10 Biggest Police Screw-Ups
Hey guys, Culture here.
Today we're going to discuss the 10 biggest police screw-ups.
More specifically, we'll look at the circumstances that allow these mistakes to happen and the
criminals that benefit from them.
Ironically the biggest screw-up I know, Crash, won't be featuring in this episode!
Police are there to help protect and serve the people of cities and towns all over the
world, leaving plenty of room for error when they mess up.
They have tough jobs and I wouldn't call the guys on this list "idiots" but…
well, you'll see.
Number 1:
In 2016, a football match between Manchester United and Bournemouth at Old Trafford Stadium
was disrupted when an explosive device was found in one of the stadium's bathrooms.
Police were on standby for any drunkards or potential rioters, but were left in the dark
about a planned, practical bomb-sniffing exercise being carried out at the event.
A private security firm called Security Search Management and Solutions was responsible for
leaving the realistic-looking device behind.
By the way nice business name; really rolls off the tongue.
The bomb was noticed by a patron of the event leading to a full-scale evacuation of the
stadium just 20 minutes before kick-off.
An army bomb disposal unit was rolled in and executed a controlled explosion on the device.
It wasn't until searching through the debris that law enforcement officers realised it
was a training device.
I mean it's not really their fault; they did a great job of evacuating about 20,000
attendees from the stadium, but a bit of communication could have saved a lot of hassle.
Number 2:
Sir Rupert Mackeson, the bad-boy women dreamed of in 1981, was no.7 in the UK's 10 most
wanted criminals.
His career in crime began when he started running a London bank with strong ties to
the Mafia.
He racked up 16 fraud cases against him before eventually deciding the stresses of mob life
were too strenuous.
He decided to retreat out of Britain and into modern-day Zimbabwe, then known as Rhodesia,
only to start a smuggling trade.
The Rhodesian government wanted Mackeson out and also saw an opportunity to gain favour
with the British so they had him arrested.
Here's where things get messy though: Mackeson caused a riot in his prison camp, accelerating
his extradition from Rhodesia back to the UK.
On June 25th 1981 he finally faced the court for 16 charges of fraud, but was let go on
all 16 charges because he was illegally extradited; in other words, he was technically kidnapped.
See, the Soames administration, the government in Rhodesia responsible for changing the country's
name to Zimbabwe, had a valid extradition treaty but the previous government did not.
The defence proved that plans to extradite Mackeson were put into place before the regime
change, making his extradition illegal.
The judge agreed, letting Sir Rupert go as a free man.
He now lives in Britain, an accomplished writer of books on horse racing.
Number 3:
On January 1st 1986, the body of Debbie Wolfe was found submerged in a small pond outside
her cabin in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Police investigating the case seemingly stumbled at every turn.
When first called to investigate Wolfe's disappearance, they searched the cabin and
didn't uncover her body.
Subsequent private investigation by hired divers spotted Wolfe's body in an oil drum
in the pond.
Police were called back to the scene to pull the body out and her body was sent off for
autopsy.
The coroner ruled that Wolfe had drowned, but seemed inconclusive about whether or not
the death was accidental or murder.
This despite the fact that Wolfe showed no signs of struggling to breathe, instead looking
peaceful as though she had died out of the water.
The biggest mistake involved the oil drum, however.
The police claimed that Wolfe's body was not found in an oil drum, that the oil drum
spotted by divers never existed.
Wolfe's mother, friends and the divers suspect the police left the oil drum at the pond overnight,
where it was stolen before they had a chance to recover it the next morning.
The police claim that Wolfe had an accident while playing with her dogs and fell in the
pond despite this running contrary to every other piece of evidence.
Wolfe's mother even claims she knew an oil drum on the property and that it was missing
as well, leaving an indentation in the dirt where it had once been.
I'm not sure if this is incompetence or something much more sinister…
Number 4:
On the 16th of July 2017, police came across naked man yelling abuse on the front lawn
of a house in Wisconsin.
Travis L. Tingler, a name I thought only Stan Lee could dream up, was threatening to gut
people inside the house which belonged to his girlfriend.
When approached by police he claimed he wasn't doing anything wrong and had a noticeably
glazed over stare.
Police spoke to a girl inside the house, Tingler's girlfriend's daughter, who said that he
had begun drinking 3 hours ago and making weird comments like "Stay in the light and
never come into the dark."
Oh my god, maybe he really is a Stan Lee character!
Tingler struggled as the cops handcuffed him, picking up a lighter as they attempted to
put his pants back on.
As one officer went to tase him, the electricity sparked the lighter fluid causing Tingler's
chest and facial hair to catch on fire.
Luckily, the other officer managed to put out the fire before too much damage was done.
Tingler tested positive for marijuana and alcohol but I'm guessing he was on a lot
more than just that.
Number 5:
On September 11th 2015, Michael Picard stood up the road from a DUI checkpoint with a sign
saying "Cops ahead: Keep calm and remain silent."
