23 November 2003

Law Enforcement and the Law:

(1) When a woman has made two accusations of rape (neither carried to trial) is addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs, has a borderline personality disorder, and you are a married officer assigned to chaperone her - perhaps it would be better if you did not have sex with her.

(2) Of course, it's worse if you are an officer engaging in racketeering, arson, extortion, etc as the enforcement wing of drug syndicate.

(3) The lessen here? If you are an officer, don't take a long lunch break or you could get convicted of a crime.

This is ridiculous, especially since they traced his work day twice and the second time there was no problem. This is the kind of thing you dock somebody's pay over, not send them to jail and ruin their career.

(4) $33 million decision against the LA police and Budget for damaging a surgeon's hands during a stop which never should have happened.

(5) We've all heard the statement of fact that "The prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich." However, there is apparently an addendum to that "unless it's a police officer." A grand jury declines to indict despite multiple witnesses. Another declines to indict despite the fact that "[t]he officers were caught on videotape forcing Walton to the bed, putting a gun to his head and telling him 'We can kill you right here.'" The second case is particularly disturbing because the prosecutor put an "expert" on the stand to say that officers should act like this. (if it just refers you to my blawg the post is 7:17 a.m. on Thursday 20 November)

(6) Apparently, Roanoke is using artificially lowered performance evaluations to keep the police force payroll down:
Sgt. Brent Asbury was evaluated earlier this year and received just below the maximum score of 100, . . . but a supervisor said the score was too high and "arbitrarily reduced it" by about 10 points, saying it had to fall within a lower range.

A score of 100 on the evaluation translates into a 4.25 percent raise, but an 85 drops an employee down to less than 3 percent and an 80, which . . . is supposed to earn an average, cost-of-living raise, gets the employee a 2.25 percent raise.

Asbury filed a grievance. The complaint was determined ungrievable, so [his attorney] filed a petition with the Circuit Court and was given his high score back. Asbury could not be reached for comment Monday.
(7) Lest ye think that things only go wrong with law enforcement here in the States - a former Japanese officer attempts a particularly horrendous crime but only succeeds in setting himself on fire and getting caught.

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