Ed Haas

Governor’s Panel to fix “police conduct” ready to fail

 

August 21, 2005 – Responding to numerous springtime articles that appeared in a variety of South Carolina newspapers, articles that shined the spotlight on police misconduct in South Carolina, Governor Mark Sanford assembled a 17-member panel to develop recommendations regarding how to solve the problem of police misconduct within police departments across the state.  State Department of Public Safety Director James Schweitzer was appointed to head the panel.

 

Charleston’s daily newspaper, The Post & Courier is credited for prompting Governor Sanford to form this panel through their March 2005 series titled “Tarnished Badges” (Smith, Menchaca). 

 

On Friday, August 19, 2005 The Post & Courier published “Panel eyes tougher scrutiny of officers; Police misconduct target of proposals (Smith, Menchaca).  If this article is any indication of what the panel will propose to Governor Sanford, the bad police officers will win again, and the people of South Carolina will lose.  According to reporters, Glenn Smith and Ron Menchaca, the panel is further developing the following discipline proposals.

ü       Require department supervisors to sign off on paperwork associated with police officers that are terminated or resign as a result of misconduct

ü       Require departments to use detailed descriptions when describing the circumstances of police misconduct in a police officer’s employment or service record

ü       Ban lawsuits of police departments suing each other when a bad cop leaves one department and gets hired at another “under the radar”.

ü       Create a central database to track “criminal” cops

ü       Require departments to tell other departments the truth regarding why an officer left their department

ü       Create an online disciplinary reporting system

ü       Set minimum standards for pre-employment background checks

 

While these proposals have value, they completely miss the most important piece to protecting the people from police misconduct in South Carolina.  They make no mention whatsoever regarding how to determine if a police officer is engaging in misconduct in the first place.  Without set standards describing procedure to be followed when a citizen alleges police misconduct against a South Carolina police officer, the public will continue to be victimized by cowboy cops that feel entitled to administer unfettered southern justice. 

 

Under the current system, allegations of police misconduct usually come down to the arresting officer’s word against the arrestee’s.  As in court, the officer almost always wins this test of character.  Why?  Because the public has an expectation that police officers have a heightened degree of honor and integrity than those that happen to be accused of being on the wrong side of the law.  Here is an actual situation that occurred in the town of Isle of Palm, SC.  It illustrates a commonplace display of police misconduct that is widespread and will not be captured by the current proposals that are soon to be on the Governor’s desk. 

 

Officer Jones arrests John Doe for public intoxication.  Officer Smith and Officer White arrive on the scene as back up.  John Doe is extremely intoxicated and yelling profanities at all three police officers.  The officers are getting angry, which only encourages the drunken Doe to yell even louder.  Finally, Officer Jones has enough, throws Doe to the ground, and roughs him up some while handcuffing Doe and placing him under arrest.  After arrested, Doe’s yelling escalates to screaming. 

 

Officer White decides that he has heard enough and retrieves a bag, sack, coat, or blanket from his patrol car and wraps it over Doe’s head.  White holds it tight over Doe’s head while Jones keeps a knee in Doe’s back.  Officer Smith is watching this scene play out and knows that Jones and White are pushing the limit of force authorized.  Within 30 seconds, Doe begins yelling that he cannot breath, but White will not let up.  A minute passes and now Doe is sounding far less intoxicated and far more like a man fighting for air.  He continues to say that he cannot breath.  White asks Doe if he plans to keep his month shut if the bag is removed.  Doe agrees.  Finally, White removes the sack from Doe’s head.  Officer Jones snatches Doe up by the handcuffs, escorts him to his police cruiser, throws Doe in the back seat, and takes him to jail. 

 

A few days later, after the fog created by his extreme intoxication clears his mind, John Doe begins to recall the events surrounding his arrest.  Although he cannot remember everything, he remembers yelling profanities at the police officers and recalls being suffocated by the officers to get him to shut up.  Doe knows he’s guilty of public intoxication as charged, but begins to feel as though the arresting officers took advantage of his intoxicated condition.  He decides to file a complaint with the Chief of Police of the department that arrested him.  Doe writes the Chief a letter explaining his allegations.  A few days later, Doe receives a response in the mail from the Chief of Police that basically tells Doe that he was so intoxicated on the night of the arrest that it would be impossible for Doe to remember anything significant enough to warrant an investigation.  Case closed. 

 

Neither the Post & Courier nor the Governor’s panel has made public any proposal that would address this type of police misconduct yet this is typical of police misconduct that happens every day in Charleston County and across the state.

 

However, the Charleston County Libertarian Party has provided the police and government with a proposal that will actually stop events like illustrated above and even worse cases of police misconduct, while also serving as a deterrent for remaining police officers from departing from approved policing tactics. 

 

The Charleston County Libertarian Party’s Police Officer Conduct Accountability Act is a proposal that employees the use of specific questions and lie detector tests to detect and deter misconduct.  Had the Chief of Police referred to above been required by law to have the police officers associated with the allegation made by Doe, take a lie detector test, there is a high probability that White would have produced negative readings that should have prompted further investigation. Further investigation could have discovered many things about Officer White that the Chief of Police would in all likelihood not want to believe, yet soon accept as the truth.  Instead, White is still policing the streets with the belief that it is appropriate to use excessive force on intoxicated people because they are easy targets.  This is an everyday occurrence in South Carolina that must be stopped.   

 

The Charleston County Libertarian Party, responding in part to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) reporting that they reject a third of their applicants to become SLED agents because of police misconduct, developed a proposal that is good for police, the people, and the State of South Carolina.

 

How does SLED discover prior police misconduct in thirty-three percent of their applicants?  According to a Sun News (Myrtle Beach) article, “One-third of SLED applicants rejected because of backgrounds”, SLED Chief Robert Stewart is quoted as saying, “SLED finds out about problems because it tells applicants they will have to take a lie detector test.”

 

You don’t say?  I had said in a Muckraker Report article last month that South Carolina could fix its “bad cop” problem if it dares.  It dares not because it knows that it cannot handle the truth.  Smith and Menchaca from the Post & Courier have been presented the Police Officer Conduct Accountability Act.  They dare not mention it or publish it.  The Chiefs of Police who have been presented the CCLP proposal have dismissed it for obvious reasons, primarily because they know at least a third of their officers would produce negative readings during a lie detector test.  Politicians most likely will not touch the Police Officer Conduct Accountability Act because they will mistakenly interpret “trusting but verifying” the integrity and professionalism of police officers as being potentially perceived by some of their constituents as being against the police. 

 

In the meanwhile an estimated minimum of 4760 of the approximately 14000 police officers in South Carolina are breaking the law to enforce the law every single day, and they are getting away with it unless actually captured on film, and even then they’re being exonerated because the government really does not care about the people on the receiving end of their guns.  By the looks of things, once again democrats and republicans are going to implement a policy that plays well in the press but has no real benefit to the public.  When their plan is finally unveiled, look past their rhetoric and you’ll find that their motto has remained the same - Police good.  People police arrest, bad. 

 

Justice is supposed to be blind but it was never meant to be this dumb.