Police Misconduct NewsWatch for 01-09-09

A review of police misconduct and jail abuse stories making the headlines

Why Prosecuting Police Misconduct Is So Difficult In The US
Earl Ofari Hutchinson, with the American Chronicle, offers a brutally honest and realistic look at why it is highly unlikely that the BART police officer who shot Oscar Grant in the back and killed him will ever be convicted, even if he's ever charged, for the killing... and yes, this assessment holds true, and has held true so far, for any officer who is criminally charged with police misconduct.

It's a very difficult thing for a willing prosecutor to do, and most prosecutors tend to be very unwilling to file charges against officers because they're records depend on a close working relationship with the police... that's why it certainly appears as though the Alameda County District Attorney who claims to be investigating the Oscar Grant killing is dragging his feet on this case while he was all too quick to file charges against people protesting the shooting of the restrained and unarmed Oscar Grant on New Years morning.

But sadly the Oscar Grant case is not the only police-involved shooting incident that closed out 2008 and brought us into the new year...

FBI Asked To Investigate Undercover NOPD Officers Who Shot Man In Back
One of the police departments on our list of candidates for the 10 worst in America starts off the New Year on the wrong foot as 9 New Orleans Police Department's undercover narcotics officers have been reassigned pending an investigation by the FBI into the shooting death of Adolph Grimes Jr.

Grimes, with no criminal record, was shot 14 times, 12 of those shots hit him in the back, and his family says police executed him as he ran for his life. Suspiciously, the NOPD has not commented on why the narcotics officers stopped Grimes and there has been no mention of any drugs involved in the incident.

Police In Texas Accused Of Racial Profiling And Misconduct In Shooting Of Unarmed Man
Reason Online has the story of Robbie Tolan, who was shot by a Bellaire Texas police officer in his own driveway on December 31st under allegations that he was driving a stolen SUV... which happened to be Tolan's.

Tolan's family alleges that the officer shoved Tolan's mom up against their home before shooting Tolan when Tolan, the son of a former major league baseball pitcher who was just starting his own baseball career, before shooting Tolan when he stood to ask the officer why he was hurting his mom. The shooting has sparked allegations of racial profiling by Bellaire Police.

But it's not the first time such allegations have been made...

The shooting prompted another famous athlete to come forward with his own account of why he left the Houston area even though he's a former Houston Astros player... he was the victim of racial profiling by police too.

Sheriff Who Starved Detainees For Profit Jailed For Contempt
Morgan County Sheriff Greg Bartlett was released, well fed, from a federal prison after sent there by an Alabama judge for his refusal to properly feed the prisoners in his jail. Most sheriffs in Alabama are rewarded financially if they skimp on detainee meals and Bartlett turned a healthy $212,000 profit for his own personal gain in the last three years by feeding his detainees starvation rations.

The detainees he starved had filed suit in federal court to force the sheriff to at least feed prisoners meals that met USDA nutritional requirement guidelines. But the sheriff's failure to do so so caused the judge to send him to jail for contempt of court until he came up with a plan to meet this demand, which he finally did a day after being sent to federal prison.

In case you feel bad for the sheriff, don't. He wasn't forced to stay in the same jail as his detainees and eat the starvation rations he forced his prisoners to eat.

Officer Accused Of Lying On Police Report Faces Criminal Charges
Rarely are officers caught "testilying", where officers perjure themselves on arrest reports or in criminal cases, but it appears as though a Pohatcong Township police officer in New Jersey is facing criminal charges on allegations that dashboard cameras caught him lying about obtaining permission from a driver to search his vehicle during a 2007 traffic stop.


Police Chief Accused Of Criminal Misconduct Sues Police For Excessive Force
The embattled police chief of New Richmond, Ohio who has been on paid leave for over three months due to an investigation by the state's bureau of criminal investigations on allegations of criminal misconduct is now suing the state for excessive force.

The police chief, Dave Willoughby, is saying that the police who raided his home to gather evidence of criminal menacing, stalking, and voyerism used excessive force by handcuffing him and pointing guns at his 7 and 12 year old children...

One wonders if, as part of the lawsuit, the defense would ask the police chief how his own officers performed such raids against suspects in his jurisdiction?

St. Paul Police Release RNC Videos For Public Review
The St. Paul Police Department in Minnesota has finally made video that the city recorded during the 2008 Republican National Convention available to the more than 30 individuals and groups that requested access to those recordings under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act in September of 2008.

