Cop Block

Ladies and Gentleman, the title of this article says it all. As reported by DNAinfo.com; http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20120829/new-york-city/city-shells-out-22-million-settle-civil-rights-cases-against-nypd#ixzz24wFZpKSc, abuses committed by NYPD officers cost 22 Million dollars in a single year, such as a 12-year-old Forest Hills girl collecting $115,000 after her arrest for doodling on her junior high school desk.

All of us  must eventually acknowledge that on some scale these same actions occur at every single police station in this great country of ours. What the police are doing doesn’t just physically hurt Americans, it hurts our already hurting wallets. Think the banks are bleeding us dry? Check out how much your city or state has spent settling lawsuits.

Americans used to take to the streets and achieve change, and that is happening, but not enough of that energy is being pointed at one of the greatest threats an American citizen faces; the police that are supposed to be protecting us, that we pay!, to protect us and our loved ones and our homes.

I live in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. In Detroit, the police no longer show-up for break-ins, but they wait at the corner of the stadiums and catch speeders to pay their salaries. This is not how police officers should be trained to work and not what they should doing as an organization.

I’ve been offered help from cops, I’ve gotten harassed by cops, I’ve gotten busted by cops (Nothing crazy, a few speeding tickets), but in the end, their entire reason for having a job is flawed. The way the police police is broken, it always has been.

What is the new equation? The rise of video, on cell-phones and other small handheld devices, much of America is already equipped to take a video, whenever, wherever. This terrifies the authorities within the police departments. They know that very soon, a tidal wave will hit them. Children are now raised in a world in which they can watch police brutality all day long on Youtube. The trick is getting everyone to acknowledge that the system is broken, that we have a problem. Much like what is occurring in politics  these days, sides are being picked.

I know from first-hand experience that it is not difficult to turn a police corruption non-believer into one, and that was before I even knew about Copblock. Now, I just point them towards the site. Liking Copblock on facebook will guarantee to convert anyone not a police officer or related to one, the evidence is overwhelming. That’s the point of what I’m writing. Spread the word. Don’t just re-post articles from Copblock that shock you, help us spread the word by sharing us on your facebook page or Twitter and urge people to join for themselves and see just how much cruelty is being done using their tax-dollars. (Another way is by wearing some of our merchandise, I guarantee you’ll change a few minds each day you wear it, as I myself have recently learned.)

It’s up to people to make a difference. I hope that those reading this spread the message. Like I said, the first step is getting everyone to acknowledge that we have a problem. Thankfully, there is a guaranteed easy solution to that; just turn them on to Copblock. Once we get everyone informed and on the same page, then and only then can we start having conversations, on a national level, about how our police forces current methods can be phased out and replaced with new, modern laws, that will aide the American people rather than being just another burden on our collective shoulders.

-Ethan I. Solomon

This story comes to us once again from our submissions tabs. I found this one disturbing for multiple reasons, but it boils down to the fact that only life can sound so crazy and our government is not simply not equipped to help most people, people who have bad things happen to them and then get steamrolled by the system. Not to mention how many times in this story that the police don’t follow their own procedures. Forget that Randy was breaking the law by driving on a suspended license, why was he then allowed to drive away? One of the points of this story is that without consistency, the American people have every reason to fear a police force whose foot-soldiers can change their mind about what orders they do and do not feel like following that day. Don’t forget, your encounter with a police officer can go good or bad depending on whether or not his or her donuts were or were not stale that morning.  I’m always surprised by how many stories I see just like this one in the submissions of Copblock. Keep submitting your stories and we’ll keep spreading the word.

-Ethan

Long story here, so I’ll try to be as clear and to the point as possible.

A Deputy had stopped me while I was driving for having a license plate light out, and he charged me with driving on a suspended license. He was convinced, at that time, that I was in possession of drugs, and after a long drawn out argument over whether I was gonna let him search, I allowed the search to prevent my truck from being towed. He allowed me, with a suspeneded license, to drive my truck away from the scene once I complied to the search. It was a good deal, so I took it. He found nothing on his search, and I went to court to answer for driving on suspended.

One month later, with my wife driving, we were stopped by the same deputy. This time it was for speeding. 38 in a 35, pathetic.
He had us both on the side of the road taking off layers of clothes in search of drugs. I gave him what he was looking for and he once again let us go with the car. This time I got charged with possession of marijuana and paraphenalia. My wife received a warning. Both of my cases were dropped because of illegal search.

Now fast forward to April this year.

