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Thread: Bad Cops. BAD! BAD!

  1. #1876
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    https://www.pix11.com/news/local-new...aught-on-video

    FREEPORT, N.Y. — The Nassau County district attorney is moving to dismiss charges against a Black man whose arrest in December sparked multiple investigations into alleged excessive force by police.

    District Attorney Madeline Singas announced Tuesday the charges pending against Akbar Rogers related to his Dec. 3 arrest in Freeport would be dropped.

    Bystander video showed Freeport police repeatedly punching Rogers and using a stun gun. They yelled for Rogers to stop resisting arrest. Rogers screamed for help and said he couldn't breathe.

    After viewing the video, Nassau County Executive Laura Curran said she requested the district attorney to investigate.

    Singas said on Tuesday that she was “deeply troubled” by the video when she first watched it in December.

    Two separate investigations were launched, one led by an independent expert in police use of force, into whether police officers used excessive force during the arrest.

    “Dr. [Philip] Hayden found that the force used was consistent with the officers’ training, and departmental policies, making criminal charges against the officers unsustainable,” Singas said on Tuesday. “Nonetheless, the abusive language depicted in video of the incident, with an officer responding to Mr. Rogers’ assertion that he could not breathe with ‘f--k you,” and calling him a ‘piece of s--t’ is reprehensible and warrants discipline.”

    The incident has been referred to the Freeport Police Department for departmental disciplinary review, officials said.

    Police were arresting Rodgers on bench warrants related to traffic violations, according to the district attorney’s office. He was also wanted for the alleged physical harassment of a pregnant woman.

    He was initially charged with assault and resisting arrest following his Dec. 3 arrest, according to officials.

    “While an independent expert found the level of force used to be justified by law and policy, Mr. Rogers did not attempt to harm the police and the officer’s injury that formed the basis of the second-degree assault charge was not intentional," Singas said of her decision to dismiss the charges. "While there was probable cause to charge Mr. Rogers with resisting arrest because he dropped between two fences while running from officers, I have concluded based on the totality of the circumstances these charges should not be pursued."

    Rodgers will still be prosecuted for his alleged harassment of a pregnant woman in October, according to the district attorney’s office.

  2. #1877
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    https://www.tallahassee.com/story/ne...th/4979139002/


    The Franklin County traffic ticket that caught the FBI?s attention didn?t exactly go through normal channels.

    After a deputy cited a prominent local businesswoman for leaving the scene of a minor crash, the ticket went to the courthouse as usual. But the woman complained, prompting the Sheriff?s Office to retrieve it pending additional review.

    Prosecutors eventually dismissed the ticket for lack of evidence. But the general public would never know it even existed because it was never entered into the Clerk of Court?s system.

    ?I don?t have anything,? said Clerk of Court Marcia Johnson. ?All I know is before we even stamped it in, one of my clerks said the Sheriff?s Department picked it up. It was never actually filed in my office.?


    The Sheriff's Office's handling of the ticket sparked interest from an FBI agent, who traveled Dec. 20 to Carrabelle to interview the deputy who issued it. The meeting escalated into a roadside confrontation and culminated with the agent handcuffed in the deputy's patrol car.

    Sheriff A.J. Smith and State Attorney Jack Campbell said the ticket wasn?t ?fixed,? though they acknowledged it went outside usual procedures. Campbell said the case should have been as transparent as any other.

    ?When we make mistakes ? if an officer writes a ticket that we later decide we shouldn?t have ? everybody should be able to see that,? Campbell said. ?When somebody?s been charged, we need to document it and explain why we?re changing direction so everyone can understand why we did what we did.?

    Jack Campbell, state attorney for the Second Judicial Circuit.
    Campbell spoke with Smith about it, telling him the Sheriff?s Office should have let the ticket go through the courts, with prosecutors dismissing it if that?s what the evidence showed.

    ?That?s my recommendation,? Campbell said. ?After you all have written a ticket or made an arrest, let me know and we can address it. But don?t just do it by yourself.?

    Under Florida law, law enforcement officers must deposit original traffic citations with the court within five days of issuing them. Citations may be disposed of only by trial or other official action by a judge. Disposing of them otherwise, statutes say, ?is unlawful and official misconduct."

    Deputy didn't want to issue ticket
    It all began Dec. 3 when Marilyn Bean, a St. George Island real-estate agent, backed her Mercedes sedan into a Cadillac coupe outside the Dollar General in Eastpoint. After she drove off, the other driver, Byron Rainwater, called the Sheriff?s Office to complain, according to the crash report.

    He told responding Deputy Rolf Gordon a woman got out of her car and asked, ?Did I scratch it?? before driving away. Rainwater also said he wanted to press charges and produced the woman?s tag numbers.


    Bean later told Gordon she ?felt an impact? when she was backing up but ?wasn?t sure if she had hit something,? according to the report.

    ?Ms. Bean said she got out of the car and the other driver did not seem concerned so she left and did not think she was doing anything wrong,? the report says. ?Based on Ms. Bean?s statement to me, I do not believe that she intentionally left the scene of the traffic crash.?

    Gordon noted in his report that he found Bean at fault for the crash. But he didn't cite her for leaving the scene. That changed later in the day, after Lt. Jim Ward, the Sheriff's Office's full-time traffic enforcement officer, told Gordon to issue the ticket, Smith said.

    Bean was cited for leaving the scene, a second-degree misdemeanor requiring a court appearance. She later complained to Smith, an old friend and supporter, who ordered a major to review it. A deputy went to get the ticket pending the review, Smith said.

    At some point after that ? it?s unclear when ? investigators at the Sheriff?s Office contacted prosecutors, who conducted their own review at Campbell?s behest.

    In a Jan. 3 email, John Turner, an investigator with the State Attorney?s Office in Apalachicola, told prosecutors he spoke with Rainwater, who?d already gotten a repair estimate and a check from Bean for $1,600.

    ?Mr. Rainwater said he doesn?t feel Mrs. Bean deserves to be charged (and) he doesn?t want to press any criminal charges,? Turner wrote. ?Mr. Rainwater hasn?t suffered any financial loss from this incident.?

    'People just want a fair shake'
    On Jan. 8, prosecutors filed notice they would not proceed with the ticket because of a lack of probable cause. They noted the investigating officer did not believe Bean left the scene intentionally.

    Smith said Campbell told him the office's handling of the ticket fell into a legal ?grey area."

    "He said it's not a violation, but it is probably a better practice to just let the state attorney (dismiss) the case, which we ultimately did," he said.


    Smith added he hears from constituents daily and has a duty to respond to their concerns.

    "A lot of times it's just discretion," Smith said. "And if somebody feels like they didn't get a fair shake, they're going to call me and ask me to look into it. It's a small town sheriff. It's kind of like what our system is based on. People just want a fair shake."



    A Florida Deputy detains an FBI agent who was investigating corruption allegations.


  3. #1878
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    https://www.tallahassee.com/story/ne...en/4940493002/

    Here is more on the FBI agent detained by Local Police in Florida.

    CARRABELLE — An FBI agent checking out a complaint about police corruption in rural northwest Florida ended up handcuffed in the back seat of a patrol car after running into deputies who doubted his true identity.

    The ordeal unfolded after Special Agent Alexis Hatten traveled from Panama City to the small town of Carrabelle to ask about a citation the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office gave to a prominent businesswoman but later pulled back from the courthouse.

    It escalated into a roadside confrontation — all caught on bodycam video — between Hatten and the deputies. During the six minutes Hatten spent locked in the cruiser, he cried out for cool air and demanded to be released.

    "I can't believe this is happening," the veteran FBI agent said. "You think this is funny, but it won't be funny after today."

    The hour-long incident, now under review by the FBI, happened Dec. 20 in a parking lot off U.S. Highway 98 in the coastal fishing community about 45 miles southwest of Tallahassee.

    Hatten hastily scheduled an interview with Deputy Rolf Gordon to talk about the ticket, which he'd issued a few weeks earlier. But the conversation went sideways after Gordon began to suspect Hatten wasn't really a federal agent.


    The agent’s vehicle tags didn't trace back to the government agency deputies expected. After a check of his driver's license, his name popped up on a terrorist watch list, according to bodycam footage and Sheriff A.J. Smith in a subsequent interview.

