Escaping across state lines

Police won't chase 330,000 accused felons

YUCAIPA, Calif. – For a time, the intruder charged with pressing a revolver to Armando Botello's forehead truly was a wanted man. When he disappeared, the police promised to pursue him anywhere in the United States.

No longer. Last year, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department notified the FBI that it would pursue the accused armed robber only as far as the state border, even though investigators suspected he had long since left California.

In effect, the change meant that as long as the gunman left the state, he, like thousands of others, was now free to go.

Nationwide, police and prosecutors quietly told the FBI they had abandoned their pursuit of nearly 79,000 accused felons during the past year and a half, a USA TODAY investigation found. They have given up chasing people charged with armed robbery and raping children, usually without informing their victims. Police in one county in California reported they would no longer pursue three of their most-wanted fugitives and a man charged with a murder for which prosecutors have sought the death penalty.

The authorities had previously told the FBI – which maintains a vast index of the nation's fugitives – that they would arrest each of those suspects if police anywhere else in the United States happened to find them, a process known as extradition. But in each case, police and prosecutors have since indicated they will no longer fetch the fugitives if they flee.

So each can now escape the charges simply by crossing state lines. And FBI records suggest many do.

"That shocks me. I can't imagine why anybody would take a major felony and say we'll only arrest him within the state," said Joshua Marquis, the county prosecutor in Astoria, Ore., and a former vice president of the National District Attorneys Association. "I cannot imagine a case of sexual abuse or rape or murder where I would not go to the ends of the earth to get that person back."

In March, a USA TODAY investigation identified thousands of fugitives who police said they would not pursue if they fled the state, usually because they did not want to spend the time or money needed to get them back. The decisions, typically made in secret, allowed old crimes to go unpunished and offered fugitives a virtual license to commit new ones, often as close as in the state next door.

Those cases are multiplying. In just the past year and a half, the total number of fugitives who police won't pursue beyond a state border swelled nearly 77%, to 330,665. The main reason was police agencies changing their minds about what to do with people who have been wanted for years.

In San Bernardino County, east of Los Angeles, the sheriff's department told the FBI that it would no longer extradite 1,952 felony fugitives if they are arrested outside California. Among them was a man charged with sexually assaulting a young relative and others wanted for armed robberies, according to court records. It also includes the man police there charged with putting a revolver to Botello's head late one night in August 2011, Joshua Tillery.

Botello said he was awakened around 1 a.m. by a woman pounding on the side of the small travel trailer where he lives, pleading in Spanish for his help. When he opened the door, a man pressed the muzzle of a small revolver between his eyes, forced him back inside and sat him on his bed. He sat "frozen like a statue," he said, while another man loaded up the few luxuries he had accumulated working as a gardener: a flat-screen TV, a DVD player, his cellphone and his wallet. When the men left, Botello pedaled his bicycle to the police station to get help.

"My friends told me I should just leave the issue in peace. But I say no. They were my things, I worked hard for them, and they should catch him," Botello said through an interpreter. He said he doesn't wish Tillery ill, "but if he's done something bad, he should pay for it according to the law."

A spokeswoman for the county sheriff, Jodi Miller, said that she could not discuss the case to "ensure the integrity of the investigation." She said any change in Tillery's status – or that of any other fugitive – would have been approved by the county District Attorney's office. A spokesman for that office, Christopher Lee, said officials were "looking into this matter."

Botello said investigators from the Sheriff's Department told him that they had searched for Tillery but never found him. They concluded that Tillery had left the state, Botello said. It was a safe assumption; Tillery had ties to Washington state and was already wanted there on a weapons charge.

That's precisely where he ended up. In 2013, Tillery was sentenced to 13 years in prison for shooting an acquaintance in the head during an argument. That September, prison officials noted that Tillery has an outstanding robbery warrant in California, a fact that would ordinarily give authorities there an opportunity to be notified if he is going to be released.

But the notice from San Bernardino made clear what authorities intended to do when Tillery is freed: "NO EXTRADITION."

