Anyone whos has seen or heard of the George Floyd video should be rightfully appalled. There are most likely many such incidents that don't result in deaths or are not recorded, that occur many times each day.
As long as we hire human beings as Police Officers, we will see some bad behavior. We probably don't hear very often about the things great Police Officers do every day, but that's the nature of the beast.
Sadly, I think any Police Chief or Police supervisor worth their salary, knows immediately who their problem Officer's are. The real question is what have they done to curtail their problems and address bad behavior before it escalates.
The problem is many Chief's and supervisors are unwilling to deal with the consequences of taking bad Police Officer's head on before the next George Floyd.
Police Union's have become more about protecting bad officer's and winning their job's back than in actually looking out for the good officers and protecting them
The "no snitching" mentality is alive and well in just about every Police Department. Good cops, for whatever resaon tend to cover for "bad " cops. Its just the nature of the culture and good Officers who do go beyond and report bad behavior, usually find themselves as the outcasts because they reported a bad cop.
Last summer I received calls from Officer's about an incident on a Northend street. When I asked to see the body cam footage of the incident, I was told by two high level HPD officers that the officer's in question "left the office and forgot their body cameras" Now isn't that convenient, and what discipline or corrective action was eventually taken to make sure it doesn't happen in the future? None is the most likely answer.
I have had conversations with many Police Chief's and high level supervisors regarding bad behavior by Officer's and there seems to be a common theme when dealing with problem Officers...Police Union's and bad Labor Board decisions.
One Police Chief told me he didn't want to terminate a bad Officer, with well documented racist behavior, because he didn't want to face the officer in the hallway in 2 years when the Labor Board would order him to hire the officer back.
Recently HPD was ordered to hire a detective back after he was terminated as the result of his DUI arrest and his well documented racist tirade, repeatedly using the "N" word during his arrest, all caught on dashcam and bodycam in real time.
Where is it acceptable to now assign a documented racist Officer? Is he only a racist whwn he is drunk?
What about the racist Sergeant who was recently returned to the streets as a supervisor after he was documented previously referring to Hartford's African American men as "Gorilla's in the mist". Did he serve enough time in the bowels of HPD in the booking Department that he relinquished his racist viewpoints? Did assigning him to the Southend ensure he can't exercise his racist behavior. I sure hope so because that is the last thing we need right now and no one can come back and say "geez, what a surprise, we never knew"
Or do we just wait until the next time he has a bad day and boils over in a racist rant? There is too much riding on the Public's trust of Police Officers to allow, or even risk, continued bad behavior.
It doesn't serve anyone's best interest and it may require Legislative change to address the options.Again, Police Officers are human, but maybe the Legislature should require a Labor decision that keeps them employed, but maybe not in a Police capacity. Somerwhere in a Office is the basement of City Hall might work, with limited public contact.
We also need to do a lot more for mental health support for Officers who see things everyday that no human being should have to see or deal with. It is no wonder some officer's eventually "snap", or worse. Supervisors need to be much more in tune with identifying problems and risk factors and not be afraid or intimidated to address these issues.
More on this in the future. This can't be the dirty little secret that no Police Chief wants to address. It is out in the open now, deal with it and work to fix it. Denial now is futile.