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Two Atlanta police officers started by guiding Rayshard Brooks through sobriety tests.The interaction quickly went from calm to fatal for Rayshard. The police originally intended to arrest Brooks for drunk driving, but when Brooks tried to make a run for it the cops shot him in the back twice when he was still close to him and they could have chased him down or used a taser. They arrested him for drunk driving at their own discretion when they didn't have two because Brooks said he was willing to find other ways to get home. The ethics they didn't consider was how necessary is this arrest, will he die, and should they help him after he was shot so he can survive.


Police Decisions Are Scrutinized After Rayshard Brooks's Fatal Encounter
Police Decisions Are Scrutinized After Rayshard Brooks's Fatal Encounter
Experts debate the best way of handling a drunken driver, and whether Mr. Brooks was a threat after twice firing a police Taser. [Here's what you need to know about the death of Rayshard Brooks .] ATLANTA - From beginning to end, the encounter between Rayshard Brooks and two Atlanta police officers lasted 41 minutes and 17 seconds.
nytimes

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especially because of their racial biases. Racial biases have greatly impacted how police preform their jobs. How would you alter the police system to make it less impacted by police officers biases? 
- Alexandra

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Kate Sohl Assignment #2
After learning more about police discretion from the five sources, my opinion on the audio during arrests is strengthened. Audio in body cameras says so much about what is going through to officer's head and it gives evidence whether the arrest was warranted or not. This is especially important in the event of an officer using the stop and frisk method. In source two it mentioned how stop and frisk can give policemen the opportunity to racially profile a suspect instead of having true suspicions. Having the audio on sooner would help to evaluate whether the officer was racially profiling or not.

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In Brookline, where it has another dispensary, NETA has paid local officers $1.58 million in overtime since beginning medical marijuana sales in 2016, thanks in part to a town requirement that at least one police detail be present whenever the dispensary is open; about $950,000 of the total came after NETA started selling recreational pot in March 2019.

The town itself has raked in about $158,400 in administrative surcharges on the details, and plans to allocate another $435,000 in separate fees paid by NETA toward its police department this fiscal year, some of it toward officer health care costs.

Police officers in the two communities are hardly alone in their windfall: Across Massachusetts, marijuana companies complain that local officials frequently require (or pressure) them to spend large sums on traffic details that are unnecessary, intimidating, or both.

While municipalities say the details help manage increased crowds and traffic around marijuana stores, critics say they amount to little more than a cash grab. That's because in nearly every case, police details are paid directly from the pockets of marijuana operators - on top of separate "community impact fees" worth 3 percent of each company's annual revenue that are paid to their host municipalities and ostensibly designated to offset the cost of increased traffic and other consequences of hosting the marijuana facility. (Local officials counter that traffic details are not a cost borne by municipalities, but an hourly service companies hire directly.)

Worse, the critics argue, the payments are a perversion of a marijuana law designed to benefit those hit hardest by racist policing practices - a stance resonating at a time of widespread protests calling for reduced police funding and increased investment in vulnerable communities.

"I'm deeply disturbed," said Shaleen Title, a member of the state Cannabis Control Commission. "State and local leaders have a historic opportunity to answer a national movement seeking racial justice, but most seem content to let police take home millions of dollars in questionable payments and tax revenue while shrugging at the racial justice mandates in the same law.

"How long are communities of color expected to wait for the opportunities we promised them?"

Commission policies are meant to provide a leg up for people and communities most affected by the drug war. But so far, larger investor-backed concerns have dominated: Just three of the dozens of marijuana facilities that have opened around Massachusetts are owned by participants in the cannabis commission's social equity and economic empowerment programs or designated by the state as a "disadvantaged business enterprise."

Meanwhile, the cannabis commission's annual budget for its statewide social equity training and technical assistance program is just $300,000 - a fraction of the legal marijuana spoils hauled in by Massachusetts police officers from NETA alone, and a sum so low the program's director quit in protest last month.

"Equity applicants are still not receiving the actual aid they need," said Shekia Scott, the former director. "I wasn't supported and the proper resources were never given to it. It's ridiculous that the police are profiting more off this than anyone, especially those disproportionately impacted by prohibition."

In a statement, a commission spokesman said other aspects of the agency's budget indirectly support its equity mission, and that officials have been "diligent in developing and implementing policies and procedures to effectuate an equitable industry."

Adding to the frustration of advocates, the state Legislature appears poised to rebuff a push to pass long-stalled bills that would address some of the biggest obstacles facing disenfranchised entrepreneurs, including one creating a no-interest loan fund for equity applicants.

Instead, House lawmakers last week approved a police accountability bill that would tap a $109 million fund filled by state marijuana taxes and fees to retrain officers. While the state's marijuana law calls for some cannabis revenue to go to police training, the provision was met with backlash from progressive legislators, who noted the law also mandates funding of restorative justice efforts. A Globe analysis in February found that Massachusetts has so far only used marijuana revenue to fund the commission and existing addiction treatment programs.

An amendment to the police bill proposed by state Representative Liz Miranda of Boston that would have mandated equal or greater spending on equity efforts compared with police training failed to draw enough support.

"The fact that there's only one Black-owned cannabis business right now makes it clear we haven't done our part as legislators," Miranda said in an interview, referring to the Pure Oasis marijuana store in Boston's Grove Hall neighborhood.

Another reform sought by advocates, currently stalled in the state Senate despite an endorsement from the cannabis commission, would crack down on municipal demands for large payments under the auspices of so-called "host community agreements."

Under current state law, municipalities must document the actual costs incurred by local marijuana firms and only charge them a "reasonably related" community impact fee.

With no apparent enforcement of those limits, however, most cities and towns simply charge the maximum 3 percent fee allowed by law ( or even more) and retain broad discretion in how they use the funds.

Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz defended the requirement that NETA pay its $1.2 million police detail bill separately from the $2.6 million it has paid in impact fees, saying the city did not formally require NETA to hire details and that other "high-traffic businesses" such as construction contractors also voluntarily do so.

"Because [the details] are not a cost borne by the city, we would not utilize community impact fees to offset them," Narkewicz said, adding that another, newer dispensary that recently opened in the city has not hired details because it is in an area with better parking and traffic flow.

Northampton has used about $1 million of the fee money to improve roads, bike paths, and other infrastructure near NETA, Narkewicz said, while the rest is held in a dedicated mitigation fund. The city has also earned a further $2.6 million through a 3 percent local sales tax on recreational marijuana.

NETA chief executive Amanda Rositano said her firm hired the Northampton details because private workers in Massachusetts cannot direct traffic on public roads. In Brookline, details are mandated by the town, though NETA doesn't always agree they are needed.

"There's an overabundance of caution that's [around] the cannabis industry, and I don't think it's always necessary," Rositano said. "We are looking to minimize the police presence at our sites."

Brookline spokesman Jordan Mayblum said NETA and the town had mutually agreed to the detail requirement. Regarding the $435,000 in impact fee money that will be allocated to the town's police department, he said local officials are "enabled to use [the funds] to serve the community at large."

Industry leaders agree that local requirements to hire police details, especially when a marijuana store first opens, are nearly ubiquitous, even if the sums paid by NETA are unusually large.

For example, cannabis firm Cultivate paid Leicester $60,000 for details and related fees (separate from its annual $250,000 impact payment), while Garden Remedies said it has paid a total of nearly $240,000 for police details at its dispensaries in Marlborough, Melrose, and Newton.

Leicester Town Administrator David Genereux said that if details were paid for out of Cultivate's impact fee, the company "could just ask for details anytime, even if they were not needed, just to use up the money." Detail payments, he added, represent a "charge for services rendered," and are not technically part of "the cost of having a facility in the community."

In some cases, detail payments directly detract from equity efforts. Brandon Pollock, the chief executive of cannabis operator Theory Wellness, said his company's accelerator program for equity applicants could have sponsored two entrepreneurs instead of just one with the more than $100,000 it spent on police details at its shops in Great Barrington and Chicopee.

"If a local police department wants to have details there and feels it's the right thing, I can't refute their professional opinion, but that's what the [community impact fee] money should be for," he said.

Marijuana operators also argued that the presence of armed officers can be jarring to cannabis consumers and medical marijuana patients, who may have had run-ins with the police over the drug when it was illegal. That concern is particularly acute in Black communities.

"It pained us to have a detail," said Kobie Evans, co-owner of Pure Oasis, who claimed his "hands were tied" when his shop hired a police detail after its opening in March (though the city denies requiring one).

"We had hired all this staff to mitigate the lines, because we trying to guard against the expense and because so many people in this community have been scarred by their by their dealings with the police."

"Unfortunately," he added, "details happen whether you want it or not. That is the cost of doing business."

Dan Adams can be reached at daniel.adams@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Dan_Adams86.

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While equity efforts flounder, Massachusetts police make millions off marijuana store traffic details - The Boston Globe

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Marijuana legalization in Massachusetts was intended to return wealth to Black and brown communities, which for decades were disproportionately targeted by police enforcing the drug's prohibition. Yet in many cities and towns, it is the police who are getting wealthy.

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It's really upsetting and interesting how police discretion can cost individuals their life time and time again. In this situation, I think that the police took the discretion given to them and used it poorly. Often times it seems like people are quick to use deadly force rather than other methods of policing and I wonder how this can be amended. - Amelia Worthington

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Dylan replying to Remy
This is a good example of police discretion. I do not think the officers should have taken off their badges, that is unfair to citizens and could put them at risks. It is interesting that the superintendent has to consider all the effects of their actions, and the reasons why they did it because I'm sure the officers thought they were right in the moment.

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Dylan B: Two Atlanta police officers started by guiding Rayshard Brooks through sobriety tests.The interaction quickly went from calm to fatal for Rayshard. The police originally intended to arrest Brooks for drunk driving, but when Brooks tried to make a run for it the cops shot him in the back twice when he was still close to him and they could have chased him down or used a taser. They arrested him for drunk driving at their own discretion when they didn't have two because Brooks said he was willing to find other ways to get home. The ethics they didn't consider was how necessary is this arrest, will he die, and should they help him after he was shot so he can survive.

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Experts debate the best way of handling a drunken driver, and whether Mr. Brooks was a threat after twice firing a police Taser.

Protesters and mourners gathered at the Wendy's restaurant where the Atlanta police killed Rayshard Brooks. The encounter is being scrutinized with a rare intensity. Credit... Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York Times

[Here's what you need to know about the death of Rayshard Brooks.]
ATLANTA - From beginning to end, the encounter between Rayshard Brooks and two Atlanta police officers lasted 41 minutes and 17 seconds. For the first 40 minutes, it looked like a textbook example of policing.

The officers treated Mr. Brooks, 27, with respect. They were cordial as they asked about his night and how much he had had to drink. They calmly guided him through a series of sobriety tests.

Then things went dangerously awry, and Mr. Brooks became yet another African-American man to die at the hands of the police.

The encounter - veering from calm to fatal and captured on video from multiple angles - has become the subject of intense scrutiny. There is vigorous debate over a host of decisions, big and small, that the two officers made last Friday night in a Wendy's parking lot, where Mr. Brooks had fallen asleep in the driver's seat in the drive-through lane.

"It's at the point where the officer places his hands on him that things go south in a fraction of a second," said Kalfani Ture, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Quinnipiac University who said he had viewed the video footage more than three dozen times. "So you have to pay attention to the minutiae of details - you have to try to understand decision-making, but you also have to pick out best practices."

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The Killing of Rayshard Brooks: How a 41-Minute Police Encounter Suddenly Turned Fatal

The Times analyzed witness videos, police footage and official documents to identify the critical moments - and missteps - that led to the killing of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta on June 12.

On Friday night, June 12, an employee at a Wendy's restaurant in South Atlanta calls 911. A 27-year-old man named Rayshard Brooks had fallen asleep in his car in the drive-through lane. Soon, two police officers respond. They and Mr. Brooks speak calmly and cordially for 41 minutes. "That was it." But then in just 45 seconds, one of the officers fatally shoots Mr. Brooks as he is running away. [gunshots] How could a routine police response go so suddenly and horribly wrong? The Times examined witness videos, security footage, police body-cam and dash-cam videos. We synchronized and slowed down those videos so we can see and hear what unfolded. We reviewed police records, and procedures, and statements made by the officers involved. And we identified the critical moments and missteps that led to a young man losing his life. It's 10:41 p.m., eight minutes after the 911 call when Officer Devin Brosnan arrives at Wendy's. He raps on Brooks's car window and wakes him up. Brooks appears groggy and disoriented. [beeping] Brosnan, who joined the Atlanta Police Department last year, talks to Brooks and then requests an officer who can perform sobriety tests. At 10:55 p.m., Officer Garrett Rolfe arrives. [beeping] Rolfe joined the Atlanta Police Force in 2013, and is an experienced D.U.I. investigator. Rolfe has once been reprimanded for firing his service weapon, police records show. He takes charge of the investigation. Rolfe begins to question Brooks, who is confused about where he is. He seems to think he's six miles down the road near a Home Lodge Hotel. There's another Wendy's right beside it. At 11:02 p.m., Rolfe asks Brooks to get out of the car. Moments later, Brooks will also consent to a series of sobriety tests. Brooks is clearly inebriated. But he's compliant and friendly throughout this time. The officers are courteous. And Rolfe gives him clear and precise instructions. When Rolfe now asks Brooks if he'll take a breathalyzer test, Brooks hesitates at first. Brooks offers to go to his sister's house. Why did Brooks want to resolve his situation without being arrested? According to court records, he was on probation for domestic violence and theft offenses. He was probably aware that a new arrest or conviction would almost certainly send him back to prison. The breathalyzer returns a blood alcohol reading of .108 percent, above the legal limit of .08 percent. Rolfe has little option now but to charge Brooks with D.U.I. Some policing experts told us he could have written a citation and drove Brooks home. Others said police are expected to show zero tolerance with drunken driving. For 41 minutes, Brooks and the officers have spoken calmly and respectfully. They even shared a few laughs. Now, Rolfe moves to arrest Brooks. And in 45 seconds, he will fatally shoot him. [gunshots] [yelling] Let's watch this back, and break down what happens. Rolfe has signaled or sought Brooks's consent for every action to this point. But he moves to handcuff Brooks swiftly and without clearly telling him he's under arrest. This breaches D.U.I. arrest procedures. Brooks resists, and the three tumble to the ground. Brosnan draws his Taser ... ... and pushes it into Brooks's leg. Brooks grabs the Taser. Both officers' body cameras fall to the ground. Brooks stands up and strikes Rolfe with an open hand. As Rolfe draws his Taser, Brooks fires a dart, hitting Brosnan's arm. Rolfe fires the Taser twice ... [yelling] ... and hits Brooks's body. We hear Rolfe using his Taser as he chases Brooks. This is a breach of police procedures. Rolfe passes the Taser to his left hand and reaches for his gun. Brooks looks behind and fires the Taser he's holding. We confirmed these Taser models with the Atlanta Police. Once they're fired twice, they must be reloaded. So at this point, Brooks is unarmed. Rolfe drops his Taser, draws his handgun and fires three times at Brooks, who is 18 feet away and is trying to escape in a busy Wendy's parking lot. [gunshots] Two bullets hit Brooks in the back, one piercing his heart. A third bullet hits this Chevrolet Trailblazer, which had three passengers in it. This photo from the Fulton County District Attorney shows the bullet hole. No one in the car was injured. Rolfe shouts at Brooks ... ... and appears to kick him on the ground. This image, also provided by the Fulton County D.A., shows that moment more clearly. Officer Brosnan approaches and briefly stands on Brooks's shoulder. [yelling] Meanwhile, witnesses denounce the shooting. The officers stand over Brooks for about a minute before Rolfe runs back to his vehicle to get his medical kit. Brosnan continues to stand by. It's over two minutes before Brooks receives medical assistance. "Every fucking time!" Rolfe administers CPR until emergency services take over. At 11:39 p.m., 15 minutes after he's shot, an ambulance takes Rayshard Brooks to a hospital where he is later announced dead. Was Rolfe justified in shooting a man holding a Taser, and who was trying to escape? Police procedures on the use of deadly force state that an officer must reasonably believe the suspect possesses a deadly weapon, and that the suspect poses an immediate threat of serious bodily injury to the officer or others. In a statement made through his lawyer, Officer Rolfe said he did use reasonable force because he "heard a sound like a gunshot" and fearing for his safety and the safety of others, he "fired" his weapon. The description of a gunshot doesn't square with what Rolfe told investigating police at the scene. And minutes before this, Rolfe appears to have been aware that Brooks fired the Taser twice. This and other evidence will be scrutinized in what has now become a homicide investigation. Rolfe has been charged on 11 counts, including felony murder, and both officers with aggravated assault.

The Times analyzed witness videos, police footage and official documents to identify the critical moments - and missteps - that led to the killing of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta on June 12. Credit Credit... Atlanta Police Department, via Reuters

Understanding what went wrong, he said, is a crucial step in helping the police do their jobs better and ease tensions with communities of color.

As the officers moved to arrest Mr. Brooks, whose Breathalyzer test registered a .108, above the legal limit to drive in Georgia, he bolted from their grasp, hit an officer, grabbed the other's Taser, fired it, and took off running.

Officer Garrett Rolfe discharged his own Taser and reached for his 9-millimeter Glock handgun as Mr. Brooks turned and discharged the stolen Taser again. Officer Rolfe fired, striking Mr. Brooks twice in the back.

Mr. Brooks was 18 feet and 3 inches awaywhen the first shot was fired.Prosecutors said that as Mr. Brooks lay dying, Officer Rolfe kicked his bleeding body and the other officer, Devin Brosnan, stood on his shoulder. Neither offered medical assistance for more than two minutes, prosecutors said.

