Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Posted on 08/07/2002 9:05:36 AM PDT by Printers Angel
Just past midnight on Feb. 2, Brittany Scheerer and her boyfriend were driving home from a friend's house when a car began following them.
They had just turned onto Rt. 161 from a New Albany subdivision. The car behind Scheerer was so close that she couldn't see its headlights in her rearview mirror.
The car followed her closely for about 3 miles on the dimly lit roadway. Scheerer wondered whether the driver was drunk. Or worse, did he have a gun?
As they were about to cross into Licking County, lights atop the vehicle behind them flashed blue and red. Scheerer was being pulled over.
Officer Kevin Deckop of the New Albany Police Department cited Scheerer because the tinted windows on her silver Hyundai Tiburon were too dark.
The day Scheerer paid the $50 ticket, she also filed a complaint with New Albany police. Deckop, she said, had followed her too closely and changed lanes three times before stopping her.
Police later called her in to meet with Sgt. Ed Burton. Scheerer said Burton was gruff and intimidating while questioning her about the complaint.
He was the same when he took her into a room to show her a videotape of the traffic stop recorded by the camera in Deckop's cruiser.
While she watched, Burton continued to question her about her claims, Scheerer said. She refused to back down. Burton then took her into another room and arrested her, saying she violated a year-old state law that makes it illegal to file a false complaint against a police officer.
Once handcuffed, Scheerer was driven to the Franklin County jail, where the 18-year-old honor student was strip-searched and led to a cell.
"I was thinking: 'What just happened?' I didn't know how to react. I went blank,'' Scheerer said recently from her Pataskala home, where she lives with her parents.
She stayed there until her father bailed her out later that morning.
New Albany police alleged Scheerer was so enraged about the ticket that she tried to ruin Deckop's reputation by filing the complaint against him.
In April, a Franklin County Municipal Court jury sided with Scheerer. They found that her claim about how the officer followed her matched what they saw on the patrol-car videotape.
"We definitely feel she thought she was telling the truth,'' said Mark Lensenmayer, the jury foreman in the trial. "She felt she had been wronged. I think the girl showed a tremendous amount of courage in not backing down.''
Neither New Albany's police chief nor Burton would comment on the case, nor would New Albany's prosecutor or its law director. The department and village are defendants in a lawsuit Scheerer filed last month.
She and two others in Franklin County have been charged under the law, which took effect in March 2001, that makes filing a false complaint a misdemeanor offense.
A Columbus woman was sentenced to 12 days in jail because she falsely claimed a State Highway Patrol trooper improperly touched her during a traffic stop. A Franklin County man was charged in January after alleging that during a traffic stop, the officer refused to give the man his badge number.
Supporters of the law say it was not created to shield officers from all complaints, only those filed by people who know them to be false.
"I'm sure when people sat down to write that law, they didn't envision a situation like this,'' Lensenmayer said about Scheerer's case.
New Albany police could have dismissed Scheerer's complaint instead of arresting her. And they didn't have to jail her, said her attorney, James McNamara. They could have allowed her to leave with a summons to appear in court.
"It doesn't make sense to make it scary or dangerous for a citizen to go down and make a complaint about a policeman,'' McNamara said.
"Unfortunately the lesson is: You should be afraid to complain to the government for fear of punishment.''
Scheerer isn't looking forward to another courtroom battle. However, she said, it could help the next person who files what they consider a valid complaint against a police officer.
"I hope it doesn't come back on them, like it did on me.''
Sounds like the New Albany PD needs an off duty visit from the vigilance committee.
Anyone who would question anything any police officer does is desecrating the graves of the FDNY and NYPD heroes who died on September 11, 2001.
And anyone who does not recognize the above statement to be sarcasm proves the point.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
I never use written sarcasm. Without tone, rolling eyes, belly laughs and hand gestures, sarcasm, even the clever variety, is too easily misunderstood.
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