This Is Why Bad New York Cops Can Get Away With Abuse
Two years ago, a black man named Darren Collins claimed that a New York City cop humiliated him in front of his friends in broad daylight, pulling down his pants and underwear on the street and tapping his testicles in an unlawful search for drugs…
In the end, the only people who paid were taxpayers. The city shelled out $30,000 to Collins and another plaintiff in a settlement, but the cop who allegedly harassed Collins rejected the claims against him and was never disciplined or even admonished. He kept his badge and gun and stayed on the streets.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
You can't take his badge and gun. That would compromise
OFFICER SAFETY.
Isn't "bad cop" a bit redundant?
I think some do start out with good intentions and either get corrupted by the majority who are there just for the power trip or leave after a few years. So you're left with mostly bad cops, and a few good ones with a foot out the door.
The very strong culture of not badmouthing fellow officers just perpetuates the problem...even the otherwise good ones don't do it out of fear of reprisals.
99.9% of police give the rest a bad name
0.1% is technically "some"...
I had an encounter with a mythical good cop once. He gave me a ride home without asking me a bunch of questions, searching me, running me for warrants, threatening me, and otherwise doing what every other cop I've ever encountered did. So yeah, they do exist.
My daughter-in-law's father was one of those old timey good cops of yore. He retired early because and I quote, "I was tired of working with stupid assholes, which was the only type of guy they were hiring." He builds furniture now.
I've had 2 in just the last couple of years. However in both cases I was living in affluent white towns with very low crime rates. Hell in the town I live in now the most common call that the police have to deal with by a very significant margin is livestock getting loose so the cops here tend to be a hell of a lot more reasonable and less jaded and the towns residents who have a median income north of $130k don't tolerate overly nosey civil servants.
It's funny how cops behave differently when the citizens they interact with can afford to hire a lawyer.
I blame Bush
I think Rudy "noun verb 9/11" Guliani is a much better candidate for blame.
/that's probably the best description ever for a politician....
He may have been holding contraband in his scrotum afterall.
He is a black man. Everybody knows that their savage and virile natures impregnate women just with a glance.
Fact.
Few non-cops are aware of the incredible carrying capacity of a black man's scrotum.
HUFFPO? Really?
It seems like you left out a very important part of this story here: