UPDATE: Fairfax Prosecutor finally convenes Grand Jury to possibly indict officer Torres. All officers nearby did not see him move his hands to his waist. Only Torres says this. Not looking good for Torres.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/l...lling/?hpid=z2
Cody
That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state;
Boy, that blue wall of silence really covered up for that cop(sarcasm)
I don't think the County Police, Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, nor the U.S. Attorney's Office did anyone any good by letting this case drag on for months. A difficult decision needs to be made: charge a police officer for what may have been an error in judgment or an accident or rule that the shooting was either justified or a reasonable mistake. People would have been unhappy with either decision, but simply kicking the can down the road for months was unfair to everyone.
While I hate to offer opinions on tactics based on media reports, I think it would have been a better idea to extract the officers from their close proximity to the suspect. Torres was allegedly thirteen feet from Geer. Had he been farther away, Torres would have been under less threat and stress and may have felt less urgency to shoot.
Copy that on the blue wall of silence, Ptrlcop. A long since retired officer on my agency used to opine "They lie; we lie. It all works out in the end." After hearing that stupidity enough times, I finally retorted that "No, cops tell the truth. No one is going to get fired or prosecuted for lying and we can be ordered to take polygraphs." I never heard that nonsense again, though I suspect he still spouts it in retirement.
My speech at the Fairfax County Police Commission Public Comment night:
It was received well and I got the loudest applause of any speaker. Got lots of compliments:
______________________________
Civil forfeiture allows police and prosecutors to seize cash and property based on a suspicion, and then force the owners to sue the government to get their property back. The government does not have to charge the owners with any crime, nor does the government have to prove the cash or property was used in a crime. The owners have to prove it was NOT used in a crime. Let me repeat this: The OWNERS have to prove their cash or property was NOT used in a crime. This violates the very foundation of our judicial system: That you are INNOCENT until proven guilty. Prosecutors have enabled legalized extortion by the very government that is sworn to protect us FROM extortion. And, seized property and cash can go right into the operating budget for law enforcement...a conflict of interest that also cannot stand.
I call on THIS commission to strongly recommend to the Fairfax Supervisors to BAN ALL use of civil forfeiture in Fairfax County as a matter of policy. Prosecutors are still able to use criminal forfeiture as a means to seize cash and property, charge the owners with a crime and….here is an interesting concept: PROVE A CRIME WAS COMMITTED TO TAKE THEIR CASH AND PROPERTY. JUSTICE requires us to act.
Now, on the topic of use of force: Fairfax County Police have used an excessive amount of force in too many instances, and too often have ended in lethal results. This has to stop. ALL use of Special Operations must have better oversight. No police should have held a muzzle on Mr. Geer while he was standing at the door of his own home. Officers can quickly cover the citizen with their muzzle with plenty of time to take a shot.
Use of Special Operations or SWAT teams for domestic disturbances and to raid poker games in Mclean are excessive...SWAT team members muzzling unarmed citizens with firearms...when safer and less lethal tactics were appropriate. No-knock warrants need to be approved by an oversight board and the home addresses and identities need to be triple-checked, and JUSTIFIED before they enter that home.
Our police must be retrained to keep their muzzles off citizens until they become a threat, SWAT and Special-Ops raids need to be vetted and justified, and safer and smarter tactics must be used when no active shooter or threat is present. We are citizens, not targets. Thank You.
REFERENCES
Washington Post Investigation Results
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/inv...top-and-seize/
Mandrel Stuart had his funds seized by Fairfax County and was forced to sue to get the funds back. Fairfax had to pay his attorney fees.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsul...al-your-money/
Seized Assets and Funds Audit, 2011
http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/audit/p...blic_final.pdf
Other States abusing civil forfeiture:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/inv...e-law-who-won/
Using “Low Ready” instead of pointing the gun (muzzling) the suspect is fast:
https://www.swatmag.com/articles/the-low-ready-position
Police Tactics that take into account the level of the threat: Don’t Muzzle Citizens
http://www.lawofficer.com/articles/p...dy-or-not.html
The muzzle of the weapon is raised only when engaging a target.
