The Damned Cops Are Out Of Control

[epronovost]

The prevalency of the occurrence (cops knowing of cop crime and saying/doing nothing) is undemonstrated.  "many many many" is not a statistic.  There is a tipping point when an occurrence of an activity becomes so generalized and common and pervasive that we can say with confidence "it's systematic."  Maybe that is the case here, but using the language of absolutism, 100%, All cops are bad, seems not only untrue but counterproductive in persuasion seeking reform.

At the very least 85 000 cops over the last decades have been investigated for police misconduct for over 200 000 different incidents. The most common incidence is being drunk or high on the job and assault and violence in second place. Unsuprisingly, the least common are sexual misconduct if only because these are rarely reported and probably much less so when a cop is guilty for them. These of course are the known case of misconduct and there is no national database for these so it's basically a list obtain through some journalistic investigation. By definition we can't know how often police officers cover for other officers misconduct since that's the entire point of "covering something". Note that there are around 800 000 thousand cops in service in any given year in the US. That could represent up to 10% of the police force. I don't think it's reasonnable to say that at such a level there is a cop with some experience that hasn't commited a misconduct, witnessed misconduct from a collegue or heard about the misconduct of a collegue.

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/i...223984002/