Somewhat encouraging news forwarded to your Weber County Forum blogmeister via one of our All-star political pals.
From: Undisclosed SourceThanks to one of our bestest Ogden City pals over the years who for unknown reasons wishes to remain unidentified, we now learn that “Ogden City Police Officers will [henceforth] be required to weigh the public safety threat of the wanted person and the risk of serving the warrant during nighttime hours." Not a half-bad interim result, for starters... AFAWC...
Date: January 22, 2013, 3:46:49 PM MST
Subject: Ogden Press Release - Ogden City Police Department has concluded its investigation into the mistaken identity incident
OGDEN, Utah-The Ogden City Police Department has concluded its investigation into the mistaken identity incident that occurred in Ogden and Ogden City Administration is recommending changes to its arrest-warrant policy.
“Based on the recent police report on the mistaken-identity incident we will make changes to our arrest-warrant policy and procedure, ensuring officers are making use of available resources and verifying addresses on arrest warrants,” said Ogden City Mayor Mike Caldwell. “Officers will also be required to weigh the public safety threat of the wanted person and the risk of serving the warrant during nighttime hours.”
Changes will also include strict guidelines for warrants served after 10 p.m., such as background and address verification checks before officers can make contact at a residence.
“In response to the incident, Ogden police thoroughly reviewed policies from eleven agencies within Utah and seven agencies outside the state,” Mayor Caldwell said. “We found our policies regarding the serving of arrest warrants are consistent with the policies and best practices studied. Nevertheless, we think that policy improvements can be made to increase safety for our citizens and officers.”
On the morning of Dec. 20, Ogden police received a message from the U.S. Army. It contained a felony no-bond arrest warrant for Derek Billmire for being absent without leave. Utah State law and Ogden Police Policy states that felony warrants may be served any time, day or night.
“Officers followed both state law and agency protocol when they arrived at the listed address on the warrant and came in contact with Hill who resembled Billmire,” Mayor Caldwell said. “Once Hill produced identification, the officers explained how they came upon the address, apologized to Hill and his family and then left the residence.”
Caldwell continued, “We are deeply sorry for any fear or unintentional stress the Hill family felt and have offered our sincere apologies. The primary goal of our officers and my administration is to keep the public and our police officers safe. These changes will allow us to continually improve on that goal.”
Billmire was later located in Harrisville, taken into custody and booked into the Weber County Jail and later released to the custody of the U.S. Army to resolve the charges.
The Ogden Police Department has made several attempts to speak with Eric Hill and his wife following the incident, but they are currently refusing to cooperate with the investigation.
The Ogden Police Department’s summary report is attached.
Here's the referenced "summary," by the way:
Predictably, all OPD agents in the Hill Family raid have been "exonerated" following the OPD's own investigation. However we'll be sitting on the edge of our seats awaiting the Hill family's filing of their own inevitable civil suit, the sole procedural avenue where liability issues are likely to be properly revealed and resolved.
17 comments:
[cross posted at SE and SL Trib sites.]
