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.
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.”
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.
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.
Journal reference:
- . Shooting Behavior: How Working Memory and Negative Emotionality Influence Police Officer Shoot Decisions. Applied Cognitive Psychology, (in press)
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.
Man’s BEST friend
I’m glad the officer and the pooch are both okay!
——–
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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