Tag Archives: LAPD

Los Angeles Police Commission to LAPD officers: run away

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lapd-cop-car-blastedNo, this is not a joke.

First, read the story from the LAPD.com/blog:

Police Commission tells officers to run away, or else

By LAPPL Board of Directors on 09/21/2016 @ 04:44 PM

Run away. If a police officer is confronted by a suspect with a weapon, those entrusted to set policies for the Police Department believe officers should run away. That’s the recent finding from the Los Angeles Police Commission which has turned Monday morning quarterbacking into a weekly agenda item at the three-ring circus they preside over every Tuesday morning.

In the Commission’s most recent decision on an officer-involved shooting, in which a suspect charged at two officers swinging an 8 to 9-inch knife, they faulted the officer for not “redeploying” to “create distance.” In plain English: the officer didn’t run away.

Stop right there. This is not unlike the “duty to retreat theory” some states utilize to adjudge whether or not to charge you, a person inside your own home, with a crime should you use deadly force against an intruder.

That is to say, one of the critical questions asked will be: “did you retreat to the furthest place away from the intruder and there were no other options or areas of escape, before using any amount of force as a last resort?”

If the answer is “no,” in some states with no “stand your ground” laws you may be prosecuted for using force against an intruder. In your own home.

Here is a vitally important paragraph in the article:

Chief Beck, who has absolutely no problem finding fault with officers, agreed with these officers’ actions. The Commission, with a grand total of zero years of experience in law enforcement, overruled the Chief’s decision. The Commissioners created an alternative set of facts that acknowledged that the officer was right to believe his life was in jeopardy but found fault with the officer shooting the knife-wielding suspect because the officer should have run away. Pathetic.

“But found fault with the officer shooting the knife-wielding suspect because the officer should have run away.”

The last paragraph is the most critical:

The message the Los Angeles Police Commission is sending to officers confronted with a violent and dangerous suspect is clear: You can save your life or save your job, but you cannot do both. You choose.

This decision will be one of a rapidly-growing number of decisions emanating from civilian police boards around the nation when dealing with the application of police use of force issues.

Citizens of the United States, prepare yourselves for the ramifications.

BZ

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LAPD gets body cams today

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LAPD Body CamsToday is Monday, August 31st.

That means it’s the last day of the month, 24 days before the first day of Fall, and one week prior to Labor Day.

It’s also the day LAPD implements its body cam program with 860 of its 7,000 officers.

From the LATimes.com:

LAPD’s long-awaited body cameras will hit the streets on Monday

by Kate Mather

Starting Monday, many Los Angeles police officers will hit the streets with new equipment: body cameras.

After nearly two years of fundraising, testing and negotiating policy, Monday’s rollout marks a significant moment for the police department’s long-awaited body camera program. The city plans to purchase and deploy more than 7,000 devices in the coming months, making it the largest in the country to use the cameras on a wide scale.

This is a huge step for LAPD, not known as necessarily the first department in the nation to undertake large LE ventures.

The first batch of cameras — 860 devices purchased with about $1.5 million in private donations — will be given to officers within the next month, the LAPD’s chief information officer told the Police Commission on Tuesday.

Officers working the LAPD’s Mission Division — which covers San Fernando Valley cities including Sylmar and Panorama City — will get their cameras on Monday, Maggie Goodrich told the commission. Officers assigned to South L.A.’s Newton Division will start using the cameras in mid-September, followed by those working specialized units, such as Central Division traffic and SWAT.

One quick aside: the City of Los Angeles consists of 503 square miles with a population of 3.8 million.  There are slightly fewer than 9,000 officers on LAPD, yielding an officer-to-citizen ratio of 1 officer per 447 citizens.

In contrast, the City of New York consists of 304 square miles with a population of 8.4 million.  There are about 34,500 officers on NYPD, yielding an officer-to-citizen ratio of 1 officer per 243 citizens, almost twice as much as LAPD.

The greatest points of contention with police bodycams involve privacy, as in: how and when will they be operating, who can access the take, view the take, and how long will the take be archived.

Concerns continue to linger over the LAPD’s use of the new technology, particularly over who will get to see the videos and when.

The LAPD policy — approved by the Police Commission’s 3-1 vote in April — allows officers to review the footage before writing reports or giving statements to internal investigators. But the LAPD has said it does not plan on publicly releasing the recordings unless they are part of a criminal or civil court proceeding.

