Lawsuit Alleges 4 Decades of Police Violence in Rochester, New York

By K. W. Locke

    Ten individuals and two organizations have filed a class action lawsuit against the City of Rochester, New York, Monroe County, New York, and a number of government officials.  The 96-page complaint alleges a pattern of civil rights violations.  It describes a 40–year struggle to make the police department accountable.

    In 1975, a white police officer killed an 18-year-old black women.  Public protests prompted the creation of a “Citizens Committee on Police Affairs,” which recommended reforms.

    But the next victim was the 21-year-old daughter of a member of the citizens committee.   During a domestic dispute, she told her young son to go to a cousin’s home and ask the cousin to call the police.  The police came.  The young mother died.

    The complaint alleges that by 1990 three more people had died and that one of them “was shot five times at close range while cowering, unarmed, in a crawl space in his own apartment.”

    In 1991, a local newspaper ran a multipart series detailing, in the complaint’s words, “the disproportionate use of force against Black and Hispanic people.”  The newspaper reported that during the previous year, 852 people had been injured during encounters with the police.

    The next year, a federal grand jury indicted Rochester’s former police chief and five subordinates for “wide-ranging brutality and corruption” by members of the police “Highway Interdiction Team” or “HIT squad.”   Although the former chief entered a guilty plea, other officers did not and were acquitted.

    But after the police chief’s guilty plea, city leaders should have known that there was a serious problem.  They also had other clues.

    For instance, the city paid $625,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a man framed by HIT squad officers.  He had spent 2 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

    The city also “paid over $200,000 in settlements,” the class action complaint alleges, “for at least ten civil rights suits brought by victims of the HIT squad’s brutality.”

    In 1992, the Rochester city council did create a civilian review board, but gave it no authority to subpoena witnesses, conduct investigations, or impose discipline.   Nothing changed.

    An incident 10 years later involved a mentally ill man running around a parking lot in his underwear.  He wasn’t armed.  He was black.

    Rochester officers tackled, pepper sprayed him, clubbed him, and one cop stood on his neck.   They also pepper sprayed a bystander filming the incident with a cellphone.  The man died.

    The class action complaints list other instances when people - people of color - died from encounters with the police.  The NAACP organized protests.  Demonstrators marched on city hall.  Nothing changed.  Some of the officers received promotions.

    It would take up too much space to describe all the instances of police misconduct alleged in the 96-page complaint.  So fast forward to March 23,  2020.   A young black man was suffering a mental health crisis and his family called the police for help.

    The man was Daniel Prude, one of the named plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit.   The complaint stated that his family’s call for help ended “with Daniel naked and handcuffed with his face covered by a ‘spit hood,’ as an RPD officer pushed his head into the freezing asphalt. . .RPD officers on the scene mocked Daniel and chatted with each other while he asphyxiated. Daniel was declared brain dead that night; he was taken off life support and died on March 30.”

    The police did not release video of the incident until September 2, 2020.  The release prompted large demonstrations on that night and the next.

    According to the complaint officers acted violently towards peaceful protesters.   It describes instances in which police shot pepper balls at “photojournalists, legal observers and people who were recording officers.”   The complaint includes photographs showing injuries inflicted by pepper balls or by a tear gas cannister.   It also incorporates by reference a video shot by one individual who was hit.  
 

    Notwithstanding the demonstrations, it appears that little has changed in the Rochester police department.  As this blog recently reported, earlier this year Rochester police officers handcuffed and pepper-sprayed a 9-year-old girl.

Cops Broke Elbow, Dislocated Shoulder

Of Demented Woman, 73, Lawsuit Alleges

By K W. Locke

A frail 73-year-old woman has sued the Loveland, Colorado police department.  Her lawyer alleges that police broke her elbow and dislocated her shoulder when they arrested her.

According to the attorney, the woman suffers from dementia and from aphasia, disorders which impair her ability to communicate.  Police arrested her after she left Walmart without paying for an item that cost less than 14 dollars.

Cops Appear To Be Laughing

The lawyer released video of her arrest and booking and called attention to one portion, in which officers appear to be laughing while discussing the woman's injuries.   The federal lawsuit alleges that the police used excessive force and that they detained her for hours without providing her access to medical care.

The woman's attorney also points to one of the videos as evidence that the officers knew they had harmed the woman.  According to the lawyer, the officers did not disclose on the paperwork that she

 had suffered an injury which should have received medical treatment.

