If Alabama really wants to back the blue, it would help the good cops get rid of the bad ones.
By Josh Moon
In December 2023, Micah Washington and two others stopped on the side of the road in Pickens County to change a flat tire. A few moments later, a police officer from the City of Reform stopped, and somehow, the day got even worse for Washington.
After demanding ID (and receiving it) from Washington and his two companions, Reform officer Dana Elmore then handcuffed Washington and used her taser on him because he questioned why Elmore was demanding ID and speaking to them in an aggressive manner.
What happened next has been viewed millions of times, thanks to video posted online.
Elmore marches a handcuffed Washington over to her patrol car and forces him to lie face down on the hood. She then places her taser in the middle of his back and shocks him several times, all the while mocking him and asking if he wants more. She also tells him to “shut the f*ck up.”
Elmore’s husband, a Pickens County deputy, shows up in the middle of the ordeal and helps his wife detain all three men. They take them to jail, create bogus charges – including drug trafficking charges, despite there being no drugs present – and falsely imprison them, according to a federal lawsuit. The three are held in jail for three days.
Almost immediately, the Pickens County district attorney seems to realize that something is amiss. Within two days of the arrest, the most serious charges are dismissed, and all three men are released. Eventually, all of the charges would be dismissed. Dana Elmore was placed on leave. Her husband eventually left the sheriff’s department.
At one point, after the video of the arrest and obvious police abuse went viral, an investigation was undertaken by the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. What became of it is anyone’s guess, but there certainly have been no charges filed against either Elmore. As of mid-2024, several months after the video of the arrest went viral, Dana Elmore was still employed by the City of Reform as a police officer. City officials have repeatedly ducked questions about her employment over the last few weeks, following the filing of a $20 million federal lawsuit against the city, the police department, and the Elmores.
So, if you’re keeping score, we have video of a police officer pretty clearly assaulting a handcuffed and compliant man. We know that the same officer then (allegedly) made up charges against the man she had assaulted, resulting in his false imprisonment. And going on two years later, we also know that there have been no criminal charges filed against the officer.
I’m not bringing all of this up to simply infuriate you, or to attempt to paint police officers in a bad light. It is absolutely true that Dana Elmore and her actions are an anomaly, and it’s absolutely true that most officers are good public servants who truly do want to serve and protect.
But last week, our Legislature passed and our governor signed a “back the blue” bill that greatly expanded police immunity and made it damn near impossible to successfully sue, or hold accountable in any way, a police officer like Dana Elmore.
And while doing so, they all – the governor, the bill’s sponsors, Republican leadership – made it seem as if there was a rash of instances in which good and decent cops were being railroaded by a legal system that’s working against them.
I’d like someone to point to any evidence whatsoever of that.
Because I can point to plenty of evidence of the opposite – of a legal system that does everything imaginable to give bad cops a break, to cover up repeated malfeasance, to sweep away abhorrent abuses and serial bad actors.
It’s why right now we have entire police forces under scrutiny – their actions only coming to light by way of the legal actions that this legislation is seeking to stop.
Years and years of abuses and thefts and assaults and bogus arrests and trumped-up charges and outrageous fines – all of it swept under the rug by a system that makes it all but impossible to successfully hold accountable bad actors within law enforcement. Hell, in some cases, even their fellow officers – the true good guys who deserve our protection – were ignored, and then were made out to be bad guys.
If you truly wanted to back the blue, you’d offer better pay and benefits, making it less likely that cops would even consider participating in anything illegal. You’d make training more widely available. You’d maximally incentivize good police behavior, rewarding those who receive community service recognition and those who never receive complaints.
Instead, we’ve spent years doing the exact opposite — trimming departmental budgets, asking officers to risk their lives without proper training and equipment, failing to fund community improvements that would make cops safer, and rewarding the wrong things. All the while, fostering an atmosphere in which daring to question an officer’s behavior, no matter how egregious, was deemed un-American.
The “Back the blue” bill was just more of the same.
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