A protester blows smoke into the face of an Albuquerque Police Officer at Central and Yale during a free flowing protest march against APD on Sunday, March 30, 2014.(Greg Sorber/Albuquerque Journal)

The former records custodian for the Albuquerque Police Departmentfiled a whistleblower lawsuit Monday against several high-profile employees of the city of Albuquerque and its police department that claims he was forced by the police department to hide information from the public and was fired because he reported the misconduct.

Reynaldo Chavez, who was APD’s records custodian for four years before he was placed on leave from his position in April and subsequently fired in August, filed the suit, which claims the city violated the New Mexico Whistleblower Protection Act and breached Chavez’s contract.

In the lawsuit, Chavez argues that city leaders – specifically APD Chief Gorden Eden, Assistant Chief Robert Huntsman, supervisor Bill Slausen and former City Attorney Kathryn Levy – directed him to circumvent Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) law regarding several cases. The city of Albuquerque and APD are also named as defendants in the suit.

Chavez said in September in a notice to file the lawsuit that he was told to find “creative exceptions to prevent the production of records” by the defendants named in the lawsuit.

If Chavez’s claims are true, the misconduct would be blatant violations of public records law by some of the city’s top brass.

ALLEGED PUBLIC RECORDS RULEBREAKING BLATANT

In the lawsuit filed Monday, Chavez says that city and APD brass would decide which IPRA requests were “high profile” and would be directed for him to handle. Media requests, civilian requests and requests from lawyers were handled by two subsidiaries of his, as well as three employees contracted by APD from Select Staffing, Inc.

Some of the high-profile cases he handled were the Mary Han case, cases involving Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg, APD use of force cases, APD officer-involved shootings – including the James Boyd case, the Jaquise Lewis case, the Cedric Greer case and Jacob Grant’s, among several others.

The lawsuit says Chavez would have to gather all the records for those cases from multiple departments, then was required to seek approval from higher-ups to release the documents, even though they were required to be released under IPRA law.

The suit says the defendants would then tell Chavez to deny, withhold, obstruct, conceal or destroy records from being produced for various reasons.

Among the ways the lawsuit says the skirting would happen: Chavez would be told to deny requests without reason. It says Levy “frequently stated simply, ‘there are items we just will not release and we will just pay the fines or lawsuits.'”

At other times, the suit says, APD or city brass would tell Chavez to “creatively identify an allowable exception” to IPRA “in an effort to ‘baffle’ or frustrate the requester,” – and even try to find exceptions to the law to “arbitrarily delay…without justification” or altogether deny requests.

In one instance, according to the suit, Chavez was told by brass to overproduce materials to force requesters to sift through unnecessary material. Levy once told Chavez to give a KRQE reporter a box of records having nothing to do with her request in regards to the Department of Justice’s investigation into APD, according to the lawsuit.

Another portion of the lawsuit says APD and city brass chose when and to whom certain records would be released – often sending out “high profile” records to requesting parties and select media organizations just before weekends or holidays.

“Such coordination was designed to take advantage of reduced media exposure regarding the released materials,” the suit reads.

LAWSUIT MENTIONS SPECIFIC HIGH-PROFILE CASES

Chavez’s lawsuit goes on to cite specific high-profile cases in which APD and city brass specifically and blatantly broke public records law by ordering him to only released portions of the material required to be released under law.

Among those cases were the James Boyd shooting, former Chief Ray Schultz’s relationship with TASER International, public protests following the Boyd shooting in which plainclothes officers filmed citizens tied to previous officer shootings, Mary Han’s death and IPRA requests from civilians Silvio Dell-Angela and Charles Arasim – both who are often critical of APD.

In each case, Chavez says Eden and/or Levy, along with others, specifically directed him not to release certain documents or information that should have been released under IPRA law.

Chavez says he told the defendants that those actions would be in violation of the law and feared any legal matters that would come from breaking them would come back to him, but was allegedly told to do so anyway.

He signed a sworn affidavit in August saying he believed all the records relating to the Han case had been destroyed since the database was out of his possession.

SUIT CLAIMS PURPOSEFUL ENCRYPTION, SKIRTING OF DOJ

Chavez also chalks the brass’ actions up to “political calculations” in the lawsuit, saying they regularly tried to skirt IPRA law in order to not shed bad light on misconduct by city personnel or lose pending lawsuits against the city, among others.

The suit also says they purposely encrypted audio and video so requestors could not access the records given to them and even concealed records from the U.S. Department of Justice, which did and continues to investigate the Albuquerque Police Department under a settlement agreement.

CHAVEZ’S TEAM HAD ISSUES; HE CLAIMS HE WAS COLLATERAL DAMAGE   

Chavez was one of three employees from the police department’s public records division who was placed on leave in April. APD said at the time it was looking into allegations of unprofessional conduct, workplace safety and inadequate supervision involving Chavez and the two others.

But Chavez said at the time he had butted heads with his supervisor. His attorney at the time said she believed APD had violated his due process rights in its investigation into him.

