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Re: Fuck the Police State
On July 16th 2011 #SFPD gave chase in an alleged $2 fare evasion which ended in the shooting death of Kenneth Harding Jr. Police claim that Kenny shot himself in the neck, from behind his back while running full speed and then threw the gun over a fence or possibly onto a roof where it was never located. The officer involved in the shooting, Richard Hastings was never charged. Two years later Hastings was arrested for child molestation. - from Bay Area Intifada
"The officers did not provide any medical treatment or care to Harding and instead left him writhing on the ground with blood gushing out of his neck," the lawsuit alleges.
Read about Lawsuit: http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancis...nt?oid=2202036
Read About Child Molester Cop: http://sfbayview.com/2013/09/cop-who...g-teenage-boy/
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Re: Fuck the Police State
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/...cpr-suit_x.htm
Police chief sued for denying gay man CPRCHARLESTON, W. Va. (AP) — A small-town police chief was accused in a federal lawsuit Thursday of stopping a would-be rescuer from performing CPR on a gay heart attack victim because he assumed the ailing man had HIV and posed a health risk.
http://images.usatoday.com/_common/_images/clear.gif http://images.usatoday.com/news/_pho...in-green-1.jpg http://images.usatoday.com/_common/_images/clear.gif Claude Green's mother, Helen, is comforted by daughter Anita Tickle during an American Civil Liberties Union press conference in Charleston, W. Va. http://images.usatoday.com/_common/_images/clear.gif By Jeff Gentner, AP Claude Green, 43, died June 21 after being stricken yards from City Hall in Welch, a community of about 2,400.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued on behalf of his mother.
Police Chief Bobby Bowman called the allegations "a boldface lie." He said that he called an ambulance and that Green was taken to the hospital in "no more than nine minutes."
"No one refused him CPR as his sister and mom are saying. They can do what they want, but if they're saying I refused him CPR, that is no way true," Bowman said.
http://images.usatoday.com/news/_pho...2/in-green.jpghttp://images.usatoday.com/_common/_images/clear1x5.gifAPGreenhttp://images.usatoday.com/_common/_images/clear1x5.gif The lawsuit accuses Bowman of pulling off Green's friend Billy Snead as Snead was performing chest compressions on the man. Snead was a passenger in Green's pickup when Green collapsed; Snead had managed to pull over the vehicle.
Snead said in an interview that he didn't realize at first it was Bowman giving the order and continued working on his friend. Bowman repeated his command to get away, saying that Green was HIV positive, then grabbed Snead by the shoulders and told him to sit on the curb, Snead said.
"He was a police officer so I got out the way. I assumed he would help. I didn't want to be a hindrance," Snead said. "He also told the ambulance drivers that he was HIV positive and to be careful."
Green was pronounced dead at the hospital after about 30 minutes of attempts to revive him.
Rose Saxe, a lawyer with the ACLU's AIDS Project, said Bowman's alleged actions contributed to Green's death and violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, equal protection laws and due process rights.
Saxe said Green's death was "tragically senseless" because he did not have the AIDS virus, but added that he should have received lifesaving care even if he was HIV-positive.
"He was simply a gay man in Welch, West Virginia. And because of that we can only assume that Chief Bowman assumed he had HIV and it was unsafe to even touch him," Saxe said.
When asked if he knew if Green was gay, Bowman would not answer and referred questions to McDowell County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Danny Barie, who also represents the City of Welch.
Barie said Thursday he had received a copy of the complaint but could not comment because he had not reviewed it or discussed it with Bowman.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Re: Fuck the Police State
http://ktla.com/2014/07/17/chp-beati...rlene-pinnock/
CHP Beating Caught on Video: Civil Rights Lawsuit Filed by Marlene Pinnock
A woman seen on cellphone video being repeatedly punched by a CHP officer on the side of a Los Angeles freeway has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit over the beating, her lawyer announced Thursday.
http://tribktla.files.wordpress.com/...pg?w=300&h=168
Video shot July 1, 2014, by a motorist showed a CHP officer throw a woman to the ground, straddle her body and repeatedly punch her. (Credit: David Diaz)
Marlene Pinnock, a 51-year-old homeless woman, was detained July 1 on the side of the 10 Freeway near La Brea Avenue in a violent arrest caught on cellphone camera by a passing motorist. Video of the incident quickly went viral.
CHP officers were responding to a report of a woman walking into lanes on the freeway at the time of the incident, authorities have said.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday, alleges civil rights violations and use of excessive force on the part of the California Highway Patrol officer, who has not been identified.
In the video, the officer could be seen grabbing Pinnock from behind, throwing her to the ground, straddling her and then repeatedly punching her in the face and upper body.
Pinnock alleges in the lawsuit that she “feared for her life and that the viciousness in which she was beaten could have resulted in her death.”
http://tribktla.files.wordpress.com/...eg?w=300&h=168
Marlene Pinnock is seen in a 2009 family photo that was provided by her attorney.
The lawsuit also alleges that CHP misused a felony search warrant to obtain a “statement” from Pinnock when the agency subpoenaed her medical records from Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center. A hospital spokeswoman on Thursday morning confirmed the records had been turned over to CHP.
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Re: Fuck the Police State
And people still dont believe we are becoming a police state
read the whole thing at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...s-manual-says/
You don’t need to be a terrorist to get on no-fly list, US manual says
Guidelines say "concrete facts" are "not necessary" for terrorism watchlisting.
Watchlisting Guidance memo
Federal agencies have nominated more than 1.5 million names to terrorist watchlists over the past five years alone, yet being a terrorist isn't a condition of getting on a roster that is virtually impossible to be removed from, according to a leaked US "Watchlisting Guidance" manual.
The 166-page document, marked as "sensitive security information" and published by The Intercept, comes amid increasing skepticism over how people are placed on or get off of US terrorism databases like the no-fly list that bars flying to and within the United States.
Further Reading
http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-conten..._z-300x150.jpgNo-fly list removal process unconstitutional, judge rules
Judge says there's no "meaningful mechanism" to dispute placement on watch list.
Attorney General Eric Holder, for example, had claimed last year that national security would be imperiled if the public knew that a Stanford University graduate student was placed on the no-fly list because an FBI agent checked the wrong box on a nomination form. And just last month, a federal judge ruled that the government's method for allowing the public to challenge placement on the no-fly list was "wholly ineffective" and unconstitutional. The leaked manual says there are a dozen-plus US agencies that have nominating power for the several watchlists the government maintains. But the guidance given to the agencies is vague and confusing, and it says that "concrete facts" about whether somebody is a danger "are not necessary." All nominations to the National Counterterrorism Center are considered "valid" unless that agency has evidence to the contrary. Of the nearly 470,000 nominations last year, the agency rejected 4,915.
The manual makes clear that "reasonable suspicion" for placement is necessary. But what that means is anybody's guess. The manual says:To meet the REASONABLE SUSPICION standard, the NOMINATOR, based on the totality of the circumstances, must rely upon articulable intelligence or information which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrants a determination that an individual is known or suspected to be or has been knowingly engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to TERRORISM and/or TERRORIST ACTIVITIES.
From The document—which urges officials to take into account what somebody says on social media like Twitter and Facebook
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Re: Fuck the Police State
More on this
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TempestTS
http://ktla.com/2014/07/17/chp-beati...rlene-pinnock/
CHP Beating Caught on Video: Civil Rights Lawsuit Filed by Marlene Pinnock
A woman seen on cellphone video being repeatedly punched by a CHP officer on the side of a Los Angeles freeway has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit over the beating, her lawyer announced Thursday.
http://tribktla.files.wordpress.com/...pg?w=300&h=168
Video shot July 1, 2014, by a motorist showed a CHP officer throw a woman to the ground, straddle her body and repeatedly punch her. (Credit: David Diaz)
Note 3 WEEKS later they still wont release the name of the officer involved - if your arrested they release your name to the media immediately -
Double standard Absolutely!
