Tag: police accountability

West Virginia State Police Investigation: 10 more minors, 42 more women in total to sue West Virginia State Police over hidden cameras

Wheeling West Virginia Attorney Teresa Toriseva sent a notice of legal action to Interim WVSP Superintendent Colonel Jack Chambers and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey on April 21 saying 42 women, including 10 minors, plan to file lawsuits against the West Virginia State Police.

The minors attended Junior Trooper Academy.

According to a letter sent by Cpl. Joseph Comer, a member of the WV State Police, to state lawmakers, Governor Jim Justice, and the office of the Attorney General on February 16, a hidden camera or cameras were placed and operated inside the female locker room at the State Police Academy. Toriseva says her clients and other female Junior Trooper program attendees accessed and used the female locker room at the Academy during the time the anonymous letter states the cameras were in use. Toriseva also says the taping of the females in the Academy did not end until 2020, the same time the Junior Trooper Program was discontinued in 2020.

“Our ongoing investigation shows rampant sexual misconduct, including hidden videotaping, toward female cadets and others, while they attended the Academy,” Toriseva told 7News. “Much of the conduct is through witness provided evidence.”

Toriseva says these women that were videotaped have experienced varying levels of physical and emotional abuse

“All of these women were victims of a civil conspiracy perpetrated by instructors, staff and leadership at the West Virginia State Police Academy,” the letter states. “Accordingly, these women will bring suit seeking all available damages under the law.”

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Grandma Sexually Abused by Police Over Window Tint, in Ominous Secret ‘Torture Warehouse’ — Lawsuit

In a recent revelation that sends chills down the spine of those familiar with the Homan Square revelations in Chicago, the Baton Rouge Police Department (BRPD) has come under intense scrutiny for allegations of a “torture warehouse” eerily echoing those harrowing tales. This disturbing discovery underscores a pervasive trend of covert police operations and the lengths some officers will go to abuse their power.

The BRPD is currently reeling from lawsuits and investigations relating to a facility dubbed the “Brave Cave.” Ternell Brown and Jeremy Lee, two victims of this ominous facility, have come forward with their experiences. Both their stories are a crude reminder of the unchecked power and brutal tactics that some police officers resort to.

For those unfamiliar, Homan Square in Chicago was a secretive police detention facility where detainees were reportedly held without legal counsel, subjected to physical abuse, and went missing from official records. The story of the “Brave Cave” draws chilling parallels.

Ternell Brown, a 47-year-old grandmother, narrates an ordeal of being “sexually humiliated” following unnecessary strip and body cavity searches, all stemming from a traffic stop due to window tint. Even after clarifying that she possessed legal prescription drugs, Brown was forcibly taken to the “Brave Cave,” where she underwent what her legal team terms illegal strip searches.

Similarly, Jeremy Lee’s experience sounds straight out of a dystopian narrative. Arrested and taken to the warehouse, Lee was allegedly subjected to such intense physical abuse that the jail demanded he receive hospital treatment before being admitted. Upon his arrival at the warehouse, the surveillance footage suggests that officers deliberately turned off their body cameras — a telling act that speaks volumes — before claiming he “charged” officers, giving them a reason to beat him to a pulp.

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Family of girl, 8, who died in her mother’s arms after being shot in the back by cops at Philadelphia high school game awarded $11M settlement

The family of an eight-year-old girl who was killed in a shooting incident involving police outside a Pennsylvania high school football game in August 2021 has reached an $11 million settlement. 

The resolution was agreed upon in federal court more than two years after the incident that lead to the death of Fanta Bility outside Academy Park High School in Sharon Hill, north of Philadelphia. Three others were also injured during the incident. 

The Delaware County District Attorney’s Office previously reported that the shooting incident resulted from teenagers engaging in gunfire during an argument.

The teens fired 25 shots toward a car and crowd of people leaving the football game in the small borough near Philadelphia International Airport. 

It prompted three police officers stationed nearby to discharge their firearms.

Tragically, Fanta lost her life because of a single gunshot wound to her torso.

Authorities later determined that it was police gunfire that led to her death.

Ballistics testing could not determine which officer fired the shot that killed her, but a grand jury recommended that all three face charges after they fired a total of 25 rounds.

