Thank you Idiot cops

Manhattan Beach pays $175,000 in sex sting settlement

Manhattan Beach pays $175,000 in sex sting settlement by Carley Dryden 

The city of Manhattan Beach will pay an Eagle Scout $175,000 for wrongfully arresting him during a police sex sting operation targeting gay men in a beach bathroom in 2012.

Charles Samuel Couch, 23, who was branded a suspected sex offender when the city released his name and photo to the news media, reached the settlement of a federal lawsuit with the city and its Police Department last week. Couch was seeking $5 million for discrimination, false arrest and violation of civil rights.

The city’s police chief also agreed to expunge Couch’s arrest record.

A caregiver for a mentally disabled boy at the time, Couch was forced to drop out of college because of the incident and subsequent investigation. Hoping to escape the negative stigma and legal tussles, Couch moved to the East Coast, where he is now attending Cornell University, aiming to follow in his father’s footsteps with a job in the defense industry.

“This is a relief off of his shoulders,” said Couch’s attorney, Albro Lundy. “He no longer has to be concerned when he fills out a job application. You won’t get hired if you have an arrest record. It’s gone now. That is the best part about this.”

At the time of the March 2012 incident, the Hawthorne man was working for Cambrian Homecare of Long Beach, providing care for a boy with Prader-Willi syndrome, a genetic disorder characterized by cognitive disabilities and incomplete sexual development.

For Couch, the job was an extension of his Eagle Scout project to help handicapped children get proper exercise and explore the world, Lundy said last week. He met the boy and the boy’s parents through church at Hope Chapel, Lundy said.

The day of the incident, Couch was on an afternoon walk with the boy in Manhattan Beach when the boy told Couch he needed to use the restroom. They headed toward the beach bathroom at Marine Avenue and The Strand. Unknown to Couch, Manhattan Beach police officers were conducting a sting operation targeting gay males who had been meeting up in the bathroom, publicized on the Internet as a popular spot for sex.

As an expert later testified, because of his condition, the boy frequently spent a long time using the restroom, so Couch sat down on a bench in the changing area while the boy was in the stall farthest from the entrance.

According to the lawsuit, Detective John Nasori entered the restroom in plain clothes, said “hello” to Couch and entered the middle stall. A few minutes later, the child bolted from the stall, telling Couch, “There is a man looking at me in the stall.” Horrified, Couch told the boy to keep walking and they exited the bathroom.

Couch was then confronted by five detectives in plain clothes, “resembling thugs,” according to the suit. Presuming they wanted to kidnap the boy, Couch grabbed him to protect him. Couch was then tackled, choked and handcuffed, according to the lawsuit, and did not realize the men were police officers until he was taken to jail.

Although Couch was detained and then released due to insufficient evidence for a criminal complaint, his attorneys said, the police kept his laptop containing all of his coursework for months, forcing him to drop out of El Camino College.

Officers arrested 18 men during the weekslong sting, and a month after Couch was detained, the department released booking photographs of each man, along with their names and dates of birth. Couch was stunned to discover his photo and name included in the release and publicized across the nation.

“Couch was never arrested or charged with any of those crimes the other men were charged with,” Lundy said. “The flier that went out said he was, and it was an official flier from the city of Manhattan Beach.”

Months later, Couch was charged with two misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer, allegations that were later dismissed.

“(The charges) were retaliatory. The (city) knew they had done something wrong and, rather than wait to get sued, they took the first shot over the bow,” Lundy said.

The incident left an indelible mark on Couch—a soiled reputation, lost job, compromised future.

Before a lawsuit was filed, Couch’s attorney asked the city to destroy the arrest record and declare him factually innocent, but the city refused.

“The city of Manhattan Beach denied that they made any mistake whatsoever,” Lundy said. “They felt they were righteous in their arrest and the charges against Sam. It took a while to convince them otherwise. That’s also why he brought the suit, for the public benefit. The Manhattan Beach Police Department needs to evaluate how they conduct their business and make sure they don’t do the same mistakes again.”

