As arrests are made, protesters question the tactics used by St. Louis police

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/as-arrests-are-made-protesters-question-the-tactics-used-by/article_e58481b7-f7c2-541e-91d2-31a6379f272c.amp.html

ST. LOUIS • Police used a technique called kettling on Sunday night to box in about 100 people at a busy downtown intersection and arrest them for failing to disperse.

It’s a tactic used to corral a group of people who fail to follow police orders. St. Louis police took the action after several windows were broken and concrete planters and trash cans overturned.

But some of those caught in the box made by rows of officers said police overstepped their bounds, using excessive force and chemical spray on people who were not protesting, including residents trying to get home and members of the media. As police closed in from all sides, they struck their batons in unison on the pavement, in a cadence march.

Tony Rice, an activist who goes by Search4Swag on Twitter, said he was shocked by the police behavior.

“It was the most brutal arrest I’ve ever experienced in my life,” Rice said. “I thought I was going to die.”

He said he could not lie prone on the ground, as ordered, because he had his bike with him.

Rice said his neck was being pressed against part of his bike, and he told the officers: “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”

Those bused to the jail seemed confused by what was happening, Rice said. Pedestrians were arrested along with legal observers, protesters, a freelance photographer and a doctor, he said.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Mike Faulk was caught in the kettle Sunday night. A line of bike cops formed across Washington Avenue, east of Tucker Boulevard and police in helmets carrying shields and batons blocked the other three sides of the intersection at Tucker and Washington. Faulk heard the repeated police command, “Move back. Move back.” He had nowhere to go.

The police lines moved forward, trapping dozens of people — protesters, journalists, area residents and observers alike. Multiple officers knocked Faulk down, he said, and pinned his limbs to the ground. A firm foot pushed his head into the pavement. Once he was subdued, he recalled, an officer squirted pepper spray in his face.

Police loaded Faulk into a van holding about eight others and took him to the city jail on Tucker, a few blocks to the south. He arrived about midnight and was released about 1:30 p.m. Monday after posting a $50 bond. Faulk was charged with failure to disperse, a municipal charge.

Nigel Jernigan, 27, a cook from Jennings, said he came downtown around 9 p.m. Sunday to join others protesting the not-guilty verdict in the case of former St. Louis police Officer Jason Stockley, accused of murdering Anthony Lamar Smith.

In doing so, he got caught up in the sweep by police. He said he saw officers hit and roughhouse people around him on the ground who wouldn’t put their hands behind their backs.

“Most of the people who didn’t have their hands behind their backs were making sure they weren’t pepper sprayed in the face,” he said.

Jernigan said he put his face to the concrete. He said he heard police chant and yell even though the majority of the protesters were already terrified from being cornered and not allowed to leave.

Dellicia Jones, 23, said she and her boyfriend were also caught up in the sweep. She said she hadn’t participated in any of the earlier protests but wanted to see what was happening Sunday night.

She and her boyfriend parked on Washington Avenue and joined other people who were mostly standing around and talking, Jones said. After about 30 minutes, police began advancing while banging their batons on the ground in unison.

She and her boyfriend were quickly boxed in. “When we tried to walk one way, they came at us with pepper spray and batons and told us to go the other way,” Jones said, but they had nowhere to turn.

Jones said she wasn’t treated roughly by the officers who arrested her but she saw others who were hit with pepper spray and some who were slammed to the ground.

She thinks police were too harsh in how they swept in on the protesters.

“It was nowhere near right, at all,” Jones said a few hours after she was released from the City Justice Center. She had spent about 15 hours there and was among the many charged with failure to disperse.

Controversial tactic

Kettling has been used across the country as well as in Europe to defuse violent situations, which is how police described their Sunday night actions. After several hours of peaceful protests, which started at police headquarters west of downtown, the group of about 1,000 people moved to the St. Louis University campus and then back to the police station. Then a group peeled off and headed downtown, where several windows of businesses were broken, and concrete planters and trash cans overturned. Police warned protesters several times to disperse, saying it was no longer a peaceful assembly.

People run up Olive Street in St. Louis as some windows are broken and bicycle police begin arriving in the area on Sunday, Sept. 17, 2017. Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com

Tony Rothert, legal director of the American Civil Liberties of Missouri, said his office has been busy fielding complaints and been in contact with Mayor Lyda Krewson’s office as well as Acting Police Chief Lawrence O’Toole regarding what Rothert called inappropriate police behavior.

“We’re exploring whether litigation will be necessary to bring police in line with the Constitution,” Rothert said.

He said examples of questionable behavior by police include use of chemical sprays and ordering people to stop recording officers and to delete images they had already taken.

“And then engaging in kettling, which caused people who were doing nothing wrong to be detained and arrested along with those who were breaking the law,” Rothert said. “It has been used infamously and does very often bring in journalists, legal observers and innocent bystanders. It was used at the presidential inauguration (in January) in D.C., and in New York during Occupy Wall Street. It’s really a military tactic for controlling crowds and controversial because it leads to constitutional violations.”

Rothert said he is unaware of it ever being used in St. Louis before Sunday night “and I don’t recall it ever happening during Ferguson or any of the other protests of police shootings.”

The St. Louis Police Department said the design of the area downtown St. Louis prompted their actions Sunday night.

“The geographical layout of the area, and not a technique, dictated how tactics were deployed,” a police spokesman said in a statement Monday.

Police said anyone who wants to make a complaint about officer misconduct can contact the Internal Affairs Division at slmpd.org, 314-444-5652 or in person at Police Headquarters, 1915 Olive Boulevard.
Used in Portland

In November 2014, when it was announced that a grand jury would not indict former Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, protests broke out across the country, including in Portland, Ore., where kettling was used to control a crowd of about 100 demonstrators. Ten people were arrested for disorderly conduct or interfering with police, but prosecutors dismissed the cases.

A citizen review board determined that orders by police brass to have officers corral and arrest the group of protesters was unlawful. The board investigated after about 40 complaints were made to the city’s Independent Police Review Division, a part of the city auditor’s office.

Constantin Severe, director of the Independent Police Review, said those who complained said there was a “lack of articulation” by officers as to what the demonstrators were doing wrong. And without that component, police were wrong in kettling the group, which makes it impossible for anyone boxed in by police officers to leave, he said.

Severe said that after the findings, the Portland Police Department vowed to use the kettling procedure rarely, and stopped for nearly two years. They resumed the practice after Donald Trump was elected president, which launched several protests in Portland including one in June where kettling was used again.

“Those on the protest side say (kettling) is killing our First Amendment rights,” Severe said.

Police say it’s an effective way to defuse a volatile situation without resorting to violence. Portland is reviewing police policy on crowd containment, he said.

David Klinger, a criminal justice professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said that kettling serves a lawful purpose when crowds disobey police orders to leave an area. Those who have done nothing wrong should not pick that particular time to try to wage a debate with officers.

“If you are in a crowd and next to a guy that is breaking the law and police say it’s an unlawful assembly, you are going to get scooped up if you don’t leave,” said Klinger, a former Los Angeles police officer.

He said many of those protesting have done so before and know that in a volatile situation, ignoring failures to disperse typically leads to arrest.

“This is no time to play the victim game,” Klinger said. “It’s time to leave.”

Update
 

The Latest: Neighbor says man shot by cop didn’t speak

https://apnews.com/fc652ca4660848c3a6c6b4733ff74ada



OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Latest on a man holding a stick who was shot and killed by an Oklahoma City police officer (all times local):

4:15 p.m.

A man who saw Oklahoma City police officers open fire on his deaf neighbor says the neighbor was developmentally disabled and also didn’t speak.

Julio Rayos tells The Oklahoman that 35-year-old Magdiel Sanchez mainly communicated through hand movements. He says he believes Sanchez became frustrated trying to tell the officers what was going on, and that he shouldn’t have been killed.

Two officers investigating a hit-and-run involving Sanchez’s father Tuesday night shot Sanchez with a gun and a Taser after he left his front porch and approached them holding a metal pipe.

Police Capt. Bo Mathews said Wednesday that Sanchez didn’t obey the officers’ commands and that they didn’t hear witnesses yelling at them that Sanchez was deaf.

Sanchez died at the scene. The officer who fired the gun has been placed on administrative leave while the shooting is investigated.

Oklahoma City police officers who opened fire on a man who was approaching them holding a metal pipe didn’t hear witnesses yelling that the man was deaf, a department official said Wednesday. (Sept. 20)

___

10:20 a.m.

Authorities say Oklahoma City officers who opened fire on a man who was approaching them with a metal pipe in his hands apparently didn’t hear witnesses yelling that the man was deaf.

Police Capt. Bo Mathews said Wednesday that 35-year-old Magdiel Sanchez wasn’t obeying the officers’ commands before one shot him with a gun and the other with a Taser on Tuesday night. He says the officers didn’t hear witnesses yelling “he can’t hear you” before they fired.

Sanchez died at the scene. The officer who fired the gun has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.

Mathews says the officers were investigating a reported hit-and-run. He says a witness told one of the officers the address the vehicle had gone to and that Sanchez was on the porch when the officer arrived. He says Sanchez was holding the metal pipe, which had a leather loop on one end.

A neighbor told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Sanchez carried a stick to ward off stray dogs when he walked at night.

___

10:10 a.m.

A neighbor of a man shot and killed by an Oklahoma City police officer say he was either deaf or hard of hearing and often carried a stick to protect himself from stray dogs.

Police Capt. Bo Mathews says officers were responding to a report of a hit-and-run Tuesday night and said they found a vehicle that matched the description of the one in the crash. He says two officers confronted a man holding a stick near the vehicle.

Mathews says one officer fired a Taser and the other shot with a gun. The man was died at the scene. He has not been named.

Jolie Guebara said Wednesday that she didn’t know her neighbor’s name, but that he used notes to communicate with her and her husband and often carried the stick when he walked at night.

12:50 a.m.

Oklahoma City police say a man holding a stick was shot and killed by an officer on the city’s southeast side.

Police Capt. Bo Mathews says officers were responding to a report of a hit-and-run around 8:15 p.m. Tuesday when they found a vehicle that matched the description of the one in the crash.

Mathews says two officers confronted a man holding a stick near the vehicle. One officer fired a Taser and the other shot the suspect with a firearm.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene. Names of the suspect and the two officers have not been released.

Mathews says the officer who shot the man with the firearm was placed on administrative leave.

An investigation is ongoing.

Rocklin PD: Officer arrested for using excessive force

Rocklin PD: Officer arrested for using excessive force

ROCKLIN, Calif. (KCRA) —

A Rocklin police officer was arrested Tuesday for using excessive force while arresting a DUI suspect, the police department said.

Officer Brad Alford, a 15-year veteran of the Rocklin Police Department, was taken into custody around 6 p.m. and booked into Placer County Jail on charges of assault with a deadly weapon causing great bodily harm, assault under the color of authority and filing a false police report, police said.

The investigation into Alford stems from the arrest of a DUI suspect on Sunday, police said. Officers were in the 5400 block of South Grove Street around 6 a.m. to arrest the suspect.

Police said during the arrest, Alford “used a baton in a manner that appeared to be excessive.”

The officer’s actions were later reported to the police department. Investigators reviewed video footage and then “immediately” reached out to the Placer County District Attorney’s Office to conduct an independent review.

The district attorney’s office determined that Alford’s actions “rose to a criminal level” and decided to press charges against the officer.

Alford, who was on paid administrative leave during the investigation, was arrested Tuesday.

The district attorney’s office will continue the criminal investigation into the case while the Rocklin Police Department will conduct an internal investigation to determine if department policies and procedures were violated.

“This is a sad and unfortunate incident for all of those involved, including the community and our organization,” the Rocklin Police Department said in a news release. “This type of behavior will not be tolerated. As a department, we pride ourselves on working with our community and an incident like this tarnishes the reputation of the hardworking men and women who work here.”

Police Chief Chad Butler said during a news conference Tuesday night video of the incident will not be released per a request by the district attorney's office. The DA's office told Butler the video is part of an ongoing investigation and will not be released to the public at this time.

‘You like that?’: St. Louis cops savagely beat handcuffed filmmaker while wife watched, suit says

https://thinkprogress.org/st-louis-filmmaker-beating-556a6d98b229/?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_con tent=59cdbe3d04d30111925ef4c8&utm_medium=trueAnthe m&utm_source=twitter

On St. Louis’ most restless night of protests for some time, interim police chief Lawrence O’Toole seemed to embrace a tribal us-and-them attitude toward demonstrators in his city. Hours after reporters watched black-clad riot cops chant “Whose streets? Our streets!” at dispersing protesters, O’Toole boasted to press cameras that “police owned the night,” comments which Mayor Lyda Krewson (D) would criticize days later.

It all may have seemed hollow posturing and harmless banter. But a new lawsuit illustrates the very real abuses that such a domineering mentality from law enforcement can foreshadow. O’Toole’s cops allegedly beat, taunted, and repeatedly maced a handcuffed filmmaker that Sunday night, singling the Kansas City man out from a herd of arrestees to punish him physically for recording them. Drew and Jennifer Burbridge sued the city on Tuesday, alleging the kind of unprofessional, illegal mistreatment at police hands that’s routinely drawn protesters into American streets in recent years.

The Burbridges were present late Sunday night, September 17, when officers suddenly encircled a mix of protesters and reporters in a “kettle.” The tactic involves riot police cutting off all exit routes for a group of people and then arresting everyone. The Burbridges say they were not warned at any point to leave, or to avoid going to the intersection where they were filming protesters and police, before the sudden kettling. With the perimeter established, the suit says, officers began indiscriminately spraying pepper spray into the trapped group.

The couple sat down and held onto one another. Police moved inside the kettle. “One of the two officers…stated ‘that’s him’ and grabbed Drew Burbridge by each arm and roughly drug him away from his wife,” the suit says. Despite being told Burbridge was a member of the media and not a protester, the officers “then purposely deployed chemical spray into his mouth and eyes and ripped his camera from his neck,” according to the suit. Officers beat the man repeatedly, first with hands and feet as they got plastic zip-tie cuffs onto him and then going back for seconds with their batons after his hands were bound.

“Do you want to take my picture now motherfucker? Do you want me to pose for you?” one officer allegedly said to Drew during the beating. When the assault caused him to lose consciousness, Drew “awoke to an officer pulling his head up by his hair and spraying him with chemical agents in the face.”

The officers running the kettle and alleged beating were not wearing name badges on their uniforms and declined to identify themselves to either Burbridge throughout the encounter. Multiple officers seemed to taunt Jennifer as she watched her husband beaten, the complaint says. “Did you like that? Come back tomorrow and we can do this again,” one allegedly told her. Another, the complaint says, asked her, “What did you think was going to happen?”

An hour or so later, O’Toole and Krewson would appear on local television to praise their officers for effectively balancing the First Amendment rights of peaceful protesters against the criminality of a small minority of those still present on the streets after dark.

The basis for the police crackdown that night was a handful of smashed windows downtown. But the vandals had been arrested hours earlier by the time the Burbridges arrived and got caught up in the kettle, according to local news reports from the night.

Wide array of unconstitutional tactics alleged in suit over chilling round-up that hit peaceful protesters, journalists, and anarchists alike.

The allegations of collective punishment, targeted brutality against non-resistant arrestees, and a seemingly intentional singling out of media members all echo a separate lawsuit in Washington, D.C., over the city police’s handling of protesters during President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The protests the Burbridges attempted to cover in St. Louis didn’t have anything to do with Donald Trump personally. The city is on edge because another white police officer has been vindicated in the suspicious slaying of a young black man, not because of any acute action from the White House. But the tone and momentum established for police forces around the country by the new administration in Washington has an influence on how both individual officers and whole department cultures view dissent, protest, and civil unrest.

Immediately upon Trump’s taking office, the administration made clear to law enforcement observers that any protest they deemed to be violent should be met with force. In the months since, the president himself has given aid and comfort to the enemies of civil rights, encouraging cops to knock people around after they are arrested but before they have been proven guilty of any crime or even formally charged with one. In his informal political alliances with men like David Clarke and his own speeches, Trump has repeatedly betrayed an affection for roughing up his critics — something a few optimists in political journalism had hoped he might leave behind on the campaign trail.

