Case Law 4 Cops Blog

The way bad news spreads around the media and internet, you would think that there are criminals everywhere. It is not safe to even go to the local store. You surely don’t want your kid to play in the front yard because there are perverts lined up around the block waiting to snatch him/her. There are robbers, rapists, thieves, or terrorists in every crowd. It is a matter of time before they make you the story on the 10 o’clock news. You better arm up with the biggest, baddest guns. You better fortify your home. You better lock your kids inside and cover them from your machine gun nest, or flee the country like Johnny Depp. If you don’t do these things, in days you will be brutally murdered.

Many people are spiraling into a pit of paranoia because they saturate their minds with all the bad news spewed forth in the 24 hours a day news cycle. The reality is that America is a safe place to live. Venture out and live life. Let your kids meet their friends in the park and play ball. Go to the store, and visit your friends. The news is not balanced when it comes to crime. There is nothing to report if nothing happens. Keep your perspective. Use common sense. Avoid high crime areas. Don’t act like a victim. Something may happen to you, but the odds of it, in reality, are very low. If you are a victim, learn from it, and go on. Do not let it subjugate your life. You are alive, but are you living life?

The Brady Rule is based on the 1963 case of Brady v. Maryland (for further information see http://www.caselaw4cops.net/civil/civil.htm). The case applies to police officers in cases where they are witnesses. The prosecution is required to reveal any information to the defense involving a police officer’s history of lying in reports, lying during testimony, falsifying evidence, criminal behavior, or any other information that shows the officer as not being credible. The practical result of any officer that does these things is that the prosecutor will not allow him to testify in court. If a police officer, who is the primary gather of facts in a criminal case cannot testify in court, the officer is no longer useful to the department. If you are not honest, accountable, and credible, you deserve to lose your job.

I title this as “Go sell shoes” not as a disparagement of shoe salesmen, but as a reminder that police work is not for everyone. Let me ask you officer when you go to work each day, do you give the job the best you can offer? Or, do you go to work and do the very minimum required. If you don’t actively seek out and solve crimes, go sell shoes. If you come to work and spend all day talking with or texting friends or family on your cell phone, go sell shoes. If you blow off your calls and don’t work traffic, go sell shoes. If you burn through all your leave time as quick as you earn it or fake being sick because you can’t get off, go sell shoes. If you don’t learn your profession by knowing your policies, procedures, and laws, and apply them in the furtherance of justice, go sell shoes. If you refuse to arrest people because you don’t want the paperwork or to testify in court, especially, because it interferes with your private time or off-duty job, go sell shoes. If you sit around griping about officers that are doing their jobs because they make you look bad, turn in your badge, pick up your Brannock foot-measuring tool, and head to Footlocker. Police work is a profession worthy of full commitment. It is not a temp-job. There are too many hard-working Americans that would do the job as the citizens deserve.

Police departments are mandated by all that is right in their communities to strive for the highest levels of professionalism. In that, I mean to achieve the highest levels of training, knowledge, and skills all focused on the furtherance of providing the best police work for their communities possible. Managed police departments are not enough. Professionalism requires leadership, leadership from the lowest levels to the highest inspired by a deep commitment to the noble cause. Police Departments must be willing and able to transcend mob rule, misguided political will, and corrupting influences. Police work should not be just a job, but a life mission. All these heady words suggest that these objectives are just out of reach. Real people doing real police work cannot expect to accomplish these things. Looking back 100 years, 50 years, even 10 years on how much police work has changed proves otherwise.
What does a professional police department look like to a citizen in the community? The first is that the officers of the department are respected by the citizens of the community. They are respected, not by their positions as officers, or by commanding it. They are respected because the officers earned it by showing respect to the citizens. They earned it by the manner in which they enforce the laws, how they interact with the citizens during enforcement actions and routine contacts, and by being accountable for their actions. Citizens that respect and trust their police will be far more willing to cooperate with them. Citizens will feel like they are working in partnership with the police in making the community safer, as opposed to being adversarial.
The key to advancing the quality and professionalism of a police department begins with the people chosen to stand on the long blue line. Recruiting, selecting, and training new officers is the most critical phase in developing a skilled and well respected police department. High standards are a must in hiring officers. Many agencies across the country learn very painful lessons when they lower their hiring standards. The numbers of police officers engaged in crimes, excessive use of force, civil rights violations, and frequent internal and external infractions increase significantly. These result in more law suits, officers being arrested, and fired. Police departments with these kinds of problems will lose most of their citizens’ support. It is imperative that police departments strive for the highest quality officers possible. The citizens expect it. The citizens deserve it.

