When West Melbourne, Fla., police officer Ken Wells subdued Zak Anthony King with a Taser earlier this month, the takedown of the naked 18-year-old jogger was recorded on a camera mounted to the officer's weapon.
The grainy black-and-white video captured in raw detail how the officer used the Taser. The department released it to the news media to show the shooting was justified. The video made its way to YouTube, where more than 90,000 had viewed various postings of it as of Wednesday.
"The officer used the proper tools, and the video backed it up," said Cmdr. Steve Wilkinson, internal affairs investigator for the West Melbourne Police Department.
More than 2,400 law enforcement agencies across the U.S. have bought 45,000 of the $400 video camera attachments that Taser International started selling in 2006, says Steve Tuttle, spokesman for the Scottsdale, Ariz., company. Sales have been brisk in the past six months, he says, as agencies look to provide accountability for the department, he said.
The Taser Cam is activated as soon as the officer unholsters the Taser and turns off the safety, Tuttle says. There is no way to deactivate the camera without disabling the gun, he says.
"Video is going to help the officer," Tuttle said. "And if you don't record it, the kid down the street with a cellphone is going to use it."
440 deaths claimed
Tasers are used by law enforcement as an alternative to deadly force, Tuttle said. The gun releases two darts with wires that attach to the subject's body and deliver up to 50,000 volts of electricity, he said.
The use of stun guns has been controversial for years, especially in cases where the subject died after being shocked, says Curt Goering, chief operating officer for Amnesty International.
Goering says there are 440 people he knows of who have died after being shocked with such devices since the human rights organization started accumulating those statistics in 2001. The organization has asked for a moratorium on stun gun use until medical effects can be studied further, he says.
Taser International disputes those numbers.
"Amnesty International continues to promote a number for Taser-related deaths that is not only misleading and inaccurate, but also unsupported by medical or academic science," Tuttle says. Medical examiners have attributed Tasers as a contributing factor in fewer than 50 of those deaths, he said.
"In many of these cases, numerous causes, drug overdoses, pre-existing medical conditions, blunt trauma and other factors have also been listed," Tuttle said.
Despite his opposition to the use of stun guns, Goering says the use of video cameras is a positive development.
"If the recordings are closely monitored and studied and acted on by law enforcement agencies, it could be a tool to ensure accountability in cases of abuse," Goering says.
John Burris, a San Francisco civil rights lawyer who specializes in police misconduct cases, says he has represented clients where the use of a Taser or other stun gun was not captured on camera, and believes a video recording of those events would have resolved any uncertainty.
Taser loaned the cameras to police departments in major cities including Houston and Las Vegas in 2006 and 2007 to test them, Tuttle says.
The Las Vegas Metro Police Department bought 1,061 cameras in 2008 with a federal grant so that every patrol officer had one on, says Officer Marcus Martin, departmental spokesman and a Master Taser Instructor.
The videos have backed up contentious situations many times, Martin says. In one case, a suspect on PCP was stunned with a Taser several times before police subdued him.
"Without the video, the officer would be in trouble because of the long usage, which can be perceived as a misuse of force," Martin says. "The officer was clearly exonerated because you could see the altercation."
Nearly 13,000 of the agencies that have Tasers have not yet bought the cameras, Tuttle says. That number includes the Houston Police Department, which is one of the largest purchasers of the stun guns. Houston was one of the first departments to try the cameras, says Kirk Munden, executive assistant chief for field operations. After two trial runs, the department took a pass.
"The primary reason we didn't buy them was the expense," Munden says. It would have cost $2 million to equip all 4,000 officers with the cameras, he says.
Video can cut both ways
Though a Taser Cam in Las Vegas helped prove an officer's innocence, the cameras have also had the opposite result. An officer in Eugene, Ore., responded to a trespassing call and used his Taser on a college student in the student's apartment, says Lt. Doug Mozan, Eugene's daytime watch commander. Police Chief Pete Kerns said the action was justified because the officer believed he was in danger and that the student could have had a weapon, Mozan said. But a review of the video showed no weapon, and the Civilian Review Board ruled the officer misused it, according to minutes of the February meeting where the case was reviewed.
