Create paid Citizen Review Boards, ("CRB's"), to review all allegations of police misconduct. To ensure that the actions of the Boards are effective, unbiased, and thorough, they must be endowed with the following characteristics:
(A) members must be elected, rather than appointed, and the elections must be by district, not at-large;
(B) they must be empowered to issue subpoenas to the police department;
(C) they must be empowered to impose punishments upon malfeasant officers, up to and including termination of employment without benefits;
(D) they must be authorized to offer rewards, (including vacation time and bonuses), to officers who report wrongdoing in the ranks;
(E) they must be empowered to direct the actions of the Integrity Testing Units (see item 6, below);
(F) Board members must be extended the same degree of civil immunity as enjoyed by police officers;
(G) Board members must be totally insulated from the police department and police personnel;
(H) ex-parte contact between Board members and the parties must be strictly prohibited;
(I) no more than 20% of the members of any CRB can be current or former employees of any law enforcement agency or municipal government, or be related by marriage or first-degree blood to anyone who is;
(J) they must be fully funded and staffed, and include an independent attorney and private investigator;
(K) they must be completely outside the departmental chain of command;
(L) the Chairman of any Board cannot be a current or former employee of any law enforcement agency or municipal government, or be related by marriage or first-degree blood to anyone who is;
(M) the Board's meetings, agenda and notes must comply with the applicable state Sunshine Laws.
(Work toward this objective on the local level).
Police officers often take advantage of their status and/or their co-workers and partners (i.e. accomplices and co-conspirators), to evade service of legal process and subpoenas. To prevent this from occurring, service must be permitted upon the department, rather than individual officers. The duty-desk of any police precinct must accept service of process for all police personnel employed by the jurisdiction.
(Work toward this objective on the federal and state levels).
(A) Implement a system providing for the independent custody and permanent retention of complaints filed against police officers, as well as personnel files in general.
(B) These records must be freely accessible by citizens, without the necessity of going through a public disclosure request.
(C) The records may not be held by a police department.
(D) At least two copies of each complaint must be retained, one of which shall be available only to authorized non-police-affiliated personnel (to ensure that no documents are "lost".)
(E) The CRB's shall have custody and control of these records.
(Work toward this objective on the local level).
(A) Require all prospective police officers to pass a comprehensive drug test before being hired.
(B) Require all police officers to undergo a random urinalysis on a quarterly basis.
(C) Require that police officers who are the subject of a complaint undergo a urinalysis within 1 week of the filing of the complaint.
(D) Require that all police officers involved in a use-of-force incident undergo a urinalysis within 24 hours of the event.
(E) Require that all police officers involved in an accident undergo a urinalysis and blood-alcohol test within 3 hours of the accident.
(F) The CRB's shall have custody and control of these records.
(Work toward this objective on the local and state level).
(A) Require all prospective police officers to pass an exhaustive independent psychological evaluation before being hired, and
(B) pass an exhaustive independent psychological evaluation on an annual basis.
(C) Failure to achieve an acceptable evaluation shall constitute immediate and mandatory grounds for termination.
(D) The records of all exams shall be retained in perpetuity, but will be publicly accessible only via legal discovery.
(E) The CRB's shall have custody and control of these records.
(Work toward this objective on the local and state level).
(A) Require all prospective police officers to pass a rigorous cross-jurisdictional background check before being hired. This background check must encompass all of the following aspects: (a) criminal records; (b) credit reports; (c) employment history, including verification of employment and interviews of employers and co-workers; (d) credential verification, including educational and training claims; (e) residence checks, including interviews with former landlords and roommates; (f) civil court record checks, with particular emphasis on domestic disputes.
(B) The elected citizens panel shall have custody and control of these records.
(Work toward this objective on the local and state level).
A public statement must be issued, signed by the municipal attorney, municipal executive, or police chief, acknowledging that police officers are public officials and that the public has the right to know the name, rank and badge number of every police officer in that jurisdiction at any time.
(Work toward this objective on the federal, state, and local levels).
(A) Create special departmental units, fully funded and staffed, to conduct both random and targeted integrity testing of police officers.
(B) The CRB's (see item 1, above), are to be empowered to direct the actions of the testing units.
(Work toward this objective on the state, and local levels).
(A) Formally reaffirm the traditional right of citizens to use proportional force, (up to and including deadly force), to resist false or unlawful arrest. While this long-recognized common-law right is still available in some states, in others it has been removed by judicial fiat or by legislatures which are controlled by police-state pawns.
