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Law Enforcement Officers Are They Fair? It is not secret that rights of people can be violated because of deception of law enforcement officers. There are many reasons for this, but in the United States the main one is probably the due to the factor of personal responsibility of officer. Law enforcement officers often times have to use deception and other covert techniques to gain access into a suspects dwelling or place of business. Police officers risk their lives everyday just by putting on that identifiable uniform. They deal with dangerous situations all the time and they see things that the average person would never see over the course of their life.
A lot of the situations they face can be stressful, but they are trained to deal with them. They have huge responsibilities to themselves and to the public, but some officers can be pig-headed and forget that they are not above the law. In trying to control situations, they sometimes take things to far and people get hurt. The laws of the United States can be hard to understand sometimes. The Fourth Amendment states that people have a right not to be searched without a reasonable warrant and that people have a right to feel secure in their homes. There are acts giving police permission to do what ever they need to keep drunks off the streets.
There are also rules and regulations, kind of like a sports game, and, just like games, there are always ways to get around these rules. Like finding it legal to randomly stop cars to give people breathalyzer tests, or entering peoples homes and searching for things without a warrant. According different study articles, officers may enter stores or offices and other places open to the public in order to investigate without violating the Fourth Amendment. There are several different types of deception often used by police officers to gain entrance to a nonpublic area. The tactic in question and under debate is the technique called coercive deception. This is where an officer relies on coercion to enter a premise.
One specific instance discussed is when an officer knocked on the door of a dwelling claiming to be with the gas company investigating a leak in the neighborhood. This is coercive because the occupant of the dwelling feels obligated to let the gas man in due to the severity of the denial of the request. It is my opinion that the consent search is a powerful tool for the police to gain access without going through the hassles of obtaining a warrant, especially when probable cause isnt present. If an officer can gain access into a persons dwelling to investigate without getting a warrant first, I think it is in their interest.
My problem with the idea of consent searches falls into the premise of voluntariness. I think officers should inform the occupant of their right to deny the request for admittance. The occupant of the dwelling has full right to deny the officers request, but often does not know it and can get burned by it later. I do not think this is one of those cases where policy should not protect the stupid.
It is a case where officers are commonly taking advantage of the shortcomings of others, especially minorities who may be less informed of their rights, and entering their houses and private property to conduct illegal searches of evidence that is later used to incriminate them in a court of law. One day, not too long ago, police came into Dollree Maps house without a search warrant and trashed it, looking for a bomb suspect. Finding nothing to that affect, the police realized they had the wrong house, but during their search for the suspect, they found some obscene material just in order to cover up their illegal actions. They arrested Map because of that.
Map went to court and appealed. In the end, justice had been served because the "material" the police obtained was illegally obtained, making the case end. The rule that saved Map was the Exclusionary Rule stating that anything police find that does not have anything to do with what the search warrant says has to be excluded from the case. The question here is should people allow police to go into their homes and search for whatever they want without a warrant?
The answer is no. First of all, when the police do come to a house, they dont just politely knock and wait for somebody to answer. They break down the door and make a mess of the house. If people are innocent, why should they have to get their door knocked down and their house messed up?
However, in my opinion, the number of deceptions that occur within the United States is not that high in comparison to neighbors on our continent. America is a large region made up of many diverse countries. A large portion of these countries have enormous problems with corruption. Two of these countries, Mexico and Colombia, have gained a great deal of attention due to their problems.
The difficulties these countries have are even more complex in that they affect other more prominent countries immensely. When looking more closely at the two, it becomes interesting to observe the contrasting features of the corruption in each nation. In each country the root of the problem comes from the illegal drugs that have become extremely abundant. In each country the corruption takes different paths, it is hard to tell exactly how high is corruption in the United States, but according to recent researches it is suggested that our country takes eighth place among the countries with incredibly low corruption levels. However, this does not mean that problems of corruption that are in many cases interconnected with deception of law enforcement officers do not exist in our society. Another reason why law enforcement officers use deception in their decay or undercover work can be the relation to cases when there can be some important assignment, which cannot be completed without deception.