 

 Lawsuits against police for use of excessive force typically cite a federal statute enacted soon after the Civil War to protect the civil rights of people previously enslaved.    However, the complaint in this case, filed on behalf of a woman with dementia and aphasia, also invoked the Americans With Disabilities Act.

 

Under Investigation

A Loveland Police Department spokesman said one of the officers involved has been placed on administrative leave and two others have been assigned administrative duties while the matter is investigated.

 

The police department released a statement acknowledging that the video was difficult to watch.  "We understand your concerns," the statement said, "and the seriousness of the allegations in the lawsuit, and are taking a full account of all the questions and concerns raised."

Banner:  Frame from a video recorded by a surveillance camera at the Lovoland, Colorado, Police Department, showing officers bringing the woman in for booking.

"Police Chauvinism" Produces Derek Chauvins

By K. W. Locke

According to legend, one of Napoleon's soldiers continued to display a patriotism so extreme his name became the basis for a new word.  The Encyclopedia Britannica records that Nicolas Chauvin "came to typify the cult of the glorification of all things military" and the word chauvinism came to connote "an undue partiality to a group or place."

In recent decades in America, the impulse to hero worship has expanded to include the glorification of police.  But what happens if you tell any group of people that they are good guys fighting evil, imply they can do no wrong, then overlook their misdeeds and impose no punishment for bad behavior?
 
Every human being will become a little intoxicated by that power.  Some will grow not just callous but smugly callous.  There will be moments when a few get really, stinking out of control.  And a very few will become so deadened by righteous entitlement they're willing to snuff out a human life while bystanders watch and record it on video.

Derek Chauvin murdered a man in Minneapolis.  But how did he acquire the power to commit such a crime?  And why did other officers, who could have stopped him, just stand around and let it happen?

 

Our society's police chauvinism, its glorification of those behind the badge, has created am environment which not only tolerates bullies but allows them to grow in power.  And our society has allowed police officers to create and live in a separate, private world where their unspoken rules take precedence over written laws. 

Since the beginning of commercial television in the late 1940s, at least 340 cop shows have appeared on America's screens.  The Internet Movie Database made a list.

In the 1950s, Dragnet, a highly popular police procedural, set the pattern.  Like many of the television westerns of that decade, Dragnet neatly divided the world into good guys and bad guys.

The Los Angeles Police Department exercised considerable creative control over the program, assuring a favorable portrayal.  The show put makeup on the less attractive aspects of law enforcement while fascinating the public with many technical details of police procedure.

The LAPD's close relationship with the producers infused Dragnet with a particular mindset and attitude, a righteous obsession with getting the bad guy, no matter what.  The officers didn't slow down much to consider Constitutional niceties.

But a sizable chunk of the public desired tough policing with not too many rules.  During the 1960s, television increasingly brought viewers footage of unsettling real–life events.  Many people, feeling a greater need for police, wanted cops to have more power and fewer constraints. 

To them, police were the white knights protecting them from the barbarian and the infidel.  Cops bought into this analogy.  (Or one similar.  LAPD officer and writer Joseph Wambaugh titled his 1971 novel The New Centurions.  It described cops as "besieged men, dealing daily with a world coming apart.")

This seductive self image - the cop as lonely warrior, often misunderstood, struggling to preserve society against growing lawlessness - offers psychological benefits. It defines the officer as a member of a special group, apart from society, an elite.

It also hardens an officer against outside criticism, which can be dismissed saying "You don't understand.  You weren't in my situation."

 

By similar logic, rules made by outsiders, who neither share their experiences nor face their challenges, can be ignored.  And, since the outsiders can't understand, lying is not only expedient but necessary.  

 

The highest duty, felt even if not acknowledged, becomes conforming to the group's norms, and betraying another group member amounts to treason.

Such loyalty to a group and its members is a form of chauvinism.  In the original form, the group was the military.  When it expanded to include a whole country, "chauvinism" became almost synonymous with nationalism.

Feminists described another species: male chauvinism.  But the word "chauvinism" rightly can be applied to any form of toxic loyalty to an insular group.

And it's powerful    Woe to the person who belongs to an insular group and breaks its norms!  Consider what happened to Cariol Horne.

 In 2006, she was a cop in Buffalo, New York.  While on duty, she saw a white officer, Greg Kwiatkowski choking a handcuffed black man and heard the man say he couldn't breathe.

