Todays sexual assault charges against your police: Some charges dropped against Tarpon Springs office...

Todays sexual assault charges against your police: Some charges dropped against Tarpon Springs office...: Several charges have been dropped against a former police officer accused of twice picking up women on Clearwater streets, flashing a bad...

Todays sexual assault charges against your police: Edison cop charged with propositioning woman for s...

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This Week's Charge of Child Molestation by your Local Police: South Carolina Officer Charged With Sending Photos...

This Week's Charge of Child Molestation by your Local Police: South Carolina Officer Charged With Sending Photos...: WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) A West Columbia police officer has been charged with sending explicit photos of himself to a 13-year-old girl in...

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Cop Dog Killers: 300-pound officer felt threatened by 12-pound terr...

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officer charged with 26 counts of official misconduct

A 17-year veteran of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office is charged with dozens of false overtime claims.
Undersheriff Dwain Senterfitt says they investigated 42 claims submitted by 47-year-old Danny Hamlin, a patrol officer, from between early January and early June. He says they proved 26 of those dealing mostly with pre-trial meetings, totaling roughly $4425, are fraudulent.
“We found out the cases were over and disposed of.  We even found a couple of instances where the attorney that he said he met with was no longer with the State Attorney’s Office,” Senterfitt says.
He says it is common for officers to be called to these meetings, even while off-duty, to meet with attorneys to discuss what may come up in the pending trial.
Investigators were first tipped off because of the number of claims Hamlin submitted in the first half of the year.
“There was some suspicious overtime that was identified by his chain of command,” Senterfitt says.
In June, when Hamlin was notified of the investigation, the overtime claims stopped.
This is not the first time Hamlin has faced problems. WOKV obtained his disciplinary history, which includes 13 complaints over his 17 years of service, 6 of those complaints resulted in disciplinary action.
The complaints date back to December 1997, but the first one leading to action occurred in April 1997 when Hamlin received formal counseling for “failure to conform to work standards”.  In December 1998 he received counseling again for a “chargeable traffic crash”.
One year later he was suspended for ten days as the result of a “secondary employment violation”. Further details on the violations were not immediately available.
Hamlin was given formal counseling again in April 2001 for a “chargeable traffic crash” and November 2005 for “failure to obey an order”.
As recently as September 2012, records show Hamlin was given a written reprimand for “misuse of computer software”.
Several other citizen complaints against him were either “unfounded” or “not sustained” according to the JSO record.
Hamlin has chosen to resign. Senterfitt says it is not yet clear if he will be responsible for re-paying the total of the false overtime claims, but that will be determined during the criminal investigation.
Hamlin was also charged with one count of grand theft for an amount under $4999.
Senterfitt tells us this was a very uncommon discovery and they have been investigating for months.  He does not believe they will be making any changes in the system for how overtime is reported.

Manchester Ct. officer suspended for 5 days in arrest conduct

MANCHESTER — A police officer who was recognized as officer of the year in 2009 received a five-day suspension in September after his supervisors found he used “unnecessary force” when bringing a handcuffed man to the ground after an August arrest, according to documents in the officer’s personnel file.
According to the documents and a video of the incident, made available after a Freedom of Information request by the Journal Inquirer, Officer Jason Wagner grabbed the man by the neck and brought him to the ground while inside the police station.

Princeton parking officer suspended, reassigned after investigation into selective enforcement of meters

