FORT LAUDERDALE
Suspects have complained over the years that Fort Lauderdale police are too rough, city records show. But in the last eight years, not one of those citizen complaints was upheld by investigators, or led to discipline of an officer.
All complaints lodged against Fort Lauderdale police since 2001 for excessive or unnecessary use of force were thrown out by internal affairs investigators, or were closed because the person making the complaint didn't follow up, the city's records show and officials confirmed. The agency couldn't easily retrieve records prior to 2001 because they're not electronic.
Fort Lauderdale's records show many complaints aren't fully investigated. Internal Affairs officials read the arrest reports and close many cases without getting sworn statements or launching a full probe.
Experts said it's not unusual for the vast majority of excessive force complaints to be closed in favor of law enforcement officers. The trend holds true at Broward Sheriff's Office and Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, where few complaints led to officer punishment.
In Fort Lauderdale, the brutality track record for officers was perfect, according to the Internal Affairs files. That agency is in the spotlight after a videotape was made public this month showing police officers manhandling a 22-year-old Sunrise man in an elevator. One officer punched Joshua Daniel Ortiz in the face, breaking his nose in the Dec. 5 altercation in a downtown Fort Lauderdale bank lobby.
Ortiz was facing a charge of felony battery on a law enforcement officer, but Broward prosecutors dropped the charge after reviewing the tapes.
Many viewers were outraged, saying the officers should be punished, particularly after reading the police report that described Ortiz as the aggressor. The case was another in which Fort Lauderdale officers were cleared after a review of the tape and reports, without a full investigation.
Experts say the case is typical because often what's perceived by the public as excessive is ruled to be well within with the rules by police officials. Even videotape doesn't always change the outcome.
Police spokesman Sgt. Frank Sousa said the department's clearing of all brutality complaints shows that "the officers are doing their jobs the way they're supposed to."
"We're not in the business of inviting people over for coffee and tea," Sousa said. "Sometimes you have to pull out a gun and shoot someone."
He said each complaint is taken seriously and those that are fully investigated are also reviewed by an independent citizen's board and the State Attorney's Office.
Sousa himself was caught up in a controversy when a German tourist videotaped him kicking a suspect during an arrest outside a bar in September 2006. He was cleared by Fort Lauderdale police and the State Attorney's Office, but his video continues to draw attention on YouTube. "Perception isn't always reality," Sousa said.
Fort Lauderdale's track record isn't far afield from other agencies.
Tod Burke, a former police officer who teaches criminal justice at Radford University in Virginia, said that nationally, the same is true.
"Very few police brutality complaints are actually sustained," he said. " ... What some people will perceive as police brutality really is not."
The person lodging the complaint is often someone charged with crimes, including battery on a law enforcement officer, or resisting arrest, and might not be seen as credible, experts noted.
Lewis Katz, a law professor at Case Western University, said he thinks "we have a national problem with the use of excessive force." The system of investigating complaints is often heavily weighted in favor of police, he said, so most complaints go away.
The public tends to believe a police officer over a suspect, said Katz.
From 2005 through 2008, the years for which all three agencies provided data, Fort Lauderdale had no sustained cases of the 23 investigated, Broward Sheriff's Office had one sustained case out of 50 complaints against deputies that were investigated, or 2 percent; and Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office sustained 11 complaints out of 199 investigated, or 5.5 percent, a number that also includes complaints against jail deputies.
Ortiz said without the video, he'd be facing up to 20 years in prison. His college plans were delayed by his legal troubles, he said, but he'll be enrolling in college classes this fall.
That night, he said, he was sticking up for his girlfriend. Some strangers picked a fight in the bank lobby, and their acquaintances were involved. Police arrived, and grabbed a friend of his girlfriend's, Ortiz said.
He said the officers were "telling her to shut the 'F' up and 'I'll take your a-- to jail' because she was crying and begging for the cops to give her her friend back."
Ortiz intervened, shouting at officers on her behalf, when they came into the elevator after him.
Ortiz "walked right up to me, hitting his nose to my nose," Officer Derek Lade wrote in his report.
Ortiz didn't think he deserved to be punched, or charged with battery.
"It's a big problem. They have to do something about it. This is crazy," he said Wednesday. "If it wasn't for that tape, I'd be pretty ruined right now ... I still had my hands in my pockets when he came and rushed in to the elevator and started hitting me. There was really just no need for that."
Sousa said a person screaming on the sidelines of a fight is inciting more violence, and adding to the mayhem. He noted that the videotape didn't include audio. Sousa also defended Lade's report about the incident, which said that Ortiz came after him.
That was true, Sousa said, because Ortiz leaned toward Lade in the elevator.
Frank Scafidi, a former sheriff's deputy in Los Angeles County who is director of public affairs at the National Insurance Crime Bureau in Sacramento, said you can't expect police to enforce laws when some people won't do what they're told unless they're forced to. Public opinion is often on the officer's side, he said.
"Most people understand that there are a lot of knot heads in the world," Scafidi said, "and that they will need to get their head cracked now and then if they get crossways with the cops."
Use of force complaints
Database: Complaints against police
No comments:
Post a Comment