Lying or Excessive Force, Which is Worse?

Last week, an Austin Police Department officer was fired for lying about using excessive force during an arrest. This leads us to an important question in regards to the responsibility placed on an APD officer. Are the police more concerned with the use of excessive force or officers lying about their actions in the field? In this most recent situation, the unfair treatment of a citizen was not probable cause for a police officer to be relieved of duty. The fact that the officer lied about the facts of the arrest was cause for his dismissal.

In response to this event, many people question which scenario is worse, lying or excessive force. An argument can be made for either side, clearly most good people never want to see another person unnecessarily harmed, especially by those who are meant to protect and serve. Just hearing that an officer has used excessive force on a suspect more than once without being reprimanded, tends to rub someone the wrong way. On the other hand, a culture of lying and distrust in a city’s justice system is something that never leads to prosperity. If in the terrible case in which an officer does use excessive force, it seems unfair that there should be a possibility where they can get away with it by falsifying a report.

Neither of these sound like common occurrences in respectable police departments, something must change from within in order to see a difference . Until that change is made, local Austin lawyers will be here to aid and assist members of the community.