That review might have had a different outcome had the video camera been rolling sooner, Mozan says, but the camera only activates when the safety switch is off. He also says it was limiting in that the camera only records what the Taser is pointing at.
Still, Mozan says, he supports their use.
"Cameras only add to the quality of evidence and transparency in law enforcement," Mozan says.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-10-28-tasercams28_ST_N.htm
Bushmaster recall
http://www.bushmaster.com/pdf/ACR-Web-Notification.pdf
Virginia man allegedly backed fake DC bomb plot
WASHINGTON (AP) - For more than six months, 34-year-old Farooque Ahmed went quietly about his business: casing Washington-area subway stations, sketching diagrams and shooting video, sizing up how best to kill the most people, police say.
Rolling suitcases filled with explosives would be better than backpacks, he allegedly told others, and rush hour would be the best time to strike.
The Pakistani-born Virginian thought he was working for al-Qaida operatives, according to the FBI. In fact, the plot was a ruse: The information went to people working on behalf of the U.S. government, according to a federal law enforcement official.
Ahmed, a naturalized citizen, was arrested Wednesday, the latest alleged example of homegrown terrorism.
His hearing in Alexandria Federal Court will be held Friday at 2 p.m.
"You never know who lives around you," said Margaret Petney, who lives on the same block as Ahmed in Ashburn, Va., outside Washington.
Last week, a Hawaii man was arrested and accused of making false statements to the FBI about his plans to attend terrorist training in Pakistan. In August, a Virginia man was caught trying to leave the country to go fight with an al-Qaida-affiliated group in Somalia. And in May, Faisal Shazhad, a naturalized citizen from Pakistan, tried to set off a car bomb at a bustling street corner in New York.
The FBI stressed that in the latest case, the public never was in danger. FBI agents were monitoring Ahmed's activities throughout the sting, the agency said.
Nonetheless, U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride said it was "chilling that a man from Ashburn is accused of casing rail stations with the goal of killing as many Metro riders as possible through simultaneous bomb attacks."
Chilling, especially, for Washington-area commuters, who live with the memory of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon.
"As I look around, I think about how vulnerable we are," said 45-year-old McCarthy Council, who lives near the Pentagon City Metro station. "I'm just going to stay off the Metro system for now."
But Mary Brereton, 55, a personal trainer who lives in nearby Alexandria, Va., said she was more worried about the safety record of Metro's subway trains than the potential for a terrorist attack.
"Who was it who said, 'If we live in fear every day, then 9/11 was a success?'" she said. "You just can't."
Ahmed, bearded and wearing glasses, made a brief court appearance Wednesday in federal court in Alexandria. He didn't enter a plea and was ordered held without bond. He said he couldn't afford a lawyer. He faces up to 50 years in prison if convicted.
In a nine-page indictment, federal investigators alleged that, starting in April, Ahmed met several times with people he believed were al-Qaida operatives. He told them "he might be ready to travel overseas to conduct jihad in January 2011" after completing a hajj to Saudi Arabia he planned for November of this year, the document states. Date by date, the document lays out Ahmed's alleged activities and meetings in support of the fake bomb plot to be carried out in 2011.
According to the indictment:
_Ahmed took video of four northern Virginia subway stations _ Arlington Cemetery, Courthouse, Pentagon City and Crystal City, which is near the Pentagon _ and monitored security at a hotel in the District of Columbia. In a series of meetings at hotels in northern Virginia, Ahmed provided the videos to someone he believed was part of a terrorist organization and said he wanted to donate $10,000 to help the overseas fight and collect donations in a way "that would not raise red flags."
_In a Sept. 28 meeting in a Herndon, Va., hotel, Ahmed suggested that terror operatives use rolling suitcases instead of backpacks to blow up the subway. During that same meeting, Ahmed said he wanted to kill as many military personnel as possible and suggested an additional attack on a Crystal City subway station.