On Wednesday, the Fulton County district attorney, Paul L. Howard Jr., charged Mr. Rolfe, who had been fired from the Atlanta Police Department, with 11 criminal counts, including murder and aggravated assault. Officer Brosnan, who is on administrative duty, was charged with three counts, including aggravated assault and violations of oath.

The decision to file charges came five days after the fatal encounter, which has led to the resignation of the city's police chief and the mayor's announcement of a series of measures to overhaul how and when police officers use force. The shooting came amid nationwide protests over police brutality and systemic racism that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

President Trump weighed in briefly this week, telling Sean Hannity of Fox News that people should not resist police officers. He also said he hoped Mr. Rolfe "gets a fair shake because police have not been treated fairly in our country."

Some observers have said the shooting death of Mr. Brooks could have been avoided if the two officers, who are white, had declined to arrest him. According to the footage from Officer Brosnan's body camera, Mr. Brooks maintained that he had not had more than two drinks that night.

But he also made a suggestion: "I can just go home."

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An Atlanta police officer, Garrett Rolfe, questioning Mr. Brooks in the parking lot on Friday, in an image from another officer's body camera. Credit... Atlanta P.D., via Reuters

It seemed like a simple request. "Why didn't they just let him go home?" Mr. Brooks's father, Larry Barbine, asked in an interview with The Toledo Blade.

Dr. Ture, a former law enforcement officer, said he likely would have written a citation but not taken Mr. Brooks to jail, particularly given the presence of the coronavirus in many detention facilities.

"I'd have said, 'Mr. Brooks, I'll offer you a ride wherever you want to go, however, I'm going to take your vehicle keys,'" Dr. Ture said. "If I was so concerned I might even tow the vehicle. But I might not even take Mr. Brooks to jail."

But other experts said that for decades, the police have been told that society wants law enforcement to take a zero-tolerance approach to drunken driving, the No. 1 cause of death on U.S. roadways.

"Like with so many other social problems, we put officers at the forefront of dealing with D.U.I.," said Seth Stoughton, a former police officer who teaches law at the University of South Carolina. "So it should be no surprise that officers arrest someone for D.U.I. That's what we've been telling them to do for a long time."

Vince Champion, the southeast regional director for the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, the Atlanta police union, said there were limits to an officer's discretion.

Mr. Champion said he once let an inebriated driver walk home a short distance and the man was struck and killed. His supervisor, who had approved the move, was demoted, he said. Such episodes can lead to lawsuits.

"We've had to go away from trying to be nice," he said.

After Mr. Brooks went through a field sobriety test and the Breathalyzer test - both of which came after he was unable to identify which county he was in and gave a seemingly implausible explanation about how he had arrived at the Wendy's- Mr. Rolfe decided to arrest him.

"All right, I think you've had too much to drink," he said, moving to cuff Mr. Brooks, according to the video footage. "Put your hands behind your back for me."

In his news conference announcing the criminal charges against the officers, Mr. Howard said they had violated the Police Department's policy because Mr. Brooks "was never informed he was under arrest for driving under the influence."

Verbally notifying people that they are about to be arrested accomplishes multiple goals, experts say. It is a way to show respect and courtesy, which increases public confidence in the police. And it is also tactical - it helps slow the interaction down to eliminate surprises.

When people are not told what to expect - particularly intoxicated people - they can react in ways that an officer might misinterpret as resisting, when in fact the person is simply startled.

"In many situations, officers should tell someone what is happening because you don't want the person to react in surprise and the officers to take that surprise as resistance," Professor Stoughton said.

Paul L. Howard Jr., the Fulton County district attorney, charged Mr. Rolfe with 11 criminal counts, including murder. Credit... Erik S Lesser/EPA, via Shutterstock

When Mr. Brooks lurched away from the two officers as they moved to cuff him, they hung on, and the three fell into a heap on the pavement, fighting and struggling.

Video footage shows Mr. Brooks seizing a Taser from Officer Brosnan, and striking Officer Rolfe. In a statement this week, the lawyers representing Officer Brosnan said Mr. Brooks used the Taser on their client at around this point.

After a few moments, Mr. Brooks broke free of the officers. As Mr. Brooks ran away, Officer Rolfe fired a Taser at him, a violation of department rules that prohibit firing at a fleeing suspect, prosecutors said.

Seconds later, mid-stride, Mr. Brooks turned and fired the Taser at Officer Rolfe, who was close on his heels.

Three gunshots can be heard, and Mr. Brooks falls.

Mr. Howard said that Officer Rolfe, before opening fire, must have known that the Taser that Mr. Brooks had taken had already been fired twice - and that this model of Taser was only capable of two shots.

Several policing experts agreed that Officer Rolfe should have known that Mr. Brooks was not a deadly threat, but for other reasons.

Mr. Brooks was running, and it seemed like escaping the situation was his only goal, some experts said. And although Georgia officers are taught that Tasers are a deadly threat because they can disable officers long enough for their guns to be seized, that threat is diminished when a second officer is present as backup.

Use of force should be proportional to the threat, the experts said.

But whether the officer should have known how many times the Taser had been fired - or could have reacted quickly enough to that knowledge - was a separate question.

"That's a high expectation in the middle of a fight, that an officer is going to know every single fact that we get to see after the fact with an analysis of the video," said Roberto Villaseñor, a former police chief in Tucson, Ariz., and a member of former President Barack Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing.

"There's a lot of things that occur in a dramatic, volatile situation that you might not be aware of," he continued. "You have adrenaline pumping, you've got fear working, you've got the fight-or-flight syndrome going on - you've got a lot of things that are affecting your perceptions."

Noah H. Pines, a lawyer for Mr. Rolfe, said in a statement this week that the shooting was justified, and that the responsibility was squarely at Mr. Brooks's feet.

"When Mr. Brooks chose to attack two officers, to disarm one of them," Mr. Pines said in the statement, "he took their lives, and his own, into his hands. He took the risk that their justified response might be a deadly one."

But on CNN on Monday, Stacey Abrams, Georgia's former Democratic candidate for governor, called it "murder."

"At no point did he present a danger that warranted his death," she said of Mr. Brooks. "And that's what we're talking about. A murder because a man made a mistake, not a mistake that would have cost the police officer his life but a mistake that was caused out of some form of dehumanization of Rayshard Brooks."

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Police Decisions Are Scrutinized After Rayshard Brooks's Fatal Encounter

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Experts debate the best way of handling a drunken driver, and whether Mr. Brooks was a threat after twice firing a police Taser. [Here's what you need to know about the death of Rayshard Brooks .] ATLANTA - From beginning to end, the encounter between Rayshard Brooks and two Atlanta police officers lasted 41 minutes and 17 seconds.

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This story is regarding a married woman with three kids living in Hungary, with an abusive husband who beats her every day. She reported her spouse multiple times to the police, and yet since the husband denied it, nothing was done about the situation. One time when she called, the police caught her husband beating her in person and took him down to the station, however he was released 24 hours later. I feel that this is a rare example of when police are not doing enough to de-escalate and rectify a situation. It's not ethical to turn your head the other way when families are being torn apart.

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Lívia is a 37-year-old woman from Budapest with 3 children and a history of 14 years of abuse at the hands of her husband-abuse that has only gotten worse with time. On numerous occasions, she would lock herself in the toilet after being beaten by her husband and call up the police on the phone to report the abuse. Because of her fear of her husband, she would tell the police to say that it was the neighbors who had reported the incident. The police would come and her husband would deny he had hit her. On one occasion, she said, her husband hit her in the face in front of the police but still they would take no action against him.

In 2011, Lívia said her husband beat her every day for a whole month. She finally managed to call the police and he was beating her as police arrived at the scene.

"The three officers that came out intervened and beat him to the ground and took him to the station," she said. "He was released the next day and nothing else happened."

The following year Lívia's husband hit her repeatedly on her head to the point where she suffered a concussion.

"In the past four years, I called police many times to tell them to do something as my husband was threatening violence," Lívia told Human Rights Watch. "They always told me that they can't do anything unless blood flows."

Survivors of domestic violence, women's rights organizations, lawyers, shelter staff, and police officers interviewed for this report described brutal violence inflicted on women in Hungary, with often severe and long-lasting impacts on physical and psychological health. They described women stabbed and chopped at with knives, axes, and swords; kicked and punched in the abdomen while pregnant; raped; beaten with sticks, prams, iron rods, and thick cables to the point of broken bones and skull fractures; locked in sheds without clothes in winter; thrown off balconies; dumped in remote areas in the middle of the night; and subjected to severe psychological violence.

Efforts to combat domestic violence in Hungary face serious obstacles including a general lack of understanding at all levels of society of the dynamics of domestic violence and how best to respond to it; traditional views of women and their roles in Hungarian society; and a far too frequent acceptance, including by women themselves, that violence against women is inevitable.

Furthermore, there are important gaps in Hungary's legal and policy framework for responding to domestic violence. Until July 2013, domestic violence was not even a specific criminal offense. Domestic violence was dealt with like other violence, categorized on the basis of the severity of the injuries, with attacks that resulted in wounds that heal within eight days deemed minor, and requiring the victim rather than police or prosecutors to initiate legal action.

The new domestic violence offense introduced in July 2013 provides for stiffer penalties for assaults that take place in the context of domestic situations, and places responsibility to take criminal action against the perpetrator on the prosecutor rather than the victim. But an assault against an intimate partner will only be classified as an instance of domestic violence if there are at least two separate instances of abuse. Moreover, the new legislation does not cover non-cohabiting partners. There is no comprehensive national strategy or policy on how to combat domestic violence. While there are guidelines for police on domestic violence, there are no comparable guidelines for prosecutors, judges, and health and social workers.

Besides the legal gaps, the limited provisions that do exist are not sufficiently implemented or respected.

Women survivors of domestic violence in Hungary face many barriers to reporting violence, including fear that they will be subject to further violence by their abusers if they come forward. Anna told Human Rights Watch that her husband threatened her with more beatings if she told the police and he even hit her mother, who called police on her daughter's behalf. When the police finally came, Anna was too afraid to say anything and her husband denied abuse. "After the police left, he continued hitting and kicking me," she said.

Lack of confidence in the police also impedes reporting, particularly for women from the Roma minority, which is already subject to widespread discrimination. One shelter worker described how abusive partners often know police officers socially. As a result, she said, a typical response to domestic violence is that the officer "comes out and pats the abuser on the back while telling the woman not to provoke him and to do better in the household."

This lack of trust in law enforcement is made worse when police fail to respond effectively when women do approach them. In most situations that Human Rights Watch documented, the police response to domestic violence was inadequate, negligent, or downright hostile. In one case, police even threatened the victim, warning her they would report her for endangering her children on the grounds that she had "let" her husband abuse her.

Many of the women Human Rights Watch interviewed, like 37-year-old Lívia, whose case is described above, said that police officers who were called to homes ignored or downplayed the violence or blamed victims when it occurred in front of them.

In general, according to most women interviewed, the standard police response is that they cannot or will not intervene "unless blood flows." One shelter worker told Human Rights Watch that when she called police in 2011, they dismissed her concerns about a neighbor being raped by her partner. "[I] was told that I should only call if blood flows," she said, adding she was told that if she couldn't see the abuse from her own apartment, "it's probably not so bad."

Women also told us that they were reluctant to report violence because they were afraid they would lose custody of their children if child welfare services became involved. While we did not document any cases in which it was definitive that women lost custody solely due to domestic violence, we documented several cases in which police and child welfare services threatened women with loss of custody on grounds of "child endangerment." In one instance, child welfare services told a woman to "solve" her domestic abuse situation or else face her children being taken away. In another case, child welfare services told a 37-year-old mother of three that unless her husband behaved differently or she left, they would take her children. "After that, my husband knew he could do anything to me because I wouldn't call the police in fear of the authorities," she said.

The problem begins with the fact that officers are poorly trained on how to respond to violence, despite the existence of guidelines. Our research indicates that police also fail to make proper use of civil restraining orders. Police have the power to impose a restraining order for 72 hours for preventive purposes without violence having taken place and without the victim needing to request it. However, we found that police generally require the victim to make a formal complaint before they are willing to issue a restraining order unless the injuries are very serious.

Women seeking protection from violence also face hurdles in the justice system. Some courts only grant civil restraining orders in cases of serious injury, in cases in which the victim can produce the kind of evidence needed for a criminal case (unnecessary for civil restraining orders), or only for a short period of time. In some cases, courts decline to issue orders in the absence of the accused.

There are also shortcomings in prosecution of domestic violence. Our research shows that negligent and dismissive police responses to reports of domestic violence may contribute to the low numbers of prosecuted cases. Another factor is the importance public prosecutors give to the conclusions of medical reports in determining whether they will pursue cases of domestic violence. Doctors tend to classify injuries short of broken bones as light, thereby shifting responsibility to the victim to pursue legal action, at least for offenses committed before July 1, 2013, when the new criminal offense came into force.

Lack of guidelines for prosecutors and judges contribute to the problems. If cases do come to court, they tend to be heard in the area where the home is located, which creates problems for women temporarily in shelters in other parts of the country.

Under Hungarian law medical professionals have a duty to report suspected domestic violence cases where injuries take more than eight days to heal. While medical providers have an important role to play in detecting and addressing domestic violence, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that domestic violence laws not include mandatory reporting by health care providers to police because it may discourage domestic violence survivors from disclosing information, compromise doctor-patient confidentiality, impinge women's autonomy, and contribute to the risk of retaliation. Providers should inquire about domestic violence, provide sensitive treatment, thoroughly document the injuries and the survivor's statements concerning the abuse, provide referrals or information about safety options and resources for the survivor, ensure confidentiality, and ask survivors if they want the medical provider to report the abuse to authorities. In Hungary, we found that medical providers failed to ask about domestic violence, thoroughly document injuries, or report the crimes when women asked them to do so. One woman, Erzsébet, told Human Rights Watch that when she went to the hospital for treatment after her husband beat her badly she told the doctor what had happened, but the doctor told her to stop being hysterical and declined to report the incident even though Erzsébet asked him to do so.

Shelters are a vital part of protection for victims of domestic violence, but are inadequate in Hungary. There are only 122 beds in the country, and only 28 of those are located in a shelter with a secret address. To bring the number of beds in line with international standards, Hungary should have approximately 1,000 beds. Women are limited to 60 days in shelters, and only those with children are eligible to apply for a further period in a longer-term shelter.

Hungary has clear obligations under international human rights law to protect women from violence. However, the inadequate police response to domestic violence; the frequent failure to prosecute and punish perpetrators; and the lack of sufficient shelter spaces, services, and support for victims of domestic violence mean that Hungary is falling short of meeting those international human rights obligations and indeed its own guidelines on domestic violence. Despite the recent inclusion of a standalone provision in the criminal code criminalizing domestic violence, Hungary has yet to comprehensively address the widespread problem of domestic violence.

(Full recommendations appear at the end of the report)

To the Parliament of Hungary

Amend the 2013 domestic violence provisions and the 2009 Act on Restraining Orders due to Violence among Relatives to include all de facto couples, including former couples irrespective of whether they legally registered as cohabiting or did not cohabit, in accordance with the United Nations Guidelines on Legislation on Domestic Violence;

Include rape and sexual violence between current and former intimate partners as a form of domestic violence and;

Amend the current legal provision on rape and sexual violence to make all such crimes subject to public prosecution.

To the Government of Hungary

Establish a national action plan to combat domestic violence, with relevant input from women's groups, shelters, health professionals, and other service providers, coordinating efforts amongst all relevant ministries and;

Ensure relevant, continuous, and up-to-date training on domestic violence for practitioners of all relevant professions.

To the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice

Establish a set of clear guidelines for prosecutors and judges regarding the application of the 2013 domestic violence provisions and train prosecutors and judges on implementation in accordance with those guidelines.

To the Ministry of Interior

Provide regular and up-to-date trainings for police officers on the implementation requirements of the 2009 Act on Restraining Orders due to Violence among Relatives regarding the criteria of issuing and enforcing orders and;

Ensure that specialized training on domestic violence is included in the curriculum of both the two-year police colleges and the four-year police academy, including on the 2013 domestic violence provisions and the 2009 Act on Restraining Orders due to Violence among Relatives.

To the Ministry of Human Resources

Ensure that there are sufficient specialized and safe shelters for victims of domestic violence, with a view to bringing the number of available places in line with international recommendations (there should be availability for at least one family in a shelter for every 10,000 inhabitants i.e. 1,000 spaces based on the current population of Hungary) and;

Ensure safe access for all women to shelters irrespective of age, ethnicity, or disability.

To the European Commission

Establish regular funding streams for women's organizations in Hungary working with or on behalf of victims of domestic violence;

Provide needed technical and financial support for awareness-raising and campaigns against gender-based violence in Hungary;

Develop a European Union-wide directive on combatting and preventing domestic violence against women and;

Urge the Hungarian government to develop a comprehensive national strategy for combating violence against women.

This report is based on field research conducted by a Human Rights Watch researcher in Budapest, Kaposvár, and Szolnok between December 2012 and July 2013 as well as email and phone interviews. The researcher was joined during several periods by other Human Rights Watch researchers. Human Rights Watch conducted 29 in-depth interviews with women who had experienced domestic violence. Fourteen interviews were done jointly and 15 were done by a single researcher. The youngest woman was 21 years old and the oldest was 56 years old. Most of the women were interviewed at shelters for victims of domestic violence. We identified the others with the help of local women's organizations. The women we interviewed come from all over Hungary and most had an elementary school level of education.

