Federal report: Albuquerque police have pattern of using 'unreasonable force'

[Keith Olbermann]

Police in Albuquerque, N.M., have a serious pattern of using
“unreasonable force” against civilians, especially against those
who have mental illnesses, according to a blistering report from
the US Justice Department that was released Thursday.

The release of the findings closes a 16-month federal
investigation into allegations that officers in the Albuquerque
Police Department (APD) are abusing their right to use force,
often with fatal results for civilians. Over the past month,
outrage over police tactics in the Southwestern city reached its
highest-octane levels yet, after police were seen in March
fatally shooting James Boyd, a homeless man with schizophrenia,
in footage from an officer’s helmet camera.

The Justice Department (DOJ) report concluded that APD officers
are overusing both lethal and nonlethal force against people who
“pose a minimal threat” to the officers, as well as against
people who are clearly mentally ill and unable to properly
follow police orders.

“Public trust has been broken in Albuquerque,” said Jocelyn
Samuels, acting assistant US attorney general for the Civil
Rights Division, at a press conference Thursday to discuss the
report.

The DOJ said that the conduct of the APD officers, not the
suspects, is often responsible for escalating the situation to
violence, and it said that the majority of the 20 fatal police
shootings it reviewed between 2010 and 2013 were “unjustified.”

The DOJ also identified “systemic deficiencies” in the APD that
have legitimized or condoned excessive use of force, including
“poor accountability systems” and “inadequate training.” The
APD, it noted, has also failed to create a “culture of community
policing” and has a hostile, aggressive relationship with the
city it polices.

The DOJ recommended a long list of major reforms for the
department, including investigating police shootings as crime
scenes and overhauling police training to de-emphasize weapons
use.

It did not, however, go so far as to order federal monitoring of
the department, as had been expected, but said that federal
agents would be meeting with local officials to determine what
kind of monitoring would be required to make sure that reforms
are carried out. Several cities’ police departments, including
those in New Orleans and Los Angeles, have been subjected to
federal monitoring.

Last week, in anticipation of the findings, Albuquerque Mayor
Richard Berry requested immediate federal oversight of the
police department, signaling a willingness to comply with such
expected measures.

“Prior to the completion of the DOJ investigation and the
publication of findings, I would like to immediately begin to
the process of negotiating a cooperative agreement between the
DOJ and the City of Albuquerque to implement a DOJ monitoring
plan,” the mayor wrote at the time, in a letter addressed to the
DOJ.

Mayor Berry, calling Mr. Boyd’s death a “game changer,” had also
said that he was setting aside $1 million for compliance with
the DOJ’s anticipated recommendations, and he announced support
for some 60 departmental reforms, including mandating training
for all officers on how to work with mentally ill civilians.

Though a police officer is entitled to use lethal force if the
officer believes that his or her life is in serious danger, the
number of shootings in Albuquerque – 23 civilians dead since
2010, most of them people with mental illnesses – had put a
bright light on what can happen when an officer’s right to fire
collides with a mentally ill person’s difficulties in
understanding how to follow an officer’s directions.

It had also raised the question of whether APD officers were
making all efforts to avoid using force and were abiding by the
protocols outlined in their own guidelines for de-escalating and
compassionately resolving confrontations with mentally ill
suspects.

Last month, a standoff with police in the Sandia Mountains
resulted in the shooting of Boyd – even though the situation
appeared to have been diffused and Boyd seemed to be cooperating
with officers. That month, violent protests over the death tore
through Albuquerque’s downtown.

The DOJ investigation, begun in November 2012, did not review
the Boyd shooting, but the case is the subject of a federal
criminal investigation, DOJ officials say.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2014/0410/Federal-report-
Albuquerque-police-have-pattern-of-using-unreasonable-force

 

[tag-along]

On 4/10/2014 4:25 PM, Keith Olbermann wrote:
> Police in Albuquerque, N.M., have a serious pattern

Off charter for Oregon, and Tacoma...you dolt.

[Gunner Asch]

On Fri, 11 Apr 2014 00:25:03 +0200 (CEST), "Keith Olbermann"
<msnb...@espn.com> wrote:

>Police in Albuquerque, N.M., have a serious pattern of using
>“unreasonable force” against civilians, especially against those
>who have mental illnesses, according to a blistering report from
>the US Justice Department that was released Thursday.

Its interesting to note..that New Mexico..is a Blue State and it voted
Obama into office.

Seems like we are seeing fascism running once again...hand and hand
with Obama


--

"
I was once told by a “gun safety” advocate back in the Nineties
that he favored total civilian firearms confiscation.
Only the military and police should have weapons he averred and what did I think about that?

I began to give him a reasoned answer and he
cut me off with an abrupt, “Give me the short answer.”

I thought for a moment and said, “If you try to take our firearms we will kill you.”"

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