Officer involved shootings: Domestic and otherwise
Update: The trial of former San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department deputy, Ivory J. Webb has been delayed because the wife of the defense attorney went into labor, according to presiding judge, Michael A. Smith. No word yet on how long this delay will last.
It's a quiet day on the election trail, thank goodness as the deadline to send in mail in ballots for the ongoing city council elections in the odd-numbered wards comes closer. So if you've got one, send it in. Your vote is an important voice.
In the special elections Readers' Forum in the Press Enterprise, there have been some interesting letters indeed.
S. Garrett Short writes an interesting letter published on May 20.
(excerpt)
I have lived in Riverside since the 1960s. I have read The Press-Enterprise -- or some version of it -- all of those years.
While I am not planning to vote for Dom Betro or Letitia Pepper, I have to ask how The P-E can pillory Pepper as though Betro has never been rude to her or others at council meetings. Frankly, I expect better from the newspaper ("Vile campaigning," Our Views, April 28).
Excusing the man you endorsed for Ward 1 of questionable behavior while accusing Pepper of rudeness is not up to the standards I expect from you.
Thank you for making up my mind to vote for Mike Gardner.
I wouldn't be surprised if this person's not the only one who noticed the double standard being applied to Betro who face it has had more than his share of gaffes and to Pepper, the lightning rod for every allegation of misconduct published in the Press Enterprise lately. Both Betro and Pepper have stumbled in the election race, but the newspaper which in earlier years provided more comprehensive, well-rounded coverage doesn't treat their foibles equally.
Betro's apparent fixation with what his campaigners have called the "Pepper effect" is apparently stemming out of concern that votes for her might push him towards a runoff election next November against Gardner. Well, thanks to the coverage in the daily newspaper, apparently another vote has been cast in that direction.
Be the first one to go to the Press Enterprise's Web site to respond to the latest poll about whether or not you think that the librarians should be able to explain policies to the media. So far no one's responded.
Maybe a better question to ask is whether or not you want Asst. City Manager to be the head librarian but I doubt there will be an official poll on that any day soon unless it's held at a city council meeting like similar "polls" have been done in the past, particularly that involving the police department on March 27.
Jon Lonberg 's case is going into closed session tomorrow at the city council meeting. Recently, he was awarded a sizable verdict and the U.S. District Court judge's mandate that the city of Riverside construct over 100 ramps for curbs within the next four months. Hopefully, the city attorney's office will advise the city council to pay out the verdict and build the ramps. If that's not part of the Riverside Renaissance plan already, then of course, it should be quickly added because after all the new, exciting Riverside is supposed to be for everyone. Right?
More information on Lonberg's victory is here.
I was reminded of the Americans with Disability Act last week when I attended a subcommittee meeting held by members of the Human Relations Commission. The committee addressed police and community relations in Riverside and was fairly well attended by people who expressed their concerns on this issue for over an hour.
One woman who couldn't attend the meeting with her sister had to wait in the lobby of the meeting location, which was the Coffee Depot in downtown Riverside. And so she waited for over an hour until the meeting ended.
Why did she wait in the lobby, instead of attending the meeting herself?
Because she was in a wheelchair and the meeting was held in a conference room on the second floor of the coffee shop, the only access to that room being a steep flight of stairs. This woman's sister used a cane because of some injuries she experienced to her leg and she had a difficult time navigating the narrow staircase, the type often found in old buildings like this former Santa Fe Railroad Depot which was restored for commercial use.
The meeting itself was a really good one. Rarely, do the committees in the boards and commissions allow the city residents who attend to fully participate in the discussion. They want the community's input, they always say but then they pigeonhole that input into small increments.
Participating was Sgt. Keenan Lambert, who is a member of the department's community policing division and he answered questions involving the department including those about its policy regarding the activation of the digital audio recorders carried by officers. Lambert had been part of the original Attorney General's Task Force in 2001 and had worked on creating that policy. The issue of racial profiling and the practice of officers asking individuals they stop whether or not they are on probation or parole, was also addressed.
It was a very interesting meeting, but it wasn't an open meeting if a woman in a wheelchair had to sit downstairs and was not allowed to participate because of the inaccessibility of the meeting location. When several individuals raised that issue, the committee's members agreed that the meeting location had to be changed.
And the Press Enterprise also wrote an article on the origin of the city's stranger ordinances including whether or not you can carry a lunchbox on Main Street or kiss in public. Nothing about the law which allegedly banned eating an orange on an elevator though.