Southern California is the epicenter of the surge of newly unwanted fugitives.

In Orange County, south of Los Angeles, police reclassified 11,860 felony warrants as not extraditable, including three in cases listed as homicides, according to FBI records. Police in Los Angeles County gave up on extraditing 3,971 fugitives. And in neighboring Riverside County, FBI records show police stopped pursuing 3,934 fugitives, including three men the District Attorney still lists among the county's most-wanted fugitives.

One of those men, Javier Padilla, was charged with molesting a relative more than 100 times, starting when she was 7 years old. At officers' request, the girl called Padilla to ask whether he was embarrassed for touching her when she was so young. As police listened in, he "responded by apologizing and said he was sorry for everything," one of the officers wrote in a court filing.

Court records show the District Attorney's office approved extraditing Padilla when the case was filed in 2010, but they do not explain when or why his status changed in the national records.

Any changes in officials' extradition decisions are reflected in the FBI's confidential fugitive database, known as the National Crime Information Center. Police officers in all 50 states check that database whenever they pull drivers over for traffic violations or book them into jail. It tells them whether the person is wanted for a crime, and if so, how far the agency that wants him is willing to travel to get the person. USA TODAY identified newly unwanted fugitives by comparing extradition codes in two copies of that database, one from May 2013 and the other from mid-October.

In addition to three of its most-wanted fugitives, that comparison showed the Riverside County Sheriff's Department indicated to the FBI that it no longer intends to extradite Javier Hernandez, one of two men charged with pulling a man out of his car in 2004 and shooting him to death in front of his wife and children. Prosecutors said they intended to seek the death penalty against the other accused killer if he is convicted.

Just how many fugitives get away by crossing state lines is impossible to determine, in part because the FBI discourages police from notifying out-of-state authorities if fugitives are found beyond the extradition limit.

But FBI records nonetheless suggest that a significant number of fugitives have been found by the police but never returned. Nationwide, more than a quarter of felony fugitives whose warrants were marked as extraditable in the FBI's database had been located by the police at least once since they have been wanted, USA TODAY found.

Exactly why police reported they would no longer extradite those fugitives remains unclear even to some of the agencies responsible for making the decisions. Police and prosecutors from Southern California to Boston said they were unaware of the extent to which their warrants are now listed in the FBI's fugitive files as not extraditable until USA TODAY contacted them. The FBI said it could not comment on the changes because they are considered sensitive law enforcement information.

Riverside County sheriffs officials had no record of having changed the extradition records and would not have done so without authorization from prosecutors, Sgt. Mike Manning said. He said the department's own records were "squared away." He said a "glitch" in the state computer system that transmits fugitives' information from local police to the FBI might be to blame. The state Department of Justice, which operates that system, declined to comment. County prosecutors said the FBI's extradition records should not have been changed, and they did not know why they were.

The FBI requires law enforcement agencies to verify the accuracy of their fugitive listings at least once a year.

Whatever the reason, officials acknowledged that the non-extradition codes now associated with thousands of their warrants could result in fugitives going free because police in other states rely on that information when deciding whether to detain someone. Still, spokesman John Hall said the county has "no indication or evidence at this time that anyone was allowed to go free."

After USA TODAY inquired about 10 of those fugitives, Hall said that all "are and should be approved for extradition," even if that view isn't reflected in the records that the FBI had as of October.

Riverside County's District Attorney-elect, Mike Hestrin described the extradition changes as "ridiculous." Hestrin, a longtime prosecutor, said he didn't know whether they were made by mistake or as part of an effort to save money. Either way, he said he would fix it when he takes office in January.

"If this is simply an error, then we need to correct it. If it is a policy, then I am going to reverse it," he said.

Advocates for crime victims said they fear the reasons might be financial. "I'm troubled as to what might be driving these choices, and if it's solely financial, then what are we going to do to reverse that," said Will Marling, executive director of the National Organization for Victim Assistance. "These are dangerous people."