Monday’s filing says the other two workers and three other contracted employees had multiple instances of repeatedly calling in sick without doctor’s notes, typographical errors in responses to requests, and having sexual relations with APD personnel, among others that caused him concern.

The suit says Chavez met with one of the contracted employees to tell her she needed a doctor’s note for a sick day. Hours later, the suit says, she complained to APD’s Force Investigation Team that Chavez had verbally, physically and sexually abused her.

Shortly thereafter, according to the suit, Chief Eden placed him on administrative leave.

A subsequent report on the investigation into the matter found Chavez tolerated sexual harassment among his subordinates and ridiculed APD, among other findings Chavez and his lawyer call “unsubstantiated.”

He was fired Aug. 20 and Javier Urban was named acting records custodian at the department.

Then, the woman who complained and initiated the investigation into him was fired for the reasons Chavez had already brought up as concerns, according to the suit.

CHAVEZ’S CLAIMS

Chavez says that the many alleged violations that he outlned in the suit, which led to his wrongful firing, constitute violations of the state’s Whistleblower Protection Act. The suit also claims civil conspiracy when the defendants worked together to discredit and retaliate against him.

He also claims the database he worked to build with all information regarding IPRA cases has likely been destroyed intentionally, citing a statement from APD spokesman Tanner Tixier saying it “doesn’t exist” and statements from the city that it has “taken steps to gather and preserve[d] the materials.”

The suit claims that since the city has known about a possible lawsuit since KOB’s report in May, the defendants “intended to disrupt or defeat a potential lawsuit as well as to cover up the facts that underline” the lawsuit, thus impacting Chavez’s ability to prove his case.

It also says that the city breached his contract by improperly firing him.

He is seeking damages from the alleged whistleblower violation, damages for emotional distress, punitive damages, lawyer fees and any further compensation the court would allow.

City Attorney Jessica Hernandez released the following statement to KOB in September when more information was released about the pending lawsuit:

“The City stands prepared to defend against these allegations and claims that records or evidence have been compromised. The city has already taken steps to collect, preserve, and analyze these records and we expect those allegations to be refuted in court. “

Lorenzo Davis, a former Supervising Investigator who was fired from his position at the Independent Police Review Authority poses for a portrait at his home in Chicago, Illinois July 21, 2015. Davis was terminated from his job after his employer said he refused to change his findings in Chicago police officers involved in cases on excessive force and officer involved shootings. (Joshua Lott for The Daily Beast)

CHICAGO — Three people killed by police in Chicago should be alive today, according to a retired cop who says he was fired for reaching that conclusion after investigating their deaths for the city.

If the allegations made by Lorenzo Davis are true, then the authority charged with investigating the Chicago Police Department for police shootings and claims of misconduct since 2007 can no longer be trusted.

Davis, a former supervisor at the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) who previously had a 23-year career with the Chicago Police Department, tells The Daily Beast that he was fired after refusing to obey orders to reverse his findings that police were not justified in shooting suspects six times in the past eight years. In three of those incidents, the suspects died.

“Bad shootings,” Davis says in police parlance for unjustified officer-involved shootings.

IPRA boss Scott Ando was responsible for the orders to reverse the findings, Davis said, adding that when Davis refused to whitewash the incidents, Ando fired him. Davis, despite his decades in law enforcement, was accused by Ando of having an “anti-police bias,” he said.

“He made it clear that supervisors there serve at his pleasure,” Davis said. “Our jobs are completely at-will. He doesn’t have to have a reason to fire us.”

IPRA spokesman Larry Meritt declined to comment directly on Davis’s allegations.

“This is a personnel matter, and it would be inappropriate to address it through the media,” Meritt said in a statement. “IPRA is committed to conducting fair, unbiased, objective, thorough and timely investigations of allegations of police misconduct and officer-involved shootings.”

Davis first went public to WBEZ radio in Chicago this week. While he wouldn’t mention which cases he had called into question because the investigations are ongoing, there are plenty to choose from, including several that have resulted in multimillion-dollar settlements with families of those killed by police.

“As many as 5 percent of police shootings [that IPRA investigates] are problematic,” Davis said.

Yet out of almost 400 police shootings investigated since 2007, IPRA has only found wrongdoing on the part of one officer. That’s not surprising to Davis, who said other investigators and supervisors in IPRA were overruled by Ando, the police department, or the police board when they concluded officers used lethal force without justification.

When IPRA finds that an officer is guilty of excessive force or unjustified in a shooting, it recommends disciplinary action—suspension, desk duty or firing, among other punishments. But that decision first must go through Ando before being considered by Superintendent Garry McCarthy and the police board, who can reject the recommendation.

A city agency, IPRA was created in 2007 after claims of corruption and distrust crippled its predecessor, the Office of Professional Standards. At its outset, hope was high that IPRA would help to change a police culture that some view as being abusive and torturous, Davis said. The agency’s former director, Ilana Rosenzweig, a California lawyer, fostered that sense of enthusiasm. But all that changed when an interim director that followed Rosenzweig was replaced by Scott Ando in 2014. Ando spent nearly 30 years with the Drug Enforcement Administration in Chicago before taking over IPRA.

