Louisianna

Children died in the car as police opened fire on the US

by F. Burak Yucel

MARKSVILLE — A chase dead-ending Tuesday night at a shuttered state park in Marksville ended in the death of a 6-year-old boy after deputy city marshals opened fire on the car his father had been driving.

The boy, identified as Jeremy David Mardis, was shot multiple times in the head and torso and pronounced dead at the scene, the Avoyelles Parish coroner, Dr. Lovell L.J. Mayeaux Jr., said Wednesday. Jeremy was a first-grader at Lafargue Elementary School in the nearby central Louisiana town of Effie.

The boy's father, 25-year-old Chris Few, also was shot multiple times. He was airlifted to Rapides Regional Medical Center in Alexandria, where he was listed in stable condition.

Mayeaux said the boy was in the vehicle when he was shot and it appears that all the shots came from outside and through the driver's side of the vehicle. The coroner said the investigation is ongoing, but the “working theory” is that all the shots were fired by city marshals.

Jeremy was sitting in the front passenger seat of the vehicle when he was shot, Mayeaux said.

Few, with his son in tow, had led the marshals on a chase through Marksville shortly before 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, speeding down Martin Luther King Drive in the town before being pinned in by at least two patrol cars at a two-way intersection in front of the gates of the closed Marksville State Historical Site, a now-closed state park that features a number of Indian mounds.

What exactly prompted the chase and then the shooting remains unclear, but The Town Talk in Alexandria reported that Few threw his truck into reverse and tried to run his car into one of the marshal's vehicles.

Two nearby residents said they heard rapid gunfire shortly after police sirens raced down the street. One resident estimated he heard “six or seven” gunshots, while another said he counted at least 10. Trooper Daniel “Scott” Moreau, a State Police spokesman, confirmed that the marshals “discharged their duty weapons” but couldn't say how many rounds had been fired.

Spray-painted markings on the street show the location of four vehicles at the site of the shooting. On the driver's side of one of the markings, at least 17 painted spots possibly show where shell casings or other evidence was recovered.

Trooper Daniel “Scott” Moreau said it wasn't yet clear if there was a weapon inside Few's car or if anyone besides the ward marshals had fired during the confrontation.

Moreau said investigators from State Police's Alexandria field office had received initial statements from the marshals involved in the shooting but hadn't yet interviewed any of those involved. Moreau said the investigation was “still in its infancy” but he wouldn't be able to say whether the marshals had fired the deadly shots until after ballistics tests and a final autopsy report have been completed.

At TJ's Lounge, a bar and service station in Marksville, a bartender and patrons said that Few — a familiar face there since relocating from Mississippi about a year ago — had been hanging out there earlier Tuesday, playing pool with a girlfriend before leaving about 9 p.m., less than a half hour before the fatal shooting. None were sure whether Jeremy had been waiting in the car or if Few picked him up later.

“It just blows my mind that all this happened,” one said, referring to Few as a friendly, low-key guy.

Few's mother, Samantha Few, declined to be interviewed but told WAFB-TV in a written statement that Jeremy, her grandson, was autistic and a “special gift from God.”

“He was always smiling always happy,” Few told WAFB.

“He loved everyone he met and they loved him. As far as what caused his death, the only thing I have been told is he died from gun shot wounds. He didn't deserve what happened. He wouldn't hurt a fly.”

Marksville Police Chief Elster Smith Jr. could not be reached for comment Wednesday, as he spent the entire day on the scene of another major — though entirely unrelated — emergency in the small city of 5,700 that is also the parish seat. According to Avoyelles Today, 32-year-old Will Ray Lachney took a shotgun from a hunter in the nearby woods, fired it in the air after being confronted by a passing police officer, and barricaded himself inside his mother's apartment, about a mile or less from the scene of Tuesday night's shooting.

During Wednesday's standoff, a Marksville police officer accidentally shot Lachney's mother in the arm. The woman had gone into the apartment to talk her son into surrendering before ending up in a struggle with her son over the shotgun, the newspaper reported.

Marksville's Ward 2 marshal, Floyd Voinche Sr., also could not be reached Wednesday. The elected position, similar to a constable, is a certified law-enforcement officer with jurisdiction in the town but is primarily tasked — along with a number of deputies — with serving court documents, including warrants and civil suits.

The deputy marshals involved in Tuesday night's shooting were off-duty Marksville police officers who were working extra duty for the Ward 2 Marshal's Office. Smith, the Marksville police chief, told Avoyelles Today he will meet with the city attorney before deciding what action, if any, would be taken with the officers, who were not identified.

An autopsy on Jeremy was performed Wednesday afternoon. Mayeaux said initial results were turned over to the Louisiana State Police, who are investigating the shooting, but the findings will not be made public at this time.

Blaine Dauzat, superintendent of the Avoyelles Parish School District, said grief counselors were sent to Lafargue Elementary School on Wednesday to help comfort Jeremy's classmates and teachers.

“It's obviously a very tragic loss,” Dauzat said. “We're all deeply saddened.”

http://www.newsfultoncounty.com/flash/news/0814970-children-died-in-the-car-as-police-opened-fire-on-the-us

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Body Cameras and The Death of a 6-Year-Old Boy

Police say footage of an officer-involved shooting contributed to prosecutors' decision to press charges.

by Morina Koren

All of it was filmed. The police chase of an SUV after dark on a weeknight. The shots fired. The driver, struck in the head. His son, 6 years old, shot dead in the front seat.

The fatal shooting of Jeremy Mardis in Marksville, Louisiana, on Tuesday was captured on a body camera worn by one of the four police officers present at the scene. And it was that video footage that led in part to the decision to charge two of them with second-degree murder on Friday night.

The footage, Colonel Mike Edmonson of the Louisiana State Police told reporters, was “extremely disturbing, and it is partly why we're here tonight with these charges.”

“I'm not gonna talk about it, but I'm gonna tell you this,” Edmonson said. “It is the most disturbing thing I've seen and I will leave it at that.”

Louisiana State Police arrested the officers, Norris Greenhouse Jr. and Derrick Stafford, on charges of second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder. Mardis's father, Chris Few, remains hospitalized. The New York Times reported Mardis, a special-needs student who had recently transferred to his new school in Louisiana from Mississippi, was shot several times in the head and chest. A forensic report on how many guns and bullets were fired will be released next week, with autopsy results to follow in eight weeks.

“That little boy was buckled in the front seat of that vehicle, and that is how he died,” Edmonson said.

Officials have not said what led to the police pursuit of the car. Initial reports suggested that Few fled after officers tried to arrest him on an outstanding warrant. Edmonson refuted that claim Friday, according to The Washington Post.

Police departments across the United States are increasingly testing and using body-worn cameras—small, usually pager-sized devices that are clipped onto an officer's uniform. The technology quickly emerged as a potential new method of accountability in fatal encounters between law enforcement and civilians, especially black men, following the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson in August 2014. Supporters of body cameras say their mere presence can force both officers and civilians to change their behavior. The devices, they say, benefit both sides in policing: They help protect the public from police misconduct, and they help protect police from false accusations.

Research backs this up. A yearlong experiment in Rialto, California, in 2013, found that police officers who weren't wearing cameras were twice as likely to use force as those who were. It also found that citizen complaints against police dropped 80 percent. In late 2014, President Obama announced that the government would spend $75 million over three years to distribute 50,000 body cameras to police departments across the country, saying that “evidence shows that body-worn cameras help strengthen accountability and transparency.”

Take the case of Samuel DuBose, a 43-year-old Cincinnati man who was shot dead in July by officer Ray Tensing, who stopped DuBose because his car was missing its front license plate. DuBose was black. Tensing is white. The Ohio prosecutor handling the case said he probably would have believed Tensing's version of the story if the encounter wasn't captured by a body camera—but it was. “He purposely killed him,” the prosecutor said, in announcing Tensing would be charged with murder and voluntary manslaughter. “He should never have been a police officer.”

The video footage of DuBose's death was released to the media and the public. But it's unclear whether the footage of the shooting of Jeremy Mardis will be. While there's a growing consensus that body cameras are necessary and important, there is little agreement over whether and when officers, the public, or the press should see the footage they capture. My colleague Robinson Meyer broke down the debate in August:

If a police officer has a hostile encounter with a teenager on the street, but neither of them are badly injured, does the teenager have a right to see video of the incident recorded from the officer's body camera? If an officer is invited inside the home of a domestic-violence victim, will that victim be able to tell the cop not to record?

And, most importantly, if someone is killed in an altercation with an officer, could that officer watch the video before testifying to a grand jury? Because if so, critics say, that cop would be able to alter his or her account of the event to match what was on video—even if their initial account was wildly different.

Hanging over all these hypotheticals is a question about what body-camera footage is : Is it a public record created by the government and available to the people, or is it personally identifiable information that's confidential and off-limits?

In the case of a young boy who just started first grade, body-camera footage gave prosecutors enough to take two officers to court.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/11/jeremy-mardis-police-shooting/414789/

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Missouri

Ferguson starts process to set-up community policing program

by Shawndrea Thomas

FERGUSON, MO (KTVI) - On Saturday the Ferguson Police Department and more than 100 people from the community came together at Greater Grace Church for the first of five meetings as they work to start a new neighborhood policing program.

The program is designed to get officers out to specific neighborhoods and work with community members to help build stronger relationships and businesses. Chief Andre Anderson says it`s the beginning of a positive move towards healing, after months unrest left a scar on the community. Changes to procedures and policies are part of the plan.

"We need to solve this problem and I think we got that point across today we need the community to tell us what they want us to do we need to listen to them develop around what like us to do and work together to solve some of the challenges we're having. " Said Anderson

Citizen groups will also learn how to create a neighborhood policing plan and incorporate it into daily life to make Ferguson a safer and more connected city. At this point city officials are working with a consultant on a timeline.

http://fox2now.com/2015/11/07/ferguson-starts-process-to-set-up-community-policing-program/

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From ICE

ICE recognized for its achievements and selfless service in numerous award categories at Secretary's Awards Ceremony

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) received awards in nearly every category of the 2015 Secretary's Awards that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson, Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and DHS component leaders presented Nov. 3 at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.

Secretary Johnson resumed these awards last year to appropriately recognize the achievements and selfless service of DHS personnel who preserve our freedoms and protect the homeland with integrity, vigilance, and respect.

During the ceremony, Secretary Johnson and Deputy Secretary Mayorkas honored employees for their contributions supporting law enforcement and protection activities including the 70th United Nations General Assembly and the historic visit of Pope Francis to the United States, promoting an equal and diverse work environment, and helping the Department eliminate waste and combat fraud.

Members of ICE received awards in the following categories:

Secretary's Meritorious Service Award, the second highest category of awards, which recognizes exceptional leadership or service distinguished by achievements. This award recognizes superior performance through remarkable accomplishments, business improvements, or notable resourcefulness and diligence that significantly improved the effectiveness of the Department in one or more program areas. ICE was recognized for the following:

•  The ICE Repatriation Team for collaborating with international partners to bring to justice multiple foreign criminals.

•  The Visa Security Program for outstanding innovation and collaboration to better secure sensitive information across the Department.

•  General Vides Casanova Litigation Team for successfully investigating, prosecuting and removing a high-profile Salvadorian national from the United States.

•  U.S.–Canada Land, Rail, Maritime and Air Preclearance Agreement Team for superior public service and outstanding innovative leadership in negotiating the U.S.-Canada Land, Rail, Marine and Air Preclearance.

Secretary's Unity of Effort Award , which recognizes outstanding efforts to significantly improve efficiency and effectiveness across the Department. This award acknowledges efforts within the Department and with our interagency partners to further the Secretary's Unity of Effort initiative. ICE was recognized for the following:

•  Ebola Worldwide Response for ensuring the safe and uninterrupted travel of passengers into the United States and safeguarding the Department's frontline workforce during the Ebola epidemic.

•  U.S. Southern Border and Approaches Campaign Efforts for contributing to the establishment and execution of the DHS Southern Border and Approaches Campaign, the Department's key border security effort to strengthen of the collective operational efforts across the Department. The establishment of these Joint Task Forces continues to have an extraordinary impact on the Department's ability to secure and manage our borders.

•  United Nations General Assembly Team for excellence in planning, administrative and logistical support and flawless execution of operations during the 70th United Nations General Assembly in New York.

•  2015 Papal Visit for excellence in planning, administrative and logistical support and flawless execution of operations during the visit of Pope Francis to the District of Columbia, New York and Philadelphia.

Secretary's Award for Excellence, which recognizes outstanding achievement or innovation by an employee or team engaged in work to advance the DHS mission. This work may have resulted in superior performance, significant operational improvements or notable innovation. ICE was recognized for the following:

•  U.S. Secret Service Review Team for participating in a multi-agency task force to enhance comprehensive security at the White House complex.

•  Repatriation Technical Working Group for outstanding bilateral cooperation with Mexico in facilitating the repatriation of Mexican nationals.

Secretary's Exemplary Service Award, which recognizes exemplary service in administrative, technical, clerical and general support positions, to include the following ICE recipients:

•  Gloria Verduzco for her willingness and excellence in providing legal support during the surge of unaccompanied minors in the southwest.

•  Aisha M. Jones for professionalism, vigilance and exemplary performance.

Secretary's Valor Award , the highest recognition for extraordinary acts of valor occurring either on or off duty. Recipients demonstrated selfless response by performing courageously in a highly dangerous or life-threatening situation to protect another's life or to save significant assets or infrastructure from harm. The ICE recipient was:

•  Special Agent Jeremiah Gussoni for extraordinary heroism in saving an individual from a burning vehicle.

Secretary's Award for Volunteer Service , which recognizes significant contributions by DHS employees who serve as volunteers with non-profit or community service programs or activities. The contributions are direct, sustained and have meaningful results for individuals or the larger public good. ICE recipients were:

•  Thomas W. Doolittle for providing invaluable and life-affirming hope and help to children suffering from cancer through the Toy Box Foundation.

•  William Penaloza for giving selflessly to help improve the lives of veterans as well as other individuals around the world by providing donated wheelchairs, walkers and crutches to nursing homes.

“The Secretary's Awards are an opportunity for us to recognize just a few of the men and women who embody the service of the Department of Homeland Security,” Secretary Johnson said. “I congratulate all of the award recipients and thank them for their continued dedication to keeping our communities safe and secure.”

For a list of all awardees, please click here. Photos of this event are available here.

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-recognized-its-achievements-and-selfless-service-numerous-award-categories

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California

US border agency staff rejects body cameras

During the last three months of 2014, Customs and Border Protection tested cameras in simulated environments

by Elliot Spagat

SAN DIEGO — Customs and Border Protection staff concluded after an internal review that agents and officers shouldn't be required to wear body cameras, positioning the nation's largest law enforcement agency as a counterweight to a growing number of police forces that use the devices to promote public trust and accountability.

The yearlong review cited cost and a host of other reasons to hold off, according to two people familiar with the findings who spoke on condition of anonymity because the findings have not been made public. It found operating cameras may distract agents while they're performing their jobs, may hurt employee morale, and may be unsuited to the hot, dusty conditions in which Border Patrol agents often work.

The findings, in an August draft report, are subject to approval by Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske, who last year announced plans to test cameras at the agency that employs roughly 60,000 people.

The staff report doesn't rule out body cameras but questions their effectiveness and calls for more analysis before they are widely distributed.

Customs and Border Protection said Friday that it has been transparent about its body camera effort from the start, providing regular public updates.

"The draft report referenced is a dated version that does not reflect the agency's deliberations over the past months or conclusions of CBP leadership," it said in a statement.

From the start, Kerlikowske was noncommittal on whether to introduce body cameras to roughly 21,000 Border Patrol agents who watch thousands of miles of borders with Mexico and Canada, and to roughly 24,000 Customs and Border Protection officers who manage official ports of entry.

"Putting these in place, as you know, is not only complicated, it's also expensive," the former Seattle police chief said at a news conference last year. "We want to make sure we do this right."

The use of police body cameras is still in its infancy, with no count for how many of the 18,000 state and local departments have turned to them. But dozens of agencies across the country are testing the cameras after unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, unleashed criticism of police tactics, and many departments have plans to roll them out more broadly.

President Barack Obama supports using police body cameras, and his administration has pledged millions of dollars to local departments.

Customs and Border Protection faces unique challenges. The Southern Border Communities Coalition, a group that has strongly criticized the agency over use of force, said agents and officers have killed 40 people since January 2010. The agency commissioned a 2013 report by the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit group of law enforcement experts, that was critical of its policies and tactics.

During the last three months of 2014, Customs and Border Protection tested cameras in simulated environments including the Border Patrol training academy in Artesia, New Mexico. From January to May, it expanded testing to 90 agents and officers who volunteered across the country to use the cameras on the jobs.

Widespread deployment hinged on union approval, which was always a question mark. The National Border Patrol Council, which represents Border Patrol agents, expressed concern that supervisors might use the videos to retaliate against agents they wanted to discipline or force from their jobs.

"Under the right conditions and with the right policies, they can be a valuable tool, but obviously CBP has been unable or unwilling to meet that criteria," Shawn Moran, a spokesman for the agents' union, said Friday.

The draft report cited significant cost in what would be a multimillion-dollar endeavor, including acquiring equipment, training agents and responding to public records requests. It said widespread distribution might hurt morale because employees could interpret the cameras as a show of distrust. It also said the devices could undermine intelligence gathering if people interviewed by agents know they are being recorded. Footage may also not accurately reflect the sense of threat an agent feels.

Christian Ramirez, director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition, said the findings were "extremely disappointing."

"You can't hide that CBP is a broken agency that needs to immediately implement 21st century accountability standards and one of those tools is body-worn cameras," he said.

The authors acknowledged that body cameras can reduce the likelihood of agents using force and discourage frivolous complaints against them. Footage also could be used as evidence in criminal prosecutions.

Despite those and other benefits, the staff recommended only limited use.

http://www.policeone.com/officer-shootings/articles/39224006-US-border-agency-staff-rejects-body-cameras

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Texas

Texas agency reviews rules for psych evaluations of potential officers

The review comes after it was found a psychologist had not been meeting standards

by St. John Barned=Smith

HOUSTON —The state agency that licenses law enforcement officers is reviewing requirements surrounding the psychological testing of candidates after discovering that a Houston psychologist was approving mental health evaluations without meeting the potential employee in person, a violation of the group's standards.

The review comes after the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement raided the office of psychologist Carole Busick earlier this year, following an investigation into allegations that "statutorily required psychological exams were certified to have been conducted, when in fact they had not been completed or failed to meet professionally recognized standards," according to the agency.

"We are looking at the entire process from start to finish on psychological evaluations," said Gretchen Grigsby, director of government relations at the agency. The evaluations are given to potential dispatchers, jailers or peace officers.

Busick, who has since been placed on probation by the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists, had evaluated police officers for approximately 30 years, working with several Houston-area law enforcement agencies.

Lack Of Instructions

In August, a Harris County grand jury indicted Busick and her husband, Donald Busick, with three felony counts of tampering with a governmental record.

Michael Hinton, who is representing the couple, said Thursday that Busick had voluntarily stopped screening police officers and called TCOLE's actions "grossly unfair," explaining that his client never received written instructions to provide face-to-face screenings.

"It doesn't make a lot of sense for them to give her a set of rules she should be testing at the same time they've decided she is doing something wrong," he said. "She got the letter delivered at the same time they were executing the search warrant. It was a little late then."

Hinton said Busick would perform face-to-face screenings when specifically requested by a law enforcement agency or if someone failed the exam. She had performed them with the Harris County Sheriff's Office after that agency requested them in 2012, he said.

"She would have been glad to comply if she got them earlier, but she didn't," he said.

No In-person Meeting

A complaint against Busick is described in a search warrant affidavit first reported in the Texas Tribune.

In the affidavit, Jason Hufstetler, working undercover for TCOLE, wrote that he went to Busick's practice to investigate a complaint about the screening process.

He walked into Busick's office on West Main Street seeking a Licensee Psychological and Emotional Health Declaration, or L3.

The investigator was given a copy of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, a common personality testing tool, along with questionnaires and tests, according to the affidavit.

The materials were "well worn," and had "tick-marks" beside several of the answers, according to the affidavit.

Hufstetler completed the forms - some of which were so old they were difficult to read - and paid a $100 fee but was never asked for a valid ID, the investigator wrote.

Less than five minutes after submitting the forms, he was given an L3 form signed by Busick, even though he never met with her.

"I did not speak with Dr. Carole Busick at any time during my visit," Hufstetler wrote, in the affidavit.

The Harris County Sheriff's Office contracted with Busick exclusively since 2012, said Ryan Sullivan, an agency spokesman, adding that Busick had been paid almost $700,000 to perform evaluations on 1,888 of the department's approximately 4,000 employees.

Repeat Screenings

Grigbsy said TCOLE is encouraging local agencies to have anyone evaluated by Busick rescreened as a liability protection.

"Ultimately, the liability would fall on them, which is not good for them or public," she said.

"We want to make sure law enforcement officers who are charged with protecting the public are fully competent to do so," Grigsby said.

The commission had required face-to-face interviews since at least 2012, she said.

Philip Hilder, a Houston-based attorney, explained that the screening was meant to act as a safeguard, since officers work in a stressful profession.

"There's a possibility these tests could become relevant in a civil or criminal case's context," he said. "The likelihood is remote … but not impossible."

Margaret O'Brien-Molina, a Metro spokeswoman, said 81 Metro police officers had been screened by Busick, as well as three dispatchers.

After news of the TCOLE investigation, the department had decided to have all of the officers and dispatchers rescreened, she said.

The sheriff's office is also planning to have some peace officers reevaluated.

"We will surely respond with some revaluations; however, we have yet to determine the extent to which our employees will have to be re-examined," said Sullivan, the HCSO spokesman.

Illinois

Chicago police: Slain 9-year-old was targeted, lured into alley

by Sarah Kaplan

Tyshawn Lee's death was not an accident.

The fourth grader with soulful eyes and a basketball constantly in his arms was on his way to his grandmother's house when someone lured him into an alley on Chicago's South Side.

There a scuffle, maybe an argument, then a burst of gunfire and Tyshawn was shot in the head and back. When James Brown, who was walking nearby, came running over 30 seconds later, all he saw was the boy's small body lying in a pool of blood, the basketball he always carried lolled on the ground nearby.

“Wasn't no cars,” he told the Chicago Tribune. “Nobody around.”

Whoever the vanished gunman — or gunmen — were, they killed 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee intentionally on Monday afternoon, Chicago police say. In an incident Superintendent Garry McCarthy called “the most abhorrent, cowardly, unfathomable crime” of his 35 years in policing, the child was targeted because of his father's gang ties.

At a press conference Thursday, McCarthy said that Tyshawn's slaying was the latest in a series of gang-related killings stretching back to this August. Since May, killings in the city have escalated, the Chicago Tribune reported; the past three months in particular have been some of the deadliest on record.

But even in a city that has seen more homicides than sunrises this year, the 9-year-old's killing was its own kind of horror.

"This is a different level,” McCarthy said. “These are non-combatants now being assassinated.”

On Thursday, McCarthy said that police were “pretty certain” about the circumstances of Tyshawn's death, including the gangs involved, but he would not go into detail.

“We don't want those individuals to know what we know,” he told reporters.

Citing law enforcement sources, the Chicago Tribune reported that the conflict that has roiled the city since the summer involves two decades-old rival Chicago gangs: the Gangster Disciples and the Black P Stones. Members of each gang were shot and killed last month, as was the female companion of one gang member. Another member's mother was wounded.

Police believe that the 9-year-old's death stems from his father's involvement in this conflict, and that the father, 25-year-old Pierre Stokes, might know who shot the boy.

But when a reporter asked if Stokes was cooperating with the investigation, McCarthy responded with a curt, “No.”

“As a matter of fact, let me put it this way,” he continued, “We've tried to interview him at least twice. I can't even tell you what he said because you can't say it on TV, but he made it emphatically clear that he's not cooperating.”

Stokes disputed authorities' characterization of him. He told the Chicago Tribune that no one would have a motive to hurt him. And if they did, they wouldn't need to target his child — “I'm not hard to find,” Stokes said

The Tribune reported that Stokes is a member of a faction of the Gangster Disciples. Court records show that Stokes pleaded guilty to armed robbery in 2011 and spent several years in prison, according to the paper. Last summer, while on parole, he was charged with unlawful use of a weapon, a felony. Legal proceedings related to that charge are still underway, the Tribune reported, and Stokes has pleaded not guilty.

In interviews on Thursday, Stokes would not talk about whether he is a gang member, according to the Associated Press, but he voiced frustration that police have spent time questioning him rather than pursuing the people who shot his son.

“They're more worried about me. Why are you worried about me, not the killer?” Stokes told the Tribune. “I'm not the killer. Worry about the killer.”

Like many families in the neighborhood, the violence that has plagued the city weighed on Tyshawn's parents. They didn't even let Tyshawn, who lived with his mother, go trick-or-treating for Halloween this year. Instead, Stokes bought his son a bag of candy from the dollar store.

Stokes said he feels guilty that he wasn't at Tyshawn's side when the little boy was walking home from school on Monday.

“To be honest, I feel bad,” he told the Tribune. “I feel like it's my fault.”

According to CBS, 391 people have been killed in Chicago this year — an 18 percent increase from this time a year ago. Forty of the victims were children.

In October, 15-year-old Kiyon Evans died of gunshot wounds to the legs and torso, according to Homicide Watch Chicago, a project of the Chicago Sun-Times. In September, 14-year-old Tyjuan Poindexter was killed and another teenage boy injured in a drive-by shooting.

On July 4, during a bloody holiday weekend that saw 10 killed and 55 others wounded in gun violence, 7-year-old Amari Brown was struck and killed by a bullet intended for his father, according to Homicide Watch.

Still the intentional killing of a child, in public, in the middle of the afternoon represented an unheard-of new low to the violence.

“This wasn't a drive-by, this was not a spray of bullets,” said Rev. Michael Pfleger, an activist priest at St. Sabina Catholic Church in Tyshawn's neighborhood of Auburn-Gresham. Speaking at the press conference Thursday, his tone harsh, he said “A baby was executed. A baby was assassinated right behind us in this alley.”

Tyshawn was a fourth grader at Joplin Elementary, a small public school just blocks from the alley where he was killed. He loved basketball and video games, his mother said, and had an unusually weighty sense of responsibility for a 9-year-old child.

He would say, “Mom, when I get older I'm going to take care of you, I'm going to get you a new house,” Karla Lee recalled to the Chicago Tribune. “He was going to make me real proud of him. I believed every word my son said.”

Lee's partner and Tyshawn's stepfather, James Lee, remembered the boy as lively and mischievous. He used to light up every time Lee took him to get his haircut. You'd have to chase him up and down the alley to get him to do his homework. He was, his relatives all said, a good kid. Far too good for this.

Now the Lees, authorities and community activists are calling on neighbors to mete out some measure of justice for Tyshawn by helping track down his killers. Officials have offered a $35,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest, according to ABC. Two churches are also offering rewards for information.

“I just want justice for my son,” Lee told the news station. “Whoever knows anything, please let the police know. Please. He was only nine. He didn't deserve this.”

At the press conference Thursday, McCarthy acknowledged that many in the area might be afraid to step forward with information about the conflict that led to Tyshawn's shooting. If even children are targets, what's to prevent the gunmen from going after someone who helped with their arrest?

But, he said, law enforcement would help keep informants safe. And surely neighbors were as eager to see an end to this violence as he was: “Everybody's sick,” McCarthy said. “Everybody's disgusted.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/11/06/chicago-police-slain-9-year-old-was-targeted-lured-into-alley/

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4 are accused of having link to terrorism

Suspects allegedly gave money, aid to al-Qaeda

by Jennifer Feehan

Four men accused of providing financial support to global terrorist Anwar Al-Awlaki were indicted Thursday on multiple terrorism-related charges unsealed in U.S. District Court in Toledo.

“Tens of thousands of dollars can do a tremendous amount of damage in the wrong hands,” Steven M. Dettelbach, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, said by telephone Thursday. “Money really is the lifeblood of these terrorist organizations, and the people who give cash knowing that its going to be used to support terrorism have a real responsibility for what's going to happen with that money.”

Two of the suspects were arrested Thursday morning — one in Westerville, Ohio, and the other in Texas.

Read the federal indictment

Former Toledo resident Ibrahim Zubair Mohammad, 36, was arrested in Texas, where he is believed to be residing, on charges of conspiracy to provide and conceal material support and resources to terrorists, providing material support and resources to terrorists, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

Sultane Room Salim, 40, of Columbus was arrested in Westerville and transported to Toledo where he was arraigned in U.S. District Court.

Mr. Salim pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to provide and conceal material support and resources to terrorists, providing material support and resources to terrorists, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Magistrate Judge James Knepp ordered him held in the Lucas County jail and scheduled a pretrial hearing before District Judge Jack Zouhary Dec. 22.

The other two suspects — Mr. Mohammad's brother, Yahya Farooq Mohammad, 37, and Mr. Salim's brother, Asif Ahmed Salim, 35, both residents of the United Arab Emirates — are not in custody.

The 72-page indictment outlines an alleged conspiracy that began in 2005 and continued through January, 2012, in which the four men schemed to provide money, equipment, and other assistance to Al-Awlaki, a key leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula who was killed in Yemen in a U.S. drone strike Sept. 30, 2011.

Their support was allegedly intended to further the cause of violent jihad against the United States and U.S. military.

The largest dollar amount listed in the indictment was $22,000, which Yahya Farooq Mohammad and two unindicted co-conspirators delivered to an associate of Al-Awlaki in Yemen in July, 2009.

In a July 25, 2009, email sent after the trip, Ibrahim Mohammad asked his brother, “so ...?” to which Yahya Farooq Mohammad replied, “couldn't meet him, but delivered the goods to a relative.”

Mr. Dettelbach said FBI agents and federal prosecutors pursued their investigation into the alleged conspiracy for several years.

The message, he said, is, “If you're going to support terrorists like this, then we're going to persist at this for as long as it takes.”

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin said in a news release that the four defendants provided material support to Al-Awlaki “in response to his calls for violent jihad.”

“The National Security Division's highest priority is counterterrorism and we will continue to pursue justice against those who seek to provide material support to terrorists,” he said.

All four of the men have some ties to Ohio, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

Yahya Farooq Mohammad was an Indian citizen who studied engineering at Ohio State University from 2002 to 2004. He married a U.S. citizen in 2008, but has been a resident of the United Arab Emirates since 2004.

His brother, also an Indian citizen, studied engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign from 2001 to 2005. Ibrahim Mohammad moved to Toledo around 2006, married a U.S. citizen, and became a permanent resident of the United States around 2007, moving at some point to Texas.

Asif Salim, a U.S. citizen, was a student at OSU from 2000 to 2005. He moved to Overland Park, Kansas in 2007.

His brother, who also is a U.S. citizen, lived in the Chicago area from 2006 to 2013 and then moved to Columbus. In court Thursday, when Judge Knepp asked Sultane Salim about his education, he responded that he had a graduate degree.

Matthew Shepherd, an assistant U.S. attorney, told the court that two of the charges against Mr. Salim carry maximum possible sentences of 15 years in prison, while the third carries a possible 20-year sentence.

He asked the court to keep Mr. Salim behind bars.

“This is a case that has a statutory presumption for detention because of the nature of the charges,” he said, explaining that the first two counts were both crimes defined as “a federal crime of terrorism.”

http://www.toledoblade.com/Courts/2015/11/06/4-are-accused-of-having-link-to-terrorism.html

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Virginia

Community policing and trust forum held in Norfolk

by Liz Palka

NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Crime concerns and community policing in Norfolk were topics of discussion at a Wednesday night forum.

The forum was held at the Ruffner Academy at 6:30 p.m. and was hosted by Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated and the Norfolk Police Department.

One of the important topics addressed was community policing. Panelists and audience members discussed how police can encourage residents to get involved when it comes to preventing crime.

“It's going to take hard work by the community,” said Police Chief Mike Goldsmith. “It's going to take hard work by the police department.”

Goldsmith said in order to prevent and solve crime, he wants to bridge the gap between police and the community.

“The only thing I ask is that we come together, we trust one another,” said Goldsmith. “We learn who each other are, and we understand that we are all human beings in this together.”

The forum has been scheduled for a while, but it comes just days after a violent Halloween weekend in Norfolk. There were two homicides overnight on October 31. A 26-year-old man died after a shooting on E. Princess Anne Rd and Hemlock Street. Another man, 20, was shot and killed while at a house party at 35th Street and Killam Avenue that morning as well.

Joseph Bose was the man killed on Killam Street. He was a student at Hampton University. His cousin, Robert Williams, was one of the people who attended Wednesday's forum.

“Something has got to be done about these guns,” said Williams. “We have to get these guns off these streets.”

Williams encouraged people to call their representatives in Richmond and in Washington. He asked Goldsmith about gun buyback programs.

Goldsmith said his police department will be part of the solution to end violence in Norfolk.

“We are going to be committed to this,” said Goldsmith. “And we're going to pull the community together.”

He went on, “It's got to be a community based thing though. It can't be the police department driving it.”

Goldsmith added, he spent time speaking with the Bose family before a news conference on Tuesday.

“When you have to sit next to a mother, who is just angry at the world because she is talking about her dead child, that will change your mind about a lot of things,” said Goldsmith. “It is a tough thing to do. That family was in such pain. It's just senseless.”

Panelists at Wednsday's forum included:

Chief Mike Goldsmith – Norfolk Police Department
Joe Dillard – President, Norfolk Branch of the NAACP
Dr. Robert Perkins – Norfolk State University Sociology Chair
John Kownack – Executive Director, NRHA
The Honorable Lyn Simmons – Norfolk Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court

http://wavy.com/2015/11/04/community-policing-and-trust-forum-to-be-held-in-norfolk-tonight/

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Montana

Why veterans choose second career in law enforcement, public safety

by Andrea Fisher-Nitschke

The desire to be a part of something greater than yourself – it's a driving force, a common thread, among those who serve in the military. It's the same driving force that leads many former servicemen and women down a new, but familiar path toward a career in law enforcement or public safety after their full-time life in the military ends.

In honor of Veterans Day, the Great Falls Tribune asked a group of veterans now serving the Great Falls Police Department and Great Falls/Cascade County Dispatch how they answered the question, “What now?” when their military careers came to an end.

All of the participants shared the same traits important to them as they embarked on second professional chapters, traits present in the military such as duty, honor, commitment, service and structure.

“It becomes a part of them,” Master Police Officer Bill Brooks said of the military lifestyle, “after spending time working for the greater good.”

Brooks left full-time military service and joined the GFPD a little more than 20 years ago. He still dedicates part of his time to the U.S. Army Reserves as a staff sergeant.

Brooks started his service with the Air National Guard in California and later moved to Great Falls, where he was immediately drawn to the “safe, family-friendly” community.

“I wanted to keep it that way,” the officer said of his decision to become a police officer.

Camaraderie is another trait Brooks and the other participating officers attribute to both the military and the GFPD.

Brooks recalled returning from one of his overseas deployments to a group of fellow police officers welcoming him home at the airport. He said his co-workers also mowed his lawn for his wife sometimes while he was deployed.

“Somebody's got your back at all times,” Detective Sgt. Doug Otto said.

Otto traded his Security Forces gig at Malmstrom Air Force Base for part-time service with the Air National Guard where he's earned the rank of chief master sergeant while also climbing the ranks at the GFPD. He credits his training and leadership as a police officer and detective as driving forces behind his accomplishments as a guardsman.

Otto says his roles in the military and as a detective “tie together.” He values “looking at the big picture to keep people safe” and “the ability to serve the public” as missions of both organizations.

“We're all cut from a very similar cloth,” he added.

Great Falls/Cascade County Communications Manager Bill Hunter is cut from that cloth, and applies his military skills through his role running dispatch operations. Hunter served 20 years in the Air Force before applying the host of skills he learned on the flight line as an avionics maintenance technician to his first job managing a dispatch center in Tennessee.

Hunter was stationed in Thailand during the Vietnam War. He says his military experience taught him to focus on the mission at hand, no matter what. His ability to keep working during the most difficult conditions was put to the test during one tornado season in Tennessee.

He recalled his neighbor calling 911 to report Hunter's house was hit. Hunter took the call himself.

“I had to keep working,” he said. “Military folks aren't ones to panic in the face of adversity … we deal with our feelings later.”

Detective Adam Price also uses skills learned in the military to help him cope with difficult cases at the GFPD. Price served six years in the Air Force before applying for a position with the GFPD in 2008. A former Security Forces staff sergeant at Malmstrom, Price served on a security escort team and as a supervisor at a confinement facility before taking an opportunity with the GFPD.

Now, Price investigates child abuse and sexual assault cases within the Special Victims Unit.

“It takes extreme discipline and patience to investigate these sort of cases.”

Price credits his military training and experience with the development of those skills. Training and skills development are important focuses within the GFPD and the military. The officers listed multiple training schools they attended both in the military and after beginning their careers in civilian law enforcement.

Anne Duncan spent eight years in Security Forces for the Air Force. She says she wanted to continue working in law enforcement, but not as a police officer. Duncan is a Lab Technician for the GFPD, where she works with evidence both at the station and in the field.

“I received a lot of training through the military that I'm able to use in my job now,” Duncan said.

In her role, Duncan says she and the other officers share a common bond over sensitive cases, despite her “behind-the-scenes role.”

“The evidence you collect can greatly impact a case,” she explained. “It's the same fight, but a different part of it.”

The common experience bonds the veterans now working in public safety together.

“We have war stories to tell each other,” Brooks explained. “We usually make sure to mark Veterans Day for each other, too.”

From ICE

235 arrested in 4-state ICE operation targeting convicted criminals

SALT LAKE CITY — A six-day enforcement action ended Thursday by officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) targeting potentially deportable criminals – such as convicted child sex offenders – resulted in 235 arrests across four western states, including 111 in Utah.

Arrests were also made in the three other states within ICE Salt Lake City's area of responsibility, including Nevada (89), Idaho (34) and Montana (1).

All of the foreign nationals targeted by ICE ERO officers during last week's enforcement action had prior criminal convictions. Many had criminal histories that included convictions for serious or violent offenses, such as child sex crimes and assault.

Those arrested in Utah include foreign nationals from eight countries – Mexico (95); Guatemala (4); Honduras (4); El Salvador (2); Peru (2); Samoa (2); Brazil (1); and Tonga (1). Following are criminal summaries of six of those arrested during this operation:

•  A 31-year-old man from Mexico was arrested by ERO officers in West Valley City, Utah, Oct. 24. He had been convicted for attempted unlawful sexual conduct, a felony, for which he was sentenced to three years' probation. He remains in ICE custody and pending immigration removal proceedings.

•  A 58-year-old man from Guatemala was arrested in Salt Lake City Oct. 24. He had been convicted of assault-committed with unlawful force to cause bodily injury, a class B misdemeanor, for which he was sentenced to 180 days in jail. He was also convicted for sexual battery, a class A misdemeanor and was sentenced 345 days in jail. He remains in ICE custody and pending immigration removal proceedings.

•  A 52-year-old man from Mexico was arrested by ERO officers in Springville, Utah, Oct. 25. He had been convicted of continuous sexual abuse, a felony, and was sentenced to a term of 365 days in jail. He was also convicted of illegal re-entry of a previously deported alien. He remains in ICE custody pending his removal.

•  A 32-year-old man from Mexico was arrested by ERO officers in Ogden, Utah, Oct. 27. He had been convicted of attempted unlawful sex activity with a minor, a class A misdemeanor, and sentenced to 365 days in jail. He is a registered sex offender. He remains in ICE custody pending the outcome of his removal proceedings.

•  A 52-year-old man from Samoa was arrested by ERO officers in Salt Lake City Oct. 27. He had been convicted of sexual abusing a child, a second-degree felony, and was sentenced to 1 to 15 years in the Utah State Prison. He is a registered sex offender. He remains in ICE custody pending the outcome of his removal proceedings.

•  A 32-year-old man from Mexico was arrested by ERO officers in Salt Lake City Oct. 27. He has twice been convicted of sexually exploiting a minor, a second-degree felony, and was sentenced to a term of 1 to 15 years in the Utah State Prison. He is a registered sex offender. He remains in ICE custody pending the outcome of his removal proceedings.

ERO received substantial assistance during the enforcement action from special agents with ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

"ICE's immigration enforcement efforts are focused on apprehending and removing convicted criminals and individuals who pose a threat to public safety," said Daniel Bible, field office director for ERO Salt Lake City. "Owing to the tireless efforts and teamwork of ICE officers – aided by our federal, state and local partners – there are 111 fewer criminals on the streets of our communities in Utah."

Those arrested during last week's enforcement action are being processed administratively for removal from the United States. Those who have outstanding orders of removal, or who returned to the United States illegally after being deported, are subject to immediate removal from the country. The remaining individuals will remain ICE custody awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge, or pending travel arrangements for removal in the near future.

All of the targets in this operation met the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) two top immigration enforcement priorities as established in DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson's 2014 memorandum. Priority 1 targets include threats to national security, criminal street gang members, convicted felons, and aggravated felons. Priority 2 targets include convictions for three or more misdemeanors or convictions for significant misdemeanors, including DUIs.

Secretary Johnson has directed ICE to prioritize the use of enforcement personnel, detention space, and removal assets to support the Department's civil immigration enforcement priorities. ICE continues to work with local law enforcement partners to uphold public safety, while taking dangerous criminals out of our communities.

In fiscal 2014, ERO removed 315,943 individuals from the United States. In addition to convicted criminals, the agency's enforcement priorities include those apprehended while attempting to unlawfully enter the United States, illegal re-entrants – individuals who return to the U.S. after being previously removed by ICE – and immigration fugitives.

http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/235-arrested-4-state-ice-operation-targeting-convicted-criminals

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Rapid Response: GI Joe suicide scandal gives public "one more reason to hate us"

When one cop is found out to be dirty, it besmirches the badge for the 99.99% of officers out there doing the right thing, at the right time, for the right reasons

by Doug Wylie

What Happened: According to the Associated Press, Lieutenant Charles Joseph Gliniewicz of the Fox Lake (Ill.) Police Department staged an elaborate suicide made to look like a line of duty death. Lake County Major Crimes Task Force Commander George Filenko said that Gliniewicz had embezzled thousands of dollars from the department's Explorer program and “was under increasing levels of personal stress from scrutiny of his management of the Fox Lake Police Explorer program.” It's difficult to believe such a well-regarded officer and fixture of the community could have done such a thing, but the evidence is apparently rather damning.

In September, Gliniewicz — who was popularly known as “GI Joe” — had radioed in that he was in foot pursuit of three subjects. Communications were lost, and backup arrived to discover him dead from a gunshot wound. Gliniewicz's death set off a massive manhunt costing more than $300,000 in overtime and other expenses, according to an analysis by the Daily Herald newspaper. The search resulted in the arrest of three men who were quickly found to be uninvolved.

Throughout the investigation, Gliniewicz's family dismissed the suggestion of suicide. With Filenko's statement today, it would now appear that the family will be denied at least some of their pension benefits — adding another layer of tragedy and grief to a group of innocents who mourn the loss of a husband and a father.

Why it's Significant: Fox Lake PD no longer has a brother officer who committed many years of his life to serving the community. He was held up — and rightfully so — as a hero in Fox Lake and many surrounding towns during a funeral procession that spanned 18 miles. During the procession, the streets were clogged with police supporters holding signs that said “BLUE LIVES MATTER” and “THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE” “and “GI JOE IS MY HERO.”

That goodwill and community support gave us all good reason to be reminded that there are many good people out there who love, support, and respect law enforcement.

News that his death was an elaborate hoax is significant because it raises an issue which is uncomfortable for many in law enforcement — police corruption and the effects it has on public trust at a time when public trust is already incredibly low.

Top Takeaways: Gliniewicz died in the midst of a very tumultuous time for cops. News that he'd stolen from kids to pay for things like “gym memberships and adult websites” gives ammo to the people who declare — falsely — that all cops are somehow bad. When one cop is found out to be dirty, it besmirches the badge for the 99.99 percent of officers out there doing the right thing, at the right time, for the right reasons.

As one PoliceOne member stated in a comment on the news, “He gave the public one more reason to hate us.”

Cops sign up to serve, protect, and solve crimes. Cops almost universally agree that their department is better off when a criminally corrupt cop is ejected from the ranks. The problem is that taking action can sometimes be an incredibly difficult thing to do. For all practical purposes it can sometimes be a career killer — just ask Frank Serpico, who reported a widespread and well-established pattern of bribes and payoffs operating within his agency, the New York Police Department. He was lauded by the public but made a pariah within the ranks.

But that doesn't mean nothing should be done when you know a colleague has the potential to cause damage to the agency because of some manner of misconduct.

A little over a year ago, I wrote a column called ‘Do something about the corrupt cop on your PD' in which I wrote, “Standing up to a criminally corrupt colleague takes courage. But you're a police officer — you've got the courage of 100 ordinary people.”

I concede that doing so is far easier said than done, so let's consider some advice from PoliceOne Columnist Paul Cappitelli, who wrote the following in his excellent article, ‘3 keys to preventing problem officers in your ranks.'

1. Listen
It is paramount that leaders talk openly with first-line supervisors and middle managers about the importance of monitoring the conduct of the troops. Most leaders get so immersed in the daily regimen of keeping the politicos at bay that they lose sight of the fundamental importance of “keeping the home fires burning.” Much can be learned from the misgivings of others, so listen carefully to your first-line supervisors.

2. Look
Often times there are warning signs of bigger problems that are left unchecked because nobody was looking closely enough. Encourage open discussions about these potential problems in private staff settings and conduct administrative inquiries whenever necessary.

Don't allow the stellar performance of an officer to deter you from inquiry if it appears that something is amiss. Any information about possible misconduct must not be shrugged off or minimized.

3. Lead
Finally, develop a cadre of leaders who are eagles and sheepdogs. Leaders should hold supervisors and managers accountable to track the habits of every officer under their command. The great, hardworking men and women of the police profession are counting upon the leaders to recognize problems and take decisive action without delay.

What's Next: The topic of ‘bad apple' cops has always been relevant, but in this day and age of hyper-scrutiny of law enforcement, the negative effect one cop can have on an entire profession is amplified. We cannot give the anti-cop groups any fodder to perpetuate the lies they spew about police misconduct.

Silence despite the knowledge of corruption or criminal activity in your midst is tantamount to aiding and abetting. Such silence is complicit approval. Such silence is killing the trust of the ordinary, law-abiding citizens you've sworn to serve and protect.

http://www.policeone.com/officer-misconduct-internal-affairs/articles/37105006-Rapid-Response-GI-Joe-suicide-scandal-gives-public-one-more-reason-to-hate-us/

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New York

Documentary Aims Spotlight on Broken Juvenile Justice System

by Karen Savage

NEW YORK — She was 11 and in the sixth grade when she went to jail, eventually landing in solitary confinement. Nicole never imagined a petty fight at her Louisiana middle school would lead to years behind bars.

“They really made me feel like I was a bad person,” Nicole said softly. “They tried to treat me like I was a criminal for real.”

Nicole, who still has an easy smile, was one of several children in the Fusion documentary “Prison Kids: A Crime Against America's Children” screened Tuesday night at the City University of New York (CUNY).

With graphic images of a South Carolina school officer throwing a girl out of her desk and into a classroom wall fresh in their minds, the audience arrived wanting to know what they could do to end violence against children.

According to “Prison Kids,” nearly 60,000 children are incarcerated in the United States. The film follows a few of the many struggling to overcome a system many consider grossly unjust.

In the Jefferson Parish School district, where Nicole's story began, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) filed a civil rights complaint. According to the complaint, though black students made up 41 percent of the district's population in 2014, they accounted for 80 percent of its arrests.

Thena Robinson-Mock, civil rights attorney with the Advancement Project, a national civil rights organization, says in the film that race plays a huge factor. "Childhood innocence is not afforded to black students."

Judge Elijah Williams, a juvenile judge in Florida, comments in the film, “Our legal system was designed by people who are white, wealthy and highly educated. So my challenge every day as a judge is to make this system work for people who are of color, who are not as educated and who are not as wealthy.” Williams, who is black, see himself reflected in those who pass through his courtroom.

The documentary also spotlights an Ohio youth: Allen was sent to prison at 15 and suddenly found himself a situation similar to Nicole's. One year he spent a whopping 313 days in solitary confinement. “I used to pace a lot, pace back and forth, just looking back and forth, pacing,” he said.

While incarcerated, Allen was diagnosed with a mood disorder and ADHD. Like most in his facility, he was put on strong medication to keep him calm and thrown back in solitary.

“Instead of understanding what was going on with these kids, they were punished, they were put in solitary confinement,” says Dr. Stuart Grassian, a psychiatrist and expert on the effects of solitary confinement.

“Once a prisoner gets into solitary confinement, usually because of impulsive and emotionally volatile-type behavior, they get worse,” Grassian says in the film.

A panel discussion after the screening focused on ways to change policies and get kids the treatment they need. Speakers included “Prison Kids” director Alissa Figueroa; associate producer and CUNY Journalism School alumna Alcione Gonzalez, and Daryl Khan, CUNY adjunct professor and New York bureau chief for the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange. The panel was moderated by Yoruba Richen, Tow professor and director of the CUNY Journalism School's documentary program.

Figueroa said lawsuits are often what it takes to make change, citing Ohio as an example. After multiple lawsuits, she said, incarceration rates there have dropped dramatically and more than half of the kid prisons are closed.

“It's never been legislators deciding on their own to change something, it's always been groups suing or threatening a lawsuit,” said Figueroa.

Khan agreed, saying journalism like “Prison Kids” is also part of the solution.

“This shows you the power of journalism to do good,” he said of the film. “The reason these lawsuits happen and not legislation is because people don't give a ---- and the reason people don't ... is because they don't know. And so you have these obscure lawyers doing all of this heavy lifting instead of us.”

Panelists all said the system urgently needs to change, something Nicole's mother emphasized in the movie.

“Help these children while they have a chance,” she said, “While they're still young and there's still a chance for them.”

Click here to watch “Prison Kids: A Crime Against America's Children.”

http://jjie.org/documentary-aims-spotlight-on-broken-juvenile-justice-system/148299/

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Illinois

Opinion

Cops in Schools Need Special Training About Children and Trauma

by Judge George Timberlake, Ret.

The headlines and sound bites described behavior gone wrong — a teenager in a South Carolina classroom refusing to put away her cellphone and a police officer using physical force to respond to a nonthreatening situation. He arrested her for disturbing the classroom after upending her desk and dragging her across the classroom.

The viral video of the event creates disturbing questions about cops in schools. Less media attention was paid to the student demonstration that followed — 100 students walked out of the high school in protest of the firing of the sheriff's deputy. The principal addressed the student demonstrators and acknowledged their feelings and viewpoints and then asked them to return to class with the reminder that “Spring Valley High is all about the business of teaching and learning.”

Unfortunately, this intersection between the frustration with teenage behavior and forcible police conduct is repeated throughout the United States. In September 2014, three Houston officers forcibly detained a teenage girl who refused to give up her cellphone in class. The video shows them taking her to the floor, with one officer kneeling on her head and another kneeling on her legs, while the third cuffs her. Even more shocking are the allegations in an ACLU suit against the Kenton County (Kentucky) Sheriff's Office in another September 2014 incident. The suit alleges that an 8-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl were handcuffed because of a school disturbance. The question is why?

School Resource Officers (SROs) were placed in schools during the 1990s as one of the responses to the perceived increase in school violence and as part of the evergreen war on drugs. Government grants were and still often are used to fund the salaries of SROs. When these funds run out, schools and municipal police departments negotiate the costs, often without considering the talents of the officers or the effects of their services.

Through this funding, schools found a way to outsource discipline and create more time for teaching and learning, but effective use of the resource requires much more than handing over the keys to the school. Community policing strategies support the informed use of police relationships in schools. When done right, officers perform good service to children and educational institutions alike.

How do we explain the kind of police behavior described above? I have no definitive answers, but I think there are areas to explore.

First is staff selection. Some officers are assigned to schools because they don't fit into traditional police roles. The public has little ability to judge this police management responsibility because much of their information comes from TV and movie dramas instead of real world knowledge or experience.

Second, all law enforcement officers operate outside the view and presence of their supervisors. For SROs, it may take active participation by parents or advocates to call attention to problem officers. In fact, I heard a very senior commander in a very large city ask “What is an SRO?” when asked about school policing during a recent public seminar. If management doesn't know the role of a police officer in a school, it is difficult to know how that officer is performing.

Finally, we need to understand the training for new and continuing SROs. All cops need and receive training for personal safety, firearms, restraints and crowd control. Cops in schools need more than that: adolescent brain development, mental health conditions in children, the effects of trauma on behavior and much more. Fundamentally, SROs need to learn de-escalation techniques, crisis intervention and how to use their most effective tool — talking.

What can be done to improve or lessen the use of police in schools? State advisory groups can and should collaborate with law enforcement trainings and conferences to utilize the tremendous wealth of science, knowledge and experience around youth in the justice system. Law enforcement must be invited to educational forums and community conversations. Advocates for reform must carry current knowledge to schools and stationhouses. State advisory groups on juvenile justice can advocate against outsourcing school discipline and for data-driven approaches like Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports.

I know conscientious, well-trained school officers who are key players in ending the school-to-prison pipeline, who practice restorative justice approaches to school conflict and who are leaders in decriminalizing adolescent behavior. SROs can be part of keeping all kids safer. We have to make sure they are doing that job with the right selection, temperament, training and supervision wherever there are cops in schools.

Judge George W. Timberlake, Ret., is chair of the Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission, and an alternate member of Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice. He was a trial court judge for 23 years before retiring as chief judge of Illinois' 2nd Circuit. He is a member of the Illinois Models for Change Coordinating Council, the Illinois Juvenile Justice Leadership Council, the Redeploy Illinois Oversight Board and the board of the state Juvenile Justice Initiative.

Community policing is not the solution to police brutality. It makes it worse.

Politicians from President Obama to Chris Christie have been touting community policing. But it's a distraction from the real problem.

by Terrell Jermaine Starr

The recent string of disturbing videos and angry protests exposing police brutality against black Americans have put an unprecedented level of pressure on politicians to deliver solutions. Black Lives Matter activists have urgently demanded concrete policies from leaders both inside the Beltway and on the campaign trail. But the most consistent political response to the excessive force that killed Eric Garner, Rekia Boyd, Walter Scott and many others has been decidedly gentle: community policing.

Community policing is a feel-good term, one so broad and nebulous that it seems difficult to oppose. While speaking at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference last week, President Obama touted it as the solution to crime in Chicago and Camden, N.J. Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told the Urban League in July that police brutality is unacceptable and offered community policing as the first solution to dealing with it. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been a vocal proponent of community policing for decades, promoting it in her 1996 book “It Takes a Village.”

The Department of Justice defines community policing as a strategy for building trust between police and the community through cooperative efforts of law enforcement and local leaders, nonprofits, businesses and other entities. Various tactics, from body cameras to data sharing, all have been mentioned as aspects of community policing. None of those are bad practices.

But at its foundation, community policing demands more police on the streets. Obama said as much in his IACPC speech last week, and Clinton has professed that community policing needs “more officers on the streets to get to know those communities

But at its foundation, community policing demands more police on the streets. Obama said as much in his IACPC speech last week, and Clinton has professed that community policing needs “more officers on the streets to get to know those communities.” But in communities like mine, the predominately black Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, putting more officers on patrol doesn't lessen the chance of police brutality — it worsens it. As long as police know their badges empower them to operate with near-impunity, we don't need more encounters with them; we need fewer.

This lack of law enforcement accountability is at the root of police brutality, and community policing doesn't address it. It doesn't assure me that a cop will be punished if he chokes my neighbor to death on the street corner during an arrest. NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo, whose chokehold caused Eric Garner's death during his arrest for allegedly selling loose cigarettes in July, wasn't indicted and is still working as a cop. Given that, New York City's announcement that it will hire 1,300 more cops to patrol neighborhoods like mine under the guise of community policing doesn't bring me comfort; it makes me feel like my neighborhood is being occupied.

As Eugene O'Donnell, a former NYPD officer and professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told NPR earlier this year, popular notions of community policing often misrepresent what policing is. Elected officials suggest that law enforcement can be done in a “happy way,” when, in fact, it's adversarial by nature. “The simplistic notion that the cops just have to be nice to people is silly, and that's a lot of the conversation,” he said.

Lance Eldridge, a police officer in Craig, Colo., emphasized this idea in a 2010 essay for PoliceOne.com, noting that community policing “may be unintentionally fostering the very police state the philosophy was meant to discourage.” The practice puts police officers in positions where they aren't needed, he wrote, heightening tension in situations that could be resolved civilly:

Having armed law enforcement officers encouraged by community policing, or directed by policy and practice, to mediate civil disputes, family issues, and social contracts may make officers appear more accessible to the public, but it also creates a slippery slope that places officers, and therefore their authority and integrity, in between and among citizens who otherwise may not request or appreciate their presence.

There's no pleasure in seeing a cop in my community, gun and badge in tow, who has full power to control the dynamic of our interaction. Moreover, my cozy relationship with a beat officer wouldn't prevent a cop like Eric Casebolt from throwing a 15-year-old girl to the ground after a neighborhood pool party. And even though Ben Fields was fired as a school resource officer last week after he was captured on cell phone video throwing a high school student out of her desk, another law enforcement agency could give him a badge.

As sincere as the philosophy of community policing might be, it's not the solution to police brutality. The bad relationship between police and residents is not the cause of excessive force, it's the result. The real cause is the fact that police officers are rarely, if ever, charged in connection to the people they kill. A Washington Post investigation found that only 54 officers had been charged in the thousands of fatal police shootings over the past decade. With those odds against police accountability, why would any marginalized community feel comfortable with more police patrolling their streets?

Obama is quick to say that African Americans aren't making up stories about the abuse they endure during encounters with law enforcement. Still, neither he nor any of the candidates running for the White House has articulated a policy that assures those wayward cops will never work for another law enforcement agency again.

That's what their calls for community policing fail to grasp: holding cops accountable.

Like any other law-abiding citizen, I want to walk around my neighborhood any time of the day and feel safe. But until I believe those officers who are sworn to protect me will be convicted for violating my civil rights, I would rather not see even more of them occupying my neighborhood under the guise of community policing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/03/community-policing-is-not-the-solution-to-police-brutality-it-makes-it-worse/

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Illinois

Does community policing work?

by Sam Rappaport

The Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) has long been touted by law enforcement and elected officials as an effective means of addressing the discord between police officers and minority communities. However, The Black Youth Project 100 (BYP 100), a social justice organization located in Hyde Park (5733 S. University Ave.), has recently partnered with other non-profits in releasing a report that rebukes the notion that CAPS has been anything but destructive to Chicago's most vulnerable communities.

In a Sept. 21 Kenwood community meeting meant to address a spike in neighborhood violence, 2nd District Community Policing Sergeant Monica Davis reprimanded community residents for not attending area CAPS meetings. For Davis, a strong community presence at these meetings would mean a smoother relationship with the neighborhood and allow for more effective ways of identifying and acting on criminal behavior.

“We need you all to attend your local beat meetings,” Davis said. “You're missing out on so much information.”

However, in the “Counter-CAPS Report: The Community Engagement Arm of the Police State,” released Oct. 28 by multiple organizations at a City Hall press conference, participating activists claim that the Chicago Police Department (CPD) has much more to gain through CAPS meetings than do community members. The report argues that instead of providing communities with meaningful control over the police, CAPS meetings employ a self-selecting group of neighborhood residents, who are frequently gentrifiers, to work with police to deflect criticism and build local support for tactics that unnecessarily criminalize young people of color.

“Despite its more palatable label,” the report states, “Chicago's ‘community policing' program is used to provide political cover for aggressive enforcement of so-called ‘quality of life' crimes‚ and even for the physical displacement of people of color from gentrifying neighborhoods.”

The report furthers that, contrary to its intention, CAPS has contributed to minority distrust of police. An alternative solution, the report states, would be the redistribution of resources from the CPD and programs like CAPS to social service organizations in underserved communities.

JeNae' Taylor, a member of BYP 100, said that community policing programs such as CAPS are unable to quell the city's violence because they don't address its root causes.

“Why are people shooting?” asked Taylor. “It's because their needs are not being met. Let's think about how this started. If we put more police outside, what will that actually do? Will it help meet the needs of all the members of your community? We need to build structures to continue to meet those needs.”

Miriame Kaba, a member of We Charge Genocide-the organization that spearheaded the Counter-Caps Report, said that the demographics of CAPS meeting attendees says a lot about who the program is meant to serve.

“You become a reporter for the cops,” Kaba said. “I don't think it's accidental that so few people show up. I think that the people who show up are mostly homeowners, mostly property owners, mostly white and very much afraid.” Kaba continued. “CAPS meetings are nefarious in gentrifying communities. They work as a push-out mechanism. When you think of community policing, it's a misnomer, they've empowered a new arm of the community to be the gatekeeper of the community.”

A CPD CAPS coordinator was not able to be reached for comment on the recently released report.

The Counter-CAPS Report comes shortly after President Barack Obama urged a renewed dedication to community policing at the International Association of Chiefs of Police here in Chicago. At the convention, Obama did make one statement, however, that seemed to voice support for the underlying beliefs guiding the activists who've compiled the Counter-CAPS report.

“If we're serious about protecting our communities and supporting our police departments,” Obama said, “then let's invest in more opportunity, and let's try to stop more crime before it starts. Let's go after the racial disparities at the root.”

To view the full Counter-CAPS Report, visit wechargegenocide.org.

http://hpherald.com/2015/11/04/does-community-policing-work/

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South Carolina

Reduce Crime or Send It Elsewhere? The Debate Over 'Public Safety Zones'

by Gwendolyn Glenn

Crime is a fact of life and so is the reality that some neighborhoods will have more of it than others. But that doesn't mean residents in high-crime areas are complacent. In Charlotte, many are pushing city officials to aggressively tackle crime in their communities. One idea that's gotten a lot of attention calls for designated zones in high-crime areas that would ban people from those communities when they commit a crime there.

District 2 Councilman Al Austin is the main force behind the effort to establish public safety or exclusionary zones in crime-riddled areas. His district includes the Beatties Ford Road corridor, which police describe as a high-crime area.

On this particular day, at the busy intersection of Beatties Ford Road and LaSalle Street, a young man in an oversized coat and baggy pants walked by the nearby glass-enclosed bus stop numerous times. Finally, another young man, similarly dressed, approached him. They sat down and with heads almost touching; they talked briefly, shook hands and walked away. It was obviously a drug deal. Doug Jones works in an office building directly behind the bus stop.

“A lot of youth hang out during the day, sitting at the bus stop,” Jones said. “I don't know what they're doing, but it doesn't take hours to wait for a bus.”

Councilman Austin grew up in this neighborhood and agreed that the heavily used bus stop and nearby area have become a haven for criminal activity.

“The epicenter of things that happen are kind of here at Taylor and LaSalle. We have some drug sales and when you have drug sales that opens it up to other types of crime. We've had a shooting or two in the area,” Austin said.

As of mid-October, there were 11 homicides reported, 26 rapes and 308 auto thefts in Austin's District 2. Drug offenses were cut almost in half from last year but at 535 arrests, it's still high.

Citywide, crime increased by 10 percent this year, violent crimes are up by nearly 18 percent and Councilman Austin is getting fed up. He sits on the council's safety committee and asked city officials to see how and if public safety or exclusionary zones would work in Charlotte.

It is still in the vetting stage, but city officials are considering establishing zones in areas that are experiencing an increase in crimes. A person convicted of a drug offense, shooting incident, prostitution or other type of serious crime in a designated zone would be notified that they are banned from that area for a set period of time. A violation would likely be a misdemeanor. Austin likes the concept.

“We have found our police officers may arrest someone but that person comes back and my neighbors, my senior citizens, they say we don't feel safe, we're feeling like our constitutional rights are being violated because we can't come out of our homes and that bothers me,” Austin said.

He worries about stigmatizing communities in his district, where there are also many homeowners, large churches and Johnson C. Smith University. But that concern wasn't voiced during a “take back our neighborhood” march in his district last month. Many of his constituents, like Larry Littlejohn and Ann Hood, spoke out in favor of the zones.

“We need to start someplace and if it's put in place, we can evaluate it, see how it works and tweak it and if it works for the community, I'm for it,” Littlejohn said.

We have so much crime here and so we can begin a process to eradicate some of these problems,” said Ann Hood. “I've lived here over 50 years and I don't want to see it go down.”

The city established prostitution-free zones a decade ago for three years in the Wilkenson Boulevard area. CMPD attorney Mark Newbold, who is looking into the legality of public safety zones, says prostitution arrests simply increased a mile outside of the zones—also the concern about public safety zones. Will they just push crime to another area?

“Displacement alone will not say the initiative is wrong, but one of the things currently being considered is if activity spikes up a mile outside the zone, we could either extend the zone or move the zone to that area for a period of time,” asid Newbold.

Portland, Oregon had these zones in place for about 15 years. They were done away with in 2007 out of concern that they stigmatized communities and were enforced unfairly. Newbold says they are still looking at Portland's program and vetting similar initiatives in other cities.

“The type of ordinances we've reviewed have variances that for example if you have a family in the zone and I've been banned under the proposals we're discussing, there would be a variance that says someone could visit a family member in the zone to obtain social services, church service,” Newbold said.

But Council member Claire Fallon, who chairs the council's Community Safety Committee said she doubts those zones will ever be approved.

“I think we will not do it to begin with because we're very aware that people have rights and civil rights,” Fallon said. “We are not going to do profiling; we are not going to stigmatize the neighborhood. We have to be cognizant of civil rights to walk in a neighborhood.”

There are several constitutional concerns to be considered, says Charlotte School of Law professor Jason Huber—the biggest being the 14th amendment.

“The 14th amendment provides several protections, due process of law, equal protection and fundamental rights, the right to hang out with family and friends,” Huber said. “Any ordinance will have to be narrowly tailored to consider all of those rights.”

Huber also cautioned that the zones could also be selectively enforced against the poor and people of color. Newbold admitted that crafting the ordinance is challenging.

“The difficulty is the need for a public safety zone and the need to exclude people from an area is outweighed by some of those constitutional protections,” Newbold said.

As the pros and cons of the public safety zones are debated, Councilman Austin is moving ahead with other crime-fighting initiatives, such as getting the city to place bright LED lights around the troublesome bus stop, cut down a large tree that provided cover for criminal activity there and assigning police officers to walking beats. CMPD Officer B.E. Walsh and his partner began walking the streets in the Beatties Ford Road corridor last month.

“I love being out here talking to people,” Walsh said. “There are so many good people who live here and they're just afraid. That's why we're out here now to make them less afraid. They're going to see us more often.”

Councilman Austin likes the sound of that but it's not enough. He wants public safety zones here and in other parts of the city. He pointed to The Plaza near Milton Road where two men were shot and killed last month, as an example of where the zones are needed.

“We can't continue to go down this road,” a frustrated Austin said. “We're almost like becoming, immune to the fact that these things are happening, so if not this (public safety zones), then what?

The council's Community Safety Committee will discuss public safety zones later this month and that committee will decide whether to send it to the full council.

http://wfae.org/post/reduce-crime-or-send-it-elsewhere-debate-over-public-safety-zones

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California

LA police to beef up data on officers' use of force

The new data will include demographics of people on whom officers use force

by Amanda Lee Myers

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck says the department will collect and report more comprehensive data about cases in which officers use force.

Beck announced the move Tuesday at a meeting of the Los Angeles Police Commission, a civilian oversight panel.

Beck says the new data will include demographics of people on whom officers use force, arrest demographics, and the types of calls involving force.

Beck says it's "painfully obvious" why the department wants to track the data, pointing to the national conversation surrounding the use of force by law enforcement.

Beck says he expects that conversation to be part of the American fabric "for quite some time" and that he thinks the new data will help the public make a better assessment of how the department handles such cases.

Broken system lets problem officers jump from job to job

by NOMAAN MERCHANT and MATT SEDENSKY

Law enforcement officers accused of sexual misconduct have jumped from job to job — and at times faced fresh allegations that include raping women — because of a tattered network of laws and lax screening that allowed them to stay on the beat.

A yearlong Associated Press investigation into sex abuse by cops, jail guards, deputies and other state law enforcement officials uncovered a broken system for policing bad officers, with significant flaws in how agencies deal with those suspected of sexual misconduct and glaring warning signs that go unreported or get overlooked.

The AP examination found about 1,000 officers in six years who lost their licenses because of sex crimes that included rape, or sexual misconduct ranging from propositioning citizens to consensual but prohibited on-duty intercourse. That number fails to reflect the breadth of the problem, however, because it measures only officers who faced an official process called decertification and not all states have such a system or provided records.

In states that do revoke law enforcement licenses, the process can take years, enabling problem officers to find other jobs. And while there is a national index of decertified officers, contributing to it is voluntary and experts say the database, which is not open to the public, is missing thousands of names.

Some officers are permitted to quietly resign and never even face decertification. Others are able to keep working because departments may not be required to report all misdeeds to a state police standards commission, or they neglect to. Agencies also may not check references when hiring, or fail to share past problems with new employers.

In 2010, a woman sued the Grand Junction Police Department in Colorado, insisting the department erred in hiring officer Glenn Coyne and then failed to supervise him. Coyne was fired, and killed himself days after he was arrested on suspicion of raping the woman in September 2009.

That was sexual assault accusation No. 3, court records show.

While Coyne was still with the Mesa County Sheriff's Office, another woman accused him of subjecting her to a strip search and groping her. The complaint came after Grand Junction had completed its background check, and Mesa County officials — who declined comment — did not investigate or inform Coyne's new employer, according to court records.

Grand Junction police were aware of one other complaint against Coyne, however: The agency had put him on probation and cut his pay after a woman accused him of sexual assault in December 2008. The district attorney's office declined to prosecute, but Coyne was still on probation when the third accusation was lodged, working under a new supervisor unaware of why he was punished.

A federal judge considering the civil lawsuit found no deliberate indifference by police in employing Coyne. An appeals court upheld the ruling but noted the "handling of Officer Coyne could and should have been better."

Grand Junction Police Chief John Camper said a subsequent evaluation of hiring procedures found them to be sound, but added that "it's safe to say that we're more thorough than ever." Prospective officers must sign a form allowing the department to review previous personnel records, and it's considered a red flag if employers don't respond.

"If an agency won't speak with us, or seems reticent to supply details, we'll either dig further into other sources or we just won't consider the applicant any further," Camper said.

Problems at multiple police agencies didn't keep Charles Hoeffer from finding work in Florida, a review of about 1,000 pages of his personnel files found.

Hoeffer has been on paid leave from the Palm Beach Shores Police Department for nearly 20 months while investigators examine a woman's allegations that he twice raped her in 2014. Palm Beach Shores is Hoeffer's third police job, despite complaints dating back more than two decades.

He resigned from his first job with the Delray Beach Police amid a probe into whether he struck his wife with a boot, fracturing her nose, and then lied about it to investigators. Before that investigation was complete, Hoeffer was hired in 1991 by the Riviera Beach Police and left blank a job application question asking if he'd ever been the subject of a police probe. Delray Beach ultimately sustained the accusations against Hoeffer, though no criminal charges were filed, and in 1993 the state police standards agency temporarily suspended Hoeffer's license for assault.

In 1995, Riviera Beach fired Hoeffer after a woman accused him of raping her in a hotel room. An investigation did not lead to any criminal charges, and his termination was reversed by an arbitrator, who found Hoeffer exercised poor judgment by being in the intoxicated woman's room but had not broken department rules. During arbitration, Riviera Beach said Hoeffer had been the subject of several other internal affairs investigations related to women — accusations ranged from harassment to improper touching during an arrest; the charges were never substantiated.

In 2008, Hoeffer moved on to the Palm Beach Shores department. Allegations followed there, too: A woman claimed he made suggestive comments to her during a domestic dispute call, two female dispatchers accused him of sexual harassment, and another woman who went on a date with Hoeffer said he groped her. Once again, no charges. Then came the current rape investigation.

Hoeffer did not return calls from the AP but, under police questioning, he has denied wrongdoing. His attorney, Gary Lippman, said it's not uncommon for officers to have complaints in their files but that no compelling evidence has emerged and the women's claims are rife with contradictions.

Resigning or being fired does not mean an officer loses the ability to work in law enforcement.

Police standards agencies in 44 states can revoke the licenses of problem officers, which should prevent a bad cop from moving on to police work elsewhere. But the process is flawed, said Roger Goldman, a professor emeritus at Saint Louis University School of Law who has studied decertification for three decades.

Six states, including New York and California, have no decertification authority over officers who commit misconduct. And in states with decertification powers, virtually every police standards agency relies on local departments to investigate and report misconduct, with reporting requirements varying, Goldman said. About 20 states decertify an officer only after a criminal conviction.

Consider the variations between Pennsylvania and Florida. In Pennsylvania, the state agency responsible for police certification reported just 20 revocations from 2009 through 2014, none for sex-related crimes or misconduct. Florida decertified 2,125 officers in those six years, some 162 for sex-related misconduct.

The difference: Florida is automatically notified when an officer is arrested and requires local departments to report any time an officer is found to have committed misconduct involving "moral character." Pennsylvania relies on law enforcement agencies to report when an officer has committed a crime or misconduct.

Records provided to the AP from 2009 through 2014 did not include any decertification for former Pittsburgh police officer Adam Skweres, who pleaded guilty in 2013 to extorting sexual favors from five women and is serving up to eight years in prison. Allegations against Skweres dated to 2008, yet he remained on the job until a victim complained to the FBI; he was arrested in 2012.

Another concern is the length of the decertification process.

In Texas, Michael John Nelson was accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old neighbor while working for the Hardeman County Sheriff's Office. The local district attorney told the AP he did not prosecute in exchange for Nelson relinquishing his law enforcement license, an agreement reached with the victim and her family. Yet by the time his decertification was final in 2011 — a year after he left the sheriff's office — Nelson had already worked briefly as a reserve deputy in the town of Bayou Vista.

Nelson said he told his new boss when he learned he was under investigation and turned in his badge once charges were filed.

Paul Odin, who was not familiar with the case but replaced the Bayou Vista police chief who hired Nelson, said background checks often are limited by a department's size and budget, and that "a lot of agencies, a lot of cities — to avoid lawsuits — won't disclose anything negative."

A National Decertification Index contains the names of nearly 20,000 officers who have lost their licenses for problems that include sex abuse. But contributing is voluntary, and only 39 states do so.

Former Georgia State Patrol officer Terry Payne wouldn't be found in the index, because Georgia doesn't contribute. That state had more than 2,000 decertifications in six years, and officials said it would be too labor-intensive. Payne was fired in 2008 — and lost his license two years later — for having sex on duty with a subordinate, the daughter of a fellow officer, according to his decertification records. He nevertheless landed three new police jobs in Arkansas; he was certified there before his Georgia license was stripped.

Perry County, Arkansas, Sheriff Scott Montgomery told the AP he did not know Payne had been decertified in Georgia before hiring him in 2011. He said he asked the Georgia State Patrol why Payne was fired but was told only that he wasn't eligible for re-hire. Montgomery ultimately fired Payne for failing to follow an order to stop associating with a woman separated from her husband after the husband complained.

The AP sent written questions to an address associated with Payne but did not receive any response; several listed phone numbers did not work. Payne's certification to work in Arkansas law enforcement was scheduled to lapse in late October, at which point he would have to request a reinstatement. The state police standards agency said he is not currently employed as an officer.

•  There have been calls since 1996 to require states to log the names of decertified officers into a national database. As recently as May, a White House task force on policing — formed after police shootings in Ferguson, Missouri, and elsewhere — recommended that the U.S. Justice Department partner with the group that maintains the index to expand it to all states.

•  Beyond its voluntary nature, the index also contains only limited information: an officer's name, agency, date of decertification and a basic reason for the license revocation.

•  Goldman, the decertification expert, said he believes every state should license and ban officers the same as they do other professionals, such as doctors and teachers. He supports the creation of a mandatory databank to track problem officers, similar to the congressionally mandated National Practitioner Data Bank for health care professionals.

But Matthew Hickman, a Seattle University professor and expert on law enforcement decertification, predicts a federal mandate would fail because of the country's "long history of local control" of law enforcement. The fix, he said, must come at the local and state level.

Even then, union resistance can cause roadblocks.

In California, union pressure led the Legislature to approve a bill in 2003 that diminished the power of that state's police standards agency, Goldman said. The agency can issue licenses but, unless the license was obtained by fraud, it cannot be revoked. Officials in California said they require local law enforcement agencies to report any time an officer is convicted of a felony crime so they can note that in an officer's file and potentially disqualify him or her from future police work. But they do not track such convictions or how often they disqualify officers.

Police union officials in California and nationally questioned whether decertification is necessary when departments can fire officers and prosecutors can pursue criminal charges. Ultimately, they said, policing the corps is the job of a chief.

"You've got to start at the beginning," said Jim Pasco, director of the Fraternal Order of Police. "Did the process fail when they hired these people? ... And that's a problem that shoots through a whole myriad of issues, not just sexual crimes."

Michael Ragusa — now serving a 10-year prison sentence after being convicted of sexually assaulting three women — admitted during the hiring process with the Miami Police Department that he'd solicited a prostitute, committed theft, sold stolen property and abused a relative. He also was flagged by a psychologist as having impulse control issues.

Still, Ragusa was hired, and he remained on the force for more than three years. Officials later said that the investigator in charge of his background check had himself been disciplined 26 times and was once arrested for falsifying documents.

Changes have resulted from the Ragusa case, according to Miami Police Major Delrish Moss. Psychological assessments of prospective officers have been revised and applications are reviewed more carefully and go through at least five levels of officials, rather than just two.

Barbara Heyer, an attorney who represented one of Ragusa's victims, said departments big and small have no excuse for not weeding out bad hires, considering today's technology.

"To say they don't have the wherewithal ... given the Internet and everything else, that's just a crock," she said.

Heyer said that the victim she represented left the country, unable to escape the terror instilled by the rape. Ragusa had threatened the woman's child, Heyer said, and "she was always fearful he would get out and come look for her."

"She just couldn't get past the fact that this was a police officer."

http://fremonttribune.com/news/national/ap-broken-system-lets-problem-officers-jump-from-job-to/article_8cdff11d-fc54-5ec0-943a-e0ffa5016be3.html

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Illinois

Uptick In Shootings 'Unacceptable,' But Community Policing Paying Off: Rahm

by Joe Ward

BRONZEVILLE — Mayor Rahm Emanuel spent Sunday morning running the Englewood 5K race with two Chicago Police officers assigned to bicycle patrol.

The officers had told Emanuel how much they enjoyed the bike patrol, which Emanuel said has allowed them to be "more open and accessible" to residents of the neighborhood, the mayor said at Chicago Police headquarters Monday.

"They enjoy it more in their ability to interact with the community," Emanuel said.

Bike patrols just one aspect of Emanuel's and the police department's "community policing" initiatives, in which police work with community members to reduce crime and improve community conditions so violence becomes less acceptable.

Emanuel talked up the effort at the quarterly meeting of the Mayor's Commission For A Safer Chicago at police headquarters Monday. He called for all community stakeholders — police, public officials, educators and religious leaders — to join in on the effort to make communities safer.

"It's our job to make sure every kid has a sense of hope," he said.

The city has already expanded bike patrols in an effort to better police-community relations, but that's not the only effort being done along that front, Emanuel said Monday.

City and police officials announced a new police recruiting push Monday as the city gears up to offer its first police application test since 2013. Recruitment will target minority residents as the city hopes to diversify its ranks, officials said.

Police officials will spend the next few months visiting churches, schools and other neighborhood forums on the South and West sides to meet with residents interested in becoming cops.

A more diverse police force will aid the city's community policing effort because it will be beneficial to have officers from the communities they are policing, Emanuel said.

"We don't want them to just patrol the community, but be a part of the community," he said.

While Emanuel acknowledged the city's uptick in shootings and murders and called it "totally unacceptable," he did say some community policing efforts have already paid dividends.

Speaking before the start of the safer communities meeting, Emanuel said the city's funding of after-school and summer jobs programs has led to a reduction in adolescent crime.

Emanuel said there has been a 12 percent reduction in adolescent shooting victims this year, a small victory he credited to the jobs programs and other community policing efforts.

"They are about creating a safe and supervised place for kids to grow," Emanuel said.

https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20151102/bronzeville/uptick-shootings-unacceptable-but-community-policing-paying-off-rahm

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New Jersey

Christie Praises Community Policing in Camden, Criticizes Obama

by Michael Aron

Call it a piece of counter-programming. With the President in Newark talking criminal justice, Chris Christie did the same 90 miles south in Camden, seeming to undercut the President.

“It's wonderful for the president to come to New Jersey and acknowledge the work that's been done in New Jersey, by leaders of New Jersey. What's happening here and what he's celebrating today has nothing to do with anything that the federal government has anything to do with. And frankly, given the really negative nature of what's been going on with law enforcement across the country on the president's watch, I thought it was very important for us to acknowledge law enforcement,” Christie said.

Christie has been saying for a week now that Obama does not support law enforcement. He said it on TV this morning.

“The governor stands behind law enforcement. Unlike this president who does not support law enforcement,” Christie said on Fox News.

“And you've got a president of the United States that does not support law enforcement. He simply doesn't. And today he's going to come to New Jersey, in a place where under my tenure we have reduced crime ten percent and reduced the prison population ten percent,” he said on MSNBC.

He said it here. When Christie was asked to explain how Obama doesn't support law enforcement, he said, “I think it's pretty evident, Michael. The president always takes the opportunity to think the worst of the men and women in uniform. Always assumes the worst, and his rhetoric has not been supportive of all the men and women in uniform around this country. And it's his own FBI director who has said this type of conduct has made a chill wind go through law enforcement across this country.”

The event was at Camden County police headquarters. Camden is in the third year of an experiment where the county took over the city police force. Since then, crime has gone down.

Obama himself visited here in May to celebrate that success. Christie chalks it up to good community policing.

“You are all the proof that what was once the most violent city in America can turned around,” Christie said.

Like Obama, he held a round table with stakeholders and was struck by what one police officer said.

“He saw folks riding their bikes and jogging in the city of Camden at 9 o'clock at night. He said he's lived here his whole life, and he couldn't imagine there would be a time that people would actually do that,” Christie said.

To guarantee maximum coverage, Christie held a rare press availability with New Jersey media outlets. He told reporters Obama is trying to take credit for reforms here, like the bail system, drug court and a ban the box prisoner re-entry measure.

“It is nice of him to show up on the law enforcement issue, because he really hasn't much. All of these crime justice reforms he's talking about, none of them are initiatives of his. He's been pushed to this by others, and now all of a sudden he wants to take a victory lap at Integrity House. He wouldn't know what Integrity House was unless Cory Booker told him,” Christie said.

Christie signed an executive order making Thursday, and every November 5th after, law enforcement appreciation day. It's the day of the annual Blue Mass for fallen officers, he explained.

We took today's opportunity to check in with him on his presidential candidacy, four months after he declared.

When asked what he says to supporters who are getting discouraged, he said, “I don't know. Are you talking to supporters who are discouraged? I'm not. The fact is that this is a race where 80 percent of the people polled haven't made up their minds yet. So, that's a pretty good number.”

Michael Aron joins NJTV News Anchor Mary Alice Williams and Correspondent Michael Hill in studio to talk more about Christie.

This afternoon the White House responded to Christie's comments about Obama and police. Press Secretary Josh Earnest called them particularly irresponsible, adding they're not surprising for someone whose polls numbers are closer to an asterisk than they are to double digits.

Democratic state senator Ray Lesniak said this morning that the criminal justice reforms in New Jersey stemmed from bills he sponsored and former Governor Corzine signed two years before Christie took office. Aron says he's partially right. “Most mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenses are gone thanks to a bill of Lesniak's that Corzine signed in 2008. On the other hand, bail reform, ban the box at the state level, we heard Obama talking about it at the federal level, and drug court are all accomplishments of the Christie era. Lesniak says the drug court provisions have not really been implemented yet, and that's it's still just in a couple counties.”

Gov Christie is taking some higher ground over the debate over debates. “He's staying above the fray,” Aron said. “He was asked about it today. There was a meeting last night in suburban Washington. At least 11 campaigns were represented. Christie was represented at the meeting, but has come out of it unlike Trump who's saying I don't want to be on TeleMundo, or Bush who's saying we should restore and besiege rights to a debate. Christie is saying who cares. As long as we're on TV it doesn't matter what network, what channel, we just need to be there.”

A Monmouth University poll that was recently released shows Gov. Christie did well in the most recent debate and that his favorabilities have expanded in New Hampshire. “In New Hampshire Christie is now tied for seventh with Carly Fiorina at 5 percent. He was at two percent in the Monmouth poll in September, so that's improvement,” Aron said. “In that same poll, Donald Trump still leads at 26 percent. Ben Carson at 16 percent. Marco Rubio has moved way up from four percent to 13 percent; he's in third place. John Kasich at 11 percent is in forth place.”

While Monmouth polls were used in determining eligibility for past debates, Aron says he's not sure if they're going to use them for the next Fox debate, therefore not guaranteeing Christie a place on the stage. “It would help if they do [use them],” he said.

http://www.njtvonline.org/news/video/christie-praises-community-policing-in-camden-criticizes-obama/

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North Carolina

Public Safety Zones Being Considered To Reduce Crime

by Gwendolyn Glenn

Crime is a fact of life and so is the reality that some neighborhoods will have more of it than others. But that doesn't mean residents in high-crime areas are complacent. In Charlotte, many are pushing city officials to aggressively tackle crime in their communities. One idea that's gotten a lot of attention calls for designated zones in high-crime areas that would ban people from those communities when they commit a crime there.

District 2 Councilman Al Austin is the main force behind the effort to establish public safety or exclusionary zones in crime-riddled areas. His district includes the Beatties Ford Road corridor, which police describe as a high-crime area.

On this particular day, at the busy intersection of Beatties Ford Road and LaSalle Street, a young man in an oversized coat and baggy pants walked by the nearby glass-enclosed bus stop numerous times. Finally, another young man, similarly dressed, approached him. They sat down and with heads almost touching; they talked briefly, shook hands and walked away. It was obviously a drug deal. Doug Jones works in an office building directly behind the bus stop.

“A lot of youth hang out during the day, sitting at the bus stop,” Jones said. “I don't know what they're doing, but it doesn't take hours to wait for a bus.”

Councilman Austin grew up in this neighborhood and agreed that the heavily used bus stop and nearby area have become a haven for criminal activity.

“The epicenter of things that happen are kind of here at Taylor and LaSalle. We have some drug sales and when you have drug sales that opens it up to other types of crime. We've had a shooting or two in the area,” Austin said.

As of mid-October, there were 11 homicides reported, 26 rapes and 308 auto thefts in Austin's District 2. Drug offenses were cut almost in half from last year but at 535 arrests, it's still high.

Citywide, crime increased by 10 percent this year, violent crimes are up by nearly 18 percent and Councilman Austin is getting fed up. He sits on the council's safety committee and asked city officials to see how and if public safety or exclusionary zones would work in Charlotte.

It is still in the vetting stage, but city officials are considering establishing zones in areas that are experiencing an increase in crimes. A person convicted of a drug offense, shooting incident, prostitution or other type of serious crime in a designated zone would be notified that they are banned from that area for a set period of time. A violation would likely be a misdemeanor. Austin likes the concept.

“We have found our police officers may arrest someone but that person comes back and my neighbors, my senior citizens, they say we don't feel safe, we're feeling like our constitutional rights are being violated because we can't come out of our homes and that bothers me,” Austin said.

He worries about stigmatizing communities in his district, where there are also many homeowners, large churches and Johnson C. Smith University. But that concern wasn't voiced during a “take back our neighborhood” march in his district last month. Many of his constituents, like Larry Littlejohn and Ann Hood, spoke out in favor of the zones.

“We need to start someplace and if it's put in place, we can evaluate it, see how it works and tweak it and if it works for the community, I'm for it,” Littlejohn said.

We have so much crime here and so we can begin a process to eradicate some of these problems,” said Ann Hood. “I've lived here over 50 years and I don't want to see it go down.”

The city established prostitution-free zones a decade ago for three years in the Wilkenson Boulevard area. CMPD attorney Mark Newbold, who is looking into the legality of public safety zones, says prostitution arrests simply increased a mile outside of the zones—also the concern about public safety zones. Will they just push crime to another area?

“Displacement alone will not say the initiative is wrong, but one of the things currently being considered is if activity spikes up a mile outside the zone, we could either extend the zone or move the zone to that area for a period of time,” asid Newbold.

Portland, Oregon had these zones in place for about 15 years. They were done away with in 2007 out of concern that they stigmatized communities and were enforced unfairly. Newbold says they are still looking at Portland's program and vetting similar initiatives in other cities.

“The type of ordinances we've reviewed have variances that for example if you have a family in the zone and I've been banned under the proposals we're discussing, there would be a variance that says someone could visit a family member in the zone to obtain social services, church service,” Newbold said.

But Council member Claire Fallon, who chairs the council's Community Safety Committee said she doubts those zones will ever be approved.

“I think we will not do it to begin with because we're very aware that people have rights and civil rights,” Fallon said. “We are not going to do profiling; we are not going to stigmatize the neighborhood. We have to be cognizant of civil rights to walk in a neighborhood.”

There are several constitutional concerns to be considered, says Charlotte School of Law professor Jason Huber—the biggest being the 14th amendment.

“The 14th amendment provides several protections, due process of law, equal protection and fundamental rights, the right to hang out with family and friends,” Huber said. “Any ordinance will have to be narrowly tailored to consider all of those rights.”

Huber also cautioned that the zones could also be selectively enforced against the poor and people of color. Newbold admitted that crafting the ordinance is challenging.

“The difficulty is the need for a public safety zone and the need to exclude people from an area is outweighed by some of those constitutional protections,” Newbold said.

As the pros and cons of the public safety zones are debated, Councilman Austin is moving ahead with other crime-fighting initiatives, such as getting the city to place bright LED lights around the troublesome bus stop, cut down a large tree that provided cover for criminal activity there and assigning police officers to walking beats. CMPD Officer B.E. Walsh and his partner began walking the streets in the Beatties Ford Road corridor last month.

“I love being out here talking to people,” Walsh said. “There are so many good people who live here and they're just afraid. That's why we're out here now to make them less afraid. They're going to see us more often.”

Councilman Austin likes the sound of that but it's not enough. He wants public safety zones here and in other parts of the city. He pointed to The Plaza near Milton Road where two men were shot and killed last month, as an example of where the zones are needed.

“We can't continue to go down this road,” a frustrated Austin said. “We're almost like becoming, immune to the fact that these things are happening, so if not this (public safety zones), then what?

The council's Community Safety Committee will discuss public safety zones later this month and that committee will decide whether to send it to the full council.

http://wfae.org/post/public-safety-zones-being-considered-reduce-crime

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Ohio bill seeks open review when officers use deadly force

The bill would require agencies to adopt written policies for investigating officers after fatal shootings

by The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A bipartisan proposal in Ohio seeks to provide a more transparent investigative process when a law enforcement officer fatally shoots another person.

A bill recently introduced by state Reps. Alicia Reece, a Cincinnati Democrat, and Jonathan Dever, a Madeira Republican, would require law enforcement agencies to adopt written policies for investigating officers involved in firearms-related deaths.

Reece says the legislation is partly based on recommendations from a state task force studying police-community relations.

Under the bill, an investigatory panel of officers would issue its findings in a report to the local prosecutor's office. Should the prosecutor decline to press charges, the report would be released to the public.

The measure would require the panel to inform the deceased person's family members of contact information for the prosecutor handling the case.

http://www.policeone.com/officer-shootings/articles/35090006-Ohio-bill-seeks-open-review-when-officers-use-deadly-force

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Obama wants to help former inmates successfully re-enter society

Without new laws, Obama is limited in what he can to do to stop the cycle of incarceration

by Josh Lederman

WASHINGTON — More than half a million people leave U.S. prisons each year, but with jobs, housing and mental health services scarce, many are soon back behind bars. On Monday, President Barack Obama will call for breaking that cycle of incarceration by helping former inmates successfully re-enter society.

With his visit to a drug treatment center in Newark, New Jersey, Obama aims to boost his ongoing push for overhauling the criminal justice system. In rare bipartisan fashion, Congress is considering legislation cutting sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, but Obama will seek to force attention to the plight offenders face once they're finally set free.

"Everyone has a role to play, from businesses that are hiring ex-offenders to philanthropies that are supporting education and training programs," Obama said in his weekly address.

Without new laws, Obama is limited in what he can to do. For example, Obama has asked Congress to "ban the box" — shorthand for prohibiting the government and its contractors for asking job applicants about criminal histories on applications. It's an issue resonating in the Democratic presidential primary, with Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley all supporting steps to help those convicted of crimes find employment.

Using his own authority where possible, Obama will announce he's asking the government personnel office to wait until later in the hiring process to ask about criminal histories — a step most federal agencies have already taken, the White House said. The Obama administration will also clarify its "one strike" rule that prevents many people with arrest records from living in public housing.

At Integrity House, a state-funded drug and residential treatment center, Obama was to be joined by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. Obama also planned to host a roundtable and deliver a statement at Rutgers University's law school.

Obama's focus on the previously incarcerated comes as more than 4,300 inmates are being released at the start of November, in what will likely be tens of thousands to benefit from drug sentencing changes last year.

Aiming to seize some of Obama's limelight, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie planned his own events Monday on community policing and criminal justice in Camden. Christie, who is struggling to attract attention for his presidential campaign, began the morning criticizing Obama in television interviews for coming to his state to "take credit for something he has nothing to do with."

"He has not done anything on criminal justice reform in seven years as president," Christie said on Fox News, accusing Obama of inadequately supporting law enforcement.

http://www.policeone.com/drug-interdiction-narcotics/articles/35091006-Obama-wants-to-help-former-inmates-successfully-re-enter-society

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Connecticut

Conn. police worried by ambush assaults, social media hostility

Police say every error or misjudgment is broadcast endlessly, creating hostility towards cops

by Gregory B. Hladky

HARTFORD, Conn. – A series of ambush-style attacks on cops around the nation and a barrage of anti-police commentary on social media has left officers stressed and "hyper-vigilant," police in Hartford and across the state say.

"New York City has lost four officers in just 10 months," said New Haven Police Chief Dean Esserman. "It has to have an impact on every officer, on every police chief … on every member of an officer's family."

Just last week, a Hartford officer was forced to shoot a man who tried to drive his car into the officer, according to police. The individual, who had a history of mental illness and addiction, was shot twice in the arm but survived.

In some cases, police officers in this state and around the nation have blamed news media and social media, at least in part, for a "post-Ferguson" atmosphere. They say every police error or fatal misjudgment is broadcast endlessly on television and the Internet, blowing those incidents out of proportion and creating a more hostile environment for police.

Sgt. Richard Holton III, president of the Hartford Police Union, said that kind of intense media and "interest group" pressure "has brought fuel to the fire and made it more socially acceptable" to attack officers simply for wearing the uniform.

The debate over what impact cellphone videos and social media are having on police, and whether they are creating an atmosphere that may put more cops at risk, is intensifying.

A recent Gallup poll found that the confidence Americans have in their police to protect them from violent crime has plunged to its lowest level since 1995. The survey found that just 52 percent of those polled have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in police. Confidence in law enforcement has been near or above 60 percent since 1998, according to Gallup.

Last month, FBI Director James Comey said police officers across the nation have similar feelings of frustration at the constant play across the Internet of cellphone videos of officers making mistakes and sometimes fatal errors. He said cops tell him they feel "under siege" and threatened.

John DeCarlo, a former Branford police chief and an associate professor of criminology at the University of New Haven, said there is as yet no hard evidence that the pressure of social media and cell videos is endangering police officers. He said there are now studies underway to look at whether there is a connection between this new communications phenomenon and what appears to be "a small spike in officer assaults" in recent years.

According to a report by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Foundation last December, 15 officers were killed by "ambush assault" in 2014, a death toll that matched 2012 "for the highest total since 1995."

The last time a Connecticut police officer was shot and killed was December 2004, when Newington Officer Peter Lavery was gunned down by a man armed with an assault rifle. In 2002, New Haven Officer Robert Fumiatti was severely wounded attempting to make an arrest, and he died in 2007 of complications relating to that gunshot wound.

DeCarlo said the big question being asked is about the impact of omnipresent cellphone videos and social media on policing.

"Is it making policing more dangerous?" DeCarlo asked. Anecdotal reports from cops would appear to suggest the answer is yes, he said, "but we have to wait for the numbers."

DeCarlo said it is statistically likely that about 10 percent of this nation's approximately 700,000 police officers aren't cut out for the job, and that those are the cops who are most often caught on video making sometimes terrible errors.

"If you look at just that 10 percent, and that's what we seem to be doing now in social media … you find that people are concentrating on this tiny minority of police who make mistakes," DeCarlo said.

Holton said his officers are increasingly frustrated by situations in which they are blamed even when they're doing their job correctly. "They say, 'What I did was 100 percent right, and now I'm being questioned about what I did,'" said Holton.

Holton said cops have to deal with the unpleasant reality that, "whenever a police officer uses force, it's never pretty."

Esserman and other top law enforcement officials, like Southington Chief Jack Daly, are reluctant to make blanket judgments that social media and cellphone videos are contributing to an increase in attacks on police officers.

"I don't know yet whether it is picking up or not," Esserman said of the possibility that more ambush assaults on police are now taking place.

He pointed out that the number of police officers killed on the job is dramatically lower than in the 1960s and 1970s, when more than 200 officers a year died on duty.

In 2014, 96 officers were killed on the job. So far this year, 103 officers around the nation have lost their lives while on duty, including 32 by gunfire and three by vehicular assault.

The head of Connecticut's NAACP, Scott X. Esdaile, said he can understand that police "have legitimate concerns" about these kinds of ambush assaults on officers and whether social media is involved.

"But it goes two ways," Esdaile said. "The people in the community are seeing police officers badly beating and killing people in the community. … The police also have to understand the negativity and raw feelings within our community from all the factual things they are seeing on these videos."

"The elephant in the room is that the majority of this is happening in the black community," Esdaile added.

Michael Lawlor, Gov. Dannel Malloy's top criminal justice adviser, said there is "trepidation on both sides," from police on the street and from the minority community.

"I think it's pretty clear that the interaction between police officers and African Americans generally seems to be more tension-filled than ever before," Lawlor said.

David McGuire, a lawyer with the Connecticut chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said, "Nobody has been able to show any marked increase in crime or violent acts against police" as a result of cellphone videos and social media.

"I'm sure it's having some effect on police officers," he said of the recent spate of ambush assaults, "but it's probably more on morale than anything else."

"This is a complicated time for policing," McGuire said. "But the problem is not technology." He said cellphone videos and police body cameras are the best way for police "to regain the public's trust" by showing cops doing their jobs right.

Esserman and DeCarlo say the new technology that is producing all these videos of police is also providing cops with new tools to help their job of protecting the public.

Many Connecticut police chiefs, including Southington's Daly, support the use of police body cameras. "In the vast majority of cases, [body camera videos] exonerates the officer," Daly said.

Esserman said he believes that "the greatest safety officers develop is the support of their community," and that cellphones are now a critical tool for cops trying to communicate with the people on their beat.

"We are not an army of occupation," he said, adding a cop is part of the surrounding community and every time a police officer is killed "is a wound for the entire community."

As for police officers feeling threatened by all the scrutiny of the new communications system, Esserman said, "We're all under the microscope these days: police, teachers, doctors, politicians. … We're all under increased scrutiny in this new world of technology."

Obama Gets Personal In Criminal Justice Push

by KATHLEEN HENNESSEY

WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Barack Obama has toured the country in a recent push for a criminal justice overhaul, he's worried publicly about the possibility of his daughters' teenage rebellion. He's mused about his own drug use as a wayward youth. He's told stories of being pulled over for speeding — and not always deserving the ticket.

In the national conversation about crime and punishment, Obama hasn't been afraid to identify with the people being policed, as well as with the police.

It's a remarkable shift in tone after decades of politicians worrying more about being labeled soft on crime than too hard on criminals. Previous presidents have talked tough on the topic and heaped praise on police. They've rarely woven in personal encounters with the law.

Obama, speaking to police chiefs in Chicago last week, praised police for their work but also called for "serious and robust debate over fairness in law enforcement." He used himself as an example.

"There were times when I was younger and maybe even as I got a little older, but before I had a motorcade — where I got pulled over," Obama told the crowd. "Most of the time I got a ticket, I deserved it. I knew why I was pulled over. But there were times where I didn't."

Such comments stand out from the history of presidential rhetoric in part because of Obama's place in that presidential history. Questions of racial bias in the criminal justice system are not merely academic for him, noted Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a group that advocates for sentencing reform.

"He's the first African-American president and his life experiences are different than others. He's lived it — directly or indirectly — more than other presidents have. The empathy is there," Mauer said.

But Obama's comments also reflect the moment, Mauer noted. The current political conversation about crime,justice, race and violence in America largely has been driven by a course correction. A push to overhaul sentencing laws has bipartisan support in Congress. Violent images of police have sparked outrage about racism and use of force in policing. All of this is playing out while crime rates overall are down.

The contrast is stark from the conversation in the late 1980s, when Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee for president, was pounded by ads all but blaming him for the crimes of Willie Horton, a convicted murderer who raped a woman while out on a weekend furlough. By 1994, President Bill Clinton waspushing for "the toughest crime bill in history" in his State of the Union address, and urging Congress to help him "reclaim our streets from violent crime and drugs and gangs." Clinton referenced his days as Arkansas attorney general to boost his bona fides on the issue.

"There was an inclination in the old days to get tough, or at least not be a leader on this (criminal justice) issue. Now I think it's much safer politically. Nobody is going to lose an election based on crime policy like they might have once," Mauer said. "The days of Willie Horton seem pretty far away now, which isn't to say they couldn't come back."

Obama isn't facing re-election, which allows him to venture into a political danger zone. He was the first sitting president to visit a federal prison, where he sat with a handful of inmates and discussed their beefs with the system. He planned a visit Monday to Newark, New Jersey, to focus on efforts by formerly jailed people to re-enter society.

At a recent town hall meeting on drug abuse, he raised his own history of drug use and mentioned his 14- and 17-year-old daughters.

"They're wonderful girls, but they're teenagers. They do some ... things. And I remember me being a teenager — and I've written about this — I did some ... stuff," Obama said. "What I think about is, there but for the grace of God, and that's what we all have to remember."

At each of these events, which are aimed at keeping pressure on Congress to pass reform legislation, Obama notes the role of race in law enforcement.

Obama's remarks haven't gone unnoticed by his political opponents — and may still affect his party's bid to hold the White House.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie raised Obama's remarks to police last week at the GOP primary debate.

"When the president of the United States gets out to speak about it, does he support police officers? Does he stand up for law enforcement? No, he doesn't," Christie, a former federal prosecutor, said. "I'll tell you this, the number one job of the president of the United States is to protect the safety and security of the American people. This president has failed, and when I'm in the Oval Office, police officers will know that they will have the support of the president of the United States."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-gets-personal-in-criminal-justice-push_5637563ae4b063179912d644

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Report of Halloween candy with 'needle-type' object probed

by Fox News

Police in a Philadelphia suburb launched a food tampering investigation Sunday after receiving multiple reports of needles in children's Halloween candy.

The Kennett Square police department originally posted on Facebook warning about a "needle-type item" found inside wrapped candy bars given to four different children on Halloween night. Authorities urged parents to check all candy their children were given. Police photos of the candy showed the foreign objects looked like sewing needles.

Philly.com reported that the needles were found in five wrapped Twix bars given to four children from different households Saturday night. The case advanced when a 12-year-old child turned in a Snickers bar to cops Sunday afternoon that also contained a needle, CBS19 reported. That child was trick-or-treating in the same area as the kids from the original report. CBS19 identified the children as all being under 12 years old.

There have been no reports of any injuries or that anyone ingested the tampered treats. People who have leftover candy are being asked by police to check it for possible foreign objects.

Investigators said Sunday the candy and packaging containing the objects have been submitted for examination.

The Philadelphia cases come on the heels of several reports around the country of people finding sharp objects in Halloween candy.

Police in central Minnesota also were investigating after a woman reported finding a needle in her child's candy on Halloween. The woman in Brainerd said she found the needle in a small candy bar while inspecting the candy in her child's bag.

The Tyler County Sheriff's Office said in a Facebook post that a concerned West Virginia mother who was inspecting her children's candy "found a piece of a disposable razor blade in a bite size Snickers bar."

Ohio police also reported that a Reynoldsburg girl found a disposable razor inside a candy bar, according to FOX2. The girl didn't discover the blade until she took a bite, according to parents. The rest of the girl's candy was x-rayed but nothing suspicious was found.

"Everything looked credible," said Shane Mauger of the Reynoldsburg Police. "It looked to be on the up and up."

In North Reading, Mass., near Boston, police said they received reports of a home there leaving out samples of Hyland's 4 Kids Cold 'n Mucus cough syrup on Saturday.

One case that turned out not to be credible was an Auburn, Mass. girl who told police she found a foreign item in her candy. The story quickly went viral -- until cops reported it was a hoax.

"After interviewing her along with her mother, it has been determined that the entire story was a fabrication created by the child," police wrote on Facebook .

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/11/02/report-halloween-candy-with-needle-type-object-probed/

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Colorado

Colo. gunman kills 3, dies in shootout with police

Man armed with a rifle marched down a city street Saturday and shot and killed three people in broad daylight

by The Associated Press

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Witnesses have described a terrifying scene on the streets of Colorado Springs, where a gunman armed with a rifle marched down a city street and shot and killed three people before being fatally shot in a gunbattle with police.

Authorities have released few details about Saturday afternoon's shooting in broad daylight. The suspect and victims have not been identified, and police are looking for a motive.

Betty Barker told KOAA-TV News5 she saw the gunman approach a young man on a bike and shoot him several times. Several people in the neighborhood said they were horrified to see the man's body, lying face down, still on his bike, still wearing his backpack.

Matt Abshire, 21, told the Colorado Springs Gazette he looked outside his apartment window and saw a man shoot someone with a rifle.

Abshire said after the first shooting he ran to the street and followed the man and called police.

The man suddenly turned and fired more shots, hitting two women, Abshire said.

Abshire told The Gazette he rushed to help, but that one of the victims was already dead, shot in the chest. The other woman was shot in the face. Police confirmed Saturday afternoon that both were killed.

Abshire said the man kept walking, carrying the rifle.

Police say they spotted the gunman several blocks away, where a shootout erupted. Photos show a window in the back of a police car that had been shattered by gunfire. Police on Sunday asked residents to help them look for damage to homes and property that might provide more evidence.

Alisha Jaynes told KKTV-TV 11 News she was at an ATM when she saw a man with a gun walking calmly down the street.

"They yelled, 'Put the gun down,' and he turned around, and that's when they shot at him a good 20 times," she said. "There was a lot of gunfire."

http://www.policeone.com/active-shooter/articles/34654006-Colo-gunman-kills-3-dies-in-shootout-with-police

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Massachusetts

Police adopt drug addict program pioneered in Massachusetts

Gloucester police say dozens of departments in nine states have taken a page from their ANGEL program, which gives addicts a chance to get treatment rather than arrested

by Philip Marcelo

BOSTON — A police program in northern Massachusetts that helps fast-track heroin addicts into treatment is catching on in other states and showing signs of reducing crimes associated with addiction.

Gloucester police say dozens of departments in nine states have taken a page from their ANGEL program, which gives addicts a chance to make treatment rather than arrest the first response they get from police.

Addicts can come to the police station and be connected to a treatment program if they commit to getting clean. They are assigned a volunteer "angel" — sometimes a recovering addict — who works with them. They can turn in their drugs and drug paraphernalia, no questions asked.

Police Chief Leonard Campanello developed the program that started in June, and says statistics suggest it may also help reduce crime. This summer, shoplifting, breaking and entering, and larceny were down 23 percent in Gloucester compared to the same season last year.

"We are seeing real people get their lives back," Campanello said. "And if we see a reduction in crime and cost savings that is a great bonus."

The chief says the department has spent about $13,750 so far on the program, all of it from money seized in drug arrests. The department has placed more than 260 addicts into treatment since the ANGEL program began.

John Rosenthal, co-founder of Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative, a nonprofit that helps police departments adopt Gloucester's program, said besides the nearly 40 departments in nine states that have adopted some aspects of the program, nearly 90 more want to get involved in some fashion.

Departments in Connecticut, Ohio, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont have joined Massachusetts departments in deploying the program.

Participating departments range from the Middlebury Police Department in Vermont to the Orlando Police Department in Florida, according to the Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Police is also participating.

John Gill, a patrolman in Scarborough, Maine, which adopted the ANGEL program about a month ago, says making the police station a more welcoming place for addicts seeking help has been a profound change for the department.

"It was the Gloucester ANGEL project which showed us that a relatively modest-sized police agency could have a real impact," he said. "And like Gloucester, we couldn't afford to wait until the perfect solution came along.

"We put the best possible plan together and jumped off the cliff not knowing where we would land," he said. "Gloucester gave us the courage to do so."

Rosenthal says departments generally adopt some but not all of the ANGEL program. Some have adopted policies of distributing the drug-overdose antidote, naloxone, free of charge; others are using the program's network of more than 50 substance abuse treatment centers across the country. Those centers provide financial assistance to drug users who lack insurance or the resources to cover their care.

Still others have taken the approach in an altogether new direction.

In Arlington, Massachusetts, for example, the department has an in-house clinician who reaches out directly to addicts by using information gleaned from criminal investigations, community policing efforts and emergency response calls.

"We're absolutely, unequivocally thrilled by the reception of this program by law enforcement," Rosenthal said. "Police chiefs are recognizing we can't arrest our way out of this, that this is a disease and not a crime and that people suffering from this disease need treatment, not jail."

http://www.policeone.com/drug-interdiction-narcotics/articles/34660006-Police-adopt-drug-addict-program-pioneered-in-Massachusetts

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Arizona

How Tucson police are saving lives with their IFAK program

Tucson police officers have deployed life-saving gear from their new IFAK kits approximately 140 times in the span of nearly two-years, and the bottom line is that Tucson's IFAKs are saving lives

by Doug Wyllie

Having implemented an IFAK (Individual First Aid Kit) for all of its police officers nearly two years ago, the Tucson Police Department now has enough usage data to reasonably answer the question, “Was it worth it?” This was the topic of discussion during a seminar delivered by three law enforcers — Jason Brendehoft, Michael Johnson, and Jorje Alzaga — at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP 2015) in Chicago.

The department has seen approximately 140 field uses of the IFAK kits in that period, and the bottom line is that having evaluated those incidents, the answer to that question is a resounding “yes” — Tucson's IFAKs are saving lives.

During their IACP presentation, the three Tucson PD presenters laid out some very compelling thoughts for how other agencies might benefit from such a program.

New Demands
“We know firsthand that we live in a changed world,” Jason Bredehoft said at the outset of the session. “The post-Columbine and post-9/11 world has now made active shooters and mass casualty incidents sadly commonplace. Now more than ever before, law enforcement is not only expected to deal with those threats in a traditional police fashion, but to also step up in the medical first responder role, once a threat has been eliminated.”

At the scene of the Aurora massacre and elsewhere, EMS wasn't allowed into an active warm zone. In Boston, no matter how many EMS providers showed up to the bombing scene, cops (and even citizens) had to step up and provide life-saving initial care that meant the difference between life and death.

Consequently, in January of 2014, the Tuscon police department implemented the IFAK program, and by early February the program had been deployed to all patrol officers. By June, the entire department had been equipped and trained — roughly 1,000 total sworn officers are now able to use those IFAK kits. They pulled this entire enterprise off with minimal personnel. The team consisted of six officers, a sergeant and a lieutenant. Those six officers — who are the program's trainers — were all previously medics with the Tucson PD SWAT team.

The team got buy-in from the chief and the rest of the command staff very early in the process — when they were making their recommendations — and every officer on the department seemingly fully embraces the IFAK program.

The IFAK training cadre stresses during training that officers are officers first — they have to deal with the active threat, and then evaluate care options and objectives for the victims. Officers must complete an online certification course before attending the two-hour training session: one hour of presentation and classroom, and one hour of hands-on work. Each officer must also take a refresher course annually.

Contents of the IFAK kits — which cost about $120 each — include things like QuickClot combat gauze, tourniquets, halo chest seals, and Olaes modular bandages. This year, officers have used tourniquets 17 times, QuickClot 10 times, chest seals 32 times, and Olaes bandages 24 times. Gauze is used most frequently at 43 uses in 2105.

What those numbers indicate is that officers are utilizing their training when they encounter a victim in need of assistance, and making the appropriate judgement as to the right resources to help that person.

Bredehoft, Johnson, and Alzaga described three case studies of victims in which cops were able to address and treat patients with severe traumatic injuries from weapons ranging from steak knives to machetes to firearms. In each of the five highlighted cases, police were on scene several minutes — sometimes much more — sooner than EMS.

In one highlighted case, when fire arrived to provide EMS services, the firefighters asked the officer on scene, roughly, “Where is the paramedic who took care of this guy?” The cop replied, in essence, “You're looking at him. I did it.”

In another highlighted case — the machete attack — the father of the victim was shown on a video clip from the local television news. “My son had almost bled out. If it weren't for their new trauma kits, it would have been all over. We would be having a different conversation and I would be shipping my son's body back home.”

“Our IFAK program fills the patient-care gap between police and EMS arrival,” Bredehoft said.

Bonus Benefits
It merits mention that so far, no TPD officer has had to use an IFAK kit on himself or a partner officer, but a potentially deadly injury is an omnipresent possibility in police work. Tucson officers who have used the IFAK kit on a civilian have real-world experience — which trumps any training the training cadre can create — will prove invaluable when the day comes that they have to use this life-saving equipment on a fellow cop. They will feel comfortable with the gear, and know what to do.

Further, every time an officer uses one of those life-saving pieces of equipment, they are creating goodwill in the community. The chief in Tucson has created an award of sorts to recognize life-saving action using the IFAK, and those ceremonies make the local news. In an environment in which law enforcement is so frequently portrayed negatively, that kind of publicity is invaluable.

Be advised that you must do your homework on the regulatory issues related to provision of medical care at in your state and local jurisdiction. Those regulations vary from state to state, and even down to the local level.