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In the beginning, the Bill of Rights only constrained federal power over Americans. States were largely left to their own devices when protecting their own citizens’ liberties. After the Civil War, Reconstruction’s overhaul of the founding charter also rewrote the balance of power in favor of federal protections. The Supreme Court has spent the last century using the Fourteenth Amendment to apply the Bill of Rights to the states, amendment by amendment and clause by clause.
That process, known as selective incorporation, is now almost complete. The most recent advance came in 2010, when the Supreme Court ruled in McDonald v. Chicago that the Second Amendment right to bear arms also applied to the states. Justice Samuel Alito noted in his majority opinion that the court had yet to weigh in on incorporating only two portions of the Bill of Rights: the Third Amendment’s ban on peacetime quartering of troops in private homes, and the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of excessive fines.
The court has never heard a Third Amendment case. But the Excessive Fines Clause is ripe for consideration in the age of mass incarceration. Impoverished Americans often lack the resources to pay off the fines and fees that can come from even a casual brush with the criminal-justice system. In a cruel twist, the inability to pay these costs can result in jail time itself. Keeping oneself out of trouble is also no guarantee of immunity: A 2014 Washington Post investigation, for example, found that police in multiple states use “highway interdiction” to target thousands of motorists for seizures of cash and property.
Perhaps the most infamous case is that of Ferguson, Missouri, where the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown led to mass protests and a federal investigation. A Justice Department report in 2015 uncovered enthusiastic and systemic abuses of power by the city’s municipal officials, who had effectively converted the city government into a collection agency that targeted black residents for plunder to fill budgetary gaps.
“The City’s emphasis on revenue generation has a profound effect on [the Ferguson Police Department]’s approach to law enforcement,” the DOJ report found. “Partly as a consequence of City and FPD priorities, many officers appear to see some residents, especially those who live in Ferguson’s predominantly African-American neighborhoods, less as constituents to be protected than as potential offenders and sources of revenue.”
Civil-asset forfeiture, though still common, has come under increasing scrutiny across the political spectrum. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s push last year to revive the practice at the federal level drew harsh rebukes from the ACLU and congressional Republicans alike. Justice Clarence Thomas set off a signal flare of sorts last April suggesting he had doubts about the practice’s constitutionality.
The Indiana case revolves around different legal questions that the ones Thomas was asking last year, but the underlying injustices are the same. Taking up the issue would give the justices a chance to set new limits on excessive fines and forfeitures for cash-hungry counties and cities. For Timbs and thousands of other Americans, that intervention would be a welcome relief.
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On Thursday, they also got an apology from Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross, a black man who at first staunchly defended his officers' handling of the incident.
"I should have said the officers acted within the scope of the law, and not that they didn't do anything wrong," Ross said. "Words are very important."
At a news conference, a somber Ross said he "failed miserably" in addressing the arrests. He said that the issue of race is not lost on him and that he shouldn't be the person making things worse. "Shame on me if, in any way, I've done that," he said.
He also said the police department did not have a policy for dealing for such situations but does now, and it will be released soon.
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Leaders of law enforcement organizations agree that if blue lives matter, so do police suicides. “There aren’t hard and fast stats, but we believe there’s at least one suicide every day in law enforcement,” said Chuck Canterbury, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, an organization of law enforcement officers with more than 330,000 members.
Third-party groups that collect statistics on police suicides don’t have numbers that are quite as extreme, but they do estimate that more than a hundred officers a year die by suicide. The Badge of Life and Blue H.E.L.P., nonprofits that advocate for programs and education that address police trauma and stress, reported 140 and 154 police suicides, respectively, in 2017.
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Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, the sole possessor of bureau assignment powers on City Council, said Portland doesn’t have a governance system where the mayor is in a position to hold a police commissioner accountable. Wheeler, who is mayor and the Portland Police Bureau commissioner, said there are conflicts between his two jobs.
“With the officer involved shooting, people are out in front of my office with signs saying, ‘Why aren’t you speaking out on this? Why aren’t you telling us more?,’” Wheeler said, speaking at the second of two state of the city addresses Friday.
“And the answer is: I’m the police commissioner and I have an obligation to the integrity of those investigations as well as setting the vision for the city, so sometimes there is that conflict.”
In the Q&A formatted address, Wheeler offered an alternative to Portland’s commissioner structure of government: “anything but,” he said.
