Tag: police brutality

An Alabama Couple’s Lives Were Upended by an Unconstitutional Police Raid. A Jury Awarded Them $1 Million.

Six years ago, Greg and Teresa Almond were left destitute and living in a utility shed after sheriff’s deputies in Randolph County, Alabama, illegally raided their house and seized their savings over a misdemeanor drug crime.

Now the Almonds will be made partly whole, at least financially. Last month, a jury in their federal civil rights lawsuit awarded the couple $1 million in punitive and compensatory damages after trial testimony showed the deputies never got a warrant to search the Almonds’ property.

The Randolph County Sheriff’s Department’s 2018 raid on the Almonds’ house, first reported by the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, exemplified the worst aspects of the war on drugs and civil asset forfeiture—a practice that allows police to seize property when it’s suspected of being connected to criminal activity. 

On January 31, 2018, a Randolph County sheriff’s deputy showed up at Greg and Teresa Almond’s house in Woodland, Alabama, to serve Greg court papers in a civil matter. The deputy reported that he smelled marijuana.

A county drug task force returned two hours later, busted down the Almonds’ front door, threw a flash-bang grenade at Greg Almond’s feet, detained the couple at gunpoint, and ransacked their house. The search only turned up $50 or less of marijuana, which the Almonds’ adult son tried in vain to claim as his, and a single sleeping pill outside of a prescription bottle with Greg’s name on it.

Using the paltry amount of narcotics as justification, deputies seized roughly $8,000 in cash, along with dozens of firearms and other valuables, under Alabama’s civil asset forfeiture laws. The deputies took the money right out of his wallet, Greg Almond told Reason in 2019.

More than a year after the initial raid, the Almonds were indicted on two misdemeanor charges: unlawful possession of marijuana for personal use and unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia, thus violating “the peace and dignity of Alabama.” However, prosecutors dropped the charges, and a judge ordered their property to be returned.

The Almonds filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in 2019 alleging that the Randolph County Sheriff’s Department used excessive force; stole, lost, or failed to inventory their missing property; and violated their constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as their right to due process.

That was in addition to the other injuries they suffered. As a result of the raid and arrest, the Almonds’ missed a crucial deadline to refinance loans on their farm and lost their house. Their reputation was tarnished, and their ability to earn a living was practically destroyed.

What’s more, depositions and trial testimony showed that the deputies never obtained an official search warrant from a judge for the raid.

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‘Cruel and unusual’: Daughter of inmate with bipolar disorder who killed self sues prison for failing to provide adequate mental health care

An inmate classified as among the most severely mentally ill killed himself in solitary confinement at a Wisconsin state prison after officials failed to provide adequate mental health care and medications, the man’s daughter alleges in a federal lawsuit filed this week.

Dean Henry Hoffmann, 60, died in June at Waupun Correctional Institution (WCI), a beleaguered facility with chronic inadequate staffing and inmate overcrowding, more than an hour northwest of Milwaukee.

“Every day I fight for some type of change within the system, and I’m hoping that this really drives that home, and something like this — holding them accountable — will lead to change,” Megan Hoffmann Kolb told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Prison officials declined to comment, citing a policy against commenting on pending litigation, the newspaper reported.

Court documents obtained by Law&Crime outline the events leading up to Hoffmann’s suicide after he was sentenced last February to 28 years in prison after his conviction for assaulting his ex-girlfriend.

Hoffmann had a history of mental illness that included bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, hypothyroidism, diabetes, and anti-social personality disorder, court documents said.

Before his trial, he had been deemed by mental health professionals and the court as being mentally ill but competent to stand trial, even though there was strenuous disagreement, the lawsuit said. In custody, he was categorized as “MH-2A,” the most severe category of mental illness, court documents said.

On April 10, Hoffmann was transferred to WCI with about 30 days of medication. When he went in, the facility had been locked down for safety reasons after some inmates had broken prison rules, court documents said. Because of lockdown restrictions, Hoffmann was never given a psychological exam and had received only some of his prescribed medications, the lawsuit alleges. He had only been able to use the phone twice in the first weeks. Guards unplugged the phone on him mid-conversation in one call.

He asked for medical treatment and showed serious symptoms of mental illness, including severe anxiety, paranoia, pressured speech, poor judgment, poor insight, loss of appetite, weight loss and insomnia, court documents said.

His frustrations mounted on June 20, when he refused to return to his cell after showering, citing “fear of his safety because of threats his cellmate made to him,” the lawsuit said.

When guards ordered him into his cell, he refused. He was handcuffed and escorted into the prison’s Restricted Housing Unit for “a minor incident despite Mr. Hoffmann expressing concerns for his safety.”

While in solitary, Hoffmann began to rapidly deteriorate mentally and physically.

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Alabama Cops ‘Violently’ Arrested Two Elderly Women For Taking Care of Feral Cats

In 2022, Wetumpka, Alabama, police violently arrested two elderly women and charged them with a litany of criminal offenses. Their crime? Taking care of stray cats. The pair has now sued the officers, arguing that their arrest and the resulting charges against them were unconstitutional and caused “significant physical and emotional injuries.”

According to the complaint, Mary Alston, who was 60 at the time, often worked with Beverly Roberts who was then 84, to “trap-neuter-return” (TNR) feral cats. TNR is a common strategy of limiting stray cat populations by safely capturing cats, having them spayed or neutered by a veterinary clinic, and releasing or putting them up for adoption. According to their complaint, Roberts and Alston took up this practice because “neither the Humane Society nor any other animal rights organization had the resources to conduct TNR in or around the City of Wetumpka.”

On June 25, 2022, Alston was setting up a trap for a feral cat on local public property when she saw Wetumpka Mayor Jerry Willis drive past, followed by police vehicles. However, within minutes the three police officers who had been trailing Willis turned around and approached Alston. 

According to the complaint, Willis later admitted that after observing Alston, he ordered the police to approach her. Further, the lawsuit alleges that “Willis was angry that Ms. Roberts and Ms. Alston frequently complained, both publicly and to officials at Wetumpka City Hall, that. Willis was failing to enforce laws and ordinances prohibiting the ‘chaining’ of dogs.”

Body camera footage shows one officer telling Alston that someone called about a person feeding feral cats.

“Ya’ll got three cop cars because I’m feeding cats?” Alston said to the officer. “Wow, it’s unbelievable.”

The officers demanded that Alston leave the public property, and then left the scene. However, Shortly after this encounter, Roberts joined Alston. The pair were on public property, and sitting calmly, waiting for a cat they were hoping to trap to arrive. However, the three officers soon returned. This time, the complaint states that they informed Roberts that she would be arrested. When the officers handcuffed Roberts, Alston got out of her car and attempted to speak with the officers.

“The officers ordered Ms. Alston to quit talking and to get in her vehicle. Ms. Alston complied with the officers’ demand to get back into her vehicle but continued to try to speak to the officers,” the complaint states. In response, one of the officers, Brenden Foster responded by grabbing Ms. Alston, jerking her out of her vehicle by force, and then handcuffing her.”

The pair were then taken to a local jail, where they were mistreated further. While in jail, Roberts lost consciousness and hit her head. However, the complaint alleges that an officer who witnessed this did nothing, and she was not given any medical help. When Roberts later asked to make a phone call, she was allegedly told that a call is a “privilege, not a right,” which is in violation of Alabama law.

Ultimately, the pair was charged with “criminal trespass, obstructing governmental operations and disorderly conduct,” according to the complaint. In December 2022, a municipal Judge found the pair guilty and sentenced them to “10 days in jail, suspended, two years supervised probation, and a $50 fine on each charge,” though the charges were later dismissed on appeal.

While their charges were ultimately dismissed, the pair is still suing, arguing that the officers and mayor “directed the unlawful arrest and malicious prosecution of Ms. Roberts and Ms. Alston to retaliate against them for exercising their First Amendment rights to peaceably assemble on public property, engage in expressive conduct…and engage in peaceful political speech.”

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Former police officer from Buckland, Mass. pleads guilty to possessing child porn, secretly filming nude girl

A former police officer from a small town in Franklin County pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography and posing and videotaping a child sexually without her knowledge, the District Attorney announced Tuesday.

Jacob Wrisley, 42, was a part-time police officer in Bernardston and Buckland, where he lives. He was sentenced to 4 to 5 years in state prison and a 5-year probation period after his release, Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan announced.

Wrisley was found with ten thousands of images and videos of child pornography, and some of the victims were identified. According to the DA, Wrisley was a sworn officer when he victimized a young girl who was 8 to 10 years old, and investigators also found images he took of clothed children playing in public places in Franklin County.

