Deaths and Injuries in Police Custody

[Andrea]

Sheriff, 4 staff charged after inmates abused with stun guns

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/nation-world/national/article148886119.html

Utah's attorney general filed charges Friday against a former sheriff and four deputies in a rural county after prosecutors say inmates were stunned with a Taser in exchange for soda or as hazing when assigned to a work crew.

Former Daggett County Sheriff Jerry R. Jorgensen has been charged with three misdemeanor counts of misconduct, obstructing justice and failing to keep inmates safe. He resigned last month as state officials investigated allegations of inmate abuse.

According to the charges, former deputy Joshua J. Cox threatened inmates with his personal Taser in 2015 and 2016.

On one occasion in August 2016, Cox promised five inmates a case of soda if they could endure the stun gun for five minutes.

Two months later, Cox used the Taser as an "initiation" to an inmate work crew and required one inmate to withstand the Taser in exchange for keeping his work privileges, prosecutors said.

Court records allege that between December 2016 and February 2017, Cox brought uncertified police dogs into the jail and ordered two inmates to participate in training the dogs. Cox was not a certified K9 officer and both inmates were bitten by the unleashed animals, prosecutors said.

Cox faces 11 counts, including felony aggravated assault, weapons charges and theft.

Prosecutors said the theft charge was filed because Cox's Taser was stolen from the police department where he used to work.

No telephone number or defense attorney was publicly listed for Cox. He was fired in April, according to sheriff's office spokeswoman Susie Potter.

Former Deputy Benjamin C. Lail was charged with aggravated assault for pointing a Taser at a woman's feet in a control room at the jail and saying, "OK, you're done, now get back to class."

The woman was not identified. Utah Department of Corrections spokeswoman Maria Peterson said the woman was a volunteer at the jail.

Jorgensen is accused of failing to properly supervise his jail staff and putting inmates in danger. The obstruction of justice charge stems from the former sheriff allegedly denying that he received an email from an unnamed woman detailing how Lail intimidated her by pointed a stun gun at her feet.

Deputies Logan Walker, 26, and Rodrigo Toledo, 41, are accused of being witnesses to Cox's use of the stun gun on inmates. They are charged with misdemeanor official misconduct for not stopping Cox and failing to report it after it happened.

Lail, Toledo, Walker and Jorgensen could not be reached for comment and did not have listed attorneys to speak on their behalf Friday.

Court records show the former sheriff and his four former deputies are scheduled to make their first court appearances on June 9. All five are required to turn themselves in at the Uintah County Sheriff's Office by the end of May to be fingerprinted and have their mugshots taken.

Attorney General Sean Reyes in a statement called Cox's alleged actions "unbelievably inhumane" and "a reprehensible miscarriage of justice." The attorney general said the actions of the other men were inexcusable.

Daggett County and the sheriff's office had no comment on the charges or those named in the case, according to an emailed statement from Potter late Friday.

State officials began investigating the rural eastern Utah jail earlier this year after Jorgensen reported possible mistreatment of inmates.

The jail, near Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area in the small town of Manila on the Wyoming border, has been empty since February, when Utah's Corrections Department learned of the allegations and removed 80 inmates, all male, to other jails or prisons.

About 15 of those inmates have now been paroled or discharged, according to Peterson.

Utah Corrections Executive Director Rollin Cook said in a statement Friday that inmates would not be returned to Daggett County until state officials have confidence in new leaders and security at the jail.

[Andrea]

Betty Shelby Found Not Guilty in Shooting Death of Unarmed Black Motorist Terence Crutcher

http://www.theroot.com/betty-shelby-found-not-guilty-in-shooting-death-of-unar-1795320493

The jury in the trial of Tulsa, Okla., Police Officer Betty Shelby deliberated for nine hours Wednesday before finding her not guilty of manslaughter in the shooting death of unarmed black motorist Terence Crutcher.

KTUL reports that the Crutcher family is expected to address the media with the district attorney after a brief meeting.

Crutcher’s twin sister, Tiffany Crutcher, announced that the verdict had been reached just after 9 p.m. Central.

Just hours into the deliberations, defense attorney Shannon McMurray requested a mistrial, alleging prosecutorial misconduct, but the judge denied the request.

The jurors sent the judge a note asking if they could make a statement when they delivered the verdict, but the judge said no and advised them that they were free to discuss the case after the trial.

The case was handed to the jury around noon Wednesday after both the defense and prosecution made closing statements.

As previously reported on The Root, Shelby, 43, was charged with first-degree felony manslaughter in the September 2016 fatal shooting of Crutcher on a Tulsa highway after his car broke down.

