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Purple: main questions about police reform
Blue: subtopics, stemming from the purple questions
Red: police reform in action
Green: subtopics, stemming from the red statement
White: relation of purple questions and red statement
Yellow: sources

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In this specific example of police reform, this PD in Connecticut has successfully implemented a mental health/crisis program that:
a. can help the person involved if they are trying to harm themself, thanks to a social worker
b. can keep the community safe from threats, thanks to a police officer

“A lot of calls are mental health-related when they don’t appear to be"
- Katherine Evans, a member of the co-responder program, referring to crimes like robberies

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Why is a system like Connecticut's co-responder program working?

- the program allows public safety dispatchers to send clinicians/social workers directly to a call
- clinicians/social workers can better assist someone with a mental crisis than a police officer with minimal training in that area
- this program works because there are multiple steps taken to make sure everyone is safe: the officer makes sure the situation is under control (the person has no weapons), then the clinician/social worker is able to step in and speak with the person involved

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How is Connecticut's co-responder program creating a safer space for all members of society?

- trained clinicians ride along with police officers
- more therapeutic policing
- officers can evaluate the feasibility and potential impact of using a social worker when responding to calls

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Relation of police reform in action to the main questions

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Relation of police reform in action to the main questions

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https://ctmirror.org/2020/12/24/should-social-workers-ride-with-police-this-connecticut-woman-does/

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Each workday morning at 6 a.m., Katharine "Kathy" Evans turns out for roll call at the Denver police department, to hear about overnight incidents, trends, announcements, plans for the day.

She then hops into a police car to begin a 12-hour shift. Her partner for the day is a patrol officer. She, however, does not wear a badge or carry a gun. She is a licensed clinical social worker.

Evans, a 28-year-old Connecticut native, is a member of Denver's four-year-old co-responder program, in which trained clinicians ride along with police officers, to offer varied assistance to distraught persons and keep many of them from being inappropriately corralled into the criminal justice system.

In a year when the police killings of George Floyd and others have given rise to massive demonstrations and demands for less confrontational and more therapeutic policing, the co-responder model is gaining interest and attention. Other cities have sent emissaries to study Denver's approach.

While Connecticut has a statewide crisis intervention program, albeit a different model than Denver's, last summer's major police reform bill included a provision that requires municipal departments to "evaluate the feasibility and potential impact of ... using social workers to respond to calls for assistance (either remotely or in person) or go with a police officer on calls where a social worker's experience and training could provide help." Reports are due in January.

New Haven already is building a program that will allow public safety dispatchers to send clinicians directly to a call.And a push has just begun to shift some 911 calls to the 211 system.

The Denver program, formally called Denver Crisis Intervention Response Unit, is a partnership between the Denver police department and The Mental Health Center of Denver, Evans's employer. The program deploys 21 clinicians over the city - 18, including Evans, with the police department and one each with the transportation district, sheriff's department and fire department - in two 12-hour shifts.

When I get to a call, I let the officer make sure the situation is safe. Once I know there's no concern about weapons, I am able to step in and speak with the person involved." - Kathy Evans

From where Kathy Evans sits, it works.

Evans grew up in West Hartford, graduating from Conard High School and then Connecticut College, where she studied psychology and human development. She went to the University of Denver for her masters in social work, picking the Mile High City in large part because her sister lived there.

After earning her MSW in 2016, she worked for two years in an elementary school. That was fine, but she got interested in crisis response and wanted to work in the community. She heard abut the co-responder program from a friend during - what else - an Ultimate Frisbee game.

Long day

After roll call, she is assigned to a patrol officer, and the team begins answering calls for service, which could be anything from a person threatening suicide to a burglary. "A lot of calls are mental health-related when they don't appear to be," she said in a recent telephone interview.

"When I get to a call, I let the officer make sure the situation is safe. Once I know there's no concern about weapons, I am able to step in and speak with the person involved in the situation ... and figure out what the presenting concerns are at that moment."

Once she gets the picture and discerns the person's needs, she formulates the next step, which might be counseling, a walk-in crisis center, hospitalization, substance misuse treatment or referrals to community organizations to help meet basic needs such as food or shelter. Some needs aren't readily apparent; she recently engaged a resident deeply distraught over the death of a partner and was able to call on a victim's advocate to handle death services.

She said people who are experiencing a crisis do not necessarily have a history of mental health concerns but said most could benefit from mental health support.As might have been predicted, the COVID-19 pandemic has stressed more people out. "Since the start of the pandemic, I have noticed an increase in mental health-related calls for people both with and without a history of mental health concerns," she said.

The co-responder program is keeping most of them out of the criminal justice system. Of the 2,263 persons engaged by the program's clinicians in 2019, only 2% were arrested and another 2% received a ticket or citation, Evans said.

And keeping people out of the criminal justice system saves money. In 2018, the Associated Press that the co-responder program in Boulder County, Colo,. cost about $600,000 but saved the community an estimated $3 million annually by reducing incarcerations. As the Rev. Jesse Jackson once observed, "It costs more to go to jail than to go to Yale."

Call the team

The need for social workers can be analogized to the saying about when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail.

As National Conference of State Legislatures blogger Amber Widgery it, people with mental illness are not more likely than anyone else to commit violent acts. "In fact, it is 10 times more likely that people with severe mental illness will be victims of a violent crime than the general population."

However, bystanders "frequently call 911 when a person near them experiences a mental-health crisis, making it much more likely that a person in crisis will encounter law enforcement officers than mental health professionals." If the officer is alone and not trained to deal with behavioral health crises, these confrontations can be dangerous.

This may partly explain why jails and prisons have a disproportionately high number of persons with mental health issues (see this released last summer by the Connecticut Sentencing Commission).

I don't think there's a cop anywhere who would disagree that it's good to have a social worker on some kinds of calls." - Brian J. Foley, former Hartford deputy police chief

The combined skills of the officer and the clinician create a different tool, a way to ease tense situations and connect people with behavioral health issues to appropriate services.

"I don't think there's a cop anywhere who would disagree that it's good to have a social worker on some kinds of calls," said Brian J. Foley, a former Hartford deputy police chief who now serves as executive assistant to state public safety commissioner James Rovella. Affirming Foley's point in a recent telephone interview with both officials, Rovella said a person in the throes of a mental health event often finds a civilian less intimidating than a uniformed and armed officer.

Different models

The cop-clinician team is not a new idea; departments around the country have experimented with it for years. Hartford, for example, had its own four-person crisis response team four decades ago. "They were a great asset," recalled former police chief Bernard Sullivan in a recent interview.

But the team dwindled, and Hartford now has a partnership with the state-run Capital Region Mental Health Center for crisis response assistance.

There are generally two approaches to clinical intervention: the Denver model, where an officer and a clinician ride together for a whole shift, and the crisis intervention team model, where a specialist is called to a scene and helps the officer handle the situation.

The latter model was brought to Connecticut two decades ago by New London police captain Ken Edwards. Currently, these are 18 mobile crisis intervention teams at state-run and nonprofit mental health facilities around the state, said Nydia Rios-Benitez of the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, which oversees the program. When needed they join a police officer at a scene; for example, Hartford officers can call in clinicians from the Capitol Region Mental Health Center.

While there are arguments for both approaches, they both achieve the goal of getting a clinician to a situation.

"They both work, they're both great," said Michael Lawlor, a lawyer and former legislator who served as undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning at the Office of Policy and Management under Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and now teaches criminal justice at the University of New Haven.

