General Police Abuse Thread

[Raw Shark]

If I pointed a gun at somebody in a road rage incident, what do you think I'd be charged with?

Aggravated Assault sounds about right, actually. Drawing the gun in a confrontation where it doesn't get fired is assault, and pointing it at the victim makes it aggravated. This is what a (white) citizen would probably get charged with in the same situation.

[Dominus Atheos]

Officer who was fired for crashing a car while drunk is reinstated

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Richard Hoffman is being reinstated as a Bethlehem police officer, despite being fired last year for misconduct, including crashing his car while intoxicated.

An arbitrator ruled in favor of Hoffman last week, said Atty. Quintes Taglioli, who represents Bethlehem's Fraternal Order of Police.

Taglioli said the reinstatement comes with conditions, but he would not explain those conditions.

The union lawyer could not say if Hoffman has returned to work yet.

At about 3 a.m. on Aug, 8, 2013, the off-duty Hoffman flipped his car at the intersection of High and E. Broad streets in Bethlehem.

He was charged with careless driving and driving under the influence of alcohol, with a blood alcohol concentration of .16 percent -- twice the legal limit in Pennsylvania.

Hoffman was fired not only because of that traffic accident, but based on "overwhelming evidence" that he committed "numerous prior violations of police department directives."

Bethlehem City Council unanimously voted to fire Hoffman on March 18, 2014.

That termination was retroactive, taking effect Dec. 20, 2013.

That was the date City Council has been advised in writing by then City Solicitor John Spirk Jr. about Hoffman's misconduct and the police department's recommendation that he be terminated.

City Council determined the then 35-year-old police officer had violated the city's code of ethics and Bethlehem police department directives.

A six-page termination resolution passed by council included 36 "findings of fact" regarding the case against Hoffman.

On Wednesday, Police Chief Mark DiLuzio had no comment on Hoffman's reinstatement.

Staffers in the city solicitor's office also had no comment on the reinstatement, saying it's a personnel matter.

On the night Hoffman was fired, Taglioli said his termination would be litigated through the grievance procedure -- and go to arbitration -- under terms and conditions of the collective bargaining agreement that the police union, Bethlehem Lodge 20 of the Fraternal Order of Police, has with the city.

Read more from WFMZ.com at: http://www.wfmz.com/news/news-regional- ... d/31342052
Connect with us... Facebook/69WFMZ or @69News

[Kamakazie Sith]

If I pointed a gun at somebody in a road rage incident, what do you think I'd be charged with?

Aggravated Assault sounds about right, actually. Drawing the gun in a confrontation where it doesn't get fired is assault, and pointing it at the victim makes it aggravated. This is what a (white) citizen would probably get charged with in the same situation.

He was charged with aggravated assault but it was reduced in a plea deal. Why? We would have to know the details of the case.

[Dominus Atheos]

More information:

When former state legislator Armando Ruiz started his drive to Monday morning Mass, he never thought he'd be staring down the barrel of a gun.

But it was the man holding the gun who most terrified Ruiz and his passenger, fellow churchgoer Monica Rivera.

"I thought … 'Oh my God, this is a police officer. He's trained to shoot to kill,'" Ruiz said.

That police officer, 51-year-old Jeremy Sweet, was arrested Tuesday night and remained behind bars Wednesday at the Lower Buckeye Jail. He was being held on one count of aggravated assault, a Class 3 felony.

Ruiz spent nine years in the state House of Representatives and a year in the Senate in the 1980s and early '90s, but he left politics behind in 1992 to take a job as executive director of the South Mountain YMCA.

Ruiz said the Monday incident started after Sweet, who according to police was transporting jail inmates inside an unmarked van, cut him off as the two vehicles were driving northbound on Central Avenue near Hadley Street.

Ruiz swerved to the left to avoid a crash and honked his horn, which he said triggered a game of cat and mouse on the road. That's where Ruiz's and Sweet's versions of events start to differ, records show.

According to Ruiz, Sweet slowed down to about 10 miles per hour, and Ruiz passed him.

That's when Sweet, according to Ruiz, attempted to "ram" his vehicle and Ruiz accelerated.

A chase ensued, and the van pulled around Ruiz's vehicle and drove into its path, forcing Ruiz to stop.

Ruiz said Sweet, looking enraged, then trained a handgun on them through the van's passenger-side window.

Ruiz said he put his hands in the air, and Rivera said she started to pray.

