posted by Fab4Runner
They don't just slip through cracks. How many of these officers have disciplinary records? How many are for excessive use of force? How many have been accused of domestic violence? Why is it so hard to fire a shitty police officer? Many fired officers are hired back, sometimes because of an administrative error during the investigation. There are major problems with a lot of LEAs.
posted by Fab4Runner
I understand that. My point was that bad police officers don't just slip through the cracks. The fact that it's difficult to fire a police officer is more troubling to me than the fact that it's difficult to fire a steel worker, no disrespect to them.
Uhh...what? It's literally impossible to guarantee you aren't going to potentially hire a bad officer, just as its impossible to guarantee you won't hire a teacher that diddles kids. You can take your best precautions, but its absolutely possible for someone to fall through the cracks.
A new hire would go through a basic background check and come up clean and have no record of anything on his personnel file. He could also just as easily turn out to be a shithead and kill an innocent person. He would answer no/NA to your questions listed above, and thus, slip through the cracks.
As to the police departments protecting shithead officers? Yeah, that happens. No, it isn't right. But I don't think it's a "major" problem at "a lot" of LEA's.
Also, not that it matters, but not all police departments are protected by unions. They aren't as common the further west you go.
