A MATTER OF
EVIDENCE-
‘An officer’s
statement after a police shooting.’
(July 2006)
BY SALLY RAMAGE
How
should a police officer be treated after he has shot dead a criminal suspect?
[A]
Per United Kingdom’s Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984: -
1)
like a suspect or a civilian witness;
2)
required to give a statement as soon as possible;
3)
isolated to prohibit collusion with others; and
4)
interrogated
rather than interviewed, with every discrepancy and hole in his version of
events regarded as possibly contradictory evidence?
OR
[B]
1)
Like a survivor of a critical incident-given time to
de-escalate and mentally process the high-stress encounter before being
extensively questioned.
2)
Such a police officer must be allowed to ‘walk back’
through the confrontation to clarify what took place.
3)
He/she should be interviewed using techniques that
enhance and effectively” mine” memory,
4)
His statement acquired in this manner should be
regarded as truthful and well-intentioned until reliable evidence suggests
otherwise?
According
to the recommendations of a non-profit research organisation on police
oversight and consulting, dedicated to influencing law enforcement policies and
practices in the United States of America and internationally, “A” is the
preferred approach.
The
foothold that Approach [A] is gaining has alarmed some prominent police
psychologists and other knowledgeable observers who have spent much of their
careers trying to make Approach “B” the standard after traumatic events such as
officer-involved shooting. With
terrorism being the main worry of most of the world’s countries today, this
issue is vitally important. There is a
need for uniformity of approach. As
organised crime and terrorist groups have globalised and diversified their
operations, they have based their activity on countries offering conditions
most favourable to survival and expansion and as they continue to forum shop,
police around the world must give them no chance to create havoc by way of
diversified and contradicting criminal procedural laws – it is not only the
shooting of criminal suspects that is the issue here, but the pursuit of
criminals for the protection of the public, a broader issue. In the United Kingdom, no longer is a nation
whose police forces carry no guns, the need for clarity in criminal evidence is
paramount and we must pay keen attention to other nations’ efforts in this
field. How can we forget such cases as Director
of Public Prosecutions v Smith[1]? Yet submissions are made that Anti-terrorism
laws have flown in the face of Human Rights, due to the different meaning put
to ‘self-defence’ and to the definition of the word ‘terrorism’ in the
Anti-terrorism Statutes[2].
To this
end, we can observe the oversight group, launched with money from the Ford
Foundation and based in Los Angeles, known as PARC (Police Assessment Resource
Centre)[3]. Aiming to help police departments, especially in the United States
of America “advance effective, respectful and publicly accountable policing,”
PARC now has research briefs of
investigating, monitoring, advising and proposing “reform” recommendations for
agencies and police oversight entities in California, New York, Oregon, New
Mexico, Louisiana, Michigan, Idaho, and for other countries, including Greece.
According
to its website the organization, PARC, also works with journalists to “improve”
the “critical analysis” of law enforcement issues in the media. In addition, some plaintiffs’ attorneys have
been citing policy principles advanced by PARC in police-related lawsuits.
“PARC and
its philosophy are surfacing in a wide variety of venues,” declares Dr. Bill Lewinski, one behavioural scientist who
strongly takes issue with the group’s post-shooting proposals.
PARC offers
a wide range of suggestions for changing police practices. After analyzing thirty two officer-involved
shootings and two in-custody deaths in Portland (Oregon, USA), for example, the
group made eighty nine recommendations regarding Portland Police Bureau’s
training, tactics, policies and procedures.
PARC’s 266-page report of its findings, as well as other of its
departmental analyses, can be downloaded from its website. The propelling force behind PARC is its
founding director and president, an attorney, Bobb, who claims to be the
world’s “first police monitor,” served as deputy general counsel to the Christopher Commission, which
investigated Los Angeles Police Department after the Rodney King incident, and on the Kolts Commission, which investigated LASD. He currently
“reviews and monitors” LASD on an on-going basis as special counsel to the Los
Angeles Board of Supervisors.
The board of trustees at
PARC has among the board:
-
a lawyer who has worked for the NAACP;
-
a representative of the Urban League;
-
the executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights;
-
a former U.S.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights;
-
an executive with the Los Angeles Times newspaper’
-
the former U.S.
Attorney whose office prosecuted NYC officers in the Abner Louima case; and
-
and two former law enforcement
administrators.[4]
In its Portland Report[5], PARC explains what it considers
“best practices” for dealing with an officer who has been involved in a
shooting or an in-custody death.
