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| NEWS > 18 July 2007 |
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Indian police shoot three prot
Police gunfire killed three college students today as they were protesting at the alleged sexual molestation of fellow students by police on a train in eastern India, student groups and officials said.
A crowd of students and residents gathered at a train station in Assam state, after other students aboard an approaching train telephoned friends in the area and said police on the train had molested female students on board, a student leader said.
As the train pulled into the station at Salakati – a small town about 130 miles west of Assam’s capital, Gauhati – the proteste... Read more
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Philadelphia Daily News - Phil
18 July 2007
This article appeared in the above title/site.
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When a cop fires his gun
AS FATAL shootings of citizens by Philadelphia police continue to increase, the lack of transparency and public reckoning for these incidents has driven a dangerous wedge between police and citizens in our community. Rooted in our desperate search for answers, this spiral of mistrust threatens to undermine public safety.
The recent shooting of Shawn Miller in South Philadelphia has left a grieving family, angry residents and a police department struggling to investigate while also trying to explain its officers' actions. The community meeting only hardened the views of those for whom the police are "an occupying force."
But for the Philadelphians looking for answers, angrily shouting at the police commissioner and his command staff in front of TV cameras provides no accounting of the formal police procedures. Independent inquiries from agencies like the Police Advisory Commission and the Integrity and Accountability Office must accompany fatal shootings by police.
Whenever police discharge 85 rounds in a residential community without having first been fired on, there is a problem, of public perception and understanding of lethal confrontations, and gathering useful information from the investigations to identify and fix errors in procedure, judgment and tactics.
In the Miller case, was the response by the officers a panic reaction? Possibly. Law-enforcement professionals term these kinds of incidents as "contagious" or "synchronous" shootings. Studies note common factors like multiple officers on the scene, potentially life-threatening situations and the first officer's shot as the actions that usually facilitate the other officers' firing.
National studies suggest that the actions of multiple officers are all somewhat independent, with no officer clearly knowing why others are firing, but all perceiving to varying degrees a level of threat to their lives. Other studies indicate that the hit ratio in these shootings is usually from 9 to 45 percent compared to 64 percent nationally for single-officer shootings. The Integrity Office's 2005 report "Officer-Involved Shootings by Philadelphia Police" found that on average, 18 percent of the rounds fired by officers actually struck their targets during all shooting incidents from 1998-2003. The report also noted a yearly average of five civilian fatalities from 1998 to 2002. There were 22 fatal shootings by police in 2006, "a troubling trend that warrants close attention and monitoring."
In the wake of these shootings, the commission and the IAO deputy director have talked about a joint review of cases and shooting data to produce a report that would pick up where the 2005 one ended. There must be independent eyes to review and recommend new strategies and protocols for a department struggling with the lack of public credibility that accompanies an increase in fatal shootings by police. Shooting investigations are conducted at several levels of the department but take too long to complete and rarely result in any public notification of the outcome.
Former councilman and current Democratic mayoral candidate Michael Nutter has long been a supporter of police oversight and has pledged to make changes to improve the process. Part of this agenda should include creating an independent Police Advisory Commission as a permanent agency under the City Charter, and then sufficiently funding both oversight agencies to address these issues through comprehensive investigations, reports and studies.
Fatal shootings by police will always generate questions, and answering them systematically, honestly and publicly assures that we can rebuild the trust between citizens and police. *
William M. Johnson is executive director of the Police Advisory Commission. Edwin Pace is deputy director of the Integrity and Accountability Office. The commission makes recommendations to the mayor, managing director and the police commissioner regarding discipline, policy issues or training of police. The IAO is responsible for monitoring and auditing departmental policies, practices and operations as they relate to corruption, misconduct and excessive use of force.
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