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Friday, May 11. Well, the other shoe finally dropped. On Thursday DOJ filed its second-ever lawsuit against a law enforcement agency, charging the Maricopa County (Phoenix) Sheriff’s Dept. with discriminating against Latino prisoners and residents. Sheriff Joe Arpaio tried to head off the action by releasing a last-minute reform plan that would improve crime reporting and fight deputy abuses, but unlike DOJ’s proposed consent agreement, which called for an all-powerful external monitor, he insisted that all inquisitors report directly to him. Naturally, DOJ said “no, thanks.” Click here for a related post...
And Seattle might be next. Although the details are secret, DOJ has reportedly demanded that Seattle PD formally consent to deploy more sergeants, restrict the use of force and hire external monitors complete with staffs or face a lawsuit. Facing a very tight budget, Seattle officials are mulling it over. Lacking agreement, DOJ is expected to sue the city in the next few months. It would be the third. Click here for a related post...
Wednesday, May 9. Baltimore PD Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld is leaving after 31 years on the force and five in the top job. It’s an understatement to say that he’s being hailed as a hero by local officials and the news media, which extol his role in bringing down violence and going after corrupt cops, of which the city has had plenty. Indeed, the latest caper involved dozens of officers who got kickbacks from a body shop for bringing in cars involved in accidents. So far fourteen have pled guilty to Federal charges and ten are going to prison; fourteen more are subject to internal discipline and state prosecution. Actually, a newspaper timeline shows that Baltimore PD has had plenty of problems on Bealefeld’s watch, including a nasty habit of clearing sexual assaults as unfounded. Maybe it’s nit-picking, but if the outgoing chief (as he claims) owns the successes, to whom shall we “credit” the problems?..
 Tuesday, May 8. It’s reenactment day! Your blogger’s Russian Justice class is staging its final performance of “A Machine of Terror,” a reenactment of the Great Moscow Show Trials of 1936-38. Showtime is 8 pm. If you’re anywhere near Cal State Fullerton be sure to stop by! Or catch us at the Cantina after. For more information click here...
L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca is probably bemoaning his decision to return to the reality TV show circuit. This time it’s over an outtake from “Bait Car,” depicting a detective questioning a suspect who made off with a car that deputies left running with the keys in the ignition. While the cop testified that soitanly, he read the man his rights, it turns out that he hadn’t. So the crook was let go and the officer’s on the hot seat - possibly for perjury. For a posting about another reality TV series that backfired on “Hollywood” Lee Baca, click here...
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck’s honeymoon is over, at least with the civilian Police Commission. Badly miffed about the chief’s earlier decisions to absolve officers whom commissioners felt had used excessive force, the toothless oversight body is now steamed about his failure to discipline a detective who said he shot a knife-wielding man in the chest. It turns out that the two bullet wounds were in his back...
Monday, May 7. Will they accept the case or not? That’s what inquiring minds want to know as an appeal of a Ninth Circuit ruling that using a Taser against a nonviolent person can be excessive force lands at the Supreme Court. Police and even the Ninth’s chief justice (he was overruled by his peers) warn that restricting the tool’s use will lead officers to use more force, not less. Click here for a related post...
Just when it looked like things at NYPD couldn’t get worse comes an article in the New York Times warning about an impending meltdown in the Organized Crime Bureau, where 120 undercover officers who buy drugs and guns are based. It seems that a third, mostly black and Hispanic, are dissatisfied and want to leave but the department won’t let them, even if they accept demotion. One who couldn’t get out tried to kill herself; another wound up being one of the cops who shot Sean Bell. (He was fired.) What’s bugging them? Among other things burnout, lousy equipment and spotty backup. Forcing officers to work undercover is outrageous, and if that’s not what’s happening NYPD needs to explain it...
Friday, May 4. What’s with NYPD? Let us enumerate our concerns. A long-standing, overheated stop-and-frisk campaign, which has led to a lawsuit and lots of bad feelings with minority communities. A Compstat-driven numbers game in which crimes are kept off the FBI’s ledger with the simple expedient of an eraser. A clumsy - some would say abusive - reaction to the Occupy protests. A bizarre ticket-fixing scandal, with officers and union bosses insisting that cops have the right to give special breaks to whomever they choose. An intelligence-gathering scandal in which it’s revealed that NYPD has been monitoring Muslim gathering places and mosques in...New Jersey. And most recently, a Federal lawsuit filed by the Reporters’ Committee for the Freedom of the Press, four New York City council members and others accusing the department of unlawfully restricting access to protests and demonstrations. Not only is NYPD determined to do things its way, critics say, but on doing so secretly...
Thursday, May 3. Want a steady job in a growth industry? Then become a criminal investigator (special agent) for the Office of Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services. They’re the ones who investigate healthcare providers who defraud government programs like medicare and medicaid. This time HHS special agents around the U.S. assembled enough evidence to indict 107 doctors, nurses and other medical “professionals” who provided phantom services and got healthy people to pretend they’re sick. And it’s not just the government that’s being ripped off. Before working for the Feds your blogger was an insurance fraud investigator for a private firm. To document treatment that never happened, crooked doctors and chiropractors had employees fill in the names of patients on office sign-in books. Who pays? We all do, in the form of higher taxes and insurance premiums...
Wednesday, May 2. For proof positive that the FBI is an equal-opportunity rope-a-doper look no further than yesterday’s arrest of five anarchists who allegedly tried to blow up a Cleveland bridge. The misshapen group - some of its members were apparently on the fringes of the Occupy movement - had originally intended to demonstrate their rage against the capitalist machine by toppling bank billboards that sit atop Cleveland high-rises. (Take that, B of A!) But after being infiltrated by a government agent their visions of mayhem escalated. And not just a little, but all the way to the point where they bought make-believe bombs (from an undercover FBI agent, natch), planted them at the base of the well-traveled bridge, then punched in a telephone number that was supposed to blow up the structure. Click here for a related post...
Tuesday, May 1. Tonight at 8 pm your blogger’s Russian Justice class is staging their term project, a one-hour reenactment of the Great Moscow Show Trials. Our next (and final) performance is on May 8. If you’re anywhere near Cal State Fullerton be sure to come by! For more information click here...
A harbinger of things to come? In what’s being billed as the first medical report of its kind, a study published in a prestigious American Heart Association journal concludes that use of the Taser can lead to cardiac arrest. Although the sample size was small - only eight cases where unconsciousness resulted - at least one police agency has already pulled Tasers from the field. Click here for a related post...
Does this mean that Lee Baca will have to pay the Piper? Probably not, but it’s a tantalizing thought nevertheless. In a stunning rebuke, the Supreme Court refused to hear the L.A. County Sheriff’s appeal of a Ninth Circuit decision allowing him to be personally named in a civil rights lawsuit. According to the plaintiff, a former inmate in Baca’s notoriously dysfunctional jail system, the Sheriff was “deliberately indifferent” to jailhouse conditions, resulting in his being repeatedly stabbed by another inmate (26 times, it’s claimed) then kicked by a guard who refused to intervene. For a related post click here...
Monday, April 30. Oopsie! Washington D.C. prosecutors asked a Federal judge to release a man who has been imprisoned 28 years for murder after DNA evidence proved that the hairs found at the scene, which an examiner testified were his, weren’t. So much for microscopic comparison. For a related post click here...
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, where detectives are clearing only sixty percent of the 300-plus murders that take place in the violence-plagued city each year, citizens have been banding together to raise reward money. Now the city’s announced a plan to award tipsters as much as $20,000 for their troubles. Click here for a related post...
