On Feb. 6, a woman in Spokane, Washington spotted a hooded man peering into the bedroom window of her 14-year-old daughter.
The woman was alarmed because her daughter had been receiving sexually explicit phone calls from an unknown man, including the previous night where a man asked her daughter if she touches herself.
The women was obviously panicked as she described the man’s actions to the 911 dispatcher, according to a transcript of the call.
When two officers arrived on the scene, including a Spokane police officer and a school resource officer, the man picked up a pile of snow and packed it into a snowball while appearing to stare right through one of the officers with a thousand-mile stare.
The police officer ordered him to drop the snowball. Twice. Then they ordered him to lock his hands behind his head in order to be frisked.
But the man refused to cooperate, telling the officers he was just looking for his dog.
The man then placed his hand into his pocket, making the officers think he was reaching for a gun, so they each grabbed one of his wrists in an attempt to arrest him.
But the man was larger and shook them off.
One of the officers called for backup and another pulled out a Taser gun.
“Don’t fucking taze me or I’ll sue you,” the man threatened while glaring at them with that empty stare.
Two additional Spokane police officers pulled up to the scene and hopped out their cars and that was when the man finally allowed himself to be restrained.
And it was only after he was handcuffed that one of the officers recognized the man as a fellow law enforcement officer, a Spokane Sheriff’s Sgt. named Patrick “Pete” Bunch.
Officer Zinkgraf states she did not recognize Sgt. Bunch until rolled him over. She described his eyes as being glossed over and him having a blank stare. She stated he was unshaven and at first she thought he might be intoxicated except for the lack of any odors associations with the consumption of alcoholic beverages.
The 40-page internal affairs report also states that Brunch told investigators that he was merely standing up for his Constitutional rights and that he was only being playful when making a snowball because he thought the school resource officer was a friend of his.
But the report also indicates that the three Spokane police officers as well as the school resource officer gave statements that all contradicted Bunch’s statements, saying he was being uncooperative, combative, threatening and gave off the impression that he was intoxicated even though he did not smell of booze, which is why they charged him with obstructing a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest.
Even Spokane City Attorney Jim Bledsoe determined he had broken the law.
However, Bledsoe also chose to drop the charges against Bunch on the basis that he is a law enforcement officer.
According to documents obtained by The Spokesmen-Review, Spokane City Prosecutor Jim Bledsoe believed that Bunch committed a “technical violation of the law” but was not going to prosecute because his job was to go after “criminals and not law enforcement officers demonstrating a temporary lapse of judgment.”
This was not the first “temporary lapse of judgment” for Bunch.
In 2002, he was demoted from lieutenant to sergeant for an administrative blunder.
In 2003, he entered into a “Last Chance Agreement” for misusing a county cell phone and for “false reporting of payroll/leave accrual/usage.”
And in 2004, he was suspended for ten days and entered another “Last Chance Agreement” for “criminal conduct” and/or “presenting official department identification in an attempt to gain special consideration or privilege.
And just when you thought he had used up all of his last chances, he was handed another one by an apologist prosecutor.
But apparently Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich is not so forgiving. When he decided to open an internal investigation against Bunch earlier this month, the 30-year deputy turned in his badge.
Now somebody needs to investigate Bledsoe to see how many cases he has dropped involving police officers.
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ViaInjustice in Seattle who recently launched a National Police Misconduct NewsFeed Twitter @Injust_Seattle in order to see how many stories about police misconduct are reported across the US each day. It’s been only 11 days, but the numbers are staggering.
In the first 11 days of April, 2009:
195 Cases were reported in the news.
146 Individual officers were convicted, arrested, charged, jailed, accused of, or sued for misconduct.
16 Different Police Chiefs were convicted, arrested, charged, jailed, accused of, or sued for misconduct.
The worst states for police misconduct in the first 11 days of April and number of cases in each:
1. Illinois with 16 cases
2. Pennsylvania with 15 cases.
3. Texas with 15 cases.
4. New York with 14 cases.
5. Florida with 13 cases.
The worst cities for police misconduct in the beginning of April were:
1. Chicago – 8
2. Dallas – 5
3. Philadelphia – 5
4. Minneapolis – 4
5. Denver – 4
