NV: Police commandeer homes, get sued

The rot in Las Vegas continues

Henderson police arrested a family for refusing to let officers use their homes as lookouts for a domestic violence investigation of their neighbors, the family claims in court.

Anthony Mitchell and his parents Michael and Linda Mitchell sued the City of Henderson, its Police Chief Jutta Chambers, Officers Garret Poiner, Ronald Feola, Ramona Walls, Angela Walker, and Christopher Worley, and City of North Las Vegas and its Police Chief Joseph Chronister, in Federal Court.

Henderson, pop. 257,000, is a suburb of Las Vegas.

The Mitchell family's claim includes Third Amendment violations, a rare claim in the United States. The Third Amendment prohibits quartering soldiers in citizens' homes in times of peace without the consent of the owner.

"On the morning of July 10th, 2011, officers from the Henderson Police Department responded to a domestic violence call at a neighbor's residence," the Mitchells say in the complaint.

It continues: "At 10:45 a.m. defendant Officer Christopher Worley (HPD) contacted plaintiff Anthony Mitchell via his telephone. Worley told plaintiff that police needed to occupy his home in order to gain a 'tactical advantage' against the occupant of the neighboring house. Anthony Mitchell told the officer that he did not want to become involved and that he did not want police to enter his residence. Although Worley continued to insist that plaintiff should leave his residence, plaintiff clearly explained that he did not intend to leave his home or to allow police to occupy his home. Worley then ended the phone call.

Mitchell claims that defendant officers, including Cawthorn and Worley and Sgt. Michael Waller then "conspired among themselves to force Anthony Mitchell out of his residence and to occupy his home for their own use." (Waller is identified as a defendant in the body of the complaint, but not in the heading of it.)

The complaint continues: "Defendant Officer David Cawthorn outlined the defendants' plan in his official report: 'It was determined to move to 367 Evening Side and attempt to contact Mitchell. If Mitchell answered the door he would be asked to leave. If he refused to leave he would be arrested for Obstructing a Police Officer. If Mitchell refused to answer the door, force entry would be made and Mitchell would be arrested.'"

At a few minutes before noon, at least five defendant officers "arrayed themselves in front of plaintiff Anthony Mitchell's house and prepared to execute their plan," the complaint states. It continues: "The officers banged forcefully on the door and loudly commanded Anthony Mitchell to open the door to his residence.

"Surprised and perturbed, plaintiff Anthony Mitchell immediately called his mother (plaintiff Linda Mitchell) on the phone, exclaiming to her that the police were beating on his front door. "Seconds later, officers, including Officer Rockwell, smashed open plaintiff Anthony Mitchell's front door with a metal ram as plaintiff stood in his living room.

"As plaintiff Anthony Mitchell stood in shock, the officers aimed their weapons at Anthony Mitchell and shouted obscenities at him and ordered him to lie down on the floor. "Fearing for his life, plaintiff Anthony Mitchell dropped his phone and prostrated himself onto the floor of his living room, covering his face and hands.

"Addressing plaintiff as 'asshole', officers, including Officer Snyder, shouted conflicting orders at Anthony Mitchell, commanding him to both shut off his phone, which was on the floor in front of his head, and simultaneously commanding him to 'crawl' toward the officers.

"Confused and terrified, plaintiff Anthony Mitchell remained curled on the floor of his living room, with his hands over his face, and made no movement.

"Although plaintiff Anthony Mitchell was lying motionless on the ground and posed no threat, officers, including Officer David Cawthorn, then fired multiple 'pepperball' rounds at plaintiff as he lay defenseless on the floor of his living room. Anthony Mitchell was struck at least three times by shots fired from close range, injuring him and causing him severe pain." (Parentheses in complaint.)

Officers then arrested him for obstructing a police officer, searched the house and moved furniture without his permission and set up a place in his home for a lookout, Mitchell says in the complaint.

He says they also hurt his pet dog for no reason whatsoever: "Plaintiff Anthony Mitchell's pet, a female dog named 'Sam,' was cowering in the corner when officers smashed through the front door. Although the terrified animal posed no threat to officers, they gratuitously shot it with one or more pepperball rounds. The panicked animal howled in fear and pain and fled from the residence. Sam was subsequently left trapped outside in a fenced alcove without access to water, food, or shelter from the sun for much of the day, while temperatures outside soared to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit."

Anthony and his parents live in separate houses, close to one another on the same street. He claims that police treated his parents the same way.

"Meanwhile, starting at approximately 10:45 a.m., police officers entered the back yard of plaintiffs Michael Mitchell and Linda Mitchell's residence at 362 Eveningside Avenue. The officers asked plaintiff Michael Mitchell if he would be willing to vacate his residence and accompany them to their 'command center' under the guise that the officers wanted Michael Mitchell's assistance in negotiating the surrender of the neighboring suspect at 363 Eveningside Avenue. Plaintiff Michael Mitchell reluctantly agreed to follow the officers from his back yard to the HPD command center, which was approximately one quarter mile away," the complaint states.

"When plaintiff Michael Mitchell arrived at the HPD command center, he was informed that the suspect was 'not taking any calls' and that plaintiff Michael Mitchell would not be permitted to call the suspect neighbor from his own phone. At that time, Mr. Mitchell realized that the request to accompany officers to the HPD command center was a tactic to remove him from his house. He waited approximately ten minutes at the HPD command center and was told he could not return to his home.

"Plaintiff Michael Mitchell then left HPD command center and walked down Mauve Street toward the exit of the neighborhood. After walking for less than five minutes, an HPD car pulled up next to him. He was told that his wife, Linda Mitchell, had 'left the house' and would meet him at the HPD command center. Michael Mitchell then walked back up Mauve Street to the HPD command center. He called his son, James Mitchell, to pick him up at the HPD command center. When plaintiff Michael Mitchell attempted to leave the HPD command center to meet James, he was arrested, handcuffed and placed in the back of a marked police car.

"Officers had no reasonable grounds to detain plaintiff Michael Mitchell, nor probable cause to suspect him of committing any crime.

"At approximately 1:45 p.m., a group of officers entered the backyard of plaintiffs Michael Mitchell and Linda Mitchell's residence at 362 Eveningside Avenue. They banged on the back door of the house and demanded that plaintiff Linda Mitchell open the door.

"Plaintiff Linda Mitchell complied and opened the door to her home. When she told officers that they could not enter her home without a warrant, the officers ignored her. One officer, defendant Doe 1, seized her by the arm, and other officers entered her home without permission. "Defendant Doe 1 then forcibly pulled plaintiff Linda Mitchell out of her house.

"Another unidentified officer, defendant Doe 2, then seized plaintiff Linda Mitchell's purse and began rummaging through it, without permission, consent, or a warrant.

"Defendant Doe 1 then escorted Linda Mitchell at a brisk pace through her yard and up the hill toward the 'Command Post' while maintaining a firm grip on her upper arm. Plaintiff Linda Mitchell is physically frail and had difficulty breathing due to the heat and the swift pace. However, Doe 1 ignored her pleas to be released or to at least slow down, and refused to provide any explanation for why she was being treated in such a manner.

"In the meantime, the officers searched and occupied plaintiffs Michael Mitchell and Linda Mitchell's house. When plaintiff Linda Mitchell returned to her home, the cabinets and closet doors throughout the house had been left open and their contents moved about. Water had been consumed from their water dispenser. Even the refrigerator door had been left ajar and mustard and mayonnaise had been left on their kitchen floor."

Police took Anthony and Michael Mitchell to jail and booked them for obstructing an officer. They were jailed for at least nine hours before they bailed out, they say in the complaint. All criminals charged were dismissed with prejudice. They claim the defendants filed the baseless criminal charges "to provide cover for defendants' wrongful actions, to frustrate and impede plaintiffs' ability to seek relief for those actions, and to further intimidate and retaliate against plaintiffs."

None of the officers were ever subjected to official discipline or even inquiry, the complaint states.

The Mitchells seek punitive damages for violations of the third, fourth and 14th Amendments, assault and battery, conspiracy, defamation, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, negligence and emotional distress.

Original report here




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British cop accused of raping a woman five times

‘taunted her with mind games by saying no one would believe her if she reported the crime’

A serving police constable accused of repeatedly raping a woman 'taunted' her that no one would believe her if she reported the attacks because of his job, a court heard today.

Metropolitan police officer Errol Patterson, 52, is accused of raping the woman five times over a period from 2005 to 2011, Woolwich Crown Court heard.

Patterson, who serves at a Lambeth police station, used a 'policeman lock' to trap the woman during one of the alleged assaults and ordered her to 'stop resisting' in another incident, the jury heard.

Opening the case, prosecutor Tom Wilkins told the jury that they may question why the alleged attacks were only reported to police last year.

