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FOLLOW UP: Billboard Shows Cops Support For Convicted Officer Who Beat Man Shackled To Wheelchair
http://cbs2chicago.com/local/bill.cozzi.billboard.2.1926752.html
Confession coerced by police leads to death penalty
http://www.copblock.org/973/confession-coerced-by-police-leads-to-death-penalty/
Touching display of affection for cop who beat man shackled to wheelchair
http://www.copblock.org/977/touching-display-of-affection-for-cop-who-beat-man-shackled-to-wheelchair/
Cops shoot chihuahua
By Mike on June 10, 2009
Jack
Little Jack, the 5 pound chihuahua that cops tazed and shot in order to "protect themselves."
Apparently not having been trained to deal with something as scary and vicious as a chihuahua, two idiot Blue Ash, Ohio police officers tazed, then shot and killed a 5 pound family dog.
They didn’t call animal control. They didn’t get a dog treat and attempt to lure the little guy into cage. They didn’t wrap it in a blanket like any idiot dealing with a scared animal knows to do. They didn’t ask someone maybe smarter than them to help, like Paris Hilton or some neighbor kids. They didn’t attempt to contact the owners to help out.
They did none of that. They just bugged out their eyes, pumped out their chests, tazed the little guy at least 3 times and then pumped some bullets into him.
The chihuahua, Jack, did bite the two officers, so the idiot cops claimed they had to shoot Jack to “protect themselves.”
Protect themselves? From a chihuahua? You have got to be kidding me. This wasn’t Godzilla. This wasn’t a pitbull attacking you or an alligator on the loose that had just eaten neighborhood children.
IT WAS A 5 POUND CHIHUAHUA.
I urge everyone to call the Blue Ash police department, ask for the Chief of Police at (513) 745-8555 and let him know these two jackhole cops should not only be fired, but arrested for animal cruelty.
http://wheelsoffliberty.com/wordpress/?p=124
Sheriff's deputies' disdain for Constitution captured by their own recorded comments
(A must see very well produced video.)
http://kccn.tv/
(watch the video at the top, not the youtube videos at the bottom - they have been removed.)
NY National Guard and local police
are running military checkpoints
supposedly searching for drugs and guns
Increasingly, the country is under martial law without it being declared
The Constitution forbids the use of federal military for local police action
Soldiers are supposed to defend the nation, not subdue it..
New “war on drugs” program another alarming sign that America is under martial law
http://www.prisonplanet.com/new-york-national-guard-units-scan-vehicles-for-gun-confiscations.html
Riots break out in Oakland
after police officer who killed unarmed black man is cleared of murder
and convicted of involuntary manslaughter
The officer said he intended to shock the man with his Taser
but drew his handgun instead..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1293295/California-riots-Oscar-Grant-killer-Johannes-Mehserle-cleared-murder.html
Lawsuit: Drunk cop ran over woman, then supervised investigation
By Daniel Tencer
Friday, April 16th, 2010 -- 12:38 pm
Albuquerque police carried out a "fraudulent" investigation into a drunk, on-duty police officer who killed a woman in a hit-and-run after leaving a bar, a lawsuit filed in a New Mexico court states.
On April 6, 2008, Sgt. Andrew Gallegos left an Albuquerque bar where had been drinking while on duty, got into his pick-up truck and ran over 47-year-old Vera Ann Haskell, says the lawsuit (PDF) filed by Haskell's family.
Gallegos then allegedly fled the scene without notifying police or emergency responders. Haskell died soon afterward.
According to the lawsuit, when investigating officers identified Sgt. Gallegos on security camera footage, they notified Gallegos and even granted his request for a five-hour delay in the investigation.
"Sergeant Gallegos was supervising and directing the fatal investigation even after he was APD's primary suspect," the lawsuit states. "This conduct shocks the conscience."
Haskell was allowed to supervise the investigation for more than a day before the matter was turned over to the department's Criminal Investigations Division, the lawsuit asserts. Two days passed before police searched Gallegos' home, and before they formally interviewed him for the investigation.
According to news reports at the time, Haskell had no fixed address and was struggling with an alcohol problem at the time of her death. She was reportedly passed out next to Gallegos' pick-up truck when he ran her over as he left the parking lot.
According to the PoliceCrimes.com forum, Gallegos was charged in December, 2008, with evidence tampering and leaving the scene of an accident. He was suspended without pay pending the outcome.
In April, 2009, a judge ruled that Gallegos had committed no crime in the incident.
But the Haskell family's lawsuit says the sergeant was given inside information that "was used by Sergeant Gallegos to concoct an alibi and defense."
They are suing Gallegos, the city of Albuquerque, the Albuquerque Police Department and the bar where the incident took place.
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0416/lawsuit-drunk-cop-ran-woman-supervised-investigation/
Beating of University of Maryland student by police probed by county prosecutors
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Prince George's prosecutors have begun a criminal investigation of three county police officers who beat an unarmed University of Maryland student with their batons after a basketball game last month in an incident that was caught on video and surfaced publicly Monday, authorities said.
County police also ordered an internal affairs investigation of the three officers, Maj. Andy Ellis said. Ellis said the inquiry would also focus on a county officer who filed official charging documents that are contradicted by the video.
"The video shows the charging documents were nothing more than a cover, a fairy tale they made up to cover for the officers' misconduct," said Christopher A. Griffiths, a lawyer for the student. "The video shows gratuitous violence against a defenseless individual."
Police Chief Roberto L. Hylton said that one of the three officers had been identified and that his police powers have been suspended during the investigation. The other two officers will also be suspended as soon as they are identified, Hylton said.
"I'm outraged and disappointed after viewing the video," Hylton said. "That's not the type of professional conduct we promote. Any employee who uses excessive force will be held accountable."
Griffiths released the video Monday after county prosecutors dropped charges against John J. McKenna, 21. McKenna and a co-defendant, Benjamin C. Donat, 19, had been charged with felonies on suspicion of assaulting officers on horseback and their mounts. On Friday, a prosecutor dropped charges against Donat, also a U-Md. student. Griffiths is also representing Donat.
The incident occurred March 3 near the university's College Park campus after the Maryland men's basketball team defeated Duke. After the game, students took to the streets to celebrate. Twenty-eight people were arrested or cited, sparking a debate between police and students over how and when it is appropriate to break up a group of revelers.
At least part of the incident with McKenna was videotaped by another student. The video, which lasts about one minute, is a continuous shot. It was discovered by Sharon Weidenfeld, a private investigator who worked on behalf of McKenna and Donat. The video does not show Donat, although Officer Sean McAleavey's charging documents say the two men acted together.
The video shows about two dozen students milling about on Knox Road near Route 1. About a half-dozen of them are pointing their cellphone cameras at riot police who are gathered between the students and Route 1.
The video shows McKenna on the sidewalk as he skips and throws his arms in the air. He stops about five feet from an officer on horseback, the video shows. In the video, McKenna's arms appear to be in front of him, but he does not appear to touch the officer or the horse. His hands are empty.
McKenna backs up, then two county police riot officers rush toward him from the street, the video shows. The officers slam McKenna against a wall and beat him with their batons. McKenna crumples to the ground.
As McKenna falls, a third county police riot officer strikes his legs and torso with his baton. The video shows the officers striking an unresisting McKenna about the head, torso and legs -- more than a dozen blows in all.
of course there's more - THIS is enough
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/12/AR2010041204377.html
Residents of NJ city say cops worse than criminals
By GEOFF MULVIHILL
Associated Press Writer
updated 4:36 p.m. ET, Sat., April 3, 2010
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36159866/ns/us_news/
CAMDEN, N.J. - Josephine Skinner's grandson Dequan was 11 or 12 years old a few summers ago when she says he had a run-in with a Camden police officer who neighbors claim terrorized them for years.
As the youth crossed the street to buy a soda at a store, she said Officer Jason Stetser — known on the streets as "Fat Face" — sprang from his cruiser.
"He grabbed my grandson and said he had $100 of stuff on him," Skinner said. "They tried to lock him up."
For years, residents say some police officers have bullied them in this impoverished city, making cases by planting drugs on suspects, falsifying police reports, and conducting searches without warrants. Now four officers, including Stetser, are being investigated by a federal grand jury.
And prosecutors say they've had to drop charges or vacate convictions in 185 criminal cases because of possibly corrupt police work — meaning scores of criminals could end up returning to drug-infested streets.
Another of Skinner's grandchildren, 15-year-old Artice Skinner, said he witnessed the episode between Stetser and Dequan and saw Stetser hold out his hand, overflowing with crack cocaine that the police officer said came from Dequan's pocket.
Skinner said Dequan was released after an aunt explained that he wasn't the neighborhood child police were looking for.
"The cops were more of a problem than the crime was," said Josephine Skinner.
Their Waterfront South neighborhood has breathed a little easier since November, when Stetser and at least three other officers were taken off the streets as authorities began their investigation.
Stetser's lawyer, Richard Madden, declined to comment.
Among those suspended was 29-year-old patrolman Kevin Parry. On March 19, he admitted in court that he stole drugs from some suspects, planted them on others, bribed prostitutes with drugs for information, conducted searches without warrants, lied on police reports and in testimony, and roughed up suspects. He acknowledged 50-70 acts of police misconduct from May 2007 to October 2009.
Residents say it was not uncommon for some officers to greet locals by punching them, using force to intimidate. The threat of criminal charges was the main police currency.
In Waterfront South, lovingly tended row homes sit uneasily alongside crumbling empty ones and monstrous warehouses loom beyond back yards. The stench from a nearby sewage plant hangs in the air. Daffodils have begun to bloom in a trash-strewn vacant lot.
A church group has painted poetry on sheets of plywood nailed over windows of vacant buildings — like Pablo Neruda's lines, "I want to do with you what the spring does with cherry trees."
The same day Parry pleaded guilty last month, authorities spoke publicly about the investigation for the first time. Camden County Prosecutor Warren Faulk said several officers were being investigated by the federal grand jury. Only Parry has been criminally charged.
Faulk also revealed that 185 cases had been compromised because of possibly corrupt police work. It's not that all the suspects weren't guilty, he said, but that without using the reports of the officers, there was no more credible evidence.
Lawyers have now begun filing claims notifying the city of their intention to sue based on the actions of Parry and the other officers.
The investigation has cast doubt — at least in Josephine Skinner's neighborhood — over even more drug cases.
Bodega owner Manuel Torres says that he thinks his sons, Jonathan and Sterling, were set up by police for their drug arrests a few years ago. Neither has had his conviction vacated.
The scandal is the latest blow to crimefighting in a city that can ill afford it.
In report after report, Camden ranks as one of the nation's most dangerous cities. Known as the drug marketplace for locals and suburbanites, the city has a constant presence of U.S. Marshals and state police, along with city police.
But, there have been some promising signs. The murder rate began falling in the summer of 2008 when police reworked their schedules and strategies. They started using more sophisticated data to figure out when and where crime was highest. They used that information to make sure they had more officers on the streets at those times.
Residents of Waterfront South said their problems with the police predated those changes.
Among those whose drug convictions were vacated in December was Josephine Skinner's 46-year-old son, Mark. He said he had been arrested in November 2005, just weeks after he was released from jail on a previous drug-dealing conviction.
Mark Skinner said that 2005 arrest came as he sat on the stoop in front of his mother's home, and that police — including Stetser — slammed him against the wall. Police failed to find drugs on him or in the house, then showed up with a trash bag full of small orange bags of crack worth about $4,000.
He said he pleaded guilty to get a three-year sentence, rather than risk up to 20 years with no chance of parole for a decade if he'd been found guilty at trial.
"I did three years for nothing," he said as he stood on the corner of Broadway and Viola Streets, near a new maritime museum — and a well-known drug spot.
The neighborhood has plenty of stories about problems caused by the police in recent years.
Jamar Dorsey, then a 20-year-old student at Camden County College, said Stetser planted marijuana on him in 2007 and threatened him with drug charges if he didn't lead Stetser to more drugs or weapons.
When Dorsey said he didn't know where drugs could be found, he was charged.
He pleaded guilty to drug possession, taking three years of probation instead of risking a stiffer penalty at trial — even though it meant losing his college financial aid and dropping out of college.
"Who were they going to believe?" Dorsey said. "Me or him?"
Another neighbor, Michelle Kellum, said her disabled son, Gregory, was 15 when he went to a corner store with money from his disability check. Stetser threw him in the back of a police car and took the money, she said, a little more than $100.
Kellum said the officer let her son go after she showed a receipt to prove where the money came from.
"Fat Face had everybody terrified," she said. "You wouldn't see anybody walking out here" when he was around.
And in the end, she said, the questionable police work failed its main objective — taking drugs off the streets.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36159866/ns/us_news/
Law Enforcement: Drug Cops Kill Two in Two Days in Drug Raids in Florida and Tennessee
Phillip Smith on Mon, 03/15/2010 - 8:10pm
At least two US citizens were killed in their own homes by American police enforcing the war on drugs in a 48-hour period late last week. One was a 52-year-old white grandmother; the other was a 43-year-old black man. Both allegedly confronted home-invading officers with weapons; both were shot to death. No police officers were injured.
Brenda Van Zwieten
The combination of widespread gun ownership in the US with aggressive drug war policing is a recipe for tragedy, one that is repeated on a regular basis. Gun owners commonly cite protecting themselves from home-invading robbers as a reason for arming themselves, while police cite widespread gun ownership as a reason they need to use SWAT-style tactics, breaking down doors and using overwhelming force against potential shooters. That homeowners would pick up a weapon upon hearing their doors broken down is not surprising, nor is it surprising that police are quick to shoot to kill "suspects" who may pose a threat to them.
The first killing came Thursday morning in North Memphis, when a Bartlett, Tennessee, police narcotics squad serving a search warrant for drug possession -- not sales, manufacture, or possession with intent to sell -- shot and killed Malcolm Shaw, 43, after breaking into his home. Police said they knocked on Shaw's door several times and identified themselves as police before entering the home.
Police said Shaw emerged from a room and pointed a gun at plainclothes officer Patrick Cicci. Cicci fired once, killing Shaw. Cicci is on administrative leave pending an internal investigation.
While the Bartlett Police investigation is ongoing, that didn't stop the Shelby County District Attorney's Office from announcing Monday that Cicci will not be prosecuted. Cicci's killing of the homeowner was "apparent justifiable use of deadly force in self defense," a spokesman said.
Bartlett police said that while the Bartlett narcs conducting the raid were not in uniform, their gear clearly identified them as law enforcement. They wore "high-visibility vests" marked "POLICE" in several spots, police said.
The killing of the well-known neighborhood handyman led to the formation of a crowd hostile to police outside his home. Bartlett police on the scene had to call Memphis police to do crowd control.
Memphis police complained that the Bartlett narcs had not followed law enforcement protocols requiring them to notify the local agency when they were operating in its jurisdiction. They said they were notified only as the raid commenced, and that moments later, they got a request for an ambulance at the address, and moments after that, they got a request that they send a couple of police cruisers for crowd control.
Timothy Miers, who said he was Shaw's brother accused police of being trigger-happy. "How you gonna go in serving a warrant and shoot somebody?" Miers asked. "They already had their finger on the trigger."
The sense of disbelief over the killing was shared by members of the crowd gathered outside Shaw's home. Many complained about the officers' actions.
"My heart fell to the ground," one neighbor said.
"We can't believe it," said another. "Malcolm out of all people."
Family members expressed confusion about the shooting, saying Shaw was not a person they would have expected to threaten officers. "They say he had a gun," said Miers. "My brother doesn't have no gun."
Friends of Shaw said the same thing. "I ain't never seen him with no gun," said Arvette Thomas, a friend of Shaw.
Shaw never bothered anyone, neighbors said. "I think it's wrong to just kill him like they did," said a neighbor, "because he wouldn't hurt a fly."
Less than 48 hours later, members of a Broward County Sheriff's Office SWAT team and its Selective Enforcement Team in Pompano Beach, Florida, shot and killed Brenda Van Zweiten, 52, during a drug raid on her home. Police had developed evidence that drugs were being sold from the residence, and obtained a search warrant. After allegedly identifying themselves as police, they broke through a sliding glass door to a bedroom and arrested Van Zweiten's boyfriend, Gary Nunnemacher, 47, on charges of possessing less than 20 grams of marijuana. Van Zweiten was in a different bedroom, and was shot and killed by deputies when she emerged holding a handgun. According to police, she refused to put down her weapon, so they shot her.
