Category Archives: Police reform

‘Defund the Police’ and Other Nonsense

Posted on November 29, 2023 by | 138 comments

by Joe Fitzgerald

“Defund the police” is a stupid slogan.

Give its proponents the benefit of the doubt, however. Maybe what they meant was return police to their core mission of protecting life and property, remove their frequent role as social worker or mental health counselor, demilitarize their responses to all but the most dangerous situations, and soften the qualified immunity defense. It’s still a stupid slogan, especially at the local level.

“Let cops be cops” might have been a better slogan if the murder of George Floyd hadn’t stoked anti-police sentiment in so many. The more rational response might have been reforms to the concept of qualified immunity, which is roughly the idea that a police officer can’t be prosecuted for a harmful or destructive reaction if he thought he was doing the right thing. “Defund the police” seems predicated more on the idea that all police are bad or that paying them less will improve policing or that having fewer of them will reduce crime.

The attitude behind the slogan on the left is half of a symbol of the polarization that keeps government from accomplishing anything. The other half is the anti-teacher sentiment on the right. Public safety and education are the two largest segments of any local budget. Someone once observed that a local government is a school system with a police force. In Harrisonburg, those two segments of the city budget consume 57 percent of local funding. Continue reading →

138 Comments

Posted in Discipline and disorder, Education (K-12), Police reform

VCU Police Department Signals Its Wokeness

Posted on September 14, 2022 by | 23 comments

VCU Police Chief John Venuti

by James A. Bacon

A new “resource” will be available to the LGBTQIA+ community in Richmond. Virginia Commonwealth University — yes, the same institution that recently lost $470,000 in a cyber scam — has assigned two campus patrol officers as “campus LGBTQIA+ liaisons.”

A recent university announcement noted that VCU Police Chief John Venuti has designated the two liaisons as part of the department’s “culture of inclusive community outreach for officers and staff.”

It is not clear, either in the VCU announcement or a WRIC story, what the two officers actually will be doing… aside from liaising and collaborating. Nor is there indication why such liaising and collaborating is necessary.

VCU News said only this: “While the department mandates Safe Zone training for all staff, Officers Hakilah Hudson and Briana Jackson will actively collaborate with offices and groups for outreach and events on both campuses and will be the points of contact for groups on and off campus.”

The VCU page on LGBTQIA+ Liaisons adds this: Continue reading →

23 Comments

Posted in Education (higher ed), LGBQT, Police reform

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Should It Be OK For The Police To Lie?

Posted on February 14, 2022 by | 69 comments

Photo credit: New York Times

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

On at least five occasions over a four-year period, Virginia Beach police confronted suspects with fake documents that indicated the suspect had been connected to a crime through DNA evidence.

The documents were forged certificates of analysis, complete with the letterhead of the Virginia Department of Forensic Sciences and the Seal of the Commonwealth. One of the fake certificates was used in a judicial proceeding in which the defendant was denied bail.

The current police chief assumed control of the department in late 2020, after the instances in question occurred. When he learned of the use of fake certificates in April 2021, he immediately issued an order to his department prohibiting the practice. Continue reading →

69 Comments

Posted in Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, General Assembly, Law enforcement, Police reform

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To Get Respect, Show Respect

Posted on November 27, 2021 by | 23 comments

Khalah Sabbakhan, after her encounter with Richmond police. Photo credit: Daniel Sangjib Min, Richmond Times-Dispatch

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

There are frequent posts on this blog citing the low morale of police officers and officers quitting or retiring as a result. (For one example, see the post from earlier today.) However, for some reason, those posts often fail to report on the continued bad behavior of police.

