An Arizona state lawmaker wants to make criminals out of some people who take videos of cops questioning or arresting someone.

The proposal by Sen.

, R-Fountain Hills, would bar shooting video within 20 feet of any “law enforcement activity” unless the officer first gave permission. A first offense would carry a $300 fine, with subsequent violations potentially sending someone to jail for up to six months.

Daniel Pochoda with the American Civil Liberties Union says SB1054 is a violation of First Amendment rights. And attorney Daniel Barr who handles media issues questioned the need for such a restriction.

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But Kavanagh, a retired police officer, insisted he’s not trying to cloak law enforcement activity from public view.

He said people are free to stand 21 feet away. And he rejected contentions that someone standing that far back might not be able to record important details, like whether someone was reaching for a gun or a cell phone.

“Most cameras have great resolution where you don’t really lose anything when you’re 20 feet away,” Kavanagh argued. “At 20 feet you can pretty much pick up small objects.”

What’s behind the measure, he said, is the safety of police officers who may be doing anything from questioning a suspicious person to making an arrest.

“Having one or more persons suddenly walking up behind and around them with cameras is a distraction,” Kavanagh said.

“The officer doesn’t know if this is somebody who’s a friend of the individual he’s doing law enforcement action against or what,” he continued. “But it distracts the officer which creates a safety problem for the officer.”

“So we’re going to make it a crime?” Barr responded.

“If you’re actually interfering with them in some way, interfering with his movement or something like that, I can see that you can be sanctioned for that,” he continued, saying there already are laws on the books to cover that situation. “Whether you’re filming him or not has nothing to do with it.

Kavanagh disagreed, insisting that those trying to get videos are a special problem.

“They aren’t just standing or walking by,” he said.

“With video, you stand near and you point and you change your perspective to get a better shot,” Kavanagh continued. “It’s a much more intimate interaction than an ordinary citizen watching the cops do something.”

Pochoda said the whole question of what might distract a police officer ignores the underlying issue.

“There is a clearly established First Amendment right for citizens — or anyone, you don’t have to be a citizen — to record public activities of law enforcement,” he said. “You don’t have to be a professional journalist to possess this First Amendment right.”

He acknowledged that courts have allowed infringements on that right, but only if there is a “demonstrable need.”

“You can’t just have this automatic arbitrary number,” Pochoda said, referring to that 20-foot video-free zone. He said those who interfere with police can always be detained.

“There’s nothing magic about 20 feet, that you’ll always be interfering if you’re less than 20 feet and never if you’re past 20 feet,” Pochoda said.

He also said that, as crafted, the measure could totally obliterate the right of individuals to videotape police activity if the only way to record it is to be within 20 feet, such as an arrest in an alley.

Barr said there’s another particular flaw in the proposal.

As written, it would make a criminal out of those who take out a cell phone to videotape their own questioning by police as, by definition, they would be within 20 feet of what’s happening.

Kavanagh, however, doesn’t see that as a problem, saying there’s no inherent right to videotape your own interaction, particularly if that’s an arrest.

“If you’re the subject of a law enforcement activity, you’ve got to submit to the authority of the police officer, put your hands on the car, keep your hands out of your pocket,” he said. “You don’t pretend that the cop’s not there so you can do whatever you want.”

But Kavanagh conceded that an absolute ban on taping one’s own interaction with police might not be justified if an officer is simply asking questions. He said it might be necessary to amend his legislation when it comes up for a hearing.

An Oregon fan is detained by Tempe police for fighting with an Arizona State fan on Mill Avenue following the Ducks’ victory over the Sun Devils. (Michael Arellano/Emerald)

Tempe taxpayers will pony up nearly a quarter of a million dollars to settle a lawsuit over excessive force brought by a taxicab driver against the city’s Police Department.

The City Council unanimously approved a $237,500 payout last week for Aden Ali to settle his 2013 lawsuit, which alleged a Tempe police officer broke Ali’s elbow and kneecap.

The incident originated from a late-night altercation between Ali and an unruly passenger in his cab.

On Feb. 12, 2012, Ali picked up a man near Sixth Street and Mill Avenue about 2 a.m.

The man became belligerent over how the fare should be calculated, and the two men eventually wound up in a physical confrontation in the street, according to court records.

Two Tempe bike officers responded to the fight.

One officer handcuffed the passenger, who was White, without incident, while the second officer “went directly to the black man … picked him up by his clothes and threw him to the ground, jumped on his back and handcuffed him,” according to court records.

Ali was eventually taken to a hospital for treatment.

The lawsuit contends the officer’s rough takedown broke Ali’s left elbow and left kneecap, with both injuries requiring surgery.

