The New York City Police Department will require officers to take breath tests for alcohol if they shoot someone and to undergo a psychological screening when they become candidates for undercover work, says the New York Times. Both measures are among the recommendations of a panel created after a Queens man was fatally shot in November in a volley of 50 bullets fired by officers. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who set up the panel in December, said he had accepted all 19 of its recommendations, which included hiring actors to help train officers in undercover roles as gun dealers or narcotics traffickers and creating programs to teach the public about the need for such operations.
The new procedures would be the first substantive changes to the way the police department operates since Sean Bell, 23, was killed while leaving a club on Nov. 25, the morning of his wedding. Three police detectives have been indicted in connection with the shooting. Although the police department review was called in response to the Bell shooting, Kelly said the panelists, all but one of whom were high-ranking members in the department, did not investigate specifics of that case. “We didn't say, 'Hey, take a look at this case,' ” the commissioner said.
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/nyregion/19undercover.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin