Police Abuse

College Student Spends 4 Days In Jail After Being Mistakenly Arrested


HAVRE DE GRACE, Md. (WJZ) — An 18-year-old college student says he is traumatized after Havre de Grace Police mistakenly throw him in jail. They claim he was wanted on a federal warrant.

As the U.S. Marshal’s Office found out, they had the wrong guy.

Rochelle Ritchie explains how the mix-up happened.

It’s an unfortunate incident that cost the young man his confidence in the police and almost his freedom.


Jawon Johnson, 18, is a freshman at West Virginia State University. He even plays on the football team as a wide receiver.

“I never thought I would be sitting in jail, especially for something I knew for sure I didn’t do,” Johnson said.

But on Saturday night, he put on a different uniform after he says he was pulled over by a Havre de Grace police officer for making an illegal U-turn. He expected to be handed a ticket, but after an hour he was handcuffed and taken to the Harford County Detention Center on a federal warrant.

“I told them the picture wasn’t me. They continued and insisted on, in fact, it was me,” said Johnson.


Jawon, with an “o”, was accused of being another Jawan Johnson involved in a burglary case in D.C. The man wanted by the federal government spells his name with an “a”. It took police four days to realize their mistake. All the while, Johnson sat behind bars innocent.

“I was in the cell 23 hours a day,” he said.

Johnson was brought to federal court in Baltimore. His fingerprints were finally ran and his picture was sent to prosecutors in D.C. and, of course, they found he was not the Jawan Johnson they were looking for.

Jawon’s mother wants disciplinary action taken against the arresting officer.

“I just felt like he was thrown in shark infested waters,” Juanita Johnson said.

Havre de Grace Police failed to return our request for an interview, but told our media partner, The Baltimore Sun: “The department honestly thought it had the right person. A comparison of a photo on the warrant and Jawon Johnson’s drivers license seemed to match up.”

“They could’ve released him not knowing that this was the correct man. Now that you have the wrong man, I have to sit and do time,” Johnson said.

Johnson does not have a criminal record. He says he wants to be a sports broadcaster once he graduates from college.

Jawon’s family is seeking legal counsel at this time.
 
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Students Protest Arrests While Waiting for Bus


Rochester police arrested three Edison Tech basketball players Wednesday morning on disorderly conduct charges. They were waiting for a school bus downtown to take them to a scrimmage against Aquinas. The teens and say they did nothing wrong.

In a statement, the Rochester Police Department says the young men were asked to move several times but didn't. This is an area downtown where businesses have complained of loitering and fights. The teens are home tonight after posting $200.00 bail. Their mothers want the charges dropped.

Raliek Redd, 16, a sophomore at Edison Tech and two of his teammates say they were waiting for a school bus this morning on a corner downtown. There were 16 players waiting on the corner for the bus scheduled by their coach. That's when a Rochester police officer told them they were loitering.

"The cop just came over there. He told us to move. Then we was walking away and he turned, we turned around and he arrested all of us," said Raliek Redd, Rochester.

Redd, Deaquon Carelock, 16, and senior Wan'tauhjs Weathers, 17 are charged with disorderly conduct. They were arrested and booked.

"I feel it's unfair. Like, we weren't doing nothing. We're just regular kids trying to get to our game. Like we not doing nothing wrong, we're not harrassing nobody. We're not causing no trouble, no nothing," said Wan'tauhjs.

Raliek's mother, Crystal Chapman, says their coach watched it all. When he tried to intervene, the coach says he was threatened with arrest. Coach Jabob Scott verifies the players' account. Chapman will fight the charges until they're dismissed.

"I'm really upset and I don't plan to let it go. At all. Because, these boys wasn't doing anything," said Crystal Chapman.

Wan'tauhjs's mom is angry too.

"I think he seen a group of young black men and kind of stereotyped them for loitering, looking for trouble. He didn't take the time to speak to nobody of authority to see if they were actually telling the truth or if that what was going on," said Tynicia Weathers.

Rochester School Superintendent Bolgen Vargas reached out to the parents. He says he's looking into the matter.

The Rochester Police Department says the boys were told to move because they were blocking an entrance to the business and traffic on the sidewalk.

Their coach tells me they're good kids. A judge will decide what happens. All three are due in court Friday.
 
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Annie Dookhan pleads guilty in drug lab scandal

Annie Dookhan, the drug analyst who tampered with evidence and jeopardized tens of thousands of criminal convictions, was sentenced Friday to three to five years in state prison, closing a sorrowful chapter for the woman at the center of a scandal that continues to plague the state’s criminal justice system.

The 36-year-old mother of a disabled child, whose marriage fell apart in the months after the scandal, softly pleaded guilty to 27 counts of misleading investigators, filing false reports, and tampering with evidence. She must also serve two years of probation and undergo mental health counseling, if needed.

After the sentence was handed down, Dookhan struggled to hold back tears as she whispered with her lawyer before being led away in handcuffs by court officers. Two family members, believed to be her parents, watched from the courtroom gallery.

Attorney General Martha Coakley, whose office prosecuted the case, said in an interview later that the conviction of Dookhan was only one part of an ongoing investigation into the quality of drug testing at the Hinton drug lab, but she said it was needed to bring some accountability for her crimes.

Related
Coverage: State drug lab scandal
2/3: Dookhan pursued renown on a path of lies

A tear ran down Annie Dookhan’s cheek during the court hearing.
DAVID L. RYAN/GLOBE STAFF

A tear ran down Annie Dookhan’s cheek during the court hearing.

“Certainly one of the victims in this case, and the actions of Annie Dookhan, is the public trust,” Coakley said.

Dookhan’s lawyer, Nicolas A. Gordon, would not comment after Friday’s hearing. He had asked Suffolk Superior Court Judge Carol S. Ball to sentence Dookhan to no more than a year in prison.

Dookhan admitted to filing false test results and mixing drug samples, and to later lying under oath about her job qualifications, but she said it was only to boost her work performance.

Prosecutors had asked that Dookhan serve 5 to 7 years in prison, but Ball kept to her earlier decision that she would sentence the chemist to 3 to 5 years, finding that, while Dookhan was a “broken person who has been undone by her own ambition,” the consequences of her crimes were still “nothing short of catastrophic.”

State Representative Bradley H. Jones Jr., the House Republican leader, expressed disappointment with the sentence.

“You walk away feeling this is really inadequate to what has happened, and the ramifications that it has had, and is going to have, on the criminal justice system,” Jones said. “Three to five years is not adequate.”

Developments in the scandal went beyond Dookhan’s plea and sentencing. The Globe learned Friday night that State Police have fired a drug analyst who worked with Dookhan at the lab when it was run by the Department of Public Health. The former analyst, Kate A. Corbett, was fired for allegedly falsely claiming in court testimony that she had a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, according to a source familiar with the investigation who was not authorized to speak publicly.

David Procopio, a spokesman for the State Police, would only say that the analyst — he did not identify Corbett by name — was fired after State Police took over the lab and began reviewing employees. He said investigators found discrepancies in what she stated about her academic record, and the discrepancies have been referred to prosecutors and defense attorneys already involved in the Dookhan scandal.

Dookhan was led away by a court officer on Friday after the hearing in Suffolk Superior Court.
DAVID L. RYAN/GLOBE STAFF

Dookhan was led away by a court officer on Friday after the hearing in Suffolk Superior Court.

By all accounts, the scandal at the Hinton laboratory in Jamaica Plain is the worst to hit the state’s criminal justice system in recent memory, and is still deepening. Officials have determined that Dookhan was involved in more than 40,000 cases at the lab from 2003-2012, possibly tainting the integrity of the evidence in those cases.

Defendants have asked that their convictions be tossed, or that they be released from prison as they seek new trials. Public safety officials feared their release would create a crime wave. So far, the state has spent $8.5 million reviewing the drug cases and holding special hearings for defendants, and officials have budgeted an additional $8.6 million, expecting the costs to increase.

As of Nov. 5, according to the state Trial Court, 950 people have been given special Superior Court hearings in eight counties, from Worcester east. Overall, through Nov. 5, the courts have held 2,922 hearings — in addition to their regular caseload — for defendants asking that their cases be dismissed or that they be released from jail.

By August, a year after the extent of Dookhan’s crimes were first discovered, a Globe review of court records showed that more than 600 defendants had convictions against them erased or temporarily set aside, or they have been released on bail pending new trials.

Of those, at least 83 defendants — about 13 percent of the total — had been arrested and charged with other crimes.

In one case, a Brockton man released from prison last fall because Dookhan was involved in his case was arrested for allegedly killing a man in a drug dispute in May.

Cape & Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe said that the lab scandal has burdened district attorneys and the courts. At times, the courts have had to release prisoners or grant them new trials “in the interests of fair justice,” he said.

“It’s something that we’re going to be trying to correct for quite a period of time,” O’Keefe said.

But he and defense lawyers also agreed that the woes will not end with Dookhan’s sentence.

Defense lawyers have called on the state Trial Court to set up an independent special court system to review evidence that was handled not only by Dookhan, but by anyone from the Hinton laboratory. The lab, which was closed by State Police in 2012, handled more than 190,000 cases since the early 1990s.

The state Office of Inspector General is also conducting an independent probe to determine whether the laboratory followed its own policies and whether those policies met national standards, said Jack Meyers, a spokesman.

