Officer.com Police Blogs & Podcasts

Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com

The big news in Southern California, now that it’s temporarily not burning down, is the indictment of Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona. Orange County, or “The O.C.” as it is known on TV, has the second-largest sheriff’s department in the state and the fifth-largest in the country. It’s a fairly wealthy county, so much that many of the deputies that work there can’t afford to live in their own jurisdiction.

Carona is accused of some pretty serious offenses, including the acceptance of bribes and kickbacks to the tune of $700,000—not chicken feed, even in Orange County. It is alleged that he accepted cash and favors to persuade the county board of supervisors to appoint one of his accused co-conspirators to the office of assistant sheriff, despite the lack of any law enforcement experience or qualifications. The assistant sheriff then oversaw and revised the department’s reserve deputy program, handing out deputy badges and concealed weapon permits to people with a similar lack of training, but who allegedly paid for the privilege. Concealed weapon permits are nearly impossible to obtain in Southern California, and badges are always handy for getting a pass on traffic stops and for their high CDI* factor.

I’m content to leave the question of Carona’s guilt or innocence to the federal district court in Santa Ana. Even so, it generally doesn’t portend a favorable outcome for the defendant when two of your accused co-conspirators have already pleaded guilty to get the best deal in exchange for agreeing to rat you out at trial. At least the sheriff’s wife and girlfriend (two different people, just in case you didn’t get the implication) won’t be pining away at home, waiting for Mike to return from the slam. Both of them have been indicted, too. I’d love to hear what the dinner table conversation at their house is like these days.

There have and will be some assumptions made about the OCSD, based on this episode. Many of them will not be flattering, especially from folks who aren’t predisposed to like the sheriff’s department, anyway. The “one bad apple spoils the barrel” theory will be said to apply, inferring that the entire agency is corrupt and rotten. I don’t know too many people that work there, but I seriously doubt this is the case.

Most line law enforcement officers are so far removed from the activities of their top executives that they might as well work for different outfits. This is more true of large agencies than small ones, but the bottom line is that the cops have to keep doing their jobs, no matter what the Old Man (or Old Lady) is up to. They have to keep answering the radio, writing tickets, completing reports, booking and feeding prisoners, and doing all the things that cops do, regardless of what’s going on in the Power House. The phone is going to keep ringing and people are going to expect the cops to respond.

Also, chiefs and sheriffs are seldom in it for the long haul. While it’s true that some chiefs and sheriffs remain in office for many years, and sometimes come up though the ranks to get there, the turnover rate at the top is relatively high as compared to the rank and file. An OCSD deputy might work for five different sheriffs in his or her career, and the name or rep of the person with the top job isn’t going to radically change their career path. There will be the occasional deputy with a “hook” who will benefit from a change in command (or suffer when their “rabbi” leaves office), but most of the grunts will continue to march along the same career path as the revolving door at HQ takes them in and spits them out.

The effect of this kind of thing is demoralizing. The top leadership of an organization can advance the outfit or retard its progress. The CEO sets the direction and the example, and when the top dog gets too much into the “what’s in it for me?” mode of thinking, everyone below him suffers. There is no motivation toward excellence. Every employee suffers because there doesn’t seem to be any incentive to do a good job, and the public suffers in turn. It’s always a betrayal of the public trust when cops abandon their oaths and act self-servingly, but that betrayal intensifies and does more damage with the bad apple’s position in the organization.

When the misconduct is as grave as Carona’s charges are, the criminal justice system can intervene and move the investigation outside the agency. But in many agencies, there is one standard of conduct for the working cops, and another, much more lax standard for the top brass. Instead of responsibility and accountability increasing with rank, the opposite occurs. If the line cops try and do anything about it, they will find themselves in the hot seat, on their way to explore new opportunities in the private sector. It’s a sad situation, but one that seems to be more common than rare. There are agencies that are well-led and that demand accountability and exemplary conduct from everyone at all levels, but they tend to be the exception rather than the rule.

The aspect of police misconduct that is most puzzling to me is why anyone tries it in the first place. I understand the desire for personal gain, but the fact of life is that cops suck at this organized, systematic corruption stuff.

First, they aren’t any good at erasing the paper trail. It’s easy for someone in the right assignment to make traffic tickets, evidence receipts, and activity logs disappear, but those things are copied and made available to so many other people that it’s almost impossible to make all of the evidence go away.

Second, keeping a secret in a law enforcement agency is close to impossible. Cops are among the worst gossips in creation, and they’re skilled by nature and training at ferreting out information that people try to conceal. Everyone knows, or has a pretty good idea, of who is working and who is coasting or engaging in unauthorized activities, who is sleeping with whom, who has suddenly come into money, and whose career has been suddenly fast-tracked in the absence of performance, skill, or other merits. The latter often indicates that the new Golden Boy has dirt on someone in a position of influence, and they are being compensated for their silence.

Third, the Blue Wall of Silence is alive and well. Cops who know what is going know that it’s wrong and don’t like it, but no one wants to be the guy who drops the dime. Not only can it blow up in your face if the wrongdoing isn’t fully exposed and the responsible parties are held accountable (and it’s not that uncommon that the guy you call when you do drop the dime is in on the game in the first place). It’s also that the police culture can be unforgiving to those that turn on their own, even if the misconduct is unconscionable. If you rat someone out, the nicest thing that is likely to happen is that your own life and career will be inspected to death, and there aren’t too many of us that haven’t done something we would rather forget.

Finally, cops tend to be terrible liars. I’ve heard at least one psychological authority attribute this to a fundamental and rigid sense of right and wrong that is almost childlike. Just as children can be almost transparent when they lie, cops don’t do well when they’re interrogated. They might not spill the beans out of fear or loyalty, but they won’t get away with the lie, either.

So, while it makes sense to stick to what you’re good at, keep your promises, and try and achieve career goals and financial security by conventional means, we will always be afflicted by folks who get greedy, or gain a wrongful sense of entitlement, or who were just amoral to begin with. Those people are fortunately the minority in law enforcement, but damn, look what happens when they surface.

*Chicks Dig It