Whistleblower cops face a system built to beat them down
Chicago-based attorney Antonio Romanucci said whistleblowers face an ironic challenge when trying to prove their claims: the courts and governments are predisposed to believe law enforcement.
Romanucci, who along with civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump represents George Floyd’s family, said he always tries to get other officers as witnesses when he’s litigating a police brutality claim. But they are rarely willing to cooperate, afraid to spark the ire of not just their coworkers, but of prosecutors, judges and others in the system.
“Many of your local and city judges were former prosecutors, and it’s hard to shake those biases when these cases involve the same people you’ve known and worked with for years,” Romanucci said. “This is not an indictment on the judges, but the judges who hear these cases can also be complicit.”
In Warraich’s case, a county judge denied a request to stay the evaluation, rejecting his attorney's arguments that prosecutors had no grounds to request the psychological exam. He took what has now become his fourth fitness for duty exam on Nov. 9.
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