Deaths and Injuries in Police Custody

[Andrea]

Texas boy, 6, killed in deputy-involved shooting days before Christmas

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-boy-age-6-killed-deputy-involved-shooting-days-christmas-n832166

A 6-year-old Texas boy was killed just days before Christmas when sheriff’s deputies opened fire on a woman they had been chasing — and one of the bullets pierced the wall of a mobile home and struck the child in the abdomen.

The woman, a suspected car thief who had been trying to break into the home, was also killed in the shooting on Thursday in the Schertz, a small town some 20 miles northeast of San Antonio, NBC affiliate WOAI reported.

"Right now, what I’m dealing with is, is a tragic accident," Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said at a news conference Friday, although he added the shooting is still under investigation and other authorities like the district attorney’s office would make a final determination.

"In my opinion, it's a tragic accident that led to the death of this young man," he said.

The boy, Kameron Prescott, was fatally shot as deputies chased the approximately 30-year-old suspect in a "prolonged pursuit" that was reported as a call of a stolen vehicle which involved a known suspect who had outstanding felony warrants, Salazar said.

During the first encounter a deputy “identified what he believed was a weapon in the hands of that suspect” and the woman at that time and later threatened deputies with a weapon “and verbalized to him that she intended to shoot him with that weapon” — although no gun has yet been found, Salazar said.

The suspect was not identified by police Friday. Salazar said investigators had found what appeared to be a pipe that had the suspect's blood on it underneath the deck where the shooting took place.

Salazar said the woman got "cornered" at the home in the Pecan Grove mobile home park and threatened Kameron's family as well as officers when they caught up with her. The slain boy and his family do not know the suspect, he said.

"Kameron was the kindest-hearted little boy that I have ever had the pleasure of teaching," the boy’s first-grade teacher, Shanda Ince, said in a statement released by the Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District.

Four deputies fired at the woman, Salazar said. He did not identify the officers, but said they ranged in experience from two years to 27 years on the job and were all shaken by the experience. The deputies involved have been placed on five days of administrative leave, the sheriff's office said Friday.

Salazar said that civilian witnesses as well as the deputies said that the suspect had threatened to shoot them and indicated that she had a gun.

"At the time, we don't believe she was armed. She was presenting to be armed at various times throughout this prolonged pursuit," Salazar said earlier.

Salazar said that his office was still searching the area for a gun and was using a helicopter and dive team in the search. "That deputy is still adamant that what he saw was a handgun," Salazar said.

Salazar said there was good audio of the incident, but said his office did not have clear video of the shooting. A helicopter overhead caught the scene moments after, and the deputy who was had a body camera unintentionally obstructed its view when he raised and fired his rifle.

Salazar said internal affairs is investigating the matter, but said "preliminarily ... it appears as if policies were complied with." As of Friday evening, it was unclear when the sheriff's office would release the video, which Salazar said included video of officers administering first aid to the six-year-old boy.

The deadly drama began around 11 a.m., Salazar said, when a deputy responding to reports of a stolen car found the suspect hiding in a closet and she allegedly told them, "I have a weapon, I’m gonna shoot you."

Somehow, the woman was able to flee the residence into some nearby woods where the deputy lost her and called for backup, Salazar said. She was later spotted fording a river and the deputies chased after her in "water that was up to their chin."

Salazar said the deputies believed she was armed because she appeared to point a weapon at them during the foot chase.

Two relatives were in the mobile home with little Kameron when the fatal shots were fired, Salazar said. Neither was hurt.

"The grandfather of this young man, Kameron’s grandfather, is a friend of mine for the past 20 years," Salazar said. "He's a peace officer. I've actually spoken to him and conveyed messages to the family through him."

[Andrea]

Chicago police raid targets wrong home: 'This is Christmastime. You kicked down my door.'

