Glendale’s fiduciary responsibility to the tax payers of Glendale has limited our ability to engage on the specifics of this incident and we are unwilling to litigate it in the media.

 https://www.abc15.com/news/region-west-valley/glendale/city-of-glendale-says-suspect-tased-11-times-requested-15-million-dollar-settlement?fbclid=IwAR20Kxc9hOEnow16Hq8VfoQi5fYCYRKdAoPV-pQeyzZb5XrMUmEnntesp18

Here is the full statement from the City of Glendale:
GLENDALE, Ariz. – This past Monday, prior to the Governor’s comments, the City of Glendale was in communication with the FBI and preparing to send all the documents and videos associated with the July 2017 Wheatcroft incident. In addition, on Tuesday, the City of Glendale committed to fully cooperating with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office decision to re-examine the incident.
Within days of the incident, the City forwarded the case to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for official review. Glendale’s only role in that investigation was providing all the evidence for their independent review. They notified the City that after their extensive examination, they were declining to pursue criminal prosecution against any of the officers involved.
We have no basis to believe that the County Attorney’s original investigation was not thorough and comprehensive, and we accepted their findings.
In December 2018, prior to the plaintiff shopping their story to the media, they offered to settle with the City for the absurd amount of $15 million. Glendale’s fiduciary responsibility to the tax payers of Glendale has limited our ability to engage on the specifics of this incident and we are unwilling to litigate it in the media.
This case will ultimately be decided on all the facts including a comprehensive analysis of all the evidence. For example, not all of the videos show that one of our police officers was assaulted and knocked unconscious by one of the plaintiffs that pled guilty to aggravated assault.
The citizens of Glendale know that the City of Glendale holds our Police Department and its officers to the highest standards, and we are proud to have some of the most well trained and dedicated men and women in the law enforcement serving our community. We will fully cooperate with any additional investigations into this incident.

Illegal release of bodycam footage gives Cop haters reason to attack hero Glendale, AZ, Officer Matt Schneider

 https://www.facebook.com/GlendaleAZPD/videos/408883013014089/?__xts__[0]=68.ARD1W9wLJBWHHolBgAtsxht5nqMtQAihXnkJVkalrx9R3eCF-_wZ4wweXO6uSm4rXf7C8iyBT2C5neg-0XvwuMPO5baihsWhbZMxaG_ISRadutm3r_l7Vdp9Hr1eTlP-TtAKzdxNSnhIiwyEa4jnaz7xzeWpZVOatmHdm4QJqI_JKIaC2kI3e47F-RQu-NweuoJDcnpQWGWBGhateciAg3Prnm-V1zv9m0dkHW1sJ0uCvcsKiLcqzbaaCiYI_L2WsYCqIJDYhB_8eHEKtcz_Jqe741NWS6fxI3G1VhURespCyoMfSD0SiJcqe5VKyyuJTnlWwJrxq5CdsRA_UZnQYXk_sufkBVrK7BN8W1N5&__tn__=-R

Volatile Glendale Policing Situation Detailed
GLENDALE, Ariz. – On July 26, 2017, Glendale Police Officers were in the area 5900 W. Myrtle Avenue conducting intensive patrol due to increased crime reported in the area. At approximately 7:30 PM, Officers Matt Schneider and Mark Lindsey contacted the occupants of a Ford Taurus after Officer Schneider observed a traffic violation. The contact occurred in a parking lot that was included in a blanket trespass agreement with the City and parking lot owner. The officers both approached the Ford Taurus and found that it was occupied by three adults and two children. Upon contact, officers discovered that the driver did not have a driver’s license and began to address an observed seat belt violation. The occupants of the vehicle were identified as Shawn Blackburn (34), the driver of the vehicle; Johnny Wheatcroft (37), the front seat passenger; and Anya Chapman (34), the driver’s side rear passenger with two children beside her, ages eleven (11) and six (6).
​During the officers’ contact at the vehicle, they each noted Johnny Wheatcroft reaching down below the seat into a backpack. Mr. Wheatcroft also immediately upon contact exhibited verbal non-compliance by refusing to identify himself and failed to obey the officer’s instructions to stop reaching his hands beneath the seat into the backpack and about the vehicle in the area between the seat and console. For the safety of themselves and those around them, including the minor children, the officers attempted to remove Mr. Wheatcroft from the vehicle so they could maintain a safe eye on him for the duration of the traffic stop as well as conduct a pat down for weapons.
Mr. Wheatcroft immediately began to physically resist the officers’ attempts to escort him from the vehicle while continuing to place his hands where officers could not see them. Officers displayed their Tasers and warned him of potential Taser use to gain his compliance; however, Mr. Wheatcroft continued to argue, yell and physically resist the officers’ control holds. Due to the physical resistance from Mr. Wheatcroft, the Taser was used in a drive stun capacity in order to gain control and avoid physical injury.
​While officers attempted to detain Mr. Wheatcroft, Anya Chapman swung a bag filled with bottled drinks, striking Officer Lindsey in the head, rendering him unconscious. Seeing his partner unconscious, coupled with Mr. Wheatcroft’s continued resistance and the unknown threat from within the vehicle, Officer Schneider deployed his Taser, striking Mr. Wheatcroft. Dealing with two adults that were being physically aggressive and had already assaulted one officer, Officer Schneider asked for additional officers to respond. As multiple officers arrived on scene, they tended to the injured officer and helped detain Mr. Wheatcroft as he was continuing to resist officers by kicking and screaming. Mr. Wheatcroft was eventually able to be calmed down, and he and Anya Chapman were taken into custody without further incident. As officers continued their investigation, a usable quantity of methamphetamine was found within the vehicle. Mr. Wheatcroft and Ms. Chapman were charged with Aggravated Assault due to their actions, in which Ms. Chapman subsequently plead guilty.
Fire personnel responded to the scene to evaluate Mr. Wheatcroft and the injured officer. Mr. Wheatcroft refused medical attention. The officer that was struck was transported to a local valley hospital for medical treatment and returned to full duty several days later.
​
The Glendale Police Department is dedicated to remaining transparent with the community that we serve, and public safety is the top priority. The Department recognizes that society expects accountability and we hold ourselves to the highest standards set by Arizona Police Officer Standards and Training as well as state law. Per Department protocol regarding any response to resistance, a review of the officers’ actions has been performed and discipline implemented regarding certain tactics used by one officer.
The video below shows the Glendale Officer being knocked unconscious by one of the occupants in the vehicle.