    The story, which has been making rounds in Franklin County political circles, came to light after the Tallahassee Democrat obtained the body cam footage, police reports and other documents through a public records request.

    The records exposed normally secretive movements of the FBI, whose recent public corruption investigations in North Florida have led to numerous guilty pleas from government officials, including former Tallahassee City Commissioner Scott Maddox.

    They also highlighted the FBI's interest in the Sheriff’s Office, though it’s unclear whether that goes beyond a mere traffic ticket. Smith, who's running for a second term, said his opponents likely complained to the FBI to score political points in an election year.

    "They must have told them there’s some kind of corruption or the sheriff is corrupt," he said. "That’s all I can figure. It’s certainly not true."

    Smith said he’s not aware of any broader federal probe involving his office. The FBI was characteristically tight-lipped, saying it could neither confirm nor deny an investigation.

    Incident raises 'blue on blue' concerns
    The tense standoff could have spiraled even further out of control, potentially putting officers in danger. At one point, after Gordon detained Hatten, the agent held his hands up in surrender and refused to put them down even after the deputy said he could.

    “I don’t want to be shot out here,” Hatten said.

    “I don’t want to be shot either,” Gordon replied.

    James Dooley, a retired New York City police captain and adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the incident could have escalated into an unintentional act of "blue on blue" violence.

    “There could have been an emotional, visceral reaction by any of the parties,” he said. “There wasn’t, thank God. But any time you have a confrontation between a uniform officer and a plainclothes officer whose identity is not immediately established, there is a potential for a tragedy.”

    The FBI declined to comment in detail but acknowledged it is reviewing the incident.

    “The FBI remains committed to full coordination with all of our law enforcement partners,” a bureau spokesperson said, “and we will continue to work together with the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office to strengthen the relationship between our agencies and ensure the safety and security of this community.”

    ‘Something going on in Carrabelle’
    Agent Hatten went to Carrabelle to ask about a traffic ticket Gordon gave to a prominent local businesswoman for leaving the scene of a Dec. 3 crash. And while the FBI isn't known for its interest in traffic matters, the ticket in question wasn't handled ordinarily.

    After the ticketed driver complained to Sheriff Smith, he asked for an internal review. Deputies picked the ticket up from the courthouse before it could be logged into the Clerk of Court's system. The Sheriff's Office eventually handed it off to prosecutors, who dismissed it for lack of evidence.

    On the day of the incident, Hatten rang Gordon on his personal cell — something the deputy found odd — and identified himself as an FBI agent. He wanted to meet with Gordon to talk about “something going on in Carrabelle,” the deputy later wrote.
    At the meeting spot, Hatten flashed his FBI credentials and said he had spent the last 31 years investigating police corruption and civil rights violations. He said he wanted to talk about the traffic ticket.

    Gordon called his supervisor, Sgt. T.J. Carroll, to tell him what was going on. Carroll advised the interview would have to be rescheduled through the Sheriff’s Office.

    “(The agent's) demeanor appeared to change as if this agitated him,” Gordon said. “Mr. Hatten told me he wasn’t going to do that, he said he would have the U.S. attorney contact me directly to take care of this.”

    That’s when the deputy — convinced the mystery man may be a fraud after all — activated his body camera.

    ‘There’s something fishy with this’

    Hatten, visibly perturbed, identified himself again and asked Gordon to turn the camera off. But Gordon declined.

    “I don’t know how legitimate you are at the moment,” the deputy said.

    Gordon asked Hatten for his business card, but the agent said he doesn’t give them out.

    “I don’t believe this,” Gordon said over his radio. “There’s something fishy with this right here.”

    Hatten’s Ford Taurus came back to a business called Advanced Wiring Company in Jacksonville, a dispatcher said. Gordon asked Hatten whether he worked for the company. Hatten said curtly it was "a covert vehicle."

    But the agent wouldn't say how he got the deputy's personal cell phone or answer other questions, prompting the deputy to detain him.

    “I’m not cuffing you,” Gordon said. “But you’re being very uncooperative with me.”

    'You don't need to be a deputy'
    Hatten, outside the car with his hands up, asked Gordon to take his gun but then reversed himself, saying he didn't have permission to disarm him.

    The agent radioed FBI dispatch to report what was happening. Later, on the phone with a supervisor, he explained the situation had “escalated” after he came to talk to Gordon.

    “You’ve got to call the sheriff to let him know that his deputies have me stopped here and are holding me,” the agent said. “He’s going to ask why and you’re not going to be able to tell him.”

    Gordon, waiting for his supervisor to show up, told Hatten he never showed him his badge. Gordon pulled it out and asked the deputy to take it.

    “Do you not see a badge?” the agent asked. “Oh good Lord. Well you don’t need to be a deputy.”

    Nearly 20 minutes into the encounter, Gordon’s colleagues arrived at the scene with stunning news: Hatten's name came back "hot" on a terrorist watch list.

    “Seriously?” someone asked.

    “I swear to the Lord Jesus,” Detective Matt Coleman said.

    However, deputies later seemed to express confusion about the watch list. Carroll said one person advised Hatten's name was on the list and for law enforcement to "use extreme caution." But someone else told him "his name was completely different."

    Smith said Hatten's name was linked to the watch list after the Sheriff's Office ran his license through the state's Driver and Vehicle Information Database. He said he couldn't release a document showing Hatten on the list because it's exempt under public record laws.

    'I'm suffering in here'
    Carroll handcuffed Hatten with his hands behind his back and removed a semi-automatic Glock handgun from his hip holster.

    “Right now we’re running your name through multiple federal databases," Gordon said. "Nobody’s coming back with your name. You’re also coming back on a terror watch list. We’re going to secure you for your protection and ours.”

    They put him in the back of Gordon’s cruiser, its dark tinted windows rolled up. The agent started yelling for help a minute or two later.

    “I need air brother,” Hatten said. “I’m suffering in here.”

    "Alright, I'm turning it on now," Gordon said. "I've got the air on full blast."

    "No you don't brother," Hatten cried. "You're burning me up. Brother I need air. God almighty!"

    Moments later, an officer on the radio said he was on the phone with the agent’s supervisor.

    “He is legit," the officer said. "He's down here on official business."


  4. #1879
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    'They've had me smoking in the back'
    Once Hatten was released, he repeatedly asked deputies to call 911, saying he needed medical attention. Deputies requested paramedics as he peeled off his sweater and radioed FBI dispatch.

    "Jacksonville, I need 911," he said. "I’ve asked for help. I’ve been in a car. They’ve had me smoking in the back.”

    The agent sank into the driver’s seat of his car and complained about vision problems, a common symptom of heat stroke.

    “I can’t see,” Hatten said. “I’ve lost my vision.”

    Emergency medical workers arrived and loaded him into an ambulance. Hatten asked to be taken to a hospital in Tallahassee. But officers weren't convinced he was hurt.

    “And the nominee for best actor ...” one officer quipped.

    Hatten said Gordon had the heat on in his car, but the deputy denied it. Gordon said he initially had the defroster set on cool but turned the air conditioner on full blast after the agent complained.

    It was 66 degrees outside at the time, Gordon noted in his report. Sheriff Smith, in an interview, said “nothing was wrong” with Hatten when he was discharged from the hospital later that day.

    The FBI, citing privacy concerns, declined to say whether Hatten was physically harmed. But the bureau suggested the sheriff may have overstepped in his assessment of the agent's condition.

    “It’s important to note that only a patient’s condition is known to that patient and the medical provider,” the FBI spokesperson said, “and only a patient can disclose that information.”

    'We need to have some training'
    In the hours after Hatten was released, FBI agents and brass descended on Apalachicola, meeting with Gordon and the sheriff to find out what happened and why. Gordon, in his report, said he answered their questions truthfully.

    Smith, who arrived at the scene moments before Hatten was released, defended the actions of his deputies. He said Gordon "erred on the side of caution."

    "With the information and knowledge that he had, I think he handled it appropriately," Smith said.

    Franklin County Sheriff A.J. Smith
    Dooley, the former NYPD officer, said he didn't believe deputies did anything wrong at the scene. He said trouble could have been avoided if the FBI agent arranged for an interview in an office setting. But he added he couldn't speak to the agency's investigative techniques in the Carrabelle inquiry.

    Smith said most of his deputies have never seen a name appear on a the terrorist watch list or encountered FBI agents in the field.

