Rule Of Law News Podcast Episode #3 Transcript
https://anchor.fm/rule-of-law-news-podcast/episodes/Why-Police-Departments-Internal-Affairs-Bureaus-Do-Not-And-Can-Not-Function-Properly-To-Investigate-Allegations-Of-Police-Corruption-And-Misconduct–These-Police-Departments-That-Have-The-Blue-Wall-e40ohr/a-aet9u5
Officially, police departments’ internal Investigative Bureaus, were created for the purposes of Investigating police misconduct and police corruption. But why unofficially do they intentionally refuse to adequately investigate into allegations of police misconduct and police corruption? Why do most of these police internal affairs bureaus fail or refuse to conduct and initiate investigations upon their own initiative, or if they do decide to self initiate investigations, they are intentionally, inadequately conducted, causing the dispositions of the various cases to have predetermined outcomes of being unsubstantiated, therefore preserving the status quo. This protects the offending police departments against municipal liabilities and it protests the offending police officers against civil and criminal liabilities. Since the investigations are intentionally, inadequately investigated, no evidence or insufficient evidence is established, so the disposition of these cases are predetermined to be unsubstantiated causing the offending police officers to be protected against disciplinary action and sanctions, therefore protecting the reputation of the offending police officers and the offending police departments
When police departments are established, it is there legal duty to establish mechanisms to investigate police corruption and misconduct. The police departments have a legal duty to create, promote, perpetuate and institute a lawful police corporate culture. This ensures that environmental conditions and influences that will promote the lawful exercise of police authority through enforcement activities to effectively and efficiently reduce crime by deterring criminal behavior. This is by the threat of arrests or by effecting arrests of those committing criminal acts. Police also issue traffic and parking tickets to promote and create peace which leads to order. This is achieved by regulating citizen’s conduct and deterring violations of Traffic statutes and issuing traffic tickets to motorist committing traffic infractions. All police enforcement activity must be exercised with in the scope of the police officer’s authority and law. Police officer have no lawful authority to act beyond the scope of the law or their employment, If he does he becomes a criminal, since a criminal is one who knowingly violates the law.
The police departments legally must recruit and hire an adequate number of employees to prevent breaches of the peace and enforce the law. Applicants for employment for the police department must be suitable for employment, fit and meet requirements of job specifications. The police departments are supposed to conduct adequate investigations in to the various applicants backgrounds and if suitable for employment, then they hire them. Then police departments are supposed to adequately train the recruits then swear them in with the Oath Of Office then they become police officers. Once they are police officers they are supposed to be assigned to Field Training Officers to be further trained. If the police department has done everything according to the law so far, this will cause the new rookie police officers to act within official departmental policies and law, but there may be times where a violation of policy or law has occurs inadvertently or by accident. This would require intervention by the Field Training Officer for the purposes of instructing and re-training, so the offending officers can be guided and directed in accordance with policy and law. If the rookie police officers knowingly, willfully and intentionally disregard policy or the law, their supervisors are supposed to intervene and ensure corrective actions are taken, such as a verbal reprimand, or some other form of disciplinary action that is proportionate to the severity of the offense. This is for the purposes of deterring violators. This will ensure that police employees will comply with departmental policies and law. If any police continuously refuse to follow policy and the law they will eventually be terminated for cause. If all these conditions are present and promoted, there will be very few police officers violating official departmental policies and the law. The citizens of the community will trust the police and feel that police are with them and not against them, there will not be a us against them mentality. The law abiding citizens and police will develop a common bond through the created common experience, core values , beliefs and attitudes will be developed causing the law abiding citizens and the police be together as one. This means that the law abiding citizens and law abiding police will be working together to deter crime by exposing, detecting, apprehending and aiding in prosecuting citizens and police officers committing criminality. There will be no need to establish institutionally the “blue wall of silence” because the atmosphere or culture in the police departments is to follow departmental policies and law. Since official, lawful departmental policy is the same as the unofficial departmental policy. The Chief Of Police’s departmental policies are the same officially and unofficially, therefore there are no unlawful aspects of policies such as quotas and unlawful influences to cause police officers to commit unlawful police actions.