Police reported finding one gram of heroin, four grams of crack cocaine, marijuana, marijuana plants, 40 generic Xanax tablets, $550 cash, two shotguns, and a rifle. Family members said Van Zweiten had a prescription for Xanax, but was not a drug dealer. But police had earlier in the day arrested three people leaving the home who they say had bought drugs there -- although police did not say from whom.
After Van Zweiten's killing, police were unrepentant. "When you approach a police officer with a loaded weapon and don't put the weapon down, there's going to be consequences," sheriff's spokesman Mike Jachles said. "It's unfortunate, but I'd rather be talking about a dead suspect than a dead cop."
Van Zweiten's brother, Bill George, said his sister had recently received threats and was afraid of break-ins. "It was an unlawful shooting," he said. "She's 98 pounds. She was just trying to protect herself. I would come out of my room with a gun too."
As news of Van Zweiten's death spread, friends, neighbors, and family members expressed dismay and disbelief. They called the incident a "set up" and said the blonde grandmother was affectionately called "Mom" by many who knew her for using her home as a neighborhood hangout to keep kids off the streets. Dozens of people gathered in her yard near a flower-bedecked cross put up as a memorial.
"Look at these people," said George. "She helped so many of these young people."
"She was like a second mom to me," said Michael Miller, 18. "She would take in anybody."
"There was no reason for this," said son Rob Singleton, 32.
Van Zwieten had no criminal history involving drugs or violence, state records show.
George said that Van Zweiten had reason to fear intruders because she had been threatened recently by a man accused of stealing watches and rings that were part of a shrine to two of her four sons, who had died within the past three years, one in a traffic accident, one of a drug overdose. She had just installed an alarm system last week, George said. "She was scared."
Singleton showed reporters inside the house, including the small bedroom where she was shot. A large puddle of blood remained on the floor, and the walls and ceiling were splattered with blood -- from his mother's head, he said. "She was probably running into the closet and trying to hide," he said.
As is all too typical in such raid, police also totally trashed the house. As the Sun-Sentinel reported: "Much of the interior of the three-bedroom house looked as if it had been hit by a tornado... Drawers were pulled from dressers, clothes were scattered, a bed was overturned, food and crockery had been knocked from kitchen cabinets." The shrine to her dead sons was also destroyed, Singleton said.
Two Broward County Sheriff's Office detectives are on administrative leave pending an internal investigation. They have not been named.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/special/drug_cops_kill_two_drug_raids
Don’t Forget That the Cops Are Your Friends
Jul 3, 2008 By Ken. Politics & Current Events Martha Puebla is dead.
She was murdered as she sat on her front porch in Sun Valley, California.
Why was she murdered?
Because the Los Angeles Police Department, in an effort to trick a confession out of a suspected murderer, falsely told the suspect that Martha Puebla had identified him.
“You got the wrong person, buddy,” Ledesma said.
“OK. I don’t agree with you, and I have the evidence to prove it,” Pinner said. “I have multiple witnesses who are going to testify that you were the shooter.”
Pinner told Ledesma he knew the gang member had been on his way to Martha Puebla’s house to visit her the night Vargas was killed outside her house.
To drive home his point, Pinner laid down a “six-pack” — an array of mug shots that detectives often show to witnesses or victims of crimes. On it, Ledesma’s photo was circled, and the initials “M.P.” were written below it. “Those is the guy that shot my friends boyfriend” was scrawled along the margin, followed by Puebla’s signature.
“I don’t even know a Martha,” Ledesma lied.
Pinner kept trying, pressing Ledesma about Puebla and the information he said she had given up. At one point he asked Rodriguez for a photo of the girl to show Ledesma. Nothing worked. Ledesma insisted he did not know her.
“Well, she knows you,” the detective said.
This was legal, at least as to the suspect. Cops can lie to people when they interrogate them. But it wasn’t true. Puebla hadn’t helped them. The six-pack was forged, faked to create an impression on the suspect Ledesma.
Ledesma called his fellow gang members from jail and asked them to kill Puebla.
The next night, Ledesma reached for a pay phone outside his cell. “Cokester,” he said into the receiver, calling his friend Javier Covarrubias by one of his gang monikers, “do you know the slut that lives there by . . . my house? Her name starts with an M . . . I need her to disappear. She is dropping dimes.”
To the gang, Puebla was a snitch and needed to be dealt with.
“Uh huh, like that,” Ledesma told Covarrubias, using a mix of Spanish and English. “But [keep a] low-pro[file]. . . . Stay on your toes, homie. And don’t get caught.”
This call, like all calls out of the jail, was recorded. The detectives could have listened to it at any time.
Not that this mattered.
The jail-cell recording, Pinner said in sworn testimony, was badly transcribed twice by an outside company used by the LAPD. Its contents remained unknown until January 2005, when during preparation for Ledesma’s trial for Vargas’ slaying — more than two years after the recording was made — Spanish-speaking LAPD officers listened to it and learned of the order to kill the girl, Pinner testified.
So Detectives Martin Pinner and Juan Rodriguez told a suspected killer and known gang member that Martha Puebla was a witness against him in a murder case. They didn’t listen to the tapes of his subsequent phone calls. And it appears that they didn’t tell Martha:
But Puebla’s parents, who have recently filed a civil lawsuit against the detectives and the LAPD, said in an interview that no one from the LAPD ever warned their daughter that she might be in danger. And a detailed log the detectives kept of their investigation shows no indication that they had contact with Puebla or her parents after they used the girl to bait Ledesma during the interrogation.
Later Pinner and Rodriguez — the same detectives who set in motion the chain of events that led to Martha Puebla’s death — arrested someone for her killing. Once again, they lied to him about the evidence against him. Once again, it didn’t turn out right.
Before federal prosecutors and the LAPD sorted out Puebla’s murder, however, Pinner and Rodriguez had arrested an innocent man in connection with Puebla’s slaying. Based on bad information from sources, the detectives pinned the slaying on Juan Catalan — Mario Catalan’s brother. Juan Catalan sat in jail for five months awaiting trial until his lawyer turned up video footage showing Catalan was at a Dodgers game at the time of the shooting. A judge threw out the case, and Catalan was awarded $320,000 in a wrongful-arrest suit.
The day the detectives arrested Juan Catalan, they thought they had the right man. They brought him into an interview room in the same North Hollywood station where they had grilled Ledesma nine months before. Once again they switched on a recorder. Catalan begged the detectives to believe him, that he had nothing to do with Puebla’s death. He asked to take a lie-detector test.
But Pinner and Rodriguez weren’t having any of it. Pinner told Catalan that people had seen him shoot the girl. He pushed three six-packs in front of him. His picture was circled. Witnesses had signed their names.
They were all fake. But Catalan, of course, didn’t know that.
“You see,” Rodriguez told Catalan, “the pictures don’t lie.”
Pinner, Rodriguez, and the LAPD may not be legally responsible for Martha Puebla’s death.
But they are morally responsible.
I wonder if they care?
Their story illustrates an unfashionable and unpopular point in post-9/11, cop-worshiping America: the fact that someone wears a badge does not mean that he’s responsible, reasonable, or decent. It doesn’t mean that he’s your friend.
http://www.popehat.com/2008/07/03/dont-forget-that-the-cops-are-your-friends/
N.Y.P.D. Confidential
By AL BAKER and JO CRAVEN McGINTY
Published: March 26, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/nyregion/28iab.html?hp
CASE file: His night began in the bars of Staten Island, and by 2 a.m., he was buying crack cocaine. Inside his car, he flicked a lighter and inhaled. He picked up a woman; they got high together. She left after he spotted the authorities.
Case file: A Brooklyn man had a hook with organized crime. He and his wife set up gambling operations at six spots in Manhattan and Nassau County. When they were arrested, along with her parents and 11 others, investigators seized cash, slot machines and cars.
Case file: He would lock his mountain bike in a garage in Jamaica, Queens, then enter a nearby bordello. Once, he even arranged a rendezvous in a pizzeria. Tipped off by a prostitute — probably angered that he did not pay — detectives caught it all on audio and video.
These are all relatively minor crimes, the stuff of daily precinct logs rather than ripped-from-the-headlines television drama, but for one thing: In each case, the central character was a cop.
That, by at least one way of reckoning, makes them routine: From 1992 to 2008, nearly 2,000 New York Police Department officers were arrested, according to the department’s own annual reports of the Internal Affairs Bureau, an average of 119 a year.
The rarely seen internal reports were obtained last month by the New York Civil Liberties Union through the Freedom of Information Law. They show that the number of tips logged each year by Internal Affairs has tripled since 1992, a trend that top police officials attribute to an opening up of the process and more diligent cataloging of public response to police interactions — including compliments as well as complaints. The number of investigations pursued over the same period has dropped by more than half, which Chief Charles V. Campisi, who runs the unit, called “the truest reflection of the corruption the department faces.”
Most of those investigations involved drugs, theft or crimes like fraud, bribery or sex offenses, on and off the job. Inquiries in these categories have largely decreased in recent years, but cases involving abuse of suspects have risen significantly. The 2006 report noted the “unprecedented” rise and gave an example: several officers followed a woman wanted for petty larceny into a store and one “struck her in the head with his firearm for no reason.”
“History tells us there always will be bad cops, and the department will never be able to completely control that,” said Christopher T. Dunn, associate legal director of the civil liberties union, who has spent weeks studying the documents. “But what it can control, and what it should be held accountable for, is how it responds to corruption.”
For better or worse, the police are left to police themselves, and the reports, which together total more than 600 pages, provide the most comprehensive record available chronicling that imperfect science. They tell a colorful story not only of officers who betray the badge but also of the little-known agency charged with rooting them out.
The bureau has long been a Hollywood fascination, and derided among the rank and file as the “rat squad” since so many cases depend on one cop snitching on another. Officers who work there are, therefore, called “cheese eaters,” while rogue officers have been known as “grass eaters” (those who peddle in low-level but pervasive wrongdoing) and “meat eaters” (who are more aggressive or violent).
It took its current form in 1993, after Officer Michael Dowd and several colleagues were arrested on Long Island on charges of selling cocaine, prompting a disgusted Raymond W. Kelly, in his first stint as police commissioner, to overhaul the internal affairs process.
“I am always concerned about corruption,” Mr. Kelly, who returned as commissioner in 2002, said in an interview. “For me, myself, personally, it is absolutely critical to the good order, to the function of this department, that we have a well-staffed, a well-trained, a proactive Internal Affairs Bureau, and that’s what we have.”
The reports themselves have changed much over the years: from 81 typewritten pages packed with statistics in 1993, to 99 pages of glossy photographs but scant specifics in 2006, to a pair of skimpy 15-page summaries in 2007 and 2008. Year in, year out, they contain head-scratching examples of people sworn to uphold the law breaking it instead
continued....
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/nyregion/28iab.html?hp
A POLICE officer who was sacked after begging colleagues for sex has lost her unfair dismissal claim.
Within days of being posted Jessica Parfrey propositioned her supervisor to have an affair because “everyone knows you’re supposed to fall in love with your buddy”.
A month later, after he turned her down, she told him: “Can’t we just f***? I am a 19-year-old girl, what is wrong with you?”
The Industrial Relations Commission in Sydney heard that Ms Parfrey also offered an officer oral sex in a pub toilet and carpark and later propositioned another, saying: “I know you want me.”
She tried to call another colleague 12 times, left six text messages and then offered to help him study for his police exams by stripping off an item of clothing for every question he got correct. He refused.
Unfortunately it wasn’t all barroom BJs and Alicia-Silverstone-in-”The-Crush” propositions of the boss. Parfrey was also accused of being willing to fake evidence (allegedly saying to a partner that she’d claim she saw a suspected drunk driver behind the wheel when she only saw him 100 meters away from the car) and wanting to game the system (she wanted to attend scenes of fatal traffic accidents so that she could claim she was “f**ked up in the head” and file a hurt-on-duty claim).
So we all learned something today. It’s probably not a great idea to get involved with a crazy sex addict who’ll go down on you in a bathroom because she might have deeper issues. And it’s an even worse idea to have a person like that as an officer of the law. Unless you’re a criminal who’s watched enough porn to be prepared for a situation like this. In which case, jackpot.
http://guyism.com/2010/03/19-year-old-female-cop-fired-for-wanting-to-bone-everyone.html
Detective gets 130 lap dances, makes no arrests
March 4, 2010 9:03 p.m. PT
Prosecutors claim prostitution is back at the Colacurcio-owned clubs in a big way
By LEVI PULKKINEN
SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF
As the march toward trial continues, several of the men indicted following a sting targeting Seattle strip club mogul Frank Colacurcio Sr. now say federal authorities have no business policing vice in the city.
The prostitution and racketeering investigation, now in its fourth year, saw indictments filed against Colacurcio -- operator of Rick's strip club in Seattle and three similar establishments around the region -- and five other men associated with his company, Talents West. In indicting the elderly Colacurcio, his son, Frank Colacurcio Jr., and the others, federal prosecutors alleged all conspired to profit from prostitution at the clubs.
Objecting to a new claim by prosecutors that prostitution is back at the clubs, attorneys for one of the accused now says the government's effort has turned the FBI into "a vice squad." An attorney representing another defendant has claimed that investigatory reports show one undercover officer spent at least $16,835 buying more than 130 lap dances without making a single arrest.
Legal battles continue
The new allegations set the stage for another round of legal wrangling in the case, currently before U.S. District Court Judge Richard Jones. Prosecutors have asked Jones to restrict the two defendants still involved in day-to-day club operations -- Steven Michael Fueston and David Carl Ebert -- from doing so.
Restrictions similar to those requested are now imposed on the Colacurcios and others under indictment. Jones previously ruled Fueston and Ebert could continue working in the clubs so long as they did not speak with employees about the criminal case or allow prostitution in the clubs.
Arguing that Fueston and Ebert are in "blatant violation" of the court's order, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Tessa Gorman and Todd Greenberg requested that the men be barred from the clubs in part because of the results of a recent undercover operation at Rick's and Honey's strip club in Everett.
"Several witnesses have provided a relatively consistent account of how, during the few months immediately after the execution of the federal search warrants, the level of prostitution activity at the clubs significantly decreased," the FBI special agent leading the investigation alleged in a Feb. 17 report.
"Over time," the agent added, "these and other witnesses began to consistently report that … prostitution activities had returned to Rick's and Honey's at levels similar to what they were prior to the execution of the federal search warrants."
During eight undercover visits to the clubs in December and January, the agent told the court Seattle police and an FBI agent were propositioned by 10 dancers. Investigators also found that club management was ignoring sex acts clearly visible to the undercover officers.
Similar allegations were made public in June, when federal authorities in Seattle unsealed a grand jury indictment against Colacurcio and his business partners following a massive investigation into the clubs.
In the indictment, federal authorities accused the Colacurcios and their associates of racketeering, using interstate commerce to facilitate prostitution, money laundering and mail fraud. At issue are allegations that the strip clubs -- Rick's in Lake City, Sugar's in Shoreline, Honey's in Everett and Fox's in Parkland -- were used as fronts for prostitution that allegedly garnered the men $25 million in the preceding four years.
The indictment followed a years-long investigation that culminated in June 2008 with raids by Seattle police and federal agents on the clubs and Talents West, a Colacurcio-owned agency that hires dancers for the clubs. Federal prosecutors interviewed more than 200 witnesses, reviewed hours of recorded phone calls, surveillance video and intercepts from listening devices, and went so far as to place an undercover police officer in the club as a waitress.
Key to the prosecutors' case, according to court documents, is the payment scheme in which strippers paid $75 to $130 in daily "rent" to the Colacurcio businesses. Such an arrangement is common in Washington strip clubs, which are not allowed to sell liquor to generate profit.
"The investigation established that prostitution was rampant at each of the four strip clubs," the FBI agent leading the investigation alleged in the Feb. 17 report. "Dancers at the clubs regularly performed sex acts for customers in exchange for payment. Undercover officers posing as customers at the clubs documented scores of prostitution violations."
Defendants deny claims
As they have since pleading not guilty to the charges, the defendants contend they took appropriate steps to prevent prostitution at the clubs and deny facilitating sex there.
Since Ebert took management control of the clubs following raids there in June 2008, there has not one dancer arrested for prostitution, defense attorney Colette Tvedt told the court. Ebert, she claimed, has fired 10 employees for violations of club policies and made changes to discourage prostitution at the clubs.
Writing the court in objection to any new restrictions of her client's activities, Tvedt noted that the recent undercover actions -- like, she asserted, the larger government action -- did not end in any arrests. Had they resulted in some obvious action, she said, her client would have fired the dancers involved.
