Brickbat: They Don't Like It When It Happens to Them

A Chicago jury has awarded Markee Cooper Sr. $565,000 after cops broke into his home searching for drugs. The jury found that one of the officers was responsible for false information used to get the warrant to search the house. Cooper is himself a police officer.

Comments

[invisible furry hand]

this would be a sweet money-making scam - get your buddies to bust down the door, sue the city, and distribute the kick-backs. Of course, the cops who did the raid would have to face disciplinary action, which we all know would be a major disincentive

[Whiterun Guard]

Yeah, this seems pretty ingenious. As long as you got different cops to do the raids (or at least provide the information) every time, you could keep it up pretty much indefinitely.

Of course, I don't know why they bother. They can easily just raid non-cop houses and seize their criminal-enterprise related assets without having to go through the hassle of disciplinary actions or court mandated payments.

[Groovus Maximus]

Silly WRG, you have to maintain the facade of, "We police our own," and justify the existence of Internal Affairs.

Since even the most ardent of porcine worshipers admit there is an occasional dirty cop, so as long as the keep the rate of exposure at certain level, they can simply claim, "The system works!"

Of course, they will always need more money to fight corruption and ferret out abusive practices of the certain percentage of busting other porcines who are sharing in the graft of which you speak.

[Whiterun Guard]

True, definitely true. My only thing in this case is that if they were setting up Cooper as a dirty ex-cop, he wouldn't have won anything (or probably even be around to talk about it).

I mean if they're going to out a corrupt officer every couple years as a sacrifice, it seems they'd lock up the case much tighter than this, and also make it much more spectacular - they are heroes, after all!

[Fist of Etiquette]

The jury also assessed punitive damages against three of five officers ? money they will be responsible for paying, Shiller said.

Hopefully the union covers that for them.

There is a dearth of facts in the Tribune article, but I'm guessing there was a beef of some kind against Cooper by Chicago po-po.

[Whiterun Guard]

I'm kind of disappointed that the Brickbat today wasn't about that whole school knifing thing.

[Ted S.]

I was hoping it would be about right-to-work laws.

[Groovus Maximus]

Cooper, a nine-year police veteran, is assigned to the department's elite Organized Crime Division, working undercover investigations that often involve getting warrants.

I wonder in how much scumbaggery Cooper himself has participated. He is a Chicago police officer after all. I'm sure he's pure as the wind driven snow.

He testified at trial that he thought he was the victim of a home invasion when he first heard someone breaking into his residence, only to find about a dozen plainclothes officers with guns drawn.

To add to what Fisty said upthread, I wonder if this is a case of, "Nice house and family you got there...shame if something happened to them." I also wonder, since he was undercover for an Organized Crime Unit, if some of his past "associations" didn't simply decide to "get even" via the noble, untainted, hallowed, and above reproach Chicago Police Dept.

[Whiterun Guard]

I don't know, I put down to sheer typical cop stupidity. Hell, I'd lay odds that they didn't even know the guy in the house was a former cop. My suspicion is that maybe Cooper pissed off some low-level CI, who went to his handler and tried to get him (Cooper) rolled. So the CPD did what they normally do, trumped up a bunch of lies and did the smash and grab.

Unfortunately for them and the Chicago taxpayers (and ultimately, post Illinois bailout, the Amurrrican taxpayer), they didn't do their homework properly, and Cooper called them on it.

I just somehow figure that if he'd have pissed off any previous "associations", it'd be handled off the books and with a lot less paperwork and records.

[Groovus Maximus]

Where is the "former", or "ex-cop"? As per the article, Cooper is still on the force. I didn't read anywhere his career referenced in the past tense.

I dunno either. Sometimes having things handled "on the books", however shadily, gives it an air of "legitimacy". This is Chicago, after all.

[invisible furry hand]

No, this is Chicago. Or at least I hope it is

[Groovus Maximus]

I was in Chicago earlier this year for an FACS shindig, and saw neither hide nor hair of John Lee Hooker. I guess I should have been on a Mission of God.

[invisible furry hand]

My brother was in Chicago earlier this year and went to the Cook County Assessors' Office without having to dodge a decommissioned cop car once. So you were both disappointed, unless of course a FACS shindig compensates

[Groovus Maximus]

The FACS shindig was bereft of IFH, so it was severely decompensated. It had its usual interesting seminars of new, nifty surgical techniques, dreadfully boring stuff on medical care policy on the horizon, and the usual tomfoolery of "DocS GOnE WilD!"

[Whiterun Guard]

I have decided to just start making up things and pretending they were part of the articles I respond to. It's part of my re-education.

[invisible furry hand]

why even bother pretending?

[Groovus Maximus]

You've been drinking again, haven't you, WRG? That German vodka will be the dearth of you.

[Whiterun Guard]

It was a, uh, pretty wet weekend. But I'm almost sure I'm sober now.

I did go on a run this morning, so it's probably, I don't know, endorphins or something.

Like when those cops broke into that guys house and flushed their bodies with heroin to produce super-endorphine that they could sell on the interstellar black market. I'm pretty sure it was on Balko's site.

[Ted S.]

I agree it will be the lack of him.

[Almanian.]

Dearthed to death - all the cool kids are doing it

[Ted S.]

I thought this was Chicago.

[Groovus Maximus]

I figured you would have posted this abomination, Theodore.

[Ted S.]

I've read that a print of the 1927 version survives. I'd really like to see that.

Barring that, you'll have to put up with Ginger Rogers, which isn't such a bad thing.

[Groovus Maximus]

Better than Catherine Zeta-Jones. Her acting in that was so bad, it gave Michael Douglas cancer.

[R C Dean]

The jury found that one of the officers was responsible for false information used to get the warrant to search the house.

Since those affidavits to get warrants are given under oath, this could well be a crime. Is the DA involved? Since there is serious doubt about this information (including, I might add, no evidence other than a cop's word that he actually exists), why wasn't he brought in for questioning? Do we really think all these cops would have taken the fall for punitive damages out of their own pocket if they could have produced a CI to take the hit?

[waaminn]

Wow, sounds like your average cop to me dude.

http://www.Anon-ot.tk

[Ryan60657]

This article is from August. Would be nice if we could get more timely brickbats. Maybe from the past 7 days or so.