    “We don’t see them often in our county,” he said. “That’s one of the things that I talked about with the FBI. We need to have some training, and we need to know who their people are. And they agree."

    Larry Keefe, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Florida, declined to comment.

    The sheriff acknowledged his office didn’t have solid lines of communication with the FBI at the time of the incident. Now they do, he said.

    "We’re going to try to use this," Smith said, "to make both our agencies work together a lot better.”

    https://www.tallahassee.com/story/ne...en/4940493002/

  5. #1880
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    https://www.wxyz.com/news/region/mac...f-duty-assault

    WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WXYZ) — "I think he had a feeling I was with somebody and he just can't handle it," Melissa Khan said about her ex-husband Anwar Khan who is accused of assaulting Melissa and a male friend of hers.

    Anwar Khan, 48, is a 20 year veteran of the Warren Police Department, but he was off-duty at his home in Washington Township on July 4 when his 16-year-old daughter called 911.

    Melissa said she had been staying at her ex-husband's home for several days last week to visit their children.

    She told 7 Action News that Anwar had been granted custody of their three children, ages six, nine, and sixteen because she was in jail on an alcohol-related case and missed court hearings.

    Around 10:45 Saturday morning, Anwar Khan went outside and allegedly confronted his teenage daughter and her boyfriend who were sitting near a creek.

    The teen's boyfriend ran off but investigators said it's alleged that Anwar then began to assault Melissa's male friend who had been napping nearby.

    "He had a mission," Melissa said about her ex, and the moment her friend said he attacked him. "He was sleeping on his back, literally, on his back on the ground and he just started pummeling him in his face."

    Anwar allegedly threatened the man with his firearm before returning to the house where Melissa said she'd been sleeping.

    "(He) just ripped me out of my bed, screaming and told me he (expletive) my N-word boyfriend up," she said.

    That's when the couple's teenage daughter called 911.

    On Friday, Anwar Khan was arraigned on multiple charges including misdemeanor Domestic Violence and felony Assault with a Dangerous Weapon.

    He was given a $10,000 personal bond and ordered to stay away from his daughter, his ex-wife and her friend.

    "He's not going anywhere," Khan's defense attorney John Dakmak told the judge during his client's arraignment. "We are fighting these allegations. We have had no discussions of a plea at this point. We're prepared to counter any evidence presented by the people in this case."

    Anwar Khan is now on unpaid leave with the Warren Police Department.

    Warren Police Commissioner William Dwyer said Officer Khan has an excellent work record and is entitled to due process.

  6. #1881
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    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime...?ocid=msedgntp

    After a video emerged over the weekend of a police officer kneeling on a man’s neck in Allentown, Pennsylvania, protesters have come out onto the streets demanding accountability.

    The 26 second video was posted to a local Black Lives Matter Twitter account on Saturday and was quickly shared widely.

    For some viewers, it evoked the footage of the death of George Floyd, who died in May after being restrained by four police officers, one of whom knelt on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.

    The Allentown police department had changed its rules earlier in July, in the wake of national protests against Floyd’s death, to disallow chokeholds and kneeling on someone’s neck as forms of restraint.

    In the video from Allentown, the unidentified man is heard shouting after the officer places a knee on his neck. People filming the video are heard to say “look, we don’t matter, bro,” “get off his neck” and “he can’t breathe.”

    A lawyer representing Floyd’s family, Ben Crump, shared the video on Twitter, adding: “This happened yesterday and is exactly what led to George Floyd’s death. We need this officer’s name and badge number NOW.”

    A group of protesters marched on a police precinct in Allentown on Saturday in response to the video, chanting Floyd’s name and “hands up, don’t shoot,” according to the Morning Call, a local newspaper.

    The following day, police released a statement saying an investigation had been opened into the incident.

    They also said the man, who was later released after being treated in the hospital, had been “vomiting and staggering in the street,” leading to police officers to approach him.

    “The observed erratic behavior resulted in the officers and hospital staff interacting with the individual,” the statement read. “The individual began to yell, scream, and spit at the officers and hospital staff. As the officers attempted to restrain the individual, all parties fell to the ground.”

    “The individual continued to be non-compliant which required officers to restrain the individual,” the statement went on.

    Local Black Lives Matter protesters have rejected the police explanation, saying that the use of force seen in the video would never be justified, the Morning Call reported.

    A further protest is planned for 5 p.m. on Monday.
    Allentown, PA facing Police Brutality allegations.

  7. #1882
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    https://www.kitv.com/story/42379954/...ury-indictment

    A retired police detective from Hilo was arrested Thursday after he was indicted by a grand jury on multiple charges.

    56-year-old Brian Miller turned himself in at the East Hawai'i Detention Facility following a grand jury indictment, which stemmed from a May 14 incident in Hilo.

    The indictment alleges Miller is guilty of intimidating a witness, tampering with a witness, retaliating against a witness, terroristic threatening in the second degree and harassment.

    Miller was released after posting $50,000 bail. His next court appearance is scheduled for next Tuesday in Kona Circuit Court.

  8. #1883
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    https://fox40.com/news/california-co...ssed-21-women/

    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Nicole remembers feeling grateful that Officer Morgan McGrew agreed to meet her so early in the morning. The 7:30 a.m. appointment would let her handle the errand — verifying her car’s vehicle identification number — and still make it to work on time.

    But when she met McGrew in the parking lot of the West Valley California Highway Patrol Office in Los Angeles, there seemed to be a problem. McGrew said he was having trouble finding the VIN sticker on her car door. Then, Nicole says, the conversation abruptly shifted.

    “‘I’ll pass this car, and you’ll be able to get your registration, if you go out on a date with me,’” she remembers McGrew saying. “I kind of froze,” she says.

    Nicole says she was suddenly hyper aware of her surroundings — alone in a deserted parking lot with a man who was sitting in the front seat of her car.

    “I was going through my options in my head for a minute or two there trying to figure out: OK, if this gets even more uncomfortable and sketchy what am I going to do next?” she says.

    At first, she tried to laugh off his proposition. She needed him to sign off on her car’s VIN. But McGrew didn’t drop it; he kept asking. Twice more, she says, he offered to pass her car in exchange for a date.

    “At that point I just shut down completely, and just kind of gave him this look like, ‘I’m so uncomfortable,’” she says. “And then he got more awkward and finally just kind of stepped out of my car, handed me paperwork and said I was good to go. And then I drove off.”

    Nicole, who spoke on condition that her full name not be published, was one of 21 women McGrew propositioned and harassed during VIN verification appointments, according to records from a 2016 internal investigation obtained by KQED and the California Reporting Project.

    Four women said McGrew offered to pass their vehicles if they would go on a date or to a nearby motel with him. Two said McGrew sent them text messages soliciting sex after he took down their phone numbers during a VIN appointment. Fifteen described McGrew making comments that ranged from proposing sex to asking intrusive personal questions.

    McGrew resigned in 2017 after being notified he would be fired for a variety of misconduct, including improperly trying to foster relationships with members of the public, making inappropriate sexual comments and propositioning women for sex while on duty, the documents show.

    The records provide details about the type of sexual misconduct by law enforcement that remained secret for decades in California until a landmark transparency law required agencies last year to publicly disclose a variety of documents, including investigations of officers found to have committed sexual assault while on duty.

    The Right to Know Act has exposed repeated instances of abuse, ranging from correctional officers in prison and jail who assaulted women under their guard to an officer fired for soliciting sex from an arrestee and one accused of beating and raping his girlfriend.

    In McGrew’s case, the CHP did not refer him to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office to decide if criminal charges were warranted. A CHP spokeswoman wrote in an email that “had there been sufficient evidence that a crime had occurred, it would have been investigated and potentially referred to the district attorney’s office.”

    The district attorney’s office declined to comment on the case. The California Association of Highway Patrolmen, which represented McGrew, also did not respond to requests for comment. Efforts to reach McGrew for comment were unsuccessful.

    The CHP records show he admitted making the comments during VIN inspections but argued that termination was an excessive punishment after his 14 years of service.

    “While I do not dispute that I made inexcusable comments to members of the public, the remarks were never mean spirited,” he wrote in a letter to internal affairs.

    Former U.S. Attorney for Northern California Joseph Russoniello, who reviewed the internal affairs files, described McGrew’s conduct as “a wanton abuse of his badge” and said he was shocked that the CHP did not refer McGrew to the DA.