Tvedt also alleged that one undercover detective visited Talents West clubs more than 160 times during the investigation, paying somewhere between $16,835 and $18,170 to the clubs. The officer, Tvedt claimed, received "over 130 documented VIP dances and an undetermined additional number of undocumented dances."
Those dances, she claimed, did not prompt a single arrest.
"The nature of a strip club is such that offers for sex made by a dancer to a customer -- offers made in private conversation in a noisy, sexually charged environment -- are extremely difficult for event the most alert manager or owner to detect," Tvedt said. "As a result, arrests made by undercover detectives posing as customers serve an important function in notifying club owners about these types of activities."
Attorney Robert G. Chadwell went further, asserting the government has ignored a 47-year-old Court of Appeals ruling cautioning federal authorities to "guard against attempt to convert what are essentially offenses against state law into federal crimes."
"In vigorously expending its tremendous resources on investigating what -- at most -- would amount to misdemeanor acts of vice, the government in this case has blithely ignored the 9th Circuit's longstanding and unequivocal admonishment against the misuse of federal resources for prosecution of a matter of inherently local interest to law enforcement," wrote Chadwell, who represents Fueston in the criminal case.
"The government in this case has transformed the Federal Bureau of Investigation, an agency capable of investigating matters of national significance such as capital federal offenses, espionage, and international terrorism, into a vice squad," the attorney continued in court documents.
"But even the simple goals of a vice squad have not been met here. No arrests were made, no summonses were issued, and no misdemeanor charges were filed arising from the undercover investigation in December and January."
Fox's, the club which Fueston manages, was not targeted in the recent undercover operation, Chadwell added.
Tvedt and Chadwell both argued that their clients had taken all reasonable steps to prevent prostitution at the clubs, including taking steps mandated by the court.
Writing the court, Chadwell noted that municipal law has long recognized that prostitution often follows erotic entertainment.
"Historically, prostitution has occurred in and around adult entertainment establishments, regardless of location or ownership," Chadwell said. "Mr. Fueston and the co-defendants are no more responsible for this fact of life than they are for inventing the world's 'oldest profession.'"
Jones is expected to take up the case Thursday in U.S. District Court. None of the accused is currently in custody.
Of the six men initially charged, Colacurcio driver and confidant John Gilbert Conte alone has pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to probation last month.
Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or levipulkkinen@seattlepi.com.
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/416240_RICKS04.html
New Mexico State Police Ordered to Write Tickets or Face Punishment
Jeremy Jojola and Taryn Bianchin
KOB.com
March 4, 2010
Eyewitness News 4 has uncovered documentation that indicates some police officers have been mandated to write a certain number tickets per month or face possible punishment.
http://www.infowars.com/new-mexico-state-police-ordered-to-write-tickets-or-face-punishment/
NYPD Officer claims pressure to make arrestsWednesday, March 03, 2010
Jim Hoffer
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/investigators&id=7305356
NEW YORK (WABC) -- An Eyewitness News investigation talks to a police officer who reveals the pressure they are under to make quotas.
When Officer Adil Polanco dreamed of becoming a cop, it was out of a desire to help people not, he says, to harass them.
"I'm not going to keep arresting innocent people, I'm not going to keep searching people for no reason, I'm not going to keep writing people for no reason, I'm tired of this," said Adil Polanco, an NYPD Officer.
Officer Polanco says One Police Plaza's obsession with keeping crime stats down has gotten out of control. He claims Precinct Commanders relentlessly pressure cops on the street to make more arrests, and give out more summonses, all to show headquarters they have a tight grip on their neighborhoods.
"Our primary job is not to help anybody, our primary job is not to assist anybody, our primary job is to get those numbers and come back with them?" said Officer Polanco.
Eyewitness News asked, "Why do it?"
"They have to meet a quota. One arrest and twenty summonses," said Officer Polanco.
This audio recording exclusively obtained by Eyewitness News seems to back up Officer Polanco's assertion of a quota. You can listen to one officer as he lectures his rank and file officers during roll call at the 41st precinct.
"Things are not going to get any better. It's going to get a lot worse," said a police officer.
He lays out clearly that they need to bring in the numbers.
"If you think 1 and 20 is breaking your balls, guess what you're going to be doing. You're gong to be doing a lot more, a lot more than what they're saying," said the officer.
In another recording, the 41st Precinct Patrol Supervisor appears to step up the pressure to write more and more summonses:
"Next week, 25 &1, 35 & 1, and until you decide to quit this job to go to work at a Pizza Hut , this is what you're going to be doing till then. Do you understand?" asked the patrol officer.
"He's being clear, the only choice that we have is to do it," said Officer Polanco.
Eyewitness News asked, "Are you telling me they're stopping people for no reason, is that what you're saying?"
"We are stopping kids walking upstairs to their house, stopping kids going to the store, young adults. In order to keep the quota," answered Officer Polanco.
"Yeah, they locked us up for nothing," said Zebulun Colbourne.
The Colbourne brothers say they and three other friends were the victims of quotas. All were arrested a few months ago after one of them had fallen while racing each other.
Eyewitness News asked, "You fell and that's how you hurt your eye?"
"Yeah, and they just wanted to arrest us. I told them I fell but that didn't matter to them," said Elijah Colbourne.
All five were accused of engaging in tumultuous and violent conduct that caused public alarm, given a summons for unlawful assembly and locked up overnight.
Eyewitness News asked, "So you're locked up waiting to see the judge, right?"
"Yeah," answered the Colbourne brothers.
Eyewitness News asked, "Then what do they do?"
"We don't see the judge, they let us out the back door after they kept us for a day and some change," said Elijah Colbourne.
The charges were dropped, but Officer Polanco says the patrolman still got 5 summonses toward their monthly quota.
"At the end of the night you have to come back with something. You have to write somebody, you have to arrest somebody, even if the crime is not committed, the number's there. So our choice is to come up with the number," said Officer Polanco.
One Police Plaza declined our requests to interview the 41st precinct commander. But, Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said, "Police Officers like others who receive compensation are provided productivity goals and they are expected to work."
Officer Polanco says if they are just goals, why are officers who fail to make them, re-assigned to different shifts or relocated far from home.
It's the consequences of not making the numbers or quotas, he says, that forces officers to give out bogus summonses.
"I cannot be more honest than I've been. There's no reason for me to lie, there's no reason for me to get into the trouble I am, cause I just could've kept quiet and made the money," said Officer Polanco.
If you have a tip about this or any other issue you'd like investigated, please give our tipline a call at 877-TIP-NEWS. You may also e-mail us at the.investigators@abc.com and follow Jim Hoffer on Twitter at twitter.com/nycinvestigates
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/investigators&id=7305356
Clackamas man exercises free speech rights by giving cops the finger
By Steven Mayes, The Oregonian
February 28, 2010, 6:29PM
ekas.JPGThomas Boyd/The OregonianRobert Ekas filed a federal lawsuit to defend what he says is his First Amendment right to express himself by flipping off police officers. “I did it because I have the right to do it,” Ekas said. “We all have that right, and we all need to test it. Otherwise we’ll lose it."
When Robert J. Ekas decided to exercise his right to free speech, he didn't open his mouth.
He hoisted his middle finger.
His single-digit protests, aimed at Clackamas County sheriff's deputies last year, resulted in verbal showdowns, traffic tickets and, ultimately, a federal lawsuit.
Giving a police officer the finger may be a rude and ill-advised gesture, but it is not against the law, legal experts say.
"The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently held that speech may not be prohibited simply because some may find it offensive," said Ira P. Robbins, a law professor from American University in Washington, D.C. "Virtually every time someone is arrested for this, assuming there's no other criminal behavior ... the case is either dismissed before trial or the person is convicted at trial and wins on appeal."
Ekas, who represents himself, sued the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office and three of its employees, seeking corrective action and unspecified damages. Assistant County Counsel Edward S. McGlone III declined comment on the lawsuit.
Ekas, 46, a retired Silicon Valley systems analyst turned mathematician who lives in the Clackamas area, claims the traffic stops were acts of retaliation that violated his First and Fourth Amendment rights. He also wants the court to rule that the Sheriff's Office fails to discipline employees who "chill citizens' ... free speech rights."
Ekas gave the finger to a deputy in July 2007 while driving near Clackamas Town Center, according to the lawsuit. With the deputy in pursuit, Ekas said he opened his sunroof and again extended a middle finger. The deputy turned on his flashing lights. Ekas stopped and was cited for an illegal lane change and improper display of license plates. He was acquitted of the charges.
In August 2007, Ekas flipped off another deputy. Ekas again was detained but not issued a citation. He claims he was harassed and intimidated by the deputy and a sergeant who was dispatched after Ekas requested a supervisor be sent to the scene.
Ekas said his actions are a political statement and a protest of police violence.
"They kill unarmed people. That bothers me," Ekas said of police officers. He cited the deaths of James P. Chasse Jr. and Aaron Campbell at the hands of Portland police and the fatal shooting of Fouad Kaady by Clackamas County officers.
"What I am expressing is the right to dissent. That is to say, 'Look, the policies that you've implemented ... the things you've done in our community are offensive to me. Here's my response to that offense,'" Ekas said.
"I did it because I have the right to do it," Ekas said. "We all have that right, and we all need to test it. Otherwise we'll lose it."
Ekas's method of expressing himself has a long history.
The ancient Romans called it "digitus impudicus" -- the impudent finger.
Police have been known to retaliate with traffic tickets or making arrests for disorderly conduct, but criminal charges are routinely dismissed. Criminal law "generally aims to protect persons, property, or the state from serious harm. But use of the middle finger simply does not raise these concerns in most situations," Robbins wrote in a law review article, "Digitus Impudicus: The Middle Finger and the Law."
A Pittsburgh man, David Hackbart, won a $50,000 settlement last year after being cited for disorderly conduct for flipping off an officer. The charge was "retaliatory" and violated his constitutional rights, a federal judge ruled.
The officer's "response to Hackbart's exercise of his First Amendment right" was to charge him with a crime, said U.S. District Judge David Cercone.
In West Linn, Police Chief Terry Timeus took a more diplomatic approach.
After a man's run-ins with police escalated from giving officers the finger to following them on patrol, accusing them of retaliation and shining his headlights on them during traffic stops, Timeus stepped in to try to defuse the situation.
The police chief met with the man and told him the pattern of confrontation and harassment "isn't going to accomplish anything."
Reached at his home, the man said he suffers from anxiety and depression and asked not to be identified. He acknowledged his history of confrontation and grievances with police but said he wanted to move on.
"Chief Timeus has made a difference," the man said, "and I don't want to jeopardize that."
-- Steve Mayes
http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2010/02/clackamas_man_exercises_free_s.html
Woman, 61, arrested for asking 'Why‘
By Rhonda Cook
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Four women, two of them well into middle age, were discussing funeral plans for a friend when an Atlanta police officer told them to move.
Three did but one asked “why.” In answer to her question, Minnie Carey, then 61, was handcuffed, put into a police wagon and taken to jail, where she was held for nine hours.
The Citizen Review Board found that Atlanta Police officer Brandy Dolson had violated APD policies and had falsely arrested Carey.
“I was blown away,” Carey told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I had heard about people in the community being harassed by the police … It really didn’t shock me as much as it probably would have if I had not heard of people going to jail for no reason. I figured I was just another one.
“But I had the right to ask ‘why' I had to move,” she said.
The Citizen Review Board – resurrected after the 2006 fatal police shooting of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston in her home – voted in a recent meeting to sustain Carey’s false arrest claim and the allegation that the officer had violated the department’s arrest policies.
“This case will illustrate to the public how OPS [Office of Professional Standards] responds [to allegations of police misconduct] … There have been some concerns that OPS has not sustained complaints,” said Seth Kirschenbaum, an attorney who is vice-chairman of the board.
“We know, historically, OPS investigations drag on,” said another board member, Sharese Shields.
Still, the board held back on its punishment recommendation to APD until the board’s investigator could gather more information about Dolson’s history with the department, how many public complaints had been filed against him, what kind of complaints have been brought and the outcome of those cases.
Kirschenbaum said in a hearing last week at least 18 complaints had been filed against Dolson since 2001, but only three – all those traffic issues – had been sustained while three other complaints are pending.
Dolson appeared when the Citizen Review Board called him for an interview last year, but he refused to answer questions. The police union has told all APD officers that the department’s policy only requires that they show up when the Citizen Review Board calls, but they don’t have to answer questions because they may not be protected from criminal charges.
Dolson, reached at his home Wednesday, declined to comment. APD spokesman Lt. Curtis Davenport said Dolson is "suspended without pay for an unrelated incident."
Davenport also said the OPS case had been returned to Zone 5 with questions so the internal affairs case remains pending. APD’s Office of Professional Standards has not contacted Carey since her initial interview last summer, five months after the incident, she said.
“What we have here is an abuse of power. He abused his power of having a badge and a gun,” said Kirschenbaum. “That [now] 62-year-old woman got handcuffed, put in a paddy wagon and held in jail for nine hours."
Carey’s only offense, Kirschenbaum said, was that she “was more boisterous than they would have liked when she asked ‘why’… It was just the police wanted these people to move. That [talking on the sidewalk] appears to be the only thing these ladies were doing. There’s no basis to arrest someone for talking loudly.”
Carey and one of the women who was with her that afternoon said Carey was not loud.
The accounts provided by Carey, Dolson, Dolson’s partner and witnesses are essentially the same, according to records.
Carey met three friends on the sidewalk outside the Boulevard Lotto convenience store mid-afternoon last March 26, and for a few moments they talked about upcoming services for a friend who had died after she was hit by a car in front of the store where they were standing.
Dolson and his partner pulled up and told the four women to “move it.”
All agreed that the women were not blocking the sidewalk and that the women were the only people on the sidewalk.
Three women started walking away but Carey didn’t, asking “why” instead.
An account given by Dolson's partner, Jamie Nelson, was that Carey “yelled ‘why’ with a loud manner and refused to leave after we instructed her several times to do so.”
Carey and one of the women with her, 56-year-old Diane Ward, told the AJC there was no shouting.
All the same, Dolson’s answer to Carey’s question was “because I said so,” according to the file.
“I’m a citizen and I’m a taxpayer and I have a right to be here. I’m merely trying to find out about a sister’s funeral,” Carey responded, according to records.
That's when Carey was handcuffed, her hands behind her back, and put into the back of the patrol car – the only time she has been arrested in the 15 years she has lived in Atlanta.
Forty-five minutes later she was moved to a police wagon with the doors closed despite the heat, where she waited another 45 minutes with others accused of violating city ordinances.
“I was very upset and very angry. Here I am being treated as if I’m not a human, not a citizen of this country,” Carey said in an interview. “I was in this little hot box. There was no air. I was perspiring so much my glasses were sliding off my face.”
On her signature, Carey was released from the city jail around 12:30 a.m. the next day. She took a taxi home to her apartment on Boulevard.
Carey, a diabetic, had gone without food until she got home hours later. She said the handcuffs caused her hands to swell.
Carey had three court dates – the first time her case was not heard because there was no prosecutor and the second and third times it was not heard because Dolson was not in court.
The disorderly conduct charge was dismissed at the third court hearing, she said.
"I had heard about people in the community being harassed by the police,” Carey said. “A neighbor of mine went to jail for sitting on her sister’s car. It was racial profiling because of the community.”
Davenport, the APD spokesman, said it is against departmental policy “to do any sort of racial profiling and any employee doing so will be disciplined to the fullest.” Dolson, the officer who arrested Carey, is black.
Carey said, however, that patrol officers -- regardless of their race -- seem to focus on her neighborhood, and others have had experiences similar to hers.
“It was horrible. It was absolutely horrible,” Carey said. “I couldn’t believe you could just pick people up off the street. It’s a constant problem with the police over here.”
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/woman-61-arrested-for-309285.html?cxtype=rss_news_128746
Victim of police brutality (sodomized with a taser) is awarded six-figure settlement to avoid taking case to court
Police do not admit wrong-doing
Taxpayers pay the fine, while perpetrators escape punishment..
http://carlosmiller.com/2010/02/10/man-sodomized-with-taser-by-boise-cops-will-receive-six-figure-settlement/
Man sodomized with Taser will receive six-figure settlement
February 10th, 2010
By Carlos Miller
The City of Boise wants to make it clear that they are not admitting guilt in the case of a man sodomized by Boise police with a Taser gun.
But they are also dishing out an estimated $150,000 to Gerald Amidon to prevent this matter from going to court.
In some circles, this is called “hush money.”