(B) Most of the courts which have disallowed this right, (and many other important common-law rights as well), are composed of judges who subscribe to the "judicial activist" philosophy, which holds that (a) judges are de facto legislators rather than impartial arbiters, and (b) that the Constitution is a "living, breathing document" that does not contain any objective meaning, and is therefore amenable to bizarre, authoritarian, pro-government interpretations which are wholly unfounded in logic, rationality, history, fact, or law. Judges whose decisions reflect this treasonous philosophy should never be re-elected or re-appointed, since they pose a tremendous threat to our rights and freedoms, which are legally guaranteed only by the self-same Constitution that they claim contains no definitive meaning.
(Work toward these objectives on the local, state, and federal levels).
In those states which currently prohibit such activity, pass legislation specifically allowing citizens to record their interaction with police officers and all other government officials employed in their official capacity. Citizens must be free to record all such governmental representatives both overtly and covertly. This exemption shall not apply in reverse (i.e. police officers in such states shall still be required to obtain court approval to surreptitiously record citizens).
(Work toward this objective on the state and federal level)
Increase public awareness of the importance of jury service, and of the rights of jurors.
(Work toward this objective on the local level).
Require all jurisdictions to post, (on the Internet), complete, searchable copies of their local rules governing police conduct (e.g. the local police manual, policy handbook, procedure guide, etc).
(Work toward this objective on the local level).
Drugs may or may not be evil, but the Government unquestionably is, judging by the immoral, unlawful, invasive, militaristic actions it has taken in enacting and enforcing "Prohibition II". The "Drug War" is a total failure, and has morphed into a War on Constitutional Rights. To reestablish our Constitutional rights, the tyrannical drug policies must be dismantled. While progress has been made, (e.g., many states have already passed laws allowing the medical use of marijuana, and other states have decriminalized marijuana altogether), much more remains to be done.
[Copwatch.com actively discourages the use of any "recreational" drugs other than alcohol, nicotine, or caffeine by anyone under the age of 20, and does not recommend the use of any "recreational" drugs by anyone of any age.]
(Work toward this objective on the federal and state level).
Legalize prostitution and other victimless "crimes", and get the cops out of the morality business, for which they are particularly ill-suited. The "world's oldest profession" is not going to be eliminated by confiscating via forfeiture, (i.e. stealing), the automobiles of johns, or by publishing their photos in the weekly paper, or by jailing one or both of the willing participants. Neither is the spread of AIDS and other STD's going to be hindered by refusing to license and test the prostitutes.
(Work toward this objective on the state and local level).
More and more frequently, police departments are the recipients of "surplus", reduced price, or tax-subsidized military equipment, including machine guns, sniper rifles, specialized military ammunition, armored personnel carriers, bayonets, sophisticated surveillance technologies, high explosives, and other materiel which is totally unsuited for domestic use. Military equipment was not designed or intended for police officers to use on the domestic population, but rather was intended to increase national security in the global arena against actual or potential enemies, primarily by conferring the ability to kill in the most effective manner possible. It is entirely inappropriate, and exceedingly dangerous, for police departments to be given access to military supplies.
(Work toward this objective on the federal, state, and local level).
Military training and police training should never be allowed to take place concurrently, because of the danger that military values and attitudes could be further adopted by the police. The basic function of the military is to kill the enemies of the state, with no regard to such domestic niceties as "innocent until proven guilty", "the 5th Amendment", "freedom of assembly" or any other Constitutional safeguards. On the other hand, the raison d'ętre of the police is to "keep the peace" (though they've long-since abandoned any pretense that this is indeed their primary function). Cops should never be intentionally placed in any situation which encourages the further adoption of military concepts like "collateral damage", "acceptable loss of life", "war of attrition", and other similarly martial concepts, or which encourages the perception that citizens are "the enemy".
(Work toward this objective on the federal, state, and local level).
Police officers should be prohibited from serving as "international peacekeepers" for any military organization, including the U.N. Serving in such a capacity merely encourages the adoption of military attitudes, which are entirely incompatible with domestic policing. When cops who serve in such a capacity return to domestic duty, they invariably retain the attitudes and perspectives which they developed while patrolling in a foreign country, and thus view their fellow citizens as "the enemy" to an even greater extent than normal.
(Work toward this objective on the federal, state, and local level).
(A) Prohibit all governmental entities from utilizing law-enforcement activities, (including but not limited to the issuance of speeding tickets and parking tickets), as a source of revenue (i.e. the revenue generated by law enforcement may not exceed the cost of law enforcement). The "cost of law enforcement" cannot be defined to include prosecutorial entities or the judiciary.
(B) Prohibit all police entities from receiving any revenue generated by any law-enforcement activities.