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-chicago-warrant-wrong-home-raid-20171222-story.html

Jennell Cross had just settled into a leather couch to watch a movie in her daughter’s South Chicago home when she heard one bang, then another against the front door.

Frightened — it was about midnight Thursday — Cross said she ran to the back of the home to warn her daughter. “Somebody’s trying to break in the house,” she yelled.

Shanae Cross said was trying to pull her mother into a restroom for safety when a swarm of cops barged into the house, guns drawn and shouting questions.

The officers moved through the bungalow and tried to handcuff Cross’ 17-year-old brother. The family demanded to see a warrant.

Finally, an officer called out the address on the no-knock search warrant.

It was for a different home on the block.

“Get ya’ll (expletive) and get out my house,” Cross said she told the cops.

An officer yelled, “Everyone out! Wrong house! Let’s go!” and the officers left, she said.

On Friday, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi acknowledged that officers “inadvertently breached the door of the incorrect residence.”

The department “deeply regrets the error,” he said.

Guglielmi said the claims process and repairs to the family’s damaged front door would be expedited.

While the Cross family was talking to a Tribune reporter, police Superintendent Eddie Johnson called to personally apologize. His call went to voicemail, and Cross just shook her head as she listened to it.

She was still angry Friday as she talked about the misguided raid.

“This is Christmastime,” she said. “You kicked down my door.”

Cross, 34, can’t figure out how the police made the mistake: “The number is there in front of the home,” she said.

She said she couldn’t sleep after things settled down early Friday morning. On Facebook, she posted, “Thank U Chicago PD For Kicking Down My Door... Now Im Up All Night Doing Security.” The message included a flashlight emoji.

The damaged front door in her South Chicago neighborhood, where “people are killed every day for nothing,” left her and her family feeling unsafe, she said. Her brother Michael, who the family said officers tried to handcuff, said he was “hurt” by the encounter.

“They drew the guns on us like we were criminals,” Michael Cross said.

“I was scared out my mind,” said Jennell Cross, 53. “This is crazy as hell.”

[Andrea]

When Police Shoot a Man Who Was Stabbing Himself

https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police-practices/when-police-shoot-man-who-was-stabbing-himself

A suspect in an armed robbery is sitting alone in a police department’s interview room. He takes out a knife and begins cutting himself with it, including his neck.

You would think that the police would recognize this as a mental health crisis, a potential suicide, a situation that demands careful, nonviolent de-escalation techniques to keep everyone safe.

But on Dec. 18 in Minneapolis, officers took another approach, with disastrous results. They tried to use a Taser on 18-year-old Marcus Fischer and then they shot at him. At least one bullet hit and wounded him, leaving Marcus in critical condition.

That response to a suicide attempt is terrifying. By using force, the police made the situation so much more dangerous.

And it wasn’t a one-time occurrence. Of the 14 Minnesotans shot and killed by police officers last year, nearly half were reportedly experiencing a mental health crisis. That matches up with police data from around the country. Going through a mental health crisis puts you at higher risk for police violence.

Just this past summer, Khaleel Thompson was shot multiple times by an officer in Crystal, Minnesota. Khaleel had a history of mental illness that police in Crystal were aware of. Like Marcus, he was left in critical condition.

Marcus and Khaleel are both people of color, making them even more likely to be targets of police violence. Being Black or brown multiplies the risk for people with mental illness or disability.

Both the Minneapolis and Crystal police departments have policies that encourage de-escalation strategies designed to avoid physical confrontation unless immediately necessary. But the policies don’t cover the special considerations necessary when someone is engaging in self-harm.

It is a natural impulse to want to stop someone from hurting themselves. However, when police intervene, they too often rely on their weapons instead of empathy and negotiation. The Police Executive Research Forum recommends that departments prohibit the “use of deadly force against individuals who pose a danger only to themselves.”

In such scenarios, the forum advises police “to exercise considerable discretion to wait as long as necessary so that the situation can be resolved peacefully.” Minneapolis police officers spent less than 10 minutes trying to de-escalate the situation with Marcus.

