Archive for the 'Police' Category

SWATting prank terrorizes family:

ST. CLOUD, Minn. — Josh Peters knew what was happening the instant he heard his mother’s frantic voice.

It was around 1 a.m. on Feb. 4, and Peters, 27, was hosting an online stream as he played a video game, “Clash of Clans.” Peters makes a living as “Koopatroopa787,” the host of a channel on the website Twitch.tv, where more than 50,000 gamers watch him play and interact with him.

He had noise-canceling headphones on, so he only barely heard the commotion upstairs, hurried footsteps to the basement, and his mom shouting to him that the police were at the house. But Peters, who returned from a tour of duty with the Air Force in Kuwait last November, stayed calm and paused his stream. He knew why they were there.

“Right away, I knew I was being swatted,” he said.

St. Cloud police had received an anonymous call reporting an active shooter incident with a woman’s life in danger at Peters’ address, according to Lieutenant Jeff Oxton. It’s called “swatting,” and is a prank growing more common in the gaming community. Oxton said this was not the first swatting call St. Cloud police have responded to. Peters had heard of it happening to plenty of others, but never imagined he would be the target.

Kristin Darnall, Peters’ mother, was asleep when she heard pounding on the door. She looked out the window and saw police lights flashing. She went downstairs and saw through a window on the door several officers with weapons drawn.

Her husband came downstairs to let the officers in, but when he reached to undo the complex lock on the door, police yelled at him to keep his hands in the air. Peters was upstairs by this point. When the door was finally opened, Darnall said, police threw her husband and Josh to the floor. She stood with her back pressed against the wall, trying to ask what was happening … Oxton said police have to respond to these types of calls as if they are real.

Darnall said her 10-year old son, in the days since the incident, had suffered a migraine, had been play-acting the scenario with Nerf guns, and had woken with “night terrors.”

Police pull weapons on six year old autistic boy:

A Jackson couple says Ridgeland police pointed a weapon at their 6-year-old autistic son while serving a warrant on a family member in the home.

Paul and Angela Thompson Roby told WLBT that Ridgeland officers arrived in an unmarked car at a home owned by Angela Roby’s mother on Brisbane Lane. They were looking for Carneigio Gray, 23, who is Angela Roby’s brother.

Ridgeland spokesman Lt. John Neal said officers had received information that Gray, who has an outstanding warrant for contempt of court for failure to appear on a three-year-old paraphernalia charge, was staying in that house. When they entered the home, he resisted arrest.

That’s when the Robys said their son asked officers not to hurt his uncle. They told WLBT that officers then drew their weapons on the child.

DEA agent shot in pre-dawn “drug raid”:

COLUMBIA, SC — A criminal trial expected to be closely watched by law enforcement and gun owners around South Carolina opens Monday in federal court in Columbia.

At issue: whether Joel Robinson, 32, is guilty of a crime for shootinga DEA agent in the first few seconds of a surprise federal law enforcement raid last October at his Orangeburg house.

Agents expected to find a cache of drugs, but a search of the premises found nothing but a small amount of marijuana for recreational use, according to legal records in the case.

Robinson is expected to claim self-defense, saying he did what any citizen would have in assuming he was the target of a home invasion – grabbing a gun and firing a half-dozen shots in the direction of those he assumed were home invaders.

But the person struck by a Robinson bullet was DEA agent Barry Wilson, one of more than a dozen law officers surrounding the house. The bullet broke bones in Wilson’s right elbow and forearm. His recovery likely will take more than a year and he is expected to lose some use of that arm, according to testimony in a pretrial hearing.

During the trial, the prosecution is expected to claim that law officers on the scene announced themselves loudly, initiated flashing blue lights and sirens as they broke a side window in the house, and that, in any case, it is against the law to shoot a federal law officer in the performance of his official duties.

In the first case, the only real danger that night was from cops who pointed weapons at innocent people.  No muzzle discipline is characteristic of this kind of tactic, and if this kind of lack of self restraint occurred on any range we regularly visit, most of us would beat the hell out of the perpetrator(s), or at least disarm them and make it clear they were never invited back.

