New Baltimore Police Officers Association: Fill & Download for Free

Here is one idea:Instead of forcing taxpayers to pay settlements to victims of police brutality, let’s seek a new source of revenue.Pay these settlements using police pension funds.The figures for payouts to police violence victims are eye-popping.In Chicago, Illinois, the city has paid more than half a billion dollars in claims for police misconduct since 2011.[1] This trend has only accelerated, as the city previously paid out more than $300 million from 2004–2010.[2] (In addition to the approved damages, these figures include “payments and fees,” as well as fees to outside attorneys, according to the Better Government Association.)[3]Chart: Chicago spent more than $113 million on police misconduct lawsuits in 2018Other cities have not fared much better:From 2011 to 2014, the city of Baltimore, Maryland, paid out $5.7 million in police brutality claims. These awards would undoubtedly be much higher if not for statutory limits on damages, according to a 2015 investigation by the Baltimore Sun.[4]This four-year period unearthed dozens of victims in the Baltimore area.Over the past four years, more than 100 people have won court judgments or settlements related to allegations of brutality and civil rights violations. Victims include a 15-year-old boy riding a dirt bike, a 26-year-old pregnant accountant who had witnessed a beating, a 50-year-old woman selling church raffle tickets, a 65-year-old church deacon rolling a cigarette and an 87-year-old grandmother aiding her wounded grandson.Those cases detail a frightful human toll. Officers have battered dozens of residents who suffered broken bones — jaws, noses, arms, legs, ankles — head trauma, organ failure, and even death, coming during questionable arrests. Some residents were beaten while handcuffed; others were thrown to the pavement.And in almost every case, prosecutors or judges dismissed the charges against the victims — if charges were filed at all.[5]In 2017, Baltimore paid more than $1 million to settle 4 lawsuits to settle allegations of police misconduct.[6] In 2018, $9 million was awarded to a man who spent 21 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.[7]Los Angeles is also no stranger to large settlements. In 2017, victims of police misconduct received more than $1 million in at least 30 cases.[8]Minneapolis, the epicenter of the current protests, has paid more than “$25 million for police misconduct between 2003 and 2019.”[9] This includes one payment of $20 million in 2019 for the police killing of Justine Ruszczyk, a woman who committed the capital crime of asking a police officer for help.[10]This is only a small sample among thousands of cases. (The Marshall Project, a journalistic non-profit focusing on criminal justice, compiles additional data and news reports on police settlement cases around the country.)[11]Police pension funds in cities across the United States are already chronically underfunded.[12] Chicago’s plan is only 23% funded, as of 2019.[13] This is due to powerful police and firefighter unions who have thoroughly cowed elected officials, giving them impressive bargaining power in negotiating new contracts.As Radley Balko points out in his excellent reporting for The Washington Post, underfunded pensions have an inevitable result. Elected officials seek other ways to satisfy the vital police union interest groups. [14]These extra layers of security allow police to escape accountability for even the most egregious violations.When you have no money to offer, job security is your only bargaining chip. This is how we get those “Police Officer Bills of Rights,” and other added protections for cops.(Bloated pensions themselves are often the product of politicians asking for short-term concessions on pay and benefits in exchange for long-term promises that come due long after that administration is gone.)[15]Despite this problem of under-funding, cities still hold the most valuable card in the deck to bring police departments to heel. The best way to hold cops accountable for their illegal behavior is to force them to personally pay restitution to their victims.However, with the doctrine of qualified immunity (soon to be reviewed by the Supreme Court)[16] and sympathetic prosecutors and juries, this is a fool’s hope.Does using public funds to pay these settlements have any effect on police behavior? According to a review of liability insurance claims for police misconduct in the Journal of Legal Studies, insurance claims have gone down, but the overall effect on levels of abuse has been negligible.