Tag: police brutality

Arizona Police officer shoots, kills man in his home

A body cam footage has revealed an Arizona Police officer shooting and killing a man in his own home. The police officer claimed he saw the man holding a shotgun. 44-year-old Trinidad Ledesma was killed after police responded to a domestic dispute …

When the police turned the corner, Ledesma could be heard saying: “Don’t come in. Don’t come near, boss.” The officer said he saw a “black shotgun” in his right hand and immediately shot and killed him. During the incident, the officer called it an AR-15.

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Florida officer arrested for child pornography after first day on job

A newly sworn-in police officer in Florida was arrested for child pornography after his first day on the job.

The Indian River County Sheriff’s Office said 19-year-old Kai Cromer was sworn in as a deputy on Monday, and by that night, a search warrant had been issued for his phone.

In a media briefing shared with Scripps News, Sheriff Eric Flowers said Cromer had been on call at a high school when “a brave young female came forward” and alerted police that the officer had been contacting her via Snapchat, asking for naked and topless photos.

She told police “she felt very uncomfortable just even seeing him on campus,” Flowers said.

The sheriff said an investigation began immediately.

The police department reviewed over 100 GB of data and arrested him on one count of possession of child pornography.

“Kai Cromer is no longer an employee of the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office,” Flowers said Tuesday. “Our captain terminated him while he was in our cell.”

Flowers said a total of four victims have come forward, who are “very concerned for their safety.” They said Cromer had requested explicit photos and videos via Snapchat. 

“He was telling people, ‘I’m going to be law enforcement, I’m very powerful.’ He was forcing these girls, they said they were very uncomfortable with the entire circumstance, and they felt they had no choice but to do these things, and that’s just completely unacceptable,” Flowers said.

Flowers issued a plea for anyone who has spoken with Cromer via his Snapchat account, @KaiCromer, to come forward: “We need to talk to you.” 

He said there are also other victims they are aware of.

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78-Year-Old Grandmother Awarded $3.8 Million After Illegal SWAT Raid

A 78-year-old woman whose home was mistakenly raided by a Denver SWAT team will now receive a nearly $3.8 million payout. The large sum comes as a result of a 2020 Colorado law that banned qualified immunity protections for police officers in the state, making civil rights lawsuits against police significantly more likely to succeed. 

On January 4th, 2022, Ruby Johnson, a retired postal worker, was sitting in her Denver home when she heard a police airhorn loudly commanding that she leave her home with her hands up. Johnson, who had recently showered and was only wearing a bathrobe, left her house to find a Denver SWAT team gathered outside her door.

The SWAT team had been sent to Johnson’s home as part of an effort to recover a vehicle that had been stolen the previous day. According to Johnson’s lawsuit, the stolen car had an iPhone inside, and the Find My app feature indicated that the phone was near Johnson’s house. 

While the police officers had obtained a warrant to search Johnson’s home, they did so using an affidavit that allegedly provided “false characterization” of how reliable the Find My app is, overstating how sure the police could be that the iPhone—and the truck—would be at Johnson’s house.

According to Johnson’s lawsuit, after receiving this warrant, the SWAT team aggressively searched her home, causing considerable damage to her belongings. Making matters worse, even though Johnson gave police her garage door opener and told them how to enter the garage’s front door, police used a battering ram to enter the garage, destroying the door and door frame. Ultimately, the SWAT team found no sign of the truck or any other criminal activity. The officers left and later told Johnson’s children that the department wouldn’t pay Johnson for the considerable damage caused to her home.

Johnson filed a lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Colorado in December 2022, alleging that the search was unlawful under the Colorado Constitution.

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Pennsylvania Police Settle Lawsuit With Woman Forced to Undergo ‘Humiliating’ Strip-Search

Pennsylvania police officers have reached a settlement with a woman who says she underwent an unnecessary and humiliating strip-search after she was pulled over for a minor traffic violation. 

According to a lawsuit filed in 2021, Holly Elish was traveling through Bentlyville, Pennsylvania, on her way home from work when she was pulled over by local police officer Brian Rousseau.

When Rousseau pulled Elish over, he quickly asked for consent to search her vehicle, which Elish denied. According to the lawsuit, Rousseau responded that “he had the right to search her vehicle.” Soon after, a second police officer arrived on the scene. The two men again asked to search Elish’s vehicle, telling her that even more officers would soon arrive.

“Fearing for her safety and knowing that the police did not have justification to search her vehicle yet were insistent and intimidating in attempting to do so, Ms. Elish allowed the vehicle search to occur under duress and coercion,” the complaint states.

The officers searched Elish’s car but found no sign of drugs, illegal weapons, or other contraband. However, that wasn’t enough for the officers to let Elish go. A female police officer—unnamed in the suit—had arrived on the scene, and after having a brief conversation with the other officers began to strip-search Elish.

The officer “began the strip search by physically and visually inspecting Ms. Elish’s breasts,” according to the complaint. Elish then had “to remove her pants and underwear to her ankles and ‘squat’ to the ground, during which she bent down to the ground with one knee and performed a visual cavity inspection.”

