Police sexual misconduct is common, and anyone who maintains it isn’t doesn’t get it.
—
Retired Seattle police chief Norm Stamper
Since no one is investing resources in learning how many victims are out there, we’re left with estimates and news accounts. As part of a 2008 study, former police officer Tim Maher, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, asked 20 police chiefs whether police sexual misconduct was a problem; 18 responded in the affirmative. The 13 chiefs willing to offer estimates thought an average of 19 percent of cops were involved—if correct, that translates to more than 150,000 police officers nationwide. An informal effort by the Cato Institute in 2010 to track the number of police sexual-misconduct cases just in news stories counted 618 complaints nationwide that year, 354 of which involved forcible nonconsensual sexual activity like sexual assault or sexual battery.
Uh, I don’t have anybody to send out there,” the 911 dispatcher told the woman. “You know, obviously, if he comes inside the residence and assaults you, can you ask him to go away? Do you know if he’s intoxicated or anything?
—
911 Dispatcher Tells Woman About To Be Sexually Assaulted There Are No Cops To Help Her Due To Budget Cuts « CBS Seattle (via paleolibertarian)
Related: Make It Hurt
(via paleolibertarian)
I just did, you bastards.
Authorities: Hofstra student killed by police →
A New York college student being held in a headlock at gunpoint by an intruder was accidentally shot and killed by a police officer who had responded to a report of the home invasion at an off-campus home, police said Saturday.
Andrea Rebello was shot once in the head Friday morning by an officer who opened fire after the masked intruder pointed a gun at the officer while holding the 21-year-old Hofstra University student in a headlock, Nassau County homicide squad Lt. John Azzata said.
In a tense confrontation with the officer, gunman Dalton Smith “menaces our police officer, points his gun at the police officer,” Azzata said. The officer opened fire, killing Smith and his hostage.
Officer safety is the highest priority. Warren v. District of Columbia already established that police are under no obligation to protect us. As I’ve noted: “The police’s priority is officer safety, not public safety. They protect and serve themselves first, and sometimes exclusively, at any cost.” Occasionally innocents are shot. This is just the price we pay for a free society.
So even in the unlikely event that a cop can arrive in time to save a life, they still might not - or worse. This is why it is ignorant and naïve to disarm potential victims (who are the real first responders).
And the subservient media really can’t help themselves - look at USA Today’s original headline:
The cop can’t be blamed, that bullet was totally working alone.
Don’t Talk to Cops
(Source: youtube.com)
Cotati, California Police Tase Man as He Films Them For Breaking In Without a Warrant →
A [couple] recently captured police, who were outside his home answering a call about a domestic violence complaint, in what can only be described as a very bizarre video.
The unidentified Cotati, Calif., man and woman tell the police from inside their home that “there is no domestic violence, just an argument with yelling.”
They also inform police that they have one child in the house and one playing outside.
When the police ask the couple “why” they are not coming out, the man inside tells police: “Because we don’t live in a police state, sir. Martial law has not been established in this country.”
The man insists that police do not have a warrant or probable cause. Seconds later, the police tell the people inside to get down on the floor.
Police then break down the door and enter armed.
The woman is tased first and screams, then the man is tased and the recording ends.
They suspect domestic violence so they respond by disregarding any semblance of due process and tase the woman who is the alleged victim of domestic violence.
(Source: thefreelioness, via georgeoughttohelp)
Michigan Father Killed in Marijuana Child Removal Incident →
A prosecutor in northern Michigan has cleared the police officer who shot and killed a Grayling man as police and Child Protective Services (CPS) employees attempted to seize his three-year-old. The attempted removal of the minor child came after a police officer who came to the scene on a call earlier that same day reported that he smelled marijuana and reported the incident to CPS authorities, who decided the child needed to be removed. The dead man, William Reddie, 32, becomes the 17th person killed in US domestic drug law enforcement operations so far this year.
A child was removed because someone smelled marijuana? A father tried to keep his son from being taken and you shot him? The pig got away scot-free?
Florida quietly shortened yellow light standards & lengths, resulting in more red light camera tickets →
A subtle, but significant tweak to Florida’s rules regarding traffic signals has allowed local cities and counties to shorten yellow light intervals, resulting in millions of dollars in additional red light camera fines.
