Lorrin Freeman Puts Police Above The Law
Few things make the job of an honest, hard-working police officer more difficult than when a bad officer engages in misconduct, uses excessive force, beats or even kills an unarmed civilian.
Why?
Public trust in law enforcement is essential for getting the job done. For example, when it comes to solving serious crimes like murder, if the community does not trust law enforcement then community members who witness crimes will not cooperate with police officers trying to solve cases.
No elected official has a more important role in holding bad cops accountable than the District Attorney does. In Raleigh, North Carolina, the top prosecutor is Lorrin Freeman, and her record of holding police officers accountable for their misdeeds is atrocious.
A more detailed account follows, but, as Matt Ferner told WRAL local television news, “The long and short of it is this: Lorrin Freeman needs to be better, do better and try harder.” The full clip is worth watching:
Freeman has pursued only one prosecution for deadly police brutality while repeatedly refusing to prosecute officers who seriously injure or kill civilians.
A Raleigh police officer killed a man suspected of stealing a cell phone by firing 11 rounds at him while he was trying to get away from the officer. The officer, who failed to turn on his body camera, said that the man was wielding a knife. The state crime lab, however, did not find any fingerprints matching the man on the knife. Moreover, the man was 20 feet away from the officer, and did not pose an imminent threat. Freeman issued a statement exonerating the officer.
The one case Freeman did prosecute involved two state troopers and a Wake County Sheriff’s Deputy beating a homeless man with flashlights and allowing their police dog to bite the man. The man died a year later, at least in part due to the injuries he sustained in the beating. One of the state troopers can be heard on audio recordings encouraging the other officers to hit the man in the head with a flashlight. But Freeman pursued the most minor charges imaginable against the officer and allowed him to plead guilty and avoid any jail time.
Lorrin Freeman’s Response:
Freeman told local news that cases involving police officers accused of murdering a civilian are “difficult cases”. She continued: “When the evidence supports it, we have made those decisions to hold people accountable, and we have done that repeatedly. Our responsibility is to follow the evidence, apply it to the law and make those determinations, and that is what we try to do in every case, regardless of the public pressure involved.”
TL;DR:
