Monthly Archives: May 2009

Seeing It Through The Cops’ Eyes, Part 2

In an effort to appreciate the “new professionalism” that guides our police, as noted by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia whenever he explains why the old sanctions to prevent cops from beating people are no longer needed, it’s critical that we keep on top of new law enforcement tactics.  From Packratt at his new blog,  Injustice Everywhere, I learned of a new one:  Distraction.

Richard Rodriguez fled in a car from El Monte police, who followed in high speed pursuit.  He abandoned the car and ran, and they continued to follow.  Eventually, the chase came to an end, with Rodriguez giving up by lying supine on the ground, spread eagle.  He was very wrong to flee as he did.  And apparently quite unfamiliar with the tactics of new professionalism.


Officer George Fierro was the first to run up to Rodriguez and, in mid stride, kicked him square in the face while he laid prone waiting to be arrested. A lawyer for the police union in El Monte claims that this kick is a “Distraction Technique” that all officers are trained to perform and are justified to use by departmental policy… apparently so is the tactic of repeatedly hitting a prone suspect in the back with a flashlight and instructing one’s K9 unit to bite his legs as two other officers proceeded to do when they arrived shortly after Fierro.

While the description is fine, the “impact” of the “impact” is better made visually.  To save you some time, the first 5:25 is video of the high speed chase.  If you’re a fan of chases, enjoy, but otherwise jump ahead.



As the high fives and back pats suggest, the El Monte police officers were quite pleased with themselves.  They caught the guy, and this time it was the guy they were trying to catch.  It’s fair cause for celebration, as it happens so infrequently.  But more to the point, they have effectively employed the “new professionalism” tactic of the “Distraction Technique.”

In an interview shortly after video of the arrest made the rounds in the media, the El Monte police chief appeared to agree with this assessment by saying that a spread-eagle suspected is a threat worthy of this “distraction technique” if that suspect moves his head to see where the footsteps rapidly approaching him are headed… which was right towards his face.

From the cop’s perspective, Rodriguez (who by all accounts is about as unsympathetic a fellow as you will find) could have been “playing possum,” lying there awaiting the officers’ approach, and then attacking.  When this was posted at Carols Miller’s Photography is Not a Crime, a commenter, LEO (that’s an abbreviation for Law Enforcement Officer, for those who might confuse it with an astrological adherent), explained :



It’s called “playing dead” folks. Jason is 100% correct. It may appear to an untrained civilian that this man surrendered, but he can easily turn on the officers. Every officer knows this and many have personally witnessed “surrendered” suspects who turn out to have done anything but. This was a clean bust and what the officer did was both right and necessary.

This isn’t Snow White here the officers captured. This is a vicious criminal who already demonstrated his callous disregard for human life in his dangerous pursuit. That told the officers this man is highly dangerous.
Another commenter, 10-18 (police code for an urgent assignment), offered this explanation :



This is a terrific example of civilians who don’t understand lawful, necessary police tactics commenting on something they don’t understand.

Once the suspect was cuffed, he walked to the police cruiser on his own two feet. He has no head injuries. A dangerous suspect must be subdued as soon as possible. You don’t wait around to make things all warm and cuddly for violent felons. You move as fast as you can, just like if you found a cobra in your baby’s crib. LEO is absolutely right.

The kick was completely justified.
The gist of our new professionals is clear.  We, meaning those of us who do not put our life on the line everyday to protect people from the forces of evil,  don’t get it.  They do.  As with Part 1, I don’t doubt the sincerity of the cops’ belief that this was an appropriate, perhaps even necessary, use force.  Rather, it is the disconnect between what us “civilians” see and what cops see.

To the extent that we chose to believe that we are all on the same page in our understanding of what is happening on the streets with those to whom we entrust a shield and gun, the evidence is otherwise.  We do not see the same thing.  We do not share a common sense of where the line is drawn between legitimate use of police force and excess.  We do not see the same images and see the same thing.

It’s one thing for criminals, those who we condemn for the harm they do to others, to deserve our moral condemnation for their actions.  It’s another when those actions are performed by our police.  Criminals are not the measure of legitimacy, and yet our police believe with all their heart that we, who they call “civilians”, are the ones who don’t get it.  If this reflects the social compact, then we do not have a meeting of the minds.

Seeing It Through The Cops’ Eyes, Part 1

Most of us assume that when we see an act played out in front of us, we’re all seeing the same thing.  Of course, we know intellectually that there are some variations in perspective, but we generally believe that no reasonable person can see the same thing we do yet arrive at a diametrically opposed conclusion.  Wrongo.

