October 26, 2009

Dear NBPA Members:

The Police-on-Police Shootings Task Force needs your help.  We are inviting current and former sworn law enforcement officers to share their experiences with police-on police shootings and confrontations.  We define these confrontations as encounters in which an undercover, plainclothes or off-duty officer has been mistaken for a suspect engaged in criminal activity by another officer.

You may have read or heard about two such incidents that happened in the State of New York over the past two years.  In January 2008, off-duty Mt. Vernon Police Officer Christopher Ridley was shot and killed by uniformed police officers from another jurisdiction while intervening in an altercation between two civilians.  And in May 2009, off-duty NYPD Police Officer Omar Edwards was killed by plainclothes officers from the same police force as he was engaging a suspect. Both officers were African American.

These two tragic incidents, and the many others that have occurred over the years in places such as Providence, RI, Washington, DC, and Dallas, TX, led New York Governor David Paterson to convene the Task Force. This nine-member body is comprised of community members and current and former law enforcement executives, including Chief George Gascón of the San Francisco Police Department, former Chief Ella Bully-Cummings of the Detroit Police Department and Lew Rice, former Special Agent in Charge of the New York DEA Office. The Task Force has a mandate to study the phenomenon of police-on-police shootings nationwide, with the goal of developing a better understanding as to how these incidents happen and offering recommendations for action to ensure that they do not happen again.  Both fatal and non-fatal incidents are part of our review.

We would like to invite you to participate in this effort by clicking on the link below and taking our survey. You will be asked to offer any recommendations you have on training and tactics to help officers avoid these kinds of confrontations.  And you will also be asked to share details about any confrontations you may have experienced, either as an officer who was confronted, or as someone who challenged another officer after mistaking him or her for a suspect. The survey is anonymous; however officers may voluntarily provide contact information for follow-up interviews if you wish to speak with a member of the Task Force staff about your experiences or recommendations.  The survey can be accessed at this link:  http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/192179/b9aca.

Please forward the survey link to your colleagues.  We also invite you to visit our website, www.policeonpoliceTF.ny.gov, for more information.  Your experiences and feedback are an integral part of our work and any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated.  Thank you for your service.  And thank you in advance for your participation.

Sincerely,

Damon T. Hewitt, Esq.

Executive Director