It wasn’t long ago that the Central Marin Police posted on social media about how proud they were that the entire police force was trained under the ABLE Project to “successfully intervene” to prevent police misconduct and mistakes.
Here is the full post:
“The Central Marin Police is proud to announce that our application to join the ABLE Project through Georgetown University Law Center for Innovations in Community Safety was accepted in August 2023. In addition, last week, our entire staff was trained in the skills and values of the ABLE Project.
“The ABLE Project prepares officers to successfully intervene to prevent misconduct, avoid police mistakes, and promote officer health and wellness by teaching officers how to successfully intervene, while protecting those who do intervene. It also authorizes and empowers law enforcement to intervene in another officer’s action regardless of their rank. ABLE requires their agency partners to commit to a set of standards to participate in the program.
“We are thrilled to partner with ABLE and are confident that the training we received will serve to reinforce and promote best practices in law enforcement, and maintain prioritization of officer health and wellness within our agency. Below is the ABLE web page on the Georgetown Law Center for Innovations in Community Safety website:
Now comes a report from ABC7 News that the department is being sued claiming that one of the officers assaulted a man when his wife reported he was having an epileptic seizure.
Police, the suit says, told the man to “stop fighting. Do you want to get tazed?” A minute later officers did taze the man.
The lawyer bringing the suit said: “Instead of getting help they got what turned out to be a police caused catastrophe. They led with force instead of coming in and trying to do some fact-finding – instead of figuring out was was going.”
The suit then alleges that police covered up how they responded to the medical emergency.
Asked for comment by ABC7, the department issued this statement:
“The Central Marin Police Authority regrets that Bruce Frankel has elected to pursue litigation against us for an alleged improper emergency medical response to him by its personnel on August 29, 2022. As much as we would like to, the Authority by law is precluded from commenting upon medical and personnel matters that are deemed confidential and private. However, the Authority will vigorously defend itself against this meritless and factually inaccurate litigation which has not even been served upon the Authority as of yet. Unfortunately, this individual has decided to first litigate his case in the media rather than in court, where we are confident the action of our officers will be vindicated.
During the duration of this case, the Authority will have no further comment upon this matter. The Central Marin Police Authority would like to thank the public for its continued confidence in our dedicated employees who each and every day make the safety and medical well-being of our citizens their highest priority. Our core values continue to include compassion, integrity and responsibility, and we always will strive towards excellence in providing the highest level of public service to everyone in our community.
when are they going to end the madness of qualified immunity? The officer should face felony charges and the authority should be forced into bankruptcy and have all the assets sold off at public auction.