'The reason was because he taunted her with the fact she was dealing with a serving police officer,' Mr Wilkins said.

Patterson would tell the woman, 'who’s going to believe you, I know the courts very well, I’m a police officer,' before adding 'if you report this allegation no one is going to believe you,' the prosecutor said.

The attacks were 'demoralising' for the woman, Mr Wilkins told the jury. 'It got to the point she just expected it to happen,' he added.

The alleged victim sat in court behind a screen as her videoed police interview was played to the jury.

She broke down in tears during the interview as she described feeling 'like garbage' after the alleged rapes.

She told police that Patterson once held her in a 'policeman's lock' which made it 'pointless' trying to escape.

'Because you’re in a lock, fighting doesn’t lead to anything that is going to force you away,' the woman said.

'I felt cheap, I felt dirty. It felt like you were garbage.'

The woman told police that Patterson’s 'mind games' worked because she did not report the incidents to police. 'Who is going to believe me anyhow,' she said.

She claimed the defendant told her, 'I know what the law is like,' and 'I work at the Metropolitan police. They are not going to believe what you say anyhow, so you can do what you like'.

In another alleged attack Patterson told the woman to 'stop resisting', she added.

'I said, "you’re treating me like a common criminal”’, she told police.

The woman said she once bit the defendant on the arm in an attempt to get him off her.

The court heard that he was not acting in his capacity as a police officer at the times that the alleged rapes took place.

Patterson from Leyton, east London, denies five counts of rape between 2005 and 2011.

Original report here




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Police tyranny, slightly curbed

On the night of March 3, 2010, University of Maryland students spilled out onto a main street in College Park, Maryland, to celebrate a victory by the school’s basketball team. Prince George’s County police had been primed for the event and waited nearby, dressed in riot gear and ready for action.

John McKenna, a 21-year-old student, skipped up toward a police horse — and then retreated when police ordered him back. Regardless, police rushed him, knocked him down, and savagely beat him with metal truncheons as he lay on the ground. McKenna suffered a concussion and was taken to a nearby hospital, where he received eight stitches for his head wound.

When students protested that the police had viciously attacked McKenna and another student without charge, the P.G. police responded by charging McKenna with assaulting police officers. He could have been faced several years in prison if convicted.

McKenna’s parents hired a lawyer who placed advertisements in a student newspaper that produced responses revealing the existence of videos made by cell phones showing that the police had attacked the students without provocation. As a Washington Post editorial noted, “The officers [who attacked McKenna] didn’t file a report, as required, on their use of force. When initially questioned about the beating, they lied. And when they filled out the initial paperwork on the incident, police said Mr. McKenna had sustained his injuries, including a concussion, from being kicked by a police horse.”

Prince George’s police stonewalled a prosecutorial investigation of the attack, but the case eventually went to trial. One police officer was convicted of second-degree assault. But justice never got any further than the jury’s ruling. The Washington Post summarized the subsequent verdict: “Although he faced up to 10 years in prison for the second-degree assault, and prosecutors asked for six months of prison time, Judge Beverly J. Woodard gave Mr. Harrison little more than a slap on the wrist: 30 days of home detention, followed by 18 months of unsupervised probation.”

If private citizens had assaulted a police officer and battered him as he lay on the ground — as the police did to McKenna — the citizens probably would have been sent to prison for at least a decade. But when police do the same thing, home detention is the proper punishment.

Many citizens were appalled by both the prosecution’s request for a lenient sentence and the judge’s decision to save the culprit from any jail time. The trial had been interrupted after attorneys learned that Judge Woodard’s “ex-husband was a former Prince George’s police officer who had been convicted in an excessive-force case before he and the judge were married,” the Post reported. An NBC News story noted, “According to a source close to the lawyers in the case, Judge Beverly Woodard decided she felt the prior relationship did not indicate a bias and that the trial could continue.” When judges are permitted to certify their own virtue, only a fool would expect justice.

Woodward had obliged the police by dismissing the most serious charge — first-degree assault — because the prosecutors had not shown that the cops had inflicted “serious and permanent injuries” on McKenna. But there was nothing in Maryland law to require permanent injuries for a vicious attack to be considered a first-degree assault.

The Post noted that the courtroom had been full of uniformed police for the trial. But a large number of P.G. police officers had been involved in the initial coverup of the assault. Many police officers on the scene had clearly seen that the student was the victim. Yet they never dissented from the attempt to tar the student and prosecute him — until the video partially broke the “blue wall of silence.”

“Abuse Central”

Prince George’s County is practically Police Abuse Central in America. P.G. police are renowned for shooting innocent people, covering up their killings, and walking away scot-free.

During the 1990s, the P.G. police killed and maimed more unarmed people than the Unabomber and the Aryan Nation combined. A 2001 Washington Post series noted, “Since 1990, Prince George’s police have shot 122 people, killing 47 of them. Almost half of those shot were unarmed, and many had committed no crime.”

Among the shootings the police department ruled as justified: “An unarmed construction worker was shot in the back after he was detained in a fast-food restaurant. An unarmed suspect died in a fusillade of 66 bullets as he tried to flee in a car from police. A homeless man was shot when police mistook his portable radio for a gun. And an unarmed man was killed after he pulled off the road to relieve himself.”

“No one knows how many people have died while in the custody of Prince George’s officers,” the Post noted. “Police said they don’t keep track of such deaths. By examining autopsy reports and other documents, however, the Post was able to identify 12 people who have died in police custody since 1990.” At least one suspect died after being severely beaten while wearing handcuffs. Medical examiners have ruled two of the deaths in police custody to have been homicides — yet the department did not discipline a single officer in an in-custody death. More recently, a man accused of killing a Prince George’s policeman was murdered in the county jail. Police and jail guards kept their mouths shut, and prosecutors gave up on even attempting to charge anyone with breaking the detainee’s neck.

The system of justice is both scrupulous and idealistic when it comes to respecting the rights of killer cops. Police are protected by the “Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights” — a Maryland law (similar to laws in many other states) that prohibits the questioning of a police officer for 10 days after any incident in which he used deadly force. In Prince George’s County, there is no greater offense than prematurely asking a cop why he gunned down a citizen. The Post noted that “a lawyer or a police union official is always summoned to the scene of a shooting to make sure no one speaks to the officer who pulled the trigger.”

Recognizing monsters

The recent wrist slap for Prince George’s police received far too little coverage. But it does highlight how modern technology is permitting citizens to at least partially resist government abuses. Unfortunately, because police officers are almost never prosecuted for perjury, the impact of cell-phone video footage is far less than it could be.

In May the Justice Department called on local governments to recognize citizens’ constitutional right to video police.

Some police departments have responded to the new technology by vigorously prosecuting anyone who records police in public spaces. As usual, Maryland is in the forefront of police abuses. A New York Times editorial noted that the Baltimore “Police Department issued an order [in November 2011] paying lip service to the right of citizens to make ‘video recording of police activity.’ But the day after that order became public, as The Baltimore Sun reported, police officers were caught on video threatening to arrest for loitering a man who was recording them as they surrounded and held someone on the ground.” The Baltimore police continued using the loitering threat against citizens who video them long after the new policy was announced.

In one of the rare bright spots for civil liberties in recent years, the Justice Department’s civil-rights division issued a statement in May calling on local governments to recognize citizens’ constitutional right to video police:

Because recording police officers in the public discharge of their duties is protected by the First Amendment, policies should prohibit interference with recording of police activities except in narrowly circumscribed situations. More particularly, policies should instruct officers that, except under limited circumstances, officers must not search or seize a camera or recording device without a warrant. In addition, policies should prohibit more subtle actions that may nonetheless infringe upon individuals’ First Amendment rights. Officers should be advised not to threaten, intimidate, or otherwise discourage an individual from recording police officer enforcement activities or intentionally block or obstruct cameras or recording devices. Policies should prohibit officers from destroying recording devices or cameras and deleting recordings or photographs under any circumstances.

The Justice Department also stressed that the right to video extends to citizens in general — not just to journalists.

Unfortunately, in the same way that it is nearly impossible in some places to prevent police from killing innocent people or to punish them when they do, it will be difficult to prevent police from violating the law to destroy the evidence of their abuses. But the Justice Department standard at least will provide a remedy for citizens who find themselves railroaded by local prosecutors for exercising their constitutional rights.

In the long run, there is no substitute for vastly decreasing the sway of police over private citizens. As long as the statute books have endless pretexts for police harassment — from seat-belt laws to marijuana prohibitions — citizens will be at grave peril of being victimized by their supposed protectors. More important, Americans need to take a wiser attitude toward government. Only when citizens recognize the political-legal monsters that Leviathan has created will they summon the courage to slash government power across the board.

Original report here




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A British absurdity: Barry George loses compensation bid for being wrongly convicted

Judges agree with former Justice Secretary that he was 'not innocent enough'

Barry George was today denied compensation for the eight years he spent in prison after being wrongly convicted of the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando.

