Jury finds that senior police officials violated District's whistleblower act

Jury finds that senior police officials violated District's whistleblower act
D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said the department plans to challenge the verdict.
By Keith L. Alexander
The Washington Post
August 28, 2010

A D.C. Superior Court jury ruled that senior police officials, including Chief Cathy L. Lanier, violated the District's whistleblower act when they suspended a police officer in 2005 after he informed city officials that the department allegedly brokered an illegal deal to provide security for the Gallery Place entertainment area downtown.

The jury ruled Thursday that officer Sean McLaughlin was wrongly suspended after he alerted the mayor's office and the D.C. Council that the department had brokered a deal to make officers available to provide security in the area, after the department had rejected requests by McLaughlin and other officers to supply off-duty security in the same neighborhood.

Citing the District's Whistleblower Protection Act, the jury sided with McLaughlin, saying Lanier wrongly disciplined him. In 2005, the police union and nine officers filed a class-action suit against Lanier and the department, arguing that the officers were wrongfully punished for the disclosure.

Last year, Judge Judith E. Retchin dismissed the claim filed by six of the officers. But the jury found Thursday that the three remaining officers -- McLaughlin, Duane Fowler and Martin Freeman -- had alerted officials of the department's wrongdoing, constituting whistleblowing. In March 2005, Freeman was terminated and McLaughlin and Freeman were suspended...

Report: Wrong man may have been arrested in Buffalo shootings

Report: Wrong man may have been arrested in Buffalo shootings
From Rick Martin, CNN
August 15, 2010

Authorities may have arrested the wrong person in a shooting spree that killed four people in Buffalo, New York, according to a local television station.

Charges against Keith Johnson, 25, could be dropped, the Erie County district attorney told CNN affiliate WGRZ-TV.

The shooting Saturday also injured four others outside the City Grill in downtown Buffalo.

District Attorney Frank Sedita said photographic evidence collected by Buffalo police late Saturday night leads them to believe the wrong person might be in custody, the affiliate said...

Minnesota judge frees man convicted in acceleration crash of Toyota

Minnesota judge frees man convicted in acceleration crash of Toyota
By Jim Kavanagh and Emanuella Grinberg
CNN
August 6, 2010

A Minnesota man sent to prison after the deadly sudden-acceleration crash of his Toyota Camry has been freed by a judge, and the local prosecutor says he will not be retried.

Ramsey County, Minnesota, District Court Judge Joanne Smith on Thursday ordered Koua Fong Lee released from prison pending a new trial related to the 2006 crash that killed three people. Ramsey County Prosecutor Susan Gaertner immediately said she would drop the charges...

Outside the courtroom after the ruling, Lee, 32, said he wanted his four children, one of whom was born after he was jailed, to know what "Daddy" means..

Lee had always maintained his innocence, saying the 1996 Camry accelerated uncontrollably before it crashed into two vehicles, killing a man and his 10-year-old son and a 6-year-old girl...

In fact, the family of the victims had long ago become convinced of Lee's innocence and joined the effort to free him. They are suing Toyota...

"This never seemed right. A man with his family in the car -- his pregnant wife -- goes on a suicide mission? Then, the recalls started, and the complaints sounded just like what happened to Mr. Lee," Schafer said in March. "It sounds just like a case of unintended acceleration."

In the end, though, the conviction was vacated not only because of evidence of mechanical failure, but also because Judge Smith determined Lee's original attorney, Tracy Eichhorn-Hicks, had failed to defend him adequately at trial.

Eichhorn-Hicks had stated in court that Lee must have had his foot on the accelerator, even though Lee himself always maintained that he had pumped the brake to no avail...

Justice Department reviewing reports of FBI test cheating

Justice Department reviewing reports of FBI test cheating
By Carol Cratty
CNN
July 28, 2010

The Justice Department's Office
of Inspector General has
launched an investigation into
whether large numbers of FBI
agents may have improperly
taken a test on guidelines for
agents, according to FBI Director
Robert Mueller.

During a congressional hearing
Wednesday, Mueller was asked
about reports hundreds of agents
may have cheated on the exams,
which focused on guidelines that
limit surveillance, and he
responded he did not know the
precise number and is not certain
the inspector general knows that
number.

Mueller said the inspector general
has told him about certain FBI
offices where testing problems
were "widespread, and it may be
attributable to a lack of
understanding and confusion
about procedures."

...Reports about test-taking
problems include instances where
agents finished the exams much
more quickly than would be
expected, and instances in which
agents might have taken the test
together, law enforcement officials
said...

Police officer incorrectly wrote in report that witness had mentioned race of professor trying to get into his own house

July 28, 2009
Recording of police calls adds to Gates controversy
BY TOM MORONEY
BLOOMBERG NEWS

The police sergeant who arrested Harvard University's Henry Louis Gates Jr. called the professor uncooperative and asked for backup officers and a police wagon, according to a recording of police radio transmissions.

Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley can be heard telling the radio dispatcher Gates isn't cooperating and saying to "keep the cars coming," according to the recording, made public Monday by the police department. Toward the end of the 4-minute, 37-second recording, Crowley asks if the wagon has been dispatched, a reference to a vehicle police use to transport arrestees.

The recording added to the controversy that has continued for a week, featuring Gates' accusation he was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge because he's black and President Barack Obama's criticism of the police department for "acting stupidly."

Gates, returning from a trip to China, and his driver had forced their way through the front door because it was jammed. Police dropped the charge last week and Obama invited Gates and Crowley to the White House for beer.
Break-ins in the area

Police also have released a recording of a woman's 911 phone call. A police report identifies the caller as Lucia Whalen. She couldn't be reached for comment Monday.

But her attorney, Wendy Murphy, said her client never mentioned the men's race to Crowley and is upset by news reports she believes have unfairly depicted her as a racist.

Whalen works nearby at the Harvard alumni magazine, her lawyer said. "She doesn't live in the area. She is by no means the entitled white neighbor. ... That has been the theme in the blogs and the implication in some of the mainstream news media," Murphy said Monday.

In the recording, when the police dispatcher asks the woman if the men were white, black or Hispanic, she describes one as looking "kind of Hispanic" and says she didn't get a good look at the other.

Crowley wrote in his police report that Whalen told him that "she observed what appeared to be two black males with backpacks on the porch."...

Trading sex for dismissing tickets?

Trading sex for dismissing tickets?
Trial begins for accused CHP officer
By Kelly Wheeler, City News Service
SDNN
June 7, 2010

A former California Highway Patrol officer who asked a judge to dismiss a speeding ticket against a female motorist, then spent the lunch hour in an Oceanside hotel room with her, should be convicted of perjury and other charges, a prosecutor said Monday.