Interviews were carried out in Hungarian by a Hungarian speaking researcher in all cases except one, where the interview was carried out in English with the aid of an interpreter. All women were informed of the purpose of the interview and its voluntary nature and the goal and public nature of our reports, and they were told that they could end the interview at any time. All women gave their oral consent to participate in the interview. No interviewee received compensation for providing information. Where appropriate, Human Rights Watch provided contact information for organizations offering legal, social, or counseling services. Pseudonyms have been used for all individuals interviewed and the locations of interviews, as well as additional identifying details, have sometimes been withheld.

Human Rights Watch also conducted interviews with a member of parliament, three prosecutors at the general prosecutor's office, four judges at the National Judicial Office, five judges, one police detective, two officials at the National Police Crime Prevention and Victim Protection Unit, the head teacher at the Police College in Budapest, the person responsible for women's rights at the ombudsman's office, one official at the Ministry of Human Resources, two officials at the Ministry of Administration and Justice, the Hungarian Medical Association, and the head of the National Institute of Child Health. We also conducted interviews with lawyers, academics, women's rights organizations, shelter staff, health visitors, and social workers.

All women interviewed in this report had experienced abuse and violence prior to July 1, 2013, when a provision criminalizing domestic violence was introduced into the new criminal code.

Domestic violence affects men, women, and children. However, women make up the overwhelming majority of victims of domestic violence. This report focuses on domestic violence as a form of violence against women.

The public outrage and protests that followed Varga's statement forced the parliament, where Fidesz has a supermajority, to reverse its previous position and to agree to include domestic violence as a discrete crime in the new criminal code. Or, as Fidesz party leader Antal Rogán stated, "I bow to the will of the ladies." The government subsequently included a standalone provision on domestic violence in the new criminal code, which entered into effect on July 1, 2013.

In April 2013, the partner of the mayor of Fülopháza, who is also a member of parliament, reported her partner for beating her. The mayor blamed the couple's blind dog for causing his wife's injuries. The mayor has since been charged with assault of his partner.

The attitudes expressed by these politicians are examples of deeply rooted cultural stereotypes and practices in Hungary. Combined with subpar state response to violence as shown in this report, it suggests how domestic violence is often treated as acceptable or at least tolerated in Hungary. Such public incidents also contribute to the lack of understanding in Hungary of the dynamics of domestic violence and how best to address it at state, regional, and municipal levels. Human Rights Watch research confirms that in practice a certain level of violence is often deemed acceptable or at least tolerated, including by some victims of violence.

Mónika, a 33-year old woman from the city of Ózd, typifies this acceptance of violence:

Women belonging to Hungary's Romani minority are particularly disadvantaged in accessing protection from domestic violence. Roma women told Human Rights Watch that they experience difficulties reaching out for help in their communities, where poverty, unemployment, and social exclusion further fuels the risk of violence against women. A Romani domestic violence survivor told Human Rights Watch that patriarchal values impact her everyday life:

The response of the Hungarian authorities to domestic violence has consisted of piecemeal legal and policy efforts. There is no comprehensive national strategy or policy on how to combat domestic violence. The lack of reliable data on the number of women reporting domestic violence to law enforcement, deaths of women by intimate partners, the number of cases that go to court, and the number of court convictions seriously impedes the ability of authorities to ensure an appropriate response.

In 2009, under the previous government, the parliament adopted legislation enabling the police to issue temporary preventive restraining orders for 72 hours, with the possibility for courts to uphold the order for a maximum of 30 days.

On July 1, 2013, a provision specifying domestic violence as a distinct crime entered into force. Importantly, it shifts the responsibility to prosecute abusers from the victim to the authorities.

There are police guidelines on domestic violence and on the application of civil restraining orders. Both guidelines were developed by the National Crime Prevention and Victim Protection Unit in 2007 and 2009. The guidelines on domestic violence specifically state that when police are called to a scene of alleged domestic violence, parties should be questioned separately, that police should accompany a victim to a safe shelter if needed, and in other cases give relevant information on service providers, local women's rights organizations working on behalf of domestic violence victims, and shelters.

No government-funded trainings on the issue of restraining orders for police officers or members of the judiciary have been held. Any training held to date has been financed through EU funds and carried out by civil society organizations. At this writing, Human Rights Watch was unaware of any guidelines on how to apply the domestic violence offense in the new criminal code or of any training offered on to police, prosecutors, or judges.

Domestic Violence Provision in the New Criminal Code

Domestic violence which takes the form of repeated simple battery as defined in section 164(2) of the criminal code and repeated attacks on human dignity as defined in section 227(2) shall be punishable with up to three years of imprisonment. Repeated aggravated battery is punishable by up to five years imprisonment.

Incidents classified as domestic violence under the new law are subject to public prosecution. This means that the public prosecutor is obliged to pursue a criminal investigation that may result in prosecution in reported cases of domestic violence. The victim's consent or action is not needed to initiate legal proceedings.

While the inclusion of a specific criminal code provision is an important step to clarify grounds for prosecutions of these cases, gaps remain. Firstly, in order for the new domestic violence offense to apply, there must be more than one instance of violence. The explanatory note to the law sets the frequency of criminal acts to two incidents "within a short period of time" without specifying further. Thus, single incidents of violence do not fall into the scope of the domestic violence offense and will continue to be adjudicated under previous criminal code provisions. That means that in the case of a single simple battery injury (assaults causing wounds that heal within eight days), legal action still needs to be pursued by the victim through the filing of a private motion and subsequently private prosecution. As such, the law distinguishes between categories of victims of domestic violence based on the number of assaults suffered rather than looking at individual circumstances. The law is also silent on evidence needed to support multiple instances of domestic violence.

Secondly, the law also excludes certain groups of women from its scope. The offense does not protect women in couples who do not cohabit or in ex-couples who did not cohabit, unless they have children with the abuser.

Finally, the fact that the offense requires more than two incidents of violence within a short period of time to trigger it, and that single incidents of simple battery continue to require the victim to initiate action, undermines the effectiveness of the new criminal provision on domestic violence.

Gaps in the Previous Criminal Code

The previous criminal code, under which the cases presented in this report fell, contained no specific provision classifying domestic violence as a crime. Domestic violence was addressed in the general framework of crimes against the person and fell under section 170 of the criminal code dealing with battery:

(1) A person who injures the bodily integrity or health of another person, if the injury or illness heals within eight days, commits the misdemeanor of simple battery, and shall be punishable with imprisonment of up to two years.

(2) If the injury or illness caused by battery heals in more than eight days, the perpetrator commits the felony of aggravated battery, and shall be punishable with imprisonment of up to three years.

...

(8) The perpetrator of the misdemeanour defined in subsection (1) shall only be punishable upon private motion.

Under section 170, any injury that heals within eight days is classified as simple battery and requires the victim to initiate proceedings within 30 days of injury by filing a private motion and pursuing a private prosecution, meaning that the victim or her legal representative must pursue legal action before the court with a public prosecutor rarely involved. The severity of the injury is classified by a physician who draws up a medical report of the victim's injuries. The medical report is crucial for how the police decide to classify the crime.

Gaps in the 2009 Act on Restraining Orders due to Violence among Relatives

In 2009, a new act was introduced to address the fact that criminal restraining orders applied only in situations where legal proceedings have been initiated against a suspect. The act allows courts to issue a 30 day restraining order without the need for the victim to start proceedings.

The act requires the police to hand over or deliver the order to the abuser in the quickest possible way. Police either notify the abuser on the spot or send notification to the address where the abuser is registered. If there is no registered address for the abuser, it shall be considered delivered at the police station, even if it is not picked up by the abuser. If the abuser and the abused live together, it is considered delivered on the spot to the address of the abuser.

Despite the attempt to establish preventive protection for potential and existing victims by law, several shortcomings remain in the 2009 Act that hamper effective implementation. The scope of victims is narrow, as the law does not apply to former common law spouses who are not registered on the same address (without children) or couples who do not live together. This effectively discriminates between different types of relationships and excludes categories of women from immediate preventive protection from domestic violence.

The maximum timeframe of 30 days during which the temporary preventive restraining order may be issued cannot be prolonged. After 30 days, the abuser, in cases of spouses or cohabitants, is free to return to the common household, unless the person is subject to criminal prosecution and a criminal restraining order is issued. In order to obtain another temporary preventive restraining order, the victim must report to the police a new incident of domestic violence or a situation that could escalate into violence.

In addition to the gaps in the legal and policy framework there are serious practical obstacles to protection for women who experience domestic violence. Survivors of domestic violence can be reluctant to come forward because of a fear of reprisals from abusers, lack of confidence in the police, or fear of loss of child custody. Those who do seek help can encounter an inadequate, negligent, or even hostile response by the police, the courts, and medical professionals, and a shortage of shelters designated for victims of domestic violence.

The lack of training for judges, prosecutors, police, and other professionals on the phenomenon of domestic violence helps to downplay the scope of the problem and has contributed to the failure to tackle it at the state level. Treatment of violence as a "family matter" and its acceptance as a "fact of life" also appears to affect how law enforcement and the courts deal with domestic violence.

These engrained attitudes, combined with other factors such as a lack of formal responsibility of the police to enforce restraining orders and absence of consequences for bad policing in domestic violence cases, all lead to a culture of denial, dismissal, and a general lack of a sense of urgency.

The local women's rights organization Nők a Nőkért Együtt az Erőszak Ellen (NANE - "Women for Women Together Against Violence") told Human Rights Watch that both the authorities and the public see domestic violence as a "family matter." Authorities are therefore reluctant to interfere in cases of domestic violence unless the victim wants to pursue the matter with the authorities.

Barriers to Reporting Violence

In situations of domestic violence, the control exercised by abusive husbands or partners can make it extremely difficult for women to seek help. Eva, 28, from Miskolc said that over time her husband became increasingly abusive:

Fear of Reprisals from Abuser

Women told Human Rights Watch that they are scared of reporting their abusers for fear of being subjected to even more violence.

Ágnes, a 25-year-old woman from eastern Hungary with two children, told Human Rights Watch that she had gone through "four years of hell" with her husband. Her abuse started when her husband was charged with embezzling money from his employer, which he blamed on Agnes. Agnes told Human Rights Watch that he repeatedly beat and kicked her and threatened to cut her throat if she reported the abuse to the police:

Thirty-year-old Anna from a small village in northeastern Hungary told Human Rights Watch that after the birth of their second child six years ago, the mental abuse started:

Anna told Human Rights Watch that the abuse later became physical and said that her husband threatened her with more beatings if she told the police:

Thirty-three-year-old Katalin from a village in southern Hungary told Human Rights Watch of an incident in 2011 when she called the police as a result of being beaten and pushed around by her partner:

The inability of state authorities to adequately protect victims from being further harassed, threatened, or abused as a result of coming forward and pursuing legal action puts victims at risk of further violence and may discourage others from coming forward.

Lack of Confidence in the Police

Lack of confidence in the police by women constitutes a major barrier to reporting abuse and seeking protection. For Roma women, mistrust of the authorities runs deep because of the general discrimination faced by the Roma community and makes them less likely to seek protection from the police when they experience domestic violence.

Especially in smaller settlements, it is not uncommon that police and abusers know each other. Two social workers at a shelter in eastern Hungary told Human Rights Watch that the fact that abusers may know individual officers in smaller communities undermines women's trust in the police. According to Ida Proszonyák:

Human Rights Watch interviewed Veronika, a 33-year-old woman from a small village in Hungary, who had recently arrived at a shelter with visible knife wounds and lashes on her body. She also had scars from sword cuts to her throat. She explained her predicament:

Fear of Losing Child Custody

Although Human Rights Watch did not document any cases where a woman had lost custody of her child or children or had them placed under guardianship solely as a result of domestic violence, eight women told us that, based on previous experiences with the authorities, they did not report domestic violence for fear that child welfare services would remove their children.

Three out of the 22 women we interviewed who were mothers reported to Human Rights Watch that child welfare services had threatened to remove their children due to domestic violence. The relevant municipal service provider in a particular case of domestic violence is determined by whether a woman has children or not. In cases of women without children, victims of domestic violence are directed to the family welfare services, which deal mainly with various types of financial aid, such as social and unemployment benefits but should also provide relevant assistance to battered women. Family welfare services have no obligation to report abuse of women to police.

While the authorities clearly have a responsibility to consider the welfare of children in cases of violence in the home, threats or perceived threats of removal of children from families may be counterproductive since they can discourage women from reporting domestic violence. Women may instead choose to remain in the abusive environment, putting their children as well as themselves at further risk of violence.

Virág, a 37-year-old woman with three children from a village in northeastern Hungary, told Human Rights Watch that in the spring of 2012, she and her husband had a heated argument that turned violent when her husband started breaking furniture in the flat. Virág called the police who came out and asked whether she wanted to report her husband. She did not see the point of reporting him but because there were children in the household, police reported the incident to the child protection authorities:

Erzsébet, a 42-year-old woman from Miskolc, told Human Rights Watch that she had been abused by her husband since 2000. She said he slapped and beat her every day. During a particularly violent beating in 2010, her husband broke her arm, which led her to report him to the police for abuse and for endangering their three young children:

Inadequate Police Response

Domestic violence is predominantly treated as a family matter by police. In cases documented by Human Rights Watch, police often blamed the victim for the violence or downplayed its seriousness. We were only able to document one case where police had issued a temporary preventive restraining order under the 2009 Act on restraining orders without the victim first requesting it. In that particular case, however, the police and victim knew each other.

Lack of Response, Victim Blaming, and Downplaying Importance of Violence

Many of the women Human Rights Watch interviewed who have had dealings with police reported being unsatisfied with the police response to their requests for help. The most common complaints we heard were the tendency of the police to blame the victims and lack of effective action to protect the victim, particularly if she was unwilling to file a formal complaint.

Even when police witnessed violence they did not automatically act to protect the victim and restrain the abuser. Lívia, a 37-year-old woman from Budapest with three children, told Human Rights Watch about 14 years of serious abuse by her partner, which turned very bad in the last four years:

Many of the women Human Rights Watch interviewed who contacted the police about abusive partners said that the police justify their inaction by saying that "unless blood flows" they are not willing or able to intervene. Despite explicit language on domestic violence in the 2007 guidelines for police requiring police to separate the abuser and the victim for questioning upon arrival to the scene, research shows that they rarely do so. Human Rights Watch only documented one case where an abused woman was taken by police to a shelter. In that case, the victim and the police knew each other.

Several women reported that when police arrived on the scene they questioned the suspected abuser and the victim in the same room.

According to Tünde, a 21-year-old woman from Budapest:

Lívia told Human Rights Watch of another case in 2011 when her husband beat her every day for a whole month. When she finally managed to call the police in secret, he was beating her as police arrived at the scene:

Éva, a 24-year old woman from a larger city in the south west, in February 2013, had enough of three years of jealousy, control, and violent abuse by her partner and managed to sneak out one day and headed to the police station to get help to escape:

Erika, a 35-year-old woman from a small village in the south, told Human Rights Watch that her husband had brutally assaulted and raped her, broken her nose, and torn her hair out. She described an incident in March 2012:

Human Rights Watch documented cases where women stated that when they called police, their abuse or injuries were downplayed or not taken seriously. Borbála, a 28- year old woman from Ózd in northeast Hungary, told Human Rights Watch that the first time she called the police when her husband had badly beaten her and left her with visible bruises, the police asked her what was going on:

The case of Elvira, a 28-year old mother of four, exemplifies the total disregard with which police sometimes handle reports of domestic violence:

One shelter worker told Human Rights Watch that when she called the police in 2011 asking them to intervene when her neighbor was beaten and raped by her partner, her concerns were dismissed:

Staff at several shelters in Hungary described to Human Rights Watch that they themselves encountered negligent police attitudes that had resulted in inadequate responses to cases of domestic violence. Staff at a shelter in Budapest told Human Rights Watch of a case at the end of 2012 involving a woman who had arrived severely beaten at the shelter, escaping a life-threatening situation involving violence, drugs, and weapons. The shelter staff spent weeks explaining the importance of reporting her abusive partner to the police. The woman subsequently agreed. A shelter worker explained:

In another case in January 2013, shelter staff accompanied a woman to the police station to file a report of abuse. During questioning, the police officer started blaming the woman for the abuse suffered by both her and her son. According to shelter staff present during questioning, the police officer blamed the mother for the abuse as she had not reported it sooner to the police.

Inadequate Training on Domestic Violence

Basic training at police colleges does not include adequate attention to domestic violence and how to work with victims of domestic violence in everyday police work. Lieutenant Colonel Zsolt Endes, the head teacher at the Police College in Budapest, told Human Rights Watch that during the two-year basic training, 14 hours are dedicated to domestic violence. But he was unable to point to specific teaching materials or to describe the content of the material that is taught. Questioned about the content of the training on domestic violence, Endes said, "It's difficult to point to the specific material where you can find it [domestic violence]. We act it out with our students in role playing situations. Our students have thousands of pages to read and there is no special section on domestic violence but it's included as part of other sections."

Once they graduate from the Police College, police officers receive little or no training on how to identify signs of domestic violence and how to respond to situations of domestic violence. There is no specific training on the guidelines on domestic violence and temporary restraining orders.

Ineffective Use of Temporary Restraining Orders

As noted, Human Rights Watch only documented one case where police issued a temporary preventive restraining order without first receiving a request from the victim. In that particular case, the victim knew the police officer. In all other cases we documented, the order was made at the request of the victim. Several women reported that they were not even informed of the possibility of temporary preventive restraining orders under the 2009 Act on restraining orders.