Details of the settlement were not made public, but the following memo was sent out to officers last week, according to the Boise Guardian:
“On Monday, February 1, 2010 the City reached a settlement agreement in Federal Court in a civil case filed against four Boise Police officers. In his complaint, the plaintiff alleged the four Officers violated his civil rights by using excessive force during his 2009 arrest.
The settlement was reached during a mediation session with a Federal Judge. Present were the Judge, representatives of Boise City, as well as the four Officers.
The settlement agreement contained a confidentiality agreement so all the details were not released. It was agreed that reaching a settlement now would be in the best interest of all parties. The settlement contained a provision that officers were making no admission to violating the plaintiff’s civil rights.”
Although the officers did not admit guilt, a transcript of the tape recording of the incident pretty much confirms the allegations. Amidon also suffered burn marks to his rectum.
Cop: Do you feel this?
Suspect: Yes, sir.
Cop: Do you feel that? That’s my …
Suspect: Okay
Cop: … Taser up your ass.
Suspect: Okay
Cop: So don’t move.
Suspect: I’m trying not to. I can’t breathe.
Cop: Now do you feel this in your balls?
Suspect: I do, sir. I’m not going to move. I’m not gonna move.
Cop: Now I’m gonna tase your balls if you move again.
(A full minute goes by)
Cop: Okay, I’m gonna take this Taser out of your asshole now. Are you going to fight with me?
Suspect: No, not at all, sir.
Cop: (to another cop) So far, for the last two minutes, he’s been cooperative. But then my Taser’s in his ass.
But the incident is far from over. One of the cops involved in the sexual assault has filed a claim against the city for $ 2 million alleging that he was “singled out due to the negative publicity surrounding the arrest incident.”
And for that, I will take partial credit.
Jordan Miles, Teen Violinist: Beat By Police Over Mt. Dew Bottle
PITTSBURGH — The photos taken by Jordan Miles' mother show his face covered with raw, red bruises, his cheek and lip swollen, his right eye swollen shut. A bald spot mars the long black dreadlocks where the 18-year-old violist says police tore them from his head.
Now, 10 days after plainclothes officers stopped him on a street and arrested him after a struggle that they say revealed a soda bottle under his coat, not the gun they suspected, his right eye is still slightly swollen and bloodshot. His head is shaved. The three white officers who arrested him have been reassigned. And his mother says she is considering a lawsuit.
"I feel that my son was racially profiled," Terez Miles said. "It's a rough neighborhood; it was after dark. ... They assumed he was up to no good because he's black. My son, he knows nothing about the streets at all. He's had a very sheltered life, he's very quiet, he doesn't know police officers sit in cars and stalk people like that."
A judge continued the case until Feb. 18 after the officers failed to appear at a hearing Thursday, Miles' attorney, Kerrington Lewis, said.
The police department is saying little as it investigates and isn't releasing the officers' names. Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said that the city is investigating whether the officers' actions were justified and that if they weren't, "they will be held accountable for those actions."
"The incident was very troubling to me, and we're taking it very seriously," Ravenstahl told reporters. "It seems as if there was a tremendous amount of force used."
Miles' family describes him as a studious teenager who plays the viola for a jazz band and the orchestra at Pittsburgh's prestigious Creative and Performing Arts High School.
The confrontation began around 11 p.m. Jan. 12, when the teenager walked out of his mother's home and headed to his grandmother's, where he spends most nights. His mother complimented him on the new jacket he had gotten for his birthday.
It looks handsome," she said, smiling as he walked down the front steps.
As Miles walked up the block, he noticed three men sitting in a white car, "but I thought nothing of it," he said.
The criminal complaint says Miles was standing against a building "as if he was trying to avoid being seen." But he says he was walking when the men jumped out of the car.
"Where's the money?" one shouted, according to Miles. "Where's the gun? Where's the drugs?" the other two said. "It was intimidating; I thought I was going to be robbed," Miles said.
That's when he says he took off back to his mother's house but slipped on the icy sidewalk. Before he could pull himself up, Miles said, the men were at his back.
"That's when they started beating me, punching, kicking me, choking me," he said.
Not until 15 minutes later, when uniformed officers drove up in a van and Miles overheard their conversation, did he realize he had been arrested, he said. Initially, when the handcuffs were clamped around his wrists, he thought he was being abducted, he said.
The police believed Miles, who appeared to have something heavy in his pocket, was carrying a gun, according to the affidavit. The police say they used a stun gun on the teenager.
According to the affidavit, the object in Miles' pocket turned out to be a bottle of Mountain Dew. But Miles says he didn't have anything in his pocket and rarely drinks Mountain Dew.
"The story just doesn't make sense when you read the affidavit," said Lewis, the teen's attorney.
Miles said the family is considering suing the police department and the officers.
"I knew that he hadn't done anything wrong," his mother said. "That's just not an option for Jordan."
Pittsburgh police have reassigned the three officers and put them back in uniform while the city investigates, spokeswoman Diane Richard said. She declined to say whether racial allegations are part of the probe.
Meanwhile, Jordan Miles says he awaits a physician's approval to return to school and is suffering from nightmares and flashbacks.
Once he's done with school, he says, he hopes to attend Penn State University – and study crime scene investigation.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/24/jordan-miles-teen-violini_n_434772.html
Bronx men to file $2M suit against city after cops arrested them for 'crack' that was really candy
BY Brendan Brosh
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Cops accused Cesar Rodriguez and Jose Pena of having crack cocaine in their work van, but it was only coconut candy, they said Friday.
Charges were dropped after tests showed they were telling the truth, but the two men plan to file a $2 million suit against the NYPD.
"I spent five days in jail for possession of coconut candy," said Rodriguez, 33, an ex-con who works as a plumber's assistant.
He and Pena were parked near an Arthur Ave. bodega Jan. 15 when two police officers asked to search their green Chevy Venture van, the men said.
The cops found pieces of the crystalline candy - known as crema de coco and sold in bodegas across the city - in a plastic baggie.
Officer Anthony Burgos of the 48th Precinct arrested the duo for drug possession despite their insistence they were guilty only of a sweet tooth, Rodriguez said.
"I kept telling him it is candy," he said.
Rodriguez and Pena were locked up on a Friday night and didn't see a judge for arraignment until that Sunday, said their lawyer, Neil Wollerstein.
Pena was released after arraignment, but Rodriguez couldn't make the $5,000 bail a judge imposed because of a prior armed robbery conviction. He wasn't let go until this Thursday, the lawyer said.
"This all could have been avoided if they believed us and tasted the candy," said Pena, 48, a father of four boys who works with Rodriguez. "I thought my life was over."
Wollerstein said cops ignored proper procedure.
"They could have called for a field test [on the substance] and let these men go," he said as the notice of claim was filed with the controller's office.
"Either these two officers failed to follow procedure and were completely incompetent or they intentionally arrested these men for possession of coconut candy."
Stephen Reed, a spokesman for the Bronx district attorney's office, confirmed all charges were dropped.
"This wasn't a narcotic substance," he said.
The NYPD declined to comment.
The confection at the center of the case is widely available. It comes shaped like a rod and wrapped in plain cellophane.
Rodriguez said he crumbled his into pieces and put it in a Hello Kitty sandwich bag so it would be easier to eat while driving.
He got hooked on the sweet because his grandmother used to make it - and has no plans of quitting his habit.
"It just melts in your mouth," he said. "I eat this every day, and I'm not going to stop because of what I've just been through."
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/01/22/2010-01-22_bronx_men_to_file_2m_suit_against_city_after_cops_arrested_them_for_crack_that_w.html
Officer: I gave favors to Peterson during probe
Testimony reveals details, missteps in investigation of ex-cop’s wife’s death
Jan. 22, 2010
JOLIET, Ill. - The lead investigator in the death of Drew Peterson's third wife said he never collected any forensics evidence from the home where her body was found in a dry bathtub, telling a pretrial hearing Friday he never considered the possibility she was murdered.
Retired Illinois State Police Sgt. Patrick Collins, testifying at a hearing to determine what, if any, "hearsay" evidence prosecutors can use during Peterson's murder trial, also said he granted Peterson favors during the investigation because he was a fellow police officer.
Peterson, a former Bolingbrook police officer, has pleaded not guilty in Kathleen Savio's 2004 death. Officials exhumed her body and ruled her death a homicide only after Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, disappeared in 2007. He hasn't been charged in her disappearance, but authorities say he's the only suspect.
Collins said he even allowed Peterson to sit in on questioning of Stacy Peterson as investigators inquired about Drew Peterson's whereabouts the day Savio died — something Collins acknowledged was unusual. He said Drew Peterson even spoke up to answer one question to his then-wife about what he and Stacy had eaten for breakfast that day.
Among the potential evidence crime technicians failed to collect from Savio's home was a glass of orange juice left on a counter and the clothes she had been wearing that day, Collins testified. He also never interviewed members of Savio's family.
One of the things that led him to believe Savio's death was accidental was that he found no defensive wounds on her body.
But when someone else at the scene suggested Savio may have received a gash on her head by accidentally hitting the back if the tub, Collins said he never tried to verify that. Collins also didn't attempt to account for why her body was slumped forward when investigators arrived; he said he didn't ask if anyone had touched or moved her body.
Collins also said it never occurred to him that the scene in the bathroom might have been staged. After Stacy Peterson's disappearance, authorities said they did believe Savio's death was a homicide staged to look like an accident.
Collins stopped short of admitting he was ever wrong to believe Savio's death could only be accidental, though he conceded his investigation could have been more thorough.
"If I had to do certain things over, yes, I would," he said.
Defensive on the stand
Both prosecutors and the defense hit Collins with tough questions, with prosecutors trying to show he could have gathered evidence pointing to Peterson's involvement in Savio's death. For their part, the defense appeared to want to demonstrate that the investigation was so shoddy that it would be impossible to discover the identity of any killer now.
On a few occasions, an otherwise calm Collins appeared defensive on the stand, saying at one point in response to questions about the initial Savio investigation, "I'm not going to beat myself up right now."
Although the hearing is intended to focus on "hearsay" evidence, Collins was the latest witness to focus on direct evidence that had nothing to do with "hearsay." Prosecutors haven't explained why they have called such witnesses.
At Thursday's hearing, Peterson's stepbrother, Thomas Morphey, described how he believed he might have helped Drew Peterson dispose of Stacy's body in a large blue barrel. She has not been seen for more than two years.
He said Peterson suggested when they talked on Oct. 27, 2007, that he intended to kill his fourth wife because she planned to divorce him, win custody of their children and take Peterson's money.
Morphey stopped short of saying Peterson directly admitted murdering Stacy and he said the two men never talked about what was in the barrel. Morphey also testified that he had told Peterson that he always assumed he had killed Savio, but that Peterson denied it.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35021365/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
Medical Examiner: Death in cop custody a homicide
Man died of ‘blunt trauma’ to head, torso
By Marie Szaniszlo and Laura Crimaldi
Saturday, January 23, 2010 -
A 45-year-old man’s death in police custody at a North Andover sobriety checkpoint was caused by a beating and has been ruled a homicide, the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said.
But two months after Kenneth Howe of Worcester died, all of the officers involved in the case remain on full duty, his lawyer said.
And the account given by a state trooper differs from the one initially issued by Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett’s Office.
“I’m not suprised, the way this investigation is proceeding,” the lawyer, Frances King, said.
The ME’s office determined the cause of death was “blunt impact of head and torso with compression of chest,” with “atherosclerotic and hypertensive cardiovascular disease” as “other contributory conditions.”
The homicide ruling assigns no blame or criminal wrongdoing, the medical examiner’s office said.
Steve O’Connell, a spokesman for Blodgett’s office, which is investigating Howe’s death, said investigators have conducted more than 50 interviews and are awaiting a final autopsy report and forensic results. Asked whether the probe is now a murder investigation, O’Connell said: “We’re not characterizing it.”
State police spokesman David Procopio declined to comment, other than to say the status of the troopers involved has not changed. North Andover police and the Essex Sheriff’s department referred all questions to Blodgett’s office.
Howe was a passenger in a car stopped on Thanksgiving Eve at a checkpoint manned by state and North Andover police and sheriff’s personnel when a trooper saw him making “furtive” movements, according to a statement Blodgett’s office released two days after the incident.
Howe “jumped out the window, struck the trooper and fled,” according to that statement, and was handcuffed after a brief foot chase and an “ensuing struggle.” Police later found 15 mg of Oxycodone, for which Howe had a prescription, in his pocket, Blodgett’s office said.
In her own statement, trooper Jodi A. Gerardi says Howe hit her twice before he got out of the vehicle, striking her a third time with the door. Gerardi yelled “help,” she says, and several troopers and town police ran after Howe, who “continued to assault everyone in his path” as a pit bull he released charged at officers.
Howe “was eventually taken to the ground, where he continued to disobey orders to ‘stop resisting’ by several other officers,” according to Gerardi’s report, which says he was charged with assaulting a police officer, assault with a dangerous weapon, resisting arrest and possession of marijuana and a controlled substance, OxyContin. The report makes no mention of Oxycodone.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20100123medical_examiner_death_in_cop_custody_a_homicide_man_died_of_blunt_trauma_to_head_torso/srvc=home&position=4
Pennsylvania man beat up and arrested after questioning officer’s illegal parking (Updated)
January 22nd, 2010
A Pennsylvania man who questioned an off-duty state police officer about parking a pick-up truck in the fire lane of a grocery store ended up having cops follow him home, beating him up and arresting him on disorderly conduct charges.
Ron Doyle was also charged with DUI, but he said he didn’t drink until after he got home from the store. His blood-alcohol content level was .108, which is above the legal limit of .08.
Ron DoylePolice say he was belligerent, insulting and took an “aggressive stance” when he opened the door.
He said they were the aggressive ones, kicking his door in when he did not open it immediately. He said they also tackled him to the floor where he ended up with several cuts to his face.
The truth may lie in a dispatch tape because Doyle dialed 911 after he saw three state police cars pull in front of his duplex. He kept an open phone line with the dispatcher during the entire exchange with police, according to the Chambersburg Public Opinion.
But the local police department is refusing to release that tape because “the public interest in disclosure does not outweigh the interest in nondisclosure.”
In other words, the local police department is covering up for the state police officers, which is not surprising.
Hopefully, they get sued for withholding public records.
The police side of the story has already been contradicted by a pair of witnesses who observed the initial interaction in front of a local grocery store.
Jeremiah Snyder told Public Opinion Monday that narrative did not fit with what he saw as he and his wife walked out of Giant the afternoon of Jan. 10.
He said Doyle walked up to a truck parked in the fire lane, knocked on the truck’s window and said something to the man sitting in the driver’s seat about being parked in the fire lane.
He said the man flashed a badge and told Doyle the badge gave him the right to park there.
“My wife and I looked at each other, but kept walking,” he said.
He said Doyle did not appear to be drunk, “in any way, shape or form.”
He said he also did not hear Doyle swear or even raise his voice at the trooper during the encounter.
Doyle is a retired U.S. Marine who has worked as a civilian police officer on military bases. His preliminary hearing on the matter was postponed indefinitely.
http://carlosmiller.com/2010/01/22/pennsylvania-police-beat-up-and-arrested-after-questioning-officers-illegal-parking/#comment-18872
FOLLOW-UP: Former Deputy Paul Schene Says He Beat Teenage Girl Because He Was Afraid of Her
By Caleb Hannan in Crime & Punishment
Wednesday, Jan. 20 2010 @ 10:12AM
Video: http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/01/former_deputy_paul_schene_says.php
It's long past time for Paul Schene to man up. The King County Sheriff's Deputy who lost his job after beating 15-year-old Malika Calhoun in a SeaTac holding cell first said he'd attacked the girl because she injured his shin kicking off her shoe. Then, when video was released showing him accidentally kicking the cell's metal toilet, and thus injuring himself, he wisely shut up. Until yesterday.
That's when he testified for the first time about his version of the events that were caught on tape in November of 2008.
As The Seattle Times reports, Schene defended his actions as appropriate because he said Calhoun had made an "angry face" at him, kicked her shoe deliberately at his groin and because he was "afraid of being injured by her." Schene also said he followed police academy protocol when he kicked Calhoun, grabbed her by the hair, threw her to the ground and punched her multiple times while she was cuffed.
It's unknown what effect Schene's testimony had on jurors. But as a representative of everyone in the world with working retinas, I can say the only effect it had on me was to feel pity for the man who lives his life in fear of teenage girls throwing tantrums.
