At some point, America, we’ll need to require minimum IQ standards for cops and here’s why;

Police Officer Charged With DWI After Shooting Friend In Leg

Cop accidentally shoots himself in leg on South Side

Delaware officer accidentally shoots self

Glasgow officer sues gun store after accidentally shooting off finger

Nassau police recruit accidentally shoots himself in leg during training, officials say

Off-duty officer accidentally shoots roommate

Police Officer Charged With DWI After Shooting Friend In Leg

Jesse Urban reported that his gun accidentally discharged, Ocean County Prosecutor's Office says.

By Patricia A. Miller (Patch Staff)January 16, 2015 at 7:27pm

A police officer was charged with driving under the influence after he shot and wounded a friend in the leg early Friday in Lacey Township, Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph D. Coronato said.

The incident happened shortly before 6 a.m. on Friday, when Pine Beach Police Officer Jesse Urban made a 911 call to report the his 23-year-old friend had been accidentally shot in the leg, Coronato said.

Lacey Township police responded to the parking lot of the 7-11 on Main Street and found the victim - who is from Forked River - with a gunshot wound to the leg. The victim was taken to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, Coronato said.

Pine Beach Police Chief Reese Fisher has suspended the officer without pay after he called 911 to report his gun accidentally discharged.

The exact circumstances surrounding the shooting are under investigation. Urban, 23, was charged with driving under the influence, the prosecutor said.

“Evidence of alcohol involvement and the alleged operation of a motor vehicle have brought a charge of driving under the influence against Urban,” Coronato said.

The victim suffered non-life threatening injuries and is reportedly undergoing surgery at Jersey Shore, he said.

Fisher suspended Urban without pay pending the results of the investigation. The investigation is being conducted by the Ocean County Prosecutors Office, in conjunction with the Pine Beach and Lacey Township police departments.

Cop accidentally shoots himself in leg on South Side

By Deanese Williams-Harris

 A Chicago police officer accidentally shot himself in the leg Friday evening during an investigation in the city's Englewood neighborhood, police said.Preliminary information indicated that at about 6:30 p.m., the officer was conducting a field investigation on the 5700 block of South Peoria Street when he accidentally discharged his weapon, said Police News Affairs Officer Thomas Sweeney. The officer, who suffered a leg wound, was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn where he was listed in good condition, said Sweeney. No other details were available.

Delaware officer accidentally shoots self

NEW CASTLE, Del. (WPVI) --

A New Castle County police officer is recovering after he accidentally shot himself on the job Wednesday morning.

It happened during a raid on a house in the unit block of Freedom Court just after 11:30.

Police say the officer wasn't seriously hurt.

They have yet to provide any information on why they were raiding the house in the first place.

We do know, however, that several people were taken into custody.

Glasgow officer sues gun store after accidentally shooting off finger

By: WKYT NEWS STAFF

GLASGOW, Ky. (WBKO) - A former Glasgow police officer who accidentally shot off his finger has filed a lawsuit against the gun store, saying an employee handed him the gun without checking to see if it was loaded.

According to a report from WBKO, an affiliate of WKYT, a civil lawsuit was filed Friday by former Glasgow police officer Darrell Smith.

In March, Smith went into Barren Outdoors and asked to see a .380 caliber handgun, which was under the counter. Smith, who was examining the gun, cocked it and apparently did not know the gun was loaded. The gun fired, shooting off part of his index finger, the WBKO report says.

The lawsuit says the Barren Outdoors employee did not do a safety check on the gun before handing it to Smith.

Smith's attorney, Alan Simpson, said Smith lost his job with the police department after the incident; the lawsuit was filed to make up for his lost income.

"He's permanently disfigured,” Simpson told WBKO. “He went through a lot of pain and suffering. He's gone through several surgeries. He's got a lot of medical bills that have to be paid. It ended his career and he's going to have a lot of lost income."

Officials with Barren Outdoors declined WBKO’s requests for comment.

Nassau police recruit accidentally shoots himself in leg during training, officials say

A Nassau County Police Department recruit accidentally shot himself, "piercing" his thigh and calf during a training session at the county-owned shooting range in Uniondale, police said.  A Nassau County Police Department recruit accidentally shot himself Wednesday, "piercing" his thigh and calf during a training session at the county-owned shooting range in Uniondale, police said. The police recruit, whose name and age were withheld by the department, was attending firearms training at the Nassau County Rifle & Pistol Range

Off-duty officer accidentally shoots roommate

BRANDON, Miss. —A Madison police officer is on leave while an investigation into a shooting is underway.

Police said Officer Zachery Creel, who was off-duty at the time, accidentally shot his roommate Hunter Flynt last week at a home off McLaurin Road in Brandon.

Investigators said Creel told them he was showing Flynt his new gun when it went off.

Madison police officials said Creel is on paid administrative leave.

Flynt was last listed in fair condition at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

Man accidentally shot by Toledo police officer

Rookie on restricted duty after incident in Sylvania Thursday

BLADE STAFF

A rookie Toledo police officer is on restricted duty after accidentally shooting a friend.

The officer, Michael Ellerbrock, 25, is now working in records, said Toledo police Chief George Kral. He did not comment further, citing the department's contract and a pending Internal Affairs investigation.

Wounded in the shooting was Steven Kurtz, 23, of Pemberville. He was shot when the officer was cleaning a 9 mm Sig Sauer pistol when the gun fired at about 11:20 p.m. Thursday in the 5300 block of Silvertown Drive in Sylvania, according to Sylvania police. The officer and Mr. Kurtz are friends, police said.

Mr. Kurtz was shot in his “upper chest area,” said Sylvania police Chief William Rhodus. The victim was taken to ProMedica Toledo Hospital for treatment; on Monday, Mr. Krutz was listed in fair condition, a hospital spokesman said.

Sylvania police did not file charges and consider the case closed because investigators ruled the shooting was accidental, Chief Rhodus said.

Sylvania officers who responded to the scene were notified that Officer Ellerbrock was employed by the Toledo Police Department. Officer Ellerbrock graduated from the police academy in April.

Cops shoot dogs because they can get away with it, it’s that simple, they’re easy prey.

City denies family’s claim for vet bills after police shoot dog

Midlothian Police Chief Apologizes for Threatening to Kill Police Dog

Tuckerton officer faces additional charges in dog attack

Portland to pay $47,500 to settle battery lawsuit filed by man bit by police dog

City denies family’s claim for vet bills after police shoot dog

A Kalihi family whose dog was shot by a Honolulu police officer has been denied a claim asking the city to pay the dog’s vet bills.

Three officers were at the Butac family home responding to a call when their dog, Bruce, lunged at an officer, who then fired a shot at the dog’s chest.

The family was not allowed to take Bruce to the vet for an hour because officers said they had to finish the investigation. The family filed a claim with the city to pay the vet bills of $1600. But the city denied it saying HPD did nothing improper.

“Why did they make us wait for so long in order to get immediate medical attention I mean that in itself to me is improper if anything to me it’s inhumane.,” said dog owner Kristen Butac.

“It seemed a little drastic firing a gun?” KHON2 asked.

“Yeah it did seem a little drastic to me,” Butac said.

The family says the officer could have used a baton or a Taser to keep the dog from attacking.

Midlothian Police Chief Apologizes for Threatening to Kill Police Dog

Police Chief Harold Kaufman was recorded saying he might have to shoot and kill the dog, Biko, after the former K-9 officer quit his job

A suburban Chicago police chief has apologized for making a comment about shooting and killing the department's police dog, Biko.

Harold Kaufman, the Midlothian police chief, was recorded talking to an Oak Forest police dispatcher and saying, "Our K-9 officer just came in and quit on me, so now I'm going to be stuck with either going and shooting the dog and killing it or finding somewhere to put it."

Kaufman said that because Biko is an active police dog, he must be placed with a proper handler and cannot simply be taken in as a pet.

After the recording went public, Kaufman apologized at the Midlothian village board meeting Wednesday night. Kaufman's apology was recorded by a Midlothian resident, who posted the video to YouTube. Midlothian Clerk Michael Kohlstedt confirmed that the video shows Wednesday's meeting.

"My statement about shooting Biko was admittedly inappropriate and unprofessional," Kaufman said at the meeting. "I assure you that at no time did I actually intend to shoot Biko or harm him in any way."

Kaufman said that he would not make an excuse for his statement about Biko, who is a Belgian Malinois, according to the Orland Park Patch.

"As the head of the police depratment I recognize that I need to accept responsibility for my actions and move forward accordingly," Kaufman said.

Jon Ryczek, the K-9 officer who left his job with the department, said he did not believe Kaufman's apology was sincere.

"It was forced, he didn't even stand up, look anyone in the eye and address them," Ryczek said in an email. "... It's a shame for the residents who have to deal with that."

Biko has since been placed with a new handler in the Midlothian police department who is training with the dog, Kaufman said.

Tuckerton officer faces additional charges in dog attack

Steph Solis,

 Tuckerton Borough, K-9 officer Justin Cherry is accused of letting police dog, “Gunner”, loose on a a Barnegat woman.

A Tuckerton police officer was indicted Tuesday on charges that he let his K-9 dog "Gunner" attack a 58-year-old Barnegat woman and then falsified the arrest record to cover his action.

The grand jury charged Justin M. Cherry, 32, with false swearing, tampering with public records and hindering his own apprehension, in addition to second-degree official misconduct and third-degree aggravated assault charges in the attack on Wendy Tucker on Jan. 29, according to a statement from the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.

Cherry, a nine-year veteran at the time of the incident, earned a salary of $77,120 in 2013, according to pension records. He is currently suspended from the force without pay.

The indictment charges that he released his German Shepherd, named Gunner, and allowed the canine to attack Tucker after she had already been apprehended by two Barnegat officers. According to the indictment, Cherry then falsified records and swore out an affidavit for Tucker's arrest containing false information.

Cherry was initially arrested on charges of official misconduct and aggravated assault April 9. He was released after posting $15,000 bail.

On the day of the incident, Cherry and another Tuckerton officer were called to a private home on the allegation that Tucker was an unwelcome guest at that home. Tucker agreed to leave the residence, but police later discovered that she was driving a car even though she was on the suspended drivers list.

Tuckerton police asked Tucker to take the bus home from the residents and she agreed.

Several minutes later, though, police said they saw her driving a vehicle. Cherry tried to get her to stop, but she refused. She was later stopped by Barnegat police officers, who were alerted of the pursuit, according to authorities.

That's when the indictment charges that Cherry arrived and sicced Gunner on the woman.

The dog attack case was involved in a lawsuit filed by open government activists against the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.

Judge Vincent J. Grasso ruled that law-enforcement must make police dash-cam videos available to citizens if requested under the Open Public Records Act.

Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph D. Coronato vowed to appeal the ruling by Superior Court Judge Vincent J. Grasso.

Tucker was initially charged with driving with a suspended license and third degree eluding. The eluding charge has been dismissed. Tucker could not be reached for comment.

If convicted, Cherry faces five to 10 years in prison for the second-degree misconduct and hindering apprehension charges. The third-degree aggravated assault and tampering with public records charges carry a weight of three to five years imprisonment. The fourth-degree swearing charge could lead to 18 months incarceration. Cherry's lawyer declined to comment on the indictment.

Portland to pay $47,500 to settle battery lawsuit filed by man bit by police dog

By Maxine Bernstein

The city of Portland has offered to pay $47,500 to settle a false arrest and battery lawsuit filed by a man who suffered bite wounds from a police dog in 2012.

