Dozens of states have tried to end qualified immunity. Police officers and unions helped beat nearly every bill.
Bad news indeed. I have written many articles about the power of police officers’ and prison guards’ unions!
Excerpts from the Article:
In the months after George Floyd’s murder, state legislators across the country tried to undo a legal doctrine that makes it virtually impossible to sue police officers for violating a person’s civil rights.
Fueled by outrage over the actions of former Minnesota officer Derek Chauvin, the efforts to eliminate “qualified immunity” seemed poised to usher in a new era empowering citizens who felt wronged by police.
But then, in state after state, the bills withered, were withdrawn, or were altered beyond recognition. At least 35 state qualified-immunity bills have died in the past 18 months, according to an analysis by The Washington Post of legislative records and data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The efforts failed amid multifaceted lobbying campaigns by police officers and their unions targeting legislators, many of whom feared public backlash if the dire predictions by police came true. Officers said they would go bankrupt and lose their homes. They said their colleagues would leave the profession in droves.
While advocates argued that qualified immunity allows rogue officers to brutalize citizens without paying a personal price, law enforcement officials countered that it protects police from being financially destroyed for the rapid life-or-death decisions they must make on the job.
So far, police are winning the argument nearly everywhere.
Among at least four bills that are still alive, three initially called for a complete ban on qualified immunity. One of these, in Michigan, has since been amended to allow use of the legal defense in many instances. And among the seven qualified-immunity bills that have become law since last year, only Colorado has completely barred the legal defense for officers. Iowa actually strengthened qualified-immunity rights of its officers and Arkansas did so for its college and university police officers.
In New Mexico, changes were made so quietly that many advocates didn’t know that the ability to sue individual officers had been taken out as they testified for the bill.
Stephanie Maez, a former state legislator, tearfully told lawmakers earlier this year in an online hearing how a court granted qualified immunity to an Albuquerque homicide detective she accuses of framing her 18-year-old son for murder.
“He was released and vindicated and the real murderers were caught and are serving time,” the 41-year-old said of her son, “[but] there has been no accountability.”
But Maez didn’t know at the time that the bill she was supporting, the New Mexico Civil Rights Act, had been fundamentally altered days before to drop a provision allowing people to sue officers in state court. And new language was inserted that explicitly prohibited an accuser from naming an officer in a state civil rights lawsuit.
Now, she has little doubt why the Democratically controlled legislature — facing heavy pressure from police unions — assented to changing the bill, which was signed into law by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) in April.
THIS IS A LONG BUT EXCELLENT ARTICLE … IF YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT OUT OF CONTROL POLICE, OPEN “The Whole Story”!
Although Maez can’t use New Mexico’s new law to file a second lawsuit in state courts — since the incident predates the law’s passage — she believed when she testified that the bill would help future victims by eliminating qualified immunity.
Now, she said she has little doubt that lawmakers caved to police opposition.
“It’s really disappointing and frustrating. For me it was less about the money and more about a means to hold individual officers accountable,” she said. “If there are no consequences for them, how can we expect change?”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/qualified-immunity-police-lobbying-state-legislatures/2021/10/06/60e546bc-0cdf-11ec-aea1-42a8138f132a_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F34e7a72%2F615f19769d2fda9d410215c1%2F5b6f5e09ae7e8a6ecdfd1598%2F9%2F70%2F615f19769d2fda9d410215c1
Body camera video shows Minneapolis police discuss ‘hunting’ suspects, celebrate shooting protesters during George Floyd unrest
This is really scary, and the DOJ should educate some of these cops by locking up a few of them.
Watch the chilling video!
