February 9, 2014

Something that just never happens in Texas.

Texas grand jury refuses murder indictment on man who killed deputy on no-knock raid
By George Chidi
Saturday, February 8, 2014 21:04 EST

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/08/texas-grand-jury-refuses-murder-indictment-on-man-who-killed-deputy-on-no-knock-raid/

A grand jury in central Texas refused Wednesday to indict a man on murder charges after he killed a sheriff’s deputy who stormed his house while executing an early-morning no-knock warrant looking for marijuana in December

Henry Goedrich Magee will still face a charge for possession of marijuana while in possession of a deadly weapon, but prosecutors failed to convince the grand jury that Magee was out of line when he went for his gun while he thought he was being burglarized, ABC reported. Burleson County Sgt. Adam Sowders died during the drug raid, executing a search warrant at Magee’s rural home northwest of Houston.

<snip>

“In my opinion, the Burleson County Sheriff’s Office did nothing illegal by securing and executing a “no knock” search warrant that day,” said Julie Renken, 21st Judicial District Attorney, in a statement. “I believe the evidence also shows that an announcement was made. However, there is not enough evidence that Mr. Magee knew that day that Peace Officers were entering his home. The events occurred in a matter of seconds amongst chaos. The self-defense laws in Texas are viewed in the mindset of the actor, not the victim, which allows for tragedies to occur when one party is acting lawfully, but it can be reasonably seen as a threat of deadly force by another.”



Just think - a no knock warrant for pot????? There is no need for no knock warrants.

February 8, 2014

Russian Leader: We Have Spycams in Sochi Hotel Showers

Friday, 07 Feb 2014 10:20 AM

By Melanie Batley


After a barrage of complaints on social media from foreign journalists documenting farcical hotel conditions at the Sochi Winter Olympics, a top Russian official hit back, saying Western visitors are deliberately trying to sabotage Russia's image, and he has the footage from shower spycams to prove it.

"We have surveillance video from the hotels that shows people turn on the shower, direct the nozzle at the wall, and then leave the room for the whole day," Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak told The Wall Street Journal.

For days journalists at the games have complained of incomplete construction, inadequate plumbing, dysfunctional toilets, hotel rooms without doorknobs, and suspiciously colored tap water.

In response to criticisms of the substandard accommodation conditions, Kozak said, "We've put 100,000 guests in rooms and only gotten 103 registered complains and every one of those is being taken care of."

A spokesman for Kozak later told the Journal that the official misspoke, and there were no surveillance cameras inside hotel bathrooms.

http://www.newsmax.com/newswidget/olympics-sochi-shower-cameras/2014/02/07/id/551487?promo_code=12289-1&utm_source=12289Raw_Story&utm_medium=nmwidget&utm_campaign=widgetphase1

Reported on a lot of sources including:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/06/russia-journalists-sochi-hotels-sying_n_4739400.html

February 8, 2014

2 L.A. County Sheriff’s Deputies Beat Handcuffed Inmate: Federal Indictment

Source: KTLA

A federal grand jury has indicted two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies who are accused of punching, kicking and pepper-spraying a chained inmate and then lying to cover up the alleged abuse.
twin-towers

The charges in the February 2009 incident at the Men’s Central Jail in downtown L.A. were announced Friday by a spokesman for the Department of Justice.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies Joey Aguiar, 26, and Mariano Ramirez, 38, were due for arraignment March 6 but were not in custody Friday.

<snip>

The indictment, issued late Thursday, came less than two months after federal authorities announced charges against 18 sheriff’s officials in a collection of five cases that stemmed from an investigation into alleged civil rights abuses at county jails. One of the federal cases accuses sheriff’s officials of attempting to obstruct an FBI investigation into the alleged abuse.

<snip>

Aguiar and Mariano Ramirez allegedly used illegally force against an inmate who was in handcuffs and a waist chain. They’re accused of striking him with a flashlight in addition to beating, kicking and pepper-spraying him.

<snip>

Both defendants were charged with conspiracy to violate civil rights, deprivation of rights under color of law and falsification of records.

<snip>

A jail chaplain witnesses the alleged beating described in the indictment and filed a report and made a sworn statement to the ACLU about, the Los Angeles Times reported. The chaplain was not mentioned in the indictment.

Read more: http://ktla.com/2014/02/07/2-l-a-county-sheriffs-deputies-beat-handcuffed-inmate-federal-indictment/

February 7, 2014

Is the frequency of police brutality increasing?

http://www.naturalnews.com/038346_police_brutality_frequency_trends.html#

Is the frequency of police brutality increasing?

