Goon backs off

Philadelphia PD Sued Over Arrest of Student Photographing Cops

THE AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union plans to file two federal lawsuits today against the Philadelphia Police Department for wrongfully arresting a journalism student for photographing a cop and a West Philly woman who was observing police action in 2011.

The latest filings will be the ACLU's third this year in which citizens have been arrested for videotaping, photographing or observing police activity. Another was filed in January. These suits also come a week after a Philadelphia woman sued the city after a cop allegedly beat and arrested her and a friend for videotaping an arrest two years ago.

"Certainly the right to observe police officers and their interaction with the public is at the core of what the First Amendment is supposed to protect," ACLU attorney Molly Tack-Hooper said, adding that the latest cases are not isolated. "The Philadelphia Police Department has arrested numerous people for filming. These are unconstitutional arrests."

District attorney revises policy on police misconduct disclosure

The new directives require prosecutors to disclose all evidence favorable to the defense and allow information on officer misconduct to be added to a database.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey announced Tuesday that she has issued new policies on when to disclose information about police officer misconduct and other evidence in criminal cases to defense attorneys.

The move drew praise from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which, along with other civil rights lawyers, sued the county last year accusing prosecutors of improperly withholding key evidence from defendants.

The new directives, issued last week, make it clear that prosecutors must disclose all evidence favorable to the defense and that they cannot rely solely on the contents of a district attorney's database that tracks police misconduct when they determine what evidence needs to be turned over.

ACLU attorneys said they dropped their lawsuit earlier this year after Lacey's office gave assurances that the policies would be revised. Lacey took office in December, replacing retired Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley.

Hector Villagra, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California, described the new policies as a major improvement that more accurately explains the legal obligations of prosecutors to disclose evidence to the defense.

"We're very appreciative of Ms. Lacey and her leadership and commitment to the office's obligation to ensure fair trials," Villagra said.

District attorney's officials downplayed the significance of the changes, saying the new policies were clarifications designed to accurately reflect the office's training and legal manuals as well as the practices already being followed by prosecutors.

"If there was any confusion about it at all ... we wanted to eliminate that confusion," said Assistant Dist. Atty. Pamela Booth, who oversees the office's administration. "We want our prosecutors to live up to the highest ethical standards."

ACLU's lawsuit alleged that the district attorney's office violated the rights of defendants by preventing prosecutors from disclosing information about law enforcement misconduct without "clear and convincing evidence" that the information is true. That is a higher burden than the "preponderance of evidence" standard required for police departments to discipline or fire officers.

The suit also claimed that the district attorney's office improperly withheld evidence during ongoing investigations into law enforcement officers, and that it only required prosecutors to turn over evidence if they believed it would probably affect the outcome of the case.

The district attorney's new directives explicitly follows California law. It says that prosecutors must turn over all evidence favorable to defendants and that information appearing to help a defendant should not be withheld simply because the prosecutor believes it might not affect the outcome of the case.

The new policies also tell prosecutors that information on pending police misconduct investigations can, in some cases, be put into the office's database.

Booth said the office has never prevented prosecutors from fulfilling their legal requirements to disclose information to the defense. She said that adding information about pending investigations to the police misconduct database is also nothing new, even though the previous policy appeared to prohibit it.

Despite objections from some civil rights attorneys, Booth said the office continues to use the "clear and convincing evidence" standard for including officers in its misconduct database, known as the Brady Alert System.

Last year's lawsuit filed by the ACLU, civil rights attorneys and legal scholars also accused the Sheriff's Department of failing to keep inmate complaints in the personnel files of the deputies accused of misconduct, requiring officials to hand-search thousands of documents to find complaints against specific jailers.

The ACLU dropped that part of the lawsuit last year after sheriff's officials announced the department had implemented a new system for tracking inmate complaints by deputy name and had also manually classified inmate complaints for the last five years

NJ Assemblyman Paul Moriarty (D-Gloucester County)

NJ Assemblyman Paul Moriarty (D-Gloucester County) was wrongly accused of drunk driving last year, the charges were dismissed and the cop who pulled him over has been indicted for false arrest.  There was a camera on the cruiser. Now Moriarty wants all police cars used for traffic stops to be equipped with dashboard cameras. The legislation calls for a $25 surcharge for drunk driving convictions to fund the cameras.

David Sal Silva, the father of four children, died after cops

David Sal Silva, the father of four children, died after cops with the California Highway Patrol repeatedly struck him with a baton. His family is now calling for the cops to release a bystander video evidence that reportedly shows the cops beating Sal Silva to death. Local press have also reported on details from a 911 call made, in which witness Sulina Quair, 34, said “There is a man laying on the floor and your police officers beat the (expletive) out of him and killed him. I have it all on video camera. We videotaped the whole thing.” The cops confiscated the phones of bystanders who had captured the event as it unfolded. Cops also arrived at Quair’s home to take his phone. 

Angelique Gerald-Porter was near her home in Philadelphia watching a violent arrest

 Angelique Gerald-Porter was near her home in Philadelphia watching a violent arrest that her friend, Salimah Milton, was videotaping. After Gerald-Porter got off her steps, a cop told her to get back. According to the lawsuit, she complied, but the cop, Ian Nance, told her to walk to the end of the block. Gerald-Porter refused since she lived steps away.  Then Nance said: “This is our property right now," and slammed Gerald-Porter to the ground. Nance allegedly punched her in the stomach, and dragged her down her steps by her hair. Her two-year-old son was pinned beneath her and was kicked, according to the lawsuit. Gerald-Porter “was bloodied, her clothes torn and she was nearly naked in the street, the suit says. Gerald-Porter and her son were both treated for injuries at Lankenau Hospital.

Baltimore cops beat up a woman named Makia Smith and smashed her camera

Baltimore cops beat up a woman named Makia Smith and smashed her camera for filming them beating up a man, telling her: "You want to film something, bitch? Film this!" the woman claims in court. She has sued the cops involved,  Nathan Church, William Pilkerton, Jr., Nathan Ulmer and Kenneth Campbell, in Federal Court.

U.S. District Court Judge has made a ruling that a video showing

U.S. District Court Judge has made a ruling that a video showing Meriden Ct. cop  Evan J. Cossette pushing a suspect into a jail cell could be entered into evidence. The Meriden cop is charged with violating a suspect's civil rights of Pedro Temich.  Cossette is accused of pushing Temich, who was handcuffed after he was arrested and was highly intoxicated, backwards into a cell on May 1, 2010, then lying about the incident in reports he filed. Temich hit his head on a concrete bench during the fall and suffered a deep laceration that required about 12 staples to close.