Abuse of Power Thread (Cops, Governments, Etc.) - Part 1

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Cops Say Video of Them Mocking a Disabled Woman Violates Their Privacy

This past June, three Santa Ana police officers were suspended after a video surfaced of them joking about kicking a woman in a wheelchair “in the f***ing nub” and eating (what appears to be) weed-infused edibles during a raid of a medical marijuana dispensary. And now, those same cops want to ban that video from ever becoming evidence—because they didn’t realize they were on camera.

In the video (which has been edited by the store’s attorneys), cops in masks are seen busting into what was an unlicensed dispensary. After escorting a patient with an amputated leg in a wheelchair out the door, one man asks a female officer “Did you punch that one legged old Benita?” To which the cop responds, “I was about to kick her in her f***ing nub.”

At another point, the cops can be seen attempting to dismantle the various video cameras set up around the store. Clearly they didn’t do a very thorough job.

And it’s this shoddy attempt at shielding themselves from any prying eyes that they’re using as their argument for privacy violation. According to the cops’ attorney’s, because they’d thought they’d destroyed all the store’s video cameras, “all police personnel present had a reasonable expectation that their conversations were no longer being recorded and the undercover officers, feeling that they were safe to do so, removed their masks.”

But as Matthew Papas, Sky High’s lawyer, pointed out to the OC Register, police regularly use video evidence in their own investigations:

It’s pretty pathetic for police to say if we don’t like something that it can’t be used as evidence... They knew they were on video. Just because they missed one camera doesn’t make it illegal.​

But in the cops’ defense, it’s probably easy to miss a video camera or two when you’re that incredibly high.

http://gawker.com/cops-say-video-of-them-mocking-a-disabled-woman-violate-1722058307

Vid at the link. What a pathetic excuse from these cops

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

For Inmates in Solitary, "It's Like Time Broke"

It has become increasingly accepted to regard long-term solitary confinement of prisoners as torture. A new report from a psychologist who interviewed prisoners in long-term isolation adds to the bracing literature about how our prison system routinely destroys humans.

The New York Times today writes about a new report on solitary by psychologist Craig Haney, who has, over the past 20 years, interviewed men held in the supermax Pelican Bay prison in California. Haney’s full report, which he prepared in connection with a lawsuit challenging isolation practices in Pelican Bay, says that solitary places prisoners “at grave risk of psychological harm,” and is a document that lays out in painful detail just how pronounced that harm can be.

Haney notes that the American Psychological Association defines “long term” solitary as lasting four weeks or more—a time exceeded by orders of magnitude by many American prisoners who have suffered in solitary for years. Studies of prison isolation have found that it produces symptoms including “anxiety, withdrawal, hypersensitivity, ruminations, cognitive dysfunction, hallucinations, loss of control, irritability, aggression, rage, paranoia, hopelessness, a sense of impending emotional breakdown, self mutilation, and suicidal ideation and behavior.”

The Pelican Bay prisoners Haney spoke to spend nearly 23 hours a day in 80 square-foot cells, with little human contact and no view of the outside world. Nearly 30% of those he interviewed last year—some of whom have spent two decades living under the same conditions—reported having suicidal thoughts.

Here are just a few examples of what these men said about their lives, from Haney’s report:

For example, one prisoner (Prisoner A) who had been housed continuously in the PBSHU since 1989 (except for a brief one month period) told me that he had only one visit (in 2004) during that entire 24 year period. He said that although he had not received any CDCR Rules Violation Reports (commonly referred to as “115s”) since 1997, he nonetheless remained housed on the “short corridor” with other prisoners whom the CDCR has judged to be gang members. As he put it, “Anything we do as validated gang members is interpreted as continuing evidence of gang activity.” When I asked him one of the specific symptom questions having to do with “irrational anger” (i.e., getting any over insignificant things or for no reason) he answered emphatically “no,” and then explained, “I am angry a lot but I know why.” He described being depressed all the time, telling me “this is it—it gets to you. [There are] very few signs of hope or things to look forward to.” He also told me that he has become withdrawn,discourages people from coming to see him, rarely initiates conversation or contact and “I just don’t feel comfortable around people.” He also told me that “every day I struggle with mental survival.”​

