Controversial encounters between law-enforcement and civilians - the omnibus thread #2

[Snowboarder_Bo]

Ugh. There are so many to be disgusted with; my mind boggles:

'I'm scared': AP obtains video of deadly arrest of Black man

[wguy123]

Remember, it’s just a few bad apples. Or a half dozen bad apples in this instance. Too bad there wasn’t one good apple in that bunch to stop the bad apples. It’s almost like the saying should be flipped to “it’s just a few good apples.”

[Typo_Negative]

@Rick_Kitchen

Why did it take seven cops with body armor to issue a warrant to one man?

Because he might shoot back?

[Ron]

Instead of apples, it’s more like they are potatoes and we are currently going through the Irish Potato Famine.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

Good news, everyone!

Ex-officers face charges in arrest of woman with dementia

ETA: Hey! I have cake! Mmmmmmmm cake.

[Typo_Negative]

Trust the forensics, trust the science!

eh…not so much…

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/director-of-dcs-troubled-crime-lab-resigns-after-scathing-audit-report/ar-AAKaWFV?li=BBnb7Kz

[Typo_Negative]

Cops lie, and lie, and lie.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/all-of-this-was-kept-secret-video-of-deadly-arrest-of-ronald-greene-obtained-by-ap/vi-AAKb5kU

[eschereal]

Georgetown Professor Rosa Brooks talks about what she experienced working as a LEO and the correlation between what is wrong with policing and what is wrong with society in general. (She wrote Tangled Up in Blue: Policing in America’s Cities about the experience.)

[DavidNRockies]

Back to the 73 year-old woman with dementia, in Northern Colorado.

https://www.9news.com/article/news/investigations/loveland-police-alzheimers-training/73-de14215c-3b68-4526-ac9d-acb186ac07f3

The Loveland Police Department (LPD) will now be requiring officers to complete training on interacting with people with Alzheimer’s or any other form of dementia after an alleged incident of excessive force involving a 73-year-old woman surfaced earlier this week.

This isn’t the way I’d like us to go about this. It’s a token meant to appease the community.

There are a nearly infinite number of issues that LEOs might confront. Assessing whether or not there’s a serious threat is probably job one. I’m not sure that job is being done well by PDs, generally.

But once it’s determined that the person you’re trying to contact doesn’t pose a serious and/or immediate threat, I don’t think job two is to come to a clinical diagnosis. I think it’s far more important to decide whether there may be something going on with the person, at the time, that’s affecting their ability to act as you expect them to act.

But we won’t solve this problem ‘condition’ or ‘disorder’ by condition or disorder. Nor should we. I don’t think we need LEOs coming to exact ICD-10 or DSM-V diagnoses.

It still comes back to basic screening, hiring, and ongoing training, and not just turning armed sociopaths loose on unsuspecting communities, only to gloat among themselves about how cruel they were to the most vulnerable members of our population.

To bolster the case:

Killing of Elijah McClain

This one’s horrible (, too). And – like the woman with dementia – was followed by text messages by other LEOs that provide important and disturbing visibility into their states of mind.

We have to end the oh-so-American habit of superficially addressing the symptom, and start looking into the numerous and corrosive root causes.

[echoreply]

For many of these interactions, it seems that police follow a flow chart like this:

Is the person
doing what I    ---Yes---> [Do whatever, good or bad]
want them too?         
      |
     No
      |
      v
 Use violence

[Snowboarder_Bo]

As if to illustrate:

Video: Shackled Black man ordered facedown in deadly arrest

[Typo_Negative]

@Typo_Negative

Cops lie, and lie, and lie.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/video-shackled-black-man-ordered-facedown-in-deadly-arrest/ar-AAKf6Lc?li=BBorjTa

The footage and the autopsy report add to the growing wealth of details about Greene’s death, which has long been surrounded by allegations of a cover-up and is now the subject of a federal civil rights investigation. Louisiana State Police initially blamed his death on a car crash and made no mention of use of force by officers.

It also noted he had high levels of cocaine and alcohol in his system as well as a broken breastbone and a torn aorta.

Broken breastbone and torn aorta. As well has tasering and 'beating the ever-living fuck out him", to quote the cop who did it.

These cops are far more dangerous to society than the alleged ‘criminals’ they pretend to chase.

[eschereal]

You left a part out

@this person is

@White

@are they following instructions?

