Tag: police accountability

Tennessee to Pay $125,000 to Settle Lawsuit by Man Arrested for Posting Meme Mocking Dead Cop

The state of Tennessee will pay $125,000 to settle a First Amendment lawsuit filed by a man who was arrested and jailed for nearly two weeks for posting a meme mocking a dead police officer.

Joshua Garton, 29, was arrested in January of 2021 and charged with harassment following a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) probe into a pseudonymous Facebook post that appeared to show two men urinating on the tombstone of an officer who was shot and killed in 2018. A judge dismissed the charges a month later, and Garton filed a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging malicious prosecution, false arrest, and First Amendment retaliation.

In a settlement agreement filed earlier this month, two TBI agents and 23rd District Attorney General Ray Crouch did not admit any guilt, but they agreed to pay Garton to avoid further litigation costs.

“First Amendment retaliation is illegal, and law enforcement officials who arrest people for offending them will pay heavy consequences,” Daniel Horwitz, Garton’s lead attorney, said in a press release issued Monday. “Misbehaving government officials apologize with money, and Mr. Garton considers more than $10,000 per day that he was illegally incarcerated to be an acceptable apology.”

The TBI, Tennessee’s lead investigative law enforcement agency, launched an investigation into the offending Facebook post at the request of 23rd District Attorney Ray Crouch. Agents visited the officer’s gravesite and quickly surmised that the picture Garton posted was fake. It was in fact a doctored photo of the cover of “Pissing on Your Grave,” a single by The Rites, which originally depicted two men urinating on the tombstone of punk legend GG Allin.

Despite knowing that no one had physically desecrated the grave, the TBI continued its investigation, soliciting tips on Twitter about Garton’s identity. When it finally nabbed Garton, TBI put out a press release, complete with mugshot, announcing his arrest for “manufacturing and disseminating a harassing photograph on social media.”

As Reason wrote when Garton was first arrested, it was unclear how a dead person could be criminally harassed under Tennessee law, which requires that the subject be “frightened, intimidated or emotionally distressed.”

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The story of a horrendous injustice and the three people who tried to expose it begins with a suicide note

Two years into his 25-year sentence for attempted aggravated rape, Nathan Brown could tell the man sitting across from him — a jailhouse lawyer improbably named Lawyer Winfield — was not going to help him get out of prison. It was astounding to Brown that he was pinning his hopes on a fellow inmate who had an eighth grade education and whose formal legal training amounted to a prison paralegal course. “But he knew more than I did,” Brown said.

Brown laid out for Winfield the details of his case. In the summer of 1997, a woman was assaulted in the courtyard of the apartment complex in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, where Brown was living with his mother. The woman, who was white, fended off the attacker with her high-heeled shoe until he fled on a bicycle. When sheriff’s deputies arrived, a security guard suggested they question Brown — one of the few Black tenants in the complex.

Brown, 23 at the time, was in his pajamas, rocking his baby daughter to sleep. The deputies put him in handcuffs and brought him to the victim. When she couldn’t identify him, the officers allowed her to get close enough to smell him. She had told them her attacker had a foul body odor. Brown, she would later testify, smelled like soap; he must have showered immediately after, she speculated. In a trial that lasted one day, the jury found him guilty. After his appeal was rejected, he no longer had a right to an attorney provided by the state.

Winfield began translating Brown’s grievances into a legal petition. He argued that Brown’s lawyer had provided ineffective counsel: He had overlooked the most basic defense strategies, failing to challenge the discrepancies in the victim’s story and to insist on DNA testing. The two of them worked on the petition for months, so Brown was surprised when the Louisiana 5th Circuit Court of Appeal delivered a rejection just a week later. The denial — a single sentence that didn’t address any of Brown’s claims — bore the names of three judges. But something didn’t feel right. How could they return the ruling so quickly? Why was it so vague?

The answer to those questions would come years later, in the suicide note of a high-level court employee who disclosed that the judges of the 5th Circuit had decided, in secret, to ignore the petitions of prisoners who could not afford an attorney. It was a shocking revelation. In a state where police and prosecutorial misconduct frequently make national headlines and a stream of exonerations has revealed a criminal justice system still functioning in the shadow of slavery and Jim Crow, a group of white judges had decided that the claims of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of inmates — most of them Black — were not worth taking the time to read.

Among those petitions was Brown’s claim that a DNA test would have proven his innocence.

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Illinois Family Files Lawsuit After Police Execute Wrong-Door Raid and Allegedly Detain Them for 6 Hours

A family in Joliet, Illinois, says they were terrorized by police, held at gunpoint, and detained for six hours after officers executed a search warrant on the wrong house.

A federal civil rights lawsuit filed Wednesday by the law offices of Al Hofeld Jr. accuses the town of Joliet and nearly two dozen police officers of unlawful search, excessive force, false arrest, and conspiracy, among other rights violations.