[17]If settlements have little effect, could we use outright criminal convictions to reign in police misconduct? Unfortunately, convictions of cops charged in criminal cases are notoriously difficult to win.Since 2005, out of thousands of police shootings, only 35 officers have been convicted a crime related to an on-duty shooting.[18]Chart: Cops are almost never prosecuted and convicted for use of forceWith civil and criminal penalties so rarely utilized, what mechanisms do citizens have left to fight against unaccountable law enforcement?The iron jaws of accountability must be clamped down on police departments in order for us to have any hope of meaningful reform. If a cop’s illegal beating of a suspect will threaten the already depleted retirement funds of his own department, perhaps his partners will step in and stop him. (Unlike the colleagues of officer Derek Chauvin, who either passively watched or halfheartedly objected[19]as he snuffed out George Floyd on a sidewalk in broad daylight.)As protests engulfed major cities across the United States, I have been stunned as videos of the almost casual, petty brutality perpetrated by cops continue to be documented. If the police are willing to do this in public, as the cameras capture their every move, God only knows what they are willing to do behind closed doors.It is past time we hold these officers personally responsible for their crimes. If justice in criminal courtrooms is out of reach, perhaps hitting them in their pocketbook will force a needed change in conduct.Police officers today are a protected class, one no politician wants to oppose. Law enforcement interests may occasionally come up short on budgetary issues, but legislatures rarely if ever pass new laws to hold police more accountable, to restrict their powers, or to make them more transparent.In short, police today embody all of the threats the Founders feared were posed by standing armies, plus a few additional ones they couldn't have anticipated.[20]Radley Balko, Rise of the Warrior CopFootnotes[1] Chicago spent more than $113 million on police misconduct lawsuits in 2018[2] Beyond Burge[3] Beyond Burge[4] Sun Investigates: Undue force[5] Sun Investigates: Undue force[6] Baltimore to pay $1.1 million to settle 4 lawsuits alleging police misconduct[7] City Settles Another $9M Alleged Police Misconduct Case[8] L.A. is slammed with record costs for legal payouts[9] How Cities Offload the Cost of Police Brutality[10] Justine Ruszczyk's family reaches a $20 million settlement with the city of Minneapolis[11] Police Settlements | The Record[12] The Pension Hole for U.S. Cities and States Is the Size of Germany’s Economy[13] Chicago Pensions Are No Longer 27% Funded (It's Now 23%)[14] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/10/15/how-bloated-pensions-contribute-to-police-brutality/[15] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/10/15/how-bloated-pensions-contribute-to-police-brutality/[16] ‘Qualified immunity’ for police getting fresh look by Supreme Court after George Floyd death[17] Is Police Behavior Getting Worse? Data Selection and the Measurement of Policing Harms[18] "We are expecting the system that puts black people in harm's way to then turn around and be an effective vehicle for justice when black people are harmed."[19] Two ex-Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd's death cast blame on more senior colleague[20] Rise of the Warrior Cop

I don’t think he should demand an apology. That’s basically asking for the ability to fly. Why ask when you know you’re never going to get it. The whole purpose of this protest is for asking for equality. And it’s not like he’s the first guy that has just asked for equal policing in the history of America. We’ve pretty much been asking for it since the invention of police. Considering they were denying the fact that there was police brutality before the invention of camera phones just let’s you know they’re acting like immature children. To try and get apologies when we can’t even get equality is a fantasy.They actually invited Kaepernick to come to the police station to see their training. I would advise him not to go. I know not to call the cops unless it’s really really serious. I don’t trust them at all. Man Calls 911 to Report His Wife Being Robbed, Cops Show Up and Shoot Him -- Robber Gets Away. Luckily I haven’t needed to.We’ll have to wait for the Department of Justice’s investigation into San Francisco Police is complete, but something tells me it’s not going to look any different than their reports on Ferguson, New York, and Baltimore and to expect racist to apologize for being racist is foolish.