First, she tried to persuade the white officer to stop but he didn't let go.  Then, Horne physically fought with the white cop, forcing him to release the choke hold.

Later, the man Horne rescued said that she had saved his life.  But the police department fired her.

Then, Kwiatkowski sued Horne for defamation and won.
 

Eventually, Kwiatkowski's brutish modus operandi caught up with him.  He spent 4 months in federal prison for using "unlawful and unreasonable force against four black teenagers."

Horne became an advocate for criminal justice reform.  It took years, but she, along with others, convinced the city of Buffalo to enact a "duty to intervene law."

Buffalo took that action last year, after the video of George Floyd's death prompted shock and outrage.  That video, showing other Minneapolis cops standing around doing nothing while their fellow officer killed a man, demonstrated the importance of a law requiring them to act.

Yet, it seems strange that such a law would be needed.  Police officers already have a legal duty to act when they see a crime being committed.  But the Buffalo law makes it explicit, and should discourage cops from letting peer pressure outweigh justice.

Under a provision of the new law, Horne filed suit for wrongful termination.  This month she won.

Her experience shows that there are not one but two pervasive problems which must be addressed within police departments.  They are comorbidities.

Racial prejudice certainly must be addressed and eliminated.  But even after that hard, necessary work, another problem will remain:  Eliminating the peculiar chauvinism which insularity breeds.  Will that be the more
difficult task?

Publicity photograph of actors Jack Webb and Harry Morgan playing Sgt. Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon in the 1967-70 version of Dragnet (via Wikimedia Commons).  Photo of former officer Cariol Horne from her website.  Drawing of Nicolas Chauvin by unknown artist.

 

April 24, 2021

  

(WESTMINSTER, CALIFORNIA)  Two police officers intervened when a fellow officer began hitting a woman  who, although handcuffed, apparently had kicked him.  Although he appears to have struck her twice, the other officers stopped him from hitting her further.  See story and video here.

The woman had been arrested on an outstanding warrant.  She may have been intoxicated.

* * *

(NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE)  On April 19, 2021, the Tennessee State Senate unanimously passed a criminal justice reform bill that makes several important changes, including creating a duty to intervene:  If a law enforcement officer sees other officers using excessive force, and if the officer has an opportunity and means to prevent the use of such force, the officer must act.

The bill also prohibits retaliation against an officer for intervening to prevent the use of excessive force, for reporting the incident or for providing information about it the investigators.

Additionally, the bill would require all law enforcement agencies to report uses of force to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which would place that information in a database.

Other provisions of the bill prohibit judicial magistrates from issuing no-knock search warrants and provide that law enforcement officers can use a "choke hold" only if they reasonably believe that the circumstances permit the use of deadly force.

The bill now goes to the Tennessee House of Representatives.

* * *

(SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS) This week, the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled in a civil case that San Antonio police officers are not entitled to qualified immunity for their actions leading to the death of a man who may have been on drugs or mentally ill.  Video of the incident, similar in some ways to George Floyd's death, may be seen here.

Police had received reports that a man was walking down the median of an 8-lane expressway and waving his arms.  When officers handcuffed him, he did not appear to resist.  Nonetheless, they forced him to lie face down, pulled his legs up into a hog-tie position and applied  pressure.  After 5-1/2 minutes in this position, the man, whose name was Jesse Aguirre, stopped breathing.

During those minutes, Aguirre's lips turned blue.  One officer noticed but, because Aguirre had injection marks on his arm, believed drugs were causing the cyanotic reaction.

After Aguirre stopped breathing, an officer named Juarez, who had trained as a medic, jogged back to his car to get his medical gear.  The court wrote:  "At this point, the Officers appear to be in good spirits; according to the Plaintiffs, in the dashcam videos, Juarez can be seen smiling as he jogs to his vehicle, and several other Officers likewise appear to be smiling and laughing as they await Juarez’s  return around Aguirre’s body"

The mood turned less festive when Aguirre did not respond.  The court held that the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity.

A finding of immunity spares an officer not only from liability but also from the ordeal and expense of a trial, so courts decide the immunity issue first.   Denied immunity, the officers will now have to defend their actions in court.

* * *

Which White Cops Attacked Black Officer?

By K. W. Locke

    On September 15, 2017, a St. Louis judge found former police officer Jason Stockley not guilty of murdering Anthony Lamar Smith.  Stockley, who is white, had shot and killed the black man while pursuing him to make an arrest.