“The chapter in Annie Dookhan’s life is over, but the story goes on for the thousands of individuals who have been affected by her conduct, by the conditions of the lab, and by the effect that it has had on the criminal justice system as a whole,” said Anthony J. Benedetti, chief counsel for the Committee for Public Counsel Services, which represents poor clients, and represented the majority of the Dookhan-related defendants.
 
No charges? No surprise. Another one walks away.



No Charges Against Chicago Cop who Drank Several Beers Before Shooting Unarmed Man in Back

Cook County prosecutors spent two years conducting an “exhaustive” investigation on a Chicago police officer who drank several before beers before shooting a man to death after the man pointed a cell phone at him.

Yet not once during those two years did prosecutors speak to officer Gildardo Sierra, who had shot two other men in the six months prior to the 2011 shooting, including one fatally.

The shooting, which was caught on a dash cam video, was enough for Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy to acknowledge that allowing Sierra back on the streets after the first two incidents was a mistake.

And the video as well as the fact that Sierra had been drinking was enough for the city to settle with Flint Farmer’s family for $4.1 million last year.

None of that mattered to Cook County State Attorney Anita Alvarez – who has relentlessly prosecuted citizens who record police in public while continuously defending police misconduct.

All that mattered was that Sierra claimed he was “in fear for his life” when Farmer pointed a cell phone at him, prompting him to shoot 16 times, seven bullets striking Farmer.

But it was the last three bullets, the ones that Sierra fired into Farmers’ back while standing over him, that killed him, according to an autopsy report.

And those are the ones that were caught on the dash cam video as another officer pulled up to the scene, which you can see above, noted by the fire flashes from the muzzle.

(video at link)

Sierra, who admitted to drinking “multiple beers” prior to the shooting – after first denying that he had been drinking – was not giving a breathalyzer until five hours after the shooting, which we can assume was a deliberate attempt by investigators to allow him to sober up.

Prosecutors determined his admittance to drinking had no influence in his judgement that night, but they were sure to point out to reporters that Farmer’s blood-alcohol content was .142, nearly twice the legal limit.

And although they were unable to find the time to interview Sierra, they went out of their way to sit down with reporters to justify their questionable decision.

According to the Chicago Tribune:

Four officials from Alvarez’s staff sat down with reporters for three hours to explain the investigation and make a video presentation. They were: chief of staff Dan Kirk; Jack Blakey, chief of the office’s special prosecutions bureau; spokeswoman Sally Daly; and Assistant State’s Attorney Nick Trutenko, who conducted the bulk of the investigation. The Tribune ran a front-page story in 2011 raising questions about the shootings by Sierra.

The prosecutors said although the videotape of the shooting was damning, showing muzzle flashes and suggesting Sierra stood over Farmer as he shot him in the back, the continued investigation yielded forensic and other evidence that led the prosecutors to conclude that the incident was more complex.

“The video is actually somewhat maddening,” Trutenko said. “It’s why we run out every ground ball.”

Prosecutors said that by slowing down the video and syncing it with 911 audio and other information, they were able to draw a better picture of what happened — a picture that corroborated Sierra’s statements to officers that he feared for his life. The prosecutors did not interview Sierra and would not say if they even sought to question him.

Prosecutors pointed to several key pieces of evidence in deciding against charging the officer. One was a wound to Farmer’s right hand that suggested he was pointing his arm at Sierra when he was shot. Prosecutors believe that was one of the first shots, if not the first, to hit him. In addition, DNA tests showed that blood on Farmer’s phone was his, suggesting he was holding the phone when shot. The other shots followed, with the last three hitting Farmer in the back.

The FBI is supposedly investigating the shooting, but the Tribune was unable to determine the status on that investigation.

Last year, after having prosecuted several citizens for recording police under a controversial wiretapping law that has since been ruled unconstitutional, Alvarez embarrassed herself on 60 Minutes where she blindly defended police officers who coerced confessions out of suspects, leading the news show to refer to the city as the “False Confession Capital” of the United States.

You can view that infuriating segment below where several men talk about how they were forced to sign false confessions, only to spend decades in prison.

Alvarez embarrasses herself by refusing to admit these men are innocent despite DNA evidence that indicates otherwise.

http://photographyisnotacrime.com/20...rmed-man-back/
 
BREAKING: ANOTHER GOVERNMENT CHEMIST ACCUSED OF DECEPTION, OVER 180,000 CASES NOW NEED REVIEW

BOSTON — The Annie Dookhan deception continues to unfold. Dookhan was a government chemist who tampered with thousands of cases, creating fake “evidence” that caused the imprisonment of countless innocent Americans.

These innocent men and women were rounded up and locked in prison cages while prosecutors scored successful “convictions” because of Dookhan’s fake evidence.

Many lost their marriages, lost their children, and lost their careers. Many immigrants were also deported, losing the lives they had built when they traveled to the US.

Dookhan recently pleaded guilty to all counts brought against her.

However, many have been questioning the State’s official story that one rogue chemist was responsible for all the catastrophic injustice.

Indeed we now have reports that a second “chemist” has been fired over doubts concerning her qualifications.

Kate Corbett, who worked in the same lab as Dookhan, claimed that she had a “chemistry degree” from Merrimack College.

That turns out to be a lie, as investigators determined that she took some chemistry classes in college but her degree is actually in sociology, according to a report.

Which is to say, a sociology major may well have worked in a lab that required high-level expertise in chemistry, a lab whose “evidence” determined the fate of thousands of human beings.

Corbett also may have testified as a chemistry “expert” in dozens of court cases leading to the conviction of Americans, which could add to the devastation that Dookhan has already caused.

Defense attorneys argue that there are now more than 180,000 cases that need to be reviewed, cases connected to the work done by alleged chemists at the Hinton lab.

Meanwhile several questions remain unanswered.

Did Corbett also tamper with evidence alongside Dookhan? Are we really to believe that Dookhan’s forgeries continued for almost a decade without anybody else participating?

A writer to the Boston Globe asks, “Where were Dookhan’s supervisors and those responsible for checking and approving her work? Why were no red flags raised at the speed with which Dookhan completed tests and submitted reports?”


Corbett has not yet been accused of tampering with evidence.

Jonathan W. Blodgett, president of the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association, found out about the problems with Corbett last week.

He and other defense attorneys are now reviewing the cases she worked on to see whether she, like Dookhan, created any fake evidence.


http://filmingcops.com/breaking-anot...w-need-review/
 
This is an in-depth article. I would advise going to the link as the story is interactive.

Sheriff's Department hired officers with histories of misconduct
Despite background investigations that revealed wrongdoing, incompetence, or poor performance, the department still hired dozens of problem applicants in 2010, internal records show.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department hired dozens of officers even though background investigators found they had committed serious misconduct on or off duty, sheriff's files show.

The department made the hires in 2010 after taking over patrols of parks and government buildings from a little-known L.A. County police force. Officers from that agency were given first shot at new jobs with the Sheriff's Department. Investigators gave them lie detector tests and delved into their employment records and personal lives.

The Times reviewed the officers' internal hiring files, which also contained recorded interviews of the applicants by sheriff's investigators.

Ultimately, about 280 county officers were given jobs, including applicants who had accidentally fired their weapons, had sex at work and solicited prostitutes, the records show.

For nearly 100 hires, investigators discovered evidence of dishonesty, such as making untrue statements or falsifying police records. At least 15 were caught cheating on the department's own polygraph exams.

Twenty-nine of those given jobs had previously had been fired or pressured to resign from other law enforcement agencies over concerns about misconduct or workplace performance problems. Nearly 200 had been rejected from other agencies because of past misdeeds, failed entrance exams or other issues.

Several of those with past misconduct have been accused of wrongdoing since joining the department, including one deputy who was terminated after firing his service weapon during a dispute outside a fast-food restaurant.

David McDonald was hired despite admitting to sheriff's investigators he had a relationship with a 14-year-old girl whom he kissed and groped. He was 28 at the time.

"I was in love," he said in an interview with The Times. "I wasn't being a bad guy."

McDonald had been fired from the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department amid allegations he used excessive force on prisoners. A fellow deputy told a supervisor that he didn't want to work with McDonald because he harassed inmates.

L.A. County sheriff's officials made him a jail guard, a decision that surprised even McDonald.

"How can you put me back in the jails when I already had a problem there?" McDonald told the newspaper.

David F. McDonald
David F. McDonald
Age: 53 years old
Hired rank:
Jailer
A fellow deputy asked not to work with McDonald because he said McDonald harassed inmates by calling them names. Asked by a supervisor how he thought inmates should be supervised, McDonald said "Well, like Clint Eastwood, tell them what to do and they either do it or else."

Since being hired by the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, McDonald said he has been disciplined in connection with using physical force on an inmate.

"They want you to be more touchy-feely," he said of the discipline. "Whenever you're gonna jack up an inmate, you have to call a supervisor first."

After sheriff's officials learned The Times had access to the records, they launched a criminal investigation to determine who had leaked them. They also said they would review whether some applicants had been improperly hired. The union representing deputies unsuccessfully tried to get a court order blocking publication of information from the files.

The records provide a rare look into hiring decisions at the nation's largest sheriff's department, an agency dogged in recent years by a string of scandals related to deputy abuse and racially biased policing.

Interactive: A look inside the hiring files »
The department's hiring files detail proven and unproven allegations of misconduct based on information from past employers, romantic partners and others. The files also document when applicants were arrested or charged for alleged crimes but not convicted. One new hire had been charged with assault under the color of authority, and another had been arrested for assault with intent to murder and rape.

