Cathedral City California Police Officer Showed Up At A Home, Stripped Naked, And Jumped Into Pool Instead of Investigating Noise Complaint

CATHEDRAL CITY, CALIFORNIA – The three women lounging in a pool and sipping drinks were surprised to see a uniformed police officer suddenly appear on the patio.

They later told investigators they were stunned as the Cathedral City officer unbuckled his gun belt, unbuttoned his shirt, dropped his pants and underwear and jumped into the pool.

“We just couldn’t believe he was actually getting into the pool,” one of the women told The Desert Sun on Wednesday.

The couple who own the house, as well as their two friends, filed a complaint with the Cathedral City Police Department early Wednesday, claiming the on-duty officer who responded to a neighbor’s noise complaint ended up naked in the pool.
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A police spokesman declined to comment on the specifics of the complaint, but confirmed the department placed an officer on paid leave Wednesday while he is investigated for misconduct.

The department has also asked the Riverside County district attorney to conduct a criminal investigation, Lt. Chuck Robinson said.

Police say that an initial call was received at 3:45 a.m. from someone complaining about noise in the 35-000 block of Maria Road.

Fifteen minutes later, police received a call about an officer in the pool.

The Desert Sun interviewed the couple who own the home and one of the women who was in the pool. They asked not to be identified because they say they are embarrassed and because they had been told by detectives to keep a low profile while the investigation is ongoing.

They said the wife and two female friends were in the pool when the officer came to the door.

The husband, 37, said he answered the door and was told by the officer he needed to investigate the noise complaint. The man said the officer walked through the house to the pool.

The women, who said they had been drinking, said they chatted with the officer briefly and joked that he should join them.

They say he then stripped, left his holstered gun on a poolside table, and jumped into the pool.

The officer followed the women around the pool, flirtatiously “playing footsy” for about 10 minutes, the husband said.

Asked by a Desert Sun reporter what the women were wearing, one of the women said, “We had bottoms on … and tops.”

The husband said he was so troubled by the officer’s presence that he considered picking up the gun and ordering the officer to leave. But he decided against it because he didn’t want to escalate the situation with four children sleeping inside the house.

Instead, he said he ran to the front of the house, scrawled the license plate number of the patrol car onto his forearm and called 911. “I thought maybe someone would show up and see him inside the pool,” the man said.

When the officer heard the call on his police radio, he jumped out of the water, grabbed his clothes and ran back to his car, according to the wife and one of her friends.

The husband said he took photos of the officer on his camera phone while he was in the pool.

He said the phone, as well as three towels that had been out by the pool, were taken by an investigator with the district attorney’s office.

The officer — who police declined to identify — is the third Cathedral City police officer to be placed on paid leave in 11 days.

One officer is on administrative leave after he shot and killed a man during a confrontation on Sept. 19.

A second officer is on leave after a Monday shooting that police call an attempted “suicide by cop.”

Robinson said the department is committed to thoroughly investigating the complaint.

“Once the truth has been determined, we will take the appropriate action,” Robinson said. “It’s a public trust issue and the public’s got to know that we’ll police our own, and we’ll do it appropriately.”

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Crazed Feds Demand New York City Spend $28 Million Changing Street Name Signs From All Caps To Lowercase

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Federal copy editors are demanding the city change its 250,900 street signs — such as these for Perry Avenue in The Bronx — from the all-caps style used for more than a century to ones that capitalize only the first letters.

Changing BROADWAY to Broadway will save lives, the Federal Highway Administration contends in its updated Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, citing improved readability.

At $110 per sign, it will also cost the state $27.6 million, city officials said.

“We have already started replacing the signs in The Bronx,” city Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan told The Post. ‘We will have 11,000 done by the end of this fiscal year, and the rest finished by 2018.”
$27 million to turn PERRY AV into Perry Av
$27 million to turn PERRY AV into Perry Av

It appears e.e. cummings was right to eschew capital letters, federal officials explain.

Studies have shown that it is harder to read all-caps signs, and those extra milliseconds spent staring away from the road have been shown to increase the likelihood of accidents, particularly among older drivers, federal documents say.

The new regulations also require a change in font from the standard highway typeface to Clearview, which was specially developed for this purpose.

As a result, even numbered street signs will have to be replaced.

“Safety is this department’s top priority,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said last year, in support of the new guidelines. “These new and updated standards will help make our nation’s roads and bridges safer for drivers, construction workers and pedestrians alike.”

The Highway Administration acknowledged that New York and other states “opposed the change, and suggested that the use of all upper-case letters remain an option,” noting that “while the mixed-case words might be easier to read, the amount of improvement in legibility did not justify the cost.”

To compensate for those concerns, in 2003, the administration allowed for a 15-year

phase-in period ending in 2018.

Although the city did not begin replacing the signs until earlier this year, Sadik-Khan said they will have no trouble meeting the deadline, as some 8,000 signs a year are replaced annually simply due to wear and tear.

The new diminutive signs, which will also feature new reflective sheeting, may also reflect a kinder, gentler New York, she said.

“On the Internet, writing in all caps means you are shouting,” she said. “Our new signs can quiet down, as well.”

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Pinal County Arizona Deputy Sheriff And Sheriff Paul Babeu Are Pretty Much Full Of Shit

PINAL COUNTY, ARIZONA – Experts are now seriously questioning Pinal County Sheriff’s Deputy Louie Puroll’s much-hyped tale of being shot by drug smugglers in a remote part of the Arizona desert. But even if every detail of Puroll’s story is true, it still does not square with many of the claims the Sheriff’s office has peddled about the case.

The department says the original criminal investigation “had concluded and the facts of the case confirmed the accounts of the event as Deputy Puroll described.” And though the case has now been reopened, Babeu told local news this week that he “absolutely” still believes his deputy. Beside Puroll and his alleged attackers, who were never found, there were no other witnesses to the event.

But in the immediate aftermath of the April incident, and to this day, Sheriff Paul Babeu and the department have made statements about the event that clash with the recorded account that Puroll gave to detectives on May 6, and which was released to the public in early July (audio here). These statements have included exaggerations and unverified information, and have been repeated often by Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu as his national profile has grown as a voice on border security. Some of the claims have been walked back. Others have not.
Claim: The assailants were members of a Mexican drug cartel

While the April incident made headlines around the country in the context of the debate over immigration and border security, Puroll himself never suggested that his assailants were Mexican or illegal immigrants. The area Puroll was in is a known corridor for traffickers and undocumented border crossers, and the Sheriff’s office told TPM they know cartels operate in the area. But Puroll told detectives that he only got a look at the facial features of one of the men he was tracking that day, and only in profile, through binoculars.

“I remember thinking to myself, that man is an Indian, he’s probably not a Mexican smuggler. I remember thinking that because that’s what he looked like,” Puroll told detectives.

But that’s not what the department told the public.

On April 30, CNN reported: “The Pinal County deputy, who was not immediately identified, contacted authorities after being wounded in the desert, saying he had been shot by an illegal immigrant with an AK-47, said Lt. Tammy Villar, a sheriff’s spokeswoman.”

That night, Babeu was interviewed on local news. He said he had spoken to Puroll firsthand about the incident, and said Puroll ” gave a description, as ‘five Hispanic males.’”

Villar told TPM that some media reports suggesting Mexican persons of interest had been detained cited her and the department erroneously. She also said that when she spoke to Puroll after the incident, he asked her, “Where are people getting that these are Mexican nationals?” (Puroll went back to work 3 days after the incident, but has not yet spoken to the media. The Sheriff’s Office told TPM he is waiting for the end of an internal investigation on advice of his lawyer.)

It would seem people are getting that from the sheriff. As recently as Tuesday, Babeu was on Fox News saying that “one of my deputies, as you know, was ambushed — was shot by six members of a Mexican drug cartel.”

When TPM asked Villar how the Sheriff could know definitively that the suspects were Mexican cartel members, she responded, “I can’t answer that,” and then, “I would have the same question.”

Pinal County Public Information Officer Tim Gaffney first told TPM that the department had information from a “federal law enforcement source developed during this case and another subsequent case where two individuals were shot in the desert that those individuals working the area are tied to drug cartels from Mexico.” When asked what specifically tied that to the Puroll case, Gaffney said “The reason we feel that they were in fact members of the drug cartel is because of the witness/victim accounts from individuals in the area told us as much. We have also gotten information from other agencies that is law enforcement sensitive that has also confirmed this information.”

TPM’s requested a direct comment from the sheriff on the matter, but one was not provided.
Claim: Smugglers fired at law enforcement helicopters

In the early reports of the incident, various news outlets cited the Sheriff’s department saying that law enforcement helicopters responding to the scene took fire from the suspects. A report first published on April 30 by KPHO.com quotes Villar: “We had helicopters up in the air. They were taking gunfire from the suspects as well. They had to pull out.”

A few days after the incident, The Arizona Republic reported that the Arizona National Guard told the media:

a clipboard or other metal object within the aircraft apparently fell to the floor, causing a clattering noise. Crew members were at first unclear about the source of the noise and put out an alert that there might be gunfire in the area. During a debriefing, Castillo said, the crew realized what caused the confusion.

Villar said the clarification never reached Sheriff Paul Babeu, who told the media of a helicopter coming under fire during news briefings.

But the National Guard only took responsibility for the confusion over one helicopter taking fire. When TPM asked Villar how she came to tell media that several helicopters had sustained fire she wrote in an email:

when the helicopter pilot (mind you there was more than 1 in the air) reported he had taken fire…….he didn’t immediately identify himself to our incident commander……we had more than one and did not know which one was taking fire…..They means….there were more than 1 and we did not know who was……I could have better stated- one of the helicopters has reported they (again they) were taking fire……it is a matter of semantics that had been later clarified numerous times.

Claim: Puroll was “ambushed”

In his account of the incident, Puroll said the following:

That man stood up in front of me, about 25 yards away… When he first stood up, he did not see me, initially. He did not come up ready to shoot. I don’t believe he knew I was there, until he actually saw me. When he stood up his weapon was in his right hand down by his side pointed at the ground. He stood up, he was looking at the ground. Then he raised his head and looked up and he saw me.

Puroll’s account suggests he surprised the men he was tracking. Yet Babeu has repeatedly described the incident as an “ambush.”

In an article posted April 30, KPHO.com reported Babeu saying, “One of them stayed in the rear, took cover. That person popped up and started firing rounds at our deputy.”

The case has been at the center of his argument that the tactics of drug smugglers have changed recently, that they have become more violent and organized. (An argument he made in a recent interview with TPM.)

On August 2, Babeu appeared on Fox News and told Sean Hannity: “This is America, and we have armed paramilitary squad-sized elements coming through our county every day and every night, and they even ambushed one of my deputies.”

Expanding on Babeu’s argument that the attack used “paramilitary” tactics, Gaffney told TPM that “when the shooting began these individuals were spread out much like tactics learned and practiced in the military.” But according to Puroll:

Everything occurred here within a 25 or 30 yard circle at most. I don’t think those people who were shooting could actually see me, ’cause the rounds were all cracking in air above my head. Nothing struck ’round me close in the dirt or anything like that.

Claim: A large amount of marijuana was recovered at the site

On May 1, The Arizona Republic reported that “Babeu said Puroll was tracking the smugglers, who left behind large quantities of marijuana.” Puroll said he suspected the men he was following were drug smugglers, and he said that five of the six men he saw that day were carrying large backpacks — but no evidence was ever recovered.

On May 3, Babeu appeared on Greta Van Susteren’s show on Fox News and said that Puroll “found some actual backpacks of marijuana and some other suspicious activity.”

The New Times’ Paul Rubin reports that at a press conference on May 4, Babeu “conceded that some information released by his agency in the hours after the incident was inaccurate.” Among the corrected errors Rubin lists: “That the smugglers left behind “bales” of marijuana as they fled. Authorities confiscated no contraband.”

Gaffney told TPM that “Deputy Puroll was following the smugglers to see where they would leave the marijuana they were backpacking. We have evidence bays stuffed full of the backpacks that we seize every week. It is common practice for smugglers to backpack the marijuana through Pinal County and then leave it in a location until it is picked up. Deputy Puroll reported this as well that he was following them to see where they would leave it.”

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Bogus Murder Charge Dropped After Farmington Hills Michigan Prosecutors Read Autopsy Report

FARMINGTON HILLS, MICHIGAN – Prosecutors who received an unexpected autopsy result dropped a murder charge Wednesday against a woman who had been accused of killing her ailing husband as a result of a botched at-home medical procedure.

Authorities cautioned, however, that Laura Johnson isn’t in the clear. They plan to take hospital records and autopsy results to experts for another opinion on the strange death of lawyer Lloyd Johnson.

Nonetheless, the dismissal of charges was a victory for Laura Johnson, a week after her 47-year-old husband died at a suburban Detroit hospital.

“We’re relieved it’s over,” defense attorney John Williams said as he accompanied Johnson on a courthouse elevator.

Johnson, 46, declined to comment as she dabbed her eyes and walked with a cane.

Police found a large pool of blood in Lloyd Johnson’s bed, as well as surgical gear and jars of suspected human tissue in the couple’s home. The Oakland County prosecutor last week filed charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter and unlawful practice of medicine against his widow.

But on Tuesday medical examiner L.J. Dragovic said Johnson’s death was not a homicide. He said it was an accident due to an open wound on his lower back from an old boating injury that hadn’t healed. Dragovic noted other factors: Johnson weighed 413 pounds and had diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cirrhosis and other ailments.

In asking a judge to dismiss the charges, assistant prosecutor Paul Walton explained why they were filed. He said Lloyd Johnson, although unable to speak, nodded affirmatively when asked at Botsford Hospital if his wife had performed surgery on him.

“The patient’s father, mother as well as son believe that the wife is trying to intentionally harm the patient by … giving him extra medication as well as performing unnecessary procedures,” Walton said, quoting a medical report.

Laura Johnson told one of Lloyd Johnson’s children that she thought she had killed him, Walton said.

Outside court, the prosecutor said he doesn’t believe Laura Johnson intended to kill her husband but the second-degree murder charge is appropriate when authorities find a “disregard for human life.”

Walton said it’s sometimes filed, for example, in cases of death caused by a drunken driver.

“You have a victim that has compromised health,” Walton said of Lloyd Johnson. “You have an individual who has committed some type of act that furthers the deterioration of health. … There was a tremendous amount of loss of blood.”

Johnson’s lawyer has said she had provided wound care for two years and was “vindicated” by the medical examiner’s findings.

Walton addressed criticism that the prosecutor’s office was too quick to charge Laura Johnson before the autopsy results were in. He said police had much evidence and authorities also were concerned about her fleeing with her two young sons. She was arrested at a school last week.

“That starts the clock ticking for us,” Walton said.

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Innocent Deaf Man Released From Prison After Being Railroaded By Richardson Texas Police Department

RICHARDSON, TEXAS – A deaf Texas man, who was imprisoned for years for a sexual crime, was released from a Texas jail Tuesday after a judge exonerated him on Monday based on new evidence.

Stephen Brodie was convicted of the 1990 sexual assault of a 5-year-old girl largely based on his confession rather than physical evidence, CNN-affiliate KTXA reported.

But new evidence emerged — a fingerprint at the crime scene from a different man who has since been convicted of a sexual crime against an underage teen.