The Minneapolis police department is certainly not the only one failing to respond safely to mental health crises — this is a problem across the country. In the past year, police have killed people experiencing mental health crises in California, New York, Oklahoma, and Washington, among other states.

Our police departments must overhaul their training and protocols. A one-day course in de-escalation — like the one prepared for the Minneapolis Police Department — isn’t enough to prepare officers for dealing with mental health crises.

Training officers on crisis intervention should not be left to individual departments. It must be a core part of the curriculum at all police academies. Right now, police academies spend, on average, 15 times more training time on firearms and defensive tactics than on conflict management and mediation. That needs to change. The curricula must be revamped in keeping with approaches like Crisis Intervention Training and Critical Decision Model-Making, which have helped police departments that implemented them properly.

We also have to accept the limits of de-escalation and mental health training for police officers. While these strategies can improve interactions, officers aren’t the most qualified people to respond to a mental health crisis. Along with improving officer training, we must also fund alternatives to using the police to respond to mental health emergencies, like mobile crisis units and other community-based crisis services. Increased access to mental health and crisis response resources would help reduce the number of people experiencing mental health crises in the first place. There is no reason to wait for another person in crisis to be shot.

[*Anya*]

Part II

Forced out over sex, drugs and other infractions, fired officers find work in other departments

By Kimbriell Kelly, Wesley Lowery and Steven Rich December 22, 2017

Another officer Doucette hired was his nephew Eric P. Doucette Sr., who was fired by New Orleans police in 2005 for neglect of duty, records show. The chief said he followed ethics guidelines and did not directly supervise his nephew. Eric Doucette, 59, did not respond to requests for comment.

When Chief Doucette resigned from Delgado in 2014, college officials replaced him with another former New Orleans police officer: Julie Lea, a former lieutenant in internal affairs.

Julie Lea at an event in New Orleans on Aug. 17, 2014. (Josh Brasted)
Lea had resigned from New Orleans while under investigation for “neglect of duty” for failing to “properly supervise subordinates,” according to police records.

In preparation of a federal audit that was part of the ongoing Justice Department investigation, Lea was told to complete pending internal affairs cases, records show. Investigators said Lea, however, allowed one of her employees to retire with 18 cases pending. The department later sustained the administrative violations against Lea.

Lea, 44, told The Post that she was “never notified of an investigation.” By the time New Orleans internal affairs upheld the charges against her, she had been sworn in as chief at Delgado. Delgado officials said they were unaware that she was under investigation when she was hired.

One of Lea’s hires at Delgado was fired New Orleans officer Mario Cole, who lost his job in 2013 after 11 years with the department when he tested positive for opiates during a random drug test. Through Delgado police, Cole, 38, declined to comment.

“I’m sure I looked into it and found out what it was,” Lea said when asked whether she knew of Cole’s prior misconduct when she hired him in 2016. “But I don’t remember.”

In January 2017, after a little more than a year as Delgado’s chief, Lea was fired.

An internal investigation by the college concluded that she had misused state funds and compromised student safety by ordering two of her officers to guard the homes of relatives of a deceased police chief during his funeral.

“Most chiefs would never get fired for something like that,” Lea said.

She said that after she was fired, she applied for another job as a police chief but was not hired. She now runs a nonprofit entity that she founded to organize Mardi Gras parades and events.

In August, Delgado replaced Lea with yet another former New Orleans officer: Eddie Compass III.

Compass spent 26 years with New Orleans Police Department, ascending to superintendent. He resigned in 2005 amid widespread criticism of the department’s response to Hurricane Katrina.

In an interview, Compass, 59, said that all of Delgado’s hiring of New Orleans officers with troubled records predated his arrival. He said he has not had any problems with the officers but criticized the department’s prior hiring practices. He said Delgado will no longer hire officers who have been forced out of other departments.

“They never should have been hired,” he said. “But that’s something I can’t do anything about.”

Delgado’s police department has three openings.

Alice Crites contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...rainbow&wpmm=1

[*Anya*]

Forced out over sex, drugs and other infractions, fired officers find work in other departments

By Kimbriell Kelly, Wesley Lowery and Steven Rich December 22, 2017

NEW ORLEANS — By the time the New Orleans Police Department fired Carey Dykes, the officer had been sued for alleged brutality, accused of having sex with a prostitute while on duty and caught sleeping in his patrol car instead of responding to a shooting.

The 13-year veteran fought to get his job back but lost.

Even so, he returned to patrol months later — working for a nearby police department.

Dykes is one of dozens of officers forced out of the New Orleans department over the past decade for misconduct who were given badges and guns by other departments, according to a Washington Post analysis of state and city employment records, police personnel files and court documents. At a time of increased scrutiny of police nationwide, the ease with which fired or forced out New Orleans officers found work at new departments underscores the broader challenge that law enforcement faces to rid itself of “bad apples.”

The New Orleans department has long been attempting to reform its ranks and shed a troubled past. In the past decade, the department has fired or otherwise pushed out at least 248 officers. Of those forced out, 53 have been hired by other police departments, according to information obtained through public records requests.

Many of those officers landed at smaller police departments in nearby parishes and colleges — some hired weeks or months after leaving New Orleans. While records show that some have had no complaints of misconduct since joining new departments, others have been fired again.

Records show that many of the 53 officers hired by other departments disclosed their troubled departures from New Orleans. About half of the 53 had been fired, and the rest resigned in lieu of being fired or quit while under investigation

Some of the 248 officers were fired or forced out in New Orleans after abandoning their posts in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina struck the city. Others were fired or pushed out in the aftermath of a 2011 Department of Justice civil rights investigation. The federal review concluded that officers “routinely” used unnecessary force and conducted unlawful arrests, and that neither the public nor officers had faith in the department’s disciplinary process. City leaders instituted reforms demanded by Justice, adding to an exodus of officers.

Former New Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas said that sheriffs and other chiefs often justify rehiring officers by dismissing their problems as “political.” As a result, troubled officers remain in policing, he said.

“By the time you reach the point of terminating someone, that’s usually something that speaks to [the officer’s] ethics or ability to perform their job,” said Serpas, who led the New Orleans department from 2010 to 2014.

Louisiana is one of 44 states that require that officers be certified, or licensed. In some states, police chiefs pursue the decertification of officers they fire — to prevent them from being hired at other police departments.

But Louisiana has not decertified a single officer for misconduct in the past decade, records show. State officials said that local departments have failed to request decertifications. Local police officials said, however, that the process of decertifying an officer they no longer employ can be laborious and may not be worth the time.

Serpas said steps should be taken to make sure that officers are stripped of their state law enforcement certifications and that a national database of these officers should be created to help prevent them from returning to law enforcement.

“If you get terminated for untruthfulness or bribery or brutality, you really should not be allowed to be a police officer anywhere in the country,” Serpas said.

Sleeping, buying sex on duty
Police officer Carey Dykes arrived near the French Quarter just before dawn as fists were flying and fires were burning in the street. Soon, bottles were flung in his direction.

It was Feb. 16, 1999, and Dykes was quickly joined by a dozen other officers as the Mardi Gras party descended into chaos.

By the time it was over, police had jailed nearly 60 people. In the aftermath, Dykes, other officers and the city faced two federal lawsuits from people who alleged that they had been falsely arrested and were beaten by police. In the suits, witnesses said they saw Dykes and another officer “brutally beat” a man with nightsticks.

The city settled the two cases for a combined $60,850. In 2001, Dykes and the city were sued again: A pregnant woman said she was assaulted by Dykes as he tried to arrest her and her then-husband outside a French Quarter strip club.

