Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch called for national, consistent data on law enforcement interactions with the communities they serve, especially data collection on the use-of-force. The Attorney General noted that the department has already taken steps to improve the accuracy and consistency of use-of-force data from law enforcement.
“The department’s position and the administration’s position has consistently been that we need to have national, consistent data,” said Attorney General Lynch. “This information is useful because it helps us see trends, it helps us promote accountability and transparency,” said Attorney General Lynch. “We’re also going further in developing standards for publishing information about deaths in custody as well, because transparency and accountability are helped by this kind of national data.”
Currently, federal authorities publish annual figures on the number of “justifiable homicides” by law enforcement. But this reporting is voluntary and not all police departments participate, causing the figures to be incomplete. That’s why the Justice Department and the Obama Administration are taking steps to work with law enforcement to improve the process.
“This data is not only vital – we are working closely with law enforcement to develop national consistent standards for collecting this kind of information,” Attorney General Lynch added.
The FBI recently announced that the Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics (UCR) will begin to collect data on non-fatal shootings between law enforcement and civilians.
To read more CLICK HERE
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
California passes racial profiling law, police aren't happy
California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed legislation mandating that law enforcement agencies in the state collect and make public data on the racial makeup of all those encountered by police, The Los Angeles Times says that for civil rights activists, the measure is a big step toward protecting minorities from racial profiling. For many in law enforcement, it creates a massive new bureaucratic headache that will do little to illuminate the question of whether police treat minority groups fairly.
"It's a terrible piece of legislation," said Lt. Steve James, president of the Long Beach Police Officers Assosication and the national trustee for the California Fraternal Order of Police. The law will require officers to collect data on anyone they stop, including "perceived" race and ethnicity, the reason for the encounter and whether arrests were made.
The Crime Report posted, law enforcement organizations, including the state Fraternal Order of Police and the 65,000-member Peace Officers Research Association of California, had asked Brown to veto the bill, arguing that its reporting requirements would be burdensome to police and costly to taxpayers. Said James: "We have contact with the public all the time that requires no documentation, no paperwork. Now, the amount of time we have to spend doing documentation and paperwork has gone up. The time doing menial tasks has gone up."\
James contended that there is no racial profiling but rather "criminal profiling" by police. That position would be a hard sell to the bill's supporters, who cited studies showing that unarmed black men are many times more likely to die by police gunfire than unarmed white men.
To read more CLICK HERE
"It's a terrible piece of legislation," said Lt. Steve James, president of the Long Beach Police Officers Assosication and the national trustee for the California Fraternal Order of Police. The law will require officers to collect data on anyone they stop, including "perceived" race and ethnicity, the reason for the encounter and whether arrests were made.
The Crime Report posted, law enforcement organizations, including the state Fraternal Order of Police and the 65,000-member Peace Officers Research Association of California, had asked Brown to veto the bill, arguing that its reporting requirements would be burdensome to police and costly to taxpayers. Said James: "We have contact with the public all the time that requires no documentation, no paperwork. Now, the amount of time we have to spend doing documentation and paperwork has gone up. The time doing menial tasks has gone up."\
James contended that there is no racial profiling but rather "criminal profiling" by police. That position would be a hard sell to the bill's supporters, who cited studies showing that unarmed black men are many times more likely to die by police gunfire than unarmed white men.
To read more CLICK HERE
Monday, October 5, 2015
Supreme Court rules request for stay "moot" after execution
Last week, the Supreme Court issued a posthumous response to Alfredo Prieto, a serial killer on Virginia's death row whose lawyers had petitioned the court several times to put his execution on hold, according to The Huffington Post.
In the short, unsigned order, the justices dismissed Prieto's request "as moot" -- meaning neither a grant nor a denial of a stay of execution would have helped him. Prieto was executed on October 1, 2015.
The day before, the court had denied two other petitions from Prieto's attorneys, who were hoping legal challenges over Virginia's drug protocol would sway the justices to temporarily delay their client's execution.
To read more CLICK HERE
In the short, unsigned order, the justices dismissed Prieto's request "as moot" -- meaning neither a grant nor a denial of a stay of execution would have helped him. Prieto was executed on October 1, 2015.