This is just one of many tragedies occurring in the state of Missouri, but is so heartbreaking because isn't this the same state where the white cop was let off the hook for killing a black man too? There's so many disturbing accounts of horrible violence all over the country, but it seems to me that it's at an all time crisis point , way past the threshold of reported violence, deadly violence in Missouri. It makes me sick at heart to read that deadly violence committed by public law enforcement is occurring in epic proportions. So sad! :(

Brooklyn teen claims NYPD detectives raped her after arrest on drug charge

http://www.nydailynews.com/amp/new-york/nyc-crime/nyc-teen-claims-nypd-cops-raped-arrest-drug-charge-article-1.3530054

A Brooklyn teen claims two NYPD detectives raped her after taking her into custody on a drug charge, authorities said Friday.

The 18-year-old victim’s stunning accusations are now the subject of two investigations by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office and the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau.

“I’m completely brutalized by the rape. My life is in shatters,” the young woman said through her attorney, Michael David. “Now every time I see any police, I’m in a panic.”

No arrests have been made, but the two detectives and their supervisor have been stripped of their guns and shields and forced on desk duty as the investigations proceed.

Internal Affairs also is looking into the detectives’ prior arrests and questioning confidential informants to see if there are any other victims, according to a high-ranking NYPD source with knowledge of the case.

Brooklyn South Narcotics Detectives Edward Martins and Richard Hall were conducting an undercover buy-and-bust operation in Brighton Beach on Sept. 14 with their supervisor, Sgt. John Espey, when the two detectives for some inexplicable reason drove off in an unmarked Dodge minivan, police sources said.

The pair reappeared at Calvert Vaux Park near Shore Parkway and Bay 44th St. at about 8 p.m. where they found the woman and two friends, both men, sitting in a car.

The cops stopped them “because they weren’t supposed to be in the park,” a friend of the victim who was at the scene said.

The detectives handcuffed the teen after finding marijuana and the anxiety drug Klonopin in a bag next to her and drove her away, according to the friend, who said he was suspicious about the cops from the start.

The two NYPD detectives reappeared at Calvert Vaux Park near Shore Parkway and Bay 44th St. at about 8 p.m. where they find the victim and two friends. Image by: Todd Maisel, New York Daily News/New York Daily News

“I had Prozac on me,” said the friend, who declined to be named. “They said that it’s supposed to be in the bottle but they just gave it back to me.”

They only handcuffed the woman, telling her friends that they were taking her to the 60th Precinct on W. Eighth St. in Coney Island for processing.

Instead, Martins and Hall allegedly took her to a secluded spot about two blocks from the 60th Precinct stationhouse, where she says she was forced to perform a sex act on both cops.

One of the detectives also raped her, David said.

“She’s a teenager and she was basically kidnapped into a police vehicle without any justification,” the attorney said. “She had her handcuffs on when they raped her.”

The detectives then forced her out of the minivan — about 45 minutes after taking her into custody — and drove off.

Her friend went to the 60th Precinct and found the victim nearby.

“She was like ‘They just f----- me,’ ” the friend said. “I couldn’t have done anything but it was definitely just one of those damn moments.”
Not Released (NR)

The friend took the victim to her parents, who rushed her to Maimonides Hospital for an exam. Doctors there found signs of sexual assault and called police who started the investigation, David said.

Internal Affairs hadn’t interviewed the detectives as of Friday as they wait for Brooklyn prosecutors to finish their investigation, but Martins and Hall told colleagues that the sex was consensual, according to the high-ranking police source.

David said his client was outraged by claims the sex was consensual. “She was in shock. She is a very emotional girl,” he said.

David has filed a notice of claim for a lawsuit against the city.

Martins and Hall were put on modified duty because of the allegations. Espey was put on modified duty for failing to supervise the two detectives.

Martins joined the NYPD in July 2006 and became a detective in May 2016. Hall became a cop in 2010 and was promoted to detective in April.

Ed Mullins, head of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, said Espey was involved in an arrest at a different location during the incident. He called it “lunacy” for the NYPD to take action against the sergeant.

Espey, 41, has been a cop for 22 years. He was previously assigned to the 67 Precinct.

Michael Palladino, the president of the Detectives’ Endowment Association, declined to comment on the probe. “The investigation is ongoing and the information is changing hourly,” he said.

Convicted, but still policing

http://www.startribune.com/minnesota-police-officers-convicted-of-serious-crimes-still-on-the-job/437687453/

Jared Taylor choked a man until he blacked out.

Steven Brown fired a .38 Special during a confrontation with his fiancée.

Tom Bernardson punched a man so viciously that he put him in the hospital with a concussion.

All three were convicted in Minnesota courts.

And all three still work in law enforcement.

They are among hundreds of sworn officers in Minnesota who were convicted of criminal offenses in the past two decades yet kept their state law enforcement licenses, according to public records examined by the Star Tribune. Dozens of them are still on the job with a badge, a gun and the public’s trust that they will uphold the law.

The cases reveal a state licensing system that is failing repeatedly to hold officers accountable for reckless, sometimes violent, conduct.

In Minnesota, doctors and lawyers can lose their professional licenses for conduct that is unethical or unprofessional — even if they never break a law. Yet law enforcement officers can stay on the job for years even when a judge or jury finds them guilty of criminal behavior.

“The public trusts that we’re not going to act like that,” said former Prior Lake Police Chief Bill O’Rourke, describing an officer who kept his state license despite being fired for a violent outburst. “The public needs to trust that those officers are going to be held accountable.”

Records also show that scores of the convictions stemmed from off-duty misconduct — including brawls, stalking and domestic altercations — that raise questions about an officer’s temperament for a job that authorizes the use of force.

Law enforcement leaders say it’s important for citizens to have confidence that officers are held to the highest ethical standards — on duty or off duty. In fact, Minnesota’s model code of ethics says that officers shall not discredit themselves or their agency either on-duty or off. Yet Minnesota seems to have developed a culture of second chances for those who wear a badge, said Neil Melton, a former Bloomington police officer who ran Minnesota’s licensing board for 16 years.

“Benefit of the doubt. Benefit of the doubt. Benefit of the doubt,” Melton said. “At what point do we say enough is enough?”

Records also show that Minnesota, once a pioneer in professionalizing police work, has fallen far behind other states on police discipline. Among 44 states with comparable licensing, Minnesota ranks 38th in revoking law enforcement licenses, based on numbers compiled by Seattle University criminologist Matthew Hickman. The national average for revocations is 12 times higher than Minnesota’s.

In Georgia, for example, the state board can revoke an officer’s license for committing any act “which is indicative of bad moral character or untrustworthiness.” In Minnesota, revocation almost always requires a criminal conviction.

In Oregon, officers lose their licenses for any criminal conviction with an element of domestic violence. The state, which has fewer police than Minnesota, revokes about 35 licenses each year.

Today, Minnesota revokes one or two.

Andrea: Clink link for rest of article.

Michigan trooper resigns as ATV probe widens

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2017/10/03/trooper-atv-probe-widens/106253324/

The Michigan State Police trooper accused of using his stun gun on a 15-year-old ATV driver has resigned, while two other state cops involved in the fatal incident have been suspended, a state police official said Monday.

Meanwhile, Detroit police are investigating a state police sergeant who allegedly discarded evidence from the scene, three Detroit police sources involved in the case told The Detroit News.

Before Detroit and state police launched separate criminal investigations into Damon Grimes’ Aug. 26 death, the sergeant, a supervisor who had responded to the scene, collected one of the stun gun’s wires and prongs and later threw them into a trash can at a state police post, the sources said.

Investigators are trying to determine whether the sergeant was trying to cover up evidence, or was simply being careless by throwing the wire away, the sources said. The other wire used in the incident was left at the scene and taken into evidence, the sources said.

Detroit police detectives plan to submit warrant requests to prosecutors seeking charges against the sergeant, the driver of the state police cruiser and the passenger who deployed the stun gun, the sources said.

The passenger, trooper Mark Bessner, has resigned from the state police, MSP spokeswoman Shanon Banner said Monday. She added two other state cops have been suspended in connection with the incident, although she would not identify them or what they did.

“We have started submitting our reports to the prosecutor’s office, and now we want to respect them and let them carry out their role in this process,” Banner said. “We have conducted a thorough investigation and we want to be as transparent as possible, but we need to let prosecutors review our investigation report.

“As a result of our investigation, we thought it was appropriate to suspend two other employees,” Banner said. “Another (Bessner) has chosen to resign.”

Bessner was suspended Aug. 28, and resigned Sept. 22, Banner said. The two others were suspended Sept. 26, she said.

Bessner’s attorney Richard Convertino did not reply Monday to a phone call seeking comment. A message left with the Michigan State Police Troopers Association was not returned.

The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office received a warrant request from the state police Friday and returned it Monday to the agency for further investigation, assistant prosecutor Maria Miller said.

Miller would not say what name or names were on the MSP warrant request.

As state police submit their reports to prosecutors, Detroit police investigators are still weighing which charges to seek against the three men, according to the Detroit police sources. If it’s determined the MSP sergeant was merely careless, investigators might seek a misdemeanor charge against him, the sources said.

Police Chief James Craig declined to comment. “It’s an ongoing investigation,” he said.

Stun guns deliver up to 50,000 volts of electricity by firing a pair of barbed electrodes attached to conductive wires. The cartridge containing the electrodes and wires is replaced after each use. For a stun gun to work effectively, both barbed prongs must lodge into the target’s skin to complete the electric circuit.

Stun gun wires and prongs could contain important evidence in a court case, legal experts said.

“If the Taser prongs go into the body, there could be DNA evidence to show (the Taser) actually hit the target,” said Curt Benson, a professor at the Cooley School of Law. “Police would want to save and conserve every conceivable piece of evidence at a scene.”

University of Michigan law professor David Moran agreed. “If the Taser prong is embedded in someone’s body, you’d expect their DNA to be present, and that could be evidence that could be used in a criminal prosecution.”

DNA from stun gun prongs has been used in trials, including a 2007 Monterey County, California, case in which police linked a man to a rape by extracting DNA from a Taser’s barbs after the stun gun was used on him in a separate incident. Some stun gun manufacturers list DNA extraction as one of the benefits of the devices.

State police say Grimes was illegally driving the ATV in the streets of his east side neighborhood when he was ordered to stop. Grimes didn’t comply before Bessner deployed his stun gun, police said.

The stun gun’s electrically charged barbed prongs hit Grimes, who crashed into a flatbed and died from blunt-force head injuries, according to the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Bessner was suspended two days after the incident for allegedly violating department policy by using his stun gun while in a moving vehicle. Bessner was previously accused of excessive force in two separate lawsuits, although the cases against him were dismissed.

All three suspensions related to the case were paid, Banner said. “If they are charged with a crime, we can move to an unpaid suspension,” she said.

In the wake of the incident, investigations were launched by state police and Detroit police. On Friday, officials with both agencies said the respective probes are winding down.

“We’re waiting on forensic analysis to come back from evidence items, although I won’t say what those evidence items are,” Craig said.

“The investigation is moving along like we’d hoped it would but when you talk about forensic analysis, those things don’t come back in a few days,” Craig said.

The chief added Wayne County prosecutors have been working with Detroit police investigators on the case.

Banner said the MSP investigation into the incident also is coming to a close. She said an internal investigation will be conducted after the criminal probe is finished.

“There are still some pieces that are outstanding that we continue to work on, and we fully expect the prosecutor’s office may request additional follow-up once they have the opportunity to review our reports,” Banner said.

The incident has sparked several protests, and prompted state police to temporarily pull troopers out of the 9th Precinct to avoid stoking animosity in Grimes’ neighborhood. Troopers had been assigned to the precinct as part of the state’s Secure Cities Partnership initiative.

Geoffrey Fieger, attorney for Grimes’ family, has filed a $50 million lawsuit against the state.

State police changed the agency’s policy in the city after the incident to match Detroit’s edict that officers refrain from high-speed chases unless they’re pursuing someone perceived to be a danger to the community. Prior to the change, state police routinely chased traffic violators and others committing nonviolent crimes.

Cleveland police officer attacked woman and then arrested her on false charges, court records say

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/10/cleveland_police_officer_charg_12.html

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Cleveland police officer is accused of attacking a woman and having her arrested under false pretenses.

Sgt. Christopher Graham, 38, is charged with assault, unlawful restraint, both first-degree misdemeanors. Graham was arrested on Thursday. Cleveland Municipal Judge Ronald Adrine set a personal bond for Graham.

Graham, who was hired as an officer in 1996, will be arraigned Friday.

Graham has twice been the subject of civil lawsuits filed by people who accused him of similar behavior. Both lawsuits resulted in cash settlements, and Graham was allowed to return to the street.

The most recent incident happened Sept. 12 at the Sunoco gas station on Lorain Road near West 136th Street, according to court records.

Graham attacked the woman, had her arrested and booked into the city jail on a charge of assaulting a police officer, court records say. He filed a false police report that led to the woman being charged with a felony, according to court records.

Court records do not say what provoked the attack. Cleveland police officials have not responded to messages Thursday seeking more information regarding the incident.

Cleveland Fraternal Order of Police President Brian Betley did not immediately respond to a phone call seeking comment.

Graham twice has been the subject of lawsuits filed by people who accused him of abusing his police power.

In 2003, he had two patrolmen arrest his then-live-in-girlfriend on a trespassing charge after an argument despite the fact that the woman lived at the Oak Park Avenue home.

The city settled that lawsuit for $14,000.

Two years later, Graham issued a man a traffic citation shortly after arguing with him over a parking spot outside a coffee shop in the city's Collinwood neighborhood.

The two argued again and Graham told him: "You're assaulting me." The two fought and the man initially slipped away from Graham and ran.

Graham chased him down inside the coffee shop, tackled him and cracked him on the back of the head with his metal flashlight. He then threw the man into a rack of coffee mugs, which fell to the ground and shattered, and beat him again over the head with his flashlight, until he bled, according to the lawsuit.

The man said the officer pinned him to the floor with a knee in his chest and his hands around his neck until other officers arrived.

Graham handcuffed and arrested the man on charges of assault on a police officer and resisting arrest.

He was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where they treated him for his head injuries and stapled shut his wounds before releasing him back to police custody.

A grand jury declined to indict Graham on Dec. 12, 2005.

The city paid $7,500 to settle that lawsuit in 2007.

It is unknown if Graham was disciplined for the two incidents.

Bodycam footage shows Utah police shoot man as he runs away

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/08/us/patrick-harmon-utah-police-shooting/index.html

The Salt Lake City Police Department is the latest US police department to come under scrutiny after bodycam footage shows an officer shooting and killing a man, even as the man appeared to be running away.

An officer shot and killed Patrick Harmon, a 50-year-old black man, as he was being arrested on the evening of August 13.

On Wednesday, after a seven week investigation, the Salt Lake County district attorney concluded the officers' use of deadly force was justified because the officers said they feared Harmon was going to hurt them, according to a letter the district attorney sent to the Salt Lake County Sheriff and the city's police chief detailing his investigation into the incident.

Bodycam footage shows Harmon running away from police before he is shot by Salt Lake City police Officer Clinton Fox. The officers later said Harmon threatened them with a knife.

"That video is horrifying. It is just not right," Antionette Harmon, Patrick's older sister, told CNN. "I'm not understanding none of this, how it was justified or anything. It's not fair."

Harmon said her brother was bipolar, schizophrenic and possibly homeless.
Police claim Harmon had a knife.

Harmon was stopped by a police officer on the evening of August 13 after he rode a bicycle across six lanes and a median, according to a narrative laid out by the district attorney, Sim Gill. Harmon was required to have a "red rear tail light on his bicycle," the officer told him.

The officer called for backup after Harmon provided "a couple different names" when he was asked for identification, according to Gill. The officers discovered felony warrants were open for Harmon's arrest -- one of which was for aggravated assault, Gill's report says. As they tried to put handcuffs on him, he ran. The officers chased after him.

In the bodycam footage, of which there are three angles for each of the officers, released by the Salt Lake City Police Department, Fox can be seen shooting Harmon three times as he runs in the opposite direction.

The officer who initially stopped Harmon, Kris Smith, fired his Taser, according to the district attorney's report.

Fox later told investigators that as Harmon was running away, he stopped and turned back toward the officers with a knife in his hand, yelling, "I'll f***ing stab you."

"Officer Fox said he feared if he didn't immediately use deadly force, Mr. Harmon was going to stab him and/or the other officers," Gill's report says.

In his investigation, Gill weighed the testimony of all three officers present -- Fox, Smith and Scott Robinson.

