Second Precinct ‘Cop(s) of the Month

The Second Precinct has selected Police Officer Vincent Dilluvio and Police Officer Michael Buscarino as their “Cops of the Month” for March 2009.

Officer Dilluvio has been with the Department since September of 2000 and has received two Department Recognition Awards, a Command Recognition Award, a previous Cop of the Month Award, and three Letters of Appreciation. Officer Buscarino has also been a member of the Department since September of 2000 and has received four Department Recognition Awards and two prior Cop of the Month Awards.

On April 12, 2008, while working an overnight shift in the Huntington Station area, a call was dispatched regarding a man claiming to have a gun and demanding money from a store clerk at a supermarket. A description and general direction of flight was provided by the dispatcher. The officers responded to the area in separate marked units, conducted an organized search, and a male fitting the description was located and detained. A subsequent identification was made by the complainant and the suspect was charged with Attempted Robbery 1st Degree.

Due to the quick actions of the officers, a felon was apprehended. The Second Precinct takes great pride in naming Police Officer Vincent Dilluvio and Police Officer Michael Buscarino as their “Cops of the Month” for March.

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Miami police chief sees crime risk if crisis cuts cops

MIAMI (Reuters) – Don’t panic: It’s wrong to think that the economic crisis and soaring unemployment will unleash a surge in U.S. crime, the veteran cop who heads the Miami Police Department said on Monday.

“We need to debunk a certain myth. Bad economy automatically means an increase in crime — not true,” police chief John Timoney said in an interview.

But there is still a real threat that crime will surge as the economy continues its downward spiral, warned Timoney, whose career spans more than four decades dating back to his days as a rookie officer at “Fort Apache” in New York’s South Bronx.

That menace stems from the fact that cities could be forced to start laying off police officers, wielding a double-edged budget ax by cutting policing efforts in areas where they are most needed, Timoney said.

“Where you will see an increase (in crime) is if you have less cops,” he said. “If there are less cops out there, they are less likely to apprehend the bad guys.”

Timoney spoke in his office in this city that was once considered America’s murder capital because of drug-related crime in the “Cocaine Cowboy” era of the early 1980s.

He acknowledged that there had been an increase in certain types of crime in Miami at the margins of the recession, including the theft of copper and other metals from construction sites.

But Miami’s murder rate was down in 2008 — a trend that continues this year — and there has been no sign of a spike in armed robberies or other violent crimes, he said.

SAFETY NETS

Even in Miami’s “Little Haiti” district, where many day laborers have had to cut back on the cash remittances they send to their impoverished homeland because of the U.S. recession, Timoney said violent crime fell in the last year.

“It’s not an American tradition,” he said, when asked about the correlation between economic hard times and increases in criminal activity.

“That’s something you see in other countries. There aren’t too many people that are going to bed starving,” he said, citing social safety nets, at least in major cities, that were generally helping to prevent things going from bad to worse.

“That, at least as far as sustenance and feeding your belly and putting some kind of shelter over your head, is in place.”

Timoney said there had been no move by city officials to cut the size Miami’s police force, even as other agencies have suffered deep cuts because of the knock-on effects of the recession.

He noted that some cities, including Sacramento and Philadelphia where he served as police commissioner for four years, had either frozen police staffing levels or started laying people off.

Where police manpower is reduced crime will rise, he cautioned. “The professional criminal gets to ply his trade much more often without fear of being grabbed by the police.”

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Some Ohio Troopers Feel More Pressure to Write Tickets

A pilot program that is being tested in southern Ohio has left some Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers feeling pressured to write more citations.

The Fair Share program was created by Lt. Mike Crispen for District 6, which is made up of 10 southern counties, including Ross and Athens counties.

Crispen told 10TV’s Maureen Kocot that the program is not a quota system.  It accounts for a trooper’s every move in an eight-hour day and measures time and not tickets.

A trooper who writes 15 speeding tickets does not necessarily outshine a trooper who spent his day making felony drug arrests.

The union that represents Ohio’s troopers calls the Fair Share program a “thinly veiled quota” and claimed that troopers are feeling the pressure to write more tickets.

According to the union, troopers who don’t meet the bar could face the consequence of getting overlooked for promotions.

“They feel like there’s a constant pressure that you have to issue citations,” said Larry Phillips, the president of the Ohio State Troopers Association.

It appears that more tickets are the end result, Kocot reported.

According to a January e-mail that was written by Crispen, he noted that “as we started the Fair Share program, enforcement increased by 250 percent.”

“I just don’t think it’s a fair system for Ohio’s public,” Phillips said.

Phillips is just as concerned about a different performance evaluation plan in District 2 in northern Ohio, which he claims awards troopers points for citations.

The union told 10TV News that troopers patrolling the Ohio Turnpike have strict instructions to make two traffic stops each hour.

10TV News obtained a copy of a grievance filed by a trooper who patrols the Ohio Turnpike who claims that supervisors are setting a quota on stops per hour to the point that it is a job requirement.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol said that it has a strict “no quota” policy.

Crispen said that there is a difference.

“This now says I don’t really care how many tickets you write – I just want you to work.  You need to work,” Crispen said.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol told 10TV that the Fair Share plan is on hold while the state reviews the program and decides whether to terminate or extend the performance evaluation policy.

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Oakland Officers trying to move forward

It was on Saturday March 21 that the Oakland Police Department suffered one of the largest losses of on-duty police officers in state history. Some 800 officers from the department said goodbye last Friday to Officer John Hege and Sergeants Mark Dunakin, Ervin Romans and Daniel Sakai. On Monday, KTVU went for a ride along as officers try to put their grief aside and do their jobs.

“We’re human beings,” said Officer Jeff Thomason. “When you go through life and you think it could never happen to you, and then when it does happen, especially to your close friend, you’re like it could have happened to me.”

The police union’s president says officers will persevere, it’s their nature. He adds they’ve been doing a good job and they will continue to do so.

“We’re tough. We’re built that way,” said Dom Arotzarena. “We have some great training here, we have some great cops. And everyone has a sense of professionalism in this town. It goes to show you the dedication this force has.

“Police say they have received an outpouring of support from the community. Gifts and donations have been dropped off at the Eastmont Substation, not far from where the four officers were killed. Officers brought the gifts and donations to police union headquarters on Monday.Representatives from Clorox, PG & E, the Oakland Chamber of Commerce, and Chinatown Chamber of Commerce also stopped by. They donated a total of $100,000 to the four officers’ families.

“We just felt that it was a sad sad day for the community of Oakland, and we wanted to do something about that,” explained Victoria Jones, Clorox’s Vice President of Community Relations.

Police already were in mourning before the four officers were killed.

Two weeks before the shootings, Officer Kaiser Albino died suddenly from an aneurysm. He was 52-years-old.

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Police With Higher Multitasking Abilities Less Likely To Shoot Unarmed Persons

In the midst of life-threatening situations requiring split-second decisions, police officers with a higher ability to multitask are less likely to shoot unarmed persons when feeling threatened during video simulations, a new Georgia State University study suggests.

Heather Kleider, Dominic Parrott and Tricia King, assistant professors of psychology at Georgia State, have taken a unique look at officer-involved shooting situations, signs of negative emotions and working memory capacity — the capacity to perform multiple mental tasks, such as reasoning, at the same time.

Other studies have examined factors such as ethnicity, stereotypes, neighborhood crime rates and other factors, but this study examines the effects of police officers’ characteristics on shooting decisions.

“In cognitive psychology, operation span, or working memory, is an overarching cognitive mechanism that indicates the ability to multitask, and the amount of available capacity to perform tasks varies by individual and situation,” Kleider said. “People with a higher capacity are able to keep more things ‘in play’ at one time.”

Urban police officers participated in the study, completing a test of working memory capacity, and then watched a video of an officer-involved shooting that resulted in the death of the officer, during which time negative affect and stress indicators were measured; including elevated heart rates and increased sweating.

Following the video, officers participated in a computer-based simulation where they were required to make split-second decisions whether to shoot or not to shoot someone, based on 80 slides that presented a person holding either a gun or a harmless object like a cell phone, for only a fraction of a second. Officers then pressed either a “shoot” or a “don’t shoot” button.

Analyzing the data, the researchers found that lower levels of working memory capacity increased the likelihood of shooting unarmed people among those officers who had higher levels of negative emotionality — a score determined by comparing readings of facial movement and heartbeat rates between a baseline reading and readings taken during the stressful situation.

Officers with a higher working memory capacity seemed to buffer officers against the negative effects of a threat when making shooting decisions.

“An important thing to consider is that some decision making requires controlled processing wherein balanced/accurate decisions require impulse control” Kleider explained. “For some people, this usurps a substantial amount of available working memory capacity to control impulses, and if you are someone with a lower capacity, it’s harder to do.”

Psychologists are not sure whether working memory capacity can be increased with training, but Kleider and her colleagues are planning to investigate this, and are also planning to work with several police departments on a broader study to see if training and years of experience influence shooting decisions.

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Journal reference:

1. . Shooting Behavior: How Working Memory and Negative Emotionality Influence Police Officer Shoot Decisions. Applied Cognitive Psychology, (in press)

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Injured Orange City Officer thankful, hopeful

Still recovering from surgery to save his vision, the Orange City police officer injured in a crime spree last week appeared in public to thank all those who had supported him.

On the day he was released from Halifax Health Medical Center, a cautiously upbeat Officer Sherif El-Shami called a brief news conference in the Orange City Town Hall Annex.

“I thought it would be good to write something down, but I couldn’t read it,” El-Shami said, as he faced television cameras and reporters Sunday afternoon, March 29.

“The first five days — it’s been hard. I have had my family,” he said.

His mother, Shirley, and Orange City Police Chief Jeff Baskoff stood by him.

“At this time, I do not have any vision in my left eye,” El-Shami said.

El-Shami is 25 years old. A 2002 graduate of Deltona High School, he’s been with the Orange City Police Department since 2007.

He described the vision in his right eye as “blurry,” but said more treatment and surgery are probably in the offing. He plans to consult with eye specialists and surgeons about his options.

“I thank God I’m here today,” El-Shami said.

Although he declined to speculate on the time needed for a recovery, El-Shami said he can’t wait to get back to work as a police officer.

“This is what I love to do,” he said. “Not a lot of people can say that about their work. Is it dangerous? Yeah.”

El-Shami declined to discuss the shooting.

“I’m not going to go into any of the details today, because it’s still traumatic,” he said

El-Shami’s eyes and face were damaged by flying glass from a bullet fired into his patrol car March 25. The officer had been dispatched to 1651 E. University Ave. to check on a resident who had reportedly made suicidal comments to his ex-wife at her workplace in Lake Helen.

The East University Avenue address is in the unincorporated area just outside Orange City. A Volusia County deputy sheriff had also been dispatched to conduct a well-being check on Bryan Randolph Langford. El-Shami was to serve as a backup for the deputy, but he arrived on the scene first.

Unbeknownst to El-Shami, a well-armed gunman waited inside the house.

Langford, 38, fired on El-Shami’s car. El-Shami, though injured, was able to back his patrol car farther from the house. The deputy had arrived by then, and was able to provide cover while another Orange City officer, Sgt. Greg Lariscy, arrived on the scene, pulled El-Shami out of his car, and took him to Florida Hospital-Fish Memorial.

El-Shami was later transferred to Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona Beach.

While El-Shami was being treated, law-enforcement personnel from several agencies conducted an intensive search for Langford and surrounded the home.

Later that day, Langford was found dead inside, along with his girlfriend, Cindy Henderson. Henderson’s son, Louis Adams, lay dead in a bar in Deltona.

Langford, according to investigators, killed himself after killing Adams and Henderson, who owned the Deltona bar, Dixie’s Pub.

Inside the home, lawmen found an arsenal that included semiautomatic rifles, a .50-caliber sniper’s rife, shotguns and pistols, and large quantities of ammunition.

Asked about the weaponry he had unknowingly faced, El-Shami replied, “I don’t think anybody should have stuff like that. … This is Orange City. This is not Iraq.”

He did acknowledge the constitutional “right to keep and bear arms.”