In the second case, what is there really to say, except that the autistic boy was probably about as dangerous as the 95 year old man who was shot to death by cops in a nursing home.

These aren’t even all of the instances of such tactics, just three of the more prominent and recent.  It’s as if reporting of this gruesome tactic is becoming dull and tedious.  But in spite of the poor little autistic boy who was probably scared to death and certainly didn’t need this terror, the most legally interesting is the last one.

The salient observation here is that it is illegal to shoot a cop in the performance of his duty.  And note that his “duty” is anything they want it to be, including home invasions in the middle of the night (with the cops looking like gang hoodlums with their faces covered) where the victim knows nothing about the event except that he and his family are in danger.

What this does – the notion that we cannot shoot home invaders for fear that we will shoot a cop in the performance of his duty, even if it is a wrong address raid – is effectively disarm innocent people.  You can have all of the guns and ammunition you want, but if you can be hauled before court at any time for using them to defend your home, you may as well have nothing unless you’re willing to shoot back and accept the consequences.  It’s almost as if this is all designed to create a passive class of sheep, no?

A man’s home is his castle … indeed!

Northwest Herald:

A suburban Chicago police officer was acquitted Wednesday of felony reckless conduct for killing a 95-year-old World War II veteran by shooting him with a beanbag gun at close range.

Park Forest Police Officer Craig Taylor was charged after the July 2013 death of John Wrana. In a courtroom packed with officers supporting Taylor, Cook County Judge Luciano Panici said there was nothing criminal about Taylor’s actions and that the officer did “what he was trained to do.”

The basic disagreement in the case was whether Taylor was justified in firing a weapon, at close range, that prosecutors said fires beanbags at 190 mph. Wrana died from internal bleeding caused by the beanbags.

Taylor, 43, was one of several officers dispatched to the facility where Wrana lived after a staff member reported that Wrana had become combative with emergency workers.

After Wrana struck a staffer with his cane, he brandished a 2-foot-long shoehorn at officers, prompting them to briefly leave the room. When the officers returned, one officer was carrying a Taser, another one had a shield, and Taylor was carrying a 12-gauge shotgun that shoots beanbags.

Wrana threatened the officers with a knife, and when he refused to drop it, one officer fired at him with the Taser but missed. Then Wrana moved toward Taylor, and the officer fired his weapon five times.

Prosecutors said Taylor had better and safer options than to fire the beanbags at a confused, knife-wielding elderly man, and that the officers didn’t have to storm Wrana’s room. They said he behaved recklessly when he fired five beanbags at Wrana at a distance of no more than 8 feet away.

But Taylor testified he was following the orders of a superior officer and feared for his life and the lives of his fellow officers when he saw Wrana holding the knife over his head and threatening to kill whoever came into his room. He testified that he felt like he “had to do something to stop him.”

The trial was of intense interest among local law enforcement agencies, and on the first day of trial many officers from Park Forest and other area departments showed up to the courthouse in Markham to show their support for Taylor.

Officers expressed anger that Taylor was even charged with a crime after an incident in which he was following orders and had legitimate fear for his own safety and the safety of his fellow officers.

We will all deal with issues of age.  It will go much like the report.  The elderly will be confused, they may issue threats they don’t even understand, they may not even be able to remember things or process reality reliably if they have dementia.  That’s okay.  They’ve earned that right.  As we are told in Leviticus 19:32, “You shall rise up before the grayheaded and honor the aged, and you shall revere your God.”  Or in the KJV, “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God.”  Honor towards the creator requires honor for the elderly.

