Archive for the 'Police' Category

Via Insty:

A police search warrant team going after a drug dealer targeted the wrong address and burst into the apartment of an innocent resident who shot and wounded two officers believing they were home invaders, Prince George’s law enforcement officials said.

Police Chief Hank Stawinski apologized for the error Thursday and said he has halted executing search warrants until the department reviews how it corroborates information to confirm addresses and the location of investigative targets.

As soon as officers entered the apartment, the man inside immediately surrendered when he realized police were on the other side of the door, Stawinski said.

The man yelled, “‘You’ve got the wrong address! Don’t shoot my daughter!’ ” according to Stawinski.

No criminal charges will be filed against the resident, who fired at police with a shotgun, said Stawinski, adding that police “did not draw the right conclusion” about their target.

Here is the report.  Glenn Reynolds adds, “This is how it should be handled.”

No, it’s not.  Here’s a note to LEOs.  I don’t believe in your war on drugs.  In fact, I don’t believe in law enforcement in America conducting a war on anything at all, except invasion from foreign countries, a job which isn’t going so well.

The process isn’t over.  Now it’s time for the LEOs involved to be fired and charged with destruction of private property, trespassing, and assault with a deadly weapon.

Then perhaps these idiotic home invasions by LEOs will begin to subside.  Otherwise, it will turn into a war on something else, like LEOs.  Get my drift?

Via Fred Tippens, this strange report.

The attorney of a Chattanooga police officer says her client intentionally shot a man who had just committed suicide – directly contradicting a previous police report claiming it was an accident.

The Chattanooga Police Department (CPD) says officers responded Sunday morning to a situation at the Cross Creek Villas involving a man threatening to commit suicide with a gun.

According to attorney Janie Varnell of David & Hoss, P.C., Officer Brian Cottell followed his extensive training in hostage negotiations and tried to talk the man into dropping the weapon.

The CPD report says the man did not follow officers’ orders, and then shot and killed himself. That is when CPD says the officer fired his gun three times, striking the man’s body with one of the bullets.

The CPD report says that the firing of the gun was an accident – the attorney’s statement disputes this.

“Contrary to previous reports, Officer Cottell did not discharge his service weapon unintentionally,” the statement reads. “He did not accidentally shoot a man who was deceased. He purposefully discharged his weapon to protect himself and other officers as he was trained to do in these types of situations.”

The statement continues that Cottell, standing about 15 feet away from the man, fired at almost the same time as the man did.

Varnell says Officer Cottell has a 20-year career in law enforcement, is a military veteran, and has extensive training in critical incidents involving suicidal parties, hostage negotiations, and high-intensity situations.

Um, what?

Let’s see if we can unpack this.  So the police officer was being protected by himself and perhaps his partner, neither of whom wanted to face the music with the public when they found out the stupidity of shooting a man holding a gun to his head, and claimed that it was essentially a negligent discharge.

But wait.  This might indicate that he nervously pulled the trigger when he heard loud noises, thus making him unfit for his job even with the goobers on the police force.  So then they amended their claim to assert that the shooting was intentional.

Highly trained, he was.  High-intensity situations.  Hostage negotiations.  A Ninja warrior all the way around.  He followed procedure, a stupid procedure that must say to shoot people holding a gun to their head.

Meaning that he perjured himself on the original police report.

And so the people of Chattanooga feel safer tonight that an “only-one” followed his procedures.  I’m not sure anyone can say for sure if the man was dead or not, or that he wouldn’t have lived through the injuries he inflicted upon himself.  But the good news is that the Ninja warrior got to go home safely that night.  That’s the only thing that matters.

In other news, you’d better not try to commit suicide in Chattanooga.  The cops will fill you full of holes.

Via WiscoDave, this sad news.

“It was a mistake of the heart he will have to deal with the rest of his life,” said Holbrook.  Oh sod off, you bastard.

The most interesting thing we learn from the report isn’t that officer Hurt is a sociopath, or that Holbrook is corrupt, but this tidbit that Holbrook thought might be exonerating.

Other handlers also left dogs inside vehicles because they could be needed for a call on a moment’s notice …

Officers who used that as an excuse are liars, plain and simple.  It’s no more time to grab your dog and head to the car than it is to run there yourself.  Anyone who knows and loves dogs knows you cannot leave dogs in heat like that.  They have no way of discharging heat except to pant – that’s how they sweat, dumbass.  They aren’t designed like you and me.

So your other officers there that day are sociopaths as well.  Thanks for the warning.

Also via WiscoDave, let’s do a little compare and contrast.

A Nebraska woman was arrested, charged with animal cruelty, and sentenced to a year in prison after leaving two dogs to die in a hot car.

Ashley Alberts-Roach, 38, of Bellevue, Nebraska was arrested and charged with two felony counts of animal cruelty after she left her boyfriend’s two dogs – Paco, a 4-year-old Pit Bull/Lab mix, and Rosie, a 3-year-old Pit Bull mix locked inside her vehicle for 4 hours in August of 2016.

Alberts-Roach put the dogs inside her car around 10 a.m. on Aug. 5, 2016, because she didn’t want them in her house, prosecutor Gage Cobb said. Her 11-year-old daughter later told her the dogs were in distress, but Alberts-Roach left them there.

Feel free to weigh in with comments and let us know what these two reports tell us.

Chicago Tribune:

When Martha Al-Bishara went on a walk near her home in northern Georgia last week, she was on a quest for dandelions. The stroll would end in her getting stunned by a Taser and arrested by police officers.

The 87-year-old woman often ventured outside – with a kitchen knife and a plastic bag in hand – to cut and collect the plants for cooking, her family said. She was doing just that last Friday afternoon when she crossed the street from her home in Chatsworth, Georgia, and arrived at a partially fenced lot belonging to a branch of the Boys and Girls Club. There, she began gathering the plants she needed.

Someone on the property, however, called 911 to report a woman in a blue dress and a brown headscarf on their site.

“She told me she doesn’t speak English and she’s walking up our bike trail with a knife towards me,” a man said in a 911 call obtained by WRCB News. “She’s old so she can’t get around too well, but … looks like she’s walking around looking for something like vegetation to cut down or something. She has a bag, too.”

The 911 caller added that the woman “didn’t try to attack anybody or anything.”

Soon afterward, at around 4:30 p.m., two officers and the chief of the Chatsworth Police Department arrived at the scene, according to a police report. There, a Boys and Girls Club staff member escorted them to the back of the property, where they spotted Al-Bishara standing on a hill, still holding a “a white plastic bag in her left hand and a steak knife in her right hand.”

It was unclear if the officers realized Al-Bishara did not speak English but, according to police, the woman did not respond to multiple verbal requests to put down her knife. Instead, she reportedly continued walking and collecting dandelions.

“While we were approaching the female she bent down to the ground and cut a weed and stood back up holding the weed in her left hand with the plastic bag,” the police report stated. ” We kept telling her to drop the knife. The female would look at us. Her demeanor was calm even seeing us with our guns out.”

The Chatsworth police chief at one point threw his own pocket knife on the ground “in an attempt to show the female that we wanted her to drop the knife,” according to the report. When Al-Bishara still didn’t respond and began walking down the hill toward the police, one of the officers turned on his Taser and pointed it at the woman, the report said.

When she about five yards away, with the same “calm” demeanor and facial expression, the officer shot his Taser, striking Al-Bishara in the chest and sending her to the ground, the report said.

If you’re afraid of an 87-year-old woman cutting dandelions, you may be a pussy.  In fact, if you are prone to call the police and say something like this:

“She told me she doesn’t speak English and she’s walking up our bike trail with a knife towards me,” a man said in a 911 call obtained by WRCB News. “She’s old so she can’t get around too well, but … looks like she’s walking around looking for something like vegetation to cut down or something. She has a bag, too.”  [she] “didn’t try to attack anybody or anything.”

You may be a pussy.

America is full of pussies, making it ripe for takeover by barbarian hordes.  But the good news is that at least the old woman now knows her boundaries.

Don’t know the language – too bad.  Can’t hear – too bad.  Have dementia – too bad.  You’d better be cognizant enough to obey the commands of the lords and masters, “Officer Safety!”

I don’t know.  That’s a damn good question.

RALEIGH – A police officer stopped an SUV, which had been reported stolen, at a busy Southeast Raleigh intersection after 4 p.m. Monday.

The Supreme Court decision in Tennessee versus Garner was handed down for situations just such as this, where there is a presumed crime, but no trial and no conviction.

Under these circumstances, the SCOTUS said that shooting and killing someone – even a fleeing inmate – bypasses the right of due process, and so LEOs cannot discharge weapons unless their life is in danger (just like you and me).

Of course, no district attorney is going to bring charges against a LEO since they are all on the same side, rendering the SCOTUS decision meaningless.  So LEOs are just like you and me, only better.

Again.

Guns were drawn, even on small children, when Chicago officers raided a family’s home. Dave Savini is investigating why this happened and how this family will never be the same.

“One guy said you better shut the F up if you know any better,” said Peter Mendez.

Peter was 9 when the trauma began. It was dinner time when Chicago police busted his front door open, invading his family’s home.

“Assault rifles, maybe like a few pistols,” Peter recalled.

His little brother Jack was by his side that night shaking with fear. Savini also spoke with Jack.

Savini: “They pointed a gun at your Dad and your Mom?”
Jack: “Yeah”
Savini: “and then did they point a gun at your brother?”
Jack nodded yes.
Savini: “What was it like when that gun was pointed at you?”
Peter: “It was like my life just flashed before my eyes.”

Mom and Dad say cops screamed profanities at the family as they tore the house apart and ordered them all to the floor at gunpoint.

Savini: “You never thought a police officer would do that to you?”
Peter: “No.”

“I could hear my babies screaming, ‘Don’t shoot my Dad. Don’t kill my Dad. Leave my Dad alone. What did my Dad do?’” said Peter’s father, Gilbert Mendez.

Peter’s dad Gilbert Mendez says his family did nothing wrong and what’s even worse the police had no right to even be there because they were raiding the wrong home and now the Mendez’s say police are trying to cover it up.

The CBS 2 investigators found officers from the 11th district used a search warrant filled with mistakes, even the judge’s printed name as required by police order is missing.

In fact, police tell CBS2 they don’t even have their own copy of the warrant or any record the warrant even exists.

I guess it got their rocks off to point guns at little kids.  And the imperative ” … you better shut the F up if you know any better” makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.  What is that – gibberish or “Pig Latin”?

The worst thing of all is that no cops got shot.  Cops getting shot pulling idiotic stunts like this might bring an end to violations of the fourth amendment to the constitution.

News from California:

A former Beaumont cop who blinded a woman when he fired a pepper spray pistol inches from her face during a DUI arrest pleaded guilty today to a misdemeanor charge under an agreement negotiated with
Riverside County prosecutors.

Enoch “Jeremy” Clark, 43, entered his plea to a charge of assault by a public officer, and in exchange for his admission, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office agreed to drop a felony count of assault by a peace officer causing injury, along with a sentence-enhancing great bodily injury
allegation.

The D.A.’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reasoning behind the plea deal, which was announced during a pretrial status hearing at the Riverside Hall of Justice.

Superior Court Judge John Molloy scheduled a sentencing hearing for Aug. 31. Clark is free on his own recognizance.

The defendant was first tried in May 2014, when a Riverside jury deadlocked 10-2 in favor of convicting him. A retrial started in January 2017, but after less than a week of testimony, Judge Michael Donner brought a halt to proceedings because of defense allegations that the prosecution had not met its obligation to share documents produced during discovery.

Clark could have faced up to four years in state prison had he been convicted of the felony charge and enhancement.

According to Deputy District Attorney Mike Carney, the defendant discharged a pepper gun into the eyes of then-32-year-old Monique Hernandez on the night of Feb. 21, 2012, after he became “annoyed” with her because she wouldn’t comply with his commands to stop resisting arrest.

The woman’s corneas were shredded and her optic nerve irreparably damaged, according to trial testimony.

Carney said Clark was completely unjustified when he pulled the trigger on the JPX Jet Protector pepper spray gun, which discharges propellant at 400 miles per hour. The device was less than 10 inches from Hernandez’s face, and the contents penetrated her eyes, dispersing into her skull, according to the prosecutor.

He said the defendant lied to cover up his actions, telling investigators that he felt his life was threatened and he was “slipping off balance” while holding the gun, causing it to fire prematurely.

