Family Outraged After North Miami Beach Police Use Mug Shots as Shooting Targets

[tanker]

Should police be allowed to use mugshots for target practice ?


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.

 

[missbishi]

Mugshots of African-American men? That is just awful! There is no hope that the police can regain public confidence in them when things like this are happening. I saw a picture of US soldiers at a shooting range recently. Their target? A picture of a middle eastern man wearing a headscarf! What happened to plain circular targets with a bullseye?

 

[stevesxs9]

If this is true, you can see why the image and reputation of the police continues to be tarnished. The police already have such a tough and stressful job and do not need to give any reason for any group or race to hate them because their job is too important and meaningful than that.

 

[ally79]

Okay, this is a really standard practice, especially for snipers, and it has been ENCOURAGED by the Department of Homeland Security. Granted, this is not something that should be practiced on a public range, but it is a necessary part of law enforcement training. You can see the DHS targets here: http://communities.washingtontimes....aining-practice-targets-featuring-children-p/

 

[missbishi]

If this is true, you can see why the image and reputation of the police continues to be tarnished. The police already have such a tough and stressful job and do not need to give any reason for any group or race to hate them because their job is too important and meaningful than that.

Exactly! Why cause unnecessary bother? It might well be the cast that they actually have a variety of targets to shoot at but they must have been aware that the media would pick up on this particular target.

 

[LitoLawless]

That's a pretty crazy story. I can even believe that there are cops out there that would do something like that. This is just another case of cops doing whatever they want with whatever they want.

 

[Rainman]

Question is how long has this been done without being reported? I think the media is all doing all they can to tarnish the reputation of the police. Such news reports are of absolutely of no value. Not to the community, not to anyone else. Yes it's the media's job to report everything but they don't report the things that really matter. However, they must go after cops all the time . . . it disgusts me as much as these policemen's use of mug shots for target practice.

 

[Mackmax]

I've seen this, and it is disgusting. I don't understand why or how any police chief would ever think this was a good idea. The photos they used were of African American men, and the cops were shooting at the faces of their pictures. This is training police to shoot black men in the head, for goodness sake. The fact that a picture of a person's face is being used for target practice is incredibly disturbing. If an ordinary citizen were to use photos of people for target practice, we'd think they were insane and needed to be locked up, but when police do it, its mandatory training? Whatever happened to target practice dummies? At least those were race and genderless, and they had a full body so that police could practice shooting in places aside from the head, which helps police practice shooting to injure, instead of shooting to kill.

 

[Kittyworker]

This is just plain wrong. I see a lot of people complaining that people are outraged because they used African Americans mugshots. I think people are missing the point. It shouldn't matter what race the people were, you shouldn't be using images of real people as target practice. What makes this even worse is that some of the people whose mugshots were being used had already been released from prison. Power of suggestion is quite strong and if a cop should see someone whose mugshot that he was using for target practice, hes going to be more open to discharging his weapon.

 

[Muthoni]

Maybe that was the only thing that was available that would have been used as a target. If I found someone using my picture as target believe me I would not be offended as long as there is no ulterior motive. Police work is difficult enough, injecting a bit of humor will make the day easier to get by.

 

[Patrick]

I feel that the use of standard target boards would have been more meaningful, since the centre of the target is clearly shown so that the shooters can clearly assess their capabilities. That said I honestly feel that the response to this was a bit of an overreaction.