June Gloom coming early this year?
Another day, another Riverside County Sheriff's Department deputy arrested for sexual misconduct on the job. He joins about half a dozen other employees either out in the field or in corrections who have faced similar charges in the past several years. The latest incident took place out in Temecula.
(excerpt, Press Enterprise)
Sheriff's Lt. John Schultz said the deputy called the woman after he finished his shift Sunday, saying he needed to come back to make sure everything was OK. Schafers returned to the woman's home about 4:30 a.m. and proceeded to touch her breast and place her hand on his body, Schultz said.
"She said she was tired and he needed to leave," Schultz said, and the deputy complied.
The woman later told her boyfriend what had happened and he took her to the sheriff's station Monday to file a complaint, Schultz said.
Investigations have been launched into the complaints and the deputy was arrested.
The Press Enterprise Editorial Board is signing onto the city's vision of the Marcy Library which sits in a corner of the Riverside Plaza complex.
Hemet's taking its complaints about the now legendary county court backlogs to the top of the state government, according to the Press Enterprise.
(excerpt)
At the request of Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco, the Hemet council approved the resolution, similar versions of which have already been approved or are being considered by other Inland cities.
Councilman Eric McBride said hiring additional judges would help unclog the court system and get cases that have been mired in delays moving along.
"There's a huge backlog in criminal cases," said McBride, who said that since court priority is given to criminal cases, civil cases often get delayed indefinitely. "The civil cases need to be resolved, too."
Rachel Cameron, Schwarzenegger's spokeswoman, said her office has not yet received the resolution, but plans to "review it in good faith" once it is received.
"The governor understands the pressure of increased caseloads," she said. She said the governor has authorized the hiring of more judges, many of whose appointments have already started, but the 50 positions that were planned for the next fiscal year would likely be delayed until 2009-10 because of the tight state budget. She said it's up to a judicial council to decide where the judges would be sent.
A shelter in Riverside's getting $25,000 in contributions thanks to former talk show host, Jenny Jones.
The University of California, Riverside faced further roadblocks to getting a law school of its own.
Renowned attorney and current chancellor of a new law school at University of California, Irvine, Erwin Chemerinsky, mingled with local politicians and other movers and shakers at the Mission Inn yesterday, but alas probably to little avail.
Members of the Los Angeles Police Commission are speechless and who can blame them? Every single complaint of racial profiling against a Los Angeles Police Department officer was determined to be unfounded.
(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)
It is at least the sixth consecutive year that all allegations of racial profiling against LAPD officers have been dismissed, according to department documents reviewed by The Times.
In 2007, the LAPD's Internal Affairs Group closed 320 investigations into allegations that officers stopped, questioned or otherwise confronted someone solely because of the person's race. Nearly 80% of the time -- 252 of the cases -- the claims were dismissed outright as "unfounded," according to an annual complaint report presented Tuesday to the civilian Police Commission. In the remaining cases, there was either insufficient evidence to reach a conclusion or no misconduct was uncovered.
"A big, fat zero," said a visibly flummoxed Commissioner John Mack, who is African American and the former president of the Los Angeles Urban League. "In my mind, there is no such thing as a perfect institution . . . I find it baffling that we have these zeros."
His disbelief, echoed by other commissioners, drew a quick response from Police Chief William J. Bratton. Unsolicited, he told the commission he would have his staff conduct a survey of other large, urban police departments, as well as the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, to back up his belief that the findings in the LAPD are similar elsewhere.
He can start in Riverside, California where the statistics released by the Community Police Review Commission regarding complaints of racial profiling are similar and there's been three or four reports (and another one on the way after a two year delay) stating there's no racial profiling.
What's interesting is when you read further in the article, is that the only way they can prove an allegation of racial profiling involving an LAPD officer is through a confession by that officer. Adding that explanation to the equation definitely clears up any ambiguities that might exist.
Current Chief William Bratton went further to claim that the LAPD wasn't racist nor homophobic but noticeably didn't seem to want to go there with sexist. Which is interesting because at least one of his Black officers believed the opposite, saying that no matter what anyone tells you (presumably including the chief), the LAPD is a racist organization.
Not to mention that investigations of how the LAPD conducts its investigations of citizen complaints haven't yielded very flattering results from the different outside entities who've focused their attention on the LAPD, which in June will enter into the eighth year of its five-year consent decree with the Department of Justice.