Friday, April 27. ATF says that more than 68,000 guns recovered by Mexican authorities between 2007-2011 were either made in or had been originally imported into the U.S. Another thirty thousand or so couldn’t be traced, so their true origins are unknown. While some say that this disproves earlier contentions that 90 percent of guns that turn up in Mexico came from the U.S., the new, lower figure only represents traces that could be successfully completed. In your blogger’s experience, record-keeping problems frequently made guns recovered in the U.S. untraceable. That, and the fact that Mexico has virtually no domestic firearms industry, suggests that the true proportion of guns found in Mexico with U.S. origins is far higher. Click here, here and here for related posts...
Thursday, April 26. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center factors including the economic crisis, hatred of President Obama, the woes of the working class, controversies over gun rights and a resurgence of ethnic bias are contributing to the rapid expansion of citizen militias. In Texas a heavily armed militiaman wearing highly protective SWAT-type body armor shot at his wife then stood off sheriff’s deputies for ninety minutes. The man, who eventually surrendered, told the officers that he didn’t recognize their law enforcement authority, a common theme among citizen militias. Click here for a related post...
Wednesday, April 25. Nine of the twelve secret service employees accused of cavorting with prostitutes in Colombia lost their jobs, with six resigning, two being fired and one retiring. As for the three who are apparently being allowed to remain, it seems that two were with women who weren’t prostitutes, and one said he didn’t realize that his new “friend” was a hooker until she asked for money. His refusal to pay is apparently what sparked things off. Yes, the agents behaved poorly - the Prez called those involved “knuckleheads” - but to take away their careers over a single episode of immoral conduct (apparently under pretext that it was a security breach) is a gross overreaction. Some of the agents who resigned are reportedly having second thoughts, and one hopes that this won’t be the end of it...
Tuesday, April 24. By their very nature, patrol car dash-cam videos cut both ways, helping cops defend themselves from unjust allegations of misconduct while sometimes sealing their doom. But Dallas PD took it a step further. Eager to battle bad behavior, Chief David Brown formed a special unit to randomly review dash-cam videos, referring suspicious episodes to officers’ supervisors and, in more serious cases, to internal affairs. Speeding, not turning on the red lights and siren when necessary, not coming to a full stop at intersections during pursuits - all became fodder for the new hardware “Nanny.” Naturally, officers went ballistic, and the union finally stepped in. Chief Brown has frozen the program. “We need to figure out a way to review driving behavior without being so onerous,” he said...
Monday, April 23. Imagine that you’re a twenty-seven year old guy on trial for murdering the ex-husband of a woman with whom you had an affair. Your physical description resembles that of the killer, and someone picked you from a photo lineup. Not a good situation, eh? Now imagine that another man had been suspected of attempting to kill the husband in the past. Wouldn’t you want the jury to know? A few days ago Los Angeles-area man Frank O’Connell was freed after serving 27 years for murder because prosecutors failed to tell the defense that another person, who resembled O’Connell, tried to murder the victim four years earlier. Plus, the witness who positively ID’d O’Connell from a photo lineup testified that officers had pressured him. Prosecutors are now mulling whether to retry O’Connell. There’s no word about whether the other guy is being investigated...
Friday, April 20. And now the meltdown is in...Los Angeles! That’s where the LAPD detective who broke the “bling ring” case, involving seven youths who burglarized star’s homes, was quietly working a paid gig for a major production company that’s making a dramatic film about the fascinating crimes. Only problem is, three of the defendants are still pending trial! Can you spell c-o-n-f-l-i-c-t o-f i-n-t-e-r-e-s-t? But wait, there’s more! Over at the perennially troubled L.A. Sheriff’s Department, internal affairs is investigating “The Jump Out Boys,” a clique within the prestigious gang unit that only admits deputies who have been involved in gunfights. They even published their own brochure, extolling some positive values and others that may conflict with departmental policy. Click here and here for related posts...
Thursday, April 19. And now the meltdown is in...Indianapolis! That’s where problems with the handling of blood evidence imperil a criminal case against an allegedly drunk cop who ran down a group of motorcyclists, killing one. Indy has an awkward two-step command structure, with a civilian police director overseeing a uniformed chief. Well, Chief Paul Ciesielski, long criticized by cops as a lackluster leader, just stepped down to be a captain again. Meanwhile everyone’s screaming for the head of police director Frank Straub, a New York transplant who’s failed to endear himself to the locals. Cops are peeved about his comments suggesting that IPD has an intractable problem with corruption and misconduct, while regular folks accuse him of allowing a lax disciplinary atmosphere to persist...
Wednesday, April 18. Should someone who was kidnapped and raped be compelled to testify against their assailant? Or does that victimize them twice? That’s what some say about the jailing of a 17-year old who failed to appear at the preliminary hearing and trial of her alleged assailant. Frustrated prosecutors (they managed to refile charges) turned to a “material witness” warrant to assure that the victim would be available on the new trial date. She spent three weeks in custody before an apologetic judge released her, albeit with a GPS ankle monitor. It’s now thought that a law that protects sexual assault victims may actually shield her from being forced to take the stand. If she doesn’t, the only remaining witness is a prostitute who claims that she too was attacked. On balance, in which direction would the scales of justice tip?...
Tuesday, April 17. Charlie Beck was supposed to be a model of the “new insider,” an experienced LAPD hand whose appointment signaled the department’s coming-out from the post-Rampart reform era. With a more humane touch than the merciless disciplinarian Bernard Parks, and a far less bureaucratic orientation than the CompStat-obsessed Bill Bratton, the new chief was expected to keep the troops in line by virtue of his popularity with the rank-and-file, which includes his son and stepdaughter. But now that Beck has let nearly all of the 90 officers involved in deadly-force cases since 2009 off the hook, the Police Commission and others are wondering exactly what the cost of having a “popular” chief might be. Perhaps the most controversial case is of Steven Washington, a 27-year old autistic man whom gang officers gunned down two years ago after mistakenly thinking that he was pulling a gun. Commissioners called the shooting unreasonable. Beck disagreed and gave the two cops involved reprimands and retraining. Click here for a related post.
Monday, April 16. Your blogger finally got revenge for getting stood up by the Secret Service in 1972 for a job interview (he went with ATF instead.) It seems that members of a USSS advance team may have done some unauthorized “undercover” work in Cartagena, Colombia, where it’s not only legal to pay prostitutes, it’s the law! Things came undone when an angry prostitute complained to the cops about getting stiffed. Now the President’s gotten in the mix, warning that he’s really, really going to be angry if the story turns out to be true (about agents consorting with prostitutes, that is.) Hey, things have sure changed since Clinton...
 Friday, April 13. Tragedy struck rural New Hampshire with the killing of a small-town police chief and the wounding of four officers, two critically, as they attempted to serve a search warrant at the residence of a 29-year old man who had recently been indicted on charges relating to anabolic steroids. Chief Michael Maloney, who succumbed to his wounds, was due to retire in two weeks. Greenland, population 3,500, is located five miles from Portsmouth. As of Thursday evening an “active, armed standoff” was in progress...
Thursday, April 12. It took a few weeks, but reason prevailed in Florida as special prosecutor Angela Corey, a 30-year veteran, filed 2nd. degree murder charges against former neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman. If, as expected, Zimmerman claims that his shooting of Trayvon Martin was shielded by the state’s “stand your ground law,” a pretrial hearing will be held. Since there’s no question but that Zimmerman pulled the trigger, the judge’s ruling will constitute a verdict of sorts. Should Zimmerman not prevail it will be up to trial jurors to decide whether a man in his position could have reasonably thought that his life was in danger. Of course, exactly what that position was is known only to Zimmerman and the youth he killed. Click here and here for related posts...
