On Q Professional Investigations

The background check is often the last thing we think of when applying for a job, after the cover letter, the resume, the references, and what to wear to the interview. In fact, many of us don’t think about it until a potential employer asks for our social security number and written permission to run a check.

This can be a problem. Though it depends on the job and the state, many employers still run extensive background checks on potential hires. The idea is to gather as much information as possible, so they know what they’re getting. As Forbes puts it, “There’s absolutely no doubt that making a wrong hiring decision can haunt your company, your other employees, and your client base.”

If you’re in the job market, you might want to run one on yourself first to avoid surprises and make sure the information that is out there is correct. You can do this by paying a background check agency like Been Verified or Talent Shield. Or, if you want to save money, you can do a pretty thorough one on yourself for free. Here’s a guide:

Review your court records
This is a big one — employers often want to know if you’ve been arrested or charged with a crime. Clearly, you’re already privy to that information. But if you’re looking for a job, it’s still wise to find out how the records depict you. Go to National Center for State Courts, where you can research your records at the state and city level.

Also, if you do have a criminal history, take a look at the new guidelines issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to help protect those with criminal backgrounds from job discrimination.

Get your credit report
This is a controversial practice — in fact, nine states have already passed laws limiting it — but the reality is that about 47 percent of companies still check some or all job applicants’ credit reports, according to the The Society of Human Resource Management. It doesn’t hurt to get out ahead of them.

All consumers are legally entitled to three free credit reports a year from the three major reporting agencies — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Get all three. If you find errors, call them quickly and ask them to be corrected. Additionally, if you see negative points, and it’s due to extenuating circumstances (like a layoff or illness), you’re allowed to contact the bureau and attach a 100-word explanation to the problem. It won’t help your score, but it will give your potential employer your side of the story.

Request your employment history
It’s no secret to you where you worked and when, but it’s not a bad idea to see what’s on record. Your future employer may or may not look to see if there are any discrepancies on your resume (i.e., to check if you lied to them), so make sure the public info is accurate. Go to The Work Number to request data.

Review your education records
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 requires your school to let you access your education records within 45 days of anyone asking for your record — at any point after graduation. You’re also allowed to request an amendment if you think something’s inaccurate. So call your school and find out what they release.

Review your medical background
This is another controversial one, which also has legal restrictions. The laws vary from state to state, so you’ll have to do a little research on your state’s website. But here’s an example: In Minnesota, an employer can only give you a medical exam or request your records if an offer for employment has been made. The employer is only allowed to examine you for “essential, job-related abilities.” Any “information obtained is collected and maintained separately and is treated as a confidential medical record.”

Depending on your state’s laws, and what job you’re applying for, you might want to request a copy of your medical records from your health care provider. They are legally required to hand them over.

Request your driving record
Many background checks also include driving records. If your future job requires you to drive, your employer may want to pull yours. To find out what’s on public record, request your report from the DMV.

Once you have all this information, you’ll be in a much stronger position if a potential employer asks to do a background check, even if you know she’ll find some dirt on you. Take a moment to be upfront about anything you think could be a deal breaker — they’ll likely appreciate your honesty and give you a chance to explain yourself.

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Seattle WA Oct 10 2013 A grocery store’s security camera captured clear images of a man in a green shirt placing several bottles of liquor in a suitcase placed in a shopping cart. The man pushed the cart of the store, unloaded the suitcase and then returned to the liquor shelves to fill it up all over again.

The thief probably thought he got away with boosting bottles of top-shelf spirits — and that’s just the way store security wants it.

The man was being watched by a surveillance team hired by grocery store chains to target crime rings that steal liquor and other merchandise in bulk from stores in the Pacific Northwest.

“This is a cat-and-mouse game. It can take a little bit of time,” said Rick Whidden, the head of Safeway’s loss prevention units in Washington and Oregon.

His team has been working behind the scenes to combat liquor theft in Washington since voters passed a 2011 ballot initiative to allow grocery stores and other retailers to sell booze.

Whidden and his team monitored the green-shirted man on the videotape and a half-dozen of his suspected cohorts to determine who they are selling the stolen booze to.

“Simply arresting the boosters doesn’t solve the problem,” said Whidden. “We have to find the people that are buying the merchandise.”

In this case, Whidden’s team partnered with QFC’s investigators to track the liquor thieves. They followed and photographed the shoplifters hoping the trail leads them to the leaders of the crime ring — the people who are buying the booze and re-selling it.

“I think we’ve got eight guys out here today surveying multiple locations,” said Whidden as he sat in this car one day in September listening to radio chatter among investigators.

Washington’s Organized Retail Theft law is seven years old. It allows for harsher penalties than a simple shoplifting case. But police and prosecutors have to prove that a person or several people are engaging in a pattern of retail thefts.

Safeway, QFC and other grocery chains created their organized retail crime investigation units to help gather evidence for those cases. In less than three years they’ve busted 116 rings in the Pacific Northwest, helping poice indict more than 200 organized crime suspects for stealing items like baby formula, detergent and teeth whitening strips.

“They’re run pretty much like a drug operation,” Whidden said of the crime rings.

So the grocery stores have responded by running their investigations much like a drug sting. They watch and wait patiently and work with local law enforcement to develop a case.

In the case of the man in the green shirt, Safeway and QFC investigators were led to a surprising place. Working with a King Co. Sheriff’s deputy, they learned that the liquor thefts were being orchestrated by a West Seattle business owner. They believe the man was paying about a half dozen drug addicts to steal the liquor from grocery stores all over King County.

Last month, the King County Sheriff’s Office made its move by executing a search warrant at the suspect’s West Seattle restaurant. Puerto Vallarta has been in business for 22 years and neighboring business owners were incredulous when they saw deputies carrying cases of liquor out of the California Ave. business.

