Thomas Paine on trust…
Tag: police accountability
The South Dakota Attorney General Killed a Man. Everything Else Is a Mystery.
On a remote section of highway in a sparsely populated part of South Dakota, the state’s highest-ranking law enforcement official struck and killed a man while returning from a Republican Party dinner one night in late summer.
In the months since, Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg hasn’t missed a day of work—and has not faced any charge in connection with the death of Joe Boever.
Many South Dakotans are growing restless, including Boever’s family. Markers indicating a death went up at the crash site on Highway 14 in Hyde County last week, a grim reminder of the tragedy that had cousin Nick Nemec in tears.
Records ‘Disappeared’ of Cop’s Arrest Over Torturing Woman to Silence Her Claims of Child Rape
The term blue privilege came about in this country after people began paying attention to the crimes committed by police officers and the subsequent lack of accountability they face when committing them. Over the years, TFTP has reported on countless cases of murdering, raping, child molesting, and rights violating cops escaping accountability for their actions with little to no jail time. In some instances, they aren’t even fired for murdering unarmed innocent fathers, crawling on their knees, begging for their lives.
Continuing in the trend, in a case out of Vermont, a St. Albans police officer has received repeated hefty doses of blue privilege over his alleged crimes. In April of last year, he was arrested for allegedly breaking into a woman’s home, beating her up, throwing her down a flight of stairs, and burning her repeatedly with a cigar. For good measure, he took his father along with him — who was also arrested for his role in the incident.
Despite these grim allegations, after Officer Zachary Pigeon, 29, and his father Allen Pigeon, 56, each pleaded not guilty to five charges: simple assault, kidnapping, obstructing justice, burglary, and unlawful restraint and they were released without bail and walked out of the courtroom. In December, despite the evidence in the case against them, the charges were thrown out.
The cop’s privilege was even extended by his own department who issued nothing but praise for him after the arrest.
“There is nothing, nothing whatsoever in his file that would show up as a red flag or an indicator of any of the things that I have now heard that he is alleged to have done,” St. Albans Police Chief Gary Taylor said. “We went all through it. He polygraphed twice– and there is nothing.”
Now, the privilege goes a step further and any mention of the incident is effectively being scrubbed out of official existence.
12yo Girl Finds Hidden Camera Recording Her in Shower—It Belonged to a Cop
Imagine for a moment that you are a 12-year-old girl about to get in the shower only to look up and find a camera spying on you in the bathroom. Your first thought would likely be fear, followed by anger, followed by the desire to hold the person accountable by going to the police. For one young girl in Utah, that is exactly what happened. However, it was not as easy to go to the police afterward as the person who allegedly put the camera in her bathroom — was a cop.
A top cop with the Weber County Sheriff’s Office was arrested last Wednesday and charged with utterly disturbing crimes for spying on the little girl. Marc Swain, 47, is a crime scene investigator with the sheriff’s office who has found himself on the other side of the law after his arrest last week on multiple counts of voyeurism and sexual exploitation of a minor.
Swain is accused of hiding a recording device in a bathroom used by a 12-year-old girl. The girl told her parents about the camera after she noticed a camera lens in various places moving around the bathroom every time she showered.
Before he was arrested, when Swain was questioned by someone who knows the girl, he reportedly told them that he accidentally left a “flash drive” in the bathroom that including a camera. Apparently, he “accidentally” left it in the bathroom — repeatedly and in different locations.
Because the alleged crimes took place in the county in which Swain is a cop, the Layton City Police Department was called in to conduct the investigation to prevent the conflict of interest.
Once the investigation was launched, Swain quickly caved to the pressure and admitted what he had been doing.
Mom Cries Foul As Cops Say Teen Shot Herself in Mouth While Cuffed Behind Her Back
It’s been nine months since police claim 19-year-old Sarah Wilson allegedly got a hold of a gun and killed herself in police custody while her hands were cuffed behind her back. Since then, her mother has been grieving and also crying foul after police are sticking by the story and refuse to release any information.
As TFTP reported at the time, Wilson allegedly committed suicide on July 25, 2018, during a traffic stop near the intersection of Berkley Avenue and Wilson Road, according to the Chesapeake Police Department. According to police, while handcuffed with her hands behind her back, Wilson was able to acquire a Taurus Judge handgun, place it in her mouth, and pull the trigger.
Dawn Wilson, Sarah’s mother has since come forward to speak out about the inconsistencies in the case.
“There’s just so many unanswered questions, and that’s the second hardest part of losing a child – of losing my child,” Dawn told WAVY, earlier this month.
“In all of her life I have never known of her to shoot a gun, own a gun, or even hold a gun,” said Wilson. “I’m not pointing fingers, I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t there, but I need to know, and I think that’s fair I’m her mom.”
Wilson explained to ABC 13 that her daughter was the passenger in a car that was pulled over during a traffic stop. Police told Wilson that during the stop, Sarah produced a gun and used it to take her own life.
