Archive for the 'Police' Category

The Guardian:

The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.

The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago’s west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special police units. Interviews with local attorneys and one protester who spent the better part of a day shackled in Homan Square describe operations that deny access to basic constitutional rights.

Alleged police practices at Homan Square, according to those familiar with the facility who spoke out to the Guardian after its investigation into Chicago police abuse, include:

• Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases.
• Beating by police, resulting in head wounds.
• Shackling for prolonged periods.
• Denying attorneys access to the “secure” facility.
• Holding people without legal counsel for between 12 and 24 hours, including people as young as 15.

At least one man was found unresponsive in a Homan Square “interview room” and later pronounced dead.

Brian Jacob Church, a protester known as one of the “Nato Three”, was held and questioned at Homan Square in 2012 following a police raid. Officers restrained Church for the better part of a day, denying him access to an attorney, before sending him to a nearby police station to be booked and charged.

“Homan Square is definitely an unusual place,” Church told the Guardian on Friday. “It brings to mind the interrogation facilities they use in the Middle East. The CIA calls them black sites. It’s a domestic black site. When you go in, no one knows what’s happened to you.”

[ … ]

“It’s sort of an open secret among attorneys that regularly make police station visits, this place – if you can’t find a client in the system, odds are they’re there,” said Chicago lawyer Julia Bartmes.

Chicago civil-rights attorney Flint Taylor said Homan Square represented a routinization of a notorious practice in local police work that violates the fifth and sixth amendments of the constitution.

“This Homan Square revelation seems to me to be an institutionalization of the practice that dates back more than 40 years,” Taylor said, “of violating a suspect or witness’ rights to a lawyer and not to be physically or otherwise coerced into giving a statement.”

[ … ]

When a Guardian reporter arrived at the warehouse on Friday, a man at the gatehouse outside refused any entrance and would not answer questions. “This is a secure facility. You’re not even supposed to be standing here,” said the man, who refused to give his name.

One of the hallmark signs of evil, totalitarian societies is secrecy.  Note that the Chicago police didn’t deny the place existed.  On the contrary, they insisted that the place be kept secret from the balance of society so that they could continue with their illegal activities.  Light scatters the darkness, and they desire the darkness rather than the light.  They aren’t scared of being found out, they don’t fear the courts, prosecutors, the justice department, lawyers or anyone else.  They have become a law unto themselves.  They do what is right in their own eyes and dare anyone to try to stop them.

And note that it is a so-called “open secret” among attorneys that this place exists, this place where basic God-given rights are violated.  This isn’t a trivial thing, so don’t look past this to the horror of such a place on American soil just yet.  These attorneys are officers of the court.  They are bound to obey the law and ensure that others do as well, and are obligated to report illegalities.  They know the place and practices exist, and yet they do nothing about it.

The existence of this facility is an affront to God’s law, and thus constitutes cosmic treason against the most high.  Of the protection of God’s law for the individual and the family, R. J. Rushdoony says in his commentary on Deuteronomy 24:10-11:

This law sets down a premise which has had a major impact on Christendom. When, in colonial America, Judge James Otis decreed that “a man’s home is his castle,” he had reference to this law. Intrusion into a man’s house is a violation of his freedom. God’s law protects a man from the malice and interference of powerful men. To protect men’s houses and properties is to uphold God’s order, because God has established the legitimate boundaries of the family’s jurisdiction and freedom.

And this malice and interference of powerful men, this protection of men’s property that doesn’t occur any more in our society, has been illustrated for us in the recent case on which I commented concerning the immorality of asset forfeiture laws.  Even today we learned of more asset forfeiture of guns as a norm in society.

As for the role of presumably free men in all of this, our responsibilities are growing and loom very large.

Madison and Jefferson gave a critical template of how states and local governments should respond when outside threats are used as the pretext by the federal government to curtail the liberty of law-abiding citizens. Both men took up their pens to oppose the Alien and Sedition Acts which violated the First Amendment’s right to free speech and the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause. In response to these unconstitutional edicts, Jefferson and Madison separately drafted resolutions for the individual states to take up in their legislatures to oppose the abusive acts. Jefferson’s work became the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, and Madison’s the Virginia Resolutions of 1798.

