Milwaukee Man Released After Serving 24 Years For Wrongful Conviction



Daryl Holloway was released from Green Bay Correctional Institution Wednesday morning after serving 24 years for crimes he did not commit.

Holloway was convicted of sexual assault and armed burglary in 1993. He was sentenced to 120 years. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Wagner signed an order freeing Holloway on Tuesday.

A now-retired Milwaukee assistant district attorney reviewed the case file last spring and discovered conflicting DNA analyses issued by two different labs. That means at least one of the labs made a mistake. The district attorney contacted Holloway’s private attorney, who then reached out to the Wisconsin Innocence Project.

Keith Findley, co-director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project and Holloway’s new attorney, and a team of law students convinced prosecutors to have the DNA analyzed by an independent third-party lab. The new results conclusively excluded Holloway as the perpetrator.

"It’s kind of a bittersweet moment," Findley said. "It’s so sweet to achieve justice for somebody but it’s bittersweet because it comes on the heels of so much suffering and so much injustice for all those years."

Findley said cases like Holloway’s are reminders that the criminal justice system makes mistakes and that it needs to be improved.

"We learn from these cases that the things that produce these errors are systemic," Findley said. "They are features of the system that we can address, that we can try to improve so we can minimize the risk of error in the future."

Findley used Holloway’s case as an example of basing evidence on shaky eye-witness identification. The victims in Holloway’s case positively identified him before his conviction.

"We learned by looking at all these cases that that is, among the DNA exonerations, that is by far the leading cause of wrongful convictions," Findley said.

In order for the system to improve and reduce the risk of errors, Findley said there should be more attention paid to wrongful conviction cases as learning opportunities. He said there needs to be changes in the way evidence is handled and collected, the way cases are tried and prosecuted and the way cases are considered post-conviction.

Wisconsin’s compensation for people who have been wrongfully convicted is the lowest in the country. Compensation is $5,000 a year with a cap of $25,000. Federal compensation is $50,000 a year capped at $1 million.

Findley said that needs to change.

"The system’s just not designed to take care of people like Mr. Holloway when they get out to help them reclaim their lives," Findley said. "We’ve got to do something to improve that so that we don’t continue to inflict suffering upon people who have been wrongly convicted."

Original report here


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Britain  to pay six-figure sum to man over wrongful conviction

Crooked prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence.  They should now be on trial

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has agreed to pay more than £100,000 in compensation to a man who spent six years in prison after being wrongly convicted of perverting the course of justice in a gangland murder investigation.

The award was agreed only after it was acknowledged that police surveillance evidence, now subject to a public-interest immunity certificate, demonstrated that Conrad Jones, from Coventry, could not have been in Nottingham on either of two days in 2006.

The complex series of related cases began with the 2005 shooting of Clinton Bailey in the car park of a Coventry pub. Several people were convicted of his murder.

Jones, now 50, of Wyken, Coventry, was found guilty in 2007 – after two earlier, abortive trials – of intimidating a witness to the murder trial in an attempt to prevent her from giving evidence.

He was said to have bribed and threatened her at a face-to-face meeting in Nottingham on 1 or 2 June 2006. He was convicted and jailed, subsequently serving six years in prison.

On appeal in 2014, however, his conviction was overturned on the basis that surveillance material showed it would have been impossible for Jones to have made the journey to and from Nottingham on those dates.

Overturning his conviction at the court of appeal in 2014, Lord Justice Pitchford observed: “We can only regard the failure to make the disclosure [of the surveillance material] in early 2007 that was subsequently made in June 2013 as a lamentable failure of the prosecutor’s obligations.”

The law firm Hodge Jones & Allen, which represented Jones in his compensation claim, said: “[He] had always strongly denied the charges against him. “He was released on licence in 2012, still protesting his innocence. It was only as a result of a subsequent arrest for conspiring to pervert the course of justice, an offence he was acquitted of, that it fell to different lawyers to review the disclosure that had taken place back in 2006-07.

“They came across surveillance material which, in their view, undermined the original prosecution and should have been disclosed back at that point in time. The substance of that material was then disclosed (the actual material being subject to public-interest immunity).”

Sasha Barton, Jones’s solicitor, said: “It is clear that the CPS and prosecution counsel had in their possession, both while my client remained on remand in prison awaiting trial and at the time of my client’s trial, surveillance material which showed he could not realistically have met with and bribed [the witness] not to give evidence.

“They knew it was relevant, they knew it undermined the prosecution case and strengthened Mr Jones’s defence and they knew that the law required them to disclose it.

“To discover years after the event that the CPS, on the advice of highly experienced lawyers, has knowingly and repeatedly failed to comply with the criminal law on disclosure is shocking, and raises very serious questions which go right to the heart of public confidence in the criminal justice system and the legal profession.”

Jones said: “This has been a truly horrendous ordeal for me and for my family. As a result of being locked up for six years for something I did not do, I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, which has had a real impact on my day-to-day life.

“I’m grateful to my family and friends who have supported me through this ordeal and continue to support me, in particular my wife and two sons. I’d also like to say a huge thank you to all those people who have worked so hard to ensure that the truth came out about the way the CPS has behaved. They should never have purposefully withheld evidence and been able take away six years of my life.

“I am damaged by what has happened, but I want to put it all behind me now and get on with the rest of my life in peace.”

Maslen Merchant, a solicitor at the law firm Hadgkiss, Hughes & Beale, represented Jones in his successful criminal appeal.

A CPS spokesperson said: “The CPS has agreed to settle Mr Jones’ civil claim without admission of liability. The terms of the settlement are confidential.”

Original report here


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How top QC 'buried evidence of Met bribes to put innocent man in jail': Whistleblower alerted court that 'organised crime' had infiltrated police... then they said HE had perverted course of justice


The bitch.  Her personal arrangements would bear investigation

One of the country's top prosecutors is facing professional ruin following sensational claims in a London courtroom that she lied to judges in order to hide damning evidence of police corruption – at the risk of sending an innocent man to jail.

At the heart of the growing scandal, whose origins were exposed by this newspaper in February, is Sasha Wass QC, the barrister who prosecuted entertainer Rolf Harris and the £2 billion rogue trader Kweku Adoboli.

A court has heard claims that Ms Wass not only buried an official report by the Metropolitan Police confirming there was evidence that officers in its anti-corruption unit had taken bribes, but that she prosecuted the lawyer who brought the report to the attention of the authorities for perverting the course of justice.

The alleged attempted cover-up almost led to a lengthy prison sentence for the man who blew the whistle, Bhadresh Gohil.

The revelations were contained in a secret 4,300-page dossier cited in court last Friday. They include the results of an investigation by Scotland Yard's Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS), which reports to Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe.

The inquiry, led by Commander Peter Spindler, was said to show that a Met unit set up to investigate financial corruption was itself corrupted by ex-Met officers working for a private investigation firm, RISC Management.

They allegedly paid bribes running to thousands of pounds to a former colleague, Detective Constable John McDonald, in order to obtain sensitive information.

Mr Gohil, during the course of an appeal against an earlier conviction on fraud charges, was charged in June 2014 with attempting to pervert the course of justice because he claimed that Det Con McDonald was being bribed by RISC and supplied documents to support this. McDonald had been one of the officers who had investigated Mr Gohil at the earlier trial. The police and Crown Prosecution Service insisted his claims were bogus.

In a sensational volte face, a CPS spokesman yesterday admitted it is now clear that, contrary to repeated statements by Crown lawyers in court and in legal documents, there is 'material to support the assertion that a police officer received payment in return for information'.

This, he added, should have been divulged in court long ago. But it is only now that 'the process of disclosure to relevant parties is under way'.