Wednesday, April 11. With the creation of a “Conviction Review Bureau” in the Attorney General’s office New York state becomes the first to deploy official law-enforcement resources to examine possibly wrongful convictions. For jurisdictional reasons (and, assumedly, to keep D.A.’s from revolting) these look-sees will only happen on request of local prosecutors. A few have already promised to send cases its way. Meanwhile the only other such unit, the Dallas D.A.’s Conviction Integrity Unit, keeps chugging along. Click here and here for related posts...
Tuesday, April 10. Officer fatalities by gunfire went way up in 2011. According to the New York Times, the IACP reported 72 such killings, the highest in nearly two decades. NLEOMF, which closely tracks officer deaths, reports 71 killed by gunfire in 2011 versus 59 in 2010, a jump of 20 percent. 2011 is also supposedly the first year that the number of officers shot and killed surpassed those who died in traffic accidents. Some feel that the increase in gunshot deaths reflects more aggressive law enforcement strategies, such as NYPD’s stop-and-frisk campaign. But the cause may be far simpler: more guns = more shootings. Click here for a related post...
Monday, April 9. Hey, Bernie Madoff had one! Some ex-cons have put out their shingles as prison consultants, advising those who are about to go to the big house what to expect, how to get along, avoid being killed, deal with medical problems, transfer to a better place, and so on. As one might expect, consultants brag about their “qualifications,” meaning how much time they served, in how many prisons and under what conditions, with more and worse always being better. They also tend to speak poorly of their competitors, deriding them as unworthy amateurs with little “savvy.” There’s even a national registry, but one consultant calls it a “hoax”...
Friday, April 6. The saga of Victor Bout has finally come to an end. A New York Federal judge sentenced the notorious Russian arms dealer to the minimum 25 years for agreeing to deliver weapons to persons - actually DEA informers and undercover agents - who represented themselves to be members of the FARC. But the judge refused prosecutors’ requests that she apply a terrorism enhancement and send Bout away for life. If the DEA hadn’t dangled the carrot, she said, Bout would have never sought out the deal. Russia’s foreign ministry reacted harshly, calling the case politically motivated and demanding Bout’s release. That’s about as likely as your blogger’s winning the lottery. For all the sordid details (there are plenty on both sides) click here...
Thursday, April 5. It’s not surprising that six former New Orleans cops got Federal terms of up to 65 years for shooting six unarmed persons after Hurricane Katrina, then covering up their acts. Two of their victims died. What is surprising is that the sentencing judge berated prosecutors for tying his hands by granting five other cops short prison terms in exchange for their testimony. Obviously the judge never had to try to make a case long after the fact against officers in a department with a decades-long history of corruption. Speaking out on behalf of the Government, a Federal prosecutor defended the plea agreements as “not only appropriate but necessary.” That they were. And thus ends another sorry chapter in NOPD’s sorry existence...
Wednesday, April 4. “Both Sides of the Law,” an explosive multipart investigative series by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, reveals persistent problems of lawbreaking by Milwaukee police. Believe it or not, thirteen city cops have been convicted of Federal crimes since 2005. Many more have run into trouble for everything from drunken driving to shoplifting, battery, domestic violence and lying about consorting with prostitutes. Penalties have been few and far in-between, with cops hanging on to their jobs despite compelling evidence of serious misconduct. Topping it all off, seven officers and a sergeant are now under investigation for sexually abusing citizens under the guise of conducting body cavity searches...
Tuesday, April 3. A mass shooting at a private Christian university in Oakland leaves seven dead and three wounded and...are you still reading? Thanks to the proliferation of firearms, killing sprees are a part of everyday American life. Those that take place in public venues and involve strangers seem noteworthy, at least for one news cycle. But they pale in frequency against the numerous multiple-victim shootings that happen in people’s homes. (And restaurants. Did you hear about the incident today where a 44-year old guy walked into a Mississippi restaurant and opened fire, wounding five, including three critically? I thought so.) As for prevention - forgeddaboutit. With so many guns and so many ways to get them effective control is impossible, at least within the range of political plausibility. So the problem will continue, and as gun density increases can only get worse. Think that’s too bleak a prognostication? Click here...
Monday, April 2. Should tracking the location of cellphones require court approval? Yes, says the ACLU, which insists that collecting such information be bound by the same legal requirements that the Supreme Court recently imposed on GPS surveillance. Rules vary across jurisdictions and telephone companies, with some always getting warrants and others never. Warrantless cellphone surveillance is particularly common in emergencies such as finding missing persons or kidnap victims. Then there’s that small town in Arizona, which plunked down a couple hundred thousand bucks to acquire gear so it can track phones on its own. Click here for a related post...
Thursday, March 29. It doesn’t get worse than this. In normally placid Pasadena, the home of the Rose Bowl, an unarmed 20-year old burglary-from-auto suspect is shot dead by officers who mistakenly thought he was going for a gun. Under California law, that enables prosecutors to charge his alleged accomplice, 17, who was also unarmed, with murder. In an odd twist, Pasadena’s police chief blamed the tragedy on the victim. When the 26-year old man spotted the suspects lift the backpack and laptop from his vehicle, he called 911 and falsely reported that he was robbed at gunpoint. He, too was charged - with manslaughter...
Wednesday, March 28. A Federal judge finally revolted against an FBI rope-a-dope, acquitting seven members of Michigan’s Hutaree militia of seditious conspiracy and other charges, leaving only weapons counts against leader David Stone and his son Joshua. Centered on an alleged plot to kill police officers and overthrow local government, then with the anticipated support of the mass of people the rest of the country, the case depended on testimony and recordings made by an informer who had infiltrated the group for an extended period. But the judge concluded that all the talk about rising against the U.S. was just that. Click here for a related post...
In an unprecedented case, an LAPD motorcycle cop faces dismissal over findings that he targeted Hispanic drivers. Investigators reported that he tried to cover his tracks by purposefully misidentifying the ethnicity of vehicle operators on paperwork. Chief Charlie Beck, who signed off on the case, recommended that the 15-year veteran officer be fired for engaging in “biased policing,” but the final decision rests with a three-person board...
Tuesday, March 27. Is a trained and certified drug dog’s alert enough probable cause, all by itself, to justify a search? We thought so, but the Florida Supreme Court ruled otherwise. Now the U.S. Supreme Court will decide (Florida v. Harris, no. 11-817.) Click here for a related post...
It’s been a long time coming, but a Catholic higher-up has finally been called to account for keeping quiet about rampant molestation by priests. In the first felony case of its kind, Philadelphia Msgr. William J. Lynn went on trial for conspiring to cover up the sexual abuse of minors in his diocese by hushing up claims and moving priests from parish to parish while leaving them in charge of vulnerable children. Also on trial is Rev. James Brennan, who was charged with actual molestation. Lynn’s superior, the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, supposedly directed the scheme but was never indicted, in part because he was dying. Click here for a related post...
Monday, March 26. Florida shooter George Zimmerman told police that Trayvon Martin decked him, then climbed on top and began pounding his head into the ground. Police say that at least one eyewitness reportedly confirms it. If so, was Zimmerman, who followed the youth thinking that he was “up to no good” justified in shooting him when the tables turned? Was he reasonably in fear of his life? Did Martin use so much force that he in essence forfeited his? These questions must be addressed with the utmost of transparency. And what better place than a court of law? Click here for a related post...
