Three Things To Read This Weekend
1. New Poll: Voters Strongly Support “Zero Tolerance” Policy When Police Officers Commit Domestic Violence
Protect and Serve recently reported on the Las Vegas Police Department’s troubling history of officer-involved domestic violence. Though many small police departments across the country have established domestic violence policies—and The International Association of Chiefs of Police even issued a model policy for domestic violence committed by police officers—a Protect and Serve public records investigation found that the LVPD has no specific policy for how to handle officers alleged to have committed an act of domestic violence.
To understand what policies the public thinks police departments should have in place for officers found to have committed domestic violence, Protect and Serve commissioned a national survey of 638 likely voters, which found:
Voters overwhelmingly support zero tolerance policies. 86% of voters support “the adoption of a zero tolerance policy for domestic violence committed by police officers, which means that if there is a credible finding of domestic violence, that officer will be fired from the force.”
Voters want police chiefs to prioritize the adoption of a written domestic violence policy: 81% of voters indicate that it should be “one of their top priorities” (42%) or “a major priority” (39%) for a police chief to “use their discretionary power to have a written comprehensive police on domestic violence.”
Voters want mayors and city managers to ensure police departments enforce zero-tolerance for domestic abuse policies: 79% of voters indicate that it should be “one of their top priorities” (46%) or “a major priority” (33%) for mayors and city managers to “use the discretionary power of the city to ensure the police department enforces a zero-tolerance domestic violence policy.”
2. California Policing In Crisis
“Thousands of California police officers could be stripped of their badges under new law.” Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, Sophia Bollag reports:
“California’s police standards commission is bracing to decertify or suspend 3,000 to 3,500 police officers each year for serious misconduct under a new state law, according to estimates from the commission. The estimates suggest the police officers engaging in serious misconduct in any given year could represent a significant percentage of the roughly 90,000 officers working in California … Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the law giving the commission the power to decertify police officers in 2021, bringing California in line with the vast majority of other states that already had a process to strip officers of their certification for serious misconduct. Such offenses can include using excessive force, purposefully obtaining a false confession, intimidating witnesses, joining a law enforcement gang and sexual assault.”
“Four San Jose police officers face termination.” With San Jose still reeling from allegations that the San Jose police union executive director smuggled a fentanyl analogue into California, a new scandal broke this week with four San Jose Police officers facing termination over allegations of official misconduct, as Damian Trujillo reports for NBC’s local affiliate in the Bay Area:
“Detective Ismael Lemus was arrested last year on charges of using a retired patrol car as his personal vehicle without permission….A second officer is accused of running the license plate of a woman he met at a community event and then later showing up at her door… The last two officers responded to a domestic violence call and left without making any arrests, sources said. They are facing potential termination because the suspect in that case returned later in the evening and killed the victim.”
A Deep Dive Into “$70M in SF law enforcement settlements.” Reporting for Mission Local, Will Jarrett released the first in a multi-part investigation into recent civil settlements involving the city’s law enforcement officers. Here are the highlights:
“From 2010 to May 2023, San Francisco settled some 1,750 lawsuits involving police officers, deputies, and other law enforcement staff. That works out to roughly one settlement every three days. The cost to taxpayers: Roughly $70 million. Plus legal fees. [The settlements] encompass a veritable panoply of alleged misconduct, including police shootings, a reported county jail ‘fight club,’ cops fired for whistleblowing, and scores of clashes that resulted in broken bones.”
3. Police Behaving Badly:
“Seadrift police chief fired for sexual harassment.” For Star Local Media, DD Turner reported on last week’s firing of Seadrift, Texas Police Chief Leonard Bermia after an independent investigation found that he sexually harassed a subordinate. Here’s the kicker from the investigative report: “In short, the city’s sexual harassment policy prohibits seven types of misconduct. I conclude that [Bermea] violated every single one of the seven prohibitions.” The report also described the Chief’s behavior as “unwelcome, unilateral and without consent.” Finally, the report concluded that “Chief Bermea was repeatedly dishonest in his testimony during the investigation.”
South Carolina Police Chief Resigns After Screaming Racial Slurs. According to WYFF, South Carolina’s NBC television news affiliate, Easley Police Chief Stan Whitten resigned after witnesses reported that he started an argument with a Hispanic family near a boat landing at a popular local lake. When the family asked the Chief to move his vehicle so that the family could exit, witnesses say that the Chief, who appeared “visibly intoxicated,” “walked over to the family …. yelled profanities, and called them racial slurs in front of their children.”
Police Union Throws Tantrum Over Officers Fired After Paralyzing A Man In Their Custody. New Haven Police Chief Karl Jacobson was “sending a message” of zero-tolerance for excessive force when he recommended to the department’s oversight board that it fire four police officers who were accused of causing the paralyzation of Randy Cox, a man in their custody, according to reporting from Paul Bass in the CT Mirror. The city also settled a related civil suit for $45 million.
Instead of leaning into the accountability push, the New Haven Police Union released a statement suggesting that the police chief was bending over backwards to please “cop-haters” and predicted that “the cop-haters are still not satisfied, but it will be too late. The NHPD will remain directionless and frozen, and Chief Jacobson and his administration will never be able to bring it back...”
A retired New Haven assistant police chief, John Velleca, weighed in against the union’s position, telling the CT Mirror, “Those are fireable offenses. I’m sorry if my brothers and sisters in the union don’t believe that. But the truth is the truth. And reality is the reality. These are not days when we have to rely on somebody’s perception of what happened anymore. We have a video.”