MINSK, 5 October (BelTA) – As part of BelTA’s YouTube project The Honest Story the American John Dougan has explained why and how he had started exposing fellow law enforcement officers and why he had decided to leave the United States of America.
John Dougan said: “I was a deputy sheriff and I was a former Marine as well and I started exposing the crimes of my colleagues. Once I started doing that, it made life very difficult for me. The FBI raided my home and I knew I had to leave. I put on fake blonde hair and managed to escape surveillance. Initially I snuck into Canada and then came to Russia.”
Speaking about what crimes of his colleagues he had managed to expose, John Dougan remarked that they varied: “Child trafficking, sex crimes against children, drugs trade, even murders”.
John Dougan explained that crimes varied from one police department to another. “The problem with my department is we had a very corrupt police administration. And the sheriff did a lot of really bad things as he was coming up through the ranks. I mean, we're talking like stealing guns out of the evidence room to plant on black people so he could put them in jail for no crimes that they've committed,” he said. “Leadership encouraged covering up for each other. Who did he promote? He promoted other people who also engaged in corruption. Not all departments do this, but this particular department did and this is why there was such a problem. But generally speaking, law enforcement does have a lot of bad people in it. I would say probably 15-20% of all cops are corrupt.”
“At first I exposed them through legal channels, which caused a lot of problems for me and ultimately I left police work because of it. And then I started whistleblower websites where other good cops could come forward and expose corruption in the department completely anonymously where they couldn't figure out who was doing it. This project was very successful. I was doing this for six or seven years. And all sorts of documents and tips came out leading to dozens of arrests. Not just in my department, but throughout the entire United States,” John Dougan concluded.
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