How does Memphis compare with other cities in terms of police corruption?
Godwin: Let me put it this way: I don’t view it as police corruption. I view it as rogue cops, because to me, if there is corruption, it goes all the way to the top. And it’s not in this office, I can assure you. I’m the one who initiated this investigation. What we’re dealing with is less than 0.5 percent of the force who bring embarrassment to the other 99.5 percent of police officers who are doing their job. So Internal Affairs is a necessary part of a healthy police department? We have an internal squad that handles policy violations. Then we have a security squad, which handles criminal. We took seasoned investigators for the security squad: someone from homicide, burglary, economic crimes, etc. Let me tell you something else — they all volunteered. Was the squad formed in response to bad press? No. We used to have a security squad and a separate internal department. A few years back, due to shortage of manpower, they combined the security and the internal squads. Not that the in
