Reacting to the video in which “police officer Patrick Pogan body-slammed a biker during a Critical Mass ride through Times Square,” Gov. David Paterson is seriously considering appointing a special prosecutor, according to New York Magazine.
According to the Villager, Paterson has always been sensitive to police-abuse issues — he was arrested in 1999 (while he was a state senator), alongside NAACP president Kweise Mfume and a group of other protesters, for blocking the entrance to NYPD headquarters in protest of the shooting of Amadou Diallo.
I can’t blame Paterson for trying to gain some political benefit from this mess, but a special prosecutor is the “catch-all”solution. It sounds meaningful, but brings nothing to the table that isn’t already there. Manhattan District Attorney Bob Morganthau has an official misconduct unit that has no problem going after cops. But the Pogan situation isn’t about a dirty cop, except to the extent that he perjured himself to cover his violence.
Just as the Amadou Diallo protests changed nothing, neither will a special prosecutor here. There are problems. There is a governor interested in dealing with the problems rather than condoning, excusing or explaining them away. So now, how about someone taking the bull by the horns, calling out the police and court culture that gives rise to, and supports, the problem. And then doing something real to deal with it.
Not another special prosecutor. Unless he’s going to go through every cop lie for the past 5 years and prosecute the cops. But then, who wouldbe left to protect and defend the good people of New York?
H/T The Turk, avid New York Mag reader.
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If this is what it looks like, it’s a pretty good model: two people assault a guy in a road rage incident, and are promptly charged.
No cop discount, apparently; no word about Morgenthau’s official misconduct unit being involved — and there’s no particular reason to think that it was needed.
On the other hand, according to the New York article, Morganthau’s unit has managed to prosecute something like 200 cops (it actually says “over 200”, but I’m guessing that doesn’t mean ten thousand) in more than three decades, and — skeptic that I am — my guess is that there’s been more than a couple hundred incidents of official misconduct among the NYPD in all that time.
“But the Pogan situation isn’t about a dirty cop, except to the extent that he perjured himself to cover his violence.”
It is sad that an officer perjuring his report and jeopardizing someone’s liberty in order to cover his own ass no longer qualifies him as a “dirty cop.” Is the standard now personal monetary gain?
It is terribly sad, but testilying is pervasive. Now if the special prosecutor were to address police perjury as an institutional problem, then we’re talking business.
I guess testilying for personal benefit crosses the line into dirty cop for me. If in the cop’s own mind he is doing it for the right reasons, I don’t qualify it as dirty, just sad and shameful. When he’s lying to cover up the unprovoked (or so it seemed) assault he committed, that’s dirty.
I don’t disagree with you, but when it comes to recreating the special prosecutors’s office, it isn’t for handling an individual incident but for the broader spectrum of corruption. This cops lying on the complaint was dirty, and does cross the line. And cops lying for “the right reasons” is dirty. But the former is a single act while the latter is a systemic problem. It’s not to say that I’m not concerned about each individual wrongdoing, but the systemic problems are the sort for which a special prosecutor is needed, not the individual.
If I remember correctly — always a possibility — there was a successor to the Knapp Commission, during the Dinkins administration, that filed a report that suggested that the flavor of the widespread corruption that Serpico and such exposed was largely ended, but that the remaining flavors were milder, much more pervasive, and not nearly as easily reduced.
It may be relevant that Pogan is a third-generation cop, and perhaps learned how to “take care of business” around the dinner table.
So here’s the question: how do we fix it? How do we stop the perjury, stop the abuse of power, stop the culture of covering for one another? I’ve asked this question to every cop I’m amicable with and many fellow defense attorneys. No one has proposed a realistic solution.
I analogize the resistance to self policing to my public defender’s office where we are very reluctant to throw a colleague under the bus, even when that person is doing sub-par work that is damaging to clients. Now take the sentiment that drives that reluctance and factor in that a cop trusts his colleagues with his life. How do you break that cycle? Better hiring would obviously be a start and also civilian oversight, but I fear that some of the problems may simply be inherent in giving human beings the power we give police officers.
When I read books by defense attorneys who have practiced since the late 60s early 70s, they seem to attribute much of the perjury to police reaction to the increasingly broad interpretation given to the 4th, 5th and 14th Amendments. I’m not old enough to know if this is true.
Realistically, we’re not going to fix it. There’s all sorts of workarounds to, say, Youtubed video that sunk Patrick Pogan. All he had to do — and it’s a safe bet that a future Patrick Pogan will do — is lie that another cop (“I’m not sure which one; he was down the block”) had gestured at him to arrest the bicyclist. And then he’s just being “a little too forceful” in his arrest procedures, and gets a slap on the wrist.
Beating the video — while, if they care to, beating a guy — is already part of police training. (Perhaps unwittingly, in many cases.) Locally to me, baby cops in Skills training are taught to shout “Stop resisting!” when doing a takedown.
The only thing that will work against abuses are a professional, service-oriented culture and individual character. A person with character doesn’t shove a bicyclist off a bike just because he’s irritated with him not out of fear of punishment, but because it’s wrong.
Joel, you’re right that it would take a sea change int he culture. The most unfortunate thing to me is that I believe there are individuals with good character who join police forces, but they are quickly taught to conform or get out. If you’re police chief, how do you change that? (Ignoring the fact that, if you’re police chief, you’ve come up through and learned to be a part of this culture.)
This was supposed to be down here. Sorry, Scott.
Joel, you’re right that it would take a sea change in the culture. The most unfortunate thing to me is that I believe there are individuals with good character who join police forces, but they are quickly taught to conform or get out. If you’re police chief, how do you change that? (Ignoring the fact that, if you’re police chief, you’ve come up through and learned to be a part of this culture.)
Oh, I think that there are folks with integrity who not only join PDs, but serve with integrity throughout their careers. From what I see and hear around here, it’s a cultural thing — lots and lots of different cultures — and it starts with the hiring. A friend of mine — not a LEO; he’s law prof — was on a selection board in his small town for years; his recollection is that just about all the candidates that they said no to as being cowboy types ended up in the MPD.
I do HR218 training for the retired guys from a local department, and have been consistently impressed with the culture there. I think they get the kind of cops that they’re looking for.
That said, I think the temptations for bad behavior are pretty pervasive, and am skeptical about a big department being fixed from the top down. (Minneapolis has both promoted from within and hired insiders as chiefs; far as I can tell, it hasn’t made much difference, largely because of the power of the police union. I can’t imagine that Chicago or New York have it any easier.)
Argh. That should, of course, have been “hired outsiders”.
I would put even more emphasis on the necessity of good quality individual character.
But another significant component is the leadership. When misconduct occurs in departments – and it does far more often than is publicized in my opinion -some agency leaders try to keep issues covered up sometimes depending on who the officer is or how the incident will look to the public. The rank and file know this. They are aware of what goes on in the department, as are the leaders. When misconduct of any form is covered up by leadership it teaches subordinates, at least implicitly, it is ok to be deceptive. That is a strong long lasting message which quickly permeates the department and is difficult to reverse.
I think at least some (if not much) civilian oversight is also necessary. In order for that to happen, more people need to be less concerned with “America’s Got Talent” and more concerned with the talent in government and police leadership positions.
That was a great discussion. Thanks guys.