He claimed to be the victim of a 'miscarriage of justice' - but judges agreed with a minister that Mr George was 'not innocent enough' to be eligible for a pay-off.

The decision at the Court of Appeal followed the dismissal of his compensation claim by two High Court judges in January who said he had 'failed the legal test' to claim a pay-off.

Lord Justice Beatson and Mr Justice Irwin had rejected his argument that the Justice Secretary was wrong to decide he was 'not innocent enough to be compensated', ruling that the Secretary of State was 'entirely justified in the conclusion he reached'.

Lord Justice Richards, sitting at the Court of Appeal in London, today rejected an application by Mr George for permission to challenge the January decision and said the 53-year-old had 'no realistic prospects' of success.

Mr George was seeking a fresh examination of his case which could allow him to claim up to £500,000 from the State for lost earnings and wrongful imprisonment.

Miss Dando, the presenter of Crimewatch, was shot dead outside her home in Fulham, West London, in April 1999. Mr George was convicted of murdering her in 2001, but was acquitted after a retrial in 2008.

His initial claim was rejected in January 2010, but he launched a challenge to that decision based on a landmark Supreme Court ruling granting Andrew Adams compensation for the 14 years he spent in jail after being wrongfully convicted of murder.

That case hinged on Section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which says that victims of a 'miscarriage of justice' should be compensated by the State.

However, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke told Mr George that his case did not qualify, because he was 'not innocent enough to be compensated'.

In January this year, two High Court judges agreed with Mr Clarke, denying him compensation because his conviction was not so unfair as to count as a miscarriage of justice.

Mr George's lawyer had argued that 'no reasonable jury, properly directed, could have convicted on the evidence that was available to them', but the High Court judges concluded that this was incorrect and that a jury could reasonably have found him guilty.

The decision at the Appeal Court today means that Mr George cannot challenge the High Court's decision any longer.

After today's ruling, his sister Michelle Diskin said outside the Royal Courts of Justice that the Court of Appeal judge's decision was a 'travesty of justice'.

With her brother standing by her side, she told reporters: 'There never was any viable evidence against Barry.

'This whole case from April 2000 until today has been a smoke and mirrors exercise designed to placate a worried public, and give the impression that justice had been done.

'Well neither the Dando family, nor our family, has seen any justice in the past 13 years.'

She added: 'Serving eight years in prison for someone else's crime is not acceptable. 'Everything was taken from this man when the police started what we believe to be a malicious prosecution. He lost his home, his furniture, his clothing and all of his possessions, his place within his community and his church family.'

Ms Diskin said the family would prepare to 'stand against this latest travesty of justice'.

She concluded: 'Barry is innocent. He deserves a financial settlement to compensate for all that was taken from him - everything he owned and eight years of his life.'

During today's hearing Ian Glen QC, representing Mr George free of charge, submitted that the prosecution case against him was 'not viable and not a case where a reasonable jury could have convicted'.

In arguing for permission to appeal, Mr Glen said: 'We seek an opportunity to make out our argument to the Secretary of State that no reasonable jury, properly directed, could have convicted on the evidence that was available to them at the retrial'.

But the High Court judges concluded: 'There was indeed a case upon which a reasonable jury, properly directed, could have convicted the claimant of murder.'

Mr George's initial claim for compensation for lost earnings and wrongful imprisonment was rejected in January 2010.

His legal challenge against that decision was put on hold until after a panel of nine Supreme Court justices gave their ruling in the case of Andrew Adams - a former aircraft engineer who spent 14 years in jail before his murder conviction was ruled unsafe.

After the Adams ruling, Mr George was told by the Justice Secretary in June 2011 that he was still not entitled to compensation under Section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988.

In January the High Court judges rejected Mr George's challenge along with three others, but they found in favour of Ian Lawless, who spent eight years behind bars for murder before being freed by the Court of Appeal in 2009.

Mr Lawless was jailed for life in 2002 after confessing to the murder of retired sea captain Alf Wilkins on the Yarborough estate in Grimsby, Lincolnshire. The judges ruled that in his case the decision to refuse compensation was legally flawed and must be reconsidered in the light of their ruling.

In Mr George's case the two High Court judges said: 'There was indeed a case upon which a reasonable jury, properly directed, could have convicted the claimant of murder.'

Permission to appeal has previously been granted in the three other cases dismissed by the High Court and a hearing at the Court of Appeal relating to those is expected in October.

Original report here




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Caught on video: Shocking moment unarmed man is Tasered by British cop then kicked to the floor 'for shoplifting'

A suspect was filmed being kicked by a police officer after receiving a 1,200 volt shock from a Taser.

Police have launched an internal investigation after dramatic footage emerged of the male police officer appearing to forcefully kick the man from behind while he was falling to the ground face-first.

He was then heard shouting ‘put your hands up’ - despite the suspect on Brighton seafront in East Sussex being unable to move, because he was disorientated and surrounded by three more officers.

Sussex Police are now carrying out an investigation following the emergence of the footage, which was shot by a passer-by who watched the dramatic scene unfold as he was walking to the shops.

The man, a local businessman who asked not to be named, said: ‘You could see that he clearly had some issues as he started taking his clothes off [when surrounded by officers].

‘There was a lot of shouting and he was saying he had been Tasered before. What concerned me was not the shouting, but the kick that the police officer gave him. ‘He was already going down but to be kicked like that while being Tasered is quite concerning.’

The witness claimed that despite standing on a public highway, a police officer asked him to stop filming. When he carried on, the officer then allegedly stood in his way to block the view.

The incident took place at about 6:30pm on Friday. Police were called after reports that a member of staff at a nearby Sainsbury’s had been had been pushed to the ground by a suspected shoplifter.

Officers pursued the man they thought was the offender and claimed it was necessary to Taser him in order to make a ‘safe arrest’.

Sussex Police said the Tasered man was arrested on suspicion of theft and obstructing officers before receiving health and welfare checks to ensure that he was unharmed.

A force spokesman said he was later released on police bail until July 26 while enquiries continue.

She added: ‘The video has now been referred to our professional standards department who examine it thoroughly, along with the full facts surrounding the incident, including what occurred before the actions shown in the video.

‘It is important that we establish a detailed account of events from all available sources, as well as this video clip, before deciding on any further action.

‘All suggestions of police misconduct are taken seriously and are carefully assessed, and action is taken whenever appropriate.’

Sussex Police was handed the footage by the Brighton Argus newspaper.

Original report here




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Another British charmer



A Metropolitan Police detective who sexually assaulted two women in their own homes while on duty has been jailed for 12 months.

Detective Constable Clifford Earl, 57, molested a vulnerable and distressed innocent woman after police had arrested her partner in a dawn raid, having remained behind alone to comfort her and take a statement.

The married father-of-two also kissed and begged another woman for sex in her own kitchen, while touching himself, after she went to police for help to solve the violent theft of her 11-year-old son’s bike.

Earl’s wife of 33 years was suffering with bowel cancer and chronic leukaemia at the time of the offences, the court heard.

Sentencing Earl, Judge Michael Gledhill said the sentence was an 'act of mercy' because of his wife’s ongoing illness and berated him for his behaviour.

'You were a serving police officer at the time,' he said. 'The public are entitled to expect their police officers to protect the foundations of our civilised society. 'You have considerably undermined public confidence in the police service as a result of your behaviour.'

Earl will serve six months before being released on licence.

Southwark Crown Court in London heard that both the offences were committed in 2011 but Earl, who worked out of Walworth police station in east London, was only charged in January this year because of delays blamed on the original investigating officer, who was removed from the case before he was charged.

Earl, of Harvey Drive, Sittingbourne, Kent, admitted two charges of sexual assault at a court hearing in May.

The court heard today that he was sacked by the Metropolitan Police last week after a career of 33 years.

Judge Gledhill called for an inquiry into the reasons behind the delay in charging Earl.

The officer’s wife, Fiona, was in the public gallery as he was jailed. The court heard that her cancer is in remission but she still has chronic leukaemia.

The court was told that the first victim came into contact with Earl after she went to Peckham police station to report the theft of her son’s bike in early July 2011.

He gave her and her son a lift home after the bike was found, and gave her his private email address and later a private mobile phone number.

He claimed he would help her get rehoused in a different area, but begged her to keep it quiet.

Later that month he made a visit to her home while she was alone. While she made him a drink in the kitchen, he began brushing himself up against her, telling her she was 'beautiful and sexy' before kissing her.

Prosecutor Catherine Farrelly said: 'She was very confused by the defendant’s behaviour but he offered her reassurance and told her again he was in the process of helping her with the housing authority, though he repeated once again that she should not tell anyone he was helping her in that regard.

'While this was happening she could see the defendant was playing with himself and it was clear he had an erection. 'He also told her he wanted to have sex with her.'

The victim told Earl he should not act like that because he was married, Ms Farrelly said, but he repeated his demand for sex, 'saying he was in pain because of this'.

'Due to the defendant’s behaviour, at this point she was in a state of distress,' the barrister said. 'She was crying, she pushed him away and told him to leave her alone.'

He told his victim his behaviour was 'normal', the court heard, and then left, telling her: 'I’ll leave this until next time. I’ll call you again.' The court was told that he did call and text her twice more.

She eventually summoned up the courage to tell a friend and then make a complaint.

The second victim feared that Earl would rape her when he targeted her after a raid at her home in Bromley, south east London, the following September, the court heard.

After officers arrested her partner and left, he remained behind with her to take a statement.

But he started acting strangely, watching her in the kitchen as she made a cup of tea and asking about her sex life with her partner.

He then made several attempts to hug her, and she had to ward him off. She tried to get him to leave but he said he wanted 'a big cuddle'. He then tried to cuddle her, touching one of her breasts in the process. She eventually got him to leave, having given him a statement.

She did not report the matter until several months later, when she told a police officer she trusted.

'As a result of this incident she finds it extremely difficult to trust men,' Ms Farrelly said.

'She also states how the fact that the defendant was a serving police officer made what happened to her all the worse.'

When interviewed in February 2012, Earl denied the accusations, but later pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting both women.

Original report here




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Fla. mom gets 20 years for firing warning shots

Marissa Alexander of Jacksonville, Fla., received a 20-years prison sentence, Friday, May 11, 2012, for firing warning shots against her allegedly abusive husband. The judge rejected a defense under Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law.

Marissa Alexander of Jacksonville had said the state's "Stand Your Ground" law should apply to her because she was defending herself against her allegedly abusive husband when she fired warning shots inside her home in August 2010. She told police it was to escape a brutal beating by her husband, against whom she had already taken out a protective order.

CBS Affiliate WETV reports that Circuit Court Judge James Daniel handed down the sentence Friday.

Under Florida's mandatory minimum sentencing requirements Alexander could receive a lesser sentence, even though she has never been in trouble with the law before. Judge Daniel said the law did not allow for extenuating or mitigating circumstances to reduce the sentence below the 20-year minimum.

"I really was crying in there," Marissa's 11-year-old daughter told WETV. "I didn't want to cry in court, but I just really feel hurt. I don't think this should have been happening."

Alexander was convicted of attempted murder after she rejected a plea deal for a three-year prison sentence. She said she did not believe she did anything wrong.

She was recently denied a new trial after appealing to the judge to reconsider her case based on Florida's controversial "Stand Your Ground" law. The law states that the victim of a crime does not have to attempt to run for safety and can immediately retaliate in self-defense.

Alexander's attorney said she was clearly defending herself and should not have to spend the next two decades behind bars.

Alexander's case has drawn support from domestic abuse advocates - and comparison to the case of neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who has claimed a "Stand Your Ground" defense in his fatal shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.

Original report here




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Disgruntled NYPD Officer Reveals World of Casual Potentially Life-Ruining Enforcement of B.S. Law

It's from a few weeks back but just came to my attention this week, and alas the story it tells is timeless: a lengthy New York magazine profile of disgrunted NYPD office Pedro Serrano.

Here's some of what it's like for a cop on the beat in NYC:

“Every now and then, we would have to be put in a van and hunt, basically. Drive around, and the sergeant or whoever would say: ‘That guy there—write him.’ ‘That guy—write him.’ ”

Cops wrote summonses for all sorts of minor offenses: “unreasonable noise,” “bicycle on sidewalk,” “unlawfully in park after hours.” And when they saw someone they suspected of criminal activity—if they spied a bulge in somebody’s pocket where a gun might be and saw that person touching that spot—they stopped and frisked him. This blitz of activity was part of the NYPD’s “hot spots” strategy: By flooding crime hot spots with cops—and ordering them to give out summonses and perform stop-and-frisks—the NYPD could prevent more serious crimes.

....from Serrano’s perspective, many of the summonses seemed to make no sense. “This happened to me—they rolled up to this poor Mexican guy sitting on the stairs and said: ‘Write him.’ I’m looking at Sarge, like, ‘What am I writing him for?’ ” The sergeant said, “Blocking pedestrian traffic.”

Later, back at the precinct, Serrano read what exactly constitutes “blocking pedestrian traffic.” “This guy was sitting on the stairs, and there is room for someone to walk by,” he says. “If a person is trying to enter the building and cannot because you’re blocking them, that’s blocking pedestrian traffic. But he was not blocking pedestrian traffic.”

This next point is very key to those who say, hey, big deal, just getting a ticket, huh? But getting a ticket for those unable to promptly pay it--for whatever reason--is serious indeed:

Sure, the guy would only have to pay a small fine, but if he never went to court—if he forgot, or couldn’t scratch together the money, or was an undocumented immigrant afraid to enter a courthouse—the court would put out a warrant for his arrest. And the next time the police stopped him, they’d take him to jail.....

It's a makework job, NYPD policing:

When it comes to street stops, one of Serrano’s former co-workers says, “We can’t just stop everybody. And that’s what they’re teaching the new guys to do: Just stop everybody … Just to get the numbers. That’s it. Doesn’t matter: Just get the numbers.”

Once, when Serrano’s supervisors didn’t think he’d written enough summonses or UF-250s (the form cops are supposed to fill out for every stop-and-frisk), a sergeant put him in a car and drove him around until he found two guys standing by a wall.

According to Serrano, the sergeant said, “250 them.” When Serrano resisted the order, the sergeant said, “Summons them.”

“For what?” Serrano asked.

“Blocking pedestrian traffic.”....

Serrano and his fellow officers understood why their bosses pressured them to write so many summonses and 250s. As one cop put it, “The more 250s, the better it makes the commanding officer look.” They knew the stress their bosses were under when they went to CompStat meetings...."

Once a commander returned to the station house, of course, he passed down that pressure to everyone else: to the lieutenants, the sergeants, down to the officers. For every crime hot spot, the precinct commander had to show that he was on top of the situation, that his cops were taking action. He had no way of counting exactly how many crimes he’d prevented—how do you count robberies and shootings before they happen?—but he could offer up the next best thing: high numbers of 250s and summonses.

Serrano went on to begin taping his bosses giving orders he thought were illegitimate, and then became a witness agaisnt NYPD in a Center for Constitutional Rights lawsuit against NYPD's stop-and-frisk practices.

Original report here




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Less than ONE PER CENT of British cops caught speeding or going through red lights are prosecuted

Only a handful of police officers caught speeding or jumping red lights has been prosecuted for speeding or jumping red lights, it has been revealed.

Despite tens of thousands of officers being found breaking the rules of the road, only 753 were prosecuted.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act showed that 75,434 were caught speeding meaning that less than one per cent were dealt with in the courts.

The figures have led to accusations that police officers are routinely let off without proper checks while ordinary drivers automatically face three penalty points and a £60 fine.

Road safety charities said the high number of fines cancelled was 'worrying' - and it is feared that senior officers are not carrying out proper checks before letting police off.

Julie Townsend, deputy chief executive of Brake, said: ‘These figures paint a worrying picture. We recognise that in emergency situations, especially where lives are at stake, police need to be able to respond rapidly, but this must be weighed up against the danger posed to the public - especially people on foot and bicycle - from speeding.

'We believe police and other emergency services should be doing everything possible to ensure their drivers are not putting people at risk of injury or death, and to help put a stop to the scores of serious casualties that involve emergency service vehicles each year.

'That includes having robust procedures to minimise the risks, especially around decisions around how fast drivers may go in different circumstances and environments.

'It also means ensuring that drivers are prosecuted if they have broken laws unnecessarily and endangered the public, and making sure that forces are held to account in upholding strict safety standards.'

In Leicestershire, police were clocked speeding 5,738 times over the two-and-a-half year period - but just three were prosecuted. This works out as one in every 1,912.

Overall, police have been caught by roadside cameras nationwide 75,434 times in the last two-and-a-half years, but just 753 were prosecuted.

Police forces are able to cancel tickets given to officers as long as speeding is necessary because they are responding to a 999 call or pursuing a suspect.

The figures were released to the MailOnline under the Freedom of Information Act.

The total number of officers caught speeding is likely to be far higher as just 19 out of 45 police forces provided a full response to the request.

RAC technical director David Bizley said: 'People understand that police officers responding to emergency call-outs should in general not be prosecuted, but offences committed in non-emergency circumstances should be treated as they are for any other motorist.

'People are bound to think the number of police officers prosecuted is low compared to the overall figure of those caught, so it is important that the police reassure motorists that they treat their own in the same way as everyone else caught breaking the laws of the road.'