Police State - Possibly - at very least there is an entire department who seems to be above the law and obviously the Checks and Balances system isnt working out as well as some people think...
----From the Free Thought Project
Marlene Pinnock was savagely beaten earlier this month by a California Highway Patrolman. Blow after blow the woman’s head was seen bouncing off the concrete in the horrific video captured by bystander David Diaz.
The CHP claims their officer was simply trying to stop Pinnock from walking into traffic. Well, the officer was definitely successful at his task.
Now three weeks later, the officer’s name has still not been released, no police report has been released, and all the CHP Commissioner has said is that they are investigating the incident.
Attorney’s for Pinnock are seeking civil damages as well as calling for the FBI to investigate and seek attempted murder charges against the officer.
While the CHP is seemingly spinning their wheels, activist Rickey Munday has launched his own “investigation.”
Mr. Munday just so happened to run into 3 CHP officers at a local restaurant yesterday and began to ask them questions about the beating.
“What is your speak on one of your co-workers beating up a woman on the side of the freeway the other day?” he asks. “Is that what y’all do for a living? Beat up women on the side of the freeway?”
The officers obviously chose to assert their 5th amendment right to rem
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/chp...575BiPgJUlA.99
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Re: Fuck the Police State
Note the Police Chief's response was that its a simple case of mistaken identity and there was nothing wrong done- WTF - they should face charges just like anyone else- it was an assault on an innocent bystander.
I smell Another Lawsuit due to overzealous violent police response and a department all too willing to cover up that the tax payers will soon have to foot the bill on.
Cops Beat This Father of Three to the Point of Hospitalization. ‘Oh Sorry Wrong Guy’
“All three of them started beating me on the head, it was unbelievable, I couldn’t believe it was happening to me.”
The Free Thought Project Mike Sawyer July 25, 2014 http://tftppull.freethoughtllc.netdn...ger-carlos.jpg Roger Carlos was taking pictures of a building in the 10600 block of Westover Hills Boulevard in San Antonio, TX, when his life changed forever.
Carlos was photographing a building of what was soon to be home to his wife’s medical practice when all of the sudden he was ransacked by an undercover drug task force officer and two SAPD SWAT members.
The officers were looking for Josue Gonzalez, who fled from police after they tried to arrest him for possessing a controlled substance.
Gonzalez had ditched his car in the parking lot of a restaurant that happened to be a few hundred feet from where this father of three was excitedly taking pictures of his wife’s new venture.
Officers approached Carlos and before he could comply with their demands, they began to pummel him, striking him over 50 times.
“All three of them started beating me on the head,” said Carlos, ”It was unbelievable. I couldn’t believe it was happening to me.”
Bleeding and in handcuffs he wasn’t released until a fourth officer approached and said that the suspect was in custody nearby.
Carlos meanwhile, was hospitalized after the beating. He was treated for a large gash above his eye and a broken tooth.
Swelling of his head was so severe, doctors performed a CT scan of Carlos’ head as well.
“I could understand taking somebody down hard. I can understand the need for that and securing them, but that’s not what happened. I got on the ground, I was no threat to anybody, I was fully compliant,” said Carlos, who has no criminal history.
The three officers who beat him, claim that Carlos had his hands underneath his body during the beating.
When KENS 5 news interviewed SAPD police chief William McManus, he stated that “Clearly it was a case of mistaken identity. From the report that I’ve read, from the photo that I saw and from your description, I’ve not seen anything at this point that would indicate to me that anything out of order happened.”
Just to recap, the chief of police thinks that an innocent man being beaten to the point of hospitalization by incompetent police officers mistaking him for another man, indicates that nothing “out of order happened.”
And this is the scenario that so many American citizens find themselves in today; an unapologetic brutal gang of uniformed thugs operating with almost zero accountability, laying waste to those who they’ve sworn to protect.
Carlos has filed a complaint against these officers with the FBI. We won’t be holding our breathe for the results of that investigation.
One thing is for certain, if any civil suit is brought forth, the monetary consequences from the negligent behavior of these cops will passed on to the tax-payer.
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/cop...OKqRxLglwp2.99
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Re: Fuck the Police State
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Re: Fuck the Police State
Quote:
Originally Posted by
the_unnatural
Had this happen to me ages ago - except it was musical gear - they said it was stolen despite my having a receipt of sale and told me that if I didnt want to be charged and go to jail to await court I had to let them take it - 1994 - true story and yeah I didnt exactly want to spend even a single night in jail for a couple hundred bucks of gear and which it would have cost me 10x more to hire a lawyer to defend me over.
We believe you are Guilty until you can prove otherwise was what I was told point blank to my face which gave them the right to take my equipment.
Turns out later I found out that the 19 yo kid who made the accusation in the first place had a police sergeant for a father - but Im sure that didnt play into it at all
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Re: Fuck the Police State
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TempestTS
this is the scenario that so many American citizens find themselves in today; an unapologetic brutal gang of uniformed thugs operating with almost zero accountability
Exactly a SYMPTOM of a Police State.
People here seem to think 1000's of documented incidents are simply "isolated" incidents.
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Re: Fuck the Police State
17-Year-old Girl Shot and Family Pet Killed After SWAT Raid on Wrong Home
A mother and daughter are suing the Orange County Sheriff’s Office after a negligent SWAT raid on their home left the daughter full of bullet holes and their family dog dead.
The Free Thought Project Matt Agorist July 26, 2014 http://tftppull.freethoughtllc.netdn...llet-holes.jpgBullet holes in the legs of the 17-year-old
The mother and daughter, who are choosing to remain anonymous, are the latest victims to come forward in the state’s immoral war on drugs.
The incident happened back in 2010, when an Orange County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team raided the home looking for a family member who did not even live there.“I got up and went towards the door and literally once I went towards the door, boom!” the daughter said.”I was 17. I was 5 feet 2 inches and 100 pounds wet,” she said. “And they came in shooting.”
The overzealous SWAT team came in guns drawn and firing. The family’s boxer, startled at the noise, ran into the room and was gunned down by these violent storm troopers.
http://tftppull.freethoughtllc.netdn...014/07/dog.jpg
“The dog was startled and ran to the closet, to the room, and when he ran to the room is when they shot him,” she said.
Of course the police report stated that the dog “aggressively came toward them when they entered the house.”
According to WFTV News,
The unidentified woman said she was also injured by bullets the shooting. Photos show wounds to her leg and apparent bullet holes in the floor and walls of the home.
The Sheriff’s Office search warrant was issued in connection with a wanted man believed to be a drug dealer.
“I said, ‘Chris hasn’t lived here in weeks so if you’ve been surveillancing my house, why are you here?” the woman said.
Deputies found ammunition, but no weapons in the home. Cannabis seeds and drug paraphernalia was found in a room the suspect had lived in, the report states. He was later arrested, but court records show the charges were eventually dropped.
This is yet another tragic example of the horrid consequences realized from trying to tell people what they can and can’t put into their bodies. It is high time we demand PEACE be brought to the WAR on drugs.
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/17-...cYyFLrjTWXU.99
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Re: Fuck the Police State
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.1773070
Family of slain ‘Tosh.0’ production assistant to sue L.A. sheriff’s department
John Winkler, 30, was shot to death after sheriff’s deputies mistook him for a man who had been holding him and several others hostage at a West Hollywood apartment complex earlier this month.