On Monday, Brodie was in a Dallas courtroom where Judge Lena Levario ruled that he would be released, the judge’s clerk told CNN.

Brodie told KTXA that he was harassed by police and confessed to the crime to get them to leave him alone. At some points during the investigation, he was interrogated without a interpreter present, the affiliate reported.

“I felt like I was taken advantage of because I am deaf,” Brodie told the affiliate in a jailhouse interview where he spoke through a sign language interpreter.

A spokesman for Richardson police, the department that arrested Brodie, told KTXA that the department did a thorough and competent investigation.

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Unattended Bags Get Airport Officials Panties In A Bind – But Not Two Heavily Armed Men In Black

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA – Just before 3 p.m. Saturday, a white Chevy Blazer pulled up to the arrival curb outside Terminal A at Mineta San Jose International Airport. Two men dressed in black parked the SUV, switched on its hazard lights and approached the information desk to inquire about American Airlines Flight 1205 from Dallas. Both carried assault rifles strapped across their chests, with handguns in their holsters.

A volunteer at the desk politely told them the plane was due at 3:02 p.m. And another volunteer asked one of the armed men, “Are you one of the people who ride on the plane” looking for terrorists? “No,” he replied.

Then the pair casually waited near the escalator that ferries travelers to the luggage carousels.

“I wondered if they were going to shoot somebody coming off the plane,” one volunteer said. She resolved to dive under her desk if that happened.

Still, she was worried. “I didn’t know if this was proper, if people are allowed to walk into an airport with assault rifles and just stand there.”

It appears that airport travelers that day either figured the pair’s mission was benign, or perhaps thought they were part of a ninja movie. San Jose police said they received no calls inquiring about the men with rifles.

Simply leaving a bag unattended for a few minutes can cause airport security guards to panic. But apparently it isn’t illegal to carry weapons into the nonsecure areas of Mineta San Jose Airport — or most other U.S.
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airports.

The two volunteers — who asked not to be named because airport officials did not give them permission to speak publicly — said they were unsure what to do.

After 15 years of assisting in the terminal, they said, they know what to do when someone loses an ATM card (call 911), when passengers’ rides don’t show up (lend them a cell phone) and when handed prohibited carry-on items (mail the items to the passengers’ homes). But they had received no training on how to handle heavily armed visitors.

A parking control officer at the airport asked his supervisor what he should do.

The response, according to one of the volunteers: “Next time that happens, have one of them sit in the car while the other one comes in.” The airport prohibits unattended cars at the curb, especially under the current orange alert level.

Soon, the armed pair greeted another man wearing a baseball cap after he descended the escalator. Together they picked up about a half-dozen pieces of luggage, loaded them into the white SUV and drove off.

It turns out the men with the assault rifles were from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and were meeting another security staffer returning from assignment, lab spokesman Don Johnston said.

San Jose police and airport officials, who were unaware of the armed greeting until questioned by the Mercury News on Sunday, said protocol is for a law enforcement agency to give notice when sending armed personnel into another agency’s jurisdiction, according to police Lt. Mike Sullivan.

An airport videotape showed the men in the baggage area for seven or eight minutes, airport spokesman David Vossbrink said.

Johnston said that it isn’t unusual, especially on weekends, for Lawrence security guards to meet personnel at airports. And yes, he said, the security staff members dress in what police call “battle dress uniforms”: dark clothing with logos that are difficult to see.

In a flurry of phone calls Sunday afternoon, San Jose police and the U.S. Department of Energy worked out a clear notification protocol, Sullivan said.

That left one of the volunteers relieved, yet incredulous.

“I couldn’t believe,” she said, “that man was so valuable it took two men with assault rifles to escort him to Livermore.”

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Chicago Heights Illinois Police Want Cash From Woman For Bogus Fees After Police Let Her Drunk Boyfriend Drive Off With 5 Year Old In Car – Crash 1 Hour Latter Killed Her Child

CHICAGO HEIGHTS, ILLINOIS – As Kathie LaFond’s son was dying in a car crash, she was under arrest at
the nearby Chicago Heights police station, where she was told to sign
forms saying her Chevy had been towed.

She would soon learn that her car was actually wrapped around a tree, her 5-year-old son dead at the scene.

Weeks after the boy’s funeral, the south suburb ordered LaFond to pay a
$550 fine for the impound that never occurred, records show.

It was an unusually aggressive take on a trend in law enforcement to
collect fees from arrests involving vehicles. And the ensuing debate
over LaFond’s fee offers another chapter in a high-profile controversy
in which Chicago Heights police let an allegedly drunken man drive
LaFond’s only child to his death.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” LaFond said. “My car was never impounded that
night. Why should I have to pay for something that took my kid’s life
away?”

The fees themselves aren’t unusual, but carry their own controversy. A
recent Tribune investigation found that more than 100 area departments
charge administrative fees — often $500 or more — for impounding
vehicles allegedly used in crimes. After a federal judge questioned the
constitutionality of some tows, a third of the suburbs softened their
laws to let friends or relatives drive cars from arrest scenes, instead
of being towed.

In those cases where friends or relatives drive cars away, no fees are charged because no tow happened.

At least, that’s what happens in the other suburbs surveyed by the Tribune.

But not in Chicago Heights.

Even though its forms say the fee is for impounding, the city says the
fee is really for the arrest. It’s considered a separate sanction for
any vehicle owner whose car is tied to specific crimes, ranging from
soliciting a prostitute to driving on a suspended license.

The goal, officials say, is to collect cash for the blue-collar suburb while keeping criminals at bay.

“It’s a way of trying to discipline people for the commissions of
wrongdoing regardless of whether the car is towed or not,” said TJ
Somer, the suburb’s corporation counsel.

To LaFond’s lawyer, Mark Horwitz, the policy seems purely about
collecting cash, not only from people never towed, but even from someone
such as LaFond, whose child died from the alleged negligence of the
department.

“The thing I find repulsive is: You have a child who is dead. You have a
mother who lost her child,” he said. “Yet you have a municipality
sending a bill out when they clearly know that car was never impounded.
It hit a tree.”

A boy’s death

LaFond, 23, was arrested early one morning in May on Chicago Heights’
Main Street for driving on a suspended license. The stop began a series
of events that led to her son’s death less than an hour later.

Her boyfriend, Cecil Conner, then 22, needed a ride home from a
party. She said she didn’t want him driving drunk. So, with no one to
baby-sit her son, Michael Langford Jr.,

she strapped him into his booster seat and drove to retrieve Conner.

On their way to drop off Conner at his Steger home, she was stopped
about 2:35 a.m. by a Chicago Heights officer for not using a turn
signal. Discovering she wasn’t properly licensed, the officer arrested
her for a crime that qualified her car to be towed to an impound lot.

The conversation that took place during that stop is now at the heart of a lawsuit LaFond filed against the suburb.

She said she begged the officer not to let Conner drive the car because
he was drunk. The suburb maintains LaFond made no such plea and the
officer had no indication Conner was drunk, so he was allowed to drive
away.

LaFond was taken away in handcuffs to the police station. That was
common procedure area-wide for handling drivers with suspended or
revoked licenses. But what happened next wasn’t.

After Conner drove off with the boy, LaFond sat in the station in her
grocery store uniform, at times handcuffed to a wooden bench. She was
there until police decided to release her on her promise to show up in
court to face the criminal charge.

It’s unclear exactly when she left, but before she could go she had to
sign a few forms, including at least one indicating her car had been
impounded, and thereby qualified for the $500 fee.

LaFond said that as she left, she heard sirens — apparently rescue crews
heading two miles south into Steger, where Conner had veered their
Cavalier into a tree.

Rescue crews found the child lifeless. Reports show that Conner
slurred his words and smelled of alcohol. A hospital lab later
determined his blood-alcohol level was 2 1/2 times the legal limit,
prompting his arrest for felony DUI charges.

An unusual policy

Although the tragedy became headline news across the region, the
impoundment forms from her arrest were treated like those of any other
case, Somer said.

LaFond wasn’t the first made to sign such forms without having a vehicle
towed. The Tribune found that during that same month, of the 152
charged impound fees, seven others hadn’t had their cars towed.

Michael Kellogg was one of them — pulled over for driving on a suspended
license. He said his wife, a licensed driver, drove the car away. He
appealed the fine to the suburb’s administrative hearing officer without
success.

“He (the hearing officer) said everybody pays for an impounded car,”
Kellogg said. “Now it’s in collections, and I have to pay it in
payments.”

That’s unlike any other town surveyed by the Tribune.

Officials elsewhere justify the fees as a way to recover police costs of
arrests that involve time-consuming tows. If there’s no tow, there’s no
fee.

Chicago Heights, however, views the $500 fee as a fine, Somer said. The tow is irrelevant. To handle the costs of processing the arrest, the suburb can tack on another $50 fee.

It’s unclear how much the town has collected from these no-tow impounds.
Comparable data was available only for May, showing about 5 percent of
the impound cases didn’t involve a tow. If the suburb averaged eight
cases a month for a year, it could collect $48,000, assuming it charged
just $500 fees.

But the $500 fees are doubled if two crimes are alleged from the same
arrest. That’s what happened to Jim Reichert, whose granddaughter’s
boyfriend was arrested in March for drunken driving and driving on a
suspended license in Reichert’s SUV.

The SUV wasn’t towed — the granddaughter drove it away — but Reichert got a bill in the mail.

The Crete man reluctantly paid the $1,000 fine, plus a $50 administrative fee.

“It sounds like a scam,” he said.

The $550 bill

On the back of an impound form LaFond signed, it said she had 15 days to
file an appeal. If not, she’d automatically be found liable for the
$500 fee.

When she didn’t respond, the suburb’s hearing officer automatically found her in default.

Somer said it was not out of malice, but merely standard procedure in
such cases. The unpaid debt, as is routine, was sent to a collection
agency. He said the suburb sympathizes with LaFond’s loss, but the law
is the law.

“Kathie LaFond, number one, went to collections because she never showed
up for the hearing she was given notice of and defended herself,” Somer
said.

LaFond’s lawyer also believes it’s not out of malice. Still, he said, it
doesn’t make it right, not only for LaFond but for others charged fees
without being towed.

“I don’t think they’re piling up on Kathie per se. I just think this is an incident where they got caught.”

LaFond said she was so eager to get out of the station that night in May
she never read what she was signing. In the aftermath of dealing with
her loss, she hadn’t read the forms since. She said she didn’t even know
the suburb was trying to collect cash from her until told this month by
the Tribune.

She is awaiting a November court date on the criminal portion of the
suspended-license arrests in Chicago Heights and an earlier one in
Olympia Fields, misdemeanors that can carry their own fines or jail
time. Conner remains jailed in Will County, awaiting trial on the felony
DUI charges.

LaFond said she has yet to get a bill demanding the $550. It’s unclear
if Conner, as a co-owner of the Cavalier, has gotten a letter either —
his lawyers did not return calls for comment. But LaFond is the only one
of the pair listed in Chicago Heights records as owing the money.

No matter what happens, she said she won’t pay any bill.

The suburb said it’s not sure what action the collection agency will
take, but it won’t drop the fine. Somer said it’s up to LaFond and her
lawyers to ask a judge to make the suburb drop it.

But Somer said that the Tribune review of its no-tow fee policy has prompted one change.

Chicago Heights will rewrite the forms to note the fee applies even to those not towed.

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Names Of UK’s Killer Cops Hidden From The Public

UK – The identities of just two police officers involved in 33 fatal shootings have been made public in the last 15 years, a Mail on Sunday investigation has revealed.

Since 1995 a total of 55 officers have opened fire on and killed members of the public, but in only two cases have their names been revealed.

The figures can be revealed as the inquest into the death of 32-year-old barrister Mark Saunders continues – and the policemen who shot him dead in May 2008 are allowed to remain anonymous while giving evidence.

The trend was criticised last night by Tory MP and security expert Patrick Mercer who said that officers should be identified in cases where they drew weapons.

And a barrister who represents bereaved families at inquests said the odds were stacked in favour of the police.

Divorce lawyer Mr Saunders, who was drunk, was gunned down by marksmen in a hail of bullets after he opened fire with a shotgun on his neighbours’ homes from a window of his £2.2 million Chelsea mansion.

Giving evidence at the inquest on Friday, one member of the firearms team said he did not shoot at Mr Saunders because he ‘could not justify it’.

It is up to coroners to decide whether to grant anonymity to police officers and there is nothing explicit in the law to help them reach a decision. The coroners’ ‘bible’ – Jervis On Coroners, first published in 1829 – says ‘any departure from open justice must be a stringently regulated exception.’

It says neither a ‘wholly irrational’ fear of possible reprisal against a police officer, nor a ‘vague and unspecified threat’ is enough to justify the granting of anonymity. And when a police witness is allowed to hide his or her identity, ‘this does not lessen the court’s task but instead increases the need for vigilance,’ says Jervis.

But the laxity of the system has come under growing criticism and last night barrister Stephen Simblet, who specialises in representing bereaved families at inquests, called for new rules to be drawn up.
The victims…but will we ever know who killed them?

He said: ‘At the moment the odds are stacked in favour of the police. It is likely that not only the individual officers will be represented by lawyers at the hearing, but also their force and sometimes the local police authority.

‘There is a tendency for coroners to be outweighed by the sheer number of lawyers making the application for anonymity. All these legal representatives will have been paid for by the taxpayer.

‘It seems to me that public money is being invested in trying to cover things up rather than get to the truth. Police firearms officers are given the extremely rare privilege and responsibility of being allowed to carry a gun on the basis that they are trained, controlled and properly briefed.
Mark Saunders

Divorce lawyer Mark Saunders was gunned down by marksmen in a hail of bullets

‘If we don’t know who they are, how do we know, for example, that a particular officer may not be suffering from psychiatric problems or taking drugs? I would like to see stricter, case-specific reasons (for granting anonymity) based on actual, real and substantiated concerns rather than a feeling that they might be some form of unidentified risk to an officer’s safety.’

Mr Mercer said: ‘Every police officer wears an identification number on their uniform. The reason for that is that they are easily identifiable to members of the public. If that is the case in normal circumstances, I do not see why officers should not be identified in cases where they draw their weapons.’

The Independent Police Complaints Commission said its policy was not to name officers involved in fatal shootings unless they were charged with a criminal offence.

And a Police Federation spokesman said: ‘Firearms officers are often involved in sensitive covert and overt operations. Revealing their identity could threaten their safety and the safety of those around them when deployed on such operations.’

Inquiries by this newspaper revealed that since 1995 there have been only two fatal shooting cases in which police marksmen have been named.

One involved Andrew Kernan, a schizophrenic shot dead near his home in Liverpool, in July, 2001. At a coroner’s court, PC Michael Moore said he decided to shoot Kernan with a high-powered rifle when the 37-year-old refused to drop a 3ft-long Samurai sword.

At the inquest – where no order was made to keep secret the firearms officers’ names – PC Moore described how he and fellow police officer Glen Mitchell had hoped to restrain Kernan with a CS spray, but failed to do so.

A four-year investigation by the IPCC cleared the Merseyside firearms officers from blame and said they had acted ‘bravely’ under the circumstances.

In the other case, PC Chris Sherwood was acquitted of murder and manslaughter after the death of James Ashley, 39, who was shot in front of his girlfriend while he was naked and unarmed.

