Judge Scolds Officer

FORT WAYNE, Ind. - As the trial of suspended Indianapolis Police Officer David Bisard continues in its second week, Wednesday's testimony is expected to focus on DNA evidence linked to the deadly crash.
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UPDATE: 10:14 a.m.: It was revealed in court that a member of Metro police has been attending the trial and sending daily summaries of testimony to others in the department, including some on the witness list.
"That's about as bad as anything I've heard about the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. But I've heard a lot of bad things about the IMPD," Judge John Surbeck said.
Major Greg Bieberich, who has been sending the notes, was put under oath and told to stop disseminating the information.
"You need to realize that this must stop immediately," Surbeck told Bieberich.
Bieberich responded, "Yes, sir."

Previous Report
The prosecution is getting close to resting its case, as the David Bisard trial continues Wednesday morning.
Jurors in the case against the suspended Indianapolis Metro Police officer heard more evidence Tuesday.
Officer John Koers testified that Bisard was assisting him on a call that day. When Bisard asked him if it was an emergency Koers said "no". Koers also testified that he saw no signs that would indicate Bisard was drunk.
Prosecutors say Bisard was driving 76 mph before the crash.

Suspended cop charged with having sex with second girl.victim was 14 years old

Police say Cody Lee Smith’s second victim was 14 years old

WYOMING — Less than two weeks after a suspended borough police officer faced charges for allegedly having sex with a 15-year-old girl, he was in court again Monday for charges he had sex with another girl.

State police charged Cody Lee Smith with four felony counts, including statutory rape and corruption of minors.

He had been charged Oct. 9 with misdemeanor counts of corruption of minors when state police alleged he had sex at least three times with a 15-year-old and supplied alcohol for minors in June of this year.

According to a state police affidavit:

Smith met his second victim, a 14-year-old girl, in 2012 at the Luzerne County Fair through mutual friends.

He sent messages to her using Facebook and they began to see each other shortly after. Smith was 20 years old at the time. The girl said Smith knew just how old she was.

The girl offered her story to state police Oct. 11, two days after the suspended officer’s arraignment.

Smith told her he was in a gang and flaunted a tattoo on his arm. He told her he worked for Verizon, and the girl said she knew he was 19 or 20 years old.

Because he was so much older, Smith insisted the girl should keep their relationship secret from her friends and her mother, state police said.

During each of their sexual encounters, the victim said, Smith picked her up at home without her mother’s knowledge and they went to his house, where he lived with his mother, state police said.

This happened at least 10 different times, in his Wyoming home and once when he took her to a hotel in the Poconos, state police said. The encounters happened between September of 2012 and February of 2013.

Wyoming Mayor Robert Boyer suspended Smith without pay when Smith was first charged Oct. 9. Smith was sworn in as an part-time officer April 9.

He is free on $30,000 bail posted Monday by a bail bondsman. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Oct. 30 before District Judge Joseph Carmody.

Berthoud police officer at center of domestic violence scandal arrested

BERTHOUD, Colo. — A Berthoud Police officer who was suspended after his ex-girlfriend claims she sent a video of him striking a child to law enforcement has been arrested.
In a four page affidavit, the Larimer County District Attorney says the man in the video is Officer Jeremy Yachik and they’ve charged him with four counts of child abuse and one count of  false imprisonment.
Jeremy Yachik, 35, was arrested at his home in Loveland Wednesday.

The accuser’s video tape was first seen on FOX31 Denver News earlier this month.
On September 24, Loveland Police received an email outlining child abuse allegations that Yachik had physically abused a juvenile over the last several months.

Loveland Police conducted an investigation and were granted an arrest warrant for Yachik on Tuesday. He was arrested Wednesday and taken to the Loveland Police Department where he posted bond and was later released.
A woman who says the officer is her ex-boyfriend sent the video to law enforcement officials and claims they did nothing. As a result, the police chief in Berthoud was also on leave.
In addition to the alleged criminal acts seen in the video, the affidavit for Yachik’s arrest describes alleged past crimes.