John Giblin, Police Federation of England and Wales roads policing lead, said that police need to speed when responding to 999 calls - so it is right that they don't face prosecution.

'It is no surprise that far more emergency services will be captured on enforcement devices for exceeding the limit when responding to an emergency or call by the public for urgent assistance,' he said.

'Police officers are highly skilled and professionally trained to a very high driving standard and the law allows them to break the rules only when there is necessity to do so in order to carry out their duties.

'In doing so, an officer is expected to provide justification with necessity for any violations and are accountable for their actions.'

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said that officers had to justify their speeding before tickets are cancelled.

'All officers are required to adhere to the policy for driving standards. If a notice of intended prosecution (NIP) is issued to the driver of a police vehicle the officer is required to justify the use of the police exemptions used,' he said.

'A supervisor of at least Superintendent rank will quality assure the matter and either support the officer or not.

'If the matter is not supported the driver is required to deal with the NIP as a member of the public would.'

Original report here




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The militarization of American police

On the Friday afternoon before the 2009 G-20 summit was to begin in Pittsburgh at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, a reader in the city sent me a photo he’d snapped moments earlier. The photo was of a police officer standing in the middle of an intersection. He was wearing a military-green top, camouflage pants, and combat boots. He had a gun strapped to his thigh and looked to be carrying another one. The camouflage in particular seemed odd—as it does whenever it’s worn by a police officer in an urban area. It was unclear why this cop would have wanted to hide, and even if he did, how camouflage would help him do so in the city. There seemed to be little purpose for it other than to mimic the military. In any case, it was a sign of what was to come.

This is how the country that gave the world the First Amendment now handles protest. There’s a disquieting ease now with which authorities are willing to crush dissent—and at the very sorts of events where the right to dissent is the entire purpose of protecting free speech—that is, events where influential policymakers meet to make high-level decisions with far-reaching consequences. In fact, the more important the policymakers and the more consequential the decisions they’ll be making, the more likely it is that police will use more force to keep protesters as far away as possible. As Norm Stamper said, this unfortunately was the lesson the country’s law enforcement agencies took from the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle.

A number of police departments from across the country had sent officers to Pittsburgh to help police the 2009 summit. Nearly all were dressed in similar paramilitary garb. In one widely circulated video from the summit, several police officers dressed entirely in camouflage emerged from an unmarked car, apprehended a young backpack-toting protester, stuffed him into the car, then drove off. It evoked the sort of “disappearance” you might envision happening in a Latin American country headed by a junta, or one of the countries of the Soviet bloc. Matt Drudge linked to the video with a headline describing the officers in it as members of the military. They weren’t, though it’s certainly easy to understand how someone might make that mistake.

Another video showed a police unit with a handcuffed protester. Officers surrounded the protester, propped him up, then posed with him while another officer snapped a trophy photo. (YouTube later removed the video, citing a terms of use violation.) It was later revealed that the police unit was from Chicago. They had taken vacation time to come to Pittsburgh to provide “freelance security” for the G-20 summit.

As the summit went on, Twitter feeds and uploaded photos and videos claimed (and sometimes provided some evidence to prove) that police fired tear-gas canisters into dorm rooms, used sound cannons, and fired bean bags and rubber bullets. One man was arrested for posting the locations of riot police to his Twitter feed. The charges were later dropped.

Emily Tanner, a grad student at the University of Pittsburgh who described herself as a “capitalist” who didn’t agree with the general philosophy of the antiglobalization protesters, covered the summit, the protests, and the fallout on her blog. The most egregious police actions seemed to take place on the Friday evening before the summit, around the university, when police began ordering students who were in public spaces to disperse, despite the fact that they had broken no laws. Students who moved too slowly were arrested, as were students who were standing in front of the dormitories where they lived.

A University of Pittsburgh spokesman later said that the tactic was to break up crowds that “had the potential of disrupting normal activities, traffic flow, egress and the like. . . . Much of the arrests last night had to do with failure to disperse when ordered.” Note that no one needed to have broken any actual laws to get arrested. The potential to break a law was more than enough. That standard was essentially a license for the police to arrest anyone, anywhere in the city, at any time, for any reason.

Pennsylvania ACLU legal director Vic Walczak said the problem was that police didn’t bother to attempt to manage the protests. They simply suppressed them. In the process, they rounded up not only innocent protesters but innocent students who had nothing to do with the protests at all. In all, 190 people were arrested. One of the arrestees was a reporter from the left-leaning organization Indy-Media. When they apprehended her, the police took her camera. When they returned her camera, it was broken, and the police had deleted her photos and videos of the protests and police reaction. The police presence “seemed to focus almost exclusively on peaceful demonstrators,” Walczak said. “On [Friday] night they didn’t even have the excuse of property damage going on or any illegal activity. It’s really inexplicable.”

Inexcusable perhaps, but not inexplicable. Since Seattle, this had become the template. At the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, police conducted peremptory raids on the homes of protesters before the convention had even started. Police broke into the homes of people known to be activist rabble-rousers before they had any evidence of any actual crime. Journalists who inquired about the legitimacy of the raids and arrests made during the convention were also arrested. In all, 672 people were put in handcuffs. The arrest of Democracy Now journalist Amy Goodman was captured on a widely viewed video. She was charged with “conspiracy to riot.” That charge against Goodman was later dropped. So were the charges against most of the others arrested. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported the following February that charges were dropped or dismissed for 442 of the 672 people arrested.

There were similar problems at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Police in Denver showed up for the protests decked out in full riot gear. One particularly striking photo from Denver showed a sea of cops in shiny black armor, batons in hand, surrounding a small, vastly outnumbered group of protesters. The most volatile night of the convention featured one incident in which Jefferson County, Colorado, deputies unknowingly clashed with and then pepper-sprayed undercover Denver cops posing as violent protesters. The city later paid out $200,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging that a Denver SWAT team was making indiscriminate arrests, rounding up protesters and bystanders alike.

Perhaps the best insight into the mentality the police brought to the DNC protests could be found on the T-shirts the Denver police union had printed up for the event. The shirts showed a menacing cop holding a baton. The caption: DNC 2008: WE GET UP EARLY, TO BEAT THE CROWDS. Police were spotted wearing similar shirts at the 2012 NATO summit in Chicago. At the 1996 DNC convention in Chicago, cops were seen wearing shirts that read: WE KICKED YOUR FATHER’S ASS IN 1968 . . . WAIT ’TIL YOU SEE WHAT WE DO TO YOU!

This default militaristic response to protest of overkill was then given an extended national stage during the Occupy protests of 2011. In the most infamous incident, now forever captured in countless Internet memes and mashups, Lt. John Pike of the University of California–Davis campus police casually hosed down a peaceful group of protesters with a pepper-spray canister. But that was far from the only incident. Police across the country met protesters in riot gear, once again anticipating—and in too many instances seemingly even craving—confrontation. In Oakland, the skull of Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen was fractured by a tear-gas canister that the police had fired into the crowd. In New York, NYPD officer Anthony Bologna pepper-sprayed a group of helpless protesters who had been penned in by police fencing.

One thing the Occupy crackdowns did seem to do was focus renewed attention on police tactics and police militarization. Big-picture stories about the Pentagon buildup, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding for antiterror gear, and the proliferation of SWAT teams started streaming out of media outlets, giving the militarization issue the most coverage it had received since Kraska’s studies came out in the late 1990s. Part of that was due to social media. The ubiquity of smart phones and the viral capacity of Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and blogs were already bringing unprecedented accountability to police misconduct and government oppression, be it a Baltimore cop screaming obscenities at a kid on a skateboard, a transit cop in Oakland shooting a man who lay handcuffed on his stomach, or government paramilitaries in Iran gunning down a young woman in cold blood during Arab Spring democracy protests. But the Occupiers, who tended to be young, white, and middle-to upper-middle-class, knew social media like few other demographics. They knew how to live-stream video directly to the Internet. They all had smart phones, so police couldn’t suppress incriminating video by confiscating one or two or ten phones—someone was bound to have video of not only the original incident but also of police trying to confiscate phones to cover it up.

The political reaction to the Occupy crackdowns was interesting to watch. In the 1990s, it had been the right wing—particularly the far right—that was up in arms over police militarization. Recall the outrage on the right over Waco, Ruby Ridge, and the raid to seize Elián González. The left had largely either remained silent or even defended the government’s tactics in those cases. But the right-wing diatribes against jackbooted thugs and federal storm-troopers all died down once the Clinton administration left office, and they were virtually nonexistent after September 11, 2001. By the time cops started cracking heads at the Occupy protests, some conservatives were downright gleeful. The militarization of federal law enforcement certainly didn’t stop, but the 9/11 attacks and a friendly administration seemed to quell the conservatives’ concerns. So long as law enforcement was targeting hippie protesters, undocumented immigrants, suspected drug offenders, and alleged terrorist sympathizers, they were back to being heroes.

