Adventures in Police Professionalism

Posted on Friday, May 23, 2008 @ 23:21:41 EDT in America
by Southern

Radley Balko

D.C. Police Chief Kathy Lanier rehires 17 police officers previously fired for misconduct.

Then she decides the city will arm them with semiautomatic weapons.

Sounds like a fantastic couple of ideas. What could possibly go wrong?

Meanwhile, a coda to the Kathryn Johnston botched drug raid case in Atlanta: Arthur Tesler was the only officer on the raid who didn't take a plea bargain. Despite admitting that he lied, helped cover up Johnston's murder, and stood watch outside while other officers handcuffed the bleeding 92-year-woman—allowing her to die while they planted marijuana in her basement—he was convicted today only on the charge of lying to investigators. He'll face a maximum of five years in prison.

The one good thing to come out of the case is we got to see just how vast, deep, and pernicious the culture of corruption and disregard for civil rights ran in Atlanta's police department. Tesler testified that narcotics officers were required to serve nine warrants and make two arrest per month, or they'd risk losing their jobs. This led to routine lying on warrants and bullying and intimidation of informants. What we don't know is how many people were wrongly raided, arrested, and jailed because of all of this.

Reason

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