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FOLLOW-UP: AZ COPS lie again on the cover-up that ensued.
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Phoenix PD issues statement about homeowner shot by police
Reported by: ABC15.com staff, wire reports
Reported by: Katie Fisher
Last Update: 10/07 8:55 pm
Man shot by Phoenix PD files $5.75 million claim
PHOENIX – The Phoenix Police Department issued a statement Wednesday addressing a September 2008 incident that led a Phoenix homeowner to sue the city and its police department.
Tony Arambula is seeking $5.75 million in damages for himself and his family after he was shot by police on September 17, 2008 after officers responded to a call about an intruder inside his central Phoenix home.
Phoenix Police Spokesperson Tommy Thompson said in a press release issued Wednesday that officers responded to a call at Arambula's Phoenix home, but "after entering the residence, one of the officers mistakenly shot the armed home owner."
The press release goes on to say that the "department has been honest and forthright from the very onset of this incident. No attempt has been made to conceal the truth or the facts surrounding it."
Thompson also acknowledges Arambula's lawsuit and says his department will not be making any further statements as the litigation process takes its course.
The claim, filed by Phoenix attorney Michael Manning on behalf of Arambula, names the city, its police department, the officer who shot Arambula and two other officers.
Phoenix police declined to comment on the shooting or the pending claim.
The night of the shooting, Arambula said an intruder had broken into his home.
Arambula called 911 and told police he was holding the intruder at gunpoint.
As officers arrived, Arambula's wife Lesley said she told them her husband was inside the house holding a gun on the intruder.
"I told them my husband was inside, he was the one with the gun," she said Tuesday.
The officers entered the house with a shout of "Police!"
Almost immediately afterward, Phoenix police Officer Brian Lilly shot Arambula in the back.
Three more shots were fired at Arambula, one hitting him in the arm.
The incident was recorded during Arambula’s 911 call, made available earlier this month.
Listen to the call.
The claim said that when Arambula fell to the floor, Lilly shot him two more times.
That's when Arambula told Lilly he'd shot the wrong man.
In his Internal Affairs interview, Lilly admitted firing at Arambula without any verbal warning, according to the claim.
Arambula said he did everything he was supposed to do in that situation.
"I would have loved if they would have told me to get on the floor and drop to my knees," Arambula said. "To not have given me any opportunity to not get shot, it's confusing. I pray that this never happens to another family."
http://www.abc15.com/content/news/phoenixmetro/central/story/Phoenix-PD-issues-statement-about-homeowner-shot/sLWUCAu1I0eVLymRsuVjJg.cspx
Cop Caught On Camera Beating Special Education Student Marshawn Pitts (WATCH)
A south suburban Chicago police officer was caught on a security camera beating up a high school special education student, CBS2 reports.
Marshawn Pitts, 15, was walking down his school hallway when he says a Dolton, Ill. police officer went from berating him for his untucked shirt to slamming him to the ground and beating him.
"The officer was in his face because he didn't have his shirt tucked in," Pitts' attorney told CBS 2's Davis Savini. "That's the officer put in that school to protect these kids, and instead of doing that, this officer is literally assaulting this kid."
Neither school nor Dolton officials responded to CBS 2 about the story.
Former Alabama judge indicted on inmate sex charges
By Ashley Broughton
(CNN) -- A former south Alabama judge is accused of checking male inmates out of jail and forcing them to engage in sexual activity including paddling, according to officials and court documents.
Former Mobile County Circuit Judge Herman Thomas denies all the charges, his attorney says.
Former Mobile County Circuit Judge Herman Thomas denies all the charges, his attorney says.
Former Mobile County Circuit Judge Herman Thomas was arrested Friday after a grand jury returned the indictments against him. He was released on $287,500 bond later Friday.
The indictments total 57 counts, and the charges range from ethics violations to kidnapping, extortion, sex abuse and sodomy. If convicted on the most serious charge -- kidnapping, a Class A felony -- Thomas faces a prison sentence of 10 to 99 years in prison, Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson Jr. said Monday.
But Thomas' attorney, Robert Clark, said Friday the accusations against the former judge amount to "a high-tech lynching."
"Did you ever think of the fact that this is the only black circuit judge we've ever had in Mobile County and that the right-wing Republicans have gotten rid of him?" Clark said at a news conference, portions of which were posted on the Web sites of CNN affiliates WKRG-TV in and WALA-TV.
"This is racism at its very finest."
Thomas was arrested during that news conference; footage shows police walking up to Thomas, tapping him on the shoulder and leading him into the adjacent jail building without handcuffing him. Later Friday, Clark was threatened with arrest after refusing to leave Tyson's news conference, according to CNN affiliate reports.
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"The South hasn't changed all that much," Clark, described by the Mobile Press-Register as "a longtime and flamboyant fixture of the Mobile defense bar," told CNN on Monday.
He said Thomas denies all the charges, and he questioned the credibility of the alleged victims. "Everybody that's listed in the indictment is either serving life for murder or some other horrible crime." Some have already recanted, Clark said, adding, "None of this is new stuff." He pledged he would "fight till the last dog falls."
Meanwhile, the Alabama State Bar said its disciplinary commission suspended Thomas' law license Monday.
The indictment returned Friday, posted on WKRG's Web site, offers few details of the alleged offenses but makes several references to Thomas forcing people to expose their buttocks "to paddling and/or whipping."
The posted indictment had names of the alleged victims blacked out. But each of the nine alleged victims was in Mobile County Circuit Court on charges ranging from criminal mischief to murder, according to the Press-Register, which cited court records.
One of the inmates, according to the newspaper, went before Thomas on multiple occasions and faced several felony charges. He was sent to prison for a short time, but Thomas ordered him released early, according to the Press-Register. He was sentenced in federal court and later released and has since been accused of murder and attempted murder.
During Thomas' judgeship, he had a storage room furnished like an office near his eighth-floor chamber at Mobile's Government Plaza, the Press-Register said. Several criminal defendants have alleged, in affidavits and in court, that Thomas asked to paddle their buttocks in the room, and some said he suggested sexual encounters there, according to the newspaper.
Thomas resigned from the bench in October 2007 just before being scheduled to stand trial before the Alabama Court of the Judiciary on ethics violations charges. The complaint, dismissed after Thomas' resignation, accuses him of "extrajudiciary personal contact" with some defendants but does not refer to any sexual contact.
Asked about Clark's allegations of racism, Tyson told CNN, "In this case, as in every case, we try to react to the law and facts, and that's all. Anything else is outside our authority. I can assure anybody that's interested that this is not being pursued for some racial agenda."
Thomas' bail carried three conditions, Tyson said -- that the ex-judge have no contact with males under the age of 21, that he have no contact with the complaining witnesses or their families, and that he surrender his passport.
All the Mobile County Circuit judges have recused themselves from Thomas' case -- standard procedure for a case involving another judge, Tyson said. A judge from another county is being brought in to oversee the case. An arraignment date has not been set, Clark said.
But on March 9, another Mobile County Circuit judge barred Thomas from his courtroom. Judge Joseph S. Johnston wrote in an order that during Thomas' tenure on the bench he "used his office to threaten criminal defendants with jail time, penitentiary time and probation revocations if they did not engage in sexual acts with him."
Johnston attached to the order, under seal, a disc "containing the interviews of three criminal defendants who were subjected to the treatment described above," the order said.
Clark appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court, saying Johnson's suspension order "cites allegations and innuendo and rumors." He said Monday the high court hasn't weighed in on the matter.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/03/31/inmate.sex/index.html
The Look From The Rear
Posted by SHG at 9/26/2009 7:22 AM
It seemed like Anthony Arambula did everything right. A man breaks into his Maricopa County home and runs into his son's bedroom. He sends his wife and kids outside, then gets his gun out of the closet and holds the burglar at bay. He calls 911. But what happened after that wasn't quite what he had in mind.
From Courthouse News:
Phoenix Police officers already in the neighborhood heard the crash of the Arambulas' window. When they approached the house, Lesley says, she told Sgt. Sean Coutts that her husband was inside holding the intruder at gunpoint. Lesley says Coutts failed to pass on that information to the two other officers.
Inside the house, the Arambulas say, Officer Brian Lilly shot Anthony six times in the back while he was still on the phone with the 911 operator - twice when he was on the ground.
The officers ran into the bedroom after Anthony told them, "You just killed ... you just killed the homeowner. The bad guy is in there."
Darn it. Cops hate when that happens. No, not because they pumped 6 bullets into the wrong guy, but because they could get in big trouble. Cops hate getting into big trouble.
Tony Arambula didn't die, however. Instead, he sued. In a rather interesting complaint, more along the lines of melodramatic chatting than legal description, one detail makes the cops' efforts to cover up their mistake exceedingly difficult. It seems that the 911 call was still being recorded as Lilly was busy shooting. And still recording after he stopped and realized his mistake.
According to the complaint, Lilly can be heard on the 911 tape telling Coutts, "We fucked up."
Lilly says on the tape that he did not know where Anthony's gun was when he shot him and that he "opened fire because he heard loud noises and saw someone who looked like he might be the 'Hispanic' male they were pursuing" before getting to the Arambulas' house, according to the complaint.
But we all look like Hispanic males from the rear.
If things were bad after Lilly put six bullets into Tony, they got worse as the cops were left to figure out what to do about it.
Sgt. Coutts was quick to commence the cover-up of their terrible mistake. Sgt. Coutts asked Office Lilly where Tony's gun was at the time Officer Lilly had opened fire on Tony. Officer Lilly admitted that he did not know where Tony's gun was: 'I don't know. I heard screaming and I fired.'"
Lilly later told a police internal affairs investigator that Anthony had pointed his gun in his direction, "in the 'ready' position," the complaint states. But Anthony Arambula says he was facing away from the officers, who could not have even seen his gun.
The complaint continues: "Still not knowing that he is being recorded n the 911 tape, Sgt. Coutts interrupted Officer Lilly's admission and apology with his assurance that the cover-up would commence: 'That's all right. Don't worry about it. I got your back. ... We clear?'"
And it goes on and on, with the cops dragging Tony Arambula outside the house by his shot leg onto gravel in the backyard, where he was put on display for his wife and children. He was placed on the "hot hood" of the squad car and driven down the street writhing in pain.
Later, they tried to get the gun dealer who sold Tony the weapon to go along with their pretense that the gun may have been illegal, but the dealer refused to play ball. Then detectives tried to pin drug warrants on Tony from other states that he's never been to, but the details didn't match.
It's so much easier when you shoot the wrong guy and just put a throw-away in his hand to justify it. It's harder when you shoot the homeowner. And it's really hard when the 911 recording catches it all. And you thought it was easy to be a cop.
http://blog.simplejustice.us/2009/09/26/the-look-from-the-rear.aspx?ref=rss
NJ Cop Robert Melia Taped Having Sex with Cows
By Pete Kotz in Animal Cruelty, Child Abuse, Creeps, Police bungling, Sex crimes, Stupid Criminals, bizarre
Friday, Sep. 25 2009 @ 8:32PM
Robert Melia is also charged with molesting three girls
To paraphrase the late Hunter Thompson, "When the going gets weird, the weird go to New Jersey." That's the only way to explain the case of Moorestown policeman Robert Melia. Last year, he and his former girlfriend, Heather Lewis, were arrested for sexual assaulting three young girls over a five-year period.
While this may be depraved enough, detectives found what a true degenerate Melia is after they searched his home. On his computer they found a video of a girl being sexually assaulted. They also found video of Melia -- get this -- having sex with cows.
Since beastiality is not technically a crime in New Jersey, investigators charged Melia with animal cruelty. And this, believe it or not, is where our story gets even weirder. Under state law, a prosecutor must prove the animal was tormented to in cruelty cases. Which led to a rather unusual argument in the court room...