A nation that cannot do this not only won’t live long, it doesn’t deserve to.  It is past its useful life.  This officer was weak, both of body and spirit.  My own son Daniel, who did a combat tour in Fallujah, Iraq, talked to me at length about the shots he had to take and the kills he had to make.  But one of the most interesting of his altercations with other men came when one of his fellow Marines was in danger from an insurgent using a weapon other than a gun.  Others in the area made use of his SAW an unacceptable option (many noncombatants could have been injured), and he used what he called a “football tackle” on the insurgent to stop and disarm him (the context of this specific conversation was the lunacy of women in combat).

That fighter in Iraq wasn’t a 95 year old man who had earned the respect of younger men.  That was an insurgent in Fallujah.  And yet this LEO in Chicago felt it necessary to shoot a potentially lethal weapon at the old man rather than use his brains or brawn to disarm him and defuse the situation.  This is a sad commentary on the state of affairs in LEO-land.

But even worse, note the bolded sections of the article.  “The courtroom was packed with officers supporting Taylor.”  These other officers are saying that it’s okay to shoot at 95 year old men who are confused and frightened.  Nothing is more important than going home safely at the end of their shift.  Cops can’t even use the same rules of engagement / rules for the use of force that Soldiers and Marines used in Iraq, and any hint that they might be held accountable is anathema to the thin blue line.

News From Georgia:

ATLANTA (CBS46) –

Carrie Mills is a retired Atlanta Police officer with 30 years on the job – primarily in APD’s drug unit.

Mills is now a union rep for the International Brotherhood of Police Officers. She considers herself an expert on search warrants, particularly no knock warrants, which allows officers to enter a structure without knocking first.

Mills says no-knock warrants helped close a lot of cases while she was an officer.

“If we knock and announced, all evidence is going to be destroyed,” Mills said.

State Sen. Vincent Fort, (D-39), has announced plans to introduce a bill that would make it harder to get no-knock warrants.

Fort says he was moved to introduce his bill after 19-month-old Bounkham “Bou Bou” Phonesavanh was seriously injured when a flash grenade exploded near his face during a botched drug raid involving a no-knock warrant in Habersham County.

“We are saying there should be restrictions on them and we think the situation in the recent past where they have been abused warrants that,” Fort said.

But Mills doesn’t agree.

“I don’t think any changes are needed because it is not easy now,” Mills said.

Mills says law makers should be careful what they ask for.

“You have to draw the line between your right as a citizen to privacy and a community’s right to live in a crime-free environment. You can’t have them both,” Mills said.

This is a picture of a soulless individual, intent on doing the state’s bidding, regardless of the human cost.  Quite literally, Ms. Mills says, she doesn’t believe that even the most modest of controls should be put in place.  Consider what the lawmakers intend to do.

Bou-Bou’s law, named after Bou-Bou Phonesavanh, the toddler who was severely injured during a botched no-knock drug raid, would require that police show someone’s life would be in danger, or evidence could be destroyed without a no-knock warrant.

The bill also would create penalties for officers and agencies that lie to a judge to get a no-knock warrant.

NBCDFW.com:

Southlake police say a licensed concealed handgun holder intervened when he saw a man allegedly assaulting a woman Friday, and the assault suspect now faces charges.

Police were called at about 1:35 p.m. to Farm-to-Market Road 1709 about a block west of Carroll Avenue, where they found two men standing in the middle of the road with one man pointing a gun at the other.

Their preliminary investigation indicated the witness saw a man in another car physically assaulting his female front seat passenger, so when both cars stopped the witness confronted the man in the other car at gunpoint because he believed the female to be in imminent danger of a felony offense, police said …

Police said they consulted with the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office to determine if the witness had done anything illegal, and based on the information gathered at the scene the D.A.’s office determined he hadn’t …

A statement from Southlake Police Chief Steve Mylett said, “While we commend this citizen’s willingness to get involved in order to protect a victim of crime, the Southlake Police Department does not encourage the public to expose themselves in such a manner. Instead, we strongly recommend citizens who witness a crime in progress to contact the local police department by dialing the police emergency number 911.”

It isn’t very odd at all that a concealed carrier saves a person from death or imminent bodily injury or sexual assault.  It’s rather commonplace, actually.