Police Internal Affairs Bureaus or internal investigative bureaus to investigate police are established, promoted and perpetuated to investigate police corruption and misconduct. The official stated purpose and function of these investigative bureaus are to investigate allegations of police misconduct and police corruption. When sufficient evidence is established to substantiate citizen’s complaints of police corruption then disciplinary action is supposed to be taken against offending police officers in order to intercede and take corrective action, so offending police officers do not repeat the substantiated violations. Citizens who believe that they were the victims of improper or unlawful police enforcement activity have the Constitutionally protected First Amendment Right to petition their police department for redress of grievances. If police officers have committed police misconduct or police corruption in which citizens witnessed and or were victims, they can report a citizen’s complaint of allegations of police misconduct or police corruption.. Citizens and law enforcement officers can make complaints either by phone, email, letter or an in person interview, to the Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau or precinct commanding officer or inspector.
The severity of the allegations of police corruption and police misconduct that are reported will determine how the police department prioritizes these citizen’s complaints. For example, if a police officer temporary detains a citizen on an investigatory stop because the officer has established reasonable suspicion and believes the citizen committed a crime, then investigates, but can not establish probable cause for a lawful arrest, so he advises the citizen that he free to go. If this citizen decides to make a report and allege allegations of police misconduct such as the officer was discourteous, cursed, committed an improper and unreasonable search or unreasonable seizure to the citizen, then most police department’s internal affairs Bureaus would refer the complaint to the commanding officer or the inspector of the precinct in which the alleged offending police officer is assigned to. The issuance of the complaint to the internal affairs bureau will cause the initiation of an investigation to occur.
A second example would be that, this citizen was falsely arrested since probable cause was not established. If this citizen recorded allegations of police corruption and being falsely arrested in his complaint to the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau, these allegation would be investigated primary by the Internal Affairs Bureau because the allegations are much more severe then just a civilian being treated discourteous or cursed at.
Generally an investigation is initiated upon receiving a citizen’s complaint of allegations of police misconduct or police corruption. This occurs when the police department is officially put on notice by the complainant disclosing and recording a complaint. If the Internal Affairs Bureau or commanding officer of the precinct determines that the allegations in a citizen’s complaint are not a violation of administrative policy or of law, the complainant is supposed to be contacted and informed of the disposition of his case. The determination would be considered baseless. Since the subject police officer did not act beyond the scope of his authority or law, therefore no violation has occurred. The citizen’s complaint would be closed out with a determined disposition of unsubstantiated and unfounded allegations of police misconduct. This active and on-going investigation would be terminated upon determination of disposition that is rendered for this case.
Training police recruits in the police academy to only follow official departmental policy, law and their Oath Of Office will ensure that after these police recruits graduate the police academy that they will not follow and will refuse to follow any unofficial unlawful departmental policies that supersedes or are inconsistent with official lawful departmental policies. When police recruits graduate the police academy it is critical that they are assigned to Field Training Officers that has and will follow official departmental policy, law and their Oath Of Office. These Field Training Officers influence and determine whether the new rookie police officers will be oriented in a moral, lawful direction or a immoral, unlawful direction, when conducting law enforcement activities. If the Field Training Officers emphasize that the U.S. Constitutional and the state constitution supersedes any law, administrative policy, statute, regulation, ordinance, code or policy that is inconsistent with it or contradicts it.
