Cop tasers a man comforting his wife after an accident. City settles for $150,000, but lets cop back on the job. Cop subsequently tasers an innocent woman three times. This time he’s fired, and the city pays out $250,000. The judge sentenced him this week. Six months house arrest, probation, and community service.

In an appropriately scathing editorial, the Pensacola New Journal notes that this isn’t the first time the courts have gone soft on bad cops:

Rodgers justified the sentence by noting Dix’s “cooperation with the government.” According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Oliver, Dix had provided “substantial assistance” in other criminal investigations.

That kind of a wording usually indicates a case in which one criminal snitches on another. Is that what happened here? Or unless Dix was involved with, or had knowledge of, other criminal activities since he left the Sheriff’s Office, did he simply provide information he should have provided earlier anyway in order to get a lighter sentence?

It is an odd justification for the light sentence. Aren’t cops supposed to cooperate in criminal investigations?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 at 7:59 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Police Professionalism, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.