BY Philip Caulfield
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, April 29, 2014, 3:08 PM
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...h30n-1-web.jpg Facebook John Winkler, a 30-year-old production assistant on the Comedy Central show 'Tosh.0,' was reportedly gunned down by Los Angeles sheriff's deputies who mistook him for a hostage taker.
The family of a "Tosh.0" production assistant who was shot and killed by L.A. County Sheriff's deputies after being mistaken for a stabbing suspect filed a claim against the department for $25 million.
John Winkler's family announced the claim, which is a precursor to a lawsuit, at a news conference Tuesday in the Seattle area, where the young Hollywood hopeful was raised.
"John Winkler was a hero who was a hostage and he saved his friend," Sim Osborn, the family's lawyer, told reporters. "We intend to uncover the truth."
Winkler, 30, was trying to escape alleged attacker Alexander McDonald when he was gunned down outside at his West Hollywood apartment complex on April 7.
Los Angeles sheriff's officials admitted deputies mistook Winkler for the attacker when they opened fire on him and another man as they fled McDonald's apartment at around 9:30 p.m.
Winkler was struck in the chest and died later at a local hospital.
Deputies later arrested McDonald after finding him fighting with another man he'd held hostage at knifepoint.
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...h30n-3-web.jpg Facebook Alexander McDonald, 27, allegedly took the aspiring producer and two other men hostage at knifepoint.
McDonald, 27, has since been charged with murder, torture and attempted murder.
Winkler had moved to California from Washington State six months before the tragic shooting to pursue a career as a film and TV producer, his family said.
He and McDonald lived in the same apartment complex and were friends with the same circle of neighbors, Osborn said.
"Our family wants to find out the truth of what happened that night and want those officers to be held accountable for what they've done," Winkler's mother, Lisa Ostergren, said in a statement.
"It never should have happened," she said, fighting back tears. "Words really can't express how devastated we really are."
When deputies arrived at the Palm Ave. apartment complex, they were given a photo of McDonald and told he was wearing a black shirt.
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...h30n-2-web.jpg KTLA The deadly incident played out at an apartment complex on Palm Ave. in West Hollywood on April 7.
Police said they announced themselves outside McDonald's apartment before the door suddenly opened and Winkler came rushing out with a man who was bleeding from the neck.
The sheriff's department said Winkler was wearing a black shirt and appeared to be lunging at the wounded man when deputies opened fire.
The other man was struck in the leg and survived.
"We have many questions for the LASD, including how they could have confused McDonald for John — two very different looking men — when witnesses had given them a photo just moments earlier," Osborn said in a statement.
The sheriff's department has launched an internal investigation into the shooting.
On Thursday, several comedians, including Daniel Tosh, were planning to hold a benefit in Winkler's honor at the Hollywood Improv.
Proceeds from the show, Laughing for Winkler, will benefit the Boys and Girls Club of America.
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Re: Fuck the Police State
In Virginia, the Death Penalty for Gambling
Published May 01, 2006NONE
Facebook4 Twitter1 livefyre0
About a month ago, I wrote a column about efforts in Congress to ban Internet gambling. There are lots of specific problems about those bills. But the broader issue is troubling, too: Why does our government insist on policing our personal lives for bad habits?
Because there is almost never a complaining victim in vice crimes, law enforcement offers must go to extraordinary lengths to investigate and prosecute these crimes. This leads to all sorts of other problems, including invasions of privacy, entrapment, and police corruption.
The sad case of Salvatore Culosi provides a recent, vivid illustration of the folly of vice laws. Culosi (as irony would have it, he was named after a police officer) was a 37-year old optometrist in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Fairfax, Virginia. According to friends, Culosi was a wealthy, self-made man. He was easygoing and friendly, a guy who enjoyed his success.
He was also a small-time gambler. Culosi and his friends regularly met at bars in the area to watch sports, and frequently wagered on the outcomes of games. The wagers weren't insignificant -- $50, $100, sometimes more on a given afternoon. But the small circle of friends also had the means to back up their wagers. No one was betting the mortgage, here.
As one friend of Culosi's told me, "To Sal, betting a few bills on the Redskins was a stress reliever, done among friends...none of us single, successful professionals ever thought that betting $50 bucks or so on the Virginia-Virginia Tech football game was a crime worthy of investigation."
Apparently, it was. Fairfax police detective David J. Baucom met Culosi in a bar one evening last October, befriended him, and was soon making wagers himself. According to those close to Culosi I've spoken with, it wasn't long before Baucom began upping the ante, encouraging Culosi to wager larger sums than what the friends were used to. Baucom would later report in an affidavit that he'd wagered close to $30,000 with Culosi over a three-month period, and had lost nearly $6,000.
Baucom eventually encouraged Culosi to wager at least $2,000 in a single day, the lower threshold under which Culosi could be charged under state law with "conducting an illegal gambling operation." On January 24 of this year, Detective Baucom assembled the Fairfax County SWAT team, and marched off to Culosi's home to arrest him.
According to press accounts, police affidavits, and the resulting investigation by the Fairfax prosecutor's office, Baucom called Culosi that evening, and told him he'd be by to collect his winnings. With the SWAT team at the ready just behind him, Baucom waited outside Culosi's home in an SUV. As Culosi emerged from the doorway, clad only in a t-shirt and jeans, SWAT officer Deval Bullock's finger apparently slipped to the trigger of his Heckler & Koch MP5 semiautomatic weapon, already aimed at the unarmed Culosi.
The gun fired, releasing a bullet that entered Culosi's side, then ripped through his chest and struck his heart, killing him instantly.
It only got worse from there. This month, Culosi's parents called a press conference to release details of their own investigation into their son's shooting. They found that police waited more than five hours to inform them of their son's death, denying the Roman Catholic family the opportunity to administer Culosi the sacrament of Last Rites.
Hospital records show that a staff social worker was prepared to contact the Culosi's when their son arrived at the hospital, but were barred from doing so by Fairfax police. In fact, the Culosis weren't permitted to see their son's body until two days later, when it was released to a funeral home.
Over the next few months, as Culosi's death made news and raised outrage in the Washington, D.C. area, Detective Baucom stubbornly continued his investigation, to the point of calling friends and acquaintances he'd gathered from the dead man's cell phone.
He even called Culosi's grieving brother-in-law, menacingly inquiring,"How much are you into Sal, for?" The brother-in-law would later tell the Washington Post that the call smacked of witness intimidation, given the family's inevitable lawsuit against the city and the police department.
The incident didn't deter the Fairfax police department's anti-gambling crusade, either. As the NCAA tournament was about to tip-off, the police department issued a poorly-timed, insensitively-worded press release declaring, "Illegal Gambling Not Worth the Risk."
Given that the Culosi case was over the media at the time, the release carried the troubling, if unintended, implication that said "risk" could well mean a fatal visit from the Fairfax SWAT team. Meanwhile, the state of Virginia continued to spend the $20 million it allocates each year toward marketing and promoting the state's lottery.
Last month, Fairfax County prosecutor Robert Horan announced that he would not press charges against the officer who shot and killed Culosi. That's no surprise. In his 39 years as a prosecutor, Horan hasn't brought a single charge against a police officer. Not only that, but both Horan and the Fairfax County police department have yet to mention the officer's name in public. We only know Officer Bullock's identity due to the perseverance of a Washington Post reporter.
