Law Enforcement issues and LE in action

[Body-by-Guinness]

**The courts have ruled over and over that you have no reasonable expectation of privacy in the public sphere. That means anyone can view, photograph, film anyone or anything in public. This means the media, law enforcement or Joe Citizen.**

And this means I should be comfortable with the idea of a truck parked in front of my house with a camera pointed at my bedroom window?

. . . at least one that won't pass someone's version of constitutional muster, and then casts anyone who does take pause as an unmitigated ideologue providing de-facto support for horrible criminal elements preying upon the weakest members of society, and likely strangling kittens, to boot

**Hardly. It would be nice for your critiques of police practices to have some grounding in actual caselaw rather than emotion. You wouldn't accept someone's assertion that global warming was indeed happining because "It feels warmer".**

I'm not a lawyer and hence have little acquaintance with case law and so won't quote what I don't know. And you have me dead to rights, my response is an emotional one: I feel strongly that I don't want police cameras pointed at my house recording the comings and goings of me, my wife, and kids and then used for purposes yet defined; nor do I want thermal imaging done through my walls; nor do I want lasers bounced of my windows to record conversations occurring inside my home; nor do I want people going through my trash or collecting and analyzing flushed body waste to determine if any malfeasance is occurring. Is there case law that allows each of these techniques to be employed? I imagine so. Does that mean I can't dislike it or shouldn't be concerned about misuse?

Be all that as it may, global warming ought to be a scientific debate based on empiric measurement. This debate is about privacy and governmental intrusion into one's life, which is a far more subjective matter that resists empiric measurement.

As pointed out before, you can pose stark questions faster than I can write reasoned responses.

**I'm trying to evoke a reasoned response, which on this topic is like pulling teeth. What we have here is the same unthinking emotionalism that fuels gun control supporters. Guns are scary so let's get rid of them. Police cameras are scary, so let's get rid of them. Why? Because the potential for misuse is there.**

I'm beginning to think this is a gulf we will not bridge. I look at the sorry history of the planet and can identify very few times and places where the powers that be were constrained from the exercise of arbitrary power. I don't want the status quo endured over most of the planet for just about all of time to impact me and mine here an now. If that's not reasoned well enough for you I'm not sure what more I can say.

If you can't conceive of a misuse given this planet's sorry history of totalitarian governments using every tool at hand to snuff out liberty and life, no amount of keyboarding I do in response is going to do anything more than lead to further stark parsing.

**I have already stated that anything has the potential for misuse. There have been bad police shootings in the past, and there will be bad shootings in the future. Is the policy solution to then disarm police officers?**

I do not want police disarmed, but I do want them to use lethal force judiciously. I also want privacy infringements to be based on judicious standards. In this instance the standard seems to be based on a phone call or other complaint, to which the jurisdiction in question apparently responds by saying "we've got a report of a dirtbag living on Elm street. Let's park a butt ugly truck laden with cameras in front of the house and see if we can intimidate him out of the neighborhood." Be it use of lethal force, privacy infringements, or any other exercise of government power, I would hope they'd be based on standards more stringent than the one described.

[G M]

**The courts have ruled over and over that you have no reasonable expectation of privacy in the public sphere. That means anyone can view, photograph, film anyone or anything in public. This means the media, law enforcement or Joe Citizen.**

And this means I should be comfortable with the idea of a truck parked in front of my house with a camera pointed at my bedroom window?

**One word: Curtains.**

. . . at least one that won't pass someone's version of constitutional muster, and then casts anyone who does take pause as an unmitigated ideologue providing de-facto support for horrible criminal elements preying upon the weakest members of society, and likely strangling kittens, to boot

**Hardly. It would be nice for your critiques of police practices to have some grounding in actual caselaw rather than emotion. You wouldn't accept someone's assertion that global warming was indeed happining because "It feels warmer".**

I'm not a lawyer and hence have little acquaintance with case law and so won't quote what I don't know. And you have me dead to rights, my response is an emotional one: I feel strongly that I don't want police cameras pointed at my house recording the comings and goings of me, my wife, and kids and then used for purposes yet defined; nor do I want thermal imaging done through my walls; nor do I want lasers bounced of my windows to record conversations occurring inside my home; nor do I want people going through my trash or collecting and analyzing flushed body waste to determine if any malfeasance is occurring. Is there case law that allows each of these techniques to be employed? I imagine so. Does that mean I can't dislike it or shouldn't be concerned about misuse?

Be all that as it may, global warming ought to be a scientific debate based on empiric measurement. This debate is about privacy and governmental intrusion into one's life, which is a far more subjective matter that resists empiric measurement.

As pointed out before, you can pose stark questions faster than I can write reasoned responses.

**I'm trying to evoke a reasoned response, which on this topic is like pulling teeth. What we have here is the same unthinking emotionalism that fuels gun control supporters. Guns are scary so let's get rid of them. Police cameras are scary, so let's get rid of them. Why? Because the potential for misuse is there.**

I'm beginning to think this is a gulf we will not bridge. I look at the sorry history of the planet and can identify very few times and places where the powers that be were constrained from the exercise of arbitrary power. I don't want the status quo endured over most of the planet for just about all of time to impact me and mine here an now. If that's not reasoned well enough for you I'm not sure what more I can say.

***Keep in mind that as much as you fear the potential for the abuse/misuse of police power, living in a place without the rule of law is much, much worse. I know of no place in the US that is a police state, but I bet you live within driving distance of places where is little in the way of police presence and life in those location is a Hobbesian nightmare. Everything law enforcement officers do in this country is subject to many levels of scrutiny and judicial review.***

If you can't conceive of a misuse given this planet's sorry history of totalitarian governments using every tool at hand to snuff out liberty and life, no amount of keyboarding I do in response is going to do anything more than lead to further stark parsing.

**I have already stated that anything has the potential for misuse. There have been bad police shootings in the past, and there will be bad shootings in the future. Is the policy solution to then disarm police officers?**

I do not want police disarmed, but I do want them to use lethal force judiciously. I also want privacy infringements to be based on judicious standards. In this instance the standard seems to be based on a phone call or other complaint, to which the jurisdiction in question apparently responds by saying "we've got a report of a dirtbag living on Elm street. Let's park a butt ugly truck laden with cameras in front of the house and see if we can intimidate him out of the neighborhood." Be it use of lethal force, privacy infringements, or any other exercise of government power, I would hope they'd be based on standards more stringent than the one described.

I'd bet that there are policies in place that were reviewed by multiple lawyers before the "Armadillo" had day one in the field.

[G M]

http://www.cdt.org/wiretap/wiretap_overview.html

The Nature and Scope of Governmental Electronic Surveillance Activity
July 2006

Even before the PATRIOT Act, federal agencies had broad legal powers to monitor telephone conversations, e-mail, pagers, wireless phones, computers and all other electronic communications and communications devices. The PATRIOT Act expanded some of these powers but generally did not disrupt the basic framework, which is constitutionally grounded.

Government wiretap authority
There are two sources of authority for wiretapping in the US.

(1) The Federal Wiretap Act, sometimes referred to as Title III, was adopted in 1968 and expanded in 1986. It sets procedures for court authorization of real-time surveillance of all kinds of electronic communications, including voice, e-mail, fax, and Internet, in criminal investigations. It normally requires, before a wiretap can commence, a court order issued by a judge who must conclude, based on an affidavit submitted by the government, that there is probable cause to believe that a crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed. Terrorist bombings, hijackings and other violent activities are crimes for which wiretaps can be ordered. (The PATRIOT Act expanded the list of criminal statutes for which wiretaps can be ordered.) This authority is used to prevent as well as punish crimes: government can wiretap in advance of a crime being carried out, where the wiretap is used to identify planning and conspiratorial activities. Judges almost never deny government requests for wiretap orders.

(2) The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 allows wiretapping of aliens and citizens in the US based on a finding of probable cause to believe that the target is a member of a foreign terrorist group or an agent of a foreign power. For US citizens and permanent resident aliens, there must also be probable cause to believe that the person is engaged in activities that "may" involve a criminal violation. Suspicion of illegal activity is not required in the case of aliens who are not permanent residents - for them, membership in a terrorist group is enough, even if their activities on behalf of the group are legal. The most important judicial opinion interpreting FISA is from a special appellate panel: In re Sealed Case at http://www.cdt.org/security/usapatriot/021118fisa.pdf

One major change made by the PATRIOT Act was to allow prosecutors to use FISA for the purpose of gathering evidence in criminal investigations of national security crimes.

Finally, it is worth noting that there are no legislative limits on US government electronic eavesdropping carried out overseas. Neither Title III nor FISA have any application to intelligence collection activities outside the US. The legal authority for electronic surveillance outside the US is contained in Executive Order 12,333 issued by President Reagan in 1982, still in effect today. Intelligence agencies do not need a court order to intercept communications outside the US. If a United States citizen or US permanent resident alien is targeted for surveillance abroad, the Executive Order requires the approval of the Attorney General. By internal guideline, the Attorney General must find that there is probable cause to believe that the US person who is the target of the surveillance is an agent of a foreign power as defined in FISA. Decisions to target non-US persons are left to the intelligence community. And the vacuum cleaner approach that does not involve targeting of US persons also requires no approval from outside the intelligence community, although there are limits on the dissemination of information about US persons that is collected "incidental" to an intelligence collection activity.

Emergency authority
Both Title III and FISA allow the government to carry out wiretaps without a court order in emergency situations involving risk of death or serious bodily injury and in national security cases.

Roving taps
Under Title III, the government has "roving tap" authority, meaning that it can get a court order that does not name a specific telephone line or e-mail account but allows the government to tap any phone line, cell phone, or Internet account that a suspect uses. This authority was initially adopted in 1986 and was substantially broadened in 1999. The PATRIOT Act added roving tap authority to FISA.

Roving taps are relatively rare. In 2005, 8 roving taps were approved in criminal cases under Title III. Of those, one was for a federal racketeering investigation. The other 7 were at the state level: 4 applications were authorized for use in narcotics investigations, 1 application in a racketeering investigation, 1 application in a murder investigation, and 1 application in a money laundering investigation. The 2005 Wiretap Report, issued in April 2006, is available online at http://www.uscourts.gov/wiretap05/contents.html

Encryption
Use of encryption in the US is not regulated. If a service provider encrypts communication and has the key, the service provider must decrypt the communications when served with a wiretap order. But a service provider has no obligation to decrypt communication encrypted by the end user when the service provider does not have the key. Likewise, CALEA, which requires telecommunication carriers to support government surveillance activities on their networks, explicitly states that the carriers have no obligation to provide the plain text of communications encrypted by parties themselves. Beginning with the 2000 Wiretap Report, the government has been required to report on the number of wiretap applications granted in which encryption was encountered and whether such encryption prevented law enforcement officials from obtaining the plain text of communications intercepted pursuant to the court orders. In 2005, no federal wiretaps reported that encryption was encountered. For state and local jurisdictions, encryption was reported to have been encountered in 13 wiretaps in 2005; however, the encryption was not reported to have prevented law enforcement officials from obtaining the plain text of communications intercepted. So far, the government has reported only a single wiretap frustrated by encryption.

Courts Rarely Deny Wiretap Requests
The rapid changes in telecommunications technology have been accompanied by a growth in the potential intrusiveness of electronic surveillance and a steady increase in government surveillance activity. While the wiretap laws establish important protections -- most notably requiring for interception of call content a judicial order based on a finding of probable cause -- in practice state and federal judges rarely deny applications for authority to conduct electronic surveillance.