This is a big question. In order to understand why people hate the police, we first have to understand why police officers behave the way they do, and the judicial system that 9 out 10 supports them. As I read all the answers given here, I am reminded of how much work we still have to do as a society to bring positive change to law enforcement agencies. Despite what we have learnt about police brutality and misconduct, many people continued to blame the "few bad apples" for ruin the Department's reputation, and they quickly jumped into conclusion denouncing these individuals saying they only represent an extremely small group of minority.For the LAPD, the blame goes even further with the revamp of police recruiting andselection practices that focus on deterring unfit individuals to becoming members of the organization, which reinforces the Department’s framing of police misconduct as a consequence of a few “bad apple” cops who slipped through the screening process, and these individuals do not reflect the culture of the organization. I reject this argument, and I tell you why.From the Systems theoretical standpoint, law enforcement agencies are considered an organizational system, which exists within the context of a larger social system that influences the way in which the organization operates and becomes dysfunctional. I argue that the environment (social culture) within which Law Enforcement operates is the deciding factor in determining organizational culture and behavior. Social culture influences organizational culture, as police officers bring their learned assumptions to judgments and decisions in the work environment, and this interaction between a perilous social culture of urban cities and the adaptive culture of the organization that creates the perfect formula for dysfunction. Police corruption is, by and large, supported by social structures and attitudes that are embedded in local society. Conventional wisdom tells us bad apples don’t fall far from the free.Today, it is not uncommon to turn on the news and hear that somewhere in the United States somebody was hurt or killed by the police. Living and workingin Los Angeles, I get to hear about this almost on a daily basis. Because I work in the mental health field, sometimes these tragic stories hit closer to home for me than I would have liked. A few years ago, a 37 year old homeless man with mental illness named Kelly Thomas was fatally beaten by six local police officers at a bus depot in Fullerton, California. According to the Huffington Post, the beating incident was captured by a bystander with a cell phone, and bus surveillance tape released later showed how officers beat Thomas and used a stun gun on him repeatedly as he cried out for his father. In an interview, Thomas’ father reports, "When I arrived at the hospital to see him, I honestly thought that gang bangers had got a hold of him like the cowards sometimes do and just beat him with a baseball bat in the face. Immediately my thoughts were to get with Fullerton police ... and I didn't learn until a certain amount of hours later the truth. That put me in absolute shock" (Huffington Post, 2011). The beating was so unjustifiably brutal that the story quickly became international news. The Department quickly issued a statement saying that the case was an isolated incident, and the officers did receive training on how to deal with the mentally ill and the homeless. This is a classically individual-level analysis, leading to the notion that the problem lies within the character of a few “bad apples”.Another recent case of police brutality happened at the Pacific Clinics in Rosemead, California. Though this particular case did not receive the same amount of media attention given to the Thomas’ case, it felt closer tohome because of the relationship between Pacific Clinics and the agency I worked for, APCTC. One of our staff psychiatrists also worked for Pacific Clinics, and the person who was shot and killed by the deputies from the sheriff’s Temple Station was his patient. The Pasadena Star-News reports three deputies from the sheriff's Temple station were involved in the fatally shooting of a mentally ill woman sitting inside the clinic with a hammer in her lap. The victim was identified as Jazmyne Ha Eng, 40 years old, 4-foot-11, and 95-pound Cambodian woman with a history of psychological disorders, and she was wielding a "full-sized" ball-peen hammer when she was shot and killed by deputies. The initial incident report stated that a deputy tried to shock Eng with his taser gun, but it was not effective. Eng, then, advanced toward the deputies with a hammer. Fearing for his safety, a deputy fired two rounds from his duty weapon. Eng was pronounced dead at the scene. The coroner’s report reveals no trace of taser dart found on Eng’s body, only the shot wounds that killed her (SGV Tribune, 2012).Cases of police abuse and corruption often occur more frequently than publicly reported (Bayley & Perito, 2011; Weisburd, Greenspan, Hamilton, Williams, and Bryant, 2000). Of those reported, a few serious cases ignite intense public debate. For instance, the Los Angeles PoliceDepartment issued a report by a board