Drops in the bucket: Cultural sensitivity training and the Inland Empire
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Is San Bernardino Police Department Chief Michael Billdt moving too slowly in developing cultural sensitivity training?
The community members have said that he is when it comes to training for his officers to treat the city's Black and Latino residents better. How tall an order is that in San Bernardino?
(excerpt, Press Enterprise)
Activists said they appreciate the officers' overtures. But they worry that a departmental culture that appears to condone arrogance and brutality could persist.
Linda Heart, who helped organize the community forum in January where Chief Mike Billdt promised the increased training, called the Museum of Tolerance visits inadequate.
"Because of the long history we've had here in San Bernardino, I think we're going to need a more intense intervention than going on a field trip," she said.
Heart also said it would have been better to bring in instructors free of ties to the department to teach anti-profiling classes.
Other activists said police-community relations need improvement citywide.
Central San Bernardino resident Sherry Darling said complaints from Westside residents about slow police responses echo her own frustration.
"A lot of times when you call in, they almost come out and say, 'Why are you bothering us?'" she said. "Most of us are on their side. Most of us would like to see the lawbreakers caught. And they act as if we don't."
The San Bernardino Police Officers Association has taken steps to build community relationships through its police activities program for young people which were good steps.
However, the hiring of Save Our State founder, Joe Turner as a consultant for "outreach" has done the opposite. It's shown that the union's leadership would rather not go to the communities' leadership for advice on how to do outreach in those communities but instead has gone to a guy who hangs out with individuals waving both Confederate and Nazi flags.
Why did the union's leadership do this? Its president, Sgt. Rich Lawhead explained in a letter to the association in its newsletter.
(excerpt, Lawhead's letter to union)
However, words without action are hollow. To that end, we have hired Joseph Turner to be our consultant.I have heard several comments as to why we even need a consultant. While again, it is something new that I wanted to try in an effort to manipulate the political maze. The Association has always been at a disadvantage when it comes to politics, why? Well its because only a select few of us and I do mean “few”of us wants to be involved in the political arena.
For one reason its all phony. No one seems to keep his or her promises, or at least that seems to be the history. I am desperately trying to change our position and I ask for your indulgence.
The Pink Flamingo blogged about it here and was unhappy about this action.
(excerpt)
"...Anti-immigration activist Joe Turner may be one of the best things to happen to the Southern California white power community in years — a man whose group is seen as a "Trojan horse" allowing radical infiltration of mainstream politics. Turner, a Ventura, Calif., man who founded the immigrant-bashing Save Our State organization in late 2004, insists that he's no racist, even though his self-described "aggressive activism" includes claims that undocumented Mexican workers are turning California into "a third world cesspool" and his Web site vilifies a variety of prominent Hispanic officials in a "Racialist Hall of Fame." But neo-Nazis have found in Turner a tolerant master of ceremonies. In rally after rally this year, Turner and other SOS officials have failed to turn away racist Skinheads and like minded white supremacists who have joined their protests.
Swastikas and sieg heils aren't usually welcome on the streets of Southern California, but Turner's followers, including SOS spokesman Don Silva, have been photographed standing alongside Skinheads clad in high black boots with red laces. Most recently, swastika pennants and Confederate battle flags were hoisted alongside Turner's own picket signs during a July 30 protest outside a day laborer center in Laguna Beach. One group in the crowd sieg-heiled repeatedly.
Turner has told members of his Web site's forum that he opposes white supremacists joining his protests, and he wrote to the Intelligence Report "there seems to be very little we can do to keep them from piggybacking off our activism. ... [W]e are unable to really do anything about it. He has also banned a few white supremacists from his forum. But many others have posted racist attacks on Hispanics – attacks that are left on his Web site as long as they don't directly advocate violence SOS forum member "Chris 2005," for instance, offered this up on July 25: "Mexicans are like pigs. They are by far the filthiest f-ing animals. I have also felt like I needed to get into a hot bathtub of water and soap and just soak until the filth comes off me after being near any of them. I hate them, I hate them, I hate them!"
Nine days later, the statement was still there.
