ATLANTA — During his career with the Atlanta Police Department, Benny Bridges had a long history of trouble.
In his 20 years on the force, he racked up 32 complaints.
Once, he reported his personal car stolen, but later admitted he was drunk when he drove it into a utility pole. In February, he was charged with driving in excess of 100 mph in a car on loan from the FBI, possession of marijuana and DUI after registering more than twice the legal limit.
But even after all that, firing Bridges from the Police Department proved difficult.
His case illustrates long-standing issues facing the department in disciplining officers.
In some cases, records show, officers at the center of complaints remain on the force — even after the city's lawyers have settled those cases for hundreds of thousands of dollars. In other instances, pre-employment files indicate problems before officers were even hired.
In a city with more than 1,800 officers, the most in the region, these problems can come at a cost of civil payouts, eroded public confidence, even the loss of innocent life. And they don't affect only residents of Atlanta, but also the estimated 37 million visitors who come to the city each year.
"A number of the problems we've seen are recurring, serious problems," said Paul Bartel, a member of the Atlanta Citizen Review Board, a group created as an independent body to review complaints about police misconduct after the fatal 2006 police shooting of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston.
"These are ongoing problems that need to be addressed."
Early Warning Signs
In some cases, the department may have ignored early warning signs, according to files reviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
For instance, records of the pre-employment interviews with one of the officers fired after a botched raid at the Atlanta Eagle, a Midtown gay bar, warned that he was "easily upset and temperamental, one who is reactionary."
In fact, the recommendation was made that he not be hired.
During another pre-employment interview, another officer admitted that he had recently used muscle relaxers that were not prescribed to him and that he had driven drunk as recently as two weeks before his interview.
In addition, the officer "showed deception" on each of three pre-employment polygraph tests.
Yet, that officer, too, was hired.
Such examples have raised questions about the department's approach to hiring, discipline and accountability.
Those questions come from outside — and inside — the department.
Atlanta Police Chief George Turner acknowledged that he has noticed problems with lax hiring and uneven discipline throughout the years.
And Atlanta detective Ken Allen, president of the local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, said the department needs to increase its standards for new hires.
"We should … turn this back into a profession, like it was 25 years ago, and not a job," Allen said.
"We should be held to a higher integrity and morality level. We have an ability most people don't and that's to take away someone's liberty and their life. I can't understand why we would want to lower those standards."
A Series of Allegations
The department attracted the national spotlight in 2006, when officers shot and killed Johnston during a failed drug raid.
That was followed by revelations that investigators lied to judges to secure warrants — and that some even planted drugs to support arrests.
Five members of the narcotics unit pleaded guilty to various state and federal charges; four went to prison.
Police officers work in dangerous and stressful environments, and they are often called on to make quick decisions. It's not uncommon for some to level allegations of abuse against police officers.
But since the deadly raid on Johnston's home, some officers have faced high-profile allegations of using excessive force, conducting body cavity searches in public and arresting those for merely questioning an officer's order.
For example:
*Chyenne Mayes, who was fired in July for untruthfulness about the Eagle Bar raid, had many complaints in his personnel file, including allegations that he drew his weapon unnecessarily and pulled down the pants of suspected traffic violators.
The city paid $200,000 to settle a lawsuit in which two people say Mayes and other officers subjected them to body cavity searches after they were stopped for running a stop sign.
Mayes declined to comment for this article.
*Luca Amarena had nine complaints filed against him between 2007 and April 1, including one from a former wife who said he put his service revolver against her head and threatened to kill her.
Such complaints, Amarena said, come with the job and in many instances stem from suspects looking for a way to discredit the officers.
"If you don't get a complaint, you're not doing your job," said Amarena, who resigned from the APD in April to move to New York.
*Brandy Dolson, who has been with the department for 10 years, faced 16 complaints between 2003 and 2009. Three of those complaints were for excessive force; two were for driving drunk.
In 2009, Dolson drew media attention because he jailed a 31-year-old woman when she questioned his order that she leave the sidewalk in front of a neighborhood grocery store.
The city paid the woman, Minnie Carey, $20,000 to settle her case against APD. And a video camera captured him raising his baton over his head and bringing it down on young men and women gathered outside CNN for a New Year's Eve celebration.
Dolson, who could not be reached for comment, was put on administrative leave without pay after his second DUI charge. "Once his criminal case was adjudicated, we brought him back to work . . . and he was terminated," said Turner, the police chief.
Academy Trouble
In the case of Bridges, his troubles began during his time as a recruit.
In an interview with the AJC, Bud Watson, a retired APD fraud investigator who was an instructor at the police training academy in 1991, remembers that Bridges appeared to be intoxicated.
Bridges' APD file includes a notation that he showed up for roll call smelling of alcohol.
Bridges was promptly fired — at least for a few days, but for reasons that still aren't clear, he came back to training in a few days, Watson said.
Years later, in 2009, Bridges was sent undercover into the Atlanta Eagle to investigate reports of lewd behavior and drug use.
For hours, he drank shots of Jagermeister, according to claims he submitted for $110 reimbursement for his part in the investigation.
During the raid on the bar, more than 60 patrons were patted down. In a lawsuit, some said they were abused and humiliated and were the targets of anti-gay slurs by officers, who eventually hauled off eight people to jail.
All their charges were either dropped by the prosecutor or dismissed by the judge. And the city eventually paid more than $1 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit.
Only then was Bridges fired.
In July, he and five other officers were terminated for "untruthfulness" because they lied to investigators about the Eagle raid.
Bridges did not respond to requests to comment on this article.
Higher Standards
Turner, the police chief, has been with the department since 1981. He was named to the position two years ago, and he says that changing the culture within the department is a priority.
Two months after the Eagle suit was settled, Turner disbanded the once-popular Red Dog unit, known for its aggressive approach to street-level drug crimes.
Turner is reviewing each new hire recommendation, and he has implemented an "early-warning" system to identify troubled officers.
All the while, there has been an increase in the number of internal affairs complaints resolved.
In 2008, the department's office of professional standards resolved 112 complaints.
In 2010, the office resolved 232. About 30 percent of those complaints resulted in discipline.
Moving forward, even if a complaint isn't sustained, officers could be sent to training or other programs if there is a pattern of trouble.
The culture within the department, Turner said, is changing.
"If you look back at what we've done over the last 20 months, the individuals we have terminated or [who] have left in light of an investigation . . . [it] shows we have turned the culture around," Turner said.
Still, some wonder just how much the department has changed.
"George Turner is firing officers but not for the reasons most people are concerned about," said Tiffany Roberts with the grass-roots organization Build Locally to Organize for Community, a police watchdog group. "When citizens complain about excessive force or abusive language they just brush it off."