The day before, the court had denied two other petitions from Prieto's attorneys, who were hoping legal challenges over Virginia's drug protocol would sway the justices to temporarily delay their client's execution.
To read more CLICK HERE
Sunday, October 4, 2015
Oklahoma tries to squeeze out an execution with unauthorized drug
Oklahoma officials considered improvising once again during an execution when they realized they had a drug not legally approved for use in Oklahoma lethal injections, sources told The Frontier.
Officials “briefly considered” using potassium acetate for the scheduled execution of Richard Glossip last week, a spokesman for Gov. Mary Fallin said. The drug is not part of Oklahoma’s legally approved protocol.
Now three scheduled executions will be stayed indefinitely as state officials say they’re investigating what went wrong this time, so Oklahoma “can properly and lawfully administer the sentence of death.”
Two hours before Glossip’s scheduled execution, Department of Corrections officials said, prison staff opened a sealed box of drugs that had arrived hours earlier to find that it contained potassium acetate instead of potassium chloride.
After a request from the Attorney General’s office, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals issued indefinite stays for Glossip and two other inmates scheduled to die in October.
State officials repeatedly used the phrase “legal ambiguity” Thursday in reference to questions about whether the state considered substituting potassium acetate at the last minute for Glossip’s execution.
To read more CLICK HERE
Officials “briefly considered” using potassium acetate for the scheduled execution of Richard Glossip last week, a spokesman for Gov. Mary Fallin said. The drug is not part of Oklahoma’s legally approved protocol.
Now three scheduled executions will be stayed indefinitely as state officials say they’re investigating what went wrong this time, so Oklahoma “can properly and lawfully administer the sentence of death.”
Two hours before Glossip’s scheduled execution, Department of Corrections officials said, prison staff opened a sealed box of drugs that had arrived hours earlier to find that it contained potassium acetate instead of potassium chloride.
After a request from the Attorney General’s office, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals issued indefinite stays for Glossip and two other inmates scheduled to die in October.
State officials repeatedly used the phrase “legal ambiguity” Thursday in reference to questions about whether the state considered substituting potassium acetate at the last minute for Glossip’s execution.
To read more CLICK HERE
Saturday, October 3, 2015
GateHouse: School rampages are many, answers are few
Matthew T. Mangino
The GateHouse Media
October 2, 2015
A man opened fire at Umpqua Community College in Oregon on Thursday. News reports said that nine people were killed and another nine were injured in the shooting.
Whether it’s a public school, college or university, leaders in buildings and on campuses are required not only to educate but to protect. The latter responsibility has been complicated by the random, senseless, violent rampages that have plagued schools across the country. Educators, law enforcement and parents are looking for answers.
For students educated in a post-Columbine America, the idea that they must prepare for bad people who open fire in classrooms, school libraries and playgrounds has become routine, reported the Los Angeles Times several years ago.
The tragedies stretch from Umpqua to Newtown and are repeated in cities and towns from coast to coast. The response to these catastrophic events by police and educators has evolved over the years.
The U.S. Department of Education has promoted a tactic for teachers and students to deal with an active shooter —“Run, hide or fight.”
Studies of past school shootings show that students and staff who took action survived more than those who went into traditional lockdown and did nothing. In the 1999 Columbine High School shootings, most of the victims were shot in the library, where a teacher told students to get under desks and keep silent.
In the 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech, 30 people died in classrooms on one floor. Of those, 28 were in classrooms where students and instructors did not actively resist or try to escape the gunman. Other students and instructors saved lives by barricading doors or jumping out of windows.
In the December 2012 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, survivors included students whose teachers barricaded doors, including the use of a filing cabinet, and kids who ran from classrooms, though some students were shot as they fled.
Unfortunately, mass shootings have gone beyond the schoolyard. In 2012, a mass shooting occurred inside a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. The gunman, dressed in tactical clothing shot into the audience with multiple firearms. Twelve people were killed and 70 others were injured.
This past June, a mass shooting took place at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. During a prayer service, nine people were killed.
