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Hundreds of officers lose licenses over sex misconduct

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V

Vice

Member
Flashing lights pierced the black of night, and the big white letters made clear it was the police. The woman pulled over was a daycare worker in her 50s headed home after playing dominoes with friends. She felt she had nothing to hide, so when the Oklahoma City officer accused her of erratic driving, she did as directed.

She would later tell a judge she was splayed outside the patrol car for a pat-down, made to lift her shirt to prove she wasn't hiding anything, then to pull down her pants when the officer still wasn't convinced. He shined his flashlight between her legs, she said, then ordered her to sit in the squad car and face him as he towered above. His gun in sight, she said she pleaded "No, sir" as he unzipped his fly and exposed himself with a hurried directive.

"Come on," the woman, identified in police reports as J.L., said she was told before she began giving him oral sex. "I don't have all night."

The accusations are undoubtedly jolting, and yet they reflect a betrayal of the badge that has been repeated time and again across the country.

In a yearlong investigation of sexual misconduct by U.S. law enforcement, The Associated Press uncovered about 1,000 officers who lost their badges in a six-year period for rape, sodomy and other sexual assault; sex crimes that included possession of child pornography; or sexual misconduct such as propositioning citizens or having consensual but prohibited on-duty intercourse.

The number is unquestionably an undercount because it represents only those officers whose licenses to work in law enforcement were revoked, and not all states take such action. California and New York — with several of the nation's largest law enforcement agencies — offered no records because they have no statewide system to decertify officers for misconduct. And even among states that provided records, some reported no officers removed for sexual misdeeds even though cases were identified via news stories or court records.

"It's happening probably in every law enforcement agency across the country," said Chief Bernadette DiPino of the Sarasota Police Department in Florida, who helped study the problem for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. "It's so underreported and people are scared that if they call and complain about a police officer, they think every other police officer is going to be then out to get them."
Click to expand...

Of those that did release records, the AP determined that some 550 officers were decertified for sexual assault, including rape and sodomy, sexual shakedowns in which citizens were extorted into performing favors to avoid arrest, or gratuitous pat-downs. Some 440 officers lost their badges for other sex offenses, such as possessing child pornography, or for sexual misconduct that included being a peeping Tom, sexting juveniles or having on-duty intercourse.
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http://bigstory.ap.org/article/fd1d...ds-officers-lose-licenses-over-sex-misconduct

A lot more in the link
 
M

MHWilliams

Member
Like police violence, the sexual abuse is a direct result of offering power and authority with no real consequences for misusing that power.
 
S

SliceSabre

Banned
MHWilliams said:
Like police violence, the sexual abuse is a direct result of offering power and authority with no real consequences for misusing that power.
Click to expand...
When you're a cop society gives you brownie points for putting away bad guys so we'll turn our heads at even the most disgusting of crimes as long as they did it while wearing a badge and sometimes even if they weren't.

Sick really.
 
C

CassCade

Member
me 440 officers lost their badges for other sex offenses, such as possessing child pornography, or for sexual misconduct that included being a peeping Tom, sexting juveniles or having on-duty intercourse.
Click to expand...

What the fuck, 440 out of 1000!!!
 
G

GoldenEye 007

Member
Seems like all agencies should have a reporting structure like Oklahoma City's. I shudder to think what fine upstanding organizations housed in Cali or NY would find...
 
K

krazen

Member
MHWilliams said:
Like police violence, the sexual abuse is a direct result of offering power and authority with no real consequences for misusing that power.
Click to expand...


YUUUUUP.

Its why its frustrating when any criticism is followed up with

1)They risk their lives any day, so give them some leeway!

2)Laymen arent equipped to make the same moral calls as a cop (you try to make split second decisions!)

3)Any critique towards the police empowers criminals and thus see #1

A real impartial review board with teerh would go a long way to fix this when it comes to complaints, but every police union and municipality fight it tooth and nail because they dont need even more proof of systemic abuse.
 
D

DiipuSurotu

Banned
SliceSabre said:
When you're a cop society gives you brownie points for putting away bad guys so we'll turn our heads at even the most disgusting of crimes as long as they did it while wearing a badge and sometimes even if they weren't.

Sick really.
Click to expand...

Why is it so common in the US? Cops in other countries are obviously not all perfect, but this seems to be very prevalent in the US.
 
A

Arrowgigantic

Member
DiipuSurotu said:
Why is it so common in the US? Cops in other countries are obviously not all perfect, but this seems to be very prevalent in the US.
Click to expand...

Patrol cops in other countries usually don't have guns because patrol cops in other countries don't need to carry guns. Therefore the pool of applicants for their police forces includes a higher percentage of non-maniacs and the ones who are maniacs have to beat you to death instead of just pulling a trigger.
 
S

SuperBanana

Banned
DiipuSurotu said:
Why is it so common in the US? Cops in other countries are obviously not all perfect, but this seems to be very prevalent in the US.
Click to expand...

Many other countries see police as peace keepers, not enforcers. They also normally require you to be pretty smart and fit, unlike America where you can fail being a police officer for being too smart. Other countries generally don't rely on cops filling quotas and boosting revenue by jailing people either.
 
H

hipbabboom

Huh? What did I say? Did I screw up again? :(
Sexual misconduct.... loss of license?!

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

It's rape! It's criminal and all involved need to be put in prison. All of them.
 
K

kirblar

Member
MHWilliams said:
Like police violence, the sexual abuse is a direct result of offering power and authority with no real consequences for misusing that power.
Click to expand...
These positions inherently attract those individuals- when they've surveyed US military recruits, the levels of problem behaviors are much higher than the general population.
 
