Unethical Police Operations

According to the Cato institutes (2009) police misconduct is classified into five namely; criminal, procedural, individual, institutional and civil. Civil misconduct characterized as the infringement of departmental approaches. Criminal misconduct

When it comes to police officer disciplinary actions, the lines becomes thin and more difficult to read between. It is not such a black and white situation and when it comes to properly disciplining a police officer it can become difficult to do so especially when that officer has either been on the force a long time so there is an established relationship, or the inappropriate act they committed happened just once and they claim it will never happen again. These types of things make it much harder to decide what the right discipline may be for that officer.

The shooting occurred at the Fruitvale train station on January 1st, 2009. At the station, a fight broke out in one of the trains and when the train stopped the fight started again outside of the train at one of the stops. While they were fighting on the train the BART officers were called. The officers came and arrested everyone that was in the fight. A guy named Oscar Grant was in the fight and was also arrested (Meyer). While Grant was being arrested by Officer Mehserle, he resisted the officer’s attempts. Since Grant was resisting he was pushed onto the ground on his stomach to be handcuffed. Johannes Mehserle was having trouble handcuffing Grant so the other BART officers helped him. When Grant was on the ground Mehserle was going to tase him since he would not stop resisting. When Mehserle thought he pulled out his TASER, he instead pulled out his gun. Mehserle accidentally shot Grant with his gun since he thought he pulled out his TASER (Bulwa).

One additional strategy against Police misconduct that I would like to mention is the involvement of departments in becoming accredited. The goal of the organization

Recently, I saw the film, “Fruitvale Station” in which a BART police officer fatally shoots Oscar Grant. On January 30, 2010, prosecutors charged, police officer, Johannes Mehserle with murder for the shooting. He resigned his position and pleaded not guilty. Michael Rains, Mehserle's criminal defense attorney, argued that Mehserle mistakenly shot Grant with his pistol, intending to use his taser when he saw Grant reaching for his waistband. On January 30, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Morris Jacobson set bail for Mehserle at $3 million. A week later, with the help of fundraising from the police union, Mehserle posted bail.

When faced with a threat human instinct is to kill first instead of to be killed. Police are trained to disable a threat and as a last resort, kill. What does it say about America’s law enforcement when an officers’ victim is a person of colour who is unarmed? A recent and well known case of unjust demise by police is 22-year-old Oscar Grant. A young black man gunned down, whilst handcuffed, by a white police officer. Grant was unarmed and posed no threat to the officer. Similarly, 23-year-old Robert Tolan Jr. was given the same fate by an officer who allegedly received inaccurate information about a stolen vehicle. Like Grant, Tolan happened to be a black man shot by a white police officer while unarmed. No

A 2011 shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, a black driver by Jason Stockley a former white officer from St Louis resulted in a massive violent protest this September when Stockley was announced innocent and murder charges were dropped. The fact that victim was black caused such a massive outrage in the St. Louis city. Would the city respond the same however if the victim was white? It turns out no. In Fresno California unarmed Dylan Noble was shot by police. Officers had received a report of a man carrying a rifle but really just found noble speeding in his pickup truck. When he was pulled over at a gas station Noble got out of the truck and was acting suspicious.

It is one that everyone is familiar with due to its high profile coverage. Although this incident occurred in St. Louis, Missouri, it is very relevant to police shootings all over the country. As a short recap, police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed unarmed teen Michael Brown. Ultimately, Darren Wilson was not charged with any crime. Wilson, like many officers before him, argued that he was afraid for his life and therefore used his weapon in self-defense. Unfortunately, this argument has been heard many times after Michael Brown’s death as well. When Laquan McDonald was shot and killed in Chicago in 2014, Jason Van Dyke “feared for his life”; dash-camera footage, though, showed otherwise. Police personnel and city officials even went so far in this cover-up as to pay Laquan’s mother millions of dollars not to speak to the media about what happened. Although video of the shooting was available in 2014, the video itself was not released to the public until late 2015, after Rahm was re-elected to mayoral office. As more details surfaced, it then became clear to the public that not only did the officers and top law enforcement attempt to hide this incident, but the Cook County State’s Attorney was also involved. I argue that had there been more diversity on the force, or in the very least sensitivity training, maybe these officers would have seen a person and been more compassionate, instead of seeing a threat and

1 out of every 116 officers allegedly engaged in misconduct. That means in almost every police department where there is there is at least one officer who is engaging in misconduct. Already this year of

Immediately, as a reader, one would automatically assume that the officer shot the man to death, even though he was "unarmed." What the media does not show is the side of the officer. For instance, the officer claimed that the man had pointed a device towards the officers that looked like a gun, which would provide objective reason for the officer taking out his gun. Even though it ended up not being a gun, the officer did not want to find out the hard way that the man was actually armed with something that would risk his life.

It was a very tragic situation, an officer should always know who/what they are shooting at every time they pull the trigger. It is a hard story to read and the radio talk amongst the police is even worse. After the officers had fired their weapons, in the graphic footage from one of the officers body cams, you could hear the two officers talking. An officer can be heard in the footage

Oscar Grant was reported to be rowdy on the train and was shot at point-blank range. The policeman later revealed he was trying to grab his Taser not his handgun. While reading this review, the author was using present day situations such as the Zimmerman case to reflect on how two different cases can be the same but in different standpoints. Trayvon’s incident was not recorded, but Zimmerman was reported to be running behind an unarmed suspected to have a gun. The author wanted to say that cases are similar considering that both officers were not prosecuted. A better example he could have used was the Walter Scott shooting. Both men were believed to be causing a disturbance, the policeman was trying to grab their Tasers, and someone was

This article, by The Wall Street Journal, gives and update into the incident that occurred last September in Charlotte, North Carolina. Investigators found that the officer acted appropriately in the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott. The two-month investigation has proven that Scott was holding a loaded gun, dispelling testimony of family members, who claimed he was holding a book while waiting for his child at a bus stop. A detailed summery of what actually occurred was also included in the reports. Officer Vinson was one of two officers conducting surveillance in an apartment complex in Charlotte. The officers were parked near Mr. Scott, and saw that he had marijuana and a gun. The officers then proceeded to put on vests that identified themselves

The cop was shocked when he shot Grant and there was a sense of guilt to it just like George Orwell was from “Shooting an Elephant. The British cop was forced to shot the elephant for killing a man to show his authority and strength over the people of Burma that kept on taunting him. At least the elephant’s punishment was equal to the beast’s wrong doing, Grant didn’t start the fight and he deserved to live. Society always assumed that African Americans are bad and they get arrested more easily than any other ethnicity in America. However, when a Caucasian cop killed an African American man, he gets the privilege of an early release.

These types of misconduct arise throughout police jobs that include routine procedures such as traffic stops, ticket writing, directing traffic, and discouraging potential threats to those in their community. What often go unnoticed, though, are the undercover works and the corruptions that go on within a department. The four terms associated with these conflicting values are deviance, which is behavior inconsistent with the norms, values, or ethics, corruption, which is forbidden acts involving misuse of office for gain, misconduct, which is the violation of departmental procedures, and favoritism which is unfair “breaks” to friends or relatives.