Portland police had released the dog to stop James Lamar Waters, 52, on April 10, 2012, as they raided his home on Northeast 15th Avenue with a search warrant.

Waters and his lawyer Greg Kafoury accused the police of false arrest and malicious prosecution.

Waters was confronted in the front yard of his home by several police officers who set up a stun grenade near him, "attacked'' him with a police dog and handcuffed and charged him with disorderly conduct, the lawsuit contends.

The criminal charge against Waters was dismissed in court.

The City Council is scheduled to vote on the settlement at its meeting Wednesday.

"After a mandatory mediation session, the parties agreed to settle the case without an admission of fault for $47,500, subject to Council Approval,'' according to city records.

The settlement was reached just months after outside consultants urged the Portland police to tighten its policy on use of police dogs and restrict their use to the capture of suspects wanted for felonies.

The Police Bureau rejected the consultants' recommendation, but Assistant Chief Donna Henderson said the bureau would consider not allowing the dogs to go after suspects accused of violations.

According to Waters' suit, he suffered puncture wounds to his right leg, swelling, pain in his shoulder, knee and lower leg, scarring, muscle tension, vision problems and suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

After mediation, city attorneys agreed to settle the suit and pay Waters for past and future medical expenses, non-economic damages and attorney's fees, according to city records.

One officer deployed a "flash/sound diversionary device'' while other officers rushed out of their vehicles as they raided Waters' home, according to the city. Police suspected Waters had a gun.

When Waters ran away and failed to stop, one officer released a police dog. The dog restrained Waters by biting and holding onto his lower right leg, according to the city.

Waters was taken into custody and treated at Portland Adventist Hospital for his wounds, according to the city's response to the suit. He did not have a firearm.

Senior Deputy City Attorney William Manlove argued in court papers that officers were authorized to use physical force to stop, detain or arrest Waters and to ensure their own physical safety during a high-risk search warrant.

The settlement averts a trial, which was set to start this month.

"In order to avoid the risk of an adverse jury award, we feel it is prudent to compromise the lawsuit at this time,'' the city ordinance says.

The city noted in its material presented to commissioners that the primary impact of the settlement "will be on Mr. Waters, who is a low-income

This week’s sexual assault by your local police: Anybody else see a national pattern here?

Irwindale cop sentenced to prison for sexually assaulting woman

Married NYPD cop accused of kissing, groping rape victim after booze-filled night in Seattle

Milan cop fired after sexual assault arrest

Cop fired for exposing policy where police ‘had sex with prostitutes before arresting them’

Woman Says She Was Victim of Cop's Obsession

Irwindale cop sentenced to prison for sexually assaulting woman

 Irwindale police officer was sentenced to prison for sexually assaulting a woman during a traffic stop.

By VERONICA ROCHA 

David Paul Fraijo, 37, was arrested in March after prosecutors said he stopped a female driver in October  2012 and asked to see her driver’s license. After she told him she didn’t have a license, prosecutors said Fraijo ordered the woman to park on a nearby street, where he sexually assaulted her.He pleaded no contest in October to oral copulation under color of authority and sexual battery by restraint. Fraijo was also ordered to register as a sex offender for life.After sentencing, Fraijo was taken into custody, according to the LosAngeles County district attorney’s office.

Married NYPD cop accused of kissing, groping rape victim after booze-filled night in Seattle

Detective Lukasz Skorzewski was investigating the rape of a 24-year-old woman when he flew to Seattle, drank with her all night and got physical with her in a hotel room, the college student alleges.

BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA , TINA MOORE

A married detective assigned to investigate the rape of a 24-year-old woman has been booted from the Manhattan Special Victims Division after flying to Seattle, drinking with her all night — and then allegedly trying to tear her clothes off in a hotel room.

Hours before the disturbing encounter, the college student alleges, Detective Lukasz Skorzewski — in the midst of a nine-hour drinking frenzy — looked at her and said, “You’re my favorite victim.”

Skorzewski’s boss, Lt. Adam Lamboy, was also transferred from the elite sex crimes unit, though it’s not clear if it had anything to do with the woman’s claims. Lamboy, who also made the cross-country trek to Seattle, was present during an interview with the rape victim, but didn’t have any physical contact with her.

Sources said Lamboy was bounced to the 90th Precinct in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in May. Skorzewski was knocked down from a detective to a patrol officer and moved to the 114th Precinct in Astoria, Queens, last week.

NYPD officials said Thursday that the Internal Affairs Bureau was investigating the allegations. A spokeswoman wouldn’t say why Lamboy, 44, and Skorzewski, 31, were still on the job.

“I didn’t want to ruin his life. I just wanted somebody to know that this happened,” the woman told the Daily News on Thursday. “He was supposed to be my protector.”

The sordid tale began Jan. 13, 2013, when the woman, who attends college in New York City, reported a rape to Skorzewski of the Manhattan Special Victims Division. She told him she was raped by a man at his Union Square apartment after a night of drinking.

He was supposed to be my protector.

Skorzewski and Lamboy flew to the coffee capital to interview her in July of that year, police sources said.

The young woman characterized Skorzewski as an officer still earning his detective badge. She was surprised at how young he was, and thought he was cute.

The two officers interviewed her in an office on July 5, but she said she contacted them the next day because she had questions.

The cops met her at a pier dressed in street clothes around 3 p.m. and asked her to drink with them and another woman who was with Lamboy, she claims. She declined, at first. But the two cops insisted and Lamboy even assured her that she would be “safe with us.”

At around 12:30 a.m., she realized she’d left her car someplace else and the men offered to let her stay at their hotel. The other woman had gotten into a fight with Lamboy and stormed out.

The trio headed to the hotel. At first, she and Skorzewski sat outside because she wasn’t feeling well. Then, she said they went up to his room.

The woman recalled Skorzewski took care of her and made sure she was OK. He told her, “You’re really cool. No, you’re awesome.”

The aspiring detective let her have the bed and he slept on a couch all night, but she said the platonic relations didn’t last past breakfast.

In the morning, she says Skorzewski asked her if he could lie down and put his arm around her. Then he asked if he could kiss her.

She froze, outraged at the suggestion.

He was married with two kids, she thought. And he was investigating her initial rape case. She said no — but then they started getting physical with each other.

She said she told him she needed to leave her clothes on. Skorzewski laughed, she recalled. She had also told the man who raped her that she needed to keep her clothes on.

Skorzewski was aggressive, she said.

“He really felt me up, tried to get his hands down my pants,” she told The News. “He was trying to put his hands down my pants or work them up my shorts.”

She said she participated but then ended it. She got in the shower alone.

Once Skorzewski returned to New York, the two maintained a relationship over the phone, she said. Eventually he stopped calling and she worried that his wife had found out what happened.

“He should have been fired,” a police source familiar with the case said. “The woman was already in a fragile emotional state.”

NYPD Chief Kim Royster said the department’s Internal Affairs Bureau was still investigating the alleged incidents in Seattle. The woman said she reported the detective by writing a letter to a friend in the department.

Min Um-Mandhyan, a spokeswoman at the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault, said victims who experience trauma may have impaired judgment.

“It looks like he took advantage of his authority and the situation,” she said. “He gained her trust.”

Lamboy was transferred because of changes in the NYPD’s top brass and because he was under investigation for allegedly taking overtime he hadn’t earned, another source said.

The officers involved couldn’t be reached.

Records show Skorzewski, who was promoted to detective this past Feb. 28, made a base salary of $83,802 and $117,588 with overtime that year.

The most recent records available show Lamboy made $115,217 a year base salary in 2013 and a total of $181,818 that year with overtime.

Lamboy got the police commissioner’s Theodore Roosevelt Award in 2008 after getting into a car accident that left him severely injured.

He supervised investigators on the notorious Dominique Strauss-Kahn case. Strauss-Kahn was accused of sexual assault of a maid at the Sofitel New York Hotel on May 14, 2011. The case fell through because of issues in the maid’s credibility.

Milan cop fired after sexual assault arrest

By Devon Armijo

MILAN, N.M. —The Milan Police Department said it has fired Officer James Watters.

Waters was one of two officers accused in an alleged sexual assault. He was only on the force for eight months.

New Mexico State Police said Watters and two other men with law enforcement connections picked up a 20-year-old woman to go drinking on Christmas Eve. The other two men were identified as Grants police Sgt. Jessie Nieto and former security officer for the Cibola County Sheriff's Department Jessie Terrazaz.

State police said the group drank at Grants High School, and the victim claimed the men wanted her to perform oral sex or possibly have a threesome or foursome. She told them she didn’t want to.

State police agents said Nieto told the group he wanted to go home. Police said the other three stayed out after Nieto was dropped off.

According to the statement of probable cause, the victim told police she was brought to the New Mexico State University’s campus in Grants. There she was given more alcohol and was sexually assaulted, police said.

Police interviewed Watters at his home on Christmas Day for several hours.

Cop fired for exposing policy where police ‘had sex with prostitutes before arresting them’

Harry Readhead

A police officer has been fired after he exposed a department policy which apparently let cops have sex with prostitutes before arresting them.

Sgt. Don Paul Bales of Fort Smith Police Department in Arkansas reported an incident to his superiors and to his lawyers where he said an undercover officer paid a prostitute $150 to engage in a sex act and then arrested her afterwards.

But Sgt. Bales was shocked when Chief Kevin Lindsey dismissed him from the force, saying he ‘violated department policy’ by naming the officer in question – despite his written statement being protected by attorney-client privilege.

Lindsey then said that Sgt. Bales had in fact violated eight rules, including not being truthful, giving false testimony and revealing confidential information. Furthermore, he said the undercover officer’s alleged sex act with the prostitute was ‘in accordance with department policy’ – despite being a crime itself.

The termination of Sgt. Bales has been upheld on appeal for the Fort Smith Civil Service Commission – twice.

Woman Says She Was Victim of Cop's Obsession

By MONICA PAIS

     (CN) - A police officer infatuated with a young woman he met during a landlord-tenant dispute tried to have her committed after she rejected his attentions, a lawsuit filed in Miami-Dade County claims.

     In her complaint, Kirenia Cardidad Figuera says she met Officer Joshua Zacharias when he responded to a domestic dispute call at her mother's apartment. Figuera says at the time, both she and her sister lived with her mother, but neither contributed money toward the living expenses in the home.

     During the investigation that followed, Zacharias allegedly told Figuera that because she'd lived in her mother's home for more than 24 hours, the conflict amounted to a landlord-tenants dispute, and that she'd have to find somewhere else to live.

     Figuera says she and her sister gladly accepted Zacharias offer to help them move to a new apartment the next day, but from virtually that time on, her interaction with the officer took a disturbing turn.

     At the time, the young woman says, she had only recently broken up with her boyfriend of six years, and they were still trying to work out their issues. While Zacharias was still at the apartment, Figuera invited her ex over to see the new place.

     By then, she says, Zacharias had overstayed his welcome, and when her ex-boyfriend did indeed arrive at the apartment, "Zacharias began yelling uncontrollably at him." Moments later, Zacharias allegedly escalated the confrontation by pulling a gun on the ex-boyfriend and chasing him from the premises.

     Figuera describes herself as startled by the alleged incident, and says she was even more surprised when Zacharias went back to his police cruiser, gathered some belongings, and announced he wanted to stay the night.