The Times, however, focused its analysis on allegations that had been proved in court, sustained in workplace investigations or in cases where the applicants themselves admitted to wrongdoing to sheriff's investigators.

The Times attempted to contact all of the new hires through visits to their homes, phone calls or by email. More than a third granted interviews or declined to comment. Others received inquiries but did not respond. Some could not be located. Of those who did respond, some disputed the contents in their files. Others characterized past problems as mistakes made many years ago that did not reflect how qualified they are to work in law enforcement today.

Law enforcement experts said hiring officers with problematic backgrounds undermines the department's integrity.

I was under the impression that people with backgrounds like that were not being hired.”
— Edward Rogner, a retired Sheriff's Department commander

"Cops are held to a higher standard than the average member of society because we've got to be able to trust them," said Edward Rogner, a retired Sheriff's Department commander who was involved in the expansion but not in hiring decisions.

When told about The Times' findings, Rogner added: "I was under the impression that people with backgrounds like that were not being hired."

Sheriff Lee Baca declined to comment, but his spokesman said Baca was not aware people with such backgrounds were hired.

Before he knew of the newspaper's investigation, Baca told Times reporters that people with records of violence or dishonesty have no place in law enforcement. He said applicants who had been fired from other agencies shouldn't be given a second chance, and that he would not hire applicants with histories of illegal sexual conduct.

"Men that take women and use them as a sexual object are going to always come up against my wrath," he said.

As a county police officer, Ferdinand Salgado had just gotten off work when he was arrested on suspicion of soliciting a prostitute who was actually an undercover cop at a Yum Yum Donuts parking lot in El Monte. According to authorities, he grinned at her, asked for oral sex and arranged to meet her at a motel.

Ferdinand C. Salgado
Ferdinand C. Salgado
Age: 52 years old
Hired rank:
Jailer
During the sheriff's background investigation, it was determined that he tried to manipulate the results of the polygraph test by controlling his breathing, a common tactic used to manipulate the outcome of the exam. He denied it, but admitted knowing about a memo circulating among his colleagues on cheating techniques.

Read more »

He pleaded to a lesser charge of disturbing the peace. During his Sheriff's Department interview, he denied he said anything to the woman.

"I ain't buying it," an investigator told him after reviewing the police report. "You know you're not telling me the truth."

Salgado, who was hired as a jail guard and has since left the agency, wasn't the only one with a conviction on his record.

Records show almost 30 other hires had been convicted of drunk driving, battery or a variety of lower-level crimes. About 50 disclosed to sheriff's background investigators misdeeds such as petty theft, soliciting prostitutes and violence against spouses.

One hire told investigators of having inappropriate sexual contact with two toddlers as a teenager.

In another case, Linda Bonner was given a job after revealing that she used her department-issued weapon to shoot at her husband as he ran away from her during an argument. He wasn't hit; he was lucky he was running in a zigzag pattern, she told investigators, because if not the end result "would have been a whole lot different."

Linda D. Bonner
Linda D. Bonner
Age: 63 years old
Hired rank:
Jailer
She told investigators that she got into a fight with her then-husband, who slapped her in the face. She told them that she got her service weapon from her purse and fired it at her husband as he was running away from her.

Read more »



An opportunity to expand
About four years ago, a Los Angeles County police force called the Office of Public Safety was disbanded. Its responsibilities — patrolling county buildings, parks and hospitals — were handed over to the 18,000-person Sheriff's Department in an effort to save money.

The Sheriff's Department was not required to hire any of the former county officers, officials said.

The agency ended up hiring about 280. The majority were taken on as sworn deputies, while others were hired as custody assistants in the department's troubled jail system, security guards or for other lower-level positions.

We had to have grave reasons for not hiring them.”
— Former Los Angeles County Undersheriff Larry Waldie
Baca's then second-in-command, Larry Waldie, and a small circle of aides, were responsible for scrutinizing applicants.

Waldie, now retired, said he personally reviewed many of the applicants' files. He said he was unaware of any hires with histories of significant misconduct.

Presented with some of The Times' findings, Waldie said: "That information was not brought to me ... I don't recall any of these specifics so don't ask me anymore."

Waldie then said he and his aides were under "significant pressure" from the county Board of Supervisors and other officials to hire as many county officers as possible.

"We had to have grave reasons for not hiring them," Waldie said.

A county spokesman denied Waldie's account, saying the Board of Supervisors "clearly and emphatically" told the Sheriff's Department to only hire applicants who met the agency's hiring standards.

Internal Sheriff's Department records reviewed by The Times show the union representing the former county officers was also lobbying Waldie to hire specific members, including some who had committed serious misconduct during their careers.

The department's hiring guidelines give officials wide latitude to employ people with histories of bad behavior, according to records and interviews. The specific rules are confidential to prevent applicants from tailoring their answers to meet the guidelines. A year before the county police hiring process, the Sheriff's Department's civilian monitor criticized officials for their lax hiring guidelines during a previous recruitment drive.

One taped recording of a background interview suggests the department made special accommodations for the county officers.

In the recording, a sheriff's investigator tells an applicant who was caught cheating on his polygraph exam that normally that would have meant "goodbye, you're done, there's no second chances." The investigator then told the applicant that he and other suspected cheaters might not be disqualified "as a favor because, you know, it's law enforcement." The applicant was eventually hired.



New allegations
It is difficult to assess the performance of the new hires because law enforcement personnel records in California are not available to the public. But interviews and records reviewed by The Times show several officers hired in 2010 have faced new allegations of misconduct.

Gary Esquibel had been suspended as a county police officer for not stopping a colleague from using excessive force and failing to report the incident. Still, the Sheriff's Department hired him as a sworn deputy. He has since been accused of doing nothing as three inmates beat another inmate bloody, according to court records.

Gary J. Esquibel
Gary J. Esquibel
Age: 46 years old
Hired rank:
Deputy Sheriff
Sheriff's background investigators determined he was using "countermeasures" — tactics aimed at manipulating the results of the test. Esquibel denied it. He was suspended for 20 days in 1996 for failing to stop another officer from using excessive force and for failing to report the force.

Read more »

The department is investigating those allegations, which surfaced during a criminal trial of those charged in the beating. Esquibel declined to comment.

Sheriff's polygraph examiners found that county police Officer Desmond Carter was deceptive when asked about his involvement in domestic disputes. They also determined he tried to manipulate the results of his polygraph exam.

He lasted three months as a sworn deputy. A motorist who bumped Carter's car in a McDonald's parking lot started to drive off before they were done settling the matter, according to a district attorney's memo. Carter, who was off duty, drew his service weapon and fired several rounds at the man's car, one of which hit the wall of a nearby business.

Carter said he fired his gun after he was dragged 15 feet by the man's car, but investigators found no evidence that his clothes were damaged or that he was injured, prosecutors wrote. The district attorney did not charge him with a crime, but the Sheriff's Department fired him. Carter did not respond to inquiries from The Times left with his attorney.

Desmond Carter
Desmond Carter
Age: 38 years old
Hired rank:
Deputy Sheriff
Background investigators concluded Carter was using "countermeasures" — tactics aimed at manipulating the results of a polygraph exam when he was asked about incidents of illegal sexual conduct.

Another officer, Niles Rose, was hired despite being the subject of several unreasonable force allegations.

Rose had been investigated for misconduct 10 times at the Office of Public Safety since 2001. In three of those cases, the allegations were found by investigators to be true, according to the sheriff's background file. A former supervisor said Rose developed a reputation as being heavy-handed with suspects.

"If you want smart force used, you make sure he's in the locker room," Marc Gregory, a former county police captain, said in an interview with The Times.

After the Sheriff's Department hired Rose as a jailer, he faced new allegations of misconduct, according to interviews and a court declaration.

An inmate accused Rose in the declaration of hurling an inmate uniform at him, causing him to recoil and hit his head against a wall. Rose then allegedly declared the man a "child molester" and threatened to put him in the general population, where sex offenders have been targeted by other prisoners.

Niles L. Rose
Niles L. Rose
Age: 36 years old
Hired rank:
Jailer
Sheriff's background investigators noted that he was the subject of 10 internal affairs investigations from 2001 to 2007. Three were founded. At least six of those inquiries related to allegations of unreasonable force, threats or intimidation.

Rose declined to discuss the inmate's allegation of abuse, saying it still may be under investigation. He did confirm that he had so many physical confrontations with inmates that jail managers moved him to the time card office, where he would no longer have contact with prisoners.

He called the move an overreaction.

"I'm not one to just walk around and beat on people for no reason," Rose said. "I never put my hands on someone or fought with somebody who didn't swing at me first."

Allegations of misconduct continued after Rose was reassigned to administrative work.

Sheriff's officials suspect he stole thousands of dollars in overtime funds, according to several law enforcement sources who requested anonymity because the case was ongoing. Rose is now on leave, and a sheriff's spokesman said he's under criminal investigation.

Contact the reporters | Follow Robert Faturechi (@RobertFaturechi) and Ben Poston (@bposton) on Twitter


http://graphics.latimes.com/behind-the-badge/
 
Cops: "we’re gonna shoot and kill your dogs,ransack your house"
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A Kansas City man says he’s been terrified since an encounter with police on Monday evening. He says officers came to his home in southeast Kansas City looking for people he’d never heard of and when he refused to let them inside, things turned ugly.

Eric Crinnian, a lawyer, heard a loud banging at his door Monday night, he was instantly alarmed since a neighbor’s house was robbed a few weeks ago, so he grabbed a crow-bar.

Crinnian said three police officers were outside his house.