For example: if a citizen is filming a government building or a police officer
while on public property. pursuant to Common Law Right of Inquiry, a police
officer can approach the citizen filming and ask him what he is doing. The citizen
can not be lawfully detained by the police officer because there is no reason
to believe that a crime was committed and there is no reasonable articulable
facts to establish reasonable suspicion. Maybe the police officer believes that
the photographer is acting suspicious or he has a hunch that the photographer
is or has committed a crime, but these are unsupported beliefs. Being or acting
suspicious is not the same legally as the legal standard of reasonable
suspicion which is established when the police officer has reasonable articulable
facts to legally justify verbally that he has reason to believe that the
photographer has, is or is planning to commit a crime. If the citizen refuses
to identify himself and refuses to state his business for filming upon request or
demand by the police officer, there is no lawful basis for detaining the
citizen, the citizen does not have a legal duty to be cooperative, he has no
duty to disclose pursuant to the 4th and 5th. Amendment of U.S Constitution. Many corrupt police
officers will lie and state in a demanding manner to the person filming that
the photographer has to disclose his identity and disclose his purpose for what
he is doing. If the photographer photographing knows the law, he will refuse to
disclose any information and ask the officer, am I free to leave? Then if the
officer does not answer, he will ask him am I being detained? And if the
officer says yes the photographer will ask the police officer what crime do you
suspect me of committing? The police are taught to always be in control, so to
reassert control the police officer will start getting more demanding while repeatedly
asking for identification and purpose for photographing and he may even
threaten to or arrest the photographer if he refuses to comply with the
responding police officers unlawful coercive demand. The act of gathering news
is activity of the press and is
protected by the First Amendment of the U.S Constitution. If the police officer
threatens to arrest or arrests the photographer for failure to comply with his
demand to stop photographing and or for not leaving, he is violating the law
and his Oath Of Office and should be fired, charged with multiple crimes and
then prosecuted. If the police officer is corrupt he will arrest the
photographer and falsely charge him with such crimes as disorderly conduct,
resisting arrest, asaulting a police officer, trespassing, obstructing
governmental administration, interfering with a police investigation and there
are many other crimes he could choose from. Very rarely will the police office
put in the arrest report that the sole basis for the arrest was for
photographing, since photographing is constitutionally protected activity and this
arrest on its face would be obviously a false arrest, The field sergeant would conspire by directing
and guiding the offending police officer to cover up the false arrest by falsifying
police reports, so the arrest would look on its face legitmate. Documenting and falisifying business records so the false
charge or charges appear legitmate is called a cover charge. This false charge
would make it appear plausible that the arrest was legitimate and protect the
offending police officer from criminal liability, civil liability and
disciplinary action.
A second example is if a person is handing out political brochures in an
airport or a government building in a public area or common area and not interfering
with operations and the security calls the police. When the responding police
officer makes contact with the person and elicits information as to his purpose
for disseminating information, and he refuses to be deterred from exercising
his Constitutionally protected First Amendment Right, the police officer must
legally not interfere with his Constitutional protected activity, because a law,
statute, regulation, code ordinance or policy that is in conflict with the U.S
Constitution and/or the state constitution is null and void. If the police
officer threatens to arrest him if he does not leave or if the police officer
arrests him for Criminal Trespass for refusing to leave, he has committed
multiple crimes and has violated his Oath Of Office, therefore the offending
police officer should be fired,
charged with multiple crimes and prosecuted. The police officer has acted under
color of law or appearence of law and violated the Constitutional Rights of the
person dessiminators political information. If sued the offending police
officer and the police department could be civilly liable under 42 USC section
1983. Also the police officer could be criminally liable pursuant to 18 USC
section 242 for Deprivation of rights under color of law. If two or more police officers are involved in
deprivation of rights they would be criminally liable pursuant to 18 USC 241
which is Conspiracy against rights.
The police office swears to an Oath Of Office Which is “I, (NAME) do
solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of
the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear
true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely,
without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and
faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So
help me God.”
The transition from honest lawful police departments to dishonest unlawful
police departments is initiated, established, promoted and institutionalized by
government officials that have authority and power to influence the chief
policy makers in the police departments such as the Chief Of Police and the Sheriff.
This is an actual case that was published on a Youtube channel LRJTV. This
video is titled “Exposed Police Chief Pushing Ticket Quotas” in which
the mayor of Bethel Heights, Arkansas
encouraged, instructed and demanded that the Chief Of Police, Don Mckinnon of the Bethel Heights
Police Department institute illegal quotas for arrests and traffic tickets. An
honest BHPD police officer named Timothy Brasuell, audio recorded his Chief Of
Police instructing, directing, guiding and strongly requesting or demanding
that traffic ticket quotas and arrest quotas be meet by any means necessary,
even if his police officers have to commit police misconduct, police corruption
or commit violations of the law. The Chief Of Police is quoted on surreptitious
audio recordings while talking to police officer Timothy Brasuell as stating,
“we’ve got to do something with this traffic. The numbers are way way low.