Video of the shooting showed Crutcher raising his hands as he walked to his vehicle, and in the audio, you can hear the pilot of a helicopter overhead stating that Crutcher looked like a “bad dude.” Earlier this week, Shelby stated that it was the scariest moment of her life and that she was filled with fear. Tulsa police said that Crutcher was not complying with their demands when he was shot, but the video seemed to show a totally different story.

Shelby took the stand in her own defense in the weeklong trial, testifying that her training led her to shoot Crutcher because she believed that he was reaching for a weapon through a partially open window in his vehicle.

Shelby has routinely denied that race was a factor in her response to the encounter, blaming Crutcher’s actions and saying that he seemed to be high on drugs and did not respond to police commands as he walked toward his vehicle.

Prosecutors countered that drug use and ignoring commands were no reason for an officer to use deadly force against a civilian.

We all saw that shooting on video, and we all saw that man walking with his hands up, his back to Shelby.

We all saw her shoot and kill him on camera.

He was not a threat to her.

This is more injustice.

This. Must. Stop.

[Andrea]

Dallas school police officer slammed a 6th-grader to the ground, fractured her clavicle

https://mic.com/articles/177526/dallas-school-police-officer-slammed-a-6th-grader-to-the-ground-fractured-her-clavicle#.YM7WEWAOw

A police officer from Dallas Independent School District has been put on administrative leave after allegedly slamming a 12-year-old girl to the ground and fracturing her clavicle.

In the video, sixth-grader Mariana Benton is seen fighting with another female student on Piedmont Global Academy School's campus. The two girls are surrounded by other students until an unnamed Dallas ISD officer break up the fight, pick up Benton and then slam her to the ground. Students can be heard shouting in horror.

Benton also said the officer pepper sprayed her.

"The officer came and grabbed me and body slammed me, then put the pepper spray," Benton told local television station KXAS. "He pepper sprayed me in the eyes and I couldn't open my eyes because it was burning me, the eyes, so then they took us to the nurse to put water."

The school district looked into Benton's conduct after the incident and suspended her for three days, according to the Dallas Morning News. Benton was also hospitalized for a fractured clavicle.

As for the officer, Piedmont Global Academy put him on administrative leave and refused to release their name. According to the Root, the school district said the officer's action do not "represent the type of response we want our officers to display."

But Alma Valdez, Benton's mother, told KXAS the officer should not be working with children based on how he treated her daughter.

"I don't want him being suspended, I want him get fired," Valdez said. "Why is he still working with kids? He's not capable of working like that."

"It makes me mad, angry," Valdez told local station KTVT. "She's 12 years old. She weighs 100 pounds. He should be fired."

According to KXAS, Valdez is looking to hire an attorney and file a lawsuit against the school. She also said a school official forced students who filmed the violent incident to delete their videos.

[Andrea]

Police speak less respectfully to black drivers, study suggests

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/05/health/police-language-race-oakland-study/index.html?sr=twCNN060617police-language-race-oakland-study0546AMVODtopPhoto&linkId=38390158

A succession of high-profile police shootings and racial tensions swept the United States last summer. One year later, researchers are still trying to better understand the delicate relationship between police and the communities they patrol.

Now instead of focusing on police use of force, some researchers are turning their attention to use of language.

A new study suggests that police officers in Oakland, California, are more likely to speak to white community members with a higher level of respect than black community members. The study, which published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, used police body camera footage as data.

More research is needed to determine whether this racial disparity in language occurs in other communities across the US but Rob Voigt, lead author of the study, said that it's worth investigating.

"At the very least this provides evidence for something that communities of color have reported, that this is a real phenomenon," said Rob Voigt, a doctoral student in the linguistics department at Stanford University.
Voigt added that he and his colleagues were grateful to the Oakland Police Department for allowing them to study the department's body camera footage.

"We're also hoping it inspires police departments to consider cooperating with researchers more. And facilitating this kind of analysis of body camera footage will help police departments improve their relationship with the community and it will give them techniques for better communication," he said. "When people feel they're respected by the police they are more likely to trust the police, they are more likely to cooperate with the police, and so on and so forth. So we have reason to expect that these differences that we find have real-world effects."

A racial disparity, hidden in language

The study involved 183 hours of body camera footage taken during 981 routine traffic stops by 245 different Oakland Police Department officers in April 2014. The footage of the officers' interactions with community members was transcribed.

The researchers then randomly selected 312 utterances spoken to black community members and 102 spoken to white community members for volunteers to analyze.