The 10 News Investigators discovered the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) quietly changed the state’s policy on yellow intervals in 2011, reducing the minimum below federal recommendations. The rule change was followed by engineers, both from FDOT and local municipalities, collaborating to shorten the length of yellow lights at key intersections, specifically those with red light cameras (RLCs).
While yellow light times were reduced by mere fractions of a second, research indicates a half-second reduction in the interval can double the number of RLC citations — and the revenue they create. …
Red light cameras generated more than $100 million in revenue last year in approximately 70 Florida communities, with 52.5 percent of the revenue going to the state. The rest is divided by cities, counties, and the camera companies. In 2013, the cameras are on pace to generate $120 million.
“Red light cameras are a for-profit business between cities and camera companies and the state,” said James Walker, executive director of the nonprofit National Motorists Association. “The (FDOT rule-change) was done, I believe, deliberately in order that more tickets would be given with yellows set deliberately too short.”
Baltimore Cops Sued (Again) For Destroying Citizen Footage of Them Caught in the Act of Being Themselves →
[T]he Baltimore Police Department is being sued for attacking a woman and smashing her camera, marking the second time in two years it has been sued for destroying footage.
The first suit earned them a federal reprimand. The second will hopefully earn them a federal investigation.
In that suit, which was filed last week, Makia Smith says she was stuck in stand-still rush hour traffic in March 2012 when she saw a group of cops beating up a man.
She stepped out of her car, stood on the door sill and began recording.
She was quickly confronted by an aggressive cop named Nathan Church, who grabbed her phone, threw it on the ground and smashed it with his foot.
“You want to film something, bitch? Film this,” he yelled.
He then proceeded to beat her.
Quoting from the suit as filed:
“Officer Church pulled plaintiff out of her car by her hair and beat her. Officers Pilkerton, Ulmer, and Campbell then ran to plaintiff’s car and joined Officer Church in beating plaintiff and arrested her using excessive force. At all times described herein, plaintiff’s two year old daughter witnessed her mother’s beating and arrest by the Officers, as did others.”
Smith claims the cops taunted her and threatened to take her daughter away…
“The officers, despite the pleas of plaintiff, refused to call plaintiff’s mother. Instead, the officers tormented plaintiff by telling her that her daughter would be taken from her and sent to Social Services. Seeing plaintiff’s distressful reaction to these tormenting threats, they continued,” the complaint states. Smith … claims she was arrested and taken to jail on bogus charges that she assaulted Church and resisted arrest. She claims Church failed to appear for her trial – twice, and prosecutors dropped the charges, but she had to hire a lawyer and spend more money recovering her impounded car.
Police steal $160,000 from man during traffic stop
(Source: youtube.com)
Memphis Cop Car Ends Up Against Pole, Other Cops at the Scene Ticket Drivers for Going Too Slow
A Memphis police officer was driving too fast as he tried to chase down a driver for not wearing a seatbelt, so his car ended up upright against a telephone pole, prompting other motorists to slow down and take photos of the incident.
That, of course, prompted other officers to ticket those drivers for driving too slow, according to WREG.
No word yet as to whether the first officer will be ticketed for reckless driving.
(via statehate)
Cops Beat "Possibly Intoxicated" Man to Death in Bakersfield, CA; Citizen Camera Evidence Seized →
Blood stains are still visible on the sidewalk at the corner of Flower Street and Palm Drive, where a Bakersfield man struggled with as many as nine officers and later died this week.
David Sal Silva, 33 and the father of four young children, died early Wednesday morning after deputies say he fought with them and CHP officers who’d responded to a report of a possibly intoxicated man outside Kern Medical Center….
The Kern County Sheriff’s Office says Silva resisted, a canine was deployed, more law enforcement arrived, batons were used and the man later had trouble breathing. He was taken to KMC, where he died. An autopsy was slated for Thursday, but no results have been released.
Some witnesses apparently took cellphone video of the incident but deputies moved quickly to seize the phones. The Sheriff’s Office, after releasing a statement Wednesday and naming its officers Thursday, declined all further comment.
People who say they witnessed the incident as well as Silva’s family members described a scene in which deputies essentially were beating a helpless man to death. They were indignant that cellphone video had been taken away by deputies…..
At about midnight, Ruben Ceballos, 19,was awakened by screams and loud banging noises outside his home. He said he ran to the left side of his house to find out who was causing the ruckus.
“When I got outside I saw two officers beating a man with batons and they were hitting his head so every time they would swing, I could hear the blows to his head,” Ceballos said.