http://cqb-team.com/shooting.php
Perpetuating Bad Habits of Holding a Firearm
http://www.spartancops.com/target-ha...arms-training/
That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state;
Report from the Subcommittee Meetings:
Oversight Subcommittee
- Committee has collected documentation from other jurisdictions that have Citizen Police Oversight Boards and is in the process of reading and evaluating them;
- There seems to be consensus, even among the LE members, that *something* must be done. There is a divergence between the LE members and the citizen members;
- There is a question about the mission of the Oversight Committee and its' mandate. The Subcommittee Leader is going to the BOS for that answer;
- The subcommittee universally agreed that the Citizen Police Oversight Board would not get directly involved in any investigations or hire their own investigators, but the CPOB *could* have authority to ask for an investigation or ask to to review the Internal Affairs Investigation. No agreement but discussion of it.
- It was pointed out that in the 74 year history of the Fairfax Police not a single Police Officer has ever been charged in a shooting;
- One citizen made the point that the perception of bias exists, and made this point: If Fairfax Airlines had a crash, and the loved ones asked who is leading the investigation, and the answer was: Fairfax Airlines is leading the investigation...there is the perception, if not the likelihood, of a bias. He was making the case that, even though Internal Affairs may have impeccable integrity, the perception is that they are biased in favor of police.
- One citizen put forward the idea that the Virginia State Police should run Internal Affairs Investigations to help to remove the perception of bias, if not actual bias. This has some support at the State level.
- There is a *framework* for what a CPOB would look like. That is a very rough draft and not really any consensus on it.
Use of Force Subcommittee:
- A review of the Threat Assessment process was given. I found the lack of objective criteria to be lacking. Basically, if the Detective thinks SWAT is needed, SWAT goes in.
- One lady talked about a case involving her college-aged son. They had weed in the house (amount unclear), and the SWAT team was sent in, muzzling everybody int he house even after they were handcuffed, and when they had no firearms or weapons and when they did not resist arrest.
- The father of Sal Culosi was there arguing that firearms should not be pointed at unarmed people. In this case Sal was shot by accident when a SWAT team member accidentally put his finger on his HK pistol trigger.
- It is also a big question why the threat assessment for catching a sports gambler required the SWAT team when Sal never carried a firearm. This was known because there was an undercover agent working directly with Sal.
- Use of low cover was briefly discussed. One Police Officer made the case that the gun should always be pointed at center mass and should only be lowered the closer you get to the subject. That sounded stupid to me.
- A Videos was shown talking about use of low cover.
- One officer made the case that the use of force training was 50 hours, more than the State minimum of 30 hours. He went on to say that the type of training was what Virginia State requires. He seemed to be making the case that Fairfax County Police have good tactics because this is they way everybody else does it....not a good argument from my view.
- The uniformed police officers were very willing to provide any and all documentation to the subcommittee on use of force policies, threat assessment processes, etd.
- No one from the Detectives office was present and this seems to be a huge gap since it is the Detectives that usually order SWAT or Special Ops.
- I found the uniformed police to be ready to embrace changes. I found the higher level people resistant to changes. This is just my assessment talking with them after the meeting was over. This seems to be consistent with others who have been questioning how Police make their use of force decisions.
My sense of this is that the uniformed cops would like to see better training and are open to changes in tactics and policy, and they seem to be pointing at the Detectives and the Leadership on why things aren't changing and why there has been stonewalling.
Again, these are just my perceptions, as I am not privy to the backroom discussions that are really going on. It was interesting the Chief of Police did not attend the meeting.
That is all for now.
Cody
That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state;
cclaxton, you actually seem like a reasonable person in your endeavors to improve Fairfax County law enforcement. That said, I'll throw some thoughts out here.
Someone claimed that her house was raided, people were muzzled, no one resisted arrest, no weapons were there, and much of this happened after everyone was hooked up. OK, any police reports or even newspaper articles about this? Did it even happen?
Sal Culosi was unintentionally shot by an FCPD SWAT officer. As I recall, as the officer exited his vehicle, the door swung back on his arm and he unintentionally fired his weapon. You may know more than me, but I have never heard that the officer intentionally put his finger inside the trigger guard or pointed it at Culosi. If you know how to prevent a trigger finger closing on a trigger during a violent physical event when a weapon muzzle can not be completely controlled, please let us know.