Another:

Another prisoner (Prisoner B), who had been housed in the PBSHU continuously since June, 1990, told me that he has not had any violent 115s since being housed at the facility and that all of his write-ups have been for relatively minor things like talking in the law library or participating in the recent hunger strike. He said his last social visit from anyone from the outside world occurred about 15 years ago, when his wife came to see him sometime around 1998. He told me that he struggles against “isolation psychosis” and that “I fight against what is happening to me.” He analogized the gradual but nonetheless damaging changes that have taken place in him this way: “If they put me in Chernobyl and gave me food and a TV and left me alone it wouldn’t mean that the radioactive environment wasn’t making me sick.”​

Another:

Another prisoner (Prisoner D) who had been in the PBSHU continuously since 1990, and had been in isolated confinement for several years before that, spoke at length about the asociality that had come about as a result of so many years of social deprivation. He described himself as once having been “a people person,” but now finds that there are “many times I don’t want any part of people. ‘Keep quiet and leave me alone’—that’s my motto. Don’t bother me and I will do the same.” He elaborated: “Just leave me alone. I have no wife, no children… leave me to do my time. That’s all we can do in here.” He was acutely aware of how profoundly he had been changed by the long-term social isolation to which he had been subjected. He told me: “I have not been around people for28 years. I only knew my family for 18 [before he came to prison]. I don’t feel close to them or [to my] homeboys, as messed up as that sounds. Even if they died…” and then his voice trailed off.​

And another:

(Prisoner K) told me he had come into the prison system while still in his teens, and had spent most of his 19 years in prison in isolated confinement, including the last approximately 16 years housed continuously in the PBSHU. He said, “I grew up in here. It’s all I know. I have nothing to compare it to. It’s like time broke… I watch people lose it. I say, ‘Idon’t want to be like that.’ [It’s] a constant struggle to stay sane… The hardestthing about this place is maintaining control of yourself against the pressure…You are trying to control chaos in a controlled space.”

But he had spent so much time spent in isolation that the experience had taken a toll, one that he clearly recognized: “I’m barely able to associate. I don’t relate to my family. I don’t understand the world. I don’tremember what my house looked like, what my sister looks like. I am completelyuncomfortable in the social world.”

If you have any doubt that our prison system is slowly torturing and mentally destroying prisoners using isolation practices, please read Haney’s entire report.

https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/07/Redacted_Haney Expert Report.pdf

It's insane they are allowed to do this to people for years on end. I get they have to do this to some violent lifers who just don't care but the majority of the folks they are doing this to is just wrong

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Alabama Cop Kept His Job After Musing About Murdering Black Man

An Alexander City, Alabama, police officer was recorded speculating about murdering a black man named Vincent Bias, and kept his job after the incident, the Guardian reports.

“If he f***ing hit me or threatened my life, I would f***ing kill that motherf***er with whatever I had in that f***ing house,” officer Troy Middlebrooks can be heard saying on the recording. “And before the police got here, I’d f***ing put marks all over my s*** and make it look like he was trying to f***ing kill me...What would it look like? Self f***ing defense.”

Middlebrooks was speaking to Bias’ brother-in-law in May 2013, who began recording after the officer allegedly referred to Bias as “that n****r.” (The brother-in-law is white.) Middlebrooks was apparently upset that Bias, whom he had reportedly arrested on drug charges, had been released on bail, and made the comment after insinuating that Bias had acted violently toward his family. The murder-and-coverup plot was offered as an example of what Middlebrooks would do if he were in the brother-in-law’s situation.

The city paid Bias $35,000 to settle a lawsuit stemming from the tape, according to the Guardian.

