Comments

1

Andrew Yang has announced he will withdraw from the primaries, following disappointing results in NH and IA.

3

Oh dear, this sounds like Manslaughter to me.

Back in my day as a Dallas cop, we did not have the option of "waiting weeks" or even a day to be interviewed after being involved in an officer-involved shooting. We Had to summon a supervisor up to level of Duty Chief to the scene, do a "walk-through" with IAD, Homicide, PES (Physical Evidence Section), our chain-of-command (up to Duty Chief), which reenacted everything that happened in order that it happened, then go to IAD to be provided a Garrity Warning before submitting a mandated written statement describing in exhaustive detail what happened and finally to Homicide Division to be Mirandized and provide another written statement. (Most guys were thorough enough with the first they could simply transpose it onto the second.)

We were not allowed to take a break, wait or dilly-dally. If we were hospitalized with wounds or injuries, a statement was taken from us there. If physically unable, statements were taken as soon as we were physically able. All witness officers had to do the same thing, even officers who responded after the fact were required to submit IAD and Homicide statements...immediately after clearing the scene of the incident. Time of day or night did not matter. That's why there's overtime, fellas!

I've never had someone flee from me on foot that didn't take a glance back at some point, and I've had hundreds flee on foot. Turning back with a gun in hand is an invitation to being shot (although being shot doesn't always happen even then) but with no gun in hand, well, no one should be shot.

"Seeking higher ground?" What the fuck? I'll give that officer credit for an imaginative justification, but it's utter bullshit. Any investigator would know that. He must have been in the military...or is a military fantasist. A few of those around among cops.

An ongoing danger to the public if not caught? That may or may not be, but sorry, unless the suspect poses an immediate and specifically identifiable threat of death or serious bodily injury to some specific identifiable member(s) of the public (or the officer) at the time of the decision to use deadly force, shooting is a big no-no.

Granted, this is how things work in Dallas, but all are pretty universal throughout policing, at least as far as law and policy are concerned. We could not shoot someone simply for running away, even if they were armed. Now, if they moved to use a firearm against while fleeing, they were likely to get shot, but that's an immediate threat to your life. Simply being armed in and of itself wasn't.

I'm shocked at how much immunity to rigorous investigation officers up here seem to have. I always think of Washington as being pretty liberal about such things and Texas as being the anything goes tough on crime types, but every story out of Seattle metro area convinces me the opposite is the case, and those stereotypes are absolutely baseless.

Who knew?

4

Michael Bennett has just announced he will also suspend his campaign.

6

Makes me glad I don't live in King County. KCSO ought to be ashamed of themselves.

8

9 - That case law hasn't changed, and I didn't say it had.

My post was long already, so I opted not to go into any further detail with "except this" and "except that" and so on. There are whole manuals on the topic. However, that is why I passingly mentioned the two types of warnings for the two types of statements, an administrative warning for the administrative statement and the criminal warning for the criminal statement. Officers could not refuse to provide the former, but of course, they could refuse the latter. When I said officers would transpose one to the other, that was obviously only after consenting to do so and after Miranda warnings. The vast majority of officers felt sufficiently comfortable with their justification for shooting that they did this after Miranda.

Of course, the vast majority of our officers didn't shoot at people running away up a hill while not brandishing a visible firearm.

You are correct that if the former statement was compelled (we did so), it could not be used in a criminal proceeding, but it can be used in an administrative disciplinary one. If the shooting was not justified, the administrative statement and subsequent administrative investigation would be the basis for disciplinary action, usually termination in cases of bad shootings. The criminal investigation would continue separately under criminal rules of discovery.

In any case, my primary point was my shock that officers involved in a shooting wouldn't be questioned immediately. Anyone else who shoots a person is, even if they invoke their Miranda rights in response and further questioning is halted. Involved officers were also isolated from any witnesses, including witness officers, as soon as possible to avoid collusion...again, just as with shooting suspects in any other investigation.

That's one hell of a luxury to be able to kick it at the house for a couple of weeks and get your story straight with the other shooters with no pesky investigators to interfere! And the best they came up with was the suspect was running way up an incline with no visible weapon toward somewhere where someone might be...maybe. Wow.

Ya know, I actually did this job for nearly 30 years, almost all of that on the streets of South Dallas and 20 of those as a patrol sergeant, and I'm here to tell you that their story is absolute bullshit. It's as simple as that. The one officer had an AD, and the others opened up without independently assessing the threat..."that officer shot so we better shoot." It's a recognized phenomenon in law enforcement and one that good training regimens work to eliminate. But it still happens. In King County, so does covering it up, apparently.

As to the investigation, well, I'm almost speechless. I don't believe I've heard of one so slipshod, not helped any by a policy that gives such latitude to the officers under investigation. You can defend it, but it's shit like this that causes distrust and antipathy toward the cops, and for good reason in my view.

9

Morty, thanks for the non-armchair view.

10

It speaks volumes that this article names of the kid who was killed, but only mentions "Officer A, Officer B" for the sheriff's that, in the words of the Seattle Times:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/parents-of-17-year-old-shot-and-killed-during-misguided-sting-by-king-county-sheriffs-deputies-sue-for-wrongful-death-outrage/

"the sting operation hastily thrown together by the sheriff’s office was “recklessly supervised and unconstitutional.” It claims that statements made by the deputies who were in the van that night and another deputy who planned the operation were “both internally inconsistent and inconsistent with the physical evidence” at the shooting scene."

“Defendants failed to preserve or accurately document the scene, including but not limited to the location of Chance’s body and other firearm and ballistic evidence,” according to the lawsuit, which points out that the sheriff’s office told the public that Chance had fired on the officers “despite the fact that never happened.”

"Miller, Eshom and Jones “falsely claimed that Chance threatened them with a firearm that was found down the driveway from where he fell.”

"Documents also indicate that Garske, who came up with the arrest plan, told the arrest team that detectives had developed “forensic evidence” linking Richard to Radcliffe, the adopted son of a Seattle police officer, when no such evidence existed.

The officers were cleared of any wrongdoing."

Of course, Officer Garske has a long, dirty history in the Sheriff's office, but he's emblematic of the incompetence and corruption that has permeated the KCSO for years, to include his naked massages from 18 year old child a few years back:

https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2014/02/atf_operation_veers_into_human.html

As long as the Sheriff Office and King County District Attorney Dan Satterberg continue to cover for this type of illegal and unconstitutional conduct, nothing will change.

We are well past the inflection point where we can identify the criminals by their badges and know their gang leaders in the King County prosecutors office will cover for their illegal conduct. We need real change at the top and at a minimum to slash the budgets of their criminal organizations.


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