Tag: police state

NYPD Deploys Counter Terrorism Unit To Protect Wall Street in Response To Gamestop Protests

The Charging Bull statue in Manhattan’s Financial District has become the sight of protests amid a wider financial rebellion happening online. On Friday, a handful of activists were seen in Bowling Green Park, posing with the bull, and holding signs that said “Tax Wall Street Trades.” A thin band of tape was also placed on the statue’s head and rear end, featuring slogans like “Hold the line” and “WSB” — both allusions to the GameStop insurrection against hedge funds organized by Reddit’s “Wall Street Bets” community. A similar fate befell the new Fearless Girl statue, which faces the New York Stock Exchange building. Both the bull and the girl are meant to symbolize the power, bravery and daring of the city’s financial traders.

In response, the New York Police Department (NYPD) mobilized its anti-terrorism unit, sending masked, blad clad police officers wearing armor and carrying assault rifles to protect and secure the area. “The Stock Market has had an interesting week to say the least. We are happy to report that the Wall Street Charging Bull is secure and continues to preside over Bowling Green for the foreseeable future,” it announced. The bull was covered in a blue tarp to prevent further vandalism.

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Washington Examiner: Capitol Protesters Are ‘Terrorists’ Like Al Qaeda Who Must Be ‘Ruthlessly Hunted Down’

The Washington Examiner ran a hysterical column on Monday from “former” CIA officer Kevin Carroll calling for Americans who took part in the mostly peaceful protests at the Capitol to be “ruthlessly hunted down” and treated like Al Qaeda terrorists.

From The Washington Examiner, “How to fix our domestic terrorist problem”:

Democrats such as Attorney General-designate Merrick Garland and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer should use their executive and legislative power over the next 23 months to do the following five important things.

First, bring the heaviest felony charges possible on as many participants in the insurrection as the Justice Department can identify and believes it can confidently convict. We ruthlessly hunted down foreign terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and must do the same to their domestic equivalents. […]

Second, make fire and police departments that receive federal grants have their members sign commitments not to engage in acts to overthrow the government. Prosecute any who subsequently violate their oaths. We could also cut or suspend federal funding to departments that fail to introduce these measures. […]

Third, do not worry about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Rather than ban extremist chatter through government censorship or private de-platforming, use radical chat rooms as honeypots, as FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Forces have done with violent, radicalized Islamists since 2001. […]

Fourth, use the supremacy of federal law to ban “militias” beyond the National Guard. […]

Fifth, add domestic terrorism as a predicate to the material support for terrorism statute, including its civil liability provisions. This will provide new means of successful prosecutions and gradually increased deterrence against domestic terrorists. […]

Kevin Carroll served as senior counselor to the secretary of homeland security and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and as a CIA and Army officer in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen.

Carroll’s bio says he worked for a branch of The Lincoln Project.

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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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CDC—No Longer Constrained By Trump—Issues Order That Makes Not Wearing A Mask On Public Transportation A Federal Crime

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, no longer restricted by the Trump administration, issued an extensive federal public health order late Friday requiring all individuals to wear masks over their mouth and nose on nearly all forms of public transportation and private ride-sharing services—and makes refusal to wear a face-covering a violation of federal law.

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12yo Girl Finds Hidden Camera Recording Her in Shower—It Belonged to a Cop

Imagine for a moment that you are a 12-year-old girl about to get in the shower only to look up and find a camera spying on you in the bathroom. Your first thought would likely be fear, followed by anger, followed by the desire to hold the person accountable by going to the police. For one young girl in Utah, that is exactly what happened. However, it was not as easy to go to the police afterward as the person who allegedly put the camera in her bathroom — was a cop.

A top cop with the Weber County Sheriff’s Office was arrested last Wednesday and charged with utterly disturbing crimes for spying on the little girl. Marc Swain, 47, is a crime scene investigator with the sheriff’s office who has found himself on the other side of the law after his arrest last week on multiple counts of voyeurism and sexual exploitation of a minor.

Swain is accused of hiding a recording device in a bathroom used by a 12-year-old girl. The girl told her parents about the camera after she noticed a camera lens in various places moving around the bathroom every time she showered.

