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Opinion

Corrupt officers must be treated as criminals

Santiago Lopez 
Opinion Columnist

Frank Serpico saw corruption among the officers of the New York Police Department in the 1970s and he did something about it -- he reported on what he saw and affected change within that city's department, even though such a charge put a major blemish on the face of law enforcement.

In the late 1990s, the Los Angeles Police Department also suffered a crushing blow to its image when one of its officers -- Rafael Perez, a member of the special Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums unit -- was found to be one of the most corrupt officer in the history of law enforcement.

This week the Houston Police Department joined the ranks of high-profile corruption when one of its officers, Alfred Alaniz, was charged with accepting a bribe in exchange for not writing a traffic citation. While this may not rank anywhere near the charges levied against officers in the aforementioned departments, what it does do is shake up the public's confidence in the men and women behind the badge.

Alaniz took home a reported six-figure income last year, mostly thanks to overtime work. Had he simply reported for his shift each day he would still have a paycheck in the range of $51,000 to $55,000 a year, which is what HPD lists as the salary of a senior police officer.

Since HPD only requires its police recruits to have 60 hours of college credit, this is a good salary for a non-college graduate in a job market where degree holders in psychology pull down an average of $28,230 and accounting graduates earn $42,058, according to a CNN Money article from 2006. 

If Alaniz still had problems with his base pay, he could have sought after extra jobs officers work in order to supplement their incomes. But alas, this particular officer chose to abuse his position and accept money for not doing his job. One can only hope throwing away his chosen profession for such a pittance was as satisfying to the officer as letting law-breakers escape by leaving money on the back seat of the patrol car. Who knows how many other offenders Alaniz let go because they happened to have some cash on their person at the time they were pulled over.

The notion of a corrupt cop is absurd; once an officer chooses to break the law he or she has switched sides and become a criminal. Bravo to HPD's Internal Affairs Division for getting this felon off of the job and into the legal system. 

Such blatant disregard for the law and what the badge stands for should not be tolerated, and every internal affairs division of every department in the country should take seriously any charge of wrongdoing by its officers. Any accusations should be investigated as thoroughly as possible in order for every criminal to be rooted out and prosecuted.

Send comments to dccampus@mail.uh.edu