He was soon approached by State Police at which point he began recording the interaction.
Picard was a known protestor in support of free speech and had numerous run-ins with
the Hartford police department prior to this.
The approaching officer knocked the camera out of Picard's hand then subsequently confiscated
it.
What he failed to realise is that the camera was not broken; in fact, it was still recording.
The camera captured the three officers discussing what to charge Picard with, the discussion
revolving around how many tickets they could give him and fabricating witness testimonies
to make his protesting sound far more dangerous than it really was.
All of these charges were dismissed by the court and Picard sued the officers for violation
of his First and Fourth amendment rights.
I can hardly blame the officers, I've seen some of this Picard guy's videos and he
seems like a bit of a smart ass.
That means a lot coming from me.
Also I love that he's a protester and his last name is a portmanteau of "Picket"
and "Placard".
Seriously, how perfect is that?
Number 6:
In 2015 an officer of the Casselberry police department in Florida won a bit of money playing
the lottery, $32 to be exact, and decided to share his excitement with his supervisor
via text.
How exactly did he express this?
By sending an anime screenshot with the caption…
Um, I probably shouldn't say this.
Here's a censored version on screen, I'm sure you can fill in the gaps.
Apart from being a pretty low level meme, it was also an awful decision considering
the department was embroiled in a previous text message scandal involving their Chief
of Police.
The officer was given a 10 hour shift without pay as punishment by his supervisor, but that
didn't stop the text leaking to the local news station.
By the way the officer's name was Matthew Blunt.
I mean come on: Tingler, Picard and now Blunt?
You gotta love these people's names.
Number 7:
Not all of these police mistakes are so easy to laugh off however.
The London terror attack on the 3rd of June 2017 was a horrific incident where families
were broken apart, many people killed and injured in the chaos.
For one man, however, the terror seemed to follow him.
Armed police fired their guns at 3 targets, the terrorists responsible for driving a white
van into a crowd and subsequently stabbing passers-by.
Fearing the terrorists were wearing suicide belts, the officers fired approximately 50
rounds at the three aggressors.
In all the mayhem, the officers accidentally shot a civilian during their attempt to save
hundreds of lives.
Luckily for everyone involved it wasn't a fatal shot and the civilian survived after
being transported to hospital.
That errant bullet could have been a far worse mistake but let's keep in mind that the
actions of those officers in that high-pressure, time-sensitive situation saved so many more
lives.
Number 8:
On February 2nd 2017, a suspicious car was spotted outside the Workington police station
in Cumbria in the UK.
A bomb squad was called in, roads cordoned off and a controlled explosion used to disarm
the car.
However what police suspected to be a bomb was actually just a metal water bottle and
some loose electrical wires.
Of course the officers might have known this if they had spoken to their colleagues earlier
in the day.
See, the car belonged to a man who had taken ill and wandered into the police station for
help.
Two of the officers kindly agreed to take him to hospital, but failed to tell any of
the other officers about the incident.
The police station apologised to the man and reimbursed him for the damages to his car.
An inspector from the Workington police department called this an "internal communication error",
an excuse I'd only ever seen used by faulty software before now.
Number 9:
On October 12th 1996, Javier Ovando was shot by two police officers in his apartment, causing
him to be paralysed from the waist down.
Ovando was a known member of the 18th street gang in Los Angeles, one of the most violent
street gangs.
However in this case, Ovando actually did nothing wrong.
The officers involved shot Ovando without provocation and proceeded to plant a gun on
him to claim he had fired first.
This wasn't an isolated incident for the officers, who were members of the Community
Resources Against Street Hoodlums anti-gang unit.
That's right: The CRASH unit.
I swear you can't make this stuff up.
The CRASH unit was the centre of the Rampart scandal, widespread police corruption in the
unit leading to unprovoked shootings, planting evidence, bank robberies, drug dealing and
perjury.
All of this behaviour came to light when CRASH officer Rafael Perez was found stealing 6
pounds of cocaine from the evidence room.
In exchange for a lighter sentence, he ratted on several members of the CRASH unit, also
admitting he and another officer planted the gun on Ovando.
This eventually lead to Ovando's release and a $15 million settlement.
Number 10:
On January 14th 2017, Montana Barronette was released from the Baltimore Central Booking
and Intake Centre.
This was an odd decision considering Barronette had a federal indictment on him and was known
by Baltimore PD as the "Number 1 trigger puller".
Barronette was involved in 12 killings under his association with a gang called the Black
Guerrilla Family.
Essentially, they let loose a serial killer back into society.
The booking centre was soon informed of the federal detainer on Barronette and agents
were called in to recover him.
They were able to recapture Barronette a day and a half after his initial release, luckily
before he had time to commit any more murders.
Unfortunately, accidental releases like this aren't unheard of, so we just have to keep
our fingers crossed that most of the time the police actually know what they're doing.
In fact, based on this list I have a whole new respect for just how many ways there are
to stuff up being an officer of the law.
See you next week everyone!
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