The driver of the car was 27-year-old Holden Medlin who allegedly resisted arrest during the stop and took off running. While police attempted to restrain Medlin, they claim that Wilson was handcuffed with her arms behind her back when she got the gun out of the car, “contorted” her body and shot herself in the head.
How exactly police missed a Taurus Judge handgun while handcuffing Wilson is a massive question as the gun is 5.5″ tall, and 10.5″ long. The gun is so large it can shoot both 45 Colt rounds and 410 shotgun shells.
“Things are not matching up, somewhere somehow, there is a discrepancy,” said Wilson who said that police have told her one thing while telling the media something completely different.
“She was handcuffed, and she managed to put a revolver in her mouth while handcuffed. That’s what the investigator told me last night,” said Wilson at the time. “If that is the case its very unfortunate and tragic but there is a level of negligence there.”
Even more terrifying than a handcuffed teen somehow managing to get a gun and put it in her mouth to kill herself is the fact that witnesses are saying something entirely different.
“There is a few different stories, but they all end the same, that the police shot her,” said Wilson last year.
Cop Arrested for Sexually Abusing 46 Children, Forcing Them to Cut Themselves, Threatening to Kill Them
The Free Thought Project has reported on countless cases of child predator cops going after their victims through various means online, at school, in the home, on the job, and elsewhere. We have reported on abuse and utterly horrifying incidents over the years that shock the conscience. However, we have never reported on a case like the one below in which an NYPD cop allegedly preyed on dozens of children online — sometimes encouraging them to potentially harm themselves in a serious manner — while sexually abusing them in the process.
Officer Carmine Simpson was arrested on Thursday morning for an absolutely sickening and sadistic habit of targeting dozens of children online, have them send him sexually explicit videos and photos, and encouraging them to seriously harm themselves.
“Instead of protecting the community as a sworn police officer, the defendant has preyed upon and sexually exploited the most vulnerable members,” stated Acting United States Attorney Seth D. DuCharme. “The protection of innocent children is a priority for the Department of Justice and this Office will continue to make every effort to ensure that those who contribute to the victimization of children will be brought to justice.”
4 Cops Charged, Facing Life in Prison After Innocent Family and Dog Executed In Their Home
The murder of an innocent Houston couple made national headlines in 2019 as police took to smearing their names and threatening those who didn’t believe their official narrative. As the months passed, we learned that the Houston police department’s raid on the home of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas was based on lies and they were murdered for no reason.
The following May, the case had reached a turning point after the family hired a forensics expert to examine the home and found that there is no evidence the officers encountered gunfire. Then, in a major move in August of 2019, the cop who lied to obtain the warrant for the raid—was charged with murder in the first degree, with several others charged shortly after. Now, a half dozen more officers have been charged, with four of them facing life in prison.
Chief Says Cop Wrote ‘F**king Pig’ on His Own Coffee, Sparking Nat’l Outrage — ‘As a Joke’
Another story of another cop getting insulted by a store employee created yet another internet outrage. This time, however, it is a little different, as it appears the police manufactured the entire ordeal — and were caught. A police department’s Facebook post went viral last year with Herington Police Chief Brian Hornaday’s rant about one of his officers receiving a coffee with “f**king pig” inscribed on it. That expletive is now the subject of embarrassment and controversy for the department who is attempting to write it off as a joke.
Before continuing with the rest of the story it is important to point out that had anyone else besides a member of the protected class like police officers gotten a “f**k you” written on their cup, we would not have heard about it at all. Only when it allegedly happens to cops does the nation collectively lose its mind.
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.
Cops Who Kill Americans Have Less Than a 1 in a 1000 Chance of Being Convicted of Murder
After the death of George Floyd in May of this year, 2020 marked a historical movement in the fight for police accountability and equal justice under the law. Despite facing a global pandemic, millions of Americans left their homes and took to the streets to have their voices be heard. The momentum toward radical change was inspiring.
However, the winds quickly fell from the sails of that change as mainstream media and establishment partisans essentially coopted the movement. Instead of talking about actual solutions like ending the drug war or ending qualified immunity, the establishment pushed the vaguely uninspiring movement to defund the police and continued to push divide based on race.
Even Black Lives Matter is now admitting that despite raising billions of dollars over the course of 2020, the establishment is leaving them in the wake. Despite Joe Biden and Kamala Harris paying lip service to police brutality and riding the waves of the Black Lives Matter movement, the president-elect and his vice president now refuse to even meet with the group. This is also in spite of the fact that BLM formed a PAC, which helped fund its ad campaigns to mobilize Black voters to go out and vote for Biden.
What so many police accountability activists are learning now is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. As fissures in their leadership begins to crack apart Black Lives Matter inside its upper echelons, talk about police reform is waning, fast.
Getting bad orange man out of the White House has effectively placated the masses and the huge movements and protests we witnessed prior to November 3, have fizzled out.
Despite horrifying police killings, many of which were captured on video and rocked the nation, the arrest rate for cops who kill people on-duty remains as low as ever. According to reports, since 2005, just 126 police officers have been arrested for murder or manslaughter in relation to an on-duty killing.
Hellbound and Down 
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