Robert Lewis, Investigative Reporting Program, and David DeBolt, Bay Area News Group
More than 80 law enforcement officers working today in California are convicted criminals, with rap sheets that include everything from animal cruelty to manslaughter. They drove drunk, cheated on timecards, brutalized family members, even killed others with their recklessness on the road. But thanks to some of the weakest laws in the country for punishing police misconduct, the Golden State does nothing to stop these officers from enforcing the law. Those are among the findings of an unprecedented collaboration of newsrooms—including USA TODAY Network publications The Desert Sun, Ventura County Star, Redding Record Searchlight, Salinas Californian and Visalia Times Delta—which spent six months examining how California deals with cops who break the law.
The review found 630 officers convicted of a crime in the last decade—an average of more than one a week. After DUI and other serious driving offenses, domestic violence was the most common charge. More than a quarter of the cases appear never to have been reported in the media until now. And nearly one out of five officers in the review are still working or kept their jobs for more than a year after sentencing.
(It’s a small percentage of the 79,000 sworn officers across the state. But exactly how many cops with convictions are still on the beat today—or even the number of officers convicted over the last decade—is far from clear. Hindered by some of the strictest secrecy laws in the country, California residents don’t really know who is carrying a gun and patrolling their streets.)
Gina Barton,Gina Barton, and Brett Murphy
From a tiny department in the mountains of Idaho to the New York Police Department, USA TODAY found more than 300 cases of officers who bucked law enforcement’s blue wall of silence by reporting or testifying against co-workers accused of misconduct over the past decade. In Colorado, an internal affairs investigator leaked a video of an officer punching a handcuffed man in a wheelchair in the head. In Texas, an officer reported a sergeant who had planted drugs in his ex-wife’s car. In Louisiana, a state trooper refused to participate in what he says was a cover-up in the case of Ronald Greene, who died in state custody after being beaten and stunned with a Taser. After speaking out, all of them were forced out of their departments and branded traitors by fellow officers.
In our searchable database, the bold title for each entry and the sortable categories describe the nature of the allegation; they do not indicate whether the misconduct was proven to have occurred. The year column indicates when the purported wrongdoing happened. In some cases, it was reported later. Unless otherwise indicated, the accused officers and/or department leaders have denied wrongdoing.
USA TODAY spent more than a year unearthing the cases from thousands of documents from police and sheriff’s departments, prosecutors, oversight groups and labor regulators around the country, including federal files provided by confidential sources.
Speaking out against police misconduct brings trouble for officers
Orangeburg Department of Public Safety Officer David Lance Dukes is charged with first-degree assault and battery in the July 26 attack, officials said.
ORANGEBURG, S.C. — A police officer in Orangeburg has been fired and arrested after stomping the head of a man who was on his hands and knees causing his head to hit concrete, South Carolina authorities said.
Orangeburg Department of Public Safety Officer David Lance Dukes is charged with first-degree assault and battery in the attack on July 26, according to a warrant from the State Law Enforcement Division.
Dukes ordered a 58-year-old man who walks with a stick to the ground, but he moves carefully because he has pins and rods in his leg from a previous injury, attorney Justin Bamberg told The Times and Democrat of Orangeburg.
“Because of my client’s disability, he’s relatively slow,” Bamberg said.
The man suffered a bruise to his forehead and was taken to the hospital by paramedics, according to the arrest warrant.
Dukes’ lawyer said he fully cooperated with state police and is taking the case seriously.
“This is a difficult situation and an unfortunate situation,” Jack Furse said. “He has absolutely no violent history and he’s not a proclivity to violence.”
Orangeburg Public Safety officials said Dukes, 38, was fired after their own review of the incident, which was captured on a body camera.
Bamberg said he hopes the city will release that footage.