Walking with the Devil The Police Code of Silence WALKING WITH THE DEVIL WHAT BAD COPS DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW AND GOOD COPS WON’T TELL YOU Michael W. Quinn Minneapolis Police, Retired Quinn and Associates © 2005 Michael W. Quinn All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the author. Edited by Margot T. Willett, Ed.D. Cover design by Matt Butzow and Michael Quinn Book design by Dorie McClelland, Spring Book Design Author photo by Diane Griffin, Precision Imaging Studio Order books from www.booksbyquinn.com Library of Congress Control Number: 2004095119 SAN: 256-1824 ISBN 0-9759125-0-X Michael Quinn is available for your conference or community training to speak on Walking with the Devil and the Police Code of Silence. He also conducts a two-day training session on how to train cops titled: You Can Always Tell a Cop, But You Can‘t Tell ‗em Much! You can contact him at [email protected]. DEDICATION For Sara, my wife and best friend, my children, Mom and Dad, my brothers and sisters, the officers of the Minneapolis Police Department, and all my non-police friends who helped me stay sane and make sense out of senseless acts. CONTENTS Introduction xi A police family heritage 1 The Code of Silence 3 Silent cops 3 A twisted relationship 6 The reality of the Code 13 Officer needs help 13 We do cover for each other 19 The only thing that matters 21 The gut reaction—the amygdala hijak Policing as an ideal 33 From blue uniform to blue uniform 33 When cops are thieves 35 There are worse things than thieves 39 The adrenaline fix 42 Even the best training is not enough 45 A day in the life 49 What did you do today daddy? It all starts here 55 Committed to the truth 64 Police academy—this is a test 68 Internal affairs 71 The narcotics investigator 77 Undercover work 77 Cops already know who‘s guilty 81 Mixing the truth with small lies 83 The entry 84 What could possibly go wrong? 86 Creative report writing—masters level 96 Our recent history—it‘s not pretty 102 The ripple effect 105 Collaborative power 107 Teaching ethics to cops—or not 109 The Code at the executive level 111 Trusting in your partners 111 The best job in my career 115 Ten myths of policing 117 The street way 117 Myth 1: Street justice teaches people a lesson 119 Myth 2: The courts won‘t punish people so the police must 123 Myth 3: Cops who deal with a lot of bad guys always draw a lot more complaints 126 Myth 4: Swearing and cursing are necessary in police work 129 Myth 5: Use of racial or other derogatory slurs is OK as long as it is not on the job 130 Myth 6: Once you are in the Code of Silence group, you can‘t get out 131 Myth 7: Tougher law enforcement is the answer 134 Myth 8: Leadership means you have to be promoted and be the toughest SOB on the shift 137 Myth 9: People only respect what they fear 139 Myth 10: You need to be macho to be a good cop 141 Now what do we do? 147 The police chief and plausible deniability 147 No cop is all good or all bad 154 Friendly fire 155 Glossary 159 References 167 Index 179 vi vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS After reading my book a student wanted to know where I got the strength to stand up to the Code. The answer is easy: my mother. She was the most forgiving and loving person I‘ve ever known. She taught me that skin of a different color and different sexual preferences are just that—different. They aren‘t good or bad in and of themselves. She taught me to look beyond the differences and see the person. Life is messy and we must experience it for ourselves and practice applying those lessons if we are to succeed. Just as importantly, we must realize that we can‘t do it alone. We must depend on, lean on, learn from, listen to, and accept the advice and help of others. I want to acknowledge some of the people who supported me and made a difference in my life. Dad was in law enforcement for 40 years. He told me many times over that your integrity was the one thing only you could lose. No one could take it from you. Thanks Dad, you were right. I want to thank some of my law enforcement partners and friends: Dick Gardner, who taught me more about police work than anyone before or since. Thank you Don Schwartz, for saving my life on more than one occasion and Al Garber and Steve Gilkerson for teaching me the real meaning of leadership. Brian Carlson, Sally Beel, Kim Coughlin, Mick Leone, DuWayne Walker, and Ron Bellendier for your professionalism and the incredible effort you put into the Minneapolis Police Academy. To the men and women of the Minneapolis Police Department, especially the Decoy Unit, Repeat Offender Program, Emergency Response Unit, and my good friend