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From "Know My Rights"
This past summer, a still image from a surveillance camera showing a police officer kicking a handcuffed woman in the head went viral on Facebook and email. The text below the picture read, "Rhode Island police officer Edward Krawetz received no jail time for this brutal assault on this seated and handcuffed woman. Now he wants his job back. Share if you don't want this to happen." The allegation was wild enough to pique the interest of the rumor-debunking site Snopes.com, which determined that the story was, in fact, completely true.
In March 2012, Krawetz was convicted of felony battery despite his claim that he kicked the seated and handcuffed woman in "self defense". The 10-year sentence he received was immediately suspended and Krawetz was ordered to attend anger management classes. Still, he wasn't fired from the Lincoln Police Department. The fate of Krawetz's job as a cop rested not with a criminal court, or even his commanding officer,
but in the hands of a three-person panel composed of fellow police officers -- one of whom Krawetz would get to choose. That panel would conduct the investigation into Krawetz's behavior, oversee a cross-examination, and judge whether Krawetz could keep his job. The entire incident, in other words, would be kept in the family, and the same is true of other cops in all situations of police misconduct. In the last year, a Florida narcotics detective was charged with a slew of crimes ranging from rape and torture, to embezzlement and forgery; a Virginia police officer shot a retired Sunday school teacher in the back of the head and throat as she drove out of a church parking lot; six California cops beat a homeless man into a life-ending coma; a Milwaukee police officer was arrested for sodomizing suspects; a drunk man slapped a Philadelphia cop, and the cop responded by beating the drunk man's face bloody with his baton.
These bad cops are able to keep their jobs and benefits thanks to model legislation written and lobbied for by well-funded police unions. That piece of legislation is called the "law enforcement bill of rights," and its sole purpose is to shield cops from the laws they're paid to enforce. Such laws discourage discipline and make it nearly impossible for the public to hold bad cops accountable
Read this story and more in today's edition of Know My Rights | NEWS -- http://paper.li/KnowMyRights/
This past summer, a still image from a surveillance camera showing a police officer kicking a handcuffed woman in the head went viral on Facebook and email. The text below the picture read, "Rhode Island police officer Edward Krawetz received no jail time for this brutal assault on this seated and handcuffed woman. Now he wants his job back. Share if you don't want this to happen." The allegation was wild enough to pique the interest of the rumor-debunking site Snopes.com, which determined that the story was, in fact, completely true.
In March 2012, Krawetz was convicted of felony battery despite his claim that he kicked the seated and handcuffed woman in "self defense". The 10-year sentence he received was immediately suspended and Krawetz was ordered to attend anger management classes. Still, he wasn't fired from the Lincoln Police Department. The fate of Krawetz's job as a cop rested not with a criminal court, or even his commanding officer,
In March 2012, Krawetz was convicted of felony battery despite his claim that he kicked the seated and handcuffed woman in "self defense". The 10-year sentence he received was immediately suspended and Krawetz was ordered to attend anger management classes. Still, he wasn't fired from the Lincoln Police Department. The fate of Krawetz's job as a cop rested not with a criminal court, or even his commanding officer,
but in the hands of a three-person panel composed of fellow police officers -- one of whom Krawetz would get to choose. That panel would conduct the investigation into Krawetz's behavior, oversee a cross-examination, and judge whether Krawetz could keep his job. The entire incident, in other words, would be kept in the family, and the same is true of other cops in all situations of police misconduct. In the last year, a Florida narcotics detective was charged with a slew of crimes ranging from rape and torture, to embezzlement and forgery; a Virginia police officer shot a retired Sunday school teacher in the back of the head and throat as she drove out of a church parking lot; six California cops beat a homeless man into a life-ending coma; a Milwaukee police officer was arrested for sodomizing suspects; a drunk man slapped a Philadelphia cop, and the cop responded by beating the drunk man's face bloody with his baton.
These bad cops are able to keep their jobs and benefits thanks to model legislation written and lobbied for by well-funded police unions. That piece of legislation is called the "law enforcement bill of rights," and its sole purpose is to shield cops from the laws they're paid to enforce. Such laws discourage discipline and make it nearly impossible for the public to hold bad cops accountable
Read this story and more in today's edition of Know My Rights | NEWS -- http://paper.li/KnowMyRights/
These bad cops are able to keep their jobs and benefits thanks to model legislation written and lobbied for by well-funded police unions. That piece of legislation is called the "law enforcement bill of rights," and its sole purpose is to shield cops from the laws they're paid to enforce. Such laws discourage discipline and make it nearly impossible for the public to hold bad cops accountable
Read this story and more in today's edition of Know My Rights | NEWS -- http://paper.li/KnowMyRights/
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