Hero Cops must have complete privacy from the criminial public.

 http://nycpba.org/press-releases/2019/pba-reacts-to-discipline-report/

PBA President Patrick J. Lynch said:

“When we see a panel of distinguished law enforcement figures bowing to the demands of anti-police, pro-criminal advocates, it is clear that public safety in this city is headed down a very dark path. The panel’s recommendation to shred the confidentiality protections for police personnel records will put all New Yorkers in jeopardy. Criminals will exploit this supposed ‘transparency’ in order to escape justice, and police families will be exposed to even greater threats and harassment. With respect to the NYPD’s disciplinary processes, the panel’s recommendations amount to more of the same. They contain no enhanced accountability for supervisors and decision-makers, and nothing that would prevent meritless or fabricated complaints from derailing cops’ careers.  Just more bureaucracy engineered to pummel rank-and-file police officers, while holding the city and NYPD leadership blameless. None of this is surprising, because this supposedly ‘independent’ panel was created to provide political cover for these exact conclusions. New York City police officers long ago received the message: our city’s leaders have chosen their public safety priorities, and they have nothing to do with the actual concerns of the communities we protect. Police officers on patrol must conduct themselves accordingly.”

Cop haters question Heros of Deadly Houston Drug Raid.

https://reason.com/blog/2019/01/30/the-cops-were-the-aggressors-in-this-wee
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/houston-police-officers-shot-track-police/

Robert Swartzwelder, the president of Pittsburgh’s Fraternal Order of Police union does what it takes to protect his members.

 https://www.wesa.fm/post/grand-jury-report-rips-police-fop-president-over-officer-involved-investigations-2017

Grand Jury Report Rips Police, FOP President Over Officer-Involved Investigations In 2017
By PATRICK DOYLE, MEGAN HARRIS & LUCY PERKINS • DEC 7, 2018

MEGAN HARRIS / 90.5 WESA
An Allegheny County grand jury report released on Friday says the Pittsburgh Police command staff failed to properly conduct investigations following two officer-involved shootings, and stood by as Robert Swartzwelder, the president of Pittsburgh’s Fraternal Order of Police union, interfered with those investigations.

The first shooting detailed in the report occurred on January 22, 2017, when police officers shot and killed Christopher Mark Tompkins during an incident at 129 Finley Street in Larimer.

The grand jury report ultimately concluded that the officers “acted in accordance with their training” and were justified in the shooting of Tompkins, but that officers’ lack of initial cooperation “led to an inference that officers were ‘covering up’ what had happened and raised questions regarding the integrity of critical incidents within the city of Pittsburgh.”

At the time, Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office detectives were charged with investigating shootings involving Pittsburgh Police officers. The DA detectives expected to get first-hand accounts from the police officers involved. The report says “the protocol at the time called for the Pittsburgh police to conduct the interviews of any of its officers who were involved in, or witnesses to, the critical incident. District Attorney Detectives were supposed to sit in and observe these interviews as they took place.”

But in this case, the report says the detectives weren’t able to do so. FOP president Swartzwelder actually removed the involved officers from police headquarters, preventing DA detectives from participating “in any interviews of officers conducted on the night of the incident.”

Swartzwelder did not immediately return calls for comment. The FOP's official response to the grand jury report said that "several of the factual claims are not accurate" and that it strongly objected to the report's "conclusions regarding the impropriety of Mr. Swartzwelder's conduct at the incidents."

The report notes that the “command staff from the City Police acquiesced to many of Swartzwelder’s demands and did not enforce long-standing policies on conducting critical incident investigations.”

Following another officer-involved shooting at an East Liberty Sunoco gas station on April 29, 2017, the grand jury report says that Swartzwelder interfered again, while police leadership stood by.