The indictment alleges he also handed over diagrams of the Arlington subway stations and gave suggestions about where to put explosives on trains to kill the most people in simultaneous attacks.
At the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama was aware of the investigation before Ahmed was arrested. Gibbs also offered assurances that the public was never in danger. There are no indications Ahmed was connected with larger terrorist groups like al-Qaida, according to a U.S. counterterrorism official, who requested anonymity to discuss an intelligence matter.
Andrew Ames, a spokesman for the FBI Washington field office, declined to comment on how authorities learned about Ahmed. The Washington Post quoted an unidentified administration official as saying Ahmed drew the attention of law enforcement officials by seeking to obtain unspecified materials.
The FBI has made several cases with agents working undercover: Last year, authorities arrested a Jordanian national after he tried to detonate what he thought was a bomb outside a Dallas skyscraper. In an unrelated case, authorities in Springfield, Ill., arrested a man after he tried to set off what he thought were explosives in a van outside a federal courthouse. In both cases, decoy devices were provided to the men by FBI agents posing as al-Qaida operatives.
A LinkedIn page that was created for Farooque Ahmed identifies him as a network planning engineer with a bachelor's degree in computer science from the City College of New York in 2003, during the same period that other records showed he had been living in New York. In Reston, Va., Ericsson Federal Inc. issued a statement confirming that Ahmed had done contract work for the company.
A check of legal records for Ahmed found several traffic offenses in Virginia, including speeding.
Law enforcement officials searched the brick town house where Ahmed lives on Wednesday.
Neighbor Petney said Ahmed moved in about a year and a half ago with his wife and young child, and that they wore traditional Muslim clothing.
Ahmed's wife, Sahar, joined the Hip Muslim Moms, a support group for women with children under 5 years old, and brought her young son to play dates with other mothers, said group organizer Esraa Bani. She had moved to the area and was looking for a mothers group when she joined. She was very quiet and kept to herself.
Petney observed that "they didn't seem to be too friendly with anybody."
http://wtop.com/?nid=25&sid=2095662
Bad Driver? In Debt? Proposed NYC Law Would Ban You From Owning a Gun
New York City residents who want to own a gun may soon be denied permits if they are litterbugs, if they are bad drivers, or if they have fallen behind on a few bills.
Under proposed revisions to the police department's handgun, rifle and shotgun permit procedures, the NYPD can reject gun license applicants for a number of reasons, including:
If they have been arrested or convicted of almost any "violation," in any state; having a "poor driving history"; having been fired for "circumstances that demonstrate lack of good judgment"; having "failed to pay legally required debts"; being deemed to lack "good moral character"; or if any other information demonstrates "other good cause for the denial of the permit."
Critics say many of the restrictions are vague, have nothing to do with one's fitness to own a gun and are unconstitutional.
Supporters say the new restrictions will make gun purchasing more efficient and don't give the NYPD any more power than it already has.
In District of Columbia v. Heller the Court found that a District of Columbia law banning the possession of handguns in the home was invalid due to the rights conferred by the Second Amendment; in McDonald v. City of Chicago, Ill., the Court applied that right equally to the States," the report says.
As result, Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., chairman of the Public Safety Committee, introduced a proposal to lower the city's fees for gun permits to ones that more accurately reflect what the city spends to issue them.
"Now the fees are going to be much less and they're going to have a relationship to the amount of administrative costs that are involved, and in that way it will withstand the Constitution and the court challenge that most people expect will be coming down the road," Vallone told FoxNews.com.
The current $340 fee for all pistol licenses would be lowered to $70 for a premises license and $110 for a carry license. Rifle and shotgun permits would drop from $140 to $65. Costs for license renewals would also be significantly reduced.
With the lower fees, the New York Police Department also introduced revisions to the police department's gun permit procedures, which, unlike Vallone's bill, need only approval from the mayor's office, not the City Council.