Alexander City police chief Willie Robinson told the Guardian that Middlebrooks was “disciplined” over the incident. He was not terminated from the force, however, and remains on patrol today. According to the Guardian, Middlebroks was the first Alexander City officer to the scene after Tommy Manness shot and killed Emerson Crayton, an unarmed black man, in March 2014. Manness claimed that Crayton was attempting to hit Manness with his car, and was found not at fault for the killing.

Robinson defended Middlebrooks to the Guardian, stating that the cop was “just talking” and didn’t mean what he said. He also stressed that Middlebrooks said he’d murder Bias if he were Bias’ brother-in-law, not that he’d do it himself. “He wasn’t saying that he was going to do that,” Robinson said. “He was talking about the man doing it himself.”

http://gawker.com/alabama-cop-kept-his-job-after-musing-about-murdering-b-1722001315

Recording at the link. WHy would they want to keep a person like this on their force?

 

[Docker2.0]

Alabama bro. I've been to that state. They have nooses and confederate flags everywhere and yet the minorities look at you like you are wrong when you say something about it.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

San Francisco Cop Convicted of Assaulting Homeless Man in Hospital

A San Francisco Sheriff’s deputy was convicted of assault on Tuesday in connection with a 2014 incident where the officer choked and beat a cane-using homeless man, Reuters reports.

“No one is above the law, most of all those who enforce it,” said District Attorney George Gascón in a statement. “What is even more troubling is that this occurred at a hospital.”

Prosecutors say 34-year-old Michael Robert Lewelling now faces up to three years in prison for attacking 59-year-old Fernando Guanill at San Francisco General Hospital in November of last year. From SF Gate:

Lewelling was assigned to the sheriff’s patrol unit at the hospital when 59-year-old Fernando Guanill arrived early for an appointment regarding knee replacement surgery, and fell asleep.

Lewelling filed a report saying that when he asked him to leave, Guanill tried to attack him with his wooden cane and threatened to hurt him if he touched him. Guanill was jailed, but prosecutors, suspecting wrongdoing, declined to file charges and requested video evidence.

The video, said Assistant District Attorney Nancy Tung, showed Lewelling acting as the aggressor, and Guanill seemingly complying with his orders to leave.​

In December, Lewelling was charged with felony assault under the color of authority, misdemeanor assault, perjury, filing a false police report, filing a false official document and felony assault, but was acquitted today of all but the first two charges.

Lewelling’s sentencing is scheduled for October 7.

http://gawker.com/san-francisco-cop-convicted-of-assaulting-homeless-man-1722165091

Scumbag

 

[Kar]

Cop shoots and kills 19 year old in South Carolina...and the officer lied about what happened

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/05/zachary-hammond-autopsy-police-killing-south-carolina

 

[Teelie]

Unfortunately. Seriously though, why is not signalling a lane change an arrest-able offense? Ticket-able, sure. Hell, give more tickets to people that don't signal, but getting cuffs slapped on and going to jail? Over a ****ing turn signal?

UPDATE: Video of Sam DuBose's Death Drastically Different From the Police Report

http://gawker.com/video-of-sam-duboses-death-drastically-different-from-t-1720896658

Video is at the link

UPDATE: U. of Cincinnati Cop Who Killed Sam DuBose Pleads Not Guilty to Murder


http://gawker.com/u-of-cincinnati-cop-who-killed-sam-dubose-pleads-not-g-1721061439

Video of him in court at the link

Well it definitely didn't prevent a cop from killing an innocent man in Cincinnati

This is a man literally caught on camera committing murder, lying about it, having his friends lie about it then trying to plead innocent to committing the crime. If there wasn't a camera recording it proving he and his fellow officers lied then he would have gotten away with it.

And then we still have people thinking cops are deserving of privacy even as they violate ours and our civil rights.

More cameras are necessary to record what the police are doing, not what innocent civilians going about their business are doing.

The full video of Dubose and Tensing has been released.

Also, due to donations, Tensing made his $1 million bail.

And these people are either racists or incredibly blind supporters of the police to the point they can't accept he's a murderer. There was absolutely no excuse for him to pull his gun and shoot that man in the head.

