Tacoma, Washington:
I live about a mile and a half from the area of the incident as the guttersnipe flies. And the whole thing makes no damn sense to me.
- According to the local fishwrap, the “street race” took place on 9th Street between Pacific Avenue and A Street. I could possibly see A Street itself being used for racing — it would be pretty much deserted — but one block of 9th Street makes no sense.
- Why was only one officer dispatched? Also according to the above mentioned fishwrap, the Fire Department had been called to the area earlier (the spectators dispersed, then reformed), so Dispatch almost certainly knew that there was a crowd involved. A better approach would have been to seal the area, which could have been done by half a dozen squad cars or two squad cars and a couple of fire trucks; the crowd might or might not have dispersed, but the cars would have been hemmed in.
- How did the officer let himself get into a position where he had no escape other than to run over people? Once he was aware that he wasn’t dealing with a small group, backing off and calling for backup would have made more sense. (Disclaimer: I am not and have never been an LEO.)
The TPD response — turning the investigation over to the “Pierce County Force Investigation Team” is a sick joke. The initial investigation of the death of Manuel Ellis was done by the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, and it was later found to be riddled with procedural errors and inconsistencies. The “Force Investigation Team” may not be the same as the PCSD, but any conclusions it reaches will be suspect from the start. This sort of thing should be handled by the Washington State Patrol, which has a much better reputation in this area.
Conclusion: “Tacompton” strikes again.
Update on this.
Colorado no longer has qualified immunity for cops, and Brianna Gilliam is suing the department. (That video is really distressing.)
Unsurprisingly, the prosecutor’s office earlier decided the cops involved had done no wrong. I’m not sure how they came to the conclusion that the cops were justified in pointing a gun at a 6-year-old and making her and everyone else lie face down in a parking lot for more than two hours. And yes, the cops were all white.
Actually, what happened is that Colorado created a state law allowing people to sue cops, a law that is similar to the federal law (42 U.S.C. § 1983) that allows people to sue state employees who violate their constitutional rights in federal court.
The Colorado law explicitly rejects qualified immunity as a defense, so anyone who sues under the state law, for a violation of the Colorado state constitution, would not have to deal with a defense of qualified immunity. But if someone sues a state official in federal court, for violating their federal constitutional rights, then a defense of qualified immunity is still a possibility.
Obviously, this means that any Colorado lawyer with half a brain will, wherever possible, sue in state court, under state law, for violations of the state constitution. The law also requires the cops themselves to pay at least part of the judgment if they lose, which is also good.
I hope the family wins big in this case.
# Police chief, officer under fire after bodycam video surfaces with racial slurs
“When you’re a police officer and you have that type of frame of mind …. how can you protect and serve?”
How, indeed.
Wow, I’m not sure how to feel about this…
On the one hand: I agree. These two men should not be police officers. And it’s good to see the Mayor and city council act swiftly and decisively.
One the other hand: this was apparently conversation that was not related to a crime scene and so I don’t like that the footage was used in the manner. Even racist cops deserve to not be surveiled without just cause.
But but but… he was just prolly racist just on his own time! And no fair that his racism was exposed!
What a bunch of bullshit.
It was their body cams.
Or was that a whoosh?
I believe that police body cams are an important and necessary tool. I also believe there is tremendous potential for abuse. There are privacy concerns for the general public and for the officers that need to be addressed. If the cameras are continuous record, that is they dont require any actions from the officer, then that footage should only be accessed under limited specified conditions. There are clear instances when the footage would be a gross invasion of privacy for the officer, such as in the bathroom, or speaking with their lawyer or spouse. There are also times when confidentiality is necessary for the officer to do their job; such as interviewing informants or whistleblowers. And I’m certainly not comfortable with the police collecting footage of the general public everywhere they go. There has to be very narrow guidelines as to when body cam footage should be accessed and by whom.
In this particular case, It’s not clear to me that the encounter meets that narrow threshold. Sure, we ended up with a good result: 2 racist cops are gone. But, the process is important in these matters. No one should be subject to random police surveillance, even the police themselves.
I remember a few changes that we thought would be detrimental for my last job working as a prison tutor.
One of the first was that if name badges - the uniformed officers had number epaulettes for indentifaction whereas non-uniform such as myself were compelled to wear name badges - we thought this was a personal security risk - especially when working with high level organised crime convicts, names can be found on electoral records and potentialy make your home address identifiable whereas number epaulettes would not.
In the end it turned out to be a benefit because it seperated the convicts perception of us further from the uniform staff - clearly we were much more part of training and rehabilitation rather than the security/discipline aspect (actually that is pretty moot for a number of reasons) and it also helped humanise us because suddenly we have personal first names, instead of the formal Ms or Mr.
The other one that we thought could be detrimental was the use of body worn cameras - the arguments would be pretty familiar, such as staff surveillance and loads of others worries.
I don’t want to go into the anti camera arguments because they were imposed on us anyway, but far from being an issue, they turned out to be highly beneficial.
They provide great evidence of violations and attitude - we only had a few incidents where the video evidence was submitted and the message really got around the convicts fast - it was conclusive and it was unbiased, but it also revealed to the offenders themselves just how others would see them - quite a few of them really didn’t realise just what they looked like when they were going off it, you’d be surprised to find most of the convicts were actually personally embarrassed at their own behaviour.
Another aspect that was highly beneficial - convicts saw them as a completely unbiased witness and actually started to trust them, and hence more accepting of any discilinary measures that resulted.
The final effect was upon the staff themselves - it has to be said that staff became more aware of their own professional standards, when you are faced with a difficult situation you think of how you appear to others and you learn to give yourself room, to communicate much more neutrally and far less emotionally and that alone nearly always brings down the temperature of a disorder incident.
I’ve seen just the switching on of the body cameras completely defuse potentially serous outbreaks of disorder.
If you work in an environment where you interact with the public where there is a liklihood of disorder then the use of body cameras is absolutely a fantastic advance, I simply would not go into a situation of conflict without one.
All this from a person who was a very concerned senior union representative who was extremely worried about personal liberty, personal security and public surveillance.
I understand why police might have reservations - that’s how I used to be and so were all my colleagues, now I would think that removing body cameras as a step back to the stone age.
Invasion of privacy. How much privacy can you expect when you are a) on the clock, b) in public c) on a police assignment and d) wearing a body cam you are fully aware of.
Well, if two officers are having a private discussion about getting their story about what happened straight, clearly that should not be taken into account when reviewing the content.
/s
Rochester, NY:
This isn’t Daniel-Prude-level bad policing and the department seems to have at least learned something from that man’s death:
So we’ll wait and see if they make any improvements; so far, they’ve made few steps forward.
…I just watched the video.
At one point one of the officers says “you are acting like a child.”
Why yes officer, this 9 year old child is acting like a child. Throwing a 9 year old child onto the snow and forcing her arms behind her back really isn’t in the “best practice handbook” for dealing with 9 year old children.
One of the most horrific about the pepper spray was that it was used because the police just wanted to hurry up. And its the “rush to get things done” that seems so endemic in policing in America. The officers involved here should be in jail.
Yeah, he seemed so eager to spray her. I just can’t believe they couldn’t find a better way to deal with her. I do appreciate that situations like this can be tricky, but him telling her the she was acting like a child is just bananas.
I can’t shake my head any harder without sustaining some damage.
As a parent of a kid who was once 9 years old, I’m fairly confident that no matter how she was acting and how loud she was yelling for her dad, if the cops had closed the doors and ignored her, she likely would have calmed down in 10 minutes. At least enough that one of the officers and her could have had a civilized conversation about whatever lead up to that moment and what’s going to happen next.
But, yeah, that officer (or those officers) are going to have a hard time trying to explain why a 9 year old, handcuffed and sitting in the back of a squad posed a threat to them.
Maybe they should be charged with child abuse/endangerment.
I feel like, and I’m saying this honestly, if whoever sprayed the kid has kids of their own, CPS should be talking to them. If someone, in full view of their peers and out in public uses pepper spray to deal with a kid throwing a tantrum, I can only imagine how they might deal with their own kids behind closed doors.
The whole justice system judges black children as older. I seriously doubt that would have happened to a little blonde girl.
Well, they’ve made some more baby steps in the right direction:
This is the underlying reason behind a frightening amount of police violence.
Clearly the officer was in fear of his life. If the girl wasn’t already handcuffed in the back of the car, this would have been a shooting.
(Only partially said tongue in cheek)