Police Shootings / Possible Abuse Threads [merged]

Previous Next
Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials concluded that two deputies acted within department policy when they confronted and one of them shot Isaias Cervantes, a mentally disabled man in his home in 2021. A corrective action plan (at least, the portion that is public) identified nothing in sheriff's policies or procedures that needs to be changed to prevent a similar shooting.

So it seems incongruous that county lawyers are suggesting that the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday sign off on an astounding $25 million to settle a lawsuit brought on behalf of Cervantes, who was paralyzed as a result of the March 31, 2021, shooting.

That’s a huge payout, even for Los Angeles County, which spent $257 million on legal settlements and judgments last year. More than half of that amount was attributable to lawsuits against the Sheriff’s Department. Liabilities that run that high signal serious problems in county policies and employee conduct. They should be accompanied by meaningful improvements.

But the summary corrective action plan notes no department-wide or systemic changes, and no response beyond reminding personnel of department protocols.

Department use-of-force investigators and county officials cited problems at several stages of the response, including the failure of desk personnel to ask about the nature of Cervantes’ mental impairment and the failure to send a Mental Evaluation Team as part of the response.

Once deputies arrived on the scene, though, they were deemed to have done nothing officially wrong. Similar conclusions have been reached in many other cases, in L.A. and around the country, in which families called for assistance with a mentally disabled or disturbed relative, beginning a series of entirely foreseeable events that concluded with law enforcement officers killing or seriously injuring the person they were there ostensibly to help.

The Cervantes case was unusual in that the shooting victim survived. To add insult to serious injury, the Sheriff’s Department asked the district attorney to charge Cervantes with assault and resisting arrest — although there was no arrest. Prosecutors declined. Nor did they charge the deputies.

The Board of Supervisors generally signs off on lawsuit settlements, even huge ones like the Cervantes case, without comment to the public. That may satisfy the Sheriff’s Department and county lawyers, but it leaves taxpayers holding the bag without assurance that the county will try to prevent a recurrence. And it exposes a continuing gulf between citizens who call for service and law enforcement personnel who respond...........



Editorial: Sheriff's shooting costs taxpayers $25 million. Where's the accountability?

Deputies' shooting of Isaias Cervantes in his own home will probably cost Los Angeles County $25 million without spurring a change in training or tactics to prevent something similar from happening again.
www.latimes.com
 

Reefer madness

NATCHEZ, Miss. — A federal court in Mississippi ruled against two police officers who conducted a warrantless search of the home of two convenience store employees. They had probable cause to search the store for illegal marijuana, but not the home, and the deputy who led the raid is denied...
www.courthousenews.com
 
Eeyore said:

Reefer madness

NATCHEZ, Miss. — A federal court in Mississippi ruled against two police officers who conducted a warrantless search of the home of two convenience store employees. They had probable cause to search the store for illegal marijuana, but not the home, and the deputy who led the raid is denied...
www.courthousenews.com
Click to expand...
he should have been arrested for breaking an entering and trespassing..
 
Dexter Reed’s mother remembers the last time she saw her son alive. “Mom, I’m going for a ride,” he told her, before heading out in the car that he had purchased just three days earlier.


Reed, 26, was killed that same day, when tactical-unit police officers fired 96 bullets at him within 41 seconds, according to Chicago’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability, or COPA, which investigates allegations of police misconduct and police shootings.

“He was just riding around in his car,” Dexter’s mother, Nicole Banks, told Fox 32 Chicago on Tuesday, as she broke down in tears. “They killed him.”


COPA released video footage of the shooting Tuesday and said its investigation of the “officers’ use of deadly force” on March 21 remains ongoing.

The Chicago Police Department told CNN that it was cooperating with COPA’s investigation and that it “cannot make a determination on this shooting until all the facts are known and this investigation has concluded.”

The department did not immediately respond for a request for comment from The Washington Post.

According to COPA, police stopped Reed “for purportedly not wearing a seatbelt.” In several body-cam videos, multiple officers can be seen exiting an unmarked vehicle and surrounding Reed’s car, which had tinted windows…….

 
Optimus Prime said:
Dexter Reed’s mother remembers the last time she saw her son alive. “Mom, I’m going for a ride,” he told her, before heading out in the car that he had purchased just three days earlier.


Reed, 26, was killed that same day, when tactical-unit police officers fired 96 bullets at him within 41 seconds, according to Chicago’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability, or COPA, which investigates allegations of police misconduct and police shootings.

“He was just riding around in his car,” Dexter’s mother, Nicole Banks, told Fox 32 Chicago on Tuesday, as she broke down in tears. “They killed him.”


COPA released video footage of the shooting Tuesday and said its investigation of the “officers’ use of deadly force” on March 21 remains ongoing.

The Chicago Police Department told CNN that it was cooperating with COPA’s investigation and that it “cannot make a determination on this shooting until all the facts are known and this investigation has concluded.”

The department did not immediately respond for a request for comment from The Washington Post.

According to COPA, police stopped Reed “for purportedly not wearing a seatbelt.” In several body-cam videos, multiple officers can be seen exiting an unmarked vehicle and surrounding Reed’s car, which had tinted windows…….