Cop shoots and kills 19 year old in South Carolina...and the officer lied about what happened

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/05/zachary-hammond-autopsy-police-killing-south-carolina

And we see again why the police have earned their distrust. If they were subjected to more scrutiny from people NOT covering for them I can only imagine how frequently they commit crimes of their own.

 

[Lencho01]

12 Videos That Show The Difference Between What Cops Said And What Actually Happened

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

I'm sure there are much more out there that have never seen the light of day

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

Just think how much this happens every day.

Well I believe God is keeping score so it doesn't matter much. Everyone faces judgment eventually.

 

[Lencho01]

Here Are the Most Damning Portions From the Big Darren Wilson New Yorker Profile

 

[Teelie]

South Carolina officer shoots unarmed white teen during pot bust

You think you've heard this story before. A young, unarmed man is gunned down by police, black activists are outraged -- the only difference with this scenario is that the young man is not black, he's white.

Nineteen-year-old Zachary Hammond was on a date July 26 when he was fatally shot twice by a police officer while at the back parking lot of a Hardee's fast food restaurant in Seneca, a city 40 miles from Greenville, near the North Carolina border, according to Eric Bland, the attorney representing the teen's family.

The Seneca Police Department said the officer was conducting a drug investigation and shot Hammond in self-defense.

"He was a uniformed officer, he was in a marked vehicle, was out of his vehicle on foot approaching the suspect vehicle -- weapon drawn given it was a narcotics type violation," Seneca Police Chief John Covington said to CNN affiliate WHNS.

A small amount of marijuana was found in the front passenger's compartment in Hammond's car.

"He was a 19-year-old, 121-pound kid killed basically for a joint," Bland said.

Tori Morton, who was on the date with Hammond, was arrested on charges of simple possession of marijuana. It was an amount, Bland said, that did not warrant such excessive police force.

"This is about the use of overreaching deadly force in situations where it is not required," Bland said.

Covington said the officer was attempting to arrest Hammond when the teen accelerated the car and drove toward the officer, prompting the officer to shoot in self-defense.

The Oconee County Coroner's Office performed an autopsy on Tuesday and confirmed that Hammond was shot twice and had wounds consistent with a .45 caliber handgun that was used by the Seneca Police. Hammond suffered one gunshot wound to the collar bone-shoulder region and one wound to the chest, which was fatal, according to the report. The autopsy ruled that Hammond's death was a homicide.

The report did not state if Hammond's gunshot wounds were consistent with his vehicle moving at the time of the shooting.

Bland said Hammond's wounds indicate the vehicle was not moving, and the teen was shot on the rear of his shoulder and on the side of his chest. The Hammond family commissioned an independent autopsy, which found the teen's gunshot wounds indicated he was shot from behind and at close range.

Covington told WHNS the officer involved in the shooting, who has worked at the Seneca Police Department for more than five years, is on administrative leave. The police department is not releasing the name of the officer, citing safety concerns.

"We will not be releasing the officer's name that was involved in the shooting and consider him a victim of attempted murder as we have previously stated several times," Covington said in a statement Friday.

Hammond's death has not generated the same national outcry as the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and others. Black Lives Matter, an activist community that is working to end what it says is the systematic targeting of black people by police, has been sharing Hammond's story on social media as another example of police brutality while also asking why Hammond's death has not prompted outrage by other groups.

The murder of #ZacharyHammond is awful. You will not see ONE #BlackLivesMatter person trying to say that it is not. Not a one.
— Marquita (@MarqRobinson) August 6, 2015

The majority of folks speaking up for #ZacharyHammond are black people. Imagine that.
— X (@XLNB) August 4, 2015

Only reason I know about #ZacharyHammond is because #BlackLivesMatter activists I follow tweeted his story. ONLY reason
— Pollo Pollo Pollo (@Joe_Schmucc) August 6, 2015

Meredith Clark, an assistant professor at the Mayborn School of Journalism at the University of North Texas who is conducting research on the Black Lives Matter movement, told the Los Angeles Times the lack of outrage over Hammond's death did not appear to be race-related. She said the lack of compelling video or a history of brutality complaints with the police department was more of a reason the story did not reach national levels.
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division has taken over the investigation and collected the handgun as evidence.