Sussex Police admitted negligence after the killing at St Leonards in West Sussex, and Paul Whitehouse, the chief constable, resigned. PC Sherwood said he had opened fire in self-defence.

But in 31 other fatal shootings, the identities of police marksmen have been kept secret.

They include that of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, who on July 22, 2005, was shot dead by unnamed Metropolitan Police officers on board a tube train at Stockwell in South London in the belief he was a suicide bomber. Mr de Menezes was shot in the head seven times.

Following an investigation by the IPCC, the Crown Prosecution Service announced that no charges would be brought against any officers in connection with his death.

Other infamous cases include that of Diarmuid O’Neill, 27, an unarmed IRA suspect, who died in a hail of bullets when police raided his home in Hammersmith, West London. No officers were named and no charges were laid against police.

And in September 1999, decorator Harry Stanley, 46, was shot dead as he walked home carrying a table leg in a plastic bag, which police officers mistook for a gun.

Two officers were arrested after a second inquest recorded a verdict of unlawful killing but the Crown Prosecution Service ruled there was insufficient evidence for the marksmen to be charged. They were never named.

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Morinville Canada Prosecutor Karen Thorsrud Not Satisfied After Trial And Surveillance Video Clears Teacher Of Bogus Sex Abuse Charges

MORINVILLE, CANADA – A Morinville, Alta., teacher on trial for sexual assault has been found not guilty of all charges.

Michael Dubas, 55, faced two charges each of sexual assault, sexual interference and sexual exploitation involving two female students at G.H. Primeau School in the town about 30 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

In delivering his decision in St. Albert provincial court Friday afternoon, Judge Brian Fraser said he believed Dubas when he denied touching the girls.

“In my opinion, Mr. Dubas, you have suffered a tremendous injustice,” the judge said.

The courtroom was filled with family members who wept and hugged Dubas afterward.

“I’m very, very, very happy to be clear of all these charges and just like to have my life back,” Dubas told reporters outside the courthouse.

He said he doesn’t know if he will return to teaching. Dubas was suspended from his teaching position at the middle school last year, pending the outcome of the court case.

“He’s gone through living hell. For a teacher, this is living hell to go through 11 months of this,” his lawyer, Brian Vail said. He called the video surveillance tape a “gift from God.”

Girls’ testimony not reliable, judge rules

The girls, who cannot be identified under a publication ban, alleged Dubas groped them in two separate incidents in February and October of 2009.

Fraser said the testimony of one of the girls was unreliable and pointed to a surveillance video showing the hallway at the time she said she was groped.

The video showed no evidence the attack occurred, the judge said.

The judge also found the actions of the other complainant did not fit with someone who had been molested. The girl told no one of the incident for a long time and made no attempt to avoid Dubas for the rest of that school year and the year after that.

Crown prosecutor Karen Thorsrud said she believed the girls were telling the truth.

“The judge made a finding that he disbelieved the complainants in this case but that is not evidence they were, in fact, lying,” she said. “And I can tell you that if I had thought they were lying, I would have never put them on the stand.”

The Crown has 30 days to determine whether they will appeal the judge’s decision, Thorsrud said.

During the trial, students who were witnesses for the defence testified they overheard the girls talking about a plan to lie about how Dubas touched them in order to get him fired.

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Orlando Florida Police Break “Upset” 84 Year Old Man’s Neck

ORLANDO, FLORIDA - The violent takedown that broke an 84-year-old man’s neck has the Orlando Police Department investigating its own training. Police Chief Val Demings announced Thursday they would consider changing training policies to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

The victim, Daniel Daley, who is hospitalized, is well enough to start talking again. Daley’s attorney says he is heavily-medicated, but has started talking.

In the meantime, the police department is in the process of filling out a lengthy defensive tactics form and will decide if changes need to be made. The department is changing its tune about the officer’s use of force against the 84-year-old man who suffered a broken neck during the takedown last week.

“This is a technique that we have done for years. Something definitely went wrong in this case,” Demings said.

Demings said seven supervisors will take a look at what happened and determine what changes need to be made.

Daley left a College Park bar upset that his car had been towed. Eyewitnesses said Officer Travis Lamont then slammed the elderly man onto the pavement.

Initially, police defended its officer’s use of force. A spokesperson said Daley was drunk and threatened the officers.

“An 84-year-old can kill officers too, can cold cock an officer in the face,” Sgt. Barb Jones said.

Chief Demings said initial reports show the officer applied the technique properly, but a review will determine what actually happened.

Dr. Richard Weinblatt of Cop Doc says the Orlando Police Department needs to review what happened and the agency should use the incident as a learning experience.

“The problem is not actual technique. The problem may be when it is applied,” he said.

The officer involved is currently on regular duty.

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Crazed UK Police Raid Man’s Home After He Swallowed A Goldfish

UK – A YOB bought a goldfish in a pet shop – then GULPED it down in front of horrified staff.

Cruel Chris Caswell was arrested yesterday over the sick stunt that was videoed by his giggling pals and posted on Facebook.

The lout, 30, paid £1.99 for a fish then asked staff to put it in a glass he had brought along, claiming he lived just across the road.

A puzzled shop worker agreed – then watched in horror as he downed the fish in one swallow.

After Caswell ate the creature, his pal doing the filming crowed: “Goldfish down the hatch!” The yobs then marched out of the shop cackling and joking.

Police were alerted after the appalling footage was posted on the web.

Roofer Caswell was arrested in a dawn raid at his home in Newton Aycliffe, Co Durham, yesterday on suspicion of cruelty to animals.

He was quizzed at a police station for an hour then released.

The yob last night insisted he was an animal lover and it was just a prank.

He bleated: “It was over a year ago. We had been out drinking at a friend’s party. I can’t remember much about it. I have just got a puppy. I like animals.”

The RSPCA last night said it was still probing the stunt at the Petals and Pets shop in Newton Aycliffe.

If Caswell is found guilty of animal cruelty he could face a £20,000 fine or six months in jail.

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FBI Invades 8 Homes Under “Terrorism” Guise To Harass War Protesters – No “Imminent Threat” And No Arrests

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA – FBI agents searched eight homes in Chicago and Minnesota on Friday as part of an investigation the law enforcement agency said related to “the material support of terrorism.”

Targets of the searches accused the government of harassing anti-war protesters.

The investigation “concerns material support of terrorism but there is no imminent threat to the (U.S.) community,” FBI spokesman Steve Warfield said.

No arrests were made related to the raids, FBI spokesmen in Minneapolis and Chicago said.

“We are interviewing people in other places in the country,” Warfield added, without specifying where.

The FBI did not release the names of the targets and said the search warrants were under seal.

Minneapolis peace activist Mick Kelly’s apartment was searched, and agents confiscated computer hard drives, his cell phone, writings, and his passport, Kelly and his lawyer said.

“It’s harassment at the highest level of those of us who have spoken out and tried to build an anti-war movement,” said Kelly, who helped lead marches during the 2008 Republican party convention in Minneapolis.

“It’s an attempt to trample on our right to speak out against U.S. intervention abroad. It’s outrageous on every level,” he said.

“They were looking for information about folks who had traveled to Latin America or the Middle East. I’ve traveled in Lebanon.”

Kelly’s lawyer Ted Dooley said the vaguely-worded warrant sought information on anyone Kelly knew, and mentioned Lebanon-based Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), both of which have been designated terrorist groups by the U.S. government.

Kelly said he has traveled to both Lebanon and Colombia “in solidarity with people who are being oppressed.”

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Navy Pilots Caught Playing In Lake Tahoe With 33 Million Dollar Helicopters

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA — Two Navy helicopter pilots from North Island Naval Air Station have been grounded over a YouTube video that allegedly shows them dipping the $33 million aircrafts into Lake Tahoe.

In the video taken Sept. 14, both helicopters hit the water and one seems to spin out of control and crash into the water before its pilot apparently pulls the craft back into the air.

A Navy spokesman confirmed that the video was genuine footage of two MH-60 Romeo helicopters from North Island’s Helicopter Maritime Strike 41 squadron, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

Former Air Force pilot Chuck Grace said after watching the video it was incredible the pilot was able to pull the aircraft out of the water but wondered what they were doing over Lake Tahoe.

“These two pilots shouldn’t have been where they were, shouldn’t have been that low and shouldn’t have been what they were doing, I think,” said Grace.

North Island Naval Air Forces command spokesman Lt. Aaron Kakiel told the newspaper the pilots were grounded pending an aviation mishap board investigation.

Lake Tahoe is not a normal training area for Navy pilots. The helicopters were being flown home to North Island from an air show at Mather Air Force Base near Sacramento, the Union-Tribune reported.

Former naval aviator Jim Kidrick said it would not be out of the ordinary to do some training while on the way back.

“You have a tremendous amount of free air space that is everywhere that you can do certain things so long as it is within the bounds of the legality we fly within,” said Kidrick.

Damage to the helicopters was estimated at between $50,000 and $500,000, according to the newspaper, which reported that the grounded pilots had to land at Lake Tahoe Airport following the incident and a different set of pilots eventually flew the helicopters home.

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Long Island New York Judge Michael Dorsky Loses Job And Law License After Dating And Dropped Case Against Police Officer Defendant

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - A federal appeals court says a former traffic court judge must lose his law license for going on a date with a defendant and then ruling in her favor.

Michael Dorsky worked for the Department of Motor Vehicles in Garden City, Long Island.

The defendant was a New York City police officer who was accused of driving an uninsured vehicle.

Dorsky lost his job after the case.

The ruling was made last week.

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Broke State Of New Hampshire To Release Sex Offenders Who Haven’t Completed Rehabilitation Program Under New Law

CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE – Saying they had no other choice under new mandatory parole laws, state Adult Parole Board members yesterday agreed to set free eight inmates nearing their maximum term in jail. Among the paroled were child sex predators who have not completed prison programs aimed at rehabilitating them, according to Department of Corrections records.

“You are a danger. You are a predator,” board member Mark Furlone said to Robin Woodburn Jr., 34, of Manchester. “I think it is disgusting we have to parole you out.”

Woodburn’s victims were 7 and 13.

Woodburn said he wanted to be released to the Concord area and is looking for a spot in a rooming house.

Senate Bill 500 requires that violent offenders coming before the board be released nine months before their maximum prison sentence is served. The measure allows non-violent offenders to be paroled after they have served 120 percent of their minimum sentence.

The Department of Corrections estimates Senate Bill 500 will save about $7 million over five years and decrease the inmate population by 500 to 600.

Jeff Lyons, spokesman for the department, has said the law ensures that the last nine months of an inmate’s maximum sentence are spent under “intense supervision” in the community.
100924parolees_425px
Sex offenders (from left) Anthony Blakney, Michael Navarro, Theodore Roosevelt and Robin Woodburn Jr. are among the first inmates to be released under Senate Bill 500.

But board member Alan Coburn, who was serving as chairman yesterday, said he was told by staff that even if a person coming up on mandatory release has no place to live, no job or no treatment set up, he still has to be paroled.

Advocates for Senate Bill 500 have said the bill would reallocate savings from the early release into programs within the community and provide treatment such as counseling for inmates. (See related story.)

They argue that in the past, inmates who “max” out their time go into the community without any plan or support, and that this change ultimately would be safer and give victims more knowledge and control.

Sex offenders Woodburn, Michael Navarro, Anthony Blakney and Theodore Roosevelt are among the first inmates to be released under Senate Bill 500.

►End of inmate program raises questions (4)

Navarro, who was convicted of aggravated felonious sexual assault on a 15-year-old, said he plans to move to Kittery, Maine. He said he plans to seek sex offender treatment once a week in Biddeford, Maine, and go to police station and register in Kittery. He was told he could have no contact with minor females or the victim, no porn and no internet.

“We are going to put you on the strictest supervision that Maine offers,” Coburn said, but noted that the state could reject the plan.

Anthony Blakney, 27, of Manchester, will be released Oct. 28. He has been serving five years for 10 counts of felonious sexual assault on a 15-year-old in 2004. He was kicked out of sex offender treatment for behavioral reasons, and has had 23 disciplinary write-ups in less than three years, according to DOC records.

Yesterday in Berlin, prison staff said he was convicted of carrying a deadly weapon in the prison, a metal shank.

Jeramie M. Johnson Sr., 25, of Laconia, will be released on Nov. 19 to his aunt’s home in Franklin. He was originally convicted on a burglary offense, but while incarcerated was convicted of indecent exposure and lewdness.

He refused sex offender treatment while incarcerated.

“I am here on a burglary and I was never convicted of a sex crime,” he said by video relay from the prison in Berlin.

“Are you willing to do sex offender treatment on the outside?” asked Coburn.

“No,” the inmate said.

“We are going to release you because we have to,” Coburn said. “What we are here to do is to set conditions.”

The board agreed to require Johnson attend a sex offender treatment. He was also ordered to have no contact with children, register as a sex offender in Franklin and have an alcohol evaluation.

John Eckert, executive assistant to the parole board, said yesterday the purpose of parole is to encourage inmates to get it together.

“Now, from an institutional perspective, there is no incentive,” he said.

Also granted mandatory parole yesterday were:

– Mark J. Ouellette, 24, of Laconia who received a two-to-four-year sentence for robbery. He will be eligible for release on Nov. 1. The conditions set yesterday include no contact with Cumberland Farms and the Laconia Spa store, no weapons, and completing a high school graduation equivalency. He said he had no definite plan for where he would stay, but has relatives in Manchester.

– Robert Richardson, 40, of Manchester, originally incarcerated for stalking, is currently serving one to two years for possession of drugs. He said he plans to be released to the Manchester homeless shelter.

– Christopher Moore of Dover, was convicted of unarmed robbery and simple assault. He will be released Oct. 12.

If those who are paroled violate their conditions, they can be returned to the jail for no more than 90 days.

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250,000 UK Toddlers With More Sense Than Others Children Labeled “Racists”

UK – More than a quarter million British children have been accused of racism since the country passed its Race Relations Act in 2000, the Daily Mail reports.

Munira Mirza, a senior adviser to London Mayor Boris Johnson, says teachers are being forced to report children as young as 3 years old to the authorities for using alleged “racist” language.

“Teachers are now required to report incidents of racist abuse among children as young as three to local authorities, resulting in a massive increase of cases and reinforcing the perception that we need an army of experts to manage race relations from cradle to grave,” she wrote in Prospect magazine.

According to civil liberties group the Manifesto Club, 280,00 incidents have been reported between 2002-2009.

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U.S. Justice Department Ignoring Civil Rights Cases Involving White Victims And Abandoned Major Case Against Blacks

WASHINGTON, DC – The Justice Department is ignoring civil rights cases that involve white victims and wrongly abandoned a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party last year, a top department official testified Friday. He called the department’s conduct a “travesty of justice.”

Christopher Coates, former voting chief for the department’s Civil Rights Division, spoke under oath Friday morning before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, in a long-awaited appearance that had been stonewalled by the Justice Department for nearly a year.

Coates discussed in depth the DOJ’s decision to dismiss intimidation charges against New Black Panther members who were videotaped outside a Philadelphia polling place in 2008 dressed in military-style uniforms — one was brandishing a nightstick — and allegedly hurling racial slurs.

