The LAPD received 1,356 complaints of “biased policing” (AKA racial profiling) from 2012-2014, but after investigating them, the investigating officials decided that their co-workers had done nothing wrong — ever.
The fact that the LAPD found not one single complaint to be credible has prompted the LA police watchdog to call for a “deep dive briefing” on the police department’s investigation process. A police union spokesman said that it would be impossible to prevent or detect racism in policing by his members.
Craig Lally, head of the union that represents officers, said that officers usually can’t tell the race of a motorist when they make a traffic stop. Even if an officer was racist, he said, it’s nearly impossible to prove whether he or she stopped someone because of that bias, rather than appropriate probable cause or reasonable suspicion.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s 13 hundred or 13 million [complaints], it’s always going to be the same,” he said. “We don’t want racist cops because that makes us all look bad. But there’s no way to really do it. I haven’t seen a real system in place that could weed that out.”
LAPD found no bias in all 1,356 complaints filed against officers
[Kate Mather/LA Times]
(via Naked Capitalism)