Michelle Gross, the president of Communities United Against Police Brutality, says that the videos should have been made available immediately since the cameras were purchased with taxpayer money.

Groups, that include CUAPB, will begin organizing volunteers to come in shifts to catalog and flag videos that show police misconduct and might exonerate some of the more than 800 people who were arrested during the RNC and say that they have already collected several pieces of damning video evidence that show misconduct and false arrests from citizen reporters and others

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.

Worst Police Misconduct Video of 2008 Reader Poll

So much happened in 2008 and it seems like we've been losing the battle against police misconduct because of all the stories we've seen...

Or is it just that these stories have always been here and that we're just now hearing more about the stories that usually get covered up thanks to brave citizens out there who videotape the police when they misbehave and because surveillance technology has become so ubiquitous?

Do these show us how bad misconduct is, or how much misconduct out there happens without us ever knowing about it?

So, let's take a look back at the stories of police misconduct in video that happened in 2008...

After watching these feel free to vote for the worst... not just by how much brutality officers display, but also the level of disregard for society and the law they show and how badly their actions violate the public trust that was granted to them.

VIDEO 1

West Palm Beach Florida officers repeatedly and viciously punch a handcuffed robbery suspect in the head until he falls to the ground face first. Then, if that wasn't enough, while he's face down on the ground they kick his head hard enough to make it visibly bounce in the video. Truly disturbing to watch... at least it was for me.

VIDEO 2

NYPD officer body-checks a bicyclist at a Critical Mass ride in New York City. The officer initially claimed the rider attempted to assault him and filed charges against him... at least until this video surfaced. Now the officer has been indicted for providing false testimony.

VIDEO 3

Then there's the video of a Hillsborough County, Florida Sheriff's deputy dumping a paralyzed man out of his wheelchair at a Tampa area jail because she didn't believe he was paralyzed. Even after dumping him out she never stops to think that maybe she's wrong as she began to rifle through his clothes while he laid on the floor with broken ribs.

VIDEO 4

NYPD officers repeatedly striking a man's legs during an arrest. Officers claimed he was resisting and attempted to hit them with an umbrella while the victim and his relatives say he was stopped by police suspecting he had alcohol when he tried to bring ice into a park on July 4th.

VIDEO 5

Even though this incident occurred in November of 2007, the video was not made available until February of 2008. This video captures a portion of the beating Mark Hays suffered at the hands of the Seattle Police Department's "elite" Anti-Crime Team not even two months after the ACT got bad press for beating a Canadian couple for jaywalking. This incident was also sparked by Hays and his friend jaywalking in front of an unmarked ACT SUV and escalated from there.

VIDEO 6

This other Seattle Police video came at the very beginning of the year on January 1, 2008. Marcell Richardson was trying to get into a local McDonalds after he had to step out and shut off his car alarm when police decided to shut the place down for crowd control. Officers stopped Marcell and when he tried to explain he had already ordered food he was pepper sprayed and grabbed. He became disoriented and he ran. Officers caught him and then punched and pepper sprayed with a large OC canister until he was left face down on all fours gasping for air and apparently compliant. But that wasn't enough for the officers who then fired a taser into his back. Prosecutors later dropped the obstruction and resisting charges they filed against him.

VIDEO 7

In a case that highlights the amount of animosity the police have for news reporters, Denver police officers arrest and choke ABC reporter Asa Eslocker during the Democratic National Convention for standing on a public sidewalk while trying to do a report.

VIDEO 8

In this double-feature, highlighted by Amy Goodman's reporting on the video of her own arrest as well as video of the violent arrest of Democracy Now! producer Nicole Salazar provide just a highlight of Minneapolis and St. Paul police abuses that included the arrests and assaults of several credentialed reporters during the Republican National Convention in 2008, including several videographers and a reporter from The Stranger from Seattle.

VIDEO 9

The well publicized incident in Philadelphia where several officers pulled three suspects from a car and brutally kicked and beat them. Officers claimed they were suspects in a shooting but never found a gun until several weeks later, supposedly, and conveniently, under a blanket in the field next to where the beating took place.

VIDEO 10

This shocking video shows Stark County Ohio Sheriff's Deputies forcibly stripping a female detainee who was arrested after she called police to stop a relative who attacked her. After a complaint was filed by her husband the police exonerated all officers, saying the abuse never took place... until this disturbing video surfaced that is.