     Figuera says she responded by telling Zacharias she wasn't interested in having a relationship with him.

     But this, she claims, only inspired him to become more aggressive in his pursuit of her. Initially, Zacharias called her several times a day, and after she stopped answering his calls, he began to call her sister, asking about Figuera's activities, the complaint says.

     As time went on, the lawsuit says, Zacharias became more involved in the family's life -- even paying the mother's utility bill. But Figuera says just wasn't interested in the officer and continued to try to make that clear to him.

     "At one point, Defendant Zacharias sent a Facebook message to Plaintiff's sister referring to her (Plaintiff's sister) as his sister in law, discussing how heartbroken he felt over Plaintiff's refusal to engage in a romantic relationship," the complaint says. "Plaintiff asserts that Defendant Zacharias's verbiage, referring to Plaintiff as his ex-wife after only knowing her for a few days, exemplifies the obsessive infatuation Defendant Zacharias had with Plaintiff."

     Figuera says the situation came to a head on December 13, 2011, when she stopped at a Hess gas station near her apartment to use the ATM machine. While inside, she says, Zacharias showed up in his police cruiser and waited for her to come out.

     He then pulled her over as she left the gas station and "began a verbal altercation with Plaintiff over the fact that he would be a better man" for her.

     Figuera says the officer arrested her for "allegedly being irrational," issued her citations for minor violations, and then had her transferred to a local mental hospital.

     "Defendant Zacharias told Plaintiff: that's what you get bitch," the complaint says.

     Figuera says the staff at the Citris Mental Institute found no basis for her institutionalization, and released her within hours of her arrival.

     She says she next encountered Zacharias in traffic court, where she was found guilty of offenses ranging from having unlawfully tinted windows to blocking the right-of-way. Figuera says the court's decision was based on a series of false statements made by the officer, and that the court's findings were later thrown out with Zacharias Facebook messages and other alleged statements were brought to the attention of the state attorney's office.

     Figuera seeks unspecified compensatory damages on claims of negligence, negligent retention, malicious prosecution, false arrest and imprisonment, and civil rights violations.

     She is represented by Bram Gechtman of Miami, Fla.   

This week’s sexual assault on child by your local cops: Anybody else see a national pattern here?

Plano police officer arrested on child-sex charges

Trumbull Cop Sentenced in Teenage Sex Assault Case

New trial scheduled for ex-cop accused of raping 5-year-old girl

Isle of Wight County School Resource Officer suspended after student complaint

Plano police officer arrested on child-sex charges

By VALERIE WIGGLESWORTH

A Plano police officer has been arrested on felony charges of indecency with a child and possession or distribution of child pornography.

Richard Scott Bradford, 45, of Anna was arrested Thursday by the Collin County sheriff’s office on the child pornography charge. He was released from jail a few hours later on bond.

This is his second arrest in less than a month. Bradford was also arrested Dec. 23 on a charge of indecency with a child by contact. He was released from jail on bond.

Plano police spokesman David Tilley said Bradford was hired in July 1998 and has worked as a patrol officer during his entire career with the department. Bradford has been placed on administrative leave while the charges are investigated by the sheriff’s office. Tilley said Plano police are conducting their own internal investigation.

Bradford could not be reached for comment.

According to the arrest warrant on the indecency charge, a 9-year-old girl reported that Bradford touched her inappropriately on Dec. 22 while she was sleeping. She told police she woke up and saw Bradford with his pants down, the warrant stated. The girl reported what happened to her mother, who contacted authorities, the warrant stated.

According to the court documents, investigators obtained search warrants for Bradford’s cellphone and the contents of that cellphone the same day he was arrested. The report states investigators found multiple images of child pornography stored on the phone.

Collin County court records show Bradford also was found guilty on three separate misdemeanor charges for issuing bad checks in 2012. Tilley said that civil service law states that those class C misdemeanors don’t affect someone’s employment as long as they are taken care of.

Trumbull Cop Sentenced in Teenage Sex Assault Case

William Ruscoe was sentenced after pleading guilty late last year to sexually assaulting a teenage police explorer.

By Rich Scinto 

Former Trumbull Police Officer William Ruscoe was sentenced to 10 years in prison, suspended after 30 months after he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a teen in the Police Explorers program.

Ruscoe was sentenced Friday, according to court records. He will also have 10 years of probation once he completes his prison sentence

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He was a 19-year veteran of the force, according to the Trumbull Times.

Ruscoe pleaded guilty in October. He is accused of making multiple advances toward the teenage victim and sexually assaulting her after many protests.

New trial scheduled for ex-cop accused of raping 5-year-old girl

New trial scheduled for ex-cop accused of raping 5-year-old girl Associated Press | 0 comments

VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — A new trial has been scheduled for Feb. 9 in Vancouver for ex-Beaverton, Oregon, police Officer Christopher Warren whose child rape conviction was thrown out because of a mistrial.

The Columbian reports a Clark County Superior Court judge also doubled his bail Wednesday to $500,000. He remains in jail.

A jury convicted Warren in October of raping a 5-year-old girl with a pencil. His lawyer says he was falsely accused.

The mistrial was declared in December after a juror admitted reading a newspaper article about the case in violation of jury instructions.

Isle of Wight County School Resource Officer suspended after student complaint

Becca Mitchell

Isle of Wight County, Va. – An Isle of Wight County Sheriff’s deputy working as a school resource officer (SRO) has been suspended following a complaint made by a student.

SRO’s are assigned to patrol the schools during the day while school is in session. The student’s complaint has prompted an investigation into possible inappropriate contact with a minor, according to the Isle of Wight County Sheriff’s Office.

The deputy has been removed from school and placed on administrative leave.