What is more interesting here is the reaction of the police.  Not only did they “consult” with their attorneys to see if a “crime” had been committed, they actually came out and recommended against this sort of thing.  Because, you know, the police can be everywhere at all times.  Or more realistically and less sardonically, it’s better in their estimation that a woman get the hell beaten out of her or die than be saved by someone who isn’t a representative of the state.

13WMAZ:

David Hooks was shot in the back and head as he was lying face down on the floor during a drug raid by Laurens County deputies.

That’s according to the lawyer representing his family.

It’s been nearly four months since David Hooks was shot to death during a drug raid at his East Dublin home.

13WMAZ’s Paula Rotondo spoke to his wife, Teresa Hooks and the family’s lawyer, Mitchell Shook.

Hooks died Sept. 24 while deputies served a search warrant at his home.

They were looking for drugs, but didn’t find any.

Shook, who is representing his family, says the raid was illegal and has asked the FBI to investigate.

He says officers were looking for drugs in the home, but didn’t find any. Shook says the officers fired 17 shots inside the home and struck Hooks.

He says Hooks had four wounds, two of which he says are very problematic. Shook says that’s according to the Laurens County EMS records. He says the same information is found in the medical records from Fairview Park Hospital.

“One was to the side of the head, the other, was in his back, the back of his left shoulder, based on the evidence we see, we believe that David Hooks was face down on the ground when he received those last two shots,” says Shook.

A man is dead, his wife is a widow, the police walk away with impunity, and the judge who signed the approval lives in a nice home and will never be held responsible for anything.  And the FBI won’t do anything about it, so I’m not certain why they would ask the federal government to intervene.  That’s like asking the fox to guard the hen house.  There isn’t a jury anywhere who will hold them accountable for murders they perpetrate because the folks are shepple.

And a woman will have to live alone the rest of her life because of this.  I’ve studied Gestapo and SS tactics, and I cannot see one bit of difference between what these thugs perpetrated and running the Jews into cattle cars in Nazi Germany after guns were confiscated.  These men, and all who perpetrate such heinous acts, aren’t heroes.  They aren’t worthy of admiration.  They aren’t suitable to teach our children to respect and obey – like the peace officers or constables of old.  This is why men teach their children to be suspicious of the police today, including me.

These men are dangerous because they have no conscience.

Oregon Live:

Offenders who kill an on-duty law enforcement dog would face stiffer penalties under a proposed law that has been drafted for Oregon’s next legislative session.

The proposal is dubbed “Mick’s Law,” in memory of Portland police dog Mick, who died in April from fatal gunshot wounds sustained while trying to stop a suspect wanted in connection with a Southwest Portland burglary.

“Mick has not been forgotten,” said Marsha Hettman, who has pushed for the change in law since Mick’s killing.

The proposal would make killing an animal who is working in an official law enforcement capacity at the time of the animal’s death a Class B felony, punishable by a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine. It would also prohibit someone convicted of the offense from receiving probation or a reduction in sentence.

[ … ]

Portland police canine Officer Jeffrey Dorn, wounded in both legs during a shootout with a burglary suspect in Southwest Portland on April 16, credited his slain police dog partner, Mick, for saving his life that day.

The 17-month-old German Shepherd was shot trying to stop the burglary suspect, who was armed with an AR-15 rifle. Mick died of a single gunshot wound after Dorn unleashed him to chase the suspect on Southwest Lobelia Street. Mick was found dead under a hedge hours later in the front yard of a Lobelia Street home.

The dog was heroic, there is no doubt about it.  But what about when police shoot dogs in Springfield, Oregon, or when police do the same thing in Scappoose, Oregon?  How about when those quarter of a million dogs are killed by cops each year, most often needlessly?

In fact, there has never been a documented case of a dog killing a cop, and yet an officer offers no reason whatsoever for his recent deed in Woodville, Ohio:

WOODVILLE, OH (Toledo News Now) – Woodville police officer is under investigation after shooting a dog at a traffic stop Monday.