TSA Plants "White Powder" On Unsuspecting Passenger
Daniel Rubin: It was no joke at security gate
By Daniel Rubin
Rebecca Solomon said the security worker's action "was such a violation."
In the tense new world of air travel, we're stripped of shoes, told not to take too much shampoo on board, frowned on if we crack a smile.
The last thing we expect is a joke from a Transportation Security Administration screener - particularly one this stupid.
Rebecca Solomon is 22 and a student at the University of Michigan, and on Jan. 5 she was flying back to school after holiday break. She made sure she arrived at Philadelphia International Airport 90 minutes before takeoff, given the new regulations.
She would be flying into Detroit on Northwest Airlines, the same city and carrier involved in the attempted bombing on Christmas, just 10 days before. She was tense.
What happened to her lasted only 20 seconds, but she says they were the longest 20 seconds of her life.
After pulling her laptop out of her carry-on bag, sliding the items through the scanning machines, and walking through a detector, she went to collect her things.
A TSA worker was staring at her. He motioned her toward him.
Then he pulled a small, clear plastic bag from her carry-on - the sort of baggie that a pair of earrings might come in. Inside the bag was fine, white powder.
She remembers his words: "Where did you get it?"
Two thoughts came to her in a jumble: A terrorist was using her to sneak bomb-detonating materials on the plane. Or a drug dealer had made her an unwitting mule, planting coke or some other trouble in her bag while she wasn't looking.
She'd left her carry-on by her feet as she handed her license and boarding pass to a security agent at the beginning of the line.
Answer truthfully, the TSA worker informed her, and everything will be OK.
Solomon, 5-foot-3 and traveling alone, looked up at the man in the black shirt and fought back tears.
Put yourself in her place and count out 20 seconds. Her heart pounded. She started to sweat. She panicked at having to explain something she couldn't.
Now picture her expression as the TSA employee started to smile.
Just kidding, he said. He waved the baggie. It was his.
And so she collected her things, stunned, and the tears began to fall.
Another passenger, a woman traveling to Colorado, consoled her as others who had witnessed the confrontation went about their business. Solomon and the woman walked to their gates, where each called for security and reported what had happened.
A joke? You're not serious. Was he hitting on her? Was he flexing his muscle? Who at a time of heightened security and rattled nerves would play so cavalierly with a passenger's emotions?
When someone is trying to blow planes out of the sky, what is a TSA employee doing with his eyes off the ball?
When she complained to airport security, Solomon said, she was told the TSA worker had been training the staff to detect contraband. She was shocked that no one took him off the floor, she said.
"It was such a violation," the Wynnewood native told me by phone. "I'd come early. I'd done everything right. And they were kidding about it."
I ran her story past Ann Davis, regional TSA spokeswoman, who said she knew nothing to contradict the young traveler's account.
Davis said privacy law prevents her from identifying the TSA employee. The law prevents her from disclosing what sort of discipline he might have received.
"The TSA views this employee's behavior to be highly inappropriate and unprofessional," she wrote. "We can assure travelers this employee has been disciplined by TSA management at Philadelphia International Airport, and he has expressed remorse for his actions."
Maybe he's been punished enough. That Solomon's father, Jeffrey, is a Center City litigator might mean this story isn't over.
In the meantime, I think the TSA worker should spend time following passengers through the scanners, handing them their shoes. Maybe he could tie them, too.
Update: Ann Davis, the TSA spokeswoman, said this afternoon that the worker is no longer employed by the agency as of today. She said privacy laws prevented her from saying if he was fired or left on his own.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20100121_Daniel_Rubin__It_was_no_joke_at_security_gate.html
Police fight cellphone recordings
Witnesses taking audio of officers arrested, charged with illegal surveillance
By Daniel Rowinski, New England Center For Investigative Reporting | January 12, 2010
Simon Glik, a lawyer, was walking down Tremont Street in Boston when he saw three police officers struggling to extract a plastic bag from a teenager’s mouth. Thinking their force seemed excessive for a drug arrest, Glik pulled out his cellphone and began recording.
Within minutes, Glik said, he was in handcuffs.
“One of the officers asked me whether my phone had audio recording capabilities,’’ Glik, 33, said recently of the incident, which took place in October 2007. Glik acknowledged that it did, and then, he said, “my phone was seized, and I was arrested.’’
The charge? Illegal electronic surveillance.
Jon Surmacz, 34, experienced a similar situation. Thinking that Boston police officers were unnecessarily rough while breaking up a holiday party in Brighton he was attending in December 2008, he took out his cellphone and began recording.
Police confronted Surmacz, a webmaster at Boston University. He was arrested and, like Glik, charged with illegal surveillance.
There are no hard statistics for video recording arrests. But the experiences of Surmacz and Glik highlight what civil libertarians call a troubling misuse of the state’s wiretapping law to stifle the kind of street-level oversight that cellphone and video technology make possible.
“The police apparently do not want witnesses to what they do in public,’’ said Sarah Wunsch, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, who helped to get the criminal charges against Surmacz dismissed.
Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll rejected the notion that police are abusing the law to block citizen oversight, saying the department trains officers about the wiretap law. “If an individual is inappropriately interfering with an arrest that could cause harm to an officer or another individual, an officer’s primary responsibility is to ensure the safety of the situation,’’ she said.
In 1968, Massachusetts became a “two-party’’ consent state, one of 12 currently in the country. Two-party consent means that all parties to a conversation must agree to be recorded on a telephone or other audio device; otherwise, the recording of conversation is illegal. The law, intended to protect the privacy rights of individuals, appears to have been triggered by a series of high-profile cases involving private detectives who were recording people without their consent.
In arresting people such as Glik and Surmacz, police are saying that they have not consented to being recorded, that their privacy rights have therefore been violated, and that the citizen action was criminal.
“The statute has been misconstrued by Boston police,’’ said June Jensen, the lawyer who represented Glik and succeeded in getting his charges dismissed. The law, she said, does not prohibit public recording of anyone. “You could go to the Boston Common and snap pictures and record if you want; you can do that.’’
Ever since the police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1991 was videotaped, and with the advent of media-sharing websites like Facebook and YouTube, the practice of openly recording police activity has become commonplace. But in Massachusetts and other states, the arrests of street videographers, whether they use cellphones or other video technology, offers a dramatic illustration of the collision between new technology and policing practices.
“Police are not used to ceding power, and these tools are forcing them to cede power,’’ said David Ardia, director of the Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.
Ardia said the proliferation of cellphone and other technology has equipped people to record actions in public. “As a society, we should be asking ourselves whether we want to make that into a criminal activity,’’ he said.
In Pennsylvania, another two-party state, individuals using cellphones to record police activities have also ended up in police custody.
But one Pennsylvania jurisdiction has reaffirmed individuals’ right to videotape in public. Police in Spring City and East Vincent Township agreed to adopt a written policy confirming the legality of videotaping police while on duty. The policy was hammered out as part of a settlement between authorities and ACLU attorneys representing a Spring City man who had been arrested several times last year for following police and taping them.
In Massachusetts, Wunsch said Attorney General Martha Coakley and police chiefs should be informing officers not to abuse the law by charging civilians with illegally recording them in public.
The cases are the courts’ concern, said Coakley spokesman Harry Pierre. “At this time, this office has not issued any advisory or opinion on this issue.’’
Massachusetts has seen several cases in which civilians were charged criminally with violating the state’s electronic surveillance law for recording police, including a case that was reviewed by the Supreme Judicial Court.
Michael Hyde, a 31-year-old musician, began secretly recording police after he was stopped in Abington in late 1998 and the encounter turned testy. He then used the recording as the basis for a harassment complaint. The police, in turn, charged Hyde with illegal wiretapping. Focusing on the secret nature of the recording, the SJC upheld the conviction in 2001.
“Secret tape recording by private individuals has been unequivocally banned, and, unless and until the Legislature changes the statute, what was done here cannot be done lawfully,’’ the SJC ruled in a 4-to-2 decision.
In a sharply worded dissent, Chief Justice Margaret Marshall criticized the majority view of a law that, in effect, punished citizen watchdogs and allowed police officers to conceal possible misconduct behind a “cloak of privacy.’’
“Citizens have a particularly important role to play when the official conduct at issue is that of the police,’’ Marshall wrote. “Their role cannot be performed if citizens must fear criminal reprisals when they seek to hold government officials responsible by recording, secretly recording on occasion, an interaction between a citizen and a police officer.’’
Since that ruling, the outcome of Massachusetts criminal cases involving the recording of police by citizens has turned mainly on this question of secret vs. public recording.
Jeffrey Manzelli, 46, a Cambridge sound engineer, was convicted of illegal wiretapping and disorderly conduct for recording MBTA police at an antiwar rally on Boston Common in 2002. Though he said he had openly recorded the officer, his conviction was upheld in 2007 on the grounds that he had made the recording using a microphone hidden in the sleeve of his jacket.
Peter Lowney, 39, a political activist from Newton, was convicted of illegal wiretapping in 2007 after Boston University police accused him of hiding a camera in his coat during a protest on Commonwealth Avenue.
Charges of illegal wiretapping against documentary filmmaker and citizen journalist Emily Peyton were not prosecuted, however, because she had openly videotaped police arresting an antiwar protester in December 2007 at a Greenfield grocery store plaza, first from the parking lot and then from her car. Likewise with Simon Glik and Jon Surmacz; their cases were eventually dismissed, a key factor being the open way they had used their cellphones.
Surmacz said he never thought that using his cellphone to record police in public might be a crime. “One of the reasons I got my phone out . . . was from going to YouTube where there are dozens of videos of things like this,’’ said Surmacz, a webmaster at BU who is also a part-time producer at Boston.com.
It took five months for Surmacz, with the ACLU, to get the charges of illegal wiretapping and disorderly conduct dismissed. Surmacz said he would do it again.
“Because I didn’t do anything wrong,’’ he said. “Had I recorded an officer saving someone’s life, I almost guarantee you that they wouldn’t have come up to me and say, ‘Hey, you just recorded me saving that person’s life. You’re under arrest.’ ’’
The New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University is an investigative reporting collaborative. This story was done under the guidance of BU professors Dick Lehr and Mitchell Zuckoff.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/01/12/police_fight_cellphone_recordings/
Deputy accused of having sex while working security at hotel
Regional Report
December 02, 2009|By Walter Pacheco, Orlando Sentinel
The Orange County Sheriff's Office disciplined a veteran deputy caught having sex while working off-duty security at a hotel that hosted Gay Days events.
Witnesses at the Royal Plaza Resort told investigators they saw Master Deputy Bryan Villella and another man having sex in an unlocked conference rooms this summer. Villella worked security at the hotel while off duty.
Sheriff's investigators said Villella, 45, violated the agency's moral conduct policy. Supervisors docked him 150 vacation hours, placed him on one-year probation and assigned him to another beat. Villella is a 23-year-veteran of the Sheriff's Office.
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2009-12-02/news/0912020028_1_gay-days-events-front-desk-investigators
Small Town Illinois Sheriff Charged With Pot Dealing And Murder-For-Hire
Justin Elliott | January 5, 2010, 9:48AM
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/gallatin_sheriff_raymond_martin_drugs_corruption_a.php?ref=fpa
Raymond Martin had been sheriff in tiny Gallatin County, Illinois, for 20 years. So when he was arrested on federal drug and gun charges last May for allegedly running a large-scale marijuana dealing operation out of his police SUV, residents were shocked.
But that was only the beginning.
On Saturday, when Martin's wife Kristina and 20-year-old son Cody came to visit him at the jail, they were both promptly arrested. All three were charged Monday on state murder-for-hire charges.
According to the complaint, the trio arranged to have two men -- identified as Kevin B. and Thomas H. -- carry out first degree murder. The charging documents don't detail the alleged plot. But citing a source close to the investigation, ABC affiliate WSIL reported that the subjects of the alleged murder plot were two witnesses in Raymond's upcoming drug trial.
The three are scheduled to appear in Jackson County Circuit Court today.
It's not clear whether one of the targets of the alleged murder plot is the confidential DEA source who appears to be the main informant on the drug charges. According to the federal complaint, Martin warned the source that he would prosecute the source on any charge Martin wanted to "make up."
He allegedly gave the confidential source as much as 20 pounds of pot on a biweekly basis, according to the criminal complaint. The source would then allegedly sell the drugs and split the profits with Martin.
The complaint alleges Martin used his sheriff's department cell phone and his patrol vehicle, a Ford Expedition, during drug deals, all while in uniform and on the job.
So where was Martin getting the pot? He allegedly had at least two sources, as the complaint describes:
"On at least two other occasions when the C/S [confidential source] called Martin to tell him that he was ready for a delivery of marijuana, Martin told the C/S that Martin would have to go by the Courthouse and 'pick it up' and would meet the C/S at the usual location in ten or fifteen minutes. Martin also told the C/S on more than one occasion that if the C/S could locate any outdoor marijuana grow operations in Gallitin County that Martin would arrest the individuals and confiscate the marijuana. After the case was completed in court, Martin would then bring the confiscated marijuana to the C/S to sell instead of destroying it. Martin and the C/S would split the profits evenly on the sale of this marijuana as Martin would have 'nothing' in the marijuana."
The alleged drug dealing was a lucrative enterprise for Martin. Investigators reportedly found a safe at his house with $100,000. They allege that Martin didn't have a mortgage on the $300,000 home, even though he and his wife brought in just over $50,000 a year in legal income.
You can read the drug complaint here and the murder-for-hire charges here.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/gallatin_sheriff_raymond_martin_drugs_corruption_a.php?ref=fpa
Cop Tasers Unconscious Diabetic 11 Times
Chicago police officer Darren Pedota is at the center of a lawsuit filed by a diabetic man who was Tasered 11 times over the course of a minute while suffering from a diabetic seizure.
This isn't the first time an officer has found himself in a similar situation, although in many of those cases the police appeared to be unaware of the patients condition, and mistook the involuntary movements as an act of aggression. In this case however, Pedota was one of the cops called in with the EMT. The police were asked to help the paramedics move the patient off the floor when an involuntary movement of the arm struck one of the assisting individuals. That's when Pedota sprung into "action."
As you might expect, the man suffered injuries from the attack and has responded by suing the crap out of the department for battery, excessive force, and failure to intervene. Hope he wins.
http://gizmodo.com/5437088/cop-tasers-unconscious-diabetic-11-times?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+gizmodo%2Ffull+%28Gizmodo%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
Strange New Twist in Scandal Involving Rogue Philadelphia PD Narcotics Unit
Radley Balko | December 17, 2009
Earlier this year, I posted on a rogue Philadelphia narcotics unit headed up by Officer Jeffrey Cujdik that was shaking down immigrant bodegas across the city. (See updates here and here.) Cujdik's thugs would come into the stores armed with search warrants for selling otherwise innocuous items like small plastic bags that can also be used to package illegal drugs. They would then cut the cords to the stores' surveillance cameras and start helping themselves to cash registers and merchandise. Members of the unit have also been accused of sexually assaulting women during drug raids.
Philadelphia Daily News reporters Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker—who have done some amazing reporting on this story—then showed how lax oversight from prosecutors and police commanders and casual dismissal of citizen complaints allowed Cujdik to continue to operate well after his shakedown tactics should have had him booted off the force. He'd likely still be shaking down bodegas were it not for Ruderman and Laker (the two reporters were of course attacked by Cujdik's police union).
Now Ruderman and Laker report an incredible new twist involving Cujdik's brother Gregory. Unlike two of his brothers and his father, Gregory Cujdik isn't a Philadelphia PD police officer. In fact, he's a convicted drug dealer. The story begins last April.
IT WAS just after midnight. Brian Westberry and a woman friend sat frozen in his bedroom, hoping the persistent pounding on the front door of his Northeast Philly home would stop. It didn't.
Westberry, 24, slipped his licensed .38-caliber revolver into his pants pocket and crept downstairs to open the door.
There stood Gregory Cujdik, 32, who demanded to see "Jen," his girlfriend. Westberry told him "Jen" didn't want to see him, and repeatedly ordered Cujdik to leave. When Cujdik refused, Westberry threatened to call police.
" 'Do it. My family are cops,' " Cujdik said, according to Westberry...
Before Westberry could finish dialing 9-1-1 on his cell phone, Cujdik stepped through the doorway and punched him in the throat, Westberry said.
That's when Westberry pulled out his gun and Cujdik fled, Westberry told the Daily News.
Westberry never fired the gun. In fact, Westberry suffered the only injury when Cujdik staggered him with a punch. But rather than arrest Cujdik, a convicted drug dealer, authorities slapped Westberry with a slew of criminal charges, including felony aggravated assault, possession of an instrument of crime, terroristic threats, simple assault and recklessly endangering another person.
