San Diego police chief orders officers to keep body cameras on

[May 09, 2015]  SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - San Diego's police chief, already conducting a probe into why a body camera worn by one of her policemen was not turned on when he shot and killed an Afghan immigrant, has ordered all of the department's officers to turn them on before arriving at calls.

San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman on Thursday promised a full investigation into why Officer Neal Browder did not have his camera turned on when he shot and killed Fridoon Rawshannehad in an alley behind an adult bookstore on April 30.

"We are revising our body-worn camera procedure and officers will now be trained to start recording prior to their arrival on radio calls that are likely to result in an enforcement contact," Zimmerman said in a written statement.

Browder, a 27-year veteran, responded to a 911 call that a man with a knife was menacing people in the alley behind the bookstore. A second 911 call reported that a bookstore employee had been threatened by a man with a knife.

Browder shot the Rawshannehad after the 42-year-old Afghani immigrant allegedly ignored commands and advanced on the officer, police said.

Local news media reported that no knife was found after the shooting. A police spokesmen would neither confirm nor deny that report.

Rawshannehad was born in Afghanistan and moved to the U.S. in 2003, according to court documents. He has suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, according to those court papers.

He was a defendant charged in four criminal cases since 2008, according to the San Diego Superior Court. On three occasions, between 2004 and 2015, people sought restraining orders against him.

Police have obtained a recording of the shooting from a security camera in the alley, San Diego Police Lieutenant Mike Hastings said. The recording has not been made public.

Chad Marlow, policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union, criticized the failure to turn on the camera.

"Did the officer do something wrong with respect to using his body camera?" Marlow said. "I think it appears that clearly the answer is yes."

The San Diego Police Department began the program in June 2014. In a March report to the San Diego City Council, Deputy Chief David Ramirez reported that both citizen complaints and use of force incidents have declined between 30 percent and 56 percent when the cameras were being used.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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