In the Kentucky Resolutions, Jefferson stated “that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.”

Madison was equally direct. In the Virginia Resolutions, he declared that “the powers of the federal government” are “limited by the plain sense and intention” of the Constitution “and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.”

In maintaining that the states were “duty bound, to interpose,” Madison was standing on a long legal tradition dating back to the Magna Charta when England’s nobles demanded that King John honor the rights of Englishmen or be deposed.

In this case, the offending authorities are the local ones, but anyone who believes that the federal government would step in to ensure rights against illegal search and seizure is foolish.

Every law enforcement officer who knows about this illegal and immoral site and doesn’t shed light on its existence and practices may as well be a perpetrator of said practices.  There are no guiltless parties, from the LEOs to the attorneys who keep this “open secret” to judges and city managers who allow it to happen.  They will all be held accountable.

The U.S. has become a banana republic.  It isn’t on the horizon somewhere, we don’t have actions we need to take to ensure that it doesn’t happen.  It has already happened.  It is past tense.  Since this is cosmic crime against God’s law, it would be cosmic justice if this facility burned to the ground, every one of the LEOs who participated in these activities held to account, and every attorney and judge who knew of this facility disbarred and sent to prison.

Detroit Free Press:

Thomas Williams was alone that November morning in 2013 when police raided his rural St. Joseph County home, wearing black masks, camouflage and holding guns at their sides. They broke down his front door with a battering ram.

“We think you’re dealing marijuana,” they told Williams, a 72-year-old, retired carpenter and cancer patient who is disabled and carries a medical marijuana card.

When he protested, they handcuffed him and left him on the living room floor as they ransacked his home, emptying drawers, rummaging through closets and surveying his grow room, where he was nourishing his 12 personal marijuana plants as allowed by law. Some had recently begun to die, so he had cloned them and had new seedlings, although they were not yet planted. That, police insisted, put him over the limit.

They did not charge Williams with a crime, though.

Instead, they took his Dodge Journey, $11,000 in cash from his home, his television, his cell phone, his shotgun and are attempting to take his Colon Township home. And they plan to keep the proceeds, auctioning off the property and putting the cash in police coffers.

More than a year later, he is still fighting to get his belongings back and to hang on to his house.

“I want to ask them, ‘Why? Why me?’ I gave them no reason to do this to me,” said Williams, who says he also suffers from glaucoma, a damaged disc in his back, and COPD, a lung disorder. “I’m out here minding my own business, and just wanted to be left alone.”

The seizure was allowed under Michigan’s Civil Asset Forfeiture laws, which allow police to take property from citizens if they suspect a crime was committed, even when there is not enough evidence to charge them. Homeowners like Williams have to prove they did not purchase their property with proceeds from criminal activity and then sue to get the property back.

Why you?  You happened to be available when the police needed to raise some revenue.  It’s that simple.  I’m so sorry for this poor man (and let me say here that I couldn’t care less that he had some hemp growing in his house, any more than I care if a man makes some untaxed corn liquor in his back yard), but these laws made by the legislature are evil.

I don’t care what this man did.  There isn’t any reason at all that the state should legally be able to confiscate possessions.  In the worst case (let’s say that a man goes to prison for murder), his possessions could be treated as if he passed away and his will invoked (his children would then inherit his possessions, or whomever was named in his will).  The advantage of this is that if he doesn’t have a will, he can be queried by the court to ascertain who he wants to inherit his belongings.

Readers may have better ideas.  Anything is better than the state taking possession of property, and I see no basis in English common law or the Holy Scriptures for such laws.

NBC10.com:

A Pennsylvania state police corporal was arrested Tuesday on reckless endangerment charges in a firearms training accident that claimed the life of a state trooper.

Cpl. Richard Schroeter, 43, was conducting a training session Sept. 30 and pulled the trigger on his firearm while discussing the weapon’s mechanism, prosecutors said. The gun discharged, killing 26-year-old Trooper David Kedra.

