Police Miscellaneous

[Police Officer wins $95,000 Suit]

Jury: Transfer caused her emotional, fiscal harm

By Denny Walsh -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, June 25, 2005

A federal court jury Friday awarded a detective in the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department $95,000 in damages, finding that her transfer out of the Homicide Bureau caused her emotional distress and financial harm.

After more than two days of deliberations, the jury awarded Detective Elaine Stevenson $75,000 for her trauma and $20,000 for the overtime pay she says she lost by being moved out of homicide on Feb. 4, 2002.

The jury found that her homicide supervisor, Sgt. Craig Hill, acted with malice when he recommended the transfer.

The same jury of seven women and four men will return to court July 5 to decide how much in punitive damages should be assessed against Hill for his actions.

Undersheriff John McGinness, then a captain, transferred Stevenson to the Domestic Violence Response Team after Hill told him she was a problem employee and he wanted to get rid of her.

The sergeant, who took over homicide in 2000, testified that Stevenson, a veteran of nearly 25 years in the department who spent 5½ years in homicide, subjected him and most others in the bureau to temper tantrums, and that she was blatantly insubordinate to him.

Hill and McGinness testified that at a meeting with them on the day of the transfer, but before McGinness made the decision to move her, she called Hill names and went out of control with anger.

Stevenson sued the county, McGinness and Hill, claiming the transfer was motivated by gender bias and by testimony she had given in state court in December 2001 about another detective telling her Hill coerced a confession out of a murder suspect.

Hill denied the allegation and two courts upheld the confession as lawfully obtained. However, Hill testified he bears no ill will toward Stevenson for her testimony. Hill and McGinness testified that Hill never mentioned the murder case to McGinness.

The jury found against Stevenson on the gender issue. But it found that her testimony in the murder case, which was constitutionally protected speech, "was a substantial factor in ... Hill's
recommendation to transfer her."

Federal civil rights law prohibits retaliation for protected speech.

Stevenson is now working as a detective out of the department's Central Division. She moved there after budget cuts forced the elimination of the Domestic Violence Response Team.

She testified that, from the beginning of his tenure in the Homicide Bureau, Hill made it clear in a number of ways that he did not respect her.

Homicide is considered the most prestigious unit in the department, with the best detectives, and Stevenson told the jury she is still devastated by the transfer.

The Bee's Denny Walsh can be reached at (916) 321-1189 or dwalsh@sacbee.com. Staff writer Christina Jewett contributed to this report.

[Police Uniforms Can Be Worn By Anyone]

Thursday, June 23, 2005

(06-23) 19:43 PDT Tallahassee, Fla. (AP) --

The Florida Supreme Court said on Thursday that it's no crime to wear law enforcement uniforms or clothing with words like "police,""sheriff" and "trooper" -- as long as the wearer has
no intent to deceive.

The high court, in a 5-2 opinion, struck down a state law against such behavior as "unconstitutionally overbroad" and "vague." The maximum punishment for violating the law was a year in jail.

"The word `police' on a shirt could mean support for the police, as has been widely seen on clothing in support of the New York Police Department following September 11, 2001," Justice Charles Wells wrote.

It also could be used to express a constitutionally protected negative opinion about police conduct, while the word "sheriff" could have a political meaning when worn to promote candidates for
that office, he said.

Wells said the law bans "innocent wearing and displaying of specified words" and "is not tailored toward the legitimate public purpose of prohibiting conduct intended to deceive."

The opinion resolves conflicting lower court decisions.

One dissenter, Justice Raoul Cantero, said he feared the high court was stripping law enforcement agencies of "one important weapon in their battle against crime. ... I only hope that the Legislature acts quickly to fill the void."

[Misc Articles]

Police gear up for anarchy march

The anarchists are coming! And Palo Alto police, who haven't seen a major protest since the Vietnam War 30 years ago, are calling in horses and helicopters to deal with what the police chief says could be a violent protest by 800 anarchists marching past downtown restaurants on University Avenue on Saturday night.

http://tinyurl.com/cmm2q

***

D.C. Chief's Vehicle Snatched
'Cars Are Getting Stolen Every Day,' Ramsey Says

Wanted: Stolen car. Make and model: Ford Crown Victoria . Owner: D.C. police
department.

