Police officers indicted for beating suspects and stealing their creditcards

Carol Forsloff - Police officers in Mississippi have been indicted for beating of suspects and stealing their credit cards, the Department of Justice announced on Friday, reflecting a growing concern about police abuse.

  antique police cars in Mississippi, wikimedia commons



Elvis Prater, 35, and Dewayne
Johnson, 32,  Natchez, Mississippi, Police Department Officers, are charged
with civil rights and other offenses and other offenses related to the
beating of two men in their custody.  They are also charged with
stealing the credit cards of these individuals and then lying to federal
investigators.



 Prater and Johnson each face ten years in prison if convicted.

The indictment charges that on May 23, 2009 Prater assaulted two men in
the custody of the Natchez Police Department.  Johnson failed to
protect another individual in his patrol car from Prater's assault, then
stole credit cards from the person in his custody.

Johnson,
according to the indictment, subsequently used the credit and debit
cards he stole and with his cousin, Patricia Wilson, used them at a gas
station, restaurants and retail stores around the Mississippi -
Louisiana areas near Natchez.  When asked about these activities by the
F.B.I., the indictment asserts both Johnson and Wilson lied to the
investigators.

Wilson, 34, of Woodville, Miss., previously pleaded guilty to
conspiring with Johnson to commit identity theft, credit card fraud and
bank fraud.

Wilson admitted in her plea how she and Johnson looked up the credit
limits on the credit card then used both the credit and debit cards to
make purchases.

Wilson faces a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison.  She has not yet been scheduled for sentencing.



Police abuse is part of the reason
the Innocence Project revisits cases of people who are held in prison
and found innocent.  That's because the organization has found that some
police officers severely assault suspects in their custody, leading
people to confess to crimes they didn't commit.



In Chicago this year a woman named Darlene Lopez was reported by WGN News in Chicago as describing in court how a former Chicago
Police Cmdr. Jon Burge not only beat suspects, but how he bragged about
putting them in the back of his trunk and that other police officers
laughed about doing similar things.



The Department of Justice is involved when these issues involve civil rights violations, a significant concern when it involves police officers hired to protect the public.