PRINCETON – A Princeton parking enforcement officer was suspended without pay for a month and reassigned after improperly dismissing a parking ticket, town administrator Bob Bruschi said today.
John Hughes is the second parking enforcement officer to be punished for not following the town's parking enforcement policy.
Parking enforcement officer Chris Boutote was fired on Monday for what town officials said was a selective enforcement of parking meters in Princeton’s central business district in exchange for certain goods. Boutote, a former borough police officer, collected a $4,400 monthly pension and earned $48,109 a year.
Hughes and Boutote were first suspended last month after the local news website Planet Princeton reported officers were not ticketing vehicles that displayed menus, shopping bags or other items with local store logos on their dashboards.
Planet Princeton reported that over several weeks observers saw vehicles with local store identifications remain at metered parking on streets near the central business district for up to 10 hours at a time without being ticketed, while other vehicles would be ticketed promptly if meters expired.
Virtually all metered parking in that area is for two hours or less, according to a town parking operations map.
Hughes, who earns $44,000 a year, was reassigned to one of the municipality's parking garages as an attendant and any future disciplinary action would result in a termination, Bruschi said in an e-mail.
The internal investigation that led to Hughes’s suspension did not lead to any conduct of selective enforcement, but found he bypassed proper procedure to dismiss a ticket originally issued by Boutote, Bruschi said.
"The ticket was one of the items that helped us gain further information as to what was taking place with parking enforcement officer Boutote and one of the downtown establishments," Bruschi said in the e-mail.
In that case a parking ticket was issued to a local business employee parked at an expired meter. The employee was someone who Boutote knew, Bruschi said.
Proper dismissal procedure requires a form to be filled out explaining the dismissal – in this case it was indicated the parking meter had malfunctioned. The town’s meter department is required to confirm malfunctions before tickets are dismissed, but Hughes allegedly bypassed that step and had the ticket dismissed by the court, Bruschi said. The meter did not malfunction, he added.
“It was a single incident, but we felt that a very strong message had to be sent that our procedures need to be followed by the letter of the law,” Bruschi said in an e-mail.

Lawsuit can proceed against Lima police

COLUMBUS — A girl whose mother was shot and killed before her eyes in 2008 by a Lima police officer can sue police for arresting her three years later for directing obscene hand gestures in their direction, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati unanimously found that police did not have grounds to arrest the 11-year-old girl, identified in court documents as minor T.W.

It upheld a lower court ruling that the officers were not immune from false arrest, false imprisonment, and retaliation allegations. The retaliation, the suit alleges, was because the youth’s family received a $2.5 million wrongful-death settlement from the city’s insurance carrier.

The false arrest lawsuit will now proceed in U.S. District Court in Toledo.

On Jan. 4, 2008, police stormed a home in search of a drug suspect and, in the process, accidentally shot and killed the girl’s unarmed mother, Tarika Wilson, 26, as she huddled with her children. Also shot was the girl’s 1-year-old brother. He survived.

The shooting officer testified that he fired in reaction to shots fired by fellow officers downstairs when they killed two pit bulls. He was indicted on misdemeanor charges by an Allen County grand jury but was acquitted, sparking outrage in the community.

About three years later, Lima police responded to a report of a street fight and arrived to find a group of youths, including Ms. Wilson’s 11-year-old daughter, walking in the street but not fighting. As police approached, T.W. walked away, directing the hand gestures toward police as she did.

She kept going despite an officer’s order that she stop. She was arrested and charged with persistent disorderly conduct.

“(T)he circumstances here, as alleged in the [police] complaint at least, are that an 11-year-old girl raised her middle fingers toward an adult male police officer,” Judge Raymond M. Kethledge wrote. “Those circumstances did not create a situation where violence was a likely result. (And if violence had resulted, the officers would be facing more claims than they are now.)

“T.W.’s gesture was crude, not criminal; and the officers were patently without probable cause to arrest her for it,” he wrote.

T.W.’s Dayton attorney, Cheryl Renee Washington, said the evidence will show the police officers targeted T.W. because of who she was.

“We are excited about the opportunity to have a court look at the totality of the facts and uphold justice for a family that has had a difficult time,” she said.

The city’s attorney, Jared Alan Wagner, did not return a call for comment.

Man files complaint against Guthrie Police for false arrest

GUTHRIE, Okla. — An official complaint was filed against the Guthrie Police Department. One man said he was wrongfully arrested by an officer who has an vendetta against him.
“It was a complete abuse of authority,” said Kyle White. “He made an emotional decision and had me arrested for no reason.”
It all started at the Mumford and Sons concert. White said there was confusion over which way to leave the event and he and police Lieutenant Mark Brunning got into an argument.
“He said my name personally. He says ‘Kyle, then points his finger and says arrest this guy.’ So a couple officers came around me, cuffed me and put me on a golf cart and took me to jail,” White claims.
He was fingerprinted and spent the entire night in a cell. NewsChannel 4 obtained exclusive video of those hours.
“I’ve never been inside a jail cell and had to sit there for eight hours. It was pretty nerve racking,” said White.
He later found out he was being arrested for public intoxication.
“The officers never administered any field sobriety test and as far as we know there’s no report that indicates that he was in fact intoxicated,” said White’s attorney Eric Cotton. “They had a personal history and unfortunately I think that’s what came into play here.”
That history includes the fact that the lieutenant is married to White’s ex wife. White said there have been other issues too.
“He has followed our company trucks multiple times in his police vehicle and his unmarked Tahoe. He has contacted other officers about following our trucks,” said White.
He said, after his overnight stint in the slammer, “I didn’t get a citation, I got a sheet of paper that says I have to go to court.”
Days later White received a letter from the Guthrie City attorney stating the citation against him was dismissed but no one would say why or admit the arrest was illegal.
NewsChannel 4 tried to get answers about the arrest too.
We reached out to Police Chief Damon Devereaux, the city attorney Randel Shadid and the city manager Sereniah Breland.
We were told they could not comment on a personnel issue. We also reached out to the lieutenant himself – but received no response.
Cotton filed a complaint against the officer and the department demanding $125,000 compensation for his client’s rights being violated.
“You just can’t go around arresting people throwing them in jail for no reason just because you think you have that authority. I mean he’s not God,” said White.
The one thing city officials did say was the lieutenant has been placed on administrative leave pending the results of an investigation. There is a disciplinary hearing scheduled for Friday.