Every spring, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts publishes statistics on wiretap activity of federal, state, and local police in the prior year. The report covering 2005 is available online: http://www.uscourts.gov/wiretap05/contents.html. A useful summary, covering the years 1993-2005 and showing the nearly steady increase in the use of wiretaps, is provided by Table 7, which is at http://www.uscourts.gov/wiretap05/Table72005-1.pdf.

Highlights of the 2003 Report on Wiretaps in Criminal Cases
Number of wiretap requests approved in 2005: 1,773

Number of wiretap requests denied: 1

Percent of wiretaps that were against mobile phones: 91% (1,433 of 1,773)

Percent in which the most serious crime was a drug-related crime: 81% (1,433 of 1,773)

Percent in which encryption prevented law enforcement from receiving the plain text of intercepted communications: 0%

Average number of communications intercepted per wiretap: 2,835

Average number of people intercepted per wiretap: 107

Approximate number of conversations intercepted: 5.0 million

Longest running federal wiretap ending in 2005: 287 days

Longest running state wiretap ending in 2005: 559 days

Percent of intercepted conversations deemed "incriminating": 22%

Average cost of wiretap: $ 55,530

Recent Trends
Year Applications Wiretap orders approved Denied
2005 1774 1773 1
2004 1710 1710 0
2003 1442 1442 0
2002 1359 1358 1
2001 1491 1491 0
2000 1190 1190 0
1999 1350 1350 0
1998 1329 1327 2
1997 1186 1186 0
1996 1150 1149 1

Prior to 1996, the last time that any application, state or federal, for electronic surveillance was denied was 1988, when 2 out of 738 applications were denied. Meanwhile, from 1990 through 2000, 12,039 applications were approved. Wiretap authorizations have increased 103% since 1990, when there were 872.

These figures do not include consensual wiretaps, bugs and body wires, where a crime victim, an informant or an undercover agent consents to the recording of a conversation to which he or she is a party. Such interceptions, a staple of modern law enforcement practice, usually are not reflected in the statistics since, under federal law and the law of most states, they do not require court approval.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Nor does the figure of 1,773 approved wiretaps for 2005 cover the separate set of authorizations issued by a select group of federal judges, operating under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), who yearly issue over 1,500 interception and secret physical search orders in foreign counterintelligence and international terrorism cases (2,072 in 2005). (It is hard to tell, given the classified nature of the court's proceedings, how many wiretaps these orders entail. Some of the orders are good for one year, while some require reauthorization every ninety days, so some targets are the subject of four orders in a year. On the other hand, one order may authorize multiple taps. Plus, starting in 1996, the figures for the FISA court included physical searches ("black bag jobs"), which are probably relatively few in number but which are included in the single overall number released by the court.) In its entire existence, since 1978, the FISA court has turned down only four government requests for electronic surveillance authority.

Year Applications Wiretap orders approved Denied
2005 2072 2072 0
2004 1754 1754 0
2003 1727 1724 3+1 (in part)
2002 1228 1228 0
2001 934 934 0
2000 1012 1012 0
1999 886 886 0
1998 796 796 0
1997 748 748 1 (sent back)
1996 839 839 0
1995 697 697 0
1994 579 579 0
1993 509 509 0

View chart of Combined Wiretap Usage, 1968-2003

Real-time Collection of Call-Identifying Information -- Pen Register and Trap & Trace Devices
The figures on court ordered wiretaps (interceptions of the content of conversations) also do not include orders issued on a lower standard for surveillance of transactional data through pen registers and trap and trace devices. In 1996, law enforcement agencies in the U.S. Department of Justice alone obtained a total of 4,569 original pen register or trap and trace orders, authorizing contemporaneous interception of dialed number information on the telephone facilities of 10,520 persons. This compares with 4,972 orders in 1995, covering the telephone facilities of 11,801 persons. There are never any denials of pen register and trap and trace requests, since the law provides that the judge "shall" issue the order whenever an attorney for the government certifies that the information likely to be obtained is "relevant" to an ongoing criminal investigation. These statistics cover only the law enforcement agencies of the U.S. Department of Justice. They do not cover other federal law enforcement agencies or state and local police. (In 1994 Congressional testimony, the FBI Director estimated that the total number of pen register orders in 1992 was 9,000.)

Subpoenas for Call-Identifying Information (Transactional Data).
Finally, a full picture of government surveillance activity must include cases in which law enforcement uses a subpoena to obtain stored transactional records relating to local or long distance calls or to Internet usage. Companies collect and store such information for billing and other business purposes, and law enforcement agencies routinely request the information in criminal cases, usually with a grand jury subpoena. (In foreign counterintelligence and international terrorism cases, the FBI can obtain such information without a court order using a procedure known as an NSL.) Data on these cases are not assembled by the government. However, the scope of law enforcement activity is suggested by data submitted by some telephone service providers in response to a congressional inquiry in 1993. Bell Atlantic, for example, indicated that for the years 1989 through 1992, it had responded to 25,453 subpoenas or court orders for toll billing records of 213,821 of its customers. NYNEX reported that it had processed 25,510 subpoenas covering an unrecorded number of customers in 1992 alone.

The Legal Protections and Their Erosion Over Time
The wiretap laws include several protections against abuse. Illegally seized evidence cannot be used in court. The exclusionary rule in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution is bolstered by a statutory exclusionary rule in the federal wiretap statute, making evidence obtained from illegal wiretaps useless in court. (Successive Administrations have proposed weakening the statutory exclusionary rule, to make the introduction of illegal wiretap evidence easier.)

However, it must also be said that judges tend to give law enforcement agencies broad latitude, as reflected in judicial decisions approving law enforcement conduct when defendants seek to suppress wiretap evidence at trial. Between 1985 and 1994, when there were 8,489 criminal wiretaps, judges nationwide granted 138 suppression motions to exclude intercepted material from evidence while denying 3,060, for a 4.3% suppression rate. Evidence gathered through FISA-authorized surveillance sometimes is introduced in criminal cases -- no FISA evidence has ever been excluded from a criminal case.

One of the most significant areas in which the courts have interpreted the law in the government's favor concerns the question of necessity. The wiretap law states that the court cannot approve an interception request unless it finds that "normal investigative procedures have been tried and have failed or reasonably appear to be unlikely to succeed if tried or to be too dangerous." Law enforcement officials regularly contend, as FBI Director Freeh did in 1994 testimony, that this provision of the law permits electronic surveillance "only when all other investigative techniques will not work or are too dangerous" (emphasis added). In practice, the courts have interpreted this provision to require only that law enforcement try some other techniques, not that they exhaust all reasonably available methods of obtaining the necessary evidence.

Courts have also been reluctant to enforce the minimization requirements of the law, which require law enforcement agents to screen the calls and turn off their recording devices whenever the conversation appears to relate to irrelevant, non-incriminating aspects of the target's life. Judges rarely rule that a wiretap was illegally carried out for failure to minimize.

July 2006

[DougMacG]

I support liberties lost in FISA.  If my number is discovered even for innocent reasons in the speed dial or recently called numbers of a captured terrorist, I expect surveillance and will live through it.  Hopefully they discover it was a wrong number!

A columnist and talk show host hear put it nicely, that if the 19 hijackers were discovered to be middle-aged, balding, midwest, talk show hosts of French Canadian descent, he would expect to be slowed down a little in airports.

Over to BBG's example of abuse with armadillo.  If the Police Chief orders it in front of the Mayor's rival's house for all the wrong reasons, I think we can all agree that those complicit should be fired and prosecuted.

Somebody puts their reputation and hopefully their career on the line when they order surveillance by the government of a private citizen.   

[Body-by-Guinness]

And this means I should be comfortable with the idea of a truck parked in front of my house with a camera pointed at my bedroom window?

**One word: Curtains.**

Second word: Sunlight. Third Word: Stargazing.

I'm beginning to think this is a gulf we will not bridge. I look at the sorry history of the planet and can identify very few times and places where the powers that be were constrained from the exercise of arbitrary power. I don't want the status quo endured over most of the planet for just about all of time to impact me and mine here an now. If that's not reasoned well enough for you I'm not sure what more I can say.

***Keep in mind that as much as you fear the potential for the abuse/misuse of police power, living in a place without the rule of law is much, much worse. I know of no place in the US that is a police state, but I bet you live within driving distance of places where is little in the way of police presence and life in those location is a Hobbesian nightmare. Everything law enforcement officers do in this country is subject to many levels of scrutiny and judicial review.***

Well, I live within driving distance of DC, which can be pretty freaking Hobbesian despite the highest concentration of law enforcement in the country. Next county over from DC has a town where the mayor was sent a packet of marijuana by a dealer who planned to then swipe it off the stoop. The county PD misconstrued the deal all the way around and sent in SWAT, who shot the mayor's two dogs that, by all accounts were fleeing in terror as well as rolling out the whole SWAT kneel on the head drill on everyone in the house, including the mayor's mother, if memory serves. Though county officials have since come out and said the mayor had nothing to do with the plot they maintain their officers acted appropriately. Think it was the same county that had a suspected cop killer in custody who was then murdered while in solitary confinement. All the correctional officers on duty at the time lawyered up, clammed up, and a recent grand jury was unable to issue any indictments. Somehow surveillance videos of the cell area were tampered with. I'm much closer to West Virginia which has a long history of coal country violence where subsistence miners in company towns would attempt to organize, only to have heads cracked and shotguns racked by the "police" the company would then hire.

Be that as it may, I'm willing to cede current law enforcement is indeed subject to many levels of review and will cede further that here and now as an era is one of about the greatest US police oversight. Indeed, incidents like the Boston/Gates charlie foxtrot suggest perhaps there is too much oversight that is used against rank and file cops simply trying to do their jobs. All that doesn't mean however that I can't want to improve things where possible, maintain accountability at today's level and increase it where it makes sense, or that I can't worry about new tools being misused as just about every tool is at one point or another.

I do not want police disarmed, but I do want them to use lethal force judiciously. I also want privacy infringements to be based on judicious standards. In this instance the standard seems to be based on a phone call or other complaint, to which the jurisdiction in question apparently responds by saying "we've got a report of a dirtbag living on Elm street. Let's park a butt ugly truck laden with cameras in front of the house and see if we can intimidate him out of the neighborhood." Be it use of lethal force, privacy infringements, or any other exercise of government power, I would hope they'd be based on standards more stringent than the one described.

***I'd bet that there are policies in place that were reviewed by multiple lawyers before the "Armadillo" had day one in the field.***

Perhaps, but they weren't noted in the article, which inspired my brief proviso, which in turn has lead to this thread.

[Crafty_Dog]

Note: If you would like to read this e-mail in color with live links, go to http://www.aele.org/alert-email.html

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1. The August 2009 issue of the AELE Monthly Law Journal is online, with four new articles.

Persons interested in contributing an article should contact AELE.

* Public Protection: Injured Crime and Accident Victims

What are a police officer's legal obligations when encountering a member of the public who is an injured victim of a crime or accident?

View at http://www.aele.org/law/2009-08MLJ101.html

* Validity of Settlement Agreements Containing a "Will Not Reapply for Employment" Provision

If a settlement is successfully negotiated, management sometimes insists that the plaintiff resign and promise not to reapply.

