Why Threatening Bad Cops Makes No Sense

Depiction of a group of vigilante "baldknobbers" from the 1919 movie "The Sheppard Of The Hills".
Baldknobbers were groups of vigilantes in Arkansas and Missouri who were responsible not only for attacking horse thieves, but also murdering their critics and their families, as well as several racially motivated lynchings in the mid to late late 1800's and early 1900's.

An act of police misconduct is nothing more than vigilantism. In fact, there is no difference between a police officer beating someone they suspect might have committed a crime as a form of "street justice" or you beating someone up if you suspect they committed a crime.

When the world sees acts of police brutality, it evokes a strong reaction on several levels for most people. It makes us fear what police could do to us, it makes us wonder at the kinds of people we entrust with the power to enforce our laws, it causes us to question whether our justice system is still just, and it creates a sense of outrage that a person can get away with a crime just because of their chosen occupation.

Needless to say, there are numerous reasons why videotaped images of a 15-year-old girl being attacked by King County Sheriff's Deputy Paul Schene sparked strong emotions across the globe. It also takes little effort to understand the outrage the video of Oscar Grant's death created when it made it into the public square.

So strong, in fact, that the lawyers for Schene and Mehserle both reported that those officers, their families, and the lawyers themselves began to receive death threats after the stories went public.

But... what does it make any of us if we lower ourselves to the same level as an officer who we believe has committed a crime when we seek to circumvent the law and threaten the lives of those officers, their families, and those who's job it is to defend them in court?

Does it not make us exactly the same as those officers when we stoop to their level and try to be judge, jury, and executioner just like they did?

After all, how just is it when we seek to answer an injustice with injustice?

Aside from the ethical considerations, making threats against officers accused of misconduct is ultimately counterproductive on a number of levels... worst of all these is that it gives police unions the ammunition they need to pressure legislators into enacting new laws that let them hide acts of misconduct and escape justice without any public scrutiny...

In other words, threatening officers such as Paul Schene and Johannes Mehserle not only makes you the same as they are... it gives the future Schenes and Mehserles the ability to do the same things those officers are accused of without the fear of being caught...

Threatening officers accused of misconduct creates more misconduct, not less. It creates more injustice, not less. It gives them more power, not less.

It is, ultimately, wrongheaded to seek to become that which you seek to fight. Just as it is wrong for a police officer to resort to illegal tactics in the course of their job, it is wrong for us to resort to illegal tactics to answer those acts of injustice. In other words, it is wrong for us to become them in answer to what they have done.

So, for any of you out there who might think about threatening an officer who was accused of misconduct, or their families, or their lawyers.... please don't, because all that will accomplish is to create more monsters and make it harder for us to spot acts of misconduct... not to mention that it turns you into the very same monster that you seek to fight.

Don't believe me? Just see what happened in Baltimore when an officer received threats after a video of him attacking a teenager was released to the public.

Sure, the system as it is might let all these officers get away with such upsetting acts... but the answer is to fix the system so that they are treated like any of us are when we stand accused, not think yourself above it like those officers did when they broke the law under the guise of enforcing it.

If you think otherwise, you might as well put on one of their uniforms now, because you're more like them than you'll ever know.

When Assault Becomes Murder - An Analysis of the Oscar Grant Shooting

The videotaped shooting death of Oscar Grant by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle has stirred angry demands for criminal charges from the public as BART officials and the Alameda County District Attorney have dragged their feet.

Officials claim that they need more time to investigate what the public has already seen... a police officer shooting an unarmed man who posed no threat in the back, in cold blood.

The BART police department, transit authority, and District Attorney, Tom Orloff, have all made it clear that they are desperately seeking evidence to absolve the officer by floating speculation that it was an accident of some sort or that there was some justification for the shooting that wasn't captured on the three different videos that have been released to the public... videos that all show the same thing... an unjustified killing.

Fellow police officers have also tried to do the same by floating the theory of "taser confusion" as cause for this killing, suggesting that it's easy to confuse a brightly colored device that is lighter than, has a different grip than, and is supposed to be carried on the opposite side than a service weapon.

Even if we accept this dubious possibility the death is still a criminal matter by way of shear negligence. But there's another disturbing aspect to this death which makes it a crime of intent. it is an aspect that has been entirely missed so far, but was ultimately the series of actions that needlessly put Oscar Grant in harm's way that night.

To understand what caused the arrest of Oscar Grant to spiral downward into murder we need to examine the actions of the other officer, not just Mehserle's. It was this officer who escalated the arrest of an unarmed and cooperative suspect into a use of force situation without any apparent reason whatsoever, and that is what ultimately cost Oscar Grant his life.

The Analysis
Note: the following analysis is of this third video from KTVU shot from the train by a cell phone camera. Even though it's quality isn't as good as the others and I can't embed it here, it's important to use this as an index because it starts before the others and shows the unnamed officer strike Grant in the face, which is likely what caused others to start filming.

An analysis of this video shows that:

At mark 00:10 an unidentified bald officer walks up and punches Oscar Grant in the face. This is obvious in the video as the officer's arm moves forward and Grant's head snaps back and Grant begins to collapse. After striking Grant the officer moves him to a seated position and Grant puts his hands up palm forward in supplication, the officer orders another man to sit and then leaves after a few seconds.

At 01:23, after the bald officer returns he appears to order the detainees arrest, this is apparent as the officers were talking with the suspects until the bald officer marched back over. At this point Mehserle moves Grant to a kneeling position and pulls Grant's arms behind him, there is no sign of resistance at this point.

However, at 01:26 Mehserle pushes Grant face first to the ground while the bald officer plants his knee on Grant's neck, which causes Grant to involuntarily squirm due to the pain of that maneuver. Up to this point there appeared to be no threat posed by Grant to justify the use of this tactic.

At 01:28 Mehserle makes a furtive grab for his service weapon, but then stops.

At 01:45 Mehserle grabs at his service weapon again, this time he continues to try to pull it from the holster for at least 2 full seconds, ample time to have figured out that this was not a taser which is held in a different type of holster and has a different feel.

Four seconds later, at 01:49, the bald officer shifts his stance to the other side of Grant to put himself out of the line of fire, but resumes his pain compliance hold with his knee on Grant's neck while Mehserle pulls his service weapon from the holster. This would indicate that the order to fire, whether it was to fire a taser or the Mehserle's service weapon, came from the bald officer.

At 01:51 Mehserle gets into his stance and aims his weapon at Grant while the bald officer maintains his hold. If this was in prep for the application of a taser the bald officer would have moved away now to avoid getting shocked.

At 01:52 Mehserle fires a shot into Grant's back as the bald officer continues to hold him face down on the floor of the station.

It's only one second later, at 01:53, that the bald officer finally stands up and steps away from the mortally injured Grant.


The Conclusion
The actions of the unnamed bald officer's aggressive use of force, both when he punches Grant in the face at the beginning of the video and when he needlessly employed a pain compliance move on a suspect that was otherwise cooperative, are what ultimately led to Grant's death. It is why there must be criminal charges in this case, a case of assault that resulted in the death of an unarmed person...

To understand this, consider that the unnamed officer is seen "taking a knee" on Oscar Grant's neck. This police tactic is relatively new and used often as a pain compliance move that both immobilizes a suspect and causes severe pain in order to, supposedly, force dangerous suspects to comply with orders that would allow for restraints to be applied when they otherwise wouldn't.

Clip taken from the arrest of Mike Ladd at an anti-war march in Seattle on 03/2007. Charges against Ladd for resisting arrest were later dropped when this video proved the application of the officer's pain compliance holds prevented Ladd from following commands to put his hands behind his back.

The problem with this hold is that it does such a good job of immobilizing a suspect that it often renders them incapable of following commands to put their arms behind them so cuffs can be applied, especially if the person held has tried to catch their fall when thrown to the ground and ends up with an arm trapped underneath them when the hold is applied.

More than this, the hold causes so much pain that most people can't help but kick their legs and squirm in pain as a reflexive response to that pain, which often causes officers to use even more force to enact an arrest, including the use of another pain compliance tool called a taser.

The last image recorded on AP photojournalist Matthew Rourke's before he was arrested in St. Paul as documented here. It shows how suspects will often react involuntarily to the application of this painful move.

This problem with the "taking a knee" on a suspect's neck has been documented before and has resulted in suspect being cleared of resisting arrest charges upon review of video evidence before, yet the tactic remains a favorite of police officers everywhere. As seen numerous times in St. Paul during the RNC protests.

It was the other officer's rush to use force to enact the arrest of the otherwise non-threatening Oscar Grant and that officers rush to needlessly use a pain compliance hold on a person who presented no threat that set into motion the series of events which cost Oscar Grant his life on New Years morning... irregardless as to whether the bullet that tore through his back was fired accidentally or on purpose.

In other words, the two officers involved with detaining Oscar Grant intended to hurt him without justification that night, and that's considered a crime called assault. And when the crime of assault results in a death, that's considered murder, even if the death was the ultimate intent of the two officers involved or not.

Updated 17:39 01/11/09

The Oscar Grant Shooting - A Study Of America's Dualistic Justice Systems

Video of the Oscar Grant shooting that we first covered here on 01/05/09 when the video was released to the public by witnesses.

updates available here, here, and here

In the early hours of New Years Day 2009, 22 year old Oscar Grant pleaded with the officers who detained him by telling them he had a young daughter at home in the same way one might try to personalize oneself to a criminal in hopes that a connection will be made when being threatened with harm.

Yet, for as of yet unknown reasons, officers pushed him face-down to the floor of the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland California and while one officer knelt with his knee on Grant's neck BART officer Johannes Mehserle attempted to pull Grant's arms behind him... and the world now struggles to make sense of what several witnesses captured on video next.

Videos show Mehserle making a furtive move for the firearm holstered on his right hip, then show him pull away to grab Grant's arms again. Then Mehserle grabs at the same firearm holstered at his right hip a second time, draws his firearm, cradles it with his left hand, and fires a round into Grant's back while he laid, face-down, on the station floor while a second officer controlled him by leveraging his body-weight on his neck.

The shot that killed Oscar Grant spurred angry yells from the multitudes of passengers who witnessed it, yet BART officials kept quiet about it for days, and sought to keep it quiet by confiscating any video equipment and cell phone cameras they could find. Yet some made it out, and the videos went public five days later...

...and now the angry yells from the multitudes who have witnessed this shooting via video haven't stopped since.

The tragic injustice of the shooting itself is compounded by the injustice of America's dualistic justice system, a system that unbalances itself against citizens accused of wrongdoing to the point of punishing them prior to determination of guilt and a second system that goes out of it's way to find any means necessary to find police officers innocent of any accusations... even in the face of something so obviously criminal as the video of the Oscar Grant killing shows us.

Any similar case against a civilian would spur an instant arrest, the suspect would have been taken into custody and officers would attempt to interrogate him immediately after reading the suspect his rights.

Meanwhile officers would gather any evidence that they could find which would bolster the charges made against the suspect, including witness testimony, and ignore any evidence or testimony that would run counter to their case.

The suspect would then be jailed and, depending on the conditions of the jail, this entails a varying degree of punishment in and of itself which in many cases can include the denial of medical care, starvation rations or inedible food, exposure to unsanitary conditions, or even abuse by guards.

There the suspect would stay until pulled in front of a judge some days later for a probable cause hearing where prosecutors would argue for the highest bail possible in hopes of keeping the suspect in custody as long as possible until an actual trial while they worked to bolster their case against the suspect.

This cycle would continue with other hearings and more gathering of evidence in the hopes of getting enough incriminating evidence to win a conviction while officers would release damning statements and information via the press to show how they did a good thing by getting the suspect off the streets.

But this isn't what happens when the suspect is a police officer. As BART officials, prosecutors, and Oakland's public officials have shown us, instead of building a case against officer Mehserle they have been desperate to consider any and every possible explanation that could clear him of any wrongdoing. Instead of prosecuting him, they are acting as his defense attorney.

The roles of the American justice system reverse themselves when it's a cop accused of wrongdoing. Police officers are paying for Mehserle's defense lawyers and issuing statements of support to the media instead of slights about his character.

Prosecutors are seeking any evidence that might clear officer Mehserle or throwing out any possible excuse for his actions that cost the life of an unarmed father that night when otherwise they would have painted it in the worst light if it were a civilian.

City officials are begging citizens to disregard what their eyes have shown them, begging them to consider the officer innocent until proven otherwise when they would never give any civilian suspect that consideration or effort.

They insist the video we see is too inconclusive, that something unseen in a piece of video evidence that would have been sufficient to convict a normal person is somehow insufficient to press charges against one of their own cops.

While the mere accusation of wrongdoing of any sort would have been sufficient to get a normal person fired and arrested, in the US it gets you a paid vacation while you wait for the investigation to clear you if you are a cop... and even then, if there is an investigation you can still refuse to cooperate as Mehserle has done.

After a full week's worth of paid vacation for officer Mehserle after the shooting the department finally sought to question him about the shooting.

But the wonderful thing about being a cop is that Mehserle was allowed to resign before that questioning could happen... and the department still urges the public to consider the possibility that it was just an accident or that it was somehow Oscar Grant's fault that he was shot in the back by officer Mehserle.

In Oakland, the Oscar Grant killing illustrates the dual injustices of the American justice system. They have given us a clear example that shows how, in America, authorities treat you as if you are guilty until you can prove otherwise... unless you're a cop.

What is this dualistic justice system costing Oakland now? How much good will from the public have officials wasted by trying to convince the public that they should treat this killing different than how they would have if it were done by a civilian and captured on video for the world to see?



Yesterday the riots just started in Oakland... and with those will come more questionable arrests captured on video, and more outrage, and more frustration with the dual justice systems that protect cops and make citizens vulnerable to abuses... which will spark more violence from one side or the other.

Yes, riots and violence in response to this is counter productive, violence always is... but how can we expect lawful behavior when the government and police enforce one set of laws on the populous while giving themselves an entirely different set of laws?

But even the riots won't show the true cost this injustice will exact in trust and good will from the public, the same trust and good will that the police must ultimately depend upon to do their jobs effectively.

That cost will have to be paid down the road when officials wonder why witnesses don't come forward to the police with information about crimes or when officers get dirty looks or glances of distrust from a public kept in the dark about the misconduct of police.

Reminders of the tragic death of Oscar Grant will continue to keep the injustice of it fresh in our minds and the outrage of it on our lips for some time to come... yet the response by public officials to the tragedy only serve to deepen that sense of loss, amplify it, and makes the wound that Oscar Grant's death leaves all the more difficult to heal.

Police Officer Threatens Woman Who Blogs About Officer-Involved Domestic Violence

A Screenshot of one threatening email messages sent to Officer-Involved Domestic Violence (OIDV)advocate at the Behind The Blue Wall blog.