Many times police officers are their own worst enemies. They are so mentally geared toward controlling situations that often they completely disregard common courtesies. Being stern, gruff, officious, etc. will only get you so far. Ordering people around and demanding certain behavior or responses is a necessary part of police work. Controlling events must occur to minimize the likelihood of the people reacting and doing things that could hurt the officer. Officers also do not want people escaping, injuring themselves or other people, or destroying evidence. At some point, however, the scene will settle down and the officers can control the situation with a lighter hand. People understand police doing what is necessary to rapidly control scenes. They can tolerate a certain amount of officious behavior during the initial contact. At some point, civility should return to the officer’s demeanor. Granted the people on the scene usually will set the tone for the interaction with the police, but police should work toward a certain level of courteous communication.

Being nice, or heaven forbid, saying you are sorry for causing someone an inconvenience will not undermine your control over a situation. It will not diminish your “power” over someone. Showing some courtesy could even help aid you in bringing people under control. Not every situation is so volatile that it needs to be controlled, so why act like it does? Is there a need to treat someone on a traffic stop like they were a suspect in a violent crime scene? Not everyone police contact needs to be treated with a heavy police hand. Lighten up. If you stop someone and discover you made an error, tell them so and say you are sorry. Show that you have some manners, and that you are capable of recognizing a person has dignity and deserves respect.

We police officers can demand people do certain things on crime scenes. They will do it because they have no choice. We, however, cannot demand the citizens in our community respect us or support us. That, we have to earn. Most people probably never thing much of it, but respect in its simplest form is easiest earned by showing courtesy and respect to others.

Many years ago, I was on patrol when a confidential informant called me. He told me that an old girlfriend (I will call her Mary) stopped by his apartment and tried to sell him some meth. He saw that she had a lot of meth with her. Well my C.I., being a good reformed meth dealer recently released from prison, would not stand for anyone trying to temp him back into the drug life, especially his formicating ex (formication is the feeling of bugs crawling under the skin and is often associated with drug use). He gave me the call and said she left in a white older Chevy. He gave me her direction of travel. Within a minute I had a vehicle matching the description approaching me. She happened to be speeding. I got her on my radar going more than 10mph over the limit. I stopped her and made contact. I found that Mary had her middle-aged mother with her.
I told Mary why I stopped her and obtained the obligatory documents. While I was talking to her, I observed that she was on full speed. She was talking rapidly, her arms were moving in a wildly exaggerated manner, and her body was constantly moving and twitching. I asked her if she was on some kind of drug and explained what I was observing. She immediately stated that she drank several cups of coffee. She was not on any drugs. I asked her to come back to my vehicle so I could talk to her. Mary was wearing a cut-off t-shirt that exposed her midriff. She had no bra. She was wearing very tight spandex shorts, and flip-flop shoes. I could clearly see that she was not concealing any significant amount of drugs on her. I talked with her at length. She would not make any admissions. She denied having any drugs on her or in her vehicle. She gave me consent to search her vehicle.

I went to the vehicle, which was unusually spotless inside for a drug dealer. I contacted the mother and asked her if she had any illegal drugs on her. She said that the only drugs she had were her hormones because she had a hysterectomy. I asked her if I could look in her purse. She clutched her purse tight to her chest and told me I could not search it. I had her exit the vehicle so I could search the vehicle. She was wearing a light colored dress. I had her step several feet away during the search. As I mentioned earlier the vehicle was spotless. I did not find anything in the vehicle; even the glove box was empty except for the insurance form. My C.I. said that he saw her with the meth so where could it be? The only logical conclusion was that the mother had the meth.

I called my Sergeant to the scene to get his advice. He arrived and we began talking about the situation. We did not have a dog available and the mother refused to allow me to search her purse. I did not want to burn my informant. While we were talking the damndest thing happened. I looked over to the mother. She was facing us and into a strong wind. The wind was blowing the dress between her legs conforming to the shape of her body. There was a large bulge in her groin area. I pointed it out my Sergeant and a big smile formed on his face. We walked over to the mother and informed her that we observed the unusual shape. She immediately stated that she was on her period. I informed her that that was impossible since she told me she had a hysterectomy. The sergeant had me call for a female jailer to come to the scene to search the mother. I entered my patrol car to do this as the mother was escorted in front of my vehicle. I saw her shuffling her feet as she approached. She then widened her legs and a bag with 80 grams of meth fell to the ground right in front of me. She was arrested and her purse was searched. I found several bags of marijuana and assorted pills. Mary and the mother were questioned and both were arrested for trafficking. Mary’s cherry condition 1960’s Chevy was seized for forfeiture.