    “An agency needs to show that it’s serious about rejecting this kind of behavior,” Russoniello says. “And the serious way to do that is a criminal referral.”

    “This is an extraordinary example of how they (police) hide their dirty laundry and protect their own,” says Phil Stinson, criminal justice professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He says the documents contain clear allegations that McGrew repeatedly solicited bribes in the form of sexual favors from women.

    Stinson, who’s studied police crime for 16 years, says officers like McGrew are often dismissed as “bad apples” and terminated, but that departments fail to investigate the systemic issues that allowed the misconduct in the first place.

    As a mass movement over police violence continues across the country, Stinson says the prevalence of police sexual violence is an integral part of the issue. His research has found that behavior like McGrew’s is normalized in many U.S. police departments.

    “Not every police officer, of course, is engaging in this kind of behavior,” Stinson says. “But I can tell you that most police officers across the country could tell you of a colleague who engages in this type of behavior.”

    The number of times the CHP has disciplined an officer for sexual misconduct in the past five years is still unknown. A coalition of news organizations including KQED requested all such records on Jan. 1, 2019, but the agency stalled for over a year before providing a single case file.

    KQED filed a lawsuit in May against the CHP to force disclosure. The internal investigation of McGrew was produced shortly thereafter.

    The agency has also released its investigation into former CHP Officer Timothy Larios, whose romantic relationship with a female confidential informant compromised an interagency narcotics operation and endangered the woman. A third file details the agency’s probe into former Officer John Frizzell, who was fired in 2014 for fondling a woman’s breasts during a traffic stop and asking another female motorist to lift up her shirt.

    Like McGrew, neither of these officers faced criminal charges, according to the documents.

    Records show the CHP began investigating McGrew after a woman made a complaint in 2016. Like Nicole, this woman made an appointment with McGrew to get her VIN verified so she could get her car registered with the DMV. She had her son with her.

    McGrew gave the kid a CHP sticker and looked at the vehicle.

    McGrew then told the woman he would pass her car if she went to a nearby motel with him, according to the documents. The woman, who spoke Spanish, didn’t immediately understand what McGrew was asking. So, McGrew repeated the proposition twice.

    The woman went inside the office to complain about McGrew’s behavior. A sergeant asked her if she misunderstood McGrew due to the language barrier and if she’d been drinking or taking drugs. She said there was no misunderstanding and that she wasn’t under the influence.

    “She could not explain the expression on Officer McGrew’s face, but she said he was smiling when he asked the question about getting a motel room,” the documents say.

    As part of the internal investigation stemming from that incident, the CHP sent three rounds of surveys to about 150 women between 18 and 40 years old who’d made appointments with McGrew during his time as an inspection officer.

    The CHP improperly redacted dates showing the length of the investigation and time span of McGrew’s abuse. But it is clear that the agency’s investigation did not include anything in the officer’s career before he was assigned to vehicle inspections.

    By limiting the scope of the investigation to those over the age of 18, investigators may well have missed more vulnerable victims.

    “What about the 16- or 17-year-old driver that may own a car that he had come into contact with?” Stinson says.

    CHP investigators found multiple women who confirmed that McGrew even made sexual comments to those who were with their partners or children, and he did target young women.

    One woman with a disability due to a back injury said that McGrew questioned her about parking her vehicle in a handicapped parking spot.

    “You don’t look disabled from here,” McGrew said, according to the woman. Later in that same appointment he told her, “You’re young, but not too young for me.”

    Another woman said she felt violated after her experience at the CHP office. According to the documents:

    “Officer McGrew asked her what she was going to do for him if he passed her car. She said she tried to laugh it off, but believed it was inappropriate. She said he then made comments about ‘handcuffing’ her and getting her in the ‘back seat of her car.’ (Victim’s name redacted) also stated he mentioned taking her to a motel at the end or up the street. She said he even mentioned it had been recently remodeled and that it was fairly clean.”

    McGrew admitted to investigators that he had made inappropriate comments to women while on duty, but said he never intended to act on those comments. When asked why he made these propositions to women, McGrew replied: “Just to see if they’ll say yes,” according to interview transcripts in the investigation file.

  9. #1884
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    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ed/5449671002/

    A former Honolulu Police Officer has been convicted for Civil Rights Violations

    A former Honolulu police officer who forced a man to lick a urinal in a public bathroom was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison.

    John Rabago pleaded guilty in December to civil rights violations stemming from the January 2018 incident during which Rabago told the man that, "If you lick the urinal you won’t get arrested."

    Rabago and another officer were responding to a nuisance complaint when they encountered the man, who was homeless, taking shelter in the public restroom.

    U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi said during Rabago's sentencing that the ex-officer had abused his power as a law enforcement official and took advantage of the man.

    "You took from him his only possession: his dignity as a human being," Kobayashi said.

    More on Hawaii case:Officers who allegedly forced homeless man to lick urinal indicted on civil rights violations

    Rabago, 44, expressed remorse and apologized to the victim and his family.

    "Two years ago I made a decision I’m not proud of," he said. "My actions changed the course of life for all of us."

    Reginald Ramones, the other former officer in the case, is to be sentenced next week after pleading guilty to knowing about Rabago's civil rights offense but not informing authorities.

    Prior court documents allege Ramones stood in the doorway during the incident, propping open the door, then closed it so the officers wouldn't be caught on video.

    Kobayashi said Rabago threatened the man, saying he would beat him and push his face into the urinal if he did not lick it. He held his legs down and grabbed his shoulder.

    Rabago later told the other officer to delete text messages about the incident, Kobayashi said.

    In February, Samuel Ingall, the man involved in the incident, sued the Honolulu Police Department and the city.

    Ingall alleged that Rabago followed him out of the bathroom and laughed as he told other officers about Ingall licking the urinal.

    Ingall's attorney, Myles Breiner, said his client was "pleasantly surprised that the court punished him appropriately."

    Contributing: N'dea Yancey-Bragg and The Associated Press

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    https://www.wlwt.com/article/hamilto...-says/33322662

    A Hamilton County sheriff's deputy was fired Wednesday morning after he was charged with assault for kicking an inmate in the head while in custody.

    Sheriff Jim Neil said Sgt. Jesse Franklin has been terminated from the sheriff's office after an investigation revealed he used excessive force by kicking inmate Nick Ballachino in the head while handcuffed.

    Jesse Franklin finds himself on the other side of the law after 13 years at the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office.

    The former sergeant is captured on camera kicking an inmate who is handcuffed.

    Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters said the incident took place June 9 at the Hamilton County Justice Center.

    Deters said Ballachino was arrested by Cincinnati police for disorderly conduct while intoxicated and obstructing official business. He was then taken to the justice center for processing.

    When Ballachino arrived at the justice center, he started to get combative with the officers trying to process him, Deters said. While officers were trying to subdue him, Ballachino bit Franklin’s left foot.

    Franklin then immediately kicked Ballachino one time in the head. Franklin was wearing work boots at the time, Deters said.

    Ballachino's attorney, Fanon Rucker, is thankful there was video evidence.

    "Unless there's video. Unless there's audio. Unless there's a confession by someone involved, most of the time it's either not believed or it doesn't get the same credibility that it would if we do have a camera," Rucker said.

    Ballachino was taken to University Hospital where he was treated and released back to the justice center. He suffered a cut above his left eye which required five stitches.

    Rucker spoke with his client following Franklin's firing.

    "He was satisfied by that outcome, but you know, we have a long way to go. He's in treatment for his injuries," said Rucker.

    Rucker applauded the speedy response from the sheriff's office.

    He related this case to protests across the country against police brutality, saying the work is not done.

    "This is one half of the step that we think is important, but the other half is to ensure that this person, based on what he did very clearly on camera, that he not be allowed to work in law enforcement again," said Rucker.

    Franklin is charged with one count of assault (ORC ?2903.13 (A) Misdemeanor 1). The case will be transferred to the City of Cincinnati as they prosecute all misdemeanors that occur in the city limits. If convicted, Franklin faces up to six months in the justice center.

    “Not everyone has the temperament to be a police officer. In this case, and as I have throughout my career, when I see criminal violations, I will pursue them according to the law. Maintaining a professional, 21st century police force is expensive to society but pays for itself many times over. Actions like this are a harsh reminder that resources must be dedicated to recruiting the right kind of officers and ensuring that they have the proper equipment, knowledge, training and temperament to do the job that citizens want and expect,” Deters said.

