Tag: police accountability

As Milwaukee police chase cars more, crashes are up and arrest rates are down, study says

Milwaukee police are engaging in almost three times as many vehicle pursuits in recent years, and even though crashes have almost quadrupled and the apprehension rate is down, officials believe the chases are worth it.

According to a recent study, the increase is fueled mostly by a rise in reckless driving, which in 2017 drove Milwaukee’s police oversight board, the Fire and Police Commission, to force an expansion of a policy governing when chases are acceptable.

Vehicle pursuits are among the most dangerous activities law enforcement perform and the challenge of striking the right balance with them has vexed officials across the country. And nationally, there is some debate about how appropriate it is to chase reckless drivers, given the risk that it will only increase danger for everyone nearby.

“This is a risk that (Milwaukee) wants to assume and I think with it comes certain responsibilities and consequences,” said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, who has written extensively on vehicle pursuits.

But in a city that has been frustrated with reckless driving for about a decade, Police Chief Jeffrey Norman argued his officers have balanced the risks appropriately while the feedback from the community has been, “Don’t let up. Keep the pressure on.”

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FAMILIES OF PEOPLE KILLED BY NYPD BRACE FOR ERIC ADAMS TO VETO CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM BILLS

A SMALL GROUP OF organizers rallied outside of New York City Hall on Wednesday to call on Mayor Eric Adams not to veto a series of bills that would ban the use of solitary confinement in city jails and increase oversight over police stops and searches. 

The push by grassroots reform groups to ban solitary confinement comes in response to a surge in recent years of deaths in city jails, including several cases of people who had been detained in solitary confinement. Families of people killed as a result of stops by New York Police Department officers have also urgedOpens in a new tab the mayor to sign the policing measures into law. 

Advocates and officials working on the reforms expect Adams, who has publicly opposedOpens in a new tab the bills, to vetoOpens in a new tab at least two of the measures this week. He has until Friday to do so, or the measures will pass into law. 

The battle pits a pro-police mayor, an NYPD veteran himself, against a progressive City Council, which approvedOpens in a new tab the three billsOpens in a new tab last month by large marginsOpens in a new tab during its last meetingOpens in a new tab of 2023. The fight is the latest in a well-trod pattern of centrist Democrats or Republicans fighting back against popular and democratically enacted welfare reforms. In New York, City Council leaders and members said they have the votes to override the mayor’s veto.

“We are prepared to override the mayor’s veto,” council member Crystal Hudson, who sponsored a bill to strengthen laws around consenting to a search, told The Intercept. “The City Council is the city’s legislative body. The body has spoken.” The council would have 30 days from a mayoral veto to issue an override. 

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Philly police oversight group hasn’t investigated any complaints since it started

The Citizens Police Oversight Commission hasn’t investigated a single citizen complaint of police misconduct since it was created in 2021, the watchdog agency’s leadership has acknowledged to Axios.

Why it matters: For now, all citizen complaints of police misconduct are still turned over to police internal affairs.

  • The agency’s director of investigations, Jamison Rogers, tells Axios he’s in the process of putting together an investigative unit. He acknowledged that redirecting complaints back to the police isn’t ideal because some residents who turn to the CPOC don’t have faith in internal affairs.
  • The commission’s mission is to improve police officer conduct and accountability and restore community trust in the department.

By the numbers: CPOC received 137 citizen complaints in 2023, including one involving officers who responded to a call about a distressed woman who was later killed in a hit-and-run.

  • About a quarter of the complaints included allegations that police officers had committed physical abuse, civil rights violations, falsification, sexual misconduct, drug use, or some other crime, per city data.
  • The agency has sole discretion over which misconduct complaints it investigates, per city law.

Driving the news: Some commissioners and residents told Axios they’re concerned that CPOC isn’t further along, but commission leaders say they’re confident in the process and hope to hire more than a dozen investigators over the next eight months.

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Ohio SWAT Team Raids Wrong House, Seriously Injures Baby With Flashbang Grenade, Denies Responsibility

Courtney Price was at home on Wednesday taking care of her one-year-old son, Waylon, when they experienced a terrifying and traumatic altercation with local law enforcement. What should have been an ordinary day took a turn for the worse when SWAT officers broke into the home, searching for a suspect.

In the aftermath of the raid, it was revealed that law enforcement had targeted the wrong home, and tragically, their actions resulted in the baby sustaining injuries. The events that unfolded left the family shaken and seeking justice for Waylon’s suffering.

Price told RedState that she had been staying with her aunt Redia and her husband for one week before the incident occurred. She recounted her experience, describing how she stood petrified as the police burst into her aunt Redia’s home, throwing a flashbang grenade into the residence and breaking windows. She was feeding her son, who has a condition requiring the use of a G-tube because he cannot eat by mouth. A little after 2 pm, she “started hearing very loud pings on the door,” and went to see what was happening.

I got up and started walking towards the door, and all I could see was a bunch of police because we were in a split-level house, so I was at the top of the steps there. All I could see was a bunch of police, and they were already hitting the door. I was trying to get to the door to open it, but I didn’t want to get hit, so I just froze on the steps. They busted it down and busted the windows out all at the same time. I was standing there, I froze. I really wanted to run to my baby and just help him because I see all that smoke getting on him. There were handguns pointed at me [with the officers] saying, ‘Get down, put your hands up, come down here.’ So I went down. They grabbed me and took me outside, put me in handcuffs.

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Former L.A. County deputy sentenced to 30 days in jail for fatal 2019 shooting

A former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy will serve 30 days in jail in connection with a fatal 2019 shooting in which authorities fired more than 30 rounds into the back of a moving car, under the terms of a plea deal reached Friday in a downtown L.A. courtroom.

Andrew Lyons pleaded no contest to assault with a firearm and assault under color of authority in the killing of 24-year-old Ryan Twyman outside a Willowbrook apartment complex in June 2019. The case marks the first time in roughly two decades that an L.A. County law enforcement officer has been sentenced to jail or prison for an on-duty shooting.

Lyons also was placed on two years’ probation. He must give up his certification as a peace officer in California under the terms of the deal, meaning he can never serve as a law enforcement officer in the state again.

The former deputy initially was charged with voluntary manslaughter and assault with a semiautomatic firearm against Lyons in 2022, nearly three years after he and another deputy, Christopher Muse, shot and killed Twyman. Muse was not charged in the shooting.

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Retired NYPD captain shoots man in leg during New Year’s Eve road rage feud: sources

A recently retired NYPD captain shot another man in the leg during a road rage feud in Brooklyn on New Year’s Eve, police sources said. 

The retiree, who was driving a Toyota Corolla, clashed with a 22-year-old man behind the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz on Coney Island Avenue near Brighton Beach Avenue around 2:15 p.m., the sources said. 

Both drivers got out of their vehicles and started to argue, according to the sources. 

The confrontation took a violent turn when the former cop fired off a gun, hitting the other motorist in the left leg, the sources said. 

The wounded man was taken to NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn, where he was listed in stable condition, police said. 

The retired captain was taken to the same hospital, and it remained unclear Monday whether he would face charges. 

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Group pushes for change in how police use body camera footage in officer shooting probes

An influential policing think tank is pushing law enforcement agencies to change how they handle body camera footage after police shootings, saying officers should not be able to review video before making their first statements to investigators.

The Police Executive Research Forum changed its position in a report released Friday, nearly 10 years after the group was first tapped by the Justice Department to write guidelines for agencies adopting body cameras.

The technology has swept the country’s police since. Now 79% of the country’s local police work in departments that use them. They’re in use in all cities of more than 1 million people, and Portland, Oregon, became the latest major city to adopt them in November.

“Having a body camera in your department is now expected,” said Chuck Wexler, the group’s executive director.

The technology has been key in cases like the death of Tyre Nichols, where body camera footage showed how he was brutally beaten by Memphis, Tennessee, police who are now facing criminal charges.

Still, research on whether body cameras reduce police use of force overall has been mixed. Half of the studies reviewed by the group showed officers with cameras tend to use force less often, but the rest of the studies showed no difference.

Friday’s report, an advance copy of which was provided exclusively to The Associated Press, also said departments should have clear policies on releasing video footage to the public. Of the 127 agencies it reviewed, only 14% had specific policies for releasing body camera footage of critical incidents.

The adoption of body cameras by police departments around the country increased sharply during the national outpouring of protest after the 2014 death of Michael Brown at the hands of police in Ferguson, Missouri.

“There was a lot of faith put in body cameras as a silver bullet to some of the problems that many police departments have,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union. “But a lot of that promise has not been fulfilled.”

Allowing officers to view body-camera footage before speaking to investigators can allow their stories to change to fit the video, either through lying or subconscious distortion of how they recall the event, he said.

“Policies like this one undercut the oversight function that the tool is supposed to play,” Stanley said.

Agencies have already been moving away from allowing viewing footage ahead of time, and the new recommendation could hasten that process, Wexler said. The research forum is now recommending a hybrid approach where officers give an early interview before watching the video during investigations of shootings or other uses of force, then come back and give more information.

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Lawsuit: Calif. sheriffs left 75 pizza boxes at pot farm after allegedly illegal raid

A Southern California pot farmer is suing Riverside County for what he characterizes as an illegal law enforcement raid on his property.

The farmer, Preston McCormick, is alleging that deputies with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office ransacked his business and left 75 pizza boxes behind following the operation last year. In his suit filed Friday against several individuals and public entities — including the County of Riverside and the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department — in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Preston is claiming $10 million in losses and damages.

In his complaint, as Law360 first reported, McCormick claims that more than 100 deputies and support staff conducted a predawn raid on his farm, East Wind AG, located just north of the Salton Sea on tribal land owned by the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians. The suit says the deputies intentionally ripped down hundreds of greenhouses and other infrastructure due to an “unbridled lust for chaos.”

The suit says the raid, carried out Dec. 7 of last year, resulted in the destruction of 18,299 plants that were on “the cusp of harvest.” In addition to valuing the crops at approximately $10 million, McCormick alleges that deputies confiscated personal items from his home on the property, including $10,000 in cash.

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‘Huge mistake’: SWAT raided wrong home looking for fugitive who wasn’t there and caused $16,000 in damages, lawsuit says

An Indiana woman alleges a SWAT team caused $16,000 in damages to her home in a raid searching for a fugitive they mistakenly thought was inside using the internet to get onto Facebook, a new lawsuit said.

Amy Hadley said police launched dozens of tear gas grenades into her South Bend home in June 2022 and ransacked it, making it uninhabitable for days until fumes dissipated enough to breathe inside.

The police raid destroyed family photos and childhood drawings, clothes, electronics, and furniture, she said. Insurance partially covered the damages, but South Bend and St. Joseph County government agencies rejected her pleas for compensation.

“Amy did nothing wrong to invite the destruction that government officials deliberately inflicted on her property,” said her attorney, Marie Miller, with the nonprofit Institute for Justice, a law firm that protects property rights nationwide, in a news release. “The public as a whole, not Amy alone, must pay for the cost of that law enforcement action.”

In a statement through her lawyer, Hadley said she was traumatized.

“The raid turned our lives and our home upside down,” she said. “The police clearly made a huge mistake, but there has never been an apology for the way we were treated or an offer to cover the damage. If one of the agencies won’t take responsibility, I hope the court will make them.”

A spokesperson for South Bend declined to comment, citing pending litigation. A representative for St. Joseph County did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Law&Crime.

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