Fairfax County Police means police brutality

Where the hell is the US Justice Department? Why aren't they using RICO against these cops?

Trial date set for former HPD officers charged in videotaped beating of teenage burglar



HOUSTON—A trial date has been set for three former Houston Police Department officers who are charged in the videotaped beating of a 15-year-old burglar.
Phil Bryan, Raad Hassan and Drew Ryser are due in court on April 29. A judge denied a previous request for a venue change.
The three men were among six HPD officers who were captured on surveillance cameras in March of 2010 arresting Holley. After Holley jumped over the hood of a police car, he fell to the ground and put his hands behind his head. Several officers pounced on Holley and proceeded to kick and hit him both before and after he was handcuffed.
Once released, the now infamous surveillance video caused a firestorm of controversy.
Civil rights leaders and Holley supporters rallied and protested for justice. The incident also resulted in the firing of seven officers, four of whom were charged.
Ex-officer Andrew Blomberg was the first to stand trial for misdemeanor official oppression. His defense attorney, Dick DeGuerin, told the jury during opening statements that Blomberg was a “hero” who was simply trying to help restrain a burglar who was resisting arrest. A jury in May of 2012 acquitted Blomberg of the charges.
Two of the Houston police officers who were fired, Lewis Childress and Guadencio Saucedo, regained their jobs through appeals. Neither was charged.
Holley was convicted of burglary in juvenile court and put on probation for the 2010 case. He was arrested again in June 2012 for allegedly burglarizing another home with three of his friends.
The teen pleaded guilty for that offense on January 9, 2013 and his sentencing date was set for March 14. But when he arrived at the Harris County courthouse to hear his judgment, he was taken into custody for an outstanding warrant.

Former officer charged with theft, misconduct pleads not guilty





A former Northbrook police officer has pleaded not guilty to felony theft and official misconduct charges in which he was allegedly videotaped by his fellow officers and the FBI stealing jewelry from a home he had been dispatched to check on, officials said.
Enrique Guzman, 34, resigned from his position as a Northbrook officer shortly after he was charged in late January, according to officials.

Video Special: Charges of police brutality ‘caught on tape’ hit mayor’s race





OMAHA—The latest charges of police brutality caught on tape have re-energized at least one mayoral candidate’s demand for an independent police auditor.
 Republican Dave Nabity—who as Nebraska Watchdog first reported is the only candidate pushing for the return of the auditor— calls the video (see it below) “disturbing on a number of fronts.”
Nabity’s comments came shortly after Police Chief Todd Schmaderer called for an internal investigation into the incident, which according to police occurred near 33rd and Seward on the city’s north side.
The video finds more than a dozen police swarming a home after one officer threw an individual to the ground.
According to a statement from spokesperson Lt. Darcy Tierney, an officer was “addressing an ongoing neighborhood parking complaint when a disturbance erupted.”
Tierney says the chief will determine what actions to take after the investigation is complete.
No timetable was announced but the statement did say that due to the city’s contract with the Omaha Police Union, the department “cannot comment specifically on personnel matters.”
Earlier today, Republican mayoral candidate Jean Stothert publicly repeated her opposition to the auditor’s post.
She made the comments — which appeared to be unrelated to the video — during a noon debate.
Nabity argues that without the independent investigator, crime, especially in north Omaha, is unlikely to slow down.
“There is no way that the residents in a high-crime area are going to cooperate with law enforcement as long as these activities are allowed,” said Nabity.
The video was apparently shot by a neighbor and posted online.

Video shows Pittsburgh cop yelling at bystanders before allegedly tazing man outside bar




