Tag: police accountability

Cop Who Killed Ashli Babbitt Cleared Without Formal Law Enforcement Interview

According to a report from RealClearInvestigations, U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd was cleared of any wrongdoing following the Ashli Babbitt shooting without being forced to conduct a formal interview with law enforcement.

Byrd made a point to note that he had been investigated by several law enforcement agencies and was exonerated by the federal government for his actions when he appeared on “NBC Nightly News” with Lester Holt.

“There’s an investigative process and I was cleared by the DOJ, and FBI and Metropolitan Police,” he told Holt this past August.

According to several sources and documents reviewed by RealClearInvestigations, Byrd never conducted a formal interview with any law enforcement agency.

Byrd did answer questions about the shooting from Holt, alleging that he gave Babbitt a warning before firing. but these details were likely never shared with investigators because Byrd refused to answer their questions.

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Unarmed Woman Executed by Cop On Her Way to Work Over Alleged Speeding Ticket—Lawsuit

In June of 2020, family and friends of Hannah Fizer, 25, were shocked to learn that their beloved daughter and friend had been killed during a stop over an alleged speeding violation. Then, four months later, they learned there would be no justice and the officer who killed the unarmed woman as she sat in her vehicle — was back on the job.

Since then, Fizer’s father, John Fizer, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Pettis County seeking damages against Pettis County Deputy Jordan Schutte. The lawsuit argues the shooting was an unjustified, an excessive use of force and that Schutte did not follow several standard law enforcement protocols during the stop. When watching the video, it is entirely clear.

This week, PBS aired a minidocumentary (which you can watch below) detailing Fizer’s tragic shooting and it backs up what TFTP has been reporting since her death. As the documentary shows, the department remains unapologetic about killing Fizer.

In October 2020, the Pettis County prosecutor claimed that the officer shooting an unarmed woman during a traffic stop — dumping five rounds into her as she sat in her car — did not violate any policies. The officer “feared for his life.”

“Schutte had the ability and responsibility to prevent the use of deadly force against Ms. Fizer but failed to do so,” the lawsuit reads. “His actions contributed to Ms. Fizer’s avoidable death.”

As the documentary points out, on that fateful night on June 13, 2020, Fizer was on her way to work when she was targeted for extortion by the deputy. Just six minutes after the stop began, Fizer would have five bullet holes in her, still sitting in her car.

After killing Fizer, the deputy would claim the woman — who never made a violent threat in her life — had a gun and threatened to kill him. However, investigators found no such gun and it appears the only thing she was holding was her cellphone after letting the officer know that she was filming the stop.

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Cop Fired for Savagely Beating Handcuffed Pregnant Woman on Video, Hired at New Dept.

Officer Elizabeth Montoya is the latest roaming bad cop to receive a spotlight for her gypsy cop status and every bit of this light it is well deserved. Montoya was fired from the San Antonio police department in 2019 after she savagely beat the hell out of a handcuffed pregnant woman.

The incident was captured on body camera footage and it showed Montoya punch the woman in the breasts before delivering a fury of punches to the handcuffed pregnant woman’s head and face.

That woman, Kimberly Esparza, was six months pregnant when Montoya beat the hell out of her, threw her to the ground on her stomach, dragged her down the pavement and left her sitting in the rain, battered and bruised.

To justify this gross use of force against the pregnant woman, Montoya would charge her with assault of a public servant, resisting arrest and possession of a controlled substance – penalty group III, typically used to charge someone who illegally possesses prescription drugs with common medical uses, according to KSAT.

When the evidence was presented, however, Esparza was innocent and all charges were dropped.

For savagely beating a woman who was simply accused of possessing a controlled substance, who was handcuffed and pregnant, Montoya was never charged with a crime. In fact, it would take the department a year to get her fired and that was for muting her body camera — not for brutally beating a pregnant woman in handcuffs.

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SWAT Team Blows Up Innocent Woman’s Home, Tell Her that She Has to Pay the $50,000 Bill

In July of last year, Vicki Baker, 75, was excited to move on to the next chapter of her life in Montana by selling her home she owned for 12 years in McKinney, Texas. That sale would never take place on schedule, however, because the day before she was supposed to close, a SWAT team destroyed it.

After destroying her home, Baker was told by local government that she was on the hook for the $50,000 bill to repair it. After fighting for a year, however, she may finally see some justice after a federal court ruled this month that Baker can sue for damages and get back some of the money it took her to undo the destruction caused by the cops.

“The court recognized that the city of McKinney is not exempt from the Constitution,” said Institute for Justice Attorney Jeffrey Redfern. “This is the first step towards Vicki getting her due, but it’s a big one. The government must compensate individuals when it deliberately destroys their property.”

“At the motion to dismiss stage, it would be imprudent to foreclose Baker’s ability to recover based on the shaky reasoning recited in non-binding cases from other circuits—especially when both the Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court have alluded that a taking could result from destructive police power,” United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Judge Amos Mazzant III wrote in the decision to throw out the city’s motion to dismiss the case.

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2020 Police violence report

Mapping Police Violence collected data on over 1,100 killings by police in 2020. Compiling information from media reports, obituaries, public records, and databases like Fatal Encounters and the WashingtonPost, this report represents the most comprehensive accounting of deadly police violence in 2020. Our analysis suggests the majority of killings by police in 2020 could have been prevented and that specific policies and practices might prevent police killings in the future.

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Dallas police to limit more details on crimes from public view

Public information used by news outlets to report breaking news and neighborhood groups to monitor crime will be harder to access in Dallas.

Names are being redacted from public reports, and there are plans to delay real-time information about active crimes in the city.

City staff started quietly changing what shows up in open records and only said an “incident” spurred it. But it’s still unclear what that incident was. At least one member of the city council wants answers.

Certain records aren’t as open on the city of Dallas’ open records website.

The city stopped putting in the personal information for people who report or witness crimes. And it plans to redact more information and even delay real-time active 911 call data for 24 hours. 

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