I highly recommend the Twitter feed of Injustice in Seattle for daily updates on these stories. I don’t recommend it for those of you with high blood pressure.
Indiana’s “public access counselor” rules that the city of Ft. Wayne can keep the dash video of a police shooting from being released to the public, under the positively Orwellian explanation that “state law allows police to withhold from the public records that are labeled ‘investigatory’ even if an investigation has been completed.”
Bellaire, Texas police officer Jeffrey Cotton has been indicted in the shooting of Robbie Tolan. I previously posted about that case here and here.
Michael Silence points to a particularly chilling comment from a police spokesman in the case where Phoenix police raided the home of a police watchdog blogger: “In justifying the raid, Phoenix Assistant Chief Andy Anderson called Pataky’s site ‘an unaccredited grassroots Web site.’” They’re really just making shit up as they go along, aren’t they?
So remember that Boston Globe report about city police blatantly disregarding rules about parking in handicapped and fire zone spaces? Update: The city says they assigned someone to enforce the law against the cops, noting that over two months, 20 cops were written up But the Globe sent a reporter who found 25 vehicles illegally parked in one day alone. The next day, there were “another 25 cars parked illegally outside headquarters.” Not surprisingly, no one seems eager to make sure the cops follow the laws they’re paid to enforce.
Lawsuit, former Fresno cop say city police chief fostered a “culture of violence” by intervening in internal affairs investigations, including retaliating against cops who turn in or testify against other cops.
City of Houston acknowledges that it’s perfectly legal for citizens to record on-duty police officers. But then in a court filing, the city also argues that even though he may be mistaken under the law, it isn’t necessarily unreasonable for a police officer to interpret someone recording him as a criminal act, and to arrest the person doing the recording. I believe the translation, here, is that while citizens can’t plead ignorance of the law as a defense, police officers facing civil rights lawsuits apparently can.
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on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 2:30 pm by Radley Balko
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TheAgitator.com
Can’t fuck with unaccredited websites no more son. You gotta pay the accreditation tax and install the tracking device so that your website’s speech can be properly monitored. Otherwise the terrorists will have won and terrorists hate freedom.
Thanks for that Twitter link, I don’t have high-blood pressure know, but give me a two hours to read all those links…..
And what the Foxtrot is an “unaccredited grassroots website”? Is that phrase really on the books in AZ or the city of Phoenix?
Thanks for the mention.
I’m currently using Twitter to get at least some sort of statistical information on police misconduct in the US, so I post up the links and synopsis of each story I discover about police misconduct and go back later to break down the data by type of misconduct, where it happened, and any other data I can glean. It’s faster than entering each story into a database by hand.
Sure, it’s not a complete count since many cases of misconduct don’t make the news, but it’s the best I can do at the moment.
Of course, I don’t mind if people follow it though, the more people find out how prevalent police misconduct really is, the better.
Also, of course, if someone thinks I missed something, please feel free to let me know!
Thanks!
“…‘an unaccredited grassroots Web site.’”
1) Who is the “authority” that hands out web site accreditation anyway? Radley: I demand to see your papers!
2) There is no need to make this shit up. Its all TOO real.
“…it isn’t necessarily unreasonable for a police officer to interpret someone recording him as a criminal act, and to arrest the person doing the recording.”
In other words, you will only be arrested if the police officer IS the criminal actor. Either way they’re taking your camera, phone and any large amount of cash you may be carrying. It’s evidence ya know.
Bellaire City Manager Bernie Satterwhite, however, said “it should go without saying that this (indictment) is far from a finding that Sgt. Cotton actually did anything improper in connection with the incident. … he is, like any individual, innocent until proved guilty through a trial.”
Funny how they respond when they are on the receiving end of an indictment.
It ain’t going to happen, but I’ve long thought that we need to amend the Constitution to add a fourth branch of government: The Custodial Branch. As is Qui custodiet ipsos custodes?
They would only have jurisdiction over persons in the other three branches, and would be guaranteed a budget of at least 5% (or some other reasonable number) of the executive branch (so that the legislature couldn’t make them go away). Also, no one could be a Custodian if they had been a member of the other three branches within the previous 10 years. And finally, laws would have to apply equally to members of the other three branches–no special exceptions.
It’s clear that current internal investigations and the like simply do not work.
“Nothing in the (public access laws) provides that the exception applies only to ongoing or open investigations,” Neal wrote in her decision. “Nothing provides that records covered under the exception must be disclosed once an investigation is complete.”
Basically a useful exploit if you want to cover something up indefinitely.
