Flipped off cops, got arrested settle for $25 K

Duo Who Flipped Off Cops & Got Arrested Reach $52K Settlement With City

 

BY EMMA WHITFORD IN NEWS           ON JAN 23, 2016 10:00 AM

 

 

 

 

 

Two NYPD officers exercising their First Amendment rights

Two people who spent a night in jail after flipping off a pair of NYPD officers on the E train have won a $52,000 settlement from the city for the violation of their First Amendment rights.

After Channing Creager, 26, and Nicholas Thommen, 33, brandished their middle fingers to two cops on the E train in June of 2013, the officers exited with them and proceeded to ask them for their identification. The duo was cuffed after officers looked up their records and saw that Thommen had been arrested the year previous for allegedly assaulting an NYPD officer with a metal pipe outside of a Starbucks, according to their lawyer Jason Leventhal. The charges in the beating case were dropped before the E train incident.

"The cops did background checks, and five minutes later they made a comment to Thommen with regards to a prior arrest involving an altercation with police officers, and that's when they handcuffed him," Leventhal told us.

The friends were also active in the Occupy Wall Street movement, as the Post is careful to point out, although they were not participating in a protest at the time of the train incident.

Creager and Thommen were handcuffed and taken to the 110th Precinct in Queens and spent a night in jail. Both denied officers' claims that they yelled insults in addition to raising their middle fingers. Disorderly conduct charges were later dropped in Queens Supreme Court.

"If they were yelling and screaming on a subway car there could be probable cause to arrest them," their attorney Leventhal said. "Our clients say they were not. What it comes down to is whether it rose to the level of creating public annoyance and alarm."

 

 

U.S. laws protect police, while endangering civilians

By Paul Hirschfield

Paul Hirschfield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

The Conversation is funded by Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Knight Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Alfred P Sloan Foundation, Rita Allen Foundation and the Simons Foundation. Our global publishing platform is funded by Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

In the sixth GOP debate, Donald Trump told Americans: “The police are the most mistreated people in this country.”

On the same day, the Chicago Police Department released a videoshowing an officer killing Cedric Chatman in 2013. The teen was sprinting away at the time of the shooting, unarmed except for a stolen cellphone box. The officer has faced no consequences for his death.

Cedric Chatman.

The ritual of an unnecessary police killing with no real accountability has become painfully familiar. The unnecessary deaths of Tamir Rice and Eric Garner in 2014 are among those that galvanized a national movement for greater restraint, accountability and equity in policing.

And yet, 2015 may have been American cops' deadliest year on record. According to my analysis of the Fatal Encounters database, police violence directly caused or played a role in 1,126 deaths in 2015, up from 1,072 deaths in 2014.

Outrage over high profile incidents and a shift in public opinion has led police departments around the nation to equip more officers with cameras and add deescalation training.

But no local, state or federal lawmakers have banned police from using unnecessary deadly force. Rather, lawmakers at all levels still allow police the maximum latitude to use deadly force that constitutional law permits. Indeed, a comparison with police in the U.K. shows that this leniency goes too far to protect police at the price of civilian deaths.

Who is protecting whom?

As written, interpreted and enforced, laws and rules protect the police from the public. They are woefully inadequate, however, at protecting the public from the police.

Despite some high-profile violence against police, American police officers have never been safer. Concerns over a “Ferguson effect” – another topic at the latest GOP debate – are premature, at best.

The Supreme Court invalidated deadly force to make arrests or prevent escapes back in 1985. They later ruled that laws permitting deadly force to prevent grave and imminent harm from the perspective of a “reasonable officer on the scene” are constitutional. The Supreme Court imagined the reasonableness standard as “objective” in light of the full set of “facts and circumstances confronting” the officer at the time deadly force is used.

In practice, the reasonableness of deadly force is fluid and contested.

What is a “reasonable fear” in a post-Bernardino, post-9/11 America? If fearing remote, worst-case scenarios is common sense, then are any perceived threats regarding “criminal suspects” unreasonable?

Flexible definitions have permitted prosecutors to claim police had “objectively reasonable” fears of cars that were driving away, unarmed people running away and even people with their hands up.

Research by The Guardian shows that young black men are five times more likely than young white men to be killed by police. But these permissive laws are a problem that transcends race.

Since July alone, at least 54 unarmed white men have been killed by police who faced no reasonable fear of criminal charges.

Powerful defenders

State legislatures could have passed their own laws to make clear when deadly force is unreasonable, but none have bothered.

