The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[Berkut]

In this case, as I understand it, the very people who control whether the footage would be saved are the same people responsible for the well being of the prisoner.

It doesn't take any great thinking on their part to assume that if someone dies in their care the footage is relevant and important in any possible case - if it shows neglect or abuse, it is important, and if it does NOT show neglect and abuse, THAT is important as well. For them - maybe even MORE important.

The fact that they erased it, or chose to allow it to be erased, should be looked on with great suspicion.

[CountDeMoney]

You continually insist on ascribing a certain amount of good judgement and good faith to individuals in a profession that consistently fail to demonstrate it.  You should stop that.

[Berkut]

True - one can always assume lack of competency rather than actual malice.

But when it comes to prisoners welfare, I think as a matter of policy we should probably assume lack of competency should be presumed as malice in any case, otherwise we will see more results like this one...

[DGuller]

When you are in position of power, incompetence is a sin in itself.

[Razgovory]

These are the jail guards.  Imagine all the worst applicants for the police department, the stupidest, the most inept, the most petty and sadistic and put them in one building.  They pay them a minimum wage and have them look after the well being of other human beings.

[11B4V]

That's a little broad brush.

Were these jailers contractor from a private company, state or county employees?

All the county jails are run by the Sherriff's department in WA State. They are not min wage workers averaging 25-30 an hour. WA State corrections is slightly lower.

Yea, they fucked up and are going to get hammered.

[Razgovory]

In Jefferson City, turnkeys are cops who couldn't make the cut.  And as demonstrated in the last few year Missouri cops aren't the best of the best.  We had a jailer who died on a fishing trip because he tried to swallow a live fish, which naturally lodged in his throat.

[11B4V]

In Jefferson City, turnkeys are cops who couldn't make the cut.  And as demonstrated in the last few year Missouri cops aren't the best of the best.  We had a jailer who died on a fishing trip because he tried to swallow a live fish, which naturally lodged in his throat.

Sounds like y'all got issues in MO.

[jimmy olsen]

San Francisco chief resigns after third shooting if unarmed victim in 5 months.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sfpd-mayor-chief-resign-scandals-20160519-snap-story.html

[The Minsky Moment]

DVRs always record over previous material, and it is not reviewed unless there is a reason to review it.  The article takes a few potshots at the technology, when all it's really doing is what it's supposed to do.  Now, whether they should have preserved the video in this case sounds more along the the theme that they didn't know/didn't care about the health and wellbeing of this prisoner.  If nobody writes a report, if nobody calls for outside agency help, if nobody sends it up the chain to address, then not retaining video is no big surprise.

They got a timely preservation notice from the family's attorney and apparently ignored it.  That is usually ground for sanction, up to and potentially including an adverse factual inference.

Not to mention that if no policy exists to cancel the record-over in the event of an inmate death, it is yet more evidence of improper policies and procedures.

[CountDeMoney]

They got a timely preservation notice from the family's attorney and apparently ignored it.  That is usually ground for sanction, up to and potentially including an adverse factual inference.

The Times-Dispatch requested a copy of the video outside his cell through a Freedom of Information Act request, but the request was denied because the video does not exist.
"There is no security footage taken outside of Mr. Mitchell's cell during his incarceration at Hampton Roads Regional Jail," Superintendent David L. Simons wrote in a response to The Times-Dispatch's request.
When asked to clarify whether or not such video existed, Taylor said the video taken at the time Mitchell was incarcerated was part of an old system that automatically recorded over existing video every 18 days.
Fourteen days after Mitchell died, Krudys said his office hand-delivered a letter addressed to Simons that requested the jail preserve "all records, documents ... videos and other electronic/digital media, and all other tangible things concerning Mr. Mitchell."
Krudys provided a copy of the Sept. 2 letter last week to The Times-Dispatch after he was told the video no longer existed.
He said the jail was obligated to have kept, at the very least, the last four days of Mitchell's life — a critical time period that would have shown what kind of medical care he received in his cell — because his firm delivered its request to preserve records 14 days into the 18-day loop.

http://www.richmond.com/news/article_b6c51cce-7d99-555e-86df-bab012b52162.html

I'm not sure exactly how "timely" a "timely preservation notice" is expected to be in that bureaucratic monkeyfuck, delivered on Day 14 of an alleged 18-day video loop (which isn't really how these systems work, even older analog systems, but that's for another show), especially if they have this kind of time-space continuum down there--