"He's going to kill us," Rivera recalled thinking.

Ruiz said Sweet held them at gunpoint for what seemed like two minutes, but he said nothing and didn't identify himself as an officer.

Ruiz eventually noticed Sweet was wearing a badge and other police insignia.

"I thought… 'Oh my God, this is a police officer. He's trained to shoot to kill,'" Ruiz said.

Ruiz said Sweet seemed to be looking for a reason to shoot him and "he just couldn't figure out what else to do, I think, at that point."

Finally, Sweet said, "Be careful who you honk at the next time," before he drove away, according to Ruiz.

Ruiz took down the van's license plate and called 911.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/loc ... /18143917/

[Dominus Atheos]

Charges crumble after cell phone video uncovered

WASHINGTON PARISH, La. -- One of the worst days of Douglas Dendinger's life began with him handing an envelope to a police officer.

In order to help out his family and earn a quick $50, Dendinger agreed to act as a process server, giving a brutality lawsuit filed by his nephew to Chad Cassard as the former Bogalusa police officer exited the Washington Parish Courthouse.

The handoff went smoothly, but Dendinger said the reaction from Cassard, and a group of officers and attorneys clustered around him, turned his life upside down.

"It was like sticking a stick in a bee's nest." Dendinger, 47, recalled. "They started cursing me. They threw the summons at me. Right at my face, but it fell short. Vulgarities. I just didn't know what to think. I was a little shocked."

Not knowing what to make of the blow-up, a puzzled Dendinger drove home. That's where things went from bad to worse.

"Within about 20 minutes, there were these bright lights shining through my windows. It was like, 'Oh my God.' I mean I knew immediately, a police car."

"And that's when the nightmare started," he said. "I was arrested."

A 'living hell'

He was booked with simple battery, along with two felonies: obstruction of justice and intimidating a witness, both of which carry a maximum of 20 years in prison. Because of a prior felony cocaine conviction, Dendinger calculated that he could be hit with 80 years behind bars as a multiple offender.

That kicked off two years of a "living hell," as Dendinger described it, a period that is now the subject of Dendinger's federal civil rights lawsuit against the officers, attorneys and former St. Tammany District Attorney Walter Reed.

In a scene described in the lawsuit, Dendinger recounted a nervous night handcuffed to a rail at the Washington Parish Jail. He said he was jeered by officers, including Bogalusa Police Chief Joe Culpepper, who whistled the ominous theme song from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

After his family posted bail, he said he was hopeful that the matter would be exposed as a big misunderstanding. After all, he thought, a group of police officers and two St. Tammany prosecutors witnessed the event.

"When I agreed to do it, I felt it was nothing more than someone asking to pick up a gallon of milk at the convenience store on the way home," Dendinger said. "I know I didn't anything wrong. I was worried, but people told me, 'Cooler heads will prevail.' "

But instead of going away, the case escalated.

Supported by two of his prosecutors who were at the scene, Reed formally charged Dendinger. Both prosecutors, Julie Knight and Leigh Anne Wall, gave statements to the Washington Parish Sheriff's Office implicating Dendinger.

With the bill of information, Dendinger's attorney Philip Kaplan said he got a bad feeling.

"It wasn't fun and games," Kaplan said. "They had a plan. The plan was to really go after him a put him away. That's scary."

The case file that was handed to Reed and his office was bolstered by seven witness statements given to Washington Parish deputies, including the two from Reed's prosecutors.

In her statement to deputies, contained in a police report, Knight stated, "We could hear the slap as he hit Cassard's chest with an envelope of papers…This was done in a manner to threaten and intimidate everyone involved."

Casssard, in his statement, told deputies, Dendinger "slapped me in the chest."

Washington Parish court attorney Pamela Legendre said "it made such a noise," she thought the officer "had been punched."

Police Chief Culpepper gave a police statement that he witnessed the battery, but in a deposition he said, "I wasn't out there." But that didn't stop Culpepper from characterizing Dendinger's actions as "violence, force."

When Dendinger saw the police report, he said his reaction was strong and immediate.

"I realized even more at that moment: These people are trying to hurt me."

Critical evidence uncovered

What the officers and attorneys did not know was that Dendinger had one critical piece of evidence on his side: grainy cell phone videos shot by his wife and nephew. Dendinger said he thought of recording the scene at the last minute as a way of showing he had completed the task of serving the summons.

