Police Misconduct NewsWatch For 12-06-08

Picture taken outside of the US Federal Courthouse in Seattle Washington

In Local News:

Seattle Officer Remained In SPD With Outstanding Warrant For Two Years
In October of 2005 Seattle officer Francis Estrada became so inebriated that he drove the wrong way on the I-5 freeway and crashed into a number of different vehicles on is way home. While drivers did get the number for his truck and charges were filed, the authorities reportedly sent the summons to the wrong address and Estrada remained an SPD officer for two years.

That ended when a routine background check spotted the warrant and Estrada turned himself in. Estrada entered a deferred prosecution for the charges which means his record will allow him to retain his police certification and he'll be able to be an officer elsewhere since he was allowed to resign from the SPD. As part of the deal the Seattle police guild agreed not to appeal on behalf of the officer.

Estrada claims he was in a "dark place" back then after he and his partner, Gregory Neubert, had hit an innocent bystander when shooting at a fleeing motorcyclist who they witnessed fire a shot at a crowd. The, then 19 year old, woman shot that night has a $500,000 civil suit pending against the city of Seattle for that incident that left a bullet lodged in her lung. Estrada and his partner were the only officers out of 7 who responded who fired on the suspect, the others reported that there were too many bystanders in the line of fire so they held their fire. However, Estrada and his partner were still cleared by an internal investigation into the incident.

In National News:

FBI Closes Police Department For Day While Executing Search Warrant
The FBI has conducted a search warrant on the Harvey Police Department in Illinois. Harvey, a suburb near Chicago, was without a police department for most of the day while the FBI conducted a search of the department related to the drug traffic sting operation that netted 4 Harvey police officers and 10 Cook County Sheriff's Department corrections officers.

This isn't the first time the Harvey PD has been in the midst of a corruption scandal as their department was raided by Illinois State Police in 2007 and has been shunned by other area police departments who refuse to cooperate with that department because of the sheer number of misconduct allegations filed against that department.

Six Innocent People Convicted On False Confessions Finally Cleared Of Wrongdoing
This stunning case of misconduct that forced 6 people into a false confession wasn't due just to aggressive police interrogation practices, but this time was the result of a police psychologist using knowledge gained from treating some of those who were falsely accused in his private practice to coerce them into falsely confessing to crimes they never committed.

Citizens Catch Police Misconduct In Elaborate Sting Operation
Anti-drugwar activists/self-help "nevergetbusted.com" video salesperson set up a sting operation in an Odessa Texas house with two "grow lights" that were setup up over a couple pine tree saplings and waited for the police... The police obliged and, for reasons yet unknown, they raided the house as a marijuana grow operation. A lawyer for the organization was waiting along with sophisticated surveillance equipment streaming to an off-sight location to catch officers in the act of a supposedly illicit raid based on no real evidence of illegal activity.

The organization's CEO says this is just the beginning of a nation wide series of sting operations to highlight police misconduct in the obtaining and execution of drug raids on citizens. This first site was chosen as a response to the conviction of a woman who allegedly had drugs planted on her by a police informant and who was convicted even though the informant admitted that he planted drugs on the woman at the request of arresting officers.

The police department caught in the sting has said it's currently in the process of determining what charges they can press against the organization for catching them in the act.

Police Union Vows To Defend Infamous Torture Cop At All Costs
The Fraternal Order of Police union for Chicago has pledged to pay for the defense of infamous Chicago police officer Jon Burge who is accused of purjury related to allegations of torture his unit was accused of during the 1970s and 1980s.

While federal prosecutors did find evidence that Burge's officers in his Area 2 unit did torture suspects into making false confessions, they could not bring charges due to statutes of limitations on those charges. However, this year, Burge was arrested at his Florida home for lying during that investigation. The union states these charges are politically motivated and that "The FOP will stand with the (accused) Police Officer every time."

Baton Rouge Media Still Battling For Police Department Transparency
Media outlets in Baton Rouge Louisiana are still fighting the Baton Rouge police department over access to disciplinary records related to allegations of police misconduct that occurred during Hurricane Katrina. The claims of misconduct were made by out-of-state police officers who volunteered to assist local departments during the crisis but then withdrew that assistance over the incidents of misconduct they witnessed.

