Following Michael Brown’s tragic death, millions of people across the nation and around the world have focused their attention on unfolding events in Ferguson, both grieving together and making their voices heard.

In recent days, many have been captivated by ongoing developments, anguished emotions, peaceful protests — and, too often, deeply unfortunate images of unnecessary destruction. And this tragic incident has sparked a necessary, national conversation about the need to ensure trust and build strong relationships between law enforcement officials and the communities they serve.

Events in Ferguson have revealed a deep distrust between a community and its police force. But this reality is not limited to one location. Other communities around this country know this struggle all too well. And it’s abundantly clear that every single one of us has a role to play in tackling this problem together, as a nation — to identify those things that bind us, and to be honest with one another about the things that continue to divide us.

In August, President Obama ordered a review of federal funding and programs that provide equipment to state and local law enforcement agencies. Yesterday, the Administration released that review’s findings — and announced key next steps to strengthen the trust in and effectiveness of the policing of our communities.

Learn more about yesterday’s announcements, and the findings of the Administration’s review.

Here are the next steps we’re taking:

1. Creating a new task force to promote the expansion of 21st century community-oriented policing.
2. Reforming how the federal government equips local law enforcement, particularly with military-style equipment.
3. 3. Advancing the use of body-worn cameras and promoting proven community policing initiatives.

   I know this has been a difficult time for people in Ferguson, and for many others across the country. It will take time for things to get better. But as I assured Ferguson residents during my visit there, in August, the Obama administration is firmly committed to making the progress we need — and that all of our citizens deserve.

   The changes that the President announced yesterday are exactly the sorts of programmatic steps that will bring the right people together to engage in a constructive, national conversation — so we can build trust, address persistent concerns, and protect public safety while respecting the rights of every American.

   Last Tuesday, addressing the public, the President said, “[to] those who are prepared to work constructively, your President will work with you.” I am committed to answering

   the President’s call to see this through — as are the men and women of the United States Department of Justice.

   Learn more about yesterday’s announcements here — and spread the word to anyone who wants to know how we’re moving forward as a nation.

   Thank you,

   Eric H. Holder, Jr.

   

Here we go again-evidence will be presented to a grand jury to determine if the officer should be charged.

CLEVELAND (AP) — A Cleveland policeman who fatally shot a 12-year-old thought the boy’s pellet gun was a real firearm and later said he had no choice, the officer’s father said.

The Nov. 22 shooting of Tamir Rice by 26-year-old police rookie Tim Loehmann outside a recreation center sparked protests in the area. Surveillance video shows Loehmann firing within two seconds of a patrol car stopping near Rice, who reached in his waistband for what turned out to be a pellet gun.

Loehmann’s father, Fred Loehmann, of Parma, told the Northeast Ohio Media Group (http://bit.ly/1wiyIHu ) that the officer didn’t know how young the boy was.

He recalled his son saying: “I was right there and he went for the gun. I had no choice.”

Through their lawyer’s spokesman, Rice’s family declined to comment on any details about Loehmann. His funeral is planned Wednesday.

The city, so far, has not released statements taken from Loehmann and his police partner or their personnel files. Loehmann, who joined Cleveland police in March after spending several months with the police department in suburban Independence, is described by others as a quiet, respectful guy who grew up in Catholic schools and tried to follow in his father’s footsteps, the publishing group said.

Fred Loehmann, who spent decades in law enforcement with New York police and the U.S. Marshals Service, said his son initially was in shock after the shooting, but is now doing “pretty well.”

“He’s living his life,” the father said. However, the family has received threats since police publicly identified the officers involved, he said.

The police department is investigating the officer’s use of deadly force, and the county prosecutor has said the case will be presented for a grand jury to decide whether any charges are merited.

http://news.yahoo.com/officer-shot-boy-had-no-choice-cops-dad-122923638.html

For the millions of Americans charged each year with misdemeanor crimes, justice can be blindingly swift.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/justice-is-swift-as-petty-crimes-clog-courts-1417404782?utm_source=The+Marshall+Project+Newsletter&utm_campaign=f32f753a46-opening-statement&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5e02cdad9d-f32f753a46-171341017

There is a facebook page that documents instances of citizens killed by police.

The incidents are verified by using media reports,and there is a corresponding report to every incident counted.

Their count for 2014 is 1,009 people killed by police-in the USA.

https://www.facebook.com/KilledByPolice

Crime Stats

Reminder: The FBI’s ‘Police Homicide’ Count Is Wrong

5:56 PMNov 12 By Reuben Fischer-Baum

According to the FBI’s newest Uniform Crime Report (UCR), released this week, 461 people were killed by police in “justifiable homicides” in 2013. This number has gotten some media attention, both because it’s considered by some to be the “best authoritative data available” and because it represents an 8 percent jump in these homicides from 2012.

This increase sounds notable, but the underlying data continues to be nearly useless. As we outlined in the wake of Michael Brown’s death in August, the FBI’s UCR program undercounts what it classifies as justifiable police homicides (while skirting the issue of non-justifiable homicides), and should not be considered a useful estimate. Any year-to-year increases in FBI counts could represent actual bumps in homicide rates, or better reporting of homicides, or both, or neither.