The article stated that the ordinance about the ban on lunchboxes wasn't true.
The trial involving a former San Bernardino County Sheriff's deputy who shot and wounded a U.S. airman begins today.
The Los Angeles Times published an article today about how it believes the case involving Ivory Webb, Jr. will be presented by both sides. Different experts involving the use of force by law enforcement officers also offered their opinions in the news article.
(excerpt)
The prosecutor and defense attorneys declined to preview their cases before trial. But one of Webb's attorneys, Michael D. Schwartz, made it clear in pretrial hearings that he intended to probe Carrion's failure to follow Webb's orders to stop talking and to keep his hands on the ground during the traffic stop.
Several use-of-force experts who have followed the case said Webb's lawyers would have their own troubles explaining why Webb did not follow law enforcement protocol — when he got out of his patrol car, for example, and stood over Carrion even though he was dealing with two suspects and did not have backup.
"There's no place in the United States that tells officers to walk up and stand in an exposed position when confronting felons," said David Klinger, an associate professor of criminology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and author of "Into the Kill Zone: A Cop's Eye View of Deadly Force."
"I honestly don't see anything" that stands in the defense's favor on the videotape, Klinger said.
Geoffrey Alpert, a University of South Carolina professor who also specializes in the use of force, said that after viewing the video numerous times, he still did not see any action by Carrion that could explain why Webb fired.
"A shooting is not justified unless there is a significant threat to the officer," Alpert said. "And if the suspect wasn't going for a potential weapon or going for something that would disable the officer, I don't know how they could justify the use of deadly force."
The San Bernardino Sun also stated in its article that opening arguments in the trial are expected to begin today. The trial could last for weeks.
(excerpt)
Webb is accused of attempted voluntary manslaughter and assault with a firearm in the January 2006 shooting of Elio Carrion, an Air Force senior airman, that was captured on videotape.
Carrion was a passenger in a Corvette driven by friend Luis Escobedo, who led Webb on a high-speed chase that ended in Chino.
The video shot by a Chino resident shows Carrion lying face down outside the car with Webb appearing to tell him to get up.
When Carrion begins to rise, Webb shoots him three times, hitting him in the shoulder, chest and leg.
What will happen to Webb? Well, he'll probably get acquitted by the end of June and return to law enforcement by the end of the year. If his old agency doesn't rehire him, perhaps at Maywood Police Department?
There's an interesting article in the New York Times about what it's like for new cadets hired by the New York City Police Department to start out as police officers, because unlike department's in many large cities, this one has a pretty low starting salary of about $25,000 a year. The article and others follow the paths of several police cadets as they work their way through the program.
(excerpt)
But now, four months into their training at the Police Academy, and
with graduation less than two months away, several recruits said that
they had greatly underestimated just how difficult it would be to make
ends meet. Student loans have gone unpaid. Credit card debts have
mushroomed. Parents have been tapped, repeatedly and exhaustively, for
emergency funds, extra bedrooms and leftovers.
"After my mom cooks for me, I spread it out," said Mr. Gonell, 25, who
lives in the Bronx. "Rice and chicken, rice and chicken. I'm going to
fly out of here eventually, that's how much chicken I eat."
The Police Department's entry level salary is the lowest for police
officers in the region, and so is its officers' top base pay of
$59,588 after five and a half years. Those wages are a result of past
contract negotiations, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has suggested
that the job's perks and prestige outweigh its drawbacks.
Still, police union officials say the wages are deterring would-be
recruits and driving seasoned officers to higher paying jobs
elsewhere. The department hired 1,346 recruits in January, about 1,000
short of its goal, and police officials say the relatively low pay is
largely to blame.
Critics have suggested that the academy has lowered its standards in
an effort to fill its ranks - an assertion the department denies - but
Mr. Torres said the pay keeps away those who are not truly dedicated.
"You're going to get cops who really want to be cops," he said.
But does the lower pay increase the odds of corruption in a police force which watched last week as two of its officers try to rob a drug den before getting caught. That's a question that's been asked many times about the NYPD and the answer is that paying officers less increases corruption because it causes some of them to turn to illegal pursuits to supplement their income. Others say, no it decreases corruption because as stated in the paragraph above, it only attracts the "cops who really want to be cops".
Still, it appears that if a police officer is going to break the law, he or she is of the mindset to do just that regardless of what he or she is paid because even officers working for departments with much more generous pay scales get into serious trouble and fairly often, it involves money.