Without such an agreement, if the person's subsequent reemployment application is denied, it will inevitably result in another lawsuit.

View at http://www.aele.org/law/2009-08MLJ201.html

* Transsexual Prisoners: Medical Care Issues

Issues raised in litigation have included requests for sex change surgery, requests for beginning or continuing hormone therapy, and what medical and psychological services are necessary and appropriate to provide.

Viewable at http://www.aele.org/law/2009-08MLJ301.html

* Civil Rights Liability for Intentional Violations of Miranda - Part Two: Criminal Admissibility

In 2003, the California Supreme Court held that a coerced confession is inadmissible for impeachment purposes in a criminal trial. In 2008, the Ninth Circuit concluded that a confession was coerced even though adequate Miranda warnings were given. By Michael P. Stone and Marc Berger. 

http://www.aele.org/law/2009-08MLJ501.html

2. The August issues of AELE's three periodicals have been uploaded.

The current issues, back issues since 2000, three 30+ year case digests, and a search engine are FREE. Everyone is welcome to read, print or download AELE publications without charge.

The main menu is at: http://www.aele.org/law 

Among the 90 new cases summarized under 67 different topics, there are several that warrant mention here:

*** Law Enforcement Liability Reporter ***

* Handcuffs

Officers acted reasonably with respect to the force used while handcuffing an arrestee. While he contended that their actions had caused him shoulder injuries, the court noted that he refused to put his hands behind his back, and merely explained that he thought it would "hurt." He did not tell the officers about any purported infirmities or pre-existing injury that could be aggravated by handcuffing. Stainback v. Dixon, #08-3563, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 14115 (7th Cir.).  http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/7th/083563p.pdf

* Stun Guns/Tasers

UCLA has entered into a $220,000 settlement in a lawsuit filed by a student who a campus police officer repeatedly shocked with a Taser after he refused to show his identification card upon request. The student, who is Iranian-American, argued that he was treated this way because of his Middle Eastern appearance. Tabatabainejad v. Univ. of Cal. L.A., #2:07-cv-00389, U.S. Dist. Court (C.D. Calif.).

http://www.aele.org/law/2009all08/tabatabainejad.pdf

*** Fire and Police Personnel Reporter ***

* Disciplinary Punishment - Sexual Misconduct

In an appeal where an FBI agent was fired for videotaping sexual encounters with women without their consent, a federal appeals court remanded the case to the Merit Systems Protection Board for further adjudication. One judge wrote that he would have reversed the Board outright on the ground that the agency failed to establish a nexus between the charged conduct and the efficiency of the service.

The majority held that the Board failed to articulate a meaningful standard as to when private dishonesty rises to the level of misconduct that adversely affects the "efficiency of the service." The articulation of a meaningful standard is necessary particularly in light of the apparent conflict between the FBI's policy on investigating personal relationships and its policies requiring their agents to act with integrity and honesty. Doe v. DoJ, #2008-3139, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 10031 (Fed. Cir.). http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/08-3139.pdf

*** Jail and Prisoner Law Bulletin ***

* Inmate Funds

The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that state prison officials can take money from inmate trust accounts to collect court fees owed and other costs without first notifying a prisoner. Due process was not violated, as the prisoners received "contemporaneous" notice of the withdrawal of the money, and the Constitution does not require pre-withdrawal notice. Harrell v. State of Texas, No. 07-0806, 2009 Tex. Lexis 321.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=tx&vol=/sc/070806&invol=1 

3. Tasers

Report of the American Medical Association (AMA) Council on Science and Public Health on "Use of Tasers by Law Enforcement Agencies."

View at http://www.aele.org/law/2009all08/06-15-09_AMA_TASER_ECD_Resolution[1].pdf   

AELE has a free search tool covering our database of 28,000 case summaries, since 1975.

http://www.aele.org/htdig/common/search.html

 
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[Crafty_Dog]

7 Things Cops Should Never Say To Anyone
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By Dr. George Thompson

7. "HEY YOU! COME HERE!"

Consider, you are on patrol and you see someone suspicious you want to talk
with, so you most naturally say, "Hey you! Come here!" Verbal Judo teaches
that "natural language is disastrous!" and this provides a wonderful
example. You have just warned the subject that he is in trouble. "Come here"
means to you, "Over here, you are under my authority." But to the subject it
means, "Go away-quickly!" The words are not tactical for they have provided
a warning and possibly precipitated a chase that would not have been
necessary had you, instead, walked casually in his direction and once close
said, "Excuse me. Could I chat with momentarily?" Notice this question is
polite, professional, and calm.

Also notice, you have gotten in close, in his "space" though not his "face,"
and now you are too close for him to back off, giving you a ration of verbal
trouble, as could have easily been the case with the "Hey you! Come here!"
opening.

The ancient samurai knew never to let an opponent pick the place of battle
for then the sun would always be in your eyes! "Come here" is loose, lazy,
and ineffective language. Easy, but wrong. Tactically, "May I chat with you"
is far better, for not only have you picked the place to talk, but anything
the subject says, other than yes or no-the question you asked-provides you
with intelligence regarding his emotional and/or mental state. Let him start
any 'dance' of resistance.

Point: Polite civility can be a weapon of immense power!



6. "CALM DOWN!"

Consider this verbal blunder. You approach some angry folks and you most
naturally say, "Hey, calm down!" This command never works, so why do we
always use it? Because it flows naturally from our lips!

What's wrong with it? One, the phrase is a criticism of their behavior and
suggests that they have no legitimate right to be upset! Hence, rather than
reassuring them that things will improve, which should be your goal, you
have created a new problem! Not only is there the matter they were upset
about to begin with, but now they need to defend their reaction to you!
Double the trouble!

Better, put on a calming face and demeanor-in Verbal Judo we say, 'Chameleon
up'-look the person in the eye and say, gently, "It's going to be all right.
Talk to me. What's the matter?" The phrase "What's the matter?' softens the
person up to talk and calm down; where 'Calm down' hardens the resistance.
The choice is yours!

5. "I'M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU AGAIN!"

We teach in Verbal Judo that 'repetition is weakness on the streets!' and
you and I both know that this phrase is almost always a lie. You will say it
again, and possibly again and again!

Parents do it all the time with their kids, and street cops do it with
resistant subjects, all the time! The phrase is, of course, a threat, and
voicing it leaves you only one viable option-action! If you are not prepared
to act, or cannot at the time, you lose credibility, and with the loss of
creditability comes the loss of power and safety!

Even if you are prepared to act, you have warned the subject that you are
about to do so and forewarned is forearmed! Another tactical blunder! Like
the rattlesnake you have made noise, and noise can get you hurt or killed.
Better to be more like the cobra and strike when least suspected!

If you want to stress the seriousness of your words, say something like,
'Listen, it's important that you get this point, so pay close attention to
what I'm about to tell you.'

If you have used Verbal Judo's Five Steps of Persuasion you know that we act
after asking our "nicest, most polite question,"

"Sir, is there anything I could say that would get you to do A, B and C? I'd
like to think so?"

If the answer is NO, we act while the subject is still talking! We do not
telegraph our actions nor threaten people, but we do act when verbal
persuasion fails.

4. "BE MORE REASONABLE!"

Telling people "be more reasonable" has many of the same problems as "Calm
Down!" Everyone thinks h/she is plenty reasonable given the present
circumstances! I never have had anyone run up to me and say, "Hey, I know I'm
stupid and wrong, but here's what I think!" although I have been confronted
by stupid and wrong people! You only invite conflict when you tell people to
"be more reasonable!"

Instead, make people more reasonable by the way in which you handle them,
tactically! Use the language of reassurance-"Let me see if I understand your
position," and then paraphrase-another VJ tactic!-back to them their
meaning, as you see it, in your words! Using your words will calm them and
make them more reasonable because your words will (or better be!) more
professional and less emotional.

This approach absorbs the other's tension and makes him feel your support.
Now you can help them think more logically and less destructively, without
making the insulting charge implied in your statement, "Be more reasonable!"

Again, tactics over natural reaction!

3. "BECAUSE THOSE ARE THE RULES" (or "THAT'S THE LAW!")

If ever there was a phrase that irritates people and makes you look weak,
this is it!

If you are enforcing rules/laws that exist for good reason, don't be afraid
to explain that! Your audience may not agree with or like it, but at least
they have been honored with an explanation. Note, a true sign of REspect is
to tell people why, and telling people why generates voluntary compliance.
Indeed, we know that at least 70% of resistant or difficult people will do
what you want them to do if you will just tell them why!

When you tell people why, you establish a ground to stand on, and one for
them as well! Your declaration of why defines the limits of the issue at
hand, defines your real authority, but also gives the other good reason for
complying, not just because you said so! Tactically, telling people why gets
your ego out of it and put in its place a solid, professional reason for
action.

Even at home, if all you can do is repeat, "those are the rules," you sound
and look weak because you apparently cannot support your order/request with
logic or good reason. Indeed, if you can put rules or policies into context
and explain how the rules or policies are good for everyone, you not only
help people understand, you help them save face. Hence, you are much more
likely to generate voluntary compliance, which is your goal!

2. "WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?"

This snotty, useless phrase turns the problem back on the person needing
assistance. It signals this is a "you-versus-me" battle rather than an "us"
discussion. The typical reaction is, "It's not my problem. You're the
problem!"

The problem with the word problem is that it makes people feel deficient or
even helpless. It can even transport people back to grade school where they
felt misunderstood and underrated. Nobody likes to admit h/she has a
problem. That's a weakness! When asked, "what's your problem?" the other
already feels a failure. So the immediate natural reaction is, "I don't have
one, you do!" which is a reaction that now hides a real need for help.

Substitute tactical phrases designed to soften and open someone up, like
"What's the matter?", "How can I help?", or "I can see you're upset, let me
suggest . . . ."

Remember, as an officer of peace, it is your business to find ways to gather
good intel and to help those in need, not to pass judgments.



1. "WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO ABOUT IT?"

A great cop-out (no pun.)! This pseudo-question, always accompanied by
sarcasm, is clearly an evasion of responsibility and a clear sign of a lack
of creativity! The phrase really reveals the speaker's exasperation and lack
of knowledge. Often heard from untrained sales clerks and young officers
tasked with figuring out how to help someone when the rules are not clear.

When you say, "What do you want me to do about it?" you can count on two
problems: the one you started with and the one you just created by appearing
to duck responsibility.

Instead, tactically offer to help sort out the problem and work toward a
solution. If it truly is not in your area of responsibility, point the
subject to the right department or persons that might be able to solve the
problem.

If you are unable or unqualified to assist and you haven't a clue as to how
to help the person, apologize. Such an apology almost always gains you an
ally, one you may need at same later date. Beat cops need to remember it is
important to "develop a pair of eyes" (contacts) every time they interact
with the public. Had the officer said to the complainant, for example, "I'm
sorry, I really do not know what to recommend, but I wish I did, I'd like to
help you," and coupled that statement with a concerned tone of voice and a
face of concern, he would have gone a long way toward making that person
more malleable and compliant for the police later down the road.

Remember, insult strengthens resistance and shuts the eyes. Civility weakens
resistance and opens the eyes!

It's tactical to be nice!