Permissive laws endure because whenever tighter restrictions on the use of deadly force are proposed, police leaders and their advocates swiftly attack them and their proponents for endangering officers.

Their winning argument is that officers must make hurried risk assessments while facing extreme stress in tough-to-read situations. Exercising more care and restraint – for example, pausing long enough to determine whether a suspicious object or movement toward the officer’s weapon is a credible threat – means gambling with their lives, the argument goes. They apparently believe that hundreds of unnecessary killings would be a regrettable, but acceptable, price to pay in order to keep police safe.

And that is where the political debate usually stops, if it even starts.

Lawmakers are rarely asked to justify their support of these policies that cost far more lives than they save. However, there is a point at which this ratio feels unacceptably high to the majority of voters in a civilized society.

The most deadly practices

Perhaps the best way to save civilian lives is to limit the police use of so-called tactical responses that are the most likely to result in unnecessary deaths.

Comparing police killings and officer fatalities in the United States to the United Kingdom reveals some of these tactics and circumstances.

Fatal police shootings are exceedingly rare in the U.K. Americans were 403 times more likely than Brits to be fatally shot by police in 2013-14.

If British police survive the same types of situations without taking any lives, that suggests most killings in the United States under those circumstances are unnecessary.

Weapons that rarely kill police officers

Consider, for example, the estimated 663 people in the U.S. fatally shot while allegedly wielding blades or blunt objects since 2013. Such weapons have killed only nine U.S. police officers since 2008.

Police were not in any grave danger when they killed people like Lavall Hall, Mario Woods and Darrien Hunt – men who never raised their weapons.

British police recorded 26,370 violent knife crimes during the 2014-15 fiscal year, including those that threatened police. But British police have killed only one person armed with a knife since 2008. During that time, no British officers were killed by weapons other than guns.

American police fatally shot 53 unarmed people in vehicles in 2015. By contrast, since 2008, no British police have killed anyone to stop a threatening vehicle. During that same period of time, no British cops died because they failed to stop a vehicle.

In addition to unarmed motorists, American police killed about 200 completely unarmed people last year. This easily exceeds the total of those legally executed over the last five years.

This suggests that prohibiting the use of deadly force against people unarmed and fleeing, armed only with vehicles or armed with less dangerous weapons and not attacking anyone would make policing only slightly riskier while saving hundreds of lives over the next several years.

The same logic applies to other potentially lethal “tactical responses” that can safely be outlawed – such as head strikes, chokeholds, and tasing people who are nonviolent, subdued or fleeing.

Fewer killings, better policing

Reform opponents are armed and ready. They will warn that modest reforms will chase good people from police work and increase crime, but the experience of countries with more restrictive deadly force laws suggests that’s not true.

Staunchly “prolife” police forces like Norway’s and Finland’s tend to enjoy more public trust and attract more upstanding recruits. Crime and arrests may decline under stricter deadly force rules, because better respected police should garner more legitimacy and cooperation.

Restricting deadly force will require investing more in police training and nonlethal weapons technology. A great source of funding is the billions of dollars that will otherwise be spent settling lawsuits stemming from unnecessary deadly force.

State and federal laws and police guidelines all give special consideration to police, because they put their lives on the line to keep us safe. But these laws are asking far more civilians to put their lives on the line in order to keep police safe. Such laws do not afford everyone “equal protection” and, therefore, require thoughtful and urgent revision.

"This is a responsibility for the U.S. Justice Department to get involved," Bernie Sanders said.

Sanders pushes automatic investigations on deaths in police custody

By GABRIEL DEBENEDETTI

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Bernie Sanders called for an automatic Justice Department investigation every time an American is killed in police custody, a new proposal from a candidate who has made criminal justice reform a bigger part of his platform recently.

"This is a responsibility for the U.S. Justice Department to get involved," Sanders said, responding to a YouTube questioner.

"Second of all," Sanders added, "I speak as a mayor who worked very closely — a majority are honest, hard-working people trying to do a difficult job, but let us be clear. If a police officer breaks the law, like any public official, that officer must be held accountable."

Another former Honea Path police officer arrested

Romando Dixson,

The state Law Enforcement Division arrested a second ex-police officer in connection with an arrest in which a man alleged the cops used excessive force.

John Newton Bell, a former officer with the Honea Path Police Department, was charged with misconduct in office, SLED said. He made false and contradictory statements to authorities about the arrest of a man in November 2014, according to an arrest warrant. The document alleges the misconduct occurred from Nov. 14, 2014, to March 25, 2015.

