Whenever you have an incident like, say, cops who beat suspects simply because they talked back, even when they had no plans to arrest them, or already had them restrained in handcuffs, apologists for what passes as modern policing say “well, that’s just a few bad apples, most cops aren’t like that.” Maybe not, but I’ve always suspected that one reason bad cops stayed on police forces was because if police forces fired all the bad cops, they wouldn’t have enough cops to do everything they’re tasked with doing.
So just how many bad cops are there? Well, the Seattle Police Department was investigated by the Department of Justice, which found a pattern of officers violating the Constitutional rights of citizens. In particular, the Seattle PD was in many cases judge, jury, and even occasionally executioner, going far beyond the minimal amount of force needed to do their job. The right to due process enshrined in the Constitution says only a judge and jury can punish a criminal — not a street cop. If a street cop goes beyond the minimal force needed to take a suspect into custody, he has violated the Constitution.
So the DoJ didn’t say how many bad cops were doing the bad stuff, but once this was found, the Seattle PD quickly arrived at a settlement with the Department of Justice which included new policies that set strict limitations on use of force. Police officers under the new policies can use only the minimal force necessary to take a suspect into custody, no more. Unless there is an immediate threat to public safety they are no longer allowed to respond immediately with force, they have a duty to go through the escalation of force pyramid starting with negotiation prior to using any physical force. And so on and so forth. None of which is particularly controversial — this is how use of force policies look in many police departments nationwide — so you’d think that Seattle’s cops would be okay with the new policy, right?
Well, the good cops were, anyhow. But 10% of Seattle’s police department sued the City claiming that they had a Constitutional right to violate the Constitutional rights of the citizens of Seattle.
So I guess we know part of the answer to the question, “what percentage of a big city police department is ‘bad apples’?”. The answer is 10% *minimum*. Because you know darn well that the smarter ‘bad apples’ didn’t put their name on this lawsuit, realizing that suing your employer for the right to violate the Constitutional rights of other people is a Career Limiting Move. How many of the smart ‘bad apples’ are there? No idea, but at least we now know that at least 10% of cops we encounter are bad cops. Which is not a fact that should be tolerated in a democracy… but I guess that boat sank long ago, sigh.
– Badtux the Sovok Penguin