With deep ties to law enforcement, Davis and others claim that Ando is nothing more than a puppet for McCarthy and Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Before Davis’s firing this month, Ando announced a new directive that stipulates how investigations of police shootings are assigned. According to Davis, officer-involved shooting investigations had previously been assigned randomly to one of 12 supervisors. (Those supervisors are in charge of IPRA’s 60 investigators, who, like detectives, dig into the minutiae of each incident.)

Now, Ando has hand-picked a single supervisor to oversee investigations of all police shootings, according to Davis. This is problematic, Davis said, because some supervisors fail to conduct thorough investigations and have never found wrongdoing on the part of officers despite tenures spanning the length of IPRA’s existence.

“That’s statistically improbable,” Davis said.

According to Davis, Ando wanted all IPRA employees to sign a nondisclosure agreement  that requires them not to talk about what police allegedly did, even if they left the agency.

IPRA investigators, protected by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union, did not sign Ando’s agreement. Supervisors (who are not unionized) were also asked, and Davis refused.

“To me, his policies and the way he runs IPRA, should be public,” Davis said of Ando.

There is no shortage of questionable police shootings for IPRA and the public to examine.

The most egregious appears to be the case of Laquan McDonald, a 17-year-old who was shot 16 times last year by at least one officer after the teen was found with a knife near a junkyard. Police said the officers were in fear for their lives, but an attorney for the McDonald family claims footage shows the teen walking away from police when they began firing. The video was apparently enough to prompt the city into a $5 million settlement with the family, on the condition that attorneys would not release the footage. McDonald’s family has seen the video and expressed their wishes that it be withheld from the public, fearing its release would cause Chicago to riot.

“Laquan McDonald is a very ugly shooting,” Davis said. “But they knew that if they had come out right away and released information on that shooting, you would have had demonstrations in Chicago.

“[McCarthy] should just admit that a bad shooting is a bad shooting,” Davis added. “If he doesn’t, then people will believe that it’s a cover-up.”

Police have tried to keep a lid on the McDonald case from the start. Not only did they confiscate surveillance footage from a nearby restaurant without a warrant, but audio is missing from the dashcam video showing McDonald’s death, attorneys announced last week.

In 2010, the city paid a similar $4.6 million settlement to the family of William Hope Jr., who was shot after police blocked him into a parking space and tried to take his keys from the ignition when the 25-year-old said he felt he was being unlawfully detained. One officer fired several rounds, killing Hope, who died behind the wheel of his car.

In 2012, the city settled with the family of Jamaal Moore, an unarmed 23-year-old who was first hit by a police cruiser, then gunned down. The car in which Moore was riding was mistaken for a vehicle used in an armed robbery. Moore was struck after the driver of the vehicle crashed. After being hit by the squad car, Moore tried to run. An officer fired twice, killing Moore.

The settlements mean the details of police killings, including the identities of the officers involved, won’t be exposed to the public in court trials.

Neither of the cases above were assigned to Davis, he said. But with six “bad” police shootings under his charge as a supervisor, the deaths of Moore, Hope, and McDonald just add to the tally of killings that probably shouldn’t have happened, Davis said.

For 23 years Davis patrolled some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods, first as a beat cop, then as a tactical officer working to get dangerous gang members and other criminals off the streets. He knows what it takes—physically, mentally, and emotionally—to shoot someone. Davis said he can’t count the number of times his service weapon left its holster.

He knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of gunshots, too.

On January 17, 1984, Davis and several other officers were executing a search warrant in the 6th District, which includes the Gresham neighborhood where Davis served as a tactical officer for half a decade. With him that day was Officer Fred Eckles, a 10-year veteran of the force who died from multiple gunshot wounds after a drug dealer fired on the 41-year-old.

Davis returned fire, killing the offender.

Now, the 65-year-old police veteran has risked alienating himself among current cops who face similar dangers each day.

“Do you decide that an officer’s belief that he was in fear for his life was reasonable just because he says so? Or does the evidence and the witness statements lead you to believe that this was an excuse?” Davis said of his time leading IPRA investigations.

“If we don’t stand back and have some skepticism, than any time some police officer says ‘I was in danger,’ that’s the end of your investigation.

“That’s not the way it should be.”

Davis contends that’s the way it is in Chicago.

If the politics affecting police shooting investigations weren’t bad enough, Davis said, a culture of bravado within the police department may be making cops’ decision to pull the trigger more acceptable.

“I know people coming out of the training academy telling me that it’s a badge of honor to shoot somebody, particularly a gangbanger,” Davis said.

Last week, during a particularly chaotic night in Chicago, officers fired on a shooting suspect but missed. When asked for the condition of a nearby shooting victim, a cop on the scene became confused, thinking the dispatcher had referred to the target of police gunfire.