“He’s an upstanding guy,” said Jack Miller, who owns the Husky Deli next door. “I hope he’s OK.”

No one has been charged in connection with this particular liquor theft case, so no names are being released. The King County Prosecutor’s office is reviewing the evidence now.

Puerto Vallarta’s owner told KING 5 he did not purchase any stolen liquor, and can prove it. But he declined further comment on the advice of his lawyer.

It’s a lot of work tracking down liquor thieves and some may wonder why grocery stores don’t just lock their liquor up or keep bottles in a separate, more secure part of the store where workers can watch more closely.

“It’s a delicate balance,” said Whidden. “You can remove it from the shelf and turn your customers away. You put too much product on the shelf and you’re exposing yourself to theft.”

Whidden said stores have also found that if they secure one product, the crime rings simply move to another aisle of the grocery store to target other items easy to resell at a profit, like razor blades, baby formula and laundry detergent.
King5.com

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A man standing on a crowded Muni train pulls out a .45-caliber pistol.

He raises the gun, pointing it across the aisle, before tucking it back against his side. He draws it out several more times, once using the hand holding the gun to wipe his nose. Dozens of passengers stand and sit just feet away – but none reacts.

Their eyes, focused on smartphones and tablets, don’t lift until the gunman fires a bullet into the back of a San Francisco State student getting off the train.

Investigators say this scene was captured by a Muni camera on Sept. 23, the night Nikhom Thephakaysone, 30, allegedly killed 20-year-old Justin Valdez in an apparently random encounter.

For police and prosecutors, the details of the case were troubling – they believe the suspect had been out “hunting” for a stranger to kill – but so too was the train passengers’ collective inattention to imminent danger.

“These weren’t concealed movements – the gun is very clear,” said District Attorney George Gascón. “These people are in very close proximity with him, and nobody sees this. They’re just so engrossed, texting and reading and whatnot. They’re completely oblivious of their surroundings.”

Gascón said what happened on the light-rail car speaks to a larger dilemma of the digital age. As glowing screens dominate the public sphere, people seem more and more inclined to become engrossed, whether they are in a car or a train or are strolling through an intersection.

“When you used to go into a public place, you assumed everyone was in that place with you,” said Jack Nasar, an Ohio State University professor in city and regional planning who specializes in environmental psychology. “What happens to public places when everybody is talking on a cell phone? Everyone is somewhere else.

“Someone can take a gun, hold it up, and nobody will notice it.”

Missing cues
Nasar has been studying the dangers of cell phone distractions for nearly a decade. For a 2008 study, he and his research team planted objects such as a sign reading “UNSAFE!” and fake vomit on a stretch of sidewalk, and instructed 60 people to walk the path.

Those talking on cell phones were far more likely to miss the cues, he said, results that mimicked the findings of studies of distracted drivers.

The implications are nothing new for Bay Area police officials, who say smartphone thefts have become an epidemic not only because the devices are valuable, but because the victims are preoccupied.

“Oftentimes when you interview people who get their phones stolen, when you ask them to describe where the person came from, what he was wearing, they have no idea,” said San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr. “It’s not uncommon to read in a police report that a person ‘came out of nowhere’ or ‘I didn’t see where he came from.’ ”

Suhr said 2 out of 3 robberies in the city involve smartphones.

Phones can help, hinder
Both Suhr and Gascón want to strike a balance in the use of technology. They acknowledge that the ubiquity of smartphones – the videos and photos they capture, and the quick communication they allow – often helps catch criminals.

“I’m not going to say we don’t appreciate the cell phone videos that we have gotten on so many occasions that have helped us solve crimes,” Suhr said. “But it makes people so incredibly vulnerable to crime. And the inattention, which creates this tremendous vulnerability to people, is just something that’s so easily corrected.”

The advice from police is simple – pull out cell phones less, pay attention more. It’s a mantra San Francisco State police officers have been spreading around campus since the Sept. 23 shooting, said student Jordan Sanchez, 17.

Sanchez spoke as he waited for a Muni train, after pausing to look up from his phone. Like many passengers around him, he said he didn’t think the way he used the device in public put him in danger.

“When you’re bored and there’s nothing to do, you go on your phone,” he said.
Another rider, 24-year-old Brie Peixoto of San Francisco, said it’s clear people drift into their own world when they engage with smartphones – completely ignoring what’s happening around them, like an elderly or disabled passenger who needs a seat. She said that she tries to limit her use, but that it’s difficult.

Walking into trouble
“I try to be more aware of my surroundings, but after work, I just want to zone out,” she said.

Peixoto said she makes sure not to be on her cell phone when she’s crossing the street, another chief danger noted by San Francisco authorities. Gascón pointed to an incident in August 2011 when the driver of a Muni bus slammed into a pedestrian in a crosswalk, killing her.

The driver, whose attorney said he was lost at the time of the crash, was charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter. Gascón said surveillance video showed that though the 23-year-old victim had the right-of-way, she didn’t once look up from her phone as she walked into the road.

“She never saw it coming,” he said. “Had she looked up just once, she would be alive today.”

Nasar’s 2008 study looked at the same issue, finding that almost half of all pedestrians exhibited dangerous behavior crossing the street while on their phones. They didn’t look both ways, they forced a car to stop suddenly or swerve, or they bumped into something.

Spreading awareness
Nasar later found that in 2010, more than 1,500 pedestrians were checked into emergency rooms nationwide because they were distracted by cell phones – a number that had almost tripled from 2004.

The professor is among those who hope to usher in a change in the way people use technology. Someday, with enough awareness of the dangers of distraction, he said, safe usage will be as common a practice as looking both ways while crossing the street.