The dossier is covered by a legal gag that means anyone publishing it would risk prosecution. But according to statements made in court last week, which can be reported, the corruption of the unit was only part of a much wider onslaught perpetrated by RISC – described in court as 'an organised crime group that infiltrated the Metropolitan Police'.

In an email exchange with this newspaper, Ms Wass admitted she had seen the dossier revealing RISC's 'infiltration' of the Met as long ago as April 2014 – two months before she backed charging Mr Gohil with attempting to pervert the course of justice. But, she claimed, it was only in January this year, 'when new information was provided to me for the first time', that she 'advised the Director of Public Prosecutions personally to drop the case'.

Mr Gohil's lawyer, Stephen Kamlish QC, stated in court on Friday that when Mr Gohil was charged, the police, the prosecuting barristers and the CPS all had possession of the file containing the evidence of the Met's infiltration by RISC. Furthermore, Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders authorised the prosecution of Mr Gohil, and continued to oversee the case until it was dropped 18 months later. Mr Gohil has now been paid £20,000 in an out-of-court settlement by the CPS for the three weeks he spent remanded in custody at the end of last year facing trial.

He said last night: 'They had no basis even to begin this prosecution – other than to cover up police corruption. They paid me about £1,000 a day – but the usual Home Office rate for wrongful imprisonment is £250 a day. What does this show? That they knew they were totally in the wrong and had been caught.'

The tangled legal saga began in 2007, when police at Scotland Yard's Proceeds of Corruption Unit began investigating James Ibori, a Nigerian former provincial governor who had once been a cashier at a UK branch of Wickes. The unit, now part of the National Crime Agency, was set up to fight corruption in the developing world and is funded by the overseas aid department, DFID, to the tune of £20 million a year.

Mr Gohil was Mr Ibori's business lawyer and had helped him buy property and negotiated other deals on his behalf. In 2010, he was convicted of money-laundering and jailed for ten years. Mr Ibori was arrested and tried two years later. He is still in prison, serving 13 years for corruption.

Mr Gohil continues to protest his innocence, insisting he did all in his power to ensure 'due diligence', and had no way of knowing that Mr Ibori's wealth was ill-gotten. He pointed out that he was cleared of wrongdoing after a probe by the Solicitors Regulation Authority: 'If I can win the appeal I am now fighting, I will get my licence back.'

From the start of the Ibori investigation in 2007 until the perverting the course of justice charge against Mr Gohil was dropped this year, the head of the Crown's legal team was Ms Wass, assisted by Esther Schutzer-Weissmann, a junior barrister from the same chambers.

They prosecuted Mr Gohil and Mr Ibori in court, along with five co-defendants. They had a close working relationship that lasted years with the investigating detectives and with an in-house legal team at the CPS, led by senior Crown prosecutor David Williams.

While Mr Gohil was in Wandsworth prison, he was sent 15 pages of documents suggesting RISC was bribing Met officers including Det Con McDonald, who played a central role in the Ibori-Gohil inquiry. Mr Gohil used them to lodge an appeal, claiming the case against him had been contaminated by the corruption.

On the afternoon before his appeal was due to be heard in June 2014, he was told he was being charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice. He said: 'I had been in an open prison, but I was transferred to a closed jail immediately. I knew the truth was out there and my nature is to fight. But this prejudiced the Court of Appeal totally.'

At the appeal, Ms Wass told the court that his claims of corruption were 'manufactured really out of nothing and unsupported by any evidence at all'. Although Det Con McDonald had had 'one contact' with his former police colleague, Clifford Knuckey of RISC, it was innocent.

There was, she added, 'an audit trail of openness' that showed Mr Gohil's allegations were bogus, and no further documents that ought to be disclosed.

The court accepted everything she said and rejected the appeal. Yet according to Mr Kamlish at Friday's hearing, weeks before Ms Wass made these statements, Crown lawyers had drafted a memo citing more than 30 separate pieces of 'evidence of corruption' and raised the issue of whether they should be disclosed to Mr Gohil.

She and Ms Schutzer-Weissmann also received an email from Mr Williams at the CPS. It discussed the Crown's written response to the pending appeal, which was sent to the court before the hearing. It said that he had been talking to the police, and they wanted 'the sentence re bragging' taken out.

The full text of this sentence, which was then duly altered by the CPS, would have given the court reason to wonder whether the Crown was revealing the truth about Mr Gohil's corruption claims. It read: 'Intelligence suggested DC McDonald and RISC operative (ex MPS Det Inspector) were known to each other. Cliff Knuckey had bragged to others he had paid DC McDonald for information.'

Mr Kamlish said in court: 'The document was tampered with in order to mislead the Court of Appeal.'

Mr Gohil was due to be released last November, having served half his sentence. At pre-trial hearings in the perverting the course of justice case, Ms Wass indicated the Crown would not oppose bail. But a few days before Mr Gohil was due to be freed, she changed her mind – and he was remanded in custody on new charges.

Mr Kamlish said in court that the secret dossier showed the charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice should never have been brought: 'We have come across the clearest evidence that prosecuting counsel, Sasha Wass QC and Esther Schutzer-Weissmann, along with lawyers from the CPS and a number of officers from the DPS all prosecuted my client knowing he was innocent.'

The evidence, he went on, showed that 'prosecuting counsel lied to this court' in pre-trial hearings, and to the Court of Appeal. On 'multiple occasions', counsel had 'said one thing, knowing another'.

Legal experts said yesterday that for one QC to make allegations of this kind against colleagues was probably unprecedented. But Mr Kamlish said: 'Everything I said in court is fully supported by the evidence supplied by the prosecution and is in accordance with my professional duties and responsibilities.'

Friday's hearing at Southwark Crown Court concerned the Crown's attempt to confiscate Mr Ibori's property. But the legal battle is set to move to the Court of Appeal, where Mr Gohil has applied to reopen his money-laundering case. It is likely Mr Ibori and the other defendants will also mount fresh appeals.

The CPS intends to resist them, insisting that, despite the evidence of police corruption, the convictions are 'safe'.

Mr Gohil said he remained hopeful of the outcome: 'I have lost well over £1 million through this, as well as five years of my liberty. But I am still with my long-term partner and my friends have stood by me. I've never even had a parking ticket. I am not a criminal.'

Ms Wass said that when she told the Court of Appeal there was no evidence to support the corruption allegations, she had been 'assured by the police that the intelligence that the officer had received payment in return for information had been investigated and dismissed. On that basis, there was nothing adverse to disclose to the court'.

The CPS spokesman said Ms Wass is no longer prosecuting cases for the CPS and has 'returned the briefs' in all the cases where she has been instructed. However, she is currently working to prosecute a major case for the Serious Fraud Office.

The Met said it could not comment while proceedings remain active. Mr McDonald has always insisted he is innocent of corruption and was not charged as a result of the Met's internal investigation.

Since the Ibori case, he has been promoted to detective sergeant and remains a serving officer.

RISC Management has always denied that it paid money to police officers.

Original report here


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Revealed: Serial killer Christopher Halliwell once worked for husband now serving life for murder of wife that he has always denied 

Christopher Halliwell did building work for a husband who was later convicted of murdering his estranged wife and is still protesting his innocence in jail 13 years later. 

Glyn Razzell, 44, a redundant investment banker, has been behind bars for the past thirteen years for murdering his wife Linda Razzell after she went missing in Swindon in March 2002. He has always protested his innocence. 

But there are now claims that taxi driver Christopher Halliwell - the double serial killer who was last month jailed for murdering sex worker Becky Godden - could be linked to the crime.

Sandy Jonsson - a friend of Halliwell's ex-wife who helped Miss Godden's mother fight for justice - claims Halliwell became 'obsessed' with Ms Razzell before her disappearance.

The pair had met when Halliwell did building work on Ms Razzell's marital home, but the double killer allegedly continued to 'stalk' her even when the work came to an end.