‘There is no amount of money that will ever bring Fanta back or erase the horrible tragedy of what occurred on August 27, 2021, from our minds,’ Fanta’s mother Tenneh Kromah said in a statement on NBC News. 

‘We hope to move on and focus specifically on the Fanta Bility Foundation and keeping Fanta’s name and legacy alive.’

The law firm representing the family said they hoped the settlement would provide some ‘measure of justice and accountability to those whose lives were forever changed’ by the incident.

The three officers involved, Sean Dolan, 27, Devon Smith, 36, and Brian Devaney, 43, were fired from the police department and faced charges of voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, and reckless endangerment in connection with the incident that occurred on August 27, 2021. 

The officers told investigators they thought a car driving toward them was the likely source of the gunfire, prompting them to return fire.

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Kansas Police Chief Who Led Raid on Small Kansas Newspaper Owner’s Home and Caused Her Death Has Been Suspended

The Kansas Police Chief who led a raid on a small Kansas newspaper has been suspended from his post. Dave Mayfield, the mayor of Marion, suspended Chief Gideon Cody on Thursday. He did not go into detail or discuss whether or not he is being paid.

The searches occurred on August 11th, and has brought Marion into the spotlight regarding freedom of the press and First Amendment rights.

ABC News:

The police chief who led a highly criticized raid of a small Kansas newspaper has been suspended, the mayor confirmed to The Associated Press on Saturday.

Marion Mayor Dave Mayfield in a text said he suspended Chief Gideon Cody on Thursday. He declined to discuss his decision further and did not say whether Cody was still being paid.

Voice messages and emails from the AP seeking comment from Cody’s lawyers were not immediately returned Saturday.

The Aug. 11 searches of the Marion County Record’s office and the homes of its publisher and a City Council member have been sharply criticized, putting Marion at the center of a debate over the press protections offered by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The mayor was originally going to wait for the state police investigation to conclude but changed his mind and suspended him prior to the results.

Earlier in September The Gateway Pundit reported that a Federal lawsuit was filed by a reporter on the police chief who conducted the raid.

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Tony Timpa Wrongful Death Trial Ends With 2 Out of 3 Cops Getting Qualified Immunity

At the heart of the civil trial concerning Tony Timpa—who died during a mental health crisis after calling 911 in August 2016—was an appeal made to the jury by the lead defense counsel, Senior Assistant City Attorney Lindsay Wilson Gowin. “Justice here is truth,” she said. Then, invoking allegations that the Timpa family had not been transparent about various dark corners of Timpa’s life, she added: “That’s not how you find the truth.”

She had a point. But that statement, made during closing arguments Tuesday, was a bit ironic, particularly when considering the lengths the government went to in order to obscure basic transparency and keep the events of that summer night a secret. Indeed, the trial, which almost didn’t come to fruition, has come to symbolize how difficult it is for alleged victims of government abuse from stating their case, and the importance of allowing those claims a fair and public hearing, no matter the outcome.

Today, a federal jury rendered their verdict. The panel of eight found that Officer Dustin Dillard, Senior Cpl. Raymond Dominguez, and Officer Danny Vasquez did in fact violate Timpa’s constitutional rights during a roughly 15-minute interaction on Dallas’ Mockingbird Lane. But they gave Dillard and Vasquez qualified immunity, concluding that, while their actions were unlawful, a reasonable officer couldn’t have been expected to know as much. A fourth defendant, Sgt. Kevin Mansell, the highest-ranking officer supervising the scene that evening, was vindicated entirely.

The city will have to pay Timpa’s son $1 million in damages.

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Delaware state trooper tried to turn off body camera before ‘brutal’ assault on teen: prosecutors

A Delaware state trooper who allegedly “brutally beat” a 15-year-old boy who played a “ding-dong ditch” prank has been charged with multiple felonies, NBC 10 reported.

Dempsey R. Walters, 29, was charged with second-degree assault, a felony; deprivation of civil rights, a felony; two counts of third-degree assault, misdemeanors; and two counts of official misconduct, as well as other misdemeanors.

Officials say Walters was on duty when the incident occurred but turned off his body camera during the assault, but the device still captured video with no audio.

The video shows Walters walk up to the boy, who was handcuffed and sitting in a police car, and strike him in the face.

“Please tell me what I did? Please tell me what I did?” the boy asks.