Among the
PARC observations/recommendations are the following:-
Ø
Just as it is “beyond dispute that witnesses should be
interviewed as soon as possible” after an occurrence, “best practice likewise
dictates that officers” should be questioned promptly, certainly no later than
several hours after a shooting”.
Ø
“Contemporaneous interviews enhance the integrity of
the process by reducing the likelihood that the officers’ account of events
will be deliberately contaminated (by deceit)
or accidentally contaminated (i.e., where an officer’s memory of the
incident is subconsciously affected by what he or she hears from others).”
Ø
“As a general rule, Homicide investigators interview
civilians involved in, or witnessing, a shooting ... as soon as possible,
regardless of their
emotional state. Often these civilians
are taken from the scene...to headquarters and persuaded to stay … -often for
many hours … until Homicide has an opportunity to fully interview them. Police Officers should be treated no
differently”.
Ø
“There is no empirical support for the view that
conducting an interview soon after a high-stress event necessarily produces
unreliable testimony. It is not a
persuasive argument that a waiting period of up to three days before extensive
questioning is fairer for the involved officer and produces more accurate
accounts because of reduction of stress and enhancement of memory”.
Ø
PARC’s Report also objects to “informal, untaped
‘pre-interviews’ with officers.”
Ø
PARC does not see
these ‘pre-interviews’ as contributing to more complete and better
quality recall, and records its concern
that they “might corrupt the integrity of statements eventually made for the
record.”
Ø
As to significant research indicating that officers’
perceptions can be distorted during a deadly force incident, PARC asserts,
“waiting to interview the officer will not affect these phenomena.”
PARC
asserts that delaying interviews “increases the possibility of officer
collusion or inadvertent contamination of memory. Once the involved officers leave the crime
scene, there is no one to prevent them from getting their stories straight.”
PARC’s
recommendations as noted above find favour among some investigators and
administrators. However Force Science
News, an organisation familiar with police shootings’ cases, expressed serious
concerns about the conclusions reached in the PARC Report.
“The
conclusions and recommendations reached in this PARC Report are not based on
scientific foundation,” says Bill Lewinski, FSRC’s executive director, who has
nearly thirty years’ experience of law enforcement psychology. “This attitude reflects a belief that police
officers are devious, that they engage in shootings out of their own will, and
that they should be handled with the same degree of suspicion as any suspected
criminal held in a shooting. In theory
PARC’s approach should lessen distrust of the police by the public but in
reality it could lead to the opposite result because in many cases immediate
and aggressive questioning of the involved officer is guaranteed to produce
discrepancies, unwarranted suspicion, and problems in court. Then, ultimately, when an unfounded
prosecution of an officer fails, the public will not trust either its police
officers or the court system. Every
officer-involved shooting needs to be investigated thoroughly, but in a way
that produces more factual disclosures and, in the end, the best possible
representation of the truth. Lewinski
notes: “There have been tens of thousands of experiments and articles related
to emotional intensity and its effect on perception and memory. These help us understand about the true ‘best
practices’ for working with officers who have been involved in deadly force
encounters.
They
inform us of the types of information officers capture and do not capture during
a critical incident and the best ways to mine the memories of an officer who
has been in a life-threatening confrontation.
John Hoag, an attorney for multiple public-safety labour
organizations in Oregon said of the PARC Report, “Investigation of an officer-involved
shooting needs to be approached with the understanding that when officers use
deadly force, it’s not just another homicide,” Mr. Hoag estimates that he has personally
responded to some forty law enforcement shootings in the State of Oregon. “The overwhelming majority of homicide
investigations are for murders, killings that are unquestionably not justified
and for which guilty persons need to be arrested. In contrast, society employs officers to use
deadly force when necessary. It is an essential
job requirement and they are trained to use it only when it is appropriate and
legal to do so. In virtually every
police shooting, officers did what they had to do and what we hire them to do. They are not criminals nor are they
civilians, and they should not be treated as such. Protecting their legitimate interests will
actually yield more accurate statements.
Even longer delays may be best.
In most cases, the first night the officer won’t sleep well, if at all
and when the adrenalin peak runs out he may be so tired that he won’t give the
best statement either. A two-day delay
allows for at least one good night’s sleep.