The case has drifted in and out of the limelight over the past year as the commission has struggled to investigate it. Former Justice official J. Christian Adams fueled the controversy when he testified in July and accused his former employer of showing “hostility” toward cases that involved white victims and black defendants.

Nearly three months later, Coates backed up Adams’ claims. In lengthy and detailed testimony, he said the department cultivates a “hostile atmosphere” against “race-neutral enforcement” of the Voting Rights Act.

He said civil rights attorneys stick to cases that involve minority victims, and he said the Black Panther case was dismissed following “pressure” by the NAACP and “anger” at the case within the Justice Department itself.

“That anger was the result of their deep-seated opposition to the equal enforcement of the Voting Rights Act against racial minorities and for the protection of white voters who have been discriminated against,” he said.

He said a 2005 case against a black official in Mississippi over voter intimidation claims had stirred a backlash in the department and from civil rights groups — and that the New Black Panther case was no different.

The Bush Justice Department first brought the case against three members of the group, accusing them in a civil complaint of violating the Voting Rights Act. The Obama administration initially pursued the case and at one point won a default judgment, but the administration last year moved to dismiss the charges after getting one of the New Black Panther members to agree not to carry a “deadly weapon” near a polling place until 2012.

Coates dismissed as weak the department’s rationale for abandoning the case, saying the department let one of the Black Panther members off the hook because a local police officer had determined he was a Democratic Party poll watcher. Coates called it “extraordinarily strange” for the department to rely on this and urged the commission to consider what the legal backlash would have been if the Panthers had been members of the Ku Klux Klan.

“To understand the rationale of these articulated reasons for gutting this case … one only has to state the facts in the racial reverse,” he said. Coates said that with the United States becoming increasingly diverse, it is “absolutely essential” that the law be enforced equally.

“As important as the mandate in the Voting Rights Act is to protect minority voters, white voters also have an interest in being able to go to the polls without having race-haters such as Black Panther King Samir Shabazz, whose public rhetoric includes such statements as ‘kill cracker babies’ … standing at the entrance of the polling place with a billy club in his hand hurling racial slurs at voters,” he said.

“Given this outrageous conduct, it was a travesty of justice for the Department of Justice not to allow attorneys in the voting section to obtain nationwide injunctive relief against” the defendants, he said.

Since last year, Coates has been transferred to the U.S. attorney’s office in South Carolina. He said Friday that the Justice Department told him not to testify before the commission after he was first subpoenaed in December 2009; in testifying Friday, he claimed protection from retaliation under “whistleblower” laws.

Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., also wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder warning the Justice Department not to punish Coates in any way for testifying.

The Justice Department has denied the allegations over its handling of the New Black Panther case. The department said in July that the case was dismissed “based on the merits, not the race, gender or ethnicity of any party involved.”

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$50 Million In Jail Funds Found To Have Been Misused By Nutcase Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Department

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office misused at least $50 million from a fund for jail operations, and county supervisors may have to use the general fund to repay the money, top county officials say.

Findings by the county’s Office of Management and Budget show the Sheriff’s Office tapped the money to pay for functions not allowed under jail-fund rules, such as salaries for deputies who worked on public-corruption investigations into county supervisors and judges.

MARICOPA COUNTY, ARIZONA – The findings will be presented publicly for the first time at 10 a.m. today to the Board of Supervisors.

“A very substantial amount of money is going to have to be paid back to the jail fund,” County Manager David Smith told The Republic. “It’s just a monumental financial headache that (Sheriff Joe Arpaio) has created.”

The county would not release detailed findings Tuesday, saying the material was protected by executive-session rules, but officials provided The Republic with the key finding: $50 million in misspent detention funds.

They said the county’s report will cover problems dating back about four years and involving travel, use of county credit cards and extradition trips.

Separate investigations by The Republic have documented the questionable use of public funds by high-ranking sheriff’s officials, who routinely used county-issued credit cards to charge expensive meals and stays at luxury hotels.

The Republic also found that another fund meant to improve conditions in county jails was spent by sheriff’s officials on out-of-state training, stays at luxury hotels, a staff party at a local amusement park and a $456,000 bus to transport inmates to court. That bus remains parked in a county lot because supervisors have refused to license and insure it, claiming it was illegally purchased.

Top sheriff’s officials met with county budget officials Tuesday afternoon on the matter. Lt. Brian Lee, a Sheriff’s Office spokesman, said the office “will continue to meet with them and work with them to try and resolve the discrepancies.”

County officials largely substantiated their findings through records provided by the Sheriff’s Office under a subpoena.

Budget officials said the most egregious misspending came from the sheriff’s detention fund, which makes up a large portion of the sheriff’s budget.

That money comes from a general sales tax approved by voters. Its use is restricted to spending on jail items such as food, detention officers’ salaries and equipment.

County officials said they found the Sheriff’s Office used that money elsewhere:

• For years, it used detention-fund money to pay for employees to patrol Maricopa County, among other duties.

• County human-resources data, information from a racial-profiling lawsuit and other documents show many Sheriff’s Office employees were not working in the same job assignments recorded for them in county records.

Money used to pay for staffers performing duties not allowed under the tax has to be paid back, county officials said.

• In some instances, sheriff’s administrators are believed to have used money from the agency’s detention fund to pay for controversial public-corruption investigations and activities involving its human-smuggling unit and other units.

The questioned spending came at a time when sheriff’s officials failed to meet the state-mandated function of getting inmates to court on time, prompting a chief deputy to be held in contempt.

The board could consider a range of budgetary actions today against the Sheriff’s Office.

For example, it could put the agency on a restricted budget or impose new administrative policies to try to prevent future misspending.

Officials agree the county must act to reimburse the jail fund. The board could decide to make a lump-sum payment, reimburse the fund over time, or take the money out of the county’s contingency fund.

“I believe we are obligated to pay (the money) back,” said Deputy County Manager Sandi Wilson, who oversees the county Office of Management and Budget. “I don’t know if we have to do it all at once, but I believe it has to be paid back.”

Smith said the overall impact would be significant, although it is too early to determine just how deeply it will affect county operations.

This summer, the Sheriff’s Office turned over 70 boxes covering five years of financial documents subpoenaed by the board.

Budget officials have been reviewing the records and recently hired an attorney at a yearly salary of $109,000 to help study the records and advise on spending issues.

Last week, the supervisors reinstated a portion of the sheriff’s yearly share of federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act funds and jail-enhancement funds. Months ago, supervisors withheld those funds amid concerns of possible misspending.

Those funds have been the center of a separate legal battle between the supervisors and Arpaio.

The board has set a hearing next Wednesday for the Sheriff’s Office to appear and explain why it should not be held in contempt for not turning over additional financial and other records.

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Crazed Brooklyn New York Police Charge Man With Trespassing At His Own Home

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK – A Brooklyn man standing in front of his apartment was hit with a trespassing ticket, even after cops watched him use his key to get inside.

Lindsey Riddick, still fuming over the bizarre Aug. 18 incident, said he showed police his identification. And when he opened the door to the Flatbush home, his girlfriend and two daughters greeted him and then ran outside the apartment.

“I told the officer, ‘I live here and I have the key,’” recalled Riddick, 36, whose brother, Michael Riddick, also got a summons for trespassing. “You’re giving me a summons? Come on, man. You got to be kidding me.”

The brothers’ claims have been added to a class action federal suit initially filed in May that accuses city cops of doling out illegal summonses to meet quotas.

“This is another example of police trespassing on people’s constitutional rights just to fill a quota,” said the brothers’ lawyer, Jon Norinsberg. “There’s something terribly wrong with how the NYPD operates and it has to be fixed.”

Police officials didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment about the Brooklyn incident or the suit. Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne denied the NYPD has quotas, calling the suggestion “absurd.”

“Fortunately, most police officers do their jobs well, and in no case is anyone demanding police officers take action on nonexistent conditions,” Browne said.

Michael Riddick, 33, an exterminator, made an audio recording of part of the August confrontation. An officer told the brothers they had to go inside the home.

“You don’t own the street,” said the one of the cops, identified by the brothers and a source as rookie Officer Marvin Esson. “You don’t live in the street.”

The Riddick brothers both have drug convictions, but said they were minding their business when approached by police that night.

The class action suit has 22 plaintiffs alleging bogus summonses across the city. In 19 of the cases, the summonses were dismissed. The cases against the Riddick brothers are pending. The disposition in one case wasn’t clear late yesterday.

Norinsberg, who represents the brothers, was also retained by Officer Adrian Schoolcraft. Assigned to the 81st Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Schoolcraft filed a $50 million suit accusing the NYPD of forcing him into a mental institution after he claimed supervisors were fudging crime stats. The class action suit references Schoolcraft and Officer Adhyl Polanco, who made similar accusations against the supervisors in the 41st Precinct in the Bronx.

Deputy Inspector Donald McHugh, the commanding officer of the 41st Precinct, was transferred last week. Sources said he was transferred over Polanco’s accusations.

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Feds And Florida Police Stop Reporter From Digging In Beach Sand Without A Permit – Can’t Dig, Even To Make A Sand Castle

FLORIDA – A federal official and a police officer told a local Florida news reporter that digging in the sand wasn’t allowed without a permit.

Reporters for the local news station WEAR ABC 3 were out on the beach shooting a story about oil found below the sand when they were accosted by a federal official and then later a police officer who told them they were barred from digging in the sand because they didn’t have the necessary permits. Even if they wanted to build a sand castle.

This is beyond ridiculous but not surprising in the least bit. From the start of the BP spill, the government and BP have colluded to suppress information every step along the way. The less we know, the better for them.

Most likely they’ll succeed in skirting any responsibility or enacting major reforms. Why? Because the government makes the rules and because people have short memories.

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Wayne County Michigan Circuit Judge Timothy Kenny Jails Court Reporter 30 Days For Slow Typing

DETROIT, MICHIGAN – Paulette Martin, an official reporter for Detroit’s 36th District Court, has gone from writer’s block to cell block.

Martin is serving a 30-day contempt sentence in the Wayne County Jail for repeatedly missing deadlines to produce an overdue court proceeding transcript — the first court reporter to receive such a stiff sentence for failing to complete her duties.

The jail term also covers her allegedly absconding from an earlier sentence by fleeing the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, where she had been given five days to transcribe the record of a lengthy preliminary examination.

“We just can’t tolerate this,” said Presiding Wayne County Circuit Judge Timothy Kenny, who locked up Martin.

“And this isn’t the first time” Martin has stalled cases, he said.

There are at least three other instances of her being unable to find records of cases, he said.

Defense attorney Leland McRae said his representation of Darious Morris on arson and other charges is hamstrung by a compromised official record: “This breeches the integrity of the process.”

What really galled Kenny was his thwarted attempt to get the transcript produced by setting up a workstation for Martin in the courthouse.

“We even bought her lunch, and then she takes off — she just left,” he said.

Judge: Busy court needs transcripts on time

The preliminary examination covered three days in June and took 13 witnesses to come up with enough evidence to have Darious Morris stand trial in a complicated arson and real estate case.

You could look it up, but defense attorney Leland McRae says don’t bother.

“There are 300 pages of transcript, except maybe 61 pages are missing,” McRae said Wednesday.

Paulette Martin, the official court reporter from that hearing in Detroit’s 36th District Court, is now lodged in the Wayne County Jail serving a 30-day contempt sentence because she missed deadline to type up the transcript of Morris’ hearing.

Martin even took it on the lam — leaving the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, said Presiding Wayne County Circuit Judge Timothy Kenny, after he told her she could swap a five-day sentence for a completed transcript.

“She just left,” he said.

Judge David Allen, scheduled to hear the Morris trial, said he is frustrated as McRae and assistant prosecutor Rebecca Camargo try to sort out the situation.

“From time to time, we get a tardy transcript; these are busy courts,” Allen said. “I’ve never had anything like this.”

But Martin — who uses a masked microphone to whisper a running verbatim taped account of the proceeding — has had three cases where she could not produce transcripts because she said she couldn’t find the tape.

“And all of these are since November 2009,” Kenny said.

Martin’s court-appointed lawyer Mack Carpenter was not available for comment.

Court rules say a transcript is due 28 days after a defendant is bound over for trial in circuit court. The record is crucial in assessing witnesses and evidence and helping determine trial strategy or plea negotiations.

The Morris transcript was due July 12, but when another five weeks passed, Kenny ordered Martin into court on Aug. 20 and set a new deadline of Aug. 25. When she called Kenny to say family matters had arisen, he gave her an extension until Sept. 1.

Kenny said Martin told him she helped care for an ailing parent. He said he sympathized, but added that the work could have been passed to someone else.

“We can’t have a case dead in the water,” he said.

With no transcript done, Kenny ordered Martin to serve five days in jail for contempt. But, he said, she could free herself with a finished product.

The judge had a work area set up in the courthouse for her, but she said she wanted her personal equipment from home. Kenny said she instead went out and bought herself a new laptop computer.

On Sept. 3, Martin was taken from the jail to work in the courthouse. Court officials bought her lunch, after which Kenny said she absconded.

A bench warrant was issued and she returned to court on Sept. 7 — without a finished transcript.

“I gave her the maximum, 30 days for contempt, and there she is,” Kenny said.

He jailed another court reporter, but that was seven years ago and it took only a day to get that transcript.

McRae said there was a flash drive supposedly containing the transcript, but there were 61 pages missing when the file was opened.

He said there is no way to re-create an accurate record: “Evidence has been destroyed through no fault of the defense.”

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said the court system needs all hands on deck.

“If one person in the system is irresponsible or incompetent, it has the potential to affect an entire case,” Worthy said. “We don’t need this when resources are already scarce.”

Kenny said he is referring the matter to the state board of review that certifies court reporters.

“I’ll let that committee sort it out,” he said.

Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Michael Talbot chairs the review board and said errant reporters can be counseled, placed on probation or even have their certification revoked.

If referred, “we will look at it very seriously,” he said.

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Prince George’s County Maryland Police Beat Up Crime Victims And Kill Their Dog

LANDOVER, MARYLAND - Family members claim they called police for help Wednesday morning, but when officers arrived, they were treated like criminals and an officer shot and killed their family dog. It all unfolded in the 1100 block of Fiji Lane in Landover.

Four-year-old Mercedes, a Rottweiler mix, is the latest dog shot and killed by police in Prince George’s County.

Dog owner Sterling Barlow said about Mercedes, “Cold blood… Shot in the head for no reason.”

The problem started when owner Sterling Barlow’s brother pulled into the family driveway after work early Wednesday morning. The family claims two men immediately approached, armed with a gun and demanding his car. The brother managed to fight them off, ran into the house and came back out firing his gun.

“If somebody did that to your family you will retaliate the best way you know how,” said Barlow.

After a shootout with the alleged robbers, the two brothers called police. When police arrived, Barlow says things got out of hand with the officers and his innocent dog paid the tragic price.

Barlow said, “One grabs me in the head lock and starts punching me in the face.”

Mother Dwana Barlow said, “The police officer wouldn’t even let me go to the bathroom… and held me hostage in my own house.”

While being wrestled to the ground by five different cops, Barlow and witnesses in the neighborhood tell us a female Prince George’s County officer shot the dog in the head.

Barlow stated, “While this was going on I said ‘please, don’t point a gun at my dog.’ I begged her. She didn’t need to be involved in this. She was in the yard.”

