US ER Doctors Reveal They Know Police Use Excessive Force

A new report in the January 2009 edition of the Emergency Medicine Journal may contain evidence that the epidemic of police brutality in the US is very real. That report reveals that 99.8% of US Emergency Physicians believe that the police use excessive force when detaining suspects.

How are they so sure of this? The report goes on to say that 97.8% of those doctors surveyed have personally treated people that they suspect have been subjected to excessive force and nearly two-thirds of those have treated two or more victims of excessive force.

The problem, revealed in the report, is that doctors don't know what to do with that information, even though nearly half wish they did have procedures in place to report incidents where they suspect excessive force had been used by the police. This only adds to the problem as it allows those cases of misconduct to go unnoticed and even when reported by the victim, it means that doctors aren't interviewed as a means to corroborate reports of brutality.

The survey, performed primarily by Dr. Jared Strote of the University of Washington in Seattle, goes on to state that about 71% of physicians have not reported cases where they suspected excessive force and the reason for that is that nearly 97% of departments don't have any procedures in place to report such cases.

The most common forms of excessive force reported were blunt trauma caused by closed fist and foot strikes, followed by overly tightened handcuffs which have been known to cause permanent neurological damage.

However, one point to keep in mind with this report is that it only offers a glimpse of the problems with excessive force used by police officers. It does not take into account that many victims of police violence may never make it to an emergency room, instead many are taken straight to jail and some of those may never receive any medical treatment for their injuries at all.

As said before, police brutality in the US is a systemic problem and not just an issue of a few bad apples. Unfortunately the system works against victims of police misconduct and offers few chances to help those who could testify on their behalf and help stop this problem.

With reports like this, though, that finally offer a glimpse into the extent of the problem when law enforcement agencies refuse to gather any real statistics on cases of abuse, we might have some hope to convince the public that this is a real problem and that it can affect anyone, innocent and guilty alike, and thus must be addressed.

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.

Police Misconduct NewsWatch for 12-23-08

Denver's "Independent Monitor" Refuses To Investigate Misconduct Claims
Denver's police monitor refuses to investigate allegations of misconduct during the DNC simply because he felt that the police "had no reason to lie" about what happened. (Guess he got some of those t-shirts the officers made to celebrate mistreatment of protesters for free).

The allegations against the Denver police include that the department withheld exculpatory evidence during trial against protesters, that they never gave an order to disperse before attacking protesters, that an undercover officer posing as a protester attempted to spark an aggressive response by resisting arrest, and that officers assaulted an innocent 80 year old man who was accidentally caught in the middle of the police department's attack against protesters.

Yet More Lawsuits Against Chicago's Corrupt "Proactive Policing" Special Operations Section
Chicago has reactivated the previously disbanded "Special Operations Section" while lawsuits caused by that unit continue to roll in... The chief just has faith it'll be different this time around, even though many of the same officers are still on that squad.

An Update On Chicago's Other Infamous Police Unit
Meanwhile, again in Chicago, other officers associated with Burge's torture division will likely not testify in order to avoid self-incrimination and the state's Attorney General is trying to duck responsibility in bringing the rest of the officers accused of torturing suspects to trial.

Officers Threatened To Arrest A Supervisor When He Wouldn't Help Them With Racially Motivated Attack
In a very egregious Charleston WV case of racially motivated brutality, a supervising officer testifies against two officers who beat a man because he was black and his wife was white. The supervisor also alleges that the officers threatened to arrest him as well when he tried to intervene. This apparently wasn't the first time these officers were accused of this either.

Officers Break A Man's Face In Six Places, Call It A Textbook Arrest
Salinas California police department claims officers were doing the right thing when they broke an innocent man's face in six places. The man claims he was kicked in the face by the officers while officers claim his face suffered such massive damage... from just being tackled.

Houston Texas Police Department Faces Diversity Training
Houston officers have been ordered to undergo diversity training after officers held a taser to a homeowner's head and handcuffed his family, the officers claimed they did it because the homeowner was wearing a turban and that made them suspicious... The officers arrived at the homeowner's residence because the homeowner called 911 to report a potential robbery and he was wearing a turban because he's a Sikh.

One DOJ Report And One Inquest Later, Abuses Continue At The King County Jail

In March of 2008 we reported that a woman who was recovering from reconstructive surgery was denied medical care while at the King County Jail despite just having surgery a few days before her arrest under allegations of shoplifting.

In that case the jail staff had verified that she was under a doctor's care and had valid doctor's instructions for care of that wound, but the staff ignored her requests anyway. Instead almost letting her go into shock while left in a cell with a small blanket and none of the medications she had been prescribed by her doctor.