NYPD cop Joseph McClean charged with DWI in off-duty crash that killed pedestrian

The crash, on Richmond Terrace near Simonson Ave. in Staten Island early Friday, killed a 51-year-old union operating engineer who was crossing the street to enter the Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company, where he worked

An NYPD cop was charged with vehicular manslaughter and drunken driving after he struck and killed a pedestrian in Staten Island while off-duty early Friday and fled the scene.
The crash that claimed the life of William (Bruce) Hemphill, 51, occurred on Richmond Terrace near Simonson Ave. in Mariners Harbor at 6:18 a.m., police said.
Police Officer Joseph McClean, 29, who is assigned to the 121st Precinct in Staten Island and had worked the 4 p.m.-midnight shift on Thursday, was driving east on Richmond Terrace when he hit Hemphill, who was crossing Simonson Ave. after leaving a bodega, police sources and witnesses said.
Hemphill, a union operating engineer and grandfather of five from Maryland, rented a room above the bodega and was crossing the street to enter the Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company shipping office, where he worked.
“The guy hit him so hard he landed a block away. He hit him and he kept on going,” said the bodega’s owner, Mike Kalbouneh.
Hemphill had his hard hat on, but he didn’t stand a chance.
Local resident William Vidal, 53, who lives down the block from where Hemphill was hit, said he heard a loud “Boom!” that he said sounded like two cars colliding. He said he looked out the window and saw Hemphill “literally flipping” through the air.
“I didn’t even think it was a person,” Vidal said. “I thought it was a car part or something like that.”
Vidal said he and his flatmate, Thomas Ramirez, 46, who called 911, ran outside and were appalled at what they saw.
“Just looking at him, I didn’t think he was going to make it. His foot was twisted behind him, and his stomach was bloated,” Vidal said. “I was taking his pulse. It was very faint.”
Judging by where Kalbouneh said he saw the SUV hit Hemphill, a Daily News reporter estimated the victim traveled roughly 30 yards through the air.
“There were no skid marks. He didn’t even make an attempt to stop,” Vidal said, referring to McClean.
Paramedics rushed Hemphill to a Staten Island hospital, where he died at 6:48 a.m., police said.
Ramirez said that about 15 minutes after the accident, as he was talking to responding officers, McClean suddenly returned to the crash site.
“I’m walking with the cops,” Ramirez told The News. “I say to him, ‘I can’t believe this scumbag didn’t stop.’ All of a sudden I hear, ‘It was me. I did it.’ ”
Ramirez said McClean came out of nowhere, quietly approached the responding officers, and confessed.
“He just looked shocked,” Ramirez added. “He didn’t look drunk. He wasn’t staggering. He just looked like ‘What the hell did I just do?’”
In making his return, McClean had parked his Ford SUV on Richmond Terrace near Lake Ave., not far from the point where Hemphill’s body landed. The vehicle had significant front-end damage, and its windshield was shattered and had a massive indentation.
McClean told police that he drove just a few blocks away before choosing to turn around, police sources said.
“I’m coming from my girl’s place,” he told the cops, according to one police source who was not able to say whether McClean had meant he was there prior to the crash or during the interval before he returned.
McClean refused to take a field sobriety test, the sources said, but submitted to a Breathalyzer exam that showed he had a blood-alcohol content of 0.076, just below the legal limit of 0.08.
Officers also noticed he smelled of alcohol, had a flushed face, watery eyes and slurred speech, according to the criminal complaint lodged against him at his arraignment Friday.
When asked if he had been drinking, a police source said, McClean replied: “I’m not talking about that without my rep.” He was referring to his representative with the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.
The complaint referenced a blood-alcohol content of 0.073, which police sources said was the reading from a second Breathalyzer exam, this time administered at a local police precinct stationhouse.
He was arraigned on felony counts of second-degree vehicular manslaughter and driving while intoxicated. His bail was set at $50,000; it was not immediately clear if he had posted it.
Hemphill’s family was stunned to learn the driver who hit him was a cop and that he did not remain at the scene.
“He’s supposed to protect and serve, but he didn’t protect or serve,” said Hemphill’s daughter, Kelly-Mae, 23. “He was drinking and driving and took my dad’s life in a minute and left him like a piece of trash on the side of the road.”
Kalbouneh, the bodega owner who was also Hemphill’s landlord, said the victim had bought his lunch for the day — a dish of chicken Teriyaki and rice, three iced-tea drinks and a Sunny Delight — moments before he was killed.
Kalbouneh said Hemphill was a friendly man and an outdoorsman, who loved to hunt and fish.
“He was a very good guy. He would come here every day; he brought me a lot of customers [from the docks where he worked],” Kalbouneh said. “I’m very sad. I feel like I’m depressed. I was crying all morning.”
The bodega owner added that Hemphill rented the room from him because his schedule allowed him to work for several weeks, then take a corresponding period off, during which he would return to his home in Maryland.
“He was always talking about going home and catching fish and hunting,” Kalbouneh recalled.
Since 2007, Hemphill had been a member of the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 25. The local’s president, Scott Winter, said everyone knew Hemphill as “Bruce.”
“He was loved by all of his union brothers, and the company really liked him; they kept working him steady,” Winter said.
Hemphill’s father, Winter said, had been a member of the union for more than 50 years. Winter said he accompanied Hemphill’s father to identify his son’s body.
“He’s all broken up. This is just so tough for him,” Winter said, explaining that the father had recently lost a daughter to a fire, and his wife to illness.

