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“You’re not free to leave”: A San Jose police officer beat a jaywalking suspect who failed to follow his orders. Should he have walked away instead?

Published Tue, 04 Mar 2025 08:00:01 GMT

Journalists from the Bay Area News Group and the California Reporting Project reviewed a series of cases involving violent confrontations between San Jose police and mentally impaired individuals. Many of those cases raise questions about the conduct of the department’s officers, who have been trained to avoid the use of force in such situations. Our full report can be read here.Case Study #2: William WallaceTHE SCENE: A nearly empty Sunol Street near the intersection with West San Carlos Street, on May 26, 2021. San Jose Police Officer Barron Kim’s encounter with Wallace on this night over a minor infraction — jaywalking — careened into violence. Should the officer have walked away rather than confronting him?William Wallace sits bloodied and handcuffed in a southbound traffic lane on Sunol Street following a 2021 stop by San Jose Police for alleged jaywalking. (San Jose Police) Kim immediately suspected that Wallace’s “bizarre behavior” stemmed from mental illness or in...

“Watch this guys”: San Jose police encouraged residents of a homeless camp to observe as they beat a mentally ill man

Published Tue, 04 Mar 2025 08:00:01 GMT

Journalists from the Bay Area News Group and the California Reporting Project reviewed a series of cases involving violent confrontations between San Jose police and mentally impaired individuals. Many of those cases raise questions about the conduct of the department’s officers, who have been trained to avoid the use of force in such situations. Our full report can be read here.Case Study #1: Arthur Lee TurnerTHE SCENE: A homeless encampment near the Guadalupe River, on September 16, 2019. A decision by two San Jose officers to corral residents for “trespassing” led to the beating, pepper spraying and Tasing of an unhoused man who failed to follow the officers’ commands but did not appear to threaten them. A policing expert who reviewed the records called the officers’ actions “the wrong approach.”Arthur Lee Turner falls to the ground after Officers Alex Cristancho and Steven Aponte tase him. (San Jose Police) Officers Steven Aponte and Alex Cristancho had li...

“Shoot me!”: Thompson Nguyen asked police to kill him. Could they have done something different?

Published Tue, 04 Mar 2025 08:00:01 GMT

Journalists from the Bay Area News Group and the California Reporting Project reviewed a series of cases involving violent confrontations between San Jose police and mentally impaired individuals. Many of those cases raise questions about the conduct of the department’s officers, who have been trained to avoid the use of force in such situations. Our full report can be read here.Case Study #3: Thompson NguyenThompson Nguyen, 27, marched toward San Jose Police officers while demanding they “shoot him” and holding an ax and metal pipe at Metcalf Energy Center in San Jose on January 9, 2018. Officers shot and killed Nguyen moments after this body camera screenshot was captured. (San Jose Police) THE SCENE: A South San Jose power plant, on January 9, 2018. San Jose police responded to a report of an armed man breaking in, and encountered Thompson Nguyen carrying a metal pipe and an ax.Nguyen had a history of mental illness. While San Jose officers immediately realized he was in dis...

Body camera footage casts doubt on San Jose police version of incident where man was subdued

Published Tue, 04 Mar 2025 08:00:01 GMT

The way San Jose police described their encounter with Sylvester Taylor Gaulden, they had no choice but to use force to subdue him. Gaulden had terrorized a South San Jose neighborhood, throwing rocks and damaging cars. When officers ordered him to surrender, they wrote in their reports, he charged them.But a review of police body camera videos from the February 2020 confrontation shows significant discrepancies with those official reports, raising questions about both the officers’ use of force and their truthfulness.Retired Boston police lieutenant Tom Nolan, who examined the footage, called it one of “repeated instances (he has seen) where police officers seem to be unaware there is video that is in direct contradiction with the ways they are narrating the incident in their reports.”As Nolan suggests, a Bay Area News Group/California Reporting Project review of 46 San Jose Police Department case files containing body camera video found multiple examples of divergence ...

How we investigated San Jose police use of force against the mentally impaired

Published Tue, 04 Mar 2025 08:00:01 GMT

To analyze San Jose police officers’ use of force against the mentally impaired, journalists for the Bay Area News Group and the California Reporting Project, working with students from Stanford University and UC Berkeley, reviewed thousands of pages of police records released under California’s 2018 police transparency law, SB 1421, and the terms of a 2020 settlement of the news group’s lawsuit against the city of San Jose.The analysis includes 106 cases involving 108 individuals who were seriously injured or beaten by police between 2014 and 2021. It combined cases involving police confrontations with mentally ill individuals, with those suffering from drug or alcohol intoxication, and with people acting erratically. Officers are typically trained to handle such situations similarly.The case records do not always contain direct evidence that a subject of force had been diagnosed as mentally ill – or demonstrated to be intoxicated through blood or other tests.   Instead, the journa...

