Author Topic: Citizen-Police interactions  (Read 381465 times)

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Citizen-Police interactions
« Reply #250 on: May 16, 2012, 02:06:06 PM »

"http://www.coollaw.com/documents/185.pdf"

Interesting.  Thank you for that.

As for

"As for the number of people willing to be policemen, well there is a long line of applicants, especially in this job market.  The pay is good, the benefits overly superb, and the job rewarding, albeit sometimes dangerous."

this I find glib.  Besides the fact that lots of applicants are less than desirable, there is also the matter of the willingness to act knowing that one's split second decisions could put into play one's life's savings and family financial security in the hands of a jury of Rodney King's peers. 


JDN

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Re: Citizen-Police interactions
« Reply #251 on: May 16, 2012, 02:35:04 PM »

"As for the number of people willing to be policemen, well there is a long line of applicants, especially in this job market.  The pay is good, the benefits overly superb, and the job rewarding, albeit sometimes dangerous."

this I find glib.  Besides the fact that lots of applicants are less than desirable, there is also the matter of the willingness to act knowing that one's split second decisions could put into play one's life's savings and family financial security in the hands of a jury of Rodney King's peers. 

No offense, but I think your answer is "glib".  You are making an assumption that the applicants "are less than desirable".  I disagree, especially in this economy.  My brother has a landscape business.  He has healthy young guys with Master's Degrees offering to do hard day labor for him.  The requirements to join the LAPD, an excellent department, are minimal; a high school diploma is about it.

http://www.joinlapd.com/qualifications.html

We are ALL judged by our peers if we commit a crime.  Even in a civil trial we are all judged by our peers.  And if we commit an act that is determined to be gross negligence, our life savings and family security is in their hands.  Like a doctor who shows up drunk and performs surgery, or misses an obvious diagnosis (expert witnesses will influence that issue like they would a policeman's action) gross negligence should be punished.  ER doctors for example, make split second decisions that affect lives on a daily basis.  Frankly, much more often than the average policeman on the beat.  The system seems to work well; why are Police exempt?  Would you want a doctor to operate on you for a serious matter who knows that no matter how badly he messes up, he will never be personally responsible?

I don't want a doctor who thinks that he is not responsible for his actions nor do I think a policeman should be exempt in cases of gross negligence. 


Crafty_Dog

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Re: Citizen-Police interactions
« Reply #252 on: May 16, 2012, 04:35:14 PM »
Let me try restating this:

If you add personal liability to the risks an officer must take you will lose some of them (presumably the best because otherwise why would they have been selected) AND you will lose some of those who otherwise would have applied.  The net result will tend towards less desirable candidates being selected.

bigdog

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Re: Citizen-Police interactions
« Reply #253 on: May 16, 2012, 06:25:11 PM »
I wonder if a police officer can buy "malpractice" insurance?

JDN

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Re: Citizen-Police interactions
« Reply #254 on: May 17, 2012, 07:03:19 AM »
I wonder if a police officer can buy "malpractice" insurance?

 :-)
The insurance industry despite it's staid reputation is one of the last Frontiers for free enterprise.  If it makes money, let's do it seems to be their motto.
Plus, it's based upon the law of large numbers; there are a lot of police officers out there so I think the answer would be yes.   :-)

As for your comment Crafty, you are making presumptions that are not necessarily true.  Again, let's use doctors.  They have personal liability yet frankly it's still very difficult
to get into Medical School; the demand for that job is still there.  The best doctors don't drop out because of personal liability, if anything, it's the less talented doctors who drop out.  And if a few do drop out, well, there are plenty of applicants.

As for police officers, the hiring practices bewilder me.  It seems more like who do you know, what color or nationality you are, or how lucky you are versus raw intelligence mixed with reasonable physical ability.  Remember, you only need a high school diploma to quality leaving you a huge applicant base. 

As I mentioned on the CA site, as did others, public employees should be run like a business.  That includes police and fire. 

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Citizen-Police interactions
« Reply #255 on: May 17, 2012, 08:34:32 AM »
I'm under the impression that the difficulties in the practice of medicine, including medical malpractice lawsuits and the related costs of malpractice insurance, are driving many doctors out of medicine.   To the extent that we believe that those  who become doctors tend to be better qualified than those who don't, the logical inference is of a downward pressure on the level.

I get the logic of saying it is the lesser doctors who are more likley to be sued.  Perhaps, but I suspect it is more likely that doctors be driven away from higher risk/higher premium specialties e.g. ob-gyn.

Anyway, I think the logic of my syllogisim to be just fine:

"If you add personal liability to the risks an officer must take you will lose some of them (presumably the best because otherwise why would they have been selected) AND you will lose some of those who otherwise would have applied.  The net result will tend towards less desirable candidates being selected."

dreatx

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Re: Citizen-Police interactions
« Reply #256 on: May 25, 2012, 07:13:13 AM »
I am curious as to how you guys feel about the use of unmanned drones, in police work.  As a naturally suspicious person, I dislike this.  I imagine that armed drones for SWAT actions will come next.  That is a barrel of poisonous snakes.  Remember, In this country, in modern times (I was in high school) the police of a certain city actually bombed a city block.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Citizen-Police interactions
« Reply #257 on: May 25, 2012, 07:17:48 AM »
Excellent question:  It and related matters have been the subject of some vigorous back and forth on this thread: 

http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=1133.550

bigdog

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Naked man 'eating’ face off victim
« Reply #258 on: May 28, 2012, 06:04:21 AM »
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/26/2818832/naked-man-shot-killed-on-macarthur.html

This says it all: "It was a scene as creepy as a Hannibal Lecter movie."

Crafty_Dog

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JDN

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Police mistakes costs $millions
« Reply #260 on: June 30, 2012, 06:50:32 AM »
"The Los Angeles City Council agreed Friday to pay $6.6 million to the family of a woman killed by a speeding police car, the largest amount the city has ever paid to resolve a police traffic collision."

"Officer Brubaker and his partner, who were responding to a report of a possible stolen car about two miles away, had not turned on the car's emergency lights and so were not legally allowed to be speeding. Other drivers and a reconstruction of the crash, however, estimated the police vehicle was going about 70 mph, twice the posted speed limit, according to a lawyer for Lugo's family and a confidential city report about the incident obtained by The Times."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lapd-traffic-settle-20120629,0,1152162.story

"Officer Brubaker was not seriously punished by the department despite the finding that he was to blame. He received an admonishment."   :-o

If these were your employees wouldn't you fire them?  Our tax money paid over $6million for their incompetence.

Crafty_Dog

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bigdog

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Butler v. Collier
« Reply #262 on: July 11, 2012, 05:21:19 PM »
http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/201113933.pdf

The first four pages of this opinion are the most entertaining I've ever read. The rest is interesting and may inform in the dicussion of this thread.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Citizen-Police interactions
« Reply #263 on: July 11, 2012, 08:15:07 PM »
That is hysterical!  Good discussion of Section 1983 as well-- which is quite relevant to the subject of this thread.

JDN

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The high cost of police incompetence - UC Davis et al
« Reply #264 on: July 12, 2012, 07:53:54 AM »
"The pepper ball hit the sophomore in the eye and caused permanent damage, eventually leading Nelson to lose a football scholarship and drop out of the university, the court said.