The attorney for Abram Carabajal, however, said the 53-year-old married defendant committed no crime and simply developed a romantic relationship with the woman in the months after he wrote the ticket. In his opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Jeffrey Dort said Carabajal routinely wrote more tickets than any officer in the Oceanside CHP
office and had a history of stopping women for speeding, then giving them his phone number and offering to “work something out.”

Dort said Carabajal pulled over Shirin Zarrindej of Encino for speeding on southbound Interstate 5 near Camp Pendleton on March 12, 2008.

Zarrindej — who is also charged in the case with subordination of perjury, bribery of a witness and conspiracy to obstruct justice — had multiple tickets on her records at the time of the stop, the prosecutor said...

7-year-old girl killed in Detroit police raid

A 7-Year-Old's Killing: Detroit's Latest Outrage
By Steven Gray
May. 18, 2010
Time

It often seems that even the most heinous crime fails to move Detroit, a city almost numb to violence. But a series of shooting deaths in recent days have been particularly chilling. The killings have struck across all age groups: a grandmother, a middle-aged cop, a 7-year-old child. This time, outrage is building, but what will it lead to? Is there anything more substantive the city can do to fight gun violence? Can the city afford to put more officers on the streets? The city's reputation for crime needs a turning point — and soon.

The most recent case began last Friday, May 14, when a 17-year-old high school student standing in front of a store in one of Detroit's bleakest neighborhoods was shot by a man twice his age for reasons that remain unclear. The boy, police said, stumbled across the street, collapsed and died. Then, shortly after midnight Sunday, Detroit police officers arrived at a two-story house not far away. (See Detroit kids and their dreams of the future.)

With a warrant in hand, they planned to search the house for the 34-year-old suspect. Officers say they announced their presence and then tossed a flash grenade into the front window of one side of the duplex to disorient the people inside. Then, police say, officers entered the house, where a 46-year-old grandmother in the front room allegedly struggled with an officer. Next, police say, an officer's gun discharged, fatally shooting the woman's 7-year-old granddaughter Aiyana Stanley Jones.

At a press conference Tuesday, defense attorney Geoffrey Fieger, who is representing Aiyana's family, offered this narrative: The flash grenade was thrown through the plate-glass window of the home's living room, apparently landing on Aiyana, who was sleeping with her grandmother on a sofa. Almost simultaneously, he said, a shot was fired into the house. The grandmother, Mertilla Jones, said Tuesday that as soon as the grenade shattered the window, she leaped to the floor. "I wanted to reach my granddaughter," Jones said, sobbing loudly. "I seen the light leave out her eyes, and I knew she was dead. She had blood coming out her mouth. Lord Jesus," Jones continued, "I ain't never seen nothing like that ... You can't trust Detroit police." Police officers, Fieger said, then rushed through the front door, which was unlocked. (See the death and possible life of Detroit.)

The day before, Fieger, who once represented Dr. Jack Kevorkian, claimed he had seen videotape of the incident filmed by a reality-TV crew that had accompanied the police. He alleged that police, moreover, may have raided the wrong side of the duplex, since the 34-year-old suspect was eventually arrested in another part of the building...





Detroit Girl's Death Called a 'Breaking Point' at Funeral
Ed White
AP
May 22, 2010

Civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton gave a rousing eulogy Saturday for a 7-year-old girl killed in a police raid, challenging the hundreds of mourners to take responsibility and help stop a spiral of violence that has swept the city...

Aiyana was shot in the neck while sleeping on a couch May 16. Police hunting for a murder suspect say an officer's gun accidentally fired inside the house after he was jostled by, or collided with, her grandmother. A stun grenade was also thrown through a window.

A lawyer for Aiyana's family, Geoffrey Fieger, is suing and claims the shot was fired from outside the house immediately after the grenade was used. A camera crew working on the A&E reality series "The First 48" accompanied police on the raid.

"Do they throw these flash grenades in everybody's neighborhood? Would you have gone in Bloomfield Hills and did what you did?" Sharpton said, referring to a wealthy Detroit suburb. "Have you ever heard of putting on a light and calling people to come out?"...




7-year-old girl killed in Detroit police raid
By the CNN Wire Staff
May 17, 2010

(CNN) -- Police in Detroit, Michigan, on Sunday expressed "profound sorrow" at the fatal shooting of a 7-year-old girl in a police raid.

Aiyana Jones was shot and killed by police executing a search warrant as part of a homicide investigation, Assistant Chief Ralph Godbee said in a statement.

"This is any parent's worst nightmare," Godbee said. "It also is any police officer's worst nightmare. And today, it is all too real."

The warrant was executed about 12:40 a.m. ET Sunday at a home on the city's east side, Godbee said. Authorities believed the suspect in the Friday shooting death of 17-year-old high school student Jarean Blake was hiding out at the home. Blake was gunned down in front of a store as his girlfriend watched, Godbee said.

Preliminary information indicates that members of the Detroit Police Special Response Team approached the house and announced themselves as police, Godbee said, citing the officers and at least one independent witness.

"As is common in these types of situations, the officers deployed a distractionary device commonly known as a flash bang," he said in the statement. "The purpose of the device is to temporarily disorient occupants of the house to make it easier for officers to safely gain control of anyone inside and secure the premise."

Upon entering the home, the officer encountered a 46-year-old female inside the front room, Godbee said. "Exactly what happened next is a matter still under investigation, but it appears the officer and the woman had some level of physical contact.

"At about this time, the officer's weapon discharged one round which, tragically, struck 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley Jones in the neck/head area."...

The NYPD Tapes: Inside Bed-Stuy's 81st Precinct

The NYPD Tapes: Inside Bed-Stuy's 81st Precinct
By Graham Rayman Tuesday, May 4 2010

Two years ago, a police officer in a Brooklyn precinct became gravely concerned about how the public was being served. To document his concerns, he began carrying around a digital sound recorder, secretly recording his colleagues and superiors.
Chad Griffith

At 1.7 square miles, the 81st Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant is one of the smallest in the city, but the densely populated neighborhood is also a rough place to work. One cop there recently told us, “It keeps you from getting bored is about all you can say.”

He recorded precinct roll calls. He recorded his precinct commander and other supervisors. He recorded street encounters. He recorded small talk and stationhouse banter. In all, he surreptitiously collected hundreds of hours of cops talking about their jobs.

Made without the knowledge or approval of the NYPD, the tapes—made between June 1, 2008, and October 31, 2009, in the 81st Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant and obtained exclusively by the Voice—provide an unprecedented portrait of what it's like to work as a cop in this city.

They reveal that precinct bosses threaten street cops if they don't make their quotas of arrests and stop-and-frisks, but also tell them not to take certain robbery reports in order to manipulate crime statistics. The tapes also refer to command officers calling crime victims directly to intimidate them about their complaints.

