Here we go again – cops behaving badly with databases. Andrew Panzati reports:
After a Florida Highway Patrol trooper ticketed a Miami police officer for driving 120 mph, FDLE records showed that about 90 people across the state — including two Jacksonville police officers — looked up the trooper’s personal information using a police database limited to use in investigations. The trooper has now sued the city of Jacksonville and those two officers.
The speeding ticket and the accompanying video inspired much outrage, some against the Miami officer and others against Trooper Donna Jane Watts, and it prompted the Sun-Sentinel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the danger of speeding police cars.
Read more on First Coast News.
N.B. I thought this lawsuit sounded familiar, so I went back and checked my sites. Lo and behold, I found a lawsuit over this very matter that had been filed in 2012 by the state trooper. See my coverage here. It’s not clear to me whether this is a new lawsuit against defendants not previously sued, or something else. And if it is a new lawsuit, I’m curious as to how statute of limitations might apply.