Crucially, Ms Razzell went missing on March 19 - a day considered potentially 'special' to Halliwell and the same date that one of his victims Sian O'Callaghan went missing.

The claims could raise questions about the investigation into Ms Razzell's murder and trigger speculation that an innocent man has been wrongly put behind bars for more than a decade.

Ms Jonsson told The Sun: 'There's no doubt he (Halliwell) became obsessed with Ms Razzell. He even used to do sketches of her.

'There is a very strong possibility that there has been a miscarriage of justice.'  

Former detective Steve Fulcher - who resigned from Wiltshire Police after failing to caution Halliwell when he guided police to Miss Godden's body - also believes Razzell could be telling the truth about his innocence.

Describing how the crime is 'fitting' with Halliwell's pattern of behaviour, he urged officers to look into possible links between Halliwell and Miss Razzell's case. 

‘We know that Hailliwell has killed women, has a propensity for killing women, and had a direct relationship with Linda Razzell,' he said. 

‘Whether or not he’s responsible for those murders isn’t the issue. The issue is why was no investigation conducted into those issues?’   

Halliwell apparently became obsessed with Ms Razzell while doing work at her home in 1998.

At the time, he was drifting from job to job, including spells working as a window cleaner and as a groundworker in the building trade.

Ms Razzell, meanwhile, had wanted an extension of her family home but her marriage to her husband was falling apart. 

Detectives were aware that she and Halliwell had a 'direct relationship'.

It was four years later, on March 19, 2002, that Ms Razzell went missing.

The date has become pertinent to Halliwell's case, not only because of its connection to Miss O'Callaghan, but because it was the date Halliwell was dumped by his girlfriend while he was in prison.  

On the morning she disappeared, Ms Razzell, 41, left her home in Highworth, near Swindon, as normal with her four children and her boyfriend.

The mother-of-four dropped the children at school and her partner at work before parking in Alvescot Road and walking towards Swindon College, where she worked as a learning support assistant.

But, later that day, she failed to pick up her two youngest children from an after-school club.

Detectives said there was a strong suggestion Ms Razzell had been abducted after her mobile phone was found near her abandoned car.

Two months later, they arrested her estranged husband. He was convicted of her murder in 2003 and jailed for life. Her body has never been found. 

Spots of blood in the boot of the car he was using matched Ms Razzell’s. The prosecution said the motive for the killing was that Razzell wanted to avoid an expensive divorce settlement.

But, more than a decade later, Razzell continues to protest his innocence. His lawyer Rob Ross said he finds it 'difficult to believe' that Razzell could have been the killer. 

Miss Godden's mother Karen Edwards also claimed last month that Wiltshire Police had failed to act on evidence that she has given them about three others disappearances including Ms Razzell's, Claudia Lawrence's and Sally-Ann John's.

Chef Miss Lawrence, 35, also went missing on March 19, 2009 - although North Yorkshire Police have denied the link.

And no one has ever been brought to justice for the disappearance of Miss John, who vanished from her home in Swindon in 1995. 

The Justice For Glyn Razzell campaign, run by his sister Vicky George, also believes the links are 'hugely significant'. 

Razzell’s defence team maintain that the incriminating blood was discovered only after a third forensic examination and was deliberately planted. They also say there was no blood, hair or fibres from Ms Razzell on his clothing.

In 2008, the Criminal Cases Review Commission decided against referring the case to the Court of Appeal.  

Taxi driver Halliwell, 52, was jailed for strangling and sexually assaulting 22-year-old Miss O’Callaghan in 2012.

At the time, he admitted killing Miss Godden but, due to a technicality, the confession was ruled inadmissible and Miss Godden's mother spent another four years fighting for justice.

Last month, he was handed a rare whole life order - meaning he will never be released - at Bristol Crown Court after being convicted of Miss Godden's murder. 

Since his conviction last month for the 2003 killing, there has been speculation that the double killer could be linked to many more missing person inquiries.

Wiltshire Police are now working with other forces and the National Crime Agency (NCA) to identify possible further victims of Halliwell.  

Original report here

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Australia: Huge Police goon Hurley under fire again



Best known for droppping his big knee on a black guy's stomach, splitting his liver and killing him.  But his fellow cops contaminated the investigation so he got off

Controversial Queensland cop Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley has been charged with three additional assault charges at the start of a two-day trial on the Gold Coast.

Hurley is facing trial in Southport Magistrates Court over a 2013 incident in which he allegedly grabbed a motorist by the throat.

He had been charged with one count of common assault over the incident but three further counts were added at the start of the trial.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Hurley was acquitted of the manslaughter of Palm Island man Cameron Doomadgee in 2007.

The trial is expected to conclude on Thursday.

Original report here.
(Via Australian Politics)



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Federal judge dismisses Ferguson protesters' $41.5 million lawsuit against police

Despite a sea of lies from the petitioners

A federal judge has dismissed a civil rights lawsuit that alleged police used excessive force against Ferguson protesters and violated their civil rights.

U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey on Friday ruled in favor of summary judgment motions filed by police, police officials, St. Louis County and the city of Ferguson. The order appeared publicly in electronic court files Monday, the same day that lawyers for protesters filed a notice that they would appeal.

In his order, Autrey said that the protesters who filed the suit “have completely failed to present any credible evidence that any of the actions taken by these individuals were taken with malice or were committed in bad faith.”

Autrey wrote that protesters were told to disperse, and when they did not and officers were ordered to begin making arrests, those officers gave repeated warnings before they started arresting protesters.

Autrey ruled that individual police officers were “entitled to official and qualified immunity” from the lawsuit, and therefore their supervisors and St. Louis County were also entitled to immunity.

In ruling for police on the summary judgment motion, Autrey had to view the evidence “in the light most favorable” to the plaintiffs and find that “no genuine issue of material fact exists and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”

Autrey ruled that many of the plaintiffs’ claims were not backed up by video evidence or other testimony.

Tracey White, one of the plaintiffs, had alleged that she and her 17-year-old son were arrested inside of the Ferguson McDonald’s. She claimed officers with rifles rushed in “like something out of a movie.” She claimed that she was thrown to the ground and arrested when she protested the treatment of her son, who she claimed was arrested when she tried to give him the iPad she was carrying.

But videos showed that she was actually arrested a block away. “She agreed that video showed an officer placing hand ties on her, and that she was not on the ground, and that there was no knee in her back,” Autrey wrote. “No racial epithets or slurs were used against Tracey White.”

Another plaintiff, Dwayne A. Matthews Jr., had claimed that he was walking to his mother’s house on Aug. 13 when he was shot with rubber-coated bullets, pepper-sprayed and nearly drowned in a drainage ditch before being beaten before and after he was restrained.

But Autrey wrote that Matthews’ “own statements (to paramedics and hospital staff) belie his position.”

Plaintiffs Damon Coleman and Theophilus Green claimed that they were hit by less-than-lethal projectiles fired by three officers, Autrey found, but were unable to contradict statements by those officers that they were not carrying such equipment that night.

Other plaintiffs were unable to identify the officers that they claimed committed violations, Autrey found, or were not hurt during the encounters.

Gregory Lattimer, one of the lawyers representing protesters, said in a telephone interview Monday: “It’s unfortunate that the Constitution has such a rough time in Missouri, but I think that the court of appeals will look at this and make a determination that ... the judge’s refusal to allow these cases to go forward was not consistent with applicable law.

“This is summary judgment and a jury should have been able to decide whether or not these actions were OK,” he said.

Lattimer characterized White’s claims about McDonald’s as a “mix up” and said people were “taken out of the McDonald’s” and then “moved up and down the street illegally.” He said, “Well, you took them out of the restaurant, put them on the street, and then tell them they failed to disperse.”