The Portsmouth General District Court told investigators it mailed the judge's order — known as a competency restoration order — to Eastern State Hospital near Williamsburg on May 27, six days after a judge issued it, according to the report, issued by the state Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services.
Investigators found no evidence the order was mailed or faxed or that it was received.
Another copy of the order was faxed to Eastern State on July 31, but none of the weekly logs of inmates waiting for a bed prepared on Aug. 4, Aug. 11 or Aug. 18 contained Mitchell's name, according to the report.
An "overwhelmed" state employee placed the order in a desk drawer when she received the fax instead of adding Mitchell to the waiting list. The drawer contained a "significant number of CROs that had not been entered," according to the report, but it does not identify how many.
The employee's identity has been redacted from the report, but it says she was "astonished and distraught" when she found the file in her desk on Aug. 24, five days after Mitchell's death. She retired from Eastern State about a month later.

Yes.  Overwhelmed.

Not to mention that if no policy exists to cancel the record-over in the event of an inmate death, it is yet more evidence of improper policies and procedures.

Brilliant, Holmes.  You're on to something here.

Yesterday's front page story for The Virginian-Pilot--

Public wasn't notified when inmate committed suicide in Hampton Roads Regional jail last year
The Hampton Roads Regional Jail failed to inform the public that an inmate committed suicide in April 2015, making it at least two deaths that occurred in the facility last year that came to light only when people who knew the inmates reached out to the media.

http://pilotonline.com/news/inmate-committed-suicide-in-hampton-roads-regional-jail-last-year/article_90782f4a-264e-518e-a77d-ff696e229f20.html

[garbon]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/verdict-expected-freddie-gray-officer-trial-baltimore-074526009.html

Officer acquitted on all charges in Freddie Gray case

A Baltimore officer was acquitted Monday of assault and other charges in the arrest of Freddie Gray, dealing prosecutors a significant blow in their attempt to hold police accountable for the young black man's death from injuries he suffered in the back of a police van.

A judge also found Officer Edward Nero not guilty of reckless endangerment and misconduct in office. As the verdict was read, Nero dropped his head down and his attorney placed a hand on his back. The courtroom was quiet. Nero stood up and hugged his attorney, and was visibly emotional.

The assault charge carried a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and reckless endangerment carried a punishment of up to five years.

Gray died April 19, 2015, a week after his neck was broken in the back of a police transport van while he was handcuffed and shackled but left unrestrained by a seat belt.

Nero was one of six officers charged in the case. He waived his right to a jury trial, opting instead to argue his case before Circuit Judge Barry Williams. A jury trial was held for Officer William Porter late last year, and the panel could not reach a decision on manslaughter and other charges.

Gray's death set off more than a week of protests followed by looting, rioting and arson that prompted a citywide curfew. His name became a rallying cry in the growing national conversation about the treatment of black men by police officers.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a statement that Nero will still face an administrative review by the police department.

"We once again ask the citizens to be patient and to allow the entire process to come to a conclusion. In the case of any disturbance in the city, we are prepared to respond. We will protect our neighborhoods, our businesses and the people of our city," she said.

About a dozen protesters gathered outside the courthouse as the verdict was read.

Prosecutors said Nero unlawfully detained Gray and acted callously when he made a decision not to buckle Gray into a seat belt when he was loaded into the back of a transport vehicle.

Nero's attorney argued his client didn't arrest Gray and that it was the police van driver's responsibility to buckle in detainees. The defense also said the officers who responded that day acted responsibly, and called witnesses to bolster their argument that any reasonable officer in Nero's position would have made the same decisions.

The defense said the department's order requiring that all inmates be strapped in is more suggestion than rule because officers are expected to act with discretion based on the circumstances of each situation.

The other officers are set to each have separate trials over the summer and into the fall. Nero is white and Porter is black. Two of the other officers charged in the case are white and two are black.

[The Brain]

Who the fuck says Nero these days? It's Italian-American.

[Berkut]

I hesitate to comment on legal matters - usually it turns out that the reality is a lot more rational than the headline, which is hard to reconcile.

It is hard to understand how a police officer who takes a suspect into custody is then not responsible for that safety of that suspect, especially around something as trivial as putting a fucking seatbelt on him - and that is ignoring the accusations that this was used a way of intentionally roughing up suspects.

[CountDeMoney]

You continually insist on ascribing a certain amount of good judgement and good faith to individuals in a profession that consistently fail to demonstrate it.  You should stop that.