This, naturally, pisses off the ACLU.

There are already large issues with mass technology in law enforcement.  Dashcams have been around for a number of years and many departments wired officers for sound from said dashcams, though their sphere of functionality diminishes with distance from the vehicle.

Two subjects come immediately into play, of course: initial purchase price for the systems and server / storage prices as well as issues also involving reliability, expandability, location and uploading.

My department, as did many others, experienced problems with informational uploading of dashcams at EOW (end of watch).  Car were parked in the lot in order to have their drives uploaded only to have their batteries killed due to the lengthy amount of time it took for up to twenty cars to fight for the server simultaneously.  Some vehicles couldn’t be utilized for the next shift as they were still uploading.

Bodycams won’t completely replace dashcams, either.  They have two entirely different perspectives; one locked from the dashboard of a law enforcement vehicle, and the second from a mobile but shaky platform called a human being.

But let there be no doubt whatsoever: whatever the take of a bodycam, it is eminently discoverable and subpoenable by law under court order.

For cops, the questions are: does the bodycam go on the moment I go BOW (beginning of watch)?  Is it on when I urinate, defecate, go to lunch or dinner, talk to children, have a casual encounter with a citizen totally uninvolved in a call for service?  Can I turn it on and off at will?  What if it’s on when I talk to someone who wants to remain anonymous, or if I consult with a CI or confidential informant?

What if, as a citizen, officers come to my house and provide me with advice or information about a problem I have, and I don’t like the outcome?  Can’t I complain about the results and demand access to the bodycam take in order to justify my complaint and demand a different outcome?  If I can do that once, why can’t every citizen do that when they don’t care for the outcomes of their own police encounters?  After all, I know my call, as a citizen complainant, was recorded by at least one police bodycam.

An overall collection of police bodycam articles and policies is here.

A reporters’ interactive map of police bodycam laws and policies is here.

A US DOJ bodycam implementation guide is here.

An ACLU police bodycam article is here.

My department is still considering the purchase of a bodycam / server system.  I suspect it is waiting to see where the inevitable lawsuits will fall and how they will fall.

BZ

 

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Kill Technology?

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Hieronymus BoschFirst, the question:

Have you ever wanted to Kill Technology?

I mean, not just killing it, but throttling it unconscious, then pulling out your sturdiest baseball bat and beating it until every last electron has been pummeled mightily, thoroughly, and in a way that all of the involved electrons, its forebears and any future like electrons will never forget, then taking the vestigial cracked skeletons of said Technology and bagging it, throwing it under the tracks of a nearby idling D-9 Caterpillar and compressing until beyond recognizability then — further — dousing liberally with Torco 112 racing fuel and setting aflame with a flare?

Like that?

I have.  Today.  Just now.

Okay, here’s the picture:

I’m a fan of Michael Connelly books, whose main character is Hieronymus Bosch, Michael Connellyknown as Harry Bosch.  He’s a detective who works homicides for LAPD.  In the books, he’s a Vietnam veteran who worked a number of years for the department, once retired, but has come back as something of a retired annuitant, working more homicide cases.  Connelly has 21 books currently published featuring Detective Harry Bosch, with a 22nd due in November of this year.

Titus WelliverThen I heard that Connelly’s Bosch novels were being turned into a series featuring Titus Welliver, an underappreciated actor whom I happen to particularly enjoy.  When you see Mr Welliver, you’ll exclaim to yourself: “yes, I know that guy.  I’ve seen him before.”  You’ve also heard him in any number of voiceovers for various commercials.

A friend of mine at work had acquired the pilot episode for the series Bosch, which we watched on his tablet.  It should have been a clue but it wasn’t.  That said, however, I knew the series was going to be excellent and remarkably faithful to the work of Michael Connelly, since he was also helping to produce the series and co-wrote the pilot.

I thought: when the first season comes out, I’ve got to see it.  The pilot was vastly entertaining.

I failed to Grok, however, that the series was going to be released on Amazon Prime.

This past weekend I stated to my Wifely Wife: “we need to see the series Bosch,” as she is likewise a great fan of Connelly books.

In order to see the series, which we both committed to do this weekend, we had to figure out if the venues to which we already subscribed, Netflix, Apple’s iTV, Roku, blah blah blah, would enable us to pick up Bosch.