Friday, December 14, 2012 by: J. D. Heyes

(NaturalNews) Some observers think police brutality may be on the rise, as a pair of recent court cases would appear to indicate, but more than anything, the cases - and a pattern of police behavior since the so-called "war on terror" began - definitely project a growing police state mentality among civil servants charged with serving the public.

Perhaps the most famous instance of police misconduct in recent history is the L.A.P.D. beating of the late Rodney King. A construction worker who was on parole for robbery, he became known nationally after a video showing him being beaten by several officers following a late-night car chase on March 3, 1991 made headlines.

But there have been a number of cases since then, and while the vast majority are not nearly as high profile, when taken together, they could be the foundation of darker days ahead.

Case in point

Such concerns are rooted in cases like this recent one in near Rockford, Ill., a mid-sized city located on both banks of the Rock River in far northern Illinois. There, police have been accused of using a taser on a suspect before beating him for telling a friend she could refuse to take a field sobriety test, then allegedly accusing the man of assaulting an officer.

According to federal court papers, the plaintiff, Craig Clark, has named the Village of Pecatonica, which is west of Rockford, and Officer Douglas Hendricksen, as well as Winnebago County Sheriff's Deputy Joseph Broullard, in a suit.

Clark has claimed that he was leaving a bar in the town of Durand, which is also west of Rockford, with a female friend when his car was stopped by Broullard. While the deputy ran the female friend's identification and called for back-up, Clark went back into the bar, court papers said.

"Plaintiff was standing on the rear porch of the bar when defendant-Officer Broullard-started administering the field sobriety test to Colleen," the female friend, the papers said. "Plaintiff yelled out to Colleen that she could refuse the field sobriety test."

When he did so, the deputy allegedly began to yell at Clark. "At this time, defendant-Officer Hendricksen approached plaintiff on the porch and pointed his taser at plaintiff." The papers say that Clark was not taking an aggressive stance towards the officers, but that Hendricksen told Clark he was placing him under arrest.

"Really?" Clark said, according to the papers. "Defendant-Officer Hendricksen then fired his Taser at plaintiff," says the complaint, which then said Hendricksen drew his asp from his belt and began striking Clark - an act that Broullard allegedly did nothing to stop.

The complaint says that Hendricksen told Broullard that Clark had taken his Taser, though Broullard had allegedly dropped it.

"Defendant-Officer Broullard struck plaintiff in the face with his fists and elbow," according to the complaint before Hendricksen used a Taser on Clark once again.

Did Clark get beaten, tased and arrested because he really deserved it, or because the officers involved just didn't think he had a right to speak his mind? And if what he said was against some statute, did it warrant the violent treatment?

Patterns of behavior

Those questions, and others, scream for answers, as you read about other recent cases of alleged police brutality:

-- In Nashville, two brothers recently filed suit in federal court against officers they say assaulted them; one brother says he was assaulted by the officers for videotaping them assaulting his brother.

-- An officer assigned to a Dolton, Ill., school physically assaulted a 15-year-old special needs child in 2010, all of which was caught on surveillance camera, ostensibly because the boy's shirt was not tucked in. That same officer was later accused of rape.

-- Officers in St. Paul, Minn., maced a 30-year-old suspect then kicked him, apparently for asking why he was being arrested, earlier this month.

-- An undercover Greenville County officer tased and punched an 18-year-old in the face 13 times. Though at a known drug house, it did not appear as though the suspect was giving the officer much grief prior to his beat down.

-- A security camera from a nearby Del Taco restaurant caught L.A.P.D officers (a pattern here in and of itself?) roughly handling Michelle Jordan, after being pulled over on a routine traffic stop (she was texting on her cell phone while driving). Post-arrest images showed bruises on her face and body after being mishandled by police.

-- From the March 6, 2012, edition of the Chicago Tribune: "Eugene Gruber was drunk, hostile and uncooperative when he walked into the Lake County Jail, but a day later, he was paralyzed, had a broken neck and barely registered a pulse after an encounter with guards, records show." He died four months later.