It states, “[the victim] reports having her hands bound to her back with plastic zip ties and being secluded in the laundry room of the home.” It also refers to the victim being “forced to eat ghost pepper sauce,” and “slammed [the victim’s head into the wall].”
The affidavit says police interviewed Jeremy Yachik and they wrote, “Jeremy admits he’s the one depicted in the video and admitted to the acts disclosed by the victim.”
It also details more trouble for the Berthoud police department. The question is whether the chief ignored the video when he received it in April.
The affidavit states, “In Chief Johnson’s office, evidence was collected that corroborated [the victim's] account of attempting to report this incident to [the Chief].”
Court documents in a separate case detailed more information about the accuser and the officer who is suspended. The paperwork is about a domestic violence incident that happened in March.
People in Berthoud who defend the officer say it’s that incident that led to the release of the video tape.
The court documents say Loveland police were called to the couple’s home when the Berthoud officer called to complain that his now ex-girlfriend assaulted him and was upstairs threatening suicide.
One month after the woman was charged with domestic violence, she says she sent the video that allegedly shows the officer hitting and kicking his child to the Berthoud police chief. She now accuses him of a cover up.
When police arrived at the home that day in March, investigating officers noted the man had “…Dried blood and scratches on the right side of his face.”
They also said the couple’s child had “evidence of a yellowish mark… that could have been from an old bruise.”
FOX31 Denver verified the child referred to in the court documents was not the alleged victim in the video sent to Berthoud police.
One resident we spoke to was surprised about the allegations against the officer.
Other court documents FOX31 Denver uncovered show information about an alleged fight the suspended officer had with another Berthoud officer in 2011.
The report says, “[The officer] displays threatening and violent behavior towards officers.”
Once incident is described where “[the officer] came within five inches of another officer’s face. His fists were clenched.” The writer goes on, “In all my years in law enforcement, I have never seen this type of aggressive action from one officer to another.”
The accuser in the current case faces three separate counts of domestic violence for the incident in March. They include assault and obstruction of telephone service.
She is scheduled to go on trial in December.

Quincy officer suspended for lying about reasons for traffic stop

QUINCY, Washington — A Quincy police officer accused of lying about the reasons for pulling over a driver was suspended for 10 days.
The Wenatchee World reports (http://bit.ly/1bT3Hw5) Chief Greg Meinzer wanted to fire Officer David Andersen over the incident last November but agreed to the suspension.
Andersen denied lying. The Grant County prosecutor said there wasn't enough evidence for a charge of official misconduct.
Information about the suspension was obtained by the Wenatchee newspaper through a public records request.
Andersen said reasons for stopping the car including having the license obscured by a trailer hitch and a passenger not wearing a seat belt. Investigators said the license plate was not obstructed and tinted windows made it difficult to see a passenger

Cop Fired

DANE REISTER—the Portland cop facing criminal charges over a 2011 shotgun ammo mix-up that nearly killed a man—has finally been fired from the police bureau, Chief Mike Reese announced last week in a statement both brief and apologetic.

"This has been a long and thorough investigation, which had complexities due to the pending criminal charges," Reese said in prepared remarks. "The events of June 30 devastated the lives of those involved, but we hope that this action will bring some sense of closure."
The police bureau said Reister violated two directives: 315.30, which requires a minimum "sufficient competency" for police work, and 1050.00, which forbids officers from loading live rounds into a less-lethal gun.According to court files, Reister had a similar ammo mix-up during a training exercise several years ago.
The police bureau—unlike in other discipline cases—has declined to release documents that might shed more light on Reese's decision, citing exemptions in public records law for personnel files.
The Mercury and the Oregonian have both appealed the denial. The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office, which normally would adjudicate such a dispute, has combined the two newspapers' appeals and is asking its Clackamas County counterparts to handle it, in light of the ongoing criminal case.
In any case, the dismissal was not unexpected.