A Pittsburgh police detective with a history of accusations on his record was filmed during another apparent outburst on Sunday, yelling at bystanders and allegedly tazing a man who was trying to leave a local bar.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette posted video early Monday morning of Detective Frank Rende yelling, “Mind your own freakin’ business” at bystanders before taking out his taser and waving Mark Keyser Jr. away from the bar on Saturday.
Rende, who was working an off-duty security detail at the bar, said in a criminal complaint that a manager asked him to remove Keyser from the bar. When Keyser refused repeated warnings to leave, Rende said, he threatened to use his taser against him, to which Keyser allegedly replied, “Go ahead.”
The newspaper reported that Rende has been accused of conduct unbecoming an officer more than a dozen times during his career, including an accusation in 1999 of engaging in sexual activity with a woman after responding to her call for police assistance during his shift.
The witness who shot the video, Sam Urick, told the newspaper he began filming the encounter out of concern over Keyser being outnumbered by police. He said that when one officer asked him, “Is that gonna be evidence?,” it confirmed his instincts.
“I thought if he is nervous about taping, maybe I should keep taping,” Urick said.”
In the video, Rende can be seen pointing at one person and saying, “Now you want to apologize? Then shut your mouth when the police are doing something” before walking toward Keyser. Rende is seen pointing the taser at Keyser as he was leaving the scene, at which point he falls to the ground.
The officer said in an affadavit he held the taser to Keyser’s neck but did not release the charge. He also said he was willing to have the device tested to prove it had not been used.
Elizabeth Pittinger, director of the city’s Citizen Police Review Board, told the newspaper that after seeing Urick’s video, she thought Keyser was obeying the order to disperse when Rende made his way toward him.
“I don’t know why the officer pursued him,” Pittinger said. “That’s totally inappropriate.”
“Am I under arrest?” Keyser asked as more officers approached.
“I’ve had about enough of you and your (expletive) act,” Rende tells Keyser. “Shut the (expletive) up. You can’t act a human being, huh? You’re a clown.”
“I tried to leave,” Keyser says. “You pushed me over.”
Rende then appears to notice Urick, telling him, “Take a walk, dude, you’re not going in either. Get out of here. Get out of here.”
Watch video of Rende’s encounter with Keyser, posted by the Post-Gazette on Monday, below.

THE DOG THAT DOESN’T BARK. WHEN JOURNALISM CROSSES THE LINE.