In the end, the two videos may have saved Dendinger from decades in prison. From what can be seen on the clips, Dendinger never touches Cassard, who calmly takes the envelope and walks back into the courthouse, handing Wall the envelope.

"He'd still be in a world of trouble if he didn't have that film," said David Cressy, a friend of Dendinger who once served as a prosecutor under Reed. "It was him against all of them. They took advantage of that and said all sorts of fictitious things happened. And it didn't happen. It would still be going like that had they not had the film."

Dendinger spent nearly a year waiting for trial, racking up attorney's fees. As a disabled Army veteran on a fixed income, Dendinger said the case stretched him financially, but in his eyes, he was fighting for his life.

After nearly a year passed, his attorneys forced Reed to recuse his office. The case was referred to the Louisiana Attorney General's Office, which promptly dropped the charges.

Rafael Goyeneche, president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission and himself a former prosecutor, studied the videos. He did not hesitate in his assessment.

"I didn't see a battery, certainly a battery committed that would warrant criminal charges," Goyeneche said. "And more importantly, the attorney general's office didn't see a battery."

Now the video is at the heart of a federal civil rights lawsuit against Reed, his two prosecutors Wall and Knight, the Bogalusa officers and Washington Parish Sheriff Randy "Country' Seal.

The suit seeks unspecified damages for a host of alleged Constitutional violations: false arrest, false imprisonment, fabricated evidence, perjury, and abuse of due process.

WWL-TV reached out to the defendants for comment, but only Sheriff Seal responded with a statement. He said, "We are confident that all claims against all WPSO deputies will be rejected and dismissed by the court."

Goyeneche said the legal troubles for some of the witnesses may go beyond the federal lawsuit.

"It's a felony to falsify a police report. And this is a police report. And this police report was the basis of charging this individual with serious crimes," Goyeneche said.

Cressy, who in addition to working under Reed served as the Mandeville city attorney for 15 years, said the lawyers involved in the case may have additional problems with legal ethics and the bar association.

"It was totally wrong, a 180-degree lie" Cressy said. "So, yeah, they're going to have problems, certainly the lawyers."

'An abuse of power'

Meanwhile, Dendinger's attorney Philip Kaplan continues to dig into the case with depositions and new evidence.

In a deposition taken by Kaplan, one Bogalusa police officer, Lt. Patrick Lyons, said he witnessed a battery that knocked Cassard back several feet. But the video shows him far in the distance with his back turned.

Two of the officers stated that Dendinger ran from the scene, although he said his disability makes running impossible.

Kaplan also points out what he thinks should be obvious: "If this was truly a battery on a police officer with police officers all around him, why isn't something happening right there? Why aren't they arresting him on the spot? This case is an abuse of power."

While Dendinger has been cleared of all charges, he still lives in Washington Parish and worries about what could happen next as he presses a high-stakes lawsuit against people who tried to lock him up.

"I didn't do anything wrong and I know they know I didn't do anything wrong," he said. "So I'm faced with the reality that these people purposely lied about something that could put me in prison for the rest of my life."

Recently elected St. Tammany District Attorney Warren Montgomery said he has conducted an independent investigation of the case, but declined comment because a lawsuit is pending.

However, as of this week, Wall no longer works at the office, Montgomery said. Knight is still employed there, he said.

http://www.wwltv.com/story/news/local/i ... /24039559/

Click the link and watch the video.

That’s all well and good. And Dendinger has since filed a federal civil rights lawsuit. I hope he collects.

But here’s my question: Why aren’t the seven witnesses to Dendinger’s nonexistent assault on Cassard already facing felony charges? Why are all but one of the cops who filed false reports still wearing badges and collecting paychecks? Why aren’t the attorneys who filed false reports facing disbarment? Dendinger’s prosecutors both filed false reports, then prosecuted Dendinger based on the reports they knew were false. They should be looking for new careers — after they get out of jail.

If a group of regular citizens had pulled this on someone, they’d all likely be facing criminal conspiracy charges on top of the perjury and other charges. So why aren’t these cops and prosecutors?

I could be wrong, but my guess is that they’ll all be let off due to “professional courtesy” or some sort of exercise of prosecutorial discretion. And so the people who ought to be held to a higher standard than the rest of us will once again be held to a lower one.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- ... the-video/

[Dominus Atheos]

So here is what appears to have been what happened, as best I can tell from the article: The police were part of a federal task force investigating unemployment fraud. The police learned the guy was collecting unemployment while making rap videos on the side. The police naturally respond by making a nighttime raid, and throwing flashbangs inside his house for apparently no reason. The man is asleep when the police announce "Police!" so he doesn't hear it.