It came six months after the city agreed to pay $2.3 million—a record amount—in a federal suit filed by the man Reister shot, William Kyle Monroe. Monroe's attorneys, as part of their suit, had demanded Reister's dismissal.
And, the day after the incident, Reese and then-Mayor Sam Adams apologized for the shooting and the lapses that had led to it, calling it a "terrible mistake."
"We don't know how it occurred, but we know it should not happen," Reese said on July 1, 2011. "It is not a part of our training protocol."
Reister, clutching his bright-orange beanbag shotgun, had been confronting an unarmed man in a mental health crisis, 20-year-old Monroe, near a park in Southwest Portland on June 30, 2011.
Monroe, after emptying his pockets, had set off to run away. Reister then fired what he thought were beanbag rounds.
But Reister had mistakenly loaded the gun with live ammunition—after commingling the two types of rounds, marked with different colors, in his duty bag. (The police bureau has since explicitly banned this practice.)
It wasn't until Reister saw all the blood that he realized what he'd done, court files show. Monroe was shot up all through his legs and lower body and might have bled out if he hadn't been so close to a hospital, his attorneys wrote this year. Monroe's injuries are both crippling and permanent.
Reister has since pleaded not guilty to assault charges—an unprecedented indictment by a Multnomah County grand jury. Prosecutors also tried to charge Reister with "negligent wounding," an offense typically associated with hunting, not police work. That charge has been caught up in appellate court.
The dismissal could excuse the city from paying Reister's legal bills in that criminal case, whenever it wraps up. The city's contract with the Portland Police Association (PPA) requires it to pay up when officers, because of their official duties, face criminal charges. But dismissal over the conduct that led to the charges—provided the union doesn't reverse it—offers an escape hatch.
Reister's attorney, Janet Hoffman, hasn't returned messages seeking comment. She did tell the Oregonian, at least, that a grievance was expected. That decision, however, is up to the PPA's executive board. PPA President Daryl Turner declined to comment.
"We're not going to say anything right now," he told the Mercury, citing the ongoing criminal case.
Reister's dismissal marks the second time Reese has fired a cop in a use-of-force case. Reese fired Ron Frashour in 2010 for shooting and killing Aaron Campbell (although an arbitrator later gave Frashour his job back). It's also the first major police discipline under Mayor Charlie Hales.
Said the mayor, in a statement: "This is an appropriate ending to a very sad story."

City preps for lawsuit by woman accidentally shot by police

An attorney representing a woman accidentally shot by Daytona Beach police has asked for the city’s insurance limits, but stopped short of saying whether a lawsuit was forthcoming.t. Their target was a man they say was going to stab Johnson. Her attorney, Trakina L. Graham of Orlando, sent a letter to the city asking for its insurance information

Katrina Tatisha Johnson, 37, was shot in the arm by police in a September domestic violence incident. Their target was a man they say was going to stab Johnson. Her attorney, Trakina L. Graham of Orlando, sent a letter to the city asking for its insurance information.

“At this point we are still investigating this claim,” Graham said Wednesday in a phone interview. “We are trying to gather information. No one is saying that there is a lawsuit that’s going to be filed.”

In response to the letter, Deputy City Attorney Robert Jagger sent a memo to Police Chief Mike Chitwood to preserve records.

“Neither the City nor any of its employees have been sued, but the City has been apprised of claims that make it reasonably probable that litigation may be instituted,” according to the memo from Jagger dated Oct. 8.

Jagger’s “Internal Pre-Litigation Hold Memorandum” said that Chitwood should “err on the side of preservation” regardless of city record retention policies.

“Because no lawsuit has actually been filed, it is difficult at this time to narrow the scope of what categories and types of documents and electronic information must be retained,” Jagger wrote.

Chitwood declined comment.

Johnson was shot once in the arm on Sept. 25, Chitwood said on the day of the incident. Officers were called to the home on the 800 block of Magnolia Avenue where several people screamed that “He’s gonna kill her!” Chitwood said. 

Man accidentally shot by officer files lawsuit

A man is suing a Lima police officer who accidentally shot him while shooting at dogs last year.

Ronald Keller filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Allen County Common Pleas Court seeking more than $25,000 in damages. The lawsuit names Officer Frank Vaccaro as the only defendant.

The lawsuit said Vaccaro responded to the 800 block of South Elizabeth Street to assist in the capture of two pit bull/Staffordshire terriers on June 19, 2012. The dog warden was on scene already and was unable to capture the dogs.

Vaccaro pulled his rifle and fired on the dogs knowing pedestrians were in the immediate area, the lawsuit said.

Keller was walking nearby and was struck in the right hand by one of the bullets Vaccaro fired, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit accuses Vaccaro of acting with conscious disregard to a known or obvious risk to Keller that was unreasonable under the circumstances. It further said Vaccaro failed to exercise proper care when firing the weapon.

Keller suffered permanent injuries, pain, emotional injuries and had $32,766 in medical expenses with additional expenses expected. He also had lost wages and a loss of earning capacity, the lawsuit said.

Lima Law Director Tony Geiger defended Vaccaro.

“The lawsuit contends the officer acted in a reckless manner. The City disagrees with that. The officer was confronted with a vicious pit bull and shot the dog to protect the public,” Geiger said.