There are many things police do that don't require handcuffs and guns. For example, if you report a theft from a car, a uniform will come to write up a report. Why does it require a uniform? Why not trained crime scene investigators?" - Mike Lawlor, University of New Haven criminal justice professor

Another aspect of the state's program is training of individual officers. A nonprofit, the Connecticut Alliance to Benefit Law Enforcement or CABLE, offers a 32-hour program to teach officers to recognize a mental health situation, communicate with the individual in crisis and direct the person to appropriate resources.

CABLE was founded in 2003 after a person with severe mental illness was shot and badly wounded by a police officer is what was described as an attempted"suicide-by-cop" incident. Since 2004, CABLE has trained some 3,000 public safety officers, so by now most departments have trained officers, said CABLE's executive director Louise Pyers. The training is also offered to clinicians to acclimate them to police work.

Pyers said police training needs to be updated and advanced, to include mental health skill building and communication. Not doing so, she said, "does public safety officers a disservice."

Change coming

Lawlor thinks the new Congress will provide funds for new approaches to policing and that local departments "need to be thinking about how they can improve services."

His department is. Lawlor lives in New Haven and serves on the police commission.

He is helping implement a program announced last summer by Mayor Justin Elicker that will allow specially trained public safety dispatchers to send clinicians or health professionals - a community response team - directly to a call, if the situation warrants, instead of a police officer or ambulance.

The concept, based on programs in Eugene, Ore., and elsewhere, will usually not involve calls about crime or medical emergencies but rather calls about behavioral health, substance abuse or necessities such as food and shelter. Officials hope to roll out a one-year pilot program in mid-2021.

Another change in the early discussion stage is moving some non-emergency 911 calls to the 211 Connecticut system. Though not as well known as its 911 counterpart, the 211 helpline, run by The United Way of Connecticut, gets more than a million calls a year, on everything from mental and physical health care to food, transportation, employment, legal matters, child care and utilities.

Connecticut has a "gold standard" 211 system that is statewide, 24/7 and offers information and referrals as well as crisis services, said Lisa Tepper Bates, president and CEO of United Way of Connecticut. With additional resources - a bill has just been introduced in Congress to add funding for 211 systems - she thinks 211 can play a larger role, helping police and mental health providers.

Stonington Police Chief J. Darren Stewart, head of the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association, said moving some non-emergency calls to 211 could free up 911 for actual emergencies. "Now, we get 911 calls to ask if school's been called off," he said.

Bates, a Stonington resident and police commission member, said training officers in the resources available at 211 also could allow the officers to close out some 911 calls early and move on to the next call, by connecting the citizen to 211 services.

Stewart said the 211 idea is in the very early stages of discussion. He said it would require a major public information campaign, after decades of teaching the public to call 911, to move many of them to 211. "It would be a paradigm shift," he said.

Lawlor concurs that "only a small percentage of 911 calls are for public safety," and asked,"Can we find a better way to deal with these?" That might involve who responds to non-emergency calls.

"There are many things police do that don't require handcuffs and guns. For example, if you report a theft from a car, a uniform will come to write up a report. Why does it require a uniform? Why not trained crime scene investigators?"

He said if this task were shifted to civilians, as is done in some parts of the country, it would free uniformed officers to respond to dangerous situations - and would save money.

So Kathy Evans appears to have caught a wave; change is coming in policing. The work is demanding and challenging, she learns something from every engagement, and she loves it: "It's my dream job."

And she is bringing her expertise back to Connecticut. She is serving as a consultant to her alma mater, Connecticut College, which is planning to add a clinician to its campus police force.

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Should social workers ride with police? This Connecticut woman does

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Each workday morning at 6 a.m., Katharine "Kathy" Evans turns out for roll call at the Denver police department, to hear about overnight incidents, trends, announcements, plans for the day. She then hops into a police car to begin a 12-hour shift. Her partner for the day is a patrol officer.

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"Should social workers ride with police? This Connecticut woman does" (Tom Condon, The CT Journalism)

Katherine Evans, a member of Denver's "co-responder program" in Connecticut, rides along with police officers, "to offer varied assistance to distraught persons and keep many of them from being inappropriately corralled into the criminal justice system" (paragraph 3).

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Simply put, it is not the job of those in law enforcement to be social workers. It is the job of social workers to be social workers. 

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Simply put, it is not the job of those in law enforcement to be social workers. It is the job of social workers to be social workers. 

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Why does police reform create a safer space for all members of society?

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Why does police reform create a safer space for all members of society?

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https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1892714/

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tells the story of how why, where, and when they became two of the most corrupt cops in the New York Police Department's history. tells the story of how why, where, and when they became two of the most corrupt cops in the New York Police Department's history. tells the story of how why, where, and when they became two of the most corrupt cops in the New York Police Department's history.

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"Mobsters" Mafia Cops: Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa (TV Episode 2010) - IMDb

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Mafia Cops: Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa: With Tommy Beardmore, David Collins, Jake Kruse, John Lurie. tells the story of how why, where, and when they became two of the most corrupt cops in the New York Police Department's history.

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Former New York City Police Department (NYPD) detectives who worked on behalf of the Five Families of the American Mafia, principally the Lucchese and Gambino crime families, while they committed various illegal activities. The two became known as the "Mafia Cops".

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"Three Current and Former NYPD Officers Charged with Bribery"

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https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/three-current-and-former-nypd-officers-charged-bribery

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An indictment was unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn charging James Davneiro, Giancarlo Osma, and Michael Perri with one count of conspiracy to violate the Travel Act and one count of using interstate facilities to commit bribery. During the relevant period, Davneiro, Osma, and Perri were New York City Police Department ("NYPD") officers assigned to the 107th Precinct in Queens. Perri retired from the NYPD in June 2020.

The defendants were arrested this morning and are scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon before United States Magistrate Judge Lois Bloom.

Jacquelyn M. Kasulis, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Michael J. Driscoll Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI), and Dermot Shea, Commissioner, NYPD, announced the charges.

"As alleged in the indictment, these defendants disgraced their badges and betrayed the public trust and their oaths as police officers by lining their pockets with cash bribes," stated Acting U. S. Attorney Kasulis. "We will continue to root out and prosecute corruption by those who are sworn to enforce and uphold the law." Ms. Kasulis also thanked the National Insurance Crime Bureau for its assistance with the case.

"Accepting bribes as a law enforcement officer in lieu of following legal procedure is against the law and won't be tolerated. Those charged today aren't representative of the tens of thousands of men and women who serve the NYPD with honor day in and day out and, as such, will be held accountable for their alleged crime," stated FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Driscoll.

"The NYPD cleans its own house. Corruption is a crime and a violation of a police officer's sworn oath. This investigation is the third phase of an ongoing case where our Internal Affairs Bureau investigators left no stone unturned. I want to thank our FBI partners from the Public Corruption Unit, and the prosecutors of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York who have helped guide this case throughout," stated NYPD Commissioner Shea.

Beginning in approximately May 2020, after Davneiro and Osma responded as NYPD officers to automobile accidents, they would steer the damaged vehicles to a licensed tow trucking and automobile repair business operated by Perri, instead of using the NYPD's Directed Accident Response Program, as legally required. That program requires the NYPD to identify appropriate licensed tow trucking and automobile repair businesses to respond to automobile accident scenes and remove damaged vehicles. In exchange for steering the removal and repair of damaged vehicles to Perri's business, Perri paid Davneiro and Osma thousands of dollars in cash bribes.

The charges in the indictment are merely allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. If convicted, the defendants face up to five years in prison.

The government's case is being prosecuted by the Office's Public Integrity Section. Assistant United States Attorneys Ryan C. Harris and Olatokunbo Olaniyan are in charge of the prosecution.

