Opinion ID: 472982
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Pervasive similar misconduct

Text: 28 Plaintiffs urge us to include and consider under this heading, inter alia, bare complaints, pleadings, and press clippings, unsubstantiated by testimony, concerning alleged incidents of the use of excessive force by police officers. As the district court recognized, these hearsay items could show no more than notice to the city that allegations had been made. The items were admitted for that limited purposes, and not for the purpose of establishing the truth of those [allegations.] Transcript (Tr.) 997; see also Tr. 320B-320C, 425-26, 703-04. We therefore cull out such items as failing to show actual, as distinguished from merely alleged, occurrences. 3 We deal infra at 19-35 with the impropriety of the manner in which the allegation evidence was introduced. 29 Plaintiffs' proof of actual occurrences reduces to: (1) the testimony of witness Craig Scott that in May 1982, police officers beat him repeatedly both at the scene of his arrest and after taking him into custody (Tr. 643-53); (2) the death of prisoner Darrell Rhones in police custody in December 1983, and the D.C. Medical Examiner's conclusion that the death was caused by a choke-hold administered by police officers (Tr. 756-59); (3) the death of seven persons, acknowledged by Police Chief Turner, in incidents involving D.C. police in a two-month period in late 1983 and early 1984 (Tr. 837-39); 4 (4) a fine imposed against officer Vanderbloemen for striking two persons without cause, and improperly arresting one of them (Tr. 727-40); (5) the reprimand of officer Markovich for looping a belt around the neck of a prisoner and taunting him (Tr. 562-63); 5 and (6) the police chief's admission that officer Anderson had kicked a handcuffed suspect (Tr. 964-69). 6 30 This catalog of disquieting events is not sufficient to demonstrate a pervasive pattern of police officer indulgence in the use of excessive force, persisting in the District because of the MPD's tacit approval. We can glean nothing from the seven deaths acknowledged by Police Chief Turner, because plaintiffs presented no detail at all on these incidents. The remaining occurrences are scattered and do not coalesce into a discernible policy. If the evidence plaintiffs presented here were adequate to make out a Sec. 1983 case, then practically every large metropolitan police force, it would seem, could be targeted for such liability. 31 It is instructive to contrast with the case at hand a paradigm case of pervasive misconduct subjecting a municipality to Sec. 1983 liability. In Webster v. City of Houston, 689 F.2d 1220 (5th Cir.1982), vacated, 735 F.2d 838 (5th Cir.) (en banc), aff'd in part and rev'd in part, 739 F.2d 993 (5th Cir.1984) (en banc), 75-80% of the municipality's police officers, the evidence showed, carried throw down guns: weapon[s] which police officers, having killed (or wounded) an unarmed suspect, [could] put at his side to justify the shooting. 689 F.2d at 1222. We do not mean to suggest by our citation to Webster that a numerical standard controls the determination whether incidents of wrongful behavior cumulatively show a pattern amounting to a custom or policy. Egregious instances of misconduct, relatively few in number but following a common design, may support an inference that the instances would not occur but for municipal tolerance of the practice in question. We can say with assurance, however, that the assorted actual instances of misconduct demonstrated in this case do not line up to compose a common or widespread pattern of police misbehavior adequate to establish Sec. 1983 municipal liability. 32