“I open the door a little bit wider and he sees that I have something in my hand, so he pulls his gun, tells me to put down whatever I’ve got and then come out with my hands up, so I do,” Crinnian said.

They wanted to know where two guys were, and Crinnian later found out police believed they violated parole.

“I said, ‘I have no idea who you’re talking about I’ve never heard of these people before,’” he said.

To prove it, he said police asked to search his house, Crinnian refused multiple times. He said they needed a warrant.

Then he said one police officer started threatening him saying, “If we have to get a warrant, we’re going to come back when you’re not expecting it, we’re going to park in front of your house, where all your neighbors can see, we’re gonna bust in your door with a battering ram, we’re gonna shoot and kill your dogs, who are my family, and then we’re going to ransack your house looking for these people.”

“If that’s the case and those are the things that were said, I would think those would be inappropriate,” said John Hamilton.

John Hamilton is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Park University and former police officer. He said having a warrant is always the best way for police to search a home, and while the threats aren’t illegal, they might violate a department policy.

“I just think it’s a dangerous way to do policing, because it makes it tenuous when you appear in front of the court in a case like that,” Hamilton said.

Crinnian said he’s never had a problem with police before in his life, and he still has a great amount of respect for the Kansas City, Mo. Police Department. However, he also said he wants the situation investigated, so he filed an Office of Community Complaints Report.

A spokesman for the Kansas City, Mo. Police Department says he can’t discuss ongoing OCC reports and they are investigated internally.
http://fox4kc.com/2013/11/27/man-say...kill-his-dogs/

Inappropriate? It's fucking CRIMINAL! But, hey, props and respect for a bunch of criminal douches.
 
Fullerton Police Lawyers: Kelly Thomas Killed Himself

Day One of the prosecution's case against two Fullerton cops accused of using excessive force in 2011 to kill an unarmed homeless man had an eerie resemblance to another trial that landed Orange County in embarrassing international headlines a decade ago.
In Corona del Mar, three young men--including the son of a wealthy, corrupt assistant sheriff--got a 16-year-old girl highly intoxicated and, after she'd fallen unconscious, stripped her before videotaping themselves sexual assaulting her vagina and rectum with a Tree Top Apple Juice can, pool cue, Snapple bottle and lit cigarette.

Defense lawyers put Jane Doe, that victim, on trial and brought in so-called expert witnesses who opined that the girl faked her stupor for the Sony camcorder after asking her assailants to film her in a necrophilia sex scene she could presumably use to enter the Los Angeles porn world.

Today, inside Judge William R. Froeberg's 10th floor courtroom--just beneath the location of the infamous Haidl Gang Rape trial, acclaimed defense lawyers for ex-officers Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli offered jurors similarly ludicrous stories.

Ramos attorney John Barnett, who also served as a losing defense lawyer in the Haidl case, portrayed victim Kelly Thomas as a menacing physical specimen who scared a large group of towering, fully-armed, veteran cops that chased, surrounded, punched, kicked, restrained, clubbed and shot Taser blasts into the homeless man's relatively small frame for five minutes.


barnettkthomasone-thumb-522x361.jpg

John Barnett, who represented a cop involved in the 1991 police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, tells the jury that Thomas was a dangerous threat that needed to be dealt with aggressively

In his part of the courtroom theater, Cicinelli defense lawyer Michael Schwartz admitted cops used force on Thomas but, despite him falling silent during the attack and lying in a huge pool of his own blood, he was medically fine when EMT's put him into an ambulance.
Schwartz also argued that gruesome hospital photographs of Thomas have given the false impression that police were brutal when, he insists, most of the external damage was simply superficial bruising.

But, like the defense line in the Haidl Gang Rape that the victim asked to be raped to start a porn career, Schwartz is asking jurors to declare that Thomas killed himself and police, his close companions during his final minutes alive, neither contributed to the death nor committed any criminal acts.

His line--delivered without cracking a smile--was that an "overexerting," 37-year-old Thomas beat himself to death by struggling with concerned, compassionate officers.

"His heart couldn't take it," said Schwartz.

He later added, "A tragedy? Yes. A crime? No. Sometimes tragedies happen in this world."

kellythomasbeforeafter-thumb-522x258.jpg


Before he finished, Schwartz accused District Attorney Tony Rackauckas of personally manufacturing a case by tampering with key witnesses to alter their stories to fit his prosecution theory of police brutality.
(Both Barnett and Schwartz specialize in representing law enforcement officers accused of committing crimes and are known in Southern California courthouses for their intensity, creativity and steep legal rates.)

At the beginning of the day, Rackauckas--a former superior court judge and Republican activist who has a lengthy track record of defending cops in suspicious shooting cases over the years--told the jury these warped officers took what should have been a minor encounter with Thomas, who wasn't wanted for any serious crime, and unnecessarily killed him.

The trial, which has drawn dozens of journalists and members of the public--many of whom are visibly outraged by the defense tactics, resumes tomorrow in Santa Ana and is expected to last several weeks.

kellythomablood-thumb-522x329.jpg


Joseph Wolfe, a third charged Fullerton cop in the Thomas case, will face trial at a later date.
Protesters stood outside of the courthouse holding handmade signs against police brutality.

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2013/12/kelly_thomas_fullerton_trial_1.php?page=2
 
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COPS WHO TASERED 10-YEAR-OLD SPARK OUTRAGE FROM MAYOR AND CITIZENS

MARTINSVILLE, Ind. (CBS/AP) Police officers are trained to take down suspects twice their size and to be able to keep their cool in any situation - so why did an Indiana cop taser a 94-pound 10-year-old?
The incident took place Tuesday at a day care center in Martinsville, Ind., about 30 miles south of Indianapolis, when cops were called to a disturbance complaint and found find the boy hitting, kicking and spitting on a caretaker as she held him down on the front porch, according to police reports.

Another woman, identified as the boy's guardian, also was on the porch, and several small children watched the struggle from the front yard.

According to the officers' reports Capt. William Jennings and Officer Darren Johnson tried to restrain the boy, but he remained combative and kicked Johnson. Johnson's report says that Jennings then smacked the boy in the mouth, although Jennings' report doesn't mention that.

The boy then lunged at the caretaker and Johnson used his stun gun for 1 to 2 seconds, according to the report.

Mayor Phil Deckard said he was "sickened" by the incident and officials in the 12,000-person city wouldn't tolerate unnecessary force by police officers.

The officers have been suspended with pay pending and investigation by The Morgan County Sheriff's Department, who took over the investigation from the Martinsville Police Department.

It was the second time police had been called to the day care for an incident involving the boy, who was not identified.

"I don't think that should have happened. I'm sure they could have detained him some other way," Kenneth Frazier, who lives next door to the day care, told CBS affiliate WISH.

"They take big grown ups down without tasing them...why a 10-year-old?"

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cops-who-tasered-10-year-old-spark-outrage-from-mayor-and-citizens/



"If you can imagine somebody hitting you in the back of the head 19 times per second for five seconds, that's what it feels like. And boy, do it hurt," Knightstown Police Chief Danny Baker
 
Video at the link.

Texas cops handcuff and take 13-year-old white girl from black guardians
By David Edwards
Monday, December 2, 2013 14:56 EST
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/...-13-year-old-white-girl-from-black-guardians/

Houston Police have refused to explain why they took a 13-year-old white girl from her two black guardians over the weekend and placed her in the custody of Child Protective Services.

Landry Thompson’s mother had signed notarized papers giving dance instructor Emmanuel Hurd full guardianship over her during a trip from Oklahoma to Houston for training, according to KHOU.

Thompson, Hurd and another dance instructor had stopped at a gas station in Houston on Saturday night when they were surrounded by police cars.

Thompson is a 13-year-old blonde white girl and both dance instructors are young African-American men.

“We were on the GPS trying to figure out where the hotel was,” Hurd recalled. “They just pulled us out of the car and put our hands behind our backs like we were criminals.”

“The officer asked me ‘who’s the girl?’ and I said ‘she’s my student,’” Hurd continued. “I told him I had a notarized letter from her parents stating that we have full guardianship over her while we’re here.”

All three told the police the same story, but the officers apparently weren’t buying it.

“They still put handcuffs on me and it really scared me,” the 13-year-old said. “And they put me in the back of a cop car and I was terrified.”

Thompson’s mother, Destiny, was shocked when she found out that her daughter had been placed in the care of Child Protective Services.

“She was with the people I wanted her to be with,” the mother remarked. “She was with people I trusted. And now she was taken away from those people and in a shelter with people I didn’t know.”

At first officials reportedly demanded that the mother fly to Houston to get her daughter, but 11 hours later, the girl was released back into the custody of Hurd.

Destiny Thompson insisted that the police owed her and her daughter an apology. However, the department refused to comment for KHOU’s report.

Watch this video from KHOU, broadcast Dec. 2, 2013.
Click to expand...

Does this story disprove the Houston based rap song, Ridin' Dirty?
 
Clint Peterson Was Killed by Police While Running Away

Why did a Duncanville police officer shoot Clint Peterson? Don't bother asking the cops.

There still are a few reminders left of Clint Peterson on Kelly Court, the quiet, leafy street in Duncanville where he was shot to death.

A neighbor's white pickup that Peterson once repaired is parked in a driveway. Across the street is the home of an elderly couple whose lawn he mowed for extra cash. A small bouquet of flowers sits outside another house in the middle of the block, where the three women who witnessed Peterson's brief, fatal encounter with police all live.

