Tag: police brutality

Three Met Police officers who strip-searched 15-year-old schoolgirl wrongly accused of possessing cannabis could be sacked as watchdog announces misconduct hearing over scandal

Three Metropolitan Police officers could be fired after allegations of gross misconduct by carrying out a strip search on a 15-year-old schoolgirl wrongly accused of cannabis possession.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said on Thursday that the officers will face a misconduct hearing, and a fourth lesser misconduct meeting, over the treatment of Child Q.

The girl was strip-searched while on her period with no appropriate adult present, at a school in Hackney, east London in December 2020, after being accused of carrying drugs.

No drugs were found in her bags or outer clothing, and she was then strip-searched by two female officers with two male officers standing outside. Again no drugs were found.

Met bosses have been told by the IOPC that they should consider writing formal letters of apology to Child Q and her mother.

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Cop caught on bodycam laughing about grad student killed in police car collision

Newly released bodycam footage reveals a Seattle police officer laughed and made light of the death of a young woman who was struck and killed by a cop car, joking she had “limited value” and the city should “just write a check.”

Officer Daniel Auderer can be heard in the video discussing the investigation into the wreck involving 23-year-old grad student Jaahnavi Kandula, who was struck and killed by his colleague, Officer Kevin Dave, on Jan. 23.

“She is dead,” Auderer says before bursting out laughing. “No, it’s a regular person,” he says, referring to Kandula.

Toward the end of the video, Auderer can be heard saying, through bursts of laughter, “Yeah, just write a check. Eleven thousand dollars. She was 26 anyway,” he said, misstating the victim’s age. “She had limited value.”

Auderer, who serves as the Seattle Police Guild’s vice president, also mentions in the clip that he did not believe a criminal investigation was being conducted.

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Colorado deputies fired over tasing grandfather 35 times: “the most clear cut case of police negligence, brutality and abuse”

Two Las Animas County sheriff’s deputies were recently fired over an incident where they allegedly tased an unarmed man 35 times.

The sheriff’s office fired Deputy Mikhail Noel and Lt. Henry Trujillo over a November 2022 incident in Trinidad, about 200 miles south of Denver, where they pulled over Nate Espinoza. He and his father Kenneth Espinoza were driving in separate vehicles.

Attorneys representing 70-year-old Kenneth Espinoza say he was asked to move his truck from behind deputies’ cars during the traffic stop. He started to move his car but deputies detained him and allegedly tased him 35 times in front of his son while handcuffed in the back of a police car.

Attorneys representing Kenneth Espinoza released bodycam footage of the incident in May when they filed a federal lawsuit against the deputies. They characterized it as “assault” and “unjustified, excessive force.”

“This is the most clear cut case of police negligence, brutality and abuse of power that I’ve ever seen,” Keven Mehr, the attorney representing Kenneth Espinoza, said in a statement Monday. “The videos show it, the third-party investigation confirms it and Undersheriff Santistevan admits it.”

“Let’s be clear,” he continued. “Firing Noel and Trujillo is an important step in this journey towards justice. But it’s far from the last one.”

Attorneys representing the deputies asked Judge Daniel D. Domenico, who’s overseeing the case, to dismiss the lawsuit on Aug. 25, which he denied. The same day, those deputies were fired, Las Animas County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Phil Martin Jr. confirmed Monday. He said he couldn’t comment further, citing the ongoing lawsuit.

Also named as defendants in that lawsuit are the Las Animas Board of County Commissioners, Sheriff Derek Navarette and Undersheriff Rey Santistevan.

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FBI Refuses To Release Body Cam Footage From Utah Raid That Left An Elderly Trump Supporter Dead

The FBI is refusing to release DOJ-mandated body camera footage from agents who participated in a raid that killed Craig Robertson, a 75-year-old disabled Trump supporter who allegedly threatened President Biden on Facebook, according to a report from Daily Wire reporter Gregg Re.

“The fbi is refusing to release the doj-mandated body camera footage in the shooting death of Utah man Craig Robertson. They say it could “interfere” with “enforcement proceedings.” (??)” Re wrote in an X post on Tuesday. “This is an elderly guy that the salt lake field office decided to surprise and swarm at 6 am.”

Re included a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that sought to obtain the footage. “The material you requested is located in an investigative file which is exempt from disclosure,” the response states.

