Comments

1. Laughingrat wrote:

   “Police brutality is not a genderized issue.”

   I would say that the sentence you typed after that demonstrates otherwise, sadly. I wish it wasn’t the case, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if black women are treated to extra vilification and extra violence by abusive police officers.

   Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 12:21 pm ¶

2. Ugly Deaf Muslim Punk Gurl! wrote:

   Disgusting. and people wonder why I have absolute hatred for cops!

   Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 12:36 pm ¶

3. elle wrote:

   On the genderization of police brutality: Your right, so-called “Black Leaders” will often time ignore police brutality if the victim is female. I remember when I first read the article about Kathryn Johnson on Alternet, and wondering wtf!!, why hasn’t Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson brung attention this!! The cops who did this only got 10 years each! This is disgusting! We need to pay attention to both men of color and women of color victims, because it is getting worse.

   I couldn’t agree with this post more. More and more,with each passing day, the police in this nation are becoming fascist with a “us against them” mentality that is damaging to community building(I should know,my dads a cop, and I hate to say it, he has that mentality too). The cops don’t protect people anymore, especially us people of color, they just protect the rich and sheltered white people of this nation. I police departments are spending more and more on weaponry, rather than try and work with the community and actually build trust. We really need to reform our police departments,by teaching them to respect all people,including people of color, especially women,by downsizing the size of police forces,and trying to eliminate the stupid”brotherhood of the badge” and weed out the mentality policing attracts. It looks to get worse if we don’t reform soon.

   Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 12:41 pm ¶

4. Kenny wrote:

   Of course the gender/race should not matter.I think the statistics show that most of the victims are Black males

   Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 12:41 pm ¶

5. Monie wrote:

   There is no price to pay for cops who assault or murder Black women (or men). So it’s going to keep happening. Protests don’t do a darn thing when the officers walk away with no consequences.

   I said it before and some people thought I was being extreme but this is only going to stop when someone or some people decide to defend themselves from the police with guns and force.

   If the cops thought every time they took a Black life a cop would lose their life too I guarantee these kinds of things would stop.

   Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 12:51 pm ¶

6. rob wrote:

   What? How have these policemen managed to hold on to their jobs? Let alone stay out of jail. Bloody hell. Jobs like law enforcement will attract some more unpleasant elements and this just shows what happens when you give power to the wrong people. I can well imagine racist and/or misogynist police will abuse their position if they can. Especially if they are armed to the teeth and can count on the backing of their superiors. And how stupid is this guy? He must know he is being recorded.

   Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 1:02 pm ¶

7. Jamerican Muslimah wrote:

   What amazes me is that these cops always have some ridiculous explanation for their unnecessary force. I was nearly assaulted by a police officer for sititng in a parked car in front of my own apartment complex. He actually had his hand in my face telling me to shut up. You don’t know how bad I wanted to spit in face.

   Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 2:33 pm ¶

8. rob wrote:

   A guilty cop or any cop, monie? The idea of black vigilanties executing random police officers in revenge attacks is disgusting (who will decide what offence is worthy of retribution?). Dont get all cops mixed up with the bad ones. And even the bads ones shouldnt be dealt with by summary executions. But your system must be massively weighted in favour of the police. I cant believe the examples given in the piece are still free and serving officers.

   Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 2:38 pm ¶

9. Big Man wrote:

   Good piece. I didn’t realize black women were being victimized so often. Damn, that’s sad.

   Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 3:16 pm ¶

10. Monie wrote:

    @Rob

    Let me use your words (with a few changes) to reply;

    A guilty Black person or any Black person, Rob? The idea of police vigilantes executing random Black people is disgusting (who will decide what offence is worthy of retribution?). Don’t get all Black people mixed up with the bad ones. And even the bad ones shouldn’t be dealt with by summary executions.

    That’s what I would say to the police, who assault and execute Black people.

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 3:36 pm ¶

11. Celeste wrote:

    @ Monie: I liked the fill-in the blank answer.

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 4:02 pm ¶

12. ceecee wrote:

    This is why I sometimes get scared when I get pulled over.

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 4:13 pm ¶

13. Jehanzeb wrote:

    I saw the first video yesterday and just saw the second video now. Both of them disgust me and make me so mad.

    This is the reason why I turn into parking lots or make U-turns whenever cops are driving behind me or next to me. It just makes me really uncomfortable since I’ve been pulled over before, “randomly” stopped in the street, and even threatened to get arrested for reasons that I believe have to due with the color of my skin.

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 4:16 pm ¶

14. rob wrote:

    Monie.

    Which police are you addressing? When you say ‘the police’ you are making the assumption that the police are one homogenous entity, with no individuality. That’s not really on. Especially here, I would have thought.

    Im not trying to play down the problem and I admit Ive got no idea what US police are really like (and if those videos are anything to go by I’m very happy I dont live in america)but you dont seem to differentiate between anybody. Are they really ALL the same. Just the label of police is enough? All this labelling and dehumanising of people is what fcuks this world up.

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 4:26 pm ¶

15. Lisa J wrote:

    @ elle co-sign. I really think they should have to give a serious psychological profile test to any one who wants to be a cop, to weed out the violent nutjobs, but given the nature of the work, too many of the people attracted to it are like that. I’ve met some nice cops though, but i have a deep feeling of respect and distrust towards them. I remember my sports team playing kickball on the National Mall last year, and they were drinking, which we often did, and some folks got ticket for. One day these two cops stayed for the whole game watching us and part way through I said to someone it sucked they didn’t have REAL crime to fight and he said, ” They are cool, before you got here, they said they didn’t care we were drinking they just wanted to watch” He was white, I was like, if you think my black a$$ is going to break the law in front of 2 white cops you are insane!

    I’ve been lucky so far, knock on wood, but cops do scare me and I remember a story a few years ago about a black family calling the police b/c their relative was in the car with the doors locked and she passed out. So when the cops arrived, she started to revive, the cops were screaming at her to show her hands, she picked up her cell and they shot her. Dead. I was so upset. I told one of my white friends, who sort of gets this stuff, more than most, and he was like, what is teh big deal, they just made a mistake. Then I asked him what if it was me, and the cops killed me, who he knows as an educated, law abiding nice person he’s known for 15 years plus, for being locked in my car, passed out, then waking and picking up my phone? He seemed embarrased and said yes but he still wouldn’t think it was neccessarily racial, esp since cops have a hard job, never know who will pull a gunon them, etc.