But Barlow was arrested and charged with multiple crimes, including insulting an officer. Police say the officer acted appropriately when shooting the dog.

Neighbor Barbara Wells said, “The dog did not attack anyone. He never approached anyone. Even as the officers grabbed Sterling the dog didn’t do anything.”

Police spent hours Wednesday searching for the full police report. Around 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, police called ABC 7 News on the phone and confirmed that an officer did shoot and kill the dog out of self defense. There will be a police investigation but that officer will not be placed on administrative leave.

The alleged robbers have not been found.

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Moron Lewiston County Idaho Deputy Sheriff Shoots Himself In Hotel Room Mirror

LEWISTON, IDAHO – There were some anxious moments late Monday afternoon, as police responded to a frantic call from a desk clerk of shots fired at the Inn America on 21st Street.

It turns out, it was an errant shot from a weapon fired by a Bonner County deputy who’s in town for firearms training.

Lewiston Police Captain Roger Lanier said the deputy was in his room practicing what are called dry firearm drills, but had not made sure the gun was unloaded.

The .40 caliber Glock Model 22 semi-automatic went off. The bullet went through a mirror, the wall and lodged in the wall of an adjacent room.

Fortunately the person in that room was in the shower, did not even hear the shot and was not injured. He did notice some drywall dust when he came out of the shower.

Lanier said no one else was in the deputy’s room. He said Lewiston Police conducted an investigation and determined the accident was not reckless discharge of a firearm, which is a crime.

The Bonner County Sheriff’s Office is doing its own internal review.

Lanier said officers from around the state are in town all week for the training at the LPD training center put on by the Idaho Peace Officers Standard Training (POST).

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Jackson County Michigan Judge James Justin Suspended After Fixing His And Wife’s Tickets

JACKSON, MICHIGAN – Court records show that a Jackson County judge who was suspended indefinitely in July by the Michigan Supreme Court dismissed nine traffic cases against himself and his wife.

The Jackson Citizen Patriot reports Sunday that records show that District 12 Judge James Justin had four parking tickets he received from 2002 to 2004 “dismissed after explanation” to himself.

The newspaper reports he also dismissed five traffic tickets received by his wife between 1999 and 2009. Court documents show that the nine tickets carried potential fines and costs of $751.

Justin’s lawyer Dennis Kolenda says his client acknowledges that he was wrong but his actions warrant no more than a reprimand.

The Judicial Tenure Commission is investigating misconduct complaints.

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FBI Lied To Congress About Terrorism Link To Justify Surveilance Of Anti-War Rally

WASHINGTON, DC – The FBI gave inaccurate information to Congress and the public when it claimed a possible terrorism link to justify surveilling an anti-war rally in Pittsburgh, the Justice Department’s inspector general said Monday in a report on the bureau’s scrutiny of domestic activist groups.

Inspector General Glenn Fine said the FBI had no reason to expect that anyone of interest in a terrorism investigation would be present at the 2002 event sponsored by the Thomas Merton Center, a nonviolent anti-war and anti-discrimination group.

The surveillance was “an ill-conceived project on a slow work day,” the IG stated in a study of several FBI domestic terrorism probes of people affiliated with organizations such as Greenpeace and the Catholic Worker.

Earlier, in statements to Congress and in a press release, the FBI had described the Pittsburgh rally surveillance by one agent as related to a terrorism investigation.

In a letter to the IG, FBI Deputy Director Timothy Murphy said the FBI regrets that inaccurate information was provided to the FBI director and Congress regarding the basis for the agent’s presence at the rally.

Speaking generally of the FBI probes it studied, the IG said a domestic terrorism classification has far-reaching impact because people who are subjects of such investigations are normally placed on watchlists and their travels and interactions with law enforcement may be tracked.

The FBI has broad definitions that enable it to classify matters as domestic terrorism that actually are trespassing or vandalism, the inspector general said.

The IG said the evidence did not indicate that the FBI targeted individuals involved with the groups on the basis of their free-speech activities protected by the Constitution’s First Amendment, but rather due to concerns about potential criminal acts.

The IG also concluded that the factual basis for opening some investigations was factually weak and that in several instances there was little indication of any possible federal crime, as opposed to state crimes. In some cases, the IG found that the FBI extended the duration of probes without adequate basis and in a few cases the FBI improperly retained information about the groups in its files, classifying some probes relating to nonviolent civil disobedience under its “Acts of Terrorism” classification.

Regarding the Pittsburgh rally, controversy erupted in 2006 over whether the FBI had spied on protesters at the event several years earlier because of their anti-war views.

At the time, the FBI issued a news release saying the surveillance had been based on an ongoing investigation.

FBI Director Robert Mueller told a Senate hearing that the bureau had been trying to identify a particular individual believed to be in attendance.

The FBI’s statements to Congress and the public were not true, said the IG, who found no evidence that the FBI had any information at the time of the event that any terrorism subject would be present.

According to the IG, the Office of the Chief Division Counsel in the FBI Pittsburgh Field Division created a document that said the surveillance was supposedly directed at an individual living in Pittsburgh who was of interest to the FBI based on evidence developed in a terrorism probe.

“We determined this version of events was not true,” said the IG.

The inaccurate statements may have been inadvertent, but the IG said it is more likely that the document reflected an effort to state a stronger justification for the surveillance.

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Dallas Texas Police Chief David Brown’s Son And A Cop Killed In Shootout With Police

DALLAS, TEXAS - A man suspected of killing a police officer and another person Sunday night at a suburban Dallas, Texas, apartment complex was the son of the Dallas police chief, authorities said Monday.

David Brown Jr., the son of Dallas Police Chief David Brown, was also killed during an exchange of gunfire with responding officers, Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez said.

Lancaster, Texas, Police Chief Keith Humphrey said David Brown Jr. was a resident of the apartment complex. Humphrey also identified the slain police officer as Officer Craig Shaw, who local media said was a five-year veteran of the Lancaster force and the father of two children.

Authorities at an afternoon press conference Monday wore black bands around their shields to mark the death of their fellow officer.

The incident began when officers responded to a call of a shooting at the complex Sunday.

“According to our investigation, Lancaster officers were called out to a scene and shots were exchanged where two people were killed including Officer Shaw and the suspect,” Valdez told reporters Monday. “It appears the shooter is going to be David O’Neill Brown Jr.”

“Another male victim was also discovered dead at the scene, apparently from a shooting that had occurred earlier,” Valdez said, adding the younger Brown is also a suspect in that victim’s death.

Kim Leach, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department, identified the victim as Jeremy Jontae McMillian. McMillian’s role in the incident is unknown, Leach told CNN.

Several weapons were found at the scene of the shooting, including a high-powered rifle, Leach said.

Charles Cato, the Dallas Police Department’s first assistant chief, said, “Chief Brown asks that the Dallas community keep his family in their prayers this evening — and in the days to come — as his family tries to comprehend the circumstances surrounding this tragic incident.”

Humphrey later added, “Of course, he’s devastated. But Chief Brown also wanted to make that sure our officers were OK, and especially the family of Officer Shaw.”

Pat Miles lives at the River Bend Apartments, where the shootings happened. “I just heard lots of quick shots, you know, like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,” she told CNN affiliate WFAA. “That’s all I heard. I jumped down on the floor.”

Resident Tiffany James said it may have been a case of mistaken identity. “I heard the officer say, ‘Ooh. I shot the wrong person,’ and he busted out crying. Another officer grabbed him and hugged him,” James told WFAA.

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Dumbass UK Jailers Released Teens To Take Bicycle Proficency Test – They Jumped On A Train Instead

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND – Two teenage convicts pedalled to freedom after they were let out of jail for the day to take a cycling test.

Connor Dewhurst, 14, and Sam Thomas, 13, were allowed to sit their cycling proficiency test – an exam British children must take to prove they can safely ride bicycles on the road.

However, the pair proved rather more proficient than supervisors were expecting as they sped away from a juvenile detention centre in Manchester in northwestern England.

Cops think they pedalled 11km to one of the city’s major train stations before hopping on a tram to complete yesterday’s escape bid.

Dewhurst had been convicted of attacking a police officer while Thomas was locked up for robbery, Greater Manchester Police said.

They are still on the run.

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Australian Federal Police Spend A Month Searching For Author Who Left Facebook Messages, Give Up After Finding Her

AUSTRALIA – A twelve-year-old girl feared she was being stalked by a paedophile after finding explicit messages posted on her Facebook pages.

But a month-long investigation by the Australian Federal Police found the girl was in fact being stalked by another 12-year-old girl, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The Sydney girl and her mother had been subjected to a shocking two-week ordeal in which they were sent pornographic images and had abusive messages posted on their Facebook pages.

The girl’s mother had reported the matter to police and the social networking site in a desperate bid to find the culprit and stop the abuse.

But she could not get Facebook to intervene to stop the harassment.

The case was dropped, however, after the identity of the stalker was revealed.

The abuse began last month after someone hacked into the girl’s Facebook profile and used the account to try to get her friends to divulge information about her.

The person also knew where the family lived and used the girl’s profile to post threatening messages on her mother’s profile.

One message read: “f***ing give me your daughters they love me and i love them, you know you cant keep me away from them forever! i am going to be with them they are the mother of my children.”

“i will find ur girls,” another post said.

It is not known how the girl’s account was hacked.

While Facebook does not have an office in Australia, its website usage policy states that users should be 13 years or older.

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Los Angeles California Pissed Away Stimulus Funds Creating Jobs – Each Position Cost U.S. Taxpayers Between 1 To 2 Million Dollars Each

The Los Angeles City Controller said on Thursday the city’s use of
its share of the $800 billion federal stimulus fund has been
disappointing.

The city received $111 million in stimulus under American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) approved by the Congress more than year ago.

“I’m disappointed that we’ve only created or retained 55 jobs after
receiving $111 million,” says Wendy Greuel, the city’s controller, while
releasing an audit report.

“With our local unemployment rate over 12% we need to do a better job
cutting red tape and putting Angelenos back to work,” she added.

According to the report, the Los Angeles Department of Public Works
generated only 45.46 jobs (the fraction of a job created or retained
correlates to the number of actual hours works) after receiving $70.65
million, while the target was 238 jobs.

Similarly, the city’s department of transportation, armed with a
$40.8 million fund, created only 9 jobs in place of an expected 26 jobs.

The audit says the numbers were disappointing due to bureaucratic red
tape, absence of competitive bidding for projects in private sectors,
inappropriate tracking of stimulus money and a laxity in bringing out
timely job reports.

“While it doesn’t appear that any of the ARRA funds were misspent,
the City needs to do a better job expediting the process and creating
jobs,” she said.

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Calument County Wisconsin Prosecutor And Advocate For Crime Victims Kenneth Kratz Remains In Office After His Sexually Suggestive Text Message To Crime Victim While Prosecuting Her Ex-Boyfriend

CALUMENT COUNTY, WISCONSIN – A Wisconsin prosecutor known for two decades as an advocate for crime victims says he is embarrassed about sending sexually suggestive text messages to a strangulation victim while he was prosecuting her ex-boyfriend, but will remain in office.

Kenneth Kratz, the district attorney for Calumet County north of Milwaukee, issued the statement Wednesday after The Associated Press reported on 30 texts he sent to a 26-year-old woman who had complained to police last year.

A police report shows he repeatedly sent Stephanie Van Groll text messages in October 2009 trying to spark an affair.
“Are you the kind of girl that likes secret contact with an older married elected DA … the riskier the better?” Kratz, 50, wrote in one message. In another, he wrote: “I would not expect you to be the other woman. I would want you to be so hot and treat me so well that you’d be THE woman! R U that good?”

Kratz was prosecuting Van Groll’s ex-boyfriend on charges he nearly choked her to death last year. He also was veteran chair of the Wisconsin Crime Victims’ Rights Board, a quasi-judicial agency that can reprimand judges, prosecutors and police officers who mistreat crime victims.

In a combative interview in his office, Kratz did not deny sending the messages and expressed concern their publication would unfairly embarrass him personally and professionally. He said the Office of Lawyer Regulation found in March he did not violate any rules governing attorney misconduct, but refused to provide a copy of what he said was the report clearing him. That office cannot comment on investigations.

“This is a non-news story,” Kratz shouted. But he added, “I’m worried about it because of my reputational interests.”

Hours later, Kratz issued a statement acknowledging sending the messages and saying he “was embarrassed at this lapse of judgment.”

“I have never been the subject of attorney discipline during my entire 25-year career, and until today, have enjoyed a spotless reputation as a vigorous advocate for crime victims,” he said.

Van Groll told police in Kaukauna, Wis., where she lived, that she felt pressured to have a relationship with Kratz or he would drop charges against her ex-boyfriend.

Kratz said he “immediately removed himself” from the prosecution after learning about the complaint, and the state Department of Justice took over. Kratz said he resigned from the crime victims board, which he helped create, after more than a decade as chair as a “self-imposed sanction.” He and his wife filed for divorce last December.

Kratz has served in Chilton since 1992 and earns a $105,000 salary. Kratz, a Republican, isn’t up for re-election until November 2012.

“Nothing really happened to him and I had three days of hell,” Van Groll said in a phone interview with the AP. “They gave him a slap on the wrist and told him not to do it again. If it was anybody else that did something like this, they’d lose their job.”

Domestic violence experts called Kratz’s text messages disturbing and unethical for several reasons, including the power differential between a prosecutor and a younger abuse victim.

“If what’s being alleged is true, it’s sad a prosecutor would use the same sort of power and control over a woman who has already experienced that in her personal life,” said Patti Seger, executive director of the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Kratz, who flirted with a run for Congress in 2008, may be best known for prosecuting Steven Avery in the 2005 killing of Teresa Halbach, a 25-year-old photographer. The case received national attention because Avery had spent 18 years behind bars for a rape he did not commit in a separate case before DNA evidence implicated someone else.

A spokeswoman said the victims’ rights board has not received a complaint about Kratz and is not investigating his conduct toward Van Groll.

Kratz cited an undisclosed conflict of interest in stepping away from the abuse case after Van Groll reported the text messages, court records show. A special prosecutor won a conviction on one felony count of strangulation against the man, Shannon Konitzer.

Van Groll said Kratz sent the first text minutes after she left his office, where he had interviewed her about the case.

He said it was nice talking and “you have such potential,” signing the message “KEN (your favorite DA).” Twenty minutes later, he added, “I wish you weren’t one of this office’s clients. You’d be a cool person to know!” But he quickly tried to start a relationship and told her to keep quiet about the texts.

Van Groll at first was polite, saying Kratz was “a nice person” and thanking him for praise. By the second day, she responded with answers such as “dono” or “no.” Kratz questioned whether her “low self-esteem” was to blame for the lack of interest.

“I’m serious! I’m the atty. I have the $350,000 house. I have the 6-figure career. You may be the tall, young, hot nymph, but I am the prize!” he texted.

Kratz told her the relationship would unfold slow enough for “Shannon’s case to get done.” ”Remember it would have to be special enough to risk all,” he wrote.

Van Groll said she went to police after the messages started becoming “kind of vulgar.” She provided copies of 30 messages and her responses, which the department released in response to an AP request.

