Book review: 12 Seconds in the Dark - talks about Breonna Taylor case

[Lon]

Written by Sgt. John Mattingly, the Sgt. that was shot while serving the warrant that fateful night. Short book. Only 141 pages. Pretty good read. Pissed me off. Some key takeaways for me:

1. I’ve been a fan of body cameras for years. This just reinforced that belief. Frankly, I think any SWAT team or narcotics unit that isn’t wearing them on warrant service is asking for trouble. If LMPD made their narc units wear them, this incident would have had a much different outcome. As an alternative to body cameras, dash cameras or exterior cameras on raid vehicles should be considered. We use body cameras, but I really think helmet cameras would be more beneficial.

2. Make sure your attorney is YOUR attorney and no one else’s. The initial attorney in this case tried to represent all three and then got excluded from representing any of them due to a conflict of interest.

3. Remember- politicians are gonna politician and you can’t trust them, no matter what.

4. Start thinking about safety planning for your family, if you haven’t already done so.

5. Talking to media outlets and hoping they do right by you is a bad idea. If you’re gonna do interviews, make sure YOU make a recording of the interview and release it in its entirety on social media.

[jnc36rcpd]

Well worth the read and I'd agree with Lon's takeaways. I've been-there/done-that sharing an attorney in a racially charged, media frenzy jackpot. Of course, that didn't fly. It worked out well for me in the end as my new attorney did an excellent job (years later, he became our county's chief judge).

I think the good guys need to get our side out there from our attorneys or our unions (which was finally done by my attorney while the ambitious president of our FOP lodge did nothing). We provided information to a trusted reporter. In today's world, I'd definitely make sure we had better control of the narrative via social media and the Internet.

Body cameras are a must-have for SWAT teams and other units serving warrants. A local SWAT team had an OIS that was not recorded. The bad guy's supporters made an issue over "releasing the tapes" which didn't exist. No real drama in this ultra-liberal county because of the bad guy's race and beliefs, but there would have been hell to pay if he had been of a different race, age, gender, national origin, sexual identity, or political beliefs.

[Erick Gelhaus]

Individual officers, associations, and departments (though I'm not holding my breath) need to get a lot more assertive about getting the story, info out. The days of being passive, of "no comment" and waiting from the investigation to come back should be long over with.

[Lon]

Individual officers, associations, and departments (though I'm not holding my breath) need to get a lot more assertive about getting the story, info out. The days of being passive, of "no comment" and waiting from the investigation to come back should be long over with.

Agreed. LMPD leadership screwed that up big time.

Had a conversation w our SWAT Commander and Special Operations Commander this morning reiterating the need to get some better cameras than what we’ve got. There’s a new version of the MOHOC out that we were looking at.
https://www.mohoc.com/product/mohoc-2/

[Cheap Shot]

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000551758559

Cant recommend highly enough. Worth listening.

[Cheap Shot]

[Skullybones]

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000551758559

Cant recommend highly enough. Worth listening.

Thank you for linking this podcast. Well worth the listen.