Rested, the officer can sort out better what actually happened as
opposed to what may be his mistaken impressions. This delay does not impede an
investigation. An involved officer while
still at the scene can advise as to injuries, location of offenders, evidence
that needs protection and witnesses who should be questioned. I strongly favour the officer informally
revisiting the scene with his attorney, but without an investigator or video
camera present, before submitting a statement.
Walking through the scene under the same lighting conditions and seeing
how the physical evidence jibes with what the officer recalls helps identify
how much perceptual distortion has occurred and helps the officer remember more
accurately and fully exactly what happened.
I’ve had many tell me that without a walk-through, there would have been
many errors in what they said. Any
statement given before rest and a walk-through should be recognized as having a
high potential for inaccuracies.
Officers
who have had to use deadly force want to give the most accurate statement
possible explaining what they did and why they did it. The investigative approach used by the
department should be one that encourages the officer to cooperate fully, as
that is in everyone’s best interest.
Distrust is implicit in the PARC recommendation. If the officer is approached like a
criminal by the very agency that employs him, he will be encouraged to exercise
his right to remain silent. Society
will not benefit from that. The agency
will not benefit, and the involved officer will pay a horribly high price as
well. You want the officer to come out
of a shooting and a shooting investigation at peace with what happened, a
stronger, better officer, not an embittered one. How he’s treated is huge in the results you
get, said Mr. Hoag.
It can be
argued that such a procedure, of an involved officer advising as to evidence
that needs protecting, etc. is NOT the
same as a full interview as no transcript is made when such information is
simply verbally related to investigators.
Dr. Alexis
Artwohl said of the PARC Report, “PARC seems to think that
after shooting officers are basically going to be liars, trying to cover up and
elude” investigators seeking a truthful reconstruction. In the 21 pages of this PARC report relating to post-shooting handling of
officers, the need to prevent officers from colluding to ‘get their story
straight’ is mentioned five times. I am not so naive as to believe that there
are no police officers who lie. A small
percentage of police officers may be unethical, immoral and corrupt.
However, in
a democracy, we are not allowed to accuse everyone in a group of being
dishonest just because a small percentage of the group may be. It is usually desirable to interview
potential suspects and civilian witnesses as soon as possible after a violent
event because they may disappear during a delay. I am not aware of a single case where that
has happened with a police officer most officers will reliably comply with a
directive not to discuss a shooting with anyone other than an attorney prior to
giving a statement. Thus, the realistic
risks of waiting to question an officer seem small compared to considerable
benefits. It is well established that a
significant percentage of officers experience perceptual distortions during the
mental and physical hyper-stress of a shooting, ranging from auditory exclusion
to frustrating memory gaps.
Concern
about what will happen afterward--the media scrutiny, the investigations,
potential disciplinary action, legal proceedings and job loss, the possibility
of becoming a political scapegoat--only aggravate the alarm arousal. Any time you are at a high level of stress
and anxiety it can temporarily impair your ability to remember things
accurately and completely. Some officers
can calm down very quickly and may feel in satisfactory condition to give a
coherent statement promptly. However,
most will benefit from ‘recovery time.’
Some
researchers have concluded that nearly 40 per cent of officers experience a
return of ‘lost’ details to their memories just by waiting, not only after
shootings but after physical-force altercations as well. It is common after a critical incident for
all survivors, including officers, to second -guess themselves and/or others. This second-guessing is emotionally based and
almost invariably irrational. Insisting
on immediate statements from officers who are still experiencing high levels of
emotional arousal increases the risk that they will make emotionally based
statements fraught with second guessing and perceptual distortions that are not
an accurate reflection of what really happened.”
Officer Levi Bolton[6], a 31-year police veteran, a former report-writing
instructor, a trustee with the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, said of the
Report, “The model should be designed to fit the rule, not the exception. Common practices shouldn’t be built around
deviancy. It is well established that a
significant percentage of officers experience perceptual distortions during the
mental and physical hyper-stress of a shooting, ranging from auditory exclusion
to frustrating memory gaps. Concern
about what will happen afterward--the media scrutiny, the investigations,
potential disciplinary action, legal proceedings and job loss, the possibility
of becoming a political scapegoat--only aggravate the alarm arousal. Delaying an officer’s questioning, even
through a complete sleep cycle, has been endorsed by the Psychological Services
Section of the IACP[7],
which reflects the collective wisdom of the most experienced police
psychologists”.
These
professionals have concluded that this delay will yield more coherent and
accurate statements.