    Sigh. I’ve also seen several white friend’s on Facebook join groups like “Instead of F the police stop killing cops” and that ilk. It turns my stomach and makes me question my connection with them. Of course some are just “friends” and most of my honest to goodness close friends have not done that. Still it is chilling.

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 4:35 pm ¶

16. lunanoire wrote:

    @ Lisa J- a perfect tie in w/ the later post about a loss of empathy as one of the costs whites pay for racism

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 5:00 pm ¶

17. gatamala wrote:

    I have another one:

    http://www.kmbc.com/news/10903920/detail.html

    Kenny, the point was this:

    Time and time again black women are assaulted by the police and yet the community only seems to rally when a black man is murdered or otherwise injured.

    Oscar Grant, Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Abner Louima….

    No, gender shouldn’t matter. Apparently it does matter. The question is why.

    Short answer: extreme hatred of black women manifested in the form of apathy. The Community, which is led by the most braying members of patriarchical structures (The Church), only cares about what it perceives to be its own interests, i.e. male interests.

    I suspect the old if he hit her “she must have gotten out of line/come outta pocket” belief is there too.

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 5:21 pm ¶

18. Tracey wrote:

    http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=57270641785&h=6Kdxp&u=gKRct

    http://www.amnestyusa.org/lgbt-human-rights/stonewalled-a-report/key-findings/page.do?id=1106611

    Yeah. I try to avoid blanket statements like f the police, but it’s hard when you hear stories like this. What’s worst is that it does often become a case of : Good respectable cop versus sex worker/ transgendered/ immigrant/ repeat offender/ alleged criminal of color. Of course fitting into any of those categories makes someone less credible. And I don’t even want to start on what is known as the Blue line of defense where basically cops will stick together. Cops can be great, but it seems so often they either do very little to protect marginalized people or actively abuse us.

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 5:48 pm ¶

19. Renee wrote:

    @Lisa J
    I cannot speak for the states but I know in Canada there is psychological testing prior to working in the police department. I believe the problem is the what the police call the blue wall. When something happens they cover it up and try to evade consequences. There should be a zero tolerance policy for police violence. If these people knew that there would be real consequences for what they did perhaps the head bashing would reduce.

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 6:04 pm ¶

20. Casual Observer wrote:

    He beat up on a child. He’s a racist child abuser. Vile and unspeakable.

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 6:10 pm ¶

21. Monie wrote:

    @Celeste

    I thought answering him that way might have given him a clue but apparently not.

    @Rob

    When the so-called bad cops murder Black people I never hear the so-called good cops saying they out to be brought to justice.

    The Police never admit wrong-doing. They stand together and defend everything they do. So how am I or is anyone else supposed to differentiate between good cops and bad ones?

    They act as a homogenous entity and that’s how I look at them.

    @Lisa J

    Do you remember the story about the guy who jumped the White House fence and he had an assult rifle? The police shot to wound and disarm him.

    When I first heard news reports of the incident I knew the guy was White and of course he was.

    @gatamala

    I agree. It’s like when those guys raped the woman at Dunbar Village in Florida. Al Sharpton didn’t show up to have a protest that the police hadn’t done enough to find the rapists. Then after the rapists were caught, Sharpton actually had the astounding audacity to hold a protest because the rapists were not being offered bail to get out of jail.

    And it isn’t just the whole church patriarchy thing that is causing such hatred of Black women, it’s also the hip hop mentality which is rife with misogyny.

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 6:14 pm ¶

22. cm wrote:

    @ 14 rob
    if you’re of a certain color in the united states, you don’t always necessarily have the luxury or privilege to differentiate between individual police officers.
    also, when people refer to ‘the police’ they are not just talking about a collection of special, unique, individual souls, they are talking about a system/structure.

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 6:51 pm ¶

23. Big Man wrote:

    Gatamala

    That’s a pretty huge generalization about the church you made.

    You could argue that men are targets of the police more often and are more likely to be killed, so their deaths seem like a larger issue.

    I can’t deny that many churches discriminate based on gender, but to say they don’t protest about the deaths of black woman because they devalue their lives is a big leap. Most black churches are composed mainly of black women and typically those churches are not in the business of telling black women that their lives lack value. That wouldn’t be good for the church in the long run.

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 7:17 pm ¶

24. Rchoudh wrote:

    Watching the videos of women being physically assaulted by men makes me especially uneasy. What causes these big tough looking men to think it’s ok to assault women? Would they have assaulted these women if they weren’t black? And why doesn’t this receive more nationwide media attention? I never heard of these cases before (unlike Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima’s cases, as well as of course Rodney King). And it is puzzling to see certain black leaders ignore this problem happening to their community.

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 8:10 pm ¶

25. Baiskeli wrote:

    @Lisa J

    To add to your point. And it does tie into the ‘lack of emphathy’ post

    I knew about the case of Sheila Stevenson from a bike forum that I frequent (I’m an avid cyclist). What made me doubly mad was that people on the forum in question were siding with the cop and essentially calling the woman a ‘thug’. What was doubly ironic is that cops tend to be assholes to cyclists, and on the same forum when a NY cop assaulted a cyclist taking part in the NY Critical Mass all sorts of hell were raised. And there have been other similar incidents (where white cyclists were either accosted or mis-treated by cops. In every case, the people on the forum (almost all white) sided with the cyclists in question (and rightly so). But change the race of the cyclist and suddenly the cyclist is at fault. And an analysis of the incident shows that

    a) The cop was in the wrong. The cyclist rode on the sidewalk rather than on the road due to the fog.
    b) The cop used excessive force.

    Her outstanding warrant is irrelevant and bringing it up is about as stupid and disingenious as Giuliani bringing up Patrick Dorismonds juvenile record (which are sealed by law) after he got shot and killed by a plain clothes cop who asked him to sell him some drugs and then got into a fight with him.

    It just amazes me that the race of the victim suddenly throws out the 2 facts above. It’s stuff like this that makes me sometimes roll my eyes when white cyclists rant about being mis-treated by cops. Yes, they do sometimes get mis-treated (as do I) but their lack of empathy when tthe cyclist in question is black makes me wonder whether they want justice for all or just justice for people like them, middle-class whites. Who cares about blacks!

