Fired cops routinely rehired, from D.C. to California

(Reuters) - Police impunity for flagrant misconduct has long been a reality and is becoming better-documented.

Studies and reporting have shown that it’s exceedingly rare for departments to fire officers. The data also shows that arbitrators regularly overturn discipline and that fired cops routinely return to law enforcement, often at their previous employer – and with back pay.

The evidence is piling up, especially since the global protest movement against racism and police brutality in 2020.

Last month, the District of Columbia auditor’s office found that two out of every three cops fired by the Metropolitan Police Department between 2015-2021 were returned to the force, including several whose behavior had been deemed a threat to public safety, for example.

The results of that study are part of a larger pattern around the country. In 2020, a Reuters analysis of roughly 3,000 complaints against Minneapolis police officers from the previous eight years showed that nine of every 10 were resolved without punishment or intervention. Just five officers were fired.

An analysis of records from 37 of the largest police forces in the country showed they hired nearly 91,000 officers in 2017, and had fired 1,881 over the previous decade, the Washington Post reported in August 2017. At least 451 of those fired officers appealed and were reinstated.

The available research also shows that arbitrators commonly overturn discipline, including studies in Chicago, Houston, Cincinnati, and Portland dating back to the 1990s, according to a 2016 law review article by attorney Tyler Adams.

“In recent years, Philadelphia and Oklahoma City have seen nearly every discharged police officer reinstated through arbitration,” Adams wrote.

Arbitrators reduced or simply overturned police officer discipline in more than half of their appeals between 2006-2020, according to a 2021 study of more than 600 arbitration decisions from around the country by Stephen Rushin, law professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

The most recent studies and reporting only reaffirm the notion that publicity, rather than actual disqualifying conduct, is typically the impetus for real accountability within police departments.

Washington D.C.'s audit revealed that 36 of the 49 officers fired between 2015 and 2021 were reinstated, and received$374,000 from the District on average.

One officer was terminated in 2009 after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting a young woman in his MPD vehicle. He got his job back 10 years later, in 2019, and was paid roughly $532,000 in back pay, according to the report.

To make matters worse, the reinstatements were largely due to MPD’s own missteps during investigative proceedings – including failing to meet deadlines.

An MPD spokesperson told me the department supports the auditors’ recommendations for reform, including a pending legislative effort that will reduce the police union’s powers over disciplinary procedures.

The MPD is concerned about “ambiguous” disciplinary laws and “an arbitration system that has contributed to the return of unsuitable police officers,” the spokesperson said.

Additionally, last week, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office in California returned badges and guns to nearly all of the 47 officers that the department had stripped of their duties in September because they had received “unsuitable” grades on their psychological fitness-for-duty exams, local Fox News affiliate KTVU reported on Oct. 28 (The issue arose after a former deputy was charged with a double murder, including killing a woman he was having an affair with.)

In fact, Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern’s letter informing the deputies about their failing grade indicated a clear intent to quickly retest and return each officer to full duty – without any apparent concern about the individual reasons they were deemed psychologically “unsuitable” for police work, according to the KTVU report.

Lt. Ray Kelly, spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, said the 41 officers who have been reinstated have indeed been reexamined and cleared for duty.

He told me the sheriff’s office “of course” intended to facilitate the officers’ retesting and reinstatement, but that leadership took a more “hands off” approach after county attorneys cautioned them against being deeply involved.

”We thought maybe a few have problems” but “we didn’t want to lose 47 officers,” Kelly said.

The office’s reaction to the alarming exam results is reflective of many law enforcement agencies' attitudes toward the basic requirements and rules of conduct that should apply to the profession, to say nothing of the laws they enforce against other citizens.

By now, the evidence is overwhelming that local law enforcement agencies could benefit greatly from much more independent disciplinary processes and oversight generally - as would the residents they come in contact with.

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