FSRC will be conducting a study in the summer of 2006,
funded by £40,000 from the Board of the London
Metropolitan Police[8]
which will consolidate this research.
The object of this study will be to examine and effects of stress on
psychomotor skills, perception and memory and then to investigate a variety of
methods for their effectiveness in tapping memories, in short, exploring what science has to say rather than
relying on attitude and opinion.
ENDS
Inquiry into Legislation against Terrorism, Vol 2, Lord Lloyd of Berwick
(1996)
Third Report for the session 2005-2006 of the Joint Committee on Human
Rights - Counter-Terrorism Policy and Human Rights: Terrorism Bill and
related matters, Volume I (HL Paper 75-I, HC 561) and Volume 2 (HL
75-II/HC 561-II); 5 December 2005 -
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt200506/jtselect/jtrights/75/7502.htm
Amnesty International; United Kingdom Human Rights: A Broken Promise;
23 February 2006
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engeur450042006
The International Association of Chiefs of
Police. See website http://www.iacp.org/documents/index.cfm?fuseaction=document&document_id=825
Islamic Human Rights Commission; Submission to the Home Office in
response to Discussion Paper, “Counter-terrorism powers: Reconciling Security
and Liberty in an Open Society”; August 2004 - http://www.ihrc.org.uk/file/HomeOfficeSubmissionFinal.pdf
London Metropolitan Police.
Website http://www.london.gov.uk/gla/policing.jsp
PARC,
whose website is http://www.parc.info/
Police
Community website http://www.policeone.com/
Resolution 42/149 of the General Assembly of the United Nations, of 7
December 1987 -
http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/42/a42r159.htm
Portland newspaper, The Portland and Mercury. http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/
List of statutes
Offences against the Person Act 1861
Criminal Justice Act 1967
Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984
Anti
Terrorism Act 2005
List of
cases
Brady v Maryland [1963] Supreme Court, USA
DPP v Majewski, [1977]
AC 443, [1976] 2 All ER 142, [1976] 2 WLR 623, 62 Cr App Rep 262, 140
JP 315, [1976] Crim LR 374, 120 Sol Jo 299
DPP v
Smith [1961] AC 290, House of Lords
R v Ashman(1858) 1 F & F 88
R v Cox (1818) R & R 362 (CCR)
R v Vickers [1957] 2 QB 664
[1] [1961] AC
290, House of Lords.
The
appellant was driving a car containing stolen property when a policeman told
him to draw into the kerb. Instead he
accelerated and the constable clung on to the side of the car. The car followed an erratic course and the
policeman fell off in front of another car and was killed. The appellant drove on for 200 yards, dumped
the stolen property and then returned.
He was charged with capital murder.
He was convicted but the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the conviction
for capital murder and substituted one for manslaughter. The Crown appealed to the House of Lords,
which restored the conviction for capital murder.
Viscount
Kilmuir said, “In murder, the killer intends to kill, or to inflict some harm
which will seriously interfere for a time with health or comfort. If the accused intended to do the officer
some harm which would seriously interfere at least for a time with his health
or comfort, and thus perhaps enable the accused to make good his escape for the
time being at least that would be murder too.
The direction in these passages is clearly based on the well-known direction
of Wilkes .J in R v Ashman (1858) 1 F & F 88 and on the words used
by Graham J in R v Cox (1818) R & R 362 (CCR). Indeed this is a direction which is commonly
given by judges in trials for the statutory offence under section 18 of the
Offences against the Person Act 1861 and has on occasion been given in murder
trials, eg. R v Vickers [1957] 2
QB 664. Since then, the Criminal Justice
Act 1967, section 8, has been interpreted as abolishing that part of DDP v
Smith which suggested that the mens rea of murder could be satisfied by an
objective test. The case of DPP v
Majestic, ante, p 176, takes the view that section 8 concerns only rules of
evidence, and not the substantive law.
[2] See
Mary Robinson’s lecture on the rule of law after 9/11. On 20 March 2006, Mary Robinson, ICJ
Commissioner and member of the Eminent Jurists Panel on a Terrorism,
Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights, delivered the annual JUSTICE international
rule of law lecture in London, entitled “Five years on from 9/11 – time to
reassert the rule of law”.
[3] See
website http://www.parc.info/,
based at Biltmore Court,520 South Grand Avenue, Suite 1070,Los Angeles,
California 90071.