The police department has refused to release records related to those incidents in the face of a legal battle and media pressure, even after other cases of misconduct have come to light, including an officer accused of raping a 16 year old girl and another officer with a history of misconduct being arrested for DWI.

Palo Alto Police May Have Used Illegal Tactics To Coerce Homeless Man Out Of His Van
On December 15th a Judge will decide whether police should be allowed to cite non-existent laws in order to coax civilians into following orders they would not have otherwise been allowed to make, essentially bypassing constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

The case revolves around an incident where a resident complained about a homeless man parked on the street who was sleeping in his van. When police arrived the man told them he wanted to be left alone and the police had no grounds on which to do anything else. But, not satisfied, the police told him they were towing his van based on a non-existent law against overnight parking in order to trick him into leaving his van. Once he opened the door the police tasered him and arrested him for resisting arrest... again, resisting an arrest that originally had no basis in law.

Are Cops Gathering Info On Misconduct Victims?

Screenshot of the fraudulent Injustice In Seattle site presumably created by Seattle police officers to gather information on victims of police misconduct.

Earlier this year some police officers from the Seattle Police Department created a fake Injustice In Seattle site to fool people searching for this site into revealing their personal information to Seattle police officers instead. (I reported on it at the time, but during that time there were also a lot of other posts dedicated to other subjects and it may have been drowned out by that coverage, so I thought I should mention it again.)

Their site is simple really, it merely consists of a form that prompts visitors to provide their personal information along with details about whatever complaint they might have against the Seattle Police Department. Where that information ends up, however, and what is done with it is still unknown.

Well, that site is still up and apparently still gathering information on people searching for this site, some of which may very well be victims of police misconduct trying to find information about what they can do, as many of those who write me privately often do.

This means, of course, that the fraudulent site poses the potential risk of further abuse as there's no way for us to determine what those officers are doing with the information they've been gathering. As far as we know, they may use it to prepare for potential lawsuits or they could even use that information to harass witnesses or victims of police misconduct into keeping silent about what they suffered.

Sure, there's a chance that the information they gather isn't acted on, but the problem is that there's nothing to prevent them from using the information they've gathered with that fake site to further abuse people that they have already mistreated. After all, it's not a site that's managed by the government or police department itself, so it's not subject to the rules and regulations that prevent officers from gathering information on citizens not suspected of any crimes.

Thankfully, most of the major search engines, like Google and Yahoo, have ignored the fraudulent site which reduces the potential threat of misuse, but there is one standout that still lists it. In fact, that search engine lists it above our site...

Screenshot of a search performed for "Injustice In Seattle" using Microsoft's MSN search engine showing the fraudulent site listed first.

Now, why MSN lists that site ahead of this one isn't clear, especially when that site is static and likely doesn't have the same number of visitors we do. However, it wasn't until recently that MSN even listed our site in their searches even though I registered it there before the fraudulent site was created. But it's clear that people using MSN to find this site may end up being misled into unwittingly sharing their personal information with unknown officers who can do whatever they please with that information.

Ultimately, I don't think there's anything I can do to prevent this from continuing. I can only provide warnings about that site to our visitors and hope that potential victims of police misconduct haven't been giving their information to those who may potentially be the very same officers who abused them.

While I'm still hoping that MSN eventually removes that listing from their search results... my complaints haven't been enough to convince them to do so up to this point. So there's little else that I can do at this time.

Until then, just remember that we don't ask for personal information, we intentionally remove identifiable information from stories we publish unless that information was already made public by the media or the subjects of their stories have given us permission to make that information public.

It's precisely because of the tactics police officers use to intimidate victims of misconduct that we make such efforts to protect the privacy of those who report abuse to us. If you visit a page you think is part of this site that asks for such information, it's not ours.

So be careful out there people.

Winter Cleaning

I'm getting ready to update my blogroll and our blog feed due to the large number of police misconduct blogs that disappeared this year.