JAMES DAVNEIRO
Age: 42
Bayside, New York

GIANCARLO OSMA
Age: 39
Deer Park, New York

MICHAEL PERRI
Age: 32
East Islip, New York

E.D.N.Y. Docket No. 21-CR-508 (RPK)

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Three Current and Former NYPD Officers Charged with Bribery

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An indictment was unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn charging James Davneiro, Giancarlo Osma, and Michael Perri with one count of conspiracy to violate the Travel Act and one count of using interstate facilities to commit bribery.

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In addition to racial disparity, corruption within law enforcement plays a big factor in how safe a community feels and how much a community can trust a police department. 

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In addition to racial disparity, corruption within law enforcement plays a big factor in how safe a community feels and how much a community can trust a police department. 

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Safer America Plan: funding jobs for 100,000 additional police officers across the nation in an effort to give them "additional resources" (President Biden)

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Safer America Plan: funding jobs for 100,000 additional police officers across the nation in an effort to give them "additional resources" (President Biden)

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https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/01/fact-sheet-president-bidens-safer-america-plan-2/

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President Biden knows what works to make our communities safer: investing in community policing andcrime prevention. We need to fund police who walk the beat, know the neighborhood, are accountable to those they are sworn to serve, and build community trust and safety. We need to invest in mental health and substance use treatment services, crisis responders, and social workers to reduce the burden on police officers, connect people with community resources, and prevent violent crime. We need to expand community violence interventions - led by trusted messengers breaking the cycle of violence and trauma. We need to enforce our commonsense gun laws, require background checks for all gun sales in order to keep firearms out of the hands of felons and domestic abusers, and ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines - weapons of war that have no place in our communities.

President Biden has taken action to make our communities safer during his first 18 months in office. He has funded the police and issued an Executive Order to improve police accountability. President Biden has taken more executive action to tackle gun violence than any other president at this point in their Administration, including by reining in the proliferation of ghost guns and cracking down on gun traffickers and rogue gun dealers. President Biden is the first president in nearly 30 years to bring together Members of Congress from both parties to take action on gun violence, signing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The President also secured Senate confirmation of career prosecutor Steve Dettelbach to serve as Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), empowering this law enforcement agency with its first confirmed leader since 2015. And, the President has made unprecedented investments in community-led crime prevention and intervention.

The President believes we can and must do more to reduce crime and save lives. On July 21, President Biden announced his Safer America Plan to build on the progress he has made to reduce gun violence.

Today, the President is providing greater details regarding the Safer America Plan. President Biden's fiscal year 2023 budget requests a fully paid-for new investment of approximately $35 billion to support law enforcement and crime prevention - in addition to the President's $2 billion discretionary request for these same programs. The Safer America Plan details how this $37 billion will be used to save lives and make communities safer.

Specifically, the Plan:

1. Funds the police and promotes effective prosecution of crimes affecting families today, including by funding 100,000 additional police officers who will be recruited, trained, hired, and supervised consistent with the standards in the President's Executive Order to advance effective, accountable community policing in order to enhance trust and public safety;

2. Invests in crime prevention and a fairer criminal justice system, including by investing $20 billion in services that address the causes of crime and reduce the burdens on police so they can focus on violent crime, and by incentivizing the reform of laws that increase incarceration without redressing public safety;

3. Takes additional commonsense steps on guns to keep dangerous firearms out of dangerous hands, including by calling on Congress to require background checks for all gun sales and ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

1. Fund the Police and Promote Effective Prosecution of Crimes Affecting Families Today

Fund the Police with the Resources They Need For Effective, Accountable Community Policing
As President Biden said during his State of the Union Address, "We should all agree the answer is not to defund the police. It's to fund the police. Fund them with the resources and training they need to protect our communities." We cannot abandon our streets, and we should not have to choose between safety, public trust, and equal justice. Instead, we can protect our communities and restore trust by investing in accountable, equitable, evidence-based, constitutional policing and other law enforcement practices. In May 2022 President Biden signed an Executive Order on Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety(Executive Order 14074), which advances effective, accountable community policing in order to enhance trust and public safety. Through the Executive Order, the President mandated policing reforms and best practices for federal law enforcement officials. President Biden's Safer America Plan would not only increase funding for police across the country-it would also extend the Executive Order's reforms and best practices to state and local law enforcement. The Plan will:

Put 100,000 additional officers for effective accountable, community policing on our streets. The Safer America Plan will provide the investment necessary to recruit, train, support, and manage 100,000 additional police officers for effective, accountable community policing over the next five years. Specifically, the Plan calls on Congress to appropriate $10.877 billion in mandatory funding over five years for the COPS Hiring Program, which, combined with the President's discretionary funding proposal for this program, will fully fund this goal with $12.817 billion in total. These funds will be used to get officers out of their stations and squad cars and into the community, walking the beat on foot patrols that have been shown to enhance officer morale, improve community relations, and have a deterrent effect on crime.

These new funds will incentivize state and local police departments to undertake commonsense reforms the President required of federal law enforcement agencies in May in Executive Order 14074. These reforms include banning chokeholds and carotid holds except where deadly force is authorized; training officers in de-escalation tactics to prevent the unnecessary use of force; restricting the use of no-knock warrants; requiring that body cameras be activated when conducting arrests and searches and when on patrol; submitting data to the new National Law Enforcement Accountability Database that the Justice Department will create; and undertaking other consensus reforms. We will also prioritize funding for officers that are representative of the communities they are sworn to serve (including recruits who live in or are from the community), and we will require that officers hired with federal funds be properly screened, including to ensure that they do not have a history of termination or resignation under investigation for serious misconduct from another police department.

Support state, local, Tribal, and territorial officers with the high-quality training the President has already mandated at the federal level by the Executive Order. Training varies widely across states and across law enforcement agencies. The Plan will fund training that enhances accountability, transparency, and the well-being of state and local officers and the communities they are sworn to serve. That includes an infusion of resources to enhance evidence-based training of law enforcement on topics including crime control and deterrence tactics, community engagement, use of force, interacting with people with disabilities, responding to persons in mental health crisis and to domestic violence calls, responding to First Amendment protected public protest activity, and more. The Plan will also fund the purchase and operation of body-worn cameras. The Plan calls on Congress to appropriate $1 billion over five years for these purposes. These funds will also be used to incentivize state and local law enforcement agencies to implement reforms such as those discussed above that the President required of federal law enforcement agencies in Executive Order 14074.

Recruit and retain police officers who demonstrate a commitment to honorably serving and protecting. We ask police to put their lives on the line to keep us and our loved ones safe. Front-line officers and chiefs around the country have made clear that we need to do more to recruit and retain officers who honorably serve as guardians of their communities. We also need to support agencies in developing flexible employment opportunities so that the profession meets the needs of a 21 st century workforce and can continue to attract the best candidates at the state and local level who will meet and exceed the effective, accountable community policing standards mandated for federal law enforcement in the Executive Order. To attract and retain this high-quality workforce, President Biden's Safer America Plan will fund bonuses for retention; provide student loan repayment, tuition reimbursement, and higher education grant programs to incentivize service-minded candidates, including women and individuals from underrepresented communities, to become officers; support pilot programs to explore more flexibility in scheduling and work arrangements; and expand mental health and wellness care for our police officers. The Plan calls on Congress to appropriate $750 million over five years for these purposes, and require that grant recipients report to the Attorney General and make public any use of funds to pay bonuses.

