After Dallas Police Caught BSing About Shooting Of Mentally Ill Man, Police Chief Changes Policy To Let Cops View Evidence Against Them Before Making Statement

Chris | InformationLiberation
Nov. 29, 2013

Last month, a Dallas police officer claimed a mentally ill man lunged at him with a knife, to which he shot the man in response. Despite the cop's tale, video of the incident surfaced and showed the mentally ill man did nothing of the sort. Instead, he was just sitting in place and the cop shot him from a safe distance. In response to the controversy, the Dallas police chief has decided to change their policies to allow police to take 72 hours to view all evidence against them before making a statement.

From the Dallas Mourning News:

Any Dallas officer involved in a police shooting — whether the officer fired a weapon or witnessed the gunfire — will now have the right to remain silent for 72 hours under a new department policy.

And even before they give a statement about the shooting, the officers can watch any available video before they give a statement.

Previously an officer who witnessed a shooting typically would have been required to give a statement to police investigators within hours of the event. And the officer who fired, while not required to speak right away, typically did so. The new policy now requires the firing officer to wait at least three days before giving a complete statement to investigators.

Chief David Brown quietly made major policy change less than a month after surveillance video went public in October that showed an officer shooting a mentally ill man for no apparent reason — contrary to a witnessing officer’s account that led to a felony charge against the victim.

“It is my belief that this decision will improve the investigation of our most critical incidents,” Brown said in an emailed statement.

An attorney for the shooting victim, who survived, said the policy will give officers involved in unjustified shootings time to make excuses.

[...]Don Tittle, one of Bennett’s attorneys, called the policy change “maddening.” Give police officers enough time, evidence and lawyers, and all their statements will sound alike and justify a shooting, he said.

Plus, he said, any other witness to a crime is asked to talk to officers at the scene, he said.

“If the goal is to seek the truth in an incident, then why would a witness to a police shooting be treated differently than a witness to any other incident?” he said. “No other witness is told, here, you have three days to get back to us. And, by the way, here is a copy of all the video of the incident so you can get your story straight.”

Seeing as how cops are above the law, they're not entitled to every protection their subjects receive (if they know their rights). They're supposed to give statements immediately before viewing the evidence against them because they're considered the "credible" one in the situation and their word is viewed as god's by the courts. It's one of the only chances the public gets to hold cops accountable. When a commoner is investigated by a police officer the cops do all they can to get them to talk without a lawyer and without informing them of their rights, yet here the cops are forbidden from giving a statement they were previously required to give, and given all evidence against them so they can conspire to get their story straight. This is a perfect example of how our justice system is completely rigged in favor of the state.
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Chris runs the website InformationLiberation.com, you can read more of his writings here. Follow infolib on twitter here.