It has been almost 2 weeks since Jan Bennets Ada County Prosecutor received our petition (via email and snail mail) and there has been no response from her office.  Why doesn't she speak out about this epidemic of law enforcement?  Since she has taken office she has fought against the release of body camera footage when Boise Mayor McLean asked for video release.  Also since her tenure began in 2014 there have been upwards of 25 law enforcement-involved shootings.  This number is not accurate as they are not required to report shootings to anyone or track data in-house.  The article below was written by Brian Clark Idaho Stateman.  After reading it ask yourself why neither law enforcement top officials, nor city or county government is questioning what is going on with "use-of-force" here in the Treasure Valley.  Please continue to share the petition and write Jan Bennets Ada County Prosecutor adacountyprosecutor@adacounty.id.gov to urge her to send this to Raul Labrador Attorney Generals office for their legal team to review.

There are a lot of these families out there because a staggering number of people have been killed by police in Idaho recently. Since 2015, police have shot and killed 77 people in the Gem State, according to a database maintained by the Washington Post. In Nebraska, the state closest to Idaho in population, there have been only 44 — and Nebraska has higher homicide and violent crime rates than Idaho. Chicago has more than half a million more people than Idaho and a homicide rate about 10 times higher than Idaho’s. But only 53 fatal officer-involved shootings have happened there since 2015, according to the database. There are places where officer-involved shootings are more frequent. In New Mexico, a state comparable in population, there have been 184 fatal shootings since 2015. But New Mexico is also a place with far more violent crime — there are about seven homicides there for every one in Idaho, and New Mexico’s violent crime rate is the nation’s second highest, according to the most recent FBI data. By contrast, Idaho is in the bottom 10% of the nation in terms of homicide rates, according to the CDC, and in the bottom 20% in terms of per capita violent crime, according to FBI data. All of this suggests that Idaho’s officer-involved shooting rate could be reduced substantially through some combination of stronger accountability and better training. It suggests that the Banachs’ proposal of a regional citizen review board is a reasonable one that lawmakers should take seriously.