Minneapolis Police Officers Demanded No-Knock Warrant, Killed Innocent Gunowner Nine Seconds After Entering Residence

from the maybe-just-don't-partner-with-the-MPD-from-now-on,-St.-Paul-PD dept

The city of Minneapolis, Minnesota is temporarily ending the use of no-knock warrants following the killing of 22-year-old Amir Locke by Minneapolis police officers. The city’s mayor, Jacob Frey, has placed a moratorium on these warrants until the policy can be reviewed by Professor Pete Kraska of Eastern Kentucky University and anti-police violence activist DeRay McKesson.

This comes as too little too late for Locke and his surviving family. The entire raid was caught on body cam and it shows Amir Locke picking up a gun (but not pointing it at officers) after he was awakened by police officers swarming into the residence.

Locke, who was not a target of the investigation, was sleeping in the downtown Minneapolis apartment of a relative when members of a Minneapolis police SWAT team burst in shortly before 7 a.m. Wednesday. Footage from one of the officers’ body cameras showed police quietly unlocking the apartment door with a key before barging inside, yelling “Search warrant!” as Locke lay under a blanket on the couch. An officer kicked the couch, Locke stirred and was shot by officer Mark Hanneman within seconds as Locke held a firearm in his right hand.

Locke was shot once in the wrist and twice in the chest. He died thirteen minutes after the shooting. As you may have noticed from the preceding paragraph, Locke was not a suspected criminal. And for those who may argue simply being within reach of a firearm is justification for shooting, Locke’s handgun was legal and he had a concealed carry permit. His justifiable reaction to people barging into an apartment unannounced is somehow considered less justifiable than the officers’ decision to kill him.

In most cases, that’s just the way it goes, which — assuming the warrant dotted all i’s and crossed all t’s — means the Second Amendment is subservient to other constitutional amendments, like the Fourth. Here’s how Scott Greenfield explains this omnipresent friction in a nation where the right to bear arms is respected… but only up to a point:

The Second Amendment issue is clear. Locke had a legal gun and, upon being awoken in the night, grabbed it. He didn’t point it at anyone or put his finger on the trigger, but it was in his hand. A cop might explain that it would only take a fraction of a second for that to change, if he was inclined to point it at an officer, put his finger on the trigger and shoot. But he didn’t.

This conundrum has been noted and argued before, that if there is a fundamental personal right to keep and bear arms, and that’s what the Supreme Court informs us is our right, then the exercise of that constitutional right cannot automatically give right to police to execute you for it. The Reasonably Scared Cop Rule cannot co-exist with the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

“Cannot co-exist.” This means that, in most cases, the citizen bearing arms generally ceases to exist (along with this right) when confronted by a law enforcement officer who believes they are reasonably afraid.

There’s another point to Greenfield’s post that’s worth reading, but one we won’t discuss further in this post: the NRA’s utter unwillingness to express outrage when the right to bear arms is converted to the right to remain permanently silent by police officers who have deliberately put themselves in a situation that maximizes their fears, no matter how unreasonable those fears might ultimately turn out to be.

But this is a situation that could have been avoided. A knock-and-announce warrant would have informed Locke (who was sleeping at a relative’s house) that law enforcement was outside. As the owner of a legal gun and conceal/carry permit, it’s highly unlikely this announcement would have resulted in Locke opening fire on officers.

It didn’t have to be this way, but the Minneapolis Police Department insisted this couldn’t be handled any other way.

A law enforcement source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case, said that St. Paul police filed standard applications for search warrant affidavits for three separate apartments at the Bolero Flats Apartment Homes, at 1117 S. Marquette Av., earlier this week.

But Minneapolis police demanded that, if their officers were to execute the search within its jurisdiction, St. Paul police first secure “no-knock” warrants instead. MPD would not have agreed to execute the search otherwise, according to the law enforcement source.

If it had been handled the St. Paul way, Locke might still be alive. There’s no evidence here indicating deployment of a knock-and-announce warrant would have made things more dangerous for the officers. If this sort of heightened risk presented itself frequently, the St. Paul PD would respond accordingly when seeking warrants.

St. Paul police very rarely execute no-knock warrants because they are considered high-risk. St. Paul police have not served such a warrant since 2016, said department spokesman Steve Linders.

Contrast that with the Minneapolis PD, which appears to feel a majority of warrant service should be performed without niceties like knocking or announcing their presence.

A Star Tribune review of available court records found that MPD personnel have filed for, and obtained, at least 13 applications for no-knock or nighttime warrants since the start of the year — more than the 12 standard search warrants sought in that same span.

This is likely an undercount, the Star Tribune notes. Many warrants are filed under seal and are still inaccessible. But it does track with the MPD’s deployment stats. According to records, the MPD carries out an average of 139 no-knock warrants a year.

This happens despite Minnesota PD policy specifically stating officers are supposed to identify themselves as police and announce their purpose (i.e., “search warrant”) before entering. That rule applies even if officers have secured a no-knock warrant. If officers wish to bypass this policy that applies to no-knock warrants, they need more than a judge’s permission. They also need direct permission from the Chief of Police or their designee. That’s because no-knock warrants were severely restricted by police reforms passed in 2020. But it appears those reforms have done little to change the way the MPD handles its warrant business.

We’ll see if the mayor’s moratorium is more effective than the tepid reforms enacted following the killing of George Floyd by Officer Derek Chauvin. The undetectable change in tactics following the 2020 reforms doesn’t exactly give one confidence a citywide moratorium will keep MPD officers from showing up unannounced and killing people during the ensuing confusion. It only took nine seconds for officers to end Amir Locke’s life. Given what’s been observed here it will apparently take several years (and several lives) before the Minneapolis PD will be willing to alter its culture and its day-to-day practices.

Filed Under: amir locke, minneapolis, minnesota, no knock warrant, police, police shooting

Minneapolis Man Acquitted Of Charges After Mistakenly Shooting At Cops Sues Officers For Violating His Rights

from the but-for-the-cops'-own-video dept

It’s not often a citizen shoots at a cop and lives to tell about it. It’s even rarer when they walk away from criminal charges. When it’s considered “assault” to be anywhere in the general location of an angry cop, actual shots fired tend to be greeted with severe charges. Acquittals are unicorns in the court system, which largely tends to believe people who shoot at cops always have zero justification for their actions.

One black Minnesota resident has bucked the odds. Jaleel Stallings was arrested after he fired his gun three times at Minneapolis police officers during protests following the murder of George Floyd by Officer Derek Chauvin. Without further facts, one would assume Stallings was part of the problem, a violent protester willing to kill or injure police officers.

But the facts are in. And they are ugly. Stalling, represented by Eric Rice, was able to secure an acquittal thanks to some extremely damning body camera footage recorded by the officers he shot at. The footage was captured by officers in an unmarked van that were driving into areas “enforcing” curfew by shooting rubber bullets at random people on the street from the moving vehicle. That recording can be viewed here.

Deena Winter has an amazing write up of the recording’s contents at Minnesota Reformer. It shows cops aggressively targeting people doing nothing more than violating a curfew order. The officers in the unmarked van trolled Lake Street, looking for victims to absorb their violent policing, apparently in retaliation for having to endure ongoing protests triggered by other violent actions by other violent cops.

Here’s just a taste of what the recording contains:

Before the white, unmarked cargo van of the Minneapolis Police Department drove down Lake Street, an officer gave Sgt. Andrew Bittell his orders: “Drive down Lake Street. You see a group, call it out. OK great! F*** ’em up, gas ’em, f*** ’em up.”

Bittell turned to his SWAT unit in the van and said, “Alright, we’re rolling down Lake Street. The first f***ers we see, we’re just hammering ’em with 40s,” according to body camera footage described in court documents. He was referring to “less lethal” plastic projectiles sometimes called rubber bullets or 40mm launchers or rounds.

The SWAT team headed down Lake Street, trying to lure Minneapolis residents closer to the van so their shots could do more damage. Sgt. Bittell and his supervisor urged each other on, cheering on successful shots and expressing their disappointment when shots failed to connect. During this shooting spree, the SWAT team opened fire on a gas station owner and his friends who were helping protect the business from looters. They also shot a Vice News reporter who had his hands up and was shouting “Press” as the officers opened fire.

Eventually, the officers worked their (violent) way to Jaleel Stallings, who understandably thought he was being shot by violent non-cops:

About an hour later, three blocks to the west, they opened the sliding door of the van and began firing plastic rounds at people in a parking lot.

They hit Jaleel K. Stallings, 29, a St. Paul truck driver, who says he didn’t know they were cops because they were inside an unmarked white cargo van with the police lights off. He thought they were real bullets. And, he says he was mindful of warnings earlier that day from no less than Gov. Tim Walz that white supremacists were roaming the city looking for trouble.

Just as understandably, Stallings, a military veteran, returned fire with his fully legal pistol. He fired low towards the front of the van and dropped to the ground behind his truck. Almost immediately after firing, Stallings realized police officers were in the van. This realization was driven home by multiple officers swarming the man — who was prone, face down on the ground with his pistol out of his reach, a move he made voluntarily when he realized the unmarked van was operated by the Minneapolis PD.

None of this mattered to the SWAT team, which greeted mistaken violence with deliberate violence. This was the end result of that violence:

Court documents describe bodycam footage that show he dropped his gun on the ground and lay face down, with his hands to the side above his head, as though he was surrendering.

He didn’t move for 20 seconds as the officers approached.

“You f***ing piece of shit!” Stetson yelled, and began kicking and punching Stallings in the head and neck, according to court documents.

Stallings didn’t move. He was trying to surrender and de-escalate the situation, he said in an interview.

Bittell began kneeing and punching Stallings in the stomach, chest and back. The beating went on for about 30 seconds — with Bittell and Stetson punching and kicking Stallings in the head, neck, stomach, chest and back.

Midway through the beating, Stetson told Stallings to put his arms behind his back, and after handcuffing him, Bittell sat him up and kicked him in the ribs as Stetson continued hitting him in the head.

In summation, from the Minneapolis Star Tribune report:

The beating left Stallings with several injuries, the lawsuit said: a fractured eye socket, bruising, trauma, paranoia and anxiety. He had also been shot in the chest with a marking round, which resulted in labored breathing, the suit said.

This was the other aftermath:

Following the May 30 incident, Stallings was charged with second-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault, second-degree assault and second-degree riot, among other counts.

That’s how the state responded to provoked violence triggered by officers’ unprovoked violence. Prosecutors offered him a plea deal that would have netted him a 13-year prison term but he fought the charges. Prosecutors kept trying to punish him for reacting to the PD’s (unmarked) violent actions but the jury didn’t find the cops sympathetic. They likely didn’t find them believable either.

Back to Deena Wilson’s coverage of this case, which also includes a detailed look at the contradictory testimony (you know… LIES) offered by SWAT team members, who had to do some hasty revisions on their sworn statements once Stallings’ lawyer obtained body cam footage.

The complaint said officers “deployed one 40-mm round at Stallings” even though officers fired two rounds before Stallings returned fire.

Stallings “quickly ran away” and was handcuffed “after a struggle,” according to a press release issued by Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman, who said Stallings was charged for “shooting at police officers amidst riots and protests” and “firing multiple shots at SWAT officers during riots.”

“None of the officers, nor Stallings, were injured,” the release said, even though Stallings’ bruised, scraped face on his mugshot clearly indicates otherwise, and he was taken to a hospital after his arrest.

[…]

Stetson acknowledged he never told the investigating officers he shot Stallings, or that he called him a “f***ing piece of sh**” and kicked him in the head four times.

“He had just shot at us; we needed to have full control over him before we do any sort of interview,” he testified.

Asked why he continued to beat Stallings even after both his hands were behind his back, Stetson said Stallings wasn’t complying with him.

“Again, emotions were high, I just shot — got shot at. I thought I was going to die.”

The testimony may have contained even more “contradictions” (it’s pronounced “LIES”) but the Minneapolis PD unanimously decided to stop creating incriminating evidence against itself.

About nine minutes after the shooting, the unit was ordered to turn off its body cameras.

Now, the Minneapolis PD is being sued for rights violations. The filing of this lawsuit [PDF] against these officers immediately followed Stallings’ acquittal. If you think anyone covering this is giving you an overwrought depiction of these officers, their actions, and their attitudes, keep in mind these depictions contain direct quotes from police recordings… quotes like these (from Stallings’ lawsuit):

After protesters moved away, Sgt. Bittell instructed officers to “wait” and “draw [the protesters] in.” He wanted protesters to come closer to the line of officers so that officers could shoot the protesters with 40mm rounds.

[…]

Officer Stetson fired a 40mm round and struck a distant civilian. Officers Stetson yelled “gotcha” at the civilian that he had struck. Other officers laughed and congratulated Officer Stetson. Officer Dauble gave Officer Stetson a fist bump.

[…]

Lt. Mercil mocked journalists who had been covering the protests. […] Lt. Mercil expressed encouragement and approval to Officer Osbeck regarding improper use of force toward journalists and others.

[…]

Sgt. Bittell met Unit 1281 officers by their van. Sgt. Bittell told his team about their mission: “We’re rolling down Lake St. The first f***ers we see, we’re just handling them with 40[mm rounds].” Sgt. Bittell asked his team if that was a “good copy.” Unit 1281 officers responded with laughter and enthusiasm.

[…]

A Unit 1281 officer joked about “hunting” civilians that evening.

[…]

The officer complained that civilians were “p*****s” and explained that “[officers] get within thirty feet of [civilians] and they run.” Sgt. Bittell agreed and responded, “Exactly, you got to hit them with the 40[mm rounds].”

Blessed are the peacemakers, said Jesus. These officers aren’t getting free pass to the better parts of the Kingdom of Heaven, however. These officers weren’t trying to keep the peace. They were out joyriding, attempting to inflict pain in retribution for four nights of protests and looting. These officers willfully forgot what triggered the protests and violence, and decided it was their turn to inflict misery, forgetting that the constant infliction of misery over decades led to the flashpoint that made them (very briefly) feel like the underdogs.

While it’s heartening to see Stallings acquitted by a jury of his peers, his lawsuit is far less likely to succeed. Even with all of their lies, the officers will likely be able to justify their actions with claims they feared for their safety — a fear enhanced by four straight nights of often violent protests. What they may not be able to explain away so easily is their decision to continue beating an unarmed man who threw away his weapon and immediately surrendered to officers — something captured by a nearby CCTV camera. The arrest may have probable cause backing it but the violence preceding the arrest isn’t so easily explained.

And, so far, the officers involved in this rolling shooting gallery have yet to be disciplined by the Minneapolis PD, which means the department implicitly approves of officers using the streets of the city as a shooting gallery, especially if it allows officers to vent a little frustration and anger at the public’s unwillingness to ignore yet another murder of an unarmed black man by white police officers.

Filed Under: jaleel stallings, minneapolis, police brutality, police shooting, swat team

Fifth Circuit Awards Immunity To Cop Who Thought It Would Be A Good Idea To Jump On A Moving Car And Kill The Driver

from the I-had-to-shoot-him-because-I'm-a-fucking-idiot dept

OMG FIFTH CIRCUIT. What the actual fuck.

The Fifth Circuit has long been home to law enforcement friendly qualified immunity decisions, perhaps due to some form of obeisance to the Empire of Texas, which is seemingly always an election cycle away from seceding from the States. Texas has long been regarded as the idealistic long arm of the law, some of which can be blamed on the Texas Rangers being nationally-famous despite having done nothing of note for years other than provide consulting services to ridiculous TV shows.

The Fifth has been rebuked twice in recent months by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court also loves shielding cops from the consequences of their actions, but seems to have realized that lots of people — some of them in actual power — were kind of upset with cops committing so much misconduct (a lot of it violent) and being permitted to walk away from it. So, it rejected a couple of really terrible Fifth Circuit decisions and told the Appeals Court to get it right on remand.

We’d all like to believe judges in the upper echelons of the federal court system are above engaging in territorial pissing. But it’s hard to read this recent decision awarding qualified immunity to a violent cop as anything but some petty pushback against recent Supreme Court rejections. (h/t Jay Willis)

In this decision [PDF], the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court sides with a cop who put himself in a dangerous situation and reacted violently to his self-created stimuli. As if officers need any more encouragement to escalate situations needlessly or react violently at the first sign of (often imagined) danger.

Here’s what happened, as recounted by the Fifth Circuit court, with the aid of body cam and dashcam footage:

A City of Arlington police officer pulled over O’Shae Terry and his passenger, Terrence Harmon, for driving a large SUV with an expired registration tag. The officer approached the car and asked Terry and Harmon for identification. After taking their information, the officer advised them that she smelled marijuana coming from the car and, as a result, had to search it. In the meantime, another police officer, Defendant Bau Tran, arrived on the scene and approached the car from the passenger’s side next to a curb. While the first officer went back to her patrol car to verify Terry’s and Harmon’s information, Tran waited with the two men. Tran asked them to lower the windows and shut off the vehicle’s engine, and Terry at first complied. Dashcam and bodycam videos capture what happened next.

After some small talk, Terry started raising the windows and reaching for the ignition. Tran immediately shouted “hey, hey, hey, hey,” clambered onto the running board of the SUV, and grabbed the passenger window with his left hand. Tran reached through the passenger window with his right hand and yelled “hey, stop.” Tran retracted his right hand and rested it on his holstered pistol. Then Terry fired the ignition and shifted into drive. Just after the car lurched forward, Tran drew his weapon, stuck it through the window past Harmon’s face, and shot 5 rounds, striking Terry four times.

“Smelled marijuana” is something officers say when it might be somewhat inconvenient to bring in a trained dog to perform an “alert.” It’s a vague claim that can’t be substantiated in court. Neither can it be challenged, because by the time court proceedings begin, any claimed odor will obviously have dissipated. And it obviously can’t be captured by any recording device, whether operated by cops or the people they’re interacting with.

Even if we choose to believe the officer smelled what he smelled, the ensuing chain of events makes no sense. You really have to question an officer’s instincts if a stop for an expired tag and a follow-up “smell of marijuana” encourages him to attempt to take control of the car by any means necessary. Firing a gun through an open window at the driver wasn’t going to put Officer Tran in any less danger. Shooting the driver of a moving vehicle while the officer is STILL ON THE MOVING VEHICLE makes absolutely zero sense.

More violence ensued.

Terry lost control, careened across the opposite lane, and jumped the curb. The force of the SUV hitting the curb knocked Tran off and onto the street. As Tran rolled over the asphalt, the car’s rear tires just about hit Tran’s flailing limbs. Harmon then gained control of the SUV, got it back onto the street, and stopped it. An ambulance took Terry to the hospital, but he did not survive.

Police officers are not supposed to create exigent circumstances to justify constitutional violations. (they do tho) A cop can’t start a house on fire as an excuse to wander inside to see what’s in plain sight. Officers generally aren’t supposed to stand in front of moving vehicles just so they have a reason to shoot at people. And this officer’s decision to jump on the running board of a car and shoot at the driver while he was still hanging onto the window of the moving vehicle should not be greeted with tacit judicial approval of these tactics. But that’s what the Fifth Circuit has handed down here: an invitation for officers to create “dangerous” situations in order to bypass constitutional protections.

All that matters to this court is a literal second of time — not the stop itself, or the end result of the failed stop, but one single second in this horrific chain of events.

Before Terry accelerated, Tran kept his pistol holstered. But about a second after the car lurched forward, Tran drew his pistol and shot Terry four times. That brief interval—when Tran is clinging to the accelerating SUV and draws his pistol on the driver—is what the court must consider to determine whether Tran reasonably believed he was at risk of serious physical harm.

Having considered far less time than it has taken to read to this point, the court says the cop was right to do what he did.

That belief was reasonable.

To back up this single second of “reasonable” judgment, the court says the outcome of the cop’s violent and injudicious actions justify the cop’s violent and injudicious actions.

Indeed, what came next illustrates the danger Tran faced. Several seconds after Tran shot Terry, while the SUV was still moving, Tran fell off the running board and into the busy street.

And…

Moreover, as Tran tumbled across the asphalt, the car’s rear tires nearly overran his limbs.

Well, duh. Maybe don’t jump on moving cars and shoot people. Real life ain’t T.J. Hooker.

The court says it is not here to judge as it lays down its judgment:

The plaintiffs also contend that Tran could have simply stepped off the running board and let Terry drive away, the availability of that alternative, they argue, makes Tran’s use of deadly force unreasonable. But qualified immunity precedent forbids that sort of Monday morning quarterbacking; the threat of harm must be “judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.”

It all adds up to a “reasonable” cop having a very unreasonable reaction to a developing situation. Rather than encourage cops to act with caution, the court says cops should be free to act like the protagonists of “Bad Boys” and place themselves in incredible amounts of danger. If anyone else gets killed as a result of this “reasonable” carelessness, well… that’s on them, I guess.

It didn’t need to go down this way. But it will happen again. And again. And again. This court says it’s reasonable to act unreasonably. Cops can place themselves in harm’s way and shoot their way out of it without worrying about being successfully sued for unnecessary killings and injuries.

Filed Under: 5th circuit, bau tran, police shooting, qualified immunity, shae terry, terrence harmon

Three Years After An Officer Killed A Suicidal Teen, Law Enforcement Releases Report That Raises More Questions

from the everyone-is-innocent-but-the-dead-kid dept

Law enforcement seems to assume that any shooting officers engage in is justified. What may appear to be reckless violence by cops is just good police work, according to police. Anyone who thinks otherwise is only expressing their ignorance of police tactics and far too unconcerned about officer safety.

Public outcry following police shootings is often greeted with statements from police officials asking the public to calm down until all the facts are in. Then law enforcement officials set about burying facts, rewriting narratives, and doing everything they can to put some time and distance between them and the shooting.

A recently released report on the 2018 killing of Kansas teen John Albers appears to be thorough, at least at first glance. It’s 498 pages long, suggesting it’s a thorough documentation of the shooting of Albers by Overland Park police officer Clayton Jennison. Like far too many fatal shootings, it started with a call from someone concerned about the teen’s welfare.

This is from early reporting on the 2018 shooting.

Police had been told Albers, a junior at Blue Valley Northwest, had been taking pills and drinking heavily and had, via a FaceTime phone call, told someone he was going to stab himself. At least one of the responding officers was familiar with Albers, according to police radio traffic.

Here’s how it was described to reporters after Albers had been killed by Officer Jennison.

As officers approached the house in the 9300 block of W. 149th Terrace, the garage door opened and a vehicle came out moving “rapidly” toward one of the officers, with Albers at the wheel, according to police. The officer shot Albers, killing him. No officers were injured.

[…]

After the shooting, the vehicle — a Honda minivan — ended up in a front yard across the street, according to neighbors. It appeared to have come out of the driveway facing forward.

The dashcam video shows otherwise. The van came out of the garage in reverse and did not move “rapidly” towards the officer. Instead, it headed straight down the driveway next to Officer Jenison, who began shooting as it began moving past him. The van then swings back in a half-circle back onto the lawn, suggesting Albers has already been hit. Then it heads across the street before coming to a stop on the neighbor’s lawn.

And there’s this final insult to the public’s intelligence:

Police have not said that Albers had a weapon other than the vehicle.

If Officer Jennison was in any danger of being run over, it’s because he put himself in that position. He moved towards the van as it exited the garage and opened fire when it moved past him. His shooting of Albers resulted in the unpredictable vehicle movements that followed his initial shots. No other officer on the scene fired their weapon.

Shortly after the shooting, Police Chief Frank Donchez asked for patience. More than three years after he asked for that, the report has finally arrived. The Kansas City Star turned the report [PDF] over to a handful of experts, none of whom seem impressed by the report or its findings.

In the days after the material was released, The Star had it examined by two forensic scientists, a criminal justice professor and Paul Morrison, the former Johnson County District Attorney.

All found the investigation lacked neutrality and was missing crucial information.

“Everyone just seemed to know what had happened, and had concluded already what had happened,” said Charles Wellford, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Maryland with an extensive background reviewing homicide cases.

“There were things they could have done if they were not convinced from the get-go that this was not a chargeable action.”

“A substantial amount of that report didn’t really even deal with the shooting,” Morrison said. “It dealt with John Albers and his juvenile problems. And that, in my mind, is usually a sign that maybe somebody’s not the most neutral.”

To make room for the disparagement of the dead teen, the investigators excluded crucial information from the report, like the initial supervisor’s notes from the shooting scene and any attempts made by the crime lab to reconstruct the shootings and track bullet trajectories. The latter would have shown Jenison fired from the side of the vehicle, rather than from the rear, calling into question his assertions that the reversing van was coming towards him.

Officer Jenison also did not know who was in the van at the point he started firing. All he knew was he was checking on a suicidal teen who might have been carrying a knife. Instead of verifying any of this, he opened fire on the driver of the van simply because he chose to reverse down the driveway like anyone would when pulling out of a garage.

Jenison’s post-shooting interview was solicitous and cordial. It also occurred four days after the shooting and after the officer had been given the chance to review the recordings. His claims that he thought the van was going to hit him went unchallenged, even though the recording showed the van moving in a straight line down the driveway until its course was altered by Jenison’s shooting of the driver.

The report gives the impression the conclusion that the shooting was justified was reached before the investigation truly began, allowing investigators to work their way backwards from this supposition. The multi-agency investigation only involved other law enforcement agencies, lowering the chance of any other conclusion being reached.

As we’ve seen in other cases where shootings by officers are investigated, cops are handled very differently than anyone else who’s killed anyone, even in supposed self-defense. Officers are given hours, if not days, to review materials and prepare for questioning. All rights are immediately respected, rather than having to be invoked repeatedly by the officer being questioned. They are almost never arrested or jailed, even if probable cause exists to do so. And when cops investigate other cops, they wholeheartedly embrace the ideal of “innocent until proven guilty” in a way they never do when dealing with detained criminal suspects.

Years later, this is the sort of thing that gets handed to the public: a largely exonerative compilation of foregone conclusions spiced up with some details of the shooting victim’s prior run-ins with law enforcement. It ignores the victim’s mental health crisis for the most part, highlighting it only when it serves to portray John Albers as dangerous to others. And it fully ignores the inconvenient fact that Officer Jenison did not actually know who was in the van when he started shooting, making the details about Albers’ past troubles completely irrelevant.

Filed Under: john albers, police, police shooting

Appeals Court Says No Immunity For Cops Who Shot A Man Standing Motionless With His Hands In The Air

from the try-being-actually-reasonable-for-once,-officers dept

Federal judges continue to trip over themselves in their hurry to extend qualified immunity to law enforcement officers. No matter how egregious the violation — and how simply wrong it appears to reasonable human beings — cops can usually escape judgment by violating rights in new ways, ensuring there’s no precedent that would make them aware they shouldn’t do things like destroy someone’s house after they’ve been given permission (and a key!) to enter.

This decision [PDF] from the Fifth Circuit (and the Fifth Circuit can be the worst about protecting the government from citizens it has aggrieved, stinging dissents from Judge Willett notwithstanding) involves officers who shot a man holding a knife. Given that judges seem to believe any weapon real or perceived that “threatens” an officer makes ensuing homicides wholly justifiable, this refusal by the court to bless the actions of reasonably-scared cops is more surprising than it should be.

The description of the events leading up to the shooting would seem to be laying groundwork for a QI-based dismissal:

In 2015, after a domestic dispute between Flores and his wife at Flores’s mother’s home, Flores’s mother called 9-1-1 for assistance. According to the 9-1-1 call transcript, Flores’s mother told the dispatcher that Flores beat up his wife and had “gone crazy”. Deputies Vasquez and Sanchez were dispatched to the residence in separate vehicles. While in route, dispatch advised Vasquez and Sanchez that Flores was upset, and that Flores wanted to commit “suicide by cop.” Vasquez was also informed that Flores had a knife.

The next paragraph, however, points to subverted expectations:

Twelve minutes elapsed between Vasquez’s arrival and the officers’ fatal shots at Flores. During those twelve minutes, the deputies had a number of encounters with Flores, and ultimately deescalated the situation. It was only after Flores was standing nearly thirty feet from the deputies, motionless, and with his hands in the air for several seconds that the officers looked at each other and then decided to shoot Flores. The officers each fired a shot, and Flores fell to the ground.

The Fifth Circuit says too many factual disputes remain unresolved. And one of the disputed facts is the officers’ own testimony, which says something a cellphone camera recording of the incident does not: that officers were in danger of being attacked when they decided to shoot Flores as he stood motionless thirty feet away with his hands in the air.

Most significantly, the officers assert that “Deputies Vasquez and Sanchez were in imminent fear of death or serious bodily injury by the actions of Gilbert Flores at the time of the fatal shots.”

But the officers can’t explain how they were in “imminent fear” when nothing about Flores’ actions at the point he was shot indicated he was an imminent threat.

Flores had a knife, not a gun; was several feet away from the officers, the house, and the vehicle; had his hands in the air in a surrender position; and stood stationary in the officers’ line of sight. Under these facts taken in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs, we conclude that the district court correctly identified material factual disputes as to whether the officers violated Flores’s Fourth Amendment rights.

There is no automatic grant of qualified immunity because these officers should have known killing someone in a situation like this would be unlawful.

A reasonable officer would have understood that using deadly force on a man holding a knife, but standing nearly thirty feet from the deputies, motionless, and with his hands in the air for several seconds, would violate the Fourth Amendment.

With this rejection, there’s probably a settlement on the horizon for the survivors of the shooting victim. The district court refused to dismiss the suit and the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court says the lower court’s reasoning is sound and the right of citizens to not be killed by cops when they don’t pose a threat is clearly established. Chalk up a win for the citizens, who, far too often, come out on the losing end when qualified immunity is in play.

Filed Under: 5th circuit, immunity, police shooting, qualified immunity

Federal Prosecutor Blames Philadelphia DA For Shootout That Wounded Six Philly PD Officers

from the and-zero-respect-for-the-general-public dept

Inside Attorney General William Barr’s long rant about the lack of respect for police officers in this nation was a shot or two at recently-elected District Attorneys (like Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner). Barr feels — like many of the police union reps he was speaking to — DAs that institute reforms, reduce incarceration, and punish police officers for misconduct are on the wrong side of history.

There is another development that is demoralizing to law enforcement and dangerous to public safety. That is the emergence in some of our large cities of District Attorneys that style themselves as “social justice” reformers, who spend their time undercutting the police, letting criminals off the hook, and refusing to enforce the law.

These anti-law enforcement DAs have tended to emerge in jurisdictions where the election is largely determined by the primary. Frequently, these candidates ambush an incumbent DA in the primary with misleading campaigns and large infusions of money from outside groups.

Once in office, they have been announcing their refusal to enforce broad swathes of the criminal law. Most disturbing is that some are refusing to prosecute cases of resisting police. Some are refusing to prosecute various theft cases or drug cases, even where the suspect is involved in distribution. And when they do deign to charge a criminal suspect, they are frequently seeking sentences that are pathetically lenient. So these cities are headed back to the days of revolving door justice. The results will be predictable. More crime; more victims.

A department that frequently touts the power of prosecutorial discretion is angry because prosecutors are exercising discretion. And it’s a bit rich for AG Barr to complain about “revolving door justice” when law enforcement agencies all over the nation continue to hire officers fired for misconduct and abuse by other agencies.

The administration’s back-the-blue attitude is on full display. Barr’s angry speech about the respect he believes officers are owed has trickled down to the lower ranks of federal prosecutors. In the wake of a shootout between a criminal suspect and several Philadelphia police officers, US Attorney William McSwain decided to take his own shot at Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner.

What I witnessed last night was true heroism by the Philadelphia police. But the crisis was precipitated by a stunning disrespect for law enforcement – a disrespect so flagrant and so reckless that the suspect immediately opened fire on every single officer within shooting distance. Only by the grace of God did they survive.

Where does such disrespect come from?

There is a new culture of disrespect for law enforcement in this City that is promoted and championed by District Attorney Larry Krasner – and I am fed up with it.

It started with chants at the DA’s victory party – chants of “F*** the police” and “No good cops in a racist system.”

We’ve now endured over a year and a half of the worst kinds of slander against law enforcement – the DA routinely calls police and prosecutors corrupt and racist, even “war criminals” that he compares to Nazis.

This vile rhetoric puts our police in danger. It disgraces the Office of the District Attorney. And it harms the good people in the City of Philadelphia and rewards the wicked.

While McSwain was bitching about a prosecutor he doesn’t like, DA Larry Krasner was praising the Philadelphia PD — which saw six of its officers wounded — for their handling of the volatile situation.

McSwain also suggested the federal branch would step in to directly control the actions of the Philly DA. His exact words were “We’re going to provide some adult supervision.” As Adam Steinbaugh points out, that’s not how federalism works. Someone must have pointed that out McSwain, who walked back this comment (but none of his press conference remarks) less than two hours later.

Perhaps the federal prosecutor was just being reflexively defensive. The person who allegedly shot all of these cops was a federal snitch who got a break on his most recent prison sentence because of how helpful he was.

McSwain failed to mention, however, that alleged shooter Maurice Hill’s interactions with law enforcement predated Krasner taking office. Nor did McSwain acknowledge that the 36-year-old Hill, who on Saturday was charged by Krasner’s office with attempted murder and multiple counts of aggravated assault related to the incident, has been a federal informant for years, according to documents obtained by The Appeal.

McSwain may have known this news would eventually come out and needed to get out ahead of the narrative before it flipped. Or he may have been blissfully unware and simply decided to engage in the DOJ’s “criticizing law enforcement kills cops” politicking. Neither move makes McSwain or police officers look any better or does anything to close the divide between the public and its public servants.

But this is the narrative that’s being aggressively pushed with Bill Barr running the DOJ. Anyone who isn’t willing to shower cops with respect and adulation is an enemy — even those basically playing for the same team. There will be no prosecutorial discretion under this administration. There will only be as much cruelty and punishment as it can possibly mete out. Every time something bad happens to a cop, some federal law enforcement rep will be there to claim it was disrespect — rather than guns and bullets — that hurt or killed the officer.

Filed Under: adult supervision, doj, federal informant, larry krasner, philadelphia, police shooting, william barr, william mcswain

City Of Chicago 'Embraces' Transparency By Releasing Shooting Video To Draw Attention Away From Attorney Misconduct

from the treading-sewage dept

The city of Chicago has decided it’s not going to wait for a judge to order it to release video footage depicting another unarmed person being shot by one of its police officers. It has released surveillance video showing Cedric Chatman being killed by Officer Kevin Fry. Fry claimed Chatman was carrying a gun. It turned out to be an iPhone box, allegedly taken from the victim of a carjacking.

At the time of the release, city attorneys had this to say.

“With respect to the release of videos of police incidents, the City of Chicago is working to find the right balance between the public’s interest in disclosure and the importance of protecting the integrity of investigations and the judicial process,” Stephen R. Patton, the head of Chicago’s Law Department, said Wednesday as the city announced it would no longer fight to prevent the release. “In this case, the city sought a protective order consistent with its decades-long policy. We recognize the policy needs to be updated, and while we await guidance from the Task Force on Police Accountability, we are working to be as transparent as possible.”

These are certainly the right words to be saying after the Laquan McDonald debacle. The city sat on dashcam footage of the shooting for over a year before a judge forced it out of its hands. The video showed a Chicago cop firing 16 shots at McDonald as he walked away from the officer. Transparency isn’t exactly the Chicago way and Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been accused of burying the video to better suit his re-election campaign.

But let’s not applaud the new transparency supposedly on display here. The city’s legal department would likely have kept this video buried as well if it weren’t for extenuating circumstances. And by “extenuating circumstances,” I mean “misconduct that led to the resignation of two city attorneys.”

The video of the Chatman shooting dates back to 2013. SInce that time, the number of lawsuits alleging excessive force or misconduct by Chicago police officers has only increased. One of those is Colyer v. City of Chicago. The plaintiffs alleged that responding Chicago police officers deployed excessive force during their arrest. Midway through the wrongful death lawsuit, the city ambushed the plaintiffs with new evidence that completely undercut their case.

[W]hether Mosqueda and Sierra acted with excessive force depends, in large part, on what [Officer] Mosqueda heard on the police-car radio that night. Not surprisingly, after they sued, Plaintiffs asked for the recording of what Mosqueda claimed to have heard over the radio, as well as any documents related to the recording. A recording was available. But Plaintiffs did not get it. Documents identifying the location of the recording were also available. But Plaintiffs did not get those either. The discovery responses that they did get led them to believe that no recording of the call or documents were available. From that, Plaintiffs reasonably concluded that Mosqueda was lying—that is, he actually had heard nothing, and the officers executed an overly aggressive traffic stop for their own reasons or no reason at all.

Plaintiffs prepared to present that theory at the trial, as well as the theory that the radio call was an excuse concocted after the shooting with the help of other officers, and the trial began with that presentation. But on the fourth day of trial, it was revealed that there was an OEMC record showing the potential availability of a recording of the call the officers heard that night, and soon afterwards, it was revealed that the recording was in fact still available. The actual recording did not mention that the Aurora had a gun or that the car was wanted for a shooting, but it did describe an Aurora similar to the one Pinex was driving. Plaintiffs’ Counsel scrambled to adjust their trial presentation to account for the undisclosed recording, both to defend against it and to use it to support their version, but the jury ultimately found in favor of Mosqueda and Sierra.

The decision points out that this was not an error. The prosecution deliberately withheld the recording it had obtained until the case was already underway. City attorney Jordan Marsh admitted — prior to jury deliberations — that he had misled the court as to when he had first obtained this recording.

Judge, as I am thinking about this issue with the CD and Sergeant Lamperis, I represented to the Court yesterday that it was a couple of days ago that I first learned about the CD. I spoke with Jill Maderak at my office — I remember that I was sitting in my office when I did it — I was going over the event queries, and I have to — I have to believe that was sometime last week, because I don’t think I would be speaking with her after Court. So it may very well — and certainly, I have talked to her and Ms. Dunaj about the CD multiple times, it may have been that I learned about the CD Thursday or Friday of last week. I don’t know. I just wanted to let the Court know that — I may have been mistaken yesterday when it came up that — the first time I heard about it was Tuesday, or I said a couple days before, because I do have that recollection of talking with Jill Maderak in the office. So it may have been prior to trial.

This led directly to the court throwing everything out, awarding the plaintiffs a new trial and compensation for the legal fees — not just for this lawsuit, but for the new trial still to come.

Mistakes do happen in discovery. Most often, the mistakes are innocent and no fault can be fairly assigned to the lawyer. But when a lawyer acts unreasonably and the other side does not get all the evidence to which it is entitled, then a remedy must follow to prevent the lawyer’s negligence from unfairly harming the opponent. Even worse, when a lawyer crosses the line into intentional wrongdoing, then more severe punishment is warranted, because our system of justice depends on the honesty and good faith of lawyers to abide by the rules of discovery. For the reasons detailed below, the Court finds that City Law Department attorney Tom Aumann acted unreasonably during discovery. Worse, based on the record evidence, the Court must conclude that City Law Department attorney Jordan Marsh intentionally concealed the existence of the OEMC record that would have led to the discovery of the Zone 6 Audio before the trial.

Transparency may eventually take hold in Chicago, but it won’t be anytime soon. The city has a habit of burying recordings, even to the point that it keeps them hidden from opposing counsel. The city and local police unions have made efforts to ensure the Chicago PD’s dirty past stays hidden as well. The city is being forced towards transparency, but its efforts in this area are still mostly borne of political expedience — whether in service to Mayor Emanuel’s falling stock or due to the malfeasance of its own counsel.

Filed Under: cedric chatman, chicago, kevin fry, police shooting, transparency, video

FBI To Replace Terrible Voluntary Police Shooting Reporting System With NEW Voluntary Police Shooting Reporting System

from the unrecognizable-'changes'-ahead! dept

Back in October, the FBI very belatedly admitted it had been doing an abysmal job tracking the number of people killed by law enforcement officers. For nearly 15 years, the DOJ has been charged with collecting this data, but so far has only managed to produce totals that are half of those compiled by citizens and journalists.

The FBI admitted it hadn’t done a very good job collecting this data and vowed to improve things in the future. But it didn’t say how it would accomplish this. It didn’t appear to be considering changing the one factor contributing the most to its yearly under-count: the system is entirely voluntary. As a result, less than 3% of the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies have regularly reported their shootings to the FBI.

More details have emerged on the FBI’s new use-of-force tracking initiative. The former program — which none other than FBI director James Comey called a “travesty” — is being overhauled. The voluntary reporting system will be replaced with a revamped, more detailed… completely voluntary reporting system.

The new database will continue to rely on the voluntary reports of local police departments; FBI officials said they lack the legal authority to mandate reporting.

Cynics/critics will be delighted unmoved to hear the FBI thinks this voluntary system will work better than the last one, which was a federal embarrassment (again, Comey’s own words). Why? Because they’ve been promised that everyone will try harder to turn over information this time.

But [FBI Assistant Director of Criminal Justice Information] Stephen Morris said the leaders of the nation’s largest police organizations have agreed for the first time to lobby local departments to produce the data. The Justice Department is also looking to offer federal grants to local departments that may need additional resources to comply.

“We will be relying on peer pressure and financial incentives,” Morris said.

Well, peer pressure definitely has improved the nation’s law enforcement agencies by ridding them of “bad apples” and internal corruption… oh, wait, none of that ever happened. Financial incentives may work better than peer pressure. A nation full of asset forfeiture abuse can attest to that. But if the money can only be spent on complying with a voluntary effort that might make agencies/individual officers “look bad,” it’s unlikely this “carrot” will work better than the stick the FBI can’t wield.

The FBI may not be able to make this reporting mandatory, but Congress can. So far, legislative efforts aimed at doing exactly that haven’t gone anywhere. But despite FBI officials publicly wringing their hands over the results of the agency’s multiple years of indifference, the agency has yet to offer any public support for this sort of legislation.

If this effort ever approaches large-scale participation, the stats gathered will be much more in-depth than anything the DOJ’s collected to date.

The new effort will go beyond tracking fatal shootings and, for the first time, track any incident in which an officer causes serious injury or death to civilians, including through the use of stun guns, pepper spray and even fists and feet.

[…]

Morris said the data will also be “much more granular” than in the past and will probably include the gender and race of officers and suspects involved in these encounters, the level of threat or danger the officer faced, and the types of weapons wielded by either party.

What will likely produce more and better results sooner is this effort — which is already in progress.

Change is also underway at the Bureau of Justice Statistics, another Justice Department agency that has kept a separate count of civilians who die in police custody.

The bureau scrapped its old database and this year created a pilot program that relies on The [Washington] Post’s database and other open-source data-collection efforts to identify deaths that are not being reported. Then, BJS officials contacted police, medical examiners and other local officials to check the accuracy of the information and to gather additional facts.

The government doesn’t always need to bootstrap its data gathering. The private sector tends to produce solid results. Plus,it’s motivated — at least in this case — to collect as much data as possible and make it publicly-available. Law enforcement agencies are generally motivated to do the opposite, unless otherwise instructed. And it generally takes more than a “Would you kindly?” from the federal government to generate changes in mindset.

Anything would be better than what the FBI has delivered for the past several years. But it will take more than the FBI’s public dismay to overcome law enforcement’s natural instinct to bury anything that remotely resembles a questionable use of force.

Filed Under: database, fbi, police shooting, records, tracking, voluntary

Internal Investigation Into Pursuit And Shooting Results In The Suspension Of 63 Cleveland Police Officers

from the most-massive-wrist-slap-to-date dept

A year-long review of a police shooting in Cleveland has finally concluded. The investigation stems from a police pursuit late last year that resulted in the deaths of both suspects in the vehicle, who were at the receiving end of 137 bullets fired by Cleveland police officers.

This is only one of several investigations into the chase/shooting, as Reason points out.

A state investigation previously concluded there was a systemic problem of an attitude of “refusal to look at the facts,” and handed the case over the prosecutors. In August, East Cleveland’s mayor said prosecutors were considering filing charges against the cops involved in the shooting, but as of this month the shooting is still being investigated.

The city of Cleveland asked the Department of Justice to review police policies following the chase and shooting, and the DOJ obliged by opening a civil rights investigation into misconduct and the possible systematic excessive use of force in March. The investigation could take up to a year and a half.

Both suspects were killed by the barrage of gunfire. The driver, Timothy Russell, was shot 23 times. His passenger, Malissa Williams, was shot 24 times. No weapons or casings were found inside the vehicle.

The chase began when an officer thought he heard gunfire coming from the Russell’s car. Another witness on the scene thought it may have just been the vehicle backfiring. Either way, it led to a 23-minute chase involving five dozen police vehicles and nearly 100 officers and supervisors. Both suspects had criminal records, which may have influenced their decision to flee.

The pursuing police were ordered to stop by their supervisors but overrode this decision because they thought a police officer had been wounded. In order to right this perceived wrong, officers chased Russell at speeds of up to 120 mph before stopping him in a middle school parking lot. Thirteen officers then fired 137 shots, a majority of them in just over 20 seconds.

Those thirteen officers are facing an additional investigation (a memo from the state prosecutor suggests charging 12 of the 13 shooters with negligent homicide), but the other officers involved (including supervisors) have received their punishment from the PD.

An initial review of the chase found 75 patrol officers violated orders, but the disciplinary hearings reduced that number to 64 officers. All but one received a suspension, with the longest being 10 days, McGrath said.

None of the violations was so serious it warranted termination. Some of the officers received a written warning.

Police previously announced punishments for 12 supervisors stemming from the chase. One sergeant was fired. A captain and lieutenant were demoted, and nine sergeants were suspended.

Additional charges most likely await the thirteen officers who fired 137 shots into a single vehicle, including one officer who managed to squeeze off 49 rounds in less than 20 seconds. The DOJ’s investigation also hangs overhead, but it could be another year or two before it reaches any conclusions. What’s been handed down so far barely amounts to a slap on the wrist for the 63 officers being punished. The maximum suspension is only 10 days. Their supervisors appear to have fared worse, with one firing and two demotions.

The police officers’ union has (of course) defended the actions of the thirteen shooters.

The union has said the shootings were justified because the driver tried to ram an officer.

One wonders if the union feels every bullet fired was “justified” or just the 47 kill shots. One also wonders how many stray shots (with only about a third of the shots hitting the targets) went wandering into the nearby neighborhood. The state AG’s animated reconstruction (above) indicates some remedial gun safety training might be wise, as the officers form (more than once) a semi-circle, firing shots in the direction of each other. (That this hail of gunfire took place at night made it even more dangerous for everyone involved.)

For the rank-and-file, the punishments being handed down are too light to discourage insubordination and unsafe pursuits in the future. For some cops, ignoring supervisors’ orders in order to “avenge” one of their own is always justified and any resulting punishments are worn as badges of honor. But make no mistake, this pursuit wasn’t about justice or any higher duty. It was a squad of officers looking to extract revenge as self-appointed judges, jurors and executioners. Nothing else explains the massive number of shots fired or the dozens of officers facing (minimal) suspensions for directly disobeying orders.

Filed Under: cleveland, overreaction, police, police shooting