The department referred the complaint to the state Division of Criminal Investigation. Van Groll, a college student and part-time preschool teacher who has moved to Merrill, said she has been told Kratz won’t be charged because “they didn’t think he did anything criminally wrong.”

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DNA Tests Free Two Innocent Men Imprisoned For 30 Years – A Third Died In Prison

HATTIESBURG, MISSISSIPPI – A judge in Hattiesburg, Mississippi today threw out the guilty pleas of two men who had spent three decades in prison for rape and murder after DNA tests showed they were innocent. The decision comes too late, however, for a third man who died in prison eight years ago.

Bobby Dixon, Phillip Bivens and Larry Ruffin were sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of Eva Gail Patterson of Hattiesburg in 1979. Larry Ruffin died behind bars in 2002.

The Innocence Project filed a petition in July on behalf of Dixon and Bivens and a separate petition on behalf of Ruffin just yesterday. The advocacy group had lobbied for new DNA tests of the evidence from the 1979 rape, and tests showed that the DNA matched that of another man Andrew Harris, who is currently serving a life sentence in a Mississippi prison for a 1981 rape.

Bobby Dixon was released from prison last month in order to undergo treatment for terminal cancer, but Bivens, now 59, remained behind bars. He attended the hearing in his prison jumpsuit before being set free by the judge’s ruling.

“It was a good result in a tragic situation,” said Emily Maw, director of the Innocence Project New Orleans and lawyer for Dixon, Bivens and the Ruffin family. “This is a particularly sad case. Another man committed the crime and then let these men sit in prison for 30 years. We hope it will have an impact on how we look at confessions and guilty pleas.”

Dixon and Bivens had pleaded guilty in 1980 to the crime and claimed that Ruffin was the rapist. Dixon claimed in an interview with the Jackson Clarion-Ledger that he fingered Ruffin after police beat him. Ruffin insisted on taking his case to trial continued to maintain his innocence until his death in a prison accident.

Judge Robert Helfrich said he did not rule on Ruffin’s petition because it was received Wednesday and he had not had time to review it. Maw said that she expects the petition for Ruffin’s posthumous exoneration will not be taken up until a grand jury has decided whether to charge Andrew Harris with Patterson’s rape and murder.

The results of the DNA test make Ruffin the second inmate to have been exonerated posthumously by DNA testing. In 2009, DNA tests showed that Texas inmate Tim Cole did not commit the 1985 rape for which he was serving time. Cole died in prison in 1999.

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Allegheny County Pennsylvania 911 Operator Suspended After Sending Police And Emergency Crews To Wrong Addresses

PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA — An Allegheny County 911 call-taker is suspended after emergency crews were mistakenly sent to incorrect locations in the city of Pittsburgh twice in recent weeks — and the patient in one of those incidents died.

Communications manager Bob Harvey said the first incident happened Aug. 29, when a woman called and said someone was breaking into her Frederick Street home on the North Side but help was sent to an address near a cell phone tower instead.

The second incident happened early Sunday morning, when 73-year-old Donald Kreutzer called from his room on the 16th floor of the downtown Doubletree Hotel and emergency crews were dispatched to Oakland instead. Family members said Kreutzer was taken to a hospital when paramedics arrived at the correct location, and he later died.

Kreutzer was a Pittsburgh Steelers fan and had traveled downtown to attend the team’s season opener at Heinz Field on Sunday afternoon, according to his family in the South Hills.

The name of the suspended call-taker has not been made public. An internal hearing about the two incidents involving that person is scheduled to be held this week.

The office of Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato issued the following statement Tuesday night:

“We seem to have a problem with human error with this particular call taker. We’ve had a few other issues where people are making mistakes. Mistakes are concerning and it’s something we have to address. Dan Onorato has asked Chief Full to review and possibly increase the quality assurance/quality control to ensure that the call takers have proper training.”

Harvey said a call can come into 911 via a landline, which shows the address of a home or a business name and phone number; or via Phase 2 wireless, which shows the name and phone number and a nearby intersection within 50 yards of where the call is originating from; or via Phase 1 wireless, which shows the house address and the cell tower address.

In the North Side incident, Harvey said he believes the call-taker may have downloaded the cell tower address instead of the home address. He said the call was dispatched at 6:07 a.m., the error was discovered at 6:10 a.m. and responders arrived at 6:20 a.m. and reported that everything was fine.

In the downtown incident, Harvey said emergency responders were sent to 1 Bigelow Blvd. in Oakland instead of the hotel’s address on Bigelow Square. He said some of the paramedics and first responders couldn’t think of any Oakland hotels that have 16 floors, so some of them alertly diverted toward downtown just in case.

Harvey said paramedics arrived at the Oakland address at 1:53 a.m. and reported that it was the wrong location, and paramedics arrived at the correct location at 1:54 a.m.

As of Wednesday evening, the cause of Kruetzer’s death had not been linked to the mix-up that happened with 911.

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Fort Madison Iowa Police Officer William Bowker Want Unemployment Benefits After Firing For Affair With Chief’s Wife – Previously Caught Drinking And Sleeping On The Job And Had Problems Attending Required Classes

FORT MADISON, IOWA – A Fort Madison police officer who was fired for having an affair with the chief’s wife is entitled to unemployment benefits, a state judge has ruled.

Patrol Officer William Bowker was serving on the Lee County Narcotics Task Force in 2008 when he committed several admitted policy violations. State records related to Bowker’s recent request for unemployment benefits indicate that while assigned to the task force he was twice photographed by colleagues while sleeping on duty, consumed alcohol while on call, refused to attend a class about search warrants and complained that another class conflicted with his plans for a Super Bowl party.

As a result, Bowker was removed from the task force in early 2009, but he faced no discipline from the Fort Madison Police Department, where he remained on staff.

In the spring of 2009, Bowker allegedly initiated an extramarital affair with Reserve Officer Christine Niggemeyer, the wife of Police Chief Bruce Niggemeyer. Another officer in the department reported the matter to the chief in June 2009, but when questioned by the chief, Bowker allegedly denied the affair.

The city manager then instructed two of the city’s 18 police officers to investigate the matter. After conducting surveillance of Bowker and collecting video of Bowker and Christine Niggemeyer hugging and kissing, the officers confirmed the affair.

The city then began investigating Bowker’s 2008 conduct on the task force. In February 2009, the city manager fired Bowker, citing the affair and Bowker’s actions with the task force as evidence of misconduct.

In June, the firing was upheld by the city’s Civil Service Commission, although Bowker is currently appealing that decision in Iowa district court.

At a recent public hearing on Bowker’s request for unemployment benefits, Bowker admitted to the affair with the chief’s wife. He also testified that he slept about two times a week while on duty inside the office of the Lee County Drug Task Force.

“There was work I could have been doing,” he acknowledged. “I slept in a chair. … Between having a family life and work, it was a crazy schedule. I would take catnaps.”

Bowker also testified that he used his police computer to manage his baseball and football fantasy league accounts and to visit his MySpace page while on duty. He said he continued to use the computer for personal reasons even after being warned by a supervisor. He said he did so because the supervisor used a police computer to watch videos during work hours.

He also testified that a task force colleague was pulled from the unit for dating a drug suspect’s wife. He acknowledged that while that information was supposed to be kept secret, he shared it with his wife.

In closing arguments, the city’s attorney, Patrick O’Connell, said there was no question Bowker repeatedly committed on-the-job misconduct.

“These are police officers who are our last line of defense in protecting the public, and these officers are supposed to have each other’s backs,” O’Connell said. “This is one of those situations where the intentional misconduct is – well, I don’t know that it could be any more plain.”

Bowker’s attorney, Curtis Dial, disagreed. “Basically this is the just chief pouting and crying because his wife left him for another person and he can’t be an adult about it,” Dial said at the hearing. “There is absolutely no reason he cannot discipline others or be an effective chief simply because his wife is having an affair with Bill Bowker.”

Administrative Law Judge James Timberland ruled that the timing of Bowker’s firing was critical in that there was no recent act of misconduct, which is legally required in cases where unemployment benefits are to be denied.

Timberland noted that Bowker’s misconduct on the task force was known to the chief in January 2009 but resulted in no discipline. The affair was confirmed in August 2009, but Bowker wasn’t fired until February 2010. As such, Bowker is entitled to benefits, Timberland ruled.

Court records indicate the Niggemeyers initiated divorce proceedings in June 2009. A final divorce decree was granted last month. Bowker and his wife initiated divorce proceedings in May 2009, and their marriage was dissolved in November 2009.

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Peel Canada Regional Police Charge Man With Practicing Witchcraft

PEEL REGION, CANADA – Peel Regional Police have charged a Brampton man with fraud for pretending to practice witchcraft.

Investigators allege the suspect was taking money for witchcraft-related services at his home.

Police say the kinds of services the suspect offered are not being released due to the investigation.

It’s believed the services had been offered for well over a year, and police are asking for anyone with information to come forward.

Yogendra Pathak, 44, has been charged with fraud under $5,000 and pretending to practice witchcraft.

He is due in court Oct 7.

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St. Lucie County Florida Deputy Sheriff Matthew Blair Morris, Arrested, Suspended, Charged With On Duty Forced Sex – Previously Suspended After Attack On Little League Umpire And Warrantless Home Invasion

ST. LUCIE COUNTY, FLORIDA – A St. Lucie County sheriff’s deputy is facing a criminal sex charge after a woman accused him of forcing her to perform a sex act on him while he was on patrol, Sheriff Ken Mascara said Tuesday at a news conference.

Matthew Blair Morris, 33, is charged with sexual battery by a law enforcement officer and official misconduct of a law enforcement officer after a 41-year-old Fort Pierce woman accused him of the crime, Mascara said.

“I promise this community we will fully and impartially investigate all such incidents,” Mascara said.

Morris, who had been placed on unpaid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation, is in the St. Lucie County Jail without bail for the sexual battery offense and in lieu of $10,000 bail for the official misconduct charge. Mascara said he requested Morris be placed on a suicide watch because he feared the three-year deputy would harm himself.

“The actions of Matthew Morris are a stain on the honor and good name of every member of the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office, including me,” Mascara said.

Morris, who Mascara said is married with two children, told investigators the early-morning sex was consensual.

Mascara said there could be other victims and asks that anyone with information about the case to call the Sheriff’s Office detective bureau at 772-462-3230.

If convicted, Morris faces up to 30 years on the sexual battery charge and five years for the official misconduct charge, said officials with the State Attorney’s Office.

According to the affidavit, the incident took place between 3 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. Sunday on the campus of the Fort Pierce Magnet School of the Arts while Morris was on patrol.

The woman told detectives that before the sex act occurred, Morris made contact with her twice. The first time was between 1 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. near North 11th Street and Avenue B, where he asked her if she had a boyfriend, she said, and the second time was about 2 a.m. on Avenue B, between North 10th Street and Dundas Court, where he asked her to meet him between 3 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. at a park on South Indian River Drive, the affidavit states. The woman said they didn’t meet because Morris received a service call.

However, Morris later found the woman walking near 10th Street and Orange Avenue, and told her he wanted to talk with her about something and to walk toward the school, the affidavit states.

At the school, Morris exposed himself to the woman and said it would be “beneficial” for her to do what he wanted because he regularly works in the area and that it would not be “beneficial” for her and her friends if she refused, the affidavit states.

During the encounter, the woman said Morris had his hand on his gun and she feared he would harm her if she didn’t follow his commands, the affidavit states. After the incident, Morris hinted that he had a second woman in the area who would perform sex acts on him, the affidavit states.

“I would like to thank the victim involved in this incident for her courage to come forward,” Mascara said.

Sunday’s incident was not the first time the Sheriff’s Office had problems with Morris, according to internal affairs reports.

He has been disciplined twice in his three-year career, most recently receiving a two-day suspension without pay in May after he pushed an umpire at his son’s Little League game. Another incident took place in 2009, when Morris and another deputy searched a home without showing the resident a warrant. Later, the homeowner got a copy of the search warrant but it didn’t have his address on it.

In Morris’ annual reviews, supervisors said he had a “proactive philosophy” and he “possesses the needed skills to achieve advancement.”

From 1995 to 1997, Morris took part in a two-year mission trip to Honduras with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“I want to assure the people of St. Lucie County that I will not tolerate any misconduct or lawlessness by any member of the Sheriff’s Office,” Mascara said.

Appeared HereST. LUCIE COUNTY —
A St. Lucie County sheriff’s deputy is facing a criminal sex charge after a woman accused him of forcing her to perform a sex act on him while he was on patrol, Sheriff Ken Mascara said Tuesday at a news conference.

Matthew Blair Morris, 33, is charged with sexual battery by a law enforcement officer and official misconduct of a law enforcement officer after a 41-year-old Fort Pierce woman accused him of the crime, Mascara said.

“I promise this community we will fully and impartially investigate all such incidents,” Mascara said.

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Morris, who had been placed on unpaid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation, is in the St. Lucie County Jail without bail for the sexual battery offense and in lieu of $10,000 bail for the official misconduct charge. Mascara said he requested Morris be placed on a suicide watch because he feared the three-year deputy would harm himself.

“The actions of Matthew Morris are a stain on the honor and good name of every member of the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office, including me,” Mascara said.

Morris, who Mascara said is married with two children, told investigators the early-morning sex was consensual.

Mascara said there could be other victims and asks that anyone with information about the case to call the Sheriff’s Office detective bureau at 772-462-3230.

If convicted, Morris faces up to 30 years on the sexual battery charge and five years for the official misconduct charge, said officials with the State Attorney’s Office.

According to the affidavit, the incident took place between 3 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. Sunday on the campus of the Fort Pierce Magnet School of the Arts while Morris was on patrol.

The woman told detectives that before the sex act occurred, Morris made contact with her twice. The first time was between 1 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. near North 11th Street and Avenue B, where he asked her if she had a boyfriend, she said, and the second time was about 2 a.m. on Avenue B, between North 10th Street and Dundas Court, where he asked her to meet him between 3 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. at a park on South Indian River Drive, the affidavit states. The woman said they didn’t meet because Morris received a service call.

However, Morris later found the woman walking near 10th Street and Orange Avenue, and told her he wanted to talk with her about something and to walk toward the school, the affidavit states.

At the school, Morris exposed himself to the woman and said it would be “beneficial” for her to do what he wanted because he regularly works in the area and that it would not be “beneficial” for her and her friends if she refused, the affidavit states.

During the encounter, the woman said Morris had his hand on his gun and she feared he would harm her if she didn’t follow his commands, the affidavit states. After the incident, Morris hinted that he had a second woman in the area who would perform sex acts on him, the affidavit states.

“I would like to thank the victim involved in this incident for her courage to come forward,” Mascara said.

Sunday’s incident was not the first time the Sheriff’s Office had problems with Morris, according to internal affairs reports.

He has been disciplined twice in his three-year career, most recently receiving a two-day suspension without pay in May after he pushed an umpire at his son’s Little League game. Another incident took place in 2009, when Morris and another deputy searched a home without showing the resident a warrant. Later, the homeowner got a copy of the search warrant but it didn’t have his address on it.

In Morris’ annual reviews, supervisors said he had a “proactive philosophy” and he “possesses the needed skills to achieve advancement.”

From 1995 to 1997, Morris took part in a two-year mission trip to Honduras with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“I want to assure the people of St. Lucie County that I will not tolerate any misconduct or lawlessness by any member of the Sheriff’s Office,” Mascara said.