You only get those numbers (he is referring to numerical quotas)if you’re doing
traffic stops.” The Chief Of Police also states how he uses unlawful
method for performing traffic stops etc. He is quoted as saying “If I seen
a vehicle I could always find some reason to stop them. Even if I made them do
something stupid. (The Chief Of Police is referring to unlawfully provoking a
motorist to react in a manner to cause the appearence of reason suspicion to be established so the
chief can perform the traffic stop and issue traffic tickets or even make
arrests.) He is also quoted as stating, I want to stop that car load of dumb
shits in the car. I want to stop it but they are not going to do anything
wrong. Hell I’ll get behind or the other lane and I’d start crowding them, kind
of dirty pool, but I got two or three arrests out of it.
Bethel Heights Police Officer Timothy Brasuell disclosed the audio recordings to the media, the county
prosecutor and the Mayor, Jeff Hutcheson, then the media interviewed the mayor
and he publicly stated it is an internal matter and that’s what we are saying at
this point. The mayor hopes a resolution will come soon and the county
prosecutor sent the audio recordings to the sheriffs office, but the sheriff
stated the details in the audio recording are too slim to investigate, because
there are no named victims and no dates of wrong doing.
The reason why the mayor stated that it is an internal matter when being
interviewed by media is that he caused the unlawful conditions to influence the
Chief Of Police to establish unlawful unofficial departmental policies that superseded
portions of lawful official departmental policies that hindered, obstructed and
prevented the implementation of an illegal numerical quota system for Traffic
tickets and arrests. These ticket quotas were all about unlawfully extracting
fines through robbery by corrupt revenue enforcement police officers. Robbery
is defined as taking the property of another with the intent to permanently
deprive the person of that property, by means of force or the threat of the use
of force. Also the mayor created the illegal conditions in which the Chief Of
Police established illegal arrest quotas. which most definitely lead to false
arrests, kidnappings, Abuse of processes and civil rights violations etc. Which
means that the various offending police officers, the Chief Of Police and the Mayor are criminally culpable
and civilly culpable for committing or causing the various violations to occur.
These illegal quotas implicate Municipal liability also. The County prosecutor turned
the case of allegations of police misconduct and even police corruption along
with the audio recordings over to the local sheriff’s office for investigation.
The Sheriff’s Office said the details are too slim to investigate, there are no
named victims and no dates of wrong doing. If the Sheriff wanted to
substantiate the allegations of corruption caused by or are being committed by
the Mayor, the Chief Of Police who is the chief policy maker of the police
department and the various offending police officers, the sheriff would have to
interview and interrogate the Chief Of Police about his unofficial unlawful
policies which lead to a pattern and practice of unlawful police action as a
result of establishing these quotas. The sheriff would need to obtain dash cam
and body worn camera video recordings of the traffic stops and arrests. Also
the sheriff would obtain performance records of police personal to determine
what the minimum number of traffic tickets were issued before a police officer
was disciplined, this would establish the department’s minimum ticket
requirement or quota. Also what was the minimum number of arrests allowed
without disciplinary action taking.
The criminals in this case are the Mayor, Chief Of Police, the offending police
officers, the County Prosecutor
and the County sheriff. They are all conspiring to commit criminal acts and
conspiring to cover up many different violations of law civil and criminal.
This is why the Mayor stated to the public that this is an internal matter,
because if the sheriff would have broadened the scope and increased the depth
of the investigation so it was adequately investigated, all of these politicians
would be charged, arrested and prosecuted for conspiring to cover up and commit
multiple crimes.
When the governor, mayor, county executive or sheriff etc. exert extensive influence
and control in a direction that emphasizes being practical, efficient,
expedient, “necessary” and by any means necessary even if it is
contrary to law. These newly established expectations and influences cause sheriffs
and chiefs of police to disregard portions of their official lawful departmental
policies and establish, promote and perpetuate unofficial unlawful departmental
policies, that are either unlawful on its face or as applied. The portions of
official lawful departmental policy that interfere or hinder the implementation
of the unlawful agenda of the Sheriff or
Chief Of Police influenced by the governor, the mayor or the county executive.
