POLICE MISCONDUCT

Marc Imlay
Criminal Justice 1010-407
 Lately with all of the public unrest across the United States, why is there so much police

misconduct. I found a website, policemisconduct.com that is all about police misconduct but

instead of going through all their articles I focused on one that covered the basics. So to start out

what is a police officer? A police officer is any individual entrusted by a governmental agency

with the legal authority to and granted special legal protections with the purpose of allowing that

person to enact an arrest or use force in the course of enforcing established laws. This definition

made me see to a point why there is so much police misconduct happening. I do think that police

misconduct has been around for longer then we really think, but we have only seen it more

recently with people all having cell phones making them instant videographers. This definition

can make an officer think that as long as they are enforcing the law then they can do whatever is

necessary to do so, even if that takes peoples rights away.

Police misconduct is defined as any action performed by a law enforcement officer that

is unethical, against established employment guidelines, unconstitutional or criminal in nature.

Any action, on duty or off, by a person entrusted with police powers which would violate that

trust to an extent that would cause those who entrusted the officer with said powers to reasonably

question whether continuing that trust would expose the public safety to an unacceptable level of

risk. This seems to mean that anything the police do that is against the law is police misconduct.

When an officer mistreats a citizen, over steps their bounds in an investigation or uses excessive

force the officer is committing police misconduct.

In the past 20 or 30 years there has been an increase awareness in police misconduct.

Video cameras are the reason it has been more publicized. It started with Rodney King who was

motorist that was dragged out of his car and beaten by police officers, it was all caught on tape.
Similar things have happened in Ferguson Missouri, Gwinnett County Georgia, Baltimore

Maryland, New York and the list goes on.

In New York in 2014 some plainclothes officers were responsible for Eric Garners death.

Palm Beach County officers pulled up on a guy and after shouting commands fired his weapon.

The issues dont just happen with uniformed officers but also plain clothed officers. According to

the Baltimore Police Chief if the Officer is in Uniform then it keeps them in line more. After

some plain clothes officers unlawfully search a mans car for drugs and weapons for the simple

fact that he looks Middle Eastern and his name is Middle Eastern. They beat him so bad that it

cost Baltimore Taxpayers $70,000 from a lawsuit. If you ask me $70,000 was a small amount

when taking into effect how bad the beating was. The other result is that the Baltimore Police

Chief disbanded plainclothes teams, known there as knockers. This also had to do with the fact

that a gun task force received federal charges for stealing drugs, guns and money. One of them

worked on the side as a heroin dealer.

The gun task force taking drugs and money reminds me of the movie Training Day. It is

about a task force that takes a cut of any drug money confiscated along with drugs and even

control drug territory. It shows a lot of misconduct and is eventually taken down by the new guy

in the group. This seems so similar to what happens today. Officers mistreat, beat, shoot, and

other unlawful acts to citizen both innocent and guilty regularly but it is only a matter of time

until they are caught in the act and brought to justice.

 Works Cited

Packman, Author David. "Introduction To Police Misconduct Part 1." PoliceMisconduct.net.

N.p., 26 Nov. 2016. Web. 30 Apr. 2017.

Stolberg, Sheryl Gay. "Does a Uniform Keep Officers in Line? The Baltimore Chief Thinks So."

The New York Times. The New York Times, 14 Apr. 2017. Web. 30 Apr. 2017.