Police must be held responsible

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear arguments on whether private citizens should be allowed to bring civil lawsuits against the police. Under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, only the Justice Department can bring such suits against police departments. \nThe decision to hear this case could not come at a better time. Police transgressions are so overwhelming that Amnesty International, an organization that monitors human rights abuses, has launched a campaign in the United States to end police misconduct. \nAs part of that campaign, the organization issued a report documenting those abuses, including the following:\nIn Pittsburgh, the Justice Department in 1997 charged the city with tolerating a long-standing pattern of abuse by its police, especially in black communities. The abuses included brutality, unjustified stops and searches and false charges against people who complained.\nIn New Jersey, the state admitted to using racial profiling after troopers shot three minority students when their van started to roll during a traffic stop. The students claimed the troopers stopped them because of their race. One of the troopers had been involved in at least 19 prior incidents of alleged racial profiling.\nIn New York, in response to last year's shooting of Amadou Diallo, the U.S. Attorney's office found a pattern of racial bias in police officers' practices. Diallo, a West African immigrant, was shot 41 times by white officers for pulling out his wallet while standing on his porch.\nIt has become obvious that no one can police the police.\nEven internal reviews -- the usual remedy -- don't adequately punish police who make bad decisions on duty. After repeated alleged transgressions by the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles Times examined how well the district attorney's Special Investigation Division, the department that handles such things, addressed those complaints. The Times found SID acted on only 8 percent of the cases involving police that were brought to its attention, though the prosecution rate for average citizens is 70 percent. SID ignored cases in which the accused officer had confessed or was caught on videotape, the Times found.\nAnd this month, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission issued a report that found that, while the police "have made great inroads in reducing crime and use of deadly force," attempts to reduce police brutality and misconduct through methods such as civilian review boards have largely failed, The Associated Press reported.\nTo rectify this problem, the Commission suggested Congress should make it easier for people to sue abusive police officers. \nCongress cannot do this without the Supreme Court's help. \nAt the heart of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights lies the idea that the average citizen has basic human rights, upon which no government should infringe. In our push to lower the crime rate in this country, we have allowed the police to take these rights away from us. We can only hope the Supreme Court has enough wisdom to give us the chance to take them back.