Robert Joshua Shaw, 32, was arrested Friday and charged with misconduct in office in connection with the same arrest. He made false and contradictory statements about the arrest from Nov. 14, 2014 to Dec. 17, 2014, according to an arrest warrant.

Bell, 38, and Shaw arrested Brian Hatcher, of Belton, on November 14, 2014.

Police said Hatcher failed to stop for blue lights and led officers on a chase of nearly two miles until pulling over. At some point, Hatcher pulled out a knife and a fight ensued, SLED said at the time. SLED spokesman Thom Berry said Monday he could not comment on the statements the officers made that were false and contradictory in the subsequent investigation.

Tom Dunaway, Hatcher's attorney, said his client suffered a skull fracture, lost hearing in one ear, and loss sight in one eye after the arrest.

SLED began investigating at the request of the Honea Path Police Department, and the officers were placed on administrative leave after the arrest. In April 2015, the Police Department fired Shaw and Bell after meeting with SLED and the 10th Circuit Solicitor's Office.

The misconduct charge carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

The Police Department faced questions about its hiring procedures in the wake of Hatcher's arrest. Police Chief David King addressed those questions in a statement Tuesday. He said nothing reported to the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy would've prevented the hiring of Shaw and Bell.

"This agency accurately reports all incidents that could affect an officer's career," King said in the statement. "I feel that any negative information concerning previous behavior should have been reported to the SCCJA and also provided to us by the other agencies when they were contacted during our background investigation."

University of Cincinnati, family settle over fatal police shooting

The $5.3 million settlement is reached after a man was shot by a university police officer.

BY ALBERT STUMMTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The sister of a man fatally shot by a University of Cincinnati police officer who pulled him over for lacking a front license plate said she hopes a $5.3 million settlement will help prevent another family from losing a loved one.

The settlement with the university, which was announced Monday, gives the family of Samuel DuBose $4.85 million and promises free undergraduate tuition for his 12 children.

It also provides for a memorial commemorating DuBose, an apology from the university and the family’s involvement in a community advisory committee on police reform.

DuBose’s sister, Terina Allen, said the monetary aspects of the settlement are secondary to overhauling the university police department.

“Ultimately, Sam’s death will serve as a reminder of just how final it is to pull a gun. And hopefully officers will think twice about pulling a gun,” said Allen, who spoke on behalf of the family.

“I hope people will obey police officers’ orders, but in the end they can’t be judge, jury and executioner.”

DuBose, 43, was shot and killed behind the wheel of his car on July 19 after Officer Ray Tensing stopped him near campus for missing a front license plate, which is required by Ohio law. Tensing was charged with murder and pleaded not guilty.

University President Santa Ono said he wanted to express the university community’s “deepest sadness and regrets at the heartbreaking loss” of DuBose’s life.

“This agreement is also part of the healing process not only for the family but also for our university and Cincinnati communities,” he said.

Tensing said that after he stopped the car, DuBose refused to provide a driver’s license and get out.

A struggle ensued as DuBose tried to drive away, and Tensing said he fired because he feared being dragged under the car, said his attorney, Stewart Matthews. A hearing to set a trial date has been scheduled for Feb. 11, Matthews said.

The shooting occurred during heightened scrutiny across the United States of police treatment of blacks, after a string of police-inflicted deaths including in Ferguson, Missouri, and Chicago sparked sometimes-violent protests over the past year and a half.

Inaction over Chicago police reform

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has a famous rule: “Never let a crisis go to waste.” He got what he wanted.

The crisis with Chicago police is a golden opportunity for reform. But the only way to avoid wasting it is to pivot away from blaming individual cops and toward reforming a broken system that rewards exactly the type of inaction he displayed by turning his eyes away from the shocking film in which Laquan McDonald is gunned down by Chicago police.

Officer Jason Van Dyke has been indicted for first-degree murder and all the direct blame has been on him. But to really understand the persistence of police brutality, focus on the eight cops who stood and watched a cold-blooded killing, five of whom turned in nearly identical yet wildly inaccurate reports exonerating their fellow officer. Or the top brass who signed off on these reports, even after seeing the video they blatantly contradicted. Or the City Council, which paid $5 million in hush money without asking to see the video. Or the mayor’s lawyers, who did see the video — and insisted on keeping it under wraps.