Investigators could not identify the “vast majority” of the children in the images found, but the assistant district attorney said his crimes were not “victimless.” 

The investigators also found organized folders on his devices “labeled with graphic, degrading names and containing images of exploited children.”

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Terror by Night: Who Pays the Price for Botched SWAT Team Raids? We Do

Sometimes ten seconds is all the warning you get.

Sometimes you don’t get a warning before all hell breaks loose.

Imagine it, if you will: It’s the middle of the night. Your neighborhood is in darkness. Your household is asleep. Suddenly, you’re awakened by a loud noise.

Barely ten seconds later, someone or an army of someones has crashed through your front door.

The intruders are in your home.

Your heart begins racing. Your stomach is tied in knots. The adrenaline is pumping through you.

You’re not just afraid. You’re terrified.

Desperate to protect yourself and your loved ones from whatever threat has invaded your home, you scramble to lay hold of something—anything—that you might use in self-defense. It might be a flashlight, a baseball bat, or that licensed and registered gun you thought you’d never need.

You brace for the confrontation.

Shadowy figures appear at the doorway, screaming orders, threatening violence, launching flash bang grenades.

Chaos reigns.

You stand frozen, your hands gripping whatever means of self-defense you could find.

Just that simple act—of standing frozen in fear and self-defense—is enough to spell your doom.

The assailants open fire, sending a hail of bullets in your direction.

In your final moments, you get a good look at your assassins: it’s the police.

Brace yourself, because this hair-raising, heart-pounding, jarring account of a SWAT team raid is what passes for court-sanctioned policing in America today, and it could happen to any one of us or our loved ones.

Nationwide, SWAT teams routinely invade homes, break down doors, kill family pets (they always shoot the dogs first), damage furnishings, terrorize families, and wound or kill those unlucky enough to be present during a raid.

No longer reserved exclusively for deadly situations, SWAT teams are now increasingly being deployed for relatively routine police matters such as serving a search warrant, with some SWAT teams being sent out as much as five times a day.

SWAT teams have been employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of so-called criminal activity or mere community nuisances: angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession, to give a brief sampling.

Police have also raided homes on the basis of mistaking the presence or scent of legal substances for drugs. Incredibly, these substances have included tomatoes, sunflowers, fish, elderberry bushes, kenaf plants, hibiscus, and ragweed. In some instances, SWAT teams are even employed, in full armament, to perform routine patrols.

These raids, which might be more aptly referred to as “knock-and-shoot” policing, have become a thinly veiled, court-sanctioned means of giving heavily armed police the green light to crash through doors in the middle of the night.

No-knock raids, a subset of the violent, terror-inducing raids carried out by police SWAT teams on unsuspecting households, differ in one significant respect: they are carried out without police even having to announce themselves.

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Long Beach, California, Police ‘Brutally’ Arrested a Cancer Patient. Now, the City Is Paying $300,000.

Long Beach, California, is stuck with a $300,000 bill after three of its police officers arrested a cancer patient with “brutal force” for driving with an expired vehicle registration. 

On September 3, 2022, Johnny Jackson, who had undergone surgery for his prostate cancer the day prior, was driving home from an errand to make a copy of his doctor’s note following surgery when he noticed he was being followed by an unmarked Long Beach Police Department (LBPD) vehicle. 

According to a lawsuit filed last October, when Jackson pulled into his driveway, the LBPD vehicle parked outside his house. Jackson exited his car, holding his doctor’s note, and told the officers that he knew he had an issue with his vehicle registration. In response, the officers, who were not named in the complaint, ordered Jackson to put his hands up and approach them. As he was doing so, Jackson was additionally ordered to put his hands on his head and turn so his back was facing one officer, while a second officer approached Jackson’s front porch.

Body camera footage shows Jackson again telling the officers that he knew his vehicle registration may have been expired and that he had gotten surgery for his prostate cancer the day before. The lawsuit states that, while Jackson was speaking, “a gust of wind began blowing the Doctor’s Note off the top of his vehicle.” Jackson then told the officers that “this is actually my paperwork for my surgery yesterday,” and put one of his hands on the note to prevent it from blowing away.

In response, one of the officers rushed to grab Jackson’s arm, pinning it behind his back and telling him that he was “about to get fucked up.” 