Victims of the crimes involved said they were troubled by those changes, and by the fact that no one had notified them. Gina Avilez said police never told her that they would no longer pursue her former boyfriend, Alfonso Ramirez-Coronoa, who they charged in 2009 with assault for allegedly choking her to the point that "she started to lose her breath," then keeping her trapped in her bedroom for more than three hours.

"Why don't they care?" she asked. "He still has a record of something he's done wrong. Anywhere he goes, he should be punished. It's just not right at all."

In addition to giving up on older cases, police across the country have also added thousands of new fugitives to the list of people they won't pursue.

Since May of 2013, the total number of unwanted fugitives more than doubled in 12 states, including California, Florida, Massachusetts and Texas, USA TODAY found after examining records police submitted to the FBI. The number of non-extradition warrants for violent crimes nearly doubled, and the number for sexual offenses more than doubled, to 6,919.

The FBI would not release information that could identify any of those fugitives because it said doing so would violate their privacy. USA TODAY tracked them by reviewing police records and court cases across the United States.

In one case, for example, police in Framingham, Mass., charged that Carlos Alvarez raped a girl while holding a knife to her throat before gathering the telephone cords from her apartment and using them to tie her to a chair so that she could not call for help. In another, police accused Ader Mendoza of assaulting and trying to rape a former co-worker before she punched him off of her. Framingham police told the FBI they would not extradite either man, or 16 others wanted for sexual assaults.

"In my opinion, that's not right," said the woman Mendoza is accused of having attacked, who asked not to be identified.

Framingham's position, and that of other agencies, could reflect growing reluctance by the police to spend their time and money fetching criminals from other parts of the country. But in many cases, it also appears merely to reflect growing candor about the way police have operated for years.

The acting head of Massachusetts' Department of Criminal Justice Information Services, Jim Slater, said many police agencies had long indicated that they would decline to extradite some of their accused felons, but that fact was not reflected in the extradition codes the FBI uses in its database. Earlier this year, he said, state officials and the FBI updated thousands of fugitives' electronic files to reflect the decisions prosecutors had already made.

"This has been a historic problem with all states," Slater said. Now the FBI's records just reflect just how common that practice is.

In Brockton, Mass., south of Boston, prosecutors confirmed that they had not approved extradition for a man wanted for smashing an acquaintance's arm with a baseball bat before driving off in a car with Florida license plates, another man charged with slashing a man's neck during a fight over milk and a man accused of cracking two of Jessica O'Donnell's vertebrae as he choked and kicked her in December of 2011. "Maybe if I was dead they'd go get him," she said.

O'Donnell's accused attacker, Dennis Chaplin, could still end up being extradited if police ever find him, but not because of anything Brockton authorities have done. He is separately wanted for violating his parole in a breaking and entering case, and parole officials have promised to retrieve him from anyplace in the United States.

Brockton police referred questions about those cases to the Plymouth County District Attorney. Assistant District Attorney Bridget Norton Middleton said prosecutors had not yet decided whether to approve extradition in two of those cases, even though both have been pending for more than a year. In the third, she said prosecutors recently approved extradition, but she did not know whether the FBI had yet been told of the change. Brockton police list fugitives as not extraditable until prosecutors tell them to do otherwise.

"If you come here and commit a crime and hurt somebody, then you should come back here and answer for that crime," Middleton said. Still, she said it makes little sense to fetch suspects from other states if the case against them is flimsy, particularly if the victim has disappeared, too.

That's why she said prosecutors had not approved extraditing a man charged with raping his girlfriend's mother there in 2012.

The woman, who asked not to be identified, awoke on a July morning to a strange hand on her body. She said she saw her daughter's boyfriend, David Jones, beside her bed, sexually assaulting her. "I got this wicked feeling that somebody's in my house doing that to me," she said. She jumped up and chased him out the back door. Once he was gone, she discovered that he had stolen two televisions from her apartment.