Also in New York City, more shocking information has come out about the NYPD officer accused of killing his girlfriend in Queens. According to this article in the New York Post, Officer Harry Rubnarine was nearly expelled from the police academy when he was a cadet for disruptive behavior.
(excerpt)
If his Police Academy instructor had had his way, the NYPD cop accused of gunning down his ex-fiancée with his service pistol would never have been issued the gun, The Post has learned.
Harry Rupnarine, 38, was so disrup tive during class as a candidate in early 2005 that his instructor tried to have him kicked out, a source said.
But in a meeting with his superiors, the in structor was overruled, and Rupnarine graduated in July 2005.
"They wanted to throw him out, but they were overruled by their bosses" in the academy, a police source said.
(excerpt, WNBC)
At the scene, Kirsten Foy, an associate of Sharpton's, said, "It is our belief that there was an unnecessary loss of life."
Foy was joined by Arzu's 20-year-old daughter, Katherine Arzu, and 14-year-old son, Jeyson Frederick, and other family members on the Bronx street corner where a car accident led to the shooting by Lora.
"He needs to pay," Katherine Arzu said. "He left me and my brother here alone."
The incident unfolded at 11:40 p.m. Friday and ended when the bloodied man drove away from the officer, sideswiped another vehicle, then died as his minivan burned on a sidewalk.
Police said it began when Arzu slammed into a parked car on a side street near the officer's home.
Witnesses told investigators the minivan backed up and drove about a block before Lora, who was on foot and out of uniform, caught up to the vehicle. He was standing at the driver's open door when the minivan lurched forward.
The officer discharged his 9mm pistol five times, hitting the driver once, police said.
A spokeswoman for the city medical examiner's office said the bullet entered the driver's back and pierced his heart, left lung and aorta, but he still managed to drive a block before his minivan struck another vehicle and caught fire. The car bumped onto a sidewalk and came to rest against the wall of a church.
It's a quiet day on the election trail, thank goodness as the deadline to send in mail in ballots for the ongoing city council elections in the odd-numbered wards comes closer. So if you've got one, send it in. Your vote is an important voice.
In the special elections Readers' Forum in the Press Enterprise, there have been some interesting letters indeed.
S. Garrett Short writes an interesting letter published on May 20.
(excerpt)
I have lived in Riverside since the 1960s. I have read The Press-Enterprise -- or some version of it -- all of those years.
While I am not planning to vote for Dom Betro or Letitia Pepper, I have to ask how The P-E can pillory Pepper as though Betro has never been rude to her or others at council meetings. Frankly, I expect better from the newspaper ("Vile campaigning," Our Views, April 28).
Excusing the man you endorsed for Ward 1 of questionable behavior while accusing Pepper of rudeness is not up to the standards I expect from you.
Thank you for making up my mind to vote for Mike Gardner.
I wouldn't be surprised if this person's not the only one who noticed the double standard being applied to Betro who face it has had more than his share of gaffes and to Pepper, the lightning rod for every allegation of misconduct published in the Press Enterprise lately. Both Betro and Pepper have stumbled in the election race, but the newspaper which in earlier years provided more comprehensive, well-rounded coverage doesn't treat their foibles equally.
Betro's apparent fixation with what his campaigners have called the "Pepper effect" is apparently stemming out of concern that votes for her might push him towards a runoff election next November against Gardner. Well, thanks to the coverage in the daily newspaper, apparently another vote has been cast in that direction.
Be the first one to go to the Press Enterprise's Web site to respond to the latest poll about whether or not you think that the librarians should be able to explain policies to the media. So far no one's responded.
Maybe a better question to ask is whether or not you want Asst. City Manager to be the head librarian but I doubt there will be an official poll on that any day soon unless it's held at a city council meeting like similar "polls" have been done in the past, particularly that involving the police department on March 27.
Jon Lonberg 's case is going into closed session tomorrow at the city council meeting. Recently, he was awarded a sizable verdict and the U.S. District Court judge's mandate that the city of Riverside construct over 100 ramps for curbs within the next four months. Hopefully, the city attorney's office will advise the city council to pay out the verdict and build the ramps. If that's not part of the Riverside Renaissance plan already, then of course, it should be quickly added because after all the new, exciting Riverside is supposed to be for everyone. Right?
More information on Lonberg's victory is here.
