Detroit police accused of 'kidnapping' homeless people, leaving them outside city limits — RT USA

Following a year-long investigation, the ACLU has filed a complaint demanding that Detroit Police halt what it calls the “disturbing practice” of literally driving away the homeless, often leaving them to fend for themselves in unfamiliar areas.

Judge questions credibility of Dallas police officers

beatyourselfup:

DALLAS — Two Dallas Police Department officers are under criminal investigation.

A judge determined that they repeatedly lied in sworn testimony about a drug arrest they made back in December of 2011.

The officers found drugs, cash, and a gun at inside an apartment at a Red Bird-area complex. They arrested a man by the name of Melvin Williams.

But in a rare ruling, a Dallas judge questioned the credibility of the arresting officers and ordered the money returned.

“I think the judge just found their testimony incredible,” said defense attorney Michael Smith. “It didn’t add up.”

The officers whose named were mentioned in open court, Randolph Dillon and John Llewellyn, claim they were sitting in their squad car when they saw Melvin Williams get into a vehicle. Officer Llewellyn testified in court “that he could see the driver hand Williams something, but couldn’t see exactly what.”

Officers arrested Williams, searched his car, and then his apartment.

“Now after they arrest him, at that point the officers allege that my client then told them there were more drugs in his apartment and a gun,” Snith said, “which of course, doesn’t make sense whatsoever.”

An apartment manager who witnessed the search testified that the drugs were actually found in the bushes outside.

After listening to other witnesses, the judge ruled, “there is doubt as to whether any illicit drugs that were alleged to have been found belonged to Williams, as opposed to having been planted.”

The ruling could call into question other cases also worked by the officers.

The officers’ attorney told News 8 both have excellent reputations, numerous commendations, and have never been accused of untruthfulness.

“If you are a police officer and you are lying to make your cases, you are just as bad as the bad guy,” Smith said.

Santa Ana, CA: Cops Intimidate Man For Filming.

evolutionary-ideas:

If you don’t think we’re already living in a police state, get your head out of the sand. Know your rights, and never let fascist pigs like these intimidate you.

New Orleans Police Laughed After Burning Henry Glover's Body, Fellow Officer Testifies

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(via mysticunt-deactivated20130404)

A New Orleans police sergeant kept quiet about a post-Katrina shooting. The officer, who is married to a police lieutenant, was promoted shortly after the shooting to the Public Integrity Bureau, which investigates police misconduct

beatyourselfup:

NEW ORLEANS, May 22 (UPI) — A document that shows a New Orleans police sergeant only talked about a post-Katrina police shooting in 2010 raises questions about the department’s response.

Sgt. Lesia Mims discussed the killing of Henry Glover when she was interviewed by the FBI, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reported. She said five years after the fact she had known about problems with the shooting since shortly after it happened, the newspaper said, citing an FBI document.

Three officers were convicted of shooting Glover or covering it up, although one later won an appeal. Glover, 31, was found in a burned-out car, his body burned.

Last year, the New Orleans Police Department closed its internal investigations into police misconduct after the 2005 hurricane and attempts to cover up wrongful shootings. A number of officers who failed to report misconduct were fired or retired.

The Times-Picayune said it had not been able to determine if the FBI gave the department information about Mims.

Mims, who has been with the department 23 years, is married to a police lieutenant. She was promoted to the Public Integrity Bureau, which investigates police misconduct, after the Glover shooting.

St. Louis Cops Worry That In-Car Cameras 'Are Being Used Against Them'

beatyourselfup:

Last year the St. Louis Police Department began using cameras mounted in patrol cars to record officers’encounters with suspects and other aspects of their on-the-job behavior. Such dash cameras, which have been used in this country for 15 years or so, can help cops as well as the people they arrest by backing up details of police reports, providing evidence of crimes such as driving while intoxicated, and disproving false complaints of misconduct. But some cops see only the downside. Citing union grievances, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that “city police officers believe in-car cameras are being used against them, and they are trying to find ways to avoid driving cars equipped with them.” About half the city’s police cars have cameras so far. Capt. Mary Edwards-Fears responded to the problem posed by camera-shy cops in an April 13 memo to supervisors:

We are missing critical evidence for our cases when we allow [officers] to avoid using vehicles with cameras in them, for fear of being caught in a compromising position. Your job as managers in the business is to assist your officers in following the rules and regulations, not assisting them in circumventing them.

The Post-Dispatch describes a few incidents that have contributed to officers’ leeriness of dash cams:

Two probationary officers [were] investigated after a woman said they planted guns and drugs on her 16-year-old son. Video exonerated them of that claim but revealed that one struck the handcuffed teen, which led to the firing of both….

In-car cameras caught Officer Jason Stockley brandishing a personally owned rifle at a drug suspect, who was later shot and killed by police Dec. 20. The department does not allow officers to carry personally owned rifles and still is investigating the matter internally.

Officer David Wilson was seen striking a handcuffed teenage suspect in January. He was criminally charged with assault in April, and an internal investigation is under way.

What’s the world coming to when cops can no longer punch handcuffed prisoners or violate firearm rules with impunity? The local police union wants restrictions on supervisors’ authority to review camera footage, so officers will be have a clearer sense of when they’re being watched. Police Chief Dan Isom replies that “I’m not going to draft a policy for those who violate our policy,” saying  the cameras help “make sure people are following the protocol of the police department.” That seems about right to me, although I might have put it this way: If cops are not doing anything wrong, they have nothing to fear. 

More on cops and cameras here.

[Thanks to Mark Sletten for the tip.]

Addendum: Whoops. Ed Krayewski beat me to it.

Chicago cops start preemptive home raids and arrests (without official warrants) on the eve of NATO Summit

beatyourselfup:

Submitted by ouspensky

Authorities in Chicago are gearing up for a weekend of anti-NATO activity in the Windy City, but it’s already being reported that law enforcement there might be a little too eager to begin arrests. The home of known activists was raided Wednesday.

The National Lawyers Guild confirms that law enforcement agents broke down the door of a 6-unit apartment building in the Chicago, Illinois neighborhood of Bridgeport at around 11:30 pm on Wednesday. Once inside, they entered the apartment of known activists with guns drawn and then cuffed the residents.

For two hours, tenants were shackled and questioned by officers with the Organized Crime Division of the Chicago Police Department. The Chicago Tribune writes that police reports detailing the incident have been obtained by the newspaper and confirm that nine people were arrested in the raid for allegedly making or possessing Molotov cocktail explosives. Police sources add to the paper early Friday, however, that none of the suspects had been charged.

Attorneys for the accused attest to the innocence of their clients. The reason they cannot prove that they were making Molotov cocktails, they say, is because they weren’t — instead, police saw and seized equipment used for home brewing beer.

“As far as we know, there was no liquid in the bottles,” Kris Hermes, a spokesman for the lawyer’s guild, tells the Tribune on Friday in speaking of the alleged paraphernalia pilfered by law enforcement. Another source with ties to the police tells a Chicago ABC News affiliate that Molotov cocktails were discovered in the raid, but those claims have yet to be verified.

“We have an inquiry that we’re checking into as we speak. So obviously we’ll have more information,” Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy tells ABC7.

Four of the suspects have been released without charge. As of Friday morning, the remaining five were still detained.

Hermes adds to the Tribune that “there’s absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing,” and that law enforcement officers were simply trying to make the activists “disappear” days before police expect major anti-NATO protests in Chicago.

“We were literally calling all morning and all afternoon to try to contact these people,” Hermes says. “That’s why we used the term ‘disappeared.’ ”

In a separate statement offered to an NBC News station in Chicago, Hermes adds, “The city has so far not indicated the reasons for the raid, what they are charging the protesters with, nor provided any evidence of wrongdoing” and that the NLG was still seeking a copy of the search warrant used in the raid.

