The police officers say using actual mugshots in target practice is of utmost importance for facial recognition drills

Jan 16, 2015 13:16 GMT  ·  By

As shocking as this may sound, it appears that some police officers are in the habit of using mugshots of real people when undergoing target practice exercises. Even worse, it looks like they are very specific about the mugshots worthy of being included in their training routine.

Thus, it was just revealed that, when practicing their shooting skills, members of the North Miami Beach Police in the US like to fire their guns not at some random human silhouette more or less artistically drawn on a piece of paper, but at photos of criminals.

More precisely, these police officers now stand accused of using mugshots of folks who at some point in their life got in trouble with the law in target practice. As if this weren't enough to upset folks, word has it that members of the North Miami Beach Police have a soft spot for photos of black criminals.

How the cops were caught using mugshots in target practice

Last month, Sgt. Valerie Deant, who plays the clarinet in the Florida Army National Guard's 13th Army Band, happened to pay a visit to the Medley Firearms Training Center in Florida just after members of the North Miami Beach Police had finished their target practice.

To her surprise, Sgt. Valerie Deant found that the cops had been practicing their shooting skills on mugshots of black criminals. Even worse, one of these mugshots was that of her brother, taken back in 2000, when he was just 18 years old and had some trouble for taking part in drag racing.

“I was like, ‘Why is my brother being used for target practice?’” the woman told the press in an interview. “There were like gunshots there. And I cried a couple of times,” Sgt. Valerie Deant went on to detail her reaction when she saw that her brother's mugshot had been used for target practice.

Almost immediately after making this gruesome discovery, the woman contacted her sibling. New York Daily News tells us that Valerie and Woody Dent, who is now a married man and even has children, did not take long to contact a lawyer. Together, they want to take legal action against the police officers.

All this conundrum is much ado about nothing, the cops insist

Rather than apologize to Sgt. Valerie Deant and her brother Woody, maybe even to the other people whose mugshots they fired their guns at, the members of the North Miami Beach Police insist that they did nothing wrong and that all this conundrum is much ado about nothing.

The police officers insist that using actual mugshots in target practice is not just a common practice but also of utmost importance for facial recognition drills. They go on to argue that the fact that all the criminals at whose photo they fired on that day were black was just a coincidence.

“Our policies were not violated,” North Miami Beach Police Chief J. Scott Dennis said in a statement. “There is no discipline forthcoming from the individuals who were involved with this,” he added.

A photo of the mugshots the cops fired at
A photo of the mugshots the cops fired at

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Cops stand accused of using actual mugshots in target practice
A photo of the mugshots the cops fired at
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