More Adventures in Police Professionalism

U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson recently awarded Barron Bowling $830,000 for the beating he suffered at the hands of DEA Agent Timothy McCue. McCue and Bowling got into an accident in Kansas City, Kansas, after which McCue emerged from his car, gun drawn, and beat the leaving hell out of Bowling. McCue, the DEA, and officers at the Kansas City police department then conspired to cover up the beating, leaving Bowling to face charges of leaving the scene of an accident (understandable, given that he was getting beaten at the time), and assaulting Agent McCue with his car. Witness statements incriminating McCue for both the accident and the beating were lost or destroyed, as were photos of the damage McCue did to Bowling's face.

The good news: At least one of the Kansas City police officers has since been disciplined. He was investigated by Internal Affairs, forced into early retirement, lost his retirement health insurance, and lost part of his pension.

The bad news: Only one of them was disciplined. Oh, and he happens to be the cop who exposed the coverup.

Comments

[Extended Warren T]

Gov't agencies select against honesty and competence so I am not surprised by what happened here.

[Greer]

"beat the leaving hell out"

He may have been wanting to leave, but I think it was probably a living hell that he was feeling.

[John]

And what happened to the dirtbag cops who covered it up? RTFA

Miller has left the force and is now the police chief in Topeka. He did not return phone calls.

As for Lane, he became an Edwardsville councilman. He left the Police Department in 2007 after he pleaded no contest to four misdemeanors associated with a drunken-driving ticket-fixing scheme. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail and probation and is no longer on the council. He could not be reached for comment.

Culp is now the executive director of the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers' Standards and Training. He declined to comment on details of the judicial rulings, which he said he had not read.

Ware has retired from the force and now works for the police in a civilian capacity. He did not reply to an e-mail request for comment.

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010.....z111uLmrJh

[MNG]

"The bad news: Only one of them was disciplined. Oh, and he happens to be the cop who exposed the coverup."

WTF? Shouldn't they be charged? In any sane world the prosecutor in that area should be voted out of office if they don't aggresively pursue action against these guys. We live in Crazyville...

[The Thinking Man's NASCAR]

Silly Mundane, don't you know that the rules only apply if you're on the wrong side of the Thin Blue Line?

[John]

See above. One of them went on to be a police chief, one kept his job until it was uncovered he was fixing DUIs, and the other became teh chief of the Commission of Peace Officer Standards and Training. They all walked away.

I would like to know what happened to the scumbag DEA agent.

[JD]

According to the article the agent is still on the job, protecting us from the horrors of reefer madness.

[omg]

>vote

Uh oh, someone bought the "democracy works" line from Social Studies class. Hint: democracy doesn't work.

[John Thacker]

Yep, I posted this gem a couple of days ago, since it seemed right up Radley's alley. Disgusting.

[John]

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/.....0/19644821

Here is an account of the original arrest. And yes, McCue is still a DEA agent. Fuckhead.

[Mainer]

Dont' read the comments on that article. Too many, "well, he had it coming" idiots. barf

[T]

You know the score, pal. You're not cop, you're little people!

[skr]

or a replicant

[Paul]

The good news: At least one of the Kansas City police officers has since been disciplined. He was investigated by Internal Affairs, forced into early retirement, lost his retirement health insurance, and lost part of his pension.

And he's not in jail why?

[Paul]

Never mind... now I get it. Fuckity fuck this sucks.

[CavMedic]

Though in truth you have to wonder if the other cops wouldn't have put him there if they could've.

[Tulpa]

For the record, I hereby condemn this abuse of police power.

[BakedPenguin]

I linked to "Kill the Poor" in the thread above this one, I might as well link to Jello Biafra's only libertarian song in this one.

[Paul]

Didn't we recently hear some official say something to the effect of "this isn't a big city, everyone knows everyone out here, if there was corruption, we'd know about it"?

Kansas city, ks, with its populatino of 150,000 isn't exactly Philadelpha.

[me]

cue Lee Greenwood: "I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free."

[zoltan]

"And I won't forget the men who beat the shit outta you and me."

[me]

I think that most people think 'Well, nobodies bothering me.' They don't realize that it's purely a statistical thing. There are so many people that the odds of government official taking a particular interest in you are pretty slim, but we are all just as vulnerable to being trampled by the system and those who operate it. If it turns out you have a piece of property a powerful interest wants - it's gone. If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time it would be you being beaten or killed by a cop. If someone hates you enough to call in an anonymous tip - drugs, terrorism, whatever - it's your dog being shot and your life turned into a living hell. and on and on.

[fresnodan]

Yup.
We have this theory about nation of laws, no man is above the law, equal justice under law, ad infinitum.
Its all a crock.
No prosecutors have the balls to investigate or prosecute the police.
No politician has the balls to hold a hearing on police abuse.
We're pretty much the gulag, but instead of the redeeming qualities of Russian cynicism, we have to put up with how our constitutional rights protect us, and innocent until proven guilty.
And nauseating crap about how the system worked after 17 years in getting an innocent guy out of prison...I'd say thats pretty good evidence of a system not working...

[R C Dean]

Just remember, lefty liberal statists, every time you say we need more rules, more regulations, more control from above, you are creating more cops and giving them more power.

Because they don't have enough now, and they do so well with what they have.

[Jeffersonian]

^ This

[JW]

What are you talking about? This is clearly evil Republican power that they were using, not the pure and just Democrat power, which is only used for good.

[doomboy]

yeah its all those lefty liberal statists, thank dog those righty conservative statists roll back the lefty police power love every time they are in power

[No Name Guy]

Boy
Which is why they're both sides of the same douchbag coin. Shit dude, grab a clue. McCain = Obama = big govt shithead. See how it works?

(shakes head).

[doomboy]

that was my point no-name

ever heard of irony?

[Sean]

Its tough when there isn't a sarcasm font

[cynical]

Well,even lefty politicians get in trouble if they take on the cops, if Ecuador is any indication.

[R C Dean]

One more thing:

When I'm told to sit down, shut up, and pay my taxes because that's the price of living in a civilized society;

This is civilized society? One that I should tithe three times over for?

[Lost_In_Translation]

"the beatings shall continue until morale improves"

[mousefeathers]

Aren't there sometimes comments in other Bad Cop threads about why don't the good cops rat out the bad ones?

Now you know the rest of the story.

[Yonemoto]

Did anyone else notice the double-dipping in the article?

[Jeffersonian]

Disgusting. Even the most hardcore police booster has to be revolted by this.

[Narrow-minded totalitarians]

We are not revolted. We are inspired. A whistle-blowing rat deserves the worst.

[Pip]

WHERE THE FUCK IS DUNPHY?!

[troy]

I think that every time one of these "professionalism" things happens, I get to take a shit in Scalia's yard. I will need a ladder. And so when the shit gets taller than that corpulent, multi-chined statist, maybe then he might have some human decency to be embarrassed.

Or I'd like to see Scalia hit one of the sterioid induced pigs and have the pig pistol whip scalia. Now there would be some poetic justice which doesn't happen in our legal system.

[John Thacker]

Not familiar with Menendez-Diaz, Blakeley, Ring, Crawford, Kyllo, etc. are you?

Scalia wrote the opinion requiring police lab techs to testify.

You want to hit some justice, try Breyer or one of the others who are wrong 90% of the time on police and justice issues, soundbite boy.

[?]

8 people like this.

[Milwaukee]

Further evidence we need to decriminalize some drugs: we need to fear the drug enforcement agents as much as the drug dealers. Is there a high school student in America who couldn't get at least marijuana if they wanted to? Drugs are available. Some people can recreate and not ruin their lives, others can't. But giving police license to fight drugs means they think they can do all sorts of crap. So, legalize marijuana, cocaine and heroin. And eliminate large parts of the law enforcement community.

[Not just a big river in Egypt]

You underestimate my hold on the common mind.

[Lee Reynolds]

You can't fight drugs any more than you can fight toothpicks. Drugs to not possess a will of their own. They are not lying in wait to ambush someone. Drugs are inanimate substances. Some people misuse them to self-destructive ends. You could declare war on the losers who do drugs, but you might as well declare war on people who sing in the shower. Since drug abuse is a private activity, detecting those who are pathetic enough to do it is not all that easy. But that is not a bug, it is a feature.

Drug abuse that cannot be detected cannot be stopped. Meanwhile fear of drug abusers and fear that ones children will become junkies too drives the public to cede more and more power to the state to "fight drugs" making it the perfect excuse to perpetually expand the police powers of the state.

There is no way to fight drug abuse. Some people are losers. If they don't destroy themselves with drugs, they'll find some other way to do it. The best thing to do is stay away from them.

[ID]

Pretty outrageous. But, of course, websites like Reason tend to tell only the part of the story that fits their own narrative. Wish I could trust you guys more but your track record is pretty lousy.

[ID]

Pretty outrageous. But, of course, websites like Reason tend to tell only the part of the story that fits their own narrative. Wish I could trust you guys more but your track record is pretty lousy.

[Vinny B.]

Interesting that this story ignores that it happened under the Bush Administration. It is not surprising that a federal agent would act above the law, because why should he and a few of his pals care about one guy when the President has started two illegal wars in order to enrich his buddies on Wall Street, Big Oil, and to increase the Haliburton stock price. If the American people are actually dumb enough to vote Republican in November and bring them back to power, we can expect that this type of above-the-law beahvior will be reborn, and the victims will once again be minorities, gays, and women, because Republicans think those people have no rights and think nothing of abusing or even killing people that aren't white males and think nothing of murdering anyone that isn't a Bible-thumper and choose to live their lives receiving direction from a different book.

[SIV]

F+

[Lee Reynolds]

Did you hear about the case of the French woman who was raped and murdered by one of our GIs while he was under the command of Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the allied forces?

Did you hear about the kid who stubbed his toe at the white house while Obama was sitting in the Oval Office?

[Lark]

Is this a Lefty?
On the one hand, I can't imagine anyone dumb enough to think this stopped when The Magic Negro was elected, and on the other I can't imagine anyone going to this much work to caricature Lefties.
Confused, I is.

[Lee Reynolds]

Some cops are nothing but gangsters with a badge.