I'm not a fan of criminal negligence laws, but if we're going to have them, certainly our law enforcement officials should be among the first we require to follow them. In this case, Officer Bullock improperly had his finger on the trigger of his weapon, and improperly had his weapon pointed at Culosi. Somehow, he improperly fired, and improperly registered a direct hit. Tests show there was nothing wrong with the gun.
Were any citizen to accidentally and fatally discharge a weapon in the same manner, it's difficult to believe that Mr. Horan wouldn't be quick to file charges, and release the name of the suspect to the public. One wonders why he doesn't hold police officers to a higher standard than average citizen, much less why he holds them to a lower one.
A spokesman for the Fairfax police department originally said that the department serves nearly all of its search warrants with the SWAT team. Local officials have since backed off from that statement. In this case, the SWAT team was wholly inappropriate. And it's hard to believe this is the first time it's been used on a nonviolent suspect. A competent investigator would have discovered that Culosi had no weapons in his home, had no history of violence, and, had he actually talked to Culosi's friends and acquaintances, wasn't the kind of guy who would put up a fight. As Horan himself conceded, "He doesn't look like a kingpin."
I'm sure that Officer Bullock didn't intentionally shoot and kill Salvatore Culosi. Instead, the man's death is the end result of a series of bad policies instituted by state legislators, misplaced priorities on the part of the police department, and a lack of oversight from the prosecutor's office. His wasn't the first needless death stemming from the misguided, overly aggressive approach our government takes to consensual crimes. Sadly, it won't be the last, either.
Whether or not Sal Culosi represents the last time something like this happens in Fairfax County rests with if citizens there demand accountability, transparency, and reform from the officials who serve them.
Radley Balko is a policy analyst for the Cato Institute specializing in "nanny state" and consumer choice issues, including alcohol and tobacco control, drug prohibition, obesity, and civil liberties. Separately, he maintains the The Agitator weblog. The opinions expressed in his column for FOXNews.com are his own and are not to be associated with Cato unless otherwise indicated.
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Re: Fuck the Police State
Detroit Water Shut Off Protesters met with Military LRAD in the hands of Police
- Dont worry folks - you still have free speech just not in public - and not around the police but this is in no way a police state - your first amendment right is still intact - well kinda - ummm not really
HOLY FUCK - you cant even protest city wide water shutoffs without the police using a military crowd dispersal against a crowd of - oh yeah a little more than a Dozen people...
http://images.dailykos.com/images/95...JPG?1405932307
Daily Kos July 22, 2014
http://images.dailykos.com/images/95...JPG?1405931237
Nine persons were arrested at the entrance to Homrich, a demolition contractor working on a $5.6 million deal to perform the water shutoffs on residents. The rally outside the gate started at 6:30am and went for seven hours before arrests were made. Police believed the group would disperse and head to the rally downtown at Hart Plaza. The group however showed their commitment holding the gate after that rally had started. This is the second week of arrests at the entrance and the second time in the last 10 years protesters were arrested in Detroit. Last week 10 persons were arrested and released on bail awaiting trial for disorderly conduct.
http://images.dailykos.com/images/95...JPG?1405935237
attribution: Stephen Boyle
The first arrested of the group was Baxter Jones, a former Detroit Public Schools teacher wrongfully dismissed is in a wheelchair. Baxter had put himself on the front line during last week’s blockade which had 10 arrested as well, but the police chose not to arrest him and dragged his chair out of the way.The group doesn’t appear to be letting up on the pressure. During the protest several televised interviews were shown. One of which was with Valerie who spoke of her household and her neighborhood going through mass shutoffs as Homrich moved through a three block area. She mobilized in the moment, saving her house from being shutoff and opened up a neighborhood water location. In our worst of times community becomes very essential in getting through.
Broadcast video from activist.
Military Weapon Deployment
http://images.dailykos.com/images/95...jpg?1405907331
A LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) was used to disperse a rally at Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit on Friday, July 18, 2014 at 2:43pm. There has been previous use of an LRAD in Detroit on May 1, 2012 when Occupy Detroit gathered on the public sidewalk outside Grand Circus Park after park closing hours of 10pm. The use in 2012 was as a public address. The use in 2014 was to cause distress to those hearing the sound.You can hear the sound emitted in the video footage at 50 minutes into this clip (the final minute of the clip). Those who were on the platform to speak felt vibration throughout their body and some clutched at their chest during the deployment which last about 2 minutes.
The sound dispersed the crowd which had a peaceful assembly with speakers discussing the human right to water, and the hypocrisy of Michigan’s Emergency Manager Law (PA 436 of 2012), which was brought forth after the public voted down the Emergency Manager Law (PA 4) during the November elections. Rally speakers brought the position of Detroit is being ruled by an implanted dictator who is dismantling sections of local government. Those assembled resist the interest of Kevyn Orr, the EM of Detroit, in moving the public water to a privatized service. They also resist privatization of all public services placed in the trust of our local government to provide for the well-being of our citizens. Detroit has seen public lighting turned over to a new authority which has darkened major streets such as Gratiot, Grand River, and Woodward – streets where pedestrian deaths have occurred at night in the past year.
Advance 50 minutes into the video to hear the LRAD deployment
Background On Shutoffs
Volunteers with the Peoples Water Board Coalition have heard from residents of rental properties that were not notified by their landlords of high water bills that resulted in water being turned off. It is inappropriate for people to have water – a human need - removed without notice. Detroit Water & Sewerage Department (DWSD) have contracted Homrich (a demolition company) to perform up to 3,000 shutoffs per week. Addresses are listed with no information about occupants of the locations being shutoff. Elders and families with small children are all treated the same. If the property is on the list it gets shutoff and those affected are told to come to a water payment center to work out arrangements. Thousands of Detroiters have experienced their water being turned off for at least 24 hours. Hundreds have been found that have had no water service for months. Sanitation concerns around the city are increasing.
Several water stations and a number of neighborhood water friends have been setup through the Peoples Water Board Coalition (PWB) and Detroit Water Brigade. The demands of the PWB are to enable the Water Affordability Program proposed in 2006 by Michigan Welfare Rights Organization (MWRO). DWSD has opened up DRWAP (Detroit Residential Water Affordability Program) in the last month as a response after having shutoff thousands. One of the stipulations of DRWAP is 1/3 of outstanding balance must be provided to enter into the program, that is not present in MWRO’s WAP.
If the city can demonstrate the ability to bring residential accounts current it will push the value behind privatization higher.
There are many complex angles to this story that deserve further discussion – the shutoffs themselves are a symptom of a greater problem that is being avoided by the press. Emergency Manager Law has placed the city under a State of Michigan appointed “dictator” able to dissect City of Detroit operations, dissolve union contracts, and cram changes in public services upon the people.The suburbs are opposed to the cram-down being pushed by the State of Michigan as well. Rate hikes have been coming each year – this year 4.3% for the suburbs and 8.7% for Detroit residents. Changes in Detroit are being felt by its neighbors. More than half of Michigan’s municipalities controlled by Emergency Manager Law are in Metropolitan Detroit.
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/mil...tXHwhFZB04k.99
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Re: Fuck the Police State
Owner of a private prison corporation holds 10,000 $ a plate fund raiser for the governor - gets 20 million in state funding -
I wonder what its like to own a politician
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Re: Fuck the Police State
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TempestTS
Thats because the only thing they have is fear and guns - we have the numbers and that's where the true power lies -
Look at a cop at a protest - every bit of armor the put on - every big APC they drive up in and and every gun and grenade the strap on to themselves is a sign of exactly how terrified they are of the rest of the population - we could throw them all out of power in a heartbeat if we really wanted to.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson
Here's a link to a rather lengthy report that confirms your assertion and then some.
http://www.thetaskforce.org/download.../ntds_full.pdf
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Re: Fuck the Police State
Is this thread about a police state, or the state of the police?