Police charged Jones with burglary and rape, and a judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

But they told the FBI that they will retrieve him only if he comes back to Massachusetts. The woman said she heard he is in Florida. Middleton said prosecutors had not approved the case for extradition because they had been unable to get in touch with the victim, who still lives at the address listed in a police report.

"I feel like they let me down," the woman said when she found out. "It makes me angry that they let him go, that they won't pursue him."

Contributing: Brett Kelman of The (Palm Springs, Calif.) Desert-Sun

Follow investigative reporter Brad Heath on Twitter at @bradheath.

Cop to serve time for shooting, stabbing family dog

 By Guillermo Contreras  

 An ex-cop and war vet was sentenced Friday to 18 months in a state jail for animal cruelty — shooting and stabbing the family dog.

Robert Smotherman, 41, claimed the dog, a mastiff-boxer mix named Whiskey, was aggressive and bit him. So in August 2012 he decided to put him down to protect his family, he said.

When the dog — who had been adopted from a pound in New Mexico — did not die with one shot from Smotherman’s .40-caliber gun, he shot the pet again then stabbed him to put him out of his misery, defense attorney Charles Bunk argued Friday.

“It did not go as he had hoped or liked, but it was certainly not anything other than he tried to put this dog down,” Bunk told State District Judge Mary Roman as he asked for probation or deferred adjudication for Smotherman. “The way it happened is something he regrets. It’s not something reflective of him as a husband, a man, a father or as a soldier.”

Bunk said Smotherman served in Afghanistan and Iraq and was honorably discharged and later became a reservist. His court file also said he served as a law enforcement officer for two agencies in Oklahoma, but it does not specify where, and Bunk did not know details.

Smotherman pleaded no contest in September to the cruelty to a non-livestock animal/torture charge.

Prosecutor Christopher Karl asked Friday for an 18-month sentence and countered that “this was not an instance of a mercy killing.”

“This is an instance of rage, an instance of (Smotherman) losing his top,” Karl argued.

Karl said Smotherman hit Whiskey and the dog tried to bite him back, though Smotherman had no apparent injuries when examined.

A neighbor called 911 when she heard shots from Smotherman’s far West Bexar County home, fearing he might shoot toward her home.

When the first deputy arrived, he heard one of the shots and saw Smotherman standing over the dog. The animal had a large gash on his throat and was bleeding profusely, but he wagged his tail when a deputy approached, according to a police report. A bloody 8-inch hunting knife with a “gut hook” was sticking out of the ground, and investigators learned Smotherman stabbed Whiskey with it.

Karl said the dog was friendly, not aggressive, toward deputies and animal control officers, who later euthanized it. One of Smotherman’s sons told deputies his dad was angry at the dog, asking the boy to retrieve his gun, because Whiskey made holes in the yard, the police report said.

“I think everything points to this is a man who is hot-headed,” Karl told the judge.

Roman commended Smotherman for his service, but also chastised him.

“The description of the dog’s injuries were atrocious,” Roman said. “I understand you were trying to put down an animal, and you certainly can do that, but there’s a right way to do it.”

The judge also ordered a $1,500 fine and told Smotherman to pay restitution to Animal Care Services. He broke down in tears when the judge ordered him into custody immediately.

Muskegon County police officer loses job after arrest for driving drunk with child in vehicle

By Lynn Moore |  

FRUITPORT, MI -- A Fruitport Township police officer who was fired following his arrest for drunken driving with a child in his vehicle has been formally arraigned.

Timothy Michael Thompson, 36, of Norton Shores was arraigned Wednesday, Dec. 3, in 58th District Court on a misdemeanor charge of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated with an occupant in the vehicle younger than 16.

The charge is the result of a complaint issued on Nov. 22, and Thompson posted $200 cash bond on Nov. 24, according to court records. The bond has been continued, and a trial date has not been set, according to a court spokeswoman.

