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I think it's quite a lot actually. These are formal complaints lodged with the department - not like negative Yelp reviews. The complainant actually has to actually put forth some effort to make the complaint.
A Northwestern University study of 8,000 Chicago police officers found that the average number of complaints per officer on a 10-year basis is 1.3. In other words, less than two across 10 years. I don't know how representative that is, but I would imagine that it would be unusual for the numbers to be dramatically different elsewhere.
Police officers' exposure to peers accused of misconduct shapes their subsequent behavior
A new Northwestern University study investigated how Chicago police officers' exposure to peers who had been accused of misconduct shaped their involvement in subsequent excessive force cases.www.eurekalert.org
I have worked on a fair share of law enforcement civil cases (tort suits, not criminal prosecutions) and I can say that none of the officers in any of those cases had more than three, individually (various lengths of service).
I think you also have to look at the nature of the reports. Chauvin had multiple complaints of excessive force or other misuse of his authority as a police officer. I think 18 complaints in 19 years is probably quite high in the modern era, and his record would be considered by many in law enforcement management to have been a problem that suggested a need for mitigation.
That's quite helpful. So yeah, seems like Chauvin is an outlier. Hopefully that will get consideration from the judge during sentencing.