Police say Heather Lewis also molested the three girls
Burlington County assistant prosecutor Kevin Morgan was left to assert that forcing a cow to give you a blowjob -- especially a young, innocent calve, which is what Melia fancied -- fit the definition of cruelty. "I think any reasonable juror could infer that a man's penis in the mouth of a calf is torment," he told the judge. "It's a crime against nature."
But that's when Judge James J. Morley went a little weird on his own. He waxed philosophically about the mental powers of cows, noting that they couldn't actually talk -- a breakthrough observation -- and thus had no way of expressing whether they liked giving degenerate cops blowjobs or not. And given that the jury had no way of reading the five cows' minds -- yes, Melia is a serial cow rapist -- there's no way the prosecution could prove the cows were tormented.
Melia walked.
He's still facing charges for molesting the three girls, but he's likely beat his biggest legal hurdle. It's bad enough to be sent to the pen as a child rapist. But being a cow rapist would certainly preclude membership invites from the finest Aryan gangs. They do have their standards.
http://www.truecrimereport.com/2009/09/nj_cop_robert_melia_taped_havi.php
SWAT Team caught playing a suspect's Nintendo Wii in his house
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQmPPw5hMgw
Did California police use a Taser on an unarmed, legless man in a wheelchair?
Why did police Taser wheelchair-bound Merced, Calif., resident Greg Williams?
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/nation/story/75729.html
By Victor A. Patton | McClatchy Newspapers
MERCED, Calif. — The Merced Police Department's Internal Affairs Division is investigating whether an officer twice used a Taser on an unarmed, wheelchair-bound man with no legs.
The man who was Tasered, Gregory Williams, 40, a double-leg amputee, spent six days in jail on suspicion of domestic violence and resisting arrest, but the Merced County District Attorney's office hasn't filed any charges.
Williams is black, and the two main arresting officers are white, but it's unknown whether race played any role in the incident.
Williams, who was released from jail on Friday, said he was manhandled and Tasered by police, even though he said he was never physically aggressive toward the officers and didn't resist arrest.
Williams said he was humiliated after his pants fell down during the incident. The officers allegedly left him outdoors in broad daylight, handcuffed on the pavement, nude below the waist. Williams said the Sept. 11 arrest also left him with an injured shoulder, limiting his mobility in his wheelchair.
A handful of residents in Williams' apartment complex said they witnessed the incident and supported Williams' charges. A short video clip, shot by a neighbor and obtained by the Sun-Star, shows Williams sitting on the pavement with his pants down, his hands cuffed behind his back.
A Merced police report, written by the responding officers, says that police tried to reason with Williams before the arrest, to no avail. The officers wrote that Williams was uncooperative and refused to turn his 2-year-old daughter over to Merced County Child Protective Services, among other allegations.
In the report, police also say a hostile crowd gathered as the officers tried to perform their duties.
The Merced Police Department spokesman declined to comment on the matter, saying he can't discuss it because the investigation is internal. Both the officers remain on duty.
Between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Sept. 11, Williams said, he and his wife, 28-year-old Demetrice Shaunte Phifer, were arguing when a marked Merced Police Department patrol car arrived at the couple's studio apartment.
While one officer spoke with his wife, Williams said, another officer arrived and ordered him, "Go back to your house!"
Williams, who had his 2-year-old daughter Ginni in his lap, said he rolled his wheelchair back to his apartment.
The officer, who's identified in the police report as John Pinnegar, approached him in the doorway of his apartment. Pinnegar said that his wife had accused him of striking her, which Williams denied.
Shortly afterward, police Sgt. Rodney Court and a worker with Merced County Child Protective Services entered the room, Williams said. "I'm trying to tell him nothing happened. We were just having an argument," he said.
Pinnegar grabbed William's 2-year-old daughter from his lap, handing her to the CPS worker. "I said, 'What are you doing? I haven't done anything!' " Williams said.
Williams said Pinnegar unholstered his Taser, jammed it into his rib cage and shocked him twice. Williams said he fell from his chair onto his stomach on the ground outside his doorway.
While he was down, Williams said, Court put his knee on his neck, and one of the officers then cuffed both of his wrists. At some point after he fell out of his chair, Williams said, his shorts slid down his legs.
With his hands cuffed behind his back, Williams said, he was unable to pull his pants up. He said police left him for five to 10 minutes in that position on the pavement, with his private parts showing as neighbors and onlookers watched.
Williams, a lifelong Merced resident who's married with three children, said that both his legs were amputated in 2004 after he was diagnosed with deep-vein thrombosis that led to gangrene in both legs.
Doctors amputated both his legs below the knees when he was 34. Now only withered stumps of skin hang where his lower legs once were. He lost his job as a truck driver and now supports himself and his family from a Social Security disability allotment of $1,004 a month.
To read a fuller account of this story, visit www.mercedsunstar.com.
Cops Handcuff, Assault Man For Posting Obama Joker Flyers
http://www.eclipptv.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=7408&title=Cops_Handcuff__Assault_Man_For_Posting_Obama_Joker_Flyers&vpkey=70d2f22398
FOLLOW-UP: Agent Provocateur
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2td3g_spp-cops-caught-trying-to-incite-vi_news
Police Abuse Series-Filing a Complaint on a Officer - Consistently abusing their power in a series of arrests
"I axed him specifically what the incident was about, can't help you if I don't know what the incident about."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1YvwTHKuQQ#t=45s
Exclusive: Officer accused of soliciting minors brought down by ‘KopBusters’
By Stephen C. Webster
Published: September 15, 2009
Updated 13 hours ago
A former police officer who worked for over a dozen departments in Texas is behind bars Tuesday, held on numerous felony charges including engaging in organized criminal activity, promotion of prostitution, solicitation of minors and two counts of attempting to possess child pornography.
Activist and filmmaker Barry Cooper, who is producing a reality show called “KopBusters,” aided officers with the Combine Police Department in drawing the man out into the open, ultimately helping wrap a three-year investigation in the process.
Until late last month, Michael Meissner, 39, was chief of police in Little River-Academy, Texas, a town so small that it only had one officer. He resigned his post after residents of the small town packed city hall with complaints about his behavior, according to local reports.
Meissner called the town “a good stepping stone for me,” reported Temple Daily News, which noted that the former officer held 18 different law enforcement jobs over the last 14 years. The “gypsy cop,” said Dallas television station WFAA, “seemed to operate under his own rules, spending much of his time working off-duty security jobs 60 miles away in Dallas.”
Prior WFAA reports “found that Meissner had used a phony college diploma for certification and failed to let his employers know that he had been arrested twice,” the network added.
Combine police were initially probing Meissner over suggestions that he had misused official information to retaliate against another man. However, when they looked at Meissner’s text messages and e-mail, they claim to have discovered something much worse.
“When the affidavits are released, the public is going to be shocked,” said Cooper, speaking to reporters outside Meissner’s home. “The conversation and the lewd conduct he’s been involved in with high school boys. As an ex-police officer, it makes me sick that we’ve got a guy running around here in a badge, that the public is supposed to trust, and he’s using that uniform to breach the trust of the younger citizens in the community. It’s horrible.”
Two of Meissner’s neighbors additionally told RAW STORY they had repeatedly seen various teenage boys entering and leaving the residence.
“Man, I’m just glad police are doing their job, they’re heroes,” said next door neighbor Brenda Lambert. “Anyone that messes with children needs to be taken care of.”
“We don’t regret hiring him or letting him go,” Little River Mayor Ronnie White told the Daily News when Meissner resigned last month. “We will find another officer.”
Tactical officers, who had set up a staging area just one street from Meissner’s Arlington, Texas home, raided the residence at approximately 1:45 p.m. on Monday, but the suspect was gone.
He was arrested later that evening after returning to his home. Meissner actually called Cooper to warn that his that his home had apparently been raided. Cooper then called police and relayed Meissner’s location.
A judge has set Meissner’s bond at $1.5 million.
Cooper says he was in this instance an undercover journalist and police informant, who had befriended Meissner under the false pretense that he wanted to use KopBusters for the purpose of clearing his name.
For the man whose living is paid for by a DVD series on how to grow, sell and smuggle marijuana without being detected by the police, he certainly seemed to have a natural rapport with the officers on-scene.
Outside Meissner’s home in Arlington, Texas (Alexander Rutledge/KopBusters.com).
One of them even asked Cooper how his former law enforcement mentor in Odessa was doing.
“Oh man, he was a legend back in my day,” he replied. “Unfortunately, he planted meth on an innocent woman and I had to bust him.”
After officers kicked in Meissner’s door and cordoned off his home, the front yard became what seemed to be Cooper’s first campaign stop in what he says is a serious run for Texas attorney general. He even put on a suit before heading to the location with reporters and his camera crew in-tow.
“Within a short time, we hope to have a corrupt police chief in jail for seven felony warrants [for] harming kids,” he told reporters. “I acted as a undercover journalist-informant, they listed me as the informant on the arrest affidavit. I befriended this officer and made him believe that I was his friend and that I wanted to clear his name. The truth was, I was relaying all that information to the Combine police department.”
Cooper continued: “As an ex-narcotics officer, I’ve experienced corruption and seen it myself. My wife suggested that I use my experience to go and start busting corrupt police officers instead of citizens. That’s when we formed ‘KopBusters,’ a reality TV show. We’re hoping to have 13 episodes up on [...] TV very soon. I feel [passionate] about my job, and we’re using these stings so I can win Texas attorney general in 2010, because in that position I can expose police corruption even further, take their salaries and begin paying police officers six-figure incomes … The one’s that deserve it.”
Cooper showed up to the raid wearing a suit, as if campaigning (Stephen C. Webster).
Steve Allen, police chief in Combine, Texas, called Cooper’s brand of law enforcement activism an “excellent resource.”
“Police officers need all the help they can get,” he said. “There’s a lot of things, for example, [Barry] may have drawn him out of the woodwork for us — something that we couldn’t do that he did. So, I think [KopBusters] is an excellent resource and tool for us.”
In December, Cooper and his team of lawyers and investigators staged a sting on the Odessa, Texas police department, setting up a fake marijuana grow house and baiting officers to raid it without proper legal authorization. It was the first of what Cooper promises to be many future operations against allegedly dirty police.
This video was captured by a cameraman with Barry Cooper’s KopBusters on Sept. 14, 2009.
Video:
Forced Catheterization Used In DUI Case
Suit Claims Police, Hospital Acted Improperly
POSTED: 8:59 am EDT September 3, 2009
LAWRENCEBURG, Ind. -- An Indiana man has filed a lawsuit claiming that police forcibly withdrew blood and urine from his body during a drunken driving arrest, WLWT-TV reported.
According to the suit, police arrested Jamie Lockard, 53, on suspicion of drunken driving in March.
A Breathalyzer test showed he was under the legal limit, but Officer Brian Miller doubted the findings.
Lockard and his attorney claim in the suit that police took him to Dearborn County Hospital and forced him to submit to a urine and blood test.
Police said they obtained a warrant, but Lockard's attorney said his client was shackled to a gurney and had a catheter inserted against his will.
"It has to be executed reasonably," said attorney Doug Garner. "No one would say this is reasonable behavior. It's reprehensible that anyone could think that this is appropriate."
The blood test showed that Lockard's blood-alcohol level did not exceed Indiana's legal limit, police said.
Garner said the police officer did not apologize, but instead charged Lockard with obstruction of justice.
"He took it too far. He thought he could do whatever to me," Lockard said.
The suit names the Lawrenceburg police department and Dearborn County Hospital, in addition to Miller and Dr. Ronald Cheek.
