We called the Fairfax County police for help....the punks they sent threatened to arrest us. One cop tells my wife that if she keeps crying he'll arrest her and the other cop, La Forge or something, says to me "You call the police this what you get"
I said that was wrong and he said
"Go ahead, say more fuck'n thing prick" and I thought "Well if you insist".
One of the
catalysts for the rage and rioting in Ferguson, Mo., was the sight of that poor
teenager’s body lying face down in the street hour after hour.
At 12:02 p.m.
August 9, one of their officers shot unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown six
times. By 12:05 p.m., a responding paramedic pronounced him dead. Yet his body
was still there in the summer sun at 4 p.m., the sheet not quite long enough to
cover his 6-foot-3-inch frame. Among the outraged onlookers in the Canfield
Green apartment complex was his mother, distraught, and barricaded from her
son’s body by police.
At least they
checked the pulse of the young man to make sure he was dead, which is more than
Fairfax County, Va., police did a year earlier when they gunned down John B.
Geer in the doorway of his own home. Gravely wounded by the bullet fired into
his chest, Geer closed the door as he collapsed and lay there alone, bleeding
to death as the cops assembled their ubiquitous SWAT gear and military-style
toys.
By the time these
faint-hearted officers battered down the door with an armored tank, Geer was
dead. His loved ones were present at the scene, too, including his father and
his daughters. One of them, 13-year-old Morgan, yelled at the officers, “Don’t
you hurt my daddy!”
The Ferguson
shooting was viewed through a racially tinged prism, which is understandable in
a predominately black town with a nearly all-white police force and where a
white district attorney refuses to prosecute police for even the most egregious
cases.
It was also
understandable, after many nights of civil unrest, that President Obama would
dispatch U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to Ferguson, and that the Justice
Department would launch an investigation into possible civil rights violations
in Brown’s shooting.
But the nagging
nightmare is that the Justice Department has a much bigger problem on its hands
than the occasional trigger-happy racist cop. John Geer was not black. He was a
46-year-old employed white homeowner with no criminal record. Yet more than a
year later, Virginia authorities won’t even tell his family the status of their
investigation—or if there is one.
This is not an
isolated case, but how many are out there no one knows. A federal database that
can tell you how many auto thefts were committed two years ago in San Clemente,
Calif. (61), how many unprovoked shark attacks took place in Florida last year
(23), and how many law enforcement officers were killed on duty in 2012 (48)
does not include the number of annual fatal police shootings in this country.
Attempts at
ferreting out these numbers have been undertaken, usually by investigative
journalists, and the numbers are bracing. In the wake of the Ferguson case, USA
Today reported that 96 times each year—almost twice a week—white police
officers have killed a black person. That estimate came from teasing out FBI
data from 2005-2012. It is probably an undercount.
Three years ago,
the Las Vegas Review-Journal determined that police officers in Clark County,
Nev., shot 382 people over the previous 20-year period, 144 of them fatally.
That’s one county. Former FBI agent Jim
Fisher, now an author of crime books, searched the Internet every day in 2011
for police shootings, eventually documenting 1,146 of them, 607 resulting in
death.
Nor are there
figures showing how many times police officers have been charged criminally in
these cases. All available evidence shows that they are rarely held to account.
In St. Louis County, where a grand jury is looking into the Michael Brown
shooting, District Attorney Robert McCulloch has never prosecuted any police
officer for a shooting.
In one of them,
two undercover narcotics officers on stakeout at a Jack in the Box fired 21
shots into a car they were watching, killing Earl Murray and Ronald Beasley.
The cops said the two men tried to avoid arrest by driving their car toward
them. A federal investigation revealed that the men were unarmed and their car
was not moving when officers opened fire. That case also prompted
demonstrations in St. Louis. The DA’s response: “These guys were bums.”
Another flash
point in Ferguson was the refusal of police to name Michael Brown’s shooter for
six days. This kind of high-handedness is not atypical, either, and Eric Holder’s
Justice Department aids and abets it.