Police officers have a developed mind-set focused on law-enforcement. Catching criminals is our job. We spend a significant amount of time gathering intelligence, developing reasonable suspicion and probable cause, getting search and arrest warrants, conducting investigations, and making arrests. Often times the criminals spend less time in jail than we spend on building cases against them. After spending all this sweat capital on catching and jailing criminals, what should we do when they get out? Should we harbor grudges against them? Is it our place to say they were not punished enough and use our power to drive them back into prison? Do we foster the belief that once a criminal, always a criminal? What do we do with ex-cons that paid their debt in prison?

It is very easy for an officer to garner a dislike, or even a loathing or hatred for a criminal. Officers tend to take it personal when a criminal in their community is preying on and victimizing the citizens the officer is charged to protect. The success of the criminal is seen as a failure of the police officer. Officers have pride. They don’t like failing. They will marshal more and more resources and bring them to bear on the offender until he is caught.

An officer that diligently pursues and successfully sees a criminal go to jail probably has a high level of distrust in that person when he returns to the community. A healthy amount of distrust is a good thing with recidivism as high as it is. The officer, however, needs to remember that the ex-con paid his debt to society. If he is out of prison, he is entitled to live his life in peace. You, police officer, are sworn and honor bound to respect that. Do not use your power and authority to hound the person back into prison. Don’t seek criminality where none exists. Respect his freedom and encourage his new opportunity to be a positive and productive citizen. Give him space and time to earn the trust of his community. Give him time to earn your trust. Not all of them will succeed, but more of them will if you do this. If a person chooses to return to crime, let it be of his choice, not of your actions. If a person makes that choice it is again time to do what you do best. Send him to prison.

Tasers are a great tool for police to have. Taser use has caused a significant reduction in injuries to suspects and police, alike. An officer can subdue a combative or actively resistant suspect without having to personally grab, struggle with, and fight him. The officer can remain at a safe distance, aim, and shoot the two probes into the suspect. “The probes deployed from a Taser carry fine wires that connect to the target and deliver the Taser into his neural network. These pulses delivered by the Taser overwhelm the normal nerve traffic, causing involuntary muscle contractions and impairment of motor skills” (Taser Company, 8-16-11, http://taser.com/research-and-safety/how-a-taser-works#nervous). The use of a Taser reduces the likelihood of a suspect grabbing an officer’s gun during a fight and shooting the officer. The Taser has even saved many suspects’ lives. The Taser has been used often to disable suspects in deadly force situations in lieu of shooting them. I have personally carried and used the Taser and am very impressed with its effectiveness in the field. As with any tool officers use, proper discretion and application is very important. Too often we read in the paper or hear in the news that an officer used very poor judgment in the use of a Taser. I think, often times the Taser is over utilized because it is easy to deploy.

Officers carry different items on their belts giving them use of force options. The most common options are pepper spray, batons, Tasers, and pistols. Years ago, pepper spray was the big thing. Today, the Taser is the latest and greatest less-than-lethal force option. Officers rarely use pepper spray any more. The issue that is arising in the courts across the country is the minimal level of suspect aggression or criminality in which a Taser can be deployed. On the Use of Force Continuum the use of a Taser is now being considered by the courts as a mid-level weapon on par with a baton. What this means is that a Taser should not be used unless the person is at least actively resisting arrest or is physically aggressive. The officer is also required to consider the seriousness of the crime before using a Taser. An officer is not justified in using the Taser to stop someone fleeing to avoid a jaywalking ticket, for example. Many times officers forgo using pepper spray in situations that are below the acceptable standard for Taser use, but well within the standard for pepper spray. Officers tend to shy away from pepper spray because it goes everywhere. The officer using it or other officers in the area of the use almost always get some of the spray in their faces and eyes. Innocent bystanders also get affected. Pepper spray, however, is considered by the courts to be a lesser level of force than a Taser. It can be used in more situations. To avoid the effects of pepper spray, officers tend to use the Taser in situations where pepper spray is the proper tool. This is where officers really get into trouble. The Taser must be used in situations that legally justify its use. If an officer uses it improperly it is an excessive use of force. The officer must use common sense and knowledge learned in training to properly use the tools he is given to do his job.