The public wants to know: Why did nobody speak up? The answer is: because when it comes to police brutality, action is dangerous and inaction is safe. Chicago has a long sorry history of rewarding inaction and punishing action, and both the cops and the politicians know it.

Consider the story of Frank Laverty, who joined the Chicago Police Department in 1968 and became a homicide detective. But he derailed his career by blowing the whistle on the department’s illegal practice of keeping secret files of evidence never disclosed to defense attorneys. Laverty disclosed one of these files to stop an innocent man from being tried for capital murder, and then received death threats from his fellow officers. Of all those involved in this disgraceful incident, only one officer was charged with a disciplinary infraction: Laverty himself, for failing to work within the chain of command. He ended up demoted to collecting urine samples from police recruits.

This happened at the infamous Area Two, the precinct in which John Burge and his men tortured at least 117 suspects. Each complaint was dismissed as meritless, until finally in 1989 a group of civil rights attorneys received an anonymous note from someone with intimate knowledge of the police conduct — someone who plausibly claimed to be a detective. But he didn’t go public, he said, because he didn’t want to suffer the same fate as Frank Laverty.

This chain of events helps explain why a police officer, even one of good conscience, might help cover up a criminal act by a fellow cop. At the Chicago P.D., only the disloyal have anything to fear. The chances of being disciplined or even denied promotion are statistically minuscule while the risks of disloyalty are enormous. This is true all the way up the chain of command and beyond.

A good story usually has villains with evil motives and some kind of change at the end. But the story of Chicago police brutality and corruption is far more banal. When we look for villains, we miss the real story. Sometimes there is a genuine hero like Frank Laverty or a villain like John Burge. But reform isn’t stymied by a few bad cops. It’s stymied by the complicity of all those who ignore it. Complicity throughout the city — by the attorney general, the City Council and now the mayor. Even inaction by the courts, which far too often turn a blind eye to police perjury.

In this case, some have pointed to motives for the cover-up, such as the mayor’s tough 2014 re-election race. But looking away is the traditional Chicago response to police brutality in any season because it is confined to neighborhoods where poor, marginalized people reside — people without influence. For the rest of the city, it is usually invisible. When the occasional story of brutality surfaces, it becomes too easy to believe assurances that the police had to defend themselves, or that what happened was an aberration.

This is where we get to the most uncomfortable layer of inaction: our own. Few of us would explicitly condone murder or torture by those sworn to protect us. But we don’t have to approve of it. We just have to look the other way.

The videos contradicting the official story have changed the game. They have sparked outrage and created another Rahmian “crisis” that shouldn’t go to waste, even if the mayor becomes a casualty of his own doctrine.

Lasting change will come only when the official city incentives are changed — when laziness in the face of outrageous conduct becomes a liability instead of a strategy for getting through the day.

Susan Bandes is a professor of law at DePaul University and a 2015 Public Voices Fellow of The Oped Project.

On a frigid night, protesters stage a ‘die-in’ to push for Md. police reform

By Ovetta Wiggins January 18 

Dozens of bundled-up protesters, holding unlit candles in their gloved hands, walked to the center of Lawyer’s Mall in the bitter cold Monday night as the names of victims of police brutality in Maryland were read.

“Tom, Prince George’s County, white,” a woman read. “Eric, Baltimore City, black.”

One by one, the protesters lay down on the frigid pavement. A statute of Thurgood Marshall stood above. The demonstrators said they staged a “die-in” on the grounds of the Maryland State House to call on lawmakers to enact “strong” police reform during their 90-day session.

“In 2016, I want people to look back and say that this was the year that Maryland made . . . rebuilding the trust between communities and the police . . . a priority,” said Larry Stafford Jr., executive director of Progressive Maryland.

Stafford, one of the event’s organizers, said he chose Martin Luther King Jr. Day to hold the rally, calling it the “perfect” day to kick off efforts to push for police reform in the state.

“It’s a day that we take to reclaim the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King,” Stafford said. “To reclaim his message of equality and justice for all people, standing up for black people in this country and demanding respect and justice.”

Similar die-ins have been held over the past year across the country — including St. Louis and New York City — to protest the deaths of Michael Brown and other black males at the hands of police officers.

In Annapolis, the protesters stood for more than 45 minutes in sub-freezing temperatures, listening to advocates and chanting “No justice, no peace” and “Can’t stop, won’t stop until killer cops are in cellblocks.”

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) and House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) created a panel last year to find ways to improve the trust between the community and police, after riots erupted in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray. Last week, the panel endorsed 21 recommendations for police reform.