Steven Greenhut, a conservative-leaning columnist for the Orange County Register and editor of the investigative journalism site CalWatchdog, was dismayed by the right’s reaction. “What’s really disgusting is the natural instinct of so many conservatives to stick up for the police,” Greenhut wrote. “They don’t like the Occupy protesters, so they willingly back brutality against them, without considering the possibility that conservatives at some point might be on the receiving end of this aggression.”

Unfortunately, consistent voices like Greenhut’s have been rare. Partisan reaction to aggressive police actions against opponents tends to fall somewhere between indifference and schadenfreude.

After the December 2012 shooting massacre in Newtown, Connecticut put the issue of gun control back into the political discourse, some progressives again dredged up the right’s criticism of the ATF in the early 1990s. In one lengthy segment, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow aired old footage from Waco and Ruby Ridge while making some tenuous connections between gun rights politicians and activists and Weaver, McVeigh, and Koresh. She referred to a “conspiracy-driven corner of the gun world’s paranoia about federal agents,” without paying much heed to the fact that the ATF was inflicting the same sort of abuse on suspected gun offenders that Maddow herself has decried when used against suspected undocumented immigrants or Occupy protesters. More tellingly, Maddow added that there’s nothing wrong with wanting to give more power to the ATF based only on the politics of the people opposed to doing so. “Sometimes the character of the opposition defines why something ought to be the most politically viable thing in the world,” she said.

But even before Newtown, progressives have been advocating for the use of more government force against political factions they find unsavory. In 2009 the Department of Homeland Security issued a controversial report on what the author—DHS analyst Daryl Johnson—called a resurgence of right-wing extremism and the threat it posed to domestic security. The report was widely criticized on the right and was eventually criticized and revoked by DHS secretary Janet Napolitano. But after a spate of mass killings in the following years by assailants with political views that in some cases could loosely be characterized as right-wing, Johnson became something of a progressive hero. Most of the incidents involved clearly mentally ill attackers whose politics were all over the place. Even Johnson acknowledged that the incident most in line with his thesis—the massacre at a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, by a white supremacist named Wade Michael Page—was the work of a “lone wolf” attacker and likely would not have been prevented by the recommendations in his report.

Still, he was celebrated on the left. The progressive advocacy group Media Matters declared him “vindicated.” Similar sentiment popped up on progressive outlets like ThinkProgress, Salon, Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC blog, and Democracy Now.

In truth, attacks by groups on the fringes of the right wing have actually dropped in recent years, despite some claims that they’ve increased in response to the election of a black president. Attacks from groups on the fringes of the left wing are in decline too, as are alleged attempted terrorist attacks by fringe Muslim groups.

In a 2012 interview with the Idaho Spokesman Review, Johnson showed why it may not have been such a great idea for progressives to embrace him simply because he wanted to shut down opinions they found distasteful. Johnson was interviewed for an article on the twentieth anniversary of the Ruby Ridge fiasco, and he took one step further Rachel Maddow’s idea of supporting government force simply because you don’t like the factions opposing it. Johnson in fact suggested that merely having concerns about police militarization is a worry only borne by extremists. In fact, he appeared to have suggested that even recognizing that militarization is happening is an indication of fringe extremism.

“For American extremists, the siege at Ruby Ridge symbolizes the ‘militarized police state,’” said Johnson. The US government, through its Department of Homeland Security in particular, he said, “has unintentionally fostered, and even solidified, Orwellian conspiracies concerning an overzealous, oppressive federal government and its perceived willingness to kill to ensure citizen compliance. . . . In the minds of modern-day extremists, [Homeland Security] has enhanced the lethal capability of many underfunded, small-town police forces through its grant programs.” Using federal grants, state and local law enforcement agencies have been able to buy expensive equipment and training that are “commonly associated with the military,” he said, adding that “extremists view such a security buildup as a continuation of the Ruby Ridge legacy.” That legacy is a continuing drumbeat for extremists and white supremacists who recruit with the message of “big government versus the little guy” and “the government set me up.” These extremist ideas continue as messages and even recruiting themes among various radical groups in the United States, Johnson said.

I attempted to contact Johnson to ask if he’d like to clarify his comments. He didn’t return my calls. As they stand, these quotes are striking, particularly from someone who once worked for the Department of Homeland Security and now runs a consulting firm that works with law enforcement agencies. They certainly appear to dismiss police militarization—a phenomenon documented by a wide range of media outlets and criticized by interests all across the political spectrum—as merely a fantasy cooked up by extremists to boost their recruiting. Incidentally, the publications and advocacy groups who have recently expressed concerns about police militarization include ThinkProgress, Wired, Salon, MSNBC, and Democracy Now— all of them also ran articles praising Johnson.

So long as partisans are only willing to speak out against aggressive, militarized police tactics when they’re used against their own and are dismissive or even supportive of such tactics when used against those whose politics they dislike, it seems unlikely that the country will achieve enough of a political consensus to begin to slow down the trend.

More here



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Texting while judging: Judge texted assistance to prosecutors during trial(s)

The Houston Chronicle today published an update ("Ex-prosecutor admits helping judge accused of sending secret text messages") on an ugly case of alleged judicial and prosecutorial misconduct out of Polk County. The article opened thusly:

"A former prosecutor has confessed to assisting a state district judge who is accused of texting clandestine messages from the bench to bolster the prosecution's case during an East Texas criminal trial last year.

Such communication by Polk County Judge Elizabeth Coker was a violation of judicial impartiality that's required during court proceedings, said the former Polk County Assistant District Attorney Kaycee Jones. Jones has since been elected as a state district judge for Polk, Trinity and San Jacinto counties.

Her confession and a photo copy of Coker's text message - detailing a line of witness questioning that would aid prosecutors - were outlined in a letter Jones sent to the Texas Bar Association's disciplinary counsel, which is investigating the incident. The Houston Chronicle, which first reported the allegations against Coker earlier this year, recently obtained a copy of the letter.

For her part, Jones wrote, "I deeply regret that I acted in this manner. It was wrong and I knew better." An official in Jones' office said she could not comment on a pending investigation."

So not only is the judge who texted advice to prosecutors still on the bench, the assistant prosecutor accused of passing on her texts has herself been elected state district judge! What an embarrassment. Further evidence that the mechanisms for holding prosecutors and judges accountable for misconduct in Texas simply aren't effective or functional.

A report by a court observer from the DA's office found that this was "not the first time" the judge had provided such ex parte assistance and the lead prosecutor said her second chair was "in her ear all the time regarding information she believes to be given her by Judge Coker via text during trial," not just in this case but in others. Further, "Besides complaints about Coker coaching prosecutors by dictating questions, complaints have been filed against her alleging discrimination in picking attorneys to handle indigent cases."

As Mark Bennett pointed out, the surprise here isn't that a prosecution-oriented judge coached the state's attorney ex parte but that she did so in a form that could be documented and traced instead of face to face. Pretty darn brazen.

Original report here




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Trigger-happy British cop could face trial over 'execution' in the street when robbery suspect was shot in the head four times

A firearms officer could face trial over the death of a drug dealer in a bungled operation.

Azelle Rodney, 24, was ‘executed’ in a hail of bullets when his car was stopped by police marksmen who suspected he was about to rob Colombian rivals.

The armed officer let off eight shots in less than two seconds from a high-powered carbine at almost point-blank range, claiming he feared the suspect was about to fire a submachine gun.

But a retired High Court judge questioned his account yesterday, ruling there was ‘no lawful justification’ for shooting him dead.

In a highly critical judgment, Sir Christopher Holland castigated almost every aspect of the dangerous operation in April 2005.

He accused the officer, known only as E7, of firing ‘pre-emptive’ shots as police moved in to stop the car carrying three suspected gunmen.

And he said he did not believe E7 held an ‘honest belief’ that Rodney posed a lethal threat.

Sir Christopher also criticised the lack of planning, excessive force in the so-called ‘hard stop’ and the chaotic aftermath.

His inquiry ruling contradicts the findings of independent investigators and marks a turning point in a long-running legal battle.

Rodney’s mother said her son was ‘executed’ and demanded an apology from Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe. It also emerged that:

* Prosecutors who originally gave E7 a clean bill of health will reconsider whether he should be charged with murder;

* It can be revealed the marksman won an apology for being called a ‘serial killer’ by a senior Yard officer after he shot dead two armed robbers in an abattoir;

* Rodney’s family is preparing a multi-million pound compensation claim after years of fighting to find out exactly what happened;

* The findings are a vindication for campaigners who fought Government plans for secret inquests that would have covered up swathes of damning evidence.

