It is Genuinely a Good Idea to Never Trust The Police

This post has the kind of title that I think some people see as inflammatory, but those of us who study the police and those of us who have had direct experience with the police see as something so banal that it hardly needs to be stated. But let me illustrate the point with a recent example.

If you follow the sports world this story is well familiar to you, but if not you may have missed the story of what happened to Masai Ujiri, President of the Toronto Raptors, when he tried to access the court to celebrate with his team when they upset the Golden State Warriors in the 2019 NBA Finals.

What happened was initially the subject of some controversy, as despite the profligate number of cameras within the arena, there wasn't really any conclusive footage of what happened when a police officer working the game refused to let Ujiri access the court.

The officer in question, Deputy Alan Strickland, claimed that Ujiri assaulted him. Not just assaulted him, but approached Deputy Strickland with a "violent predisposition" and "hit [Strickland] in the face and chest with both fists” causing such injury to Strickland that he has been on sick leave for over a year while arguing his injuries were so significant as to present the possibility of permanent disability (during this time Strickland has pocketed $224,000 in salary, not including benefits). Alameda County Sheriff Greg Ahern (Strickland's boss, essentially) requested Ujiri be charged with battery of a peace officer, although the DA declined to press charges. Both Deputy Strickland and his department have stood by this story for well over a year now.

The problem with that story? It's completely made up.

Ujiri's legal team last week released the body camera footage of Deputy Strickland which makes it clear Ujiri did not hit Strickland at all. He actually didn't even touch Strickland, which is probably something that would be necessary to impart enough force to permanently injure someone.

Oh, did I mention Ujiri is Black? Probably completely unrelated to this story, but just thought it might be worth throwing out there.

What really stands out about this is that not only was the Alameda County Sheriff's department fully aware Strickland was lying about both the incident and his nonexistent injuries, they continued to defend him the entire time.

Or rather, what I should say is that what stands out is that we know about the department supporting Strickland's story even though they knew he was lying. 

It's quite likely the only reason we know about this body cam footage is because Ujiri has the resources to hire a good legal team and press the matter (also quite a likely factor in why Ujiri was not legally charged over the incident). Had Ujiri not been in a position of power and had the resources to challenge this but instead been similar to those who most often interact with police, he would have been charged with assault of an officer and his public counsel would have tried to get him the best plea deal possible and it never would have been known that the Deputy was lying the entire time. For a good summation of how that would go, read this great op-ed about what would have happened to George Floyd if he had survived.

This sort of routine lying about these kinds of matters is nothing unusual in the police world; it happens so much that they even have a handy name -- testilying -- for it when they do it under oath. What makes the Ujiri incident so important is specifically because it isn't a major case where there are murky circumstances and much larger issues at play. Much the opposite -- this is the kind of thing where the Sheriff's  department could have easily said "Yeah, that deputy screwed up in the confusion of the moment. Sorry about that." and it's over. 

But they didn't do that. Instead, they continually doubled-down on an obvious lie. Something they knew full well to be a lie. And they didn't just passively promote the lie the Deputy invented about the incident itself, but continued to lie about his health, pretending for over a year that he received significant injuries during an incident in which they fully knew Deputy Strickland was never even touched. This isn't some slight fudging of events, it's creating a serious crime out of thin air.

To make the obvious point -- if this is how they act in minor incidents, how do you think they act when there is anything more on the line?

Given how often we know this kind of lying happens, and given that it assuredly happens far more often than we know due to how rare it is for these kinds of behind-the-scenes machinations to ever be made public, the only realistic conclusion anyone can take away from these sorts of events is that the most prudent course of action is to always assume police are lying until proven otherwise. It's not being hyperbolic, it's simply observing a repeated series of behaviors and drawing an obvious conclusion from them.