Ned Weatherby:

SWATting prank terrorizes family:

ST. CLOUD, Minn. — Josh Peters knew what was happening the instant he heard his mother’s frantic voice.

It was around 1 a.m. on Feb. 4, and Peters, 27, was hosting an online stream as he played a video game, “Clash of Clans.” Peters makes a living as “Koopatroopa787,” the host of a channel on the website Twitch.tv, where more than 50,000 gamers watch him play and interact with him.

He had noise-canceling headphones on, so he only barely heard the commotion upstairs, hurried footsteps to the basement, and his mom shouting to him that the police were at the house. But Peters, who returned from a tour of duty with the Air Force in Kuwait last November, stayed calm and paused his stream. He knew why they were there.

“Right away, I knew I was being swatted,” he said.

St. Cloud police had received an anonymous call reporting an active shooter incident with a woman’s life in danger at Peters’ address, according to Lieutenant Jeff Oxton. It’s called “swatting,” and is a prank growing more common in the gaming community. Oxton said this was not the first swatting call St. Cloud police have responded to. Peters had heard of it happening to plenty of others, but never imagined he would be the target.

Kristin Darnall, Peters’ mother, was asleep when she heard pounding on the door. She looked out the window and saw police lights flashing. She went downstairs and saw through a window on the door several officers with weapons drawn.

Her husband came downstairs to let the officers in, but when he reached to undo the complex lock on the door, police yelled at him to keep his hands in the air. Peters was upstairs by this point. When the door was finally opened, Darnall said, police threw her husband and Josh to the floor. She stood with her back pressed against the wall, trying to ask what was happening … Oxton said police have to respond to these types of calls as if they are real.

Darnall said her 10-year old son, in the days since the incident, had suffered a migraine, had been play-acting the scenario with Nerf guns, and had woken with “night terrors.”

Police pull weapons on six year old autistic boy:

A Jackson couple says Ridgeland police pointed a weapon at their 6-year-old autistic son while serving a warrant on a family member in the home.

Paul and Angela Thompson Roby told WLBT that Ridgeland officers arrived in an unmarked car at a home owned by Angela Roby’s mother on Brisbane Lane. They were looking for Carneigio Gray, 23, who is Angela Roby’s brother.

Ridgeland spokesman Lt. John Neal said officers had received information that Gray, who has an outstanding warrant for contempt of court for failure to appear on a three-year-old paraphernalia charge, was staying in that house. When they entered the home, he resisted arrest.

That’s when the Robys said their son asked officers not to hurt his uncle. They told WLBT that officers then drew their weapons on the child.

DEA agent shot in pre-dawn “drug raid”:

COLUMBIA, SC — A criminal trial expected to be closely watched by law enforcement and gun owners around South Carolina opens Monday in federal court in Columbia.

At issue: whether Joel Robinson, 32, is guilty of a crime for shootinga DEA agent in the first few seconds of a surprise federal law enforcement raid last October at his Orangeburg house.

Agents expected to find a cache of drugs, but a search of the premises found nothing but a small amount of marijuana for recreational use, according to legal records in the case.

Robinson is expected to claim self-defense, saying he did what any citizen would have in assuming he was the target of a home invasion – grabbing a gun and firing a half-dozen shots in the direction of those he assumed were home invaders.

But the person struck by a Robinson bullet was DEA agent Barry Wilson, one of more than a dozen law officers surrounding the house. The bullet broke bones in Wilson’s right elbow and forearm. His recovery likely will take more than a year and he is expected to lose some use of that arm, according to testimony in a pretrial hearing.

During the trial, the prosecution is expected to claim that law officers on the scene announced themselves loudly, initiated flashing blue lights and sirens as they broke a side window in the house, and that, in any case, it is against the law to shoot a federal law officer in the performance of his official duties.

In the first case, the only real danger that night was from cops who pointed weapons at innocent people.  No muzzle discipline is characteristic of this kind of tactic, and if this kind of lack of self restraint occurred on any range we regularly visit, most of us would beat the hell out of the perpetrator(s), or at least disarm them and make it clear they were never invited back.

In the second case, what is there really to say, except that the autistic boy was probably about as dangerous as the 95 year old man who was shot to death by cops in a nursing home.