The researchers asked the volunteers to read the transcript of one community member's utterance and then the utterance by the police officer that followed in response. The volunteers rated on a four-point scale how respectful, polite, friendly, formal, and impartial the officer was.

Each interaction was rated by at least 10 volunteers, who did not know the names or races of the officers, community members, or any other contextual or identifying information.

Next, the researchers developed a computer model to rate how respectful each interaction was based on pre-existing scientific literature about respectfulness and politeness.

For instance, the computer measured how often police officers introduced themselves, used formal titles such as ma'am or sir, used words like please and thank you, apologized, such as saying "sorry to stop you," and reassured safety, such as saying "drive safe, please" -- all of which are utterances that show signs of respect, according to the study.

For example, the transcripts in the study included these sentences: "Sorry to stop you. My name's Officer [name] with the Police Department." "There you go, ma'am. Drive safe, please."

Less respectful utterances included using informal titles like "man" or first names, or asking for agency, such as saying "do me a favor."

The transcripts in the study included these sentences: "All right, my man. Do me a favor. Just keep your hands on the steering wheel real quick." "[First name], can I see that driver's license again?"

The researchers used the computer model to automatically estimate the level of respect for every utterance, and to estimate how respectful a human might have rated each utterance.

After analyzing all of their data, the researchers found that white community members were 57% more likely to hear an officer say one of the most respectful utterances in the dataset, such as apologizing. Whereas, black community members were 61% more likely to hear an officer say one of the least respectful utterances, such as informal titles.

The racial disparity occurred despite the police officers' race and among most officers, not outliers, the researchers found. The disparity emerged at the early onset of interactions and was still present after controlling for whether a community member was arrested, given a citation, or searched, Voigt said.
CNN reached out to the Oakland Police Department for comment on Monday. A public information officer responded that department officials and researchers plan to provide comment soon.

The study "is self-limiting in the sense that they focused only on transcriptions of verbal utterances in traffic stops, but I think this is a wise first step," said Jack Glaser, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the study.

"I am aware of community surveys that have been conducted, and they certainly indicate that black people feel treated more poorly by police, but this is the first analysis of body-worn camera data that I'm aware of," he said. "It contributes a lot to our understanding of racial disparities in police-civilian encounters."

Glaser added that interactions in which a community member might feel disrespected not only can be stressful but can lead to behavioral and health effects and even acute trauma for that community member.

John Dovidio, a professor at the Yale School of Public Health who was not involved in the study, agreed.

'How can you change the training?'

"If any of us feel that we've been disrespected in the situation, it's psychologically wounding to us," Dovidio said.

He added, however, that respect appears to be a particularly deep-rooted need for communities that historically have been disadvantaged.

"If you bring a majority and a minority group member together, a white and a black person, in those interactions the basic needs and goals of the white and black person are very different," Dovidio said.

"The white person in these intergroup interactions tends to want to be liked. They want to be sort of affirmed as being a good person," he said. "But people of color, and this occurs for other historically disadvantaged groups, their major goal is to be respected. ... Everybody wants respect, but minority group members in interracial interactions with authority figures have a particularly heightened need to feel respected in those interactions and that's why respect is such a key variable."

The first step to improving everyday interactions between police and the communities they serve is awareness, which the new study provides, Dovidio said.

"What this does is, makes it real, makes it tangible, makes it objective," he said. "It can then be used not to blame people ... but what it can be used for is a tool for teaching people how to not do something that they may be doing unintentionally."

In other words, police and other people of authority tend to unconsciously or implicitly display this disrespect through language, Dovidio said.

"The outcome of this disrespect is actually, it's a lose-lose situation, because law-abiding people in a community don't want crime. Police don't want crime. But the actions of the police officers undermine the trust and connection of them with the community," Dovidio said.

"Rather than blame police officers, I think the question is, how can you change the training and the experiences that police officers have?" he said. "I would hope that this article is not interpreted as a way of saying police officers are bad, but rather, here's some ideas of how police training can be improved and police practice can be improved to get the trust of the community, to create a relationship that's healthy and cooperative."

[*Anya*]

When I see that there is a new post in this thread, I have to prepare myself for another large bite of prejudice, death, injury, slur or bias.

It is hard to read but I know that I must.

Re: Andrea's post below; it is no shocker to find that police speak less respectfully to black drivers.

They certainly don't hesitate to shoot them when unarmed or undefended, either.

I listened to LeBron James speak at his press conference May 31st. It was very painful to listen and to see the sadness in his face. He said:

“I think back to Emmett Till’s mom, actually,” James said. “That’s one of the first things I thought of. The reason she had an open casket was that she wanted to show the world what her son went through as far as a hate crime, and being black in America. No matter how much money you have, no matter how famous you are, no matter how many people admire you, being black in America is tough. We’ve got a long way to go, for us as a society and for us as African Americans, until we feel equal in America.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.a3bdda8353fe

[Andrea]

Man dead after being shot by LAPD officers and run over by their cruiser; toy gun found near body, police say

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-wilmington-police-shooting-20170607-story.html

Los Angeles police officials are investigating how officers killed a man in Wilmington, first shooting him before their cruiser ran over and pinned him, authorities said Wednesday.

The officers had responded about 9 p.m. Tuesday to a report of a man with a handgun in the 1100 block of North Wilmington Boulevard, according to a statement released by the LAPD.

A toy gun was found at the scene by investigators, police said in the statement.

When officers arrived, they saw a lone man in his mid-20s and the deadly encounter unfolded — but authorities provided a vague account of what transpired.

“Believing this may be the suspect from the radio call, they directed their attention toward him; at that time there was an officer-involved shooting,” the department said in the statement.

LAPD officials did not say whether officers saw the toy gun before opening fire or whether the man aimed it at police.

Police said several shots were fired and the man fell to the ground. Then the officers’ cruiser “traveled forward” and struck the man, pinning him underneath it, police said.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene. The exact cause of his death — gunshot wounds or the weight of the cruiser — has not been determined.

Ed Winter, a deputy chief of investigations for the L.A. County coroner’s office, said the man has not yet been identified.

During the deadly encounter, one of the officers suffered an injury to his arm and was taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Police have not explained how the officer was injured but said he was released Wednesday after treatment.

The incident may have been caught on video as police cruisers in the LAPD’s South Bureau are equipped with dash cameras.

The initial police radio call of an "officer down" overstated the extent of the officer’s injury, and a dispatcher described the officer as having been shot in the arm.

"Shots fired; can you help," an out-of-breath officer is heard saying into his radio. The officer then advised where to approach the scene from on Wilmington Boulevard.

"Suspect down by vehicle; possible gunfire," the officer said shortly after to a dispatcher. Another officer's voice interjected, "We've got an officer down."

A dispatcher then tells officers over the radio that one of the officers at the scene was shot in the arm, and directs all units to Denni Street and Wilmington Boulevard.

Once the LAPD’s specialized shooting investigators arrived, they determined that the officers were not fired at and that the item recovered at the scene was a toy gun.

Initially, a police spokesman had said another suspect was in custody. But as the investigation evolved, LAPD Communications Director Josh Rubenstein said only one suspect — the man who was fatally shot — was involved in the incident.

A multi-agency investigation is underway, which is standard procedure for all LAPD officer-involved shootings. It will be reviewed by the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, the Police Commission and its inspector general.

A white shade tent covered the police car's front end on the sidewalk into early Wednesday morning when coroner's investigators entered the area to remove the man's body.

Tuesday night's shooting is two blocks away from where 17-year-old Fabian Nunez was gunned down earlier that same day.

[Andrea]

Missouri parole board played word games during hearings with inmates

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/missouri-parole-board-played-word-games-during-hearings-with-inmates/article_ce6cba9b-5932-52a4-899a-f7644ec4d7d8.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tw itter

The Missouri Board of Probation and Parole allegedly toyed with prisoners during hearings by trying to get them to say a chosen word or song title of the day, such as “platypus” and “Hound Dog.”

Don Ruzicka, a member of the seven-member board, along with an unnamed government employee were accused of keeping score during the hearings, according to a Department of Corrections inspector general report completed on Nov. 1, 2016.

Each time one of them used a predetermined keyword while interviewing an offender they earned a point. Two points were granted if the offender repeated the word. Occasionally, the duo spiced the game up by wearing matching clothing, like the time they dressed in black shirts, ties, pants and shoes.

The Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center at St. Louis recently obtained the state report and released it Thursday after a news conference, asserting that public servants “played games with people’s lives and liberty.”

“These activities, so far as we are aware, have never come to light in the public’s eye,” said Mae Quinn, director of the nonprofit human rights law firm. “They simply were not taking their duties seriously and their role as appointed officials and public servants seriously.”

The group, and other supporters, called on Gov. Eric Greitens to reform the board, including immediate removal of Ruzicka.

