Latest news with #MindyCasto
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Yahoo
Fresno police officer arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor sexual battery. He's on leave
A seven-year veteran Fresno police officer has been accused of sexual battery on two adults. In a news release Friday, the department said the alleged crime occurred when Officer Obioma Agbowo was off duty in March 2025. Following an investigation and a review of the case by the Fresno County District Attorney's Office, a misdemeanor warrant was issued for Agbowo's arrest, police said. Agbowo was arrested Wednesday and cited. He was placed on administrative leave pending completion of the Internal Affairs investigation, police said. No other details were given on the citation. Said Police Chief Mindy Casto in the news release: 'Immediately upon being advised of this complaint, the Fresno Police Department launched both a criminal and administrative investigation to address the allegations. We hold our personnel to the highest standards of conduct both on and off duty. When misconduct is alleged, we take action to thoroughly investigate and identify any violations of policy and law,' Agnowo was cited on suspicion of two counts of misdemeanor sexual battery.
Yahoo
20-04-2025
- Yahoo
We asked Fresno police chief about traffic stops and race. Here's what she said
Police disproportionately stop Fresno commuters who are people of color for reasons based on administrative or equipment violations rather than unsafe driving — a practice critics say is outdated. Advocates say it's a misuse of public money and a burden on communities of color. Law enforcement officials say making pretextual stops is an important tool in policing and ensuring public safety. Fresno's Black drivers are stopped for non-moving or administrative issues two times more often than white drivers based on the number of stops per 1,000 residents, according to data produced annually from the Racial and Identity Profiling Act of 2015. Hispanic drivers make up 53% of Fresno police stops, which is higher than the number of people in the community. Fresno is half Latino, according to the U.S. Census. Non-moving violations could include having illegally tinted windows or a bumper in need of repairs. Administrative violations, for example, include an expired registration. That kind of violation can also be the reason for 'pre-text stop,' when an officer stops a commuter for one of those less serious violations but actually wants to investigate the driver further. Critics argue non-moving and administrative stops are used in a discriminatory way, noting people of color are stopped at higher rates per capita. The stops are a common police practice that has come under scrutiny in some larger cities in recent years. The most common traffic stop at 43% in Fresno is related to unsafe speed, a moving violation, according to the latest data. Chief Mindy Casto argues Fresno police rarely use pre-text stops and are more likely to make an investigatory stop because officers have a reason to believe the car is connected to a crime. 'They're actually pulling the car over because they have a reasonable suspicion to detain for an important investigation,' she said. 'We've got a lot of proactive units in the city.' Casto said she sees the imbalance in who gets stopped as a reflection of the areas of the city that have more crime, and are more likely to see officers patrolling. She also said that officers pulling over a driver most often do not know the racial background of the driver until after they've made the stop. The RIPA data is based on the perception of the officers, and not necessarily based on how the residents describe themselves. 'I challenge you, when you're driving around tonight, particularly (if) you're behind a car, you don't know who's driving it,' Casto said. 'You pull the car over, then the RIPA data is based on your observations after the stop, not before the stop.' Critics also note the disruption on drivers of color can have greater effects, which can be seen as harassment. The average duration of a stop was 15.3 minutes, the report notes. White pedestrians and drivers averaged slightly shorter stops at 14.95 minutes, while Black residents waited 20.75 minutes and Hispanic residents waited 18.8 minutes. 'Interacting with a police officer could escalate to arrest warrants, use of force, profiling, all of that,' said Myanna Khalfani-King, an attorney and manager of Equity in Community Investments with Catalyst California. San Diego-based nonprofit Catalyst California teamed up with Building Healthy Communities in Fresno for a report released in February using RIPA data. They say Fresno police should emphasize stops directly related to moving violations. 'What we see now is the historic practice and policies of the police have not done anything to really help build this feeling of safety or feeling of community,' she said. It's not unheard of for municipalities to outlaw pre-text stops and require police to conduct traffic stops only for moving violations or when immediately related to public safety, which could include when police have a warrant for someone's arrest. Washington state's constitution outlaws using stops for minor traffic violations to look for other crimes, and San Francisco outlawed pre-text stops last year. Khalfani-King said ideally the city of Fresno would change policy to have someone other than a sworn police officer who would issue tickets for expired tags, tinted windows and other less serious violations. The Catalyst California report argues the traffic stops are also a waste of money in a city where the police budget is $288 million. There is a segment of Fresno's population who don't feel better when they see an officer. Carmen Galvez, 40, said she's afraid when she sees a patrol car in her rear-view mirror or on the street. The resident of Fresno for about two decades said her children are even more scared. 'My kids tell me, 'Don't trust the cops,' ' she said in Spanish. 'Many times the police don't believe what you say.' She said she has had run-ins with police that did not end in her getting into trouble, but the interaction induced fear. There's the time she kept driving straight ahead and drove across town because she was afraid the officer behind her was looking for a reason to pull her over, or another interaction when an officer stopped her to ask her if she had been drinking while she was sober and headed to pick up a friend for their night shift at a packing plant. Critics of the police say that kind of unpleasant interaction with an officer could be reduced if cops were not making traffic stops over administrative or non-moving violations. Casto said officers use administrative and non-moving violations when they need to in proactive policing, and the Fresno Police Department tries to build community through engagement. She pointed to the decrease in homicide and shootings in recent years in Fresno, saying proactive policing plays a part. In Fresno, there were 30 intentional homicides in 2024, down from 35 the previous year. It was also a significant fall from the gruesome high of 74 in each of 2021 and 2020, according to Fresno Police Department figures. The crime has decreased nationally at the same rate. Casto said she also believes the majority of Fresno residents want proactive policing. 'Proactive policing absolutely makes an impact on violent crime,' she said. 'Part of proactive policing is traffic stops of any variety.'
Yahoo
13-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Police military equipment requires public scrutiny. Fresno fails transparency test
Fresno residents who ignore or sidestep the law risk being placed under arrest. But what happens when laws that govern police are ignored or sidestepped by city leaders? Not a thing. They simply adjourn for lunch. Over the last few months, dozens of cities, counties and even universities throughout California held community meetings required by a three-year-old state law that provides public oversight over the use of military equipment by local law enforcement agencies. Los Angeles, San Francisco, San José, San Diego, Sacramento, Burbank, Santa Clara, Tustin, Salinas, Orange County, Alameda County, UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine and my leafy hometown of Los Altos all turned up in a simple Google search. Opinion Even Huntington Beach, California's least likely city to comply with state laws. Noticeably absent from the list of law-abiders: Fresno. Born out of local law enforcement agencies rolling up in armored vehicles and riot gear in response to largely peaceful protests during the summer of 2020, AB 481 mandates police and sheriff's departments gain prior approval before purchasing specified types of 'military equipment' and compile an annual report of their existing inventories that describes every item and their authorized uses. Those reports must be made publicly available and within 30 days accompanied by 'at least one well-publicized and conveniently located community engagement meeting' to provide residents with an open forum for questions about its contents as well as the agency's funding, acquisition or use of military equipment. The idea isn't to stifle local law enforcement. It's to ensure transparency, which creates increased trust. In Fresno, the public is getting the short end of the baton. The Fresno Police Department's annual military equipment inventory and use report can be found online – at least by those who can successfully navigate the city's website – but no community engagement forums have taken place since AB 481 went into effect. A handful of Fresno residents attended Thursday's council meeting and submitted public comments to remind city leaders of their responsibility. They were summarily ignored. The city council's approval of its police department's military equipment survey and use policy was contained in the consent calendar portion of the meeting agenda. Had the item not been pulled by Councilmember Miguel Arias, who posed a few rudimentary questions to Chief Mindy Casto, there would've been zero discussion of the subject aside from what was aired during public comment. This meager discourse nowhere near clears the bar of a 'well-publicized and conveniently located community engagement meeting' mandated by AB 481 – regardless of any specious claim or legal interpretation made by City Manager Georgeanne White and City Attorney Andrew Janz. What's more, both know better. In response to public comment, White strongly asserted (and sounded overly defensive) that the city has a responsibility not to send police officers into a situation where they are outgunned and in undue danger. I agree, except that's not really the point. Regardless of how one feels about Fresno police spending $435,000 on a new armored vehicle or having 517 AR-15 assault rifles and 158 canisters of tear gas at their disposal, the law is plain. And in California's fifth-largest city, plainly ignored. Trust between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve requires openness and effort by both parties. Fitting that Fresno City Hall is located on a one-way street.