“If they’re shot by police, they’re not victims; they’re offenders.”

While that mentality may make sense in the heat of the night, investigative minds are supposed to be cooler. Davis brought that approach to IPRA, until Ando decided that the veteran cop had to go.

“He should have known that I might go out and talk to people.”

By Justin Glawe for The Daily Beast

Roger Pohlman is the new Police Chief for Red Wing.

In an amazing feat of legislative maneuvering, Police Chief Roger Pohlman of Red Wing, Minnesota managed to talk the Red Wing city council into passing a resolution labeling “crimes against law enforcement” as “hate crimes.”  The reason for this was pointed out by the police chief to the city council as “openly voicing negative rhetoric toward law enforcement professionals” by protesters at the State Fair.  The chief was upset about recent Black Lives Matter protests who criticized police for brutality and abuse.

When the police chief approached the city for a show of support, the City Council’s response was swift and unanimous.

The Red Wing City Council passed the resolution last week calling for crimes against law enforcement to be prosecutable as hate crimes.

The picturesque town on the banks of the Mississippi River is believed to be the second place in the country — and the first city — to pass such a resolution.

“It seems that anyone wearing a blue uniform has become a target in the minds of a lot of people — a target not because of what they’re doing, but a target because of who they are, which for me really kind of moves it into the hate crimes area,” said Council Vice President Peggy Rehder. “In this case, it’s not the color of their skin, but the color of their uniform.”

The National Fraternal Order of Police early this year urged Congress to expand the federal law that makes it a crime to injure someone based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, disability and other protected groups.

Red Wing Police Chief Roger Pohlman presented the resolution to the city, reminding council members of Minnesota State Fair protesters openly voicing “negative rhetoric toward law enforcement professionals.”

The vote disturbed Rashad Turner, leader of Black Lives Matter St. Paul and one of the organizers of the State Fair protest. The protests, he said, are meant to draw public attention to the men and women who have been killed by police across the country, he said. The chants that rang out during the State Fair protest — including some marchers who chanted “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon!” — are an expression of people’s anger and frustration over those deaths, he said.

“Law enforcement wants to make themselves out to be the victim,” he said. “We just want to stop being killed.”

Minnesota does not have a hate crimes law. The idea of extending more protection to police than to the people they serve is “disgusting,” Turner said.

Attacking a police officer already carries serious consequences in Minnesota. Under state law, an assault on a law enforcement officer can mean increased fines and jail time. If the officer is injured, a misdemeanor assault can bump up to a felony. State law also carries enhanced penalties for attacks on many professions, including firefighters, judges, prosecutors, teachers and postal workers, among others.

“If you commit violence against a police officer, your penalty will be enhanced. That already exists,” said Chuck Samuelson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota.

“The police are well-protected, and one of the problems that police have currently is that they have lost the support of big chunks of the community, particularly in the inner city, but also among young people,” Samuelson said.

Following the ambush murders of two New York City police officers last December, the Fraternal Order of Police issued a renewed call for support from communities. Police are “not just feeling under attack, we are under attack,” said Executive Director Jim Pasco.

A copy of the city’s resolution was posted on the police department’s Facebook page.

Some communities have responded. Coon Rapids plans a Police Lives Matter rally later this month.

The federal hate crimes law was “not meant to protect various occupations that are particularly dangerous,” said Jack Levin, professor of sociology and criminology at Northeastern University in Boston. “Of course, the police have always been in the line of attack. It’s part of the job. And they’re not the only occupational group in that situation, although theirs is extreme.”

Adding more and more groups would dilute the law, he said. While the ambush-style violence against police officers is serious, such trends are typically short-lived, he said.

“If, however, we see a long-term increase in the number of police officers who are ambushed because they are police officers, then they might have a legitimate reason for having their group added to the list of protected categories by the federal government,” Levin said.

Until that is established, he pointed out, federal prosecutors can throw the book at people who commit violence against law enforcement, including introducing hate as an aggravating factor during sentencing.

But Red Wing’s police chief said law enforcement needs local government support. Through Sept. 23, 96 law enforcement officers died nationwide this year, Pohlman said, up from 83 in the same time period last year.

However, that figure includes deaths from traffic accidents and natural causes. The FBI maintains a separate database of so-called felonious killings of law enforcement — officers shot, attacked, deliberately struck by vehicles or otherwise fatally injured during the commission of a felony. Those figures jumped in 2014 after two years of declines, but have declined this year.

During the first half of 2015, 23 officers were feloniously killed nationwide, a 28 percent decrease from the 32 officers killed in the first half of 2014, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

Over time, the number of officers killed has remained “relatively static,” Pasco said, but the numbers don’t take into account the better equipment, training and medical care benefiting police in recent years. “The overwhelming anecdotal evidence that comes to us: There’s an increased hostility,” Pasco said.

Red Wing’s resolution followed a similar measure passed last month in Warren County, Ohio.

Pohlman said his 29 officers in Red Wing do their best to enforce the laws. “To hear all the negative publicity kind of wears on you over time.”

Published with sections from startribune.com

The NYPD’s Inspector General has just released a report on the department’s use of force and there’s nothing in it that’s good news. It finds that the problem begins at the top and only gets worse from there.

[T]his Report analyzes and evaluates NYPD’s disciplinary system, including a close review of cases where OIG-NYPD, through independent review, determined that the use of force was not reasonable by any standard and not justified by any exigent circumstances or the need to protect an officer’s or the public’s safety.Historically, NYPD has frequently failed to discipline officers who use force without justification.

This is a failure of management. The report notes that the department’s guidelines on force usage are so minimal they’re almost nonexistent.

NYPD’s current use-of-force policy is vague and imprecise, providing little guidance to individual officers on what actions constitute force. NYPD’s current use-of-force Patrol Guide procedure, which is barely more than a page of text, is completely silent on what actions constitute “force.” The Patrol Guide likewise prohibits “excessive force” while offering no clarity on what constitutes “excessive force.” Officers are given few clear-cut rules when determining whether their actions constitute force and whether such actions must be reported.

With nothing to go on, officers make up their own rules as they go. And they’re seldom punished for their actions. This ties in directly with the lack of guidance. It’s kind of hard to punish someone for violating guidelines that don’t exist. (When you have little desire to punish officer misconduct at all, the lack of solid force rules makes punishment almost impossible.)

On top of the limited guidance for use of force, the department does not instruct officers to use de-escalation tactics, only making the tiniest nod towards it when bringing in new officers.

NYPD spends only a portion of a four-and-a-half-hour course teaching de-escalation, out of 468 classroom hours—less than one percent of the curriculum. There is currently no Academy course specifically devoted to learning and practicing de-escalation techniques.

Excessive force complaints continue to mount. Officers abuse citizens and nothing happens. The amount of sustained complaints against NYPD officers is little more than a rounding error.

This total of 207 substantiated force allegations is based on the data provided to OIG-NYPD by CCRB. The total number of substantiated force allegations represents approximately 2.0% of the more than 10,000 allegations of force received by CCRB from 2010 to 2014.

The Inspector General found that the department not only had no guidance on use of force but nearly no standardized reporting on use-of-force incidents. In addition, when use-of-force complaints are substantiated by the CCRB (Civilian Complaint Review Board), NYPD management often delivered less severe disciplinary measures than those recommended by the Board.

The second officer failed to intervene when the subject officer initially lost his temper and stood several feet away with his hands in his pockets. The second officer remained passive and did nothing to intervene or take control of the situation, even once the complainant was on the ground and the subject officer continued to yell at him.

[…]

Throughout the entire encounter, one of the four officers has been standing to the side observing the interaction. This officer does not intervene after the first, second, third, or fourth strike to the complainant’s face, and he does not even move. The officer stands passively, a few feet away, with his thumbs hooked in his belt. Only once the man is on the ground and has been struck a fifth and sixth time does that officer approach, place one hand on the subject officer’s back, and appear to intervene halfheartedly.

And even when complaints are substantiated (in the 2% of cases that actually make it that far), nothing happens. (From substantiated complaints.)

CCRB substantiated the force allegation against the subject officer, but heultimately received no discipline.

[….]

CCRB substantiated the force allegation against the subject officer. The other officers’ force allegations were exonerated by CCRB. At the time of the writing of this Report, no disciplinary decision has been reached in this case, despite the matter being in the NYPD disciplinary process for the past seven months.

[…]

CCRB substantiated the force allegation against the subject officer. No other force allegations were made against the other officers. Discipline was not imposed in this case because the statute of limitation expired before CCRB forwarded the case to NYPD for disciplinary disposition.

[…]

CCRB substantiated the two force allegations against the subject officer. At the time of the writing of this Report, no disciplinary decision has been reached in this case despite the matter being in the NYPD disciplinary process for the past 20 months.

The OIG recommends a complete overhaul of the NYPD’s use-of-force policies, as well as the creation of new incident reporting systems. The problem is that these recommendations are being handed to a police force that clearly has no interest in fixing its problems.

As noted, OIG-NYPD examined 104 substantiated allegations from the initial complaint through investigation, prosecution, and final decision. From these data, OIG-NYPD found that the trends initially observed in the January 2015 Chokehold Report are not an anomaly, but appear to be endemic of a larger dissonance between CCRB and NYPD. In a number of cases, the Department has failed to meet its fundamental obligation to police itself.

The NYPD’s culture is rotten. This may be the beginning of a departmental overhaul, but this seems unlikely. The NYPD has weathered plenty of negative reports from oversight, thousands of excessive force complaints and dozens of civil rights lawsuits without it appearing to have any impact on the rank-and-file, much less the department’s upper management.