Once the investigation is complete, the Isle of Wight County Commonwealth Attorney’s office will decide if criminal charges will be filed

Police On The Hot Seat At First Meeting Of Obama’s Policing Task Force

Evan McMorris-Santoro

WASHINGTON — One question defined the eight-hour opening session of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing Tuesday, hosted Tuesday in a TV studio at the Newseum.

Crime is down, just about everywhere, but public perception of police has has remained steady for decades. White Americans are generally happy with policing, while nonwhite Americans are generally unhappy. Why?

Witnesses mostly said the answers focused on the police themselves. There was testimony from academics, civil liberties advocates, and police-protest leaders criticizing police training, tactics, and even the language police use when dealing with suspects. Bad language from police, Samuel Walker, a professor emeritus from the University of Nebraska, said, leads to a culture of invincibility among cops and anger among citizens who view the police as disrespectful.

Then, just before the lunch break, police leaders testified.

They were not ready to pin the blame on cops. Law enforcement leaders blamed budget cuts, political correctness, and the unintended consequences of laws passed to make law enforcement more effective for the problems plaguing community relations with the police that serve them. Leaders of the Fraternal Order of Police and International Association of Chiefs of Police bristled at what they saw as the suggestion that police are racist in the way they enforce the law.

Cops should face the same scrutiny as everyone else when it comes to fixing community relations, said Chuck Canterbury, FOP president.

“We all have the same responsibility towards society. I don’t think a police officer should be held to any kind of a higher standard,” he said in response to questions from task force members. “But we should take the lead and we should work with the communities to help build that trust.”

In his opening statement, Canterbury lamented a “subculture” that he says “celebrates…resorting to violence and disrespect to police.” The media has given a “shoulder shrug” to violence like the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, after a grand jury declined to indict Officer Darren Wilson. Police are “wary” of some interactions in the wake of the Brooklyn shooting of two police officers, he said, and that’s why he’s pushing for violence against police to be included in hate crimes statutes.

Richard Beary, president of the IACP, said “current smear campaigns aimed at law enforcement” had made policing dangerous in the current environment. He likened the attitude toward rank-and-file police officers to “the treatment of Vietnam vets coming home in the 1970s.”

To men like Canterbury and Beary, policing is misunderstood and often mischaracterized. They blamed politicians for asking more and more of police while, they said, giving them fewer resources to do it with. Policing now, they said, includes social work, anti-terror work, and answering the call for drug overdoses and other calls that aren’t public dangers. They said police hands had been tied by laws that prevented them from using their discretion in arrests in many cases, or for lawsuits and public sentiment that punishes police when they let someone go who later commits a high-profile crime. Racism is an accusation mostly without foundation that is thrown around a lot, Canterbury said.

“One of the worst things in a police department is you don’t ever want to be accused of arresting somebody because of their race, which is an accusation that occurs a lot,” he said.

Activists from the protest community seemed put off by the tone of the police leaders. “Three of you sounded extremely combative,” Connie Rice, a task-force member and civil rights attorney from Los Angeles who helped lead LAPD community relations efforts in 2003.

Between panels, Carmen Perez executive director at the Gathering For Justice, a self-proclaimed “police reform” organization originally founded by Harry Belafonte, told BuzzFeed News the police leaders were “a little aggressive” in their public comments.

Not all police leaders addressing the panel or on the task force felt the same way. Andrew Peralta, a police lieutenant with the Las Vegas police department who also serves as president of the National Latino Peace Officers Association, agreed with the academics and activists calling for new training regimens and community outreach programs to bring police and communities together.

Police have generally favored the use of body cameras by officers on the beat, another area where they overlap with the activist community. Roberto Villasenor, chief of police in Tucson, Arizona and a task force member, also said he was “floored” by holes in police use of force data wasn’t more available. Activists and academics addressing the panel uniformly called for better data collection by the federal government on local police forces.

The defensiveness by many police leaders in recent weeks has defined the push for changes in policing, with cops in New York City openly rejecting Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio, who they see as an anti-police crusader. The White House policing panel, co-chaired by former Obama Department Of Justice Office Of Justice Programs director Laurie Robinson and Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, is charged with bridging that gap and creating viable, tangible recommendations for improving police-community relations by March 2. There will be at least four more public meetings of the task force before it sets out to write the recommendations, which the co-chairs will deliver to Obama.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter testified before the task force Tuesday along with two other big city mayors who have faced the same kind of police-community divide on the local level that the task force is trying to fix across the country. In an interview after his testimony, he acknowledged that tensions among rank-and-file officers and activists are high, but he said there are national solutions to be found. They might take some time to go into effect however.

“It’s clearly possible to recommend a change. Change is not going to happen in 90 days,” Nutter said. “I think the president was smart, given the situation in the country right now, to not have a six-month, a nine-month a year-long process. Because that’s just more frustration. Look, we know what a lot of these issues are all about. This is nowhere near rocket science. This is not even science. It’s just common sense. So we know what the [issues] are. Put it together, get it out there, let the public know that we’re really serious about it.”

Holder limits seized-asset sharing that split billions with local, state police

Could this mean the end of the Fairfax County Police Navy, Air Force and Drone Program?

In August of 2012 Kevin Palizzi, a decorated fifteen-year veteran of the Fairfax County Police Department who had written 1,049 traffic summonses in one year pulled over a man named Mandrel Stuart on Interstate 66, allegedly because the windows of his SUV were too dark. For some reason Palizzi didn’t have the device to check whether the tinting of the windows exceeded the legal limit so he cited Stuart for having a video running within his line of sight.

In the meantime another cop arrived with a drug-detecting dog. The cops said that the dog was alerted to the left front bumper and wheel of Stuart’s car, searched the vehicle and found $17,550 in cash. Deciding that the money was related to the illegal drug trade, they kept it under a bizarre federal forfeiture law.

