Comments on: West Virginia Not Yet Feeling Scalia’s New Police Professionalism

By: Militant Libertarian » Police Professionalism Roundup

Militant Libertarian » Police Professionalism Roundup — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 15:59:26 +0000

[...] “gypsy cops,” I suggest a new phrase, in honor of the West Virginia police officer who took the practice to new heights: Let’s call them “Leavitt [...]

By: Cops As Robbers - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

Cops As Robbers - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:35:59 +0000

[...] have made it to fire police officers for misconduct (and even then, to prevent them from merely taking a job in a different department) even when they commit actual crimes, never mind for mere incompetence. The rogue cop put on "paid [...]

By: Vee

Vee — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 04:49:04 +0000

Matt Leavitt pleads guilty to two misdemeanor civil rights violations in federal court. During the sentencing Oct. 22, Chief U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin said Leavitt remains defiant.He has stated that he only pleaded guilty because he feared that due to, quote, ‘idiots,’ unquote, on the jury, it was the, quote, ’smarter thing to plead guilty,’ unquote,” Goodwin said. “He stated he wants the Court to know, quote, ‘I stand by my actions that day.’”.

Leavitt was in a catch 22 situation but he stood his ground. The federal prosocuter Goodwin breath a sigh of relief when Leavitt accepted the two year sentence, Goodwin was afraid he would get a backlash from organizations that represents the plaintiff if Leavitt who have taken this case to a jury trial and be found innocent.

Goodwin knew that Leavitt had evidence that was in his favor. Leavitts problem was he could not afford an attorney that was educated in civil rights law. Leavitt’s hired attorney was on a ambulance chaser status.

Matt Leavitt was sentence two years in a federal insitution ( not prison) in the state of Texas. he will stand on his head to do this kind of time.

The libility insurance company that insured the city of Montgomery and paid the plantiff $500.000 in out of court settlement knowing that leavitt had evidence to support his police officer actions in this case.

This out of court settlement was a surprise to plaintiff and others since the plaintiffs attorney claimed he would take this case all the way to get both Montgomery police officer the maximun sentence and the million dollars that the city had libillity insurance coverage.

Yes its over, but those that know the truth that includes certain federal employees knows Leavitt got the shaft and the plaintiff got the gold mine, which most believe the plantiff laughed all the way to the Montgomery bank.

“

By: pc

pc — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:50:38 +0000

It sounds like this guy needs 2 weeks of paid leave.

By: Yizmo Gizmo

Yizmo Gizmo — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:48:36 +0000

West Virginia,
Love it or Leav itt.

By: Boyd Durkin

Boyd Durkin — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:44:35 +0000

In my next life I want to have a union as strong as the Police Union protecting me…and a job where I can crap all over my fellow humans as much as cops crap on the peasants.

By: Dave Krueger

Dave Krueger — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:23:43 +0000

This whole sequence of events is just proof of all the crap that cops have to take at the hands of the public. Clearly, the departments that hired these cops were too spineless to stand up for their officers in the face of a few trivial complaints by a bunch of whiny-ass trouble makers. I’m sure if you carefully analyzed each event, you would find that these officers were simply following departmental procedure and behaving in the best traditions of all law enforcement organizations. You should be ashamed for raking up this kind of nonsense. Just wait. Someday you’ll need a cop and this will come back to haunt you.

By: T13

T13 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:22:15 +0000

I just listened to more or less the same story though not quite so long, this morning, but here in the southwest.

By: Mattocracy

Mattocracy — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:59:06 +0000

@ #2,

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

By: Rimfax

Rimfax — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:34:43 +0000

I got tired and numb reading this. Holy shit. If I’d read this in a novel, I’d have said they’d gone on too long. No fuckup could fuck up that long without ever getting pulled up short. Can you nail this Scalia’s door like an angry Martin Luther?

By: BamBam

BamBam — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:08:01 +0000

#9, it’s called “conditioning to make you fear all authoritah, regardless of what they do to you”. Nice to have a system that protects its own existence with the monopoly on force and rules set up and maintained by its own members.

Sometimes private justice is justified and necessary.

By: Greg C

Greg C — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:55:08 +0000

I thought we needed a “stimulus” ( cop welfare program) because there are too many officers/academy grads and not enough jobs? At least that’s what they tell me all the time on the news. We need tax hikes and stimuli so good veteran cops don’t get laidoff and young cops can get work..and all that big government bs. But apparently a cop can be fired multiple times and accused of several violent crimes and just ride into town and get a job.

Man, I know several people with no criminal history ( I haven’t even been accused of a single sexual assault!), solid work histories, never been fired/terminated other than a company going under and mass layoffs, that can’t get hired to do anything anywhere. And many other people make “one mistake” and are pretty much shunned, but a fucking cop can murder someone and get an award. Or just assault multiple people and get fired for laziness and doing a bad job multiple times but get glowing recommendations.

Maybe I should look into this career.

By: Frank

Frank — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:42:19 +0000

#3 #5 Does not surprise me. WV LE hiring standards are the worst in the nation. Considering the crap pay scale, this is the best they can do. It’s either that or hire retired officers that move here.

#9 It has happened before, but if you think other departments get rabid when one of theirs gets what’s coming to him, you haven’t seen a WV police department go absolutely bugfuck on a community.

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:34:38 +0000

“He also uses a racial epithet and licks Lauren Reynolds on the neck during an interrogation, saying, “Little whore, you like it like that.” Their 4-year-old daughter witnesses much of the assault.”

How someone can do things like this repeatedly and not have one of his victims, or a victim’s family member, snap and take him out is mind boggling. In a state where so many people hunt, you’d think he’d violate the law of averages sooner or later.

By: Nicholas weininger

Nicholas weininger — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 04:57:01 +0000

As an aside: Mayor Damon Runyon? Really? Man, you couldn’t make that one up.

By: Highway

Highway — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:40:27 +0000

I also wonder how much the ’round-robin’ of this kind of hiring is because these departments face no actual consequences for having these horrible people on their forces. If you’ve got some rinky-dink town, what actual repercussions are there going to be if you hire Officer Douchebag? Are people going to disband the police force? No. Are locals going to sue the britches off of the police force? They can try, but even if they win, it just takes a lot of money out of the local government, which has no money to begin with. And then what? Maybe the police chief gets fired, and he goes back to what he was doing before, running the local barber shop or something.

I just don’t see what realistically would happen.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:11:18 +0000

Actually, I wonder if there is a union factor at work here. It’s difficult enough to give people bad references or let future employers know they stink because of the fear of lawsuits. We once hired someone who turned out to be terrible. After firing him, we asked his former employer who said he’d hoped we’d “read between the lines” of his recommendation.

But it’s worse when a union is involved. In many union shops, such as our public schools, to even write someone a bad evaluation can involve nasty lawsuits, complaints and appeals. I wonder if we’re going to find that past police departments agreed not to put black marks on these guys’ records just to be rid of them.

By: Packratt

Packratt — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:45:46 +0000

@3 Stephen

Er… actually…. I hate to tell you but that guy you’re probably referring to was rehired elsewhere too.

http://is.gd/3CEA2

By: SJE

SJE — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:38:49 +0000

I can see the police CYA statements now:
“He is clearly a bad apple, as shown by the fact that we fired him”
“We lack the resources to investigate every applicant’s background”
“He came with good recommendations”
“Isolated incident”
“Media witch-hunt”

By: Stephen

Stephen — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:29:44 +0000

Holy swine shit! I guess he was smart enough to leave the NFL players alone and only went after the little people.