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talltex wrote: ↑Sun Mar 03, 2019 1:49 pm I don't have an issue with someone being investigated or charged refusing to make a statement or testify. I do have an issue with the other officers in the department stonewalling the DA's office and refusing to cooperate or speak to them.

I agree with this also. The other officers not involved should be compelled to make statements. One of the interesting sidenotes about the Fifth is that it stops you from being compelled to testify against yourself. It does not stop you from being compelled to testify against anyone else.

WildBill wrote: ↑Sun Mar 03, 2019 1:26 pm

srothstein wrote: ↑Sun Mar 03, 2019 11:57 am I beg to differ. Your lack of making a statement or cooperating in an investigation has always been legal to use in court, as far as I know. The Fifth Amendment forbids the government from compelling you to testify against yourself but I find nothing in the Constitution about them not introducing the lack of cooperation into any case.

I am not a lawyer and I'm stepping way outside of my expertise, but I would think that introducing this type "evidence" would be irrelevant and prejudicial and the defense would object to that line of questioning.

I certainly can agree that the defense lawyer should object on those grounds. I was just pointing out that it would not be on the grounds of having a right for that to not be introduced.

And hopefully, we can work on it not being prejudicial because everyone would say "So what?"

I beg to differ. Your lack of making a statement or cooperating in an investigation has always been legal to use in court, as far as I know. The Fifth Amendment forbids the government from compelling you to testify against yourself but I find nothing in the Constitution about them not introducing the lack of cooperation into any case.

We have a cultural thought process that says we should not do so and that doing so makes you guilty. After all, an innocent person would cooperate. This is why we always see statements from corporations and politicians that they are cooperating with the police.It is also why we see it as being used "against" them.

But haven't we here almost always advised to not cooperate and say nothing if you were involved in a shooting? Why would we advise that at the same time even if we think it was a justified shooting and you handled things right? This is what is known as cognitive dissonance - behaving differently than you think. Maybe we should either rethink our advice, or even better yet, work on breaking this cultural belief that saying nothing indicates guilt. Who cares if you cooperated or made a statement or not. The police should do their job and build a case properly.

baseballguy2001 wrote:Gee, don't ya think the guy who made the kill shot should answer up? Tell his side of the story?

I think he should, but I always advise everyone to not talk to the police. He has the right to not answer any questions in a criminal investigation, just like any other suspect. I am wondering if the department got anything from him for an internal investigation. They can order a statement and force it, but it cannot be used against him in a criminal case (Garrity v. New Mexico I think).

And I would suggest that they proceed with their internal discipline anyway. Without knowing everything about the case, I would suggest that it certainly appears unjustified. If he tells a story which justifies it, then their investigation should be completed and the story made public (depends on state laws if it ever has to be or not). And if he doesn't justify it, then he should be fired, without regard tot he criminal investigation.

And the DA should be able to get an indictment based on what has been released tot he papers, especially if the officer has not produced anything to contradict the public material.

Excaliber wrote:

Flightmare wrote:Is anyone aware of any sort of body camera that automatically enables at the sound of gunfire? You know, for just this sort of occasion. The cameras they had have a buffer of what happened 30 seconds before the camera is "enabled", as long as someone manually turns the camera on. Why not have something that automatically enables at the sound of a gun shot?

If an officer is ambushed and fired upon, having "gunfire" turning on the body camera could be a useful feature. Obviously if the weapon is suppressed and far enough away, there is a possibility that it wouldn't pick it up.

Just my 2 cents.

That's an idea that has real merit, and if mentioned to one of the bodycam manufacturers they might well pick it up.

I agree. I suggest you contact Axon at https://www.axon.com/ and suggest it to them. That is the company with the largest market presence in police body cameras (I think). It is the new name of what used to be Taser International for their other famous product. I am not sure, but I think Panasonic also sells body cameras. I know the have a patrol car camera system. It should be implemented there (in dash camera systems) also.

talltex wrote:Place yourself, an ordinary citizen, in the officer's exact position. It's night--you and another male friend are sitting in his car in an unfamiliar place--a person you do not know walks toward your vehicle (forget that it is a middle-aged blonde female in her pajamas--if you can and presuming that stereotyping is not at all in play), WHAT possible scenario would allow you to feel justified in shooting the approaching person without any demonstrable provocation? If you had shot and killed her/him-- simply because you were nervous and afraid, you would be in jail, charged with murder or voluntary manslaughter.

I can think of several similar cases that meet this criterion that have been discussed on this very forum. In most cases, the board agrees that a shooting is not usually justified but there have been several where we agree that a shooting might be justified. In many case, the personal feeling of being threatened for various reasons may make the difference to the justification.

Say that a few other factors that have been reported in this case are included. Like the fact that there have been threats against police officers, including several recent cases of officers being attacked while responding to calls or while sitting in their cars. Then add in that the officers were investigating a report of a felony in progress, which tends to make them a little jumpier than usual. Now, while in a dark alley, someone slaps the side of their car and suddenly appears next tot he driver's window with no noise or warning. It might make a little difference tot he case.