The city rejected the allegation that the officer caused Ali’s injures.

Instead, the city contends Ali’s injuries stemmed from the fight with his passenger.

Although the city decided to settle the lawsuit, it denies liability.

“In agreeing to settle this civil litigation matter, the City of Tempe, on behalf of itself and on behalf of its officer, does not, under any circumstance, accept any liability for the allegations made by the Plaintiff in its Complaint and specifically denies that the City and/or its officer violated any standard or protocol in relation to the suit,” read an e-mail statement from Tempe’s City Attorney’s Office to The Arizona Republic.

Ali originally sought $1.5 million from the city.

Over the 4th of July weekend, riots broke out at a private state prison near Kingman, Arizona. Special forces were called in to restore order. Now, a new report says that the government’s response may have been worse than the riots themselves.

The new report from the American Friends Service Committee on the Kingman riot, the law enforcement response, and the aftermath, raises doubts about Arizona’s private prison operators’ ability to run facilities that are “safe, cost effective, humanely run, and accountable to the public.” State legislators there are currently considering accepting bids for private prisons to hold 2,000 more prisoners. The report says that MTC, the company that ran the 3,500-bed Kingman prison, had had a history of security problems in the facility, with more than a dozen instances in the past decade of of “large groups of inmates refusing directives or chasing MTC staff off the yard.” In 2010, the prison saw both an escape and a violent brawl in which 150 inmates participated.

In this riots, which spread over two days, five officers were injured. Nearly 100 SWAT-style officers from the state Department of Corrections were called in to quell the disturbance, and more than 1,000 prisoners eventually had to be transferred to other facilities due to property damage. But here is where the narrative gets interesting: “By most accounts, it is clear that the riots were motivated by prisoner frustration with MTC’s management and the actions of its guards. This frustration was directed at the physical facilities themselves. There were no altercations among prisoners.”

In fact, the report says that the riot was not only spurred by inmate anger at the brutality of guards (such as routine and unnecessary overuse of pepper spray), but that the law enforcement reaction to the riot was itself brutal, “to the point where prisoners who were completely incapacitated were still being beaten, tazed, and shot with rubber bullets.” Here is a portion of one prisoner’s account of what happened:

They guy next to me didn’t speak any English and when they came to his house and told him to get up off the ground and he didn’t respond they kicked him in the head and shot him twice and screamed at him again and again to get up. I yelled that he doesn’t speak any English and they kicked him again and shot him 4 more times and said “Do you speak English now mother- [expletive]?” Still he didn’t move so they dragged him out.

The kid that came out right behind me had his head slammed in to the metal bars on the windows and had to get 8 staples in his head. He now has a 4 inch scar on his head… The man next to me was kicked so many times I thought they broke his ribs. A young black kid not far from me was on the ground and made the mistake of asking an officer to please loosen up his cuffs his hands were numb, the officer walked over kicked him in the face and told him to “shut up [expletive] and move your [expletive] ass closer to the guy next to you.”

If a few state prisoners won a few million dollars in lawsuits due to police brutality, you can believe that private prisons would do a better job of discouraging police brutality. As it is now, it’s still profitable.

[The full report. Photo via AP]

A Phoenix cop is back on patrol after he was fired for using “excessive force.”

Four months ago, the police chief terminated Officer Kevin McGowan for kicking out a suspect’s teeth.

McGowan appealed and on Thursday, the city’s Civil Service Board voted to reinstate him.

The incident in question was all caught on surveillance video. It shows McGowan using what’s called a “kick-strike” to restrain and handcuff 18-year-old, Patrick D’Labik, who says he was a victim of police brutality.

“I didn’t really feel it at first. I just tasted blood,” he says. “Then, as soon as I spit, I realized my teeth was out.”

The officer says he just wanted to question the teen, who was spotted with a possible murder suspect. But, D’Labik admitted to ABC15 he took off because he had weed in his pocket and he didn’t want to go to jail.

The officer says he was forced to use excessive measures because the teen wasn’t listening to his commands.

In a police interrogation video, McGowan is heard telling investigators, “At a certain point, I couldn’t see his hands. So, I took a strike to his shoulder so I could control his hand and take him into custody.”

McGowan’s supporters say the 43-second footage doesn’t show the entire story and the Civil Service Board was right to consider all the elements of the case.

Of course, the incident highlights an emerging issue facing officers, who are increasingly scrutinized by smartphones, body cameras and security videos. Even dramatic video footage from this incident proves these situations can be subject to interpretation.

But, this may not be over. Reportedly, the case could be reopened.

A visual representation of approximately $1 billion, stacked in $100 bills

Bad policing has cost American taxpayers more than $1 billion, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. WSJ reporters Zusha Elinson and Dan Frosch conducted an in-depth study of public records and found the cost of settling police misconduct cases has almost doubled over a five-year period.

“The 10 cities with the largest police departments paid out $248.7 million last year in settlements and court judgments in police-misconduct cases, up 48 percent from $168.3 million in 2010, according to data gathered by The Wall Street Journal through public-records requests,” reported the WSJ. “Those cities collectively paid out $1.02 billion over those five years in such cases, which include alleged beatings, shootings and wrongful imprisonment.”

Ultimately, taxpayers end up footing the bill for these settlements. Cities either pay the legal costs by self insuring, with the money coming from city funds, or the cases are handled by insurance companies. But just like car insurance, the more claims filed, the higher the premium. However, officers rarely end up paying out of their pockets for bad behavior. Notorious Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has managed to fend off several decades of lawsuits, because the county picks up the tab. The Arizona Republic reported lawsuits against the Maricopa sheriff’s department have cost the county $44 million. And that’s one of the reasons why Arpaio stays in office. The minute he retires, he becomes responsible for the legal costs, according to a Salon article.

Of all the the cities tracked by the WSJ, New York had the costliest police department, racking up $601.3 million in legal costs over five years. Payments for settlements and judgments jumped from $93.8 in fiscal year 2013 to $165 million in 2014, reported the WSJ. The city recently paid the family of Eric Garner, who was choked to death during an altercation with Staten Island police, a $5.9 million settlement.

Sometimes incidents of police abuse are so blatant municipalities want to settle the cases quickly to stop bad publicity. The County of San Bernardino took two weeks to pay Francis Pusok $650,000 after a news helicopter captured sheriff’s deputies kicking and punching him. Pusok didn’t even have time to file a lawsuit before he received a cash settlement.

While some legal experts say the prevalence of camera phones is capturing more cases of police misconduct, that’s not always the case. Municipalities are still paying for decades-old cases of police abuse.

“New York City agreed last year to pay $41 million to five Black and Hispanic men imprisoned for the 1989 beating and rape of a jogger in Central Park, then freed after another man confessed and DNA evidence confirmed his story,” reported the WSJ. “In 2013 and 2014, for example, Chicago paid more than $60 million in cases where people were wrongfully imprisoned decades ago because of alleged police misconduct.”

However, the problem of expensive police misconduct cases is not just confined to big cities. Albuquerque, N.M. also has a police department with a troubling record of human rights abuses.

“The city of about 550,000 has had a high number of fatal police shootings and has spent more than $25 million on civil-rights and police-misconduct settlements over the past five years, with annual payouts nearly quadrupling over that period,” reported the WSJ. “Earlier this month, Albuquerque officials reached a $5 million settlement with the family of James Boyd, a mentally unstable homeless man who was shot by police in 2014 in an incident captured on video.”

Unfortunately, there seems to be a disconnect between the public and the police. Taxpayers don’t seem to realize they are footing the bill for bad policing.

“Civil suits can win financial settlements. But maybe it’s time for taxpayers to start insisting their elected officials invest in better-trained police officers who avoid costly lawsuits,” suggested an Atlanta Black Star article.

Written by Manny Otika and featured on Atlanta Black Star

It seemed fitting somehow that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s unmasking this week came on the anniversary of Senate Bill 1070.

On the day that marks a largely irrelevant law that was mostly struck down as unconstitutional, Arpaio took his own giant step toward irrelevance on Thursday.

America’s scariest sheriff admitted that he’d hired an investigator to investigate the Department of Justice, which at the time was investigating him and his top deputies for abuse of power. And he admitted that his attorney hired an investigator to investigate the wife of the federal judge who nailed the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office for engaging in widespread racial profiling of Latino drivers.

The judge who is now considering whether to refer Arpaio to prosecutors for criminal contempt charges.

Generally speaking, it’s not nice to try to intimidate federal authorities. But then again, intimidation has been the name of Arpaio’s sleazy game for years.

Just ask Dan Saban, who ran against Arpaio in 2004 and found himself the subject of a rape investigation. Arpaio opened a criminal investigation in a 30-year-old allegation that Saban, then 17, had raped his adoptive mother. Saban claimed he was the victim. Regardless, the statute of limitations had run out but not the statute of intimidation. Saban lost the election. He sued for defamation and lost but it cost us well over $800,000 to defend Arpaio.