“We’ve changed what is considered acceptable behavior in the United States from 30 to 40 years ago, when you would go into a meeting and everyone was smoking,” he said. “Now nobody is smoking. My hope is that something like that will happen with cell phones.”

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo

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Surveillance technicians followed an underage drinker’s interaction with police outside Tropicana Casino and Resort this summer, and the video they recorded likely will be key evidence in a lawsuit that could spend years in the courts.

That video already has led to calls for increased scrutiny of Atlantic City’s Police Department. Civil rights and law-enforcement experts, however, say there are limitations to visual evidence, and many other factors — which could be explored if the case goes to trial — can contribute to incidents of excessive force.

“It’s sort of like pornography; you know it when you see it,” said Shelley Stangler, a trial attorney not affiliated with the case.

Law-enforcement officials have cautioned against a rush to judgment. Currently, the police department and Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office are investigating, and Mayor Lorenzo Langford has called for federal and state authorities to oversee the process.

“Sometimes it’s quite obvious, and sometimes it’s not so clear,” said Ray Hayducka, a police chief in Middlesex County and spokesman for the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police. “I learned a long time ago not everything is what it appears to be.”

Meanwhile, the criminal attorney for David Connor Castellani, the 20-year-old Linwood man at the center of the controversy, is trying to obtain footage from inside the casino. As of Saturday, it remained unclear if such footage exists or what it would show.

According to the civil lawsuit Castellani filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Camden, Castellani was removed from Tropicana on June 15 for underage drinking. A spokeswoman for Tropicana said the casino does not comment on pending litigation.

Regardless what happened inside the casino, Tropicana’s surveillance footage picked up, at 3:04 a.m., Castellani speaking with a group of officers on an adjacent sidewalk. He’s initially seen with his hands behind his back, waiting to be restrained, but police allow him to make a call and then cross Pacific Avenue.

At 3:10 a.m., amid a volley of words and gestures — the video doesn’t have audio and the other party, presumably the police, is not seen — police tackle Castellani to the ground. Five officers are seen striking Castellani with batons and knees as Castellani holds onto one officer’s waist. About a minute later, a sixth officer releases a K-9 as Castellani lies face-down in the street.

Castellani, of Linwood, still faces criminal charges of aggravated assault on an officer and a police dog, disorderly conduct and resisting. His injuries required 200 stitches and ongoing physical therapy, his parents say.

The value of video

Local activists, who say they’ve documented allegations of police misconduct in Atlantic City for years, saw the video as bolstering their cause.

“Having it on video makes a difference,” said Steven Young, president of the local chapter of the civil-rights organization National Action Network.
In some ways, Young was correct.

Alexander Shalom, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, has litigated cases against the Camden and Newark police departments. In such cases, which aren’t filed on behalf of any individual client, video can help bring out the truth amid conflicting testimony.

“The availability of video is a good accountability tool,” he said. “It protects police against allegations that are unfounded, and it protects citizens against misconduct.”

Video isn’t always available, of course. Not every incident takes place under the gaze of security cameras. Equipped police vehicles may not be parked in full view of an arrest. In some cases, officers prevent passersby from recording arrests. And, even if the video exists, not all plaintiffs have the resources or knowledge to acquire it.

But the spread of inexpensive closed-circuit television equipment and cellphone technology is changing that, Shalom said. The ACLU has launched a smartphone app to help citizens record encounters with authorities.
“Outside a casino in Atlantic City, an officer would be naive to think they won’t be taped,” he said.

As shown by the global media attention Castellani’s arrest received, the presence of video also allows a legion of Internet commenters and TV broadcasters to speculate about an incident while it’s still being investigated.

Hayducka, a South Brunswick policeman since 1989, said video is a “great starting point,” but has to be viewed within the context of the situation. Often, he said, it doesn’t tell the whole story.

“I don’t know the facts of Atlantic City, but just because it’s on video and doesn’t look good doesn’t mean there’s not a logical reason why it occurred,” he said.

As an example, Hayducka said, he once investigated an officer seen on camera throwing a person to the ground during the course of an arrest. His investigation revealed the officer had tried three times to restrain the person and was justified in using that limited amount of force.

In another case, from California, video showed an officer slamming a person’s head against the top of a car.

“What you couldn’t see is (the suspect) grabbing the officer’s groin,” he said. “It doesn’t show all angles.”

Stangler, the trial attorney, said video, like a photograph, has an important place in the courtroom.

“There are always instances where one has to look at it in connection to the whole incident,” she said. “Does it show the whole incident? Is it cut off at a certain time? Was it taken from a certain angle? But, certainly, it’s extremely helpful for everybody.”

Stangler, who has practiced law for more than 30 years, said visual evidence provides juries a “clear record” of the incident and limits the number of potential interpretations.

That quality of video eliminates some of the “he said, she said” problems associated with civil-rights cases, Shalom said.

“No matter what happened, the police can’t say, for instance, that the defendant pulled a gun,” he said. “We can see what happened.”

Defining ‘excessive’

For police officers, the guiding principal for how and when to use force is defined by the state Attorney General’s Office:

“A law enforcement officer may use physical force or mechanical force (such as a baton) when the officer reasonably believes it is immediately necessary at the time to overcome resistance directed at the officer or others; or to protect the officer, or a third party, from unlawful force; or to protect property; or to effect other lawful objectives, such as to make an arrest.”

In practice, complications arise. The outcome of complaints and lawsuits often rests on the question of how much force was reasonable.

As with many aspects of the job, Hayducka said, the law affords police officers a great deal of discretion. When the question does arise, he said, complaints are decided administratively based on the preponderance of the evidence. In a courtroom, cases are decided “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“We all operate in the gray area,” he said. “Everything’s on a case-by-case basis.”