Run, hide or fight provides three options for dealing with an active shooter—run away from the shooter, seek a secure place where you can hide or “as a last resort when confronted by the shooter, adults in immediate danger should consider trying to disrupt or incapacitate the shooter by using aggressive force and items in their environment, such as fire extinguishers and chairs.”
School leaders and law enforcement officials say fighting back empowers faculty, who fear they will be helpless if a shooter attacks their classroom.
“Why would you just lie there, and just wait to – and I hate to use these words, because it’s not sensitive – and wait to be killed when there are so many other options out there?” Sgt. Nancy Wilkey of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s told the Orange County Register. “If someone is trying to hurt you, why wouldn’t you fight for your life?”
The news accounts out of Oregon indicate that the killer was armed with at least four firearms. Fire extinguishers are no match for firearms, and policy makers nationwide should take heed of President Barack Obama’s comments: “It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun.”
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book “The Executioner’s Toll, 2010” was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter at @MatthewTMangino.
To visit column CLICK HERE
The GateHouse Media
October 2, 2015
A man opened fire at Umpqua Community College in Oregon on Thursday. News reports said that nine people were killed and another nine were injured in the shooting.
Whether it’s a public school, college or university, leaders in buildings and on campuses are required not only to educate but to protect. The latter responsibility has been complicated by the random, senseless, violent rampages that have plagued schools across the country. Educators, law enforcement and parents are looking for answers.
For students educated in a post-Columbine America, the idea that they must prepare for bad people who open fire in classrooms, school libraries and playgrounds has become routine, reported the Los Angeles Times several years ago.
The tragedies stretch from Umpqua to Newtown and are repeated in cities and towns from coast to coast. The response to these catastrophic events by police and educators has evolved over the years.
The U.S. Department of Education has promoted a tactic for teachers and students to deal with an active shooter —“Run, hide or fight.”
Studies of past school shootings show that students and staff who took action survived more than those who went into traditional lockdown and did nothing. In the 1999 Columbine High School shootings, most of the victims were shot in the library, where a teacher told students to get under desks and keep silent.
In the 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech, 30 people died in classrooms on one floor. Of those, 28 were in classrooms where students and instructors did not actively resist or try to escape the gunman. Other students and instructors saved lives by barricading doors or jumping out of windows.
In the December 2012 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, survivors included students whose teachers barricaded doors, including the use of a filing cabinet, and kids who ran from classrooms, though some students were shot as they fled.
Unfortunately, mass shootings have gone beyond the schoolyard. In 2012, a mass shooting occurred inside a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. The gunman, dressed in tactical clothing shot into the audience with multiple firearms. Twelve people were killed and 70 others were injured.
This past June, a mass shooting took place at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. During a prayer service, nine people were killed.
Run, hide or fight provides three options for dealing with an active shooter—run away from the shooter, seek a secure place where you can hide or “as a last resort when confronted by the shooter, adults in immediate danger should consider trying to disrupt or incapacitate the shooter by using aggressive force and items in their environment, such as fire extinguishers and chairs.”
School leaders and law enforcement officials say fighting back empowers faculty, who fear they will be helpless if a shooter attacks their classroom.
“Why would you just lie there, and just wait to – and I hate to use these words, because it’s not sensitive – and wait to be killed when there are so many other options out there?” Sgt. Nancy Wilkey of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s told the Orange County Register. “If someone is trying to hurt you, why wouldn’t you fight for your life?”
The news accounts out of Oregon indicate that the killer was armed with at least four firearms. Fire extinguishers are no match for firearms, and policy makers nationwide should take heed of President Barack Obama’s comments: “It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun.”
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book “The Executioner’s Toll, 2010” was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter at @MatthewTMangino.
To visit column CLICK HERE
Friday, October 2, 2015
Virginia carries out first execution in three years
The 22nd Execution of 2015
Alfredo Prieto was executed at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarrat, Virginia on Thursday, October 1, 2015, reported The Associated Press. The 49-year-old was injected with a lethal three-drug combination, including the sedative pentobarbital, which Virginia received from Texas.
Prieto, wearing jeans and a light blue shirt, showed no emotion as he was strapped to the gurney.
"I would like to say thanks to all my lawyers, all my supporters and all my family members," he said, before mumbling, "Get this over with."