It appears that this kind of mistreatment is still ongoing for people detained at the King County Jail. We've just received another complaint that is almost identical to the one we received in March, but this time it's from a woman who has actually worked as a corrections officer elsewhere... and she says she's never witnessed mistreatment like what routinely occurs at the King County Jail in all her years as a corrections officer.

She starts her story with her driving home just a few days after having major abdominal surgery, with her stomach still sutured, when she says she was pulled over by the police. At first she was confused about why she was stopped although she admits going maybe 2 mph over the limit.

During the stop and even after she was taken into custody she was never told by the officer why she was pulled over and never read her rights. Later she discovered that she was pulled over and arrested that night because she had mistakenly missed a court date for a traffic violation, a court date that she was not notified of, and because of this she was unknowingly driving with a suspended license as a result.

After she was arrested she was taken to the King County Jail. This is where she claims that she repeatedly told police officers and jail staff that she had recently had surgery and that she needed to be careful as to not reopen the surgical wound or cause any internal damage. Instead of at least looking to see if she was telling the truth, guards and officers alike ridiculed and made fun of her instead. All of this even though she offered to show them the sutures that were still running across her abdomen.

Once booked into the jail the abuse didn't stop. She told us that she was denied food and water for 10 hours and denied even a basic medical examination. Eventually, though, she was finally seen by a nurse, but even after that they continued to refuse her reasonable requests for things like some additional bedding to protect the surgical site, use of a wheelchair, assistance with getting to and from the restroom, or even the medication that she had been prescribed by her doctor.

In the letter she sent us she described her treatment as "The most egregious, inhumane treatment I've ever experienced by another human being." And that as a former corrections officer with a degree in Criminal Justice that "…despite all of the corruption and verbal and physical abuse I was subjected to while a CO, I can say with a clear conscience that I have NEVER EVER treated an inmate the way I was treated by the police officers and the King County Jail staff… their behavior toward me was absolutely inexcusable, inhumane, and totally unjustified."

She claims that she was never rude or belligerent to anyone during her arrest and the time she spent in the jail. She also claims that shortly after being released she went back to her surgeon in order to make certain that there wasn't any damage done and was admitted to the hospital for a few days. Her doctors have told her that they hope she files a civil suit over her mistreatment by the police and the King County Jail, and she says she intends to do just that.

In November of 2007 the United States Department of Justice issued a scathing report on their investigation into the King County Jail for alleged civil rights violations that continue to occur at that facility under the direction of King County DAJD director Reed Holgeerts and King County Executive Ron Sims.

That report detailed life threatening abuses that were termed as egregious violations of detainee civil rights which included a lack of reasonable medical care. The US DOJ Civil Rights division and the King County government are still in talks over whether the county will address the violations that were discovered at the jail, over a year after those findings were made public.

In addition to that, last week marked the end to an inquest into the gruesome 2007 death of a detainee named Lynn Dale Iszley at the King County Jail. Iszley's death due to lack of medical care was meticulously detailed and cited in the DOJ report that was released in November of 2007, over a full year ago.

That inquest, lasting only two days, came to the same conclusion that the Department of Justice investigators did, that the jail was ultimately responsible for that death due to a decided lack of appropriate medical care... that Iszley's death could have, and should have, been prevented.

Apparently, judging by the reports we received, many of which we don't publish at the request of the victim, the county has decided not to address the civil rights violations that were found during that investigation and it remains unclear whether the US DOJ will do anything to force the county to comply with their recommendations to address the deadly problems in that jail since it's been over a year since their report was released and almost a full year past the deadline provided for King County to address the problems found at their jail, which they clearly have refused to do.

Meanwhile, a class action lawsuit is in the works against the King County Jail for several detainees who contracted potentially lethal MRSA infections due to the lack of medical care in the jail. No court date has been set yet in that action, but it is restricted only to detainees who contracted MRSA and the lawyer in that action, Ed Budge, has told Sarah that he cannot represent her for her case, like others who were denied medical care but didn't contract MRSA.

The woman who contacted us and the others harmed by abuses in that jail, some of which were later found innocent of their charges, have pledged to continue their attempts to gain legal assistance and claim that they won't sit by quietly and let the county get away with violating their basic human rights like this, especially while the jail continues to mistreat other pre-trial detainees.

Meanwhile, King County Executive Ron Sims, who is currently in talks to gain a position in President-Elect Obama's administration, still refuses to address the problems that have been detailed to him by the DOJ, an inquest he himself asked for, and by the numerous reports in the media. Instead he has suggested all along that detainees don't have civil rights to protect… even those who are later found innocent of any crimes they might have been accused of committing.