PARC is a non-profit organization that, in cooperation
with monitors, law enforcement executives, civic and government officials, and
other interested constituencies, aims to strengthen police oversight so as to
advance effective, respectful, and publicly accountable policing.
[4] The Board includes these eminent persons-
Lowell Johnston
is an accomplished attorney who has been in private practice since 1994. His areas of practice include labour and
employment, real estate, corporate, non-profit and litigation. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at
CUNY Law School. Prior to starting his
own practice Mr. Johnston was a partner
at Arnelle & Hastie where his practice areas included general commercial
and real estate litigation. He has also
worked with the NAACP Legal Defence and Education Fund. Mr.
Johnson has a B.A. from Harvard
College and a L.L.B. from Harvard law
School.
Merrick Bobb, President, PARC. Merrick Bobb is the current president and
founding director of PARC, a project Vera developed and launched in Los
Angeles. A lawyer, he was the first person
to occupy the role of police monitor and has become a nationally recognized
expert on police oversight and reform.
Merrick has monitored the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for
seven years and has consulted with jurisdictions around the country and with
the U.S. Department
Esther Bush, President, Urban League of Pittsburgh. Esther Bush is the President and Chief
Executive Officer of the Urban League of Pittsburgh. A graduate of Pittsburgh’s Westinghouse High
School, Ms. Bush began her career as a
high school teacher. She also worked as
a college administrator and corporate consultant. She has moved progressively up the ladder of
the Urban League movement, starting in 1980 with the position of Assistant
Director of the Labour Education Advancement Program for the National Urban
League in New York City. From there, she
served first as Director of the New York Urban League Staten Island Branch,
then as Director of its Manhattan Branch.
Before returning to her hometown of
Pittsburgh in December 1994, Ms. Bush
was a positive and dynamic force as President and Chief Executive Officer of
the Urban League of Greater Hartford.
She is the first female to serve in each of her last four positions in
the Urban League movement. Ms. Bush served on Governor Tom Ridge’s Law
Enforcement and Community Relations Task Force (‘01), the Governor’s Commission
on Academic Standards (‘01), and the Voting Modernization Task Force
(‘01). In 1997 she received the honorary
Doctor of Law degree from the University of Hartford. She earned her Bachelor’s degree at Morgan
State University and her graduate degree at The Johns Hopkins University.
Zachary Carter, Partner, Dorsey and Whitney, and former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New
York. Zachary Carter is a partner in the
Trial, Regulatory and Technology group at Dorsey & Whitney LLP. Mr.
Carter practices in the areas of white collar criminal defence, complex
civil litigation, representation of government regulated industries, representation
of government contractors and securities class action litigation. Mr.
Carter served as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New
York from 1993 to 1999. As United States
Attorney for one of the largest federal districts movement, starting in 1980
with the position of Assistant Director of the Labour Education Advancement
Program for the National Urban League in New York City. From there, she served first as Director of
the New York Urban League Staten Island Branch, then as Director of its
Manhattan Branch.
Before returning to her hometown of Pittsburgh in December 1994, Ms. Bush was a positive and dynamic force as
President and Chief Executive Officer of the Urban League of Greater Hartford. She is the first female to serve in each of
her last four positions in the Urban League movement. Ms.
Bush served on Governor Tom Ridge’s Law Enforcement and Community
Relations Task Force (‘01), the Governor’s Commission on Academic Standards
(‘01), and the Voting Modernization Task Force (‘01). In 1997 she received the honorary Doctor of
Law degree from the University of Hartford.
She earned her Bachelor’s degree at Morgan State University and her
graduate degree at The Johns Hopkins University.
John Dunne, Senior Counsel, Whiteman Osterman and Hanna, and former
U.S. Assistant Attorney General for
Civil Rights
Prior to becoming Senior Counsel at the law firm Whiteman Osterman & Hanna,
John Dunne had served in a variety of federal, state and local government
positions for thirty years. From 1990 to
1993 he was the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice. From 1966 to 1989 he was a member of the New
York State Senate. From 1956 to 1965 he
was law secretary to a New York State Supreme Court Justice and headed the law
department of the Nassau County Court.
Throughout his local and state service, he actively practiced law on
Long Island, most recently as a partner in the national law firm of Rivkin,
Radler, Dunne & Bayh. He
concentrates his practice on environmental, criminal, civil rights,
governmental affairs and appellate law.
Wade Henderson, Executive Director, Leadership Conference on Civil
Rights. Wade Henderson is the Executive
Director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) and Counsel to the
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCEF). Mr.
