Sun, Nov 22 2009
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“But we’re very aware of the public perception of (Tasers), and we try to avoid the perception of misuse or abuse,” he said.
One of the reasons that a take-to-ground approach remains the most common use of force is that not every officer is certified to use a Taser, Roberts said. About half of the Joplin Police Department is certified, he said. The next most common types of force deployed this year by Joplin police have been physical restraint (12), come-alongs (11), pushes (11) and armbars (10), according to the reports. The Police Department’s dogs were used just once through the end of September in a use-of-force incident, and that was for a domestic-violence incident in March. The deployment of a dog in the Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant robbery in September was not counted among the use-of-force numbers because the dog, Cezar, never actually engaged with the suspect before being fatally shot. A summary of the department’s Internal Affairs report for the first three quarters shows a total of 52 complaints were received, 31 from the public and 21 from within the Police Department. Of the 52 complaints, 21 were sustained — meaning the allegations were found to be true — after investigations by the Internal Affairs unit, supervisors or the department’s accident/pursuit review board. Seven of the 31 complaints received from the public and 14 of the 21 generated within the department were sustained. Roberts said the department tracks and reviews complaints in an effort to detect patterns of conduct among officers. But, he said, the complaints received this year from the public have been most frequently about clashes of personalities between officers and complainants, and not job performance. “You don’t see many of those ‘big-ticket’ items,” Roberts said. “Mostly it’s about personalities.” Of 12 complaints received in the third quarter, just four were sustained after investigations. Two of those that were sustained came from the public, two from inside the agency. Roberts said one of the complaints from the public that was sustained involved an officer’s refusal to provide his badge number when requested by a resident. The officer was required to undergo counseling. The other sustained public complaint entailed overall rudeness of an officer in making an imprudent remark, he said. The officer received a written reprimand. One of the two sustained internal complaints concerned an officer who was involved in an accident at an intersection while responding to an emergency call, Roberts said. Counseling was recommended in that case. A written reprimand was issued to an officer in the other internal case, in which “a procedural mistake” led to “an inadvertent rights violation,” according to the Police Department. The names of officers involved in reported complaints are not released by the department because of the confidentiality of personnel records. 
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