Sources:

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/12/11/52999.htm

http://www.policebrutality.info

http://www.counterpunch.org

http://articles.chicagotribune.com

http://www.sonomacountyfreepress.com/police/brutality.html

http://policebrutalitycases.blogspot.com/2012/07/police-brutality-on-rise.html

February 6, 2014

Cop Breaks Leg of 10-Year-Old Who Filmed Him

Courtney Silvera, age 10, was eating cereal at 7 a.m. on Jan. 30, 2013, when the police knocked on the door. They were looking for his mother's ex-boyfriend, who had possibly violated an order of protection. His grandmother, who is suffering from brain and lung cancer, answered the door but had difficulty understanding the cops' reason for being there, New York's Daily News reports. So Courtney grabbed his mom's cellphone and began recording the conversation.

One cop didn't like that, so he kicked the boy in the shin, breaking his leg, according to a complaint filed in Brooklyn Federal Court and seen by the Daily News.

"The police had come to our house before [due to the domestic violence complaint], and he's fascinated by the police; he looks up to them," Courtney's mom, Krystle Silvera, 30, a nursing student at Long Island University, told the Daily News in an exclusive interview.

<snip>

According to the suit, Silvera's pierced breast popped out of her bra while she was being restrained.

"The officer flicked the piercing. he flicked the ring up with his finger on my right breast," she told the Daily News. "He said, 'Is this what mothers look like these days?' My neighbors saw me naked. It was degrading. I can deal with the embarrassment of what [the police] did to me in front of my neighbors, but the hardest thing is explaining to my kids that not all police are bad."

Silvera was charged with assaulting the cops and was released two days later on $1,500 bail. She would later plead guilty to disorderly conduct, the Daily News reports.

Once she returned home, she noticed that her son's leg was bruised and swollen. Courtney was taken to the hospital, where an X-ray showed that his leg was fractured.

<snip>

An NYPD spokeswoman told the Daily News that the Internal Affairs Bureau has opened an investigation based on the allegations in the suit.

Although Courtney's leg was fractured, his dream of one day being a detective hasn't been broken. "I told my mom being a detective would be cool," he told the Daily News. "I want to be a better detective than the one who did this."

Read more at the Daily News.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/02/cop_breaks_10_year_old_s_leg_for_filming_him.html?wpisrc=newstories

February 4, 2014

TED Talk:Watch The Video That Coca-Cola And McDonald's Hope You Never See

#t=665

Big Sugar is worse than you thought!

February 4, 2014

State senator pleads not guilty to pushing wife

http://www.azcentral.com/news/free/20140203state-senator-pleads-not-guilty-pushing-wife.html?odyssey=obinsite



HELENA, Mont. — A state senator pleaded not guilty Monday to allegations that he pushed his wife and then fought a police officer who tried to arrest him.

Sen. Jason Priest posted a $1,500 bond after the Red Lodge City Court hearing, in which he appeared by video conference, and was released from the Yellowstone County Detention Facility.

The 45-year-old Republican was booked into the jail on suspicion of partner or family assault and resisting arrest at a Red Lodge residence Saturday night.

A police citation says Priest pushed his wife away and fought an officer who was attempting to arrest him. The officer identified himself several times and told Priest to stop resisting, the citation said.

City Attorney Hope Freeman said she did not know whether anybody had been injured. She said officials were investigating whether Priest also pushed another family member.

She could not provide additional details, and Priest did not return a call for comment. He said in court he had retained Billings attorney Vern Woodward, who also did not return a call for comment.

Red Lodge Police Chief Richard Pringle did not return calls for comment.

Along with setting the bond, Judge Steve Muth ordered Priest to have no contact with his wife and to stay away from firearms, Freeman said.

Montana Senate President Jeff Essmann said Monday the allegations are a matter of serious concern and he intends to speak with Priest soon.

“I will ask Sen. Priest to step back from his legislative duties and discuss his continued participation in the business of the Montana Senate from the perspective of what is in the best interests of his family, himself, and his constituents,” the Billings Republican said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Priest was elected in 2010 to a four-year term and is the chairman of the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Safety Committee, though he is not on any of the interim committees that are meeting between legislative sessions.

He has not yet filed with the Secretary of State’s office to run for re-election this year, though he has until March 10 to do so.

Priest was one of the leaders of a conservative faction in the Senate last year that split with more moderate Republican legislators.

Priest also is a founder of a nonprofit group called Montana Growth Network that champions conservative causes and helps like-minded candidates.