The first thing he hears is a flashbang going off, followed by his mother screaming "I think we’re getting robbed. I think we’re getting robbed." The man grabs his gun and shoots a man he sees climbing over his fence into his backyard.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/c ... 35723.html

I am posting this outside of the police abuse thread because there is so much wrong with this story.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Because,m you know, People commit Unemployment fraud are Well known for being Violent Thugs who need FlashBangs thrown at them!!!

..

Seriously what is up with these sorts of cops using Flash bangs instead of... oh... Knocking on a door

[Thanas]

I will move this to the police abuse thread, there is nothing that differentiates it from other cases where raids go wrong due to police incompetence.

[Havok]

I don't have another source for this video...

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=468584923295075

[Havok]

Here's a website...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/grap ... tercation/

[bilateralrope]

I don't have another source for this video...

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=468584923295075

It's a bit depressing that my only thought when watching that video is wondering why the police don't seem to care about the camera that filmed the whole thing.

[Gandalf]

Perhaps they think it's easier to justify a shooting as opposed to a shooting followed by a confiscation of evidence?

[Kamakazie Sith]

I don't have another source for this video...

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=468584923295075

It's a bit depressing that my only thought when watching that video is wondering why the police don't seem to care about the camera that filmed the whole thing.

Uh why would they be concerned about someone filming them? "Time out! Excuse me, guy that is fighting us but there is a person filming us over there!". Besides, isn't that how they should be acting?

Source

In a dramatic confrontation caught on video, Los Angeles police shot and killed a homeless man in the heart of downtown's bustling skid row Sunday.

A video of the incident posted on Facebook (contains foul language) shows a group of officers getting into a scuffle with a man standing on a sidewalk littered with tents and other debris.

During the struggle, one officer drops his nightstick, which is picked up by a woman on the street. Two officers handcuff the woman.

The man continues to scuffle with four of the officers, even after he's wrestled to the ground. What appears to be one of the officers is heard saying "Drop the gun. Drop the gun."

Then, at least one of the officers opens fire on the man, who remained on the ground with at least two officers near him.

Five gunshots are heard on the recording.

Police have not identified the dead man or said how many officers were involved, or how many shots were fired. The man was declared dead at a hospital shortly after the shooting, which occurred about noon, according to police spokesman Sgt. Barry Montgomery.

The officers had responded to a robbery call in the 500 block of San Pedro Street, Montgomery said. He added that at one point during the struggle a Taser had been deployed, but investigators did not know if it was used on the man who was subsequently shot.

No officers were injured during the altercation, Montgomery said.

Witnesses at the scene identified the victim by his street name, “Africa”, and gave conflicting accounts of what they saw.

Dennis Horne, 29, said Africa had been fighting with someone else in his tent when police arrived.

When Africa refused to comply with a police order to come out of the tent, officers used the Taser on him and dragged him out, Horne said. The officers tackled Africa to the ground, where he continued to fight, which led to the fatal shooting, according to Horne.

“It's sad,” Horne said. “There's no justification to take somebody's life.”

Another witness, Lonnie Franklin, 53, said five to six officers pulled up in three to four cars as Africa was lying face down on the sidewalk. The officers approached with guns drawn yelling, ”Down, down,” according to Franklin.

When Africa got up and started fighting, the officers “went straight to lethal force,” Franklin said.

But Jose Gil, 38 , said he saw the man swinging at the police and then heard one of the officers say, “Gun, gun, he's got my gun!” before police fired multiple shots.

Another witness, who asked not to be identified, said the man punched and kicked the officers and reached for one of their service weapons before the officers fired at least seven times.

An area resident, who identified himself as Booker T. Washington, said police had come by repeatedly to ask Africa to take down his tent. People are allowed to sleep on the streets from 9 p.m to 6 a.m., but they are supposed to remove their tents in the daytime under a court agreement.

“This man got shot over a tent,” Washington said.

Ina Murphy, who lives in an apartment nearby, said Africa had arrived in the area about four or five months ago. He told her he had recently been released after spending 10 years in a mental facility, Murphy said.

