Friday, July 22, 2011

In More Shocking News...

More information is coming out about the police officer in Canton...

Canton officer under investigation after concealed carry arrest

The first part of the article covers the events on the video. It's about 3/4 of the way through the article that we find these interesting tidbits about Officer Steroid:

Canton’s internal affairs unit has investigated 16 complaints involving Harless dating back to 2000.

He was reprimanded in one 2003 case. Harless and another officer were exonerated of using excessive force, but were given a letter of reprimand for not activating the in-car video camera at the scene per department policy.

SIXTEEN IA investigations in 11 years. That's one and a half a year, or roughly one instance every 9 months. Unfortunately there's no information on whether there were 16 exonerations, 16 convictions, or whatever. It is very interesting to note that Harless has been officially reprimanded for not turning on the dash cam - as well as having at least one excessive force claim against him already.

This guy's a bad cop, and the Canton PD has known about it for a while.

That is all.

10 comments:

Borepatch said...

What's interesting is that the guy who was pulled over has been offered a deal - all charges will be dropped if he promises not to sue.

Boy, I bet the discovery process in that suit would be interesting. For sure you'd discover the outcome of all those IA investigations, and they'd all be discussed in front of the jury.

Mikael said...

“I think it’s important for citizens to understand that the behavior demonstrated on the video is wholly unacceptable, and it violates the law, many of our rules, our regulations and standards we demand of our officers"

There, fixed that for you.

Weer'd Beard said...

You could knock me over with a feather, Jay! I could have sworn this guy was officer friendly, but he was just having a crummy day just this one time.

Yep!

Odysseus said...

Given recent police steroid abuse news, I'd like to see some drug tests be a routine part of investigations like this.

Tim Covington said...

I'm not surprised that he hasn't been fired. I've seen police officers have firing decisions overturned by boards many times, thanks to their union representation. Often, it is very difficult to fire an officer unless the officer has committed a felony.

Moe said...

The stronger the union the sorrier and more corrupt the police department.

Old NFO said...

Bad cop... And that one about went rodeo, in more ways than one! I see a BIG payoff coming from Canton to that gent!

Bubblehead Les. said...

14 year Veteran of the Canton P.D. Like I said, we'll talk about Ohio Police Professionalism "Horror Stories" in August. It'll take a few drinks.

Anonymous said...

I just figured this should be posted somewhere in the 2A circle:

http://reason.com/blog/2011/07/22/it-should-look-good-on-youtube

Carteach said...

All of which opens both the police force and the city itself to a civil suit, and puts them in a very bad position. A good lawyer... and this victim has many, many good lawyers volunteering to represent him... will show the city not only was aware off the officers instability and dangerous out of control attitude, but condoned and supported his actions.

I'm thinking... in roughly two years we are going to read about a six figure settlement saddled on the taxpaying citizens of Canton. Of course, Mayor Healy will be long gone by then.