Lauren L's List: Police Officers

• Sean Bell, a 23-year-old black man who was shot by the police outside a strip  club in Queens on his wedding day.
• five police officers fired 50 shots into the Nissan Altima that Mr. Bell was  driving. The car struck a detective in the leg and hit a police van just before  the officers began firing their weapons

• Mr. Bell was killed and two passengers, Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman,  were wounded. None of the men had guns, although the police officers apparently  believed at least one did.
• • some police officers are corrupt, and use their weapons as a sort of vigalante approach, bringing it on themselves to distribute justice for a non-existent crime (dictionary.com)

• Of the five who opened fire -- Detectives Gescard F. Isnora, Michael Oliver,  Marc Cooper and Paul Headley and Officer Michael Carey -- all but Detective  Headley remain on desk duty, with no gun and shield, said Paul J. Browne, the  department's chief spokesman. Lt. Gary Napoli, the supervising officer that  night, is also on desk duty, he said, facing internal charges of failing to  supervise the operation.

   

  Two other officers, Detective Robert Knapp and Sgt. Hugh McNeil of the Crime  Scene Unit, were also charged internally, the detective with failing to  thoroughly process the crime scene and the sergeant with failing to ensure that  thorough processing was done.

   

  If internal charges are substantiated, some of the officers could be fired.  Mr. Browne said that the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, would not  comment on the matter because ''he is the final arbiter'' of any punishment.  

• Ms. Paultre Bell said she hoped to get the attention of the White House.  ''There is a history of black men being killed by police officers, and something  needs to be done,'' she said. ''We're hoping to eventually meet with President  Obama, and that he'll do something, because this is a national problem.''

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• The U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights  Division also enforces federal criminal civil rights laws that involve "hate  crimes." Hate crimes are crimes committed against individuals or institutions  because of their race, ethnic background or religion.

• What America actually has is some places where guns are legal, and others where  they are not. It is the places where law abiding citizens are not allowed to  defend themselves with the kind of force that their attackers use that have got  America its reputation for mega-crime, not the mere availability of guns as  such. American is a rather violent place, but tighter anti-gun laws would make  it even more violent.
• Japan has much stricter gun control than most parts of the USA, yet  Japanese-Americans, who have much easier access to firearms, have much lower  violence rates than Japanese in Japan. Mexico has more restrictive gun control  than the USA, and also a much higher murder and armed crime rate. In Taiwan,  like Malaysia, the death penalty can be imposed for illegal ownership of guns,  and gun control is stricter than Japan.
• the murder rate in Taiwan is four times higher than that of Japan, and 30%  higher than in the USA
• South Africa has much stricter firearms control than the USA, yet has twice the  murder rate."

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• Law enforcement officers are taught that guns are a dangerous and deadly threat to their safety and the safety of the public they serve. They understand that any encounter involving a gun is grave.
• "Open carry," the practice of carrying an unloaded handgun exposed in a belt holster, unnecessarily subjects our officers and the public to tense encounters that have unforeseeable consequences

• Mayor Bloomberg found it very troubling: "I don't know why people carry guns. Guns kill people"
• Davis was blindsided by the attack and was unable to use his gun to protect himself. The attack was stopped by an on-duty police officer. Yet, it is hard to see why it is possible for New Yorkers to trust an on-duty officer but somehow minutes after he goes off-duty to no longer trust him.
• police officers can't carry their guns when they travel outside their states
• Over 8,000 state and local police departments in the U.S. employed about 450,000 full-time sworn police officers in 2000. Adding retired officers who have served at least five years would add millions more

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• In less than two years, 27 Atlanta police officers have had run-ins with the law, some of them more than once.
• Officer William Greenwell after drinking with another Atlanta police officer. He stumbles during a sobriety test, telling the Smyrna Police officer who pulled him over he had eight or nine mixed drinks. The incident reports shows Greenwell’s initial blood alcohol level was .17. He pleaded guilty to DUI.
• ohn Freeman is in jail awaiting trial on a charge of murder. He admits shooting the security guard at his apartment complex multiple times.
• Edward Rabb was charged with the rape of a neighbor in 2008.
• Less than a year later, he was arrested for drinking and driving. Reports show he blew an initial .18, more than twice the legal limit. Police reports show his "eyes were blood shot and watery, and he had urinated on himself."
• Justin Green pleaded guilty to hit and run. He didn't resign until he tested positive for cocaine, and admitted to losing his gun while out partying.

