Critical Incident Community Briefings are short video briefings that are produced by the Glendale Police Department. This purpose of these briefings is to give our community a better understanding of what we know during the early stages of an investigation.
The Glendale Police Department conducts thorough investigations into critical incidents, which include interviewing and re-interviewing witnesses, searching for and analyzing video evidence, and analyzing forensic evidence.
While Critical Incident Community Briefings are compiled during the early stages of an investigation and contain factual information as we know it, additional witnesses or evidence could come to light which would potentially change our understanding of the investigation.
The Glendale Police Department’s purpose with providing this information at this point in an investigation is not to provide conclusions, but simply to provide facts to our community.
The Glendale Police Department assigns body worn cameras to all its officers assigned to patrol duties. Most officers wear their camera on their upper torso. The camera is set up to have a 30 second buffer for video and no buffer for sound. This means when the camera is activated, it captures the previous 30 seconds of video only prior to the activation.
Glendale police patrol vehicles are also equipped with cameras, one forward facing in the general vicinity of the rear-view mirror and one that faces into the backseat. These cameras are activated based upon numerous predetermined criteria.
While body camera footage provides a factual representation of an incident, it does not capture an event in its entirety.
Body worn camera and in-car camera video is automatically uploaded when the camera is docked at one of our stations. Originals of body worn camera and in-car camera videos are unable to be altered or deleted once they are recorded.
The Glendale Police Department conducts two separate reviews of officer involved shootings; an internal review and a criminal review. Detectives from the Glendale Police Department’s homicide unit who have specific training and experience in officer involved shooting investigations conduct the criminal review of the incident. Once that report is finalized it is forwarded to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for further review.
Simultaneously, the department conducts an internal investigation.
Once the findings of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office are returned to the Glendale Police Department, a Use of Force Board is convened as part of the internal investigation. That board includes subject matter experts and members of our community and their sole purpose is to determine whether the use of force was within policy. That information is then forwarded to the internal investigators.
Upon completion of both the criminal and internal review, the findings are forwarded through the chain of command. That process can take anywhere from several months to a year.
Officers who are involved in critical incidents, specifically officer-involved shootings, are placed on Administrative Leave. The period of Administrative Leave is typically 3 duty days and its purpose is to ensure that the officer is mentally and physically prepared to return to duty following a critical incident.
Typically, no. There is often hours and hours of body worn camera video, in car camera video and surveillance video for these types of incidents. Much of that video is either prior to or typically in the minutes and hours after the incident. The Glendale Police Department provides video of the incident itself, as that is what the community often is concerned with.
The video is edited to condense it for viewing. There is often hours and hours of body worn camera video, in car camera video and surveillance video for these types of incidents. Much of that video is either prior to or typically in the minutes and hours after the incident and is not relevant to the incident itself.
While the Glendale Police Department may enhance video for viewing (slowing, pausing, adding text, etc.) to make it easier to view and understand, the video is not altered to delete or omit relevant portions or to skew the viewers perception. The originals of these videos are evidence and are unable to be altered.