He called issues created by his clients’ inability to identify police officers one of the “most disturbing aspects,” noting that officers wore masks and took off their badges. “They obscure their identity and then because you can’t identify them, then the officer goes free. That is not the way it is supposed to work.”

St. Louis County Counselor Peter Krane called it a “well-considered opinion” but declined to comment in detail.

The original $41.5 million lawsuit was filed Aug. 28, 2014, by protesters who variously alleged that they were pepper-sprayed, shot with rubber bullets, beaten and arrested. It was amended to add more plaintiffs that October.

This year, lawyers for the police filed motions to dismiss, claiming that much of what had been alleged was incorrect.

The arrests were among hundreds during protests that followed the Aug. 9, 2014, fatal shooting of Michael Brown, 18, by Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson.

Original report here


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UK: 'Sexual predator' cop, 43, who raped young girl while wearing his uniform is jailed for 24 years



A 'sexual predator' PCSO has been jailed for 24 years for raping two girls under six years old - and even wore parts of his uniform during at least one attack.

Peter Bunyan, 43, was convicted of raping and sexually assaulting the girls, aged four and five, both of whom have since been driven to self-harm by the emotional scarring from the horrific attacks.

He was only brought to justice as one of his victims suffered distressing flashbacks when a police officer visited her school and reported the attacks to a relative and school staff, Truro Crown Court heard today.

Bunyan was sentenced to 24 years after a unanimous verdict from the jury, which deliberated for just seven hours before convicting him of three counts of rape and one of sexual assault between 2005 and 2009.

After he was found guilty, it was revealed that he had previously jailed for having sexual relationships with two vulnerable women who he found using police information.

The court heard previously how he had 'used the police database as a 'dating agency' to conduct his sexual affairs during shifts for Cornwall Police between 2007 and 2011.

Sentencing Bunyan, Judge Simon Carr, said: 'Both girls were aged between four and five at the time and you assaulted them in a way that they would stay quiet. Neither girl really knew what had happened to them.

'You subjected them to full penetrative sex and both of the victims have since spoken of the pain they were in during and after the ordeal.

'Both of the girls are struggling to come to terms with what happened to them and the utter devastation caused by your actions.

'The victims have also since self-harmed as a way of coming to terms with it all.

'At the time you were a PCSO and one girl remembers you wearing at least some of your uniform when you attacked her.'

Bunyan, from Penzance, Cornwall, had denied the allegations from the outset, and initially claimed he was 'relieved' when he was arrested because he knew he was innocent.

Prosecutor Simon Burns told the jury how during the abuse, Bunyan, who previously worked as a PCSO in Camborne and Redruth in Cornwall, swore and had to tell himself to be quiet.

When the police officer visited one of the victim's schools, her memory was triggered and she began to piece together what happened before confiding in family members and school staff.

Medical examinations carried out following the allegations suggested that both the girls had suffered injuries, which suggested they had been sexually abused.

Sentencing him today, Judge Carr told Bunyan how he must serve at least half of his 24 year sentence and sign the sex offenders register for life.

He must also not live with, or be in the presence of anybody under the age of 16 for the rest of his life.

As the verdicts were read out he sat with his head bowed in the dock and appeared to struggle to contain his emotions.

After the case, an NSPCC spokesman said: 'Bunyan is a sexual predator who is now thankfully behind bars.

'His appalling crimes robbed his defenceless victims of their childhood and could have a lasting impact well into their adult years. 'No child should ever have to experience what the victims went through.

'It is vital anyone affected can get the support they need rather than suffer in silence, as sadly so many do.'

Original report here


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Rough treatment for another black criminal

POLICE brutality against black Americans has been highlighted — yet again — by a video showing a cop breaking a car windshield with a handcuffed man’s face.

While the incident happened in 2014, the video has gone viral now after the handcuffed man, 32-year-old Pele Smith, filed a civil case seeking damages.

He was treated for facial injuries at a nearby medical centre after the incident, which took place in Ohio.

With relations between the police and African-American communities at a flashpoint around the US, the police chief of Lorain County, Cel Rivera, released a statement urging viewers not to judge in haste. “I would caution observers to not rush to judgment relative to the actions of the police on scene,” he said.

“Although it is not easy to watch, police officers explain all of their actions in their police reports.”

In the same statement Chief Rivera referred to Smith as a “violent drug trafficker” but a report from local news station WKYC stated that the Lorain County Clerk of Courts website showed no records of violent crimes in Smith’s history, although he did have prior convictions for drug offences and firearm possession.

“It’s unbelievable. It’s sad. It’s frightening that an individual while in handcuffs has something like that happen to them,” Smith’s lawyer Mark Petroff told WKYC.

So far this year, US police have shot dead close to 700 people, with the unnecessary deaths of black men in particular stirring protests and unrest in cities across the country.

Original report here


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Massachusetts Supreme Court Says It’s Perfectly Legitimate for Black Men to Flee Police

Has it really come to this? On the heels of dramatic disagreement between the two major party presidential candidates about how to react to ongoing tension between the police and the African-American community, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has unanimously concluded that a black man fleeing from a police officer investigating criminal activity is indicative of—nothing at all.

In the wake of recent shootings of African-American civilians by police officers in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Charlotte, North Carolina, followed by violent protests in Charlotte, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had dramatically different reactions.

Clinton laid the blame on “systemic racism” and “implicit bias” and called for more community policing. Trump was equally troubled by these events, but called for more extensive use of stop-and-frisk tactics in high-crime areas. He speculated that perhaps the officer involved in the Tulsa shooting had “choked” when faced with a tense situation.

In the meantime, in a unanimous opinion issued on Tuesday, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts gave implicit approval for black men to run when the police ask to speak to them.

The facts in Commonwealth v. Jimmy Warren are pretty straightforward. Sometime after 9 p.m. on Dec. 18, 2011, in the Roxbury section of Boston (a high-crime area), a teenager entered his bedroom and saw a black male wearing a “red hoodie” jumping out the window. When he went to the window, he saw two more black men, one in a “black hoodie” and the other in dark clothes, running away.

The thieves had taken a backpack, a computer, and five baseball hats. The victim relayed the information to Officer Luis Anjos, who drove around the neighborhood for approximately 15 minutes looking for anyone who matched the victim’s admittedly vague description.

Because it was a cold night, Anjos did not encounter any pedestrians until he came upon Jimmy Warren and another black male. Both were wearing dark clothing, and one of them was wearing a hoodie.

Anjos decided to conduct a “field interrogation observation” (FIO), police jargon for a consensual encounter in which the officer asks someone what they are up to, and the person remains free to leave at any time. Anjos asked the two males to “wait a minute,” and they made eye contact with him before jogging away into a park.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court’s opinion will only serve to exacerbate racial tension and will handcuff the police in their attempts to rein in the crime epidemic that many of our inner cities are currently experiencing.

Anjos radioed what happened to his station and was overheard by two other officers in the neighborhood, who saw the two men coming out of the other side of the park. One of the officers said, “Hey fellas,” and one of the two men—Warren—ran back into the park. The officer observed Warren clutching the right side of his pants (consistent with carrying a gun in his pocket) as he ignored repeated requests to stop.

Following a brief chase, one of the officers drew his weapon and, after a struggle, arrested Warren. The officers found a gun near where Warren was apprehended, and he was subsequently charged and convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm.

Prior to trial, Warren moved to exclude the firearm as evidence, claiming that its discovery was the result of an illegal stop because the police lacked “reasonable suspicion”—the applicable legal standard under the Fourth Amendment to justify an investigatory stop—to stop him in connection with the breaking and entering that had occurred roughly a half-hour earlier.

The trial court denied the motion, but the Supreme Court of Massachusetts held that the motion should have been granted. In doing so the court noted, correctly, that an investigatory stop cannot be based on a mere hunch. However, the court acknowledged, “a combination of factors that are each innocent of themselves may, when taken together, amount to the requisite reasonable belief that a person has, is, or will commit a particular crime.”