Police Commission President Steve Soboroff first saw the video of the shooting via social media. He was watching it again when reached by a Times reporter Sunday evening, trying to hear what exactly the officers had said to the man.

"My heart just started pounding just watching it," Soboroff said. "I feel the adrenaline. These situations are just so horrific."

Soboroff said a key issue would be whether the man did in fact try to grab the officer's gun, as some witnesses have told reporters. Otherwise, he said, it's unclear what might have prompted the use of deadly force.

"To me, that would be the only explanation that something would happen that quickly," Soboroff said. "It escalated. It escalated right in front of our eyes."

He stressed that the LAPD, its independent inspector general and the district attorney's office would all investigate the shooting "very, very carefully."

"Of course I would encourage people not to rush to judgment. It's not fair to anybody. It's not fair to the family of the victim or the victim or the officers," he said. "We'll find out what happened."

Montgomery said Sunday evening that investigators were in the process of interviewing "loads of people" who were in the area at the time of the shooting. He said there would potentially be more video recordings of the incident, noting that he could see two surveillance cameras mounted on buildings at the scene.

It was still unclear how many officers fired their weapons or what was said to the man before he was shot, Montgomery said.

Montgomery said the video of the events leading up to the shooting appears to back the initial report that a Taser was used. He said the "click-click-click" sound that accompanies the use of the device can be heard on the recording.

According to a Times data analysis, there have been 12 fatal officer-involved shootings in downtown Los Angeles since 2000. There were none in 2014 and one in 2015 before Sunday's violence.

[bilateralrope]

I don't have another source for this video...

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=468584923295075

It's a bit depressing that my only thought when watching that video is wondering why the police don't seem to care about the camera that filmed the whole thing.

Uh why would they be concerned about someone filming them? "Time out! Excuse me, guy that is fighting us but there is a person filming us over there!". Besides, isn't that how they should be acting?

It's just all the other times I've heard where the police were unhappy about being filmed that made this one, where they don't seem to care, stand out.

[Havok]

Well it's LA. There are cameras everywhere. The LAPD have also been involved in some of the most infamous, famous and notorious videos of police brutality and heroics ever caught on tape, I'm sure they have been well versed in how to react and interact with cameras. Unfortunately they can't seem to practice that same restraint with people resisting arrest and just shoot them after they just tased them for like 10 seconds.

[bilateralrope]

Well it's LA. There are cameras everywhere. The LAPD have also been involved in some of the most infamous, famous and notorious videos of police brutality and heroics ever caught on tape, I'm sure they have been well versed in how to react and interact with cameras. Unfortunately they can't seem to practice that same restraint with people resisting arrest and just shoot them after they just tased them for like 10 seconds.

I'm not familiar with which US police department is known for what kind of behaviour. Ignoring the camera is how I would like the police to react to people filming them.

As for the shooting itself, I'm not sure what happened. If the victim did grab a police gun, then I'm not sure if the police had any other options but to kill him. If he didn't grab one of their guns, then there was no reason to shoot him. Hopefully the investigation reveals the truth.

[Kamakazie Sith]

It's just all the other times I've heard where the police were unhappy about being filmed that made this one, where they don't seem to care, stand out.

Cameras are becoming more common place not just in LA but everywhere and law enforcement agencies know this. That combined with significant court rulings on this specific issue mean the police do not have an excuse.

Well it's LA. There are cameras everywhere. The LAPD have also been involved in some of the most infamous, famous and notorious videos of police brutality and heroics ever caught on tape, I'm sure they have been well versed in how to react and interact with cameras. Unfortunately they can't seem to practice that same restraint with people resisting arrest and just shoot them after they just tased them for like 10 seconds.

Tasers don't always work and if he actually did manage to take an officers gun during that melee then the shooting is justified and will be ruled as such. Proving that did happen or did not happen will be extremely difficult and there's also the question of whether the officer who said "He's got my gun" meant that this guy managed to disarm him and was in possession of his firearm or was simply holding onto the firearm while it was in the holster.

[Dominus Atheos]

Asking America's Police Officers to Explain Abusive Cops

The radio show This American Life recently broadcast a number of stories on policing. They're collected in the episodes "Cops See It Differently," Part One and Part Two.

The episodes illuminate why police and their critics often see the same events very differently. For example, one anecdote concerns a man in the back of a police car who told his arresting officers that he was having trouble breathing. They ignored him. He died. Many who watched the video saw callous cops who placed no value on a human being's life. But police officers who watched the same tape saw two cops who thought that their seemingly healthy arrestee was faking, as so many people fabricate medical conditions to avoid being taken to jail.