Silva was on the ground screaming for help, but officers continued to beat him, Ceballos said.
After several minutes, Ceballos said, Silva stopped screaming and was no longer responsive.
And apparently stealing any possible evidence of their guilt is par for the course with the police:
John Tello, a criminal law attorney, is representing two witnesses who took video footage and five other witnesses to the incident. He said his clients are still shaken by what they saw.
“When I arrived to the home of one of the witnesses that had video footage, she was with her family sitting down on the couch, surrounded by three deputies,” Tello said.
Tello said the witness was not allowed to go anywhere with her phone and was being quarantined inside her home.
When Tello tried to talk to the witness in private and with the phone, one of the deputies stopped him and told him he couldn’t take the phone anywhere because it was evidence to the investigation, the attorney said…..
A search warrant wasn’t presented to either of the witnesses until after Tello arrived, he said, adding that one phone was seized before the warrant was produced.
Tello said the phone of the first witness was taken after the deputies told him he was either going to give up the phone the easy way or the hard way.
Oh well, one less possibly drunk guy in public is one less possibly drunk guy in public, right?
Silva left behind four children, ranging from ages 2 to 10 years old. As of Thursday afternoon, his mother said, they hadn’t figured out how to tell the children their father is dead.
Cops being Cops
- Cop denies woman in custody of her phone call. Handcuffs her, turns off camera in room. When camera is turned on again, handcuffed woman is on floor in a pool of her own blood.
- Cops Shoot Pregnant Woman in Face After She Calls 911 For Help
- Florida man flees seatbelt stop on foot, cop runs him over and kills him
- Watch this video of what looks like a mugging. It’s actually a group of eight plain-clothes state troopers suddenly jumping a couple of teenagers who were waiting to be picked up by their parents. The troopers are naturally being cleared of any wrong-doing.
- Rochester, NY Police officers Assault Disabled Man in Motorized Wheelchair
- Austin cop shoots first at unarmed man during traffic stop, asks questions later
- Cops tase non-resisting man in neck
- Diabetic High School Girl Beaten by Police Officer and Arrested — For Falling Asleep in Class
- School police beats up kid for having his shirt untucked.
- Rio de Janeiro police helicopter shoots up slums during chase of drug dealer [VIDEO].
- Gay man brutally thrown to the ground during Sydney’s Mardi Gras Gay and Lesbian street festival.
- Cop parks his motorcycle on sidewalk to buy coffee, something the rest of us would have no doubt gotten in trouble for. 12-year-old asks cop why he did so and for his badge number. Cop refuses and instead begins to bully the kid, throwing around charges of loitering.
- “A three-month Sun Sentinel investigation found almost 800 cops from a dozen agencies driving 90 to 130 mph on our highways. Many weren’t even on duty — they were commuting to and from work in their take-home patrol cars.”
- Canadian cop threatens to beat up handcuffed man and plant cocaine on him [VIDEO]
- Mississippi Cop Leaves K-9 Locked in Car Overnight, Dog Dies, Cop Reassigned to Other Duties
- North Carolina Rapper Busted For Possession … Of An AriZona Iced Tea. Watch as the plain-clothes individual fails to show any sort of identification.
- Just as the California cops shot up a pick-up truck of innocent women during the Christopher Dorner manhunt a few months ago, cops in Boston shot up a police SUV during their post-bombing manhunt.
- Speaking of those women who were shot at during the Dorner manhunt: after receiving a replacement truck, they are now to receive a $4.2 million dollar settlement from the city. So when the cops make mistakes, the taxpayers are the lucky ones to pay the consequences. Of course, the actual shooters should be behind bars and facing attempted murder charges. Instead, they are not even getting fired.
- And speaking of taxpayers paying for cop misconduct: Man wins settlement from city after cop invents fake lab report linking his DNA to scene of alleged sexual assault
- Cop incorrectly reads truck driver’s log book as having driven too many consecutive hours. Cop issues ticket. Truck driver wants to read the ticket before signing, so: “the truck driver suffered life-threatening injuries including a crushed left orbital eye socket, multiple facial fractures, a broken left arm, a concussion, unconsciousness and possible neurological damage. Medical records also show that he apparently stopped breathing while lying out on the highway and had to be rushed to Auburn Faith Hospital.”
