This isn't surprising though.
The houston Chronicle recently did an expose on cops being charged with crimes and the rarity of jail time or even guilty verdicts.
Some of the stories were appalling and even worse the cops got off.
kathmanduk2.wordpress.com
The link is to a blog that posted the article but unfortunately the source link to the chronicle website doesn't work.
My favorite line is this:
"The law is forgiving, lawyers said, and an officer can justify his use of deadly force by claiming he perceived grave peril to himself or others."
Forgiving to cops. For some reason I don't think that excuse would fly if a civilian used it.
Particularly bad is the first two listed stories:
"Nine years earlier, Lee Brown himself had been police chief and had faced his own crisis of public confidence. In the predawn hours of October 31, 1989, 24-year-old Alex Gonzales, an intoxicated off-duty HPD officer, after an all-night drinking binge, was cruising the freeways with two other off-duty officers. At the time, HPD had no policy forbidding an intoxicated off-duty officer from carrying a weapon.
After leaving a bar early that morning, Gonzales's attention fell on Ida Lee Delaney, a Houston Post employee driving to work, when she abruptly pulled in front of the car in which he was a passenger. In a fit of rage, Gonzales and the two other officers chased Delaney down a 13-mile stretch of freeway. Apparently in fear for her life, with no way of knowing that the men were police, she fired several shots before finally pulling over. When she did, Delaney shot and wounded Gonzales; he, in turn, shot and killed her.
Less than a month later, Scott Tschirhart, a white HPD officer who'd previously been involved in several questionable shootings and the beating of a handcuffed prisoner, stopped Byron Gillum, a black security guard, for speeding. Tschirhart went back to his patrol car and from his mobile computer sent a message asking the dispatcher to find some reason for the officer to arrest Gillum "because he has an attitude." The dispatcher found nothing.
Tschirhart later said he believed the security guard was reaching for a pistol that lay on the front seat of the his car. The officer shot Gillum six times, including four times in the back. Witnesses said that Gillum was on his hands and knees, trying to crawl away, as Tschirhart fired his final shots."
www.houstonpress.com