Smith and Robinson's accounts of what Harmon said before being shot vary slightly from Fox's. Smith told investigators he heard Harmon say, "I'm going to cut ..." the report says. Meanwhile, Robinson said he heard Harmon say, "'I stab' or something to that effect," according to the report, though he said he "couldn't remember Mr. Harmon's exact words."

Gill's report says Harmon can be seen in the bodycam video with a knife in his hand, and that investigators took photographs of the knife at the scene.
Ultimately, the district attorney's office found the shooting was a "'justified' use of deadly force," and chose not to pursue criminal charges against Fox.

Harmon's death is the latest to revive concerns into police officers' use of deadly force against black men throughout the United States, as other officer-involved shootings have done in recent years.

"Really, black people don't matter, homeless people don't matter," Antionette Harmon said.

Adriane Harmon, Antionette's daughter, described the video as "heartbreaking" and "horrifying," and vowed to seek justice on behalf of her uncle.

"I want to fight the decision," she said. "I don't believe that (DA decision) was justified. (We're) looking at attorneys now."

In a statement sent to CNN on Sunday, Jeanetta Williams, the president of the Salt Lake City chapter of the NAACP, said the organization was investigating Harmon's death.

"It seemed like more could have been done by the police officers to apprehend Mr. Patrick Harmon than shooting him in the back as he ran," Williams said, adding Harmon was simply afraid.

The statement points out the officers "were a lot younger" than Harmon, and they could have easily tackled him. "He was never given the time to heed the officers' command before they shot him," she said.

Lex Scott, founder of The United Front civil rights organization, called for police accountability.

"District Attorney Sim Gill has denied the people of Salt Lake City justice repeatedly. At this time he needs to hold police accountable or we need a new district attorney," she said.

Sevier deputy suffered panic attack while armed, couple charged with causing it

http://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2017/10/16/sevier-deputy-suffered-panic-attack-while-armed-couple-charged-causing/759465001/

SEVIERVILLE, Tenn., — A Sevier County Sheriff’s Office deputy opened fire without warning in a mobile home park, suffered an apparent panic attack four minutes later and was forcibly disarmed by a paramedic, body camera footage shows.

Deputy Justin Johnson did not mention the panic attack in his report on the December 2016 incident, and he remains on active duty, court records show.

Brian Keith Mullinax, 41, and his girlfriend, Tina Carrie Jo Cody, 37, spent 42 days in jail on felony charges, accused of causing what was described in court statements as a "panic attack" and which a detective called "some type of cardiac event." They remain under prosecution on misdemeanor charges, court records show.
Gunfire, panic

A spokesman for Sevier County Sheriff Ron “Hoss” Seals did not return a phone message. It’s not clear from court records whether the sheriff’s office conducted an internal investigation, ordered psychological testing for Johnson, or required him to undergo counseling or additional training.

Cody was unarmed and being held on the ground by Johnson and paramedic Blake Gregg when Johnson fired four shots toward a set of mobile homes, paused and fired three more, the video obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee showed. He ran away from Cody and Gregg toward Sharp Road.

“Shots fired,” he told dispatchers. “We need help.”

Four minutes later, Johnson was kneeling over Cody, who had remained on the ground, with his gun still in his hand when the video showed he began hyperventilating and running backward away from the mobile homes and Cody.

Paramedic Michael O’Connor ran toward Johnson.

“Pull it together,” O’Connor told Johnson. “Look at me.”

Johnson continued to hyperventilate while pointing his gun toward Cody, Gregg and the mobile homes.

“Give me your gun,” O’Connor repeatedly said. A still hyperventilating Johnson continued to grip the gun. O’Connor eventually wrested it from his hand.

“Let go of it,” O’Connor said.

Johnson continued to hyperventilate.

“Easy, buddy,” O’Connor said as he trained Johnson’s gun toward the mobile homes. “I got it under control. Calm down. It’s OK.”

One minute and 30 seconds after Johnson began hyperventilating, his breathing slowed.

“I’m OK,” he said. “I’m OK.”

O’Connor handed Johnson his gun back. He had hyperventilated so strongly one of his contact lens popped out of his eye, the video showed. He tossed it away as he trained his gun toward the mobile homes, where an unarmed Mullinax was facedown on the ground with his arms extended.

The video showed Mullinax obeyed Johnson when – after Johnson had fired seven shots and ran away – the deputy ordered him to the ground, and he never moved from that position during or after Johnson’s panic attack.

Mullinax is set to stand trial in Sevier County Criminal Court on Tuesday on a charge that he assaulted Johnson. A lower court judge already dropped felony charges against both Cody and Mullinax, and a grand jury refused to indict Cody for causing the panic attack. She remains charged with resisting arrest.

The couple spent 42 days in jail because they were too poor to post bond and did not get a preliminary hearing within 10 business days as the law requires, records showed. It’s not clear why from those court records.

Records and video showed the following:

Johnson was called to the mobile home park at 794 Sharp Road by paramedics. A “morbidly obese female” had fallen inside one of the homes and was complaining about landlord Robin Sutton – Cody’s mother – and Cody, Johnson wrote in his report.

The woman was disoriented, he wrote, and “didn’t know what day or time it was that she had fallen.” Sutton was on the front porch, the video showed. Cody was in the yard. She and Mullinax lived in a neighboring mobile home.

Among the woman’s claims was that Sutton and Cody had stolen her purse. As the woman was still talking, Cody walked to a fence and climbed through it into a field. Johnson drew his gun but ran away from the field, around a mobile home and onto Sharp Road. Cody was standing in the field facing Sharp Road.

“Don’t move,” Johnson yelled.

Cody turned and ran, pulling off her jacket. Johnson, gun in his right hand, used his left hand to pull her onto the ground, and paramedic Gregg helped Johnson hold her down.

'I heard a male voice'

Mullinax walked onto his porch with a cell phone in his hand. The porch was facing Johnson. But Johnson wrote in his report he heard a noise behind him.

“I heard a male voice coming from a short distance behind me shout, ‘I’ve got a gun, (expletive),’” Johnson wrote. “I turned to notice (a suspect) pacing wildly on the porch of a nearby mobile home and then squat while aiming an object at me that appeared to be a firearm in his hand. I immediately discharged my weapon.”

Johnson issued no warning and fired over Gregg’s head.

Mullinax, records show, did not say he had a gun or threaten to harm Johnson. He had a cell phone and yelled at Johnson that he was filming the deputy’s handling of girlfriend Cody.

Johnson immediately ran away after firing the shots. When he returned to the location in the field where Gregg still had Cody on the ground, he yelled at Mullinax, “You drop that (expletive) thing. Do it now.”

Mullinax dropped the phone and got on the ground. He yelled a complaint but did not threaten violence.

“You shut the (expletive) up,” Johnson said.

The deputy told dispatchers everything was fine.

“I’ve got him on the ground,” he said, adding Mullinax was unarmed. “I don’t know what he did with it (the object in his hand).”

A short time later, Johnson’s panic attack began.

Court battle brewing

Johnson wrote in his report that he opened fire “in defense for my life” and the safety of the paramedics.

SCSO Detective Johnny Bohanan later added notes to Johnson’s report about the panic attack. They were brief.

“Because of the assault on Johnson and the fact that he was taken to the hospital with injuries and may have suffered some type of cardiac event as the result of this assault by both the male and female and all the statements and evidence, I charged” Mullinax and Cody with aggravated assault, Bohanan wrote.

Prosecutor Ron Newcomb has declined comment. It’s not clear if the trial will take place Tuesday. Several are set. Defense attorneys were not immediately available for comment.

Attorneys John S. “Stan” Young III and Cameron Bell confirmed this week they are investigating the incident to determine if there are grounds to file a lawsuit on behalf of Mullinax and Cody.

Police used a Taser on a grandfather, who's now in intensive care. They say it was for his safety.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/10/21/police-used-a-taser-on-a-granddad-whos-now-in-intensive-care-they-say-it-was-for-his-safety/?utm_term=.239c6fca43a0

Albert Chatfield has good days where he’s clear-eyed and lucid, quick with a joke and more than capable of taking care of himself in his home just north of Charleston.

But his family had begun to worry about the 86-year-old’s bad days. They fear it’s the earliest stage of dementia — blocks of time where he’s foggy about who or where he is, afraid of nonexistent dangers and wary of strangers.

Police encountered him on one of those bad days, his family’s attorney said, and their early-morning encounter in Kingstree, S.C., left Chatfield hospitalized in intensive care, bleeding from the brain and breathing only with the help of a ventilator.

Chatfield’s family is hoping for optimistic news from his doctors, who worry he won’t survive his injuries.

From the police, they simply want answers.

“They messed up big time,” their attorney, Justin Bamberg told The Washington Post, adding that he believes officers in Kingstree need additional training.

“This is a case of a mental-health issue, and officers not being properly trained to handle these situations. Not everyone that you run into that isn’t listening to you is a danger. Maybe they need help. Instead of helping, they put him in intensive care.”

Last weekend, Bamberg said, Chatfield had been confused, and called 911 several times. The subject matter was unclear, but authorities were worried enough to call his family. They made arrangements to take him to the doctor the next day.

Something went wrong before then.

Early Monday, someone called 911 saying a driver was behaving erratically, preventing a vehicle from turning. The wayward driver was Chatfield, and things got worse when officers arrived, according to the Kingstree News.

Chatfield sped away from police, running red lights, making turns at random.

His erratic behavior continued after he finally stopped at Main and Brooks streets. Officers ordered him to the ground, but he wouldn’t comply. Instead, he took what officers described as a fighting stance, according to a police report obtained by the Charleston Post & Courier. Then he started jogging backward.

One of the responding officers shocked him with a Taser, which uses a jolt of electricity to seize a person’s muscles.

Chatfield crashed to the ground, hitting his head and injuring his nose. Pictures sent to The Washington Post showed him with gashes on his face as well.

Police Chief James Barr could not be reached for comment on Saturday. He told news outlets that Chatfield’s adversarial nature was the ultimate reason for the use of force.

“You have an elderly man still charging and he wants to fight the police so they got the [Taser] pulled on him to try and calm him down so they could talk to him,” Barr told the Kingstree News. He said Chatfield continued to resist officers after they handcuffed him and led him to the sidewalk.

“After we got the medical report now we understand why he was doing what he was doing,” Barr added. “But for officers’ safety and his safety, that’s why he was tased, because he was in a rage and trying to fight in the middle of the highway. We didn’t want the man to get hit.”

On Saturday, Bamberg said he took issue with the department’s rationale for using force. Chatfield wasn’t a danger to officers or other people — and he was outnumbered by police officers much younger than him.

“They are saying that due to traffic in this tiny town, we tased him for his own safety, and I find that extremely problematic,” Bamberg told The Post. “If traffic is what you were concerned about, why would you completely incapacitate an individual so he can’t get out of the way of traffic.

“It’s a clear lack of Taser training — a clear lack of understanding Constitutional restraint to use force on an individual. I think it is inhumane.”

The incident comes as police departments are under intense scrutiny for their use of force against suspects, particularly minorities.

Chatfield is black. The officer who shocked him — Stephen Sweikata who’d worked in Kingstree since April — is white. Bamberg said he didn’t think race was explicitly at play, although they have not received dash cam footage and other evidence.

In 2015, 995 people were shot dead by police officers. Of those, 259 were black — more than one in four, according to a Washington Post database on police shootings. So far in 2017, 782 people have been shot and killed by police, 183 of whom were black.

Family members told the Post & Courier they were shocked to find themselves members of the fraternity of families who’ve had violent encounters with police. They have not ruled out a lawsuit, Bamberg said, but for now the focus is on Chatfield’s health.

And they were trying to reconcile the jovial, funny patriarch of their family with the police description of a man so threatening an officer had to pull out a Taser.

“He wouldn’t hurt anybody,” his daughter, Jodi Mack, told the Post & Courier. “He would only make you hurt laughing.”

How Rikers Island and the failing justice system killed this public defender’s young, opioid-addicted client

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/rikers-island-justice-system-killed-young-opioid-addict-article-1.3579406

He was incarcerated, caged, stripped of his family, friends, and dignity. And just four days before his 28th birthday, he was dead.

When Selmin Feratovic died early Thursday at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center on Rikers Island, he had been incarcerated for nearly seven months but had not been convicted of a crime.

I was Selmin’s public defender. When I met him, the first thing I noticed was his shy smile. He seemed like a kid with his messy hair, soft voice, and a grin that would unexpectedly snake across his face and then disappear as suddenly as it appeared.

He was unfailingly polite. I was always “Miss Anisha.” He always asked me how I was doing, if I was okay. And when we were finished talking — after I told him, again, that he wasn’t going home on this court date either — he would thank me for trying to help.

“I’m sorry, Selmin, I just wish I could get you out,” I would say to him.

“What are you sorry for, Miss? You didn’t put me here,” he would reply.

It’s true, I didn’t put him there. But I couldn’t get him out. And now he’s dead.

Thus far, the New York City Department of Correction, which governs Rikers, has refused to provide Selmin’s lawyers or his family with his cause of death. But they don’t have to, because I already know what happened.

Selmin was killed by a system that overcharged him, incarcerated him, ignored him, and ultimately failed to protect him. He was a victim of the opioid epidemic, the war on drugs, and anti-immigrant policy. His tragic death is an entirely predictable consequence of the criminal justice system as it currently dysfunctions.

In March, Selmin was accused of entering an apartment laundry room and trying to pry open the coin machine. Nothing was actually taken, and no one from the apartment identified Selmin as the person seen in the laundry room. But based on surveillance video, police believed he was responsible and arrested him.

In a gross example of overcharging, the Bronx District Attorney’s office charged Selmin with burglary in the second degree; a class “C” violent felony, carrying a minimum prison sentence of 31/2 years. At his arraignment, the judge set Selmin’s bail at $50,000, refusing to lower the amount requested by the prosecution for this young man whose previous involvement with the criminal justice system resulted in no convictions, but made it abundantly clear he needed help, not incarceration.

The bail that was set was not a reasonable amount that would ensure his return to court, as the law requires, but an amount designed to keep him incarcerated.

It amounted to a death sentence.

For months, his social worker, his immigration lawyer and I labored to get Selmin out. We knew that guilty or not, his struggle was drugs. He needed treatment because, like so many others, Selmin was trapped by opioid addiction.

In 2011, he was grievously injured in a motorcycle accident, underwent surgery and was hospitalized. Doctors prescribed oxycodone. It wasn’t long before Selmin became dependent. Still in pain, he learned that heroin had the same effect as oxycodone, and before he knew it, he was spiraling.

With the support of his partner, Nicole, Selmin fought to get into treatment, but his addiction was indomitable. There were countless trips to the hospital, late-night ambulance rides, and emergency phone calls.

Selmin’s battle with drugs was well known to the DA’s office. They knew he was going through more heroin a day than the heaviest users, and was dangerously close to an overdose. They knew he wanted help and was willing to take a plea involving inpatient treatment.

They also knew that Selmin — who came from Montenegro to the U.S. legally as a child — was a lawful permanent resident, not a citizen. Pleading guilty to felony burglary could result in deportation and permanent separation from his family.

Still, the DA’s office was intransigent. They offered drug treatment, but insisted that Selmin plead guilty to a felony charge. However, that felony plea could trigger deportation proceedings, landing him back in the country he had left as a child, away from the drug treatment program and family whose support he would need to rehabilitate himself.

Selmin’s choices: on the one hand, he could plead guilty and get out of jail, only to be put in ICE detention and deported. On the other, he could plead not guilty and stay in the only country he’s known, but remain caged as he fought his case. Incarceration or deportation.

I begged for an alternative. What about misdemeanor criminal trespassing with mandatory inpatient treatment? Or what about releasing Selmin into a program without forcing him to plead guilty? Then, if he succeeded, he could plead to a lesser charge and avoid deportation?

The DA was unmoved.

I tried to persuade different judges to release Selmin into a program and let him fight his case while getting the treatment he needed.

They replied that this would only be possible if the DA is on board.

No matter how hard we tried to explain this catch-22, the prosecutor and the judge refused to act.

If Selmin were a U.S. citizen, he could have taken their offer, gotten out of jail six months ago, and received the help he was desperate for. If Selmin were rich, he could have paid bail and fought this absurdly overcharged case from the safety of his home.

Nicole was notified of Selmin’s death not by jail officials, but by another prisoner who called to convey his sympathies. For hours, his family couldn’t even get confirmation from the DOC of his passing. Even in death, this system is unwilling to show Selmin the basic human decency he and his family deserve.

