June Gloom comes early in Riverside in more ways than one
Another week, another city council meeting. More decision making, more entertainment, more angst and drama, but remember it's free until the city residents receive the bill of course although what is sadly missing is a coffee bar and a food court.
What's happening to those who go to city council meetings and providing public comments on civic issues?
It seems that there's at least a couple city council members celebrating the fact that there's fewer people criticizing them at weekly meetings and at least one of them is being a bit boisterous about saying how happy he's about it because it's getting around town. Happy about that and the restrictions placed on public comment back in July 2005 when the city council as it was then voted 6-1 to ban city residents from pulling items from the consent calendar for discussion.
But is the city also censoring coverage of the city council meetings on Charter Communications Governmental Channel? At least one regular attendee at the city council meeting has said she received complaints from individuals watching the meetings on television who said that although she was seen on the screen before and after her comment period, while she was talking, she was bleeped out. Technical difficulties or censorship? It would be nice to know and to be reassured that if this is due to any ahem, technical problems that they be fixed in a prompt fashion, in the interest of public expression and participation.
Not too long ago, the city manager's office made a decision to change the camera angles so that public speakers were shown from behind while speaking at the podium during city council meetings so that viewers couldn't see their faces just their backs. After protest by city residents, the faces of those speaking at the podium were visible again. City officials have publicly accused city residents of not speaking to the city council but the cameras even as it's been clear that they're doing exactly the same thing. Councilmen editorializing after city residents address them and in some cases issuing what appears to be public service announcements.
March Air Base may be opened up for general aviation use, according to the Press Enterprise.
(excerpt)
The March Joint Powers Commission, which oversees civilian operations at the joint-use air base, is expected to consider the tentative agreement May 21.
Air Force Reserve representatives still need to sign off on the proposal.
No word has come from Washington about whether private pilots will get access to the military field, said Maj. Don Traud, spokesman for March Air Reserve Base.
The Federal Aviation Administration disqualified the airport authority from grant funding in 2004 because it does not allow general aviation.
An airport must be open to general aviation aircraft 24 hours a day to qualify for FAA grants. Prior to disqualifying March, however, the FAA awarded $5 million to the airport for improvements such as lighting and expansion of an apron.
Ian Gregor, communications manager for the Western-Pacific Region of the FAA, said officials there are optimistic the proposal to allow general aviation would bring the airport into compliance for funding eligibility.
"However, the agreement has not been signed off as far as I know," Gregor said.
The article mentions the impact that noise pollution from the DHL planes that depart from March Air Base in the wee hours of the morning have had on Riverside neighborhoods including Canyon Crest, Orangecrest and Mission Grove. Whoever has stock in ear plugs just got a bit happier. What it doesn't mention is how expansion of March Air Base and the authorization of this by the March Joint Powers Authority is playing a role in the elections this season.
Used bookstores in the Inland Empire have folded one right after another for a variety of reasons including higher rent and lower readership. Now, one in downtown Riverside is struggling to stay in business.
(excerpt, Press Enterprise)
"The store fell into our laps," Nadia recalls. "We were shaking." Just like that, the owner, whose parents had opened the bookstore in 1979, offered to sell it to the Lees for $10,000.
Nadia was so gung-ho, the divorced mother of two teenaged sons commuted from Tucson four days a week to run the store. She eventually moved to Perris to live with her father, down the street from her sister.
But the Downtown Bookstore in Riverside is Nadia's second home. When the Lees took over, they inherited an inventory of 100,000 that has since exploded to more than 1 million books, magazines, videos, CDs, records, tapes, DVDs and original art and prints crammed in their two stores and four storage units.
They upgraded the Riverside store's wiring, installed three air conditioners and Plexiglas over the skylight for further cooling and painted the concrete floor green. They closed to browsers the basement, from which they had removed dead kittens.
"When people said the store smelled like books, I'd say, 'Thank God,' " Nadia said.
The 1,200-square-foot shop is homey, with shelves arranged to mimic a library's. The children's corner brims with books. "Help yourself," says a sign next to a bowl of grapefruit. A huge portrait of a younger Nadia hangs over the door. It's not for sale.
The only thing missing is customers.
"The big question is whether to close," Nadia said with a sigh.
A question that's being asked by other small businesses in Riverside and not just bookstores. The problems of the bookstore come at the same time that there's been a surge in the labor force of people interested in working with books, as Riverside's City Hall has laid off dozens of part-time library employees in response to the budget crunch. This after claims made by elected officials and those at City Hall that there would be no layoffs, no pink slips just hiring freezes.
The irony of this is that these layoffs come not too long after the city announced that it was going to snatch up some newly available engineers who had been laid off by Riverside County.
The city's still working on its 2008-09 annual budget and there's sure to be even more surprises unveiled in upcoming weeks.
Three names were added to the downtown Riverside law enforcement memorial including one who was killed in 1907 and is being memorialized nearly 100 years later.
A Riverside County Superior Court judge closed his courtroom to the public to hear arguments about the competency of a defense attorney whose client was convicted at a recent murder trial. The Press Enterprise tried to contest the closure as it had prior closures during two cases which went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. Alas, this time it was to no avail.
Merrick Bobb, the special counsel for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department wrote about profiling the police.
This comes in the wake of the controversy surrounding the Los Angeles Police Department's revelation that out of over 300 complaints of racial profiling against it, none were sustained. Chief William Bratton has already said that he's planning to do an investigation of how his department examines and investigates this issue.
(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)
Instead of blanket rules and addressing profiling on a case-by-case basis, the LAPD needs to look at the big picture. The goal must be to snare an officer who, when compared with peers on the same shift in the same neighborhood, stops disproportionately more blacks and Latinos. To catch that officer, it is necessary to look at trends over time. Although an officer plausibly can deny a racial motivation in a single case, it is a tougher job to deny a pattern of disproportionate stops and searches or more citizen complaints than fellow officers.
For that reason, police departments should collect racial profiling data on an officer-by-officer basis, including the time, place and duration of all stops; demographic details on the driver and passengers; and whether the stop ended in a search, arrest and conviction. The police should track the outcomes of each officer's searches to test the percentage that yield contraband and to break them down by race and ethnicity of the people searched. A greater proportion of searches yielding contraband likely indicates greater precision and a higher degree of reasonable suspicion by the officer. A low "hit rate" may be a sign of searches that are indiscriminate fishing expeditions. When those proportions differ by race and ethnicity, it may be an indicator of race-based policing.
The fact that no citizen's complaint of racial profiling was sustained against the LAPD in 2007, while at first blush troubling, does not indicate that the department is blind to the problem or lacks integrity. Rather, it demonstrates that proving it case by case is nearly impossible. A far better way to find racial profiling that surely exists is to look at trends, patterns and comparisons of the track records of similarly situated officers.
The Los Angeles Police Commission is seeking assistance from other boards and commissions on how they investigate or review complaints of racial profiling.
We are requesting your assistance with our research regarding
community allegations of racial profiling, discrimination and racial
bias made against a police agency. We are particularly interested in
those situations where these civilian allegations are reviewed,
investigated and adjudicated by a civilian police review board or
similar entity. We are also interested your process for investigating
such allegations or complaints and your final determinations. If your
organization is structured in such a manner, we are requesting any
statistical data you can provide us. Ideally, the data should
encompass calendar year 2006 and/or 2007. Your assistance in this
matter would be greatly appreciated.
Should you have any questions or require additional details, please
contact the following:
Stephen Thorne, Management Analyst
Policy Section
Board of Police Commissioners
Los Angeles Police Department
150 North Los Angeles Street
Suite 150
Los Angeles, California 90012
(213) 473-6371
(213) 485-8861 (fax)
E8531@lapd.lacity. org
The Denver Police Department is toughening up its disciplinary process, according to the Denver Post.
(excerpt)
After more than three years of pushing and debate, the city of Denver is ready to put in place a get-tough police discipline system that will have swifter and harsher punishment for misconduct
The final arbiter on the proposal, the Denver Civil Service Commission, quietly gave preliminary approval April 18.
The commission is expected to formally sign off on the rule changes today. If that occurs, the rule will go into effect after five days.
Nick Rogers, vice president of the Denver Police Protective Association, said the union is upset with some last-minute tinkering and is contemplating legal action.
"At the eleventh hour, they changed it back to what the manager of safety was asking for, which was disheartening to us," Rogers said.
The union fears the overhaul would give too much authority to the police administration and take away the autonomy of the commission, which is charged with ensuring discipline is meted out fairly.
Rogers said the union submitted written arguments this week in an effort to convince the commission against promulgating the new rules as currently proposed.
Earl Peterson, executive director of the civil service commission, said he doubted commissioners would approve any last-minute changes.
"I don't see that happening," he said. "The wording was brought to a level where our legal counsel felt it would not compromise the integrity of due process the civil service commission affords represented employees."
A press release out of San Jose, California.
An independent police auditor for San Jose will receive the 2008 Don
Edwards Civil Liberties Award from the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of
the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California at an
afternoon ceremony today.
Barbara Attard will be receiving the award at a 3 p.m. ceremony for
her role in promoting and defending civil liberties in the community
over the past year, according to the city. Attard has worked in
civilian oversight positions for 25 years, and has been in her current
position since 2004.
"We applaud Barbara Attard for standing firm in her conviction that
revising San Jose's police complaint procedures are in the best
interests of the entire Santa Clara Valley community," ACLU Santa
Clara Valley Chapter board Chairman Peter Yessne said in a statement.
"Without the independent review she advocates the public cannot be
guaranteed that its civil liberties are being protected."
The ceremony will take place at the First Unitarian Church in San
Jose. Police Practices Policy Director of the ACLU of Northern
California Mark Schlosberg will give the keynote address.
Three Chicago Police Department officers have been indicted for lying in relation to their arrests of individuals, according to the Chicago Tribune.
(excerpt)
The charges have been approved against John Haleas, a Grand-Central District officer accused of falsifying information in drunken driving arrests, and Officers Michael Bernichio and Daniel Murphy, who were accused of writing up identical drug arrest reports against two men and then picking which one to charge.
Haleas had previously been honored for making more DUI arrests than any other police officer in the state of Illinois. Cook County prosecutors have dropped 50 DUI cases he brought and began reviewing 500 additional cases last year.
The 12-year veteran is charged with four counts of perjury, four counts of official misconduct and two counts of obstruction of justice.
Bernichio and Murphy, partners on a Chicago Lawn District tactical team, were charged 16 months after an Illinois Appellate Court threw out a drug conviction because justices suggested the officers were lying in a case that involved the mixed-up identities of two friends they arrested in 2004.
Bernichio, who was hired in 1994, is charged with perjury, official misconduct and obstruction of justice. Murphy, hired in 1998, is charged with official misconduct and obstruction of justice.
The press release from Miami's current police chief.
Department gets clean bill of health
By JOHN F. TIMONEY
Last week the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington D.C., police think tank, held its annual meeting here in Miami. The opening keynote speaker, Shanetta Y. Cutlar, chair of the U.S. Department of Justice's Special Litigation Section, addressed the issue of federal civil rights investigations into major American cities. She informed the audience that the city of Miami Police Department was the first police department in the nation to receive a clean bill of health from the Civil Rights Division.
We have come a long way during the last six years. In 2002, Miami Mayor Manny Diaz requested that Justice's Civil Rights Division investigate certain policies and practices of the Miami Police Department, especially in the area of use of force and deadly physical force. Its findings were not pretty. A raft of problems was uncovered re garding police shootings, canine bites and police pursuits, just to name a few. Such issues were poisonous to police-community relations, especially in the African-American community.
In January 2003, I became the police chief of Miami. With a new leadership team, I began the tough process of reengineering an organization in dire need of reform. This in no way is a negative reflection of the vast majority of the police officers who performed admirably day in and day out. Unfortunately, these were the circumstances in which they found themselves.
Revamped training
The new team immediately created and implemented progressive polices and real accountability systems. Training was revamped, and officers received better technology and equipment. The most interesting part of this process was how quickly and willingly police officers embraced these reforms. The results speak for themselves. There was a dramatic reduction in police shootings over the next five years. During this time, there were two prolonged periods where no Miami police officer discharged a single bullet at a citizen; one period lasted 20 months and the other a full year.
If we assume, for argument's sake, that police shootings had continued at the pre-2003 rate (without the policy, training and equipment changes), officers would have discharged their weapons at citizens between 70 to 80 times. Twelve to 15 persons would have been killed, and another 30 to 35 would have been injured. Instead, officers discharged their weapons at citizens a total of 17 times, killing four and wounding another five. These reductions translate to lives saved and millions of dollars not paid in civil lawsuits, in addition to the benefit of improved police-community relations.
Another issue of particular interest to the Justice Department is police canine bites of citizens. In 2002, there were 68 bites that caused injuries and thousands of dollars in lawsuits. These bites have been reduced every year. In 2007, the total canine bites were 13. This is an astounding 81 percent reduction.
As most are aware, last August the Miami Police F.O.P. (police union) made serious allegations regarding the downgrading of crime by Miami police officers. I never gave much credence to these scurrilous allegations. However, in the abundance of caution, I requested FDLE to conduct an audit of our crime statistics. To do so, FDLE requested the national experts on Uniform Crime Reporting from the FBI.
Doing a great job
Last week, the FBI reported its findings. They found that Miami police officers process crime and other incident reports with an accuracy rate of 99.52 percent. The F.O.P's allegations were intended to undermine public confidence in the police administration. Ironically, the F.O.P. was actually accusing its own members of engaging in fraud. The FBI's report card was extremely important in pointing out the great job that Miami police officers do on a daily basis. I also believe it will reinforce public confidence in the Miami Police Department.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no other police department in the United States that has received a clean bill of health from two major oversight bodies of the federal government. The credit goes entirely to the men and women, uniformed and civilian, of the Miami Police Department.
What's happening to those who go to city council meetings and providing public comments on civic issues?
It seems that there's at least a couple city council members celebrating the fact that there's fewer people criticizing them at weekly meetings and at least one of them is being a bit boisterous about saying how happy he's about it because it's getting around town. Happy about that and the restrictions placed on public comment back in July 2005 when the city council as it was then voted 6-1 to ban city residents from pulling items from the consent calendar for discussion.
But is the city also censoring coverage of the city council meetings on Charter Communications Governmental Channel? At least one regular attendee at the city council meeting has said she received complaints from individuals watching the meetings on television who said that although she was seen on the screen before and after her comment period, while she was talking, she was bleeped out. Technical difficulties or censorship? It would be nice to know and to be reassured that if this is due to any ahem, technical problems that they be fixed in a prompt fashion, in the interest of public expression and participation.
Not too long ago, the city manager's office made a decision to change the camera angles so that public speakers were shown from behind while speaking at the podium during city council meetings so that viewers couldn't see their faces just their backs. After protest by city residents, the faces of those speaking at the podium were visible again. City officials have publicly accused city residents of not speaking to the city council but the cameras even as it's been clear that they're doing exactly the same thing. Councilmen editorializing after city residents address them and in some cases issuing what appears to be public service announcements.
March Air Base may be opened up for general aviation use, according to the Press Enterprise.
(excerpt)
The March Joint Powers Commission, which oversees civilian operations at the joint-use air base, is expected to consider the tentative agreement May 21.
Air Force Reserve representatives still need to sign off on the proposal.
No word has come from Washington about whether private pilots will get access to the military field, said Maj. Don Traud, spokesman for March Air Reserve Base.
The Federal Aviation Administration disqualified the airport authority from grant funding in 2004 because it does not allow general aviation.
An airport must be open to general aviation aircraft 24 hours a day to qualify for FAA grants. Prior to disqualifying March, however, the FAA awarded $5 million to the airport for improvements such as lighting and expansion of an apron.
Ian Gregor, communications manager for the Western-Pacific Region of the FAA, said officials there are optimistic the proposal to allow general aviation would bring the airport into compliance for funding eligibility.
"However, the agreement has not been signed off as far as I know," Gregor said.
The article mentions the impact that noise pollution from the DHL planes that depart from March Air Base in the wee hours of the morning have had on Riverside neighborhoods including Canyon Crest, Orangecrest and Mission Grove. Whoever has stock in ear plugs just got a bit happier. What it doesn't mention is how expansion of March Air Base and the authorization of this by the March Joint Powers Authority is playing a role in the elections this season.
Used bookstores in the Inland Empire have folded one right after another for a variety of reasons including higher rent and lower readership. Now, one in downtown Riverside is struggling to stay in business.
(excerpt, Press Enterprise)
"The store fell into our laps," Nadia recalls. "We were shaking." Just like that, the owner, whose parents had opened the bookstore in 1979, offered to sell it to the Lees for $10,000.
Nadia was so gung-ho, the divorced mother of two teenaged sons commuted from Tucson four days a week to run the store. She eventually moved to Perris to live with her father, down the street from her sister.
But the Downtown Bookstore in Riverside is Nadia's second home. When the Lees took over, they inherited an inventory of 100,000 that has since exploded to more than 1 million books, magazines, videos, CDs, records, tapes, DVDs and original art and prints crammed in their two stores and four storage units.
They upgraded the Riverside store's wiring, installed three air conditioners and Plexiglas over the skylight for further cooling and painted the concrete floor green. They closed to browsers the basement, from which they had removed dead kittens.
"When people said the store smelled like books, I'd say, 'Thank God,' " Nadia said.
The 1,200-square-foot shop is homey, with shelves arranged to mimic a library's. The children's corner brims with books. "Help yourself," says a sign next to a bowl of grapefruit. A huge portrait of a younger Nadia hangs over the door. It's not for sale.
The only thing missing is customers.
"The big question is whether to close," Nadia said with a sigh.
A question that's being asked by other small businesses in Riverside and not just bookstores. The problems of the bookstore come at the same time that there's been a surge in the labor force of people interested in working with books, as Riverside's City Hall has laid off dozens of part-time library employees in response to the budget crunch. This after claims made by elected officials and those at City Hall that there would be no layoffs, no pink slips just hiring freezes.
The irony of this is that these layoffs come not too long after the city announced that it was going to snatch up some newly available engineers who had been laid off by Riverside County.
The city's still working on its 2008-09 annual budget and there's sure to be even more surprises unveiled in upcoming weeks.
Three names were added to the downtown Riverside law enforcement memorial including one who was killed in 1907 and is being memorialized nearly 100 years later.
A Riverside County Superior Court judge closed his courtroom to the public to hear arguments about the competency of a defense attorney whose client was convicted at a recent murder trial. The Press Enterprise tried to contest the closure as it had prior closures during two cases which went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. Alas, this time it was to no avail.
Merrick Bobb, the special counsel for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department wrote about profiling the police.
This comes in the wake of the controversy surrounding the Los Angeles Police Department's revelation that out of over 300 complaints of racial profiling against it, none were sustained. Chief William Bratton has already said that he's planning to do an investigation of how his department examines and investigates this issue.
(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)
Instead of blanket rules and addressing profiling on a case-by-case basis, the LAPD needs to look at the big picture. The goal must be to snare an officer who, when compared with peers on the same shift in the same neighborhood, stops disproportionately more blacks and Latinos. To catch that officer, it is necessary to look at trends over time. Although an officer plausibly can deny a racial motivation in a single case, it is a tougher job to deny a pattern of disproportionate stops and searches or more citizen complaints than fellow officers.
For that reason, police departments should collect racial profiling data on an officer-by-officer basis, including the time, place and duration of all stops; demographic details on the driver and passengers; and whether the stop ended in a search, arrest and conviction. The police should track the outcomes of each officer's searches to test the percentage that yield contraband and to break them down by race and ethnicity of the people searched. A greater proportion of searches yielding contraband likely indicates greater precision and a higher degree of reasonable suspicion by the officer. A low "hit rate" may be a sign of searches that are indiscriminate fishing expeditions. When those proportions differ by race and ethnicity, it may be an indicator of race-based policing.
The fact that no citizen's complaint of racial profiling was sustained against the LAPD in 2007, while at first blush troubling, does not indicate that the department is blind to the problem or lacks integrity. Rather, it demonstrates that proving it case by case is nearly impossible. A far better way to find racial profiling that surely exists is to look at trends, patterns and comparisons of the track records of similarly situated officers.
The Los Angeles Police Commission is seeking assistance from other boards and commissions on how they investigate or review complaints of racial profiling.
We are requesting your assistance with our research regarding
community allegations of racial profiling, discrimination and racial
bias made against a police agency. We are particularly interested in
those situations where these civilian allegations are reviewed,
investigated and adjudicated by a civilian police review board or
similar entity. We are also interested your process for investigating
such allegations or complaints and your final determinations. If your
organization is structured in such a manner, we are requesting any
statistical data you can provide us. Ideally, the data should
encompass calendar year 2006 and/or 2007. Your assistance in this
matter would be greatly appreciated.
Should you have any questions or require additional details, please
contact the following:
Stephen Thorne, Management Analyst
Policy Section
Board of Police Commissioners
Los Angeles Police Department
150 North Los Angeles Street
Suite 150
Los Angeles, California 90012
(213) 473-6371
(213) 485-8861 (fax)
E8531@lapd.lacity. org
The Denver Police Department is toughening up its disciplinary process, according to the Denver Post.
(excerpt)
After more than three years of pushing and debate, the city of Denver is ready to put in place a get-tough police discipline system that will have swifter and harsher punishment for misconduct
The final arbiter on the proposal, the Denver Civil Service Commission, quietly gave preliminary approval April 18.
The commission is expected to formally sign off on the rule changes today. If that occurs, the rule will go into effect after five days.
Nick Rogers, vice president of the Denver Police Protective Association, said the union is upset with some last-minute tinkering and is contemplating legal action.
"At the eleventh hour, they changed it back to what the manager of safety was asking for, which was disheartening to us," Rogers said.
The union fears the overhaul would give too much authority to the police administration and take away the autonomy of the commission, which is charged with ensuring discipline is meted out fairly.
Rogers said the union submitted written arguments this week in an effort to convince the commission against promulgating the new rules as currently proposed.
Earl Peterson, executive director of the civil service commission, said he doubted commissioners would approve any last-minute changes.
"I don't see that happening," he said. "The wording was brought to a level where our legal counsel felt it would not compromise the integrity of due process the civil service commission affords represented employees."
A press release out of San Jose, California.
An independent police auditor for San Jose will receive the 2008 Don
Edwards Civil Liberties Award from the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of
the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California at an
afternoon ceremony today.
Barbara Attard will be receiving the award at a 3 p.m. ceremony for
her role in promoting and defending civil liberties in the community
over the past year, according to the city. Attard has worked in
civilian oversight positions for 25 years, and has been in her current
position since 2004.
"We applaud Barbara Attard for standing firm in her conviction that
revising San Jose's police complaint procedures are in the best
interests of the entire Santa Clara Valley community," ACLU Santa
Clara Valley Chapter board Chairman Peter Yessne said in a statement.
"Without the independent review she advocates the public cannot be
guaranteed that its civil liberties are being protected."
The ceremony will take place at the First Unitarian Church in San
Jose. Police Practices Policy Director of the ACLU of Northern
California Mark Schlosberg will give the keynote address.
Three Chicago Police Department officers have been indicted for lying in relation to their arrests of individuals, according to the Chicago Tribune.
(excerpt)
The charges have been approved against John Haleas, a Grand-Central District officer accused of falsifying information in drunken driving arrests, and Officers Michael Bernichio and Daniel Murphy, who were accused of writing up identical drug arrest reports against two men and then picking which one to charge.