The recommendations include giving officers periodic psychological evaluations, allowing the public to attend police trial boards and providing residents more time to file brutality complaints.

The panel also called for the creation of an independent Maryland Police Training and Standards Commission that would focus on setting standards and training for all police agencies.

The police training commission would develop and require antidiscrimination and use of force de-escalation training for all officers. It would also set up a confidential early intervention policy for dealing with officers who receive three or more citizen complaints within a 12-month period.

The panel suggested that the commission require annual reporting of “serious” officer-involved incidents, the number of officers disciplined and the type of discipline that was given.

Other recommendations include developing a police complaint mediation program; creating recruitment standards that increase the number of female, African American and Hispanic candidates; and offering incentives, including property tax credits and state and local income tax deductions, to officers who live in the jurisdictions where they work.

The Maryland Coalition for Justice and Police Accountability has called the recommendations “a good first step,” but says additional changes are needed.

Sara Love, the public policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, said Monday that the coalition disagrees with a proposal that says people who file complaints against officers must identify themselves.

“There is a role for anonymous complaints,” Love said, arguing that there could be instances where a person faces criminal charges and would be worried about retaliation.

Advocates also are pushing for civilian review boards. They say they are seriously concerned about a provision that would give the police union more input on who sits on a trial review board.

Trial boards currently consists of three law enforcement officers appointed by the chief who have the same rank as the officer under review. The panel suggested that the board consist of one person recommended by the chief, one recommended by the police union and one recommended by the chief and union.

“If this went into effect, it could undo all of the good that these recommendations are trying to do,” Love said.

Ovetta Wiggins covers Maryland state politics in Annapolis.

Rookie Cop charged with several burglaries

By John Luciew | jluciew@pennlive.com

This is something they don't teach at the police academy: A rookie cop in Wayne County, Pa., allegedly claimed he was working undercover after being arrested, along with his brother, and accused of breaking into apartments in the Lehigh Valley.

When confronted by someone inside one of the apartments, Spink, who recently latched on with the police department in the Gouldsboro area, allegedly said he was an undercover police officer responding to a 911 call, WNEP writes.

Nazareth police tell the news station that was a lie.

Needless to say, this has been a big embarrassment for the Wayne County community force, where police Chief Kevin Froese told WNEP:

"It's been a nightmare. It's been embarrassing. It has hurt our department. It's impugned our integrity," he said.

As for the charged rookie cop, Froese said:

"He was punctual. He was a quick learner. He was very respectful and courteous to the people he dealt with. He had all the signs of a good officer. I was flabbergasted when I got the call."

Spink is currently suspended without pay, pending the outcome of the case.

I work for you

San Diego cop kills woman and dog in fleeing car — but misses the driver

By Mike Sawyer

FREE THOUGHT PROJECT

In yet another tragic case of an officer fearing for his life from a fleeing car, a woman and a dog have been killed.

Early Saturday morning, police spotted a stolen red Toyota and pulled over the vehicle. Inside the car were three men, a woman and a dog. As the officer approached the vehicle, it sped off before he could get to them and led police on a high-speed chase.

Eventually, the car was cornered in a cul-de-sac and came to a halt. As the officer exited his vehicle, according to the El Cajon Police Department, the driver then sped toward the officer. ‘Fearing for his life,’ the officer fired four rounds into the vehicle.

The driver was not hit, which means that if he actually intended to run over the officer, that he could have done so. However, the passenger in the vehicle, a 25-year-old unidentified woman and a dog, were both hit — and killed.

Even after the shots were fired, the driver continued on until he eventually crashed into another police car that was arriving on scene.

According to NBC San Diego,

Officers swarmed the suspects’ car and arrested three men who were inside. The female passenger who was shot was taken to a local hospital. She died a short time later from injuries suffered in the officer-involved shooting, the police department confirmed. According to the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s office, she was 25 years old. She has not yet been identified.

According to the ECPD, the driver was arrested for attempted murder on a police officer and the other two passengers were arrested for drug-related crimes. The ECPD also said that the unidentified victim had a warrant for her arrest, but have not released any details on said warrants.

No officers were reported injured in the incident.

Our request for comment on this case to the ECPD were not immediately returned.

Officers killing people for attempting to drive away is becoming an all too common occurrence.

Seneca Police Lt. Mark Tiller made the same assertion when he shot and killed 19-year-old Zachary Hammond over thepossession of a small amount of marijuana. Officer Ray Tensing was caught on video killing Sam Dubose in a similar fashion. In September, cellphone footage was released showing police murdering 33-year-old John Barry, a mentally ill man who attempted to flee from police during a breakdown.