"I would hate for this to happen to someone else," Lockard said. "It was the most humiliating thing that has ever happened to me, ever."
http://www.wpbf.com/health/20703731/detail.html
It Has Come to This! Your Wife, Sister, or Mother will be Next
This is unbelievable... Stark county sheriff's department - Hope Steffy - Forcible strip search of victim in 911 call
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJndS8k_ZBM
Mints Believed To Be Crack Land Man In Jail
Posted: 5:27 pm EDT August 17, 2009
Updated: 11:30 am EDT August 19, 2009
KISSIMMEE, Fla. -- A man is suing the Kissimmee Police Department for an arrest over mints. When officers pulled Donald May over for an expired tag, they thought the mints he was chewing were crack and arrested him.
May told Eyewitness News they wouldn't let him out of jail for three months until tests proved the so-called drugs were candy.
May said he was just minding his business, driving home from work, when a Kissimmee police officer pulled him over near 192.
"I don't know how it occurred," he said.
May was pulled over for an expired tag on his car. When the officer walked up to him, he noticed something white in May's mouth. May said it was breath mints, but the officer thought it was crack cocaine.
"He took them out of my mouth and put them in a baggy and locked me up [for] possession of cocaine and tampering with evidence," May explained.
The officer claimed he field-tested the evidence and it tested positive for drugs. The officer said he saw May buying drugs while he was stopped at an intersection. He also stated in his report May waived his Miranda rights and voluntarily admitted to buying drugs.
May said that never happened.
"My client never admitted he purchased crack cocaine. Why would he say that?" attorney Adam Sudbury said.
May was thrown in jail and was unable to bond out for three months. He didn't get out until he received a letter from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the State Attorney's Office that test results showed no drugs were found.
"While I was sitting in jail I lost my apartment. I lost everything," he said.
While May was behind bars, the Kissimmee Police Department towed his car and auctioned it off. He lost his job and was evicted. Now May is suing the city for false arrest and false imprisonment. He wants to be compensated for the loss of his car and job.
May's attorney and the city of Kissimmee discussed a possible settlement last year, but failed to reach an agreement.
http://www.wftv.com/irresistible/20435114/detail.html
Mom in minivan tasered twice in Salina traffic stop; camera captures deputy's rough roadside arrest (VIDEO)
by John O'Brien / The Post-Standard
Thursday August 13, 2009, 3:33 AM
In January, an Onondaga County sheriff's deputy pulled over Audra Harmon, who had two of her kids with her in her minivan. A routine traffic stop escalated quickly.
The deputy, Sean Andrews, accused her of talking on her cell phone. She said she could prove him wrong.
He said she was speeding. She denied it and got out of the van. He told her to get back in. She did, then he ordered her back out.
He yanked her out by the arm, knocked her down with two Taser shots and charged her with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. His rationale on the disorderly conduct charge: She obstructed traffic when she got out of the van. The speeding accusation: going 50 mph in a 45-mph zone.
The scene along Hopkins Road in Salina on the afternoon of Jan. 31 was captured by a camera on the dashboard of Andrews' patrol car. Harmon, 38, says the video is proof of police brutality.
She plans to sue the sheriff's office today, claiming Andrews was improperly trained in the use of his Taser. It's not supposed to be used to take down people who pose no threat, she said.
Andrews, 37, a deputy for four years, was taken off road patrol after the arrest and will remain in a new assignment until an internal affairs investigation is finished, Sheriff Kevin Walsh said. Walsh declined to comment because the case is under litigation. Andrews also would not comment. He makes $49,095 a year.
Harmon was charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and going 50 in a 45 mph zone. The district attorney's office dismissed the charges a month later -- after watching the videotape, said her lawyer, Terrance Hoffmann. The prosecutor could not be reached for comment.
In his report on the arrest, Andrews makes no mention of Harmon threatening him or using foul language. He said she refused his request to get back in her van, then refused to get out when he said she was under arrest, the report said. Harmon refused to comply with his commands to put her hands behind her back to be cuffed, Andrews wrote.
Here's Harmon's description of that day:
Harmon, a school bus driver for 11 years, was returning home from shopping and picking up her son Casey, 15, from wrestling practice. He was in the front passenger seat. Harmon's daughter Brandi, 5, was in the back seat. Harmon was driving on Electronics Parkway in the left lane and had to slow down to get into the right lane behind Andrews' patrol car so she could turn onto Hopkins.
Andrews made the turn ahead of her, then immediately pulled off to the side of Hopkins Road and let Harmon pass. He quickly turned on his flashing lights and pulled her over.
Andrews told Harmon he'd seen her using her cell phone while she was driving. In the video, he makes a phone gesture with his hand. She told him she'd been driving with her right hand on her cheek, but that she hadn't talked on the phone for at least two hours. She says she offered to let him look at the phone to see for himself. He declined.
Andrews said he also clocked her going 50 mph in a 45 mph zone. No way, Harmon recalls telling him.
"I want you to show me the tape," she told him.
"You'll have to take that up in court," he responded, according to Harmon. He told her the evidence was in a box in his patrol car, and started walking back toward it. Harmon followed. That's when he told her to get back in the van.
She says she didn't refuse the order but told him once more that she wanted to see his proof. Andrews drew the Taser and pointed it at her.
"Mom, get back in the car," she recalls her son telling her. A witness, Staci Santorelli, was across the road at the Shoot 'n' Score soccer center and heard Andrews tell Harmon she was under arrest. Harmon also says she remembers Andrews at some point telling her she was under arrest.
"I just wanted to get back in my car where I was safe and where my kids were," Harmon says. Andrews told her to get out.
"But you just told me to get in," she says she told Andrews. She heard her daughter crying, "Mommy! Mommy!"
"I was not getting out of that car," she says. "I was scared to death." She gripped the steering wheel with both hands as Andrews grabbed her by the arm and pulled. Harmon stands 5-foot-4. Andrews is 10 inches taller. After some tugging, he got her out.
She and Andrews stood facing each other for a few seconds, talking. He had the Taser pointed at her.
"I kept saying, 'Don't do this in front of my kids,'" she says.
Andrews fired the Taser, but it only gave her a small jolt, apparently because it hit her winter clothing. She started to get back in the van. Andrews pulled her back, opening her front to him before he fired again. This time, Harmon dropped to her knees.
The Taser probe, like a little arrow with a fish hook, stuck in Harmon's upper left chest. The jolt shook her.
Andrews pushed her to the ground face-first and handcuffed her in the eastbound lane of Hopkins Road. The number of witnesses across the street was growing, Harmon says.
"Are you OK? Do you need help?" Santorelli and her father yelled, according to Santorelli's statement to deputies.
"I'm not OK, and I do need help," Harmon responded. As Andrews picked her up and escorted her to his car, Harmon pleaded with the witnesses.
"Please come get my kids!" Harmon remembers yelling. The witnesses said they couldn't do that, but they asked Harmon for her home number so they could call her husband. She gave it to them.
"I wanted these strangers to get my kids, because at that point I thought they'd be safer with strangers," Harmon says. The kids sat in the car for about 40 minutes until their father arrived and took them home, which was about 500 yards away, she says.
Harmon said she wants to teach police a lesson: It's OK to admit you're wrong. She said Andrews manufactured the speeding charge once he realized she didn't deserve a cell phone ticket. Andrews had not clocked her with a radar gun. Instead, he said in a report, he calculated her speed by following her for "several seconds."
"I want the public to know these police officers apparently aren't being trained well enough to know when it is justified to use a Taser," she said.
John O'Brien can be reached at jobrien@syracuse.com or 470-2187.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/mom_in_minivan_tasered_in_traf.html
Demoted Belle Glade deputy brags on Facebook about beating: 'I know the areas that hide the marks well'
By MICHAEL LaFORGIA
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Sgt. Brent Raban wore a badge and carried a gun issued by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, but he didn't think of himself as a crime fighter.
Instead, the seven-year sheriff's office veteran considered himself a punisher on the mean streets of Belle Glade, and he bragged in Internet postings about his prowess in battering the people he arrested, according to an internal investigation released Monday.
Update: Glades deputy who bragged about beatings given 'last chance' deal but subordinates were fired
Sgt. Brent Raban wearing his camouflage skullcap emblazoned with the word 'PUNISHMENT.'
Together with two subordinates, Deputies Gregory Lynch and Michael Woodside, Raban would work the streets of the county's western communities, sometimes sporting a camouflage skullcap emblazoned with the word "PUNISHMENT," the investigation determined.
In a region long suspicious of law enforcement, the trio would confront people on street corners and was known to barge into bars, grabbing patrons' drinks and sniffing them for liquor - which was prohibited in some drinking holes, investigators said.
The behavior, which the deputies alluded to in Internet postings on the Facebook social networking site, which they often updated while on duty, earned a demotion for Raban and cost Lynch and Woodside their jobs.
It also led to a criminal investigation, though Chief Assistant State Attorney Paul Zacks ultimately decided not to prosecute, citing a lack of evidence.
"During his time in Belle Glade for calendar year of 2008, Sergeant Brent Raban, through his actions and writings, has shown a general disregard for the PBSO mission as well as for his responsibilities as Road Patrol Supervisor," internal investigators noted, before finding him in violation of 11 department rules and regulations.
Lynch and Woodside each were found to have broken four department rules and recommended for firing.
Screenshots of Raban's Facebook page figured in the investigators' findings.
In a prominent place on Raban's page, the former sergeant typed, "It's not crime fighting ... It's dealing out PUNISHMENT!"
Questioned by internal affairs investigators, Raban said the statement was inspired by his fondness for Batman and The Punisher comic books and had nothing to do with his work as a deputy sheriff.
In other places on his Facebook page, Raban crowed about dealing harshly with the people he arrested, writing in one instance that he roughed up one suspect. "But like a good batterer," he added, "I know the areas that hide the marks well."
"It was a comment I made in extremely bad taste," Raban told investigators later. "It was meant as a joke."
In another instance, he lamented that he was losing his cool because he had gone 14 days without hitting someone.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2009/07/28/0728punishment.html?imw=Y
87 year old elderly woman with cane and limp slammed hard by police at Walmart, cracks her head open
Ex-Rep. Jefferson convicted of corruption
From Paul Courson
CNN
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ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana was convicted Wednesday on 11 of the 16 corruption charges against him in a case that included the discovery of $90,000 in his freezer.
Former Rep. William Jefferson arrives at U.S. District Court with his wife, Andrea, on June 9.
Former Rep. William Jefferson arrives at U.S. District Court with his wife, Andrea, on June 9.
A federal court jury convicted Jefferson on four bribery counts, three counts of money laundering, three counts of wire fraud and one count of racketeering. He was acquitted on five other counts including wire fraud and obstruction of justice.
Jefferson, a 62-year-old Democrat, was indicted by a federal grand jury on June 4, 2007, about two years after federal agents said they found the cash in his freezer. Authorities said the cash was part of a payment in marked bills from an FBI informant in a transaction captured on video.
Jefferson had pleaded not guilty. He faces a maximum possible sentence of 150 years in prison, with sentencing tentatively set for October 30.
After the verdict on the fifth day of jury deliberations, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis turned down a prosecution request for Jefferson to be taken into custody, ruling that he posed no flight risk.
The verdict showed that "no person, not even a congressman, is above the law," said U.S. Attorney Dana Boente of the Eastern District of Virginia. Asked what might have turned the case in the prosecution's favor, Boente said: "We always thought that a powerful piece of evidence in this case was $90,000 in a freezer."
A stern-faced Jefferson emerged from the courthouse with his lawyer, Robert Trout, who said the verdict would be appealed.
Don't Miss
* Indictment (U.S. v. Jefferson)
"We're very disappointed that the jury disagreed with us," Trout said.
Asked how he was holding up, Jefferson smiled briefly and answered, "I'm holding up," before walking away.