Greg Hestness, thank you, it was an honor working with you. I want to thank the Minnesota State Patrol for the opportunity to work in the Police Corps Program. No one ever worked harder or smarter than Lt. Steve Willars, Sergeant Warren Ackerson, Vicki Otto, and Heather Olson to make that program a reality. Thanks to Margot Willet for her help and her friendship. She is listed as editor but she was much more than that. She has been my mentor, advisor, and cheer leader throughout this whole process. This book would not have come about without her. To Kären Hess, thanks for your advice and support. Many thanks to all those folks who read my various versions of manuscripts over the last two years. Your input was invaluable. Dorie McClelland of Spring Book Design, you‘re the best. To my friends and family I say thank you for keeping me sane and helping me try to make sense out of senseless acts; for reminding me that the world is mostly good, not bad; and for being there when I needed your advice and friendship. I could not have done it without you. I want to thank my son Michael, my daughter Molly, my soninlaw Troy Jensen, and my wonderful grandson Devon. You are more than I deserve. And, finally, I want to thank my wife Sara for just being herself. She has been my rudder and from time to time my captain and always, always, my best friend. INTRODUCTION Technically, I am a retired cop but, in my heart, I will always be a cop. The job does that, leaving you with memories of glorious moments mixed with the physical and emotional scars of your battles lost. And you are changed. This book is about my battles— won and lost—with the Code of Silence. These are real stories, about real crimes, committed by real cops. Every day in our newspapers we can find another instance of police abuse of authority or criminal behavior. Our police chiefs will tell you these are the ―bad apples‖ or the ―pockets of corruption‖ representing only a very small number of our officers, and they‘re right. But while they are a minority, they‘re a handicap the rest of us have learned to live with for far too long. That‘s the problem. Too many good cops have learned, through the Code of Silence, to tolerate bad cops and too many bad apples have escaped consequences as a result. This isn‘t a local or regional problem. It is a nationwide problem that is undermining the quality and legitimacy of good police work. For example, the issues around the Rodney King police brutality case are not unique to L.A. They are symptomatic of a nationwide change in police philosophy from ―protect and serve‖ to ―convict and incarcerate.‖ This is a direct result of the ongoing, uphill war against drugs. ―Creative report writing‖ and ―testi-lying‖ in court have become a commonplace practice as a means of ensuring that drug dealers are convicted and incarcerated. I know that most cops don‘t start their careers believing the ends justify the means—so how do they get that way? The explanation isn‘t easy. There is no one description that fits all cops. We are men and women of all shapes, colors, sizes and philosophies, and the Code of Silence affects us all. We are a family of ―blue‖ when it comes to the job, and we are a close- knit community in ways that only those who share extreme danger can understand. The elements that bind us so powerfully also make us defensive and resentful when we are questioned about our performance. Sometimes we fail to recognize how often we, the first line of defense in the criminal justice system, contribute to the problems that we so vehemently condemn. We all make mistakes, and somewhere, sometime, we all ―Walk with the Devil.‖ We buy into the Code of Silence, but it doesn‘t have to rule, or ruin, our careers. I know from my own experience that you can see that walk for what it really is, an amoral perversion of the truth. The Code of Silence is about lies and deception. It lies to the community and deceives them about what cops are doing, and it lies to the cops who use it and deceives them about what they are accomplishing. Contrary to what some will say, this book is not about judging cops. I wrote this book because I love cops. We are family and, like family, I am duty and honor bound to those who helped me find my way. Now I am in a position to help others find their way. If I did not, if I quit now, I would be as guilty as those who use the Code of Silence to cover their illegal acts. For twenty-three and a half years I was a member of the Minneapolis Police Department and for a year and a half I was part of the Police Corps Program. My impetus for writing this book comes from seeing some of the good men and women I trained losing their careers and wasting their lives because of bad decisions: decisions that might have been different if their partners, or trainers, had done the right thing and stopped them before it was too late. It also comes in part from second guessing myself. As I saw officers arrested for crimes or suspended for violations of department rules I had to ask, ―Where does our training fail these eager recruits and their trainers that they have gone so far astray?