Reported stolen by: Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey.

http://tinyurl.com/7ozu5

***

Police arrest 16 with ties to Hells Angels

Police have arrested 16 people linked to the Hells Angels after a two-year joint investigation into biker gangs in eastern Ontario and western Quebec.

http://tinyurl.com/8mzqa

***

Officer almost hit by car, suffers broken leg

A California Highway Patrol officer responding to a wreck east of Mojave Sunday was almost hit by an out-of-control car, and only escaped by jumping onto the back of his parked vehicle.

http://tinyurl.com/dmczj

[Male and Female Officers Differences]

Police departments must use race and sex preferences in hiring as a result of federal court consent decrees and political pressures. To meet these demands, many police departments have lowered, and in some cases eliminated,established standards for personal character and intellectual and physicalcapacity.

Jan Golab writes about this in "How Racial P.C. Corrupted the LAPD" in the May 2005 issue of The American Enterprise. While most of Mr. Golab's article chronicles how Los Angeles damaged its police force in its quest for "diversity," where it's had to fire 100 police officers, identical damage has occurred in other cities. Washington , D.C. , had to indict or fire 250 cops; New Orleans indicted more than 100. In these cities, policemen have been charged with crimes ranging from murder and rape to robbing drugdealers and selling confiscated drugs.

Most policemen are honest, dedicated and hard-working people who put their lives on the line to protect us against criminals. A few, Mr. Golab reports, are no less than criminals themselves. In 1997, L.A. policeman David Mack was arrested for the armed robbery of a Bank of America branch in which he heisted $772,000. In the late 1990s, as many as 25 L.A. policemen were believed to have direct gang ties. A significant number of L.A. policemen had off-duty jobs providing security for hoodlums in the rap music industry deeply involved in drugs and gang violence. At least one policeman was arrested as a guard at a cocaine house.

In the wake of L.A. 's Rampart Division scandal, where 30 officers were
suspended or fired, former LAPD deputy chief Steve Downing said, "Rampart wasn't about cops who became gangsters. It was about gangsters who became cops." Downing adds that elected officials refuse to acknowledge the obvious: Institutionalized racial preferences "allowed persons of poor character to be hired."

Police departments not only must pass racial diversity muster but sex
diversity muster as well. Erica Walter discusses this in a companion
article, "Cops and Gender P.C.," in the same issue of American Enterprise. Few male officers measuring 5 to 5-and-a-half feet, weighing 100 to 130 pounds, are hired. Mrs. Walter reports that most female officers come close to that description, and as such, risk being overpowered by big thugs.

There are other male/female differences relevant to police work. The typical man has been exposed to fist fights; he's bloodied and been bloodied. Most male policemen have played contact sports, been exposed to firearms, and are more likely to be experienced and competent at aggressive high-speed driving. Few women policemen have these attributes. Plus, most women couldn't carry a wounded officer to safety.

The difference between male and female officers was recently painfully
demonstrated by the slaughter at an Atlanta , Ga. , courthouse where a judge and three others were murdered. It turns out that Brian Nichols, a 6-foot-1, 210-pound former football linebacker, awaiting trial for rape, was being guarded and escorted by a 50-something, 5-foot grandmother. Nichols simply overpowered her, taking her pistol, allowing him to go on a deadly rampage.

Mrs. Walter interviewed one LAPD detective who explained, "Most bad guys fall into two categories. Either they show no respect to female cops because they know they can take them, or they fear female cops because they know the women know they can be taken and will shoot quickly." Mrs. Walter concludes her article stating that women are often excellent, and sometimes better than men, in some aspects of policing that don't involve violence and physical confrontation. She warns that police forces should respect the reality that male and female officers are not interchangeable, adding that the real-world effects of pretending otherwise are ugly.

Walter Williams

Town Hall

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