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Re: Fuck the Police State
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
Is this thread about a police state, or the state of the police?
It's about:
rising , documented police brutality as in previous police states
similarities to previous well known 'police states'
erosion of liberties, be it temporarily or by decree. as in previous police states
people that don't believe any of this is happening. as in previous police states.
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Re: Fuck the Police State
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Re: Fuck the Police State
http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle39248.htm
The Absurd, Bureaucratic Hell That Is the American Police State
By John W. Whitehead
“The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern.”—C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
July 28, 2014 "ICH" - Whether it’s the working mother arrested for letting her 9-year-old play unsupervised at a playground, the teenager forced to have his genitals photographed by police, the underage burglar sentenced to 23 years for shooting a retired police dog, or the 43-year-old man who died of a heart attack after being put in a chokehold by NYPD officers allegedly over the sale of untaxed cigarettes, the theater of the absurd that passes for life in the American police state grows more tragic and incomprehensible by the day.
Debra Harrell, a 46-year-old South Carolina working mother, was arrested, charged with abandonment and had her child placed in state custody after allowing the 9-year-old to spend unsupervised time at a neighborhood playground while the mom worked a shift at McDonald’s. Mind you, the child asked to play outside, was given a cell phone in case she needed to reach someone, and the park—a stone’s throw from the mom’s place of work—was overrun with kids enjoying its swings, splash pad, and shade.
A Connecticut mother was charged with leaving her 11-year-old daughter in the car unsupervised while she ran inside a store—despite the fact that the child asked to stay in the car and was not overheated or in distress. A few states away, a New Jersey man was arrested and charged with endangering the welfare of his children after leaving them in a car parked in a police station parking lot, windows rolled down, while he ran inside to pay a ticket.
A Virginia teenager was charged with violating the state’s sexting law after exchanging sexually provocative videos with his girlfriend. Instead of insisting that the matter be dealt with as a matter of parental concern, police charged the boy with manufacturing and distributing child pornography and issued a search warrant to “medically induce an erection” in the 17-year-old boy in order to photograph his erect penis and compare it to the images sent in the sexting exchange. The police had already taken an initial photograph of the boy’s penis against his will, upon his arrest.
In Georgia, a toddler had his face severely burned when a flash bang grenade, launched by a SWAT team during the course of a no-knock warrant, landed in his portable crib, detonating on his pillow. Also in Georgia, a police officer shot and killed a 17-year-old boy who answered the door, reportedly with a Nintendo Wii controller in his hands. The cop claimed the teenager pointed a gun at her, thereby justifying the use of deadly force. Then there was the incident wherein a police officer, responding to a complaint that some children were “chopping off tree limbs” creating “tripping hazards,” pulled a gun on a group of 11-year-old boys who were playing in a wooded area, attempting to build a tree fort.
While the growing phenomenon of cops shooting family pets only adds to the insanity (it is estimated that a family pet is killed by law enforcement every 98 minutes in America), it’s worse for those who dare to shoot a police dog. Ivins Rosier was 16 when he broke into the home of a Florida highway patrol officer and shot (although he didn’t kill) the man’s retired police dog. For his crime, the teenager was sentenced to 23 years in prison, all the while police officers who shoot family pets are rarely reprimanded.
Meanwhile if you’re one of those hoping to live off the grid, independent of city resources, you might want to think again. Florida resident Robin Speronis was threatened with eviction for living without utilities. Speronis was accused of violating the International Property Maintenance Code by relying on rain water instead of the city water system and solar panels instead of the electric grid.
Now we can shrug these incidents off as isolated injustices happening to “other” people. We can rationalize them away by suggesting that these people “must” have done something to warrant such treatment. Or we can acknowledge that this slide into totalitarianism—helped along by overcriminalization, government surveillance, militarized police, neighbors turning in neighbors, privatized prisons, and forced labor camps, to name just a few similarities—is tracking very closely with what we saw happening in Germany in the years leading up to Hitler’s rise to power.
When all is said and done, what these incidents reflect is a society that has become so bureaucratic, so legalistic, so politically correct, so militaristic, so locked down, so self righteous, and so willing to march in lockstep with the corporate-minded police state that any deviations from the norm—especially those that offend the sensibilities of the “government-knows-best” nanny state or challenge the powers that be—become grist for prosecution, persecution and endless tribulations for the poor souls who are caught in the crosshairs.
Then there are the incidents, less colorful perhaps but no less offensive to the sensibilities of any freedom-loving individual, which should arouse outrage among the populace but often slip under the radar of a sleeping nation.
For instance, not only is the NSA spying on and collecting the content of your communications, but it’s also going to extreme lengths to label as “extremists” anyone who attempts to protect their emails from the government’s prying eyes. Adding insult to injury, those same government employees and contractors spying on Americans’ private electronic communications are also ogling their private photos. Recent revelations indicate that NSA employees routinely pass around intercepted nude photos, considered a “fringe benefit” of surveillance positions.
A trove of leaked documents reveals the government’s unmitigated gall in labeling Americans as terrorists for little more than being suspected of committing “any act that is ‘dangerous’ to property and intended to influence government policy through intimidation.” As The Intercept reports: “This combination—a broad definition of what constitutes terrorism and a low threshold for designating someone a terrorist—opens the way to ensnaring innocent people in secret government dragnets.” All the while, the TSA, despite the billions of dollars we spend on the agency annually and the liberties to which its agents subject travelers, has yet to catch a single terrorist.
No less disconcerting are the rash of incidents in which undercover government agents encourage individuals to commit crimes they might not have engaged in otherwise. This “make work” entrapment scheme runs the gamut from terrorism to drugs. In fact, a recent report released by Human Rights Watch reveals that “nearly all of the highest-profile domestic terrorism plots in the United States since 9/11 featured the ‘direct involvement’ of government agents or informants.”
Most outrageous of all are the asset forfeiture laws that empower law enforcement to rake in huge sums of money by confiscating cash, cars, and even homes based on little more than a suspicion of wrongdoing. In this way, Americans who haven’t been charged with a crime, let alone convicted of wrongdoing, are literally being subjected to highway robbery by government agents offering profit-driven, cash-for-freedom deals.
So who or what is to blame for this bureaucratic nightmare delivered by way of the police state? Is it the White House? Is it Congress? Is it the Department of Homeland Security, with its mobster mindset? Is it some shadowy, power-hungry entity operating off a nefarious plan?
Or is it, as Holocaust survivor Hannah Arendt suggests, the sheepish masses who mindlessly march in lockstep with the government’s dictates—expressing no outrage, demanding no reform, and issuing no challenge to the status quo—who are to blame for the prison walls being erected around us? The author of The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt warned that “the greatest evil perpetrated is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons.”
This is where democracy falls to ruin, and bureaucracy and tyranny prevail.
As I make clear in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, we have only ourselves to blame for this bureaucratic hell that has grown up around us. Too many of us willingly, knowingly and deliberately comprise what Arendt refers to as “cogs in the mass-murder machine.”
These cogs are none other than those of us who have turned a blind eye to the government corruption, or shrugged dismissively at the ongoing injustices, or tuned out the mayhem in favor of entertainment distractions. Just as guilty are those who have traded in their freedoms for a phantom promise of security, not to mention those who feed the machine unquestioningly with their tax dollars and partisan politics.