So this is the kind of guy that Lawhead and his board of officers who voted overwhelmingly to hire Turner want to hang out and receive advice on how to interface with communities in San Bernardino which are Black and Latino? Okay, maybe if the union needed advice on how to hang out with neonazis and other White Supremacists, this type of consulting might be more helpful. At any rate, that's the message that this action taken by this police union's leadership is sending to the communities it serves.
It's interesting to think about these issues after having read Breaking Rank by former police chief and officer Norm Stamper. In his book, he discusses meetings he had with officers of different ranks while he was working with San Diego Police Department. At one point, he had spoken with 31 officers and 30 of them had admitted using a wide assortment of racial slurs for Black and Latino individuals.
At one point, one of the officers said while being interviewed.
(excerpt)
"Why are you doing this? You know nothing's going to change. It's always been like this. Everybody uses racial slurs. Everybody does this kind of shit. And we're not about to change."
About 90% of the officers used slurs and they did it to "defuse tension" or because they were really upset, according to the officers interviewed. Whether it was an arrest for what was called a "BBN" or later on, "DWB".
One Black officer with tears running down his face told Stamper he used racial slurs including "n----r" to get along.
(excerpt)
"All the time, really. It's kind of a defense. I know the White officers were testing me. Some of them won't say "n----r" or any of those other terms to my face. But, I hear them anyway. Two bays over in the locker room, or out in the field when they're rousting some guy. Then they see me and get all embarrassed. So, I'll throw out a term or two myself, try to make them feel okay."
The department that Stamper worked for had gotten a new chief who was interested in finding out what was going on but once it emerged what these officers were saying, the investigation was sealed until parts of it leaked out through the local media.
But the department had made some progress from its former chief who according to Stamper's book had this to say when he was asked if he was running for mayor.
(excerpt)
"Can't do it. I don't like the n----rs and the Mexicans don't like me."
Stamper's ideas for addressing the situation included modifying the recruitment, testing and screening of new officers for racial and gender biases, introducing new curriculum at the academy level, a "beat tenure" program for examining the fitness of officers to serve in different ethnic and racial communities and analyzing and reporting of both individual and organizational racial discrimination patterns. Another idea that Stamper had was to place new police officers or recruits into social service agencies in Black and Latino communities for several weeks without their uniforms so they could better see how the residents looked at situations. In other words, ridealongs with community members. The episode related by Stamper was about 30 years old by the time he wrote his book and the department had changed, because of what came out of that investigation.
Riverside Police Chief Russ Leach told city residents at a community meeting last month at California Baptist University that the department was developing more sensitivity training. He mentioned at the community meeting at California Baptist University last month about orientation meetings that were held when he worked at the Hollywood Station in the Los Angeles Police Department where in one square-mile area, there were over 50 languages spoken by residents. His comments confused some individuals who thought that such training had been developed in the past year.
The Alvord School District has voted to cut teaching jobs after all. The San Jacinto Unified School District might join in as well in cutting positions. With all the turmoil Colton's been facing lately, it's been spared in one area. The Colton Joint Unified School District won't be making similar budget cuts.
All this is coming courtesy of the $15 million deficit with the state's budget as well as the current governor's apparent belief that the educational budget is one of the first things to put on the chopping block.
There's going to be an election this year for Riverside County's board of supervisors with District One incumbent Bob Buster facing off with current city councilman, Frank Schiavone. But there are multiple elections taking place with the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors.
An interesting look at the law enforcement Crisis Intervention Team model from a Riverside Web site on Mental Health.
The police chief in West Covina, California said that a visit by two police officers to the home of a councilman was not politically motivated.
(excerpt, Pasadena Star)
An investigation by the Los Angeles County sheriff's internal affairs bureau determined that the allegations by Councilman Roger Hernandez had no merit, West Covina police Chief Frank Wills said. The chief also said he couldn't legally release the report.
Hernandez said in a prepared statement that he was happy that the matter has been put to rest.
"While I am grateful the sheriff's investigators took the time to look into this matter, I am dismayed by the findings," he wrote. "Two officers did act inappropriately when they were in my home. I knew at the time nothing had
Councilman Roger Hernandez.
