so what are the real solutions to police killings?

[backwoodsbob]

not the overblown fire all the NYPD cops...not all the overemotional crap that poses as discussion.
Lets talk REAL solutions.

My proposal.
All LEO's will have body camera's active 24/7 while on duty.Short of a independently verifiable malfunction the first offence is a two week non paid suspension and the second time you are barred for life from any LEO position including security guard.

If any LEO commits a crime while body cam is turned off....lifetime barred from any LEO position and a lifetime ban from owning a gun.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. It has to start at the management level.

Fish rots from the head. All the body cameras in the world won't help much if nothing is done about the mentality that says police officers need not be held accountable for what they do. There was a video showing the killing of Eric Garner and even that wasn't enough to persuade a grand jury to indict the officer who did it. I'm definitely in favor of body cameras and of rules prohibiting turning them off, but if prosecutors, who are often tight with their police departments, slant their "evidence" to a grand jury to the point where a no-bill is a foregone conclusion (e.g., the Garner and Michael Brown cases), the problem isn't cameras, or the lack of them. It's much, much deeper than that, and that's why it will be hard to fix. The cameras are only a small start.

[Vincardog]

2. Cameras cannot be the total solution. Add Citizen review of every time a LEO fires his/her weapon.

The citizens should be drawn from the affected community and have the authority to suspend/fire and or refer for mandatory criminal prosecution.

There should be a dedicated FEDERAL prosecutor available for the referred cases.

[Luminous Animal]

3. Richmond California has done a decent job of reigning in excessive force

While police across jurisdictions have fairly uniform policies enabling them to use force when they deem there is a risk to themselves or the public, Tirona says the difference in Richmond includes the rigor of training, the emphasis on communication with armed suspects, the thorough review of all force used and the philosophy that force must only be a last resort.

Richmond officers undergo firearm training monthly and role-playing scenarios for disarming suspects four times a year, a higher average than many other departments, Nolan said. The role-playing exercises, in which officers bark commands while holding their guns and make split-second decisions when confronted by armed residents, began in 2008, the same time that officer-involved shootings in the department plummeted. Richmond cops shot five people, one fatally, in 2006-07.

Since then, violent crime in the city has plunged, no officers have been shot, and no suspects have been killed by officers' bullets.

Magnus has done something in Richmond that he believes is not done enough in other departments: He's been willing to second-guess the deadly force used by other cops.

"We use a case study approach to different incidents that happen in different places. When there is a questionable use-of-force incident somewhere else, we study it and have a lot of dialogue," Magnus said. "It's a model that is used in a range of other professions, but in some police circles, it's seen as judging in hindsight and frowned on. In my mind, that attitude is counterproductive."

http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_26482775/use-deadly-force-by-police-disappears-richmond-streets

[Rex]

4. Actually if you want to stop it all, enforce the laws equally.

One of the reasons this country is so fucked up, is that we've let warmongers and billionaire criminals walk away as if they did nothing wrong. We pretend people that commit atrocities are patriots. We watch a man get choked to death on video and then watch the court systems do nothing about it.

If you don't apply the law equally, you might be all right in the beginning of the travisty. Also, if you make draconian laws and scare people after 9/11 into giving up their rights, don't expect them to believe you on much of anything you do. Don't expect them to not pass that along to their children and their grand children.

Simple. SHOW that America is all about equality under the law...or in time (maybe decades) the citizenry will revolt against you in some way or manner. Humans do not have an endless well of despair that they can live off of. There is always a tipping point.

History is constantly being proven to be a process of repeating the same mistakes over and over in a society until nobody is left to commit a mistake.

[KMOD]

5. disciplining and removing bad officers,

WNYC analyzed NYPD records and found 51,503 cases with resisting arrest charges since 2009. Just five percent of officers who made arrests during that period account for 40% of resisting arrest cases — and 15% account for almost 3/4 of such cases.

snip

There’s no way to check how often the NYPD disciplines individual cops, because disciplinary files in New York state are confidential. There are, however, public records that show that cops with numerous red flags have been allowed to stay on the street.

That’s certainly the case with Donald Sadowy. Court records show he was sued at least 10 times in little more than two years.

“If there are 10 lawsuits — lawsuits — there’s something wrong here and if this person has not been reprimanded and controlled there’s something wrong,” said Candace McCoy, a professor at the Graduate Center and John Jay College at the City University of New York.

http://www.wnyc.org/story/can-the-nypd-spot-the-abusive-cop/

Officer Pantaleo has one settled, and two or three pending cases of civil rights violations against him. Not including the one that will certainly come from the Garner family. When you have an officer routinely violating rights, they should be extensively retrained, or let go.

That's as good of a start as any.

[_Blue_]

6. Fighting poverty is the only solution.

People of color are more likely to be poor. Poor people are more likely to fall into the criminal justice system abyss. People in the system are more likely to have intersctions with police, thus more likely to have negative intersctions.

If we fix poverty, we fix the much bigger problem of violent crime within our communities of color at the same time as we fix police violence.

There is a huge disparity between black and white murder victims. It's heartbreaking.

[Hutzpa]

7. Do you really believe wearing cameras is going to stop police killings of black men?

Lifetime ban??? how about jail time? how about being prosecuted as civilian if they violates or tamper with the camera?

We can go further in getting Hollywood to stop the glamorization of the police force.

[Igel]

9. It reduces them.

http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/first-scientific-report-shows-police-body-worn-cameras-can-prevent-unacceptable-use-of-force

Link to OR: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10940-014-9236-3

Less revenge, more prevention.

Pop culture glamorizes the police. Pop culture glamorizes givingthe police a hard time as a sign of pride or contributing to some sort of justice. Making routine encounters into a kind of personal challenge is precisely the wrong thing to do--whether in politics, in personal relationships, or in encounters with civil servants.

