I am not in favor of curing the problems of police abuse by way of the criminal justice system, which I am intimately associated with and which is formidably inefficient. The police departments can come up with protocols to prevent most abuse and can see that they are observed by enforcing them internally. For example, my guess is that the former heroin dealer Mr. Gray got the benefit of a "rough ride" as a result of being a stupid azzhole. Rough Rides are against the rules almost everywhere but the Baltimore cops directly involved did not follow protocol. What made them think they could get away with that? If they knew the rule would be enforced and they would be docked some vacation time or get transferred to less pleasant duties or something boring as hail they might not do it to start with. There are lots of ways to control rough cops. The local police chief in Corpus, who unfortunately died recently in a motorcycle accident, impressed me mightily by firing one cop and letting two others resign after they engaged in some very rough play with a guy who had just murdered some folks at a trailer park. Just ran them off. Promptly. All the other cops took notice. Rough play not tolerated. There is too much looking the other way in too many police departments.
I have too much sympathy for cops in general to favor trying to cure bad habits by indicting them. And the azzhole prosecutor has wildly over indicted in that case. Six guys consciously worked together to kill the deceased azzhole heroin dealer? I think not. She is trying to force some of the cops to spill whatever they know about the others. Prosecutorial over reaching, which I saw plenty of when I was one decades ago, is as bad as cop misbehavior.
I have too much sympathy for cops in general to favor trying to cure bad habits by indicting them. And the azzhole prosecutor has wildly over indicted in that case. Six guys consciously worked together to kill the deceased azzhole heroin dealer? I think not. She is trying to force some of the cops to spill whatever they know about the others. Prosecutorial over reaching, which I saw plenty of when I was one decades ago, is as bad as cop misbehavior.