They were the mayor’s first unprepared remarks related to the Saturday shooting that left 48-year-old John Elifritz dead. Details about events leading up to the shooting show Elifritz appeared to exhibit suicidal tendencies before being shot at by seven Portland police officers and one Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office deputy.
Wheeler said in his role as mayor and police commissioner, he has found himself in “awkward situations” because he has to speak simultaneously about police operations and a future vision for the bureau.
“And sometimes those things can be in conflict,” Wheeler said.
Portland’s mayor has the power to appoint whomever they want to city commissions, including the police commissioner position.
In 2010, former-Mayor Sam Adams pulled Commissioner Dan Saltzman from his job as police commissioner.
According to the city, Portland has the last remaining commission form of government among large cities in the United States.
Wheeler also used his state of the city address to defend questions about accountability at the police bureau because of the Elifritz shooting.
“There is accountability,” Wheeler said. “There are now two investigations, plus a grand jury will be assembled. Yet already this week it’s been suggested that I be shot, my life has been threatened, my family has been threatened, I have been protested.”
He said he hopes people will wait for all the facts in the case to surface before they jump to conclusions about it.
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Little Rock police have released video and audio recordings that detail the moments before an officer fatally shot a 28-year-old man as he sped toward a brick wall last fall.
The recordings reveal new information in the October death of James Hartsfield, who was shot by Little Rock officer Brittany Gunn before the 2004 Mercedes-Benz he was driving smashed through a brick wall outside the Prospect Building at 1501 N. University Ave.
Police said Gunn was working off-duty in the early hours of Oct. 7 when she encountered Hartsfield, who appeared to be drinking an alcoholic beverage while driving. According to the department, Hartsfield refused to follow Gunn’s orders, struggled with officers and then sped forward with Gunn still inside the car.
Dashboard camera video shows the struggle before the shooting and the immediate aftermath of the car crash.
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A 12-year-old video showing a sheriff discussing the cost of inmate and suspect deaths has sparked controversy in Kern County, where he is facing re-election.
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Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey commended Sacramento's police chief for asking state Attorney General Xavier Becerra to conduct a separate investigation into the SPD fatal shooting of Stephon Clark, and said she would welcome such an investigation here.
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Striking the waves of social media this month, a company by the name of Ideal Conceal, has released on its social media platforms a concept for a .380 caliber, double barrel, foldable, cellphone shaped handgun. Essentially this is a derringer in the shape of a smart phone. The design folds down, much like this concealable … Read More …
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n Tuesday, with public attention fixed on a primary election, attorneys filed a document in federal court detailing an agreement few had anticipated — Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration had signed off on allowing groups including Black Lives Matter Chicago to consult on and seek to enforce a court agreement that will govern reforms in the troubled Chicago Police Department. That was an about-face for an administration that previously had argued to dismiss litigation from those same groups seeking change in the police force. The city instead has been hammering out a court-backed slate of changes — known as a consent decree — with the office of Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who also sued the city to force change. Now, the activists and advocacy groups will share influence in the process with city and state officials. Some of those activist groups take positions unlikely to appeal to the local political elite; Black Lives Matter Chicago, for example, advocates for de-funding the police and criminally prosecuting Emanuel, among others, in the alleged “cover-ups of the murders” of people by police. While the news may have come as a surprise, the benefits of the deal to each party are clear — as are the risks the participants would have faced without the agreement. For the city, the deal means that groups including the NAACP and ACLU of Illinois, and their army of lawyers, will suspend their lawsuits and join the negotiating process. If those lawsuits had continued, they might have dragged on through the 2019 mayoral election. Emanuel is seeking a third term and could face challengers who might seek to capitalize on some voters’ dissatisfaction with the police. For the activists and advocacy groups, the agreement gives them influence they might not have won through their lawsuits. Their litigation could have failed, preventing them from forcing change in an agency that the U.S. Department of Justice found to be prone to misconduct and excessive force, often against minorities The agreement, however, comes with political risks of its own, and it was immediately unpopular with some in law enforcement. A statement from Chicago Fraternal Order of Police President Kevin Graham said the agreement would “go nowhere” without the support of rank-and-file cops. The FOP is in contract negotiations with the city, and Graham said police would “never give up (their) collective bargaining