Losing control: When San Jose police confront people in mental health crisis, why do they end up hurting them so often?

Published Tue, 04 Mar 2025 08:00:01 GMT

Twice in a two-month span, a fragile, self-destructive Thompson “Tommy” Nguyen encountered San Jose police officers trained to deal with people in a mental health crisis. The first time, Nguyen’s family worried the officers might hurt Nguyen, and sent them away.The second time, police killed him.Tensions ran high on an evening in January 2018, as police responded to urgent calls of an armed man menacing a San Jose power plant. Nguyen’s behavior – failing to respond to commands, beseeching cops to “shoot me, kill me” – alerted the officers to his brittle condition, but they could not calm him and never attempted non-lethal force during the eight-minute encounter.Instead, as Nguyen strode toward them, an ax and metal pipe in his hands, two officers fired their guns a total of five times. One of them later told investigators he believed Nguyen was bent on “suicide by cop.” If so, he succeeded.“I knew that if I’m not there and the cops are involved, he’s going to die,&...

Israeli media say death toll from Hamas’ wide-ranging incursion has risen to 600

Published Tue, 04 Mar 2025 08:00:01 GMT

Palestinians ride on an Israeli military vehicle taken by an army base overrun by Hamas militants near the Gaza Strip fence, in Gaza City, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Abed Abu Reash)(AP/Abed Abu Reash) Palestinians ride on an Israeli military vehicle taken by an army base overrun by Hamas militants near the Gaza Strip fence, in Gaza City, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Abed Abu Reash)(AP/Abed Abu Reash) TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Several Israeli media outlets are reporting that the death toll from Hamas’ wide-ranging incursion into Israel has risen to 600. The Kan public broadcaster and Channel 12, as well as the Haaretz and Times of Israel newspapers, reported the toll Sunday. There has been no official con...

Vegas Golden Knights winning the Stanley Cup shows the value of depth at every position

Published Tue, 04 Mar 2025 08:00:01 GMT

Leon Draisaitl acknowledged there was a reason he and the Edmonton Oilers lost to the Vegas Golden Knights in the playoffs last season. Asked what stood about the team that eliminated them and went on to win the Stanley Cup, one thing came to the German star’s mind.“They’re deep,” Draisaitl said. “They have four lines that they can roll against any line out there.”And it wasn’t just depth at forward that helped the Golden Knights finish atop the Western Conference after 82 games and the NHL after four grueling rounds of the postseason. They used 10 defensemen and five different goaltenders along the way, showing the value of depth in hockey at every position, establishing consistency and creating a blueprint for other contenders to follow.“Our team’s a great example of it,” Vegas playoff leading scorer Jack Eichel said. “We were consistent. Our special teams got better. Our goaltending was great. We utilized their depth … and I thought we found our real identity.”I...

Israeli media outlets say the death toll from Hamas’ wide-scale incursion has risen to 600

Published Tue, 04 Mar 2025 08:00:01 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli media outlets say the death toll from Hamas’ wide-scale incursion has risen to 600.Source

From Coke floats to Cronuts, going viral can have a lasting effect on a small business

Published Tue, 04 Mar 2025 08:00:01 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The Lexington Candy Shop in New York City has served burgers, fries and shakes to hungry patrons for decades. Last remodeled in 1948, the diner is the definition of old-fashioned.But that hasn’t stopped it from getting a wave of new fans.In August 2022, this old school business met the new world when Nicolas Heller, a TikToker and Instagrammer with 1.2 million followers known as New York Nico, popped in for a traditional Coke float – Coke syrup, soda water and ice cream. Naturally, he took a video. It went viral, garnering 4.8 million likes.“The next day (after the video was posted), the lines started forming at 8 in the morning,” John Philis, the diner’s third-generation co-owner, recalls with amazement. “And it was like, huh!”When a smaller restaurant unexpectedly goes viral on TikTok or other social media, the sudden demand can be overwhelming. Owners have to adapt on the fly, revamping operations to quickly serve a crush of people. But savvy business owners...