A few houses down, there is a more gruesome trace of Peterson — faint bloodstains on the concrete driveway where he collapsed after being shot.

Shyanna Gallegos lives at the house with the bouquet out in front. She says she woke up early the morning of October 28 to the sound of Melissa Peterson, one of her housemates, yelling at her brother Clint in the driveway, telling him to go home.

Gallegos' mom, Debra, the third witness, and Clint Peterson had dated on and off. But lately he was no longer welcome at the house. He was depressed and drank often. He stayed with a family friend not far away, who says Peterson planned to go to rehab later that day.

The police reports describe the scene before the shooting as a "major disturbance," but Peterson's sister and girlfriend dispute that account. They say they simply wanted him to leave. He often came over uninvited. And that morning, Peterson, a talented mechanic, had messed with some switches on Gallegos' car, so that the lights wouldn't work until he came back later to fix it. "He made me mad about the car, which now I look at it, it wasn't that big of a deal," Debra Gallegos says.

After the yelling woke her up, Shyanna Gallegos ran downstairs. "I told Melissa, 'Just shut up, go inside, leave Clint alone, I'll go out and talk to him," she says. The younger Gallegos considered Peterson a best friend and says she tried to mediate the fights he'd get into with her housemates. He seemed calm to her. He told her he found a job and promised he'd leave if he could get a cigarette. "The thing I don't understand is why there was even an argument to begin with, because when I came outside to talk to Clint, he had no problem talking to me and telling me what was going on," she says.

She told him to wait a minute and she'd bring him a smoke. Inside the house, her mother was on the phone with the 911 dispatcher, telling them about the car. Shyanna Gallegos says she told her mother to give the dispatcher a warning: Peterson might be carrying a fake gun that easily could be mistaken for a real one. Or, at least he had been carrying one a few days prior. The women insist it was just a toy. Still, they feared it could cause trouble if a police officer saw it and thought it was real.

"We weren't sure the state of mind that Clint was in," Shyanna Gallegos says. "We wanted the officers to know that he might have a fake gun on him, that it is fake, for sure," and that "he would be more likely to be suicidal than to hurt anybody."

The three women say that Peterson was already walking away from their house as two Duncanville Police Department officers drove toward him and parked next to the curb. Within a minute, they say, he was dead.

The eyewitnesses say that the police officers, unprovoked, cornered Peterson and shot a Taser gun at him as he backed away with his hands in his pockets. They say that prompted Peterson to turn his back and run, but that he barely made it around a tree before an officer fired two bullets at him from point-blank range. Neighbors heard two gunshots. The three women believe it was the second bullet that struck Peterson, hitting him in the back of the head and killing him.

"If they lunged two steps, they could have tackled him, or used their Taser," says Melissa Peterson. "He didn't pull nothing, they didn't tell him nothing, they didn't tell him to stop, they didn't tell him to put his hands up."

If what the women say is true, it would be an outrageous story and difficult to believe. Yet so far, the police haven't released any information providing any other narrative.

Documents from the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office say Peterson, formally known as Clinton, died of a gunshot wound to the head, a homicide. He was 28 years old. The Duncanville Police Department has declined to release a police report to the family or the public that would explain how the killing occurred, saying they aren't obligated to release information because the case remains under investigation.

Instead, the department has been distributing a vague news release. It says that "shots were fired" after officers responded to a "major disturbance" in the 400 block of Kelly Court. But the official account doesn't say what that disturbance was, who fired the shots, whether or not the suspect was armed with any real or fake weapon or where he was hit.

What few details are in the report seem to at least confirm that Peterson had been running away before he was shot.

"Preliminary reports indicate that shots were fired during a foot chase," says the Duncanville Police Department's statement.

The courts ruled long ago that foot chases aren't a justification to shoot at an unarmed suspect.

In 1974, a Memphis Police Department officer named Elton Hymon shot at an unarmed 15-year-old burglary suspect who was trying to climb over a fence. The bullet struck the teenager in the back of his head, killing him.

At the time, the police department argued that officers were legally justified to shoot the teenager under Tennessee law. A state statute had said that police pursuing a suspect could "use all the necessary means to effect the arrest."

The victim's father didn't agree and brought a lawsuit against the city of Memphis and its police department.

Tennessee v. Gardner made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1985 ruled that an officer can use deadly force on a fleeing suspect only if the officer "has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others." Now, attorneys say, the ruling provides clear guidance that police officers can't shoot unarmed suspects on the run.

"The only time you can possibly do it is, if that person was a danger to others or himself," says Jim Harrington, a human rights attorney who founded the Texas Civil Rights Project. "But simply running away from the officer, you can't do it."

More recently, in December 2011, an Austin Police Department officer named Chris Allen shot 14 rounds at a suspect driving away in a stolen vehicle. The suspect survived and was later arrested. Nonetheless, Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo fired Allen. Allen's use of deadly force "was objectively unreasonable and not within department policy," the police chief told the Austin American-Statesman last year.

"If the story is that the individual was running away from police," and unarmed, says Todd Shapiro, a criminal defense attorney who used to be a prosecutor at the Dallas County District Attorney's Office, then "justification for using deadly force would seem to be unavailable in this situation. I would expect that police officer would be charged with murder."

The Dallas County Sheriff's Department is conducting a criminal investigation. With the shooting under review, the sheriff can withhold much of the normally public information that would provide clues into Peterson's death — such as the police report, the 911 tapes or footage from any dash-cams the officers may have had.

In response to an open records request from reporters, the sheriff's office says the case may be presented to a Dallas County grand jury, and if it is, "release of the video, audio and the offense report would allow the officers being investigated to have access to evidence and case analysis before the grand jury meets on this matter."

Sherry Horne, Peterson's mother, has also asked for a report. "I need closure. I need answers and nobody will give me answers," she says.

The Duncanville Police Department is similarly mum on details as it works on a separate investigation into whether either of the officers who responded violated any department policy.

The officers who confronted Peterson were out on paid administrative leave for less than a week before returning to work. They're both back to their normal duties, the Duncanville Police Department says. The officers' names haven't been released to the public.

"I don't see anything wrong with that decision," says Robert Brown, the Duncanville police chief. "The officers have not been charged with any criminal offense. They're simply being investigated as an officer would who's used deadly force."

News of Peterson's death was overshadowed by reports of other officer-involved shootings in North Texas that were more obviously egregious, with video footage quickly made public.

On October 14, Dallas Police Department Officer Cardan Spencer shot and wounded a mentally ill man holding a knife in the middle of a residential street in south Dallas. In an initial police report, Spencer's partner Christopher Watson had claimed that the man raised the knife in an "aggressive manner" shortly before the shooting. But surveillance footage that a neighbor captured shows the man standing with a knife by his side. After the neighbor sent his video to WFAA, the Dallas Police Department fired Spencer and now plans to present a case against him to a grand jury. Spencer's partner who wrote the report, Christopher Watson, was also recently suspended by Dallas Police Chief David Brown for giving "misleading statements" in the report.

And in November, a Garland Police Department Officer who shot and killed a suspect was indicted. It was the first time in 17 years that any Dallas County grand jury indicted an officer who shot a suspect. Garland Officer Patrick Tuter killed 25-year-old Michael Vincent Allen on August 31, 2012, after a lengthy car chase.

At first, the Garland Police Department said that Allen had rammed his truck into Tuter's police car before the officer fired at him.

Yet soon afterward, the department revised its official story and gave the public new details about what happened. The department announced that dash-cam footage revealed it was actually the officer who had crashed his squad car into the suspect's truck before firing as many as 41 rounds. Within a week after the shooting, Tuter was placed on extended leave and the department confiscated his city-owned weapons.

In Peterson's case, the most vivid picture has come from the three witnesses, although their accounts are sometimes inconsistent. The housemates gave statements to the police shortly after and were told they can't get more information until the case is delivered to the District Attorney's Office.

Most other people on the street say they didn't see or hear anything that morning, that they were waking up or not home. A few people heard two gunshots but didn't know where they came from. Another witness, a man who lives next door to the house where Peterson died, said he looked out of his bedroom window after hearing the second gunshot and saw Peterson lying on his stomach in the driveway, with his head gushing blood. A police officer pushed three women away from the body as the women asked why they shot him, the neighbor recalls.

The neighbor can't speak English but gave an interview with his wife translating, on the condition that he not be named. He says he saw no weapons by Peterson's body and "didn't see nothing in his arms."

Peterson moved to Duncanville a year and a half ago, following his sister Melissa. They grew up in Salina, a small town in the middle of Utah where they struggled to find work.

He stayed on and off at the crowded house on Kelly Court and fell in love with Debra Gallegos. He repaired cars and mowed lawns in the neighborhood. He even found a stable job at a home improvement store. But he lost the job, and the relationship fell apart. Debra Gallegos said it was the age difference that bothered her — at 50, she was 22 years older than Peterson.

Shyanna Gallegos says he also caused trouble by trying to bring alcohol over, even though the women didn't want it in the house.

And, according Debbie Scroggins, Gallegos' half-sister who also lived there, Peterson was also a drug addict, making him act strangely but never violently. "I've never seen him hit anybody, he just would steal," Scroggins says. (Scroggins wasn't home when the shooting took place.)

Whatever the reason for the break-up, he didn't take the news well. He stayed with Bobby Smith, an acquaintance who has his own lawn-mowing business. "He was real depressed and stuff," Smith says.