rights.” Second City Cop, a blog catering to law enforcement, derided the agreement as a plan to “give terrorists a seat at the table.” In a statement, Law Department spokesman Bill McCaffrey said the city “entered into these agreements to provide a formal process for these groups to share input and have productive conversations regarding the consent decree negotiations.” “The agreements also suspend the ongoing litigation in the two pending cases and allow us to instead focus our time and resources on finalizing the consent decree with the Illinois attorney general and reforming the Chicago Police Department,” he wrote. McCaffrey said the city had “offered the same process” to the police unions, though no similar arrangements had been reached. FOP spokesman Martin Preib did not respond to a request for further comment beyond Graham’s statement. The “memorandum of agreement” filed Tuesday codifies a deal between Madigan’s office, city officials and the plaintiffs from the two lawsuits, which include well-known organizations such as the ACLU of Illinois and Chicago Urban League, along with lesser known groups. Those groups had filed lawsuits complaining of police brutality and unfair treatment of African-Americans, Latinos and the mentally ill and disabled. It was unclear why the court filing was made on primary election day, though releasing important information while the media and public are distracted is a common tactic among local political officials hoping to bury news. The agreement was announced in a press release from the ACLU of Illinois. The agreement holds that the activists and advocacy groups will explain their grievances to representatives from the city and attorney general’s office and make proposals for the consent decree, and attorneys from the parties will meet to discuss the proposals and negotiate over them. Once a consent decree is written, the plaintiffs will get to see the document and give feedback. The implementation of a consent decree is typically overseen by an appointed monitor, and the agreement holds that the yet-to-be-selected monitor who presides over Chicago’s consent decree will meet quarterly with the plaintiffs apart from the city and attorney general’s office. The city and attorney general’s office also agreed not to contest the plaintiffs’ standing to seek court enforcement of the decree if the city fails to comply with it. The plaintiffs, meanwhile, agreed to stay their lawsuits. One of the lawsuits includes the allegations of several individual plaintiffs, and their claims seeking money damages will not be stayed. Sheila Bedi, a Northwestern University Law School professor and attorney who helped lead one of the lawsuits, said the agreement gives the activist groups real influence over changes to the Police Department. “We can use the power of the federal court to try to ensure that the consent decree is really robust,” she said. The agreement is the latest consequence of the political controversy sparked in late 2015 by the court-mandated release of video of white police Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times. The video touched off street protests fueled by long-standing complaints about the police, particularly among African-Americans and Latinos, and Emanuel weathered calls for his resignation. Emanuel at first resisted the idea of a Justice Department investigation but reversed himself as it gained momentum among other political officials. The resulting investigation wrapped up in January 2017 with a report describing a broken Police Department in which poorly trained cops have engaged in brutality and misconduct with little to fear from either their supervisors or a largely toothless disciplinary system. In the last days of an Obama administration that often sought to enforce reform in local police agencies, Emanuel supported a court-enforced consent decree to govern changes in Chicago. But he backed off after the Trump administration came into office and expressed opposition to consent decrees. Emanuel said he could bring meaningful reform to the department through an out-of-court agreement with the Trump administration involving a monitor. Then, in August 2017, Madigan sued the city to force a consent decree, and Emanuel said he would negotiate toward one. Black Lives Matter Chicago and other groups had sued months before to force changes in the department; the ACLU of Illinois and other organizations sued in October 2017 to force reforms in the way police deal with the mentally ill and disabled. The Emanuel administration started working with the attorney general’s office while moving for the dismissal of the other lawsuits. Judges had not ruled on those motions before Tuesday’s agreement. The agreement holds that if the consent decree is not filed by Sept. 1 or entered by a judge by New Year’s Day 2019, the plaintiffs can move to lift the stays on their lawsuits. Those deadlines have extra meaning, given that Madigan is not seeking another term and will leave office in January 2019. Many cities have been through the process of court-enforced police reform, but the new agreement in Chicago is unusual in that community groups and advocacy organizations are having their role formally recognized in a court document before the consent decree is finalized, said Christy Lopez, a former Justice Department lawyer who helped lead the investigations in Chicago and other cities. Still, community groups and activists were involved with the reform cycles in other cities, said Lopez, who described the negotiation process between politically disparate parties as both difficult and rewarding. “It’s very challenging, and there are reasons they haven’t come together in the past,” she said. “What you have to do, obviously, is find the areas in which they can agree, and really focus on those.”
