Tag: police accountability

Serial Rapist Cop, Who Pulled Over Women to Rape Them at Night, Gets Insultingly Low Sentence

As the Free Thought Project frequently reports, when most people see police lights in their rearview mirror, the last thing they feel is “protected.” When a cop pulls you over, it most likely means you are about to be extorted for a victimless crime. However, if the cop in the story below was pulling you over, it meant something much worse than mere extortion. If you were a woman, it meant you were about to be kidnapped and raped.

As TFTP previously reported, Arizona Department of Public Safety Trooper Tremaine Jackson, 43, was arrested on a whopping 61 charges of everything from kidnapping to sexual assault. The trooper, who’d been with the department for 13 years, is accused of pulling women over and sexually assaulting them.

As part of a plea deal, Jackson pleaded guilty to the following charges:

  • Attempted kidnap with sexual intent
  • Unlawful imprisonment with sexual intent
  • Unlawful sexual conduct by a peace officer
  • Bribery with sexual intent
  • Fraud with sexual intent

This month, Jackson’s blue privilege shined through — despite the slew of charges and victims — and he was sentenced to just five years in jail.

The taxpayers of Maricopa County were held liable for his sick acts instead. The lawsuit states that Arizona should be held liable for the wrongful conduct of its officers, employees, agents, districts, divisions, and subdivisions.

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Oklahoma Bill Would Create State Process to End Police Qualified Immunity

A bill introduced in the Oklahoma House would create a process to sue police officers and government officials in state court for the deprivation of individual rights without the possibility of “qualified immunity” as a defense.

Rep. Regina Goodwin (D) prefiled House Bill 1631 (HB1631) for introduction on Feb. 6. The legislation would create a cause of action in state courts to sue a police officer who “under color of law, subjects or causes to be subjected, including failing to intervene, any other person to the deprivation of any individual rights that create binding obligations on government actors secured by the Bill of Rights, Article II of the Oklahoma Constitution.”

The bill specifically prohibits “qualified immunity” as a defense.

Typically, people sue police for using excessive force or other types of misconduct through the federal court system under the U.S. Bill of Rights. But federal courts created a qualified immunity defense out of thin air, making it nearly impossible to hold law enforcement officers responsible for actions taken in the line of duty. In order to move ahead with a suit, the plaintiff must establish that it was “clearly established” that the officer’s action was unconstitutional. The “clearly established” test erects an almost insurmountable hurdle to those trying to prove excessive force or a violation of their rights.

In effect, the passage of HB1631 would create an alternative path to address violations of rights in state court with no qualified immunity hurdle to clear.

A similar law was passed in Colorado.

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A top Border Patrol official resigned after allegedly pressuring female employees for sex, officials say

A top official at the U.S. Border Patrol abruptly resigned in October after allegations came to light that he pressured a subordinate employee to perform sexual favors, and other women have since made similar allegations that they were victimized by him, say three Department of Homeland Security officials. 

Tony Barker, who served as the acting chief of the law enforcement operations directorate for the Border Patrol, is now under investigation for his behavior by Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Professional Responsibility, the three officials say. 

According to the sources, one woman said she had a consensual relationship with Barker that she tried to end, prompting Barker to retaliate. Barker allegedly threatened to tell others that she had illegally issued contracts if she did not perform sexual favors.

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Two retired Met Police officers are charged with child porn offences after serving chief inspector was found dead before he could also be charged

Two retired Metropolitan Police officers have been charged with child sex offences as part of an investigation into a serving Met chief inspector who was found dead before he could also be charged.

In a statement, the Met said the charges followed a ‘lengthy and complex’ investigation into Richard Watkinson, 49, who was a serving Met Chief Inspector for neighbourhoods policing at the West Area Command Unit.

He was found dead in Buckinghamshire on Thursday, January 12, the same day he was due to answer bail to be charged with conspiracy to distribute or show indecent images of children, three counts of making indecent photos of a child, voyeurism and two counts of misconduct in public office.

The Crown Prosecution Service had authorised charges against him.

His death is being treated as unexplained but not suspicious and an inquest has opened and adjourned.

Met officers found Watkinson’s body having attended the address following welfare concerns.

He had been suspended from duty following his arrest in July 2021.

Jack Addis, 63, of no fixed address but from Perthshire, Scotland, and Jeremy Laxton, 62, from Lincolnshire, will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, February 9.

Addis has been charged with conspiracy to distribute or show indecent images of children. He was arrested in November 2021.

Laxton has been charged with conspiracy to distribute or show indecent images of children, three counts of making indecent photos of a child, possession of prohibited images of a child, possession of extreme pornographic images and intentionally encouraging or assisting an offence (misconduct in public office). He was arrested in September 2021.

They both left the force over a decade ago.

The alleged offences took place between January 1, 2018 and September 20, 2021.

Commander Jon Savell, said: ‘Chief Inspector Watkinson was facing extremely serious and concerning charges, as the result of a painstaking and thorough police investigation.

