Tag: police accountability

CA Bill Proposes Removing Cops Who Express Religious Or Conservative Beliefs

A new bill introduced by California State Assembly Member Ash Kalra in San Jose would prohibit police officers from serving if they have used arbitrarily defined “hate speech” or are affiliated with a “hate group.”

The bill, known as the California Law Enforcement Accountability Reform Act (CLEAR Act), claims to combat “the infiltration of extremists in our law enforcement agencies” and would mandate a background check for all officers who have “exchanged racist and homophobic messages.”

Kalra claims that AB 655 is necessary to prevent “the apparent cooperation, participation, and support of some law enforcement” in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.

The bill defines hate speech as “as advocating or supporting the denial of constitutional rights of, the genocide of, or violence towards, any group of persons based upon race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.”

Pacific Justice Institute Senior Staff Attorney Matthew McReynolds said this broad and purposefully arbitrary definition could give way for Christians and conservatives to be classified as “hateful” based on the premise of rejecting abortion or supporting Proposition 8 in California, a same-sex amendment that passed in 2008.

“Under the guise of addressing police gangs, the bill at the same time launches an inexplicable, unwarranted, and unprecedented attack on peaceable, conscientious officers who happen to hold conservative political and religious views,” wrote Reynolds. “Indeed, this is one of the most undisguised and appalling attempts we have ever seen, in more than 20 years of monitoring such legislation, on the freedom of association and freedom to choose minority viewpoints.”

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Cop Crushes Harmless Hippie to Death With Bulldozer for Growing Cannabis — Taxpayers Held Liable

As TFTP reported, Pennsylvania State Troopers garnered national attention following a deadly officer-involved incident whereby a man was killed by a bulldozer commandeered by one of their officers. Gregory Longenecker, 51, was run over by the bulldozer and killed as the PA State Trooper and the dozer operated by the PA Game Commission were supposedly attempting to flush him out. After police refused to hold their own accountable, Longnecker’s family is seeking justice in the form of a lawsuit.

After battling for justice for several years, it was announced this week that the state of Pennsylvania will pay $475,000 to the Longnecker estate — an insultingly small amount considering this man was crushed to death by cops in a bulldozer for growing a plant that is legal in many states.

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Good Cop Predicts His Video Exposing Crimes in Dept Will Get Him Attacked—He Was Right

Those who are paying attention to the ever-expanding police state in the land of the free know that the system is set up in such a way that it protects bad cops while punishing the good ones. The following example of Holyoke Police Officer Rafael Roca calling out corruption in his department and being immediately suspended for it, proves this point perfectly.

Roca took to YouTube this week to expose outright criminal activity throughout his department starting with Holyoke Police Chief Manny Febo, who Roca called a “dirty cop.”

In the video, which is 43 minutes long, Roca made multiple accusations including missing guns, racial discrimination, covering up criminal activity in the department, including “cops beating their wives,” and asked for an investigation by the FBI.

“I talk to citizens. I talk to retired Holyoke police officers. They all say the Holyoke police department has been corrupt for as long as they can remember … as long as anyone can remember,” said Roca.

In the video, Roca said he’s had a target on his back since he called out corruption back in 2016 during a DUI stop. During the stop, Holyoke Police Sgt. Jorge Monsalve opted not to arrest the person driving drunk — a Holyoke Fire Department lieutenant — and drove him home instead. While this type of discretion is often warranted, it’s what happened next that made Roca question the integrity of his fellow brothers in blue.

After Monsalve brought the lieutenant home, Roca later spotted the man speeding by in the car he agreed to leave behind. The firefighter then led police on a high speed chase, blowing through a stop sign and endangering everyone on the road. When he was finally stopped, the fire lieutenant was not arrested nor charged with a crime.

Nothing happened to the officers who witnessed the crimes and failed to act.

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Did Police Corruption Derail the Long Island Serial Killer Investigation?

In December 2010, law enforcement found four bodies along a scrub-covered stretch of highway on the south coast of Long Island. The following spring, six more sets of human remains were found in the same area. Six of the victims have been identified as young women who were sex workers. Four, including a toddler and a person with male anatomy remain unidentified. In late 2011, authorities announced they were looking for one murderer responsible for all of the deaths. A decade later, the mystery, which became known as the Long Island serial killer case, remains unsolved.

A new podcast looks at why. Hosted by crime podcast veterans Billy Jensen (The Murder Squad) and Alexis Linkletter (The First Degree), Unraveled: Long Island Serial Killer — and its accompanying TV special premiering March 9th on Discovery+ — examines how corruption in the Suffolk County Police Department may have stymied the investigation of one of the biggest homicide cases in Long Island history and questions what police were trying to hide.

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Police Claimed Man Died in Crash But Video Shows They Beat Him to Death

The family of Ronald Greene as well as the public at large were all told a 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, they 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.

According to police, Greene was targeted for a traffic stop for a unknown violation on that night. Before he could pull over, Greene wrecked his car. When we look at the photos of the car which were released by the family last year, it looks like a minor fender bender. Nevertheless, the Louisiana State Troopers claimed that Greene died in the wreck.

Troopers made no mention of the use of force — or even arresting Greene — in the State Police crash report obtained by the AP but they did state in their notes that he was not wearing a seat belt in the crash.

“We were told that he died in a high-speed chase of head injuries after crashing into a tree,” Greene’s mother, Mona Hardin, told the AP. “There was no major damage to the car.”

But this was not true. Greene was alive and well after the crash and records released this week by the Associated Press tell the truth of what happened that night.

According to the AP, the records are the first public acknowledgement by State Police that Greene was mistreated, and they confirm details provided last year by an attorney for Greene’s family who viewed graphic body camera footage of the May 2019 arrest and likened it the police killing of George Floyd. The video shows troopers choking and beating the man, repeatedly jolting him with stun guns and dragging him face-down across the pavement, the attorney told AP.

Though this is the first public record released, as noted above, the family and their attorneys were able to watch the body camera video in October. What they witnessed was utterly shocking and horrifying.

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Radical New Bill Forces Cops to Carry Personal Liability Insurance, Ends Qualified Immunity

Since the George Floyd protests began last May, they morphed into a much broader movement which began exposing a problem this country has suffered from for a long time. The system of law enforcement in this country has morphed into a militarized standing army, preying on the poor, and rife with corruption. Naturally, people are pissed and this anger is finally morphing into solutions.

Unfortunately, much of the calls for change were washed away with the largely aimless “defund the police” campaign that provided lots of talking points but no tangible solutions. But the news is not all bad. Some lawmakers are moving forward with significant changes that will be magnitudes more effective than simply calling for “defunding the police.”

To lower the likelihood of future chaos, America’s system of law enforcement needs this radical change. Instead of random chants, the discussion we should be having is how to fix this broken system. It is not difficult, it is based in logic and reason, and its effects would be significantly felt almost overnight.

For nearly a decade, the Free Thought Project has been advocating for police officers to carry their own personal liability insurance like doctors. Now, it is finally catching on.

A bill proposed in Utah, H.B. 367 would require cops to carry their own personal insurance which would place the burden of lawsuit on them — not the taxpayers.

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