hpd-assistant-chief-oral-sex-performed

A Houston Assistant Police Chief claims that trading oral sex in exchange for avoiding arrest for traffic warrants was a mutual agreement involving "consent" by the motorist, reported the Houston Chronicle:

In his expert report on the incident, Assistant Chief Michael A. Dirden wrote that the encounter sprang from consent on both sides.

"According to the plaintiff, the oral sex was performed because of an at least implied promise that Archer would not take the plaintiff to jail, even though the plaintiff had outstanding traffic warrants," Dirden wrote.

At the time of the incident, Dirden, who is a lawyer, oversaw the department's internal investigations, including allegations of police misconduct. He now heads criminal investigations.

"The Houston Police Department does not condone sexual contact between an officer and a person in custody, regardless of whether or not it might be called consensual," he writes. "Whether you view it as a violation of law, or as unprofessional conduct, or an act of oppression, or just horrible judgement (sic) on how to act, Archer's conduct was simply outside of department policy."

The officer in question was prosecuted but sentenced to deferred adjudication and no jail time. Now he and the Houston PD have been sued over the incidentI'm not so shocked at the case itself - HPD has around 8,000 officers and it'd be naive to believe there aren't some bad eggs among them. The article reports that "Since 1999, there have been at least a half-dozen cases of male officers in the Houston area allegedly coercing women under their authority into performing oral sex." But the Assistant Chief's assertion that this could have been a consensual act boggles the mind. The alternative to performing the act was arrest! How consensual was that?