Bad News For Bad Cops

Once is an accident. Twice is a habit. The third time is a fetish

A little while ago I wrote an article in which I touched on this subject, but now I think it’s time to revisit it, and put some more meat on the bones.

For too long now, bad cops have had a free ride. There were several reasons for this. For instance, an almost endless march of insipid movies and tv programs portraying cops as almost super human heroes, and the more violent the better. Remember Dirty Harry being lauded as a hero for torturing a suspect.

Next, The Thin Blue Line. A police department is a closed society. By necessity they have each others backs. And they make sure it stays that way. There aren’t very many good cops who are willing to report a bad cop, for fear of retribution from his work family.

I have known my share of cops, growing up in a family with a retired cop grandfather and an uncle on the force, and I never met a cop who gave a fat rat’s ass about The Brass. The old standing joke was that the only union stronger than the police union was the Soviet Union. Police Chiefs and Commissioners lived in mortal fear of union slowdowns or sick outs in retaliation for coming down too hard on a member.

And last but not least, they were almost immune from prosecution. District Attorney’s and State’s Attorneys need the cops like kids need chewing gum. They need them to investigate, make cases, and testify. Prosecutors have been loath to take on a cop, fearing a WOE, a Withdrawal Of Enthusiasm from fellow cops working their cases, tanking their conviction rates, and costing them raises and promotions.

But after today’s verdict, we can no longer deny that we in the middle of a sea change. I have previously written that starting with Trump, we are learning that when congress refuses to act, others step up. With Trump, it was the judicial system that stood tall to man the ramparts. In this sea change, there are several heroes stepping up.

Let’s start at the back, the prosecution of police officers for on duty charges. A foundation released a report today that showed that in 2021, 21 police officers were charged with murder or manslaughter in on duty related killings, 6 more than were charged in 2020, and the most recorded since the report began in 2005. Sadly, that is a drop in the bucket of officer related deaths, but still a step in the right direction.

What brought this about? From where I’m sitting, it was public pressure brought on by the BLM movement. Nothing spurs a politician to action like pissed off voters. And while District and States Attorney’s are still loathe to prosecute cops, state Attorney Generals are a different breed of cat. They have their own attorneys and investigators, who do not deal regularly with local cops, and are less intimidated. Both Minnesota and Georgia ended up with special prosecutors in the Floyd, Arbery, and Wright cases. And all three prosecutions were successful.

There are also cracks appearing, not only in The Thin Blue Line, but also in police department fear of the police unions. In the Chicago police trial over the killing of LaQuan McDonald, multiple CPD officers testified for the prosecution. They weren’t happy about it, but they didn’t try to pull their punches either. In the George Floyd trial, several officers, including the police chief testified against Chauvin, and they were withering. And strong popular public opinion leading to referendums on ballots to either reform or defund police departments gave departments fresh wind in their sails in standing up to the unions.

But by far and away, the biggest sea change has been in the public’s attitude towards police. Again, I give the lions share of credit to the BLM movement. Before them, most people only became aware of police shootings when they happened in their own back yard. What doe somebody in Boston know about a white cop in Colorado shooting a an unarmed black man at a traffic stop? But the size, passion, and duration of the BLM protests at every new shooting made national news for days if not weeks. and that national coverage opened many people’s eyes as to just how widespread this crisis is.

The Floyd jury was a model jury, an even split between whites and non whites. The McDonald jury was majority white. The Wright was 9 whites, two Asian Americans, and one African American. And the Arbery jury was an atrocious cocktail of eleven whites and one African American. And yet, in each and every case, the juries returned guilty verdicts on the top counts of the indictments. Three of the cases convicted on all counts. White cops vs unarmed black men.

And this is the real Achilles Heel for the bad cops. Their cases are indefensible if the jury isn’t pre-disposed towards the cops. And in three of the four cases I referenced, there was every reason to believe that the jury was pre-disposed Shit, that’s why the defense put them on the jury in the first place.

The problem for the bad cops is their defense. In each case, the defense sought to turn the victim into the aggressor, the big scary black man, in two of the cases frenzied on drugs, who posed a mortal threat to the officers! In the Arbery case, all three claimed self defense, they were all in deathly fear of an unarmed black jogger that they chased down in pickup trucks, for the grievous crime of not following their orders. And the juries didn’t buy it! Amazing what things like cell phone video and body cam footage can do to fuck up your defense, huh?

I fully expect this to accelerate. These juries, mostly predominantly white, are sending a loud and clear message that they’re sick to death of police abuses. And States and District Attorneys are going to get that message loud and clear. They actually can prosecute these cases, with full public support, as long as the cases are solid. And instead of being a scarlet letter, it’s going to be a feather in their caps.

Which can mean only one thing. Bad cops are going to have to start second guessing their random interactions with minorities on the street. Because cell phones are everywhere. And unless you’re all alone in an empty park, the chances are you’re going to get caught. And even that one didn’t work out so well. A few years ago, a dude walking down a street in South Carolina caught cell phone video of a white cop drilling unarmed black motorist Walter Scott from 30′ away as he ran through an empty park, and tried planting a drop piece near his body to justify the kill. And yeah, he’s got about 20 years left on his sentence.

As I wrote in a previous article, racism is a dying ideology, the country has passed beyond it. And the same thing goes for bad cops. Their only defense for their brutality was self defense, and thanks to cell phone and body cam footage, jurors don’t buy it anymore. Accountability is to a bad cop what a wooden stake is to a vampire. Let the good times roll, it’s time to clean house.