NAMELESS
AND SHAMELESS
HUFFINGTON
10.06.13
I F THERE ARE UNDERCOVER OFFICERS
WHOSE IDENTITIES NEED TO BE PROTECTED
— AND I DON’T KNOW THAT THAT WAS THE
CASE HERE — THEN YOU SEND DIFFERENT
OFFICERS IN TO CONDUCT THE RAID.
Friedman — who appeared hostile
to his clients’ case — again, the
Burleys are at even more of a disadvantage than they were in the
first trial. The agents and their
attorneys are now aware of inconsistencies the first trial exposed in
their stories, and can attempt to
explain them away. “We lost that
element of surprise,” Okoli said.
The Burleys’ failure to win
compensation for the raid on
their home is hardly unusual.
And while this case may be particularly egregious, the tendency
of police agencies to be stingy
with information following a
mistaken raid is also common.
Police officers enjoy qualified
immunity, so it isn’t enough to
show that police made a clear
mistake, or even that they were
negligent, no matter how much
harm has been done.
But wading into the legal
weeds about what police agencies
can and can’t do in these cases
overlooks the fact that what they
can do isn’t necessarily what they
ought to do. When confronted
with these cases, political leaders
and police officials could choose
one of two routes. They can show
some contrition, admit they made
mistakes, move to make the victims whole again and look to ensure that the same mistakes don’t
happen again. Or they can hunker
down, cut off the flow of information and engage in every bit of
bureaucratic chicanery and legal
maneuvering they can in order to
escape accountability.
“What happened in the house,
whether the women were violated
or whether their account is overblown, that’s up to a jury to decide,”
Joe Key says. “But the government
must make itself accountable and
transparent. This kind of stonewalling goes against everything the
Fourth Amendment is supposed to represent.”
Radley Balko is a senior writer
and investigative reporter for
The Huffington Post.