Kathryn Richardson, a spokeswoman for SLED, said the investigation is continuing. Richardson also confirmed there is dashcam video of the incident but would not say when it would be released.

CNN

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Will be interesting to see what the dash cam shows

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

It will be interesting how this will refocus the Black Lives Matter movement.

Hopefully they'll fight to reform drug laws.

Or maybe they'd be too partisan to be helpful.

 

[Teelie]

Cops filmed behaving badly say pot shop’s camera illegally recorded raid

Had there been no "illegal" recording of their crimes, there would be no crime to report. This is actually what they claim (referenced here) because no other officer would have ratted out their fellow officers breaking the law and would not back up any of the other eye-witness accounts of what they did.

Did you hear the one about the cops not wanting to use a store's surveillance tape to help solve a crime?

Who could blame these Santa Ana cops? Video shows them smashing surveillance cameras, harassing a woman in a wheelchair, and perhaps even munching on marijuana-infused products after they stormed a medical marijuana shop in Southern California, which was being investigated for allegedly operating unlawfully in the city.

Three of the unidentified cops are demanding that a judge block the police department from using the tapes against them as the department investigates the officers' conduct during the May raid. The cops at the center of the investigation say the Sky High Medical Marijuana Dispensary illegally recorded them because the officers believed they had disabled all the store's cameras and therefore had an expectation of privacy "that their conversations were no longer being recorded," according to the cops Aug. 5 lawsuit. The suit says the tapes were also "edited" and cannot be relied upon.

A hearing on the issue is scheduled for Monday in Orange County Superior Court.

The dispensary's attorney, Matthew Pappas, said in a telephone interview with Ars that "there is nothing doctored in those videos. Those videos are what the officers did."

"If officers concerned about the video showing something done being bad by them, they should not have broken the law during the raid," Pappas said.

The video shows the officers breaking through the door, ordering everybody down to the ground at gunpoint. The officers are also recorded playing darts and perhaps eating edible marijuana products. Two of them also joked about a wheelchair-bound amputee who was at the shop.

"Did you punch that one-legged old Benita?" one officer says.

Another replied: "I was about to kick her in her ****ing nub:"

Pappas said he released two edited, short versions of the tapes to the media, one of which had added subtitles. But there is 14 hours worth of raw footage he turned over to the Santa Ana internal affairs investigators.

The three police officers trying to quash the tape contend the recording was illegal because, under California law, all parties to a confidential communication must consent to the recording.

Pappas said there are signs throughout the store notifying patrons that they were being monitored on video.

"This is outrageous," he said.

Pappas is suing the department in federal court on behalf of the marijuana collective, and some of its patrons. The collective claims officers "were intentionally destructive and destroyed video surveillance equipment, safes, furniture, fixtures, doors, and other property at the collective." What's more, during the raid, "officers consumed food products that were the property of the collective," according to the suit.

Some of the patrons allege they "were detained for hours and placed in fear by officers."

Ars Technica

 

[KevanG]

Yep, they totally had their illegal doings recorded after trying to make sure no one could record them doing them. Is that illegal? I'm not a lawyer except in internet justice so someone let me know.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

I think you're supposed to tell cops their being recorded before you can legally record them.

Though I'm not sure that applies to private property.

It also might vary state to state.

 

[Lencho01]

I already doubt anything will come from either of these situations.

 

[RockSP]

Can't post a link because of the language but just look on youtube for "Cop Harasses Disabled Veteran for No Reason".

These @#%& are out of control

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

As a vet myself that really pisses me off

 

[Hotwire]

Can't post a link because of the language but just look on youtube for "Cop Harasses Disabled Veteran for No Reason".

These @#%& are out of control

The cop went to far but, the stop was legitimate. The way you describe it made it sound like the cop just walked up to a guy in a wheelchair and started giving him s***. That's not what happened.