    It reminds me of another black cyclist on the board who always carries his bike receipt in his saddle bag. And he once got stopped by a cop and told to prove that the bike was his. BUt even given this fact, some white cyclists said he was being paranoid and playing the race card. I identified with his story because for the longest time I used to do the same thing, carry a photo-copy of my receipt for my $3000 bike (I don’t any more). Its a peculiar lack of empathy when you tell someone that x happened to you and you get accused of ‘playing the race card’ for mentioning it or even intimating that blacks do get treated differently from whites by some police.

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 8:11 pm ¶

26. Betty Chambers wrote:

    I grew up across the street from a police station: they must receive racist and sexist psychological screening.

    People do not take violence against black women seriously.

    Attorney General Holder better get moving, he has a lot of work to catch up with.

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 9:43 pm ¶

27. Lauren wrote:

    @Rob

    When the so-called bad cops murder Black people I never hear the so-called good cops saying they out to be brought to justice.

    The Police never admit wrong-doing. They stand together and defend everything they do. So how am I or is anyone else supposed to differentiate between good cops and bad ones?

    They act as a homogenous entity and that’s how I look at them.

    ___________

    Exactly. For all of the vitriol thrown towards the black community for “Stop snitching” (even though it’s often a matter of life or death), cops have their own stop snitching movement in the form of the blue wall of silence. They almost never tell on their own.

    In this case, it was another officer who reported this rotten cop, so I give props where props are due. Unfortunately, he is in a very small minority.

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 9:57 pm ¶

28. gatamala wrote:

    Big Man~The Church is funded by and supported by (administration, Sunday School, Vacay Bible School and outreach) women. The decision-makers and mouthpiece/representatives/ministers, boards-are men. It sees Itself as Its Leaders.

    They stress the women’s “value” in terms of sacrifice to a higher power/The Church and sacrifice to others.

    This reminds me of the latter Rihanna/CB post in which moshoeshoe cited a work which discussed that 2 sources of self-worth are virtue and God’s love. The Black Church (no this isn’t every single church) preaches a message of sacrifice to an audience of Black women. Sacrifice one’s self in the service of others/higher cause is a core of The Western Christian Church and The Black Church in particular.

    It is easy to convince a person to sacrifice herself/needs/existence when she believes that she has no intrinsic worth. Show your love for God by living a “good life” and walking in the ways of the Lord. A Church that can convince generation after generation that it has no self-worth and that it’s worth is derived from what it can do/provide (attention) for others has a long range plan.

    Churchladies are expendable. They aren’t worth anything. What they can provide to The Church is valuable.

    It appears that vastly more men are affected. But, if we don’t even bother with any women who are affected…how do we really know?

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 10:21 pm ¶

29. Michelle wrote:

    I greatly dislike cops, for many of these reasons…I’ve had unpleasant run-ins with them myself, and I’ll never forget the time when I was around 12 and my mother came home from a trip crying her eyes out because an officer had stopped her, saying that she was driving like she was drunk (this was at like 3-4 in the afternoon, I think on a Sunday, by the way), and then proceeded to scream in her face for some ten or fifteen minutes about how women are all terrible drivers and etc.

    I think most cops are just assholes and I don’t have any problem saying/thinking so, after the experiences I and those I know have had – they’ll be a jerk to anyone they perceive as “non-normal”, I am a white female but I’ve noticed a huge difference in the way I’ve been treated by cops since getting tattoos/dying my hair funky colors, etc. I know there are some nice cops out there but I’ve ran in to maybe two in my life. I think a large part of it is just that the people who tend to be drawn towards that are people who WANT to have power over other people and feel important, in my experience anyways.

    Those cases are all so sad – the video of the teenager being beaten made me want to cry the first time I saw it, and the fact that he’s trying to defend those actions? Unbelievable. It reminds me of another case I heard/saw a few years back about a cop who insisted that this young woman working at a McDonald’s (I *think* she was a WOC, but I’m not for sure) had given him the wrong change and then proceeded to go into the McD’s, strip search her, and harass her for an hour or so I think, after that my memories on what happened get hazy. It’s terrible what people will do when they think they can get away with it.

    Posted 04 Mar 2009 at 11:23 pm ¶

30. Free wrote:

    This shit makes me so angry that I can’t write anything intelligent or insightful. So, I’ll just quit now.
    :::: exits internet, screaming::::

    Posted 05 Mar 2009 at 4:30 am ¶

31. Fiqah wrote:

    SIGH.

    I am reading this in conjunction with LDP’s thought-provoking post about battling sexism in communities affected by racism. Both these pieces are HEAVILY informing something I’m working on. (Actually, a more accurate description of that would be “something that is being wrenched from the core of my being”…but I’m trying to ease up on the melodrama some.)

    All the other posters have basically said what I wanted to say, but I did want to offer this: I have said – for YEARS now – that cops, doctors, and anyone who saves lives or has the power to take life away should be routinely given Implicit Association Tests (IATs), which measure un/semi-conscious bias. Why? Because while most people don’t admit to harboring racist/sexist/whatever notions, those things persist…so perhaps more sophisticated methods of detecting them are required in order to enact REAL change. Just saying. If you can shoot people or cut them open you need to not be an asshole. I know that IATs aren’t perfect, but I think they are a good start. Oh, you can take them here:
    https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

    Posted 05 Mar 2009 at 9:25 am ¶

32. rob wrote:

    Monie, and everyone else. I completely sympathize with your feelings. Those cops deserve to go to jail. It seems the US has a particularly nasty police force. Personality tests should maybe be ongoing throughout an officers career in order to help stamp this out. Senoir officers should also be held to account for cover ups.

    However when I hear people saying ‘I had a bad experience with a cop so…’ that sounds like excuses I remember people using in the UK to justify their racism to immigrants.

    Or ‘the woman in the car who was shot because she had her phone in her hand is automatically racist’ That just doesnt sound right. Whenever I hear of a incident of this kind in the media it seems that if the officer is white and the victim is black then the officer is automatically guilty of a race motivated shooting. However if there is a black cop involved, like with that guy who was shot by loads of police on his stag night (sorry, dont remember his name) then the racism angle just disappears.

    But the US really does seem to have a huge problem with the way the police behave. All reality cop shows you see make them appear to be very violent and aggressive but I thought that was just the worst of the worst, collected for tv. I heard about US cops macing eco-protesters who were chained to trees! Scum.

