren
Happens all the time

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/investigations/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/investigations/police-
fired-rehired/)

[https://www.news5cleveland.com/despite-crimes-misconduct-
fir...](https://www.news5cleveland.com/despite-crimes-misconduct-fired-police-
officers-often-end-up-back-on-the-streets)

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/officer-fired-twice-from-one-
po...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/officer-fired-twice-from-one-police-
department-became-chief-of-another/)

------
AJ007
One would presume past convictions would greatly increase the potential
liability of any officer behavior involved lawsuits. Perhaps some of these
municipalities will suddenly find their insurance policies dropped.

~~~
sunflowerfly
The simple solution is to have officers carry their own liability insurance,
similar to other professionals. Bad officers would become uninsurable.

~~~
iknowalot
Absolutely and if their insurance doesn't cover the damage they've done, the
liability should overflow into their pensions.

------
aidenn0
> One thing that is clear: Many of the officers on the state’s secret
> convictions list who are still working today likely wouldn’t be cops in
> other states.

That's not how it always works. The officers pled to misdemeanors because they
knew they could keep their jobs with a misdemeanor. In other states they would
plea to a non-criminal charge instead, or manage to not get convicted at all.

See also:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law)

------
willyt
Cops should lose their jobs if they commit crime. But, recklessness, drinking
and domestic violence are common symptoms of PTSD. Police see a lot of bad
stuff. Maybe the police department should look after their people better
before their officer’s conduct gets out of hand.

------
rolltiide
amazing how investigative reporting is so rare that they felt comfortable
dedicating the whole article to heralding that they even did actual research
to begin with

they went to places where the records were supposed to be instead of merely
googling and being content with the poor information? Two pages to describe
that experience coming right up

~~~
danso
My mistake, it looks like I linked to the About page and not the story page:
[https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/10/californias-
criminal-...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/10/californias-criminal-
cops-convicted-but-stay-on-the-job/)

~~~
dang
Changed now from [https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/10/californias-
criminal-...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/10/californias-criminal-
cops-about-the-project/).

------
RickJWagner
I've got a neighbor that's a cop.

And a nephew who is a detective.

And the gym I work out at is crawling with cops. There's a judge and some
school police, too.

All of them are very good people. I think the few bad apples get a lot of
press.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
_All of them are very good people._

Just how "good" are they if the "blue wall of silence" is rule #1 in terms of
ignoring what you call "bad apples" and what civilians call criminal
misconduct?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_of_silence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_of_silence)

~~~
RickJWagner
You don't know these people, do you?

I am not aware of any bad behavior from any of them, and I am first-hand
witness to good deeds done by them.

Do you have any first-hand knowledge of police misbehaving? I mean people you
actually know?

~~~
PhantomGremlin
Do you have any comments about the specifics of the Mercury News article? Are
they making stuff up for clicks? You personally haven't seen your neighbors
misbehaving, but it's not like they're just going to brag about it to you, are
they?

 _Do you have any first-hand knowledge of police misbehaving?_

You mean other than the time I got pulled over in some shithole town in NJ
because that's just what the local police did there to raise revenue?

The Interstate used to end right at that point, it went down to a normal
4-lane road. The local pigs would have a car working that area, pulling people
over. When they finished writing a ticket for one car, they'd get back on the
road, going the other direction (they only worked about a 1 mile stretch).
Within 30 seconds their lights would be flashing and they'd pull another car
over.

I used to commute that stretch of road daily, so I saw this happen constantly.
Constantly. Constantly. For years and years. Finally they finished the
Interstate and bypassed the town.

This was the early 1980s. That's what used to happen in the open in NJ. Far
worse were other shithole towns in NJ that had a reputation for having police
control the stoplights as you went thru town. They'd flip the light red, pull
you over, arrest you, take you to court right then. "What you got there now,
Seth", said the judge to the arresting police officer. That one I heard second
hand, from a friend of mine, a person I "actually knew". Nothing an on-the-
spot fine payment couldn't take care of.

Simple petty graft. Done out in the open. For years. Just off an Interstate.

Experiences like that give the entire justice system a bad name. Everyone
knows what's going on, nobody does anything about it, even if they're not
personally profiting from the corruption.

It's that pesky blue wall of silence, elaborated in detail at the link:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_of_silence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_of_silence)

I lived in NYC in 1970. Was the stuff documented by the Knapp Commission made
up? Was all of that stuff contemporaneously reported on TV and in the
newspapers made up for ratings and circulation? Did I have to _personally_
experience it before I was allowed to believe it?

Unfortunately, one bad interaction with police negates 100 good interactions.
Just like one bad meal at a restaurant can negate the 100 good meals you've
previously had there. That's simple human nature.

------
crb002
Iowa’s Governor Kim Reynolds has had several drunk driving convictions. Why
should police be held to a higher standard than the Governor?

~~~
toomanybeersies
There is a very good argument to be made that disallowing people with
convictions from running for office would allow the police force to be
weaponised against political opponents.

