Don't EVER trust them...keep the cameras

"Hit this button here to turn it off and later on blame it on a car door making your gun go off" 

Fairfax County Board of Supervisors considering police body cameras

by: Marcus Dash

FAIRFAX, Va. (WDVM)– Fairfax County is a step closer to adding body cameras to the uniforms of all Fairfax County Police officers.

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors met Tuesday night to discuss the findings of a year-long pilot program of Fairfax County Officers wearing body cameras. The study took place from March to September of 2018. The purpose was to see what effect the body cameras have on police activity and perceptions of police legitimacy in the community. Lee District Supervisor, Jeff McKay, says the report shows a great amount of confidence we have in our officers and the body-worn cameras need to be permanent.

“It is beneficial to people who are on either side of the equation. It’s beneficial to our officers and their safety, it’s beneficial for people who are being questioned or are approached by police officers. To me it’s an investment in a fair justice system,” said Lee District Supervisor Jeff McKay.

The county will draft up a plan to show the full board of supervisors in September.

Fairfax Co. leaders voice support for police body camera program

Michelle Basch | @MBaschWTOP

Fairfax County, Virginia, police tested body-worn cameras in 2018, and several county leaders are expressing support for plans to bring them back permanently.

It’s estimated that a program to outfit some 1,200 officers with cameras would cost almost $30 million over the first five years.

The price tag includes hiring 34 additional people to help handle the video: 23 in the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office, six in information technology, and five in the police department.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova thinks the cameras are needed. “I think that we should move forward,” she said Tuesday at a meeting of the Public Safety Committee.

Lee District Supervisor Jeff McKay agreed, adding, “I don’t think this board is going to reject this. I would hope this board would accept the body-worn camera program. I think it’s important.”

Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity said that he would love to see police get the body-worn cameras because they help determine facts, but he is concerned about the expense.

“It’s pretty cost prohibitive at this stage, in my opinion,” Herrity said.

Also concerned about the price is Mason District Supervisor Penny Gross. “On the one hand it sounds like a really good idea, but on the other hand the cost factor is so huge; and there are so many unknowns, so I’m not quite there yet,” she said.

The goal is to come up with a plan to put before the full board in September.

A study by American University researchers determined that a body-worn camera pilot program conducted by Fairfax County police from March 3 to Sept. 1, 2018 went well.

During the test, half of the officers at the Mason, Mount Vernon and Reston police stations were randomly assigned to wear body-worn cameras, while the other half went about their jobs without the cameras. A total of 191 cameras were deployed.

Among the study’s findings:

— There was no indication that the cameras changed the way officers did their jobs, but the use of the cameras led to a slight decrease in the average number of complaints by members of the community against officers who wore them compared to those who did not.

— 603 people who had interacted with a police officer (some wearing cameras, others not) during the testing phase took part in a phone interview afterward. Asked to agree or disagree with a series of statements, 83% agreed that they were satisfied with how they were treated by the officer they encountered. Older people were more likely to agree than younger, and the percentages of Caucasian and Asian people who agreed were substantially higher than the percentages of African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans.

— 92% of those surveyed agreed that body-worn cameras should be worn by all officers in the department. Whether the officer they encountered had a body-worn camera or not didn’t seem to have any meaningful impact on their answer.

Residents Support Police Body Cameras In Fairfax County: Study

A survey found residents strongly supported body cameras, but the results were mixed for participating officers.

By Emily Leayman, Patch Staff

MOUNT VERNON, VA—A study of a body camera pilot program for Fairfax County Police found strong support for officers wearing body cameras. The findings of the study conducted by an American University research team were presented to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. The board will vote on adopting a permanent body camera program on Sept. 24.

The pilot program ran from March 3, 2018 to Sept. 1, 2018. Officers at the Mount Vernon, Mason and Reston district stations as well as a sample of Motor Squad officers and Animal Protection officers wore 203 body cameras. The three district stations were chosen due to the diversity of the communities, various types of calls for service and incidents resulting in the use of force.

Officers were instructed to turn on body cameras during encounters with residents. Recording could not happen in courts or medical facilities, when a person gave a statement in an alleged rape or sexual assault, and when a person reported a crime and requested anonymity.

American University conducted a telephone survey of 603 residents who had an interaction with an officer during the pilot program. Of these, 92 percent want all Fairfax County officers to wear body cameras, and 83 percent either agreed or strongly agreed they were satisfied with how the officer treated them. These results varied when broken down by age group and race. On the other hand, researchers found no evidence that the presence or absence of a body camera during police encounters had a significant impact on residents' perceptions.

Police Chief Ed Roessler Jr. expressed support for the body camera program. "We already have robust accountability tools with in-car video, the Civilian Review Panel and the Police Auditor," he said in a statement. "We investigate every use of force by matter of policy. The use of body worn cameras will benefit both the community and our officers to ensure that our high level of public trust is maintained."