    Of course being polite and friendly is the best way to engage with anybody and in my experience will make encounters with the police much less unpleasant but if the cops got it in for you for some or any reason then being nice as pie is not going to get you anywhere.

    I think with the availibility of camera phone and everything people should make a point of recording the police when they are questioning or arresting anyone, dont get involved at all but stand at a reasonable distance and just record what happens. A bit of citizen journalism. Maybe if they think THEY are always being watched the bad ones might behave a bit better. BTW, they have just made this practically illegal in the uk, under the new terrorism law.

    Posted 05 Mar 2009 at 9:42 am ¶

33. gatamala wrote:

    rob~

    Please check this out

    http://www.theunapologeticmexican.org/glosario.html#magikattax

    I have bad cop stories too. In fact, I leave my law school sticker on my car as a form of deterrent. I slow down, put on my flashers, wave in the rearview, stop in well-lit parking lots (don’t want to be raped) and keep my manicured hands on the top of the steering wheel. Black/Latin/Middle Eastern people don’t reach for license/registration/proof of insurance until explicitly instructed to with the flashlight (coming from both sides of the car) in their face!!!!!! We do NOT bend over or move at all. You will never find a group of people as polite and friendly to the cops as us. How many examples do you need?

    The stag night incident was Sean Bell.

    The US police forceS (there are thousands) are not unique. Wendi can tell you about Brazil.

    There is [virtually] no accountability. Who polices the police?

    Just because the cop is Black, Latin does NOT mean that the racism angle disappears. Remember this is a systemic, power-based dynamic, not individual acts of meanness. A “bad experience” with a cop has no comparison to one with an immigrant. Cops and immigrants are not similar types of groups!! Hell, only one of those groups has systemic, physical power. Cops have the imprimatur-actually, they are the physical arm of state authority and control in a system (American in this case) that is designed to be based on the consent of the governed.

    Posted 05 Mar 2009 at 11:06 am ¶

34. Baiskeli wrote:

    @rob

    I guess this is where I would disagree.

    
    Or ‘the woman in the car who was shot because she had her phone in her hand is automatically racist’ That just doesnt sound right. Whenever I hear of a incident of this kind in the media it seems that if the officer is white and the victim is black then the officer is automatically guilty of a race motivated shooting. However if there is a black cop involved, like with that guy who was shot by loads of police on his stag night (sorry, dont remember his name) then the racism angle just disappears.
    
    Just because some of the cops are black does not mean that race isn’t an issue. It’s about a racist culture that some cops (both white and black) buy into. And in the shooting you are referring to (Sean Bell), I remember race being front and center. In the case of the woman locked in the car, the thing is that had the woman in question been white she probably would not have been shot. The Boston Globe/Northeastern study done here some time ago showed that blacks got harsher treatment from cops than whites for the same offenses (i.e tickets vs warnings). The surprising thing was that black cops also treated blacks harsher than whites too for the same offenses. Methinks that in a racist culture one buys favor by following societal norms. If police departments are racist, the norm for a cop would be to behave in those same racist ways, regardless of the cops skin color.

    
    Of course being polite and friendly is the best way to engage with anybody and in my experience will make encounters with the police much less unpleasant but if the cops got it in for you for some or any reason then being nice as pie is not going to get you anywhere.
    
    In all my dealings with police I’ve always been polite and friendly and in most cases I still get treated like crap. Were I to act assertive with a cop it would be seen as ‘disobeying their authority’ where a white person doing the same thing would probably be seen/treated differently.

    You cannot put the onus on me (not necessarily saying that you are, but it sounds a bit like it) to control the racist behavior of someone. To use a poor comparison, that is like an abused wife being told that if only she had been nicer to her husband he wouldn’t have to hit her.

    The Boston Globe/NorthEastern study I was talking about.
    http://www.boston.com/globe/metro/packages/tickets/072003.shtml

    Posted 05 Mar 2009 at 11:42 am ¶

35. A.D. Nix wrote:

    This video split my head wide open. Full grown men and children. Girls. Disgusting insanity.

    @ Big Man
    You could argue that men are targets of the police more often and are more likely to be killed, so their deaths seem like a larger issue.

    This might explain some of the emphasis on male bodies in activism directed at police brutality in general (I don’t think it does/should) but not the absence of protest dealing with individual incidents like those above. Unless you concede that although women are brutalized by the police, it only counts when it happens to men.

    @ Baiskeli
    AAAAHH!!! That is what the cycling community in NY often makes me want to do for precisely the reasons you just stated. I volunteer for Transportation Alternatives frequently (even though I don’t have a bike because I’m scared) and the shit I’ve heard . . . The out-cry over that incident (which was indeed messed up) made it seem as if this was the first incident of police brutality people had ever heard of. Some people were pretty explicit about how this time, the cops were really out of line. Not like those gray area incidents of police brutality wherein maybe the prone kid had done something to warrant getting shot in the back–I mean, we don’t know, we weren’t there . . .

    @ Fiqah
    Every officer should have to prove that they are not primed to shoot every black person with something in their hand. Even if its just inside this little test. We need something.

    Posted 05 Mar 2009 at 11:45 am ¶

36. Michelle wrote:

    Rob – like Gatamala pointed out, it’s a systematic thing. I’d be willing to be a large chunk of change that there’s never been an elderly white woman shot because the police thought her spatula was a gun.

    The cell phone video is an interesting idea, although a lot of people don’t have cell phones that take video on them (I’m not sure mine does), so it’s not totally applicable. And, unfortunately, I just don’t think it would work. Call me paranoid, but after my experience with police officers, I’m sure as soon as they saw something recording them they’d immediately find a reason to haul someone away in handcuffs, and/or just confiscate the video or recording item. The only time it tends to work is if the cop doesn’t know they’re being recorded (like this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GgWrV8TcUc – notice how he says at the end “You got that camera on? Because if I find myself on-”), and I think there are laws in some states about recording people without their knowledge (although it might just be phone conversations), so in some places the video might not even be able to be used as evidence.

    Posted 05 Mar 2009 at 11:55 am ¶

37. Baiskeli wrote:

    @rob
    I had to add to my post. Your post bothered me and I couldn’t put my finger on it for a bit. But I think the reason it bothers me is that you are essentially saying that its all in our heads. Our experiences with the police count for less than your opinion from across the pond. Quoting from the “loss of empathy’ post in another thread
    
    Subsequently, when people of color talk about racism, white people are quick to issue denials. Not only do they deny that the opinions or feelings of other people are valid, but they deny even the right to have those opinions.
    