Lawyers for E7, who retired in 2008 to work as a firearms consultant, have already informed Sir Christopher they will seek a judicial review of his ‘irrational’ findings.

He was one of the most respected officers in the Yard’s elite CO19 unit and won seven commendations during a 33-year career.

In 1987, he killed two armed robbers during a raid at a South London abattoir. In 2008, after bumping into him at a social function, former deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers – who later led the phone-hacking inquiry – told him: ‘I’ve always wanted to meet the Met’s very own serial killer.’

E7 complained and was awarded £5,000 for ‘hurt feelings’ over the ill-judged joke.

Police repeatedly fought for large swathes of evidence to be heard in secret, supposedly to protect intelligence sources.

But experts suspect their real motivation was to protect senior officers from humiliation as their shortcomings were systematically exposed.

They believe much of the evidence revealed during Sir Christopher’s public inquiry would have been covered up had new legislation been in force.

Rodney was shot dead as he travelled with two other men in a VW Golf through Edgware, North London, on April 30, 2005.

Sir Christopher criticised the Met for failing to minimise the danger to Rodney when it planned the operation, instead leaving vital decisions to armed officers on the ground.

Rodney’s mother, Susan Alexander, said the report backed her view that he was ‘executed’ by the police.

She added: ‘This report has found that there was no lawful justification for my son’s killing by the police. Azelle’s death was wholly avoidable.

'I shouldn’t be sitting here now, beginning another chapter in my fight for justice for him.

‘The fact that he was strongly suspected in being involved in crime does not justify him or anyone else being summarily killed.’

Isabella Sankey, of Liberty, which campaigns against secret inquests, said: ‘Successive governments used this case to try to justify closed hearings, yet the inquiry did its job without hearing any secret evidence whatsoever.

‘Let’s never forget how secrecy can be used as a cloak for illegality, embarrassment and abuses of power.’

Sir Bernard said: ‘We plan our operations to confront the armed and dangerous so as to minimise wherever possible the use of lethal force.’

He said: ‘Being a firearms officer is one of the toughest jobs in the police because you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Officers have tough choices to make. Sometimes, armed criminals leave you with little choice. It’s either shoot them or risk the public being hurt.

‘In the years I’ve known the officer referred to as E7, I’ve always founded him to be very grounded and not gung-ho.

‘He often put himself in the most dangerous positions on an operation because he was one of the best.

‘He would see things in slow motion and therefore had longer to process what was happening than other officers.’

Original report here




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Back in the job: British Police sergeant jailed for dragging woman across the floor returns to £36k-a-year job despite £300k battle to kick him out

A police force spent more than £300,000 trying to stop an officer coming back to work after he was jailed for dragging a woman prisoner across a floor and throwing her headfirst into a cell.

Mark Andrews was jailed for six months in 2010 for assaulting Pamela Somerville, 60, at Melksham Police Station but had his conviction quashed following an appeal.

Today it emerged that Wiltshire Police spent the six-figure sum trying to keep him out of the force - a battle that ended in failure when he was reinstated in his £36,000-a-year job at the same police station.

Ms Somerville was arrested in July 2008 after she was found asleep in her car near her home in Colerne, Wiltshire, following a row with her partner.

She was detained after failing to provide a sample for a breath test, but the charges were later dropped.

Horrific CCTV footage captured 6ft 3ins former soldier Sgt Andrews dragging Ms Somerville across the floor of Melksham Police Station.

The officer is then seen throwing 5ft 2ins Ms Somerville - who weighs just eight stone - onto the floor of a cell. She then staggers around, bleeding copiously.

Sgt Andrews, 40, was later arrested and found guilty of ABH on Ms Somerville in a hearing at Oxford Magistrates Court in July 2010. He was sentenced to six months in prison but lodged an appeal at Oxford Crown Court.

The conviction was overturned in November 2010, with the appeal judge ruling that Sgt Andrews did not intend to throw Ms Somerville in the cell.

A month later, Wiltshire police sacked Sgt Andrews from the force because of his behaviour, but a year later a five-day Police Appeals Tribunal overturned their decision and ruled that he should be handed his job back.

Judges then rejected a judicial review sought by Wiltshire Police in October 2012 and the father-of-two came back to work on backroom duties.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show that between July 2008 and April 2013 the force spent £302,924 on external lawyers and consultants for legal advice on the case.

Angus Macpherson, Wiltshire’s police and crime commissioner, said: 'There was clear legal advice to the effect that there was a reasonable prospect of success. 'Any such course of action requires careful though, not least because of the sums of money involved.

'If such a case was to arise in the future, a key factor in reaching a decision would be to determine what was in the best interests of the public. It was the same consideration that applied in this case.'

Sgt Andrews is now back at work in a primarily desk-based role with limited public contact.

Speaking after the horrific incident, Ms Somerville - who had to have stitches on a gash above her eye - slammed Sgt Andrews as 'utterly barbaric'.

She said: 'I still find it hard to watch the images of me staggering to my feet with blood pouring from a head wound because I can remember how terrified I was.

'It seems utterly barbaric that an innocent person could be treated in such a horrific and violent way and then left alone. 'I could have died. What happened to me was extraordinary, terrifying, and no one should ever be treated in the same way again.

'My vision is still affected. It’s as if I am looking through a cloud. And the whole of the left side of my face is now lower than the right, like a stroke victim.'

Original report here




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US mother settles in poppy seed drug case

A WOMAN who had her newborn taken away because she failed a hospital drug test after she ate a poppy seed bagel has settled a lawsuit over the case.

Lawrence County's child welfare agency and Jameson Hospital have paid $US143,500 ($156,500) to settle the suit filed on behalf of Elizabeth Mort by the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which announced the settlement on Tuesday.

Ms Mort sued in October 2010, alleging that a poppy seed bagel she ate shortly before arriving at the hospital spurred a positive test for opiates in April 2010 that prompted the seizure of her 3-day-old daughter, Isabella Rodriguez.

Ms Mort said she was home with her baby when a county child welfare caseworker arrived with an emergency protective custody order and took Isabella.

The lawsuit alleged Ms Mort was never told in the hospital that she had failed a drug test, nor was she asked if she had eaten anything that could have affected the test results.

The infant was returned five days later, after local officials agreed there was no evidence the mother had used illegal drugs.

The suit argued that Jameson Hospital used a much lower threshold for drug screening than federal guidelines, resulting in more false positives from common foods and medicines.

The federal standard is 2000 nanograms per milliliter, but Jameson Hospital used a reading of 300 nanograms, according to the lawsuit.

ACLU officials said on Tuesday the hospital and county have implemented policy changes so newborns aren't taken from parents based only on maternal drug tests, which can be inaccurate.

"We hope that this case will encourage hospitals that routinely test pregnant women for drug use to reconsider that practice due to the harm that can result from false positives," said Pennsylvania ACLU staff attorney Sara Rose.

Original report here




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Great Moments in Law Enforcement

What’s the worst example of bureaucrats harassing and persecuting parents?

Was it the Texas woman who was arrested because her children were playing outside? Or how about the Michigan woman who wasthreatened for looking after her neighbor’s kids?

Those are egregious examples, but here’s another example of government run amok.

Lenore Skenazy has a column in today’s Wall Street Journal on the topic of whether it should be a criminal offense to leave your kids in a car, even if just for a few minutes. Here’s how she describes the issue.

"One mother is hauled off to the police station. Another is clapped in handcuffs. The mothers’ offenses? They let their kids wait in the car while they ran a quick errand. Yes, these moms did just what yours probably did back when you were a kid. That age-old practice has been criminalized in 19 states in recent years, thanks to a world that seems increasingly unable to distinguish between negligence and normal parenting. …The impulse behind these laws is not evil, just excessive. Many people and politicians—I suppose the categories overlap—believe that whenever children are left alone in a car they could easily die of heat exhaustion or be kidnapped."

She then looks at the data. Kidnapping doesn’t even merit an asterisk, while death from heat is very rare and overwhelmingly caused by factors other than a quick stop to get a gallon of milk.

"While the kidnapping fear is beyond absurd (doubters, please look up the stats), the heatstroke fear is based on the fact that cars do get hot. Just not in the time it takes to buy a gallon of milk. …each year about 40 children die of hyperthermia in automobiles. …But according a group that tracks these statistics, kidsandcars.org (“Love Them, Protect Them”), the overwhelming majority were either forgotten in the car for hours (54%) or climbed into an empty vehicle without anyone’s knowledge and got stuck (31%). This, in a country with 32 million children under age 8 taking billions of car trips annually. Any child’s death is a terrible tragedy. But the reflexive call to 911 the minute a child is spied alone in a car is lunacy. Why not wait a minute to see if the parent comes back?"

I don’t necessarily blame strangers for calling 911. After all, maybe the time you see kids alone in a car is one of those one-in-a-million instances of tragic forgetfulness by a parent.