Appeared Here

Egg Harbor Township Police, New Jersey State Police, And Coast Guard Search For Skydiver With No Parachute – Nobody In The Area Reported A Missing Skydiver

EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP, NEW JERSEY - Searchers failed to find signs that anyone fell from a plane without a parachute over southern New Jersey. despite

Authorities called off an intensive aerial and ground search because of darkness Tuesday night.

Egg Harbor Township Police Capt. Michael Morris told The Press of Atlantic City police received reports from three “credible witnesses” that a person wearing a jumpsuit had fallen from a plane without a parachute.

Officers on the ground and State Police and Coast Guard helicopters scoured an area bordered around the Black Horse Pike and Atlantic City Expressway.

Morris says there are no reports of missing skydivers or similar incidents from area airports.

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Pentagon Wastes Billions Of Tax Dollars In Iraq, But Investigation Of Its Own Employees Child Pornography Downloads Fizzled Due To “Lack Of Resources”

WASHINGTON, DC – The Department of Defense will reopen its investigation into employees who are alleged to have downloaded child pornography after stopping the reviews because of a lack of resources, a spokesman said Wednesday.

The Pentagon’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service will review 264 cases, according to spokesman Gary Comerford.

Some of the cases may be referred to military criminal investigations, while cases where it appears a criminal investigation cannot be done will be sent to Defense Department leadership for consideration.

The incidents were part of Project Flicker, a nationwide child pornography sting conducted several years ago by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The Department of Defense released documents pertaining to the sting earlier this summer.

A Yahoo News investigation found that only a fifth of the cases had been followed up by the department after it was informed by federal investigators of employee involvement.

“I have tasked Defense Criminal Investigative Service representatives with reviewing each and every Project Flicker and related referral DCIS received so as to ensure action was taken regarding these allegations involving employees of the Department of Defense,” Deputy Inspector General for Investigations James Burch said in a statement released Wednesday.

Among the employees identified in a series of reports released by the department were some listed as having security clearances at the top secret level or higher. They worked for groups within the department such as the National Security Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, two of the country’s top intelligence agencies.

Some of the employees are suspected of having used their work computers to view pornographic websites.

Some employees involved in the investigation have pleaded guilty to charges of child pornography, but other inquiries were dropped or are still open. One case against a Defense Department contractor who allegedly admitted to having viewed pornographic material of children was dropped “due to a lack of resources,” according to one of the reports from 2009.

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Wetback Crashes Into Two Madison County Sheriff’s Department Patrol Cars

HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA – An illegal immigrant faces DUI charges after investigators say he crashed into two Madison County sheriff’s patrol cars.

The accident happened overnight on Highway 231 near Winchester road.

Deputies say they had stopped a vehicle on an open warrant and were waiting for Huntsville Police to arrest the man when 51-year-old Hernandez Donaciano rear-ended a patrol car.

The force of that crashed knocked the deputy’s car into a second patrol car.

Investigator Chad Brooks says no one was hurt, but the vehicle is likely a total loss.

“The loss of a patrol car is huge in a small department. As stretched thin financially as we all are, this is a loss we simply cannot afford. It is in the several thousands of dollars in the purchase of the vehicle, electronics and the things that are put in place to make it a functional Madison County patrol vehicle…the loss of that is significant,” said Brooks.

Deputies arrested Donaciano charged with DUI, reckless endangerment, open container law, driving without a license, no vehicle insurance, and violation of the mover over law.

Appeared Here

Decatur Alabama City Hall Evacuated And Haz-Mat Called After Baby Formula, Container, And Dirty Diaper Were Found In Women’s Bathroom And Trash Can

DECATUR, AL — Police said a substance found inside Decatur City Hall Monday was baby formula and not a hazardous material.

Shortly before 3 p.m., the cleaning crew found a white, powdery substance in a women’s restroom on the first floor and called police. A hazardous materials unit was called, along with Huntsville’s Haz-Mat unit, to test the substance, police said.

As a precaution, Decatur police evacuated the building and postponed Monday night’s scheduled City Council meeting.

The substance found was determined to be baby formula, police said. Emergency personnel also found a diaper and an Enfamil wrapper in a trash can near the bathroom, along with two women carrying a diaper bag in surveillance photos, police said.

Decatur police said policy and procedure was followed in investigating the substance after it was discovered by the cleaning crew.

The City Council meeting has been rescheduled for tonight at 5 p.m.

Appeared Here

Portland Oregon Police Surround Gun Store After Pedestrian Reports Seeing A Gun

PORTLAND, OREGON – Police responded in force to reports of a man with a gun in Southeast Portland late Monday — only to find a confused customer and staff at a gun store.

A passerby outside the Gun Room Inc., 5537 S.E. Foster Rd., called 9-1-1 about 6 p.m. to report that a man standing outside was holding a gun and looked “nervous and sweaty,” said Sgt. Pete Simpson, a Portland Police Bureau spokesman.

Area residents reported seeing officers surround the shop and set up a perimeter with assault rifles drawn. But police quickly realized the “suspicious” man was there to sell a gun. They left without issuing any citations, Simpson said.

“The police response was appropriate,” Simpson said. “If you thought someone was robbing a gun shop, you’re going to show up with guns.”

A man who answered the phone at the Gun Room called the incident “just a case of mistaken identity,” but declined to comment further.

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Stimulus Spending Cost US Taxpayers Over $800,000 For Third World Hellhole Penis Washing Study

WASHINGTON, DC – The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), spent $823,200 of economic stimulus funds in 2009 on a study by a UCLA research team to teach uncircumcised African men how to wash their genitals after having sex.

The genitalia-washing program is part of a larger $12-million UCLA study examining how to better encourage Africans to undergo voluntary HIV testing and counseling – however, only the penis-washing study received money from the 2009 economic stimulus law. The washing portion of the study is set to end in 2011.

“NIH Announces the Availability of Recovery Act Funds for Competitive Revision Applications,” the grant abstract states. “We propose to evaluate the feasibility of a post-coital genital hygiene study among men unwilling to be circumcised in Orange Farm, South Africa.”

Because AIDS researchers have been unsuccessful in convincing most adult African men to undergo circumcision, the UCLA study proposes to determine whether researchers can develop an after-sex genitalia-washing regimen that they can then convince uncircumcised African men to follow.

“The aim of the proposed feasibility study is to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a post-coital male genital hygiene procedure, which participants will be asked to practice immediately post-coitus or at least 12 hours after,” reads the abstract.

Entitled “Community-Based HIV VCT: South Africa,” the name of the broader umbrella project, the program plans to test how well received the penis-washing regimen is among South African men.

If most of the men in the study wash their genitals after sex, are willing to do so after the study ends, and report that their partners accept the regimen, the researchers will develop another study to see if the “penile cleansing procedure” actually works to prevent HIV infections.

“If we find that men are able to practice consistent washing practices after sex, we will plan to test whether this might protect men from becoming HIV infected in a later study,” the grant says.

The study’s lead investigator Dr. Thomas J. Coates was the fourth highest-funded researcher in the country in 2002 and is currently conducting HIV research on three continents.

CNSNews.com asked both Coates and NIMH the following question: “The Census Bureau says the median household income in the United States is $52,000. How would you explain to the average American mom and dad — who make $52,000 per year — that taxing them to pay for this grant was justified?”

Coates, who was unavailable for comment, directed CNSNews.com to ask grant-related questions of his assistant, Darya Freedman, who did not respond.

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DEA Can’t Stop Illegal Drugs From Entering US – Now Targeting The Legal Drugs In Our Medicine Cabinets

WASHINGTON, DC – Federal drug enforcement agents are encouraging the public to clean out their medicine cabinets.

Later this month, at almost 3,000 sites across the nation, agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration will invite members of the public to turn in expired or leftover prescription and over-the-counter medications for disposal.

Officials say the drugs are being increasingly abused and can often find their way from medicine cabinets to the black market.

“Individuals come and give unused, unwanted and expired medications, no questions asked,” said DEA spokeswoman Sarah Pullen. “Unfortunately prescription drugs are the only drugs we’re seeing an increase in abuse for.”

The Sept. 25 collection is a partnership between the DEA and local law enforcement, Pullen said.

Appeared Here

US Government FINALLY Decides To Crack Down On Drunk Driving Wetbacks

WASHINGTON, DC – Immigration officials now plan to incarcerate illegal aliens when they’re arrested for drunken driving, WTOP has learned.

“The message has gone out to the field offices: Take them into custody, and don’t let them out on bond,” a high-ranking source within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement tells WTOP.

The new, tougher policy comes after the death of a Catholic nun, allegedly at the hands of an illegal immigrant with previous drunken driving arrests in Prince William County. Carlos A. Martinelly Montano, an illegal immigrant from Bolivia, was involved in the Aug. 1 crash that killed Jeanette M. Mosier and seriously injured two other nuns in Bristow. Mosier was know in her Benedictine Order as Sister Denise Mosier.

After a 2008 drunken driving arrest, Montano, 23, had been detained by ICE but was released on his own recognizance, pending a deportation hearing. Mosier’s death sparked outrage that Montano had not been in custody.

Earlier, ICE said Montano’s previous alcohol-related arrests did not meet guidelines for detaining him.

“So even after a first DWI we have the authority to take him into custody. People in custody tend to go through the deportation process much faster,” the ICE source said.

Prior to this change, under the Obama administration, ICE had focused on removing violent criminals from the country. Some, including Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul Ebert, had argued repeat drunken driving should be grounds for removal.

Ebert says detaining them at the time of their arrest would not be a legal issue.

“They still have rights under our judicial system, but on the other hand, if they commit a crime and are here illegally, they don’t have any right to be released.”

Last week, a Prince William grand jury indicted Montano for felony murder, driving with a revoked license and maiming resulting from drunken driving — the first time Ebert has prosecuted felony murder based on DUI.

“The feeling is ‘this should never happen again,’” says the ICE official. “The decision has been made to treat them like they would violent criminals.”

Asked by WTOP to confirm details of the policy change, ICE spokesman Brian P. Hale issued a statement:

“ICE’s highest priorities are apprehending and removing convicted criminal aliens, aliens who pose a danger to the community, and fugitive aliens. Aliens who are criminals, public safety threats, and fugitives are a main focus for the agency. That includes aliens convicted of DUI, particularly those already ordered to leave the country.”

Even with the new policy, scarce space in ICE detention centers may mean not all impaired drivers will be taken into custody immediately.

“If you have a gang member and a first-time DUI and only one bed, you’re going to keep the gang member in custody,” the ICE source tells WTOP.

Prince William County Board of Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart, who has been a sharp critic of ICE, says he’s “excited” by the decision.

“This is just the beginning. We have other dangerous criminals that ICE will continue to release until their deportations and that policy has got to change as well.”

Stewart has written to ICE requesting a list of all illegal immigrants in his county who have been released while awaiting deportation hearings. He says he has not heard from the federal government on his request.

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Canadian RCMP Officer Chris Christinger Receives A Slap On The Wrist After Driving Drunk And Giving Alcohol To A Minor – After Posting Photos On Facebook

VANCOUVER, CANADA – Rookie RCMP Const. Chris Christinger has been docked 10 days’ pay after a day of partying at the Bella Coola Rodeo that included drinking before his shift, sneaking an 18-year-old girl into a beer garden and driving a police truck while under the influence of alcohol.

But Christinger’s biggest mistake may have been to take photos of his partying, some of which ended up on Facebook, where they were available for the general public, and his RCMP bosses, to see.

Christinger appeared before an RCMP disciplinary board earlier this year.

According to their decision, obtained by The Vancouver Sun, Christinger, an officer in Alexis Creek, was sent to Bella Coola to help police the community’s annual rodeo.

Christinger arrived in Bella Coola several hours before his 4:30 p.m. shift began.

So he went to the rodeo grounds, where he drank four bottles of Smirnoff Ice before heading back to his hotel, getting changed into his RCMP uniform and driving to the Bella Coola detachment.

Around 7 p.m., a senior officer, Cpl. Wallace, went to a roadblock where Christinger was stationed after receiving a complaint that Christinger had been seen drinking earlier in the day.

Christinger admitted to Wallace he had some drinks and gave a breath sample, which came back as 0.014, below the legal limit of 0.08.

Wallace told him to go home and not report for work until the next day. Christinger, however, wasn’t done partying.

Around 9 p.m., while still in uniform, he drove to the home of A.J., an 18-year-old he had met earlier in the day.

Christinger encouraged A.J. and her friends to jump on his police truck for photos, telling one, according to the decision, to “cover the licence plate so that they can’t trace it to me.”

In one of the photos, four women are shown holding beer, including one girl, identified as S.K., who was under 19.

Three of the photos taken by Christinger were later posted on Facebook where they were “publicly accessible.”

After partying at A.J.’s place for about an hour, Christinger returned to his hotel, changed out of his uniform and headed back to the rodeo with A.J.

There, the two went to the beer garden, where he “coached A.J. as to what to say to the security guards at the entrance.

“[He] also informed the security guards that he was a police officer and he would vouch for A.J. being of legal age.”

Once in the beer garden, Christinger met up again with A.J.’s friend, S.K., who he bought a drink for even though he “ought to have known [she] was a minor.”

The board hearing Christinger’s case, made up of three senior Mounties, found Christinger exhibited “disgraceful conduct.”

However, they noted he admitted his misconduct and was inexperienced, with only eight months on the job at the time of the incident.

RCMP spokeswoman Const. Annie Linteau noted that, under the RCMP Act, 10 days’ lost pay is the maximum financial penalty an officer can receive short of being fired.

“So, obviously the board took it quite seriously,” she said.

Christinger, who now works for the RCMP in Prince George, could not be reached for comment.

Appeared Here

Two Week Investigation And Late Night Raid By Canadian RCMP Agents Found Backyard Full Of Tomato Plants And Flowers

COURTENAY, CANADA — A Courtenay man is furious after police came to his house looking for marijuana, only to discover garden tomatoes and dahlias.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the man said the incident has left him “sick to his stomach” and calling for more civilian oversight of the RCMP.

On Aug. 29 (Sunday) at about 10:30 p.m., the man was sleeping upstairs in his room. His wife, who was preparing to head to bed, saw several police cars pull up in front of the house.

He was presented with a search warrant for marijuana plants and told that he and his wife would be taken into custody to the police station.

He said he turned on the garden floodlight to allow the police officers more light for their search.

The police search had yielded only dahlias and garden tomatoes — plants that had mistakenly been identified by police as marijuana over a two-week investigation that included aerial surveillance of the couple’s back yard.

They hand delivered a letter outlining their concerns on Wednesday to the RCMP.

Last week, Inspector Tom Gray, the officer in charge of the Courtenay detachment, personally delivered a letter of apology to the couple.

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UK Child Banned From Visiting America For Life After Calling Obama A “Prick” In An eMail

BEDFORD, UK – A British teenager who sent an email to the White House calling President Obama an obscenity was banned from America for life, The Sun reported Monday.

The FBI asked local cops to tell college student Luke Angel, 17, his drunken insult was “unacceptable.”

Angel said he fired off a single email criticizing the U.S. government after seeing a TV program about the 9/11 attacks.