Selmin was so much more than the charges he faced, and he deserved none of the pain he endured. He was a father to two cherubic babies, a son to hardworking immigrant parents, a big brother to siblings who adored him, and a partner to a girlfriend who never gave up on him.

His death should be a clarion call for accountability, systemic change, and true justice.

I've been following the oxycontin crises back in NYC via other media outlet news sources and it's just terrible! :(

To me, it's an dirty shame that this crises is not only an tell tale sign (red flag) about police brutality, but it's an indictment
On the justice system, the law system, the medical industry and pharmaceutical industry and the way that even the FDA seems to turn an blind eye on an multi-stakeholder issue between multiple agencies nation wide.

Also, it would appear that whistle blower organizations seem to not be able to blow up the triangulation of multiple parties who are getting rich off this 'Madoff' type rip off. That makes me think that even Wall Street is part of this problematic social crime, as well as citizens who won't rise up against this willful and intolerant type of ignorance, when really, imho, it's not ignorance driving the process, but corruption at every level of social agencies and the judicial system.

If it's left unaddressed, then it seems to me that social justice will never be employed as an social corrective. Which, if true, then shame on everyone for not ....doing the right thing.(w)

Bike ride turns to fearful encounter with police

https://freepressokc.com/bike-ride-turns-to-fearful-encounter-with-police/

Fear led to more fear Thursday morning as Kelsey Pierce was riding her bike to work at the Tower Theater on NW 23rd Street.

A sudden encounter with Oklahoma City police officer James Herlihy at NW 21st and Dewey led to what Pierce described as “complete fear” when the officer handcuffed her and placed her in the back of his patrol car.

The turn of events was set in motion by a fearful Mesta Park neighborhood resident who called 911 around 9:30 a.m.

911

An OKCPD call log obtained by Free Press shows the resident saying there was a white male and white female “on bikes riding around the area looking in driveways.”

The log also shows the caller thought they might have been “looking to see who was home.”

Pierce somewhat matched the description of the reported white female because she was wearing a dark top and carrying a backpack.

That was the pretext for Herlihy stopping Pierce.

“Someone called about a female with a black shirt on with a backpack looking in people’s driveway,” Herlihy told her about one minute and 35 seconds into the encounter.

Jail threat

But it was the officer’s response to her impatience that shifted her feelings to fear.

“At some point he asked me if I wanted to go to jail,” Pierce told Free Press in an interview Friday.

“I’ve never been to jail. I’ve never been in handcuffs. I’ve never been in the back of a cop car.”

While waiting on headquarters to run a warrant search which showed nothing, Herlihy searched Pierce’s belongings without her permission.

Free Press obtained the video of the whole encounter captured by Herlihy’s body-worn camera, one of hundreds now in use by OKCPD policy.

Complaint

Pierce called in a complaint to the department because of what she believes to be aggressive behavior on the part of the officer for little reason.

While waiting for the warrant search Herlihy engaged in a short conversation through the patrol car window with Pierce.

She told him she was stumbling with responding to him at first because he startled her.

“Obviously you weren’t, that’s why you are in handcuffs in the back seat of the car, because you were throwing stuff at me,” Herlihy said. “You handed the ID card to me like you wanted to use it as a weapon and throw it at me.”

One entry in the call log shows that Herlihy tried to back up the assertion of the license being thrown. But, the video shows that Pierce simply handed the license to him.

Shock

Some of the many people who regularly bike through Mesta Park were shocked when news of the encounter started to filter out onto Twitter Thursday night.

Chad Hodges is one of the original organizers of DNA Racing, a pro bike racing team based in OKC.

And some openly asked what might have happened if she had not been a white woman riding through a predominantly white neighborhood.

Pierce told us Friday that she has a new appreciation for the kind of fear that black people feel when they are stopped for seemingly small infractions and treated like criminals.

She was aware of the disproportionate stops police have made Oklahoma City’s past, but this event seemed to make it all more real for her.

“This is minute in comparison,” said Pierce. “But, feeling that way every day when you are walking out the door would be enough to make me stay home for the rest of my life.”

Legal questions

Her attorney, Bryce P. Harp, questions the legality of the stop.

He cited the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures.

“First, any person that is stopped by a law enforcement officer has the right to know why they are being stopped,” said Harp.

He said that Pierce’s being detained in the way she was amounted to an arrest in that she was not free to go.

“She was not given her due process right,” Harp said.

Recent Supreme Court decisions allow searches connected to an arrest, but it is based upon a lawful arrest having been made.

“If she had been lawfully arrested, then they could have searched her stuff without her consent. But it was not a lawful arrest, so it was an unlawful search,” Harp said.

Investigation

Captain Bo Mathews with the OKCPD held a news conference on the matter at police headquarters Friday afternoon.

He said the matter would be investigated at the Division level but would not be referred to internal affairs investigators.

In response to a question by Free Press, Mathews said that the procedure for handling disciplinary matters like this one have a clear path defined by the officer’s contract negotiated by the police union and the department.

It is legal to shoot your dog
 

Federal court rules police can shoot a dog if it moves or barks when officer enters home

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2016/12/28/federal-court-rules-police-can-shoot-a-dog-if-it-moves-or-barks/21643443/

A police officer can shoot a dog if it barks or moves when the officer enters a home, under a new federal court ruling issued this month.

The ruling comes after police in Battle Creek, Michigan, shot two pit bulls while searching a home for evidence of drugs in 2013.

The dogs' owners, Mark and Cheryl Brown, filed a lawsuit against the Battle Creek Police Department and the city, claiming that killing the dogs amounted to the unlawful seizure of property in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

The district court sided with the police officers and the Browns filed an appeal with United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

The lawsuit states that when officers arrived to conduct the search, Mark Brown told an officer he had a key to the front door and that his two dogs were in the residence. However, another officer testified that he didn't hear about the comments before police broke down the door.

According to the lawsuit, Officer Christof Klein testified that when he entered the house, a large, brown pit bull jumped off the couch, aggressively barked at the officers and lunged at him.

Officer Klein stated that the first pit bull "had only moved a few inches" between the time when he entered the residence and when he shot her, but he considered the movement to be a "lunge."

Another officer stated that "the amount of time between the door coming open and the shot was extremely small... maybe a second or less."

Klien stated that after he fire the shot, the dog "moved away from the officers and towards the kitchen, then down the stairs and into the basement." A smaller, white pit bull had also gone down into the basement.

"As the officers were descending the stairs to clear the basement, they noted that the first pit bull was at the bottom of the stairs," the lawsuit states. "Klein testified that the first pit bull obstructed the path to the basement, and that he 'did not feel [the officers] could safely clear the basement with those dogs down there.'"

"When the officers were halfway down the stairs, the first dog, who was at the bottom of the staircase, turned towards them and started barking again. From the staircase, Officer Klein fired two fatal rounds at the first pit bull," the lawsuit states.

"Klein testified that after he shot and killed the first dog, he noticed the second dog standing about halfway across the basement. The second dog was not moving towards the officers when they discovered her in the basement, but rather she was 'just standing there'... barking," the lawsuit continues.

Klein fired two rounds at the second dog.

After being shot by Officer Klein, the second dog ran to the back corner of the basement. Then a second officer shot her because she was "moving" out of the corner and in his direction, the lawsuit states.

The wounded pit bull ran behind the furnace in the back corner of the basement. A third officer noted that "[there] was blood coming out of numerous holes in the dog, and . . . [he] didn't want to see it suffer" so he shot her again, to "put her out of her misery."

On Dec. 19, the appeals court issued a ruling stating that the officers acted reasonably in the case and the Browns' constitutional rights were not violated.

"The seizures of the dogs in this case were reasonable given the specific circumstances surrounding the raid," the court ruled.

"[It] was reasonable for the officers to force entry because they had information that [a known gang member] used the residence to distribute cocaine and heroin, and they did not know whether gang members would be in the residence armed and ready to fire at the officers," the ruling states.

"[The] officers would not have used the keys Mark Brown offered to give them because the officers would not have had any idea whether those keys were the correct keys. Defendants' counsel persuasively argued that Mark Brown could have given the officers the wrong set of keys, and the resulting delay could have given somebody in the house the opportunity to destroy the drugs or time to prepare to attack or shoot the officers as they entered the residence," the ruling states.

Judge Eric Clay stated "a police officer's use of deadly force against a dog while executing a search warrant to search a home for illegal drug activity is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment when... the dog poses an imminent threat to the officer's safety."

71-year-old man pulled over for cell phone use says NYPD cops shoved, cuffed him for no reason

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...0140?cid=bitly A grandfather pulled over in Brooklyn for talking on his cell phone says NYPD officers pushed him to the ground and cuffed him for no reason.

Samuel Zinger, 71, got cuts and bruises to his face and arm, allegedly during a confrontation with the cops at the intersection of 18th Ave. and 53rd St. in Borough Park around 8 p.m.

Police say Zinger refused to get out of his car or give his ID after he was pulled over. They say minimal force was used, and he was released from the precinct after 20 minutes.

The case is being reviewed by the Brooklyn South investigation’s unit, police said.

Zinger declined to discuss the incident with the Daily News, but detailed his version of events to community leaders and elected officials – including City Councilman David Greenfield and Jack Meyer, president of the community burial organization Misaskim – who are now demanding an independent investigation into the arrest.

They say Zinger told them he was getting out his driver’s license and registration when one of the officers flashed a bright light in the car.

The Borough Park resident said he asked the unidentified officer to turn off the flashlight because it was bothering his eyes, according to version of events he shared.

Zinger told the community leaders that the officer became angry, and with another cop dragged him out of the car, shoved him to the wet ground, and arrested him.

Zinger was taken to the 70th Precinct, charged with a “disorderly conduct” violation and given a desk appearance ticket.

He then went to Maimonides Medical Center where he was treated and released.

Video of the incident posted on Yeshiva World News shows Zinger crying out in pain as an officer instructs him to “get your arm.”

“I can’t!” an agitated Zinger responds.

Disciplinary trial begins for van driver in Freddie Gray case

Zinger suffered a shoulder injury years ago that made it difficult for him to move his arm backwards while he was on the ground, Meyer said.

“When you are dealing with a 71-year-old man, a little common sense should prevail,” he said. “No police academy will train you to do this to a senior citizen.”

Greenfield said he saw an injured Zinger in the hospital.

“It’s disconcerting to see a 71-year-old grandfather sitting in the emergency room with bruises all over his face and body after his interaction with local police,” he said.

The officers should have realized that Zinger did not pose a risk to the cops, said Yidel Perlstein, chair of Community Board 12, which represents the area.

“Just looking at this Borough Parker, you can see that he is not a threat,” he said. “This could have been anybody grandfather. That why this is so disturbing.”

MSP trooper commits hit & run, then attempts cover-up; why wasn't he charged?

http://www.wxyz.com/news/local-news/investigations/msp-trooper-commits-hit-run-then-attempts-cover-up-why-wasnt-he-charged

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (WXYZ) - This is a story about a state trooper, a collision and a lie.

It begins at a parking lot off Evergreen Road in Southfield. While on duty last May, Trooper Kevin Klomparens had pulled into a Chipotle restaurant in his Michigan State Police vehicle. He was backing into a parking space when his SUV backed into a parked car.

The damage caused was minimal: scratches and a small dent that totaled a few hundred dollars in damage. But Trooper Klomparens didn’t notify the car’s owner, leave a note or report the accident. Instead, he pulled out of the space and left.

The driver of the damaged car turned out to be a 20-year-old college student who worked at a Southfield restaurant. She didn’t feel comfortable talking to us on-camera for this story, but said off-camera that she learned about the accident from two people who witnessed it. They told her, and then police.

According to police records, the two witnesses said that they’d heard “a loud crunch” and saw the trooper “commit a hit and run.”

Dispatch notified nearby officers that one of their own had been involved in an accident. Klomparens heard the message on his police radio, and that’s when he turned his small problem into a much bigger one.

Klomparens: I just got sideswiped by a car, I’m at 8 and Lahser. He flipped and headed back east on Westbound 8 Mile, I’m trying to catch up. I’m not entirely sure what kind of car it is, a grey sedan.

Dispatch: And he’s now Eastbound or Westbound on 8?

Klomparens: Eastbound. He hit a turnaround, I’m stopped at a traffic light when he hit my backend.

Klomparens said he was the victim of a crime and said he was in a police chase with the person responsible.

Dispatch: Did you get a plate?

Klomparens: Negative on a plate, he turned behind me, there was a Michigan u-turn behind me. He turned back and sped off eastbound.

In truth, there was no chase. No sideswipe. Klomparens made it all up.

“Unbelievable that this officer would respond in that manner,” said Willie Bell, who spent 32 years as a Detroit Police Officer. “You’re violating the confidence that people have in police officers in general.”

Today, Bell serves on the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners.

“It’s a simple accident, but now it lays to totally lack of confidence, not just in this officer, but police officers in general,” Bell said.

After the accident, MSP investigated and Trooper Klomparens admitted to making the story up. The case was forwarded to Attorney General Bill Schuette’s office for possible prosecution.

His office declined to charge the trooper with anything, writing in part that while “(w)e are certainly not condoning the actions of the trooper,” “there are better ways to handle this particular incident.”

We asked to speak with Attorney General Schuette on camera to understand why he chose not to bring charges. His office declined.

“The average citizen easily would have been charged in this case,” said Michael L. Steinberg, a criminal defense attorney who’s represented men and women accused of hit and run accidents.

“Providing false information to a police officer is usually going to get the attention of the prosecuting attorney’s office,” he said. “A police officer doesn’t get special status as far as the law goes.”

Klomparens won’t face charges, but he could still face discipline. He is still working at MSP today while internal affairs continues to investigate, more than five months since the accident happened. He declined comment for this story.

The owner of the damaged vehicle says state police promised to reimburse her the full cost of repairing her SUV. Months later, she’s still waiting.

Attorneys: Topeka seeks to limit access to shooting video

https://www.apnews.com/6152d151e6c2444f9f6326abb851560e

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The city of Topeka is trying to prevent the parents of a black man fatally shot by police from reviewing officers’ body camera footage by arguing that state law permits only his young children to see it, lawyers for the family said Monday.

Attorney Gillian Cassell-Stiga said the city agreed last week to allow Dominque White’s parents to view the footage from his Sept. 28 shooting by two officers near an east Topeka park. But Cassell-Stiga said the city later said that a 2016 state law limits a review of the footage to White’s four children, aged 3 to 13.

Cassell-Stiga said White’s family does not intend to have the children view the footage “anytime soon.” Family members have said they’ve been told little about the 30-year-old’s shooting, and no information about the officers has been released.

“It is so entirely ridiculous,” Cassell-Stiga said. “The position the city has decided to take is absurd and practically untenable.”

City spokeswoman Molly Hadfield said talks are ongoing between attorneys for both the family and the city of Topeka. She said the city’s position is based on the text of the law.

“Certain persons may request to view a body worn camera video prior to it being released to the public,” Hadfield said in an emailed statement.

The law enacted last year says the subjects of such footage or their attorneys can review it, as can the parents of a minor in such footage. When a person in the footage his died, that person’s heirs, or the administrators of his or her estate, can review the footage.

The law also treats body camera footage as a criminal investigation record, meaning law enforcement agencies don’t have to make it public without a court order.

Both the police departments in Topeka and Lawrence, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) to the east, declined to release the footage last week in response to an open-records request from The Associated Press. The Lawrence department has been investigating the shooting for Topeka police.

When state lawmakers discussed access to body camera footage last year, state Sen. David Haley, a Kansas City Democrat, pushed for a less restrictive law, though his proposal would not have made the recordings public. His version would have allowed White’s parents and their attorneys to view the footage; groups representing sheriffs, police chiefs and law enforcement officers supported the law that passed.

Haley said he intends to push for changes in the law next year. As for the situation facing White’s family, he said, “that’s another example of where the law doesn’t make sense or where it perverts the intent.”

White’s death occurred after police were called to the park area by a report of gunshots. White was just months out of prison; he had pleaded guilty to a burglary charge in 2015 and no contest to an illegal gun possession charge in 2016. Topeka police initially said he struggled with officers, reached for a gun in a pocket and was shot at least once in the chest.

But a death certificate listed “gunshot wounds of back” as the immediate cause of White’s death. And neither the Topeka nor Lawrence department compiled an incident report — with a front page that’s usually available within 72 hours — until last week, after The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that none existed.

