Tag: iowa

An Iowa Man Published Body Camera Footage From His Arrest. The Cops Are Suing Him for Defamation.

An Iowa man published body camera footage of his arrest at the hands of two Newton, Iowa, police officers last year. Now, he’s being sued for defamation. 

In August 2022, 19-year-old Tayvin Galanakis was driving in Newton just after midnight when he was pulled over by police officers Nathan Winters and Christopher Wing. 

“How much have you had to drink tonight?” Winters asks Galanakis in body camera footage from the incident.

“None,” Galanakis responds. Winters incredulously asks, “What do you mean none?” Galanakis said, “Great, let’s do a test then.”

The footage then shows Galanakis undergoing a series of field sobriety tests. After Winters claims Galanakis failed them, he administered a Breathalyzer test, which showed that Galanakis had a blood-alcohol level of 0.00. Almost immediately after proving his sobriety, body camera footage shows Winters asking Galanakis about how much marijuana he had consumed.

“Despite previously claiming he could smell alcohol on Tayvin, Officer Winters now claimed he believed Tayvin was intoxicated due to his use of marijuana,” reads a legal complaint later filed by Galanakis. “Tayvin continuously told the officers that he did not use marijuana and that his placement on the William Penn [University] football team renders him unable to use marijuana because of his weekly drug tests.”

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Man charged with plot to assassinate Iowa governor over child labor law

A Washington state man who allegedly threatened to assassinate Iowa’s Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds over her party’s push to loosen child labor laws has been hit with federal charges, according to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.

“I can… tell you that people from other States and like-mindedness are going to be coming to your area to assassinate you… you have been warned Kim Reynolds your death is imminent if you do not change back those child labor laws,” Ryan Christopher Kelly said in one of two messages sent for Reynolds back in April.

In another message, Kelly said, “Kim Reynolds is going to be dead at the end of the month. We’re going to come there and we’ll rip you apart limb from limb… Have a good day because it might be your last.”

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Iowa Bill Would Ban SNAP Recipients From Buying Meat

A bill introduced earlier this month in the Iowa Legislature — the country’s top red meat-producing state — would ban people on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) from buying meat and a lot of other typical grocery foods as well.

The bill, House File 3, has 39 co-sponsors in the Iowa House and is led by House Speaker Pat Grassley, a Republican. Pat Grassley is the grandson of Iowa U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the longest-serving member of the Senate Agriculture Committee — the committee that writes the farm bill, including SNAP rules, in Congress.

Under the bill, SNAP recipients would be restricted to buying foods that are approved under a separate USDA food-aid program, the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program. WIC requires aid recipients to buy from a specific list of approved items that includes staples such as infant formula, cereal, milk, bread, juices, canned foods and baby foods.

WIC doesn’t allow people to buy products such as packaged meat, or frozen or processed foods.

“I don’t think the 39 co-sponsors of this bill know just how restrictive this is, and that it would ban meat,” said Luke Elzinga, chairman of the Iowa Hunger Coalition, and the policy and advocacy manager for a network of food pantries run by the Des Moines Area Religious Council. “Under this bill, no ground beef, no chicken, no pork in the state of Iowa. I just can’t believe that they knew that was what it was when the bill was introduced.”

According to USDA’s Livestock Slaughter report released Thursday, Iowa remained the No. 1 state for commercial red-meat production for December, largely because of its dominant position in pork processing. The Iowa Legislature bill would basically prohibit SNAP benefits in the state from being used to buy any pork products.

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Former Iowa City schools counselor awarded $12 million after being wrongfully imprisoned for 6 years

Donald Clark won $12 million in a lawsuit he filed against the state of Iowa on Thursday, years after being exonerated and released from prison on false charges that he sexually abused a student while working as an Iowa City elementary school counselor.

A jury awarded Clark $8 million in past emotional distress damages and $4 million for future damages after he spent six years in prison starting in 2010. He was released in 2016 when his conviction was vacated. That year, the court found that his public defender, John Robertson, was ineffective and declared Clark not guilty, but also “actually innocent,” a legally important finding, according to a news release from Clark’s lawyers at The Spence Law Firm LLC.

