Cops 'Help' Naked, Possibly-Suicidal Schizophrenic Man By Tasing Him To Death

from the barging-in-[electric]-guns-blazing dept

"Excited delirium" makes an appearance in another case where medical help for a mentally ill person was sought, but instead, police arrived and delivered someone to an early grave. (h/t Radley Balko)

22-year-old Adam Trammell was spotted wandering the halls of his group home completely naked. Feeling the young man was experiencing a psychotic break, the neighbor whose door Trammell had knocked on called the police. When officers arrived, they found Trammell in a distinctly non-threatening state: naked in the shower.

The first officer to reach for Trammell was pushed away. After that, the deluge began.

Two West Milwaukee police officers who broke down a mentally ill man's door and tased him in the shower 18 times before he died will not be criminally charged, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm has decided.

More than 30 minutes elapsed between the first time the officers deployed their Tasers and the time Adam Trammell lost consciousness in the hallway of his apartment building, known to officers as a place that housed people with mental illnesses, according to police reports.

In between, Trammell suffered a black eye, a broken rib and more than two dozen cuts and bruises, according to the medical examiner's report.

On the officers' body camera footage, Trammell can be heard screaming in agony.

He spent some of his last conscious moments vomiting profusely.

As is noted in the article, none of the officers will be charged. The DA's office [PDF] has already cleared them of wrongdoing, claiming the force was not excessive and there was no malicious intent present in responding officers. All they wanted to do was "help." And they helped the only way they knew how: by hurting.

Trammell did not respond to verbal commands, so naturally officers deployed their Tasers, hitting a naked, wet man standing in his own bathroom multiple times with five-second cycles. In between tasings, Trammell was told to "relax" and stand up. Officers claim in the recap [PDF] of the body cam video that Trammell was "resisting" and "not following orders." In order to achieve their goal of bringing Trammell to a waiting ambulance, officers felt the need to tase Trammell roughly every 30 seconds for nine straight minutes.

The coroner's report cleared the officers. Manner of death: undetermined. Cause of death? Excited delirium. The DA's report notes there is some skepticism about whether or not "excited delirium" is a real thing (rather than a convenient cause of death determination hand-rolled by Taser's in-house counsel) but ultimately decides to side with the coroner. This means the DA has decided to side with Taser against science, as no medical body (the American Medical Association and American Psychological Association) recognizes "excited delirium" as an authentic medical condition.

If nothing else, the actions taken by the responding officers appears to violate departmental policy. According to the policy quoted in the DA's report, officers are instructed to minimize use of restraint or engage in physical struggles. They are also supposed to hold off on Taser deployments until EMS is on the scene, and then only if absolutely necessary to approach the subject. Officers are also told to use force only in cases where the subject presents a danger to others.

In this case, the EMS unit does not appear to have arrived until after the routine, repeated tasings began. Considering Trammell's condition and location -- soaking wet in bathroom whose floor was "covered with water" -- the decision to deploy an electric shock seems to have posed more danger to Trammell and the officers than anything Trammell himself was doing, or could possibly have done. According to police reports, no one officers spoke to expressed a concern Trammell might harm others. Every single person recorded stated they were worried Trammell might harm himself. If this was the only concern, allowing the situation to de-escalate would not have resulted in harm to Trammell, who was naked, contained in a small room, with no apparent access to weapons.

Even the Taser deployments were sloppy. An additional Taser deployment, triggered by one officer after a discussion with other officers about the limited utility of their Tasers, is given the instant exoneration treatment in the officer's report. The unbelievable wordsmithery conjures up a dangerous electronic device that apparently triggers itself if it senses people are talking about it.

Rohleder pulled the trigger of his Taser one more time from the hallway, while the leads to its wires were still embedded in Trammell’s body. Rohleder told investigators “this was not an intentional deployment, but occurred spontaneously when the West Allis police asked him if the Taser wires were still connected,” according to Chisholm's letter.

No officers will be charged. It's quite possible no one will even be disciplined, despite their inability to follow internal policies. A man who posed no threat to anyone but himself died at the hands of officers who simply couldn't fathom why a schizophrenic man who was found wandering the halls naked muttering about the devil wouldn't quickly respond to shouted commands by strangers who had barged into his bathroom to "save" him.

Filed Under: police, police brutality, tasers

State Trooper Facing Murder Charges After Tasing A Teen Riding An ATV

from the height-of-unreasonableness dept

More than two dozen hours of recordings and 600 pages of documents obtained by the Detroit Free Press have uncovered disturbing details of the senseless killing of 15-year-old Damon Grimes by Michigan State Trooper Mark Bessner last fall.

Lots of killings are senseless, including many of those committed by officers authorized to use deadly force. But this one was especially senseless. Trooper Bessner decided against all policy and reason to fire his Taser at Grimes while both he and Grimes -- riding an ATV -- were traveling at 35 mph down a residential street. To add to the insanity of his act, Bessner was the passenger in the cruiser. Having initiated the pursuit, Bessner decided to end it by tasing Grimes. The result was the complete, gruesome destruction of a human being.

Grimes had been driving about 35 mph on an ATV when Bessner — a passenger in a moving patrol car — fired his stun gun at the teen during a chase on Detroit’s east side.

Grimes slammed into the back of a parked truck and flew off his ATV. The impact of the crash ripped gashes into his forehead, both cheeks and upper lip and dislocated his skull. Doctors pronounced him dead on arrival at St. John Hospital.

Bessner is now facing murder charges. There's a good chance Grimes never knew he was being pursued. Earbuds were photographed at the scene of the fatal crash. No one involved in the pursuit has been willing to go on record as to whether they appeared to be in use at the time of death. Additionally, obtained footage shows the cruiser's emergency lights weren't activated until 24 seconds after the fatal crash.

What the Free Press has uncovered with this mountain of public records is staggering. Officers arriving at the scene expressed their disgust at Bessner's actions. One officer in particular registered her disbelief at what she was witnessing.

“His pulse is weakening because he was on that fuckin' thing, and you chased his ass,” Detroit Police officer Kimberly Buckner muttered to herself as she stepped out of her vehicle, her body camera recording every step and word.

As she walked toward Grimes, an unidentified Detroit police officer reached out his hand to cover the lens of Buckner's body camera quietly saying: "They fuckin' tased his ass while he was cruisin'."

Buckner showed more compassion than other officers, though. The unidentified officer she spoke with later stated police escorts for ambulances were reserved for injured officers not "bad-ass 15 [year olds]" who ran from the cops. The officer went on to state he had "no sympathy" for the dead teenager. Another unidentified officer is captured saying, "Don't run from the State Police. You'll get fucked up."

Unbelievably, Detroit PD officials had no idea this officer -- still unidentified -- had criticized the cooling corpse of a teen shot by an officer with a Taser while riding an ATV at 35 mph. Only at the prompting of the Free Press was an investigation instigated. The officer has been pulled from patrol duty while the investigation is underway.

The Michigan State Police have a lot to answer for, and reps aren't talking. A pending lawsuit is only part of the reason for its silence. The other part is likely due to its refusal to deal with a problem trooper until he was charged with murder.

