"News of the Week"   Daily Local & Regional NewsWatch September 2018 - Week 3

MJ Goyings ~~~~~~~~ Many thanks to our very own "MJ" Goyings, a resident of Ohio, for her daily research that provides us with the news related material that appears on the LACP & NAASCA web sites.

United Kingdom

Sussex Police detective constable failed to properly investigate child abuse claims

Celia MacDonald would have been sacked if she had not retired just days before a hearing

by Flora Thompson

A detective constable failed to properly investigate child sex abuse claims and was only found out when the matter came to light again a year later.

Sussex Police officer Celia MacDonald decided no crime had been committed, did not record a crime or investigate further, the force said.

A gross misconduct panel ruled she would have been sacked if she had not retired just days before a hearing.

The 49-year-old, who was based in the Horsham safeguarding investigations unit, initially paid a visit with social services to the West Sussex family at the centre of the allegations, but took no further action.

A force spokesman said: "A year later, the same family came to notice again and the matter came to light, leading to an Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigation into the officer's actions."

A man and a woman have since been arrested on suspicion of sexual assault on a child and have been released under investigation.

The panel, which conducted the hearing in her absence, found MacDonald would have been dismissed had she still been a serving police officer.

Detective Superintendent Steve Boniface, head of the force's professional standards department, said: "Protecting vulnerable people is a priority for Sussex Police, and while this was an unusual occurrence, it is still one that we take extremely seriously.

"We expect the highest possible standards of our officers and staff and where their conduct falls below these standards they will be robustly investigated.

"DC MacDonald's failure to perform her duty correctly potentially put vulnerable people at risk, although fortunately this case did come back to our notice and remains under investigation.

"The finding is supported by Sussex Police and highlights our determination not to bring into disrepute the enormous amount of good work carried out day-to-day by thousands of hard-working and enormously dedicated police officers and staff."

Investigations found Ms MacDonald had a case to answer for gross misconduct, but a report has not been published due to the sensitive nature of the allegations, the IOPC said.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/celia-macdonald-sussex-police-child-abuse-investigation-gross-misconduct-a8430046.html

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New Jersey

Police sergeant, firefighter among 24 busted in child-sex sting

by Ben Feuerherd

A New Jersey police sergeant was among 24 men who were arrested in a child-sex sting in the state, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

In addition to the sergeant, a nurse, a firefighter and a Bronx resident were netted by the multi-agency sting based out of Toms River, authorities said.

The New Jersey State Police led the operation, and had the 24 men believing they were chatting with underage girls and boys online and arranging a meet-up, prosecutors said.

When the men showed up to meet the underage kids — actually undercover police officers — they were arrested, authorities said. The 24 men were taken into custody over a five-day period from Sept. 5 to Sept. 9.

“It is a frightening reality that sexual predators are lurking on social media, ready to strike if they find a child who is vulnerable,” New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a press release.

Howell Township police Sgt. Richard Conte, 47, was arrested in the operation for trying to meet a 15-year-old girl, authorities said. He was suspended from his job and ordered to turn over his weapons.

Richard Hoffman, a 23-year-old firefighter from Mays Landing, was arrested for trying to meet a 14-year-old girl, prosecutors said.

And 24-year-old Nabindranauth Nandalall was arrested in the operation after traveling from his home in the Bronx to Toms River in an attempt to meet a 15-year-old girl.

All 24 suspects were held in the Ocean County Jail and faced detention hearings last week for attempting to lure or entice a child with a purpose to commit a criminal offense. One of the defendants — registered sex offender Thomas Blumensteel — was detained, and the rest were released under pre-trial supervisio n.

https://nypost.com/2018/09/18/police-sergeant-firefighter-among-24-busted-in-child-sex-sting/

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How immersive training prepares cops for real-world situations

Meggitt's FATS 300LE 300-degree immersive technology places officers in the middle of dozens of stressful situations

An officer pulls over a car that just ran a red light. As the officer approaches, the driver starts yelling that he didn't do anything and the cop can F-off. This puts the cop on high alert that anything could happen, and he starts trying to calm down the driver and de-escalate the situation. The driver backs down just a bit as the cop asks for his ID and registration.

Then from behind the cop's left side a citizen approaches with a cellphone in his hand and starts yelling about racist pigs targeting minorities and he is filming the whole incident for evidence. The cop now needs to split his concentration between two subjects and calls for backup.

The officer tells the citizen he is welcome to film the encounter, but to please stay back from the car. Out of the corner of his eye, the officer sees the driver make a quick move and he focuses back on the car. The driver is reaching over to the glove box when the cop hears footsteps and what sounds like a baseball bat hitting an open palm.

Because the scenarios can be repeated and combined in real time by the instructor, trainees can build officers' muscle memory before they go out on the streets; and it can be reinforced whenever required. (Photo/Ron LaPedis)

Because the scenarios can be repeated and combined in real time by the instructor, trainees can build officers' muscle memory before they go out on the streets; and it can be reinforced whenever required. (Photo/Ron LaPedis)

What does the officer do next?

SIMULATORS OFFER JUDGMENTAL TRAINING

Would you be happy if you knew your aircraft pilot had never flown on a realistic simulator where he or she could be trained and tested on how to respond in any situation? Simulators provide real-time feedback to the pilots and let them retry over and over until they build the muscle memory that it takes to have multiple successful outcomes. That's important when you have up to 800 lives sitting behind you.

Now take that idea and extend it to policing. Much more than just a marksmanship simulator, Meggitt's FATS 300LE Law Enforcement Virtual Training System offers 300-degree immersive technology that places officers in the middle of dozens of stressful situations, allowing their actions to be viewed and then modified as required.

The core of the FATS 300LE is five 150” x 84” borderless flat screens filled with short-throw “shadowless” projectors that make up all but one side of a hexagon, plus 5.1 surround sound. Just one advantage of the FATS 300LE is that you are in the middle of the action without your shadow on the screens to ruin the effect. Multiple interacting scenarios can be run at the same time on the different screens, letting you reproduce some or all of the red light stop scenario described at the beginning of this article.

When Meggitt ran the scenario in their Suwanee, Georgia, headquarters, they kept ramping up the stress until the driver's wife came at me with that baseball bat from my right side, while the citizen was moving from my left side toward the car in front of me. And did that driver have a gun in his glovebox?

Because the scenarios can be repeated and combined in real time by the instructor, trainees can build officers' muscle memory before they go out on the streets; and it can be reinforced whenever required.

SIMULATORS OFFER PROOF OF POLICE TRAINING

In a world where cellphone cameras and citizen oversight panels are becoming the norm, officers are being held to what may seem like impossibly high standards of interaction. Let's say a complaint comes in that one of your officers disrespected a citizen. Of course, you can watch their BWC video – if it was turned on – and interview other witnesses.

If the officer's actions seem reasonable you still might not be home free, but what if you could document that your officer was trained to community standards and passed that training? The FATS 300LE's look-back function lets you record the actions of the officer as a picture-in-picture within the scenario video, which can be stored as part of their permanent record.

If the officer's actions aren't up to standards, or if you have an officer who you recognize has been struggling lately, you can put them back into the FATS 300LE for a checkup. If there are problems, you can retrain until you get the response you require and show the officer how he or she is progressing.

Having trouble with reports not matching BWC footage? Run a scenario, have the officer write up their report and review it with them. Then play back the video and perform a critique. Repeat as needed.

Maybe your jurisdiction voted to allow teachers to carry or is hiring armed SROs. Meggitt has scenarios that will help bring them up to speed. And if you want something a little more customized, all four FATS virtual training systems allow you to add your own videos and scenarios.

SIMULATORS ENHANCE SITUATIONAL AWARENESS

If your officer training focuses only on how to hit a target and (we hope!) how to get off the X, you may not be preparing them for what can happen on the street due to over-focusing on one subject. If you see an officer whose awareness keeps dropping, the FATS 300LE can put sounds or motion at their periphery to wake them up. If they still don't look up to evaluate the situation, you can have a virtual person take a run at them from the side.

The FATS 300LE can even fire back at trainees using foam pellets along with gunshot sounds to simulate hostile fire to force them to use cover. Yes, the system is big enough to put one or more barriers inside and you can put mats just outside the trainer with real people or dummies that can be used for handcuffing, drag-to-safety, Stop the Bleed or CPR training to complete the scenario after the threat is removed.

You might even want to combine virtual and physical training by having the officer move to the mat and having someone run at them with a rubber knife for some self-defense or firearm retention training (scary clown makeup is optional).

STILL AN ADVANCED FIREARMS SIMULATOR

In addition to its use for training officers on anything from domestic family disputes and traffic stops to school shootings, the FATS 300LE is still an advanced firearms simulator, with the ability to track aiming, shooting and hits using up to 20 Meggitt Bluefire wireless weapons at the same time, including over 300 types of rifles, pistols, machine guns and less-lethal deterrents like a TASER or pepper spray.

You can see exactly when a trainee draws, goes to low- or high-ready, aims, pulls the trigger and follows through. How an officer handles their weapon can escalate or de-escalate a situation and is of utmost importance when facing a hostage situation or a suicidal shooter.

If you have an officer who is struggling with shot placement, the FATS 300LE, like all of the Meggitt simulators, including the soon-to-ship 180LE, can replay the exact motions of their firearm, including if they are canting it, jerking it when they pull the trigger, and how accurately they are getting back on target.

REGIONAL TRAINING CENTERS

In August 2018 Meggitt announced that they have the FATS 300LE installed in three regional hubs: Santa Ana, California; Gwinnett County, Georgia; and Miami, Florida. Agencies wanting to see the system in action or try them out are welcome to contact Meggitt for more information.

https://www.policeone.com/police-products/training/simulator/articles/480760006-How-immersive-training-prepares-cops-for-real-world-situations

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Why 2018 could be an especially deadly year for cops

by Emily Shapiro

When Palm Springs police Officer Jose "Gil" Vega, a married father of eight, was gunned down with his partner while they responded to a domestic disturbance call, the 35-year veteran was two months away from his retirement.

Days after the double killing, Vega's soft-spoken daughter, Vanessa, 8, addressed a sea of uniformed officers and other mourners gathered at a vigil for her father, 63, and his fellow slain officer, Lesley Zerebny, 27. Zerebny had just returned to duty after giving birth four months earlier.

Vanessa told the crowd it wasn't her father's turn to die, but added, "He will be watching us -- he won't ever leave."

The 8-year-old daughter of slain police officer, Jose "Gil" Vega, spoke at a vigil, on Oct. 18, 2016, in Palm Springs, Calif.

"He was happy with his life," Vanessa said, adding, "He's in peace now."

Vega and Zerebny were two of 159 on-duty officers killed in the country in 2016, according to statistics kept by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

A troubling increase

While officers die in traffic-related incidents more than any other situation, this year, the deaths of officers by guns has climbed to a "troubling" number.

From Jan. 1 to March 30, 2017, 10 on-duty officers were shot dead. From Jan. 1 to March 30 of this year, 20 on-duty officers were shot dead.

"I do worry about these firearm-related deaths," Steve Groeninger, senior director of communications and marketing at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, told ABC News. "It's troubling."

Police officers stand in respect as the funeral procession of slain Whittier police officer Keith Boyer leaves the Calvary Chapel, March 3, 2017 in Downey, Calif. Officer Boyer was shot on killed Feb. 20, 2017, while responding to a traffic accident.

"It's too soon to know if it's a trend," Groeninger added. "As [the second quarter] plays out and we receive data forms from departments who lost an officer this year, we'll be able to better assess and quantify."

In 2017, 46 on-duty officers were killed by guns, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. The year before, it was 67, and in 2015, it was 43.

If this year's pattern continues at its current rate, 2018 could see 80 on-duty police deaths from gun violence.

Former FBI agent and ABC News contributor Steve Gomez called the increase from 2017 to 2018 "disturbing."

"This is a trend that we are seeing with regard to people acting out, people not having self-control, especially when dealing with law enforcement officers. I think it's a symptom of both that lack of control and complying with law enforcement and we are now seeing more people who have [behavioral and mental problems] and they have access to firearms," Gomez said. "That's a deadly combination."

The honor guard walks along the hearse carrying the casket of Boone County Sheriff's Deputy Jacob Pickett, March 9, 2018, in Indianapolis. Pickett was fatally shot March 2, 2018, while chasing a man fleeing from police.

"This has been the deadliest year for law enforcement in many, many years [so far]," said former Dallas police chief and ABC News contributor David Brown. While the trend appears to be on the rise this year, Brown said, he added that overall it hasn't reached the peaks of the 1970s, '80s and '90s.

Officers in small towns are just at risk as officers in cities, Brown said. A police officer in urban Pomona, California, and an officer in rural Clinton, Missouri, were both shot dead this month.

An especially a big fear now is police ambushes, which Brown said are increasing. The uptick has led to more officers being told to wait for cover and not quickly rush in as often when responding to crisis calls, he said.

"There's always a high degree of alert among law enforcement professionals," Groenginer said. "They never know what could be around the corner. They never know when they could be targeted just because they are in a uniform."

But new solutions for dealing with violence are always in the works.

To help combat the increasing number of ambushes, some officers are using heavier ballistic vests.

"New York has been the leader in this because they added some ballistic material to the police cars, to the windows and doors, because they had officers ambushed in their car," Brown said.

There are also car manufacturers installing sensors in the back of police cars to alert an officer if someone is approaching from behind while a car is parked, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

Police applications on the decline

"One of the most concerning things is not a lot of people are wanting to be police officers" due to police criticism and heightened dangers, Brown said.

Gomez agreed. He said one official told him departments are "struggling to get qualified candidates to apply" and Gomez thinks it's partly because of what he calls the "Ferguson effect."

In 2014, a white police officer fatally shot an African-American teen in Ferguson, Missouri, sparking large-scale protests.

Police officers confront protesters after the announcement of the grand jury decision not to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown on Nov. 24, 2014, in Ferguson, Mo.

Gomez said Ferguson and similar police shootings have since "continued to impact the perception of law enforcement."

"Potential candidates entering into law enforcement feel that they don't have the support of the public and of government officials," Gomez said.

Jonathan Thompson, executive director of the National Sheriffs' Association (NSA), said that five years ago, there were 100 applicants for every vacancy. Today, that number is down to the low 60s, he said.

