SAMSUNG [EDITOR'S NOTE: Steven Greenhut wrote this opinion piece for CalWatchdog.org but his reporting and perspective---which typically come from a conservative direction---have appeared in a variety of publications, from the Wall Street Journal to the Orange County Register, where he was deputy editor and columnist after joining the paper's editorial page staff in 1998. He is author of the 2004 book, "Abuse of Power: How the Government Misuses Eminent Domain." In 2005, Greenhut won the Institute for Justice’s Thomas Paine Award for his writing promoting freedom. He is a senior fellow at the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix.]

When police are accused of wrongdoing, their own agencies do everything they can to keep relevant information out of the public’s hands and to protect their own. The latest example comes in the brutal beating death of a homeless man named Kelly Thomas at the hands of as many as six Fullerton police. Published reports show that the Fullerton Police Department allowed the accused officers to see the official videotape so they could get their stories straight before filing the police report.

Let’s call this what it is—outright corruption. Can you imagine a police department allowing several accused non-police criminals to do this? This is from the Los Angeles Times story:

Fullerton’s acting police chief acknowledged Thursday that the department had allowed police officers involved in a deadly encounter with a homeless man to watch a video that captures the incident before writing their reports about it.
Acting Chief Kevin Hamilton said supervisors allowed the review so that the officers would have a chance to refresh their memory and write an accurate account of the incident involving Kelly Thomas.

The beating—it was caught by bystanders’ video, but the official police video was not released to the public and police confiscated videos from another bystander—turned Thomas’ face into pulp. Following the incident, police released a number of dishonest statements about the event, suggesting at one point that officers had broken bones in the scuffle.

Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackaukus is commenting on the tape in the media, but he won’t let the public see the tape. I’ve covered police use-of-force issues with this DA before and my sense is that it is highly unlikely that either this or any other Orange County DA would prosecute a police officer for excessive force. There’s no interest in doing so and the law is written in such a way that officers gain every conceivable benefit of the doubt.

Whenever the media point out the lack of accountability for abusive police officers, their union reps insist that police have to endure an enormous amount of scrutiny. There are indeed many different levels of internal oversight, but at every level these committees are dominated by other law enforcement. Police often brag about the way they “protect their own,” so what happened in Fullerton exemplifies that situation.

I recall when Tony Rackauckas released an investigation into the brutal jail beating death of John Chamberlain, allegedly by shot callers within the jail, while OC deputies claimed to be watching TV and sleeping on the job. Rackauckas’ report found that internal affairs investigators coached their fellow police officers into what to say so that they wouldn’t get in trouble.

Rackauckas deserves praise for producing that report, but no deputy was prosecuted, although a few left the office after the report and were able to receive their full pensions. In another instance, the DA prosecuted a police officer for repeatedly Tasering a handcuffed man in the back of a patrol car after he learned that police officers were joking about the torture in the locker room. But he had to drop the case after the remaining officers changed their stories in time for the trial.

OC Sheriff Sandra Hutchens, who as a young officer used deadly force in a controversial Lynwood incident, didn’t criticize her officers for their code of silence that protected a thug, but instead saved all her anger for the DA’s office for daring to use the term “code of silence,” even though it’s clear there is a code of silence in many instances in many law enforcement departments.

Actually, it’s because of attitudes such as those displayed by Hutchens that corruption persists. Similarly, when an acting chief of police allows six cops who could possibly be charged with a serious crime to watch an official video so they can get their stories straight, a clear signal is sent to other police in Fullerton and elsewhere: You can do awful things and we will help you and protect you.

That same video is off limits to the public. What does that say? Does that sound like the way things should operate in a free society?

Granted, the Times story pointed to California departments that found the Fullerton approach to be against policy, so there maybe some hope.

When local agencies are this disinterested in fairness, accountability, proper behavior and justice, the only choice is to bring in outside agencies. I’ve seen enough of these cases, though. Nothing will happen. The DA will say there was no crime—and Rackauckas already has hinted at this in his media appearances—because the cops didn’t intend to kill Thomas.

No one believes the cops set out to put a hit on 130-pound man. We just think they got carried away, behaved like thugs and killed him. Shouldn’t there be a penalty for this? If five of my friends and I got drunk and beat up a homeless man and ended up killing him, wouldn’t we at least face manslaughter charges?

Part of the problem is juries are so reluctant to convict police officers—even the rotten apples. DAs don’t want to expend political capital and lose these cases and DAs are dependent on police agencies for most of their trials.

California’s  attorney general, Kamala Harris, was tarred as “soft on crime” during her campaign, so she won’t go near this case. She’s currently currying favor with police unions for political reasons. The police union chief who was in Orange County during the Chamberlain murder is now advising her on law enforcement matters. The FBI is conducting an investigation, supposedly, but this will drag on for months or years and nothing ultimately will happen.

The state’s Copley decision will protect the crucial information from the killer cops, who might end up getting promoted or, at the worst, move on to other departments. Police departments have a habit of promoting those accused of wrongdoing — it reminds the public that police policies and procedures are none of their damned business.

Meanwhile, Fullerton’s City Council majority—dominated by former police officials—will continue to criticize the protesters rather than the killers and make silly statements. Former Police Chief and current Councilman Pat McKinley even said on CNN that it’s unclear that the police action caused Thomas’ death. Kelly was walking around and appeared fine when police approached him. He was then beaten by them. But he no doubt died of natural causes. Does McKinley believe people are morons?

Meanwhile, it is impossible to get any sort of meaningful reform regarding police issues through the current California Legislature. Some people believe that the state’s Democrats have many lefty civil libertarians in their ranks, but that’s not true. Only a small number care about civil liberties. They are the cat’s paw for the state’s unions, which protect all of their members, even the bad ones. Democratic Gov. Gray Davis showed fellow Democrats that it’s easier to win by taking away the one issue that Republicans have successfully used—law and order.

Here is a column I wrote in 2007 about an effort to provide more openness about police brutality.

Fullerton residents are protesting the beating death and bringing it to the public’s attention. That’s the only approach that could succeed at this point. The politicians aren’t too concerned about government overreaches and abuses, but everything can change if the public gets agitated by the situation.

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