"Although I do have oversight capability and I can have a hearing on it, I don't have any formal say in it," Vallone said.
Councilmember Dan Halloran says those revisions are intended to give the police more power to deny licenses, which could counter a possible spike in gun ownership triggered by the lower fees.
But Halloran and Vallone say the proposed restrictions give the NYPD so much authority that they violate the Second Amendment.
"The disqualification categories are downright scary. They're completely open to interpretation and they really don't measure anybody's fitness to own a gun," Halloran told FoxNews.com.
He pointed to a restriction stating applicants can be denied if they've "been arrested, indicted or convicted for a crime or violation, except minor traffic violations."
"So now the city can deny a permit for a building code violation, a sanitation ticket for failing to sweep the sidewalk … an array of non-criminal acts," Halloran said.
Another troublesome restriction, Halloran said, is one that allows permit denial if "the applicant has failed to pay legally required debts such as child support, taxes, fines or penalties imposed by governmental authorities."
"So people who are in foreclosure, or have credit card judgments, maybe filed bankruptcy, can now be legally denied," he said.
Applicants can also be denied, under the new restrictions, if they've "been terminated from employment under circumstances that demonstrate lack of good judgment or lack of good moral character."
"It seems to me it's more of an application to be pope than to be a gun owner," Vallone said. "I don't know anyone who would pass this thing. Anyone who has ever tried marijuana or has a bad driving history, lost a job regarding a lack of judgment – those are ridiculous criteria for gun ownership."
But Jason Post, a spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office, said nothing in the proposal gives police a power they don't already have.
"The revisions will make the application process more efficient and give more clarity to applicants for gun licenses," Post told FoxNews.com in an e-mail.
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, agreed, saying the changes appear to be a "fleshing out" of existing gun restrictions, and not an expansion of them.
"I think it's a good faith attempt by New York City authorities to make sure that their restrictions comply with the Constitution standards that the Supreme Court's adopted over the last two years," he told FoxNews.com.
While some restrictions, like paying legally required debts, may seem irrelevant to critics, Helmke says they are not.
"Child support, taxes, fines and governmental penalties I think are legitimate things. Basically, if someone's not complying with what the government requires of somebody, that's usually a sign that you can't trust them to follow the rules with something like a gun," he said.
As for whether the rule could apply to failure to pay a cable TV bill, as Halloran implied, Helmke said, "I think he's stretching it there."
Halloran said the biggest problem is that the rules are open to that kind of interpretation, and he pointed to the clause that reads that applicants can be denied for failure "to provide information requested by the License Division or required by this chapter" or "other information demonstrates an unwillingness to abide by the law, a lack of candor towards lawful authorities, a lack of concern for the safety of oneself and/or other persons and/or for public safety, and/or other good cause for the denial of the license," as the most obvious example.
"Could this be any more vague and open ended?" he asked. "Ask yourself, would any other constitutional right be subject to such vagaries? Imagine these requirements put to be eligible to vote, to have a lawyer, to be secure in your person or possessions, your right to a jury."
Former federal prosecutor and constitutional law expert Douglas Burns said that while the Heller and McDonald cases allow guns to be regulated closely, New York's proposal has some legal issues.
"If left unchanged, I think there could be some problems in court with it," Burns told FoxNews.com in an e-mail.
With a few adjustments, though, the proposal could be made to stand up in court, he said.
"I think like any proposed amendments, it has to be fine-tuned -- you can't leave in "violations other than traffic" because under NYS law a violation is not a criminal offense, so I think that's a problem. Also, as I said, the debt payment and job-firing language has to be fine-tuned; it is too broad.... I think the legislator does raise some valid concerns."
The council is due to vote on the price changes, which are expected to pass, and to advise the police department on the restriction changes Wednesday.
Should the department decide to go forward with the proposed changes, Vallone says he is "seriously considering having an oversight hearing on this topic"
The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/10/23/nyc-proposal-renders-bad-drivers-debtors-unfit-guns/
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