The Office of Municipal Investigations in New Orleans may not have much of a future.
(excerpt, Corruption Watch)
OMI's name rarely is mentioned in government circles these days. One city council member wasn't sure of the office's duties, and few in the community have heard of the office.
Adding to OMI's shrinking significance is the introduction last summer of a more powerful, better-funded Office of the Inspector General. That office, which now is an official law enforcement agency, can investigate any entity in city government with as many as 23 people on its staff and received a sweeping approval from city council last fall for a $2.3 million 2008 budget.
Meanwhile, OMI has several restrictions on who it can investigate. Its city charter exempts from its jurisdiction the mayor, city council members and their appointees, and parochial officers, including the coroner, clerk of court, civil and criminal sheriff and judges. OMI has a staff of four, according to 2008 budget documents submitted to the city council. The office received $266,483 in funding this year, a 100 percent jump from its 2007 budget of $108,000, but a number that pales in comparison to the IG's.
Some moves already are being made to determine OMI's place in the government and if it will be around in the future. City Councilmember Shelley Midura, for instance, is looking at the possibility of consolidating OMI's functions into the IG's office.
"I think the work [OMI] performs can be carried out within the office of the IG, if that can happen," Midura told NOLA.com. "I would assume that for a while, [OMI and IG] will both be in existence and eventually one will become totally obsolete, which in my opinion is OMI."
In South Carolina, several state troopers are under investigation.
The State newspaper had obtained recordings taken from digital video recorders on its vehicles and found that there were incidents of justified conduct. But they found something else as well.
(excerpt)
But the newspaper’s review of the material — all of which has been turned over to a special Senate panel investigating the Highway Patrol — also found that:
• Troopers’ discipline ranged from letters of reprimand to firing in eight cases caught on videos, and exoneration in seven others. In three incidents caught on video, outcomes were unknown or pending.
• Questions were raised in separate, unrelated cases not captured on tape, about the actions of two state lawmakers.
• Three troopers were arrested on misconduct charges — one was charged with kicking a handcuffed teenager after a high-speed chase, and two others were accused of stealing money from mainly Hispanic motorists.
The trooper charged with assaulting the teenager told The State on Friday that he was suffering from stress stemming from an earlier shooting in which he had been cleared.
• In three cases, troopers were disciplined for altering tapes or deliberately not recording their misdeeds.
“We had no idea it was this much out of control,” said Rep. Leon Howard, D-Richland, chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus. “This thing is much wider and broader than what we had anticipated.”
What's surprising is that the agency even examines what is captured by its video recorders. What usually happens is that police departments tape hours and hours of audio and/or video recordings which depict interactions between their employees and the public. The Riverside Police Department stores its recordings for a period of time, according to a department representative who gave a presentation to the Community Police Review Commission on the department's usage of audio and video technology as tools of accountability. However, according to this representative, the audio tapes are never listened to unless a complaint is filed in relation to them.
The department's policy governing the use of audio recorders is that all professional contacts initiated by the officer are to be recorded. Initially, there were issues with compliance to the point that the city manager's office had to initiate tougher enforcement beginning in August 2003. But apparently, according to this representative there are never any audits done to see exactly what is being recorded.
The presiding judge in the jury trial of the three New York Police Department officers charged in relation to the fatal onduty shooting of Sean Bell voiced outrage at the media outlets which descended on his neighborhood.
(excerpt, New York Daily News)
"I resented the fact that people came to my home on the weekend, bothering my neighbors; I'm really very upset about that," an irate Cooperman said by phone from his chambers in the Kew Gardens courthouse.
"I haven't accused anyone falsely; I did not spend $4,000 on prostitutes," Cooperman added, in an apparent reference to the media blitz that surrounded disgraced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer. "That's not journalism."
House Representative and Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee John Coyers promised a thorough federal investigation of the shooting.
(excerpt, CNN)
"We are going to be putting together the federal strategy," said Rep. John Conyers, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a Michigan Democrat. "This is important."
"We want to make sure that justice is served and that a message is sent out, not just to law enforcement but to the young people of this country, that these kinds of tragedies have to end in this country," he said.
