[Peace-discuss] some interesting facts revealed by police testifying / courtwatch

[Karen Medina]

Dear Peace and Justice friends,

Courtwatch is a valuable experience. Just yesterday, I had the
opportunity to hear two officers testify in court and reveal some
things that the police do on a regular basis that completely appalled
me.

* The officers revealed that it is regular practice of the Urbana
Police to rent cars from an agency. The contract is to swap the
unmarked cars frequently. [This must cost the city a ton. Stealth
tactics. Privatized aspects of government. All sorts of issues are
introduced by this tactic of the police.] By regular basis, they
indicated that they rent the vehicles all the time. Not just for
special occasions.

* The officers revealed that the rental cars cannot be equipped with
car cameras. [Conveniently ruling out the possibility]

* The officers revealed that they both failed to turn on their body cams.
- - It is regular practice to use their body cams for all sorts of
things including traffic stops.
- - But also including interviews of witnesses.
- - They have no special training for using the body cameras. They
"watch YouTube videos" and "read the manual." No training on the legal
issues, privacy issues, ...
- - But they also don't turn them on if anything gets interesting.

* Traffic stops in the Scottswood neighborhood are a regular practice.
But not for speeding. Evidently, the roads have too many potholes for
traffic to even go the speed limit. The traffic is slow. So the
watching of the traffic is for traffic violations OTHER than speeding.

* The rental cars are also not equipped with lights or sirens or other
equipment. The officers use temporary lights. In the front and back.
[Stealth]

* The officers also wear what the officers call “soft clothes” –
street clothes, not uniforms. On a regular basis.

* They used terms like “Proactive crime suppression.” “Suppress
possible crimes.” // ?? Really? In what neighborhoods? Poor black
neighborhoods? Undercover traffic monitoring of slow moving vehicles?
Suppressing the possible crimes of seatbelt violations?!

* All the witnesses were present in the courtroom the entire time.
They heard what the other witnesses were saying on the stand. The two
officers in particular should have known better. As a result, they
backed up each other’s testimony down to the minute details.

Respectfully,
-- karen medina