More than a year
later, John Geer’s family still doesn’t know the name of the officer who killed
him. The last day of Geer’s life was Aug. 29, 2013. His longtime partner Maura
Harrington had moved out with their two girls and the breakup seemed amicable
until that day. Geer became upset, started drinking, and tossed some of
Harrington’s belongings into the front yard. She dialed 911, hoping Fairfax
County police officers would calm him down. Instead, they killed him.
The Fairfax Police
Department will not discuss the shooting. County officials refuse comment
except to say that Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh, who also
has a track record of not prosecuting police officers, has an unspecified conflict
of interest and sent the case to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Alexandria. That
is a division of the Justice Department, but U.S. Attorney Dana J. Boente won’t
even acknowledge the existence of an investigation.
Tired of waiting,
Geer’s family recently filed a lawsuit. They asked for $12 million in damages,
but what they really want is answers—and they are not alone.
Carl M. Cannon is
the Washington Bureau Chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter
@CarlCannon.
Three times this
summer, Oklahoma law enforcement officers were arrested on an allegation of
committing a sexual assault while on duty.
And in all three
cases, the initial report that brought the allegations to light was quickly
followed by the revelation that more victims may yet be discovered.
Rape remains
commonly known as an under-reported crime, experts say. But work is being done
to combat that.
Rape victims are
historically less likely to report what happened to them than are victims of
other crimes, DVIS/Call Rape Sexual Assault Program Coordinator Elaine Thompson
said.
The reasons for
this are many, she said. They may feel that no one will believe them, or they
may feel that what happened is, in part, their fault. They may feel they’d
rather live with and bury the burden of what happened to them, rather than have
their friends and family members know.
Thompson said that
while the reasons for not reporting the crime are many, the benefits of doing
so are just as plentiful.
“There’s power in
filing that report or in talking to someone about what happened,” Thompson
said. “It’s very empowering for them to come forward and discover that they
aren’t alone.”
And it might keep
other women from suffering the same fate, counselor Tiffany Shoemaker said.
Choosing the
victims
Three law
enforcement officers — Oklahoma City Police Officer Daniel Holtzclaw, Oklahoma
Highway Patrol Trooper Eric Roberts and Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office Deputy
Gerald Nuckolls — were arrested this summer and accused in separate cases of
possible serial sexual assault behavior. They were identified when one of the
alleged victims came forward to authorities.
In all three
cases, authorities were only able to determine that multiple victims may be out
there after the initial report was made.
The victims in all
three cases may have been chosen because of their backgrounds. Holtzclaw,
prosecutors have said, seems to have targeted older black women, many of whom
had a past with drugs and/or prostitution.
One woman whom
Roberts is accused of raping had outstanding warrants for her arrest, and he
reportedly asked another woman “what she would do” for the amount of money her
potential traffic violation would cost.
Nuckolls is
accused of coercing a woman to touch his penis by saying it would help keep her
boyfriend out of jail.
“There’s an
element of ‘This person won’t report this’ to a lot of rape cases,” Thompson
said. “It’s not unusual to have a perpetrator target a group or an individual
that they think won’t be willing to report the rape in the first place.”
Fear of making a
report
Undersheriff Tim
Albin said Wednesday at a news conference detailing Nuckolls’ arrest that he
understands the fear women have of reporting sexual assault, especially when
the alleged perpetrator is a law enforcement officer.
Nuckolls,
according to his arrest report, told investigators with the Sheriff’s Office
that he had sexual activity with “about six women” whom he had either pulled
over or spoken to while responding to 911 calls.
Albin said at the
press conference that the Sheriff’s Office’s first priority was the victims,
and he urged them to report what had happened to them, either to the
authorities or to a victim advocacy group such as DVIS/Call Rape.
On Friday, Maj.
Shannon Clark with the Sheriff’s Office said no other victims had come forward
since the two women made allegations against Nuckolls on Tuesday.