As a result, the tapes show, the rank-and-file NYPD street cop experiences enormous pressure in a strange catch-22: He or she is expected to maintain high "activity"—including stop-and-frisks—but, paradoxically, to record fewer actual crimes.

This pressure was accompanied by paranoia—from the precinct commander to the lieutenants to the sergeants to the line officers—of violating any of the seemingly endless bureaucratic rules and regulations that would bring in outside supervision.

The tapes also reveal the locker-room environment at the precinct. On a recording made in September, the subject being discussed at roll call is stationhouse graffiti (done by the cops themselves) and something called "cocking the memo book," a practical joke in which officers draw penises in each other's daily notebooks.

"As far as the defacing of department property—all right, the shit on the side of the building . . . and on people's lockers, and drawing penises in people's memo books, and whatever else is going on—just knock it off, all right?" a Sergeant A. can be heard saying. "If the wrong person sees this stuff coming in here, then IAB [the Internal Affairs Bureau] is going to be all over this place, all right? . . . You want to draw penises, draw them in your own memo book. . . And don't actually draw on the wall." He then adds that just before an inspection, a supervisor had to walk around the stationhouse and paint over all the graffiti...

Oops! Sorry, wrong woman arrested for slealing from elderly

Maybe police should be careful of cross-racial identification, especially by elderly?

I don't understand why some people can't apologize when they make a harmful mistake. It makes me wonder if the police and District Attorney think that it's okay for them to trample on people like this and then shrug it off. This isn't what we pay them to do. They get high salaries to do a thorough, professional job.

Woman wrongly arrested wants apology
By Brian Flores
FOX 5 San Diego
April 14, 2010

LA MESA, Calif. - A La Mesa woman who was mistakenly arrested for a series of crimes against senior citizens says she wants and apology from the San Diego District Attorney's Office and police.

Deidria Nicholson told Fox 5 News that she didn't know what she was being arrested for Thursday, but she knew it was a serious situation.

"I can tell you that at that moment, I did not fully understand the charges against me," Nicholson said. "But when I got outside and saw the media, I thought, somebody out here made a big mistake."

Earlier this month, police released a video surveillance photo of a woman responsible for a string of burglaries against local elderly people. Investigators received a phone tip last Thursday that led them to Nicholson. Nicholson said her La Mesa apartment was surrounded by 10 to 14 police officers that afternoon. She said the officers gathered evidence, including receipts, post cards, and some of her hair products. She said she was taken away in handcuffs.

Nicholson's son, Ellis Twine II, said his mother's arrest was bewildering to everyone who knows her.

"I was just shocked, and everybody I told about was in shock, thinking if it was an April fool's joke or something," Twine said.

Nicholson spent five days in custody. She was arraigned Monday afternoon and pleaded not guilty. She adamantly maintained that she was a victim of mistaken identity. Just hours after the arraignment, prosecutors dropped all charges and Nicholson was released. Authorities said they had arrested the wrong person...



New Info Prompts Release Of Woman In Elderly Thefts
Deirdria Nicholson, 50, Arrested Last Thursday
April 12, 2010
10 News

EL CAJON, Calif. -- Questions about the suspect's identity prompted prosecutors Monday to drop their case against a La Mesa woman accused of stealing the purses and pocketbooks of seven people after talking her way into homes in El Cajon, Lake Murray and San Diego.

Deirdria Nicholson, 50, pleaded not guilty this afternoon to charges of burglary, theft from an elder and unauthorized use of an access card and was ordered held on $150,000 bail. Nicholson left Vista Jail at about 10:30 Monday night.

During the arraignment, defense attorney Herb Weston told Judge David Szumowski that his client was adamant there had been a "complete misidentification" in the case.

Two hours later, Deputy District Attorney Dan Link said new information regarding identity had come to light, and the case against Nicholson was being dismissed...

Texas Tough

A piece about the controversial ruling and subsequent reversal over the consitutionality of dealth penalty in Texas this week.

It's by Robert Perkinson, a historian and author whose new book, Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire examines the history of the penal system in Texas -The most locked-down state in the country, and first in executions. Moving from slavery to the present, he shows how Texas' prison system came to serve as the national template for criminal justice, and how incarceration today perpetuates racial disparities in similar ways as convict-leasing and segregation did in post-Civil War America.

McIntosh County Sheriff Joe Hogan under investigation

McIntosh County Sheriff’s Office under investigation
Tulsa World
By RHETT MORGAN World Staff Writer
2/19/2010


EUFAULA - The embattled McIntosh County Sheriff’s Office is under investigation again. McIntosh County District Attorney Tom Guilioli has asked the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to look into allegations of official misconduct in the sheriff’s department, OSBI spokeswoman Jessica Brown said Friday.

Sheriff Joe Hogan, who took office in June, is a former OSBI agent.

“We are going to investigate him like we do anybody else,” Brown said.

The news comes just months after the county sheriff and undersheriff were imprisoned on state and federal charges.

Former Sheriff Terry Alan Jones and ex-undersheriff Mykol Travis Brookshire pleaded guilty in state court to embezzlement and conspiraracy for taking money from a motorist. Jones and Brookshire were sentenced in November to 14 and 13 years in prison, respectively.

Both confessed to splitting $5,000 taken from a motorist during a traffic stop.

Their state prison terms are running concurrently to their 27-month federal sentences, which are related to the same crime and were handed down in September. In June, they pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Muskogee to conspiracy to interfere with interstate commerce under color of law.

Neither Guilioli nor Hogan could immediately be reached for comment Friday.

Hogan, 60, was an agent/deputy inspector with the OSBI from 1981-2007 and was a chemist-toxicologist with the Texas Department of Public Safety from 1972-81. At the time of his hiring as sheriff, he had been working since 2008 as a security guard manager at the Army Ammunition Plant in McAlester.

Wrongfully Convicted Man Wins Freedom

Wrongfully Convicted Man Wins Freedom
By JENNIFER PELTZ
Nov. 21, 2009
AP

NEW YORK (Nov. 21) - A prison system official says a New York City man is free after spending nearly two decades behind bars for murder before a judge declared him innocent.
Fernando Bermudez was released from the Sing Sing prison in Ossining at about 2:10 p.m. Friday. A Manhattan judge overturned Bermudez's 1992 conviction last week, saying it stemmed from unreliable witness testimony.


Fernando Bermudez walks with his wife Crystal, left, near a New York courthouse Friday, after a Manhattan judge tossed out his 1992 murder conviction.
But Bermudez remained behind bars because he hadn't served a 27-month sentence in a federal drug case.
A federal judge on Thursday ordered that Bermudez be released at least until June 30 while his lawyers ask federal officials to credit his drug sentence as served.