“I cannot express the anguish we feel each day knowing that the officers who did this to our son continue to roam the street, and that we might come across them on any given day and simply not know,” White’s mother, Mary Theresa Wynne, said in a statement.

Man who recorded deputy punching suspect explains what he saw, heard

http://www.modbee.com/news/local/crime/article185317038.html

The man who recorded a Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department deputy repeatedly striking a suspect during an apprehension said he was surprised by what prompted the incident.

"I thought the guy did something way worse to get that kind of reaction,” said Porter Villar. "I thought he hurt a cop or did something to a cop ... I did not expect that type of (reaction) for something that minor."

Villar learned Thursday night when he read the Modesto Bee story about the incident that police were called to the area of Hatch Road and Crows Landing roads because the suspect was acting bizarrely and running into traffic.

The deputy, Taylor Knight, is now under criminal and administrative investigation for his actions.

Villar’s video was just one-minute long but he said it captured the brunt of what took place.

The Santa Cruz resident was in Modesto the night of the incident Nov. 10 because he was dropping off his girlfriend who was getting a ride from a friend up to Sacramento for a job, he said.

They all met at a shopping center in the northwest corner of the intersection. Villar’s girlfriend and her ride had just left and he was sitting in his car looking up directions back to Santa Cruz on his phone when he heard yelling and sirens and looked up to see the suspect on the left side of his vehicle.

"He was looking very agitated and disheveled,” Porter said.

He locked his door and ducked down, not knowing what the man’s intentions were.

"“It was me and him there for about 10 to 15 seconds.," he said. Then the first law enforcement officer showed up.

It’s unclear if it was a deputy or a Modesto Police officer. Three sheriff’s deputies, three Modesto police officers and a sergeant from each agency responded to the incident.

Villar said he saw the law enforcement officer point down and heard him tell the suspect to get on the ground.

"And then one after the other, two, three, four, five cops got there” and they tackled the suspect to the ground, he said.

From the time the suspect was taken to the ground, to the time Villar started recording, about 20 seconds had lapsed, he said.

"The worst happened in the video,” he said. "There was nothing that much outside of what I recorded."

In the video, Knight can be seen striking the suspect at least eight times in the head and back while other officers try to get the suspect's armed behind his back to handcuff him.

There is no audio in the video but Villar said he could hear law enforcement telling the suspect to stop resisting.

The suspect was in handcuffs shortly after the recording ended.

Villar said he asked an officer at the scene if everything was OK and the officer, in a dismissive tone, told him yes.

He said he would have given a statement but no one asked him for one and he has not been contacted by law enforcement since.

Sheriff Adam Christianson said his department, in partnership with Modesto Police Department, is conducting the criminal investigation and that detectives plan to interview both the law enforcement involved as well as civilian witnesses.

Feds: Philly officer sold drugs stolen by corrupt Baltimore police squad

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/philadelphia/feds-philly-officer-sold-drugs-stolen-by-corrupt-baltimore-police-squad-20171114.html

Federal agents arrested a Philadelphia police officer Tuesday, accusing him of conspiring with officers in Baltimore to sell cocaine and heroin seized from that city’s streets.

Prosecutors say that Eric Troy Snell, 33, earned thousands of dollars serving as a conduit between corrupt members of a Baltimore police task force who stole the drugs and his brother, who sold them in Philadelphia.

Investigators also have accused Snell of threatening the children of a Baltimore officer who pleaded guilty in the case.

His arrest is the latest in a widening police corruption scandal that has rocked Maryland’s largest city, resulting in the arrests of eight members of an elite gun task force there who prosecutors have accused of robbing and extorting drug dealers for years.

A Philadelphia police spokesman said that Snell — a three-year veteran of the force who had been assigned to the department’s 35th District in Northwest Philadelphia — would be suspended for 30 days with intent to dismiss.

Snell began his police career in Baltimore before arriving in Philadelphia in 2014. It was at the police academy in Maryland that he met Jemell Rayam, a fellow officer and his primary contact with the Baltimore Gun Trace Task Force.

The squad had been deployed to crack down on the proliferation of illegal guns in that city. But prosecutors now say that Rayam and several cohorts, including two commanding sergeants, used their positions to rob drug dealers and pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars uncovered while searching homes and cars of suspected criminals.

According to Snell’s indictment, the Philadelphia officer set up an October 2016 meeting between his brother, who is not named in court filings, and Rayam to arrange for the sale of cocaine seized by the task force.

After Snell’s brother sold the drugs, the officer allegedly deposited $1,000 in proceeds in Rayam’s bank account, keeping $1,000 for himself. Several similar transactions followed over the next two months, the indictment alleges.

Rayam, arrested along with six other officers in March, pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy last month.

But in recorded jailhouse phone conversations referenced in court filings, Snell allegedly pressured Rayam to keep his name out of the ongoing investigation.

“Snell told Rayam to ‘stand tall’ and said he would ‘keep an eye’ on Rayam’s kids, which Rayam perceived as a threat to harm Rayam’s children if Rayam told authorities about Snell’s illegal drug trafficking,” the indictment says.

Snell made his initial appearance Tuesday in federal court in Baltimore on drug conspiracy charges. It was not immediately clear whether he had retained a lawyer.

FDOC: Santa Rosa CI officer who fractured inmate's jaw charged with battery

http://www.pnj.com/story/news/crime/2017/11/24/fdoc-santa-rosa-ci-officer-who-fractured-inmates-jaw-charged-battery/893161001/

A Santa Rosa Correctional Institution officer has been charged for allegedly using excessive force and fracturing an inmate's jaw and then lying to investigators about the incident.

Quintavia J. Walker faces one count each of battery on an inmate and submitting inaccurate information on a use of force report, according to a Florida Department of Corrections news release.

Walker's arresting document states the prison's surveillance footage tells a different story than the one Walker told authorities about the incident on May 22.

Walker told investigators an inmate "cussed him out" about getting salt and pepper and then tried to jerk away from Walker's hold before the incident. Walker said when the inmate tried to pull away a second time, he used a "simple take-down" to get the inmate to the ground, and he denied using excessive force.

But prison footage shows the inmate was handcuffed and being escorted across his wing when Walker reached across and grabbed the back of the inmate's neck and then threw him to the concrete floor, according to the report.

The inmate was unable to break his fall because he was handcuffed from behind, and he suffered an oral maxillofacial fracture.

The inmate's name is redacted from the arresting document.

The report states it appears the inmate was walking in the same direction as he was being led, and was actively walking just before he was thrown to the ground.

The FDOC release states Walker was booked into the Santa Rosa County Jail after his arrest Tuesday, but jail records do not show Walker's booking information.

Cops pay up and quit over a $100G lie about Brooklyn man's alleged gun possession

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/cops-pay-quit-100g-lie-alleged-gun-possession-article-1.3661408

A Brooklyn man who filed a federal lawsuit against the NYPD for framing him on a gun charge has settled his case for $100,000 — with the two cops who arrested him on the hook for some of the dough.

Raul Glasgow, now 45, was pulled over in November 2012 in East Flatbush for driving with a forged license — and cops also claimed they found a .45-caliber pistol in the trunk of his car during a search at the 67th Precinct.

But Glasgow insisted the cops set him up. They promised not to impound his car if he had any information about guns or drugs, he said at the time.

Glasgow offered to give them the .45 that he had in his apartment — a gun left with him by a friend.

Brooklyn cop probed for allegedly planting gun in man's trunk

He called his wife and told her to give cops the weapon when they got to his home.

But then the cops charged him with gun possession, he said.

Arresting Officer John Bonanno in a sworn criminal complaint said the gun was found in the trunk of Glasgow’s car during a search at the 67th Precinct.

But that wasn’t true.

The charges against Glasgow were dropped the following summer, with Assistant District Attorney Vincent Bocchetti saying in the court that the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau “has revealed information that calls into question the veracity of [Bonanno’s] sworn statements as they related to this case.”

Raul Glasgow offered to give police the .45 caliber Kahr pistol that he had in his apartment — a gun left with him by a friend. He called his wife and told her to give cops the weapon when they got to his home. But then the cops charged him with gun possession, he said.

Glasgow, who runs a computer repair company, and his wife, Patrina Carter, filed a federal lawsuit naming Bonanno and several other cops, including Sgt. Gary Rich, the supervisor who signed off on the arrest.

IAB later slapped Bonanno and Rich with departmental charges, but the NYPD said that it never got a chance to bring them to trial.

Rich, an 11-year veteran, quit the force on Sept. 28. Bonanno, a cop since January 2009, did the same last Wednesday,

Glasgow, now 45, was behind bars for 20 days before he made bail.

Under terms of the settlement, Glasgow will get $100,000 -- $95,000 from city coffers, $3,500 from Rich and $1,500 from Bonanno.

Bonanno couldn’t be reached for comment, and a man who answered the door at Rich’s Long Island home saw a reporter’s press pass, shook his head and quickly shut the door.

The city foots the entire bill in settlements and judgments in virtually every case, making the occasional exception when it feels the behavior of the accused officer is egregious and in clear violation of department policy.

Click link for video and lawsuit
 

Another Police Brutality Lawsuit Has Been Filed Against the Euclid Police Department: VIDEO

https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2017/11/30/another-police-brutality-lawsuit-has-been-filed-against-the-euclid-police-department-video

Lamar Wright is accusing two Euclid police officers of forcibly arresting him last year and "maliciously" filing false charges against him. He filed a lawsuit against the officers and the department today.

Read the lawsuit and watch video of the arrest below.

According to the civil complaint, Wright pulled into a driveway on East 212th Street "to safely use his cell phone" on Nov. 4, 2016. Two armed men approached his vehicle, and, realizing they were police officers, Wright placed his car in park and held his hands up.

Officer Kyle Flagg's gun "was raised and pointed toward Wright," as he stood next to the driver's door. Office Vashon Williams stood behind Flagg, his gun raised as well.

Flagg ordered Wright out of the car. Before the man could exit the vehicle, Flagg grabbed Wright's left arm.

According to the lawsuit: "Flagg yanked on Wright’s left arm. Wright was still seated in the car at this time, and had staples in his stomach and a new colostomy bag. This, in combination with Flagg yanking on his left arm, prevented Wright from extending his right arm toward Flagg. ... Flagg’s conduct caused Wright extreme pain. Wright cried out to Flagg several times that he was hurting his arm, but Flagg ignored him."

The officers then tased and pepper-sprayed Wright, before he had a chance to explain the colostomy bag and pain.

Wright argues that each officer "had the duty and opportunity to intervene to protect Wright, and to prevent the unconstitutional use of force against Wright. Neither Flagg nor Williams did anything to prevent this unlawful attack."

Despite the sudden abdominal pain, the officers forced Wright onto the ground and handcuffed him. "I got a shit bag!" he says to the officers between sputtering coughs on the ground.

As he was arrested, the officers talked between themselves. The interaction is captured on body cam footage, embedded below.

"Dude, I thought he had a gun," Flagg says.

"He started reaching," Williams says.

"Why the fuck are you reaching like that?" Flagg asks Wright.

"I told you I got a bag!"

"No, dude, you were reaching with your right hand."

"I got a bag!"

"What's a bag?" Williams asks.

"A shit bag, man!"

"OK, but what are you doing reaching for it?" Williams asks.

"I don't know if you're getting ready to shoot me or what, man," Flagg says.

Wright was charged with obstructing official business, resisting arrest,
and criminal trespass. He was taken to a hospital, where, he says, the officers "mocked" him for his pain. Later, Wright was jailed. He paid "nearly $900" in bond, according to the suit.

"However, after posting bond, Wright was not released from custody. Instead, his detention was extended without lawful justification. He was transported to the Cuyahoga County Jail, where he was subjected to a search via a full-body x-ray scanner. ... Only after this scanning was complete, approximately four to five hours after bond had been posted, was Wright finally permitted to walk free," he states in his lawsuit.

Wright mentions that he also had to pay a $1,000 fee for the pepper spray stains on his rental car, which was impounded. "The rental company placed Wright on a 'Do Not Rent' list, and refuses to do future business with him," the lawsuit states.

Charges against Wright were dismissed in June 2017.

“I filed this case to stand up against police brutality, and to stand with other victims of senseless attacks by officers from the Euclid Police Department. These officers’ illegal treatment of people in the city must stop,” Wright said in a public statement. “We need justice for all the victims of the EPD."

Since Wright's arrest last year, two high profile incidents have focused the spotlight on Euclid Police Department's personnel. The shooting death of Luke Stewart was swept under the civic rug for months before the state announced that no charge would be filed against officer Matthew Rhodes. Stewart's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

The violent arrest during the traffic stop of Richard Hubbard III resulted in the firing of officer Michael Amiott.

Not for nothing, on Nov. 20, chief Scott Meyer announced that the Euclid Police Department had been awarded the AAA Platinum Award for community traffic safety.

Graphic video shows Daniel Shaver sobbing and begging officer for his life before 2016 shooting

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/12/08/graphic-video-shows-daniel-shaver-sobbing-and-begging-officer-for-his-life-before-2016-shooting/?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.9ef608c19d35

After the officer involved was acquitted of second-degree murder charges, officials in Arizona publicly released graphic video showing Daniel Shaver crawling on his hands and knees and begging for his life in the moments before he was shot and killed by police in January 2016.

Shaver died in one of at least 963 fatal police shootings in 2016, according to a Washington Post database. And his death was one of an increasing number of such shootings to prompt criminal charges in the years since the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Mo., following the death of Michael Brown. Yet charges remain rare, and convictions even more so.

The shooting, by Philip “Mitch” Brailsford, then an officer with the Mesa Police Department, occurred after officers responded to a call about a man allegedly pointing a rifle out of a fifth-floor window at a La Quinta Inn. Inside the room, Shaver, 26, had been doing rum shots with a woman he had met earlier that day and showing off a pellet gun he used in his job in pest control.

The graphic video, recorded by Brailsford’s body camera, shows Shaver and the woman exiting the hotel room and immediately complying with commands from multiple officers. The video was shown in court during the trial, but it was released to the public after jurors acquitted Brailsford on Thursday.

After entering the hallway, Shaver immediately puts his hands in the air and lies down on the ground while informing the officer that no one else was in the hotel room.

“If you make a mistake, another mistake, there is a very severe possibility that you’re both going to get shot. Do you understand?” Sgt. Charles Langley yells before telling Shaver to “shut up.”

“I’m not here to be tactical and diplomatic with you. You listen. You obey,” the officer says.

For the next five minutes, officers give Shaver instructions. First, an officer tells Shaver to put both of his hands on top of his head, then he instructs him to cross his left foot over his right foot.

“If you move, we’re going to consider that a threat and we are going to deal with it and you may not survive it,” Langley said.

The officer then has the woman crawl down the hallway, where she is taken into custody. Shaver remains on the ground in the hallway, his hands on his head.

Langley tells Shaver to keep his legs crossed and push himself up into a kneeling position. As Shaver pushes himself up, his legs come uncrossed, prompting the officer to scream at him.

“I’m sorry,” Shaver says, placing his hands near his waist, prompting another round of screaming.

“You do that again, we’re shooting you, do you understand?” Langley yells.

“Please do not shoot me,” Shaver begs, his hands up straight in the air.

At the officer’s command, Shaver then crawls down the hallway, sobbing. At one point, he reaches back — possibly to pull up his shorts — and Brailsford opens fire, striking Shaver five times.

According to the police report, Brailsford was carrying an AR-15 rifle with the phrase “You’re F—ed” etched into the weapon. The police report also said the “shots were fired so rapidly that in watching the video at regular speed, one cannot count them.”

Brailsford testified in court that he believed Shaver was reaching for a gun.

“If this situation happened exactly as it did that time, I would have done the same thing,” Brailsford said during the trial. “I believed 100 percent that he was reaching for a gun.”

No gun was found on Shaver’s body. Two pellet rifles used in Shaver’s pest-control job were later found in the hotel room.

After two days of deliberation, jurors found Brailsford not guilty of second-degree murder as well as of a lesser charge of reckless manslaughter.

“The justice system miserably failed Daniel (Shaver) and his family,” said Mark Geragos, an attorney for Shaver’s widow, according to the Arizona Republic.

Attorneys for the officer had petitioned to keep the video from being released, and a judge agreed to block its release to the public until after the trial had concluded.

Brailsford’s attorney, Mike Piccarreta, told The Post in a previous interview that he thinks the body camera footage clears his client.

