Tag Archives: Police Brutality / Abuse

Police employ Predator drone spy planes on home front

open quoteArmed with a search warrant, Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke went looking for six missing cows on the Brossart family farm in the early evening of June 23. Three men brandishing rifles chased him off, he said.

Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.

He also called in a Predator B drone.

As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.

But that was just the start. Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.

“We don’t use [drones] on every call out,” said Bill Macki, head of the police SWAT team in Grand Forks. “If we have something in town like an apartment complex, we don’t call them.”

The drones belong to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which operates eight Predators on the country’s northern and southwestern borders to search for illegal immigrants and smugglers. The previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate.close quote (Read more)

Pentagon Santa Offering Free Military Hardward to Local Police Depts

open quoteThe U.S. military has some of the most advanced killing equipment in the world that allows it to invade almost wherever it likes at will.

We produce so much military equipment that inventories of military robots, M-16 assault rifles, helicopters, armored vehicles, and grenade launchers eventually start to pile up and it turns out a lot of these weapons are going straight to American police forces to be used against US citizens.

Benjamin Carlson at The Daily reports on a little known endeavor called the “1033 Program” that gave more than $500 million of military gear to U.S. police forces in 2011 alone.close quote (Read more)

Cop Threatens To Beat & Execute Man w/Concealed Carry License

open quoteCANTON, Ohio -— Video of a Canton police officer angrily confronting a motorist legally carrying a concealed weapon has gone viral on the internet.

The target of that confrontation, William Bartlett, told Fox 8 on Tuesday that his rights were violated.

Bartlett has a permit to carry a concealed weapon and said he tried to tell the officer that he had a gun when he was pulled over on in the early morning hours of June 8th in a high crime area.

But the 52-year-old Brewster man said the officer would not let him talk.

Bartlett told Fox 8, “Would you have yelled ‘I have a gun?’. I just kept my mouth shut, I kept my hands on the wheel like I had been instructed to, I had my CCW in hand, I tried to hand it to him and he wanted no part of it.”

Bartlett said Patrolman Daniel Harless flew into a rage a short time later when he revealed he was carrying a gun.

“I thought I was in trouble, deep trouble, more than just going to jail trouble”, said Bartlett.

He said Officer Harless then began to threaten his life.

“If you had a man threatening to execute you, what would you think? That’s where I’ll leave it at that,” said Bartlett.

The posting of the video on the web has given Canton a undeserved bad name, according to City Council President Allen Schulman.

Schulman told Fox 8, “We’ve received hundreds of e-mails, all from out of town, not only out of town but out of state, Texas, Arizona, places that seem to love people carrying concealed weapons.”

Schulman said the case illustrates the inherent dangers of Ohio’s concealed weapon law, which he calls, “crazy”.

“I believe in people’s right to bear arms, but I believe in rational, reasonable gun laws, and these concealed weapons are going to create a lot of problems”, said Schulman. “And my biggest concern is, it’s going to end up killing people.”

Patrolman Harless was placed on administrative leave after the incident, and on Monday, went on sick leave.

William Bartlett was charged with carrying a concealed weapon and says he is getting support from all over the country.

“They should have strong feelings, it’s their right being violated as well as mine”, said Bartlett. “If it happened to me, it could happen to someone else.”close quote

Angelina County jury finds man guilty of evading arrest after being mistaken for burglar in his own home

open quoteA Lufkin man convicted of resisting arrest in his own home after police mistook him for a burglar was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail and a $500 fine.

. . . .

Following a one-day trial and four-hour deliberation, a six-panel Angelina County jury concluded Sauceda was guilty of resisting arrest on March 15, 2009, while being pepper-sprayed, shot with a pepper ball gun and wrestled to the ground by nine Lufkin Police officers in his own living room, according to testimony.close quote (Read more from lufkindailynews.com)