My wife and I were shopping at a large department store. I accidentally placed a baseball that had fallen on the floor along with the display into my coat pocket. When I was picking up the balls that had fallen, it seems I placed one in my pocket. Not only did the baseball end up in my pocket, I was witnessed “stealing” this baseball.
My phone rang it was bad news about my mother in law.

We proceeded to check out and were in a hurry.

I was stopped, arrested and booked into the county jail on 500 dollar bond. I bonded out, and proceeded to get a pre-trial diversion. The prosecutor told me that they cannot stand by and let the law be broken in the community.

I signed the pre-trial diversion without knowing that one of the stipulations of my diversion is to under go a drug abuse evaluation. I was floored that they could add stipulations onto this sort of document.

I feel as though the crimes against me and my wife that were thrown out of court are now being used to further the cause of the current prosecutors office, whose major source of income is the drug abuse industry.

I use cannabis for chronic pain relief, along with my neuro-stim-implant. The combo is the best and safest regimen I’ve been on.

I do not use drugs, other than the medicine that betters my life, no street drugs.

I feel that by submitting to their “evaluation” it will label me as a drug abuser and hinder my life, not better it.

Not sure how to proceed, thanks for reading, I hope it made sense and the gist of my point of persecution comes through in the words.

-Randy

-This comes to us via our submissions tab, thanks Joe! I think this story is a great demonstration to the casualness in which many police officers discharge their firearms. Being given lethal weapons such as guns create a mentality within the police community that the way to end altercations is with using their firearms. Until that mentality is changed, and make no mistake, that change will have to be forced on them, incidents like this will happen multiple times every day. Anyone defending the current system is seriously misinformed. Pictured is Mr. Milton Hall, the man that was shot to death, or as everyone I know calls such actions, murdered. 

-Ethan

Video has surfaced of an altercation filmed earlier this year between six officers with the Saginaw, Michigan police department and a homeless man. The cops shot 49-year-old Milton Hall 46 times, killing him.

Authorities have released video footage of the July 1 encounter between Saginaw police officers and Hall, a homeless man they spotted wielding a knife in a local parking lot (warning: graphic video).

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/16/us/michigan-police-shooting/index.html?iref=allsearch

Police responded to a 911 call after Milton, described by his family to CNN has suffering from “serious mental health issues,” had a disagreement with a clerk at a nearby convenience store. When law enforcement found him, he was pacing in a parking lot with a knife.

“My name is Milton Hall, I just called 911. My name is Milton, and I’m pi**ed off,” Hall can be heard shouting on the amateur footage.

On the uploaded clip, Hall is audibly told by a female police officer to drop his weapon, after which the suspect refuses and encourages the cops to let a dog loose on him.

“Let him go. Let the motherf—ing dog go,” Hall insists.

The authorities do not heed his request, but immediately after Hall screams at them to sic the dog, the video clip picks up the sound of a barrage of bullets being fired at Hall. Most estimates put the number of shots fired by the six officers at 46.

“All of a sudden, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow…and he drops,” eyewitness Anthoyn Baber tells CNN.

The Huffington Post reports that the six officers all involved in the shooting were initially put on administrative leave while the department investigated the shooting, which was the second police-related death in the small town of 50,000 in 2012.

As of last week, Michigan State Police are actively investigating the killing, and Matthew Frey, the Republican candidate to become Saginaw County’s next prosecutor, tells the Saginaw News that he will “review the case again” if investigators deem the homicide as justifiable and he is elected to the position.

“I am extremely upset over what I saw,” Frey tells the paper.

According to an address give from Saginaw Police Chief Gerald Cliff to CNN,Hall was “known to be an assaultive person” with “a long history” involving altercations with law enforcement, “not only with police from our department but with the county.”

Even still, some say the degree to which the officers responded was unwarranted.

“I’m stunned that six human beings would stand in front of one human being and fire 46 shots,” Jewel Hall, the victim’s mother, tells CNN. “I just don’t understand that. It’s a lot of pain in that because it only takes one shot, so the question is why?”

The Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department confirmed last week that they have begun a federal probe into Mr. Hall’s death, more than one month after it occurred. Mitchell Rivard, spokesman for Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez of the Civil Rights Division, tells Michigan Live that the DoJ will likely decline comment offering comments to the public until their investigation is complete.

http://rt.com/usa/news/police-shoot-hall-saginaw-240/

-Joe

I’m always a fan of seeing justice carried out, and while in this case true justice would perhaps be more like pepper-spraying former officer John Pike multiple times, I think this is a step in the right direction.