‘Before this matter came to light, we had no previous information about these allegations or to indicate the officer posed any risk to the public.

‘He had not faced any other criminal or conduct matters during his Met career.

‘He had been suspended from duty since his arrest.

‘Two other men were also arrested during the course of the investigation and have been charged, their matters will now progress through the courts.’

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A Sheriff in Louisiana Has Been Destroying Records of Deputies’ Alleged Misconduct for Years

The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office in Louisiana has been unlawfully destroying its deputies’ disciplinary records for at least 10 years, according to records provided by state officials responsible for overseeing the retention of records by state, parish and local agencies.

The finding comes at a time when the sheriff’s office is facing multiple lawsuits involving allegations of excessive force, racial discrimination and wrongful death at the hands of Jefferson Parish deputies. Attorneys have accused Sheriff Joe Lopinto of failing to discipline deputies and a lack of transparency when it comes to releasing records that might shed light on their history of complaints and disciplinary action.

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Real-Life ‘Training Day’: Inside the Corruption Scandal That Brought Down the Oakland PD

Nobody really knows how Ghost Town got its name, but the moniker fits. Walled off from most of Oakland by freeways on its northern and eastern borders and warehouses to the west, Ghost Town—known formally as the Hoover-Foster neighborhood — has been haunted since the mid-twentieth century by the combined forces of racism, deindustrialization, and chronic unemployment. It was always a working-class community, but for most of its existence, Ghost Town residents could find decent-paying jobs on the East Bay’s burgeoning industrial waterfront. That changed starting in the 1950s as factories closed, and Oakland’s economy descended into a multi- decade decline.

White residents left the neighborhood, and much of the rest of Oakland, for the prosperity of expanding suburbs. At one point, a high proportion of houses and storefronts in Ghost Town were vacant and boarded up. Huey Newton, cofounder of the Black Panther Party (BPP), referred to West Oakland in his autobiography as a “ghost town but with actual inhabitants.” Newton’s sour comment stuck in the minds of locals, who started using the epithet themselves. If there was any doubt about whether the area should be called a ghost town, it was settled by the 1980s.

The federal “War on Drugs,” launched the previous decade by President Richard Nixon, transformed Ghost Town into a battlefield between rival dealers, and between dealers and cops. For the Oakland police, Ghost Town was hostile territory — a place to drive through cautiously while on patrol, meandering back and forth between West Street and San Pablo Avenue on long, numbered streets crowded with parked, semi-operable cars. In the 1990s Ghost Town truly felt abandoned. Darkness enveloped entire blocks of dilapidated bungalows, run-down apartment buildings, and weathered Victorians illuminated only by the neon glow of corner liquor stores. The sounds of gunfire and sirens were common. Murders were frequent. By this point, the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s were spent, no longer a counterforce offering hope and some measure of order to the mostly Black residents of Oakland’s flatlands. The social decay of racism and poverty could not be held at bay.

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Top Cop Gets 100 Years for Feeding Semen to Wife’s Students, Raping Kids & Filming It

As TFTP reported in 2019, a high-level Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office deputy — who commanded the SWAT team — and his wife, were indicted on more than 150 felonies for unspeakable crimes against children and animals. Dennis Perkins and his wife Cynthia Perkins were accused of multiple counts of child rape and the production of child pornography, among other disturbing charges — including secretly feeding Dennis Perkins’ semen to children who were students of Cynthia Perkins.

On Tuesday, this vile disgraced cop took a plea deal, and although he didn’t admit to all 150 charges, he pleaded guilty to enough of them that he will be going to jail for the rest of his life. Perkins was sentenced to 100 years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of second-degree rape, two counts of sexual battery of a child, one count of video voyeurism, two counts of production of child porn of children under the age of 13, and one count of the mingling of harmful substances.

Cynthia took a plea deal in 2022 and received a 41-year sentence after agreeing to testify against her husband. The case that dragged on for years has finally come to an end and the victims will be spared the horrific experience of reliving the events in the courtroom.

“Not just for the victims but for the jurors who had to watch it, it would have been very disturbing,” prosecutors said after the sentencing. “That’s why we’re so happy that we were able to achieve what we did today without having to go through that.”

“No one has to worry about Dennis Perkins hurting anyone ever again,” one prosecutor added. “The victims were consulted and were all OK with this.”

WARNING: The details in the story below are exceedingly disturbing and contain extremely graphic descriptions of the alleged crimes.

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Cops Killed More People in 2022 than Any Year on Record — Here’s How to Stop It from Happening Again

As 2023 begins, American police polish off another deadly year, ending 1,176 lives in 2022. This number is a new record for police killings in America and yet still, it is set to increase by one, on average, every 8 hours.

Since 2018, cops in America have killed 5,668 citizens. And most people are not saying anything about it.