Harassing and sending threatening messages to police accountability activists and people who report on police misconduct is a favorite pastime for police officers. Often unpunished and ignored by mainstream media, officers often feel as though it is their right to silence any critics... and most people tend to agree by telling advocates that they should simply expect to be threatened for talking about police misconduct and accept it.

This past year several sites devoted to uncovering issues of police misconduct have gone silent, including the well-known BadCopNews.com which compiled several cases of misconduct from around the world on a daily basis for years. While bloggers who write about political misdeeds or other issues enjoy protections from such abusive and threatening behavior, police misconduct bloggers have to suffer it and prepare as best they can for the eventuality when officers might make good on their threats.

Sadly, just last week another advocate against police misconduct has been added to the list of citizen reporters who have suffered such abuse and has learned that police departments always refuse to investigate threats issued by their own officers made against citizen reporters.

On December 14, the writer of Behind The Blue Wall started receiving harassing messages that she claims to have tracked down to a Palm Beach Sheriff's Deputy that she had posted some news articles about. The officer in question, Deputy Ira Peskowitz, has apparently been in the news quite often due to allegations ranging from domestic violence to alleged threats made to fellow officers.

She claims the officer, apparently upset that those articles had been republished on a her blog, created a fake Myspace page so he could initiate contact with the blogger via her Myspace presence and then escalated to emails that culminated with this message:

"When I find you and I will, your going to understand what it's like to be a fish out of water. God help you and your family. I tracked your IP address and I'm coming for you ...... you don't know when to stop and when you do it will be too late for you to start ever again."

The author apparently traced the messages back to officer Peskowitz and attempted to file complaints against the officer with the Palm Beach Sheriff's office to no avail. She also, fearing for her and her family's lives, contacted her local police department and was only told to call back if the officer was actually "banging on her door".

Fearing the officer would make good on his threats, and seeming to have good reason to do so as other officers who claimed to be threatened by him had resorted to filing restraining orders against him, went public with the threats in hopes that would cause the officer to think twice about making good on the threats.

Fellow bloggers, many of whom have also faced threats from police officers in response to their reporting, have offered their support and reposted information about the threats, including the author of the Riverside California blog Five Before Midnight, who has also had to suffer threats by police, as well as the Michigan OIDV Advocacy group who created a site devoted to the threats made so far.

Just as victims of police misconduct are often treated like third-class citizens, subjected to arrests made just to cover up for misconduct and ridiculed publicly by police officers and city officials, so too do the advocates for those victims become relegated to third-class citizen status and find themselves no longer protected by the same rights others enjoy.

In the end, all we can do as advocates against police misconduct is stand by each other and hope that, by shining a light on such misconduct as this, officers may think twice about making good on their threats of violence and the misuse of their authority to punish people who merely speak out against misconduct.

We too stand with the author of Behind The Blue Wall and offer what support we can in the hope that it might be enough to disuade further abusive retaliation against her for simply advocating for the victims of officer-related domestic violence.

From The Mailbag - WTO 9th Anniversary

Clips from a video by Paul Richmond of the WTO protest showing an officer pull a protester's head up by the hair and then pepper-spraying him at point-blank range in the face.

Received an email yesterday from attorney Paul Richmond reminding me that it, yesterday, was the ninth anniversary of the WTO protests in Seattle. Attorney Richmond, for those who don't know, is an area lawyer who gives presentations on how to videotape police activities at protests and was a legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) during the WTO protests who is now contemplating a run for congress in 2010.

Along with his reminder he's put up some previously unreleased footage he captured from the WTO protests. In one video he shows the police launching tear gas at protesters long before any cases of property damage, that was often cited as the reason for the gassing, had occurred.

Then, in another video, he shows officers spraying canisters of pepper spray directly into the faces of seated protesters at point-blank range after pulling their heads up by their hair to get a clean shot at their eyes.

While such footage he shared can be disturbing, some of the most egregious abuses came later where cameras couldn't see it and where lawyers couldn't document it, in the King County Jail. Here there were reports of people being strapped to a restraint chair, nicknamed "The Devil's Chair" by jail officers, to have their eyes swabbed with chemical spray as a means of punishment and stories of protesters forcibly stripped in their cells for complaining about conditions.

Just as what happened to protesters at the DNC in St. Paul, Minnesota showed that police tactics haven't improved much since then, the jails have both shown that the same holds true for them as well.

Detainee Abuses Continue A Year After DOJ Investigation

This month marked two anniversaries that, unfortunately, remind me of things that I would rather forget and that happen to be oddly coincidental.

First, in November of last year the US Department of Justice released the findings of an investigation they performed into the treatment of detainees at the King County Jail (KCCF) that found, what they termed as, egregious and potentially deadly civil rights violations occurring at that facility which included the denial of medical care, physical abuse, and sexual abuse against detainees.

It’s been a year since those findings were made public, and yet there has still been no actions taken against King County or any agreements between the US DOJ and King County about how they would address and correct these problems. Meanwhile, I still get reports from people who have been denied medical care at that jail, many of those I won’t print at the request of those senders, but for whom I try to help as much as I can.

That brings me to the second anniversary marked by the month of November, that being the 2nd anniversary of my own mistreatment that I suffered while I was held at the King County Jail for a crime I had not committed and for which I was later found innocent of by police investigators and the King County Prosecutor’s Office. I endured weeks of agony suffering from injuries that were left untreated while being refused even the simplest of medications like Tylenol or Aspirin.

So, it’s frustratingly personal for me to see no progress made in regards to detainee treatment at the KCCF in these last two years, all the while having to try and do what little I can to be there for the people who, even as recently as this month, are still being made to suffer there for no real reason at all who write me when it becomes clear that there are no other resources out there to help them.

I still do what I can, I’m still there for anyone who suffers needlessly there, but it’s not enough, something needs to be done to stop the abuse there… I just wish more people cared enough to speak out about it. My one voice just seems too small to make a difference sometimes, especially when other voices who are supposed to speak out against such abuses, like the ACLU, the press, and the US DOJ, still remain silent.

For now, all I can do is keep hoping that, next year; I won’t need to mark these anniversaries with the same message, begging for something to be done for those who are not able to speak for themselves by those who are supposedly entrusted to speak on their behalf.

After all, simply being accused of a crime should not result a potential death sentence through mistreatment.

US Border Patrol- More Authority Than God On Earth?

A couple days ago I commented on the US Border Patrol's "internal checkpoints" that have been set up all over Washington state to not only catch suspected illegal immigrants but also allow agents to search US citizens as well. Since the end of February the US Border Patrol has operated 53 roadblocks in distances up to 100 miles AWAY from the border...

And Washington residents haven't been happy about it...

The border patrol recently addressed a number of residents who were upset about the internal checkpoints by suggesting they have been successful, citing that they have captured 81 suspected illegal immigrants and detained 19 people for alleged crimes out of 41,912 people stopped at those checkpoints, (which actually gives the stops an dismal .2% success rate.)

Well, that supposed success rate might be even less successful now after the US Attorney's office appears to agree with a local civil rights lawyer's assertion that the checkpoints are a violation of the 4th Amendment safeguards against illegal search and seizure, which has caused them to drop charges in a number of cases that were brought by the US Border Patrol so far.

It appears as though this started after one of these "internal checkpoints" netted a medical marijuana patient, (medical use is legal in Washington) and detained him for petty possession charges.

The patient, a 55 year old veteran named Stephen Dixon, described his encounter with the border patrol to the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

"We were ordered out of the vehicle and they asked us to stand there," Dixon said. "Spread your legs, put your hands on the car. We were both patted down. Then we were asked to empty our pockets."

The agents had not found the marijuana yet when they ordered Dixon and his friend to sit on the curb. That was painful for Dixon, who has only one leg, a bad knee and a severely damaged spine.

When he finally stood after a few minutes to relieve his aching back, a Border Patrol officer threatened to put him in handcuffs, Dixon said.

The two men also complained when the Border Patrol dog was allowed to search inside their car without permission.

"I asked a couple of questions -- probably sarcastic -- like: 'Do you have more authority than God?' His answer was, 'Here on Earth we do.' "

"They said: 'You need to understand our authority' and gave me a pamphlet about the Patriot Act.'"

Dixon, upset about the charges, contacted several attorneys before getting a hold of a local, and outspoken, civil rights attorney named Paul Richmond who has given presentations and lectures around the state about civil rights issues and who has been active in taking on the US Border Patrol in another case of on-duty border patrol agents videotaping protests against the internal checkpoints and raids into the homes of US citizens.

Attorney Paul Richmond, (www.olympicpeninsulalaw.com and www.storytellinglawyer.com) told us that he convinced US Attorney Jeff Sullivan to drop the charges on the grounds that they were based on an illegal search and seizure and thus violated Dixon's 4th Amendment protections.

Richmond states that a letter sent to Sullivan pointed out a ruling by the US Supreme Court, in fact it's the same ruling that the border patrol cites as their justification for these "internal roadblocks", which actually limits their authority. In the decision, US v Martinez-Fuerte, the court established that the US Government "has never approved a checkpoint program who's primary purpose was to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing."

In addition to the charges being dropped against the medical marijuana patient Richmond represented, charges were dropped against 4 others on the same basis, which means at least 5 of the 19 arrests made at the checkpoints have been invalidated because they are deemed to be violations of the 4th Amendment.

Apparently, despite the US Border Patrol's professed beliefs, they do not have more authority than god... or the US Constitution for that matter.

Are Bullies And Bad Cops Wired For Aggression?

fMRI images of brain activity found in teenagers diagnosed with aggressive

conduct disorder when they were shown videos of people being injured.

While most of our brains are wired to feel empathy when we witness suffering, it appears as though the same might not be true for bullies. Indeed, studies show that normally we humans are hardwired in a way that prompts activity in the areas of our brains associated with pain when we see others in pain, which is indicative of empathy.

However, a recent study out of the University of Chicago that appeared in the latest issue of Biological Psychology suggests that teenagers with a history of bullying and other aggressive activities associated with a disorder called "aggressive conduct disorder" appear to actually feel pleasure when seeing others suffer and lack activity in the area of the brain which is involved in self-regulation.

The study, co-authored by University of Chicago psychologist Benjamin Lahey, hooked up teenage bullies to a brain activity imaging device called an fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and showed them various videos of people being hurt by others and being hurt incidentally to see how their brains reacted to seeing other people suffer. The results were somewhat of a surprise.

The researchers had generally expected to see evidence of apathy towards the suffering of others, an emotional coldness and detachment that allow them to victimize others without remorse. But instead they discovered something much more worrisome, that the teenagers did have a connection with their victims and others who suffer in that they actually experienced pleasure when they witnessed other people suffering.

Specifically, images taken from normal control subjects showed activity in areas of the brain associated with pain when they were shown the same videos, something that would indicate an empathetic response, the bullies brains showed activity in the pleasure and reward centers of the brain, called the amygdala and ventral striatum instead, which indicates that their brains are wired to get pleasure from causing others to suffer.

Another way to describe it would be that it's similar to how a junky's brain responds to drugs by sparking activity in the reward and pleasure centers of the brain, encouraging the junky to get more drugs to feed an addiction. A bully's brain, it seems, similarly rewards the bully for acts of bullying and actively encourages aggressive and violent behavior on a biological level.

The study also found a striking amount of inactivity in the portions of the brain associated with self-regulation and emotional control, which means that not only might bullies get pleasure from the suffering of others, they might also have difficulties controlling their responses to seemingly minor affronts, like having a tendancy to react violently in response to someone accidentally bumping into them.

While this study only focused on individuals in their late teenage years who had histories of bullying, theft, and frequent lying, it seems possible that the same could be true for law enforcement officers who have a known history of abuses or misconduct. This wouldn't be a difficult link to make with the anecdotal evidence available which has always hinted at a link between officers who had tendencies towards aggressive behavior as children continuing that behavior as adults, almost in a way that would indicate that childhood bullies are drawn to the profession of law enforcement as an "safe" outlet for their aggressive tendencies.

This would also explain why many victims of police violence report that officers would seem to be euphoric while participating in beating suspects or why some victims of violent assaults, like domestic abuse victims, would report that some officers would joke about or make rude comments about how they were assaulted while investigating their reports.

While this study seems to be very bad news as it shows that bullies don't just have the same prohibitions towards violence that normal people do, but they have an active propensity towards violence and harm, it isn't all bad news. A finding like this may help find new ways to diagnose and treat this overly aggressive tendency in people who are predisposed to cause harm to others out of the sheer pleasure of causing harm.

While this might be good news down the road for childhood victims of bullying, there is no indication that any such study is being planned for adults, let alone a study of police officers who have a known history of aggressive behavior and abuse. So far to date, very few studies have been done to determine what causes some officers to be abusive while others are not, perhaps because of social stigmas that are supportive of such abusive behavior by law enforcement officers.

Hopefully, someday, researchers will investigate what causes some police officers to have a predisposition to react violently to seemingly minor affronts and why some officers appear to get pleasure from the suffering they witness or sometimes contribute to. Until then, there is little hope that people with such predispositions will be screened before they are allowed to work in jobs with such an opportunity to use one's authority over others in ways that only gratify the abnormal brain wiring that gives some pleasure at the suffering of others instead of empathy for those who suffer.

Racism Rising In Seattle

James Bible, head of the Seattle-King County chapter of the NAACP, 

complains of racial profiling by Seattle Police in an interview with KING5 News.

My mother was an immigrant from a small Greek island who blessed me with bronze-colored skin and a rare blood disorder similar to sickle-cell that is only found in Mediterranean people. Yet, my father's grandfather immigrated from Finland and this combination appears to confound many, or at least those who are comfortable enough to ask me, bluntly, "So, what are you anyway?"... which ultimately leads to discussions of presumption and confessions that I was thought to be mixed, Hispanic, Native American, or something else...

Honestly, this has caused some problems for me, not just from when I was beaten by a gang of racists here in Seattle or when I've been yelled at by white people here about how "my people" are taking their jobs, but also as I was growing up in some more intolerant rural areas of Ohio. It was there where the only friends I had were black because the white kids didn't find me similar enough to their liking. So it was a learning experience for me that when I would stay with my best friend at his house and go to his family events or to his church that I was usually accepted and treated kindly even though I was lighter in color than everyone else there... even though he wasn't really welcomed at my house by my family.

It's not that he was outwardly told he wasn't welcomed. But there was obvious, at least what should have been to me, discomfort for everyone whenever I would bring him over... It wasn't that my family was outwardly racist, but they were inwardly tolerant of intolerance and it showed to others, but I suppose I chose not to see it.

But, after I grew older I found out that that inward tolerance of intolerance can easily change into outward bigotry when I had my father over for my son's birthday and he started making racist comments about a football game we were watching... I was stunned, and ultimately I told him he had to leave because I didn't want my children to be exposed to that from their own grandfather... and because It personally hurt me because I myself had to deal with intolerance as a child as well.

Now, lately, I've been hearing a lot of stories on the street about racist and neo-nazi groups that have been coming into Seattle more and more frequently. People would tell me about a group of middle-aged guys with SS pins and other racist paraphernalia walking around the downtown area trying to recruit kids and I've heard stories of the groups of kids with swastika patches hanging around the malls harassing people as well.

Then there were the stories in the news about racist and bigoted graffiti being spray-painted on cars, fences, and buildings closer to Seattle than the usual strongholds for racist groups, like Renton. There were news stories of hateful pamphlets and fliers being left in mailboxes and lawns as well... then came the attacks.

Stories were coming through about people being attacked due to their racial background and their sexual orientation more and more frequently in Seattle, but nobody is sure about how frequently because the police department didn't want to track those as "hate-motivated crimes". In fact, many in the GLBT community were starting to accuse the Seattle police of refusing to investigate hate crimes and cases of assaults that were motivated by homophobia and the NAACP was accusing the SPD of doing the same about race-based attacks. The SPD promised to do something about it but due to a lack of unified pressure from the community, that failed to materialize and hate crimes have increased.

Now, as things often do, the problem has gone to the next stage where the police themselves are now being accused of showing racial bias in their policing. Citizens interviewed by the news media are telling stories of police stopping minorities just because they have new clothes on the assumption that they had to have stolen them instead of buying them. Police also stand accused of picking out any minorities who might be among a group of whites and telling them they are garbage and not welcomed.

Bigotry, of course, is a weed that grows best in the soil of apathy and seeks to, as it's simple goal, to divide people from one another. It seeks to separate black from white, homosexual from straight, and anything that is different from that which is homogeneous. What I've seen in Seattle is that, while each group decries discrimination against it's own, they don't work together to decry the same when it happens to the other group.

In fact, oddly enough, my own experience is that when I've tried to reach out and offer my support to these groups of people I get rebuffed, as if my support isn't welcomed... not that this should be considered discriminatory, but it does divide us and, ultimately, it means that we are divided in our responses to bigotry in all it's forms... it means that bigotry has succeeded in it's goal of division.

The result is that events meant to draw attention to racial profiling by police, police brutality that targets minorities, and the refusal of the police department to consider homophobic assaults as hate crimes draw very small crowds and are ultimately ridiculed or ignored by the press and the city itself. So... ultimately... we only have ourselves to blame for allowing bigotry to divide us, even if that bigotry remains silently outside of ourselves or comes unspoken from within.

Sure, Seattle is becoming more friendly to racism and bigotry because of the influx of right-wing suburbanites drawn here by aggressive gentrification, but that is only part of the problem. There remains divides between us, spoken or not, that ultimately makes Seattle a more welcoming place for hate than most of us are ready to admit... and it really shouldn't surprise us now that racism and hate have found fertile ground in a city where we chose stand divided against it or to ignore it... just like I ignored it and speak out against it happening in my own family when I was younger... and that ultimately divided us too.

It's a shame, really, because you don't have to be only black, or white, or gay, or straight to be a victim of police misconduct or bigotry... but we still keep approaching it as if it is not everyone's problem when it really is.

Who Will Watch The Watchmen Now

When three ex-Seattle police officers formed VIEVU with the idea to develop a small wearable camera for police officers that would help reduce the number of false misconduct accusations against police officers and provide them with a useful tool to gather evidence while on the job, it's unlikely that they imagined that the most resistance to their idea would come from their peers and old coworkers at the Seattle Police Department.

The VIEVU is a three ounce rectangular wearable wireless audio/video recording device that is capable of storing up to 4 hours of video that supposedly cannot be manipulated or erased. Approximately the shape of an older style pager, the device can be clipped on a uniform or belt and allows the officer to record potentially volatile interactions or situations from his or her own perspective. The device cannot be tampered with and the recordings cannot be modified even after they are downloaded from the devices onto a central computer system.

In this regard, the VIEVU is unlike dashboard mounted cameras used in police cruisers that only point forward and have been known to miss recording disputed police interactions, such as the case of Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes who could be heard pleading for officers to stop beating him on a dash-mounted police camera that was not positioned to record the actual beating. So this could be a valuable tool that protects officers who have been wrongfully accused of misconduct and to hold officers accountable who do commit acts of misconduct.

However, the Seattle Police Officer's Guild has forced the Seattle Police Department to suspend it's testing of the VIEVU after it was used to help monitor an August 29th Critical Mass bicycle ride through the city of Seattle as a test of the portable recording system. When asked about the guild's problems with the device, Sgt. Rich O'Neill, president of the guild, cited privacy concerns along with the need for officers to undergo training and preparation for potential litigation as reasons for the guild's resistance to the camera.

O'Neill also argued, in an interview with the Seattle Times, that the devices may make it harder for officers to gather evidence in cases instead of making it easier. "If the officers have the cameras going all the time there could be a chilling effect on citizens and juvenile talking to the police. If they think the cops are videotaping all of their conversations they might not want to have their names or faces used." O'Neill was quoted as saying.

Surprisingly, the guild has an ally in it's argument against the cameras in the form of the ACLU of Washington State, headquartered in Seattle, Washington. In an interview taken before the guild stopped the department's testing of the device, Christina Drummond, the Technology and Liberty Project Director for the ACLU of Washington, cited similar concerns over the use of the device.

Are these concerns founded in an age where the common citizenry is told that there should be no expectation of privacy in public? Where workers in the private sector are allowed to be recorded by their employers while on the job and where the police themselves monitor citizens with CCTV cameras positioned on street corners and in public parks?

Why is it that a police officer should have a special expectation of privacy where the common citizen does not? Why is their supposed fear of accountability still taken seriously when they already have job security protections that most of us could only dream of, when it's already nearly impossible to fire a police officer for misconduct?

Now, it's certainly true that the implementation of such devices should be paired with a very well-thought out policy that dictates when and how the devices should be used, that prevent reviewing of recorded materials except for gathering known evidence or incidents that have received complaints. It does seem clear that there was little thought put into the testing performed at the SPD and there have been no mention of protocols that were given to officers that would govern how these devices were used or how information gathered by them would be protected from surreptitious review.

But such guidelines and restrictions already exist for the use of recordings made by the police from public CCTV systems and dashboard mounted cameras that already exist in their vehicles. Why have those technologies been praised by officers while they still resist putting cameras in precincts and the use of wearable recording devices?

In our present-day surveillance society, it's interesting that perhaps the very last bastion of privacy in America might very well reserved for the very same police officers that have been given the power and privileged of monitoring and recording the rest of us...

In the end it seems as though everyone will be left wondering if this technology will finally help us watch the watchers, or if the watchers will be only gaining yet another tool with which to watch us.

St. Paul - A City Unfettered

The last image recorded on AP photojournalist Matthew Rourke's camera before he was shoved from behind and arrested without warning, as documented here.

The total arrests for this week's Republican National Convention appears to be around 820, at least 28 of those arrested were journalists and several more were legal observers and medical professionals who attempted to aid injured protesters. There were also accounts of innocent bystanders being rounded up with protesters and arrested as well, though no count is available for those numbers.