(Courtesy) occurred at my house and the police report proves those findings, so it was my feeling their behavior was politically motivated."
Wills said the allegations were unfounded.
"No foundation was established to support the accusations," Wills said, "so it's over."
Arizona's law enforcement agencies need to take greater steps to stop racial profiling. So said a civil rights panel according to the Arizona Republic.
(excerpt)
Racial profiling is obviously a problem," said Jason Zapata Martinez,
chairman of the Arizona Civil Rights Advisory Board, following a forum
held at Phoenix College. More than 50 people attended.
"I know police and (the Arizona Department of Public Safety) have a
difficult job . . . but we all are citizens with civil rights," Zapata
Martinez said. Zapata Martinez, a professor at Estrella Mountain
Community College, said he was also speaking from personal experience.
He said he was recently stopped by Phoenix police for speeding, but he
believes racial profiling led to the stop.
The forum was held in response to growing concern that racial
profiling is increasing in Arizona, in part because police under
public pressure have become more involved in enforcing federal
immigration laws.
Much of the forum also focused on a recent statewide study that found
that African-American and Latino motorists were more than twice as
likely to be searched by DPS officers during traffic stops, even
though they are less likely to be found carrying contraband than Whites.
A Detroit Police Department officer was arrested after discharging his gun during a domestic dispute. Not much information about the altercation has been released.
(excerpt)
"We did arrest an individual, a male involved in a domestic relationship at a house here in Canton and a firearm was discharged," Pomorski said.
Austin's police department released a report that the number of its traffic stops have dropped yet the number of people searched as remained the same according to the American Statesman.
(excerpt)
Officers conducted 211 "consent searches" during traffic stops in 2007, compared with 205 in 2006. However, the overall number of traffic stops decreased by nearly 19,000.
Police also performed 162 consent searches last year during pedestrian stops, compared with 121 in 2006; the number of pedestrian stops decreased by 2,123 last year.
According to the report, officers also searched more blacks than whites and Hispanics, but only by a slim margin.
"We monitor our stops very carefully," Assistant Police Chief Al Eells said. "We have put mechanisms in place to make sure our officers are doing the right things for the right reasons."
The earlier testimony of Lt. Gary Napoli in the trial of the three New York City Police Department officers charged in connection with the fatal shooting of Sean Bell took some more hits, according to the New York Daily News.
(excerpt)
Napoli has said he was reaching under the dashboard of his unmarked Toyota for a portable police light when the undercover detectives opened fire on Bell's car, but the NYPD crime scene investigator who inspected Napoli's car said Thursday he found no such light inside or outside the car.
"Did you observe any bubble light in this particular vehicle?" Queens prosecutor Peter Reese said.
"I did not," Detective David Rivera answered.
"Is there any bubble light indicated on this particular vehicle?"
"No," Rivera said.
That answer prompted one man in the spectator's gallery to mutter "coward" under his breath - an apparent reference to Napoli, who has taken flak for ducking when the shooting started.
Bullets, bullets everywhere was the picture painted during the testimony of Crime Scene Det. David Rivera, according to New York Daily News Columnist Juan Gonzalez.
(excerpt)
Even more chilling were the bullets and holes that former crime scene Detective David Rivera found at a considerable distance from Bell's car.
Rivera discovered one bullet in a lampshade in the first-floor living room of 94-08 Liverpool St. - a single family home about 30 feet from Bell's car. The bullet pierced a window on the front porch, hit a lampshade near the window, got caught in the shade's fabric, then circled around to the other side of the shade, where it came to rest - bulging through the cloth material.
"Someone will have to explain how that happened," said Rivera, who retired in November, shaking his head. "I don't know how."
Then there were the bullets that struck a Mitsubishi Galant parked in front of 94-08. Not only were there holes on the street side of the car, one bullet shattered a rear side window, exited through the front of the car and went down Liverpool St. The bullet trajectory Rivera showed suggested those shots had been fired down the block.
We know from police reports that a wounded Trent Benefield was captured on that side of the street down the block after he ran from Bell's car.
Rivera also testified about Benefield's clothes, which he recovered near the corner of 95th Ave. Rivera testified he found three bullet holes in the back legs of the jeans and two holes in the front.
Another bullet pierced the back driver's-side window of a maroon Mercury SUV that wasn't even on Liverpool St.
The bullet lodged in the cargo door of the Mercury while it was parked on the southwestern corner of 95th Ave. - nearly a block from the confrontation.
Rivera never mentioned any bullets found on the elevated AirTrain station on the other side of 94th Ave. But the Daily News obtained copies of a surveillance video that show the windows shattering and passengers and two Port Authority cops scampering in shock.
The two fatal shots that hit Bell were believed to have been among the 31 shots fired from Det. Michael Oliver's gun.
(excerpt, New York Times)
“I asked him if he fired, and he said yes,” he testified in State Supreme Court in Queens on Wednesday. “He handed me the firearm and two magazines. They were both empty.” In previous testimony, a lieutenant said that Detective Oliver had said he did not remember whether he had fired.
The testimony came on a day that police officers took the witness stand to describe their jobs in the hours after the shooting: securing the scene with yellow tape and evidence markers and searching for evidence. The day added none of the harrowing eyewitness testimony that Mrs. Bell and others have heard, from Mr. Bell’s friends and from police officers who were at or near the scene of the shooting.
But the exhibits themselves were striking. The evidence submitted thus far has mostly been stacks of diagrams and photographs. The guns made solid thumps when placed on an evidence table on Wednesday.
Another trial ended in Los Angeles County with a verdict. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department will have to pay a man $1.3 million in connection with a controversial incident captured by a video camera in Compton in 2005.
Winston Hayes was driving a vehicle which was pursued by sheriff deputies into Compton where they fired at it over 120 times, hitting him nine times.
(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)
"Justice was done," Hayes said after the verdict, his left eye drooping from injuries he received as a result of his encounter with deputies.
During a four-week trial, Hayes showed jurors nine bullet wounds he suffered when deputies fired 120 shots at him at the end of a low-speed pursuit on May 9, 2005.
A total of 66 bullets struck Hayes' sport utility vehicle. Eleven bullets struck the deputies' own patrol cars, and another 11 pelted nearby residences.
In the end, only Hayes and a deputy were hit. The deputy was wearing a bulletproof vest and was not seriously injured.
"We do hope this verdict acts as a catalyst for building relationships between the Sheriff's Department and the community it serves," said Hayes' attorney, Brian Dunn, whose client had turned down the county's offer of $500,000 to settle the case. County lawyers declined to comment.
Stacey Peterson, the missing wife of former Bolingbrook Police Department Sgt. Drew Peterson sought advice from a divorce lawyer before her disappearance.
(excerpt, Fox News)
Harry Smith, a divorce attorney, told FOX News that Stacy contacted him twice the week before she disappeared.
"I did not put any specific significance on her mental demeanor when I spoke to her," Smith said. "I don't remember her being overly emotional or anxious or any of those things."
Smith was also the divorce attorney for Drew Peterson's third ex-wife, Kathleen Savio.
Savio was found dead in her own bathtub in 2004, after divorcing Peterson. After her body was exhumed and reexamined, her death was determined not to be accidental but a homicide.
Peterson maintains his innocence in the homicide of this third wife and the disappearance of his fourth.
Visitors this week included the following:
City of Riverside
County of Riverside
State of California Treasurer's Office
United States Department of Justice
Center for Disease Control
University of California, Riverside
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Santa Cruz
Muscat Lt. (Oman)
State of Missouri Office of Administration
Stratis Corp.
Northwestern University
Tharaldson
Merkez Yayin Holding A.S. (Turkey)
State University of New York at Buffalo
Wayne State University
Brown Trout Publishers
Los Nettos
Los Angeles County Employmee Association
Serve terms include the following.
SEIU
police chase court case
Michael Sung Cho killed
brief real property eminent domain cases
Missouri criminal record expungment act 2006
Human Resources Board
Bill Lockyer
Is San Bernardino Police Department Chief Michael Billdt moving too slowly in developing cultural sensitivity training?