Stuart was legally entitled to carry the cash which he intended to use to buy equipment and supplies for his barbecue restaurant in Staunton, Virginia. He sued and not only got the money back but forced the Fairfax County government pay his legal bills, which totaled nearly $12,000.

The police department, Palizzi and the other cop paid nothing.  

In 2001,Palizzi had been involved with two others cases, both in Chantilly where he was accused of psychical abuse and planting evidence.. In one of those cases the victim said Palizzi stopped the couple after claiming he had smelled marijuana from their car as it drove by and stopped near his home on Pan Am Avenue in Chantilly. The FBI investigated.

  

Holder limits seized-asset sharing that split billions with local, state policeMandrel Stuart talks about his experience being stopped by Fairfax police last year and having $17,550 confiscated under a civil forfeiture law.

Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without proving that a crime occurred.Holder’s action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades ago as part of the war on drugs.Since 2008, thousands of local and state police agencies have made more than 55,000 seizures of cash and property worth $3 billion under a civil asset forfeiture program at the Justice Department called Equitable Sharing.The program has enabled local and state police to make seizures and then have them “adopted” by federal agencies, which share in the proceeds. It allowed police departments and drug task forces to keep up to 80 percent of the proceeds of the adopted seizures, with the rest going to federal agencies.“With this new policy, effective immediately, the Justice Department is taking an important step to prohibit federal agency adoptions of state and local seizures, except for public safety reasons,” Holder said in a statement.Holder’s decision allows some limited exceptions, including illegal firearms, ammunition, explosives and property associated with child pornography, a small fraction of the total. This would eliminate virtually all cash and vehicle seizures made by local and state police from the program.While police can continue to make seizures under their own state laws, the federal program was easy to use and required most of the proceeds from the seizures to go to local and state police departments. Many states require seized proceeds to go into the general fund.A Justice official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the attorney general’s motivation, said Holder “also believes that the new policy will eliminate any possibility that the adoption process might unintentionally incentivize unnecessary stops and seizures.”Holder’s decision follows a Washington Post investigation published in September that found that police have made cash seizures worth almost $2.5 billion from motorists and others without search warrants or indictments since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.The Post found that local and state police routinely pulled over drivers for minor traffic infractions, pressed them to agree to warrantless searches and seized large amounts of cash without evidence of wrongdoing. The law allows such seizures and forces the owners to prove their property was legally acquired in order to get it back.Police spent the seizure proceeds with little oversight, in some cases buying luxury cars, high-powered weapons and military-grade gear such as armored cars, according to an analysis of Justice Department data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests.News of Holder’s decision stunned advocates who have for a long time unsuccessfully sought to reverse civil asset forfeiture laws, arguing that they undermine core American values, such as property rights and due process.“It’s high time we put an end to this damaging practice,” said David Harris, a constitutional law scholar at the University of Pittsburgh. “It has been a civil-liberties debacle and a stain on American criminal justice.”Holder’s action comes as members of both parties in Congress are working together to craft legislation to overhaul civil asset forfeiture. Last Friday, Sens. Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, and Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, along with Reps. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Republican of Wisconsin, and John Conyers, Democrat of Michigan, signed a letter calling on Holder to end Equitable Sharing.Grassley praised Holder’s decision on Friday.“We’re going to have a fairer justice system because of it,” Grassley said. “The rule of law ought to protect innocent people, and civil asset forfeiture hurt a lot of people.”He said he planned to continue pressing for legislative reforms.“I commend the department for this step and look forward to working with them on comprehensive forfeiture reform that protects Americans’ property rights,” Sensenbrenner said. “Equitable sharing has become a tool too often used to bypass state law. Forfeitures should be targeted and must have appropriate procedural protections. “The new policy could become one of the more notable pieces of Holder’s legacy. Holder has already announced he is leaving the department, and it is clear that he is takings steps to burnish his place in history. In a speech on Thursday, he pushed for better tracking of police use-of-force incidents.But Friday’s action is sure to engender its share of controversy.The policy will touch policing and local budgets in every state. Since 2001, about 7,600 of the nation’s 18,000 police departments and task forces have participated in Equitable Sharing. For hundreds of police departments and sheriff’s offices, the seizure proceeds accounted for 20 percent or more of their annual budgets in recent years.The action comes at a time when police are already angry about remarks that Holder and President Barack Obama made after the controversial police killings of unarmed black men in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City. Some have accused them of being “anti-cop.”“It seems like a continual barrage against police,” said John Thompson, interim executive director of the National Sheriffs’ Association. “I’m not saying there’s no wrongdoing, but there is wrongdoing in everything.”Critics of the decision say that depriving departments of the proceeds from civil asset forfeitures will hurt legitimate efforts to fight crime, drug smuggling and terrorism.Bill Johnson, executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, said, “There is some grave concern about the possible loss of significant funding while local police and state police are being asked to do more and more each year.”Over the past decade, thousands of people have had to fight the government to get their cash and property back, often hiring lawyers and spending more than a year in the process. Many of them were people of color and immigrants swept up in police dragnets on the nation’s highways aimed at stopping drug dealers, money launderers and terrorists.That includes people such as Mandrel Stuart, who was stopped in 2012 by Fairfax County, Virginia, police, detained without charges, handcuffed and stripped of $17,550 in cash that was to be used for equipment and supplies for his barbecue restaurant in Staunton, Virginia. He eventually hired a lawyer, and a jury gave him his money back in 2013. But he lost his restaurant while fighting the government, because he had no working capital.