It took State Police three years ? more than nine times the required time window ? to acknowledge that two troopers used excessive force on a mentally disabled young man. In the meantime, the officers who punched James Bayliss repeatedly in the face while he was on the ground and rammed his head into a parked cruiser were allowed to simply continue about their business.
This is why the state comptroller was concerned that internal investigations take too long. And it?s yet another example of how little public accountability there is for officers gone rogue.
Had a video, captured by a dashboard camera, not been leaked to The Star-Ledger?s Christopher Baxter, we may have been none the wiser. These complaints are rarely brought to public attention. The investigations drag on and we don?t know what punishment, if any, a trooper ultimately receives.
Here, we see five of them pile on to Bayliss, who was 21 at the time. His head gets smashed into a parked car, after he?s already in handcuffs. This isn?t a Rodney King-style beating; Bayliss, who is white like the officers, wasn?t a victim of racial profiling. And it doesn?t appear to be a systemic evil: State Police have met their professional guidelines since the feds quit monitoring the division in 2009, state Comptroller Matthew Boxer found.
But it does illustrate the lingering problems in internal affairs. Too many investigations take too long: In 48 cases of misconduct reviewed by Boxer?s office, only 10 were finished within the required 120-day window. It?s not just the fault of State Police. The state Division of Criminal Justice was slow to review cases, too, Boxer said.
Recall that it took State Police nearly a month to suspend two troopers who led dozens of sports cars on joy rides down the Garden State Parkway in ?Death Race 2012,? making it look more like a response to political embarrassment than public safety. So does this. State Police say investigators determined a few months ago that troopers had used unreasonable force. But if so, they never bothered to tell Bayliss or his family, who tried nearly two dozen times to get an answer. They had to learn it from this newspaper. And the troopers still haven?t been suspended.
It doesn?t inspire much confidence in the ability of State Police to police themselves. Particularly when they think no one is watching.