Tag: domestic violence

US Supreme Court hears arguments over domestic-violence gun curbs

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday was hearing arguments on the legality of a federal law that makes it a crime for people under domestic violence restraining orders to have guns in the latest major case to test the willingness of its conservative majority to further expand gun rights.

The justices heard an appeal by President Joe Biden’s administration of a lower court’s ruling striking down the law – intended to protect victims of domestic abuse – as a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms.”

The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the measure failed a stringent test set by the Supreme Court in a 2022 ruling that required gun laws to be “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” in order to survive a Second Amendment challenge.

Some of the conservative justices questioned Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, defending the law on behalf of the Biden administration, and expressed skepticism about her argument that the Second Amendment permits laws that prohibit people who are not law abiding and responsible from possessing firearms, including domestic abusers.

Keep reading

Due Process Demands Stricter Standards for Restraining Orders That Negate Gun Rights

Since 1994, federal law has prohibited gun possession by people who are subject to domestic violence restraining orders. Although that provision may seem like a commonsensical safeguard, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled last February that it was not “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”—the constitutional test prescribed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. On Tuesday, in United States v. Rahimi, the Supreme Court will consider whether the 5th Circuit was right about that.

Rahimi is primarily about the contours of the right to keep and bear arms as it was traditionally understood. But a Cato Institute brief notes that the case also raises the question of what due process requires when the government seeks to deprive someone of that right.

Under 18 USC 922(g)(8), which Congress approved as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, it is a felony, currently punishable by up to 15 years in prison, for someone to possess or receive a firearm when he is subject to a court order that restrains him from “harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner” or the partner’s child or from “engaging in other conduct that would place an intimate partner in reasonable fear of bodily injury” to the partner or the partner’s child. The order must be preceded by a hearing of which the respondent “received actual notice,” and it must include either a finding that the respondent poses “a credible threat” or language that “prohibits the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force” that “would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury.”

To issue an order, in other words, a judge need not conclude that the respondent actually poses a threat. To trigger the loss of gun rights, the order need only include boilerplate regarding the use of force. And as 5th Circuit Judge James C. Ho noted in his concurring opinion last February, orders that include such language are “often used as a tactical device in divorce proceedings,” “are granted to virtually all who apply,” are “a tempting target for abuse,” and in some cases have been used to disarm the victims of domestic violence, leaving them “in greater danger than before.”

Are the procedural protections specified by Section 922(g)(8) enough to guarantee the “due process” that the Fifth Amendment demands before someone can be “deprived of life, liberty, or property”? The Cato Institute, joined by the Goldwater Institute, thinks not.

Keep reading

Georgia fired a state trooper for his conduct. Now he leads Seward County’s Homeland Security task force.

The Seward County Homeland Security task force, sometimes using the controversial practice of civil asset forfeiture, seized $11.8 million from Interstate 80 drivers through civil and criminal forfeiture in its first 32 months.

The Seward-based head of that law enforcement task force trains and supervises officers – despite being barred from becoming a Nebraska police officer himself.

Blake Swicord was fired as a state trooper in Georgia after selling guns to a pardoned felon and allegedly sending sexually explicit texts and photos from his police-issued phone. Swicord, who claims he was wrongfully terminated, then was arrested on suspicion of battery following an alleged domestic violence incident with his then-girlfriend.

The Nebraska agency in charge of law enforcement training has twice denied Swicord admission, saying he didn’t meet the good character requirement for entry. That agency said Swicord failed to disclose his arrest or his firing on his application, as first reported by the Lincoln Journal Star. On Friday, the Nebraska Supreme Court dismissed his latest appeal.

Homeland Security officials told the Flatwater Free Press this week that they had no knowledge of Swicord’s previous dismissal or arrest when he was first placed into a Homeland Security role in 2019. They said they learned of Swicord’s troubles in April 2021, when an assistant U.S. attorney told the agency that the Nebraska Supreme Court had denied Swicord’s first appeal in his quest for police certification.

Swicord will remain in his job as task force coordinator as he continues his legal battle, Seward County Sheriff Mike Vance told a reporter during Tuesday’s Seward County Board meeting.

Vance has previously said he would have to let Swicord go if he can’t become a Nebraska police officer. Vance and dozens of Swicord’s colleagues have praised the 27-year police veteran for his leadership, interdiction skills and professionalism.

“Since his employment with my agency, Mr. Swicord has shown nothing but the upmost integrity and professionalism,” Vance wrote supporting Swicord in 2019. “After conducting this extensive background check I feel very sure that Mr. Swicord is a man of integrity and very honest at all times.”

The Police Standards Advisory Council, which oversees law enforcement certification in Nebraska, has acknowledged Swicord’s qualifications. It also ruled twice that he can’t go through training to become a Nebraska police officer.

“His actions in the application process demonstrate to this body that the petitioner cannot be considered to be a person who can be characterized as being truthful, honest or trustworthy,” the council wrote in its 2019 decision.

Keep reading

Officer Arrested for Raping His Daughter to Prove She Was Not Gay, Before Murdering Her And Her Mom

As TFTP reported in 2019, in one town in Alaska, the “bad apple” excuse goes completely out the window as every single cop on the force at one time, had been convicted of domestic violence. One of the cops was even a registered sex offender.

According to the report, Nimeron Mike was a registered sex offender and had served six years behind bars in Alaska jails and prisons. He’d been convicted of assault, domestic violence, vehicle theft, groping a woman, hindering prosecution, reckless driving, drunken driving and choking a woman unconscious in an attempted sexual assault. Among other crimes.

Nevertheless, when Mike put in his application, he was hired immediately. But Mike is only one of seven cops in the town who has a history of beating and raping women. Every other cop on the force, including the current police chief has a criminal record involving abuse of women, yet all of them remain cops.

This week, we have learned the inevitable and horrifying results of looking the other way as cops dole out violence on their families. Jalonni Blackshear, 39, has been transported back to Alaska after he was found hiding out in New York. He is currently in a cage — where he belongs — and is being held on a $15 million bond for horrifically unspeakable criminal acts against his own family.

According to police, Jalonni Blackshear had an argument with his 14-year-old daughter in March when she came out as gay.

“She was told that she could not be gay,” Jeri White, who is Raechyl Blackshear’s mother and Jayla’s grandmother told Superior Court Judge Kevin Saxby during an arraignment hearing Tuesday. “And then several hours later, he attempted to prove to her that she was not gay by doing these unmentionable, unspeakable things that good fathers would never do — that good fathers would actually lay down their lives to protect their children from.”

As Anchorage Daily News reports:

On March 30, the morning after the argument, Jayla told her mother she had been sexually abused in their home while Raechyl Blackshear was working an overnight shift as a nurse at a local hospital, according to a bail memorandum written by prosecutors last month and filed this week. The 34-year-old mother took her daughter to the hospital, and they were then directed to Alaska CARES, where a sexual abuse evidence kit was collected. Alaska CARES is a child advocacy center that focuses on helping children who have experienced trauma from abuse.

After the sexual assault allegations, Raechyl Blackshear and her children stopped staying at the home. She and Jayla were sleeping at a hotel, according to the bail memo. Jalonni Blackshear was at a hotel room with his brother and one of his children, the document said. Three of his sons were staying with a family friend.

Four days after officer Blackshear raped his own daughter, he threatened her mother and forced her to recant her statement to the police. On April 3, Jayla Blackshear went to the police department with her mother and retracted her statement, claiming the sexual abuse allegations were false.

Hours later, Blackshear would find his daughter and his wife at their home where he murdered them both with a shotgun.

He then stole his daughter’s phone and began texting family — pretending to be his daughter — to throw police off his trail before fleeing to New York state. Because of this, their bodies would not be discovered for ten more days when a nationwide manhunt was launched for Jalonni Blackshear.

Keep reading

An Off-Duty Cop Murdered His Ex-Wife. The California Highway Patrol Ignored the Red Flags.

When law-enforcement officials believe that someone has committed a crime, they often go to great lengths—and can be quite creative—in coming up with charges to file. Criminal codes are voluminous, and it’s common for prosecutors to pile up one charge after another as a way to keep someone potentially dangerous off the streets.

When the accused is a police officer, however, agencies typically find their hands tied. “Nothing to see here,” they say, “so let’s move along.” Their eagerness to protect their own colleagues from accountability can have deadly consequences. A recent lawsuit by the victim of a California Highway Patrol officer’s off-duty shooting brings the problem into view.

The case centers on Brad Wheat, a CHP lieutenant who operated out of the agency’s office in Amador County. On Aug. 3, 2018, Wheat took his CHP-issued service weapon and hollow-point ammunition to confront Philip “Trae” Debeaubien, the boyfriend of Wheat’s estranged wife, Mary. As he later confessed to a fellow officer, Wheat planned more than a verbal confrontation.