One of the most disgusting examples of cops claiming to fear for their lives as cars drive off is the case of Officers Derrick Stafford and Norris Greenhouse, Jr., who, in November, opened fire on a car occupied by 6-year-old Jeremy Mardis, killing him and severely injuring his father.

Chicago releases (another) new video of police shooting (another) unarmed black teen

BY COLIN DAILEDA

The city of Chicago released another long-buried video on Thursday that shows another police officer fatally shooting yet another black teenager after officials there officially dropped their objection to its release.

Protests have wracked Chicago and officials have scrambled to appear transparent ever since the November release of a similar video in which an officer shot a black teenager named Laquan McDonald 16 times.

This latest video shows an officer gunning down 17-year-old Cedrick Chatman, who was unarmed and fleeing police when he was shot and killed.

Officer Kevin Fry, who was not reprimanded for the fatal shooting, said Chatman turned and pointed a "black object" at him as Chatman fled, an action not seen in the video.

Fry has been the subject of 30 complaints throughout his career, according toDNAInfo, and yet he has never once been disciplined.

Fraternal Order of Police spokesman Pat Camden attempted to justify the fatal shooting and said Fry had been in fear of his life.

Camden has lied about police shootings in the past, and is often among the first officials to try to establish a narrative after an officer kills someone, an investigation by the Chicago Tribune showed.

Chatman and two friends had robbed a man of $400 earlier that day, and Chatman had taken off in the man's car. Fry and another officer recognized the car and approached Chatman, at which point he got out of the vehicle and fled.

Police initially charged Chatman's two collaborators with his murder, though they were not at the scene when Fry fatally shot the teenager.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel fired Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy after the release of the McDonald video, and has desperately tried to appear transparent and dedicated to police reform in its aftermath.

Protesters, however, are calling for his resignation, fed up with years of violence at the hands of police and what they say is an ongoing attempt to cover up the killings.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Badges don’t change need to say sorry

San Francisco Board of Supervisors President London Breed’s call this week for the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate last month’s fatal police shooting of Mario Woods and the San Francisco Police Department’s use-of-force policies is a sensible move that The City as a whole should welcome.

Unfortunately, in the political climate of this city, where our leaders seem content to turn a blind eye to what happened on the Bayview sidewalk on Dec. 2, such a request is seen as “bold.” Mayor Ed Lee’s office gave tepid support, observing The City is already conducting many investigations into the shooting, but “the mayor welcomes independent review.”

The San Francisco Police Officers Association, which has defended the officers in the shooting, didn’t bother with such pleasantries, with consultant Gary Delagnes telling the San Francisco Examiner that Breed’s request was “political posturing” and “grandstanding.”

There should be no tolerance for this kind of heartless obstructionism. A man died, fatally shot by police officers on a San Francisco sidewalk. We would like to think we live in a city where those whose job is to care about how law enforcement is practiced would go to the ends of the earth to ensure police work is done ethically and professionally, for the benefit of the department and to give full dignity to those who wear the badge. We recognize that is not the city we live in, but the realization is painful.

Breed wants San Francisco to follow Chicago’s example: That city called on the DOJ to investigate the October 2014 shooting by Chicago police of Laquan McDonald, an investigation that grew to include examining the police department’s operations.

Breed’s resolution, introduced with the support of Supervisor Malia Cohen, who represents the Bayview, requests the Department of Justice “undertake an independent investigation” into the shooting of Woods, which “raised serious questions about the actions of the officers involved, as well as SFPD’s training and use of force protocols and its treatment of African Americans.”

We urge the full board, which could vote on the resolution by the end of the month, to stand together with a unanimous approval calling for the investigation.

Several supervisors on Tuesday also publicly apologized to the victim’s mother, Gwen Woods, who was at the meeting. Even though it was a gesture, it was overdue. The board should also back Supervisor David Campos’ resolution to officially apologize to Gwen Woods for treatment over the death of her son.

Those officers who surrounded Woods, who was holding a kitchen knife on the sidewalk that afternoon six weeks ago, appeared to show a blatant disregard for human life. When we talk about the need for police reform in this country and in this city, the real problem is that in the decisive moment, our police officers seemed to care less about a man losing his life than about getting a cut on their hand by trying to disarm him of a knife. If that proves to be the case, the officers let The City down, they let the department down and they let the Woods family down.