For example, if the mayor wants to get re-elected, he decides it is beneficial
and necessary to become obsessed with crime prevention and the public’s perception
of crime. If his Chef Of Police is acting lawful while fighting crime, but not
causing crime to be reduced to the mayors satisfaction, the mayor then decides
that promoting crime fighting measures that are with in the scope of the law
are unnecessary hindering, the reduction of crime and the perception of declining crime being low enough, so the
mayor exerts undue influence and the Chief Of Police changes his strategy from
lawful crime fighting policies and
lawful crime fighting measures and starts to fight crime in any manner that is practical,
necessary, expedient and even in violation of law.
Now these police departments begin to establish, promote and perpetuate two sets
of departmental policies one for the public, which is official, lawful
departmental policy and one for achieving the new unofficial, unlawful departmental policies to support and promote
the illegally created new departmental agenda, which is unofficial, unlawful
departmental policy for crime prevention and enforcement of laws.
If the mayor is campaigning for re-election and wants to bribe constituents to
vote for him, he can invent ways to increase revenue so he can increase welfare
and social services. This is achieved by stealing and extracting money from the
working class people by Issuing more traffic and parking tickets. This will
increase revenue for the mayor. To cause increases in revenue, he will exert
undue influence on the Chief Of Police and cause him to change portions of
official, lawful departmental policies that interfere with and prevent the maximizing
of revenue from the issuance of traffic and parking tickets. This new influence
will cause the police departments to create ticket quotas which will cause changes
in portions of the official lawful departmental policies and become superseded
by portions of the newly created unofficial, unlawful departmental policies.
The mayor’s obsession with getting re-elected causes expectations of unlawful
police action and influences the chief of police to create quotas for
investigatory stops, such as stop, question and frisk and arrest quotas. This
newly created influence will cause the chief of police to change portions of
the official, lawful departmental policies that hinder and interfere with
maximizing the initiating of investigatory stops by police officers and maximizing
the number of arrests made by police officers as a result of creating and
enforcing quotas. The creation of numerical quotas causes portions of official,
lawful departmental policies to be superseded by newly created portion of unofficial,
unlawful departmental policies. The police department will follow the official,
lawful departmental policies only when it does not hinder the departments from
achieving the promotion of its illegal agenda through the use of quotas. Arrest
quotas will directly cause many citizens to be improperly and unlawfully arrested
even though no crime was committed and no probable cause was established. In
other words, the police department will try to adhere to portions of the
unofficial, unlawful policies only when necessary to promote its illegal agenda,
but they will not let the public know about the discrepancies. Because these discrepancies
will reveal their intentions and motives which are that, the police departments
and their police and civilian employees are intentionally, willingly, knowingly
and with deliberate indifference violating various laws continuously for gain
or profit.
These newly established quotas are the significant influences to maximize
revenue from the issuance of traffic and parking tickets. Quotas are used to maximize
police enforcement activity and cause proactive policing to occur for
initiating investigatory stops, and making arrests, which significantly
influences and causes police officers to violate the law, departmental policies
and their Oath Of Office. But if there was no numerical quotas these same
police officers would not have committed such violations.
When police officers do not satisfy the requirements
of the various quotas and are disciplined, this cues or signals that
disciplinary action will be taken against non-complying police officers who do
not meet numerical quotas. The severity of the punishment or sanctions from the
police department for not satisfying numerical quotas will determine the level
of compliance for meeting quotas. If the police officers that are
underperforming because they do not meet quota requirements are disciplined
multiple times, this could allow the police department to establish cause for eventually terminating
the underperforming police officers for not meeting quotas. This fear of
termination will cause most police officers to satisfy quotas in any manner
they can, lawfully or unlawfully. Police officers that are not able to lawfully
issue a sufficient amount of traffic and
parking tickets will start to unlawfully issue bogus tickets to satisfy quotas,
since they have not noticed a sufficient amount of traffic and parking infraction
to lawfully issue the numerical requirements of the quotas.
