Monday, May 17, 2010

Cop Oversight Panel Seeking Subpoena Power — And More

Seems the folks in Atlanta are having a problem with officers showing up to hearings with attorneys.

Most police departments have Internal Affairs and all county's have a grand jury, making citizen review boards useless, but dangerous.

Click here for Atlanta Unfiltered

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Unless their is legal representation then a Police Officer should not be made to respond. Police represent the state, so they should be represented by the state.

Anonymous said...

In light of the Johnston murder, it's no wonder. Though, they technically need to be calling the Police Brass, Chief and Mayor onto the carpet more often than individual officers.

Anonymous said...

Even if they get subpoena powers, an officer can either take the 5th or if they are compelled to testify they get Garrity protection, right?

Does the board even have the ability to fire officers? From their website it doesn't look like it.

Even if they do, it sounds like the review board would have roughly the same or lessor powers than IA, just that they're not under the thumb of the Chief of police. I can see how that would be useful, if there is a bad Chief that prevents IA from working as it should, and promotes substandard officers into mgmt so the normal chain of command also doesn't take care of bad apples.

Anonymous said...

Citizen review panels are in place to crucify the police, who do the dirty job of dealing with the worst of the worst citizens. Sure we make mistakes sometimes and that is what IA is for. If I cooperated in an IA investigation, I'll be damned if I will cooperate with a citizens review panel. Hats off to APD for having the balls to say FU ! If the citizens pannel wants to do police work, let them handle it all !!!

I'm Ron Burgundy? said...

Everyone just relax, all right? Believe me, if there's one thing Ron Burgundy knows, it's women.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you guys about the necessity of cops bring their lawyers to civilian oversight committees. When your job is hanging on the line and these committees having quasi-legal power, you would be foolish not to bring a lawyer.
That said, in Detroit a seven year old girl was killed last week-end in a botched raid serving a warrant on a murder suspect.
I know all of y'all want to come home alive after a shift, but what happened in Detroit is inexcusable. Yes the perps have some heavy duty weapons like AK's and mini-14's, but when the cops bust down the door and enter tossing flash-bangs. If I had a weapon I would be using it.
Thank the Lord nothing like that has happened in DeKalb. But with cops using such tactics, accidents are bound to happen, hence the citizen over-sight committees.
I am with you guys on 90 percent of the stuff you do, and respect you all immensely.
Overwhelming fire-power and speed is the way our formidable military works nowadays, and our enemies will admit it is extremely effective.
A week ago Rockdale county lost its first deputy in nearly a hundred years. He was serving a rape warrant and the perp nailed him while hiding in a closet.
I don't know what the answer is here, but would love to discuss it with you guys.

Anonymous said...

Geez, LoFlyer, you could at least wait until the investigation is done before you go blaming the Detroit cops for the death of the 7 year old. Was it the fault of the cops, or the fault of the grandmother fighting for the swat officer's gun, according to police?