Jefferson was accused of using his congressional clout between 2001 and 2005 to solicit and receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes for himself and his family in exchange for promoting products and services in Africa, especially Nigeria, and elsewhere.
The information on the cash discovered in Jefferson's Washington home in August 2005 was revealed in an affidavit used to obtain a warrant to search Jefferson's office in May 2006. Descriptions from the heavily redacted affidavit and pictures of the open freezer show bills wrapped in foil and tucked into frozen food containers, including a box for pie crusts and another for veggie burgers.
FBI agents told a judge the money was part of a $100,000 payment delivered by an informant in the bribery investigation, which led to guilty pleas by a Kentucky businessman and a former Jefferson aide.
Jefferson, who graduated from Harvard Law School, represented Louisiana's 2nd Congressional District, which includes most of the New Orleans area He held office for 18 years, or nine terms, before he lost his House seat to Anh Joseph Cao in the December 2008 election.
"This is a difficult day for the people of New Orleans and Louisiana, but now we can turn the page on a negative past to focus on a positive future," Cao said. "My thoughts and prayers go out to Mr. Jefferson and his family during this time."
As a representative, he served on the House Ways and Means Committee's subcommittee on trade and on the Budget Committee, and he co-chaired the caucus on Africa Trade and Investment as well as the caucus on Nigeria.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/05/us.rep.trial/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Pregnant mother tasered at baptism party
By David Edwards and John Byrne
August 3, 2009
A child’s Virginia baptism ended up being a real shocker.
Responding to a noise complaint in Prince William County, police sought to quell the assembled crowd — who they said were making too much of a racket — by firing a Taser at the child’s grandfather and at the pregnant mother of the baptized child.
The officers said they placed a call to the homeowner, who they said was intoxicated and refused to reduce the volume.
The homeowner, 55, is a church family counselor and bible study teacher. His son, Edgar Rodriguez, claims he was Tasered three times after producing his ID for police. The elder Rodriguez was arrested for public intoxication in his own backyard.
The two say police used excessive force to quiet down “a backyard party.” A home video of the scene shows a relatively tame event.
The pregnant mother of the baptized child was also Tasered in the back after officers averred she was assaulting a police officer, and is now being held separate from her family by Customs and Immigration Enforcement.
This video is from Fox 55, broadcast August 1, 2009.
Video: http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/03/grandpa-pregnant-woman-tasered-at-baptism-party/
Penis pump judge gets 4-year jail term
8/18/2006 2:50 PM
Former Oklahoma district judge Donald Thompson, shown in this June 29 photo, was found guilty on four counts of indecent exposure. The jury recommended a sentence of one year in prison and a $10,000 fine on each count..
The Oklahoman file photo via AP
Former Oklahoma district judge Donald Thompson, shown in this June 29 photo,
was found guilty on four counts of indecent exposure. The jury recommended a
sentence of one year in prison and a $10,000 fine on each count..
BRISTOW, Okla. (AP) — A former judge convicted of exposing himself while presiding over jury trials by using a sexual device under his robe was sentenced Friday to four years in prison.
Donald Thompson had spent almost 23 years on the bench and had served as a state legislator before retiring from the court in 2004. He showed no reaction when he was sentenced.
At his trial this summer, his former court reporter, Lisa Foster, testified that she saw Thompson expose himself at least 15 times during trial between 2001 and 2003. Prosecutors said he also used a device known as a penis pump during at least four trials in the same period.
Thompson, 59, was convicted last month of four felony courts of indecent exposure for incidents that took place in his Creek County courtroom.
Thompson, a married father of three grown children, testified that the penis pump was given to him as a joke by a longtime hunting and fishing buddy.
"It wasn't something I was hiding," he said.
He said he may have absentmindedly squeezed the pump's handle during court cases but never used it to masturbate.
Foster told authorities that she saw Thompson use the device almost daily during the August 2003 murder trial of a man accused of shaking a toddler to death. A whooshing sound could be heard on Foster's audiotape of the trial. When jurors asked the judge about the sound, Thompson said he hadn't heard it but would listen for it.
Police built a case against the judge after a police officer testifying in a 2003 murder trial saw a piece of plastic tubing disappear under Thompson's robe. During a lunch break, officers took photographs of the pump under the desk.
Investigators later checked the carpet, Thompson's robes and the chair behind the bench and found semen, according to court records.
Carmelia Brossett, a senior probation officer for the state Department of Corrections, said in a presentencing report that Thompson refused to undergo psychosexual testing.
"Thompson's denial of the offense would likely present difficulty, if not inability for treatment providers to provide meaningful and beneficial sex-offender treatment," she said.
The jury recommended a sentence of one year in prison and a $10,000 fine on each count. The jury foreman has said it was the jury's intent that Thompson serve the full sentence.
Judge C. Allen McCall denied a defense motion asking that Thompson be allowed to remain free pending an appeal. Thompson was also ordered to pay a $40,000 fine.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-08-18-judge-sentenced_x.htm
911 caller in [Harvard] Gates case contradicts officer
She denies telling him that she saw 'two black males with backpacks'
A police report said the caller described the possible burglars as "two black males with backpacks" — leading some commentators to vilify the caller as racist since it turned out Gates was entering his own home.
But the 911 recording released by police showed that Lucia Whalen never said two black men were involved. She did not describe their race, acknowledged they might just be having a hard time with the door and said she saw two suitcases on the porch.
"I was called racist and I was a target of scorn and ridicule because of the things I never said," she said. "The criticism hurt me as a person, but it also hurt the community of Cambridge."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32203737/ns/us_news-race_and_ethnicity/
In other words, the cops do what they do best, lied.
Police seen plotting to blame car accident on woman they hit
By TODD WRIGHT
Updated 2:05 PM EDT, Wed, Jul 29, 2009
Hollywood Police A cop's dashboard camera is supposed to catch criminals in the act. For four Hollywood cops, the dash cam may have foiled their plans to frame a motorist.
The four police officers -- three of them longtime veterans of the force -- were caught on one of the cop's dash cameras plotting to place the blame for a February traffic accident on a woman one of them had hit with their patrol car. The disturbing video shows the woman, Alexandra Torrensvilas, handcuffed in the back of the squad car as the officers get their stories straight on what they are going to say happened.
Officer Joel Francisco, 36, an 11-year veteran, crashed into the back of Torrensvilas' vehicle at a light on February 17 at midnight. The cop radioed to other officers who converged on the scene and hatched a way to bail Francisco out.
Officer Dewey Pressley, 42, arrives and questions Torrensvilas, who tells him that she has been drinking. The 21-year veteran officer seizes the opportunity and arrests her for DUI. But the plot thickens from there.
The cops begin to brainstorm believable excuses for the accident.
"As far as I'm concerned. I'm going to put words in his mouth. She went to accelerate and a cat jumped out of the window at which point he thought it could have been a pedestrian, which distracted him," Pressley tells Sgt. Andrew Diaz, another veteran of the force. "I mean what's the chances of hitting a f---in drunk when a cat jumps out of the window?"
Still, the cops run with the half-baked idea and rush to get Torrensvilas to do a Breathalyzer test so they can officially say she was drunk.
"I nailed her on the video. I already hung her on video. She said she has been doing a beer party," Pressley says. "She's gonna blow."
Then, another cop debates with Pressley on who is going to write up the fabricated report to clear their police comrade.
"I know how I'm going to word this with the cat so we can get him off the hook. I'll write the narrative," Pressley says. "We're going to bend this a little bit."
Civilian Community Service Officer Karim Thomas joins the three senior officers and the four cops go so far as to change the angle of pictures of the accident to make it look like Torrensvilas swerved in front of the cop car and caused the accident, not Francisco.
Throughout the tape, the cops acknowledged what they are doing is illegal, but when you are the law, there is nothing wrong with bending it for a fellow cop, one says.
"I don't lie and make things up ever because it's wrong, but if I need to bend it a little bit to protect a cop, I'll do it," Pressley tells Francisco after reassuring him no one will ever find out. "She's freaking hammered anyway."
The cops even do a final rehearsal before Villa is taken to the city lock up.
"We'll take care of it," one officer says. The others reply: "We're good."
The police officers are currently on administrative leave pending a state attorney's office investigation. Torrensvilas, who was charged with four counts of DUI and cited for improper lane change, is still fighting the charges in court.
Video:
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/Cops-Set-Up-Woman-After-Crash.html
Police intrusion for evidence allowed
Knock, announce not always needed, high court rules
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, June 16, 2006
Police who enter a home illegally without knocking and find incriminating evidence can use it in a trial, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Thursday, carving an important exception in the 45-year-old rule that keeps unlawfully seized evidence out of court.
In a 5-4 ruling, with new Justice Samuel Alito casting a crucial vote, the court said police intrusions on residential privacy are adequately restrained by several factors -- including "the increasing professionalism of police forces' -- without suppressing evidence that is obtained with a search warrant.
The reasons for requiring police to knock on the door, announce their presence and wait a reasonable period before entering "do not include the shielding of potential evidence from the government's eyes,' Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion.
Those requirements -- part of English law since the 13th century, enacted as a U.S. statute in 1917 and declared a constitutional standard by the court in 1995 -- remain intact, Scalia said. But dissenters said the rule was now toothless.
"The court destroys the strongest legal incentive to comply with the Constitution's knock-and-announce requirement,' said Justice Stephen Breyer. "Officers will always know ... that they can ignore the knock-and-announce requirement without risking the suppression of evidence discovered after their unlawful entry.'
The case reflected the importance of President Bush's appointment of Alito to succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who retired in January. No ruling was issued before she left, and with the court evidently deadlocked 4-4, the case was reargued after Alito was seated.
The ruling upheld the conviction of Booker Hudson of Detroit for possessing cocaine and a loaded gun that police found in his home in 1998. Officers went to the home with a warrant, announced their presence and waited three to five seconds before entering.
Past rulings have required police to wait at least 15 to 20 seconds before entering, allowing immediate entry only when officers have reason to fear that announcing their presence or waiting would lead to violence or the destruction of evidence.
A number of states, not including California, authorize search warrants that excuse police from knocking before entering if they convince a judge that announcing their presence would be dangerous.
The court said police entered Hudson's home too quickly but could nonetheless use the drugs and gun as evidence, because the warrant authorized them to take those items. Scalia said the purposes of the knock-and-announce requirement -- to avoid the indignities or potential violence that might result from a sudden entrance -- were unrelated to the seizure of the evidence against Hudson and would not be promoted if the evidence was suppressed.
Wayne State University law Professor David Moran, who represented Hudson before the court, said the same rationale could allow evidence from searches that violate the terms of a warrant -- for example, nighttime searches with warrants that specify daytime entries, or searches after a warrant has expired.
He also said a portion of the ruling signed by Scalia and three other justices, one short of a majority, "calls into question the legitimacy of Mapp,' the historic 1961 ruling that barred evidence seized in searches that violate constitutional standards.
That ruling, which aimed to deter police lawbreaking, has been scaled back by more conservative majorities in subsequent cases, most notably a 1984 ruling that allowed evidence from illegal searches that were conducted in good faith.
Scalia said much has changed since 1961, including the availability of new types of civil damage suits and increasing evidence that "police forces across the United States take the constitutional rights of citizens seriously,' reducing the need to suppress evidence.
But Moran said civil suits are meaningless -- most are dismissed because of government immunity, and no one has gotten more than $1 in token damages in the past 30 years, according to his research. And he said improvements in police training were a direct result of the 1961 ruling.
But Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento, which filed arguments supporting the Michigan prosecutors, said those predictions are unfounded. He said the ruling indicates only that "the court is not inclined to expand rules suppressing evidence' and does not foreshadow a major rollback.