Ahcuah,
Judging from your comment, I don’t think you really understand what this means.
Ahh, just what we need – more of the state.
You know why this is, right? It’s because it’s the state investigating…the state.
Picking on cops for illegal parking is just going to make them do it more often as a lesson to teach you who’s boss. It’s the same kind of rebellious temper tantrum commonly found in children.
thomasblair,
I’m afraid I don’t get what your objection is. You seem to object to “more of the state” but I made it quite clear that the custodians would have NO power over any regular citizen. Their whole purpose would be to harass (in some way–ok, make that “keep honest”) the rulers of the state, and by rulers of the state I mean those specifically working for the government.
Think of it as another check on government (since the legislative/executive/judicial check originally built in to the Constitution seems to have been subverted).
Ahcuah,
I get what your saying. It goes against the grain of minimal government, but I can see the direction you’re going.
Of course, if the state was in a mind-set to enact self-policing, we wouldn’t need this body of yours. You’ve got a chicken/egg problem there.
1. The “investigatory” records withheld from the public should result in the dismissal of any charges brought against any defendant who runs into that BS explanation. Any lawyer worth a damn should claim that these videos, audios, etc. contain exculpatory evidence.
2. Of course, everyone knows that you cannot have an “accredited web site” unless the site owner has registered with the US Treasury and taken Web Asset Regulatory Program (WARP) funds.
chsw
Ahcuah,
What you’re suggesting is great in theory but, unfortunately, wouldn’t work in practice.
You’re going to have two types of people who would take such a position:
1. Former legislators or executive branch members who, while it’s been a long time since they’ve worked in such a capacity, “know what it’s like”, or still have many friends in the branch, and won’t be quick to punish for those “minor transgressions that everyone does”
2. People with future aspirations to get into the executive, judicial or legislative branches. They’re not going to be the ones to burn any bridges, lest they ruin their own chances in the future.
It’s kind of like Internal Affairs departments with police departments — ostensibly, they’re supposed to be a separate body, somewhat walled off from “normal” police work that judges the actions of the police and punishes accordingly. In practice, it doesn’t quite work that way.
The only reason that Bellaire cop got indicted was because of the publicity that case received.
Earlier today I read a great quote on one of the New Hampshire liberty activist forums (isn’t it great that such a small state has enough activity for several forums?)
“I don’t expect the police to know all the laws. But I do expect them to know the laws they’re ENFORCING RIGHT NOW.”
If the officer can’t name the offense and find the statutory cite in his code book in less than a minute, then he truly has no idea what the law is, and is just arresting and hoping to find an violation that matches the conduct.
That police errors are always excusable is a fundamental tenet of the US system and applies to both errors of law and errors of judgment.
An officer shooting a non-threatening unarmed citizen makes an “unfortunate mistake”. A citizen shooting an armed and masked intruder who just broke the door down is a “cop killer”.
Similarly, if it seems to you that someone committed a felony in front of you, you are guilty of false arrest if it later turns out this wasn’t a felony. The police officer will not face any consequences for arresting you knowing that you didn’t commit any crime.
Columbus Ohio police tried to execute a guy for shoplifting tonight. They are in full force on the TV justifying their self-defense because it is proven that a car is a deadly weapon ( guy was driving away and ran into an undercover car that blocked the lane).
I havent seen Jim Gilbert yet.. I am interested in seeing if he has physically turned into an actual pig or if he just has the same resemblance.
Thanks for the Twitter link, RB. Added that to my RSS subscriptions to Google News and Reason, and my email subscriptions to LEAP and Stop the Drug War. Oh, and that Agitator fella.
Keeping up with justice system abuse is getting easy.
Here is another case for the new professionalism roundup. The FBI has bankrupted several businesses (with more on the way) because it seized an entire data center rather than take the time to figure out which parts of the data center were being used for criminal purposes.
That, and once again we have a case of a confidential informant who makes outrageous allegations over his previous employer who had every reason to fire him.
From the Twitter feed: “NY judge tosses suit by ex-cop who claimed cocaine in his blood was transferred during sex with his girlfriend”
Wha… ?
NY judge failed pass/fail course on Birds and Bees 101.
Ohhh… *sigh*
Bronwyn fails Reading Comprehension 101
Time for my nap, it seems.
[...] Speaking of Radley Balko: If you give two shits about police raiding the home of a watchdog blogger, a police chief who retaliated against officers for participating in internal affairs investigations, and “police officers facing civil rights lawsuits” who plead ignorance of the law as their defense, then I suggest you add the Agitator to your RSS reader. [...]