Writing for the court, Judge Stephen Reinhardt said police used excessive force. "A reasonable officer would have known that firing projectiles, including pepper balls, in the direction of individuals suspected of, at most, minor crimes, who posed no threat to the officers or others, and who engaged in only passive resistance, was unreasonable," he wrote.

Police officers generally cannot be held liable for damages in a civil lawsuit. They lose immunity if it can be shown that their actions violated a "clearly established" constitutional right.

The court said the police violated Nelson's 4th Amendment right to be free of unreasonable seizure, and that earlier court rulings should have alerted police that their actions were illegal."

I wonder how many millions of dollars, AGAIN, the taxpayers will need to pay out to cover gross police incompetence.  And often, usually, they don't even get fired.   :?

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-uc-davis-pepper-20120712,0,3671184.story

Crafty_Dog

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JDN

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Best the police keep quiet... it's a small town... We know who's important...
« Reply #266 on: September 22, 2012, 09:52:53 AM »
10:24 AM ET 09.22 | Michael McClatchy was an officer for the Pickens Police Department in Pickens, S.C. On Sept. 3, McClatchy pulled over a vehicle for speeding. As it turned out, the driver of the vehicle was Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney, who claimed he was late to a radio show he was doing at the local Bi-Lo, which is where McClatchy had pulled over Swinney. Swinney had been doing 63 mph in a 35, and received his speeding ticket while signing autographs for fans waiting outside the store for his radio show.

Eleven days later, on Sept. 14, after rumors of Swinney's speeding ticket began making the rounds on message boards -- because what else is there to talk about on a message board? -- McClatchy decided he had to let the world know what happened. In the posting, the officer said he didn't plan on posting about the incident, but "wanted to clear the air for all involved." The officer said he believed Swinney "thought he would be excused for the violation and continue to his appointment." He said Swinney and his brother were asked to have a seat in the vehicle, which they did not. The officer also said the Bi-Lo store manager approached him and told him a city official was on the phone and would like to speak with him, but the officer declined. According to the officer, Swinney's brother said that he was a retired Alabama police officer with more than 30 years of experience and asked the officer to take the fact into consideration. McClatchy also wrote that Swinney gave him "an unfriendly glare" before leaving and entering the Bi-Lo.

McClatchy was then fired six days later for what police chief Rodney Gregory called a "violation of city computer policy, violation of code of ethics and violation of general orders."

CBS Sports

Crafty_Dog

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Crafty_Dog

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JDN

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LEO shoots wheelchair schizo holding a pen as a weapon
« Reply #269 on: September 24, 2012, 08:14:15 AM »
"A Houston police officer fatally shot in the head a schizophrenic, wheelchair-bound double amputee threatening people with a pen at a group home for the mentally ill after authorities said the man advanced on the officer's partner, police said."

He had a black felt pen. This happened in a mental hospital.  The man was in a wheelchair.  While the Officer had a Tasar he decided to shot and kill him instead.   :?

And we wonder why cities are paying out millions of dollars for police incompetence.  Too bad the officer doesn't have to pay a portion out of his salary.  Instead, he
doesn't lose any pay or benefits and keeps his job.  A fifth year policeman,  this is the second time this officer has shot and killed someone.  Imagine if a staff member
at the hospital shot and killed this patient?  The employee would be fired on the spot; maybe arrested.  More police officers need to get fired in examples like this; not put
on "administrative leave" with full pay.

http://articles.cnn.com/2012-09-23/us/us_texas-amputee-shooting_1_police-officer-houston-police-department-john-garcia
« Last Edit: September 24, 2012, 08:38:41 AM by Crafty_Dog »

JDN

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police incompetence is rampant
« Reply #270 on: September 26, 2012, 11:27:57 AM »
The University of California will pay damages of $30,000 to each of the 21 UC Davis students and alumni who were pepper-sprayed by campus police during an otherwise peaceful protest 10 months ago, the university system announced Wednesday.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/09/uc-davis-pepper-spray.html

Crafty_Dog

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Taser deaths
« Reply #271 on: October 08, 2012, 04:48:37 PM »
Tasers & deaths: Not a simple relationship, researchers argue

A research team that includes members with law enforcement experience has taken the most comprehensive look yet at the circumstances surrounding Taser deployments where suspects end up dying. 

The findings "demonstrate the complexity of these incidents," the researchers report, citing drug use and mental illness, persistent suspect resistance, and a "wide array of force options used by police" as salient factors in many arrest-related deaths (ARDs).

"Unfortunately, the controversy surrounding CEWs [conducted energy weapons] has resulted in these cases being defined by Taser device use...a considerable oversimplification," the team writes.

To better understand "the hundreds of deaths that occur each year during police-citizen encounters," law enforcement professionals, academics, and the public need to consider "the totality of circumstances" in fatalities that occur proximate to CEW use and "move beyond the tendency to reduce them to simply 'Taser cases,' " the researchers argue.

Led by Dr. Michael White, a former deputy sheriff who now is associate director of the Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety at Arizona State U., the six-member team includes Dr. Donald Dawes, a SWAT doc, reserve police officer, and ER physician in California, and Dr. Jeffrey Ho, a deputy sheriff, law enforcement medical director, ER physician, and prominent CEW researcher in Minnesota. (Ho is also the medical director for Taser International, Inc.; he and two of his study colleagues are Taser stockholders, as they disclose in the study.)

The group's 28-page report, "An Incident-Level Profile of Taser Device Deployments in Arrest-Related Deaths," can be read in full without charge as it was recently published online by the journal Police Quarterly. Click here to go directly to the report.

MINING MISSING DATA. In their introduction, the researchers point out that despite widely publicized concern over ARDs that have occurred after Taser exposure, there has been no previous broad-based effort to establish "a detailed profile" of these controversial and "polarizing" events. This has left troubling "unanswered questions regarding officer, suspect, and incident-level characteristics of these death cases, as well the extent to which patterns in these characteristics may have changed over time."
To "enhance our understanding of Taser device use in ARDs" and thus better "inform the discourse" about CEWs, the researchers undertook a thorough "descriptive analysis" of the 392 known Taser-involved ARDs that occurred in the US between 2001-2008. After merging information from print media archives and medical examiner/autopsy reports, they ended up with 213 fatalities about which they had input from both sources.

Each case, including those lacking ME documentation, was parsed for "detailed and accurate information on circumstances surrounding the death," such as officer and suspect demographics; the suspect's behavior before, during, and after the incident; the presence of drugs and alcohol in the suspect's system; mental illness; level of resistance; injury; the number of activations and location of CEW contact; other types of force used; primary and contributing factors in the cause of death; and so on.
Comparing the many variables, the researchers established the following general findings.

INCIDENT CHARACTERISTICS. Although death occurred in only a tiny fraction of CEW deployments, 280 different agencies in 37 states experienced at least one ARD after the use of a Taser during the eight-year study period, with California (75), Florida (57), Texas (32), and Ohio (20) showing the highest numbers. Nearly half the identified deaths occurred in these four states, with California alone accounting for roughly 20% of the total.