The seven-member parole board is responsible for determining whether a person confined in the Department of Corrections will be paroled or conditionally released, and for supervising thousands of people on probation and parole. They run parole hearings at prisons and by video.

Critics, including people who held leadership positions for the corrections department, have said in recent years that they want the parole board to be reformed. They believe it operates almost entirely in secret and has become a plum place for former lawmakers to land since term limits have been in place.

Board members are appointed by the governor for six-year terms. Ruzicka, a former conservation agent and Republican state representative from Mount Vernon, began his term Dec. 21, 2012. Former Gov. Jay Nixon appointed him. He was paid $85,204 in 2016, not counting retirement benefits.

Inspector General Amy Roderick concluded in her report that Ruzicka and an unnamed corrections employee who attended parole hearings violated a governor’s executive order and other procedures by failing to conduct state government in a manner that “inspires confidence and trust.”

Referencing recordings of some hearings, Roderick wrote: “It seemed they were trying so hard to embed the words or song titles into their questions or statements that they were not focused on the proper questions to ask nor were they actively listening to the responses from the offenders … and, most times, it seemed the offender was being made fun of by the use of such words and song titles during the process.”

According to Roderick’s report, the report was to be delivered seven months ago to then-Parole Board Chairman Ellis McSwain Jr. and the chief state supervisor for the Department of Corrections. In March, Greitens elevated Republican board member Kenneth C. Jones to the role of chairman, replacing McSwain, a Democrat. McSwain remains a member of the parole board.

A corrections department spokesman said on Thursday that department officials had no comment.

“Hootenanny,” was the word of the day on June 21, 2016.

According to the inspector general report, the unnamed department employee used the word four times during one hearing. Each time Ruzicka laughed out loud.

During the hearing, the employee whispered to Ruzicka: “I got four (points).”

In another hearing that day, Ruzicka referenced the song “Peggy Sue.” He asked the offender if she was named after the song. The department employee laughed and said he was just trying to lighten the mood.

“Or you could just have a hootenanny,” Ruzicka countered.

“Yes, we could have a hootenanny,” the employee said, whispering that points would be counted.

Asked when she first used heroin, the offender said it was at a rave.

“I thought they might have called it a hootenanny,” said the employee.

“A what?” the offender responded.

“A hootenanny,” the department employee said. “A party.”

Ruzicka and the employee laughed again.

“Platypus” and “armadillo” were the words on June 22, 2016, followed by “biomass” and “manatee” the next day. At hearings in July, song titles included “Soul Man,” “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight,” “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad,” “Hound Dog,” and “Folsom Prison Blues.”

For instance, in a parole hearing for a sex offender, the department employee said: “Your grandma would probably be like he ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, you know it.” The employee added that if the offender kept up the behavior, the offender might be placed in a sexually violent predator unit, which is run by the Department of Mental Health and holds patients indefinitely. In that case, the employee said the offender might as well learn the song “Folsom Prison Blues.”

More laughing.

Asked by the inspector general how incorporating words and song titles in the hearing helped determine risk and potential release, Ruzicka said: “Through the complete and thorough hearing process we were able to determine the release date.”

Why “platypus”?

Ruzicka said: “I guess if they were rare items he’d taken and a platypus is a rare and unusual thing.”

Why dress the same?

Ruzicka laughed, according to the report, and said: “Just another one of those things.”

Ruzicka told the inspector general they played the game a few days and stopped.

Asked by the inspector general if “all of this sounded ridiculous,” Ruzicka said: “Yeah. Like I said, it happened and it was over … maybe that little check in here (he was pointing to his chest) was to move on. We didn’t discuss ending it. It just kinda ended.”

The investigative report says “several employees” were aware of the game being played by the duo and did not report it.

Amy Breihan, a lawyer with the MacArthur Justice Center, said such behavior potentially taints thousands of cases.

“Who knows how many hearings were affected by this conduct?” she said. “Even in hearings where literal games were not played, one has to question how seriously parole staff are taking their duties.”

At least one family is outraged. Two weeks ago, Ruzicka was part of a parole hearing for Norman Brown, who was involved in a fatal robbery when he was 15. He’s been in prison 28 years, though he wasn’t the shooter, said his attorney. His parole was recently denied.

“This does not sound fair having hearings conducted by a man who sees people like my brother as a means of entertainment,” Shatiega Brown, 36, Brown’s sister, said at the news conference. “Imagine if this was your family, your father, your brother. Would you think this is right, appropriate or just?”

She and others at the news conference urged the governor to take action.

“I am pleading with you so that my brother can have a second chance, a fair chance,” she said.