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

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Justice with facts is the most important thing.
 
It's situational. I've seen a lot of wrong doing claims that can be questionable when only catching 2% of an event on camera, completely disregarding the rest of events. Justice with facts and clear validity is super important.
 
My favorite quote from the prototype series.....
Blackwatch Soldier said:
"I can make it look like you got killed by a German shepherded and a clown in a circus."
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The government can pick and chose what they want....
 
DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs said:
Most police are good men and women doing an extremely difficult job with little thanks. We only hear about the bad ones but there are plenty of good ones that serve
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Power like that can make anyone corrupt.
 
Beyonder said:
Power like that can make anyone corrupt.
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I don't disagree with that but the vast majority of police are good people and they do the right thing most of the time. The problem is the 24/7 news cycle demands constant ratings and nothing gets people watching like stories of people doing bad in the world. Cop does the right thing isnt a headline that gets people's attention yet it happens daily
 
My problem is even the good cops will cover up for the bad cops because they are punished if they oust their corrupt fellow officers.
 
Teelie said:
My problem is even the good cops will cover up for the bad cops because they are punished if they oust their corrupt fellow officers.
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This! Corrupt cops will plant bad stuff on the good cops and then use it as collateral.
 
How does this get "cleared" as a shooting?

Brian Rendon, the officer responsible for firing the shots, claimed that the girl attacked him with a knife or a pair of scissors, and that he shot her in self-defense. However, security camera footage does not show the girl attacking the officers or being aggressive in any way, the footage simply shows her hiding, crouching down on the ground on her knees.

To make matters even more suspicious, Clay was first shot in the stomach before Rendon fired the fatal gunshot to her head. Additionally, all of the officers on the scene have conflicting reports as to whether Clay was resisting after she was shot the first time.

Rendon was eventually cleared by an internal affairs investigation, but Clay’s mother filed a lawsuit against the police and the county in 2013.

The evidence, according to U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell, shows that the officers were possibly lying about the incident, and that Rendon likely used excessive force on the teenager.

“Rendon’s shot to Ms. Clay’s head was unreasonable because she was on her knees, she had already been shot in the stomach, and she was no longer resisting,” Bell said in court.

“This incident was an unfortunate tragedy for everyone involved. Nonetheless, we strenuously disagree with Judge Bell’s ruling and stand by the findings of the external MSP investigation and Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings, both of which concluded that the officer’s actions were justified given the circumstances he faced,” Police Chief Mike Yankowski said in a statement.

It is true that Clay had no business being in the bank uninvited. However, that does not justify the actions of the police officers on the scene when acting as judge, jury and executioner.

The security footage below shows the girl merely hiding from police and not being aggressive in any way:
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Oh right, the armed police officer was in danger of a gut-shot, unarmed 17 year old girl who was on her knees. That totally makes sense. What could possibly be more dangerous?
 
More details about the two cops accused of killing the 6 year old kid.

There were two accusations of rape against one and multiple accusations of excessive force against both.

Whether the accusations are true or not is hard to say. Being cops there is a presumption of either guilt or innocence (they abused the badge or they were false accusations made by those who they arrested) depending on your view of police ethics.

With the media storm around how some police have been caught misbehaving and given their current situation a lot of people might be inclined to assume they are rapists and abusers but neither has seen the inside of a court room as defendants before now to know.

Excessive force can be a murky claim. What is excessive to one person might not be to another. Raping/coercing someone for sex is not so murky.

Greenhouse also knew the father although the nature of that relationship was not detailed, I'm going to safely assume it was not friendly.

Officers' history

At least one of the two officers was accused of a crime before.

According to The Town Talk newspaper in Alexandria, Louisiana, Stafford was indicted in 2011 on two counts of aggravated rape. The Town Talk reported that both cases were dismissed without prejudice in 2012. One of the incidents dated back to 2004. The other occurred while Stafford was employed by the Marksville Police Department, where he has worked for eight years.

Neither the Marksville Police Department nor Stafford's family have responded to CNN's requests for comment regarding those cases.

Stafford has been named as a defendant in five civil lawsuits, including at least one related to the use of excessive force. That particular case is still pending.

Greenhouse Jr. has also been named in a civil lawsuit related to the use of excessive force. That case is still pending.

Both men were working second jobs as city marshals when the shooting happened. Greenhouse is a full-time Marksville police lieutenant and Stafford is a marshal in Alexandria, Edmonson said.

According to a CNN review of both officers' records, neither has ever been convicted of a crime.
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CNN
 
What's even more disturbing is the attempted cover up by police and government officials.

A cop went into Burger King and erased all footage of the incident. He was caught on video doing it.

Then the police came up with a fake story that the suspect lunged at them with a knife.

Why aren't there laws against police who conduct cover ups???

Isn't that an obstruction of justice?
 
There are. They just get enforced by cops. Usually the same ones that cover them up in the first place.
 
I think there should be laws specifically made for law enforcement who hide or lie about evidence that could be used against them.

Police unions will oppose any such measure of course.
 
Jason Van Dyke's Charging Documents Reveal Just How Massively Full of Crap the Fraternal Order of Police Can Be

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DNAinfo Chicago’s big scoop today was the sickening dashcam video of the murder of Laquan McDonald. Earlier this afternoon, they also released the charging documents, which lay out the case against Officer Jason Van Dyke.

The documents detail Van Dyke’s unprovoked shooting of McDonald, but also shed some light on the extent to which civilian witnesses were vastly more honest and trustworthy in their accounts of the shooting than were police, whose initial story delivered the usual line about a young black shooting victim inexplicably charging armed cops, who feared for their lives.

First, the shooting:

An analysis of the video establishes that 14 to 15 seconds passed from the time defendant fired his first shot to clear visual evidence of a final shot. For approximately 13 of those seconds, McDonald is lying on the ground. Of the eight or more officers on the scene, only defendant fired his weapon.

[...]

According to the Cook County Medical Examiner, McDonald was shot 16 times and that the multiple gunshot wounds caused his death. He suffered wounds to his scalp, neck, left chest, right chest, left elbow (2), left forearm, right upper arm (4), right hand, right upper leg (2), left upper back, and right lower back. Toxicology test results showed that there was PCP in his system.

Only two of these wounds can be definitively linked to the time when McDonald was standing: the right lower back, and one of the right upper leg shots. Only the shot to McDonald’s right hand can definitively be linked to the time when McDonald was on the ground. Two of the shots would have been rapidly fatal, although none was immediately fatal. The Medical Examiner determined that the manner of McDonald’s death was homicide.

Defendant was on the scene for less than 30 seconds before he started shooting, in addition to the fact that he starts shooting approximately six seconds after having gotten out of his car.

[...]

The video clearly does not show McDonald advancing on defendant. None of the officers have reported that they saw anything substantially different from what the video shows at the time of the first shot. None of the officers observed McDonald attempt to throw his knife at defendant, jump or lunge toward Van Dyke, raise his knife as if to stab defendant, or did anything that was obviously threatening toward defendant beyond what was depicted in the video and not responding to commands while carrying a knife.​

OK, so, here’s the account of the shooting given by Pat Camden of the Fraternal Order of Police, back in October 2014, when the video was safely under the protection of Chicago’s legal justice apparatus:

“He’s got a 100-yard stare. He’s staring blankly,” Camden said of the teen. “[He] walked up to a car and stabbed the tire of the car and kept walking.”

Officers remained in their car and followed McDonald as he walked south on Pulaski Road. More officers arrived and police tried to box the teen in with two squad cars, Camden said. McDonald punctured one of the squad car’s front passenger-side tires and damaged the front windshield, police and Camden said.

Officers got out of their car and began approaching McDonald, again telling him to drop the knife, Camden said. The boy allegedly lunged at police, and one of the officers opened fire.

McDonald was shot in the chest and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:42 p.m. He lived in the 500 block of North Springfield Avenue, about 5 miles from where he was shot.

Camden said a knife was recovered from the scene. A statement from Police News Affairs said no officers were injured.

Camden said none of the officers who responded had a Taser to use on the teen and were trying to detain him long enough for one to arrive. He said officers were forced to defend themselves.

“When police tell you to drop a weapon, all you have to do is drop it,” Camden said.​

Now, accounts from civilian eyewitnesses, as recounted in the charging documents:

Individual A was a motorist stopped in traffic on Pulaski when he saw McDonald walking in the street immediately before he was shot. Individual A described McDonald as looking for a way to get away from police. According to Individual A, McDonald never moved toward, lunged at, or did anything threatening towards the officers before he was shot and fell to the ground. Individual A heard a pause in the shots after McDonald fell to the ground, but then heard more shots. Individual A also did not see McDonald do anything threatening while lying on the ground that would cause the officer to continue shooting him.

