ST. LOUIS - The low rate at which the Police Department sustains physical-abuse complaints against officers — the subject of scathing comments by a federal judge in CRIME STATS

But at about 3 percent, it remains only half the rate reflected in a federal study of the nation's large departments. "Sustained" means an internal investigation showed that a complaint was supported by evidence.

In 2008, U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber accused the Board of Police Commissioners of turning a "blind eye" to abuse complaints, after evidence in a civil suit showed that only one of 322 complaints had been sustained in a five-year period.

The numbers were slightly worse than even the judge knew at the time, according to department internal affairs summaries made public last week.

Those reports - 110 heavily redacted pages of complaints that the department fought to keep secret - show that officials improperly miscategorized almost two dozen complaints of physical abuse as "conduct unbecoming an officer."

The full set of data shows that less than one-third of 1 percent of complaints alleging physical abuse by officers were sustained in 1998-2002. Judge Webber had ordered lawyers for the Police Department to hand over the latest data, which had been used as evidence in a trial, after a lawyer for the Post-Dispatch filed a motion for its release on the public's behalf.

Statistics for 2009 are not yet available. But in 2006-08, the department reported 123 complaints of physical abuse. Four of those, or 3 percent, were sustained, 82 percent were not sustained (insufficient evidence to prove or disprove the complaint) and three were withdrawn.

In a 2002 nationwide study of large state and local law enforcement agencies with more than 1,000 officers, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics found that 6 percent of their complaints were sustained and 42 percent not sustained.

But the report pointed out that the statistics' meaning was not always clear. Departments used different counting methods. Moreover, a low rate of complaints could mean that officers were performing well or that the process was inaccessible.

A separate, 2005 nationwide survey said that 90 percent of people reporting contact with the police found that they acted properly. Only 1.6 percent reported that force had been used or threatened, although 83 percent of those complained of excessive force.

St. Louis activist John Chasnoff, of the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression, said he thinks the rate of sustained complaints here echoes his own experience: that internal affairs detectives "tend to discourage the filing of complaints in the first place and they have tended ... to find reasons not to go forward with an investigation or do a partial investigation."

St. Louis Police Chief Dan Isom, himself a former internal affairs commander, cautioned in a recent interview that the numbers in St. Louis and nationwide may not be comparable.

Other departments may use different definitions of complaints and dispositions, he said. In St. Louis, the department counts officers accused, not incidents. "What might be 300 charges might only be 150 incidents, because there's usually two officers involved in every arrest," said Isom, who once led the internal affairs unit.

"You just don't know from department to department how they categorize their charges or how they collect their data," he said.

Isom has in the past said the numbers may be misleading because officers accused under one category may have been disciplined under another.

He also pointed out that there are a variety of reasons why the rate of sustained complaints is low. Often he said, there are no witnesses or evidence. And he said that a criminal defendant may file a false complaint in hopes of discrediting the arresting officer's word.

"Oftentimes, you never have an unbiased witness on both sides," he said. "We don't say that it didn't happen. We say that it can't be proven either way."

The suit at issue was filed by Kenneth Rohrbough, a Marine Corps veteran and son of a police officer, who claims he was beaten during a 2002 arrest near Crown Candy Kitchen. The suit alleges that the department failed to properly supervise officers, citing internal affairs statistics.

After about five hours of deliberations, a jury was unable to reach a verdict last month. Jurors declined to comment afterward.

In closing arguments, Rohrbough's lawyer, Stephen M. Ryals, said that the statistics show that the Police Board "is asleep at the wheel" and that one sustained complaint out of 322 "defies belief." He also noted that one of the complaints that had not been sustained by the department resulted in a victory in a civil trial in federal court.

A lawyer for the officers and the department, Robert J. Issacson, denied Rohrbough's claims and said the accusations were driven by the defense's trial strategy. A retrial is scheduled for June 7.

Judge Webber's "blind eye" comment came during a preliminary ruling, where he decided against the department's effort to have the case dismissed. Webber did remove one officer as a defendant and threw out some parts of the suit. But he also said that, based on preliminary filings by both sides, "This evidence is sufficient for a reasonable jury to find that the (board is) deliberately indifferent to the risk that officers are using excessive force."

Webber found that Police Board members never asked for statistics on brutality complaints or investigations, and rarely asked to review internal affairs.

Isom defended the oversight provided by both the department and the board.

He cited the 2006 World Series ticket scandal, saying that the initial complaint to internal affairs was that officers had stolen $2,000 from a scalper. That was not sustained, but an investigation did lead to discipline for officers who let friends and family use tickets seized as evidence.

Isom said that the complaint process has been examined and improved since Webber's comment. He also pointed out that the department will soon have cameras in 18 police cars and hopes eventually to have 50.

"I think we do a really good job of policing ourselves," he said. "I know we don't get a lot of credit for it, but we do."