JPD officers are complaining that they are sidelined, even when cleared after a shooting. Justin Vicery and Therese Apel reported yesterday in the Clarion-Ledger:
Ten Jackson police officers who have been cleared — most by a Hinds County grand jury — of any wrongdoing in line-of-duty shootings have been stripped of their police powers and put on administrative duties.
The officers appeared before the Civil Service Commission on Thursday. Their status makes them ineligible for overtime and means they cannot work part-time security jobs. Many of the officers involved worked on the Gun Crimes Interdiction Team or other specialized units that provided quite a bit of overtime....
Three more officers were fired upon first and returned fire, striking the suspect in the leg. None of them has been returned to their duties.
One officer who has been on modified assignment for months lost his wife to breast cancer this summer and is now the single parent of their daughter. The overtime he brought in from a specialized team is wiped out.
Officers involved in the complaint feel they are being punished for doing their jobs, because, after being cleared by the Internal Affairs Division and a grand jury, they should be returned to their normal duties, which has long been JPD's policy. In some cases, the officers have also been cleared by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.
"This is not a typical situation," Cory said. "That's obvious."
"I'm hoping there's an overlook somewhere that's just going to be solved," Springer said. "Hopefully these will work themselves out without the Civil Service Commission having to make an order or go any further."
The Civil Service Commission told the officers they will investigate the claims.
The loss of so many front line officers during a time in which JPD's numbers are critically low and dropping by the month has been especially hard on department morale, officers told the Clarion Ledger.
Under former Police Chief Lee Vance, the department was aiming to build ranks to 500. The last number released by JPD was 335 officers with 35 recruits about to join the force....
Some of the shootings go back as far as 2017. As is routine for in line-of-duty shootings, the cases were investigated by JPD internal affairs and then sent to the district attorney's office to be taken to grand jury. In some cases they went through MBI as well.All of the involved officers were no-billed by a grand jury, which means they were cleared to return to active duty....
Not good. This is going to send a message to officers not to take risks, among other things.
15 comments:
Sure they must be benched for doing their job makes all the others looks bad.Too much red tape .Jackson has everything wrong that a city can have.
Wow, it seems like bandleaders get cleared even faster after a shooting.
There can be little doubt that Mayor Empty Suit is involved in the shelving of these officers.
I’m assuming there is still pending litigation against the city in every one of these cases. Is that correct?
This is common policy in police departments.
Shooting another human is a traumatic experience for normal people.
It is for the officers safety and that of those they serve for the department to make certain they have dealt with the trauma and don't suffer from PTSD.
And the attrition of good officers will continue as moral takes a nose dive.
When is the DOJ going to take over Hinds County Justice System?
Pending litigation, even if true, never requires suspension or reassignment of employees, except maybe in sex harassment situations.
To the guy who says this is common practice (months after investigation has cleared), please back that up.
... Mayor Empty Suit is involved in the shelving of these officers.
Face it. Lumumba rose to the office by being antagonistic towards the police. Fellow (and former?) Kushnik pal Minka and his imported agitators are undermining some of the support Lumumba used to win the election by drawing attention to Lumumba's backpedaling and seeming newfound chumminess with JPD. With each attack by Minka Lumumba feels a tug to re-burnish his credibility with the Republic of New Afrika crowd be undermining JPD from within.
The only law and order Antar wants to enforce is the payment of water bills.
Please try to understand. The prevailing attitude of Mayor Lumumba and those who share his ideological leaning is: POLICE ARE TO BE TOLERATED NOT SUPPORTED. The complaints of officers who have fired on citizens, no matter the reason, are a very low priority. Get used to it.
KF, coming from a veteran law enforcement officer. We are damned if we do, damned if we don’t. If you shoot someone your going to be drug through the mud, charged and fired. If you don’t pull the trigger because you are scared of the above then you die. It’s a lose lose. The administrations have made it this way so the citizens need not complain when police are slow to respond or don’t do anything when they get there. We all have families and don’t need all these headaches administrations have caused. We need our pay checks too. It’s only going to get worse so y’all get ready
Lock and load. Be careful out there. When seconds count, the cops are minutes away.
Way to go Baby Chock! Another fine, well thought out, well executed, public policy decision for the Kush of Jackson. Keep it up. You are doing great.
Next.
Perception of crime.
Close the zoo.
Close JPS.
Fix the streets.
Fix the water system.
Allow the police to do their job.
Jackson is lost.
8:42 a.m. you are correcting what you're saying about being cleared for Duty! However jpd has a set procedure for officer-involved shootings! One is a criminal investigation and a separate Internal Affairs investigation! During this process the officers are also supposed to see the police psychologist and to be determined by the psychologist as to whether or not they are fit for Duty. If they are cleared in both investigations and are cleared by the staff psychologist for the police department ,then they're supposed to be placed back on duty, which in these cases it is clear they have not! To have this many officers still out on administrative duties and for them to have to go see the Civil Service Board in order to get reinstated is unprecedented! Somebody needs to get a backbone, and defend his or her troops and tell the mayor to reinstate the officers! Administrative position of authority should not be held by people who are afraid to do the right thing!
9:23 am Besides the investigation, many police departments require a psychological evaluation to be cleared for duty.
The effect on the officer even has a name " Post Shooting Syndrome".
Philadelphia Penn. is one example but just try putting " psychological evaluations after a police shooting" in your search engine.
If JPD doesn't have the money or resources for routine after shooting policy to be in place, observing the officer for up to 18 months ( the average recovery time for trauma with no help) is a reasonable alternative.
Even with ordinary traumas in life , like the death of a spouse, a human's ability to make decisions is impaired in the immediate months afterward.
In THIS century, how our brain's function is a science that has made giant leaps since we argued about Freud. And, because of our wars and a professional military, much has been learned about how our brain and body react to traumas.
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