Individual B was a passenger in Individual A’s vehicle. Individual B saw defendant shoot McDonald who fell to the ground. There was about a four second pause when Individual B saw McDonald move “a little” while lying on the ground and then defendant fired another 5-6 rounds. It appeared to Individual B that McDonald was moving away from the defendant when defendant fired his first shot. Individual B did not see McDonald charge the officers or do anything threatening to them before he was shot.​

So, this guy from the Fraternal Order of Police isn’t necessarily representative of all police. Nor is Van Dyke. And these eyewitnesses aren’t necessarily representative of all eyewitnesses. Sure. Hashtag Not All Police.

The same people arguing for months to keep the video out of the public eye were also spending that time influencing the public to believe Laquan McDonald attacked police. If they’d had their way, none of us would ever have been the wiser.
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http://gawker.com/jason-van-dykes-charging-documents-reveal-just-how-mass-1744553077

It's insane that an officer can execute someone in front of several cops and witnesses and it takes years to even bring charges against him. I read another article that said police showed up to a Burger King and erased an hour and a half of footage of the events as well
 
Chicago officer had history of complaints before Laquan McDonald shooting

There is clear and undeniable evidence this man is a killer yet his fellow officers not only support him but they tried to erase the evidence proving it. He had over 20 complaints filed against him, no action taken.

And cops wonder why the public distrusts them and thinks they are corrupt, abusive and everyone is scared to be around them... could it be they can literally do whatever they want and their fellow officers will cover for them?

Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago police officer charged in Laquan McDonald's shooting death, had a history of complaints before he gunned down the 17-year-old last year -- and in almost every case, he was cleared in one way or another.

The allegations mostly involve excessive force, and at least one complaint alleges he used a racial slur.

There appear to be no criminal proceedings against Van Dyke before this week, but a jury did award a Chicago man $350,000 after determining Van Dyke employed excessive force during a traffic stop. (The city of Chicago also gave McDonald's mother, who had not yet filed a lawsuit, $5 million in April).

Little is available in the way of biographical information on Van Dyke, who grew up in the Chicago area.

What's known is he has two children -- 9 and 14 -- and a wife, Tiffany. Despite GoFundMe removing her page this week, his wife is attempting to raise money for her husband's legal defense. She calls him "a highly decorated and respected officer."

Before Tuesday, Van Dyke had remained with the Chicago Police Department on limited duty since the October 2014 shooting. A judge's ruling that a graphic video of McDonald's death must be released to the public spurred Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez to announce a first-degree murder charge earlier than she had planned, she said.

Outraged that it took 13 months to charge the officer, largely peaceful demonstrators took to the Windy City's streets Tuesday to demand justice in McDonald's death.

Tale of the tape

Van Dyke turned himself in to authorities Tuesday, a few hours before video of him gunning down McDonald was made public. According to the dashboard camera footage and a criminal complaint filed in Cook County Circuit Court, Van Dyke responded to the scene and remained in his car for more than 20 seconds as McDonald, armed with a knife and with PCP in his system, approached police cars in the street before veering away from officers who had their guns trained on him.

None of the eight or more officers on the scene fired their weapons, but within six seconds of exiting his vehicle, Van Dyke began unloading the 16-round magazine in his 9 mm pistol. McDonald was about 10 feet away when he opened fire.

Only two of those shots, one to the lower back and another to the upper leg, were definitively fired while McDonald was still standing, according to the criminal complaint. And though it states that only a single shot to McDonald's right hand was definitively fired after he hit the asphalt, it also notes that he was on the ground for about 13 of the 14 or 15 seconds that it took Van Dyke to empty his clip.

Attorney Daniel Herbert, who has repeatedly told CNN that Van Dyke feared for his life, says the video hardly tells the entire story.

"Video by nature is two-dimensional, and it distorts images," he said. "So what appears to be clear on a video sometimes is not always that clear."

The criminal complaint paints Van Dyke's response as excessive -- an allegation his lawyer has denied -- and it isn't the first time Van Dyke was accused of using unnecessary force.