Via Injustice Everywhere, Packratt’s new blog, what happened to Christopher Harris in Seattle is both a horror story and a cautionary tale.  From the Seattle Times :



The deputies, who are assigned to Metro Transit, were working the graveyard shift patrolling downtown bus routes and shelters. They were searching for a suspect in connection with the beating and stabbing of a man at a convenience store, but detectives later determined Harris was wrongly identified by a witness and wasn’t involved in the assault.


Seattle lawyer Sim Osborn, who has been retained by Christopher Harris’ family, said both deputies wore black uniforms and yelled to Harris from a half-block away in a darkened alley. He said one witness reported the two deputies didn’t identify themselves as law-enforcement officers until after Harris began running down the alley sometime after 1 a.m. Sunday. Osborn said Harris stopped running a few blocks away, apparently after realizing the two men chasing him were deputies.


“He was blindsided,” Osborn said of Harris. “It was not a tackle but an absolute, bone-crushing hit.” Harris’ head struck a concrete wall. Since then, he’s been in a coma and on life support at Harborview Medical Center.
There’s a dispute as to whether the cops identified themselves in the first place, or left Harris to think at the outset that he was being chased by black-clothed attackers.  If he knew they were cops, then he shouldn’t have run.  But once he stopped running and posed no threat, the running officer continued toward him, slamming him so that his head struck the wall behind him causing him grave injury.



At this point we stop and take account.  Excessive force?  Needless violence?  An officer who went one giant step too far?  Bear in mind, Harris wasn’t the man they were seeking.  He was mistakenly identified and had nothing to do with any assault.  Except as the recipient of a blow that will change, if not end, his life.  We can all agree that the officer should not have delivered the final blow, right?

Not right.  Not even close, as demonstrated in comment after comment by a group of men who, like this officer, consider the people on the street a crash dummy to sacrifice to the God of their own safety.  If the pain of watching Harris isn’t bad enough, consider these comments from that safe-haven forum for our boys in blue, OfficerOne.com :


























Posted by lmpd2050 on Saturday, May 23, 2009 11:31 AM Pacific  Report Abuse
Great job Deputy! That suspect FLED on foot and turned toward you. What were his intentions when he turned, fight, weapon, surrender? We may never know but you did right and will be vindicated! I wonder what kind of criminal record this “innocent” person that fled uniformed Police has?











Posted by pdsmr726 on Saturday, May 23, 2009 11:01 AM Pacific  Report Abuse
I see nothing wrong with the Deputy’s actions. Of course the family and money hungry attorney are going to say the video doesn’t show everything. Of course it does, the suspect ran and the deputy caught him and handcuffed him. Theres nothing more to it. I would of done the same thing. A reminder to suspects who run from the police, when you get caught, you should only go to jail tired and hurt. Good job deputy.











Posted by ltfrazier146 on Saturday, May 23, 2009 09:40 AM Pacific  Report Abuse
I saw nothing wrong. The good guys did it right. As soon as the knucklehead was down, they moved in and cuffed the suspect, done deal. Bad guy goes to jail and the good guys live on to fight another day. One day people will learn that stop means stop. Unfortunate the guy got hurt, but he made the decision to run from the law. I really wonder what is was the guy threw down just before he was apprehended?











Posted by bmoc_57 on Saturday, May 23, 2009 04:37 AM Pacific  Report Abuse
Screw that money hungry lawyer. If we are justified in hitting someone, then we are justified in hitting someone with 110 of all we have. Good job Officer!











Posted by Lanco on Saturday, May 23, 2009 04:01 AM Pacific  Report Abuse
DEFINITELY throws something. I agree…looks like a bag of dope. I will be following this as closely as possible. GOOD JOB Deputy.











Posted by jscrivner on Friday, May 22, 2009 10:43 PM Pacific  Report Abuse
No apology necessary. Clean hit and good takedown. So sorry that this idiot got hurt, but if he would have just followed the reasonable commands of the guys with the badges and guns, it never would have happened. I love the attorney suggesting that the deputies could have Tased the idiot. Of course in all the Taser related lawsuits, the bottom feeders claim that it would have been less forceful if the LEO had used unarmed tactics to take dirtbag down. CanРІР‚в„ўt have it both ways, guys. Bottom line, this was a justified and appropriate use of force. Of course, Seattle (and by extension, King County) is so full of cop-hating liberals, in both the population and government, that this cop is going to come under a lot of pressure. LetРІР‚в„ўs all hope that he doesnРІР‚в„ўt become another victim of anti-law enforcement hysteria.
The comments go on in the same vein for quite a while, without a dissenting voice in the bunch.  A clean hit.  A deserving perp.  And of course, he deserved it because (a) he ran, (b) he tossed something, (c) he probably has a criminal record, the big three reasons why cops feel entitled to take action to subdue.  The fourth reason, of course, is so obvious as to be unworthy of mention:  Because any circumstances where there is any potential for a cop to be hurt justifes hurting the citizen first.  The first rule of policing: Get home alive.