Ensure that new resources for law enforcement reach not only our biggest cities but also our small cities and towns. Smaller agencies often lack the personnel and resources to stay abreast of the latest evidence-based practices in policing, and lack internal capacity to identify and access grant and high-quality training opportunities. The Safer America Plan will set aside a minimum of $300 million per year of the funding described above to exclusively support small law enforcement agencies.
Clear Court Backlogs and Solve Murders So We Can Take Shooters and Other Violent Criminals Off the Streets
A small number of individuals are responsible for a disproportionate share of homicides and gun violence in our cities. The federal government will help state and local law enforcement in cities across the country take these criminals off our streets - and keep them off our streets. That's why the President's Fiscal Year 2023 budget proposal includes funding to ensure that federal law enforcement can show up and support state and local law enforcement. For example, the President's budget request includes $2.8 billion for the U.S. Attorney's Offices, an increase of 15% over FY22 enacted. This funding will increase the number of attorneys in these offices by 10%, increasing the federal government's capacity to ramp up prosecutions of people who commit shootings and other violent crimes. The President's budget also includes funding to hire 195 Deputy U.S. Marshals to help state and local law enforcement take violent fugitives off our streets, and nearly 100 additional administrative staff to relieve administrative burdens currently placed on Deputy U.S. Marshals so they can be re-deployed to the field full time.

In February, the Attorney General directed U.S. Attorneys to increase resources dedicated to district-specific violent crime strategies, such as New York City's Gun Violence Strategic Partnership. The Safer America Plan will provide the federal government and cities with additional resources to support these strategies.

The Plan calls on Congress to appropriate $2.67 billion over five years for the following purposes:

Provide communities with funding they need to set up task forces to bring down the homicide and gun violence rate. These task forces will regularly convene federal, state, and local law enforcement to share intelligence, especially on repeat shooters, and coordinate efforts to successfully arrest, detain, and prosecute individuals committing homicides and gun violence. This funding will help police departments in communities to: hire critical personnel, including a task force coordinator, additional forensic analysts, and staff to write and process warrants for individuals suspected of committing violent crimes; pay for overtime and hire additional law enforcement officers, as needed, to execute on the work of the task force; provide life-saving equipment for officers in the field, like bullet-proof vests; and purchase forensic equipment and materials to analyze DNA, fingerprints, and data from bodycams, CCTV, and social media, while respecting privacy interests and civil rights. The Plan will also authorize the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Marshals Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, and U.S. Attorney's Offices) to hire additional personnel to staff these task forces.

Equip communities with additional technology and personnel they need to quickly identify and investigate shooting incidents and image every bullet or casing recovered in the city and enhance the capacity of ATF to make ballistic matches. Additional resources for these cities include National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN) ballistics imaging machines and personnel needed to operate these machines, acoustic gunshot detection technology, gunshot residue forensics technology and analyst staff, and firearm forensics evidence collection technicians. The Plan will also call on Congress to authorize significant enhancement of ATF's National NIBIN Correlation and Training Center to expand the number of jurisdictions it services.

Clear court backlogs and improve pretrial supervision in order to improve public safety. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented backlog in courts' processing of criminal cases, with courts forced to delay or dismiss cases due to lack of capacity. We need to ensure courts have the resources to fully and fairly assess people accused of crimes and detain those who are too dangerous to be released to the community, consistent with due process requirements; to process cases and ensure accountability for criminal conduct; and to effectively supervise people upon release. The Safer America Plan invests in the technology and data systems modernization necessary to ensure that the justice system runs efficiently and with the most current data, such as case management systems that effectively integrate pre-trial services, judicial, and law enforcement records; virtual access and notification systems to facilitate remote check-ins and hearings as appropriate and beneficial for all involved; or scheduling software to manage the increased volume of cases. The Plan also provides emergency funding to support pretrial and post-conviction supervision staffing and systems, ensuring that persons on release are appropriately monitored and given assistance with the employment, health, and housing services that are shown to prevent recidivism.
Crack Down on Other Serious Crimes Affecting Families Today
The Safer America Plan includes several legislative fixes needed to address emerging crime trends, target resources at violent crime, and support commonsense criminal justice reform. To crack down on serious crime, the Plan will:

Impose tough penalties on all forms of fentanyl. Over 100,000 people have died from drug overdoses in the past 12 months, many of them from the synthetic opioid fentanyl. The federal government regulates fentanyl as a Schedule I drug, meaning it is subject to strict regulations and criminal penalties. But drug suppliers have found a loophole: they can easily alter the chemical structure of fentanyl-creating "fentanyl related substances"-to enhance the drug's psychoactive properties and try to evade regulation of fentanyl. The Drug Enforcement Administration and Congress temporarily closed this loophole, but it will reopen in January 2023 unless Congress acts. The Safer America Plan includes the Administration's 2021 proposal to permanently schedule all fentanyl related substances into Schedule I so traffickers of these deadly substances face the penalties they deserve.

Crack down on organized retail theft. Late 2021 saw an increase in high-profile incidents of organized retail theft around the country. In these incidents, crime rings recruit people to storm a brick-and-mortar store together and quickly steal high-value products for resale online. To recruit people to perpetrate the thefts and the resale, these organized theft rings typically target minors, individuals under financial duress, and individuals with substance use disorders. To tackle organized retail theft, the plan calls on Congress to pass legislation to require online marketplaces, such as Amazon, to verify third-party sellers' information, and to impose liability on online marketplaces for the sale of stolen goods on their platforms.
2. Invest in Crime Prevention and A Fairer Criminal Justice System Fund Other Services to Address the Causes of Crime and Reduce the Burdens on Police Officers
Today, police are too often asked to respond to situations that require a mental health care provider or a social worker, not law enforcement.

When it comes to mental health, we know that people experiencing mental health challenges are more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators of a violent crime. Policing is not the answer to these challenges - fully funded mental health and substance use disorder services and supports are the answer. That's why the Biden Administration has put forward a plan to transform how the nation understands and treats mental health needs. As just one piece of this plan, this July the Biden Administration launched the 988 crisis response line so people experiencing suicidal ideation or another behavioral health crisis can reach out for emergency help from a health professional instead of calling 911. The President's Fiscal Year 2023 budget also requests an additional $700 million to expand crisis centers and crisis response so people experiencing a behavioral health crisis have a place to call and a place to go.

The Safer America Plan further expands the prevention and intervention strategies we know will reduce violent crime and ease the burden on police officers so they can focus on policing. This includes:

Helping states, cities, Tribes, and territories advance prevention strategies and invest in mental health, substance use disorder, homelessness and other services to prevent crime and reduce the burden on police. The Plan establishes a new $15 billion over 10 years Accelerating Justice System Reform grant program that jurisdictions can use to advance strategies that will 1) prevent violent crime and/or 2) ease the burden on police officers so they do not have to respond to non-violent situations that may not merit police intervention. Doing so not only enhances public safety, but also delivers evidence-based criminal justice reform that advances racial equity. For example, jurisdictions may choose to use these funds to:

Expand drug courts that divert individuals charged with drug possession alone into mandatory treatment and harm reduction services instead of incarceration, as well as other alternative courts such as mental health courts and veterans courts;

Expand co-responder or alternate responder programs so calls that should be answered by mental health or substance use disorder providers or social workers - alone or in partnership with police - are not solely the responsibility of law enforcement;

Increase mental health and substance use disorder services, including by training existing professionals to become certified in cognitive behavioral therapy (which helps people improve their response to stress and reduce impulsivity), trauma-informed therapy, and other evidence-based treatments effective at addressing mental health problems, disruptive behaviors, and exposure to or risk of violence;

Support teenagers and young adults with paid jobs during the summer and school year, out-of-school enrichment programs, and mentoring;

Support built environmental improvement and design strategies proven to reduce violent crime in high-risk neighborhoods (for example, improved lighting in priority areas, crafting safe passage routes for students to walk to school, and vacant and/or abandoned lot and building remediation);

Provide housing and other supportive social services to individuals who are homeless, including those displaced due to victimization; and

Increasing job training, employment, housing, and other stabilizing services and opportunities for people returning home from jail and prison.