“I just learned this evening that Brad confided in an officer…tonight that he drove to a location where he thought his wife and her lover were last night to murder the lover and then commit suicide,” an officer explained in an email, as The Sacramento Bee reported. Fortunately, Debeaubien had left the house by the time that Wheat arrived.

Initially, Wheat’s colleagues convinced him to surrender his CHP firearm and other weapons and they reported it to superiors. Instead of treating this matter with the seriousness it deserved, or showing concern for the dangers that Debeaubien and Mary Wheat faced, CHP officials acted as if it were a case of an officer who had a rough day.

They essentially did nothing. “Faced with a confessed homicidal employee, the CHP conducted no criminal investigation of its own, notified no allied law enforcement agency or prosecutor’s office, and initiated no administrative process,” according to a pleading filed by Debeaubien in federal district court. “Nor did the CHP notify [the] plaintiff that he was the target of a murder-suicide plan that failed only because of a timely escape.”

You read that right—the agency seemed so uninterested in the safety of two potential murder victims that it didn’t even inform them about the planned attack. It sent Wheat to a therapist, who reportedly said he needed a good night’s sleep. It sent him on vacation for two weeks, let him return to work, and returned his firearm and ammunition—something CHP said he needed for his job.

You can probably guess what happened next. Two weeks later, Wheat took the same weapon and ammo and this time found his ex-wife and her boyfriend. He shot Debeaubien in the shoulder, the two struggled and Wheat—a trained CHP officer, after all—retrieved his dislodged weapon, shot to death his ex-wife, and then killed himself.

Now CHP says it has no responsibility for this tragic event and that its decisions did not endanger the plaintiff’s life. This much seems clear from court filings and depositions: CHP’s response centered on what it thought best for its own officer. Any concern about the dangers faced by those outside the agency seemed incidental, at best.

Keep reading

Police Could Take Guns from Troops Accused of Domestic Violence Under Proposed Law

Civilian courts and police could confiscate the firearms of service members accused of domestic violence by military authorities under a proposed law being considered by Congress.

The proposal is a bid by House Democratic lawmakers to give more protection to military-connected victims who have been battered, assaulted or stalked. But conservatives are putting up fierce opposition, because they say it would infringe on troops’ Second Amendment right to bear arms.

Supporters are hoping to pass the measure into law this year as part of the annual defense policy bill. Its future remains uncertain because the Senate hasn’t floated any similar domestic violence initiative as part of the bill, which must be negotiated and passed by both chambers.

Keep reading

Bad week for college professors continues: Purdue professor specializing in ‘positive emotions’, ‘happiness’ arrested for beating wife, locking son in dog cage

Well, it sure doesn’t seem like a good week for far-left college professors.

First, we had an Old Dominion University professor placed on leave for defending pedophilia.

Now we’re learning of a Purdue University assistant professor whose specialties include “positive emotions” and “parental involvement” who was arrested by police in Indiana, according to Fox News.

His crimes? Apparently he beat his wife in front of his 10-year-old son, who happened to be locked in a dog cage at the time.  You literally cannot make this stuff up.

John Froiland was arrested by police in West Lafayette, Indiana after he allegedly beat his wife with the leg of a chair, according to a report in the school’s student newspaper, the Exponent. Froiland has been placed on paid administrative leave, according to Purdue spokesperson Tim Doty.

When asked the terms of his paid leave, Doty did not respond. Fox News said they reached out to the school for comment, however they did not immediately respond. It was reported that he has been banned from campus for a year.  

Froiland was charged last week and charged with domestic battery, intimidation, interference in reporting a crime, neglect of a dependent, and criminal confinement.

Keep reading

Think Tank President Who Fantasized About Beating Gun Owners’ ‘Brains In’ Steps Down Amid Domestic Violence Allegations

The president of a think tank who once fantasized about maiming a St. Louis couple resigned in September after being charged with assaulting his wife, Politico reported.

Jerry Taylor, president of the Washington-based Niskanen Center, was arrested in June and charged with assault and battery of a family member, according to court documents seen by Politico. Taylor allegedly pushed his wife to the ground during an argument over an iPad and began slapping her as well as placing his hands around her neck, Politico reported.

Taylor was ordered to complete an “abusers’ intervention program,” according to court documents, and denied his wife’s allegations.

“Those events for the most part did not occur and I’m confident that the charges will ultimately be dismissed,” Taylor said in a statement to Politico. “I sincerely wish my wife the best as she wrestles with the issues she’s dealing with.”

Keep reading