“The records responsive to your request are law enforcement records: there is a pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding relevant to these responsive records, and release of the information could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings,” the letter continued. “Therefore, your request is being administratively closed.”

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Louisiana Man Arrested By SWAT Team For Facebook Joke About COVID-19 Wins Case

In a pivotal defense of free speech and online expression, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals has rendered a verdict upholding Waylon Bailey’s right to jest about COVID-19 and zombies on social media. The Louisiana resident, previously arrested under the cloud of an anti-terrorism law for his humorous Facebook post, now sees the tide of justice turn in his favor.

We obtained a copy of the decision for you here.

Waylon Bailey’s playful jab at the pandemic combined with a cinematic reference to the Brad Pitt-led movie “World War Z,” whimsically warning that the local sheriff’s office was tasked with shooting the “infected.”

Instead of discerning the evident satire, the local sheriff’s deputies responded with a disproportionate use of force. Without obtaining a warrant, the authorities dispatched a SWAT team to Bailey’s residence, arresting him with guns drawn in his own garage.

While the ludicrous charge against Bailey was soon dismissed upon a prosecutor’s intervention, the subsequent civil-rights lawsuit encountered unexpected setbacks. Astonishingly, the district court not only granted the arresting deputy qualified immunity but also dismissed Bailey’s First Amendment right to jest.

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Fleeing Bronx drug suspect dies when cop knocks him off scooter with cooler; sergeant suspended by NYPD

A scooter-riding suspect fleeing a Bronx buy-and-bust drug sting was killed when an NYPD sergeant smacked him with a cooler grabbed from a local family’s outing, sending the victim tumbling to his death, an eyewitness and police sources said Thursday.

NYPD Sgt. Erik Duran, an NYPD Bronx narcotics veteran who joined the force in 2010, was suspended without pay just hours after the lethal encounter, police said.

An eyewitness, a 25-year local resident, was with relatives when the clash began on Aqueduct Ave. near W. 190th St. about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in Kingsbridge Heights.

The 30-year-old suspect, Eric Duprey, “was on the bike, moving north when the cops started chasing him,” said the 42-year-old witness, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Then he took a U-turn and was riding on the sidewalk… The cop then took my cooler, which was filled with soda cans, water bottles, and hit him.”

The victim’s wife Orlyanis Velez said police were providing her with no details of the deadly encounter.

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Dallas cops roar with laughter after disabled military vet urinated on himself

Four Dallas police officers are under investigation after they were caught on video laughing about a disabled military veteran who urinated on himself when he was prohibited from using a restaurant bathroom.

US Army vet Dynell Lane told the Dallas Police Department’s oversight board that two off-duty cops working security at Serious Pizza refused to let him use the bathroom around 2:15 a.m. on June 10 — despite his efforts to show them his medical paperwork documenting his medical issues, The Dallas Morning News reported.

Lane, who was disabled on deployment in the Middle East, said he called 911 but responders did not arrive before he wet himself.

“The Dallas Police Department failed me,” Lane told the board at its monthly meeting on Aug. 8.

“Two Dallas police officers discriminated against me and declined to assist me in bridging the gap between myself and the Serious Pizza manager.”

Body camera footage from one of the two off-duty cops shows two other uniformed officers arrive at the pizza joint and ask about a report of someone who “pissed themselves,” according to the paper.

“So you guys made a guy pee himself?” one of the on-duty officers says in the shocking exchange, holding her fist to her mouth as she laughs.

“Yeah,” one of the off-duty officers responds, smiling. He looks at the other off-duty officer, who appears to ask, “He called 911?”

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The family of a pregnant Colorado woman fatally shot by police sues the officers

The family of a pregnant Colorado woman fatally shot by an Arvada police officer after she was mistaken for a shoplifter said in a lawsuit that the killing was “patently unreasonable.”

The family of Destinee Thompson, 27, of Denver, is seeking unspecified damages in the suit filed against four officers and a sergeant Tuesday, two years after Thompson was killed as she tried to drive away from officers who had surrounded her car.

She was leaving an Arvada motel on Aug. 17, 2021, when several officers approached her, saying they were looking for a Latina who had brandished a knife as she was stealing a cart full of merchandise from a Target store, according to the suit, filed in District Court in Denver County.

