Crooked Cops

There are many types of corruption among law enforcement. One of the most common forms of corruption comes directly from the people we expect to protect the community from harm and danger, who are commonly referred to as ‘crooked’ or ‘dirty’ cops.

According to Wikipedia, crooked cops are police officers who commit unethical acts or abuse their power for personal gain. This may include, accepting bribes, letting criminals get away with crimes, tampering with evidence or even committing the crime themselves. Based on statistics from The California Innocence Project, about one percent of all police officers commit act of misconduct in a given year.

An example of this misconduct occurs in what is famously known as the ‘Rampart Scandal.’ This series of corruption took place between 1970 and 1998 in Los Angeles, where over 70 police offers were found to have participated in drug dealings, unprovoked beatings, perjury, and more. CRASH (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums), was created to prevent and stop gang violence in the area during these times. CRASH consisted of many officers who were trained and unafraid of gangs and violence, however, CRASH became a “gang” of its own, when many of the officers involved began to participate in illegal activity. In 1998, CRASH got caught and it was made known that officers involved were murdering innocent people, stealing drugs and money and more. Because of the scandal, LA faced almost 200 lawsuits.

Another example of corrupt officers occurs in the 2018 thriller, “Traffik,” based upon true events, where a deputy was involved in and obtaining profits from an underground sex trafficking ring. She was one of the ring leaders and even went as far as capturing victims herself.

Due to all of these instances, it can be hard to trust our men and women and blue. However, we can still be trusting in the other 99% of police officers, who are not corrupt.