Last year, 34-year-old New York City police officer Miosotis Familia was gunned down while she was sitting in her marked police command vehicle, writing in her memo book.

Emergency personnel stand near the scene where a police officer was fatally shot while sitting in her patrol car in the Bronx section of New York, July 5, 2017.

One day after the shooting, the NYPD police commissioner reassured hundreds of recruits at their swearing-in ceremony that they had "absolutely" made the right career choice.

"The work of officer Miosotis Familia is not finished," NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill said, telling the recruits that it is their job as cops to finish it.

'The profession is on edge'

What's likely contributing to the increase in deadly shootings is some officers are now hesitant to use force in dangerous situations because they feel they no longer have support from the public and the government, Gomez said.

"If you're hesitant in using force, especially deadly force, then you are putting yourself at a disadvantage in a dangerous situation," Gomez said.

According to The Washington Post's database cataloging fatal police-involved shootings, 264 people have been shot and killed by police so far this year. In 2017, 987 people were fatally shot by police, and as of last week, there have been four fewer shootings this year than at the same time last year.

Brown said he thinks there's a decrease in trust of the government and thus a decrease in trust of law enforcement as well.

"I sense a lot of anger" within officers around the country, Brown said.

Many officers feel they can only trust themselves and their partners, Brown said, "and that is not the sentiment you want for a public servant."

"I'm really concerned that the 'us against them' mentality will take over, which is not healthy for delivering the best police service."

"The profession is on edge," he said, "and that is when you make mistakes and overreact."

The shattered families and friends left behind

"Every one of these fatalities represents a shattered family, a department ... often a community," Groeninger said.

"Specifically in the rural areas where you tend to have smaller departments and smaller workforces," Groeninger added. "Not only are you grieving that network that's been shattered due to the death, [but the loss also takes a] big hit to your workforce."

In Dallas, where five law enforcement officers were gunned down by a sniper in July 2016, their fellow officers who survived are "still in that anger and blame phase" nearly two years later, said Brown, who was the police chief at the time of the attack. He retired several months later after 33 years with the department.

That sniper attack was the deadliest day for United States law enforcement since 9/11.

Dallas police and residents stand near the scene where four Dallas police officers were shot and killed on July 7, 2016 in Dallas, Texas.

In the midst of their grief, officers in Dallas "still have to do their job every day," and are still dealing with the same criticisms and risks of other officers, Brown said.

"You try to move on to the next call and the next crisis, and it's increasingly difficult," Brown said. "It's not a normal recovery from such a tragedy."

The ultimate sacrifice

For Gloria Vega, one of the adult children of Palm Springs police Officer Gil Vega who was gunned down in October 2016, the past year and a half since his death has been "a big roller coaster."

The casket of Jose "Gil" Vega is taken to the hearse by Palm Spring Police Department personnel in Palm Spring, Calif., Oct. 18, 2016. Thousands of people gathered in California to remember a rookie police officer just back from maternity leave and a veteran just months from retirement who were shot to death in what authorities called an ambush by a gang member.

"The first six or eight months were by far my hardest months I've had," she told ABC News. "I was constantly crying myself to sleep. I had a really bad depression and it was really hard to get out of that."

She said what got her through was her children and her big family because that reminder of her dad -- whom she describes as funny, affectionate and always smiling -- brought her some comfort.

"I miss him daily," she said. "I miss his jokes. I miss him laughing. I miss texting him before I go to work."

Gloria Vega, who has an older brother and an older sister, said her parents divorced when she was young. Her dad later remarried and had another daughter, Vanessa, who was 8 at the time of his death. Gil Vega, a 35-year veteran, died just two months away from his retirement.

Santa Ana police officers lined-up to get in for memorial services for Palm Springs police fallen Officers Lesley Zerebny and Jose "Gil" Vega takes place, Oct. 18, 2016, at Convention Center in Palm Springs. Officers Vega and Zerebny were gunned down Oct. 8 after responding to a family disturbance call at a Palm Springs residence.

Growing up, she said she would always worry if something would happen to him while he was on duty. As she got older, her dad's safety wasn't her main worry and it was just "in the back of my mind," she said.

Gloria Vega said the past few years she'd tell her coworkers, "I'm so glad my dad's so close to retiring, I'm so glad this is something we don't have to worry about anymore. ... And then it happened."

His death "broke my heart for Vanessa," she said, because "as a little girl it was always my biggest fear. And for it to happen to her, it hurt my heart. ... I was fortunate enough to have him for as long as I did."

A photo of Palm Springs Police Officer Jose "Gil" Gilbert Vega is seen at a memorial for Vega and police officer Lesley Zerebny in front of the police station in Palm Springs, Calif., Oct. 10, 2016.

Vanessa "took it really hard" but "she's in really good spirits," Gloria Vega said. She had "her moments" and cried, but "she's really tough."

Looking back at her father's years on the force, what sticks with her is the mutual respect between him and those he had arrested.

Gloria Vega said after her father once arrested someone, he drove through a Del Taco drive-thru before heading to jail to make sure he'd have food.

Another time, Gloria Vega and her dad were out at a restaurant when a man he had previously arrested stopped by to talk to them and was so friendly that she was shocked.

She said her father told her it was "because 'I treated him like a human. Just because I'm doing my job and I have to arrest him, I didn't have to treat him like he was nothing.'"

"The little things he would do for people, he made a difference," she said, adding he tried to get other officers to follow his lead.

Gloria Vega said she feels like some people "perceive officers just as a badge."

"Maybe they forget they have families," Gloria Vega said. "But they're just like everybody else. The only difference is my dad went out there ... he sacrificed his family, sacrificed us having him, to protect people he doesn't even know.

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/2018-deadly-year-cops/story?id=5385958

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Bad cops are built. Here's how.

Protecting the shield

This is a part of “Protecting The Shield” – a two-year Asbury Park Press investigation that probes gaps in police accountability, which can harm citizens and cost New Jersey taxpayers millions of dollars.

When departments fail to adequately supervise cops, the public is put at risk.

In one example, a federal judge wrote in 2007 that a jury could find Atlantic City turned a "blind eye" to one officer who she derided as "short-fused" and "volatile." That officer, Andrew Jaques, remained a police officer for 10 more years, leaving in August 2017 on an unspecified medical disability, according to town records.

Jaques, 39, was the subject of at least five internal affairs investigations in an eight-month period in 2001 and 2002, according to federal civil court records. He was fired in 2006, but later reinstated by the Civil Service Commission, records show.

At least one of the internal affairs investigations was handled by his uncle, a sergeant in the department's internal affairs unit, court documents revealed.

Internal affairs complaints accused Jaques of losing his temper in traffic stops and allegedly abusing his girlfriend, bludgeoning a bicyclist and choking a restrained man unconscious in the 2001 and 2002 period.

He also had a pending disciplinary charge for which he received a 30-day "punishment of record" before officially leaving the department. The pending charge was not released by the city. Jaques had been on medical leave since May 2017.

One excessive force lawsuit against Jaques and the Atlantic City Police Department filed in 2016 is pending. The city refused to release the terms of the settlement from a second suit.

In its separation agreement with Jaques, the city said it would give a neutral reference to any future employers about his tenure as a city police officer. He didn't receive payment for any used time, but the city agreed to support his request for a disability pension.

Police accountability in New Jersey starts and often ends with the judgment of police chiefs, who determine if they will pursue allegations of misconduct against an officer. With hundreds of chiefs across the state and little oversight, the quality of that enforcement varies widely, the Asbury Park Press found.

From 2010 through 2016, citizens filed at least 37,456 internal affairs complaints against cops throughout New Jersey.

No one on the outside knows what happened with those complaints. The details of the complaints and any action taken against police officers are secret.

The internal affairs system in New Jersey is so broken that attorney Gregg L. Zeff said he tells clients abused by police not to bother filing a complaint.

Zeff has pursued police and prison abuse and defense cases for 30 years in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but also represented police officers in discrimination claims, whistleblower incidents and employment disputes.

"Internal affairs is very much like a human resources department of a corporation," the Philadelphia-based attorney said. "They're not there to support the employee or the citizen; they're really there to protect the police.

"In taking your statement, they're going to look at you as if ‘why did you deserve to get beaten?'"

Orlando Trinidad. Bloomfield police officers Orlando Trinidad and Sean Courter had a history of internal affairs complaints regarding alleged assaults and excessive force.

Orlando Trinidad. Bloomfield police officers Orlando Trinidad and Sean Courter had a history of internal affairs complaints regarding alleged assaults and excessive force.

Law abiding officers are done a disservice by lacking supervision, according to Samuel DeMaio, who took over as Bloomfield's public safety director in 2014 after conducting an eight-month-long study of the department and its problems.

Two Bloomfield officers went to prison after beating a man during a traffic stop and lying in police reports.

Orlando Trinidad and Sean Courter had a history of internal affairs complaints regarding alleged assaults and excessive force, DeMaio said. But no one at the department ever reviewed the allegations.

Trinidad and Courter "were done an injustice by this police department," DeMaio said. "There were no systems in place to identify clear signs of the direction that they were heading in."

In one brutal example, Trinidad mocked his department's mechanism for watching cops, a lawsuit claimed. In 2013, after beating and almost ripping the ear off an unarmed man, Rodolfo Crespo, in the department's holding area, Trinidad walked to a nearby surveillance camera, looked up, pointed and said "IA" – the initials for the police department's internal affairs unit, the man claimed in his lawsuit.

The city settled the Crespo suit, who claims he suffered a massive laceration to his right ear, a thoracic spine fracture and multiple head traumas. They agreed to a $363,910 payout. As is standard practice in settlements, no admission of wrongdoing was made by the city.

The Bloomfield Police Department in Essex County knew of at least 37 documented incidents where Trinidad allegedly used force over eight years – beginning when he started with the department in 2006. His use of force incidents made up about 27 percent of the 135 force reports documented by all officers in a 10-year period, one suit claimed.

Paterson Patrolman Manuel Avila's mental health was in question. He was hospitalized in 2004 after mixing the sleep aid Ambien with wine, an internal affairs captain recalled in court testimony. He was hospitalized again and his gun was taken away in 2005 after his worried brother called police. Responding officers saw Avila go outside in the winter wearing just a t-shirt and sneakers, appearing agitated.

After swallowing many sleeping pills and spending five days in a psych ward in 2007, a psychologist determined Avila shouldn't carry a gun, court testimony showed.

"And he should, therefore, leave the police department," Capt. Troy Oswald said in court, quoting from a letter the doctor wrote.

But Avila was close to his 20th year of service with the department, a milestone that would entitle him to collect 50 percent of his salary in a pension.

"Officer Avila had 19-and-a-half years on the department and what I really wanted to do is let him get to his 20th year," Oswald testified.

The department reached out to the doctor again and got him to approve their plan to have Avila remain on duty – without a gun – booking inmates.

"(The doctor) felt that there was no problem of danger to others as long as he's just moving prisoners and he's not carrying a gun," Oswald testified. The chief made a decision to place him in the cell block watching over prisoners, he said.

About a month after serving on the cell block, Avila was accused of forcing a woman in custody to perform oral sex on him.

Avila was later acquitted of a sexual assault and other charges. But his department spent nine years and at least $1.8 million in taxpayer money in an attempt to fire him. The city ultimately settled by allowing Avila to resign and seek a police pension.

Avila could not be reached for comment.

Capt. Troy Oswald describes a series of incidents involving Patrolman Manuel Avila during testimony before a trial in which Avila was found not guilty of sexual assault. Paterson spent nine years and $1.8 million trying to get rid of Avila.

The removal was an expensive and damaging debacle that illustrates the troubling intersection of psychology and police behavior. Even when warning flags are raised, police agencies are hamstrung when trying to keep troubled officers away from the public.

While the common perception is that innocent civilians are injured or killed when a cop "snaps," that is seldom the case, peer-reviewed, professional studies show. Violent, even deadly, tendencies build over time and can be fueled by police department politics and domestic disharmony, rather than the stress of policing.

A healthy, well-adjusted officer – even if exposed to an extreme stressor – won't "snap," said Laurence Miller, a Florida-based police and forensic psychologist who's known nationally as an expert in police psychology. There's always a progression of whatever is smoldering beneath the surface – even if it's overlooked.

How supervisors handle officers who misbehave, whether it's major or minor, sends a message to the rest of the officers, Miller said.

There's no law in New Jersey that governs how a psychologist should evaluate an officer or that requires a psychologist have training in police psychology. Standards of conduct vary across the several hundred departments in the state.

"You get into situations where completely untrained, unqualified psychologists are putting their two cents in for purposes of these appeals," police psychologist Matthew Guller said. "I would never do a child custody evaluation or even a business assessment. It's not my specialty. It's like a tax lawyer taking on a divorce."

Guller is a partner at the Institute for Forensic Psychology based in Oakland, a firm responsible for psychological testing for more than half of the state's police departments.

Although New Jersey doesn't mandate psychological screenings for officers, it's considered a best practice, Guller said. Most police departments in the state do screen new hires or transfers, especially officers who carry weapons.

The way a department handles misconduct, enforces its rules and instructs its officers – or doesn't – influences police conduct, according to a 2004 report, "Organizational Culture and Police Misconduct," by University of Virginia School of Law Professor Barbara E. Armacost.

When an incident of police misconduct becomes public, departments tend to distance themselves from the officer by characterizing them as "rogue" instead of looking at the organizational norms and policies that framed the cop's judgment in the first place, Armacost said.

A police officer's stress comes more from the police organization than the job itself, a body of research that began in the early 1990s has consistently shown.

By nature, police officers don't make decisions as individuals. They're embedded in organizations adherent to a chain of command. If an officer is told by a superior to do something he or she thinks is wrong, the officer must decide to defy authority or obey the superior. Both decisions could carry punishment and send a confusing message, according to Armacost.

Favoritism during the disciplinary process – because of friendships, political associations and nepotism – significantly contributes to lower officer performance, according to the study "Organizational Stressors and Police Performance," by Jon M. Shane, an associate professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

One of the most effective philosophies for managing police behavior is one that supports its officers, but in return they can't betray the trust, Miller said. Officers can't expect the department to defend misbehavior.

"It's a hard, thin line to walk on," he said.

Scholars say that personality is only one element of what might play into police aggression or misconduct, according to a 1994 National Institute of Justice report, "The Role of Police Psychology in Controlling Excessive Force," which experts say is still relevant today.

"If you start out with a thin-skinned, self-entitled attitude, even the slightest amount of pushback on the part of the citizen may elicit an overreaction," Miller said. "Because that officer by nature takes everything personally, (he or she) has not put on that objectivity and professional detachment."

The report also found that most police psychologists said they were more likely to be involved with counseling and evaluating officers as a response to an excessive force incident rather than training and monitoring behavior for prevention.

Pre-employment psych evaluations will catch most individuals with major personality disorders, like a sociopath, or a person who lacks a conscience, Miller said.

Some may squeak by, but it's more common to see officers who have less severe traits that resemble characteristics of antisocial, narcissistic and paranoid disorders pass the evaluation, he said.

These individuals tend to be a little bit damaged going in, but not necessarily noticeable. Sometimes years on the job can bring those issues to the surface or exacerbate the traits, according to Miller.

Avila, the former Paterson cop, is appealing to the state for a $72,000 annual pension, which would include credit for the six years he was suspended.

Because Avila was not convicted at trial, and since New Jersey has no police officer decertification process, his status is no different than any of the other 33,000 police officers in New Jersey.

And if Avila foregoes retirement, he is free to seek another policing job

https://amp.app.com/amp/103515000

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Florida

The Parkland shooting fueled calls for more school police. Civil rights groups want them removed.

A new report argues that school policing is a racial justice issue.

by P.R. Lockhart

Seven months ago, the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, sparked an intense debate about how to stop school shootings and make schools safer. One proposal: more police in schools.

One month after the shooting, Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill dedicating $400 million to a number of school security measures, including an increase in the number of school resource officers. The Trump administration called for more armed police officers in schools and also floated the idea of arming teachers, concerning those who believe that more police in schools could create problems for students of color.

Now two civil rights groups say that if school safety is truly a concern, police should be removed from schools entirely.

A new joint report titled “We Came to Learn: A Call to Action for Police-Free Schools,” by the Advancement Project and the Alliance for Educational Justice, aims to tell a more comprehensive story of policing in America's schools and how it affects students of color, particularly those from predominantly black communities. It argues that in the nearly two decades since the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, calls to increase school safety have resulted in an increasingly punitive system of school discipline aimed at students of color, and that school policing has failed to make students of color safer.

“Police in schools is an issue of American racial disparity that requires deep structural change,” the report authors note.

There is a considerable body of research showing that black and Latino students are more likely to be suspended, arrested, and disciplined in school. Advocates argue that adding more police to this dynamic will only make things more difficult for students from marginalized groups — those from black and Latino communities, with LGBTQ identities, and with disabilities — who are already more likely to interact with police in their daily lives.

The report “serves as a warning in the post-Parkland moment about what happens in black and brown schools when we respond [to tragedy] with overpolicing and a hardening of schools,” says Jonathan Stith, the national director for the Alliance for Educational Justice. “It does not create safety for black and brown students.”

School policing has increased considerably in recent decades

Police presence in schools dates back to the 1950s, as districts introduced police with the goal of improving relationships between law enforcement and young people. But according to the report, this was not the case in many schools with predominantly black student bodies, where later, students activists of the civil rights era clashed with police officers.

What was initially a gradual increase in school policing — a category that now includes officers stationed full time or part time in schools — accelerated in the wake of high-profile violence. After the Columbine shooting, a fear of guns in schools led to the increased use of school resource officers and the introduction of “zero tolerance” school discipline.

The federal government promoted the spread of more aggressive school policing; the Justice Department's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), for example, established a grant awarding more than $750 million to schools to beef up policing from 1999 to 2005, with more than 6,500 new school officers. Years later, a mix of roughly 44,000 school resource officers and other law enforcement were in schools at least once a week during the 2013-'14 school year, according to a 2015 report from the Institute of Education Sciences and the National Center for Education.

Advancement Project/Alliance for Educational Justice

Schools with higher numbers of black and Latino students are more likely to have police, We Came to Learn reports. This became even more noticeable after a wave of school safety measures spread after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. Research by Jason Nance, a professor at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law, has found that these measures, which included metal detectors, security cameras, and more school police, were more likely to be introduced in schools with high numbers of nonwhite students.

Nance concluded that based on a review of federal data, “schools with higher concentrations of minority students are more inclined to rely on heavy-handed measures to maintain order than other schools facing similar crime and discipline issues.” That difference fits into a larger set of disparities that affect students of color.

In the 2011-'12 school year, black students were only about 16 percent of the student population but made up more than a third of students suspended or expelled, according to the Department of Education. Black, Latino, and Native American students are also more likely to be arrested by school police. In the 2015-'16 school year, black students disproportionately accounted for 31 percent of those arrested or referred to law enforcement. This disparity isn't limited to black boys; black girls account for 43 percent of girls arrested at school.

Collectively, these disparities have fueled concerns about the “school-to-prison pipeline,” a term describing the ways that school discipline and arrests push students of color out of classrooms and into the justice system.

Students of color are more likely to face police violence in schools

The concerns outlined in the report are not limited to arrests. A wave of high-profile incidents suggests that black and brown students are also more likely to face violence from school police.

The report makes this case by pointing to several high-profile incidents of police violence in schools. For example, a 16-year-old girl was violently thrown in her classroom by a police officer at Spring Valley High in Columbia, South Carolina, in 2015, and a second girl was arrested for protesting as she witnessed the incident. In 2016, a Baltimore Schools police officer was filmed slapping and kicking a student. Other students have been tasered, pepper-sprayed, and struck by police officers for offenses like “defiance.” Other headline-grabbing incidents have included preschoolers and kindergartners being handcuffed by police officers for throwing tantrums or not following orders.

“A lot of assaults are starting from minor situations,” says Julien Terrell, the executive director for the Philadelphia Student Union, a youth-led organization that has worked to reform schools in Philadelphia. If more schools were better funded and able to hire “people who were trained to offer a nurturing environment rather than being agents of control, you wouldn't be seeing these problems.”

In all, the report highlights some 62 incidents of police violence in schools between November 2010 and March of this year, though the authors say this count is likely a low estimate. A recent Huffington Post analysis on this topic identified more than 80 incidents of students being tasered, assaulted, or pepper-sprayed between 2016 and 2018.

Advancement Project/Alliance for Educational Justice

The discrepancy between these two numbers points to a larger issue when it comes to tracking officer-involved incidents in schools. There isn't a comprehensive database tracking police interactions or officer-involved violence in schools. Civil rights groups say that lack of data is part of a much larger lack of accountability when it comes to law enforcement in schools, making it difficult for students and parents to file complaints and see consequences for officers who use excessive force.

Much of this is due to the opaque and complicated nature of school policing. There is no consistent process or training for becoming a school police officer, and officers are not always trained on interacting with children and young adults, according to the report. Some school districts simply employ officers from a local police department, while cities like Baltimore actually have a separate police force for its schools. That variation in structure can make accountability difficult; parents and students often don't know where to take their complaints. “The channels of accountability are extremely unclear,” says Tyler Whittenberg, an Advancement Project staff attorney.

Some districts, however, uphold a clear agreement between schools and police outlining what officers are allowed to do on campus and when they can make arrests. But in many districts, this is left completely to the officer's discretion.

Calls for school safety rarely acknowledge how policing affects students of color

In many ways, the concerns outlined in the report closely echo concerns about policing and communities of color that have been raised more broadly in the years since the start of the Movement for Black Lives. Advocates note that children of color often negatively encounter police in their communities as well, making police in schools feel like an additional burden that exposes children to harm rather than making them safer.

One month after the Parkland shooting, black students there held a press conference, arguing that calls for more police on school grounds would put students of color at risk. “We want officers that will protect us, not racially profile us,” student Tyah-Amoy Roberts later told the Daily Beast. Similar concerns were raised during the National School Walkout on March 14, as students of color told reporters that they were marching to protest not only school shootings but also police violence, some of which had happened in their school hallways.

Recent efforts to discuss school policing and safety have often failed to acknowledge this. The Parkland shooting fueled calls from President Trump and some conservative groups to reverse an Obama-era guidance intended to reduce racial disparities in school discipline, arguing that the guidance had made school officials reluctant to involve law enforcement with problem students and criminal behavior. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and other civil rights groups countered that rescinding the guidance would do little to prevent school shootings, and would instead leave students of color vulnerable.

And while an argument could be made that better officer training and an emphasis on deescalation can make school policing work, for a growing number of civil rights organizations, this is not the case.

The “We Came to Learn” report concludes that reform at this point will not be enough to end the problems students of color face in schools. Instead, the authors argue that police should be removed entirely, switching to a system where police are only called in as a final resort.

Advancement Project/Alliance for Educational Justice

This demand largely relies on an understanding of school safety that does not center so much on school shootings (which remain relatively rare, particularly in communities of color), and instead argues that school violence is more likely to involve police officers handling students roughly. A growing number of groups have called attention to this framing: In 2016, a coalition of 100 education groups called the Dignity in Schools Campaign called for police officers to be removed from schools. That same year, a United Nations working group also called to remove police officers from schools.

For the two groups behind the recent schools report, the money that has been used to increase the number of school officers across the country would be better spent on mental health services and counseling for students. “We need to expand the definition of, and investment in public safety to include more school-based counselors, social workers, and nurses,” the report authors note. They add that these groups are “trained to de-escalate community members in distress, whereas law enforcement are trained to meet force with force and to neutralize potential threat.”

Students have also raised the call, with youth groups in various cities launching campaigns that support divesting from law enforcement in favor of more student services.

“We need to be challenging ourselves about what is the purpose of education,” says Stith of the Alliance for Educational Justice. “And if we're having folks [in schools] who aren't committed to that or don't play a role in uplifting that, we need to really start questioning why they are there in the first plac

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/identities/2018/9/20/17856416/school-discipline-policing-black-students-repor

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Florida

Daytona police officer arrested on felony child abuse charge, then fired

by Tony Holt

A rookie Daytona Beach police officer has been jailed and fired following allegations he picked up a 3-year-old girl by one of her legs and threw her against a wall, causing injuries to the child's left ear.

John Barrett, 28, was charged with felony child abuse and was booked Wednesday night at the Volusia County Branch Jail, according to the Daytona Beach Police Department.

Lyda Longa, a police spokeswoman, confirmed in a media release Thursday that Barrett was fired immediately following his arrest.

The Florida Department of Children and Families contacted police about the alleged abuse Tuesday, according to an arrest report.

The child's mother had dropped off her daughter at Barrett's mother's home Monday morning. She received calls from the daycare and from DCF on Tuesday afternoon and that's when she found out about the child's injuries, the report stated.

The girl complained of head pain and had bruising on her left ear, police said. It was also noted in the report that the girl had vomited during the night, which is often a symptom that children have after suffering a head injury.

The report also stated that "a small amount of dried blood" was found in the child's left ear canal as well as slight bruising to her left upper arm. The girl was interviewed Wednesday morning by investigators and she was still complaining of head pain at that time, police said.

A child protection officer interviewed the girl, who told her, "My dad throwed me ... and then I cried and there was a little mark right there (pointing to ear) and it hurted," according to the report.

When the girl was asked how her father threw her, she answered, "He hold my leg with the hand and then throwed me like this," and then demonstrated by using a stuffed animal, police said. The girl also told investigators that Barrett struck her on the ear with an open hand, the report stated.

Police said Barrett physically abused his daughter because she would not go to bed.

The girl told authorities that her father had never left a "boo-boo" on her before Tuesday, according to police.

A woman who lives with Barrett applied ice to the girl's injury, police said.

During his interview with detectives, Barrett said he never saw an injury to his daughter that would require ice. One of the detectives noted in her report that she had never even asked Barrett whether ice was applied to the girl's injury.

Barrett was "adamant" that he didn't know how his daughter was injured and at no time during the interview did he ask about her well-being, detectives said.

Before he was transported to jail, Barrett spoke to Deputy Chief Jakari Young and told him that the injuries in the evidence photos shown to him were not "exactly how it looked when she was with me," according to the report.

Barrett was hired as a full-time police officer on May 14, 2018. As with all new police officers, he was serving an 18 month probationary period.

http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20180906/daytona-police-officer-arrested-on-felony-child-abuse-charge-then-fired

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Cyber Security

Google releases free AI tool to stamp out child sexual abuse material

by Lisa Vaas

Since 2008, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) has made available a list of hash values for known child sexual abuse images. Provided by ISPs, these hash values (which are like a digital fingerprint) enable companies to check large volumes of files for matches without those companies themselves having to keep copies of offending images or to actually pry open people's private messages.

More recently, in 2015, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) announced that it would share hashes of such vile imagery with the online industry in a bid to speed up its identification and removal, working with web giants Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Yahoo to remove child sexual abuse material (CSAM) from the web.

It's been worthy work, but it's had one problem: you can only get a hash of an image after you've identified it. That means that a lot of human analysts have to analyze a lot of content – onerous work for reviewers, and also an approach that doesn't scale well when it comes to keeping up with the scourge.

On Monday, Google announced that it's releasing a free artificial intelligence (AI) tool to address that problem: technology that can identify, and report, online CSAM at scale, easing the need for human analysts to do all the work of catching new material that hasn't yet been hashed.

Google Engineering Lead Nikola Todorovic and Product Manager Abhi Chaudhuri said in the post that the AI “significantly advances” Google's existing technologies to “dramatically improve how service providers, NGOs, and other technology companies review violative content at scale.”

Google says that the use of deep neural networks for image processing will assist reviewers who've been sorting through images, by prioritizing the most likely CSAM content for review.

The classifier adds on to the historical approaches of detecting such content – matching hashes of known CSAM – by also targeting content that hasn't yet been confirmed as CSAM.

The faster the identification, the faster children can be rescued, Google said:

Quick identification of new images means that children who are being sexually abused today are much more likely to be identified and protected from further abuse.

Google is making the tool available for free to NGOs and its industry partners via its Content Safety API: “a toolkit to increase the capacity to review content in a way that requires fewer people to be exposed to it.”

Susie Hargreaves, CEO of the IWF:

We, and in particular our expert analysts, are excited about the development of an artificial intelligence tool which could help our human experts review material to an even greater scale and keep up with offenders, by targeting imagery that hasn't previously been marked as illegal material. By sharing this new technology, the identification of images could be speeded up, which in turn could make the internet a safer place for both survivors and users.

