QPP 8: 9/25/17

DC Appeals Court ruling on StingRay usage; Georgia Tech police shooting; Oklahoma City PD, and officer stabbings in Chula Vista, CA.

Episode:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/13383196

The D.C. Court of Appeals agreed in a 2 to 1 ruling that police agencies that use cell-site simulators like Harris Corporation’s StingRay product must obtain a search warrant before use. Peter and Nick discuss what a cell-site simulator is, what it does, and how it compares, for example, to digging through tower-dumps, and what the ruling means.

Police on the campus of Georgia Tech shot and killed a student who was wielding and refusing to drop a knife, after the student had called police to report a student with a knife. The student, who had identified as non-binary gendered, was a leader of a campus queer-rights organization. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said that the officers had neither TASERs nor mental health training. Peter and Nick discuss knives in general (and mention both that a Chula Vista, CA officer had also been stabbed this week – five times, in the face – and how quickly knives can be used to hurt officers. Peter mentions that this may be the first time in the US that large-scale protests have broken out over the shooting of a white person.

And the Oklahoma City Police Department is again in the news, after officers shot and killed a deaf man with mental health challenges, after the man wielded a two-foot pipe at officers and failed to drop it. Neighbors claimed that the police should not have shot because the man is deaf; Nick points out that deaf people can be dangerous, and that ultimately this is likely  failure not just of OKC PD, but also of OKC mental health services, and many other factors.