“Listen to me, put your hands behind your back. If you resist you will get hurt,” one officer told Jackson. “If you hurt me I will sue you. I just had surgery,” Jackson replied.

Body camera footage shows the ensuing struggle, in which Jackson was pulled in multiple directions by the officers, as Jackson again told them he was recovering from surgery. The lawsuit states that one officer struck Jackson in the head in an attempted “takedown maneuver,” which he followed by kneeing Jackson in his groin three times. 

“Why are you forcing us to use force on you?” one officer asked

Eventually, Jackson was handcuffed and cited for having an expired vehicle registration and resisting arrest. Jackson sued the city and police department in October 2023, arguing that the officers engaged in excessive force and caused him multiple injuries by arresting him so violently, despite being aware of his recent surgery. 

A settlement in the case was reached in December 2023, and the staggering $300,000 value was announced last week.

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BLM protesters who participated in 2020 riots will receive $10 million from Seattle

The city of Seattle, Washington, agreed Wednesday to pay $10 million to settle a lawsuit from a group of Black Lives Matter protesters who participated in the violent and destructive 2020 riots following the death of George Floyd.

A Wednesday press release from the city revealed that Seattle is settling a complaint filed by a group of 50 protesters in September 2020 who claimed they were injured by police while participating in the demonstrations. Seattle admitted to no wrongdoing.

According to the city, the complaint involved hundreds of interactions between the protesters and local law enforcement officials, over a million pages of records, over 10,000 videos, hundreds of witness interviews, and extensive court filings.

“This decision was the best financial decision for the City considering risk, cost, and insurance,” Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison said. “The case has been a significant drain on the time and resources of the City and would have continued to be so through an estimated three-month trial that was scheduled to begin in May.”

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Ohio SWAT Team Raids Wrong House, Seriously Injures Baby With Flashbang Grenade, Denies Responsibility

Courtney Price was at home on Wednesday taking care of her one-year-old son, Waylon, when they experienced a terrifying and traumatic altercation with local law enforcement. What should have been an ordinary day took a turn for the worse when SWAT officers broke into the home, searching for a suspect.

In the aftermath of the raid, it was revealed that law enforcement had targeted the wrong home, and tragically, their actions resulted in the baby sustaining injuries. The events that unfolded left the family shaken and seeking justice for Waylon’s suffering.

Price told RedState that she had been staying with her aunt Redia and her husband for one week before the incident occurred. She recounted her experience, describing how she stood petrified as the police burst into her aunt Redia’s home, throwing a flashbang grenade into the residence and breaking windows. She was feeding her son, who has a condition requiring the use of a G-tube because he cannot eat by mouth. A little after 2 pm, she “started hearing very loud pings on the door,” and went to see what was happening.

I got up and started walking towards the door, and all I could see was a bunch of police because we were in a split-level house, so I was at the top of the steps there. All I could see was a bunch of police, and they were already hitting the door. I was trying to get to the door to open it, but I didn’t want to get hit, so I just froze on the steps. They busted it down and busted the windows out all at the same time. I was standing there, I froze. I really wanted to run to my baby and just help him because I see all that smoke getting on him. There were handguns pointed at me [with the officers] saying, ‘Get down, put your hands up, come down here.’ So I went down. They grabbed me and took me outside, put me in handcuffs.

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Dexter Wade, buried without his family’s knowledge, had ID on him with his home address, lawyer says

An independent pathologist examining the newly exhumed body of Dexter Wade — the Mississippi man killed by police and buried in a pauper’s grave without his mother’s knowledge — found a wallet with a state identification card that included the address of a home he shared with his mother, the family’s lawyer said Thursday.

The pathologist, Frank Peretti, reported that he found the wallet in the front pocket of Wade’s jeans and that it contained his state identification card with his home address, along with a credit card and a health insurance card, attorney Ben Crump said in a statement.

Crump, who arranged for the independent autopsy, said he was sharing Peretti’s initial findings. NBC News has not seen the full autopsy report.

A representative of Crump’s confirmed that the home address was the same as his mother’s, Bettersten Wade. She reported her 37-year-old son missing on March 14, nine days after he was struck by a police cruiser as he was crossing a highway.

She got no information from police about what happened to him until Aug. 27, when she learned that he’d been killed less than an hour after he had left his house and buried in a pauper’s field owned by Hinds County.

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