Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/anaheim-police-department/)
Some Anaheim City Council members are beginning to publicly question the city’s police budget following demonstrations against police brutality that have swept across OC.
After more than a year-long trial phase, Anaheim police are set to get an annual subscription to a facial recognition software that compares images of unknown individuals suspected of crimes against known offender databases consisting of booking mugshots of those arrested and booked for criminal offenses.
A unanimous Anaheim City Council has approved $400,000 partly to ramp up visible, private security and park rangers at city parks where large numbers of homeless people are known to visit.
West Anaheim’s Maxwell Park is facing a spike in homeless people staying in and around the park and homeless-related crimes, according to Anaheim Deputy Police Chief Julian Harvey.
After Anaheim PD confronts a Voice of OC reporter who clearly identified himself, questions arise about Anaheim’s commitment to the First Amendment and the tone of neighborhood homeless sweeps.
American courts have held the public and journalists have the right to film government officials, including police, carrying out official actions in public.
Orange County supervisors voted without discussion and in less time than it took to read the agenda’s one sentence summary, to buy a $3.6 million surveillance plane for the Sheriff’s Department.
More than two dozen protesters demonstrated Thursday night in front of Los Angeles Police Department officer Kevin Ferguson’s Anaheim home, objecting to District Attorney Tony Rackauckas decision not to file criminal charges after a 2017 scuffle with a teenager led to Ferguson firing his pistol but not hitting anyone.
Los Angeles Police Department Officer Kevin Ferguson, who fired his gun during a 2016 altercation with a group of Anaheim teenagers, will not face any criminal charges for his actions, said Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas at a news conference Wednesday morning.
It was another year of political drama in the city of Anaheim, after an election upset in November 2016 tipped political power in Mayor Tom Tait’s favor.