|
|
|
| NEWS > 05 October 2009 |
Other related articles:
WA Police Minister sacks offic
The Western Australian Police Minister has signed off on the sacking of a female officer for disclosing confidential information which potentially compromised a cold case review into the murder of Pamela Lawrence.
The fresh inquiry was launched last year after the High Court overturned the conviction of Andrew Mallard.
The Senior Constable was stood down last November for allegedly telling her husband, a former police officer, about a palm print found at the Mosman Park jewellery store where Ms Lawrence was found dead in 1994.
The print belonged to prisoner S... Read more
|
 Article sourced from
|
|
New York Times
05 October 2009
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
|
Suffolk County Police Departme
|
Inquiry Looks at Treatment of
Federal authorities have opened an investigation into allegations of “discriminatory policing” by the Suffolk County Police Department over how officers responded to reports of crimes against Latinos, a Justice Department spokesman said Monday.
Latino residents and their advocates have accused the police in that Long Island county of systematically failing to fully investigate allegations of assaults on Latinos. After the highly publicized stabbing death of an Ecuadorean immigrant last November — prosecutors said that his attackers were driven by prejudice against Latinos — residents stepped forward with accounts of other attacks they believed were racially motivated. Some of those cases had been reported to the police but had not resulted in any arrests.
Justice Department investigators “will seek to determine whether there are systemic violations of the Constitution or federal law” by the police, said Alejandro Miyar, a spokesman for the department. The agency notified Suffolk police authorities of the investigation on Sept. 30.
The police commissioner, Richard Dormer, said in a telephone interview that he welcomed the federal investigation into his police force and denied that there had any police discrimination against Latino crime victims.
The investigation, he said, “gives us a chance to dispel the myths that we didn’t investigate thoroughly and completely any complaints that have come to our attention.”
Mr. Dormer acknowledged that his force may have missed a pattern of racially motivated crime against Latinos in the county in recent years but said that was because some crimes were apparently not reported to the police.
In January, federal authorities announced that they had begun a review of numerous allegations of racially motivated crime against Latinos in Suffolk to determine which ones might be violations of federal civil rights laws. That criminal review remains open and no related charges have yet been filed, though federal authorities are closely monitoring the continuing prosecutions of hate crimes in Suffolk, Mr. Miyar said.
Federal scrutiny of hate crimes in Suffolk was spurred by the killing last November of the Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero. Seven youths are awaiting trial in that case.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization based in Montgomery, Ala., that tracks hate groups around the country, reported last month that many Latino crime victims in Suffolk “said police did not take their reports of attacks seriously, often blaming the victims instead.”
“They said there’s little point in going to the police, who are often not interested in their plight and instead demand to know their immigration status,” said the report, the product of months of investigation on Long Island, including scores of interviews with Latino immigrants and local civic leaders.
Advocates for Latino immigrants praised the Justice Department for its decision to investigate the police.
“For a long time Latinos in Suffolk County felt that the Suffolk County police have been hostile or indifferent to their well-being and that they have not been treated as white residents have been treated,” said Foster Maer, senior litigation counsel for LatinoJustice P.R.L.D.E.F., an advocacy group based in Manhattan that had been pressing the Justice Department for the inquiry.
“Hopefully,” he added, “we can look forward to a new day on Long Island when Latinos can have full confidence that the police out there are serving them as well as the police are serving others in the community.”
|
| |
 EiP Comments:
|
|---|
|
| |
* We have no wish to infringe the copyright of any newspaper or periodical. If you feel that we have done so then please contact us with the details and we will remove the article. The articles republished on this site are provided for the purposes of research , private study, criticism , review, and the reporting of current events' We have no wish to infringe the copyright of any newspaper , periodical or other works. If you feel that we have done so then please contact us with the details and where necessary we will remove the work concerned.
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
 |
Ethics in Policing, based in the UK, provide information and advice about the following:
Policing Research | Police News articles | Police Corruption | International Policing | Police Web Sites | Police Forum | Policing Ethics | Police Journals | Police Publications |
|
| |
|