On at least 20 occasions in Van Dyke's 14-year career, citizens have filed complaints against Van Dyke, according to the Citizens Police Data Project, a database of misconduct complaints filed against more than 8,500 Chicago police officers. The database, a collaboration between the Invisible Institute and the University of Chicago Law School's Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, is not comprehensive and represents only three data sets spanning 2002 to 2008 and 2011 to 2015.

To put the complaints against Van Dyke in perspective, the Chicago Police Department has about 12,000 officers. Like Van Dyke, 402 officers have 20 or more complaints on file in the database. The most complaints against any officer, according to the database, is 68.

The database shows that of the 20 complaints against Van Dyke none resulted in discipline.

Five complaints in the database were "not sustained," five were unfounded, four resulted in exoneration, five had unknown outcomes and one resulted in no action taken.

Code of silence?

Though Van Dyke is considered to have a below-average "allegation rate," according to the database, at least one member of the organization that put the clearinghouse together believes the complaints point to a troubling pattern.

"The misconduct complaints we do have in our data tool show by and large excessive force and racial slurs. And he has largely operated with impunity and under a code of silence with the same huddle of officers again and again," Alison Flowers of the Invisible Institute told CNN affiliate WLS.

Van Dyke has also faced at least two lawsuits alleging excessive force during his time on the force. One was dismissed, but in the other, a jury ruled for the plaintiff in a civil case accusing Van Dyke and his partner of excessive force, assault, battery and illegal seizure.

According to the complaint, Edward Nance, an African-American, was driving with his cousin, Carlton Clark, on July 9, 2007. Van Dyke and his partner pulled the pair over.

Van Dyke painfully cuffed Nance, injuring his shoulders, before pulling him out of the car, the complaint said. The car was impounded after Clark was arrested for possession of marijuana. No criminal charges were filed against Nance, but he had to go the hospital and required surgeries on his shoulders, according to the complaint.

A jury awarded Nance $350,000, and a judge tacked on $180,000 for Nance's legal fees, court records show.

CNN's attempts to reach Nance were not immediately successful, but the cable company employee and high school basketball referee told the Chicago Tribune earlier this year that he felt the Police Department didn't take his complaint seriously and that Van Dyke and the partner were "back on the street like nothing ever happened."

Told that Van Dyke was under investigation in McDonald's death, Nance said during the April interview that it never should've gone so far.

"It just makes me so sad because it shouldn't have happened. ... He shouldn't have been on the street in the first place after my incident," he told the newspaper. "It makes me feel like it could have been me."

Show of support

Despite Van Dyke's history of past complaints -- and Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy demanding that the officer be held accountable in McDonald's death -- his lawyer, wife and police union are standing beside him.

Chicago's Fraternal Order of Police lodge asked its current and former members Tuesday to contribute to a fund to post Van Dyke's bail, WLS reported. (The same day, a judge ordered he be held without bail until at least Monday.)

The local FOP also directed visitors to its website to a GoFundMe webpage set up by Van Dyke's wife. On it, Tiffany Van Dyke asked for $80,000, saying her husband "was in a shooting that has been covered extensively by the media and we ask for your patience for all the facts to come out in the trial."

She cited her husband's awards and letters of commendation, pleading, "I do not want to have to fight this battle alone nor can we afford to fight it. We desperately need your help. I know this is a very large amount of money, and I have no idea how I could ever begin to thank every one or repay them for their kindness."

As of Wednesday morning, GoFundMe had deactivated the page. Its terms and conditions state the site cannot be used to raise money for "the defense or support of anyone alleged to be involved in criminal activity."

n response, the FOP said on its site, "Anyone wishing to donate to the (James Van Dyke) Bond Fund may do so at any of the four locations of the Chicago Patrolmens' Federal Credit Union."

Herbert, Van Dyke's attorney, has said his client "truly was in fear for his life, as well as the lives of his fellow officers." He further said that McDonald had already "punctured a tire on a police car" when Van Dyke encountered him.

"At the point which my client confronted Mr. McDonald, my client was aware of the fact that the individual (McDonald) had not complied with numerous police orders to drop the knife," Herbert said.

While those watching the tape will have "the brilliance and benefit" of hindsight, the case should be tried in a courtroom, not in the media or the streets, he told reporters Tuesday.