    The acquittal prompted large protests.  On September 17, St. Louis police officer Luther Hall attended a protest while working undercover, posing as a demonstrator.  Hall is black.

    The police department sent in other officers, in full gear, to control the crowd.  At least some of these cops were spoiling for a fight.  One of them texted others that "It's going to be a lot of fun beating the shit out of these shitheads."

    Some of the white cops in riot gear did not know that Hall also was an officer.  They rushed him.  Even though he offered no resistance, and told them he was an officer, they beat him severely, causing damage to his spine, jaw and lip.

   The FBI investigated, resulting in federal charges against five officers.  One of them pleaded guilty to lying to a grand jury.

    Another, Randy Hays, pleaded guilty.  During the trial of the other 3 cops, Hays was a key witness for the prosecution.

    Against at least two of the three officers, federal prosecutors presented what sounds like a pretty strong case.  Hays testified that he saw one of these cops, Steven Korte, kick Hall.

    Hayes also testified that he saw another of the defendants, Christopher Myers, nearby, but did not see Myers hit Hall.  However, another witness, an FBI agent who had been a St. Louis police officer in 2017, told the jury that he had seen Myers hitting and kicking Hall.
    
        Hall himself had taken a cellphone video.  Although it didn't show the officers engaged in the assault itself - which would have been difficult for Hall to record, considering that he was being hit and kicked - the video did capture moments leading up to the attack.  It includes the face of an officer in a riot helmet, whom the prosecution argued was Myers.

    Recently, a jury acquitted Korte completely, both of the charge of depriving Hall of his federal civil rights, and of a charge that he lied to a grand jury.   The jury also acquitted Myers of the charge that he deprived Hall of his civil rights.  However, it could not reach a verdict on the charge that he tried to destroy evidence by damaging Hall's cellphone.

    The third defendant was Dustin Boone, the cop who had texted that it was going to be fun "beating the shit out of these shitheads."  He had been charged with depriving Hall of his civil rights and with aiding and abetting the commission of a crime.

    The jury could not reach a verdict on either of these counts, resulting in a mistrial.  So, Boone may face trial again on both charges, and Myers may face a new trial on the destruction of evidence charge.

    Korte is absolutely free.  He also remains on the St. Louis police force, and possibly may seek a return to active duty.

    Eleven of the 12 jurors are white.  Did racial prejudice affect the jury's decision?

    My initial reaction was yes, there had to be prejudice.  Then, I realized that my opinion was worthless.  I didn't attend the trial, and all my information about it came second-hand, from a few news articles.

    Even  if  I had read a verbatim transcript of the trial, I would not be justified in second-guessing the jurors, who saw the witnesses as they testified and heard their voices.  They obviously did not put a lot of stock in the testimony of former police officer Randy Hays, who said he saw Korte hit Hall.

    But why didn't they?  Was it the way Hays answered questions on cross-examination?  Did something about his body language contradict his words?  I wasn't there and don't know.

    However, it would be plausible for the jurors to harbor a reasonable doubt, even about eyewitness identification.  It was dark on the night of the attack and the attackers wore riot helmets.

     When taken seriously,  requiring the defendant's guilt to be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt" sets a high standard for conviction.   But the word "reasonable" allows a lot of wiggle room.  A juror might not even realize that the race of a defendant could affect what he considered "reasonable."

     For instance, this blog has reported on cases where a jury convicts an innocent man, who happens to be black and poor, even in the face of significant evidence pointing to his innocence.  How else can such a dereliction be explained except as a result of racial prejudice?

    What amounts to "beyond a reasonable doubt" should not depend on the color of the defendant's skin.

     Why do we keep forgetting?

Officer Verbally Abuses 5-Year-Old

By K. W. Locke

     Add another case to your list of instances when a police officer acted inappropriately in dealing with a child.

    In an earlier post, I described a troubling incident in Rochester, New York.  Police there pepper-sprayed and handcuffed a 9-year-old girl   The police union's president shrugged it off, saying "there's a good chance she could have been hurt worse."

    That same blog post also discussed Aurora, Colorado police making a 6-year-old girl, and two teenage girls, lie flat on their stomachs on the pavement.  The cops handcuffed the teenagers, but the 6-year-old's wrists were too small.

    Now, there has been another ugly instance, this time involving two police officers in Montgomery County, Maryland.  You can watch bodycam video of one of the cops threatening a 5-year-old boy with beating.

