Question about Internal Affairs Investigation

morrighan

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My protagonist is a cop whose partner is involved in drug dealing in a small beach town in Southern California.

Would it be possible that the protagonist is part of an internal investigation on the partner? Like an undercover sent in to partner with the crooked cop?

I've heard of undercover detectives who end up running into crooked cops during their investigation (i.e. an undercover dealer who ends up selling to a cop) but haven't heard of undercover in the precinct itself where crooked cops might be involved.

Any help is greatly appreciated!
 

WeaselFire

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How small a town? Most small agencies have a single person doing IA work, and that's usually very part time. All IA work is confined to a single department/person and heavily controlled, with no outsiders working a case. But you could possibly work it into your story.

Jeff
 

Bufty

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Wouldn't the partner be under suspicion?
 

Graz

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How about partner torn between turning in, dropping dimes on fellow officer or looking the other way? Maybe he has a skeleton or two hanging in his own closet. Inner conflict is good for increasing tension.
 

cmhbob

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A "small beach town" is not likely to have a fulltime IA section or even detective, nor are they likely to have 2-officer cruisers. What's more common in situations like that is to have a separate agency look into the situation, like the sheriff (who is the senior law enforcement officer in a county) or CHP.
 

ironmikezero

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Wouldn't the partner be under suspicion?

Good point... Most agencies have regulations that require the reporting of any suspected violation up the chain of command. Failure to do so is often an articulated violation itself. A claim of ignorance is generally an inadequate defense in an administrative proceeding ("...knew or should have known...") wherein a presumption of innocence does not de facto exist.

IA investigations may start out as administrative. However, they can become civil, criminal, or both; and the appropriate rules of evidence will apply.
 

Beachgirl

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A "small beach town" is not likely to have a fulltime IA section or even detective, nor are they likely to have 2-officer cruisers. What's more common in situations like that is to have a separate agency look into the situation, like the sheriff (who is the senior law enforcement officer in a county) or CHP.

Good point... Most agencies have regulations that require the reporting of any suspected violation up the chain of command. Failure to do so is often an articulated violation itself. A claim of ignorance is generally an inadequate defense in an administrative proceeding ("...knew or should have known...") wherein a presumption of innocence does not de facto exist.

IA investigations may start out as administrative. However, they can become civil, criminal, or both; and the appropriate rules of evidence will apply.

Echoing above. I work for a small beach town. We do have a full-time detective, but we only have three cruisers on duty at any given time and they are all single-officer cruisers.

Any potential wrong-doing known to officers MUST be reported up the chain of command. If the allegations are such that there could be potential conflicts of interest internally and/or the investigation is too large for our own force, the county sheriff's office is called in. In some cases, the State DA is notified as well.
 

morrighan

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How about partner torn between turning in, dropping dimes on fellow officer or looking the other way? Maybe he has a skeleton or two hanging in his own closet. Inner conflict is good for increasing tension.

I just had to say - I can't get past your avi :)

But you have some great points there. This story really started out as a romance thing with the girl's love interest having been shot during a burglary attempt that wasn't exactly a simple burglary but something that had to do with his crooked partner (whom he was probably about to report - but again there's that interesting conflict you mentioned as well).

But yes, your avi :)
 

morrighan

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How small a town? Most small agencies have a single person doing IA work, and that's usually very part time. All IA work is confined to a single department/person and heavily controlled, with no outsiders working a case. But you could possibly work it into your story.

That's what I had in mind - having an outsider working in the case but not quite sure about how credible that is (but hey, I'm at wits end and with a 4-year old caught playing with all his legos at 3:43 am, lacking sleep as well) - the beach city in mind is an L.A. beach city type so I don't know if that would qualify as small.
 

morrighan

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Echoing above. I work for a small beach town. We do have a full-time detective, but we only have three cruisers on duty at any given time and they are all single-officer cruisers.

Any potential wrong-doing known to officers MUST be reported up the chain of command. If the allegations are such that there could be potential conflicts of interest internally and/or the investigation is too large for our own force, the county sheriff's office is called in. In some cases, the State DA is notified as well.

Thanks! You're right about the single-officer cruisers though, although I've seen a few with 2 officers but maybe that's only because of busy weekends.

I'm curious - how come some cruisers will have one officer while others will have 2? I did a ride-along once and during a lull, we sidled up alongside another cruiser with 2 officers and kinda just chatted for a few minutes.
 

Beachgirl

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Thanks! You're right about the single-officer cruisers though, although I've seen a few with 2 officers but maybe that's only because of busy weekends.

I'm curious - how come some cruisers will have one officer while others will have 2? I did a ride-along once and during a lull, we sidled up alongside another cruiser with 2 officers and kinda just chatted for a few minutes.

Sometimes it's based on routes, busier times or special events. Sometimes it's training a new/junior officer. Sometimes it just comes down to scheduling: Officer A needs X number of hours, so rides along with Officer B.