Police misconduct: Search discipline records for thousands of cops across 44 states

link to story and searchable database

Every year, tens of thousands of police officers are investigated for serious misconduct — assaulting citizens, driving drunk, planting evidence and lying among other misdeeds.

The vast majority get little notice. And there is no public database of disciplined police officers.

To create the first, journalists at USA TODAY and its affiliated newspapers across the country – and media partners including the Invisible Institute in Chicago – gathered records from thousands of state agencies, prosecutors and local police departments.

Starting with lists of officers who lost their law enforcement certification in 44 states, we are making those records available here.

USA Today has been working to compile a database of police misconduct across America and has made it available for searching or contributions here.

This is a great thing. Police officers are paid by taxes and should be held accountable for their actions. Everything they do should be open to public scrutiny. The more people are aware of the corruption and abuses that go one, the less that can be done to protect and conceal these actions. I don't think all police are bad, but there's a systemic problem with corruption and covering up misconduct that seems to have become a part of the police system over the last several decades. A lack of accountability and transparency over their actions and conduct plays a big part in this.

Just the size of this database alone shows there's a huge amount of misconduct that occurs that gets buried, or goes unaddressed and I imagine this is only a very small sample of what goes on.

I think it's a good idea! open up police union records too!

They ARE held accountable for their actions. This is a database of cops who were fired that covers many years. I looked up the police forces in my area. One or two in each. None in the jurisdiction where I live. The most common issue was false reporting. In every case I looked at there was a corresponding local news story printed at the time, sometimes several, because these firings take a long time to resolve. None of this was hidden from the public--quite the opposite. It was front page news at the time.

Also, don't jump to the conclusion that all these cases represent "police corruption." Many times this stuff is political. My brother-in-law was fired as a cop, and the corruption was that he was fired. The police chief didn't like him and just bided his time until he found an incident he could use to fire the guy. This happens in the working world quite often. People "violate corporate procedure" and get canned on the most trivial of details.

a reply to: [post=24346147]schuyler[

6 Cops in Peoria IL fired 16 bullets into a mentally disabled man armed with a grill lighter still haven't seen any news about how they "paid their dues" despicable and disgusting. Mayor raided a house over a twitter account arrested even the roommates of perpetrator of parody twitter account, city paid $$$$$ but still has corrupt mayor who ordered basically stormtroopers to raid a citizen over a joke account. He still paid too disgusting corruption sickening. How can anyone support oppression is beyond me but I did not vote for him he reminded me tooo much of a certain Adolf.

a reply to: CrazyFox

That Peoria mayor got trolled hard... have you ever seen what that kid posted on Twitter pretending to be the mayor? Stuff like “I’ll be signing tits down at the Hooters in Peoria for the remainder of the evening, I’m trill as f*** yo.” Nobody in their right mind would have believed for a second that those tweets came from the mayor.

I remember the citizens got to confront the mayor about the raid and I think it was upward of several hundred thousand dollars spent on the raid and the inevitable entrance and withdrawal of the case in the Peoria judicial system. Woo those citizens were pissed, and rightfully so. They grilled him at a city council meeting for hours!

The problem with the lack of transparency more often stems from not wanting to have to pay a million dollar settlement for having gunned down the wrong person. They’ll say they lost the body cam footage or deny the victim’s family their tax paid right to access it as evidence. They see it as their bonuses and pensions getting siphoned up into a payout that they avoid paying and they justify it to each other and to their community by telling them that settlement money is money that, if paid out to the victims, will impede their ability to protect and serve.

I support law enforcement but I unilaterally condemn corrupt cops. I’ve always said we should pay them more, give them more training and more resources, so that way we can ask more of them but even more so to eliminate the temptation of corruption. When you try to put yourself in their shoes, waking up everyday to go to a job that could kill you to do, only to be publicly shamed by radical groups like BLM, and for the little pay they receive, suddenly the idea of pocketing that kilo of coc aine or splitting that briefcase full of money with your department doesn’t seem so unjust. But then it totally is unjust.

Most of that could be fixed by simply decriminalizing most drugs, methinks.

a reply to: ColdWisdom

Most cops in Peoria earn over 100k. The man who posted his satire account etc, and he was paid well for his inconvenience they denied arresting any occupants of the house they raided like SS storm troopers, but they were arrested and there are photos to prove it. none of the other occupants whose life was disrupted were compensated. Back to the 6 cops who literally unloaded on the disabled individual armed with a grill lighter tho. I too support our boys in blue that are not corrupt, in IL those however are hard to find. I was jumped in P town defended myself gathered evidence presented it to the police was laughed at. I gave them the assaulters license plate # never ever heard anything back on it tho. 3 on 1 lucky I had martial arts background or I would have paid the victim tax.

originally posted by: vonclod
I think it's a good idea! open up police union records too!

This is where you begin.Things will take everyone right to the Union sooner than later.

Then to the People who were in Command positions of internal Investigations who kept the fraud and deceit running for decades...Prosecutors who refused to prosecute and Judges who made decisions that encouraged this abrogation of duty...the fun is just beginning

originally posted by: one4all

originally posted by: vonclod
I think it's a good idea! open up police union records too!

This is where you begin.Things will take everyone right to the Union sooner than later.

Then to the People who were in Command positions of internal Investigations who kept the fraud and deceit running for decades...Prosecutors who refused to prosecute and Judges who made decisions that encouraged this abrogation of duty...the fun is just beginning

That's right

a reply to: schuyler

They aren't held accountable.....

Killing people without justification, violating constitutional rights, assaulting citizens, shooting pets, throwing flashbang grenades in cribs, destroying businesses after destroying their surveillance cameras, driving drunk, shooting people in their own homes, raping people in their custody,*** just to name a few of the regular occurrences of police ignorance and brutality***, and getting a suspension 90% of the time......

..... is being held accountable? I'm sure there are a few million people that would disagree with you, even on a good day.

originally posted by: dothedew
a reply to: schuyler

They aren't held accountable.....

Killing people without justification, violating constitutional rights, assaulting citizens, shooting pets, throwing flashbang grenades in cribs, destroying businesses after destroying their surveillance cameras, driving drunk, shooting people in their own homes, raping people in their custody,*** just to name a few of the regular occurrences of police ignorance and brutality***, and getting a suspension 90% of the time......

..... is being held accountable? I'm sure there are a few million people that would disagree with you, even on a good day.

This all day

originally posted by: dothedew
a reply to: schuyler

..... is being held accountable? Im sure there are a few million people that would disagree with you, even on a good day.

Did you actually LOOK at the database? Did you READ what the issues were? Or did you just read some headlines in the MSM and conclude that all cops, all 900,000 of them, are bad?