The biggest hurdle is the blue wall of silence.

[JRLeft]

It must be broken and completely destroyed, until that happens nothing changes.

There are good police afraid to speak because, there's a chance he/she could be left without backup.

The BWS is powerful and will be difficult to be taken down but we are as a society must take it on.

[Motley13]

1. I agree

Remember the movie "Serpico"?
The cops know who their bad ones are but it is the same brotherhood as street gangs, you don't rat on your bro.

We must get out the rotten eggs!

[JRLeft]

2. I've never seen that movie, but the what you stated is true.

[awoke_in_2003]

5. Good movie

I just got Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu, and, unfortunately, neither of them have it.

[zentrum]

7. Serpico is on Youtube

Full movie. Just look for it.

[awoke_in_2003]

9. Thanks, will do. nt

[JustAnotherGen]

15. The real Frank Serpico

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/nyregion/24serpico.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

To me - he is a Human Rights activist. There's a lot out there on him if you can't watch the movie.

[awoke_in_2003]

16. Thanks

I've seen the movie, but it has been a few decades. Damn, I don't really feel that old.

[Motley13]

25. A sad life for someone who does the right thing

He deserves the

Presidential Medal of Freedom

[Bluenorthwest]

11. The Police Are Still Out of Control I should know. By Frank Serpico October 23, 2014

"I still get hate mail from active and retired police officers. A couple of years ago after the death of David Durk — the police officer who was one of my few allies inside the department in my efforts to expose graft — the Internet message board “NYPD Rant” featured some choice messages directed at me. “Join your mentor, Rat scum!” said one. An ex-con recently related to me that a precinct captain had once said to him, “If it wasn’t for that fuckin’ Serpico, I coulda been a millionaire today.” My informer went on to say, “Frank, you don’t seem to understand, they had a well-oiled money making machine going and you came along and threw a handful of sand in the gears.”
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/the-police-are-still-out-of-control-112160



Serpico: I'd fire the NYPD officers who turned their backs on the mayor
In his first TV interview in years, the legendary whistleblower speaks out about today's police controversies
January 15, 2015
http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/articles/2015/1/15/serpico-i-d-firethenypdofficerswhoturnedtheirbacksonthemayor.html

[tblue37]

21. Omerta is enforced ruthlessly, so those who dare to speak up can end up

at real risk of being killed. At the very least they are stalked, threatened, and abused, and their careers are ruined.

This is What Happens to “Good Cops” Who Expose Corruption in their Departments

SNIP

Detective Joe Crystal became a target of intimidation for his entire department after testifying against other officers in a misconduct case. Following his testimony, he received threats from other officers, and even found a dead rat on his car one day.

SNIP

The case is still ongoing, but this week Crystal turned in his badge to the department and will no longer be a member of the police force.

Last week, we covered the story of Sgt. Brandon Ruff, an eight-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police force, who filed a police brutality lawsuit against his own Department. Additionally, we also conducted an exclusive interview with Dawon Gore of the St. Louis Police Department, who lost his job after driving a man home instead of arresting him.

We frequently define a “good cop” as one who tries to stop the bad ones. If this is the common response to “good cops” it’s no wonder why there are so few.

Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/good-cop-dead-rat-car-testifying-officers/#9qUjJX4tFHsf25pb.99

[Dustlawyer]

29. I used to work with a police organization and asked a few members who I had gotten to know

and trust about this issue. They described what had happened to an officer in their department. His family was threatened and he was threatened. He interviewed with dozens of other police departments but the word was out and he had to choose a different career. He also had to move out of town.

They have their own OMERTA for sure!

Nothing will change until we change to special prosecutors who come in on police misconduct cases. Local DA's are subject to police Omerta as well. Unless cops are fairly prosecuted and start going to prison for this gang crap they will keep doing it because they are used to being above the law.

[stonecutter357]

3. K&R!

[JI7]

4. they also need to stop discriminating against those who with higher levels of intelligence

[MadDAsHell]

6. What are we looking for cops to say though when an investigation is still going on?

While we might like for them to say their colleague was wrong, isn't that the exact opposite of the way our justice system is supposed to work?

