Who polices the police?

Via Radley Balko comes the shocking news that a Connecticut police officer who put a gun to a woman's head and pulled the trigger has been reinstated.

According to court documents, the woman contacted Windsor Locks police April 1, 2004, and told them that on March 27 Adams held an unloaded Desert Eagle semiautomatic pistol to her head and pulled the trigger.

The woman told police she met Adams in mid-2003 and they had a nine-month affair. According to the arrest warrant, the woman said that on March 26, 2004, a friend accidentally called Adams' wife, whose number was stored in the woman's cellphone. The woman then received a return call from Adams' wife and hung up, according to the warrant. Adams then called the woman himself a few moments later in a rage, the warrant said.

Adams made that call while he was on patrol duty, police said.

According to the warrant, Adams and the woman made arrangements to meet at his home in Windsor Locks on March 27, 2004, where the incident allegedly occurred. Adams was subsequently arrested and charged.

And now this guy is being rehired. While he's on trial for disorderly conduct, second-degree harassment and coercion. He put a gun to a woman's head, and he's being rehired.

Does anyone else think that's insane? This guy obviously has some stability problems if he pulls a stunt like that, and he's being given the powers of a police officer?

We need police reform. Badly. Just click on the first link in this post, and there are a half-dozen other incidents like this. They happen so often that they don't get even get reported. SWAT teams regularly break into the wrong houses, police regularly abuse their power. It seems that many have forgotten "Protect and Serve".

I know that not all officers are bad people, and that most of them aren't. But the current state of affairs breeds corruption, just like it did during Prohibition Mark I.

And look what just showed up in my feed reader, Code Inspectors" Target Wrong House, Cop Shoots Dog, Hits Mom, Daughter. Apparently police officers are pretending to be "code inspectors", and this guy shot a dog he thought was a fleeing perp and fragments hit a mother and daughter. He was at the wrong address.

How many people have to die like Katheryn Johnston before we demand reform?

(And yes, I have used this title before, but I still want to know who polices the police.)