Police beat, pepper-spray & taser mentally handicapped child

open quoteDAYTON, Ohio (CN) – Dayton police “mistook” a mentally handicapped teenager’s speech impediment for “disrespect,” so they Tasered, pepper-sprayed and beat him and called for backup from “upward of 20 police officers” after the boy rode his bicycle home to ask his mother for help, the boy’s mom says.
Pamela Ford says her “mentally challenged/handicapped” son Jesse Kersey, 17, was riding his bike near his Dayton home when Officer Willie Hooper stopped him and tried to talk to him.
The mom says that “Prior to the incident described below, defendant Hooper knew Jesse and was aware that Jesse was mentally challenged/handicapped and a minor child.”
Nonetheless, Ford says, Hooper “apparently took Jesse’s speech impediment for disrespect … [and] began yelling at Jesse and after Jesse attempted to communicate with him[.] Jesse, being a minor and mentally challenged/handicapped, turned and rode his bike back to his home in an attempt to ask his mother, Ford, to help him communicate with defendant Cooper,” according to the complaint in Montgomery County Court.
On the way, the mom says, “A neighbor attempted to communicate with Officer Hooper about Jesse’s disabilities and was told to go back into his home, or he would be arrested.”close quote (Read more from courthousenews.com)

First responders watch man drown, Citizen tries and fails to rescue him, Fire Dept gets increase in budget

open quoteAlameda, California, has immediately changed its policies after first responders watched a man drown in San Francisco Bay and did nothing to rescue him.

The man was apparently suicidal, CNN affiliate KTVU reported. After he entered the bay off Alameda Beach on Monday and stood in neck-deep water, then treaded water, police and firefighters who were called to the scene did not set foot in the bay.

. . . .

Local officials said that because of a lack of funding for shore-to-water rescue, firefighters had no one properly trained to go into the water, KTVU reported.

“It’s muddy out there. We don’t want them sinking. We don’t want them in distress,” Alameda Interim Police Chief Michael Noonan said in the KTVU report.

One local resident, addressing officials at a meeting about the incident, said, “It just strikes me as unbelievably callous that nobody there with any sort of training could strip off their gear and go and help this person.”close quote (Read more from cnn.com)

Pittsburg Officers Arresting for Profit

open quoteBosetti tells CP that the Takos case touched a nerve with him. Arresting Takos was unnecessary, he says — especially since Takos had no prior criminal record — and Luncinski is a “bounty hunter,” who inflates her earnings with court appearances. Charging Takos was an effort to “cash in on this guy’s misery,” he says.

The star police officer, Lisa Luncinski, made $18,000 in 2010 for “court premium pay” when she was called to testify in cases for arrests she made. No wonder she was so ready to arrest a drunk bicyclist!close quote (Read more from pittsburghcitypaper.ws)

Her partner is testifying against her. Interesting story.

California Man Arrested for Video Recording Police

open quoteThe Vallejo Police Department is under scrutiny after a man was handcuffed and cited for recording four people being arrested near his home.

Last Saturday, Lonnel Duchine said he was working on a car with a friend. He opened his garage door to find police arresting three young men and a young woman accused of a sandwich store robbery. From his garage, he then recorded video of the arrests with his cell phone.close quote (Read more from sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com)

Police Officer Summarily Executes a Deaf, Mentally Challenged Woodcarver.

open quoteWhy did you shoot that man? He didn’t do anything!”

The question was wrenched from a woman who had watched in horror as Police Officer Ian Birk pumped four shots into the body of John T. Williams on a Seattle street corner last August 30.

Birk claimed that he had been “threatened” by Williams, a 50-year-old alcoholic woodcarver who was carrying two closed knives at the time of the incident. The autopsy, however, documented that Williams wasn’t facing Birk when he was shot: The officer approached him from behind and to the right, and Williams was shot in the right side of his body from an estimated distance of about ten feet. A fifth shot that missed the target was never accounted for.

No reasonable person would have considered Williams a threat to Birk; in fact, since the victim was partially deaf, it’s likely he never clearly heard Birk’s demand that he drop his carving knife, and died before understanding what was going on. The entire lethal encounter lasted less than eight seconds.

There were several eyewitnesses to the homicide. None of them saw Williams display threatening behavior of any kind. Then again, none of them was a member of the State’s punitive caste, which means that they hadn’t been indoctrinated to perceive even a momentary lack of cooperation by a Mundane as a “pre-attack indicator.” During the January inquest into the shooting, Birk explained that he gunned down John T. Williams on a Seattle street corner because he didn’t like the way the 50-year-old chronic alcoholic looked at him.close quote (Read more from lewrockwell.com)