VIDEO 11

This video shows a Shreveport Police officer attempting to interview a DUI suspect turn off the video camera and then turn the camera back on again to show the handcuffed woman laying on the floor in a pool of her own blood. The officer claimed that the woman just fell down... The officer was eventually fired after an investigation showed the shocking extent of the woman's injuries from the officer beating her. No criminal charges were filed though.

VIDEO 12

This video captured during the 2008 Democratic Presidential Debate at Hofstra University shows Iraq War veteran Nick Morgan's head being crushed by a Nassau County New York police horse's hoof. Sgt Morgan suffered a broken cheekbone and permanent brain damage from the incident and from a subsequent denial of medical care when he was arrested after being trampled and knocked unconcious. The veterans were merely asking to be let into the debate so they could ask the candidates a question about the Iraq war and how veterans would be taken care of after they returned home.

VIDEO 13

One of the more infamous officers of the year was Baltimore Maryland's officer Salvator Rivieri who was caught on this video in the summer of 2007 harassing and then assaulting a teenage skateboarder. When the video was released in 2008 the national news picked up the story, which prompted another video to be released by a artist who was threatened by the same officer at the same location that same summer.

The officer got a paid vacation and a lot of attention... so much so that the police department used it as an excuse to keep the names of officers involved in shootings or misconduct secret from the public... talk about the police learning the wrong lessons.

Note: This reader's poll has ended and the results will be posted shortly in a different article.

King County and US Department of Justice Reach Agreement on Jail Reforms

King County Executive Ron Sims and the US DOJ released details on an agreement which outlines steps that King County must take in order to address the constitutional rights abuses the US DOJ discovered during it's year-long investigation last year into jail deaths and other abuses that occurred in the King County Correctional Facility (KCCF).

The agreement, a copy of which can be read here, outlines steps the county must complete within three years or else a federal civil rights suit, to be filed by the DOJ, will move forward in federal court against the county. As part of the agreement a monitor will be assigned and has full access to the jail, detainees, and all documentation and may report any lapses to the DOJ, but not the public or press.

While Ron Sims still insists the abuses at the jail were not violations of constitutionally protected rights, the agreement asserts that the problems found were violations of detainee rights. The agreement seeks to address problems with abusive use of force, sexual abuse of detainees by guards, lack of documentation for uses of force, lack of internal investigations, medical care, suicide prevention, corrections officer training, infection prevention, and hygiene.

We will also monitor the situation and report any new abuses as we hear about them, particularly the disturbing trend of reports we've received concerning intentional denials of medical care for detainees with verifiable medical conditions and standing orders from their doctors for needed medical care.

In the late 1990's the ACLU of Washington State also filed a similar lawsuit against King County over poor conditions at the jail but failed to perform the oversight that a settlement reached in that case allowed for.

A separate class action civil suit filed by a local law firm on behalf of detainees who suffered MRSA infections due to unsanitary conditions at that facility is still planned to move ahead.

Police Misconduct NewsWatch for 01-05-09

Cell phone video taken by witness to the BART shooting in Oakland, CA.

BART Officers in Oakland California Shoot Man In Back While He Pleads For His Life
22 year old Oscar Grant was fatally shot by BART officers in Oakland California while laying face down on the ground and begging officers for his life. We would likely be hearing a different story about this unwarranted shooting if it weren't for several witnesses video taping the incident at the same time and turning those over to the media instead of to the police department, which is still defending the officer involved.

Lawyer Alleges Police And Public Officials Conspired To Ruin A Man's Life
Disturbing case from West Virginia reported in the lawyer's blog who is representing his client who alleges that West Virginia officials and Snowshoe Mountain police officers conspired with the woman he was divorcing, to falsely imprison him, have him beaten, raped, and worse. The charges used to cover up for the attacks? Public intoxication, which doesn't even garner jail time in West Virginia.

*Tip thanks to Aaron from the Washington State Criminal Defense blog.

Illinois Officer Arrested on Allegations That He Sexually Assaulted Woman He Detained
Illinois State Police have arrested a Alorton Village Police officer on suspicion of sexual misconduct over allegations that he raped a woman that he pulled over. As part of that investigation the officer's unmarked police car has been sent to the state forensics lab for examination.

Former Pro Bowl Football Player Alleges Police Assaulted Him Without Reason
Former Minnesota Vikings defensive lineman Carl Eller is facing trial for charges of DUI, fleeing police, assault of an officer, and "making terroristic threats" against officers over an arrest on April 9th, 2008.