    Now back to what you said.
    
    However when I hear people saying ‘I had a bad experience with a cop so…’ that sounds like excuses I remember people using in the UK to justify their racism to immigrants.
    
    And further (though gatamala has made the point much more eloquently than I ever could), its a bit asinine to compare cops (who have the power of life and death) with immigrants. You’re making a false equivalency. I’ve had not one bad experience, but multiple. I’ve had a cop point a gun at me and order me to get on my knees and put my hands on my head because I had the temerity to go jogging at 5:00am in the morning in the predominantly white neighborhood I lived in at the time (Everett, MA, 92). I’ve been stopped for the most asinine reasons, I drive like a grandmother and the only ticket I’ve ever gotten was for doing 42 in a 35 mile zone (and I was doing 37, the cop lied), and he kept me forever trying to find something on me he could arrest me for.
    I’ve been out walking hand in hand with my wife (fiance at the time) who is white and had a cop driving by come to a screeching halt, give me the stink-eye and ask my fiance if “She was OK” (Brookline MA, 2004 or 2005), because any white woman walking with a black man must be in danger for her life.

    And here’s a recent one, didn’t happen to me but happened to a friend of my sister a few weeks ago. The ironic thing is that it happened in the city my wife lived in growing up, a place she remembers as virulently racist (North Attleboro). My sisters friend (who is black) was visiting his cousin when he got stopped by the cops and asked what he was doing in the town (he had out of state plates but the stop was still illegal), he explained he was going to see his cousin. The cop let him go, but then tailed him. The cop stops him AGAIN!. The cop then asks him where his cousin lives, what his cousin does for a living, why he is visiting his cousin etc etc. He was very polite with the police officer because even though the cops actions were clearly illegal, if he were to speak up he would probably have found himself on the wrong end of a police baton or in jail on trumped up charges.

    So, to ask a rhetorical question, how many bad experiences with cops are us minorities allowed before you will consider our experiences valid?

    Posted 05 Mar 2009 at 12:03 pm ¶

38. Fiqah wrote:

    Oh, dear. I…hm. I don’t think I can respond to any “not all cops are bad we don’t know the whole story” bullsheist today. So may I suggest that anybody who thinks some of the posters here are being hypersensitive click on the link from my earlier comment and take an IAT themselves? G’head. I DARE you.

    @A.D. Nix: Co-mofo-sign.

    Posted 05 Mar 2009 at 3:19 pm ¶

39. Lisa J wrote:

    @Baiskeli & Michele, cosign, I was about to jump in with a rejoinder to Rob and you hit is perfectly. Also Michele, I know what you are saying about white folks when they look different and how cops treat them. WHen I spent a semester in London through my alma mater (totally not affilitated with a British school just a satellite program of our main campus) and their was a Scots student who told me he had gone to school in New England for several years but after several years of harassment by cops he decided to come back to the UK, and since the university systems are quite different, it was easier for him to take our program for a year and have his credits forwarded back to his original US school and get his diploma that way than to try to transfer them to a UK school. He was white, he had long hair, and lots of tattoos, a nose ring, a lip ring and other “alternative” looking accessories. Hence his treatment by the cops here.

    On another occasion I was at a party, which was not rowdy but there were neighbors who were not crazy about my friends so they called the cops. There was a really young guy there (late teens when most of us were late 20s early 30s) who was white, blue eyes looked like he was probably a natural blonde but he had a mohawk and I think greenish dyed hair. He was freaking out when the cop walked in, and I, the one black person, was like it’ll be ok, we won’t let them hurt you. The cops just gave my friends a warning but it was interesting that the one person who was the most worried about the cops was also alternative looking so I agree, though not to the same extent, cops really do like to target people who aren’t in the white mainstream.

    Posted 05 Mar 2009 at 4:29 pm ¶

40. Radfem wrote:

    Some more women…

    Tyisha Miller

    Margaret Mitchell

    Kendra James

    Posted 05 Mar 2009 at 7:39 pm ¶

41. Michelle wrote:

    @Lisa – I think the cops are just trained to be suspicious of anyone who isn’t “normal” looking (i.e., white, well-dressed, middle class), after all, they’ve got a hierarchy to uphold. I’m not by any means saying that us “alternative” looking white people get treated as badly by cops as POC, though, just throwing my experiences out there.

    My fiance has a saying – “A cop is just a guy you don’t know with a gun.”

    @Radfem – Thank you for the links. That is so, so sad. Who shoots a homeless elderly woman IN THE BACK?!

    Posted 05 Mar 2009 at 8:35 pm ¶

42. Radfem wrote:

    Just because some of the cops are black does not mean that race isn’t an issue. It’s about a racist culture that some cops (both white and black) buy into. And in the shooting you are referring to (Sean Bell), I remember race being front and center. In the case of the woman locked in the car, the thing is that had the woman in question been white she probably would not have been shot. The Boston Globe/Northeastern study done here some time ago showed that blacks got harsher treatment from cops than whites for the same offenses (i.e tickets vs warnings). The surprising thing was that black cops also treated blacks harsher than whites too for the same offenses. Methinks that in a racist culture one buys favor by following societal norms. If police departments are racist, the norm for a cop would be to behave in those same racist ways, regardless of the cops skin color.

    Unfortunately true. In most agencies, the percentages of Black officers is still fairly small and most of those, at the bottom level. It’s a culture, it’s not about individuals.

    And Black and Latino officers often do what it takes to fit in so they’ll be backed up when they need it. And in some cases, they are worse on member of their own racial group. But then again, most of the activism against police misconduct within the profession comes from Black officers through several organizations. Because guess what? Black officers get racially profiled by LE officers too. Undercover officers and off-duty officers who aid White officers have been shot and killed in different cities including Providence and Oakland. They get stopped and racially profiled. A Black sergeant working for the LAPD got stopped for trespassing on his own property and was forced on the ground at gunpoint by one of my city’s officers.

    And I’ve met officers of color from different agencies in these different categories which might overlap too. I’ve met whistle blowers who’ve nearly lost their homes, been retaliated against and had their lives threatened. All this contributes to why the police culture is like it is and a big part of that code of silence.

