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1. Salons are open & I just got my first highlights in months. I share this to point out that my stylist was issued a license to practice her profession, one she can lose for something as minor as singeing my hair. Follow along to discuss the lack of a licenses for cops in NJ.
2. As the United States wrestles with how to reform its police forces, I spent the last few weeks looking at one specific problem: States, like New Jersey, which have no mechanism for revoking the accreditation of officers accused of misconduct: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/nyregion/new-jersey-police.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
3. To show the holes in the system, I tracked the peripatetic career of Ofc. Ryan Dubiel, who was suspended from a tiny police department in NJ this month, but only after a video surfaced showing him pepper-spraying a group of youths after a 911 call: https://nyti.ms/2NptAxU
4. The pepper-spray incident caused outrage in the small town where it occurred — Woodlynne, NJ — especially since it took place against a backdrop of national protests over police brutality. At a march days later, residents held signs calling for Dubiel’s firing ( @rcjonesphoto)
5. Public pressure forced the police to act. The officer was suspended/charged with assault. But weeks of digging into his past shows a troubled history. For example scroll to the 2nd video in our piece showing the arrest of a mentally ill woman being made public for the 1st time
6. The officer was already under investigation for back-to-back accusations of excess force stemming from his arrest, on Dec. 29, of a mentally distressed woman who resisted. That same day, Dubiel shot a robbery suspect in the back as he fled. The man was armed with a pellet gun:
7. The Times was able to obtain the videos through New Jersey’s open-records law, but citizens who asked for the same footage using the same law say they waited in vain.
8. What I did is I used the information residents gave me about what they had witnessed to put in open-record requests at all the departments where Dubiel had worked. I learned he had cycled through 9 police departments in under 10 years. In several, he had disciplinary issues.
9. What I specifically asked for is the “use of force” reports officers are required to file when they subdue a suspect. Using force can mean something as minor as guiding a suspect’s arms to apply handcuffs. Colleagues say he had an above-average number of use-of-force reports:
10. In nine years, the officer had at least 23 use-of-force incidents. Nearly all of them were arrests of unarmed people. Yet more than two-thirds of the people Dubiel arrested were injured in the process.
11. What I also learned is that in several of the agencies where Dubiel worked, he racked up disciplinary infractions. He was fired from his job at Far Hill. But agencies that hired him afterward say they didn’t know about his past. Why? See quote below from NJ attorney general:
12. This brings me back to the salon where I got my highlights. My stylist, who in the worst case scenario might burn someone's scalp, is required to be licensed & can easily lose that license for any number of violations. But police officers who can use deadly force? Not in NJ:
13. I see people Tweeting, "but officers go to the police academy, and they get certified." Yup, they do, including in New Jersey. But that's not the same thing as a license, which can be revoked for misconduct. There's no mechanism to revoke a cop's accreditation in New Jersey.
14. The analogy I like is: To become a lawyer, you graduate from law school for which you received a diploma. Then you pass the bar. Years later, you're accused of misconduct. If it's serious you can be *disbarred.* It's the disbarring that removes your ability to practice law.
15. In states like NJ, officers get their certificate from the police academy. That's like a law school diploma. But there's no accreditation that can be revoked. Even after being charged with assault, an officer like Dubiel still has certificate. The state wants to change that:
