XPost: alt.law-enforcement, alt.true-crime, aus.legal   
   XPost: misc.legal, uk.legal   
   From: reality@check.it   
      
   Police nightmare in NY: shooting fellow officer   
   By COLLEEN LONG - 47 minutes ago   
      
   NEW YORK (AP) - It's a police officer's nightmare scenario: Confronting   
   someone who appears to be an armed suspect and opening fire, only to   
   discover that person was actually an officer not in uniform.   
      
   It's the kind of mistake that haunts a department, opens it to scrutiny, and   
   dominates headlines. While the phenomenon has happened around the country,   
   New York is home to several cases in the past few years.   
      
   But friendly fire incidents with police are fairly rare, according to   
   federal statistics, likely a testament to procedures in place in police   
   departments around the country.   
      
   "There's an awareness by police departments that this is a very high risk,"   
   Jim Cohen, a professor of criminal law at Fordham Law School, said Saturday.   
   "The rules are pounded into these officers in training, and continued   
   training, using their guns when other cops are around."   
      
   Late Thursday, Officer Omar J. Edwards, 25, was shot by a fellow officer on   
   a Harlem street while in street clothes. He had just finished his shift, and   
   had his service weapon out, chasing a man who had broken into his car,   
   police said. Three plainclothes officers on routine patrol arrived at the   
   scene and yelled for the two to stop, police said. One officer, Andrew   
   Dunton, opened fire and hit Edwards three times as he turned toward them   
   with his service weapon. It wasn't until medical workers were on scene that   
   it was determined he was a police officer.   
      
   Now, investigators are working to determine whether anyone was at fault.   
   Witnesses are being re-interviewed and many questions remain, specifically   
   whether Edwards identified himself as an officer, and whether Dunton's   
   split-second judgment to fire was against department guidelines. The   
   district attorney will likely convene a grand jury to decide whether to file   
   charges against Dunton, as is practice for police-involved shootings. After,   
   he will be interviewed by police. Dunton's attorney had no comment.   
      
   But NYPD procedure for officer confrontation places the responsibility on   
   the out-of-uniform officers. They are instructed to drop their weapon, stay   
   still and to obey all directions from the uniformed officers to defuse the   
   tense situation.   
      
   In the police academy, officers get weeks of intense training on what they   
   call confrontations with role playing, as well as lectures on the subject.   
   Training continues on the subject when officers leave the academy. After the   
   shooting Thursday, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly switched on-the-job   
   training for officers from courtroom testimony to confronting officers for   
   the month of June.   
      
   Procedures on the topic were also recently revamped after the shooting death   
   of Sean Bell, an unarmed man killed on his wedding night in a hail of 50   
   police bullets.   
      
   "We have seen fatal police-involved shootings plummet in recent decades -   
   even as the size of the NYPD increased - because of training and disciplined   
   use of force," said Paul Browne, the New York Police Department's deputy   
   commissioner for public information.   
      
   "Department guidelines are neat and clean on paper, not so in the   
   split-second reality of an armed confrontation. Our training is designed to   
   help officers safely navigate through the hazards of the real thing."   
      
   According to statistics by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, about 22   
   officers have been killed in accidental shootings in the past decade. The   
   figure includes officers caught in crossfire, mistaken for a suspect and   
   firearm mishaps. It varies from year to year to between one and four   
   officers killed around the country, and doesn't include those injured who   
   survived. But, it's still staggeringly low given the tense and confusing   
   circumstances officers regularly face. The nation's largest police   
   department has about 34,000 officers.   
      
   "I think it goes back to context," Cohen said. "You have in law enforcement,   
   which is perhaps different than military, a serious emphasis placed on not   
   killing fellow officers. And that training is universal."   
      
   Still, it occurs, and when it does, the sticky issue goes deeper than issues   
   of procedure. The FBI statistics don't specify the race of the officers   
   killed, and many community members and leaders say race is clearly the   
   reason for the accidents. Dunton and the other two officers were white;   
   Edwards was black.   
      
   In 2008, a black, off-duty Mount Vernon police officer was killed by a   
   Westchester County policeman while holding a gun on an assault suspect in   
   suburban White Plains. In 2006, a New York City police officer, Eric   
   Hernandez, was shot and killed by an on-duty patrolman who was responding to   
   an attack at a White Castle in the Bronx.   
      
   In Providence, Sgt. Cornel Young Jr. was killed in 2000 while he was off   
   duty and trying to break up a fight. He was dressed in baggy jeans, an   
   overcoat and a baseball cap, and carrying a gun. His mother unsuccessfully   
   sued the city. In 2005, an Orlando, Fla., police officer killed a man who   
   had fired a gun outside the Citrus Bowl. The victim was a plainclothes   
   officer working for the University of Central Florida. In 2001, two   
   uniformed officers shot and killed an undercover detective when he trained   
   his gun on a suspected car thief in Oakland, Calif.   
      
   On Saturday in Harlem, U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel joined the Rev. Al Sharpton   
   in calling for a federal probe, while Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Kelly met   
   with concerned community members around the city. Edwards' family mourned   
   their son, who always wanted to be a police officer and had two small   
   children and a wife.   
      
   "If you become an officer and you have a pistol and you are of color, in or   
   out of uniform, your chances of getting shot down by a police officer are a   
   lot heavier than if you were not of color," Rangel said.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)