In Roberts’ case,
a 28-year-old woman made the first allegation against him July 23. A federal
lawsuit naming Roberts as the perpetrator was filed in August; shortly after,
another woman came forward to say she had been assaulted by the trooper July 8.
When Roberts was
arrested Sept. 15, an affidavit states, another woman had come forward with a
similar story, saying Roberts pulled her over June 15.
Holtzclaw, 27, was
placed on suspension June 18, when an Oklahoma City woman reported that he had
sexually assaulted her.
He was arrested
Aug. 21 after an investigation uncovered a number of women who say they were
assaulted by him.
According to the
accusations, each case progressed in a relatively similar fashion — officers
seemingly emboldened by their alleged victims’ inaction continued unchecked
until someone came forward.
“Sometimes people
don’t realize how much power there is in making your voice heard,” Thompson
said. “It starts the healing process, but it can also stop something like this
from going on. It might only take one person to uncover something.”
Through Sept. 1 of
this year, the Tulsa Police Department has received 220 rape reports, Sex
Crimes Sgt. Mark Mears said. In the same time period a year ago, the department
had received 242 reports.
For years, reports
of rape in the city held steady — from a 2008 low of 252 to a high of 266 in
2011. Part of the rise in reports, Mears said, is due to the way the FBI tracks
rape. Prior to 2012, rape had a narrower definition: same-sex attacks didn’t
count, nor did spousal attacks. Anal and oral attacks were not considered rape,
either.
Changing the
definition “changed how many reports we got, to an extent,” Mears said. “We’re
hoping it also rose because women are reporting more.
“Rape is so
under-reported; that’s something we know is a fact.”
‘Unlike any other
crime’
Places like
DVIS/Call Rape work around the clock to change the stigma associated with
sexual assault, Thompson said.
“Rape is unlike
any other crime,” she said. “It’s so personal. Something is taken from you that
can’t be replaced.”
Agencies like DVIS
are required to report the rape of a minor to authorities, but Thompson said
adults can seek help without having to report their attacks.
“When you tell
someone you’ve been raped, there’s a level of revictimization that takes place,
where you’re forced to go back through what happened to you. We try to have a
safe, secure place where (victims are) loved and not judged,” she said.
“We can discuss
their options with them. They may want to make a report after they feel more
comfortable,” she said.
“One thing we also
do is help with medical examinations, which, even if you don’t end up wanting
to make a police report, you should get checked out medically, regardless.
“Just speaking to
someone about what happened can start the healing process. It can be a very
powerful thing,” Thompson said.
Illinois is known as the Land
of Lincoln, so you’d expect the state police would reflect Honest Abe’s
righteous ways. A safety-minded trucker blows his horn at a cop to call him out
for his speeding and cell phone use. Officer Selfie decides to pull over the
driver and threatens to give him a ticket but his tune quickly changes when he
finds out he’s being recorded…
A former Phoenix police
detective was sentenced to nearly four years in prison after pleading guilty to
stealing drugs from the police department's evidence storage room.
William B. McCartney, 37,
pleaded guilty in June to one count each of fraudulent schemes and theft.
He was originally charged with
40 counts, including those crimes and other offenses.
McCartney was also sentenced to
four years of probation.
McCartney was arrested June 27,
2012, in Pittsburgh and extradited to Phoenix on July 18. He was indicted in
August 2012 on multiple counts of tampering with evidence, possession of
narcotics and dangerous drugs, computer tampering, felony theft and fraudulent
schemes.
Phoenix police conducted a
quarterly audit of drug items cleared for destruction from its property room in
January 2011. They discovered some Oxycodone tablets were replaced with over-the-counter
medication.
McCartney was arrested in March
2011, but quit the police force
Former Fairborn police Officer
Mark Miller accepted a plea agreement Monday in Fairborn Municipal Court in a
criminal case prompted by a complaint from a woman.
Miller, 52, was facing two
misdemeanor counts of attempted unauthorized use of a computer or
telecommunications property. Monday, he was scheduled to be arraigned on those
charges in city Municipal Court.
