The Wandering Officer

游荡的警官

Good on Paper

新闻

2024-09-10

43 分钟
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Police rarely move between jobs and departments. But according to a paper co-authored by the University of Chicago law professor John Rappaport, officers aren’t necessarily choosing to stay in the same place—a lot of policies have made it costly for them to switch. And that lack of mobility can have all kinds of ripple effects. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/podsub. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  • On July 6,

  • Sonia Massie was shot and killed in her Illinois home by a Sangamon county police officer,

  • Sean Grayson.

  • Grayson and another police officer had come to Massey's home after she'd called 911 about a prowler.

  • Once inside her house,

  • Grayson asked Massey to remove a pot on the stove

  • and an interaction which rapidly ended with him opening fire.

  • He claimed to have feared for his life because of the pot of water,

  • and as a result, the 36 year old mother of two is dead.

  • This is a horrible and all too common story.

  • And in the weeks following Massie's death, one additional fact came to light.

  • Grayson had held five jobs in four years, all at different police departments in central Illinois.

  • Now he's been fired from Sixth.

  • The AP reports that at one of those jobs as a sheriff's deputy in Logan county,

  • he was reprimanded for ignoring a command to end a high speed chase and ended up hitting a deer.

  • Why do police officers like Grayson keep getting hired?

  • Part of the answer comes from today's guest, UChicago Law Professor John Rapoport,

  • whose research on wandering officers revealed the extent

  • to which previously fired officers find jobs in new departments

  • and the structural incentives of small departments to keep hiring them.