The court noted, again correctly, that the victim’s description of the perpetrators was extremely vague. Besides, since the victim was not sure where the thieves went, and since nearly 30 minutes had elapsed, it was hard to connect the location where Anjos first spotted Warren to the crime Anjos was investigating.

Based on those facts alone, the officers would not have reasonable suspicion to tie Warren to the crime. Warren would have been well within his rights to tell the officer that he didn’t want to speak to him and to walk away. Yet that is not what Warren did.

Instead, Warren made eye contact with the officer and then hightailed it out of there, grabbing for his right pants pocket in the process. Would that be enough to justify an investigatory stop? Not according to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which stated, “Where a suspect is under no obligation to respond to a police officer’s inquiry, we are of the view that flight to avoid that contact should be given little, if any, weight as a factor probative of reasonable suspicion.”

Noting that African-Americans are involved in a higher percentage of police-civilian encounters relative to their percentage of the city’s population, the court cited a study by the American Civil Liberties Union and an older internal study by the Boston Police Department.

According to Boston Police Commissioner Bill Evans, the latter study did not indicate any bias by the Boston police who were, and are, targeting high-crime areas. It is sadly a fact that violent crime rates are much higher in communities of color in and around the Boston area.

The court stated:

The finding that black males in Boston are disproportionately and repeatedly targeted for FIO encounters suggests a reason for flight totally unrelated to consciousness of guilt. Such an individual, when approached by the police, might just as easily be motivated by the desire to avoid the recurring indignity of being racially profiled as by the desire to hide criminal activity.

So what is a police officer to do when he wants to ask someone a question, and the person simply runs away? Well, according to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, if the person doing the running is African-American and the officer does not have solid evidence tying that person to a crime, the answer is: nothing.

As has been noted, there is a lot of tension between police officers and many members of the African-American community. This is regrettable, to be sure, but asking the police to blink at reality and ignore what they see happening right in front of them is a bridge too far.

As far back as 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court in Allen v. United States stated that “the law is entirely well settled that the flight of the accused is competent evidence against him as having a tendency to establish his guilt.”

The natural and eminently reasonable reaction of police officers, indeed of most people, is that unprovoked flight by an individual who encounters a police officer strongly suggests that the fleeing individual is connected to criminal activity that has been or is about to be committed. At the very least, the inferences that can be drawn from such flight should be enough to establish reasonable suspicion to support an investigatory stop.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court’s opinion will only serve to exacerbate racial tension and will handcuff the police in their attempts to rein in the crime epidemic that many of our inner cities are currently experiencing.

Original report here


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A good cop story



As its name might suggest, Industrial Way is not known for being pedestrian-friendly.

The road in the Northern California city of Benicia is lined with trucking companies, warehouses and metal-finishing factories. As it curves north, before it turns into Channel Road, the street cuts under busy Interstate 680.

So when Cpl. Kirk Keffer of the Benicia Police Department spotted a lone, lanky teenager walking on Industrial Way during the graveyard shift a few Saturdays ago, he was curious. It was after 11 p.m. and dark outside, and the boy was just nearing the highway overpass.

“Usually in the industrial area, there’s no foot traffic, so it was kind of weird to see someone walking around on foot,” Keffer told The Washington Post.

He stopped his patrol car, got out and called out to the pedestrian.  Was he okay? What was he doing out there by himself?

The teenager, 18-year-old Jourdan Duncan, was equally startled at first.  “I was absolutely nervous,” he said. “I thought, okay, um, did I do anything wrong? Is he going to put me in cuffs? I didn’t do anything bad.”

Duncan told Keffer he was walking back to his parents’ home in Vallejo. He had just gotten off from his job at Pro-Form Laboratories, where the teen worked on the packaging line from 3 p.m. until around midnight.

“Vallejo? That’s like seven miles away,” Keffer said he remembered saying to Duncan.

Soon, he had cleared out the passenger seat in his patrol car and offered Duncan a ride home.

On the drive, Keffer asked the teen more questions. Why Benicia? Why not drive to work? He was agog that anybody would walk more than two hours each way, every day.

Duncan explained that he had just graduated from Jesse Bethel High School the year before. He had gotten a job at Pro-Form Laboratories in May, and enjoyed being around his co-workers. He was saving money for college, he said — but really wanted to be an officer with the California Highway Patrol, to follow in the footsteps of some relatives who were in law enforcement.

When the timing belt and an engine valve on his 2001 Volvo broke in July, Duncan got a few rides from friends and co-workers, but soon decided he would try to walk to avoid burdening others.

“I didn’t want to always call somebody and be like, ‘Hey, can you pick me up?’ ” he said. “That would have took a lot of people’s time.”
Jourdan Duncan and Benicia Police Cpl. Kirk Keffer. © Benicia Police Department Jourdan Duncan and Benicia Police Cpl. Kirk Keffer.

Duncan never told his parents he started walking. (“They thought I was getting rides every day,” he admits.) The first time he plotted out a walkable route on Google Maps, it spit out an estimated commute time of 2 hours and 15 minutes.

“This is going to be a long walk,” Duncan thought. On his first day going to work by foot, he didn’t know what to expect. “The whole way there I just had my earphones in, kept quiet and I just power-walked the whole way.”

That was in July. Gradually, the foot commute grew easier for him. “The walk now, it’s not a problem for me,” he said.

By the time Keffer pulled up to Duncan’s parents’ house that night — all of 15 minutes later, by car — the police officer was impressed. Most people won’t even walk down to the store, he joked.

“I was just like, wow, Jourdan, that’s really impressive, your dedication and your hard work,” Keffer said. “At age 18, that’s a good work ethic to have, and I said, you know, I admire that. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

They parted ways and Keffer returned to the police department in Benicia. Still, he couldn’t get Duncan’s commute out of his head. He mentioned his interaction to his shift supervisor, who, like Keffer, happened to be a board member of the Benicia Police Officers’ Association.

“So I hit him up and say, ‘I just had this contact with this young man,’ ” Keffer said. ” ‘He’s walking five hours a day, and I think it should be rewarded. What if we help him out?’ ”

They emailed the rest of the board to seek approval to buy a bicycle. It was, he said, one of the fastest votes they’ve ever taken: Within an hour, enough board members wrote back in agreement. And so, the following day, Keffer visited Wheels in Motion, a local bike shop.

He was looking for a good mountain bike, Keffer explained to the owner. Something with a reliable gearing system that could handle Benicia’s steep hills. The longtime shop owner, Greg Andrade, helped him pick out a $500 Giant-brand bicycle — and loved the teen’s story so much that he also donated a lighting system, brake light and helmet.

The only matter left was how to surprise Duncan.

Keffer looked up Pro-Form Laboratories and dialed the company, asking for Duncan’s boss. Then, he explained their encounter the night before. Was Jourdan scheduled to work Monday? Would they mind if a few officers stopped by the warehouse to surprise him with something?

That Monday night, Sept. 19, Duncan’s supervisor called him out and told him to go outside. Some policemen were waiting for him.

Once again, Duncan was taken aback. His boss assured him he was not in trouble.

Outside, he spotted Keffer, along with some other Benicia police officers.

“‘We have something for you,'” he said they told him, pulling the bicycle out from behind a car. “‘This is your bike’ … I was like, wait, what? Is this some kind of trick?”

The bike was a token of their gratitude, the officers said.

“We would like to acknowledge your hard work and dedication for what you do and setting the example for kids your age,” Keffer said they told him. “Hopefully this’ll make your trip easier.”

Duncan said he was bowled over by the gift, but also stymied by the attention. Several local news stations wanted him on their shows. Normally reserved, he shyly agreed to talk to all of them — “I was so nervous; I’ve never been on TV” — but couldn’t help but think: They want to interview me for walking?