The city of Manhattan Beach’s legal team did not respond to requests for comment.

As part of the settlement, the police chief agreed to seal and destroy Couch’s adult arrest records, Lundy said.

“It’s relatively unheard of that a chief of police will sign a petition to seal and destroy adult arrest records,” Lundy said. “It shows that the city wanted to compensate and correct the errors and let Sam move on with his life.”

Lundy said Couch believes the $175,000 compensation is a “fair and just resolution” to the damages he suffered.

“This is an excellent way to fund the rest of his college education,” he said.

Virginia Police Have Been Secretively Stockpiling Private Phone Records

By G.W. Schulz, Center for Investigative Reporting 

While revelations from Edward Snowden about the National Security Agency’s massive database of phone records have sparked a national debate about its constitutionality, another secretive database has gone largely unnoticed and without scrutiny.

The database, which affects unknown numbers of people, contains phone records that at least five police agencies in southeast Virginia have been collecting since 2012 and sharing with one another with little oversight. Some of the data appears to have been obtained by police from telecoms using only a subpoena, rather than a court order or probable-cause warrant. Other information in the database comes from mobile phones seized from suspects during an arrest.

The five cities participating in the program, known as the Hampton Roads Telephone Analysis Sharing Network, are Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Chesapeake and Suffolk, according to the memorandum of understanding that established the database. The effort is being led in part by the Peninsula Narcotics Enforcement Task Force, which is responsible for a “telephone analysis room” in the city of Hampton, where the database is maintained.

The unusual and secretive database contains telecom customer subscriber information; records about individual phone calls, such as the numbers dialed, the time the calls were made and their duration; as well as the contents of seized mobile devices. The information is collected and shared among police agencies to enhance analysis and law enforcement intelligence.

The legality of the database is in question, however, and at least one law enforcement agency has declined to participate in the program due to legal concerns.

“My initial reaction is that it’s very disturbing and illegal under Virginia law,” said Rob Poggenklass, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, which was previously unaware of the database.

The system was set up with virtually no public debate or concern expressed by elected officials, who approved resolutions authorizing the database. Hardly anyone outside of the five participating police agencies knows about the sharing network, though its creation was not kept secret.

All over the U.S., local police agencies are collecting vast stockpiles of private information from people—some of it from people who have not been convicted of crimes but were merely stopped by police.

As an example of the amount of data being collected, in the first-ever transparency reports released by major telecoms earlier this year, AT&T revealed that between January and June, it received nearly 80,000 criminal subpoenas for customer records from federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, while Verizon disclosed that it had received over 72,000 subpoenas from law enforcement during the same period.

The Virginia system is yet another example of this creeping expansion of local law enforcement surveillance throughout the country.

Minimal public information about the sharing network exists, but it first made an appearance on the agendas of local government meetings, where it met no resistance. Elected city council members in Newport News and Chesapeake, for instance, passed resolutions approving the telephone data-sharing agreement without objection.

According to the memo establishing the information-sharing network, each participating city agrees to “share telephone intelligence information derived from any source with the (task force) including: subpoenaed telephone call detail records, subpoenaed telephone subscriber information, and seized mobile devices.” Participating agencies can query the system by phone or email. If a city chooses to withdraw from the agreement, any records it supplied to the database remain, according to the memo.

Details about the data collected from mobile phones and stored in the database are uncertain, but the data could be wide-ranging, since mobile users browse the Internet, exchange text messages and share contact lists, and technology available to police can extract much of this information from mobile devices, even if it’s hidden, deleted or password-protected.

Police departments involved in the sharing network are tight-lipped about the database’s contents, refusing to say whether the contents of seized phones includes contact lists and text messages.