Pike was made notorious after casually dousing a group of sitting students last November 18th and according to The Sacramento Bee, Pike is now officially no longer employed by the campus: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/08/01/4679893/officer-at-center-of-pepper-spraying.html

According to the same article, Pike’s officially listed pay was $110, 243 a year. Why the hell are cops being paid so much? Any cop at all, let alone who so casually hurt so many innocent people? And he was paid up until July 31st? People I know can barely put food on the table and keep the water and electricity running, and in the meantime we pay these leeches to hurt students trying to build themselves a future.

The school’s administration cited privacy regulations and did not say whether Pike had resigned or been fired. Both Pike and his supervisor, Annette Spicuzza, both were placed on paid-leave since the incident. Though Spicuzza was not forced to retire, she stated that she did not want the incident to be the defining moment of her career. I think that Spicuzza went honorably into the night and Pike should have done the same, but the fact that he didn’t stands as only more proof of his character.

For those of you that haven’t seen the video of the pepper-spraying incident, I’ve included it here.

-Ethan I. Solomon

In what is sure to be hailed as a giant leap forward in the work against corrupted police officers, Washington D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier has laid down a set of guidelines for her officers to follow in the event of having their actions recorded.

To begin with, asking a citizen to stop recording violates their first amendment rights, and in no way should they be asked to stop, even if their tactical view is compromised because of it. The argument that people filming cops get in their way and bring danger to a situation is not only an outright and bald-faced lie, it is also the exact opposite of the truth. More cameras, (unlike, perhaps say, more guns) is bringing about a safer and more accountable society. No longer can the police hide their crimes.

The statement goes on to outline specific examples, saying that officers could not ask a citizen journalist for their I.D., hamper them from filming in any way, or arrest them.

The full statement, from Timothy Lee at Ars Technica: 

“A bystander has the same right to take photographs or make recordings as a member of the media,” Chief Lanier writes. The First Amendment protects the right to record the activities of police officers, not only in public places such as parks and sidewalks, but also in “an individual’s home or business, common areas of public and private facilities and buildings, and any other public or private facility at which the individual has a legal right to be present.”

Lanier says that if an officer sees an individual recording his or her actions, the officer may not use that as a basis to ask the citizen for ID, demand an explanation for the recording, deliberately obstruct the camera, or arrest the citizen. And she stresses that under no circumstances should the citizen be asked to stop recording.

That applies even in cases where the citizen is recording “from a position that impedes or interferes with the safety of members or their ability to perform their duties.” In that situation, she says, the officer may ask the person to move out of the way, but the officer “shall not order the person to stop photographing or recording.”

As a point of distressing information, the day after the statement was released, a man in D.C.’s phone was taken from him after photographing an officer. Though the phone was apparently given back to him, it’s memory card was not. D.C. officials say they are looking into the matter.

-Ethan I. Solomon

-Pictured is Washington Chief of Police Cathy Lanier

In Iceland, the government has hired ex-police Lieutenant Olafur Thor Hauksson to hunt down bankers responsible for crashing the economy within the country.

LeMonde ran an interview that was translated by PressEurop. In it, Hauksson explains his job in his own words:
“On one hand, we have to investigate all suspicion of fraud and offences committed before 2009, on the other hand, we bring the lawsuits against the suspects to court ourselves. This is a ‘totally new’ method which allows the investigators to “follow the case” and the judicial system to “know the cases like the back of their hand”. This is indispensable in order to compete with the well-prepared defense attorneys”.

Mr. Hauksson has already formally charged Lárus Welding, the former CEO of the now-bankrupt Glitnir Bank and another banker, Guðmundur Hjaltason, among others.

Mr. Hauksson’s division, The office of Iceland’s Special Prosecutor, is scheduled to receive the equivalent of an extra $38 million dollars from the Icelandic government in order to strengthen the office and hopefully put more bankers behind bars.

On a personal note, it’s good to finally see a cop being put to good use, albeit an ex-cop. Not only does this need to be done in the United States as well, but it seems that this is one of the few good uses a cop can be put to, catching actual criminals rather than destroying peoples lives and treating their fellow citizens like the enemy.

-Ethan I. Solomon

-Pictured is ex-police lieutenant Hauksson.

Police are certain things, universally. They are liars and thieves, and they have the power to ruin lives. Until the system is changed by the people in this country, incidents like this will continue to happen on a daily basis.

-Ethan

-From the Huffington Post

Raul Iglesias, 40, a City of Miami police sergeant, has been indicted on nine felony counts, including civil rights violations, conspiracy to posses with intent to distribute crack cocaine, obstruction of justice, and making false statements.