The attorney for Jaleel Stallings, who was found not guilty on all charges of shooting at Minneapolis police officers during the unrest that followed George Floyd’s killing last year, released additional body camera footage from the night of the incident which shows officers discussing “hunting” people on the streets and mocking journalists and the mayor.
https://video.startribune.com/body-camera-video-shows-minneapolis-police-discuss-hunting-shooting-protesters-george-floyd-unrest/600103953/
Ignoring Science and the Constitution, Police Chiefs Push for Mass Incarceration of Black Men
Edward E. Bartlett, PhD
President
Coalition to End Domestic Violence
3220 N Street, NW, Suite 114
Washington, DC 20007
Phone: 301-801-0608
www.EndToDV.org
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Rebecca Stewart
Telephone: 513-479-3335
Email: info@EndToDV.org
Ignoring Science and the Constitution, Police Chiefs Push for Mass Incarceration of Black Men
WASHINGTON / September 28, 2021 – African-Americans experience the highest incarceration rates of any group in the United States (1). And the over-incarceration of Black men is recognized as a threat to fundamental notions of justice (2). A new report reveals that policies currently being promoted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) are a major cause of the mass incarceration of men. Titled “Predominant Aggressor Policies and the Mass Incarceration of Men,” the report probes the predominant aggressor policies currently being advanced by the IACP.
The IACP predominant aggressor publications reveal pervasive sex bias. For example, the IACP’s “Intimate Partner Violence Response: Policy and Training Content Guidelines” (3) advises front-line police officers to evaluate whether there is a “physical size difference between the parties” in order to decide whether to arrest the male or female. This is likely to sway the officer’s decision to arrest the male, even if the female, who is physically smaller, initiated violence.
The IACP also has developed a training program on “Predominant Aggressor Determination” (4) that is even more biased:
Instructs officers to assess the “Comparative height and weight” of the parties (Slide 38).
Describes “Presence of calm” as an indication of “power and control” (Slide 10)
Uses an implausible case example that reinforces the flawed “male-as-perpetrator, female-as-victim” stereotype (Slides 13-24)
According to the Department of Justice, 77% of persons arrested for domestic violence are male (5), even though scientific surveys reveal that each year, Black men are more likely than Black women to the victims of partner abuse (6):
• Black men: 1.47 million victims
• Black women: 1.38 million victims
The IACP recommendations openly violate Constitutional guarantees of equal treatment under the law:
The Ms. Foundation for Women decries how the “Criminalization of social problems has led to mass incarceration of men, especially young men of color, decimating marginalized communities.” (7)
One public policy group has sharply criticized the gender-profiling of men (8) and concludes that “Domestic violence policies have contributed significantly to increasing the number of persons living in violent places: prisons and jails.” (9)
The “Predominant Aggressor Policies and the Mass Incarceration of Men” report, written by the Coalition to End Domestic Violence, is available online: http://endtodv.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Predominant-Aggressor-Mass-Inceration.pdf
Links:
Bureau of Justice Statistics (2021). Jail Inmates in 2019. https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/ji19_sum.pdf
International Association of Chiefs of Police (2017). Intimate Partner Response: Policy and Training Content Guidelines. Page 6. https://www.theiacp.org/sites/default/files/all/i-j/IACPIntimatePartnerViolenceResponsePolicyandTrainingGuidelines2017.pdf
International Association of Chiefs of Police (March 24, 2020). Predominant Aggressor Determination. https://www.rit.edu/fa/compliance/sites/rit.edu.fa.compliance/files/PredominantAggressorPresentation.PDF
Durose MR et al. Family Violence Statistics. Washington, DC: Department of Justice. NCJ 207846, 2005. Table 5.9. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/fvs.pdf
Centers for Disease Control, National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2010-2012 State Report. Tables 5.3 and 5.6. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/NISVS-StateReportBook.pdf
Ms. Foundation for Women. Safety and Justice for All. New York, 2003, p. 17.
Across Walls. Gender-Profiling Men for Arrest for Domestic Violence. https://www.acrosswalls.org/gender-profiling-men-arrests-domestic-violence/
Former Dewey Beach police officer convicted for 2019 assault of injured person, DOJ says
Our great AG, Kathy Jennings, does the right thing again. 🙂
Excerpts from the Article:
A former Dewey Beach police officer was convicted of assaulting an injured person on the job and was permanently stripped of his badge and gun Wednesday.
Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings announced in a news release that the Division of Civil Rights & Public Trust indicted and reached a conviction for Gregory Lynch for assaulting an innocent, injured person and then lying to the court to have the victim incarcerated.