In 2010, police issued 1,463 temporary preventive restraining orders for 72 hours. The numbers dropped in 2011 to 1,192. In 2012, the numbers dropped to a record low at 424 orders issued. It is unclear why there was such a significant decline in the number of orders. The Ministry of Interior was unable to shed light on it when questioned by Human Rights Watch.

One woman described to Human Rights Watch her own experience when put in this situation:

According to Ágnes Németh, practices also vary among police in different parts of the country:

Lívia, whose account of years of abuse is detailed above, told Human Rights Watch that she has called the police preemptively on several occasions. Her case seems like a textbook example where police should issue a temporary restraining order. Yet, they never did so:

Andrea and other women Human Rights Watch interviewed questioned the efficiency of restraining orders even if they obtain them. According to Erika, a 35-year-old woman from northern Hungary, interviewed by Human Rights Watch in a shelter:

In 2011, Andrea eventually obtained a restraining order against her ex-husband which was upheld for 30 days by the court:

Police do not follow up on the enforcement of temporary prevention orders. Enforcement falls squarely with victims who are expected to notify police if their abusers violate orders. One police officer explained the problem to Human Rights Watch:

Hurdles in the Justice System

Human Rights Watch found that, as well as the police, the courts also failed to provide adequate protection for victims of domestic violence through use of restraining orders. In addition, we documented failure of the courts to deliver justice for violence committed against women, including classification of serious assaults as simple battery; requiring the proceedings to be started by the victim herself; failure to provide adequate protection for witnesses; and failure to schedule cases near to where the victim was staying, making attendance in court difficult.

The Approach of the Courts to Civil Restraining Orders

There are provisions in the code of civil procedure [sections 126 and 135] about the need to postpone hearing in cases of unsuccessful summoning of both parties. But as the law on restraining orders is lex specialis [a special law which takes precedence over generic laws] the only requirement is for courts to have summoned parties in accordance with section 15 of the 2009 Act.

Family court judge Péter Szepesházi told Human Rights Watch that part of the problem is lack of training for judges and absence of judges specialized in domestic violence:

Shortcomings in the Prosecution of Domestic Violence

Our research has also identified shortcomings in the prosecution of domestic violence. Negligent and dismissive police responses to reports of domestic violence, coupled with the weight public prosecutors have in practice given to medical reports in determining whether to prosecute cases, have contributed to low prosecution rates. It is too soon to say what the impact of the new domestic violence criminal offense will be.

Prior to July 1, 2013, section 170 of the criminal code (now section 164) on battery applied to cases of domestic violence. As noted above, under section 170, any injury that heals within eight days is classified as simple battery and requires the victim to pursue a private prosecution. If the injuries need more than eight days to heal, the case is deemed aggravated battery and is subject to public prosecution. Although by law the physician's medical report is not decisive for the classification of the crime, in practice, the police and prosecutors have generally used the conclusion of the medical report in determining whether a crime is classified as simple or aggravated battery.

Human Rights Watch learned from shelter staff about a woman who had been hit across the back with the handle of an axe while holding her infant. Before arriving at the shelter, the woman reported the violence to police who told her to go to the doctor for a medical report of her injuries. The medical report, which was handed over to the woman, classified her injuries as simple battery as there were no broken bones.

Neither judges nor prosecutors receive automatic training on the phenomenon and dynamics of domestic violence or how to deal with domestic violence cases. The general prosecutor's office told Human Rights Watch that the office organizes trainings for prosecutors occasionally, failing to specify how often, but that those are optional and mainly in the context of child protection. Similarly, judge Ágnes Galajda at the National Judicial Office stated that her office has strategic projects on mediation, domestic violence, and witness care and on how to properly inform victims of their rights. Human Rights Watch was told that such trainings are sporadic-once or twice a year-and attendance is optional.

Role of Medical and Family and Child Welfare Professionals

Physicians have an additional duty to report suspected violence, including domestic violence, within the framework of general violence against persons as it may constitute a crime that falls under public prosecution. The Hungarian Medical Association told Human Rights Watch that the obligation to report only exists in cases where the physician deems that the injuries take more than eight days to heal. As noted above, while medical providers have an important role to play in detecting and addressing domestic violence, the WHO recommends that domestic violence laws not include mandatory reporting by health care providers to police because it may discourage domestic violence survivors from disclosing information, compromise confidentiality, impinge on women's autonomy, and contribute to the risk of retaliation. Providers should inquire about domestic violence, provide sensitive treatment, thoroughly document the injuries and the survivor's statements concerning the abuse, provide referrals or information about safety options and resources for the survivor, ensure confidentiality, and ask survivors if they want the medical provider to report the abuse to authorities. In Hungary, we found that medical providers failed to ask about domestic violence, thoroughly document injuries, or report the crimes when women asked them to do so.

Human Rights Watch research suggests that medical professionals are not providing adequate care to survivors, and in particular did not ask about sources of injuries or record victims' statements about the attacks or perpetrators in the medical records, and did not provide referrals for other assistance. Human Rights Watch documented several cases where women who sought medical assistance for domestic violence were not asked by physicians how they sustained their injuries.

Júlia, a 34-year-old woman with one child, was four weeks pregnant when she had to endure her first beating:

Inadequate Shelters

Shelters are a vital part of state protection for victims of domestic violence. Shelters do exist in Hungary, but there are insufficient spaces and insufficient specialized shelters for victims of domestic violence.

According to the Ministry of Human Resources, there are a total of 122 shelter beds in 14 nationwide shelters-known as "crisis centers" -for victims of domestic violence. Only 28 of the beds are located in a shelter with a secret address reserved explicitly for victims of domestic violence. The remainder are located inside, or in apartments linked to, public mothers' homes, or temporary family homes. Public mothers' homes are designed for single women with children who are in need of temporary housing, whereas temporary family homes extend to families including fathers. Human Rights Watch counted an average of one to two rooms in each of the institutions we visited, with four to seven bed spaces, with the exception of the secret house, which has seven rooms and twenty-eight bed spaces.

Too Few Shelter Spaces

The UN Handbook for Legislation on Violence against Women recommends that states make available one shelter or refuge place for every 10,000 inhabitants. Similarly, the explanatory memorandum to the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence recommends that states should make safe accommodation in specialized women's shelters available in every region, with one family place per 10,000 head of population depending on need. With a total population of around 10 million, Hungary currently falls far short of this standard and would need around 1,000 spaces to meet it.

Safety Concerns

Another factor that can compromise the safety of victims is that when a woman arrives at a shelter with one or more children, shelter staff are obliged by law to notify the child welfare services in the victim's place of residence.

Exclusion of Women Without Children and Insufficient Time Allowed in Shelters

Whether they have children or not, women may stay at the crisis centers for a period of 30 days, with the possibility of extending by another 30 days, totaling a maximum of 60 days. At the end of 60 days, women with children may apply for a further period of accommodation in a public mothers' home or temporary family home. Those without children do not have this possibility and may have to move to homeless shelters designated primarily for long-term homeless who otherwise live on the streets. Women without children can end up returning to their abusers.

Many of the women interviewed by Human Rights Watch viewed shelters as a temporary reprieve from the abusive home environment. Edit, a 28-year-old woman from a small town close to Budapest, told Human Rights Watch that she needed a temporary break from her abusive partner:

Judit, a 33-year-old woman from a village in southeast Hungary, was set to leave the shelter the day after our interview:

Hungary has clear obligations under human rights law to act with due diligence to protect women's human rights to live free from violence, to non-discrimination, and to effective judicial remedies.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW),

ratified by Hungary on September 22, 1980, requires all state parties to take appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women, including by private actors. The CEDAW Committee, the United Nations body that monitors implementation of the convention, stated in General Recommendation 19 that gender-based violence is a form of discrimination that seriously inhibits women's ability to enjoy rights and freedoms on a basis of equality with men and is thus prohibited under article 1 of the convention. It stated that "state parties have a due diligence obligation to prevent, investigate, prosecute and punish acts of gender-based violence" and may be held responsible for private acts if they fail to do so.

In 2003, the CEDAW Committee received a complaint from a Hungarian woman, a mother of two, who had been subject to years of abuse from her common law husband. Although two separate criminal cases were opened against her husband, on the basis of attacks that had hospitalized her, she was unable to access a shelter, and at that time there was no possibility of obtaining a restraining order. She had pursued civil action to try to prevent her husband having access to her home, which was refused by the courts. At that time the Hungarian government itself "admitted that the remedies pursued ... were not capable of providing immediate protection to her against ill-treatment by her former partner and, furthermore, that legal and institutional arrangements are not yet ready to ensure the internationally expected, coordinated, comprehensive, and effective protection and support for the victims of domestic violence." It also conceded that "domestic violence cases as such do not enjoy high priority in court proceedings. "

In its March 2013 Concluding Observations on Hungary, the CEDAW Committee recommended that Hungary "amend its legislation concerning restraining orders with a view to providing adequate protection to victims in all types of cohabitation and extend the duration of restraining orders." The Committee also stated that Hungary should "provide mandatory training to the legal profession on the strict application of legal provisions dealing with violence against women and train police officers on standardized procedures to deal with women victims of violence."

The CEDAW Committee further recommended Hungarian authorities increase the number and capacity of state supported shelters with adequate geographical distribution and to strengthen support and cooperation with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) providing shelter, assistance, and support to women victims of violence. The committee also stressed the need for the state party to encourage women to report acts of domestic and sexual violence; to collect statistical data on violence against women disaggregated by age, sex, and relationship between victim and abuser; and to ratify as soon as possible the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence.

Hungary is also a party to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and in a landmark decision against Turkey in 2009, the European Court of Human Rights for the first time elaborated on the exact nature of state obligations under the ECHR with respect to violence in the family. The Court explicitly confirmed that gender-based violence is a form of discrimination under the ECHR. The court emphasized that domestic violence is not a private or family matter, but an issue of public interest that demands effective state action. The European Court has already ruled against Hungary for failing to meet its obligations in respect of taking positive measures to protect against domestic violence.

In 2002, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe issued a recommendation on the protection of women against violence. It urges member states to exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate, and punish acts of violence, whether perpetrated by the state or private persons, and provide protection to victims. It also recommends that member states encourage relevant institutions dealing with violence against women (including the police and the medical and social professions) to draw up medium- and long-term coordinated action plans that provide measures for the prevention of violence against women and the protection of victims.

These and other recommendations were formalized in the new Council of Europe

Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, adopted by the Committee of Ministers on April 7, 2011. It underlines the duty of state parties to create a comprehensive legal framework to prevent violence, to protect victims, and to punish perpetrators. Hungary has yet to sign and ratify the convention.

This report shows that the existing system addressing domestic violence has serious shortcomings with respect to effective protection, prevention, and sanctions. These constitute a violation of Hungary's obligations under human rights law.

Until July 1, 2013, significant gaps in the legal framework either put the onus on victims to initiate legal proceedings against their abusers or, in practice, often led to inaccurate classification of offenses as being lighter than they actually were. The new domestic violence offense allows for stiffer penalties for assaults and places responsibility on the prosecutor rather than the victim to initiate criminal proceedings. But it excludes women who do not live with their abusive partner. It also excludes single incidents of violence and rape and other sexual violence.

There is no comprehensive national strategy or policy on how to combat domestic violence. While there are guidelines for police on domestic violence, they are not sufficiently implemented and there are no comparable guidelines for prosecutors and judges. The lack of reliable statistical data on domestic violence also complicates the assessment of the prevalence of domestic violence in Hungary.

The response of the police to domestic violence is inadequate and constitutes failure to protect the public from violent crime. Furthermore, there is insufficient training to ensure a better response. The system of temporary preventive restraining orders, which excludes certain categories of women and which is not applied by police unless there is a formal complaint made, is ineffective, and the courts apply inconsistent standards when it comes to confirming or extending orders.

The low numbers of shelter spaces, 122, fall far short of meeting international and regional recommendations on the number of shelter spaces. Hungary would require 1,000 spaces if it was to meet those standards.

To the Parliament of Hungary

Ratify and implement the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence;

Amend the new domestic violence provision, section 212/A of the Criminal Code, and 2009 Act on Restraining Orders due to Violence among Relatives to include all de facto couples, including former couples irrespective of whether they legally registered as cohabiting or did not cohabit, in accordance with the United Nations Guidelines on Legislation on Domestic Violence;

Include rape and sexual violence between current and former intimate partners as a form of domestic violence covered by section 212/A;

Amend the 2009 Act on Restraining Orders due to Violence among Relatives to clarify that police should proactively enforce these orders through regular checks and arrest perpetrators if found in breach of the order and;

Amend the 2009 Act on Restraining Orders due to Violence among Relatives to allow courts the discretion to re-evaluate restraining orders on a case-by-case basis and to extend the length of orders beyond the current limit of 30 days if justified by the persistent risk of domestic violence.

To the Government of Hungary

Condemn at the highest political level all forms of gender-based violence, including domestic violence;

Establish a national action plan to combat domestic violence, with relevant input from women's groups, shelters, health professionals, and other service providers, coordinating efforts amongst all relevant ministries;

Ensure education on domestic violence is included in the curriculum at university and college levels for relevant professions, such as social workers, psychologists, lawyers, and medical professionals;

Ensure relevant, continuous, and up-to-date training on domestic violence for practitioners of all relevant professions;

Initiate a national awareness raising campaign on the domestic violence provision in the new criminal code and ensure that the rights of victims as well as the responsibilities of law enforcement, prosecution, judges, and other relevant authorities are comprehensively understood and;

Establish a national budget stream specifically aimed at combating domestic violence on national, regional, and municipal levels.

To the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice

Establish a set of clear guidelines for prosecutors and judges regarding the application of the new domestic violence provision, section 212/A of the Criminal Code, and train prosecutors and judges on implementation of section 212/A in accordance with those guidelines;

Provide regular trainings for judges and prosecutors on their responsibilities under the 2009 Act on Restraining Orders due to Violence among Relatives, including trainings that clarify that temporary preventive restraining orders may be granted based on the risk of physical, sexual, psychological, verbal, and economic violence, not just physical abuse, in accordance with the act;

Include training on domestic violence, section 212/A in the Criminal Code, and the 2009 Act on Restraining Orders due to Violence among Relatives in the law curriculum at the university level;

Establish a central database, maintained by the National Judicial Office, to record the number of cases adjudicated under section 212/A of the Criminal Code, including cases under prosecution and cases pending before courts;

Centralize data from all courts on temporary preventive restraining orders and make such data is publicly available;

Collect and make publicly available statistical data on breaches of temporary preventive restraining orders;

Ensure the secrecy of locations of complainants in their communication with courts and prosecutors;

Ensure that victims are able to have cases adjudicated in the location where they currently reside and not where they are registered and;

Remove mandatory requirements for medical providers treating adult survivors of domestic violence to report the abuse to police in line with WHO guidelines and instead oblige medical providers to provide sensitive treatment to victims of domestic violence, document injuries and survivor's statements concerning the abuse, and to provide referrals or information about safety options and resources for the survivor,

To the Ministry of Interior

Provide regular and up-to-date trainings for police officers on the implementation requirements of the 2009 Act on Restraining Order due to Violence among Relatives regarding the criteria of issuing and enforcing orders;

Ensure that specialized training on domestic violence is included in the curriculum of both the two-year police colleges and the four-year police academy, including on section 212/A in the Criminal Code and the 2009 Act on Restraining Orders due to Violence among Relatives;

In larger cities or county centers, and wherever else feasible, establish units in police stations that are specialized in domestic violence claims to receive and handle complaints and monitor compliance with restraining orders and;

Collect and make publicly available statistical data on the overall implementation of the 2009 Act on Restraining Orders due to Violence among Relatives, including the number of domestic violence survivors reporting to the police or the prosecutor.

To the Ministry of Human Resources

Facilitate further education and training for relevant professional groups who deal with victims of domestic violence by organizing and funding regular conferences and workshops;

Establish clear guidelines for medical professionals on how to identify domestic violence and what measures they should take if they suspect cases of domestic violence;

Adopt and implement policies and programs to raise awareness of domestic violence and allocate necessary funding to implement such activities;

Provide technical and financial support to nongovernmental organizations(NGOs) and women's groups who work with or on behalf of victims of domestic violence;

Establish a targeted outreach program on domestic violence for Roma women and elderly women;

Ensure that there are sufficient specialized and safe shelters for victims of domestic violence, with a view to bringing the number of available places in line with international recommendations (there should be availability for at least one family in a shelter for every 10,000 inhabitants i.e. 1,000 spaces based on the current population of Hungary);

Remove the current maximum 60-day time limit on the amount of time that can be spent in crisis centers and permit duration to be determined on the basis of a case-by-case assessment;

Ensure that shelter staff have specialized and up-to-date knowledge and training on how to deal with cases of domestic violence;

Ensure safe access for all women to shelters irrespective of age, ethnicity, or disability and;

Establish programs to facilitate transitioning of women from shelters to permanent housing and allocate necessary funds and technical assistance.

To the European Commission

Establish regular funding streams for women's organizations in Hungary working with or on behalf of victims of domestic violence;

Provide needed technical and financial support for awareness-raising and campaigns against gender-based violence in Hungary;

Develop a European Union-wide directive on combatting and preventing domestic violence against women and;

Urge the government to develop a comprehensive national strategy for combating violence against women.

