High-Tech Use of Force Simulation Training for Local Law Enforcement

I am wondering how people feel about this new and fast growing type of training. I have my doubts about it leading to officers that are more passive. I read allot of talk about Selective Enforcement in training lit as well.

I called the Capitola Police department to request information on the trailer. The operator asked me why I wanted the information. I told her either it was either public information or it was not and I simply was a curious person. I was sent to the Capt. who was more informative.

Capitola did go through the “use of force training” which is a statewide effort that all Law Enforcement agencies must go through. I asked if this cost the City any money directly and he answered "no" it was a combo Home Land Security and Sate Public Safety Program, fully funded and required.

I asked if he thought the training was helpful and he had no comment and then became very un-informative.

I have read through many of the course manuals etc. Some of the things being taught are in case of a huge disaster -- how to control the masses.

An interesting article on the Academy’s site was Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. Just the sound of that article makes me want to chew on tinfoil.
Also of note is a site where you can read and see all the nifty new technology we can be sure will be used against activists as well as real criminals. http://www.policeone.com/police-products/training/products/

http://www.theacademy.ca.gov/?p=corporatetrainingcourses

The picture below is an add for a Shock wave knife sold as a training device
http://www.policeone.com/police-products/training/products/articles/125912/

good work tim, keep it up

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design

This is one of the many classes that bothered me to the core. The more I look the worse it is.
Here is part of the course flier and some links about CPTED.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_prevention_through_environmental_design

http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=12-01-06&storyID=25764

Peoples Park and how CPTED is altering it. "According to Nov. 13 Advisory Committee minutes, the concept, introduced by Berkeley Police Chief Doug Hambleton, is called Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, CPTED. The goal is to remove obstructions so that police can see what’s going on in the park from their patrol cars."

"Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design

Dec 4 - 8, 2006

Description

As crime and blight continue to flourish within inner city neighborhoods and the fear of crime becomes greater than the actual incidence, law enforcement personnel are being asked to actively participate in the planning and development phases of their communities. CPTED (pronounced SEP-TED) as it has been coined stands for Crime Prevention Through Environment Design and has been officially adopted by the National Crime Prevention Council as the program to combat crime and blight throughout the nations inner cities. This weeklong 40 hour course is designed specifically for the beginning CPTED practitioner, providing the basic essentials necessary to learn how to apply CPTED principles and to perform the job of plan review.

Location

San Jose Radisson Hotel

Fees

$95.00 (Checks Payable to SBRPSTC)
Agency billing may also be arranged. All fees subject to change.

Course Meets

0800 - 1700 hrs., Monday - Friday"

Don't be so conspiratorial on this one. As woman, I know that areas that are poorly lit and full of nooks and crannies are hotspots for rape and I avoid them. Designs that reduce these kinds of opportunities for attackers are better than the alternative in public spaces.

Sorry I do not hold your view. I do not trust the government or cops to design our environment.

Taking down trees so they can bust drug users, or designing cities for better "crowd" control bother me. Here is another City that had issues with CPTED being used to design their parks. They did not remove the drug problem, they just moved it.

"Victoria Coun. Charlayne Thornton-Joe is downtown liaison on city council and is well-versed with the challenges the city and police face in trying to clean up certain areas of the core.

“The reality is, whenever we do something that deals with CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) issues, it just displaces the problems,” she admitted.

http://www.vicnews.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=36&cat=23&id=783573&more=

CPTED relies on three main strategies: natural surveillance, natural access control, and territoriality-establishing boundaries and transitional spaces.

Although it is sometimes helpful in stopping such crimes as rape, mostly it has added more cameras, piped music in areas with "crime" or just homeless hanging around. Wake up people; we should design our own cities! This is also a part of the drug war. Do we want the Gov designing our land? Do we trust them to do it? I don't.

End SJPD Secrecy!
Posted by: "Sanjeev Bery" sbery [at] aclunc.org sanjeevbery
Date: Sun Dec 3, 2006 8:56 pm ((PST))

Help End SJPD Secrecy!

The San Jose Police Department is refusing
to provide the public with copies of key
police records and reports.

These records document how police officers
interact with the public. They include
use-of-force and incident reports that show
how SJPD officers treat members of the
community.

Right now, a team of hard-working community
members is drafting new reforms to make our
San Jose city government more accountable
to the public. These community members are
part of the Sunshine Reform Task Force.

Please urge the city's Sunshine Reform Task Force
to propose strong rules guaranteeing public
access to SJPD records. Email the task force
before it makes its recommendations next month!

Click here to take action: http://www.aclunc.org/sjpd

It's not just the SJPD, but trouble closer to home.

GETTING THE RUNAROUND AT THE SCPD
Attorney Kate Wells made a Public Records Act request to the SCPD on November 20th requesting copies of all citations written from April 1 through November 1st of this year involving MC 6.36 (the infamous camping ordinance). This ordinance includes the nighttime Sleeping Ban (MC 6.36.010a), the nighttime Blanket Ban(MC 6.36.010b), and the 24-hour Camping Ban (MC 6.36.010c).