“It demonstrates that the officer had to make a split-second decision when [Shaver] moved his hands toward the small of his back after being advised that if he did, he’d be shot,” Piccarreta told The Post in 2016.

Piccarreta also said he wasn’t sure his client would be interested in trying to get his police job back.

Shaver’s widow and parents have filed wrongful-death lawsuits against the city of Mesa.

New York Police Rejecting More of Watchdog’s Findings, Report Says

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/06/nyregion/nypd-ccrb-rejection-report.html

In New York City, the relationship between the Police Department and the Civilian Complaint Review Board is inherently contentious, a panel of outsiders serving as a watchdog over a formidable law enforcement agency that is fiercely protective of its image.

A new report by the board suggests that its relations with the department have become particularly strained, even as the board has sought in recent years to find a measure of common ground on disciplining officers for misconduct.

Last year, the Police Department contested more of the board’s recommendations in cases where board investigators found evidence to support allegations of abuse or misconduct, which in turn significantly lengthened the time before a final decision by the police commissioner.

In response, the board began more strictly enforcing a time limit on the challenges received more than 90 days after the initial decision. But the board’s recommendations are not binding on the commissioner, James P. O’Neill, and in more than than half of the board’s cases that he took final action on between January and June, he set aside or modified the conclusions, reversing a trend over the previous two years when the board and the police commissioner were increasingly in accord.

The report, to be released on Wednesday, is the first to look at how Commissioner O’Neill, who succeeded William J. Bratton in September 2016, has treated the review board’s findings and recommendations. Overall, Commissioner O’Neill imposed discipline on about three-quarters of the 251 officers for whom the review board had recommended punishment in the first six months of this year, a decline from 2016.

In a significant uptick, he rejected 27 percent of the review board’s findings in the first six months of 2017, compared to 17 percent in the same period last year, and he modified the board’s recommendations in 25 percent, up from 21 percent.

Christopher Dunn, the associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the numbers showed the Police Department was “marginalizing” the review board. “When the N.Y.P.D. rejects over half of C.C.R.B. recommendations, that sends an emphatic message to the public and to police officers that the C.C.R.B. just doesn’t matter,” he said.

The report highlights another source of tension between the board and the department — body cameras, which the department began using this year as part of a court-ordered pilot program.

Even with only about 1,200 of the department’s 36,000 officers using body cameras, the review board has struggled to promptly secure footage for its inquiries. It requested video from the Police Department in three cases earlier this year, and the department took nearly three weeks to provide it, according to the report

The mayor has promoted body cameras as a way to curb excessive force complaints and increase police accountability and transparency. But in a statement, Jonathan Darche, the executive director of the review board, echoed concerns in the report that the delays in obtaining footage would grow longer as the program expanded, hampering investigations.

“The City of New York is moving toward a future in which video evidence will offer our investigators more definitive accounts of incidents,” Mr. Darche said. “It is critical for the timely completion of investigations that the C.C.R.B. gains access to body-worn camera footage in a fast and efficient manner as we anticipate an increase in the volume of video evidence.”

Unlike police oversight agencies in cities such as Washington, D.C., the review board does not have direct access to police body camera video. Instead it must go through what has turned out to be an often lengthy process to obtain video from the department.

I can usually cut and paste VICE NEWS articles but it is not letting me today.

It is entitled "Shot by Cops and Forgotten: Police shoot far more people than anyone realized"

They reviewed stats from 2010 to 2016

https://news2-images.vice.com//uploa...l-subjects.svg


https://news.vice.com/story/shot-by-cops

New Mexico Sheriff’s Office Pulls Over the Same Black Federal Agent — Three Times in a Month

https://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice/race-and-criminal-justice/new-mexico-sheriffs-office-pulls-over-same-black

By the third time Sherese Crawford got pulled over, she knew it was no matter of coincidence.

Crawford is a 38-year-old African-American Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent recently on temporary assignment in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As part of her work, she was regularly required to rent a car and drive a lonely stretch of I-40 to travel between the ICE field office in Albuquerque and Milan, New Mexico. Over the course of less than a month, she was pulled over three times by the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office — twice by the same deputy.

In none of these stops was she given a warning or citation. Her only crime: driving while black.

The first of the three incidents occurred on April 5, when Deputy Leonard Armijo pulled Crawford over, claiming that he had searched a database for her license plate number and the license plate came back as not on file, indicating that the vehicle might be stolen. This is a highly unlikely claim given that Crawford was driving a rental car provided by ICE.

When Crawford asked him in utter confusion, “What did I do?” Deputy Armijo forced her to exit the vehicle and walk with him to his patrol unit, where he scolded her for “giving him an attitude.” After this incident, Ms. Crawford contacted an ICE supervisor in Albuquerque to complain about the pretextual traffic stop, and the ICE supervisor advised her that the sheriff’s deputy had likely stopped her because she fit a profile: an African-American in a rental car.

That profile got her stopped two more times on April 15 and May 3 by Bernalillo County Deputy Patrick Rael. In the April 15 stop, Deputy Rael pulled her over for allegedly tailgating. When he examined Crawford’s license, he recognized her name and asked her if they had pulled her over the week before. He said he remembered Crawford’s name because an ICE officer and sheriff’s deputy present at the first stop had said that she had an “attitude.” Two weeks later, Deputy Rael pulled over Crawford for a third time alleging she was driving “too slow.”

These three incidents taken together clearly show that the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office has an unconstitutional policy of racially profiling African-Americans. For context, white and Hispanic ACLU of New Mexico staff have been driving the same stretch of road in rental cars for years without incident. It is impossible to imagine that these three stops in close succession with no warning or citation were motivated by anything other than Crawford’s race, especially given that Bernalillo County is overwhelmingly white and Hispanic with only three percent of the population reporting as Black or African-American.

Last week, the ACLU of New Mexico filed a lawsuit against the sheriff’s office alleging that they unlawfully and repeatedly stopped Crawford, a veteran federal law enforcement agent, because of her race. Targeting people because of the color of their skin isn’t just unconstitutional and wrong, it’s bad policing. This kind of biased-based policing destroys public trust in law enforcement and divides communities, making it harder for officers to do their jobs.

As one of the most diverse and multicultural states in the country, racial discrimination has no place in New Mexico, especially not in one of our state’s largest law enforcement agencies. We’re fighting to ensure that anytime you see flashing lights behind you in our state, you can feel confident that it was your lead foot — not the color of your skin — that’s getting you pulled over.

On VICE News today 12/14/17, people that survived/seriously injured in police shootings
 

Texas boy, 6, killed in deputy-involved shooting days before Christmas

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-boy-age-6-killed-deputy-involved-shooting-days-christmas-n832166

A 6-year-old Texas boy was killed just days before Christmas when sheriff’s deputies opened fire on a woman they had been chasing — and one of the bullets pierced the wall of a mobile home and struck the child in the abdomen.

The woman, a suspected car thief who had been trying to break into the home, was also killed in the shooting on Thursday in the Schertz, a small town some 20 miles northeast of San Antonio, NBC affiliate WOAI reported.

"Right now, what I’m dealing with is, is a tragic accident," Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said at a news conference Friday, although he added the shooting is still under investigation and other authorities like the district attorney’s office would make a final determination.

"In my opinion, it's a tragic accident that led to the death of this young man," he said.

The boy, Kameron Prescott, was fatally shot as deputies chased the approximately 30-year-old suspect in a "prolonged pursuit" that was reported as a call of a stolen vehicle which involved a known suspect who had outstanding felony warrants, Salazar said.

During the first encounter a deputy “identified what he believed was a weapon in the hands of that suspect” and the woman at that time and later threatened deputies with a weapon “and verbalized to him that she intended to shoot him with that weapon” — although no gun has yet been found, Salazar said.

The suspect was not identified by police Friday. Salazar said investigators had found what appeared to be a pipe that had the suspect's blood on it underneath the deck where the shooting took place.

Salazar said the woman got "cornered" at the home in the Pecan Grove mobile home park and threatened Kameron's family as well as officers when they caught up with her. The slain boy and his family do not know the suspect, he said.

"Kameron was the kindest-hearted little boy that I have ever had the pleasure of teaching," the boy’s first-grade teacher, Shanda Ince, said in a statement released by the Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District.

Four deputies fired at the woman, Salazar said. He did not identify the officers, but said they ranged in experience from two years to 27 years on the job and were all shaken by the experience. The deputies involved have been placed on five days of administrative leave, the sheriff's office said Friday.

Salazar said that civilian witnesses as well as the deputies said that the suspect had threatened to shoot them and indicated that she had a gun.

"At the time, we don't believe she was armed. She was presenting to be armed at various times throughout this prolonged pursuit," Salazar said earlier.

Salazar said that his office was still searching the area for a gun and was using a helicopter and dive team in the search. "That deputy is still adamant that what he saw was a handgun," Salazar said.

Salazar said there was good audio of the incident, but said his office did not have clear video of the shooting. A helicopter overhead caught the scene moments after, and the deputy who was had a body camera unintentionally obstructed its view when he raised and fired his rifle.

Salazar said internal affairs is investigating the matter, but said "preliminarily ... it appears as if policies were complied with." As of Friday evening, it was unclear when the sheriff's office would release the video, which Salazar said included video of officers administering first aid to the six-year-old boy.

The deadly drama began around 11 a.m., Salazar said, when a deputy responding to reports of a stolen car found the suspect hiding in a closet and she allegedly told them, "I have a weapon, I’m gonna shoot you."

Somehow, the woman was able to flee the residence into some nearby woods where the deputy lost her and called for backup, Salazar said. She was later spotted fording a river and the deputies chased after her in "water that was up to their chin."

Salazar said the deputies believed she was armed because she appeared to point a weapon at them during the foot chase.

Two relatives were in the mobile home with little Kameron when the fatal shots were fired, Salazar said. Neither was hurt.

"The grandfather of this young man, Kameron’s grandfather, is a friend of mine for the past 20 years," Salazar said. "He's a peace officer. I've actually spoken to him and conveyed messages to the family through him."

Chicago police raid targets wrong home: 'This is Christmastime. You kicked down my door.'

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-chicago-warrant-wrong-home-raid-20171222-story.html

Jennell Cross had just settled into a leather couch to watch a movie in her daughter’s South Chicago home when she heard one bang, then another against the front door.

Frightened — it was about midnight Thursday — Cross said she ran to the back of the home to warn her daughter. “Somebody’s trying to break in the house,” she yelled.

Shanae Cross said was trying to pull her mother into a restroom for safety when a swarm of cops barged into the house, guns drawn and shouting questions.

The officers moved through the bungalow and tried to handcuff Cross’ 17-year-old brother. The family demanded to see a warrant.

Finally, an officer called out the address on the no-knock search warrant.

It was for a different home on the block.

“Get ya’ll (expletive) and get out my house,” Cross said she told the cops.

An officer yelled, “Everyone out! Wrong house! Let’s go!” and the officers left, she said.

On Friday, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi acknowledged that officers “inadvertently breached the door of the incorrect residence.”

The department “deeply regrets the error,” he said.

Guglielmi said the claims process and repairs to the family’s damaged front door would be expedited.

While the Cross family was talking to a Tribune reporter, police Superintendent Eddie Johnson called to personally apologize. His call went to voicemail, and Cross just shook her head as she listened to it.

She was still angry Friday as she talked about the misguided raid.

“This is Christmastime,” she said. “You kicked down my door.”

Cross, 34, can’t figure out how the police made the mistake: “The number is there in front of the home,” she said.

She said she couldn’t sleep after things settled down early Friday morning. On Facebook, she posted, “Thank U Chicago PD For Kicking Down My Door... Now Im Up All Night Doing Security.” The message included a flashlight emoji.

The damaged front door in her South Chicago neighborhood, where “people are killed every day for nothing,” left her and her family feeling unsafe, she said. Her brother Michael, who the family said officers tried to handcuff, said he was “hurt” by the encounter.

“They drew the guns on us like we were criminals,” Michael Cross said.

“I was scared out my mind,” said Jennell Cross, 53. “This is crazy as hell.”

Can someone explain the thought process of killing someone so they don't harm themselves?
 

When Police Shoot a Man Who Was Stabbing Himself

https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police-practices/when-police-shoot-man-who-was-stabbing-himself

A suspect in an armed robbery is sitting alone in a police department’s interview room. He takes out a knife and begins cutting himself with it, including his neck.

You would think that the police would recognize this as a mental health crisis, a potential suicide, a situation that demands careful, nonviolent de-escalation techniques to keep everyone safe.

But on Dec. 18 in Minneapolis, officers took another approach, with disastrous results. They tried to use a Taser on 18-year-old Marcus Fischer and then they shot at him. At least one bullet hit and wounded him, leaving Marcus in critical condition.

That response to a suicide attempt is terrifying. By using force, the police made the situation so much more dangerous.

And it wasn’t a one-time occurrence. Of the 14 Minnesotans shot and killed by police officers last year, nearly half were reportedly experiencing a mental health crisis. That matches up with police data from around the country. Going through a mental health crisis puts you at higher risk for police violence.

Just this past summer, Khaleel Thompson was shot multiple times by an officer in Crystal, Minnesota. Khaleel had a history of mental illness that police in Crystal were aware of. Like Marcus, he was left in critical condition.

Marcus and Khaleel are both people of color, making them even more likely to be targets of police violence. Being Black or brown multiplies the risk for people with mental illness or disability.

Both the Minneapolis and Crystal police departments have policies that encourage de-escalation strategies designed to avoid physical confrontation unless immediately necessary. But the policies don’t cover the special considerations necessary when someone is engaging in self-harm.

It is a natural impulse to want to stop someone from hurting themselves. However, when police intervene, they too often rely on their weapons instead of empathy and negotiation. The Police Executive Research Forum recommends that departments prohibit the “use of deadly force against individuals who pose a danger only to themselves.”

In such scenarios, the forum advises police “to exercise considerable discretion to wait as long as necessary so that the situation can be resolved peacefully.” Minneapolis police officers spent less than 10 minutes trying to de-escalate the situation with Marcus.

The Minneapolis police department is certainly not the only one failing to respond safely to mental health crises — this is a problem across the country. In the past year, police have killed people experiencing mental health crises in California, New York, Oklahoma, and Washington, among other states.

Our police departments must overhaul their training and protocols. A one-day course in de-escalation — like the one prepared for the Minneapolis Police Department — isn’t enough to prepare officers for dealing with mental health crises.

Training officers on crisis intervention should not be left to individual departments. It must be a core part of the curriculum at all police academies. Right now, police academies spend, on average, 15 times more training time on firearms and defensive tactics than on conflict management and mediation. That needs to change. The curricula must be revamped in keeping with approaches like Crisis Intervention Training and Critical Decision Model-Making, which have helped police departments that implemented them properly.

We also have to accept the limits of de-escalation and mental health training for police officers. While these strategies can improve interactions, officers aren’t the most qualified people to respond to a mental health crisis. Along with improving officer training, we must also fund alternatives to using the police to respond to mental health emergencies, like mobile crisis units and other community-based crisis services. Increased access to mental health and crisis response resources would help reduce the number of people experiencing mental health crises in the first place. There is no reason to wait for another person in crisis to be shot.

WaPo article on police, too long girl one post, part II
 

Part II

Forced out over sex, drugs and other infractions, fired officers find work in other departments

By Kimbriell Kelly, Wesley Lowery and Steven Rich December 22, 2017

Another officer Doucette hired was his nephew Eric P. Doucette Sr., who was fired by New Orleans police in 2005 for neglect of duty, records show. The chief said he followed ethics guidelines and did not directly supervise his nephew. Eric Doucette, 59, did not respond to requests for comment.

When Chief Doucette resigned from Delgado in 2014, college officials replaced him with another former New Orleans police officer: Julie Lea, a former lieutenant in internal affairs.

Julie Lea at an event in New Orleans on Aug. 17, 2014. (Josh Brasted)
Lea had resigned from New Orleans while under investigation for “neglect of duty” for failing to “properly supervise subordinates,” according to police records.

In preparation of a federal audit that was part of the ongoing Justice Department investigation, Lea was told to complete pending internal affairs cases, records show. Investigators said Lea, however, allowed one of her employees to retire with 18 cases pending. The department later sustained the administrative violations against Lea.

Lea, 44, told The Post that she was “never notified of an investigation.” By the time New Orleans internal affairs upheld the charges against her, she had been sworn in as chief at Delgado. Delgado officials said they were unaware that she was under investigation when she was hired.