Of course it wouldn’t.  No fucking way.  Everything is going proprietary these days.  That would be way way way too simple.

We went to a Box Store.  “Sure,” the employees said, “you can get it on Amazon Prime.  That’s where it’s released.”  I already was a member of Amazon Prime.  Bingo.  I was In Like Flint.  So we can get that on Netflix, right?  “Of course not,” the employees responded.  “It’s on Amazon.”  We were both proffered the You’re Fucking Blockheads look.  As in: we clearly don’t deserve to draw further breath.

We asked: okay, maybe you can get it on Apple iTV?  The employee clandestinely spoke softy through her in-store comm system.  I’m fairly certain I heard the word “fucktard” used in a sentence.  While waiting, she assured us we could pick it up as an app in the Apple Store, no problem.  One minute later, frowning, she said “nope.  Apple won’t do it.”

About this point the Techno-Savvy amongst you are thinking: “you dolts.  Just hook up through your flatscreen at home.”  And yes, you would be right, my wife has a large, beautiful LG flatscreen I purchased for her a few years ago.  Read: a few years ago.  Unlike today’s flatscreens which hook up to everything but NORAD, hers did not. *** Hence our requiring a Roku box and Apple iTV.

Sufficiently confused yet?

Oboy, I’m just getting started.

“Look,” I whined, “all we want to do is watch the series ‘Bosch‘ this weekend.  That’s my only goal.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Why don’t you just buy ChromeCast?  That will do it.”

I asked, in my all-knowing best sly manner (because I wanted to sound like I actually had a semblance of a brain): “Isn’t that one of those devices that plug into the TV, like a USB?”

Again, more eye-rolling, a blatant You Fucking Blockhead look: “uh, no.  That’s an HDMI.”

One ChromeCast box purchase later, my tail between my legs, we went home.  And, after checking all sorts of thingies on YouTube, the Wifely Wife concluded: “we have to subscribe to a whole bunch of stuff.  That’s why it’s called a ChromeCAST.  It gets sent from your phone to the stick to the TV.”

Huh?

I let her figure it out.  I was beyond facile.  My brain was completely used up at this point.  I barely had locomotor functions.

Yes.  In order to watch one stupid TV series on Amazon Prime, I had to subscribe.  Then your subscription has to be recognized on your Smart Device, like a smart phone or a tablet.  And you have to have wi-fi wired up in your house.  You have to download the app.  You have to download the Amazon Prime app.  Then the ChromeCast app.  Then it gets “cast” from your device to the HDMI device on the back of your TV and then to the flatscreen.

You’re no better than your wi-fi system.  And trust me, it’ll look better on your smart device than it will on your big flatscreen.  On the flatscreen it staggered and pixelated and buffered.

All I wanted to do is watch the TV series Bosch on an actual TV, and have it look good.

Fuck me.

Rabbit ears.

BZ

*** NOTE:

Ol’ BZ does not have a flatscreen TV at home.  Instead, he has a 36″ Toshiba CRT HDTV-capable unit purchased in 2004, which is roughly 3′ deep, weighs about 45,000 pounds and required a Grove TMS9000E crane truck to install.  You can now see that this one fact alone dissuades BZ from upgrading.

 

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Massive manhunt underway right now in Los Angeles after 2 police officers were shot at while driving in their cruiser

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From FoxNews.com:

LAPD - Suspect Fires On CopsAlso from the LATimes.com:

2 LAPD officers ambushed: ‘Sense of uneasiness’ among L.A. police

by Matt Stevens and Mark Boster

The search for a second shooter in an attack on Los Angeles police was called off early Monday, and red and yellow caution tape barred entrance to the scene of the shooting.

“We don’t know what precipitated the shooting,” LAPD Lt. Andy Neiman told the Los Angeles Times, but “everyone’s keenly aware of what happened in New York,” and there is a “sense of uneasiness.”

Trust me, every officer in LAPD knows precisely what and who precipitated the ambush shooting.

Sunday night around 9:20 p.m., two officers in a single patrol car were responding to a call and driving southbound on Hoover Street near 62nd Place. They saw a muzzle flash — the visible blast from a gun — and determined they were being fired at, Neiman said. 

Despite the surprise attack, neither officer was hurt and they were able to return fire, officials said.

By the way, who lives in and “claims” Hoover Street in Los Angeles?

