Will somebody please give Janickey some work to do…….: Willsomebody please give Janickey some work to do…...

Will somebody please give Janickey some work to do…….: Willsomebody please give Janickey some work to do…...: Will somebody please give Janickey some work to do…………. Fairfax police prepare for new urbanized Tysons Corner (Or “Angling for...

..and then the cops showed up

Amity cop seeks dismissal of shoplifting charges

NORRISTOWN – A former Berks County police officer accused of shoplifting more than $300 in groceries from a West Pottsgrove store wants a judge to dismiss those charges, but a hearing on his request was postponed in Montgomery County Court.
In court papers filed by Sager, Oesterling, of Amity Township, asked a judge to dismiss the charges and to re-examine the previous decision by a district court judge, who ordered Oesterling to stand trial.
Senior Judge Kent Albright was scheduled to hold a hearing on the request on Tuesday but Oesterling, a 12-year veteran corporal of the police force who was fired by Amity Township supervisors last week, left the courthouse without a resolution when the hearing was postponed.
Oesterling potentially faces two to four years in prison if convicted of the charges. He was charged by West Pottsgrove police in July in connection with two alleged incidents of retail theft and initially was suspended from the Amity police force without pay. However, last week, the township supervisors unanimously voted to fire him.
With the charges, authorities alleged Oesterling walked out of the Upland Square Giant on both June 12 and June 18 without paying for merchandise he placed into blue, reusable shopping bags in the shopping cart he was pushing.
According to a criminal complaint, a loss prevention officer with Giant observed a man leave the store on June 12 without paying for six items worth $38.04 in the reusable bags.
The loss prevention officer used store surveillance footage to confirm what the items were and that the man bypassed all points of sale, according to the criminal complaint. In the footage, the suspect was observed pushing a shopping cart with a child’s car attachment on the front and three small children riding on the cart in different positions, according to court papers.
Following that incident, the loss prevention officer printed photos of the man and “placed them in the office for review by other loss prevention officers,” according to the criminal complaint filed by West Pottsgrove Police Officer Joseph Ray Buchert.
Almost a week later, on June 18, another loss prevention officer observed a man, matching the description of the person captured in the June 12 photos enter the store. The man was pushing a cart with the same three children in the same type of cart with blue reusable grocery bags, court papers alleged.
The loss prevention officer followed the man, later identified as Oesterling, around the store as he allegedly placed items into the reusable bags.
After moving toward the service desk, “the defendant then bypassed all points of sale and then exited the store,” the loss prevention officer told police, according to authorities.
The loss prevention officer stopped Oesterling in the store vestibule, where “the defendant then identified himself as a ‘cop,’” according to the complaint.

West Pottsgrove Police responded and the loss prevention officer alleged there were 53 store items totaling $296.35 in Oesterling’s possession. 

Galion suspends police officer

GALION — The Galion Police Department has suspended Officer John Bourne for 80 hours for negligently handling evidence in a case Aug. 4, according to police Chief Brian C. Saterfield.

Bourne will receive 40 hours of unpaid suspension and he will have 40 hours of his vacation time bank removed as part of the suspension.

Bourne last week pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty, a fourth-degree misdemeanor, in Crawford County Municipal Court.

The charge reads in part that Bourne “did negligently fail to perform a lawful duty in a criminal case or proceeding” between Aug. 4 and Aug. 6. He received a suspended 30-day jail sentence, was placed on non-reporting probation and ordered to pay court costs.

Bourne was accused of stealing money from a resident during an arrest, and has been on paid administrative leave since Aug. 14. He is scheduled to return to his normal work shift Friday.

On Aug. 4, Bourne and his partner, Officer Andrew Knee, went to a residence in the 300 block of Grove Avenue looking for a man wanted on a warrant. They contacted a 42-year-old man who was acting suspiciously, according to the police report.

When Bourne approached the man, he became “fidgety,” ran inside and admitted flushing an eighth of an ounce of marijuana down the toilet, police said.

Bourne arrested the man on charges of tampering with evidence and obstructing official business and seized $731 from him.

The next day, the Crawford County Prosecutor’s Office said it would not be charging the man and advised police to release him and return his property. Only $599 was in the evidence envelope.

Florida Cop Kills Man By Running Him Over With His Car, Will Not Be Charged

BY NICOLE FLATOW ON SEPTEMBER 24, 2013 AT 12:02 PM

New video released by the family of a man killed by police in DeLand, Fla., shows how an officer ran him over with his car as he ran through a vegetable garden. The family is calling for an independent investigation by state and federal agencies, after a grand jury decision last week not to file criminal charges against officer James Harris.

Marlon Brown, who was 38 when he died in May, was being pulled over for an alleged seatbelt violation when he got out of the car and started running. Officers were following him in a police car when Harris sped to the scene from behind. The released video shows Harris’ car speeding toward Brown — passing the other police car by. When Brown tripped and fell, and the police car kept going.
Watch it:



An internal police investigation found that Harris violated the Department’s chase policy, and he was fired. But the grand jury found there was not enough evidence to criminally prosecute Harris for vehicular homicide. Brown’s family points out that the jury had not seen video of the incident, and questions the testimony of the medical examiner, Shiping Bao, who was fired after his testimony in Trayvon Martin’s case. Bao said the car didn’t strike Brown and that Brown had no broken bones, but that he was pinned underneath the car and suffocated.

“This was an execution in a vegetable garden,” the Brown family attorney, Benjamin Crump, said upon release of the video. “The officer came at Marlon with such velocity that … he could not have stopped.” Crump was also the attorney for Trayvon Martin’s family.
Prosecutors chose to bring the case before a grand jury, which decides in secret whether an individual should be charged. But that was not their only option. Prosecutors could have also made their own unilateral decision, or used a coroner’s inquest — a public hearing at which evidence is presented without the shroud of a grand jury proceeding.
A grand jury, like other juries, is comprised of community members, who could have been biased if they had known that Brown had a criminal history. (Brown is being described in some news coverage as a “known felon.”) Under the rules of evidence applicable to a trial, the prior convictions of a defendant or a victim are typically not admissible to prove a person’s character because of this potential for bias, although they may be admissible to prove other elements of the case. Grand juries, however, are subject to relaxed rules of evidence, and there is no mechanism for enforcing those rules, as no judge or defense attorney is present to object. George R. “Bob” Dekle, a former prosecutor who leads the University of Florida law school’s criminal prosecution clinic, told ThinkProgress he likely would not have considered Brown’s prior convictions relevant and would not have submitted them to a grand jury. He acknowledged, however, that grand jurors frequently ask the prosecutor about prior convictions. He would tell them it is not relevant but would offer to provide the information if they insist on knowing it, in order to “maintain a working relationship with the grand jury.”
Dekle also told the Daytona Beach News-Journal that a prosecution for vehicular homicide would be “iffy” and that the use of a grand jury would give a prosecutor an indication of how a jury was likely to decide. Others interviewed by the newspaper said prosecutors should have used a coroner’s inquest instead, to ensure public accountability.
The city has already paid Brown’s family $550,000 in exchange for their agreement not to further pursue civil litigation.