“The walk isn’t hard,” he said. “It’s like a challenge. To me, it was like a challenge to see if I was willing to do whatever it takes to get to work.”

Keffer said that was precisely what moved him to do something for Duncan. And Duncan said the bicycle has made him “feel more at ease” with his commute, which has now been cut down to an hour.

Duncan said he and Keffer are keeping in touch, and that Keffer has offered to take him on a ride-along so he can get a better idea of what being a police officer is all about.

“It’s something I’ve been interested in since high school. A lot of my family members, they’re in law enforcement,” Duncan said. “It’s like, what they do and, due to a lot of people thinking that there are bad cops out there, I want to prove that all cops aren’t bad — which is true, due to what just happened to me.”

Original report here


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British dickless Tracy is thrown out of the job after she was caught on CCTV attacking two McDonald’s customers following a late night drunken row

An off-duty policewoman who was caught on CCTV attacking two customers in a late night row at McDonald’s has been thrown out of the profession.

PC Karen Fraser identified herself to colleagues after police were called to a fight at the fast food joint in Empire Way, close to Wembley Stadium, in London at 2am on December 6, 2015.

Fraser claimed her memory of the incident was clouded by drink. But an examination of the CCTV actually showed her as the aggressor in the brawl.

She could be seen punching one man, swinging and slapping at another and scratching a third.

The probationer, having acted as a constable since September of that year, initially provided no further assistance in an interview at Wembley Police Station on December 10. But in a second interview three months later she accepted her behaviour could have been seen as threatening and accepted a caution before apologising.

Fraser, attached to Barnet Borough, faced a Metropolitan Police Misconduct Hearing yesterday to answer charges that her actions had breached the standards of professional behaviour.

Assistant Commissioner Helen King said: ‘Your conduct falls significantly below what is expected from police officers.

‘This is a breach of the standards of professional behaviour relating to honesty and integrity and discreditable conduct.

‘Your conduct amounts to gross misconduct and the breaches are considered to be so serious as to justify your dismissal.’

AC King duly found the allegations against Fraser proven.

PC Andy Wrigley, appearing of Fraser’s behalf, told the tribunal Fraser had offered to resign before the hearing took place.

‘PC Fraser would like to apologise for any embarrassment she has caused to the Metropolitan Police Service,’ he said.

‘She understands the proceedings that we are going through today and she does apologise unreservedly.’

The tribunal heard that Fraser had previously worked as a PCSO from 2008 through to September 2015.

But AC King said that her behaviour was exactly the type which drained police resources and the ‘night-time economy’.

‘Off-duty officers are expected not to contribute to the level of violence their on-duty colleagues are dealing with,’ she added.

‘She then continued her actions by volunteering herself as a witness by providing a statement that contained a number of omissions.’

The Assistant Commissioner finished by ruling Fraser’s actions had ‘undermined her ability to be put forward as a witness in criminal proceedings in the future’.

PC Fraser, who was not present but represented at the hearing, accepted breaching the standards of professional behaviour in relation to honesty and integrity as well as discreditable conduct.

She was dismissed without notice for gross misconduct.

Original report here


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Encounter With 'Erratic' Black Man Ends With Officer-Involved Shooting in El Cajon: PD

He put his hand in his pocket, pulled out an object and pointed it at police, effectively committing suicide

A black man was shot in an encounter with El Cajon Police Tuesday, multiple witnesses said, while a woman wailed nearby, demanding to know why police shot her brother.

Hours later, police officers told NBC 7 San Diego the man, now identified as Alfred Olango, was acting erratically and failed to comply, although they did not release details on the specific threat he presented to officers.

The community is approximately 30 miles east of downtown San Diego.

One witness recalled seeing an officer fire five rounds. Another man said police fired Olango who had his hands out to his side. A manager inside a nearby restaurant said he refused to remove his arms from his side. Police said witness video showed Olango did not have his hands in the air.

Witnesses questioned the police motives in the shooting. Crowds gathering by the scene of the shooting began chanting, demanding answers from police.

One witness at a local restaurant told NBC 7 police came and took away their phones following the incident.

"I didn’t hear any command ‘Halt’, ‘Stop’ or ‘I’ll shoot,’" said one witness identified as George. "I didn’t hear any command or yelling. I didn’t hear the man say anything. Next thing I see ‘Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow’ – five shots.”

Police Shot El Cajon Suspect Minutes After Arriving at Scene

El Cajon Police spokesman Rob Ransweiler said police responded to a radio call of a 30-year-old "erratic subject."

Ransweiler said, Olango did not comply but would not say if the man had a weapon. "I have the information," Ransweiler said. "It’s an ongoing investigation, so I’m not releasing details of the investigation.”

One video posted to FB shows a woman, identified as Olango's sister, crying. In the video, she’s heard saying: “I called you to help me but you killed my brother.”  “Why couldn’t you guys tase him? Why, why, why, why?” the woman cries out.

Michael Ray Rodriguez witnessed the shooting as it unfolded right in front of him. “When I seen the suspect, he had his hands up,” Rodriguez said holding his arms out to the side. "I seen two officers with their firearm on him." "The man’s hands are up. No shirt," he added. "He didn’t have no shirt."

The suspect's sister said she was encouraging her brother to do what police were telling him to do; she indicated to NBC 7 that her brother was not showing his hands.  Police said witness video showed Olango did not have his hands in the air.

Original report here


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St Louis cop accused of planting a gun on a black man he shot

Jason Stockley, now 35, was charged in May with first-degree murder for the December 2011 shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, 24, who was initially stopped on suspicion of taking part in a drug deal.

Smith drove off, causing a car chase that ended with Stockley shooting the man five times with his own personal AK-47-style rifle, equipped with a high-capacity drum magazine, KPLR 11 reported.

The footage, which was dropped off by an unknown party at the station, is shot from two cameras inside Stockley's car: one showing the view through the windscreen, another showing the rear seat.

It begins with Stockley, who is the car's passenger, exiting the car, which is in a Church's Chicken parking lot, with his personal rifle - in contravention of department policy.

He walks over to Smith's car, which drives away fast, brushing by him, over a sidewalk corner.

CCTV footage of the event shared by the St Louis Post-Dispatch shows that Smith had hit the police SUV while trying to reverse away.

Prosecutors say Stockley fired his department-issued handgun at Smith as he drove away, but as there is no audio on this part of the footage, this cannot be confirmed.

Stockley then returns to the car. Audio on the interior cameras begins as he calls in 'Shots fired' and a high-speed chase begins.

The cops exceed 80mph on wet roads, with driver Brian Bianchi at one point missing a corner and hitting a tree full on.

Audio is unclear, but prosecutors say that during the pursuit Stockley shouted '...going to kill this mother-f****r, don't you know it.'

Toward the end of the video Smith slows and swings toward the sidewalk, at which point Stockley says 'Hit it' and the cop car slams into the back of Smith.

Stockley and Bianchi then exit the vehicle and surround the car, with Stockley firing five times into the car with a pistol, hitting Smith with each shot.

The shooting was originally ruled justified after a .38-caliber Taurus revolver was found on Smith's body, but prosecutors claim the gun only had Stockley's DNA on it.

That allegation casts the final scene of the video - in which Stockley returns to his vehicle and appears to rummage through bags in the back before returning to Smith's vehicle - in a curious light. The video ends there.

But footage recorded on a cell phone by a witness shows the details around that moment.

Police remove Smith - who appears dead - from the car and laying him on the road; Stockley walks away to talk to other officers before returning to his police SUV.

After rummaging in the car, he then returns to Smith's vehicle before getting into the driver's seat. It's claimed that he found the revolver there.

Stockley was known to have unloaded the gun, possibly explaining the DNA, and his lawyer says he was looking for a clot pack to stanch Smith's bleeding.