When police officers observe citizens acting in a manner that establishes reasonable suspicion they can lawfully detain the various citizens for an investigatory stop to ascertain whether a crime is afoot or has been committed, but what if there is not a sufficient number of citizens whose behavior establishes reasonable suspicion for the purposes of performing investigatory stops? This means that the police officers will be coerced, threatened and required to unlawfully perform investigatory stops with out satisfying the reasonable suspicion legal standard for lawfully detainning a person. This is because they must satisfy the department’s investigatory stop quotas.
Police departments that have quotas to establish minimum levels of proactive
law enforcement activities, emphasize numerical quotas and deemphasize
qualitative quotas. These numerical quotas create conditions and situations
where police officers feel a sense of urgency, desperation, dread and fear of
not satisfying quotas. This causes them to prioritize numerical quotas over exercising any in depth
law enforcement activities such as prolonged investigations for the purpose of
detecting complex crimes while establishing sufficient evidence for arrests and
in aiding the District Atterney’s Office in prosecuting these various cases. This is because police
officers are primarily worried about numbers based on quotas and their priorities
are not primarily on crime prevention. Since the police officers only focus is on
satisfying these quotas, this influences and causes them to have imparied
judgement leading to the abuse of discretion when issuing Traffic and Parking tickets,
when initiating investigatory stops and when making arrests where not legally warranted.
This is the reason why about 90% of police officers will violate official,
lawful departmental policy and violate the law knowingly, willingly,
intentionally and with deliberative indifference to the law and citizen’s
Constitutionally protected Rights. These police officers violate their Oath Of
Office on their routine preventive patrols or while assigned to specialized
divisons or details while on their daily tours of duty.
Police Internal Affairs Bureaus and their investigators are not authorized and are
discouraged from taking seriously citizen’s complaints of allegations of police
misconduct or police corruption. Those who make legitimate complaints about
being victims of unlawful police actions such as police misconduct and police
corruption such as being issued bogus
traffic tickets or bogus parking tickets, or being unlawfully detained as a
result of an investigatory stop without reasonable suspicion, or being
unlawfully arrested with out satisfying the probable cause standard.
How can police internal affairs bureau’s investigators initiate an
investigation or even adequately investigate the allegations in the various
citizen’s complaints, when most of the various allegations would be
substantiated, corroborated and even proven to be true. Why would the Police Internal
Affairs Bureau’s investigators adequately investigate the offending police
officers in the departments with illegal quotas and influences? The offending police officers are just
reacting to the influences and doing their “job” according to
unofficial, unlawful departmental policies and quotas. The police departments
are promoting and condoning unlawful police action because they are deriving many benefits from these unlawful
police practices such as increased revenue, the public’s perception of
reduction in crime or an actual reduction in crime and maybe even more or
larger federal grants for crime prevention. Why would police internal affairs
bureaus substantiate or prove the allegations in the various citizen’s complaints?
If police internal affairs bureaus
substantiated all allegations in complaints that were provable and they
rendered a disposition of substantiated, this would establish and create an
official record that the offending police officers were found guilty of
following portions of the police departments unofficial, unlawful policies which
are quotas.
This is why these Police Internal Affairs Bureaus are unofficially not for the
primary purpose of investigating police misconduct or police corruption and in
truth they are nothing but public
relations bureaus. But officially to the
public, the internal affairs bureaus are perceived to be an
investigative entity with the purpose and authority to investigate citizen’s
complaints of allegations of police misconduct and police corruption. Also the
internal affairs investigators are supposed
self initiate investigations into police actions that appear to be on
the boarder of violating departmental policy and law. This does not happen and
is a lie. In reality, the investigative entity is defined by how it actually
functions and its real purpose and not the officially and publicly stated
reasons, which is a misrepresentation and is fraudulent.
