#police-accountability

#police-accountability

There is an "epidemic of everyday crime", the Home Secretary says, such as shoplifting and phone theft. It reminds Shabana Mahmood of the years when she worked on the till in her parents' corner shop, with a cricket bat under the counter ready to deter shoplifters who stole, time and again. While overall crime has been going down in recent years those types of offences have been going up, matched by rising public anxiety.

Oakland leaders have declined for the second time to reappoint two incumbents to the Police Commission, the civilian body overseeing the Oakland Police Department. At the City Council meeting Tuesday night, all but two council members - Carroll Fife and Noel Gallo - voted to reject the nominees submitted by the Police Commission Selection Panel in December: Ricardo Garcia-Acosta, chair of the commission, and Omar Farmer, an alternate commissioner. The commissioners' terms expired in October, but both have continued to serve in a holdover capacity.

It was nearly a decade ago that Oakland voters overwhelmingly agreed in the ballot boxes that the city needed citizen oversight of the police department. Many hoped at the time that the newly established watchdog body would eventually take the reins from federal officials who have maintained control of the Oakland Police Department for now over two decades. But the commission comprised of seven volunteer members still seems to be struggling to gain footing within Oakland's complex bureaucratic tangles.

I hope this is a one-off, but the new San Mateo County Sheriff, Ken Binder, waited nine days to tell the public that a woman had been threatened and a man was assaulted at the San Carlos Caltrain station. On Dec. 23, a man hassled a woman waiting for a train about her clothing. He then threatened to throw her on the tracks, according to the DA's office.

capitulated to Islamists

"She is dead because of them. A 72-year-old grandma, never been in trouble with the law. For her to die in the back of the police car? There are a lot of questions, and they are not answering anything," says Riche Ramirez, Yolanda's eldest son. Riche said the holidays have been tough for the family, since this is the first time without her.

A medical examiner's report concluded Johnson 52, died of a prone-restraint-induced cardiac arrest, with methamphetamine use being a "contributing factor." Prone restraint refers to the face-down position officers kept Johnson in while attempting to handcuff him in his apartment. It can restrict breathing and can also lead to metabolic acidosis. Across the United States, it's been linked with several other in-custody deaths and many police agencies have since stopped using it.

A police force has reportedly admitted it unlawfully arrested two parents in front of their nine-year-old daughter after they complained about her school on WhatsApp. Rosalind Levine and her partner, Maxie Allen, said they were held at a police station for 11 hours over the complaints about their daughter's primary school. The pair claimed they had been arrested and detained in January by six uniformed officers on suspicion of harassment, malicious communications and causing a nuisance on school property.

The controversial system of police and crime commissioners is to be abolished by the government, the Guardian has learned. Under the system, introduced under the Conservatives, all 43 police forces covering local areas across England and Wales had to answer to an elected official. The system, introduced in 2012, was supposed to boost the accountability and performance of police forces.

Karen Read attorney Alan Jackson is back on the warpath in his quest to "pull back the curtain" on policing in Massachusetts, and this time Boston's top cop is in the hot seat. "Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox has been caught in a lie - and not a small one," Jackson wrote in a blistering letter to Mayor Michelle Wu Monday, calling for a disciplinary review over Cox's remarks about a former officer who testified during Read's second trial.

Milliman was convinced that Elser had stolen a package off someone's stoop. As evidence, Milliman had obtained records compiled by Flock, a controversial police surveillance startup that's taking the United States by storm. As a display of the department's technological panopticon, Milliman noted the woman had driven through Bow Mar "20 times the last month." "Like I said, we have cameras everywhere in that town," the officer reiterated.

A government plan to give anonymity to firearms officers in England and Wales facing criminal charges will damage public confidence in policing and fuel online misinformation, a coalition of editors, journalists and media lawyers have said. In a letter to the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, seen by the Guardian, the group warned the measure would make officers empowered to use lethal force less accountable than ordinary members of the public.

BART spent $6.75 million of taxpayers' money for the mistakes made by the BART police in the mediated prelitigation settlement with Jasmine Gao. It is a tragedy of just actions and how authority is abused. BART issued a notice of intent to terminate Officer Poblete. It was BART police Chief Kevin Franklin who issued a public statement that said Gao "is alleged to have assaulted a police officer." It looks like Poblete's actions had the full support of the police chief.

Emma Webber said new allegations about staff at the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) had left families asking whom they could trust. The IOPC is examining the response of police involved in the case of Valdo Calocane, who killed three people. Its investigators are reported to have told Leicestershire police officers who failed to arrest Calocane a month before the stabbings that their disciplinary case was politically motivated and was being driven by the families of the victims.

But there Battle was, gamely chatting with reporters like me about how proud he was of the 130 miles of existing greenways and trails located throughout the Huntsville area and the plans to build out nearly 250 miles more over the next few decades. He rides his e-bike through downtown Huntsville to work most days, and staffers told me he often leaves it in the hallway outside City Council meetings. Gotta hand it to him: That rules.

More than 285,000 crimes went unrecorded by police last year, new research has found. Watchdog His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) found 94.8 per cent of crimes were recorded by forces in England and Wales in the year to March 31, While this is up from up from 80.5 per cent in 2014, the number of anti-social behaviour offences being officially documented were unacceptably low, HMICFRS said.

The San Jose Police Officers' Association denounces incompetence, falsehoods, and corruption, emphasizing a broken discipline process that reflects systemic issues within the SJPD.

Cops are neither inherently heroic nor abusive. They are individuals.

Data shows that since they were installed and starting issuing warnings, speeding on some corridors has gone down by 20% or more.

Saniyah Cheatham was an 18-year-old with her whole life ahead of her. I commend her mother, Thomasina, for her courage in standing up to demand the truth.