Gary police chief faces civil rights charges

Official in Indiana city accused of punching, wrongfully detaining suspects

The police chief in the violence-plagued city of Gary assaulted two people he suspected of burglarizing his home and had them and two others wrongfully locked up for three days, prosecutors said Thursday. Police Chief Thomas Houston and two top aides surrendered to U.S. marshals on Thursday and were released on $20,000 bond each, one day after they were indicted on federal civil rights charges. Houston faces six counts of depriving the civil rights of another, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said in statement. If convicted, he faces up to 24 years in prison.

Among other things, Houston was accused of kicking a handcuffed suspect in the stomach and punching another suspect, a woman, also in the stomach. Houston appeared in court without an attorney and left without answering questions.

Deputy Chief Thomas Branson was charged with civil rights violations and lying to federal agents, while Sgt. Thomas Decanter faces one civil rights count. Attorneys for Branson and Decanter denied wrongdoing.

Houston returned from a funeral June 1 and found his house had been ransacked and a gun was missing, the indictment said. It said he and Branson went to a home that same day and that Houston assaulted two of the suspects and had all four arrested and detained without probable cause. Branson and Decanter are accused of striking a third suspect in the arm with a piece of wood.

Branson's attorney, former Mayor Scott King, said the indictments stemmed from "a subjective, one-sided investigation." "If we make an analogy, it's the bottom of the first inning and the home team did not have a pitcher up," he told reporters outside the courthouse.

Decanter's attorney, Thomas Vanes, said his client had passed a polygraph test. "Tom didn't abuse anybody - no one, no how. It will go to trial. He's not pleading guilty to anything," Vanes said. U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Cherry set March 14 arraignments for the three.

Gary Mayor Rudy Clay had appointed Houston as chief the northern Indiana city last May. He said Thursday that the indictment was a surprise, as Houston had been with the department for 42 years with "no blemishes at all." "What we're talking about here is probably three of the best police officers anywhere in the country," Clay said.

The indictment did not give the alleged victims' names or a possible motive for the defendants' actions. None of the four suspects was charged in connection with the break-in, authorities said. Justice Department spokeswoman Jodi Bobb declined to give further detail. Houston had said when he was appointed police chief that he would shake up the 256-officer force. But the city suffered its largest increase in homicides in nearly a decade, with 71 occurring in the city of nearly 100,000 people during 2007.

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British police are the enemy of law-abiding people

They want everybody else to be as useless as they are

Every night Joe Weston-Webb loads chicken droppings into a 30ft catapult and primes a cannon that used to fire his wife with a railway sleeper, all in the name of security. The ex-showman wheeled out old props in a desperate bid to protect his business from arsonists. Conventional security measures around his portable flooring empire, such as fencing, motion-sensor lights and CCTV, had failed to keep the criminals out.

Mr Weston-Webb, 70, has rigged up Britain's biggest anti-burglar device after being targeted by vandalism, break-ins and even an arson attack. But police have told him he will be prosecuted if he unleashes the wrath of the 30ft-tall Roman catapult - filled with chicken poo collected from a nearby farm - on any yobs he catches on his property. The businessman has even put up a sign outside his property reading: "WARNING. These premises are protected by Smart Poo and railway sleeper projectiles."

Mr Weston-Webb vowed to ignore the warning - and said his battle highlighted the plight of worried home-owners across the country. He said: "The police seem to be hoping I'm just having a bit of a laugh at their expense, but they're the ones who have lost all sense of reality. This is a serious issue. People all over Britain are sick and tired of feeling like prisoners in their own homes and seeing yobs get away with it. It's absolutely typical of this country that the person whose life has been made a complete misery is the one most likely to end up in court. Maybe the police think I'm joking, but the only people laughing are the criminals. That's why I fully intend to take the law into my own hands."

Last month Mr Weston-Webb's offices near Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Nottinghamshire, were hit by a late-night arson attack as he slept in his nearby home. And just an hour earlier four cars had their tyres slashed and windows smashed at his daughter's house a dozen miles away in Sileby, Leicestershire.

Mr Weston-Webb, who runs a flooring company, kept the catapult - a Roman-style boulder-thrower - from his days as a travelling showman. He is also considering using a 20ft-long cannon - formerly used to fire his wife across the River Avon - loaded with railway sleepers tipped with rubber. He said: "That's the only concession I'm willing to make to all the do-gooders who seem to think criminals should be able to do what they want. "I'm not out to kill anyone or even hurt them - I just want to keep yobs off my land. So I'm prepared to make my missiles a bit softer - but that's it."

Mr Weston-Webb believes a jealous rival may be behind the attacks after he won a deal to supply the floor for Strictly Come Dancing's touring show. The businessman, who is now setting up a website urging other home-owners to protect their property, said he had won huge public support. He added: "I've had hundreds of calls from people backing me. In fact, the only people who seem to be against what I'm doing are the police. "Everything in this country is stacked against decent, law-abiding citizens. "The bottom line is that you either make a stand or live in misery."

Nottinghamshire police said an expert would be visiting Mr Weston-Webb and his wife Mary to advise them of "conventional" anti-burglar measures. Insp Jeff Haywood said: "A crime-prevention officer will be making contact with the complainant to offer some practical security advice. "The officer will give tips on conventional security techniques, such as alarms, lighting and locks, and also on the use of reasonable force." He added: "The law allows home-owners to protect themselves and their property with reasonable force if they are under threat from an intruder. "However, the reasonable force must be proportionate to the threat. The setting up of booby traps is something that we would advise against."

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