El-Shami’s mother had flown from Alexandria, Egypt, to be at her son’s bedside at Halifax Health Medical Center.

“I’m just truly proud of him. I thank God he’s here,” she said.

When her plane landed in Orlando, she was escorted by Orlando Police and deputies of Orange, Seminole and Volusia counties to Halifax.

“Thank you for your prayers and support,” El-Shami concluded.

The wounding of El-Shami in the line of duty is a first in the history of the Orange City Police Department, Baskoff said.

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Man’s BEST friend

I’m glad the officer and the pooch are both okay!

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California Police Officer Fights Angry Mob of 60 With His Dog

A Modesto, California, police officer found himself squaring off this week against a hostile mob of about 60 — among them several known gang members — with only his dog on his side.

Authorities believe the crowd had gathered for a party, police spokesman Sgt. Brian Findlen told The Modesto Bee.

The policeman, whose name wasn’t released, was in the area responding to another call when he saw several people assaulting a man, according to the newspaper.

When the officer went to break up the fight, the crowd’s attention switched from the party to him.

In an attempt to keep the mob at bay — and perhaps to prove the old “man’s best friend” adage — the policeman sent his dog into the throng of people.

The animal latched onto one suspect who was apprehended and later identified as 18-year-old Alfredo Espinoza, the Bee reported.

But Espinoza had the crowd on his side. When the officer approached him for an arrest, they pulled the teen away and allegedly challenged the cop to a fight.

One suspect reportedly lunged at the officer during the struggle; his two-way radio broke during the scuffle. He yelled for neighbors to call 911, using his gun to hold off the mob, the paper said.

Another in the crowd threatened that he “wouldn’t be leaving the scene alive.”

In addition to Espinoza, the Bee reported, authorities arrested Andrew Mitchell, 20; Matthew Reyes, 19; William Rodriguez, 29; and Junior Suarez, 19; on charges ranging from resisting and delaying a police officer and false imprisonment of an officer to forcibly removing a suspect from police custody and assaulting a police dog.

The policeman and his dog escaped virtually unscathed. They suffered only minor injuries, Findlen told the paper.

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It’s a time for Sergeants at Winter Haven PD

Three Winter Haven police officers were promoted to the rank of sergeant Friday, and one will be the highest ranking black in the department.

They are David Keigan, 39, Ken Nichols, 45, and Don Nunnery, 38. Each of the new sergeants will be assigned to the patrol division. With their promotions, the police department has a total of 13 sergeants. Their new duties will be effective Monday.

The agency has 74 sworn officers, and of that number 61 are men and 13 are women. Six of the officers are Hispanic and six are black.

The last time the police department had a high ranking black officer was when Major Gay Henry worked there. He retired in 2003 after 34 years of service. Now Nunnery will follow in his footsteps.

Police Chief Buddy Waters said when Henry was hired, it was tough for black officers.

“He dealt with racism and overcame it,” Waters said.

Nunnery said Henry has served as a great mentor.

“Anytime I had questions about the job, he was always there for me,” Nunnery said.

Henry, who was at the promotion ceremony, said Nunnery is like a son to him and he encouraged Nunnery for leadership positions. “The doors are open now and who knows, he might be chief.”

After serving in the Army from 1989 to 1993, Nunnery was a corrections officer and detention deputy from 1994 to 2000. He received his law enforcement certification from St. Petersburg Community College and joined the Winter Haven Police Department in 2000. He has served as a patrol officer and, since 2004, as a member of the Winter Haven Police Traffic Unit. Nunnery is also the department’s motorcycle instructor.

In addition to Nunnery, Keigan and Nichols have done a fine job at the Police Department, Waters said.

“We’ve got excellent people and we need excellent leaders,” he said.

Keigan was hired in 1996, the same year he received law enforcement certification from Polk Community College. He has served the Winter Haven Police Department as a patrol officer and supervisor, community policing officer and supervisor, field training officer and supervisor, Emergency Response Team member and as a Department firearms and driving instructor. He was named the 1998 Police Employee of the Year. Keigan said he appreciated the support from his supervisors.

Nichols has served as a Winter Haven police officer since 2000. A 1999 graduate of the Polk Community College Police Academy, Nichols has served as a patrol officer, field training officer and on the Traffic Unit.