So, if you know of a blog we've missed, or a related police misconduct or civil rights site, or even a civil rights lawyer that we neglected to add to our list that you think we should include in our lists, please let me know!

Might as well clean up all those links while I'm at it, huh?

Thanks for reading!

Police Misconduct NewsWatch for 12-02-08

In Local News:

Remember This The Next Time An Officer Tries To Blame The Victim
A Bellingham Washington police officer's police cruiser was apparently stolen when he left it running in an alleyway while responding to a call. The police car was later recovered... minus some pricey equipment apparently.

National News:

Bridgeport Connecticut Finds Officers Innocent But Then Offers To Settle Brutality Suit
In 2004 Carlos Diaz accused Bridgeport police officers of beating and kicking him in the middle of a grocery store he worked at after he purchased a cell phone from someone that allegedly belonged to one of the officers. While the investigation into the complaint found Diaz's story more credible than that of the officers, the city still cleared the officers of excessive force charges.

Well, now the city is now offering Diaz $40,000 as a settlement for his civil rights case, which he is likely to accept, say his lawyers. As a side note, one of the accused officers, Douglas Bebko, was later fired over a different incident where he allegedly beat his girlfriend outside of her own home.

Ongoing Florida Police Corruption Probe Nets Another Arrest
A second Avon Park Florida police officer has been arrested as the result of an ongoing corruption investigation into that department. This officer was accused of extorting bribes from hispanic drivers that he would stop for minor traffic infractions.

15 Chicago Officers Busted In FBI Sting
Blue Must Be True reports that the FBI set up a sting operation in Cook County Illinois due to the high level of corruption complaints in the Chicago area and they ultimately charged 15 officers with conspiracy to possess and distribute narcotics... which gives me a good segue for this next story:

Chicago Paid $229,000,000 For Failing To Keep Corruption Under Control
The City of Chicago has payed out over $229 million in the last three years due to lawsuits against the city. Of those suits, 44% are due to police misconduct, which means police corruption and misconduct cost taxpayers over $100,000,000... and the report states it looks like it's only going to get worse. Maybe some other cities who try to hide police corruption instead of dealing with it should pay attention... maybe like New Haven?

New Haven Officer With History Of Brutality Facing Federal Civil Rights Suits
A New Haven Connecticut police officer who is facing federal lawsuits accusing him of multiple incidences of brutality and one case of an illegal strip search apparently has a long history of excessive force complaints, at least 8 that have been recorded, though some of the people now alleging brutality said their complaints were reported as being "lost" by the police department.

Another New Haven officer was recently convicted of planting drugs and stealing money from crime scenes. The current suit alleges that the city has been negligent in failing to pursue complaints of misconduct against the police, which served to encourage more egregious misconduct.

Strangers In Strange Lands

A friend of ours had just come back into town yesterday from his tour of duty in Iraq so I took him out for some dinner in a quiet little restaurant so we could catch up for a bit. Of course, there were a lot of stories about what he had seen and experienced there, but there was also talk of how it was difficult to adjust to being away from all of that.

Being back stateside, he said, felt alien to him… there was a newness to the experience of being in the places where he had previously spent so much time. That experience, he said, that feeling of not belonging here and of not fitting in made him feel like he wanted to go back to Iraq, back to the things he was accustomed to, even though that experience was so dangerous and difficult.

Mind you, my friend isn’t one of those gung-ho soldiers who got into the army because of any love for fighting or anything like that. He told us he was pulling for Barack Obama to win and was hopeful that the change from Bush would eventually improve the situation there and for his fellow veterans. He was happy to be home, but still, there was that feeling that he just didn’t belong here.

It’s a common feeling really, something I hear from many of my friends who are veterans who had just returned from the military who had difficulties adjusting to civilian life again and from coworkers who had a hard time translating the closeness of working with fellow soldiers in that close-knit military society to the, often, backstabbing ways of working in private industry.

Strangely enough, such feelings of alienation and culture shock are similar to those that ex-prisoners feel once they’ve been released back into the world of the free, and part of the equation that leads to the high rates of recidivism in the US for criminals who have spent time in prison. In fact, I felt the same way after being released from jail a few years ago.

