Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The Charleston Gazette of West Virginia documents a whole bunch of police officers breaking the law over and over again and just changing to a new department. The chief example is a cop named Matthew Leavitt, who was finally sentenced to two years in prison for assault after a long history of illegal behavior - none of which ever kept him from getting a new job at a different police department.
A second article gives the timeline for Leavitt, which shows just how easy it is for a police officer to continue to get jobs no matter how many times they get caught breaking the law.
November 2000-June 2001:Leavitt is employed at South Central Regional Jail.
June 25, 2001:
Leavitt is arrested for driving under the influence.
December 2001-December 2004:
Leavitt is in the U.S. Army. While there, he is disciplined for drinking on duty.
March 2005:
Leavitt is employed as a Cedar Grove Police officer.
January 2006:
Leavitt's certificate of completion of West Virginia State Police Basic Training is signed.
April 2006:
Leavitt is charged with battery by Charleston police for a bar fight.
June 2006:
Leavitt leaves the Cedar Grove department and is hired by the Madison Police Department.
July 13, 2006:
Leavitt goes to Elsie Keffer's house in Madison at 7:45 a.m. and harasses her, her boyfriend and her daughter, according to Madison Police records subpoenaed in the Reynolds' civil suit.
August 2006:
Leavitt resigns the Madison Police Department.
October 2006:
Leavitt is hired by the Smithers Police Department.
Nov. 6, 2006:
Leavitt is hired by the Mount Hope Police Department.
Nov. 24, 2006:
Leavitt leaves the Mount Hope department.
Nov. 29, 2006:
Leavitt is hired by the Gauley Bridge Police Department.
In his employee file, provided to the Gazette by Reynolds' attorney Mike Clifford, there is a paper where Gauley Bridge Chief L.S. Whipkey and Mayor Damon Runyon kept notes from interviews with Leavitt's references.
Madison Chief C. Burgess said, "he would love to have him back" and that he "gets along well with other people." Smithers and Cedar Grove police chiefs also recommended Leavitt to Whipkey.
December 2006:
Hutchinson is hired by Smithers.
January 2007:
Leavitt is terminated by Gauley Bridge for sleeping on duty.
January 2007:
Leavitt is hired by Montgomery.
September 2007:
Hutchinson and Leavitt allegedly assault Roderick and Lakisha White after responding to an incident at their home, according to a lawsuit filed in Kanawha County Circuit Court.
"[Leavitt] threatened to 'blow my fat black ass away,'" Lakisha White told the Gazette. "He said, 'Bitch, I own you. I own the streets of Montgomery.'"
December 2007:
Hutchinson receives certificate of completion of West Virginia State Police Basic Training.
February 2008:
Leavitt leaves the Smithers Police Department. (During Leavitt's tenure at Smithers, he worked for other departments concurrently, a common practice among small-town officers.)
March 2008:
Leavitt, recently hired by Cedar Grove, along with another Cedar Grove officer and a Kanawha County sheriff's deputy, allegedly sexually assaults Patricia O'Scha on a hill across from Riverside High School, according to a suit filed by O'Scha in Kanawha County Circuit Court.
The three allegedly told her that if she would have sex with them, she wouldn't have to go to jail. O'Scha said that while she was alone with Leavitt at the Montgomery police station, he implied she should have sex with him or give him oral sex, according to the complaint. Just when he stopped working for Cedar Grove is unclear.
March 2008:
Hutchinson resigns from Smithers and is hired in Montgomery.
August 2008:
Leavitt allegedly handcuffs Gregory Lee Payne and drives him to a wide spot in the road just before Interstate 64 near Cabin Creek. There he chokes and hits Payne, then leaves him by the side of the road, according to a lawsuit filed in Kanawha County Circuit Court.
Aug. 23, 2008:
Leavitt allegedly assaults 17-year-old Sherkiri Terrell. She alleges that after he pushed her head against a wall, he slammed her cell phone to the ground. As the two struggled, she says she put the phone down her pants. She alleges that when it began to ring, he put his hands down her pants to get the phone, according to Terrell.
Aug. 27, 2008:
Joey Carr knocks over a soda machine in Montgomery. Leavitt stops him, takes him to the police station and assaults him. When Leavitt pepper sprays him at close range, Carr says he tries to run away.
"He grabs me and throws me down, kicks me in the stomach and Maces me again," Carr told the Gazette previously. "When he handcuffs me, he throws me against the car and told me to 'Quit screaming like a little bitch.'"
Sept. 26, 2008:
Leavitt and Hutchinson assault Twan and Lauren Reynolds. Leavitt hits Twan over the head with a blackjack, kicks him in the back and sprays his eyes with pepper spray at close range.
He also uses a racial epithet and licks Lauren Reynolds on the neck during an interrogation, saying, "Little whore, you like it like that." Their 4-year-old daughter witnesses much of the assault.
Sept. 27, 2008:
Montgomery officials suspend Leavitt and fire Hutchinson for the incident.