Click to expand...

Watchdog chief questions whether Chicago cops lied about why they stopped Dexter Reed before killing him in exchange of gunfire

COPA Chief Administrator Andrea Kersten raised “grave concerns" about the officers in a letter to police Supt. Larry Snelling last week, days before her agency released video it said showed the officers firing roughly 96 shots in just 41 seconds after Reed shot one of them during a traffic stop.
chicago.suntimes.com

Body-worn camera footage released by COPA on Tuesday shows that Reed, 26, resisted orders to roll down his car windows and open the door. As officers shouted at him, Reed opened fire and struck one of the officers in the hand, COPA said.
Click to expand...
 
I have read he had felony gun charges and fired at cops first.
 
A Los Angeles police officer who fatally shot a 14-year-old girl inside a clothing store in 2021 will not face charges, the California attorney general announced on Wednesday.

Valentina Orellana-Peralta was shopping with her mother at a north Hollywood Burlington Coat Factory on 23 December 2021 when the LAPD entered to apprehend a man suspected of attacking customers in the store.

When officer William Dorsey Jones Jr fired three rounds at the man, Valentina was in a nearby dressing room with her mother praying and was killed by Jones’s gunfire.

The killing just before Christmas sparked national outrage, and the California justice department has been investigating it for years, following state law requiring inquiries into all fatal police shootings of unarmed victims.


The California department of justice said on Wednesday that there was “insufficient evidence to support a criminal prosecution” of the officer.

The state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, released a report on the investigation, which recommended that the LAPD “consider updating their communication training bulletin and any related training to account for the type of situation presented during this event”.

The lack of charges comes despite an LA police commission ruling in 2022 that Jones had violated policy during the shooting, a rare rebuke from the civilian oversight group.

The commission said Jones’s second and third shots were not justified. Michel Moore, the police chief at the time, concluded that Jones should not have fired any of the shots and said it did not appear deadly force was “objectively reasonable or necessary”.

Body-camera footage of the shooting immediately raised concerns when it was released in 2021.

The video showed that as soon as Jones saw Daniel Elena Lopez, the 24-year-old who had assaulted customers, Jones fired three rounds in rapid succession.

It did not appear that Jones shouted commands at Elena Lopez or attempt to de-escalate before firing. Elena Lopez was also killed….

Los Angeles police officer who killed girl, 14, in department store will not face charges

William Dorsey Jones Jr shot and killed both a man who was attacking customers and Valentina Orellana-Peralta, who was hiding in a dressing room
www.theguardian.com
 
A Missouri judge awarded more than $23m to a former St Louis police officer who was beaten by other officers while working undercover at a protest in 2017.

On Monday Luther Hall was awarded the significant sum in a default judgment by Joseph Whyte, the St Louis circuit judge, after one of the defendants failed to respond to a lawsuit over the 2017 attack.

“Mr Hall had to endure this severe beating and while that was happening, he knew it was being administered by his colleagues who were sworn to serve and protect,” Whyte said.


Hall was severely injured by his own colleagues while undercover at a protest following the acquittal of Jason Stockley, a white police officer who shot and killed 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith, a Black man.

Hall was pinned to the ground by officers and beaten with a baton, suffering permanent injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder, Buzzfeed News reported.

Last year, the St Louis police department reopened an internal investigation into the incident, KSDK reported.

In a 2022 interview with KMOV, Hall said that officers at the 2017 demonstration were simply out to hurt protesters.

“I could have been anybody, but being Black definitely didn’t help,” Hall said.

Officers also lied on an incident report about Hall’s assault, writing that “Hall was knocked to the ground striking the concrete” as officers were making arrests.


Hall previously sued the city of St Louis in 2021 over the attack, later reaching a $5m settlement agreement.

In 2022 Hall sued three former law enforcement colleagues for their roles in the assault: Randy Hays, Dustin Boone and Christopher Myers, who are all white.

Hays did not respond to Hall’s lawsuit, despite being served while incarcerated for his role in the assault. In 2021, Hays was sentenced to four years in prison for using unreasonable and excessive force against Hall.

Boone was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for a civil rights charge related to the attack, the St Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Myers received probation for his role in the assault.

Hall’s claims against Boone and Myers are ongoing.…….

Former St Louis undercover officer gets $23m after beating by police colleagues

Luther Hall was severely injured by his own colleagues while undercover at a 2017 protest in Missouri
www.theguardian.com
 
Eeyore said:

York Daily Voice | Your Local News for York, Pennsylvania

York Daily Voice provides the latest community news written by award-winning editors and local reporters.
dailyvoice.com
Click to expand...
230 grains moving at about 800fps is all he deserves. I often wonder if killing someone like this is a sin. Would God forgive a person? If this is your child or grand child does God even exist to you now?

Honestly I am tired of hearing these stories. When do we as a society say fork it and show up at the jail with torches and a rope?

There is no reason these people should be walking earth.
 

Create an account or login to comment

You must be a member in order to leave a comment

Create account

Create an account on our community. It's easy!

Register

Log in

Already have an account? Log in here.

Previous Next

Share this page

 

Twitter

Back
Top Bottom