Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 4018 AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: DECEMBER 2016 D avid Klinger grew up in San Diego. He spent almost four years as a police officer in Los Angeles and Redmond, Washing- ton. Now he teaches. He’s a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Klinger has been doing re- search that is of tremendous interest to police officers regarding shootings. After interviewing 80 of- ficers from 19 departments in four states who combined have been involved in 113 shootings, Klinger found the following: • Most officers had emotional, psychological or physiological reactions that impacted the officer’s sense of time and space as well as sound. Some could not recall firing their weapons at all or later incorrectly remembered how many shots they fired. “Without knowing what an officer is hearing, seeing and feeling in that moment, it’s difficult for people to know what is really going on,” Klinger said. • Within 24 hours of a shooting, 82 percent of the officers found themselves replaying the shooting in their minds – sometimes on what seemed like a loop. About half the officers had trouble sleeping, about one-third felt anxious, fearful or fatigued, and almost 20 percent felt sad or numb. Just 25 percent reported feeling elation for surviving the encounter and performing under pressure. •The officers’ physical and emotional responses faded as time went by. After three months, less than 40 percent were having recurring thoughts about their shootings, and about 10 percent were anxious, fearful or had trouble sleeping. Klinger, who wrote a 2004 book based on the interviews called Into the Kill Zone, is not your typical “white coat.” He fatally shot a 26-year- old man named Edward Randolph in 1981 when he was just four months out of the academy. The suspect was stabbing Klinger’s partner with a butcher knife at the time of the shooting. That’s a “good shoot” if there ever was one, but the point is that the emotional and physiological impact of taking a life does not depend on the circumstances of the shooting. It’s more about the gravity of realizing you have taken a human life. Klinger says the impact lasted a long time. He dealt with feelings of anger, sorrow and a sense that he had done something horribly wrong. The fact that he hadn’t done anything wrong did not make it any easier to deal with the impact. Shooting and the aftermath for cops A s many lawmakers are pushing “blue lives matter” legisla- tion that would allow people to be charged with hate crimes for attacking police, it’s useful to see how the law is working where it’s up and running. In Louisiana for instance, it turns out that in order for someone to be charged with a hate crime under the new legislation, the specific crime that the perpetrator is arrested for is important. In order for the charges not be dropped, the crime that the suspect is arrested for must be an attack of some kind on a cop. Instead, this case involved a guy that simply yelled stuff at the police while he was arrested for destroying private property. According to an article from The Times Picayune, Orleans Parish (LA) District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro refused a felony hate crime charge against Raul Dela- toba. Delatoba was accused of shouting racist and sexist slurs at police officers dur- ing his arrest for vandal- izing a hotel window in the French Quarter. Assistant District Attor- ney Christopher Bowman, a spokesman for Canniz- zaro’s office, said the offi- cers Raul Delatoba cursed at were not victims of the crime that prompted his arrest. Instead, the “disparag- ing remarks” were made to officers during or after he was apprehended. As a result, prosecutors knew they didn’t have a case. Delatoba, 34, was ar- rested last September. His was the first arrest where the new hate crime law protecting police from some type of attack (in this instance it was just words) was in effect. New Orleans PD spokes- man Tyler Gamble said that after reviewing the case, it was “clear that the respond- ing officer incorrectly ap- plied” the hate crime law. Gamble said it was up to the district attorney to de- cide whether or not to pur- sue the hate crime charge. The problem, and maybe you can even call it a tech- nicality, is that the victim of the crime that Delatoba was arrested for was the hotel, not the police officers. Gamble now says the agency is training all offi- cers and supervisors on the updated hate crimes law “to ensure it is applied properly moving forward.” Similar “Blue Lives Mat- ter” laws are currently being debated in state legislatures across the country. Cop has to be the victim for Blue Lives Matter charges