Dave LaBahn, executive director of the California District Attorneys Association, predicted that police in California still will knock before they enter. "It is a good officer safety procedure,' he said.
The case is Hudson vs. Michigan, 04-1360. E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/06/16/MNGKKJFD5U1.DTL
Family questions police shooting of dog
By LARRY HARTSTEIN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Kirkwood family wants to know why a police officer investigating a home alarm felt compelled to shoot and kill one of their 6-year-old black labs, Ciarra, Saturday morning.
Elizabeth Feichter and her family adopted Ciarra and her sister, Molly, from Georgia Lab Rescue when they were 10 weeks old. According to Feichter, Ciarra was a sweet and docile 65-pounder “who’s never even come close to harming anyone.”
Atlanta police spokeswoman Sgt. Lisa Keyes said the shooting is under investigation, adding, “We emphathize with the homeowner’s loss.” Keyes said she could provide no further information.
Feichter, her husband, and their two sons were visiting family in North Carolina when the shooting happened in the backyard of their Howard Street home. Feichter, 33, who runs a philanthropic consulting firm, said she can’t believe the officer had no choice but to shoot Ciarra.
“He could have said ‘Stop!’, he could have said ‘Wait!’, he could have pulled out Mace, he could have just stepped behind our garden fence, he could have fired into the ground,” she said. “Ciarra would have taken off and sat shivering in a corner. She’s very timid.”
It was about 9 a.m. Saturday when the family got a call from the alarm company saying the alarm was going off. They couldn’t immediately reach their house sitter, who had gone out for breakfast, so they called 911.
Soon they reached the sitter, Hilary Stewart, who returned to find the front and back doors locked. Apparently, it was a false alarm.
“The officer pulled up at that moment, so I said, ‘Let me talk to him,’” Feichter said. “We spent a few moments joking because he was the officer who had come out when our cars got broken into six months ago. He said, ‘No big deal, I don’t mind coming out.’
“Then he said he was just going to take a look around and make sure everything was safe.”
He gave the phone back to Stewart. Feichter heard her say the dogs had gotten out into the backyard.
“Then she said, ‘Oh my God! He just shot her,’” Feichter recalled.
Neighbors rushed over. Ashley Derrick and Alison Grounds picked up Ciarra and drove her to the vet, but it was too late.
In an email to members of the East Lake Neighbors Community Association, Derrick wrote that she arrived to find the officer beside the dog.
“I asked why he had to shoot her,” she wrote. “He could give me no answer.”
Stewart could not immediately be reached; she left Sunday on a scheduled mission trip. And Feichter did not recall the officer’s name.
Feichter said her two sons, 12 and 8, are traumatized. She said she chose to speak out for one main reason.
“We don’t want this to happen to anyone else,” she said.
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/family-questions-police-shooting-101050.html
Racist Web Posts Traced to Homeland Security
Article Tools Sponsored By
By KIRK SEMPLE
Published: July 24, 2009
After federal border agents detained several Mexican immigrants in western New York in June, an article about the incident in a local newspaper drew an onslaught of vitriolic postings on its Web site. Some were racist. Others attacked farmers in the region, an apple-growing area east of Rochester, accusing them of harboring illegal workers. Still others made personal attacks about the reporter who wrote the article.
Most of the posts were made anonymously. But in reviewing the logs of its Internet server, the paper, The Wayne County Star in Wolcott, traced three of them to Internet protocol addresses at the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees border protection.
Homeland Security started an investigation into the posts this month, according to the reporter, Louise Hoffman-Broach, and Richard M. Healy, the Wayne County district attorney. A spokeswoman for the federal agency’s inspector general said she could neither confirm nor deny an investigation; department rules prohibit the use of office equipment for the personal transmission of material that could offend fellow employees or the public.
Coming on the eve of the apple harvest season, the Web posts and the investigation — first reported this week on The Star’s Web site — have ratcheted up longstanding tensions in Wayne County, where farmers and laborers have accused immigration officials of using heavy-handed tactics like racial profiling and arbitrary or unjustified detentions.
Such tactics, the farmers say, have scared Hispanic farmworkers from the region just as growers are preparing for the harvest.
Representative Dan Maffei, who represents the area in Congress, said the allegations of overaggressive immigration enforcement, coming from a wide range of constituents, were “of extreme concern.”
“I’m investigating these reports to make sure that people’s rights aren’t being harmed and that the economy of Wayne County is not being harmed,” said Mr. Maffei, a Democrat.
A. J. Price, a regional spokesman for United States Customs and Border Protection, defended the work of the area’s officers. “We are constantly criticized for doing our job, and that’s just part of our job,” Mr. Price said.
Local officials and residents say that beginning about 2006, federal officials stepped up their enforcement of immigration laws in western New York.
Farmers and other residents said the push created a climate of fear in communities whose economies depend on migrant laborers, many of them illegal immigrants.
The Obama administration has moved to a less confrontational policy at work sites, focusing on employers. But Customs and Border Protection, which does not conduct work-site inspections, had not changed its strategy in New York, Mr. Price said.
The latest flare-up began with a boat trip on June 12. A local farmer, Robert Norris, decided to take a Mexican employee and relatives of another worker for a spin on Lake Ontario, Ms. Hoffman-Broach said.
Federal agents stopped the boat because it had too many people on board, Mr. Price said. When some of the passengers were unable to produce documentation proving they were citizens or legal immigrants, he said, they were detained. All but one was eventually released, The Star reported.
The article about the arrests, posted on June 16, led to a torrent of angry Web postings. One, sent from a fake e-mail address, said, “watcha doing to mi wifey, no checky her papeles. she no legal, but she havey benifit card.”
A response, which carried a Homeland Security Internet protocol address, read: “That sounds like my boyfriend. Leave him alones and get your own. My boyfriend works sometimes but he is really good at getting FREE benefits from the Federal and State government.”
Another post, apparently sent from a separate computer linked to Homeland Security, read in part: “These farmers have a problem because the gravy train that they were riding for soooooo long is being brought to light.”
The newspaper removed the posts. It also reported that it had discovered others, dating to last year, that appeared to have come from computers affiliated with Homeland Security.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/nyregion/25immig.html
AUDIO POST: Idaho man sodomized by police Taser plans to sue
Daniel Tencer
Raw Story
Sunday, July 26, 2009
A Boise, Idaho, police officer who pushed a Taser inside a man’s buttocks and threatened to “Taser his balls” violated use-of-force policy, but didn’t break the law, an ombudsman has found.
The man in question, whose identity is being withheld, plans to sue the Boise police.
On February 14 of this year, the “complainant,” as he is called in police reports, physically blocked the door to his residence when police arrived to investigate a domestic disturbance. Believing the police officers, who he claims did not identify themselves, to be a person coming to “beat him up,” he refused to allow them entry.
When officers forced their way in, “three officers rushed in and within nine seconds, had the man face down on the floor and had deployed the Taser against the small of his back. Only after the first [tasing] did they order his hands behind his back,” reports the Boise Weekly.
In a report, Boise Community Ombudsman Pierce Murphy “said the officer who used the Taser — described as Officer #3 in the report — also coarsely threatened to use the Taser in the man’s anus and genitals. Murphy’s report says that use of Taser on a man’s buttock’s does not violate policy in and of itself,” reports the Idaho Statesman.
The Statesman printed a transcript of an audio recording of the altercation:
Officer #3: Do you feel this?
Complainant: Yes, sir.
Officer #3: Do you feel that? That’s my -
Complainant: Okay
Officer #3: -Taser up your ass.
Complainant: Okay
Officer #3: So don’t move.
Complainant: I’m trying not to. I can’t breathe.
…
Officer #3: Now do you feel this in your balls?
Complainant: I do, sir. I’m not going to move. I’m not gonna move.
Officer #3 Now I’m gonna tase your balls if you move again.
A minute later, this exchange occurred:
Officer #3: Okay, I’m gonna take this Taser out of your asshole now. Are you going to fight with me?
Complainant: No, not at all, sir.
The audio file can be found here (MP3).
The Statesman is now reporting that the complainant “plans to sue the Boise Police Department for excessive use of force.”
The Boise Weekly quotes Boise Police Chief Mike Masterson as saying the allegation against the officer is “one of the most serious charges that an officer can face … It is an offense that is very likely to lead to termination.”
But the complainant’s lawyer, Ron Coulter, said that the officer in question is still walking his beat.
“I don’t think he should be back on the street, but then I’m not the chief of police,” Coulter told the Boise Weekly. “When you do things like he did I’m not sure that person’s even fit to wear a uniform.”
[Suppressed Sound Link]
http://www.prisonplanet.com/idaho-man-sodomized-by-police-taser-plans-to-sue.html
Police Chief Caught by His Own Dash Cam, Making Out With Female Officer While Transporting Prisoner
Cop faces charges after he assaults driver
911 Tapes Released In Alleged Road Rage Incident With Sheriff's Deputy - Cops appear to be lying afterward to protect him.
We have more details into an alleged road rage incident involving a Buncombe County Sheriff's Deputy. A woman claimed a driver, who she didn't know was an off-duty deputy, tried to attack her at a red light after she honked at him.
The 911 calls were released and offer more insight into what happened. The incident occured on July 9th, shortly after 7 pm. It started at the intersection of Patton Avenue and Leicester Highway. Julie Brown alleges that a driver cut her off, she honked at him and he got out of his car. Brown says he pounded on her vehicle and the driver's side window, then closely followed her.
While all this was allegedly happening, Brown was on the phone with 911, as was the other driver, who is an undercover narcotics officer.
http://www.wlos.com/shared/newsroom/top_stories/wlos_vid_630.shtml
Officer Arrested, Released On Bond
By Ryan Korsgard
POSTED: Friday, July 24, 2009
UPDATED: 5:26 pm CDT July 24, 2009
HOUSTON -- A Houston police officer arrested in uniform during a sting in Houston's eastside Denver Harbor area is out of jail on a $2,000 bond, KPRC Local 2 reported Friday.
WATCH IT: Officer Arrested During Sting
Officer Anthony Rochell Foster, 43, is charged with theft by a public servant. Court records showed he's accused of stealing between $500 and $1,500.
Sources who were briefed on this case told KPRC Local 2 the officer was arrested after a traffic stop shortly before noon Thursday, after he was accused of taking cash from the motorist he had pulled over. The motorist was actually an undercover officer from the HPD Proactive Internal Affairs unit.
Court documents showed that Foster got the money because he is a police officer.
One ranking source who works with Foster at the HPD Northeast Patrol station on Ley Road told KPRC Local 2 that Proactive IAD had been investigating reports that the officer was "shaking down" Hispanic male drivers he had pulled over.
It was unclear how long Proactive IAD had been staging the sting on Foster. Police confirmed the investigation was a result of complaints against Foster.
The officer called the Houston Police Officer's Union legal team, but those lawyers told KPRC Local 2 they were unfamiliar with the case and unable to comment. The lawyers were working to arrange bail for the officer on Thursday night.
A union attorney said Foster's case will be presented to the legal committee for consideration.
HPD protocol dictates that arrested officers are relieved of duty with pay until a final outcome in the case.
Foster is scheduled for his first court appearance in the Harris County 182nd District Court on Monday. He has been a Houston police officer for 15 years. HPD confirmed he is on paid leave.
If he is found guilty, it could mean a two-year prison sentence and a permanent loss of his Texas peace officer's license.
http://www.click2houston.com/news/20171222/detail.html
Officer kills man in Kasota
Authorities say little about shooting
By Robb Murray
Free Press Staff Writer
KASOTA —
In the parking lot of a Kasota apartment building Monday, Jolene Manderfield watched a cop fire four bullets into the chest of Tyler Heilman.
Moments later — after administering CPR for 15 minutes — she watched him die.