“A lot of people won’t be harassed the way they are harassing them now,” Stuart said on Friday after he heard about Holder’s action. “It’s some justice at last on our side.”Civil asset forfeiture is one of the most powerful — and unusual — law enforcement tools. Police do not need evidence of a crime to use it, because it is a civil action against an object, such as currency or a car, rather than a person.As a consequence, protections common in criminal law do not apply. In fact, owners who want to recover their cash or property must show it is theirs and demonstrate it is not tied to crime.Forfeiture has its basis in British admiralty law, but it became a part of the fight against drugs in the United States beginning in 1970, when Congress allowed police to seize aircraft, boats and other property used to transport narcotics or bought by drug lords with ill-gotten gains.In the 1980s, the law was expanded to include cash. About the same time, the Justice Department created its Asset Forfeiture Program and began allowing federal agencies to adopt seizures made by state and local authorities. Those changes led to a massive increase in money deposited into the federal forfeitures fund as seizures by local and state police surged. Allegations of police abuses also increased.Searing reports by the Orlando Sentinel and other newspapers about abuses spurred Congress to pass the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act in 2000. But a key change — ending the sharing of seizure proceeds between local police and federal agencies — was cut from the bill after fierce opposition from police and prosecutors. Some lawmakers called the sharing of money a “perverse incentive” for overly aggressive police tactics.After 9/11, the use of the asset forfeiture law and the Equitable Sharing program rose to new heights as federal authorities called on local, county and state police to help keep watch on the nation’s highways, not only for drug smugglers but also for terrorists.The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security paid private firms millions to train local and state officers in the techniques of an aggressive brand of policing known as “highway interdiction.” That training, developed by the firms, included methods for ferreting out suspicious drivers and coaxing them into granting warrantless searches of vehicles, according to internal company training documents obtained by The Post. The documents emphasized the importance of targeting cash.Departments that had once focused on seizing drugs changed their focus to money in recent years, some officers said. “Over a period of a single decade, the culture was now totally changed,” said Shawn Pardazi, a Mississippi police detective who teaches highway interdiction.The federal government also encouraged police to collect and share intelligence about drivers, even those who had done nothing wrong. The training firm Desert Snow started a private intelligence system called Black Asphalt that enabled police to share tips about drivers across state lines and funnel raw reports about drivers to federal authorities, including those at the Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.Civil asset forfeiture has become one of the few public policy and social issues that united activists and lawmakers across the political spectrum, some of whom dubbed the system “policing for profit.”After The Post series, John Yoder and Brad Cates, two directors of the Justice Department’s asset forfeiture office under President Ronald Reagan, said the program should end. In an opinion piece, they said the program began with good intentions to fight the “profit motive” that fueled drug cartels and other criminals. “Over time, however, the tactic has turned into an evil itself, with the corruption it engendered among government and law enforcement coming to clearly outweigh any benefits.”The Institute for Justice and other libertarian-leaning groups teamed up with the American Civil Liberties Union and left-leaning groups to press for changes in the wake of the Post investigation.“This is a profoundly important and path-breaking change in the ability of the government to take property of Americans,” said Scott Bullock, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which produced a study about civil asset forfeiture five years ago called “Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture.”In recent months, Grassley, the new chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the panel’s ranking Democrat, joined the effort, along with Sensenbrenner and others.“I am deeply troubled by the well-documented reports of innocent Americans swept up through the misuse of civil asset forfeiture laws,” Leahy said in a statement to The Post. “This program was designed to be a crime-fighting tool, not just a fundraising tool. I look forward to working with Senator Grassley to impose some much-needed oversight and accountability into this area.”Holder said seizure adoptions will continue to be employed by local and federal authorities, but only in limited circumstances when public safety is at risk and where local and federal authorities are collaborating in cases clearly involving criminal activity.The public safety exceptions include seizures of weapons and other dangerous items, and property related to child pornography, which have accounted for only a tenth of a percent of the total seizures since 2008, a Post analysis found.Joint federal and local investigations accounted for just 9 percent of all seizures but 43 percent of the value of all seizures. Local and state seizures without federal participation amounted to 57 percent of the dollar value of the seized items under Equitable Sharing since 2008 — $3 billion out of $5.3 billion, according to Post research.In announcing the new Justice Department policy on Friday, Holder said there is also less need for federal seizure adoptions. In the 1980s, when the policies took effect, few states gave police the authority to make civil seizures and forfeit the assets of criminals in the way that federal law allowed.“Today, however, every state has either criminal or civil forfeiture laws, making the federal adoption process less necessary,” Holder’s statement said. “Indeed, adoptions currently constitute a very small slice of the federal asset forfeiture program. Over the last six years, adoptions accounted for roughly three percent of the value of forfeitures in the Department of Justice Asset Forfeiture Program.”Some police departments have shown an apparent preference for federal law over state laws. Equitable Sharing required the seizure proceeds to go back to the departments, while state asset forfeiture programs can mandate that the money go into the state’s general fund.The federal agencies that have historically adopted the seizures, such as the DEA and ICE, stand to lose a considerable amount from the change in policy. Federal agencies have taken in $800 million from the program in cash alone without warrants or arrests since 2001.The Treasury Department is also changing its asset forfeiture program to follow the same guideline included in Holder’s order, the statement said.Federal agencies make larger seizures of cash and property through avenues other than Equitable Sharing, typically in cases involving defendants ranging from drug cartel kingpins to Bernard Madoff, whose fraud case has resulted in more than $9 billion in forfeitures in recent years.Those programs are not affected by the changes to Equitable Sharing, but Holder also said the new policy is the first step in a “comprehensive review” of civil forfeiture in general.Justice Department officials noted that civil asset forfeiture has hurt criminals and their organizations. It also has enabled the government to refund money to crime victims — about $4 billion over the past 15 years.“Asset forfeiture remains a critical law enforcement tool when used appropriately — providing unique means to go after criminal and even terrorist organizations,” Holder said. “This new policy will ensure that these authorities can continue to be used to take the profit out of crime and return assets to victims, while safeguarding civil liberties.” –

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