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NYPD “TRANSPARENCY” SITE LEAVES OUT MISCONDUCT LAWSUITS SETTLED FOR MILLIONS

LAST YEAR, a series of headlines in New York City buzzed with excitement about a cop with the street nickname of “Bullethead.” 

New York Police Department Sgt. David Grieco — his actual name — had reached a milestone: Police misconduct lawsuits naming him as a defendant had exceeded $1 million in settlement payouts. Since the raft of news stories, Grieco has been named in at least two additional suits, according to publicly available information as of July, and payouts in complaints naming him have now reached $1,099,825. 

In the 13 years it took for Grieco to be named in 48 suits alleging police misconduct, he’s been promoted twice. In 2016, he was elevated from officer to detective and, a year later, to sergeant. 

The New York Police Department’s officer profile database, meanwhile, lists no applicable entries for disciplinary history in Grieco’s profile. 

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Charges filed against Broken Arrow police officer over dog attack caught on camera

Officer William Roy Golden is charged with cruelty to animals and acts resulting in gross injury/outraging public decency. 

An arrest warrant was issued Friday along with the charges.

The charges are related to an incident caught on camera Aug. 28 where an officer is seen following a dog around before using pepper spray on it.

The video was shared thousands of times before an investigation was launched.

The arrest report claims that Golden tazed the dog 8 times, pepper-sprayed the dog, and hit it in its head.

He is also accused of unholstering his gun.

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Houston Police Arrested an Animal Rights Protester and Detained Him for 16 Hours, Lawsuit Says

Animal rights activists Daraius Dubash and Faraz Harsini were peacefully demonstrating in a Houston, Texas, public park when park employees demanded they leave. When Dubash insisted that the pair had a First Amendment right to protest, officials called the police, who arrested Dubash and charged him with criminal trespass. 

While Dubash’s charge was eventually dismissed, the pair have now filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the city, arguing that city police clearly violated their Constitutional rights.

“No one should be handcuffed and detained for exercising his First Amendment rights,” said JT Morris, an attorney for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a First Amendment nonprofit group. “We’re suing because public parks belong to all Americans and their expressive rights, not the personal views of a few.” 

From April to July 2022, Dubash and Harsini demonstrated several times in Discovery Green, a Houston public park. According to their lawsuit, the pair—keeping in practice with Anonymous for the Voiceless, the animal-rights activist group the two pertained to—wore Guy Fawkes masks while playing clips from Dominion, a documentary showing the gruesome mistreatment of animals in factory farms. 

On three separate occasions, park employees asked the pair to leave the park, claiming that the park was private property. (Discovery Green is public property, though it is managed by a private company.) According to the complaint, the pair complied, fearing retaliation.

On July 23, 2022, Dubash and Harsini were approached again. This time, they refused to leave, and Dubash calmly told park employees that he had a right to demonstrate peacefully. However, a park security guard told Dubash that protests were allowed on a “case by case” basis, adding that his “manager is going to come and come look at it.”

According to the lawsuit, when the manager, Floyd Willis, arrived, Dubash informed him that, while the park was managed by a private conservancy, the park was still public property, meaning that the First Amendment applied.

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Colorado police face trial over death of Elijah McClain

Opening statements were due to begin Wednesday in the first of three trials over the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a Black man who was not suspected of any crime when Colorado police confronted him, placed him in a choke hold and called paramedics who gave him a sedative overdose.

McClain, 23, was walking home from a convenience store in the Denver suburb of Aurora on Aug. 24, 2019, when he was stopped by police responding to a report he was acting suspiciously.

No Black jurors were among the 12 and two alternates on the panel chosen during a selection process that began Friday. This first trial involves city of Aurora police officer Randy Roedema and former officer Jason Rosenblatt, who are both charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and other charges.

Both men have pleaded not guilty.

After police restrained McClain in a choke hold, he was injected with the powerful sedative ketamine by paramedics, then lapsed into cardiac arrest and died days later at a hospital. All the police and paramedics involved are white.

The McClain case drew national attention following the 2020 killing of George Floyd under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer, which sparked a summer of global protests over the mistreatment of African Americans and other minorities by U.S. law enforcement.

Local prosecutors at first declined to press charges in McClain’s death. But a public outcry prompted Colorado’s governor to order the state attorney general to review the case. A grand jury charged three police officers and two paramedics in a 32-count indictment in September 2021, two years after the killing.

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