[JonLP24]

12. Body cameras spotted this

Officer's body camera reveals 'unprofessional conduct'

PHOENIX - Video has just been released of a Phoenix Police officer fired for unprofessional conduct. That officer wore a department-issued body camera for three months. The video captured by that body camera led to his termination.

This all started with one complaint against the officer for unprofessional conduct. Investigators went back and looked at all of his body camera videos. He was eventually fired after what they saw.

Video: "Turn around and look at me because I'm [expletive] talking to you, you piece of [expletive] now get the [expletive] over here."

Officer Richard Greco on a domestic violence call: "What in the [expletive] is your problem? What do I want you to say? Why can't you get along with your family? Why are you pulling your wife out of the car? Then [expletive] you, you're going to jail."

And on another call talking to a possible victim of domestic violence: "I've got one tool, that tool is to beat people up and take them to jail."

Then he said this to an African-American driver: "Do you have a license? To be honest I would be surprised if you did."

Greco: "Do you ever hear the words that are coming out of your mouth? Turn off the car. Sit there. Idiot."

And to a suspect in back of his patrol car.

Suspect: "Don't talk to me I'll cry in my own blues."
Greco: "[expletive], you [expletive] I'll talk to you all I want to. You're in my [expletive] patrol car."
Suspect: "Yes sir."
Greco: "That's more like it."
Suspect: "Can I cry?"
Greco: "Yeah go ahead please."
Suspect: "Don't call me a [expletive]."
Greco: "Okay."
Suspect: "Thank you officer."
Greco: "You're welcome, [expletive]."
http://www.fox10phoenix.com/story/22798945/2013/07/09/officers-body-camera-reveals-unprofessional-conduct

Recently fired Police Chief Garcia was the one who initiated the changes, this and other accountability changes made him unpopular with the police unions which led to calls for his firing from city hall Republicans

Subsequently, Sergeant Percy Dupra, a 19-year veteran of the force, shot Cusseaux, who was taken to a hospital, where she died.

At the press conference, Garcia spoke of his face-to-face meeting with Cusseaux's mom, Frances Garrett, a couple of days earlier.

The chief said "the hurt in her face" and Garrett's words "touched my heart."

Based on the conversation, Garcia said, he asked the DPS to take over the criminal investigation of the shooting.

Normally, in all such officer-involved shootings, the Phoenix Police Department performs both internal and criminal investigations.

A review of the criminal investigation by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office for possible charges is standard.

But on the Wednesday before the presser, Garcia issued a statement making it sound as if he was doing something different by asking County Attorney Bill Montgomery to "conduct a second -- and independent -- review of the [PPD's] criminal investigation."

In the same press release, Garcia stated that his department's "heartfelt thoughts" were with Cusseaux's family.

Still, the family wanted the criminal investigation done by an outside agency, and Garcia dutifully complied, one day after Cusseaux's family and its supporters marched her coffin through the streets of Phoenix to City Hall.

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2014/08/lemons_fear_of_ferguson.php

I support police like him. Also the crime numbers are done as well.

[dawg]

8. We just have to take these matters seriously and not sweep them ...

under the rug like they did in Ferguson.

Law enforcement officers have a difficult job, and they have to walk a fine line between protecting themselves and excessive use of force. Using more cameras is a good idea. Not only will that help catch "bad" cops, it will also protect "good" cops.

[Igel]

10. Better proposal.

Have use of body cameras required on all interactions with the public.

Nobody--that would include you--would like having a condition of work be perpetual suspicion, with everything you do and say from the time you punch in to the time you punch out open to FOIA requests. It's a bad practice in any workplace. It earns the employer a deserved dollop of resentment and hate.

Also ramp down the zero-tolerance heavy handed punishment. We don't like zero tolerance applied to us or "ours". If a kid in high school's first offense at back-talk resulted in two weeks of suspension, we'd be incensed. If you're perfect, say so. Then we can all genuflect and utter prayers to the correct deity. Otherwise a bit of humility is in order because, as a mere imperfect human, you make mistakes like the rest of us. But what usually happens is that if they make mistakes, they make mistakes; if we make mistakes, "Mistakes happened"--a nice medio-passive to remove responsibility.

Much of the difficulty in police-community relations in the last 20 years has come from precisely the "broken windows", zero-tolerance policy which was a response to conditions on the ground. This policy has, sadly, corrupted a lot of liberal thinking--whether classical liberal or progressive-liberal. We're all authoritarians now. Then again, many of us have always been authoritarians, we just don't like acknowledging it.

[rustydog]

11. Perhaps each state needs to have an independant shooting investigaiton team

Rather than have the neighboring police department investigate your officer, why not have a state unit with trained forensic investigators who can look into shootings by law enforcement with a blind-eye to loyalty and a clear view of the facts surrounding the shooting?

[jmowreader]

13. More detailed background investigations of prospective cops

If talking to as many of your high school classmates and teachers as possible reveals a tendency toward bullying or other antisocial behavior, you don't get to be a police officer.

The way to end the unjustified police killings isn't to shove a leash up the sociopaths' asses, it's to not allow sociopaths to be cops in the first place.

[MrMickeysMom]

14. I say make the Chief of Police be responsible to the State Attorney General for that expectation.

I realize these positions change, but the law should not. Each state should have enough of a budget such that the AG can audit this every year for signature. Each municipality should be transparent with any infractions. Good luck with that one.

[Ramses]

15. Good start

I would also include police be personally liable for both criminal and civil offenses and subject to asset forfeiture and garnishment when wrongdoing has been proven in a court of law.