An interesting article on strategies to use for law enforcement officers who serve in the military and then come back, which has become very relevant to law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
(excerpt, Press Enterprise)
Sheriff's Lt. John Schultz said the deputy called the woman after he finished his shift Sunday, saying he needed to come back to make sure everything was OK. Schafers returned to the woman's home about 4:30 a.m. and proceeded to touch her breast and place her hand on his body, Schultz said.
"She said she was tired and he needed to leave," Schultz said, and the deputy complied.
The woman later told her boyfriend what had happened and he took her to the sheriff's station Monday to file a complaint, Schultz said.
Investigations have been launched into the complaints and the deputy was arrested.
The Press Enterprise Editorial Board is signing onto the city's vision of the Marcy Library which sits in a corner of the Riverside Plaza complex.
Hemet's taking its complaints about the now legendary county court backlogs to the top of the state government, according to the Press Enterprise.
(excerpt)
At the request of Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco, the Hemet council approved the resolution, similar versions of which have already been approved or are being considered by other Inland cities.
Councilman Eric McBride said hiring additional judges would help unclog the court system and get cases that have been mired in delays moving along.
"There's a huge backlog in criminal cases," said McBride, who said that since court priority is given to criminal cases, civil cases often get delayed indefinitely. "The civil cases need to be resolved, too."
Rachel Cameron, Schwarzenegger's spokeswoman, said her office has not yet received the resolution, but plans to "review it in good faith" once it is received.
"The governor understands the pressure of increased caseloads," she said. She said the governor has authorized the hiring of more judges, many of whose appointments have already started, but the 50 positions that were planned for the next fiscal year would likely be delayed until 2009-10 because of the tight state budget. She said it's up to a judicial council to decide where the judges would be sent.
A shelter in Riverside's getting $25,000 in contributions thanks to former talk show host, Jenny Jones.
The University of California, Riverside faced further roadblocks to getting a law school of its own.
Renowned attorney and current chancellor of a new law school at University of California, Irvine, Erwin Chemerinsky, mingled with local politicians and other movers and shakers at the Mission Inn yesterday, but alas probably to little avail.
Members of the Los Angeles Police Commission are speechless and who can blame them? Every single complaint of racial profiling against a Los Angeles Police Department officer was determined to be unfounded.
(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)
It is at least the sixth consecutive year that all allegations of racial profiling against LAPD officers have been dismissed, according to department documents reviewed by The Times.
In 2007, the LAPD's Internal Affairs Group closed 320 investigations into allegations that officers stopped, questioned or otherwise confronted someone solely because of the person's race. Nearly 80% of the time -- 252 of the cases -- the claims were dismissed outright as "unfounded," according to an annual complaint report presented Tuesday to the civilian Police Commission. In the remaining cases, there was either insufficient evidence to reach a conclusion or no misconduct was uncovered.
"A big, fat zero," said a visibly flummoxed Commissioner John Mack, who is African American and the former president of the Los Angeles Urban League. "In my mind, there is no such thing as a perfect institution . . . I find it baffling that we have these zeros."
His disbelief, echoed by other commissioners, drew a quick response from Police Chief William J. Bratton. Unsolicited, he told the commission he would have his staff conduct a survey of other large, urban police departments, as well as the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, to back up his belief that the findings in the LAPD are similar elsewhere.
He can start in Riverside, California where the statistics released by the Community Police Review Commission regarding complaints of racial profiling are similar and there's been three or four reports (and another one on the way after a two year delay) stating there's no racial profiling.
What's interesting is when you read further in the article, is that the only way they can prove an allegation of racial profiling involving an LAPD officer is through a confession by that officer. Adding that explanation to the equation definitely clears up any ambiguities that might exist.
Current Chief William Bratton went further to claim that the LAPD wasn't racist nor homophobic but noticeably didn't seem to want to go there with sexist. Which is interesting because at least one of his Black officers believed the opposite, saying that no matter what anyone tells you (presumably including the chief), the LAPD is a racist organization.
Not to mention that investigations of how the LAPD conducts its investigations of citizen complaints haven't yielded very flattering results from the different outside entities who've focused their attention on the LAPD, which in June will enter into the eighth year of its five-year consent decree with the Department of Justice.
The Office of Municipal Investigations in New Orleans may not have much of a future.