Even while he stayed with Smith, Peterson would often walk over to the Gallegos' home, uninvited. He would stand on the driveway, begging Debra Gallegos to talk to him. "He would stand outside my mom's window at night and throw some rocks, like a little lovebird would, and be like, 'Hey Debbie, come out and talk to me.' And whether my mom came out and talk to him or not, that was on her," Shyanna Gallegos says. "Everyone had a problem with my mom and Clint being together, that's why nobody wanted Clint around."

On some mornings, Scroggins would find what she assumed were Peterson's cigarette butts littered on the driveway. Another morning, Scroggins noticed nails in her tire, which she also thought could be Peterson's doing. She called the police. An officer came to the house and found no leads. Scroggins says the officer suggested they call back if Peterson reappeared.

Despite all that, Scroggins says she mostly got along with Peterson. "I didn't like some of the stuff he did, but as a person, I liked him." Apparently, Peterson wasn't charged for that incident, or anything else while he lived in Texas. A search of his name and date of birth shows no arrests in the state.

The other women downplay the tire incident and Peterson's alleged substance abuse. "Most of the time, all my brother did was drink," Melissa Peterson says.

Yet they knew the toy gun could cause trouble. Scroggins once saw him carrying it in his waistband. To her it looked real.

"I said, 'You have a gun? Oh my God, you have no business with a gun,'" Scroggins recalled.

Shyanna Gallegos said she could tell by just looking that it was an airsoft gun. "He came up to me acting like some kind of badass, he's like, 'I got this gun, I found it,'" she says. "I'm like, 'That's fake,' and he goes, 'No it ain't.' 'I'm like, Clint that's fake, I'm not an idiot.'" She grabbed it out of his hand, and shook it, hearing plastic toy pellets inside. He told her he found it in a trash bin. Gallegos saw a crack in the side. She tried to pull the trigger but it was jammed.

Suspects who hold guns in front of police — real or fake — are likely to end up getting shot, even if they are fleeing. "If a guy has a gun, they're entitled to shoot him. The courts won't second guess the cop in that kind of dangerous situation," says Harrington, the civil rights attorney.

Yet the witnesses insist he never pointed it at officers. They say they're still not sure if he even had it on him the morning he died.

The police came quickly that morning. Debra Gallegos was still on the phone with 911. Her daughter ran downstairs with Peterson's cigarette but he already walked off and was several houses away. There were two officers, one on a motorcycle and one in a squad car. They parked a few houses down, in front of the address where Peterson would soon die.

The whole confrontation happened quickly. "They weren't prepared, they weren't prepared at all," Debra Gallegos says. It was the one on the motorcycle who got the women's attention. "He came with a hot head," she adds.

Shyanna Gallegos, the one closest to the officers, says the motorcycle officer stumbled off his bike with his hand already on his weapon. She says she heard him ask, "Hey can you talk?" but didn't give Peterson a chance to respond. She began running toward them, telling them, "Don't shoot." Her mom and Melissa Peterson were behind her. Peterson, with his hands in his pockets, backed away.

They heard a Taser fired and then saw a Taser prong tangled in the trees. Peterson dodged it, turned and ran around a tree. The officers quickly closed in, and one of them, just a yard away from Peterson, fired at him. The second bullet caused his body to lunge forward onto the driveway.

Debra Gallegos says she stayed on the phone with 911 the whole time. "I said, 'I thought I told you that it was a fake gun, if he even had one,'" Gallegos says.

Shyanna Gallegos got to the scene first, and a moment later, the two other women ran up. Gallegos says she asked the officer why he shot Peterson, and the officer, still holding his gun, was "freaking out," repeating "I don't know," and then "because he ran."

Told about the witnesses' story, Chief Brown says he can't comment on it until all the official investigations into the shooting are finished. "People are going to have their opinions of what took place, and I respect that. They're giving you their account of what occurred," Brown says. "So what I want to do is take the whole puzzle, and make decisions from the whole puzzle, not just pieces of it."

The only investigative document released to the public so far is the preliminary cause of death sheet, which says that Peterson died of a gunshot wound to the head. Brown says he hasn't seen that, though it was obtained by the Observer. "Where he was shot, how many times he was shot, the part of body, I don't have any of that information," Brown says.

The women begged the officers to check on Peterson. "They didn't even check to see if he was dead or alive. They didn't even touch him," his sister says. Shyanna ran around and tried to grab his hand. They say the officer from the motorcycle tugged on her shirt and pulled her away.

What particularly troubles the witnesses is that dozens more police officers showed up in cars just minutes later. If that whole group had come at once, earlier, maybe they could have caught Peterson at the end of the block alive. "They should have been prepared and not sent one officer on that motorcycle and another one in a patrol car. They should have had more substantial resources than what they brought on," Debra Gallegos says. Within 15 minutes, they say, the ambulance came, but Peterson was clearly dead.

Debra Gallegos maintains that the 911 tape will back up her story from the shooting.

"The 911 tape's going to tell it all," she says.

Standing on the driveway where Peterson died, she turns to look back at her house. "That's a close range," she says. "You're an officer, you're trained, and there's two of you, and you couldn't have tackled the guy?"
Click to expand...

http://www.dallasobserver.com/2013-12-05/news/killed-for-running-away/full/
 
An Offer You Can’t Refuse
How US Federal Prosecutors Force Drug Defendants to Plead Guilty

DECEMBER 5, 2013
The 126-page report details how prosecutors throughout the United States extract guilty pleas from federal drug defendants by charging or threatening to charge them with offenses carrying harsh mandatory sentences and by seeking additional mandatory increases to those sentences. Prosecutors offer defendants a much lower sentence in exchange for pleading guilty. Since drug defendants rarely prevail at trial, it is not surprising that 97 percent of them decide to plead guilty.

http://www.hrw.org/node/120933
 
In NYC you've got roughly a 50/50 chance of being shot purposely as opposed to accidentally by the cops.

NYPD Shootings by the Numbers, 2012 Edition
The New York Times has the stats today from a police department report detailing all of the shootings in 2012 involving NYPD officers. More people were killed by police and more cops were shot last year than any other time during the Bloomberg administration.

People hit by NYPD gunfire: 30

People killed by NYPD gunfire: 16

People shot by the NYPD accidentally (bystanders or accidental discharge): 14

Total rounds fired by NYPD: 331

Total rounds fired during one incident in Washington Heights: 84

Officers shot: 13

Officers killed in shootings: 0

Officers who killed themselves with NYPD guns: 8

Dogs shot by NYPD: 24

Officers disciplined for violating deadly force guidelines: 1
Click to expand...

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...bers-2012.html
 
‘Oh, You’re Gonna Shoot Me?’ Robert Cameron Redus

‘‘What are you gonna do? Shoot me?" Samuel Vanettes

The answer is clear. Yes, they will.

A former sheriff’s deputy on trial for murder in an off-duty shooting at a Murrieta bar took the witness stand Monday, Dec. 2, testifying that he fired his gun in self-defense after the victim’s friends threatened to kill him.

“I thought these guys were gonna kill me with my own gun,” Dayle William Long testified. “I didn’t want to die.”

Long, 44, who has been in custody with bail set at $1 million, was a 10-year veteran of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department assigned to a courtroom at the time of the Dec. 21, 2011 shooting. He has pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors have said Long, angry and drunk, shot 36-year-old Samuel Vanettes without provocation at Spelly’s Pub and Grille on Murrieta Hot Springs Road.

After meeting Vanettes and his friends at the bar and hanging out with them for a while, Long began arguing over trivial things and traded angry words with one of Vanettes’ friends, prosecutor Burke Strunsky said earlier in the trial.

Long pointed the gun at Vanettes, who was standing several feet away, with his hands up, Strunsky said.

Vanettes asked Long, ‘‘What are you gonna do? Shoot me?’” Strunsky said.

Long fired six shots, four of which struck Vanettes, he said.

On the witness stand, Long gave a vastly different account, saying it was Vanettes’ group who got angry for no reason and threatened him. Long said he had consumed six to seven drinks but was not drunk and his judgment was not impaired.

In a soft, calm voice, Long used law enforcement terms to describe the shooting and spoke in the present tense of his training, as if he were still a deputy. Under questioning from defense attorney Leah Kisner, Long said the situation at the bar clearly called for “deadly force.”
Looking back on the moment of the shooting, Long said, he would do the same thing again.

Vanettes’ sister, April Reilly, who witnessed the shooting, testified earlier that Long had seemed like a nice guy at first but then started making odd remarks and arguing. When Vanettes mentioned a place where he used to live in Orange County, Long insisted the streets Vanettes named didn’t exist, Reilly said. She said she asked the bartender to call 911 when Long pulled a gun.

But Long said Vanettes was the one who got agitated about the street names and he denied pulling the gun until later.

Long said that two men with Vanettes’ group got angry at him for no apparent reason, threatening to take his gun away from him and kill him. One of the men, Chris Hull, advanced towards him, he said. Long said he pushed him repeatedly, telling the men to back off.

Long said he was backing toward the door holding his gun when he felt someone – apparently Vanettes – grab at his hand. He said he felt “kind of a shove.”

He said he moved back and, with his eyes closed and the gun low, opened fire. Long said it happened fast and he didn’t know it was Vanettes he was shooting at.

“I was trying to stop the threat,” Long said.

Long said he backed up a few steps and called police dispatch on his cell phone.