 
A journalist should report that the Fairfax County cops arrested 2,600 people for drunk driving last year.  That is what a journalist should do. The role of the press, after all, is to report issues that need attention.  But the role of the press is also to publicly hold government leaders accountable to the people and that can’t be done if government is using the media as a tool for its own self-praise or if individuals in government are using the press as a means of self-promotion to advance their career, to say, police chief as an example.
The other vital role the press plays in a free society is to educate citizens so they can make informed decisions on pertinent issues and this is done by asking questions. As an example, in regard to the drunk driving story, a good journalist will ask, “How many of those arrests resulted in conviction?” because Fairfax County cops justify themselves through a body count. A good journalist would also ask:
“In how many of those cases did the cop fail to show up in court?"
“And how many of those cases were simply tossed out of court?”  
“Who was stopped? White people? Black people? Asians? Latinos? ” 
The good journalist should examine that side of the issue because racial profiling by the police is a serious national issue. 
The good journalist would also put the arrests in perspective. There are about 5,600,000 people in the greater Washington DC Area and in one year Fairfax County police arrested 0.0004 of them for drunk driving.  In a county of 1,200,000 citizens, the 2600 arrests would total less than 0.002% of the population.
Drunk driving arrests are down 2.5 nationwide in 2011 and 2012.  In fact, in the past two decades drunk driving fatalities have declined by 35% in the general population and almost 60% in the teen driver population.
So with those facts in mind, facts that were not covered in the story,  why were there so many Fairfax cops trying to arrest drunk drivers on a recent Saturday night, enough so that “the lights atop Fairfax County Police Department cruisers along Leesburg Pike lit up the night sky like swarms of blue fireflies".
Poor management seems to be the answer. Shouldn't the cops be doing something more productive and less intrusive to the community?  (A community where less than 9% of the force lives.)
 The summation of the drunk driving story appeared to be one of two things; one that the story was that drunk driving is a non-issue because arrests for drunk driving are down.  So what was the point of reporting this story at all?
The other slant may have been a cop glorification feature piece which was based on the baseless claim by the Fairfax County Police that they lowered drunk driving in the county through sobriety checkpoints, directed patrols and business compliance checks.
The problem is that slant discounts reality based on the facts above.
But there was a story here if the journalist had taken it one step further, one step into the uncomfortable,  and had asked the cops (and thereby the reading public) if they see any danger in randomly stopping citizens to find out what they can be arrested for.
A journalist should ask if those random “sobriety checkpoints” touted by the Fairfax County cops,  have a place in a democratic society. Should cops be stopping people they suspect of committing a crime based on magical and slightly scary “sixth sense” as one cop claimed to have, when it comes to spotting drunk drivers?   
Even more disturbing than that is the fact that the cop in question has an engineering degreefrom Virginia Tech but would have to work the third shift in a bedroom community “sensing” drunks on the road.
The journalist could have asked the obvious question…..if drunk driving barely scratches the judicial surface then why are the cops turning out in force to address this secondary  issue.  This could have led to two very obvious answers, both are generally assumed to be true by the general public.  One is that the cops are bored and don’t have much else to do and the other is money.   Drunk driving fines range from $250 to $1,000, ($625 average fine  X 2600 fines=$1,625,000). All of that revenue is poured into the county coffers and eventually into the behemoth budget of the Fairfax County Police.
Is there any truth to this commonly held rumor? We don’t know because the reporter failed to go that far. However, we do know that the cop who would rather work nights has a “lucky flower” in the car's visor. 
Move over Carl Bernstein, there’s a new gunslinger in these here parts.
But it was Bernstein who said it best. The reporter’s job is to "achieve the best obtainable version of the truth" and, I would add, the best obtainable version of the truth for the public’s good and not for the benefit of the government’s profile. It is crucial that the press be an outsider and never, ever, under any circumstances share the same aims as government, the legislature, religion or commerce. The only responsibility the reporter has is to their own standards and ethics.  This is no small thing because the free press is part of a larger right of free expression, a right that the public assumes that the press will help to protect.  
So in that light, a good journalist would ask “Is this story free PR for cops at the expense of the free press?”  And if the answer, even vaguely, appears to be “yes” then that is a very serious infringement on the role of the press in a free society and should not be taken lightly, no matter how innocuous the story.
The craft of reporting, and it is a craft, is found in the reporter's ability to research, to ask questions, to observe, to sift through self –serving propaganda disguised as news and then to place it in context so that the public can evaluate where the truth is. All of that makes the reporter the  community's witness to the process of government. Crossing the line makes the reporter part of the government. So what was this drunk driver story?
The press is a powerful instrument which must exist independently from the other main centers of power in society because, among other things, it is often in the best interests of those other power centers to control or quash the press.
This rule of separation is especially true in dealing with the well-heeled Fairfax County Police Department, which is widely considered to be the least transparent law enforcement agency in the state of Virginia. The Fairfax County Police have failed, repeatedly, to show that they understand the simple truth that the free flow of information is a civic responsibility because information, even when it makes a department look bad, is the fuel of democracy. Instead, the department has mastered the art of avoiding public scrutiny by simply refusing to deal with the press….unless the press wants to do a fluff & kisses piece about them. And that’s what is wrong with plopping down the non-issue drunk driving feature piece.  Reporting balanced news is vital to the health and well-being of a democracy as is the cop’s responsibility to inform the public that pays them. When journalists start backsliding down that very slippery slope by writing glory stories when the cops don’t deserve it, it is dangerous, unethical and sets a very bad precedent.  
It’s about integrity. If the reporter loses their integrity they have lost everything and they have lost it forever, for themselves and their publication and it is easy to lose integrity because the damn thing about a free press is that the fight to keep the press free never ends.  Rather it is a battle that is never won because the prize is much too valuable for other powers not to want to control it and to manipulate it.   And those battles to keep the free press free are rarely epic, rather they are tiny skirmishes, say, as an example, a police department noted for playing a one sided game, trying to get a local reporter to skim over the facts and avoid the comfortable questions and write what they want to see in print.  

Obama Administration supports journalist who was arrested after recording cops


 Government brief argues arrest violated Maryland man's constitutional rights.

The Obama Administration has filed a brief in support of a Maryland photojournalist who says he was arrested and beaten after he took photographs of the police arresting two other men. The brief by the Justice Department argues that the US Constitution protects the right to photograph the actions of police officers in public places and prohibits police officers from arresting journalists for exercising those rights.

The lawsuit arose from a June 2011 altercation in which photojournalist Mannie Garcia witnessed Montgomery County police arresting "two young Hispanic men" in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. Concerned that the police were using "excessive force," Garcia says he pulled out his camera and began photographing the scene from a distance of about 30 feet.

Garcia says that when Officer Christopher Malouf approached him, Garcia identified himself as a member of the press held up his hands to show he was only holding a camera. But Malouf "placed Mr. Garcia in a choke hold and dragged him across the street to his police cruiser," where he "subjected him to verbal and physical abuse." According to Garcia's complaint, Malouf "forcibly dragged Mr. Garcia across the street, throwing him to the ground along the way, inflicting significant injuries." Garcia says Malouf "kicked his right foot out from under him, causing Mr. Garcia to hit his head on the police cruiser while falling to the ground."