The report says Swartzwelder doubled down on his methods in a podcast appearance later that year, criticizing top brass, the district attorney’s office, the U.S. Attorney, federal judge, investigators, FBI agents and fellow local law enforcement officers who he believed mishandled a separate officer-involved incident, but never addressed the actions of the officer himself. “[Swartzwelder] casts wild aspersions upon others regarding their competency and ethics,” according to the report, and then goes on to insist criminal investigations be carried out quickly and thoroughly with access to all involved parties. The report states, “It is hard to ignore the obvious hypocrisy between these words and his obstructive behavior following the Finley Street and Sunoco critical incidents.”

In 2018, the protocol around officer-involved shooting was changed with a new memorandum of understanding (MOU), removing the responsibility from the Allegheny County District Attorney Office and placing it with the Allegheny County Police Department, which now has “full investigative and supervisory authority” following officer shootings. The grand jury report was supportive of that policy update.

While the grand jury report did not recommend criminal charges against Swartzwelder, it notes that his interference in the investigations “created a suspicion of wrongdoing.”

Furthermore, the report notes, “We are also hopeful that the leadership of the Fraternal Order of Police Fort Pitt Lodge #1 recognizes the need for a full investigation into critical incidents while respecting the constitutional rights of the officers involved. Only a full, fair and transparent investigation can lead to a determination of whether an officer was justified in his or her use of force. We expect that should the FOP continue its practice of manufacturing obstacles to such investigations their actions will be subject to a criminal investigation.”

In the future, the grand jury says, “we expect that the men and women of the Pittsburgh Police Department will follow the protocols adopted, rather than putting up unnecessary roadblocks at the behest of Union leadership.”

The report makes 10 recommendations. Among them, that the bureau review its existing internal policy to make it “abundantly clear” that officers involved in critical incidents – including those that involve the discharge of a weapon or injury – know their rights independent of FOP advice, and asks all officers to re-train on Miranda and Garrity rights, which cover self-incrimination.

Future obstruction or interference by the FOP or any individual office will be reviewed for criminal charges by the DA’s office or by the U.S. Attorney, according to the report.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto released a statement following the grand jury report, saying his administration fully cooperated with the grand jury investigation, “and was pleased with the Grand Jury’s findings that the City’s move to engage the Allegheny County Police Department to oversee independent investigations of police shooting incidents has made great strides in addressing such matters.” 

Peduto said “many” of the grand jury’s ten recommendations “were already implemented by the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police before the report was issued.”

Peduto went on to say, “Claims in the Grand Jury’s report about Police Bureau command staff ‘passivity’ at critical incident scenes before the MOU was implemented – when the investigations were then overseen by the Allegheny County District Attorney’s office – are addressed in the Bureau’s answer to the report. It must be noted that at any time the supervising detectives from the District Attorney’s office could have intervened to stop the FOP President’s interference at the scenes, but did not do so.”

The police bureau’s response to the grand jury report indicated that while the bureau supports of many of the grand jury recommendations, it disagreed with the claim that the command staff passively stood by or that the DA’s detectives put them “on notice” that Swartzwelder “was preventing them from carrying out their duties.”

WESA's legal analyst David Harris is an endowed professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh. He calls this report a shot across the bow.

“I think what the grand jury is saying is that it saw the behavior at these critical incidents to be not zealous representation by a union officer, but behavior that came perilously close to obstructing an investigation,” said Harris.

“The really unusual thing is that this was written at all,” he said. “It takes to task not only the conduct of the head of the union in very specific ways – nearly accusing him of obstructing justice with a criminal charge – but it takes on the top brass of a police department and finds fault with them, too. I can't think of another situation where an official body or another public agency has taken on both of those things and basically said 'Don't do these things again. We are watching you.'"

PBA President’s statement on increased use of body cameras to record non-suspicious interactions

http://www.nycpba.org/press-releases/2018/pba-on-increased-body-cam-usage/

PBA President calls it “very bad news for New Yorkers who want more police-community engagement and less government surveillance.”
Today, at the request of the U.S. District Court judge overseeing the case, the Federal Monitor overseeing the settlement in the stop, question and frisk lawsuits against the City of New York submitted a proposal for a court-ordered pilot program. The program requires police officers to document Level 1 and Level 2 street encounters (i.e., encounters not rising to the level of a Level 3 "reasonable suspicion" stop) using body-worn cameras. The proposal must be approved by that same judge before going into effect.  See a copy of the Monitor's proposal. 
 PBA President Patrick J. Lynch said:

"The proposed pilot is very bad news for New Yorkers who want more police-community engagement and less government surveillance. It would require police officers to switch on their body-cameras almost every time they speak to a member of the public, even when they have zero suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. Even worse, they would have a third-party 'observer' tagging along for the duration of the pilot program. The results will be a colossal increase in police officers' administrative workload, a drain on NYPD resources and the production of countless of hours of government-controlled video footage of individuals who are not criminal suspects. New Yorkers who want their cops to be real members of the community — not automated surveillance drones — need to speak out against this misguided and wasteful proposal."

Protecting police privacy.

https://www.wnyc.org/story/police-misconduct-records/