This report was written and researched by Lydia Gall, researcher on Balkans/Eastern Europe in the Europe and Central Asia Division, based on research she conducted with Judith Sunderland, senior researcher on Western Europe in the Europe and Central Asia Division and Gauri van Gulik, Global Advocate in the Women's Rights Division. The report was reviewed by Benjamin Ward, deputy director in the Europe and Central Asia Division, Gauri van Gulik, Global Advocate in the Women's Rights Division, Bede Shepard, researcher in the Children's Rights Division, Aisling Reidy, senior legal counsel, and Tom Porteous, deputy program director. Janet Walsh, deputy director in the Women's Rights Division, and Judith Sunderland, senior researcher in the Europe and Central Asia Division, also reviewed the report. Annkatrin Tritschoks and Kaitlin Martin, associates in the Europe and Central Asia Division provided valuable practical support and production assistance. Additional production assistance was provided by Grace Choi, publications director; Kathy Mills, publications specialist and Fitzroy Hepkins, production manager.

We are grateful to the women who agreed to share their stories with us and we admire their courage and resilience.

We are grateful to women's rights organizations and individual lawyers, judges and activists who supported this research and analysis. These organizations include, but are not limited to, NANE, PATENT, The Hungarian Women's Lobby, MONA, The City is For All, and others.

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Lívia is a 37-year-old woman from Budapest with 3 children and a history of 14 years of abuse at the hands of her husband-abuse that has only gotten worse with time. On numerous occasions, she would lock herself in the toilet after being beaten by her husband and call up the police on the phone to report the abuse.

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Hi Moriah! Wow, I remembered when Freddie Gray was killed and to say its a disadvantage I believe is a bit of an understatement. Freddie Gray had really no reason at all to be arrested since his knife he had was completely legal. So not only did the officers use their discretion incorrectly they also treated Freddie Gray horrifically and inhumane which ultimately resulted in the death of this innocent man. I agree with you that to take away all discretions is maybe not such a good idea, however I do believe there should be some reforms and some stricter consequences to using this discretion unethically to prevent something like this happening again. How do you think Baltimore police department could reinforce the ethical use of discretions? -Isa

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Hi Mira, Interesting that they are adding a law to arrest people, and fine people for panhandling. I am a bit confused as to why they would make this law? Isn't panhandling protected by the first amendment? Or is this law only applicable for aggressive panhandling, or places where panhandling could be dangerous, like busy intersections? Also, I believe that this new law could be very easy for officers to approach unethically if lacking empathy!- Isa

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For this assignment, I choose an article about how police discretion was not used correctly in New York City. As the number of cases started decreasing a bit, people started relaxing, so there started to be policing to ensure social distancing and masks. In predominantley black and Hispanic neighborhoods, police were more aggressive and made many more arrests over social distancing violations. Yet, in a video that surfaced on the internet showed officers handing out masks kindly to large crowds  of mostly white sunbathers sitting closely together at a Manhattan park, without facing consequences.In March, police officers made a total of 120 arrests citywide for social distancing violations. Of those 120, black people make up 68% of those arrested, Hispanic people make up 24% and white people make up just 7%. These officers were not ethical, because although both races were violating social distancing, blacks and Hispanics recieved much bigger consequences revealing the double standards and discrimination police have; the misuse of discretion. - Isa

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Mayor Bill de Blasio said the police had enforced rules properly, but other officials expressed concern about tactics similar to unfair "stop and frisk" practices.

Mounted police patrolling Corona Park in Flushing Meadows, Queens. Credit... Marian Carrasquero for The New York Times

A police officer enforcing social-distancing rules broke up a group of people on a stoop during a nighttime cookout in East New York, Brooklyn, punching one man in the face. Another dispute between officers and residents of the same predominantly black neighborhood over the guidelines led to a man being knocked unconscious. Days later, three men were arrested after taking part in a sprawling vigil at the Queensbridge Houses for a rapper who was said to have died of the coronavirus.

Tensions are increasingly flaring in black and Hispanic neighborhoods over officers' enforcement of social-distancing rules, leading some prominent elected officials to charge that the New York Police Department is engaging in a racist double standard as it struggles to shift to a public health role in the coronavirus crisis.

The arrests of black and Hispanic residents, several of them filmed and posted online, occurred on the same balmy days that other photographs circulated showing police officers handing out masks to mostly white visitors at parks in Lower Manhattan, Williamsburg and Long Island City. Video captured crowds of sunbathers, many without masks, sitting close together at a park on a Manhattan pier, uninterrupted by the police.

On Thursday night, the Brooklyn district attorney's office became the first prosecutor in the city to release statistics on social-distancing enforcement. In the borough, the police arrested 40 people for social-distancing violations from March 17 through May 4, the district attorney's office said.

Of those arrested, 35 people were black, four were Hispanic and one was white.

More than a third of the arrests were made in the predominantly black neighborhood of Brownsville. No arrests were made in the more white Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has long denounced the unconstitutional " stop and frisk " practices of the Bloomberg administration, has found himself in recent days forced to explain why enforcement of social distancing in predominantly minority neighborhoods is different than "stop and frisk."

At a news conference on Thursday, Mr. de Blasio called the comparison false, saying that the two approaches had nothing in common.

"What happened with stop and frisk was a systematic, oppressive, unconstitutional strategy that created a new problem much bigger than anything it purported to solve," he said. "This is the farthest thing from that. This is addressing a pandemic. This is addressing the fact that lives are in danger all the time. By definition, our police department needs to be a part of that because safety is what they do."

After this story was published on Thursday night, Mr. de Blasio cited it on Twitter, describingsummonses and arrests as a tool for "saving lives." But he added: "The disparity in the numbers does NOT reflect our values. We HAVE TO do better and we WILL."

The mayor and Police Commissioner Dermot F. Shea have said that officers have used enforcement sparingly and fairly in millions of interactions across the city and that arrests have involved only a small number of people who refused orders to disperse.

A confrontation on Saturday in front of a deli on the Lower East Side has become a flash point in the debate. Officers approached two people for a social-distancing violation, then arrested a man for marijuana charges and a woman for resisting arrest, according to security camera video and the police.

One of the officers, Francisco X. Garcia, then confronted a bystander, knocked the man to the ground with his fists and sat on him as another officer handcuffed him, a second video recorded on a cellphone showed.

On Tuesday, Mr. de Blasio noted that the police had "swiftly" taken Officer Garcia off the street and had opened an investigation into his confrontation with the bystander.

"What I saw was absolutely unacceptable, and obviously discipline was swift by the N.Y.P.D., but I want to note that video is more and more of a rarity," Mr. de Blasio said.

But some black elected officials and critics of the Police Department said the recent encounters suggested that social distancing was being used by some officers as a pretext to stop and arrest people in poorer neighborhoods, much like "furtive" movements and the odor of marijuana were once used to justify millions of unwarranted stops.

Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat whose district is predominantly African-American, expressed concern in an interview about policing tactics that resembled the unfair practices of "stop and frisk." That, combined with the illness, unemployment and hunger brought on by the pandemic for many residents, would be a "a toxic combination."

"We can't unleash a new era of overly aggressive policing of communities of color in the name of social distancing," Mr. Jeffries said.

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Police officers on bicycles were deployed in Queens on Saturday. Credit... Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

In recent weeks, thousands of officers have been dispatched to parks, streets and subways to enforce public health orders from the mayor and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, cracking down with warnings, fines and arrests to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Police officers made at least 120 arrests and issued nearly 500 summonses for social-distancing violations between March 16 and May 5, according to data provided by the police.

Citywide, black people make up 68 percent of those arrested on charges of violating social-distancing rules, while Hispanic people make up 24 percent, a deputy police commissioner, Richard Esposito, said late on Thursday night.

Just 7 percent of those arrested were white, he said, confirming data reported late on Thursday night by WCBS.

A handful of elected officials, including members of Congress, have called for the Police Department to turn over demographic data on arrests and summonses for social-distancing offenses, as well as related data from 311 calls.

Commissioner Shea said he expected to release some data but did not say when, or whether it would include information about race and ethnicity.

Jumaane Williams, the city's public advocate, said recent incidents suggested that race and ethnicity sometimes play a role in who gets away with flouting the rules and who is punished for it.

"To the extent that we are going to use police enforcement, which shouldn't be where we go, it has to be equitable," Mr. Williams said.

Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president and a retired police captain, said his office had received reports of at least 22 "negative" social-distancing encounters between officers and civilians over the weekend.

"If you have a pre-existing, negative relationship with police, the last thing you're going to hear them telling you is you should social distance," Mr. Adams said. "You're hearing something negative just on its face value."

The police arrested seven men at three gatherings over the weekend in Brownsville and East New York. Charges against all but one were later dismissed by a judge or postponed by prosecutors.

The officer who punched a man in the face in East New York is also under investigation, after video showed the blow came after officers had already pinned the man to the ground, the police said.

Commissioner Shea said each incident should be reviewed in the "totality of the circumstances." He also noted some of the people who had not complied with police orders to disperse had been arrested before.

"The common denominator here is starting with a lack of compliance and, echoing some of what the mayor said, respect here is a two-way street," Commissioner Shea said.

Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, said he was reviewing the social-distancing arrests made in his borough to determine if criminal charges were warranted, adding that the images online had eroded trust in the criminal justice system. His office's policy has been to decline social-distancing cases, as it does other misdemeanors that do not involve a public safety threat.

"We cannot police our way out of this pandemic," Mr. Gonzalez said.

The largest enforcement action took place last month in Canarsie, a predominantly black, middle-class neighborhood in Brooklyn where officers issued nearly 60 summonses at a birthday party inside a barbershop and arrested two people on gun charges, the police said.

Two days later, on April 20, officers handed out 43 summonses at a marijuana party in Chelsea, an affluent neighborhood in Manhattan, but made no arrests even though they found a duffel bag full of the drug, the police said.

Some of the enforcement has focused on the city's Hasidic enclaves, where officers have broken up weddings and funerals. Officers issued 12 tickets at a recent funeral that drew a crowd of 2,500, and it remains unclear if anyone who attended or organized the events has been arrested.

Officers briefly detained a man after dispersing people at an Orthodox funeral in Borough Park on April 29. Credit... Jonah Markowitz for The New York Times

The arrest that prompted perhaps the strongest backlash was the one on the Lower East Side involving Officer Garcia outside a deli on Avenue D that had a reputation, its customers and neighbors said, as a hub for drug sales.

A nearby security camera recorded a young man, Shakiem Brunson, sitting on a milk crate as a woman, Ashley Serrano, paced near him.

The police said two officers approached them because they were too close together but then spotted a bag of marijuana in Mr. Brunson's hands. The video shows that Ms. Serrano moved between the police and Mr. Brunson. An officer pulled her away while they took Mr. Brunson to the ground.

While other officers subdued Mr. Brunson, Officer Garcia approached a group of bystanders, pointing his Taser stun gun and yelling at them to get back.

Officer Garcia had been named in at least seven lawsuits accusing him of things including searching people illegally and disparaging a lesbian, and the city paid almost $200,000 to settle those complaints, according to Capstat, a database of lawsuits against city police officers.

The police said one of the bystanders, Donni Wright, approached Officer Garcia in a fighting stance.

But a cellphone video of the encounter shows that Mr. Wright, whose right fist appeared to be clenched, did not strike Officer Garcia before he began punching and slapping him. Mr. Wright fell to the ground with his hands up.

Officer Garcia sat on Mr. Wright's upper torso while he was handcuffed, the video shows.

Sanford Rubenstein, a lawyer representing Mr. Wright, said his client had injuries to his spine, ribs and wrist. He called for criminal charges against Officer Garcia.

Patrick J. Lynch, the president of the Police Benevolent Association, declined to comment on Officer Garcia's actions, but noted he and his colleagues "did not create the poorly conceived social-distancing policy they were sent out to enforce."

He said City Hall was blaming Officer Garcia for carrying out the policy it had created. "Once again, our leaders are poised to trample a police officer's rights in order to protect themselves," he said.

Mr. Wright's sister, Mariasha Williams-Wright, said her brother, who has worked for New York City Housing Authority as a groundskeeper for 10 years, had just gotten off work and was going to the corner store. "We're hurt, we're shocked, we're in disbelief," she said.

Nate Schweber contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

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Scrutiny of Social-Distance Policing as 35 of 40 Arrested Are Black

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Mayor Bill de Blasio said the police had enforced rules properly, but other officials expressed concern about tactics similar to unfair "stop and frisk" practices. A police officer enforcing social-distancing rules broke up a group of people on a stoop during a nighttime cookout in East New York, Brooklyn, punching one man in the face.

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This is my response.
That is a very sad situation and sadly things like that happen far too often. Police officers are not trained to handle people with mental illness and the corruption within the police departments really stands out to me in this. Not only was he not held accountable but also the poor family didn't get justice.
- Kate Sohl

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Replying to the person that did Lynwood, Washington

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Replying to the person that did Lynwood, Washington

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I think mental health is very serious. There was no reason for that police officer to have shot him. This is a perfect example on of why police discretion should be a thing. -moriah

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 6 bystanders said that he made no threat. The officer's first story said he acted in self defense however the witnesses described it closer to a "slaying". The w

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I am responding to the Los Angeles post. My grandparents live right outside Los Angeles and I spend around 4 months there every year. Whenever I go into the city I see cops all over the place. I feel like it is kind of scary because I always feel like I am being watched and stuff. I also remember seeing a lot of homeless when there and reading about how they are often victims of crime. It is very sad to me because people are willing to take from someone who already has so little. Anyways have a good day! Owen.

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Replying to nearby Florida article, that is really concerning. Audio can be very incriminating, especially with how verbally abusive some police officers can be to the people they are apprehending/questioning. There are tons of stories and videos of police officers being unnecessarily verbally aggressive to people, and using their badge as an excuse to disregard others. Have there been any updates/changes to the equipment since the incident?
-Chloe Liversidge

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rOn January 30th 2017 a man with mental health issues was pulled over on highway 99. He was holding a knife however 6 bystanders said that he made no threat. The officer's first story said he acted in self defense however the witnesses described it closer to a "slaying". The witnesses also said that the officer kept shooting while the man was injured and on the ground. The family sued the police department for 1.75 million dollars which the police didn't pay and said they had no responsibility in the matter. https://budgeandheipt.com/news-press/seattle-times-budge-heipt-obtain-1-75-settlement-in-police-shooting-case/  A clear summary, but missing your observations on the police discretion and ethics.

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On May 12th, the LA Times released this article reporting on a recent incident in which an LAPD officer's body camera footage of him beating up a homeless man was released. This footage sparked a lot of conversations about police discretion within the LAPD. The officers first approached the man because of a call reporting that he was trespassing in a vacant lot. The officers apprehended the man, but even after they got control of him, and he was not resisting, one officer continued to punch the man in the face repeatedly. At first, the LAPD refused to give out the officers names, but after demonstrations and protests, they released the name. A lot of people were also upset because the body camera of the officer who initiated the attack was off, and the footage was only captured by his partner.
-Chloe Liversidge

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The Los Angeles Police Department on Tuesday released video from an officer's body camera depicting a violent clash in Boyle Heights that appeared to show the officer punching an unarmed homeless man, leading to allegations of brutality and calls for the officer to be fired and prosecuted.

LAPD Chief Michel Moore called the situation "disturbing" and said he felt compelled to release the recording after a separate cellphone video leaked last week, leading to a public outcry.

"I, along with many of you, watched the third-party video that was released last week, and I have serious concerns," Moore said.

The video that surfaced online last week showed an officer punching a man repeatedly in the head and body, despite the fact that he did not appear to be struggling or armed. The man has his hands behind his back as the video starts and at one point appears to be trying to stumble away from the officer.

The man sustained minor injuries and refused medical attention, according to the LAPD. He was not charged with a crime and was released the same night, authorities said.

The officer has since been identified by two law enforcement sources as Frank Hernandez, a 20-year LAPD veteran who has been involved in prior controversial on-duty shootings. The officer has been assigned to home pending the outcome of investigations by the department's Internal Affairs and Force Investigation divisions.

Moore also released video captured by the officer's partner's body-worn camera Tuesday. The officers were responding to a call from a property owner who claimed the man was trespassing on a vacant lot next to a church in the 2400 block of Houston Street around 5 p.m. on April 27, authorities said.

Video taken from Hernandez's camera shows the officers walking through a lot and approaching the man, who stands up from his makeshift campsite and begins walking away with his bicycle as they approach. The man walks past the Church of God of Prophecy, then stops.

The man had refused to leave the area, according to audio captured by Hernandez's partner's body-worn camera. Hernandez then orders the man to turn around, and the man seems to struggle briefly, knocking Hernandez's camera to the ground.

His partner's video captured the rest of the incident from a different angle, which shows the man turn in to Hernandez as the officer's camera falls to the ground. Hernandez's attorney, David Winslow, told The Times last week that the man turned around and punched Hernandez in the chest, but the body-worn camera video does not appear to support that.

Winslow did not return a call seeking comment Tuesday.
Warning: Video contains violence and profanity.
Hernandez's partner's video also captures audio of the man cursing at the officers and appearing to be combative as they approach.

In the video taken from Hernandez's partner, the officer can be seen punching the man at least a dozen times. The man does not attempt to fight back and appears to have his hands covering his head the whole time. After Hernandez stops punching the man, he can be heard asking his partner to use her stun gun.

Hernandez's partner drew the weapon once the incident turned violent, but she never fired it.

As members of the community approach and demand to know what's going on, the officer warns the man he will get hit again if he doesn't comply.

"You [expletive] grabbed my hand [expletive], that's why I hit you," Hernandez shouts at the man.

The LAPD has not identified either officer, citing state laws that conceal officers' names from the public in most nonfatal use-of-force incidents.