Reports were also coming out that those who were detained were denied medical care in jail and those that have been released days later were still suffering the effects of chemical agents as they were left untreated and unable to wash themselves off. Some reported witnessing people being dragged off to restraint chairs and then exposed to more chemical agents as punishment for demanding medical care.

Several videos and photographs have still made it out that show police using force against protesters who did not pose any threat to officers, the public, or property. Indiscriminate use of chemical agents, rubber bullets, baton rounds, concussion grenades, and direct use of force were documented on several occasions, some of which appeared to intentionally target members of the press who were documenting the police response to the protests.

(read this chilling account of journalists being sprayed and assaulted by officers)

(Also, this jarring account from a journalist who was arrested and detained)

(Kirk James Murphy MD gathered several different first-hand accounts describing egregious cases of police brutality that was inflicted on protesters and regular civilians alike over at Firedoglake.)

Now, many might expect that the resulting legal costs for the city in the wave of police misconduct and civil rights lawsuits will hold the city and it's police force responsible for such blatant and egregious abuses... Think again.

In a deal made prior to the convention the Republican party bought a $10,000,000 insurance policy to cover the costs of any civil litigation brought against the city for police misconduct or civil rights abuses. The federal government also provided the city with $50,000,000 to cover the expense of bringing in more officers from surrounding cities and the national guard for the convention as well. The city and it's police department will not spend one cent in damages, they will not suffer any consequence whatsoever in fact.

While a police spokesperson insisted that many officers probably didn't know about the deal, it still obviously affected the policies that govern how police use force against the public, under what conditions which types of force could be used, and the permissible targets for that use of force. These policies affected what directives were given to officers about who they may arrest as well, which is clearly demonstrable when we look at the arrests of reporters and other observers, if it were against policy to do that the charges against reporters would have been dropped, but they haven't and government officials are defending the arrests.

It is because the city will not be held accountable for it's actions this week that we've seen such abuses and little concern over the potential consequences of those abuses. No individual officers or officials can be sued because government indemnifies them from civil actions in the course of their duties and the city itself will not pay a dime.

This was the main ingredient in this recipe for abuse, it unfettered the city's police force from any responsibility or civic duty, and now we've seen the result. St. Paul became a city where there were no rights to speak of, and in the end there will be no justice for what happened there this week.

UPDATED: 09/06/08- added more links to just a few of the overwhelmingly numerous stories of abuses that occurred in St. Paul last week.

Losing The Battle Against Police Misconduct

The photo above is of a Kentucky University journalism student, with press badge, being doused with chemical spray before he was arrested. Note that it's clear he, the only one in range with a camera, is being intentionally targeted by the officer. The photo was taken by Matthew Rourke of the Associated Press, who was also arrested shortly after taking this photograph.
-source: The Kentucky Kernel

Slowly, but steadily, we are losing the battle against police misconduct.

The number of cases of misconduct appear to be growing...
Yet efforts to enact accountability reforms are constantly under attack by police organizations and grow more ineffectual each day as new loopholes in current accountability systems are discovered and abused.

Police unions and other organizations designed to increase the influence of the police in the political arena are growing rapidly in number and in strength...
Yet the number of citizen activists and organizations that deal with police misconduct issues are diminishing in number and in ability to talk freely about abuses.

New laws are continually being enacted to protect the police from charges of abuse and to keep the public in the dark about cases of misconduct, yet activists and the press continue to have access to disciplinary information restricted and their voices censored.

If all of this wasn't bad enough, then came St. Paul Minnesota where at least 9 journalists and photographers were detained so far this week while covering the police response to protests and several other journalists and police misconduct activists were detained and/or subjected to "preemptive" raids.

While those who were targeted in those raids have continued to cover police activities as best they can, the implications of these intimidating tactics and the arrest of credentialed journalists have sent a chill over all who try to cover police misconduct issues and act as advocates for victims of police brutality. It appears to signal a new chapter in the story of constant battle to improve accountability, the use of direct police action against critics by the police without any second thought to adverse public perception or civil rights abuse charges.

Even before these ominous actions were undertaken against those who dared to speak out against brutality and report about corruption, many have had to deal with more subtle forms of intimidation and threats by police officials and government agencies which have already taken their toll on the number of people who are willing to stand up and speak out about civil right and human rights abuses in the US.

In fact, several sites and organizations that cover police brutality have grown silent without any explanation in recent months. Most recently, just last month in fact, one of the most outspoken voices against police misconduct, BadCopNews, suddenly went quiet after posting volumes of information and stories of abuses in the US, at an average of at least a dozen stories of misconduct a day since 2001 in fact.

I've counted at least 6 other sites and organizations that have gone quiet this year alone, and I fear the actual number is likely much higher. While we can only speculate about the reasons why these citizen journalists and activists go silent, it's reasonable presumption that it has much to do with the intensive harassment such writers receive from the police, and not just the police departments that they normally cover.

This site itself, in fact, has been harassed by police organizations and officers from across the US, with messages ranging from illegitimate threats of legal action to outright threats of bodily harm and/or death if the site's writer, me, ever came to their town. Sadly, I'm not alone in that as I know of at least 5 other writers that have had to deal with similar threats, one of whom suddenly disappeared without a trace in July.

Things were already looking grim before those events of this week shattered the perception that, perhaps, our best chance at avoiding the possibility of such threats against us being acted on would hinge on us continuing to speak out about abuses, to continue to be seen and visible. It's now clear that this isn't the case as many of the journalists and activists who were arrested haven't even been mentioned in the media and experienced abuses and denials of medical care while imprisoned.

These are frightening times, if any readers wonder why I devoted so many posts to what was happening all the way out in Minnesota, consider this... if the police there can get away with doing that to credentialed members of the press, imagine what police anywhere in the US could get away with doing to one of us.

Don't get me wrong, I don't plan on voluntarily going under, if I am silenced it will be against my will, as I'm sure is true for those brave people still covering the protests in St.Paul as well. But I do want people to think about just how grave what happened in St. Paul this week really is. I want people to understand just how dangerous of a risk it is that the voices raised against police abuses are in danger of being silenced like this...

After all, if none are left to speak out about such abuses, just think how much worse those abuses are going to get.

Reporting On Police Activities Is Under Fire -Updated

interview with Amy Goodman about her arrest

"...I was put into a cell, which I later measured to be about nine by eleven paces. And I was in there with seventeen other—seventeen protesters who had been also arrested that day. Some of them were still soaked with, you know, pepper spray, and their skin was burning, and they were asking for a nurse. But in the time that I was in there with them, they didn’t get to see anybody.
-Nicole Salazar, Producer for DemocracyNow.org

While a lot of attention went towards the arrest of ABC News Producer Asa Eslocker as he was working on a story in Denver at the Democratic National Convention last week, the reporting on what has been happening at the Republican National Convetion has been disturbingly incomplete and isn't capturing how police have been using the cover of stopping anarchists to also intimidate those who would report or record cases police misconduct.

It started with the arrest and searches of several police misconduct activists and videographers prior to the convention along with several reports of police seizing video and photographic equipment from independent journalists there to monitor police activities at the convention. Under cover of raids claimed to target protesters the police suspected of planning illegal activities the police also conducted raids and detentions against members of a New York-based group of videographers who monitor police conduct and who were responsible for overturning hundreds of arrests that occurred during the 2004 RNC. That group, I-Witness, reported in their press release that their host's home was raided and that other members of their team were detained searched elsewhere without charges.