How much speed is speeded up? Google says that it's seen the system help a reviewer find and take action on 700% more CSAM content than can be reviewed and reported without the aid of AI.

Google said that those interested in using the Content Safety API should reach out to the company by using this API request form.

This won't be enough to stop the spread of what Google called this “abhorrent” content, but the fight will go on, the company said:

Identifying and fighting the spread of CSAM is an ongoing challenge, and governments, law enforcement, NGOs and industry all have a critically important role in protecting children from this horrific crime.

While technology alone is not a panacea for this societal challenge, this work marks a big step forward in helping more organizations do this challenging work at scale. We will continue to invest in technology and organizations to help fight the perpetrators of CSAM and to keep our platforms and our users safe from this type of abhorrent content. We look forward to working alongside even more partners in the industry to help them do the same.

Fred Langford, deputy CEO of the IWF, told the Verge that the organization – one of the largest organizations dedicated to stopping the spread of CSAM online – first plans to test Google's new AI tool thoroughly.

As it is, there's been a lot of hype about AI, he said, noting the “fantastical claims” made about such technologies.

While tools like Google's are building towards fully automated systems that can identify previously unseen material without human interaction, such a prospect is “a bit like the Holy Grail in our arena,” Langford said.

The human moderators aren't going away, in other words. At least, not yet. The IWF will keep running its tip lines and employing teams of humans to identify abuse imagery; will keep investigating sites to find where CSAM is shared; and will keep working with law enforcement to shut them down.

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2018/09/05/google-releases-free-ai-tool-to-stamp-out-child-sexual-abuse-material/

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Hurricane Florence

First responder on Hurricane Florence: What it's really like trying to keep people alive in a raging hurricane

by Kelly R. McKinney | Fox News

Hurricane Florence made landfall in North Carolina Friday morning and was battering the state with devastating wind, rain and storm surge. The storm's nonstop rain and deadly flooding is expected to continue in the region for days.

As a disaster expert, I have seen this before. In addition to supporting the Harris County, Texas emergency operations center during Hurricane Ike in 2007 and Hurricane Harvey last year, I managed the New York City emergency operations center during Hurricanes Irene and Sandy.

Florence is doing what these other hurricanes did in years past – taking over, transforming the landscape and propelling people out of their orderly and familiar reality into a frightening new reality that is unearthly and strange – a parallel universe.

The most important work in the parallel universe is done by police officers, firefighters and rescue workers all across the disaster zone. This is known as the tactical level, or “teeth,” of the response.

My thoughts are with the men and women gathered in and around operations centers, supporting the teeth of the response with critical information and resources and solving the problems that can't be solved on the ground. Already they have been working non-stop for over a week, with no rest anywhere in sight. Indeed, the hard part starts now.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper offers an update on the rescue efforts as rising waters strand residents.

Florence is disrupting critical infrastructure – power, water, food, medicine, sanitation and housing – meaning that things will not return to normal for quite a while.

While many in the media are focusing on Florence's effect on barrier islands and coastal cities, a bigger concern is the inland areas, where even a massive response will be hindered by poor infrastructure and challenging geography.

Millions of people are being impacted. As the fabric of society unravels, fear seeps in to replace the destroyed rhythm of daily life. Many are doing what people always do in these situations: nothing. They are hunkered down, trapped in Florence's parallel universe until someone comes along to help them.

Emergency managers have the hardest job in the world because it's not enough for them to do a lot of things very quickly. Because human needs cannot wait, the emergency manager have to be able to do everything all at once. As Florence surges in, they must surge too. They need to get big enough fast enough to manage the tsunami of issues that are emerging now.

Category 1 hurricane makes landfall at 7:15 a.m. ET with 90 mph winds; Janice Dean reports on the latest storm track.

The managers have spent the past week pulling people and teams away from their day jobs in other governments, the private sector, and nonprofit and faith-based organizations. People are coming together with a unity of purpose into one incident organization to collaborate, solve problems and act in the moment.

Over the coming days and weeks dozens, perhaps hundreds, of teams will focus on different aspects of the disaster – search and rescue, damage assessment, sheltering, logistics, debris removal, disaster assistance, fatality management, feeding, and on and on.

People think that governments have some innate ability to respond to disasters. Nothing could be further from the truth. Governments are slow-moving creatures of habit, ill-suited to the demands of the parallel universe.

The emergency managers are the antidote. They create the instant bureaucracy that supercharges the government-led response.

Over the coming days the emergency managers will beg, borrow and steal everything they need to get the job done. And we must help them.

Florence is not just a disaster for the Carolinas. It is our disaster, with all of us inside its parallel universe. We are all on the hook for this. We are all duty-bound to assist our fellow human beings in their time of greatest need, with dignity and respect

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/09/14/first-responder-on-hurricane-florence-what-its-really-like-trying-to-keep-people-alive-in-raging-hurricane.html

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Houston Police Focus on Saving Lives, Battling Looters

HPD Chief Art Acevedo told GMA they will rescue every person who has called by the end of the day.

HOUSTON, Texas - As the sun rose over Houston this morning, police went to work to rescue victims of the flash flood emergency that left thousands of people stuck inside their flooded homes.

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo told GMA that officers completed more than 2,000 rescue missions this weekend after Hurricane Harvey made landfall on the central Texas coast.

Harvey, since downgraded to a tropical storm, dumped catastrophic amounts of rain on Houston beginning Saturday, leaving thousands of drivers stranded and many more homes flooded out.

"I'm happy to report we're down to about 250 folks that are still waiting for rescues or locations," Acevedo said. "We've made some great progress, and we're just really grateful that despite the power of this storm, we haven't had more loss.

Acevedo sent a message to those still left without aid after nightfall Sunday: help is on the way.

"Hunker down, hold tight, we hear you, we feel you," Acevedo said. "We know where you're at, know we're coming, and this morning, sometime today, everyone should be recovered."

The chief also talked about the "heart-wrenching" impact Tropical Storm Harvey has had on his officers.

"I've had officers tear up with the things they've seen with these children in the middle of the night," Acevedo said.

Acevedo also said officers are focused on protecting the city from looters as floodwater recede.

"We've already arrested a handful of looters. We've made it real clear to our community we're going to do whatever it takes to protect their homes and their businesses," Acevedo said. "And when people come from the outside to Houston, Texas, know we're going to be out in the city, we're not going to rest as a police department or law enforcement community until people restore their lives

https://abc13.com/amp/houston-police-focus-on-saving-lives-battling-looters/2350439/

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Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania grand jury finds some police and district attorneys helped Catholic church cover up priest abuse

by Tim Darragh

As he began a blistering presentation of a grand jury report into decades of child sex abuse by priests in Pennsylvania earlier this month, Attorney General Josh Shapiro singled out two groups — the Catholic Church hierarchy and law enforcement — for sometimes working in tandem to keep the accusations from the public.

“The abuse scarred every diocese,” he said. “The cover-up was sophisticated. The church protected the institution at all costs.”

But the findings, identifying 301 predator priests, also showed a “failure of law enforcement,” Shapiro said.

The investigation found that while the church leadership was consistently involved in protecting offenders, it sometimes had assistance from police or district attorneys who looked the other way.

The documented cases of lax enforcement occurred decades ago. But by allowing offending priests to walk freely, law enforcement cleared a path for more abuse to occur and left victims without justice. It's impossible to say how many children were molested by priests who avoided charges, but the grand jury report found that some accused priests aided by see-no-evil law enforcement were able to live freely for decades, and that the 1,000 victims the grand jury counted likely were the tip of the iceberg.

For former Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham, the problem often started at police departments, which were stocked with Catholic police officers. They knew the priests, but more importantly, she said, the priests knew them.

“It was a different time,” she said. “You didn't remonstrate with the guy who's giving you absolution.”

Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli said he couldn't know what prosecutors and police were thinking in any individual case, but said the public and law enforcement likely “didn't want to believe” priests would sexually abuse children.

"These cases in that time period probably would have been very difficult prosecutions, word against word,” he said.

Morganelli ran into a wall of disbelief in 1998 when he prosecuted Monsignor Stephen T. Forish for allegedly soliciting sex from a man early one morning in 1996. Forish was acquitted.

“I was criticized big-time for bringing that case,” he said.

Eight years later, Forish was again charged with soliciting sex from strangers. He died awaiting trial in that case.

Shapiro, through a spokesman, declined to discuss law enforcement's role in allowing abusive priests to get away without charges.

One of the most egregious missed opportunities by law enforcement involved the Rev. Thomas Bender, who was serving at St. Francis Orphanage in Orwigsburg in 1972. That year, the grand jury report said, a state trooper found Bender with a high school-age boy, both with no pants on, in a car. The case was reported by another trooper, who also was a deacon in the church, the grand jury report said.

A report by Monsignor Anthony Muntone to Bishop Thomas J. Welsh, then head of the Allentown Diocese, stated that the first trooper “gave Bender ‘a lecture and sent him on his way.' ”

The diocese received another complaint about Bender in 1984, the report said. Bender repeatedly raped that victim for years, leading to civil and criminal complaints, it said. The victim had to be hospitalized for a drug overdose and psychiatric problems, which the diocese paid for, it said. Later, two more people accused Bender of sexual abuse in the 1960s.

Bender, now 84, would be convicted twice of crimes against children, in 1988 and 2006. He was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison and lifetime probation on the second set of charges. He was released in 2014 and lives in Lower Macungie Township.

He declined to speak to a Morning Call reporter about the report.

“No proper answer”

The grand jury heard from at least one official who chose not to stop an abusive priest early in his ministry.

Robert Masters was Beaver County district attorney in 1964 when he was presented with accusations that the Rev. Ernest Paone had molested young boys and illegally used guns with “even younger parishioners,” as early as 1962, the report said.

Masters took it on himself to block Paone's arrest.

“I have, in order to prevent unfavorable publicity, halted all investigations into similar incidents with other young boys,” Masters wrote in an Aug. 4, 1964, letter to Pittsburgh Diocese Bishop Vincent Leonard.

Even as more complaints about Paone came to diocesan offices, Paone was allowed to transfer to dioceses in Nevada and California, the grand jury said. He finally was retired in 2003, 41 years after the diocese first heard accusations about him, it said. The grand jury found other accusations against Paone in the 1960s, but the diocese never notified church officials in Nevada and California about those.

Masters was asked by the grand jury why he deferred to the bishop's request to keep Paone's misconduct under wraps.

"Probably, respect for the bishop,” he told the grand jurors. “I really have no proper answer."

Masters also admitted that he wanted the bishop's support for his political career.

Now 87, Masters was hired as solicitor for Beaver County's Children and Youth Services department in 1989. The county commissioners fired him Aug. 15 after learning of his record in the grand jury report.

“It's not acceptable for a district attorney or anyone in law enforcement to be overly deferential to any institution or any group,” said Richard Long, executive director of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association.

The Allentown Diocese received three complaints about the Rev. David Soderlund in 1980 when he was serving St. Joseph's in Summit Hill, the grand jury said. Upon hearing one complaint, church officials investigated and found child pornography, including an image of Soderlund masturbating a 12-year-old boy.

Yet then-Carbon County District Attorney Richard Webb, who died in 2016, agreed to forgo prosecution if Soderlund received “treatment” and thereafter was assigned to posts outside of Carbon County, the report says.

Citing a diocesan file, the grand jury wrote that the county prosecutor “had assured him if the parents would not make an issue of the matter, he would not prosecute. The prosecutor made it clear that he understood Father Soderlund would no longer be stationed in Carbon County.”

Soderlund spent two months on sick leave, it said, and then was sent to Our Lady of Hungary in Northampton, which has an elementary school. Soon, he began to “act out sexually with a young boy,” the report said. Another allegation was lodged against him in 1987.

After being removed from ministry in 1989 and the priesthood in 2005, Soderlund moved to Wyoming, the grand jury reported. He was arrested for possession of child pornography in 2009 and sentenced to two to five years in prison. He is a registered sex offender in Wyoming.

In the case of the Rev. Anthony Cipolla in the Pittsburgh Diocese, charges of abusing boys led to a showdown in 1978 with an unnamed lawyer with the district attorney's office, a diocesan attorney, and a woman and her two children who said they were molested. The prosecutor took a back seat as the diocesan lawyer intimidated the mother and her boys, saying he would “tear into” their story in court, the report said.

“They're pushing the district attorney around or this guy is ignoring the district attorney,” the woman told the grand jury in 2016. “And the district attorney is not sticking up for us. He isn't telling them, you know, ‘Hey, don't talk to them kids like that' or ‘Don't talk to that woman like that.' He just let him say whatever he wanted to do and he did. And he intimidated us really bad.”

The woman dropped the charges against Cipolla.

He would be accused of abusing a third child, the report said, and again, the Beaver County district attorney's office was alerted. The grand jury report doesn't say what happened. Current Beaver County District Attorney David J. Lozier said he believes the complaint came when the case was beyond the statute of limitations.

Changes after Boston probe

Examples of law enforcement working with the church to block alleged abusers from legal consequences have shown up in investigations around the country and in other countries as well, said Terry McKiernan, a director of Bishop-Accountability.org, which maintains a database of accused clergy.

He cited notes from a 1967 phone call uncovered during the 2002 investigation into the Diocese of Manchester, N.H. During the call, a Catholic police chief leaving his job urged the church to remove a problem priest, Donald Osgood, who hadn't been charged. The chief feared “the whole thing might blow sky high” if a nonCatholic chief succeeded him, the notes say.

Osgood was moved and left the priesthood, Bishop-Accountability.org files say. He was named in at least four civil lawsuits that later were settled.

“The bishops spend a lot of time schmoozing with the people in power who can help them or hurt them,” McKiernan said.

Reports like these, he said. “give a feel for the hand-washes-hand kind of thing that really was going on.”

After The Boston Globe's explosive stories of priest sexual abuse and cover-up appeared in 2002, bishops in the United States saw they could no longer ask law enforcement to look away when confronted with criminal allegations. They adopted zero-tolerance policies and trained staff as laws expanded their roles in protecting children, mandating that they report suspected abuse to police. Additionally, police departments have gotten more diverse, and investigations in dioceses around the globe have raised public awareness about a once-unspeakable crime, Abraham said.

While the recent grand jury looked at abuse in the Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton dioceses, the complacency of law enforcement also was documented by previous grand juries investigating the state's other two Catholic dioceses.

The 2016 grand jury report on the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese noted several instances in which law enforcement took the side of the church over priests' victims.

In the case of one serial predator, Monsignor Francis McCaa, grand jurors learned of a 1985 meeting between then-Bishop James Hogan and the county district attorney's office where Hogan agreed to send McCaa for treatment followed by a reassignment. McCaa, who died in 2007, was reassigned to serve as a hospital chaplain in Martinsville, W.Va. As the grand jury looked further into McCaa's case, it learned that Cambria County Judge James T. Kiniry, then an assistant prosecutor in the district attorney's office, carried out the deal with Hogan.

Asked by the grand jury in 2016 if the meeting with Hogan was unusual, Kiniry said the church was given more authority over its members back then.

“You have to understand,” Kiniry said, “this is an extremely Catholic county. … Back then, the diocese moved the problem. That's just how it was.”

Similarly, reports of prosecutors and police allowing the church to use its internal processes to deal with alleged offenders showed up at least a half dozen times in the 2005 grand jury report of the Philadelphia Archdiocese. In one example, a priest arrested in a police sting was allowed to walk freely and have his record expunged as long as he was not arrested again for a year.

In another, then-Cardinal John Krol's office managed to keep a police detective from reporting his own 14-year-old son's abuse by the Rev. Francis X. Trauger in 1982.

“Convinced of our sincere resolve to take the necessary action regarding Fr. T., [the victim's father] does not plan to press any charges, police or otherwise,” an aide told the cardinal in a note cited by the 2005 grand jury.

When the cardinal's office contacted Trauger about the complaint, he was on a camping trip in South Dakota — with two boys from his parish school. Trauger would be accused again in 1991 and defrocked in 2005, according to Bishop-Accountability.org.

The multiple investigations identifying hundreds of predator priests and the hierarchy's attempts at covering up the scandal ultimately has torn away the cover that the church needed to get hands-off treatment by law enforcement, Morganelli said.

“The asset these guys had was their word was golden,” he said. “They don't have that anymore.”

http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/pennsylvania/mc-nws-grand-jury-law-enforcement-priests-20180823-story,amp.htm

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5 stresses cops deal with that non-cops should know about

The incidents LEOs witness will change them on duty and off duty

by Uniform Stories Staff

Cops are unique. Yes, there are occupations that may face similar stresses (military, firefighting, ems first responders), but the job of a police officer stands unique in its own right.

The best men and women who take on the vocation of being a police officer understand that it truly is a “calling” and not just a job. A good cop must be committed to the profession in a way that transcends the notion of punching a clock and getting a paycheck.

These same men and women will find in a matter of years, however, that the job will change them. It will change their outlook on the world, their interactions with others and in some cases their very ability to deal with others who are not in law enforcement. They will find that once close relationships with friends and family may fade. Sometimes, that's a natural thing and other times there is simply a lack of understanding of what stresses a cop endures in their day-to-day routines.

Here are 5 stresses that cops deal with that non-cops might not realize:

1. Daily preparation for battle

People die every day. Accidents happen every day. In rare instances, tragedy unexpectedly takes the lives of thousands. However, most occupations generally assume they will go to work and come home at the end of the day.

Being a police officer requires preparation for death, daily. Officers put on bullet proof vests and carry guns for a reason: they are ready for the fight, and unfortunately not every warrior comes home. In the last 5 years, a police officer has been killed, in the line of duty, every 2-3 days. That is 727 lives lost. Cops are at war out there.

2. The cop attitude stays

Many police officers aren't warned about the change that will take place in them from the job. The “cop attitude” cannot be left at the office, either. The incidents cops experience will change them on duty and off duty. They will not sit with their backs to doors or people; they will often not carry on a conversation by looking someone in the eye because they are looking at every person coming and going. They are running a hundred scenarios of what could go potentially wrong wherever they are.

3. Life in a fishbowl

Cops are held to a higher standard. And, the oath taken by officers isn't limited to when they are wearing a uniform. Most departments have a standard of conduct that governs even off duty behavior. Violations of that standard can result in disciplinary action.

There are constant eyes on LEOs and it is often difficult to find ways to de-stress and to blow off steam as a cop. Officers are constantly aware of scrutiny waiting around every corner, yet must boldly continue to go places no one else is willing to go and do things no one else is willing to do.

As the famous quote goes, “People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

4. Front row seat to despair

It is very rare for people to call the police when everything is going well. Instead, the police arrive when dad hits mom, when mom burns her child with a cigarette, when a brother or friend has been found dead with heroin needles in their arms, when a rollover accident has taken the life of a young family, someone's privacy has been violated in a burglary or robbery, or when someone has been the victim of a scam – and the list goes on.

Seeing these things day in and day out will take a toll on any officer. Often people wonder why an officer seemed angry when they saw them, or perhaps didn't smile and wave. Well, perhaps that officer has just returned from doing CPR a newborn and now is taking a report on damage to someone's property.

It's not that the officer is cold or don't care; it's just that people don't often see what that officer sees or do what that officer does.

To be fair, police officers need to consider the same for all those we are dealing with. People call the police when they are in need and under stress. So, not everyone hates the police even though they may just seem that way, we too, haven't been through what they've been through.

5. Riding the incident rollercoaster

At any point in the tour of duty, an officer can move from trying to eat lunch to driving at high speed, running after a suspect, pointing a firearm at someone and finding themselves in a life or death decision. Maybe an officer went from a parking complaint to a child hit by a car back, then back to someone getting a ticket for shoplifting. You get the idea.

These roller coaster scenarios can affect an officer both emotionally and physically. Cops should take note and find healthy ways to keep themselves balanced.

If you see a cop friend, or loved one, behaving a little distant, there is a reason why. If you are a cop struggling with these stresses, remember your friends who are not in this field may not understand.

Communicate openly with those who are trying to help, seek to understand each other. If you are truly struggling and having a hard time overcoming the stresses of the job, please speak up to a trusted brother or sister in blue, or find another qualified resource for help

https://www.policeone.com/family-home/articles/217166006-5-stresses-cops-deal-with-that-non-cops-should-know-about

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PTSD: ‘The Dirty Little Secret of Law Enforcement'

by Tiffany S. Thomas

On a warm early morning in 2007, police officer Mark Dibona was sitting in his cruiser in front of a fire station in Sanford, Florida.

Dibona was taking notes in his police logbook when a woman carrying an unconscious infant approached him, frantically asking for help.

“My baby isn't breathing!” she said.

Dibona performed CPR but was unable to revive the infant. The three-month-old baby boy died at a nearby hospital.

He blamed himself for the death. In the following weeks, Dibona became withdrawn and started to drink heavily, often with fellow officers after his shift. He spiraled into depression, and was later diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

“When I became a cop in 1985, we were told nothing should bother you, just keep it moving,” Dibona recalled in an interview with The Crime Report. “Cops don't like to show their emotions.”

But when he finally mustered enough strength to approach his supervisor, he received no help.

Instead, he was told to “toughen up”—to “go home and have a beer; the feeling will eventually die.”

Dibona added that if he had known “the dirty little secret of law enforcement”—not only the high risk of PTSD, but that he would get little empathy or counseling for the stresses of the job—he might have chosen a different profession.

The “dirty little secret” is no longer hidden. According to studies cited by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), between seven percent and 19 percent of police officers experience symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, compared to 3.5 percent of the general population.

Some officers have found support and understanding from their families. Dibona, for example, credits his wife for making sure he attends regular counseling sessions. And unlike the experience of their predecessors who were told to “toughen up,” the dangers of persistent and high-level stress are winning some recognition today at senior levels of police departments and law enforcement organizations.

Still, despite local and national programs to help cops cope with severe stress, experts say there is still a long way to go.

“One of the most critical issues in police training is to help police officers deal with mental issues, (yet) stress on the job is stress-management training they do not receive,” said Maria Haberfeld, a political science professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who served in the Israeli National Police Force.

“The same way they need to be qualified for firearms twice a year, it has to be mandatory to go to stress management,” Haberfeld said. “It cannot be left to officers alone, because they won't go. It needs to be institutionalized in the training process.”

Serving in neighborhoods where community residents are openly distrustful or hostile to the police has added a new level of stress, many officers have said. As communities erupt in anger over killings of unarmed civilians, police feel even further isolated.

“I truly think our mental health has taken a backseat to everything that's going on today,” Dibona said.

Suicide remains a major issue among officers. According to Badge of Life, a police suicide prevention program, an officer commits suicide every 81 hours. Each year, there is an average of 130 suicides.

“The key issue isn't suicide; it's mental health,” said Ron Clark, the founder and director of Badge of Life.

A retired cop, Clark also suffers from PTSD and depression as a result of trauma incurred while on duty. Clark realized that coping mechanisms like consuming alcohol and not verbalizing how he felt weren't helping.

“I saw that I needed help because I would just do things and regret them later,” he said. “I would drink uncontrollably, not realizing that I was emotionally unstable.”

According to John Jay's Haberfeld, such coping mechanisms have been a part of police culture for generations.

“They talk to each other, they go for a drink, and this is the reason why police officers have a higher rate of alcoholism than other professions because that's how they distress. It's sort of a venting process than a coping process,” Haberfeld said.

Laura Usher, NAMI's senior manager for criminal justice and advocacy, adds the growing awareness of officers' mental-wellness needs have led to peer support programs in many agencies around the country.

But she added: “It would be a good idea for an annual mental-wellness check to be a part of their fitness training and re-certification. This will help officers get familiar with mental health resources and simply introduce them to the topic.”

Private groups like Badge of Life have similarly pushed for annual mental check-ups for all officers with a therapist of the individual's choice.

But Dimona says these aren't enough to address the problem. He echoes the call for mental-wellness training starting in the academy, but believes it should continue throughout an officer's career—and after.

“It should be mandated in training, in the academy, while on duty, and after retirement,” he said, adding that cumulative, untreated stress is a reason why “a lot of officers die shortly after they retire.”

Dibona now works for the Seminole County Sheriff's office in Florida, where he supervises nine officers,but the memory of that June morning still haunts him.

“Until this day,” said Dibona, who admits to having contemplating suicide several times before he began counselling, “I can feel the warmth of that baby on my arm."

https://thecrimereport.org/2018/03/21/ptsd-the-dirty-little-secret-of-law-enforcement

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Child abuse - police involvement

This advice applies to England Print

In cases of child abuse, the police must investigate allegations of abuse if a child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, from harm. This page tells you more about how the police can get involved, and steps they can take to protect a child in immediate danger.

How might the police get involved?

Someone with concerns about child abuse might report them to the police.

This could be:

a concerned adult

a specialist organisation such as the NSPCC

the local authority child protection team.

Must the police investigate allegations of child abuse?

Police have a legal responsibility to safeguard children under 18, together with other agencies such as the local authority, healthcare professionals and schools. This includes sharing information held by police which is relevant to protect a child from harm.

When a child has been the victim of child abuse within the family, police will often work together with social workers to interview the child or conduct joint visits to the home.

The police will investigate criminal offences such as physical assaults, sexual assaults and neglect of children. They don't always decide to prosecute because it's sometimes more appropriate for the family to work with social workers to protect the child.

Whether the police prosecute or not, there will, in some cases, be a need for structured support to protect the child. If so, the local authority may call a child protection conference where professionals and parents can discuss the risks and make decisions. The police are involved in these meetings.

Information about domestic violence is always shared by the police. This is because domestic violence can have a serious impact upon children even if the child is in another room when it happens.

Adults who were abused as a child

An adult who was abused as a child could report the offence to the police so they could investigate to see if the abuser could be prosecuted. There is no time limit to report the abuse, but if it happened a long time ago, it might be difficult for the police to gather evidence against the alleged abuser. There are also legal rules about the evidence which can be used in court – this may mean that some cases of child abuse can't be prosecuted.

Who can be charged with child abuse?

Anyone aged ten or over can be charged with a criminal offence associated with child abuse. However, it's is rare for young children to be prosecuted. Decisions about this are always very carefully considered in consultation with Crown Prosecution Service and the local authority child protection team.

What if you report abuse to the police

The police should explain what is likely to happen when you make contact with them with a concern about child abuse.

The police should notify the local authority child protection team when an offence has been committed against a child. This doesn't always mean that a social worker will get involved with a family but they may offer support or send a letter if necessary.

The police may decide in certain circumstances that it isn't in the best interests of a child to prosecute. They will discuss this with the child (if the child is old enough) and the parents. In some cases they won't be able to prosecute because there is not enough evidence.

The abuser may plead guilty to a criminal offence associated with child abuse. If so, the police may give them a caution or the case may go to court.

If a case goes to court, witnesses will have to give evidence and this also means the child who has been abused. There are special ways for a child or vulnerable witnesses to give evidence which can make it easier for them, but the child or witness will be asked questions which can sometimes be difficult for them. If a child has to give evidence and the defendant is then convicted, their sentence will reflect the fact that the child was made to give evidence. But if a defendant pleads guilty, the judge will take into account that they saved the child from having to go through this.

If you are under 18 and being abused, the police may get involved even if you don't want them to be. This is because most agencies have a legal duty to share information to safeguard children. However the police will always look at the individual circumstances of every case and they will never force a child to give evidence if they don't want to.

Police protection

The police have the legal power to take a child away from the family home in an emergency. This is called police protection and can last for 72 hours. They can do this if they have a good reason to believe that the child is at risk of significant harm if they don't remove the child. They can take the child away without getting a court order first. But they have to inform the local authority who then takes responsibility for the child and decides if the child needs to be placed in foster care or if there are other options within the family. The parents will be told if this happens but, in some cases where there's a great risk, they may not be told where the child has been placed.

Social workers will:

advise about contact between a child and their parents, and

decide what needs to happen after the 72 hours have run out.

If no further concerns are raised, the child must be returned to the parents. But if there are further concerns, other court orders may be necessary.

If the police have accused you of child abuse

If the police have accused you, rightly or wrongly, of child abuse, it's important to get legal advice. You may get legal aid. If you've been arrested, you'll be offered free and independent legal advice.

If your child has been taken into police protection and you don't agree with the reasons for this, you may also need legal advice. But always speak to the social workers to find out what their intentions are.

If you're unhappy about police conduct

You may be unhappy because of police conduct when they get involved in cases of child abuse. For example, you may think that they are not taking your allegations seriously enough. You may be able to make a complaint about the police. Get specialist advice about this

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/legal-system

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Uniteed Kingdom

Children left in houses with paedophiles as 90% of child protection investigations in London fall short

Inspectorate says urgent improvements are being made by Scotland Yard

by Lizzie Dearden, Home Affairs Correspondent

The Metropolitan Police says it has already started a wide-ranging improvement programme.

Police have left children living with paedophiles in London, inspectors have revealed, after finding 90 per cent of child protection investigations in the capital unsatisfactory.

The Metropolitan Police said it was urgently improving services after a series of disturbing cases were uncovered by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS).

Children have been left at risk of known paedophiles – living with them in some cases – and officers did not share vital information on grooming after a teenage girl was raped by adult men.

In one incident, a 13-year-old girl called police after a boy blackmailed her into sending explicit images but was not seen for 11 days.

In another, teachers informed police that a seven-year-old boy was being beaten by his parents – who were known for neglect and substance abuse – but he was not taken into care and continued to be abused alongside his siblings for four months.

Inspectors said that out of a sample of 214 child protection cases reviewed last year, almost 191 were judged to be either “requiring improvement” or “inadequate”.

The probe was sparked by serious concerns identified in 2016, when the Home Secretary commissioned quarterly reports on improvements.

Matt Parr, HM Inspector of Constabulary for the Metropolitan Police, said the force had to make “drastic alterations” to achieve the significant changes required.

Police interview with Matthew Falder, one of Britain's most prolific paedophiles

“We found committed and dedicated officers and staff operating in an increasingly complex and demanding environment, investigating cases which are seldom straightforward,” he added.

“By and large, the force is moving in the right direction, and senior officers have demonstrated a strong commitment to protecting children.”

He said Scotland Yard had already improved with new structures, training and oversight, but the changes were too recent to consistently improve results.

“The force must maintain its momentum and focus on ensuring the changes it is making are leading to a better service for children in London,” Mr Parr warned, saying HMICFRS would continue to scrutinise Scotland Yard.

The inspection came as figures show a record number of recorded sexual offences are being committed against children in England and Wales, amid a wider increase in crime.

The NSPCC said the dramatic rise was partly down to survivors coming forward in the wake of high-profile cases and police improving the way crimes are recorded, but warned of a real-world rise in crimes committed using the internet.

Inspectors warned last year that police were failing to respond to some crimes because of “significant stress” caused by budget cuts and rising pressures.

The number of police officers in England and Wales hit a record low as recorded crime rose by 14 per cent last month and the Government has rebuffed calls for blanket funding increases.

HMICFRS said the sheer “volume of work” for Scotland Yard was contributing to delays in child protection investigations, exacerbated by a lack of effective supervision.

Britain's largest police force has appointed an officer to lead on child protection, dedicated a team to examining decisions and is using a system that briefs officers on registered sex offenders living in their areas.

Commander Richard Smith, head of safeguarding at the Metropolitan Police, said progress continued to be made despite the scale and complexity of child protection in London.

“We are aware of the urgency of improving our services further, but we also know that delivering real and sustainable improvements in every aspect of our work will take time to achieve,” he added.

Police failing to respond to some crimes because of budget cuts

“Action has been taken in every case where either the Met or HMICFRS identified concerns that safeguarding risks had not adequately been addressed.

“Keeping London's children and young people safe is a priority.”

Example cases:

Grooming

A 17-year-old girl reported that she had been raped by a number of men after they had given her alcohol.

Specialist officers were allocated to both the rape and CSE elements of the investigation, however there was no strategy meeting in relation to either. This indicates that partner agency information is not being shared.

A 13-year-old girl had previously sent a picture of herself naked from the waist up to a 12-year-old boy; subsequently, he threatened to distribute it more widely if she did not send more images. The girl rang the police but was not seen by the force for 11 days.

Registered sex offender

During a home visit, a registered sex offender disclosed to officers a breach of his sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) as a result of contact with a seven-year-old girl. He was subsequently interviewed under caution five days later ... the five-day delay in making the relevant referral left the child at risk during that period.

Child abuse images

The force identified an address in which child abuse images had been accessed … the force discovered that four children, all aged below 14 years, in the family visited their uncle at that address. Although such images were found later that same day, it was not until the following day that the force arrested the uncle, following which he made admissions to having accessed child abuse material.

Indecent images

In May 2017, the National Crime Agency reported to the Met that two indecent images had been uploaded onto the internet. Following a delay of five days, the force established an investigation plan and conducted research revealing that the suspect had an eight-year-old daughter. A further 15 days elapsed until a search warrant was executed and the suspect arrested.

Parental abuse

In February 2017, a seven-year-old boy reported to staff at his school that he had been assaulted by his parents … there is no evidence of investigation by the force despite a disclosure and significant causes for concern in respect of the child. Supervisory oversight by the force failed to result in any positive action being taken or the relevant children being safeguarded appropriately.

It was only following a further assault on the child by his mother, reported in June 2017, that a joint investigation involving the force took place, and which resulted in the affected children being safeguarded through placement with other family member.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/child-protection-paedophiles-living-children-london-failings-metropolitan-police-90-investigations-a8222051.html

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Kentucky

Law enforcement aiming for stronger community policing in schools

FRANKLIN, Ky. (WBKO) -- Law enforcement agencies in Simpson County are among those coming together during a stronger community policing effort in local schools.

Simpson County Sheriff Jere Dee Hopson has ordered his deputies to spend more time at the schools, in an effort not only make schools safer but also make them feel safer.

"All the emergency personnel made the agreement that starting immediately we could probably all go by the schools more and spend more time there," he said, "so I ordered, at the sheriff's office for all my deputies, especially on day shift to stop by the schools when they can. "

The Sheriff's Department isn't alone in this effort. The Franklin Police Department is also joining in.

"The jail's even sending some people up," added Hopson. "They have a few officers that have kids in school, and the more we can be there the better off we think we are, and it doesn't cost the citizens anything extra."

As threats have inundated Kentucky school systems, it's important for law enforcement to be familiar their local schools.

"That gives officers a chance not only to get to know the schools in case there is an emergency to respond but also to [get to] know a lot of the students, because you have conversations while you're there and it lets the children see the officers as more than just a policeman," said Hopson. "They enjoy getting to know people; they enjoy get to be seen."

Sheriff Hopson also explained that this isn't completely unfamiliar for Simpson County.

"Our officers have always made an attempt to be around the schools but usually it was more of a driving-by capacity," he said.

Sheriff Hopson says this initiative is what community policing comes down to.

"Getting to know the kids, getting to know the citizens making them feel more comfortable, is what we're all about," he finished.

https://www.wbko.com/content/news/Law-enforcement-aiming-for-stronger-community-policing-in-schools--475604313.html

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POLICE Magazine

For Community Policing to Succeed, Walking Around Isn't Enough

Police departments are starting to move away from measuring success by how many tickets they issue or how many arrests they make. They've realized that the public's perception of safety isn't measured in criminal enforcement actions. As a result, they've embraced community policing, a model that focuses on building relationships and collaborating with those they protect and serve.

Officers who have participated in successful community policing programs often report reduced crime and greater job satisfaction. Yet some departments have struggled to let go of the traditional “us vs. them” approach to crime fighting. “Community policing is how a free society is to be policed. Period,” says David C. Couper, a former chief of police in Madison, Wisconsin, author of multiple books, and blogger at Improving Police. “Why is there still resistance to it?”

Community policing isn't about walking around waiting for residents to commit crimes. In fact, according to Ronald Hampton, who spent over two decades in the community relations office with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., many public safety issues, and the perception of safety in a community, revolve around housing, social justice, and economic issues. Instead of looking for people to arrest or monitor, officers should become community organizers of sorts who bring people together to solve problems.

As recently as October 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice issued $119 million in grants designed to help departments create and retain community policing positions. For the model to succeed, however, it's important to understand what community policing is — and what it isn't.

Defining Community Priorities

Laws established by local, state, and federal legislators don't always reflect how a community defines public safety. A big part of community policing involves working with residents to identify which crimes to prioritize. In some cases, that solution may mean de-emphasizing certain statute violations and prioritizing more important matters. In Madison, for example, based on community feedback, officers started responding less to the possession of small amounts of marijuana, freeing up their time to focus on higher priorities.

In Anaheim, California, District Commander Lieutenant Tim Schmidt worked with his community and identified code enforcement and crisis intervention as the primary issues residents wanted police to address. Improving the quality of life in his increasingly diverse community has helped Schmidt's team form better relationships with those they serve.

“I'm not talking about a guy just getting out of his car and just talking to people,” says Schmidt. “It has to be constant two-way interaction.” To facilitate that conversation, Anaheim established “Coffee With a Cop,” a chance for residents to meet with officers and talk about what matters to them.

In a community policing model, officers don't tell residents what their problems are. Residents tell the police how they need them to help. Satisfaction and trust with the police department become more important metrics than citations and arrests.

Still, it's challenging to move beyond metrics that focus on crime solving as indicators of success. Schmidt suggests measuring reductions in call volume and nuisance crimes to determine whether residents feel safer. Others like Couper, however, see community policing as an effort in civic engagement and greater officer discretion that eventually ends in greater public safety.

We're All Just People

David C. Couper writes in his blog that the police are people, and the people are the police. In other words, police departments are more than just government entities responsible for law enforcement. Programs like the Department of Justice's Community-Oriented Policing Services Office can fund these programs, but police departments have to change from the inside.

Many people currently enter the criminal justice field with more of a warrior mentality, but for those looking into criminal justice careers, the focus should be more on caring for the community. Community policing advocates say there are many ways to reduce crime, but those strategies don't always foster trust within the community. “Community policing is about how officers define themselves,” Couper told Yes Magazine. “If police see themselves solely as law enforcement officers, then they'll spend all their time looking for some broken laws to enforce.”

A better crime-solving strategy involves less emphasis on crime stoppage and more on the protecting human rights. It also means equipping communities to solve their own problems. Couper uses words like “rights protector,” “problem solver,” “community worker,” “generous listener,” and “guardian” to describe police roles. Instead of viewing themselves as the ultimate arbiters of what they perceive to be right and wrong, or what the letter of the law says, they should focus on community-identified problems.

Thomas Thornton, a Baltimore resident, told Newsweek that officers have to go beyond looking as though they're picking on people. Always stopping people to ask, “Where are you going?” or “What are you doing?” isn't relationship building — it's a form of intimidation. Instead, officers should ask, “How are you doing?” and, more importantly, “How can I help you?”

A New Era in Policing

Couper says community policing marks the third era of police reform in America. The first began after Prohibition when the Wickersham Commission was established in 1929. Prohibition had fostered the growth of organized crime as people worked to profit from selling and distributing alcohol. The Wickersham Commission worked on solutions to corruption and police brutality following the repeal of Prohibition.

In 1965, the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration established the importance of preventing crime rather than just enforcing it. In what Couper views as the second era of police reform, the commission found that healthy families, education, counseling services, and job creation played key roles in reducing criminal activity.

This third era of community policing doesn't leave community services to social workers. Instead, officers do their own form of nation-building in the places where they work. It's more than emerging from the rolling fortresses that police cars can become to go around on foot. It's about engaging people in ways that go beyond just incident response.

In the end, community policing is about more than just getting residents and officers to talk to each other. It's about equipping community members to lift one another up — less enforcement, more empowerment.

http://m.policemag.com/article/3518/for-community-policing-to-succeed-walking-around-isn-t-enough

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How police can benefit from open data

Studying and sharing non-sensitive information can provide valuable insights and build trust in the community

by Laura Neitzel

The concept of “open data” may raise an eyebrow for a law enforcement officer whose job is to keep people and property secure. In an environment where many police may feel their actions can be vilified, some agencies are reluctant to invite scrutiny, not realizing that by offering greater access to their data, they build trust with the community.

Open data helps police agencies build trust with the community.

Former Dallas Police Chief David Brown learned this in 2012 during the aftermath of an officer-involved shooting of an unarmed black man by a white police officer. Allegation of racial bias soon followed, and Chief Brown realized that to get ahead of the story and dispel rumors, he needed to share as much information as possible.

“Citizens, and particularly our activists, who had preconceived notions about where and who this force was being used on really had to take a look at their previous beliefs because the data didn't support it,” Chief Brown told a gathering of leaders at an open data conference. “Facts became the great equalizer for us and put us in a position to open up more of a dialogue with our critics.”

By organizing non-sensitive data into data sets that can be shared with any interested individual or organization, a police agency can provide transparency, promote trust and gain meaningful insights from the data, while doing so in a secure and compliant environment.

WHAT IS OPEN DATA?

Open data is raw data that can be downloaded and analyzed by another person or organization. Instead of a high-level summary, open data gives people access to data at a detailed level – providing not just aggregate data, but incident data in a downloadable, digital format, at no cost, and for use without restriction.

Enabling citizens with access to police data may sound counterintuitive. But, in fact, letting citizens see the raw data shows the true scope of what law enforcement officers deal with on a daily basis. As any officer knows, a single allegation of racial bias in a use-of-force incident can explode into a perception that the whole department is biased, when, in fact, an analysis of the data will show the opposite is true. Opening data lets a police agency tell an accurate, unmitigated and more complete story.

According to The Police Foundation's Law Enforcement Executive's Guide to Open Data, “with increased access to accurate information, police officers and community members alike are empowered to develop a fact-based perspective on community-police relations by understanding the actual public safety and crime problems within their jurisdictions and how the police are responding to those problems.”

The Police Data Initiative promotes the use of open data to encourage joint problem solving, innovation, enhanced understanding and accountability between communities and the law enforcement agencies that serve them. Partners include the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Police Foundation, technology company Socrata and the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS).

Through the Police Data Initiative, more than 130 police agencies across the nation have shared data sets they have identified as important to their communities. These data sets are used, among other purposes, to track progress on performance goals, identify crime trends and hotspots, improve traffic safety, measure response times and call volume, reduce opioid deaths and show transparency around issues such as workforce demographics, officer complaints and use-of-force incidents.

HOW OPEN DATA HELPED NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, TRANSFORM CITY OPERATIONS

“If you want to tell the whole story of what's going on in your community from a public safety perspective, there's no better way than to release all your data that shows, in granular detail, the whole story,” said Oliver Wise, director of Data Academy at Tyler Technologies' Data & Insights Division and former director of New Orleans' Office of Performance and Accountability.

As a pioneer in the field, Wise oversaw the use of open data to transform city government in New Orleans, post-Hurricane Katrina. Half of the city's workforce had been laid off after the hurricane, the city was over budget by about 25 percent and morale was abysmally low.

“The entire senior leadership team knew that we needed to take a brand-new approach to management and saw the huge potential for data to transform how city government was managed; how we created accountability for results; how departments could collaborate with each other; and importantly, how we could improve engagement and trust with our community,” he said.

Wise first used open data to tackle a pervasive problem in New Orleans – urban blight. Citizens didn't just want to know that the city was responding to the problem; they wanted to know the status of specific troubled properties in their own neighborhoods.

“The City of New Orleans partnered with Socrata (now a division of Tyler Technologies) to put that data on a centralized platform in the cloud, very affordably, and we opened that data to the public so that they could see the data we were using,” Wise said. “Because the data was already in the cloud and open, any citizen could look up a property by address to see how it was working its way through the code enforcement process.”

When the New Orleans Police Department was put under a wide-ranging Department of Justice consent decree in 2012 that required them to initiate reforms and evidence compliance, Wise again turned to open data to set goals and track performance. In the years since, the data management system they created has become a model for other police departments – and not just the ones looking to comply with a consent decree or to reset strained community relations.

The data management system created by New Orleans includes a dashboard that pulls data from different sources and displays them in user-friendly charts and tables and generates maps that highlight crime hotspots. Citizens or organizations interested in mining the data further can access detailed reports that show information such as response times at different times of day, or in different precincts. The New Orleans Police Department was one of the early leaders in the Police Data Initiative and many other agencies have adopted their model or have created and shared their own data sets.

THE BENEFITS OF OPEN DATA TO POLICE DEPARTMENTS

Open data provides an opportunity for more productive and constructive conversations with constituents, says Wise, because all parties have access to the same information.

Police departments around the country are also creating their own data sets to gather insights that help them respond effectively to challenges with their respective communities. Example data sets include calls for service (911 calls) and self-initiated calls for police action, says Wise. “That is a massive data set, but it gives a very good handle on the pulse of your community and how people are interacting with the police system,” he said.

Data can be pulled directly from an agency's records management system to show real-time information or historical trends, which departments use internally to inform decisions and gain a broader picture of day-to-day performance. Through the Dallas OpenData portal, citizens can access Dallas Police Department records to view active calls in real time, track officer-involved shootings or show progress toward performance goals.

Cincinnati, Ohio, a city laden with opioid deaths, created the Cincinnati Heroin Dashboard in 2016. The dashboard analyzes data from 911 calls to determine when and where emergency medical services administered naloxone for a suspected heroin or other opioid overdose. This location and time data helps public safety officials identify dangerous areas and peak times so they can anticipate when and where to deploy personal and medical resources. The dashboard also provides helpful information to families of addicts, and alerts them when there is a particularly potent drug on the street.

Governors around the level of detail accessible by the public are built into the data set. To protect privacy, the Cincinnati Heroin Dashboard does not include patient information or medical outcomes – just information such as the day, time and block address of the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) response (such as whether the patient was treated on scene or transported to the hospital).

The Dallas OpenData portal adheres to similar standards. A site visitor can view active calls and search police reports and arrest records by incident number, time, block location, physical description of the suspect and other details that convey useful data, but that do not compromise personal privacy or security.

HOW THE CLOUD FACILITATES OPEN DATA ACCESS

Cloud-based data storage from service providers like Amazon Web Services is what makes open data open. Instead of sequestering data sets in a set of binders accessible only to officials at headquarters, the cloud enables agencies to share data across an entire police department in a secure and compliant environment. Every rank-and-file officer, on whatever internet-connected device he or she prefers, can see that data.

“The big leap for putting data in the cloud and making it open is that it democratizes the data across the entire police department. Now that data's in the cloud, it's widely accessible. And the entire police force has access to that data at their fingertips,” said Wise.

The data can also be shared with the district attorney, public health departments, or even nonprofit organizations working to solve community problems like chronic homelessness or gang violence.

HOW OPEN DATA EMPOWERS OFFICERS AND AGENCIES

In New Orleans, Wise said, data made it easy to see where agencies were having problems with response times, and helped make the case for added resources.

“Having the data helped garner the political will to really change how the police department was staffed, resourced and allocated to more adequately respond to a resident request,” he said. “Most importantly, we were able to boost the police budget to hire additional officers to address that issue.”

In addition to benefits of open data for citizens, journalists, social service agencies, advocacy organizations and nonprofits, open data can not only help a law enforcement agency build trust with the community by showing transparency, but also by helping them share their successes and gain support for the resources it needs.

“We believe that data should be used first internally to create intelligence to shine a flashlight on where problems are occurring, so that they can be improved. And to provide insights to departments so that they can work smarter, not just harder,” said Wise.

https://www.policeone.com/community-policing/articles/479913006-How-police-can-benefit-from-open-data/

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San Jose, California

SJPD rolls out texting service to get candid community feedback

by Robert Salonga

SAN JOSE — San Jose police want to hear residents' real, no-holds-barred feelings about how officers are patrolling city streets and dealing with the community.

All residents need to do is text.

“We want to be smack dab in communities affected by not only crime, but relationships with law enforcement,” said Chief Eddie Garcia, who along with dozens of SJPD officers met with more than 100 residents of the tight-knit working-class Washington neighborhood Monday night.

Monday's gathering was the first of a planned series of community forums — dubbed “Working Together For Stronger Communities” — aimed at building trust amid a national cloud of police skepticism and deportation fears that have driven some worried residents into the shadows.

At Monday's event, the department rolled out textmy90.com — a service designed to allow residents to send police anonymous text messages with tips, complaints and other feedback. It also functions as a type of polling service, culling responses to police surveys to offer community opinions almost instantaneously.

To test the service, police department asked residents to tap away on their smartphones to rate the trustworthiness of SJPD. The results arrived within a minute: 58.2 percent rated the department as “very trustworthy,” 31.9 percent chose “somewhat trustworthy,” 8 percent went with “somewhat untrustworthy,” 1.9 percent said “very untrustworthy.”

“We want their honesty. It's the only way to get better. We heard their frustrations, but we also heard a massive amount of appreciation,” Garcia said.

Monday's forum, funded by the Silicon Valley Community and SJPD foundations, was publicized in the neighborhood with word-of-mouth spurring local turnout.

Other survey questions revolved around residents' feeling of safety, perceptions of police bias, and their past encounters with police.

Some key breakdowns:

Satisfaction with last encounter with SJPD:
very satisfied, 64 percent; somewhat satisfied, 20.2 percent; somewhat dissatisfied, 7 percent; very dissatisfied, 3 percent

How safe you felt during that police interaction:
very safe, 74.3 percent; somewhat safe, 17.6 percent; somewhat unsafe, 4 percent; very unsafe, 4 percent

How safe you feel in your neighborhood:
very safe, 26.8 percent; somewhat safe, 48.8 percent; somewhat unsafe, 17.1 percent; very unsafe, 7.3 percent

Do you feel there is a perception of bias in SJPD stops:
strong perception, 19.7 percent; somewhat of a perception, 23.9 percent; some but not wide perception, 29.6 percent; no perception, 26.8 percent

Garcia said while he believes the Monday evening sample indicates a good relationship with residents, the department still needs to work on bolstering its image with residents who responded more negatively.

“Those are the numbers we want to improve,” he said. “We're always in search of perfection. But we want the community to know we're not sitting on our hands.”

He referenced a survey question asking residents what they thought police should do to improve their community ties. Nearly half selected “walk around and talk to people who live here.” The chief agrees.

“They want to have more positive interactions with us,” Garcia said. “The first time they see an officer can't be in a moment of crisis.”

The real-time survey served as fuel for small-group discussions that matched residents with police officers, community leaders and in some cases elected officials.

Residents welcomed the low-key, conversational setting and valued the face-to-face time with officers outside that did not involve an arrest or tense police encounter.

“It's important for the police department to come out and engage with the community,” said Martha Carrasco. “The perception is that they are not available to regular residents. This shows they're willing to work with us.”

The service's touted anonymity appeared to be a selling point for the residents, who seemed more comfortable communicating on their mobile devices.

“People in the meeting were more engaged” said Carrasco of the my90 component. “They didn't have to worry about having a spotlight on them.”

Garcia said the department is hopeful that the anonymous texting feature of the service will alleviate residents' fears of reporting crimes. He stressed that my90 operates independently of the police departments it works with, and that SJPD has no access to its personal data. The service asserts that phone numbers are encrypted when it receives text messages.

“We've got to get that information, and those who have a fear of law enforcement can feel safe,” he said.

The evening's sole moment of tension came from a question related to the fatal officer-involved shooting last September of Jacob Dominguez, who was being sought by police for a drive-by shooting but was unarmed when he was killed. Dominguez's family has steadily protested the police use of force, and the resident who asked the question wanted to know the directive of the Covert Response Unit.

Garcia addressed the question by prefacing he could not go into detail, citing the ongoing investigation, but said he and the department “have empathy for all involved.”

The chief also reiterated remarks he has made in numerous churches in the city over the past few weeks, assuring minority communities that SJPD does not work with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agencies, a longstanding policy aimed at encouraging residents in immigrant neighborhoods to report crimes to police.

“We want to make sure all our community is safe, (including) those who are documented and undocumented,” Garcia said.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/03/sjpd-rolls-out-texting-service-to-get-candid-community-feedback/amp/

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St Louis, Missouri

St. Louis Police Offer Candy to Build Trust. Residents Say No Thanks.

by John Eligon

St. Louis officials thought they had a sweet idea for improving the often tense relationship between the Police Department and the community.

The department had, for months, faced intense criticism for its handling of protests over the acquittal of a white police officer in the fatal shooting of a black man — not to mention years of scrutiny of its treatment of black residents in general. But now the city had a new public safety director and police chief, both of whom are black, and it was looking to turn a page.

So on Sunday night, Chief John Hayden announced on Twitter that his officers would give out candy to children from their patrol cars as a way to build relationships. “It's the little things that often do the most good,” he wrote.

The announcement did not go over well.

One Twitter user, @wbuchek, offered two questions: “What kind of candy will it be?” And: “Any plans for cops to stop killing black people?”

LaShell Eikerenkoetter, an activist in St. Louis, wrote on Twitter that this was not the type of community engagement that would build trust.

“These are the same officers that beat and terrorize the youth, now they're going to give them candy?” she wrote. “No. They just will never get it.”

Police departments around the country regularly engage in relationship-building efforts that are of lighter fare. There's coffee with a cop. Basketball in a park. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department even deploys an ice cream truck emblazoned with “Operation Polar Cops” on warm days.

The candy initiative was inspired by the childhood experiences of Jimmie Edwards, 62, a former judge who was sworn in as the city's public safety director in November.

“It's a gesture I hope that the children that will receive the candy today will be like I was,” he told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I would try to outrace all the kids on my block to get to a police car because I knew I would get bubble gum and a baseball card.”

Mr. Edwards, who declined an interview request, was known for original approaches to working with youth as a judge. He helped to create the Innovative Concept Academy, the first school in the country overseen by the courts that aims to educate and rehabilitate juvenile delinquents.

Mr. Edwards told The Post-Dispatch that the candy initiative would not be a substitute for other efforts to connect with the community, and he joked that officers would distribute small amounts because, “I don't need parents calling me about their dental bills.”

For many critics, that concern was no laughing matter.

“When it comes to parents and candy — eh,” said Sgt. Heather Taylor, the president of the Ethical Society of Police, the union representing black officers in St. Louis. “Candy is so different with our kids when we know that so many of them don't have a meal.”

Cori Bush, an activist who is running for Congress, said that parents have long taught their children not to take candy from strangers, and that this initiative would run counter to that lesson. Telling children to make an exception for the police could be confusing, she said.

“Someone drives up” in a vehicle “that looks like a police car and says, ‘I want to give you candy,'” Ms. Bush said. “Are they able to discern: Is this an actual police officer or not?”

Although some people praised the department's decision to distribute candy, the severe criticism led Chief Hayden to announce on Tuesday that the department would scrap the idea.

“Your voices have been heard,” he wrote on Twitter.

Some saw it as an unfortunate backtrack.

“This was a good initiative,” Emir Hadzic, an officer with the neighboring St. Louis County Police Department, wrote on Twitter. “It appears the Chief caved in to the irrational criticismBut even some of the harshest critics of the police found the reversal to be a promising sign that times could be changing.

“This is how communications works, people,” said the Twitter user, @wbuchek. “Kudos to the chief for listening and changing his mind.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/us/st-louis-police-candy.amp.html

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Africa

Somalis Laud AMISOM for Community Policing Trainings in Countering Violent extremism

Speaking during the workshop, AMISOM Public Information Officer, Philip Mukasa, said community policing has been tried and tested in many parts of the world and found to be beneficial to countries recovering from war.

by KAMPALA POST

KISMAYO. Residents and security officers in Jubbaland state have resolved to promote community policing in their neighbourhoods to fight crime and counter violent extremism.

The resolution was made at the end of a two-day workshop attended by residents, police officers and pro-government regional forces.

The workshop is part of a sensitization programme on community policing in federal states, initiated by the police component of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), to strengthen collaboration between security officers and members of the public.

Speaking during the workshop, AMISOM Public Information Officer, Philip Mukasa, said community policing has been tried and tested in many parts of the world and found to be beneficial to countries recovering from war.

“We as AMISOM Police together with SPF (Somali Police Force) in Jubbaland state is to work together with the community, the youth, the women groups, police, the Darwish and everyone,” Mr. Mukasa explained, noting there is need to collaborate to improve security in areas liberated from the terrorist group, Al Shabaab.

The director general in the federal state's ministry of security, Aden Yusuf Salah, echoed Mr. Mukasa's sentiments saying the objective was to encourage synergy between the police and members of the public in crime prevention.

“In this training we shared knowledge and experiences on how to observe and maintain security and prevent bad elements who bring insecurity in the community,” Mr. Aden observed.

The Chairperson of Kismayo Women Organization, Sureer Mohamed Ali, stressed the importance of involving women in countering violent extremism and urged AMISOM to organize similar trainings in other regions.

“This is a very useful [workshop], which we embrace and we are ready to support the security forces. Women are the mothers of youths brainwashed by the extremists, and have the potential to lure them back,” Ms. Sureer added.

Somali elder, Ugas Abdirahman Ugas Khalif, described extremism as an unacceptable behavior that has no place in Islam and appealed to residents to work closely with security forces to tackle the vice.

“We know the religion of Islam is a peaceful religion which accords everybody his right. They [extremists] advance their radicalization efforts using Islam as a cover up. Extremism has no place in Islam,” said Ugas Abdirahman.

https://www.kampalapost.com/content/africa/somalis-laud-amisom-community-policing-trainings-countering-violent-extremism

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Trenton

OPINION

Guest Oped: What Community Policing can mean to Trenton

by Rolando Ramos

Most everyone has heard the phrase “Community Policing” but few truly understand its meaning. “Community Policing” is a major buzz phrase when discussing public safety in today's world. As a retired police lieutenant, my hope is that by presenting a proper definition, the expectations of the community will be more in line with what the police department can actually accomplish.

Misunderstanding of flashpoint issues takes many forms. As I attended the numerous public mayoral forums leading up to the first Mayoral election on May 8 th , I was astonished how some of the seven individuals who were running for office could not accurately articulate or define “Community Policing”, let alone describe how they would implement it.

One candidate, for example, continually focused solely on forcing officers back into the city as a form of “Community Policing”. His thought process was that by forcing officers to live in the city, the citizens could knock on their doors at any time for them to solve problems. While having more police living in the city may help in some instances, the probability that the city could force all of its officers back is unlikely. In addition, state guidelines only use residency as a requirement in becoming a police officer during the testing and hiring processes. State law would need to be changed for any future residency requirement.

Another candidate's version of “Community Policing” would have mandated officers to “volunteer” as coaches and mentors. The word volunteer in and of itself means someone who freely gives of himself or herself. To force officers to volunteer is an oxymoron and that candidate did not have any regard to the officer's own personal lives and responsibilities.

One candidate continually attacked hiring practices stating that his “Community Policing” policy would force the police department to hire more of “our children” as a means of implementing “Community Policing”.

While this candidate played on the current divide between the community and the police as a means to garner votes, he never explained why there weren't more homegrown officers on the force or how he would work to hire more officers reflective of the community's diversity.

Having always present foot patrols as the “Community Policing” panacea for what ails the city's public safety needs was introduced by yet another candidate. While foot patrols may have worked in earlier historical time periods (where crime and violence was not as pervasive), limited resources makes it almost impossible to provide foot patrols as a mainstay of Trenton's policing. The necessity to be readily available for critical incidents limits the ability to provide this type of old-style policing. However, a proper public safety plan can provide better officer/community relationships and allow officers to do more in terms of being more interactive with the community.

Sadly, these political interpretations are short-sighted and create more divisions, anger and mistrust between the community and the police.

In its purest form, “Community Policing”:

· creates partnerships between law enforcement and the community in an effort to prevent crime before it happens;

· builds a safe social environment by engaging residents in helping to determine which crimes they are most affected by; and,

· encourages residents to assist the police in keeping their communities safe.

Simply put, “Community Policing” utilizes organizational transformations, community partnerships and innovative problem solving in an effort, which is usually forgotten when discussing community policing, to ENFORCE THE LAW.

“Community Policing” is not solely about lollipops and teddy bears as one retired officer once stated. It is about engaging the community to partner with the police in helping to make geographical neighborhoods and business areas safer. Only by working together in a truly concerted effort can we significantly curtail the success of individuals bent on causing chaos and mayhem.

Please understand that building these relationships involves everyone for “Community Policing” to truly take shape and work. Everyone includes elected officials, police, religious institutions, media, business owners, non-profits, hospitals, and the residents of this city working hand-in-hand to proactively identify and work to address current and potential public safety problems. By creating these relationships, Trenton can become a safer place and a city we can all be proud of.

https://www.trentonian.com/news/guest-oped-what-community-policing-can-mean-to-trenton/article_388f930d-6f14-5aa2-98a1-5198de5a7725.html

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Boston

Boston police adds $89k ice cream truck to its fleet to help community relations

BOSTON – The Boston Police Department has unveiled an $89,000 ice cream truck as the newest addition to its patrol fleet.

The truck, adorned with balloons and Boston police decals, was introduced Monday at police headquarters in the city's Roxbury neighborhood. It will be used as part of “Operation Hoodsie Cup,” a community policing initiative that has distributed roughly 120,000 free ice cream cups since 2010.

Commissioner William Evans says he would've called you crazy if you told him 30 years ago that the BPD would have an ice cream truck as part of its fleet, but the goodwill it generates is “undeniable.”

The truck was purchased by the Boston Police Foundation. Local dairy company HP Hood has donated all of the ice cream for distribution.

https://globalnews.ca/news/2860146/boston-police-adds-89k-ice-cream-truck-to-its-fleet-to-help-community-relations/

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Nashville

After violent week in Nashville, emphasis placed on community policing

by Brittany Weiner

Neighborhood watch groups have been busy working to help police. (WSMV)

Crime Stoppers say it gets hundreds of tips weekly but with the recent string of violent crimes even more tips have been pouring in.

“There is an increase in violence,” Nashville Crime Stoppers board chairman Liz Parrott said. "We have a small police force for a growing city so every citizen is actually an extension of our police force."

An extension that has been very busy sending in tips following last week's string of murders and other violent crimes.

“It's been a huge uptick,” Parrott said. “I know West just solved one on tips through the line and I know there's a couple other ones that we're looking into now."

Neighborhood watch groups are also busy working to help police.

"When this happened it was posted on all these pages because our city was trying to pull together to help figure out who these people are,” Founder of East Nashville Neighborhood Watch Von Moye said.

Moye's Facebook group has thousands of members, and the page is a way to spread vital information quickly.

"Once people are alerted that somethings going on, and in this case it continued to happen, you start getting descriptions you kind of know what to look for,” Moye said. "We're not going to give in to criminals we're going to take these communities back and we're going to make them safe."

Crime Stoppers is an anonymous tip line and tips that lead to an arrest could come with a cash reward.

Parrott and Moye both say if you see a crime 9-1-1 needs to your first call before posting online or going to a tip line.

They encourage members of the community to assist local law enforcement agencies in the fight against crime by overcoming the two key elements that inhibit community involvement: fear and apathy.

Nashville (TN) Crime Stoppers provides a telephone number, Web Tips and Mobile Tips to encourage citizens in the community to volunteer vital information helpful to law enforcement.

Any person, except as restricted below, who directly contacts Nashville Crime Stoppers, Inc first, and gives information which leads directly to the felony arrest, prosecution and indictment of an adult, or to the equivalent in the case of a juvenile, or to the arrest of a pre-indicted fugitive felon; such information pertaining to the commission of one of the seven (7) categories of crime set forth by the board of directors is eligible for a Crime Stoppers reward. And you could get a cash reward of up to $1000.

Those persons restricted from receiving a Crime Stoppers reward are:

1) A commissioned law enforcement officer or a Board member of Nashville Crime Stoppers, Inc.;

2) members of the officer's or Nashville Crime Stoppers, Inc Board member's immediate family;

3) employees of the police department or, employees of Nashville Crime Stoppers, Inc, or members of their immediate family;

4) the victim(s) of the felony crime;

5) the suspect(s) responsible for the felony crime;

6) the pre-indicted fugitive felon, or any other fugitive;

7) or members of the victims' or suspect's immediate family, and

8) person(s) who contact any entity or agency, whether law enforcement or other, prior to contacting Nashville Crime Stoppers, Inc., with the same or similar information, are not eligible for a Nashville Crime Stoppers reward.

If two or more persons furnish information about the same crime or felony fugitive, the reward money shall be divided as the Nashville (TN) Crime Stoppers Board of Directors may determine.

Callers can remain anonymous and are eligible to receive a cash reward if the information given leads to an arrest or grand jury indictment of a felony offender.

Nashville (TN) Crime Stoppers relies on volunteer Directors and tax deductible contributions from the public in order to operate the administration of the program.

https://www.wsmv.com/news/after-violent-week-in-nashville-emphasis-placed-on-community-policing/article_c0a7ae80-a5b5-11e8-bb9a-bf2bdfa1770a.html

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Minnesota

Columbia Heights Police Department earns international community policing award

Department wins award for second time

by Raymond Rivard

Trust and relationship-building go a long way, especially when it comes to community policing.

Without those two factors, the Columbia Heights Police Department couldn't have accomplished as much as it has over the past few years, nor would the department have been recognized locally and even internationally as a progressive, community-minded agency.

Last week, the department received notice that it had won an international award for outstanding community policing.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police honored the Columbia Heights Police Department with the 2018 Leadership in Community Policing Award.

This is the second time the department has won this specific honor. The first was in 2012. The department was also a runner-up for the award in 2015.

Capt. Erik Johnston told The Sun Focus that the department hasn't applied for the award every year, but in the years it has applied - 2012, 2015, and 2017 - it has been a winner.

“The police department submits an application to the IACP to be considered for the award,” Capt. Johnston said. “The application answers a series of questions regarding the partnership or project and outlines how community policing principles are involved.”

In response to the announcement, Police Chief Lenny Austin said, “It's not just our award. It's the community's award. Policing is challenging in and of itself, but quite frankly it would be impossible without the strong partnerships and strong ties we have with our citizens, with other city departments, and with our government and community leaders.”

The award is presented annually to a single agency, worldwide, awarded in one of five population categories.

Columbia Heights earned the award in the under 20,000 population category for its successful work in community policing strategies and crime reduction programs, and most importantly in its efforts to work with the community in planning and building the City of Peace Neighborhood Center.

The department helped to establish the center in an area of the community that just a few years ago was known for a significantly high number of incident calls.

Instead of continuing to react to the high number of calls to the area, the department, in utilizing its agency-wide philosophy of community policing, took a proactive approach and worked with the residents in the area. It also brought other city departments into the mix while developing a plan for the neighborhood located around the Circle Terrace Boulevard – the location where the City of Peace Neighborhood Center and the newly-minted Bruce Nawrocki Park were recently constructed and dedicated.

The building was conceived as a gathering place for under-served communities, where residents, city officials, and volunteer groups could meet and build relationships.

According to a statement by the city: “The planning for the neighborhood center began over three years ago. Near the beginning of the process, officers went door-to-door, survey in hand, to listen to the needs of Circle Terrace residents. The survey results showed that almost 90 percent of residents were looking for more interaction and a more engaging relationship with law enforcement.”

That's when the department began to tap into state, county, and city departments and individuals, as well as school officials, the faith communities, and other leaders “to develop a plan that would provide the neighborhood with a better opportunity to grow and invest in itself. The City of Peace Neighborhood Center grew out of that collaborative effort,” the release stated.

“It's a whole team that made this happen,” Columbia Heights Mayor Donna Schmitt said. “I'm so proud of everyone involved.”

The work that has been recognized through this award didn't happen overnight, and, according to Johnston, it has been an evolution of practices by the department that has resulted in its successful community policing model.

The efforts began several years ago with one or two individuals in the department who were charged with the community policing initiative. However, it became apparent that it would take the efforts of more than a couple of individuals for the department to make a difference.

That's when an agency-wide effort was kicked into gear.

“A shift was made and community policing became the job of every employee of the department,” Johnston said. “It started with small steps, and has now grown to every employee contributing in our community outreach, whether it is through a program like Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Multi-Cultural Advisory Committee, Youth Open Gym, Coffee with a Cop, or speaking with new immigrants at the Adult Basic Education Center. When everyone is tasked with, and empowered to solve problems, a project like this just becomes a larger extension of this philosophy.”

With this model in place, the community responded.

“As a result, the residents and community stakeholders were enthusiastic partners for this project and there are many more great ideas for programming that we are looking forward to seeing,” Johnston said. “The residents have become more engaged and supportive of the police department and have seen the success that has come through these efforts.”

Johnston said that the department invests more time and effort into community programs and events - more so than “any other department our size that we are aware of.”

And when the department does respond to incidents, they use a “narrow focus” to help minimize the effects on surrounding residents.

“We are focused on preventing crime rather than responding to it after it occurs, and as a result we are building strong community relationships. This results in more residents willing to call us and become involved in the safety of their neighborhood.”

Johnston pointed to a recent example of the effectiveness of community policing that helps describe its place and application.

“We had a recent interaction during a busy Friday night at the Jamboree Carnival in Columbia Heights,” he said. “After a handful of teenagers started a couple of minor fights, our officers were able to step in and interact with the group to defuse the situation and prevent it from becoming worse.”

He went on to say that it was a member of the Columbia Heights Lions Club who took notice and told the officers on scene that he “was now a believer.”

“He stated he was aware of the program, but had been skeptical of its worth until he observed the officers interacting with these young residents by name,” Johnston said. “He observed a trusting relationship in place. He felt the situation would likely have been much worse if not for these prior relationships officers had built.”

Sgt. Justin Pletcher, the local officer who nominated the police department for the award and was one of the major players in coordinating efforts to get the City of Peace Neighborhood Center built, said, “Law enforcement is often asked to respond to crime and disorder as a reactionary force, but to truly affect the outcome of public safety you must rely on the partnerships of an entire community. To truly affect public safety we need to seek out the approval and understanding of the communities we serve.”

Johnston doubled down on Pletcher's comments, saying, “We are always looking for ways in which we can partner with the community, meet people in positive non-enforcement contacts, and continue to build relationships with everyone we interact with. We also hold ourselves to a high standard in which we operate off a strategic plan that staff update yearly, do regular check-ins to ensure we are meeting our goals, and also survey the community on a regular basis to ensure we are meeting expectations.”

The Leadership in Community Policing Award will be presented to the Columbia Heights Police Department on Oct. 9 at the IACP's annual conference in Orlando, Florida. Travel expenses will be paid by the association to ensure officers can be there in person.

“We still have work to do,” Chief Austin said. “But I think this award tells us we are on the right track.

https://www.hometownsource.com/sun_focus/columbia-heights-police-department-earns-international-community-policing-award/article_0c6f2540-95b8-11e8-9f93-437a24084e44.html