A new report charges that drug investigators for the Atlanta Police Department would often bend or break the rules and lie in order to get search warrants. Additionally, they are being accused of working extra jobs while on city time. This was all according to information released by a police oversight panel this week.

The Citizen Review Board wrote the report, which was focused on events that occurred surrounding a raid that led to the shooting death of an elderly woman in 2006. The report stated that the Atlanta Police Department ignored instances of abuse and had unofficial arrest and search warrant quotas.
"What is disturbing about the misconduct ... [of] both indicted and unindicted officers is that the system did not detect them earlier," the report said. "The patterns of misconduct were longstanding, repetitive and ongoing. The misconduct cannot be characterized as isolated incidents."

The report recommended the firing of two officers for lying on reports in order to obtain search warrants:

"The city continued to employ two of these officers," the report states. "This is also a symptom of internal oversight that is slow to investigate and discipline, and this undermines the ability to ensure that officers are performing in a constitutional, legal and ethical fashion."

The woman killed in 2007 was Kathryn Johnston, whose home was raided by police. A narcotics officer stated that an informant told them that he bought crack cocaine from a man named "Sam" at her home. The police then secured a "no-knock" search warrant with that information. The 92-year-old woman was waiting in the living room with a gun, released one shot and was killed by police.

The police admitted to working to cover up their mistakes. When no drugs were found, they planted drugs from a prior arrest. They also spent the next few days searching for the informant in order to back up their story. Three officers - Arthur Tessler, Gregg Junnier and Jason R. Smith - were sent to federal prison for conspiring to violate Johnston's civil rights. Two other officers were also brought up on charges as well.

The police department has thus far declined to comment on the findings of the report.

"I don't know that they have fixed the problems," board chairwoman Joy Morrissey said. "I would hope that they have made substantial policy changes so that something like this never happens again."

Police misconduct and corruption continue to be serious problems all throughout America. The fact that the Atlanta PD has had the courage to thoroughly investigate this unfortunate incident should be applauded, in spite of the obvious reasons citizens have to be disappointed in their behavior. What we must remember is that there are good police who want as badly as the rest of us to see the bad cops pushed out of the system.

All the while, the community must hold officers and law enforcement accountable for sometimes arrogant and abusive behavior on the part of police officers. I myself have been terrorized by a few officers who didn't feel that their authority should be questioned.

For every corruption case that is unearthed, there are thousands that go unnoticed, unreported or to the bottom of the trash file of negligent departments. The blue wall of silence must disappear if police are interested in earning the trust of citizens again. Simultaneously, good Americans must be willing to support good officers in their quest to do a very difficult and dangerous job.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and the author of the new book, "Black American Money." To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.