And then there are those who work for the government, federal, state, local or contractor. These government employees—the soldiers, the cops, the technicians, the social workers, etc.—are neither evil nor sadistic. They’re simply minions being paid to do a job, whether that job is to arrest you, spy on you, investigate you, crash through your door, etc. However, we would do well to remember that those who worked at the concentration camps and ferried the victims to the gas chambers were also just “doing their jobs.”
Then again, if we must blame anyone, blame the faceless, nameless, bureaucratic government machine—which having been erected and set into motion is nearly impossible to shut down—for the relentless erosion of our freedoms through a million laws, statutes, and prohibitions.
If there is any glimmer of hope to be found, it will be at the local level, but we cannot wait for things to get completely out of control. If you wait to act until the SWAT team is crashing through your door, until your name is placed on a terror watch list, until you are reported for such outlawed activities as collecting rainwater or letting your children play outside unsupervised, then it will be too late.
Obedience is the precondition to totalitarianism, and the precondition to obedience is fear. Regimes of the past and present understand this. “The very first essential for success,” Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, “is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence.” Is this not what we are seeing now with the SWAT teams and the security checkpoints and the endless wars?
This much I know: we are not faceless numbers. We are not cogs in the machine. We are not slaves. We are people, and free people at that. As the Founders understood, our freedoms do not flow from the government. They were not given to us, to be taken away at the will of the State; they are inherently ours. In the same way, the government’s appointed purpose is not to threaten or undermine our freedoms, but to safeguard them.
Until we can get back to this way of thinking, until we can remind Americans what it really means to be a free American, and learn to stand our ground in the face of threats to those freedoms, and encourage our fellow citizens to stop being cogs in the machine, we will continue as slaves in thrall to the bureaucratic police state.
John W. Whitehead is an attorney and author who has written, debated and practiced widely in the area of constitutional law and human rights. Whitehead's concern for the persecuted and oppressed led him, in 1982, to establish The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties and human rights organization whose international headquarters are located in Charlottesville, Virginia. Whitehead serves as the Institute’s president and spokesperson, in addition to writing a weekly commentary that is posted on The Rutherford Institute’s website (www.rutherford.org)
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Re: Fuck the Police State
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Re: Fuck the Police State
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Re: Fuck the Police State
I don't necessarily agree with all the points discussed in the following articles, but they do point in directions distinct from the course taken by the dominant contributors to this thread.
http://woodgatesview.com/2014/06/02/...s-vs-gun-nuts/
http://anarchistnews.org/content/left-gun-nuts
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Re: Fuck the Police State
just read this today...pertains more locally, but overall...
still pertains and explains.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/b...icle-1.1883343
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Re: Fuck the Police State
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TempestTS
Fuck this shit Im sick of it - every day I turn around there is another abuse of power by the jackboot Police State abusing their power to protect and serve themselves...
and dont even get me started about the department of homeland security - the last time we saw someone "protecting" the population in the name of the "Homeland" their uniforms were different colors and they had a heavy German accent.
All power systems want to increase their own power. That's the nature of power. It doesn't matter if it's the state or corporations.
And, too, it's not just themselves that political actors serve. For the most part they serve and protect corporate power. (Both parties serve the ultra rich and corporate power.)
Corporations have launched a pretty effective propaganda campaign over the last 30 years or so that it's the power of the government that's inherently frightening. It's true. Government power is frightening. But we do have some say with respect to government. With corporations, well, we've no say.
And, too, it's in the interests of corporations to demonize government. Because, after all, in theory the people are the government. (Government has a big flaw: they're potentially democratic.) So, corporations demonize government. But government does provide some protection against overwhelming corporate power. When the government recedes -- as has happened over the last 30 years or so -- corporate power becomes more prevalent.
Ya know, you and I have a say on the CEO of America. We've no say on the CEO of Exxon or Microsoft etc., etc., etc.
So a note of caution: be wary of corporate propaganda -- :)
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Re: Fuck the Police State
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPEXY...ature=youtu.be
Second Anal Probe Lawsuit Being Filed Against N.M. Police
Drug dog with expired certification allegedly alerted cops to nonexistent drugs twice.
By Steven Nelson Nov. 6, 2013 | 5:48 p.m. EST + More
A second man is alleging that Hidalgo County, N.M., police violated his rights and escalated a minor traffic stop into an anal-probing nightmare as they searched in vain for drugs.
Timothy Young was stopped on Oct. 13, 2012, for allegedly turning without a signal, KOB-TV first reported Tuesday evening. A K-9 dog erroneously indicated he had drugs in his vehicle and he was taken to the Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City, N.M., where doctors performed an x-ray scan and a digital anal probe.
Young went public after a similar case attracted intense national and local coverage this week.
Albuquerque civil rights attorney Shannon Kennedy told U.S. News Wednesday she is filing a lawsuit on Young's behalf.
[EARLIER: Man Seeks Millions After N.M. Police Force Colonoscopy in Drug Search]
Kennedy is also representing David Eckert, who was stopped on Jan. 2, 2013, by Deming, N.M., police for allegedly rolling through a stop sign. Eckert was also taken to the Gila Regional Medical Center – where he was x-rayed, forcibly given enemas and then given a colonoscopy.
Three Deming policemen and three Hidalgo County officers were allegedly involved in the Eckert case, which may be settled out of court. Named defendants include the six policemen, the medical center, two doctors and a deputy district attorney who secured a warrant authorizing an anal probe.
No drugs were found in the possession of either man.
KOB-TV reports that a K-9 dog named "Leo" incorrectly alerted police to the existence of drugs in each of the men's vehicles. The station reports that Leo's drug-sniffing certification expired in April 2011.
"You can talk to our attorney," a member of the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office said Wednesday when asked for comment. Attorneys for the office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
More News:
Man Pulled Over for Routine Traffic Stop Given Anal...
BUTT WHY?: Man Pulled Over for Routine Traffic Stop Given Anal Search and Colonoscopy
http://assets.newsinc.com/newsincone...g?t=1389964020
http://content-img.newsinc.com/jpg/1...g?t=1389964020
Correction 11/06/13: This article originally said a lawsuit was filed on behalf of Timothy Young. The lawsuit has not yet been filed.
TAGS:crimeNew Mexico
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Re: Fuck the Police State
Texas state troopers caught on camera probing women's privates aren't isolated incidents: lawyers
Multiple highway patrol officers in Texas have been captured by dash cams doing 'unconstitutional' cavity searches on women's genitals during traffic stops. Lawyers and civil rights advocates say the 'mind-boggling' searches are all too common.
BY Deborah Hastings
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Friday, August 2, 2013, 5:45 PM
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...ty31n-0730.jpg KTXA-TV Dash cam footage shows Ashley Dobbs, 24, with Texas state trooper Kelley Hellenson, who conducted body cavity searches on two women after a traffic stop for allegedly throwing cigarettes out of the car's windows. No ticket was issued.
The first video was graphic enough. Two women, as shown in a Texas state trooper’s dash cam recording, are probed in their vaginas and rectums by a glove-wearing female officer after a routine traffic stop near Dallas.
A few days later, a second video surfaced. It was an eerily similar scenario, but this time the traffic stop was just outside Houston, and with different troopers. Two women, pulled over for allegedly speeding, are subjected to body cavity searches by a female officer summoned to the scene by a male trooper.
Unlike the earlier tape, this one had clear audio. Yells can be heard as the female trooper shoves her gloved finger inside one woman.
In both invasive incidents, the female troopers don't change gloves between probes, according to the horrified victims.
Texas officials say the searches are unconstitutional. So do attorneys for the shaken women, who have filed federal lawsuits.