It's Official: The ATF and FBI Don't Get Along

It's Official: The ATF and FBI Don't Get Along
By Theo Emery
Oct. 24, 2009

In April 2005, sheriff's deputies reached a suburban Seattle home in time to prevent a firebomb from detonating. But there was nothing the sheriff's department could do to defuse another volatile situation at the site: a feud between the explosives teams that showed up including the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

The attempted arson was the apparent handiwork of the Earth Liberation Front, a designated domestic terrorist group. But trouble at the scene emerged when FBI and ATF explosives experts seemed to believe their own agencies should head the investigation, recalls Sergeant John Urquhart, a spokesman for the King County sheriff's office. "It was clear that there was something going on. There was tension between the groups of ATF agents and FBI agents," Urquhart tells TIME. (See pictures of crime in middle America.)

That fight for jurisdiction was a "low point" for federal agents in Seattle, part of a long-simmering national rivalry that has festered since Congress moved the ATF from the Treasury Department to the Department of Justice (DOJ) after Sept. 11, according to an audit of explosives investigations that was released on Friday by the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General. Acrimony between the agencies has been common knowledge for years, but the report represents the most comprehensive public accounting to date.

The audit found that the conflict has led to confusion at crime sites, arguments in front of state and local investigators, tit-for-tat recrimination and even a threat from the FBI to arrest an ATF agent. Each agency trains separately and has its own explosives database and lab. Agents race to explosions to claim the lead in investigations, and some managers are unclear about jurisdiction. According to the audit, two ambiguous memos in 2004 and 2008 failed to clarify the relationship. "These disputes can delay investigations, undermine federal and local relationships, and may project to local agency responders a disjointed federal response to explosives incidents," the report said. (See pictures of the Branch Davidian siege at Waco and other cults that went wacko.)

The impact of the bickering is more than unseemly public flare-ups, mixed signals and muddled investigations; the conflict could hamper the government's ability to effectively protect against terrorism, the report said...

D.C. Area Officers Subject of FBI Probe

Did Police Take Money to Protect Gambling Ring?
By Aaron C. Davis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 19, 2009

Federal authorities are investigating whether a group of Washington area police officers took money to protect a high-stakes gambling ring frequented by some of the region's most powerful drug dealers over the past two years, according to internal police documents and law enforcement sources.

The officers include five veterans in Prince George's County, a District police official and a former D.C. Housing Authority officer. Two under investigation have been spotted on police surveillance outside gambling sites, including one providing security in tactical gear. Witnesses have alleged that others wore police uniforms and drove marked cruisers to gatherings. One was arrested in a police raid outside a game with a handgun.

Phone records, surveillance and other evidence tie most of the officers directly to the game's operators, which include known drug dealers, documents show. Authorities have not moved against most of the officers or known operators of the game, in part because they continue to investigate whether any of the officers are linked to several slayings connected to the ring, according to documents and sources. It is unclear how much money the officers might have taken to provide the protection and whether the investigation will lead to charges.
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Like other major police departments, Prince George's routinely investigates its officers, sometimes in coordination with federal authorities. But the breadth and depth of this investigation are rare. It involves more officers than any in recent years and a potentially flagrant abuse of police power. The corruption probe has also gone on longer than any that has come to light since a sting operation nearly two decades ago related to the case of notorious drug dealer Rayful Edmond III culminated in the indictment of 12 District police officers...

Cambridge cops insist they were right to arrest black scholar Henry Gates for entering his own home

Photo: Henry Gates, Jr.

The situation was ludicrous from the get go: police responded to a call that two men might be breaking into a house through the front door, in broad daylight. The caller even cautioned them that the men might live in the house and might be dealing with a recalcitrant door. The police arrived to find a middle-aged man who walked with a cane, and arrested him after he provided proof that he was the owner of the house.

Then the police falsely blamed the caller for bringing race into the situation. In fact, the caller never said either man was black.

I think it's possible that the arresting officer couldn't stand being yelled at by a black man.

Certainly the police officer overreacted when an innocent man became angry and called him a racist. Crowley let his pride decide whether the targeted man would be punished for expressing anger at being questioned for entering his own home.

The police tried to shift some of the blame for their actions to the woman who made the call, saying that she brought up the issue of the men being black. In fact, a tape of her call reveals that she did not even say the men were black when she was asked if they were black. I apologize to Lucia Whalen for being one of the bloggers who blamed her in some way for the fiasco. She is blameless; she was merely assisting another woman who brought the situation to her attention.

Crowley's weakness was being too hot-headed to walk away when an innocent man became furious at having the cops question him for being in his own home.

Would Mr. Gates have been reported to police if he had been white? A black man trying to get a door open in an upscale suburb may have looked like a criminal to the elderly woman who asked Lucia Whalen to call 911.

Related:
Swim Club Under Fire For Banning Black Kids
San Diego sheriff's deputies arrest Francine Busby supporters at home fundraiser




Henry Louis Gates case: Should yelling at a cop be a crime?
Disorderly conduct charge gives police a lot of power
Chicago Tribune
By David G. Savage
Washington Bureau
July 25, 2009

WASHINGTON -- For some defense lawyers, the arrest of Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was less about racial profiling than about how people can be arrested simply for speaking angry words to a police officer.

The laws against "disorderly conduct" give the police wide power to arrest people who are said to be disturbing the peace or disrupting a neighborhood. In Massachusetts and elsewhere, the courts have said the "disorderly acts or language" must take place in public where others can be disturbed.

It is probably not a crime of disorderly conduct for a homeowner, standing in his kitchen, to speak abusively to a police officer.

According to his police report, Sgt. James Crowley said the professor was "yelling very loud" and "accusing me of being a racist."

Complaining that the "acoustics of the kitchen" made it difficult to communicate, the officer said he "told Gates that I would speak with him outside."

On the porch, the officer arrested Gates for being loud and abusive in the presence of several neighbors on the sidewalk. The charges were later dropped.

[Maura Larkins comment: What a sneaky, manipulative tactic.]

"You might think that in the United States, you have a right to state an opinion, even an offensive opinion. But prosecutors like to say you don't have a right to mouth off to the police," said Samuel Goldberg, a Boston criminal defense lawyer.

"Gates was saying, 'You are hassling me because I'm black.' I understand how that's offensive to a police officer," Goldberg said. "It's astounding to me to call it criminal."

Matt Cameron, a criminal defense lawyer in East Boston, said the state's law against "disorderly conduct" dates to the 1600s.

"It's a handy tool for the police because it is so broad and confusing," he said...





Mass. Cops Point to Favoritism in Harvard Prof Case
By MICHELE McPHEE
ABC News
July 22, 2009

Police officers from across Massachusetts are raising questions about favoritism over the handling of disorderly conduct charges that were lodged and promptly dropped against prominent Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. refutes the police account of his arrest.