of inquiry into the “Rampart Area Corruption Incident” in 2000, prompted allegations of bank robbery, false arrest, falsifying reports, theft of cocaine from the police property room, and beating of handcuffed suspects. The Rampart Scandal is often referred to as one of the most widespread cases of police corruption in U.S. history, with more than 70 officers implicated in the worst corruption scandal in LAPD history.The Los Angeles Police Department developed a version of the storyimplicating a very small group of Black and Hispanic officers were responsiblefor all the misconduct (LAPD, 2000). Two other high profile cases in recent memory are the Rodney King beating by LAPD police and the torture of Abner Louima by New York City police.Poverty, Ethnicity,and Crimes: A Sociocultural PerspectiveMost cases involved police misconduct occur in large urban cities, such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, and so on. Studies on the intersection of urban poverty, crime, and the racial divide show a correlation between variations in crime rates and socioeconomic status and race, with crime rates (mostly gang and drug related crimes) higher in urban poor communities, as these low-socioeconomic neighborhoods experienced great levels of poverty, racial heterogeneity, transience, family disruption (Bobo, 2009; Devah, 2007; & Venkatesh,2000), high unemployment rate, unequal access to quality education, unequalaccess to police services, legal aid services, and disparities in political representation(Bartels, 2005), thus creating a society that tolerates and embraces unlawfulbehaviors of ingroup members, and thereby, providing ample opportunities forpolice abuse of power and corruption.Sociocultural theory posits that our cognitive development and learningprocesses are influenced by societal culture, leading to the notion that ourbeliefs, moral values, attitudes, manners, normative behaviors, and work ethics, embody the societal culture in which we are accustomed to (Vygotsky, 1986). Thisperspective assumes that our social mores teach us right from wrong, and that ourattitude and behavior are culturally dependent. In other words, people are simply the products of their societal culture, implicating possible consequences for those who grew up in a “bad” neighborhood because of the likelihood that they will become “bad” just like their social environment. Possibly, this may be the reasoning factorbehind the policy that mandates automatic disqualifications of any convictedfelons from becoming police officers by the LAPD, even though studies show supervisor background ratings are not useful in predicting integrity problems (Fischler, 2009).Moreover, disqualification of ex-convicts does not stop nor explain why do some police officers with clean records routinely violate the laws they publicly sworn to uphold. It is not uncommon to find some clean rookie cops turning dirty after being on the job for a relatively short time, suggesting that law enforcement, as an organization, has been influenced by the external social culture there by integrating internal processes in order to survive in the external environment in which it operates. Consequently, this need to conform and eventuallydominate the parent culture leads the organization to dysfunction. From this perspective, punishing a few “bad apples”, in addition to preventing felons from slipping through the crack during selection process, only indicates the organization has missed the mark and the “real culprit” has not yet identified, and therefore, the problem is left unchanged.While disqualifying certain criminals from becoming police officers maybe the right card to play in the game of social politics, but it does little to the effect of preventing future cases of police misconduct from reoccurring. Undoubtfully, law enforcement, as an organization, is aware of certain personality types of the men and women they select for police work, especially extensive data on personality traits of the selected, the nature of the job, and the operational structure of the organization, are readily available to assist in determining which candidate best suited for the job. It is difficult to imagine a powerful organization, such as the US law enforcement, is ignorant to the fact that there are considerable overlaps of day-to-day activities between armed police officers and criminals.Meta-analysis that compared personality traits between two adversarial groups— the police and criminals—shows a stark similarity between the two groups, including stress, long hours, tension, life threatening situations, the use of coercion, the expectation of conflict, a code of silence, and the opportunity to work in large powerful gangs (Wisenheimer, 2009). The personality traits and work attitudes of108 criminals convicted of assault and 96 armed police officers were alsocompared using the MMPI, Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire. The results reveal both groups scored significantly higher than the general population and various occupational groups on the following scales: Impulsive Sensation, Aggression-Hostility Work Activity. Both groups scored significantly lower on: Neuroticism-Anxiety, Sociability. No significant differences were observed onthe Lie scale.The study goes on to list many more variables shared by both groups, concluding that armed police officers and violent criminals are “two sides of the same coin, united in an unbreakable bond”. Wisenheimer (2009) even recommended their commission for active police duties within the anti-gang crime unit of the police department. More on psychological screening is discussed later in the article. For now, why do some law enforcement agencies, such as the Los Angeles Police Department, automatically disqualify ex-convicts of violent crimes but selectcandidates of equal potential in breaking the law, is unclear, but I speculate that the answer lies in the dynamics between the American public and the politics of law enforcement.Poverty, racial differences, social class, dense population of criminal offenders, and high crime rates are powerful aspects of urban cultures to influencepolice behavior (Weisburd, 2009). Anecdotal evidence suggests a correlation between poverty-stricken minority community and high crime rates. Conventionalwisdom suggests that residents of poor urban neighborhoods face a higher riskof criminal victimization than other city residents. In addition, racial and ethnic minorities, African-Americans in particular, are considerably more likely to be victimized and incarcerated (Raphael & Sills, 2006). In addition to high unemployment rates, these high incarceration and victimization (often use of excessive force with intention to cause serious bodily harm or kill) rates are often attributed to a higher propensity among ethnic minorities (males in particular), especially African Americans, to criminally offend, creating a dysfunctional society that perpetuates police brutality and corruption.We know that crime, whether committed by citizens or law enforcement, can and do happen in all communities. News media frequently reports crimes committed in large urban cities, with poor minority neighborhoods suffer disproportionately due to police abuse of power. (Bayley & Perito, 2011).Critics of police brutality argue that the racial/ethnic difference between citizens and the police is one of the main reasons leading to police abuse of authority (Weisburd et al, 2000). Studies show that police harassment of minorities is not an isolated occurrence (Grant, 2003; Weisburd et al, 2000; Kaplan, 2009; & Greenspan, Weisburd, & Bryant, 1997). For example, two studies conducted across two Midwestern States, Illinois and Ohio, found more than 25% of minority police officers observed police using considerably more force than necessary when apprehending a suspect of ethnic minority, and harassing a citizen because of his or her race (Martin, 1994; & Knowles, 1996). Recently, the use of racial profiling by law enforcement in the State of Arizona had the Latino community protesting in the streets across the country, accusing the enactment of the law, known as SB 1070, unconstitutional. This is because a subsection of this piece of legislator allows law enforcement agents to stop a person at any given place and time (theLatino community is implicitly targeted), whom they believed to look like an illegal alien, and demand proof of citizenship. Many Americans, especially Mexican Americans, believe SB 1070 is racially motivated, and they claimed that racial profiling constitutes harassment and a violation of basic human rights.Bad Apples Don’t Fall Far From the TreeLaws likethe SB 1070 rarely happen in a vacuum. According to the annual report issued by the Southwest Border HIDTA Arizona Partnership in 1990, a subdivision of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the two major metropolitan areas in the region, Tucson and Phoenix, are primary distribution centers and drug transit areas with theirclose proximity and easy access to the Arizona Sonora, Mexico border. An estimate of multi-ton quantities of cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, and heroine are smuggled into the cities to be distributed across the States annually. Thereport indicates drug related violence, homicides, and property crimes areincreasingly perpetuated by drug gangs and abusers. Drug proceeds are smuggled from Arizona to Mexico in bulk form by vehicles, commerce shipments, pedestrians, and so on. The report also indicates that the increased interdiction by law enforcement has frustrated narcotic smugglers, leading to increased acts of violence toward law enforcement agents.Over the course of extended interaction between two cultures—border patrol and drug gangs—many cops succumb to the dominant culture (drug gangs) at large and join in the actions, while others refuse to conform and be tainted. Not everyresident in a “ghetto neighborhood” is a gang member, as not every cop is ahero. Nevertheless, the development of a culture of poor urban society seems to embrace violence and corruption as symbol of identity, upon which economic marginalization leads to anger and resentment, and as motivation for crime and violence. Today, the national war on drugs rages on, where law enforcers and the outlawed continue to play cat-and-mouse, reflecting the external societal culture