Michael Hohmann wrote: "Seems to me that effective oversight of the police rests largely within the confines of our criminal and civil laws and court systems... Effective litigation should impose a self-regulating system based on cost-effective, results-oriented policing."
If court action, either civil or criminal, can be relied upon to solve the problem of police abuse of power, why does the problem currently exist? Is there a flaw in the court system Michael can point to, saying: "as soon as we fix that, the courts will take care of this issue for us." I doubt it, somehow. So the course of action being recommended is to do nothing at all. The results of a lack of action are--quite reliably--a lack of change. So the unspoken point beneath the post is that there really isn't a problem. I disagree. An honest difference of opinion. Have there been any civil or criminal repercussions for any member of the MPD or the organization as a whole from their--in my opinion rather absurd and enormously abusive--handling of the ISAG protests? If not, why not? Perhaps because it is not as simple and cheap to bring a suit against the city or a specific officer as Mr. Hohmann makes it sound. The courts are possibly the most circuitous method for changing the behavior of any organization. Even if a complainant wins a case against the city, the outcome is removed from the original event by quite a bit of time, the financial sanction is not "earmarked" to affect the responsible department (which removes or reduces the budgetary incentive for departments to change bad policies), and the decisions of juries are frequently pooh-poohed by the department and individuals involved, as in the case of Sauro. Actually, I can see few better examples of why we don't just want to leave police accountability to the courts than that story. In my opinion, the barriers between our police department--both personnel and policy-wise--should be as insubstantial as possible. There should be little or no "insulation" between the department and the people they serve. Affecting police policy and reporting bad police behavior--to someone you have a reasonable belief will do something about it--should be as easy as picking up the phone. Robin Garwood Marcy Holmes _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