The LAPD in 2018 began to make public recordings collected from use-of-force incidents, but Tuesday's release marked the first time such video was released solely at the discretion of the police chief.

Under rules adopted in March 2018 by the city's civilian Police Commission, the LAPD is required to release recordings collected as evidence during officer-involved shootings, in-custody deaths and other serious uses of force that result in a death or serious injury.

Moore, who expressed concern about the officer's actions when the recording first surfaced last week, said he had already spoken to Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey about the clash and expected that preliminary findings would be presented to prosecutors by June 1.

"This incident is deeply disturbing," he said. "I don't believe that anything that is shown in this critical incident video will change that description by me or any others."

Investigators have interviewed 15 witnesses, including the officers who initiated the stop. Police are still trying to arrange an interview with the man who was beaten.

In recent days, calls for Hernandez to be fired and prosecuted have ramped up across the city. Demonstrators gathered Monday outside the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, claiming the video made public last week was more than enough evidence for Lacey to proceed with assault charges.

"Anytime you see someone with their hands behind their back and getting hit in the head like that multiple times, that is disturbing. As a human being, I look at that and say, 'How did this happen? What led up to this?'" Lacey said Monday. "But as the lead prosecutor in the D.A.'s office, I know that I need to exercise judgment in what I say publicly, because I don't want this office disqualified or recused for prejudging the evidence. So I'm waiting to see all of what's out there."

In a federal lawsuit filed late Monday, the homeless man in the video was identified as Richard Castillo. According to the filing, Castillo has lived in Boyle Heights most of his life and has family in the immediate area.

"He was raised about two houses down from that vacant lot. He has a tremendous support system around him in that neighborhood," said attorney Wesley Ouchi, who described Castillo as "well-liked and well-known" in the area.
Times staff writers Kevin Rector and Emily Alpert Reyes contributed to this report.

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LAPD releases body-camera video of beating of homeless Boyle Heights man

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The Los Angeles Police Department on Tuesday released video from an officer's body camera depicting a violent clash in Boyle Heights that appeared to show the officer punching an unarmed homeless man, leading to allegations of brutality and calls for the officer to be fired and prosecuted.

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This is my (Kate Constan's) response to the stop-and-frisk article. I am avidly political, and I remember that this law was heavily criticized during the Democratic primaries. Mike Bloomberg's campaign crashed and burned entirely, thanks in part to the backlash he faced due to this bill. This is just one example of how police discretion has become a political issue. Should it be? Is police action supposed to be critiqued or controlled by partisan politics? What's your take?

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Hi! This is in response to Anna, I didn't know how to reply directly to Anna's post. "Stop-and-Frisk" is a great example of police discretion gone wrong. I also agree that this policy gave too much power to police officers especially because of their racial biases. Racial biases have greatly impacted how police preform their jobs. How would you alter the police system to make it less impacted by police officers biases?
- Alexandra

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I think that it's sad that police officers weren't able to make the the correct decision and in response they had to limit police discretion. I think this is an example of how police discretion doesn't work properly in the US due to corruption within the police. If you weren't doing anything wrong why choose not to turn on your body cam? If they were able to limit police discretion in this circumstance where else could they do the same? - Anna Wright

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I find this article on police discretion to be very intriguing as it is the opposite of what we have began to learn about discretion. Because the United States has such a deep and dark history with the police, it is eyeopening to see how other countries' police systems work in comparison to ours. It is interesting to think about officers fining people for not wearing masks in India, yet here in the US certain states have absolutely no regulation on masks. The article leads me to believe that the police system is well respected in India and citizens want to obey the law to keep one another safe. What are the main differences between police systems in Indian and the US, and how does that affect our knowledge of discretion? -Remy Rigby

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I think this is an excellent example of police descretion! This is also a good example of police being under pressure to make the correct decision in a volatile situation. If you were in their position, what would you have done? - Ashley

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All over India, the police have been fining people for not wearing masks in public. In Rajasthan, 570,000 people were fined in between April and August; in Kerala, 533,000 people were fined from June 1st to August 31st; in Delhi, 250,000 people were fined between June 15th and August 31st. This is an example of not showing descretion, as police all over the country are being strict and enforcing this rule with no exceptions. This is likely because if the police are tough, this will encourage more people to always wear their masks so as not to be fined.

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Police depts tap pop culture for mask messages on social media - Times of India

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As per stats shared by police departments from across the country, over 20 lakh people have been fined till the end of August for not wearing masks.

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Portia Fernandes:
In July of 2020,  shooting broke out in Columbia, Washington, DC. With the men being heavily armed and active shooting at their targets the police were called right away. Around 5 the police started to realized the shooters had targets and started to go after the targets not the shooters. Ethically in this situation, the police had to clear the block where the shooters where, and then take the shooters down. I would consider that police discretion, especially since 8 people where injured it needed to be done.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/seven-shot-in-columbia-heights-in-afternoon-attack-dc-police-say/2020/07/19/7e06fd0e-ca09-11ea-91f1-28aca4d833a0_story.html

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Im responding to the post about body cameras. Im not sure who posted it. I agree that body cameras are holding more officers accountable for their unethical actions. I think they pose an issue, because they have been taken off during times of protest and unrest in major cities like Chicago or Boston. Is there anyway to stop these officers from removing their cameras?

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This is Mira responding to whoever made the Rochester post. I think it's awful that it took an event that bad for the bodycam policy to be changed, but it's good that they changed it. Unfortunatley, many laws only seem to come about after police have shown serious misconduct. I think a lot of this could've been avoided with better vetting of officers. It's concerning that they even did this knowing they were being recorded, but hopefully bodycams will stop other officers.

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I'm Menna responding to Reganne French's post:
Although the removal of body cameras has become increasingly common problem, it is important to note that only 31% of small police department with part-time officers have boy cams because it is not within the budget limits of many departments. In addition, a study published in March by George Mason University’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy looked at 70 other body-worn camera studies in June 2018. The study showed that body cameras did not have statistically significant effects on most measures of officer and citizen behavior or citizens’ views of police. So I think body cameras seem like a logical way to limit irrational police behavior, but if many departments have not implemented this technology and studies have shown its ineffectiveness in increasing moral behavior, is it really working?
(https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2020/01/14/body-cameras-may-not-be-the-easy-answer-everyone-was-looking-for )

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Kate Sohl
This article reviews the current body camera and audio rules in Orlando. The audio does not turn on until 60 seconds after the camera is turned on, the police chief and some of the officers are pushing the audio to be turned on sooner after an incident with an armed robber caused some confusion. The officer believed that if the audio would have been on sooner, they would have been able to tell that the suspect shit at them first right away. Though some still think it may be an invasion of privacy. I think that it would be ethical for the audio to be turned on sooner because it would hold the police accountable for their actions and allow it to be easier to know the full story of what happened.

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FOP President Adam Krudo wrote in a letter to the chief, "the moment that person reviews the audio, it would no longer be private. The last thing any of us want is to implement a policy change that would discourage officers from responding to calls and/or turning on their cameras in a timely manner."

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Orlando police chief proposes change to body camera audio recording policy

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FOP President Adam Krudo wrote in a letter to the chief, "the moment that person reviews the audio, it would no longer be private. The last thing any of us want is to implement a policy change that would discourage officers from responding to calls and/or turning on their cameras in a timely manner."

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"Stop-and-Frisk" is an example of how police discretion can be misused by officers with an ingrained racial bias. When given the decision of who to stop it is statistically proven that cops are nine times as likely to stop a black or latino man than anyone else. If the world was a perfect place free of racism, classism, and discrimination all together "Stop-and-Frisk" might have allowed police officers to stop crime before it happened, but in New York City it allowed the NYPD to legally overpatrol poor neighboorhoods and pick on people of color. When certain communites are patroled more than others it becomes impossible to fairly use police discretion. Only 14 out of every 10,000 people stopped were carrying a gun, so why was "Stop-and-Frisk" continued? -Anna Wright

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Michael Bloomberg has apologized for overseeing an expansion of the controversial street-stop program as mayor.

New York Police Department officers patrolling the neighborhood around the Brownsville Houses in Brooklyn in 2010, during Michael Bloomberg's third term as the mayor of New York City. Credit... Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

As support for Michael R. Bloomberg's presidential campaign has risen, his growing presence on the trail and airwaves has renewed attention on the controversial program known as " stop-and-frisk," which defined policing when he was mayor of New York City.

During his tenure, from 2002 to 2013, police officers stopped and questioned people they believed to be engaged in criminal activity on the street more than five million times.

Officers often then searched the detainees - the vast majority of whom were young black and Latino men - for weapons that rarely materialized.

As a candidate for the Democratic nomination, Mr. Bloomberg's legacy with stop-and-frisk has emerged as a vulnerability for him with Democratic voters.

On Wednesday night, Mr. Bloomberg is set to appear for the first time in a Democratic debate alongside other candidates vying for the presidential nomination, and the topic is likely to come up.

In November, shortly before he announced his presidential bid, he apologized for his role in promoting the policy, which eroded trust of the police in black and Latino neighborhoods.

"Our focus was on saving lives," he said during a speech at a black church in Brooklyn. "But the fact is: Far too many innocent people were being stopped."

As his campaign has surged, Mr. Bloomberg has repeatedly been criticized for and questioned about his role in promoting stop-and-frisk and defending it after his time as mayor ended.

Here's why the program was and remains a divisive issue in New York.

Stop-and-frisk is a crime-prevention strategy that had been a staple of policing in the United States for more than 30 years before Mr. Bloomberg took office. It allows police officers to detain someone for questioning on the street, in public housing projects or in private buildings where landlords request police patrols.

Officers are required to have reasonable belief that the person is, has been or is about to be involved in a crime. If police officers believe the detainee is armed, an officer can conduct a frisk by passing his hands over the person's outer garments.

The strategy spread with the adoption of the data-driven Compstat management system in the 1990s, which allowed the police to track and respond to crime trends in real time.

After taking office in 2002, Mr. Bloomberg oversaw a dramatic expansion in the use of stop-and-frisk. The number of stops multiplied sevenfold, peaking with 685,724 in 2011 and then tumbling to 191,851 in 2013. During Mr. Bloomberg's three terms, the police recorded 5,081,689 stops.

"The temperature in the city at the time was that the police were at war with black and brown people on the streets," said Jenn Rolnick-Borchetta, the director of impact litigation at the Bronx Defenders, one of the groups that has successfully sued the Police Department over the practice. "And that is how people experienced it."

At the same time that officers were conducting more searches as part of stop-and-frisk, crime continued to decline, a correlation that Mr. Bloomberg and his police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, viewed as cause and effect. The two men said stop-and-frisk was helping to take guns off the street and reduce violence across the city.

Statistics appeared to back them up: In 2002, Mr. Bloomberg's first year in office, the number of murders in the city fell below 600, and dropped to 335 by the time he left office in 2013. Even as the amount of crime rose or fluctuated in other cities, New York's crime rate declined, continuing a streak that had begun in 1991.

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Former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York and his police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, defended the stop-and-frisk policy in the face of criticism. Credit... Christoph Bangert for The New York Times

Mr. Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly fiercely defended stop-and-frisk in the face of criticism and legal challenges. They argued that it was an essential practice for police, and predicted - wrongly, it would turn out - that curtailing it would lead to a dramatic rise in crime.

"Look at what's happened in Boston," Mr. Bloomberg said in 2013. "Remember what happened here on 9/11. Remember all of those who've been killed by gun violence and the families they left behind."

But more factors affect crime trends than just police tactics, and critics of the program said that under Mr. Bloomberg it gave officers overly broad discretion to target mostly black and Latino boys and men for stops.

In 2009, black and Latino people in New York were nine times as likely to be stopped by the police compared to white residents.

The strategy was used with such intensity that officers in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Brownsville conducted 52,000 stops over eight square blocks between January 2006 and March 2010 - the equivalent of one stop for each resident there every year. The arrest rate was less than one percent for the 14,000 residents.

The policy resulted in a series of lawsuits by black and Latino men. One man, Nicholas Peart, described being held at gunpoint on his 18th birthday as an officer passed his hand over the young man's groin and buttocks before leaving without an explanation - one of five times he had been stopped by the police.

"Essentially, I incorporated into my daily life the sense that I might find myself up against a wall or on the ground with an officer's gun at my head," he wrote in The Times. "For a black man in his 20s like me, it's just a fact of life in New York."

Thousands of people marched down Fifth Avenue from 110th Street in 2012 to protest the Police Department's stop-and-frisk policies. Credit... Michael Appleton for The New York Times

Only 14 out of every 10,000 stops conducted during the Bloomberg era turned up a gun, and just 1,200 out of every 10,000 ended with a fine, an arrest or the seizure of an illegal weapon, according to police data analyzed by the New York Civil Liberties Union. A Columbia University professor said the stops were no better at producing gun seizures than chance.

Black and Latino people were more likely be to stopped and frisked, even though their white counterparts were twice as likely to be found with a gun, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union.

"This is where the racial bias is particularly clear," Christopher Dunn, the legal director of the group, said.

The controversy culminated with a federal judge in Manhattan ruling in 2013 that the searches amounted to a "policy of indirect racial profiling" of black and Latino people. The ruling covered three concurrent cases.

According to data and testimony presented at trial, the police targeted black and Latino males as young as 13 for being in neighborhoods with high crime rates or for making "furtive" movements - a loosely defined term that encapsulated virtually any type of behavior, such as sitting on benches, looking over a shoulder or going into a building with a broken front door. Dissenting officers described being pressured to make stops to meet numerical quotas.

The city argued in court that a stop that did not result in a summons, arrest or weapons seizure still prevented crime by discouraging people from carrying guns.

"That was the theory that Bloomberg supported, that if you let them know that they might be stopped anytime, anywhere, that they will stop bringing out their guns," the judge who made the ruling, Shira Scheindlin, now a private mediator and lawyer, said on Sunday.

Mr. Bloomberg defended the practice in January, denying any racial bias in the policy by pointing to the drop in murders during his time in office.

He struck a different tone in November.

"I got something important really wrong," he said at the Christian Cultural Center, a black megachurch in Brooklyn. "I didn't understand back then the full impact that stops were having on the black and Latino communities."

Mr. Bloomberg speaking during a church service at the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn. He addressed his stop-and-frisk policy, which has been a major liability for him among black voters. Credit... Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times

Stop-and-frisk became a key issue in the 2013 mayoral race. Mayor Bill de Blasio won a long-shot campaign that year in part because he promised to undo the heavy-handed policing tactics of the Bloomberg administration.

During the campaign, Mr. Bloomberg criticized the attacks on stop-and-frisk as political showmanship that risked people's lives. But his predictions about what would happen if the strategy was eliminated were wrong.

During Mr. de Blasio's first term as mayor, stops decreased by 76 percent, to 11,627 in 2017, from 45,787 in his first year. At the same time, crime fell to levels not seen since the 1950s. Over the last two years, the city has logged fewer than 300 murders annually.

Mr. Bloomberg appealed Judge Scheindlin's ruling, but Mr. de Blasio agreed to implement court-ordered reforms. The changes included mandating most officers to wear body cameras and the entire force to be trained in de-escalating conflict and recognizing their own bias.

But racial disparities persist in the street-stop program, and a federal monitor overseeing reforms has repeatedly raised concerns that officers and supervisors do not document and review stops in accordance with Police Department policy. The monitor, Peter L. Zimroth, said the failures impeded efforts to make sure reforms were taking hold.

"Addressing the persistent problem of underreporting of stops and the failure of supervisors to deal with that underreporting and the quality of the stop reports that are filed must be part of that effort," Mr. Zimroth said.

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Why 'Stop-and-Frisk' Inflamed Black and Hispanic Neighborhoods

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Michael Bloomberg has apologized for overseeing an expansion of the controversial street-stop program as mayor. As support for Michael R. Bloomberg's presidential campaign has risen, his growing presence on the trail and airwaves has renewed attention on the controversial program known as " stop-and-frisk," which defined policing when he was mayor of New York City.

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This article, primarily about the introduction of body cameras to Massachusetts state troopers, cites a prime example of terrible police discretion. State troopers shot 26 bullets into a man who allegedly had a fake firearm. They were wearing body cameras during the incident, so were caught in this action. There was clearly poor ethical consideration on part of the officers but it may not have seemed that way in the moment, I suppose. While the victim was a white man, this definitely fits into some parts of the current narrative arc about police brutality. - Kate Constan

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A trooper offered another officer a reproof: "Just shut your [expletive] mouth. You got a [union] rep coming? ... You did nothing wrong."

"Yeah, yeah, I won't talk," the officer responded. Another advised: "Don't say nothing to nobody."

Minutes later, when the directive came across the police radio to turn off all body cameras, some officers exhaled deeply.

These outtakes from one of the first batches of footage made public under Boston's fledgling police body camera program offer a rare, street-level glimpse into unvarnished police behavior amid the chaos of a crime scene.

The videos, released following a Globe records request, have the potential to enable a deeper level of scrutiny than police officers in Massachusetts have beenaccustomed to. Body cameras, in wide use in some other jurisdictions, are comparatively new here and it remains to be seen whether their presence will influence or even improve police tactics. For years, advocates for body cameras have argued their deploymentwould help curb police abuses, make officers more accountable, and generally improve police tactics.

"We know what officers do, that's why we wanted cameras," said Segun Idowu, a founding member of the Boston Police Body Camera Action Team that first pushed for a camera program in Boston in 2016.

The Norfolk district attorney recently cleared the police officers of any criminal wrongdoing in the Root shooting, though Root's family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit claiming excessive force, based in part on the body camera footage.