Albuquerque has 546,000 residents; New York City, nearly 8 1/2 million. Since 2010 Albuqerque cops have shot and killed 18 persons; NYPD, 22. Civil rights advocates in New Mexico have called for DOJ to investigate. They’re especially incensed that the Albuquerque police union pays cops involved in shootings up to $500, calling it a “bounty.” (The union, which has refused requests from the chief and mayor to discontinue the practice, insists it’s to help cops take a vacation to recover from the trauma.) What neither side has mentioned is that gun laws in New Mexico are extremely lax. No license is needed to carry a handgun openly or to keep one in a car. New Mexico is also a “shall issue” state, meaning that CCW licenses must be given to any adult who wants one and isn’t a felon. Just try getting a license to do any of that in the Big Apple. Click here for a related post...
Friday, March 23. Eighty-seven percent of NYPD’s stop-and-frisks in 2011 were of blacks and Hispanics. That’s got minority legislators demanding laws to curb the practice. But NYPD strongly defends its aggressive posture, pointing out that minorities comprised an astounding 96 percent of citizens who were shot and 90 percent who were murdered. Officials say that patrols are more intense in minority areas because crime is higher, so high stop ratios are inevitable. But do the benefits - 800 guns were recovered - outweigh the costs in terms of minority relations? Crime is down in New York, but it’s down elsewhere, too. Unless one conducts an experiment, settling the effectiveness of stop-and-frisk is impossible. And the issues go well beyond effectiveness. Click here for a related post...
Thursday, March 22. Ninety-five percent of convictions stem from plea bargains. According to a majority of Supreme Court justices, that makes plea negotiations a critical component of the adjudication process. Meaning, among other things, that defendants are entitled to minimally competent representation during that stage. A lawyer’s failure to correctly interpret a plea offer (Lafler v. Cooper) or to pass it on altogether (Missouri v. Frye) are thus reversible errors. Yes, there are qualifications. For more, check out the cases (syllabi linked) or click here for a related post...
Wednesday, March 21. Florida cops and prosecutors claim that the state’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” law lets gang members and other unsavory characters use self-defense as an excuse to go after their enemies. Not so, acording to the legislators who wrote the law. They claim that nothing in the stature shields persons who instigate violence, and if that’s what the Sanford community watch captain did, he should be held accountable. What no one’s saying is that the purpose of the law wasn’t really to shield innocent persons from being prosecuted for defending themselves - a very rare event indeed - but to provide a rationale for letting private citizens pack guns wherever they go. Of course, there are consequences...
Tuesday, March 20. Things are heating up in Sanford, Florida, where a local grand jury will soon be meeting on the case of the teen shot and killed by a community watch leader. DOJ has also launched an investigation. Meanwhile the dead kid’s family hired a lawyer. One of his first moves was to disclose that just before Taryvon Martin was shot he called his girlfriend by cell phone and told her that he was being followed. She reportedly heard him ask “what are you following me for?” and the other person reply “what are you doing here?” Click here for our post...
Monday, March 19. By now you’ve undoubtedly heard of the circumstances that underlie our most recent post, “Walking While Black.” What’s largely escaped attention, though, is that in justifying his department’s inaction (“all the physical evidence and testimony we have independent of what Mr. Zimmerman provides corroborates this claim of self defense”) Sanford police chief Bill Lee has become an excellent witness for the defense should the shooter ever be charged. Check out the chief’s ramblings in his video interview...
Friday, March 16. A white community watch “block captain” driving around on patrol spots a 17-year old black youth on foot. What the pistol-packing “captain” doesn’t know is that the kid is on his way back to his dad’s house after buying candy at a convenience store. So the “captain” calls the cops about a suspicious person, then pulls over and confronts the teen. A scuffle ensues and the “captain,” who is in his twenties, shoots the youth dead. Florida, where this happened, allows open carry. It also has a “stand your ground” law, meaning that citizens who think their lives are in danger don’t need to retreat before using deadly force. That’s the reason, say police, why they lack probable cause to make an arrest. For more check out our new post...
Thursday, March 15. A day doesn’t pass without Tasers making the news. Thankfully this time the story is of a more positive kind. In response to incidents where long-duration shocks have been followed by death, Fort Worth police are replacing their X-26 Tasers with the X-2 model, which is identical except that each jolt cuts off after five seconds no matter how longer the trigger is depressed. That’s in line with PERF’s dosage recommendations, which also suggest a maximum cumulative exposure of 15 seconds. Hopefully Fort Worth will adopt that guideline as well, as research suggests that repeated zaps, even if brief, can be equally risky. For a recent post on point click here...
And if you haven’t heard, former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich reported to Federal prison today to being serving a 14-year sentence for corruption. Maybe he’ll run into George Ryan, the man he replaced. He’s set for release in 2013...
Wednesday, March 14. Zapping someone once with a Taser, even if done in error, usually gets a free pass. But five times? Luckily the zappee, whom Portland officers mistook for a vandal, was only slightly injured, so Federal jurors awarded just $200,000 in damages. Imagine the consequences had the man not been in good shape. Perhaps the word hasn’t gotten around to Portland, but repeated applications of the Taser are considered dangerous, and particularly so when the person at the receiving end suffers from a medical condition. For recent postings about the right and wrong way to use this valuable tool click here and here...
Tuesday, March 13. A nine-year old who stands five-feet six and weighs as much as 250 pounds is lying on the floor, his hands tucked underneath. He refuses to accompany a cop to the station to be booked on a truancy complaint. So the officer zaps him with a Taser - twice. He then takes the youth in. Now the chief’s out of a job and the small-town department faces being shut down. What should have happened? How about leaving, and catching the kid another day? We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: sometimes doing nothing is best...
A major article in the Christian Science Monitor describes America’s vastly changed gun landscape. Concealed carry permits are now “must issue” in forty states, and it’s estimated that six million citizens are so licensed. Although crime-ridden urban centers still restrict granting CCW permits to those with a demonstrable need, it’s a different story in the ‘burbs, where it seems like every Grandma carries a pistol in her fanny pack. Whether that’s a good idea depends on who one asks, but like we recently mentioned in Turn Off the Spigot, there’s no going back...
Monday, March 12. Feds started isolating problem prisoners three decades ago after the killing of two guards at a Federal prison. States got into the supermax craze during the crack-fueled violence of the 80s and 90s, when prisons filled with hardcore gang members and harshness seemed like the only available response. But as crime ebbed and costs became a major concern states started applying the brakes. Mississippi closed its supermax facility and transferred inmates to more conventional settings. Mental health problems eased and prisoner conduct improved. Its approach is now becoming a national model...
Friday, March 9. And here we go again. Only days after our latest rant about the ready availability of firearms, and its inexorable consequences, a mass shooting occurs inside a supposedly secure psychiatric facility at the University of Pittsburgh. Two are dead including the gunman, who was shot by campus police, and seven are wounded. Click here for a related post...
A Los Angeles County jury convicted LAPD detective Stephanie Lazarus of murdering the wife of her former lover in 1986. Lazarus, then on the force, was inexplicably overlooked as a suspect even though her romantic relationship to the victim’s husband was known. She also owned a gun like the one used in the killing and reported it stolen shortly thereafter. But pleas from the victim’s parents went nowhere. Detectives reopened the case in 2009. They followed their colleague and surreptitiously collected her DNA. It turned out to match a bite on the victim’s body...
Thursday, March 8. NYPD insists that activities such as planting informers in mosques and having intelligence officers troll the Internet and “map” Muslim gathering spots in New York and New Jersey are done in the public sphere and thus perfectly legal. But New Jersey’s governor, Newark’s mayor, and now New Jersey FBI head Michael Ward complain that such practices have damaged relationships with the Muslim community on which they depend for information. Ward called NYPD’s approach inappropriate and ineffective. Terrorism intelligence-gathering, he says, should have an “articulable, factual basis” and focus on specific threats such as terrorist cells and radicalized individuals...
