When you witness a police officer committing a crime, who do you call? In Chicago and other big cities, it's too easy to be brushed off. If there are officers on the scene, well, what's the problem? B-b-b-b-but it's the officers who are robbing this place. It's a police sergeant who's punching and kicking a barmaid who thought he'd had enough to drink. It's the officers who are shaking down a motorist. Are you sure? Well, you can file a report maybe, or hope other officers will be sent. If you file a report and you happen to live in Chicago, you may as well plan to move. Having the Fraternal Order of Police mad at you isn't much better than pissing off the Mafia. If other officers are sent, the guilty ones may just say "We have this under control" and the new guys will dutifully leave. Maybe have a laugh about it at a favorite cop bar later, I suspect.
Now I happen to believe that most police officers are rightly motivated. They want to uphold the law, and they're not just thugs with guns and badges. Unfortunately, some are just that, thugs with guns and badges, and even more unfortunate, the code of silence prevents other officers from cleaning up their own house. At the end of the day, it's almost part of a police officer's job description to become a silent accessory to police crime. The officer who breaks that rule may simply get the cold shoulder, or may be framed for an offense of which he or she is innocent. In the worst case, the officer who tries to do the right thing may be rewarded by being set up to be injured or killed in the line of duty. How? Easy enough. "Murphy, you're just in time. Check out the garage while we go around the house." (Failing to mention that an armed offender was just seen entering the garage.)
Over time, organized civilians can and have successfully combatted police corruption, but in a condensed period of time, when you're the witness to a crime being committed by an officer, or the victim, you're close to helpless. If you try to intervene, you're taking your life in your hands, not to mention risking a charge of interfering with an officer performing his or her duties.
Of course it can happen everywhere. Police misconduct just happens to be one of many areas in which Chicago often excels. But remember the Forensic Files episode of the officer who got a warrant to arrest his former girlfriend on the basis of completely false accusations against her 15-year-old son? This happened in a non-metropolitan area (if memory serves me correctly). The woman had begged police authorities to keep him away from her home, but he pulled off this ruse and, during a raid on her home, went immediately to her bedroom. Knowing he was there to kill her, she made a dive for a night stand where she kept a gun, and an analysis of his first shot proved that he had not acted in self defense as he claimed. It took years to bring him to trial because of the reluctance of other officers to pursue justice in the case.
So what's the answer?
Obviously we could make police officers' careers more rewarding, pay them better, and do a lot better job of recruiting. Officers who show any sign of thinking their primary responsibility is to protect their own under all circumstances rather than serving and protecting the public should be re-evaluated and, if warranted, discharged. That's a long process, and it won't happen next year or in the next five years.
What can be done is to create, in each state, a division of the state police whose primary responsibility is to police the police. If I am being abused in some way by a police officer, a witness can call an alternative to 911. Say 811 or 922 or whatever. That goes immediately to this state police division which then dispatches officers on an emergency basis. If the local police or sheriff's deputies say "there's no problem," the state officers remain, observe, and make a report.
Will people abuse it? Some will of course. Someone who did so knowingly and maliciously should face charges for making a false police report. Perhaps at times it will be a matter of opinion. If I'm drunk and obnoxious, the police may think they're only restraining me, and my wife may think they've gone beyond necessary force and are committing aggravated battery. Sorry, but justice isn't always simple. Some will say this would tie the police's hands and prevent them from doing their jobs. I say it might make them think how much blood they want investigating officers from a different jurisdiction to find on me and my clothes, and officers who tend to act out of anger and frustration might decide to take a deep breath instead. Don't we have a right to expect as much of them as the law expects of the rest of us?
It would also help to pass a federal law against police abuse, making it a crime for one officer to cover the misdeeds of another or to fail to report a crime permitted by another officer. Drastic? Not in my opinion. Isn't respect for the law something America needs more of, at all levels?
And you see, fear of police and respect for the law are not the same thing. In fact, they work against each other.
If you disagree, please feel free to tell me. With what I've written here, I might have just made a lot of police officers hate my guts. But call me an idealist if you will, I think a lot more people who wear badges will think it's high time somebody got serious about this.