I was reminded of the Americans with Disability Act last week when I attended a subcommittee meeting held by members of the Human Relations Commission. The committee addressed police and community relations in Riverside and was fairly well attended by people who expressed their concerns on this issue for over an hour.
One woman who couldn't attend the meeting with her sister had to wait in the lobby of the meeting location, which was the Coffee Depot in downtown Riverside. And so she waited for over an hour until the meeting ended.
Why did she wait in the lobby, instead of attending the meeting herself?
Because she was in a wheelchair and the meeting was held in a conference room on the second floor of the coffee shop, the only access to that room being a steep flight of stairs. This woman's sister used a cane because of some injuries she experienced to her leg and she had a difficult time navigating the narrow staircase, the type often found in old buildings like this former Santa Fe Railroad Depot which was restored for commercial use.
The meeting itself was a really good one. Rarely, do the committees in the boards and commissions allow the city residents who attend to fully participate in the discussion. They want the community's input, they always say but then they pigeonhole that input into small increments.
Participating was Sgt. Keenan Lambert, who is a member of the department's community policing division and he answered questions involving the department including those about its policy regarding the activation of the digital audio recorders carried by officers. Lambert had been part of the original Attorney General's Task Force in 2001 and had worked on creating that policy. The issue of racial profiling and the practice of officers asking individuals they stop whether or not they are on probation or parole, was also addressed.
It was a very interesting meeting, but it wasn't an open meeting if a woman in a wheelchair had to sit downstairs and was not allowed to participate because of the inaccessibility of the meeting location. When several individuals raised that issue, the committee's members agreed that the meeting location had to be changed.
And the Press Enterprise also wrote an article on the origin of the city's stranger ordinances including whether or not you can carry a lunchbox on Main Street or kiss in public. Nothing about the law which allegedly banned eating an orange on an elevator though.
The article stated that the ordinance about the ban on lunchboxes wasn't true.
The trial involving a former San Bernardino County Sheriff's deputy who shot and wounded a U.S. airman begins today.
The Los Angeles Times published an article today about how it believes the case involving Ivory Webb, Jr. will be presented by both sides. Different experts involving the use of force by law enforcement officers also offered their opinions in the news article.
(excerpt)
The prosecutor and defense attorneys declined to preview their cases before trial. But one of Webb's attorneys, Michael D. Schwartz, made it clear in pretrial hearings that he intended to probe Carrion's failure to follow Webb's orders to stop talking and to keep his hands on the ground during the traffic stop.
Several use-of-force experts who have followed the case said Webb's lawyers would have their own troubles explaining why Webb did not follow law enforcement protocol — when he got out of his patrol car, for example, and stood over Carrion even though he was dealing with two suspects and did not have backup.
"There's no place in the United States that tells officers to walk up and stand in an exposed position when confronting felons," said David Klinger, an associate professor of criminology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and author of "Into the Kill Zone: A Cop's Eye View of Deadly Force."
"I honestly don't see anything" that stands in the defense's favor on the videotape, Klinger said.
Geoffrey Alpert, a University of South Carolina professor who also specializes in the use of force, said that after viewing the video numerous times, he still did not see any action by Carrion that could explain why Webb fired.
"A shooting is not justified unless there is a significant threat to the officer," Alpert said. "And if the suspect wasn't going for a potential weapon or going for something that would disable the officer, I don't know how they could justify the use of deadly force."
The San Bernardino Sun also stated in its article that opening arguments in the trial are expected to begin today. The trial could last for weeks.
(excerpt)
Webb is accused of attempted voluntary manslaughter and assault with a firearm in the January 2006 shooting of Elio Carrion, an Air Force senior airman, that was captured on videotape.
Carrion was a passenger in a Corvette driven by friend Luis Escobedo, who led Webb on a high-speed chase that ended in Chino.
The video shot by a Chino resident shows Carrion lying face down outside the car with Webb appearing to tell him to get up.
When Carrion begins to rise, Webb shoots him three times, hitting him in the shoulder, chest and leg.
What will happen to Webb? Well, he'll probably get acquitted by the end of June and return to law enforcement by the end of the year. If his old agency doesn't rehire him, perhaps at Maywood Police Department?
There's an interesting article in the New York Times about what it's like for new cadets hired by the New York City Police Department to start out as police officers, because unlike department's in many large cities, this one has a pretty low starting salary of about $25,000 a year. The article and others follow the paths of several police cadets as they work their way through the program.
