News To Make You Furious- Professional Courtesy

“A dangerous lack of civility” is one common diagnosis of what’s ailing our country. We agree, so any story about Courtesy should be celebrated! But if “Professional Courtesy” brings images of a lawyer covering a colleagues’ court appearance or an accountant helping out during tax season, then it’s not the Courtesy we’re talking about. This “Professional Courtesy” is far too common already and we need far less of it. It’s a corrupt and dangerous “good old boys” system that endangers us all when it’s working quietly, but even cops can be threatened and intimidated if they dare challenge it. This month’s peak of pique is the story of Donna Jane Watts, a Florida State Trooper who tried to do an obviously right thing and paid an obviously wrong price…

Click here for the full video of Trooper Watts’ chase and apprehension

News to Make You Furious isn’t always about News! This month’s foundational fury comes to us from 2011, when Florida Patrol Trooper Donna Jane Watts was on patrol and noticed the car that blew by her at 120mph wasn’t just any car, it was a police car. Sure that no cop would be driving that fast with their lights off, Watts flicked on her lights and pursued. After a SEVEN MINUTE chase the driver gave up, and Watts approached the car to find… another cop, who she quickly cuffed and arrested. Turns out the speeding cop, Fausto Lopez, had an excuse for his speeding: he was late for his moonlighting gig. Later investigation of Lopez showed he routinely clocked speeds over 100mph in this same area.

Then the problems began for Watts. What?!! WHY?!! “Often in such cases, the officer in charge will extend what police culture has dubbed “professional courtesy” to the offending officer. That is, they’ll let him go. To her credit, Watts didn’t do that.” And she paid. A two-month investigation found she “… ignored orders to back off and didn’t relay all the facts of the traffic stop when initially interviewed.” Miami police posted open threats against Watts on message boards. Watts “…received hundreds of calls to her private phone, some pranks, some threatening. She has had pizzas randomly delivered to her home. Strange cars began parking outside her home. And her career as a police officer may well be over. The Miami New Times reported in 2012 that her “superiors don’t think she’ll ever be able to return to duty on the road, and if she ever got into a situation where she needed backup she does not think she would receive it.”” She filed an invasion of privacy suit against the 88 police officers who used the confidential police driver database uncover and distribute her address and other info, but 83 officers settled for $5000 and the remaining 5 walked free on appeal. Fausto was later fired.

A bright side to this fiasco is that it resulted in a bright light being shined on “Professional Courtesy”. The Washington Post had several examples…

Years ago there was even a Web site called “Cops Writing Cops” which provided a forum for police officers to publicly shame fellow cops who had the audacity to ticket them.
A 2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer study revealed that off-duty cops put stickers in the windows of their private vehicles to identify themselves to their fellow officers.
Outfits like “LEO Pro Cards” print up handy, wallet-sized cards that cops and their family members can flash to request professional courtesy from other officers.
In 2011, 16 NYPD officers — all of them current or former officials in the city’s police union — were indicted for fixing more than 1,600 tickets for fellow officers and their families. At their arraignment, hundreds of fellow officers showed up to support them.

The biggest reporting came from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, who won a Pulitzer Prize for their series on Speeding Cops. They found

800 instances in which cops in southern Florida were caught driving between 90 and 130 mph. Many weren’t on duty, but coming or going to their jobs.
A broader 13-month investigation found 5,100 “high-speed” incidents, 96 percent of which were cops driving in excess of 90 mph. About half were cops outside their jurisdictions, meaning it’s unlikely they were responding to an emergency call.
The investigation found 21 incidents in which citizens were left dead or severely disabled after being struck by speeding cops, sometimes driving 120 mph or more. The most severe punishment from any of those cases was 60 days in jail.
The Sun-Sentinel also found that in 88 percent of cases in which a police officer’s speeding caused an accident, the officer wasn’t even issued a citation. Among regular citizens, 55 percent are issued citations. In one particularly egregious example Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Christopher Thieman, running late for work, slammed into Eric Brody of Sunrise in 1998, leaving the 18-year-old in a coma for six months and impaired for life. Four years earlier, Thieman injured another motorist while driving his patrol car at least 20 mph over the speed limit but wasn’t ticketed, said Block, the lawyer who represents the Brody family.

And even more examples poured in from around the country…

A 2007 Post-Intelligencer investigation also showed that professional courtesy in Seattle extended even to drunk driving offenses. That too isn’t limited to Seattle.
In Tennessee was given a DWI pass by his fellow officers. Indianapolis is still dealing with the fallout from a 2010 incident in which IPD Officer David Bisard struck two motorcycles, killing one person. His fellow officers waited more than two hours to test his blood-alcohol content, which even then registered .19. In 2006, Bernardino County, Calif., Dep. Kenneth Holtz faced harassment from colleagues after arresting a fellow deputy on a DWI charge. Holtz was eventually fired for violating policies regarding “respect among members” and “conduct reflecting adversely on the department or employee.” The deputy he arrested was promoted.
In 2009, a Chicago an off-duty detective with a history of causing accidents smashed into a parked car, killing two people. He was drunk. Despite the fact that two of his prior accidents also involved slamming into other cars, causing injury, he was never given sobriety tests, and he was never even ticketed.

And of course, the stories go on.

It seemed somehow appropriate to cover this issue this month. Tom’s Tidbits this month discusses the two-tiered, “Private Law” system that is emerging in our country, and there seemed no better story than this to illustrate how it corrodes respect for the law in all of us. If it’s seems just one more example of dismal, chilling failures in the most basic values and systems of our country, then we can point to one area where Professional Courtesy has been a win… we bet it was News that surely Made You Furious.

Digging Deeper…

Video of chase

Cop Arrests Cop & That’s When Her Troubles Begin… The Young Turks, Feb 2014

A Plague Of ‘Professional Courtesy’, Radley Balko in Washington Post, Feb 2014

When Police Let Officers Skate, Respect For Traffic Law Tanks, Michael Dresser in The Baltimore Sun, Feb 2011

Miami Blows $75,000 Defending Cops Who Stalked State Trooper, Jerry Iannelli in Miami New Times, Nov 2017

Miami Cops Who Admitted Searching Female Officer’s Private Data Get No Legal Punishment, Jerry Iannelli in Miami New Times, Feb 2017

FHP Trooper Who Pulled Over Miami Cop Fausto Lopez Claims She Was Harassed and Forced to Live Like a Hermit, Jerry Iannelli in Miami New Times, Dec 2012

Fausto Lopez, Infamous Speeding Cop, Fired by Miami Police, Jerry Iannelli in Miami New Times, Sep 2012

Hollywood Settles Suit With FHP Trooper Who Said She Was Harassed, Lisa Huriash in South Florida Sun Sentinel, Mar 2016

Probe: Speeding Miami Cop Should Be Fired, Union Blasts Results, CBS4 Miami, Jul 2012

Speeding Cops- Above the Law, by South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Oct 2012