Training too late, parsing crime data, and other stories

Here are a few odds and ends which merit Grits readers attention but may not make it into independent posts:

Trooper who shot unarmed schizophrenic man should have already taken remedial training on 'Effective Decision Making'
Eva Ruth Moravec's Point of Impact series on unarmed people shot by Texas law enforcement last year has its latest installment out: the story of state trooper Timothy Keele who killed Garrett Steven McKinney, a schizophrenic man who'd been waving his arms at passing traffic by the highway. Unbeknownst to the trooper, McKinney's father had earlier dropped him off at a nearby hospital for treatment, but he never went inside. After a cordial initial encounter, McKinney allegedly sucker punched the trooper. They struggled, the trooper's arm was dislocated, and he shot the man four times.

Eva Ruth's story includes a good discussion of the training requirements at DPS related to dealing with mentally ill suspects compared to other law enforcement agencies. She also points out that new state-mandated reporting on police shootings doesn't include information on the mental health status of the victim. Speaking of training, the trooper had been "suspended without pay for one day in February 2015 and told to attend an 'Effective Decision Making' course after tracking down and scolding a 17-year-old driver who had cut him off in traffic the previous day." Trooper Keele did not take the "Effective Decision Making" course, however, until after Moravec began to inquire with the agency, with the shooting occurring during the intervening period. Could what he learned in that course have saved McKinney's life? We'll never know.

Pointing fingers over rampant use of junk science in courtroom
Judges are becoming defensive at charges they aren't performing an adequate gatekeeper function when it comes to junk forensic science. This short Pass-the-Buck essay from Kerrville District Judge Robert Barton typifies this sort of self justifying reasoning. Everyone is to blame but him for junk science in the system, even though he's the only one in the courtroom with authority to exclude it. As the Republican presidential nominee might say ... "Sad."

Surveillance matters
Grits doesn't consider racial profiling the biggest problem with widespread use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement, but you can add that to the list. One wonders if federal surveillance in Texas is increasing at the rates documented in these jurisdictions?

A call for new agency to handle capital appeals
Grits contributing writer Jennifer Laurin argued in an op ed for creating a designated appellate defender for capital cases in Texas comparable to the Office of Capital and Forensic Writs on the habeas side. Good idea. But creating a new government agency during a budget-starved session with a 2-1 Republican  majority at the Legislature seems like a heavy lift. There will be lots of other demands on the state's limited resources.

Parsing conflicting crime metrics
Soon I may have a separate post about crime rate data and its shortcomings. The two most important national sources are the Uniform Crime Reports which document "index crimes" (including most serious crimes with victims) reported to law enforcement at all levels, and the national crime victimization survey which performs in-depth public surveys with huge sample sizes and many cross-referenced questions to estimate crime victimization trends. They tend to sync up over time, but not always year to year. In September, UCR numbers came out showing murder rates are up, especially in a handful of large cities, after decades of reductions. Then this month, the new crime victimization survey shows violent crime as "flat," with all other types of crime down. "From 2014 to 2015, there was no statistically significant change in the overall violent crime rate. From 1993 to 2015, the rate of violent crime declined from 79.8 to 18.6 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older." Whichever metric you prioritize (and both have strengths and shortcomings relative to the other), crime, including violent crimes, remains at historic lows.