(C) Prohibit all police entities from receiving any funds which are calculated as a percentage or multiple of the revenue generated by law-enforcement activities.
(Work toward this objective on the local, state, and federal level).
If a citizen is charged with either a civil or criminal offense by a prosecuting authority or its agent, and those charges are ultimately defeated or dismissed, then the prosecuting authority is required to reimburse the defendant for all legal expenses arising from the institution of those charges.
(Work toward this objective on the state and federal level).
Prohibit all prosecuting authorities from coercing testimony from potential witnesses in exchange for reduced sentences.
(Work toward this objective on the state and federal level).
(A) Off-duty cops often moonlight as private-sector employees. For example, they work as security guards, traffic-directors, funeral-procession escorts, bouncers, gate-checkers, etc. In most cases, the cops use government-owned, taxpayer-financed equipment on such jobs. In addition, some cops are allowed to use police vehicles to commute to and from their homes. All of the costs associated with such private, for-profit use of public equipment are passed on to the taxpayer. Clearly, cops should be prohibited from using any publicly-owned equipment for personal gain.
(B) On a closely related note, police officers should be prohibited from selling their law-enforcement services to private entities. Private entities should not be permitted to hire and direct the actions of armed governmental actors who have the legal authority to detain, arrest, jail, or shoot those who the hiring entity may dislike. At the very least, the public should be able to readily determine whether an officer is on-duty or off-duty, (and, if off-duty, who he is working for), in order to more easily ascertain if the officer is engaging in biased/selective/targeted/arbitrary/unequal law enforcement designed primarily to benefit his employer. Officers should be prohibited from wearing their official uniforms, or any facsimile thereof, in an off-duty capacity, and should instead be required to don attire which clearly identifies the private entity which hired them.
(Work toward these objectives on the state and local level).
(A) Prohibit all police entities from receiving any property or proceeds generated by any civil forfeitures.
(B) Repeal all civil forfeiture laws.
(Work toward these objectives on the state and federal level).
Require that all posted speed limits be set at the actual, independently surveyed 85th percentile. Each stretch of roadway must be re-surveyed if it is widened or otherwise improved.
(Work toward this objective on the local, state, and federal level).
Police officers are well-known for sticking together "through thick and thin." Unfortunately, that predisposition extends to protecting their fellow officers from the consequences of criminal conduct. Commonly known as the "blue wall of silence", this pervasive conspiracy can take many forms: falsely testifying regarding the criminal conduct of fellow police officers; actively covering up the criminal conduct of fellow police officers; or simply failing to report the criminal conduct of fellow police officers. Any officer who fails to adhere to the strictures of this notorious "code of silence" is quickly made to suffer the consequences, (of which ostracization is the least severe). For all intents and purposes, this unwritten code, which is inextricably embedded in police culture, duplicates the infamous Mafia code of "omerta"- but the consequences for society are much worse. To effectively deter the police from enabling their fellow officers to perpetrate criminal conduct with impunity, severe sanctions must be imposed on those with unrevealed knowledge. New laws must be passed which make it a felony, punishable by at least two years in prison, for a police officer to fail to report, at the first possible opportunity, any misconduct of which he has personal or hearsay knowledge. Furthermore, engaging in any act which helps to conceal or enable criminal conduct must be categorized as a felony punishable by at least five years in prison. In either case, the transgressing officer must also be charged as an accomplice to the criminal conduct which he failed to disclose (i.e. he must, in addition to being charged with failure to disclose, face the same charges and punishment as the officer who actually engaged in the criminal conduct).
(Work toward this objective on the local, state, and federal level).
In many states, police officers are legally authorized to use force, (up to and including deadly force), if they feel afraid for their safety. Unbelievably enough, this is true regardless of whether or not the basis of their fear is reasonable. In other words, it is perfectly legal for a police officer to kill you based solely on his own subjective perceptions, no matter how unreasonable those perceptions may be. Such a nebulous and variable standard encourages a wanton disregard for human life, and gives the police virtual carte blanche to kill civilians. To remedy this extremely dangerous state of affairs, we must replace the "subjectively reasonable" standard with the "objectively reasonable" standard. Police authority to kill civilians must exist only under objectively reasonable circumstances. In other words, a policeman should be authorized to use deadly force only if a reasonable person, under the same circumstances, would have been in justifiable fear of their life. In the absence of such justification, any intentional death caused by the police must be charged as murder.
(Work toward this objective on the local, state, and federal level).