Wednesday, March 7. Collecting DNA from arrestees just picked up an important endorsement. In Haskell v. Harris the Ninth Circuit ruled that the benefits of collecting DNA - in this case, from all persons arrested for felonies - in identifying suspects, solving crimes and exonerating innocent persons far outweigh any privacy costs. In their decision the justices pointed out that the purposes are the same as for fingerprinting, which has never been seriously contested. That puts civil liberties groups that are challenging DNA collection in a bind, as the liberal Ninth is one of the few circuits where they could have prevailed. Its reasoning is likely to be seized on to justify expanding DNA collection to everyone arrested by police, and not just for felonies...
Tuesday, March 6. Remember this photo?
It led to the conviction last year of the Los Angeles gang member who memorialized what had been an unsolved murder on his chest. Now there’s an even weirder postscript. Deputies just arrested his father and two girlfriends for fraudulently collecting $30,000 in unemployment checks that were issued to the imprisoned gangster. Click here for a prior entry...
Here we go again department. Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who has weathered criticism for a whole host of things, from turning his academy over to a reality TV show, to handing out badges to political cronies, to ignoring deputy misconduct in the jails, is now facing ridicule for giving well-heeled campaign donors take-home sheriff’s cars. Click here and here for related posts...
Monday, March 5. If only former Durham, NC district attorney Tracey Cline had admitted in court that her allegations of misconduct against the county’s chief judge were, as the facts clearly showed, incorrect, she’d still be on the job. But she insisted that she was right and everyone else was wrong. So she was finally removed from her position. It was a bit late for many defendants, though. A newspaper investigation revealed that her repeated failure to get facts straight, “unwillingness to change course” and extreme stubbornness led to many injustices over the years, including at least one clearly wrongful conviction. What’s scary about this? That despite all the clear indications that something was seriously amiss it was only when she offended a highly influential person and refused to back down that the “system” decided enough was enough. And even then she could have skated. Click here for a related post...
Friday, March 2. Reports of rampant prescription drug abuse across the U.S., much of it aided and abetted by profiteering doctors, are leading to a harsher law enforcement response. In Los Angeles, Dr. Hsiu-Ying Tseng, 42, faces three counts of second-degree murder for prescribing painkillers without a valid reason to patients who later died from overdoses. These and other deaths were the subject of a 2010 piece by the
Los Angeles Times that looked into Dr. Tseng’s booming practice. DEA supposedly launched an investigation and now the D.A.’s stepped in. Click here for a related post...
Thursday, March 1. Crime, if you haven’t noticed, hasn’t gone down everywhere. In perennially hard-hit Detroit homicides increased from 308 in 2010 to 344 last year. So far this year they’re at 49, versus 39 during the same period in 2011. It’s gotten so bad that the U.S. Attorney mobilized the FBI, DEA and ATF to go after armed felons on the city’s east side, where murders surged 75 percent in 2011. Why the Feds? Because sentences for gun crimes are more severe under Federal than state law, and Federal judges have a reputation for hammering dangerous men...
Wednesday, February 29. Now that Virginia has abolished its one-handgun-a-month purchase limit, designed to impede interstate gun trafficking, only three states still carry such a law on their books: California (where your blogger testified in its favor), Maryland and New Jersey. Although a recent poll showed that two-thirds of Virginians favored retaining the measure, the NRA characterized its repeal as relieving them of an unfair burden. As for everyone else - in 2008, despite the law, Virginia was the number one source of crime guns for New York - well, they’ll just have to fend for themselves. Click here for a related post...
A third student succumbed to his wounds in the Ohio high school shooting that has left three students dead, two wounded and a small town reeling in anguish and disbelief. It’s reported that the shooter, a troubled youth who attended a special school, fired ten rounds from a .22 caliber handgun that he supposedly stole from a family member. In 2002 his father was charged with attempted murder; he wound up serving one year out of a four-year term for assault...
Tuesday, February 28. Detroit is reeling from a spate of youths shooting, and being shot. In two separate incidents, bullets pierced the walls of homes, killing a 12-year old girl and a 9-month old. A six-year old was critically wounded by two 15-year olds who went on a carjacking spree with an AK-47, and a 14-year old boy gunned down his mother. Suggested fixes such as better supervision of children are dead on arrival. Social conditions are largely economically driven. As long as Detroit and communities like it remain dirt poor and gun density continues to increase, violence will keep making citizens’ lives miserable. Really, as recent events in Chardon, Ohio demonstrate, not even suburbia is immune. Holler all you want about the Second Amendment, with us fallible humans that’s just the way it is. For a related post click here...
Monday, February 27. According to a lawsuit filed on behalf of an NYPD officer by the ACLU, officers assigned to the 42nd. precinct are required to issue 15 summonses, conduct two stop-and-frisks and make one arrest each month. If they don’t they get poor evaluations, are denied desirable time off, and so on. Quotas have supposedly poisoned the station-house atmosphere and led to open warfare between cops who support the system and those who don’t. There have been shouting matches, overturned lockers and other nonsense. Well, we’re dead set against quotas of any kind. So that includes this one. But the requirements, if correctly reported, seem hardly worth getting steamed up over. Really, what do you call a cop who can’t manage to make one arrest a month? That’s right: a civilian!...
Friday, February 24. L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca, who never passes on a chance for publicity, has spouted off on the question of driver licenses for illegal aliens. He agrees with Chief Charlie Beck (see below entry) but only to a point. Applicants, Baca says, must have a spanking-clean record and complete an extensive questionnaire, much like a citizenship applicant would. In fact, what he proposes seems exactly that: an application to be a citizen of L.A. County. Again, though, we wonder why persons who are illegally in the U.S. would want to create official evidence to that effect. Driver licensing is another of the irresolvable dilemmas created by pretending that the system isn’t broken. One would think that after all the conflicts created by ill-advised state medical marijuana statutes one would realize that what must be addressed is Federal law. Has anyone heard of the Supremacy Clause?...
Thursday, February 23. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck waded into a hornet’s nest when he recommended that driver licenses be issued to illegal aliens. His reasoning - that it would make for better drivers, reduce the number of hit and runs and make persons easier to identify - were challenged by immigration critics, who said that the move would do nothing for road safety while encouraging illegal immigration. Chief Beck said that the licenses would be distinctive from what’s commonly issued, but if so they would be inherently tainted. Why would someone carry ID that effectively brands them as a lawbreaker?...
Wednesday, February 22. With the Supreme Court’s ruling that officers were entitled to qualified immunity in the Messerschmidt case, Police Issues is now three-for-three! According to the decision, cops who secured what may have been an overly broad search warrant were not unreasonable or “plainly incompetent” as there were facts and circumstances to support their beliefs, and the warrant had been vetted by a superior, a deputy D.A. and the judge who signed it. For a related post click here...
Video cameras that attach to Taser stun guns are fairly common, but they only activate when the trigger is pulled. Now there’s a tiny video camera that can be clipped to one’s sunglasses. Taser International says the $1,000 devices, which record up to two hours, can help police defend themselves from baseless lawsuits. A docking station is used to transfer output, and cloud storage is being offered - for a hefty fee, of course. But it’s not all win-win. While the device is sealed and its contents supposedly cannot be tampered with, there’s of course an on/off switch, so when to record becomes another decision to criticize. Experience has also taught that taping does not guarantee that behavior will change, so the evidence can cut both ways. In any case, if citizens armed with cell phone cameras wasn’t enough, now there’s another way to see how the sausage of policing gets made...
