How can Detective Tim Stevenson sleep at night?

You know how riled up I get when malicious or stupid cops do malicious and stupid things, thus giving the vast majority of good cops out there a bad name. Here's another story that's flying far, far below the radar... WCCO-TV: I-TEAM: Children Interrogated Without Parents

Be sure to watch the video!

In case you don't, here's the story in a nutshell: 13-year-old girl gets kidnapped, molested, and dropped off in a parking lot. Surveillance tape clearly proves the suspicious drop-off -- watch it for yourself. Idiot cop, whose VCR at home is probably still blinking 12:00 more than four years later, looks at the wrong part of the tape and doesn't see the drop-off. So he berates the girl for "lying" about the incident.

That particular story doesn't mention the name of Mr. I've-Been-A-Cop-For-12-Years, but this earlier one names him as Detective Tim Stevenson. As of 2003, he was still on the force. Don't know if he still is, and for the sake of the safety of the citizens of White Bear Lake, I sure hope he's not! Or has been assigned to more appropriate tasks around the police station, like cleaning toilets.

I wonder how he feels, knowing not only that his abusive tactics and investigative stupidity traumatized an innocent girl, but also that his incompetence is single-handedly responsible for leaving a sexual predator loose on the streets?

As reporter Caroline Lowe writes in her blog, there's legislation pending in a couple months that might -- might -- help reign in wannabe-bigshot punk cops like Tim. Or at least give victims a fighting chance against them.

You can also read this half-hearted apology from the new chief, blaming Stevenson's abuse on the fact there were "inconsistencies" in the girl's story. (Note how she chooses to put the word "victim" in quotes.) Nowhere does she mention that those "inconsistencies" lay in the fact that this incompetent cop couldn't figure out how to look at the place in the tape that proves the girl's story!

(Caroline also comments on a similar case in another suburb which, unfortunately for the girl's sake, didn't have any videotaped evidence attached to it. So when they held that girl for an interview that turned into an interrogation, refused to let her see her mother, and promised her she could go only if she just "confessed" that she lied... well, nothing stopped them from dragging her into court for making a "false report"! Fortunately, judge Patrice Sutherland saw through that scam right away.)

It's more than a decade away, but it's terrifying to think what's going to happen to my daughter if someone commits a crime against her and she has the misfortune of dealing with one of these so-called "peace officers" who, apparently, can get off scot-free abusing girls in their own way under the guise of "the law"!

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