The incident began when Cambridge Police Sgt. Joseph Crowley Crowley had responded to a call about someone apparently trying to break into Gates' Cambridge, Mass., home. Crowley said Gates called him a "racist cop" after he arrived at the house and asked the Harvard professor for identification.

Gates refused after saying: "No I will not." Gates then, according to Crowley, said he was being harassed because he is a "black man in America." As the confrontation escalated, Crowley was then joined by a Hispanic Cambridge police officer and a black sergeant, according to two high-ranking law enforcement officials who have been briefed on the case and Cambridge police reports.

Gates was arrested and booked on a disorderly conduct charge.

"The actions of the Cambridge Police Department, and in particular, Sergeant Joseph Crowley, were one-hundred-percent correct,'' said Hugh Cameron, president of the Massachusetts Coalition of Police. "He was responding to a report of two men breaking into a home. The police cannot just drive by the house and say, 'looks like everything is ok.'

...Jim Carnell, a union representative for the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association, said cops are "furious at the way Crowley is being vilified."...

"If Professor Gates was poor, he'd be in a jail cell."

[Maura Larkins comment: If Professor Gates were white, he'd never have been arrested. Does the police union approve of keeping poor people in jail for entering their own homes? I doubt that the DA does. I simply do not believe that the DA would prosecute such a case unless cops have some sort of ongoing understanding with the DA. If I were this cop, I'd have apologized and left, and I sure wouldn't have arrested the homeowner whose homecoming I had interrupted.]

...there are questions about the way the case was handled. David Frank, former prosecutor and a writer for Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, said it was "unusual" for a case to be "nul-processed" [charges dropped] without a court appearance. Gates was slated to be arraigned on disorderly conduct charges on Aug. 26. He is now demanding an apology from Crowley instead.

[Maura Larkins comment: I don't believe David Frank. I believe that what is unusual here is that a man was arrested as a result of entering his own house. No arraignment should have been scheduled.]

"Legally, the prosecution made the right call. The issue, though, is that if Gates were an electrician from Everett and not a well-known professor from Harvard the reality is in that in all likelihood he would have to defend himself against the charges in a courtroom," Frank said.

[Maura Larkins comment: Does Frank think it is right for a citizen, any citizen, to have to defend himself in court for entering his own home?]

..."I think what went wrong personally is that you had two human beings that were reacting to a set of circumstances, and unfortunately at the time cooler heads did not prevail," said Downes...

Gates, who according to his lawyer had been trying to force open a jammed door, was inside the house when the Cambridge police officer got there.

Asked about allegations that Gates' arrest was racially fueled, Downes said, "Our position is very firmly that race did not play any factor at all in the arrest of Mr. Gates."

[Maura Larkins comment: The next paragraph seems to contradict Downes' conclusion.]

The officers were sent to the house after a 911 call placed by a Lucia Whalen Thursday afternoon. Whalen, who works at Harvard Magazine, had reported that two "black men with backpacks" shouldered their way into a home on a tony, upscale Cambridge block – one of the leafy neighborhoods that ring the college.

Though Gates eventually identified himself, he was arrested after he allegedly came out of the house and continued yelling at police, even after he was warned that he "was becoming disorderly," according to the police report.

Gates, the director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, and former host of the PBS show "African American Lives," had just returned from a trip to China and found the front door of his home jammed, according to his Harvard colleague and attorney Charles Ogletree.

He entered the house through the back door, but then tried to get the front door open so he could bring his luggage in, which may have been when the woman who called 911 saw, Ogletree said.




















Photo: Sgt. James Crowley
Photo by Christopher Evans Boston Herald

Cop in Scholar Arrest Is Profiling Expert
Officer Slams Obama for Saying Police 'Acted Stupidly'
By BOB SALSBERG,AP

NATICK, Mass. (July 23, 2009) -- The white police sergeant accused of racial profiling after he arrested renowned black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his home was hand-picked by a black police commissioner to teach recruits about avoiding racial profiling.

Friends and fellow officers — black and white — say Sgt. James Crowley is a principled police officer and family man who is being unfairly described as racist.

[I don't think this police officer is being accused of being racist. He's accused of overreacting when an innocent suspect became angry and called him a racist. There's a difference. Crowley let his pride decide whether the targeted man would be punished for expressing anger at being questioned for entering his own home. I think the racial profiling was done by the woman who reported a black man breaking into a house. Crowley's weakness was being too hot-headed to walk away when an innocent man became furious at having the cops question him for being in his own home.]

Cambridge (Mass.) Police Sgt. James Crowley, seen speaking to reporters Wednesday, said he followed police procedure in arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. at Gates' Cambridge home. "There will be no apology," he said. On Thursday, it emerged that Crowley is a police academy expert on understanding racial profiling.

Cambridge (Mass.) Police Sgt. James Crowley, seen speaking to reporters Wednesday, said he followed police procedure in arresting Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. outside Gates' Cambridge home. "There will be no apology," he said.

"If people are looking for a guy who's abusive or arrogant, they got the wrong guy," said Andy Meyer, of Natick, who has vacationed with Crowley, coached youth sports with him and is his teammate on a men's softball team. "This is not a racist, rogue cop. This is a fine, upstanding man. And if every cop in the world were like him, it would be a better place."

Gates accused the 11-year department veteran of being an unyielding, race-baiting authoritarian after Crowley arrested and charged him with disorderly conduct last week.

Crowley confronted Gates in his home after a woman passing by summoned police for a possible burglary. The sergeant said he arrested Gates after the scholar repeatedly accused him of racism and made derogatory remarks about his mother, allegations the professor challenges. Gates has labeled Crowley a "rogue cop," demanded an apology and said he may sue the police department.

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama elevated the dispute, when he said Cambridge Police "acted stupidly" during the encounter.

Obama stepped back on Thursday, telling ABC News, "From what I can tell, the sergeant who was involved is an outstanding police officer, but my suspicion is probably that it would have been better if cooler heads had prevailed."...

Crowley's encounter with Gates was not his first with a high-profile black man, although on the prior occasion he was lauded for his response.

He was a campus cop at Brandeis University in suburban Waltham when was summoned to the school gymnasium in July 1993 after Boston Celtics player Reggie Lewis collapsed of an apparent heart attack. Crowley, also a trained emergency medical technician, not only pumped the local legend's chest, but put his mouth to Lewis' own and attempted to breathe life back into the fallen athlete...

[Maura Larkins comment: I think it's pathetic that this incident is being touted as proof that Sgt. Crowley is not a racist: he did his job even though it required helping a black man. His only other option was to stand there and do nothing while the man died. Few human beings would do nothing. This simply proves that Crowley has some basic human decency. I'm sure he's a nice guy, but he's too proud and vindictive.]






Skip Gates Speaks
The Root
By: Dayo Olopade
July 21, 2009

In an interview with The Root, Henry Louis Gates Jr. talks about his arrest and the outrage of racial profiling in America.
07/21/2009

Henry Louis Gates Jr.: I’m outraged. I can’t believe that an individual policeman on the Cambridge police force would treat any African-American male this way, and I am astonished that this happened to me; and more importantly I’m astonished that it could happen to any citizen of the United States, no matter what their race. And I’m deeply resolved to do and say the right things so that this cannot happen again.

Of course, it will happen again, but … I want to do what I can so that every police officer will think twice before engaging in this kind of behavior.

TR: Can you describe, in your own words, what went on in and outside of your home? When did you suspect you were the victim of racial profiling?

HLG: I just finished making my new documentary series for PBS called “Faces of America.” It was a glorious week in Shanghai and Ningbo and Beijing, and on my trip, I took my daughter along. After we finished working in Ningbo we went to Beijing and had three glorious days as tourists. It was great fun.

We flew back on a direct flight from Beijing to Newark. We arrived on Wednesday, and on Thursday I flew back to Cambridge. I was using my regular driver and my regular car service. And went to my home arriving at about 12:30 in the afternoon. My driver and I carried several bags up to the porch, and we fiddled with the door and it was jammed. I thought, well, maybe the door’s latched. So I walked back to the kitchen porch, unlocked the door and came into the house. And I unlatched the door, but it was still jammed.

My driver is a large black man. But from afar you and I would not have seen he was black. He has black hair and was dressed in a two-piece black suit, and I was dressed in a navy blue blazer with gray trousers and, you know, my shoes. And I love that the 911 report said that two big black men were trying to break in with backpacks on. Now that is the worst racial profiling I’ve ever heard of in my life. (Laughs.) I’m not exactly a big black man. I thought that was hilarious when I found that out, which was yesterday.

It looked like someone’s footprint was there. So it’s possible that the door had been jimmied, that someone had tried to get in while I was in China. But for whatever reason, the lock was damaged. My driver hit the door with his shoulder and the door popped open. But the lock was permanently disfigured. My home is owned by Harvard University, and so any kind of repair work that’s needed, Harvard will come and do it. I called this person, and she was, in fact, on the line while all of this was going on.

I’m saying ‘You need to send someone to fix my lock.’ All of a sudden, there was a policeman on my porch. And I thought, ‘This is strange.’ So I went over to the front porch still holding the phone, and I said ‘Officer, can I help you?’ And he said, ‘Would you step outside onto the porch.’ And the way he said it, I knew he wasn’t canvassing for the police benevolent association. All the hairs stood up on the back of my neck, and I realized that I was in danger. And I said to him no, out of instinct. I said, ‘No, I will not.’

My lawyers later told me that that was a good move and had I walked out onto the porch he could have arrested me for breaking and entering. He said ‘I’m here to investigate a 911 call for breaking and entering into this house.’ And I said ‘That’s ridiculous because this happens to be my house. And I’m a Harvard professor.’ He says ‘Can you prove that you’re a Harvard professor?’ I said yes, I turned and closed the front door to the kitchen where I’d left my wallet, and I got out my Harvard ID and my Massachusetts driver’s license which includes my address and I handed them to him. And he’s sitting there looking at them.

Now it’s clear that he had a narrative in his head: A black man was inside someone’s house, probably a white person’s house, and this black man had broken and entered, and this black man was me.

So he’s looking at my ID, he asked me another question, which I refused to answer. And I said I want your name and your badge number because I want to file a complaint because of the way he had treated me at the front door. He didn’t say, ‘Excuse me, sir, is there a disturbance here, is this your house?’—he demanded that I step out on the porch, and I don’t think he would have done that if I was a white person.

But at that point, I realized that I was in danger. And so I said to him that I want your name, and I want your badge number and I said it repeatedly.

TR: How did this escalate? What are the laws in Cambridge that govern this kind of interaction? Did you ever think you were in the wrong?

HLG: The police report says I was engaged in loud and tumultuous behavior. That’s a joke. Because I have a severe bronchial infection which I contracted in China and for which I was treated and have a doctor’s report from the Peninsula hotel in Beijing. So I couldn’t have yelled. I can’t yell even today, I’m not fully cured.

It escalated as follows: I kept saying to him, ‘What is your name, and what is your badge number?’ and he refused to respond. I asked him three times, and he refused to respond. And then I said, ‘You’re not responding because I’m a black man, and you’re a white officer.’ That’s what I said. He didn’t say anything. He turned his back to me and turned back to the porch. And I followed him. I kept saying, “I want your name, and I want your badge number.”

It looked like an ocean of police had gathered on my front porch. There were probably half a dozen police officers at this point. The mistake I made was I stepped onto the front porch and asked one of his colleagues for his name and badge number. And when I did, the same officer said, ‘Thank you for accommodating our request. You are under arrest.’ And he handcuffed me right there. It was outrageous. My hands were behind my back I said, ‘I’m handicapped. I walk with a cane. I can’t walk to the squad car like this.’ There was a huddle among the officers; there was a black man among them. They removed the cuffs from the back and put them around the front.

A crowd had gathered, and as they were handcuffing me and walking me out to the car, I said, ‘Is this how you treat a black man in America?’

TR: What was the jail experience like? Was it humiliating?

HLG: By the time I was processed at the Cambridge jail, I was booked, fingerprinted, given a mug shot and answered questions. Outrageous is the only word that I can use. The system attempts to humiliate you. They took my belt; they took my wallet, they took my keys, some change; they counted my money. And I knew that because they said, ‘We’re going to release you upon your own recognizance, and the fine is $40, and we know you can pay it because we went through your wallet.’

It’s meant to be terrifying and humiliating. And I couldn’t believe that this was happening to me. And I said I can’t wait to get out, I am eager to talk to my lawyer, and they said they had to book me first. Then I was told that Charles Ogletree was in the building, and that he was there with three other Harvard professors—my friends Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Larry Bobo and Marcelina Lee Morgan.

I was in jail for four hours. I told them that I was claustrophobic, that I couldn’t be in this cell. And a very nice police officer said here are some of your friends and I could talk to them one at a time in the interview room until the magistrate came and signed the form allowing me to leave. I was there just between 1:00 p.m. and 5:15 p.m., which is an interminable amount of time. I spent the rest of the time in another room, slightly bigger, and my friends just had to sit there and wait. And it was kind of like a Senate filibuster; we had to tell stories in the prison cell.

TR: How has this resonated within the academic community at Harvard? I know that Larry Bobo and Charles Ogletree, also black men, have expressed dismay. President Barack Obama has talked about how difficult it is to hail a cab, even as an elected official. Is there an irony to your notoriety and the incident?