Stangler, who has litigated many excessive-force cases for clients, said she believes the definition is fairly simple.”If you can gain compliance by putting handcuffs on somebody, there’s no need to beat them,” she said. “Basically, the level of force cannot exceed that that is being used against (the officer), if there is legitimate resisting.
“Often they claim it when there is none,” she added.

Shalom said the general barometer of reasonableness leads to one basic question that requires a great deal of pre-trial discovery and testimony to answer: Did the officer use only the amount of force necessary to effectuate their purpose?

“We do see lots of police officers beating a reasonably subdued subject and then engaging the K-9 unit when the suspect seems to be restrained on the ground,” he said. “That, I don’t understand.”

Culture vs. individual

Excessive-force incidents can occur in the most transparent police forces, but civil rights experts say they are often a symptom of larger deficiencies in discipline and training.
Ideally, Shalom said, departments should have a mechanism in place to identify misconduct before it leads to costly lawsuits and out-of-court settlements.

“The idea is, if there are four complaints against Officer Jones, maybe none of them get your attention on their own, but the volume should cause, not disciplinary action, but additional scrutiny,” he said. “That might just mean remediating an officer’s behavior: Make sure they know the way they thought they should handle something is not the right way.”

Hayducka said developing an expectation of accountability is key to a department avoiding problems down the line.

“If they’re held accountable, they’ll act according to the department’s culture,” he said. “Generally, (officers) know if there’s an allegation, they’ll be investigated, and most officers want to do the right thing.”

Training also teaches officers how to conduct themselves on the street, when they’ll have seconds to respond with the “reasonable” level of force, Hayducka said.

“If (the suspect) is complying, generally it’s going to go a lot smoother,” he said. “If you think they’re going to be combative, there are all sorts of factors you take into consideration.”

Such as: Is the suspect armed or aggressive? Do you have backup? What are the physical abilities of the officer? Is the officer the same size as this suspect? Does the officer have the ability to subdue this person alone or should they wait for backup?

And then there’s the human factor. The officer’s mental and physiological state also plays a role, but that, too, is addressed in training, Hayducka said.

“That’s why most agencies try to do realistic training; they put them through scenarios,” he said. “The more training you have, the more proficient you are, but you never know until you’re in that situation.”

But in the absence of proper discipline, supervision and training, a culture can develop that’s permissive of misconduct.

Without it, Shalom said, “you get a system where police officers know they cannot be held accountable, know they can act with impunity, and you see more instances of misconduct.”

Shalom said a highly publicized video can be indicative of larger institutional problems. It shows the system may not be working to address problem officers before their acts are recorded and widely distributed.

“Everyone thinks of Rodney King as one seminal event, but what was going on in Los Angeles was a culture of police brutality,” he said. “Rodney King was merely the poster child.”

In 2011, the ACLU filed a petition showing Newark sustained only one of 261 complaints of misconduct, including excessive force, against its officers. The resulting federal investigation led the department to adopt a policy this August of releasing data about Internal Affairs investigations. That information is typically unavailable to the public — except through litigation — because it concerns personnel matters.

One of the officer’s named in Castellani’s lawsuit, Sterling Wheaten, appears as a defendant in at least six others alleging excessive force. Internal Affairs documents obtained through one of Wheaten’s cases show 21 complaints against the officer over a three-year period between 2008 and 2011. All of the complaints were exonerated, not sustained or administratively closed.

However, the second officer named in Castellani’s suit, Darrin Lorady, does not appear in records from state Superior or U.S. district courts. The other four officers have not yet been named.
The legal process

Issues of supervision and training are at the heart of most excessive force cases, said Stangler, the trial attorney.

“It’s one of the hardest things to prove, but it’s the most important to prove,” she said.

During the discovery phase of a legal proceeding, Stangler said, the plaintiff’s attorney typically needs to pore through discipline files, Internal Affairs reports, performance evaluations and training logs. The paper trail helps create a snapshot of life in the department that can help explain why an alleged excessive force incident happened.

“What you need to do is understand what kind of discipline has been imposed by the police department with respect to all their police officers, not just the ones involved in the incident,” she said.
Stangler said the Internal Affairs records, for instance, will show whether civilian complaints were properly investigated or if officers were “given a slap on the wrist.” State law requires biannual training in the use of force, she said, and the records should reflect that.

The documents are typically subject to confidentiality orders, such that only the litigants can access them.

Even so, Stangler said, most departments fight vigorously to keep them from the defense. What counsel is able to review is a subject of dispute in every case, she said.

“The police are not inclined to release information without a fight, even if the law permits it,” she said.

In general, Stangler said, most of these cases take about two years to resolve from initial claim to trial.

“These are always defended vigorously,” she said. “They don’t settle easily or quickly, and they require a great deal of litigation as a general principle.”

In addition to punitive damages, the Castellani case is seeking a declaratory judgment that departmental policies are “illegal and unconstitutional” and for the six officers to be prevented from continuing to serve.

Although a certain number are settled out of court, with no such demand for reform, Stangler said, most civil filings concerning allegations of excessive force seek to change the system.
Stangler hasn’t followed up with all the departments she has helped clients file suit against, but believes one or two have changed their policies as a result.

“I think they tend to be a bit more cautious, and hopefully it does help in revisiting training and supervision,” she said. “So the supervisory officers are more careful in the future.

“I would like to believe that,” she added.

Copyright 2013 – The Press of Atlantic City, Pleasantville, N.J.

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In The Minority Report, novelist Philip K. Dick spun a fanciful tale (later turned into a movie by Steven Spielberg) of a futuristic society practically devoid of crime. With the help of seers (known as precogs) who can spot criminal acts before they happen, the officers behind the PreCrime police force reduce felonies by 99.8 percent, and New York City goes murder-free for five consecutive years. Of course, the police have to arrest and imprison criminals before the thought of a misdeed even occurs to them. But who could argue with the results?