Early last month, a 45-year old Black woman encountered two white police officers questioning a woman who appeared to be homeless near the Sauer Center in Richmond. (In order to keep the people involved in this incident straight in my narrative, I will refer to the woman being questioned as homeless, although it is not certain that was her status.) The subsequent actions were recorded by the Black woman involved and another eyewitness who started recording after she heard the first woman pleading for help. Continue reading →

23 Comments

Posted in Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Mental illness and substance abuse, Police reform, Uncategorized

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Driving While Black Redux

Posted on September 8, 2021 by | 51 comments

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

Some participants on this blog have voiced skepticism regarding the claim that Black drivers are more likely than white drivers to be pulled over by law enforcement. Jim Bacon even went to great lengths to demonstrate that it was difficult to determine the race of a driver in a moving vehicle. These skeptics have called for some data to support the claim, rather than relying on single egregious incidents such as the one that occurred in Windsor last year.

That data is now available and it supports the hypothesis that Black drivers are more likely than white ones to be stopped for traffic infractions.

Using recently available data from the Dept. of State Police, the Richmond Times Dispatch has calculated that “drivers who are Black are 1.6 times more likely to be stopped than white drivers based on their respective populations. And once stopped, Black drivers are 1.6 times more likely to have their car searched than white drivers and 1.3 times as likely to be arrested.” Continue reading →

51 Comments

Posted in Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Police reform, Race and race relations

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Mayor Stoney and His Left-Wing Critics

Posted on May 26, 2021 by | 9 comments

Photo credit: Richmond Times-Dispatch

by James A. Bacon

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney published an op-ed in the New York Times a few days ago defending his actions last summer during the tumultuous protests and riots  following the George Floyd killing. I was thinking of writing a post this morning critiquing the piece from a conservative perspective. But then I read an analysis in the Richmond Times-Dispatch blasting Stoney from a left-wing perspective, and I found that more interesting.

While Stoney has adopted social-justice rhetoric the past year, by the standard of City of Richmond electoral politics, he is a centrist. During his mayoral re-election campaign last year, he had strong, credible challengers from both the right and left, and he threaded a narrow needle between backing the protesters’ social justice causes while also trying to maintain a semblance of public order. In his NY Times editorial, he focused on his role in removing 14 pieces of Confederate “iconography” from city property and working for racial justice, while apologizing for the “unintentional” release of tear gas during one of the demonstrations.

The mayor has been criticized from the right for allowing protesters to gather unmolested for months in a virtual police-free zone around the Lee Statue on Monument Avenue even as they harassed and terrified nearby residents. But that was never a consideration for RTD reporters Ali Rockett and Chris Suarez in their take-down of the Stoney column. Continue reading →

9 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Media, Police reform

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Driving While Black

Posted on April 10, 2021 by | 48 comments

Photo credit: Pope County Tribune

By Dick Hall-Sizemore

If anyone ever doubted there was a need for society to address the problem of police officers stopping Black drivers, a recent event in the town of Windsor should dispel those doubts.

The incident is reported in today’s on-line Virginian-Pilot. Like incidents at Virginia institutions of higher education that have been recently discussed on this blog, the narrative is based on side’s story. In this case, the description comes from a lawsuit filed in federal court by the Black driver. Unlike those other incidents, however, there is graphic police body camera footage that backs up the Black driver’s story.

For those who do not have access to the Virginian-Pilot with the accompanying body cam footage, I will summarize the incident: Continue reading →

48 Comments

Posted in Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Police reform, Race and race relations, Uncategorized

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Northam’s Good Move: End Executions

Posted on January 13, 2021 by | 116 comments

The Martinsville Seven

By Peter Galuszka

Governor Ralph Northam will propose legislation to ban executions in the state. The move could end decades of systemic racism in the criminal justice system.

“I’ve strongly about this for a long time,” he was quoted as saying. The bill will be taken up by the General Assembly, which met in its 2021 session today.

If the bill passes, it would make Virginia the only Southern state to ban executions.

According to the Richmond Times Dispatch, 113 executions have been conducted in the state since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed executions to resume in 1976. Virginia’s vigorous efforts to kill those convicted of capital crimes gave it the dishonorable distinction of being No. 2 in the country after Texas which had 570 executions in that time frame.