The community members have said that he is when it comes to training for his officers to treat the city's Black and Latino residents better. How tall an order is that in San Bernardino?
(excerpt, Press Enterprise)
Activists said they appreciate the officers' overtures. But they worry that a departmental culture that appears to condone arrogance and brutality could persist.
Linda Heart, who helped organize the community forum in January where Chief Mike Billdt promised the increased training, called the Museum of Tolerance visits inadequate.
"Because of the long history we've had here in San Bernardino, I think we're going to need a more intense intervention than going on a field trip," she said.
Heart also said it would have been better to bring in instructors free of ties to the department to teach anti-profiling classes.
Other activists said police-community relations need improvement citywide.
Central San Bernardino resident Sherry Darling said complaints from Westside residents about slow police responses echo her own frustration.
"A lot of times when you call in, they almost come out and say, 'Why are you bothering us?'" she said. "Most of us are on their side. Most of us would like to see the lawbreakers caught. And they act as if we don't."
The San Bernardino Police Officers Association has taken steps to build community relationships through its police activities program for young people which were good steps.
However, the hiring of Save Our State founder, Joe Turner as a consultant for "outreach" has done the opposite. It's shown that the union's leadership would rather not go to the communities' leadership for advice on how to do outreach in those communities but instead has gone to a guy who hangs out with individuals waving both Confederate and Nazi flags.
Why did the union's leadership do this? Its president, Sgt. Rich Lawhead explained in a letter to the association in its newsletter.
(excerpt, Lawhead's letter to union)
However, words without action are hollow. To that end, we have hired Joseph Turner to be our consultant.I have heard several comments as to why we even need a consultant. While again, it is something new that I wanted to try in an effort to manipulate the political maze. The Association has always been at a disadvantage when it comes to politics, why? Well its because only a select few of us and I do mean “few”of us wants to be involved in the political arena.
For one reason its all phony. No one seems to keep his or her promises, or at least that seems to be the history. I am desperately trying to change our position and I ask for your indulgence.
The Pink Flamingo blogged about it here and was unhappy about this action.
(excerpt)
"...Anti-immigration activist Joe Turner may be one of the best things to happen to the Southern California white power community in years — a man whose group is seen as a "Trojan horse" allowing radical infiltration of mainstream politics. Turner, a Ventura, Calif., man who founded the immigrant-bashing Save Our State organization in late 2004, insists that he's no racist, even though his self-described "aggressive activism" includes claims that undocumented Mexican workers are turning California into "a third world cesspool" and his Web site vilifies a variety of prominent Hispanic officials in a "Racialist Hall of Fame." But neo-Nazis have found in Turner a tolerant master of ceremonies. In rally after rally this year, Turner and other SOS officials have failed to turn away racist Skinheads and like minded white supremacists who have joined their protests.
Swastikas and sieg heils aren't usually welcome on the streets of Southern California, but Turner's followers, including SOS spokesman Don Silva, have been photographed standing alongside Skinheads clad in high black boots with red laces. Most recently, swastika pennants and Confederate battle flags were hoisted alongside Turner's own picket signs during a July 30 protest outside a day laborer center in Laguna Beach. One group in the crowd sieg-heiled repeatedly.
Turner has told members of his Web site's forum that he opposes white supremacists joining his protests, and he wrote to the Intelligence Report "there seems to be very little we can do to keep them from piggybacking off our activism. ... [W]e are unable to really do anything about it. He has also banned a few white supremacists from his forum. But many others have posted racist attacks on Hispanics – attacks that are left on his Web site as long as they don't directly advocate violence SOS forum member "Chris 2005," for instance, offered this up on July 25: "Mexicans are like pigs. They are by far the filthiest f-ing animals. I have also felt like I needed to get into a hot bathtub of water and soap and just soak until the filth comes off me after being near any of them. I hate them, I hate them, I hate them!"
Nine days later, the statement was still there.
