Tag: police brutality

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.

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Woman Posts Video Feeding a Baby Moose, So Cops Show Up, Kill Moose, Arrest Woman

If a docile baby moose walked up to your door and allowed you to pet and feed it without causing any disturbance, this would be an amazing moment. In the social media age, many people would film it and then upload that video online. This is exactly what 43-year-old Angel Bunch did over the weekend. But her amazing moment with nature would end in her arrest and a dead moose — killed by the police.

Bunch posted the video on Saturday and, apparently, one of her “see something, say something” neighbors was alarmed over the video of Bunch giving a carrot to a baby moose while petting it. So, they reported her to the police, who quickly showed up.

A spokesperson for the Alaskan State Troopers, Austin McDaniel explained that feeding a moose, even a baby one, creates a public health risk.

“When Alaska Wildlife Troopers responded to Bunch’s residence the moose showed no apparent fear of humans and walked up to the Wildlife Trooper when he arrived,” McDaniel said over email to the Anchorage Daily News. “This moose appeared thin and showed signs that it had been fed by humans for some time.”

Because it relied on humans for food, the moose was deemed a threat and targeted for extermination.

“When humans feed wildlife it causes them to stop searching and feeding on their own in nature and rely solely on humans for food,” McDaniel wrote. “When their human food source stops the animal can become aggressive towards other humans as it looks for food from them.”

While this is certainly possible, bears, which pose a threat as well, are often times simply tranquilized and moved to other areas of the state when they become too dependent on humans. This could have been done with the moose.

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Biden Administration Tear-Gassed ‘Peaceful Protesters’ Just Hours After Inauguration

A Democratic Party headquarters was damaged, an American flag burned, and marchers filled the streets in Portland, Ore., on Wednesday, following Joe Biden’s inauguration. Antifa was reportedly behind the activities, known during the summer as “peaceful protests.”

The New York Times reported that “federal agents in camouflage — now working under the Biden administration — blanketed streets with tear gas and unleashed volleys of welt-inducing pepper balls as they confronted a crowd that gathered outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building near downtown.”

Some in the group of about 150 people smashed windows and spray-painted anarchist symbols at the political party building. Police said eight arrests were made in the area. Some demonstrators carried a sign reading, “We don’t want Biden, we want revenge!” in response to “police murders” and “imperialist wars.” Others carried a banner declaring “We Are Ungovernable.”

There was a huge amount of outrage last summer after President Trump was accused of having “peaceful protesters” tear-gassed without provocation to clear the area so he could “get his photo op” at the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church, which had been burned in the riots the night before. The United States Park Police (USPP) denied this allegation and the claim that the D.C. protesters were peaceful was also completely false. Over the course of four days, protesters, armed with baseball bats, metal poles, and glass bottles for projectiles, vandalized property and injured 51 USPP officers.

So, where is the outrage over the Biden administration using actual tear gas (according to the New York Times) to break up “peaceful protesters”? They are peaceful, are they not? I mean, that’s what we were told about this behavior all summer. CNN and MSNBC, for example, specifically avoided calling the BLM riots “riots.”

MSNBC reporter Ali Velshi even called the riots “mostly peaceful” as he stood amongst rampant violence in front of a burning building.

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Death of Maryland man shows continued out-of-control nature of SWAT, no-knock raids

One of the most positive developments from last year’s political strife was a stronger focus on police abuses and no-knock raids. Some states and cities have imposed new restrictions, others are working toward greater transparency when it comes to police shootings. Unfortunately, Maryland, a state that has wrestled with some of the most egregious SWAT and no-knock cases in the country, remains mired in controversy.

The state has a long record of SWAT debacles. After police wrongfully raided a mayor’s house and killed his dogs in 2008, Maryland required police to report every SWAT raid. Between 2010 and 2014, police in Maryland conducted more than 8,000 raids, killing nine people and injuring almost a hundred civilians.

Despite controversies, statistics were no longer collected after 2014. Strong police unions have blocked numerous efforts at legislative reform. As a result, Marylanders continue to be vexed by the same kind of deadly no-knock debacles that killed Breonna Taylor last March in Louisville, Kentucky.

Duncan Lemp is one of Maryland’s latest victims.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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