When I was released, just prior to being found innocent back in 2006, everything was surreal to me and it was as if I was a stranger in a strange land, even though I had walked these same streets for years before being locked away against my own volition.

I felt lost and as if I didn’t fit in, and the fact that I didn’t even have my own clothes and still had slippers from the jail only added to that feeling of "otherworldliness", garnering me frequent stares from other people on the street as my pants didn’t fit and I only had a loose-fitting shirt on in the dead of winter… all articles of clothing given to me from the unclaimed pile at the jail since my own clothes, splattered with my own blood from the beating I received when I was arrested, were still in a police evidence room elsewhere.

Needless to say, even seeing my own family, who I hadn’t seen for at least a month, felt strange to me and they seemed barely recognizable. Perhaps some part of that was due to my head injuries I sustained from the attack I suffered, but in large part it was also just due to my being locked away from them for so long…

Of course, I did have similar feelings of alienation and culture shock as he did, but I didn’t have that same desire to return to what I had grown used to when I was released. Part of that was due to the mistreatment I suffered, but certainly that couldn’t be the only thing since my friend had suffered some traumatic times in Iraq but he thought about going back.

Perhaps it was because I didn’t fit in with the jail culture, that there was no feeling of camaraderie for me in jail since I stuck out like a sore thumb there and other prisoners treated me different than they treated each other because they knew right away that I didn’t belong. I was, after all was considered, a stranger in a strange land while I was in the jail in addition to feeling the same once I was released.

As I explained this I also came to the realization that the other big difference between my friend who entertained those feelings of wanting to go back, and me who never entertained such thoughts of wanting to go back to the jail where I was mistreated, was ultimately that he had some part in the choosing of where he went. He did join the army after all… but I never committed the crime that put me in jail, and perhaps that’s why I never had those feelings of wanting to return to what I had become accustomed to.

It was a strange discussion and ultimately the topic shifted to something else and other stories of cultural differences in different lands. But it was a conversation I didn’t expect, and now I’m stuck thinking back to that time and how it’s still changing the way I see the world… of how it’s still making me feel like a stranger in a very strange land.

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.

Police Misconduct NewsWatch for 11-28-08

Judge Clears Way For Wrongful Death Suit Against Sandy Oregon Police
You may have read recently about a Sandy Oregon police officer who was indicted for giving drivers licenses he confiscated to his teen-aged female friends? Well, a judge gave a go-ahead for a lawsuit against that department for a shooting death of an unarmed man, Fouad Kaady, who had been in a car accident which involved that very same officer back in 2005.

Protest Planned Against Cuyahoga County Jail in Ohio
Several activist groups are planning a "Ring Around the Justice Center" protest over the mistreatment of detainees and the need for open discovery for the county's judicial system. The protest stems from the death of R&B singer Sean Levert who died at the jail from a sudden withdrawal of Xanax.

The coroner who reviewed the case and performed an autopsy said he suffered severe hallucinations and panic attacks for hours before finally dying of a heart attack because of the refusal of the jail to give him the medicine he was prescribed. That sure sounds like torture to me, I'm saddened to say.

Officer Arrested For Attempted Cover-Up Of Illegal Break-in and Wrongful Detention
A Macedon NY police officer has been indicted on charges of perjury, falsification of records, criminal trespass, official misconduct, coercion, and unlawful imprisonment stemming from a 2007 incident where the officer broke into a residence without a warrant and detained two people then attempted to cover up the incident by falsifying police records.

Officer Arrested For Coercing Woman Into Sex, DA Describes It As A "Transaction"

A Greece NY officer has been indicted for charges of bribery, coercion, and official misconduct stemming from a case in August where he allegedly coerced a woman into having sex with him in order to avoid criminal charges related to what was described as a "family dispute" he had been called to earlier that day.

The prosecutors describe what happened not as a case of a woman being forced into having sex through the use of intimidation or coercion, but as if "a transaction took place" between the two... I don't want to know what kind of bank they go to out there.