But lawyers and civil rights advocates tell the Daily News these cavity searches are really standard policy among the Texas Department of Public Safety’s state troopers, despite their illegality — not to mention that they were conducted on the side of the road in full view of passing motorists.
“It’s ridiculous,” said Dallas attorney Peter Schulte, a former Texas cop and prosecutor. “We would never put our hands anywhere near someone’s private parts,” he said of his time as a police officer in the city of McKinney. “When I saw that video I was shocked. I was a law enforcement officer for 16 years and I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw, who oversees state troopers, denied an interview request from The News. In an earlier statements about the videotaped traffic stops, McCraw said his department “does not and will not tolerate any conduct that violates the U.S. and Texas constitutions, or DPS training or policy.”
So how did Texas troopers hundreds of miles apart get captured on dash cams conducting body cavity searches under nearly identical conditions?
“The fact that they both happened means there is some sort of (department) policy” advocating their use at traffic stops, Jim Harrington of the Texas Civil Rights Project told the Daily News. “It’s such a prohibited practice. I don’t know why they think they can do this. It’s mind-boggling.”
Schulte said he doubts the policy is written, and that the practice may have spread from region to region, instead of from the top down.
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...31n-1-0730.jpg KHOU After being stopped for allegedly speeding, two women were subjected to body cavity searches by a female Texas highway patrol officer near Houston.
“I think the Department of Public Safety is trying to figure out who in the world trained these troopers to think that this is OK,” Schulte said. “The law just doesn’t support that. It just doesn’t.”
There have also been two recent cavity-search controversies in other states: Last year in Florida a Citrus County woman, who’d recently been charged with driving under the influence, was pulled over by sheriff’s deputies while driving with her children. In a federal lawsuit, the woman claimed she was given a cavity search on the roadside; in Milwaukee, police were disciplined after 2012 reports surfaced that eight cops had conducted genital searches on arrested suspects without the legal authority to do so.
But those cases don't approach the blatantness of the Texas incidents captured on video, which appear to illustrate a pattern, rather than isolated incidents.
“The odds of two female troopers conducting the same kind of search within six weeks of each other? Come on,” attorney Scott Palmer told The News. He recently settled a federal suit filed against the Department of Public Safety on behalf of clients Angel and Ashley Dobbs, the aunt and niece who were cavity-searched in the first dash cam video to go viral.
No ticket was issued following the lengthy traffic stop in July 2012, and no drugs were found. Angel Dobbs, 38, told The News that trooper David Farrell pulled her over on a Friday night, while she was driving to Oklahoma with her niece, Ashley, 24.
On the patrol car’s loudspeaker, he ordered her off the highway and onto a side road, she said.
He told the women they had thrown cigarette butts out of the car's windows. That wasn’t true, Dobbs said, but she didn’t argue. A long series of questions followed: Where were they going? Who were they going to see? Why were they going? Why was her niece with her?
Then he said he smelled marijuana. The women denied having any. He took the women’s IDs and went to his patrol car.
“He was back there for like 25 minutes,” Dobbs said. “My niece said ‘What's taking him so long?’”
They were ordered out of the car and told to stand in a field by the roadside. Farrell told them he had called for a female office to come and search them, Dobbs said.
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...31n-3-0730.jpg KHOU Dash cam documents trooper Nathaniel Turner shortly after pulling over Brandy Hamilton, who was driving home after a day at the beach with friend Alexandra Randle. He was later suspended. The female officer who conducted cavity searches on the women was fired.
“Do you have anything in your socks? In your shoes? In your underwear?” Dobbs said she was asked. Then trooper Kelley Helleson showed up.
At this point Dobbs started protesting, saying the situation was ridiculous and that she had no drugs and had done nothing wrong. The female officer told her to “shut up and turn around,” Dobbs said.
She did as she was told. Then the trooper’s gloved hand went down her sweat pants in the back and in the front.
The trooper's attorney has said there was no penetration and that both women submitted to the searches.
Dobbs disagrees: “She knows there was penetration. On both sides. Along the side of the road. She knows what she did.”
The dash cam video shows the aunt and niece alternately standing in front of Farrell’s patrol car, holding their arms out while Helleson pats their breasts and puts her hand down the front and back of their pants.
“They didn’t even search my socks or my shoes,” Dobbs said. "I just couldn’t fathom how you could search someone’s butt and their vagina, and not search their socks or shoes.”
Finally, and after Dobbs passed a field sobriety test, she was given a written warning for littering and told she could go.
“We were assaulted on the side of the road,” Dobbs said.
She complained to the troopers’ supervisor in August. In October, investigators from the Texas Rangers interviewed her about what happened. She was frustrated it had taken more than two months to get a response.
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...31n-5-0730.jpg KTRK Alexandra Randle, in red jacket, and Brandy Hamilton, right, at press conference announcing their federal lawsuit against the Texas Department of Public Safety, and other defendants including two state troopers, for violating their civil rights by subjecting them to body cavity searches during a traffic stop.
Then she got a lawyer. Her lawsuit was filed in December. “We had a press conference the next day,” Dobbs said. In January, the case was presented to a Dallas County grand jury. Helleson was later charged with two counts of sexual assault and was fired.
Farrell was indicted on one charge of theft, over a missing bottle of Vicodin from the aunt’s purse, and was suspended pending an internal investigation.
“Until the news got involved, nothing happened,” Dobbs said.
“My heart goes out those ladies,” in the Houston incident she continued. “I know how it feels.”
In late June, Dobbs and her attorneys settled their case for $184,000. Criminal trials against Helleson and Farrell are pending.
“Someone is telling (troopers) that this is a reasonable policy,” said attorney Palmer. “They’re just refusing to acknowledge this is a policy.
Across the state, no criminal charges have been filed in the Houston area traffic stop. But it began in much the same way.
Brandy Hamilton and Alexandria Randle were pulled over for speeding in Brazoria County by Texas state trooper Nathaniel Turner on Memorial Day in 2012. They were on their way home to Houston after spending the day at Surfside Beach on the Gulf of Mexico.
Turner said he smelled marijuana, then ordered Hamilton, the driver, out of the car. “Can I please put on my dress, because I have on a swimsuit,” she asks the trooper, according to the dash cam video.
“Don’t worry about that,” he says, “come on out here.”
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...31n-6-0730.jpg Texas Department of Public Safety The seal of the Texas Department of Public Safety, which oversees state troopers. Its motto is "Courtesy. Service. Protection."
By the side of Highway 288, Hamilton, wearing a bikini, and Randle, in shorts, are asked a series of questions about whether they have drugs on them or in the car. They say no, just some cigars.
“Is there anything in your bra or underwear?” Turner asks Hamilton. She says no.
Turner calls for a female officer to come and search the women.
Trooper Jennie Bui arrives, and asks for gloves because she doesn’t have any.
“She is about to get up close and personal with some womanly parts,” Turner tells Hamilton. “She is going to search you, I ain’t, because I ain’t about to get up close and personal with your woman areas.”
Hamilton, who is handcuffed, is bent over the patrol car’s passenger seat and probed by Bui.
“Do you know how violated I feel?” Hamilton pleads.
According to the women’s federal lawsuit, filed in June, Randle is then penetrated by Bui, who is wearing the same set of gloves from her search of Hamilton.
The video captures the sound of her screaming.
“They basically raped them on the side of the road,” said Houston attorney Allie Booker, who represents the women. They were part of a two-car caravan of family and friends that had spent the national holiday at the beach.
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...31n-2-0730.jpg KHOU A woman is strip searched in Texas.
