False Arrest by Chandler, Arizona Police

Phoenix police officer is sunk by own camera

This Phoenix piggie, Richard Greco seems to agree with that.

He thinks he is being treated unfairly because his bosses used videos shot by HIS police camera of HIM abusing civilians against HIM.

Source

Phoenix police officer is sunk by own camera

By JJ Hensley The Republic | azcentral.com Tue Jul 9, 2013 10:47 PM

A Phoenix police officer lost his job this year after a suspect's mother complained that he was physically and verbally abusive to her son during a 2011 encounter, and internal investigators searched through the officer's own video footage to find other incidents that supported the woman's claim.

As Phoenix Police and numerous other agencies around the Valley and the nation outfit more of their officers with cameras, there are increasing concerns that the video footage - touted as a way to help ensure officer compliance and refute false claims from suspects - can allow supervisors to go on fishing expeditions to find isolated incidents of an employee behaving badly. [I guess fired cop Richard Greco thinks police officers should not be held accountable for crimes they commit.]

Richard Greco, in an interview with a Phoenix police internal investigator, said his employers had done just that: selected less than five minutes out of hundreds of hours of video to paint an inaccurate picture of his work as a patrol officer. [Yea, that is 5 minutes too many of abusing the people you pretend to protect. The jerk should be fired]

The footage captures him cursing at suspects and witnesses, and making disparaging remarks about them to other officers, including referring to one as "retarded," calling another a "jackass" and another a "bitch."

"There's more than two hundred (videos), and we're here to talk about, like if you strung 'em all together, maybe four minutes of conversation for me over two hundred and ten videos," Greco said of the clips with abrasive language. "So I clearly don't use that tactic all the time."

But Phoenix police determined that Greco used those tactics enough. When that revelation was combined with a 2008 disciplinary action Greco received for making inappropriate comments about female co-workers in the presence of other police officers, it was enough to terminate the 10-year veteran last year.

A municipal appeals board upheld Greco's termination in a hearing last month.

The comments Greco made were disturbing because they were not isolated to a group of high-stress incidents, said Sgt. Trent Crump, a police spokesman, and he made the comments knowing his actions were being recorded.

"Treating people with dignity and respect, that is what we tell the public we will do, and when you have someone who doesn't uphold that, we believe we can terminate them," Crump said. "You have an officer who is standing out at crime scenes saying, he only has one tool and that is to beat someone's ass. That is not the kind of conduct we want on Phoenix Police Department and that individual is a great liability for the department."

Greco was among 18 Phoenix officers who volunteered to participate in a pilot program in 2011 in which each officer was outfitted with a camera manufactured by Taser. The agency has since expanded the program, using cameras from a different manufacturer, and police intend to continue outfitting more officers with cameras as resources allow.

Police in Mesa, Surprise and Peoria have also tested or launched similar officer-camera programs, along with dozens of agencies around the country.

The Fraternal Order of Police generally supports such programs, but with some reservations about how an officer's civil rights will be protected, said James Pasco, the organization's executive director. [Translation - the police union seems to think it's OK to use the video tapes against criminals who commit crimes, but not against police criminals who commit crimes???]

The investigation into Greco began when a woman contacted police in September 2011 to complain that Greco had mistreated her son, who answered the door with a 45-caliber handgun pointed at Greco, in a June 2011 domestic-violence call at a Phoenix apartment complex, according to police records.

Greco describes holding his gun flush against Thomas Hughes' throat and pointing upward in case he had to fire a shot that would not injure the children in the apartment behind Hughes. Instead, Hughes dropped his weapon and was placed under arrest.

Hughes' mother delivered a recording of her son's arrest to Phoenix police with a letter describing how horrified she was at Greco's action during Hughes' arrest, including calling Hughes a "jackass" and calling another suspect a "bitch" after the suspect had asked Greco to stop calling him that.

"While the above listed incidents are not horrifying, they serve to demonstrate Officer Greco's lack of professionalism and his contempt for citizens," Hughes' mother, Suzanne Smith, wrote.

The comments prompted internal investigators to conduct a review of 30 days of Greco's camera footage where they found more inappropriate language.

Those comments ultimately led investigators to review Greco's entire reel, culling a string of inappropriate interactions from the footage.

Some officers have raised concerns that supervisors in the department can use the cameras to target certain employees, said Will Buividas, chief negotiator for a labor group representing Phoenix officers. [Hmmm... these police video tapes are used to convict criminals, why shouldn't they be used to convict POLICE criminals of crimes.]

"I think it hinders (the expansion of the program). It certainly creates a chilling effect on the guys," Buividas said. "People are worried that (the Professional Standards Bureau) is going to audit all of my stuff and nickel and dime me for every rude comment in a six-month timeframe." [Sounds like a good idea if you ask me]

Crump said the cameras are out there, whether they are the cellphones of suspects, witnesses or they are worn by police, and the technology is not going anywhere, so police should learn to work as if they are always being watched. [Must be a nightmare for cops who are told they have to obey the same laws as the rest of us. That will probably ruin few cops days, telling them they have to obey the law.]

"In this particular case, we looked at the footage and saw the conduct and because of that, the PSB went back and issues were continuing to pop up," Crump said.

Watch a video at phoenix.az central.com.