In May, he was given a civil
anti-stalking protection order and placed on administrative leave. He resigned
in June.
The woman, who asked not to be
identified for her safety, wrote in the order that Miller "shows up to my
home to leave letters, gifts, etc. while he is on duty and off."
Miller received two 180 day
jail sentences, with 160 of them suspended on the condition of good behavior
for two years as well as two years of supervised community control.
He also is to undergo a mental
health assessment and follow-up treatment, according to the court.
A U.S. District Judge sentenced
the former chief of police of a New York federal veterans hospital to 10 years
of imprisonment due to his involvement in the conspiracy to torture, rape, and
murder women. The alleged intentions of the convicted officer was identified to
have stemmed from Internet fetish forums he reportedly frequently visited.
Richard Meltz, who worked as a
police chief at a Massachusetts veteran affairs medical center, pleaded guilty
to the charges connecting him with two conspiracies to abduct, torture, and
kill women. He was charged with two other men who he allegedly established
contact via online message boards. These websites reportedly encourage the
sharing of brutal sexual fetishes.
"I conclude that Mr. Meltz
presents a danger to the community," U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe
said. "There could have been no question in his mind that these kidnapping
plots were real."
The situation of the sentenced
66-year-old ex-cop is considered as one of the numerous cases in New York in
which no person was actually abducted or hurt, but the possibility of the fantasy
plots to turn into reality gradually becomes a tangible ploy.
Prior to reading the sentence,
Peter Brill, the lawyer of the accused, tried to convince the judge to grant
his client a lenient punishment. In addition, the attorney pointed out that Meltz
needed mental counseling to treat his condition. Brill claimed that a prison
sentence will not provide his client the help he badly needed.
"I don't mean to make this
sound silly but this was a hobby of Mr. Meltz's for many, many, many
years," Brill said in an attempt to explain his client's tendency to
indulge in violent fantasizes. "And then, of course, the Internet gets
invented," he added.
One of the targeted
"victims" of the three conspiring men was an undercover Federal
Bureau of Investigation agent. Investigators have verified that the FBI agent
was the topic of the many email exchanges and phone calls among the men.
Court records show that Meltz
was in the police and law enforcement industry for roughly 30 years prior to
his arrest in 2013. He was taken into police custody after FBI agents began
arresting suspected individuals who might be connected with Gilberto Valle, an
ex-police officer charged with killing women then eating their body parts to
satisfy his cannibalism fetish.
The two men who conspired with
Meltz were identified as Michael Van Hise and Christopher Asch. Both were
convicted by a federal jury in March.
A few weeks after her son was
shot to death by a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer, Georgia Ferrell said
he visited her in a dream.
“Jonathan, I’m OK. Are you OK?”
she said she asked him.
He told her he was.
Asked whether she carried away
a message from the dream, Georgia Ferrell said this: “I know his spirit wants
justice, and his spirit wants peace.”
A year ago Sunday, Jonathan
Ferrell wrecked his car on an unfamiliar road. A toxicology report showed no
signs drugs, and while he had been drinking he was not drunk. He escaped the
car barefoot and without his cellphone. He sought help at a nearby house, but
his late-night and urgent knocking frightened the woman inside.
He then ran up to three
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers who had responded to the woman’s 911
call. Moments later, he was dead, and for the first time in at least 30 years,
a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officer was charged with a crime in
connection with an on-duty shooting.
On Saturday in Tallahassee,
Fla., Ferrell’s family laid flowers at his grave. On Sunday, they will host a
public celebration of his life, while offering young African-Americans
instruction on how to act around police.
“To be humble, how to protect
themselves,” Georgia Ferrell says, “These children are our future, and too many
of them are being taken out before their time.”
Ferrell says she hasn’t
followed the coverage of the shooting death of Michael Brown Jr., a black teen,
by Darren Wilson, a white policeman, in Ferguson, Mo., or the anger that has
simmered in the St. Louis suburb for more than a month.