Three of these top states are among the nation's most populous, have the largest number of sworn officers, experience the greatest volume of violent crime, and are the biggest customers of Taser cartridges and X26 devices, so their disproportionate distribution of ARDs "makes intuitive sense," the researchers explain. Of the 13 states that had no ARDs, all but two (NJ and MA) had fewer than 3,500 sworn during the study years.

In the majority of ARD cases, multiple officers were at the scene and the suspect was not yet in custody when Tasered. In about a third of the cases (36.5%) there was only one Taser activation, but there were six or more in 10%, with an average of 2.91 activations across all incidents.

Where duration of exposure could be established, it was most often six to 15 seconds. Only rarely did activation total more than 30 seconds. In more than 80% of the time, deployment was via the darts-only mode, and the contact location reported most often (23%) was in the back, buttocks, or legs. The chest was the only contact area documented in 13.6%, with multiple frontal locations recorded in 16.9% of ARDs.

In about one in four ARDs (37.2%), a CEW was the only force used against the suspect. The rest involved other force as well, with officers usually starting with physical measures, OC spray, or handcuffing before resorting to the Taser when lesser measures failed. "n nearly one-fifth of the study cases...police used three or more force options," the researchers found.

SUSPECT SPECS. "[T]he vast majority were male and between the ages of 21 and 40.... Though only about 20% of suspects were described as mentally ill, drug and alcohol use was common...," the researchers write. Among ME reports, "nearly 90% indicated either illicit drugs in the decedent's body or evidence of chronic drug use." Most commonly cited were cocaine (about 66% of the cases) and methamphetamine (18%). More than half were "intoxicated or high during the police encounter."
Most suspects (86%) were unarmed, but "the vast majority were engaged in some form of active resistance against the officer(s) during the encounter." In about 7% of the cases, this resistance was judged to be "potentially lethal." Only 10% of subjects were characterized as "passively resisting." Of suspects who were armed, about half wielded an edged weapon and five brandished a firearm.

Despite Taser application, nearly 60% of suspects continued to resist. This suggests an exceptional commitment to resisting, in sharp contrast with earlier studies of nonfatal cases that show Tasering "stops suspect resistance in 80% to 90% of incidents," the researchers note.

In ARD cases where resistance did stop, researchers found that the average number of Taser applications was much lower, "officers were much less likely to have to resort to other force," and suspects were "less likely to be intoxicated."

CAUSE OF DEATH. "[D]rugs (21.4%), heart-related problems (30.5%), and ExDS [excited delirium syndrome] (23.8%) were cited as the primary cause of death in 75% of the ME reports," the study says. The Taser was listed as the primary cause in only two cases and as a "contributing factor" in 16.

CHANGES OVER TIME. As part of their investigation, the research team compared findings among three separate time periods (2001-2004, 2005-2006, 2007-2008) and discovered "several notable changes over time." Among them:

• "The average number of activations has decreased significantly, from 3.16 in the earlier period to just 2.38 in the later period."
• The percentage of incidents where only the Taser is used has declined.
• The resistance level of suspects has become "increasingly aggressive" and "less passive," yet the likelihood of resistance continuing after Taser exposure has "dropped substantially, from nearly three-quarters of cases in 2001-2004 to just over half of cases in 2007-2008."
• The proportion of death cases involving heart problems has become less common, dropping from 41.2% to 22.2%.

And some things haven't changed. Notably: "[D]rug use and mental illness have remained consistent features of Taser-proximate ARDs over time."

CONCLUSION. The study paints "a clear picture of the complex, prolonged, physical nature" of ARD encounters, the researchers write. These are "complex, dynamic encounters between suspects who [are] actively and aggressively resisting police, and officers who [are] drawing deeply into their arsenal of force options in an attempt to control them."
Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Institute, who was not involved in this research, joins White's team in calling for more nuanced discussions and scientific investigations of ARDs going forward.

"No single pattern emerges that fits all fatal confrontations," he says. "Many variables that are not yet fully understood are involved. Those observers who insist on finger-pointing at CEWs as the sole 'cause' of suspect deaths in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary are distracting from meaningful dialogue about proper policy and practices that relate to this important issue."

NOTE: The researchers footnote that there were 22 cases where one or more officers Tasered a suspect, then subsequently shot him fatally. These incidents were excluded from the analysis, as were five other cases in which a subject committed suicide or died accidentally after Taser application.

An observation from a reader about nomenclature

As a Taser Master Instructor, I continually stress to my students that we do not "Taser" someone. We use the Taser to deliver an energy cycle, etc. The analogy I use is we do not Kenmore our food or General Electric our drinks. We might bake or refrigerate those things. I would like to keep our operators using terms they can easily defend if needed, and Taser is the name of the device.
Sgt. Gerald Machurick
Miami Gardens (FL) PD


Full report at

http://pqx.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/08/24/1098611112457358.full.pdf+html

G M

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Re: police incompetence is rampant
« Reply #272 on: October 08, 2012, 04:56:37 PM »
The University of California will pay damages of $30,000 to each of the 21 UC Davis students and alumni who were pepper-sprayed by campus police during an otherwise peaceful protest 10 months ago, the university system announced Wednesday.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/09/uc-davis-pepper-spray.html

Californian idiocy is rampant.

G M

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Re: Taser deaths
« Reply #273 on: October 08, 2012, 04:57:48 PM »
Resisting law enforcement is dangerous. Bad things, including injury and death may result. Don't be surprised if it does.

Tasers & deaths: Not a simple relationship, researchers argue

A research team that includes members with law enforcement experience has taken the most comprehensive look yet at the circumstances surrounding Taser deployments where suspects end up dying. 

The findings "demonstrate the complexity of these incidents," the researchers report, citing drug use and mental illness, persistent suspect resistance, and a "wide array of force options used by police" as salient factors in many arrest-related deaths (ARDs).

"Unfortunately, the controversy surrounding CEWs [conducted energy weapons] has resulted in these cases being defined by Taser device use...a considerable oversimplification," the team writes.

To better understand "the hundreds of deaths that occur each year during police-citizen encounters," law enforcement professionals, academics, and the public need to consider "the totality of circumstances" in fatalities that occur proximate to CEW use and "move beyond the tendency to reduce them to simply 'Taser cases,' " the researchers argue.

Led by Dr. Michael White, a former deputy sheriff who now is associate director of the Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety at Arizona State U., the six-member team includes Dr. Donald Dawes, a SWAT doc, reserve police officer, and ER physician in California, and Dr. Jeffrey Ho, a deputy sheriff, law enforcement medical director, ER physician, and prominent CEW researcher in Minnesota. (Ho is also the medical director for Taser International, Inc.; he and two of his study colleagues are Taser stockholders, as they disclose in the study.)

The group's 28-page report, "An Incident-Level Profile of Taser Device Deployments in Arrest-Related Deaths," can be read in full without charge as it was recently published online by the journal Police Quarterly. Click here to go directly to the report.

