공무 집행을 이유로 여성의 몸을 더듬거나 성교를 강요하는 등 직무 중 성 관련 위법 행위를 저지른 미국 경찰의 행태가 심각 한 수준에 이른 것으로 나타났다.
AP 통신은 1일(현지시간) 탐사보도를 통해 미국 전역에서 성범죄로 제복을 벗은 미국 경찰이 6년 사이 약 1천 명에 달한다고 전했다.
이러한 위법 행위를 '경찰 배지(badge)의 배신'으로 규정한 통신은 드러난 수치 가 '빙산의 일각'이라고 평해 더 큰 충격을 던졌다.
AP 통신은 그 이유로 각 주(州)의 모든 경찰서가 직무 중 성범죄를 저지른 경찰 을 모두 해고하지 않는다는 점, 캘리포니아 주와 뉴욕 주 등 미국에서도 큰 지역의 경찰서가 성범죄 경관 처리에 대한 지침이 없다는 이유로 기록 공개를 거부한 사실 등을 들었다.
통신은 2009년부터 2014년까지 41개 주의 성범죄와 관련한 경찰 해고 사례를 분 석해 미국 법무부의 성범죄 해고 사유와 일치하는지를 살폈다.
캘리포니아, 뉴욕 주를 비롯한 9개 주와 워싱턴DC 경찰은 성범죄 연루 경찰을 해고하지 않거나 AP 통신에 정보 제공을 거절했다.
이를 보면, 해고 경찰 중 550명은 강간, 수치심을 유발하는 몸수색 등 직접적인 성폭행으로 배지를 강탈당했다. 440명은 아동 포르노 소지, 미성년자와의 성적인 문 자메시지 교환 등으로 쫓겨났다.
AP 통신은 백인 경찰이 비무장 흑인을 살해하는 일이 비일비재하게 벌어지면서 경찰의 과도한 공권력 남용이 비판의 도마 위에 오른 상황이나 경관의 성범죄는 단 편적이고, 피해 여성이 이를 공개로 밝히기를 꺼린 탓에 대다수 국민에게 사안의 심 각성이 덜 알려졌다고 지적했다.
미국 오하이오 주 보울링 그린 주립대학의 연구원인 필 스틴슨은 2005년부터 20 11년 사이 성범죄 관련 경찰 뉴스를 분석한 결과, 경관의 성추행과 성폭행이 사건 용의자들의 세 번째 불만 사항으로 나타났다고 소개했다.
공공정책 기관인 케이토 재단도 2009∼2010년 경찰에 대한 가장 큰 불만으로 과 도한 공권력 사용 다음으로 성범죄가 자리했다고 덧붙였다.
일부 경찰과 검찰은 성범죄 의혹에 휩싸인 경관으로 하여금 조용히 사직하게 하 거나 그들의 경찰 자격을 그대로 유지하도록 둔 채 심지어 이직도 가능하게 해 일을 무마하는 데 앞장섰다. 도를 넘은 '제 식구 감싸기' 탓에 경찰의 비위 사실이 좀처 럼 드러나지 않은 셈이다.
코네티컷 주의 한 경관은 10대가 참여하는 경찰 관련 프로그램에서 알게 된 17 세 소녀에게 접근해 강제로 성폭행한 죄로 30개월 징역형을 선고받았다.
플로리다 주의 또 다른 경관은 이민자 남성 20명과 강제로 성관계한 죄로 징역 5년형을, 뉴 멕시코 주의 한 경관은 아동학대·성범죄 전담반에서 일하면서 고교 주 재 경찰로 재직하던 인턴을 성폭행해 징역 9년형에 처했다.
오클라호마 주의 대니얼 홀츠클로 경관은 무려 13명의 여성을 성폭행한 혐의로 2일 법정에 선다.
대학 미식축구 스타 출신인 그는 검문을 이유로 여성 운전자의 차를 세운 뒤 수 치심을 유발하는 수색에 이어 구강성교를 강요하거나 불체포를 약속하고 대놓고 성 교를 원한 것으로 드러났다.
피해자 대부분은 보복과 공권력이 무서워 어쩔 수 없이 홀츠클로의 요구에 따랐 다. 자주 유치장을 들락날락한 한 여성은 체포 후 지루한 법 집행과정을 싫어해 홀 츠클로의 욕구를 풀어주고 방면되는 길을 택하기도 했다. (연합)
<관련 영문 기사>
Hundreds of officers lose licenses over sex misconduct
Flashing lights pierced the black of night, and the big white letters made clear it was the police. The woman pulled over was a daycare worker in her 50s headed home after playing dominoes with friends. She felt she had nothing to hide, so when the Oklahoma City officer accused her of erratic driving, she did as directed.
She would later tell a judge she was splayed outside the patrol car for a pat-down and then made to lift her shirt and pull down her pants to prove she wasn’t hiding anything. She described being ordered to sit in the squad car as the officer towered over her. His gun in sight, she said she pleaded “No, sir” as he unzipped his fly and exposed himself to her with a hurried directive.
“Come on,” the woman, identified in police reports as J.L., said she was told before she began giving the officer oral sex. “I don’t have all night.”
The accusations are undoubtedly jolting, and yet they reflect a betrayal of the badge that has been repeated across the U.S.
A yearlong investigation by The Associated Press has found about 1,000 officers who lost their licenses in a six-year period for rape, sodomy and other sexual assaults; sex crimes that included possession of child pornography; or sexual misconduct such as propositioning citizens or having on-duty intercourse.
The probe at once represents both the most complete examination of such wrongdoing and a sure undercount of the problem, limited by a patchwork of state laws. California and New York, for example, had no records because they have no statewide system for revoking the licenses of officers who commit misconduct. And even among states that provided information, some reported no officers removed for sexual misdeeds even though cases were discovered in news stories or court records.
“It’s happening probably in every law enforcement agency across the country,” said Chief Bernadette DiPino of the Sarasota Police Department in Florida, who helped study the problem for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. “It’s so underreported and people are scared that if they call and complain about a police officer, they think every other police officer is going to be then out to get them.”
The AP’s review is based on a state-by-state pursuit of records on decertification, the process by which a law enforcement license is revoked. Though nine states and Washington, D.C. declined to provide information or said they did not track officer misconduct, decertification records from 41 states were obtained and then dissected to determine whether the cause of revocation involved sexual misconduct.
All told, the AP determined that some 550 officers lost their licenses from 2009 through 2014 for sexual assault, including rape, pat-downs that amounted to groping, and shakedowns in which citizens were extorted into performing favors to avoid arrest. Some 440 other officers were decertified for other sex offenses or misconduct, including child pornography, voyeurism in the guise of police work and consensual but prohibited on-duty intercourse.
About one-third of the decertified officers were accused in incidents involving juveniles. Overall, the victims were overwhelmingly women and included some of society’s most vulnerable _ the poor, the addicted, the young. Others had criminal records, sometimes used by the officers as a means for exploitation. Some were victims of crime who, seeking help, found themselves again targeted by men in uniform.
The law enforcement officials in these records included state and local police, sheriff’s deputies, prison guards and school resource officers. They represent a fraction of the hundreds of thousands whose jobs are to serve and protect. Nevertheless, the AP’s findings suggest that sexual misconduct is among the most prevalent complaints against law officers.
Cases from just the past year demonstrate the devastation of such depravity.
In Connecticut, William Ruscoe of the Trumbull Police began a 30-month prison term in January after pleading guilty to the sexual assault of a 17-year-old girl he met through a program for teens interested in law enforcement. Case records detailed advances that began with texts and attempts to kiss and grope the girl. Then one night Ruscoe brought her back to his home. The victim told investigators that despite telling him no “what felt like 1,000 times,” he removed her clothes, fondled her and forced her to touch him _ at one point cuffing her hands.
In Florida, Jonathan Bleiweiss of the Broward Sheriff’s Office was sentenced to a five-year prison term in February for bullying about 20 immigrant men into sex acts. Prosecutors said he used implied threats of deportation to intimidate the men.
And in New Mexico, Michael Garcia of the Las Cruces Police was sentenced last November to nine years in federal prison for sexually assaulting a high school police intern. The victim, Diana Guerrero, said in court the assault left her feeling “like a piece of trash,” dashed her dreams of becoming an officer, and triggered depression and flashbacks.euro
“I lost my faith in everything, everyone, even in myself,” said Guerrero, who is now 21 and agreed to her name being published.
Experts on sex assault believe most victims never come forward, and said fears can be compounded if the offender is an officer. Diane Wetendorf, who started a support group in Chicago for victims of officers, recalls the stories of those who did go to authorities: Some women’s homes came under surveillance or their children were intimidated by police. Fellow officers, she said, refused to turn on accused colleagues.
“It starts with the officer denying the allegations _ `she’s crazy,’ `she’s lying,”‘ she said. “And the other officers say they didn’t see anything, they didn’t hear anything.”
The issue will be in the spotlight beginning Monday in Oklahoma City, where former Officer Daniel Holtzclaw is scheduled for trial, accused in the rapes, sexual battery or exploitation of 13 women, including J.L. The AP doesn’t name alleged victims of sexual assault without consent, and J.L. declined to be interviewed. She immediately reported her accusations in June 2014, and detectives launched a wider investigation.
Police eventually assembled a six-month narrative of alleged sex crimes they said started Dec. 20, 2013, with a woman taken into custody and hospitalized while high on angel dust. Dressed in a hospital gown, her right wrist handcuffed to the bedrail, the woman said Holtzclaw coerced her into performing oral sex, suggesting her cooperation would lead to dropped charges.
Holtzclaw, 28, a former football star who is now fired from the Oklahoma City Police Department, has pleaded not guilty. His family has said “the truth of his innocence will be shown in court.” His attorney, Scott Adams, would not respond to requests for comment but indicated in pretrial hearings that he will attack the credibility of the accusers, some of whom had struggled with drugs or previously worked as prostitutes.
The youngest of the accusers, who was 17 when she says Holtzclaw raped her on her mother’s front porch, said the attack left her unsure about what to do.
“Like, what am I going to do?” she said at the pretrial hearing. “Call the cops? He was a cop.” (AP)
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