review policy will be is to await the outcome. There are, on the other hand, two disappointing results of the investigation:1. The flat refusal of Mr. Hill and his wife to {a} file a complaint on the record regarding OPD actions at their house and [b] their failure to provide any information to the police investigators diminishes considerably, for me, their credibility. Their failure to file a complaint on the record or provide any information to the investigators also means they cannot now credibly claim the report is one-sided. If they refuse to give their side, the report of necessity must rely exclusively on police participants' statements. And the Hills have no grounds, now, to complain about that. The police accounts of their actions as polite, restrained, unthreatening stand uncontested, by the Hills' own choice. And that's all she wrote on that one. [PS before the "all police are jack booted thugs" crowd rounds on me, this does not mean I accept the police participants' self-serving accounts as necessarily accurate, merely that the Hills have arranged things so that those accounts remain uncontested on the record.]2. I am disappointed in Mayor Caldwell's retreat to bureau-speak in his statement: “In response to the incident, Ogden police thoroughly reviewed policies from eleven agencies within Utah and seven agencies outside the state,” Mayor Caldwell said. “We found our policies regarding the serving of arrest warrants are consistent with the policies and best practices studied. Nevertheless, we think that policy improvements can be made to increase safety for our citizens and officers.”For god's sake, Mike, speak English. Something along these lines would have been a lot better: "The OPD follows, and followed in this instance, warrant serving policies that are followed by police departments across the county, state and nation. But the plain fact is, OPD screwed up. The ownership of the property should have been verified before a late night attempt to serve the warrant, and somebody at OPD should have asked, loudly, if a late night service by half a dozen armed men was necessary.... or wise... in this instance, if the potential benefit outweighed the potential costs. The screw up, happily, did not end in tragedy, but it might have. The mistake happened on my watch. It won't happen again on my watch. I will make sure it does not."Instead we got the usual rinsed and blow dried attorney-vetted bureauspeak. From Mike, I expected better.
What about search warrants?
If you really want to understand that why the Hill's did not file a formal complaint would be like a chicken complaining to0 the fox. They do not trust the police and with good cause. This is also a statment that does not mention search warrants, only arrest warrants. They are still going to use their tactics and a "Strike Force" to break down doors on people who have drugs even though it is a non-violent crime. There has never been a Mayor in Ogden willing to go up against the police force even though he is the opne in command.
If you start out by assuming that any OPD investigation into OPD officers' conduct will necessarily be one sided, and so you refuse to file a complaint or testify, you guarantee the result will be one sided. Hence your prediction becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy... and therefor essentially worthless.
Re: search warrants. I am not aware that they were an issue in the Hill incident. Or are you confusing the Hill incident with another?
Re: the Strike Force. Isn't that a county operation, not an OPD one? Are you again confusing and conflating incidents?
When was the last Ogden Police Officer who did something wrong get fired? They protect each other because of the code. If anyone spoke up the themselves would be critizied for not supporting each other. They spoke only about arrest warrants and not search warrants. It appears they are only speaking about the former and not addressing the problems with their search warrant policies. The Weber Morgan Strike Force is made up of mostly Ogden City Police Officer's are they not? I do agree with some of what you are saying but you should educate yourself on the increase in search warrants that have increased over the years with many people, some innocent suffering from these militarized police all over this country for nonviolent crimes. Who polices the police?
Rudi:
Exonerated? Realky? Report makes clear OPD did not verify hone ownership and address properly before the warrant was served. English translation: we screwed the pooch on that one.
Report goes on to say policy/ orocu,edures will be changed to see that mistake isn't reoeated. Exonerated?
But perhaps you're referring to allegations about the officers' personal conduct, statements on the night? Yelling, saying if Hill had cone to the door w/ a gun they'd have blown him away, etc. If so, I remind you that NO complaint about thise alleged actions have been filed by the Hills and that the Hills have refused to say anything to the investigators. Given that, the report authors had no choice but to include the officers' uncontested statements as the basis of their findings. The Hills clamming up made any other outcome impossible.
I remind you as well the OPD investigation corroborated the Hill's initial clains to the press in re: number and type if weapons the police had at their house, etc. Some of the commentors seem disappointed to the point of anger that the OPD report did not deny deny deny all that as "cops are all lying jackbooted thugs" crowd was predicting it would.
LOL, Curm. In hindsight I suppose I ought to have enclosed the word "exonerated" in quotation marks, my main point being that nobody will be reprimanded or punished for what quite plainly was a "botched" service of warrant.
I read in the summary that the police state that Mr. Hill was not under arrest. But he was handcuffed and sitting on the couch in his own home with several policemen pointing weapons at him. A reasonable person would conclude that he was being arrested.
Amen, BR.
Absolutely. Though things can get, as I understand it, pretty intricate vis a vis when exactly someone is or is not "under arrest" as opposed, to, say "detained and under restraint." Matters because, again as I understand it, being placed under arrest is what triggers the Miranda decision requirement that you be informed of your rights, etc. Not before.