Tuesday, February 21. Federal prosecutors are catching heat over reports that they decline filing charges on half or more of the murders and other serious crimes committed on Indian reservations. Critics say it sparks of inattentiveness and at worst, racism, but Government lawyers complain about a lack of evidence, a problem exemplified by the ongoing lawsuit against an FBI agent who allegedly botched a murder case. In truth, well-meaning but inexperienced Federal agents and poorly trained, ill-equipped tribal police officers may be no match for the absurdly difficult policing environment that characterizes Indian land. Delayed reporting, geographical isolation and an absence of witnesses not related by blood would challenge even the most experienced cops...
Monday, February 20. Some say it’s a Catch-22. And on first blush, they’re right. Now that California law prohibits all open-carry of guns, whether loaded or not, and CCW permits are virtually impossible to get in metropolitan areas, how are citizens to protect themselves on the street? Pro-gunners say that the Golden State’s move is a clear violation of Heller, the Supreme Court decision that found an individual right to have guns. Opponents say nonsense, that the ruling applies only to those lawfully possessed in one’s home. California, which has drawn top honors from the Brady Campaign for its tough gun laws, is also criticized for the wide disparity between rural areas, where CCW permits are easy to obtain, and urban areas, where it’s difficult. That, say gun enthusiasts, thrashes equal protection guarantees. Click here for a related post...
Friday, February 17. We’ve repeatedly harped on the consequences of our gun-crazed culture, where the availability of firearms puts lethal instruments into the hands of deranged persons and frequently turns ordinary arguments into homicides. For a disturbing example involving law enforcement professionals look no further than yesterday’s incident inside the Long Beach Federal Building, where three ICE supervisors shot it out during an internal squabble, leaving one dead and one seriously wounded. Aside from its devastating impact on their families and coworkers, imagine how the incident can affect other Federal employees in the building, a comfortable, modern place that housed your blogger’s gun trafficking group for many years...
Thursday, February 16. Who’s on first? When it comes to medical marijuana, it’s the Feds. They’re also on second, third, home... However one feels about pot, Federal law plainly prohibits the possession of marijuana except in Federally-approved medical research. A handful of states, most recently Delaware, are whining about DOJ’s supposedly hardening attitude towards laws that were in clear conflict with the U.S. Code from day one. Why are the Feds getting meaner? Because states didn’t carry out their side of the bargain. They failed to establish effective regulatory mechanisms, thus allowing the immensely profitable cultivation and resale of the drug to recreational users. Want a medical marijuana card in California? Go to any dispensary, get a referral to a physician and complain about migraines. Click here for a related post...
Tuesday, February 14. Laws currently in effect in four states (California, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia) limit the purchase of handguns to one a month. Studies by ATF and others indicate that these restrictions reduce the flow of guns to areas with restrictive laws such as Washington and New York and make it more difficult for criminals to get the new, large-caliber guns they want. Your blogger, a retired ATF agent who specialized in gun trafficking investigations, heartily agrees: he even testified before the California legislature when it was considering its bill. So what’s up? Well, Virginia, whose own study said the law works, is moving to do away with it. Proponents of the repeal say that the law is unnecessary, in part because it’s supposedly full of loopholes, and in part because handgun buyer criminal record checks already take care of the problem. Problem is, trafficked guns are sold on the street, not at a store. Naturally, Washington D.C. and New York are hollering. Click here for a related post...
Monday, February 13. Interesting new developments in the aftermath of the freeing of Texas man Michael Morton, who served nearly 25 years in prison for murdering his wife, a crime that it turns out was committed by an intruder, just like Morton claimed all along. An investigation by his lawyers and the Innocence Project revealed that prosecutor Ken Anderson, now a judge, withheld critical evidence during Morton’s trial that might have resulted in his acquittal. Another judge has now ruled there is probable cause that Anderson broke the law, but left it to the state supreme court to decide whether to try him as the criminal that Morton wasn’t. Click here for a related post...
Friday, February 10. A big brouhaha is brewing in Rose Parade land, where a recent switch to encrypted digital radios makes it impossible for outsiders to listen in on police chatter. Pasadena cops welcome the change, which they say enhances both public and officer safety by denying criminals with scanners the ability to keep one step ahead of the fuzz. Of course, an upshot is that the media may not get timely notice of potentially newsworthy events like police shootings. Here’s what the local paper’s senior editor had to say: “This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of. I am continually amazed by the Pasadena Police Department's disregard for the right of the public to be aware of what they are doing.” PPD’s chief says nonsense, just file an FOIA request and you’ll get what you need. Still, he’s offered to loan out a scanner. But his offer, which supposedly carries conditions, is yet to be accepted...
Thursday, February 9. If you’ve got the stomach, read on. Remember the incident in 2009 when a parolee shot dead four Lakewood, Washington police officers who were having coffee in a restaurant? Donations for their families poured in from around the country. Many, like this blogger’s, were sent to the officer’s union. Well, the guild treasurer, officer Skeeter Manos, was just indicted for taking $150,000 worth of contributions for his own use. Some of the loot was reportedly spent in Las Vegas, other for toys including fancy home electronics. The embezzlement was discovered by an accountant who found reference to a strange bank account while going through the association’s books. Click here for a related post...
Wednesday, February 8. Can you really have it both ways? Sure, says New York City council speaker (chairwoman) Christine Quinn, who wrote in an open letter to NYPD that she supports stop-and-frisk but worries it can drive a wedge between the department and minority communities. She is especially concerned about reports of an implicit stop-and-frisk quota, warning that it could lead to the controversial strategy’s excessive use. Her carefully-worded missive is apparently meant to boost (or at least not impede) her expected bid for the mayoralty, which is supported by current Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He and his good buddy NYPD Commish Raymond Kelly are convinced that whatever the technique’s P.R. costs, they’re more than offset by its supposedly dampening effect on gun-carrying, and by extension on crime and violence. In any case, stop-and-frisk has become so integral to the department’s M.O. that one wonders what all those coppers (yes, we’re jealous) would do to pass the time if it got taken away. Click here for a related post...
Tuesday, February 7. Do cops matter? Ask Long Beach, California, where Part I crimes jumped a surprising 9.4 percent in 2011. Long Beach PD hasn’t run an academy for years, and its staffing is down fifteen percent since 2009. It’s bad enough to lose officers, but with the budget tight there’s no money for detective overtime, either, so follow-ups aren’t getting done in a timely manner. That means cases aren’t being made and evildoers aren’t getting locked up. As for near-term relief, forget it. Even if it could hire, LBPD, with fewer than 900 officers, insists on training its own, so getting a class up and going will take time, resources and a considerable upfront outlay...
Monday, February 6. A blistering multipart series by the Las Vegas Review-Journal documenting allegedly flawed shootings and excessive uses of force by Las Vegas PD led its beleaguered chief to call in DOJ. Mind you, not the civil rights division, which is already in town responding to citizen complaints, but the COPS office. COPS will review the last two decades’ worth of officer-involved shootings, compare them against established “best practices” and come up with recommendations. But whether summoning a component that has no enforcement powers will be enough to satisfy DOJ’s newfound appetite for taking on what it considers rogue police departments seems highly unlikely...
Thursday, February 2. “Broken Windows” might seem old-fashioned to some but it’s alive and well in the Big Apple. NYPD is celebrating a record number of arrests for marijuana possession - 50,700 in 2011, the most in a decade. Combatting disorder, cops say, is key to keeping violent crime down. It’s the same rationale that drives stop-and-frisk, another approach that NYPD has wholeheartedly embraced. Nay-sayers of course say no, but those who remember the city from the crime-plagued 80s and 90s find its transformation truly dramatic. Whether the new, peaceful ambiance is due to hard-nosed policing or to something else, like stiff sentencing, is a matter of debate. Click here and here for related posts...