“That cop, Dykes, came up to me before I could get all the way up off the ground and slammed me back down on the ground with my face in the ground and kept saying, ‘Keep still. Don’t move. Don’t move,’ ” the woman, Chantal Jarrell, now 45, said in an interview.

The city and the officers generally denied the allegations, but settled her suit for $400.

Records show that during the next decade, Dykes was suspended three times for violating department policies, including failing to follow instructions and filing incomplete reports.

Then, in July 2010, a woman told police officials that an officer was paying women for sex. She told internal affairs investigators that the officer — whom she identified as Dykes from a photo lineup — spent some of his nightly shifts cruising the streets “picking up working girls.” She complained that she had sex with him but was never paid.

The woman, who was not identified in the investigative reports, said Dykes picked her up in his squad car on July 4 and took her to the London Lodge, a nearby motel.

She said that she took a shower and emerged to see Dykes naked. The two then had vaginal and oral sex without a condom, she said.

Motel records showed that Dykes rented a $45 room, checking in with his driver’s license at 2:50 a.m. — in the middle of his patrol shift.

Investigators set up a sting.

Over several days, police recorded the woman speaking with Dykes on the phone while he was on duty. In one recording, the woman said she had a bacterial infection when they allegedly had unprotected sex and told him that he might pass it on to his wife.

Dykes said he was not worried about a bacterial infection. “Only STD will affect me,” he told her.

On the sting’s fifth night, investigators watched Dykes park his squad car at the London Lodge at 3:35 a.m. Almost an hour later, a 911 call came in from nearby: Two men had wrecked a Chevy Tahoe and fled on foot armed with assault rifles.

A dispatcher radioed Dykes to respond to the call but got no answer from him.

Ten minutes after the initial 911 call, the neighborhood erupted in gunfire, prompting five additional calls to 911.

Dykes’s white marked patrol car did not move, records show. Concerned, one of the officers watching Dykes approached his police cruiser: Dykes was inside asleep. The surveillance officer snapped a photo.

At 5:15 a.m. Dykes drove off and later wrote in his activity report that he had responded to the shooting.

The internal affairs investigation found that Dykes had violated department rules 17 times, including not devoting his entire shift to his police duty, transporting a civilian in his work vehicle, dishonesty and failing to respond to a dispatcher.

Dykes initially denied many of the allegations and said he did not have intercourse with the woman. When confronted with the findings of the surveillance, he admitted to having oral sex with the woman at the motel and failing to respond to the shooting.

Three months later, in February 2011, Dykes was fired. He appealed, but an arbitrator upheld his dismissal.

When reached by phone, Dykes, 44, said of his firing: “It happened over seven years ago. I’m not worried about it.” He declined to answer questions or comment further.

Months after he was fired, Dykes applied for a police job at Delgado Community College in New Orleans, records show.

[Andrea]

Unarmed man killed by police after ‘swatting’ prank in Kansas

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/12/29/unarmed-man-killed-police-after-swatting-prank-kansas/991665001/

An innocent man was shot and killed by police Thursday after a "swatting" prank led authorities to a home in Kansas, officials say.

A feud between two Call of Duty game players sparked the hoax call. However, the address given to police led them to the doorstep of 28-year-old Andrew Finch, who was not part of the online gaming community, police say.

"Due to the actions of a prankster, we have an innocent victim," Wichita police Deputy Chief Troy Livingston said during a press conference Friday.

Officers responded to a report of a gunman holding his mother, brother and sister hostage after shooting his father in the head Thursday night, Livingston said.

"That was the information we were working off of," he told the Wichita Eagle.

Livingston added that authorities "got into position" when they arrived at the home, ready for a hostage situation.

The 28-year-old, identified by his family as Andrew Finch, went to the door to see what was going on, the Eagle reported.

"As he came to the door, one of our officers discharged his weapon," Livingston said.

