What is Police Misconduct?

Police Misconduct occurs when an officer violates someone’s constitutional rights. This misconduct can subject the officer and the police department to both civil and criminal penalties.

• It is unlawful for an officer to engage in a pattern of conduct that deprives a person of their constitutional rights

• You must be able to show that it is a pattern- one isolated incident is not sufficient to prove a civil violation
• The court can grant you an injunction that requires the officer to stop the misconduct against you 
   
• A police officer is prohibited from engaging in practices of discriminatory misconduct
  • Again you must show that there is a pattern of discriminatory misconduct, before you can bring a case
  • Examples of civil discriminatory misconduct include:
    • harassment
    • racial slurs
    • unjustified arrests
    • discriminatory traffic stops
    • coercive sexual conduct

Criminal Police Misconduct

• A law enforcement officer cannot deprive any person of his/her constitutional rights.
• There is no requirement that the police misconduct be done in a manner to discriminate
• Examples of criminal police misconduct include:

• Using excessive force
• Sexual assault
• Intentional false arrest
• Intentional fabrication of evidence

If you think your rights were violated by the police:

• Always file a complaint first with the police department or internal affairs division. It is generally a requirement that you exhaust all of your administrative remedies first before bringing a lawsuit.
• After reporting to the police department, the next step is to report the misconduct to the United States Department of Justice or the United States Attorneys office  

Police Abuse Series-Filing a Complaint on a Officer News Video

Food For Thought

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.(Thomas Jefferson)

Report improper actions of law-enforcement. Tell your story. We are compiling a list of alleged improper police actions ,  any information on any violations by any Police Agency may be posted on this blog

List the name of the Department and the alleged violation, date occurred, with a description.

Only We the people can stop the abuse of power and government. We all must stand together to be heard!

EXSAMPLE!

Columbia Mo SWAT Raid 2/11/2010. Cops Shoot Pets With Children Present

Police raid home and shoot dog while 7 year old watches

Detroit Police shoot 7-year-old girl in house search

Aiyana Jones was fatally shot

George Hunter, Doug Guthrie and Valerie Olander / The Detroit News

Detroit — Mertilla Jones recounted the horrific death of her granddaughter this evening outside the home where the 7-year-old was killed by a police bullet.

"They blew my granddaughter’s brains out. They killed her right before my eyes," Jones said. "I watched the light go out of her eyes. I seen it."

Aiyana Jones was fatally shot early Sunday by a Detroit Police officer hunting for a murder suspect, police said. She had been asleep on a living room sofa when officers raided her east-side home.

Police arrested a 34-year-old suspect, but declined to say if he was found in the downstairs apartment where the girl was shot or in an upstairs flat they also raided.

The shooting happened at 12:40 a.m., when the Special Response Team executed a no-knock search warrant on the duplex in the 4000 block of Lillibridge. Officers rushed in after throwing a stun grenade through the glass of a front window.

The Detroit News

‘It’s not an accident’

But Fieger said the video shows an officer lobbing the grenade and then shooting into the home from the porch.

"There is no question about what happened because it’s in the videotape," Fieger said. "It’s not an accident. It’s not a mistake. There was no altercation."

"Aiyana Jones was shot from outside on the porch. The videotape shows clearly the officer throwing through the window a stun grenade-type explosive and then within milliseconds of throwing that, firing a shot from outside the home," he said.

A&E spokesman Dan Silberman said neither he nor anyone else from the network would comment about the case, and he denied a request by The Associated Press for the footage.

From msn News