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Sandpoint police shooting cited by CBS

KEITH KINNAIRD/Hagadone News Network | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 11 years AGO
by KEITH KINNAIRD/Hagadone News Network
| December 5, 2014 8:00 PM

SANDPOINT - The deadly officer-involved shooting in Sandpoint was cited Tuesday in a CBS Evening News report about President Barack Obama's desire to see more officers fitted with body cameras.

The news report included video footage from the camera Sandpoint Police Officer Skylar Ziegler was wearing when he and other officers confronted Jeanetta Riley outside Bonner General Health on July 8.

Ziegler and Officer Michael Valenzuela opened fire on Riley when she refused commands to drop the knife she was holding and advanced on the officers while saying, "Bring it on!"

Riley, 35, died at the scene.

The officers have been cleared of wrongdoing, although perceptions still linger that the use of lethal force was unjustified.

CBS News used the Sandpoint video in a report on initiatives Obama proposed on Monday to build trust and confidence between police and communities, especially minority ones.

Obama is asking Congress for funding to purchase 50,000 body cameras to record events like the shooting death of an unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

Obama also seeks to avoid militarized police culture in the U.S.

"We're going to make sure that we're not building a militarized culture inside our local law enforcement," Obama said. He said the goal instead is to ensure that "crime goes down while community trust in the police goes up."

Demands for police to wear the cameras have increased across the county since Brown's death.

A report from the U.S. Justice Department said there's evidence both police and civilians behave better when they know there are cameras around. In a recent Cambridge University, a police department in Rialto, Calif., saw an 89 percent decline in the number of complaints against officers in a yearlong trial using the cameras. The number of times police used force against suspects also declined.

• The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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