Yahoo
23-02-2025
- Yahoo
Can AI help Fresno police do their jobs? Why it could be good and why many are skeptical
Reality Check is a Fresno Bee series holding those in power to account and shining a light on their decisions. Have a tip? Email tips@ For almost a year, the Fresno Police Department has been deploying artificial intelligence to write many of their tens of thousands of police reports. Fresno is believed to be one of the first and largest U.S. cities to deploy what's known as generative AI to write police reports informed by officers' body-worn cameras. But, while officials say AI has made the often time-consuming practice of writing police reports more efficient, the technology's use has drawn concerns from civil rights groups and defense attorneys. Officers have been outfitted with body-worn cameras made by Axon Enterprises since 2015. Last April, the department began using Axon's First Draft program to start writing police reports. The company and Fresno police say the program is meant to be a time saver in the more than 90,000 reports written by Fresno officers in a year. Neither police nor Axon provided proof the cameras save time. Fresno Chief Mindy Casto said the department does not have a scientific way to calculate time saved, but has estimated a 20% savings. Officials with Axon said departments average a savings of about 23 minutes per police report. Casto said the department has rolled the program out slowly, only using the software on misdemeanors, excluding more sensitive crimes like domestic violence or resisting arrest. 'I think the value is only going to grow as we expand the program, but I want to be very cautious in the roll out to make sure we've mastered it before we start delving into the more serious crimes,' Casto said. Those working outside of law enforcement say they're concerned adding AI into the mix could violate the rights of citizens and complicate holding officers accountable. The body cameras officers turn on during calls for service immediately send the information collected to the police department's cloud — remote servers that collect large amounts of information. Axon's software then writes a 'first draft' of the encounter into a format that fits police reports within about three to five minutes after an officer ends the recording, according to Noah Spitzer-Williams, Axon's senior principal product manager of generative AI. The AI is not meant to do all of the work, he said. Each officer is supposed to review the report, add details and respond to prompts during the process. 'At the end of the day, the officer owns the final words of the report, but draft one is here to kind of give you a good head start,' he said. 'They make their edits, they sign off on it, and they're back out in the field.' Some officers may even dictate details they are seeing during the call so that the AI can include them in the first draft,Spitzer-Williams said. Axon has had a technology-testing relationship with Fresno Police Department in exchange for steep discounts. Fresno became a 'development partner' with Axon in 2017 and has access to its new technologies for 'little to no cost to the city,' according to city records. Former Police Chief Paco Balderrama discussed the Axon partnership during the June 2024 city budget hearings. 'We're very proud of that because we have been cutting-edge as far as technology, as far as tasers, body-worn cameras, drones,' he said. 'And we've even helped developed a lot of different products, three that I can think of right now, that we are one of the very first in the world to utilize.' He said the department gets 'about a $19 million break' compared to agencies that do not have a development partnership. The Fresno City Council approved a five-year $18.3 million contract with Axon last year, which included about $1.3 million for the First Draft program. Axon representatives declined to say whether Fresno is the largest city using the AI reports, citing privacy concerns. Some other cities known to be using the technology include California towns like San Mateo, East Palo Alto and Campbell, all of which are smaller than Fresno. Other cities include Fort Collins, Colorado; and Lafayette, Louisiana. Experts, defense attorneys and civil rights groups remain concerned about how AI reports are used and what that could mean for the civil rights of the accused. The American Civil Liberties Union has come out against AI reports, citing the potential for warping the memories of officers, a potential for bias AI has shown and transparency, among other reasons. The King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office in Washington was concerned enough to send a memo to police departments in September telling officers to not use AI in reports, citing the potential for errors. Defense attorney Jeffery Hammerschmidt of Fresno said he has not seen an AI police report so far in court, but says attorneys often use AI themselves. But, as police should, attorneys must be diligent in double-checking the work. 'It can be a good tool but it can't substitute the officer's work,' he said. 'If an officer was using it as a shortcut, I'm going to find those errors and use it to my advantage to find the truth.' As a private defense attorney, he said he reviews reports and body-worn camera footage often to find inconsistencies. That could be harder on the Fresno County Public Defender's Office. 'It's very different for the public defender's office with their caseload to thoroughly review all the camera footage,' he said. Requests by The Bee to speak about the topic went unanswered by the Public Defender's Office. An AI startup called JusticeText is also developing the use of AI in reviewing body-camera footage, which public defenders in places like Sacramento and Modesto have used. Axon's program uses ChatGPT, but Axon's representatives say their version is stripped of the kind of creativity shown in the chatbot version available online. It is not supposed to come to any conclusions, which are called 'hallucinations' when they are inaccurate. That potential for hallucinations is a concern among skeptics. The new technology has the potential to affect civil liberties and hurt the public trust, and that requires officers to be diligent and not take shortcuts, according to Paul D. Knothe, a partner with Liebert Cassidy Whitmore in Los Angeles. The firm advises police agencies across the state. 'The computer is trained on data generated by humans, so it will reflect our biases and, in some cases, magnify the biases,' he said. 'So that's why a human check on it is critically important.' He said many agencies would benefit from requiring police officers to save the first draft spit out by the program for comparison against the final draft submitted. That would show errors introduced by the program and, at the same time, prevent an officer who might try to blame their errant actions on the AI. Casto, who was in an interim position until being announced as full-time chief on Feb. 13, has said she wants to improve Fresno officers' response to non-emergency calls. 'I think for any chief, (AI) is a fantastic tool, especially in a very large, busy agency,' she said. 'Here where we're just constantly under the gun on calls for service, it could be a game changer for the kind of service that we deliver.'
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Yahoo
Home invasion robbery suspect shot by officers in Fresno State parking lot confrontation
A home invasion robbery suspect was shot by Fresno police officers in a Fresno State parking lot Sunday morning. Interim Police Chief Mindy Casto said the home invasion happened at an apartment complex in the 4800 block of Backer Avenue, near Shaw Avenue, at 7:18 a.m. Three suspects pulled up in a vehicle in the quad area between the apartments and the pedestrian area and jumped out wearing masks. The suspects then pounded on the door and identified themselves as police before going inside where they took a large safe. As officers were arriving, they confronted the suspects, Casto said, when the driver 'nearly ran him over.' Shots were fired by the officers. It's unknown if the suspect fired back as detectives will investigate, but the suspects continued to flee in the vehicle where the officers ended deploying a pursuit intervention technique to it, which they did at the Fresno State parking lot near the Smittcamp Alumni House and Joyal Administration building off Maple Avenue. The suspect driver jumped out before shots were fired by the officers. The driver was struck and taken to a local hospital. His condition is unknown. The passenger in the back seat was not injured and was arrested. A K-9 was deployed and a rifle was found in the vehicle, Casto said. Police are trying to identify a third suspect who fled from the apartments. Casto said the safe was left behind at the home. Only one person was inside the apartment and was not injured. Casto said the three suspects were also wearing vests. Anyone with information is asked to call police at 559-621-7000.