Off-duty cop busted after crashing while driving drunk in Queens

Francis Soto was charged with driving while impaired, leaving the scene of an accident and refusing to take a breath test after he struck another car on the Cross Island Parkway Tuesday evening

An off-duty cop who was driving drunk hit a car in Queens and took off, police said Wednesday.

Francis Soto, 37, was arrested near the crash site by an MTA Bridge and Tunnels officer.

The 12-year veteran struck another car on the Cross Island Parkway around 10:35 p.m. Tuesday, police said. He drove off, but was followed by a third driver, who flagged down police near the Throgs Neck Bridge, police said.

There were no injuries. Soto, who is assigned to the 42nd Precinct, was charged with driving while impaired, leaving the scene of an accident and refusing to take a breath test.

cop gets 22 months for stealing from FBI informant

A federal judge had harsh word words today for a former Chicago police sergeant as she sentenced him to 22 months in prison for stealing thousands of dollars from a purported drug courier who turned out to be an informant for the FBI in an undercover sting.

The sentence for Ronald Watts, a 19-year police veteran who resigned before pleading guilty last summer, exceeded the 10-to-16-month range called for under federal sentencing guidelines but fell short of the three years in prison sought by prosecutors.

U.S. District Judge Sharon Coleman called the African-American officer’s actions an unconscionable betrayal to his community and fellow police officers. She said the misconduct by Watts, who worked in the Ida B. Wells public housing development, was particularly egregious because he picked on a vulnerable population already wracked by poverty and crime.

“You were a sergeant operating in a community that should hold you up as an example,” the judge said. “You needed to protect those people, and you didn’t.”

Watts, at the time a Wentworth District tactical sergeant, and Officer Kallatt Mohammed were arrested in early 2012 after they were caught stealing drug proceeds with the help of a courier who was secretly working for the FBI.

Mohammed pleaded guilty last summer and said he and Watts had demanded protection payoffs from drug dealers at the now-shuttered Ida B. Wells complex on the South Side in 2007 and 2008. Mohammed, who did not agree to testify against Watts, was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

On the eve of his trial in July, Watts instead pleaded guilty to one count of theft of government funds.

Watts had no comment moments before the judge imposed the 22-month prison term.