Dr. George J. Thompson is the President and Founder of the Verbal Judo
Institute, a tactical training and management firm now based in Auburn, NY.
For full details on Dr. Thompson's work and training, please visit the
Verbal Judo Web Site.

http://www.verbaljudo.com/

[G M]

http://www.chieftain.com/articles/2009/10/07/news/local/doc4acc29cd2ab14476835105.txt

Suspected bomber arrested without incident


CHIEFTAIN PHOTO/CHRIS McLEAN -- Pueblo County sheriff’s investigators look over the Pueblo West home of police officer Nathan Pruce on Tuesday. A propane tank attached to Pruce’s garage spewed gas into the home.


Nathan Pruce


Robert Howard Bruce

Search ends for sex-assault suspect who faced trial Tuesday with officer Nathan Pruce as key witness.By PABLO CARLOS MORA, JEFF TUCKER and JUAN ESPINOSA
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
A man sought in connection with an attempt to blow up a police officer’s Pueblo West home was arrested Tuesday evening at the North Side Kmart.

Officers arrested Robert Howard Bruce, 47, about 6 p.m. without any resistance, while checking the area, according to Laurie Kilpatrick, a spokeswoman with the Pueblo Sheriff’s Department. No other details were released.

Bruce was the subject of an intensive manhunt Tuesday afternoon after he reportedly attempted to blow up the home of Pueblo officer Nathan Pruce.

Bruce failed to show up for the trial Tuesday at which Pruce was to testify.

While leaving his Los Charros Drive home at 9:22 a.m. Tuesday morning, Pruce noticed a propane tank in his driveway with a line running into a garage wall, Pueblo County Sheriff Kirk Taylor said. “An improvised explosive device was found attached to officer Pruce’s home,” Taylor said. “The Metro Bomb Squad found very high readings of some kind of explosive in the house.”

Pruce left his home and nearby Cedar Ridge Elementary School was locked down as a precaution, Taylor said.

“The bomb squad opened doors and windows to vent the substance from the house. After the house was cleared by the bomb squad, the fire department checked the home and found it safe,” Taylor said.

Cedar Ridge Elementary was released from lockdown at noon.

Bruce was arrested by officer Pruce in the early morning on July 17, 2007, after neighbors reported a prowler in the Belmont neighborhood.

Bruce was charged with unlawful sexual contact-peeping Tom and second-degree trespassing, both misdemeanors.

Pruce arrested Bruce after he led police on a foot chase and a brief car chase through Belmont.

According to Bruce's arrest affidavit, Pruce found a metal pipe used for smoking drugs and a small amount of marijuana on him, and admitted to looking in the victim's window.

The report indicated the victim said she went to a room next to her bedroom after she heard a noise, peeked outside the window and saw Bruce walking around her backyard.

Police also found a chair placed outside the window.

pmora@chieftain.com


jtucker@chieftain.com



juane@chieftain.com

[Crafty_Dog]

Taser International is advising police agencies across the nation not to shoot its stun guns at a suspect's chest.

The Arizona-based company says such action poses a risk - albeit extremely low - of an "adverse cardiac event."

The advisory was issued in an Oct. 12 training bulletin. It marks the first time that Taser has suggested there is any risk of a cardiac arrest related to the use of its 50,000-volt stun guns.

Taser officials said Tuesday the bulletin does not state that Tasers can cause cardiac arrest. They said the advisory means only that law-enforcement agencies can avoid controversy if their officers aim at areas other than the chest.

Critics called it a stunning reversal for the company.

[c - Shadow Dog]

asp stock will go up 20 points on this kind of announcement  http://www.asp-net.com/bookpages/catalog_2009.html#batons

Serriously though other then chest/ torso  It will dificult to place that shot.  It has always seemed like a mid mast shot on purpose,
not aimed.

I could be very wrong.

also doesnt the shot closer to arms or legs make it easier for the libms to wrap cords and pull out the prong?

I dont know the answeres to any of this just speculating out loud.

Who are our experts on this ?


Here is a good vid of a non civilian use http://www.taser.com/pages/VideoDetails.aspx?videoid=78

[Crafty_Dog]

IIRC on the DBMA Assn site there is a clip of me getting tased by Southnark 

[Body-by-Guinness]

Corrections Officer about gets choked out before other inmates intervene. Curious how others think they would have played this scenario. Looks to me like some more situational awareness was in order, that the office shouldn't have wasted time trying to get his feet under him and instead should have used the attributes of a rolling chair to his advantage, and, once controlled should have rolled off the chair and made his attacker support his weight as he worked position.

http://www.freedomslighthouse.com/2009/11/florida-deputy-caught-in-inmates-choke.html

[G M]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gg6eU0tbg2x0lwxLrQJ3TxbiL9CQ

My wife, who is 5 weeks away from graduating from a police academy, is very inspired by this story.

[Crafty_Dog]

As well she should.  Munley acted bravely and is a hero.  That said, I search for Truth and as such note with a touch of irritation a bit of the Jessica Lynch syndrome here.  Note how the article refuses to candidly say that, contrary to initial reports, that it was Munley's partner who scored the kill.

[Crafty_Dog]

KILLEEN, Tex. — Sgt. Kimberly D. Munley has been applauded as a hero across the nation for shooting down Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan during the bloody rampage at Fort Hood last week. The account of heroism, given by the authorities, attracted the attention of newspapers, the networks and television talk shows.


But the initial story of how she and the accused gunman went down in an exchange of gunfire now appears to be inaccurate.

Another officer, Senior Sgt. Mark Todd, 42, said in an interview Thursday that he fired the shots that brought down the gunman after Sergeant Munley was seriously wounded. A witness confirmed Sergeant Todd’s account.

In the interview, Sergeant Todd said he and Sergeant Munley had pulled up to the scene in separate cars at the same time. He said they began running up a small hill toward the building that held the processing center where unarmed soldiers reported for check-ups and vaccinations before deployment. The gunman was already outside, Sergeant Todd recalled.

“That’s when the bystanders were pointing in his direction,” he said. “And when we popped up, he was standing there, and we shouted our commands — ‘Police, drop your weapons!’ — and he just opened fire on us.”

Sergeant Todd said he was slightly in front of Sergeant Munley on the hill. “Once we took fire, she broke right and I broke left,” he said.

Sergeant Todd said he did not see Sergeant Munley get shot. He said he started to circle around the building, but then backtracked as panicked bystanders told him of the gunman’s movements.

“As it unfolded, I went a different direction and he went a different direction, and we met up in the front of the building,” he said.

Sergeant Todd said he then saw Sergeant Munley on the ground, wounded. He shouted again at the gunman to drop his weapon.

“Once I came around the front of the building, I caught his attention again, started shouting commands, and then he opened up a second time,” Sergeant Todd said. “And that’s when I returned fire, neutralized him and secured him.”

Citing the ongoing investigation, Sergeant Todd declined to give more details about the precise positions of Major Hasan, Sergeant Munley and himself during the gunfight. He also would not say how many times he shot Major Hasan with his 9 mm pistol, or what Major Hasan was doing. The whole encounter lasted only 45 seconds, he said.

Sergeant Todd’s account agrees with that of a witness who was at the processing center when the shooting occurred.

The witness, who asked not to be identified, said Major Hasan wheeled on Sergeant Munley as she rounded the corner of a building and shot her. Then Major Hasan turned his back and started putting another magazine into his semiautomatic pistol.

Sergeant Todd then rounded another corner of the building, found Major Hasan fumbling with his weapon and shot him, the witness said.

How the authorities came to issue the original version of the story, which made Sergeant Munley a national hero for several days and obscured Sergeant Todd’s role, remains unclear. (Military officials also said for several hours after the shooting that Major Hasan had been killed; he survived.)

Six days after the shooting, the military has yet to put out a full account of what happened.

On Thursday, Christopher Grey, a spokesman for Army Criminal Investigation Command, told reporters that Sergeants Todd and Munley both “engaged the armed suspect.”

“I would caution you from drawing final conclusions until all the evidence is analyzed,” Mr. Grey said at a news conference at Fort Hood, where he announced that Major Hasan had been charged in a military court with 13 counts of premeditated murder.

On Wednesday, Lt. Col. John Rossi, the fort’s deputy commander, refused to take questions about who shot Major Hasan or why the initial reports said it had been Sergeant Munley rather than Sergeant Todd.

“These questions are specific to the investigation, and I am not going to address that,” Colonel Rossi said.

Public affairs officials also declined to make Chuck Medley, the director of emergency services at the post, available. It was Mr. Medley, who oversees the post’s civilian police and fire departments, who gave the first account of how Sergeant Munley stopped the gunman.

========

Page 2 of 2)



On Tuesday night, Lt. Col. Lee Packnett, an Army spokesman, declined to say whether it was Sergeant Todd who had shot Major Hasan. “It could have been, but the final outcome will be determined by the results of the ballistics tests.” Colonel Lee said.


On Wednesday, Sergeant Todd’s wife, Lisa, said her husband had asked the Army to protect his identity immediately after the shootings.
Asked in the interview whether he had asked to be kept out of the limelight, Sergeant Todd said: “Initially I wanted to stay pretty low key. This is a tragic event. I don’t think the attention should be on me. The medics are the ones who saved everybody’s life.”

Sergeant Todd and Sergeant Munley offered their first public comments on the shooting Wednesday on the “Oprah Winfrey Show.” They did not give a detailed chronology of what happened, nor did they say who had fired and hit the suspect.

Both are members of the civilian police force at Fort Hood.

Sergeant Todd said on the talk show that after he had fired at the suspect, he kicked his weapon away and placed him in handcuffs. He said it was the first time in his 25 years in law enforcement and the military that he had used his weapon.

“I just relied back on my training,” Sergeant Todd said. “We’re trained to shoot until there is no longer a threat. And once he was laying down on his back, his weapon just fell into his hand and I’m, like, ‘O.K., now’s the time to rush him and secure him.’ “

The confusion over what happened and the quickness of the military to label someone a hero seemed reminiscent of the case of Pfc. Jessica Lynch in 2003, when the Army initially reported that Private Lynch had been captured in Iraq after a Rambo-like performance in which she emptied her weapon and was wounded in battle. It was later learned she had been badly hurt in a vehicle accident during an ambush and was being well cared for by the Iraqis.

On Friday, the day after the Fort Hood shooting, Mr. Medley said Sergeant Munley had encountered Major Hasan, pistol in hand, chasing down a bleeding soldier. She fired at him, he turned, they rushed at each other firing and both fell, Mr. Medley said.

“He turned and charged her rapidly firing, and she did what she was trained to do,” Mr. Medley said that day. He added, “She is absolutely a hero.”

Several hours later, Colonel Rossi expanded upon the story slightly in speaking to reporters. He said Sergeant Todd had arrived at the scene in the middle of the gunfight and had also fired his weapon.

The witness, however, offered a detailed account. He said he was walking in a roadway between the main building, known as the Sportsdome, and five smaller buildings. Major Hasan was headed toward the main building, the witness said, when Sergeant Munley came around the corner of a smaller building. Major Hasan wheeled on her and shot her several times, the witness said. It was unclear whether she squeezed off a shot or not, but she fell over backward, with wounds in her legs and her wrist, the witness said.

Major Hasan then turned his back and began to shove another magazine into his pistol. He did not appear wounded, the witness said. A few seconds later, Sergeant Todd came around another corner of the same building, raised his weapon and fired several times at Major Hasan, who pitched over backward and stopped moving.

“He shot her, turned away from her and was reloading when he was shot,” said the witness, who was nearby.