MINING MISSING DATA. In their introduction, the researchers point out that despite widely publicized concern over ARDs that have occurred after Taser exposure, there has been no previous broad-based effort to establish "a detailed profile" of these controversial and "polarizing" events. This has left troubling "unanswered questions regarding officer, suspect, and incident-level characteristics of these death cases, as well the extent to which patterns in these characteristics may have changed over time."
To "enhance our understanding of Taser device use in ARDs" and thus better "inform the discourse" about CEWs, the researchers undertook a thorough "descriptive analysis" of the 392 known Taser-involved ARDs that occurred in the US between 2001-2008. After merging information from print media archives and medical examiner/autopsy reports, they ended up with 213 fatalities about which they had input from both sources.

Each case, including those lacking ME documentation, was parsed for "detailed and accurate information on circumstances surrounding the death," such as officer and suspect demographics; the suspect's behavior before, during, and after the incident; the presence of drugs and alcohol in the suspect's system; mental illness; level of resistance; injury; the number of activations and location of CEW contact; other types of force used; primary and contributing factors in the cause of death; and so on.
Comparing the many variables, the researchers established the following general findings.

INCIDENT CHARACTERISTICS. Although death occurred in only a tiny fraction of CEW deployments, 280 different agencies in 37 states experienced at least one ARD after the use of a Taser during the eight-year study period, with California (75), Florida (57), Texas (32), and Ohio (20) showing the highest numbers. Nearly half the identified deaths occurred in these four states, with California alone accounting for roughly 20% of the total.

Three of these top states are among the nation's most populous, have the largest number of sworn officers, experience the greatest volume of violent crime, and are the biggest customers of Taser cartridges and X26 devices, so their disproportionate distribution of ARDs "makes intuitive sense," the researchers explain. Of the 13 states that had no ARDs, all but two (NJ and MA) had fewer than 3,500 sworn during the study years.

In the majority of ARD cases, multiple officers were at the scene and the suspect was not yet in custody when Tasered. In about a third of the cases (36.5%) there was only one Taser activation, but there were six or more in 10%, with an average of 2.91 activations across all incidents.

Where duration of exposure could be established, it was most often six to 15 seconds. Only rarely did activation total more than 30 seconds. In more than 80% of the time, deployment was via the darts-only mode, and the contact location reported most often (23%) was in the back, buttocks, or legs. The chest was the only contact area documented in 13.6%, with multiple frontal locations recorded in 16.9% of ARDs.

In about one in four ARDs (37.2%), a CEW was the only force used against the suspect. The rest involved other force as well, with officers usually starting with physical measures, OC spray, or handcuffing before resorting to the Taser when lesser measures failed. "n nearly one-fifth of the study cases...police used three or more force options," the researchers found.

SUSPECT SPECS. "[T]he vast majority were male and between the ages of 21 and 40.... Though only about 20% of suspects were described as mentally ill, drug and alcohol use was common...," the researchers write. Among ME reports, "nearly 90% indicated either illicit drugs in the decedent's body or evidence of chronic drug use." Most commonly cited were cocaine (about 66% of the cases) and methamphetamine (18%). More than half were "intoxicated or high during the police encounter."
Most suspects (86%) were unarmed, but "the vast majority were engaged in some form of active resistance against the officer(s) during the encounter." In about 7% of the cases, this resistance was judged to be "potentially lethal." Only 10% of subjects were characterized as "passively resisting." Of suspects who were armed, about half wielded an edged weapon and five brandished a firearm.

Despite Taser application, nearly 60% of suspects continued to resist. This suggests an exceptional commitment to resisting, in sharp contrast with earlier studies of nonfatal cases that show Tasering "stops suspect resistance in 80% to 90% of incidents," the researchers note.

In ARD cases where resistance did stop, researchers found that the average number of Taser applications was much lower, "officers were much less likely to have to resort to other force," and suspects were "less likely to be intoxicated."

CAUSE OF DEATH. "[D]rugs (21.4%), heart-related problems (30.5%), and ExDS [excited delirium syndrome] (23.8%) were cited as the primary cause of death in 75% of the ME reports," the study says. The Taser was listed as the primary cause in only two cases and as a "contributing factor" in 16.

CHANGES OVER TIME. As part of their investigation, the research team compared findings among three separate time periods (2001-2004, 2005-2006, 2007-2008) and discovered "several notable changes over time." Among them:

• "The average number of activations has decreased significantly, from 3.16 in the earlier period to just 2.38 in the later period."
• The percentage of incidents where only the Taser is used has declined.
• The resistance level of suspects has become "increasingly aggressive" and "less passive," yet the likelihood of resistance continuing after Taser exposure has "dropped substantially, from nearly three-quarters of cases in 2001-2004 to just over half of cases in 2007-2008."
• The proportion of death cases involving heart problems has become less common, dropping from 41.2% to 22.2%.

And some things haven't changed. Notably: "[D]rug use and mental illness have remained consistent features of Taser-proximate ARDs over time."

CONCLUSION. The study paints "a clear picture of the complex, prolonged, physical nature" of ARD encounters, the researchers write. These are "complex, dynamic encounters between suspects who [are] actively and aggressively resisting police, and officers who [are] drawing deeply into their arsenal of force options in an attempt to control them."
Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Institute, who was not involved in this research, joins White's team in calling for more nuanced discussions and scientific investigations of ARDs going forward.

"No single pattern emerges that fits all fatal confrontations," he says. "Many variables that are not yet fully understood are involved. Those observers who insist on finger-pointing at CEWs as the sole 'cause' of suspect deaths in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary are distracting from meaningful dialogue about proper policy and practices that relate to this important issue."

NOTE: The researchers footnote that there were 22 cases where one or more officers Tasered a suspect, then subsequently shot him fatally. These incidents were excluded from the analysis, as were five other cases in which a subject committed suicide or died accidentally after Taser application.

An observation from a reader about nomenclature

As a Taser Master Instructor, I continually stress to my students that we do not "Taser" someone. We use the Taser to deliver an energy cycle, etc. The analogy I use is we do not Kenmore our food or General Electric our drinks. We might bake or refrigerate those things. I would like to keep our operators using terms they can easily defend if needed, and Taser is the name of the device.
Sgt. Gerald Machurick
Miami Gardens (FL) PD


Full report at

http://pqx.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/08/24/1098611112457358.full.pdf+html

Crafty_Dog

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Another Brutality Brouhaha
« Reply #274 on: October 16, 2012, 02:52:58 PM »

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"You see, it's not the blood you spill that gets you what you want, it's the blood you share. Your family, your friendships, your community, these are the most valuable things a man can have." Before Dishonor - Hatebreed

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Re: New York police brutally beat man for sleeping at synagogue
« Reply #277 on: October 16, 2012, 03:15:18 PM »
I think this might be it

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/16/new-york-police-brutally-beat-man-for-sleeping-at-synagogue/

At about 1:05, it looks like the female officer was going to cuff him or place him in an escort hold and he pulls away. Depending on the statute, that's generally resisting arrest. As long as you resist, force can and will be used.

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Re: Citizen-Police interactions
« Reply #278 on: October 16, 2012, 04:33:23 PM »

Plenty of pre-assault cues by the urban camper, but from my laymen's POV the female officer was about as useful as teats on a bull.  Note how the first man of the backup simply pulls urban camper away from the huddled up position against the wall so UC can be proned out.