What this report does do is provide the public with more data on just how screwed up the NYPD is. This may seem useless on its own, but it fits into the larger scheme of things. Every bit of data, every damning piece of cell phone footage, every substantiated claim — whether punished or not — strips a little more the protective paint off the thin blue line.

As Brooklyn criminal-defense attorney Ken Womble points out at FaultLines, we’re winning the “War on Cops,” even if progress seems minimal.

I have worked in Brooklyn for years, mainly in criminal defense. Brooklyn is, unfortunately, ahead of the curve when it comes to understanding the true nature of policing. Brooklyn juries are receptive to the idea that a cop would plant a gun on a suspect to push a false arrest. They are open to the argument that the word of a cop is worth very little. They understand these things because they have seen NYPD misconduct first hand. When the black woman on your jury has a son that has been arrested repeatedly for merely walking around his own neighborhood, she is going to have a healthy (and realistic) dose of skepticism about the police narrative.

I am optimistic. There is so much wrong with our system but the way we fight that is to open our mouths and tell our stories. That is why the Fault Lines project is so important. Police in this country have remained untouchable because we refuse to touch them. We are witnessing a cultural shift in the way people see cops. The stories of police abuse that are so common to Brooklyn are now common everywhere. With each story, the great American jury pool is turning.

Add the Inspector General’s report to the growing pile of evidence that police officers haven’t earned the unquestioning deference that has been afforded them for far too long.

by Tim Cushing for Tech Dirt

Five police officers in Rio de Janeiro have been arrested after a cellphone video showed them altering a crime scene to justify the extrajudicial killing of a teenager.

The officers allegedly shot 17-year-old Eduardo Santos in the Providencia favela and then left a gun in his hand to make the killing look like self-defence.

As the youth lay dying in a pool of blood, a resident filmed one of the officers putting a pistol into his hand, then firing twice so that gunpowder residue was on the victim’s skin.

“That could have been my child! That’s the UPP! The bogus UPP!” lamented the woman who filmed the incident, referring to the Portuguese initials for the Pacifying Police Units that are supposed to be bringing peace to Rio’s favelas.

The clip went viral on social networks, prompting local media to interview witnesses who supported the accusations of a frame-up.

“He was armed but he surrendered,” a Providencia resident told the Globo TV network. “After he raised his hands, they shot him.”

The officers involved in the shooting registered the killing as a case of justifiable self-defence.

Hundreds of residents staged a protest on Wednesday, demanding justice.

The five police – Eder Ricardo de Siqueira, Gabriel Julian Floriado, Riquelme Paul Gerard, Paulo Roberto da Silva and Pedro Victor da Silva – have been charged with fraud and taken to a military police prison.

In a statement, Rio de Janeiro state security secretary Jose Mariano Beltrame condemned the killing and promised “exemplary punishment” for the five officers.

Brazil’s police kill more and are killed in greater numbers than police anywhere else in the world. Reports of execution-style killings are commonplace, but it is usually only when incidents are filmed that justice is done. The majority of the victims are black or mixed-raced youths from favelas.

In the state of Rio de Janeiro alone, more than 300 people were reportedly killed by police in the first six months of this year.

From his small store front in the Sears parking lot in Midtown, Adrian Gonzales makes keys. It was what he was doing on the afternoon of June 9, when something went wrong just a few feet away.

“I didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything,” said Gonzales. “I didn’t know anything was going on until all the police were gathered away over there,” pointing to a corner of the parking lot.

Gonzales says a Houston police officer and a METRO police officer would often patrol and park at that corner of the parking lot. Both would be on their motorcycles.

On the afternoon of June 9, Houston motorcycle police officer Terry Smith was shot in the back while parked at that spot, in the Sears parking lot. Within hours, HPD released information to the public that it was looking for a champagne colored vehicle with a man and a pregnant woman inside. They were considered possible suspects. At the time, the Houston Police Officers’ Union had harsh words for the unknown shooter: “He’s a coward to shoot a man in the back when he’s not even looking at you,” said HPOU board member Joseph Gamaldi on that day.

Now, there is one major problem. Multiple sources close to the investigation have told Eyewitness News that investigators now believe the story was fabricated. They are coming to the conclusion there may never have been a champagne colored car with two people inside.

Sources close to the investigation say HPD is working on the theory that Officer Smith may have been hit by gunfire from his friend at the scene, METRO Police Officer Gregory Hudson. METRO confirms Hudson was placed on desk duty on September 2. The agency says the move was made after HPD investigators began requesting information, including firearms records from METRO. Sources say there is also apparently no surveillance video to back up the original story.

Back at the key-making kiosk, Gonzales is shocked by the developments. He now thinks perhaps the reason he did not notice any other vehicles that afternoon was “because there wasn’t anything that happened. Crazy.”

The Houston Police Department says Officer Smith is still on the job while the investigation continues. So far, no disciplinary action has been taken.

An NYPD officer is accused of stealing credit card information from a dead man she’d been asked to check on and using it to purchase a diamond ring, authorities say.