 

[RockSP]

The cop went to far but, the stop was legitimate. The way you describe it made it sound like the cop just walked up to a guy in a wheelchair and started giving him s***. That's not what happened.

Lol...you mean describing it by the name of the video on youtube? And the cop going too far is the point. Dude has a handicapped placard and the right to park in the spot. Breaking his phone and the continued harassment are not okay. The cop is completely in the wrong.

.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

edit

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

NYPD Union Uses Flickr in Innovative New Push to Shame the Homeless

A Flickr account operated by the union representing New York Police Department sergeants has spent the last week or so prolifically shaming the city’s most destitute residents. So far, the Sergeants Benevolent Association has posted 241 photos of homeless New Yorkers, some alongside “funny” captions about their subjects.

The SBA initiative, incredibly, is called “Peek-a-Boo, We See You!”, according to the New York Post. One photo, of a person holding their head in their arms behind a sign that says “Hungry, Broke, Travelin’,” is captioned “disgusting.” Another, of a man sleeping on the sidewalk, reads “bed and breakfast.” A third photo is captioned “progressive agenda”—an apparent swipe at the policies of Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The Post, no slouch itself when it comes to publicly embarrassing the incredibly poor for a few cheap political points, reports that SBA president Ed Mullins is hoping to use the initiative to critique the de Blasio administration and strike back against the trend of citizens recording the police.

Noting that more cops are being recorded on the job, Mullins wrote, “Shouldn’t accountability go both ways?”

“We, the ‘Good Guys,’ are sworn to protect our citizens. Shouldn’t our public officials be held to the same standard?” he said.

...

Mullins said he was responding to the past two years of “failed policies, more homeless encampments on city streets, a 10 percent increase in homicides, and the diminishing of our hard-earned and well-deserved public perception of the safest large city in America.”​

Mullins correctly notes that it’s against NYPD policy for cops to photograph the public while on duty, but encourages members to send in photos “while traveling to and from work or any time off duty.” If you happen to see an officer in uniform pulling out his smartphone to snap a hilarious pic of someone sleeping on the sidewalk, we encourage you to take your own photo of the scene. And in the spirit of “Peek-a-Boo, We See You!”, why not send it to us?

http://gawker.com/nypd-union-uses-flickr-in-innovative-new-push-to-shame-1723474170

What a bunch of a**holes

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Olsen Twins Sued by Intern Who Claims She Worked 50 Hours a Week for No Pay

A former intern for Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s Dualstar Entertainment is suing the Olsens, claiming she worked 50-hour weeks under horrible conditions and was offered neither pay nor college credit in return. Shahista Lalani was in the nightmare position for four months in 2012, and says she and her fellow interns did the same work as some full-time employees.

Lalani says her duties for the Olsens’ fashion line, The Row, included photocopying, sewing, cleaning, and running personal errands, and that the work never stopped: “I was talking to [the head technical designer] all day, all night,” she said in the suit, “Other interns have cried. I’d see a lot of kids crying doing coffee runs, photocopying stuff.”

In one particularly egregious example, she claimed she had to go to the hospital for dehydration after attempting to carry “like 50 pounds worth of trench coats” in 100-degree weather and “sweating to death.”

Lalani is seeking to start a class action suit that 40 other unpaid Olsen interns would be eligible to join, alleging they were owed at least minimum wage and overtime for essentially replacing employees that Dualstar would have otherwise had to pay.

The former intern is now a fashion designer whose website bio says, “interning with Zac Posen as well as The Row greatly impacted her knowledge about the local garment district and ethical manufacturing processes as well as mastering care and quality in design.”

Her suit also notes that she rarely interacted with the Olsens directly, and that they weren’t the ones making interns cry and sweat to death. “They’re really nice people,” she said. “They were never mean to anyone. They’re business people.”

Mary-Kate and Ashley are believed to be worth a combined $300 million.

http://defamer.gawker.com/olsen-twins-sued-by-intern-who-claims-she-worked-50-hou-1723375495

I know they're hurting for money so it makes sense they wouldn't compensate them