Henderson is well known for his expertise on a wide range of civil
rights, civil liberties, and human rights issues. He works principally in the areas of civil
rights enforcement; economic and political empowerment for people of colour,
women, persons with disabilities, and the poor; education reform; criminal
justice reform; welfare reform; fair housing policy; issues of immigration and
refugee policy; Census 2000; and human rights.
Under his leadership, the LCCR has become one of the nation’s most
effective defenders of affirmative action policy and one of the strongest
advocates for legislation of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
Bonnie Hill, Consultant and former Senior Vice President of
Community Relations for the Los Angeles Times.
Bonnie Hill is president of B.
Hill Enterprises, LLC, a consulting firm specializing in corporate
governance and board organizational and public policy issues. She is also the chief operating officer of
Icon Blue, a brand marketing company based in Los Angeles. Prior to establishing her consulting business
in July 2001, Ms. Hill was president and
chief executive officer of The Times Mirror Foundation and senior vice
president, communications and public affairs for the Los Angeles Times. She serves on several Fortune 500 boards, is
an advisor or board member of several leading civic and educational
institutions, and has had a wide-ranging career in corporate, civic,
educational and community affairs.
Ms.
Hill has served as dean of the McIntire School of Commerce at the
University of Virginia, as secretary of the State and Consumer Services Agency
for the State of California, and has held a variety of presidential
appointments, serving as vice-chair of the Postal Rate Commission, assistant
secretary in the U.S. Department of
Education, and special adviser to President Bush for Consumer Affairs. Ms.
Hill has received numerous honours and awards, including the National
Women’s Economic Alliance Foundation Directors Choice Award, the YWCA Tribute
to Women in International Industry Award, the Grace Award from the Angeles Girl
Scouts Council, and the Deborah Award from the Anti-Defamation League. She has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from
Mills College, a master’s degree in educational psychology from California
State University, Hayward, and a doctorate in education from the University of
California at Berkeley.
Michael P Jacobson, Director, Vera Institute of Justice. Michael P.
Jacobson joined the Vera Institute of Justice as director in January
2005. He is the author of Downsizing
Prisons: How to Reduce Crime and End Mass Incarceration (New York University
Press 2005). He was the New York City
Correction Commissioner from 1995 to 1998.
From 1992 to 1996, he was New York City’s Probation Commissioner, and
from 1984 to 1992, he worked in the New York City Office of Management and
Budget where he was the Deputy Budget Director.
Immediately before joining Vera, he was a professor at the City
University of New York Graduate Center and the John Jay College of Criminal
Justice where he taught courses in urban sociology, criminology, public policy
and finance, corrections and criminal justice policies and public
administration. He established and
coordinated an Associate Degree program on Rikers Island for correction
officers and staff and received funding from New York State Legislature to
design, implement and evaluate a credit-bearing college course on police
leadership and human dignity for first line police supervisors.
[5] Nearly six years ago, Jose Mejia Poot tried to board a city
bus, but was a few coins short of a fare.
He didn’t speak English and, in the confusion, became confrontational
with the bus driver. The police were called,
Mejia Poot was detained, and mistakenly, he was thrown into a psychiatric
hospital. After two days there, Mejia
Poot once again became agitated and the police were again called, arriving
without a translator. When Poot lunged
at the officers, they shot him dead.
That
incident is one of 15 police shootings that were investigated in the most
recent report from the LA-based Police Assessment Resource Center (PARC). The PARC report follows up on a similar
investigation two years ago that looked at Portland police shootings between
the years of 1997 and 2000. This second
report examines shootings between July 2000 and December 2001.
[6] In Brady
v Maryland [1963] Supreme Court, USA...
See website http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:RY2vdsx-NIAJ:WWW.AZPLEA.COM/DOCS/fEBRUARY.
[7] The International Association of Chiefs of Police. See website http://www.iacp.org/documents/index.cfm?fuseaction=document&document_id=825
[8] The Metropolitan Police Authority Board is made up of 23
members: twelve members from the Assembly (including the Deputy Mayor), four
magistrates and seven independents. One
of the independents is a direct appointment by the Home Secretary. The Chair of the MPA is chosen by the members
themselves - all of the 23 members are eligible for this position. The Mayor may appoint twelve members of the
London Assembly to the MPA Board. See
website http://www.www.london.gov.uk/gla/policing.jsp