    Mitchell wasn’t killed by White officers. I think the officer who shot her was Asian-American. I had encountered Mitchell when in that area of L.A. Most people knew her and she wasn’t a threat to anyone. She was a tiny woman.

    I’ve been lucky so far, knock on wood, but cops do scare me and I remember a story a few years ago about a black family calling the police b/c their relative was in the car with the doors locked and she passed out. So when the cops arrived, she started to revive, the cops were screaming at her to show her hands, she picked up her cell and they shot her.

    Was that Tyisha Miller? That was in my city and kind of my introduction to this. She and Mitchell were within six months of each other and though police homicides involving women of color might not be as common as men, they do happen as these cases indicate and police homicides are only one part of police abuse and misconduct.

    Posted 05 Mar 2009 at 11:28 pm ¶

43. Radfem wrote:

    In terms of race, I found that when Whites are shot and especially if unarmed or with a weapon other than a gun, it’s usually they’e mentally ill or mistaken for another race whereas Black men and women can be shot while unarmed without being mentally ill. Race plays a large role for men and women of color whereas in Whites, it doesn’t play that role but other factors which are also important do play roles that counter the race. Mental illness, Cognitive disabilities. Autism. Deafness. Epilepsy. Whites (and also men and women of color) with these conditions or situations have been shot and killed by police.

    There’s really no “alternative” way that police look for in Black and Latinos like they do in Whites (as mentioned in some comments here) because they look at race in such a large way.

    Mental illness factors in shootings of White women to a large degree. But you see emotionally distraught DV victims too.

    Ashley McDonald(Huntington Beach, CA). Ginienne Stover (a domestic violence victim calling 911–Highland, CA) and Cheri Lynn Moore(Eureka, CA.). Moore’s case led to indictments not of the officers who shot her but of the police chief and one of his subordinates.

    When Stover was killed, the police officer was overheard saying “another negro lover down”.

    Summer Lane was shot point blank inside her car by an officer in my city, a shooting that was caught on video tape which the city viewed behind closed doors before settling the lawsuit. While researching her case and listening to the officer’s interview, I discovered that the officer kept saying she was Latino or Hispanic to investigators. And the officer’s response to a question by investigators about his mental state after the shootings was laughter. What did the investigator do in response? He laughed too. That shooting caused a lot of protest, which rarely happens in shootings of Whites because FTMP, protests of shootings tend to be along racial lines and sometimes even ethnic ones and Whites always blame Whites who are shot and killed for police for that because they aren’t policed as a racial group. But Lane like Tyisha Miller crossed racial lines.

    Posted 05 Mar 2009 at 11:52 pm ¶

44. thesciencegirl wrote:

    @Fiqah, I’m a med student and they actually did have our med school class take an implicit bias test. The problem is… what do you do with the results? (We had a brief but pointless discussion about it). Just about everyone showed strong bias toward whites. If you used that as a basis of exclusion for doctors (or insert any profession), you’d hardly have anyone left.

    In the profession of medicine at least, there needs to be a lot for education about bias in medical practice, but the old white boys club is still very much in power of the curriculum, so it feels like an uphill battle to implement anything more than superficial diversity curriculum.

    Posted 06 Mar 2009 at 3:47 pm ¶

45. Fiqah wrote:

    @thesciencegirl: First, let me say that I am so happy that they are administering these tests at the med school level. Some time ago there was an article I read that reported that a.) White doctors were less likely to give patients of color life-saving preventative treatment and b.) that a panel of White doctors who had been given IATs demonstrated stronger-than-moderate levels of racial bias. (I’ll find a link to it.) I thought then that IATs should be given in med school and at police academies.

    As far as next steps, I believe that aggressive and rigorous corrective treatment is THE only answer. Something more effective than typical-and-dated diversity training. I like the workplace stuff that Ms. Van Kerckhove offers as part of her New Demographic products package. (<–*PLUG*)

    Now, bureacracy is notoriously resistant to this kind of change. The only way to get it implemented is to push really, REALLY hard for it. Insist on it. Agitate about it. Don’t back down about it. Make it into life and death because it IS quite literally a matter of life and death. This kind of bias has revealed itself – over and over and over again – to be deadly. Treat it like any other disease and cure it.

    Posted 06 Mar 2009 at 5:51 pm ¶

46. Phil Deeze wrote:

    I had forgotten about the grandmother that was murdered by police and then subsequently was a victim again of character assassination. Unbelievable.

    Posted 06 Mar 2009 at 5:58 pm ¶

47. EvilAngelfish wrote:

    @Fiqah
    I’ll chime in with another (off-topic) med school experience – I’m in my second year and since the beginning, we’ve had two hours of ‘cultural competence’ training – talks that seek to point out disparities and systemic bias in health care. One thing I noticed was that during the lectures, the presenter, himself a PoC, was very careful not to explicitly use the words ‘racism’ or ‘institutional bias’, even though it was staggeringly, shockingly evident from the data. Instead, he’d give us the figures and sort of ask a rhetorical “Let’s consider why that is…” or say, “Unless we get to the root of these disparities, these figures won’t change.” It didn’t seem like he wanted to task us with actually working to address the disparities. The other thing I noticed was how many people considered those lectures a waste of time, or just didn’t show up because attendance was not mandatory.

    I wish they would administer some form of the IAT here but I doubt that many students would draw anything from it…

    Posted 06 Mar 2009 at 6:32 pm ¶

48. Fiqah wrote:

    @EvilAngelfish: Ah, jeez. Really? I’m disappointed that people were so dismissive of the tests as well as the VERY disturbing findings. Unfortunately, I am not surprised. I think your presenter was trying to take a non-accusatory tone and stance, while just presenting the facts, lest he be accused of harboring his own biases…which is a challenge often presented by people when they are forced to confront their prejudices. A lot of the time activists fall into the trap of assuming that if people only knew that they were oppressing others, then they would want to change their behavior. That’s not always the case. In fact, I would say that most of the time that is just not the case.

    It is for this reason that I feel an aggressive stance that is tempered with the facts is more appropriate in cases where people MUST change their behavior. One can be firm without being combative, but if I have to offend you a little to get heard, then so be it. If your response is inaction, then you must be held accountable for your inaction. The shit should not just be “optional.” The connection between adopting a cavalier approach to correcting racial bias and the deaths of citizens/patients needs to be made – clearly, passionately, emphatically, and if fucking necessary, repeatedly.

