8 May 2 - 8, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Who’s Training Police? P olice officers in Texas are required to take 40 hours of training every two years to keep their peace officer li- cense active. But that mandated training isn’t where the learning ends for many officers. Some police departments host training ses- sions that aren’t required by law but still seek to provide valuable insights. That’s where Street Cop Training and many other third- party police training companies come in. Johnny Nhan, a criminology and crimi- nal justice professor at Texas Christian Uni- versity in Fort Worth, acknowledges that the language used by police training instructors can be jarring for the general public to hear. He suggested that trainers sometimes feel the need to project a certain toughness to win over the room. He’s not making excuses for the derogatory words toward women or minorities but is reinforcing that an abra- sive, edgy approach isn’t uncommon in these scenarios. “There’s a weird culture among police trainers that their résumé is how they win re- spect from their trainees,” Nhan said. “How many drugs have you caught? There’s a level of bravado they need to win respect. An egg- head like me, if I were trying to teach patrol officers, I wouldn’t win their respect proba- bly. I haven’t done what they do. I haven’t been in a shootout myself. From my experi- ence, I’ve seen retired police officers come in with their gun on their hip to teach a class on traffic safety or something like that. That gives that instructor a level of legitimacy.” Salty language and dirty jokes in front of a bunch of cops on a work trip isn’t the main problem when it comes to Street Cop Train- ing and the local law enforcement agencies that send their officers to be trained by the company. According to New Jersey officials, some of the curriculum at the conference was simply illegal. “Some instructors at the conference pro- moted the use of unconstitutional policing tactics for motor vehicle stops,” read the in- tro to another video posted by the New Jer- sey Comptroller’s Office. In the video, a Street Cop instructor named Tommy Brooks teaches, in no uncer- tain terms, that pulling people over for no reason is a good way to gain information that might be useful later. “Have a day where you go out and go, ‘I’m just gonna pull over 20 people in a row for the sole purpose of asking a series of ques- tions,’” Brooks says in the video. “Police officers must act in an objectively reasonable way. It is clearly established law that officers cannot pull someone over be- cause of a hunch, or a ‘gut feeling,’’’ reads a message on the comptroller’s video after the Brooks clip is shown. “They also can’t stop motorists when the sole reason is to ask questions. When an officer pulls over a mo- torist without reasonable suspicion of a crime or even a motor vehicle infraction, that is unconstitutional.” Further examples in the comptroller’s video show other Street Cop instructors giv- ing advice on how to toy with other aspects of a traffic stop’s constitutionality. The comptroller’s video ends with a message noting that $75,000 in public funds was used to enroll officers in the conference de- tailed in that video. Street Cop Training did not reply to our requests for an interview or questions re- garding the New Jersey investigation. But last December, a few days after the New Jer- sey Comptroller’s Office released its find- ings, Benigno posted his own video to YouTube to address the matter. He acknowl- edges the inappropriateness of many of the comments made during the 2021 confer- ence, but Benigno is careful to not fully apol- ogize while also disparaging the comptroller’s investigation. “We do important work, and there is no place for demeaning, harassing or hateful words or jokes in our training,” Benigno said. “Since that time, we have worked as a com- pany to implement quality control measures to foster a cooperative environment among our instructors and professional staff here at this office. We don’t want that type of inci- dent to ever happen, similar to the way it did in the October 2021 conference.” Benigno did not rebut any of the comp- troller’s individual claims of unconstitu- tional instruction directly. Instead, he generically said that “it is simply not true” that his instructors teach unconstitutional policing tactics. “No video, slide or reference has been presented, nor exists, to illustrate the sug- gestion or the instruction of any violation of a recognized constitutional amendment. That’s why they said it’s ‘likely’” he added, using air quotes. Nhan said officers who are unable to pull over a vehicle for even the slightest infrac- tion when they’re suspicious of something more serious probably aren’t trying very hard, given that an officer can pull a motor- ist over for minor offenses including a li- cense plate light not being bright enough, or a driver not flipping their turn signal on far enough in advance of a right turn. But he noted that doesn’t excuse the teaching of blatantly pulling someone over for no reason at all, and that’s something many police de- partments will not abide by. “Police departments today, especially in larger cities, are very sensitive to civil rights violations,” Nhan said. “The culture has changed, especially with management, and the liability has really increased in the past decade. Stuff like this [teaching unconstitu- tional tactics] would scare most large de- partments. In Fort Worth, for example, everything is on camera these days. If you’re using rude language with someone you’ve pulled over, that could be a violation of the department’s general orders and that could lead to that officer getting investigated and being disciplined in some way.” A quick look at Street Cop’s in-person training class calendar indicates that it is mainly suburban and small-town depart- ments booking their sessions. The Dallas Police Department says it has never hosted a Street Cop Training session for its officers. Texas City, near Houston, is the only Lone Star State location for a Street Cop session this year aside from the two North Texas classes. In December, three Houston-area departments — the Brazoria County Sher- iff’s Office and the Katy and Jersey Village police departments — canceled their 2024 Street Cop sessions because of the findings of the New Jersey report. Those Who Can’t, Teach W hether or not Street Cop taught unconstitutional policing meth- ods, the question of whether Be- nigno of all people should be instructing other officers has drawn more attention. In addition to Pardazi’s questionable past, Be- nigno, Street Cop’s founder, himself has a checkered history in the area he now serves as an authority. According to a recent CBS New York in- vestigation, Benigno was disciplined three times in a five-year span as a member of the Woodbridge Township Police Department in New Jersey. He retired after 10 years on the force in 2015 shortly after a lawsuit was filed accusing “Benigno and other officers of excessive force, racial bias and false ar- rests during an incident at a local mall.” The suit was settled by the department for $50,000, although Benigno did not admit to any wrongdoing. A spokesperson for the Collin County Sheriff’s Department told the Observer that the class scheduled for June in McKinney is the first time it has hosted a Street Cop class and that the department was made aware of the problems the company is fac- ing only after we reached out to them. The Lewisville Police Department did not reply to multiple phone calls and emails regard- ing its upcoming Street Cop Training class in July. “Our training section is currently care- fully reviewing these concerns to ensure that our training sessions uphold the profes- sionalism and standards expected of our of- fice,” the Collin County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson said. As of April 29 Street Cop’s website still lists the Collin County session on its calendar of classes. A recent post on the Lewisville subreddit page called attention to Lewisville’s police hosting a Street Cop class. The poster wrote, “Please tell me my tax dollars aren’t being used for this!” Since they didn’t reply to our questions, we don’t know the ins and outs of the Lew- isville PD’s arrangement, but we do know how the Collin County sheriff is handling his department’s. Even though department funds weren’t required to bring the Street Cop class to Collin County, there is a chance public money could be used toward the effort. “Since we are hosting the training, they provide a certain number of compensated seats for a certain number of paid seats,” the spokesperson said. “However, if there are several members of our office who wish to at- tend the course, but we are below the mini- mum number of participants required for a compensated spot, we would have to pay the same fee per deputy as everyone else.” While Street Cop continues to have at least some presence in Texas, you won’t likely see the same in a growing number of other states. Citing the New Jersey comp- troller’s investigation and report as a cause for dwindling business, Street Cop has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. And the news only gets worse for the company from there, according to a Feb. 23 NJ.com report. “Now, several states have prohibited offi- cers from attending Street Cop trainings, in- cluding Minnesota, Missouri, Maryland, Illinois, California, Oregon, Nevada, Michi- gan and New Jersey, according to court fil- ings,” the report stated. Nhan said these optional training ses- sions present a sort of “self-selection effect” when it comes to which courses certain types of police officers choose to attend, which is why it’s important to have an in- structor and training company that’s teach- ing things the right way to come to your station. “I’ve been trained by the type of cops who are like, ‘Hey, you haven’t done what I’ve done, you haven’t seen what I’ve seen,’” Nhan said. “And for these types of optional training sessions, you’re going to attract that certain type of officer who connects with that type of teaching. Me? I’m not interested in a Street Cop type of class, but I’d go to a class on community policing or de-escala- tion. But that’s not what the cops who go to the Street Cop training sessions are looking for most likely.” Unfair Park from p06 >> p10 New Jersey Comptroller Kevin Walsh investigated Street Cop Training. NJ.gov