Bessner has a history of using excessive force and has been reprimanded before for using his Taser inappropriately, including using the device on handcuffed suspects. The investigation into Bessner's conduct shows that over a four-year span ending in 2017, he had 40 use of force incidents, 17 pursuits and five car accidents.

If the Michigan State Police could be bothered to police themselves, this may have been prevented. Bessner was -- at best -- a lawsuit waiting to happen. This isn't normal behavior, no matter how his lawyer spins it. It appears Bessner is going to lean hard on the Supreme Court's Graham decision, if his lawyer's statements are any indication.

Bessner's attorney, Richard Convertino, agreed to an interview, but then didn't respond to requests to schedule it.

Convertino previously called Grimes' death tragic, noting the teen drove the ATV “recklessly and dangerously” and “actively resisted and evaded arrest.”

“During the pursuit, Trooper Bessner was forced to make a split-second decision under circumstances on the scene and at the moment which was tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving,” Convertino told the Free Press in the email, shortly after the crash.

If the wording in that last paragraph seems familiar, it's because it directly quotes a Supreme Court justice.

The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments - in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving - about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.

That statement in defense of Bessner's reckless actions is a bit too much on the nose. There was no need for this to be a 'tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving" situation. A teen was riding an ATV and the cops were in cruisers. If the teen posed a risk to others, the solution was not to fire a Taser from a moving vehicle at an unprotected body traveling at 35 mph. That's just a good way to seriously injure someone. In this case, the injuries were fatal and the trooper whose best call under pressure was to commit an act almost every cop would find unreasonable is now behind bars awaiting trial. I'll bet he wishes he'd responded a bit more reasonably.

The State Police gave him every chance to show them what kind of officer he could be. And in the end, he showed them he could be even worse than he was in the four years leading up to his murder rap.

Filed Under: damon grimes, mark bessner, michigan, police brutality, teenager

Appeals Court: Handcuffing A Compliant Ten-Year-Old Is Unreasonable But Deputy Had No Way Of Knowing That

from the those-without-common-sense-will-inherit-the-earth dept

Time and time again, courts remind officers of the law don't actually have to know the law to enforce the law. Yes, that's how it all works out for citizens, who are just as frequently reminded ignorance of the law is no excuse. This has lead to the prevalence of pretextual stops where minor traffic violations (that may not even be violations) are used to initiate long conversations with law enforcement officers with the end goal of obtaining consent for a search or to bring a drug dog onto the scene.

Qualified immunity, along with the good faith exception, have allowed an untold amount of law enforcement abuse. This has completely skewed judicial perception, turning law enforcement into noble fools and raising expectations of citizens' legal knowledge to that of seasoned criminal defense lawyers. Here's how occasional Techdirt contributor Andrew Norton breaks down the current state of judicial affairs:

2005, when [Tasers] were still being introduced to law enforcement at large, was a bad year for taser-victims, but not cops. In a California case, Bryan v. McPhearson, the court decided the officer’s actions qualified under the doctrine of qualified immunity (cops will only be responsible for excessive force if they act in a way that is so unreasonable any cop would have known such conduct was against the law – basically acting criminally) Since ‘the law on taser police brutality’ was still evolving when the incident happened in 2005 the cop should get a break from liability. You read that right, because no-one had told the cop, he didn’t have any notion of right and wrong. Ignorance is an excuse, if you wear the badge.

It’s this that characterizes many police brutality and excessive force cases. On one hand the police officers are professionals dedicated to knowing and enforcing the law, when they’re on the prosecuting side, their word is solid and their testimony is unquestionable. However if they’re a defendant, they’re amateurs who don’t know the law, can’t tell right from wrong, and whose training and instincts are so poor, that they can’t be held responsible for decisions made when doing their job because they have to do them quickly.

That's the ugly reality. Things that seem obvious to citizens are somehow inscrutable to police officers with years of legal training and, quite often, a degree in criminal law. Yet another "case in point" is this recent Fourth Circuit Appeals Court decision, in which something that seems obviously wrong is given a judicial hand-wave because the obvious wrong had not been "clearly established" by these judges in this circuit dealing with a carbon copy of these circumstances.

The civil rights lawsuit involves a minor who was in fourth grade at the time the violation occurred. E.W. is the minor suing. A bus surveillance camera caught her and another student fighting on the bus. Both were suspended by the school from riding the bus.

For whatever reason, the school didn't do anything about the altercation for 72 hours. Then they called in deputy sheriff Rosemary Dolgos, the school's resource officer. Dolgos questioned the other party in the fight and asked if she was injured. A.W. (the other minor in the altercation) showed the officer a couple of small bruises on her leg.

E.W. was summoned to the office. According to the deputy, E.W. didn't seem to care enough about the fight on the bus. From the opinion [PDF]:

Dolgos attempted to emphasize to E.W. the seriousness of the situation and the possible repercussions, telling her that adults could be jailed for such behavior. Still, in Dolgos’s opinion, “E.W. continued to act as if the situation simply was not a ‘big deal.’”

It wasn't a big deal. Or at least it wasn't something the school couldn't have handled without a law enforcement officer. But since a law enforcement officer was involved, law enforcement proceeded without any regard for the actual severity of the situation. Deputy Dolgos, presiding over an apathetic fourth grader, feared for her safety.

Dolgos placed E.W. in handcuffs from behind and reseated her. Dolgos inserted two fingers between the handcuffs and E.W.’s wrists to ensure that they were not too tight. In her affidavit, Dolgos stated that she was concerned about the physical safety of herself and the school administrators because of both the incident she observed in the surveillance video and E.W.’s apathy. Dolgos expressed concern in the affidavit that E.W. might act violently against her or someone else if she attempted to walk E.W. from the school to her patrol car.

Dolgos based these observations on her lack of knowledge.

Dolgos also admitted, however, that she had no idea whether E.W. had “any past or current behavioral issues or past involvements with law enforcement.”

She also likely could have controlled the situation without handcuffs, especially considering E.W.'s apparent compliance.

According to Dolgos, E.W. stood 4’4” and weighed about 95 pounds, while Dolgos stands 5’4” and weighs 155 pounds.

Once placed in handcuffs, E.W. began crying and apologized for the fight. She said she did not want to go to jail and promised she wouldn't hit A.W. again. Apparently this was the reaction Dolgos was looking for. Having been taken seriously enough as a law enforcement officer, Dolgos removed the cuffs and released E.W.

The school, however, remained unmoved. It contacted E.W.'s mother and told her they would refer the matter to juvenile services. E.W.'s mother responded with disbelief ("[s]o you're going to put my… daughter in the system when she's 10?") and came to the school to retrieve her daughter. The lawsuit followed.

The district court took a brief glance at Dolgos' motion to dismiss and sided with the deputy. The decision was, at best, perfunctory.

In a short paragraph, without citing any case law, the district court concluded that Dolgos’s actions did not amount to excessive force because E.W. was handcuffed for only two minutes and then released to her mother. The court further concluded that Dolgos was “at least” entitled to qualified immunity as to the § 1983 claim.

The appeals court disagrees with the will-this-do assessment of the lower court. It finds the use of force excessive, considering the surrounding circumstances. In doing so, it finds Dolgos' assertions ridiculous.

Here, Dolgos could not have reasonably believed that E.W. presented any immediate risk of harm to anyone. Like the adult suspect in Solomon, E.W. had no weapons and made no threats, see 389 F.3d at 174, and like the eleven-year-old in Sonora, she was calm and compliant as Dolgos spoke to her, see 769 F.3d at 1030. In fact, Dolgos recognized that E.W. appeared calm. See J.A. 23–24. Also similar to the suspects in Solomon and Sonora, E.W., at 4’4” and ninety-five pounds, was quite small relative to Dolgos, the arresting officer, who was a foot taller and sixty pounds heavier. See Sonora, 769 F.3d at 1030; Solomon, 389 F.3d at 174. Not to mention, E.W. was in a closed office and surrounded by two school administrators and a deputy sheriff. Given these facts, E.W. posed little threat even if she were to become aggressive.

The significant time that had elapsed—without incident—since the fight on the bus further negates any notion that E.W. posed an immediate threat. While the scuffle took place on Tuesday, January 6, East Salisbury Elementary School waited three days to even contact Dolgos. In the interim, E.W. was allowed to and did in fact attend school without incident, indicating that she did not pose a risk to the children around her, much less to the adults.

In addition, the ignorance of the underlying circumstances Dolgos admitted to (and likely hoped would weigh in her favor by making her unreasonable actions reasonable) only further adds to the factors weighing against handcuffing a compliant 10-year-old.

Moreover, Dolgos had no reason to think that the scuffle between E.W. and A.W. was anything but an isolated incident. E.W. had no prior behavioral issues or involvement with law enforcement, nor did Dolgos have any indication that she did. The use of force is an intrusion on Fourth Amendment rights, and an officer must have a reason for using or escalating force. See Graham, 490 U.S. at 396 (intrusions on Fourth Amendment rights must be reasonably necessary given countervailing governmental interests). Even as to the altercation on the school bus, E.W., while unjustified in retaliating, did not become violent without physical provocation by A.W. Indeed, even a child with a history of attacking school officials should not be handcuffed if, at the time of handcuffing, she did not present a danger.

The appeals court also points to plenty of precedent, finding that handcuffing children tends to be excessive force in almost any situation. It also notes that the use of handcuffs in a school setting tends to undermine the mission of schools and school personnel. Students who see other students handcuffed for behavior that could be addressed by parental or school discipline are far more likely to distrust school administration and will be less likely to bring disciplinary issues to their attention. In extreme cases, parents and students may decide to take their scholastic business elsewhere, leaving the school with fewer students.

The court finds Deputy Dolgos violated the Fourth Amendment.

Dolgos took a situation where there was no need for any physical force and used unreasonable force disproportionate to the circumstances presented. We therefore find that Dolgos’s actions amount to excessive force. As such, E.W. has demonstrated a violation of her constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment.

But here's where it all goes haywire. The court lists numerous reasons -- including circuit precedent -- why Dolgos should have known handcuffing children (absent extreme circumstances) would result in Fourth Amendment violations. It holds that this handcuffing was a Fourth Amendment violation. And then it goes on to declare that Dolgos can rely on her ignorance and her complete lack of better judgment to escape liability.

Conversely, it was not obvious that Dolgos could not handcuff E.W. here. Although precedent supports the conclusion that Dolgos acted unreasonably and violated E.W.’s Fourth Amendment rights, it did not put Dolgos on sufficient notice that her conduct was unlawful. Indeed, this Court previously stated that the use of handcuffs would “rarely” be considered excessive force when the officer has probable cause for the underlying arrest. See Brown, 278 F.3d at 369. And the parties do not point us to any controlling authority sufficiently similar to the situation Dolgos confronted. In fact, E.W. chiefly relies on Graham to define the clearly established law. Without more, we cannot conclude that it would have necessarily been clear to a reasonable officer that handcuffing E.W. would give rise to a Fourth Amendment violation.

This will help handcuffed students in the future, but it does nothing for E.W. And this conclusion comes after a lengthy diversion in the opinion in which the concurring opinion is called out for its willingness to say that handcuffing children reasonable.

The concurrence seems to suggest that elementary school children like E.W. are so inherently unpredictable and uncontrollable that officers would be reasonable in restraining them for our collective safety. Unsurprisingly, the concurrence’s authorities do not actually support that position or apply to this case. The concurrence cites to Knox Cty. Educ. Ass’n v. Knox Cty. Bd. of Educ., 158 F.3d 361 (6th Cir. 1998), for the proposition that young children are “unpredictable, in need of constant attention and supervision,” such that “[e]ven momentary inattention or delay in dealing with a potentially dangerous or emergency situation could have grievous consequences.” Post at 41 (quoting Knox, 158 F.3d at 378). What the concurrence leaves out is that Knox was discussing whether teachers may be required to undergo drug-testing in order to protect young children, who “could cause harm to themselves or others while playing at recess, eating lunch in the cafeteria (if for example, they began choking), or simply horsing around with each other.” See 158 F.3d at 378–79. Unless the concurrence suggests that we handcuff children as a reasonable method of “supervision” to prevent choking and horseplay, Knox has little relevance to the case at hand.

So, the concurrence is only right so far as it agrees with the rest of the court that Deputy Dolgos can walk into a school office and slap handcuffs on a ten-year-old without having to worry about being held liable for violating the student's Fourth Amendment rights. On all other points, it's somehow wrong, but only because it chose the wrong standard of law enforcement ignorance to cite. The concurring opinion somehow manages to be worse than the majority opinion, because it wouldn't even go so far as to establish the handcuffing of compliant prepubescents as "unreasonable."

This is a good decision as far as establishing a baseline goes, but the cases cited suggest the baseline had already been set, but only as to eight-year-olds (James v. Frederick Cty. Pub. Sch.) and eleven-year-olds (Tekle v. United States). Ten-year-olds are apparently in need of their own separate precedent. This is how much the doctrine of qualified immunity has erased the word "justice" from the justice system. Anyone who suffers a Fourth Amendment violation had better hope someone in exactly the same circumstances landed a appellate unicorn with their lawsuit, or law enforcement skates away with another win and a very slight narrowing of the scope of civil rights violations officers can get away with.

Filed Under: 10 year olds, 4th circuit, civil liberties, cruel and unusual, handcuffs, kids, police, police brutality

Investigation Shows Chicago PD Has Zero Interest In Holding Its Officers Accountable

from the half-decade-wait-for-a-five-day-suspension dept

Why Chicago's Police Force Is A Godawful Train Wreck, Part 192: A Staggering Lack of Accountability.

Even after a Chicago Tribune investigation in March revealed faults with the disciplinary system that had caused officials to lose cases — and after they pledged to track down and finalize those cases — some punishments remain pending.

ProPublica Illinois and the Tribune, collaborating on this story, discovered Levigne's case as reporters tried to determine whether police officials had followed through on their promise.

The previous story detailed how pending punishments for at least 14 officers had been forgotten, and pointed out there likely were more. Police officials have required many of those officers, as well as about a dozen others, to serve punishments — years late — during the past few months, the Tribune and ProPublica Illinois confirmed.

But officials continued to let other old cases stall as they failed to make sense of their own disjointed — and sometimes incorrect — records.

That's just the latest in a long line of travesties committed by the Chicago PD. This follows other such lowlights as the PD operating its own Constitution-free "black site" inside the city, where criminal suspects were taken, detained, and interrogated with zero regard for their civil liberties. When Chicago police officers aren't shooting people and lying about it, they're participating in god knows what other sorts of misconduct after tampering with their recording devices.

The reason it's taken so long for anything to be done about this is a lack of accountability. Those up top feel no compunction to punish officers for misdeeds, often only following through when forced to by public outcry. When it does finally occur, it's years after the fact and often reduced to wrist slap.

The case cited above in the Chicago Tribune report involves Chicago PD officer Brandon Levigne. Levigne pulled a gun on a motorist for supposedly cutting him off in traffic. Levigne was not in uniform. The driver, Brandon Whitehead, called 911, thinking he was being carjacked. Whitehead reported this incident to the Chicago PD. This report was filed in 2006.

Police officials concluded that Levigne had mistreated the Whiteheads, used profanity and lied about it, and they recommended that he be suspended for 60 days. But they didn't follow through, and the officer didn't serve a reduced suspension until just this month, after reporters repeatedly questioned the delay.

It took eleven years for the officer to be punished. And it was a lighter punishment than police officials originally recommended. In the intervening years, Levigne -- who the department had ruled had engaged in misconduct years ago -- was promoted to detective.

The system used to track officer misconduct is archaic and needlessly convoluted -- so much so the system's inability to provide anything resembling accountability appears to be deliberate.

Emanuel fired police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, appointed a task force to propose reforms and revamped the former police oversight agency, the Independent Police Review Authority, or IPRA.

A replacement agency, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, began work Sept. 15.

But COPA must work within the same labyrinthine disciplinary system that has contributed to a lack of accountability. Records are kept on paper and shuffled between the oversight agency and the Police Department.

There is no management system in place to track cases, and they fall through the cracks.

And again, the only reason the CPD is moving forward with long-delayed punishments is due to outside pressure. External investigations by ProPublica and the Chicago Times have resulted in more cases being completed than years of internal management by the department. The new independent oversight board faces the same challenges: a culture deeply uninterested in punishing misconduct and a tracking system so broken it makes a mockery of the phrase "paper trail." One serious complaint finally resulted in a (laughable) punishment more than a half-decade after the fact.

A police spokesman said Stacker served his one-day suspension in April, six years after the warrantless entry. Stacker is currently stripped of police powers and on desk duty in connection with another case, a police spokesman said.

In this case, Officer Stacker announced he would file a grievance after an internal investigation found he had violated citizens' Fourth Amendment rights. But that's all Stacker did. The grievance was never filed and the case slipped into the undertow of the CPD's complaint tracking system, only resurfacing years later with the assistance of outside scrutiny.

The IRPA's help is appreciated but it too has problems following through with investigations and recommendations. Accused officers deliberately screw with the system by promising to challenge rulings or appeal decisions. These moves are never made and the complaints sit in limbo awaiting officers' next moves. When punishments are finally handed down years after the fact, they're often far less than was recommended or agreed to. The appeals that officers never got around to filing are somehow treated as being filed in absentia. And even the reduced punishments are never served.

Officer Jorge Martinez Jr. was accused of drunkenly challenging and taunting a security guard and officers from a Texas police department while attending a wedding reception in Dallas in 2007. He was charged with misdemeanor assault in Texas, but the case was dismissed.

IPRA recommended a 60-day suspension in 2011, but Martinez settled with the city for five days in 2015.

IPRA had no record of getting the settlement agreement that reduced the punishment, so years passed and Martinez never served the suspension. In May, however, a CPD sergeant in the Bureau of Internal Affairs alerted IPRA and Police Department officials that Martinez's disciplinary case was listed as active when it should have been closed long ago, emails show.

Still, nothing happened.

The Chicago PD is an accountability black hole. Plenty of paperwork goes in, but it's never seen again. The CPD won't make any sort of effort, despite handling many of these investigations in house. The independent review board suffers from its outsider status and its relative powerlessness to ensure closed investigations result in the meting out of discipline. There's no reason for the CPD to change. It's gotten along for years with a minimum of scrutiny and its officers have tons of experience in the art of thwarting oversight. If the heads up top aren't rolling, abusive officers further down the organizational chart have nothing to fear.

Filed Under: accountability, chicago pd, discipline, police brutality, police misconduct

Deputy Shoots Family's Terrier; Complains About Cost Of The Bullet

from the stay-classy dept

In disturbing, but sadly unsurprising news, a law enforcement officer is being accused of killing a family pet -- one that very likely did not need to be killed. Kelli Sullivan's dog was shot by a sheriff's deputy when the deputy responded to Sullivan's call about being harassed by a neighbor. Sullivan soon learned why you're taking the lives of everyone and everything into your own hands by asking for law enforcement assistance.

The dog was 12 pounds, and Sullivan says about ankle height on most people. She said the dog did not seem like a threat to the officer. She said after the deputy had taken care of a neighborhood disturbance, her son’s dog escaped from their house.

"The dog got out. I walked to the end of the driveway to try to catch her. My daughter was running around trying to catch her. I thought we were going to go back in the house. I walked back to the house opened the door, turned around, (and) boom, he shot her," Sullivan said. "It was a horrific event. He shot the dog up close and blew her skull apart in front of my children. Like her eyeballs were out of her head."

According to Sullivan, the dog had no history of biting and was behaving normally for a dog of her breed.

Sullivan's dog was a rat terrier -- a breed not really known for aggressive behavior. Nonetheless, the deputy's report said the dog posed enough of a threat he had no choice but to shoot it in the head.

In his official report, the deputy said, “…alone [sic] came the house dog charging at me in an aggressive manner and grabbing at my leg and my boots. I swung my baton at the dog to scare it away. The house dog then charge [sic] at me again in an aggressive manner and once swung my baton. The [sic] Mr. Sullivan couldn’t contain the dog. For a third time the house dog charged at me in an aggressive manner I then fire one shot with my hand gun and killing the dog [sic].”

But that's not the end of it, although that would probably be more than enough. A deputy unable to handle the "aggressive manner" of a 12-lb. dog is going to have severe difficulties handling aggressive behavior by full-grown humans. Nope, the deputy then allegedly had the audacity to:

A. Claim his killing of the dog was in the family's best interest, and

B. Complain about the cost of the bullet.

According to Kelli Sullivan, after killing Leia, the deputy told her that if she had bitten him, he’d have to sue, and that shooting her was the better option. He then told her, “It was a shame I had to waste that bullet, it was a really expensive hollow-point bullet.”

At this point, all we have is the family's story. There's no video of the incident and the sheriff's department has yet to respond to calls for comments and/or statements. But the allegations are far from unusual. This is something that happens dozens of times per day in the US.

The exact number of dogs killed by law enforcement officers is difficult to quantify because there is no official record of these deaths across American agencies. Laurel Matthews, a program specialist with the US Department of Justice’s community-oriented policing services office, says fatal encounters are an “epidemic” and estimates that 25 to 30 pet dogs are killed daily by police.

If there's ever going to be a downturn in this number, it starts with the police departments and runs right through the court systems. Police departments can provide better training, equipping officers with knowledge and techniques to better ensure animals make it out of these "interactions" alive.

But the bigger step towards lowering this number (and, consequently, the number of humans killed by police officers) has to be taken by the nation's courts. At this point, pretty much all officers have to do to justify killings is claim they feared for their safety. In cases involving humans and their pets, this is usually enough to allow them to escape civil liability, if not criminal liability. Unless there's plenty of evidence stating otherwise -- something that usually includes recordings of officers' statements and accidents during these incidents -- the courts will usually find it impossible to discount the subjective feelings of the involved officers.

The silver lining at this point is more and more courts are viewing the killing of people's pets by law enforcement officers as something potentially in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

[A]ccording to Charlotte-based attorney Scott MacLatchie, who represents law enforcement agencies and officers in civil suits. "Six (out of 11) federal circuit courts of appeal have ruled that the killing of a pet does represent a Fourth Amendment seizure," he says.

Let's not forget another basic fact: pets aren't instantly cowed by uniforms and waved weapons. Animals respond to certain stimuli and having strangers invading their territory seldom makes them comfortable. Owners can do whatever's possible to restrain pets, but what owners see as normal, non-threatening behavior by their pets is often seen as potentially harmful by people trained specifically to see potential danger in almost every interaction. And for most pets, the more aggressive the stranger is -- especially one using every physical tool available to "secure the scene" -- the more defensive they'll be.

The problem is no one can "cop-proof" their home. It's impossible. What seems normal to them seems suspicious or threatening to law enforcement officers. They can't stop pets from running to greet the new person in the house in whatever fashion the pet normally greets strangers. They can't stop people from walking out of rooms or through doors unexpectedly. All they can do is hope everything goes as uneventfully as possible. That completely skews these interactions. Those with the hours and years of specialized training are expected to be treated like heavily-armed babies -- shielded from surprises, loud noises, or unexpected movements. And, for the most part, the courts have treated these completely backwards rules of engagement as completely normal expectations.

That's how you end up with dead 12-lb. terriers and cops complaining about the cost of bullets: the constant shifting of responsibility back on the untrained citizens who thought they might end up with some help, rather than a dead pet, when they called the police.

Filed Under: dogs, kelli sullivan, police, police brutality

Cop Loses Immunity After Shooting, Headstomping Gravely-Injured Suspect

from the rollback dept

Court decisions stripping officers of immunity for civil liberties violations are still mostly an anomaly. But we'll take what we can get. This immunity-stripping decision by the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court appears to have been aided by the police department's own dashcam video, which helped dispel some of the "our word against yours" haze that clouds excessive force cases.

In this case, acts of violence followed several seizures (of the epileptic variety, rather than the law enforcement variety). From the decision [PDF]:

Connor Zion suffered several seizures. He then had a seemingly related episode where he bit his mother and cut her and his roommate with a kitchen knife. Police were called. Deputy Juan Lopez arrived at Zion’s apartment complex. As Lopez exited his police car, Zion ran at him and stabbed him in the arms. Deputy Michael Higgins drove up separately and witnessed the attack on Lopez.

This was then followed by more acts of violence. Some of it clearly excessive, according to the court.

What happened next is captured in two videos taken by cameras mounted on the dashboards of the two police cruisers. Zion is seen running toward the apartment complex. Lopez Video 2:58. Higgins shoots at him from about fifteen feet away. Higgins Video 3:25. Nine shots are heard and Zion falls to the ground. Lopez Video 2:54. Higgins then runs to where Zion has fallen and fires nine more rounds at Zion’s body from a distance of about four feet, emptying his weapon. Id. at 3:00–03. Zion curls up on his side. Id. Higgins pauses and walks in a circle. Id. at 3:05. Zion is still moving. Id. at 3:00–12. Higgins then takes a running start and stomps on Zion’s head three times. Id. at 3:11–20.

Here's the video, courtesy of the Appeals Court.

This footage proves key to the Ninth's decision. As it points out, Higgins' statements don't align with the events captured by the cruiser's dashcam

Higgins testified that Zion was trying to get up. But we “may not simply accept what may be a self-serving account by the police officer.” Scott v. Henrich, 39 F.3d 912, 915 (9th Cir. 1994). This is especially so where there is contrary evidence. In the video, Zion shows no signs of getting up. Lopez Video 3:01.

The video shows Higgins shooting Zion several times from point-blank range, pausing a few moments before deciding to stomp Zion's head three times. At all times, Zion is laying on the ground almost motionless (he raises his head once after the second salvo of shots).

As the court points out, law enforcement officers are allowed to use deadly force until the threatening situation has terminated. But that does not mean officers are allowed to deploy force until the person is "terminated." Higgins appears to believe he's entitled to maintain some sort of force continuum right up until EMS crews haul the dead body away. That's where he's wrong. Or at the very least, there's at least two ways a jury might find him culpable for violating Zion's rights.

Plaintiff doesn’t challenge Higgins’s initial nine-round volley, but does challenge the second volley (fired at close range while Zion was lying on the ground) and the headstomping. By the time of the second volley, Higgins had shot at Zion nine times at relatively close range and Zion had dropped to the ground. In the video, Zion appears to have been wounded and is making no threatening gestures. Lopez Video 3:04. While Higgins couldn’t be sure that Zion wasn’t bluffing or only temporarily subdued, Zion was lying on the ground and so was not in a position where he could easily harm anyone or flee. A reasonable jury could find that Zion was no longer an immediate threat, and that Higgins should have held his fire unless and until Zion showed signs of danger or flight. Or, a jury could find that the second round of bullets was justified, but not the head-stomping.

[...]

[T]erminating at threat doesn’t necessarily mean terminating the suspect. If the suspect is on the ground and appears wounded, he may no longer pose a threat; a reasonable officer would reassess the situation rather than continue shooting. This is particularly true when the suspect wields a knife rather than a firearm.

With that, the Ninth Circuit sends the case back to the district court, overturning its summary judgment in favor of Officer Higgins. It also points out the plaintiff is entitled to recover her costs for the appeal. And, importantly, it unseals the two videos it relied on to reach its conclusions, so the public can draw its own conclusions about the incident in question in light of the officer's misleading statements.

Filed Under: 9th circuit, dashcam video, immunity, police, police brutality

Oversight Board Report On DC Police Cameras Contradicts Earlier Report's Claims

from the by-'activate,'-do-you-mean-'not-do-a-damn-thing?' dept

Less than a month after a first report was delivered on Washington, DC police body camera use, a second one has arrived. And it seems to contradict some assertions made in the first report.

The first report was put together by an extension of DC's government called the Lab@DC. It showed body camera use doing almost nothing to curtail use of force by officers. This seemed to undercut the notion body cameras can be a tool of accountability. But they never will be -- not if the agencies using them remain uninterested in punishing officers for misconduct.

The Lab@DC report stated officers -- more than 2,000 of them -- weren't observed repeatedly or intentionally violating body camera activation policies.

Other researchers have suggested that BWCs may fail to affect outcomes because of nonadherence: officers, for a variety of reasons, may not use their assigned cameras according to departmental policy. They may fail to turn on the camera, for example. We have no indication that non-adherence was a widespread problem in this study. For 98% of the days in 2016, MPD averaged at least one video (and often many more) per call for service associated with a treatment officer. Further, even for the 2% of days in 2016 in which the number of videos uploaded was less than the number of incidents for which we would expect them, the difference is minimal, with 96% average adherence based on our measure.

The latest report, however, comes to the opposite conclusion. This one [PDF], put together by DC's police oversight board, shows plenty of nonadherence. (via FourthAmendment.com)

More than a third of cases investigated by a D.C. police oversight board after complaints were made about officers’ conduct this past year involved officers who did not properly use their body-worn cameras during those incidents, according to a report made public Tuesday.

Some officers turned the cameras on too late, others too early, the report from the Office of Police Complaints found. In 13 percent of the cases, at least one officer at a crime scene or incident failed to turn on the camera, though colleagues did.

This is causing problems with accountability. Michael G. Tobin, the director of the Office of Police Complaints, says these "failures" sometimes compromise entire internal investigations. But he's also quick to excuse the officers, citing the newness of the technology.

The "newness" may contribute to some unintentional failure to follow policy, but it's not as though the department's body camera policy is full of contradictory instructions on activations.

MPD General Order SPT-302.13 specifies that “[m]embers, including primary, secondary, and assisting members, shall start their BWC recordings as soon as a call is initiated via radio or communication from OUC [Office of Unified Communications] on their mobile data computer (MDC), or at the beginning of any self-initiated police action.”

Cameras should be rolling for pretty much any officer interaction with the public. The problem for DC police oversight -- and the public itself -- is that these activation failures compromise investigations of police misconduct. To investigators inside and outside the department, there's no discernible difference between forgetting to turn on a camera and deliberately leaving a camera off. The small upside is the 2,800 cameras in use, which lowers the chance that all responding officers will fail to produce footage.

The camera policy doesn't leave activation to officer discretion. But the hardware does, and that's an issue that needs to be addressed. Surprisingly, it's the local police union that's calling for additional accountability measures.

Police Sgt. Matthew Mahl, the chairman of the police union, said he plans to ask the department for new equipment that would automatically turn on body cameras when a gun is removed from the holster.

That will help cover cases where deadly force is threatened or deployed. But there are a lot of misconduct and excessive force complaints that will fall through the "gun out, camera on" cracks.

The combination of both reports suggests cameras still aren't fixing law enforcement. Too many officers still feel the equipment is optional, even when it's issued at the start of every shift and clipped to their chests for the next 12 hours. If there's no downturn in force deployment, it's because no one's made it clear the absence of footage should be nearly as damning as the existence of damning footage.

Filed Under: body cameras, police, police brutality, washington dc

Police Camera Study Shows New Tech Having Little Effect On Misconduct And Excessive Force

from the can't-fix-a-broken-culture dept

The results of another police camera study are in and there's not much good news in them. While cautiously hailed as tools of accountability, body worn cameras so far have proven to be anything but. In the early days of body camera adoption, a study of a pilot program in Rialto, California produced very positive results.

When cops in a Rialto, California were forced to wear cameras, their use of force dropped by over two-thirds. Additionally, the officers who were not made to wear the cameras used force twice as much as those who did. This strongly suggests the majority of the time police use force is unnecessary. In other words, the majority of the time these officers used force they were simply committing acts of violence which they don't feel comfortable committing if it's captured on film...

The Rialto study began in February 2012 and will run until this July. The results from the first 12 months are striking. Even with only half of the 54 uniformed patrol officers wearing cameras at any given time, the department over all had an 88 percent decline in the number of complaints filed against officers, compared with the 12 months before the study, to 3 from 24.

The study's length suggested positive long-term results but the small sample size may have skewed the results. Another contributing factor could have been the "newness" of the devices themselves -- something that may have led officers to act with more restraint than usual.

But as more and more police departments have deployed body cameras, the results have been less and less positive. A study published last year suggested body worn cameras actually led to an increase in violence -- a 3.64% uptick in fatal shootings by officers. Of course, this increase may have been nothing more than a deviation from the mean. But it still pointed towards cameras being anything but a cheap, scalable fix for officer misconduct.

The latest report covers the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department's body camera pilot program. The data is drawn from 2,000 MPD officers over a period of 18 months. Again, the results suggest body cameras aren't going to change policing for the better. From the report [PDF] (via the New York Times):

We learned that BWCs do not have detectable average effects on documented uses of force or civilian complaints.

More scientifically:

We are unable to reject the null hypotheses that BWCs have no effect on police use of force, citizen complaints, policing activity, or judicial outcomes. Because our study has a large enough sample size to detect small effect sizes, these failures to reject the null are unlikely to be due to insufficient statistical power, at least for uses of force and complaints. (Our estimates of average effects in the judicial outcomes category occasionally have much wider confidence intervals.) We consider here a few possible explanations for our null findings.

First and most obviously, it is possible the null finding needs no explanation: the devices, in fact, have no effect on the measured behaviors, and the video footage they produce has no effect on judicial outcomes. Perhaps neither the officer nor citizen involved in an interaction are actually aware of the camera, either due to attention being diverted elsewhere or desensitization over time to the presence of the cameras. Alternately, the officer and citizen may notice the cameras, but other factors in the heat of the moment may override any deterrent effect the cameras may have had.

Cameras do not act as a deterrent for police misconduct, according to these findings. There were case-by-case fluctuations, but the end result remained unchanged.

The report doesn't discuss any outside factors possibly contributing to this lack of deterrence. But there are several reasons police behavior may remain unmodified after the deployment of cameras. Restrictive public records policies can insulate officers from accountability, leading to little or no change in police behavior. Fortunately, the Metro PD's BWC footage policy does not automatically exempt it from public records laws, although it does tend to discourage complainants from seeking footage of possible misconduct.

A person alleging non-criminal misconduct related to an interaction with an MPD officer, such as rudeness and unprofessionalism on the part of the officer, shall be able to schedule a time to view unredacted BWC footage of the incident at the police station in the police district where the alleged misconduct occurred…

Another possible contributing factor is the lack of meaningful punishments for officers who fail to activate cameras or tamper with recorded footage. This may not have had much of an effect on this study, as officers knew they were being watched by the group performing the study. The report notes no instances of tampering or questionable camera activation were observed during the 18-month pilot period.

But the biggest contributing factor to zero change in officer behavior is police culture itself. The Metro PD has had its problems with misconduct and excessive force. This is from a 2001 DOJ report on the DC police.

Through analysis of a random sample, the DOJ determined that in approximately 15% of the use of force incidents, the force used by MPD officers was excessive, compared to an expected occurrence rate of 1 to 2%. Other DOJ findings included disproportionate incidents of force used by off-duty officers (14% of incidents); subjects being charged with "assault on a police officer" when force was deployed (1/3 of incidents); incidents of a gun not found on the subject, despite officers reporting that subject appeared to be reaching for a weapon (22% of incidents); and excessive incidents of police dog bites (bites occurring in 70% of canine deployments, compared to an expected bite rate of 10%). The DOJ determined that MPD lacked a comprehensive program to minimize the use of excessive force, had an inadequate system for investigating citizen complaints of officer misconduct, and had significant deficiencies in its training program.

Over the past decade, DC Metro Police has paid out $31.6 million in settlements and fielded nearly 175 civil rights lawsuits. And, in general, use of force by MPD officers has remained constant over the same time period, suggesting it takes a bit more to reach the "excessive force" plateau needed to sustain allegations against officers. While the PD has taken a proactive approach to misconduct and excessive force following the 1999 DOJ investigation, follow-up reports show the PD has narrowed its definition of "force" to exclude many forms of force deployment from its mandatory reporting.

If the consequences for misconduct are minimal, officers won't change their behavior even if they've got cameras pinned to their chests. Cameras are only a small part of police accountability. The largest contributor to better behavior by officers is the department itself. If it makes de-escalation and respectful behavior a priority -- and follows this up with serious punishments for violations -- cameras will be filled with exonerating footage. If not, force deployments and potential misconduct will remain nearly unchanged as officers have little to fear even if the footage they capture shows them violating rights and deploying excessive force.

Filed Under: body cameras, cameras, disclosure, excessive force, misconduct, police, police brutality, transparency

Deputy Loses Immunity For Battering Arrestee, Tightly Handcuffing Him For Three Hours As 'Punishment'

from the some-cops-are-the-'people'-who-think-'they-can-do-as-they-please' dept

We've discussed before how difficult it is to strip law enforcement officers of qualified immunity. Courts have been spectacularly unwilling to take this protection away from cops, even when confronted with horrendous rights violations. Even in cases where the court decides a rights violation has occurred, unless it has "clearly established" precedent to work with -- something stating that this particular violation in this particular set of circumstances has resulted in the stripping of immunity before -- the officer being sued usually remains shielded from liability.

So, if the court is unwilling to set the precedent, the violation can occur again and again and again until the presiding court decides it's had enough. When a case comes through where immunity has been denied -- or stripped away by a higher court -- it's immediately notable.

In this case [PDF] handled by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the standard for losing qualified immunity is still high. It's just that the law enforcement officer in this case went out of his way to be an abusive asshole. The court's unwilling to let that slide.

Paul Stephens and his cousin, Roan Greenwood, were guests of Greenwood's girlfriend at an apartment complex that sat atop a row of stores. They were both checking out Greenwood's girlfriend's car, attempting to track down the source of the "check engine" warning that came on right before it was parked.

Deputy Nick DeGiovanni decided the two might be planning to break into the shops below the apartments. He ignored Greenwood's offer to take him up to his girlfriend's apartment to prove he had permission to be there. While he was questioning Stephens (really just demanding he produce some ID), Stephens took a call on his phone using his Bluetooth headset. It all went downhill quickly from there.

When he answered the phone using the Bluetooth device on his right ear, Deputy DeGiovanni unexpectedly slapped the Bluetooth from Stephens’s ear and stated: “Who told you to answer the phone?” Stephens then asked Deputy DeGiovanni to get a field supervisor on the scene. Deputy DeGiovanni responded by saying: “Shut your damn mouth.” For no reason, Deputy DeGiovanni, using his full body weight, slugged Stephens hard in his chest, slamming him into the driver’s seat.

Stephens attempted to talk the deputy out of making this worse -- both for him and for the deputy -- by appealing to his conscience. Apparently, Deputy DeGiovanni didn't have one.

Stephens stood up and asked Deputy DeGiovanni: “Why are you doing this?” Deputy DeGiovanni hit Stephens a second time with a blow to his chest, thrusting him into the driver’s seat. With the air knocked out of his lungs, Stephens got up and said to Deputy DeGiovanni: “The kids are upstairs looking at you. What kind of example are you setting for the kids?”

Deputy DeGiovanni battered Stephens a third time by stepping on Stephens’s left foot while simultaneously and forcefully grabbing him by the neck and slamming him backward, which threw Stephens against the car-door frame. Stephens’s head hit in the space between the open driver’s door and the car, and his head and neck slammed into the car-door jamb. Stephens, who was seriously injured, reached up with his right hand to grab the car door to lift himself up. Deputy DeGiovanni then grabbed Stephens’s right hand and twisted it so the palm of his hand faced up; he also forced the last three fingers on Stephens’s right hand backward toward his forearm, causing all of Stephens’s body weight to be placed on those three fingers of his right hand.

Then it somehow got worse for Stephens. DeGiovanni arrested Stephens and made it clear what he thought of black people. (Or immigrants. Stephens is originally from Jamaica.) Emphasis added by the court:

After Stephens was standing and while Deputy DeGiovanni still had those three fingers of Stephens’s right hand bent backwards, Deputy DeGiovanni told Stephens to turn around, and he handcuffed him. He did not tell Stephens he was under arrest or why he was arresting him. Because the handcuffs were quite tight, causing Stephens to lose the feeling in his hands, he asked Deputy DeGiovanni to loosen the handcuffs. Deputy DeGiovanni responded: “It’s punishment. You people come here and think you can do as you please.” Am. Compl. at 4 ¶ 15. Deputy DeGiovanni did not adjust the handcuffs on Stephens for almost three hours.

At no time did Stephens resist the arrest and throughout the painful experience he tried to be compliant. Deputy DeGiovanni was apparently in the mood to hurt someone, and Stephens ended up being in the wrong place at the wrong time despite being a guest at the apartments he was parked in front of.

Stephens was booked, denied a chance to use the restroom, and the vehicle was towed away. The jail refused to process Stephens because of his injuries, which were fairly extensive. This is from the physician's report:

[A] cervical sprain/strain with multilevel disc herniations and resultant foraminal stenosis as a result of the described assault on February 16, 2009. The patient also sustained a left shoulder partial thickness articular-sided rotator cuff tear involving the infraspinatus tendon. He also sustained a sprain of the right wrist. Further electrodiagnostic workup is required to evaluate the radiating pain and little finger numbness to differentiate cervical radiculitis/radiculopathy and a peripheral nerve injury in the right upper extremity…

[...]

The patient may require arthroscopic rotator cuff debridement or repair due to his persistent and refractory left shoulder pain. He may require cervical epidural steroid injections or cervical disc decompression depending on the result of his electrodiagnostic studies.

Deputy DeGiovanni spun his night of excessive force into something else entirely, charging Stephens with resisting arrest and not having a valid Florida driver's license.

The lower court found DeGiovanni's use of force to be reasonable. (Unbelievably, it actually found the force used to be "de minimis." WTF.) The Appeals Court disagrees. Instead of looking to see whether there was exact precedent that would make the deputy's use of force a violation of Stephens' rights, it uses the "obvious clarity" standard. In this case, the deputy's actions were obviously unwarranted given the nature of the questioning and subsequent arrest.

The basic constitutional law governing excessive force in arrest situations was well established before Stephens’s arrest in February 2009. Qualified immunity is unavailable “if an official knew or reasonably should have known that the action he took within his sphere of official responsibility would violate the constitutional rights of the plaintiff.” Harlow, 457 U.S. at 815, 102 S. Ct. at 2737 (citation, internal quotation marks, and alteration omitted); see Sheth v. Webster, 145 F.3d 1231, 1235-36 (11th Cir. 1998) (affirming denial of qualified immunity, “because of the absence of any justification for [the officer’s] use of force, application of the Fourth Amendment reasonableness standard would inevitably lead every reasonable officer . . . to conclude that the force was unlawful...”

Clearly, the court states, the amount of force used was disproportionate to the criminal acts Stephens was charged with -- both misdemeanors. Furthermore, Stephens never once physically resisted the deputy during the interaction. And with that, away goes the deputy's immunity.

There is no evidence Stephens attempted to resist Deputy DeGiovanni’s investigation ending in his arrest or to evade his arrest by fleeing. To the contrary, Stephens answered Deputy DeGiovanni’s questions, despite Deputy DeGiovanni’s harsh, threatening questioning and his forcefully hitting Stephens in his chest multiple times, ultimately causing his head to strike the door jamb, resulting in permanent injury as well as twisting Stephens’s right hand and three fingers backward, supporting his full body weight. Through it all, Stephens was compliant, even when Deputy DeGiovanni arrested and handcuffed him.

Stephens never attempted to flee the scene of his arrest. Consequently, none of the Graham factors applies to Stephens’s encounter with and seizure by Deputy DeGiovanni as to Stephens’s actions resulting in his seizure and arrest by Deputy DeGiovanni. “[Q]ualified immunity is not appropriate when the Graham analysis yields an answer that is clear beyond all doubt,” as in this case.

The case is kicked back to the lower court to return an opinion consistent with the Appeals Court's decision. It also says the lower court is welcome to revive Stephens' state law claims of excessive force in light of its decision.

That's the bar that must be hit to lose immunity: to be so unreasonably forceful that the usual defensive ploys won't work. Deputy DeGiovanni decided he'd pick on some foreigners and now he's going to be paying Stephens for the injuries he caused and the career he ended (Stephens was an auto mechanic but lost his job after suffering the debilitating injuries). No one abuses their power this way unless they think there's a good chance they'll get away with it. DeGiovanni played the odds and lost.

Filed Under: 11th circuit, immunity, nick degiovani, paul stephens, police brutality, roan greenwood

Attorney General's Memo Indicates Trump's DOJ Is Only Interested In The Blue Side Of The Justice Equation

from the lol-'civil-rights'-GET-A-JOB-HIPPIES dept

Here comes the rollback. As President Trump made clear with his pick for Attorney General, the days of police reform are over. The administration is only willing to put its weight behind efforts that give cops more power, weapons, and funding. Everything else -- including several years-worth of consent agreements with dysfunctional police departments -- is unimportant.

The first wave of Trump's planned United Police State was a series of divisive directives seeking to bolster support for law enforcement by informing them the president had their back and anyone who didn't was simply wrong.

A Trump Administration will empower our law enforcement officers to do their jobs and keep our streets free of crime and violence. The Trump Administration will be a law and order administration. President Trump will honor our men and women in uniform and will support their mission of protecting the public. The dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America is wrong. The Trump Administration will end it.

The DOJ's Civil Rights Division -- which has entered into several consent decrees with police departments engaged in unconstitutional policing -- is seeing its budget cut. The "law and order" focus of the Trump/Sessions DOJ is taking shape.

Via Reason's CJ Ciaramella comes the next step in the Making America Great Again:Blue Lives Matter program -- the DOJ's courtroom announcement [PDF] that it will be rewriting (or at least reconsidering) its recent consent decree with the Baltimore Police Department. Accompanying the DOJ's request for a delay in proceedings is a memo [PDF] from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, which spells out the Department's new priorities.

The Department will use its resources to effectively promote a peaceful and lawful society, where the civil rights of all persons are valued and protected. To that end, I expect that all Department components will adhere to and support principles that will advance those two goals, including, but not limited to the following:

The safety and protection of the public is the paramount concern and duty of law enforcement officials.

Law enforcement officers perform uniquely dangerous tasks, and the Department should help promote officer safety, officer morale, and public respect for their work.

In the context of the DOJ's courtroom request for a continuance to examine the consent decree in light of Sessions' new memo, this likely means the DOJ will be looking to serve law enforcement first and the general public second. Note the "uniquely dangerous" phrase, which suggests the DOJ will be cutting officers more slack on force deployment since they're apparently in near-constant "fear for their safety."

Local law enforcement must protect and respect the civil rights of all members of the public.

This is a nice touch, but it's the only thing in there that nods to citizens' rights, rather than simply granting a powerful subset of government employees even more power. That the Baltimore PD consent decree appears to be on the verge of being rolled back indicates -- along with the following bullet point -- Sessions is pulling the DOJ out of the civil rights business completely.

Local control and local accountability are necessary for effective local policing. It is not the responsibility of the federal government to manage non-federal law enforcement agencies.

The misdeeds of individual bad actors should not impugn or undermine the legitimate and honorable work that law enforcement officers and agencies perform in keeping American communities safe.

This is the "bad apple" argument, reduced to a bullet point in Sessions' "Bootlicking Best Practices" memo.

The collection and analysis of timely, reliable statistics on crime and criminals are essential for effective law enforcement strategies.

This suggests we'll only be seeing the FBI's roundup of crime stats from now on. Years after announcing it would do so, the DOJ finally got around to tracking the number of people killed by on-duty police officers. The voluntary system that never worked was replaced with one with a bit more coercion. This appears to be headed for an early retirement.

Recruitment and training of law enforcement officers should focus on making law enforcement a rewarding career, and attracting and retaining well-qualified personnel.

I don't have any argument with this point, other than the fact that, in this context, it means law enforcement pay increases will be uncoupled from increased accountability or transparency. The DOJ is getting out of the oversight business. Presumably any members of its civil rights division that survive culling will be expected to don Go Blue! cheerleading outfits and assist the other federal agencies (DHS, CBP, ICE, etc.) with the compilation of their "dangerous foreigners" lists.

Collaboration between federal and local law enforcement is important, and jurisdictions whose law enforcement agencies accept funding from the Department are expected to adhere to the Department's grant conditions as well as to all federal laws.

It's all wrapped up with an implicit threat of funding cuts and grant denials should local agencies police themselves too harshly or refuse to play along with the feds' increased immigration enforcement efforts.

The Department of Justice is being retooled to protect a single side of the justice equation. We may have a new president, but the old "Dept. of Just Us" jokes will return from their brief hibernation.

Filed Under: civil liberties, civil rights, doj, jeff sessions, police, police brutality