http://www.newsobserver.com/559/story/523244.html
Columns
Rick Martinez:
Published: Dec 20, 2006 12:30 AM
Modified: Dec 20, 2006 07:46 AM
Officers who abuse their badges
Rick Martinez, Correspondent
North Carolina has a cop problem. This is how bad it is. Up until this year, when flashing blue lights showed up in my rear-view mirror or rolled down my street, I went through a mental checklist of what I might have done wrong. No more. In light of recent history, if a siren is meant for me, I fear for my safety.
I take no joy in writing these words. I admire cops. A nephew is a Phoenix, Ariz., beat cop. When people claim a law enforcement officer has roughed them up, my gut reaction is to think the perps probably deserved it. The guff that patrol officers endure from citizens of every economic class is way beyond what you and I would put up with.
But even a police supporter like me would be a fool to ignore growing evidence that something is wrong inside North Carolina's law enforcement community. A disturbing pattern of violence and corruption has emerged.
The latest episode involves the Dec. 1 shooting death in Wilmington of college student and robbery suspect Peyton Strickland by a New Hanover Emergency Response Team member. It was a botched attempt to arrest Strickland and others for an alleged assault and theft of a PlayStation3.
But there have been other tragic outcomes. In January, Davidson County jailers Brandon Gray Huie and Lt. Ronald Parker beat inmate Carlos Claros Castro to death. An autopsy determined Claros Castro died from multiple injuries, including blunt trauma to the head and asphyxiation. Huie pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in July. Later that month a Davidson County jury convicted Parker of the same charge.
In August 2005, Nyles Arrington was shot and killed by off-duty Raleigh police officer Michelle Peele as he tried to steal her car. A Wake County grand jury refused to indict her, but Raleigh Police Chief Jane Perlov canned Peele for violating regulations on the use of deadly force. Peele still wants her job back. Although remorseful, she maintains she did nothing wrong and testified she would do the same thing if faced with the same circumstances.
Last week, three former Wake County deputies were indicted on charges of simple assault after allegedly roughing up Robert Wise in front of his wife and daughter. What did Wise do to provoke the August incident? His SUV took up two parking spaces outside a Garner restaurant.
Wake County cops aren't the only ones suspected of administering beatings to civilians. In September, Durham Police Chief Steve Chalmers fired officers Gary Lee and Scott Tanner after they were charged with misdemeanor assault for a sports bar fight with a cook. Judge Debra Sasser dismissed the charges over a venue dispute.
Outside the Triangle, old-school crime and corruption seem to hold sway among some law enforcers. Over the past four years, for example, 12 former Robeson County deputies have been charged with drug-related crimes that include kidnapping, arson and theft.
In Polk County, newly elected Sheriff Chris Abril faces charges of statutory rape and first-degree sexual offense. The incidents allegedly occurred in the 1980s when Abril was in his late 20s and the girls were 10 and 11 years old. Abril strongly denies the charges, which he claims are political attacks.
In the Rowan County town of Landis, police chief Charles Childers was arrested in August on child pornography charges that included allegations of trying to seduce a female juvenile.
That is just a sample. This year, other North Carolina law officers have been investigated on charges ranging from drug trafficking to murder-for-hire to larceny to taking indecent liberties with a minor.
For sure, officers rightly fear for their safety from armed and deadly lawbreakers, but their job description requires them to use force only when necessary. And it never calls for corruption. Law enforcement leaders would be foolish to dismiss all these alleged acts and the resulting investigations as the work of a few rogue cops. There are just too many incidents at nearly every level to ignore. Yet I know of no North Carolina law enforcement leader who has publicly acknowledged growing lawlessness among those who carry a badge.
Self-examination would be a good start in rebuilding law enforcement's ethical foundation -- although most cops I know think that introspection is a waste of time. In this situation, however, it's a matter of self-preservation.
Contributing columnist Rick Martinez can be reached at rickjmartinez2@verizon.net.
http://www.wilmingtonstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061221/EDITORIAL/612210310
Article published Dec 21, 2006
Add another DA to the sorry list
It's hard to keep track of the North Carolina district attorneys who cheat, break the law and trample the truth in a rush to get convictions - not to mention publicity for their next political campaign.
Now Durham DA Mike Nifong is accused of getting the head of a private laboratory to withhold DNA evidence that might weaken his rape case against those three Duke lacrosse players. The lab director testified under oath last week that Nifong talked him into it.
The DA didn't even dispute it. He just said the players' high-priced defense attorneys hadn't asked for the evidence that might have gotten their clients off the hook.
But state law requires prosecutors to give evidence to defense attorneys whether they ask for it or not. Nifong had to know that - particularly after the uproar over the failure of two other prosecutors to turn over evidence that might have made it harder for them to railroad an innocent man to death row. The State Bar says they also altered documents and lied to the judge.
Of course, Nifong also knew that those two prosecutors have not been prosecuted by their fellow prosecutors. One prosecutor has even become a judge. So you know he's honest.
Nor has Attorney General Roy Cooper asked the General Assembly to give him (and not just local DAs) the authority to go after prosecutors who violate the laws they swore to uphold.
Heaven forbid. The public might lose faith in the integrity of its "criminal justice system" and the honesty of the politicians it elects to prosecute criminals.