Fruitport Township Police Chief Ken Doctor confirmed last week that Thompson had been fired from his job as an officer with the department. He also confirmed at that time that Thompson had been arrested for drunk driving, though he declined to say whether the firing was a result of the arrest.

The alleged infraction was committed in Ottawa County's Polkton Township and was investigated by the county sheriff's office, court records show.

The charge Thompson faces is punishable by a fine of between $200 and $1,000 plus either five days to one year in county jail or 30 to 90 days of community service.

Salem, Virginia Police Officer Pleads Guilty to Bribery

Admits to Soliciting Sexual Favors in Exchange for Potential Lenient Treatment

U.S. Department of Justice December 16, 2014  

Office of Public Affairs (202) 514-2007/TDD (202) 514-1888

WASHINGTON—A police officer employed by the City of Salem, Virginia, and assigned to a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) task force pleaded guilty today for soliciting and receiving sexual favors from a cooperating defendant in exchange for agreeing to recommend a favorable sentence to a federal prosecutor on the defendant’s behalf.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Special Agent in Charge Adam S. Lee of the FBI’s Richmond Division and Special Agent in Charge Michael Tompkins of the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General’s Washington Field Office made the announcement.

“Kevin Moore took a solemn oath to protect and serve the public, but then abused the authority of his badge by sexually exploiting a federal witness,” said Assistant Attorney General Caldwell. “When Moore crossed the line from enforcing the law to breaking it, his actions cast an unfortunate shadow over the selfless and courageous work of his fellow officers. Working with our law enforcement partners, the Department of Justice will expose and prosecute all such abuses of authority, in order to restore and maintain the public’s trust.”

“Cases involving corruption of law enforcement officials are among the FBI’s highest priority criminal investigations. The public should expect integrity from those sworn to uphold the law. Mr. Moore’s breach of his sworn duty in this case is particularly pernicious as he exploited his victims in the most personal way. The Richmond Division of the FBI continues to have confidence in the City of Salem Police Department. We value our partnership with the Department and the proud men and women who serve their community with distinction everyday,” said Special Agent in Charge Lee.

“The OIG will aggressively investigate with its law enforcement partners allegations of misconduct among Department employees, contractors, and deputized task force officers to help ensure the Department of Justice performs its critical work with integrity,” said Special Agent in Charge Tompkins.

Kevin C. Moore, 42, of Roanoke, Virginia, was a Salem Police Department officer and was assigned to the DEA task force in Roanoke, Virginia. According to his plea agreement and accompanying statement of facts, between June and September 2014, Moore informed a female cooperating defendant that he was in a position to help her with her pending federal methamphetamine trafficking case. In August 2014, for example, in a series of text messages with the cooperating defendant, Moore made clear that he could recommend a favorable sentence to the prosecutor on the cooperating defendant’s behalf in exchange for sexual favors. Moore then convinced the cooperating defendant to go for a ride in his official vehicle where she performed a sexual act with Moore.

As part of his guilty plea, Moore admitted to engaging in similar conduct with two other female cooperating witnesses in federal drug investigations dating back to 2009. According to the statement of facts, Moore falsely informed these witnesses that he had convinced federal prosecutors not to charge them with federal criminal offenses that would carry significant prison sentences. Moore then solicited and received sexual favors from the witnesses in exchange for his purported assistance.

Moore pleaded guilty to a one-count information charging him with bribery before Chief U.S. District Judge Glen E. Conrad of the Western District of Virginia. In cooperation with the City of Salem Police Department and DEA, Moore was arrested on Oct. 10, 2014, without incident, after being charged by complaint, and was suspended from the police department and DEA task force the same day. His sentencing is scheduled for February 2, 2015.

This case was investigated by the FBI and the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, and is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Charles R. Walsh and Robert J. Heberle of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section.

"Justice Department Uncovers Absurd Levels Of Police Brutality In The Cleveland Police Force"

 A 59-page report released by the United States Department of Justice on Thursday reveals widespread, excessive use of force by police officers in Cleveland. Cleveland is the city where cops recently killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice while he was carrying a toy gun on a playground, and just before that, Tanesha Anderson died in police hands when cops were supposed to be transporting her for mental health treatment.