The El Salvador native was sentenced to death in Virginia in 2010 for the murder of a young couple more than two decades earlier. Rachael Raver and her boyfriend, Warren Fulton III, both 22, were found shot to death in a wooded area a few days after being seen at a Washington, D.C., nightspot.
Prieto was on death row in California at the time for raping and murdering a 15-year-old girl and was linked to the Virginia slayings through DNA evidence. California officials agreed to send him to Virginia on the rationale that it was more likely to carry out the execution.
He has been connected to as many as six other killings in California and Virginia, authorities have said, but he was never prosecuted because he had already been sentenced to death.
Prieto had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, saying he's intellectually disabled, and therefore ineligible for the death penalty. But the high court declined to grant his requests to stay the execution.
His attorneys argued that the state should reconsider whether Prieto is intellectually disabled because the measure used during his 2008 trial was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled last year that Florida can't use rigid cutoffs on IQ test scores to determine whether someone is intellectually disabled. Virginia had a nearly identical law.
To read more CLICK HERE
Alfredo Prieto was executed at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarrat, Virginia on Thursday, October 1, 2015, reported The Associated Press. The 49-year-old was injected with a lethal three-drug combination, including the sedative pentobarbital, which Virginia received from Texas.
Prieto, wearing jeans and a light blue shirt, showed no emotion as he was strapped to the gurney.
"I would like to say thanks to all my lawyers, all my supporters and all my family members," he said, before mumbling, "Get this over with."
The El Salvador native was sentenced to death in Virginia in 2010 for the murder of a young couple more than two decades earlier. Rachael Raver and her boyfriend, Warren Fulton III, both 22, were found shot to death in a wooded area a few days after being seen at a Washington, D.C., nightspot.
Prieto was on death row in California at the time for raping and murdering a 15-year-old girl and was linked to the Virginia slayings through DNA evidence. California officials agreed to send him to Virginia on the rationale that it was more likely to carry out the execution.
He has been connected to as many as six other killings in California and Virginia, authorities have said, but he was never prosecuted because he had already been sentenced to death.
Prieto had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, saying he's intellectually disabled, and therefore ineligible for the death penalty. But the high court declined to grant his requests to stay the execution.
His attorneys argued that the state should reconsider whether Prieto is intellectually disabled because the measure used during his 2008 trial was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled last year that Florida can't use rigid cutoffs on IQ test scores to determine whether someone is intellectually disabled. Virginia had a nearly identical law.
To read more CLICK HERE
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Deaths in high speed police chases drastically under reported
The U.S. government has drastically understated the number of people killed in high-speed police car chases, potentially by thousands of fatalities over several decades, a USA TODAY investigation shows.
TheNational Highway Traffic Safety Administration overlooked at least 101 motor-vehicle deaths in 2013 that were related to a police chase, according to a USA TODAY review of police reports and internal documents, court records, police-car videos and news accounts based on police statements. NHTSA's count of 322 chase-related deaths in 2013 — the most recent year for which its records are publicly available — understates the total by at least 31%, the investigation shows.
NHTSA's undercount suggests that the actual number of people killed in police chases since 1979 could be more than 15,000 — far more than the 11,506 chase-related deaths found in the agency's public records — and that chases result in a death much more frequently than studies have stated.
The findings expose potentially major flaws in how the federal government tracks motor-vehicle fatalities and, to a lesser extent, how police document high-speed chases, which often result in innocent people being killed and have been sharply restricted in some cities. USA TODAY reported in July that as many as one-fourth of those killed were bystanders and another one-fourth were passengers in cars fleeing police.
To read more CLICK HERE
The
NHTSA's undercount suggests that the actual number of people killed in police chases since 1979 could be more than 15,000 — far more than the 11,506 chase-related deaths found in the agency's public records — and that chases result in a death much more frequently than studies have stated.
The findings expose potentially major flaws in how the federal government tracks motor-vehicle fatalities and, to a lesser extent, how police document high-speed chases, which often result in innocent people being killed and have been sharply restricted in some cities. USA TODAY reported in July that as many as one-fourth of those killed were bystanders and another one-fourth were passengers in cars fleeing police.
To read more CLICK HERE
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