Republicans and Democrats in the North Carolina House of Representatives sponsored a bill in April that would, they said, protect good cops who report bad cops.
House Bill 589 would have shielded officers from being disciplined, fired or retaliated against for reporting a co-worker’s misconduct — including breaking the law, misappropriating government resources or abusing authority.
“No one should have to walk on eggshells when they report a crime,” Forsyth County Rep. Kanika Brown, a Democrat who co-sponsored the bill, told The CharlotteObserver.
But like previous bills to protect police whistleblowers, HB 589 stalled out.
Eleven days after it was filed, three law enforcement groups detailed their opposition in a memorandum. They compared the bill’s language to a union contract and said that it would create unnecessary legal troubles.
Its last stop was the Rules Committee, with no sign of life for months now.
Brown said that her support for the bill arose, in part, after a conversation with former FBI scientist Frederic Whitehurst, who blew the whistle on misconduct in the FBI’s crime lab in the 1980s and 1990s.
Whitehurst alleged that laboratory examiners improperly testified outside their expertise, presented insupportable conclusions, perjured themselves, fabricated evidence and failed to follow procedure, according to a report from the Office of the Inspector General in the US Department of Justice.His complaints led to...
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