The lawsuit also highlighted questions about the transparency of the body camera program: Only one of the Boston officers who shot Root had a body camera turned on at the time of the shooting. Two officers allegedly turned the cameras on minutes later, and two weren't wearing them at all.

Boston police would not say whether they are reviewing the officers' use of the cameras, though several appear to be in violation of department policies. Officers are supposed to shut their cameras off under only limited circumstances, such as to protect the privacy rights of bystanders.

Boston police spokesman Sergeant John Boyle refused to comment on the camera footage or department policy, citing pending litigation. He declined to speak more broadly about body cameras, saying only that agency rules make clear that they "are effective law enforcement tools that reinforce the public's perception of police professionalism and preserve factual representations of officer-civilian interactions."

The officers union, the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association, would not comment.

Idowu, executive director of the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts, noted that the very purpose of this technology is to record incidents such as the Root shooting. But it's only effective if the department fully embraces it.

"What is the point of having these tools if you're not going to actually hold people accountable?" he said. "The whole purpose is accountability, on top of transparency."

The use of body-worn cameras is relatively new to policing, its adoption often fought by police unions and the officers forced to wear them. A 2015 report by associations for major city police chiefs and county sheriffs found that 19 percent of the agencies were already using cameras and 77 percent were in the early stages of implementing camera programs. The numbers have increased since.A proposal before Congress, under the COPS Accountability Act of 2020, would require all departments to have them.

In Massachusetts, body-worn camera programs have been slower to take off, used in Boston and only a handful of small towns. Boston's program came after a strong push by community groups. In 2016 the patrolmen's union initially sought to block a pilot programthrough legal action but lost that battle.

Interest statewide is growing. The State Police said troopers could have cameras by the end of the year, while other communities such as Somerville and Worcester are exploring the possibility.

Amid a national reckoning over systemic police abuses and growing demands for reform, the calls for cameras have only intensified. Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh commissioned an independent task force in June to study police reforms, with one of its directives to explore best practices for a departmentwide body camera program. The task force could present a draft report this week.

A Northeastern University study of Boston's pilot program in 2017 found that some officers feared their conduct would be overly scrutinized and that video evidence would subject them to undue discipline. Even though none of them had, to that point, faced camera-related discipline, they still worried about the potential.

More experienced police officers were more open to wearing cameras than younger officers, and non-white police officers were alsomore favorable to cameras, the study showed.

The report ultimately found "small but meaningful" benefits from the cameras: Officers who wore cameras received fewer complaints and generated fewer use-of-force reports than a comparable group without cameras.

Some studies have shown that the behavior of officers with cameras was indistinguishable from those without.Other studies, including a 2017 review in Las Vegas, found that in some cases, cameras led to more arrests, possibly because officers were less likely to engage people and more likely to go by the book, rather than seek alternatives to arrests. But the reviews still found that officers with cameras generated fewer use-of-force reports and citizen complaints.

Chris Burbank, vice president for law enforcement strategy at the Center for Policing Equity, said officers are bound to be skeptical of any new equipment, especially cameras that are meant to raise the level of scrutiny that officers face. He's reviewed cases of excessive force across the country in which officers can be heard warning each other, "I have a body camera, I have a body camera."

But over time, he said, police officers tend to grow used to the new tools and recognize that cameras can help back up their own accounts of an incident. In that way, he said, the cameras can help shape police behavior.

"The first instinct when you're not accustomed to it is, 'Oh boy, this will all be captured,'" said Burbank, who implemented a camera program a decade ago while head of the Salt Lake City Police Department. "But I think officers become more aware, to say, 'This is how we do business,' after a certain amount of time.

In some cases, body camera footage provides the only available evidence.

Last week, newly released footage showed that a man who died in police custody in Rochester, N.Y., had a " spit hood " - which is meant to protect officers from being spit on - placed over his head and had been pinned to the ground by officers for close to two minutes. The footage, obtained by a lawyer for the family of Daniel Prude, contradicted initial police accounts that Prude died of a drug overdose. The autopsy report from the medical examiner said his death was caused by "complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint."

What is clear, said Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of the Lawyers for Civil Rights in Boston, is that communities are demanding a greater level of scrutiny and accountability, and see body cameras as one important way to that goal.

"This is a relatively new level of scrutiny being placed on police officers and police departments," Espinoza-Madrigal said, "so I can absolutely appreciate that any police department would have culture changes that need to be addressed."

The unfiltered insight into Boston police behavior was also on display in footage of Operation Clean Sweep, last year's police operation to address open drug use around the Newmarket Square area. Videos show officers using tactics to detain people on the street that civil rights groups said were legally questionable.

At one point in the operation, a younger officer asked a supervisor, Captain John Danilecki, whether he should keep his camera rolling. Danilecki told him yes, because he wanted to show the American Civil Liberties Union that officers were doing things "by the book."

The ACLU in Massachusetts, which obtained the footage through a lawsuit and released it in July, took issue with the remark, saying the footage actually showed officers were violating peoples' civil rights. Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins criticized the use of heavy-handed police tactics.

Carol Rose, the head of the ACLU, said body cameras can be effective. But their effectiveness depends on a sound policy that dictates when an officer should use a camera and includes strict limitations for turning them off. The ACLU has called on the courts to adopt new standards that would allow jurors to discount evidence whenever a working body camera was turned off or allegedly made inoperable.

"The point of this is to include accountability for police officers, that's the purpose,"Rose said. "It shouldn't be just a matter of police culture, but it should have consequences in the courts."

In the days since the release of footage in the fatal February police shooting, Juston Root's family has called for Norfolk County investigators to reopen the case.

The Globe reported late last month that the video footage appears to contradict a key aspect of a District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey's report that found the shooting was justified.

Morrissey's report cites one of the officers involved in the shooting saying he heard another officer shout "gun" immediately before he opened fire. The videos do not appear to show anyone describing a gun before police fired their weapons.

According to the family's lawsuit, the officers said in statements later they never saw Root point or brandish a gun.

In that lawsuit, Root's family is leaning on one, key unassailable piece of evidence to make their case: body camera footage.

Milton J. Valencia can be reached at milton.valencia@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @miltonvalencia.

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Body camera program brings unease for Mass. police, and, perhaps, a new age of accountability - The Boston Globe

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A trooper offered another officer a reproof: "Just shut your [expletive] mouth. You got a [union] rep coming? ... You did nothing wrong." "Yeah, yeah, I won't talk," the officer responded. Another advised: "Don't say nothing to nobody." Minutes later, when the directive came across the police radio to turn off all body cameras, some officers exhaled deeply.

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https://apnews.com/b5d445c332394e3fac303bf3d9115478

This article is talking about how the Campaign for Justice, Safety and Jobs (coalition) wants to get rid of officer discretion. An example is Police discretion was used against Freddie Grey. The coalition thought the officer Caesar Goodson and five other officers took police discretion way to far and ended up taking his life. I think police discretion has some advantages and disadvantages. A disadvantage is the Freddie Gray incident. An advantage is sometimes it can get can get bad guys off the street. I personally, think it should not be a thing, look at what is happening in 2020 right now. - Moriah

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For this assignment I have chosen to provide an example of when the Boston police did not use discretion well. Four years ago the citizens of Massachusetts chose to make marijuana legal, and in July, the Boston Globe wrote about how the police are making millions off of towns that require a police detail on the premises of a marijuana shop. The police are being paid directly by the owners of the shops and are taking an unreasonable amount of the revenue of these shops. The police are not using their discretion well and are pressuring the owners of the shops to give them more money.

- Alexandra
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/24/marijuana/while-equity-efforts-flounder-massachusetts-police-make-millions-off-marijuana-store-traffic-details/

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https://portal.ct.gov/DCJ/Whats-News/Reports-on-the-Use-of-Force-by-Peace-Officers/2020---January---Edward-Gendron---Waterbury.              Typically laws give officers discretion in deadly force incidents, however, the Division of Criminal Justice will investigate the situation and decide if use of deadly and physical force was necessary and just by the police officer. In this circumstance, the officer by the name of Ronald W, was called to Gendron's home due to a report of a bullet going through a wall of someone's house. According to authorities, Gendron had a gun and began running towards the officer and thats when Gendron was shot. In my opinion, assuming the facts of this case are true, the shooting was justified as the officer was in a life or death situation. At first I thought maybe the officer could have immobilized Gendron by shooting him in a nonfatal area such as the leg or the arm, however, these situations are fast-paced and require rapid decision making.....Menna

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State of California - Department of Justice - Office of the Attorney General

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The Civil Rights Enforcement Section's mission includes assisting the Attorney General on civil rights issues in the area of police practices. The Office of the Attorney General maintains a policy governing the review of complaints received by the Department of Justice that allege police misconduct by local law enforcement agencies or their employees. Under that policy, complaints received by this office from complainants who have exhausted the local review process will be referred to both the Criminal Law Division and the Civil Rights Enforcement Section for review and appropriate action.

Additional significant matters focused on police practices handled by the Civil Rights Enforcement Section include the following:

In July 2014, in the case, Los Angeles Police Protective League v. City of Los Angeles, the Attorney General filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the Los Angeles Police Department's (LAPD) exercise of managerial discretion to issue Special Order 7. Special Order 7 prohibits officers from invoking the fixed 30-day impound statute for vehicles driven by unlicensed drivers in certain circumstances. Special Order 7 was implemented to provide a clear directive to officers on how to handle the various discretionary Vehicle Code impound statutes and to address allegations of disparate treatment and other concerns raised by the city's immigrant community. The Los Angeles Police Protective League challenged Special Order 7, principally arguing that it unlawfully deprived individual officers of discretion to impound a vehicle as allowed under the Vehicle Code. The Attorney General's brief argued that the LAPD's decision to exercise vehicle impound discretion at the managerial level, thereby limiting individual officer's discretion, is a lawful exercise of the LAPD's authority and is consistent with California law enforcement tradition. The brief further argued that to maximize public safety, law enforcement agencies must retain the authority to evaluate the unique needs of their particular communities and officers, and determine when the issuance of discretion-limiting directives are appropriate. On December 26, 2014, the California Court of Appeal issued a decision concluding that Special Order 7 is within the broad discretion of the police chief, and that neither the Protective League nor the individual taxpayer who filed the action had standing to challenge the policy.

On July 21, 2009, the Attorney General secured a court order compelling the City of Maywood to implement critical use-of-force and related reforms within its Police Department. The order capped a comprehensive investigation of the Maywood Police Department by the Attorney General that uncovered patterns of excessive use of force, and a conspicuous absence of meaningful articulation of probable cause to justify arrests and searches and reasonable suspicion to detain members of the public. In March 2009, the Attorney General issued 30-page public report regarding this investigation and the Attorney General's findings. Effective July 1, 2010, the City of Maywood elected to disband its police department and contract with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for police services.

In the late spring of 1999, after concluding that the four officers who were involved in the shooting death of Tyisha Miller in Riverside, California, should not be criminally charged, the Attorney General launched a civil investigation of the Riverside Police Department. On March 5, 2001, the Office of the Attorney General filed a complaint and stipulated judgment in People of the State of California, etc. v. City of Riverside. This stipulated judgment resolved a nearly two-year civil rights investigation into the practices and policies of the City's police department. It is believed that this was the first consent decree to reform a local police department ever secured by a state attorney general under state law. The judgment, which remained in effect for a period of five years, required the Riverside Police Department to implement reforms in the areas of training, supervision, and accountability. The City of Riverside was required to pay the cost of a consultant to assist the Attorney General in monitoring compliance with the terms of the judgment. On March 2, 2006, the Attorney General, after concluding that the Riverside Police Department had fulfilled the conditions of the judgment, requested and received formal approval from the court for the judgment's dissolution.

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The Civil Rights Enforcement Section's mission includes assisting the Attorney General on civil rights issues in the area of police practices. The Office of the Attorney General maintains a policy governing the review of complaints received by the Department of Justice that allege police misconduct by local law enforcement agencies or their employees.

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This news report explains the circumstances leading to the Rochester police department in NY's bodycam policy. Rochester's mayor has requested a federal investigation into the death of Daniel Prude who died in police custody under mysterious circumstances. Videos of his arrest came out showing that officers had Prude naked in the street with his arms behind his back and then put a mesh bag over his head to keep him from spitting. Later, the coronary reports stated that Prude died of asphyxia. Rochester's police chief was fired by the major a month before his planned retirement and several governing bodies within the police department faces severe consequences as well. On top of all this the police bodycam police was put in place after the videos of Prude's death went public after the insistence of his family.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/daniel-prude-new-york-ag-police-body-camera

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This article talks about how the city of Brook Park (right outside of Cleveland) is adding a new law to deter people for asking for money. The law will add more ability for police to actually impose fines and arrest people accused of asking for money when before they were only able to add citations. This way, police are able to take more discretion with what they define as panhandling, as well as weather to arrest, fine, or give a citation. There weren't many ethical considerations looked at, since the mayor simple came up with the idea after being asked for money and he didn't think about another way to deter the action that didn't involve unnecessary arrests.
Mira Getrost

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BROOK PARK, Ohio -- City Council President Mike Vecchio has introduced legislation to deter panhandling in Brook Park.

He said he developed the ordinance after a stranger unexpectedly walked up behind him at a local gas station in February and asked for money.

"We're seeing more of this throughout the city, with a lot of it happening near our ATMs," Vecchio told City Council at its Sept. 8 caucus. "Historically, our police officers have had their hands somewhat tied with being able to write a citation. This (ordinance) would allow that to happen and quell some of those issues we're hearing more and more about."

The law would prohibit people from approaching vehicles in the street. Panhandlers would have to remain on sidewalks "and not in the right-of-way itself, including any medians or traffic islands within the right-of-way," the ordinance indicates.

Panhandlers would need to maintain a 3-foot distance from people accessing ATMs. In addition, the legislation forbids "aggressive distribution," including making physical contact with another person without consent and "knowingly following another person and continuing to engage" him or her.

The ordinance also would make it illegal for panhandlers to obstruct highways, streets, sidewalks, railways, waterways, elevators, aisles, hallways, entrances and exits "to which the public, or a substantial group of the public, has access."

While understanding Vecchio's intent, Councilman Brian Poindexter said he doesn't want the city to "over-legislate."

"I'd rather keep it at the police officer's discretion, instead of saying we have to abide by these laws and these rules," Poindexter said. "We wouldn't have panhandling if society was a little bit more equitable for more people."

Councilman Tom Troyer added that the person offering the money should not be considered "a criminal" for doing so.

Poindexter and Troyer will work with Vecchio on revisions to the ordinance. It will be discussed again at the Oct. 13 council caucus.

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Brook Park considers law to deter panhandling

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BROOK PARK, Ohio -- City Council President Mike Vecchio has introduced legislation to deter panhandling in Brook Park. He said he developed the ordinance after a stranger unexpectedly walked up behind him at a local gas station in February and asked for money.

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In this article, the reader learns of Mayor Lori Lightfoot's response to officers taking off their body cameras and badges during the BLM protests this summer. This is unethical because it is taking away the accountability from the officers if something were to happen that would deem an investigation.By removing their cameras, it becomes a word against word argument. There is no longer evidence. - Reganne French

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An unwavering Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot stated Friday that the city "will not tolerate" Chicago police officers who turn off their body cameras or tape over their badges.

Following recent controversial incidents involving Chicago police officers, Lightfoot said that the city won't support officers who cross the line.

"We will find you, we will identify you, and we will strip you of your police powers. Period," she said. "We are not going to tolerate this in our city. You are demeaning all of your colleagues who are working their tails off on 12 hour shifts to keep our city safe. Shame on you. Shame on you."

Hours earlier, Mayor Lightfoot said that a Chicago police officer who was seen on camera flipping off protesters should be fired. In a separate video posted to social media, another officer was seen hiding his badge when being questioned by a journalist.

While Lightfoot said she understands honest mistakes, but she asserted that officers who believe they can do "what they want, whenever they want" will be weeded out.

"I have spent a lot of my career doing everything I can, and I will continue to to make the Chicago Police Department the best and finest in the nation," the mayor said. "And we can have no tolerance for those who don't understand the privilege of wearing this badge. We will not not rest."

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Chicago Police Officers Who Turn Off Body Camera or Cover Badge Will be Stripped of Powers: Lightfoot

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An unwavering Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot stated Friday that the city "will not tolerate" Chicago police officers who turn off their body cameras or tape over their badges. Following recent controversial incidents involving Chicago police officers, Lightfoot said that the city won't support officers who cross the line.

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This article talks about police discretion in Chicago highlighting the officers who removed/covered their badges while on duty during protests in June 2020. Mayor Lori Lightfoot said, "If you are one of those officers, we will find you, we will identify you and we will strip you of your police powers. Period. We are not going to tolerate this in our city." However, the situation of these officers comes down to Superintendent David Brown. Many factors were taken into consideration when reporting them such as their disciplinary history and why they acted in this manner. The act of these officers has left many people in distress and demanding that the police take accountability for their actions. One protestor was angered by the removal of the badges because "it's illegal, [and they are] the people supposed to be upholding the law [not] breaking it." The officers featured have disregarded their oath to protect citizens and their city, to only benefit and protect themselves. -Remy Rigby

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Chicago police investigating 78 complaints of officers removing or covering badges during protests

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During a week of nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd, a disturbing trend has emerged in Chicago. Scores of police officers have been accused of removing or covering the name tags and badges on their uniforms while on duty at the demonstrations.

