In the last few years, there have been far too many videos emerge that show police, those sworn to protect and serve, behaving in ways that outrage all of us. Time and again, I am told that there are always bad apples in any population, and the figure I get is that less than 1% of all police men and women are bad apples.
Statistically speaking, I would call this estimate a pie in the sky wishful dream. We have in the U.S. today far more bad cops than anybody hopes would be in uniform. Here are the stats:
Ten known police officers responded to the Laquan McDonald incident in Chicago, Illinois in 2014. Two of them were Cook County sheriff's officers who arrived after McDonald was shot and killed. The other 8 officers on the scene were Chicago city policemen and women.
In a recent news release, 5 of these 8 Chicago City police officers have been recommended for termination for criminal behavior, and one of them is Jason Van Dyke who has been charged with the murder at the scene. The other 4 officers recommended for firing are Janet Mondragon, Daphne Sebastian, Ricardo Viramontes and Stephen Franko. The remaining three Chicago cops who were at the scene remain unidentified, and have subsequently retired before they could be fired. All eight of these officers filed false reports regarding the shooting, and all 8 claimed that Laquan McDonald attempted to kill a police officer, when the several videos clearly show this was not the fact at all.
Filing a false police report is the basis of all bad cops, who are trusted to do the right thing and report their activities truthfully. Those who don't are obstructing justice, a felony. Good cops don't commit felonies. Only bad cops do this. As an aside, not one of the Chicago City cops mentioned the arrival of the two Cook County Sheriff's department officers at the scene of the shooting. Not one. These two sheriff's department officers departed the scene and filed their own reports, which did not include specifics on the actual shooting since they had arrived after the fact.
What are the statistical odds of 8 bad cops showing up at the scene of a situation if only 1 in 100 cops in the universe of all cops are bad? Assuming this 1% figure is correct, the math here suggests that the probability of 8 bad cops showing up simultaneously at any single point in time is (.01) to the power of 8, or 1.0 x e-18, or .000000000000000001%. Or in other terms, statistically impossible.
This Laquan McDonald murder statistically debunks that stupid, wishful Utopian figure of .01% of bad cops in the U.S. The statistical figure based on this one episode suggest 80% of all cops are bad apples, and they are all employed by the City Of Chicago. Of course, that 80% figure is skewed as well since an 'n' of 8 is too low to apply to the U.S. nationwide, and would be considered statistically anecdotal, but the number of bad cops among the general police population in the U.S. is certainly way, way, WAY higher than .01%. How much higher is subject to debate, but in my mind this fairy tale figure of no more than .01% of bad cops throughout the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave is complete bunk.
I would conclude that statistically our country is lousy with bad cops.
Do the math.
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