HLG: There is such a level of outrage that’s been expressed to me. I’ve received thousands of e-mails and Facebook messages; the blogs are going crazy; my colleagues at Harvard are outraged. Allen Counter called me from the Nobel Institute in Stockholm to express his outrage. But really it’s not about me—it’s that anybody black can be treated this way, just arbitrarily arrested out of spite. And the man who arrested me did it out of spite, because he knew I was going to file a report because of his behavior.

He didn’t follow proper police procedure! You can’t just presume I’m guilty and arrest me. He’s supposed to ask me if I need help. He just presumed that I was guilty, and he presumed that I was guilty because I was black. There was no doubt about that.

TR: What do you make of the suspicious neighbor who called the police with an erroneous report of “two black men” trying to enter your apartment? Was this neighborhood watch gone wrong?

HLG: I don’t know this person, and I’m sure that she thought she was doing the right thing. If I was on Martha’s Vineyard like I am now and someone was trying to break into my house, I would hope that someone called the police and that they would respond. But I would hope that the police wouldn’t arrest the first black man that they saw—especially after that person gives them an ID—and not rely on some trumped-up charge, which is what this man was doing.






The good news about the Henry Louis Gates fiasco

America's most prominent black intellectual was arrested trying to get into his own house. So why am I glad?

By James Hannaham
Salon
July 22, 2009

...this event will probably make members of the Cambridge Police Department and other P.D.s think twice before they arrest another black man. Imagine the confusion it will cause the po-po -- "Uh-oh. Is this brother a professor, too? What does Cornel West look like?” Maybe some ordinary, untenured black men in the street will get some much-deserved benefit of the doubt now...





Are Police to be Feared?
By Bill Bradshaw, Mission Beach
Voice of San Diego
July 31, 2009

Did anyone else notice the similarities between the current flap involving the Cambridge police and a "distinguished Harvard professor" and the incident a few weeks ago involving a local political fund raiser? Both resulted in allegations of police overreaction and poor judgment in handling seemingly innocent situations, but let's back off and look at the two incidents.

Both started with trouble calls to the police by neighbors. In each case, the responding officer was met with indignation by the person contacted, and rapidly escalated into charges, in one case, of "racial profiling" and in the other, of "right-wing politics". The motives of the responding officer were impugned before the facts were clear. We even had the President, to his discredit, weigh in on the latest case.

There's a simpler, less sinister, explanation. One of the first things a police officer is taught is to take charge of a situation, and to require compliance with his or her instructions in order determine just what's going on. When the officer, knowing nothing of what to expect save for a brief summary from the dispatcher, encounters a "big shot", rattling on about his or her civil rights, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the officer asserts authority, and if an audience is present, bad things can happen.

Let's give the cops a break. Police officers aren't college professors or wealthy political activists, they're public servants trying to do a tough job, who deal daily with the worst of society. Next time you encounter a cop, how about a friendly greeting and cooperation, instead of a recitation of rights?

COMMENTS

I agree that society is best served when citizens are friendly and respectful to police. Police, like the rest of us, function better when receiving positive reinforcement. But I disagree that police are doing us a favor just by doing their jobs. We taxpayers pay them for their contributions. If Professor Gates should have thanked Officer Crowley for reporting to work, then Officer Crowley should likewise have thanked Gates for helping to pay his salary. I'm afraid the chances of such a conversation was pretty close to zero in the two cases mentioned since it appears that the manner in which Officer Crowley and Deputy Marshall Abbott approached the individuals they later arrested was not conducive to a friendly exchange. There are some police, however, who do deserve an extra thank you: the ones who keep their emotions out of their decisions.

Posted by Maura Larkins

What happened in San Diego and Cambridge are less about racial profiliing and right-wing conspiracies then they are about a gap between police and citizens. Does the average person know their rights when being stopped by police? I'm not sure they do. I know police officers have a tough job and can never be certain what they are walking into on a call, but they have a higher duty to de-escalate a tricky situation precisely because we give them guns and handcuffs. The officer in the Cambridge situation had no reason to arrest Gates no matter what a jerk he was being. It's not a crime to be rude to police. The San Diego case is a little trickier because of the crowd of people. But I make no apologies for second guessing police in these situations. It's the only way to deter abuse of authority.

Posted by Catherine



A light-hearted look at the situation:

JULY 31, 2009
Obama Pronounces Beer Summit "Thoughtful" Except Biden
Opensalon.com

WASHINGTON, D.C. Eager to put a major distraction behind him, President Obama today pronounced yesterday's "beer summit" with Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates and a Cambridge, Mass. policeman a "thoughtful" exchange except for the contributions of Vice President Joseph Biden, who crashed the event.

"All right--honey roasted peanuts!"

"America will never be able to have an honest and candid conversation about race until the Vice President shuts up about the freakin' Philadelphia Phillies," Obama said with ill-concealed annoyance to a White House pool reporter as he returned to the Oval Office...

Did Lowell Bruce fit in with police culture? I'll bet he did.

Why was wife-killer Lowell Bruce hired by the San Diego Sheriff's department?

A Questionable Hire
By Lee Hazer, Clairemont
Voice of San Diego
July 14, 2009

Despite having the knowledge that Bruce failed the psychological test twice, and being rejected by at least eight other law enforcement agencies, he was still ultimately hired by the Sheriff's Department, and went on to fatally shoot his wife, the plaintiff's complaint said.

The lawsuit alleges the Sheriff's Department of "careless and reckless hiring policies or practices led to the issuing of a gun to Bruce, which then led to the death of Kristin."

But according to Judge Houston there is no direct link between the county's screening process for hiring purposes and the death of Kristin.

The plaintiffs did not demonstrate that the shooting was "a plainly obvious consequence of the hiring decision," a threshold that was established in 1997 by the U.S. Supreme Court, Houston said."

Um..... The Sheriff's Department handed Bruce the murder weapon.



Maura Larkins' response:

Like most workplaces, I suspect the sheriff's department looks for employees who will "fit in" with the predominant culture of the staff. Quite possibly our sheriff's department rules out people who are too smart. (A court has found this practice to be legal.) Or maybe the applicant displaced by Lowell Bruce didn't like to drink. (See below.) I suspect that the sheriff's department could benefit from hiring some "different" types of people. People with different attitudes might help change the department for the better.

Drinking to fit in at the police academy

"The results showed that recruits socialize and drink more with colleagues after entering the Academy than they did pre Academy. The way recruits drank also changed during training with a tendency towards heavier drinking sessions. Further results indicated that recruits did feel some pressure to drink to fit in and be one of the crowd." (Page 3 of Does the Police Academy Change Your Life?)

