{"id":176333,"date":"2020-07-11T18:34:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-11T23:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/07\/11\/leaked-surveys-reveal-problematic-culture-in-law-enforcement-courses\/"},"modified":"2020-07-11T18:34:00","modified_gmt":"2020-07-11T23:34:00","slug":"leaked-surveys-reveal-problematic-culture-in-law-enforcement-courses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/07\/11\/leaked-surveys-reveal-problematic-culture-in-law-enforcement-courses\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaked Surveys Reveal Problematic Culture in Law Enforcement Courses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two weeks ago, I wrote about Blueleaks, a massive collection of lawe enforcement documents that were released by DDoSecrets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Well, we now have the first big reveal of this cache of documents, and it’s significant.<\/p>\n

It appears that instructors at one of the largest law enforcement training programs are open and virulent bigots<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If anyone suggests to you that there are only a few “bad apples”, you need to remind them that the trainers,Derek Chauvin comes to mind, are among the most bigoted and most dismissive of civil rights and basic human decency:<\/p>\n

In early September 2017, the Midwest Counterdrug Training Center (MCTC) hosted a course on \u201cnarcoterrorism<\/a>.\u201d By most accounts, it was a helpful few days of lessons on the drug trade and criminal organizations, led by an instructor with years of law enforcement experience. <\/p>\n

In surveys, some later praised it as a \u201cwake-up call,\u201d a course with \u201cvirtually no room for improvement.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

And then, there was this: \u201cI don\u2019t know where to start \u2013 as someone who has worked full-time counter-terrorism for the past six years, this course was a complete disappointment. The instruction was long on rants and short on any actual substance. Any substantive material was outdated (some of it more than 20 years old). Much of the material taught is publicly available \u2018conspiracy\u2019 theory that has been disproved through investigation.\u201d <\/p>\n

The respondent continued, \u201cWhile the instructor was open about his \u2018anti-PC<\/a>\u2019 beliefs \u2013 this is the only time I have ever heard the [N-word] repeatedly used by instructors and students.\u201d <\/p>\n

The written review ended with a warning to the MCTC leadership. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a time bomb \u2013 if anyone were to record [the teacher\u2019s] rants and leak them to the media your whole program would go down in flames.\u201d <\/p>\n

While the \u201cteacher\u2019s rants\u201d were not leaked, this response was, as part of the BlueLeaks<\/a> hack in June. It\u2019s one of the thousands of surveys filled out following MCTC law enforcement training offered throughout the past decade. <\/p>\n

Funded by the Department of Defense and administered by the Iowa National Guard Counterdrug Task Force, the Center has trained \u201cover 190,000 local, tribal, state, and federal law enforcement officers, military members, and prevention and treatment professionals,\u201d according to its website<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

While thousands responded favorably these courses over the past 10 years, the negative reviews call into question the culture of the organization, in which instructors saying racial slurs or homophobic jokes would still be rated highly by the majority of survey participants. <\/p>\n

Some, including the instructor described above, continued to teach for years, despite being flagged repeatedly. According to additional surveys, the above teacher was still leading MCTC courses as recently as March 2020. <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cAsking students if they \u2018were the pitcher or catcher\u2019 may be funny to some but is asking for a lawsuit in front of the wrong audience. Asking if they were going to \u2018spit or swallow\u2019 was a similar inappropriate question, as well as referring to the black male in the class as \u2018brotha\u2019 multiple times when it was obvious he was uncomfortable with it. Joking about sex assault cases is probably not the best idea considering someone may know a victim.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026 <\/p>\n

\u201cIf a camera was placed in the room he would be on national news for his statements and views. This course was labeled for \u2018drugs\u2019 and just about every example referred to sex,\u201d cautioned another reviewer. <\/p>\n

Still, surveys from 2019 show that instructor was still brought back for additional courses. <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026 <\/p>\n

The spread of biased, outdated, or debunked information was another leading concern. The majority of these complaints were leveled at the same instructors identified above for offensive language. <\/p>\n

\u201cMany media sources were slightly outdated and notoriously biased,\u201d wrote one commenter in 2015. \u201cSome of the sources used were blatant political rhetoric.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026 <\/p>\n

Multiple responders\u2014even those who otherwise ranked the courses favorably\u2014noted a lack of sources outside of Fox News<\/a> and a lack of examples or trends less than three decades old. <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

Others criticized the actual course material and practical law enforcement learnings offered. A 2013 student mentioned their instructor, \u201csuggested [criminal] subjects not be given a break to get a drink and use the restroom after several hours, which may be considered a civil rights violation.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026 <\/p>\n

Numerous comments in this vein referred back to the \u201creputation of MCTC,\u201d and fears that instructors like these would \u201cdegrade\u201d its status or that of other law enforcement departments. <\/p>\n

\u201cI found myself embarrassed to admit being part of the National Guard during this class due to instructor\u2019s association with a National Guard affiliated course,\u201d read one 2018 response. <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026 <\/p>\n

\u201cHe flat out said in class that he lied all the time in court to cover his partner\u2019s asses. He said multiple times a badge and being a cop<\/a> means \u2018you can do whatever the f%$# you want.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why this is not a lede for every law enforcement section of every paper in the United States is beyond me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two weeks ago, I wrote about Blueleaks, a massive collection of lawe enforcement documents that were released by DDoSecrets. Well, we now have the first big reveal of this cache of documents, and it’s significant. It appears that instructors at one of the largest law enforcement training programs are open and virulent bigots. If anyone …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[397,526,501],"class_list":["post-176333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-education","tag-law-enforcement-misconduct","tag-secrecy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176333"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}