If a conviction can be accomplished, then civil actions - due to the lower standard of proof - become mere haggling over how much the settlement will be.
In all candor, I find this deeply disturbing. It seems like something one would read about from the old USSR, or the People's Republic of China. And there isn't any real accountability. Aguirre may (may!) get fired; but we have lots of officers, jailers, magistrates, and tow truck drivers who simply went along with the flow and didn't say or do anything to stop it. How far would they go? Is there a subset that would "disappear" certain malfactors, ala South America? Or even some who would agree to something more systematic? I wonder - truly - just how far we are from being like the "good Germans who were only following orders." Would we risk the wrath of the police to stop...whatever?
This is also interesting in that it provides a perfect laboratory for understanding how totalitarian regimes survive. Businesses and everyone else cooperates (or should that be written "capitulates"?)...would they dare do otherwise? Innocent people are arrested, and then - if they aren't prepared to work the system, or cannot afford to do so - they wind up with a conviction for criminal trespass. If the penalty were a week in jail instead of a night, would we react? What if it were a month? A year? Life? Or...death? A few people write about it. A few talk. The investigation will drag on, a statement will be released that mistakes were made, an insincere apology will be read, and I suspect that will be the extent of it. Nothing will happen, and nothing will be done.
Worst of all, there seems to be no outrage among the elected officials. No righteous anger. And that, I fear, is telling.