But Smith's fiancée told the St Louis Post-Dispatch that she believed he planted the gun on Smith. 'Anthony didn't have a gun with him that day, and if he had a gun, it wouldn't be that revolver,' she said. 'That's just not a gun that any young guy is going to carry.'

Prosecutors haven't made the same claim, but say Stockley's DNA was confirmed by lab analysis.

Although the shooting took place in December 2011, it was only on May 16 of this year that circuit attorney Jennifer Joyce charged him with first-degree murder.

The police chief at the time of the shooting, Dan Isom, said on May 18 his investigators gave Joyce's office evidence years ago.

'Police reports, forensic analysis, video and the autopsy have been available for four years, however the circuit attorney in a criminal investigation had not reviewed any of this information until three weeks ago,' he said. 'There is no new information that was not known four years ago or discovered by the current chief.'

Joyce said police only involved her in the case in 2012, and questioned why Stockley stayed on the force until he left in 2013 if Isom was concerned.

'There is a lot of evidence we have, including witness statements that were developed after (Isom) left the police department that he would have no knowledge of,' she added. 'He's just speculating as to what we're looking at.'

A federal judge has prohibited release of the videos and police reports by lawyers who obtained it as part of a civil case in which the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners paid a $900,000 settlement for Smith's young daughter.

Stockley is currently free on a $1million bond secured by the St Louis Police Officers' Association. Bianchi was not accused of wrongdoing and is still on the force.

Original report here


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Mass: Braintree Police Chief Russell Jenkins resigns under cloud

Braintree Police Chief Russell Jenkins, whose department is under investigation for an evidence room scandal that could compromise hundreds of drug cases, will retire early next month at the urging of the town’s mayor, officials said Thursday.

“Clearly, this is not the way I wanted to end my career, but the mayor wants new leadership and I serve at his pleasure,” Jenkins wrote in an e-mail sent to the police department late Wednesday night.

Jenkins’ leadership has come under question after an independent audit, made public last week, found that more than $400,000 in cash, between 60 and 70 guns, and thousands of drug samples had gone missing from the evidence room since 1999.

Evidence Officer Susan Zopatti fatally shot herself in May, a week after the auditor met with her for the first time. When the auditor examined the evidence room, he found bags of drugs and cash torn open, with large amounts missing. Two guns were recovered from Zopatti’s home.

The attorney general’s office is investigating. Police have recovered most of the guns and about $140,000 of the cash.

Drugs, guns, and $400,000 missing from Braintree police
An audit found that heat-sealed drug bags were cut, bags of cash were sliced open, and at least 60 guns had disappeared.

In a statement, Braintree Mayor Joseph C. Sullivan said he had accepted Jenkins’s retirement. He did not discuss the circumstances of his departure.

“I appreciate and commend his nearly 34 years in the Braintree Police Department and the community of Braintree,” Sullivan said. “I wish him and his family well.”

Through a spokesman, Sullivan declined to comment further.

In a statement, Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey said the problems uncovered by the audit “mandate changes.”

“Today’s announcement is an important step forward,” he wrote. “The Norfolk DA’s Office will work with new leadership as we continue to assure the rights of defendants.”

In his announcement, Jenkins said he would have preferred to remain in the department to oversee the implementation of new policies for the evidence room, but intended to focus on the positive parts of his career and “block out” the negatives.

“I have said before that haters will hate,” he said. “But by and large we have the support of our community. They continue to believe in us and depend on us.”

So far, 32 drug cases have been dismissed because of tainted evidence, according to Morrissey’s office. But the final tally will likely be much higher.

“I think we have to wait for a real complete investigation to determine what was going on there to determine what other kinds of evidence could have been tainted,” said Nancy Bennett, deputy chief counsel at the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the state’s public defender agency. “There’s so much missing. If you look at the audit, thousands of pieces of evidence.”

While the audit suggests that much of the missing criminal evidence may have been disposed of in undocumented “purges” conducted in 2009 and 2012, Bennett noted that there is no proof either way. Zopatti took over in the evidence room in 2013, and evidence continued to vanish.

Bennett said it “remains to be seen” whether every case that involved the evidence room is tainted.

“I think in a way it’s good that this problem has come to light because what was worse was the people who believed that they were getting justice and their cases were being fairly handled,” she said.

Bruce Gordon, a retired State Police major who runs Narcotics Audit Solutions and conducted the Braintree audit, said most departments have never had their evidence rooms assessed.

“It’s a ticking time bomb,” he said. “You can’t bury your head in the sand. Either your evidence is OK or it’s not. And if it’s not, fix it.”

Gordon credited Braintree’s mayor and police chief and Morrissey for reacting swiftly after receiving the audit results.

“Departments should be paying attention to their evidence,” Gordon said. “That’s what convicts people, takes their liberty away, and frees them. It has to be a priority, done by people willing to do the job and given the time to do it.”

“There are a lot of hard-working and honest cops who risk their lives to make arrests,” Gordon added. “It’s a tragedy these cases are going to be thrown out.”

Town Councilor Charles C. Kokoros, who heads Braintree’s public safety committee, praised Jenkins for his four-year tenure as chief.

“He’s been a great community police chief, he’s been a great police officer over the years,” he said. “He’s a great person and a family guy and a great part of the community, and I wish him a great retirement.”

Councilor John C. Mullaney defended Jenkins, saying he did not believe his abrupt departure was justified.

“Chief Jenkins has a long history in the department; he was an exceptional person. I do not think that the condition of that department was his fault alone,” he said.

It was Jenkins who requested the audit, Mullaney pointed out, and he moved to correct the problem. But Mullaney acknowledged that Jenkins should have noticed something was amiss sooner.

“I have always believed that when a mistake is made, the person who can best correct the mistake is the person who is working there, not by bringing in a new person,” he said.

Original report here



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Sacramento police release dash-cam video of black homeless man's fatal shooting as it's revealed that cops fired 18 times at meth-addled former corrections officer

It's all  very easy to say that cops should go easy on mentally ill and drug affected people but it is precisely those people who are most unpredictable -- and therefore not  very susceptible to normal procedures.  Public safety requires such people to be treated LESS indulgently


Sacramento police released more details Tuesday about the summer fatal police shooting of a homeless man, including videos of the incident.

Under pressure from members of the city council and the mayor to provide more information about the shooting, Police Chief Sam Somers revealed Tuesday that officers fired 18 shots, 14 of which struck 50-year-old Joseph Mann on July 11.

Police released video footage taken from three police dashboard cameras and one from surveillance at a nearby business. The images show Mann running down a brightly lit street, gesturing toward officers, before he is gunned down by two officers. The officers remain on desk duty rather than patrol, Somers said.

Previously released video shot by a bystander shows Mann interacting with police before the shooting, doing karate moves in the middle of a street, and zigzagging as he walked.

As other police shootings have drawn scrutiny and protests nationwide, Sacramento police have faced criticism over the shooting, and Mann's family has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging that police should not have used lethal force because Mann showed overt signs he was in the midst of a mental crisis.

'It's unprecedented for us to release video prior to the adjudication process,' Somers told reporters. 'There are times that we're in today, sometimes it's important that we come out with this video or this audio.'

Members of the city council and the mayor have demanded to see the footage themselves, and were scheduled to view it Tuesday evening.

Police also released 911 emergency recordings, Tuesday, in which one caller said Mann waved a knife in the air. Another said he pulled a gun out of his pocket. Callers also speculated that Mann appeared to be mentally ill.

From another police car, Mann is  seen running at officers in a deranged manner

The chief says no gun was located, although police found a knife.

Somers said a specialized team that is able to assist officers with mentally ill subjects was not called out. But he said a toxicology screening that recently came back shows Mann also had methamphetamine in his system.