‖ The answer I kept coming back to was the Code of Silence. The Code of Silence is seductive and powerful, but it is also vulnerable. When you understand the physical, social, and psychological origins of the Code you will see through the seduction, and you will know it for what it really is—an amoral perversion of the truth. Successful lives and successful communities are built on truth, not lies and deception. We can do the job the way it is supposed to be done. We owe it to the community. We owe it to ourselves. A Police Family Heritage ours is a family of cops. My dad was a cop. I was a cop. My sister is a cop. My brother-in-law and his wife were cops. For over forty years Dad was involved in the law enforcement community with twenty years on the Minneapolis force. He did it because he saw a need. He felt he could do something important to help. He knew there were people who, through no fault of their own, were living desperate lives and he wanted to be there to help them. He clearly wasn‘t in it for the money. With ten kids, his police salary was stretched very thin. But no matter how tough things were in our house, he only had to go to work to see people struggling in circumstances much worse than ours. Dad had deep feelings about what he did, and when he retired he took on the job of leading the Law Enforcement Training Program at Hibbing Community College. To this day his old students, many now chiefs and sheriffs, talk about how important it was to them to have Dad as a mentor and teacher. After winning national recognition for his achievements at the school, he worked for the County Sheriff‘s Office Boat and Water Patrol. In the worst kind of weather he would go out on the lake and look for lost boaters and, all too often, he worked with divers to recover the body of a fisherman or duck hunter who didn‘t see the necessity of a life vest. But even that wasn‘t enough for him. When the Safe and Sober program was looking for someone to help organize law enforcement agencies to target drunk drivers, Dad jumped at the opportunity, having lost a daughter to a drunk driver in front of his house. Today Dad is really retired and volunteering at the local hospital because they need help. During a lunch break in the hospital cafeteria, Dad noticed a woman who was turning blue. No one at her table understood what was happening, but Dad did. He approached her and asked the questions all emergency service personnel learn to ask: Are you in trouble? Can you talk? Can you breathe? When the answers came with only shakes and nods of her head, Dad stood her up, performed the Heimlich maneuver and out popped a large piece of meat. She took a few minutes to compose herself and then left the cafeteria. Dad‘s only comment was, ―I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time.‖ Service to others, that‘s my dad. That‘s what I grew up believing, and still believe, is the essence of police work. The Code of Silence It is necessary only for the good man to do nothing for evil to triumph. edmund burke (1729–1797), irish-born whig politician SILENT COPS we don‘t like to talk about the Code of Silence. Too often it brings up memories of events we‘ve tried to forget or cop crimes we witnessed— or committed. Asking us to talk about what we have seen or done under cover of the Code is like asking a complete stranger to share their most intimate fantasy. It‘s not going to happen. But the Code is well known by all—from the chief on down. It allows some cops to operate unethically, even criminally, and it prevents good cops from stopping them. The National Institute of Justice reported that in a ―nationally representative telephone survey of 925 randomly selected American police officers from 121 departments,‖ 52.4 percent of the officers agreed, ―It is not unusual for a police officer to turn a blind eye to improper conduct by other officers.‖ In that same study, 61 percent disagreed with the statement ―Police officers always report serious criminal violations involving abuse of authority by fellow officers.