    Rucker said he is still waiting to hear from the prosecutor's office about his request to charge Franklin with a civil rights violation.

  11. #1886
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    https://ktla.com/news/local-news/lap...2-in-palmdale/

    A Los Angeles Police Department officer has been charged in connection with a 2018 DUI crash that injured two people in Palmdale, officials announced Friday.

    Michael Anthony Keith, 35, faces one count each of driving under the influence of an alcoholic beverage causing injury and driving with a .08% blood alcohol content causing injury, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

    The crash occurred on April 26, 2018, when Keith was driving north on the 14 Freeway. He allegedly veered off the road and crashed into a parked SUV with two people inside, officials said.

    The victims were taken to a hospital and treated for unknown injuries.

    Keith was off-duty at the time of the crash and it is unknown if he was injured.

    The case against Keith was filed on Thursday and he is scheduled to be arraigned Friday.

    If convicted as charged, he could face a maximum sentence of nine years in prison, according to the DA’s office.

    The case remains under investigation by the California Highway Patrol.

  12. #1887
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    https://fox2now.com/news/missouri/tw...-traffic-stop/

    VELDA CITY, Mo. – The St. Louis County Prosecutor announced charges against two Velda City police officers for a February 25 shooting.

    The two officers, Christopher Gage and Matthew Schanz, are charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action.

    St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell says the officers pulled the vehicle over for expired temporary tags. The traffic stop was at Octavia Avenue and W. Florissant in Flordell Hills.

    Bell says the two officers say they smelled the odor of marijuana coming from the car. One officer said he intended to search the car without probable cause and would arrest the driver if he found any marijuana.

    Bell said the driver then drove off. One of the officers is accused of falsely reporting over the radio that the driver tried to run him over.

    Bell said the driver turned around at the end of the road because it was a dead end. He explained that as the driver came back down the road, the two officers were not in the road, but standing in a parking lot.

    Bell says one officer walked into the path of the car, yelling down the road for the car to stop and then fired into the vehicle. The other officer is also accused of firing at the vehicle.

  13. #1888
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    https://bakersfieldnow.com/news/loca...sexual-offense

    BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK/KBFX) — District Attorney Cynthia Zimmer announced today that charges have been filed against Brian Pardue, an officer with the California Highway Patrol in the Bakersfield area.

    Brian Pardue is charged with two counts:

    Count 1: Penal Code Section 288.3: Attempt to contact a minor with intent to commit sexual offense, a felony
    Count 2: Penal Code Section 288.4(a)(1): Arrangement of meeting with a person believed to be a minor with intent to commit a sexual offense, a misdemeanor.

    The charges are alleged to have occurred on July 3, 2020, and involve digital communications with an undercover law enforcement officer who identified in the communications as an underage minor.

    Pardue was arraigned on the charges on Friday, July 24, where his attorney entered not guilty pleas on his behalf. Pardue has posted bail in the amount of $52,500, and has a preliminary hearing scheduled for September 16, 2020.

  14. #1889
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    https://www.kitv.com/story/42379954/...ury-indictment

    A retired police detective from Hilo was arrested Thursday after he was indicted by a grand jury on multiple charges.

    56-year-old Brian Miller turned himself in at the East Hawai'i Detention Facility following a grand jury indictment, which stemmed from a May 14 incident in Hilo.

    The indictment alleges Miller is guilty of intimidating a witness, tampering with a witness, retaliating against a witness, terroristic threatening in the second degree and harassment.

    Miller was released after posting $50,000 bail. His next court appearance is scheduled for next Tuesday in Kona Circuit Court.
    A Hawaii Police officer is accused of Police corruption.

  15. #1890
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    https://ktla.com/news/local-news/swa...-deadly-force/

    After assessing the hilly terrain around a Sunland house where a homeless man had holed up one morning in May 2017, the Los Angeles Police Department’s heavily armed SWAT team requested more firepower — and got it in the form of a helicopter equipped for “aerial shooting,” dubbed “Sniper-1.”

    By the time they’d left the scene hours later, the team had fired more than 40 rounds at 29-year-old Anthony Soderberg, including more than a dozen from the helicopter — a first in LAPD history. Many of the rounds were fired from hundreds of feet away, and many came after a bloodied and unarmed Soderberg had exited the home, rolled off the edge of a patio and dropped into a ravine, where he’d later be pronounced dead.

    The Los Angeles Police Commission ruled that the officers had opened fire when they were not in imminent danger or when they were too far away to determine if a threat existed. Of 13 officers investigated, the commission ruled that 12 had used deadly force in a way that “was not objectively reasonable and was out of policy.”

    It was one of three incidents that a SWAT officer reported to LAPD internal affairs early last year as part of a whistleblower complaint about the elite unit.

  16. #1891
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    https://omaha.com/news/national/joe-...xtual-fallback

    PHOENIX (AP) — Joe Arpaio on Friday was narrowly defeated in his bid to win back the sheriff’s post in metro Phoenix that he held for 24 years before being voted out in 2016 amid voter frustrations over his taxpayer-funded legal bills, his penchant for self-promotion and a defiant streak that led to his now-pardoned criminal conviction.

    Arpaio lost by more than 6,200 votes in the Republican primary for Maricopa County sheriff to his former top aide, Jerry Sheridan.

    In the Nov. 3 general election, Sheridan will face Democrat Paul Penzone, who unseated Arpaio four years ago.

    Arpaio said he believes some supporters who have thanked him in recent years for his service really meant they wanted him to move on from politics.

    “What they meant is it’s time to go fishing,” said Arpaio, who isn’t an angler. “I still took a shot at it. I’m not ashamed. I could have won this one.”

    The loss marked Arpaio’s second failed attempt to return to politics. He ran an unsuccessful primary campaign for U.S. Senate in 2018, not long after President Donald Trump had pardoned his 2017 criminal contempt of court conviction for disobeying a judge’s order in a racial profiling case.

    As metro Phoenix’s sheriff from 1992 through 2016, Arpaio rose to political prominence by creating old-time chain gangs and housing inmates in tents during triple-digit heat. But he is most well-known for launching immigration crackdowns, some of which contributed significantly to his political downfall.

    While his defiant streak played well with voters for many years, Arpaio faced heavy criticism for taking on policies that he knew were controversial and racking up $147 million in taxpayer-funded legal bills. His agency also botched the investigations of more than 400 sex-crimes complaints made to his office.

    His political fortunes started to decline significantly in 2013 when his officers were found by a federal judge to have racially profiled Latinos in Arpaio’s traffic patrols that targeted immigrants.

    In his latest campaign, Arpaio got only a fraction of the campaign money he was famous for raising and was criticized for his conviction. Arpaio said many people didn’t know he was running until they saw his name on the ballot.

    His platform consisted of his unwavering support for Trump and bringing back practices that the courts have either deemed illegal or his successor has ended, such as immigration crackdowns.

    He also was facing a far more moderate electorate than in earlier campaigns.

    In the profiling case, both Arpaio and Sheridan were found in civil contempt of court for disobeying a 2011 court order to stop the sheriff’s immigration patrols, leading to Arpaio’s criminal contempt conviction in 2017. Sheridan wasn’t charged with criminal contempt.

    Arpaio and Sheridan vigorously dispute the contempt findings. Sheridan, a 38-year veteran of the sheriff’s office who retired after Arpaio was defeated in 2016, said he was unaware of the highly publicized court order and didn’t run the unit that carried out the immigration patrols.

    Sheridan said he could help turn around the tarnished law enforcement agency and insisted that he is his own man.

    Sheridan didn't immediately return call seeking comment on his primary victory.

    Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

  17. #1892
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    https://rappler.com/nation/jovie-esp...erte-drug-list

    One of President Rodrigo Duterte's most lauded cops is on his own drug list

    ADVERTISEMENT


    MANILA, Philippines – Lieutenant Colonel Jovie Espenido, one of the poster boys of President Rodrigo Duterte’s unrelenting but lagging anti-illegal drugs campaign, is on the President’s notorious drug list.

    This was confirmed to Rappler by two police generals privy to the list on Wednesday, February 12, speaking on condition of anonymity for their security.

    Espenido’s inclusion in the list is a blow to the Duterte government’s anti-drug campaign, as he is among few cops whom President Duterte praised in his so-called “drug war" after he led the operation that led to the killing of Ozamiz City Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog.

    Rappler has sought the comment of Espenido through text message on Wednesday, but he has yet to reply as of posting.

    Espenido’s inclusion: On Friday, PNP chief General Archie Gamboa convened a meeting with cops included in the President’s drug list, all sacked from their posts and placed under Gamboa’s office because of their inclusion.

    One of the cops present in the Camp Crame National Headquarters meeting was Espenido, surprising officials in the conference.

    Who’s Espenido again? Lieutenant Colonel Jovie Espenido catapulted himself to national fame after he masterminded the anti-drug operation that led to the death of Ozamiz City Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog and 14 others, including his wife Susan, brother Octavio Jr, and sister Mona. He was also the chief of the Albuera town police when its mayor, Rolando Espinosa, was killed by cops during the service of a warrant in his detention cell. (READ: Jovie Espenido sans the uniform)


    After the operations, Espenido was hailed by Duterte, who even verbally gave him the order that he was “free to kill everybody” after promoting him to lead the Bacolod City police's operations arm. But on Wednesday, February 5, Espenido was relieved from his post, puzzling his colleagues. It turned out that it was because he was on Duterte’s own drug list.

    What happened in the meeting? Without disclosing names of cops present in the meeting, Gamboa told reporters on Monday, February 10, that he urged the cops who knew they were guilty, to avail of early retirement to cut themselves off from the police organization.

    Gamboa then ordered officials not to speak to reporters about the meeting and about the cops included in the drug list, emphasizing that the cops are still innocent until proven guilty.

    What Espenido’s inclusion means: Espenido on the drug list does not automatically mean that he is involved in drugs. It has been repeatedly reported that the administration has holes in its record-keeping, and that its process has been opaque to the public.

    No less than Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) chief Director General Aaron Aquino once said that the drug list was “not airtight” and that they don’t have enough proof to defend their allegations before the courts. Despite this, the Duterte government has released names on the list, most notably before village and senatorial elections.

    Special treatment? One of the generals Rappler spoke to expressed concern about Espenido’s inclusion, worrying that the police command allowed Espenido’s promotion from Ozamiz to Bacolod despite knowing he was on the drug list.

    The 357 cops on Duterte’s drug list will be undergoing “adjudication” – their process of double-checking whether the cops deserved to be listed in the first place. The final decision whether a cop will be kept or removed from the list will fall on the table of Duterte. – Rappler.com





    Now a police chief in Visayas, Philippines who has been known to order acts of police brutality in the country has been called out for being on the Drug registry lists.

    Yes Police Corruption is an issue here and the chief is a hypocrite!!!

    MANILA, Philippines — Lt. Col. Jovie Espenido, considered among President Rodrigo Duterte’s top enforcers in his drug war, suspects politicians to be behind his inclusion in the narcolist.

    In a phone interview Monday night with the Inquirer, Espenido said: “Why is the PNP [Philippine National Police] treating me this way?”

    He was apparently frustrated as he joined 355 other policemen set for validation by the national adjudication board in Camp Crame.

    He pointed out that, seeing himself as a public servant, he had enforced the campaign against illegal drugs as ordered and undertaken it to the best of his abilities.

    Finding himself in the narcolist was a shock to him and having to undergo another adjudication process, excruciating.

    He pointed out that he sought the exclusion of his name from the narcolist in 2017, petitioning the PNP Directorate for Intelligence for the removal. He said there was already a resolution then.


    According to Espenido, he felt hurt that the higher ranking police officers he toiled for in the war on drugs still doubted his character, proof of which is his name still being in the narcolist.

    He did not discount the possibility that politicians — he did not say whether local or national — could have influenced the retention of his name on the narcolist.

    Espenido maintained that he had never gotten involved in the narcotics trade, saying: “As a policeman I have always fought illegal drugs, moreso now that President Duterte declared war against it. Why would I now get involved in illegal drugs?”

    /atm



    Read more: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/122997...#ixzz6UV6UNIYS
    Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook

  18. #1893
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    https://rappler.com/nation/jovie-esp...erte-drug-list

    One of President Rodrigo Duterte's most lauded cops is on his own drug list

    ADVERTISEMENT


    MANILA, Philippines ? Lieutenant Colonel Jovie Espenido, one of the poster boys of President Rodrigo Duterte?s unrelenting but lagging anti-illegal drugs campaign, is on the President?s notorious drug list.

    This was confirmed to Rappler by two police generals privy to the list on Wednesday, February 12, speaking on condition of anonymity for their security.

    Espenido?s inclusion in the list is a blow to the Duterte government?s anti-drug campaign, as he is among few cops whom President Duterte praised in his so-called ?drug war" after he led the operation that led to the killing of Ozamiz City Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog.

    Rappler has sought the comment of Espenido through text message on Wednesday, but he has yet to reply as of posting.

    Espenido?s inclusion: On Friday, PNP chief General Archie Gamboa convened a meeting with cops included in the President?s drug list, all sacked from their posts and placed under Gamboa?s office because of their inclusion.

    One of the cops present in the Camp Crame National Headquarters meeting was Espenido, surprising officials in the conference.

    Who?s Espenido again? Lieutenant Colonel Jovie Espenido catapulted himself to national fame after he masterminded the anti-drug operation that led to the death of Ozamiz City Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog and 14 others, including his wife Susan, brother Octavio Jr, and sister Mona. He was also the chief of the Albuera town police when its mayor, Rolando Espinosa, was killed by cops during the service of a warrant in his detention cell. (READ: Jovie Espenido sans the uniform)


    After the operations, Espenido was hailed by Duterte, who even verbally gave him the order that he was ?free to kill everybody? after promoting him to lead the Bacolod City police's operations arm. But on Wednesday, February 5, Espenido was relieved from his post, puzzling his colleagues. It turned out that it was because he was on Duterte?s own drug list.

    What happened in the meeting? Without disclosing names of cops present in the meeting, Gamboa told reporters on Monday, February 10, that he urged the cops who knew they were guilty, to avail of early retirement to cut themselves off from the police organization.

    Gamboa then ordered officials not to speak to reporters about the meeting and about the cops included in the drug list, emphasizing that the cops are still innocent until proven guilty.

    What Espenido?s inclusion means: Espenido on the drug list does not automatically mean that he is involved in drugs. It has been repeatedly reported that the administration has holes in its record-keeping, and that its process has been opaque to the public.

    No less than Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) chief Director General Aaron Aquino once said that the drug list was ?not airtight? and that they don?t have enough proof to defend their allegations before the courts. Despite this, the Duterte government has released names on the list, most notably before village and senatorial elections.

    Special treatment? One of the generals Rappler spoke to expressed concern about Espenido?s inclusion, worrying that the police command allowed Espenido?s promotion from Ozamiz to Bacolod despite knowing he was on the drug list.

    The 357 cops on Duterte?s drug list will be undergoing ?adjudication? ? their process of double-checking whether the cops deserved to be listed in the first place. The final decision whether a cop will be kept or removed from the list will fall on the table of Duterte. ? Rappler.com





    Now a police chief in Visayas, Philippines who has been known to order acts of police brutality in the country has been called out for being on the Drug registry lists.

    Yes Police Corruption is an issue here and the chief is a hypocrite!!!

    MANILA, Philippines ? Lt. Col. Jovie Espenido, considered among President Rodrigo Duterte?s top enforcers in his drug war, suspects politicians to be behind his inclusion in the narcolist.

    In a phone interview Monday night with the Inquirer, Espenido said: ?Why is the PNP [Philippine National Police] treating me this way??

    He was apparently frustrated as he joined 355 other policemen set for validation by the national adjudication board in Camp Crame.

    He pointed out that, seeing himself as a public servant, he had enforced the campaign against illegal drugs as ordered and undertaken it to the best of his abilities.

    Finding himself in the narcolist was a shock to him and having to undergo another adjudication process, excruciating.

    He pointed out that he sought the exclusion of his name from the narcolist in 2017, petitioning the PNP Directorate for Intelligence for the removal. He said there was already a resolution then.


    According to Espenido, he felt hurt that the higher ranking police officers he toiled for in the war on drugs still doubted his character, proof of which is his name still being in the narcolist.