She received an official (and officious) reply several days ago stating they had no such records.

I called the Records department today and spoke with a woman named Tricia there (420-5874). She advised me that they did have such records, but would have to check with the City Attorney because "names might have to be redacted".

When she declined to do anything further unless I put the request in writing, I asked her what the difference was between my request and the one Kate Wells sent her which she had rejected. She then became uncomfortable and seemed disinclined to discuss it further.

CITATIONS NECESSARY TO DOCUMENT A LAWSUIT
Attorney Wells and HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) are seeking the names of those ticketed by the SCPD for "criminal sleeping" (and related offenses) in the last 6 months. This is at the request of attorneys from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, which is considering a lawsuit along the lines of the Los Angeles "Jones" case.

In that case, the 9th Federal Court of Appeals ruled favorably on the ACLU's right to a court order preventing police from ticketing or arresting homeless people in Skidrow at night. Though the L.A. City Council is appealing that decision (and dickering about a settlement), the L.A. City Attorney directed the police in September to suspend all such "sleep" ticketing in Skid Row at night. San Diego's City Attorney has advised its police to stop arresting homeless there for "sleepcrime".

But in Santa Cruz, homeless people are continuing to receive citations in freezing and rainy weather. Craig Canada got two in the last week.
The fine for such citations (if you want to resolve them short of court) is $90.

COURTS PART OF OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE (WHAT ELSE IS NEW?)
Moreover the local courts have refused to release any stats on how many homeless people have been fined, jailed, sentenced to community service, arrested, charged with Failures to Appear, gone to trial, or had their cases dismissed. Their claim is that they "have no such records" unless the records are accessed by the name of the individual defendant.

Hence, the Public Records Request to the SCPD seeking citation copies that would name each defendant, so their court records could be checked.

In Santa Cruz both the courts and the police are colluding with City Council's criminal conspiracy to routinely and casually deny homeless people basic civil and human rights.

SOME MODEST PROPOSALS
Perhaps Human Rights Day would be a good deal to sleep out at the City Attorney's office on Church St.? Perhaps a small Tent City might be a form of affordable housing for the rest of December and January while City Council is on vacation. Last City Council meeting until mid-January: December 12th.

In the meantime, contact City Council at 420-5020 and demand that the SCPD release the records and that the camping ban be suspended over the winter. Santa Cruz has space for 160 homeless people and a city homeless population of 1500-2000.

HUFF is drafting a letter to Councilmember Ryan Coonerty specifically requesting how he justifies ignoring the 9th Federal Court of Appeals decision directing cops to lay off the nighttime sleep deprivation exercises. Contact Coonerty at 420-5027 to get the details on how he justifies this kind of institutionalized abuse.

Want to help with a Winter Campaign Against the Sleeping Ban?Leave a message with HUFF at 423-4833.

Although it is sometimes helpful in stopping such crimes as rape, mostly it has added more cameras, piped music in areas with "crime" or just homeless hanging around.

What the fuck are you actually talking about?

Installing cameras and piped music, is not environmental design and has nothing to do with CPTED. I suggest you actually look up CPTED and the underlying concepts before you start shooting off your mouth.

I did see their site and read their courses, mission statement etc. I understand from their perspective they are helping fight crime. They do things such as "thinning trees” as they did in Peoples Park to see the drug users. They work with the planning commissioners to help design cities for better management during a crisis, from natural to a nuclear. Cities are designed for better crowd control. I consider piped music to be a change of the Cities Environmental Design, whoever made the decision. It spawns from the same concepts. I think the public should have some input and knowledge about any environmental design changes made to a city and for what reasons. People are going their. JR’s comment is a quote right off their site. I read it myself. Environmental design is a broad term, and Law enforcement can use it in many ways. If they thin trees to spy in Peoples Park – you can assume they help law enforcement in many other tactics I may disagree with. They are and additional asset to the drug war which I am against. Since the drug war started pot and acid are out and Cocaine , Speed and Heroin are in, Great Job!

A day or so after I wrote the prior comment above, the SCPD's Records Dept. did respond--not with copies of all the citations as we'd requested, but with a summary, which is still quite helpful.

We now have (we assume) a listing of all citations for Sleeping, Camping, and Blanket Ban infractions issued from April to November of this year.

It is still true that the Records Dept. initially wrote back to attorney Kate Wells that those records were not available. When I called, as mentioned above, I was told the records were available but not by name--unless authorized by the City Attorney. Both these claims turned out to be false.

The Records Department did correct its mistake speedily, but without apology. It shouldn't take a hyperactive activist and a dogged attorney to get these kind of records.

That said, we now proceed.

We have now put in (yet another) request to the courts, asking for the outcome of all those unconstitutional tickets. This time, by name of defendant (so there can be no doubt that the records are quickly accessible).

HOW MANY "SCENARIOS" HAVE YOU HAD LATELY?
IS SOMEONE GETTING READY TO STEAL A LOAF OF BREAD, PERHAPS?
Only in Kalifornia.