'It's not only individuals that are mentally impaired, but also chemically impaired,' police are dealing with, he said.

Family members described Mann as a college graduate who was smart, loved politics and economics, and succeeded in several careers before deteriorating into mental illness about five years ago. They said he had been living on the streets before his death.

Attorney John Burris said the family was relieved that police released the footage Tuesday, though they would like it to have been done sooner, to mitigate 'against some of the grief that the family has suffered.'

He said even if Mann had methamphetamine in his system, he was acting bizarrely and police should not have used lethal force.

'There was nothing about his conduct that suggested he should have been shot multiple times,' Burris said. 'Any reasonable police officer should have noticed that he was mentally impaired.'

Original report here


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British army hero wins £5,000 compensation 'after her breasts were exposed in wrongful arrest by officers probing alleged abuses by UK troops in Iraq'

An ex-Army officer has won £5,000 compensation after her breasts were allegedly exposed in a wrongful arrest by officers investigating historical abuses by UK troops.

Rachel Webster, once praised by former prime minister Tony Blair for her efforts in Iraq, was left 'shocked' by the rough way she was restrained in her own home.

She branded her treatment as 'tantamount to being kidnapped by the state' and felt 'humiliated' by the ordeal.

The 48-year-old also claimed she was later denied access to the toilet when she became unwell, according to Claire Newell and Ben Farmer at the Daily Telegraph.

Ms Webster's payout is understood to be the first time the Ministry of Defence has offered compensation to serving or former personnel affected by its inquiries into alleged abuses.

Dating back more than a decade, the investigations have proved controversial and details of this case will only serve to raise more questions about the conduct of the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT).

MP Johnny Mercer, a former soldier, told the Telegraph: 'The whole thing is a disgrace. I am ashamed that the Government and MoD is continuing to treat soldiers who have served this country in this manner.'

Ms Webster was initially contacted by IHAT officers in October 2013. She was asked to give a witness statement about the activities of a former colleague but declined.

Three months later she was arrested following a dawn raid on her home on suspicion of misconduct in a public office. After being detained for hours of questioning she was released without charge.

Ms Webster, originally from Brigg in north Lincolnshire, served in the Army for 24 years. She joined in 1989 and rose to the rank of Captain.

In 1999, while a corporal serving in central Kosovo, she was given an award for her role in maintaining law and order and shutting down an illegal police station.

Four years later, while serving in Iraq, Sgt Webster met Tony Blair when he visited Basra soon after the invasion. She left the Army in 2013 and now works in finance.

Ms Webster said in a statement: 'Since my arrest I have waited over two years to clear my name.  'It's finally over and I can move on. Justice does prevail but at what cost!'

The MoD denies Ms Webster was prevented from using a toilet but a spokeswoman said: 'A compensation claim made following an arrest in 2014 has been settled.

'When claims are received they are considered on the basis of whether or not the MOD has a legal liability to pay. Where there is a proven legal liability, compensation is paid.'

Original report here


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Mass: Chief defends officer in Back Bay pedestrian case

Boston Police Commissioner William B. Evans said Tuesday that a man in a confrontation with an off-duty police officer that was captured on video in the Back Bay this spring “wasn’t violently tackled, his head wasn’t slammed to the ground, and his hair wasn’t pulled.”

Evans, addressing a high-profile encounter on one of Boston’s busiest streets, said there were “minor issues” with the officer’s actions, and “there will be some counseling,” but no penalties.

He said most witnesses and the man involved told investigators that the man had tripped on his own and fallen to the pavement and that the officer had held, rather than slammed, his face to the ground. He said that the officer “clearly believed that his [car] window was, in fact, broken by the victim.”

“An off-duty officer has every right to activate himself” to pursue a suspect, Evans said at a news conference. “That’s what he did here. . . . If someone commits a crime, I expect my officers to act.”

But the lawyer for the man said the officer was not justified in chasing and arresting his client.

“If you’re training your officers to jump on people . . . that’s worrisome, because no crime was committed,” said Carl Williams of the ACLU of Massachusetts.

The May 24 incident, recorded on video by an onlooker and posted online, showed Officer Edward P. Barrett on top of a pedestrian with his knee on the man’s back. Barrett, who was at the time assigned to West Roxbury, was wearing a red-colored Red Sox jersey and what appeared to be his uniform pants, but no badge was visible, the video shows.

The confrontation allegedly began when the pedestrian, Milton Gurin, struck Barrett’s vehicle with an umbrella as the officer turned onto Arlington Street.

Stephen Harlowe, 47, who recorded the confrontation, told reporters soon after the encounter that Barrett chased Gurin down the street, jumped on him, and slammed his head into the ground after Gurin hit Barrett’s car.

Evans said Tuesday that Harlowe’s statements were contradicted by other witnesses and by Gurin himself.

Superintendent Frank Mancini chief of the Bureau of Professional Standards, which includes the Internal Affairs Unit, said during the briefing that separate images from video surveillance show a different story.

Mancini said Barrett pursued Gurin and was attempting to make what he thought was a “felony arrest” for willful destruction of property. He said the video showed Barrett with his knee on Gurin’s back and his hands on him, in compliance with academy training for apprehending a suspect on the ground.

In the video, Barrett is seen pulling Gurin, who was 64 at the time, up by his shirt collar and walking him several blocks to Arlington and Boylston streets, where the encounter had begun. He could be heard telling Gurin that he was under arrest.

According to the police report, Barrett told police he had a green light as he turned right onto Arlington Street in his personal vehicle, when the pedestrian “struck his vehicle’s right rear driver’s side window as he was crossing illegally against the green light.”

Gurin told police that Barrett “did have a green signal, but he was upset that [the officer] did not allow him to cross ahead of him and struck the window with his umbrella.”

According to the report, “a large vertical scratch was initially visible but was able to be wiped from the surface of the glass.”

Evans conceded that a supervising officer should have been called during the incident.

He and Mancini said responding officers acted properly by letting Gurin go without charging him once they determined the window had not been broken.

Williams, Gurin’s lawyer, blasted the findings of the internal investigation and said Evans’s news conference resembled “a witch trial” of his client.

“To say that there was probable cause to arrest [Gurin] is laughable,” Williams said with Gurin standing at his side.

Williams said Gurin tapped Barrett’s window with a “very small, plastic umbrella” out of shock and started running only “because someone was yelling at him” and he became fearful.

“The idea that Mr. Gurin hit the window and . . . ran is completely untrue,” he said. Williams conceded that Gurin tripped but blamed Barrett for Gurin’s injuries, saying that “without being chased, Mr. Gurin wouldn’t have any injuries.”

Asked about the possibility that Gurin might file a lawsuit, Williams said that “currently . . . there’s no lawsuit filed.” He declined to say whether his client would bring a civil action in the future.

Williams acknowledged that Gurin had crossed the street against the traffic signal but said it was “terrifying” that police officials believe Barrett responded appropriately.

He also expressed concern that their the police officials’ criticism of Gurin and Harlowe may “embolden police to do more physically harmful activities to Boston civilians.” Gurin declined to comment during a press conference outside police headquarters, telling reporters only that “Carl is speaking on behalf of me.”

Police officials said Tuesday that during the internal review, two people unknown to each other contacted investigators and implicated Gurin in two prior incidents in which they were accosted in their vehicles by a pedestrian in downtown Boston.

Williams denied those allegations outside police headquarters. “That could have been some random person who said ‘let’s get this guy in trouble,’ ” Williams said.

Evans described Barrett as a “top-notch officer” who is highly rated by his supervisors.

Barrett, a 20-year veteran of the force, had been investigated twice before on allegations of using excessive force. In 2005 and 2006, the Police Department investigated use-of-force complaints against Barrett and determined that one of the alleged incidents did not occur and that Barrett did not act improperly during the other.

Original report here


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