What do YOU Think? We’re Still Interested!
Last week we posted the following article with a request for your responses to it. We were -- and remain -- interested in your opinions on the decision to issue smaller, lighter flashlights to some LAPD officers in response to public criticism on the use of a flashlight as an impact weapon during the arrest of alleged car thief Stanley Miller in June.
[Shortly after posting this story, the Police1 site was temporarily off-line while undergoing site enhancements. Given the high level of discussion generated by this decision and our extreme interest in your comments, we are posting this story again, now that our enhancement process is complete, with a repeated invitation to share your thoughts in the Police1 Message Board area. With that ... What Do YOU Think?]
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Responding to criticisms of a videotaped beating in which a suspected car thief was hit repeatedly with a heavy flashlight, police Chief William Bratton said Tuesday that officers would soon begin carrying smaller, rubberized flashlights.
“The idea is to mitigate the injury it would cause if it were to be used as a weapon,” Bratton told reporters at a Police Commission meeting.
Bratton said the civilian panel will receive a report on the June 23 incident involving motorist Stanley Miller. The report will recommend the use of smaller flashlights, Bratton said.
Police allege Miller led them on a 30-minute chase after they saw him run a stop sign in a car that had reportedly been stolen. The chase ended when Miller jumped out of the car in Compton and was tackled by officers as he stopped and appeared to be surrendering. He was on the ground when Officer John Hatfield struck him 11 times with a metal flashlight.
The incident was videotaped by television news helicopters.
Bratton said he was confident officers would accept the idea of using smaller flashlights.
“You don’t need a bulky, heavy light to illuminate,” Bratton said. “I worked the streets -- you don’t need a bigger flashlight.”
The investigation
The investigation into the beating of the alleged car thief will be finished soon and will contain the “insight and analysis the public wants,” according to the Los Angeles Police Department’s inspector general.
Andre Birotte Jr. made the remarks Saturday at a weekly Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable in the Leimert Park neighborhood.
Birotte is charged with determining whether Officer John J. Hatfield was justified when he repeatedly hit Stanley Miller with a flashlight in Compton on June 23 following a police pursuit.
Birotte’s report is due by late August. It will go to the Los Angeles Police Commission, which can then decide whether the actions of Hatfield and seven other officers were justified. A police Board of Rights will then mete out any punishment based on the recommendation of the commission and Police Chief William J. Bratton.
The officers involved have said that they believed Miller was armed, although he was not. Two witnesses told the Los Angeles Times last week that they never heard any of the officers yell to one another that Miller had a weapon.