On the Winfrey show, Sergeant Munley, 35, said the incident was confusing and chaotic. “There were many people outside pointing to where this individual was apparently located,” she said. “When I got out of my vehicle and ran up the hill, that’s when it started getting bad and we started encountering fire.”

Sergeant Todd, a native of San Diego, has spent most of his adult life as a military police officer in the Army. A specialist in training police dogs, he left the military police in 2007, after 25 years, to join the civilian force at Fort Hood. He has served at four bases in the United States and two in Germany. Joining the civilian force at Fort Hood was supposed to be a second, quieter career for him, he said in the interview.

He said he was not troubled about having shot Major Hasan, whose pistol, he said, ”looked like a howitzer” in his hand.

“There is a certain amount of fear, but you have to control it,” Sergeant Todd said. “You rely on your training, and your training takes over.”

[Rarick]

On the Armadillo-  I think in some ways it is playing judge, jury and executioner.  Specifically parking it right in front of a house and knocking on the door "THIS is for YOU" in some ways it is like pointing a gun. Given the apparent lack of due process, since it is being "targeted at a  citizen" marking them I would interpret as a violation of civil rights.  If it was of a more general nature "we have been getting a lot of complaints for this area, we are placing a witness that does not care either way" then there is no expectation of privacy or possible violation of rights.

Yes, pulling the curtains is a solution, but if you are being "marked" by the police, then being branded a criminal, without due process would be an issue.  THAT is what this truck is doing.  The folks in that town appear to like that kind of use, so their town, their rules.

[G M]

Hoo-boy. 

Ok Rarick, where in the US constitution, statute or caselaw does it restrict the police from parking a police vehicle on a PUBLIC STREET for the purpose of surveilling potential criminal activity in a location that is visible from a PUBLIC STREET?

[G M]

http://definitions.uslegal.com/o/open-field-doctrine/

Open Field Doctrine Law & Legal Definition

The open field doctrine is a term used in criminal law to stand for the concept that anything plainly visible to the eye, even if it’s on private property, is subject to a search since it’s not hidden. Under this doctrine, consent to inspect the location is not required in order for a law enforcement officer to observe and report on things in plain view and include observations made. An open field is not an area protected under the Fourth Amendment, and there is no expectation of a right of privacy for an open field.

[Rarick]

Targeted survellance made obvious to the general public, on a single citizen?  It is like the game the press plays "guilty by public opinion".  I won't be a target for something like that, but that is probably the concept that people are feeling threatened over.  Legal or not.

Have a hoo-boy day.

[G M]

Ok, Rarick,

I guess you can't answer the question I posed.

How is placing the "Armadillo" in a location different that placing a police officer in that location, aside from cost to the taxpayers, related to 4th amd. issues?

[G M]

http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_4_corruption.html

Judith Miller
The Mexicanization of American Law Enforcement
The drug cartels extend their corrupting influence northward.


Leslie Hoffman/AP Photo
Customs and Border Protection agents have been bought off by drug dealers.Beheadings and amputations. Iraqi-style brutality, bribery, extortion, kidnapping, and murder. More than 7,200 dead—almost double last year’s tally—in shoot-outs between federales and often better-armed drug cartels. This is modern Mexico, whose president, Felipe Calderón, has been struggling since 2006 to wrest his country from the grip of four powerful cartels and their estimated 100,000 foot soldiers.

But chillingly, there are signs that one of the worst features of Mexico’s war on drugs—law enforcement officials on the take from drug lords—is becoming an American problem as well. Most press accounts focus on the drug-related violence that has migrated north into the United States. Far less widely reported is the infiltration and corruption of American law enforcement, according to Robert Killebrew, a retired U.S. Army colonel and senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security. “This is a national security problem that does not yet have a name,” he wrote last fall in The National Strategy Forum Review. The drug lords, he tells me, are seeking to “hollow out our institutions, just as they have in Mexico.”

**Reading this chilled me to the bone.**

[Rarick]

Hoo Boy

After reading some more on this thread, this is a fight I chose not to fight.  I do not pick fights with true believers-it is futile.

If Body-by-Guiness couldn't make the point.  I, who you obviously have no respect for and far less posts on this board, have obviously lost before the conversation could ever begin.

[G M]

Rarick,

It's not a matter of not having respect for you as a person, but not having respect for an uninformed opinion. I get really tired of libertarian armchair theories on policing based on emotion and the most cursory of legal knowledge.

[Crafty_Dog]

Rarick:

More than once I have had GM present lucid questions/counter-arguments to my libertarian instincts that I have not been able to answer.  It can be quite infuriating.  Intuitively the point you make here makes complete sense to me, but OTOH I haven't a clue as to how to answer the specific counterpoint that GM makes.  Do you?

No doubt his communication technique could benefit on occasion from a tad more sugar-coating    but if you put that aside and simply stay with the merits, I suspect you will find it worth your time.

[G M]

I will point out that i'm a small "l" libertarian. I don't want an orwellian police state. However, a key concept often forgotten is there is no freedom without the rule of law. Unless the laws are enforced, then individual freedoms are lost.

[Rarick]

Law is sometimes way to worshiped. Aside from a few of the "watch where you put your fist, dump your sewage, and which cow to slaughter" type of laws there aren't any others that are anything more than a government imposing restrictions.  The number of times I have come up with a way to start earning money for myself and end up walking into a brick wall of regulations is quite irritating.  It is getting so no one can breathe unless it is to the specified volume for the current activity, for a certain amount of time.  I know that I routinely break laws I do not know exist everyday- so do you and there in lies the problem.  It is not about making another law, it is knowing the intentions of the laws already there and applying what we got.

Justice, we can work on but say it is the LAW and YOU WILL COMPLY will shut me up and start the pine box measurement thoughts a ticking.  I know what the )&(%%$ law is and I do not need it pushed in my face again.   What are the ways we can handle a problem without making another one?  do we need to point force at a fellow citizen by parking a camera truck at his curb and mark him as a bad actor without  due process?  I would rather see the police do something like drop a letter in the mail box "hey, community meeting at this time and place to hammer out an agreement about XXX we will mediate"   If the problematic parties do not show up, Then park the camera truck in their face.

The law is way to process oriented like a factory and has long ago lost its connection with justice.  The boys in the beltway still haven't figured it out.  You come across as one of them.

Sorry G. Crafty, but lawyers and lobbyists are a part of the problem from my point of view. I should not be forced to hire one out of self defense every time I talk to a cop or the government.  Both are our employees, but they do not act like it.

[Crafty_Dog]

"Sorry G. Crafty, but lawyers and lobbyists "

 

[Crafty_Dog]

Hat tip for this to Rachel:
=====================

« Reply #72 on: Today at 07:36:59 AM »     

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

http://33bits.org/2009/05/13/your-morning-commute-is-unique-on-the-anonymity-of-homework-location-pairs/

Your Morning Commute is Unique: On the Anonymity of Home/Work Location Pairs

Philippe Golle and Kurt Partridge of PARC have a cute paper (pdf) on the anonymity of geo-location data. They analyze data from the U.S. Census and show that for the average person, knowing their approximate home and work locations — to a block level — identifies them uniquely.

Even if we look at the much coarser granularity of a census tract — tracts correspond roughly to ZIP codes; there are on average 1,500 people per census tract — for the average person, there are only around 20 other people who share the same home and work location. There’s more: 5% of people are uniquely identified by their home and work locations even if it is known only at the census tract level. One reason for this is that people who live and work in very different areas (say, different counties) are much more easily identifiable, as one might expect.

The paper is timely, because Location Based Services  are proliferating rapidly. To understand the privacy threats, we need to ask the two usual questions:

   1. who has access to anonymized location data?
   2. how can they get access to auxiliary data linking people to location pairs, which they can then use to carry out re-identification?

The authors don’t say much about these questions, but that’s probably because there are too many possibilities to list! In this post I will examine a few.

GPS navigation. This is the most obvious application that comes to mind, and probably the most privacy-sensitive: there have been many controversies around tracking of vehicle movements, such as NYC cab drivers threatening to strike. The privacy goal is to keep the location trail of the user/vehicle unknown even to the service provider — unlike in the context of social networks, people often don’t even trust the service provider. There are several papers on anonymizing GPS-related queries, but there doesn’t seem to be much you can do to hide the origin and destination except via charmingly unrealistic cryptographic protocols.

The accuracy of GPS is a few tens or few hundreds of feet, which is the same order of magnitude as a city block. So your daily commute is pretty much unique. If you took a (GPS-enabled) cab home from work at a certain time, there’s a good chance the trip can be tied to you. If you made a detour to stop somewhere, the location of your stop can probably be determined. This is true even if there is no record tying you to a specific vehicle.

ScreenshotLocation based social networking. Pretty soon, every smartphone will be capable of running applications that transmit location data to web services. Google Latitude and Loopt are two of the major players in this space, providing some very nifty social networking functionality on top of location awareness. It is quite tempting for service providers to outsource research/data-mining by sharing de-identified data. I don’t know if anything of the sort is being done yet, but I think it is clear that de-identification would offer very little privacy protection in this context. If a pair of locations is uniquely identifying, a trail is emphatically so.

The same threat also applies to data being subpoena’d, so data retention policies need to take into consideration the uselessness of anonymizing location data.

I don’t know if cellular carriers themselves collect a location trail from phones as a matter of course. Any idea?

Plain old web browsing. Every website worth the name identifies you with a cookie, whether you log in or not. So if you browse the web from a laptop or mobile phone from both home and work, your home and work IP addresses can be tied together based on the cookie. There are a number of free or paid databases for turning IP addresses into geographical locations. These are generally accurate up to the city level, but beyond that the accuracy is shaky.

A more accurate location fix can be obtained by IDing WiFi access points. This is a curious technological marvel that is not widely known. Skyhook, Inc. has spent years wardriving the country (and abroad) to map out the MAC addresses of wireless routers. Given the MAC address of an access point, their database can tell you where it is located. There are browser add-ons that query Skyhook’s database and determine the user’s current location. Note that you don’t have to be browsing wirelessly — all you need is at least one WiFi access point within range. This information can then be transmitted to websites which can provide location-based functionality; Opera, in particular, has teamed up with Skyhook and is “looking forward to a future where geolocation data is as assumed part of the browsing experience.” The protocol by which the browser communicates geolocation to the website is being standardized by the W3C.

The good news from the privacy standpoint is that the accurate geolocation technologies like the Skyhook plug-in (and a competing offering that is part of Google Gears) require user consent. However, I anticipate that once the plug-ins become common, websites will entice users to enable access by (correctly) pointing out that their location can only be determined to within a few hundred meters, and users will leave themselves vulnerable to inference attacks that make use of location pairs rather than individual locations.

Image metadata. An increasing number of cameras these days have (GPS-based) geotagging built-in and enabled by default. Even more awesome is the Eye-Fi card, which automatically uploads pictures you snap to Flickr (or any of dozens of other image sharing websites you can pick from) by connecting to available WiFi access points nearby. Some versions of the card do automatic geotagging in addition.

If you regularly post pseudonymously to (say) Flickr, then the geolocations of your pictures will probably reveal prominent clusters around the places you frequent, including your home and work. This can be combined with auxiliary data to tie the pictures to your identity.