According to the mayor, the officer pulled a vehicle over for a traffic stop on US 20, just outside the village. During the stop, a black lab approached the officer and the officer shot it in the leg.

The dog is a five year old lab named Moses. He is expected to survive but is currently at an animal hospital in Sylvania, where a vet is working to save his leg.Moses owner Lauren Meyer says he did not deserve to be shot.

“I said ‘so why did you do it? was he barking or growling at you’ and he said ‘no.’ So I said ‘why did you shoot it?’ he said ‘that’s not enough to tell me that he wasn’t going to bite,'” said Lauren.

He shot the dog because it did nothing, and he said so.  Yea, I’ll support protection of police dogs when someone puts in place protections of my dogs.

Illinois Policy:

Earlier this year, the Illinois Supreme Court struck down a state eavesdropping law that made it a crime for citizens to record conversations with police or anyone else without the other person’s permission. The court held that the old law “criminalize[d] a wide range of innocent conduct” and violated free-speech rights. In particular, the court noted the state could not criminalize recording activities where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, including citizens’ “public” encounters with police.

Now the old law is back, with just a few changes, in a new bill sent to the governor’s desk by the Illinois Senate on Dec. 4. The bill not only passed, but did so overwhelmingly with votes of 106-7 in the House on and 46-4-1 in the Senate.

The new version is nearly as bad as the old one.

Under the new bill, a citizen could rarely be sure whether recording any given conversation without permission is legal. The bill would make it a felony to surreptitiously record any “private conversation,” which it defines as any “oral communication between 2 or more persons,” where at least one person involved had a “reasonable expectation” of privacy.

[ … ]

citizens can’t be expected to know for sure precisely which situations give rise to an “expectation of privacy” and which don’t. The Illinois Supreme Court said that police don’t have an expectation of privacy in “public” encounters with citizens, but it did not explain what counts as a “public” encounter. So if this bill becomes law, people who want to be sure to avoid jail time will refrain from recording police at all, and the law will therefore still effectively prevent people from recording police.

The bill would also discourage people from recording conversations with police by making unlawfully recording a conversation with police – or an attorney general, assistant attorney general, state’s attorney, assistant state’s attorney or judge – a class 3 felony, which carries a sentence of two to four years in prison. Meanwhile, the bill makes illegal recording of a private citizen a class 4 felony, which carries a lower sentencing range of one to three years in prison.

There’s only one apparent reason for imposing a higher penalty on people who record police in particular: to make people especially afraid to record police.

But I thought that we had a due process right to record police in the performance of their duties?  In fact, I think judges have said so time and time again, and again, and again.

Instead of passing this stupid bill, they should have passed what reader Ned Weatherby calls Herschel’s Law.

Cleveland.com:

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cleveland police pull their guns too fast, fire at fleeing cars and people who pose no immediate threat and ignore potential danger to bystanders, the U. S. Department of Justice found.

A biting 58-page report released Thursday concluded that police violated the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, including by shooting an underwear-clad hostage victim and an unarmed driver who made an illegal turn.

The report blames several reasons for the “unreasonable” shootings. Police often lack the training and confidence necessary to  control a situation without resorting to force. They are not required to tell their supervisors when they pull their weapons. And the prevailing police culture promotes an “us-against-them” mentality.

“They too often fire their weapons in a manner and in circumstances that place innocent bystanders in danger; and accidentally fire them, sometimes fortuitously hitting nothing and other times shooting people and seriously injuring them,” the report says.

The Justice Department examined nearly 600 use-of-force incidents from 2010-13 and did hundreds of interviews for the report, released less than two weeks after Cleveland police shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was waving an airsoft pellet gun outside Cudell Recreation Center.

Training shortfalls are a consistent issue in the report. Officers also push situations to an unnecessarily dangerous level, “either because they do not know how, or because they do not have an adequate understanding of the importance of de-escalating encounters before resorting to force whenever possible.”