Two squads of officers were also surveyed before and after the pilot body camera program. Most agreed body cameras would aid in gathering evidence and help settle complaints against officers. Interestingly, one squad's perception about body cameras became more negative after the program, while the other's became slightly more positive. For instance, 56 percent of one squad disagreed that body cameras would improve community relations; that dropped to 52 percent disagreeing after the pilot program. The number of officers in the other squad disagreeing went up from 41 percent to 44 percent.

There were more mixed feelings about whether body cameras would make officers more professional and reduce proactive encounters with community members. Many of the surveyed officers believe body cameras are needed in police departments with community relations problems, corruption or other issues. But they don't believe the Fairfax County Police Department has these kinds of problems.

Several supervisors expressed support for the body camera program, although a few voiced concerns about the cost. WTOP reported that the estimated cost could be $30 million over five years.

You can see the full study results for the police body camera pilot program here.

 Like Tha

Both police and civilians support body-worn cameras, concludes study of FCPD pilot program

________________________________________

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. — An American University research team that studied a 2018 body-worn camera pilot project Fairfax County Police had undergone concluded that the cameras are supported by both the community and officers themselves.

The program distributed 203 body-worn cameras to officers at the Mason, Mount Vernon, and Reston districts of the FCPD, and the effects were tracked from March 3, 2018 to Sept. 1. Cameras were also given to a small sampling of Motor Squad and Animal Protection officers.

The study intended to find out if body-worn cameras impacted police activity or impacted community members' perception of police.

The research team, which presented their findings at a July 9 Board of Supervisors subcommittee meeting, reportedly surveyed officers as well as community members to track the effect the cameras had.

FCPD summed up the findings with the following statements:

There was overwhelming support among community members for the widespread adoption of body worn cameras.

The majority of community members who interacted with police officers during the pilot program reported feeling positive not only about the personal experience but also about FCPD as a whole.

There was no evidence that the presence or absence of a body worn camera during a police interaction had an impact of the community member’s satisfaction with FCPD.

There was consensus among the officers involved in the pilot that body worn cameras will increase the gathering of evidence and help settle complaints against officers.

Most officers believed that their behavior and that of community members did not change because of body worn cameras.

Woman injured after being hit by police car in Reston

Woman injured after being hit by police car in Reston

“While speed and alcohol are not believed to be a factor for the officer, police said the pedestrian may have been intoxicated.”

Of course the cops said that. And they’ll get away with this crap too.

A 42-year-old woman sustained minor injuries after she was struck by a police car in Reston, Virginia, early Sunday morning.

The collision happened at around 2 a.m. near the intersection of Reston Parkway and Sunset Hills Road, Fairfax County police said.

The unidentified woman stepped into the roadway against a red crossing signal and was struck by the police cruiser, which was driving southbound on Reston Parkway, according to preliminary findings.

The woman was taken to a local area hospital to be treated for nonlife-threatening injuries, police said. The officer involved in the collision remained uninjured.

While speed and alcohol are not believed to be a factor for the officer, police said the pedestrian may have been intoxicated.

Anyone with information about the incident should call the Crash Reconstruction Unit at 703-280-0543.

There have been 10 pedestrian fatalities, 85 injuries and 79 pedestrian-related crashes in Fairfax County so far this year, data from the county’s Traffic Division shows.

A lovely couple

Tit for tat

Never gonna happen

• Police Reform: While Fairfax County now has two forms of independent oversight of police, consider that the police have chosen to remain silent on recommendations and reports by both the Independent Police Auditor and the Civilian Review Panel. Members of the current Board of Supervisors acknowledge that they assumed the Fairfax County Police Department would make a public response to such oversight, but apparently, it will need to be an explicit requirement. Transparency remains a concern.
• #Criminal Justice Reform: Don’t forget what voters told you on June 11 about the importance of a progressive approach to criminal justice reform. Figure out and heed what leads to racial injustice in the criminal justice system.

This is an example of the nationwide practice of hiring the immature to guard our laws

Arizona couple files $10M lawsuit after cops allegedly pull guns on family after 4-year-old steals doll

 By Nicole Darrah | Fox News

An Arizona couple filed a $10 million lawsuit against the city of Phoenix claiming policeofficers committed civil rights violations after video showed them allegedly pointing guns at the two after their 4-year-old daughter stole a doll from a dollar store last month.

Dravon Ames and Iesha Harper, of Phoenix, who filed the legal claim on Wednesday, said that on May 29, they went to a Family Dollar Store with their children, London, 1, and Island, 4. Island, they said, took a doll from the store without their knowledge.

The couple said they drove to their babysitter's apartment complex, when a police car pulled up behind them, pulled open the driver's side door of their car and began shouting profanities at them in front of the kids.

The parents said an officer injured London by pulling on one of her arms after the mother refused a command to put the child down because she said the girl couldn't walk and the pavement was hot, and also said Ames was injured by police who erroneously claimed he wasn't complying with their commands after Ames exited the vehicle that the family was traveling in.

An officer is accused of throwing Ames against a vehicle, kicking his leg so hard that Ames collapsed and punching him for no reason. The claim said one of the officers profanely told Ames in front of his children that he was going to shoot him in the face.

Video posted online seemingly shows officers yelling, "Get your f---ing hands up" and "you're gonna get f---ing shot!"

 "My hands are up! My hands are up!" 22yo Dravon Ames says as a Phoenix police officer yells to "get your fucking hands up." The same officer later says "You're gonna fucking get shot!"

Ames says the officers stopped him after his child walked out of a Dollar Store with a doll.

Phoenix Police Department Chief Jeri Williams said on Friday that she began an internal investigation as soon as she found out what was happening.

"I, like you, am disturbed by the language and the actions of our officer. I assure you that this incident is not representative of the majority of Phoenix police officers who serve this city," Williams said.

The police department claims the incident happened on May 27, and described a different version of events. While the parents' attorney said the child and father were injured in the encounter, police said no injuries were reported to them.

Police, in a Facebook post on Saturday, also said there were other stolen items in the vehicle during the encounter besides the doll.

The department said an officer was at the dollar store on an unrelated shoplifting call when store employees told him about another shoplifting complaint and directed him toward a vehicle that was leaving the parking lot as the officer approached. The officer had told Ames, who was driving the vehicle, to stop, but he didn't, police said.

Another woman who was inside the vehicle was dropped off at another location before the family reached the apartment complex. She had three outstanding misdemeanor warrants and was booked, police said.

Police said Harper, the mother of the two children, remained in the vehicle and later explained that she believed one of her daughters had stolen the doll because they didn't have any money.

Both parents were handcuffed and detained inside police vehicles, but they were eventually released, Tom Horne, an attorney representing the family, said.

No one was charged with shoplifting because the property was returned, and store employees didn't want the case prosecuted, police said. But Ames was given a traffic citation for driving on a suspended license.

Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said in a statement that she's "sick over what I have seen in the video depicting Phoenix police interacting with a family and young children." She called the situation "completely inappropriate and clearly unprofessional."

The mayor added the city is "speeding up" the use of police body cameras. "Every single precinct will have body-worn cameras by August," she said.

Rapper Jay-Z's "Team Roc" has reached out to the family to provide legal support, and has called for the police officers involved to be fired.

The officers involved have since been assigned to desk duty as the department investigates.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

I hate George Soros, but I love what he’s going to do to the Fairfax County Police

I hate George Soros, but I love what he’s going to do to the Fairfax County Police

In my opinion, George Soros is a pig. But, on the other hand, he got rid of corrupt Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Raymond Morrogh, a weasel who never met a murderous Fairfax County cop he didn’t love and also, because of Soros unethical behavior the Fairfax County cops are about the live through four years of holy hell and I think that’s wonderful.

George Soros flooded the recent election for county prosecutor with about $500,000 to elect his candidate for the office, Steve Descano, who has no significant experience prosecuting or for that matter, as an attorney.

Almost needless to say, Soros money and involvement went virtually unmentioned by the local media. Some of the outlets simply weren’t aware that Soros was all over the local election because their incompetent, and others, like the Washington Post, found it in the best interest of the far left, to kill the story.

Descano WILL NOT be tough on crime. If he was, Soros wouldn’t have handed him a half a million dollars. Descano’s will do as Soros tells him to do. He will be hyper-sensitive to the politically correct principles and lenient to the point of laughter. He’ll do away with marijuana possession prosecutions, drop most cases dealing with minorities facing another conviction that could lead to longer jail terms, in fact, race is soon to be a deciding factor over the law in Fairfax County. Cash bonds will be a thing of the past so criminals will be back at work doing bad guy things while their arresting officer is still filling out paperwork. Forget the death penalty prosecutions.

Why is all this and more going to happen?

Because the far left and financiers like Soros can’t get the laws they want enacted through the democratic process, so they’ll Prosecutors race all over the county and change to law that way. Soros backed prosecutors Descano simply won’t enforce laws they don’t like (Or Soros doesn’t like)

It isn’t illegal but it isn’t right either.

Anyway, here’s the good news. Under Descano the Fairfax County Cops are going to have account for themselves. They will no longer be above the law. Cops who murder civilians WILL BE PROSECUTED now.  Thug cops and incompetent cop whom the public complains about will now, for the first time in the history of Fairfax County, may actually be prosecuted, jailed or fired.    

The answer is YES

Has asset forfeiture gone too far? 

By Doug McKelway

Customs seized Gerardo Serrano's truck because he had a handful of legally obtained bullets in his possession; Doug McKelway has the story for 'Special Report'

WASHINGTON –  Two years ago, Gerardo Serano – an American citizen, Kentucky farmer and a one-time GOP Kentucky statehouse candidate – was driving his brand new, $60,000 Ford F-250 pick-up truck to visit relatives in Mexico, snapping pictures along the way, when Customs and Border Patrol agents halted him at the border, demanded his cell phone, and asked him why he was taking pictures.

"I just wanted the opening of the bridge. I was gonna take the opening of the bridge, the entrance of the bridge. That’s all I wanted to do," Serano told Fox News.

As a self-proclaimed student of the Constitution, Serano said he knew his rights, and protested to Customs and Border Patrol agents vehemently when they asked him to unlock his phone.

"You need a warrant for that," he says he told them. They searched his truck and found five bullets in a magazine clip that Serano, a Kentucky concealed carry permit holder, forgot to remove before leaving his home.

"We got you," he says border agents told him. He was detained, but never arrested, nor charged, nor tried, nor convicted. However, agents did seize his prized new truck. Two years since its seizure, they have yet to give it back.

Serano is still making monthly payments of $673 on the truck as well as paying for its insurance and Kentucky license fees.

His attorneys at the Institute for Justice say Customs and Border Patrol has told them the truck was subject to the government's Civil Asset Forfeiture program because it was used to "transport munitions of war." 

The Civil Asset Forfeiture program has its roots in English law that American colonists rebelled against. Their rebellion was ultimately codified in the Fourth Amendment, which reads, in part: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..."

Despite that unambiguous language, civil asset forfeiture was revived in the 1930s Prohibition era against bootleggers and mobsters. It was revived again in the 1980s war on drugs and continues to this day.

"It’s absolutely astonishing that civil forfeiture is a policy that we have in this country,” said Clark Neily of the Cato Institute. “It is totally unjust, unfair, and I think it's unconstitutional."

Sen. Rand Paul, (R-KY) agrees. "There are instances of people, young people, getting some money and saying, ‘I'm moving to California from Boston.’ They're stopping in some small town in Nevada, and they have a thousand bucks their dad gave them to get started,” Paul said. “And the police just take it and say: ‘You prove to us that this isn't drug money.’"

Gerardo Serrano's truck was seized over five bullets, which he says were lawfully his.  (Institute for Justice)

Morgan Wright, a senior fellow at the Center for Digital Government, spent 20 years as a police officer and detective in Kansas. He cites the benefits of civil asset forfeiture.

"We seized everything from cars to houses to money to jewelry to you name it," he said. "One of the cash seizures I had, had plans for a methamphetamine laboratory. They had documented intelligence that they had people working in these operations, people selling cocaine - cartel activity out of Mexico."

Wright acknowledges asset forfeiture may have gone too far.

"One of the worst things you can do in law enforcement is to take a good tool and abuse it," Wright said. "So that restrictive regulations come down on it, and it's taken away from everybody."

Many contend the program's abuses outweigh its benefits. Congressional critics were outraged, when, this summer, Attorney General Jeff Sessions ended Obama-era restrictions that blocked forfeiture without a warrant or criminal charges.

In a rare show of bipartisanship, conservative House Republicans joined liberal Democrats this month in rolling back Sessions’ undoing of the Obama-era reforms. During floor debate, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said: "Asset forfeiture is a crime against the American people committed by their own government."

"The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution exists to protect the citizens of this country from being deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. In practice and in principle, adoptive forfeiture is a violation of that Fourth Amendment," she said

The Senate is also poised to act.

"We have a free-standing bill that says the government shouldn't take peoples’ property without a conviction, that the burden is on the government that you actually agreed to commit a crime," Sen. Paul told Fox News.

"We also will look at, as the funding bills come through in the House, if they do bring up the Appropriation Bill for the Department of Justice, I will attach that language to it," he added.

Many say what's needed is a Supreme Court test case. It may get one.

Serano, represented by the Institute for Justice, is suing Customs to get his truck back and to end the policy of civil forfeiture once and for all. Justice Clarence Thomas has publicly said the high court needs a good case that address the problems of civil asset forfeiture.

I’m sorry this guy lost his job, but what he did was dangerous on a dozen different levels.

Utah cop who dragged screaming nurse fired from police department A Utah detective who was filmed handcuffing and dragging a nurse in July has been fired. Jeff Payne, a detective with the Salt Lake City Police Department, was fired Tuesday following an investigation, Chief Mike Brown said Tuesday. In a video filmed July 26, Payne, who was working as a part-time paramedic, asked University Hospital Nurse Alex Wubbels to draw blood from an unconscious patient, which she refused to do, citing company policy. The detective had support from his supervisor, Lt. James Tracy, who said Wubbels could be arrested if she didn't allow the blood draw. Payne eventually told Wubbels she was under arrest and physically removed her from the hospital while she screamed, claiming that she hadn’t done anything wrong. An investigation by a civilian review board found Payne had apparently become frustrated after a long wait to perform the blood draw and ignored the nurse's correct explanation that she could not allow it without a warrant or formal consent from the patient, who had been in a car crash. Salt Lake City police later apologized for the arrest, changed their blood-draw policies and placed Payne and Tracy on paid administrative leave after the video from police body cameras drew widespread attention online. An internal investigation with the police department found evidence that the officers violated several policies. Payne was fired from his paramedic job with Gold Cross Ambulance — a company which he worked for since 1983 — on Sept. 5. Greg Skordas, Payne’s lawyer, said last month that his client would “love the chance to sit down and apologize for what happened here. If he could do this over, he would do it differently.” Skordas also questioned whether Payne’s behavior warranted being fired.

Once again, require minimum IQ of 100 for cops

New Jersey police detective fathers child with 15-year-old, is charged with sexual assault of minor

The police officer received multiple honors for his work.

His numerous gun and drug arrests at one point earned him “Officer of the Week” in the Camden County Police Department.

But he also fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl, and now Camden County Police Department Det. Rafael Martinez Jr. is facing charges for sexually assaulting a minor, according to the county prosecutor.

Martinez, 32, reportedly admitted to being the father of the baby. The 15-year-old girl, identified only as E.L., told authorities that she and Martinez had a sexual relationship from September 2016 to August 2017, according to New Jersey newspapers.

The police officer was suspended after he was arrested on Sept. 12. He earns almost $66,000 a year, according to the Courier Post.

Martinez signed the baby’s birth certificate when the child was born in mid-August, the Courier Post said. An affidavit that is part of the criminal complaint against Martinez said the teenager told authorities that the police officer was “the father of her child and that they had sex on multiple occasions at his home.”

A court-ordered DNA test confirmed Martinez as the father, reports added. 

Fairfax County Board To Scrutinize Police Data on Use-of-Force Incidents

  

That DOES NOT MEAN they're actually going to do something about, the Board is terrified of the cops, look at the history, the  board has NEVER, not once, taken a move to clean up the FCPD  

(Below is actually footage of our version of the Fairfax County Board confronting the cops) 

Fairfax County’s Board of Supervisors wants more analysis of data that points to the disproportionate use-of-force against black individuals by county police.

Two years ago, the Fairfax County Police Department released a study that found that 40 percent of use-of-force cases in 2015 involved black individuals.

In response to the study’s release, the board directed Police Auditor Richard Schott “to review the statistical disparity between the level of African-American use-of-force incidents and the African American population in Fairfax County,” according to the county.

Completed last year, Schott’s study on the police department data didn’t satisfy the supervisors’ questions.

“The report did not yield any clear causes based upon race, but noted additional evaluation of use-of force data would be needed for the following years,” Chairman Sharon Bulova said yesterday reading from the motion. She added FCPD has new procedures and trainings that might provide more useful data on use-of-force interactions.

Following the 2017 study, Police Chief Edwin Roessler has been trying to find an academic partner to help with data analysis for further use-of-force studies, but hasn’t found a “suitable” partner yet, Bulova said.

In a joint effort, Bulova and Braddock District Supervisor John Cook presented a motion yesterday (May 7) to direct the police auditor to coordinate the search for an academic or researcher to review the disparity and then report findings and any recommendations to the board.

“As the Police Auditor has experience with compiling similar types of reports, I am in favor of the Police Auditor’s office overseeing the search for an academic partner and completion of the use-of-force study,” Bulova said.

Initially, the motion just focused on hiring an academic partner, but, at the suggestion of Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity, was changed to also consider hiring a research partner.

Herrity took issue with the comparison used to evaluate the disparity, saying that analysis should not compare use-of-force victims to the Fairfax County population, since they may not reside in the county.

“Almost half of the use-of-force against African Americans involved non-residents,” he said. “If we’re going to compare it to our population, we need to do an apples to apples.”

He later clarified his comments, saying, “I agree it doesn’t matter if you’re a resident or nonresident. You should be treated fairly.”

Cook responded by saying that the 40 percent still indicates a racial disparity, regardless of residency.

Fairfax County isn’t the only place scrutinizing local police use-of-force data and looking to address police violence against minorities at disproportionate rates.

The mayor of Ithaca, New York ordered an investigation into an incident between local police and a black man and woman, with some people criticizing the police on their use of force after videos of the incident were released.

A bill in California that would make it easier to file criminal charges against police officers who use lethal force when other options were available has received widespread support following the death of Stephon Clark, an unarmed black man shot by police in Sacramento last March.

Over in Wyoming, all law enforcement officers now must complete training every two years, which includes courses on when and how to use force.

A study by researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health found that the disparity between black and white individuals who are not known to be armed and are shot by police increases as racism on the state level increases.

FCPD recently released its annual crime report, which listed 500 uses-of-force incidents in 2018. The report does not provide a demographic breakdown for use-of-force incidents.

So the question is, how much money did the Fairfax County Police get from the feds for collecting the data for them?

Do you honestly think the FCPD is smart enough to have come up with this on their own?

 Snap out of it.

Their cops, people become cops because their dumb, that's not my fault or their fault, its the way it is.....think about, a group of guys, in the shadow of the nation's capital,  who couldn't  wait to get out of high school put this package together on their own

Virginia Judge Rules Automated Collection Of License Plate Data Illegal
A Virginia Judge has ruled that automated license plate collection systems violate state law.



A Circuit Court Judge in Virginia has ruled that automated license plate collection systems are illegal under Virginia law:
A Virginia state judge ruled earlier this month that automated license plate data collection by police qualified as protected “personal information,” and was illegal, because it included the following elements all combined: The license plate number, images of the vehicle and license plate and immediate surroundings, plus GPS location and time and date.
The value of multiple types of data that can be interpolated is greater than one form alone.
Here is the court’s ruling [PDF Link].
EFF has done tons of work on this issue, and the EFF’s Dave Maass wrote a great technology primer you should read if you’re interested. Also, don’t miss EFF’s street-level surveillance FAQ.
This report was published Tuesday at Boing Boing, but the ruling was actually handed down at the beginning of April and The Washington Post reported on the decision at that time:
A Fairfax County judge on Monday ordered the Fairfax County police to stop maintaining a database of photos of vehicle license plates, with the time and location where they were snapped, ruling that “passive use” of data from automated license plate readers on the back of patrol cars violates Virginia privacy law. The ruling followed a related finding by the Virginia Supreme Court last year, meaning the case could affect how long — if at all — Virginia police can keep license plate data.
The ruling by Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Robert J. Smith is a victory for privacy rights advocates who argued that the police could track a person’s movements by compiling the times and exact locations of a car anytime its plate was captured by a license plate reader. Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. said Monday night that he would ask the county attorney to appeal the ruling.
The issue represents another front in the ongoing conflict over the use of emerging technologies by law enforcement. Police say they can, and have, used license plate location data to find dangerous criminals and missing persons. Privacy advocates don’t oppose the use of the technology during an active investigation, but they say that maintaining a database of license plate locations for months or years provides too much opportunity for abuse by the police. Last month, the ACLU disclosed that the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was tapping into a vast, national database of police and private license plate readers. Such private databases remain unregulated.
The Fairfax judge’s ruling applies only to the Fairfax police, but it may find a receptive audience, and have statewide impact, in the Virginia Supreme Court. Last year, the state supreme court reversed Smith when he threw the case out of court, finding that “the pictures and associated data stored in the police department’s . . . database meet the statutory definition of ‘personal information'” under Virginia’s “Data Act.” The court sent the case back to Smith to determine whether the database classified as an “information system” under the Data Act. Smith then ruled that it does.
The challenge to the practice was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia on behalf of Harrison Neal, a Fairfax man whose license plate and location had been recorded at least twice by the police. The ACLU said Monday that it “welcomes this ruling in favor of our client, as this technology should not be used to monitor the comings and goings of people’s daily lives.”
An automated license plate reader, typically mounted on the back trunk of a patrol car, can snap hundreds of photos per minute of license plates while the car is moving. It then checks those plate numbers against a database of wanted cars, which might be stolen or suspected of being tied to a crime, and alerts the driver in seconds. But it also stores the time and location of when and where the photo was snapped.
Nine states have passed laws limiting how long the police can maintain the data, ranging from three minutes (New Hampshire) to 90 days (Tennessee) to three years (Colorado), according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Seven other states, including Maryland, have laws restricting the use and dissemination of license plate data but do not put a time limit on how long the data can be kept.
In Virginia, there is no law regarding license plate readers. But the “Data Act” states that “The Commonwealth or any agency or political subdivision thereof shall not collect personal information except as explicitly or implicitly authorized by law.” In 2013, the Virginia State Police asked then-state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II if, under that law, they could maintain license plate data. Cuccinelli issued an opinion saying they could not, and the state police have since purged their license plate data every 24 hours.
But The Washington Post found that other agencies around Virginia ignored the nonbinding attorney general’s opinion. Fairfax police keep the data for a year. Alexandria police keep it for two years. In 2015, a new bipartisan “Ben Franklin liberty caucus” was founded in the Virginia General Assembly, and a practically unanimous legislature passed a bill limiting the license data retention to seven days.
But then-Governor Terry McAuliffe, heeding the warnings of law enforcement that they needed the data to find criminals, vetoed the bill. License plate readers had been used by police in New York to help track down a man suspected of planting bombs in Manhattan months earlier, and police in Arlington, Va., found a 67-year-old man who had been missing for two days, and was near death, when his car was recorded blocks away from his residence.
After legislation failed, the ACLU sued in Fairfax, seeking an injunction against the “passive collection” of license plate data beyond an immediate need or existing criminal investigation. In 2016, Judge Smith granted Fairfax’s motion to dismiss the case, saying that “license plate number” is not included in the Data Act’s definition of “personal information.” Smith ruled that a license plate number “does not tell the researcher where the person is, what the person is doing, or anything else about the person.”
Then the Virginia Supreme Court agreed to hear the ACLU’s appeal. Last year, Justice Cleo E. Powell wrote that, while the plate number alone doesn’t identify anyone, the photo of the vehicle and its surroundings, as well as the time and place information, would “afford a basis for inferring personal characteristics” or the presence of a person at a certain place and time — “personal information,” the court found.
The Supreme Court sent the case back to Smith to determine if the license plate database is an “information system” as defined by the Data Act. Smith held a hearing in December to learn in detail how the system works. He found that officers can log into the license plate database to get information on a vehicle’s whereabouts, and then log in separately to the federal and state criminal information systems, or the state motor vehicle database, to discover the vehicle’s owner.
The license plate database “does enable police officers to cross-reference ALPR [automated license plate reader] data with the identity of an individual,” Smith wrote. “The Police Department’s ‘passive use’ of the ALPR system therefore violates the Data Act.”
It’s important to note at the offset that this ruling by Circuit Court Judge Robert Smith, who has been on the bench for more than 20 years and before whom I appeared many times, does not involve either the interpretation of the Virginia or Federal Constitution. Instead, it involves the question of whether or not the database that police in Fairfax County, the state’s most populated jurisdiction, maintain from their network of cruiser-mounted license plate readers complies with the Virginia Data Act, a law that regulates how, and for how long, personal information collected by state agencies such as law enforcement may be kept before the information must be purged from the system. As such, its applicability and usefulness outside Virginia, and indeed outside of the facts of this specific case, is entirely unclear. Nonetheless, the extent to which this is a victory for privacy rights advocates cannot be understated.
PrivacySOS has more:
The ACLU has been sounding the alarm about the use of ALPRs all over the country since 2012. While some states have regulated their use, limiting the time police departments can retain non-derogatory information, most police departments use the systems to conduct both active and passive surveillance—that is, to actively search for cars connected to suspected criminal activity, and to collect and retain for long periods information about drivers who are not suspected of any crimes.
In this ACLU lawsuit in Virginia, the key question was whether the collection and storage of Neal’s license plate data without suspicion of any criminal activity was legal under Virginia state law. To determine if the surveillance violated that law, the ACLU had to prove two things. First, the ACLU had to demonstrate that the state data protection law applied to the police department’s collection of license plate reader data—specifically, that the records constituted personal information and that the license plate reader record keeping system was an information system as defined under the state law. Second, provided the law applied, the ACLU had to prove that the police department’s passive surveillance was not exempt from the law and that therefore the creation of the database violated it. To do that, the ACLU argued that this type of surveillance violated the law’s provision requiring a clear and established need to collect information.
The ACLU lost at the circuit court, which held in favor of the police department. But the ACLU appealed, and theVirginia Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s decision, ruling in favor of the ACLU and Neal. Writing for the Court, Justice Powell’s decision hinged on three main questions. First, does ALPR information constitute “personal information” as defined by the statute? Second, is the ALPR database an “information system” protected under the state law? And finally, if the answers to the first two questions are ‘yes,’ is there an exemption from the data protection law that applies to the personal records and information system at issue?
To answer the first question, the Court looked to the nature of the information collected. The Justices used a framework that distinguished license plate numbers per se from ALPR data. While the former is not personal information, the latter is, the Court held. Under Virginia law, information is considered “personal information” when it affords a basis for inferring personal characteristics or the presence of an identified individual. The Court ruled that license plate numbers alone are just a combination of characters, and that whether or not they constitute personal information depends on the context in which they are used. But ALPR data is different, the Court held, because it contains not only the license plate number, but also images of the vehicle, its license plate, its immediate surroundings, and the GPS location, time, and date captured with the image. Taken together, this information allows its holder to infer personal characteristics and show where individuals have been. Consequently, the Justices decided, ALPR records fall under the statutory definition of “personal information.”
Next, the Court examined whether the ALPR system constitutes an “information system” protected under the statute. Unsurprisingly, there is a direct connection between this issue and the previous one: the law defines an information system as a record-keeping process that contains both personal information and identifiers (like names or personal numbers) of particular individuals. Here, the Court ruled that the ALPR information constitutes personal information. But given the information before it, the Court could not discern if there was a sufficient link between the license plate number and Neal to characterize that number as one of the identifiers that would complete the information system equation. Accordingly, the Justices remanded the case to the lower court to decide this issue.
Finally, the Court looked at the scope of the law enforcement exemption in the state law. The exemption excludes from the statute’s protections information systems that relate to investigations and intelligence gathering related to criminal activity. Here, in accordance with the opinion of the Attorney General, issued in 2013, the Court decided that the exemption did not apply to passive surveillance. The 2013 AG opinion concluded that the state police’s passive collection of ALPR data violated state law because there was not a clear “need” for its collection. The AG reasoned that the value of records revealing where people not suspected of criminal activity have traveled to a criminal investigation was “wholly speculative”—a value the data protection statute does not incorporate in any of its exceptions. In other words, the AG and the High Court agreed: There’s no valid need for cops to track the movements of people not suspected of criminal activity.
On remand to the lower court, the only issue left to decide was whether license plate numbers could effectively identify Neal, meaning the ALPR system constituted an information system.
The evidence the lower court heard was very clear: In Virginia, police officers have unlimited access not only to ALPR information but also DMV records and other law enforcement databases—including the National Crime Information Center maintained by the FBI. It’s therefore a trivial matter for a Virigina law enforcement official to connect ALPR data to a person’s name and address. The circle therefore closed. The passive surveillance database was an information system that permitted police to identify people using ALPR data and license plate numbers. Accordingly, its existence was against the law because there was no established need for it to exist
While this case dealt solely with issues of state law, there are those who argue that there are potential Fourth Amendment issues involved in systems such as this. In all honesty, while I consider myself something of a Fourth Amendment zealot, I think the argument that these systems are a per se violation of that Amendment is incredibly weak. There does not appear to be on the surface any per se Constitutional objection to a police officer taking note of the license plates of the vehicles around him or her while out on patrol. Indeed, ever since there have been computers in patrol cars hooked into the relevant databases, it’s been common practice for officers to tap in license plate numbers while waiting in traffic or at stop lights. If a hit comes up — such as a car owned by someone who has a suspended license, or a car on the list of stolen cars — then the officer will typically either pull the car over since they now have reasonable suspicion to do so, or follow the car until further instructions are received. There’s no 4th Amendment violation here because you don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your license plate number and, indeed, you most assuredly don’t if you’re sitting in a traffic jam with a police car directly behind you.  The fact that the same thing is being done with technology tied into a central database doesn’t really change the 4th Amendment analysis in the end, but that’s only part of the issue.
Notwithstanding this, as Conor Friedersdorf noted in a piece back in 2013 there is certainly something creepy and concerning about the practice:
Driving down the street, I have no reasonable expectation that my license-plate number won’t be jotted down by someone. But I am aghast at the notion that it could be recorded on all major streets, at all times, with each scan aggregated in a massive database and stored forever. I’m confident that the men who wrote and ratified the Fourth Amendment would be similarly aghast. The technology is here, and increasingly being used.
There isn’t much time left to stop it.
Even though the practice of using technology like this to allow a police officer to determine if any of the cars around him are listed as stolen, or whether they are relevant to some ongoing criminal investigation case does not violate the Fourth Amendment, that doesn’t mean there are not concerns that should be addressed. In that respect, the issue we ought to be concerned with is how the technology is being used, and what’s happening to all the data that it collects. How long are the license plate numbers collected that don’t match up to something kept? Who has access to them? Who could they be shared with and for what purposes? These are only some of the questions that a massive data collection effort like this raises.

Some of them can be answered by Courts utilizing the outlines of the 4th Amendment or, as in this case, state law, to place limits on what law enforcement can do with this sort of technology, just as Courts are just now starting to address the proper limits of GPS tracking technology by law enforcement. Other limits will have to be addressed by legislatures, both Federal and state, put under pressure by the public to protect privacy in an era where its beginning to feel like privacy is dying. The technology genie is out of the bottle, but we still have time to get it under some degree of control if we act.

Fairfax County Police Department disputes claims

Fairfax County Police Department disputes claims that woman was "body slammed"

(below is our version of what actually happened)  

TYSONS, Va. - The Fairfax County Police Department is disputing social media claims that a woman was body slammed during an arrest last week. 

Police released this surveillance video of the moment a 19-year-old woman was arrested for disorderly conduct after her friend was caught shoplifting at Spencer's in Tysons Corner Center. On Thursday, a Facebook post went viral claiming that the woman was slammed face first into the ground. Fairfax County's police chief says the video on social media only shows part of what actually happened. 

"The officer used a guided escort with her own weight to take her gently down to the floor so the struggle would stop and it would prevent harm to herself and other and police officers. That was not body slamming at all and that allegation is absolutely false and that's why I released the video," Chief Edwin C. Roessler with the Fairfax County Police Department said.  

Chief Roessler has directed the internal affairs bureau to review this matter and has requested an independent investigation by the police auditor. 

Fairfax Co. police dispute social media claims woman was slammed to ground during arrest

After three people were arrested at Tysons Corner Center last Thursday, Fairfax County police released surveillance footage from inside the Virginia store to dispute a social media post that claims one of the arrested people was slammed to the ground.

Police said it all happened on Thursday, April 25 when 22-year-old Molly Helmer of Annandale was caught shoplifting at the Spencer’s store. An officer responded and issued her a summons for a future court date.

Police say Helmer was leaving with a group of friends when 19-year-old Lia Chen of Annadale threw her water bottle and dumped her drink all over the floor as police stood by in plain clothes.

Steve Bun, 27, of Fairfax, Virginia, was one of the three people arrested for disorderly conduct that day. According to his Facebook post, he witnessed Chen’s arrest and began to record from outside the store.

Chen was approached by an officer and she began screaming and acting disorderly before being taken back to the store, police said in a Tuesday news release. Chen attempted to break free.

Police said they tried to gain control of her and keep her from hurting herself or others and “she was taken to the ground by the arresting officer and finally handcuffed.”

Bun’s Facebook post claims police were “manhandling” Chen before “slamming her face first into the ground.”

Chen was issued a summons for disorderly conduct and obstruction of justice and was banned from Tysons Corner Center for a year.

Police said Bun approached officers aggressively, cursing at them and interfering with the police investigation, resulting in his arrest for disorderly conduct.

Bun’s Facebook post claims he was rammed into a brick wall outside of the store, breaking his Apple Watch and injuring his hand.

Bun was taken to the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center and was released on a $2,000 bond.