One of Lea’s hires at Delgado was fired New Orleans officer Mario Cole, who lost his job in 2013 after 11 years with the department when he tested positive for opiates during a random drug test. Through Delgado police, Cole, 38, declined to comment.

“I’m sure I looked into it and found out what it was,” Lea said when asked whether she knew of Cole’s prior misconduct when she hired him in 2016. “But I don’t remember.”

In January 2017, after a little more than a year as Delgado’s chief, Lea was fired.

An internal investigation by the college concluded that she had misused state funds and compromised student safety by ordering two of her officers to guard the homes of relatives of a deceased police chief during his funeral.

“Most chiefs would never get fired for something like that,” Lea said.

She said that after she was fired, she applied for another job as a police chief but was not hired. She now runs a nonprofit entity that she founded to organize Mardi Gras parades and events.

In August, Delgado replaced Lea with yet another former New Orleans officer: Eddie Compass III.

Compass spent 26 years with New Orleans Police Department, ascending to superintendent. He resigned in 2005 amid widespread criticism of the department’s response to Hurricane Katrina.

In an interview, Compass, 59, said that all of Delgado’s hiring of New Orleans officers with troubled records predated his arrival. He said he has not had any problems with the officers but criticized the department’s prior hiring practices. He said Delgado will no longer hire officers who have been forced out of other departments.

“They never should have been hired,” he said. “But that’s something I can’t do anything about.”

Delgado’s police department has three openings.

Alice Crites contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...rainbow&wpmm=1

Part I: Forced Out over sex, drugs, other infractions, fired police work in other police departments
 

Forced out over sex, drugs and other infractions, fired officers find work in other departments

By Kimbriell Kelly, Wesley Lowery and Steven Rich December 22, 2017

NEW ORLEANS — By the time the New Orleans Police Department fired Carey Dykes, the officer had been sued for alleged brutality, accused of having sex with a prostitute while on duty and caught sleeping in his patrol car instead of responding to a shooting.

The 13-year veteran fought to get his job back but lost.

Even so, he returned to patrol months later — working for a nearby police department.

Dykes is one of dozens of officers forced out of the New Orleans department over the past decade for misconduct who were given badges and guns by other departments, according to a Washington Post analysis of state and city employment records, police personnel files and court documents. At a time of increased scrutiny of police nationwide, the ease with which fired or forced out New Orleans officers found work at new departments underscores the broader challenge that law enforcement faces to rid itself of “bad apples.”

The New Orleans department has long been attempting to reform its ranks and shed a troubled past. In the past decade, the department has fired or otherwise pushed out at least 248 officers. Of those forced out, 53 have been hired by other police departments, according to information obtained through public records requests.

Many of those officers landed at smaller police departments in nearby parishes and colleges — some hired weeks or months after leaving New Orleans. While records show that some have had no complaints of misconduct since joining new departments, others have been fired again.

Records show that many of the 53 officers hired by other departments disclosed their troubled departures from New Orleans. About half of the 53 had been fired, and the rest resigned in lieu of being fired or quit while under investigation

Some of the 248 officers were fired or forced out in New Orleans after abandoning their posts in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina struck the city. Others were fired or pushed out in the aftermath of a 2011 Department of Justice civil rights investigation. The federal review concluded that officers “routinely” used unnecessary force and conducted unlawful arrests, and that neither the public nor officers had faith in the department’s disciplinary process. City leaders instituted reforms demanded by Justice, adding to an exodus of officers.

Former New Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas said that sheriffs and other chiefs often justify rehiring officers by dismissing their problems as “political.” As a result, troubled officers remain in policing, he said.

“By the time you reach the point of terminating someone, that’s usually something that speaks to [the officer’s] ethics or ability to perform their job,” said Serpas, who led the New Orleans department from 2010 to 2014.

Louisiana is one of 44 states that require that officers be certified, or licensed. In some states, police chiefs pursue the decertification of officers they fire — to prevent them from being hired at other police departments.

But Louisiana has not decertified a single officer for misconduct in the past decade, records show. State officials said that local departments have failed to request decertifications. Local police officials said, however, that the process of decertifying an officer they no longer employ can be laborious and may not be worth the time.

Serpas said steps should be taken to make sure that officers are stripped of their state law enforcement certifications and that a national database of these officers should be created to help prevent them from returning to law enforcement.

“If you get terminated for untruthfulness or bribery or brutality, you really should not be allowed to be a police officer anywhere in the country,” Serpas said.

Sleeping, buying sex on duty
Police officer Carey Dykes arrived near the French Quarter just before dawn as fists were flying and fires were burning in the street. Soon, bottles were flung in his direction.

It was Feb. 16, 1999, and Dykes was quickly joined by a dozen other officers as the Mardi Gras party descended into chaos.

By the time it was over, police had jailed nearly 60 people. In the aftermath, Dykes, other officers and the city faced two federal lawsuits from people who alleged that they had been falsely arrested and were beaten by police. In the suits, witnesses said they saw Dykes and another officer “brutally beat” a man with nightsticks.

The city settled the two cases for a combined $60,850. In 2001, Dykes and the city were sued again: A pregnant woman said she was assaulted by Dykes as he tried to arrest her and her then-husband outside a French Quarter strip club.

“That cop, Dykes, came up to me before I could get all the way up off the ground and slammed me back down on the ground with my face in the ground and kept saying, ‘Keep still. Don’t move. Don’t move,’ ” the woman, Chantal Jarrell, now 45, said in an interview.

The city and the officers generally denied the allegations, but settled her suit for $400.

Records show that during the next decade, Dykes was suspended three times for violating department policies, including failing to follow instructions and filing incomplete reports.

Then, in July 2010, a woman told police officials that an officer was paying women for sex. She told internal affairs investigators that the officer — whom she identified as Dykes from a photo lineup — spent some of his nightly shifts cruising the streets “picking up working girls.” She complained that she had sex with him but was never paid.

The woman, who was not identified in the investigative reports, said Dykes picked her up in his squad car on July 4 and took her to the London Lodge, a nearby motel.

She said that she took a shower and emerged to see Dykes naked. The two then had vaginal and oral sex without a condom, she said.

Motel records showed that Dykes rented a $45 room, checking in with his driver’s license at 2:50 a.m. — in the middle of his patrol shift.

Investigators set up a sting.

Over several days, police recorded the woman speaking with Dykes on the phone while he was on duty. In one recording, the woman said she had a bacterial infection when they allegedly had unprotected sex and told him that he might pass it on to his wife.

Dykes said he was not worried about a bacterial infection. “Only STD will affect me,” he told her.

On the sting’s fifth night, investigators watched Dykes park his squad car at the London Lodge at 3:35 a.m. Almost an hour later, a 911 call came in from nearby: Two men had wrecked a Chevy Tahoe and fled on foot armed with assault rifles.

A dispatcher radioed Dykes to respond to the call but got no answer from him.

Ten minutes after the initial 911 call, the neighborhood erupted in gunfire, prompting five additional calls to 911.

Dykes’s white marked patrol car did not move, records show. Concerned, one of the officers watching Dykes approached his police cruiser: Dykes was inside asleep. The surveillance officer snapped a photo.

At 5:15 a.m. Dykes drove off and later wrote in his activity report that he had responded to the shooting.

The internal affairs investigation found that Dykes had violated department rules 17 times, including not devoting his entire shift to his police duty, transporting a civilian in his work vehicle, dishonesty and failing to respond to a dispatcher.

Dykes initially denied many of the allegations and said he did not have intercourse with the woman. When confronted with the findings of the surveillance, he admitted to having oral sex with the woman at the motel and failing to respond to the shooting.

Three months later, in February 2011, Dykes was fired. He appealed, but an arbitrator upheld his dismissal.

When reached by phone, Dykes, 44, said of his firing: “It happened over seven years ago. I’m not worried about it.” He declined to answer questions or comment further.

Months after he was fired, Dykes applied for a police job at Delgado Community College in New Orleans, records show.

Unarmed man killed by police after ‘swatting’ prank in Kansas

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/12/29/unarmed-man-killed-police-after-swatting-prank-kansas/991665001/

An innocent man was shot and killed by police Thursday after a "swatting" prank led authorities to a home in Kansas, officials say.

A feud between two Call of Duty game players sparked the hoax call. However, the address given to police led them to the doorstep of 28-year-old Andrew Finch, who was not part of the online gaming community, police say.

"Due to the actions of a prankster, we have an innocent victim," Wichita police Deputy Chief Troy Livingston said during a press conference Friday.

Officers responded to a report of a gunman holding his mother, brother and sister hostage after shooting his father in the head Thursday night, Livingston said.

"That was the information we were working off of," he told the Wichita Eagle.

Livingston added that authorities "got into position" when they arrived at the home, ready for a hostage situation.

The 28-year-old, identified by his family as Andrew Finch, went to the door to see what was going on, the Eagle reported.

"As he came to the door, one of our officers discharged his weapon," Livingston said.

Officers had instructed Finch to put his hands up, but he lowered them several times, Livingston said. One officer then took a shot because he "feared for officer's safety," Livingston said.

The father of two was taken to a hospital. He later died.

Police said he was unarmed.

A frame grab from the Wichita Police Department's release Friday, Dec. 29, 2017, of some body cam footage of the fatal shooting of Andrew Finch, 29, by a Wichita police officer Thursday night. Online gamers have said in multiple Twitter posts that the shooting of a man Thursday night by Wichita police was the result of a "swatting" hoax involving two gamers. (Photo: Fernando Salazar, AP)

Officers soon learned that no one in the house had a gunshot wound and that there wasn’t a hostage situation.

"What gives the cops the right to open fire?" Finch's mother asked the Wichita Eagle. “Why didn’t they give him the same warning they gave us? That cop murdered my son over a false report.”

More than a dozen gamers told the Eagle that a feud between two Call of Duty players sparked the swatting call.

The gamers were arguing when one threatened to target the other. The intended target gave the other gamer a "fake" address, according to Twitter posts.

"We believe this case is an act of swatting," Livingston confirmed Friday.

Several social media users placed blame on one gamer, who tweeted about the incident.

"I DIDNT GET ANYONE KILLED BECAUSE I DIDNT DISCHARGE A WEAPON AND BEING A SWAT MEMBER ISNT MY PROFESSION," the gamer tweeted. The account was suspended overnight.

Finch's family believes whoever made the call should be held accountable.

"The person who made the phone call took my nephew, her son, two kids’ father," the victim’s aunt, Lorrie Hernandez-Caballero told the Wichita Eagle. "How does it feel to be a murderer? I can’t believe people do this on purpose."

Swatting is a prank where someone calls authorities to report a fake emergency — often a hostage situation or active shooter — with the intent of drawing a "SWAT team" response to a location.

The dangerous prank has become popular nationwide among gamers, who use caller ID spoofing or other techniques to disguise their phone numbers, according to 911.gov.

"Without that false phone call we wouldn't have been there," Livingston said.

The officer who shot and killed Finch was identified as a veteran of more than 7 years with the police department. He was be placed on administrative paid leave pending investigation.

No arrests have been made so far.

Dead, beaten and abused: Millions paid in secret settlements to keep bad cops on the street and the public in danger

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/watchdog/shield/2018/01/22/nj-police-brutality-cases-secret-settlements/109479668/

Piercing the shield

New Jersey governments across the state, from the smallest towns to some of the largest cities, have spent more than $42 million this decade to cover-up deaths, physical abuses and sexual misconduct at the hands of bad cops.

The abuse of police power has left a staggering toll: at least 19 dead; 131 injured; 7 sexual misconducts, plus dozens of other offenses ranging from false arrest to harassment, a two-year investigation by the Asbury Park Press found.

The damage is concealed by government officials who use a veil of secret settlements and nondisclosure agreements to silence victims. Investigations of rogue cops are routinely hidden from the public by police, elected officials and even the courts.

The secretive payouts that keep abuses quiet are a vital part of a system that enables bad cops to do their worst. The secrecy starts at the police department and rises through the highest levels of government. Some of the state's largest cities and insurance carriers refused to release government documents that are at the core of the rogue cop problem.

But the tens of millions of dollars paid to settle hundreds of legal claims are not the worst part.

Many of the bad cops remain on the street.

The Press investigation found that several towns knew of their bad cops' propensity towards violence yet ignored multiple warning signs until the cops crossed the line by injuring or killing innocent people.

In February 2016, Khan was arrested on charges of punching his brother-in-law in the face, causing “serious facial injuries and a possible fractured” eye socket and jaw, and threatening to shoot him, a police report stated.

Khan brushed off the criminal charges as a grand jury dismissed the claims. His only punishment: a 40-day police department suspension. After that, the officer returned to the streets, armed with a weapon and the full force of the law.

Khan’s suspension didn't prevent more violence. During a car chase that could have been a scene from an action movie, Khan shot at a suspect fleeing in a vehicle and then pursued the car through the streets of Jersey City, according to criminal charges filed against him.

The June 4, 2017, chase ended tragically for Miguel Feliz, 28, an innocent victim caught in the mayhem.

The father of a 6-year-old was driving home from his Peapod grocery delivery job when the suspect ran Feliz's aging Toyota off the road. The car burst into flames after slamming into a utility pole.

With his clothing on fire and choking on the acrid smoke, Feliz needed help from the police.

He got Khan.

Khan and another officer kicked Feliz as he laid burning on the ground. Feliz was struck in the face, a cellphone video shot by a passerby showed. Months later, both officers were indicted on aggravated assault charges. The officers have pleaded not guilty.

“I thought they were there to help,” Feliz said weeks after the incident, healing from four broken ribs – inflicted by police, he says – and multiple burns.

"But obviously not."

Miguel Feliz struggled to extinguish his burning flesh after a car crash in Jersey City June 4, 2017. He needed help from the police. Instead he was kicked. Andrew Ford

In another state, Khan's first arrest would likely have been his last day as a police officer. In Florida, conduct involving an assault can cost a police officer’s license to enforce the law, even if they're not criminally prosecuted.

But not in New Jersey.

From internal affairs to the courthouse, a weave of secret investigations, quiet payouts, nondisclosure agreements and court-enforced silence ends up keeping horrendous conduct and multi-million-dollar payouts away from public scrutiny.

Rogue cops are a fraction of the 33,000 officers who protect the public each day. But bad cops remain on the street because of one number: 466. That is the number of municipal police departments in the state, most with 23 or fewer officers, and some employing multiple family members.

Each of the 466 departments has a unique political culture and an internal affairs system that is rarely overseen by outsiders – unless the police chief believes an officer might have committed a crime.

New Jersey is one of six states that doesn’t officially license police officers or have a method to ban bad cops, much the way the government can disbar wayward lawyers or pull the licenses of intoxicated truck drivers. The other states without a police licensing revocation law are New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, California and Hawaii.

Of at least 64,353 internal affairs complaints filed since 2011, less than one half of 1 percent – 226 – resulted in an officer being charged with a crime, the Press found. Of those defendants, 90 were convicted.

"There's just people out there that don't belong on the job. Fortunately, the numbers are few," said former Burlington Township police director Walter J. Corter, who also served as head of investigations for the Burlington County prosecutor's office.

To expose the problems with New Jersey's system for police accountability, the Press reviewed more than 30,000 pages of court, police and legal documents, settlements and once-secret separation agreements obtained by the Press, and interviewed dozens of victims, experts, lawyers and police officers.

The team found holes, conflicts and inconsistencies in police oversight that empowered problem cops in some departments to escalate their behavior until it became criminal, even deadly.

Consider:

A cop with domestic dispute history kills his ex-wife — Neptune Police Sgt. Philip Seidle has an internal affairs record that tops 600 pages and spans two decades, with several complaints known to involve domestic disputes between him and his wife. He was considered enough of a risk to the public that his service weapon was taken from him, but he was later rearmed. He used that gun to fatally shoot his ex-wife in 2015 in the middle of an Asbury Park street, in front of their 7-year-old daughter. He's serving a 30-year prison sentence.

A well-known violent cop beats a suspect on camera — Bloomfield police officer Orlando Trinidad was known in the department for using force to subdue suspects, accounting for nearly a third of the so-called “use-of-force” police reports in the 120-member department. After nearly ripping the ear off a handcuffed suspect inside the police station in 2013, a lawsuit claims, Trinidad then looked directly into the surveillance camera to seemingly mock the ensuing internal affairs review by saying, “IA.” The suit settled for $364,000 without any admission of fault. He was sentenced to five years in prison for lying on a police report in a separate incident.

A lack of oversight — Now-retired Bordentown Township Police Chief Frank Nucera Jr. was charged by federal agents in November 2017 with assaulting a black man and repeatedly making violent and racist remarks. The need for outside intervention by the FBI underscores the limited oversight of New Jersey's hundreds of police chiefs. His lawyer didn't return a message seeking comment. Nucera retired in January 2017, after the alleged assault but before the indictment. He is awaiting trial. Upon leaving, Nucera was paid $54,002, including compensation for unused sick and vacation days.

Repeated beatings claims, department inaction — Alleged beatings by Atlantic City police officer Andrew Jaques prompted at least two lawsuits. The city refused to provide the Press with the settlement amounts. But the case raised the ire of a federal judge in one decision who called Jaques "short-fused" and "volatile." He retired on disability in August, at an annual salary of $101,620, the Press found. Another city officer, Sterling Wheaten, has been the subject of at least 15 internal affairs complaints and the city paying $4.5 million to settle five lawsuits, according to media reports. No admission of wrongdoing was made in the settlements and Wheaten remains on the force at a salary of $108,548.

The $1.8 million cop — Battling a problem cop can be extraordinarily expensive. Taxpayers spent at least $1.8 million in a 9-year effort to fire Manuel Avila, a Paterson patrolman with a history of mental health trouble accused of sexual assault but acquitted at trial. Although not convicted of being a violent cop, the city put Avila on paid suspension that ultimately cost at least $940,000. The city also agreed to a $710,000 settlement with the woman, plus at least $92,000 in legal fees. In a settlement with the officer, the city agreed to dismiss disciplinary charges against Avila if he decided to resign. The agreement allowed him to collect $85,134 for unused sick and vacation time. He is now trying to get a $72,000 annual pension, which would include credit for six years while he was suspended.

In the Atlantic City case involving the “short-fused” Jaques, the Press found in court documents that Jaques was investigated by his uncle. Jaques remained on the force for another 10 years, leading to more lawsuits from civilians.

The quality of internal affairs reviews meant to root out rogue cops “comes down to one person — whoever is doing the investigation,” said Rich Rivera, a former West New York police officer.

For the last 20 years, Rivera has reviewed internal affairs investigations, police use-of-force reports in lawsuits and consulted with police departments. “Because the entire process is secret, we typically don’t know what the contents of the investigation were, and whether they were properly done or not,” he said.

While on the police force in the mid-1990s, Rivera worked undercover with the FBI to help put corrupt cops from his department in jail.

Internal affairs reports frequently show inadequate investigations and conclusions, Rivera said of the more than 900 IA files he has reviewed. Common problems included police investigators: failing to interview eyewitnesses; ruling a complaint “unfounded” if the investigator was unable to reach the victim; and failing to interview more than one officer, even if there were several at the scene.

“We don’t see too many consequences for bad police officers,” Rivera said. “The consequences are (for) those in the community – people being harmed, people being falsely accused of crimes, people being sent to prison who might not have been sent to prison if IA was working properly.”

Claims of abuses affected departments regardless of size, the Press’ investigation found. For example, the tiny borough of Absecon in Atlantic County, population 8,300, paid $2 million to settle a 2012 wrongful death case while Newark, population 280,000, settled a bodily injury case for $2 million.

Patrick Colligan, president of the state Police Benevolent Association that represents nearly all 33,000 police officers in the state, said he doesn’t dispute there were problem officers in the past, but today, with many cops being watched with cameras mounted on patrol cars or worn by officers, there is a constant oversight.

However, not all departments – until recently including Jersey City – use such monitoring devices.

Sub-standard police officers leave the force “close to every day in this state,” Colligan said. “Many you don't hear about, and it shows the departments are doing what they should be doing. … In 2017, there's nobody tolerating illicit or illegal activity.”

Andrea: Please click link for rest of article and graphics

Dashcam Video Shows ‘Senseless’ Killing Of Iranian-American By Federal Cops, Lawyers Say

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dashcam-video-killing-iranian-american-federal-cops-lawyers_us_5a68b04be4b0e5630075969d?ncid=inblnkush pmg00000009

WASHINGTON ― U.S. Park Police shot and killed an unarmed American man of Iranian descent in Fairfax County, Virginia, last November. In the months since the incident, the federal government hasn’t offered any explanation as to what led unnamed federal law enforcement officers to shoot and kill 25-year-old Bijan Ghaisar. But local authorities on Wednesday released a disturbing dashcam video that sheds new light on the shooting and could put pressure on the federal government to bring charges against the agents involved.

The dashcam video shows the fatal encounter that was a culmination of a police chase of Ghaisar’s Jeep. An unidentified federal officer hops out of the passenger seat of his police vehicle and points his gun at Ghaisar’s stopped vehicle. As the officer stands near the driver’s side of the Jeep pointing his weapon, the car slowly moves forward. The officer fires once. He fires four more times. His partner comes up behind him. More shots are fired, and the vehicle abruptly stops.

Officers with the U.S. Park Police shot Ghaisar in the head four times on Nov. 17. Ghaisar, who by all accounts was unarmed and alone on George Washington Memorial Parkway, died 10 days later due to brain damage. Since then, the Ghaisar family has been seeking answers from the federal government about what happened to the football-loving young man from suburban Virginia who worked at his dad’s accounting firm and was looking forward to becoming an uncle.

“Not only did we lose Bijan, on top of it [all] but ... we have no information,” Ghaisar’s mother, Kelly, told HuffPost. “The total silence of this case makes us, our whole family, feel even worse, because we have to deal with Bijan’s loss and the way that he was taken.”

In shootings involving federal officers, like the U.S. Park Police which are under the U.S. Interior Department’s National Park Service, there’s often little information available upfront, while shootings involving local officers typically provide more.

The FBI is now investigating the case, but they initially opposed releasing the video. Federal authorities still haven’t named the two officers who killed Ghaisar, though the Interior Department has said they’re both on administrative leave. The lack of public information on the investigation has garnered criticism. The Washington Post’s editorial board criticized the dearth of information about the shooting last December, calling it “a mockery of the open society that distinguishes the United States from autocracies and dictatorships.”

But the veil of secrecy surrounding Ghaisar’s death was lifted a bit on Wednesday, when Fairfax County Chief of Police Edwin Roessler issued a press release for the dashcam video. While Fairfax officers weren’t involved in Ghaisar’s shooting, they did assist the U.S. Park Police in chasing Ghaisar’s vehicle. Roessler said he was releasing the video as a “matter of transparency to all in our community, especially the Ghaisar family.” He added he was confident in the FBI’s investigation.

U.S Park Police say they pursued Ghaisar’s vehicle after his SUV was involved in a collision on southbound George Washington Memorial Parkway at Slaters Lane in Alexandria, Virginia. Ghaisar reportedly was hit by an Uber driver in a Toyota Corolla before driving off. The Uber driver told FOX 5 that he and his passenger got Ghaisar’s license plate tag and called police. The Uber driver and his passenger did not report any injuries. The Uber driver was ticketed for failing to maintain proper control, according to the police report HuffPost obtained.

Fairfax Police later joined U.S. Park Police in their pursuit of Ghaisar, which initially began around 7:30 p.m. EST. Ghaisar is seen in the video being stopped twice by U.S. Park Police before coming to a full stop the third time at Fort Hunt and Alexandria. During the previous stops, police are seen pulling up alongside Ghaisar’s car, and drawing their weapons. Ghaisar’s family has speculated that the officer’s weapons frightened Ghaisar and caused him to drive off again.

The video “shows the senseless killing of a young man at the hands of those charged” with protecting the public, said Roy Austin Jr., an attorney for the family who previously served in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division before joining former President Barack Obama’s White House.

“Bijan Ghaisar was repeatedly threatened by over-aggressive and out-of-control law enforcement officers, after he drove away from a minor traffic incident in which he was the victim and in which there was little property damage and no known injuries,” Austin said in a Wednesday statement. “No one was even close to being in harm’s way until a pair of U.S. Park Police officers repeatedly shot Bijan at close range as he sat, unarmed, in his Jeep on a residential street. We don’t know why the U.S. Park Police officers shot Bijan multiple times, or whether those officers are still patrolling the area’s parkways. What we do know is that justice demands that those responsible for taking Bijan’s life answer for this illegal and unconstitutional killing.”

Ghaisar’s family and friends want to know how a minor fender bender escalated into a police chase that ultimately ended in the young man’s death. Ghaisar graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2015 and worked for his father’s firm Caesar & Associates in McLean, Virginia. He was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.

Friends and family who knew Ghaisar described him as being very upbeat and positive and as an avid New England Patriots fan. A first-generation Iranian-American, Ghaisar and sister were born in Virginia. His parents immigrated to the United States decades ago.

“I believe that the people who shot and killed Bijan should be held accountable. Doesn’t matter if they are police officers or civilians. Once you kill someone in this heinous way, you should be held accountable and that’s what I want to see,” said Kelly Ghaisar. “This whole thing, it’s such an out of body experience ... but we are trying to cope because we want to get justice for Bijan. It’s what drives us to get out of bed and do something.”

Bodycam video appears to show Chicago cop shooting at man who’s running away

Bodycam video appears to show Chicago cop shooting at man who’s running away

Police bodycam footage recently released by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability appears to show an officer opening fire at a man who was running away and down a flight of stairs.

The footage was made public late last week, 60 days after a Chicago Police officer fatally shot Aquoness Cathery, 24, in the 6100 block of South King Drive.

Police said at the time that Cathery, who lived in the Park Manor neighborhood, was armed when he was shot. After the shooting, a police spokesman tweeted a photo from the scene that showed a black handgun resting on stairs. Bodycam footage appears to show that same handgun on the stairs where Cathery was shot.

Plain-clothes officers from the Grand Crossing District responded about 2:15 p.m. on Nov. 29, 2017, to a report of shots fired the 6100 block of South King Drive, where they confronted an armed man, Chicago Police said at the time.

The released footage begins with an office hustling up a set of wooden stairs and bursting into an apartment with at least three people inside. As the officer runs into the kitchen, he sees Cathery running through the back door and out onto a shared porch area.

The video shows Cathery holding a gun in his right hand as he turns right to run down a set of stairs. As he is turning, Cathery’s right arm is pressed against the handrail to the stairs and the gun appears to be pointed in the officer’s direction. As Cathery rounds the stairs, the officer opens fire.

The officer partly blocks his bodycam as he walks down the stairs. Cathery can be seen lying on the ground, with his feet on the bottom two stairs as the officer tells him to “relax” before calling for an ambulance as someone screams in the background. As he’s on the ground, Cathery raises his hands, one of them covered in blood, and looks at the officer, who tells him “It’s OK.”

“I got one person shot,” the officer tells the dispatcher. “Shots fired by police. Shots fired by police.”

Seconds later, another officer walks down the stairs, and the officer who shot Cathery tells him, “Secure that weapon” that is on the stairs.

Cathery was pronounced dead less than 12 hours after he was shot, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Court records show that in the six years before his death, Cathery was arrested several times, mostly on charges related to guns and drugs. In 2014, he was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison after he was charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

COPA has not yet ruled if the shooting was justified or not and a spokeswoman for the agency declined to comment further. The officer who shot Cathery was placed on desk duty for 30 days.

Deputy Caught on Camera Kicking Suspect’s Head During Arrest

http://fox40.com/2018/02/01/deputy-caught-on-camera-kicking-suspects-head-during-arrest/?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_con tent=5a738f1304d3011002d0b5a1&utm_medium=trueAnthe m&utm_source=twitter

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. - After reviewing video circulating on social media that shows a brutal arrest conducted by two sheriff's deputies in San Bernardino, officials have asked members of the public who witnessed the incident to come forward.

Authorities are concerned with the actions of one of the deputies in particular who is seen in the cellphone video repeatedly kicking the suspect in the head after the man was handcuffed and his body limp, according to KTLA.

The arrest occurred last Friday around 1 a.m., and investigators are hoping to interview motorists who were in the area at that time, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said in a statement.

The one-minute clip opens as one deputy has 21-year-old Gerardo Bernabe Vasquez pinned to the ground, with Vasquez's legs squirming.

Moments later, a second deputy arrives on the scene. As the second deputy begins to arrange Vasquez's hands to cuff them, the first deputy punches Vasquez twice in the head.

After Vasquez is handcuffed, the deputies each pick up one of his arms as they attempt to load him into a patrol vehicle. But Vasquez's body has gone limp, his torso and legs flopping toward the ground as his arms are raised behind his back.

The deputies drop him, and it is then that the first deputy begins to kick his face. It appears he strikes him three times, stepping on his head in the final blow.

Vasquez was eventually booked on suspicion of resisting or obstruction an officer, was cited and later released, the Sheriff's Department said. It was unclear why or how the two parties initiated contact.

The deputy seen striking Vasquez was placed on paid administrative leave, pending the results of the probe. Authorities said they would not identify the deputy while the investigation is ongoing.

Sheriff's officials said they were already investigating the incident when the video gained attention on social media, and Sheriff John McMahon said he found the "level of force" seen in the video concerning.

“I expect our employees always to remain professional when contacting the public, who we serve," McMahon said in a statement. "I can assure you that we take these matters very seriously and we will conduct a thorough and complete investigation.”

Darby cops' arrest of 11-year-old girl was excessive

http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/jenice_armstrong/darby-cops-arrest-of-11-year-old-girl-was-excessive-jenice-armstrong-20180215.html

After a call came in about a disturbance on a bus Tuesday afternoon, Darby Borough police went into action. An officer arrived on the scene in Delaware County, did some interviews, and determined that he had probable cause to make an arrest. So he handcuffed an 11-year-old girl.

Yes, you read that correctly.

A fifth grader at Chester Community Charter School, Zakiyah is small for her age. She stands about 4-feet-5 and weighs just 55 pounds. A cellphone video taken before she was taken into custody shows her sitting on a school bus. She appears calm. Still, she was cuffed with her little wrists behind her back and placed in the back of a police van.

Zakiyah (I’m not giving out her last name) was understandably terrified and told NBC10 that she thought she would never be able to see her family again.

Her mother told me Thursday she was still trying to wrap her head around the situation.

“I never thought that I had to give my 11-year-old ‘the police talk,’ ” said Jawania Browne, referring to warnings that African American parents have been giving their children for years about staying safe around police officers. “I was thinking more so my son, and he’s only 1. But as he grows up, I was thinking that I’ve got to really drill it into my son – but not my daughter. But I guess none of us are exempt.”

Authorities took Zakiyah to the Darby police station and placed her in a juvenile holding area. Zakiyah was presented with a non-traffic citation that alleges “defendant did, with the intent to cause public inconvenience or alarm, create a physically hazardous or offensive condition by actions which served no legitimate purpose to the actor.”

Mind you, this drama started because she and a schoolmate had gotten into a fight on a school bus. I don’t know what happened, and frankly I’m not all that interested. To me, what started the dispute doesn’t matter. Children fight. They’re kids.

I’m concerned about that little girl. She’s traumatized. Her attorney, Joe Montgomery, says it was “the worst day of her life.”

Zakiyah’s mother says that since being taken into custody, her daughter — who already had been in counseling for emotional issues — hasn’t been sleeping well and has had nightmares. This isn’t how elementary-age kids are supposed to be treated.

Max Tribble, a charter school spokesman, declined to release details of the incident, citing privacy concerns. He said the school, in Delaware County’s Chester Upland School District, hadn’t yet been contacted by Darby police.

I also reached out to Chief Robert Smythe at home, where he was recuperating from a bad case of the flu. He said the arresting officer had merely been following established protocol.

“I understand that it sounds harsh,” Smythe told me between coughs. “She was in custody for an assault of which we were processing her. There were wounds to the other child. I understand how it sounds, but that’s the policy.

“She was being processed because she committed an aggressive assault against another person,” Smythe continued. “We had her in custody for 57 minutes. It’s not like we put her in a cell and held her for hours. … There are police policies that we try to follow. If you are in custody, you are in handcuffs. That’s the policy.”

As for her being detained in a juvenile holding area, he said, “She just can’t walk the hallways.”

Well, what about her being put in the back of a police van?

“The officer that responded, that was his vehicle for the day,” Smythe said.

Yeah, tell that to her mom. Browne is understandably upset. She’s keeping Zakiyah home from school for now, taking her to counseling, and also considering private school options.

“I would never have thought that they would have locked up an 11-year-old child and treated her like that,” she said.

Nor would I.