Tag: police state

6yo Boy Arrested, Forced to Go to Court for Picking a Flower at His Bus Stop

“Should a child that believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy be making life-altering decisions?” asked New Hanover County Chief District Court Judge Jay Corpening. This is a question which has come up repeatedly in the state of North Carolina as dozens of children as young a six are being processed into the criminal justice system. The latest case involves a 6-year-old boy who was arrested and forced to go to court because he picked a flower while waiting for the bus.

Attorney Julie Boyer’s child client was on trial for injury to real property after he stopped to pick a flower from a yard near his bus stop, according to The Herald-Sun. Illustrating the ridiculous nature of sending a child to court for picking a flower is the fact that he had no idea what was going on.

Boyer said she had to give the boy some crayons and a coloring book during the proceedings because he did not have the mental capacity to understand what was happening to him.

“I asked him to color a picture,” she said, “so he did.”

This is a serious problem and speaks to the archaic nature of the law in the state of North Carolina. Currently, the state’s juvenile system has the lowest minimum age in the world to enter the court system — which is six.

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Children Fined $436, Required to Work it Off at $10/Hour for Missing Online Classes

A new report out of the Guardian exposes an insidious scheme by police and school officials to fine students who miss too many online classes. Tracy Higgins was one of these parents who was shocked when police showed up at her home to issue her teenage son a $439 fine for missing zoom meetings for class.

Higgins told the Guardian the reason for the online absences was due to faulty school technology, including a Chromebook that wouldn’t charge. But police and the school district reportedly did not care, so Higgins’s son was extorted.

Debra Pratt, another mother from the same district was also confronted by armed agents of the state who showed up at her home to extort her son for the same reason. Her son Jason racked up 28 unexcused absences online, including while he was battling the coronavirus.

“I think it’s ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous, especially during a pandemic when there’s just too many other factors that are playing into this,” Pratt told the Guardian.

Pratt told the Guardian her son struggled to learn remotely which is a situation millions of children found themselves in during the pandemic. Sadly, millions of children are still not in school and these situations continue to play out.

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Police Chief Allowed to Resign, Gets $72,000 in Benefits After Arrest for Sexual Assault

 In January, Marshfield Police Chief Rick Gramza was arrested and charged with three counts of misconduct in office, disorderly conduct, and fourth-degree sexual assault against a department employee. However, instead of facing a jury of his peers for these accusations, Gramza will be receiving tens of thousands of dollars and months of paid vacation.

According to reports, chief Gramza is accused of sexually assaulting a department employee on several occasions, as early as 2014 and as late as this past summer.

WSAW reports the Eau Claire detective sergeant investigating the case shared some specific instances the employee told him, including one in 2015, where she says she went into his office to talk about a promotion and then he sexually assaulted her.

“And made a statement similar to ‘this isn’t ever going to help you get a job,’ recalled Detective Sergeant Adam Taylor, from the Eau Claire Police Department.

The employee told Detective Sergeant Taylor she feared retaliation and when she reported concerns to human resources in 2015, that “it did not go well.”

After the accusations, originally surfaced, Gramza was placed on paid administrative leave in mid-August, but has continued to receive his salary and benefit package from the city, totaling just over $146,000. Now, he’ll be getting over $70,000 more, approaching nearly a quarter of a million dollars for roughly half a year — in which he never worked a single day.

Only a government employee could enjoy such benefits. Nowhere in the private sector would an alleged sexual predator be given a paid vacation for six months and allowed to retire with their full benefits.

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Predictive Policing: Weaponizing Data and Location

Often funded by federal grant programs and even operated out of federally-designated fusion centers, “predictive policing” software is showing up in more and more local law enforcement agencies. Learn what it is and how it’s used.

In practice, it’s little more than a dystopian pre-crime government credit score.

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Journalist Can’t Sue Rod Rosenstein for Alleged Illegal Spying on Her Family During Obama Admin Because of Qualified Immunity

Television journalist Sharyl Attkisson and her family sued former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein for illegally spying on them in violation of the Fourth Amendment and federal law during the Obama administration. A federal court dismissed the lawsuit earlier this week by finding that Rosenstein is entitled to qualified immunity.

The controversy has taken numerous paths through the legal system since the Attkissons claimed they discovered that the government had hacked into their computers and cellphones in 2014—first filing a lawsuit against former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, former U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, and numerous “John Doe” agents with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) based on alleged violations of the First and Fourth Amendments.

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