Does that scenario sound far-fetched? It shouldn’t. While police departments today aren’t even close to eliminating crime altogether, they are developing something akin to digital versions of precogs.

Thanks to innovations in data analysis and surveillance technology, law enforcement officials are increasingly able to predict who will commit crimes, when they will be committed, and where — long before they have occurred. And as these technologies become more widespread among law enforcement agencies, they’re raising some serious questions about the implications of pre-emptive policing.

Here, a few of the most cutting-edge predictive technologies being deployed across the country:

Omniscient cameras
San Francisco has installed surveillance cameras in its subway system that can purportedly identify criminals or terrorists based on their actions, before any crime is perpetrated.

The cameras are pre-programmed with a list of “normal” behaviors. Once they detect anything “unusual” (such as a person loitering, making sudden movements, entering a restricted area, leaving luggage in a crowded area, or groups of two or more approaching a solitary individual), guards are alerted via phone call or text message. Capable of tracking up to 150 suspects at a time, the cameras are also able to learn by building a memory of suspicious behavior that they use to determine potential criminal activity in the future.

In 2010, a similar system was installed in East Orange, N.J. It reduced police response times to mere seconds. More recently, those cameras have been outfitted with a red spotlight that will shine on the potential offender to signal that they are being watched and recorded.

Soon, surveillance cameras could become even more powerful with the addition of facial recognition technology. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is at work on BOSS (Biometric Optical Surveillance System), which uses powerful computers with facial recognition software hooked up to surveillance cameras to automatically find and track targeted individuals within a crowd.

Hostile intent scanners
Moving further into the realm of Minority Report, DHS is developing FAST (Future Attribute Screening Technology), a surveillance system designed to sense malicious intent by remotely reading changes in an individual’s vital signs like heart rate, temperature, and respiratory patterns, as well as physical cues like body language and eye movements. DHS believes these physical cues belie mal-intent, similar to the underlying assumptions behind a polygraph, and claims the system yielded a 70 percent accuracy rate in lab tests.

Clairvoyant algorithms
On the data-driven side, an increasing number of police departments around the country, including Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, are using predictive analytics to stop crime before it happens. This computer software sifts through thousands of criminal cases and examines variables like geographic location, criminal records, and time of attack to predict where and when future crimes will be committed and by whom.

While it may not be the Precrime Squad, the Virginia State Police used predictive analytics in the summer of 2011 to determine where the culprit behind a string of shootings would most likely strike next and when. Lying in wait at Arlington National Cemetery, police stopped Yonathan Melaku who was behaving erratically and found to be carrying a backpack filled with shell casings and homemade bomb-making materials. He eventually pled guilty and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

***

While these technologies may be powerful law enforcement tools, they also raise serious concerns.

In an analysis of pre-crime police tactics and their effects in Europe, University of Brussels law professor Paul De Hert worries that the combination of pre-crime police tactics and modern surveillance technology “undermines the presumption of innocence.” In other words, rather than simply deterring crime, law enforcement agencies are now seeking to actively pre-empt it, fundamentally altering the interactions between the police and citizens.

“Mass surveillance promotes the view…that everybody is untrustworthy,” criminology professor Clive Norris testified to the U.K.’s House of Lords Selected Committee on the Constitution. “If we are gathering data on people all the time on the basis that they may do something wrong, this is promoting a view that as citizens we cannot be trusted.”

Advocates of pre-crime technology, however, downplay this new mentality and insist that technology like predictive analytics is worth it.

Zach Friend, a crime analyst with the Santa Cruz Police Department, which has seen a 19 percent reduction in crime since implementing predictive analytics software, defends the technology, stating, “It doesn’t replace what [cops] do. When they get into those locations, they still need to be good cops.” Unlike the precogs in Minority Report, predictive technology doesn’t automatically lead to arrests, but rather guides law enforcement agents to potential crime scenes and points to who should be examined more closely.

Yet, even take if we take Friend’s defense at face value, these technologies still have ramifications for reasonable suspicion, much less probable cause.

Because computer software is pre-programmed with notions of what constitutes “suspicious behavior,” Professor De Hert writes that “questions need to be addressed about what is ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ behavior.” Without a public debate and transparency on how police pre-determine suspicious behavior, these programmed machines still contain the same biases and prejudices that humans have.

When police searches are based on a computer algorithm, issues of transparency and accountability inevitably arise, and in the event, that the case is challenged in court, “How do you cross-examine a computer?” asks Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, a law professor at the University of the District of Columbia.

Defenders push back, however, and say these technologies can actually bolster accountability and help improve privacy.

“You can pinpoint the record of who has access to information, you have a solid history of what’s going on, so if someone is using the system for ill you have an audit trail,” says Mark Cleverly, the head of the IBM unit for predictive crime analytics, which has worked with police departments around the world.

Dismissing concerns over pre-crime technology’s potential to create a police state like Minority Report, Cleverly tells AFP, “It was a great film and great short story, but it’s science fiction and will remain science fiction. That’s not what this is about.”

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(CNN) — A flight to America’s adult playground, Las Vegas, had an unusual passenger last week: a 9-year-old boy traveling on his own, apparently without a ticket.

The boy went through security with all other passengers, the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement, but officials are still trying to figure out how he did it — and how he then got on the flight.

Patrick Hogan, a spokesman for Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, said the crew of Delta Flight 1651 “became suspicious of the child’s circumstances” during the flight from Minneapolis to Las Vegas. Crew members got in touch with authorities in Las Vegas and turned the boy over to Child Protective Services, Hogan said in a statement.

“Fortunately, the flight crew took appropriate actions to ensure the child’s safety, so the story does have a good ending,” he said.
Delta said it takes the incident “very seriously” and is working with authorities.

