A white officer in suburban Detroit lied to a Black pedestrian by identifying an officer from another force as his supervisor during a 2021 police stop.

Brian Chaney says he asked for a supervisor during his arrest in Keego Harbor, Michigan, and Police Officer Richard Lindquist told him that another officer present was in charge. The problem: That second officer was not a supervisor or even a member of the Keego Harbor Police Department.

Lindquist was never disciplined and his chief says that while a suspect has the right to request a supervisor, what the officer did was OK.

“An officer can lie in the field when he’s not under oath,” Keego Harbor Police Chief John Fitzgerald said in a deposition in Chaney’s $10 million wrongful detention lawsuit.

  • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    10 months ago

    Undercover work is minor for the reason cops like to be able to lie. It’s more about obtaining confessions. If cops were punished for lying, it could cause thousands of confessions obtained under false pretenses to be called into question.