Let that wash over you again.  Think about that.  They see themselves as Judge Dredd.  Cleveland police fired weapons at drivers who committed misdemeanor traffic infractions by making illegal turns.

Of course, this violates the Supreme Court ruling in Tennessee versus Garner, clearly and without equivocation or qualification.  And while training may play some role in this, thuggish behavior by social deviants who have been licensed to act out their criminal sociopathy upon the public by the corrupt court system unfortunately wasn’t listed in the DoJ report.

World Net Daily:

A Missouri homeschooling family is suing a sheriff and another officer who forcibly entered their home without a warrant, Tasered the father, pepper-sprayed the mother and put their children in the custody of social service workers.

A court already has ruled that the actions of Sheriff Darren White and Capt. David Glidden of Nodaway County, Missouri, violated the U.S. Constitution, resulting in the dismissal of charges of child endangerment and resisting arrest against the couple, Jason and Laura Hagan, of New Hampton.

The lawsuit, which seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages and attorneys costs and fees, was brought on behalf of the couple by the Home School Legal Defense Association, the world’s leading advocate for homeschooling families.

Attorney James Mason, senior counsel for HSLDA, told WND the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure were added to the Constitution for a reason.

“We need to be vigilant,” he said. “We need to be willing to stand up for our rights.”

He said authorities sometimes need to be reminded that “rules apply to them, too.”

The complaint, filed Nov. 14, alleges the the officers came to the Hagan residence because a social worker was investigating a report of a messy home.

The case worker wanted to inspect a second time, and the Hagans refused, so she called Glidden and White.

Glidden first demanded to be allowed into the home and was denied permission. So, according to the complaint, he pepper-sprayed Jason and then Laura.

“Glidden then turned to Jason, who was still standing, and shot him in the back with his Taser,” the complaint said.

When Laura closed the front door, Glidden continued triggering the Taser through the closed door.

Then White joined in.

“Together they forced open the door and found Laura and Jason lying on the floor,” HSLDA said.

They “slapped Laura, knocking her glasses off of her face,” they threatened to shoot the family dog, they threw a telephone across the room, called Laura a “liar,” handcuffed the parents and threatened to let Jason fall down, according to the complaint.

It all took place in front of the three children, ages about 13, 10 and 8, who were taken into state custody, where they remained for months.

When the allegations made by social workers and the officers against the couple reached court, a judge summarily tossed the case.

This all began over a report of a “messy home.”  It escalated into throwing things around the house, threatening the family pet, and physical abuse of innocent victims.  There is no difference between these cops and the Gestapo, and these cops deserve the same treatment as the Gestapo.  One day they won’t encounter a set of complaint home school parents who are willing to let a black robed tyrant work it all out.  They will get a mouth full of 5.56 or .45.  And I won’t shed a tear when that happens.

New York Post:

A rookie cop fatally shot an unarmed man inside a dimly lit Brooklyn housing project stairwell late Thursday — igniting an investigation by the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau, authorities said.

Peter Liang and his partner, Shaun Landau, also a rookie, entered at the eighth floor at the Pink Houses at 2724 Linden Blvd. about 11:15 p.m. when 28-year-old victim Akai Gurley entered from the seventh floor with his girlfriend — startling the cops, police sources said.

Liang fired one shot into Gurley’s chest from about 10 to 12 feet away, sending him tumbling down to the fifth floor, where he collapsed, sources said. He later told other cops it was an “accidental shooting,” sources said.

During a press conference Friday, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton described the incident as an “accident” that was the result of a “pitch black” stairway.

“As the officers were entering the eighth-floor landing, the lights were not operable,” he said. “Everything points to accidental discharge.”

So apparently he had his finger on the trigger of his weapon, he had the muzzle of the weapon pointed in the direction of another human, he pulled the trigger, the area was “pitch black,” and he killed a man.  But it was “accidental.”

And remember boys and girls.  If you or I do this we are headed to prison – for a very long time.