Then the founders of St. Paul-based Communities United Against Police Brutality were also rounded up in a separate raid and while being detained they claim that their garage, where they store files and evidence related to police brutality cases they've covered, was burglarized. However, while the garage contained several valuable pieces of equipment, nothing was stolen. But, disturbingly enough, their files were left in disarray as if they were hurriedly searched, which would seem to suggest that it was the police who opportunistically broke into their property without a warrant.

Then, on Monday, police used the cover of the protests to further intimidate reporters by detaining several journalists and intentionally assaulting others who had clearly identified themselves as credentialed members of the press. The first journalist detained appears to be an Associated Press photographer who was rounded up with several protesters and detained for several hours despite clearing being identified as a journalist. (See the photograph that got AP photographer Matthew Rourke arrested)

Then there were the arrests of two Democracy Now! producers who reportedly were injured while being thrown against a wall by police officers, one injured his elbow and the other sustained head injuries during the violent arrests. This prompted Democracy Now! journalist Amy Goodman to rush to the scene to determine what happened, only to be arrested and manhandled by police herself when she started asking questions. (video of the arrest of producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar will be posted at the Democracy Now! website)

There were also other reported cases of assaults on journalists and third-party legal observers who were monitoring the protests on Monday, including a Seattle journalist, Brendan Kiley from the independent weekly paper The Stranger, who was doused with an entire canister of pepper spray after identifying himself as a member of the press to the police.

The end result of these actions against the press by police is chilling, it shows that police have no regard for the rights of the press and since they are not concerned about violating the rights of a credentialed member of the press, what is there to stop them from harming independent journalists and activists that monitor for police misconduct as citizens?

...and as I predicted previously, intimidating the press into keeping quiet about police abuses was likely the intent all along.

Update: It appears as though a Seattle-based group of videographers who document protests and the policing of protests have also been detained. According to a statement made by a spokesman from that group, some were apparently detained at the same location that Amy Goodman was arrested and still remain jailed.

Update: According to a press release from DemocracyNow.org, St. Paul city attorney has decided to press charges against Amy Goodman and prosecutors are still deciding whether or not to charge two DN producers with felonies associated with their arrests.

Update: Two University of Kentucky journalism students and their advisor have also been arrested and charged with felony counts according to the University of Kentucky's newspaper The Kentucky Kernel. The article also shows a photograph, taken by arrested AP photographer Rourke, of one of the students being peppersprayed prior to arrest.

Update: The St. Paul police department raided the offices of I-Witness Video for a second time yesterday after a reportedly "mistaken claim" by an "undercover officer" that hostages were being held in their building. This caused the building owner to evict the group of videographers from the building and interfered with their ability to document police activities in response to protests at the RNC.

Originally published 9/2/08 11:28, Updated 9/4/08 09:17

Police Target Anti-Brutality Groups Ahead Of Convention

An interview with Michelle Gross of Communities United Against Police Brutality

Among the numerous reports of several politically motivated raids taking place over the weekend in Minnesota to preemptively disrupt groups planning on protesting the Republican National Convention was this story of an anti-police brutality activist who's documents were ransacked back at her home while she was detained elsewhere in one of the questionable raids.

While it's clear that at the very least Michelle Gross, of Communities United Against Police Brutality, was the victim of a burglary. But because nothing of any real value was stolen during the burglary and it was clear that documents and photographs stored in her garage and car were rifled through while she was detained at a meeting of activists planning to protest the convention, so she strongly suspects that the police did it.

Given the kinds of things police have said to me about what I do here and what they would like to do to me, I have no reason whatsoever to doubt her... and it's pretty damn frightening seeing how our civil liberties in this nation are being trampled. But, both her and her husband have both said they won't let this form of intimidation stop them from participating in the protests and documenting any police misconduct.

To add some degree of credibility to the claim that police in Minnesota are targeting police misconduct activists and reporters, police also raided the house of a journalist who was hosting members of I-Witness, a group of journalists and citizens that monitor police misconduct from New York. Police handcuffed and detained several of the reporters for hours and other journalists watched from a backyard next door while police searched through the group's documents and video equipment. In addition to that raid, police also detained two more I-Witness reporters elsewhere with no reason given for the detention.

Here was the statement issued by the I-Witness group as the raid was taking place:

IMC-US , Aug 30, 2008 @ 20:20 GMT
From: I-Witness Video


This is Eileen Clancy, one of the founders of I-Witness Video, a NYC-based video collective in St. Paul to document the policing of the protests at the Republican National Convention.


The house where I-Witness Video is staying in St. Paul has been surrounded by police. We have locked all the doors. We have been told that if we leave we will be detained. One of our people who was caught outside is being detained in handcuffs in front of the house. The police say that they are waiting to get a search warrant. More than a dozen police are wielding firearms, including one St. Paul officer with a long gun, which someone told me is an M-16.

...For those that don't know, I-Witness Video was remarkably successful in exposing police misconduct and outright perjury by police during the 2004 RNC. Out of 1800 arrests, at least 400 were overturned based solely on video evidence which contradicted sworn statements which were fabricated by police officers. It seems that the house arrest we are now under and the possible threat of the seizure of our computers and video cameras is a result of the 2004
success.

We are asking the public to contact the office of the St. Paul mayor to stop this house arrest, gross intimidation by police officers and the detention of media activists and reporters.


- Eileen Clancy

When police are brazen enough to do something like this, to target reporters and groups that monitor police activity, you really have to start think that they plan to do some pretty brutal things to anyone who dares to protest during the convention. Both groups see this as a form of preemptive intimidation ahead of the event but still pledge to stay and document any cases of abuse or misconduct that they see. However, having now been identified by the police, I fear they will be the first targets for any brutality that the police decide to unleash next week.

...I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

UPDATED 8/31/08

Allegations Of King County Jail Abuses Continue

The King County Jail, located in downtown Seattle Washington, serves as a detention center for both pretrial detainees and convicted felons in the greater Seattle and King County area.

In November of last year a Department of Justice investigation into that facility found, what it termed, egregious and deadly constitutional rights violations that directly caused the death of at least one detainee, if not more. Currently the DOJ and King County government are in negotiations over whether they will fix the problems and how they would go about doing that if they do. In the meantime a class action lawsuit is in progress against King County on behalf of a large number of detainees who contracted drug-resistant MRSA infections and suffered harm due to a lack of medical care and the unsanitary conditions in that facility.

Of course, everyone understands that people make mistakes and, while King County refused to agree that the problems in their jail rose to being violations of detainee rights, they did acknowledge that mistakes have been made. Accordingly, the expectation was that after being notified of these problems the King County government was taking steps to fix them... but such an expectation may be too generous.

To that end, in addition to a complaint we received a few months ago about a woman who was denied medication at the facility, we've received an email from a mother of an inmate in the King County Jail earlier this month who expressed serious concerns about how her son was being treated. She was distraught not only over her concerns about mistreatment, but also the apparent lack of action to address those concerns on the part of King County and its Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention (DAJD) and was searching for anyone who could help. Her son, Sam, was a prisoner at the King County Jail at the time and had been there since April after being charged for robbery. He later plead guilty to those charges and told the court that he was willing to serve his time in order to answer for what he did. But, his mother claims, he didn’t intend that serving his time would leave him permanently harmed.

On April 29^th a complaint filed by Sam claims that a guard approached him and asked if Sam was "sweet on him", to which Sam replied that he wasn't. It was then that Sam says he was slammed against a wall by the guard and taken to isolation for 12 hours without explanation. He filed a grievance over the incident and, as a result, his treatment only got worse… he claims that guards exacted retaliation against him as the result of his filing a complaint over the incident.