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• In Detroit, in an incident that drew national attention, a 7-year-old girl was killed by police gunfire in a SWAT raid at the wrong apartment in a house.
• e officer's weapon discharged one round which, tragically, struck seven-year-old Aiyana Stanley Jones in the neck/head area.

• The tragic shooting death of 22-year-old Oscar Grant on New Year's Day (2009) in an Oakland, California, subway station only serves to remind us of the ongoing challenges we face. On the very sam

  e day, in Bellaire Texas, over-zealous white cops shot down Robbie Tolan in his own driveway, by all acounts an unprovoked shooting.
• The police misconduct has resulted in the reversal of more than 30 criminal  convictions. It is believed that hundreds of other cases have been tainted.  The estimated potential loss from lawsuits against the department and the  city has soared beyond $100 million.

• A Dallas police officer told other officers late Sunday that he'd chased a man and lost his gun belt.

  But it turns out that Officer Archie Beason hadn't been in a foot chase and that his gun belt was stolen when he left it in his squad car while he played basketball, authorities said. Officer Beason was on duty at the time.
• According to police, Officer Beason called dispatch and reported that he was in a foot chase and that his gun belt had come off and been taken. When others officers arrived, they could not find Officer Beason's gun belt or the person he had said he was chasing.
• Among the items on his gun belt was his 9 mm gun, an expandable baton, handcuffs, 46 bullets, three pistol magazines and mace.
• He had left the gun belt on the front seat of his squad car, records show.

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• Harvey Police say they've only located some of the high-powered weapons stolen over the weekend from a police gun range. The guns were found behind the Ziebell Elementary School near 148th and Rockwell in Harvey. Investigators used gun-sniffing dogs to comb the area for evidence.
• The stolen guns included assault rifles like an AR-15

• On Feb. 24, a former New Orleans police supervisor pleaded guilty to a federal obstruction charge, confessing to participating in a conspiracy to justify the shooting of six unarmed people after Hurricane Katrina. The confession has shocked and angered residents living in a city already notorious for the racism and brutality of its police force.
• seven NOPD officers opened fire on a group of people crossing the Danziger Bridge trying to reach a supermarket. Two men, 40-year-old Ronald Madison and 19-year-old James Brissette, were killed. Four others were injured: Susan Bartholomew, whose right arm was partially shot off, and her husband, daughter and nephew.
• In the original report, police claimed to have shot Ronald Madison, a disabled Black man, once. Two separate autopsies invalidated this claim, showing Madison was shot seven times—five in the back as he was running away.
• On the day of the shooting, police further attempted to cover up the incident by arresting Ronald Madison’s brother, Lance, and charging him with eight counts of attempted murder of police officers. A Louisiana state grand jury found no evidence to indict Madison, and the charges were later dropped.

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• It isn't everyday that a police officer involved in a line-of-duty shooting finds himself charged with manslaughter, let alone murder, so rare in fact that it's front page news from coast to coast. But it is official: Everett police officer Troy Meade was charged this week with intentionally taking the life of an inebriated Stanwood, Wash., man who  refused to obey his commands last summer.
  
• Meade's defense against the second-degree murder charge will resonate with critics of police shootings: he feared for his life and says he shot eight times in self defense. We go to the Everett Herald for the latest details:
  
  Snohomish County prosecutors on Thursday charged  Troy Meade with second-degree murder in the 2009 death of Niles  Meservey.
  
  The murder allegation was added to the first-degree  manslaughter charge that prosecutors filed last fall against Meade.
  
  Meade,  an 11-year veteran with the department, is accused of opening fire June  10 during a confrontation with an intoxicated and belligerent Meservey.
  
  Prosecutors  allege Meade committed a crime when he fired eight shots into the back  of Meservey's Chevrolet Corvette. Meservey, 51, was struck seven times  by the officer's bullets.
  
  Meade, 41, plans to argue that he  feared for his life and had no choice but to shoot.

• WE like to think we live in the information age, when daily or even second-by-second statistics on such fare as stock prices and the annual number of homicides are at our fingertips. For all the careful accounting, however, there are two figures Americans don't have: the precise number of people killed by the police, and the number of times police use excessive force.
• The lack of information on police shootings is attributable to the failure of police departments in many cities to keep and report accurate figures that distinguish between what the police see as "justifiable" shootings � those in which the suspect posed a serious threat � and incidents where an officer may have unlawfully fired at an unarmed civilian.