The actual suspect, who also had stolen items from the store two days previously, had a chest tattoo, she was wearing a white tank top, and she allegedly had gone to the motel, the suit says.

Thompson, who was wearing a white tank top but did not have a chest tattoo, was leaving the motel to eat lunch as officers arrived, the document says.

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Six former Mississippi cops known as ‘The Goon Squad’ plead guilty to torturing and abusing two black men during raid on their home

Six former Mississippi law enforcement officers have pleaded guilty to charges accusing them of torturing and abusing two black men during a raid.

Members of the self-called ‘Goon Squad’ each carried a coin with the name emblazoned on one side and the other with Rankin County Sheriff’s Office’s badge. 

Lieutenant Jeffrey Middleton appeared to be the ringleader of the group, with his coin embossed with ‘Lt Middleton’s Goon Squad’. 

Five other deputies for the Sheriff’s Office, and one from the Richland Police Department, have been charged with conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice.

Christian Dedmon, Hunter Elward, Brett McAlpin, Middleton and Daniel Opdyke, and ex-police officer Joshua Hartfield, were all charged in relation to the assault of Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker in January. 

Elward was charged with home invasion and aggravated assault for shoving a gun in the mouth of Jenkins and pulling the trigger – in what prosecutors called a ‘mock execution’.

They are accused of assaulting them with sex toys, firearms, stun guns, milk, eggs, alcohol and chocolate syrup on January 24. 

The cops are potentially facing a maximum combined sentence of 641 years and two life sentences in prison for state and federal charges, as well as a combined $12.25 million in fines. 

Dedmon was charged with home invasion after kicking in a door, with McAlpin, Middleton, Opdyke and Hartfield each facing an additional charge of first-degree obstruction of justice.

Middleton admitted in court that he was convicted of vehicular manslaughter in 2007 for hitting/killing a man. 

The victims stared down their attackers after arriving together in court, sitting in the front row just feet away from their attackers’ families.  

Prosecutors say that some of the officers nicknamed themselves the ‘Goon Squad’ because of their willingness to use excessive force and cover it up.

They were targeted after a white neighbor complained that two black men were staying at the home with a white woman. 

Parker was a childhood friend of the homeowner, Kristi Walley, who has been paralyzed since she was 15 – and he was helping to care for her.  

All of the officers have pleaded guilty to the state charges on Monday, and previously pleaded in a connected federal civil rights case. 

In January, the officers entered a property in Mississippi without a warrant, and handcuffed Jenkins and Parker before assaulting them. 

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‘Stressed beyond her limits’: co-owner of Kansas newspaper dies after police raid

The co-owner of a small Kansas newspaper whose offices and staff were raided by local police officers conducting a leak investigation has died after the situation left her “stressed beyond her limits”, according to the publication.

Joan Meyer, 98, collapsed on Saturday afternoon and died at her home a day after she tearfully watched officers who showed up at her home with a search warrant cart away her computer as well as an internet router, reported the Marion County Record, which she co-owned. After officers also photographed the bank statements of her son, Record publisher Eric Meyer, and left her house in mess, Meyer had been unable to eat or sleep, her newspaper said.

Meyer was “in good health for her age”, the weekly newspaper asserted. And the headline of its report on her death said the police’s decision to raid the Marion Record’s offices along with the homes of its reporters and publishers was not only illegal – but had also contributed to bringing on the end of Meyer’s life.

Attempts to contact both Marion’s police chief – Gideon Cody – and the judge who authorized his agency to conduct the raids aimed at the Record, Laura Viar, for comment on Meyer’s sudden death were not immediately successful.

As the Record has told it, the weekly’s ordeal began when a confidential source leaked evidence that a local restaurant proprietor, Kari Newell, had been convicted of drunk-driving but continued using her car without a license.

The newspaper never published anything related to the information because its staff reportedly suspected the source was relaying information from Newell’s husband during their divorce. Nonetheless, after police notified Newell that the information was going around, she alleged at a local city council meeting that the newspaper had illegally obtained and disseminated sensitive documents.

According to reporting from the Kansas Reflector, Newell had admitted to the drunk-driving arrest as well as driving with a suspended license. Yet she insinuated that the leak was meant to jeopardize her license to serve alcohol and harm her business.

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