Sept. 29, 2008:
Montgomery police start an internal investigation into the Reynolds beating.
Oct. 1, 2008:
Hutchinson is employed as a Glasgow police officer.
Oct. 21, 2008:
Hutchinson's last day as a Glasgow police officer.
April 2009:
Leavitt is terminated by Montgomery Police.
April 2009:
Hutchinson is employed by Chesapeake Police, where he is still an officer.
June 10, 2009:
Leavitt is indicted on federal civil rights violations for beating Twan Reynolds and falsely charging his wife, Lauren Reynolds, with a DUI.
July 6, 2009:
Leavitt pleads guilty to two misdemeanor civil rights violations in federal court. During the sentencing Oct. 22, Chief U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin said Leavitt remains defiant.
"He has stated that he only pleaded guilty because he feared that due to, quote, 'idiots,' unquote, on the jury, it was the, quote, 'smarter thing to plead guilty,' unquote," Goodwin said. "He stated he wants the Court to know, quote, 'I stand by my actions that day.'"
This guy should have been in prison a long time ago.
Politics
Comments
And yet, they allow a priest shove a cracker in their mouth.
Posted by: Dogbert | November 21, 2009 9:38 AM
It looks like comments are going astray again.
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | November 21, 2009 10:00 AM
Leavitt...is that perhaps pronounced "leave it"? It would be appropriate when it comes to jobs.
Posted by: Mobius | November 21, 2009 10:44 AM
I work in Mike Clifford's office, seriously.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask, lol.
Posted by: Abstruse | November 21, 2009 11:15 AM
Huh. Moving people around who ought to not only be stripped of their position, but imprisoned. What a novel idea, eh, Cardinal Law?
Posted by: nedlum | November 21, 2009 11:29 AM
A friend of mine, a political activist, was shot in the back by a cop after a planted-drugs bust went bad. He (the friend) then kept track of that cop's career, noting that he moved from department to department, usually leaving after similar incidents of excessive violence against "troublemakers".
This was doing the inglory days of Cointelpro. My friend's justified (if not airtight) conclusion was that this cop was, in effect, a roving assassin hired by each new town for exactly that purpose.
Leavitt, on the other hand, seems less a goon-with-a-badge than a natural-born recidivist. Maybe his Freakonomics cousin could make a study of the phenomenon.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | November 21, 2009 12:59 PM
Pierce,
Leavitt is a drug/steroid abuser. He has a long history of explosive violence.
When we reviewed the office computer at the Montgomery police department we recovered the "Nigger file" in which Shawn Hutchinson and Leavitt stopped local blacks and photographed them, allegedly documenting gang activity.
Posted by: Abstruse | November 21, 2009 1:20 PM
Wow. Guy is a total psycho. We really need some serious federal regulation and enforcement on our police officers. There is is NO excuse for this kind of leeway for ANYONE, much less a so-called "officer of the law". What a piece of shit.
Posted by: Uncephalized | November 21, 2009 4:01 PM
Idiots on the jury? How about the idiot judge and the stupid laws? Well, at least he'll no longer be allowed to legally possess or own a firearm. It's pathetic how his superiors talk him up to help get rid of him; that alone should be a criminal offense since they know he's a menace to society.
Posted by: MadScientist | November 22, 2009 12:43 AM
Abstruse @ # 7: When we reviewed the office computer at the Montgomery police department we recovered the "Nigger file" ...
Are you saying that there was a file in the MPD office with that name in its directory?
I thought/would hope cop & gov't offices in general had enough bigbrotherware to flag that sort of crap.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | November 22, 2009 1:41 PM
Pierce,
The officer who told us of the existence of the file used that term, it was not the file name. During depo of the chief he admitted that the file existed merely to profile African Americans in the community.
Posted by: Abstruse | November 23, 2009 12:45 PM
Abstruse - that's (a bit of) a relief. Not much, but these days, you gotta take what you can get.
Good work on getting them to open up about (some of) what needs cleaning up.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | November 23, 2009 6:11 PM
Good article. Go to WWW.lawreport.org to see 1000's of examples of police corruption.
Posted by: lawreport | November 28, 2009 9:48 AM
Cops break the law all the time. Know enough like I do and you will know this to be a modest and true statement. Most are criminals with a badge who don't care one bit about right or wrong rather what they can get by with that appeases their disgusting desires such as passing out 300+ BS traffic violations at the end of the month to meet their quota or beating down people who are right and pose a threat to their ego. The other real criminals are the ones who let them get by with it. Their penalties should be 2 times that of the normal since they know better. Instead it's the opposite if that.
Posted by: Williamson | August 17, 2010 4:48 PM
Personally i've known of cops that bust people for drugs then turn around and sell it, ones that brag about beating up teens on the street after starting stuff with them, others that brag about passing out traffic citations while they break a list of driving laws themselves, ones that have knowingly taken under age women to hotels to take x-rated photos of them, some who buy alcahol for minors.etc... the list goes on and on and that's just the ones i've been around.
Posted by: Abby | August 17, 2010 4:58 PM