    The boy had acted up in class and walked away from school.  At one point, after the boy started crying, the officer said:

Shut that noise up! You shut that noise up now! Boy, I tell you, I hope your mama let me beat you. I swear to you. I'm gonna [? wig ?] out.

If the cop treats kindergarten-aged children like this, what does he feel free to do to older people?

    Is the officer's behavior an early warning sign of the harm he might do in the future?  

 

 

Banner photograph of child by Arwan Sutanto (via Unsplash).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By K. W. Locke

    Some people can be "intelligent" without having a lick of sense.  But a smart person without any trace of wisdom is like a race car without brakes.  

    Convinced they are doing good, they go full speed ahead.  As for anyone in their path?  Look Out!

     Consider Chris Nocco, the sheriff of Pasco County, Florida, a suburban area north of Tampa.  His bright idea:  Figure out who is likely to commit a crime, and then watch that person like a hawk.

     He calls it "intelligence-led policing."  And how does the sheriff know who is likely to commit a crime?  Does he employ psychics, as in the film Minority Report?  No.  The computer tells him.

    In practice, his plan does more than watch someone.  Deputies make that person's life miserable, so miserable, in fact, that with any luck he will move out of the county and live somewhere else

   How does that differ from the "social credit program" imposed on the Chinese people by its communist government?  Well, in China the government is watching everyone.  In Pasco County, the sheriff only is watching those individuals unlucky enough to get on his list.

     But getting on that list is easy, and you can make the list without ever doing anything wrong.  If you're mentioned in a police report, even as a witness or bystander, your name goes into the computer and you are assigned a score.  According to reports, just being a friend of someone the sheriff deems a bad guy can get you points.

    Accumulate enough points and the computer puts your name on the list of "Prolific Offenders."  It doesn't matter whether you have ever been convicted of a crime.  The sheriff brands you an "offender" because he believes you are likely to commit a crime.

    The sheriff doesn't publish the list and there's no way for a person to get his name removed.  Once you get on the sheriff's list, his deputies will start showing up at unpredictable times and asking you nosy questions.

     Sometimes they will demand to search your house, even though they don't have a warrant.  Refuse, and they have ways of getting even.

    One of their favorite ways of retaliation is to cite you for building code violations, such as having grass that's too tall.   Deputies sometimes measure the grass with a ruler.  Or, they may find that one of the street numbers has fallen off your mailbox.

    With help from the nonprofit Institute for Justice, some of the harassed people have sued the sheriff.   It's hardly the first legal challenge to systems of "predictive policing."  Such systems have prompted litigation across the country, and scholarly criticism.

    One of the plaintiffs in the Pasco County lawsuit is Robert Jones.  He isn't on the sheriff's list but his son is.

    On one unannounced visit, the deputies looked in Jones' window and saw his son inside with another teenager.  The son was smoking.

    But the son wouldn't come outside and the father refused to make the teenager come out.  So, the deputies arrested the father on charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and resisting an officer.

    At other times the officers cited him for building code violations such as having grass too long, but no one informed Jones that he must appear in court on a certain date.  So, the deputies arrested him for failure to appear.

    All charges against Jones were dropped, but the arrests are on his record.  Finally, he and his family moved to another county.

    The sheriff keeps track of how energetically his officers are harassing people on the list.  Supervisors ask the deputies how many visits they have made each day to make sure they aren't slacking off.  Some officers have quit.

    When a Tampa newspaper published articles revealing the program, the sheriff defended it vigorously.  He thinks he's doing good.  And that's scary.

POLICE SWAT TEAM RUINS HOUSE
INNOCENT OWNER HAS TO PAY

By K. W. Locke

    Local governments love SWAT teams.

    A recent post on this blog described a South Dakota county with a total population of 28,000 which had two SWAT teams.  One was a part of the police force in Watertown, the largest town in the county.  But the county sheriff's department also had a tactical unit.

    Small towns and counties can enjoy the luxury and prestige of having a SWAT team because of the federal "1033 program." For decades, Congress has authorized the Department of Defense to transfer surplus military equipment to local law enforcement agencies.  A local community can obtain a $700,000 armored personnel carrier and only have to pay for shipping.

    So SWAT teams have blossomed like dandelions in springtime.  But although the equipment is almost free, it may come with side effects.  One study found a statistically significant correlation between having the military gear and an increase in fatal shootings by police.

    It would be surprising if officers who were dressed like military and armed like military also did not begin to think like military.  As will be discussed below, a SWAT team adopted a strategy one cop described as "shock and awe," a term used in the 2003 war in Iraq.