“He shot him right in the heart,” Manderfield said. “I knew I wasn’t going to be able to bring him back.”
Still, she tried. And as she compressed his heart and frantically spoke his name, sirens sounded and people gathered, and word quickly spread among Kasotans that Heilman, a 24-year-old stay-at-home dad, had been killed by a cop many in town seemed to know, but whom authorities declined to identify.
One person who heard those sirens was Abby Bauleke, Heilman’s girlfriend.
“I tried calling him and sending him messages ... Then I heard the helicopter and I came down,” she said, sobbing. “I got down here and said, ‘Tell me it’s not him!’ And they said, ‘It’s him.’”
She said she asked anyone who would listen to tell her what happened, but no one seemed to know the full story. Even Le Sueur County Sheriff Dave Gliszinski, addressing the media at about 9:15 p.m. Monday, declined to answer questions about the incident.
But a lot of bystanders seemed to know at least one side of the story, the one provided by witnesses.
Heilman and a friend, they say, were driving around Kasota at about 3:30 p.m. Monday when Heilman committed a traffic offense, perhaps running through a stop sign. At some point, an investigator with the Le Sueur County Sheriff’s Department followed Heilman and confronted him in the parking lot of the Valley View Apartments.
An argument ensued, and it was overheard by Manderfield, who was walking from the parking lot to the front door of the apartment building at the time.
The argument, which some said escalated to a physical altercation, prompted Manderfield to turn around and investigate. And as she turned the corner, she said she saw the officer reach for his gun, pull it out, point it at Heilman and fire what she believes was four shots into his chest (some in town say they heard just three shots.)
Heilman had been swimming at Lake Emily and was wearing nothing but his trunks.
“(The officer) pulled out his gun and just started shooting,” Manderfield said. “He didn’t yell ‘Freeze!’ or anything. I said, ‘What are you doing!’”
Manderfield administered CPR until paramedics arrived, but she says she knew immediately that it was hopeless.
“It was so senseless. (Heilman’s) arms were like this,” she said, raising her arms straight out from her sides. “I saw him. He knew (Heilman) didn’t have a weapon.”
http://www.mankatofreepress.com/local/local_story_202002804.html
Lawsuit: Cops tasered 3 kids, threatened one with sodomy
By Daniel Tencer
Published: July 20, 2009
A shelter for adolescents in southern Illinois is suing the local sheriff’s office for what it describes as an unprovoked attack by two police officers on four children, three of whom were tasered, and one of whom was threatened with sodomy by a sheriff’s deputy.
The Southern Thirty Adolescent Center near Mount Vernon, IL, filed the lawsuit on behalf of three children in its custody, who the lawsuit says were tasered by Jefferson County sheriff’s deputies who had been called to help subdue two misbehaving children, aged 11 and 12. Neither of those children were among those who were tasered during what one news service described as a police “rampage.”
The incident took place on July 4, 2008. The federal lawsuit was filed in an East St. Louis court on Friday. In the suit the children are named only by their initials: B.B., R.E., and Z.P.
According to the legal filing, quoted in the Mount Vernon Register, one deputy “physically pushed R.E. towards his bunk and shocked him repeatedly with a taser. … R.E. was tased multiple times to multiple locations on his person, including, but not limited to, his neck. Deputy Bowers shouted to B.B. to lie down in his bunk and physically forced him to lie down.
“Without physical provocation and/or physical gestures from B.B., Deputy Bowers held B.B. down on his bed and shocked him repeatedly with a taser. While he was tasing B.B., Deputy David Bowers threatened to sodomize B.B. As a result of this repeated and excessive tasing, B.B. urinated and defecated himself. Deputy David Bowers was aware that B.B. urinated himself after the tasing.”
The filing goes on to say that a 17-year-old female visitor to the center, who had pleaded with police to stop the attack, was grabbed by an officer, choked, and locked in a closet.
From the Mount Vernon Register, quoting the legal filing:
“As Z.P. was being repeatedly tased, [17-year-old] Megan Geisler pleaded with Deputy David Bowers and Deputy Lonnie Lawler to stop. Deputy David Bowers ordered Deputy Lonnie Lawler to handcuff Megan Geisler. … Deputy David Bowers grabbed Megan Geisler by her arms, lifted her off her feet, and carried her through the male dormitory to a nearby closet. On the way to the closet, Deputy David Bowers lifted Megan Geisler off the ground, pressed her against a wall and choked her. While choking her, Deputy David Bowers said, ‘do you want to live or die bitch’ to Megan Geisler. Megan Geisler was then thrown into a closet. At this time she began vomiting and heaving.”
According to AP, no criminal charges have been filed in the case, and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office says the deputies “acted appropriately.”
The Illinois Department of Family and Child Services told southern Illinois’ WSIL-TV that “shocking children with Tasers can result in serious physical and mental injury. Use of these weapons is especially troubling in cases where the children involved have committed no crime and have not even been charged with wrong doing.”
This video is from WSILTV.com, broadcast July 20, 2009.
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=236867190172&h=LcQHI&u=kMQEX&ref=nf
Girl Arrested for Swearing on 9-11 call, and he didn't try to help her, hung up on her, etc..
Sheriff's Deputies accused of Taser rampage
BY ROBERT PATRICK
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Saturday, Jul. 18 2009
An Illinois agency has sued two sheriff's deputies in Southern Illinois,
alleging that they handcuffed, threatened and Tasered teenage foster children.
The suit, filed in federal court in East St. Louis by the Illinois Office of
State Guardian on behalf of the children, says the deputies used excessive
force and violated the children's rights. The suit also names Jefferson County,
Ill., Sheriff Roger Mulch, his department and the county.
According to the suit, Deputies David Bowers and Lonnie Lawler were sent to the
Southern Thirty Adolescent Center near Mount Vernon on July 4, 2008, because of
staff concerns about the behavior of three other children, ages 11 and 12. The
center is an emergency shelter for children ages 11-18. Boys live there. Girls
stay in foster homes but go to the center for day activities.
The suit says that without any physical provocation, Bowers used a Taser on one
boy multiple times, including at least once on his neck. Bowers pushed another
boy down on his bunk and threatened to sodomize him before shocking him
multiple times and causing him to urinate and defecate, the suit says.
Lawler then handcuffed another boy before Bowers shocked him multiple times
with the Taser. A 17-year-old girl who was pleading with the deputies to stop
was then handcuffed by Lawler, choked and threatened by Bowers and then tossed
into a closet, the suit says.
The suit accuses Mulch of either knowingly, or with deliberate indifference,
tolerating a "pattern and practice of unreasonable use of force by (his)
deputies."
Mulch, Bowers and Lawler did not respond to multiple phone messages left in
recent days seeking comment.
Gene Svebakken, president and CEO of Lutheran Child and Family Services of
Illinois, which runs the center, declined to comment. "I'm prohibited from
making any comment on the situation. Although I'm certainly aware of it," he
said.
Phil Fowler, one of the lawyers who filed the suit, referred a reporter's
question to the Department of Children and Family Services.
A spokesman, Kendall Marlowe, said Friday: "Our job is to protect children.
Experience across the country has shown that shocking children with Tasers can
result in serious physical and mental injury. Use of these weapons is
especially troubling in cases where the children involved have committed no
crime and have not even been charged with wrongdoing. We cannot comment on this
suit specifically; the complaints speak for itself."
An Illinois State Police spokesman said police investigated the allegations and
turned over their results to the Jefferson County state's attorney.
Jefferson County State's Attorney Jeff Bradley said Tuesday that the State
Police determined "that there was not any evidence of criminal activity."
Bradley, who was elected last year, said his predecessor decided not to
prosecute.
The FBI did not begin an investigation after learning that the State Police
were looking into the case, an FBI spokesman said.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/laworder/story/D8F2946CFAEB63A6862575F70007D1E5?OpenDocument
NYPD cop who went berserk after Giants Super Bowl win found guilty
By Alison Gendar
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU CHIEF
Tuesday, April 21st 2009, 4:00 AM
An NYPD cop was convicted of kneeing a state trooper in the groin after being arrested for driving drunk the night the Giants won the Super Bowl, authorities said.
Officer Gilberto Vazquez, 46, went berserk in the state troopers' barracks Feb. 3, 2008, after getting busted for drunken driving on Nassau County's Northern State Parkway on Super Bowl Sunday.
A jury found Vazquez guilty Monday of felony assault, said Nassau County Assistant District Attorney Everett Witherell. Vazquez, who had been on modified duty since the arrest, loses his job with a felony conviction.
Vazquez was busted after weaving down the parkway. His blood-alcohol level registered 0.16, twice the legal limit, authorities said.
During the arrest, the 14-year NYPD veteran flashed his badge and told troopers he was a cop. But as the night wore on, Vazquez pretended to not understand English - screaming, "No hablo Inglés!" when read his Miranda rights.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/04/21/2009-04-21_nypd_cop_found_guilty_for_his_super_tantrum.html
NYPD silent as 15-yr. veteran police sgt. charged with mowing down pedestrian while driving drunk
By Simone Weichselbaum, Kenny Porpora and Bill Hutchinson
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
Wednesday, July 8th 2009, 4:00 AM
An NYPD Sergeant has been quietly charged with driving drunk and mowing down an upper East Side man who had just picked up his morning coffee, the Daily News has learned.
Sgt. Joseph Spiekerman, 43, was arrested following the June29 crash in which he hit Barry Gintel, 68, after running a red light at York Ave. and E. 86th St., court records reveal.
Gintel - vice president of the Fire Bell Club of New York, a group of Fire Department buffs - was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell.
He underwent emergency surgery for two fractured legs, broken ribs, a ruptured spleen, and head and neck injuries.
Contacted in his hospital room, Gintel, who was wearing a neck brace, declined to comment.
"He doesn't remember too much. His biggest concern is getting out of that bed, and he wants to walk," said Joseph Higgins, president of the Fire Bell Club.
Police officials declined to explain why they failed to release details of the crash and Spiekerman's arrest sooner.
The crash occurred at 6:40a.m. near The Mansion diner, right after Gintel had bought a large coffee and two buttered rolls.
"I give him his change, look out the window, and I see he got hit and goes flying 10, maybe 20 feet in the air," said Leticia Guerrero, 24, a cashier.
Guerrero said the impact shattered the windshield of Spiekerman's silver Volvo. The cop got out and tried to help Gintel, who lives about a block away.
Spiekerman was charged with felony vehicular assault and driving while intoxicated.
He was arrested after officers responding to the accident noticed his bloodshot eyes and smelled booze on his breath, according to records. A 15-year NYPD veteran, Spiekerman admitted drinking, records say.
A lawyer for his police union said an investigation into the crash still "needs to be completed."
Spiekerman, a union delegate for the Sergeants Benevolent Association, refused to take a breath test, forcing cops to get a court order to draw his blood.
The sergeant, assigned to the PSA 7 housing precinct in the Bronx, has been suspended without pay, officials said.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/07/08/2009-07-08_cop_in_dwi_trouble_nypd_mum_as_15yr_veteran_charged_with_mowing_down_e_side_pede.html
Police Taser Pastor 'Helping' Driver in Traffic Stop
Thursday, July 02, 2009
WEBSTER, Texas — Police used a Taser on a pastor and pepper spray to disperse his congregants Wednesday after the pastor allegedly interfered with a traffic stop in the church parking lot.
Congregants say they were in the Iglesia Profetica Peniel church for an early morning prayer when pastor Jose Elias Moran went to assist the stopped driver, a church member, by asking the police what had happened.
An incident report on the Webster police department's Web site said Officer Raymond Berryman tried to calm Moran and arrest him. But police say he pushed the officer, went inside the church and returned with 40 other congregants.
The congregants say Moran fled into the church when the officer grew angry and began to yell, and Moran's family disputes that the pastor touched the officer.