in peril shaping the culture of law enforcement agencies, as agents bring their learnedassumptions to judgments and decisions in the work environment, and finally endup either colluding with law offenders in corruptions or putting ordinarycitizens in harmed ways for personal gain. Consequently, police brutality and corruption occur routinely. Again, the same argument goes: three cops cango crazy, but more than 70 cops, for instance, embody a culture of policing,where such development of organizational culture conforms to the same identitychosen by the social culture where they grow up.The following are cases in point. A border patrolcorruption prompted a reform of immigration law in the State of Arizona leadingup to the enactment of SB 1070 in 2011. According to ABC news investigators, atotal of 134 patrol agents in Naco, Arizona were arrested or indicted forcorruption in the past 7 years (ABC News, 2011). One agent used his own patrol car to smuggle drugs. Another case concerns an agent allowing illegal aliens through a point of entry without checking their documentation. Another case involved an agent pleading guilty to selling national security documents. The border patrol relies on sensors embedded in the ground to track smugglers. Less than a year ago, an agent in Tucson pled guilty to giving a drug trafficker the locations of more than 100 of thesensors. Prosecutors say he did it for a $3,000 bribe.Clearly, the effect of social culture on organizational culture is profound. Remedies for police corruption would seem to depend upon local social dynamics and traditions, as well as the capacity of local jurisdictions to manage them. Police corruption is typically supported by social structures and attitudes that are embedded in local ways of life. Thus, changing organizational cultures requires the transformation of local cultures.Blame a Few “Bad Apples”Won’t WorkLaw enforcementorganizations have grown much more diverse in recent years (Sklansky,2006). Today’s large American cities, such as the Los Angeles PoliceDepartment and New York Police Department, are not the homogeneous workplace large numbers of female, openly gay and lesbian officers, and minority officers. Openly gay and lesbian officers, too, are well represented in Los Angeles.In social cultural system context, law enforcement as an organizational cultural system routinely experiences behavioral misdeeds of rogue officers. It is well known that police, as an organization, lie, steal, cheat, commit acts of extortion, make false arrests, plant evidence, and even commit murder for personal gain. Police corruption scandals are common (Grant, 2003), but the organization’s first defense is always to say that it is an isolated case of a few “bad apples”, and that it never reflects the core values of the organization and the officers who committed these horrendous acts should have never been hired. Institutional reforms had been made by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department to weed out the “bad apples” following the Rodney King beating by LAPD police and the Rampart Police Corruption Scandal. In the report “Rampart Area CorruptionIncident,” Chief of Police, Bernard Parks, recommended pre-employment testingand screening of police officer candidates, in addition to undergo a thoroughbackground check and complete a few other assessment measures, as an ongoingeffort to weed out the “bad apples”. This perspective assumes better hiring practices will help the organization hires people who will be less likely to abuse their authorityas law enforcers. Cases like Eng, Thomas, and many others happened since the Rampart Scandal and Rodney King beating, implicate blaming a few “bad apples” hasnot been working out too well for the American public, and that business isresumed to “normal” at the Department.Pre-employment PsychologicalTesting: Does It Really Help?Though the use of psychological testing for police recruits was first suggested in 1931 by the Wickersham Commission (Dantzker, 2011), police agencies chose not to use it much until a decade ago. The Rampart Scandal in the late 1990s forced the LAPD to undergo a complete reform in personnel selection practices (LAPD, 2000). In response to the Rampart Scandal, the Board of inquiry recommended the use of psychological tests on all new recruits (LAPD, 2000). In compliance with theBoard of Inquiry’s recommendation, the Department opened its firstpsychological service program in 2000 to assist the Personnel Department withthe selection of new recruits. The goal is to weed out unqualified candidates and prevent future police misconduct.The most commonly used personality tests and inventories in departments throughout the United States are the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory—2 (MMPI-2), the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) , the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF), Edwards Personal Preference Schedule, and the Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI) (Cochrane, Tett & Vandecreek, 2003). The LAPDuses the MMPI-2 and clinical interview as psychological screening tools intheir selection process, and they use the pass-fail approach