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| Credit: KABC |
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is revising its use-of-force policies in response to a precedent-setting court decision.
Under the new policy, investigators will consider how officers acted prior to an incident when determining whether they acted properly. Previously, they were just supposed to focus on the moment when force was used.
“It’s so dramatic, it’s like an about-face from how this county has been doing it,” Supervisor Gloria Molina said.
Under the ruling, force could be deemed unreasonable if the deputy acted negligently leading up to an force incident, attorney Richard Drooyan told supervisors.
Drooyan, who’s been tasked with monitoring the sheriff’s implementation of recommendations made by the Citizen’s Commission on Jail Violence, said current department policies focus on the moment when force is used.
“What I think’s going to happen now is the department’s training is going to be broader to reflect that those tactical decisions have to be viewed as a continuum leading up to the use of force,” Drooyan said.
The California Supreme Court ruling last year deals with a 2006 incident in which San Diego deputies shot and killed a man who was holding a knife in his kitchen. Before firing, the deputies did not warn the man nor tell him to drop the knife, according to court documents.
Assistant Sheriff Terri McDonald told the board that tactics leading up to an incident are always reviewed, but the case takes it to a whole new level. As part of its response to the ruling, the department is revising forms that are filed in follow up to incidents, McDonald said.
The ruling may also increase the county’s potential liability from previous cases that are already headed toward litigation, prompting Molina to ask for a team of attorneys to review those cases again.
Aside from the ruling, Drooyan said the department has progressed in implementing recommendations made by the commission that was formed amid criticism of jailhouse violence and deputy brutality. The last of those recommendations will take through 2016 and 2017 to finish, because of funding limitations, he said.
But a major step forward in reducing jailhouse tensions will start testing Monday when the department puts a pair of body scanners to use at its Inmate Reception Center.
The pilot program was delayed by a few months, because officials with the deputy union were worried radiation being emitted from the new generation of body scanners and concerned about department policies governing their use.
Once in place, McDonald said, the scanners will allow inmates to avoid physical searches, while more effectively keeping drugs and other contraband out of jails.
“It allows them in a more dignified way to be subjected to a search,” McDonald said.
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