Police and sheriff’s departments throughout Florida spent 1000’s of {dollars} sending officers to coaching conferences which have been banned in 9 different states after being accused of selling unconstitutional ways and glorifying violence.
Purpose obtained invoices via public information requests exhibiting {that a} dozen of Florida’s largest regulation enforcement companies spent $31,377 on coaching seminars hosted by Avenue Cop Coaching, a New Jersey-based firm, between 2020 and 2023.
The corporate has been underneath intense scrutiny because the New Jersey Workplace of the State Comptroller issued a scathing report in December detailing a 2021 Avenue Cop Coaching convention in Atlantic Metropolis the place instructors made discriminatory and unprofessional remarks. On the convention, one teacher flashed an image of a monkey when speaking about an aged black man, and the founding father of the corporate stated that refusing to consent to a police search was justification for prolonging an investigation. Since then, New Jersey has ordered retraining for all officers who attended Avenue Cop conferences, and the corporate has declared chapter.
The Florida invoices make clear Avenue Cop’s foothold in one of the populous states. Regardless of the turbulent instances for the corporate, it’s soldiering on within the Sunshine State. As Florida As we speak‘s John Torres famous in a current op-ed, Orlando is internet hosting the 2024 Avenue Cop Convention this week.
Not solely that, however Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey is a speaker on the convention.
Torres famous with disdain that taxpayers had been footing the invoice to ship officers to those conferences.
“Locally, at least one Melbourne officer is attending the training with the department paying for it,” Torres wrote. “Palm Bay and Cocoa have none and the Brevard County Sheriff’s Department did not respond to my inquiry about how many deputies were attending. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement could not tell me how many officers were attending.”
It could most likely not shock Torres to be taught that the Brevard County Sheriff’s Workplace spent probably the most out of any company that has to this point responded to Purpose‘s information requests. Avenue Cop invoices to the company whole $7,825 between 2020 and 2023.
The following largest spender was the Osceola County Sheriff’s Workplace with $7,085, adopted by the Seminole County Sheriff’s Division at $6,604.
Six Florida Freeway Patrol officers attended Avenue Cop coaching seminars throughout that point interval, in keeping with information.
To compile this report, Purpose filed 28 public information requests to the biggest police departments and sheriff’s workplaces in Florida. 9 companies stated they’d no responsive information. Seven requests are nonetheless pending, together with from populous jurisdictions resembling Broward and Orange County.
Avenue Cop Coaching was based in 2012 by Dennis Benigno, a former New Jersey police officer. It runs coaching conferences for 1000’s of law enforcement officials across the nation, however flew underneath the radar till New Jersey Comptroller Kevin Walsh’s December report. The report documented dozens upon dozens of lewd and discriminatory remarks by instructors and feedback glorifying violence.
Extra regarding than the fixed middle-school jokes about penis dimension, although, had been the substance of the displays. For instance, Benigno and different instructors on the Atlantic Metropolis convention insisted that refusing to consent to a search of 1’s car—a constitutional proper underneath the Fourth Modification—was suspicious and ought to be used as justification for prolonging a search or detention.
The comptroller investigation discovered that there was “an entire section of Benigno’s training during the Conference dedicated to an ‘I Do Not Consent Game,’ during which Benigno shows a montage of people refusing consent in an attempt to illustrate that a motorist’s refusal to consent is a suspicious factor that justifies further prolonging an investigative detention.”
The comptroller’s workplace discovered that a number of instructors informed officers to make use of a “reasonable suspicion” guidelines to determine whether or not to discover a cause to drag somebody over or prolong a site visitors cease. The guidelines included an extended listing of obscure and contradictory habits, together with the motive force not a police automobile when passing, trying too lengthy at a police automobile when passing, carrying a hat, eradicating a hat when an officer approaches, trying again at their car, leaning in opposition to their car, smoking, stretching or yawning, and licking their lips.
“Because none of these factors are more consistent with guilt than innocence, a stop based on a combination of those factors alone—without some additional factor that suggests criminality—would be unconstitutional,” the New Jersey Comptroller’s Workplace concluded.
Benigno additionally mocked individuals who document the police throughout site visitors stops, saying that particular person was about to “get pepper sprayed, fucking tased, windows broken out, motherfucker.” Recording the police is a First Modification proper.
One Avenue Cop teacher in Louisiana livestreamed himself capturing at a fleeing car and later bragged about it on the Atlantic Metropolis convention. “Run from me, somewhere along the chase becomes, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow,” he stated. The deputy has since been charged with unlawful discharge of a firearm and obstruction of justice.
The report discovered that no less than New Jersey spent no less than $75,000 in public funds sending officers to the Atlantic Metropolis convention.
Benigno stated within the wake of the report that he was tightening skilled requirements for the conferences and making different modifications, however he denied that the corporate promoted unconstitutional ways.
In a prolonged assertion to Florida information outlet WESH final week, Benigno stated partly: “The context of the Fourth Amendment training at the October conference and the implications that the training was unconstitutional is completely baseless. Officers in attendance have already completed police academy and understand the context in which the training is provided.”
Not all the public information determine which seminars officers attended, however no less than a few of them concerned site visitors stops and interdiction. One officer from the Tallahassee Police Division attended a 2021 Avenue Cop Coaching class titled “identifying criminal vehicles and occupants,” and a Duval County Sheriff’s deputy attended “interdiction mastermind.”
The Volusia Sheriff’s Workplace paid for 5 deputies to attend seminars that included “unmasking facial expressions” and “body language for law enforcement.”
The power to reliably detect lies or guilt by studying facial expressions and physique language has by no means been replicated in managed research. It is pseudo-science, however it has however remained in style amongst regulation enforcement as a result of it offers officers a wide-ranging and infrequently contradictory listing of cues to substantiate their suspicions. (Walsh’s report additionally notes that “some other controversial factors [on the checklist] are observing ‘micro-expressions’ as taught through free online videos and assessing ‘blink rate.'”)
The controversy over Avenue Cop Coaching has led some Florida sheriff’s workplaces to distance themselves from the corporate.
A spokesperson for the Seminole County Sheriff’s Workplace says none of its members shall be presenting or attending this yr. The Volusia County Sheriff additionally informed native media that he would not be sending deputies to the convention.
In the meantime, Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey stays a staunch defender of the corporate.
“This is all a bunch of crap,” Ivey stated of Walsh’s report.
Ivey was a paid marketing consultant at a Avenue Cop convention final yr in Nashville.