    He did not discount the possibility that politicians ? he did not say whether local or national ? could have influenced the retention of his name on the narcolist.

    Espenido maintained that he had never gotten involved in the narcotics trade, saying: ?As a policeman I have always fought illegal drugs, moreso now that President Duterte declared war against it. Why would I now get involved in illegal drugs??

    /atm



    Read more: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/122997...#ixzz6UV6UNIYS
    Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook

  19. #1894
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    https://www.kron4.com/news/californi...deo-to-others/

    A 27-year-old Los Angeles police officer accused of fondling a dead woman was sued Tuesday by her family, court documents show.

    The lawsuit accuses officer David Rojas of fondling 34-year-old Elizabeth Baggett’s breasts and “feeling her nipples, without limitation,” as well as showing the body camera video of it to others. The lawsuit alleges invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, mishandling of human remains and other offenses.

    Baggett’s family filed the lawsuit against the city, Rojas and others, seeking unspecified damages in a jury trial.

    “I just want justice for my daughter because of this horrible disgusting act,” Baggett’s mother, Janet Bagget, said. “I live in fear that the video will surface and another devastation will be added to what is already unbearable.”

    The family’s attorney, Gloria Allred, read a statement from Baggett’s 15-year-old son during a news conference Tuesday announcing the lawsuit.

    “My trust in the police to do the right thing has been violated by this disgraceful act that was my mother,” the statement said.

    Rojas, who has been on the Los Angeles police force for four years, has been suspended, LAPD spokesman Officer Mike Chan said. The department did not have a comment on the lawsuit, which does not name the agency as a defendant.

    Rojas, 27, allegedly touched Baggett’s breast while he was alone in the room with her body on Oct. 20. He and his partner had responded to the downtown Los Angeles home where she died.

    Rojas had allegedly disabled his LAPD body camera, but the act was caught on video when he turned it back on because the devices have two-minute buffering periods to capture what happens right before they are activated, according to a person briefed on the incident who previously spoke to The Associated Press. The person wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss the case and previously spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.

    Driver crashes stolen car into light pole during pursuit in California
    Rojas was charged in January with having sexual contact with human remains without authority. He has pleaded not guilty and faces up to three years in state prison if convicted. He is out on bond and scheduled to return to court Sept. 15, online records show.

    The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents rank-and-file officers, has declined to pay for Rojas’ legal bills. The officer’s attorney could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.
    A Los Angeles (City) Police Officer is accused of groping a dead woman.

  20. #1895
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    https://ktla.com/news/priest-files-l...uring-protest/

    Los Angeles Police Department is accused of Brutality on a priest

    A 55-year-old Armenian priest has alleged in a lawsuit that a Los Angeles police officer struck him in the stomach with the end of a tactical gun and then violently kicked him in the chest as he sought to regain his balance at a recent protest.

    Father Armen Bagramyan, a priest in the Armenian Apostolic Church, claims the officer’s actions during a demonstration outside the Azerbaijani Consulate in Brentwood in July represented excessive force and violated his civil rights, sending him to UCLA Medical Center in an ambulance.

    He also says they came despite the fact that Bagramyan had been helping police maintain order throughout the day.

    “On numerous occasions, Father Bagramyan positioned himself between protesters and law enforcement and would speak to protesters via megaphone, instructing them to comply with the officers’ commands,” the lawsuit says.

  21. #1896
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    https://www.wsmv.com/news/thp-termin...8a9256257.html

    NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV) - A trooper with the Tennessee Highway Patrol's Capitol Protection Unit has been terminated after pulling a mask off a protester.

    THP says Trooper Harvey Briggs, a 22-year veteran of the department, was terminated for unprofessional conduct. Trooper Briggs was placed on discretionary leave with pay on Wednesday, Aug. 12 after the department opened up an investigation Tuesday, Aug. 11.

    Video shows Trooper Briggs shouting at someone documenting a traffic stop and the two began to get into an argument.

    Moments later, you see the mask belonging to the man behind the camera on the ground; he claims Trooper Briggs ripped it off.

  22. #1897
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    https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/4...uring-suspects

    For the first time in Italian history, the public prosecutor has seized an entire police department in Piacenza, in the northern Italian Lombardy region. More specifically, the officers are part of the Carabinieri, a branch of the Italian army that carries out domestic policing duties. Ten Carabinieri stand accused of crimes including drug dealing, extortion, handling stolen goods, abuse of office, illegal arrest, coercion and even torture. The crimes were committed over the course of three years, but prosecutors say the activities picked up during lockdown.

    Operation Odysseus, coordinated by public prosecutor Grazia Prandella, is investigating a total of 22 people. Five Carabinieri are currently in jail, while their chief is under house arrest and four others are under restricted movement awaiting trial. Only one officer at that department has not been implicated in the investigation.

    According to the public prosecutor, the Carabinieri department had control over drug supplying and stockpiling and they also coordinated with local dealers. Sometimes they sold drugs they had previously confiscated. “Man, you have to get rid of it as soon as possible,” said a Carabiniere in a wiretapped conversation. “I found a kilo and a half on him, I confiscated the rest and kept the good stuff. I struck gold.”

    During the investigation, the department was bugged. The wiretapped conversations paint a picture that can only be compared to some sort of Italian remake of The Shield. “You and I are on top, OK?” said one of the officers, describing the pyramid-shaped hierarchy of the operation. “We’re untouchable, OK?”

    The investigation also uncovered a series of brutal beatings of foreigners and alleged dealers inside of the precinct. In March, they arrested a drug dealer from Nigeria and beat him to a pulp, leaving behind a pool of blood on the ground. “When I saw the blood,” a Carabiniere said, “I thought we killed him.”

    In another case, the recording device picked up audio of the beating of an Egyptian man. The man kept repeating he didn’t have drugs on him, but with each sentence, he got a punch. “Look at how much of our time you’re wasting,” said one of the officers. The Egyptian man pleaded for mercy, sobbed and emitted sounds that, according to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, “could be caused by a technique similar to waterboarding.” This is the audio that the investigative judge assigned to the case used to indict the officers of torture.
    News

    The documents also show the Carabinieri helped out their trusted dealers on multiple occasions. One of the officers went to a car dealership in Treviso, about 300 kilometres northeast of Piacenza, to intimidate employees into selling him an Audi A4 destined to an accomplice for a bargain price. Armed with weapons, the man beat up and threatened the employees to the point that one “peed on himself” out of fear. In a wiretapped conversation, another Carabiniere under investigation said: “you know Gomorra? [an Italian book, film and crime series about the mafia in Naples] It was exactly the same. You should have seen how he slapped them.”

    Particularly suspicious was also the lifestyle the officers led, which was simply disproportionate to their salaries. One of them owned a villa with a swimming pool where he threw parties during lockdown, in total disregard of the restrictive measures adopted by the government.

    On Easter Sunday, for instance, one of his neighbours called 112 [the European emergency number] to report a gathering in his garden. When the Carabinieri arrived, they realised it was their colleague’s home and left. The 112 operator later forwarded the call to the Carabiniere who owned the villa, who said he “wanted to hear the voice to know if it was my neighbour, just out of curiosity.”

    “All of the most serious crimes were committed under lockdown,” said the Public Prosecutor Prandella. During one of the toughest periods of the first wave, a Carabiniere “signed a permit allowing the dealer to go to Lombardy [the hardest-hit region by the pandemic] to get drugs,” she explained. Meanwhile, ordinary Italians were under very restrictive lockdown measures and many received fines for going on walks too far from their homes. “I have a hard time calling these people ‘carabinieri’ because their behaviour is purely criminal,” Prosecutor Prandella added.

    Politicians were quick to condemn the department, but did not call into question the integrity of the Carabinieri as a whole. The head of the far-right Lega party, Matteo Salvini, said it was a “potential mistake made by a few” but not “an excuse to defile the reputation of all women and men in uniform.”

    Italy, however, has a long history of police departments abusing their power. In 2009, a 31-year-old man from Rome with a history of drug use was beaten to death in jail in a harrowing case of police brutality that shocked the country. Two were eventually convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2019. Also in Rome, in 2013, four policemen were arrested for buying and selling drugs together with a gang of drug dealers. In 2017, 27 Carabinieri from the Toscana region were investigated and indicted for a total of 130 charges describing “systematic and methodic” abuses against Italian and foreign citizens, often racially-motivated.

