Tag: police brutality

INSANITY IN ILLINOIS: Oak Lawn to PAY $825,000 to Armed Suspect Hadi Abuatelah Who Fled Police During Arrest

The small Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn has agreed to pay a massive $825,000 settlement to a convicted suspect, Hadi Abuatelah, who fled from police after a traffic stop, ran from officers, and was carrying a loaded firearm.

The incident took place in July 2022 when Oak Lawn police initiated a traffic stop after reportedly smelling marijuana coming from Abuatelah’s vehicle.

When Abuatelah, then 17, bolted from the car, officers chased him and subdued him after a foot pursuit, and when they caught him, they found a loaded pistol in his bag.

During the arrest, body-cam video shows officers punching the teen repeatedly, including more than ten blows to the head and face, while restraining him on the ground.

The teen was hospitalized for six days with a broken nose, skull and pelvic fractures, brain swelling, and other serious injuries.

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Judges Rule Against Property Owners Seeking Compensation for SWAT Team Damage

A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Nov. 3 that the Los Angeles Police Department SWAT team is not liable for damage done to a business while chasing a criminal in 2022.

NoHo Printing & Graphics Owner Carlos Pena will ask the full court to rehear the case, his attorneys from the Institute for Justice said in a statement posted to the Institute’s webpage.

A majority ruled that arresting a criminal is an exception to the takings clause in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. That clause requires the government to compensate the owners of property taken by government action.

In August 2022, a criminal barricaded himself inside the business Pena had owned for 30 years. Police actions resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in damage and lost profits. Pena’s insurance and the city refused to pay, so in July 2023, he sued.

In March 2024, the court ruled against Pena, and he appealed to the Ninth Circuit. Pena vowed to keep up the fight. In an email to The Epoch Times, Pena wrote that the battle is larger than just his business.

“What happened to me isn’t right and sometimes it feels like the deck is stacked against good citizens. I just don’t want anyone else to lose everything they worked for, like I did,” Pena wrote.

Pena and McKinney, Texas, homeowner Vicki Baker both filed claims against their respective cities after police damaged their property.

In Baker’s case, a fugitive high on methamphetamine barricaded himself in her house with a teenage hostage. He eventually released the teen girl, who told police that her kidnapper told her he would not be taken alive.

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El Paso family claims Border Patrol killed their dog during search, CBP reviewing incident

U.S. Customs and Border Protection says they are reviewing a “use of force incident” in El Paso, after a family says a Border Patrol agent unjustifiably shot and killed their dog.

According to CBP, the incident happened on Tuesday at around 7:15 a.m.

Without offering specifics, CBP said that during a migrant smuggling investigation in El Paso, a U.S. Border Patrol Agent “was involved in a use of force incident” involving a dog.

CBP stressed that it is taking the matter seriously and said it will provide more information when it becomes available, providing no mention of any migrants being found.

However, KFOX14/CBS4 spoke with a distraught family from the Upper Valley who claimed to have been the victims of this incident and said the agents went into the home and shot and killed their dog.

The father, who wished to remain anonymous, said Border Patrol agents in jeans and t-shirts showed up at his son’s home looking for migrants after receiving a tip.

The son answered the door and, while he permitted the agents to search his home, claiming he had nothing to hide, he asked if they could wait first while he put the family dog, Chop, a Rottweiler, away in the bathroom before they walked in, as the dog could be aggressive.

Border Patrol agents then asked the son if he could show them some identification.

According to the family, it is at this point that the son went to his pickup truck to retrieve his ID and a Border Patrol agent entered the home and, as a result, ended up shooting the dog.

The family stressed that the agents knew– the son had told them– that Chop was put in the bathroom for their safety and that the agents opened the door, let Chop out and shot him.

The family appeared upset and disgusted by the agent’s actions, saying that they were following orders and trying to be upstanding citizens, only for an agent to kill “a family member.”

Furthermore, the family said none of the Border Patrol agents helped the family, who desperately tried to render aid to the dog, which bled to death on the kitchen floor.

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‘Inactive’ Chicago Cop Sentenced To 20 Years In Prison For Sexual Abuse Of Minors

An “inactive” Chicago police officer has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges that he sexually abused minors, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office announced.

David Deleon, 32, pled guilty Friday to one count of criminal sexual abuse and two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of victims under 18, Sheriff Tom Dart’s office announced. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the guilty plea.

Deleon’s conviction comes after his arrest in 2023, when officers with northwest suburb Norridge’s police department charged him with aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a minor. Norridge police seized Deleon’s phone, which included evidence that he sexually assaulted and abused minors and recorded lewd videos of himself with minors, according to the sheriff’s office.

Norridge police turned the evidence over to Chicago police, who forwarded it to the sheriff’s Internet Crimes Against Children unit.

Investigators found Deleon, who lived in Edison Park, met his victims while working as a Chicago police officer and would invite them to sleep at his home, the sheriff’s office said.

Deleon was charged in August 2023 with criminal sexual abuse and assault as well as two counts of manufacturing child pornography, two counts of possession of child pornography and one count of unauthorized videotaping, the sheriff’s office announced at the time.

Deleon agreed to plead guilty to the sexual abuse and assault charges in exchange for prosecutors dropping the other charges, according to the Tribune. He has been in jail since his August 2023 arrest.

Deleon was stripped of his police powers following the 2023 charges, according to the sheriff’s office. He is considered an “inactive” employee with the Chicago Police Department, a spokesperson said.

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Militarized Police

With Zoran Mamdani poised to win the New York mayor’s race, the red herring of “defunding the police” is rearing its head again. 

I say “red herring” because almost nobody wants to actually defund policy.  That’s silly.  But Republicans love being able to hit Democrats over the head with it. 

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said in a congressional hearing that, once police departments are “defunded,” Democrats can “call a crackhead” when somebody breaks into their houses.  He made sure to repeat the phrase for a political ad.

The issue is that “Defund the Police,” which is probably inappropriately named, actually calls for transferring resources from the tactical focus of most police departments and transferring it to things like de-escalation training, i.e., training how to handle people who haven’t committed any obvious crime, but who are in the midst of a mental health crisis. 

Remember, it was a decision by the Los Angeles Police Department in 1967 to create the country’s first SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics, previously Special Weapons Attack Team) unit and begin dressing like G.I. Joe heading into combat.  Many of us believe that that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

Things only got worse from there.  In 1989, as a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act, Congress allowed the U.S. Department of Defense to begin transferring surplus military hardware to local police departments. 

The Atlantic Monthly put things in perspective just weeks after the start of the so-called Global War on Terror, when it wrote that this transfer from the Defense Department to local police departments included everything from combat-capable body armor to armored personnel vehicles to attack helicopters.

Serious think tanks like the Brookings Institution also have weighed in on the damage that these hyper-militarized police departments have done in local communities. 

The bottom line, really, is, as one example, “Does Ohio State University really need a tank?”  Incidentally, that’s not a question that I came up with.  It’s a question posed by the school’s student newspaper in an article published when the Ohio State Police Department took delivery of a fully armored Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle. 

As the article’s author noted, the vehicle was “an incredibly overpowered and over-armored machine of war.”  The university’s police chief agreed that that’s exactly what it was, and added that the university, “is frequently like a war zone, and it requires an equal, if not escalated, response.” 

We’re talking about Ohio State University here, in the center of Columbus, Ohio.  The university’s police chief is either deluded, lying, or an idiot.

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Postal worker died after police mistook stroke for drug impairment

Anewly filed federal lawsuit alleges that a Minnesota postal worker died after police officers and jail staff ignored clear signs he was suffering from a massive stroke – mistaking his medical emergency for drug impairment. 

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court, accuses the City of Eagan and Dakota County of deliberate indifference in the death of 50-year-old Kingsley Fifi Bimpong, a U.S. Postal Service employee and lawful permanent U.S. resident originally from Ghana. 