In one incident from the Justice Department’s new report, a 300-pound officer sat on a 13 year-old boy who weighed half as much and punched the boy in the face repeatedly while the boy was handcuffed in the back of a police car. In another incident, police used their stun gun on a juvenile suspect, despite the fact that the boy was being held on the ground by two officers. In a third incident, an officer fired upon a man who fled after repeatedly asking the officer to produce his badge in order to prove that he was, in fact, a cop. The cop did not do so.

 The overarching conclusion of the report is that Cleveland police “too often use unnecessary and unreasonable force in violation of the Constitution,” and that “[s]upervisors tolerate this behavior and, in some cases, endorse it.” The report points to a “pattern or practice of using unreasonable force in violation of the Fourth Amendment,” including the “unnecessary and excessive use of deadly force,” similar use of non-deadly force, and “[e]xcessive force against persons who are mentally ill or in crisis.”

Some of the incidents laid out in the report reflect such questionable judgment that they would almost be comic if they did not end so tragically. In one incident, a police sergeant fired upon a hostage who fled a house where he was being held against his will by armed assailants. Although the man fled the building wearing nothing but his boxer shorts, the sergeant fired upon the man because he believed that the man had a weapon when he pointed arm towards the sergeant. According to the report, “[n]o other officers at the scene reported seeing [the man] point anything at the sergeant.”

Another section of the report, which details a high-speed chase involving dozens of officers, is worth quoting at length:

On November 29, 2012, over 100 Cleveland police officers engaged in a high speed chase, in violation of CDP policies, and fatally shot two unarmed civilians. . . . The incident began when Timothy Russell and his passenger Malissa Williams drove past the Justice Center in downtown Cleveland, at which point officers and witnesses outside the Justice Center heard what they believed to be a shot fired from the car. It now appears that what they actually heard was the car backfiring. A massive chase ensued, involving at least 62 police vehicles, some of which were unmarked, and more than 100 patrol officers, supervisors, and dispatchers—about 37 percent of the CDP personnel on duty in the City. The pursuit lasted about 25 minutes, at times reaching speeds of more than 100 miles per hour. During the chase, some of the confusing and contradictory radio traffic incorrectly indicated that the occupants of the car may be armed and may be firing from the car. Other radio traffic did not support that conclusion. No supervisor asserted control over the chase, and some even participated. CDP now admits that the manner in which the chase occurred was not in accordance with established CDP policies. The chase finally ended outside the City’s borders, in an East Cleveland school parking lot, with CDP vehicles located in front of and behind Mr. Russell’s car. In circumstances that are still being disputed in court, thirteen CDP officers ultimately fired 137 shots at the car, killing both its occupants. Mr. Russell and Ms. Williams each suffered more than 20 gunshot wounds. The officers, who were firing on the car from all sides, reported believing that they were being fired at by the suspects. It now appears that those shots were being fired by fellow officers.

Just last week, nine officers involved in this incident filed a lawsuit claiming they were punished more harshly for their participation because they were not African American. Their punishment? Three days of administrative leave, followed by restricted duty for about 45 days, during which they say they were asked to do “menial and unpleasant tasks” and denied overtime pay.

The Justice Department’s report, however, found that these incidents of excessive force may have flourished because the police department’s mechanisms for investigating and disciplining officers who engaged in excessive force were entirely inadequate. Some officers who are “charged with conducting unbiased reviews of officers’ use of deadly force admitted to [the Justice Department] that they conduct their investigations with the goal of casting the accused officer in the most positive light possible.” Indeed, the report found that “[d]iscipline is so rare that no more than 51 officers out of a sworn force of 1,500 were disciplined in any fashion in connection with a use of force incident over a three-and-a half-year period.” When DOJ dug deeper into that 51 incidents, they found that “in most of those 51 cases the actual discipline imposed was for procedural violations such as failing to file a report, charges were dismissed or deemed unfounded, or the disciplinary process was suspended due to pending civil claims.”