In addition, in order to receive these critical grants, jurisdictions must repeal mandatory minimums for non-violent crimes and change other laws that contribute to increased incarceration rates without making our communities safer. The Plan calls on Congress to appropriate $14.7 billion in mandatory funding for this new program, which will add on to the $300 million request in the President's FY23 discretionary budget to fully fund this effort.

Expand community violence interventions with $5 billion over 10 years. The Plan appropriates $5 billion to expand and build the capacity of focused deterrence, violence interruption, and hospital-based programs.Community violence intervention (CVI) programs are effective because they leverage trusted messengers who work directly with individuals most likely to engage in or be victimized by gun violence, intervene in conflicts, and connect people to social, health and wellness, and economic services to reduce the likelihood of violence as an answer to conflict.
Reform Our Justice System
To support commonsense criminal justice reform, the Safer America Plan will:

End the crack-powder disparity and make the fix retroactive. The Safer America Plan calls on Congress to end once and for all the racially discriminatory sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine offenses-as President Biden first advocated in 2007-and make that change fully retroactive. This step would provide immediate sentencing relief to the 10,000 individuals, more than 90 percent of whom are Black, currently serving time in federal prison pursuant to the crack/powder disparity.

Help formerly incarcerated individuals successfully reenter society. The Safer America Plan lifts almost all restrictions on eligibility and access to vital federal benefits and programs that people need to get back on their feet after serving their time and leaving incarceration. For example:

Federal law currently includes a lifetime ban on eligibility for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits for people with prior drug felonies. States can modify or waive the ban, but restrictions remain across the country. The Safer America Plan calls on Congress to repeal the federal ban, nullifying state laws and regulations restricting eligibility based on conviction history, and to allow people to begin applying for benefits during the last 30 days of their incarceration. This would help Americans returning home make ends meet for their families and increase public safety. According to a 2017 Harvard study, access to SNAP and TANF benefits reduces the risk of reincarceration within one year by 10%.

Currently, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) payments are suspended during incarceration and terminate when incarceration exceeds 12 months. Although SSI allows people to apply 30 days pre-release, many are not aware of their ability to apply or cannot access the resources to do so, and SSDI allows applications only one month after release. The Safer America Plan would suspend rather than terminate SSI and SSDI during incarceration, automatically restart payments upon release, and allow new applicants to apply for SSI and SSDI benefits 90 days before release.

The Plan calls on Congress to eliminate the ban on paying for health services during the last 30 days of a person's incarceration. This would help Medicaid beneficiaries returning home from jail or prison begin the transition to community care before release.

In addition, as part of the $15 billion Accelerating Justice System Reform grant program described above, states, cities, Tribes, and territories may use funding to provide the following services for individuals who are formerly or currently incarcerated: mental health and substance use disorder treatment, GED programs, and training and employment opportunities.

Promote commonsense reforms in the states. As noted above, the new $15 billion Accelerating Justice System Reform grant program will not only support crime prevention strategies; it will also incentivize state criminal justice reforms such as repealing mandatory minimums for non-violent crimes

3. Take Additional Commonsense Steps to Keep Dangerous Guns out of Dangerous Hands

After decades of congressional inaction, President Biden made historic progress with bipartisan support from Congress. In June, the President signed into law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which will help keep dangerous guns out of dangerous hands. For example, the new law provides states with $750 million to invest in crisis interventions, including extreme risk protection order laws, and it requires enhanced background checks for gun purchasers under the age of 21. Earlier this month, Congress confirmed Steve Dettelbach to serve as Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), empowering this law enforcement agency with the confirmed leader it has lacked since 2015. Earlier this year, President Biden signed into law the NICS Denial Notification Act, which was included in the Violence Against Women (VAWA) reauthorization and requires federal officials to notify state and local law enforcement when individuals who are legally prohibited from purchasing firearms fail a background check through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

But, when it comes to commonsense action to reduce gun crime, Congress has more work to do.Congress needs to give ATF the resources it needs to crack down on gun traffickers and gun dealers willfully violating the law.Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice launched five gun-trafficking strike forces to support state and local law enforcement in efforts to stop the trafficking of firearms across state lines. The President's Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 budget proposes $1.7 billion in discretionary funding - a 13% increase over the FY22 enacted level - for ATF to enforce our commonsense gun laws. This funding will be used to:

Hire more than 140 new agents, intel analysts, and other personnel, including personnel to staff the multijurisdictional gun trafficking strike forces the Justice Department launched last year. These strike forces crack down on significant firearms trafficking corridors like the Iron Pipeline - the illegal flow of guns sold in the south, transported up the East Coast, and found at crime scenes in cities from Baltimore to New York City.

Hire 160 new investigators to help ensure that Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) and manufacturers comply with the law. These investigators will help carry out the Department of Justice's new policy, announced last year, of zero tolerance, absent extraordinary circumstances, for certain willful violations of the law by federally licensed firearms dealers that put public safety at risk.

Add 16 new positions to provide NIBIN correlation reviews and training for state and local law enforcement agencies nationwide. The NIBIN database holds millions of digital images of ballistics from crime scenes. A NIBIN search can link seemingly unrelated scenes, thereby making connections and filling in gaps to help law enforcement identify and hold shooters accountable.

Increase by more than 40% the funding for the National Tracing Center, which more than 8,400 law enforcement agencies across the United States use to trace firearms found at crime scenes. Funding will be used to upgrade technology and hire additional personnel.

In addition, the Safer America Plan includes the following measures, which would fully align with the Second Amendment:

Keep guns out of dangerous hands. The federal gun background check system is the best tool we have to keep guns out of the hands of people currently prohibited under federal law from purchasing these weapons - including felons and domestic abusers.The Plan will strengthen the background check system by requiring background checks for all gun sales, with limited exceptions. In addition, the Plan will close the terrorist, dating violence restraining order, stalking, and Charleston loopholes in our existing gun background check system, which make it easier for violent criminals to purchase firearms. And, the Plan will establish a national extreme risk protection order program and require safe storage of firearms.

Keeping especially dangerous firearms out of our communities. The Plan will ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. In addition, it will ban the manufacture, sale, or possession of unserialized firearms, often referred to as "ghost guns."

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FACT SHEET: President Biden's Safer America Plan | The White House

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President Biden knows what works to make our communities safer: investing in community policing andcrime prevention. We need to fund police who walk the beat, know the neighborhood, are accountable to those they are sworn to serve, and build community trust and safety. We need to invest in mental health and substance use treatment services,...

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https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/15/what-it-actually-means-to-defund-the-police.html

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What it actually means to ‘defund the police’

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Some activists would like to divert funding for police departments to other government services, like mental health care and education. But opponents say it would make communities less safe.

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Police first responders who are not necessarily trained to handle social issues including domestic violence, substance abuse, homelessness, or a mental health crisis effectively

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Police first responders who are not necessarily trained to handle social issues including domestic violence, substance abuse, homelessness, or a mental health crisis effectively

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https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/justice-and-prison-reform/cpcj-police-reform.html

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United Nations : Office on Drugs and Crime

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Human rights based, democratic and diverse police and other law enforcement are core institutions for preventing and combating crime and maintaining the rule of law. They often represent the first responders to crime. Their contact with offenders, victims and witnesses may impact the entire experience of the criminal justice system and access to justice of those affected by crime. They also play a key role in ensuring high-quality evidence-based investigations and case files which allow for successful prosecution and trials including those concerning organized crime, terrorism and corruption cases. This crucial duty often places police officers in a vulnerable position to corruption, as criminals may offer bribes in an attempt to circumvent the law. For this reason and because achieving public trust is key to effective policing, it is important to enhance police integrity and to effectively manage corruption risks within the institution. Indeed, only if people trust the police and regard them as legitimate they will be willing to cooperate and comply with their instructions, enabling the police to succeed in performing their functions.

Police and other law enforcement officials have the authority to use force, in situations where it is necessary to achieve a legitimate law enforcement objective. However, such use of force should always respect a State's obligations under international law, which include conditions imposed by international human rights law, included in treaties or recognized as customary international law. The police must be accountable for the way in which they exercise the powers entrusted to them. Diversity in policing includes representation of all genders and minorities within the population. Where the community is represented and fully engaged in and consulted on the delivery of police services, many benefits accrue, such as the strengthening of public confidence in the authorities, improved compliance with the rule of law, and lower crime rates.

In line with the Secretary-General's t Call to Action for Human Rights, UNODC must keep human rights principles at the forefront of supporting SDG implementation and increase its support to Member States in building and strengthening their human rights institutions and accountability mechanisms, and in making fuller use of existing United Nations human rights tools. Such assistance in police reform will allow Member States to better comply with their obligations under main human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and he United Nations Convention against Torture while improving the efficiency of their investigations and law enforcement institutions. The United Nations standards and norms in crime prevention and criminal justice , provide an important benchmark for measuring the functioning of criminal justice systems, including law enforcement agencies. UNODC has at its core the mandate to assist Member States in using and applying the following standards in the area of police reform:
Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials (General Assembly resolution 34/169, annex, of 17 December 1979) Guidelines for the Effective Implementation of the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials (Economic and Social Council resolution 1989/61, annex, of 24 May 1989) Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials (Eighth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, Havana, 27 August - 7 September 1990)
UNODC is also bound by the Human Rights Due Diligence Policy on United Nations Support to Non-United Nations Security Forces, which requires all United Nations entities to be diligent in ensuring that support to non-UN security forces is provided in a manner that is consistent with the purposes and principles as set out in the Charter of the United Nations, and is compliant with and promotes respect for international humanitarian, human rights and refugee law.

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Human rights based, democratic and diverse police and other law enforcement are core institutions for preventing and combating crime and maintaining the rule of law. They often represent the first responders to crime. Their contact with offenders, victims and witnesses may impact the entire experience of the criminal justice system and access to justice of those affected by crime.

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Diversity/representation of all genders and minorities within the population of police officers offers a solution to the issue of racial disparity. 

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Diversity/representation of all genders and minorities within the population of police officers offers a solution to the issue of racial disparity. 

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The police must be accountable for the way in which they exercise the powers entrusted to them.

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The police must be accountable for the way in which they exercise the powers entrusted to them.

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Because police prioritize drug- and poverty-based crimes in communities of color, they are more likely to encounter and use force against Black people — no matter the suspected offense

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Because police prioritize drug- and poverty-based crimes in communities of color, they are more likely to encounter and use force against Black people — no matter the suspected offense

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/police-shootings-non-fatal/?itid=sf_Investigations_unaccountable_p001_f001

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UNACCOUNTABLE
Untallied nationally, the shootings leave those who survive with injuries, emotional trauma and legal fallout.

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The way Kenneth Gilbert Jr. and his father tell the story, it had been a busy morning running errands in east Atlanta when their pickup was suddenly cut off by a dark truck and forced onto the curb.

Once Gilbert Sr. got back on the road, he said, the truck swerved back into their lane. Gilbert Sr. said he hit the gas and sped around it, making a sweeping motion with his hand as he shouted at the driver to "move over."

Gilbert Sr. said that as he slowed for the next stoplight, he saw the truck catching up - and a gun pointing at him from its passenger window. He yelled for his son to get down as a bullet shattered one of their rear windows and struck Gilbert Sr. in the head.

Gilbert Jr. then grabbed his gun, which he legally owned, from the floorboard of the pickup and returned fire. He, too, was shot in the head.

Moreland Avenue SE and Arkwright Place SE in Atlanta on Sept. 9. This was the scene of a shooting involving an Atlanta police officer on March 19, 2019, in which two people suffered bullet wounds. (Elijah Nouvelage for The Washington Post)

Both survived. And both insist they had no idea that the man shooting at them was an Atlanta police officer riding in an unmarked SWAT vehicle. The department would later say that Officer Scott Oliver, who was unharmed, opened fire only after seeing the younger Gilbert load and point a gun. The officer said he ordered Gilbert Jr. to drop it.

After an initial burst of media attention, the March 13, 2019, shootings quickly faded from the headlines.

Although The Washington Post has documented nearly 1,000 fatal police shootings nationwide every year, there is no comprehensive data on incidents in which officers shoot and wound someone.

That has made it difficult not only to know how often this happens, but also to hold departments and officers accountable.

"That kind of information is necessary to develop strategies to reduce officer-involved shootings," said Chuck Wexler, who runs the nonprofit Police Executive Research Forum, adding that nonfatal police shootings deserve just as much scrutiny as fatal ones. "What matters is it was a shooting, whether they died or not. The real question is, what can we learn from that?"

To help fill this gap, The Post and Berkeley Journalism's Investigative Reporting Program filed public records requests for information about nonfatal shootings from every department with five or more deadly police shootings from 2015 through 2020.

Analysis of data obtained from 156 departments found that in addition to the 2,137 people killed in fatal shootings, officers in those departments shot and wounded 1,609 more.

In other words, for every five people shot and killed by police in these departments, four others were shot and survived.

This is the unseen reality of police use of deadly force in the United States: a hidden population whose circumstances largely echo those in fatal shootings but who survive to grapple with a lifetime of debilitating wounds, emotional trauma and legal fallout.

Because The Post examined incidents only in the deadliest departments, the tally of those wounded by police is undoubtedly far higher.

In some cities, woundings heavily outnumbered fatal shootings. The New York Police Department had 87 nonfatal shootings compared with 43 fatal ones. In Chicago, police wounded 63 people and killed 38. The Atlanta Police Department, one of whose officers shot the Gilberts, had the largest disparity of any department examined, wounding three times as many people as it killed: 40 nonfatal police shootings since 2015, compared with 13 fatal shootings in that period.

America stands out in comparison with other nations for its prevalence of guns. Police are trained to anticipate that anyone they encounter may have a gun and pose a threat. Experts note that officers are trained to shoot when they perceive a serious, imminent threat to themselves or someone else - and to shoot at "center mass" until that threat subsides.

Police in New York and Atlantadeclined to comment.

The Chicago Police Department said in a statement that it has updated its use-of-force policies in recent years to "prioritize the sanctity of human life" and that it regularly reviews officers' use of force to recommend policy and training changes. "The Chicago Police Department is committed to treating all individuals fairly and respectfully."

The Post data revealed that these incidents also can pose a threat to police: Officers were shot in about 7 percent of all fatal and nonfatal shootings examined.

The information that departments provided to The Post about their nonfatal shootings varied.

Some shared case notes, including demographic and narrative information, while others provided just a raw number of shootings - complicating efforts to conduct a thorough analysis.

In cases where detailed information was available, the circumstances in which people were wounded by police gunfire largely paralleled those in fatal shootings at the same departments: Nearly all of those shot and wounded were men, and many struggled with addiction, homelessness and poverty. At least 1 in 5 were experiencing mental health crises, and police said most were armed with guns when the shootings occurred.

The racial disparity in nonfatal shootings, however, was more pronounced than in fatal shootings across the departments studied: Black residents accounted for 16 percent of the combined population policed by these departments, but they represented 30 percent of those fatally shot by police and 41 percent of those shot and wounded. Officers in The Post's sample shot nearly the exact number of Black people (1,109) as they did White people (1,111) - although these communities have nearly three times as many combined White residents as they do Black ones.

Jim Pasco, the longtime executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, the largest union representing rank-and-file officers across the country, said that officers are not to blame for racial disparities in police use of force, although racial bias on the part of some individual officers may contribute to the overrepresentation of Black people who are shot and wounded by police in The Post's data.

"Police officers are deployed where the crime is, and crime is usually a lot more likely to occur in poor communities, underserved communities, and underrepresented communities, and so that's where they are, and those communities, sadly, tend to be people of color," Pasco said.

"What we've got to talk about is why that neighborhood is the way it is, and why Black people are stuck there without economic opportunity, good education or anything else."

Phillip Atiba Goff, who leads Yale University's African American studies department and is one of the nation's foremost policing-data experts, said the racial disparities documented by The Post across the 156 departments align with research conducted by his Center for Policing Equity.

Goff said that because police prioritize drug- and poverty-based crimes in communities of color, they are more likely to encounter and use force against Black people - no matter the suspected offense. "We've chosen a set of things to criminalize, we've chosen a group of people to have constant police interactions, and those folks are the same folks who have historically been our most vulnerable," he said.

The Post's analysis of shootings at the 156 departments also found that Black people shot by police more often survived (46 percent) than White people (34 percent). Policing experts said that whether someone survives a police shooting often depends on a combination of variables - how many bullets strike the person and where on the body, how quickly medical aid is rendered, and luck.

Fredrick Harris Jr. shows scars resulting from being shot by an officer of the Fremont Police Department in California in March 2018. (Brian Howey for The Washington Post)

In fatal shootings, the police account is the first and sometimes only record of what happened. When people survive, there's an opportunity to hear another side of the story - one that sometimes contradicts the police account.

Consider the case of Shacory Daniels and Fredrick Harris Jr. in San Leandro, Calif. The men were shot by police in March 2018. Their story and the account offered by the police differ on a critical point: whether the men were armed.

By their own admission, Daniels and Harris had been breaking into cars. When officers caught up with them in a San Leandro mall parking lot, two unmarked police cars blocked in their car.

That's when, police said, Daniels drove at them - prompting another officer to ram into Daniels with an unmarked police van. Amid the chaos, police say, an officer saw Harris reach toward the center console of the vehicle in which he was a passenger.

"I see him come up and I see a black object come up towards the passenger side window and basically thrust in my direction," Fremont police officer Jamil Roberts, who was driving the police van, would later tell police investigators. "I thought I was gonna be shot and hurt seriously, killed."

Roberts fired through his vehicle's driver side window, striking Harris in the back, arm and face, and hitting Daniels in one calf. Harris was arrested at the scene. Daniels fled and hid in nearby bushes for several hours before police found him.

On the advice of his attorney, Harris declined to discuss details of the incident with The Post, although he did talk about his injuries and the aftermath of the case. In a videotaped interview between Harris and investigators obtained by The Post, he tolddetectives he put his hands up before Roberts shot him.

Gregory Fox, an attorney representing Roberts, said that one of the officers said he saw Daniels drop and then pick up and run away with a "metallic object." No weapon was found in the car or at the scene. Both men insist they were unarmed.

In an interview with The Post, Daniels, 35, said an unmarked car rammed him and he tried to swerve away, not realizing it was the police."Yes, we was doing something bad," Daniels said. "It wasn't [bad] enough for you to shoot us."

The men were among 12 people shot by Fremont Police Department officers from 2015 to 2020. Four others survived, and six were killed. The department declined to comment on the shooting, as did the nearby San Leandro Police Department, whose officers investigated the shooting. Both departments found that Roberts had violated no administrative policies.

Harris was charged with second-degree burglary of a vehicle, a misdemeanor, and for violating his parole related to two prior burglary charges on his record. Daniels was charged with four counts of assault on a police officer, felony evading arrest and second-degree burglary.

Daniels's attorney, Chike Odiwe, said that in this case and in many police shootings that he has handled, police and prosecutors sometimes file more serious charges to ensure that the person police shot agrees to a plea deal or settlement.

Defense attorneys say they often advise their clients to avoid the media, so as not to anger prosecutors.

It would be unethical for prosecutors to consider a police department's civil liability when considering criminal charges, said Greg Totten, the chief executive of the California District Attorneys Association.

He said prosecutors may feel pressure to bring serious charges in cases in which police have shot and wounded someone.

But, he added: "No DA should be filing a charge that he or she does not think can be proven beyond reasonable doubt. It's not at all uncommon for someone to be arrested and charged by police, and it's presented to the DA, and the DA's office decides to file something less serious."

Ultimately, the Alameda County district attorney dropped all of the charges against Daniels except for evading arrest, for which he received probation. He also served 18 months in prison for violating his parole by being arrested.

Harris served four days in jail followed by three years of probation. Bullets remain lodged in his face and back, he said. He later sued the Fremont Police Department and reached a settlement in which he was paid $600,000, city records show. In exchange, Harris said, he agreed not to discuss the details of the case publicly.

The district attorney's office declined to comment on the case.

Daniels also sued, and his lawsuit is pending. He repairs roads for CalTrans, the state agency that manages California's highway system. He said that his leg aches when he works and that he can no longer play basketball with his 11-year-old son. But Daniels said he is glad finally to be telling his story.

"If you shot somebody and it was wrong, then that needs to be acknowledged and not just slipped up under the rug," he said.

Such encounters endanger police as well. Out of the 3,746 fatal and nonfatal police shootings The Post examined, there were 246 shootings in which at least one officer was shot. In those shootings, 28 officers were killed and 279 wounded.

Officers Rashad Martin and Jason Scott of the Richmond police were among those who took fire. About 1:30 a.m. on June 2, 2020, the pair responded to a call reporting a man with a gun.

As they reached the South Side area in their cruiser, they saw three men walking on Semmes Avenue. The officers assumed the men would flee. "They're about to run," Scott declared to his partner as they exited their cruiser.

Cameras worn by the officers recorded what happened next.

All three men complied with the officers' commands to stop walking and show their hands. Martin then asked one of the men, 19-year-old Waseem Hackett, to lift his shirt and show his waistband. Hackett instead asked if he was being detained.

Martin said he was: The city was under an 8 p.m. curfew because of the protests occurring after George Floyd's death at the hands of police in Minneapolis about a week earlier. At that point, Hackett lifted his shirt to reveal a handgun, and Martin quickly moved to handcuff him.

"Put your hands behind your back," Martin ordered. He grabbed Hackett by one arm.

"What the hell?" Hackett responded, pulling away.

Hackett ran, drew his gun and began firing at the officers, both of whom returned fire. All three men - Hackett and the officers - were wounded. Hackett was shot once in the shoulder, while the officers faced more serious injuries: Scott was shot in the abdomen and chest, and Martin was shot in an arm and knee.

"Either one of us could have died that night," Martin said in an interview with The Post. "We were just fortunate that we ended up making it home."

