All about Policing with a sprinkle of Criminal Justice – written by a Secret Contrarian
Very interesting take on the DOJ consent decree investigations.
Worth a read.
Worcester responds to the DOJ report on the police department in the worst possible way, indicating it will remain in denial that there is a problem.
— Read on thisweekinworcester.com/worcester-attacks-doj-report-police/
Also check out this report on an analysis of DOJ Police department investigations.
Introduction
In November 2021, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability (NJ-OPIA) engaged the author of this study for the purpose of conducting an independent analysis of traffic stops made by the New Jersey State Police (NJ-SP). Based on the author’s extensive experience working
with state and local policymakers to develop early warning systems for identifying police disparities, the NJ OPIA requested that the analysis focus on the central question of whether there was disparate treatment on the part of NJ-SP towards racial and ethnic minorities.2 After cleaning and linking all of the raw data provided by the New Jersey Office of Law Enforcement Professional Standards (NJ-OLEPS), the analytical sample used in this analysis consisted of 6,177,109 traffic stops made by NJ-SP from 2009 to 2021. In the full analytical sample, 60.52 percent of traffic stops were made of White non-Hispanic motorists while 18.8 percent were Black/African-American and 13.44 percent were Hispanic/Latinx. The overall volume of minority motorists stopped by NJ-SP increased from 35.34 percent in 2009 to 46.28 percent in 2021
www.nj.gov/oag/newsreleases23/2023-0711_NJSP_Traffic_Stop_Analysis.pdf
On 4/4/2022 a traffic stop by officer Christopher Schurr involving Patrick Lyoya resulted in the killing of Patrick Lyoya. The death of Patrick Lyoya is tragic. Officer Christopher Schurr was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. The defendant’s case (Schurr) hinges on the issue of whether officer Christopher Schurr’s use of deadly force was justified.
A recent appeal by Christopher Schurr was denied and returned to the lower court for trial. One issue that was mention in the Court Order was “whether the decedent was in possession of a per se dangerous weapon” (see the Court Order HERE).
My speculation is that officer Schurr’s use of deadly force rests on the argument that Patrick Lyoya possessed officer Schurr’s TASER – a “dangerous weapon”. It is difficult to find a single definition of a dangerous weapon in the Michigan Penal Code (MCL). Below are 3 definitions of a dangerous weapon from the MCL:
The key to defining a TASER as a dangerous weapon is that it allows officer Christopher Schurr to use deadly force against Patrick Lyoya when Lyoya was in possession of the TASER. By the “letter of the law”, TASER may not be considered as a dangerous weapon (TASER is not specifically listed in the definition). However, according to the definitions of dangerous weapon, and in the “spirit of the law” a TASER used by Patrick Lyoya against police officer Christopher Schurr could certainly have had deadly consequences for officer Christopher Schurr. Thus TASER can easily be considered a dangerous weapon.
Patrick Lyoya, who was not trained with TASER’s proper use, could have easily used the TASER against officer Christopher Schurr in order to incapacitate the Schurr. As officer Schurr is being incapacitated, Patrick Lyoya could have stolen Schurr’s gun and used it to murder Schurr. If Patrick Lyoya had deployed the TASER against officer Christopher Schurr, theoretically, Patrick Lyoya could deploy the TASER into officer Christopher Schurr for the initial 5 second electrical cycle and then keep re-energizing the TASER for subsequent 5 second electrical cycles until the TASER battery is depleted of energy. A TASER can deploy about 150 total 5 second cycles (for a continuous 12.5 minutes of being tased).
Police officers are trained in the proper use of a TASER. The use of a TASER by police is guided by police training, police department policy, Michigan State law and prior court cases. Police use TASER for legitimate purposes like to gain control of an offender, protect other persons, or minimize injury to violent offenders. On the contrary a person never has a legitimate purpose to use a TASER against a police officer.
Because the possession of the TASER by Patrick Lyoya, officer Christopher Schurr was in jeopardy of being tased by Patrick Lyoya resulting in a felonious assault or death of officer Christopher Schurr. In the above mentioned example where officer Christopher Schurr was in danger of being tased, Patrick Lyoya was in possession of a dangerous weapon (TASER) and officer Christopher Schurr was justified in using deadly force.
The link below is to a series on the reporting about the effects of a new Wisconsin law on policing. In the articles there are several informative links.
Tone Madison’s ongoing reporting on—and struggles with— a new Wisconsin law that hinders access to police body-camera footage.
— Read on tonemadison.com/politics/act-253/
FACTS:
Get the report here:
www.policedefense.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/LELDF-Report-Fatal-Falsehoods-Police-Shootings.pdf
Why the Roosevelt Avenue surge won’t sustainably fix the Queens corridor’s public-safety problems
— Read on www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/the-false-promise-of-police-crackdowns-in-new-york-city-roosevelt-island-queens-corridor
Fit for the future: the case for a reformed national policing landscape – The Police Foundation
— Read on www.police-foundation.org.uk/publication/fit-for-the-future-the-case-for-a-reformed-national-policing-landscape/
Get the report HERE
Specifically, the Justice Department finds that TPD unlawfully uses excessive force, including unreasonable forms of physical force and pepper spray in the absence of any significant resistance or danger. TPD also conducts stops, searches and arrests without reasonable suspicion or probable cause. In addition, the department identified deficiencies in training, supervision, policy and accountability that contribute to TPD and the city’s unlawful conduct.