Questions sent to each of the five cities contributing to the database were met with brief statements, when responses were provided at all. Sgt. Jason Price of the Hampton Police Division said his agency “gathers, shares and retains information in accordance with local, state and federal law.” More specific answers “could jeopardize on-going and future investigations,” he wrote in an email.

It’s unclear whether the data that’s collected stays with the task force or is further shared with agencies beyond, perhaps with so-called intelligence fusion centers that exist in every state except Wyoming to facilitate information sharing and coordination among local and state police, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies.

The ACLU’s Poggenklass said the database runs afoul of a privacy law in Virginia known as the Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act, designed to curb the overcollection and misuse of digital personal information by state and local agencies.

He points to an interpretation of that law issued last year by Virginia’s attorney general in reference to controversial automated license-plate readers that police departments nationwide have adopted enthusiastically in recent years.

While law enforcers enjoy some exemptions from privacy laws during the course of an investigation, according to the opinion, those exemptions don’t apply when collected data “is of unknown relevance and not intended for prompt evaluation and potential use.” In other words, there must be a clear law enforcement need. Without it, Poggenklass said, police should not be permitted to collect and retain records indefinitely in a database for future queries.

Asked about the legal issues around the phone records database, Hampton City Attorney Vanessa Valldejuli said that due to recent court rulings, data in the system is gathered “only via search warrant or court order consistent with law.” Court orders, as well as subpoenas, have a lower legal standard than warrants, which require investigators to articulate probable cause of a crime to an impartial judge. Valldejuli did not elaborate on which rulings she was referencing, what records those rulings affected or what steps were taken to minimize the impact on people not accused of a crime. She also wouldn’t say whether policies were different before and after the unspecified rulings.

Not everyone in Virginia seems comfortable with the database. The Virginia State Police said through a spokeswoman that it opted not to join the phone record sharing network, even though it’s a member of the drug task force that helps oversee the database. It cited the state’s data practices act as the reason.

The attorney general’s finding isn’t the only legal interpretation of relevance for the database. In a surprisingly tech-savvy ruling (.pdf) in June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that because mobile phones contain highly personal records of nearly every aspect of our lives, police must obtain a warrant before downloading the contents of a mobile phone when they arrest someone.

Courts around the country are struggling to issue timely decisions telling police when and how they can use the rich amount of personal information now contained in smart phones. Federal appeals judges in Atlanta (.pdf) and New Orleans (.pdf), for instance, recently have issued contrasting opinions on whether police must meet the same standard to acquire historic cellphone records that would reveal a person’s movements. That creates continuing uncertainty for law enforcement investigators about what they can and cannot pursue short of a warrant.

Additionally, the practice of obtaining cell tower dumps without a warrant, in which police seek records for every cellphone that has connected with a tower over a specific period of time, is problematic. A federal magistrate judge in New York this summer found that no warrant was necessary for tower dumps, but he did instruct police to determine how they could better handle the private information of innocent people.

In the case of the Virginia database, it’s unclear whether content from seized cellphones—such as text messages— is included in the database or if it just contains so-called metadata describing the phone numbers called, the calls received and their date and duration. But even if only metadata is collected there is still a privacy concern, as the Snowden revelations over the last 18 months have made clear.

Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist and senior policy analyst with the ACLU in Washington, said metadata is useful for assembling portraits of people’s lives over a period of time.

“Metadata is structured. That’s the whole point of metadata,” Soghoian said. “ … Structured metadata enables really, really powerful analysis. If you have call records saying someone called a suicide hotline at 2 in the morning and was on the phone for an hour, you don’t need to know what they said. You know what they’re doing.”

Since the Snowden leaks, the White House has responded with promises to curtail the indiscriminate gathering of bulk records and to require the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to give specific approval for more narrowly targeted requests.

Intelligence officials have at times argued that bulk records about individual communications didn’t threaten privacy when the actual contents of what was said weren’t included. But former NSA head Michael Hayden conceded during an April debate that metadata is revealing enough about one’s lifestyle and identity to target terrorism suspects abroad for attack.