Officers had instructed Finch to put his hands up, but he lowered them several times, Livingston said. One officer then took a shot because he "feared for officer's safety," Livingston said.

The father of two was taken to a hospital. He later died.

Police said he was unarmed.

A frame grab from the Wichita Police Department's release Friday, Dec. 29, 2017, of some body cam footage of the fatal shooting of Andrew Finch, 29, by a Wichita police officer Thursday night. Online gamers have said in multiple Twitter posts that the shooting of a man Thursday night by Wichita police was the result of a "swatting" hoax involving two gamers. (Photo: Fernando Salazar, AP)

Officers soon learned that no one in the house had a gunshot wound and that there wasn’t a hostage situation.

"What gives the cops the right to open fire?" Finch's mother asked the Wichita Eagle. “Why didn’t they give him the same warning they gave us? That cop murdered my son over a false report.”

More than a dozen gamers told the Eagle that a feud between two Call of Duty players sparked the swatting call.

The gamers were arguing when one threatened to target the other. The intended target gave the other gamer a "fake" address, according to Twitter posts.

"We believe this case is an act of swatting," Livingston confirmed Friday.

Several social media users placed blame on one gamer, who tweeted about the incident.

"I DIDNT GET ANYONE KILLED BECAUSE I DIDNT DISCHARGE A WEAPON AND BEING A SWAT MEMBER ISNT MY PROFESSION," the gamer tweeted. The account was suspended overnight.

Finch's family believes whoever made the call should be held accountable.

"The person who made the phone call took my nephew, her son, two kids’ father," the victim’s aunt, Lorrie Hernandez-Caballero told the Wichita Eagle. "How does it feel to be a murderer? I can’t believe people do this on purpose."

Swatting is a prank where someone calls authorities to report a fake emergency — often a hostage situation or active shooter — with the intent of drawing a "SWAT team" response to a location.

The dangerous prank has become popular nationwide among gamers, who use caller ID spoofing or other techniques to disguise their phone numbers, according to 911.gov.

"Without that false phone call we wouldn't have been there," Livingston said.

The officer who shot and killed Finch was identified as a veteran of more than 7 years with the police department. He was be placed on administrative paid leave pending investigation.

No arrests have been made so far.

[Andrea]

Dead, beaten and abused: Millions paid in secret settlements to keep bad cops on the street and the public in danger

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/watchdog/shield/2018/01/22/nj-police-brutality-cases-secret-settlements/109479668/

Piercing the shield

New Jersey governments across the state, from the smallest towns to some of the largest cities, have spent more than $42 million this decade to cover-up deaths, physical abuses and sexual misconduct at the hands of bad cops.

The abuse of police power has left a staggering toll: at least 19 dead; 131 injured; 7 sexual misconducts, plus dozens of other offenses ranging from false arrest to harassment, a two-year investigation by the Asbury Park Press found.

The damage is concealed by government officials who use a veil of secret settlements and nondisclosure agreements to silence victims. Investigations of rogue cops are routinely hidden from the public by police, elected officials and even the courts.

The secretive payouts that keep abuses quiet are a vital part of a system that enables bad cops to do their worst. The secrecy starts at the police department and rises through the highest levels of government. Some of the state's largest cities and insurance carriers refused to release government documents that are at the core of the rogue cop problem.

But the tens of millions of dollars paid to settle hundreds of legal claims are not the worst part.

Many of the bad cops remain on the street.

The Press investigation found that several towns knew of their bad cops' propensity towards violence yet ignored multiple warning signs until the cops crossed the line by injuring or killing innocent people.

In February 2016, Khan was arrested on charges of punching his brother-in-law in the face, causing “serious facial injuries and a possible fractured” eye socket and jaw, and threatening to shoot him, a police report stated.

Khan brushed off the criminal charges as a grand jury dismissed the claims. His only punishment: a 40-day police department suspension. After that, the officer returned to the streets, armed with a weapon and the full force of the law.

