Weber County - On August 31, an "Anti-Police Brutality" rally was held in Ogden in response to a police-involved fatal shooting in Furgeson, Missouri, and riots that followed, as well as to a police-involved fatal shooting of Dillon Taylor in Salt Lake City earlier in the month. Approximately 25 people showed up outside the Ogden courthouse with shirts and signs voicing opposition to a variety of local and national incidents of police use-of-force, including signs that read "Respect: No Bullets", "#MichaelBrown", and "Feds! Help Utah!", as well as signs about dogs being shot, and one referencing Trayvon Martin (who, it should be noted, was killed by a plain clothes security guard, not law enforcement). One protester, who refused to give his name, because he is a member of Soldiers of Aryan Culture, (SAC), a white supremacy prison gang, and claimed to be a cousin to Dillon Taylor. When asked how the police should have acted with Dillon, he stated, "If he was running, they should have chased him and tackled him", and explained that the tactics were wrong.
Malik Dayo, the event organizer, stated "police need cultural sensitivity in Ogden," and that police need to "stop racial profiling". He also chastised media outlets for being "in bed with the police sometimes," yet he gave no specific examples.
Libertarian Party Congressional candidate, Craig Bowden, spoke to the crowd, and called for police reform. Amongst his complaints was the need for dash cameras, as well as body cameras for all police officers; citizen review boards; and additional use-of-force training. He also criticized the federal "10-33 Program", which he stated is "essentially allowing to militarize the police", and grants "militarized vehicles" to police departments. "How can we have a community if we can't even trust our police," he asked. Mr. Bowden asked the crowd, “Why don't police get daily training in use-of-force simulators like he did as a US Marine in the build-up-to-deployment in Iraq?” When asked about funding for this kind of training, he suggested that Homeland Security grants might be re-directed from the purchase of mine resistant armored vehicles toward training with simulators, as well as public interaction.
Although the protestors seemed to have a wide variety of complaints, several, when asked what was needed to fix the problems simply stated "police reform" with no specific plan or suggestion.
The sense amongst them, as well as on social media, seems to be that law enforcement is attempting to prevent accountability and transparency. Locally, that doesn't seem to be the case, however. Individual police officers in Brigham City, as well as Perry began purchasing body cameras with their own money in 2012. Their departments, along with other local agencies began purchasing them for their officers in 2013, as the technology developed. Now, body cameras are widely used by both uniformed and plain clothes officers all along the Wasatch Front, including North Ogden Police, Box Elder and Weber County Sheriff's Departments and the Utah Highway Patrol. Harrisville Police Lt. Wheelwright explained that his department is currently looking to procure body cameras. However, at a cost of $400-800 each, it is not always an easy purchase for small departments. He explained that they were leaning toward cameras that have an automatic download feature, to offer full transparency and accountability. They are already using cameras attached to their Tasers; however, they only record if the Taser is deployed, which doesn't cover most use-of-force incidents.
At least two local cities, Brigham City and Perry, have looked into the implementation of citizen review boards for yet another level of transparency.