to the results,keeping candidates who pass and rejecting those who fail. Interestingly, studies have indicated that although psychological assessment appears to be valued in the selection process, very few candidates are rejected based solely on the results, anddepartments that use a pass-fail approach use psychological assessments to ruleout psychopathology (Cochrane, Tett & Vandecreek, 2003).Data on what type of psychological screening used by the LAPD prior to the Rampart Scandal was not available, but current selection practices appear to be consistent with research findings that suggest qualified candidates are pre-selected through other procedures prior to the psychological evaluation. Therefore, once thecandidates complete the evaluation, few of them are found to be outrightunqualified (Cochrane, Tett & Vandecreek, 2003). In other words, unless a candidate is mentally ill, the LAPD would hire candidates who presenting themselves as extremely masculine and having stereotypical masculine interests. A meta-analysis of MMPI measurements of common personality traits of police officers indicates both male and female police officers gave defensive profiles, with male officers presented themselves as having stereotypic male interests and attitudes, while female officers rejected traditional feminine roles and stereotyped behaviors (Kornfeld, 1995).Results of another meta-analysis on personality profiles of police show many individuals who seek admission into police training programs tend to possess personality traits good for policing, that is self-disciplined (control), socially bold (independent), extraverted, emotionally tough, and low in experienced anxiety (Eber,1991). However, one in four police officers possesses personality associated relatively high levels of schizophrenia, paranoia, psychasthenia, and other symptoms not good for being cops (Lorr & Strack, 1994). These individuals appeared just as tough and independent as the “good” cops, but they were lower in self-control and extraversion and much higher in anxiety (Lorr & Strack, 1994). Furthermore,studies that compared personality traits between cops and criminal have shownthat armed police officers and violent criminals are “two sides of the samecoin, united in an unbreakable bond” (Wisenheimer , 2009), leading to their commissions for active police duties within anti-gang crime units of the police department.ConclusionThe literature on police abuse of authority is vast, and many theories have developed since the Rampart Scandal to give meanings to, and to solve, this deeply rooted social problem. There are plenty reasons why people hate cops. When we as a society see cops as them vs us, we do not allow ourselves to see the big picture that cops reflects the kind of society we created, and therefore we have the responsibility to influence and make positive change.Social culture influences organizational culture, as police officers bring their learned assumptions to judgments and decisions in the workplace, and through this interaction between a corrupt social culture of urban cities and the adaptive culture of organizations that creates the perfect formula for organizational dysfunction. Police corruption is, by and large, supported by social structures and attitudes that are embedded in local cultures. When law enforcement agencies operate under the assumption that a few “bad apples” are to blame for the misconduct, they missed the opportunity to look at the big picture, to identify and analyze problems from outside looking in, and to understand where the problems really stem from, and then have the courage to lead, engage, unite and transform local communities toward social change through positive integration and innovation. There is no room for ego and “us versus them” attitude. Remember that organizational dysfunction is strongly influenced by social structures and attitudes embedded in local societies. Thus, changing organizational cultures requires the transformation of local cultures. The Justice Department and Law Enforcement are doing the best they can under the circumstance. They are the product of our society, and until we change as a society, things will remain the same. If we focus on this, then we would not have free time to sit around hating cops.ReferencesBayley, D., & Perito, R. (2011). Police corruption: What past scandals teach us about current challenges. United States Institute of Peace. Washington, DC: Special Report.Cochrane, R. E., Tett, R. P., & Vandecreek, L. (2003). Psychological testing and the selection of police officers. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 30(5), 511–537.Dantzker, M. L. (2011). Psychological Preemployment Screening for Police Candidates: Seeking Consistency if Not Standardization. Professional Psychology: Research & Practice, 42(3), 276-283.Grant, J. (2003). Assault under Color of Authority: Police Corruption as Norm in the LAPD Rampart Scandal and in Popular Film. New Political Science, 25(3), 385.Kaplan, P. J. (2009). Looking Through the Gaps: A Critical Approach to the LAPD's Rampart Scandal. Social Justice, 36(1), 61-81.Knowles, J., J. (1996). 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