It’s unclear whether Harris’ flight was appropriate, there being a dispute whether the officers yelled out “police” before chasing him.  But even giving the officers the benefit of the doubt on this one, the absence of humanity on the back end should cause any viewer to feel both deeply saddened by the cops reactions as well as deeply afraid.  It is a resoundingly clear view that our lives, the lives of those they are paid to protect and serve, are subject to sacrifice with the full support of the brotherhood. 

As the comments make clear, there is a depth of loathing by officers toward citizens (not to mention lawyers, but they are on firmer ground there) that makes them view this video and see a world that eludes the rest of us.   We cannot improve our condition until we understand and appreciate that a primary difference exists between what cops see and what seems obvious to everyone else.  I don’t think the commenters at PoliceOne are being disingenuous; I believe that they have enunciated exactly what they see on this video.  I believe that their vision places us in a state of perpetual fear that our most vicious assault will come from those we believe are there to protect us, and that afterward, they will applaud themselves for the harm they have done.

A few commenters at least felt badly that Harris was so badly injured, though he still deserved it, as opposed to those who called Harris “dirtbag”.  Is this the best we can hope for?  Will we ever share the same image?

H/T Karl Mansour at Blue Must Be True.

A Fair Trade?

Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy has posted one of the great questions in criminal law.


“Is 500 serious crimes worth the freedom of 50,000 offenders?”

In many respects, the answer to this question is at the root of much of our policy decisions with the criminal justice system.  Recognizing that a question of this magnitude requires some fleshing out, Doug notes:


My students know that I say that the right answer to every good question is “it depends,” and I think that this is the right answer to [the questioner’s] great question.  First, of course, we need some sense of what “serious” crimes are hypothetically being prevented by denying freedom 50,000 offenders. 

[W]e also have the fundamental question of whether this hypo sets up a false choice because of the other costs of denying freedom to 50,000 offenders.  Specifically, at current rates, it could cost well over $2,000,000,000 deny this freedom for just one year.  I would think spending that $2 billion on additional cops (or better health care and schooling) could prevent even more serious crimes.  Plus, of course, there is the (abstract?) cost to freedom and liberty for the 49,500 offenders (and all who know them) from being locked up to prevent others from committing crimes.
Many would answer the question by quibbling with the details, which of course blinds us from the bottom line.  If we limit the definition of serious crimes to the basic malum in se stuff, murder, rape, assault, where do we draw the line.  If we were able to reduce the cost of incarceration, what “price” would be a fair trade for 500 serious crimes?  If $2 billion is too expensive, would $100 million be acceptable?

Then, of course, there is the head game that flows from how personally we take the question: If we, or our loved one, were the victim of one of these serious crime, there would be no cost too high to stop it.  But if the victim is someone we don’t know, part of that amorphous group of people who are the victims of crime currently, would we think differently?

This is not only an amazing difficult question to answer, and answer honestly, but the type of question that lawmakers and voters must ponder to arrive at the tipping point where “tough on crime” has gotten tough enough, or too tough.

In a perfect world, there would be no crime.  Of course, in that same perfect world, we would have no reason to incarcerate anyone since no one would do anything worthy of incarceration.  But it’s an imperfect world, and people do harm others with regularity.  As the debate rages about whether mass imprisonment, at monumental expense, is the right solution, there comes a point when we need to decide when enough is enough.

Not so easy, is it?

We’re From The FCC and We’re Here To Help

In 1789, our forefathers decided that they really didn’t want cops deciding for themselves when it was a good idea to break into your home and look under your bed for bad stuff, so they included an amendment to the Constitution requiring a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate.  Since then, our courts have been crafting exceptions.

One of the most overlooked exceptions is the administrative search.  This allows our homes, places of business, whatever, to be searched not for law enforcement purposes, but to make certain we are complying with the 10,000 regulations that the government has seen fit to impose upon our lives.  I can’t be sure, but I believe that the FDA has a regulation prohibiting the use of more than 4 squares of toilet paper.  How else can they make certain that we’re not violating the regs?  They’re for our own good, you know.

Recently, a bar was searched by guys in bullet proof vests, with guns drawn, A full SWAT team came in the way SWAT teams typically do.  The pretext?  An alcohol inspection.  You know, your basic SWAT team administrative search.  The 5th Circuit didn’t bite, saying the raid was over the top.

But what happens when it falls short of a full blown SWAT team?  That’s open to debate, which makes this announcement by the FCC one to take very seriously.  From Ambrogi at Legal Blog Watch :


If you have a wireless router, a cellphone or a cordless phone in your office or home, the Federal Communications Commission says it has the right to walk right in without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it.