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From NPR.org: Sacramento police officers shot and killed 22-year-old Stephon Clark, a father of two who was unarmed, in the backyard of his grandparents’ home on Sunday night. “The only thing that I heard was pow, pow, pow, pow, and I got to the ground,” Sequita Thompson, Clark’s grandmother, told The Sacramento Bee. “I opened that curtain …
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The Sacramento Police Department has released body cam, dash cam and helicopter footage of the Stephon Clark shooting where officers fatally shot the unarmed black man who was holding his cellphone in his grandparents' backyard.
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Menlo Park, California, Police Chief Robert Jonsen discussed how community policing strategies reduced violent crime and improved community relations.
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TRENTON, Fla. — Two deputies in Trenton, Florida were killed in the line of duty on Thursday.
Around 3 p.m., two Gilchrist County Deputy Sheriffs were eating inside Ace China restaurant in downtown Trenton, when a man walked up to the window and shot them through the window, from outside the establishment.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, when fellow deputies responded to the scene, they found the shooter deceased outside the business and Sgt. Noel Ramirez, 30, and Deputy Taylor Lindsey, 25, deceased inside. The suspect has not been identified at this time.
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A federally-funded study into police brutality found that in over 1 million police calls, the “use of force” occurred in just 1 of 1,167 cases, or 0.086 percent.
The key finding: less than one in a million cases led to a fatality.
The review conducted with the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center studied 1.04 million calls from three police departments over two years and found 893 cases in which suspects were subjected to force.
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After the Stephon Clark killing, there's a huge difference of experience between police who say they must make split-second decisions, and some minorities who allege constant mistreatment by the police.
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California police leaders on Monday sharply criticized lawmakers for blindsiding them last week with a proposal to change the circumstances under which officers can legally kill a suspect.
For three decades, law enforcement has generally followed a standard established by U.S. Supreme Court cases where lethal force is acceptable if a “reasonable” officer in similar circumstances would have acted the same way.
Assembly Bill 931 would tighten the state standard for police use of deadly force from "reasonable" to “necessary,” meaning when there are no alternatives for the officer to consider.
“We find ourselves dumbfounded that legislation of this magnitude was introduced without consulting law enforcement stakeholders,” California Police Chiefs Association President David Swing said at a press conference.
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In the immediate aftermath of London, England murder rate hitting historic levels, Mayor Sadiq Khan announced a new plan to completely ban knives, according to The Daily Wire.
Claiming that there’s “no reason” for citizens to own a knife, Khan is also introducing new stop-and-frisk measures to ensure citizens are completely disarmed.
Khan claims the new “knife control” policies will keep “weapons of war” away from citizens who may engage in violence or try to harm others.
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University of Chicago students and faculty rallied on Thursday afternoon to protest actions by campus police and the availability of mental health services after a student allegedly suffering from a mental health crisis was shot as he approached an officer with a metal pipe.
Three officers from the University Police Department and two officers from the Chicago Police Department responded to calls of a burglary at approximately 10:12 p.m. Tuesday in the 5300 block of South Kimbark Avenue. A witness said 21-year-old Charles Thomas, a fourth-year student at the school, was yelling and smashing vehicles and apartment windows, reports ABC 7.
Body camera and police vehicle footage released Wednesday show Thomas wearing a mask, yellow gloves and wielding a metal pipe. An image of Thomas during the encounter is shown in the article.
A university police officer can be heard telling Thomas to drop the weapon as he continued to walk towards the officer, who is seen backing up.
Thomas then allegedly charged the officer, who fired one round, striking Thomas in the shoulder. Thomas was later taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital to be treated for the gunshot wound and a broken shoulder blade.
Student Suffered Mental Health Crisis, Parents Say Thomas’ parents, Kathy and Wendell Thomas, say their son may have been in the midst of a mental crisis at the time of the incident.
“The voice he was using when he was yelling, I’ve never heard him use that voice. It was like it was coming from another place,” says Kathy Thomas.
Thomas’ parents say their son recently sought counseling from the university and was referred to services off-campus.
Kathy Thomas says she has been treated for bipolar disorder for decades and has been closely monitoring her son for symptoms.
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Several state lawmakers and the family of a 22-year-old unarmed black man fatally shot by police are proposing Tuesday that California become the first state to significantly restrict when officers can open fire. The proposed legislation would change the current "reasonable force" rule to a "necessary force" standard. That means officers would be allowed to shoot only if "there were no other reasonable alternatives to the use of deadly force" to prevent imminent serious injury or death, said American Civil Liberties Union legislative advocate Lizzie Buchen, whose organization is among the groups behind the bill. The goal is to encourage officers to try to defuse confrontations or use less-lethal weapons, said Terry Schanz, a spokesman for Assemblyman Kevin McCarty of Sacramento. McCarty is co-authoring the bill with fellow Democratic Assemblywoman Shirley Weber of San Diego. Leslie McGill, executive director of the California Police Chiefs Association, and Cory Salzillo, a lobbyist for the California State Sheriffs' Association, said they hadn't seen the proposed bill and couldn't comment. The proposal comes after two Sacramento police officers chased Stephon Clark, who was suspected of breaking into cars, into his grandparents' backyard. They say they shot at him because they thought he had a gun, but investigators found only a cellphone. California's current standard, set in law and by court decisions, means it is rare for police officers to be charged following a shooting and rarer still for them to be convicted. Frequently it's because of the doctrine of reasonable fear: If prosecutors or jurors believe that officers have a reason to fear for their safety, they can use force up to and including lethal force. That standard "gives very broad discretion for using deadly force," said Buchen. "It doesn't mean there has to have been a threat. If a reasonable officer could have perceived a threat and responded with deadly force, then it's legal." The proposed standard could require officers to delay confronting a suspect they fear may be armed until backup arrives, for instance, or to give explicit verbal warnings that the suspect will be killed unless he or she drops the weapon, she said. Officers might also have to first engage in de-escalation techniques or try non-lethal weapons if possible before shooting. The proposed bill would also make it clear that the use of deadly force wouldn't be justified if the officer's gross negligence contributed to making the force "necessary." It would open officers who don't follow the stricter rules to discipline or firing, or sometimes to criminal charges.
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The name of the officer involved in the shooting, Sgt. Daniel Cox, a 20-year Department of Public Safety veteran, was not released until Tuesday, which is in accordance with agency policy. The department said Yakunin on Saturday afternoon had contacted a woman in violation of felony probation conditions. Trooper Luke Kumfer responded and at 7 p.m. reached a home in Nikolaevsk. Authorities said Yakunin refused to cooperate and "become extremely threatening" toward the officer. Kumfer used his radio to call for assistance, fired his stun gun at Yakunin and followed that with pepper spray. Troopers said Yakunin knocked Kumfer off the home's porch, injuring the officer. Yakunin then assaulted the injured trooper lying on the ground for about 20 minutes, troopers said. They did not indicate how they knew the assault lasted 20 minutes. The release from troopers made no mention of possible weapons Yakunin used or whether other people were at the home. When Cox arrived at the home he shot Yakunin, troopers said. Yakunin was pronounced dead at the scene. Troopers released no information about any conversation between Cox and Yakunin before the shooting, or whether Kumfer lost consciousness during the assault. Kumfer by Tuesday night had been released from hospital care but was still recovering from injuries. "For his privacy, we are not releasing details of his injuries," said trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters by email. The state medical examiner conducted an autopsy on Yakunin's body, Peters said, but it could take up to two months to receive results. Peters said troopers routinely respond to incidents alone. Asked if Yakunin's history of violence should have prompted more troopers to respond initially, Peters said that if there was a perceived risk, the situation is reviewed to determine an appropriate way to respond. Troopers have refused to answer other questions about the incident, citing an ongoing department investigation, including whether troopers were wearing body cameras. The Department of Law's Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals investigates whether deadly force is justified by officers. The Department of Public Safety reviews the case to determine if an officer using deadly force followed department policy. Nikolaevsk, according to the state community data base, was founded as a community of Russian Old Believers whose ancestors settled in Woodburn, Oregon, after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 forced them out of Russia.
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Attorney General Jeff Sessions today announced the launch of the Collaborative Reform Initiative Technical Assistance Center (CRI-TAC) during the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Division Midyear Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. The CRI-TAC brings together a coalition of the United States’ top public safety organizations under the leadership of the IACP to provide tailored…
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A Texas police officer responding to a high speed chase is getting a lot of attention after he was spotted wearing body armor and plaid shorts.
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"I told the officers, ‘You guys are murderers,'” Stephan Clark's grandmother said after Clark was shot and killed by Sacramento police.
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Get breaking national and world news, broadcast video coverage, and exclusive interviews. Find the top news online at ABC news.
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