She says she understands the
comparison between Brown’s death and her son’s and has sent word through
intermediaries that she is praying for Brown’s family.
“Things happen for a reason.
Things have to happen for the public to see what’s really going on,” she says.
“Jonathan would not be happy
with all the killing of black men. He’d like to see that they’re all being
treated equal. Treat him like he was a young white man. What’s so different
about the pigment of his skin?
“Find out what’s going on
before you pull a gun. We love our children, too.”
Law enforcement ties
Since middle school, Jonathan
Ferrell lovedthe same girl.
For most of his adult life, Wes
Kerrick dreamed of being a cop.
A year ago, those paths brought
the two men – both in their 20s, one black, the other white – face-to-face in a
suburban neighborhood outside Charlotte in northeast Mecklenburg.
Within seconds, Ferrell lay
dying from 10 bullets that came from Kerrick’s service weapon.
Later that same day, Kerrick,
who comes from a law-enforcement family, including a sister who also serves on
CMPD, was charged with voluntary manslaughter. He had less than three years
experience on the force at the time.
Kerrick remains suspended
without pay. His criminal trial, which is being prosecuted by the attorney
general’s office, is expected to take place next year. For now, a
wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Ferrell’s mother against Kerrick, the police
and local government remains on hold in federal court.
George Laughrun and Michael
Greene, Kerrick’s defense team, said neither they nor their client were
available for interviews.
In a prepared statement, the
lawyers said the past year has been “an extremely emotional and trying time.”
“Officer Kerrick and his family
have the utmost confidence in the criminal justice system as evidenced by the
many years of service that both he and his family have given to this and other
communities in the law enforcement field,” the statement says.
“Officer Kerrick acted in
conformity with the rules and procedures of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police
Department and with state law. The shooting of Jonathan Ferrell was tragic but
justified.”
‘Our son’
Government officials have said
little about the case from the start.
City Manager Ron Carlee
declined to comment last week, though his office did release a statement
reiterating the city’s intent to be “as respectful as possible to those
impacted by the tragedy.”
CMPD Chief Rodney Monroe and
his department also declined interview requests.
Monroe, who ordered Kerrick’s
arrest, said early on that his officer used bad judgment and excessive force –
even if Ferrell ran into him, as video from a police car at the scene
apparently shows. It was clear that Ferrell was unarmed, Monroe said, and
Kerrick’s decision to shoot was unlawful.
“Sometimes we have to put up
our hands and use our nightstick,” Monroe said. “... It can’t automatically
result in use of deadly force.”
Some law enforcement groups and
Kerrick supporters throughout the country accused Monroe of a rush to judgment
that could put other officers in jeopardy. They say Kerrick’s subsequent
indictment, which came after one grand jury declined to bring charges, was
politically motivated.
Ferrell’s family and some
community leaders around Charlotte, however, say Monroe headed off a worse
situation by acting with speed and openness.
While no two cities and
situations are the same, they compare police handling of the Ferrell shooting
with the details of Brown’s death in Missouri. There, no charges have been
filed, and angry and sometimes violent demonstrations raged.
Here, police quickly identified
Kerrick, charged him, and took responsibility for Ferrell’s death. After a
public outcry, the City Council also toughened citizen oversight of police
shootings. Monroe later said he used the incident to schedule training for his
officers on recognizing their biases.
The officers, in turn, asked
him for more instruction on hand-to-hand confrontations to avoid deadly force.
In the end, the first police
response to Ferrell’s death was key, says Charlotte minister Dr. Dwayne Walker.
That it followed ongoing CMPD efforts to establish what Walker describes as “a
culture of understanding” with the community made it doubly so.
“Chief Monroe put a human face
to a human life,” says Walker, pastor of the Little Rock AME Zion Church in
Charlotte, who describes Ferrell’s killing as a “murder.”
“Here, the city acknowledged
that a life was taken, a wrong was done. There is still rage, outrage that an
officer can unload his weapon at an unarmed man. But his police department
arrested him. A man’s life had meaning.”
