Virginia Allows Criminals to Be Police Officers
WARNING: DISTRESSING VIDEO BELOW
Convicted for Crimes, Still Keep Your Certification
We all know that many laws have been put in place to protect officers from facing any repercussions for their actions. While some of that is necessary, a lot of those protections have gone way too far, allowing police officers to get away with all kinds of criminal activity but I’ve never heard of anything as bad as what is happening in Virginia. The Virginia-Pilot wrote an excellent article on why Virginia is having such a hard time with fixing the problems in their law enforcement community and what is being done to change it.
It turns out that in Virginia, there’s not much that will get an officer’s certification taken away from him. According to the article, “Some were convicted of embezzlement, others of possession of child pornography or sexual assault. One was convicted of pulling a knife on a woman he lived with and later, raping her.” Those are convictions we’re talking about. These officers were actually found guilty of their crimes yet they can still keep their peace officer’s certification under Virginia law.
Black Man Assaulted by Virginia State Trooper
The situation in Virginia has come to light now that people are recording their encounters with law enforcement. One incident, in particular, is bringing a lot of attention to the abuse and excessive force used by officers. In April of 2019, Derrick Thompson was pulled over for a traffic violation. The female officer who pulled him over decided she believed he had drugs. Other than Thompson being a Black man, there is no indication of why she thought that. She wanted to search his car. He refused. More officers were called.
State Trooper Charles Hewitt arrives and reaches into the car to unlock the door. Remember, they have no probable cause to enter into his vehicle. As Thompson records the incident Trooper Hewitt puts on a show for the camera smiling and stating, “You’re gonna get … whopped in front of the Lord and all of creation.” After further harassing Mr. Thompson, Trooper Hewitt says, “Watch the show folks,” right before he places his arm around Mr. Thompson’s neck in a chokehold and pulls him out of the car. You can no longer see what is happening on the video but you can hear Mr. Thompson telling him to get off his neck.
Trooper Hewitt showed everyone how confident officers are that they will face minimal, if any, repercussions for their actions. Under current state law, the trooper’s conduct is not reviewable. However, he has been placed on administrative leave while it is investigated for any criminal componenet. Even if it is, he won’t necessarily lose his certification.
Changing the Law
It turns out that Virginia legislators didn’t realize how much the laws protected officers and are attempting to remedy the situation. At the current time, since no one can find out what disciplinary action an officer was facing even between law enforcement agencies, officers can just agency hop no matter how bad their record is. The situation is so bad that even the “state Fraternal Order of Police also supports legislation proposed by the Chiefs of Police Association that would prevent officers from jumping from department to department.”
Police Union Supports Changes to Laws. Well, Sort Of.
I’d like to think of a police union doing something right for a change so I’ll give them credit for the above but apparently that’s the limit of their ability to be decent. Governor Northam wants to create a state board that decides if an officer should be decertified and also wants to broaden who can submit a request for review of an officer. “Maggie DeBoard, Herndon’s chief of police and incoming president of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police” is against it. “DeBoard believes police chiefs alone should have the power to flag officers for decertification.”
What she is saying is that all these rinky dink little law enforcement agencies, who are practically incestuous in nature, should be allowed to decide if their officers should lose their certifications for crimes. So what if he knocks his wife around, he was just having a bad day. So what if an officer let someone pay him money to get out of a ticket. It was only 50 bucks. Besides, he’s my best friend’s son…
Yeah, letting police chiefs decided who should get decertified would work really well. (Sarcasm) But we shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not like we can expect police unions to act ethically. They’ve shown us that is not their mission.