    Posted 06 Mar 2009 at 8:10 pm ¶

49. Fiqah wrote:

    Eeps, said “dismissive of tests”, meant “dismissive of bias data.” Going to bed now.

    Posted 07 Mar 2009 at 12:38 am ¶

50. Princess wrote:

    The police brutality in this video is terrible, as well as the other stories included in this post. And when I first saw this video clip, I was very disturbed to say the least. I was thinking nothing done to the girl by those cops was warranted, excusable or within the code of conduct that they agreed to uphold, and both should be tried and prosecuted.

    There is no way the deputy can justify kicking a girl in the stomach, punching her in the head and pulling her by the hair as though she was an animal on a leash. Alleged misconduct? Not guilty? I don’t think so.

    Fortunately, this matter is now under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

    Posted 08 Mar 2009 at 4:27 am ¶

51. Radfem wrote:

    Hopefully, they’ll stay involved but with the feds, it’s not too difficult to get them to initiate an inquiry but harder to keep them investigating. Most likely, they’ll wait to see how the state deals with this case and then make a decision on whether or not it will take action. But their scope of authority in prosecuting these cases is often more difficult than the state. Also, public opinion plays a role and if anyone says it’s not, they’re not being truthful. I’ve had more than one fed say that there must be strong public opinion in order for their higher-ups to keep the investigation going.

    Having a Democratic administration hopefully should be helpful in terms of which way this goes.

    Posted 08 Mar 2009 at 2:43 pm ¶

52. Rosa wrote:

    We need police to be treated like other people in the courts. They never have to prove violence was justifiable – they just have to prove they were acting within department guidelines.

    One other thing we need to change is for lawsuits to be able to change police procedure. You see cities paying out and paying out and paying out on lawsuits, but the courts don’t force them to change their training or behavior, they just react to individual incidents.

    And what Monie said, again: ” When the so-called bad cops murder Black people I never hear the so-called good cops saying they out to be brought to justice. ”

    We wouldn’t have to guard against all police if the departments would out their supposed “bad apples”. The guy helping hold the young woman down could have refused, protested, or gotten up and gotten help for her, but he didn’t.

    Posted 08 Mar 2009 at 11:00 pm ¶

53. Radfem wrote:

    We need police to be treated like other people in the courts. They never have to prove violence was justifiable – they just have to prove they were acting within department guidelines.

    I don’t know about most states but in mine, the key word in their defense in state law in the penal code (which gets worked into use of force policies in departments) is “reasonable”. What would a “reasonable” police officer do in the same circumstances and that gives them tremendous leeway under the law.

    Plus jurors acquit in part because they don’t want to be responsible for scaring people out of law enforcement and jurors said this in the aftermath of the acquittal of San Bernardino CountySheriff’s Deputy Ivory Webb who shot a man while the man obeyed his commands, which was caught on videotape.

    One other thing we need to change is for lawsuits to be able to change police procedure. You see cities paying out and paying out and paying out on lawsuits, but the courts don’t force them to change their training or behavior, they just react to individual incidents.

    Yeah, cities pay out and officers don’t pay a thing because they’re under the indemnity of the city or county as is the LE agency. Even when ordered to pay out a sum of money themselves in certain cases, the unions will pay for them.

    Cities and counties either have purchased an insurance policy(some cases, shared with other cities or counties nearby) or they are “self-insured”. Mine for example had insurance, lost it due to the number of settlements and is now “self-insured”. Most of the cases were lethal force or excessive force lawsuits that were settled or went to trial and resulted in a verdict.

    In some cases like Oakland and Cincinnati, groups of city residents can sue for reforms in federal court. Sometimes the court puts the department under a receivership. Most of the litigation initiated against LE agencies for reforming “pattern and practices” is by the federal or state AG offices and the decree periods for that reform are quite brief, five years at most except for Pittsburgh and L.A. which lasted seven (only for the city’s complaint office) and eight and counting, respectively. Much more time is needed for oversight in my opinion. I think my city’s department when it came out of its five-year decree with the state took a month or two at most to start backsliding, beginning at the management level.

    Some of us didn’t take too kindly to that and responded.

    And what Monie said, again: ” When the so-called bad cops murder Black people I never hear the so-called good cops saying they out to be brought to justice. ”

    We wouldn’t have to guard against all police if the departments would out their supposed “bad apples”. The guy helping hold the young woman down could have refused, protested, or gotten up and gotten help for her, but he didn’t.

    The departments all post “whistle blower” policies including protection for whistle blowers but that’s a lie. If they offered that type of protection, things might start to happen to that “blue wall”. But you have to change the culture to enforce whistle blower protection policies. And around and around and around we go…

    Posted 09 Mar 2009 at 2:46 pm ¶

54. JB Weld wrote:

    Law enforcement is a dishonorabe profession which has proven incapable of policing the ranks for decades. Has anything really changed since the Serpico scandal 40 years ago?

    The following facts confirm the ranks are infested with vermin who can’t be trusted. Just google POLICE CODE OF SILENCE FACTS REVALED.
    =============
    The sampling of current officers was comprised of 2,698 fulltime officers from twenty-one different states. A total 1,116 of the 2,657 officers asked to complete a confidential questionnaire, did so. This equates to a response rate of 42 percent. An additional forty-one officers provided confidential interviews. The following facts were revealed.

    · In response to “Please describe the first time you witnessed misconduct by another employee but took no action,” 46 percent (532) advised they had witnessed misconduct by another employee, but concealed what they knew.

    · In response to the question “At the time of the incident occurred, what did you think would happen if you revealed what had taken place?” the five reasons listed most often were: I would be ostracized (177 times); the officer who committed the misconduct would be disciplined or fired (88 times); I would be fired from my job (73 times); I would be “blackballed” (59 times); the administration would not do anything even if I reported it. (54 times)

    · 73 percent of the individuals pressuring officers to keep quiet about the misconduct were leaders.

    · Eight percent (40) of the 509 officers who admitted to intentionally withholding the information about officer misconduct were upper administrators. The upper administrators of the average American police department comprises only five percent of the agency.

    · The average age of an officer who covered up an incident for the first time was 31.4 years of age.

    · The average years of experience when they first took part in the Code of Silence was 8.2 years.

    · 449 of the 532 officers were male, while 74 were female.