I have never heard that Culosi was a violent person, but he was involved in high stakes gambling. As I recall, the games had armed security. I believe that suspicion was the reason that SWAT was deployed on this warrant service.
cclaxton, I'm not a neurosurgeon, in fact I'm not even a doctor. I have no specific knowledge of neurosurgery. Hence I leave criticism of neurosurgeons to other neurosurgeons or doctors with an understanding of what they do. Do you have training or qualifications that make your criticism of the PD SWAT unit valid? Or is this just a list of things you don't like? Do you have some other axe to grind (previously pissed off by cops, etc)? Why should people with years of training and experience change how they operate based on the opinions of people with zero experience or training?
"Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA
Beware of my temper, and the dog that I've found...
I'm not Cody, he and I don't always agree on things, and I certainly don't pretend to speak for him. But coppering and neurosurgery are different in many ways. For example, when a neurosurgeon kills someone, there's a good chance they'll get sued for malpractice and pay a heavy price, compared to all the different kinds of immunity that cover a cop's actions. Also, it takes more years of training to become a newly-minted neurosurgeon, than it takes months to become a newly-minted cop. Also, I'm unaware of any maximum IQ for neurosurgeons anywhere. Also, and I don't really have any evidence to support this, but my gut feeling is that more neurosurgeons than cops have vacation homes in the California wine country.Originally Posted by Hambo
These difference exist for good reasons, for example, I think police need much of the immunity they enjoy. But it's disingenuous at best, drawing on a cop-neurosurgeon analogy to criticize someone who would dare to ask questions about how police operate.
I'm no cop basher. But bashing on folks for questioning civil authority is even worse. Cody is asking questions, and patiently seeking answers in a civil discourse. If I asked my neurosurgeon to explain my upcoming surgery to me, I'd expect some kind of explanation that made sense to me - or I'd go find another neurosurgeon, regardless of how many years of training and experience they might have. It's not cop-bashing to expect some transparency from our civil authorities; on the contrary, it's downright American. If more people would participate in civic activities, like the conversations that Cody is having with his police department, and if communities would vote their conscience instead of for "the lesser of two evils" or whichever politician promises more bread and circuses, we might have fewer riots and more transparent government.
The answer, it seems to me, is wrath. The mind cannot foresee its own advance. --FA Hayek Specialization is for insects.
OK, replace neurosurgeon with plumber, or any other professional whose skills you do not possess. I'm not bashing, I seriously want to know why people without the necessary qualifications for a job feel their criticism is relevant. Asking for transparency, clarification, or an explanation is one thing. Telling people how to do their jobs better when one possesses no actual knowledge of how the job is or might be done is pointless. Cody ventured into this area when he wrote about not liking the criteria for SWAT call-outs. What would he have them do? What makes his opinion more worthwhile than the experience that lead to current practice?
"Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA
Beware of my temper, and the dog that I've found...
I most certainly do, actually, question my plumber when he works on my house. Because it's *my* house, not his -- his incentives do not match up with mine. He may be making the best choice for the job -- or he may just be trying to scam me into another couple hours of labor, or trying to get around doing it "right" to do it "quick and cheap" and get out of there. Blind trust will not show the difference between any of those options.
It's a classic principal-agent problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princip...3agent_problem
The solution of "just trust me, I'm an expert," absolutely does *not* work in a situation where you are talking about an entire agency of people vs an entire community. I don't know my local detective - he could be an awesome guy, or a complete jerk, or just accidentally misinformed by whatever article he happened to read. Experts in all fields *must* be able to justify their actions and why they took them.
Do you hold the same opinion about your congressman? "My constituents never went to law school, never sat in committee meetings or passed a law. How dare they question how I govern/tell me what the 2nd amendment means!"
I'm not saying that many complaints aren't driven by ignorance -- but people have a right to have it *proved* to them that the police are doing things because it follows reasonably from an agreed upon balance between officer safety/efficiency and "customer" rights. Trust me doesn't cover it.
Now, your point *does* mean that we should take a less hostile tact. "You say this is necessary -- please tell me why it is necessary, because it seems unnecessarily dangerous/rights-infringing to me" and then keep digging on the answer, rather than just assuming nasty things about anybody.
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