A press release accompanying the report announces that “the Justice Department and the city of Cleveland have signed a statement of principles committing them to develop a court enforceable consent decree that will include a requirement for an independent monitor who will oversee and ensure necessary reforms.” A consent decree is an agreement negotiated between DOJ and the city that can be overseen and potentially enforced by a federal court once it is finalized.

Cops caught masturbating in car…again, the epidemic of mentally unstable cops

Suspension for cop caught with his pants down

St. Petersburg, Florida -- A St. Pete Police officer was suspended for conduct unbecoming after he was caught masturbating in his own personal vehicle on Aug. 25.

A tow truck driver allegedly saw Officer Andrew Cane, who was off duty, in his personal vehicle in a posted "tow away" parking lot on Central Avenue. He called police to report what he saw and an investigation was conducted by the Investigation Services Bureau.

In an interview with investigators, Officer Cane told them he had just finished his instruction at the Police Academy and had gotten tired while driving home. He pulled over into the parking lot to rest and had fallen asleep.

The next thing he knew, he was being awakened by a tow truck driver knocking on the window. Officer Cane did admit his penis was exposed and in his hand when the tow truck driver approached the vehicle.

St. Pete Police Chief Anthony Holloway said in his report Officer Cane made several inconsistent statements during recorded interviews with investigators.

On Dec. 9, a Command Review Board convened and Chief Holloway determined the allegations against Officer Cane were sustained and he received an 80-hour suspension along with removal from the Department's SWAT Team and Honor Guard. He has received a mandatory referral to Employee Assistance Program as well.

In 18 months, Officer Cane will be eligible to apply for open positions on the Special Weapons and Tactics Team and Honor Guard.

What we don’t know about police killings

By Washington Post  Editorial Board

AFTER 24-YEAR-OLD Albert Jermaine Payton was fatally shot outside his Southeast home by D.C. police officers, the department issued a terse news release. The man, according to the statement, had approached officers brandishing a knife and was shot when he did not comply with their order to drop the weapon.

That was more than two years ago. No other information — the number of shots fired, the type of knife, the race or backgrounds of those involved — has been forthcoming. Investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office is still ongoing, and police said they are constrained from comment as long as that probe is open. Meanwhile, the two unnamed police officers have returned to duty.

Clearly, there is something wrong with a system in which there seems to be no sense of urgency in accounting for a death in which police were involved. Not only is it unfair to those affected — the victim’s family as well as the police officers — but it also undermines the community trust in police that is critical to fighting crime.

How police-involved deaths are handled is under increased nationwide scrutiny because of controversies over the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y., Tamir Rice in Cleveland and other high-profile cases. The case of Mr. Payton, shot Aug. 24, 2012, was highlighted in a recent Wall Street Journal article examining weaknesses in the national collection of data about deaths involving police that make it nearly impossible to know how many people officers kill each year. Among the troubling findings is that there are agencies, including Fairfax County police, that inexplicably don’t consider justifiable homicides by law enforcement officers as events that should be reported.

The situation is unacceptable. Congress, as we have urged, should put in place a system that ensures the collection of accurate information to assess the problem and inform the debate over reform. But there is also, as Mr. Payton’s case demonstrates, a need for local police officials to treat these cases as priorities and with more transparency. To their credit, D.C. police do report all uses of force — both fatal and non-fatal — in publicly available annual reports.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia offered little explanation — other than that a resolution of the case is expected “soon” — about why it has taken so long to get to the bottom of what happened when police responded to a call about family violence on that hot summer day. We hope that when prosecutors conclude this case, they will provide a full accounting of the events. If no criminality is found, that should not be the end of the matter. It will be important to know the results of any administrative review by the department and whether different procedures or actions might have produced a different result.