“Abuse of authority, brutality and dishonesty are cardinal sins for any law enforcement officer,” Jennings said in a statement.
“The defendant’s violent acts harmed his victim and made it harder for his honorable colleagues to do their important work,” she said. “Today the defendant becomes a felon who will never carry a badge or a gun again. Our thoughts are with his victim, and our thanks are with the EMTs and fellow police who did the right thing by stepping forward to blow the whistle on his actions.”
During the August 2019 incident, police and EMTs were called to Bellevue Street to assist a 26-year-old man who had lost consciousness and injured the back of his head, according to the earlier indictment. The indictment detailed that the man didn’t want to go to the hospital and was sitting on a stretcher with one foot on the ground as first responders and witnesses tried to convince him to lie down. That was when Lynch grabbed his leg and put it on the stretcher, according to previous reporting by Delaware Online.
Lynch then climbed onto a stretcher and repeatedly punched an injured, unaggressive victim in the face, according to the Division of Civil Rights & Public Trust.
Other officers present told investigators that the punches were powerful enough to spray blood from the victim’s face onto their uniforms, according to the DOJ. Lynch then handcuffed the victim to the stretcher and pulled him into an ambulance by his head.
The victim was later diagnosed with a concussion, a broken nose, multiple hematomas and lacerations to his face.
Lynch later falsely stated in a sworn affidavit that the victim had committed strangulation and two counts of offensive touching of a law enforcement officer, but witness statements contradicted those claims, according to the DOJ.
Lynch’s lies were discovered days later when EMTs and fellow police came forward.
Lynch pleaded guilty on Wednesday to perjury second degree (a felony) and assault third degree (a misdemeanor).
Under the victim-supported plea, Lynch will serve one year of Level 3, or intensive supervision, probation and sacrifice his Council on Police Training certification – permanently banning him from serving as a police officer again.
Because of the felony conviction, Lynch will also be prohibited from buying or possessing a firearm.
But this incident was not the first time that Lynch was accused of excessive force. In 2014, a 65-year-old man sued Dewey Beach police saying that Lynch and another officer used excessive force when they arrested him in 2011.
He claimed that a Dewey police vehicle, with its lights activated, swerved in front of him as he was riding his bicycle from The Cove Restaurant and Bar at about 12:30 a.m.
The plaintiff said Lynch and the other officer threw him off of his bicycle and onto the pavement, causing some injuries, including to his shoulder and ribs. The lawsuit also claimed Lynch placed his foot on the side of the plaintiff’s face and ground the man’s head and face into the pavement and gravel.
The department settled the federal lawsuit for $175,00.
Body camera footage shows 2019 beating of Black man by Louisiana state police officer
Good for the U S DOJ! All such outrageous conduct by police should be investigated. But another culprit here is the local prosecutor! Local prosecutors should have prosecuted the police! I was a prosecutor for 5 years, and it was clear to me from day one that my job was not “to back the police at any cost”; my job was to be FAIR, and that is the job of every prosecutor!
Excerpts from the Article:
A Louisiana State Police trooper was captured on video repeatedly beating a Black motorist with a flashlight more than two years ago, according to body camera footage of the incident obtained by CNN — the latest footage linked to a state police division that is under investigation for possible systemic abuses against Black motorists.
Seven minutes of footage from the officer’s body-worn camera from the May 2019 incident was recently turned over to attorneys for the motorist, Aaron Larry Bowman, pursuant to a court order last week. CNN obtained a copy of that video Wednesday from Bowman’s attorneys.
The trooper in the video, Jacob Brown, was charged in December with aggravated second-degree battery and malfeasance in office. He has not entered a plea. State prosecutors said that case remains on hold as federal investigators are conducting their own investigation into Brown’s actions.
The Department of Justice said this case is the subject of a criminal investigation being handled by the FBI, “along with career prosecutors in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Louisiana and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.”
The body-worn camera footage shows Brown swinging what appears to be a flashlight and repeatedly striking Bowman while he’s facedown on the ground with his hands behind his head for part of the beating as he tells them, “I’m not resisting.”