Khan’s suspension didn't prevent more violence. During a car chase that could have been a scene from an action movie, Khan shot at a suspect fleeing in a vehicle and then pursued the car through the streets of Jersey City, according to criminal charges filed against him.

The June 4, 2017, chase ended tragically for Miguel Feliz, 28, an innocent victim caught in the mayhem.

The father of a 6-year-old was driving home from his Peapod grocery delivery job when the suspect ran Feliz's aging Toyota off the road. The car burst into flames after slamming into a utility pole.

With his clothing on fire and choking on the acrid smoke, Feliz needed help from the police.

He got Khan.

Khan and another officer kicked Feliz as he laid burning on the ground. Feliz was struck in the face, a cellphone video shot by a passerby showed. Months later, both officers were indicted on aggravated assault charges. The officers have pleaded not guilty.

“I thought they were there to help,” Feliz said weeks after the incident, healing from four broken ribs – inflicted by police, he says – and multiple burns.

"But obviously not."

Miguel Feliz struggled to extinguish his burning flesh after a car crash in Jersey City June 4, 2017. He needed help from the police. Instead he was kicked. Andrew Ford

In another state, Khan's first arrest would likely have been his last day as a police officer. In Florida, conduct involving an assault can cost a police officer’s license to enforce the law, even if they're not criminally prosecuted.

But not in New Jersey.

From internal affairs to the courthouse, a weave of secret investigations, quiet payouts, nondisclosure agreements and court-enforced silence ends up keeping horrendous conduct and multi-million-dollar payouts away from public scrutiny.

Rogue cops are a fraction of the 33,000 officers who protect the public each day. But bad cops remain on the street because of one number: 466. That is the number of municipal police departments in the state, most with 23 or fewer officers, and some employing multiple family members.

Each of the 466 departments has a unique political culture and an internal affairs system that is rarely overseen by outsiders – unless the police chief believes an officer might have committed a crime.

New Jersey is one of six states that doesn’t officially license police officers or have a method to ban bad cops, much the way the government can disbar wayward lawyers or pull the licenses of intoxicated truck drivers. The other states without a police licensing revocation law are New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, California and Hawaii.

Of at least 64,353 internal affairs complaints filed since 2011, less than one half of 1 percent – 226 – resulted in an officer being charged with a crime, the Press found. Of those defendants, 90 were convicted.

"There's just people out there that don't belong on the job. Fortunately, the numbers are few," said former Burlington Township police director Walter J. Corter, who also served as head of investigations for the Burlington County prosecutor's office.

To expose the problems with New Jersey's system for police accountability, the Press reviewed more than 30,000 pages of court, police and legal documents, settlements and once-secret separation agreements obtained by the Press, and interviewed dozens of victims, experts, lawyers and police officers.

The team found holes, conflicts and inconsistencies in police oversight that empowered problem cops in some departments to escalate their behavior until it became criminal, even deadly.

Consider:

A cop with domestic dispute history kills his ex-wife — Neptune Police Sgt. Philip Seidle has an internal affairs record that tops 600 pages and spans two decades, with several complaints known to involve domestic disputes between him and his wife. He was considered enough of a risk to the public that his service weapon was taken from him, but he was later rearmed. He used that gun to fatally shoot his ex-wife in 2015 in the middle of an Asbury Park street, in front of their 7-year-old daughter. He's serving a 30-year prison sentence.

A well-known violent cop beats a suspect on camera — Bloomfield police officer Orlando Trinidad was known in the department for using force to subdue suspects, accounting for nearly a third of the so-called “use-of-force” police reports in the 120-member department. After nearly ripping the ear off a handcuffed suspect inside the police station in 2013, a lawsuit claims, Trinidad then looked directly into the surveillance camera to seemingly mock the ensuing internal affairs review by saying, “IA.” The suit settled for $364,000 without any admission of fault. He was sentenced to five years in prison for lying on a police report in a separate incident.