These are some of the methods that police internal affairs bureaus use to
discourage, limit, frustrate or prevent citizen’s from making complaints of
allegations of police corruption and police misconduct. If a citizen calls to
make a complaint the internal affairs agent may disconnect the call several
times and then allow your call go to voice message and when you leave a message
for them to call you back, they may call you back after many days of waiting or
not call you back at all. The Internal Affairs Investigator may try to rush you
off the phone, he may over talk and interrupt you, many times to break your
train of thought, to confuse you, so you forget to disclose relevant, material and
competent information or evidence. Also this is done to frustrate and discourage
you from making a complaint. Because a complainant with little motivation will
decide not to make a complaint since it requires too much effort. Also they may
lie to the complaint and say that the allegations are insignificant and not
relevant because the complained about police office has not violated the law or
departmental policy even though he has committed violations. Also when the
citizen attempts to makes a complaint the internal affairs could tell the
complaint that he could be arrested for making a false report or as the allegations are being disclosed the
investigators will intentionally fail to adequately document pertinent
information. This is done for the purposes of not establishing leads and not adequately
establishing evidence to prove alleged violations. Internal Affairs Bureaus may
falsify documents by intentionally inaccurately paraphrasing instead of quoting
verbatim essential facts or they may lie and say that the complaint stated
something it did not. This is why it is necessary to request that the internal
affairs investigator read back to the complaint what verbatim the investigator
documented and not allow him to state
what you said in a paraphrase. Also investigators will try to intentionally limit
the depth and scope of the investigation pertaining to allegations in the
complaint of the complainant. The depth and scope of an investigation is
determined by the extent of evidence and whether it implicates the top
officials or whether the scope is widen because then the evidence could
implicates all the percincts or the boroughs etc. If the depth of the
investigation is not intentionally limited and these allegations implicate top
brass and maybe the mayor, they could be exposed. Also if the scope of the
investigation is not intentionally limited and the allegations implicate many
police officers this could reveal a pattern and practice in all police
precincts in the subject police departments. The internal affairs bureau sometimes
refuses to take a complaint. If the internal affairs takes a complaint, this
does not mean that they are serious about investigating police misconduct and
corruption. They will usually give it the appearance that cases were and are adequately
investigated, even though they were not and the disposition of these cases
would be predetermined to be unsubstantiated or unfounded, since they do not
want to implicate the offending police departments and the offending police
officers for following unofficial, unlawful departmental policies, in order to
satisfy unlawful quotas. After a complaint is made they may tell you not call
them and they will call you if they need any more information and they will
never get back to the complainant to disclose the disposition of the case.
This is why in New York,
police personal records including
disciplinary action taken against any offending police officer are not
available for public inspection. New York Civil Rights Law 50-a bars disclosure
of police personnel records to the public. The official stated reason creating
this law was to prevent disclosure of “unverified and
unsubstantiated” civilian complaints. It was not to prevent disclosure of
substantiated civilian complaints. But the real unofficial purpose is to shroud
evidence of police misconduct from the public. New York State’s Committee on
Open Government in its annual report, stated that police misconduct in New York
State is more secretive than in any other state in the nation, and without
transparency, officers are less accountable to the communities they serve.
“No other state in the country hides police misconduct from the public
like New York,” said Phil
Desgranges, Chair of the City Bar’s Civil Rights Committee. “Civil Rights
Law 50-a has become a means to shield officers from public accountability and
it impedes racial justice. The Legislature should repeal it so New
York can catch up to other states that prioritize
accountability and public trust over secrecy.”
If New York Civil Right Law 50-a were repealed there would be major repercussions
for New York’s offending police
departments and the offending police officers. Any citizen’s complaint of
allegations of police misconduct or police corruption which were substantiated
could put these offending police officer’s jobs in jeopardy, especially if the substantiated
allegations undermines the offending police officer’s credibility, which would
cause their character to be impeached in court under discovery. These police
officers would have to be put permanently on modified duty and be assigned a
desk job, because if they were out enforcing laws and making arrests, at trial
the prosecutor would not be able to get any convictions with these problem
officers since they have tainted disciplinary histories. New
York’s Public Officers Law has established safeguards
in place which prevents only New York
police personnel records from being disclosed when they constitute an
unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, are complied for law enforcement
purposes, or endanger the life or safety of any person among other
circumstances.