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Revealed: at least 22 Californians have died while being held face down by police since 2016

Police have long known the dangers of holding people in prone restraint. So why do so many keep dying?

On a Thursday morning in October 2020, less than five months after George Floyd was held on his stomach by Minneapolis police officers until he died, Shayne Sutherland called 911 from a convenience store in Stockton, California, and asked for a taxi.

When the operator told Sutherland he’d dialed 911, he said someone was trying to rob him.

Stockton police officers Ronald Zalunardo and John Afanasiev arrived at the store about 15 minutes later. In the meantime, a store employee had called 911, saying Sutherland was threatening him with a wine bottle.

In body camera footage that captured the officers’ response, Sutherland seems fidgety and his speech is difficult to understand at times, but he doesn’t appear violent and he isn’t armed. He cooperates with police, addressing Zalunardo as “sir” and sitting against a wall outside the store as instructed.

The officers question Sutherland. When he tells them he can’t remember why he’s under court supervision, Afanasiev says, “the drugs probably have something to do with it”.

“How long you been using meth,” Zalunardo asks. Sutherland stutters and says he’s been using cocaine.

Sutherland briefly stands, then sits when ordered to do so. A minute later he stands up again. This time, the officers tackle him to the ground and hold him belly down – a position known as prone restraint. Thirty seconds later, his hands are cuffed behind his back.

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Chris Wray’s FBI Forced a Young Mother to Stand Outside Barefoot with Her 4-Yr-Old Boy in His Pajamas in 12° Weather While They Ransacked Her Home – She Lost Her Baby the Next Day

Chris Kuehne was sentenced on Friday for his actions on January 6, 2021 at the US Capitol.

Chris is a 22-year veteran who received numerous medals and awards, including the Purple Heart, a Navy Commendation Medal with Valor, and a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal with Valor for actions in combat.

Chris has personally sacrificed his blood, sweat, and tears serving our country and has paid the price for his duty and continues to live with debilitating and invisible injuries. Even before this Chris has protected people and helped people in need. As a 9-year-old Cub Scout he was awarded the Boy Scouts of America’s highest honor, the Medal of Merit, for saving his young sister from a burning car.

On January 6, 2021, Chris went inside the Capitol but did not cause any harm or damage – in fact, he cleaned trash off the floor, helped to stop theft of government property, asked people to leave the building, and went up to Capitol Police Officers to ask how he could help. Chris was also set up by an FBI operative that day. Chris committed no violence and did nothing wrong.

One month later, in the early morning of February 11, 2021 Chris, his four-year-old child, and his wife Annette, who was pregnant at the time were awakened to sirens, cell phone rings, and bursts of colorful lights reflecting through our windows.

Annette later went public about the raid, “The FBI instructed Chris to come outside immediately. Our 4-year-old was awakened from the chaos, and I picked him up and ran downstairs to open the front door. Our house, street and neighboring streets were completely surrounded by armed FBI and law enforcement. It was a scene that we see so many times in the movies, but now it was here at my house! There were three large armored tactical vehicles parked on my front, side and back yard, and police vehicles that extended throughout the entire community. I open the door, and for a second, I didn’t realize that there were about twenty FBI SWAT Team members with semi-automatic rifles pointed at my son and I. We were covered by the bright red lasers pointed at our faces, chests, and various points on our bodies.”

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Fatal crash in police chase doesn’t count, Kansas says — because it was on purpose

When a Bonner Springs police officer began chasing a man in June 2021 for an expired license plate, speeds on Interstate 70 escalated to 100 mph.

Then the officer intentionally hit the car to bring the chase to an end, a maneuver called a tactical vehicle intervention or TVI.

The driver, Darrell Vincent, of Kansas City, Kansas, was ejected and killed.

In an odd loophole, Vincent’s death is not counted in statewide or federal statistics on police chases because the officer purposely struck his car.

That officials choose not to include injuries or deaths caused by deliberate actions by police is one example of how police chases are not reliably counted by state or federal authorities.

“I think that’s wrong because it was a chase,” said Darrius Vincent, Darrell Vincent’s son. “It cost him his life and I just don’t think that was a good thing. It was a very bad thing.”

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Use Of Force Expert Says Capitol Police ‘Set One Man On Fire’ With Concussion Grenades On January 6

Veteran use of force expert Steven Hill, a former SWAT team supervisor with the Albuquerque Police Department, warns police waged a “terror attack” against the crowd of peaceful demonstrators during the J6 Stop the Steal rally when they launched a concussion grenade that set at least one man on fire.

Hill, an investigator with J6Truth, has examined over 1000 hours of J6 footage over the past two years and taken the stand in three J6 trials as an expert witness while assisting defense attorneys including those representing the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys with gathering exculpatory evidence.

J6 Truth’s team of investigators, including Hill and this reporter, have identified at least a dozen of instances of police flagrantly breaking the law during the January 6 protests.

