Trending: Cops Getting Indicted and Their Shocked Reactions

Jan. 29, 2016 (Mimesis Law) — The Waller County, Texas Grand Jury indicted Officer Michael Kelley for tasing a Prairie View City Council member. Kelley was charged with Official Oppression, and even if he is acquitted of the criminal charges, he is likely done in law enforcement. Forever.

Not only that, but the District Attorney is actively seeking other people who may have been mistreated by Kelley and is urging them to come forward.

This is the same District Attorney who indicted former state trooper Brian Encinia for Perjury for his role in the arrest of Sandra Bland in Prairie View. Okay, technically, the special prosecutors presented the case, but it is still an indictment. Encinia is done in police work too, even though he will likely be acquitted.

This is one county in the Houston area. Granted, it has a higher than normal minority population (25%, or about twice the state average), and Prairie View, where this happened, is about 90% minority. The District Attorney knows that if he blows off the minority vote, he loses his job, and he knows that the minority community wants some form of action against these officers.

So he indicts them.

This is happening more and more often, as cellphone videos, surveillance videos, squad car videos, and body cams point out that what some officers are claiming happened is just not supported by the video evidence. Last year, The Atlantic noted that officers were being indicted at five times the normal rate for officer-involved-shootings.

It doesn’t matter that the officers may never be convicted. They’ll never work in law enforcement again, because anywhere they work has to put them on the Brady list. Once on that list, they would get the crap beat out of them on the witness stand, as every defense lawyer would use this to discredit their testimony. It’s easy to see:

Defense lawyer: “Officer Encinia, isn’t it true that you were indicted for perjury in 2016? Officer Encinia: “I was acquitted of that charge.” DL: “But the Grand Jury did indict you for lying on a police report, didn’t they?”

No prosecutor in their right mind will take a case that requires that these officers testify. Ever.

In Cleveland, they indicted Michael Brelo for shooting two unarmed people following a car chase. Although the officers fired 137 shots into the car, Brelo was acquitted. This week, the police department fired Brelo and five others, and disciplined an additional six. The police union is apoplectic, with union president Steve Loomis* vowing to get their jobs back. He can’t believe that his union member officers are being treated this way, being held in some way accountable for the fiasco that was the chase and the shooting.

In Georgia, despite the extensive extra rights that police officers have in Grand Jury investigations, Officer Robert Olsen was indicted for the murder of a naked black veteran who was having a PTSD episode. DeKalb County is 55% black. Officers are outraged over the indictment. The officers are focusing on the murder charge, but Olsen was also charged with violating his oath of office and making a false statement. Again, even if acquitted, Olsen is done in police work.

Ken Womble called it in an earlier post: go after the officers for perjury. That’s what you are seeing here, and it is what the screaming officers are not comprehending. At all, not even a little bit.

Like I noted earlier, an officer who has been charged with a crime involving perjury, a false statement, or lying, is done. Stick a fork in it done.

Usually.

There are, of course, exceptions , like Deputy Cody Malkiewicz of St. James Parish, Louisiana. Malkiewicz was discovered to be lying about why, when he was working for St. John’s Parish, he stopped a vehicle while he was testifying on the case, and was arrested for perjury last year. But the prosecutor, Bridget Dinvaut, apparently dismissed the case and Malkiewicz had the record expunged. Then the St. James Parish sheriff hired him.

The sheriff, Willy Martin, Jr., said:

He is a resident and he came with experience, and I just didn’t see anything [negative].

Uh, yeah.

You see, Malkiewicz, is a K9 handler who is apparently very good at finding cash, $18,000 in that case, and many local agencies use that as a way to run the agency as a profit center. A little lying? No problem.

The difference between the two styles?

In the second system, it is more important to make money for the department than it is to protect the integrity of the system.

In the other, the integrity of the system is more important.

But in both cases, it is the self-interest of the politicians that drive the train. So when the politicians realize, like DA Elton Mathis does in Waller County, that his re-election could very well depend on his holding police accountable, officers get indicted. And it will continue as a growing trend the longer that police approach the public as the enemy in a “war on drugs” or “war on crime” and use overly militarized tactics.

Until they start to realize that they don’t have to be convicted to be kicked to the curb. They can be indicted, even if everyone knows that they will be acquitted.

*My general rule of thumb is that officers who have shaved heads are dicks. That’s not to say that Loomis is, because there are exceptions, but not many. But you can make up your own mind.

Share this: Reddit

Email

Print

Facebook

LinkedIn

Google

Twitter