“Fighting us ain’t gonna help you bud,” an officer says. “I’m not fighting you,” Bowman responds.
He can later be heard moaning and saying, “They hit me in the head with a flashlight. I’m on dialysis, man, it hurt me. It hurt me. I don’t have nothing.”
As part of the probe, investigators are working to determine whether there’s a history of abuse in interactions between troopers in Troop F and Black people, two sources familiar with the process previously confirmed to CNN.
The video was first obtained by The Associated Press. What’s known of the cases involving this unit within the Louisiana State Police is largely the result of reporting by the AP, which has exposed various issues with the conduct and covering up of that conduct by state troopers.
According to court records, as a result of the beating, “(Bowman) sustained multiple lacerations,” that include “a cut to the top of his head, a fractured arm, and broken ribs amongst other ailments.”
Ron Haley, one of Bowman’s attorneys, said Brown beat his client with an 8-inch aluminum flashlight. Brown hit him within seconds of initial contact and hit Bowman at least 18 times in 24 seconds, Haley said. CNN affiliate WBRZ reported that an arrest affidavit says Brown went on to strike Bowman 18 times in the span of about 24 seconds.
It wasn’t immediately clear to Bowman’s attorneys or prosecutors that body-worn camera footage of the beating existed.
A statement from Louisiana State Police said the agency found the footage after Bowman’s attorneys filed a lawsuit, adding that after investigators located the footage, they began administrative and criminal investigations. State police have said at the time of Brown’s arrest “detectives learned that Brown engaged in excessive and unjustifiable actions during the incident and failed to report the use of force to his supervisors.”
The result of the criminal investigation was turned over to the district attorney’s office, and Brown was charged in December. Robert Tew, the district attorney in Monroe, said it is being continued until the US Department of Justice decides whether to charge him with federal crimes.
Bowman fought with at least one of those deputies, according to an affidavit filed in the case against Bowman. According to the affidavit filed by a Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Office deputy, Bowman “began swinging his arms at me and screaming he did not do anything wrong. (Bowman) then struck me on top of the head with a closed fist.”
Bowman disputed the police version of events in his civil suit. He “asserts that the published police report is fabricated, and aspects of Deputy (Donovan) Ginn’s narrative is untrue.”
Homeless Man Arrested in Case of Mistaken Identity, Institutionalized for Over 2 Years
Just disgraceful! A gross injustice due to one lazy and/or incompetent cop; the officer should be sued by Mr. Spriestersbach inasmuch as it seems he has suffered permanent trauma!
Excerpts from the Article:
A homeless man was wrongly arrested by Hawaii officials in 2017 in a case of mistaken identity and was institutionalized in a state hospital for over two years when he repeatedly insisted he was not the person they said he was before quietly being released, the Hawaii Innocence Project said in a court document.
The Hawaii Innocence Project filed a petition Monday night asking a judge to vacate the arrest and correct the records of Joshua Spriestersbach. Spriestersbach was arrested in 2017 after falling asleep on a sidewalk waiting for food at a Honolulu shelter, the Associated Press reported.
When he woke up, Spriestersbach believed he was being arrested for the city’s ban on sitting or laying down on public sidewalks. But the officer mistook him for a man named Thomas Castleberry, who was wanted for violating probation in a 2006 drug case.
Authorities admitted Spriestersbach to a state hospital for denying he was Castleberry and was forced to take psychiatric drugs for two years and eight months before the mistake was corrected, releasing Spriestersbach with only 50 cents to his name.
It’s unclear how this happened as Spriestersbach and Castleberry had never met. Spriestersbach somehow ended up with Castleberry as his alias, even though Spriestersbach never claimed to be Castleberry, according to the Hawaii Innocence Project.
Spriestersbach’s attorneys argue it all could have been cleared up if police simply compared the two men’s photographs and fingerprints.
Instead, against Spriestersbach’s protests that he wasn’t Castleberry, he was eventually committed to the Hawaii State Hospital.
“Yet, the more Mr. Spriestersbach vocalized his innocence by asserting that he is not Mr. Castleberry, the more he was declared delusional and psychotic by the H.S.H. staff and doctors and heavily medicated,” the petition said.
“It was understandable that Mr. Spriestersbach was in an agitated state when he was being wrongfully incarcerated for Mr. Castleberry’s crime and despite his continual denial of being Mr. Castleberry and providing all of his relevant identification and places where he was located during Mr. Castleberry’s court appearances, no one would believe him or take any meaningful steps to verify his identity and determine that what Mr. Spriestersbach was telling the truth—he was not Mr. Castleberry.”
No one believed him—not even his various public defenders—until a hospital psychiatrist finally listened. All it took were simple Google searches and a few phone calls to verify that Spriestersbach was on another island when Castleberry was initially arrested, according to the court document.
A detective, who was asked by the psychiatrist to come to the hospital, verified fingerprints and photographs to determine that the wrong man had been arrested and that Spriestersbach spent two years and eight months institutionalized, the petition said, noting that it wasn’t hard to determine that the real Castleberry has been incarcerated in an Alaska prison since 2016.
According to records, a 49-year-old man named Thomas R. Castleberry is in the Spring Creek Correctional Facility in Seward, Alaska. His relatives couldn’t be reached for comment. The Alaska public defender listed for him declined to comment Tuesday.
The Hawaii Innocence Project document also claims Spriestersbach had ineffective counsel: the Hawaii public defender’s office.
Police, the state public defender’s office, the state attorney general and the hospital “share in the blame for this gross miscarriage of justice,” the petition said.
Hawaii public defender James Tabe and spokespersons for the state attorney general’s and health department didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment Tuesday.
Once the fingerprints and photographs were finalized, officials moved quickly, but secretly, to release Spriestersbach in January of 2020, the petition said. “A secret meeting was held with all of the parties, except Mr. Spriestersbach, present. There is no court record of this meeting or no public court record of this meeting. No entry or order reflects this miscarriage of justice that occurred or a finding that Mr. Spriestersbach is not Thomas Castleberry,” the court document said.
His lawyers think officials didn’t think anyone would believe Spriestersbach or no one would care about the homeless man who fell asleep waiting for food, only to wake up to a living nightmare. Spriestersbach, 50, who lives with his sister in Vermont, declined to comment for this story.
His sister, Vedanta Griffith, spent nearly 16 years looking for him. He moved to Hawaii with Griffith when her husband was stationed on Oahu with the Army in 2003. He moved to the Big Island and then disappeared, while suffering mental health issues, she said.
“Part of what they used against him was his own argument: ‘I’m not Thomas Castleberry. I didn’t commit these crimes….This isn’t me,'” she told AP. “So they used that as saying he was delusional, as justification for keeping him.”
After his release, he ended up at a homeless shelter, which contacted his family.
“And then when light is shown on it, what do they do? They don’t even put it on the record. They don’t make it part of the case,” Griffith said. “And then they don’t come to him and say, ‘We are so sorry’ or how about even ‘Gee, this wasn’t you. You were right all along.'”
Spriestersbach now refuses to leave his sister’s 10-acre property. “He’s so afraid that they’re going to take him again,” Griffith said.
Seaford woman called police for help; one who responded shot her dead
Another cop out of control, and another case demonstrating the importance of vastly improving our mental health care systems. This lawsuit will be won or settled for many thousands of dollars … YOUR tax money again being wasted; the whole thing could have been prevented.
Excerpts from the Article:
Kelly Rooks called Delaware State Police for help, but the officer who responded shot and killed her and broke her elderly mother’s hip, according to a complaint filed in federal court.
The 51-year-old Rooks was bipolar and had been experiencing severe paranoia the week before she died, calling Troop 5 in Bridgeville multiple times, the complaint says.
Most of the officers who responded “were nice and approached her carefully, understanding she had a mental illness,” and one even spoke to her psychiatrist, court documents say.
One trooper, however, “was hostile and aggressive” toward Kelly, according to the complaint, and he was one who responded March 25 after Kelly called because she thought she’d been poisoned.
A short time later, she was dead from multiple gunshot wounds.
Wilmington law firm Jacobs & Crumplar filed the lawsuit against a yet-to-be-named Delaware State Police trooper on July 12 on counts of excessive force, assault and battery, gross negligence and wrongful death. The suit is seeking punitive damages as well as funeral expenses.
The trooper is not known to the Rooks family because police records are protected in Delaware until an investigation into the use of force is completed. Instead, the lawsuit refers to him as John Doe.
Kelly’s brother, Raymond Rooks, is representing her estate in the lawsuit. Her mother is listed as a separate plaintiff.
Delaware State Police spokesman Gary Fournier said the trooper is still employed and on active duty but declined to otherwise comment on the lawsuit.
In the days following the shooting, Delaware State Police said they were dispatched to the scene to “assist medical personnel,” who were already at the residence when the woman “armed herself with a firearm” and “threatened” the troopers and medical professionals.
Rooks’ bipolar disorder surfaced about the time she was injured in a car accident, around 2015. The mental illness “substantially limited her in the performance of major life activities,” according to the complaint.
She appears to have lived a full life in spite of it. She worked for many years as a phlebotomist. Her longtime boyfriend, Robert Krause, lived at the Danny Drive residence with her. To her mother, Kelly Rooks was “beloved,” the complaint states.
“As a human being, she deserved better,” the Rooks family wrote in a statement issued shortly after the shooting.
Krause, who used a wheelchair, was at the home at the time of the shooting, along with Rooks’ mother, Geraldine Rooks.
When the trooper and medics arrived at about 7:30 p.m. March 25, a neighbor asked if Kelly had done anything wrong. The trooper, seeming “agitated or tired,” responded, “You tell me, I’ve got multiple calls from this address,” according to the complaint.
After the trooper entered the Rooks’ home without a warrant or announcing his presence, Kelly came out of her bedroom, court documents say, “rubbing her stomach and saying she needed to go to the hospital. She did not have a weapon.”
The situation escalated within two minutes of the trooper’s arrival, according to the complaint.
The trooper “was acting angry, hostile and aggressive. He was screaming, ‘What have we got here?’ Kelly asked him if Geraldine could go with her to the hospital. The angry, hostile … (trooper) aggressively screamed, ‘No!’
“Kelly and Geraldine felt they were not free to leave and that they were unable to decline (the trooper’s) requests or otherwise terminate the encounter. Geraldine walked toward her daughter to comfort her as she was obviously in mental distress that increased when (the trooper) screamed at her. … She was not disobeying any lawful command (the trooper) had given.”
That’s when the trooper shoved the 78-year-old Geraldine Rooks to the ground, breaking her hip, the complaint says, and Kelly Rooks ran to her room and grabbed a shotgun.
Both Krause and Geraldine Rooks were removed from the home before shots were fired, according to the complaint, and Geraldine Rooks was in the front yard when she saw the trooper point his gun at her daughter’s bedroom door and fire multiple times.
Three shots were fired through the door, which, based on the angle of the bullet holes, was closing or closed, the complaint says.
The complaint asserts that knowing Kelly was emotionally disturbed, the trooper should have proceeded slowly and with caution, using a calm voice. He failed to de-escalate the situation despite being trained to do so, and instead escalated it when he “provoked an otherwise static situation by his reckless tactical response,” the complaint says.
“The standard of care required a police officer, upon seeing Kelly retrieve a gun, (is) to get to a covered position, which was within (the trooper’s) ability,” the complaint states. “The situation was not so fluid or time dependent that Kelly could not have been talked down by a properly trained professional. A Crisis Intervention Team officer or negotiator specially trained in negotiation should have been employed.”
After shots were fired, backup arrived, parking along Danny Drive and the adjacent Airport Road. Two tanklike vehicles responded to the scene and a helicopter hovered above, according to the complaint. Neighbors were evacuated and police searched the woods surrounding Danny Drive.
Police cut a hole in the bottom of the home and ran a camera inside, presumably to see if Kelly was dead, the complaint says.
The activity lasted until after midnight.
Kelly died from her wounds at 9:47 p.m.
The Whole Story and the Actual Lawsuit
All Delaware police officers now required to wear body cameras
This is a good move; we need transparency and video records sometimes of what the cops are doing.
Excerpts from the Article:
Requiring all police officers in the state to wear body cameras was part of the Delaware Black Caucus’ Justice for All agenda, unveiled last year following protests over the Minnesota police killing of George Floyd.
On Wednesday morning, members of the caucus joined other lawmakers at State Police Troop 2 in Glasgow as Gov. John Carney signed the legislation making the statewide program official.
“While we were trying to address a global pandemic and all of the racial unrest in our country, we were able to galvanize together, work together to present something to the citizens of Delaware to address the uncertainty that so many of them felt,” said State Sen. Darius Brown.
Carney said while some departments in the state have already been using body cameras, it was important to make it a statewide effort.
“It’s more about the trust that something like this is creating between law enforcement and the communities in which they serve — particularly communities of color — that is so critically important for law enforcement to do their jobs and for our communities to be safe,” Carney said.
Lawmakers voted unanimously last month to approve the body camera legislation. State Rep. Sherry Dorsey Walker sponsored the bill, which she says will help protect citizens and police. “Body-worn cameras create transparency and accountability, not just for the officers but for the community as well. I don’t want officers having stories being told about them that aren’t true,” she said.
Evidence on the effectiveness of body-worn cameras is mixed, with some studies showing they have limited effect on police use of force.
State lawmakers included more than $5 million in one-time funding in a supplemental spending bill last month to help fund the first year of the program.
Over the next six months, a committee will work to develop protocols and guidelines for how the video captured by these cameras will be used.
“We are not done,” said Delaware Attorney General Kathleen Jennings. “We need to equip our police with both the technology and an updated policy, I think by January 2022.”
Historically, police and prosecutors have not been very forthcoming about sharing footage from officers who’ve been wearing cameras in the state.
New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer took a rare step earlier this year when he released the footage captured by officers’ body cameras in the fatal shooting of Lymond Moses, a Black man killed by officers in January. The footage shows two white officers asking Moses to get out of his car, claiming they saw marijuana. Moses drove off and, after making a U-turn at a dead-end, the footage shows multiple officers shooting at the moving car, even after it appeared to swerve around them.
The police union objected to Meyer’s move, saying it “taints the investigative process.” Others, including the ACLU of Delaware, applauded Meyer’s decision as an important way to rebuild trust.
All Delaware police officers now required to wear body cameras
Delaware State Police sued after plainclothes officers blockade wrong woman’s car
God Bless lawyers like Mr. Igwe. Come on, Delaware State Police, you can do much better than this bullshit!
When cops act like the rude idiots in this case, they just further undermine respect for police. This is another good reason to eliminate the Delaware police Bill of Rights law!
Excerpts from the Article:
Delaware State Police are facing a lawsuit after four plainclothes officers in unmarked vehicles blockaded a woman in her car and held her at gunpoint, before realizing she was not the suspect they were searching for.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday night in U.S. District Court, seeks damages for “extreme emotional pain and suffering,” citing claims of excessive force, false arrest, assault and battery, and negligence.
Martiayna Watson, 20, was leaving the BP Gas station at 201 S. Heald St. in Wilmington’s Southbridge neighborhood at 5:25 p.m. on June 24 when, according to the suit, she noticed a car driving slowly behind her. The car followed her to the 1000 block of Church St. when the car suddenly swerved in front of Watson to cut her off, stopped and reversed into her car. At the same time, a second car hit Watson from behind.
A third and fourth car then pulled up on either side of her car, blocking her in. All four cars were unmarked Delaware State Police vehicles driven by plainclothes officers.
“I thought I was about to be kidnapped,” Watson said Thursday during a press conference outside the gas station.
The four plainclothes officers got out of their cars with guns drawn and pointed at Watson through her rolled-down windows, according to the suit.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Stop talking and shut the —- up,” an officer said, the suit says.
One of the officers broke the driver’s side rear window of Watson’s car, according to the suit, and another officer opened the door of her car and forcefully pulled out Watson.
When Watson started to cry and ask what was going on, according to the lawsuit, an officer put a stun gun to her neck and said, “I’m going to —- you up.”
“I think we have the wrong person,” an officer eventually said, according to the suit.
The officers had been searching for a Black man and woman driving a dark gray Nissan Maxima, suspects of a pawn shop robbery earlier that day, said Emeka Igwe, one of the lawyers representing Watson. Watson, a Black woman, was driving a light gray Nissan Altima.
When they realized they had the wrong person, the officers drove away, leaving Watson in the street with her damaged car, the lawsuit said.
Richard Smith, president of the Delaware NAACP, happened to be driving by when he saw the officers pull Watson out of her car. He intervened when he heard her crying out for help.
“What do we do as Black people in the city of Wilmington? Just lay down and die?” Smith said at the press conference. “When is enough enough?”
Watson, standing at 4 feet, 10 inches, said the 10-minute incident left her traumatized. “I can’t even drive without thinking something is going to happen to me,” Watson said. “I’m so scared, and I did nothing wrong.”
Watson said she was not offered victim support like counseling in the aftermath. Instead, a state police sergeant and lieutenant apologized and offered money to help fix her car, Igwe said.
Delaware State Police did not respond to questions about any support Watson received.
Igwe also said none of the four officers was wearing a body camera.
Delaware State Police did not respond to questions asking if unmarked police cars have dash cameras.
Watson and her lawyers have not been able to learn the names of the four officers involved. Her requests for badge numbers that day went ignored. The Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of Rights has made it difficult for her to learn any information about the officers involved and whether they are being disciplined.
The Officer’s Bill of Rights bars the public from accessing police disciplinary and personnel records. Delaware is one of only 15 states to have these kinds of laws, which keep citizens largely uninformed about police shootings and instances of misconduct.
Under the law, internal investigations into complaints against police are kept secret.
State police did not respond to questions asking if an internal investigation was underway. Watson’s attorneys have also not been able to confirm if the incident is being investigated by state police. The only way records can be disclosed is through civil proceedings, like Watson’s lawsuit.
In the past year, Delaware activists and lawmakers have pushed to reform the law. Attempts at change stalled this year in the Legislature after police raised concerns about what it would mean for law enforcement.
“They can get away with anything they want to get away with,” Smith said.
Fix qualified immunity travesty that lets police off the hook after violating civil rights
“Qualified immunity” is a horrible doctrine, causing much injustice. The current Supreme Court is not likely to fix it, but this is another good reason to “pack the Court”!
Excerpts from the Article:
After police followed an unarmed robbery suspect into Amy Corbitt’s Georgia yard, they ordered four young children – at gunpoint – to lie face down on the ground. When a deputy sheriff spotted a pet dog, which Corbitt said “posed no threat,” he shot at the dog twice and missed. The second shot hit Corbitt’s 10-year-old son lying less than 2 feet from the deputy, causing a serious leg injury.
Corbitt sued to hold the deputy liable for excessive force that violated her son’s constitutional rights, but she ran into a hurdle so high that it has stopped thousands of people from holding police accountable for unconstitutional acts.
A federal appeals panel threw out Corbitt’s case, with a majority granting the deputy “qualified immunity.” Why? Because Corbitt failed to find a prior case with the same facts where a court ruled an officer violated the law by accidentally shooting a bystander. Thus, there was no “clearly established” law against the deputy’s actions.
A dissenting judge had a more sensible take on the events of July 10, 2014: “Facing no apparent threat (the officer) chose to fire his lethal weapon in the direction of these children. No reasonable officer would engage in such recklessness” or “think such recklessness was lawful.”
The Supreme Court declined to review the case last year, shutting Corbitt out of court. And no officer will be deterred from such reckless conduct in the future.
In the wake of George Floyd’s murder last year and protests over police brutality, this once-obscure legal doctrine has turned into a rallying cry in the drive against excessive force.
Created by the Supreme Court in a series of rulings starting in 1967, qualified immunity means if a victim wants to sue police – or any government official – she must find a case from the Supreme Court or in her federal circuit (the United States is divided into 12 circuits) where a court ruled that the exact same situation violated constitutional rights. If she can’t, those rights are not considered clearly established and the courtroom door is barred.
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