Historically, African Americans have been executed at rates that exceed their numbers in the general population. Continue reading →

116 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, ethics, General Assembly, Police reform, Race and race relations

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Biting the Hand

Posted on December 18, 2020 by | 23 comments

Princess Blanding
Photo credit: Joe Mahoney, Richmond Times-Dispatch

By Dick Hall-Sizemore

Earlier this week, the governor had a ceremonial signing for the Marcus David Peters bill. This is the legislation that establishes a system to alert authorities of someone in a mental health crisis in order that mental health professionals can respond rather than just police. It is named after a young Richmond man who was experiencing a mental health crisis when he was shot and killed while attacking a policeman.

At the signing ceremony was Princess Blanding, Peters’ sister. She had been the most active and vocal supporter and advocate for such legislation. If you thought she expressed her gratitude to the Governor and the legislature for enacting the far-reaching legislation, you would be wrong.

In her remarks at the ceremony, addressing the Governor and legislators associated with the bill, she said, “Please take a moment to pat yourselves on the back for doing exactly what this racist, corrupt, and broken, I also add, system expected you to do: make the Marcus Alert bill a watered down, ineffective bill that will continue to ensure that having a mental health crisis results in a death sentence.”  (The video of her remarks is here.) Continue reading →

23 Comments

Posted in Mental illness and substance abuse, Police reform

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Fifty Pounds of Weed in Arlington = Probation?

Posted on November 10, 2020 by | 43 comments

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

by DJ Rippert

This landing may get bumpy. In late 2018 a chap was on a plane that landed at Reagan National Airport. He undoubtedly had the usual tools of travel — toothbrush, shave kit and clean socks.  However, he also had 50 pounds of marijuana and 400 cartridges of hashish oil. Perhaps he got on the wrong plane expecting to land in Denver. The MWAA Police met him at baggage claim, offered to help him with his luggage and cuffed him up.

As arlnow.com reports, “Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti and the attorney representing the alleged drug carrier agreed that the defendant would plead guilty to two felony charges and be placed on probation. After completing the probation and 200 hours of community service, he would be able to withdraw the pleas to the felony charges and instead plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges while having a $100 fine imposed but then suspended.” Continue reading →

43 Comments

Posted in Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, General Assembly, Police reform

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Yes, the General Assembly is Still in Special Session

Posted on October 8, 2020 by | 38 comments

The Virginia Senate in its spread formation

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

It is time to check in on the progress of the endless session of the General Assembly. It is apparent that it was a mistake for the House to meet virtually. If the Delegates had been required to stay in Richmond the whole time, rather than being able to “attend” committee meetings and floor sessions from the comfort of their homes, they would have finished much quicker. But, maybe it is not endless; leaders of both houses are predicting they will be able to finish up by the end of next week.

Budget. The legislature has not gone through the formal process of getting the budget bill into conference and appointing conferees. Nevertheless, the chairs of the two money committees, Del. Luke Torian, D-Prince William, and Sen. Janet Howell, D-Fairfax, report they are close to a final budget deal, according to today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch.

But, Governor Northam is not happy with the approaches the two houses have taken and is threatening to throw cold water on any deal and veto it. He does not like the contingency spending that was in both the House and Senate versions of the budget bill, because those provisions commit funding that he wanted to keep in reserve due to uncertainty over the fiscal effects of the pandemic. He also does not like the legislature designating how most of the federal CARES money should be spent on COVID issues, thereby decreasing his flexibility over that $1 billion pot of money. (For a more detailed discussion of these issues, see my previous post here.)

Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne repeated his earlier position, “We do not need a new budget for financial purposes.” That remark leads to the obvious question: “Then why did the governor call the special session?” Continue reading →

38 Comments

Posted in Budgets, General Assembly, Police reform

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Hitting a Cop With a Pretzel Will Still Be a Felony

Posted on September 23, 2020 by | 46 comments

By Dick Hall-Sizemore

One of the pieces of the criminal justice reform package that caused some consternation on this blog has been killed in a House committee. SB 5032 (Surovell, D-Fairfax) would have amended the statute that makes assault of a public safety employee, including a law-enforcement officer, a felony, with a mandatory minimum sentence of six months. (Assault generally is a misdemeanor.)