Moran's son Miguel said 30 witnesses saw the officer turn aggressive and repeatedly kick the church door. Several members were hit with pepper spray and children were present, Miguel Moran said.
"They treated him as if he were a drug dealer or murderer, but he is a pastor that tries to help the community," Moran said. "The police always want to be right but they are not."
Moran's wife, Maria, said she tried to help her husband after he was hit with the Taser but police threatened to arrest her.
"My husband has a heart condition and with electrocution who knows what could've happened," Maria Moran said, referring to the Taser's electrical shock.
"A pastor has to tend to his flock," she said. "That is all he was doing."
Speaking from a hospital bed Wednesday night, Moran told The Associated Press he planned to hire an attorney to file charges against the officer. He was being held at the hospital overnight for additional tests.
Police did not immediately return calls seeking comment and more details of the incident. Police Sgt. James Lovel did not specify Moran's status, except to say he was in custody and negotiations for bail were taking place Wednesday night.
Webster is a suburb southeast of Houston.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529800,00.html
Police incite riot in order to "crack down" on civilians
ACLU wants probe into police-staged DNC protest
By Felisa Cardona
The Denver Post
Posted: 11/07/2008 12:30:00 AM MST
Updated: 11/07/2008 10:25:14 AM MST
DNC PROTEST
* Read the ACLU's letter to the Office of the Independent Monitor (PDF) .
* Watch video from the August, 2008 standoff between DNC protesters and police at 15th & Court in Downtown Denver.
* Watch video of protesters getting sprayed with pepper spray, from the August, 2008 standoff .
When a Jefferson County deputy unleashed pepper spray at unruly protesters on the first night of the Democratic National Convention, he did not know that his targets were undercover Denver police officers.
Now the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado is questioning whether that staged confrontation by police pretending to be violent inflamed other protesters or officers during the most intense night of the four-day event.
The protest occurred Aug. 25 at 15th Street and Court Place near Civic Center. Police ultimately arrested 106 people, the highest number of arrests in a single day during the convention.
According to a use-of-force police report obtained by the ACLU, undercover Denver detectives staged a struggle with a police commander to get pulled out of the crowd without blowing their cover. The commander knew they were working undercover, and the plan was to pull them out of the crowd and pretend they were under arrest so protesters would be none the wiser.
A Jefferson County deputy, unaware of the presence of undercover police, thought that the commander was being attacked and used pepper spray on the undercover officers.
The report says that the commander and an undercover detective were sprayed, but it does not indicate how many others were affected. The report also doesn't say whether the pepper spray used on the undercover police was the first deployment of chemicals that night or whether the riot was already underway.
Denver police have said they were trying to control the crowd moving from Civic Center. The officers testified in court that they had intelligence that anarchists planned to gather in the park, then move toward the 16th Street Mall to wreak havoc at delegate hotels and other businesses. The activists had posted that plan on a publicly available website.
Probe requested
On Thursday, the ACLU of Colorado sent a letter to Denver's Independent Monitor, Richard Rosenthal, asking for the Internal Affairs Bureau to conduct an investigation of the pepper-spraying incident.
"The actions of the undercover detectives on August 25, 2008, may have had the effect of exacerbating an already 'tense situation,' as their feigned struggle led nearby officers and the public to believe that a commanding officer was being attacked by protestors and that the situation necessitated the use of chemical agents," says the letter, written by ACLU staff attorney Taylor Pendergrass.
"Such actions may have escalated the overall situation by causing officers on the scene to fear that the protestors threatened their safety, when in fact the struggle was only between uniformed officers and undercover officers," he wrote.
Denver Police Chief Gerald Whitman did not return a call seeking comment about the pepper-spray incident and whether the officers followed protocol by staging a disturbance with the commander.
Rosenthal said he had received the ACLU's letter about the pepper-spray incident.
He also received a letter from the ACLU last week requesting a probe into possible conflicting or false statements by police about the riot and whether the department withheld evidence in some of the protesters' criminal trials.
The ACLU contends videos show that protesters, as well as otherwise uninvolved onlookers, were never ordered or given a chance to disperse before they were surrounded and detained by police.
"The letters have been received, and I am in the process of reviewing and evaluating them," Rosenthal said Thursday.
As many as 60 protest suspects declined to accept plea deals after their arrests. Some cases have been dismissed and some suspects acquitted after a judge cited a lack of evidence.
Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_10920817
Cop Under Investigation After Punching Woman In Face
By ANDREW RAMOS wpix.com
1:37 PM EDT, July 1, 2009
STAMFORD, Conn. (WPIX) - The Stamford Police Department is investigating the conduct of a police officer who assaulted a woman during an arrest last week, a police spokesman confirmed to PIX News Wednesday.
According to Lt. Sean Cooney, Officer Gregory Zach punched Brenda Mazariegos, 40, while arresting her for driving without a license Friday in the parking lot behind The Palms nightclub - a nightclub Mazariegos owns.
A photograph of a Mazariegos, that has been splashed on local newspapers and TV stations, shows the victim with a large bump on her head - a result from her alleged assault by the officer.
Mazariegos has yet to file a formal complaint, but it's not preventing the department from investigating the incident.
Cooney told PIX News that officials are pursuing the investigation due in part by the serious allegations and the fact that the incident occurred at a public event. The release of the photograph has made the incident a high-profile case, prompting a probe in the assault, he added.
According to Cooney, the officer is not denying that he assaulted Mazariegos and in fact says the woman was the one who attacked him first, forcing him to protect himself by punching her back, he said.
A surveillance video from the parking lot where the assault occurred has surfaced, however investigators say the video is too grainy to make anything out.
"We hold our officers to very high standards and know that the public is entitled to expect nothing less," said Cooney.
PIX News made several attempts Wednesday to reach out to Mazariegos, but phone calls were not immediately returned.
http://www.wpix.com/news/wpix-stamford-cop-investigation,0,2733354.story
CIA Crucified Captive In Abu Ghraib Prison
By Sherwood Ross
The Central Intelligence Agency crucified a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to a report published in The New Yorker magazine.
“A forensic examiner found that he (the prisoner) had essentially been crucified; he died from asphyxiation after having been hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs,” the magazine’s Jane Mayer writes in the magazine’s June 22nd issue. “Military pathologists classified the case a homicide.” The date of the murder was not given.
“No criminal charges have ever been brought against any C.I.A. officer involved in the torture program, despite the fact that at least three prisoners interrogated by agency personnel died as a result of mistreatment,” Mayer notes.
An earlier report, by John Hendren in The Los Angeles Times, indicated other torture killings. And Human Rights First says nearly 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hendren reported that one Manadel Jamadi died “of blunt-force injuries” complicated by “compromised respiration” at Abu Ghraib prison “while he was with Navy SEALs and other special operations troops.” Another victim, Abdul Jaleel, died while gagged and shackled to a cell door with his hands over his head.” Yet another prisoner, Maj. Gen. Abid Mowhosh, former commander of Iraq’s air defenses, “died of asphyxiation due to smothering and chest compression” in Qaim, Iraq.
"There is no question that U.S. interrogations have resulted in deaths," says Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU. "High-ranking officials who knew about the torture and sat on their hands and those who created and endorsed these policies must be held accountable. America must stop putting its head in the sand and deal with the torture scandal." At least scores of detainees in U.S. custody have died and homicide is suspected. As far back as May, 2004, the Pentagon conceded at least 37 deaths of prisoners in its custody in Iraq and Afghanistan had prompted investigations.
Nathaniel Raymond, of Physicians for Human Rights, told The New Yorker, “We still don’t know how many detainees were in the black sites, or who they were. We don’t fully know the White House’s role, or the C.I.A.’s role. We need a full accounting, especially as it relates to health professionals.”
Recently released Justice memos, he noted, contain numerous references to CIA medical personnel participating in coercive interrogation sessions. “They were the designers, the legitimizers, and the implementers,” Raymond said. “This is arguably the single greatest medical-ethics scandal in American history. We need answers.”
The ACLU obtained its information from the Pentagon through a Freedom of Information suit. Documents received included 44 autopsies and death reports as well as a summary of autopsy reports of people seized in Iraq and Afghanistan. An ACLU statement noted, "This covers just a fraction of the total number of Iraqis and Afghanis who have died while in U.S. custody." (Italics added).
Torture by the CIA has been facilitated by the Agency’s ability to hide prisoners in “black sites” kept secret from the Red Cross, to hold prisoners off the books, and to detain them for years without bringing charges or providing them with lawyers.
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, denounced the Obama administration for considering “prevention detention,” The New Yorker’s Mayer wrote. Roth said this tactic “mimics the Bush Administration’s abusive approach.”
From all indications, CIA Director Panetta has no intention of bringing to justice CIA officials involved in the systematic torture of prisoners. Panetta told Mayer, “I’m going to give people the benefit of the doubt…If they do the job that they’re paid to do, I can’t ask for a hell of a lot more.”
Such sentiments differ markedly from those Panetta wrote in an article published last year in the January Washington Monthly: “We either believe in the dignity of the individual, the rule of law, and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, or we don’t. There is no middle ground.”
One way to discern who really runs a country is to look to see which individuals, if any, are above the law. In the Obama administration, like its predecessors, they include the employees of the CIA. Crucifixions they execute in the Middle East differ from those reported in the New Testament in at least one important respect: Jesus Christ had a trial.
28 June 2009
http://www.legitgov.org/ross_cia_crucified_suspect_280609.html
Comics creator stopped by TSA for carrying script about writer under suspicion by TSA
Posted by Cory Doctorow, June 27, 2009 10:47 PM | permalink
Comics writer Mark Sable was detained and intensively questioned by the TSA for carrying a script for an upcoming comic book about a writer who is detained and intensively questioned by the TSA for writing a comic about terrorism.
"Flying from Los Angeles to New York for a signing at Jim Hanley's Universe Wednesday (May 13th), I was flagged at the gate for 'extra screening'. I was subjected to not one, but two invasive searches of my person and belongings. TSA agents then 'discovered' the script for Unthinkable #3. They sat and read the script while I stood there, without any personal items, identification or ticket, which had all been confiscated.
"The minute I saw the faces of the agents, I knew I was in trouble. The first page of the Unthinkable script mentioned 9/11, terror plots, and the fact that the (fictional) world had become a police state. The TSA agents then proceeded to interrogate me, having a hard time understanding that a comic book could be about anything other than superheroes, let alone that anyone actually wrote scripts for comics.
"I cooperated politely and tried to explain to them the irony of the situation. While Unthinkable blurs the line between fiction and reality, the story is based on a real-life government think tank where a writer was tasked to design worst-case terror scenarios. The fictional story of Unthinkable unfolds when the writer's scenarios come true, and he becomes a suspect in the terrorist attacks.
"In the end, I feel my privacy is a small price to pay for educating the government about the medium."
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/27/comics-creator-stopp.html
FBI Joins Kicking-Cop Probe
Friday, Jun. 26 2009 @ 11:24AM
By Steven Mikulan in crime
According to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is examining
Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for chase_kick_rodriguez.jpg
Richard Rodriguez
the actions of an El Monte police officer caught on video last month as he seemingly kicked a suspect who lay surrendered on a lawn. The suspect, Richard Rodriguez, is an alleged gang member and had been in a car with another man as the two were pursued by El Monte officers. TV-news helicopter cameras followed the high-speed chase as the suspects drove through stop signs and, at one point, onto a sidewalk.
Rodriguez eventually abandoned the car, fled to a back yard and lay prone as officers approached him. The officer seen kicking Rodriguez in the head has been identified as George Fierro and the FBI, which began requesting documents from the El Monte P.D. last week, is looking into the possibility that Fierro violated Rodriguez's civil rights.