Wednesday, February 1. And for this week’s believe-it-or not, we have...Milwaukee! That’s where a judge released a man charged with robbery-murder without requiring that he post bail. An error? Nope - it’s what his score in a brand-new “evidence-based” pretrial release program called for. Based on two years’ worth of data, it plugs in various factors, such as a defendant’s ties to the community, to assign a flight risk. Well, the “community” got up in arms, so the judge recalled the man - who showed up - and hiked his bail to $30,000 cash, which he couldn’t post. So at least for now everyone knows where he is. What the geniuses who devised the plan didn’t “plug in” was the risk to cops who inadvertently run across dangerous fugitives (we think robbery-homicide qualifies) or to the warrant squads that have to track them down. Think the threat’s exaggerated? Read our prior post...
Tuesday, January 31. House Democrats released a stinging report condemning ATF cross-border “gun walking” operations that let firearms fall into the hands of criminals and the Cartels. According to the report, it was all ATF’s idea, not the Administration’s. Agents said they turned to the tactic because U.S. Attorneys placed insuperable obstacles in the way of prosecuting guns to Mexico cases, including requirements that firearms be recovered before straw purchasers could be charged. The climate they describe is far worse than what your blogger experienced as an ATF agent in Arizona in the 70s. But it resembles what he at times encountered elsewhere. Click here for a related post...
Does a town of less than 30,000 really need its own police force? More to the point, can it afford one? That’s what the residents of East Haven, Ct. must be wondering after the arrest of four of their cops for civil rights violations. It’s rumored that DOJ, which recently concluded that the agency systematically discriminated against Latinos, may be preparing more indictments, and one could name the chief. An unindicted co-conspirator in this round, he’s just submitted his resignation, angering citizens who demanded he be fired. Meanwhile his buddy the mayor is also looking shaky, especially after announcing that he would eat tacos to make things right...
Monday, January 30. Things are getting uglier by the day in Oakland, where weekly Occupy marches have devolved into violent confrontations between protesters and police. Just this weekend cops using tear gas and non-lethal projectiles arrested 400 protesters who vandalized City Hall, took over a YMCA and tried to break into the convention center. As police and protesters point fingers at each other for instigating trouble, citizens complain that the distraction is delaying response to 911 calls. Click here and here for related posts...
Friday, January 27. Think your community has problems? Consider Trenton, New Jersey, pop. 85,000, which according to CQ Press has the fourth-highest crime rate in the nation for a city its size. Trenton laid off one-third of its cops last September, causing havoc with patrol coverage to say nothing of the impact on morale. Now the mayor’s come up with an “all hands on deck plan” that would recall off-duty officers via Blackberry when crime spikes. But the union insists that being forced to keep the phones on 24/7 is like being on duty. In any event, with the fiscal year only half over the department’s already burned through three-quarters of its overtime funds, so any form of intensive policing may be out of reach...
Wednesday, January 25. Moviegate? Things are getting curioser and curioser in the Big Apple, where Deputy police commissioner Paul Browne suddenly remembered (that is, after being confronted by reporters with e-mails) that he had urged Commissioner Kelly sit for an interview in “The Third Jihad,” an appearance that his boss now deeply regrets. Mayor Michael Bloomberg was more direct, calling the decision to show the controversial documentary to 1,500 officers “terrible judgment”. But laying it all off on Browne hardly seems fair. After all, Kelly’s the one who forcefully moved to position NYPD as the FBI’s counter-terrorism equal, going so far as to run its own sting operations and station cops overseas...
Tuesday, January 24. Now that elaborate rope-a-dopes have corralled dozens of would-be domestic terrorists it should finally be safe to come out and play, right? Apparently not in New York City, where a “wacky” documentary warning that Muslim extremists are preparing to violently overthrow the U.S. government (an Islamist flag is depicted flying over the White House) was shown to 1,500 cops as part of their training regimen. Produced by a small, obscure firm and financed by murky sources, “The Third Jihad” features a past interview with NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, who is prominently featured on the film’s website...
Monday, January 23. Police Issues is two-for-two! Like we guessed, the Supremes ruled in U.S. v. Jones that using a GPS device to track a vehicle is a “search” under the Fourth Amendment and therefore requires a warrant. While we’re not particularly crazy about the distinction that implies between GPS and beepers, which can be planted without a warrant, there’s no doubt that the surveillance of Jones went far and beyond what could have been accomplished with a conventional tracking device. In fact, a warrant had been obtained, but the GPS didn’t get planted until a day after the warrant expired. Click here and here for related posts...
Is this what the future holds? After FBI agents seized Megaupload, a file-sharing site that was making huge profits helping users exchange pirated audio and video files, the notorious “Anonymous” hacker group swung into action, flooding DOJ and entertainment industry websites with denial of service attacks. Seven of Megaupload’s principals have been indicted; four were arrested in New Zealand and held without bail, while the other three are on the lam. “Anonymous” got its fifteen minutes of fame by staging similar attacks against PayPal, Visa and Mastercard, in their case for canceling the online accounts of WikiLeaks, thus slashing the flow of donations...
Thursday, January 19. Are we splitting hairs or atoms? According to the Supremes, when a criminal lawyer misses a deadline to file an appeal, their client isn’t normally entitled to dispensation from the courts, because “the principal bears the risk of his agent’s negligent conduct.” But in Maples v. Thomas, an Alabama death penalty case, a prisoner who tried to stay in touch with lawyers appealing his first-degree murder conviction didn’t realize that he had been abandoned until it was too late. That, said the justices, was sufficiently different from the general rule to merit relief. Oh, O.K. By the way, the basis for appealing his conviction was...drum roll...inadequate assistance of counsel. And no, we’re not kidding...
Wednesday, January 18. Chicago prosecutors dismissed indictments that accused four men of a 1994 rape/murder to which they had been pressured to confess as youths. In 2011 DNA from the victim was matched to a known rapist, leading to the release on bond of two of the four members of “The Englewood Four” who were still in prison. Two others had already completed their sentences, one in 2011 and one in 2010. Now that the men have been officially exonerated Innocence Project lawyers are asking that authorities investigate all convictions of youth during that period that were based on confessions. Click here for a related post...
Tuesday, January 17. Remember “The Academy”? It was a reality TV series based at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Academy during 2007-2008. Episodes featured stern drill sergeants screaming at scared rookies going through a training program that prided itself on a “stress” approach. One trainee who didn’t make it was Henry Marin, not because he couldn’t stand being yelled at but due to poor performance. To make things as humiliating as possible they gave him the boot on camera. But not all was lost. Like we pointed out in “Sheriff Baca’s ‘Police Academy’,” the heat was on to hire (and, ostensibly, pass) as many recruits as possible, so those who flunked out - including Marin - were encouraged to reenroll and try again. Marin did and made it the second time around. He got his badge and wound up working the jail at the Los Angeles County Courthouse. Now he’s on suspension and out on bond, charged with sneaking heroin to a prisoner in 2010...
Monday, January 16. Word’s out that one-time Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy Gilbert Michel, 38, has agreed to plead guilty to Federal charges that he passed a cell phone and other goodies to a county jail inmate who turned out to be an FBI snitch. Michel has reportedly been singing arias to the Feds about former coworkers who allegedly beat up on inmates. As we mentioned in LASD Blue, that nosy outsiders would dare enter what he considers his exclusive domain got Sheriff Baca very upset. Indeed, at one point he even half-threatened to seek charges against the FBI undercover agent who bought Michel’s corrupt services. Well, sheriff, charges are coming, but they won’t be against Federal cops...
Weekend update. Just how high can you build that fence? U.S. agents stationed at the southern border recorded 223 incursions by ultralight aircraft during the 2010-2011 fiscal year. Smuggling in hundreds of pounds of contraband by air, all in a few minutes and while literally flying under the radar, is becoming the hot new trend. Loads are simply dropped to waiting confederates so there’s no need to land, making deliveries so quick that no one’s likely to notice...
Thursday, January 12. It looks like plenty of folks were dismayed by former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour’s last-minute pardons (see Tuesday’s post.) There were actually 203, mostly for persons long released, but including a couple dozen current inmates. It turns out that the law requires publishing a legal notice thirty days prior to release, and in some cases it doesn’t look like that happened. So now a judge has required that the pardons be reviewed for compliance, including those of the five trustees mentioned below. They’re already on the street but have been told to check in daily. Incidentally, a Governor’s pardon automatically restores one’s Federal right to have guns, which is another little concern that’s raising eyebrows...
Wednesday, January 11. As most observers expected, the Supremes refused to require pre-trial hearings in disputes over witness identification when there is no evidence that the State purposely crafted a suggestive scenario. So the witness ID of Barion Perry - thus, his conviction - will stand. Perry was picked out from a distance by an eyewitness as he stood detained at the scene of car burglaries. Police, said the Supreme Court, did not try to influence the witness, so Perry’s identification was properly admitted as evidence at trial, where jurors could make up their own minds. Click here for a related post...
Tuesday, January 10. In Mississippi a select few can legally get away with murder. They’re the trustees who work at the Governor’s residence. Just days ago outgoing Governor Haley Barbour pardoned the last of eight inmates, all of whom had served in the mansion. Seven had been in for murder, one for manslaughter, mostly for killing spouses and girlfriends. One example, David Gatlin, shot and killed his wife while she held their baby, then wounded a family friend. Barbour isn’t the only chief executive who’s been accused of abusing his clemency authority while on the way out. Remember Schwarzenegger? And Bill Clinton?...
Are elaborate FBI sting operations the only way to handle obviously disturbed individuals who run around espousing Jihad? Sami Osmakac, 25, had been banned from Tampa-area mosques for spouting hate-filled rants against The Great Satan. Shunned by local imams who considered him “mentally unbalanced,” Osmakac is now cooling his heels in a Federal lockup for trying to buy a large quantity of explosives and two machineguns from - you guessed it - an FBI undercover agent. He had been telling a helpful informer since September that he needed weapons to carry out terror attacks, first against one place, then another. Osmakac even let himself be filmed sitting on the floor cross-legged, guns at his side, while elaborately justifying his lethal fantasies (for posthumous use only, of course.) Click here for a related post...
Monday, January 9. California recently transferred responsibility for confining and supervising non-violent prison inmates and those newly convicted of non-violent felonies to county jails and probation departments. And they’ve been arriving at local facilities in droves. Nearly a third suffer from mental health issues and sixty percent are addicts. Many refuse treatment. The State shifted some funds to counties to help pay for their new responsibilities, but local authorities complain the amounts are wildly insufficient. This “realignment,” which was set off by a Federal mandate to reduce prison overcrowding, has all the hallmarks of the deinstitutionalization movement, which emptied state mental hospitals, dumping patients on the streets and creating a new class of homeless and mentally ill. For a related post click here...
Weekend update. In 1992 Juan Rivera was convicted of rape/murder. He was retried twice, most recently in 2005, when jurors learned that a new DNA test proved Rivera wasn’t the sperm donor. But they nonetheless convicted, agreeing with prosecutors that the victim might have had multiple sex partners. Bottom line: Rivera had confessed to police, ergo he’s guilty. But his lawyers persisted, and finally convinced a judge to have another look-see. What he discovered, including a confession that bears all the hallmarks of coercion if not outright torture, wasn’t pretty. Rivera’s been released, and while prosecutors insist that he’s guilty, they’ve elected not to retry him. Click here for a related post...
Friday, January 6. Believe it - or not! During 2009-2010 Jerry Ramrattan, a 39-year old New York City crime aficionado, made up a string of elaborate scenarios, then paid others to accuse ex-girlfriend Seemona Sumasar of robbing them on the street. Why the frame-up? Ramrattan was angry that Sumasar had charged him with rape. His tales were so artfully staged - one even involved handcuffing pretend victims to a pole - that prosecutors ignored Sumasar’s alibis and were getting ready to go to trial when an insider blew the whistle. By then the frame-ups and jailing had cost the petite woman her Wall Street career. Ramrattan did go to trial. He was just convicted and got thirty-two years...
There is a good reason why experienced cops try to avoid taking enforcement action while off duty. On December 31, John Capano, 51, an off-duty ATF agent, shot a robber, then tackled him outside the pharmacy he had just held up. Meanwhile, a retired police lieutenant and an off-duy NYPD officer ran up. They had been alerted to the robbery by a patron but had no idea who was whom. It ended tragically, with the retired cop shooting and killing the ATF man. Realizing the mistake, the NYPD officer then shot and killed the robber...
Thursday, January 5. An epidemic of prescription drug abuse is leading to another epidemic - of arrests of physicians who allegedly make big, easy money by supplying painkillers to addicts. Looking to Southern California alone, there is last August’s arrest of Inglewood doctor Tyron Reece, who prescribed Vocodin 920,000 times in 2010, the October arrest of Orange County physician Alvin Yee, who serviced users coming from as far away as Detroit, and yesterday’s arrest of Santa Barbara Dr. Julio Diaz, whose practice was linked by the Feds to at least twelve overdose deaths. And don’t forget the recent involuntary manslaughter conviction of Dr. Conrad Murray, who got four years for injecting a killer dose of propofol into Michael Jackson’s veins. Click here for a related post...
Wednesday, January 4. Detroit PD intends to close police stations to the public between 4 pm and 8 am. While Chief Ralph Goodbee insists that’s to put more officers on the street, in these days, when police require that citizens come to the cop shop to report everything from traffic accidents to thefts and even burglaries, the consequences of limiting such visits to certain times are easily predictable. Your blogger, for one, has long suspected that forcing citizens to file reports at precinct houses rather than sending out a car, a shift that began in large cities a couple decades ago, artifactually contributed to the so-called “Great Crime Drop” that began in the early nineties...
 Tuesday, January 3. The Mount Rainier shooter mentioned yesterday was found dead, apparently from exposure. Here’s a photo furnished by Washington state police that depicts him at home with his guns.
Making a big fuss in Federal court then running around setting fires is not a good plan. That’s what German national Harry Burkhart, 24 discovered when he was arrested while driving through one of the areas beset by a string of more than fifty car arsons over New Year’s weekend. Burkhart had recently blown his stack at a hearing for his mother, who is facing extradition to Germany on fraud charges. One of the Feds who was in court later recognized him as possibly being the “person of interest” depicted in surveillance photos shown on the news. Evidence of fire-setting was reportedly found in Burkhart’s vehicle, and LAPD Chief Beck said he was “confident” they had the right man...
Monday, January 2. Gun mayhem struck the new year with a vengeance. A heavily armed Washington state man shot four persons at a party, critically wounding two, then used an assault rifle to shoot a National Park Service ranger  dead hours later at a roadblock in Mount Rainier. He exchanged fire with responding officers, keeping them from reaching the victim for more than an hour, then fled on foot, leaving his vehicle behind. Inside were more guns and a ballistic vest. An armada of cops from multiple agencies is now tracking the suspect through the back country. Dead is ranger Margaret Anderson, 34, a mother of two. Click here for a post that discusses the exceptional threat that long guns pose to police...
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