Now let us turn to the other major question: what are the sources of auxiliary data that might link location pairs to identities? The easiest approach is probably to buy data from Acxiom, or another provider of direct-marketing address lists. Knowing approximate home and work locations, all that the attacker needs to do is to obtain data corresponding to both neighborhoods and do a “join,” i.e, find the (hopefully) unique common individual. This should be easy with Axciom, which lets you filter the list by  “DMA code, census tract, state, MSA code, congressional district, census block group, county, ZIP code, ZIP range, radius, multi-location radius, carrier route, CBSA (whatever that is), area code, and phone prefix.”

Google and Facebook also know my home and work addresses, because I gave them that information. I expect that other major social networking sites also have such information on tens of millions of users. When one of these sites is the adversary — such as when you’re trying to browse anonymously — the adversary already has access to the auxiliary data. Google’s power in this context is amplified by the fact that they own DoubleClick, which lets them tie together your browsing activity on any number of different websites that are tracked by DoubleClick cookies.

Finally, while I’ve talked about image data being the target of de-anonymization, it may equally well be used as the auxiliary information that links a location pair to an identity — a non-anonymous Flickr account with sufficiently many geotagged photos probably reveals an identifiable user’s home and work locations. (Some attack techniques that I describe on this blog, such as crawling image metadata from Flickr to reveal people’s home and work locations, are computationally expensive to carry out on a large scale but not algorithmically hard; such attacks, as can be expected, will rapidly become more feasible with time.)

devicesSummary. A number of devices in our daily lives transmit our physical location to service providers whom we don’t necessarily trust, and who keep might keep this data around or transmit it to third parties we don’t know about. The average user simply doesn’t have the patience to analyze and understand the privacy implications, making anonymity a misleadingly simple way to assuage their concerns. Unfortunately, anonymity breaks down very quickly when more than one location is associated with a person, as is usually the case.

[G M]

How does this apply to law enforcement?

[Crafty_Dog]

Well, I saw it as a continuation of the conversation in the larger sense of things-- but you are right, there is some topic drift here

[G M]

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/12/04/the-war-on-cops/

The war on cops
By Michelle Malkin  •  December 4, 2009 09:22 AM Maurice Clemmons had many enablers — starting in Arkansas with clemency-crazy Mike Huckabee and stretching to Washington state where he was surrounded by people who witnessed his threats against law enforcement and did nothing to stop the Lakewood PD massacre. This week, police charged four family and friends with aiding him and plan to indict two more. My column today steps back and looks at the past year of violence against police officers and the cultural war that has been waged against them for the past several decades. The Left has a popular mantra: “Stop the hate.” Why don’t they start applying it to the men and women who protect and serve?

***

The war on cops
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009


Faces of the fallen: Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39; Officers Ronald Owens, 37; Tina Griswold, 40; Gregory Richards, 42.

The Left’s police-hating chickens are coming home to roost. While partisan liberals have gone out of their way to blame conservative media and the Tea Party movement for creating a “climate of hate,” they are silent on the cultural and literal war on cops that has raged for decades – and escalated tragically this year.

The total number of law enforcement officers shot and killed this year is up 19 percent over last year, according to the Christian Science Monitor. More officers have died in ambush incidents this year than any other since 2000. The Lakewood, Washington massacre on Thanksgiving weekend claimed the lives of four dedicated officers getting ready for work at a coffee shop Sunday morning. Maurice Clemmons – the violent career thug who received clemency from former Arkansas GOP governor Mike Huckabee and benefited from fatal systemic lapses in the criminal justice system – had many other enablers.

Clemmons had told numerous friends and family members to “watch the TV” before the massacre because he was going to “kill a bunch of cops.” The witnesses did worse than nothing. Several have been arrested for actively aiding and abetting Clemmons – with shelter, food, money, and medical aid — before he was discovered in Seattle early Tuesday morning and shot after threatening a patrol officer investigating Clemmons’ stolen vehicle.



A militant online group called the National Black Foot Soldier Network celebrated Clemmons as a “Crowned BOW (Black on White) Martyr” and dubbed the Lakewood ambush a “preemptive strike on terrorists.” It wasn’t the only chilling propaganda cheering black-on-white police murders in the Pacific Northwest this year.

 Just three weeks before the Lakewood, Wa., massacre, the region endured another police attack. Suspect Christopher Monfort was arrested last month in the targeted shooting death of Seattle Police Department Officer Timothy Brenton and the wounding of his partner Britt Sweeney. Monfort had written diatribes against law enforcement harping against white policemen.

The leader of a Seattle hip-hop/punk band commemorated the assassination with a t-shirt depicting Monfort’s face splattered with blood and overlaid with a Seattle Police Department badge under the slogan “Deliver Us From Evil.” The other side of the shirt read “most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamp.”



From where does the deadened and deadly callousness toward the thin blue line come?

How about years of cop-bashing rap from NWA’s “F**k tha Police” and Ice-T’s “Cop Killa” to Dead Prez’s “Police State” (“I throw Molotov cocktails at the precinct”) and The Game’s “911 is a Joke” (I ought to shoot fifty one officers for the fifty one times that boy was shot in New York”)?

Try the glamorization of poisonous anti-police domestic terrorist groups like the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers. Add in the mainstreaming of anti-police demagogues Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (whose ex-wife and daughter were arrested last week after verbally abusing a Harlem cop and resisting arrest after running a red light). And toss in the global glorification of Death Row cop-killers Stanley “Tookie” Williams and Mumia abu Jamal by the Hollywood elite.

It is, in my mind, no coincidence that another of 2009’s bloodiest multiple-police shootings took place in Oakland – a hotbed of black nationalism/Free Mumia radicalism that gave us the likes of Angela Davis, Huey Newton, and Obama green jobs czar-turned-liberal think tank fellow Van Jones (whose “creative” activism and “energy” in the Bay Area won senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett’s heart). Four Oakland officers went down and one was injured when a convicted felon ambushed them during a routine traffic stop. Nearly 20,000 law enforcement officers and supporters from around the country filled a memorial event for the fallen.

President Obama — Chicago pal of police-targeting Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers and the convener of the national beer summit to indulge his race-baiting, police-bashing Harvard professor friend Henry Louis Gates — did not attend the service.

[Rarick]

The anger comes from "curbside manner" and that generates the songs, which inspire the marginals/ haters to act.  The police constantly treating everyone else as a criminal is really irritating, especially if they are the ones riding around trying to find people to "help out".

[G M]

Right. You know this how?

[Rarick]

Have you ever enjoyed a traffic stop?  The authority that cops are trained to drip from every pore comes off pretty offensively to a lot of people.  Being offended is anger inducing is it not?   I have had the displeasure of working around some retired cops, who haven't dropped the role, I have changed jobs.   Call it personal experience if you wish.

[G M]

Have I enjoyed a traffic stop? I've been on both sides.

Is your skin so thin that getting stopped is offensive?

[Crafty_Dog]

Well, the couple of times I was thrown up against the wall were less than fun , , ,

[G M]

Was that when you were going to or coming from Woodstock? 

[G M]

Traffic stops always a danger for officers
0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Dec 6, 2006 | by CARY LEIDER VOGRIN THE GAZETTE
There is no such thing as a "routine" traffic stop, say police officials and law enforcement organizations.

"Statistically, traffic stops and domestic disturbances are far and away the most dangerous things police officers do," said Jim Pasco, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Fraternal Order of Police, a police labor organization with 334,000 members.

"You have no idea who's in the car or what that person might have done, how they might be armed," Pasco said.

Officers stop thousands of cars each year. The 60 patrol deputies in the El Paso County Sheriff's Office issued about 17,500 traffic citations in 2005, said Lt. Clif Northam, spokesman for the department. This year, an estimated 18,000 have been written. Statistics for the Colorado Springs Police Department were not available Tuesday.


Police procedures involving traffic stops might vary slightly from department to department, but Richard Ashton of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, also in Washington, said there's one rule all officers must follow: Never be complacent under any circumstances.

"They should be thinking they want to go home safely tonight," said Ashton, who has a 33-year law enforcement background -- 24 of them as a police chief in Maryland.

[Dog Howie]

Is your skin so thin that getting stopped is offensive?

An old friend of mine and I were talking a few years back as he was getting ready to begin serving in the PA State Police. One of the things I'll always remember he said was that they were taught that their uniform, body and body language was their first weapon. (I assume first impressions weapon). I believe that one of the many very difficult jobs of a LEO is weilding their attributed power in a way that communicaates "authority" while at the same time not unintentionally escalating situations by inciting defensive responses from those involved in routine stops.

IMHO... Is it the responsibility of citizens to offer respect and humility when responding to authority, an authority "deserved" if for no other reason than the LEO has his job. It is also the responsibbility of the LEO to respect any citizen they encounter in a local  "stop" because the LEO, if for no other reason, is a public servant and thus they work for the person(s) they stop.

IMHO, depending on how the LEO handles things, a "routine stop" can indeed be extremely offensive in nature if the LEO is not very skilled or if they are insecure in weilding their authority. Personally I have encountered officers who are extremely professional and who present their authority in a manner that I perceive as resonable and fair. I've also encountered less skilled LEOS whose actions and demeanor convey inappropriate levels of agression and (indirectly then) could easily cause escalation to their situation.   I admire any cop wo can project his/her authority while at the same time coming off with a bit of humility. I'm not a cop and I don't play one on TV, but I'm not sure I could develop that balance if it was me.

[G M]

http://www.aele.org/law/2007-04MLJ501.pdf

A good primer on law enforcement and the use of force.

[G M]

http://www.policeone.com/patrol-issues/articles/1971100-Slain-Wash-officers-respected-for-careers-family-life/

Slain Wash. officers respected for careers, family life
By Jack Broom, Lynda V. Mapes, Bob Young and Susan Kelleher
Seattle Times


The four victims of Sunday morning's shooting were veteran officers who brought a range of talents to the fledgling Lakewood Police Department when it was created in 2004, according to Lakewood Police Chief Bret Farrar.

"This is a very difficult time for our families and our officers," he said. "Please keep our families and Lakewood Police in your prayers."

The slain officers "all have been outstanding professionals," he added.

[G M]

Street Survival Insights
with Dave Smith 


When insanity rules and 'understanding' trumps condemnation
I don’t like to write when I’m mad, but I have just been reading the details about the four murdered peacekeepers in Washington state; that’s right my lame-brained academician friends who no doubt will celebrate our loss as a blow for the “workers” of “Amerika,” they were peacekeepers!

Related Articles:

4 officers shot dead in Wash. coffee shop 'ambush'
Manhunt continues, motive unknown in Wash. coffeehouse ambush

Although several other cities are vying for the title, one could easily argue that the epicenter of left-wing insanity is the Seattle metro area. The Seattle area’s “National Night Out Against Police Brutality” resulted in four police vehicles being bombed by a fellow who later ambushed two officers killing one and wounding the other. According to reports, the four crimefighters sitting at a table in Lakewood, Wash. were assassinated as they sat working on their computers while their marked squad cars sat outside. For those of you not familiar with this beautiful Seattle suburb it is a model of diversity, compassion, and understanding!

“Understanding.” That is the element that will take centerstage in the mainstream press — it always does when an evil dirt bag kills cops or military personnel. We will delve into the background of the miscreant and find the social evil in our capitalist hell that triggered this act against the establishment. Just as the Fort Hood shooter has been labeled everything from dysfunctional to frightened to victimized (everything but being labeled the evil terrorist that he was), the implied blame ends up not at the feet of the bad actor but on our society as a whole.