"When asked what were some of pressures to drink in the Academy, 20% of recruits said peer pressure, 10% said to be one of the boys..."(Page 7 of Does the Police Academy Change Your Life?)



http://www.defendingthetruth.com/affirmative-action-race-issues/17917-judge-rules-police-can-bar-high-i-q-scores.html
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/4503/1/4503b.pdf
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/4503/1/4503b.pdf

Court says Police can refuse to hire applicants with high IQ scores

Judge Rules That Police Can Bar High I.Q. Scores
METRO NEWS BRIEFS: CONNECTICUT; Judge Rules That Police Can Bar High I.Q. Scores

A Federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a man who was barred from the New London police force because he scored too high on an intelligence test.

In a ruling made public on Tuesday, Judge Peter C. Dorsey of the United States District Court in New Haven agreed that the plaintiff, Robert Jordan, was denied an opportunity to interview for a police job because of his high test scores. But he said that that did not mean Mr. Jordan was a victim of discrimination.
Judge Dorsey ruled that Mr. Jordan was not denied equal protection because the city of New London applied the same standard to everyone: anyone who scored too high was rejected.

Mr. Jordan, 48, who has a bachelor's degree in literature and is an officer with the State Department of Corrections, said he was considering an appeal. ''I was eliminated on the basis of my intellectual makeup,'' he said. ''It's the same as discrimination on the basis of gender or religion or race.'



http://www.defendingthetruth.com/affirmative-action-race-issues/17917-judge-rules-police-can-bar-high-i-q-scores.html

Google street scene solves Dutch crime

Dutch muggers caught on Google street view camera
June 19, 2009
Reuters

Dutch twin brothers who mugged a teenager in the northern town of Groningen were arrested after being caught on camera by a car gathering images for Google's online photo map service, police said.

The pair stole the 14-year-old boy's mobile phone and 165 euros ($230) in cash last September.

"The picture was taken just a moment before the crime," a police spokesman said.

In March, the victim recognized himself and the two robbers while surfing Google Maps, which has a "Street View" feature allowing users to see images of buildings. The images are usually taken by a camera mounted on a car.

After an investigation by the police, one of the 24-year-old twins confessed to robbing the boy. ($1=.7183 Euro) (Reporting by Harro ten Wolde)

Cops made up false accusations about brothers selling cocaine in Queens: who's in jail now?

Brothers Prove Cops Wrong With Video
By TOM HAYS and COLLEEN LONG
AP
June 13, 2009

When undercover detectives busted Jose and Maximo Colon last year for selling cocaine at a seedy club in Queens, there was a glaring problem: The brothers hadn't done anything wrong.

But proclaiming innocence wasn't going to be good enough. The Dominican immigrants needed proof.

The Story: Undercover police arrested two brothers for dealing cocaine at a New York night club. The officers claimed Maximo Colon, left, and his brother Jose sold two bags of cocaine to them. - The Truth: The brothers proved their innocence -- and laid the groundwork for a multimillion dollar lawsuit -- with a video from the club's security cameras.

"I sat in the jail and thought ... how could I prove this? What could I do?" Jose, 24, recalled in Spanish during a recent interview.

As he glanced around a holding cell, the answer came to him: Security cameras. Since then, a vindicating video from the club's cameras has spared the brothers a possible prison term, resulted in two officers' arrest and become the basis for a multimillion-dollar lawsuit.

The officers, who are due back in court June 26, have pleaded not guilty, and New York Police Department officials have downplayed their case.
But the drug corruption case isn't alone.

On May 13, another NYPD officer was arrested for plotting to invade a Manhattan apartment where he hoped to steal $900,000 in drug money. In another pending case, prosecutors in Brooklyn say officers were caught in a 2007 sting using seized drugs to reward a snitch for information. And in the Bronx, prosecutors have charged a detective with lying about a drug bust captured on a surveillance tape that contradicts her story.

Elsewhere, Philadelphia prosecutors dismissed more than a dozen drug and gun charges against a man last month when a narcotics officer was accused of making up information on search warrants...

LAPD detective charged 23 years after being named a suspect in slaying

Nels Rasmussen says he told LAPD detectives in 1986 that a jealous ex-girlfriend had broken into his daughter's condo and told her 'If I can't have John, nobody can,' in the days before her slaying.


Detective stalked slaying victim, father says
By Andrew Blankstein and Joel Rubin
June 10, 2009

Nels Rasmussen says he vividly remembers the calls from his daughter 23 years ago when she confided her fears that a jealous LAPD officer was out to harm her. She told him the young female officer had shown up in uniform at the hospital where she worked and issued a chilling warning about her husband, "If I can't have John, nobody can."

He remembers the call when his daughter told him that she had found the officer, again in uniform, standing in the Van Nuys condo she shared with her new husband, John Ruetten. Then there was the call, days before she was beaten and shot to death in 1986, when Sherri Rasmussen said she believed the officer had been following her on city streets.

All of this, Nels Rasmussen says, he told Los Angeles Police Department detectives in the days, months and years after his daughter's slaying. His information was ignored by police until this year when cold-case detectives reopened the homicide investigation. Last week his suspicions were validated when Det. Stephanie Lazarus was arrested and charged with capital murder. Police say Lazarus, who had dated Ruetten, killed Sherri Rasmussen in a crime of passion.

On Tuesday, as Lazarus made her first court appearance, Nels Rasmussen and his wife held a news conference, calling on the LAPD to investigate their belief that detectives overlooked glaring leads that pointed to Lazarus...





LA Police Detective Charged With Murder
By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON
AP


LOS ANGELES (June 8, 2009) - A veteran detective was charged with murder Monday in the slaying of her ex-boyfriend's wife in 1986 — a crime that went unsolved for more than two decades as she rose through the Los Angeles Police Department ranks.

Detective Stephanie Lazarus, 49, could be sentenced to death if convicted of breaking into the victim's condominium on Feb. 24, 1986, and repeatedly biting, beating and shooting the woman.

Police in Los Angeles charged a veteran detective in the 1986 murder of her ex-boyfriend's wife Monday. Stephanie Lazarus, here in court Tuesday, could face the death penalty if convicted of repeatedly biting, beating and shooting the woman. Lazarus was identified as a suspect through a recent DNA match of saliva taken from bite marks on the victim's body.

Lazarus, who joined the force in 1983, was identified as a suspect through a recent DNA match of saliva taken from bite marks on Sherri Rasmussen's body, said Deputy Chief Charlie Beck.

Lazarus' husband, Scott Young, who works as a detective in the San Fernando Valley, knew nothing about the slaying, Beck said.

"None of us blames him. I don't know if he's been interviewed yet, but he will be, as will a lot of people," he said.

Lazarus was not a suspect at the time of Rasmussen's death because detectives believed that two robbers who had attacked another woman in the victim's Van Nuys neighborhood were to blame.

The case file mentioned Lazarus because she had once dated the victim's husband, John Ruetten, but investigators did not pursue her as a suspect until DNA tests recently showed the attacker was a woman...