On November 2, 2021, 62-year-old Adela Carrasco and her family were awakened by the sound of banging and shouting at their front door. Carrasco, whom her lawsuit says suffers from asthma and uses a cane due to a hip injury, hobbled toward the door to see what the commotion was.

Carrasco discovered 21 armed law enforcement officers from the Joliet Police Department, Will County Sheriff’s Office, and U.S. Marshals Service. The officers were investigating a deadly Halloween-night shooting two days prior and had decided to execute an outstanding warrant for 18-year-old Elian Raya, one of Carrasco’s grandsons.

“I asked them to show me a warrant; they didn’t show me nothing. They just pushed me aside and went in,” Carrasco said at a press conference Thursday announcing the lawsuit. “And I’m screaming at them the whole time to put down their guns because they’re going to shoot my grandkids.”

The lawsuit says the officers barged into the bedrooms of Carrasco’s grandchildren, who ranged in age from 12 to their early twenties, and pointed guns at them while shouting obscenities.

There was only one problem: The search warrant for Raya listed his address as 226 South Comstock. Carrasco lived at 228 South Comstock. The building is a duplex with two separate front entrances, both with addresses clearly marked.

The lawsuit alleges that although officers knew or quickly realized that they were not in the right unit, they continued to ransack Carrasco’s house, cutting open couch cushions, flipping mattresses, and dumping drawers. 

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Tribal officer who shot, killed a deer is no longer deputized

The Pokagon Band Tribal Police officer who shot and killed a deer in Van Buren County is no longer deputized. 

Officials confirmed that the officer will no longer have any authority working with the Van Buren County Sheriff’s Office, and will now only have the authority to enforce laws on tribal land.

The incident on Friday sparked outrage in the town of Lawrence, as the officer was filmed forcing a deer to the ground and then shooting it in the neck. It happened after tribal police were assisting county law enforcement in serving an unrelated arrest warrant.

Neighbors say they knew the deer as “Annie,” and while they say she was a wild deer, they say she was remarkably friendly to people, and was loved throughout the area.

“It was amazing. It was one of the most coolest things we’d ever seen. She let us pet her. She let my three-year-old pet her, and, you know, she kind of wandered around our yard, but she always came back to see us. She did no harm,” said Amanda Beck, a resident. 

Community members have formed the online group “Justice for Annie,” and have been sharing memories along with voicing concern over how law enforcement handled the incident. A neighbor who witnessed the incident says the officer shot the deer in front of the family who originally found her when she was injured, and provided her aid. 

“You’ve not only traumatized everybody in the family who watched it happen 10 feet from them, but what could have happened with you firing that firearm 10 feet from a house, 10-foot from a busy highway?” questioned neighbor Theresa Braswell.

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‘We feel nothing for you but hate’: Victims of ‘sadistic’ paedophile police officer who blackmailed 200 girls into sharing explicit images on Snapchat say they have self-harmed, contemplated suicide and are too afraid to go out – as he’s jailed for life

The victims of a police officer who blackmailed more than 200 teenage girls into sending him explicit images have spoken of the trauma they experienced after being subjected to his crimes. 

Lewis Edwards, 24, who groomed 210 girls aged between 10 and 16 on Snapchat between November 2020 and February 2023, was today jailed for life with a minimum term of 12 years.

The South Wales Police officer, who joined the force in January 2021, posed as a 14-year-old boy and forced his victims to make indecent videos and images of themselves, which he covertly recorded.

He then used the recordings to blackmail his victims into sending increasingly graphic and explicit images. He also sent videos of himself performing a sex act.

Some of the girls that were subject to his campaign of abuse told the court of how his crimes had affected them – with many self-harming, contemplating suicide, losing friends and left fearful of going out.

The court heard all but one of the victims were abused while he was a serving police officer, and he targeted one teenager just 17 days after meeting her as part of his duties.

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NYPD COPS SUED FOR MISCONDUCT COST CITY MILLIONS IN SETTLEMENTS — THEN GET PROMOTIONS

NEW YORK CITY is on track to fork over more than $100 million this year in payouts for lawsuits alleging police misconduct against members of the New York City Police Department. Twenty of the officers stand out over the last decade for being named in the most suits or being named in suits with the highest payouts. Of the 20, the department has promoted at least 16 of the officers, some more than once. 

“They’re kind of failing upwards when they’re not only staying in the department but they’re also being promoted,” said Jennvine Wong, staff attorney with the Cop Accountability Project at the Legal Aid Society, a public defense organization in New York City. Last month, Legal Aid released an analysis of data on settlements in cases alleging police misconduct. 

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PITTSBURGH JAIL LET AUTISTIC MAN DIE DUE TO CULTURE OF NEGLECT, LAWSUIT SAYS

The family of a 57-year-old, intellectually disabled, and autistic man who died at Pittsburgh’s Allegheny County Jail filed suit on Tuesday, alleging that atrocious medical care at the facility caused his death.