As the bill emerged from the Senate, it included the following provisions:

  • The felony charge was retained;
  • The mandatory minimum sentence was eliminated;
  • If the degree of culpability were slight, e.g. offender was mentally ill, or if there were no bodily injury, a jury or judge could find the offender guilty of misdemeanor assault, rather than felony assault. (Such a reduction in the charge would be discretionary on the part of the jury or judge.), and
  • The incident would have to be investigated by another law-enforcement officer not involved and any arrest approved by the Commonwealth’s attorney.

Continue reading →

46 Comments

Posted in Crime , corrections and law enforcement, General Assembly, Police reform

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Voters Oppose Contracts That Protect Bad Cops

Posted on August 28, 2020 by | 9 comments

By Steve Haner

As yet another bitter conflict over a police officer’s use of deadly force divides America, this time a case in Wisconsin, Virginia’s General Assembly forges ahead with opening up the state to the police unions that usually rush to protect their members from discipline or dismissal.

The Kenosha Professional Police Association was quick with its call for everybody to step back and let that investigation proceed. That is a fairly balanced statement, but then it put out a statement defending the officers’ behavior that ended with an entire clip emptied into somebody’s back.  Unions advocate for their members.

Among all the bills introduced in the General Assembly’s special session response to these cases are a handful seeking to prevent some of the worst problems seen when unions stand up for bad cops. One is already defeated, but two are languishing in a House committee, where they may or may not be heard. All three have Republican sponsors.

A poll conducted for the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy two weeks ago indicates they would have public and bipartisan support. The poll over-sampled Black Virginians, to be sure enough were called to give credence to that cross tabulation. Their support was in line with all Virginians.

To be specific:

Continue reading →

9 Comments

Posted in General Assembly, Labor & workforce, Police reform, Public safety & health, Race and race relations

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Police and People in a Mental Health Crisis

Posted on August 24, 2020 by | 62 comments

By Dick Hall-Sizemore

The Senate Judiciary Committee reported many of the Democrats’ criminal justice reform bills at its meeting last week. I will discuss the most important ones, in some depth, in installments, rather than all at once. This first installment is on the interaction between police and mentally ill folks.

For many years, police officials and sheriffs have warned of the problems posed by mentally ill persons committing crimes, often petty ones, as well as by those having a crisis and acting more violently. This problem has been increasing over the years. (The reasons for this increase are beyond the scope of this post as well as beyond the scope of the knowledge and expertise of the author.) Law-enforcement officials have said publicly, repeatedly and correctly, that their officers have not been trained to deal appropriately with these folks. Continue reading →

62 Comments

Posted in General Assembly, Mental illness and substance abuse, Police reform

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The Hearings Are Over, Let the Battles Begin

Posted on August 17, 2020 by | 16 comments

By Dick Hall-Sizemore

The House Committees on Courts of Justice and Public Safety held three meetings/public hearings in preparation for the General Assembly’s consideration of criminal justice and police reform in the upcoming special session. The sessions were billed as public hearings, but, in actuality, most of the time was spent in hearing from invited speakers. Comments from members of the public were relegated to the end of the three-hour period and each speaker was limited to three minutes. At each session, only about 10 members of the public made comments.

The subsequent list of criminal justice legislative issues adopted by the House leadership for its special session agenda can be found here. Remarkably, all but three items were also included on the list released earlier by the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus. (See my compilation of that list here.) The only items not on the VLBC list was the Attorney General’s proposal that his office be authorized to conduct “pattern or practices” investigations of police departments and two vaguely-worded proposals relating to vetting law-enforcement applicants and diversifying the Committee on Training of the Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS).

The VLBC proposals missing from the Democratic Caucus list are ones to “defund” the police and regulate, by Code, the use of force by police. Obviously, the Democrats knew what they wanted going into the meetings and tailored their lists of speakers to ensure they got it. Based on the resulting list of proposals, the meetings may as well have not been held. Continue reading →

16 Comments

Posted in Courts and law, General Assembly, Police reform

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