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The article talks about the evolution of police discretion relating to body cameras in the Seattle Police Department. When body cameras were first introduced, more discretion was given to officers around times in which they should or shouldn't record. As it became clear that this discretion wasn't incentivizing them to act in the good of the people with more issues arising, they were granted discretion for recording under certain privacy-related circumstances. These include: “natural death scenes, death notifications, child or sexual assault victim interviews, cultural or religious objections to being recorded, and when the use of BWV would impede the cooperation of a victim or witness.” - Amelia Worthington

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The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies

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In 2015, police officers in the United States killed 94 unarmed people- dropping to 51 persons in 2016 and rising to 68 persons in 2017, according to data gathered by The Washington Post. The Seattle Police Department (SPD) was scrutinized by the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division in 2011 for using force in an unconstitutional manner 20 percent of the time and using batons unnecessarily 57 percent of the time. In response to these local and other nationally publicized police shootings, police brutality incidents, and the rising impact of the Black Lives Matters movement, body cameras have garnered overwhelming public support in recent years as a solution to police abuse of power. According to a 2017 Pew Research Center national survey, 66 percent of police officers and 93 percent of the American public favor the use of body cameras.

Although the public may believe body cameras are a surefire solution for law enforcement accountability, camera implementation raises significant privacy protection issues. Before 2016, protections did not exist to address the complexity and sensitivity of body worn video in Washington State. For instance, because body worn video is a public record, any member of the public could request nearly any police body camera captured event-including, but not limited to, police interviews and/or interactions with survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault. Not until June 7, 2018 did permanent, comprehensive legislation for privacy protection of body worn video come into effect. However, while protections are recent, the SPD's body camera program has operated for the last four years.

For the last three years, Washington legislators and various stakeholders have collaborated to patch the holes in state legislation for public record disclosure protections. To understand this issue, I follow their work and the sequence of events leading up to the creation of body camera legislation in Washington over the last four years, closely observing the Seattle Police Department's interests and involvement in its crafting. To lighten the SPD's financial burden when the public requests body worn video, the SPD supported legislation that limits public access to body worn video footage and lessens redaction requirements for disclosed footage. This means that the SPD advocated for enhancing and easing privacy protections simultaneously.

The timeline below captures the major events I discuss here.

Timeline

December 2014

Seattle's Body Cam Pilot Program is established.

June 2016

Engrossed House Bill 2362 takes effect.

August 2016

First meeting of the Joint Legislative Task Force on the Use of Body Worn Cameras.

October 2016

Second meeting of the Joint Legislative Task Force on the Use of Body Worn Cameras.

May 2017

Court approval for Seattle Police Department Manual section 16.090 "In-Car and Body-Worn Video" is granted.

July 2017

Seattle Mayor Edward B. Murray issues an Executive Order mandating that all Seattle Police Department officers are outfitted with body-worn video.

September 2017

Third meeting of the Joint Legislative Task Force on the Use of Body Worn Cameras.

October 2017

Fourth meeting of the Joint Legislative Task Force on the Use of Body Worn Cameras.

November 2017

Fifth meeting of the Joint Legislative Task Force on the Use of Body Worn Cameras.

December 2017

Joint Legislative Task Force on the Use of Body Worn Cameras issues report to Washington State Legislature.

March 2018

Senate Bill 6408 is signed by Governor Jay Inslee.

June 2018

Senate Bill 6408 takes effect.

December 2014: Seattle's Body Cam Pilot Program

Amid this rapid incorporation of a device that drastically changes the landscape of law enforcement, many interests collided-particularly in the area of personal privacy for those whose images are captured. In the words of Washington State Legislature House Representative Drew Hansen (D), one of the legislators who sponsored future body worn video-specific privacy legislation, " There's not a lot of agreement about anything around body cameras, but there is pretty broad agreement about the need to protect people's privacy. "

However, privacy considerations were not front and center when body worn video was implemented in 2014. True, the SPD published a "Body-Worn Video Pilot Program" protocol section of the SPD manual that specified where and when officers could record-which was later replaced in May 2017 by section 16.090 "In-Car and Body-Worn Video," which provided protocols of vastly greater detail. However, little consideration was given to public access to body camera footage. Prior to 2016, no legislation existed to address Body Worn Video requests, specifically.

Body camera video is a public record and, therefore, falls under the jurisdiction of Washington State's Public Records Act. Such records may be accessed by the public via a Public Disclosure Request to the Seattle Police Department. The "Department Records, Access, Inspection & Dissemination" section 12.080 of the SPD manual outlines the procedure for accessing body camera footage, as detailed below:

1. Requestor submits a Public Disclosure Request.

2. Request is received by Public Disclosure Unit, which then contacts the necessary sources for the information-specific employees or units-and establishes a date by which the information will be supplied.

3. Information sources receive the Public Disclosure Request. Such sources are required to supply thePublic Disclosure Unit with the record by the specified due date, but, if sources believe that the record is protected from public disclosure, they may attach a memo describing why they believe it should be exempt.

4. The Public Disclosure Request Steering Committee discusses and decides, considering the source's memo, whether the record is protected from public disclosure.

5. The Public Disclosure Unit receives the records from its contacts. The Public Disclosure Unit then makes all necessary redactions to the public record and then supplies it to the requestor.

At face value, such a procedure may seem durable enough to effectively protect individuals' personal privacy-considering the "many" layers of checks and balances of memos. However, as the process stood prior to March 2016, the Public Records Act's provisions were ill-suited to address the immensity and complexity of information captured by body worn video and archived by law enforcement. Regulations offered a very limited description of what generally qualifies as an "invasion of privacy" in its RWC 42.56.050. Invasion of privacy was determined with a two-pronged test: (1) being "highly offensive to a reasonable person" and (2) of "legitimate concern to the public." Beyond that, no other provisions existed to limit what kind of footage or the quantity of footage that could be released to the public. Such limited consideration for individuals' privacy and no privacy exemptions established for body worn video requests meant that the Public Records Act opened the door to major privacy violations.

Additionally, individuals uninvolved in and unrelated to the events in their requested recordings had the ability to request and access sensitive body camera footage. For example, body worn video of law enforcement interviews and/or interactions with victims of sexual and domestic violence were available for request by uninvolved participants. This issue was of grave concern to stakeholders weighing in on the creation of future legislation surrounding this issue, namely the WA Coalition Against Sexual Violence. This group stressed the importance of privacy protections to encourage victims to continue to report incidents of violence, rather than be deterred by fears their information could be seen by anyone if they choose to report.

Prior to the release of body worn video to a requestor, the SPD redacts videos to protect individuals. However, this practice is notoriously time-intensive and costly. When a video is redacted, identifying indicators of a person's identity are either blurred out or covered by a box. Such identifiers may include: "faces, clothes, tattoos, addresses, photos, paperwork, computer screens names, etc." The meticulous nature of video redaction, compounded by high volume requests was beyond the technological or financial capability of law enforcement to provide. In 2018, video redaction costs for SPD is estimated to total $223,918.

As more officers became outfitted with cameras and the SPD's body cam program grew, the immensity and the sensitivity of the footage requested for disclosure continued to strain the SPD's budget. The agency's body camera program is already expensive, costing approximately $800,000 to $900,000 annually-with $853,708 being budgeted for 2018. The majority of the expense comes from costs of footage management, storage and redaction. The SPD hires the third-party provider Axon for its body cameras and data storage services, utilizing its cloud storage partner Microsoft Azure Government Cloud.

In response to these privacy issues, Washington lawmakers began working to fine-tune state law to properly address personal privacy concerns for body worn video in the Engrossed House Bill 2362 of 2016, a bill that offered temporary privacy protection. They also created a task force to study the privacy implications in greater depth.

April 2016: Engrossed House Bill 2362

In April 2016, the Washington State Legislature passed a critical temporary amendment to the Public Records Act that created privacy exemptions for agencies that deployed body cameras prior to June 9, 2016. The Engrossed House Bill 2362-effective June 2016 and most of its provisions expiring by July 2019-temporarily addressed the privacy concerns surrounding public access to body worn video. It accomplished the following:

Establishes a definition of "body worn camera recording;"

Specifies the kind of information required to request body worn video and audio recordings;

Identifies which parties bear responsibility for redaction fees upon request for body worn video records;

Mandates that agencies establish detailed body worn video policies;

Creates a state-wide task force comprised of all interested parties to evaluate the use of body cameras and to provide a report of recommendations to the governor by December 2017.

Tackling the problem of invasive and excessive public disclosure requests, the House bill's amendment establishes that a person must supply the following information to request the BWV footage

Name(s) of those involved in the incident recorded;

The incident or case number;

The date, time and location of the incident(s);

Identify the law enforcement or correctional officers involved in the incident(s).

House Bill 2362 also expanded the definition of what kinds of images in body worn video would be exempt from disclosure and/or subject to redaction:

The inclusion of visible minors;

Nudity or sexual intercourse;

Interiors of a residences in which there is a reasonable expectation of privacy;

Interiors of a medical facilities, counseling programs, or therapeutic programs.

Additionally, the amendment pins the redaction fees on body worn video requestors with some exemptions. Exemptions include: if the requestor is an individual directly involved in the incident recorded in the requested body worn video footage or that individual's attorney, an individual involved in a criminal case concerning the incident or that individual's attorney, or is an executive director of one of Washington's many minority population commissions-such as the commissions of Asian Pacific American Affairs, Hispanic Affairs, African American Affairs and others. However, the media is not exempt from the redaction fees.

Such information hurdles were established in this bill to limit the volume of body worn video requests and to allow police departments, such as the SPD, to recover some of the costs associated with providing and redacting footage. The bill functions as a temporary bandage to the Public Records Act, protecting individuals' personal privacy in the short-term. The majority of House Bill 2362's amendments and additions were set to expire by July 2019, so that they could be revisited by legislators when new information gathered by the task force was available and to make changes accordingly to the task force's recommendations.

June 2016: Engrossed House Bill 2362 Takes Effect

As part of Bill 2362, a task force was created to help make better legislation when the bill expired in 2019. Bipartisan leadership spearheaded the task force-with Washington House Representative Drew Hansen (D) and Washington Senator Mike Padden (R) co-chairing. In the words of Senator Padden, the task force's objective was "to try to reach a consensus from the stakeholders, balance the interest of transparency and privacy, and to hear from a lot of people about the impact of body worn cameras."

The task force was comprised of 36 voting members who all were representatives of stakeholder organizations and groups of the body camera debate, including representatives of the following organizations: Washington state legislature, attorney associations, law enforcement officers, the American Civil Liberties Union, Washington coalitions, local government, Washington state's minority commissions, immigrant and refugee communities, victim advocacy groups, the news media, the general public, and the body camera technology industry.

The task force convened on five separate occasions in public settings across different regions of the state, received presentations, reports, and testimony concerning body camera footage. The outcome of the task force was a holistic report that provided recommendations for amendments and additions to the Public Records Act- recommendations meant to guide the creation of permanent legislation in later years.

Among the voting stakeholders of the task force was the SPD, represented by Mary Perry, the Seattle Police Department Director of Transparency and Privacy. She collaborated with a small group of other task force representatives to formulate recommendations to task force chairman Senator Padden and Representative Hansen about what amendments or additions to the Public Records Act the task force should ultimately recommend in their report to Governor Inslee.

In November 2017, the SPD and others recommended the following action items:

To make the Engrossed House Bill 2362's temporary amendments to the Public Records Act (42.56.120, 42.56.240 and 42.56.080) permanent, with the exception of both the provision that would make the Bill expire in 2019. The task force acknowledged that these revisions to the Public Records Act needed deeper study.

In regard to the "covered jurisdiction" provision (located in RWC 42.56.240(14)(g)(ii)) which established that the new rules applied to jurisdictions that deployed body worn cameras or pilot programs prior to the effective date of the House Bill on June 9, 2016, such as the SPD.

The majority of task force voting members agreed upon the group's recommendations. The recommendations were translated into state law-via the Senate Bill 6408, which amended the Public Records Act permanently. It did this by broadening the definition of an "intimate image" (in RWC 42.56.240(14)(a)(iii)) to include public areas, rather than just private areas as well.

However, the inclusion of public areas was recommended in the task force report to the governor. The passed Senate Bill 6408 included the suggested language backed by the SPD nearly verbatim, omitting the specifications about it being an "identifiable individual" or an "identifiable person's intimate body parts."

In addition, the SPD advocated for limiting the definition of a "minor" by including the adjective "identifiable" in order to reduce the amount of redaction required and its corresponding expense. This change would excuse the SPD from redacting all images of all unidentifiable minors in requested footage, saving the agency both time and money. This change was not recommended by most voting members of the task force and was not included in the future Senate bill.

Additionally, the SPD argued that clarification was needed for statutory retention requirements of body camera video footage by law enforcement agencies. SPD endorsed that all records must be maintained for at least 60 days but may thereafter be destroyed according to the applicable record retention schedule. This was recommended by the majority of the task force's members and included in the Senate Bill.

Finally, per the Senate Bill 6408's revisions to the PRA, all body worn video recordings must be retained for up to 60 days and thereafter retained according to the applicable retention schedule. SPD retains the original, unredacted recordings of crimes 3.5 years-per the typical statute of limitations for most crimes. Footage related to crimes, such as manslaughter, that do not have a statute of limitations will be archived indefinitely in the Microsoft Azure Government Cloud.

May 2017: Court Approval for "In-Car and Body-Worn Video"

The detailed content provided in the SPD Manual concerning body worn video system policy was mandated by Engrossed House Bill 2362, per the addition of section 3 in RWC.42.56.120. The foundations of the new section originated in policies established for the 2014 Body-Worn Video Pilot Program in section 16.091. The new section contains much of the protocol from the pilot program, but with significantly greater amount of detail.

At the time of Mayor Murray's executive order, the SPD had already begun the process of implementing body worn video into its agency-establishing a pilot program for body worn video in 2014 and receiving court approval for the SPD Manual "In-Car and Body-Worn Video" section 16.090 in May 2017.[2] Within this section exists detailed body worn video system protocol of when cameras must be rolling

During dispatch to 911 calls;

Traffic and "Terry" stops; officer views criminal activity;

Arrests and seizures; searches and inventories of vehicles, persons or premises;

Suspect transport;

Vehicle pursuits;

Questioning suspects, victims and witnesses.

Likewise, the protocol outlines the circumstances that signal the conclusion of an event and signal to stop recording

If a person dwelling in a residence requests that officers turn off their cameras (unless officers have a warrant or a crime is taking place);

If an officer's investigation has concluded;

If it is unlikely that the officer will have any additional contact with the person.

Additionally, there are spaces labeled as "sensitive areas," in which the SPD is restricted from recording:

The interiors of restrooms;

Interior of jails;

The interior of medical and therapeutic facilities;

The interior of a private residence if a person requests the cameras to be turned off;

Of persons lawfully expressing their freedom of speech, press association, assembly or religion.

Of course, there are exceptions. If police are in such areas for a law enforcement purpose, cameras must be rolling.

July/December 2017: Mandated Body Worn Video and Task Force Report Issued

The SPD's representative, Mary Perry, spoke in favor of Senate Bill 6408 at the Law and Justice Committee public forum on January 29, 2018, expressing support for the bill because of SPD's concerns about public record requestors who are not directly involved in the videos requesting access to the material. She included the media in this category of so-called "extraordinary requestors."

Perry reported in her testimony that "extraordinary requestors" in response to the redaction cost shifting established in HB 2362, "reducing their requests, making them more targeted" in response to the redaction cost shifting established in HB 2362.15 Perry cited that over 500,000 in-car and body worn videos were generated by the SPD in 2017, and that, per consequence of the reallocation of redaction costs, the police department is receiving half as many body worn video requests as in-car video requests. She stressed the necessity of the bill for deterring spam requestors, as well as privacy protections for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.

March 2018: Senate Bill 6408 is Signed

In March 2018, Senate Bill 6408 was passed nearly unanimously by both the House and the Senate and was signed by Governor Jay Inslee, ushering in permanent legislation concerning requests for body worn video. The bill made permanent the majority of provisions from the previous House bill and came into effect on June 7, 2018.

June 2018: Senate Bill 6408 is Effective

Body camera implementation outpaced state privacy law in Washington, and this is likely to happen again-not only in the state, but across the country-as law enforcement monitoring and evidence-collection technology evolves. Body cams became more than an accountability device for officers, rather, the devices function as evidence-collection tools that police agencies use for criminal investigations.

Drones and live streaming of body camera footage is expected to "modernize" policing. In its Axon Air service, Axon provides law enforcement drones that can be used for traffic accident reconstruction, search and rescue, next generation evidence collection, and much more. In all these uses, individuals recorded may not be informed that they are being recorded-which raises privacy concerns.

Bearing in mind these future developments, the task force members supplied recommendations for changes to the Public Records Act that they believed would be applicable for future body camera technology developments. However, drone-worn video comes with entirely different considerations and privacy protection will become major concern and obstacle.

Implications

New law enforcement technology will continue to change the landscape of policing in the United States, just as body cameras already have. Sticky questions will have to be engaged with, such as balancing the privacy of individuals against the public's need to know about police abuses. It can be expected that new legislation and, perhaps, another task force will be necessary in the near future to research the technology's implications for privacy protection, as policing becomes more technology-dependent and invasive to individuals' privacy.

Endnotes

[1] "Executive Order 2017-03." Edward B. Murray, Mayor to City of Seattle. December 17, 2017. Seattle, Washington.
This publication was made possible in part by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

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The Police, Body Cameras, and Privacy in Washington State

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In 2015, police officers in the United States killed 94 unarmed people- dropping to 51 persons in 2016 and rising to 68 persons in 2017, according to data gathered by The Washington Post.