So this is the kind of guy that Lawhead and his board of officers who voted overwhelmingly to hire Turner want to hang out and receive advice on how to interface with communities in San Bernardino which are Black and Latino? Okay, maybe if the union needed advice on how to hang out with neonazis and other White Supremacists, this type of consulting might be more helpful. At any rate, that's the message that this action taken by this police union's leadership is sending to the communities it serves.
It's interesting to think about these issues after having read Breaking Rank by former police chief and officer Norm Stamper. In his book, he discusses meetings he had with officers of different ranks while he was working with San Diego Police Department. At one point, he had spoken with 31 officers and 30 of them had admitted using a wide assortment of racial slurs for Black and Latino individuals.
At one point, one of the officers said while being interviewed.
(excerpt)
"Why are you doing this? You know nothing's going to change. It's always been like this. Everybody uses racial slurs. Everybody does this kind of shit. And we're not about to change."
About 90% of the officers used slurs and they did it to "defuse tension" or because they were really upset, according to the officers interviewed. Whether it was an arrest for what was called a "BBN" or later on, "DWB".
One Black officer with tears running down his face told Stamper he used racial slurs including "n----r" to get along.
(excerpt)
"All the time, really. It's kind of a defense. I know the White officers were testing me. Some of them won't say "n----r" or any of those other terms to my face. But, I hear them anyway. Two bays over in the locker room, or out in the field when they're rousting some guy. Then they see me and get all embarrassed. So, I'll throw out a term or two myself, try to make them feel okay."
The department that Stamper worked for had gotten a new chief who was interested in finding out what was going on but once it emerged what these officers were saying, the investigation was sealed until parts of it leaked out through the local media.
But the department had made some progress from its former chief who according to Stamper's book had this to say when he was asked if he was running for mayor.
(excerpt)
"Can't do it. I don't like the n----rs and the Mexicans don't like me."
Stamper's ideas for addressing the situation included modifying the recruitment, testing and screening of new officers for racial and gender biases, introducing new curriculum at the academy level, a "beat tenure" program for examining the fitness of officers to serve in different ethnic and racial communities and analyzing and reporting of both individual and organizational racial discrimination patterns. Another idea that Stamper had was to place new police officers or recruits into social service agencies in Black and Latino communities for several weeks without their uniforms so they could better see how the residents looked at situations. In other words, ridealongs with community members. The episode related by Stamper was about 30 years old by the time he wrote his book and the department had changed, because of what came out of that investigation.
Riverside Police Chief Russ Leach told city residents at a community meeting last month at California Baptist University that the department was developing more sensitivity training. He mentioned at the community meeting at California Baptist University last month about orientation meetings that were held when he worked at the Hollywood Station in the Los Angeles Police Department where in one square-mile area, there were over 50 languages spoken by residents. His comments confused some individuals who thought that such training had been developed in the past year.
The Alvord School District has voted to cut teaching jobs after all. The San Jacinto Unified School District might join in as well in cutting positions. With all the turmoil Colton's been facing lately, it's been spared in one area. The Colton Joint Unified School District won't be making similar budget cuts.
All this is coming courtesy of the $15 million deficit with the state's budget as well as the current governor's apparent belief that the educational budget is one of the first things to put on the chopping block.
There's going to be an election this year for Riverside County's board of supervisors with District One incumbent Bob Buster facing off with current city councilman, Frank Schiavone. But there are multiple elections taking place with the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors.
An interesting look at the law enforcement Crisis Intervention Team model from a Riverside Web site on Mental Health.
The police chief in West Covina, California said that a visit by two police officers to the home of a councilman was not politically motivated.
(excerpt, Pasadena Star)
An investigation by the Los Angeles County sheriff's internal affairs bureau determined that the allegations by Councilman Roger Hernandez had no merit, West Covina police Chief Frank Wills said. The chief also said he couldn't legally release the report.
Hernandez said in a prepared statement that he was happy that the matter has been put to rest.
"While I am grateful the sheriff's investigators took the time to look into this matter, I am dismayed by the findings," he wrote. "Two officers did act inappropriately when they were in my home. I knew at the time nothing had
Councilman Roger Hernandez.
(Courtesy) occurred at my house and the police report proves those findings, so it was my feeling their behavior was politically motivated."
Wills said the allegations were unfounded.
"No foundation was established to support the accusations," Wills said, "so it's over."
Arizona's law enforcement agencies need to take greater steps to stop racial profiling. So said a civil rights panel according to the Arizona Republic.
(excerpt)
Racial profiling is obviously a problem," said Jason Zapata Martinez,
chairman of the Arizona Civil Rights Advisory Board, following a forum
held at Phoenix College. More than 50 people attended.
"I know police and (the Arizona Department of Public Safety) have a
difficult job . . . but we all are citizens with civil rights," Zapata
Martinez said. Zapata Martinez, a professor at Estrella Mountain
Community College, said he was also speaking from personal experience.
He said he was recently stopped by Phoenix police for speeding, but he
believes racial profiling led to the stop.
The forum was held in response to growing concern that racial
profiling is increasing in Arizona, in part because police under
public pressure have become more involved in enforcing federal
immigration laws.
Much of the forum also focused on a recent statewide study that found
that African-American and Latino motorists were more than twice as
likely to be searched by DPS officers during traffic stops, even
though they are less likely to be found carrying contraband than Whites.
A Detroit Police Department officer was arrested after discharging his gun during a domestic dispute. Not much information about the altercation has been released.
(excerpt)
"We did arrest an individual, a male involved in a domestic relationship at a house here in Canton and a firearm was discharged," Pomorski said.
Austin's police department released a report that the number of its traffic stops have dropped yet the number of people searched as remained the same according to the American Statesman.
(excerpt)
Officers conducted 211 "consent searches" during traffic stops in 2007, compared with 205 in 2006. However, the overall number of traffic stops decreased by nearly 19,000.
Police also performed 162 consent searches last year during pedestrian stops, compared with 121 in 2006; the number of pedestrian stops decreased by 2,123 last year.
According to the report, officers also searched more blacks than whites and Hispanics, but only by a slim margin.
"We monitor our stops very carefully," Assistant Police Chief Al Eells said. "We have put mechanisms in place to make sure our officers are doing the right things for the right reasons."
The earlier testimony of Lt. Gary Napoli in the trial of the three New York City Police Department officers charged in connection with the fatal shooting of Sean Bell took some more hits, according to the New York Daily News.
(excerpt)
Napoli has said he was reaching under the dashboard of his unmarked Toyota for a portable police light when the undercover detectives opened fire on Bell's car, but the NYPD crime scene investigator who inspected Napoli's car said Thursday he found no such light inside or outside the car.
"Did you observe any bubble light in this particular vehicle?" Queens prosecutor Peter Reese said.
"I did not," Detective David Rivera answered.
"Is there any bubble light indicated on this particular vehicle?"
"No," Rivera said.
That answer prompted one man in the spectator's gallery to mutter "coward" under his breath - an apparent reference to Napoli, who has taken flak for ducking when the shooting started.
Bullets, bullets everywhere was the picture painted during the testimony of Crime Scene Det. David Rivera, according to New York Daily News Columnist Juan Gonzalez.
(excerpt)
Even more chilling were the bullets and holes that former crime scene Detective David Rivera found at a considerable distance from Bell's car.
Rivera discovered one bullet in a lampshade in the first-floor living room of 94-08 Liverpool St. - a single family home about 30 feet from Bell's car. The bullet pierced a window on the front porch, hit a lampshade near the window, got caught in the shade's fabric, then circled around to the other side of the shade, where it came to rest - bulging through the cloth material.
"Someone will have to explain how that happened," said Rivera, who retired in November, shaking his head. "I don't know how."
Then there were the bullets that struck a Mitsubishi Galant parked in front of 94-08. Not only were there holes on the street side of the car, one bullet shattered a rear side window, exited through the front of the car and went down Liverpool St. The bullet trajectory Rivera showed suggested those shots had been fired down the block.
We know from police reports that a wounded Trent Benefield was captured on that side of the street down the block after he ran from Bell's car.