The lawsuit claims arresting officers failed to do a proper screening to determine whether Bimpong was having a stroke or experiencing a drug overdose – and it says jail guards allowed Bimpong to remain helpless on a jail cell floor in his own urine for hours without medical attention.    

The Night of the Arrest

On the night of November 16, 2024, Bimpong vanished from his shift at the Eagan Postal Distribution Center after complaining of a headache. 

At 10:44 PM, an Eagan police sergeant saw his car driving the wrong way on Pilot Knob Road – into oncoming traffic and striking a median curb. 

According to police reports, after being pulled over, Bimpong appeared extremely confused. He couldn’t say where he lived or worked, even though he was wearing a USPS vest, and repeatedly said, “I don’t know.” Officers noted there was no smell of alcohol. 

Eagan Officer Martin Jensen, a specially trained Drug Recognition Evaluator (DRE), was called to assess whether Bimpong was under the influence of drugs. DRE training, provided by the Minnesota State Patrol to officers, emphasizes distinguishing drug impairment from medical emergencies such as strokes. 

But the lawsuit alleges Jensen disregarded his training.  

According to the lawsuit, body camera audio captured him saying a full DRE evaluation, which typically takes between 30-to-45-minutes, would be “a whole bunch of time wasted.” When another officer questioned whether Bimpong should be taken to the hospital, Jensen replied: “For what?” 

Instead, Bimpong was arrested for suspected DWI. He had his blood drawn at Eagan police headquarters and was then transported to the Dakota County Jail. 

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‘Be still’: State trooper punched disabled man he knew was suffering a seizure, dragged him across concrete, lawsuit says

A man has sued a North Carolina state trooper for allegedly punching and dragging him across concrete after suffering an epileptic seizure that apparently caused him to crash his car.

Thomas Simmons, who says he suffers from epilepsy, is accusing Sgt. Ashley Smith with the North Carolina State Highway Patrol of disability-based discrimination, using excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and even falsely indicating he was driving impaired.

Simmons was 44 years old when, on May 25, 2024, he was driving a car on Highway 33 in Greenville as part of his job delivering items to customers for Walmart. According to the lawsuit, he began having an epileptic seizure, lost consciousness and control, sideswiped another car and crashed into a utility pole.

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A witness called 911, and Smith responded to the scene. When he got there, a witness told the officer that the driver, Simmons, “appeared to be having a seizure,” per the lawsuit. Greenville police officers also responded to the crash site.

Smith is said to have made statements “indicating he understood” Simmons was suffering from a seizure, such as, “Notify Greenville PD, I believe somebody advised that the subject’s possibly having a seizure.” When a bystander told Smith, “He’s seizing,” after Smith stepped out of his vehicle, the trooper replied with the same words, “He’s seizing,” per the lawsuit.

Furthermore, according to Simmons, Smith requested the man’s hospital records the next month. In his report, Smith wrote that when he found Simmons, he “was slumped over and appeared to be suffering from what I originally thought was a seizure or medical condition based on what witnesses on scene were telling me and what I was observing from him.”

Smith approached Simmons’ car and saw him “convulsing inside his vehicle,” leading him to break the front passenger-side window and attempt to make contact with the man. “Hey brother, you alright? S—t. Hey man, be still, brother. Be still,” he reportedly said.

However, when Smith backed away — despite not noticing any drugs in the vehicle — he told onlookers, “Looks like a drug problem. Y’all step on back,” per the lawsuit, which stated Simmons was incapacitated, moaning and crying unintelligibly.

“Hey man, what’s your name, brother?” Smith reportedly asked, again attempting to communicate with Simmons. He managed to get the door open, prompting Simmons to “woozily” rise to his feet. Smith apparently did not like that.