A police officer who commits a crime is frequently treated with much greater leniency than anyone else. Prosecutors are often reluctant to even charge a transgressing officer, let alone seek the maximum charge or the harshest sentence. And on those occasions when a case is prosecuted, judges are similarly hesitant to impose a sentence that is consistent with the sentences imposed upon private citizens for identical crimes. This is patently unfair, and encourages misconduct by buttressing the commonly-held police perception that cops are "above the law". Therefore, in cases where there is minimally credible evidence that a police officer has committed a crime, the prosecutor must have no discretion as to whether or not charges are pressed. Also, to ensure that judges impose suitable punishments, a comprehensive sentence schedule must be developed, (by a nationwide coalition of CRB's), delineating severely punitive "mandatory minimums" for all the crimes which are commonly committed by police.
(Work toward this objective on the local, state, and federal level).
Require that all prospective police officers pass a rigorous physical test prior to being hired, and annually thereafter. No adjustment of these standards will be allowed for any applicant or officer, including women or handicapped individuals, since weak or otherwise unfit individuals are more likely to resort to deadly force.
(A) Require that each police officer who uses any type of force, or who witnesses the use of any type of force by a fellow police officer, file a written report.
(B) Require that each police officer who unholsters his gun, or who witnesses a fellow police officer unholster his gun, file a written report.
(C) Any police officer whose use-of-force rate exceeds the most recent 6-month use-of-force rate average of fellow officers in the state in which he is employed would be subject to thorough investigation, evaluation, and potential termination.
(D) Any police officer who fails to file a required use-of-force report would be terminated.
Prohibit the inclusion of any clause in police-union contracts which grants the police union any control over the discipline and termination of officers.
A police officer, simply by virtue of his position, is often accorded special protections under criminal law. For example, in some states, any "unwanted touching" of a police officer, no matter how slight that touch may be, constitutes a felony offense (a high-degree assault or battery, which is sure to be prosecuted to the maximum extent). However, a civilian touching another civilian in exactly the same manner constitutes merely a misdemeanor (and the transgression is unlikely to be charged or prosecuted). It's an open question as to whether such special treatment for police officers is warranted. But clearly, if the police are going to receive the benefits of heightened protection, they should also be held to heightened standards of conduct. To give but one example: if a police officer engages in any crime which can possibly be construed as an abuse of authority, (e.g. having sex with a prisoner, whether consensual or not), that crime should be charged as a high-level felony, regardless of how it would be charged if the perpetrator were a civilian. In other words, all criminal laws must be revised to impose harsher charges and punishments on police who break those laws. Further justification for this change in the law arises from public-policy considerations, in that:
(A) unlike civilians, police officers have sworn a formal solemn oath to obey and uphold the law;
(B) the public has a clear and compelling right to expect police officers to be honest and law-abiding, and relies on that expectation in convicting many individuals based solely on the testimony of police officers;
(C) the police have the lawful ability to deprive citizens of life, liberty, and property, and if they are not held to the highest standards of honesty and exemplary conduct, public welfare is gravely endangered.
(Work toward this objective on the local, state, and federal level).
Require all police officers to undergo annual polygraph tests, (administered by an independent expert selected by the CRB), in order to determine if the officer has committed any wrongdoing, or is cognizant of any wrongdoing in the ranks.
(A) Reject all applicants who fail any aspect of police-academy training.
(B) Increase the minimum age of applicants to 25.
(C) Increase the minimum educational requirement of applicants to a 2-year college degree, including 50 credits of psychology and 50 credits of constitutional law, with a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0, AND an SAT score of at least 1000.
(D) Abolish all affirmative action programs, and rely instead on outreach programs, if necessary.
Conduct an annual credit check on each police officer, to ascertain (a) if the officer has established a credit limit exceeding the statistical average of an individual in his income bracket; or (b) if the officer has accumulated an unreasonable debt load, (since the demands of such a debt load could tempt him to generate revenue through illegal means). In the absence of a verified explanation, any officer found to have a credit limit which exceeds by 10% the average credit limit of individuals in that income bracket would be subject to an independent audit and investigation. In the absence of a verified source of non-salary funds, any officer who accumulated a debt load which exceeded by 15% the average debt load of individuals in that same income bracket would receive credit counseling and ordered to reduce his debt load to average within one year, or face termination without benefits.
(A) Prohibit the use of all so-called less-lethal weapons which have been banned under the Geneva Convention, or which are reasonably suspected to contain carcinogens.
(B) Increase the availability of weapons which are proven to be non-lethal.
(C) Provide intensive training in the proper use of such weapons.
(D) Revise policies regarding the use of traditional firearms to discourage the unnecessary taking of human life.
Provide substantial training in community relations, psychology, interpersonal skills, and constitutional law.
Our thanks to “Maryland Speedster” for this artwork. Both the concept and the execution are absolutely brilliant.
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