The defense blamed Clark’s superiors, inadequate training on the weapon’s use, unclear instructions on how to operate it and other factors for what transpired.

If he wasn’t an “only one,” in other words, if this were me or you, we’d be on the receiving end of felony charged, and we’d be convicted.

Be careful how you use this stuff if you have it.

Randall sends this.

Here we go with backstop again.  The shooting should never have happened.  The officers didn’t know what was behind or around their intended target, and obviously missed.

I don’t want to hear another damn word from the controllers about how armed citizens are a danger to society.  Not … one … more … word.

Dean Weingarten at TTAG:

From post-gazzette.com, 18 July:

Her mother came downstairs and was confronted by a tall man wearing something white on his head, according to the complaint. The man pointed a gun at the mother and told her to lay face down on the stairs.

The two men then tried to drag Ms. Hicks out of the house, she said, at which point her brother, who lives in the adjoining half of the duplex, came to the front door.

The unidentified man shot her brother, Anthony Farley, in the neck.

Mr. Farley returned fire, striking the man, according to the complaint.

While Hicks’s was wounded, he will recover. One of his assailants ended up dead, on the porch. The second attacker escaped.

This incident illustrates a growing problem of criminals impersonating law enforcement officers to gain an advantage over their victims. It was less of a problem when most police officers were uniformed, used official vehicles and fewer “no-knock” raids were made.

Gosh, if only someone had pointed out the problem of home invaders posing as cops before the cops would begin to choose other options.  And maybe not.  And maybe anyone who conducts a home invasion – anyone – is a criminal.

According to The Washington Post.

Juan Carlos Nazario was sitting on a lakeside bench waiting to play soccer when he heard the staccato popping of gunshots outside Louie’s On the Lake, a popular waterfront grill and pub. He ran to his car to get his gun and moved toward the sounds.

Bryan Whittle was driving with his wife, heading off for a Memorial Day weekend getaway, when he saw a commotion outside Louie’s. He thought someone might be drowning, so instead of turning his truck onto the highway, he barreled into the parking lot to offer help. As he jumped out, what he learned stunned him: There was an active shooter just yards away, and wounded victims were holed up in the restaurant’s bathroom.

Whittle, too, grabbed his gun.

In a matter of seconds, the two armed citizens became self-appointed protectors, moving to take up positions around the shooter, drawing their weapons and shouting for him to drop his. Time stretched and warped. There was an exchange of gunfire. The gunman was hit several times and fell. As Nazario and Whittle converged over the man to restrain him, police arrived. Unsure who was who, officers handcuffed all of the men and put them on the ground as the shooter bled out into the grass and died.

“I was just doing what I was supposed to do,” recalled Nazario, a former police officer who said he now works as a security guard, always has his gun in the car and usually carries it with him.

“I just reacted,” said Whittle, who has served for nearly 20 years in the Oklahoma Air National Guard and works for the Federal Aviation Administration. “There’s a guy with a gun. I’ve got a gun. Stop the threat.”

Though they were loaded into police cars and taken downtown for questioning, they were soon hailed as heroes. They were also called champions of Second Amendment rights, gun-carrying examples of why Oklahoma’s Republican governor should not have vetoed a bill two weeks earlier that would have eliminated the need for a permit and training to carry a gun in public.

Local police also praised Nazario and Whittle, saying their swift response ended what a police spokesman called “a very dangerous situation.”

But police also noted that armed citizens can complicate volatile situations. The first of 57 uniformed police officers arrived just a minute after the initial 911 calls and found a complex scene with multiple armed people and no clear sense of what had happened or who was responsible.

“We don’t want people to be vigilantes,” Bo Mathews, a spokesman for the Oklahoma City Police Department, said in a recent interview. “That’s why we have police officers.”

What?  We have police officers to be vigilantes, not other people?  Is that what’s being said here?

Probably not.  He probably means that we just cannot have ordinary people defending themselves – after all, that’s what the police are for.

Or not.  Yea, surely not.

Perhaps he meant that they didn’t want their officers having to think about the situation when they show up, and just shoot everybody who looks like they might have a firearm without observing proper rules for the use of force and thus have to worry about pedestrian things like backstop and proper target ID.

You can make up your own mind.  Maybe you’ll know what you’re talking about.  He sure as hell doesn’t.