A police offi­cer has been found guilty of sex­u­al assault after he pulled a woman out of a hotel bed by her hair.
PC Joseph McCabe, 27, based in Harrogate with North Yorkshire Police, was spared jail on Friday dur­ing his sen­tenc­ing at York Magistrates’ Court. He was sen­tenced to six months in prison, sus­pend­ed for two years, on con­di­tion he under­goes a rehab pro­gramme. He was also sub­ject­ed to a three-year restrain­ing order aimed at pro­tect­ing the vic­tim. McCabe is cur­rent­ly sus­pend­ed from duty, but North Yorkshire Police said an accel­er­at­ed mis­con­duct hear­ing will now be con­sid­ered at a “future date”. McCabe had denied sex­u­al­ly assault­ing the woman last sum­mer, but was con­vict­ed in February fol­low­ing a tri­al The court heard McCabe and the vic­tim were known to each oth­er and were shar­ing a hotel room after a social event. The vic­tim said McCabe picked her up dur­ing the night and put her on his bed, then stroked her arm.

She returned to her own bed, but lat­er McCabe pulled her hair with such force she fell out of bed, the court heard. The court was told he also shout­ed at the vic­tim sev­er­al times to get into bed with him. McCabe was lat­er inter­viewed and sub­se­quent­ly charged, the force said. North Yorkshire Police deputy chief con­sta­ble Mabs Hussain said: “Our com­mu­ni­ties need to know that they can have com­plete trust in their police, and that we demand the high­est lev­el of integri­ty from our offi­cers and staff. “McCabe’s dis­grace­ful actions fell far below that stan­dard. “I com­mend the vic­tim for her courage in com­ing for­ward so we could take action. “I also hope the case sends a clear mes­sage that there is no place for this behav­ior in polic­ing – and that we will secure jus­tice against per­pe­tra­tors, no mat­ter who they are.” (From Yahoonews)

The city of Minneapolis and the Minnesota Department of Human Rights signed a “court-enforce­able set­tle­ment agree­ment” Friday to revamp polic­ing in the city where George Floyd was mur­dered by an offi­cer near­ly three years ago. The agency issued a blis­ter­ing report last year after an inves­ti­ga­tion found the police depart­ment had engaged in a pat­tern of race dis­crim­i­na­tion for at least a decade. The City Council approved the set­tle­ment in an 11 – 0 vote. Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero signed it soon after. “The agree­ment isn’t change, in and of itself, but it charts a clear roadmap to it,” Frey said at a news con­fer­ence. Lucero said: “This agree­ment serves as a mod­el for how cities, police depart­ments and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers across the coun­try can work togeth­er to address race-based polic­ing and strength­en pub­lic safety.”

The state agency launched its inves­ti­ga­tion short­ly after Derek Chauvin, a white police offi­cer, knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 ¹⁄₂ min­utes on May 25, 2020, dis­re­gard­ing the Black man’s fad­ing pleas that he could­n’t breathe. Floyd’s death sparked mass protests around the world, forced a nation­al reck­on­ing on racial injus­tice, and com­pelled a Minneapolis Police Department over­haul. Chauvin was con­vict­ed of mur­der. He and three oth­er offi­cers on the scene are serv­ing prison terms. “We did­n’t get here overnight, and change also won’t hap­pen overnight,” Frey said. “This prob­lem that we now face, it has tak­en hold over many gen­er­a­tions, many admin­is­tra­tions, may­ors and chiefs, and clear­ly our Black and brown com­mu­ni­ties have tak­en the brunt of this.” Lucero said the legal­ly bind­ing agree­ment requires the city and the police depart­ment to make “trans­for­ma­tion­al changes” to fix the orga­ni­za­tion­al cul­ture at the heart of race-based polic­ing. She said it includes mea­sures to ensure force is used “only when it is objec­tive­ly rea­son­able, nec­es­sary and pro­por­tion­al” and nev­er “to pun­ish or retal­i­ate.” Officers must de-esca­late con­flicts when pos­si­ble. There will be lim­its on when and how offi­cers can use chem­i­cal irri­tants and Tasers.

And train­ing in the dis­put­ed con­di­tion of excit­ed delir­i­um — a key issue in the con­fronta­tion that led to Floyd’s death — will be banned. Stops for bro­ken lights and search­es based on the alleged smell of mar­i­jua­na are banned. Frey, Lucero, and Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the agree­ment reflects feed­back from and the con­cerns of the com­mu­ni­ty and police offi­cers. “The court-enforce­able agree­ment does not pro­hib­it offi­cers from rely­ing on rea­son­able, artic­u­la­ble sus­pi­cion or prob­a­ble cause of crim­i­nal activ­i­ty to enforce the law. We want offi­cers to do their jobs,” Lucero said. Civil rights attor­ney Ben Crump and oth­er lawyers who won a $27 mil­lion set­tle­ment for the Floyd fam­i­ly called the agree­ment “mon­u­men­tal” and the “cul­mi­na­tion of years of heart­break and advo­ca­cy by those impact­ed by the poor poli­cies and prac­tices of the Minneapolis Police Department.”The U.S. Department of Justice is still inves­ti­gat­ing whether Minneapolis police engaged in a pat­tern or prac­tice of dis­crim­i­na­tion. That inves­ti­ga­tion could lead to a sep­a­rate agree­ment with the city known as a con­sent decree. City offi­cials could­n’t pro­vide infor­ma­tion on where that stands.

Several police depart­ments nation­wide oper­ate under fed­er­al con­sent decrees. Justice Department and city offi­cials asked a judge Tuesday to end most fed­er­al over­sight of the Seattle police depart­ment, say­ing its sus­tained, decade-long reform efforts are a mod­el for oth­er cities. The Minneapolis set­tle­ment, which requires court approval, also gov­erns the use of body-worn and dash­board cam­eras, offi­cer well­ness, and response to men­tal health and behav­ioral crises. An inde­pen­dent eval­u­a­tor must be appoint­ed to mon­i­tor com­pli­ance. Several coun­cil mem­bers crit­i­cized the police depart­ment and oth­er city lead­ers. “The lack of polit­i­cal will to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for MPD is why we are in this posi­tion today,” coun­cil mem­ber Robin Wonsley said. “This legal set­tle­ment for­mal­ly and legal­ly pre­vents city lead­er­ship from defer­ring that respon­si­bil­i­ty any­more. And I hope this set­tle­ment is a wake-up call for city lead­ers, who the pub­lic has watched rub­ber-stamp poor labor con­tracts, have signed off on end­less mis­con­duct set­tle­ments, and then shrugged their shoul­ders when res­i­dents asked why we have a dys­func­tion­al police department.”

Some activists were upset that the agree­ment wasn’t post­ed pub­licly until after the vote. Michelle Gross, pres­i­dent of Communities United Against Police Brutality, said she would ask the state data prac­tices office whether the coun­cil act­ed legal­ly. She said her group must study the agree­ment before com­ment­ing on its mer­its. “This is not the way to start this process and vote on some­thing the community’s going to have to live with for the next five or six years,” Gross said. Even coun­cil mem­bers had only about a day to study and dis­cuss the doc­u­ment. “This is some­thing we’ve been wait­ing for for a long time, and my hope is the city will act with fideli­ty, the city will act with integri­ty, and the city will fol­low through.” civ­il rights attor­ney Nekima Levy Armstrong said. (From Yahoo)