Before he was arrested, when Swain was questioned by someone who knows the girl, he reportedly told them that he accidentally left a “flash drive” in the bathroom that including a camera. Apparently, he “accidentally” left it in the bathroom — repeatedly and in different locations.

Because the alleged crimes took place in the county in which Swain is a cop, the Layton City Police Department was called in to conduct the investigation to prevent the conflict of interest.

Once the investigation was launched, Swain quickly caved to the pressure and admitted what he had been doing.

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Justice Department Nominee Lisa Monaco Prosecuted Black Man Sentenced To 27 Years In Prison For Selling $20 Worth Of Drugs

President Joe Biden’s nominee to serve as deputy attorney general helped prosecute a black man who was sentenced to 27 years in prison for selling $20 worth of heroin to an undercover police officer. The government dropped charges against the man’s co-defendant as part of a plea deal, court records show.

Lisa Monaco, who Biden tapped for the Justice Department position, was one of the assistant U.S. attorneys who prosecuted a case in 2003 against Reginald C. Steward, a Washington, D.C. man who was charged following an undercover drug bust.

Steward was arrested in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 20, 2002 and was charged with unlawful distribution of heroin, according to court records.

He was convicted at a jury trial on April 16, 2003, and was sentenced to 27 years in prison. An appeals court in 2007 upheld Steward’s conviction, but noted that the evidence presented against him at trial wasn’t “overwhelming.”

But Steward’s co-defendant, who physically conducted the drug exchange with the undercover police officer, had his charges dropped after he pleaded guilty to drug possession in another case. Court records for the man, Bobby Praylow, show that he received a 12-month jail sentence.

Monaco, whose most recent government position was as homeland security adviser to then-President Barack Obama, disclosed her work on Steward’s case in her written responses to questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of her confirmation process to the Justice Department position.

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New Gun Control Bill Would Create Public Registry Of Firearms

Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), is proposing legislation which would create an Orwellian database of gun owners.

Jackson-Lee filed H.R. 127 as a placeholder bill earlier this year, but the text was updated on Jan. 28. Once again restorting to one of the favored tactics of the left — “waving the bloody shirt — “The Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act,” is named after an exchange student murdered in a mass shooting in Texas, and would require the registration of all firearms in the United States.

Retroactively.

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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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Tennessee Cops Arrest Man For Posting Photoshopped Picture of Men Urinating on Dead Officer’s Grave

Tennessee law enforcement arrested a man last week for posting a photoshopped picture of two men urinating on a dead police officer’s grave.

The Dickson County Sheriff’s Office, following an investigation by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), arrested and charged Joshua Garton with harassment after Garton posted a picture to Facebook that appeared to show two men desecrating the tombstone of Sgt. Daniel Baker, who was shot and killed on duty in 2018. Garton was held on a $76,000 bond.

“Agents subsequently visited Baker’s gravesite this morning and determined the photograph was digitally manufactured,” a TBI press release says. The agency launched the investigation at the request of 23rd District Attorney General Ray Crouch.

While the picture was in poor taste, constitutional experts say law enforcement violated Garton’s First Amendment rights by arresting him for the image.

“The First Amendment clearly and unmistakably protects this man’s right to post an offensive photo about a police officer,” says Daniel Horwitz, a Nashville civil rights attorney. “The only people who broke the law here were the police officers and TBI agents who participated in this flagrantly unconstitutional arrest.”

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Capitol Police Chief: U.S. Capitol Needs ‘Permanent’ Wall to Protect Congress

The United States Capitol needs a “permanent” security wall around it to protect members of Congress, Acting U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) Chief Yogananda Pittman says.

In a statement on Thursday, Pittman said the security at the Capitol building must include a “permanent fencing” barrier — a similar barrier to the one halted by President Joe Biden’s administration at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“As I noted earlier this week, even before September 11, 2001, security experts argued that more needed to be done to protect the U.S. Capitol,” Pittman said in a statement. “In fact, a 2006 security assessment specifically recommended the installation of a permanent perimeter fence around the Capitol.”

“In light of recent events, I can unequivocally say that vast improvements to the physical security infrastructure must be made to include permanent fencing, and the availability of ready, back-up forces in close proximity to the Capitol,” Pittman continued.

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