In News That Should Surprise No One, Lots Of Cops Are Sexually Abusing Minors
In terms of percentages, does the law enforcement community employ a larger number of sexual abusers? Or is it something else?
It's difficult to prove any of this with statistics, especially since most law enforcement agencies in the nation are able to bury this information, citing state laws, confidentiality agreements with police unions, or the thin blue line that does more to protect cops from accountability than protect citizens from the criminal element.
There is evidence that suggests cops commit domestic abuse at a higher rate than the general public. The evidence is dated and incomplete, but inferences can still be drawn from what information is actually available.
This suggests two things, both of which are disturbing. People prone to domestic abuse might be drawn to the law enforcement field because it provides a choice blend of power and accountability - lots of the former and very little of the latter. And that might be why cops commit abuse more often: they feel they'll get away with it.
The other theory is that the pressures of the job result in bursts of violence against family members, which means law enforcement agencies might want to throw a bit more money at mental health initiatives, rather than just buying more surveillance tech.
The same questions (and lack of solid answers) are raised by this report by the Washington Post. Are there just more people prone to sexual abuse employed by law enforcement agencies? Or does the mixture of great power and near-zero accountability create a subset of opportunists who normally wouldn't sexually abuse minors but feel they're empowered to do because they think their position ensures they'll get away with it?
Those answers can't be provided by stats. But lots of evidence derived from lawsuits, public records, and criminal proceedings suggests cops can't be trusted to be alone with minors who generally feel they're supposed to not only trust the cops they encounter, but oblige their requests, no matter how inappropriate.
The undeniable fact is that cops who sexually abuse minors face almost no consequences for their actions, thanks to multiple enablers:
A Washington Post investigation has found that over the past two decades, hundreds of law enforcement officers in the United States have sexually abused children while officials at every level of the criminal justice system have failed to protect kids, punish abusers and prevent additional crimes.
Police and sheriff's departments have enabled predators by botching background checks, ignoring red flags and mishandling investigations. Accused cops have used their knowledge of the legal system to stall cases, get charges lowered or evade convictions. Prosecutors have given generous plea deals to officers who admitted to raping and groping minors. Judges have allowed many convicted officers toavoid prison time.
This isn't based on anecdotal evidence or the outcomes of dismissed lawsuits. These are things that actually happened. James Blair, a North Carolina police officer, pretended to become a caretaker for a 13-year-old runaway. Months later, he impregnated her. Neil Kimball, an LA County sheriff's deputy, followed up sexual abuse violations of an adult with a conviction for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl he was investigating as a special victims unit detective. Brain Hansen, a Missouri police officer, brought a 16-year-old girl on multiple ride-alongs, which culminated (in at least two cases) with rape.
From 2005 to 2022, at least 1,800 law enforcement officers were convicted of sexual abuse of minors. That may not seem like much, but that's only the number of officers who were actually convicted. Some minors may never file complaints or seek criminal charges. Some may never even tell another adult they've been sexually abused by a cop for fear of being mocked, disbelieved, or simply branded a troublemaker.
In cases where allegations are made, there's a good chance a cop will be able to escape criminal charges or civil lawsuits simply because the justice system tends to give police officers a pass on most misconduct, as noted earlier in the Washington Post report.
What little justice has been obtained can be found in a searchable database compiled by the Washington Post and managed by Bowling Green State University. But even that data is limited. It only contains information on officers who've been arrested for alleged criminal acts, including sexual abuse of a minor. Those who've managed to avoid this highly unlikely outcome go uncounted and unnamed. The most startling fact about the database is the fact that more than 1 in 10 officers named in this database were arrested for abusing minors, which is a rate far higher than the percentage of arrests for child sexual abuse across all arrests of non-cops.
Contrary to the stranger danger" bullshit that's been told to kids for years, most sexual abuse is committed by people the victims know or trust. And it's the same thing here. Cops are considered trustworthy by most people, especially minors. The data compiled here shows that's part of the leverage. The other part is someone they know." Some minors were abused after being arrested. But plenty of others were abused by cops engaging in community outreach programs like fund raisers, ride-alongs, while serving as school resource officers, participating in the Boy Scouts' Police Explorers" program, or while chaperoning minors at school or social activities.
Why does this happen with such disturbing regularity and at such a high percentage rate compared to other crimes committed by cops? Well, this recounting of one cop's assault of a minor - one that was captured by cameras in one of the Pleasantville, Iowa PD's interrogation rooms:
I'm not going to kill you," Officer Alec Veatch said to a 15-year-old girl lying on the floor, pinned against his body.
It was around 2 a.m. on Nov. 12, 2021, and the girl, who had just been on a ride-along with 24-year-old Veatch, was now at the Pleasantville, Iowa, police station with him, alone.
Inside an interview room, Veatch held the teenager down. He threatened her with a taser. He wrapped his arm around her neck until she passed out. A camera in the corner of the room recorded it all.
When a prosecutor took a look at the evidence, including a recorded confession from Veatch that he'd also groped and kissed the teenager at his home and cut her with a knife, he offered the cop a deal that would put him in jail for 14 days.
At the sentencing hearing in May 2022, Judge Elisabeth Reynoldson talked about Veatch: his young age, his two children, his potential for rehabilitation. The judge, who did not respond to messages seeking comment, never mentioned Veatch's role as a police officer, and simply referred to the cop as somebody in a position of authority," according to a transcript. She agreed to the 14-day deal. He would also spend the rest of his life on the sex offender registry.
And when Veatch asked that he be allowed to serve his jail time on work release, the prosecutor didn't object and the judge granted his request. He was given permission to spend most of his two-week sentence at his construction job, rather than in a cell.
When it comes to cops, not only is justice blind, but it's had a lobotomy as well. On one scale: threatening a teen with a Taser, choking that same teen until she passed out, groping the teen and cutting her with a knife. On the other: 14 days at a regular-ass job where the officer was most likely not surrounded by violent criminals like himself.
Between obsequious judges, friendly prosecutors, and the efforts of law enforcement agencies and law enforcement unions to keep cops from being convicted, much less charged, we get this:
The consequences:Nearly 40 percentof convicted officers avoided prison sentences.
That may answer the question posed earlier: cops are opportunistic criminals. They already have the power. And once they realize the consequences will be extremely minimal by seeing what's happened to other cops in similar situations, they're apparently willing to be just as terrible as the scum they claim they work tirelessly to protect us against. And while most of us in similar criminal situations would expect years, if not decades, in prison for sexually assaulting minors, more than half of cops convicted for serious sexual crimes received sentences of five years of less.
There's plenty to read in this very thorough report. And you definitely should read the whole thing. But brace yourself. It's extremely disturbing. And while that may be a recommendation if you're looking for a horrific work of fiction, it's far less palatable when it involves the people you may know and (can assume you can) trust.