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   From: msnbchomo@espn.com   
      
   Police in Albuquerque, N.M., have a serious pattern of using   
   “unreasonable force” against civilians, especially against those   
   who have mental illnesses, according to a blistering report from   
   the US Justice Department that was released Thursday.   
      
   The release of the findings closes a 16-month federal   
   investigation into allegations that officers in the Albuquerque   
   Police Department (APD) are abusing their right to use force,   
   often with fatal results for civilians. Over the past month,   
   outrage over police tactics in the Southwestern city reached its   
   highest-octane levels yet, after police were seen in March   
   fatally shooting James Boyd, a homeless man with schizophrenia,   
   in footage from an officer’s helmet camera.   
      
   The Justice Department (DOJ) report concluded that APD officers   
   are overusing both lethal and nonlethal force against people who   
   “pose a minimal threat” to the officers, as well as against   
   people who are clearly mentally ill and unable to properly   
   follow police orders.   
      
   “Public trust has been broken in Albuquerque,” said Jocelyn   
   Samuels, acting assistant US attorney general for the Civil   
   Rights Division, at a press conference Thursday to discuss the   
   report.   
      
   The DOJ said that the conduct of the APD officers, not the   
   suspects, is often responsible for escalating the situation to   
   violence, and it said that the majority of the 20 fatal police   
   shootings it reviewed between 2010 and 2013 were “unjustified.”   
      
   The DOJ also identified “systemic deficiencies” in the APD that   
   have legitimized or condoned excessive use of force, including   
   “poor accountability systems” and “inadequate training.” The   
   APD, it noted, has also failed to create a “culture of community   
   policing” and has a hostile, aggressive relationship with the   
   city it polices.   
      
   The DOJ recommended a long list of major reforms for the   
   department, including investigating police shootings as crime   
   scenes and overhauling police training to de-emphasize weapons   
   use.   
      
   It did not, however, go so far as to order federal monitoring of   
   the department, as had been expected, but said that federal   
   agents would be meeting with local officials to determine what   
   kind of monitoring would be required to make sure that reforms   
   are carried out. Several cities’ police departments, including   
   those in New Orleans and Los Angeles, have been subjected to   
   federal monitoring.   
      
   Last week, in anticipation of the findings, Albuquerque Mayor   
   Richard Berry requested immediate federal oversight of the   
   police department, signaling a willingness to comply with such   
   expected measures.   
      
   “Prior to the completion of the DOJ investigation and the   
   publication of findings, I would like to immediately begin to   
   the process of negotiating a cooperative agreement between the   
   DOJ and the City of Albuquerque to implement a DOJ monitoring   
   plan,” the mayor wrote at the time, in a letter addressed to the   
   DOJ.   
      
   Mayor Berry, calling Mr. Boyd’s death a “game changer,” had also   
   said that he was setting aside $1 million for compliance with   
   the DOJ’s anticipated recommendations, and he announced support   
   for some 60 departmental reforms, including mandating training   
   for all officers on how to work with mentally ill civilians.   
      
   Though a police officer is entitled to use lethal force if the   
   officer believes that his or her life is in serious danger, the   
   number of shootings in Albuquerque – 23 civilians dead since   
   2010, most of them people with mental illnesses – had put a   
   bright light on what can happen when an officer’s right to fire   
   collides with a mentally ill person’s difficulties in   
   understanding how to follow an officer’s directions.   
      
   It had also raised the question of whether APD officers were   
   making all efforts to avoid using force and were abiding by the   
   protocols outlined in their own guidelines for de-escalating and   
   compassionately resolving confrontations with mentally ill   
   suspects.   
      
   Last month, a standoff with police in the Sandia Mountains   
   resulted in the shooting of Boyd – even though the situation   
   appeared to have been diffused and Boyd seemed to be cooperating   
   with officers. That month, violent protests over the death tore   
   through Albuquerque’s downtown.   
      
   The DOJ investigation, begun in November 2012, did not review   
   the Boyd shooting, but the case is the subject of a federal   
   criminal investigation, DOJ officials say.   
      
   http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2014/0410/Federal-report-   
   Albuquerque-police-have-pattern-of-using-unreasonable-force   
      
          
      
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