    Military tactics can leave someone's private property looking like a war zone.  That SWAT team from Watertown, South Dakota, inflicted more than $18,000 damage on a mobile home trying to capture someone who wasn't inside.

    The Watertown SWAT team acted rather recklessly, but even when such a tactical unit proceeds with utmost caution, property damage  can result.  The same blog post which described the overly eager Watertown SWAT team also told about the Greenwood, Colorado SWAT team's much more careful approach to capturing a fugitive who had barricaded himself in an innocent person's house.  This SWAT team used explosives only as a last resort, after every other method had failed.

    But the Colorado and South Dakota incidents had one thing in common:  Both SWAT teams did major damage to private property and, in both instances, the local governments refused to repair the damage.

    Here's another recent example.

     In 2019, 74-year-old Vicki Baker received some good news.  Her stage 3 breast cancer appeared to be in remission.  And her son, who had suffered a brain injury, was getting better.

    She decided to sell her home in McKinney, Texas and retire to Montana.  Her adult daughter Breanna would live in the house until someone bought it.

    To prepare the house for sale, they hired a handyman named Wesley Little, but when Breanna noticed him acting strangely, they fired him.

    That was in 2019.  Then, on July 25, 2020, Breanna receives a troubling call from her mother in Montana.  Vicki told her daughter that there was a post on Facebook by a woman who said that a man had run off with her 15-year-old daughter.  The man was the handyman, Wesley Little, they had hired and fired.

    Later comes a knock at the door.  It’s Little, and he has a teenage girl with him.  He says that he needs to stay there, and a place to park his car.  Breanna replies that he can park in the garage after she pulls her own car out.

    Breanna does, then drives to a Walmart parking lot and phones her mother.  They call the McKinney police.

   Officers meet Breanna in the parking lot.  She describes what happened and gives them the keys to the house and her garage door opener, along with the code to the lock on the back gate.

    The McKinney SWAT team comes to the house.  After hours, the girl escapes.  She tells the cops that Little is armed and won't come out.

    Rather than using the house key and garage door opener which Breanna had provided, the SWAT team decides to use "shock and awe," as one officer later described it.  So, instead of pushing a button to raise the garage door, they blow through it with explosives.  Likewise, rather than opening the gate with the code which Breanna furnished, a SWAT team armored vehicle runs over the fence.

    The officers fire about 30 tear gas canisters into the house.  Once inside, they find that Little had committed suicide.  It's not clear whether he had been overshocked or overawed.  Or both.

    Breanna's dog, who also had been in the house, survived.  But the explosions had rendered him blind and deaf.

 

    You be the judge of whether the SWAT team chose wisely in deciding to blast its way into the house.  And did the officers really have to fire 30 tear gas canisters into it?  Or were they so immersed in the moment they just got carried away?

    The McKinney SWAT team is highly trained in doing what SWAT teams do.  The officers can shoot and blow things up.  In fact,  they won the 2017 SWAT team competition sponsored by the Texas Tactical Police Officers Association.

     The McKinney SWAT team appears to excel at skills such as shooting and climbing.  But I have to wonder:  Have they received any training in how to decide when to blow up a garage door and when they should just use the garage door opener?

    Although a buyer had signed a contract to purchase the Baker home, it now was worth $50,000 less.  The deal was off.  And the city wouldn't pay for the damage. 

    This month, the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit law firm representing the Bakers, sued the City of Greenwood.  The legal battle has just begun, but the tenacious lawyers at the Institute are known to take cases all the way to the Supreme Court when necessary.

  We'll keep you posted.

April 25, 2021

 ANOTHER SWAT TEAM DAMAGES HOME

 

(ROANOKE, VIRGINIA)  An attorney has filed a lawsuit against five officers of the Roanoke, Virginia police department alleging that they retaliated against her for winning a murder case.  Her complaint in federal court alleges that a SWAT team caused needless damage to her home, and that one cop lied on an affidavit to obtain the search warrant which authorized the raid.

Along with two other defense attorneys, Cathy Reynolds represented her stepson, who was on trial for murder.  It took the jury only an hour and a half to reach a "not guilty" verdict.

Reynolds is black.  The other two lawyers are white.  Her lawsuit alleged that the police department only targeted her for retaliation.

Along with the Roanoke Police Department, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also participated in the raid.   We'll have more details in a future post.