“We kill people,” Hayden said at the debate, “based on metadata.”

This story was produced by The Center for Investigative Reporting, an independent, nonprofit newsroom based in the San Francisco Bay Area. For more, visit cironline.org. Schulz can be reached gwschulz@cironline.org. Follow him on Twitter: @GWSchulzCIR.

God bless who ever took this video

Fairfax supervisors seek movement in John Geer slaying, get no reply from feds

By Tom Jackman

A 13th month has now come and gone in the remarkable saga of the Fairfax County police killing of unarmed citizen John Geer. Still no information has been released about how or why a Fairfax police officer gunned down Geer as he stood in the doorway of his Springfield home in August 2013, or why authorities didn’t render aid to him for an hour. Federal authorities who were handed the case eight months ago, apparently have not been shown any movement  in their investigation.

Last month, after Geer’s longtime partner spoke publicly for the first time and filed a lawsuit against the police, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors got together and fired off a letter to U.S. Attorney Dana Boente. It is published for the first time below. In it, the board politely asks the federal prosecutor to please resolve this thing, one way or the other.

The U.S. attorney did not favor the supervisors with a reply, county officials said, and a spokesman for Boente said Tuesday his office still could not comment on the case. Witnesses to the shooting, to include Geer’s father and Geer’s best friend, were interviewed months ago by federal agents and prosecutors, but have not been contacted to testify before a grand jury. There do not appear to be any answers coming any time soon.

“The Board certainly understands your obligation to conduct a thorough review and investigation,” board Chairman Sharon Bulova wrote to Boente, “and by no means does the Board wish for your decision to be hasty or made without consideration of all of the relevant facts and information.” The supervisors, however, “would like to express to you the importance of a resolution of this matter,” Bulova wrote, “as that will go a long way towards allowing our citizens to have faith in the process by which police shooting incidents are investigated.”

Speaking of which, Geer’s father has also written a letter. Don Geer, who watched the officer shoot his son and has now waited in vain to find out who did it and why, has added his voice to those calling for an independent agency to review Fairfax police shootings. His letter is in the second document reader below. The Virginia Citizens Coalition for Police Accountability has been lobbying for this since 2010, several months after the killing of unarmed motorist David Masters on Route 1 by Fairfax Officer David Scott Ziants. The families of Masters and Salvatore Culosi, the unarmed optometrist shot and killed by Officer Deval Bullock in 2006, also support an independent review authority, and their letters follow Don Geer’s letter. The Fairfax supervisors have shown no interest in establishing any independent review provcess.

“We have now spent thirteen frustrating months,” Geer wrote, “trying to acquire information as to who, why, etc. John was killed. So far there appears to be no justice for John. It is obvious that the present methods used by Fairfax County in cases involving a police shooting do not meet the needs of the family or the public.”

 

Ricardo Damian, Denver Cop, Suspended for Calling Colleague "Dyke Bitch" and More

By Michael Roberts Thu., Oct. 9 2014 at 6:33 AM

In the wake of well-publicized troubles involving multiple Denver police officers, the city's Department of Safety has been making a very public display of disciplining cops for behavior deemed over-the-line. Latest example: Ricardo Damian, an officer who's served more than two decades with the DPD, has been suspended for using homophobic and otherwise offensive language against female colleagues, including one he allegedly referred to as a "dyke bitch." Photos and details below.

The story was first reported by CBS4, which notes that Damian has been on the Denver force since 1991 and has what's termed "no significant disciplinary history."

However, an order penned by Deputy Director of Safety Jess Vigil and obtained by the station suggests that Damian's view of homosexuals doesn't tilt toward quietly accepting their lifestyle.

The report notes that an internal police investigation was launched after a pair of crime scene investigators complained about Damian's allegedly frequent anti-gay remarks. For instance, he's said to have referred to one female colleague as a "dyke bitch" and another as a "bitch" or a "fucking bitch" every time he heard their voices on the police radio.