In footage captured from a demonstrator’s camera on the West Plaza of the US Capitol at 1:24 pm, cops are seen firing a “sting ball grenade” into a peaceful crowd that set at least one man on fire, an illegal aberration of standard operating procedures and violation of all District of Columbia ordinances.

“You see a sting ball grenade that has been hand-thrown by officers into a crowd of peaceful oblivious demonstrators who are at least 30 to 50 feet behind the frontline of demonstrators,” Hill highlights in a 2-minute video of the explosion.

“As you watch where the grenade lands, you see that this group of people — some of them are praying, talking with others, shooting cell phone video facing away from the officers and unaware as to what the Capitol officers are doing,” he continues. “The riot control weapon is a rubber ball grenade that uses a small charge that will split the ball in half and eject tear gases, rubber balls or both.”

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Ex-prison officer charged in death of NH psychiatric patient

A former corrections officer was charged Thursday with second-degree murder in the death of a patient at New Hampshire’s prison psychiatric unit nine months ago.

Matthew Millar, 39, of Boscawen, is accused of kneeling on Jason Rothe’s torso and neck for several minutes on April 29 while Rothe was face-down and handcuffed in the secure psychiatric unit at the state prison in Concord. The unit treats inmates in need of acute psychiatric care, those found not guilty by reason of insanity and those — like Rothe — who haven’t committed crimes but are deemed too dangerous to remain at the state psychiatric hospital.

According to court documents, Rothe, 50, was committed to New Hampshire Hospital in 2019 because of mental illness and transferred to the prison unit in 2022 out of concern he posed a risk to himself or others. Shortly after his death, investigators said Rothe died after a physical altercation with several corrections officers and that an autopsy was inconclusive. On Thursday, the attorney general’s office said Rothe’s cause of death was combined compressional and positional asphyxia.

Millar made an initial appearance Thursday in court, where his attorney said he intends to plead not guilty. He was ordered held without bail pending a hearing Feb. 14.

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‘Deliberately indifferent’: Jailers ridiculed woman wrongly arrested for DUI after suffering massive brain hemorrhage in crash, lawsuit says

A Washington state woman alleges in a lawsuit she was arrested for a DUI when she was suffering from a medical emergency after a car crash and the nightmare she endured to get immediate treatment led to a lifelong severe traumatic brain injury.

Nicole McClure, 38, alleges in a lawsuit that authorities ridiculed her for being drunk and offered her “another shot” at the Thurston County Jail on March 21, 2022, and only took her to the hospital the next morning after finding her unresponsive in a puddle of urine on the jailhouse floor.

“Dubin Law Group takes Nicole’s injuries and experiences very seriously,” said her attorney, Anne Vankirk, in a statement to Law&Crime. “She is fortunate to still be alive today, but she will never be the same person she was that night. Justice for Nicole is at the forefront of our considerations.”

The lawsuit, alleging negligence, breach of duties, and vicarious liability, names as defendants Thurston County, the jail and Washington State Patrol (WSP). Chris Loftis, a WSP spokesperson, said the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation. The trooper involved was not disciplined, he said.

The complaint obtained by Law&Crime lays out the allegations that started that March night, when McClure was in a collision as a result of a medical emergency while driving home from work.

Before the crash, a trooper noticed her vehicle was traveling “at a noticeably slow rate of speed.” He approached with lights and sirens, but McClure’s vehicle continued to travel slowly west.

The trooper deactivated his lights and sirens and called for backup. Then McClure’s vehicle collided with the center of a roundabout at a traffic circle in Olympia. The impact disabled her vehicle.

She was arrested at gunpoint and handcuffed and was not given a Breathalyzer or roadside sobriety test, court documents said. Troopers saw that her eyes were bloodshot, and her speech was repetitive and slurred. Her eyelids were tremoring.

“Troopers observed that plaintiff’s behavior was erratic and she had difficulty following very simple instructions,” the complaint said.

She was taken to a hospital, where her blood was drawn, but a trooper made no mention of the crash to medical staff, the lawsuit alleges.

After the hospital visit, McClure was booked into the Thurston County Jail on charges of DUI and felony eluding, court documents said.

Over the next 24 hours, “jail staff made fun of plaintiff and ridiculed her for being a drunk,” court documents said.

“Jail staff offered plaintiff ‘another shot’ but did not get her the basic medical care she desperately needed, or even attempt to complete the booking process,” the documents added.

She was found the next morning unresponsive in a pool of her urine. She couldn’t stand and began vomiting profusely. She was taken to a hospital emergency department a few hours later.

Medical staff quickly took her into surgery. She had part of her skull removed to try to relieve pressure and to save her remaining brain function. She was hospitalized for 17 days.

Court documents said the delay in treatment resulted in sunken brain syndrome, a cranioplasty, and a lifetime of decreased capacity.

She continues to suffer from hemorrhage symptoms and a significant brain injury. She can’t work and will never be the same again, her lawyer said.

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