In 2012, then-Mayor R.T. Rybak picked her for the top job when Chief Tim Dolan retired, and she won the approval of the City Council. At the time, Rybak called her “a smart cop, a savvy administrator and a natural leader” and said she would make an exceptional chief.
But Harteau has publicly fought with city and state officials many times since then. In October 2013, she pushed back against a body camera proposal supported by Hodges and other council members, a month before Hodges was elected mayor.
[...] In a news conference 24 hours before resigning, Harteau tried to distance the department from the Damond shooting, calling it “one individual’s actions” and not representative of the force. She said the officers should have been recording with body cameras and that Damond “didn’t have to die.” [...]
With Mayor Hodges running for reelection, and with this latest fatal encounter with police involving a white person, there is room for conclusions which might be wrong. The cumulative nature of events likely is more a factor than race. And no body cam usage in this shooting, that is inexcusable and a strong policy would need to be top down with the police union either with it or bent down. Either way, the things were purchased for sound reasons and when not used in a fatal encounter with an unarmed person who'd summoned the police presence, things exceeded any acceptable level of police practice.
The officer who fatally shot the civilian in the latest incident had no criminal justice training, or apparently none, prior to making the force. Norms of use of deadly force need to be clear as policy, top down, and always any officer should reasonably be expected to be protective of the weapon and its use rather than enduring an excessive risk of personal injury or death. Drawing lines is difficult, but clearly they were not properly drawn and articulated with sufficient force as shown in the failure to use body cams - by either officer in the encounter, both of whom should be fired immediately. Not just the chief under the bus, but the pair of failing perps too.