Q: Is this an official complaint web site?
A: Postings on this web site are in no way to be considered actual official
complaints against law enforcement officers. We neither forward these
complaints to any agency or official, nor do we work as an intermediary in
such efforts. This web site has no affiliation with any law enforcement
agencies. In order to file an 'official' complaint against a law
enforcement officer, of any rank, we strongly recommend that you file your
complaint through a competent attorney or an organization such as the
Police Complaint Center. An attorney
can
help protect you, through documentation and legal advise, from police harassment or
arrest in these matters. Never ... ever... walk into a
police station by yourself to file a complaint.
Civilian Testers
have shown that you
may very well be arrested or harassed for doing so. Most police departments
have a special office that handles police complaints, such as 'Office of
Professional Compliance', etc.
Q: What is an official police complaint?
A: Police complaints are generally used to put a report of abuse onto an
officer's record so as to try to keep the officer from continuing to abuse his
or her authority or to help show his or her superiors that there is a problem
with the individual that needs to be addressed. Police complaints will not
get a victim compensated for police abuse. Police complaints are not
law suits. If you file a complaint against the police and the police 'clear'
themselves as they so often do, the only recourse you may have is a civil law
suit where you may receive compensation if you and your attorney can prove
damages or civil rights violations. Contact a competent civil rights attorney
if you need more information about filing a law suit for civil rights
violations. You may also try
to contact your county 'State Attorney' or county 'Prosecuting Attorney' to
see if he/she will prosecute the abusive officer. Their willingness to
investigate may also depend on how closely they are allied with the police
department involved.
Q: Is there a time limit on when I can file a civil law suit?
A: Unfortunately there is. States have varying time limits, some within months
of the incident. These time limits to file a law suit favor the police as many
times you may still be in dispute with the police past the deadline. Consult
with an attorney to protect your right to sue if you think you may sue at some
point later than the cut off period.
Q: What is the reason for your web site?
A: Because there is currently no other way for citizens to know the record of
a police officer in their community. We feel there is a significant 'public
interest' in knowing when a police officer who is charged with protecting the
citizens may in fact be doing just the opposite.
Q: Can't you just request this information from the police?
A: You can try but we doubt you will have much success.
Q: Can't I just make a complaint against the officer involved to the police
station?
A: Civilian police testers have shown this will likely just get YOU arrested.
Police are known to protect their own (blue shield of silence) and very few
police departments will actually take a complaint from you without harassing
you, arresting you or taking the complaint and filing it in the trash can.
Q: How should I use this site?
A: First, you can use the site to see if there are other reported incidents
pertaining to an officer or group of officers. If you do not have ongoing
legal issues with an officer you can post your complaint as well. (We do not
recommend that you post a complaint if you have ongoing legal actions in
regards to the matter you are posting about, consult with your attorney before
hand.) If you feel the system has let you down and you are a victim (or a
witness) of police wrong-doing you can be heard here by posting your complaint
online to the Internet community.
Q: How many complaints are posted on this web site as opposed to incidents
that actually occur?
A: Probably very few compared to actual incidents. Only incidents that people
have taken the time to post on our web site are in the database. If someone is
not aware of the web site they may not post an incident and it will never get
into the database as a result.
Q: Can't you be sued for slander for what you are doing?
A: No, we are not posting the information. The person who makes the complaint
is posting the information. It is up to them to be able to backup their
allegations. We will collect certain personal information from anyone who
chooses to post (for our records only) such as their IP address,
email address, name and phone number. That personal information will not be
available on our web site by the public. We will only disclose such
information if ordered
to do so by a court of law. Posters must also
swear that the information is accurate as best they can recall in order to
submit a complaint, see complaint posting page for more info.
Q: Can I challenge what I believe is a bogus post about me?
A: We are not the court system so your only remedy will be limited to a request for
verification of record. You must send an email to
verify@policecomplaint.com describing the complaint that you are referring
to. We will then attempt to contact the poster by email or by phone. If
we can not verify their existence the record will be removed. This is the ONLY
remedy we will provide and we will not debate with you. If we can not contact
the poster with the contact information they provided us when they posted the
complaint the complaint will disappear within a few days. You will not get an
email response. You must check to see if it disappears. If it turns out that
the poster did have valid contact info we will update that fact in the 'admin
notes' at the bottom of the complaint and the complaint will stay posted.
Q: Why not publish the personal info of the accuser?
A: We do not believe it would be safe to publish personal information such as
phone number, soc sec number, home address, etc. on either the accuser or the police
officer. If you see any private information, such as stated above, wrongly
entered in the database please report it to us at
abuse@policecomplaint.com
We
will take whatever steps we deem appropriate for the situation to remove the
personal information.
Q: Then why do you allow the publishing of the police officers name or
badge number?
A: Because the police officer is a public servant and we therefore considered
that public information. There would also be no other way to identify a police
officer involved in misconduct if you could not indicate either his or her name or
badge number. If you are afraid to have your name or badge number in the
public, you should not display it daily on your clothing and you should not
seek a job that requires that of you.
Q: Do you make money somehow off of this web site?
A: No, this is not-for-profit endeavor. This web site is provided free to the
public as an educational resource.
Q: I have a hard time believing all of this. Why would a police officer do
these things?
A: There are many reasons humans fail at their chosen duties. A few reasons might be,
greed, drugs, sex, corruption, protect their jobs, protect their friends jobs, group
think, racism, cover up of mistakes to protect either themselves or the city/county from civil law suits. Most all police
officers would no doubt like to work their 20 years without incident and then
retire. If they have a few mistakes along the way to retirement however, they
may choose to cover up those mistake to protect their job and their pension.
The police therefore have a 'significant interest' in always being right, and
if they are not right they have a significant interest in pretending to be
right even if they have to plant evidence, lie under oath or file false police
reports.
------Web
Sites Links of Interest------
http://www.PoliceAbuse.org (
citizen Police Complaint Center )
U.S.
Department of Justice ( Report Civil Rights Abuse - Civil Rights Division )
FBI
Field Office Locations ( report Police Corruption )
FBI
tips program ( report Police Corruption via the Internet )
American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) State Chapters
CopWatch Police Complaint Database