THE
STOP
was also issued six speeding tickets.
In much of the country, discipline and
dismissal of police officers is governed by
union-negotiated contracts. Some states
have a “police officer bill of rights,”
which affords police accused of misconduct and criminal acts more rights than
are afforded other citizens. Others send
officer misconduct cases to union- negotiated arbitrators. Federal law also protects police from being fired for refusing
to answer questions in a misconduct
investigation, even if their answers can’t
be used against them in any ensuing
criminal case.
Police watchdogs say all of this makes
it extremely difficult to fire even cops
with long histories of misconduct.
These concerns have been raised at police and sheriff departments across the
country, including in King County, Wash.;
Maywood, Calif.; Gary, Ind.; Cincinnati,
Covington, Texas, Aurora, Colo., San Diego; Spokane, Wash., Louisville, Ken.; Milwaukee; and the entire state of Florida.
By spring of 2009, Reichert was back
on the job in Collinsville. Soon after,
federal prosecutors raised new concerns
about Reichert’s credibility. Those too
were dismissed.
In January 2011, Williams gave Reichert
the Chief’s Award of Merit (PDF), and in
April 2011, he was named Officer of the
Month. For the latter, Reichert was cited
for making six arrests and seven citations
out of 166 total incidents. According to
HUFFINGTON
10.21.12
Williams, “incidents are dispatched calls
for service. They range from traffic crashes to domestic disputes and everything in
between.” Despite Reichert’s past, Williams said he sees no reason to question
the officer’s integrity.
In May, another Collinsville police
officer was suspended, then criminally charged after dash camera footage
showed he had lied about his justification for a traffic stop. Officer Luke Tillman claimed in his police report that he
pulled over Cheryl Helfrich for failure
to display a registration, then found a
crack pipe when he searched her car. But
Helfrich was able to obtain the video
footage (which Tillman had failed to
log—fortunately, it was backed up on the
department’s computer system) clearly
showing she had displayed the proper
registration. The charges against Helfrich were dropped.
EPILOGUE
The Huffington Post first reported on
Huff’s stop in March. Shortly after that
story ran, Collinsville Police Chief Scott
Williams told St. Louis Today that he
stood behind Reichert, his department
and the way local police agencies conduct stops and searches.
Williams said his department had received hundreds of emails and phone
calls in response to the article, but dismissed most of them as “’anti-law enforcement’ people.” Referring to the way
Reichert instructed his drug-sniffing dog
in the Huff video, Williams told the paper, “While some people may think it’s