The airline spells out its policy about children flying solo plainly on its website.

Children between the ages of 5 and 14 may travel alone as part of the unaccompanied minor program. Someone from Delta pays special attention to the children, walks them on board, shows them their seats and even introduces them to the cockpit crew, time permitting, Delta says, adding, “Kids love this part.

Airport officials reviewed security footage and don’t think the child had a ticket, CNN affiliate KARE reported.

The boy, a runaway from the Twin Cities, spent a good amount of time at the airport before boarding the plane, KARE said.

He was there the day before, the station reported, citing airport officials. He passed his time by taking luggage from a carousel, bringing it to an airport eatery and then ditching it, asking a server to watch the bag “while he went to the restroom.”

The following day the child took the train to the airport, cleared security and made it to Las Vegas nearly without detection.

“Obviously, the fact that the child’s actions weren’t detected until he was in flight is concerning,” Hogan wrote. Still, 33 million people travel through Minneapolis’ airport every year, he noted. “I don’t know of another instance in my 13 years at the airport in which anything similar has happened,” he said.

Man pleads guilty to slapping crying boy on Delta flight

A flight security expert said it’s very concerning that the child made it through several security checks.

“All of this (security) since 9/11 has been to keep us safe. And it has, but still we have gaping holes, and this is a perfect example of it,” Terry Trippler of ThePlaneRules.com told KARE.

The incident may be a first for Minneapolis, but over the years other airports have had similar incidents.

In 2007, another 9-year-old managed to fly from Seattle to Phoenix to San Antonio before being found out. He had a boarding pass, though. His mother told CNN her son gave ticketing agents a fake name.

Last year an 11-year-old boy in Manchester, England, managed to slip away from his mother during a shopping trip. He made it all the way to Rome without a boarding pass or a passport. But any Colosseum dreams were dashed. He never left the airport in Rome and was returned to his parents the same day.

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It’s an unfortunate truth of the cell phone era that sometimes, employees will abuse their access to these devices. Whether their employer owns the device, or allows “bring your own device” (BYOD) to work, the convenience and ubiquity to an individual’s day-to-day means that sometimes, devices will be used inappropriately.

In the law enforcement arena, several very recent news stories highlight this truth:

Chicopee (Massachusetts) police officers were investigated after leaking crime-scene images of murder victim Amanda Plasse. The photos were taken with officers’ personal mobile devices and shared with people outside the Chicopee Police Department.
In Denver (Colorado), an officer was given a desk assignment after allegedly using his department-issued mobile device to sexually harass a woman.
Connell (Washington)’s chief of police is under investigation for allegedly watching pornography on a city-issued cellphone.
A Roseville (California) police officer used his cell phone to stalk and harass a woman.

How can you protect yourself and your agency in the event of these types of allegations?

Establish proactive and reactive policies

Whether you issue devices or allow BYOD, have policies that establish acceptable use. In either case, personal communications should not interfere with official duties. Require employees to password-protect their devices, and possibly even encrypt potentially sensitive data, such as text messages between officers and witnesses.

Clearly lay out what behavior will not be tolerated. This can be as obvious as pornography viewing on duty (or even off duty on a government-issued device), or as “gray” as limiting personal communications only to family emergencies.

In Connell as well as in many other communities, employees can use their city-issued phones for some personal use as long as it doesn’t add to maintenance costs, and/or if they agree to pick up the tab for additional accrued costs. However, employees also have a limited expectation of privacy in the use of employer-issued devices, as the US Supreme Court ruled in City of Ontario v. Quon in 2010.

BYOD policies are a little different. These should stipulate:

What devices are permitted. As government employees, everyone in your agency may need to adhere to any policy already in place for your city, county or state. Devices that are allowed can affect any support issues officers may have with connecting to work email or other internal resources, as well as potential security issues.
What apps are permitted. Especially on Android devices, it’s possible that some apps may not be as secure as you’d like them to be when a device is accessing your network.A BYOD policy should also include language that allows the agency or government to search the employee’s device. There should be cause to do so, of course, and the policy should state that the scope of a search will be limited to relevant data (not a wholesale scouring of employee personal data, which could leave you liable if you uncover personal health information or other protected data). This part of the policy should also cover what happens when employees leave the department.

Employees should also be compelled to turn over any evidentiary data on their personal devices as soon as possible after obtaining it. It may be, in some situations, that a personal device is the only means of recording a crime scene, a victim’s injuries, a confrontation of some kind, or other evidence. But policy should dictate when this type of use is allowable and what should happen to the evidence following the recording.

Policy should also dictate how to handle mobile devices in certain situations, like officer-involved shootings or other use of force encounters. It may be that the device contains no evidence. Then again, the nature of text messages or other communications can help to establish an officer’s frame of mind leading up to an encounter.

Have a standard search procedure
Policy only goes so far. Also understand how you’re going to obtain the data. Just as with a civilian’s device, it’s not appropriate to “thumb through” text messages, images, or other data. That would be like thumbing through all the pictures, files and personal effects within an officer’s home.

“Digital first responder” training is imperative for everyone in the agency, including any officer or commander responsible for conducting internal investigations. This training helps the investigator understand how to preserve digital evidence.

For instance, it would not be enough to put an iPhone in Airplane Mode. The investigator also needs to turn off its wi-fi. Doing one but not the other would still allow the device to send and receive data from wi-fi access points, changing data on the device.

Investigators should also be sure to collect data and power cables for all relevant devices. While Android phones use micro USB and therefore have interchangeable power cords, other makes and models do not; Apple iOS devices, for instance, do not have consistent power cabling. If you don’t collect the right cables, you may face having to purchase one.

Keep cables with the devices they’re meant to go with, separate from other devices and cables. Label everything: device make and model, whose it is, case control number. If for some reason you could not collect the cable, note that too.

Internal investigations may start in the field rather than in the office. In this event, a small “first responder” kit (which should be standard issue in all field vehicles) should be maintained. The kit should include a Faraday bag or box to help you isolate the device as you transport it from the scene to the office or forensic lab.

If the device is locked, obtain its password. This may be part of consent to search — be sure to maintain consent forms for BYOD scenarios — or the employee may be compelled to provide the password. Keep in mind that the officer may be unwilling or unable (if physically injured) to provide the password. In this event, know whether your agency’s or government’s IT staff maintains device passwords, and whether they can be reset over the network.

Finally, once you have the device and all necessary legal authority, examine or assign the examination like you would any other evidence device. Know who in your agency or region can perform mobile forensic examinations, and how to contact the on-call specialist.

If you are the one doing the examination, it is wise to undergo training on how to use the forensic tool, including obtaining any necessary certifications. It may also be wise to perform any search in the presence of the officer’s union representative or attorney, or request independent examination by a district attorney’s or attorney general’s investigative staff.

Communicate with employees

Employees should understand that nothing on their personal mobile device is truly “private.” It could become discoverable for any reason at all. Employees should be taught to assume their mobile devices may be searched at any time, and that the old saying “better to ask forgiveness than permission” may not be true of mobile device usage.

Clearly communicate what policies exist and why, along with any changes that are made as soon as they are made. Make sure employees also understand the SOP that goes along with those policies and what their rights are. Know how to answer any questions they might ask, which means working with the city attorney to address them.
Annual in-house training, complete with scenarios and/or role-play, can help in this regard. Regular briefings on offenses, right and wrong responses, implications and consequences of each, and what officers are required to report should all be built into this type of training.

Just like social media posts, mobile device content can affect your credibility as a witness in court, and your usage habits can affect the public’s perception of your professionalism. Strong policies, procedures, and training can help both officers and agencies protect themselves and one another from damaging mobile device misuse.

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Stratford CT Oct 4 2013 As Stratford Public Schools is making security upgrade changes at school buildings with supplementary funds from the town and grants from the state to potentially delay a would-be intruder, Stratford’s two Catholic schools have made similar upgrades with their own fund raising.
St. Mark School on Wigwam Road has spent about $65,000 on security upgrades from monies raised from special events and private donations, according to
Principal Gene Holmes. The school has 225 students in prekindergarten through eighth grade.

The improvements began in January, shortly after the massacre at nearby Sandy Hook Elementary School, last Dec. 14.

Steel doors have replaced glass doors at the school entrances, Holmes said, and a thick but translucent polyethylene film has been applied to the school’s windows to hold the glass together even if penetrated by gunfire. This is designed to thwart entering the school through a window.

Holmes said that one of his goals with the security upgrades was to avoid creating a prison-like appearance to the school. He agreed with Stratford Public Schools Superintendent Janet Robinson, who has told The Star that a primary purpose of security upgrades is to delay an intruder and improve notification to police so their response time is as quick as can be.

Stratford officials, including Mayor John Harkins, police Chief Patrick Ridenhour and Lt. Melissa Niemiec, have visited St. Mark and consulted with Holmes numerous times, the principal said, and he understands that police “response time to any school in Stratford is about one and a half minutes.”
Other hardware upgrades made at St. Mark include installation of 13 cameras and new buzzers at the eight entrances.

Holmes said the school conducts lockdown drills once a month and separate evacuation drills, also once a month. With police consultation and a committee of volunteer parents, the school has refined its emergency plans, including cutting paths at the perimeter of the property, so that children who might be outdoors during an emergency have an easy exit off the property.

School leaders have had to take on “a whole different mind-set” regarding potential violence at St. Mark, Holmes said, where “in five years here I have not had to break up one fistfight.”

At St. James School on Main Street, which has 350 students prekindergarden through eighth grade, parents have raised and spent about $40,000 on 24 security cameras with a wider scope than previous cameras indoors and outdoors, walkie-talkies for teachers who may be outdoors with students, and improved entrance buzzers and internal phone communications. The entrance doors there already are steel with just small windows.

Principal James Gieryng said that he, too, has had the benefit of Stratford police consultation, and Lt. Niemiec had been monitoring the school’s “intruder drills” that occur monthly.

Gieryng said he also gets assistance from parent volunteers who have various types of security- or building-related professional skills.

The amount of advance notice given to the students about an upcoming emergency drill now varies, Gieryng said. At the beginning of the year, he said, he lets students know the hour of a drill. In subsequent months he will advise only the day to expect a drill, and toward the end of the school year he will announce only the week when a drill will occur.

“It scares the kids,” Gieryng said, “but you can hear a pin drop” during the drills. “The consciousness of what we are doing is a lot better.”

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Dorset England Oct 1 2013 A PRIVATE security firm is to guard major crime scenes under a four-month trial being carried out by Dorset Police.

The force said guarding the scenes of major crimes, such as murder and serious assault, was currently taking officers away from front-line policing.

It said the decision to outsource the role to Securitas Ltd had the potential to release between 2,600 and 3,600 police hours to front line services each year.

Detective Chief Superintendent Mark Cooper, head of Dorset Police criminal justice department, said: “Protecting the scene is an integral part of an investigation ensuring that evidence is not disrupted, destroyed or contaminated.

“Outsourcing has been tried and tested by other forces for a number of years and it has been found to be a very effective way of securing evidence as well as ensuring robust frameworks on contamination or interference at the scenes of crime.

“Specially trained scene officers will be able to perform this task to a high standard and release police officers back to the front line to perform other essential tasks.

“The outsourcing of scene guarding to Securitas Ltd has the potential to impact positively upon the service we can provide to the communities of Dorset.”

Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner Martyn Underhill said: “I welcome this trial which will put more officers back into core policing. It will also cut force costs and strengthen our ties with Avon and Somerset, and Devon and Cornwall Police Forces who have already adopted this scheme.”

Mike Clancy, south west area director of Securitas, said: “This tried and tested method since 2008 has seen a hugely successful relationship between two forces grow now into a third as we welcome Dorset Police.

“The work our crime scene officers conduct is of the highest standard, having been police-vetted and specifically trained for such a role prior to any deployment.

“Our density of branch network and front line staff enables us to deploy with pace, professionalism and the reliability you would expect from an organisation of our strength, depth and expertise.”

If the trial proves successful, Dorset hopes to use professional scene officers permanently from 2014.
It could also consider deploying them to other crime scenes.

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Sept. 20–Many police departments around the country have been using body-mounted cameras to record their interactions with the community, and with a new push from the City Council and Police Commission, the Los Angeles Police Department may soon be testing the technology aimed at reducing the number of officer-involved complaints and lawsuits.

The idea for the small body-mounted cameras was thrust to the forefront last week when Police Commissioner Steve Soboroff announced he was raising private funding pay for the items, and City Councilman Mitch Englander said the first cameras for testing might be available as early as next week.

“What we’re looking at is an enhancement to the technology that is already out there with the dash cameras in the black-and-whites,” Englander said in an interview. “More is better in this case. We’re paying out tens of millions of dollars in lawsuits, and these cameras have been shown to lower that amount in other departments. There’s a new energy around this technology, and we want to move forward with it.”

One recent study in Rialto showed an 80 percent drop in the number of complaints against officers during a year-long pilot program, as well as a reduction in use-of-force incidents from 60 to just 25 year over year.

Two weeks ago, Soboroff had said the goal was to have cameras on all officers within the next 18 months, but last week he revised that time frame to one year.

“A couple of things went into that,” Soboroff said in an interview. “(Police Chief Charlie Beck) thinks the results will be so apparent once these things are up and running that the testing period doesn’t need to be that long. We thought it would take six months after we got them to test them — now it’s at three months.”

While he cautioned that the department still has to establish procedures for use of the cameras, including what divisions will test the technology and standards for privacy concerns when officers enter residences, he said the goal is still to move quickly on implementation.

The current plan is to acquire 25 cameras on loan from a manufacturer. Those will be worn in the field for 90 days, and then the department will report back to the City Council’s Public Safety Commission. By then, Soboroff hopes to have raised the money necessary to purchase the hardware, warranties and cloud storage space for the massive amount of data the cameras record.

Funding has consistently been a hang-up in adding the once much touted dashboard cameras to patrol cars, and a similar challenge faces body-camera proposals, even though Chief Beck has voiced his enthusiastic support for both.

Currently, about a fifth of the fleet’s vehicles have in-car cameras, but Beck said last week the department is moving forward with plans for more, on a separate track from the push for body cameras.

To sidestep money concerns over body cameras, Soboroff has taken his pitch private, securing pledges from some high-profile Angelenos, including $250,000 from media mogul Casey Wasserman and an undisclosed amount from DreamWorks co-founder and CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg.

“The goal is for the city to have no financial impact at all,” Soboroff said. “That includes warranties, maintenance, downloading and (data) storage … I have people calling me every day.”

The total cost to acquire 500 of the cameras Englander and Soboroff have been eyeing is about $1 million, including warranties that cover upgrades as technology advances, several years of data storage and monitoring and maintenance. Because those 500 will rotate among officers at shift changes, up to 1,500 officers will be able to use them.
The eventual goal is to equip all on-shift officers with the devices. Englander points out that many have already outfitted themselves with cameras or other recording devices at their own expense.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents the majority of sworn officers, has not yet taken a position on the cameras.The most popular manufacturer is an Arizona-headquartered company, Taser International Inc., which supplied the LAPD with its brand of stun guns and is providing the cameras for the initial testing period.

The company makes two versions of the cameras: the Axon Body, a rectangular device that mounts to an officer’s shirt pocket and costs about $299; and the Axon Flex, which runs between $700 and $800 and can be mounted on hats, collars, belts or specially designed Oakley sunglasses using a magnetic attachment, as well as on the dashboard of a patrol car to act as a dash cam.

Currently, dozens of U.S. police departments have incorporated the cameras — including Greensboro, N.C., Topeka, Kansas, and Houston — and have made public their drop in complaints against officers.

“Last month, there was an officer-involved shooting in Topeka, and the District Attorney and the police chief were able to watch the video of the incident at the same time,” said Steve Tuttle, a spokesman for Taser International. “Now, I don’t know the outcome of the case, but I know that they’ve tripled their purchase (of cameras) since that time. There’s a reason for that.”

Tuttle points out that the Axon Flex can be used as a replacement for dash cams with a mount similar to a GPS stand that affixes to the dashboard of a vehicle. In the case of motorcycle officers, the on-body camera becomes the default dash cam and records both audio and video.

“We’ve had officers out there going 100 mph, and the camera stays affixed,” he said.

Once the camera is turned on, it is always recording video but captures audio only when a police officer turns on that feature.

Despite the manufacturer’s indication that body cams are able to supplant dash cams, locals involved say they want to move forward with adding both to the LAPD’s equipment arsenal.”There are so many benefits to having these,” said Councilman Englander. “You can Bluetooth link the body cameras to your smart phone, which would allow officers to roll up to a scene with an operational perspective. They can use it when they are going around a corner or up into an attic. Instead of putting their head up in the attic and getting it shot at, they can put the camera up there. But we still want the perspective of both the officer and the suspect when you’re in the car. You want to have as many perspectives as possible, and this technology makes that possible.”

Copyright 2013 – Daily News, Los Angeles
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