The jury found that Robertson, who died in 2013, failed to investigate the prosecution’s case against Clark, and a “substandard trial performance led to his conviction and wrongful imprisonment.”

Mel Orchard III of Jackson, Wyoming, one of Clark’s lawyers, told the Press-Citizen on Friday that Clark was joyous when the decision was rendered. Clark and his lawyers spent five years suing the state since his original 25-year prison sentence was vacated.

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Iowa man jailed for 10 years after spitting on “mask Nazi”

A 42-year-old father of six from Iowa will spend the next 10 years in prison after being convicted of a Class C forcible felony for defending himself against a “mask Nazi” who assaulted him in an eyewear store.

Shane Michael says he was “shoulder-checked” and “poked” in the stomach by Mark Dinning, a Branch Covidian who confronted Michael on Nov. 11 inside a Vision 4 Less store in Des Moines.

Even though there was no mask mandate in place, Dinning felt the need to try to force his mask fetish on Michael through assault, to which Michael responded in kind by spitting on Dinning.

Michael was reportedly wearing a mask at the time and pulled it down to spit on Dinning, who accused Michael of wearing his mask “incorrectly.” This is how the altercation started with Dinning as the aggressor.

“If I have it, you have it!” Michael reportedly shouted at Dinning, who refused to mind his own business in the store and instead decided to be a mask Nazi.

The situation devolved from there with more physical altercations that resulted in injuries. Dinning pressed charges against Michael and ultimately won in court, illustrating how the Branch Covidian cult has successfully embedded itself within the judicial system.

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Racist Iowa State University Professor Says She Tries To Limit Interactions With White People ‘As Much As Possible’

An Iowa State University professor is under fire for a tweet in which she said she tries to limit her interactions with white people “as much as possible.”

The racist comment has made many question whether or not Iowa State University Professor Rita Mookerjee is grading or teaching white students fairly.

“Lately, I try to limit my interactions with yt people as much as possible. I can’t with the self-importance and performance esp during Black History Month,” the nutty professor wrote. “Yt” is slang for “white” and most frequently used when posting derogatory anti-white racism.

Campus Reform reports that in another October 2020 tweet, she tweeted that “whyte men with dirty hair and wrinkled clothes will always be liked and higher ranked.” She was also outraged online because someone supposedly called her “white.”

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State Supreme Court Bars Victims of Police Crimes from Seeking Punitive Damages in Lawsuits

Over the years, the Free Thought Project has run many headlines with the phrase “taxpayers held liable” included in it after cops were caught maiming, raping, kidnapping and killing people. Many of these excessive force, murder, and wrongful arrest lawsuits were brought against police departments because the departments and prosecutors refused to hold the offending officers accountable and lawsuits were the only form of justice the victims could seek.

While no amount of money can ever undo the damage caused by some of these officers, it was at least some form of seeking justice. In Iowa, however, all that is changing after the Iowa Supreme Court just severely limited the amount of financial damages a victim of police crimes can be awarded.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, a Democrat and the longest-serving attorney general in U.S. history, with four decades in the role, is a friend of bad cops. According to a recent investigation by the Associated Press, Millers office has failed — quite possibly deliberately — to convict and cop in the state since 2004. And, in the last 16 years, he’s brought charges against just two cops.

Clearly, Miller has a bias toward police and for decades, abusive cops have enjoyed a sort of immunity under his tenure. Citizens who were abused by police or family members of those killed by police have been forced to seek justice through civil lawsuits, seeking punitive damages. Now, however, thanks to an initiative brought forward by Miller, the Iowa Supreme Court just severely limited the financial damages that can be awarded for injuries and deaths caused by state police officers who are found to have used excessive force.

In a 6-1 decision, the court ruled that punitive damages, which are intended to punish and deter future criminal behavior by police, are not available in cases in which officers use excessive force in violation of constitutional rights.

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