“Don’t get out,” he allegedly said. “Hey, I’m gonna hurt you, man.” The trooper is said to have repeated this threat as Simmons “did not respond” to his commands, and after the second time, Smith “delivered a forceful, closed fist strike directly to Plaintiff’s face,” the lawsuit states.

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In Police Youth Program, Abuse Often Starts When Officers Are Alone With Teens in Cars

In May, prosecutors in Seattle charged a sheriff’s deputy with raping a 17-year-old girl. The deputy met the teenager while he was an adviser in his department’s youth mentorship program known as Explorers.

The victim, now 24, came forward in May to report the abuse, which she alleges took place in 2017 and 2018. The assaults allegedly began after King County Sheriff’s Deputy Ricardo Arturo Cueva told her she was cute and that he liked her while they were alone on a ride-along in his police SUV. Cueva — who is 15 years her senior — later kissed the teenager while they were on a separate ride-along at night. Prosecutors contend that Cueva’s abuse escalated, according to court records, to include sexual assaults in his sheriff’s vehicle and his home. The age of consent in Washington state is typically 16, but rises to 18 if the other person is in a position of authority.

This story was published in partnership with The Guardian.

Law enforcement departments across the country have Explorer programs — overseen by Scouting America, formerly known as Boy Scouts of America — and they have a history of sexual abuse and misconduct, as The Marshall Project reported last year. Ride-alongs, in which young people accompany officers on their patrol shifts, are a key perk of the Explorers program.

They are also a gateway to abuse.

The Marshall Project examined hundreds of abuse allegations in law enforcement Explorer programs and found that about a quarter of them involved officers on ride-alongs with teens — some as young as 14 years old.

“Mr. Cueva staunchly maintains his innocence, and we intend to thoroughly investigate his case and defend him vigorously,” Cueva’s attorneys, Amy Muth and Jennifer Atwood, wrote in a statement. Cueva pleaded not guilty to the charges.

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‘Handsome’ Hawaiian police dog dies after being left in hot car by handler

A Hawaiian police dog died in a hot car when its handler abandoned her animal partner “for an unacceptable period of time.”

Archer, a 6-year-old Belgian Malinois-German Shepherd mix, died in a police vehicle on last Thursday after his handler Sidra Brown forgot about the drug sniffing pup in the car, the Hawaii Police Department announced in a press release.

“Archer was not just a police dog, he was a partner, protector, and a member of our police family,” Interim Police Chief Reed Mahuna wrote in the release. “This was a preventable tragedy.”

The crime-fighting canine worked alongside handler Officer Brown in “numerous operations,” according to the department’s website.

The department is conducting a comprehensive review of its K9 policies and procedures.

A profile on the department’s website said Archer enjoyed “being handsome and eating mangoes.”

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P’Nut The Squirrel’s Owners Sue New York For $10M After Raid, Decapitation

The owners P’Nut – a beloved squirrel that was seized and euthanized by the state of New York are suing for $10 million in damages over the death of their pets, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in New York Court of Claims.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation staged a five-hour raid on the home of Mark Luongo after an anonymous complaint was lodged against the P’nuts Freedom Farm, where internet sensation Peanut the squirrel was taken into custody along with his sidekick, Fred the raccoon – before the state euthanized both animals ‘in order to test for rabies.’

DEC officials claimed that P’Nut but an agent through thick leather gloves during the raid, necessitating both the squirrel and raccoon be decapitated and tested for rabies. The state later admitted that both tests were negative, and have never apologized nor returned the bodies of the pets. 

According to court documents, P’Nut and Fred’s execution were “not due to a fear of rabies,” but a “senseless act of violence” and “obscene demonstration of government abuse.” 

This lawsuit comes on top of a previous suit filed by Longo and Bittner on June 27 in Chemung County Supreme Court against the City of Elmira and 36 individuals from various levels of state and local office – and seeks unspecified damages via jury trial. 

The couple claims they’ve suffered emotional trauma and financial losses since losing their star squirrel – who had appeared all over social media (including OnlyFans !?), according to both lawsuits. 

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