Such actions of authorities are indeed illegal, but cannot be too dangerous for people. Unfortunately, there have been many cases when especially police officers were breaking the law with no specific reason. Their actions were sometimes even outrageous. Recently, one event happened that stressed out the whole country two cops have shot a person, claiming that he was endangering the life of officers.
A shot man as it was figured out later did not have any gun or knife and his murder by a police officer could not happen if officers would follow the instructions. Even though police officers do mistakes, it is too bad that they also do them intentionally and then are covered up. We see a lot of police misconduct during protests. Police are against protests because they often lead to violent riots.
They would like to stop protests before they even happen by cracking down on the activists. Klein's article reports that police view each demonstration as trouble rather than as a sign of healthy democracy. This is not correct because people have the right to protest in a civilized way. When police have these pre-determined attitudes towards situations, of course bad things will come of them.
The police officers themselves do not have to agree with the protestors, but that does not give them a right to assault them. (Klein) According to Klein, an activist was dragged away by a police officer, brutally assaulted by several other officers, thrown against a barricade head first, and then arrested. A witness heard the dragging officer say, Thats not right. The polices actions in this case were uncalled for. It was not necessary to drag the protestor to awaiting officers who then beat him up.
It would have been enough to drag the man away and simply arrest him. Not agreeing with someones beliefs is not an excuse to assault them. The officers were wrong in the way they conducted themselves. Another case of brutality where police officers tried to use deception happened in the Romagnuolo case. (web) In this case, four officers went to the Romagnuolo household to arrest Enzo for threatening to break Constable Hoskins legs over the telephone. When Hoskin tried to arrest Enzo, a fight broke out between Enzo and Hoskin and Mr. Romagnuolo (Enzo's father) and Constable Martin.
Blatchford reports that during the fights, Hoskin fired his gun once and Martin shot Mr. Romagnuolo 4 times, three times in the chest. Rocco, another son was also shot. Constable Robins threw Rocco to the ground as he tried to grab Martin. Then he shot him once in the gut as he tried to get back onto his feet.
I do not think that there was a need for all that gunfire. The only people with weapons were the officers. I am sure that 3 police officers could have controlled a 17 year old, a 20 year old, and their father. Constable Robins had no business shooting Rocco. He already had him on the ground. All he needed to do was cuff him.
Martin did not need to shoot Mr. Romagnuolo 4 times. He killed the man. It just was not necessary. I seriously doubt that the officers involved feared for their lives, when nobody had weapons to use against them. What should have been a routine arrest turned into a bloody crime scene, where police officers simply broke all the laws.
In the case of Otto Vass, four officers committed the actual assault while 8 officers looked on. (Reed) Police were called to a Seven-Eleven store, where Otto Vass was fighting with another man inside. Police removed Vass from the store and tried to arrest him for trespassing when he died. Findlay reports that one cop pulled Vass to the ground and fell on top of him and punched him in the head, while another cop beat him with a baton. (Reed) The officers were handcuffing Vass when he died. The beating was so brutal that it caused the man to die. There were about 8 officers around, why could not they control one man?
It does not make sense. Why did some stand and watch as their colleagues beat a man to death? All they needed to do was apply enough force to get the cuffs on, not enough to cause death. The police were excessively violent. It is definitely not right and currently they are being charged. Nevertheless, there had been many cases like before mentioned where police officers used dishonesty to cover up their faults and succeeded in doing it.
When peoples rights are violated and nobody gets punished for it then there is something wrong with the system. Therefore, if law enforcement officers use deception in their work in our country then there are things that should be changed, especially on the level of legislature, which will also allow better control over law enforcement officers. People should pay taxes to protect their rights and not allow anyone, especially police of FBI officer to violate them. Bibliography: Crawford.
Consent Searches: Guidelines for Officers, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 1996. Saul's. Obtaining Consent to Enter by Deception, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 1994. Klein. Misuse of Authority, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 1995 Reed. Why Should We Control Police, Penguin 1998 Police Deception, web
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