These aren’t even all of the instances of such tactics, just three of the more prominent and recent.  It’s as if reporting of this gruesome tactic is becoming dull and tedious.  But in spite of the poor little autistic boy who was probably scared to death and certainly didn’t need this terror, the most legally interesting is the last one.

The salient observation here is that it is illegal to shoot a cop in the performance of his duty.  And note that his “duty” is anything they want it to be, including home invasions in the middle of the night (with the cops looking like gang hoodlums with their faces covered) where the victim knows nothing about the event except that he and his family are in danger.

What this does – the notion that we cannot shoot home invaders for fear that we will shoot a cop in the performance of his duty, even if it is a wrong address raid – is effectively disarm innocent people.  You can have all of the guns and ammunition you want, but if you can be hauled before court at any time for using them to defend your home, you may as well have nothing unless you’re willing to shoot back and accept the consequences.  It’s almost as if this is all designed to create a passive class of sheep, no?

A man’s home is his castle … indeed!

Northwest Herald:

A suburban Chicago police officer was acquitted Wednesday of felony reckless conduct for killing a 95-year-old World War II veteran by shooting him with a beanbag gun at close range.

Park Forest Police Officer Craig Taylor was charged after the July 2013 death of John Wrana. In a courtroom packed with officers supporting Taylor, Cook County Judge Luciano Panici said there was nothing criminal about Taylor’s actions and that the officer did “what he was trained to do.”

The basic disagreement in the case was whether Taylor was justified in firing a weapon, at close range, that prosecutors said fires beanbags at 190 mph. Wrana died from internal bleeding caused by the beanbags.

Taylor, 43, was one of several officers dispatched to the facility where Wrana lived after a staff member reported that Wrana had become combative with emergency workers.

After Wrana struck a staffer with his cane, he brandished a 2-foot-long shoehorn at officers, prompting them to briefly leave the room. When the officers returned, one officer was carrying a Taser, another one had a shield, and Taylor was carrying a 12-gauge shotgun that shoots beanbags.

Wrana threatened the officers with a knife, and when he refused to drop it, one officer fired at him with the Taser but missed. Then Wrana moved toward Taylor, and the officer fired his weapon five times.

Prosecutors said Taylor had better and safer options than to fire the beanbags at a confused, knife-wielding elderly man, and that the officers didn’t have to storm Wrana’s room. They said he behaved recklessly when he fired five beanbags at Wrana at a distance of no more than 8 feet away.

But Taylor testified he was following the orders of a superior officer and feared for his life and the lives of his fellow officers when he saw Wrana holding the knife over his head and threatening to kill whoever came into his room. He testified that he felt like he “had to do something to stop him.”

The trial was of intense interest among local law enforcement agencies, and on the first day of trial many officers from Park Forest and other area departments showed up to the courthouse in Markham to show their support for Taylor.

Officers expressed anger that Taylor was even charged with a crime after an incident in which he was following orders and had legitimate fear for his own safety and the safety of his fellow officers.

We will all deal with issues of age.  It will go much like the report.  The elderly will be confused, they may issue threats they don’t even understand, they may not even be able to remember things or process reality reliably if they have dementia.  That’s okay.  They’ve earned that right.  As we are told in Leviticus 19:32, “You shall rise up before the grayheaded and honor the aged, and you shall revere your God.”  Or in the KJV, “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God.”  Honor towards the creator requires honor for the elderly.

A nation that cannot do this not only won’t live long, it doesn’t deserve to.  It is past its useful life.  This officer was weak, both of body and spirit.  My own son Daniel, who did a combat tour in Fallujah, Iraq, talked to me at length about the shots he had to take and the kills he had to make.  But one of the most interesting of his altercations with other men came when one of his fellow Marines was in danger from an insurgent using a weapon other than a gun.  Others in the area made use of his SAW an unacceptable option (many noncombatants could have been injured), and he used what he called a “football tackle” on the insurgent to stop and disarm him (the context of this specific conversation was the lunacy of women in combat).

That fighter in Iraq wasn’t a 95 year old man who had earned the respect of younger men.  That was an insurgent in Fallujah.  And yet this LEO in Chicago felt it necessary to shoot a potentially lethal weapon at the old man rather than use his brains or brawn to disarm him and defuse the situation.  This is a sad commentary on the state of affairs in LEO-land.

But even worse, note the bolded sections of the article.  “The courtroom was packed with officers supporting Taylor.”  These other officers are saying that it’s okay to shoot at 95 year old men who are confused and frightened.  Nothing is more important than going home safely at the end of their shift.  Cops can’t even use the same rules of engagement / rules for the use of force that Soldiers and Marines used in Iraq, and any hint that they might be held accountable is anathema to the thin blue line.

News From Georgia:

ATLANTA (CBS46) –

Carrie Mills is a retired Atlanta Police officer with 30 years on the job – primarily in APD’s drug unit.

Mills is now a union rep for the International Brotherhood of Police Officers. She considers herself an expert on search warrants, particularly no knock warrants, which allows officers to enter a structure without knocking first.

Mills says no-knock warrants helped close a lot of cases while she was an officer.

“If we knock and announced, all evidence is going to be destroyed,” Mills said.

State Sen. Vincent Fort, (D-39), has announced plans to introduce a bill that would make it harder to get no-knock warrants.

Fort says he was moved to introduce his bill after 19-month-old Bounkham “Bou Bou” Phonesavanh was seriously injured when a flash grenade exploded near his face during a botched drug raid involving a no-knock warrant in Habersham County.

“We are saying there should be restrictions on them and we think the situation in the recent past where they have been abused warrants that,” Fort said.

But Mills doesn’t agree.

“I don’t think any changes are needed because it is not easy now,” Mills said.

Mills says law makers should be careful what they ask for.

“You have to draw the line between your right as a citizen to privacy and a community’s right to live in a crime-free environment. You can’t have them both,” Mills said.

This is a picture of a soulless individual, intent on doing the state’s bidding, regardless of the human cost.  Quite literally, Ms. Mills says, she doesn’t believe that even the most modest of controls should be put in place.  Consider what the lawmakers intend to do.

Bou-Bou’s law, named after Bou-Bou Phonesavanh, the toddler who was severely injured during a botched no-knock drug raid, would require that police show someone’s life would be in danger, or evidence could be destroyed without a no-knock warrant.

The bill also would create penalties for officers and agencies that lie to a judge to get a no-knock warrant.

NBCDFW.com:

Southlake police say a licensed concealed handgun holder intervened when he saw a man allegedly assaulting a woman Friday, and the assault suspect now faces charges.

Police were called at about 1:35 p.m. to Farm-to-Market Road 1709 about a block west of Carroll Avenue, where they found two men standing in the middle of the road with one man pointing a gun at the other.

Their preliminary investigation indicated the witness saw a man in another car physically assaulting his female front seat passenger, so when both cars stopped the witness confronted the man in the other car at gunpoint because he believed the female to be in imminent danger of a felony offense, police said …

Police said they consulted with the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office to determine if the witness had done anything illegal, and based on the information gathered at the scene the D.A.’s office determined he hadn’t …

A statement from Southlake Police Chief Steve Mylett said, “While we commend this citizen’s willingness to get involved in order to protect a victim of crime, the Southlake Police Department does not encourage the public to expose themselves in such a manner. Instead, we strongly recommend citizens who witness a crime in progress to contact the local police department by dialing the police emergency number 911.”

It isn’t very odd at all that a concealed carrier saves a person from death or imminent bodily injury or sexual assault.  It’s rather commonplace, actually.

What is more interesting here is the reaction of the police.  Not only did they “consult” with their attorneys to see if a “crime” had been committed, they actually came out and recommended against this sort of thing.  Because, you know, the police can be everywhere at all times.  Or more realistically and less sardonically, it’s better in their estimation that a woman get the hell beaten out of her or die than be saved by someone who isn’t a representative of the state.

13WMAZ:

David Hooks was shot in the back and head as he was lying face down on the floor during a drug raid by Laurens County deputies.

That’s according to the lawyer representing his family.

It’s been nearly four months since David Hooks was shot to death during a drug raid at his East Dublin home.

13WMAZ’s Paula Rotondo spoke to his wife, Teresa Hooks and the family’s lawyer, Mitchell Shook.

Hooks died Sept. 24 while deputies served a search warrant at his home.

They were looking for drugs, but didn’t find any.

Shook, who is representing his family, says the raid was illegal and has asked the FBI to investigate.

He says officers were looking for drugs in the home, but didn’t find any. Shook says the officers fired 17 shots inside the home and struck Hooks.

He says Hooks had four wounds, two of which he says are very problematic. Shook says that’s according to the Laurens County EMS records. He says the same information is found in the medical records from Fairview Park Hospital.

“One was to the side of the head, the other, was in his back, the back of his left shoulder, based on the evidence we see, we believe that David Hooks was face down on the ground when he received those last two shots,” says Shook.

A man is dead, his wife is a widow, the police walk away with impunity, and the judge who signed the approval lives in a nice home and will never be held responsible for anything.  And the FBI won’t do anything about it, so I’m not certain why they would ask the federal government to intervene.  That’s like asking the fox to guard the hen house.  There isn’t a jury anywhere who will hold them accountable for murders they perpetrate because the folks are shepple.

And a woman will have to live alone the rest of her life because of this.  I’ve studied Gestapo and SS tactics, and I cannot see one bit of difference between what these thugs perpetrated and running the Jews into cattle cars in Nazi Germany after guns were confiscated.  These men, and all who perpetrate such heinous acts, aren’t heroes.  They aren’t worthy of admiration.  They aren’t suitable to teach our children to respect and obey – like the peace officers or constables of old.  This is why men teach their children to be suspicious of the police today, including me.

These men are dangerous because they have no conscience.

Oregon Live:

Offenders who kill an on-duty law enforcement dog would face stiffer penalties under a proposed law that has been drafted for Oregon’s next legislative session.

The proposal is dubbed “Mick’s Law,” in memory of Portland police dog Mick, who died in April from fatal gunshot wounds sustained while trying to stop a suspect wanted in connection with a Southwest Portland burglary.

“Mick has not been forgotten,” said Marsha Hettman, who has pushed for the change in law since Mick’s killing.

The proposal would make killing an animal who is working in an official law enforcement capacity at the time of the animal’s death a Class B felony, punishable by a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine. It would also prohibit someone convicted of the offense from receiving probation or a reduction in sentence.

[ … ]

Portland police canine Officer Jeffrey Dorn, wounded in both legs during a shootout with a burglary suspect in Southwest Portland on April 16, credited his slain police dog partner, Mick, for saving his life that day.

The 17-month-old German Shepherd was shot trying to stop the burglary suspect, who was armed with an AR-15 rifle. Mick died of a single gunshot wound after Dorn unleashed him to chase the suspect on Southwest Lobelia Street. Mick was found dead under a hedge hours later in the front yard of a Lobelia Street home.

The dog was heroic, there is no doubt about it.  But what about when police shoot dogs in Springfield, Oregon, or when police do the same thing in Scappoose, Oregon?  How about when those quarter of a million dogs are killed by cops each year, most often needlessly?

In fact, there has never been a documented case of a dog killing a cop, and yet an officer offers no reason whatsoever for his recent deed in Woodville, Ohio:

WOODVILLE, OH (Toledo News Now) – Woodville police officer is under investigation after shooting a dog at a traffic stop Monday.

According to the mayor, the officer pulled a vehicle over for a traffic stop on US 20, just outside the village. During the stop, a black lab approached the officer and the officer shot it in the leg.

The dog is a five year old lab named Moses. He is expected to survive but is currently at an animal hospital in Sylvania, where a vet is working to save his leg.Moses owner Lauren Meyer says he did not deserve to be shot.

“I said ‘so why did you do it? was he barking or growling at you’ and he said ‘no.’ So I said ‘why did you shoot it?’ he said ‘that’s not enough to tell me that he wasn’t going to bite,'” said Lauren.

He shot the dog because it did nothing, and he said so.  Yea, I’ll support protection of police dogs when someone puts in place protections of my dogs.