Recent high-profile officer reinstatements and personnel lawsuits have illustrated the substantial costs associated with errors in conducting internal affairs investigations. Those costs are not just financial, but can compromise agency integrity, damage public trust and, by extension, impact every facet of agency operations.

In light of unprecedented public scrutiny on issues of police misconduct nationwide, failing to dedicate the appropriate personnel, resources, and policy-making efforts to IA investigations can be disastrous. Conducting IA investigations properly is essential to ensuring that misconduct issues are identified and addressed as early as possible, that complaints are resolved in a way that is fair to the public and to the officers involved, and that officers are held accountable in cases of verifiable misconduct. 

In this webinar, Attorney Matt Dolan will address four of the most common pitfalls that law enforcement agencies are encountering during the course of IA investigations:

• Rushing investigations in the face of internal and external pressure for immediate action
• Allowing past performance and conduct issues to taint the current investigation
• Failing to Dot I’s and Cross T’s in light of officers’ Due Process rights
• Inexplicably delaying determinations after all relevant evidence has been collected