Sunday, May 31, 2015

Gladstone Police Parked at Stop Sign; creating a traffic hazard.

Sunday, May 17, 2015

HB 2571A-Public Hearing and Work Session Requires law enforcement agency to establish policies and procedures for use and retention of recordings from cameras worn upon police officer's person to record officer's interactions with members of public.

With public access to these recordings, claims of officer misconduct can be investigated and police agencies can be held accountable. With recordings, mistakes in training and practice can be corrected to prevent liabilities. The ability to make broad public records requests helps determine whether officers or departments have patterns of problems. Some departments are getting broad public records requests for all or most of the records created, requiring days of review and redaction. Redaction should be minimal and States can charged in advance for public records by setting a minimum deposit until the requester is notified of potential costs above that needed. Typically the storage costs are far exceeded by the liabilities avoided and the reduced work in generating a criminal case. "Roll the video record" will result in swift resolution of clear cases. VieVu, which says its 4,000 U.S. law enforcement customers shot 10 million hours of police video in 2014. Duluth initially received 84 cameras and charging bays for less than $5,000 from camera maker Taser International, but its three-year contract and licensing agreement for data storage cost about $78,000.
BRIAN BAKST, Associated Press & RYAN J. FOLEY, Associated Press
For Police Body Cameras, Big Costs Loom in Storing Footage

Video/audio recordings should be mandated. If you carry a lethal weapon, you cannot afford not to have a record.

Without a recording, law enforcement in Oregon should forfeit their "qualified immunity status."

Oregon was over 2.5 times the national statistic for fatal injuries and 11 times the statistic for New Jersey.

According to the Center for Disease Control for 2004 to 2010 Oregon is a leader in fatal injuries in legal interventions:

New Mexico #1=0.38 per 100,000

Oregon is #2= 0.33 per 100,000

U.S.A. is = 0.13 per 100,000

New Jersey=0.03 per 100,000

Failing to have a faithful recording leads to what Frank Serpico calls "Testi-lying." Recording deters even the consideration of it.

"When Cops Cry Wolf" - FRANK SERPICO April 10, 2015: I call it “testi-lying.” It has been a regular practice in police forces across the United States, at least since I served on the NYPD: official testimony that is made part of a police after-action report but is a pure lie, an invention. In the old days police would carry a “drop gun” or a “drop knife”—an inexpensive weapon cops would bring along on patrol to drop onto or next to a suspect they had taken out so they could say he had threatened them. Today you don’t even need to do that; all you have to do to justify the use of deadly force if you are a police officer is to say that you feared for your life, for whatever reason. If the victim dies, that just means there will be one less witness around to contradict the testi-lie.
When Cops Cry Wolf

Herbert Leon MacDonnell, The Evidence Never Lies, 1984:
-----You can lead jurors to the truth but you can't make them believe it. Physical evidence cannot be intimidated. It does not forget. It doesn't get excited at the moment something is happening--like people do. It sits there and waits to be detected, preserved, evaluated, and explained. That is what physical evidence is all about.
-----In the course of a trial, defense and prosecuting attorneys may lie, witnesses my lie, the defendant certainly may lie. Even the judge may lie. Only the evidence never lies.

Police and government like to say "if it saves one life," to justify just about everything, including body armor, guns, tasers, and pepper spray. They have the training and weapons to kill with less risk. Now it is time to add cameras and they resist:
A REPORT ON BODY WORN CAMERAS

The use of body cameras by San Diego police has led to fewer complaints by residents and less use of force by officers, according to a city report released in March. Complaints have fallen 40.5% and use of "personal body" force by officers has been reduced by 46.5% and use of pepper spray by 30.5%, according to the report developed by the Police Department for the City Council's Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee.

San Diego police body camera report: Fewer complaints, less use of force

Body-worn camera results for Rialto (California) Police Department:

ƒ1.60 % reduction in officer use of force incidents following camera deployment.

ƒ2.Half the number of use of force incidents for shifts with cameras compared to shifts without cameras.

