Why Is Police Brutality Tolerated in Iowa City?

Why is police brutality tolerated in Iowa City? We keep seeing it, yet nothing is done about it. Part of the reason is Iowa City Police Chief Sam Hargadine. If the buck doesn’t stop at his desk, where does it stop? Part of the reason police brutality continues is because the University of Iowa police are complicit with the Iowa City police. Part of the reason is because Johnson County Attorney Janet Lyness backs the police force every time, no matter what they do. She will not allow police misconduct to be discussed even in venues where it would be appropriate for it to be discussed. The last time I brought up police misconduct, she stopped me short by saying that I couldn’t discuss police misconduct without an Iowa City police officer present. Never mind the fact that Iowa City police officers rarely if ever attend the disproportionate minority contact subcommittee meeting in question. Also, she said, the investigation into Iowa City police misconduct will take “three months.” Why? To wait until everyone forgets the enormity of the police misconduct in question? The incident of the allegedly illegal search of a residence on South Johnson Street?

I’ll never forget the time Janet Lyness dismissed the illegal actions of a school district employee bringing a gun onto school district property by making a specious distinction between “school” property and “school district” property, a distinction that does not exist in current law, in my opinion. The employee was eventually fired, but he was never held accountable for allegedly committing a felony during school hours in a building that Iowa City Community School District students had access to, according to multiple eyewitnesses I talked to.

The latest incident is the arrest of Grayson Scogin. There was no reason for it. Even if there had been a reason for it, clearly excessive force was used. Are University of Iowa police and Iowa City police a law unto themselves? Do they follow the law or do they think they are the law? There’s a difference, a big difference, and that difference is the difference between fascism and the rule of law.