Haleas had previously been honored for making more DUI arrests than any other police officer in the state of Illinois. Cook County prosecutors have dropped 50 DUI cases he brought and began reviewing 500 additional cases last year.
The 12-year veteran is charged with four counts of perjury, four counts of official misconduct and two counts of obstruction of justice.
Bernichio and Murphy, partners on a Chicago Lawn District tactical team, were charged 16 months after an Illinois Appellate Court threw out a drug conviction because justices suggested the officers were lying in a case that involved the mixed-up identities of two friends they arrested in 2004.
Bernichio, who was hired in 1994, is charged with perjury, official misconduct and obstruction of justice. Murphy, hired in 1998, is charged with official misconduct and obstruction of justice.
The press release from Miami's current police chief.
Department gets clean bill of health
By JOHN F. TIMONEY
Last week the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington D.C., police think tank, held its annual meeting here in Miami. The opening keynote speaker, Shanetta Y. Cutlar, chair of the U.S. Department of Justice's Special Litigation Section, addressed the issue of federal civil rights investigations into major American cities. She informed the audience that the city of Miami Police Department was the first police department in the nation to receive a clean bill of health from the Civil Rights Division.
We have come a long way during the last six years. In 2002, Miami Mayor Manny Diaz requested that Justice's Civil Rights Division investigate certain policies and practices of the Miami Police Department, especially in the area of use of force and deadly physical force. Its findings were not pretty. A raft of problems was uncovered re garding police shootings, canine bites and police pursuits, just to name a few. Such issues were poisonous to police-community relations, especially in the African-American community.
In January 2003, I became the police chief of Miami. With a new leadership team, I began the tough process of reengineering an organization in dire need of reform. This in no way is a negative reflection of the vast majority of the police officers who performed admirably day in and day out. Unfortunately, these were the circumstances in which they found themselves.
Revamped training
The new team immediately created and implemented progressive polices and real accountability systems. Training was revamped, and officers received better technology and equipment. The most interesting part of this process was how quickly and willingly police officers embraced these reforms. The results speak for themselves. There was a dramatic reduction in police shootings over the next five years. During this time, there were two prolonged periods where no Miami police officer discharged a single bullet at a citizen; one period lasted 20 months and the other a full year.
If we assume, for argument's sake, that police shootings had continued at the pre-2003 rate (without the policy, training and equipment changes), officers would have discharged their weapons at citizens between 70 to 80 times. Twelve to 15 persons would have been killed, and another 30 to 35 would have been injured. Instead, officers discharged their weapons at citizens a total of 17 times, killing four and wounding another five. These reductions translate to lives saved and millions of dollars not paid in civil lawsuits, in addition to the benefit of improved police-community relations.
Another issue of particular interest to the Justice Department is police canine bites of citizens. In 2002, there were 68 bites that caused injuries and thousands of dollars in lawsuits. These bites have been reduced every year. In 2007, the total canine bites were 13. This is an astounding 81 percent reduction.
As most are aware, last August the Miami Police F.O.P. (police union) made serious allegations regarding the downgrading of crime by Miami police officers. I never gave much credence to these scurrilous allegations. However, in the abundance of caution, I requested FDLE to conduct an audit of our crime statistics. To do so, FDLE requested the national experts on Uniform Crime Reporting from the FBI.
Doing a great job
Last week, the FBI reported its findings. They found that Miami police officers process crime and other incident reports with an accuracy rate of 99.52 percent. The F.O.P's allegations were intended to undermine public confidence in the police administration. Ironically, the F.O.P. was actually accusing its own members of engaging in fraud. The FBI's report card was extremely important in pointing out the great job that Miami police officers do on a daily basis. I also believe it will reinforce public confidence in the Miami Police Department.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no other police department in the United States that has received a clean bill of health from two major oversight bodies of the federal government. The credit goes entirely to the men and women, uniformed and civilian, of the Miami Police Department.
Labels: downtown business watch, judicial watch, labor pains, Making the grade
posted by Five Before Midnight | 3:11 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home