While it may be easy for some to write off police killings as a problem of American gun culture, this is not major factor. According to a report by the Institute for Criminal Justice Training Reform (ICJTR), Finland has one the highest gun-ownership rates in Europe, with around 32 civilian firearms per 100 people – but incidents of police shooting civilians are extremely rare. We could only find 9 examples of police killings in Finland in the last two decades, one of which was an accidental shooting of a prison guard.

What’s more, as TFTP reported in 2021, the majority of police killings involve calls in which there was no crime or the suspect is only suspected of a non-violent offense.

“Most killings began with police responding to suspected non-violent offenses or cases where no crime was reported,” according to a report from PoliceViolenceReport.org

It gets worse.

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5 Cops Charged for Torturing Handcuffed Man to Death then Claiming He Died in Car Crash

The family of Ronald Greene as well as the public at large were all told a tragic but utterly false story about this 49-year-old Louisiana man’s last moments alive. According to officials, Greene died after his car crashed into a “tree/shrub” just outside Monroe on May 10, 2019. However, we have since learned everything they were told was a lie after body camera video surfaced and painted an entirely different picture. Greene’s death was not a result of the crash and the department engaged in a coverup.

Now, more than three years after his death, five cops were charged in connection to the horrifying torture they doled out on the side of a dark Louisiana highway.

“They need to be held accountable,” Mona Hardin, Greene’s mother, told reporters on Thursday after the charges were announced. “Because if not, you’re condoning the killing of Ronald Greene. You’re OK with my son being murdered if you just give a slap on the wrist.”

Up until now, all the officers have remained on the job and, even now, they are still collecting their paychecks. As the NY Times reports:

The state police said on Thursday that two troopers had been placed on administrative leave because of the indictment. One of them, Master Trooper Kory York, was charged with the most serious offenses, including negligent homicide and 10 counts of malfeasance in office. (Trooper York had previously received a 50-hour suspension and returned to active duty.) The other, Lt. John Clary, who was charged with malfeasance in office and obstruction of justice, was the highest-ranking trooper at the scene.

Two others with the state police, Trooper Dakota DeMoss and Capt. John Peters, were both charged with obstruction of justice. Christopher Harpin, a Union Parish sheriff’s deputy, was also named in the indictment, charged with three counts of malfeasance in office.

“Today’s indictments followed a thorough and extensive investigation by state and federal agencies,” Col. Lamar A. Davis, the superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, said in a statement on Thursday. “Any instance of excessive force jeopardizes public safety and is a danger to our communities. These actions are inexcusable and have no place in professional public safety services.”

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Cop Fired But Never Charged for Feeding Homeless Man a Literal ‘Sh*t Sandwich’ — Is a Cop Again

In November of 2016, the Free Thought Project brought you the disgusting story of a San Antonio cop putting feces on a piece of bread and giving it to a homeless man as food. For making a literal sh*t sandwich, San Antonio police officer Matthew Luckhurst was fired. Months later, the Free Thought Project learned that Luckhurst was involved in yet another feces-related ‘prank’ — after the sh*t sandwich.

After both of these incidents, Luckhurst was quietly rehired in 2019, only to be fired again in 2020. As the SA Express points out, Luckhurst appealed again when he was re-canned for the second feces-related incident. In June 2020 an arbitrator agreed the police department was justified in the dismissal. “This individual clearly has no business wearing an SAPD uniform,” City Manager Erik Walsh said.

But that did not mean this shitty cop was barred from all police uniforms.

Because the system is terrible at holding bad cops accountable, however, Luckhurst became a gypsy cop and was rehired at the Floresville Police Department, 30 miles outside of San Antonio.

This rehiring of Luckhurst shows just how broken the system is. When we can’t keep out repeat offenders because of silly loopholes, something is seriously wrong.

“It was a disgusting, vile act — that, there is no excuse; there is no explaining it; there is no justification,” San Antonio Police Chief William McManus told KOMO News after the termination of an officer for, quite literally, giving a homeless man a sh*t sandwich.

“It’s a disgrace to the department, it’s a disgrace to the badge,” McManus continued.

As we reported at the time, Luckhurst inexplicably thought it would be humorous to place feces in between two slices of bread and offer it to a likely-starving homeless person in a styrofoam takeout box, and then boast of this ‘prank’ to his partner.

His partner, however, didn’t share the sentiment — and the pair of cops returned to the scene, where Luckhurst ostensibly disposed of the sickening, cruel offering.

Only a month after being caught in this sick and twisted ‘prank’ on an innocent homeless man — before he was fired — Lockhurst pulled another sh*t prank. This time, his sh*tty shenanigans would be on his fellow cops.

Luckhurst and a second officer, Steve Albart, carried out the incident together in June 2015 after a female officer asked that the women’s restroom at a bike-patrol office remain clean, KSAT-TV reports.

To get back at the officer for asking that the women’s bathroom remain clean, Albart and Lockhurst then defecated in the toilet and then Lockhurst smeared a feces-like substance all over the seat.

For not flushing the toilet, Albart was suspended for 30 days, which he’s already served.

You cannot make this up.

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