Anthony Talotta arrived at the Allegheny County Jail (ACJ) in September 2022 after being arrested at a group home he had been living in. About a week and a half later, he was dead. The lawsuit, filed by the Abolitionist Law Center and a local law firm on behalf of Talotta’s estate, claims that pervasive medical neglect at the jail contributed to his preventable death. The Pittsburgh Institute for Nonprofit Journalism has published multiple investigations into the jail—revealing systemic neglect of detainees’ health needs and a lack of transparency.

The complaint alleges the jail’s medical provider, the nonprofit Allegheny Health Network (AHN), routinely deprives detainees of basic medical care, leading to catastrophic consequences, particularly for those with disabilities. According to the complaint, of the 17 people who died between March 2020 and Talotta’s 2022 death, almost 90 percent were—or should have been—identified as needing chronic care.

“And for incarcerated persons who simultaneously had either mental illness or neurodevelopmental disorder with some other chronic care needs, the culture that AHN and Allegheny County created at the ACJ guaranteed that those individuals were discriminated against, and that their medical needs were not met,” the complaint states.

In response to emailed questions, spokespeople for Allegheny County and AHN told The Appeal they do not comment on litigation.

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Homicidal Memphis detention cop shoots the next boyfriend

Monique Johnson intentionally shot and killed her cop boyfriend in 2006 and never served time for the murder Now she shot the next boyfriend and was just booked again.

On October 13, 2023, Monique Johnson was arrested for shooting her second boyfriend. He told police that he had been asleep when he was awakened by being hit by her, saw a black handgun pointed at him with Johnson telling him that she would kill him. She then fired a shot that hit his shoulder. He wrestled the gun from her and was shot through the hand in the process but was able to disarm her.

This was the second boyfriend shot by Johnson. She served only a few days’ time in the 2006 murder of her then-boyfriend Tony Hayes.

On September 4, 2006, Officer Tony Hayes was killed by his girlfriend Monique Johnson.She testified that she was a domestic violence victim and he had beaten her and she had to defend herself and shot him.

As the story evolved, he had been caught by his girlfriend, Monique Johnson who went through his cell phone and found evidence of relationships with other women. She shot and killed him point blank with 6 bullets, then enlisted her 12-year-old son to help her stuff his body into his own vehicle, a 1999 Lexus. Police would find his decomposing body in the trunk of his car 4 days later, on September 8, 2008. They also found his clothes cut up and stuffed in the trash where Johnson had thrown them in a fit of rage.

Her son had told investigators a very different story than the one she presented. In her narrative, she had claimed to have been beaten by Hayes and that she in self-defense shot and killed him. The son stated that she had shot and killed him through a closed door and that she had asked him to swap the door with a new door at a nearby construction site. Investigators found the bullet-riddled door at the construction site the son had pointed them to, confirming the story the son had told of what sounded like a killing not justifiable as self-defense.

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County agrees to $12.2M settlement with man who was jailed for drunken driving, then lost his hands

 A Minnesota county agreed to pay a $12.2 million settlement to a man who was jailed on suspicion of drunken driving but ended up losing both his hands and suffering a heart attack, a stroke and skin lesions all over his body, allegedly due to the inaction of officials in the county jail, attorneys said Wednesday.

Terrance Dwayne Winborn spent about four months in hospitals, including two months on a ventilator, because Scott County jail officials failed during the 39 hours he was incarcerated to ensure he got the prompt treatment he needed, his lawyers said at a news conference.

It’s a case that highlights the vulnerability of prisoners who are dependent on authorities for medical care.

The attorneys said the settlement will cover the more than $2 million in medical bills Winborn has already incurred — a sum which they said the county didn’t cover — as well as the millions he’ll need for ongoing care. The county’s insurance plan will cover the settlement.

“That deliberate indifference allowed a bacterial infection to run rampant within his body, leading to a heart attack … and a host of other devastating and permanent injuries,” attorney Katie Bennett told reporters.

Jason Hiveley, an outside lawyer who handled the case for Scott County, said in a brief statement that the county and its insurer, the Minnesota Counties Intergovernmental Trust, agreed to the settlement in exchange for dismissal of Winborn’s lawsuit and a release from his claims. The statement did not say whether the county still denies any wrongdoing.

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California cop who won award for ‘most DUI arrests’ is arrested for DUI

A Sacramento police officer arrested for driving under the influence had previously been given an award for arresting drunk drivers, KCRA 3 reported Wednesday.

Raymond Barrantes was arrested last weekend after California Highway Patrol pulled him over. He has since been bailed out of the San Joaquin County Jail.

According to the report, the West Sacramento Police Department confirmed that in 2015, Barrantes was given an award by the national organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), along with a Facebook post with the caption that Barrantes and another officer had “the most DUI arrests for our Agency in 2014.”

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