That’s right, the Hoover Street Crips.  Who are, shock of shocks, black.

My good little troll Kenny, who made comments on this post, must be giggling in his hooptie right now, in sagging heaven.

BZ

 

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Christopher Dorner trapped: “Hundreds of rounds fired during gun battle”

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I was working on the motorcycle earlier today, running it up, charging the battery, lubing the chain, and just recently went down to my small grocery store.  I saw the owner had the TV on and it appeared that law enforcement had Dorner trapped in a cabin somewhere near Big Bear.

My grocer said most succinctly: “I think they’re going to make Swiss cheese out of him.”

I suspect my grocer nailed it.

From the LATimes.com:

“Hundreds of rounds” were exchanged in about half an hour during the gun battle between fugitive former police officer Christopher Dorner and law enforcement officers Tuesday afternoon, sources said.

At least two San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies were wounded, sources said. Their conditions were not immediately known.

Days ago, Dorner broke into a cabin off Route 38, a source said. He allegedly tied up the couple inside and held them hostage until Tuesday morning when he left. It is unclear whether Dorner stole their vehicle or another, but Fish and Wildlife officers knew to be on the lookout for a white pickup truck when they spotted Dorner driving one and attempted to stop him, the source said.

Dorner crashed the truck during the ensuing chase and allegedly exchanged gunfire with the officers as he fled into another cabin, where he was quickly surrounded by San Bernardino sheriff’s deputies. The source said one deputy was hit as Dorner fired out of the cabin and a second was injured when Dorner exited the back of the cabin, deployed a smoke bomb and opened fire again in an apparent attempt to flee. Dorner was driven back inside the cabin, the source said.

There was initial confusion as to where a helicopter should land to evacuate the injured officers,  so deputies used their own smoke bombs to provide enough cover to carry the wounded to a pickup truck that took them to the waiting helicopter.

At this point, the media helicopters — which initially circled directly over the scene and fed live video to LA stations — have been pushed five miles back and have a 13,000-foot floor, created by an FAA TFR (Temporary Flight Restriction), requested by law enforcement.  Dorner would have had to do nothing more than watch satellite TV in order to discern the approach, setup and tactics of responding San Bernardino County Sheriff officers and other responders in Seven Oaks.  There is one way in and out: Route 38.

Information now indicates that, of the two officers who were assaulted today by Dorner, one of them has died at the Loma Linda Trauma Center.

Dorner has now killed four persons: two civilians and two “fellow” officers.  He has wounded three persons.  None of the officers or the civilians were directly involved in the events from which Dorner took umbrage.

So the gloves have to come off.

My grocer is absolutely correct.  Responding officers should make complete and total Swiss cheese out of Dorner.  He has been proven to be a narcissist with what I believe to be NPD (as I believe Mr Obama possesses, simply without the guns or the training) and he is the most craven of cowards.  He has been proven to be an opportunist, a coward, a genetically and mentally defective mutant.  He sought the unprepared and easy targets who had nothing to do with his original so-called “grievances.”

Let me again be blunt: so some people called him a nigger.  I don’t mind writing the word because it’s simply a word.  And from that Dorner responded with violence.  Even in law enforcement.  He thought he was aggrieved and treated unfairly.  Well boo-fucking-hoo.  Life is predominantly unfair, sir.  I was told by a senior female Captain, to my face, that I would not be promoted because I was male and Caucasoid.  I somehow managed not to go on a violent rampage.  Later, I was the senior supervisor in my prior assignment and the first to be sacrificed from my assignment, because I had and have a history of stating various truths that administrators don’t wish to read or hear.

[INSERT: THE CABIN IS NOW ENGULFED IN FLAMES — either Dorner will come out or he will succumb to the flames.]

I can only hope that Dorner burns and twists in the flames of his own creation.  Quite sad that there wasn’t someone from LAPD afforded the opportunity to place a nice .223 or .308 round into his wheelhouse.

One shot was initially heard.  Perhaps that of Dorner killing himself?  Fire personnel are being kept from the burning cabin, because there are rounds exploding from within, likely a store of ammunition.  Excellent.  Those rounds “cooking off” are still continuing.  I suspect tear gas grenades were introduced.  These devices have a high flow emissions rate, but are generally incendiary in nature.

If there is a basement to this cabin, things may not yet be over.  Or, yes, perhaps they are.  Only time may tell.

BZ

 

 

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