These differences in perspective are useful to understand, even if one believes that a given incident is clearly the fault of the police or the person they're arresting.

In that spirit, I'd like to focus on "Inconvenience Store," the This American Life segment where the behavior of the police officers struck me as most difficult to comprehend. I'll relay what happened to a man named Earl Sampson in Miami Gardens, Florida, and invite any willing police officers to write in with their thoughts.

Most of the action takes place at a Quickstop convenience store. Back in 2008, police approached its owner, Alex Saleh. Did he want to make the Quickstop part of "The Zero-Tolerance Zone Trespassing Program"? Saleh said that he was "pro-police, pro-cop," and agreed. A sign to that effect was posted in the parking lot.

But soon, he says, cops started harassing his customers, especially the black ones, when they were doing nothing more than standing in line waiting to make a purchase. Set that aside. Our interest is in Earl Sampson, a black employee at the store.

Here's what happened to him, according to This American Life producer Miki Meek's reporting:

Meek: Before long, it wasn't just the customers being questioned. The police started including a guy named Earl. Alex paid him to do odd jobs around the store. One night, right before closing, Alex sent Earl out to the parking lot with a broom and a dustpan. When he didn't come back, Alex want out to check on him.

Saleh: I see only the dustpan and the broom. And I don't see Earl.

Meek: It wasn't like Earl to walk off the job. The next day when he arrived at the store, Alex asked him about it.

Saleh: Earl said, I was in jail last night. I said, why? He said, for trespassing.

Meek: Trespassing at the store—Earl says he was charged with trespassing where he works.

Saleh: I was upset. I was burning myself inside. I was, like, this is impossible.

Meek: Alex is more than just a boss to Earl, more like a father figure to him. Earl has some mental health issues, and in general, he has a kid-like quality. He first started coming to the Quickstop years before, when he was 14. He had just moved around the corner, but his family life was rough. And his mom couldn't really take care of him. So Alex started keeping an eye on him. Here's Earl.

Earl: That's why I started hanging around the store, you know, it's because Alex treat me like a son, though. Sometimes he let me credit stuff, like milk or something, bread or something. I'd go to the store and get it. I'd holler at him. And then he gave me a job, and I started working. I love my job. I love working at it. We're like a family, though.

Meek: That incident with the police, where Alex walked outside to check on Earl at the end of the night and found only a dustpan and broom, that happened two more times that month.

Earl: They'll like, come and grab me from, like, outside. Like, they won't go in the store and ask Alex or nothing, though. They would just grab me, put me in a police car, take me down to jail, you know? I'm like, well, I work here, though. You feel me?

Meek: So you would say, I work here. And what would they say?

Earl: Come on. You ain't supposed to be here. You trespassing here. I'd be like, ask my boss. I would be telling, ask my boss. They're still, oh, we don't care. They'll take me down.

Meek: Each time the police picked up Earl, they'd book him into the county jail. He'd spend the night there, go to court the next day, and there he'd be given a choice. Plead guilty to trespassing and get out of jail right away, or he could fight the trespassing charge, but it would be a hassle. And it would be expensive. He'd have to hire a lawyer and post bond and wait for a trial date.

So Earl always pleaded guilty.

To jail someone once for trespassing at their job is a miscarriage of justice. To do so repeatedly, over the objections of their employer, who owns the relevant store, is an absurdity. And this isn't something that happened just a few different times. It happened so often that the store owner finally complained to the police department.

But the complaints didn't help. Quite the contrary:

Earl was now getting picked up everywhere, all over town.

Three years into the program, he had been arrested 63 times and stopped another 99 times. On the police reports, the reason was almost always the same. Earl seemed, quote, "suspicious." Suspicious while waiting at the bus stop or playing basketball or buying food or walking to a public restroom-- only once did Earl run. In the arrest report, the officer wrote, quote, "Earl stated that he was running because he was tired of the police arresting him for no reason."

After that, Earl says it was just easier to give himself up.

Incredibly, the police department's behavior then grew even more egregious:

Meek: ... after four years of Earl getting stopped constantly, everywhere he went, Earl and Alex had tried all the normal things you do when you're having problems with the police. So Alex came up with a plan—a pretty extreme one.