Still no answers
Occurring between the deaths of
Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., and Brown in Ferguson, Ferrell’s shooting drew
national headlines. It made the cover of Sports Illustrated, and next month is
scheduled to be the subject of a special report on ESPN.
Yet, many vital details of the
night remain closed to the public – from eyewitness statements to the video
shot with a patrol car camera.
Sometime after 2 a.m., Ferrell
wrecked his Toyota Camry in the Bradfield Farms community of northwest
Mecklenburg after giving a co-worker a ride home.
He kicked his way free of the
car, then walked to the nearest home.
Inside, a woman was alone with
her young child, her husband at work. The 911 recording captures the frantic
mother saying an unknown man had tried to break into her home. Monroe later
described Ferrell as “viciously” pounding on the front door.
A police call went out for an
attempted home invasion. Three officers, including Kerrick, responded.
According to police reports,
Ferrell ran up to the officers and ignored repeated calls to stop and get on
the ground. One of the officers fired his Taser but missed. Ferrell then veered
directly into Kerrick.
At some point Kerrick started
firing – 12 shots in all.
The other officers, both
African-American and with more experience than Kerrick, did not pull their
guns. Their accounts of the shooting remain sealed.
So does the 20-second dash-cam
video, which reportedly captured the moments leading up to the shooting. City
officials say Monroe ordered Kerrick’s arrest after he and his top staff
watched the footage. A judge has given the attorney general’s office control on
when an
d whether it is released.
A spokeswoman for the attorney
general’s office said Friday that showing the video prematurely could
compromise Kerrick’s right to a fair trial.
Citing the role a video played
in the domestic-abuse case against NFL player Ray Rice last week, Ferrell
family attorney Chris Chestnut again called for the release of the footage.
“Video speaks truth. What’s
there to hide?” said Chestnut, who saw the video shortly after the shooting.
“The truth is that it’s murder. On camera.”
Chestnut says Kerrick’s
behavior, not Ferrell’s, is on trial.
While the events marking Ferrell’s
death are 500 miles away, Walker says African-Americans in Charlotte will
grieve, too.
“I didn’t know Trayvon Martin,
but it hurts, and we felt the pain because if it could happen there, it could
happen here,” Walker says.
“Mr. Ferrell may not have been
a native son. But he was one of our sons.”
The story was updated on
Monday, Sept. 15, to correct an error about the toxicology report following
Jonathan Ferrell’s death. Ferrell had been drinking the night before his death,
but his blood-alcohol level was at .06, below the limit of being legally drunk.
Staff writer Cleve Wootson Jr.
contributed.
Family outraged after their pet
dog was shot by police
By Manolo Morales Published: September 12,
2014, 6:40 pm
A family is outraged and
demanding answers after their dog was shot by police and left to bleed for an
hour.
It happened a week ago in
Kalihi after officers responded to a domestic call in the area. As police
officers were about to leave, Bruce, a two-year-old Staffordshire Bull Terrier
mix, got loose from his cage and lunged at the officers, and then got shot.
When the family asked police if
they could take the dog to the veterinarian, they were told to stay put until
an investigation was completed.
The first thing KHON2 News
asked HPD was why the family was forced to wait. We were told it’s standard
policy to do a thorough investigation after an officer fires a weapon, so the
scene had to be preserved.
So we then asked that if this
were instead a person, would there be a delay in getting help?
Late Friday afternoon, a HPD
spokeswoman called back and said the officers made a mistake and should have
allowed the family to get medical help for the dog.
One week after being shot in
the chest, Bruce looks almost as good as new, although there are some stitches
that still need to help him heal.
His owners still can’t believe
what they had just gone through.
“It was terrifying for all of
us,” said the dog’s owner Kristen Butac. “We never would have thought this
would happen to us. He’s our family, so of course we’re going react the way we
did. We’re upset.”