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Police station shoot-out
« Reply #280 on: January 06, 2013, 06:15:52 AM »
The picture of the disarmed officer does not give one a sense that this was someone who should be handling an uncuffed suspect , , ,

http://abcnews.go.com/US/jersey-police-station-shootout-suspect-department-corrections-employee/story?id=18082491#.UOlzKndp6So

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Stoned thug beats up two female LEOs
« Reply #281 on: January 11, 2013, 09:01:04 AM »


PSA # 4 P.O. Renee-Maria Sampson
 
NYPD cop beaten so severely by marijuana-carrying suspect, she might not be able to return to job
Officer Renee-Maria Sampson, 29, was allegedly pummeled by Pedro Urena after she spotted him holding a joint on the lower East Side
By Rocco Parascandola — Thursday, January 10th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
 
 
A pot-smoking suspect beat and choked a petite Manhattan cop so brutally she may never be able to return to work, police sources told the Daily News.
 
Officer Renee-Maria Sampson and her partner Temeisha Hoyte, both four-year NYPD vets, were patrolling a building in the Lillian Wald Houses on the lower East Side on Nov. 23 when they spotted Pedro Urena holding a lit joint, authorities said.
 
The cops called for backup, but before other officers arrived, Urena attacked, punching them both and slamming them against a wall, according to a complaint.
 
Next, he grabbed each cop by the neck and tried to choke the life out of them, according to police and a criminal complaint.
 
“At one point, Urena takes them and hits their heads together,” added one source. “Then he tried to drag both cops into his apartment.”
 
Backup officers arrived just in time, and Urena was arrested.
 
But Sampson had an asthma attack, fell to the ground and slammed her head, police said. She temporarily lost consciousness and had at least two seizures.
 
Sampson said she didn’t want to use her gun for fear she would shoot her partner because of the proximity, a source said.
 
The 29-year-old officer has yet to return to work. At 5-feet-2 and 105 pounds, she was overpowered by Urena, who is 5-feet-11 and 180 pounds, the source said.
 
The NYPD is considering a change in how officers are trained to deal with combative suspects, another source said. That source noted that “maybe the cops could have stayed back and waited for backup.”
COMMENT:  The NYPD finally comes to a tacit admission that some of those ‘Politically Correct’ police hires that Ray Kelly has been putting on the job are just not suited for police work and the street, period.  And it all comes after decades of putting hundreds of  those ‘obese chubbies’, ‘near freaks’, ‘almost dwarfs’, and extremely petit females on the job.  Duuuh!  - MB 

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Cop vs. Cop
« Reply #282 on: January 19, 2013, 01:30:37 PM »
IAB captain busted in NYPD gal-pal assault
By JESSICA SIMEONE and CHRISTINA CARREGA — Saturday, January 19th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’
COPS WANT TO KNOW: Was IAB Captain Aaron Wright ‘On-duty’ or ‘Off-duty’ while he was conducting his surreptitious investigation into Nicole McFarlane extracurricular amorous adventures? Inquiring cops want to know! — MB
 
An Internal Affairs captain who helped oversee the investigation into the Bronx ticket-fixing scandal was hauled off in handcuffs for allegedly beating his sergeant girlfriend into unconsciousness yesterday, The Post has learned.
Aaron Wright, 38, commanding officer of IAB’s Group 22, was lying in wait for 46th Precinct Domestic Violence Unit Sgt. Nicole McFarlane, 38, at her Queens home at 1:43 a.m., law-enforcement sources said.
 When McFarlane pulled up in her 2006 Nissan Altima, Wright came out of the shadows and twice kicked the driver-side door, the sources said. Then he slugged her so hard with his right fist that she lost consciousness, according to court documents.
 The next thing McFarlane remembered was being lifted off the ground by a uniformed cop with her left eye and jaw swollen and bruised, court papers and sources said. She was rushed to Jamaica Hospital.



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LEO shoots and kills fleeing attempted murderer
« Reply #285 on: March 29, 2013, 04:35:46 PM »
This clip has a lot of interesting facets to it, both from the DLO POV and the legal issues presented:

http://www.rightthisminute.com/video/criminal-controversy-and-accidental-abetting

I'd love to get our GM's take on shooting and killing the BG as he runs away from his attempt to kill the officer.

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Fleeing unarmed suspects standard
« Reply #286 on: March 30, 2013, 03:16:00 PM »
SCOTUS in Tennessee v. Garner:

"Law enforcement officers pursuing an unarmed suspect may use deadly force to prevent escape only if the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others."
« Last Edit: April 01, 2013, 08:13:09 AM by Crafty_Dog »

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Re: LEO shoots and kills fleeing attempted murderer
« Reply #288 on: April 01, 2013, 05:32:48 PM »
This clip has a lot of interesting facets to it, both from the DLO POV and the legal issues presented:

http://www.rightthisminute.com/video/criminal-controversy-and-accidental-abetting

I'd love to get our GM's take on shooting and killing the BG as he runs away from his attempt to kill the officer.

http://www.laaw.com/uodfs.htm

What's Your Use-of-Deadly-Force Standard?

by Michael A. Brave, Esq., M.S., C.P.S., C.S.T.
and John G. Peters, M.S., M.S.
(© Copyright 1992, by Michael A. Brave. All rights reserved.)

"Dispatch - all units, armed robbery in progress - Ajax Liquor, Fourth and Main."
"Dispatch - all units, suicidal adult female with - handgun - 1435 Sycamore."
"456 - dispatch, shots fired, officer down, need immediate assistance!"

These incident examples are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving. And, the responding officers when faced with deadly force may only have seconds to choose a deadly-force option that could impact the rest of their lives. If the officers make a poor decision they could face administrative discipline/termination, criminal prosecu- tion, civil litigation, community hatred, and media chastisement. Conversely, if the officers hesitate in their use of reasonable-deadly-force because their agency has failed to provide them with adequate guidance and training, or because of their fear of litigation, discipline, etc. the officers could lose their lives or could be the catalyst that results in others losing their lives.

Every time officers are forced to make deadly-force decisions they are putting their futures (life/death, financial, career, family, societal) on the line. The time of the incident is not the time when your officers should be forced to decide whether they can or cannot use deadly force. Long before the incident occurs the law enforcement agency executives must decide under what circumstances they will allow their officers to use deadly force. Executives need to identify potential problems and need to reasonably limit officer discretion through policy development and that is why every agency needs to develop a competent use-of-force policy.

An agency's first step in providing competent guidance, direction, and training to its officers in the use of deadly force is to provide a sound, unambiguous written deadly-force policy (of course an agency must also provide a non-deadly force policy as well). The policy must set out in clear and unambiguous terms when officers can use deadly force. The balance of this article is not going to examine all of the factors that should be considered in drafting a use-of-force policy. Rather, this article is specifically limited to discussing the major use-of-deadly-force standards which have been adopted by various agencies and jurisdictions.

Before examining the use-of-deadly-force standards, we must first look at a few definitions. While definitions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction we can find some common ground. One of the most misunderstood use-of-force terms is "deadly force." There are many different definitions and interpretations of "deadly force." However, a good working definition of "deadly force" for decision making might be: "[D]eadly force is force which the actor uses with the purpose of causing, or which he knows to create, a substantial risk of causing death or serious bodily harm."(1) "Serious bodily harm" is "[A] bodily injury that: (1) creates a substantial risk of death; (2) causes serious, (3) permanent disfigurement; or (4) results in long-term loss or impairment of the functioning of any bodily member or organ."(2) It is also worth noting that most deadly-force definitions find that the term "serious bodily harm" is synonymous with "great bodily harm."(3) Obviously, "deadly force" does not equate to "lethal" or "fatal" force. "Lethal" or "fatal" force is force which is likely to cause death and not merely serious bodily harm.

Objective Reasonableness Test:

Before we look at the different use-of-deadly-force standards we must look to the overriding standard of Graham v. Conner(4). In Graham, the United States Supreme Court stated that the proper measure to determine whether a law enforcement officer's use of force is excessive, is the "objective reasonableness" test under the Fourth Amendment. The Court stated that the Graham analysis applies to all alleged law enforcement excessive force claims - deadly or not - in the course of an arrest, investigatory stop, or other "seizure" of a free citizen. Therefore, regardless of which use-of-deadly-force standard an agency adopts, the use of force must meet the Graham Fourth Amendment "objective reasonableness" requirement of seizures.

Now let's look at six major use-of-deadly-force standards. The lowest, least restrictive, use-of-deadly-force standard is the standard enumerated by the United States Supreme Court in Tennessee v. Garner. The Garner standard, which is also referred to as the "fleeing felon standard," allows for the limited use of deadly force against fleeing felons under three restrictive criteria. Under the Garner "fleeing felon standard," a law enforcement officer can use deadly force against a fleeing felon if: (1) the use of deadly force is necessary to prevent the felon's escape, (2) the fleeing felon has threatened the officer with a weapon or the officer has probable cause to believe that the felon has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm, AND (3) the officer gives the felon some warning of the imminent use of deadly force - if feasible.

Some jurisdictions which do allow the use of deadly force under the Garner standard do not include all three Garner requirements in their use-of-deadly-force statute. Remember, since a law enforcement officer's use of force is subject to the requirements of the United States Constitution, and because of the Constitution's Supremacy Clause, a state, or lower government subdivision, cannot create a use-of-force standard that is less restrictive than the standard defined by U.S. Supreme Court and federal case law as it pertains to individual jurisdictions. A law enforcement agency which adopts the "fleeing felon" standard (assuming the agency is in a jurisdiction that allows the use of deadly force under the "fleeing felon standard") must be sure to include Garner's three requirements - even if these requirements are not enumerated in the state statutes. Therefore, if an agency is in a jurisdiction which allows the use of deadly force under the "fleeing felon standard", the lowest standard that could be adopted must meet the Garner and Graham requirements. It is important to note that some jurisdictions (such as Alaska) do not allow the use of deadly force against a "fleeing felon" as defined by Garner.

An interesting question that arises is whether today, or in the foreseeable future, the United States Supreme Court would uphold the "fleeing felon" standard as an "objectively reasonable" seizure under Graham? If Graham is the test for ALL law enforcement use of force (deadly or non- deadly), then today would the U.S. Supreme Court uphold the use of deadly force (against a fleeing felon) under Garner "objectively reasonable" under Graham?

If the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), many law enforcement agencies, and many law enforcement experts are stating that deadly force can only be "reasonably" used in deadly force confrontations, in defense of life or under the deadly-force-defense standard, then the use of deadly force (against a fleeing felon)) under Garner may be held to be unreasonable by future appellate courts. Additionally, with some law enforcement agencies and certain individual experts promulgating the "preservation of life" standard as the only reasonable standard, then the use of deadly force against a fleeing felon under Garner is definitely not a "reasonable" use of force.

A slightly higher standard (than the Garner "fleeing felon standard") is the Model Penal Code Standard(6). The Model Penal Code Standard provides, in relevant part, that a law enforcement officer may use deadly force against an individual, in the course of an arrest, if the officer believes that: (1) the arrest is for a felony; (2) the person effecting the arrest is authorized to act as a peace officer or is assisting a person whom he believes to be authorized as a peace officer; (3) the officer believes that the force employed creates no substantial risk of injury to innocent persons; AND (4) the crime for which the arrest is made involved conduct including the use or threatened use of deadly force, or there is a substantial risk that the person to be arrested will cause death or serious bodily injury if his apprehension is delayed.

The next, gradually becoming more restrictive, standard is the "Deadly-Force- Defense Standard." Under the "Deadly-Force-Defense Standard" a law enforcement officer may intentionally use deadly force against an individual only if the officer objectively reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent the individual from inflicting imminent death or great bodily harm on the officer or others. The "deadly-force-defense standard" is the standard that most closely approximates most self-defense statutes.

Moving up the restrictiveness ladder, the next standard is the "defense of life standard." Often called the "CALEA(7) defense of life standard," the standard requires that, "an officer may use deadly force only when the officer reasonably believes that the action is in defense of human life, including the officer's own life, or in defense of any person in immediate danger of serious physical injury."(8) CALEA expressly prohibits the use of deadly force under the Garner "fleeing felon standard" and the Model Penal Code Standard.(9)

The CALEA "defense of life standard" contains a glaring ambiguity. The standard states that, "an officer may use deadly force only when the officer reasonably believes that the action is in defense of human life, including the officer's own life," and then the standard goes on to say that an officer can also use deadly force "in defense of any person in immediate danger of serious physical injury." The ambiguity arises in that the standard could be construed to mean that an officer can only use deadly force if the officer's life is in jeopardy and not if the officer is in immediate danger of serious physical harm. However, the officer can use deadly force in defense of "any person" in immediate danger of serious physical harm. So the question becomes, is the officer included in the term "any person" under the language of the standard? If the officer is included under "any person" then why is the officer delineated earlier in the standard, where the standard says "including the officer's own life?" If the officer is included in the term "any person" then this standard is identical to the "deadly force defense standard."

The most restrictive (intentionally used) deadly-force standard is the "preservation of life standard" as adopted by the Dallas (Texas) Police Department (among others). The "preservation of life standard" states that, "[r]egardless of the nature of the crime or the justification for firing at a suspect, officers must remember that their basic responsibility is to protect life. Officers shall not fire under conditions that would unnecessarily subject bystanders or hostages to death or possible injury, except to preserve life or to prevent serious bodily injury. Deadly force is an act of last resort and will be used only when other reasonable alternatives are impracticable or fail.(10)" [Emphasis added.] Further, the "preservation of life standard" requires that, "
  • fficers will plan ahead and consider alternatives which will reduce the possibility of needing to use deadly force(11)." [Emphasis added.]


While the "preservation of life standard" is the most restrictive policy that is (usually) intentionally promulgated, there are many policies that place even more restrictive use-of-deadly-force standards on officers. Some agencies, such as the Los Angeles Police Department, state that officers should use only the "minimum force that is necessary."(12) Other policies state that officers will exhaust all alternatives before resorting to deadly force. Many officers might think that these more restrictive use-of-deadly-force standards may not come back to haunt them after a use-of-force incident. However, if you watched the trial of the Los Angeles Police Officers who were accused of using excessive force on Rodney King, you may have noticed that the prosecutor accused Officer Powell of violating departmental policy because even if Officer Powell's use of force was "reasonable", it was still in violation of departmental policy because it was not the "minimum force that [was] necessary."