The L.A. District Attorney's office and L.A. Sheriff's Department had earlier announced they were conducting their own probes into the incident. Fierro has drawn additional attention because he sells a line of gang-themed T-shirts and other casual attire. Called Torcido Clothing, Fierro's company boasts "some of the hardest authentic jailhouse threads for the streets. Straight from East L.A., Califas . . ." The veteran officer has been assigned to desk duty since the incident. The Trib article concludes by noting that an El Monte city council member has called on the FBI in the past to investigate that city's police department.
http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/crime/fbi-joins-kicking-cop-probe/
'To Punish and Enslave'
by William Norman Grigg
"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
The Cult of Nationalism Punishes a Patriot: Mark Kuhn, the fellow on the ground with his hands cuffed behind his back as his wife looks on in disbelief, offended the tender sensibilities of local jingoists by flying the American flag upside down. Note the arrogant, triumphalist posture of the enforcement officer – one of at least five dispatched to corral this non-violent thought criminal – who is straddling the helpless man.
Just as a person is defiled by what goes out of the mouth, rather than what goes into it (Matthew 15:11), the US flag is defiled by what is done in its name, rather than what is done to the physical symbol. This is splendidly illustrated in the photograph to the right, in which we see the arrest of a peaceful man who had committed no crime against persons or property, but whose patriotic display of the U.S. flag engendered a violent response from local adherents to the cult of nationalism.
Mark and Deborah Kuhn of Asheville, North Carolina are devoted activists who pursue political change using non-violent means. The message on their answering machine – which I've heard twice, in unsuccessful attempts to contact them directly – offers the greeting: "Peace and love."
Mortified over the violent, corrupt, and increasingly degenerate nature of the regime that rules us, the Kuhns displayed, on their own property, a U.S. flag – an item they had legally purchased – displayed upside-down. This is a universally recognized distress sign, and the Kuhns' intent was to underscore the plight of our country, which is being destroyed by the regime.
This was, in brief, a patriotic protest, which is why it attracted the malign attention of a servant of the regime.
On July 18, the Kuhns report, they received a visit from a police officer who asked them if everything was all right. He was reportedly polite and professional, and told them that there was no statute or ordinance forbidding them to display the flag upside-down. In the interests of clarifying their point, the Kuhns attached a small sign to the flag explaining the purpose of the display, and another handbill calling for the overdue removal of George W. Bush from the White House.
Shortly thereafter, an individual clad in fatigues and driving a car with US Government license plates – the latter being the unmistakable token of a parasite – paid a visit to harass the Kuhns about their display.
This vigilant fellow was Staff Sergeant Mark Radford of the 105th Military Police Battalion of the North Carolina National Guard. Acting as a dutiful spitzel, this self-appointed guardian of nationalist purity contacted a friend at the Buncombe County Sheriff's Department. Early on the morning of July 25, Deputy Brian Scarborough swaggered up to the door and demanded that the Kuhns take down the flag, which they did. Scarborough then demanded that the couple present ID and accept a citation for "flag desecration" – which is forbidden by a pointless and facially unconstitutional ordinance that had fallen into desuetude.
"We refused," recalled Deborah. "We said, `Why should we show you our ID – are you arresting us?' so we walked back into the house and closed the door."
Were Brian Scarborough a sentient being, rather than state enforcement agent, he would have let the matter drop. It's likely that even ten years ago, the typical Deputy Sheriff in this situation would have simply asked the couple to take down their flag, tipped his hat, and left it at that.
But this is the era of the "New Police Professionalism," and Scarborough is an agent of the Homeland Security State. He was clad in the majesty of the regime, and the Kuhns had refused to submit to his will. Accordingly, he kicked the door, punched out the glass (thereby cutting his hand, a consequence he was apparently too dim to foresee), and forced his way inside.
Scarborough would later insist that Kuhn inflicted that injury by slamming the door on his hand. He lied, of course: Several eyewitnesses confirm that the Deputy cut himself breaking in to the Kuhns' home.
Having committed an act of criminal trespass, Scarborough then compounded that crime with assault by making threats of violence against the Kuhns, as Deborah reported in a frantic phone call to 911. Her gesture evinced a touchingly misplaced faith in the possibility of casting out Beelzebub by the power of Beelzebub: Once the police learned that one of their own was in trouble, five additional squad cars converged on the scene.
This was done to deal with an unarmed, non-violent couple who had displayed their flag in a way incompatible with the tenets of aggrieved nationalism.
Scarborough seized Mark, thereby committing aggravated battery; Mark escaped and fled outside, where he was pursued by several police as astonished neighbors gathered.
One of the officers produced a taser and threatened to shoot Mark with it – an act that should be considered assault with a deadly weapon. The same hero made the same threat against Deborah.
Mark submitted and was handcuffed. As the arrest unfolded, Staff Sgt. Radford, a REMF with nothing better to do than harass local civilians, drove past the Kuhns' home and heckled them: "Go to jail, baby!"
Mark and Deborah were arrested on the flag "desecration" charge (which is not a crime against persons or property), two counts of "assaulting a government employee" (based on Scarborough's self-serving lies), and resisting arrest. They were bailed out of jail by their son, who posted $1,500 bond.
I cannot improve on Mark Kuhn's summary of his experience, which resonates with Alexander Solzhenitsyn's lament, as quoted above:
"If Americans don't wake up to the martial state we're in, the cops, the police, the sheriffs, the state police will all come to our door and take us away if we allow this to happen – it's time for America to wake up."
Kuhn is convinced his case is not an aberration. I wholeheartedly agree.
Witness the arrest of Alan McConnell of Silver Spring, Maryland, on ginned-up trespass charges after the 74-year-old activist continued to sell pro-impeachment buttons at a local farmer's market. Local town officials insisted that McConnell was "aggressive," that his buttons were divisive, and by selling them he was making people "uncomfortable." So they instructed the police to issue a no-trespass order which was in fact a bill of attainder intended to shut down McConnell's commerce.
How DARE he express his political opinions in public? Alan McConnell, a 74-year-old activist from Silver Spring, Maryland, is dragged off to jail by Jabba the Cop and two Stormtroopers for the supposed offense of selling political buttons at a farmer's market.
The results can be seen in the photo above, as well as the fact that this elderly patriot faces six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for refusing to permit the local Politburo to deny him his right to express his opinions in a free marketplace.
Colorado resident Steve Howards likewise learned that peacefully expressing his political views was a crime. His antagonist wasn't the local Politburo: It was the Chief Commissar himself, Dick Cheney and the U.S. Secret Service (or SS).
During a chance encounter with Comrade Cheney outside a mall in Beaver Creek, Colorado last June, Howards approached the Vice President and in a voice of polite disapproval said: “Your policies in Iraq are reprehensible.” He then walked away.
Now, you just know this wasn't going to go unpunished.
After all, an SS spokesdrone told the Vail Daily News after the incident, Howards had drawn attention to himself by his "odd actions near Cheney"; he "wasn't acting like other folks in the area."
Indeed: Where others were awed into paralyzed deference by Cheney's malignant majesty, Howards remembered that he is a citizen, and acted like one. Such things just aren't permissible, of course.
A few minutes after his encounter with Cheney (and doubtless following the mental and spiritual equivalent of a cleansing shower), Howards was tracked down by a Secret Service agent, handcuffed in front of his 8-year-old son, and accused of “assaulting the Vice President.” Jailed for three hours and released on a $500 bond, Howards was charged with the lesser offense of harassment, a charge that was eventually dropped. After all, the point was made: Criticizing our rulers to their faces will be treated as a criminal offense.
“I was incredulous this could be happening in the United States of America,” recalls Howard. “This is what I read about happening in Tiananmen Square.”
Howards, to his considerable credit, has not let the matter drop. He has filed a lawsuit (.pdf) against Virgil D. "Gus" Reichle, Jr. (that's how the name is spelled in the complaint), the SS agent who assaulted and arrested him – and who actually threatened to have his eight-year-old son turned over to the oh-so-nice people at Child Protective Services. (Howards' son, incidentally, escaped that fate by running away in terror and finding his mother; it's amazing he wasn't arrested for resisting arrest or some other spurious charge.)
In all of the foregoing incidents we see the local police (and the SS, collaborating with the local police) acting as enforcers of political orthodoxy, rather than defenders of persons and property.
They were acting as the security "Organs" of the Regime, not as peace officers defending the rights of peaceful, law-abiding citizens.
It's not difficult to imagine how the incidents described above would be perceived had they occurred in Venezuela or Iran – and in those benighted countries, incidents of this sort (and others much worse than these) are common.
The point, of course, is that things of this sort are becoming common here, where they should never happen at all. We've not yet reached the dismal situation described by Solzhenitsyn, but if he were living here today he'd have little difficulty recognizing the familiar odor of incipient totalitarianism in our Homeland Security State.
A bonus illustration of the prevailing lunacy:
Monica Montoya, a 25-year-old mother from Roselle Park, New Jersey, cheerfully cooperated with the police when they asked her to interpret for an accident victim. For reasons nobody has explained, she ended up being handcuffed and dragged to a squad car, pleading with the officer to allow her to contact the babysitter tending her six-year-old daughter.
Montoya was charged with "obstructing justice" and "resisting arrest" – which makes no sense at all, given that – once again – she was assisting the police, which apparently is enough to get innocent people arrested in our embryonic Reich.
August 1, 2007
William Norman Grigg [send him mail] writes the Pro Libertate blog.
Copyright © 2007 William Norman Grigg
http://www.lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-w28.html
UK: Arrested for asking a policeman for his badge number
The Guardian has obtained this police footage of Emily Apple and Val Swain being arrested by surveillance officers after asking for their badge numbers at the Kingsnorth climate camp last year. The two women speak to Paul Lewis about their arrest, imprisonment and official complaint
Video: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2009/jun/21/fit-watch-kingsnorth-arrests
McMenacing? Cop Accused Of Pulling Gun At McD's
Written by Brian Maass
Jun 17, 2009 9:06 pm US/Mountain
A Denver police officer has been suspended after allegedly brandishing his gun at a McDonald's restaurant in Aurora after his order took too long to fill.
Aurora police confirmed the CBS4 investigation saying the incident occurred May 21 at the McDonald's at 18181 East Hampden Avenue.
A spokesperson for the Aurora Police Department said they plan to present the case -- now classified as a felony menacing incident -- to the Arapahoe County District Attorney's Office Thursday for possible filing of criminal charges.
Sources familiar with the case, and the fast food worker's account of what happened, say two off-duty Denver police officers placed an order from their car in the early morning hours of May 21. But once at the drive through window, the employee said the men became agitated and angry at how long their food was taking. The men thought they were being ignored, according to contacts familiar with the worker's account. The male clerk then said one of the officer's flashed his police badge and pointed a pistol through the drive through window in a threatening manner, before driving off without paying.
Both officers are assigned to Denver International Airport although only one has been placed on administrative leave with pay, pending the outcome of the case.
http://cbs4denver.com/investigates/denver.police.suspension.2.1049330.html
NJ Man beaten and arrested by COP for having an unzipped jacket
May 29, 2009
Video:
Tyranny is government denial of our Natural Rights. They are defined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The world is changing. People must speak up. Please share your stories of police abuse.
Judicial malfeasance, and other governmental violations are of interest.
CPS cases, illegal roadside check points, brutality cases, all violations of Posse Commitatus, etc.
http://oathkeepers.org/oath Any officials who take offense here please visit Oath Keepers.
http://gunowners.org/ They are your rights, hold on to them.
http://www.copblock.org/ A decentralized project supported by a diverse group of individuals
united by their shared goal of police accountability..
BUSTED: The Citizen's Guide to Surviving Police Encounters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqMjMPlXzdA&NR=1
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