Rivera also testified about Benefield's clothes, which he recovered near the corner of 95th Ave. Rivera testified he found three bullet holes in the back legs of the jeans and two holes in the front.
Another bullet pierced the back driver's-side window of a maroon Mercury SUV that wasn't even on Liverpool St.
The bullet lodged in the cargo door of the Mercury while it was parked on the southwestern corner of 95th Ave. - nearly a block from the confrontation.
Rivera never mentioned any bullets found on the elevated AirTrain station on the other side of 94th Ave. But the Daily News obtained copies of a surveillance video that show the windows shattering and passengers and two Port Authority cops scampering in shock.
The two fatal shots that hit Bell were believed to have been among the 31 shots fired from Det. Michael Oliver's gun.
(excerpt, New York Times)
“I asked him if he fired, and he said yes,” he testified in State Supreme Court in Queens on Wednesday. “He handed me the firearm and two magazines. They were both empty.” In previous testimony, a lieutenant said that Detective Oliver had said he did not remember whether he had fired.
The testimony came on a day that police officers took the witness stand to describe their jobs in the hours after the shooting: securing the scene with yellow tape and evidence markers and searching for evidence. The day added none of the harrowing eyewitness testimony that Mrs. Bell and others have heard, from Mr. Bell’s friends and from police officers who were at or near the scene of the shooting.
But the exhibits themselves were striking. The evidence submitted thus far has mostly been stacks of diagrams and photographs. The guns made solid thumps when placed on an evidence table on Wednesday.
Another trial ended in Los Angeles County with a verdict. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department will have to pay a man $1.3 million in connection with a controversial incident captured by a video camera in Compton in 2005.
Winston Hayes was driving a vehicle which was pursued by sheriff deputies into Compton where they fired at it over 120 times, hitting him nine times.
(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)
"Justice was done," Hayes said after the verdict, his left eye drooping from injuries he received as a result of his encounter with deputies.
During a four-week trial, Hayes showed jurors nine bullet wounds he suffered when deputies fired 120 shots at him at the end of a low-speed pursuit on May 9, 2005.
A total of 66 bullets struck Hayes' sport utility vehicle. Eleven bullets struck the deputies' own patrol cars, and another 11 pelted nearby residences.
In the end, only Hayes and a deputy were hit. The deputy was wearing a bulletproof vest and was not seriously injured.
"We do hope this verdict acts as a catalyst for building relationships between the Sheriff's Department and the community it serves," said Hayes' attorney, Brian Dunn, whose client had turned down the county's offer of $500,000 to settle the case. County lawyers declined to comment.
Stacey Peterson, the missing wife of former Bolingbrook Police Department Sgt. Drew Peterson sought advice from a divorce lawyer before her disappearance.
(excerpt, Fox News)
Harry Smith, a divorce attorney, told FOX News that Stacy contacted him twice the week before she disappeared.
"I did not put any specific significance on her mental demeanor when I spoke to her," Smith said. "I don't remember her being overly emotional or anxious or any of those things."
Smith was also the divorce attorney for Drew Peterson's third ex-wife, Kathleen Savio.
Savio was found dead in her own bathtub in 2004, after divorcing Peterson. After her body was exhumed and reexamined, her death was determined not to be accidental but a homicide.
Peterson maintains his innocence in the homicide of this third wife and the disappearance of his fourth.
Visitors this week included the following:
City of Riverside
County of Riverside
State of California Treasurer's Office
United States Department of Justice
Center for Disease Control
University of California, Riverside
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Santa Cruz
Muscat Lt. (Oman)
State of Missouri Office of Administration
Stratis Corp.
Northwestern University
Tharaldson
Merkez Yayin Holding A.S. (Turkey)
State University of New York at Buffalo
Wayne State University
Brown Trout Publishers
Los Nettos
Los Angeles County Employmee Association
Serve terms include the following.
SEIU
police chase court case
Michael Sung Cho killed
brief real property eminent domain cases
Missouri criminal record expungment act 2006
Human Resources Board
Bill Lockyer
Labels: battering while blue, officer-involved shootings, public forums in all places, Video police review
posted by Five Before Midnight | 12:43 PM
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