While independent counts of police killings — such as those at Fatal Encounters, the Gun Violence Archive and Deadspin — develop, the most reliable database continues to be the Killed By Police Facebook page. Using media reports, the page has counted 1,709 police killings since May 1, 2013, and more than 950 so far in 2014. We audited the page in August and confirmed that the links represented legitimate stories, although the count did include a small number of incidents where officers were acting outside the line of duty (for example, an off-duty officer killing his friend during a fight). These incidents represented less than 10 percent of the Killed By Police total.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/reminder-the-fbis-police-homicide-count-is-wrong/

Balko…

“I’ll wager a quarter that the people imposing the quotas won’t be held accountable, either. It’s an interesting approach to holding public officials accountable: The system is so thoroughly corrupt that it would be unfair to hold any individual police officer accountable for his individual corruption. Maybe the feds will find differently.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/11/25/quota-system-blurs-case-against-fort-worth-cops-in-traffic-ticket-scandal/

Not mentioned, apart from an aside about an infamous case of police misconduct in Georgia, was the subject of Paul’s first Ferguson op-ed, also published in Time. “We must demilitarize the police,” wrote Paul in August, as he listed the ways that local police departments obtained and misused surplus military equipment. “The militarization of our law enforcement is due to an unprecedented expansion of government power in this realm. It is one thing for federal officials to work in conjunction with local authorities to reduce or solve crime. It is quite another for them to subsidize it.”

Three months later, as Evan McMorris-Santoro reports, the anti-“militarization” is nowhere. Even by Washington’s amnesiac standards, the efforts to reform the 1033 program that makes military gear available to police departments faded absurdly fast. An Aug. 31 Politico story reported on lawmakers’ optimism that Ferguson “actually will lead to some policy changes.” One week later, Politico published a report about how “substantive action on the federal level is an uphill battle,” and that lobbyists for the cops were likely to save the military gear program.

So they did. While the National Sheriffs Association declined comment, the Fraternal Order of Police made executive director Jim Pasco available to talk about how the skeptics—like Paul—were defeated.

“Nothing much has happened except that some members of Congress had kneejerk reactions to the optics of Ferguson or the rhetoric of Ferguson,” said Pasco. “They thought there was something problematic about the equipment they saw on the streets. In the intervening period, some of them have come to see that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It’s not what the equipment looks like, it’s what its utility is.”

According to Pasco, FOP members reached out to “maybe 80 percent of senators and half the House.” Since militarization was at the greatest risk in the Democratic Senate, the disparity made sense. As McMorris-Santoro reported, the departing Senate’s blockade on Republican amendments made it impossible for Paul to attach anything to a passable bill. And the clock’s basically run out for reform. A new Congress is coming in, but the FOP doesn’t see it as particularly likely to dismantle 1033.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-11-25/how-police-unions-stopped-congress-from-militarization-reform

In Brooklyn late Thursday night, a police officer shot and killed an unarmed man. New York City officials are saying it was an accident.

Within hours of the shooting late Thursday night, the Police Department had conceded a grave error. The mayor and William J. Bratton, the police commissioner, visited the family home on Friday to apologize.

We then move to Cleveland, for another tragedy.

The 12-year-old boy wielding what turned out to be a BB gun when he was shot by police outside a Cleveland recreation center died early Sunday morning, a police union official confirmed.

The boy [since identified as Tamir Rice]…was shot in the stomach at Cudell Recreation Center, at Detroit Avenue and West Boulevard, about 3:30 p.m. Saturday, police said . . .

The shooting came after a man at the park adjacent to the rec center called police when he saw “a guy with a gun pointing it at people.”
The caller twice said the gun was “probably fake” and told dispatchers the person pulling the gun from his waistband was “probably a juvenile,” according to audio released by police officials late Saturday.

The caller’s doubt was never relayed to the responding officers – one in his first year on the force, and the other with at least a decade of experience, Follmer said.

The rookie officer saw the boy at a park bench pick up what looked like a gun and placed it in his waistband, Follmer said.

The officer ordered the boy to put his hands in the air. Instead, police said, the boy reached for his gun. Deputy Chief Edward Tomba said the boy made no verbal threatsto the officer and there was no physical confrontation.

In the past five years, more Utahns have been killed by police than by gang members.

Or drug dealers. Or from child abuse.

And so far this year, deadly force by police has claimed more lives — 13, including a Saturday shooting in South Jordan — than has violence between spouses and dating partners.

As the tally of fatal police shootings rises, law enforcement watchdogs say it is time to treat deadly force as a potentially serious public safety problem.

Through October, 45 people had been killed by law enforcement officers in Utah since 2010, accounting for 15 percent of all homicides during that period.

A Salt Lake Tribune review of nearly 300 homicides, using media reports, state crime statistics, medical-examiner records and court records, shows that use of force by police is the second-most common circumstance under which Utahns kill each other, surpassed only by intimate partner violence.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/11/24/from-new-york-to-cleveland-to-utah-a-terrible-weekend-for-police-shootings/

Baltimore prosecutors withdrew key evidence in a robbery case Monday rather than reveal details of the cellphone tracking technology police used to gather it.

The surprise turn in Baltimore Circuit Court came after a defense attorney pressed a city police detective to reveal how officers had tracked his client.

City police Det. John L. Haley, a member of a specialized phone tracking unit, said officers did not use the controversial device known as a stingray. But when pressed on how phones are tracked, he cited what he called a “nondisclosure agreement” with the FBI.

“You don’t have a nondisclosure agreement with the court,” Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry G. Williams replied.

Williams threatened to hold Haley in contempt if he did not respond. Prosecutors decided to withdraw the evidence instead.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-stingray-officer-contempt-20141117-story.html