Yes, the family deserves an apology, and The City deserves one as well. Police officers are trained to allow us to feel safe and protected on our streets, and in this instance they produced the opposite effect.

We need the most thorough and independent investigations possible, and that includes calling on the federal government to be involved.

“We do not have at this point the Police Department that the city and county of San Francisco deserves to have,” Campos said this week.

We sadly agree. And we concur that a federal investigation is needed for a true independent review to see that justice is done.

Rochester should set example for nation on body cameras

Editorial Board

Before long, police officers in the city of Rochester will be wearing body cameras. That is quickly becoming the norm across the nation, yet each city is on its own when it comes to developing rules for the use of those cameras and the videos they record.

That isn't going so well, according to a report from a coalition of major civil rights organizations. It came up with a list of recommended rules, and then checked to see how 25 cities stacked up. None made the honor roll.

The city of Rochester should be the first.

The city is negotiating a policy with the union representing its police officers. This follows months of work on the proposed rules, as well as significant input from the Rochester Coalition for Police Reform — which had been pressing for the cameras even before the fatal police shooting that set off riots in Ferguson, Missouri.

Before selecting a vendor this week, the city showed coalition members cameras from four companies.

Unlike some cities, Rochester appears to be taking a thoughtful, relatively transparent and community-based approach to outfitting officers with cameras. It is unfortunate the policy was not ready when the city picked its vendor, but as soon as union negotiations conclude, we expect the city to make its policy public.

We believe the policy should largely reflect the recommendations of the Rochester Coalition for Police Reform. In addition to being well-researched and sound, the group's buy-in is critical to building trust between police and the citizens they have sworn to protect and serve.

To gain a perfect score with leading civil rights organizations, the city will have to: make its policy easy for the public to see; limit the amount of discretion police officers have over when to record; address privacy issues for both police and citizens; prevent officers from seeing the videos before they file their reports; delete "unflagged" footage in six months; make sure videos can't be tampered with; allow people who complain of police misconduct to see relevant footage; and sharply limit the use of technology, like facial recognition, to identify people in videos.

Yes, there is a lot to think about before putting a body camera on a police officer.

The city of Rochester should be commended for taking the time to do that. But, as they say, it's not over till it's over. We urge the union and the city to get it right before they emerge from talks, and then make sure everyone understands and follows the rules.

In addition, our congressional delegation should be pushing for a specific national policy and review system to ensure these cameras are doing what they are ultimately supposed to do: provide a tool to help improve police-community relations across America.

Cleveland police monitoring team creates website, accepting input for first-year plan

A team of 15 experts from around the country will oversee the Cleveland police department's compliance a consent decree negotiated with the U.S. Department of Justice. A Los Angeles-based police consulting firm, Police Assessment Resource Center, will be paid $4.9 million by the city. Here are the backgrounds of the team members.

Ryllie Danylko, cleveland.com

By Eric Heisig, cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The team monitoring the city of Cleveland's agreement with the U.S. Justice Department regarding police reform has created a website and social-media accounts.

Within the past week, the website www.clevelandpolicemonitor.net went live, team leader Matthew Barge said. The team also sent out its first dispatch via Twitter on Friday.

The team also created a Facebook page.

The web presence is a way to keep Cleveland residents informed as the monitoring team tracks the city's progress in reforming its police department. The settlement with the Justice Department was reached in May, and is expected to cost the city millions over at least five years.

The monitoring team began its work in October. It now has two offices: one at the Cleveland police department's downtown headquarters on Ontario Street and one at Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry, 4515 Superior Ave.

It is now taking public input for a first-year plan, which will be filed Feb. 1 for Chief U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr.'s approval. The plan (a draft can be seen below) will set deadlines for when the city will have to accomplish certain tasks.

The judge, city and Justice Department are expected to discuss the first-year plan at a Jan. 28 status conference.

Those who want to weigh in can do so here.

"What we've been telling people is 'the sooner, the better,'" Barge said.

The Need for Police Reform Is Now Beyond A Reasonable Doubt

The fact that the state hired a disgraced cop against the recommendations of the police agency that fired him cries out for a statewide police oversight board.

JANUARY 14, 2016 · By The Civil Beat Editorial Board

When the Honolulu Police Department fired Officer Ethan Ferguson four years ago, one might have thought the disgraced policeman would be done as a lawman. Falsifying reports and lying to investigators regarding his transportation of an underage runaway aren’t the sort of offenses a police officer’s career can typically survive.