Saleh: I explained to Earl. I said, Earl, I think the better place for you to live is inside the store. You know, we bring mattress, stuff like that, and I told him, you live here. You sleep here. Anything you need to eat and drink at night when you're here, you can, you know, you can get it.

Meek: Way in the back corner of the store, at the end of an aisle, there's an 11-by-11 foot room built out of plywood and sheet rock. And inside that room is a mattress and a sink for Earl to wash up in. If you were picking up laundry detergent or toilet paper, you'd be standing right next to where he sleeps.

But even that didn't prevent the police from coming in and getting Earl. Not long after his room was built, he got arrested again for trespassing at the store. Earl didn't immediately take a plea this time. Alex doesn't know why, but Earl spent 20 days in jail. And the judge issued a stay away warning from the store. Alex's next move—he bought a surveillance camera. In fact, he bought four. He decided that that was the only way anyone would believe that he wasn't making this stuff up.

In time, Saleh had 16 surveillance cameras running. So in addition to arrest reports proving that a man was repeatedly jailed for "trespassing" at his place of employment, there is ample video of police officers harassing both customers at the Quickstop and Earl Sampson, even after he was literally living in the store at the owner's request. There is no excuse for this behavior and no doubt that it happened. A man's most basic rights were repeatedly and willfully violated by multiple police officers, with a paper trail and videotaped evidence to identify them.

This has long since become public knowledge—the Miami Herald wrote about it in 2013. "Miami Gardens police have arrested Sampson 62 times for one offense: trespassing," the newspaper reported. "Almost every citation was issued at the same place: the 207 Quickstop, a convenience store on 207th Street in Miami Gardens."

So what happened to the police officers who targeted an innocent man, repeatedly jailing him for nothing more than being at his own place of employment?

Nothing, according to This American Life:

Meek: Anthony Chapman, the police commander whose officers repeatedly harassed Alex's customers and Earl, he's still at the police department. He denies all allegations against him and declined to be interviewed. Martin Santiago, the sergeant who Alex says threatened him at a traffic stop, he also still works there, as does William Dunaske, the officer who pulled Earl out of the store in that very first surveillance video. The city declined to make Santiago and Dunaske available for comment. Michael Malone, the officer who threw and kicked customers' personal things, he did leave the force, but it was voluntary. An internal affairs report concedes misconduct, but Malone was never disciplined for his actions. He could not be reached for comment.

It's been more than a year and a half since Earl was last stopped, but he doesn't feel safe. His world is still a paranoid one. He still lives at the store and rarely goes out.

And when he does, he gets scared.

Listening to that story, I heard evidence of multiple cops engaged in serious, willful misconduct over several years. But that isn't what troubled me most. I know that most cops would never behave so egregiously toward an innocent. What I found alarming was the fact that those other cops didn't stop or report the bad apples.

In fact, even after higher-ranking officers were alerted to Sampson's experience, that did not put an end to his repeated jailing. Neither a public defender nor a judge was able to spot or stop this miscarriage of justice either. No one inside the system successfully exposed or remedied the abusive situation. Things only changed for Sampson when the store owner got video evidence and took it to the media. And even then, the egregious misbehavior of the police officers went unpunished.

Most of the perpetrators are still on the job.

What do police officers make of this story? How do they explain the fact that such abusive behavior continued for so long? What do they regard as an appropriate punishment? What would they suggest to guard against similar abuses elsewhere? What would they do if they encountered fellow officers treating a man this way? I don't mean to suggest that police are of one mind about this or any other controversy, or that Miami Gardens reflects how police behave everywhere. But when the public reads or listens to stories that document egregious police abuses, it is rare to encounter any members of the police community who express alarm, or champion reforms, or denounce the bad apples, or articulate why they have a different view than the conventional wisdom.

If you're a police officer, maybe no one asked for your opinion on a case like this before. I invite any of your thoughts. Those willing to share should email conor@theatlantic.com—I'll publish responses without names unless otherwise requested.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... ps/385874/

[Dominus Atheos]

More information

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-a ... -two?act=1

[Thanas]

Jesus.

[Kamakazie Sith]

In regards to the terrifying and shameful story of police misconduct against Earl Sampson I noticed a related article where the police chief of that department stating that simply being in a high crime area is cause for a stop.

This is flat our wrong and it is backed by significant court precedence. Simply being in a high crime area is not reason for a stop at all.

As soon as I read the first three paragraphs of the article I knew it was due to some expectations for "stats". This is why quotas are illegal.

