Interview Analysis
Interview with: Investigator Sean De La Rosa from the Mission Police Department.
Why are ethics and character so important in the field of law enforcement?
As Peace Officers, we have taken an oath to uphold the law and serve the public. That being said, it is still a people’s business and discretion can play a part in the performance of duties. For example, two scenarios of a vehicle pulled over for speeding. One scenario is an 18 year old driving daddy’s BMW and blew 15 mph over because he’s “just cruising” with a mouthy attitude. Most Officers will usually give a traffic citation since he’s able to afford the citation. In the second scenario, it’s a single mother of 5 children that is doing 15 mph over because she needs to rush home to greet her children getting home by school bus and she needs to get dinner started. This second scenario is where most officers will get categorized as “Letter of the Law” and “Spirit of the Law”. Officers that see justice as totally blind will say that she was speeding regardless of her reason so she is getting the citation. Officers that see the total circumstance may issue a warning depending there are no other issues during the encounter such as no driver license or outstanding warrants.
Ethics comes into play because these decisions, especially in smaller cities, give the police department as a whole a reputation of either community oriented or aggressive. This plays a part with the police department being able to solve crimes because if the department is viewed as aggressive, nobody will come forward and give information on criminals or illegal activity that occurred within the city so many cases remain unsolved or prosecuted due to lack of witness or victim's willing to come forward. If the Police Department is more viewed as community oriented, civilians are more willing to come forward and give the information needed to solve crimes and even prevent crimes. Also, the Police Department has to be viewed as ethical such as no perception of attitude arrests, applying force as necessary and helpful with victims during and after encounters as well. Without this trust, the bond between the public and the police department will be damaged and will cause the department to do the reversal of the above mentioned perceptions and the public will react accordingly thus why Ethics is important.
The Character of the individual Officer is formed by their upbringing, culture beliefs, the camaraderie between themselves and the rest of officers they work with. It is usually said that no matter what you do in life, all you have is your name; it is up to you on how your name will be remembered. Some officers are short fused and are always complained on because they just lash out verbally at civilians when the civilian only asked a simple question. Some officers are able to calm down violent or aggressive civilians with verbal judo, there’s a caveat that not all situations can be resolved with de-escalation through verbal commands. Regardless of situations and civilians encountered, it’ll be up to the Officer and what character they want to project towards them that can have a severe impact in how situations end.
Do you feel that police are more ethical today, or were they more ethical 10 years ago?
There is a lot more training and “death by PowerPoint” on this topic (Texas it’s a required course to take every few years to maintain licensure), to instill at least in back of the mind for Officers to stay ethical. One of the main reasons I believe there’s a paradigm shift in more ethics is there are more arrests on corrupt officers currently and in recent history versus just scraping wrongdoing under the rug and to just look the other way that was the common practice back then. Two examples I can show from this region is the most famous of the Sheriff Lupe Trevino of Hidalgo County, Texas that was arrested for Money Laundering and sentenced to 5 years in federal prison and a Border Patrol Agent that had raped an illegal immigrant teenager, kidnapped her, then committed suicide when Local and federal agencies found him. I provided links to both cases.
http://valleycentral.com/news/local/former-sheriff-lupe-trevino-sentenced-to-5-years-in-prison
http://www.mintpressnews.com/border-patrol-agent-kidnaps-rapes-illegal-immigrant-then-commits-suicide/186749/
Why do police officers become involved in misconduct?
There are many reasons that this occurs from need of finances, better networking to obtain power through elections or appointments, ease of misusing the trust with the public through the authority held. Usually it boils down to “If I can get away with it, nobody will notice.” Then it goes from one time, then another, then another to the point that they are so comfortable with the misconduct that they blatantly show it and get caught. Part of the reason the misconduct is that nobody wants to be the one to point out that it is happening and once the officer or officers are caught, everyone comes out and says, oh I knew it all along. That mentality is part of the reason it goes on for so long.
Do you feel that there is enough training offered in ethics at the police academy level? If not, why is that?
Here is an issue on relying on the Police Academy, the Academy is meant to train cadets to minimum standards required by the state to pass an exam at the end with some also teaching the policy and procedures of the agency. Minimum standards, meaning it is checking a list and filling in the bubbles to give a stamp of approval that this person that became a cadet has passed a laundry list of items to make it this far to be a probationary peace officer. The emphasis should be within the field training program, the on the job training, that at least in Texas, is required of all new Officers and Officers transferring from one agency to another. Within that program, Officers not only learn how to be an effective officer for the agency, but meet an officer that the agency has chosen to be an example to learn from and emulate. Here at least in Texas, there needs to be more standards in place to teach ethics while the new or transferred officer still has a set of eyes on them to see how they display ethics during encounters with the public.
Should ethics training be offered as an ongoing process for law enforcement officers?
Yes it should, again as referred before, it’s mandatory within the standards in Texas. It should also remain an integral part of the basic academy program.
Do you feel that education and/or training in ethics would reduce incidents of police corruption?
Education during the Academy and training during the Field training program will catch many bad habits or behaviors that would lend themselves to corruption as the officer progresses in their career. The elevated awareness may make them think about it more. It is also a lifestyle and belief in the basic system that we work within. We don’t make the law, we merely enforce those that the people have asked to be on the books and thus should act the same.
Four Contemporary Ethics issues.
I’ve given two examples already with immigration and abuse of power in regards to contemporary ethics issues. Immigration because the Rio Grande Valley, specifically Hidalgo County, borders Mexico via the Rio Grande river. Many families in the area are literally separated by a river, with some that are U.S. citizens and some Mexican citizens or citizens from neighboring countries further south. It is a hot issue in how do you enforce the law of unlawful entry into the US, but yet keep the area open for economy since there is a lot of trading that goes through the bridges? Due to the lucrative illegal business of human smuggling and trafficking and drug trafficking with the Mexican Cartels specifically driving this, there is an imperative need to enforce the law of unlawful entry to cut the finances from them.
Abuse of power is everywhere in the U.S. and not just specifically to law enforcement. What is unique in the area here in Hidalgo County is that due to the Hispanic culture of large families and having close relationships with each other, there is a lot of nepotism and influence that easily turns into corruption at a grand scale.
One issue that is not prevalent in this region is Officer involved shootings and the negative media coverage. This goes back to the culture within the area with the mentality of “If the cops are chasing you, what you did?” So the general consensus is usually that, as for the shootings, due to the population not being very dispersed, over 90 percent of Hispanic origins, the encounter between civilian and officer are pretty much one Hispanic to one Hispanic. There have been a few shootings over the years in the area, but again no real negative coverage.
Lastly, officers responding to handle civilians with mental illness. There is no real middleman except for the officer and any training, mandatory or otherwise, to handle a situation with mental illness or psychotic episodes of civilians. Medical personnel, such as doctors, paramedics, or firefighters will usually not respond to those calls until the Officer has arrived and made the scene safe. Depending on many factors, the Officer or Officers are now left there to deal with the civilian and subdue them if necessary to keep them from harming themselves or others. Until that has been accomplished, no help is coming for that officer or the civilian.
