Category: crime

Law Breaking By Police Is Not Acceptable

Seth Anderson0 comment

Police Line - Do Not Cross
Police Line – Do Not Cross us…

The police are becoming more and more like an occupying army, obeying their own codes, and ignoring laws at will. Of course #notAllCops – but what troubles me is that the rogue cops always seem to have the backing of the rest of the police. How else can you explain the Chicago Police actions in the  LaQuan McDonald execution? Why exactly did police officers on the scene immediately try to destroy evidence? Why are those cops still employed? Jason Van Dyke should serve time for 1st Degree murder, but his buddies shouldn’t get off scott-free. 

As the shocking video of a Chicago police officer fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald is played worldwide, other footage from the scene that night has gone missing.

Minutes after McDonald was shot 16 times by Officer Jason Van Dyke on a Southwest Side street, several police officers entered a Burger King located just yards from where the teen fell, demanding to view the restaurant’s password-protected surveillance video, Jay Darshane, a district manager for the fast-food chain, told the Tribune this week.

…

Darshane said the restaurant’s assistant manager called him that night saying about four or five police officers were inside demanding the password to access the surveillance video. He authorized the manager of the store — who wasn’t working at the time — to give the code to the officers.
The officers stayed on the scene until almost midnight and even brought in their own information technology specialist when it appeared they were having trouble operating the system, Darshane said. 

The equipment had been in perfect working order for weeks before the shooting, Darshane said. But the next morning, Burger King discovered the 86-minute gap when investigators with the Independent Police Review Authority, which investigates police shootings, sought to make a DVD copy of the surveillance video. Missing was any footage from 9:13 p.m. to 10:39 p.m., Darshane said.

When the video system kicked back on, it recorded two police officers in the Burger King office who appeared to be looking at something on the monitor over and over, according to Michael Robbins, an attorney representing McDonald’s family.

“It is curious,” Robbins said. “If they got there and turned it on and found that there was no video, what were they looking at for two hours?”

(click here to continue reading Burger King manager told grand jury of gap in Laquan McDonald video of police shooting – Chicago Tribune.)

Or Pay The Price
Or Pay The Price.

I’ve thought about this for days actually, and it still puzzles me. What possible rationalization can the police give for obstructing justice? Other than the obvious motivation that these rogue cops felt there was some illegal or morally ambiguous action they performed that was worth covering up, and they expected that there would not be consequences from their bosses, nor from the rest of the Chicago Police.

These four or five police officers, and their IT specialist need to be named, and to also be charged with a crime. I’d be happier if these criminal thugs were no longer employed by my tax dollars.

Chicago, Glenview police officers charged with perjury

Seth Anderson0 comment

Police Line - Do Not Cross
Police Line – Do Not Cross.

In a just world, these officers would all serve time in prison. Knowing our skewed justice system, they will not spend a moment in jail. The state’s attorney’s office must have been pretty pissed at these guys to file felony perjury charges.

Three Chicago police officers and a Glenview police officer have been charged with lying under oath in court during a drug case last year.

The officers — Chicago police Sgt. James Padar, Officer William Pruente, Officer Vince Morgan and Glenview Officer James Horn — have been charged with felony perjury, according to a statement issued early Monday by the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.

The charges come after a video contradicted the officers’ sworn testimony during a March 2014 court hearing on whether evidence in the drug case had been properly obtained.

…

The other officers took the stand and backed up Pruente’s version of the stop, to one degree or another, before Sperling’s lawyer played police video of the traffic stop.

The video, a copy of which was obtained by the Tribune, showed Pruente walking up to the car, reaching through the open driver’s window, unlocking the door and having Sperling step out of the car. Sperling was then frisked, handcuffed and led to a squad car while his car was searched.

 

(click here to continue reading Chicago, Glenview police officers charged with lying in drug case – Chicago Tribune.)

The digital revolution has changed our society in many ways, many negative1 but also in one undeniably positive way. So many citizens now have the capability to record what actually happens during interactions with law enforcement. We are learning that police cannot be trusted to tell the truth unless they know there is contrary evidence. How many drug arrests over the decades come down to the word of a police officer cited as incontrovertible evidence? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Millions?

Footnotes:
  1. planned obsolescence leading to massive amounts of environmental pollution, stripping our planet of resources to feed the insatiable maw, isolating people from human contact, etc. [↩]

American Psychological Association Collaborated on Torture Justification

Seth Anderson0 comment

 Electricity is a Bitter Herb

Electricity is a Bitter Herb…

In a just world, these evil doers would be publicly humiliated, named by name, and forced to stand trial for war crimes at The Hague. The Bush administration too. It’s a travesty that President Obama’s response to war crimes perpetrated by his predecessor was to sweep all the evidence under the rug and shrug, “Bygones…”

The American Psychological Association secretly collaborated with the administration of President George W. Bush to bolster a legal and ethical justification for the torture of prisoners swept up in the post-Sept. 11 war on terror, according to a new report by a group of dissident health professionals and human rights activists.

The report is the first to examine the association’s role in the interrogation program. It contends, using newly disclosed emails, that the group’s actions to keep psychologists involved in the interrogation program coincided closely with efforts by senior Bush administration officials to salvage the program after the public disclosure in 2004 of graphic photos of prisoner abuse by American military personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

“The A.P.A. secretly coordinated with officials from the C.I.A., White House and the Department of Defense to create an A.P.A. ethics policy on national security interrogations which comported with then-classified legal guidance authorizing the C.I.A. torture program,” the report’s authors conclude.

(click here to continue reading Report Says American Psychological Association Collaborated on Torture Justification – NYTimes.com.)

Six Thousand Thirteen Too Many
Six Thousand Thirteen Too Many

and why did the Bush thugs do it?

The involvement of health professionals in the Bush-era interrogation program was significant because it enabled the Justice Department to argue in secret opinions that the program was legal and did not constitute torture, since the interrogations were being monitored by health professionals to make sure they were safe.