@They are

@my instructions

Attempt to provoke them

@my partner's instructions

Use violence

@no

Use violence

@not White

use violence

[Snowboarder_Bo]

Combat veteran? 25 year career in law enforcement? Pfftt; who cares?

Retired cop put in chokehold takes police case to high court

Well, maybe the SCOTUS does. Maybe.

[PastTense]

@DavidNRockies

But once it’s determined that the person you’re trying to contact doesn’t pose a serious and/or immediate threat, I don’t think job two is to come to a clinical diagnosis.

Well, the police interact with serious cases of mental illness very frequently. So they need substantial training not only about dementia but all forms of mental illness.

[Typo_Negative]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/body-camera-footage-released-showing-incident-in-which-police-mistook-daughters-ashes-for-drugs/ar-AAKfFVy?li=BBnb7Kz

Six Officers. SIX OFFICERS for a non-confrontation traffic stop. Let me guess. He is black?

[Folacin]

A jury trial for the case is scheduled to begin in August 2022.

I’m really hoping that is a typo - but I guess the courts may be backed up that far for civil jury trials.

[eschereal]

@Typo_Negative

SIX OFFICERS for a non-confrontation traffic stop.

He had cannabis in the car. He admitted it to the first officer. So the officer called five of his friends over to have a search party. Or whatever they call it. Yeehaw! Where’s the #8 crowbar?

[Snowboarder_Bo]

SCOTUS: Nope: nobody cares! Fuck you!

[Snowboarder_Bo]

It turns out that the top cop present at Ronald Greene’s killing lied for almost 2 years about the existence of his body cam footage:

AP: Top cop in Black man's deadly arrest withheld cam video

In perhaps the strongest evidence yet of an attempted cover-up in the deadly 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene, the ranking Louisiana State Police officer at the scene falsely told internal investigators that the Black man was still a threat to flee after he was shackled, and he denied the existence of his own body camera video for nearly two years until it emerged just last month.

New state police documents obtained by The Associated Press show numerous inconsistencies between Lt. John Clary’s statements to detectives and the body camera footage he denied having. They add to growing signs of obfuscation in Greene’s death, which the white troopers initially blamed on a car crash at the end of a high-speed chase and is now the subject of a federal civil rights investigation.

Clary, who arrived at the scene just seconds after troopers stunned, choked and punched Greene to get him into handcuffs, told investigators that Greene “was still, yelling and screaming … and he was still resisting, even though he was handcuffed. He was still trying to get away and was not cooperating.”

Investigators wrote in a six-page report filed less than three weeks ago that Clary’s description of Greene’s demeanor after he was cuffed on a dark roadside near Monroe was clearly a mischaracterization. Though they did not state it explicitly, the false statements were apparently intended to justify further uses of force by troopers against the prone Greene that included dragging him facedown by his ankle shackles and spraying him in the face with pepper spray.

“The video evidence in this case does not show Greene screaming, resisting or trying to get away,” Detective Albert Paxton wrote in the new report. “The only screams revealed by the video were when Greene responded to force applied to him.”

The report added that Clary’s own video, published last week by the AP and later released by the state, shows Greene “lying on the ground, face down, handcuffed behind his back, leg shackles on his ankles, uttering the phrases, ‘I’m sorry’, or ‘I’m scared’ or ‘Yes sir’ or ‘Okay.”’

“Lt. Clary’s video clearly shows Greene to be suffering,” Paxton wrote in the new report, adding that the handcuffed man can be heard “gasping for air.”

Another false statement noted in the report was when Clary told investigators that his troopers sat Greene up and “immediately held his head up so he could get a clear airway.”

Clary’s video, however, showed troopers saying they didn’t want to sit Greene up because they were afraid he would spit blood on them.

“Then don’t do that,” Clary tells them.

Even after Greene became unresponsive and troopers sat him up, his head was slumped down on his chest and they did not make a move to lift his head to make a clear airway for nearly six minutes.

“The officers have the duty and obligation to ensure that he is capable of breathing … and they chose not to do that,” said Andrew Scott, a former Boca Raton, Florida, police chief who testifies as an expert in use-of-force cases.

“When he was in handcuffs, he was completely compliant. The only thing he wanted to do was turn over onto his side,” Scott added. “He couldn’t resist. He was incapable of resisting.”

Clary, who has been with the Louisiana State Police for 31 years, did not return phone and text messages seeking comment Monday. A State Police spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.