A third staffer confirmed hearing Damian refer to a co-worker as "that dyke," as well as what CBS4 delicately describes as "crude phrases referring to sexual orientation."

Likewise, other witnesses quoted Damian as ridiculing same-sex marriage, ripping another employee's sexual orientation and wondering aloud "who the man in the relationship was and about whether or not (she) and her partner used 'toys' during sex."

When quizzed by investigators, Damian didn't exactly deny voicing such comments. An excerpt from the report reads: "Officer Damian admitted that he called (another employee) a 'dyke bitch' on a few occasions...and claimed that (she) had referred to herself as a 'dyke' in the past. He admitted saying some things that he 'isn't proud of' but claimed that he was never told by anyone that they were offended."

Indeed, he referred to his takes as "friendly banter" -- a characterization contradicted by at least one of the officers who complained about his behavior. That person said the comments didn't seem to have been stated "in jest or in a joking manner."

Vigil ultimately sided with Damian's accusers. In the order, he writes: "Officer Damian repeatedly, and over the course of several months, made repugnant, offensive and derogatory remarks in the workplace. He breached the trust that was placed upon him by the department and he abused the authority he was given when he made the inappropriate, derogatory, biased and discriminatory remarks about...gender and sexual orientation" -- comments he dubbed "inexcusable."

As such, Damian has been slapped with two ninety-day suspensions to run concurrently, meaning he'll be off the job for three months total. That should give him time to come to terms with the reality that same-sex marriage became the law in Colorado this week.

Animal Rights: Protestors Rally Against Police Shooting Dogs

By Olivia Demarinis

Animal advocates are raising awareness about the high rates of law enforcement officers who shoot pet dogs while answering calls on duty.

Several pet owners are suing police departments and state legislatures for their mistreatment of their animals.

While there is no official data on how often these killings occur in the U.S., media reports suggest that at least a few dozen pets are killed each year, but many activists suspect more go unreported. Outcry against these senseless killings say that it is an abuse of power by the police and officials should be better trained to deal with pets in the line of duty.

An argument citing a violation of the Fourth Amendment was upheld when a San Jose chapter of the Hells Angels sued the police department and city in 2005 for killing members' dogs during a gang raid in 1998. In federal appeals, a judge found that "the Fourth Amendment forbids the killing of a person's dog ... when that destruction is unnecessary." The Hells Angels won $1.8 million in damages.

Animal-rights activists are concurrently lobbying for increased pet training for police officers. Illinois and Colorado have already implemented some measures to reduce dog shootings, other states are currently considering such legislation.

In 2011, the Department of Justice published a report on police incidents involving dogs along with advice on how to avoid killing the animals.

"It's much more likely that a cop is going to encounter a dog than a terrorist, yet there's no training," Ledy Van Kavage, an attorney for the advocacy group Best Friends Animal Society, said. "If you have a fear or hatred of dogs, then you shouldn't be a police officer, just like if you have a hatred of different social groups."

We need national minimum IQ standards for cops

Police say a Pueblo sergeant is recovering after he accidentally shot himself in the leg following a foot chase.

DENVER (AP) - Police say a Pueblo sergeant is recovering after he accidentally shot himself in the leg following a foot chase.

The Denver Post reports officers stopped a driver for speeding Wednesday afternoon and the passenger - a suspect in several pending cases - fled.

Police say the sergeant was holstering his gun after the chase when he accidentally shot himself. He was treated at a nearby hospital and released.

The suspect, 37-year-old Victor Gomez, was arrested on charges of criminal impersonation, resisting arrest, eluding and trespass.

Still one more cop accused of rape

Bradley District Attorney to handle rape case in Chattanooga tied to police officer

Steve Crump will drive into town from Cleveland, Tenn., to prosecute the Chattanooga rape case that has one local police officer's job in jeopardy.