In 2003, he received the DEUCE award from Mothers Against Drunk Driving for his efforts toward DUI enforcement.

He was named Police Employee of the year in 2003.

“I really enjoy this job but I do look forward to supervising the patrol staff,” Nichols said.

Nunnery is one of two high ranking minority police officers in the department. The other is Wilton Santos, who was hired in 2002.

Last year, the police department promoted Santos to the rank of sergeant and he became the highest ranking Hispanic officer among six.

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Winter Haven Police promotes officer to Sgt.

Winter Haven Police Officer Jose Sanchez became the second-highest-ranking Hispanic in the department when he was promoted Monday to sergeant.

Sgt. Wilton Santos, who was promoted last year, is the other.

Sanchez, 40, was hired Sept. 30, 2002, after serving as a drill instructor at the Polk County Sheriff’s Office for more than three years.

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Police dash-cams can clear cops, catch wrongdoing

When NFL player Ryan Moats was pulled over by a Dallas police officer earlier this month, the incident could have turned into a “he-said-he-said” situation.

But because Officer Robert Powell had a dashboard mounted camera in his car, the 13-minute harangue of Moats, who pleaded with the rookie officer to let him get to his dying mother-in-law’s bedside, was recorded from start to finish.

The video, which police released last week, has hit the Internet and sparked nationwide outrage. Police Chief David Kunkle has been bombarded with calls to fire Powell, who is on leave.

In a statement released by his lawyer, Powell said the incident was “unfortunate.”

But while Powell’s taped diatribe may prove to be a career ender, experts say the in-car video can just as often save a career threatened by bogus misconduct claims.

In-car cameras and video from bystanders have “had a huge impact in being able to provide independent visual documentation of the incident,” said Sam Walker, a national police accountability expert, in Sunday’s editions of The Dallas Morning News.

“If the officer did the right thing, then it’s good for us to know that and have some independent documentation,” he said. “If the officer was in the wrong, then it’s good for us to know that. This is what’s been lacking in most police use-of-force incidents. Traditionally, you would have had a he said-he said situation. As the cliché has always been, the tie goes to the officer.”

The infamous Rodney King beating by Los Angeles police officers 18 years ago solidified the power of video, for the officers and suspects.

In Moats’ case a Plano officer also witnessed part of the traffic stop and reported it to his supervisors. But without the video, an internal affairs probe may have stalled.

“It would have been their word against (Powell), and it probably would have ended up being inconclusive,” said Assistant Chief Floyd Simpson, who oversees the city’s seven patrol stations. “The in-car camera systems bring a different view.”

In Dallas, about 67 percent of the department’s 906 squad cars have one of the $4,400 cameras, said Lt. Dale Barnard, the department’s fleet coordinator.

The camera begins recording automatically when an officer flips on lights and sirens, or if the patrol car is in a crash. Officers are required to wear microphones to record conversations. It is against DPD rules for an officer to turn off the camera, and officers cannot erase the videos.

Videos that need to be kept as evidence or for longer than 90 days are reviewed by a sergeant.

According to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, as of 2003, 54 percent of police departments in cities with more than 250,000 people use in-car cameras.

In Dallas, the cameras have proved to be a mixed bag for local officers.

In August, two Dallas police officers arrested a drunken man at a club near a southwest patrol substation. The man later complained that the officers had roughed him up, but the officers were cleared when investigators heard an audio recording showing that the man was yelling, screaming and kicking the cage in the squad car.

Cameras also led to several reprimands after a Sept. 6 chase.

A Dallas police video also showed the Oct. 17 death of 10-year-old Cole Berardi, who was struck by an officer driving at least 29 mph over the speed limit on a dark road without sirens or emergency lights.

That video helped persuade Kunkle to issue new driving guidelines, requiring that officers not drive above the speed limit unless lights and sirens are activated.

In Oakland, Calif., New Year’s Day cell phone videos showed a 27-year-old transit police officer shooting Oscar Grant, 22, who was being detained along with several other young black men while police investigated a fight on a train.

The officer is facing murder charges.

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