"What Cops Know". Sample:
EVERYONE lies. The bad guys lie to try to get out of trouble, the victims lie to make their plight sound worse and/or to make the bad guy look worse. The truth is usually somewhere in between.Sad but true, as those of us who have had some experience with the criminal justice system can attest.
JYB Tailwag: Batesline's News-o-matic.
You forgot to mention that cops also lie. That includes such august agencies as the FBI, state police, local law enforcement agencies and district attorneys. Some want out of trouble, some want sympathy and others just want convictions, all regardless of guilt.
Yeah, they can and do lie, but not that much, Jimmy. Even if you don’t assume cops are any better than the general populace or the criminal element, the incentives for them to lie are much less and the consequences of getting caught are much greater.
In my experience cops are less likely to lie than to act out against challenges to their authority—occasionally by overzealous arrests and charges. Their authority is, after all, their lifeline and they need it to do their jobs, but some get too attached to it. These problems are, I think, of greater concern than out-and-out perjury or fabrication.
Yeah, they can and do lie, but not that much
I’m a fan of law enforcement, but the Rampart scandal in LA:The law-breaking activity among police was so pervasive that the Times concluded: “An organized criminal subculture thrived within the LAPD, where a secret fraternity of anti-gang officers and supervisors committed crimes and celebrated shootings.”shows just how pervasive malfeasance can be. More than 70 police officers implicated and over 100 overturned convictions. Take last year in VA:
11.02.2006 - ROANOKE, Va. — Henry County Sheriff H. Franklin Cassell and 12 of his uniformed employees have been indicted in a federal investigation into drug and gun dealing. … Charges include a racketeering conspiracy, firearms charges, narcotics distribution, obstruction of justice and perjury.or this year in FL:
FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA - Former Hollywood police Detectives Kevin Companion and Thomas Simcox and ex-Officer Stephen Harrison were sentenced Friday in federal court after pleading guilty to trafficking drugs in an FBI sting.and Denver’s been working on an ethics code for its police force because:
An analysis of the Police Department’s discipline database shows 11,553 misconduct allegations were investigated from January 1997 through mid-September 2006. Of those, 2,199 cases, involving 901 officers, were sustained, or 19 percent.The badness is likely due to less than 5% of the police force, but they get around.
Here’s a list of more nastiness.