    · Of the 532 who confessed they had participated in the Code of Silence, 252 were pressured to keep quiet by the officer(s) who committed the misconduct and 118 felt pressure from uninvolved officers. The remaining 162 officers advised they covered up the incident even though they were not pressured.

    · Excessive use of force was the most frequent situation over which the Code of Silence occurs, with 217 were excessive use of force circumstances.

    · The five most frequently offered solutions for controlling the Code of Silence from the 532 officers who confessed to taking part in it were: Conduct good ethics training (listed 46 times); More consistent accountability (listed 20 times); Ensure open communication between officers and leaders (listed 16 times); Provide an anonymous reporting system (listed 14 times) and Protect whistleblowers (listed 10 times).

    Conclusions

    1. The police Code of Silence exists.

    2. Some form of a Code of Silence will develop among officers in virtually any agency.

    3. The American criminal justice system and in particular law enforcement, has been negligent by not attempting to resolve the negative impact the code.

    4. The Code of Silence breeds, supports and nourishes other forms of unethical actions.

    5. Because the code is an essentially natural occurrence, attempts to stop it all together will be futile.

    6. The Code of Silence in law enforcement is more dominant and influential than most other vocations or professions.

    7. It is virtually impossible for a law enforcement agency to effectively determine how extensively the Code of Silence exists within its own organization.

    8. It is now possible to identify the specific assignments and units that are most at risk to the harmful aspects of the Code of Silence.

    9. Whistle-blowers are generally not supported by the administration of law enforcement agencies.

    10. The use of state-of-the-art ethical dilemma simulation training can be an effective way to prevent the code’s injurious ramifications.

    11. The Code of Silence among administrators, although better camouflaged and less well known, is more destructive than when non-ranking personnel do the same thing.

    12. If administrators do not role model the moral courage to openly acknowledge and address misconduct when it occurs, it is much less likely that others will.

    13. It should not be a priority of law enforcement or any other profession to mold a culture of whistle-blowers.

    14. Establishing and perpetuating a culture that constantly analyzes to whom or where loyalties of workers are committed must become a widespread, high priority for administrators.

    15. The Code of Silence typically conceals serious law enforcement misconduct for years before the corruption is revealed.

    16. Some officers who participate in the Code of Silence rationalize their behavior by convincing themselves that what they are doing is not actually hurting anyone, while others intentionally replace the facts with a self-serving version because it is emotionally painful to admit the truth.

    17. The majority of officers who have been in law enforcement for several years have directly participated in the Code of Silence.

    18. The Code of Silence is prompted by excessive use of force incidents more than for any other specific circumstance.

    19. People outside police organizations reveal the misconduct within an agency more often than it is divulged from employees.

    20. The Code of Silence usually occurs within cultures created by the role-modeling of leaders.

    21. The “Us versus them” mentality is usually present within the minds of those who participate in the Code of Silence.

    22. The Code of Silence and the “Us versus them” phenomenon often bond together.

    23. The belief that rookie officers across the nation are routinely told that one of the most basic rules they must abide by is that they can never “rat out” another officer, especially by testifying against them, is untrue.

    24. When desired values are not sincerely embraced and role modeled by the leaders within an organization, the Code of Silence is more likely to occur.

    25. Although structured role modeling will probably become the most effective corrective tool for preventing the Code of Silence, it will be necessary to begin the process of making change, through training.

    26. A culture which acts as fertile ground for the destructive features of the Code of Silence to grow is one that promotes loyalty to people over integrity.

    27. Field training officers have the ability to alter the Code of Silence in a positive fashion, if their commitment to do so is obtained.

    28. Many police officers feel a great sense of alienation. This often acts as a catalyst for officers to rationalize that taking part in the Code of Silence is not particularly wrong.

    29. One of the most powerful “root causes” of officers throughout the nation participating in a Code of Silence is that they deeply believe they have been victimized by their own workplace.

    30. Scandals can be prevented. They result from an evolution of predictable and preventable circumstances.

    31. Leaders themselves lie at the core of both the cause and solution to corruption and the Code of Silence.

    32. The “rotten apple” theory that some administrators propose as the cause of their downfall has frequently been nothing more than a self-serving, superficial façade, intended to draw attention away from their own failures.

    33. Historically, administrators have not had the courage to acknowledge they have integrity needs.

    34. An administrative indifference toward the Code of Silence exists.

    35. The widespread indifference toward integrity issues by administrators serves as the initial breeding ground for more serious consequences such as the negative aspects of the code.

    36. The intentional ignoring of the Code of Silence by leaders is primarily caused by two problems: a lack of knowledge and self-centeredness.

    37. Some leaders do not do more to improve ethical problems such as the Code of Silence because they believe bringing attention to their integrity needs could hurt them personally.

    38. Hypocrisy and fear often dominate the culture of a law enforcement agency that has a substantial negative Code of Silence.

    39. There are several overt indicators that a severe level of the Code of Silence exists with an organization.

    40. At its worse, a destructive Code of Silence is both condoned and privately encouraged by supervisors and administrators.

    41. All law enforcement officers would benefit from effective training that focuses on the Code of Silence.

    42. Conducting quality background investigations of individuals applying to become officers can be an effective Code of Silence countermeasure.

    43. The continual lack of accountability is very destructive to the culture of a police organization.

    44. Some police agencies have shown they are incapable of policing themselves.

    45. Supervisors should be held accountable for role modeling behavior that could encourage officers to take part in the Code of Silence.

    46. Every effort should be taken to prevent employees from feeling victimized.

    47. A culture must be established in which an allegiance to principles is a higher priority than loyalty to people.

    48. The groups of people who have the most ability to create an organizational culture that could prevent a harmful Code of Silence are field training officers and line supervisors.

    49. To be successful at preventing the Code of Silence, we must be able to develop cultures in which the bad officers are the ones who are alienated.

    50. The fact that most officers feel more stress from their own supervision, than they do from simply doing their job must be resolved.

    51. Every law enforcement agency throughout the nation should have a written policy that provides protections for whistle-blowers.

    52. All law enforcement agencies should have written policies that mandate all employees immediately inform on any other employee who has committed any criminal offense.

    53. Confidentiality must be ensured for any officer who supplies information about the serious misconduct and desires confidentiality.

    54. Officers should be fired for not reporting officers who commit criminal acts.

    55. Research on the Code of Silence must continue.

    Posted 11 Aug 2009 at 10:18 pm ¶