If we're asking cops to condemn a professional colleague before an investigation has been completed ( or even started in a lot of cases), then clearly we've already decided that cops are guilty until proven innocent, and there's no point in doing the investigation at all.

[malthaussen]

12. Condemnation is rather a strong word.

So is making any statement on criminal liability before an investigation is concluded. But I think there is some skepticism in many quarters that the responsible authorities take their investigations seriously, or that anything approaching justice will result from them, whatever a court may rule. So in reality, the answer to your question is not so much that some sort of instant judgement be made immediately, but that some sort of fair judgement might be made when all the facts are sorted. The perception, rightly or wrongly, is that this latter will not be the case, and thus frustration mounts.

-- Mal

[Bluenorthwest]

13. The point is that they evade the truth in the investigation process and replace it with

a narrative that serves the accused. Not sure where you get that they are being asked to condemn prior to inquiry when they are being asked to be honest participants in the inquiry offering truthful testimony not matter what the result of that truth telling might be.
Police use a term for testifying, 'testi-lying'. That's the problem.

[MadDAsHell]

14. The whole investigation process is full of lies on both sides. e.g."Hands up don't shoot"...

as stated by Dorian Johnson in the Michael Brown case, turned out to be a complete fabrication and basically a physical impossibility given the evidence. And that's based on the Eric Holder-led DOJ report, not a police investigation.

But everyone, including most of DU, ran with the "Hands up don't shoot" meme anyway, though ultimately the silence on DU AFTER the DOJ report refuted most of those lies was deafening.

[JustAnotherGen]

24. One side has all of the power n/t

[uponit7771]

8. Federal investigations of these acts would help breaking down the blue wall

[JRLeft]

18. The problem is the Federal Government is either limited in what it can do, and

is sometimes complicit. We may need to overhaul the entire system. I'm not sure what can be done to tweak the system in order to make real progress.

[malthaussen]

10. Authoritarians cannot admit mistakes.

You see this in government, in the military, and in any corporate endeavor. The perception, which is deep-rooted, is that admitting error weakens authority. It's something we rarely consider about cover-ups, because we tend to focus on the desire of the individuals involved to save their asses. This is definitely an important factor, but the desire to not weaken the institution is very strong, and strong in proportion to how much authority the organization wishes to maintain. Note, though, that the desire is not so much to keep to a high standard of conduct and thus not weaken authority through abuse, but to refuse to acknowledge that any wrongdoing has taken place. Ideally, one would think that honest reflection and a serious attempt to rectify abuse would strengthen the authority of the organization, but that ideal would be treated with guffaws (or pitying contempt) by most authoritarians.

-- Mal

[lostnfound]

17. Insightful comment nt

[JRLeft]

19. I definitely see this with police officials.

[tblue37]

20. Omerta is important to armed gangs. nt

[JRLeft]

22. No snitching!

[wildeyed]

23. Good point.

I guess it has always been this way

[LongtimeAZDem]

26. You know what cops say: "Snitches get stiches" (nt)

[JRLeft]

27. Snitches tend to go without backup.

[1StrongBlackMan]

28. As I wrote earlier ...

Earlier in my HR career, I worked for a company (a Court system that included Probation Officers) that had a toxic "cover-up" culture. After a couple of investigations where I could clearly demonstrate that employees lied or intentional withheld information to frustrate the investigation ("protect their own&quot , I went to the Chief Judge (the Court's top Administrator) and I convinced her to institute a policy/practice of terminating anyone who (it could be determined) lied or, intentionally, withheld material information during an investigation ... even if the offense being investigated did not merit the subject of the investigation being terminated.

The policy/practice was announced via the Court's email system to each employee (who had to click on the email and click an acknowledgement that they read it).

It only took one termination to notice a change the Court's "cover up" culture.

[JRLeft]

30. The problem is fired police are usually rehired and I'm taking about dirty cops.

[1StrongBlackMan]

31. Re-hired somewhere else, maybe. ...

Dirty cops is one half of the problem, that cannot be fixed ... the other half of the problem is the 85% of not-bad cops, that remain silent/cover for them. Once it is clear that those that cover up will pay a severe piece for their covering up, the culture will change ... I've seen it happen, as few are willing to risk their livelihood to cover for someone else's bad acts.