So the question becomes, what use-of-deadly-force policy should you adopt? That decision is yours and should only be made after very careful consideration. The most important point is to adopt ONLY ONE standard. Many policies improperly adopt more than one standard, and then expect the officers to be able to decipher which standard they will be held accountable to for a given incident. Remember: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PERFECT POLICY. Having said this, lets look at some potentially problematic and confusing areas which we found in the use-of-deadly-force sections of the 1991 Los Angeles Police Department Policy. The following is for discussion purposes only and should not be interpreted as a criticism of the LAPD.

LAPD: Several Standards:

The LAPD Policy Manual Contains the Following Use-of-Deadly Force- Standards:

Deadly Force Defense Standard - "An officer is equipped with a firearm to protect himself or others against the immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury ..."(13)
Model Penal Code Standard - "An officer is equipped with a firearm ... to apprehend a fleeing felon who has committed a violent crime and whose escape presents a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury to others."(14)
Model Penal Code Standard - "An officer is authorized the use of deadly force when it reasonably appears necessary ... To apprehend a fleeing felon for a crime involving serious bodily injury or the use of deadly force where there is a substantial risk that the person whose arrest is sought will cause death or serious bodily injury to others if apprehension is delayed.(15)
The Crystal Ball Approach (using deadly force to PREVENT a crime) - "An officer is authorized the use of deadly force when it reasonably appears necessary ... To prevent a crime where the suspect's actions place persons in jeopardy of death or serious bodily injury ..."(16)
The ANY DOUBT Standard - "... Nor should an officer fire at a `fleeing felon' if the officer has any doubt whether the person fired at is in fact the person against whom the use of deadly force is permitted under the policy."(17)
Unconstitutional Standard (does not specify "imminent" bodily harm - unless officers are supposed to read "imminent" into "reasonable and necessary") - "... Officers are permitted to use whatever force that is reasonable and necessary to protect others or themselves from bodily harm."(18)
The NOT LIKELY Standard - "Officers shall not use deadly force to protect themselves from assaults which are not likely to have serious results."(19)
The Exhaust Other Reasonable Alternatives Standard - "... [F]orce may not be resorted to unless other reasonable alternatives have been exhausted or would clearly be ineffective under the particular circumstances..."(20)
The Minimum Force Necessary Standard - "... n keeping with the philosophy that the minimum force that is necessary should be used ..."(21)
The Extreme Caution Standard - "This Department has always utilized extreme caution with respect to the use of deadly force against youthful offenders. Nothing in this policy is intended to reduce the degree of care required in such cases."(22)
Using these use-of-deadly-force "standards", answer the following hypothetical. You are dispatched to an armed robbery in progress of a liquor store. Upon your arrival you see the suspect (a young looking minority male) shoot into the store in the direction of some people, you hear screams from inside the liquor store, the suspect then turns and runs in the general direction of a couple of on-lookers. You are faced with a tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving deadly-force confrontation. Governed by the LAPD Policy, make a quick, competent decision within policy? Remember, you may be able to use "reasonable force" in shooting the "fleeing felon", if the fleeing felon's "escape presents a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury to others," as long as you "exhaust all reasonable alternatives", while you use "the minimum amount of force necessary", as long as you "utilize extreme caution" in dealing with the possible juvenile. As you can see your decision will be difficult to say the least.

Now let's add one more quotation from the LAPD Policy Manual: "This policy is not intended to create doubt in the mind of an officer at a moment when action is critical and there is little time for meditation or reflection. It provides basic guidelines governing the use of firearms so that officers can be confident in exercising judgment as to the use of deadly force."(23) While only using the LAPD policy for an example as you can see what management appears to be saying in policy seems to be inconsistent with practice.

Summary:

When drafting and adopting a deadly-force policy make sure only one standard is used, and that it is consistent in its application. Policies must guide officers, reasonably limit their discretion in the field, and provide a basis for fair and consistent discipline. But don't stop with the mere writing of a policy and then issuing it to officers.

Be sure to give your officers the guidance, training, and supervision they need to allow them to make that decision under the harsh realities of the deadly-force confrontation. After all, making deadly-force decisions is a core task of the officer's duties.(24)


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

See generally: Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 85 L.Ed.2d 1, 105 S.Ct. 1694, (1985); Pruitt v. Montgomery, 771 F.2d 1475, 1479 n. 10 (11th Cir. 1985); Model Penal Code § 3.11(2) (1962); Mattis v. Schuarr, 547 F.2d 1007, 1009 n. 2 (8th Cir. 1976)(en banc). Black's Law Dictionary, 5th Edition, page 359. Black's Law Dictionary, 5th Edition, page 580 - under heading "force." Restatement of Torts Second, 䅻(d). 
CALEA Standards, Chapter 1, Glossary, page 1-4, March 1991, revision. See also: Restatement of Torts Second, Section § 63(b); United States v. Johnson, 637 F.2d 1224, 1246 (9th Cir. 1980). 
See: Black's Law Dictionary, 5th Edition, page 631. Wisconsin Statute § 939.22. Words and phrases defined, number (14). Klein v. Ryan, 847 F.2d 368 (7th Cir. 1988) - (Illinois). 
Graham v. Conner, 490 U.S. 386, 104 L.Ed.2d 443, 109 S.Ct. 1865 (1989). 
Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 85 L.Ed.2d 1, 105 S.Ct. 1694 (1985). 
Model Penal Code Section 3.07. Use of Force in Law Enforcement. 
Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies. 
CALEA Standard 1.3.2 
CALEA Standard 1.3.3 A written directive specifies that use of deadly force against a "fleeing felon" must meet the conditions required by standard 1.3.2. 
Dallas P.D. Policy § 302.00 Use of Deadly Force, Section (A)(1). 
Dallas P.D. Policy § 302.00 Use of Deadly Force, Section (A)(2). 
1991 Manual of the Los Angeles Police Department, Section 556.35, page 108. 
1991 Manual of the Los Angeles Police Department, Section 556.25 Reason for the Use of Deadly Force, page 108. 
1991 Manual of the Los Angeles Police Department, Section 556.25 Reason for the Use of Deadly Force, page 108. 
1991 Manual of the Los Angeles Police Department, Section 556.40, The Use of Deadly Force, page 108. 
1991 Manual of the Los Angeles Police Department, Section 556.40, The Use of Deadly Force, page 108. 
1991 Manual of the Los Angeles Police Department, Section 556.55, Suspected Felony Offenders, page 108. 
1991 Manual of the Los Angeles Police Department, Section 240.10 Use of Force, page 98; also in Section 556.40, The Use of Deadly Force, page 108. 
1991 Manual of the Los Angeles Police Department, Section 556.40, The Use of Deadly Force, page 108. 
1991 Manual of the Los Angeles Police Department, Section 240.10 Use of Force, page 98; Section 556.40, The Use of Deadly Force, page 108. 
1991 Manual of the Los Angeles Police Department, Section 556.35, Minimizing the Risk of Death, page 108. 
1991 Manual of the Los Angeles Police Department, Section 556.60, Youthful Felony Suspects, page 108. 
1991 Manual of the Los Angeles Police Department, Section 556.10, Pream ble to the Policy on the Use of Firearms, page 108. 
City of Canton, Ohio v. Harris, et al, 489 U.S. 378, 109 S.Ct. 1197, 103 L.Ed.2d 412 (1989).

