1. Atrocious Rape Clearance Rates
As part of an ongoing series exploring the rate at which police departments solve the most serious crimes that plague their communities, today we turn to two more police departments that fail to solve the vast majority of rapes that happen in their respective jurisdictions:
Las Vegas, Nevada. The city’s police department has cleared just 14% of rape cases thus far in 2023, according to data Protect And Serve received from the department. Last year, the department solved just 15.5% of rape cases.
Memphis, Tennessee. As the Memphis Flyer concludes, “If you commit a crime in Memphis, odds are you’re going to get away with it.” That’s especially true if the crime is rape. In 2021, the latest year in which data is available, the Memphis Police Department solved just 17.8% of forcible rape cases. As one local lawyer told the Flyer, “They don’t clear cases … That’s the one thing we have to talk about—they don’t solve crime.”
Why don’t these police departments solve more rape cases? A lack of interest and prioritization likely top the list. In some cities, police departments still have massive rape kit backlogs to process. In other places, police use “exceptional clearance” to “close rape cases and mark them as resolved, even when there's DNA evidence that could link a suspect to an attack.” For example, police officers sometimes do this if a suspect claims that sex was consensual. And one recent study found that “66 percent of law enforcement officers reported that they had not received any training on how to read or interpret the results of a sexual assault forensic exam. [Indeed,] one participant stated that he needed to know “[h]ow to read and interpret the diagrams and language. I have to google stuff like ‘Labia Majora.’”
2. Philly Police Union Boss Says Officer Caught On Video Fatally Firing Six Rounds Into A Parked Car Has The Union’s “Full Support”.
“Mark, stop …. Move the car, Mark move the car.” That’s Philadelphia Police Officer Mark Dial’s partner trying to calm down Dial after he jumped out of his patrol car with his weapon drawn, and approached a vehicle that had been driving the wrong way down a one way street while screaming “I will fucking shoot you.” Just fourteen seconds after stopping their police vehicle, Dial fired six rounds into the vehicle, killing the driver, Eddie Irizarry.
All of this was caught on a security surveillance camera. That’s bad news for Officer Dial. At the scene of the shooting, a spokesperson for the police department said that Dial had to shoot the man because the man had charged at him with a knife and ignored commands to drop the weapon. As the New York Times put it, “none of that account appears to be true.”
Philadelphia Police Chief Danielle Outlaw fired Officer Dial, who refused to cooperate with an internal police investigation. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said the footage “contains graphic and violent images” that “may provoke anger and upset in our communities.” The Mayor said that his “heart is with the loved ones of Eddie Irizarry as they continue to grieve the loss of his life” and expressed confidence that the District Attorney's Office would get “ justice for Mr. Irizarry and his family.” For his part, the District Attorney, Larry Kranser, filed murder charges against Officer Dial, saying “the videos speak for themselves.”
And then there’s John McNesby, the controversial leader of the Philadelphia police union, who told Insider that “Officer Mark Dial has the full support of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 …”
This isn’t the first time that McNesby has sided with an officer—video evidence be damned—over a dead civilian. A Philadelphia police officer stopped a man named David Jones for driving a dirtbike on a city road. The officer and Mr. Jones got into a verbal confrontation; and then, moments later, the officer “shot Jones in the back as [he] ran away.” Protests across the city erupted. Instead of calming tensions, McNesby called the protestors “a pack of rabid animals.” He also called Black Lives Matter “a terrorist group.”
Late last year, Philadelphia settled three civil rights lawsuits against Joseph Bologna for brutalizing protestors during the protests following George Floyd’s murder. For example:
“At 10th and Market Streets, for example, a young woman appeared to tap Bologna’s bicycle tire with her foot as they passed each other while crossing the street. Bologna, then the operations commander for the department’s patrol bureau, reacted violently. He threw his bike, lunged at her, and tackled her to the ground.”
“He charged a security guard for a Fox29 reporter and struck him with the baton, ignoring the reporter who was shouting “we’re press!”
The next day, he bludgeoned a Temple University student on or near the back of his head, sparking national outrage and costing Bologna his job.” The “Temple student needed 10 staples to close a head wound ….]
“Shoshana Akins, a public participation planner at the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, who alleged in her lawsuit that Bologna ‘methodically’ twisted each of her fingers while they were zip-tied ‘to the point of nearly breaking them,’ causing injuries that required her to take medical leave until September 2020. She claimed that Bologna, while assaulting her, also whispered insults and profanity in her ear.”
In addition to the civil charges, Bologna also faced criminal charges for his behavior. Upon his arrest, John McNesby issued a statement—in support of Bologna—saying that he was “disgusted to learn of the arrest of one of its most decorated and respected police leaders. Inspector Bologna's dedication to our city for over 30 years is unmatched.”
The lesson here is for police union heads to not be like John McNesby. Going out of one’s way to defend officers despite substantial evidence that those officers violated their oath—and the public’s trust—plainly and unnecessarily extends the reputational damage to the police department.
3. Three Police Chiefs Eroding Public Trust
“Internal Report Reveals ‘Multi-Year Pattern’ Of Misconduct By Former New Hampshire Police Chief.” For WMUR, New Hampshire’s ABC affiliate, Tim Callery reports on a probe of ex-Wolfeboro police chief Dean Rondeau over allegations that he “posted inappropriate images on Facebook related to gender and sexuality.” WMUR obtained the third-party investigative report that described a “‘multi-year pattern’ of misconduct” that “violated Wolfeboro’s anti-harassment policy” after “multiple employees who described seeing Rondeau's posts on social media [as] misogynistic and illustrative of Rondeau's negative feelings about the LGBTQ community.” Investigators also highlighted other allegations of “inappropriate” behavior with subordinates: “when asked about whether he commented about women's breasts to his subordinates, Rondeau replied that it was ‘common’ and that ‘they all do this.’”
Coffee City Police Chief Suspended After Finding He “Routinely Hired Cops Who Had Been Suspended, Demoted, Terminated, Or Dishonorably Discharged From Previous Law Enforcement Jobs.” Reporting for KHOU, Houston, Texas’ local CBS affiliate, Jeremy Rogalski details the city council’s suspension of Coffee City Police Chief JohnJay Portillo after KHOU’s own investigation into the chief that found a wide range of alleged misconduct, including the hiring of officers who had previously been disciplined “for a wide range of misconduct that in some cases, included criminal charges.” KHOU’s investigation also found that Portillo “was working an extra security job at a Houston apartment complex… failed to disclose an active DWI charge out of Florida on his job application to become Coffee City’s police chief…[and found that under Portillo’s watch] Coffee City warrant officers “didn’t even work in Coffee City, [instead] they stayed home in Houston, spending their time on the phone calling people with outstanding traffic warrants and collecting failure to appear fines [so] the warrant officers were paid for each court case cleared, but state law requires full-time officers to earn at least the federal minimum wage.”
Ex-Charleston Police Chief Accused Of “Tamper[ing] With Polygraph Test” Of A Female Officer, Engaging In “Sex In The Testing Room.” For West Virginia’s MetroNews, Jeff Jenkins reports on an internal investigation of former Charleston Police Chief Tyke Hunt following a female police officer’s allegations in a complaint made to the police department that Hunt “tampered with her polygraph test during her application process with the department…[making] sure she passed the test and then the two had sex in the testing room.” The police officer also “alleged another sexual encounter” involving the former chief.