“I needed help,” he said. “I was just in an officer-involved shooting.”
Click to expand...

http://www.pe.com/local-news/riversi...-testifies.ece
 
EXCLUSIVE: INNOCENT MAN SUES AFTER COPS BEAT HIM & PEPPER-SPRAY THE WOUNDS
1 day ago | US | Posted by Ben Swann Staff
December 9, 2013

Adam Williams, a citizen of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, claims he is victim of police brutality. Williams and his brother were outside of a local sports-bar when the two decided to walk outside and wait for their friend to pay a tab. Once outside, the two say they encountered an intoxicated stranger who was urinating on the sidewalk. After a brief encounter with the two, the stranger disappeared into the night.

Moments later, the head of security arrived and began threatening the two for urinating on the sidewalk. The two told the security guard that they had done no such thing and were simply waiting for a friend.

“Due to the fact we were breaking no laws, Jared (Williams’ brother) & I remained where we stood & continued to legally wait for our friend Dean,” Williams wrote in a statement to police.

The security guard called for police who arrived from across the street moments later. In total, 6 police began interrogating the two brothers.

The two told police what had happened, but claim police had little interest, as they continued to move in on them. One officer told the two to shut up, or they’d talk their way into jail. Williams says they asked police if they were being detained, or if they were free to go multiple times and received no answer.

“In moments, six police were surrounding us,” said Williams. One officer then yelled at the two, “Buddy, you ain’t being detained! You’re free to go!” However, while saying this, the officers continued to advance the two.

“It was clear we were not free to go,” says Williams. In fear of the sudden escalation, the two asked to speak with the supervising officer on duty. At that moment, Officer Keith Sanders stepped forward and yelled, “I’m the g**da**, fu****g supervisor! Don’t you know what this means,” as he pointed to his uniform patch.

At this point, the two told Sanders’ they would be contacting his supervisors to inform them of the rude behavior. As the two were told they weren’t being detained, they turned to leave. At this moment, officer Sanders reached forward and threw Williams onto the concrete. The officers immediately jumped Williams and began to beat him.

Officers punched Williams multiple times in the face and head. They then cuffed him and placed him into the patrol car of officer Kennith White. Police claim that moments later Williams began kicking the back seat of the patrol car. Officer White then opened the car door to pepper-spray Williams in his face and on his fresh wounds. Officer White then slammed shut the door leaving Williams to suffocate in the mist.



Police then took Williams to the detention center where they strapped him into a chair and slammed his face onto the metal table in front of him.

According to the civil lawsuit submitted by attorney Jon Rodgers, there is video footage police slamming Williams’ head into the table. The police department is being sued for personal damages, $5ook, and fees. Rodgers says that his client’s Fourth & Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated.

Police charged Williams with two separate counts of assault on an officer, resisting arrest and public intoxication. Once released, Williams went to the local emergency department where doctors suspected he had a fractured wrist. Once the lawsuit moved forward, the defendants offered to drop all charges and costs against Williams except one. ”I’m not going to settle,” says Williams.

Officer White was also recently engaged in an altercation with a city firefighter. Many are accusing officer White of using excessive force for punching Jerry Mosely, a firefighter living in the same county, multiple times in the ribs. (Video Below)


The police department released a statement stating that officer White’s actions were necessary. Mosely says the police department’s statement of events released to the media are untrue.

Mosely and Williams have since been in contact with one another to discuss their unfortunate experiences with excessive use of force from a police officer.

Will1.jpg



Read more: http://benswann.com/exclusive-innoc...at-him-pepper-spray-the-wounds/#ixzz2n5NumKu9
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Police officers fatally shot an emotionally distressed man eight times in his Harlem apartment after one cop accidentally shot his fellow officer with a Taser, prompting the injured officer to scream "He's stabbing me, shoot him!"

This revelation in the death of 29-year-old Mohamed Bah comes from the NYPD's own shooting incident report completed in December of last year, two months after officers killed Bah, claiming he had lunged at him with a knife.

Former NYPD spokesman Paul Browne made no mention of this crucial detail in describing the scene at Bah's apartment to the New York Times. Emergency Services Unit officers had broken down Bah's door and fired a Taser and a rubber bullet at Bah, despite the fact that Bah's mother, concerned for her son's well being, had called 911 to request an ambulance.

“None of those firings have any visible effect,” Mr. Browne said. “At this point, it’s not a matter of even keeping him from charging; he is now stabbing two E.S.U. officers in their vests, and one of them, as this guy keeps stabbing, yells, ‘He’s stabbing me; shoot him.’ ”

In fact, Sergeant Joseph McCormack had shot Detective Edwin Mateo with a Taser gun in his arm, prompting Mateo's cry. Randolph McLaughlin, an attorney for Bah's family, said that the NYPD knowingly withheld the information from his clients.

"They knew it from the get-go," McLaughlin said. "This is essentially a coverup."

The Manhattan DA also had knowledge of the officers' actions. The DA's office presented evidence to a grand jury two weeks ago, which found that the officers involved were justified in their slaying of Bah.

92313DCPI1.jpg

The scene outside Mohamed Bah's apartment after he was killed by police (NYPD)

"That blows my mind," McLaughlin said of the grand jury's decision. "It calls into question the fairness and fullness of the DA's investigation."

McLaughlin sued the city earlier this fall, but many of the pertinent details in Bah's case were missing until the judge in the case compelled the authorities to turn them over. Photos show that Bah's body was apparently dragged down a set of stairs, and McLaughlin says there is compelling evidence to show that he was alive when this took place.

"This kind of behavior shocks the conscience."

"The case involves tragic circumstances. The Law Department has just received the amended complaint," City attorney Ashley Garman says. "We'll evaluate the matter thoroughly."

Compounding the seeming ineptitude of the NYPD, the knife that police allege Bah, a cab driver and college student, was wielding that night, has been lost. Police say it was swept away in Hurricane Sandy's storm surge.

"If I'm slashing cops with a knife, then you take that knife, take DNA samples from it, and secure it," McLaughlin says. "You're saying it disappeared? Really?"

McLaughlin is suing the City and the officers involved in federal court for $70 million, and says he hopes that the case forces the new mayor and NYPD commissioner to change how it responds to the more than 100,000 calls for emotionally disturbed persons (EDPs) each year.

"The Emergency Services Unit aren't trained mental health professionals. They're trained to use force, whether it's rubber bullets or Tasers," McLaughlin says. "It's a double stigma of race and mental illness. Fear can cause people to kill other people. They were afraid of [Bah], and it resulted in his death."
You can read a copy of the amended complaint below.
Click to expand...

http://gothamist.com/2013/12/09/lawsuit_cop_tasers_another_cop.php
 
Judge puts suits alleging illegal strip searches on fast track
Cases filed after former Milwaukee police officer sentenced

Some of the many federal civil rights lawsuits that contend Milwaukee police conducted illegal strip and body cavity searches of drug suspects appear on a fast track, scheduled for trial as early as June, with deadlines much sooner for settlement reports and key motions.

The flood of lawsuits — 12 so far involving 20 plaintiffs, with more suits expected — began in June after former officer Michael Vagnini was sentenced to 26 months in prison. He pleaded no contest to four felonies and four misdemeanors related to the illegal searches.

If successful, the claims could leave the City of Milwaukee on the hook for millions of dollars in damages.

Generally, the plaintiffs claim to have been stopped and searched without reasonable cause and subjected to varying degrees of humiliating public strip searches or manual searches of their anal areas. In some instances, police did find drugs, but in most no contraband was discovered.

During a scheduling conference last month for one of the cases, U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller told Assistant City Attorney Susan Lappen the city may have to hire outside counsel to share the burden of defending all the cases — if any actually wind up being tried.

"These cases are going to move in this branch of the court," Stadtmueller said, according to a transcript of the hearing.

"Unlike fine wine, they do not get better with age," the judge said. "And whether it's the Milwaukee Police Department or the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, very sadly, we have a cornucopia of litigation involving prisoners' rights and police officers who apparently stray from that which we expect from the law enforcement community.

"And the sooner these cases are addressed in open court, the sooner we will have a law enforcement community that can be proud of their work and the community proud to have them working. But, unfortunately, we do not see that today particularly in light of these cases."

Stadtmueller told the assistant city attorney to inform her boss to assign appropriate resources, "because we're going to bring these cases to conclusion, whether in July or September."

Lappen did not return a phone message.

So far, four of the pending cases have been assigned to Stadtmueller. In the oldest case, he has set a March 25 deadline for the parties to file an interim report on progress toward settlement.

One case before another judge involves nine plaintiffs. In that case, the city has asked to separate the claims, on the grounds that each search is distinct and it is difficult to determine whether there are common legal issues.

In response, the plaintiffs argue it would be more difficult to try the claims against 14 defendants separately. The plaintiffs contend the searches were part of common practice among a group of officers in District 5 and were undertaken with supervisors' knowledge and tacit endorsement.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman has not yet ruled on the city's motion to separate the case into nine separate cases.

The city also has moved to dismiss claims that it and Chief Edward Flynn are directly liable because they had a policy or practice of allowing the illegal searches, and other claims of other suits, on the grounds the plaintiffs don't offer sufficient facts to support the claims.

In civil rights cases against police officers, claims that they were acting pursuant to an authorized pattern or practice or because they were not trained to recognize civil rights violations are often dismissed.

The plaintiffs respond that they have easily met the threshold for such claims to proceed, citing the Police Department's knowledge as early as 2008 about numerous citizen complaints regarding the anal searches.

While the city argues that "unsustained" complaints are not evidence of unlawful searches, the plaintiffs say the fact that no officers were ever disciplined led them to believe such searches were acceptable or that their methods would never be closely examined.

