BIAS and police training as an excuse for bad behavior

One of the benefits of publishing investigative work is that people start sending records and photos and additional evidence that either further supports the story or provides more information for future stories. Presently, I’m working out Part 2 of an ongoing series about Coquille Police and City Hall and been reading some disturbing accounts of citizen interactions with local law enforcement which will be fleshed out in upcoming posts. During the course of reading reports and reviewing audio transcripts I’ve been struck by the similarity between the way members of law enforcement attempt to justify excessive use of force. An acquaintance quipped about a common meme in police circles, “I assisted the suspect to the ground to affect the arrest.”

Coquille Police Sergeant Doug Miller was terminated from the Coos County Sheriff’s Office for what Sheriff Craig Zanni claimed was a pattern of poor judgment and misconduct. Case in point, while investigating a home intrusion around 11:30 in the evening, Miller who was talking to witnesses at the time, observed a resident located in a home about three doors down standing on his porch and aiming a flashlight in his direction. Evidently satisfied that the commotion had nothing to do with him the 78-year-old went back into the house taking his multimodal flashlight with him and turned off all the lights.  

Miller claims he left his witnesses and went down to the gentleman’s home, now dark, because he wanted to make sure the home invader was not hiding in there and began pounding on the door. The elderly resident answered the door holding his flashlight and had apparently activated the strobe function. Miller claimed that based upon his police training he feared for his own life.  He grabbed the flashlight from the resident and forcibly pushed him back into his own home causing bruises and abrasions. Miller had a lengthy list of “what if” scenarios to justify harming this individual. What if the invader was in this guy’s house? What if he was hiding in the house and had a weapon? What if, what if…? In truth, as his supervisors noted, all he really needed to do was vacate the old man’s porch or better yet, never have gone down there in the first place.

All too often these excuses have a sexist component to them. After first denying grabbing his wife forcibly by the arm Coquille Officer Clayton Makinson later claimed that “  based on a hypomanic state of Mrs. Makinson, an emotional state, that she was making rash decisions where she was not safe to drive a vehicle based on my training and experience…” he deemed her to be too emotional to leave the premises with her son and he needed to stop her for her safety and the safety of the child. He then effectively accused her of collapsing to the ground in a swoon like he apparently believes women are prone to doing. Truly, this was revolting reading but if police training is a standard excuse for behaving like an idiot perhaps these law enforcement should add yoga, tai chi or meditation to the training regimen to make them safe to allow out in public.

Part 2 of our look into the inner workings of the Coquille Police Department will delve more deeply into these two officers including some Brady investigations, allegations of whistleblower retaliation and ask the question of why Coquille Police Chief Scott Sanders is willing to tolerate this behavior at the potential cost of losing and alienating good police officers.