Crump, the district attorney in Tennessee's 10th Judicial District, was asked to handle the case of James Leon Works Jr. after prosecutors here recused themselves. Crump usually prosecutes cases in Bradley, McMinn, Monroe and Polk counties.

But Works' case required a district attorney from outside Chattanooga because prosecutors here have a longstanding working relationship with Karl Fields, the lead investigator on the Works case. Fields is accused of pursuing a sexual relationship with the victim. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is looking into whether Fields broke any laws while investigating Works' case.

On Sept. 4, the alleged victim in the case gave Hamilton County District Attorney Neal Pinkston a collection of text messages from a man identifying himself as Karl Fields. In the messages sent from June through August, the man asks the victim to send him naked pictures and have sex with him.

The woman met Fields after she said Works brutally beat her. For two days in May, she said, Works locked her in a Chattanooga motel, punched her, kicked her, stomped her, dragged her by the hair, forced her to take methamphetamine, raped her and urinated on her.

Chattanooga police arrested Works in June on charges of aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, possession of methamphetamine, possession of marijuana and rape. His attorney, public defender Blake Murchison, did not return several calls seeking comment.

But during Works' court appearance Thursday morning, Murchison told Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Barry Steelman that Crump would be prosecuting the case from that point.

Crump was not at the hearing Thursday, but he confirmed that he will be taking the case. He said the District Attorneys General Conference -- the administrative office for all of Tennessee's local prosecutors -- assigned him to the case late last week.

Crump said he will need some time to catch up on the ins and outs of the investigation.

"I don't know anything about the case yet," he said, "other than I've been asked [to prosecute it]."

Works is next due in court for a status hearing on Nov. 3.

Yep, yet another cops accused of rape

Former Hamilton County Deputy Sheriff Indicted for Sexual Assault While on Duty

U.S. Department of Justice September 24, 2014           •           Office of Public Affairs (202) 514-2007/TDD (202) 514-1888

WASHINGTON—Former Hamilton County Deputy Sheriff Willie Greer, 33, was indicted yesterday by a federal grand jury in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for sexually assaulting a woman while he was on duty on Jan. 5, 2014, the Justice Department announced.

Greer was charged with a civil rights violation for sexually assaulting the victim, which violated her constitutional due process rights to bodily integrity, kidnapping, carrying a firearm during and in relation to the sexual assault and possessing a firearm in further of the crime.

If convicted, the defendant faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment and a fine of not more than $250,000. An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence of guilt. The defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

This case was investigated by the FBI and the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney James Brooks of the Eastern District of Tennessee and Civil Rights Division Trial Attorney Saeed Mody.

This content has been reproduced from its original source.

Two Enfield officers suspended following police brutality case

By Kaitlyn Naples

ENFIELD, CT (WFSB) -

Last week an Enfield police officer was fired in a department brutality case and now two more have been suspended.

An Enfield police officer who was accused of using excessive force during an arrest in April has been fired.More >

An Enfield police officer who was accused of using excessive force during an arrest in April has been fired.More >

This all stems back to an incident in April where a video showed a man being repeatedly punched by a police officer.

In a 35-page report the investigation concluded that the man was beaten up and did nothing to provoke it.

After the investigation determined there was an act of police brutality, one Enfield officer was fired and two others were suspended.

Mark Maher has a scar above his eye after being beaten up by a police officer. Maher and three others were in a car parked at the town's boat launch when they were approached by police.

A dash cam inside of the police cruiser captured pictures of Maher being punched several times by officer Matthew Worden, even though Maher was being restrained by two other officers.

Maher was arrested for assaulting an officer, but the charges were dropped.

“All of them that were there - they did nothing to stop it - they stood there and let it happen. They are there to protect and serve and they didn't,” Maher said.

Enfield's police chief said the officers were justified in questioning Maher and the others in the vehicle, but not in their use of force.

Officer Jaime Yott has been suspended for 60 days for neglect and inattention to duty. The investigation found that her police report lacked details and that she failed to write her use of force in the report based on her own observations.

Officer Michael Emons has been suspended for 90 days for violating ethics codes, conduct unbecoming of an officer, using unnecessary force on another person in the car and for turning in a report containing inaccuracies.

"I know there are good cops out there - it's just that when something like this happens it really makes people concentrate on all of the bad,” Maher added.

Enfield's police chief said that out of 150 calls for service over the past three years, the department has only investigated 16 internal affairs complaints.

Maher is suing the department.

Police sued for tasing passenger during traffic stop

By Dylan Stableford

A federal lawsuit filed Monday accuses Indiana police of excessive force after officers smashed a woman's car window with children inside, tased an unarmed passenger and dragged him out of the vehicle during a routine traffic stop last month.

Police say they feared the passenger might have a weapon, after he refused to step out of the vehicle and reached toward the rear seats.

The incident was captured on video both by police and by the alleged victims. At approximately 3:30 p.m. on Sept. 24, Hammond police pulled over Lisa Mahone as she drove with a friend, Jamal Jones, and her two children, ages 7 and 14, to visit her mother in the hospital.

According to the lawsuit filed Monday in Indiana, an officer told Mahone she was being pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt and asked to see both her driver's license and Jones's identification. Mahone produced her license, but Jones told the officer he did not have his license because he had been ticketed for not paying his insurance, and offered to show them the ticket. The officer refused, according to Jones, and ordered him to step out of the car. According to the suit, Jones refused, fearing "the officers would harm him."

But Hammond police say Jones "refused to lower the window more than a small amount" and refused to provide his name. The officer then called for backup, requesting a video-equipped squad car.

It was around this time, police say, that Mahone shifted the car into drive. When officers warned her they had placed in front of the vehicle a "stop strip" that would puncture her tires, she pleaded with them to let her go.

Oxnard police takes steps toward change after mistaken identity shooting

 By Rudabeh Shahbazi

Oxnard police say they're making some changes following a deadly officer-involved shooting that they call a case of mistaken identity.

Family members of Alfonso Limon Jr. previously reached a $6.7 million settlement with the city. That settlement included establishing a day of commemoration for Limon, who was mistakenly shot to death by police in 2012.

At a press conference on Tuesday, police and city officials announced steps they're taking to try to bridge the relationship with the community.

At the event, Oxnard Police Department Chief Jeri Williams announced that Oct. 13 will now be known as "Community Safety and Anti-Violence Day" in honor of the 21-year-old.

"We are committed to healing process through the open and effective dialogue and lastly it is my hope, it is our hope, that by all of us working together, in Alfonso Limon Jr.'s memory that we will achieve that goal," Williams said.

City officials also invited community involvement and discussion and said they're working to implement body cameras on police officers.

Also, a memorial plaque will be going up in Limon's honor. But Limon's family says nothing will ever be enough.

"I don't think there's ever going to be anything that's going to make a difference for us. There hasn't been any real accountability," said Rebecca Limon, Limon's sister. "You heard that the district attorney didn't go with charging these officers, and it's tough to hear because we lost our loved one."

Community activists held their own press conference afterward, saying the officers on the street are poorly trained and not held accountable. Citing other officer-involved shootings in Oxnard, they're calling for a citizen's oversight committee.

"We've always been advocates of entering and engaging in discussions with our community to make the city safe. That being said, I don't believe we need civilian oversight in the Oxnard Police Department. The community and the City Council are our true oversight," Williams said.

Limon's sister said cameras are a good first step, but she said much more is needed to solve the problem.

"You've seen in other cases, where they do have body-worn cameras in other police departments, and the evidence magically disappears or the video stopped recording," she said. "So we do need something to monitor those body cameras as well."

The officers involved in Limon's shooting were placed on paid administrative leave. All but one officer, who is retired, is back at work at the Oxnard Police Department.