J

JDSN

Banned
Do they also rape out of fear for their own life? Thats the usual excuse, right? Any pictures of the victim's facebook doing weed?
 
T

thecouncil

Banned
TheLostBigBoss said:
Sex misconduct is one way to phrase it.

I think the word(s) I would use is sexual abuse or rape.
Click to expand...

magash said:
Sex misconduct my ass. This is straight up rape.
Click to expand...

Gordon Shumway said:
Seriously..
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The story they told is rape but if you read the rest of what the OP posted, the "sexual misconduct" is described as:

sexual misconduct such as propositioning citizens or having consensual but prohibited on-duty intercourse.
Click to expand...
 
C

cameron

Member
The officers target the most vulnerable:
Victims included unsuspecting motorists, schoolchildren ordered to raise their shirts in a supposed search for drugs, police interns taken advantage of, women with legal troubles who succumbed to performing sex acts for promised help, and prison inmates forced to have sex with guards.
Click to expand...
And on why it's under-reported:
Victims of sexual violence at the hands of officers know the power their attackers have, and so the trauma can carry an especially crippling fear.

Jackie Simmons said she found it too daunting to bring her accusation to another police officer after being raped by a cop in 1998 while visiting Kansas for a wedding. So, like most victims of rape, she never filed a report. Her notions of good and evil challenged, she became enraged whenever she saw patrol cars marked "Protect and Serve."

"You feel really powerless," said Simmons, an elementary school principal in Bridgeport, Connecticut, who works with Pandora's Project, a support group for rape survivors.

Diane Wetendorf, a retired counselor who started a support group in Chicago for victims of officers, said most of the women she counseled never reported their crimes — and many who did regretted it. She saw women whose homes came under surveillance and whose children were intimidated by police. Fellow officers, she said, refused to turn on one another when questioned.

"It starts with the officer denying the allegations — 'she's crazy,' 'she's lying,'" Wetendorf said. "And the other officers say they didn't see anything, they didn't hear anything."
Click to expand...
The article provides several examples of specific cases.
 
K

kame-sennin

Member
cameron said:
And on why it's under-reported:

Diane Wetendorf, a retired counselor who started a support group in Chicago for victims of officers, said most of the women she counseled never reported their crimes — and many who did regretted it. She saw women whose homes came under surveillance and whose children were intimidated by police. Fellow officers, she said, refused to turn on one another when questioned.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Fucking, fuck.
 
DietRob

DietRob

i've been begging for over 5 years.
Just when I thought I couldn't harbor any more hatred towards the police shit like this comes up and takes it to a whole new level. Disgusting.

There are little to no consequences for these bullies so they continue to live their pathetic lives above the law.

440 out of 1000 it's not just bad apples the tree is diseased.
 
I

Iadien

Guarantee I'm going to screw up this post? Yeah.
Sex misconduct... They mean rape, right? This is such a joke, and further proves that officers are protected far too much. Sickening.
 
N

nelsonroyale

Member
That is 1000 across the US. How many officers in the US? Across the forces there is apparently 1.1 million. Still the actual count of officers abusing is probably a lot higher than 1000 figure...

Anyway it is terrible...there needs to be zero tolerance for police misconduct. Absolutely zero. I can understand how horrible this can be if it happens to you, but please don't keep it to yourself...If something like this happened to any of my family or friends, well I would do everything I could to make sure that they didn't get away with it...
 
T

Tertullian

Member
Yeah, "sex misconduct" makes it sound like officers were having consensual sex in the break room or something. How about "officers lose licenses after using their authority to rape women."

The way news stories write about police in general is bullshit and contributes to police misconduct. Phrases like "an officer-involved shooting was reported yesterday..." Try "an officer shot a man yesterday."
 
F

FelixOrion

Poet Centuriate
"It's so underreported and people are scared that if they call and complain about a police officer, they think every other police officer is going to be then out to get them."
Click to expand...

Hmmmmm I wonder why that is...
 
K

kame-sennin

Member
DietRob said:
Just when I thought I couldn't harbor any more hatred towards the police shit like this comes up and takes it to a whole new level. Disgusting.

There are little to no consequences for these bullies so they continue to live their pathetic lives above the law.

440 out of 1000 it's not just bad apples the tree is diseased.
Click to expand...

My feelings exactly. I really didn't think the police could surprise me any more. I was wrong.
 
M

Messofanego

Banned
I'm not even surprised. People in positions of power and with little consequence thanks to cop brotherhood or other venues to beat down accusations. Reminded of the Stanford Prison Experiment where normal people turned into sadistic bastards when given the guard role.
 
C

Complex Shadow

Cudi Lame™
Misconduct? Nah hommie. That's RAPE. As in, "that dude RAPED her then got sent home with a slap on the wrist and told to 'never do it again' ". These people are criminals, send them to jail ffs.
 
N

Norwegian Rudo

Member
SuperBanana said:
Many other countries see police as peace keepers, not enforcers. They also normally require you to be pretty smart and fit, unlike America where you can fail being a police officer for being too smart. Other countries generally don't rely on cops filling quotas and boosting revenue by jailing people either.
Click to expand...

Most other countries also have multi year training with considerable actual schoolwork. I would think this would discourage a significant percentage of the "easy job, good pay" variety applicants.

One of my classmates applied (and was accepted) to the police academy here, and the GPA needed was pretty damn high. Not doctor level, but high.
 
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