Police Chief Publicly Disciplines Officers On Social Media
from the welcome-to-the-future dept
All too often, we discuss cases of apparent police abuse and instances of law enforcement organizations closing ranks around the abusers. Far too many stories of police destroying evidence of misconduct, massively dismissing complaints against officers, and the violation of some of our most basic rights as citizens have resulted in the permeation of a culture of mistrust. Now, despite these highlighted stories, I'm of the belief that the vast majority of law enforcement officers perform their admittedly difficult duties admirably. That said, when the organizational bureaucracies that run these fraternal orders undermine the public trust, even at a punctuated pace, the resulting public culture is immensely harmed. Citizens are demanding more transparency and accountability from their public servants, perhaps none more so than those that are charged with serving and protecting us.
Well, in an apparent attempt to meet that demand, one police chief in Dallas is taking to social media to publicly announce when his officers are disciplined.
Dallas Police Chief David O. Brown has fired or disciplined 27 officers and employees in the last year. And every time he brings down the hammer, he announces it on Facebook and Twitter, specifying exactly who the men and women are and what they did. On Dec. 30, it was five officers and a 911 call operator.Each tweet and post outline what the nature of the misconduct was, the punishment, and always notes that the officers have rights as accused, including appeal. But don't let that fool you. Chief Brown is very direct, very specific, and names the accused fully. For instance:
I have terminated SC Frank Della for public intoxication, damaging a person's property, and making offensive contact with a person. — Chief David O. Brown (@DPDChief) December 30, 2013
Under Civil Service rules, SC Della has a right to appeal his discipline. — Chief David O. Brown (@DPDChief) December 30, 2013
I'll admit, this is an interesting way to achieve some transparency, and for those that might distrust or dislike law enforcement in general it may be a tantalizing policy to publicly shame such bad actors, but I'm not finding within me the desire to cheer gleefully for this type of thing. Public shaming is a powerful thing. And that's true whether the accused ends up being guilty or innocent. I wonder if this might be a step too far. True, these officers are public servants, they work for us, and any effort at transparency to the public is a good thing, but I'm not certain there's a great deal of value in this beyond a public spectacle and some feel-goods.
Feel-goods aren't what we need. I'm more interested in more substantive reform to the entire relationship between LEOs and the public than forcing a few of them to wear the social media scarlet letter.
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Filed Under: dallas, david brown, discipline, police, public accountability, social media
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If the names are kept confidential in the case of a citizen, I can certainly see waiting to post the names and charges until either the appeal comes back and upholds the charges, or they decide not to fight them, but if they're made public, it only seems fair to treat both cop and citizen equally.
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I'm still a junkie, always will be, but now I'm going about it the legal way.
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and yet they do
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Arrests (not convictions) are printed daily in the local paper and are displayed on the paper's website.
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I think it is appropriate for LEO to have the same standards used against them.
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It makes it abundantly clear that is you work for that department, and screw up badly enough(or abuse your authority bad enough), you will be punished, and people will find out about it, it won't just be swept under the rug.
Between those two pieces, you've got plenty of incentive for those working at that department to be on their best behavior, and the public knows that bad actors will be punished, which would be excellent at restoring trust towards those that do deserve it.
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Is this "public shaming" really new?
Honestly I think the bigger deal is that these officers are actually being punished, and the fact that it's coming straight from the horses mouth on twitter makes (the individual) event less newsworthy.
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Re: Is this "public shaming" really new?
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Actual firings
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sure name the offense and punishment, I see no problem telling the victim their tormentor is punished, but using tweets and other anouncement to further your own reputation when you punish others is borderline corrupt. the temptation is there to amp up the punishment to get better headlines,likes,etc
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Hopefully the police department is fairly sure of their guilt before terminating them. If not, that's another problem. But the fact of their termination is still a fact, regardless. Just like the fact of someone's arrest - the arrest can get reported on whether or not the person is guilty. And arrests are often not just posted to social media, but given press releases and photo opportunities. They'll not only call the media, they'll even redo the arrest if the media misses it.
But there's also no downside (unless the person is innocent - but again, that's another matter.) I do think that there is a responsibility to post any reinstatements in all of the same places that the original announcements were posted.
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Done and done.
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The (unfortunate) big difference between public and private employment
And under private employment rules, SC Della would have a right to go pound sand.
Why does the public sector get such deference? Frankly, society would be better off if at at the merest whiff of impropriety, public sector employees were delegated to unemployment and pounding sand.
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Re: The (unfortunate) big difference between public and private employment
I feel sorry for the poor widdle wabbits caught up in the publicity hunt.
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Re: The (unfortunate) big difference between public and private employment
Note that anti-discrimination laws do apply in the private sector; you can't appeal, but you can sue. It would be nice if we could apply the full protections to private employment, but that gets a little more tricky, both morally and practically. The key difference is that the public sector is "us", and we as a whole get to decide how it works; this doesn't hold for private business.
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Re: Re: The (unfortunate) big difference between public and private employment
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The "thin blue line" is no doubt stronger the higher up it goes in the command structure. Not surprisingly, there are no police officers (of any rank) who dare go on Facebook and Twitter to criticise Chief Brown.
Another big problem is that many police forces are unionized, and you can bet that any labor union is going to fight this or any other kind of discipline tooth and nail.
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I'm sick of seeing whole swathes of society being demonized for no good reason.
That said, practices like demarcation annoy me.
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And from everything I have ever read, the City unions are hardly unique in that respect.
As for directly fighting for bad actors, we were told afew years ago a local PD wanted to institute officer GPS tracking in each car for their CAD(dispatch) system. Both as a officer safety issue and mostly to help guide the closest car to the right point.
The union fought against this as a "privacy" issue, and it was never implemented. Maybe not exactly what you are talking about, but it definitely helped protect bad actors.
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Well, just off the top of my head, the MLBPA and NFLPA seem to fit that description nicely....
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Sauce....Goose
This is all as a result of some police investigation, but before I trial, guilt or even appeal.
Someone tell me how this is different?
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This reeks of damage control
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If they have done something so serious that they cannot perform their duties due to public mistrust, then almost by definition they should be fired.
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Conduct Unbecoming
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More needed
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I think this is how they ALL should work. Not just police officers, but all public servants.
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One hand gives...
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