But as we know now, that’s not the way things turned out. Ferguson shockingly went to work within a year for the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources as a law enforcement officer on the Big Island, with the same authority, power and weaponry entrusted to HPD cops.

Cut to last Thursday, when Ferguson was busted in another case involving a minor and charged with five counts of sexual assault. The arrest was based on allegations by a teen that she’d been assaulted in Hilo by a man in a DLNR law enforcement uniform.

What’s wrong with this picture? How could a cop fired for serious problems with integrity be hired by another law enforcement agency in the same state?

The outrageousness of the situation makes an emphatic case for what’s lacking in Hawaii. We remain the only state without a statewide standards and training board and one of only six states that doesn’t give a statewide oversight agency the power to revoke a peace officer’s license for misconduct.

The facts of this case, still emerging, border on the ridiculous.

James Nishimoto, director of Hawaii’s Department of Human Resources Development, confirmed Wednesday in an e-mail to Sen. Will Espero that both HPD and Ferguson himself acknowledged prior to his hire by DLNR that he had been fired from his previous job.

“Details regarding the termination were not provided” by HPD, Nishimoto told Espero.

But HPD now says that’s not exactly the case. In fact, Honolulu police officials said late Wednesday they recommended DLNR not hire Ferguson. Still, HPD did not disclose the circumstances that led to Ferguson’s discharge, even to a brother law enforcement agency.

But DLNR recruiters didn’t need to look far to find out about Ferguson’s troubled past. A simple Google search would have told them the story.

Civil Beat’s Nick Grube reported Ferguson’s firing in 2014 and the offenses for which he lost his job. The story was part of our ongoing coverage of the lack of transparency when it comes to police misconduct and discipline in Hawaii. Grube’s piece focused in part on how quick police agencies are to destroy disciplinary records after an officer has been terminated, as HPD did in Ferguson’s case.

Police officers have extraordinary power over the lives of ordinary citizens, and the hiring of any cop who is going to carry a badge and a gun warrants careful scrutiny of an applicant’s background. It’s one thing for police officials, encouraged by the politically powerful police union, toshut the public out when it comes to being able to check up on the actions of police officers.

But to not disclose to another law enforcement agency bad behavior that led to termination? Come on.

That point is not lost on Sen. Espero, who practically breathed fire in an e-mail exchange Wednesday with Nishimiro and DLNR Chair Suzanne Case.

“Without knowing the discussions between the applicant and DLNR, I am outraged that DLNR would hire this individual in a law enforcement capacity. The state needs to err on the side of caution and public safety when it comes to hiring practices, and from what I know, this did not happen,” Espero wrote. “There was a red flag on this individual, and the state disregarded it.”

PF Bentley/Civil Beat

Espero suggests a “zero-tolerance policy” in considering police officers fired from other departments. “We don’t need second rate law enforcement officers working in state government,” he declared.

Espero has been the loudest voice at the Legislature for the creation of a statewide board that would facilitate training and set professional standards for law enforcement.

Establishment of such a board and greater transparency in the disclosure of information related to police misconduct are two of four main reform proposals Civil Beat supports for the coming legislative session. Were those proposals already law, DLNR at minimum would have had the facts regarding Ferguson’s past offenses easily at its fingertips when considering his hire.

Espero is leading a coalition that promises to introduce these and other reform measures this year, though as he told Civil Beat in an Editorial Board meeting last month, he is leaning against language that would give a police standards board power to take away an officer’s certification.

He should reconsider throwing that political bone to the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers, which has successfully opposed reform measures for years. The Ferguson case proves beyond a reasonable doubt the reasons a standards board should have the authority to certify and decertify officers.

In the session that begins in one week, legislators must take seriously reform of a law enforcement environment that, at minimum, allows problem cops to move from agency to agency without their history being fully disclosed to potential employers or to the taxpayers who fund their salaries. One girl has allegedly paid a steep price for that lack of reform.

Her case and numerous others in a law enforcement system that virtually stands alone nationally in its lack of adequate oversight cry out for justice. This year, we must not ignore the cries.

About the Author

The Civil Beat Editorial Board

The members of Civil Beat's editorial board are Pierre Omidyar, Patti Epler, Bob Ortega, Richard Wiens, Chloe Fox and Todd Simmons. Opinions expressed by the editorial board reflect the group's consensus view. Contact Opinion Editor Todd Simmons at todd@civilbeat.com or 808-377-0247.