ƒ3.88 percent reduction in number of citizen complaints between the year prior to and following camera deployment

Harold Rankin, “End of Program Evaluation and Recommendations: On-Officer Body Camera System” (Mesa, AZ: Mesa. Police Department, 2013)

Implementing a Body-Worn Camera Program Recommendations and Lessons Learned

ALSO SEE:

Violence-related Police Crime Arrests in the United States, 2005-2011 (with Steven L. Brewer Jr and Joelle K. Bridges), Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (2015) http://bit.ly/1QVcvq0

Police Crime & Less-than-Lethal Coercive Force: A Description of the Criminal Misuse of TASERs (with Bradford W. Reyns and John Liederbach), International Journal of Police Science and Management (2012) http://bit.ly/1HjiZL3

Research Brief One-Sheet No.5: Police Criminal Misuse of Conductive Energy Devices (with Bradford W. Reyns and John Liederbach), Criminal Justice Faculty Publications (2013) http://bit.ly/1bVZfSi

Police Integrity Lost Podcast Episode 04: Police Criminal Misuse of TASERs (with John Liederbach), Criminal Justice Faculty Publications (2012) http://bit.ly/1IDEwRJ

Research Brief One-Sheet No.1: Late-Stage Police Crime: Is it an Exit Strategy? (with John Liederbach and Tina L. Freiburger), Criminal Justice Faculty Publications (2012) http://bit.ly/1e9Iip5

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

No Camera? No Gun! No Baton! No Taser! No Pepper Spray! No Qualified Immunity!

No camera,or no loaded gun,& no qualified immunity.Every mistake is an opportunity for training and improvement. If you are intending on violating the policies of your command, take off the badge, turn in the uniform, unload your sidearm, sign your resignation, and GO HOME. No video or eyewitness, replaces the officer to articulate the decision process while relating the incident to case law and use of force. We have always expected those things in the past. A video helps to illustrate your procedure in a specific case.

A REPORT ON BODY WORN CAMERAS

http://www.parsac.org/parsac-www/pdf/Bulletins/14-005_Report_BODY_WORN_CAMERAS.pdf

Harold Rankin, “End of Program Evaluation and Recommendations: On-Officer Body Camera System” (Mesa, AZ: Mesa. Police Department, 2013)

http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/472014912134715246869.pdf

Body Cams on San Diego Police Produce Encouraging Results

http://www.attn.com/stories/1280/body-cams-san-diego-police-produce-encouraging-results

You can lead jurors to the truth but you can't make them believe it.

Physical evidence cannot be intimidated. It does not forget.

It doesn't get excited at the moment something is happening--like people do.

It sits there and waits to be detected, preserved, evaluated, and explained.

That is what physical evidence is all about.

In the course of a trial, defense and prosecuting attorneys may lie, witnesses my lie,

the defendant certainly may lie. Even the judge may lie. Only the evidence never lies.

Herbert Leon MacDonnell, The Evidence Never Lies, 1984

Police are about .3%, or less than one million in our population, yet you will find not city of one million with this much crime committed by their citizens. There are about eight stories a day, according to the tracking of the Cato Institute's National Police Misconduct. That is not a statistic. That is something you can follow yourself on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/NPMRP

There are at least three homicides by police in an average day and up to nine homicides in a single day by law enforcement. That is not a statistic. That is a list of names being tracked you can follow here: http://killedbypolice.net/

Last year over 1100 homicides were committed by police and most ruled justified. That list is here: http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2014.html

Compare that with the deaths of officers on duty, most of which were caused by officer behaviors, including obesity and bad driving habits:

Line of Duty Deaths: 127

Qualified immunity balances two important interests—the need to hold public officials accountable when they exercise power irresponsibly and the need to shield officials from harassment, distraction, and liability when they perform their duties reasonably. Can we really assume police act reasonably in a way that other citizens do not? The US Supreme Court held as much in Pearson v. Callahan. That may be acceptable in most states, but can that be assumed in all? In Oregon, we have a commitment to expect more. Article I, Section 20 of our Oregon Constitution's BILL OF RIGHTS says: No law shall be passed granting to any citizen or class of citizens privileges, or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.

Are police not a class of citizens?

Are they immune from the laws they are paid to enforce and to be allowed to threaten the public safety they are sworn to protect?