He said, “I don’t remember exactly what I wrote as I was drunk. But I think I called Barack Obama a p***k. It was silly — the sort of thing you do when you’re a teenager and have had a few.”

Angel, of Bedford, in central England, said it was “a bit extreme” for the FBI to act. “The police came and took my picture and told me I was banned from America forever. I don’t really care but my parents aren’t very happy.”

A Bedford Police spokesman confirmed they had spoken to Angel about the email. Officers will take no criminal action.

Joanne Ferreira, of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said there are about 60 reasons a person can be barred from visiting America.

She said, “We are prohibited from discussing specific cases.”

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Crimnal Cases And Convictions Based On Police Officers Getting The Innocent To “Confess” To Crimes They Didn’t Commit

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI – Eddie Lowery lost 10 years of his life for a crime he did not commit. There was no physical evidence at his trial for rape, but one overwhelming factor put him away: He confessed.

At trial, the jury heard details that prosecutors insisted only the rapist could have known, including that the rapist hit the 75-year-old victim in the head with the handle of a silver table knife he found in the house. DNA evidence would later show that another man committed the crime. But that vindication would come only years after Lowery had served his sentence and was paroled in 1991.

“I beat myself up a lot” about having confessed, Lowery said in a recent interview. “I thought I was the only dummy who did that.”

But more than 40 others have given confessions since 1976 that DNA evidence later showed were false, according to records compiled by Brandon L. Garrett, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. Experts have long known that some kinds of people — including the mentally impaired, the mentally ill, the young and the easily led — are the likeliest to be induced to confess. There are also people like Lowery, who says he was just pressed beyond endurance by interrogators.

New research shows how people who were apparently uninvolved in a crime could provide such a detailed account of what occurred, allowing prosecutors to claim that only the defendant could have committed the crime.

An article by Garrett draws on trial transcripts, recorded confessions and other background materials to show how incriminating facts got into those confessions — by police introducing important facts about the case, whether intentionally or unintentionally, during the interrogation.

To defense lawyers, the new research is eye opening.

“In the past, if somebody confessed, that was the end,” said Peter J. Neufeld, a founder of the Innocence Project, an organization based in New York. “You couldn’t imagine going forward.”

The notion that such detailed confessions might be deemed voluntary because the defendants were not beaten or coerced suggests that courts should not simply look at whether confessions are voluntary, Neufeld said.

“They should look at whether they are reliable,” he said.

Garrett said he was surprised by the complexity of the confessions he studied.

“I expected, and think people intuitively think, that a false confession would look flimsy,” like someone saying simply, “I did it,” he said.

Instead, he said, “almost all of these confessions looked uncannily reliable,” rich in telling detail that almost inevitably had to come from the police. “I had known that in a couple of these cases, contamination could have occurred,” he said, using a term in police circles for introducing facts into the interrogation process. “I didn’t expect to see that almost all of them had been contaminated.”

Of the exonerated defendants in the Garrett study, 26 — more than half — were “mentally disabled,” under 18 at the time or both. Most were subjected to lengthy, high-pressure interrogations, and none had a lawyer present. Thirteen were taken to the crime scene.

Lowery’s case shows how contamination occurs. He had come under suspicion, he now believes, because he had been partying and ran his car into a parked car the night of the rape, generating a police report. Officers grilled him for more than seven hours, insisting from the start that he had committed the crime.

Lowery took a lie detector test to prove he was innocent, but the officers told him that he had failed it.

“I didn’t know any way out of that, except to tell them what they wanted to hear,” he recalled. “And then get a lawyer to prove my innocence.”

Proving innocence after a confession, however, is rare. Eight of the defendants in Garrett’s study had actually been cleared by DNA evidence before trial, but the courts convicted them anyway.

In one such case involving Jeffrey Deskovic, who spent 16 years in prison for a murder in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., prosecutors argued that the victim may have been sexually active and so the DNA evidence may have come from another liaison she had. The prosecutors asked the jury to focus on Deskovic’s highly detailed confession and convict him.

While Garrett suggests that leaking facts during interrogations is sometimes unintentional, Lowery said that the contamination of his questioning was clearly intentional.

After his initial confession, he said, the interrogators went over the crime with him in detail — asking how he did it, but correcting him when he got the facts wrong. How did he get in? “I said, ‘I kicked in the front door.’” But the rapist had used the back door, so he admitted to having gone around to the back. “They fed me the answers,” he recalled.

Some defendants’ confessions even include mistakes fed by the police. Earl Washington Jr., a mentally impaired man who spent 18 years in prison and came within hours of being executed for a murder he did not commit, stated in his confession that the victim had worn a halter top. In fact, she had worn a sundress, but an initial police report had stated that she wore a halter top.

Steven A. Drizin, the director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at the Northwestern University School of Law, said the significance of contamination could not be understated. While errors might lead to wrongful arrest, “it’s contamination that is the primary factor in wrongful convictions,” he said. “Juries demand details from the suspect that make the confession appear to be reliable — that’s where these cases go south.”

Jim Trainum, a former policeman who now advises police departments on training officers to avoid false confessions, explained that few of them intend to contaminate an interrogation or convict the innocent.

“You become so fixated on ‘This is the right person, this is the guilty person’ that you tend to ignore everything else,” he said. The problem with false confessions, he said, is “the wrong person is still out there, and he’s able to reoffend.”

Trainum has become an advocate of videotaping entire interrogations. Requirements for recording confessions vary widely. Ten states require videotaping of at least some interrogations, like those in crimes that carry the death penalty, and seven state supreme courts have required or strongly encouraged recording.

These days Lowery, 51, lives in suburban Kansas City, in a house he is renovating with some of the $7.5 million in settlement money he received, along with apologies, from officials in Riley County, Kan., where he was arrested and interrogated.

He has trouble putting the past behind him.

“I was embarrassed,” he said. “You run in to so many people who say, ‘I would never confess to a crime.’”

He does not argue with them, because he knows they did not experience what he went through.

“You’ve never been in a situation so intense, and you’re naive about your rights,” he said. “You don’t know what you’ll say to get out of that situation.”

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Air Quality Test Devices Taped To Light Poles On Eve Of 9/11 Closes Romeoville Illinois School And Puts Others In Lockdown As County And City Police Run Around In Circles For 7 Hours

ROMEOVILLE, ILLINOIS – The mysterious cylindrical metal objects were first spotted this morning duct-taped to light poles at five Romeoville schools, and for several hours — on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary — the school district was thrown into a panic.

Valley View School District officials decided to close one school and put six others on lockdown while Romeoville police and the Cook County Sheriff’s Office’s Hostage, Barricade and Terrorism unit tried to figure what they were dealing with.

It turns out, the cylinders are air-quality monitoring devices.

“To find these cylinders that looked like bombs taped to light poles in a school yard — it waves all sorts of flags in your face,” said a frazzled-sounding Valley View School District spokesman Larry Randa. “We have a school emergency and crisis response plan, and we put it into place right away.”

The canisters were installed by the company that owns an underground pipeline that ruptured in a Romeoville industrial park and continued to leak Friday. .

Randa said it’s maddening that no one in the school district was told ahead of time that air-monitoring devices would be in place this morning. He said there’s no label on the cylinders to indicate who owns them.

“You tell me why they would choose the eve of 9/11 to tape devices by duct tape to poles in schools without telling anybody,” Randa said. “It’s crazy. For seven hours, we and the Romeoville Police Department have been running ourselves ragged.”

Randa said the first device — about 1 1/2-foot-long with some kind of pressure gauge attached — was discovered about 6:30 a.m. at Hermansen Elementary School by a maintenance worker. Classes were cancelled shortly after 9 a.m., when police told school officials it could be several hours before the bomb squad could give the all-clear, Randa said.

As the day progressed, devices were found at three more district elementary schools and one middle school, Randa said. Parents were kept up-to-date through the district’s website and Twitter account, Randa said.

“We had a lot of concerned parents calling all of the schools to find out what was going on,” Randa said. “The staff at the schools very capably handled those calls.”

But it wasn’t until 1:50 p.m. that the school district learned the true purpose of the devices, Randa said.

Randa said it’s been “quite a day,” — one which started in the early morning hours, when school district officials learned there would be no transportation for the 10,000 kids who usually ride buses to and from school. The district’s bus barn is located close the oil spill and Romeoville Village officials were concerned about bus drivers inhaling fumes from the leak, Randa said.

Gina Jordan, a spokeswoman for the pipeline owner, Enbridge Energy Partners told WLS-TV that “it’s just too early to know how long it would take to find and repair the leak.”

About the scare, Jordan told the Sun-Times: “While emergency officials were aware of the air monitoring that was going to take place, they were not aware of the specific type of canisters or the location for those canisters. We do have processes in place to ensure that they will be advised not just of the type of canisters but the location of the canisters in the future.”

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Dumbass Atlanta Georgia 911 Operator Gina Conteh Sends Ambulance To Wrong Address And Man Dies – So She Sues County For $10.5 Million

ATLANTA, GEORGIA - A 911 operator fired after sending an ambulance to the wrong address, is now suing the Fulton County government, its former 911 director, and three other employees for $10.5 million.

Gina Conteh said the county made her a scapegoat when Johns Creek resident Darlene Dukes died after waiting an hour for that ambulance.

“The Fulton County director, and other upper management team members clearly knew she was not capable of handling that position,” said Conteh’s attorney Rory Starkey.

The lawsuit claims “discipline in this case was political” and “intense media scrutiny called for a termination.”

An audit revealed systemic problems in the 911 center and then director, Rocky Moore, quit after a Channel 2 Action News investigation exposed that at the time of the incident, Conteh was working a more complicated dispatcher job, for which managers had deemed her unqualified and refused her a promotion.

Channel 2’s Jodie Fleischer obtained Conteh’s time sheet for that week, which showed that she’d already worked 62 hours, with back-to-back double shifts in the days before the incident.

“To have a person in that position who’s responsible for lives, not to be properly managed, to be working out of class, to be working the overtime my client and other 911 operators were working, is irresponsible,” said Starkey.

He admitted that Conteh made mistakes when she misunderstood the caller’s street address, and sent the ambulance to Sandy Springs instead of Johns Creek. The county’s procedure for dispatching ambulances had changed the day before the incident, and records showed several dispatchers had problems in the first few days. The county audit criticized the 911 center’s management, training, equipment, and staffing.

“It was of some concern. However as a result of all of this we’ve made some significant changes and things are a lot better,” said County Commissioner Robb Pitts.

The new director has already filled staffing vacancies and made equipment changes. A new report released earlier this year commended the center on its improvement.

The lawsuit claims Conteh was improperly fired and that the county wrongly denied her unemployment benefits. She later won them back in court.

Pitts said the county plans to fight the suit vigorously.

“It’s my understanding that we the county, the personnel department in particular, followed all of our procedures to the letter of the law,” he said.

But Starkey contests that claim.

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US Pisses Away Tax Dollars Targeting Some Canadian Guy Who Sold Pot Seeds – Now, 5 Years Of Imprisonment Added To US Taxpayers Burden

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON — Sentenced to five years behind bars, Canada’s Prince of Pot Marc Emery was led off to an American penitentiary Friday repenting his seed-selling sins and professing love for his wife.

“I love you Jodie!” he mouthed silently to her as he was led away.

There may be a place for and time for a debate over the legalization of marijuana the judge told him, but this is not the time or the place — marijuana is illegal.

In a beige prisoner’s jumpsuit, Emery sat throughout the 15-minute hearing with his hands folded under his chin.

His wife Jodie Emery sat stoically the public gallery with about 40 supporters, press and undercover law-enforcement officers.

Seeds traced to grow houses in every region of the U.S. were linked to Emery according to the prosecution, and the original DEA press release called Emery one of the “most wanted international drug trafficking organizational targets — one of only 46 in the world and the only one from Canada.”

Judge Ricardo Martinez, of the western Washington district court, told the 52-year-old Vancouver businessman that he had grown up along the Canadian border and was saddened by what illegal drugs have done to both countries.

“I regret the example we set,” Emery told him, “and I won’t be doing that again.

“I’d like to point out though that it made it sound like I’m a bad guy . . . but I had very good intentions and wanted to be considered a proper participant in our society. I do believe that these prohibition laws create a lot of problems and create organized crime.”

It was a sad emotional end to a 30-year public career by the staunch libertarian most Canadians considered a benign and charismatic political prankster.

The U.S. prosecutors said he was the “largest [pot seed] distributor in North America and at least the largest into the United States . . . .no doubt he sold millions of marijuana seeds that produced millions of marijuana plants in the U.S.”

Outside the federal courthouse, a small group protested his sentence.

Emery said he now realizes that some of the methods he chose to fund his efforts to repeal the marijuana prohibition were “ill-conceived and ultimately destructive.”

In a letter given to the judge prior to sentencing, Emery said he was “over-zealous and reckless” and “acted arrogantly in violation of U.S. federal law.

“I regret not choosing other methods — legal ones — to achieve my goals of peaceful political reform.”

It sounded as sincere as Galileo’s confession.

Emery has been a political activist for three decades — fighting Sunday business-closing laws in Ontario, Canada’s national ban on drug literature and, of course, the marijuana prohibition.

A Canadian citizen and president of the B.C. Marijuana Party, Emery has run for office several times.

In furtherance of his goal of legalizing cannabis, for many years he sold marijuana seeds around the world through catalogue sales.

“This was not a business that operated underground, or even in the shadows,” Richard Troberman, Emery’s lawyer told the court.

“On the contrary, Marc openly operated his seed distribution business (“Marc Emery Direct”) from a storefront in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, as well as over the internet; through telephone sales; direct mail sales; and though other media outlets. Revenue Canada gladly accepted taxes on all of his sales, which were duly reported to the appropriate taxing authorities. Virtually all of the profits from the business went to funding lawful efforts to legalize marijuana in Canada and the United States through the political process.”

Crown counsel in Canada refused to prosecute Emery but under the former Republican presidency the U.S. ramped up its war on drugs and targeted Emery because of his political profile.

“The Attorney General’s true motive — which was to silence Mr. Emery’s political activity — could not be more clear,” Troberman said.

Emery was indicted in Seattle on May 26, 2005 for conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and arrested in Halifax on an extradition warrant a few days later.

He was held in custody from Aug. 2 through Aug. 5, 2005. Emery remained free until Sept. 2009 when a tentative plea bargain was reached and he surrendered himself into custody Sept. 28.

He remained imprisoned in Canada until Nov. 18, when he was released to await the Justice Minister’s final determination of his extradition.

On May 10, Emery was told the minister had refused his last-ditch appeal and went back into jail.

He was transported to the U.S. May 20 and has remained imprisoned since.

Emery admitted selling more then 4 million seeds, 75 per cent to U.S. customers.

He asked to be housed in the federal correctional institution at Lompoc, Calif., so he can continue to be visited by his wife. The judge recommended that.

After his sentencing, Emery’s lawyers delivered a request to the Canadian consul for a prison transfer to Canada.

His B.C. lawyer Kirk Tousaw said that if all went well, Emery could be serving his time in a Canadian institution within a year.

“I received hundreds of letters and emails, most of them favourable to you,” Judge Martinez said.

“One in crayon,” he quipped, “others quite well written, very thoughtful, making some very interesting points. I know five years is a long time. I wish you the best.”

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