[Dominus Atheos]

From the Cato Institute's National Police Misconduct daily recap:

Denver, Colorado: An officer with 40 citizen complaints against him was taken off patrol duty. Despite previous civil lawsuits for his behavior costing the City more than $1,000,000 in settlements, this suspension is his first discipline. http://ow.ly/JPUBV

http://www.policemisconduct.net/nationa ... -03-02-15/

[Dominus Atheos]

Not the police, but relevant:

[Dominus Atheos]

British police have better ROEs and training than Americans, but apparently British prosecutors and judges are huge assholes who deal in massive bullshit.

Police accused of acting 'above the law' after fatal shooting case against chief constable collapses because his force won't allow evidence to be heard in open court

Anthony Grainger fatally shot by police in 2012 after covert surveillance
Sir Peter Fahy was charged with Health and Safety breaches in operation
But force said some information was too sensitive to be heard in court
Judge also granted anonymity to roughly 30 officers involved in case
Lawyers for Sir Peter said he could not have fair trial without all evidence
CPS dropped case after judge ruled secret material would have to be heard


Police have been accused of acting 'above the law' after the case against a chief constable over the fatal shooting of an unarmed man collapsed because his force demanded evidence be kept secret.

Sir Peter Fahy, chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, was due to stand trial on Monday accused of Health and Safety breaches in the operation that lead to the death of a 36-year-old man.

Father-of-two Anthony Grainger died of a single gunshot wound to the chest after the car he was in was stopped in Culcheth, Cheshire, on March 3 2012.

Police believed they had intelligence Mr Grainger and two others were part of an organised crime unit and were planning an armed robbery on a Sainsbury's store in the village.

It was later discovered that he was unarmed and there were no weapons in the car. The three men with Mr Grainger were later acquitted of charges of conspiracy to rob.

The Crown Prosecution Service decided the marksman should not face charges for murder or manslaughter because a jury would be likely to accept that he believed his actions were necessary.

Instead, Sir Peter, who had pleaded not guilty, had been charged under the Health and Safety at Work Act.

But the prosecution abandoned its case after deciding some evidence collected by police was so sensitive it would not be in the public interest to be heard in open court.

The evidence is thought to relate to the role of paid police informants and decisions made during the extensive covert surveillance operation that led to Mr Grainger's death.

The judge, Mr Justice William Davis, had also granted anonymity to some 30 police officers who were witnesses or would be mentioned in the case.

But lawyers for Sir Peter, who was prosecuted as head of the force, argued he could not get a fair trail if certain evidence was not made public in court.

Mr Justice Davis ordered that the evidence should be given if the defendant was to get a fair trial - at which point the prosecution, after consulting with the police, decided not to proceed.

Mr Grainger's family said they were 'hugely disappointed' at the outcome and 'simply want answers'.

And their solicitor, Jonathan Bridge, warned it could set 'a really dangerous precedent where the police are in effect above the law in cases where there is sensitive evidence,' The Times reported.

He added that the family would approach the Home Office next week about the future conduct of the case and may seek a public enquiry.

The prosecution argued that during the covert operation, the Greater Manchester Police made '26 failings' arising out of armed police officers being deployed without any proper intelligence basis.

It also argued and the use of armed police was unnecessary or premature.

The decision by William Boyce, QC, to abandon the case at Liverpool Crown Court effectively ends all criminal proceedings over the death of Mr Grainger.

The CPS said: 'We have considered the rulings made by the judge that there is material which needs to be disclosed in open court in order for the defendant to have a fair trial.

'After consulting with relevant parties, we have concluded that we are unable to reveal that material for public interest reasons. We are therefore unable to proceed.'

Mr Grainger is believed to be the first person to die in a police shooting since Mark Duggan in London, whose death sparked rioting in the capital and other cities across the country.

[Dominus Atheos]

San Diego cop kills service dog after knocking on wrong door: owner

A San Diego cop gunned down a man’s service dog after knocking on the wrong door, the heartbroken owner said.

Ian Anderson claims he opened the door to two officers early Sunday morning, and his pet pit bull, Burberry, bounded out behind him.

The first officer reached down as if to pet the 6-year-old pooch, but his partner danced away, drew his gun and unloaded, surveillance video revealed.

“Boom. Shot right in the head, and he was done,” Anderson told NBC San Diego. “He was dead.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.2154428