Ethics

What Does a Police Officer Have to Do to Get Fired?

By Ed Brayton

Lie on affidavits to get warrants to arrest people? Nope. Not in Oakland.

At least seven of the 11 Oakland police officers the department planned to terminate in the department's search-warrant controversy will return to work, attorneys for the officers said.

The department moved to fire the officers in January after allegations arose last year that officers had falsified sworn affidavits to secure search warrants for the homes of mostly small-time drug dealers in East Oakland. Some officers also were said to have made misleading statements in an Internal Affairs investigation of the matter...

But when the department moved to fire the officers in January, the officers' attorneys and the Oakland Police Officers Association framed the problem as a training issue.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on April 20, 2009 (boomark / email).