In yet other cases, the city has asked that plaintiffs be ordered to file a more definitive statement of their claim, saying the original lawsuit was so vague the city couldn't prepare a proper response.
Click to expand...


Read more from Journal Sentinel: http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/...rack-b99158241z1-234983001.html#ixzz2n5RBwvvC
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Hat tip to aGoT....

18 LA sheriff's officials charged in jail probe(LOL at 5% bad)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Roughly three years ago, a man referred to in a federal indictment as "Visitor LF" went to Men's Central Jail to discuss his inability to visit his brother there. Instead, a Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy allegedly handcuffed him, took him to a break room with no windows or public access, and threw him against a refrigerator.

His arm was fractured in the encounter and he received cuts to his nose and face, according to indictments unsealed Monday. Afterward, four deputies tried to have him falsely charged with resisting an executive officer. The man was detained for about five days and ultimately released without being charged.

It was one among many allegations announced by federal officials as they charged 18 current and former Los Angeles County sheriff's officials with beating inmates and jail visitors, falsifying reports, and trying to obstruct an FBI probe of the nation's largest jail system.

The investigation into corruption and civil rights abuses led to the arrests Monday of 16 of the 18 defendants. The 13 who were arraigned entered not guilty pleas. At least two no longer work for the department.

"These incidents did not take place in a vacuum. In fact, they demonstrated behavior that had become institutionalized," said U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr.

Flanked by some of his top command staff, Sheriff Lee Baca told reporters Monday that he was troubled by the charges and called it a sad day for his department. He said the department would continue to cooperate with the FBI and that deputies who have been charged would be relieved of duty and have their pay suspended.

Among allegations in a criminal complaint and four grand jury indictments:

— Deputies unlawfully detained and used force on visitors to Men's Central Jail, including detaining and handcuffing the Austrian consul general in one instance, and in another, grabbing a man by the neck, forcing his head into a refrigerator, throwing him to the floor and pepper-spraying his eyes.

— Deputies falsified reports to make arrests seem lawful or in one case, struck, kicked and pepper-sprayed an inmate and made false reports to have the inmate charged with and prosecuted for assaulting deputies.

— Deputies tried to thwart the investigation by unsuccessfully seeking a court order to get the FBI to provide documents and attempted to intimidate a lead FBI agent by falsely saying they were going to seek a warrant for her arrest.

View galleryAndre Birotte, U.S. Attorney for the Central District …
Andre Birotte, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, at podium, and Bill Lewis, Assi …
Those charged with conspiracy and obstruction of justice include two lieutenants, one of whom oversaw the department's safe jails program and another who investigated allegations of crimes committed by sheriff's personnel.

They're accused along with two sergeants and three deputies with trying to prevent the FBI from contacting an informant by falsifying records to appear that he had been released when he had been moved to different cells under false names.


http://news.yahoo.com/18-la-sheriff-...073622415.html
 
[QUOTE
88d36e9a8a4b8f29450f6a70670082df.jpg

FILE - This undated file photo provided by the Illinois Department of Corrections shows inmate Stanley Wrice. On Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2013, a Cook County judge overturned the rape conviction for Wrice who has been in prison for 30 years. He will be released from Pontiac Correctional Center on Wednesday. The ruling comes two days after key witness Bobby Joe Williams testified detectives working for former Chicago police lieutenant Jon Burge tortured him into falsely testifying against Wrice. (AP Photo/Illinois Department of Corrections) (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

CHICAGO – A man who says Chicago police tortured him until he confessed to a rape he did not commit walked out of an Illinois prison on Wednesday after spending 30 years behind bars.

Stanley Wrice's release from the Pontiac Correctional Center came a day after Cook County Judge Richard Walsh overturned the 59-year-old's conviction, saying officers lied about how they had treated him.

The ruling was just the latest development in one of the darkest chapters of Chicago Police Department history, in which officers working under former Lt. Jon Burge were accused of torturing suspects into false confessions and torturing witnesses into falsely implicating people in crimes.

Wrice has insisted for years that he confessed to the 1982 sexual assault after officers beat him in the groin and face. And a witness testified at a hearing Tuesday that he falsely implicated Wrice in the rape after two Chicago police officers under Burge's command tortured him.

He was sentenced to 100 years in prison.

Now that Walsh has ordered Wrice's release, it will be up to a special prosecutor to decide whether to retry him. The special prosecutor did not return a call seeking comment Tuesday evening.

With his release, Wrice will join a number of men who in recent years have been released from prison because they were tortured into confessing at the hands of Burge's men. Dozens of men -- almost all of them black -- have claimed that, starting in the 1970s, Burge and his officers beat or shocked them into confessing to crimes ranging from armed robbery to murder.

In court Tuesday, Wrice testified that two former officers beat him with a flashlight and a 20-inch piece of rubber -- the same weapons, lawyers say, that others have said the two used on them to get them to confess to crimes or implicate others in crimes they did not commit.

The officers refused to testify at Tuesday's hearing, citing their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/12/1...oxnews/national+(Internal+-+US+Latest+-+Text)[/QUOTE]//
 
Read the last three lines.


Man wounded in latest Dallas police shooting had his hands in the air, witness says

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crim...ing-had-his-hands-in-the-air-witness-says.ece

By TANYA EISERER and TRISTAN HALLMAN

Staff Writers

Published: 10 December 2013 09:58 PM

Updated: 10 December 2013 10:54 PM

For the second time in two months, a Dallas police officer is under scrutiny for shooting a man for no apparent reason.

A witness said he watched an officer shoot carjacking suspect Kelvion Walker, 19, Monday afternoon even though Walker had both hands in the air and showed no signs of having a weapon. Walker has not been charged with a crime and is in critical condition at a Dallas hospital.

“I don’t condone these two young men stealing this car,” said the witness, Scottie Smith II, a real estate agent and property manager. “I surely don’t condone these two young men driving into my complex and giving my complex this negative publicity.

“But I do not condone an officer shooting a man with his hands up in the air.”

After inquiries from The Dallas Morning News, the department issued a news release late Tuesday about the shooting.

The statement said that no weapon was found in the car. It also said police were reviewing dash cam video from the squad cars and were attempting to enhance the video “to assist in the investigation.”

The statement did not name Smith, but did say that police had spoken to an independent witness who told them that Walker had both his hands in the air.

The statement identified the officer who shot Walker as Senior Cpl. Amy Wilburn, who was hired in 2001. She has been placed on administrative leave, a routine procedure in such cases. Her attorney, Robert Rogers, said there is more to the story.

“The focus should be on what the officer involved knew and saw at the exact moment,” said Rogers. “Without getting into the specifics of an ongoing investigation, I can promise you that the officer involved was in fear for her life at that exact moment.”

Monday’s shooting comes in the wake of a mid-October case in which a residential surveillance video showed a Dallas police officer shooting a mentally ill man who was standing with his arms at his side while holding a knife. That officer has been fired and his partner was reprimanded. It also led to a change in the way the Dallas Police Department deals with officers who have been involved in shootings.

Previously, those officers would typically give investigators detailed statements about the incidents within hours of the incident.

But the new policy requires officers to take 72 hours before giving detectives an official statement. Officers can still provide an immediate bare-bones walk-through with their attorney present so investigators can start their work.

Carjacking report

According to police records, the events that led up to Walker’s shooting began with a carjacking about 2:15 p.m. at a gas station in the 9500 block of Bruton Road. Wilburn and other officers responded to the robbery.

A 24-year-old man told police that he was parked at the gas station when he was approached by a man in an “aggressive manner.”

He fled to a nearby carwash and watched as two people drove off in his 2005 Chevrolet Malibu. He told police that the passenger fired two shots at him as they fled.

Authorities contacted the car’s lien holder and police tracked it through a vehicle GPS.

Authorities say Wilburn and Officer Jason Correa saw the stolen car heading south on St. Augustine Road near Military Parkway in Pleasant Grove.

Wilburn turned on her red lights to stop the car, but the driver sped up and turned into the St. Augustine Townhomes.

Police said the car slowed, and the driver jumped out and ran away. That driver remained at large late Tuesday.

As the car continued to roll, Wilburn approached to stop it. The statement said she didn’t realize Walker was in the front passenger seat.

“Officer Wilburn perceived Walker to be an imminent threat, drew her weapon and discharged it once striking him,” the statement said.

Walker was charged with misdemeanor theft in 2011 and received deferred adjudication, according to Dallas County records. The charge was dismissed in 2012 after he completed probation.

Walker is a fifth-year senior at Spruce High School in Pleasant Grove, according to his former head football coach, Carl Richardson, who described Walker as “a good kid.”

“I don’t know what the story was, but he was always respectful toward me,” Richardson said Tuesday.

Witness’s account

Smith, the witness, said he was on the phone and sitting in his car waiting for a prospective tenant to arrive when the shooting occurred about 20 feet away.

“I was so close to the scene that if that bullet had missed that young man and would have went out that window, it would have hit my car and probably would have hit me,” he said.

He said he watched as two uniformed officers rushed up toward the driver’s side of the car.

“The lady cop opens the door, pulls out her gun and shoots,” said Smith, 26. “The whole time, the passenger has his hands in the air. He didn’t have time to go for anything. I … haven’t been able to sleep at all.”

He said he is still trying to cope with what he saw.

“I’m scheduled to go on a police ride-along here in the next two weeks, so I don’t have this anti-police feel within me,” Smith said. “But that right there was a traumatic scene.”
 
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