    In another famous 2017 case, two Carabinieri from Florence were accused and later convicted of raping two American students. Another 2015 investigation found that three Carabinieri from Rome stole confiscated drugs and sold them to dealers. In 2011, two Carabinieri from Rome were stopped while selling cocaine. That same year, another department near Padova, in northern Italy, was found to habitually throw “pestering” migrants into a river to “refresh their ideas.” One of them died.

    Even though Piacenza’s case is extreme, it is not isolated.

  23. #1898
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    https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/4...uring-suspects

    For the first time in Italian history, the public prosecutor has seized an entire police department in Piacenza, in the northern Italian Lombardy region. More specifically, the officers are part of the Carabinieri, a branch of the Italian army that carries out domestic policing duties. Ten Carabinieri stand accused of crimes including drug dealing, extortion, handling stolen goods, abuse of office, illegal arrest, coercion and even torture. The crimes were committed over the course of three years, but prosecutors say the activities picked up during lockdown.

    Operation Odysseus, coordinated by public prosecutor Grazia Prandella, is investigating a total of 22 people. Five Carabinieri are currently in jail, while their chief is under house arrest and four others are under restricted movement awaiting trial. Only one officer at that department has not been implicated in the investigation.

    According to the public prosecutor, the Carabinieri department had control over drug supplying and stockpiling and they also coordinated with local dealers. Sometimes they sold drugs they had previously confiscated. ?Man, you have to get rid of it as soon as possible,? said a Carabiniere in a wiretapped conversation. ?I found a kilo and a half on him, I confiscated the rest and kept the good stuff. I struck gold.?

    During the investigation, the department was bugged. The wiretapped conversations paint a picture that can only be compared to some sort of Italian remake of The Shield. ?You and I are on top, OK?? said one of the officers, describing the pyramid-shaped hierarchy of the operation. ?We?re untouchable, OK??

    The investigation also uncovered a series of brutal beatings of foreigners and alleged dealers inside of the precinct. In March, they arrested a drug dealer from Nigeria and beat him to a pulp, leaving behind a pool of blood on the ground. ?When I saw the blood,? a Carabiniere said, ?I thought we killed him.?

    In another case, the recording device picked up audio of the beating of an Egyptian man. The man kept repeating he didn?t have drugs on him, but with each sentence, he got a punch. ?Look at how much of our time you?re wasting,? said one of the officers. The Egyptian man pleaded for mercy, sobbed and emitted sounds that, according to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, ?could be caused by a technique similar to waterboarding.? This is the audio that the investigative judge assigned to the case used to indict the officers of torture.
    News

    The documents also show the Carabinieri helped out their trusted dealers on multiple occasions. One of the officers went to a car dealership in Treviso, about 300 kilometres northeast of Piacenza, to intimidate employees into selling him an Audi A4 destined to an accomplice for a bargain price. Armed with weapons, the man beat up and threatened the employees to the point that one ?peed on himself? out of fear. In a wiretapped conversation, another Carabiniere under investigation said: ?you know Gomorra? [an Italian book, film and crime series about the mafia in Naples] It was exactly the same. You should have seen how he slapped them.?

    Particularly suspicious was also the lifestyle the officers led, which was simply disproportionate to their salaries. One of them owned a villa with a swimming pool where he threw parties during lockdown, in total disregard of the restrictive measures adopted by the government.

    On Easter Sunday, for instance, one of his neighbours called 112 [the European emergency number] to report a gathering in his garden. When the Carabinieri arrived, they realised it was their colleague?s home and left. The 112 operator later forwarded the call to the Carabiniere who owned the villa, who said he ?wanted to hear the voice to know if it was my neighbour, just out of curiosity.?

    ?All of the most serious crimes were committed under lockdown,? said the Public Prosecutor Prandella. During one of the toughest periods of the first wave, a Carabiniere ?signed a permit allowing the dealer to go to Lombardy [the hardest-hit region by the pandemic] to get drugs,? she explained. Meanwhile, ordinary Italians were under very restrictive lockdown measures and many received fines for going on walks too far from their homes. ?I have a hard time calling these people ?carabinieri? because their behaviour is purely criminal,? Prosecutor Prandella added.

    Politicians were quick to condemn the department, but did not call into question the integrity of the Carabinieri as a whole. The head of the far-right Lega party, Matteo Salvini, said it was a ?potential mistake made by a few? but not ?an excuse to defile the reputation of all women and men in uniform.?

    Italy, however, has a long history of police departments abusing their power. In 2009, a 31-year-old man from Rome with a history of drug use was beaten to death in jail in a harrowing case of police brutality that shocked the country. Two were eventually convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2019. Also in Rome, in 2013, four policemen were arrested for buying and selling drugs together with a gang of drug dealers. In 2017, 27 Carabinieri from the Toscana region were investigated and indicted for a total of 130 charges describing ?systematic and methodic? abuses against Italian and foreign citizens, often racially-motivated.

    In another famous 2017 case, two Carabinieri from Florence were accused and later convicted of raping two American students. Another 2015 investigation found that three Carabinieri from Rome stole confiscated drugs and sold them to dealers. In 2011, two Carabinieri from Rome were stopped while selling cocaine. That same year, another department near Padova, in northern Italy, was found to habitually throw ?pestering? migrants into a river to ?refresh their ideas.? One of them died.

    Even though Piacenza?s case is extreme, it is not isolated.

  24. #1899
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    https://ktla.com/news/local-news/2-l...t-allegations/


    Two Los Angeles County sheriff’s captains are on administrative leave following allegations of sexual misconduct, officials and public safety sources said.

    Capt. Marc Lucio, who serves on the Chino City Council, was accused in July of sexual assault involving a child, but prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence to file charges, according to the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office.

    Capt. Donald Rubio’s case has been under review by prosecutors since January, the L.A. County district attorney’s office said. Two public safety sources say he was accused of rape by intoxication. The sources requested anonymity to discuss the case candidly.

    Neither captain responded to a request for comment.

  25. #1900
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    https://www.q13fox.com/news/oversigh...rotest-conduct

    SEATTLE - The Office of Police Accountability on Friday announced 53 new investigations into the Seattle Police Department?s conduct during recent demonstrations.

    The oversight agency has received about 19,000 complaints since protests started in the city at the end of May, sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. The complaints have resulted in 87 active investigations.

    The video of a screaming child being treated after getting pepper spray on his face at a demonstration on May 30 prompted about 14,000 of the complaints from the public, according to OPA Director Andrew Myerberg.

    Myerberg had initially set an ambitious goal of resolving this case in 60 days. That self-imposed deadline has come and gone.

    ?I think we were shooting for the stars, but I just think it was unrealistic and that?s just the reality,? Myerberg said.

    The reality is the flow of complaints kept coming in with continued protests and clashes with police. The next big surge in cases came with demonstrations the last weekend in July. Most of the complaints accuse police officers of using excessive force.

    ?One of the tricky parts about these protests is that we?re being hit all at the same time with very fact-intensive, video-intensive cases,? Myerberg said.

    Among the new investigations include instances of police force against legal observers, journalists and medical professionals.
    Most videos that are posted on Twitter that become viral, someone is sending those to us and even if they didn?t, we would likely open up a case,? Myerberg said.

    He said when they open up a case, they look at video and underlying evidence in addition to conducting interviews with the subjects of the force, the officers involved, and witnesses from the community and the force.

    After completing an investigation report, OPA submits it for a review by the Office of Inspector General, which is where the case involving the pepper-sprayed child is currently, according to Myerberg.

    Once OIG returns the report, Myerberg reviews the input and drafts the final conclusion before releasing it to the public. OPA has 180 days to complete an investigation, but the office is pressing to complete them sooner.

    ?I think you?re going to have people on all sides that will probably disagree with my findings and that?s just the nature of the job,? Myerberg said.

    In speaking of the 87 open investigations related to demonstrations, he said with certainty that some cases will result in officer discipline while others will not, noting that what is seen by the public in a 20-second Twitter video is not the entirety of the evidence.

    OPA typically receives about 1,500 complaints a year, according to Myerberg, compared with the 19,000 they?ve received in the past three months related to demonstrations. The intense public interest around these investigations prompted OPA to create a dashboard so the public can follow the progress.

    Myerberg said he expects to release findings from some of the cases in the next month.

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