The Criminal Investigation Bureau has sent a bill on police investigation procedures to the Ministry of the Interior, after several high-profile cases of police officers using firearms sparked public debate.
The draft calls for the establishment of an investigatory body comprised of police officers and 13 to 17 experts from various fields who would be tasked with probing cases of police use of firearms that lead to death or serious injury, as well as “controversial” cases, sources said.
The body would send the results of its investigations, along with its assessment of administrative responsibilities, to courts to assist in their rulings, the sources said.
Photo copied by Chang Jui-chen, Taipei Times
The draft proposes four situations in which use of firearms would be warranted: When a suspect attacks an officer or another person or otherwise threatens their life, when there is sufficient reason to believe a suspect has a weapon and intends to use it, when a suspect attempts to seize a police officer’s weapon, or when there are other urgent circumstances threatening someone’s life, the sources said.
The body would comprise experts and academics from fields including forensics, ballistics, law, policing, psychology and psychiatry, as well as lawyers, representatives of human rights groups and rank-and-file police personnel, they said.
The sources said that every time an officer uses their firearm, the department under which they operate would assess the case and determine whether the officer complied with the pertinent regulations, while the to-be-established body would investigate select cases.
“The investigation body must include people familiar with law enforcement who have been out there on the street,” Soochow University law professor Chang Shao-pin (張紹斌) said on Wednesday.
Chang, a practicing lawyer who previously served as chief prosecutor at the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office, said he has been on the scene of police operations involving weapons on many occasions.
“When police arrive at an illegal gambling den or some other place where guns might be present, they might have only seconds to decide whether to draw their weapons and fire,” he said.
Chang said that understanding whether the officer in such a case made the right decision is not easy, and cannot only rely on reviewing surveillance footage in slow motion to see when a suspect draws their own weapon.
“You have to understand the psychology of the officers and their mental state at the time of the incident,” he said. “Obviously, those best equipped to do that are people with experience in such situations.”
Central Police University lecturer Su Heng-shun (蘇恆舜) said the body’s members must be diverse to avoid public doubts about their integrity, and also ensure they are trusted by police.
The body should be comprised of four groups of people: those with law backgrounds, those with backgrounds in psychology or psychiatry, those who have practiced policing and social justice workers.
Chang Ching-yi (張景義), a police officer at the Taipei City Police Department who was acquitted after many years of litigation over his shooting of a hit-and-run suspect, said that the members of the body should include people with policing experience and people with experience operating firearms.
He said the main task of the body should be to clarify the cause of the shooting, and whether the shooting was intentional.
It should also assess whether the officer’s decisionmaking and their use of the firearm were appropriate, Chang Ching-yi said.
The role that the reports filed by the body play in legal proceedings should be clearly defined, he said, adding that if they were to be “for reference only,” it would not help the police officers involved in such cases.
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