TheAgitator.com
Yet More Professionalism
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008Last March, a woman in Albany, New York filed a lawsuit against the city police department after being subjected to a humiliating public search in which an officer inserted two fingers into her vagina. The police had no probable cause for the search, and they found no drugs on the woman. After her case went public, others came forward with similar stories. The case also exposed big problems with the city’s Civilian Review Board. Contrary to city law, the city’s police apparently believe cooperating with the board’s investigations is optional, and have intimidated people–including the woman above–who file complaints from taking those complaints to the board.
It now also appears that the city’s sheriff’s department has engaged in a routine of racial profiling, harassment, and illegal searches going back 20 years at Albany’s main bus terminal. The department is facing a lawsuit from a man named Tunde Clement, who it should probably be noted does have a long history of drug offenses. But in this particular case, Clement was clean. Sheriff’s deputies confronted Clement as he was departing a bus, took him to the men’s bathroom, and searched him. When they found no drugs, they arrested him for “resisting arrest,” a charge that was later thrown out, given that you can’t arrest someone for “resisting arrest” if they haven’t committed a crime that should have resulted in arrest in the first place.
The police then strip-searched Clement, and made him squat in front of them. The claimed to have seen white powder on his anus So they took him to a hospital. Without his consent, they then administered drugs to sedate him, induced him to vomit, put a camera up his rectum, and took x-rays of him. Such drastic measures against the consent of a patient usually require officials to show some sort of imminent emergency. There was no such emergency with Clement. And still, no drugs. The hospital later sent Clement a bill for $6,800, and diagnosed him as having “hemorrhoids.”
The Sheriff’s Department’s Drug Interdiction Unit was already under scrutiny. It’s also facing a lawsuit from another officer whose thumb was shot off during a botched drug raid. An internal affairs investigation found that the drug unit was mismanaged and poorly supervised, and recommended discipline against the unit and its leader, Inspector John Burke.
No such action was ever taken.
Oh, so what you’re saying is that Albany, NY is just like any other American town?
i.e., that there are a bunch of mistake-prone, embarrassment-avoiding human beings present, some of them in positions of power, and that they’ll make mistakes at any and all times of the day and night?
Nothing pisses the cops off more than having the audacity to be innocent when they think you’re not.
And again, where are the people in power standing up and saying ‘This is wrong, and will NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN on my watch’?
As an ordinary citizen, I’m amazed that more ordinary citizens aren’t terrified of this stuff. I mean, the supposed justification for this crap is that people using drugs and selling drugs and buying drugs are a danger to people around them, and that it ruins lives. But someone’s gotta be doing something with drugs around you for that to have an effect.
With this stuff - botched raids, illegal searches, capricious detainments, etc. - you don’t have to have done *anything*. Just being a person who the cops decide to hassle. Which is worse? Why don’t people wake up?
Having a camera showed up your rectum is one thing, but then to have to foot the bill for 6 grand? Ouch.
This story goes so far beyond the “adding insult to injury” stage that it reads like a scene from a Naked Gun movie.
I’m surprised they didn’t staple the bill to his scrotum, cancel his health coverage, and then push his wheelchair down the hospital steps into oncoming traffic.
The $6800 bill is really the perfect symbol here. For all that the various authorities may try to get up your ass, they still think they’re doing you a favor and they still want to do it with your money.
Radley, do you think maybe every once in a while—maybe twice a year—you could do an entire week of nothing but happy posts? Successful small businesses, courteous cops, smart legislation, fluffy kittens…you know, just so we don’t all develop a flinch every time we click the link to your blog? Thanks.
I think there was a fluffy kitten story once. But the cops shot him.
It’s almost like the hospital and doctors want to get sued…
What’s that word for when non-cops stick two fingers into a woman’s vagina against her will, or drug a man to stick something up his anus? Oh yeah, rape.
I moved away from my home town after I had a incident with a local police officer. (Nothing criminal, just personal.) His buddies took it upon themselves to make my life difficult whenever they could.
At least now that I am living in a larger city I can have less of a chance of being bothered by police. Hate to sound like a paranoid nut, but I have seen the “Old boy” network in action when I complained about unfair treatment by these officers. It made more sense to move than fight. It’s so sad that citizens have to live in fear of the very department that should be protecting them.
To quote a line from the movie, Bladerunner : “Stop right where you are! You know the score, pal. If you’re not cop, you’re little people.”
If we are going to have the death penalty in this country, it should be reserved for government officials and officers who abuse their power or break the law. People entrusted with that kind of power need to be held to a much higher standard than other people.
And again, where are the people in power standing up and saying ‘This is wrong, and will NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN on my watch’?
Yeah, where exactly are the Democrats.
Nevermind, I know they approve of this stuff too.