"This is not a murder case, despite what you heard in the courtroom. It's truly not a murder case, and we feel that we will be very successful in defending this case," the attorney said.
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CNN
 
Anyone think Van Dyke is being overcharged with first degree murder to increase the chances of him going free since first degree murder is harder to prove?
 
I'm not sure. I think given the details we've seen and the context presented it was if not first degree murder then second degree murder. He might not have planned to kill anyone that day but he sure seemed to take the oppurtunity to do so when given a chance.
 
The National Security Letter spy tool has been uncloaked, and it’s bad
No warrants needed to get browsing history, online purchase records, and other data.

J. Edgar Hoover would be proud of what the FBI has done to civil rights and the 4th Amendment. Everyone else can just suck it because you can't even legally find out or say you are being NSL'd.

Although you are probably guilty of something if they have to resort to this kind of illegal snooping, right?

We'll just assume whoever they do this to must be guilty. We know the FBI has never abused their power before. Just like the NSA and CIA have never done anything wrong either.

The National Security Letter (NSL) is a potent surveillance tool that allows the government to acquire a wide swath of private information—all without a warrant. Federal investigators issue tens of thousands of them each year to banks, ISPs, car dealers, insurance companies, doctors, and you name it. The letters don't need a judge's signature and come with a gag to the recipient, forbidding the disclosure of the NSL to the public or the target.

For the first time, as part of a First Amendment lawsuit, a federal judge ordered the release of what the FBI was seeking from a small ISP as part of an NSL. Among other things, the FBI was demanding a target's complete Web browsing history, IP addresses of everyone a person has corresponded with, and records of all online purchases, according to a court document unveiled Monday. All that's required is an agent's signature denoting that the information is relevant to an investigation.

"The FBI has interpreted its NSL authority to encompass the websites we read, the Web searches we conduct, the people we contact, and the places we go. This kind of data reveals the most intimate details of our lives, including our political activities, religious affiliations, private relationships, and even our private thoughts and beliefs," said Nicholas Merrill, who was president of Calyx Internet Access in New York when he received the NSL targeting one of his customers in 2004.

The FBI subsequently dropped demands for the information on one of Merrill's customers, but he fought the gag order in what turned out to be an 11-year legal odyssey just to expose what the FBI was seeking. He declined to reveal the FBI's target.

The NSL got a major boost in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks, as it became part of the USA Patriot Act. Between 2003 and 2005, the FBI issued 143,074 NSLs according to a Justice Department inspector general report.

Jameel Jaffer, the American Civil Liberties Union deputy legal director, said that "the FBI has imposed effectively permanent gag orders on tens of thousands of NSL recipients... This kind of secrecy prevents the public from learning how the government’s surveillance authorities are used, distorts public debate, shields policymakers from accountability for their decisions, and insulates surveillance powers from judicial review."

Merrill's lawsuit took six years before he was able to say he received an NSL targeting one of his customers. Litigation continued until Monday, when Merrill was finally allowed to disclose what the FBI was demanding.

The government fought disclosure of an attachment detailing what the FBI was seeking, claiming its exposure would harm national security. A judge disagreed.

"If the Court were to find instead that the Government has met its burden of showing a good reason for non-disclosure here, could Merrill ever overcome such a showing?" US District Judge Victor Marrero ruled (PDF). "Under the Government's reasoning, the Court sees only two such hypothetical circumstances in which Merrill could prevail: a world in which no threat of terrorism exists, or a world in which the FBI, acting on its own accord and its own time, decides to disclose the contents of the Attachment."

In January, President Barack Obama directed the Justice Department to "amend" gag orders so that they are not permanent. According to the Director of National Intelligence:

In response to the President’s new direction, the FBI will now presumptively terminate National Security Letter nondisclosure orders at the earlier of three years after the opening of a fully predicated investigation or the investigation’s close.

Continued nondisclosures orders beyond this period are permitted only if a Special Agent in Charge or a Deputy Assistant Director determines that the statutory standards for nondisclosure continue to be satisfied and that the case agent has justified, in writing, why continued nondisclosure is appropriate.
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Ars Technica
 
Oh hey, what a surprise. Complete and utter invalidation of civil liberties by the United Staes government. That's never happened before.
 
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