Officers Rashad Martin, left, and Jason Scott of the Richmond police were shot while detaining three men in the early hours of June 2, 2020. (Jay Paul for The Washington Post)

Both officers required multiple surgeries, lengthy hospital stays and physical therapy. Martin is still awaiting an operation to repair his knee, and neither officer has fully healed from his wounds nor been able to return to full duty. They said in a joint interview that the hardest part has been the damage to their mental health. Both have attended therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder and struggle to sleep.

"Even two years later," Scott said, "as soon as my head hits the pillow, it's like, 'Well, I guess we're gonna think about the shooting.' "

In October 2021, as part of a deal with prosecutors, Hackett pleaded no contest to two counts of aggravated malicious wounding and one count of possession of a firearm by a violent felon. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. In a phone interview from Virginia's Nottoway Correctional Center, Hackett said he regrets his actions that night.

Hackett said that at the time of the shooting, he was homeless and carrying a gun for protection. He said he and the other men had been drinking and using drugs that night. (The two other men told police, in interview recordings obtained by The Post, that they did not know Hackett before the shooting and did not see what happened once the gunfire started. Neither man could be located for comment.)

Hackett said he pulled away only after Martin grabbed him.

"In my mind, I'm like, 'They're trying to kill me.' " he said. "I've been seeing how the police has been killing unarmed Black people for years, so knowing that I have a gun on me, I'm thinking they're going to kill me."

Hackett said that he was interviewed by police that night at the hospital without a lawyer present and that he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Facing charges that could have resulted in a prison term of more than 50 years, he made a deal with prosecutors.

"The situation never should have gone down that way," Hackett said, adding that if he could change what happened, he "would never have brought a gun out with me that night."

Officer Martin defended his actions. In the moment, he said, he assumed - ultimately correctly - that Hackett was carrying the gun illegally and that the young man would therefore be inclined to flee.

"I was as polite as possible, given the situation. ... I could have said, 'Hey, will you please lift your shirts up?' It wouldn't have mattered, because he didn't want to go to jail," Martin said. "So when I went to grab him and detain him, it became a reality for him that, 'Hey, this is a situation where I might go to jail, and I just simply don't want to do that. So what I'm gonna do is kill these cops and get away.' And that's exactly what he tried to do."

Kenneth Gilbert Jr. is flanked by his parents, Kenneth Gilbert Sr. and Angela Sendek, outside their home in Carr, Colo., on Oct. 1. (Matthew Staver for The Washington Post)

In Atlanta, as Kenneth Gilbert Jr. was being loaded into the ambulance, he called his mother: He told her that he and his father had been shot by a "White dude" riding in what appeared to be some sort of "dogcatcher truck."

"When I was in the ambulance, I asked them, 'Did you guys get the other people? Did you guys find the other people? Did they get away?' " Gilbert Jr. said. "I didn't know who these people were."

The Fulton County district attorney was seeking information about the Atlanta shooting involving Kenneth Gilbert Sr., Kenneth Gilbert Jr. and Atlanta police officers. The police vehicle is on the left in the photo; the Gilberts were in the truck on the right. (Bob Andres/AP)

Meanwhile, at the scene, a law enforcement official offered the police account to local media. "When they pulled up alongside the suspect vehicle, they looked and they saw the suspect loading a handgun," Atlanta Police Deputy Chief Jeff Glazier said. "They certainly feared for their life," he said.

At the hospital, both the father and son required blood transfusions. Gilbert Jr.'s scalp bore a jagged line of staples. Gilbert Sr. said the doctor who dislodged the bullet from his skull told him that had it struck a half-centimeter to one side it would have left him brain dead. "Thank God for a hard head," Gilbert Sr. said.

Neither father nor son was interviewed by Atlanta police, they said. Angela Sendek, Gilbert Jr.'s mother, said the investigators from the Fulton County District Attorney's Office who spoke with her at the hospital finally explained that the men had been shot by a police officer. They seemed focused on the officer's conduct and gave no indication that either her son or ex-husband would be charged with a crime, she said.

After four days in the hospital, the men were sent home believing they would be vindicated. The officer had fired on them without provocation, they said, and never identified himself. "My car has tinted windows on it. How did you look into my car and see my son loading a handgun?" Gilbert Sr. said. "It never happened."

But in the days that followed, the Gilberts' version of what happened went unreported. Local media quoted police labeling Gilbert Sr. as a "convicted felon with a warrant out for his arrest" and questioning whether the Gilberts had been on their way to commit a crime at the time of the shooting. They also noted that Gilbert Jr. had been arrested in connection with a 2017 shooting.

The Gilberts were not quoted in any of the stories.

In an interview, Gilbert Sr. acknowledged felony convictions for shoplifting and possession of cocaine in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which he said stemmed from a time when he struggled with a drug addiction. He denied the police claim that there was a warrant out for his arrest the day of the shooting, and The Post was unable to find any record of one. At no point after the shooting was Gilbert Sr. taken into custody.

Records show that Gilbert Jr.'s 2017 case had been dismissed by a judge who concluded that Gilbert Jr. had fired in self-defense.

Gilbert Jr. said that six days after going home from the hospital, he was awakened in the middle of the night by pounding on his front door. He said an officer pulled him shirtless from bed and handcuffed him facedown in the grass in front of thehome. He was booked into jail and charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony in connection with the shooting. His father was neither arrested nor charged.

Three years later, the case is unresolved.

Citing the still-pending charges against Gilbert Jr., the Atlanta Police Department and the union that represents its rank-and-file officers declined to comment or make Officer Oliver available for an interview.

Both Gilberts said they still suffer the effects of that day. A strange tingling shoots through Gilbert Sr.'s jaw whenever he chews, he said, and flashbacks jolt him awake at night.

Gilbert Jr. said his head throbs so much at night that he needs medication to sleep. He said he rarely leaves the house and has struggled to find work. "He doesn't feel like a man," his mother said through tears. "He can't buy his daughter a pencil."

That prosecutors still have not taken Gilbert Jr. to trial, said his lawyer Ash Joshi, is evidence that the facts support his client's version of events. "If the government felt they had a strong case to bring, they likely would've brought it by now," he said.

In August, prosecutors told The Post that their investigation continues. Days later, an investigator with the prosecutor's civil rights unit contacted Joshi to request a new round of interviews with the Gilberts.

The Gilberts took that as a sign that perhaps the investigation is once again focused on Officer Oliver's actions that day and said they plan to speak with investigators.

"I have a voice now," Kenneth Gilbert Jr. told The Post. "I'm just glad to be here so I can tell my story."

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The unseen toll of nonfatal police shootings

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UNACCOUNTABLE Warning: This graphic requires JavaScript. Please enable JavaScript for the best experience. The way Kenneth Gilbert Jr. and his father tell the story, it had been a busy morning running errands in east Atlanta when their pickup was suddenly cut off by a dark truck and forced onto the curb.

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Without racial disparity (especially in our law enforcement), fewer people can live in fear of being targeted 

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Without racial disparity (especially in our law enforcement), fewer people can live in fear of being targeted 

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Racial bias on the part of some individual officers may contribute to the overrepresentation of Black people who are shot and wounded by police.

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Racial bias on the part of some individual officers may contribute to the overrepresentation of Black people who are shot and wounded by police.

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Black residents accounted for 16 percent of the combined population policed by a group of studied departments, but they represented 30 percent of those fatally shot by police and 41 percent of those shot and wounded

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Black residents accounted for 16 percent of the combined population policed by a group of studied departments, but they represented 30 percent of those fatally shot by police and 41 percent of those shot and wounded

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The need for police reform stems from racial disparity 

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The need for police reform stems from racial disparity 

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How does police reform create a safer space for all members of society?

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How does police reform create a safer space for all members of society?