Whenever possible, the act is also to be projected onto anyone who questions the “Workers Paradise” of social planning ideas. Thus the Church, the radio host, the former Speaker, all become principles in the crime. Thus for the social programmer, killing cops and military personnel becomes an intellectual exercise in blame with a duplicitous media happy to torture logic into submission as well. After graduating from Arizona with a degree in Political Science in the height of the Viet Nam self-flagellation era, I was amazed that there were any thinkers we call Conservative on the staff at all but there were a few.

The Left was busy even then planning a revolution and I remember deputies and officers bringing heavier firepower than we were issued to work on the July 4th, 1976. We had intelligence briefings that such left wing groups as the Weather Underground, Students for a Democratic Society, and others had stockpiled weapons and bombs and were coming for us, the cops, first. It was no fictional fantasy and young crime fighters need to understand that bombs did kill us back then and police stations were attacked and open revolt was constantly being promoted by such insanely violent radicals as Bernadette Dorn and Bill Ayers.

Bombs still kill us today, and multiple police killings attest to the threat of both the Left and Right Wing extremists but the Right Wing killers are immediately and properly condemned, reviled by all. But soon their crime is projected onto all who believe in such radical ideas as a God, guns, and religion! We will “understand” all others. The bombers of the Sixties and Seventies have become tenured heroes, Chicago Citizens of the Year, and close associates of some of our nation’s most powerful. Where the hell are the “question authority” t-shirts now? I have, however, seen a multitude of Che Guevara shirts and posters over the last year and when a mass murdering physician can become an academic icon we have lost our collective minds.

What are we to do? We are to stand vigilant, which means “awake” in Latin. We must maintain a vigil and continue to hunt for those who would hurt us and the innocent. We need to think like we did in the Seventies, not paranoid, but on watch. It is time to post a lookout, not just metaphorically but physically, someone always stands watch. Sit and park with your back to the wall. I was taught to put my gun in my lap when a vehicle suddenly drove up to mine…what were you taught? What do you practice? What do you actually do?

America’s political class, especially those whose constant lamentation about the police are featured on our propaganda-spewing media, must speak out against this violence; for a people in fear are not free, and the first step in destroying that security is targeting the warriors who make the streets safe. One only needs to look at the horrific losses of the Iraqi police to see where chaos reigns and thrives. I would remind us all of our own history and how cries of “kill the pigs” rang out throughout the late Sixties and Seventies as the first step in a more “just, fair, and moral society,” but our history is being properly corrected to match the model of self-loathing that fits today’s academia and urban political class.

America is a unique social experiment, a nation based not on ethnicity, tribe, clan, or religion, but on a collective idea. Learn our history, celebrate our freedoms, protect the innocent, hunt evil, and speak out for what you believe. We suffer a terrible loss again, in a year of terrible losses and I hope this nation can unite in revulsion of these acts and reverence for the sacrifice of these brave men and women. It is the very sense of who we are as a people that is at risk when we no longer celebrate the warriors, no longer remember the sacrifice, no longer condemn the evil. It is time to stop “understanding” and start condemning. If evil has no social stigma, if it is simply understood, prepare for more.

Tell this to the people. I know you already understand...



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

As a police officer, Dave Smith has held positions in patrol, training, narcotics, SWAT, and management. Dave continues to develop new and innovative programs across the spectrum of police training needs designed to assist your agency and your personnel in meeting the challenges of policing in the new millennium. As a trainer, speaker, and consultant Dave brings with him unparalleled access to modern law enforcement trends. He is currently the senior Street Survival Seminar Instructor and Director of Video Training for PoliceOneTV. Visit Dave's website at www.jdbucksavage.com.

[Crafty_Dog]

Well, the couple of times I was thrown up against the wall were less than fun , , , 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Was that when you were going to or coming from Woodstock?

=======================
In the early 70s when I was the only white guy in a 9 man band in North Philadelphia 
 
 

[G M]

Uhhhhh..... How much do you actually remember from that period of your life? 

[Crafty_Dog]

Smartass

Actually, I remember in favorable contrast an incident in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico where a lady friend and I drove off road in search of privacy.  As we were getting to leave a VW bug full of federales (Thompson submachine gun, some large revolvers) came rolling up and searched us and our vehicle , , , thoroughly.  When all was done and we were found to be clean, they APOLOGIZED and SHOOK OUR HANDS.   This took quite a bit of the sting of the indignity of it all away.  I have NEVER had an American LEO do that.

[Rarick]

No apology-Ever.  The one that really screw up are usually swept under the rug.  I am thinking of the incident in Henderson, NV over a ticket on an ice cream truck..........  Apparently Seattle has had a few "rep enhancing" incidents too.   There is a habit of no apology, no admittance of a mistake, and no repair/ revision of policy moving forward.   It is not all the police's fault, shysters have some fault too, but there seems to be an increasing lack of accountability.  Maybe that is a perception pushed by the press, but that is what is generally out there.

There is an incident Near Duluth, MN where a man was arrested for tresspassing on his own property.  There is a pileline right of way that was negotiated under certain terms by his father.  This guy was talking with the construction folks who were just rolling thru his property against the agreed term.  The contruction folks called the cops..........The Cops violated his rights and arrested him.  Wonderful judgement there.

duluthnewstribune.com/event/tag/group/News/tag/crime/  The site won't allow a direct link- the picture of the guy dressed in hunting orange.

[G M]

No apology-Ever.  The one that really screw up are usually swept under the rug.

**Really? Please cite an example and how you know this to be true.**
  I am thinking of the incident in Henderson, NV over a ticket on an ice cream truck.......... 

**Were you there? Did you see the shooting? What's your training in the realm of use of force by law enforcement? What do you base your opinion on?**

Apparently Seattle has had a few "rep enhancing" incidents too.  **Right. Again, please explain your source of information and training and experience on the topic of use of force and officer survival.**


 There is a habit of no apology, no admittance of a mistake, and no repair/ revision of policy moving forward.   It is not all the police's fault, shysters have some fault too, but there seems to be an increasing lack of accountability. **Seems, to your untrained, uninformed opinion.** 

Maybe that is a perception pushed by the press, but that is what is generally out there. **Bingo! You finally get to a bit of truth there.**

There is an incident Near Duluth, MN where a man was arrested for tresspassing on his own property.  There is a pileline right of way that was negotiated under certain terms by his father.  This guy was talking with the construction folks who were just rolling thru his property against the agreed term.  The contruction folks called the cops..........The Cops violated his rights and arrested him.  Wonderful judgement there.

duluthnewstribune.com/event/tag/group/News/tag/crime/  The site won't allow a direct link- the picture of the guy dressed in hunting orange.

**I wasn't there, neither were you. If the arrest wasn't lawful, the arrestee will be getting a big check, most likely.**

[G M]

http://blutube.policeone.com/Clip.aspx?key=A5F178EE61BC840A
 
http://blutube.policeone.com/Clip.aspx?key=49A6AB844E1A2AEA
 
http://blutube.policeone.com/Clip.aspx?key=FA90DABF3A18B8EF
 
http://blutube.policeone.com/Clip.aspx?key=6BEA0966EB2FCD74
 
http://blutube.policeone.com/Clip.aspx?key=5B9AF3C1F766C86C
 
http://blutube.policeone.com/Clip.aspx?key=B9F03F78E5430A8A

A little insight into the dangers related to traffic stops for those of you that haven't done the job.

[G M]

http://www.aaets.org/article59.htm

Trauma Response Profile
Beverly Anderson, Ph.D., B.C.E.T.S.

Joseph S. Volpe, Ph.D., F.A.A.E.T.S.
Director, Professional Development


For nearly 20 years, Dr. Beverly Anderson has provided psychological services to law enforcement agencies around the nation. She has consulted on traumatic stress to more than thirty international and national law enforcement organizations. Dr. Anderson has been a featured speaker on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for Good Morning America, CNN, and dozens of television news stations. She is featured in the Channel 4 News video"Cops Under Fire." She has been invited to present her research on Police Trauma Syndrome® to several organizations and groups including the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. Dr. Anderson is the Clinical Director and Administrator of the Metropolitan Police Employee Assistance Program in Washington, D.C. Moreover, she is President of The American Academy of Police Psychology, an organization that is dedicated to addressing the unique concerns and stressors of the law enforcement community. Dr. Anderson is a Diplomate of The American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress and the Academy is privileged to have her serve on the Board of Scientific & Professional Advisors.

JSV: I know that you have been very committed to providing psychological services to law enforcement agencies for almost 20 years. Can you tell me about the positions that you currently hold?

BJA: I am the founding Clinical Director and Administrator of the Metropolitan Police Employee Assistance Program and have been since 1988. This program is unique in that it is a joint union-management approach to addressing the serious stress-related problems that are a direct result of policing. I do not work for the Police Department or the City. My contract is with the Fraternal Order of Police Labor Committee. The best part about this independence is that it ensures confidentiality. The records belong to me as a private clinician which facilitates trust in those whom we assist. We have 3,500 officers in the Washington Metropolitan Police Department. We are not an employee assistance program in the true sense. We are actually a long-term services program and provide individual therapy, family therapy, marital therapy, play therapy, and various group therapies including Veteran officers groups, alcoholism prevention and relapse groups, and weekly critical incident debriefing groups. With regard to this latter point, we have an average of two police-involved shootings per week. Subsequently, we have ongoing debriefings. Our police department must contend with one of the highest murder rates in the United States for a city of our size. Moreover, we have one of the highest rates of ambushes and unprovoked attacks on police officers in the nation. There is a lot of gang violence, drug-related problems and the like. We have a situation here that demands all of the emotional resources of the force. We also do a lot of training. The foundation of our comprehensive program is based on training. We have a critical incident program that begins with the recruits in the police academy and involves family members. We are on call 24 hours a day. In fact, just this morning at 1:30am, I was paged to a police-involved shooting and had to go to the Homicide Division. I sat with the officer to assist with what is best referred to as defusing. This involves debriefing the officer after the shooting and then for six mandatory meetings within three months of the shooting. We are also engaged in research. We have done work with Dr. Frank Putnam from the National Institute of Mental Health on Secondary Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in the children of police officers. We are still compiling data. In working with police families over the years, we have noted a preponderance of symptoms in the children to include hyperactivity and attentional problems. I believe that this is a direct result of experiencing the effects of parental exposure to trauma.

JSV: As you are aware, The American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress is a multidisciplinary organization comprised of professionals from over one hundred forty specialties. Many of these individuals respond on the "front lines" of risk and, at times, danger which are significant stressors. How does law enforcement stress differ from other occupational groups such as firefighters and Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs)?

