Originally Posted by
chollie
When has a CBP officer ever over-stepped his/her bounds at a roadblock and been held accountable? What were the sanctions (or is that information private)?
I am aware of one CBP agent in WA who was arrested and convicted of a road rage incident - not in the line of duty, but he made the connection between his actions and his job. IIRC, he bragged about the number of non-citizens he had taken action against.
AFAIK, he is still on the job.
I find it disturbing that your post seems to assume that an upset or incredulous reaction from a passenger is likely manufactured indignation designed to divert the agent from wrong-doing. Is it part of CBP training to make this assumption?
And people scoff when I advocate cringing, obsequious, groveling behavior in any encounter with CBP or, indeed, LE in general.
Hint: sometimes innocent people are incredulous and indignant too.
I don't need the hint I am well aware that innocent people are sometimes incredulous and indignant too. I will give you an observation after talking to literally tens of thousands of people over a almost sixteen year career. Guilty people will sometimes act incredulous and indignant in order get by the officer. Guilty people will also sometimes exhibit cringing, obsequious, groveling behavior as well to get by. That is why the standard is not absolute and is a totality of the circumstances. The best advice I give to everyone is to just act naturally. Any attempt to act any other way is most likely going to be noticed.
I am aware of the CBP officer in WA that you are referring to. I certainly don't condone his behavior and as a manager I certainly would move to terminate him. There are policies that address his off-duty conduct. The agency did in fact move to terminate him. What more would you like the agency to do. The agency cannot control the recourse's the employee has available to him anymore than the agency can control the recourse's available to the public. I am not sure what the final outcome was I will certainly see if I can find that when I go back to work.
However, that is much different circumstances than an officer legally doing his job within the legal parameters that are giving to him and him being incorrect in his conclusions. I think the biggest issue is you don't get to decide if the officer overstepped or not. You also don't get informed as to why the officer was found not to have overstepped and as with most employers personnel actions are confidential unless it involves criminal action which is a matter of public record.