Discuss some factors that served as a barrier to exchanging information among relevant agencies.

1) Utilizing publicly available search engines, identify an example whereby lack of information sharing among criminal justice organizations may have contributed towards a negative outcome. Discuss some factors that served as a barrier to exchanging information among relevant agencies.

Using the public engine Google Scholar, I was led to an article on miscommunication leading to a suspect’s death while unarmed, resulting in an excessive use of force. The inter-agency connection in this case involved the Las Vegas Police Department and the U.S. Marshalls (Ho, 2016). Police dispatchers warned the Las Vegas Police Department that the suspect was wanted by the federal marshals for an attempted murder. This was later debunked when it was discovered that the marshals wanted the suspect fort a missing court appearance. On the scene of the accident, both police officers and Marshalls were there. The police officers were demanding the suspect to drop his weapon, a weapon which he did not possess.

2) What are some steps that could have been taken to overcome the barriers you identified in part 1?

The main issue with this case lied on the officer’s discretion, and capability to use less than lethal force before deadly force. While this was a training issue and part of the Las Vegas Police Department’s answer to police response tactics, the problem lied with inter-agency communication and the claim that the suspect was dangerous and armed. To have avoided this fatal accident, U.S. Marshalls should have relayed that the finding of a firearm belonged to the driver of the vehicle that the suspect fled in, not the suspect. Clear communication would have led to the identity of the suspect as a passenger, and no weapon registered to their name, only a partner in their crime. Inter-agency collaboration is very important, especially when warning other departments to assist with a possible danger. Since the Las Vegas Police Department received the initial call of a dangerous situation, the officers possibly arrived on scene with a bias that they could be killed or injured due to an unstable suspect with a weapon. If the two departments had shared a reporting system where they could both look up on background information of the suspect, it would have been identified that they were a low threat. Instead, an unarmed black man lost their life top police excessive force, leading to further scrutiny.

Ho, S. (2016). Police: miscommunication led to unarmed suspect’s death. Seattle Times. Retrieved from https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/police-miscommunication-led-to-unarmed-suspects-death/

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