A lack of oversight — Now-retired Bordentown Township Police Chief Frank Nucera Jr. was charged by federal agents in November 2017 with assaulting a black man and repeatedly making violent and racist remarks. The need for outside intervention by the FBI underscores the limited oversight of New Jersey's hundreds of police chiefs. His lawyer didn't return a message seeking comment. Nucera retired in January 2017, after the alleged assault but before the indictment. He is awaiting trial. Upon leaving, Nucera was paid $54,002, including compensation for unused sick and vacation days.

Repeated beatings claims, department inaction — Alleged beatings by Atlantic City police officer Andrew Jaques prompted at least two lawsuits. The city refused to provide the Press with the settlement amounts. But the case raised the ire of a federal judge in one decision who called Jaques "short-fused" and "volatile." He retired on disability in August, at an annual salary of $101,620, the Press found. Another city officer, Sterling Wheaten, has been the subject of at least 15 internal affairs complaints and the city paying $4.5 million to settle five lawsuits, according to media reports. No admission of wrongdoing was made in the settlements and Wheaten remains on the force at a salary of $108,548.

The $1.8 million cop — Battling a problem cop can be extraordinarily expensive. Taxpayers spent at least $1.8 million in a 9-year effort to fire Manuel Avila, a Paterson patrolman with a history of mental health trouble accused of sexual assault but acquitted at trial. Although not convicted of being a violent cop, the city put Avila on paid suspension that ultimately cost at least $940,000. The city also agreed to a $710,000 settlement with the woman, plus at least $92,000 in legal fees. In a settlement with the officer, the city agreed to dismiss disciplinary charges against Avila if he decided to resign. The agreement allowed him to collect $85,134 for unused sick and vacation time. He is now trying to get a $72,000 annual pension, which would include credit for six years while he was suspended.

In the Atlantic City case involving the “short-fused” Jaques, the Press found in court documents that Jaques was investigated by his uncle. Jaques remained on the force for another 10 years, leading to more lawsuits from civilians.

The quality of internal affairs reviews meant to root out rogue cops “comes down to one person — whoever is doing the investigation,” said Rich Rivera, a former West New York police officer.

For the last 20 years, Rivera has reviewed internal affairs investigations, police use-of-force reports in lawsuits and consulted with police departments. “Because the entire process is secret, we typically don’t know what the contents of the investigation were, and whether they were properly done or not,” he said.

While on the police force in the mid-1990s, Rivera worked undercover with the FBI to help put corrupt cops from his department in jail.

Internal affairs reports frequently show inadequate investigations and conclusions, Rivera said of the more than 900 IA files he has reviewed. Common problems included police investigators: failing to interview eyewitnesses; ruling a complaint “unfounded” if the investigator was unable to reach the victim; and failing to interview more than one officer, even if there were several at the scene.

“We don’t see too many consequences for bad police officers,” Rivera said. “The consequences are (for) those in the community – people being harmed, people being falsely accused of crimes, people being sent to prison who might not have been sent to prison if IA was working properly.”

Claims of abuses affected departments regardless of size, the Press’ investigation found. For example, the tiny borough of Absecon in Atlantic County, population 8,300, paid $2 million to settle a 2012 wrongful death case while Newark, population 280,000, settled a bodily injury case for $2 million.

Patrick Colligan, president of the state Police Benevolent Association that represents nearly all 33,000 police officers in the state, said he doesn’t dispute there were problem officers in the past, but today, with many cops being watched with cameras mounted on patrol cars or worn by officers, there is a constant oversight.

However, not all departments – until recently including Jersey City – use such monitoring devices.

Sub-standard police officers leave the force “close to every day in this state,” Colligan said. “Many you don't hear about, and it shows the departments are doing what they should be doing. … In 2017, there's nobody tolerating illicit or illegal activity.”

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