Jan Scully: Homicide OK, but workers’ comp fraud a felony

In June of 2011, Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully announced that her office would no longer investigate officer-involved shootings or any in-custody deaths. Even after receiving an unexpected $5+ million for her office, shortly after the announcement, Scully reiterated that she would not resume any investigation of deaths at the hands of law enforcement in her jurisdiction. Since then, law enforcement has broken all previous records for suspect shootings, with the toll of casualties and deaths quickly mounting.

In June of 2012, however, exactly a year after Scully’s shocking announcement, the DA announced that she had filed felony charges against a now-retired officer in the California Highway Patrol.

The officer’s alleged crime? Collecting checks for a back injury that DA Scully says isn’t injured enough. The officer was “captured on surveillance video-tape lifting 30-pound objects and moving furniture,” says Scully’s office, according to the Sacramento Bee.[1]

Although DA Scully appears resolutely unmoved even when officers gun down mentally-ill persons (see Jonathan Rose), Scully announced on June 8 that “felony workers’ compensation insurance fraud” and “attempted perjury” had moved her to file felony charges against retired officer Brian Christopher Hansen.[2] (How, precisely, one can be charged with “attempting” perjury, is anyone’s guess–but that another story.)