The accused officer, 30-year-old Ymmacula Pierre, was on the job when she went to an apartment building on East 14th Street in Union Square last July to conduct a wellness check requested by the tenant’s family, prosecutors said.

It turned out the man who lived there, 65-year-old Ken Sanden, had passed away. After notifying the man’s family, Pierre obtained his credit card information and then allegedly bought a $3,200 diamond ring from Zales two days later.

She was arrested Tuesday after months of investigation following the credit card fraud last year.

Pierre, who has been on the force for three years, was charged with possession of stolen property, identity theft and official misconduct. She pleaded not guilty in court.

The NYPD said the officer is currently suspended without pay for 30 days.

There was no response at her official address in West Hempstead Tuesday, but her lawyer told reporters at court his client is a good person.

The justice system is supposed to be about, well, justice. It’s why district attorneys are ethically obliged to pursue convictions only against people they believe to have committed the crime. They are not supposed to pursue convictions at all costs to bolster their careers.

Likewise, when police agencies use “civil asset forfeiture” to take private property, they are not allowed to build their budgets around such takings. The funds are supposed to support extra programs – not supplant current dollars. That’s so agencies don’t replace the pursuit of justice with the pursuit of cash.

Unfortunately, forfeiture has become a widely abused practice. Instead of targeting drug kingpins as intended, police often target average citizens who haven’t been convicted or even accused of a crime. For instance, officials tried to take a $1.5 million Anaheim office building because one of the owners’ tenants was accused of illegally selling $37 in marijuana. Reports show that more than 80 percent of targets haven’t even been indicted for anything.

There are many cases of police pulling over a driver and finding a large sum of cash – and they often keep the cash even if there’s no evidence it was tied to a crime. It’s clear why this happens. A recent report shows a number of Southern California cities rely on forfeiture cases to fund their budgets. If they can take it, they will. And to avoid California’s tougher restrictions on these takings, police partner with the feds and split the loot.

SB 443 was a bipartisan effort to rein in the abuses. Mainly, it would have required a conviction before police can take property. It also was designed to stop police from bringing in the feds to circumvent state law as well as make it easier for people to contest a taking. It tried to force police to use this fearsome tool as intended – to target criminal enterprises – rather than to grab the cars of people caught in a minor offense.

The bill was defeated on its final vote on Thursday after law-enforcement lobbies swarmed the Capitol. Police chiefs were calling legislators. Legislators from both parties went wobbly. That’s so – even though the bill already has been severely watered down to mainly require a conviction. At the last moment, some past supporters of reform started claiming it needed yet another amendment. California Republicans constantly blather about the Constitution, but only four GOP Assembly members backed this bill. And so much for Democratic concerns about police abuse.

Things got tough for supporters after the U.S. Department of Justice started interfering by telling law enforcement groups the legislation might endanger the “equitable sharing” funds California receives. “Should this legislation pass, the Treasury program would issue a notification… that the California state and local law-enforcement agencies are no longer eligible to participate in its sharing program,” wrote one Justice Department official.

The California District Attorneys Association had been battling asset-forfeiture reform. In its August 5 letter to bill co-sponsor Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, the association painted a dire picture. It predicted a nearly $24 million loss to the general fund and a $75 million loss to law-enforcement budgets.

That’s a similar line from a group of police organizations including the California Police Chiefs: “Passage of SB 443 will result in annual losses in excess of $80 million to California law-enforcement agencies.” The groups say it will take away a tool for fighting “transnational criminal organizations.”

“They say it’s taking away their ability to deal with drug kingpins,” said Diane Goldstein, a retired Redondo Beach police lieutenant and spokesperson for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “It’s absolutely not true. They are acting like bullies.” She points to a recent public-opinion poll showing 76 percent of Californians are opposed to current asset-forfeiture standards.

Even police claims of financial loss were exaggerated. “This proposal does not violate the statutes or policies governing the Department of Justice Equitable Sharing Program,” wrote Alice Dery of the Justice Department’s asset-forfeiture unit, earlier this month. Dery, however,complained SB 443 “may be unworkable” because of some paperwork and deadline problems.

In other words, state and federal law-enforcement officials stopped this state bill that would protect people from oftentimes unfair takings of their property because they depend on the money and it’s too much of a hassle for police to make sure a targeted person has been convicted of a crime.

We should at least be honest. California police agencies and district attorneys don’t care about justice. They’re just about the money.

Steven Greenhut is the California columnist for U-T San Diego.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office has released video taken from a hidden camera of the arrest of Miami Gardens Police Chief Stephen Johnson.

Johnson was arrested at a Dania Beach hotel and fired last week on suspicion of soliciting prostitution.

According to deputies, an advertisement was placed in the escort section of a website listing a telephone number and price rates, including a two-girl special.

A man, who was later identified as Johnson, called the telephone number provided in the ad. Deputies said an undercover detective answered the call and had several conversations with Johnson.

During the conversations, Johnson said he wanted to do everything and the detective asked him if he had any special requests, the affidavit said.