When the occupants of the other vehicle realized Hamilton and Randle were no longer behind them, the driver pulled a U-turn and backtracked. Seeing the women standing by the road with Texas troopers, the other car pulled in behind, the lawsuit said.
The video shows an officer asking for their IDs and telling them to stay in the car.
“The other family members were there,” Booker said. “They could hear the screams. They saw the gloves go on.”
The Department of Public Safety fired Bui on June 29. Turner was suspended pending an administrative review.
Texas Rangers investigators have reviewed the case, Booker said, and recommended three weeks ago that it be taken before a grand jury. Brazoria County prosecutors are reviewing those findings, she said.
“Texas is a very big state,” Booker said. “It alarms me that something that happened in north Texas also happened down here in the south.” Since the federal lawsuit became public, the attorney says her office has received about five phone calls from women saying they, too, had been subjected to cavity searches by state troopers.
Booker has also consulted with another lawyer who represents a woman who filed a similar body cavity search complaint with the DPS involving Trooper Bui.
“A lot of people are scared to come forward,” Booker said. “But people are contacting us. They say ‘hey, this happened to me, too.’’’
ON A MOBILE DEVICE? CLICK HERE TO SEE VIDEO OF DALLAS INCIDENT.
CLICK HERE TO SEE VIDEO OF HOUSTON STOP.
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Re: Fuck the Police State
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Re: Fuck the Police State
Quote:
Originally Posted by
trish
thanks for the links, may they rest in peace. and the good ones continue to catch the baddies. but...
the other ones, that outnumber the good ones, need to chill the fuck out, and remember they have a responsibility of showing respect to the public without taking their dignity or exercising brutality.
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Re: Fuck the Police State
Outnumbered? You're being misled by your own cherry picking.
There is no excuse for police violence, nor brutality nor misconduct. The weaponry and armor available now to law enforcement is indeed unprecedented.
Though there is no excuse for violent behavior there are reasons why such behaviors are on the rise and reasons why the voters put police departments above public schools.
No, it’s not because we’re being manipulated by Wall Street bankers who rule the country like a police state through the use of brutal intimidation and force.
What kind of police state does not by law have a national registry of guns?
What kind of modern police state does not, by law, have gun sale records that can be digitally searchable? (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_2572908.html )
What sort of police state grants ordinary citizens, by law, the right to own firearms?
What sort of growing police state legalizes concealed carry?
What sort of police state outlaws zoning against the carry of firearms in churches and schools?
What sort of emerging police state relaxes firearm regulation even as the majority of the population pleas for more restrictive gun controls?
As anti-government, anti-law enforcement and pro-gun propaganda floods the media, stand your ground shoot outs and violent crime is on the rise.
The number of police killed on the job is up by 13%.
Are the increased expenditures on armor and weapons by law enforcement surprising?
Is the increase in law enforcement manpower unexpected?
Is it surprising that more cops are ill-trained and out of control?
Is it surprising that a brutalizing job brutalizes?
There is no excuse for police violence. The policeman who kills an innocent citizen in a choke hold should be thrown in jail. Policemen who continue to beat a man senseless after he’s been subdued should be prosecuted. Yet no one here has yet provided a modicum of evidence that we’re living in a police state. Rather we are a nation in the grip of a kind of arms escalation. We love guns. So the police are jumpy, armored and armed to the teeth. Surprise, surprise!
In addition to the escalation of arms we see cities, towns and counties attempting to save money by deferring the costs of enforcement and courts to offenders. So now police are encouraged to make arrests and confiscate property. This idea doesn’t come from on high. Its source isn’t Wall Street or the White House. Its source is the grass roots idiots who no longer believe that government (any government... local, state or federal) should collect revenue through taxes; and it is the response of local and State governments to this attitude. This is not a police state. This is most definitely the consequence of government ruled from the bottom up.
There are indeed manufacturers who profit from the sale of arms. There are politicians who will cherry pick the news and argue that government needs to be weakened and everything deregulated in the interest of “freedom” (but really just to win elections by appealing to the basest elements of their base.)
But those politicians, like all the other politicians owe their offices to the electorate. They spend money and take every opportunity to dance and perform for your vote. Bankers don’t put them in office. Corporations don’t put them in office. Neither the police nor the military keep them in office (as would be the case in a police state). You do (if you're a U.S. Citizen who votes). You elect them; and you keep electing them. If you don’t like the consequences of the policies you voted for, re-think those policies next time before you vote.
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Re: Fuck the Police State
It would seem to me that pointing out police abuse would be one way to motivate the voters to push for changes. Or is that discourage because, as you say, we don't have a police state?
No need to answer, because I'm sure your response will be more One Trish, Two Cups.
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Re: Fuck the Police State
Pointing to police abuse is perfectly fine. Pointing to the causes is as well. Claiming we live in a police state just perpetuates a misunderstanding of what a police state is and diverts attention from the root causes, two of which I mentioned above. What causes have you guys brought to light...other than the cabal of mind controlling Wall Street Bankers?
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Re: Fuck the Police State
I've never said, "WE LIVE IN A POLICE STATE" or "this is already a police state"
If you claim I have, then it is just blatant lies on your part saying I have done so.
I've said and continue to say. The USA definitely has symptoms that are found in a an ACTUAL Police State.
I've said that many aspects of a Police State, have similar incarnations in the USA. Does this make it a Police State Already? No, And never have I said so.
If you say , I have said otherwise, then kindly , FUCK OFF.
Refuse to believe so, or have a different opinion? fine.
But don't ever say I say things , that I never said. It makes for pathetic discussion.
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Re: Fuck the Police State
Please note post 191 is a response to post 190 as post 193 is a response to 192. Also note 189 counters any allegations that we're an emerging police state. 157 addresses the government takeover that some here have been advocating as a way of ending this police state.
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Re: Fuck the Police State
I've never mentioned Wall Street bankers, either. Or suggest a violent takeover. I did mention jury nullification. But I can see how details escape you while you type page after page after page of condescending hysterical bullshit.
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Re: Fuck the Police State
Awe. I'm so sorry you thought I accused you of mentioning Wall Street Bankers. I really am. When I asked, "What causes have you guys brought to light...other than the cabal of mind controlling Wall Street Bankers?" I should've instead asked:What causes have you guys (except the_unnatural, because his contributions are so illustrious and obvious) brought to light...other than the cabal of mind controlling Wall Street Bankers?"
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Re: Fuck the Police State
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Re: Fuck the Police State
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Re: Fuck the Police State
Quote:
Originally Posted by
the_unnatural
I did mention jury nullification. But I can see how details escape you while you type...
I do agree that jury nullification can be a powerful tool. It should be used in any case in which the jury thinks the defendant was abused or evidence was planted or was extracted through extortion, torture or by other suspect means. If police find that brutality and misconduct means no convictions (ego no career advancement or raises), they'll have a powerful incentive to stay within the limits of the law.
Question: do judges have the authority to disregard a jury's finding of not-guilty?
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Re: Fuck the Police State
Quote:
Originally Posted by
the_unnatural
..... But I can see how details escape you while you type page after page after page of condescending hysterical bullshit.
..you mean hyperbole such as this :
Quote:
Originally Posted by
my my my!
the other ones, that outnumber the good ones, need to chill the fuck out, and remember they have a responsibility of showing respect to the public without taking their dignity or exercising brutality.
...which obviously didn't come from Trish.
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Re: Fuck the Police State
Trish--it has been done. http://www.offthegridnews.com/2014/0...jury-verdicts/
Fred--you're right. I'm out of order. You're out of order. This whole fuck the police state thread is out of order.