But cuffed, under armed guard in your own home [or anywhere else for that matter].... well, I don't think I'd like to be the Prosecutor who had to argue, with a straight face that such did not constitute being "under arrest" whether the magic words [" you are under arrest"] were spoken or not. [For instance, if Mr. Hill had in fact turned out to be the AWOL guy, would he have been under arrest as he sat there on the couch insisting he was someone else? I suspect so. Or would some kind of handy-dandy double standard apply. e.g. "If you're the guy we think you are, you're under arrest right now, but if you're not the guy we think you are, then you're really not under arrest. " Uh huh. That's some catch, that Catch-22.]
It is difficult to know the full extent of the self iposed OPD investigation. The public is only provided a summary of the investigation. We do not know the officers involved. Or the training they receive, if any. d for serving this type of warrant. Were the policequestioned under oath? Were they allowed to have legal representation available during questioning? Is a full transcript of questioning going to be made available. Were the officers involved allowed to coordinate their responses? The summary is not a full explanation of the incident. I hope that this is reviewed by an outside agency not connected with the OPD. As Bob Becker has stated the OPD response is "we didn't do anything wrong but we promise not to do it again"{.
Some of your questions are fair ones, but you go too far on others. E.g. have there been other mistaken "raids.". Raid? It was not a no knock incident. They did nit bust in the door. It was not by any reasonable definition of the term a raid. And some of the questions you asked seem to me to have been clearly answered in the report. E.g. no policy was violated, so there was no policy in place requiring property ownerhip verification before service., etc. That's one of the things they're changing as a result of all this.
As for testimony under oath, etc. I have to note, yet again, that no complaint has been filed with OPD by the Hills, no information has been provided by them to the OPD ibvestigatirs despite repeated requests. This was an internal investigation , not a juducial proceeding, and despite the predictions of the " all cops are lying jack-booted goons "crowd, it did not white wash the department, it coroborated some key claims the Hills made to the press (e.g. number and kind if weapons the policemen brandished).
Was the result one sided with respect to the officers' personal conduct. Yes. But it was so by the Hills' own choice. Can't fairly fault the dept. for that.
"Ogden City Police Department Has Concluded Its Investigation Into the Mistaken Identity Incident". Even this headline is a whitewash. It was NEVER a case of "mistaken identity". The OPD had the right name. What the citizens of O-Town are enraged about is the "once again" perceived use of "Excessive Force" by a quasi militarized police unit that could have resulted in exceptionally tragic consequences for both the Hill family and the city. Beyond that, regardless of the OPD internal inspection results to the contrary, locals are frustrated with the perceived lack of even basic background work to ensure everything has been exhausted to ensure mistakes are. kept to the BARE minimum.
Yep, AWM. The internal report was pretty much a "whitewash," such as almost every rational person expected, not withstanding its admissions of some major OPD screwups. As we've said before, however, the whole nitty-gritty will come out, once the Hill Family files their lawsuit.
Sigh. OPD does not write SE headlines.
And it avsoluteky DID invokve at its heart an instabce of mistaken identity. Sitting there in cuffs under guard on his couch because OPD officers believed him to be the AWOL guy on the warrant. He asn't. Kind if a text book definitiin of mistaken identity seems to me.
Sorry you are so angry the OPD internal investigation did not whitewash the department's actions as you seem to have expected it to. It noted that its policies for verifying ownersio if the home, actual residence if the offender were clearly inadequate and will be tightened up. It coroborated the Hill's report about the number and tyoes of weapons the policed carried that night.
Bob...that's a petty high horse you're riding there. I'll slink away into the shadows now and keep my opinion to myself, as not to offend you with my whining.
Not at all. i just disagreed strongly with what you argued in your post w/o I thought evidence to support it. If you think I'm wrong or was unfair in what I posted reply. It's on open forum que no?
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