By now, most of you know that Timothy Loehmann, the Cleveland police officer who killed Tamir Rice, had no business being on the force. He had previously resigned rather than face almost certain termination from the police department in a Cleveland suburb after showing clear signs of instability. Well, Sunday’s edition of The New York Times revealed that there are a lot more Loehmanns in cities and towns across this country. All too often, cops with troubled histories simply move elsewhere and get hired with only minimal vetting.
As hard as it may be to believe, there is no meaningful way to keep bad cops from moving from one jurisdiction to another. The International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training maintains the National Decertification Index, a database of police officers who have been barred from working in law enforcement. There are currently 21,000 names on the list. However, executive director Mike Becar says that he doesn’t have nearly enough resources to help weed out bad cops. The Justice Department gave the association $200,000 in 2009 to help build the current edition of the database, but no longer funds it.
It’s very likely that had the funding been there, people like Sean Sullivan wouldn’t be on the job. Back in 2004, Sullivan was the second-highest ranking cop in Coquille, Oregon before being forced to resign for kissing a 10-year-old girl. He was convicted of sexual harassment in May 2005 and banned from ever working as a police officer again. Only three months later, he somehow made got hired as the police chief of Cedar Vale, Kansas.
That came unraveled in 2006, when Sullivan was investigated for a sexual relationship with a teenage girl. The investigation ran aground when the girl refused to cooperate. However, in the course of the investigation, prosecutors discovered the 2005 Oregon conviction. That triggered a new investigation which resulted in Sullivan being convicted on a smorgasbord of charges. In a colossal understatement, local district attorney Larry Markle called this discovery “very irritating,” since it was now clear beyond any doubt that Sullivan “should have never been a police officer.” He has since been jailed on a number of charges in Washington state.
Incredibly, Eriks Gabliks, director of the Oregon Department of Safety Standards and Training, cites this as an example of “the benefit of the NDI.” Um, Eriks? How was there any “benefit” if the database wasn’t even checked when Sullivan was hired? Had that happened–or had an updated edition of the NDI been out–a small town would have been spared a lot of embarrassment.
Roger Goldman, an emeritus law professor at Saint Louis University and an expert on police licensing laws, thinks that it’s long past time for a national database of police officers who have been fired, forced to resign, convicted of a crime, had their licenses stripped, or are defendants in lawsuits. He thinks the National Practioner Data Bank, which red-flags doctors with problematic histories, is a good model.
Incredibly, a number of police unions have been adamantly opposed to a national database of bad cops. Frankly, I don’t understand why. The great majority of our nation’s police officers serve with distinction and honor. You would think they would want to keep the latest edition of a Loehmann or a Sullivan out of their ranks.
A number of police departments have tightened their standards. Some have applicants take polygraphs, and others check credit histories. But without a national database of bad cops, a lot of agencies are going to spend a lot of time and money playing whack-a-mole. The nation deserves better. And the majority of good cops deserve better.
(featured image courtesy Grace Loehmann’s Facebook feed via Buzzfeed)
