Tag: police accountability

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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Colorado Cops Falsely Arrested Him for a DUI. Now He’s Getting a $400,000 Settlement.

Harris Elias was driving home one night in January 2020 when he was pulled over by a Loveland, Colorado, police officer and falsely accused of driving drunk. Even after a breathalyzer test proved that he was sober, Elias was forced to take a blood test—which again proved his sobriety. 

After the arrest, Elias filed a lawsuit against the officer who arrested him. This week, the city of Loveland agreed to pay $400,000 to settle the case.

At around 10:30 p.m. on January 4, 2020, Elias was driving home from his girlfriend’s house when he was pulled over by Loveland police officer William Gates, who was part of a DUI-specific task force. Gates claimed that Elias failed to signal a lane change—a claim Elias disputes.

“Officer Gates regularly claims (falsely) that the drivers he arrests for DUI did not signal a lane change,” claimed Elias’ suit, which was filed in January 2022. “Gates does so because this is one of the most difficult allegations to disprove, given that Loveland PD does not employ dash cams (only bodycams) and so never capture the arrested individual’s actual driving.”

The lawsuit claims that Gates attempted to confuse Elias by asking him several questions extremely quickly, including “nearly simultaneously” asking Elias for his license and registration and how much he had drank that night. 

According to the complaint, Elias found the encounter unnerving, and after fulfilling his legal obligation to provide license and insurance, he informed Gates that he was using his right to remain silent and would not answer further questions. Gates replied, in an apparent attempt to create evidence that Elias was drunk, “Well, I smell the overwhelming odor of alcohol coming from your vehicle.” 

After Elias again refused to answer further questions, Gates returned to his patrol vehicle and called for additional officers. When two more police officers arrived, they eventually decided to arrest Elias and take him to the Loveland Police Station for a breathalyzer test.

Even though Elias’ breathalyzer test showed a 0.000 percent blood alcohol content level, Gates insisted that Elias must have been intoxicated and ordered him to take a blood test. According to the lawsuit, Elias requested an attorney at this point, but “Gates told him no, that he needed to agree to comply with a blood test now or he was going to mark him as a refusal and his license would be revoked.”

Elias eventually agreed to take the test. Nearly three months later, the results again came back negative, and the case against him was dismissed entirely. But this wasn’t the end of Elias’ troubles. Elias was a Federal Aviation Administration–licensed pilot, meaning that a false DUI arrest threatened his livelihood.

The FAA “has some of the most strict mandatory reporting requirements known to any agency. The penalty for failure to report can lead to an emergency revocation of all certificates (i.e., complete revocation of his pilot’s license),” the lawsuit reads, noting that this kicked off an incredibly stressful and complex process to report and explain his arrest. Even though the case was dropped, “Elias will have to report this wrongful arrest on every medical renewal with the FAA for the rest of his life.”

But some justice was served this week when the city of Loveland agreed to pay Elias a $400,000 settlement to end the lawsuit.

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Off-duty cop killed witness trying to assist police at scene of shooting who ‘did not present a threat of any kind’: DA

A 37-year-old police officer in Pennsylvania has been indicted by a grand jury for allegedly killing a 48-year-old “good Samaritan” who was attempting to help a shooting victim in a Walmart parking lot last year. Center Township Police Officer John J. Hawk, who was off-duty and dressed in plain clothes at the time of the incident, has been charged with one count each of involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, simple assault, reckless endangerment, and perjury in the death of Kenneth Vinyard, authorities announced.

According to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, Vinyard on the night of Nov. 6, 2022, was in the parking lot of a Beaver County Walmart when an individual was shot and the scene became “chaotic.” With the shooter still on the loose, Vinyard “made attempts to show a responding officer something on his telephone that he believed would assist them with the capture of the shooter.”

When Vinyard then interrupted an officer who was speaking to another witness, prosecutors say Hawk placed his hand on Vinyard’s arm and began to physically move him away.

“Vinyard disengaged from Hawk and told Hawk words to the effect of ‘take your hands off me’ but otherwise continued to move backward,” prosecutors wrote in the criminal complaint. “Vinyard did not act aggressively toward Hawk, not make any contact with him. Nevertheless, a few seconds later while the men were standing next to each other, Hawk struck Vinyard in the chest area and simultaneously executed a leg sweep technique which forced Vinyard to fall to the asphalt parking lot and hit his head, He died upon arrival at the hospital.”

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‘I’m sorry dude… I had to do that’: Horrifying moment cop shoots dead family’s beloved dog before grabbing it by the collar and tossing it on lawn

A New Mexico woman and her family have reached a settlement with the City of Texico after their beloved family dog Pepper was shot dead by the city’s police chief.

Beverly Bentley was at work on November 10, 2021, when Police Chief Douglas Bowman, a 16-year veteran of the force, paid her a visit to tell her that he shot her dog.

‘He said something about shooting my dog, and it took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about because he said he was being aggressive,’ Bentley said. ‘That dog is the least aggressive dog I have ever owned!’

The grim execution was caught on Ring video, where Bowman stood some distance away on the lawn, staring at the dog as it barked from the porch.

The officer glanced over his shoulder in both directions before pulling out his pistol and firing. Afterwards, he walked onto the porch and stood over Pepper’s body.

‘I’m sorry dude, but I had to do that,’ Bowman said.

Grabbing Pepper by the collar, he dragged the dog onto the lawn before retrieving a hose from the property and washing away its blood.

After seeing the footage of the incident, Bowman filed an incident report, writing that a man called the station saying ‘there is a damn dog that almost bit me.’

He arrived on the scene and saw Pepper, who matched the victim’s description, and said the dog began ‘barking and snarling.’

‘The victim then came up to me and told me that was the dog and that it had almost bit him and he was afraid the dog might bite someone else if something wasn’t done about him,’ Bowman wrote.

Pepper took off and Bowman trailed the dog to the home.

As Pepper allegedly continued to bark and snarl, Bowman wrote: ‘At this point, I did not want the dog to run away again and bite or harm someone. I made the decision to shoot the dog for my safety and the safety of anyone else in the community.’

Bentley insists that her beloved dog was not aggressive. 

‘That dog got me through a lot of hard times, and then all of a sudden, he was taken away,’ she said. ‘My mother was bedridden, and she would put her hand down, and he would let her pet him.’

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NYPD ACCUSED OF FABRICATING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SURVIVOR’S MURDER CONFESSION

A WOMAN WHO was charged with murdering her husband in 2020 sued the New York City Police Department, alleging that police officers fabricated the confession that was the basis of the case against her. The federal civil rights lawsuit also alleges that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office obtained a search warrant for an email account she created to draw attention to her case — and never disclosed it, as required by law. 

Prosecutors dropped their case against Tracy McCarter last December, citing insufficient evidence. In the lawsuit, which was filed on November 2 in the Southern District of New York, McCarter said she had “sustained serious physical and psychological harm as a result of being wrongfully arrested, charged, imprisoned, searched, and prosecuted.” 

The lawsuit names four NYPD officers who were involved with the arrest and one investigator from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office who worked on the case. All four of the police officers have previously faced civilian complaints of misconduct, though such allegations are famously hard to prove. A spokesperson for the NYPD declined to comment on whether any of the officers are being investigated in relation to McCarter’s case, citing the pending litigation. The district attorney’s office declined to comment on the allegation involving the undisclosed search warrant. 

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NYPD PAID OUT $30 MILLION IN MISCONDUCT CASES BEFORE LITIGATION IN FIRST NINE MONTHS OF 2023

THE NEW YORK Police Department has been making headlines for the huge settlements paid out by the city in misconduct cases. In the first half of 2023, New York City paid more than $50 million in lawsuits alleging misconduct by members of the NYPD. 

That figure is on track to exceed $100 million by the end of the year — but even that total doesn’t capture how much the city has to spend in cases where its cops are accused of everything from causing car accidents to beating innocent people.

The $100 million figure does not include lawsuits settled by the city prior to litigation, which reached $30 million in the first nine months of this year, according to data obtained from the office of the New York City Comptroller through a public records request. Pre-litigation settlements from July 2022 through September of this year totaled $50 million — meaning the city’s payouts in such suits since July 2022, including those settled after litigation, rose to a total of around $280 million.

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FBI Arrests Miami Police Officer Accused Of Stealing Cash, Drugs During Traffic Stops

A Miami cop was arrested by the FBI after being accused of stealing drugs and money from suspects during traffic stops – some of whom turned out to be undercover agents, according to NBC Miami.

Frenel Cenat, 40, was arrested on Thursday on charges which include attempted Hobbs Act extortion, theft of government funds, and attempted possession with intent to distribute cocaine, according to the report, citing jail and court records.

Cenat, a Miami Police officer since September 2008, had worked for the property and evidence unit since 2020. After a confidential source tipped off the FBI to Cenat’s behavior – conducting traffic stops of people known to have just engaged in drug transactions, and then stealing the money or drugs they were transporting, they launched an investigation.

Cenat would use his official police vehicle to conduct the traffic stops and would be in his police uniform, the affidavit said.

Cenat was recorded on video and audio “coordinating schemes and conducting traffic stops of two individuals who he was told had just engaged in drug transactions, with the intention of stealing the money and/or drugs involved in those illegal transactions,” the affidavit said. –NBC Miami

 According to the affidavit, Cenat admitted that he would pull the schemes while off duty and outside his jurisdiction.

“On duty they (MPD) got computers on and can track you and s— like that…you know what I mean…ping your phone… what you are doing in this area,” he said, according to the affidavit. “You don’t wanna do that s— bro while you are on duty…If I work down there I will never f— down there bro.”

Cenat also described several prior incidents involving drug transactions in which he coerced individuals to give up their stash, money, or both in order to avoid going to jail.

In October, he discussed stopping a person who had just done a drug deal, from whom he stole $50,000 – saying “I just need bread now.”

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