If all allegations from citizen’s complaints including unverified and
unsubstantiated allegations were disclosable, this would expose why the
Internal Affairs Bureaus intentionally inadequately investigates and comes to a
predetermined conclusion in 95 percent of dispositions in cases of alleged
police corruption are intentionally not verified so the conclusion would be
unsubstantiated. This disposition presently makes all of these cases of police
corruption non-disclosable under New York Civil Rights Law 50-a. and New York
State Freedom Of Information Law.
How can police internal affairs bureaus whose police
departments have unofficial, unlawful departmental policies and illegal quotas,
over see and investigate their own police departments and its offending police
officers? These internal affairs bureau’s investigators are employed by the
same police departments and their chief policy makers are either the Chief Of
Police or the Sheriff. These chief policy makers created, promoted, perpetuated
and instituted unofficial, unlawful police departmental policies leading to
unlawful patterns of police practices resulting in illegal quotas. These
unlawful policies created the conditions that influence the police officers to violate the law to
satisfy quotas, out of fear of being terminated.
If these findings and facts were to be revealed publicly
this would implicate the various police departments and their police internal
affairs bureaus in Municipal liability, Continuing Criminal Enterprise, the
RICO Act civil and criminal, False arrests, falsifying business records or police
reports, tampering with evidence, tampering with witnesses, kidnapping,
unlawful searches and unlawful seizures or detainment and various violations of other laws go on
and on.
If the police internal affairs bureaus adequately
investigated allegations of police misconduct and police corruption they would
substantiate many more citizens complaints of allegations of unlawful police
practices and violations of official, lawful departmental policy. If a citizens
complaint of allegations of police corruption and violations of law were
substantiated the disposition of the case would indicate that the offending
police officer was guilty of criminality. Then the police internal affairs
bureaus would have a legal duty to refer the case for prosecution, to the DA’s
Public Corruption Division, since the offending police office committed a
crime. If a citizen makes a complaint and the disposition is substantiated pertaining
to allegations of police misconduct the internal affairs could refer the case
to the department for an administrative trial and then render a decision, which
would lead to disciplinary action. If a citizen makes a complaint and
allegations were substantiated that the police office committed a minor infraction
of policy, this determination can be disclosed to offending police officers
supervisor for disciplinary action.
In conclusion, why would the police internal affairs bureaus want to
investigate any complaint adequately, to verify and prove the allegations in
the civilian’s complaint, because the chief policy maker the, Chief of Police
created the conditions to cause 90% of the police officers to act beyond the
scope of their authority and violate many laws. If the police internal affairs adequately
investigated and substantiated the allegations and severely punished the
offending police officers, why would police officers meet or satisfy any of the
quotas? Since police officers would be fearful that citizens would make complaints
against the offending officers for unlawful police practices and that the
disposition of the investigations would be substantiated causing disciplinary
action to be taking against the offending officers.
The police internal affairs Bureaus are not going to discourage and condition
police officers to not meet quotas, since the Chief Of police established,
promoted and instituted the unofficial, unlawful departmental policies that
encouraged, influenced and caused the offending police officers to violate the
law, for the purposes of satisfying the various quotas. If the internal affairs
investigators decided to adequately investigate and adequately discipline offending
police officers Internal Affairs investigators would be threaten with disciplinary
action and eventually terminated for
cause. Because the Chief Of Police is their supervisor and chief policy maker of
the department and he has the last work about whether the police department
follows or violates the law.
When the chief policy maker, such as the Chief Of Police or Sheriff of the a
police department establishes unofficial unlawful departmental policy which supersedes
portions of official lawful departmental policy whether it be for quotas or any
other unlawful purposes, these newly established influences from the unofficial,
unlawful portions of policy causes there to be a need to shield unlawful police
actions with the creation of the “Blue Wall Of Silence”. This Blue
Wall Of Silence is the creation of police departments Chief Of Police or Sheriff.
If official lawful policy is the same as the unofficial policy and the official
lawful policy is adequately enforced, there is no need to create a “Blue
Wall Of Silence” because the police are following official lawful policy
there are no institutionalized corrupt police practices to shield from the
public view, so there will be no “Blue Wall Of Silence.” These police
officers will not be living a hypocritical and double life.
Rule Of Law News 