By McNelly Torres and Willard Shepard NBC affiliate channel 6News, South Florida
A South Florida family is outraged at North Miami Beach Police after mug shots of African American men were used at a shooting range for police training.
It was an ordinary Saturday morning last month when Sgt. Valerie Deant arrived at the shooting range in Medley, or so she thought.
Deant, who plays clarinet with the Florida Army National Guard’s 13th Army Band, and her fellow soldiers were at the shooting range for their annual weapons qualifications training. What the soldiers discovered when they entered the range made them angry: mug shots of African American men apparently used as targets by North Miami Beach Police snipers, who had used the range before the guardsmen.
Even more startling for Deant, one of the images was her brother. It was Woody Deant’s mug shot that taken 15 years ago, after he was arrested in connection to a drag race in 2000 that left two people dead. His mug shot was among the pictures of five minorities used as targets by North Miami Beach police, all of them riddled by bullets. “I was like ‘why is my brother being used for target practice?'” Deant asked.
Deant’s fellow guardsmen were angry too, but they tried to console Deant, who was devastated. “There were like gunshots there,” Deant said. “And I cried a couple of times.”
She immediately called her brother, Woody Deant, who was 18 years old when the picture was taken. “The picture actually has like bullet holes,” Woody Deant said. “One in my forehead and one in my eye. …I was speechless,” he added.
The North Miami Police Chief Dennis defended this practice and said his SWAT team uses human images for facial recognition purposes. According to the Chief, the groupings of black males this time was purely a coincidence, adding that sometimes they are all Hispanic or all White. It’s just about be able to recognize the right target. He noted that the sniper team includes minority officers. Dennis said the use of actual photographs is widely used and the pictures are vital for facial recognition drills. But the Deant family questions why officers were firing targets with images of real people, in this case African-Americans, especially at a time when relations between minority communities and law enforcement are so tense.
“Our policies were not violated,” Dennis said. “There is no discipline forthcoming from the individuals who were involved with this.”
Thanks go to Retired Police Chief Bud Biddle for supplying PS with this strange story. I’m stunned and speechless how something like this story could happen, especially given the racial tensions of late. What were they thinking? It just incredibly bad judgment that can only damage race relations.
Channel 6 checked with 5 other law enforcement agencies and they all reported that they use commercially supplied targets, not mug shots of real people.
I think somebody owes the Deant family an apology.
Yes! It also wouldn’t hurt to apologize to the minority community as a whole and announce an immediate change in policy!
“I’m stunned and speechless how something like this story could happen, especially given the racial tensions of late. What were they thinking? It just incredibly bad judgment that can only damage race relations…
I think somebody owes the Deant family an apology.”
The rare moments where we agree on something are always nice.
I can’t believe the Chief didn’t see anything wrong with this? The Chief needs to be given a suspension or fired.
My initial reaction to this story matched the reaction of everyone that has commented so far. I was disgusted that a police department would sanction such racial insensitive behavior. It clearly appeared that those in charge at the North Miami Beach Police Department were lacking the proper judgment to be in a position of responsibility.
When I first read the paragraph that contained Police Chief Dennis’s explanation I really didn’t think about what he was trying to say. At first it seemed like a contrived explanation that was created to provide a defense for an indefensible act. I’ve given it more thought and I now support this training exercise.
I have never gone through police training but it is my understanding that part of the training involves time spent on an “obstacle course” that helps train the officers to make life and death decisions during a police action. When searching for a dangerous suspect they may be surprised at any moment by someone coming into their field of vision. They only have a fraction of a second to decide to shoot or not to shoot. If they make the wrong decision it could cost them their life or the life of an innocent bystander. In this case the exercise was for SWAT snipers. In the case of a standoff with hostages they may also have to make a life or death decision to shoot or not to shoot. Is the person in their scope the suspect or are they a hostage? Police Chief Dennis described his training exercise exactly this way.
Dennis also indicated that all races were used as a target. Why? Well we have all heard the comment “they all look alike”. This comment is not always coming from one specific race talking about another specific race. This comment can easily be made by a person of any race talking about a different race. How is it that people of race A will have no trouble distinguishing different people of their race but have trouble distinguishing people of race B. And, at the same time people of race B may also have the same trouble distinguishing people of race A. I believe we are more perceptive of the subtle differences of people of races that we are exposed to on a frequent basis. On the other hand we tend to focus on common features of those races we are exposed to infrequently. It appears to me the shooting range exercise was intended to provide training in picking out those subtle differences. Instead of the exercise simply being target practice using mug shots instead of the usual human outlines Dennis described an exercise that required identification of a suspect. It is easy to envision an exercise where the trainees were shown a picture or pictures of a person that would be considered the designated suspect prior to entering the range. They were then asked to identify and shoot the correct suspect as they surveyed a range full of photographs through their rifle scopes.
The question was raised “Why use photo’s of real people”? For the exercise to work they needed real faces. What does a police department have a lot of? They certainly have a lot of mug shots. Why shoot the mug shots? Why not just identify the suspect though rifle scopes? Part of the exercise is to be able to shoot someone if necessary. We are appalled at the idea of someone using photos of real people for target practice. A police officer may also be appalled and would have to get over that. A sniper must never hesitate.
I do believe that the department should extend a detail explanation and apology to the Deant family. It is an amazing coincidence that a family member of one of the people depicted in the mug shots would happen to be at the range. It seems like this activity should also not be done with anyone other than department personal present and all photos should be collected and disposed of so no one else has the same experience of finding a photo of a loved one (or anyone for that matter) riddled with bullet holes.
Common Sense you make good points, but I still wonder, wouldn’t using life-like pictures work just as well and not expose the department to ridicule?
I really have no idea if life-like photos would accomplish the goal. Once you accept the premise that the goal is to provide training to make sure an officer can distinguish one individual from another the question becomes why NOT use actual photos. It eliminates the risk that a lifelike image wouldn’t do the job. I’m not saying that it wouldn’t be as good but why risk it. Dennis stated “use of actual photographs is widely used and the pictures are vital for facial recognition drills”. Even with lifelike images people will still complain because the race the images depict will still be recognizable.
What makes this story outrageous at first glance is it appears the officers will using pictures of black people as target practice. Of course that sounds disgusting. But, that is not what was happening. Note Dennis said “black males this time was purely a coincidence, adding that sometimes they are all Hispanic or all White”. Note that he said “all”. He didn’t say some of them are Hispanic and some of them are White. All pictures were of people of the same race for each drill but not for all drills. If I am correct the reason they were all black is at the time the “suspect” of the drill was black. Would it make sense to train officers to recognize a black suspect with White people for half of the pictures. Would it make sense to have half of the pictures Black it it was a White suspect. It would be a waste to do this and sounds very much like something someone would suggest just to be PC.
The intent of the drill is to protect innocent people. Keep in mind, if I’m correct about the drill, all but one of the pictures represented an innocent person. Only one of the pictures was shot for each drill (or more than one for multiple suspects). However, the “innocent” people may have been the suspect on the next pass so their picture might also have had bullet holes.
I might care if someone was using my picture for just target practice. That seems sick. However, now that I know that wasn’t the case I wouldn’t care, even if my picture was the one to be shot. The goal of the training is a worthy goal.
The fact that one of them just happened to be the brother of someone who observed the training or the aftermath of the training is just coincidence and it is more about sloppiness than anything else. As I said in my last post these type of training exercises should be done with only police personal present and all pictures used that were shot should be immediately destroyed.
Since Dennis indicated this is widespread, one way to lessen the chance a family member would see their loved one’s picture with bullet holes would be for Police Departments to share their pictures. Florida could use pictures from California as an example. Truthfully, I think that would be just a waste of time and money.
I think we need to let the Police do what they know best and let them do their own training. Obviously the people that wrote this story did not take the time to really understand the very positive goal of this training exercise. They just decided, with very little information, that is was bad and that they knew better.
I have a family member that I talk to frequently. This person will listen to a problem or a challenge I am dealing with and immediately offer advice made up of the most obvious solutions. In just a couple of minutes this person feels they have enough information to propose a solution that they assume I haven’t considered when I have been dealing with it for much much longer. This behavior might be acceptable if someone is an expert in an associated field but, if they are not it is pure arrogance.
We seem to live in a very arrogant society today. Everyone wants to tell everyone else what to do with very little information, background, or understanding. Everyone seems to want to get their feelings hurt. Everyone seems to want to portray themselves as a victim.
The PC movement is a result of this. The PC movement is more about controlling people by exploiting appearances. Something appears to be bad so expose it and expose the people doing it as terrible people. Don’t try to understand what was happening. That’s counter productive. If the actual truth does come out it is no longer a scandal and therefore not news worthy so you don’t have to be exposed as being wrong. The PC movement is about as superficial as you can get.
Enough!
My father once said, if you are going to stick your nose in someone else’s business you better make sure you know everything about it, have really thought it through, and understand what negative impacts your meddling might have. Then flip a coin. If you do all this you will only make matters worse 50% of the time.
Thanks MCS, I thought they were talking about target practice.
As always, your thoughts on the subject make a lot of sense.