Sam alleges that the retaliation escalated up to a June 18th incident where Sam, who was assigned to stay in the "suicide tank" after the first incident, claims he was told to "cuff up" following a disturbance in the tank he was in. (In the jail, a tank is a larger cell that holds several smaller cells or bunks along with a small communal area). Sam says he refused to cuff himself because he claimed he wasn't a part of the disturbance and he asked for a sergeant to be called in to intervene and ensure he was treated fairly.

When a sergeant arrived Sam says that the sergeant put him in handcuffs and, while he was still handcuffed, the guards then grabbed him in a "hair hold technique" and dragged him by his hair to isolation. (A "hair-hold technique" is an older control move used by guards in the past but has since been outlawed in most jails because of the potential for harm, the use of this technique was sited as a significant problem in the DOJ report and the DAJD pledged to stop officers from using this outdated technique at that time).

After being dragged by his hair to an isolation cell, Sam claims he was brutally beaten, kicked, and then his legs were kicked out from underneath him so that he landed with the full force of his weight on his head, without having his hands free to stop his fall. He claims he was then jumped on by 5 to 6 different guards and picked up off the ground with such force that the handcuffs cut into his wrists. Sam then claims that after the beating was over that the sergeant that he had asked for to ensure his fair treatment said "Ah... Now I think I'll go have a beer" and he was left on the floor in a pool of his own blood for an undetermined amount of time.

At some point later, after the beating, a psychologist assigned to evaluate Sam came to check on his condition and noted that he was still laying on the floor in a pool of his own blood and ordered that he be taken to Harborview Medical Center for treatment. Sam spent 6 hours at the hospital having his injuries treated and was then sent back to jail. Sam claims that he still suffers from severe headaches and nerve damage in his hands and arms as a result of the beating to this day.

Sam spent 9 days in isolation after returning to the jail, and then was sent back to isolation yet again for another incident where Sam claims guards harassed him by repeatedly asking him if he “had a problem” over and over again. All told, Sam claims he spent over 26 days in isolation as punishment for his filing of a complaint over that first incident for which Sam claims that he had been targeted for as retaliation.

Sam's mom was understandably worried that Sam would be mistreated further because, even while the jail said it was investigating Sam's complaints, the investigations into his claims were going to take months from what she was told by jail administrators. So her primary concern was that while the investigation dragged on for months nothing was being done to protect Sam from further abuse and retaliation. His mother said she was heartbroken over his mistreatment and the perceived indifference over his well-being in that facility on the part of jail staff and county officials.

Sam's mother also says that as a part of the investigative process Sam was subjected to a polygraph test to ascertain whether he was telling the truth about his complaint. She says that he passed that test but that she is unaware as to whether the guards were subjected to the same test. She says that she has worked tirelessly to try to get the abuse to stop but to no avail. She contacted several government officials and jail staff regarding the ongoing complaints but the same answer always came back... These investigations take months and in the meantime, her son had been put back under the care of the same guards who he filed a complaint against in the first place and she only wanted to know that her son would be safe while he repays his debt to society...

That was when she reached out to us out of desperation; reassurances by the jail that his needs were being met left her distrustful: "Of course, they are not and I know that the opposite is true. He is on 15 minute watch, in which guards use the opportunity to taunt, belittle, and harass him regularly. I might add that my son has been the constant target of physical and emotional abuse because of valid complaints he submitted against certain guards. He committed a crime, has pled guilty and is willing to do "time" for it-- however, he should not have to suffer unnecessary harassment and abuse..."

In the DOJ report on constitutional violations at the King County Jail, the investigatory process was sited as problematic in addition to problems with physical abuse by guards and a lack of reasonable medical care for injured detainees. If true, the allegations that Sam's mother brought to our attention would indicate that the jail has done little to address the problems the Department of Justice outlined for them and had offered to help them fix. Meanwhile, a starkly similar case of jail brutality in Chicago just cost that city $750,000 in a jury trial decision earlier this month.

While we are hopeful that the jail is investigating Sam's complaints, the main concern we had is that there was no mechanism to protect him from retaliation for making those complaints. We asked the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division if they had comments on the story or progress of talks between the county and the DOJ over the violations they uncovered at the jail but they chose not to respond to our requests this time and in the past have stated they do not comment on cases that are currently ongoing.

We also asked the DAJD for information about this case and whether there were any policies concerning retaliation in response to complaints by inmates. Their response was that they are not free to comment on any ongoing investigations but they did forward us a copy of what appears to be a letter to staff outlining that it is illegal and against DAJD policy to retaliate against anyone who files a complaint. However, the document did not outline any process or mechanism to protect someone who filed a complaint and was dated 07/16/08 so we cannot determine if this was sent to any staff members or just created in response to our request. (Link to KC DAJD Anti-Harassment Memo). The memo also does not mention any steps that could be taken to protect someone who alleges ongoing abuse or retaliation while investigations are proceeding.

Ultimately, while King County has been given ample opportunities to correct their mistakes, we also hope that they give Sam a chance to be held accountable for his mistakes in a manner that is consistent with the spirit and letter of the law that protects detainees from cruel and unusual punishment as well... regardless of whether the jail intends to be accountable for their own mistakes.

(Note: this article was originally set to publish on July 17^th while Sam was still in the King County Jail but we held it back at the request of Sam and his mother who feared retaliation for it being published. Sam has since been transferred to a different facility and has given us permission to publish his story as a result.)

New Police Blog Praises Old Jail Accreditation

The Seattle Post Intelligencer's new (and pretty biased) police blog recently praised the King County Correctional Facility (aka KCCF or King County Jail) for obtaining a National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCHCC) accreditation for detainee medical care.

Their blog spins this as if it's some new development that demonstrates some measure of improvement for the same jail that, less than a year ago:

• was roundly condemned by the US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division for inadequate detainee medical treatment that directly caused at least one death.
• sued to fight off a potentially embarrassing inquest into a detainee's slow tortuous death due to a lack of medical care that resulted in a doctor on it's staff resigning.
• now faces a class action civil suit filed on behalf of several dozen detainees who had contracted MRSA infections from that facility due to unsanitary conditions and a lack of suitable wound care.
• was roundly lambasted in the news over insisting that the sexual abuse of detainees by guards found to be going on in the jail was merely a "training issue".
  

The problem with this report is that it's not new news... the King County Jail has had NCHCC accreditation for several years already because it was forced to obtain and maintain that accreditation due to the requirements negotiated during the Hammer v King County lawsuit in the mid 1990's. In fact, King County executive Ron Sims even cited that same accreditation last year when he issued a statement defending the jail and insisting that no detainees had their rights violated there when the DOJ stated the conditions and treatment there were in violation of constitutionally protected rights.

So, the jail already had that "prestigious" accreditation when all those problems occurred last year, so nothing has really changed between then and now... in other words it's not news. But the county government is spinning it like it's some great new thing and the reporters are allowing the jail to skate by without actually fixing the problems that still occur there by parroting news releases without doing their own research to verify what they are being told to print as news.

So long as the press is too lazy to research questionable press release claims made by the government and is willing to give the jail a pass on murdering and torturing detainees there is little chance that the jail will actually commit to any real changes, even in the face of several legal actions on behalf of detainees and the federal government. So, shame on the Seattle Post Intelligencer's staff writers for not doing the job the public entrusts them to do; to do their due diligence when reporting on the news in an unbiased and professional manner.