That news comes via Wired’s Threat Level blog. It quotes FCC spokesman David Fiske, who says, “Anything using RF energy — we have the right to inspect it to make sure it is not causing interference.” That includes devices such as Wi-Fi routers that use unlicensed spectrum, he says.


The policy is spelled out here.  And because the FCC is an agency of our government, they have kindly provided instructions on what to do when a government agents knocks on your door:


Q: The FCC Agent standing at my door does not have a search warrant, so I don’t have to let him in, right?

A: Wrong. Search warrants are needed for entry involving criminal matters. One of the requirements as a licensee, or non-licensee subject to the Commission’s Rules, is to allow inspection of your radio equipment by FCC personnel.

Of course, sometimes there aren’t enough FCC agents to go around, and they borrow agents from some other agency, like say, the FBI or the DEA.  That can happen, you know.  And if it happens that they come into your home to make sure your WiFi isn’t doing something un-WiFi-like, which frequently involves checking under your bed, and happen to see that pound of pot that junior took away from his very good buddy so that he wouldn’t be tempted to smoke it, and was going to turn over to the police as soon as he found the time . . . well, you get the picture.

Some years back, cops would regularly enter automobile repair shops, regulated by dint of their licensing requirement, in order to search for stolen car parts.  I bet it’s still happening in places on an “as needed” basis.  The courts would acknowledge the government’s right to inspect auto repair shops, and ignore the fact that the sole purpose of these inspections was for a criminal investigation.  Courts sometimes close their eyes to reality when it suits them.  But then, these were businesses, with doors open to the public and enjoying the benefits of a license to engage in a particular trade.  They weren’t someone’s home.

While the FCCs position, that its authority to regulate radio transmissions gives it the right to strut into every home in America with WiFi goes far beyond what’s permitted as an administrative search, the fact that the FCC has taken the position that it has such authority, placed instructions on its website to the effect that you can’t stop them from coming in, and, according to the Wired post,


The rules came to attention this month when an FCC agent investigating a pirate radio station in Boulder, Colorado, left a copy of a 2005 FCC inspection policy on the door of a residence hosting the unlicensed 100-watt transmitter. “Whether you operate an amateur station or any other radio device, your authorization from the Commission comes with the obligation to allow inspection,” the statement says.

I bet you didn’t know that your WiFi was permitted because the FCC loves you.  And you’re expect to return that love by opening your door wide when the government comes a’calling.  Unless the agents at your door are wearing vests that say “SWAT” on them and carrying automatic rifles, at which point you can ask them if they have a warrant. 

Drop The Photo Or I’ll Shoot (Update)

What to do when a cop gives you an order?  Well, most of the time it’s a good idea to obey first, complain later.  They have guns, you see, and that tends to be the big unequalizer.

But yesterday, I received a nastygram from a tough cop named Jim Donahue.  He was the subject of a post a while back about some other cops who didn’t think too highly of him for calling them “grunts” in a story he wrote at officer.com, a cop website.  Donahue wasn’t just an ordinary cop.  He’s an important cop.  No need to ask him.  He’ll let you know regardless.

Donahue was pissed because he was not treated with the respect he deserved by other cops.  No ring kissing.  No bowing and scraping.  Instead, they treated him the way they treat civilians.  Like dirt.  Donahue was not amused, and he let the other cops know about it.  You see, it’s not like Donahue, who was out of uniform at the time, expected cops to treat people civilly.  As he explained,

“I am wearing my only sweatshirt, which has a breast emblem from my previous department in Michigan. I just got my “high & tight” haircut tuned up yesterday. It would not be a great leap of faith to think that I may be a retired cop, a current cop, or minimally, related to law enforcement based upon my appearance and demeanor.”

That’s right.  Donahue looked like a cop, and when you look like a cop, other cops should at least show you the respect due a fellow officer.

Included in my post was a photograph of Donahue, showing exactly what he meant.  He looks like a cop.  And not a pretty-boy, TV type of cop either.  More like the type of cop who would smack down some big-mouthed, jeans with a hole in the knee and Mr. Natural t-shirt kid for mouthing off to him.  You would have to be fool to mistake Donahue for anything but a cop.  Of course, it he had a can of beer in his hand and a smoke dangling from his lips, he could be mistaken for a redneck on a Fox TV cartoon show.  He’s got that cartoonish quality about him.

By now, you’re probably wondering, so what does this he-man cop’s cop look like, that he’s willing to rip his fellow officers for not showing him the respect he deserved.  Well, Donahue doesn’t want you to know, so he sent me this email:

Dear Sir/Madam –

Yesterday, I became aware of a posting on a blog.  The display page of that blog leads me to believe that you either own the rights to the site or that you are in control of it.

My picture is displayed on that site.  The picture was taken from Officer.com which is a copyrighted publication of Cygnus Business Media.

I must insist that my picture and any likeness of me be removed immediately.

Jim Donahue