‖ A surprising 6 in 10 (60 percent) indicated that police officers do not always report even serious criminal violations that involve the abuse of authority by fellow officers. (Weisbrud 2000, 3–4) Put another way: only 39 percent of police officers believe fellow officers will report serious criminal violations involving the abuse of authority. That is the Code of Silence—the singularly most powerful influence on police behavior in the world. But 61 percent or even 100 percent, these percentages mean little to the street cop where the first priority every night is to stay alive, and the minimum dress code is body armor and high-capacity firearms. Small towns or big cities, it‘s easy to forget you swore an oath to be a peace officer when someone is trying to kill you just because you wear a badge. Take these examples from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Brian Gibson, a 27-year-old police officer in Washington, D.C. was gunned down as he sat at a traffic light in his marked police cruiser. It was a cold-blooded assassination. It was also a shocking reminder of just how vulnerable our police officers can be. Unfortunately, Officer Gibson‘s death is not as rare as we‘d like to think. Throughout history, more than 1,200 police officers have been ambushed and killed in unprovoked attacks. In the 1990s we were averaging 21 police assassinations per year. One of those fallen heroes was Jerry Haaf, a Minneapolis police officer who was shot in the back while having a cup of coffee. It happened during the early morning hours of September 25, 1992. Officer Haaf was nearing the end of his shift and he stopped by a favorite cop hangout to get a cup of coffee and finish some paperwork. He never saw the two gang members enter the dimly-lit restaurant. He didn‘t even have a chance to draw his weapon. The murderers quickly walked up behind him, shot him twice in the back, and then ran out the door. The entire incident lasted less than 30 seconds. The FBI reports that in 2002 while serving in the line of duty, 56 law enforcement offi cers were feloniously killed. Another 77 officers died as the result of duty-related accidents, and at least 58,066 others were victims of some type of assault. (FBI Uniform Crime Reports) Every day is a new challenge and ethical police conduct is often an uphill battle. Even the best of cops have days when they want to give up and do whatever it takes to put a child molester, baby murderer, or other lowlife in prison. When you sit inches away from these scum and they brag about the truly horrific things they have done to an innocent, it‘s easy to abide by the Code—if that‘s what it takes. When the evidence isn‘t perfect, you just use a little creative report writing and this guy will never harm another person again. Illegal searches, physical abuse, or even perjury, you know you will be in the company of many good cops who have done the same. But are they really good cops? And is it worth losing your honor, integrity, and possibly your job? What about your family? Are you willing to sacrifice them, too? Because when the world finds out in the local news what you did, will you be able to explain to them why you were willing to be a criminal just to lock up another criminal? Can you do that? A TWISTED RELATIONSHIP Most cops will spend more time talking to their partners than they will with their spouses, kids, or significant others. In many ways we are in a marriage of convenience with our coworkers. Publicly confronting them about criminal or unethical behavior is like testifying against your spouse; you know if you make their secrets public, they will make yours public. Besides, there are rules against it— The Code of Silence— which may be unwritten, but will be enforced. And if you break those rules, the sentence for going public includes everything from being shunned to losing your job. The cop on the street witnesses daily the murder and mayhem going on around this country. Constitutional boundary lines that were so clear in the classroom become blurred in the face of violent, senseless acts that we are helpless to stop. The Bureau of Justice reports that in 2002 U.S. residents age 12 or older experienced approximately 23 million crimes, according to findings from the National Crime Victimization Survey. Seventy-six percent (17.5 million) were property crimes. Twentythree percent (5.3 million) were crimes of violence. One percent were personal thefts. In 2002, for every 1,000 persons age 12 or older, there occurred one rape or sexual assault, one assault with injury, and two robberies. And the Code, the Almighty Code, which pays no heed to constitutional limits, gives us the power to incarcerate and punish at will the subhuman trash responsible for these statistics; and it feels good. In our out-of-control world on the street, it gives us a sense of control. Omissions, lies, and deception in