Rogue cops don’t just kill people; cop rape is so prevalent there are support groups scattered across the country for people who have been raped or sodomized by police officers.
More than 1,000 cops have lost their badges in the last 6 years for committing rape, sodomy, and other sexual assaults, for possessing child pornography, and for other sexual crimes, according to the Associated Press, which conducted a Photo: Whatcha gonna do when they come for you? year-long investigation of police sexual misconduct. And those are just the ones who were caught and punished for behavior that often is unreported or unpunished, the AP says.
Many states — including California and New York — don’t even know how prevalent cop rape is, “because they have no statewide system to decertify officers for misconduct.” Cover-ups are widespread: “In interviews, lawyers and even police chiefs told the AP that some departments also stay quiet about improprieties to limit liability, allowing bad officers to quietly resign, keep their certification and sometimes jump to other jobs.”
Let’s be clear. The U.S. has nearly 18,000 police agencies, and hundreds of thousands of people work in law enforcement, the vast majority of whom are dedicated public servants who do their jobs well. Like killer cops, rapist cops are rare. But in a job that confers the power to arrest and use lethal force, even one rapist using a badge and state power to commit crimes of personal violence against defenseless citizens is more than we can stand for.
America faces a policing crisis. Fundamental reforms are needed in how cops are recruited, trained, supervised, and disciplined. One of the needed reforms is incident reporting. Most Americans probably would be shocked to learn there’s no mandatory reporting requirement, and no centralized databases — we don’t even know how many of our citizens are killed or raped by police who are supposed to keep them safe. That needs to change.
Read the story here.