Internal Complaints On Police Officers

Complaints on officers come from a variety of people and are normally categorized three different ways to make the investigation simpler: internal, external, and anonymous. All complaints should be handled professionally to keep the public’s respect and improve the police/community relationship. The procedures of investigation will vary by nature of the complaint, general orders of the agency, and whomever investigates the complaint (Iannone, 2009). Internal complaints are those that initiate from within the agency (Iannone, 2009). They can come from officers, supervisors, audits, courts, investigators, and internal affairs. These should be handled very seriously as police officers are not normally ones to complain on each
other. They can be for things such as rudeness, rules and regulations violations, officer misconduct, sexual harassment, and criminal activity. At my agency, the Knoxville Police Department, most internal complaints are first looked at by the first-line-supervisor and the results are passed up the chain of command unless the complaint is criminal in nature or involves sexual harassment or domestic violence, then it goes straight to internal affairs, civil service, or the domestic violence unit. External complaints come from anyone not affiliated with the agency (Iannone, 2009).
They can be primary, filed by those who are alleged victims or witness the act or secondary, filed for someone else by a second or third party (Iannone, 2009). To keep the respect of the community, each complaint should be truly looked into, no matter how frivolous it sounds. Each agency has their own way of receiving complaints. My agency lets the complaints go straight to the supervisors, Internal Affairs, or to the Teleserve Unit. Those received by Internal Affairs will be looked at and will be sent to a patrol supervisor, if they can candle it instead of wasting time with a full blown IA investigation. Omaha, Nebraska does things totally different as Internal Affairs will handle every citizen complaint, whether it comes by person, phone, mail, or email (Citizen Complaint, nd.). Every complaint should be looked into no matter who receives it. The last category is anonymous complaints, which are complaints than come from an unidentified person, whether they be internal or external (Iannone, 2009). These complaints have the possibility to not be able to be investigated as strongly as the above two because investigators might not be able to speak to the complainant. However, they should not be ignored as they could turn into something more serious. Reasons for wanting to remain anonymous are not always
bad. The bottom line is that all complaints should be looked into and documented, no matter who they come from or what type they are.