"following his departmental procedure TO THE LETTER. "
There's the letter of the law and there's a spirit to the law also.
Then there's rational thinking and common sense too. It can always be applied to most situations.
Yeah, and I get written up if I use the wrong color of ink on a report. Even when you do everything right, you can still get sued.
I'm not ready to say this cop did something wrong until I see and read what happened, not what some lawyer, looking for his next meal, says happened.
I once was wrongly accused of assaulting some guy and breaking his elbow. I never touched the guy. Come to find out some cop was sleeping with his wife, years before I was ever on the department, and he thought it was me. This came out in the hearings.
They still gave the guy $3,000.00.