In the video, Johnson arrives at room 423 and is greeted by a woman posing as a prostitute.

Johnson said he wanted the detective to wear heels since he had a fetish for heels, the report said.

“Oh no. Listen, we keep it fresh,” the undercover detective said in the video. “I’m talking about, she said you wanted heels, right?”

In the video, Johnson is asked if $100 is OK, to which he agrees. Moments later, he gives her the cash.

Raw video: Miami Gardens police chief arrested

Johnson lays on a bed as one of the two women in the room tells him she’s going to change.

“So, where you coming from?” the woman said in the video.

“Work,” Johnson replied.

Seconds later, BSO deputies enter the room and arrest Johnson. Inside Johnson’s right rear pocket were two condoms, according to the report.

After he was released from jail, Johnson told Local 10 News that the stress of the job overwhelmed him. Johnson said his poor decision “was totally out of character.”

SWAT team members surround a home on Eisenhower Dr. that a possible robbery suspect ran into following a chase in Santa Clara, Calif. on Monday, Nov. 11, 2013.

Legislation introduced in California to rein in police use and misuse of asset forfeiture laws in order to take people’s money and property (often without ever charging with them with a crime) has seen some significant changes in the Assembly since we’ve previously reported on it.

A not-small amount of the text of Senate Bill 443 has been removed as opposition by law enforcement agencies and prosecutors has grown. Gone is the requirement that local law enforcement agencies follow some of California’s more restrictive forfeiture rules. Police departments in California (and other states) often bypass state regulations by participating in the Department of Justice’s “Equitable Sharing” asset forfeiture program. The DOJ version of the program has looser requirements and often lets police departments keep a greater portion of the money than state rules do. Gone is the requirement that a big chunk of the money would go to a state-controlled asset forfeiture fund to manage distribution. These were all ways to try to reduce the “profit motive” for police to try to seize whatever they could on the most specious of justifications by eliminating the amount of money they would be able to keep.

But the most important component of SB 443 remains: Prosecutors will actually have to convict people of crimes before law enforcement agencies will be able to permanently keep cash and assets they seize during arrests, even if they partner with the feds. For that reason, organizations like the asset forfeiture reformers of the Institute for Justice (IJ) continue to support the bill.

The bill had already passed the California Senate (with only one vote of opposition) but is now dealing with some heavy opposition from the law-and-order folks lobbying the Assembly. Their opposition efforts are being bolstered by the federal government officials warning that too many restrictions on asset forfeiture will threaten California’s participation in federal sharing programs entirely, potentially causing a loss of tens of millions of dollars in state revenue.

The Institute for Justice this week passed along some communications from opponents trying to scare legislators away from reform. The possibility of losing federal dollars obviously contributed to the decision to eliminate the state-level asset forfeiture fund. The federal rules require that law enforcement agencies maintain their own asset forfeiture funds in order to participate in the federal program. Shifting some of the money back into the state would have run afoul of these rules. That’s exactly what happened with New Mexico’s reforms, which actively forbid law enforcement agencies from maintaining asset forfeiture funds. A representative from the U.S. Treasury warned that the same thing could happen to California.

But perhaps it’s best that the complicated state distribution program was eliminated. Do we need even more state bureaucracy managing things? Such a shift could possibly create just a new set a bad financial incentives rather than eliminate the current ones.

Nevertheless, it turns out just requiring a citizen to be convicted of a crimebefore the government can keep his or her stuff may be too much for the federal government’s liking. The Institute for Justice provided a copy of an e-mail from a Treasury representative sent out last week that warned, “I highly doubt our federal agencies can figure out whether a conviction occurred in a timely manner. I’m not sure they would have the resources, desire, or technical capability. …  Accordingly, I think I would still advise our policy officials here that it would be prudent not to share with agencies should this law be passed.”

I spoke with Lee McGrath, legislative counsel for the Institute for Justice, this morning, and he helped me navigate through the bill’s changes. He found the Treasury’s argument illogical. California law already requires that seizures of assets worth less than $25,000 can only be kept if there’s a conviction. No doubt this law is one reason why local police bypass state rules and partner with the feds, but McGrath’s point is that the idea that it’s too hard to keep track of whether or not a person is convicted before taking his or her stuff is absurd.

“We have figured it out in California,” he said. “We do it all the time when the seizure is less than $25,000. What’s so tough about that? They want to continue the idea that somebody could lose their property without even being charged, never mind being convicted of a crime.”

Opponents are nonetheless using the potential loss of revenue in their lobbying efforts, pointing out to legislators how much money their districts have raked infrom the federal asset forfeiture program. McGrath describes it (in a release from IJ) as a “desperate and cynical attempt to derail civil forfeiture reform in California.”

Voting on the amended bill is scheduled for tomorrow. If it passes it will have to head back to the Senate because of the changes. The version the Senate approved was much stricter than this amended bill, so McGrath predicted it would likely survive if it makes it out of the Assembly

Originally published at Reason.com.