According to the indictment, posted below, on January 27, 2010, Iglesias asked fellow officers if they had any “throw-down dope” when no contraband was found in a suspect’s possession. A bag of cocaine was then planted on the suspect, leading to his arrest.

Iglesias also reportedly stole money and drugs from crime scenes, and lied to federal investigators — all while serving as supervisor of an anti-narcotics unit targeted on crime suppression in the Miami neighborhood of Allapattah.

The 18-year police veteran faces 20 years in prison if convicted, according to CBS Miami.

The Miami Herald reports that Iglesias has been suspended without pay since 2010, when one of his detectives, Roberto Asanza, was arrested and struck a plea deal with feds in exchange for ratting out his rogue sergeant.

City of Miami’s Major Delrish L. Moss released the follow statement:

“Anytime a member of law enforcement stands accused of running afoul of the law that he or she has sworn to uphold, it is both disappointing and disheartening. The situation involving Sergeant Raul Iglesias is no exception.

This profession is filled with dedicated, honest, and hard-working men and women, who day in and day out, commit themselves to protecting and serving with integrity, and it is important to convey that this 2010 case is in no way a reflection of the rest of the law enforcement community.”

The Miami Police Department has worked hand-in-hand with the FBI and the United States Attorney’s Office since the beginning of this investigation that dates back to 2010. Let me make it clear, we take these allegations seriously. At the same time, we recognize that these are only accusations currently, and that all are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.The Miami New Times reports that he is the fifth Miami cop to face drug charges since 2010.

Once there’s more information about why this happened, I’ll update the article. These days it’s hard to know who’s worse, our government officials or the police officers that help them rule over us.

-Ethan I. Solomon

-From CNN.Com

Federal agents raided City Hall in New Jersey’s capital on Thursday, one day after they swarmed the home of the city’s mayor, his brother and a campaign supporter.

“The FBI is executing search warrants at various offices at Trenton City Hall, pursuant to an ongoing investigation,” said FBI spokeswoman Barbara Woodruff.

It was not immediately clear why the raids were conducted and authorities declined to elaborate.

Mayor Tony Mack, 46, responded to the Wednesday raids by saying he had “not violated the public trust in any way, nor have I violated any of my public duties.”

He could not be immediately reached Thursday for comment.

Mack, a Democrat who began his term in July 2010, has been beleaguered by questions over public finance and accusations of cronyism.

Last May, his deputy mayor, Paul Sigmund IV, was arrested and charged with heroin possession and assaulting a police officer, which led to his prompt resignation.

Wednesday’s raids also included the homes of Mack’s brother, businessman Ralphiel Mack, and Joseph Giorgianni, a convicted sex offender.

-From CBS News

Recently appointed city business administrator Sam Hutchinson, whose department was among those being searched, told The Trentonian newspaper that FBI agents were also in the office of Mayor Tony Mack.

“The FBI is searching through documents in his office,” he told the newspaper.

Mack, 46, on Wednesday denied wrongdoing after the FBI spent the overnight hours searching his home, and the homes of his brother, Ralphiel Mack, and businessman Joseph Giorgianni, a campaign donor who is a convicted sex offender. An email message left Thursday for the mayor’s top aide was not immediately returned.

The Democrat’s first two years in office have been marked by repeated accusations of reckless spending, cronyism and mismanagement. Mack  told Eyewitness News reporter Robin Rieger Wednesday morning he did nothing wrong.

“I have not violated the public trust, nor have I violated my public duties,” Mack said.

Questions have also lingered about how Mack financed his 2010 campaign at a time of personal financial problems. His home and other properties have faced foreclosure, and last month the city reported that he, his brother and Giorgianni all were late making property tax payments.

Mack had a disastrous record of filling top jobs at City Hall, which led to an agreement last year with the state that allows him to hire department heads only from a state-approved pool of applicants or risk losing $6 million in state aid.

In his first year, one of a string of business administrators resigned just ahead of pleading guilty to embezzlement on another job. His housing director quit after it was learned he had a theft conviction. His chief of staff was arrested trying to buy heroin.

His half brother, Stanley “Muscles” David, pleaded guilty earlier this year to official misconduct for directing Trenton Water Works crews to perform private side jobs using city equipment and billing the city.

Mack is also the target of several wrongful-termination lawsuits. One former employee in the recreation department complained she was laid off in part because she had inquired about missing city funds.

The Times of Trenton newspaper said one of its reporters saw FBI agents in the recreation department offices on the third floor.