Top 5 Most Common Police Attitudes – #3

By Criminal Defense Lawyer Jeremy Rosenthal

texasdefensefirm.com

(972) 369-0577

Today I’m continuing my series on the top 5 police officer attitudes I’ll see when defending cases.  These are police attitudes I see from police officers while on duty.

#3 — CYA

That’s right. Cover your a$$.

One of the psychological pressures on officers is maintaining their livelihood.  They don’t want to lose their job or their pension over any single case.

I see this one mostly in cases where there is an alleged victim involved such as domestic assault, sexual assault or complicated theft schemes to name a few.  A police officer knows an upset accuser (or the accusers parents) can cause them all sorts of headaches with his or her superiors at the station.

For assault/ family violence cases police are worried if they leave a couple warring in their home after a 911 call — one of them could be killed later in the evening.

On sexual abuse cases whether involving adults or children, a police officer is going to have to have a really good explanation to their superiors as to why they told an angry person claiming to be a victim, “no, we don’t believe you.”

Police will often file cases as “grand jury referrals” which is their way of filing a case with the District Attorney’s office while expressing an underlying doubt about the case.  It is a case where they don’t make an arrest prior to grand jury.  It can be seen as unwritten permission to dump a case.  Grand juries may still indict, though.

It sucks to be on the receiving end of a case where you suspect it was filed because the officer was doing CYA work.  It has to be dealt with like anything else.

*Jeremy Rosenthal is Board Certified in Criminal Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and licensed by the Supreme Court of Texas.

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