Just ask former Maricopa County Schools Superintendent Sandra Dowling, whose home was invaded in 2006 by the sheriff’s SWAT team, in search of evidence that she’d been stealing, basically, from homeless children. She was later convicted of a misdemeanor, for giving her daughter a summer job. That one cost us $250,000.

Just ask Phoenix New Times founders Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, arrested in 2007 in the dead of night after writing a piece critical of Arpaio’s sidekick, then-Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas. That one cost us $3.75 million.

Just ask former Maricopa County Supervisors Mary Rose Wilcox, former Supervisor Don Stapley, former Superior Court Judges Gary Donahoe, Ken Fields, Barbara Mundell and Anna Baca, and a collection of county employees. Arpaio and Thomas in 2008 and 2009 launched a series of corruption investigations, indicting Wilcox, Stapley and Donahoe and accusing the others of racketeering. All charges/accusations were dismissed in 2010. Cost to taxpayers; $7.5 million.

On Thursday, Apaio admitted that his attorney hired a private detective to investigate the wife of U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow, who held this week’s civil contempt hearing. This, after a tipster said she’d told him that her husband “wanted to do everything to make sure I’m not elected.”

Arpaio also admitted hiring an unreliable informant to investigate some vague tip that the Department of Justice was spying on his e-mails and the e-mails of judges. This, as the FBI was conducting an abuse-of-power investigation into Team Arpaio’s tactics.

As alarming as it is to have a sheriff who runs around using his power to get back at his enemies, it’s also alarming to have one who apparently doesn’t have a clue what’s going on in the office he runs.

Or so he suggested during Thursday’s testimony.

Arpaio testified that he didn’t really understand Snow’s injunction – the one ordering him to stop his immigration patrols in 2011.

“I’ve been a top federal official for 22 years. I have a deep respect for the courts, federal courts and federal judges,” he told the judge. “I didn’t know all the facts of this court order, and it really hurts me that after 55 years… to be in this position. So I want to apologize to the judge that I should have known more. This court order slipped through the cracks.”

The court order slipped through the cracks? For 18 months?

Arpaio is either lying or he’s admitting that at at 82, he’s no longer able to do the job.

Either way, he should resign.

Arpaio’s day is done. His America’s-toughest-sheriff, I’m-the-only-one-enforcing-immigration-laws schtick long ago went sour and the people of Arizona – the ones outside the Joe Choir – now have seen at exactly who and what Arpaio is.

A bully with a badge.

A fired Phoenix police detective is asking for his job back in the wake of an investigation into alleged police brutality.

“I just tasted the blood,” said 18-year-old Patrick D’Labik, remembering the moment Detective Kevin McGowan stomped D’Labik’s back, sending his face into a convenience store floor.

“As soon as I spit, I realized my teeth was out,” D’Labik said.

McGowan told police internal affairs investigators that he stomped D’Labik’s back because he was not obeying commands.

The incident, in late December of last year, began when McGowan stopped D’Labik, who was walking near 38th Street and McDowell Rd.

McGowan wanted to ask D’Labik if he had any information about a homicide suspect.

D’Labik, who feared the officer would discover the marijuana in his pocket, ran.

McGowan caught up with D’Labik in a convenience store. A surveillance video without audio shows McGowan, gun drawn, approaching D’Labik. D’Labik, who had his hands up, begins to get on the ground.  When he is in a “push up” position, McGowan stomps him in the upper back. That sent D’Labik’s face into the floor. He lost several teeth.

“There was no need for it at all,” D’Labik said. “It makes me angry and it still makes me angry.”

The Phoenix Police Department fired McGowan, a decision the detective is appealing through the City’s Civil Service Board.

A Phoenix police spokesman released the following statement:

The use of excessive force will not be tolerated by the Phoenix Police Department, but because this case is currently being appealed we cannot discuss the specifics and will respect the civil service process.”

McGowan’s personnel file shows that the department hired him in late 1997.  Of a handful of complaints against him, only one was substantiated.  He received a written reprimand after shoving a citizen in 2013 after the citizen got in his “personal space.

McGowan’s attorney released this statement:

Officer McGowan is a decorated 17-year veteran of the Department. He earned dozens of commendations and has no significant prior discipline. The video obtained by the media does not show the complete series of events related to this detention/arrest.

The entirety of this incident, including the video, was reviewed by an independent expert and by a panel of attorneys at the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

These reviews resulted in a determination that no crime was committed by Officer McGowan. Officer McGowan filed an appeal of his termination and is looking forward to being reinstated to complete his career with the Phoenix Police Department.

Officer McGowan will not be giving any interviews related to this incident, and this will be the only statement he will give related to this matter, as his appeal is currently pending before the Civil Service Board.