Archive for the 'Police' Category

Daily Beast:

A video filmed a week ago Tuesday appears to show local police allowing a K9 dog to tear into the face of what looks to be an unarmed black man while he is curled up on the ground. The man, identified as 32-year-old Phillip White, later died while in police custody.

[ … ]

The person who shot the footage, which is from a phone, is shown being approached by police, saying, “I need your information and I’m going to need to take your phone.”

It is legal to film police interactions in New Jersey.

Murder.  Attempted coverup.  But there is that sticky issue of the video.

Sic him!  Get him!  A chance to be a stud, see blood, see action, see some carnage.  The concept of “peace officer” a long ago lost relic of American history.  How sad for our country.

He discharged eight shots from his sidearm, with time to aim, with a pause between the seventh and eighth shots, all eight shots taken in the direction of the victim’s back while the victim was running away.

A white North Charleston police officer was arrested on a murder charge and the FBI opened a civil rights investigation Tuesday after video surfaced of the lawman shooting eight times at a 50-year-old black man as he ran away.

Walter L. Scott, a Coast Guard veteran and father of four, died Saturday after Patrolman 1st Class Michael T. Slager, 33, shot him several times in the back.

The video footage, which The Post and Courier obtained Tuesday from a source who asked to remain anonymous, shows the end of the confrontation between the two on Saturday after Scott ran from a traffic stop. It was the first piece of evidence contradicting an account Slager gave earlier this week through his attorney.

[ … ]

The three-minute clip of Saturday’s shooting starts shaky, but it steadies as Slager and Scott appear to be grabbing at each other’s hands.

Slager has said through his attorney that Scott had wrested his Taser from him during a struggle.

The video appears to show Scott slapping at the officer’s hands as several objects fall to the ground. It’s not clear what the objects are.

Scott starts running away. Wires from Slager’s Taser stretch from Scott’s clothing to the officer’s hands.

With Scott more than 10 feet from Slager, the officer draws his pistol and fires seven times in rapid succession. After a brief pause, the officer fires one last time. Scott’s back bows, and he falls face first to the ground near a tree.

After the gunfire, Slager glances at the person taking the video, then talks into his radio.

The cameraman curses, and Slager yells at Scott as sirens wail.

“Put your hands behind your back,” the officer shouts before he handcuffs Scott.

As another lawman runs to Scott’s side.

Scott died there.

[ … ]

Slager said earlier this week in the statement from his attorney at the time that his encounter with Scott had started Saturday morning as a routine traffic stop.

His department said he pulled over Scott’s Mercedes-Benz sedan near Remount and Craig roads because it had a broken brake light. But at some point, Scott ran away with Slager in pursuit on foot. Scott’s passenger stayed with the Mercedes.

During the foot chase, Scott confronted Slager, according to the lawyer’s statement. Slager got out his Taser to subdue the man, but Scott took the device during a struggle, the statement said. That’s when the officer fired at Scott several times because he “felt threatened,” it added.

Now listen very carefully.  We all know how abused and overused the idea is that an officer can “feel threatened” and thus discharge his weapon at anything and everything.  But this doesn’t even rise to the level of abusive policy.  The officer had the temerity calmly to walk back to the scene of the struggle, pick up the taser, and casually drop it next to the now-deceased body.

What’s the lesson?  The officer didn’t know a video of his actions would be produced.  It was going to be his word against a dead man’s word, and we all know how that would have gone down.  He reflexively turned to the best, surest, most trusted and well-worn defense cops use: “I felt threatened.”  There is the first tier of concern with this incident, that is, a shooting in the back that violates the constitution.  But the second tier of concern pertains to coverup of the shooting.

And as long as that defense exists and is reflexively accepted by a gullible public and a willing judicial system, “I felt threatened” will keep being used and cops will continue to perpetrate this sort of thing.  But the fifth amendment clearly doesn’t allow this officer to kill the unarmed man running away, who is no threat to the officer, by the way, and who hadn’t shown himself to be a threat to anyone else (he was stopped because of a minor traffic violation).

Boston.com:

A newly released report by local authorities details the response of law enforcement following the Boston Marathon bombings.

The full report is available here.

The report says that during the early morning shootout in Watertown on Friday, April 19, 2013, the first officers to arrive “practiced appropriate weapons discipline while they were engaged in the firefight with the suspects.” But it added that “additional officers arriving on scene near the conclusion of the firefight fired weapons toward the vicinity of the suspects, without necessarily having identified and lined up their target or appropriately aimed their weapons.”

After the firefight, one officer fired upon plain-clothes officers in an unmarked Massachusetts State Police vehicle that was wrongly reported as stolen, according to the report, which also cites lack of weapons discipline by law enforcement during efforts to apprehend Dzhokhar Tsarnaev when he was hiding in a boat behind a Watertown home.

Via WRSA, WeaponsMan also has an analysis of the report.  But focus for a moment on these takeaways from the report.  First, “officers arriving on scene near the conclusion of the firefight fired weapons toward the vicinity of the suspects, without necessarily having identified and lined up their target or appropriately aimed their weapons.”  This is very serious, with LEOs shooting wildly at nothing and everything, innocent victims in danger of being shot, and LEOs held completely guiltless in the lack of discipline, even if they had killed someone.

Second, the officer who shot at the vehicle violated Tennessee versus Garner in that he didn’t make the shot in self defense.  If you or I did someone like that we would be in prison today.  And the sadly ignorant, “sheeple” public trusts the LEOs and fears peaceable concealed or open carriers.  It just boggles the mind, honestly.

Tulsa World:

A 73-year-old reserve deputy who shot and killed a fleeing suspect Thursday during an undercover operation believed he was holding a Taser, not a gun, when the shooting occurred.

The reserve deputy who shot the man is Robert Charles Bates, a Tulsa insurance company executive who was working undercover Thursday as a member of the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office Violent Crimes Task Force.

Bates confirmed in a phone interview with a Tulsa World reporter Friday that he shot and killed Eric Courtney Harris the previous day.

“It was me,” Bates said during the interview. “My attorney has advised me not to comment. As much as I would like to, I can’t.”

The Sheriff’s Office on Friday evening released Bates’ name and said he received his reserve status in September 2008.

The release states that Bates was assigned to the Tulsa County Violent Crimes Task Force and had received specialized training in homicide investigation, meth lab identification and decontamination, and other specialized training.

Bates had also spent time with the Tulsa Police Auxiliary and then as a full-time police officer, according to the release.

Gosh, I hate it when that happens to me.  I remember the last time I pulled a gun on a dude and thought it was a taser instead.  It was all in good fun, but I used the fact that he was high on drugs to argue he deserved it anyway.  It kept me out of too much trouble with the law.

News from Florida:

A former Miami-Dade police internal affairs lieutenant today admitted buying and smuggling guns for a drug ring through security checkpoints at Miami International Airport and depositing some of his payments into a Fort Lee bank account.

Nearly a year after an investigation by FBI and DEA agents out of Passaic County led to his arrest, 45-year-old Ralph “the Milk Man” Mata pleaded guilty in federal court in Newark to conspiring to distribute cocaine, “aiding and abetting a narcotics conspiracy” and depositing money for the illicit organization.

As part of his plea, Mata agreed to forfeit $75,405 seized by federal authorities when he was arrested last April 9.

U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said Mata bought at least six firearms from a gun store in Florida that ended up in the hands of members of the Juan Arias Drug Trafficking Organization.

“Using his prior experience as a lieutenant assigned to the Miami International Airport, as well as his law enforcement contacts at the airport, Mata and others smuggled the six firearms through airport security checkpoints and onto a commercial airliner destined for the Dominican Republic,” Fishman said.

Mata also “provided advice, guidance and counsel to Juan Arias regarding the means and methods the drug trafficking organization should use to import and distribute cocaine,” and also “transported narcotics proceeds for the organization,” the complaint says.

In exchange, he got “cash and a Rolex watch valued at approximately $10,000,” it says.

Gosh.  I hate it when that happens to me.  I remember the last time I bought guns for the drug lords.  I was working for the U.S. ATF and under their direct orders when did that so I didn’t get in too much trouble.  Only a few of those patriot types really cared.  But they wouldn’t let me keep the Rolex.

News from Florida:

After the Hollywood Police Department declined to investigate his allegations of excessive force, Gozaloff filed a lawsuit claiming police brutality and false arrest stemming from the January 2008 incident.

In their reports, the officers alleged Gozaloff, now 54, became irate, ground his own face into the pavement and kicked at them. They arrested him on charges of drug possession and obstructing a traffic stop.

But after hearing the officers testify in the criminal case, Broward Circuit Judge Dale Cohen said he believed Gozaloff and dismissed the criminal charges against him in December 2009, court records show. “The court found Mr. Gozaloff very credible,” Cohen said. “The court believed his entire story.”

This month, Hollywood agreed to pay Gozaloff $240,000 to settle the lawsuit, city documents show.

City commissioners signed off on the deal privately in early March and are expected to give formal approval April 15 during a public meeting at City Hall.

Hollywood Police Chief Frank Fernandez and other city officials declined to comment on the case.

The federal lawsuit, filed in January 2012, accuses five officers of attacking Gozaloff in a “shark-like feeding frenzy.” The officers named as defendants are 12-year veteran Joseph Siple, 36; 10-year veteran Alexander Chang, 34; nine-year veteran Matthew Petty, 41; 18-year veteran Travis Schuller, 45; and 19-year veteran William Cash, 50.

The lawsuit accuses all five of filing false and misleading police reports and claims Siple planted a bag of Xanax pills on Gozaloff.

“Paul believes he was arrested because they thought he was homeless and wanted to get him off the street,” said his attorney, Javier Lopez. “One officer had a knee in his back while the other ones were kicking him. He was just taking the blows. He was never resisting.”

Gozaloff was posting campaign signs for presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani around 3:30 a.m. on Jan. 27, 2008, two days before the Florida primary, when he encountered a cluster of Hollywood cops ticketing a driver near Johnson Street and State Road 7.

Worried the driver might be a homeless friend, Gozaloff pulled over to inquire. Gozaloff, who suffers from bipolar disorder, says the officers grew annoyed with his questions.

Thinking Gozaloff, admittedly unkempt, was homeless, the cops beat him, kicked him, ground his face into the pavement and stood on his knee and ankle, the lawsuit alleges.

His ribs were bruised and he had cuts on his head, knees and feet, he said.

Despite his injuries, the arresting officer took him straight to jail, bypassing the hospital, the lawsuit says.

Gozaloff said he spent a week in jail until his wife came up with $1,700 to post bond.

In police reports, officers gave contradicting accounts of what transpired that night, Judge Cohen ruled.

According to Siple, the arresting officer, Gozaloff screamed, “Why won’t you talk to me?”

Siple says Gozaloff refused to take his hands out of his pockets despite repeated orders. According to Siple, officers yanked Gozaloff’s hands from his pockets and found rolling papers and three burnt marijuana cigarettes. Siple’s report says he later found a baggie of 11 Xanax pills in Gozaloff’s shorts pocket.

Police also claimed Gozaloff slammed his own head into the pavement repeatedly and attempted to punch officers before he was “escorted” to the ground.

Gosh.  I hate it when that happens to me.  I remember the last time I couldn’t remember what I planted on people to get them in trouble.  I looked stupid and it cause my whole plan to fall apart.

News from San Francisco:

San Francisco sheriff’s deputy Scott Neu is accused of leading a ring of corrupt jail guards who coerced prisoners into gladiatorial combat with threats of rape and violence.

Neu serves at County Jail No. 4 at 850 Bryant St despite having settled claims that he raped a woman prisoner and two transgendered prisoners while working at the jail. He sports a tattoo reading “850 Mob,” believed to describe the name used by the corrupt deputies to describe themselves. At least four other deputies are implicated in the program of sexualized torture.

The San Francisco Public Defender’s Office had undertaken an investigation into Neu’s behavior, in cooperation with an independent private investigator, and had planned to issue their report only after the prisoners who came forward were released and safe from retaliatory violence. However, Neu had reportedly planned a fresh round of fights, leading to a hasty release of their findings.

Neu and his co-conspirators gambled on the outcome of fights. One fight pitted the smallest inmate in the jail against the largest, and the fighters say they were threatened with rape and beatings by the guards if they didn’t spar. Neu is also said to have coerced prisoners into training for the fights with threats of rape and violence. Neu has a reputation for sadistic practices overall, including making prisoners gamble to receive their food, clothes and comfort items. Even when prisoners won the games Neu forced on them with the red dice and the deck of cards he carried, he would sometimes take away their “winnings” and give them to other prisoners.

The Deputies’ Union attorney Harry Stern claims the Public Defender is making a big deal out of nothing. He says that the prisoners were encouraged to “wrestle to settle disputes about who was stronger,” and were “encouraged” to work out. He dismissed the entire affair as “little more than horseplay.”

Gosh, I just hate it when that happens to me.  I remember the last time I forced men to fight at gunpoint in order to eat.  But I didn’t have that awesome Deputy’s union to help convince people it was all just in good fun.

News from Texas:

ODESSA, TX — An Ector County ISD police officer accidentally fired his gun inside Crockett Junior High on Friday.

“It discharged into the wall of his office and then the bullet went up into the ceiling,” said ECISD Communications Officer Mike Adkins.

“His gun was wet, and he went back into his office and felt it would be an opportune time to clean it and make sure it was working,” said Adkins.

The school system is investigating the incident, and the officer has been placed on administrative duties.

“They want to know exactly what happened, how it can be avoided in the future and if there needs to be retraining done for our officer or even other officers,” said Adkins.

The owner of a business called Guns and Trades, Tommy Atchison, offered reaction on Monday.

Atchison said, “All guns should be acted like they’re loaded at all times.”

Gosh.  I hate it when that happens to me.  I remember the last time I shot up a junior high school while trying to clean my gun.  I didn’t pull the trigger either.  It just “went off.”  But everybody wanted to blame me.

Meanwhile, some folks in Texas are really glad those goober civilians who are about to be allowed to open carry will have to get training since a concealed carry permit is a requirement.  We wouldn’t want them to shoot up junior high schools.

News from California:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – California’s corrections department has a problem with off-duty prison guards brandishing or carrying firearms while they are intoxicated, the department’s inspector general said Friday.

One correctional officer danced atop a bar while drunkenly flashing his gun several times at private citizens in the tavern.

Another drunken officer pointed a .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun at a citizen’s chest during an argument.

They are two of seven incidents since June 2014 that show the department needs to automatically and immediately revoke concealed carry permits for officers caught consuming alcohol while possessing weapons, the inspector general said.

Gosh.  I hate it when that happens to me.  I remember the last time I flashed my guns around while drunk and standing atop a bar dancing.  I remember.  Well, sort of.  I woke up in jail that night.  I wonder if the prison guards did too?

News from the great North:

DETROIT, MI — A Detroit crime fighter is charged with committing a crime of his own.

Detroit Police Officer Christos Kyriakides, 62, is suspected of stealing a “Scarface movie collage” from the home of a resident where he and other officers were serving a search warrant about 8:20 p.m. Feb. 20.

“It is alleged that Officer Kyriakides participated in the execution of a search warrant and while at the location removed a framed Scarface movie collage from the scene and placed it in his scout car and later concealed it in his personal vehicle,” Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s office said in a statement Friday.

Kyriakides is scheduled to be arraigned in Detroit’s 36th District Court at 10:30 a.m. on a charge of larceny from a building.

The charge of criminal misconduct conduct by a Detroit police officer comes about a month after multiple Detroit police officers were named in a lawsuit accusing them of conducting an illegal marijuana raid in Warren, and amid an ongoing FBI probe into wrongdoing by the disbanded Narcotics Unit.

A fellow officer turned Kyriakides in, Police Officer Adam Madera said after the accusation became public.

Gosh, I hate it when that happens to me.  I remember the last time I barged into somebody’s home pointing guns.  I sure didn’t find anything as cool as a “Scarface movie collage.”

The good news is that there is at least one honest cop in Detroit.