(excerpt)
But now, four months into their training at the Police Academy, and
with graduation less than two months away, several recruits said that
they had greatly underestimated just how difficult it would be to make
ends meet. Student loans have gone unpaid. Credit card debts have
mushroomed. Parents have been tapped, repeatedly and exhaustively, for
emergency funds, extra bedrooms and leftovers.
"After my mom cooks for me, I spread it out," said Mr. Gonell, 25, who
lives in the Bronx. "Rice and chicken, rice and chicken. I'm going to
fly out of here eventually, that's how much chicken I eat."
The Police Department's entry level salary is the lowest for police
officers in the region, and so is its officers' top base pay of
$59,588 after five and a half years. Those wages are a result of past
contract negotiations, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has suggested
that the job's perks and prestige outweigh its drawbacks.
Still, police union officials say the wages are deterring would-be
recruits and driving seasoned officers to higher paying jobs
elsewhere. The department hired 1,346 recruits in January, about 1,000
short of its goal, and police officials say the relatively low pay is
largely to blame.
Critics have suggested that the academy has lowered its standards in
an effort to fill its ranks - an assertion the department denies - but
Mr. Torres said the pay keeps away those who are not truly dedicated.
"You're going to get cops who really want to be cops," he said.
But does the lower pay increase the odds of corruption in a police force which watched last week as two of its officers try to rob a drug den before getting caught. That's a question that's been asked many times about the NYPD and the answer is that paying officers less increases corruption because it causes some of them to turn to illegal pursuits to supplement their income. Others say, no it decreases corruption because as stated in the paragraph above, it only attracts the "cops who really want to be cops".
Still, it appears that if a police officer is going to break the law, he or she is of the mindset to do just that regardless of what he or she is paid because even officers working for departments with much more generous pay scales get into serious trouble and fairly often, it involves money.
Also in New York City, more shocking information has come out about the NYPD officer accused of killing his girlfriend in Queens. According to this article in the New York Post, Officer Harry Rubnarine was nearly expelled from the police academy when he was a cadet for disruptive behavior.
(excerpt)
If his Police Academy instructor had had his way, the NYPD cop accused of gunning down his ex-fiancée with his service pistol would never have been issued the gun, The Post has learned.
Harry Rupnarine, 38, was so disrup tive during class as a candidate in early 2005 that his instructor tried to have him kicked out, a source said.
But in a meeting with his superiors, the in structor was overruled, and Rupnarine graduated in July 2005.
"They wanted to throw him out, but they were overruled by their bosses" in the academy, a police source said.
Instead Rupnarine remained in the academy and became a NYPD officer for nearly two years before shooting his girlfriend, Guiatree Hardat in the face killing her after she didn't want to set a wedding date. In recent weeks, according to the article, Hardat was becoming concerned over her boyfriend's controlling ways.
He has now been charged in her death.
Another off-duty shooting by a NYPD officer is under scrutiny. The shooting of Honduran-born Fermin Arzu, who was shot to death by Officer Raphael Lora allegedly for leaving the scene of a car accident, according to the police department.
(excerpt, WNBC)
At the scene, Kirsten Foy, an associate of Sharpton's, said, "It is our belief that there was an unnecessary loss of life."
Foy was joined by Arzu's 20-year-old daughter, Katherine Arzu, and 14-year-old son, Jeyson Frederick, and other family members on the Bronx street corner where a car accident led to the shooting by Lora.
"He needs to pay," Katherine Arzu said. "He left me and my brother here alone."
The incident unfolded at 11:40 p.m. Friday and ended when the bloodied man drove away from the officer, sideswiped another vehicle, then died as his minivan burned on a sidewalk.
Police said it began when Arzu slammed into a parked car on a side street near the officer's home.
Witnesses told investigators the minivan backed up and drove about a block before Lora, who was on foot and out of uniform, caught up to the vehicle. He was standing at the driver's open door when the minivan lurched forward.
The officer discharged his 9mm pistol five times, hitting the driver once, police said.
A spokeswoman for the city medical examiner's office said the bullet entered the driver's back and pierced his heart, left lung and aorta, but he still managed to drive a block before his minivan struck another vehicle and caught fire. The car bumped onto a sidewalk and came to rest against the wall of a church.
Labels: business as usual, City elections, David and Goliath, officer-involved shootings, public forums in all places, recruitment
posted by Five Before Midnight | 8:01 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home