Ultimately, the deadly problems at the King County Jail aren't due to just one guard, one police officer, or one doctor. It is a systemic problem that only continues to exist with, and due to, the express disregard for human rights and constitutional rights by the county administration itself. Until King County has a new administration, these problems will only continue to expose the county to liability and bad press while potentially innocent detainees continue to be exposed to deadly conditions at that jail.

No Good Deed Goes...Court Says Good Samaritans Can Be Sued

This story from California bugged me, not just the inherent injustice of someone being punished for doing a good deed, but because it also could apply to any of us... even here in Washington state, or wherever you live too.

The case, Van Horn v Torti, pits Alexandra Van Horn, who was injured as a passenger in a car that slammed into a light pole at 45 mph in November of 2004, against Lisa Torti who was a co-worker and friend of Van Horn's following in a car behind Van Horns who attempted to pull Van Horn out of the vehicle in the fear that her car might ignite in to flame.

Van Horn now blames Torti for her being paralyzed and has brought suit against Torti for damages, and the California Supreme Court has given the lawsuit a green light based on the assumption that the state's Good Samaritan Law only protects you when administering emergency medical care, not when you attempt to rescue others from potentially life threatening situations, like pulling a drowning victim out of the water or pulling someone from a burning car.

Think something like that can only happen in crazy California? Think again.

In 2005 Washington state governor Christine Gregiore signed a Good Samaritan Law that made it a crime for a person to not render aid to a person who has suffered physical harm.

Yet, the still existing Good Samaritan Liability Law on the books for Washington state only provides protection from liability while performing medical aid on persons already injured and does not cover rescue or other similar actions, just as the one in California is worded.

Worse, here in Washington state, you would be stuck in a catch-22, liable to be sued if you help, subject to criminal charges if you don't...

But, here's a warning for readers elsewhere, these kinds of laws are usually similar from state to state because each state usually just follows suit from the first one that wrote that kind of law. So I recommend you check up on your own laws before you think about doing anything helpful too.

All things considered, it really looks like we all might need to think twice before we try to help our fellow humans in need... because the law now seems ready to enforce the idea that no good deed should go unpunished.

It's chilling to think that it seems as though when I attempted to break up a stabbing I witnessed that night in November that I could have very well been sued for intervening to save that guy's life on top of being beaten and wrongfully arrested for it. Yet another reason to definitely think twice about doing that again now.

Police Misconduct NewsWatch for 12-19-08

Stills from a video taken in December 2007 of a Knoxville Jail guard beating a mentally ill jail detainee while he was restrained in a device nicknamed "The Devil's Chair".

Reuters Reports Replicated Milgram Experiment Shows Most Would Torture Others If Ordered To
First performed in the 1960's the Milgram Experiment showed that most people would willingly torture others if told to. Experimenters used actors who pretended to cry out in pain when subjects believed they were administering electric shocks to the actors. While Milgram let subjects go to 450 volts, the reproduction of the experiment preformed this year stopped them at 150 but showed that 70% of subjects would have went beyond 150 volts if they were allowed to.

Critics of Milgram's experiment often claimed that people in the 1960's were more prone to be obedient than they are today... Apparently that's just not the case. The same could also be said of the Stanford Prison Experiment that was done in 1971 which showed how regular people would become abusive when given the kind of power a guard has over prisoners. The people chosen as guards in that study became so abusive the experiment had to be stopped after only 6 days instead of the planned 14 day duration.

My point in posting this on a site like this should be clear, but in case it isn't let me explain. Whenever you hear a story about police abusing someone or a story about corrections officers abusing detainees... remember that a full 70% of the population would willingly torture another human being with no compunction in regards to what they knew about that person or why they were told to torture that person. To think that police officers or corrections officers are not also capable of this is being dishonest with oneself at one's own peril.

Because it can happen to anyone, even the innocent.

Sharma Settlement Prompts Vancouver To Seek Independent Review Of Police Department
We covered the Navin Sharma case and the related developing Chris Kershaw case where officers have been fired from Vancouver's police department, not for misconduct, but because they didn't adhere to the blue code of silence.

There have been repeated calls for a DOJ investigation of Vancouver's police department after these cases came to light and the city, in response, is trying to come up with a plan to investigate itself instead... The problem, aside from questions over whether the city investigating itself would be unbiased, is that there appear to be few volunteers willing to risk the city's infamous wrath by doing so.

ABC NEWS 20/20: Bloomington Illinois Police Search For Serial Rapist, Only To Find It's One Of Their Own
A disturbing account that starts with testimony from victims of a serial rapist who would go so far as to make them bathe themselves and take their bedsheets after attacking them in their homes to the police department that tried to catch the rapist... only to discover that the serial rapist was a member of the Bloomington Police Department himself.

Washington DC Cop Pleads Guilty To Aggravated Assault Charges

From the DOJ press release:
The incident took place on Jan. 20, 2005, in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C., during an unauthorized march related to the 2005 Presidential Inauguration. Huxoll was on duty and responded to the Adams Morgan area when some of the marchers began engaging in incidents of vandalism.

In his plea hearing, Huxoll acknowledged that he threw the victim to the ground because he believed, erroneously, that the victim had thrown bottles at him and other officers. Huxoll also admitted that, although the victim did not resist and was not aggressive, he grabbed the back of the victim's head while he was still on the ground, lifted it up and struck the victim across the face with his riot baton. The victim suffered a broken nose, lacerations and abrasions as a result of this assault.

Photos Taken By Police Officers Of Women In The Nude Costs City $150,000
In Statin Island NY, two women won a settlement from the city in a case where detectives had taken photos of them in the nude while one was in the hospital being examined in a rape case and another while at the station for a traffic violation that was later dropped.

The women, one of whom is the daughter of David Bowie's ex-wife, settled for a combined $150,000. The officers involved were acquitted during a criminal trial sparked by the cases because the state failed to prove that the officers took the photos for their own sexual gratification.

One of the cops involved is now suing the department for wrongful termination after he was fired earlier this year.

12 Year Old African American Girl Beaten And Arrested By Galveston Texas Police Who Mistook Her For A White Prostitute

I know, I normally don't do this for stories outside of the Seattle area... But... Offered in it's entirety from the Houston Press blog via Radley Balko's The Agitator with the only comment being some tidbits about the lawyers involved... and that I think I'm going to be ill.

"It was a little before 8 at night when the breaker went out at Emily Milburn's home in Galveston. She was busy preparing her children for school the next day, so she asked her 12-year-old daughter, Dymond, to pop outside and turn the switch back on.

As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, "You're a prostitute. You're coming with me."

Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men beat her about the face and throat.

As it turned out, the three men were plain-clothed Galveston police officers who had been called to the area regarding three white prostitutes soliciting a white man and a black drug dealer.

All this is according to a lawsuit filed in Galveston federal court by Milburn against the officers. The lawsuit alleges that the officers thought Dymond, an African-American, was a hooker due to the "tight shorts" she was wearing, despite not fitting the racial description of any of the female suspects. The police went to the wrong house, two blocks away from the area of the reported illegal activity, Milburn's attorney, Anthony Griffin, tells Hair Balls.

After the incident, Dymond was hospitalized and suffered black eyes as well as throat and ear drum injuries.

Three weeks later, according to the lawsuit, police went to Dymond's school, where she was an honor student, and arrested her for assaulting a public servant. Griffin says the allegations stem from when Dymond fought back against the three men who were trying to take her from her home. The case went to trial, but the judge declared it a mistrial on the first day, says Griffin. The new trial is set for February.

"I think we'll be okay," says Griffin. "I don't think a jury will find a 12-year-old girl guilty who's just sitting outside her house. Any 12-year-old attacked by three men and told that she's a prostitute is going to scream and yell for Daddy and hit back and do whatever she can. She's scared to death."

Since the incident more than two years ago, Dymond regularly suffers nightmares in which police officers are raping and beating her and cutting off her fingers, according to the lawsuit.

Griffin says he expects to enter mediation with the officers in early 2009 to resolve the lawsuit.

We've got calls in to the officers' lawyer; we'll let you know if we hear something.

Update:
This is from the officers' lawyer, William Helfand:

Both the daughter and the father were arrested for assaulting a peace officer. "The father basically attacked police officers as they were trying to take the daughter into custody after she ran off."

Also, "The city has investigated the matter and found that the conduct of the police officers was appropriate under the circumstances," Helfand says. "It's unfortunate that sometimes police officers have to use force against people who are using force against them. And the evidence will show that both these folks violated the law and forcefully resisted arrest.""

Some somewhat interesting asides to this case include that the lawyer defending the cops, William Helfand, is a member of the libertarian-leaning Federalist Society that exists, supposedly, to increase individual freedoms and liberties... all this despite his penchant for defending bad cops and writing articles about how an absence of malice should negate police brutality claims since at least 1998.

Also interesting is that the lawyer representing the young girl and her family, Anthony Griffin, was essentially fired from the NAACP in 1993 for agreeing to represent a KKK Grand Dragon in a civil rights free speech case at the request of the Texas State ACLU, even though he himself is African-American.

The reason he gave for accepting that case was that "If I don't protect their rights to free speech, I won't have any rights either." Now that's a lawyer who's all about defending constitutional rights.

Hope he wins this case.