- K-9 Police Officer Admits Planting Drugs on Random Vehicles To Train Dogs
- Handcuffed 17-year-old flees police custody into subway. NYPD response? Close off four subway lines, cut off power, and trap thousands while they search.
- Why Cops Bust Down Doors of Medical Pot Growers, But Ignore Men Who Keep Naked Girls on Leashes
- NYPD Sergeant Says ‘Guilty Until Proven Innocent’ Is Just The Price We Pay For A ‘Free Society’
“Shut your f—ing mouth and do something… do something please, do f—ing something… take a swing, so I can… You give me attitude and I’m gonna f—ing drag you uptown. I’m gonna say you assaulted me. I’m gonna say you threatened me. … I hurt people… and then I make their cocaine f—ing appear. You see how I work… See what I do.”
Child Protective Services (sic) Takes Baby After Parents Seek Second Medical Opinion →
A Sacramento couple is without their 5 month old baby after Child Protective Services sent in the police to forcibly remove the child from their care.
A hearing is scheduled for Monday, April 29, 2013 on the incident which was triggered when Anna Nikolayev and her husband Alex took baby Sammy out of Sutter Memorial Hospital and sought a second opinion at Kaiser Permanente, a rival hospital, for Sammy’s flu-like symptoms.
Anna and Alex were concerned about the quality of care baby Sammy was receiving at Sutter where he was admitted nearly two weeks ago. At one point, Anna questioned the antibiotics Sammy was being given and was alarmed that the nurse administering the treatment didn’t know why the child was receiving them. Anna claims that a doctor later said that Sammy should not have been receiving the medication.
When doctors began discussing the possibility of heart surgery, the parents decided to leave without a proper discharge in order to have the child examined elsewhere.
“If we got the one mistake after another, I don’t want to have my baby have surgery in the hospital where I don’t feel safe,” Anna said.
She added, ”We went from one hospital to another. We just wanted to be safe, that he is in good hands.”
While at Kaiser Permanente, the police showed up at the request of Sutter. The police told the parents that staff at Sutter had told them that the child was in such a bad state that, as Anna put it, “they thought that this baby is dying on our arms.”
After the police saw that baby Sammy was fine and examined medical records that clearly stated that Sammy was clinically safe to go home, they left.
The attending doctor at Kaiser said, “I do not have concern for the safety of the child at home with his parents.”
The next day, police came to Alex and Anna’s home.
Alex met them outside and was slammed against the wall and pushed to the ground.
His keys to the home were forcibly removed from him and the police entered the house to take the baby.
Anna’s home video of the incident shows police entering the home.
“I’m going to grab your baby, and don’t resist, and don’t fight me ok?” a Sacramento police officer is heard saying in the video. …
Sammy is currently in “protective custody” at Sutter Memorial Hospital. Hospital officials refused to comment saying the case was with CPS and law enforcement and they would have to deliver a statement.
Alex sums up the situation well.
“It seems like parents have no right whatsoever,” he said.
Indeed.
Parents are increasingly becoming irrelevant when it comes to decisions regarding their children’s medical care. Jodi and Scott Ferris experienced a similar traumatic event when they questioned the Hep B vaccination for their baby at Penn State Hershey Medical Center. Their baby was also taken by CPS.
This is what libertarians mean when we talk about the state’s monopoly on force. Any other individual(s) who would assault a dutiful father, break into a family’s house, and rip a baby out of his loving mother’s arms would rightfully be met with justified defensive force. Except if a parent would respond to agents of the state the same way, that parent would be dead and the corpse would be falsely charged with resisting arrest and all manner of nonsense (further destroying the child’s future). And even if the agents of the state are eventually shown to be wrong, they are time and time again free from punishment - often met with little more than paid time off.
In this situation, who would suffer ramifications for tearing this child away from his peaceful, loving parents? In a just world, the hospital administrators, nurses, and doctors responsible for the false report, the government bureaucrats in Child Protective Services who failed to acknowledge the truth of the situation, and the police officers who actually followed through on their “orders” to introduce force and aggression where there was none would all be fired and criminally charged. Every single one of them.
In reality, none will likely face any repercussions.
Whenever you might feel the impulse to advocate for more state dominion over our lives in the name of safety and protecting the weak, remember this story. This story is not an aberration. This story simply illustrates the soullessness of government bureaucracy and the danger of the monopolization of power. It is not necessarily a story about evil or stupid people, it is a story about the natural consequences of the state.
