A South Florida physician is facing 11 felony charges after authorities said he uploaded hundreds of videos and images of child sexual abuse material.
Every image is a crime scene.
The hidden cost of repeated police misconduct.
This article showed up in my news feed and I was able to access it, even though I no longer subscribe to The Washington Post.
If the link doesn’t work for you, Google “The hidden billion-dollar cost of repeated police misconduct,” and you should get there.
The article caught my eye because I have long been sickened by cities and counties burying the costs (and the fact of) of police and prosecutor misconduct in their budgets. Where do you think the money to pay for a settlement after a wrongful prosecution comes from? They never talk to the press about any safeguards they can implement to help prevent this in the future. At campaign time, prosecutors and sheriffs won’t ever address these issues–training, philosophy, canning employees who fuck up on a large scale.
It of course also caught my eye due to the machinations of L. Brooks Patterson and Richard Thompson, and later Jessica Cooper and Paul Walton, to thwart any inquiry into possible county liability in the OCCK case. This was the guiding factor in the investigation after January 1977, and especially after my brother went missing on March 16, 1977.
The Post article’s focus was on the hidden cost of police officers who have allegedly committed repeated misconduct. Side settlements happen and there is no admission of guilt. Imagine my surprise (not) when I got to the discussion of former Detroit police officer Lynn Christopher Moore. You can read about the payouts of over $600,000 by DPD for alleged civil rights violations, excessive force and false arrest by Moore between 2010 and 2020–10 of them, so an average of once a year.
He was assigned to the narcotics division, we live in a litigious society, they call it the “Detroit Lottery.” But I don’t see any other DPD officers who rang the bell like Moore. Seems like an outlier, even factoring in their “Detroit Lottery” defense.
A victim of Chicago PD asked “[w]hy are they still working? There’s no punishment. They can do what they want. There are no repercussions behind it.” So Moore can shoot your dog that you sequestered in the cellar, begging “don’t shoot my dog, he won’t bite you,” and his partner will simply report that it was justified because he barked and bared his teeth. First thing they did. Go down to the cellar and shoot the dog. Oh yeah; they had the wrong house. The search warrant listed the house next door. Shoot first, read the warrant second. That cost the city some $87,000 (should have been more). The city admitted no guilt on the part of police. Just a little fuck up, I guess. No negligent retention to see here.
The Post inquired with DPD about Moore:
In Detroit, after receiving questions from The Post about the repeated payments involving Officer Moore and the raid at Murray’s home, police officials said they have begun to use the city’s claims data to monitor which officers are repeatedly named in lawsuits, to determine if they need additional training or should be reassigned or removed from the force.
Christopher Graveline, director of the professional standards unit for Detroit police, said his department as of September is working closely with the city’s legal department to identify officers with more than two lawsuits or claims and make sure they are “flagged” in the department’s risk management system.
Guess where Moore is now? The Oakland County Sheriff’s office.
Moore left Detroit in 2019 and is now an officer at the nearby Oakland County Sheriff’s Department, according to Detroit police and the sheriff’s department. The sheriff’s department did not answer follow-up questions.
Since Moore’s departure from Detroit, allegations about his conduct when he was an officer have continued to cost the city financially.
Last year, Detroit officials settled a man’s claim that Moore and three other officers tackled and injured him in 2016 as he stood on his front porch. Police said they were searching for a shooter who allegedly fit his description, according to the lawsuit. The city settled for $150,000.
Detroit reached a second settlement concerning Moore in 2020 when the city paid $10,000 to resolve a claim by two men who alleged that Moore and other officers illegally handcuffed and searched them in 2016.
During the encounter, Moore and his colleagues confiscated $579 from one of the men,according to the complaint.
Moore wrote he searched the man and found six Baggies of a “leaflike substance.” Police arrested the man on drug-related charges and towed his friend’s car.
The car’s owner had to pay $350 to retrieve his vehicle from the impound lot, the suit alleged.
In addition to the drug charge — which was later dropped — Moore gave the man a citation forloitering, a misdemeanor offense. Moore wrote the man was in a “known narcotics location.”
The man, according to the lawsuit, was standing in the driveway of his home.
The Oakland County Sheriff’s office, where the eternal sheriff, Mike Bouchard is running unopposed in November. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2024/07/22/amrit-kohli-quits-race-oakland-county-sheriff-bouchard/74476648007/ . Don’t ever expect any transparency from that office, voters of Oakland County. It’s all good until you get fucked over by law enforcement, then it is very, very bad. Good luck with that.
*As a reminder, all posts are read but not all are posted. All emails are read, but an immediate response will not happen.