Garcia claims that Malouf took the video card from Garcia's camera and put it in his pocket. The card was never returned. Garcia was charged with disorderly conduct. In December 2011, a judge found Garcia not guilty. After the Montgomery County Police Department failed to discipline the officers, Garcia filed a civil rights lawsuit against Montgomery County and the police officers involved in his arrest

The feds weigh in

On Monday, the Obama administration filed a brief arguing that the conduct described by Garcia violates his rights under the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments. "It is now settled law that the First Amendment protects individuals who photograph or otherwise record officers engaging in police activity in a public place," the federal government argued, citing a 2011 precedent that arose from a similar incident in Boston.

The federal government also suggested that taking Garcia's video card was a violation of the Constitution. "The reach of the First Amendment’s protection extends beyond the right to gather information critical of public officials," the Justice Department wrote. "It also prohibits government officials from punishing the dissemination of information relating to alleged governmental misconduct."

The Obama administration urged the courts to use "considerable skepticism" when police officers use vague charges like disorderly conduct, loitering, or resisting arrest to retaliate against those who record their public activities. "Courts have routinely rejected officers’ attempts to criminalize protected speech through the use of charges that rely heavily on the discretion of the arresting officer on both First and Fourth Amendment grounds," the Justice Department argued.

Finally, the government emphasized that ordinary citizens have as much right to record the actions of the police as professional journalists. While Garcia is a professional photojournalist, the Obama Administration believes that an ordinary citizen would have enjoyed exactly the same Constitutional right to record the actions of police officers in public.

This week's brief echoes arguments the Obama administration made early last year in another Maryland case. In that case, a private citizen used his cell phone to record the conduct of Baltimore police officers who he alleges used excessive force while arresting his friend. The officers allegedly took the man's phone and deleted the video he had taken. That man, like Garcia, responded by filing a civil rights lawsuit.

 

 

Norwood cop sued for police brutality



NORWOOD, OH.

A lawsuit has been filed against the same Norwood officer who was caught on surveillance video throwing a woman against a wall.
 Officer Bobby Ward was suspended in September after it appeared on camera
A Norwood Police officer appeared in court on Wednesday after video surveillance caught him in an altercation with a suspect.
Charges have been dropped against a woman who was shown on surveillance video being roughed up by a Norwood Police officer. Denise Diallo, 30, was facing charges of resisting arrest, possession and drugs
"The allegation is that my client was roughed up in the lobby of the Norwood Police Department," says Mike Allen, the attorney for Claude Henderson.
Allen says his client was ‘roughed up' by Robert 'Bobby' Ward, the same officer who was forced to resign after pleading no contest to throwing Denise Diallo against a wall in a holding cell inside the Norwood police station. Ward was sentenced to 60 days of house arrest in November and was placed on one year probation.
"My client, Mr. Henderson, was minding his own business walking down the street in the city of Norwood in the Surrey Square area," added Allen. "When he was approached by Norwood police officers, was placed under arrest, taken back to the Norwood police department, placed in the temporary holding cell, and after all that, was only issued a Disorderly Conduct citation."
That crime is a minor misdemeanor which carries a small fine. Then, Allen says, when Henderson started to leave the police station he looked in his wallet and didn't see the same amount of money he went in there with.
"When he noticed some money missing from his personal belongings, he went back to the Norwood police station and confronted the police about that and talked to him. They weren't happy about that, a melee ensued. The video was obtained of that confrontation, shown to the prosecutor, and those charges were dismissed," said Allen.
On Tuesday, Henderson spoke with FOX19 about the incident.
"I said to Ward, the officer that was actually on top of me that what is this all about and he just said 'well, Disorderly Conduct and Resisting Arrest, kinda like he was just making it up on the spot. So, I just kinda went 'okay, we'll see about that," explained Henderson.
Denise Diallo's lawsuit is still pending. Allen has also filed a federal lawsuit against Ward personally, the Norwood Police and the City of Norwood.
"If they're willing to show this much aggression and rage at a time when you would think that they're supposed to be on their best behavior, then what might have happened if it was on a side street, dark alley, no cameras, no witnesses... And we've already seen from other examples that people have already gotten hurt through Norwood. A woman got her wrist broken and it needs to stop, plain and simple," said Henderson.
FOX19 attempted to contact Ward to no avail, and on Thursday we left messages with Norwood's Police Information Officer Tom Williams, Jr. and with the Mayor of Norwood, Tom Williams, Sr. Neither has returned calls yet.