However, he also has a suit against Minneapolis for improper use of force in the incident... the lawsuit alleges that officers used tasers, choke holds, and blows from a flashlight over nothing more than a moving violation and that the department then intentionally destroyed video evidence of that arrest.

A Former Cop Files Criminal Charges Against Current Officer After Police Refuse To File Charges
A former cop's car was hit and the suspect fled the scene on August of 2007, but someone witnessed the accident and wrote down the license number of the driver who hit his car... but police never did anything else about the case, so the former officer filed charges himself and prosecutors refuse to cooperate.

Why? Because the suspect is a current police officer with the Baltimore Police Department, which is what an officer told him at the scene with a chuckle. The former officer says this:

"If this group went to this extent to cover up a very minor, $1,300 property damage hit-and-run, committed by a low-level officer, what do you think they are doing in other things?" Swiderski said. "I never saw something so blatant in all my 21 years as a police officer."

Indeed.

Connecticut Officers File Lawsuit Against Attorney General For Failing To Protect Them From Retaliation
Several police officers in Connecticut have filed a lawsuit against the state's attorney general for failing to protect them when they requested protection as whistleblowers reporting or investigating allegation of repeated incidents of police misconduct.

The officers include internal affairs investigators and state troopers who say the AG was more concerned about defending senior police managers and covering up misconduct than protecting whistleblowers and the victims of police misconduct.

Woman Sues Officer After Criminal Civil Rights Case Against The Officer Fails
While federal prosecutors and the testimony of five King County deputies couldn't convince the federal criminal jurors that Deputy Brian Bonnar had used excessive force and deprived Irene Damon of her rights when he allegedly beat her during an arrest, Irene has now turned to filing a civil case against the officer and the deparment.

Irene and the officers who testified in the criminal trial allege that Bonnar had struck her twice in the head with a knee after she was handcuffed. Bonnar was subject to a 20 day suspension without pay over the incident.

When An Anti-War Protest Becomes A Pro-War Protest

I heard there was going to be a protest march today against the war going on in Gaza so I decided to go and take a few pictures...

The bulk of the protest march in Seattle, cited in the news as 2,000 but seemingly more like 200.

It really did seem to be an anti-war protest, intermixed between the Palestinian flags were some of the stock protesters that seem to be at any given anti-war protest of any stripe. Personally, I'm not a big fan of war or violence as I'm the overly optimistic type and like to think most people are the same way and would rather be left to their own devices like I do... though I too know there are people out there who's devices include a unfathomable desire to hurt others.

Protesting parents coax their children to take place in a mock funeral march carrying a baby doll made up to be a civilian casualty of war.

I digress though... except for the tactic of using children who probably had no idea of the role they were playing out for their parents in this spectacle of a protest, I generally supported what I thought the point of it was, that Israel and Palestine should just stop shooting at each other and try to give peace another try.

However, after the march came and went through where I had set up to take pictures, I found out the protest was about something else entirely... something I just can't support.

A lone Pro-Israeli counter-protester and one of the hundreds of Pro-Palestinian protesters face off.

My wife and oldest son left afterward to do some shopping and on the way home happened into a few groups of these protesters... their chants of "Stop The War" earnestly delivered for the media had changed into angry shouts of "Death To Israel" and "Death To The Jews" once the cameras had left, and my wife and son were caught in the crossfire.

My wife, who does happen to have some Jewish ancestry, never thought she looked that Jewish... neither did I. But the protesters did, and they made their anger known with louder shouts of "Death to Jews!" as they glared at her and started following her and my son down the street... not once, but twice when she got away from one group only to run into another.

She got away, a bit shaken and angry, but that's only part of the point.

Antisemitic signs intermixed with anti-war signs, ultimately a call for peace through more killing.

It wasn't a peace march, it was a war march. They weren't asking for Israel to leave them alone, they were telling us that the only peace they can accept will come from the death of others... through more war, not less.

They weren't asking for acceptance as humans, they were asking for hate towards those they considered as less human than themselves... which included my family apparently.

It was a point that the media here, who put a good bit of sympathetic bias towards the protesters in their stories, apparently missed... but one I would have too if they didn't let their hate bleed out in front of my son and wife. It was a message that said "The only peace we can understand comes with your death..."

It was a message which only asks for more war, not less.

Happy New Year 2009