From there, Westberry's life got worse. Westberry believes Cudjik is behind a Nov. 14 arson of his house. Detectives didn't question Cujdik until after a Daily News reporter asked a police captain about the case earlier this month.
It gets worse. The detective who arrested Westberry is the wife of Jeffrey Cujdik's former partner. The two also co-own a dunk tank (!?) rental business. Westberry is a gun collector. The police seized all 40 of his guns, all of which were legal and licensed.
All charges against Westberry were finally dismissed in October. But Gregory Cujdik has yet to be charged, for either the assault or the arson. The investigating officer said he never got around to questioning Cujdik about the arson due to a backlog of other cases. Of course, that didn't seem to stop the department from going after Westberry. The investigating officer also indicated he thinks Westberry, who has no prior criminal record, may have intentionally set fire to his own home in order to frame Cujdik.
Incidentally, since the Daily News first broke the story about Jeffrey Cujdik's thuggish narcotics unit in March, none of the officers in the unit has been charged with a crime. A few have been taken off the street and lost their police powers, and there's now a federal investigation underway. But all of the officers from the unit are still collecting paychecks.
http://reason.com/blog/2009/12/17/strange-new-twist-in-scandal-i
Off-Duty Cop Fired, Charged in Wawa Worker Beating
By Danielle Johnson
NBCPhiladelphia.com
A Ridley Township off-duty police officer is out of a job for punching a Wawa worker in the face after she carded him for buying chewing tobacco.
Officer Brian Decker, 33, was charged with assault, terroristic threats and harassment in the alleged beating of a Wawa employee Monique Bronson, according to the Delco Times.
Decker was let go from his position with the police department on Monday.
Police said the alleged assault happened last Tuesday afternoon at the Wawa across the street from the Ridley Township Building.
Police say Decker became enraged when he was carded for buying chewing tobacco.
Witnesses say Decker shouted profanities at Bronson and repeatedly hit her in the face.
Ridley Township police said the Decker was having personal problems and has since checked himself into a rehab facility.
No word on what kind treatment Decker is receiving or his condition.
Decker served with the Ridley Township Police department for 7 years.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34517346
Cop Admits to Pulling Gun on Snowballers
Cop says on video he pulled a gun because he was hit with a snowball
By TERESA MASTERSON
Updated 3:39 PM EST, Sun, Dec 20, 2009
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local-beat/Eyewitness_Confirms__Cop_Freaks_Out_Over_Snowball_Fight_Waves_Gun-79729162.html
Impeachment appears imminent for federal judge
Corruption found during FBI state probe
By Ben Evans ASSOCIATED PRESS
It's not the lifestyle of a typical federal judge: Five or six vodka cocktails during lunch; gambling with borrowed money; bankruptcy under a phony name; cash, trips or home repairs from lawyers; and a bail bondsman with business before his court.
Witnesses in the congressional impeachment case against U.S. District Court Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. paint a jarring portrait of the former Louisiana state judge appointed to the federal bench in 1994 by President Clinton.
As Congress wrapped up several weeks of evidence-gathering hearings this week, legal experts who testified before a House task force suggested Judge Porteous is a clear candidate to become just the eighth federal judge in U.S. history to be impeached and convicted by Congress. Lawmakers appear poised to take their advice and bring charges early next year, setting up a historic trial in the Senate.
"The fact is that we are discovering a pattern of misbehavior that occurred over such a long period of time that it's virtually unique in the annals of impeachment," Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina, told the House panel. "Just imagine what happens if you don't act here - what kind of precedent does that set?"
Judge Porteous, who sits in the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans, so far has offered little in his defense. And while his defense attorney, Richard Westling, acknowledges that the evidence doesn't look good, he says the House has disregarded key facts and circumstances. Judge Porteous may have made mistakes, Mr. Westling argues, but his transgressions don't warrant impeachment.
"The presentation before the task force has been one-sided and clearly aimed at moving forward toward eventual impeachment," Mr. Westling said in an interview. "We hope that senators will withhold judgment until we have been given a full and fair opportunity to confront the allegations in a Senate trial."
Mr. Westling has his work cut out for him.
In the opening hearing, House investigators said Judge Porteous had racked up more than $150,000 in credit card debt by 2000, mostly for cash advances spent in casinos.
Two New Orleans attorneys who once worked with Judge Porteous said they gave the judge at least $20,000 in cash gifts while he was a judge, including $2,000 stuffed in an envelope in 1999, just before Judge Porteous decided a major civil case in their client's favor.
At another hearing, the lawyer Judge Porteous hired for his 2001 bankruptcy discussed how he and the judge initially filed the judge's bankruptcy under the name "Orteous," with a hastily arranged post office box as his address, to keep his name out of the newspaper. House investigators said Judge Porteous also lied about his debts and assets in an effort to lower his bankruptcy payments.
Later, New Orleans bail bondsman Louis Marcotte testified that he and Judge Porteous had a long-standing relationship in which Mr. Marcotte routinely took Judge Porteous to lavish meals at French Quarter restaurants and offered his employees to work on Judge Porteous' cars and home. In return, Judge Porteous manipulated bond amounts for defendants to give Mr. Marcotte the highest fees possible, said Mr. Marcotte, who served 18 months in prison on related corruption charges.
Judge Porteous also erased criminal convictions for two of Mr. Marcotte's employees.
"I knew he was struggling - he would have five, six Absolut [vodka] and tonics" at lunch, Mr. Marcotte testified. "I asked him for things and he asked me for things."
The allegations against Judge Porteous were largely uncovered during the FBI's Operation Wrinkled Robe, an investigation of state judges in Jefferson Parish, where Judge Porteous served before getting his federal post. That six-year investigation brought 14 convictions, but Judge Porteous was never charged.
The House needs a simple majority to approve impeachment; the Senate needs a two-thirds vote to convict.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/19/impeachment-appears-imminent-for-federal-judge/
An Irvine cop ejaculates on a motorist but escapes criminal liability
R. SCOTT MOXLEY
Published on February 08, 2007
Officer Park: put your hands behind my back
No one disputes that an on-duty Irvine police officer got an erection and ejaculated on a motorist during an early-morning traffic stop in Laguna Beach. The female driver reported it, DNA testing confirmed it and officer David Alex Park finally admitted it.
When the case went to trial, however, defense attorney Al Stokke argued that Park wasn't responsible for making sticky all over the woman's sweater. He insisted that she made the married patrolman make the mess—after all, she was on her way home from work as a dancer at Captain Cream Cabaret.
"She got what she wanted," said Stokke. "She's an overtly sexual person."
A jury of one woman and 11 men—many white and in their 50s or 60s—agreed with Stokke. On Feb. 2, after a half-day of deliberations, they found Park not guilty of three felony charges that he'd used his badge to win sexual favors during the December 2004 traffic stop.
Park, 31, was red-faced and unable to control his twitching foot in the moments before the verdict was announced; if convicted, he would have faced prison. When he was found not guilty, he briefly embraced Stokke. In the public seating section, tears flowed from his gray-haired mother's face. His father, a mechanic, closed his eyes and threw his head back. Outside the courtroom, surrounded by his family, a smiling Park said he felt vindicated.
Veteran sex crimes prosecutor Shaddi Kamiabipour—who'd called Park "a predator" during the nine-day trial—said she was disappointed with the verdicts. She also dismissed Stokke's contention that the Orange County District Attorney's office had overcharged the case. At stake, Kamiabipour said, was the principle that no one—not even a horny cop who'd once won honors for community service—is above the law.
"Park didn't pick a housewife or a 17-year-old girl," Kamiabipour said in her closing argument. "He picked a stripper. He picked the perfect victim."
* * *
In the wee hours of Dec. 15, 2004, Lucy (only her first name was used during the trial) finished her final shift at Captain Cream in Lake Forest, not far from the Irvine Spectrum. Management had let her go after an incident involving a female customer in a bathroom stall. According to court records, there had been a small amount of cocaine, kissing and breast fondling.
Meanwhile, Park was on patrol in the southwest portion of Irvine. Prosecutors believe he was craving a sexual rendezvous, and so he watched for Lucy's white BMW to leave the strip club parking lot, then tailed her, waiting for an excuse for a stop. Park insisted he'd been cruising on the 405 north and coincidentally saw Lucy's vehicle weave and speed.
Kamiabipour, the prosecutor, shook her head in disbelief. She knew the facts—that the officer had waited at least eight or nine minutes before stopping the stripper on a secluded section of a highway that was out of his jurisdiction.
"He was stalking her," she said.
Four months earlier, Park had stopped Lucy under similar circumstances. That time, he'd ignored a plastic drug baggie he'd found in her car and her suspended license. But the stop wasn't a waste of time. After friendly chit-chat, the officer had scored Lucy's phone number. Telephone records show that Park called the stripper the next morning. She told him she was too busy to meet.
On the witness stand, Park explained that he'd called Lucy out of concern for a citizen's safety. He also shrugged his shoulders when Kamiabipour slowly listed the first names of nine Captain Cream female employees—Annette, Denise, Rashele, Marlia, Brandi, Andrea, Deborah, Laura and Shannon—whose license plates he'd run through the DMV computer in the weeks prior to his sexual encounter with Lucy. (Another coincidence, according to Stokke.) Jurors also learned that Irvine Police Sgt. Michael Hallinan had previously warned Park as they left work to stay away from the strippers.
Park, who works in construction nowadays, conceded that he'd been given the warning but claimed that he had no clue it was Lucy in the vehicle or that she had an invalid driver's license, even as he approached her car window.
Kamiabipour believed she'd caught the 6-foot-3 cop in a lie. Records show he ran the bosomy, 5-foot, 110-pound dancer's license plate before the stop, did not call for backup despite the potential for an arrest and failed to tell his supervisor or dispatch that he was leaving Irvine. Several Irvine officers testified that Park's behavior that night was odd.
"[Park's] testimony was just incredible," said Kamiabipour. Irvine city officials must have doubted his story, too. After an exhaustive police internal affairs investigation, they felt it was prudent to give Lucy $400,000 to make her civil lawsuit go away—for fear a jury might give her much more.
In a secretly-recorded phone call to Laguna Beach police shortly after the incident, Lucy recalled that she'd told Park she had no license. Park began "rubbing himself up against me," she said. "Then, he said, 'What are we going to do here, Lucy?'"
Park unzipped his pants, took his penis out and got an erection, she explained. "Basically, the officer made me give [him] a freaking hand job and he let me go. I'm so freaked out about it."
(Lucy also told police, prosecutors and the jury that Park had also fingered her vagina and fondled her breasts before he ejaculated on her.)
*
Officer Park: put your hands behind my back
Officer Park: put your hands behind my back
"I was confused," she told the Laguna Beach dispatcher. "He called me afterwards. I'm scared, you know . . . What's an Irvine cop doing hanging out at a strip club in Lake Forest?"
Telephone records prove that Park made a 19-minute call to Lucy shortly after their encounter. The officer—who told the woman he was "Joe Stephens," an Orange County Sheriff's Department deputy who had died months earlier—said it was a friendly call to make sure she'd arrived home safely. The stripper said he told her to keep her mouth shut.
And then Kamiabipour introduced the bombshell evidence from a high-ranking Irvine police officer: on the night Park tailed Lucy out of the city, the global positioning system in his patrol car had been disconnected without authorization.
"I checked and [the GPS] was not working," said Lt. Henry Boggs.
An unexplainable coincidence, Park's defense countered.
* * *
For all his boneheaded mistakes, Park madea sharp decision picking his legal counsel. Stokke (and John Barnett, Paul Myer and Jennifer Keller) is among the elite of the local defense bar. His fine suits and mastery of courtroom procedures compliment the folksy, grandfatherly style he uses to charm juries. And there was this unspoken advantage over the prosecution: longtime courthouse observers have no memory of an Orange County jury convicting a police officer of a felony.
It wasn't a surprise that Stokke put the woman and her part-time occupation on trial. In his opening argument, he made it The Good Cop versus The Slutty Stripper. He pointed out that she'd once had a violent fight with a boyfriend in San Diego. He mocked her inability to keep a driver's license. He accused her of purposefully "weakening" Park so that he became "a man," not a cop during the traffic stop. He called her a liar angling for easy lawsuit cash. He called her a whore without saying the word.
"You dance around a pole, don't you?" Stokke asked.
Superior Court Judge William Evans ruled the question irrelevant.
Stokke saw he was scoring points with the jury.
"Do you place a pole between your legs and go up and down?" he asked.
"No," said Lucy before the judge interrupted.
"You do the dancing to get men to do what you what them to do," said Stokke. "And the same thing happened out there on that highway [in Laguna Beach]. You wanted [Park] to take some sex!"
Lucy said, "No sir," the sex wasn't consensual. Stokke—usually a mellow fellow with a nasally, monotone voice—gripped his fists, stood upright, clenched his jaws and then thundered, "You had a buzz on [that night], didn't you?"
As if watching a volley in tennis, the heads of the male-dominated jury spun from Stokke back to Lucy, who sat in the witness box. She said no, but it was hopeless. Jurors stared at her without a hint of sympathy.
In his closing argument, Stokke pounced. He called Lucy one of those "girls who have learned the art of the tease, getting what they want . . . they've learned to separate men from their money."
Kamiabipour wasn't amused. "Dancer or not, sexually promiscuous nor not, she had the right not to consent," she told jurors. "[Park] doesn't get a freebie just because of who she is . . . He used her like an object."
rscottmoxley@ocweekly.com
http://www.ocweekly.com/2007-02-08/news/illegally-park-ed/
ACLU Roadmap of Justice Department Inspector General’s Review of the FBI’s Use of National Security Letters
March 19, 2007
TO: Interested Persons
FROM: Michael German, Policy Counsel, ACLU Washington
Legislavitive Office, former Special Agent, FBI
RE: Roadmap of Justice Department Inspector General’s
Review of the FBI’s Use of National Security Letters
DATE: Monday, March 19, 2007
____________________________________________________________
The American Civil Liberties Union has long had serious concerns about the FBI’s authority to use National Security Letters (NSLs). The Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General (OIG)’s recently released audit of NSLs confirmed that the Patriot Act gave the Justice Department and the FBI too much power. The original Patriot Act, passed in 2001, relaxed restrictions on the FBI's use of NSLs and the number issued has increased astronomically. While reports previously indicated a hundred-fold increase to 30,000 NSLs issued annually, the recent IG audit shows there were actually at least 143,000 demands issued under the NSL statute issued between 2003 and 2005, and probably many more. The IG examined only a tiny sample of the hundreds of thousands of NSLs the FBI issued, so the report shows just the tip of the iceberg.
The IG identified numerous FBI abuses and misuses of their NSL authority. What follows is a roadmap to the 199-page IG report. It shows that the FBI reported false information to Congress because poor internal management and a disturbing lack of accountability within the FBI make it impossible for anyone to know how many of these letters have been issued, and what information may have been collected with them. Even more disturbingly, it shows the FBI intentionally circumvented the law to gain access to records that weren’t even relevant to any authorized FBI investigation. But the information gathered by these methods is permanently retained.
IG REVIEW OF FBI’s USE OF NATIONAL SECURITY LETTERS
I. Previous Reports To Congress Were Wrong
The FBI was required to report the number of NSL demands to Congress, but those reports vastly understated the FBI’s use of NSLs. According to the IG report and in contrast to their congressional reporting, the FBI database shows the following (p. 37):
NSL Demands in 2000: 8,500
NSL Demands in 2003: 39,346
NSL Demands in 2004: 56,507
NSL Demands in 2005: 47,221
Total NSL Demands 2003-2005: 143,074 (p. 36)
But these numbers fail to capture the depth and range of the FBI’s use and abuse of the NSL authority. For example, just nine NSLs in 2004 requested information on 11,000 separate telephone numbers (p. 36).
Moreover, the IG report shows that the FBI data is wrong, due to three separate problems:
1) Field delays in entering NSL data (p. 33).
Resulted in 4,600 NSL requests not being reported to Congress
2003-2005.
2) Incorrect data entries in the NSL database (p. 33).
Resulted in 477 NSLs erroneously excluded from reports to
Congress.
TOTAL known NSL requests not reported to Congress to be
8,850 (6 percent) (p. 34).
3) Inaccurate data in the FBI NSL database (p. 32).
The IG review of 293 NSLs found in a sample of just 77 case files
revealed:
17 percent more NSLs in FBI case files than recorded in
the NSL database;
22 percent more NSL requests in FBI case files than in the
NSL database;
46 of 77 files reviewed (60 percent) were deficient in
required paperwork;
and
12 percent of cases did not accurately state whether the
target was a US person (p. 35).
And this power has increasingly been used to gather data on US persons. The IG report showed that NSL requests for information on US persons increased from 39 percent in 2003 to 53 percent in 2005 (p. 38).
II. Indefinite retention of NSL data and potential for data mining of innocent Americans
The data received from NSLs is uploaded into three FBI databases:
* Automated Case Support - 29,000 FBI users, 5,000 non-FBI users (p. 28).
* Telephone Application database - for link analysis, 19,000 users (p. 28).
* Investigative Data Warehouse (p. 30 footnote 64, p. 53):
This "warehouse" includes data from 50 different
government databases, includes 560 million records,
and has 12,000 FBI and non-FBI users
The IG audit found that:
* Information received through NSLs is indefinitely retained and retrievable (p. 110).
* The FBI uses NSLs to close cases by concluding subjects pose no terror threat (p. 44), but that information remains in the databases.
* Data from NSLs is shared with the Intelligence Community, other government agencies and foreign governments (diagram 5.1, p. 47).
* Purging of irrelevant data received with NSLs is not required by DOJ/FBI policy (p. 110).
* The FBI did not issue guidance on sequestering, destroying, or using information improperly received until November of 2006 (p. xxxiv, and p. 29, footnote 62).
The IG also expressed concern about the FBI using NSLs against persons two or three steps removed from subjects (p. 109).
III. Intelligence Oversight Board violations
The Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) is a standing committee of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Under Executive Order 12863, the IOB is directed to inform the president of any activities that "may be unlawful or contrary to Executive Order or Presidential Directive." The IG report noted that this directive covers "reports of violations of Department investigative guidelines or investigative procedures." (p. 68)
The IG audit found the following:
* 26 possible IOB violations were reported to the FBI Office of General Counsel (OGC).
* 19 of those were referred to the IOB by OGC (p. 69).
* IG disagreed with one OGC decision not to send report to IOB (p. 76).
* IG review of just 77 case files found 22 more IOB violations.
* 22 percent of files the IG reviewed contained an unreported IOB violation.
* Agents and analysts don’t review records provided from NSL recipients to determine if records are responsive to their NSL requests (p. 85), in violation of DOJ guidelines.
IV. Private Sector Relationships
The IG report highlights how cozy relationships between FBI counterterrorism officials and private sector entities resulted in the circumvention of the NSL statutes, and the illegal dissemination of private information protected under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and the Right to Financial Privacy Act (RFPA).
The IG report indicates the FBI personnel developed "close working relationships with private sector companies, including telephone companies that furnished points of contact to facilitate the FBI’s access to records held by these companies." These relationships led to the use of the illegal use of "exigent letters" to circumvent the ECPA laws regarding the privacy of telephone toll records (p. 87).
The IG report indicates that FBI personnel who used "Certificate Letters" to obtain the financial records of 244 named individuals told the FBI Assistant General Counsel that the Federal Reserve Bank personnel providing the records did not feel that NSLs were required because the Federal Reserve Bank was a "quasi-governmental" body. Federal Reserve Bank policy, however, requires that the FBI issue RFPA NSLs before the FBI may obtain Fedwire records. Federal Reserve Bank officials stated that, "the position on whether to require NSLs depended on who the FBI’s point of contact was at the Federal Reserve." This statement plainly indicates that personal relationships with Federal Reserve employees are used to circumvent the RFPA laws designed to protect private financial records (p. 117).
These examples show how a process with no accountability or oversight can quickly degenerate into a systemic disregard for proper procedures, grave violations of civil liberties, and ultimately intentional violations of the law.
NSLs AND THE COUNTERTERRORISM MISSION OF FBI
The IG uses anecdotal information to report that FBI agents say NSLs are "indispensable" or "our bread and butter" (p. 45), but the numbers tell a different story.
The IG report details 4 cases in which toll billing records obtained from NSLs were used (p.49):
* In one, the FBI "initiated investigations on individuals" identified in toll records received through NSLs, but no results of the investigation were noted.
* In one counterintelligence case, an NSL was used in an investigation that led to a conviction.
* In a third case, an NSL was used to verify that the subject "was in touch with an individual who had been convicted of federal charges." No outcome reported.
* In a fourth case -another counterintelligence case - NSL toll data revealed that, despite denials, an FBI source was in contact with a foreign intelligence agent.
The IG report details 2 cases in which financial records obtained from NSLs were used (p. 50):
o One counterterrorism case where financial records from NSLs were used to identify sources and recipients of money transfers and assisted in the collection of information on overseas targets.
o One counterterrorism investigation in which financial records obtained from NSLs were used to determine there were no significant ties to criminal activity and therefore the investigation was terminated.
The IG report details 3 cases in which Credit Bureau records obtained with NSLs were used (p. 51):
o One counterintelligence investigation in which Credit Bureau records obtained with NSLs assisted in eliminating concerns that the subject was hiding assets.
o One counterterrorism investigation in which subjects dispersed by Hurricane Katrina were located using credit reports received with NSLs. No results of the investigations were reported.
o One counterterrorism investigation in which a credit report obtained with an NSL was used to locate a subject in another city. The case was transferred to the FBI office in the other city. No results of the investigation were reported.
If these examples seem underwhelming, it may be because the IG had little to work with. Despite agent claims that NSLs are indispensable, the IG found very few instances in which data from NSLs was used to prosecute terrorists. The FBI does not keep records of how NSL-derived information is used (p. 60) so the IG asked FBI field offices to report how many times they referred targets of national security investigations to law enforcement authorities for prosecution.
Responses indicated that "about half" of the FBI offices referred one or more counterterrorism investigation targets for prosecution from 2003 to 2005 (p. 63). Of the 46 FBI offices that responded, 19 said they made no referrals. Of the remaining 27 offices, 22 provided details showing criminal charges in 19 fraud cases, 17 immigration cases and 17 money-laundering cases, using information obtained with NSLs (p. 63). The IG report says one FBI office estimated that it used NSL-derived information in approximately 105 criminal proceedings from 2003 to 2005 (footnote 107, p. 64).
All told, the FBI reported 153 criminal proceedings resulting from 143,074 NSL requests. "Criminal proceedings" means all federal grand jury proceedings, as well as search warrants, indictments and trials (footnote 103, p. 62). The IG documented only one material support for terrorism conviction in a case using data from NSLs (p. 64). In other words, NSLs, sold as anti-terrorism tools, are not producing convictions against suspected terrorists.
IMPROPER OR ILLEGAL USE OF NATIONAL SECURITY LETTERS
The IG report also shows that FBI personnel developed several illegal schemes to circumvent the NSL statutes, abusing the authorities they were given under the Patriot Act and violating the law. The complexity and duration of these schemes demonstrates this misconduct was knowing and intentional.
I. Use of illegal "Exigent Letters" (p. 86-99)
The IG audit found examples in which the FBI circumvented the NSL authority completely by using "exigent letters" to obtain information, with the promise that the agent had already requested a grand jury subpoena or an NSL. The companies receiving the "exigent letters" were asked to turn over sensitive customer information in reliance on that representation. In fact no emergency existed, no grand jury subpoenas or NSLs had been requested before the documents were obtained, and the FBI could not substantiate that agents ever followed through with the proper process.
1) Illegal contracts (p. 87):
The FBI Communications Analysis Unit (CAU) contracted with three telephone companies between May of 2003 and March of 2004, arguing that "previous methods of issuing subpoenas or National Security Letters and having to wait weeks for their service… is insufficient to meet the FBI’s terrorism prevention mission" (p. 88). Under these contracts the three telephone companies would provide the FBI with call data information upon receipt of "exigent letters" signed by FBI Counterterrorism Division personnel who were not authorized to sign NSLs (p. 89). These contracts allowed the FBI and the telephone companies to circumvent the laws controlling the dissemination of telephone toll records.
The FBI Office of General Counsel was aware of these illegal contracts because, as with all FBI contracts, OGC procurement attorneys were involved in reviewing and approving them (see footnote 126, p. 89).
The FBI provided the IG with 739 exigent letters from March 11, 2003 to December 16, 2005 that requested records for 3,000 different telephone numbers (p. 90). Just one letter requested toll information for 171 different numbers (p. 90). But the IG does not know how many "exigent letters" were actually executed because the FBI did not retain copies (p. 90).
The FBI sometimes issued NSLs after receiving requested documents to "cover" the information obtained, but such "cover" NSLs were often issued months later (p. 91).
The FBI could not substantiate that NSLs or other legal process was ever issued to cover the records obtained with the "exigent letters" (p. 91). [FBI claims that the FBI received only documents to which it was entitled to are false.]
2) False statements:
Contrary to the provisions of the contracts that said the FBI would obtain telephone records only after securing the NSLs or grand jury subpoenas, the FBI obtained telephone toll records and subscriber information before serving NSLs or subpoenas, and sometimes without ever serving NSLs or subpoenas (p. 90).
The "exigent letters" issued by the FBI falsely stated that subpoenas had already been requested from the US Attorney when no such request had been made. The IG could not confirm even one instance in which a subpoena had been requested (p. 92).
Despite the language in the letters claiming exigent circumstances, many "exigent letters" were used to collect information when no exigent circumstances existed (p. 92).
The FBI made "factual misstatements in its official letters to the telephone companies either as to the existence of an emergency justifying shortcuts around lawful procedures or with respect to the steps the FBI supposedly had taken to secure lawful process" (p 97).
When CAU asked FBI field offices to send NSLs to cover the "exigent letter" requests, they often did not disclose that CAU had already received the documents (p.92).
3) No investigative authority for the "exigent letters" (p. 92):
The NSL statutes require Senior Executive Service level officials to certify that information sought with NSLs is relevant to an authorized investigation. "Exigent letters" were often issued with no authorized investigation tied to the request.
After receiving documents in response to the "exigent letters" CAU officials asked FBI field offices to open new investigations so after-the-fact NSLs could be issued, without saying the documents were already received. Many FBI offices resisted these efforts.
4) NSLs issued from control files with no open or pending investigations:
300 NSLs issued as part of a "classified special project" (possibly the NSA program?) were issued from a control file that did not reference an authorized investigation (p. 98).
Six NSLs from the Electronic Surveillance Operations and Sharing Unit were issued to Internet Service Providers without reference to any pending investigation, and were signed by an NSLB attorney. The FBI Unit Chief argued this was within the "spirit" of the law (p. 101).
5) FBI Attorneys knew of abuse of NSL authorities:
FBI field offices complained to National Security Law Branch attorneys (p. 93).
In late 2004 an NSLB Assistant General Counsel said the practice of using "exigent letters did not comply with the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) NSL statute (p. 93).
In December of 2004 an NSLB Assistant General Counsel complained that CAU requests for NSLs failed to disclose that CAU had already received the documents (footnote 129, p 93).
By law, NSLs can only be issued in connection with an authorized investigation. Nonetheless, an NSLB Attorney signed Electronic Surveillance Operations and Sharing Unit NSLs that were issued without reference to any authorized investigation (p.100).
6) FBI NSLB Attorneys issued inappropriate advice (p. 93):
For two years starting in late 2004 NSLB attorneys counseled CAU officials to:
* Discontinue use of "exigent letters" except in true emergencies.
* Tie requests to existing investigations, or open new ones.
* Issue NSLs promptly after serving the "exigent letters."
* Modify the letters to reference NSLs rather than subpoenas.
* Consider opening "umbrella" investigations from which NSLs could be issued. (This was not done because CAU officials told NSLB, falsely, that each "exigent letter" could be tied to an open investigation and that such requests were "few and far between.")
Starting in June of 2006 "exigent letters" were modified to reference NSLs (p. 94).
As of March 2007 the FBI is unable to determine whether NSLs or grand jury subpoenas were issued to cover the documents requested with "exigent letters" (p. 94).
7) FBI attorneys were intimidated into approving NSLs (p. 112-114):
IG interviews revealed that FBI attorneys serving as Chief Division Counsels in FBI field offices approved NSL requests they would have preferred to reject for legal inadequacy because they were afraid to challenge their FBI superiors who had approved the investigations (p 113). The intimidation of FBI legal counsels demonstrates that the FBI cannot be expected to police itself. Independent oversight is the only mechanism that will ensure the FBI is complying with the law.
II. Illegal "Certificate Letters" used to receive records from the Federal Reserve Bank (p. 115-119):
A second illegal scheme the IG discovered involved the Terrorist Financing Operations Unit at FBI Headquarters, which issued unauthorized "Certificate Letters" to obtain financial records of 244 individuals in violation of the Right to Financial Privacy Act.
1) Circumventing the Right to Financial Privacy Act (RFPA):
The FBI circumvented the requirements of the RFPA by using "Certificate Letters" instead of RFPA NSLs to obtain "financial records" from the Federal Reserve Bank (p. 115).
The IG identified 19 "Certificate Letters" requesting information on 244 named individuals, but could not determine the number of letters issued because the FBI did not keep copies (p. 115).
Not all individuals whose records were sought were subjects of investigations (p. 116).
FBI officials who signed the "Certificate Letters" were not authorized to sign NSLs (p. 116).
2) FBI officials mischaracterized nature of "Certificate Letters" to hide abuse:
In July of 2004 NSLB attorneys learned of "Certificate Letters," but were told by FBI personnel, falsely, that the letters only asked the Federal Reserve whether it had records. NSLB instructed FBI officials to ensure no records were sought with the letters (p. 116).
In fall of 2004 NSLB attorneys learned the letters were being used to obtain records, were being used in non-emergency situations, and after-the-fact NSLs covering these requests were delayed as long as six months. NSLB again advised FBI officials not to obtain financial documents except with a duly authorized NSL (p. 116-117).
The FBI issued at least three "Certificate Letters" in contravention to NSLB advice (p. 117-118).
Federal Reserve Bank officials told the IG they did not consider themselves a "financial institution" within the meaning of the RFPA, and did not consider Fedwire records "financial records." Yet they admitted Federal Reserve Bank policy requires the FBI to issue RFPA NSLs before the FBI may obtain Fedwire records and "financial records," and that they should not have provided records without RFPA NSLs (p. 117).
Despite this, the IG could not reach a legal conclusion as to whether the Federal Reserve Bank is a "financial institution" within the meaning of RFPA, and could not conclude that the FBI’s practice of using "Certificate Letters" violated RFPA (p. 117).
CONCLUSION
The IG report shows more than just poor management and incompetence in the FBI’s handling of its authorities under the NSL statutes. It shows widespread disregard for the few limits Congress imposed, and an institutional willingness to intentionally violate the law to collect vast troves of data that are not even being used to prosecute terrorists. The IG report shows that the ACLU was right to oppose this gross expansion of unchecked power.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The full IG report is available at:
www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0703b/final.pdf
Additional ACLU concerns about the use of NSLs is available at: www.aclu.org/nsl
Footnotes:
[1] The ACLU has challenged this Patriot Act statute in court with two cases: one involving an Internet Service Provider; the second a group of librarians. In both cases, the judges ruled that the gags were unconstitutional. The case involving the Internet Service Provider is ongoing because the ACLU and its client have challenged the constitutionality of the NSL provision itself. In court, the ACLU and its client are arguing that the provision violates the First Amendment insofar as it requires judges to rubber stamp gag orders issued by the FBI. Argument before the district court is expected in April. For more information about the ACLU's legal challenges to the NSL provision, see www.aclu.org/nsl
[2] Fedwire is the Federal Reserve Bank’s electronic funds and securities transfer service (p. 116-117).
[3] The Intelligence Authorization Act of 2004 expanded the definition of "financial institution" in the RFPA to cover travel agencies, Western Union, real estate agents, insurance companies, casinos, car dealers, the Postal Service, and "an agency of the United States Government or of a State or local government carrying out a duty or power of a business Described in this paragraph"
campaign
Keep America Safe & Free
http://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-roadmap-justice-department-inspector-general%E2%80%99s-review-fbi%E2%80%99s-use-national-secu
Federal Judge Says NYPD Plagued by "Widespread Falsification by Arresting Officers"
Radley Balko | December 1, 2009
In refusing to dismiss a lawsuit against New York City brought by two brothers arrested on trumped-up drug charges, Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein had some harsh words for the city's police department. From the NY Daily News:
"Informal inquiry by [myself] and among the judges of this court, as well as knowledge of cases in other federal and state courts ... has revealed anecdotal evidence of repeated, widespread falsification by arresting officers of the New York City Police Department," Weinstein wrote.