February 2, 2014

Clark County, Ind., Drug Court Held Inmates without Due Process

http://downtrend.com/jaye-ryan/clark-county-ind-drug-court-held-inmates-without-due-process/

Clark County, Ind., Drug Court Held Inmates without Due Process
By Jaye Ryan on February 1, 2014 Subscribe to Jaye Ryan's Feed@wordsmithworker
CCDC Vic #1

Clark County, Ind., Drug Court sentenced at least two people to longer-than-allowed stays in the Clark County jail, only to have lost track of them. In total, 32 days were unlawfully required between the two victims, but their stays equaled 369 days — all because the court failed to keep them on the court’s agenda and the County Sheriff failed to follow procedures in tracking inmates’ incarceration times and statuses.

Both victims, Destiny Hoffman and Jason Ray O’Connor live in Jeffersonville and were independently held by order of District Court No. 2 Judge Jerry Jacobi who declared they both be held

“until further notice from the court.”

The incarceration errors were found during a routine examination of old case files. Clark County Deputy Prosecutor Michaelia Gilbert wrote and submitted two separate court motions for immediate hearings, but Jacobi ordered their release instead.

Hoffman and O’Connor reportedly were denied a hearing and legal representation but incarcerated simply on the judge’s whim. When asked by the court why she didn’t question her status and lengthy stay, Hoffman declined responding, possibly because of a possible civil suit against the court, the county and potentially the corrections officers involved.

Of O’Connor, Gilbert’s motion stated:

“As of Jan. 24, 2014, the defendant has remained in the custody of the Clark County Jail without due process hearing as the Clark County Drug Treatment Court has failed to bring the defendant to court for any hearings regarding the status of his case and has failed to notify the Clark County Jail that the defendant is eligible for release.”

At least one employee has been fired over the incidences, and at least one employee was placed on unpaid suspension, pending further investigation.

The suspended employee claimed he was merely following the court’s orders. [Ed: Please remember that the 'following orders' defense didn't work at the Nurenberg trials and will, no doubt, be an issue in the probable civil suit.]

One county employee to have been fired was Susan Knoebel, the director of the Clark County Drug Court Program.

Judge Jacobi declined comment on these Constitutional violations, stating only that there is an ongoing investigation.

Indiana State Police confirmed that and admitted that some court employees may be facing criminal charges.

February 2, 2014

Ann Coulter: Democrats “Well on Their Way to a Permanent Majority”

http://downtrend.com/james/ann-coulter-democrats-well-on-their-way-to-a-permanent-majority-with-republican-help-on-immigration/?utm_source=Outbrain_RSS

In usual form, Ann Coulter has come out swinging against House Republicans’ plan to advance amnesty. She claims to have been slipped a report on how immigration is changing the United States and she certainly makes her opinions on the situation known in her latest writing on the matter.

Coulter explains that the report “overwhelmingly demonstrates that merely continuing our current immigration policies spells doom for the Republican Party.” She explains, “Immigrants — all immigrants — have always been the bulwark of the Democratic Party. For one thing, recent arrivals tend to be poor and in need of government assistance. Also, they’re coming from societies that are far more left-wing than our own. History shows that, rather than fleeing those policies, they bring their cultures with them. (Look at what New Yorkers did to Vermont.)”

She’s right. Most people seem to move elsewhere for economic, not political reasons. In addition to Vermont, check out what has happened to Colorado, Florida and Virginia, which have all moved left presumably due to migration from other states. Transplants never seem to realize the policies they voted for back home were a big reason they decided to leave in the first place since liberal agendas usually result in a higher cost of living and less freedom.

Coulter continues, “At the current accelerated rate of immigration — 1.1 million new immigrants every year — Republicans will be a fringe party in about a decade.” She justifies this statement by explaining that, in poll after poll, immigrants reveal Democratic leanings such as believing international law trumps the U.S. Constitution as well as support for gun control and ObamaCare.

Commenting on House Republicans’ odd support for relaxed immigration laws, the hard-hitting conservative ponders “…why on Earth are they bringing in people sworn to their political destruction?” She then answers her own question, explaining that liberal immigration laws are great for ethnic lobbyists, politicians and the wealthy. She also states, “And it’s fantastic for the Democrats, who are well on their way to a permanent majority, so they can completely destroy the last remnants of what was once known as ‘the land of the free’.”

Maybe House Speaker John Boehner (R – Ohio) and his colleagues know they’ll be long gone by the time that happens so they’re willing to sell out their constituents for their own gain. But then again, that’s what politicians do.

It’s up to Republican voters to demand better from their Representatives or kick them out in the mid-term elections. Otherwise, their ideals may go the way of the dinosaur in national politics.





When you're right, you're right.......<snicker>