BJA: The first thing that comes to my mind is the public response to firefighters and EMTs. For the most part, it is a very positive response when compared to the police. Think of being stopped by a police officer for speeding, for example, and you think that you are going to get a ticket. One of the first things that you may do is try to get out of it, be nice, or lie. The public mind set toward the police officer seems to be more negative. Although there is a clear danger potential in all of these groups, the danger is different for police officers. As the level of violence in this country escalates, the echos of that violence reverberate throughout the police community. Unprovoked attacks on police officers are at an all-time high. Just a year ago, D.C. Master Patrol Officer Brian Gibson sat in his patrol car at a stop light and was shot execution style by a young man who was put out of a local night club by a police officer. Another example is Officer Wendall Smith who was exiting his vehicle after returning home from his evening shift. When the attackers saw that he was a police officer, they shot and killed him. In 1995, Scot Lewis was shot in the head and killed by a passerby while Officer Lewis and his partner were assisting a hearing-impaired person. The assailant then turned the gun on Scot's partner, Officer Keith Deauville who returned fire, fatally wounding the attacker. In these situations, the danger is not obvious and you don't know who is going to attack you. The police officer always has to be ready. That is why officers have what I call "cop-face" (the need to be hypervigilant). They have "cop-face" because they never know (when they have to move into action). The unpredictability of the job of policing is an added stressor. This means that the stress hormones need to remain elevated at some level (recall the General Adaptation Syndrome). The police officer is always looking for what is "wrong" in the picture. Shift work and midnight duties are common to other professions but the unpredictability and the violence make police work unique. You can add to this, a revolving-door justice system, with the person you locked up today, back on the street tomorrow. A police officer also has to contend with mixed messages from police administration. On one hand they are told to lock-up and arrest those involved with crime and, on the other hand, always remain professional while doing it. There is public scrutiny of police work, and at times, media misrepresentation of events. There is always a threat of civil law suits. There is significant stress associated with the use of deadly force - having to kill another human being. I have yet to meet an officer who is emotionally ready to kill another human being. Many officers say that the first thing that came to mind after they fired the fatal bullet was "Thou shall not kill." All of these stressors make police work different from other professions. Of course, the on-going, day-to-day exposure to murders, assaults, rapes, child abuse, domestic violence and "man's inhumanity to man" intensifies this stress-related burden.






JSV: What is the most significant stressor for police officers?

BJA: If you ask a police officer about the most significant stressor of policing, they often report "police administration." However, the nightmares they experience are not about administration. These nightmares are about the use of deadly force, shooting their guns, and being shot. It becomes apparent that the most considerable stressor is the constant exposure to trauma, especially over prolonged periods of time. However, problems regarding "police administration" are very real for officers and sometimes constitute the "second wound." Officers expect that the public and the media will mistreat them; they don't expect betrayal from the very organizations they risk their lives for every day.

JSV: This is quite consistent with combat veterans who serve multiple tours of duty.

BJA: This is absolutely correct and I think that you bring something out that is so much a part of the police experience. Without minimizing the trauma of combat, consider the following. During wartime, soldiers go to a foreign land, and are likely to remain there for six months to a year. Police officers are likely to see twenty years of peacetime combat, in their own country where they do not always know who the enemy is. The enemy could be anybody.

JSV: What is "Police Trauma Syndrome®" and why do you think that it has taken so long for its wrath to be examined in the trauma literature? What are the stages leading to this syndrome?

BJA: Police Trauma Syndrome® is a diagnostic term that I authored several years ago to depict the cluster of symptoms many police officers suffer as a direct result of the job of policing. It is now a registered trademark. In diagnosing trauma-related disorders with police officers, we have found great difficulty with the criteria set forth in both the DSM-III and DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). It has been problematic for us to use the DSM-III or DSM-IV criteria for police officers because they typically do not fit into the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) criteria per se. A police officer can witness, inside of one week, more trauma than most people see in a lifetime. Not only is it qualitatively different but also, quantitatively different. They see so much trauma. If you examine the first of the DSM-IV criterion (for PTSD), it states that the person's response to the event must involve intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Police officers are more often than not, the first responders to a scene. They have been tuned to dissociate from their emotions or suppress their emotions in order to be able to endure the scene. Theoretically, in most cases, police officers would not fulfill this first criterion. They are trained to respond behaviorally (not emotionally). Also, we tend to see a biphasic response which oscillates between anger or intrusive thoughts and numbing. We see extremes in their responses. This does not imply that police officers get used to being exposed to trauma, because we know that this is not the case. Chronic, long-term and cumulative stress takes its toll on police officers. When we talk about the issue of police brutality, it becomes clearer that the effects of such stress will come out one way or another. Police Trauma Syndrome® can result after a single, catastrophic event such as when an officer witnesses his partner being killed, and then having to defend his own life perhaps by killing the assailant. This could precipitate full-blown PTSD or Police Trauma Syndrome® in an officer. On the other hand, after years of traumatic exposure, Police Trauma Syndrome® can be triggered by an incident that is not immediately life-threatening, like the following incident.

A veteran officer with young children at home got a call to respond to an unconscious person. Well, what do you think of when you hear "unconscious person" - a street person, a person who is intoxicated, a stroke or heart attack victim? There is not too much warning in these situations. The officer goes into an apartment and there he finds an eight-month-old baby with a core body temperature of 106 degrees. He immediately begins mouth-to-mouth resuscitation because the baby is not breathing. The baby vomits sour milk into the officer's mouth. The ambulance finally gets there and the baby is taken to the hospital and dies. No one tells the officer what the baby has died of. He doesn't know if the baby is HIV positive, has meningitis, or is contagious! No one will talk with him because there has not yet been an autopsy. He goes home. Can he touch his children? He cannot look at his young baby without having intrusive thoughts and overwhelming feelings about the baby who had just died. In this case, the officer had an acute reaction and this triggered memories of other experiences and he was in a full-blown crisis. Another example is the veteran officer who had been on the scene of many suicides over the years. On one particular occasion, he began to tremble and hallucinate, and he experienced panic symptoms, etc. This was a person with 22 years on the force! There are so many factors involved. The important thing to convey about Police Trauma Syndrome® is that when a clinician sees this term, consider that the individual is suffering from events experienced primarily on the job. It is a direct result of the occupation of policing. Our veteran officers group has identified several stages leading to full-blown Police Trauma Syndrome®. (This group has been meeting for four years and is comprised of officers with 17 years or more on the Department. They have all been high achievers on the job but have paid a price emotionally). They have defined a five-stage model.

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In the first stage, the "Rookie" Stage, an officer is "shocked" by the world he sees - the violence, the neglect and cruelty toward children. He sees a world that he didn't know existed. The second stage is the "John Wayne" Stage and is marked by an uncertainty as to the "balance" of the badge. The officer is filling a role as he/she understands it. The "tough" image portrayed by the media cops is all that officers may know. The officer may take pride in owning all of the police gadgets. Their communicative style is primarily one of "commanding, ordering and directing." During the third stage, the "Professional" Stage, the officer has a good sense of his/her own identity. No matter how much verbal abuse they encounter, they remain courteous and in control (e.g., responding to an angry motorist he has just ticketed, you might hear, "Well, sir, I am sorry that you are making reference to my mother right now; however, you did go through that stop sign and I am required by law to cite you"). While for appearance's sake, this may seem problem-free, in actuality what's happening is that the officer may be "numbing" his natural emotions. "Dehumanizing" citizens as a coping mechanism will cost the officer in his personal life. Defense mechanisms that help an officer adapt to the job are maladaptive in his/her personal life.

These stages do not necessarily follow a consecutive pattern. Our experience has been that officers can jump from one stage back to an earlier stage. For example, a veteran officer who is in the "Professional" Stage may revert to the "Rookie" Stage upon witnessing a gruesome, traumatic event. We found this in many officers who responded to the Air Florida crash in 1982. The carnage and death they were exposed to that night and during the body recovery days after changed their lives. Many of the officers experienced the "Burnout" Stage which is number four in our model. Anger and contempt for the criminal justice system, the Department, politicians, and the citizens highlight this stage. The officer begins to isolate from family and friends - believing that they do not "have a clue" as to what the world is really like. The fifth and final stage is full-blown "Police Trauma Syndrome®." The individual is no longer able to function effectively as a police officer. This state is characterized by sleep problems, anxiety and/or depression, flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, mood swings, rage attacks, social isolation, and a deterioration in relationships. The officer may consume alcohol or other drugs or experience an escalation in usage. Suicidal thoughts may arise. This condition is far more pervasive than one might think. Sadly, what usually happens, without intervention, is that the officer retires (if he/she can) and disappears into obscurity. We are working very hard to prevent Police Trauma Syndrome®.

JSV: What about the use of deadly force? For example, what do police officers go through after they are involved in a deadly shooting? Does the use of deadly force affect police officers more than other stressors?

BJA: Involvement in a police shooting may be the cataclysm of a police career. When I began working with officers, it was almost unheard of for an officer to be involved in a shooting. It was rare. Now in this city (Washington, D.C.), we average two police-involved shootings a week. There are many factors involved in the event that have to be examined. For example, was the officer injured? How lasting was the injury? Was the officer's partner injured or killed? Was the suspect killed? Who was the suspect - an adolescent, elderly person, a mentally ill person? How grotesque was the shooting? What was the physical proximity of the officer to the suspect? For instance, I remember one officer who told me how the suspect looked at him before he died and asked "why did you kill me?" That is what the officer will remember. Was the officer taken by surprise? For example, one minute the officer was giving directions to a citizen and the next, he has a gun pointed at him. Also, were other people in danger of being killed or injured? Was the use of deadly force appropriate or can the officer be potentially convicted of homicide? There is also the potential for civil liability. What is the officer's coping style? Is there substance abuse? Police officers oftentimes use self-destructive coping mechanisms such as drinking, gambling, workaholism, etc. What was the department's response to the shooting? Were they supportive or punitive? Some departments take an officer, remove his weapons, and place him in the back of the car. Who else goes in the back of the car? Suspects! What is the emotional impact on an officer when this happens? He feels that he must have done something wrong. Another factor that affects officers in the aftermath of a shooting is how the media handles the reporting of the shooting. So often, in their haste to report a story, the media will distort the facts and not usually to favor the police. Officers have a favorite phrase they use to describe the media, "Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story."

Immediately after a police shooting, a quick response by management and mental health personnel is crucial. Counselor support within hours of the shooting as well as follow-up services send a critical message: "You are important to this Department and this community." Follow-up services should also include the family. We have prepared a booklet for officers, officials and family members that discusses how to best manage police critical incidents.

JSV: Recently, in New York, there was a very unfortunate encounter for some police officers involving "Suicide-by-Cop" in which an individual, who apparently wanted to kill himself, pointed a plastic gun at officers and was, subsequently, fatally shot. In your experience, how often does this occur and how do you assist officers who confront such an event?

BJA: This is yet another very sad fact of life for law enforcement officers - one that happens all too often. The kind of individual who uses police officers for his/her own suicide will influence the officer's reaction. Individuals who commit heinous crimes and then precipitate an officer's use of deadly force will evoke a different response from an officer than a depressed adolescent who just wants to die and doesn't have the nerve to do it himself. The natural response for the officer is often one of anger. When a person makes a decision to point a gun at a police officer, that officer must react to protect his life. The public doesn't seem to understand this. Citizens will ask "couldn't you have shot him in the arm?" or "couldn't you shoot the gun out of his hand?" Our job is to help the officer place the responsibility on the person who caused this event. At the same time, we validate the normal feelings that accompany such a tragedy.

JSV: Police officers are often portrayed in the media as the "cool" and "calm," Clint Eastwood-type. In your opinion, what effect does such a stereotype have on officers, if any?

BJA: We have worked very hard to dispel that myth and it seems to be working with our younger officers. With officers on the job ten years or so, you see that macho-mystique portrayed in the Lethal Weapon movies. I remember Mel Gibson taunting the police psychologist in one particular movie after she had voiced concern for him. That image is not helpful for the public or the police. I have yet to meet a cop who has a "make my day" philosophy of policing. However, the rigid, macho mentality that does exist is a barrier to debriefing after a critical incident. In the long run, it makes the officer more vulnerable to the cumulative effects of traumatic exposure.