Butac said three officers were
walking outside the house when Bruce lunged at them. The first two managed to
sidestep and avoid the dog, but the third officer fired a shot.
An HPD spokeswoman said the
officer described the dog as aggressive and vicious.
When asked how much was the dog
bleeding, Butac said “well, to us, it seemed like a lot. I mean, seeing
something like that, of course, you’re panicking. You don’t know what else
could have happened.”
She said the officers would not
let anyone leave the house, even as they pleaded to let someone take Bruce to
the vet. But they were told nobody leaves until the investigation is finished,
which took about an hour.
Investigators found the shell
casing, but they couldn’t find the bullet, which made the family even more
nervous, thinking that it could still be inside the dog’s chest.
“We didn’t know what other
injuries he had, so we were just trying our best to just put pressure on his wound,” Butac said.
After the family rushed Bruce
to an emergency care veterinarian, they did get some good news.
“The vet said he was a very
lucky dog. What happened was the bullet had entered and exited his chest. The
only damage was to his soft tissues.”
The family plans to file a
lawsuit against HPD. Investigators are reviewing the case to initiate some type
of policy.
Off-duty narcotics officer
charged after Upper West Side shooting
By N.J. Burkett
An off-duty New York State
narcotics agent has been charged after an accidental shooting on the Upper West
Side of Manhattan.
Police confirm a man and a
woman were shot on Amsterdam Avenue between 82nd and 83rd Street around 9 p.m.
Friday. Both were taken to the hospital. The extent of their injuries is not
clear, but they are expected to survive.
According to the New York City
Police Department, the state officer involved, Victor Zambrano, 49, of New York
City, is assigned to the state Bureau of Narcotics. He being charged with
criminal possession of a weapon, resisting arrest, and two counts of assault.
The shooting took place outside
a tavern where patrons huddled until it was safe.
"We heard a loud pop and
everyone rushed to the back of the bar," said customer Vanessa Arriola.
Drunk off-duty cop ‘shoots 2’
after struggle over gun
By Aaron Feis, Ben Feuerherd
and Kate Briquelet
A drunk off-duty state narc
turned the Upper West Side into a shooting gallery Friday night, blasting a
woman and her boyfriend in a struggle over his gun after the three spent a
boozy night together in a bar, police sources said.
Victor Zambrano Jr., 49, handed
his firearm to the 31-year-old woman when she asked to hold it as they all
stood on West 82nd Street and Amsterdam Avenue — then tried to grab it back at
about 9 p.m., cops say.
The gun went off as the state
Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement agent and the woman fought over it, sources
said.
The bullet ricocheted off the
street. First it struck her foot, then slammed into her 42-year-old boyfriend’s
shin.
The boyfriend limped after the
fleeing cop up Amsterdam until the narc spun around at 83rd Street and tried to
shoot him — but his gun misfired, according to the sources.
Zambrano — who lives near the
incident — is being charged with assault, criminal possession of a weapon,
resisting arrest and reckless endangerment, police say.
“We heard like a pop first, and
then we saw cops outside with their guns drawn,” said Carolyn Frankel, who was
in a local pub when the shots rang out.
“Everybody just started running
towards the middle of the bar and getting down on the ground. You’re just
thinking of a stray bullet, and you don’t want that anywhere near you.”
A manager at Organic Avenue on
82nd Street told The Post he gave the female victim water and wrapped paper
towels around her foot.
“He ankle was bleeding,” he
said. “She was calm and in shock. She was not crying. She said she was just
going out to dinner with her boyfriend and heard a pop and realized she was
bleeding.”
Police disarmed and collared
Zambrano at the scene.
The victims, who were being
treated at St. Luke’s Hospital, did not suffer life-threatening injuries.
Police found the gun on the
ground near 83rd Street, a source said.
A 2008 report on misconduct
within the narcotics bureau said Zambrano was issued 11 summonses worth $1,015
for improper parking of his vehicle with state-issued placards.
According to the state
Inspector General probe, Zambrano’s tickets were unpaid when the report was
issued even though the IG informed him of the outstanding summonses.
North Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) --
Police killing pets has once again landed North Las Vegas in court. This as dog
owners seek justice on a federal level over losing their two pit bulls.
"I never had any kids and
he was the closest thing I ever had to a son," said Tom Walker, through
tears.
He's talking about a Pit Bull
named Blue and his daughter, Pinky. Both dead at the hands of North Las Vegas
Police.
We talked to Walker and his
girlfriend, Cathy Cataldo, in February.
"I think they should be held
responsible for murdering my babies. Because that's what they did,"
Cataldo said.
In a federal lawsuit filed this
week, the couple is suing the North Las Vegas Police Department and two
officers for killing their dogs when SWAT served a narcotics search warrant at
their home on Sept. 14, 2012.
"The Ninth Circuit has
made clear that people have a constitutional right not to have their pets
unnecessarily killed by police officers when they're executing search
warrants," explained their attorney, Maggie McLetchie.
Police spoke to us in February,
explaining it was a high-risk situation.
"They're hoping for the
best but they're planning for the fact that these dogs could very well be
trained to be weapons against us," said NLVPD Sgt. Chrissie Coon.
The lawsuit said North Las
Vegas Police "engaged in a policy and practice of deliberate
indifference" in regard to the dogs.
"Rather than try to
diffuse the situation or come up with a plan to address these canines,"
said McLetchie, "it looks to me like they just shot and killed these dogs
without asking questions."
Before serving the warrant,
officers had set up surveillance of the home where they could see the front
door and the "Beware of Dog" sign in front of the gate.
The lawsuit says "Pinky
and Blue were inside the fence walking to the backyard to go to the bathroom
when officers approached the house," but "officers did not yell hold
your dogs before entering the gate."
"I couldn't even speak
before they started shooting," Walker told Contact 13 in February.
"As soon as the gate opened they were firing. My dogs didn't have a
chance."
The lawsuit says the "dogs
had their backs toward the officers at all times, did not threaten or harm the
officers and did not even look at or bark at the officers."
The Walker's home video posted
on You Tube shows a trail of blood all around the property from Blue, who was
shot six times.
"They shot him in the
butt, the hip, the shoulder," said Cataldo. "They chased him all the
way around the back until he was hiding under a wheelbarrow. And that's when
they started shooting at him again."
They say Pinky, a 10-month-old
puppy; didn't make it past the front steps.
"Pinky was laying right
there in a pool of blood and her legs were shaking," Walker said.
In the lawsuit, Walker also
alleges that an officer ordered him to crawl on his stomach, then kicked him in
the head and told him not to look at Pinky.
When Darcy Spears contacted
North Las Vegas Police, they told her their City Attorney's office hadn't been
served or been able to review the complaint.
In February, their account of
what went down was very different from what the lawsuit says.
"Members of the SWAT team
did tell them to put their hands in the air and also gave them orders to
"grab your dogs, grab your dogs," Sgt. Coon said in February. "The male suspect stepped to the side so
that the dogs could get between the male and the female suspect and run towards
the SWAT team."
North Las Vegas says officers
serving a search warrant are faced with the challenge of providing safety for
the neighborhood, the officers, the dwelling's occupants and any animals
involved during a dynamic, high risk situation.
The lawsuit calls North Las
Vegas' policies and practices "unlawful... permitting its officers to
shoot pet dogs" without reasonable justification. It also alleges
"negligent training and supervision."
"I don't think they're
shooting dogs because they want to kill anybody's pet," said
McLetchie. "But I do think that
they're wrongfully assuming that when they go to the door, if a dog comes to
the door--approaches them--that the dog is vicious and needs to be shot."
In 2012 and 2013, North Las
Vegas Police shot 19 dogs. Fifteen of
them died.
Better training for officers in
dealing with dogs will come up in the 2015 legislative session.
In serving the warrant, North
Las Vegas Police recovered some meth, a stolen handgun and one person was arrested
for three felony counts.