He said that while the vast majority of cops don't engage in crooked practices, it was common enough to be an institutional problem.
The judge said that despite better training for recruits and tough disciplinary action for bad cops, "there is some evidence of an attitude among officers that is sufficiently widespread to constitute a custom or policy by the city approving illegal conduct."
Maximo and Jose Colon were arrested and jailed last January for participating in a drug deal with undercover officers at a Brooklyn bar. They were released—and the officers who arrested them were later indicted—when surveillance video showed the arresting officers fabricated the entire drug deal. From an A.P. story on the case last June:
Jose quickly got the tape to defense attorney Rochelle Berliner, a former narcotics prosecutor. She couldn't believe what she was seeing.
"I almost threw up," she said. "Because I must've prosecuted 1,500, 2,000 drug cases ... and all felonies. And I think back, Oh my God, I believed everything everyone told me. Maybe a handful of times did something not sound right to me. I don't mean to sound overly dramatic but I was like, sick."
What the tape doesn't show is striking: At no point did the brothers interact with the undercover officers, nor did the brothers appear to be involved in a drug deal with anyone else. Adding insult to injury, an outside camera taped the undercover officers literally dancing down the street.
If it weren't for the tape, the Colons would probably still be in prison.
The Colons' lawsuit argues the incident is one of many, brought about in part by arrest quotas imposed on officers by the NYPD.
http://reason.com/blog/2009/12/01/federal-judge-says-nypd-plague
In police custody, a suspicious death BOSTON
December 4, 2009
Howe was smoking marijuana in the passenger seat of a vehicle on Nov. 25, authorities and witnesses say, when confronted by state, local, and county law enforcement officers. He allegedly exited a window, struck a police officer, and fled. Police arrested Howe after a brief chase and struggle. He collapsed a short time later at the State Police barracks in Andover and was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. That’s the official version of events. But an unnamed witness tells a different story, according to Frances King, the attorney for the Howe family. The witness claims he could see as many as 20 police officers surround the suspect, flailing their arms. King also says that Howe’s body showed signs of significant bruising.
Howe’s death evokes the 2008 case of David Woodman, who died of a heart arrhythmia after a confrontation with Boston police. No charges were brought against the officers. But Woodman’s family suspects the use of unreasonable force. The same specter hangs over the Howe case. In both cases, police went into the bunker, failing to produce a timely police report of the incident. In the Woodman case, an independent inquiry by former US attorney Don Stern found a “surprisingly cursory’’ police investigation of the death. In the Howe case, investigators have gotten off to a slow start. A week after the incident, they had yet to complete their interviews of all officers present at the scene. In potential police misconduct cases, best practice calls for interviews to be conducted within a 24- to 48-hour window. Otherwise, the suspicion of collusion can arise.
Police await the toxicology report on Howe, who had earlier run-ins with law enforcement. The presence at the scene of a photographer for the Eagle-Tribune newspaper during part of the incident should also aid the investigation. It is too early to draw firm conclusions. But it is not too early to wonder why a suspect with a small amount of marijuana - a civil offense in Massachusetts - would be rolling around on the ground with police in the first place. Only a thorough and impartial investigation will reveal the truth.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2009/12/04/in_police_custody_a_suspicious_death/
Police Brutality in America, by State
http://www.sloshspot.com/blog/12-02-2009/Police-Brutality-in-America-by-State-250
Officer Slams Dude Through Window
http://www.break.com/index/officer-slams-dude-through-window.html
Fatal Police Cruiser Accident Caught on Tape
Thursday, November 19, 2009
This is amazing and disturbing dash cam video released November 17, 2009. The video shows a Milford Connecticut cruiser striking a car killing two teenagers June 13, 2009. The accident happened on the Boston Post Rd in West Haven CT while 2 Milford Police cruisers were returning after assisting the Orange Police at a disturbance at a bar. The Milford officer involved in the accident was traveling 94 miles an hour prior to impact.Watch the dash cam indicators of the cruiser as the speeding cruiser comes up from behind him. He starts at around 50 and than starts flooring it getting up to 70. They were returning to Milford and were not responding to a call. It's pretty clear they were racing. The officer involved in the crash was charged with 2 counts of homicide with a motor vehicle November 15, 2009, after 5 month investigation by the Connecticut State Police.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFdDW9aE6-A
Officer arrested in child porn case
By Ryan Hutton, New England Newspapers
Updated: 11/03/2009 06:12:08 AM EST
Tuesday, Nov. 03
ADAMS -- Veteran Adams Police Officer Alan C. Vigiard, 45, was arrested last week and charged with possession of child pornography. He has been placed on administrative leave pending further investigation, authorities said Monday.
According to state police reports, Vigiard, who is married with two children, allegedly downloaded and viewed child pornography in the Adams Police Department evidence room. He pleaded not guilty to the child pornography charge Friday in Northern Berkshire District Court.
Police Chief Donald Poirot and the State Police Berkshire Detective Unit began investigating after a folder containing 153 images of child pornography was copied onto CDs with evidence for a larceny case and sent to the Berkshire County district attorney's office, according to court documents.
The images included both male and female children "clearly under age 18" in various states of undress and in sexually explicit situations, according to state police reports. Mixed in with the pornographic images were pictures of clothed teenage girls who have been identified as being from the Adams area.
Also on the CDs were images and a video clip of a male masturbating in front of a computer monitor, the reports state -- the male's head is never in view, but the background was clearly identified as the Police Department's evidence room. According to police, the man in the video had a distinctive scar on his left hand that
matched one a state trooper noticed on Vigiard's hand when he was arrested.
Vigiard is one of only four people with access to the Police Department evidence room, Poirot told state police.
According to court documents, the State Police Digital Evidence Unit was called in to investigate the department's computers, and Poirot contacted the town's network administrator to track Vigiard's account. The administrator said all computer accounts are protected by passwords, so it is not possible for someone to access an account other than his or her own. The digital evidence unit found that time stamps reporting access to the pornographic files matched the times Vigiard had been logged into the system.
The digital evidence unit also found that "Lime Wire" -- a peer-to-peer file sharing program -- had been installed on the evidence room computer. Lime Wire is a program used to download both pirated and legitimate music and videos, as well as more illicit materials such as child pornography. In the Lime Wire searches, police found numerous words and phrases common with searching for child pornography, court documents state.
Poirot told state police the Adams Police Department is not properly equipped or trained to handle cases of child pornography so none should be located anywhere on the department's computers or network.
On Thursday, Poirot confiscated Vigiard's key to the evidence room, court reports state, adding that while state police were meeting with the chief in his office, network time stamps showed that Vigiard tried to delete additional files from the department's network from another computer. State police were able to recover all the files.
According to court documents, Vigiard, after being confronted with the charges, agreed to cooperate with state police: He asked that they not respond to his home and arranged a meeting with troopers at the Adams Police Department later Thursday afternoon. Before that meeting, however, Vigiard called Poirot to cancel, and at 6:40 p.m., state police arrested him outside his home.
While he was being booked at the Cheshire State Police barracks, a trooper observed that Vigiard had a scar that matched the one in the masturbation video and documented it, reports state.
Poirot said he could not comment on an open investigation. He said the department was taking the case very seriously and cooperating with state police. The district attorney's office would not comment beyond confirming the charges against Vigiard.
Vigiard has a pre-trial hearing scheduled for Dec. 21 in Northern Berkshire District Court. If convicted, he could face up to five years in state prison or two and a half years in county jail, as well as fines ranging from $1,000 to $10,000.
http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_13699286
Georgia Corrections Officer Arrested for Distributing Child Pornography
By Stephanie F. Brown, Attorney and David Wolf, Attorney
Published by Child Injury Lawyer Network
Posted On: July 4, 2009 by David A. Wolf
A Bleckley County (Georgia) corrections officer was arrested in June, 2009 for distributing child pornography. A Cobb County, Georgia police detective posed as a 13 year old girl in an undercover operation. The corrections officer, Jason Shane Price, sent the undercover detective sexually explicit messages and images as well as videos of child sexual abuse.
Authorities are requesting information from the public if they have been in contact with anyone using the email address suthyrngent07@yahoo.com or boiledpenuts2001@yahoo.com. Individuals who have been in contact with these email addresses should report their contacts to the Crimes Against Children’s Unit at 770-801-3470.
http://www.childinjurylawyerblog.com/2009/07/georgia_corrections_officer_ar.html
Dallas Police Officer Arrested for Drunk Driving
An off-duty Dallas police officer was arrested early Wednesday morning and charged with driving while intoxicated and failing to stop and render aid. Senior Cpl. David Aguilar hit another car in his Toyota Tacoma pickup truck at Custer Road and Plano Parkway in Plano, Texas, then fled the scene. Police picked Aguilar up about five miles away. The other driver was hurt although his injuries were minor, according to police. As of Wednesday afternoon Aguilar remained in Plano County Jail. Aguilar is now on administrative leave.
It’s chilling to think that a 12 year veteran police officer would drink and drive, let alone leave an injured person at the scene of a car accident. Although drivers who leave the scene are usually trying to dodge responsibility for their part in the accident, consequences always end up being much worse than if they had just stuck around. Thankfully the other driver only suffered minor injuries, but the negligence of the officer in this case is appalling.
Information provided by Dallas Injury Lawyer Mark A. Anderson, who can be contacted at 877-294-1115 or online by clicking here.
Posted by Mark A. Anderson
http://www.dallasfortworthcaraccidentlawyer.com/2009/08/dallas_police_officer_arrested_1.html
Huntington Beach Police Officer's Domestic Violence on Wife
October 14, 2009
Posted In: Assault and Battery , Criminal Defense , Domestic Violence , Felony
By Michael L. Guisti on October 14, 2009 8:00 AM | Permalink
HUNTINGTON BEACH - A Huntington Beach police officer, James Roberts, has been charged with domestic violence for assaulting his ex-wife. The wife now is suing the Huntington Beach City for police officers ignoring and covering up the case.
The police officer was arrested Sept. 2 and charged with assaulting and abusing his ex-wife. There were17 felony counts of domestic violence and assault and battery charges again him. She also filed the claim against the Huntington Beach city officers who have been allegedly trying to cover up this case.
Domestic Violence is a serious crime and it involves violence or threats upon another person. Under California Penal Code sections, Domestic Violence or Domestic Abuse involves charges such as: Spousal Abuse ( PC 273.5 ); Assault ( PC 240-241); Battery ( PC 242-243 ); Criminal Threats ( PC 422); Threatening phone call ( PC 653 ); Intimidating a witness or victim ( PC 136).
Domestic Violence can be charged as either a felony or a misdemeanor, depending on the seriousness of the case and the prior criminal records of the defendant. Domestic violence or domestic abuse with serious Injuries usually is charged as felonies.
Domestic violence is one of the most aggressively prosecuted crimes. The penalties for domestic violence can be severe, and it carries heavy punishment. The Court usually also issues a restraining order to make sure defendant stay away from the victim.
If you have been arrested for domestic violence, you need to seek an experienced Orange County criminal defense attorney immediately so that your rights can be protected. Our domestic violence attorneys have successfully defended clients in Orange County (Santa Ana, Fullerton, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa, Irvine, Tustin and Westminster), Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego and San Bernardino.
How an experienced Orange County Criminal Defense Attorney can help you in your Southern California Domestic Violence defense ?
At Law Offices of Michael L. Guisti, our experienced Southern California Criminal defense attorneys are committed to protect your rights and freedom and we will put our experience to work for you. We have handled hundreds of domestic violence cases and our attorneys are capable of getting the charges reduced or dismissed.
If you are facing domestic violence charges or any other crimes, you need to contact us immediately at 714-530-9690. Call us to set up a free consultation with our most experienced criminal defense lawyer to discuss your case further.
http://www.orangecountycriminallawyerblog.com/2009/10/huntington-beach-police-office.html
LAPD officer arrested in Austin on suspicion of sexual assault had history of misconduct allegations
April 6, 2009 | 6:09 pm
A Los Angeles police officer was arrested over the weekend in Travis County, Texas, for allegedly forcing himself on a motel employee while she was retrieving a crib for his child, authorities said today.
Silvio Sam Filipovich, 43, was taken into custody Friday night at the Mountain Star Lodge motel just outside Austin, Texas, and was booked on suspicion of attempted sexual assault. He was released after posting $20,000 bond, said Travis County Sheriff's spokesman Roger Wade.
Filipovich was "not on active duty," and was "on an extended leave" at the time of the reported incident, according to a source familiar with the case who said he was not authorized to discuss the case because it was a personnel matter.
According to authorities, Filipovich allegedly had asked a female motel employee for a crib for his infant child about 10:30 p.m. Friday. He then allegedly pushed her into a closet and tried to fondle her breasts and genitals before she fought him off and called for help.
Filipovich could not immediately be reached for comment.
Records obtained by The Times show that the 21-year veteran LAPD officer had a history of misconduct allegations leveled against him.
The records, which date back to 1995, show that department officials had recommended discipline of more than 100 days for alleged offenses by Filipovich that include trying to improperly convert an on-duty contact into a social relationship, making a discourteous remark and being discourteous during traffic stops.
In one case, records show, department officials alleged that while off duty, Filipovich "inappropriately exposed [his] penis in a public place." It was unclear from the records what, if any, discipline he received.
-- Andrew Blankstein
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/04/lapd-officer-arrested-in-austin-on-suspicion-of-sexual-assault-had-history-of-misconduct-allegations.html
Officer Accused Of Taking Drugs From Evidence Room
POSTED: 12:45 pm EDT October 1, 2009
UPDATED: 12:56 pm EDT October 1, 2009
LYNDHURST, Ohio -- A former Lyndhurst police office was indicted Thursday on charges of drug possession, tampering with evidence, and theft in office.
The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office said Robert Colombo, 40, stole drugs from an evidence room and replaced them with rock salt.
The evidence was confiscated from a vehicle involved in a crash on May, 19. Lyndhurst officers responded to the scene, found heroin and arrested two people.
They officers returned to the station to book the suspects. At the station, Colombo took the evidence to log it into the evidence room but instead replaced the evidence, investigators said.
Colombo was found the following day at his Summit County home with heroin. BCI conducted the investigation.
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/21171818/detail.html
Officer arrested; citizenship questioned
He is suspected of taking on identity of dead cousin years ago
By John Diedrich of the Journal Sentinel
Posted: May 31, 2007
A Milwaukee police officer was arrested Wednesday by federal immigration agents on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant who assumed the identity of his dead cousin a decade ago, officials said.
The officer, who has lived and worked under the name Jose A. Morales since he was a teenager, was arrested by agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz confirmed Wednesday.
A spokeswoman from Immigration did not return a call seeking comment Wednesday night.
"When the Milwaukee Police Department was made aware of these allegations, we worked in concert with federal authorities on this investigation," Schwartz said.
Morales, 24, was suspended after his arrest, Schwartz said. He will continue to be paid, per state law.
Morales was hired five years ago as a police aide, a program that came under fire during the investigation of the beating of Frank Jude Jr. and was later overhauled.
Morales became a patrol officer in December 2004 and was most recently assigned to second shift at District 2 on the south side, Schwartz said.
The U.S. attorney's office began reviewing the case Wednesday, said Michelle Jacobs, first assistant U.S. attorney.
"The case is under consideration by our office and a decision on charging will likely be made" today, Jacobs said, adding that if Morales is charged, he would appear in federal court today.
If Morales is charged or just deported, there will likely be fallout within the criminal justice system, based on the history of other police officers who have been charged with crimes. Prosecutors typically drop any case that an accused officer is a witness in and sometimes old cases can come up for appeal, if the officer was a key witness.
Officials did not say how Morales came to the attention of federal authorities.
It is suspected that he, as a teenager, took on the identity of his dead cousin. By doing that at such a young age, he created a trail of fingerprints and other identification that ultimately allowed him to join the department, Schwartz said.
"We do everything we can during the background check when people apply to be police officers, but in this case when it has been going on so long, it would be really difficult to discover it was going on," Schwartz said.
Changes to program
Since Morales was hired, the police aide program has been overhauled after a disproportionate number of its graduates landed in trouble. Officials found some aides lied, didn't work hard and failed to be physically fit.
The program, which grooms teens to become police officers, has been restructured with stronger oversight, closer evaluation of aides, a new uniform and additional required college credit, the department said.
The background check, which is the same for aides and officers, also has been strengthened after officials found that some of the officers accused in the Jude beating had questionable backgrounds. Now, the chief plays a larger role, personally reviewing all applications.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/29401339.html
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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