But I do blame cops for overreacting. Ms. Skenazy has a couple of examples in her column. Here’s the one that I found most outrageous:

"A typical story is the one I heard about from a mother of two who lives in a small town near Utica, N.Y. Last summer, on a 69-degree night, she ran into a grocery store to get some chicken breasts at 6:54 (she had just spoken to her husband on her cellphone). In the car she left her 5-year-old girl and 6-month old boy, who was asleep. At 7:03 (it’s on record) a passerby called 911. Then he pulled a truck behind her car so she couldn’t drive away—which she dearly wanted to do when she emerged from the store moments later. Instead, she had to wait for the police. The officer, rather than informing the busybody stranger that he shouldn’t prevent the free movement of citizens, told the mother that she was in big trouble. He searched her purse for dangerous objects. Then she had to call her parents to come get the kids, because the cop was taking her to the police station. Her daughter cried as she left. After that? Three visits from child-protective services to her home. The workers found nothing amiss, but “they have told me if it ever happens again, they will move the courts to have my children placed in foster care,” she said."

First, what sort of jerk blocks the women from leaving? Since this happened in New York, I wonder if it was Michael Wolfensohn, who has a track record of being a certain unmentionable orifice.

More important, why didn’t the cop simply ask the women what happened, take a minute to ascertain that certain common-sense precautions were taken (such as the car doors being locked while she was in the store), and then let her go home after some friendly advice about being careful?!?

At least we should be relieved that the poor woman wasn’t arrested, though I can only imagine how galling it would be to have some bureaucrats come to your house over and over again with immense powers to disrupt your family if you don’t kowtow to them.

Whatever happened to common sense? Oh, wait, never mind. We’re talking about government, that delightful entity that arrests kids for throwing snowballs, arrests a heroic young man for rescuing a child, and treats failure to file a form as a more serious crime than child pornography.

Original report here




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Free Justin Carter Now

The 19-year-old has been in prison since March for the crime of sarcasm


When defending the liberty of unsavory characters, I usually write of my native England. Not this week, alas. In the state of Texas, a 19-year-old man named Justin Carter sits in prison, ruthlessly stripped of his freedom for making an offensive joke. After a Facebook friend with whom he played video games described him as “crazy” and “messed up in the head,” Carter replied — sarcastically, one imagines — “Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head, I’m going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts.” He added “lol” and “jk” for good measure. For this he was arrested by Austin police, charged with making a “terroristic threat,” and thrown into prison. He may languish there until the start of the next decade.

Carter’s joke was witless and flippant — typical, in other words, of late-teenaged men. By no means was it criminal. Nevertheless, a woman in Canada, who inexactly described herself as a “concerned citizen,” saw from afar what Carter had written and shopped him to Texas police. Police acquiesced to her request, searching the family’s house in the process — and finding nothing. “They really want my son to go away to jail for a sarcastic comment that he made,” Jack Carter, the boy’s father, said. Apparently so: He’s been incarcerated since March without trial.

In free countries such as the United States, one is permitted to be a fool. The keystone of our virtuous departure from the damnable norms of human history is the axiom, so memorably put by Chesterton, that “to have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.” Americans may scream racial epithets, attack others’ deeply held beliefs, and communicate whatever vile and cretinous things pop into their heads. And they may do this not because they are “allowed to” by a state that grants privilege but because the state has never been granted the permission to intervene. The heirs to the constitutional settlement of the late eighteenth century are as entitled to its bounties as were its architects — idiot boys included.

In explaining to hostile parties the consequences of their positions, many of my fellow First Amendment absolutists stress that the price of maintaining the rights of those who deserve them is that silly or undesirable people will be protected by the Constitution, too. I object to this line of thinking, not only because it presumes to judge virtue, awarding our betters a claim to exclusive truth, but also because, as John Stuart Mill argued, free men must not be stripped of their right to hear what others have to say — however offensive.

Naturally, standards evolve. At one point in history, this caustic observation from comedian Richard Pryor might’ve been correct: “You can’t talk about f****g in America, people say you’re dirty, but if you talk about killing somebody, that’s cool.” Now, one suspects, the rule must be inverted. Either way, Americans enjoy unique latitude to discuss dark and queasy topics, topics that range as far afield as the killing of other human beings and the violent overthrow of the established order. It is likely that neither murder nor insurrection will ever come into conversational vogue — desirable, too, that they do not. But it is not the place of authority to judge what is and what is not acceptable, and it is certainly not the place of the state to designate casual discussion as “terrorism.”

In 1969, the Supreme Court correctly swept away the restrictive and injurious precedents that the Wilson administration had struck against constitutional liberty, and restored American freedom of speech to its rightful and unyielding norm. In the seminal Brandenburg v. Ohio, justices dispensed with vague notions such as “fighting words” in favor of the determination that one’s speech could be curtailed only in the event that it presented an “imminent and likely” threat. In practice, this recognized a right to sedition. As a rule of thumb, you cannot announce that you intend to start a revolution in the parking lot of your local Staples tomorrow at 9 a.m.; but you can call generally for the overthrow of the government. You can say that you might shoot up a school, too, and the most authorities can do in return is investigate whether you are serious.

In the petition advocating for his release, Carter’s defenders add to their case against the state by noting that “the only items seized from his home was his personal computer. No weapons of any kind were seized.” This revelation might well provide fussbudget Canadian proto-despots with their evening calm. But it is irrelevant. As a condition of their liberty, free men may own weapons while joking in good or bad taste about killing children just as they may own weapons while calling in the abstract for the toppling of the government. Sandy Hook being still fresh in the memory, one does not have to wonder for too long why Justin was singled out from the hundreds of thousands — perhaps millions — of Internet postings that threaten violence. This does not come close to excusing the Texas police. If we started rounding Americans up for making egregious comments about contemporary events, the prison system would collapse in short order.

“Justin was the kind of kid who didn’t read the newspaper,” his father told the newspapers. “He didn’t watch television. He wasn’t aware of current events. . . . These kids, they don’t realize what they’re doing. They don’t understand the implications. They don’t understand public space.” Perhaps they do not; who knows what informs the minds of strangers? Either way, I struggle to see why this matters. We do not have different laws for the ignorant than those we have for the learned. If Justin were a prodigious literary talent, second to none in his grasp of current events, would the equation change? Would we hang Mark Twain but spare Jose Canseco?

I, like John Updike, am prejudiced “toward a government whose constitution guarantees” free speech. Justin Carter, whether polite society considers that he deserves it or not, lives under such a constitution. It is the responsibility of all of us to police the government and to punish it when it violates its authority. Carter must be set free and this insidious precedent smashed to pieces. Our liberty depends upon it.

Original report here



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Bottled-water purchase leads to night in jail and felony charges for UVA student

When a half-dozen men and a woman in street clothes closed in on University of Virginia student Elizabeth Daly, 20, she and two roommates panicked.

That led to Daly spending a night and an afternoon in the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. Her initial offense? Walking to her car with bottled water, cookie dough and ice cream just purchased from the Harris Teeter in the Barracks Road Shopping Center for a sorority benefit fundraiser.

A group of state Alcoholic Beverage Control agents clad in plainclothes approached her, suspecting the blue carton of LaCroix sparkling water to be a 12-pack of beer. Police say one of the agents jumped on the hood of her car. She says one drew a gun. Unsure of who they were, Daly tried to flee the darkened parking lot.

“They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform,” she recalled Thursday in a written account of the April 11 incident.

“I couldn’t put my windows down unless I started my car, and when I started my car they began yelling to not move the car, not to start the car. They began trying to break the windows. My roommates and I were … terrified,” Daly stated.

This, in pursuit of suspected underaged drinking. After the miscommunication, Daly “apologized profusely,” but was slapped with a couple felony charges, including “assault” because she allegedly “grazed” officers as she was trying to get the hell away from people she thought were trying to hurt her.

The charges have been dropped, but she did spend a night in jail for her cookie dough purchase.

It’s extremely dangerous for overzealous officers not to identify themselves properly, and as a young woman, she had every right to be afraid of a group of badly identified men coming after her.

I don’t stop for cops on dark, country roads until I’ve reached a lit or populated area or open my windows for them until I see a uniform or badge (both of which have been known to be faked by Blue Light Bandits).

I almost flipped out on a plainclothes officer in Virginia who burst out of his car and came at mine at a stoplight one night without identifying himself. He put both of us in a potentially very dangerous situation because he didn’t like that I had honked my horn once (not at him), which is not against Virginia law, in case you’re wondering.

I escaped without an escalation, and publicized the incident on my morning radio show the next day, but there are plenty of vulnerable people without such luck or such outlets who are put in similar and much worse situations every day. And, as I’ve noted before, law enforcement officers are too rarely disciplined for such breaches.

Original report here




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