“Preemptive raids like this are a hallmark of National Special Security Events,” Sarah Gelsomino of the National Lawyers Guild and the People’s Law Office adds in a press release. “The Chicago police and other law enforcement agencies should be aware that this behavior will not be tolerated and will result in real consequences for the city.”

Gelsomino adds that the search warrant used in the raid was allegedly not produced until four hours after the incident and was missing the signature of a court judge.

Following the Wednesday night raid, around 60 protesters marched the streets of Chicago’s North Side to condemn what they say was an illegal raid.

“I could not be more disgusted, enraged, terrified, by and generally totally disappointed with the city of Chicago,” William Vassilakis, who leases the apartment, tells the station.

 

NYPD Officer Held In Psychiatric Ward Of Hospital For Six Days After Reporting Corruption

n-morgan:

March 11th, 2012 

Via: Village Voice:



For more than two years, Adrian Schoolcraft secretly recorded every roll call at the 81st Precinct in Brooklyn and captured his superiors urging police officers to do two things in order to manipulate the “stats” that the department is under pressure to produce: Officers were told to arrest people who were doing little more than standing on the street, but they were also encouraged to disregard actual victims of serious crimes who wanted to file reports.

Arresting bystanders made it look like the department was efficient, while artificially reducing the amount of serious crime made the commander look good.

In October 2009, Schoolcraft met with NYPD investigators for three hours and detailed more than a dozen cases of crime reports being manipulated in the district. Three weeks after that meeting—which was supposed to have been kept secret from Schoolcraft’s superiors—his precinct commander and a deputy chief ordered Schoolcraft to be dragged from his apartment and forced into the Jamaica Hospital psychiatric ward for six days.



Source

Cop Gets Caught Giving Confidential Information To Hells Angels Biker Gang

beatyourselfup:

 

[WIN!] A Ripley, Tenn., police officer has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of choking an unidentified person and obstruction of justice.

beatyourselfup:

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A Ripley, Tenn., police officer has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of choking an unidentified person and obstruction of justice.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Memphis said Thursday that 47-year-old Stephen Michael Kirkpatrick was indicted on federal civil rights charges stemming from an incident last May 17. Prosecutors said the victim was hurt, but further details were not released other than saying a week later, Kirkpatrick “attempted to corruptly persuade an unnamed person in an official proceeding.”

He faces 30 years in prison and fines of $500,000.

good!

St Louis MO police sued after 9 witnesses claim cop shot an unarmed man and continued to shoot him to death while he laid on the ground bleeding then planted a gun to cover it up

beatyourselfup:

ST. LOUIS • The mother of a man fatally shot by an undercover St. Louis police detective in 2010 has sued in federal court here, alleging the officer continued to fire as her son lay on the ground dying, then planted a gun on him to claim the use of deadly force was justified.

Normane Bennett, 23, was shot June 25, 2010, in an alley behind the 3900 block of Sherman Place after he fled from police who tried to arrest him and others for alleged drug activity.

[…]

Wasem’s actions were unanimously cleared by the police board. The department on Thursday declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation.

A Post-Dispatch review earlier this year found the department cleared all but four of 117 officer-involved shootings over the last five years. The reviews are done with little outside scrutiny, the newspaper found.

[…]

The federal lawsuit claims the police board “turns a blind eye to use of excessive force by its police officers.” It seeks an unspecified amount of damages.

"You cannot use deadly force to protect your property" -- The Police

n-morgan:

The police in Milton, KS arrested a homeowner after he shot two (of four) people attempting to rob him. An officer in the video below – still researching for names – states, “You cannot use deadly force to protect your property, or if someone’s running away from you not being a threat.” Ugh, where to start with that statement. Does this officer realize that officers around the world are using tasers, pepper spray, rubber bullets and flash bangs who are “not being a threat” to anyone. Or that officers are justified by their peers if the kill someone holding what they think to be a weapon but turns out to be nothing lethal at all – like a water nozzle.