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Chicago cop shoots pit bull puppy
« Reply #290 on: June 02, 2013, 08:17:02 PM »
http://www.examiner.com/article/off-duty-officer-shoots-and-kills-pit-bull-puppy-chicago

The daughter of a highly regarded detective of a major city writes:

The truth is actually much worse when I talk to her neighbors, their kids
and other witnesses. It was a planned execution because the cop did not want
to let the puppy ever grow up. He was also a racist.
It was a completely socialized happy puppy whom all the neighborhood kids
played with.
He set his own son up  and told him to wait a block back and then walked up
to the house and emptied 9 rounds. He actually missed with 1 of them. All
eight rounds were in the side of the puppy's body ­ which shows he was not
running at him.

Her vet wrote a scathing letter to the press. So, hopefully behind closed,
the cop is getting some scrutiny.
« Last Edit: June 02, 2013, 08:20:27 PM by Crafty_Dog »

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Re: Citizen-Police interactions
« Reply #291 on: June 03, 2013, 02:19:50 AM »
The daughter of the detective continues today with this:

It gets worse.
timeline

Sam scooped the bloody body of the puppy into her arms and raced the pup
and her screaming kids (ages 5 - 11) to the emergency room.
Of course, the pup couldn't be saved. She's got a huge bill for that. And
the bill for autopsy.

Gets her kids and her crying self back home.

Eventually she gets the kids to sleep.

She crawls into bed in fetal position crying. At 11:30pm, Sam hears fist
pounding on her door. Police OPEN UP!!!

Three large male cops enter and give her a rough interview. She's
terrified of them and just answers anything they want. They give her 2
fines:
One for an off-leash dog; one for an un-licensed dog (wasn't wearing a
Chicago tag).
The vet confirmed that dogs do not require a city license until 5 months
old.
The puppy was scheduled to be neutered the next day.

Every day since then, cops are riding back n forth her house, trolling her
facebook, followed her and parked on either side of her at Walgreen's and
stare her down.

The wife of the cop put her husband up to it. They both knew the puppy,
had met it and warned her they didn't want a pitbull in their neighborhood.
(instead of just introducing their son to the puppy like all the other
neighborhood kids on the block).

It was an absurdly well-behaved sweet natured dog - who layed quietly by
Sam at the many dog-friendly cafes they took him too.

It makes me sick.

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Re: Citizen-Police interactions
« Reply #292 on: June 03, 2013, 05:29:44 AM »
Any discharge of a weapon by an officer should have generated a lot of paper, if the investigation is completed, it should be public information. If the dog owner asserts the officer lied about the shooting, she can file a internal affairs/professional standards complaint.

Where was the dog located when it was shot? The trajectory of the GSW would indicate the distance and orientation when the shots were fired. I'd expect a door to door canvas was done and and an attempt to locate and document all shots fired and the weapon
was taken and entered into evidence.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Citizen-Police interactions
« Reply #293 on: June 03, 2013, 12:02:42 PM »
Are these the folks that would be doing the investigation?  Or would it be their friends?

"Every day since then, cops are riding back n forth her house, trolling her
facebook, followed her and parked on either side of her at Walgreen's and
stare her down."

Lets try this on for size:  8 broadside shots into a four month old pit (what are we talking about here?  20 pounds max?) is per se WRONG.

G M

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Re: Citizen-Police interactions
« Reply #294 on: June 03, 2013, 12:07:01 PM »
The article says 35 lbs.

Didn't Chicago have 8 humans shot in one day the other day?

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Citizen-Police interactions
« Reply #295 on: June 03, 2013, 12:22:37 PM »
Umm , , , OK , , , but a distinction without a difference though.  Somehow I doubt you believe that 15 pounds here are what required the fire power in question , , , please, tell me that is not your point , , ,

"Didn't Chicago have 8 humans shot in one day the other day?"

Umm , , , that's a helluva leap there GM, even for you  :evil:  The point here is that someone with a badge and a gun did something profoundly wrong, violent, and illegal and other people with badges are backing his play.   This is quite a serious matter for a society which wishes to remain free.

G M

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Re: Citizen-Police interactions
« Reply #296 on: June 03, 2013, 12:31:12 PM »
How do you know he did something wrong ? These media reports? How many pounds per square inch can a 35 lbs pit bull exert on a bite?

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Citizen-Police interactions
« Reply #297 on: June 03, 2013, 09:25:16 PM »
GM:

Please, it was four months old and was not attacking.  With malice aforethought this guy blew it away and his buddies are backing his play.

Time to call bad apples bad apples.

G M

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Re: Citizen-Police interactions
« Reply #298 on: June 04, 2013, 05:18:44 AM »
GM:

Please, it was four months old and was not attacking.  With malice aforethought this guy blew it away and his buddies are backing his pla

Time to call bad apples bad apples.


Facts not in evidence.

G M

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Another innocent pit bull suffers at the hands of CPD...
« Reply #299 on: June 17, 2013, 09:54:27 AM »
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-05-15/news/chi-sergeant-shoots-pit-bull-as-it-attacks-teen-in-englewood-20130515_1_pit-bull-sergeant-dog


Sergeant kills pit bull attacking teen: 'That dog would have killed me'


May 15, 2013|By Liam Ford | Tribune reporter


Tyrell Henry, 16, was bitten by a pit bull on his way to school at Urban Prep Academy in Chicago. The teen suffered puncture wounds to his right leg and foot and received 19 stitches. The dog was killed by a Chicago police officer. (Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune)


Tyrell Henry just got off the bus and was walking to school when he got a quick glimpse of a pit bull seconds before it jumped him.

"When it first bit me, when I was on the ground, I started kicking it," said Tyrell, a 16-year-old sophomore at Urban Prep Academy. "Then I hit it with my book bag."

The dog was still coming after the boy when a Chicago police sergeant showed up and shouted at it, then fired a shot. The pit bull ran toward the sergeant, who fired again, killing the dog.

"Thank God for that officer," Tyrell told police later. "That dog would have killed me."

The teenager suffered puncture wounds to his right leg and foot and received 19 stitches at St. Bernard Hospital and Health Care Center, just around the corner from where the attack occurred in the 5900 block of South Stewart Avenue in the Englewood neighborhood.

Police discovered that a 63-year-old man had also been attacked and badly bitten by the dog in an alley at 59th Street and Eggleston Avenue. He was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was expected to receive stitches for his injuries, Officer John Mirabelli said.

The sergeant had been dispatched to the area shortly before 8 a.m. after police got a call of someone attacked by a pit bull, Mirabelli said.

Neighbors flagged down the sergeant and pointed him toward the dog, which had just charged the boy. The sergeant jumped out of his car and after the dog was separated from the teen, started firing, Mirabelli said.

The sergeant was attacked by another dog and bitten in the leg while responding to a call last week, a police source said.

"I'm just glad he was there," said Tyrell's mother, Helen Henry, 64, after returning from St. Bernard with her son. "What the sergeant did, that was really great. God was there for him."

lford@tribune.com