Funny. I said the same thing about not being able to be arrested for resisting arrest if no arrest has been attempted to a Jefferson County Alabama sheriff, and I ended up going to jail for a couple of hours. The magistrate had to excuse herself for a moment to go talk with the District Attorney before she came back and apologized. Of course, nothing happened to the officer.
zero, I believe the term is ‘double penetration’.
This stuff is pretty ridiculous … I may not be ‘legalize it all’ like some of you, but there’s no excuse for this kind of stuff that Radley reports on. We’re basically treating ‘druggies’ like they are rapists and murderers. And these people weren’t even druggies.
Hemorrhoids, eh. It certainly seems like the cops are to blame there. After all, they are the ones being a pain in the ass…
Radley’s long litany of documented police abuse, oppression, and malfeasance is relentless.
And, relentlessly depressing. It’s getting very hard to read. A kick in the stomach on virtually a daily basis.
Plus, throw the endless war in Iraq and a Trillion dollars wasted in the sand, $4.00 gasoline, escalating inflation on everything except my salary, and a housing market meltdown, it’s enough to make ME want to take drugs, to escape REALITY.
Let’s have more happy, kitten stories, please.
Happy kitten story
#7 #8
It was F-troop (BATF) and they stomped the kitten to death.
Having to work in the armpit of New York (NYC is where they stick the enema), about the only section of APD I have any respect for are the bike cops and the horse cops. And even some of them are not exactly on the ball. I politely reminded one young mounted cop as he was trotting off to attach the strap of his brain bucket and got a dirty look in return. Which I guess proves that you don’t really need brains to be APD.
#18
This does not surprise me. Where were the Animal Control Officers?
I’m not familiar with that particular kitten-killing. I just googled cop-on-pet killings and linked one. There were many. It’s like the cops say “It’s War (on pets, children, grandmothers, college students, the disabled, etc, etc, etc) Out There”. I respect their bravery and as such, let it slide when they show contemptable behavior towards me.
“…The Cecil Township police chief said the 25-year veteran officer did not do anything wrong and stands behind his decision….”
It must be part of police training that when you fuck up to say that you were just following procedure as if that argument, by itself, is profoundly irrefutable, rendering all further discussion pointless.
Along with the other nonsense:
- “You don’t know what it’s like out there..”
- “We put our lives on the line..”
- “Until you’ve walked in my jackboots…”
Most cops are like a speaking-toy/doll, they only have a handful of sayings they regurgitate regardless of the situation, ignorant of reality.
“I respect their bravery and as such, let it slide when they show contemptable behavior towards me.”
Is that sarcasm?
Absolutely. Most cops mistake their attacks on non-threatening people (and kittens) as bravery, but call them to an active-shooter situation like Columbine and they hide behind trees until threat is over.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d welcome good cops. As it is though, we seem to get men and women who want to play soldier without the danger of an actual enemy.
Just thought that deserved to be repeated.
that there are a bunch of mistake-prone, embarrassment-avoiding human beings present, some of them in positions of power, and that they’ll make mistakes at any and all times of the day and night?
Mistake-prone. Mistake?
You contemptible reptile, what about these stories resembles honest “errors” to you?
“woops…sorry sir. We didn’t mean to harass you, strip search you, drug you, restrain you, stick a camera up your ass and then leave you with the bill. Our bad!”
“Gee Ma’am…not sure how my fingers got up there. Simple human error you understand!”
Ugh.
I have this inkling that this will happen once too often in some small town, and some citizens, ARMED, will show up at the police station and drag an officer or several out the door. It won’t be pretty.
It will have to be in a small town, and will have to be in a state where people are permitted their 2nd amendment rights.
Thankfully in WV we still have our gun rights. Heck I’ve got a friend looking at getting an AK-47 (not an automatic, dame tax stamp). Unfortunately I still don’t see much hope for that small town revolt. Even out here people have been told over and over again that drugs are bad, and people with any connection deserve to be harassed by the cops. Its an example of being told over and over again the same information and eventually believing it.
Where’s Elliot Spitzer when you need him?!?……oh, right…..never mind……
The staff of the Albany Medical Center raped him, by any reasonable definition that I can see. They should be facing felony charges.
Power corrupts. That’s why the Founders wanted to minimize America’s reliance on standing armies — and the police meet the definition of “standing army” in every aspect.
I’m not saying we can or should do without police. But we should be careful about continually expanding their mission (and hence, their power) by criminaling more and more behaviors that once were legal. And, of course, as free citizens participating in self-government, we should rely on self-defense against crime to the extent we can.
When you try to use the law to re-engineer society, and when you try to make the police a society’s sole source of protection against violent crime, Mayberry’s Andy and Barney just won’t do it anymore. You’ll need Robocop, and that’s not gonna be fun.
“If the cops continue playing as if they are an army of occupation, they shouldn’t be surprised when the citizens act out their roles in return. Vive la Resistance.” - author unknown but thanked.