(excerpt, Corruption Watch)
OMI's name rarely is mentioned in government circles these days. One city council member wasn't sure of the office's duties, and few in the community have heard of the office.
Adding to OMI's shrinking significance is the introduction last summer of a more powerful, better-funded Office of the Inspector General. That office, which now is an official law enforcement agency, can investigate any entity in city government with as many as 23 people on its staff and received a sweeping approval from city council last fall for a $2.3 million 2008 budget.
Meanwhile, OMI has several restrictions on who it can investigate. Its city charter exempts from its jurisdiction the mayor, city council members and their appointees, and parochial officers, including the coroner, clerk of court, civil and criminal sheriff and judges. OMI has a staff of four, according to 2008 budget documents submitted to the city council. The office received $266,483 in funding this year, a 100 percent jump from its 2007 budget of $108,000, but a number that pales in comparison to the IG's.
Some moves already are being made to determine OMI's place in the government and if it will be around in the future. City Councilmember Shelley Midura, for instance, is looking at the possibility of consolidating OMI's functions into the IG's office.
"I think the work [OMI] performs can be carried out within the office of the IG, if that can happen," Midura told NOLA.com. "I would assume that for a while, [OMI and IG] will both be in existence and eventually one will become totally obsolete, which in my opinion is OMI."
In South Carolina, several state troopers are under investigation.
The State newspaper had obtained recordings taken from digital video recorders on its vehicles and found that there were incidents of justified conduct. But they found something else as well.
(excerpt)
But the newspaper’s review of the material — all of which has been turned over to a special Senate panel investigating the Highway Patrol — also found that:
• Troopers’ discipline ranged from letters of reprimand to firing in eight cases caught on videos, and exoneration in seven others. In three incidents caught on video, outcomes were unknown or pending.
• Questions were raised in separate, unrelated cases not captured on tape, about the actions of two state lawmakers.
• Three troopers were arrested on misconduct charges — one was charged with kicking a handcuffed teenager after a high-speed chase, and two others were accused of stealing money from mainly Hispanic motorists.
The trooper charged with assaulting the teenager told The State on Friday that he was suffering from stress stemming from an earlier shooting in which he had been cleared.
• In three cases, troopers were disciplined for altering tapes or deliberately not recording their misdeeds.
“We had no idea it was this much out of control,” said Rep. Leon Howard, D-Richland, chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus. “This thing is much wider and broader than what we had anticipated.”
What's surprising is that the agency even examines what is captured by its video recorders. What usually happens is that police departments tape hours and hours of audio and/or video recordings which depict interactions between their employees and the public. The Riverside Police Department stores its recordings for a period of time, according to a department representative who gave a presentation to the Community Police Review Commission on the department's usage of audio and video technology as tools of accountability. However, according to this representative, the audio tapes are never listened to unless a complaint is filed in relation to them.
The department's policy governing the use of audio recorders is that all professional contacts initiated by the officer are to be recorded. Initially, there were issues with compliance to the point that the city manager's office had to initiate tougher enforcement beginning in August 2003. But apparently, according to this representative there are never any audits done to see exactly what is being recorded.
The presiding judge in the jury trial of the three New York Police Department officers charged in relation to the fatal onduty shooting of Sean Bell voiced outrage at the media outlets which descended on his neighborhood.
(excerpt, New York Daily News)
"I resented the fact that people came to my home on the weekend, bothering my neighbors; I'm really very upset about that," an irate Cooperman said by phone from his chambers in the Kew Gardens courthouse.
"I haven't accused anyone falsely; I did not spend $4,000 on prostitutes," Cooperman added, in an apparent reference to the media blitz that surrounded disgraced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer. "That's not journalism."
House Representative and Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee John Coyers promised a thorough federal investigation of the shooting.
(excerpt, CNN)
"We are going to be putting together the federal strategy," said Rep. John Conyers, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a Michigan Democrat. "This is important."
"We want to make sure that justice is served and that a message is sent out, not just to law enforcement but to the young people of this country, that these kinds of tragedies have to end in this country," he said.
An interesting article on strategies to use for law enforcement officers who serve in the military and then come back, which has become very relevant to law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Labels: Backlash against civilian oversight, officer-involved shootings, Video police review
posted by Five Before Midnight | 3:28 PM
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