“If people can’t trust the police, who can they call when they’re in danger?”
That’s the question that St. Clair County State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly posed at a news conference, following the arrest of six Metro East police officers and a dispatcher, all on official misconduct charges.
The news conference was a unified effort attended by Kelly, U.S Attorney Steve Wigginton as well as police chiefs from East St. Louis, Washington Park, Fairview Heights and Alorton, Illinois.
The investigation, described as “Operation Enemy Within,” was an initiative to prosecute bad cops.
The arrests and subsequent charges were varied and appalling in nature, especially coming from those who are sworn to protect and serve.
Three of the officers in question work for the Alorton Police Department, while the remaining officers worked for Belleville, Fairview Heights and Washington Park. The former dispatcher worked for E. St. Louis.
One of the officers is accused of persuading a woman to perform oral sex on him in exchange for overlooking a suspended license. Another officer is accused of grabbing and pushing a citizen without cause. Two of the cops have been accused of benefits fraud, i.e., working while collecting unemployment benefits. Two of the officers are accused of theft: one of a cell phone from a crime scene, the other of bullet-proof vests which had been donated by the Illinois State Police.
And the former dispatcher allegedly obstructed justice and aided a fugitive by sending a text message to warn a suspect of his impending arrest.
This is great news, particularly the solidarity demonstrated by collective police departments in having zero tolerance for crooked/ stupid cops in this investigation.
The norm and the perception is that police traditionally hide behind a “blue code of silence” in which police misconduct is swept under the rug or denied entirely by those within the law enforcement community.
Within many communities, this has lead to a monumental distrust and lack of cooperation with local police, which has proven to hinder and obstruct police investigative work.
Perhaps these sorts of efforts will be the beginning of a more cooperative relationship between citizens and police as rogue and crooked cops are “smoked out” by their own.
Maybe if police continue to demonstrate a willingness to throw the worst among them under the bus, then citizens will begin to feel more comfortable in volunteering information which police need in their crime solving efforts.
That’s especially important in the African-American community in which the code of “snitches get stitches” and other assorted anti-snitching nursery rhymes are chanted in resistance to cooperating with police and, unfortunately, to their own detriment.
If you like “Listen Up” the column, then you’ll love “Listen Up” the radio show with James Ingram on radio station WGNU-920 AM each Friday evening from 7-8 p.m. Email: jtingram_1960@yahoo.com.
