N.Y.P.D. Plainclothes Unit Involved in Many Shootings Will Be Disbanded
Source: New York Times
The New York police commissioner announced on Monday that he was disbanding the Police Department's anti-crime unit, a plainclothes team of hundreds of officers who targeted violent crime and have been involved in some of the city's most notorious police shootings.
"This is 21st-century policing," the commissioner, Dermot F. Shea, said at a news conference on Monday afternoon. "We must do it in a manner that builds trust between the officers and the community they serve."
Roughly 600 officers served in the plainclothes units, which are spread out across the city and work out of the department's 77 precincts. The units would immediately be reassigned to other duties, Mr. Shea said, including the detective bureau and the department's neighborhood policing initiative.
The unexpected announcement came after weeks of protests and public unrest over police brutality after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, a black man who was killed when a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/nyregion/nypd-plainclothes-cops.html
This is pretty major. And the irony is that in NYC (and other cities) there have been a number of instances where undercover black officers have been mistaken as "suspects" and roughed up or harassed or even shot by other LEO - whether they were off-duty or even when on-duty and responding to a scene while attempting to show their badges when confronted.
For example -
Associated Press in St Louis
Sat 24 Jun 2017 18.01 EDT
An off-duty black St Louis police officer's race factored into him being mistakenly shot by a white officer who didn't recognize him during a shootout with black suspects this week, the wounded officer's lawyer said on Saturday.
The 38-year-old black officer was off duty when he heard a commotion near his home and ran toward it with his service weapon to try to help his fellow officers, police said.
St Louis' interim police chief, Lawrence O'Toole, said the incident began when officers with an anti-crime task force followed a stolen car and were twice fired upon by its occupants. One suspect was shot in an ankle and was arrested, along with another teenager who tried to run from police, O'Toole said. A third suspect is still being sought.
When the off-duty officer arrived at the scene to help, two on-duty officers ordered him to the ground but then recognized him and told him to stand up and walk toward them. As he was doing so, another officer arrived and shot the off-duty officer, "apparently not recognizing" him, police said.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/24/black-st-louis-police-officer-shot-white-colleague
= new reply since forum marked as read
By Dana Ford, CNN
Updated 5:45 PM ET, Wed March 16, 2016
(CNN) The gunshot that struck a police officer in Maryland this week was "deliberately aimed at him by another police officer," a chief said Wednesday. It was previously known that Officer First Class Jacai Colson had been killed by friendly fire.
"The shot that struck and killed Detective Colson was deliberately aimed at him by another police officer. It's another tragic dimension to this unfolding story," Prince George's County police Chief Hank Stawinski told reporters.
He stressed how chaotic the situation was and that he does not believe any malice was involved on the part of the officer who fired the weapon. he chief stopped short of speculating what that officer may have believed about Colson in the moment.
Colson was in plain clothes with no bulletproof vest when he jumped out of his unmarked car Sunday to confront a gunman outside a police station. Three other officers returned fire.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/16/us/maryland-police-officer-killed/index.html