Whether you were wearing a badge or not doesn't change the facts. The officer shot and killed someone without any demonstrable justification--period. Even more damning to me, is that the call they went to investigate, was a woman calling and reporting what sounded like a sexual assault taking place. I'd think that with that information, rather than viewing an approaching woman in pajamas as a threat, they would be much more likely to view her as a potential victim. His partner didn't draw his weapon and shoot, so he evidently didn't view her as a threat to his life.

I am not defending the officer, nor am I condemning him. I do not know what happened and how the shooting occurred. But you seem, in my opinion, to have come to the conclusion that because the shooting has not been justified to the media that there is no justification for it. This is simply not true. You also seem to have come to a conclusion about the second officer's behavior. I do not know that he had a weapon out or not. I also do not know if he saw the woman earlier than the passenger or at all. This is another point I think we need to wit until the investigation is complete to consider.

From what I have read of the case, I think MPD handled the case as best as they could. An officer was involved in a shooting where a complainant was killed. They immediately asked a different agency to investigate and have kept their hands off. I like the fact that it is a state police agency investigating because it is much harder to allege collusion between the local police and the local sheriff's office or prosecutor's office. And I like the fact that neither agency is releasing ANY real statements about what happened until the investigation is complete.

The problem with the last part is that it lets the public jump to conclusions about what happened, with very little facts. The media love to do this and are really helping in the effort to jump. They don't like being frustrated in their efforts to publish stories they want to publish.

My personal opinion that I have jumped to is that the officer is going to be charged with the Minnesota equivalent of involuntary manslaughter and be convicted of it. I like to hope there was some justification, but I keep stretching to come up with any. I also think people keep stretching to make the claim of murder. I honestly see it as a mistake and a tragedy but carrying a gun (with or without a badge) makes the punishment for those mistakes pretty drastic. Considering the consequences, that seems fair to me.

baseballguy2001 wrote:I'm going to slightly disagree with you - The camera policy I saw mirrored what you wrote, but also had a use of force policy also. It went something like, the cams must be activated after any use of force, or when safe to do so. They didn't activate them at all. The cameras also had a loopback feature, recording 30 seconds before the activate button is pushed. That would have been extremely helpful in this case.

I agree. I had been concerned with whether it should have been on for the incident and not with the use of force. The policy did require them to turn it on as soon as it was safe to do so after the shot was fired. And if the camera had the loopback record feature (and most do, but not all), it would probably have been very helpful. I could understand not getting it turned on in the first 30 seconds but it might have been. And it would have been helpful, that is true no matter what.

baseballguy2001 wrote:As a pro in the IT world, data storage is really affordable these days. These clowns should have had the body cams going and violated their own policy by not activating them.

I am not as sure that they violated their own policy as you might be. One of the politicians (mayor I think) tweeted a link tot he policy and I read it. The wording on the only part that could have applied in this case is kind of vague. It said it was required on any contact that involved a criminal matter. The problem is it does not state if that means a report of a crime or only where the contact is suspected of a criminal matter. It also says to turn them on before the contact or as soon as possible afterwards. To me, before the contact would be as I exit the car to talk to the person. If she came up to the car first, they might not have had time to turn them on. Also, it would depend on the type of camera used, but it might not have shown anything though the audio would still be helpful. There is also question of whether or not they knew it was involving a crime. Most media reports are she called about a noise she heard in the alley, though a few are saying she heard a possible assault, and an even smaller group are saying she called about a sexual assault in progress.

I agree that data storage is cheap, up to a point. It is still very expensive if you look at the amount of data a force their size would require to be stored. My personal opinion is that it would be worth the cost, but I am a strong supporter of cameras for officers. I don't think the one week auto delete option is feasible, at least in Texas. I think our open records laws would require a minimum of 90 days, but I could be wrong about that. At 90 days, we are talking petabytes of data for most departments, but again, I think it is worth the cost. I am also not a chief trying to convince a city manager my budget needs expansion.

This is a very interesting case since no one is saying what happened yet. The story I just read (Police Magazine) makes it look less like an ND than deliberate shooting. The officer was in the passenger seat and he "reached over" to shoot her. No weapons at the scene but her cell phone was found where she dropped it, implying to me that she had the phone in her hand when shot.

The police have not released any other information and no one from the family is yelling yet other than not knowing what happened. Cameras not on are easy to understand, useless for images in this case anyway but audio might have helped. Car camera is used when red lights come on and this was not a stop like that. It can be turned on manually but that would be when they get out of the car and only if they thought something would happen in front of the car. Body cameras would usually get turned on when they exit the car to approach the suspect. They could have a policy of turning it on for any citizen contact but it would be highly unlikely. Most places would not turn on the camera just to take a report, which is what this call was.

This call could be an example of why using the body camera and the car camera for any citizen contact is a good idea, even if it is an expensive one. Storage costs for all of the data that would produce would be enormous, in addition to the cost of having an employee review the recordings to determine which get kept and which get deleted as unnecessary.