“Police officers must respect people’s civil and constitutional rights and treat people with dignity,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “After an extensive review, we found that police officers in Trenton routinely failed to respect the Fourth Amendment rights of those who call Trenton home. Trenton police stop and search pedestrians and motorists without a legal basis, make illegal arrests and use excessive force without basis. We are committed to the hard work necessary to achieve constitutional policing across the country. By bringing city officials, the police department and the community together, we are confident that we can institute meaningful reforms that remedy the violations uncovered.”
— Read on www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-finds-civil-rights-violations-trenton-police-department-and-city-trenton
The new commissioner, together with the deputy mayor for public safety, must tackle two urgent challenges: corruption and crime.
— Read on www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/what-kind-of-nypd-commissioner-do-we-need
The authors of the article want readers to believe that the police saw the offender enter the subway without paying the subway fare and the police simply shot the offender. A careful reading of the article highlights the following points by the authors: $2.90 isn’t worth killing a person. Subway fare enforcement is a racist police crime-fighting strategy. Subway fare enforcement, doesn’t make sense economically. Transportation discrimination.
True, killing a person for not paying a $2.90 subway fare is wrong. It is sad and tragic. However, what happened in the event discussed in the article (Article: “Not Worth the Risk: Why US Cities Should Rethink Transit Fare Policing”, See the news article HERE) is the police confronted the offender for entering the subway system without paying the fare and he pulled a knife on the officers. Brandishing a knife towards the police makes the offender a violent person. The offender posed a risk of deadly force to police and the persons on the subway. Through the offender’s actions he escalated his criminality from fare evasion, to resisting arrest, to menacing, attempted serious assault, or attempted murder. The police must react to a man with a knife on a subway car full of people. Keep in mind the offender could have simply co-operated with the police where the worst result would have been the offender released on an appearance ticket.
The police crime-fighting strategy that was critized in the article and is always under attack by liberals is Broken Windows Policing. It’s ironic that Broken Windows Policing is labeled as a racist police strategy when, in the 1982 article by Wilson and Kelling, the authors explicitly acknowledge there is a risk of biased or racist actions by police when enforcing Broken Windows Policing.
“The concern about equity is more serious. We might agree that certain behavior makes one person more undesirable than another, but how do we ensure that age or skin color or national origin or harmless mannerisms will not also become the basis for distinguishing the undesirable from the desirable? How do we ensure, in short, that the police do not become the agents of neighborhood bigotry?
We can offer no wholly satisfactory answer to this important question. We are not confident that there is a satisfactory answer, except to hope that by their selection, training, and supervision, the police will be inculcated with a clear sense of the outer limit of their discretionary authority That limit, roughly, is this — the police exist to help regulate behavior, not to maintain the racial or ethnic purity of a neighborhood.”
**SEE Page 35 in Kelling, G. L., & Wilson, J. Q. (1982). Broken windows. Atlantic monthly, 249(3), 29-38. (https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1982/03/249-3/132638105.pdf)
Enforcing subway fare evasion can keep out the type of person that has nefarious intentions. Many times persons stopped for subway fare evasion are wanted on warrants, were carrying weapons or contraband, (see Maple, J., & Mitchell, C. (1999). The crime fighter: putting the bad guys out of business and Bratton, W. J., & Knobler, P. (1998). Turnaround: how America’s top cop reversed the crime epidemic) or enter the subway system to commit a crime. When police apply Broken Windows Policing they don’t ignore other violations and crime. Police presence in the subway system and enforcement civil and physical incivilities (Broken Windows violations) the police are enforcing the most visible violations/crimes, respond to concerns of subway riders, and support the “Good Users” on the subway.
The cost of fare evasion may surprise the reader. Subway fare evasion diminishes the Quality of Life on the subway for ridership. There are also economic costs.
“Losses to the MTA’s operating budget are staggering, with nearly $700 million in revenue not collected in 2022 alone. This includes $315 million lost in bus fares, $285 million in subway fares, $46 million in bridge and tunnel tolls, and $44 million in railroad fares.
Fares and tolls account for a significant proportion of the MTA’s annual budget revenue — almost $7 billion a year. But every dollar lost to evasion impairs the MTA’s financial stability, threatens reliable transit for all New Yorkers, and increases the need for alternative revenue sources, including through larger fare and toll hikes.”
See: https://new.mta.info/blue-ribbon-report-fare-toll-evasion
It is rare to witness serious crime. Much of what drives fear are signs of social and physical disorder. If physical and social disorder along with minor violations of the law are left unchecked, more Good Users will refrain from using the subway system. These circumstances cause further decline of the subway system towards disorder, crime, and chaos.
The authors end their article claiming that there should be an end to ridership fees. That people should be provided with free transportation and should be able to ride the subway free of police harassment.
There are about an “Annual paid subway ridership was about 1 billion in 2022. Daily ridership fluctuates, but is currently running in the range of 3.4 million on weekdays” (See page 42 https://new.mta.info/blue-ribbon-report-fare-toll-evasion). There are about 4,000 officers assigned to NYPD Transit, probably some amount less than 4,000 are assigned to patrol the subway system. The police officers assigned to the NYC subway system are reassuring to the ridership. The only persons that are unhappy to see the police in the subway are the criminals.
All about Policing with a sprinkle of Criminal Justice - written by a Secret Contrarian
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