The epidemic of mentally unstable cops

Cop Faces Shoplifting Charges

Pam Zekman

 (CBS) – Shoplifting has escalated in the city, and the Chicago Police Department’s organized crime division is part of a task force trying to stop it.

But now the 2 Investigators have learned one of their own officers was charged with shoplifting after an alert store security guard and cameras caught the cop in the act.

According to police reports, on Oct. 18, Costco security saw a customer at its store at 1430 S. Ashland Ave. take a bottle of wine off the shelf and place it in her shopping cart. She then moved to the back of the store, where security saw her place the bottle in her purse.

The customer then walked past the cashiers and out of the store without paying and was stopped.

It turned out the customer was off-duty police officer, Katrina Grey, 42, assigned to the organized crime division. Police reports indicate that after Grey was caught she ran through the Costco parking lot chased by store officials until she was caught and taken into custody just down the street.

When Grey was asked to remove all items from her purse that she had not paid for, she took out five bottles of wine and a child’s pair of pink boots. The total cost would have been $115, if she had paid.

Grey is a 14-year veteran of the police department and makes $80,000 a year. Now, she’s on paid medical leave pending the outcome of her court case on the misdemeanor retail theft charges.

David Bradford, the head of Northwestern University’s Center for Public Safety, says if one of his officers had done this when he was a police chief, “in addition to being upset, I would be very disappointed.”

“It creates big problem,” for the Chicago police department, Bradford says. “The most important thing to do is to make sure that this person is held accountable for their behavior.”

A police department spokesman says Grey was stripped of her police powers after her arrest and she could face further discipline, pending results of an investigation.

“While she currently is on medical leave, that is unrelated to this incident and has no impact on the possibility of additional discipline,” the spokesman said.

Grey did not return phone calls to CBS 2.  Her attorney, Thomas Needham, says Grey, who was deployed in Iraq for a year, has “earned a fine reputation among her colleagues.”

“Unfortunately,” Needham adds, Grey “is now in the midst of some significant personal and medical problems. Once she has addressed these issues, her inexplicable and uncharacteristic behavior on October 17, 2014 will be easier for people to understand.”

  

What America’s police departments don’t want you to know

By Eugene Robinson

Michael Brown’s death was part of a tragic and unacceptable pattern: Police officers in the United States shoot and kill civilians in shockingly high numbers. How many killings are there each year? No one can say for sure, because police departments don’t want us to know.

According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, in 2013 there were 461 “justifiable homicides” by police — defined as “the killing of a felon by a law enforcement officer in the line of duty.” In all but three of these reported killings, officers used firearms.

Eugene Robinson writes a twice-a-week column on politics and culture, contributes to the PostPartisan blog, and hosts a weekly online chat with readers. In a three-decade career at The Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper’s Style section.

The true number of fatal police shootings is surely much higher, however, because many law enforcement agencies do not report to the FBI database. Attempts by journalists to compile more complete data by collating local news reports have resulted in estimates as high as 1,000 police killings a year. There is no way to know how many victims, like Brown, were unarmed.

By contrast, there were no fatal police shootings in Great Britain last year. Not one. In Germany, there have been eight police killings over the past two years. In Canada — a country with its own frontier ethos and no great aversion to firearms — police shootings average about a dozen a year.

Liberals and conservatives alike should be outraged at the frequency with which police in this country use deadly force. There is no greater power that we entrust to the state than the license to take life. To put it mildly, misuse of this power is at odds with any notion of limited government.

I realize that the great majority of police officers never fire their weapons in the line of duty. Most cops perform capably and honorably in a stressful, dangerous job; 27 were killed in 2013, according to the FBI. Easy availability of guns means that U.S. police officers — unlike their counterparts in Britain, Japan or other countries where there is appropriate gun control — must keep in mind the possibility that almost any suspect might be packing heat.

But any way you look at it, something is wrong. Perhaps the training given officers is inadequate. Perhaps the procedures they follow are wrong. Perhaps an “us vs. them” mentality estranges some police departments from the communities they are sworn to protect.

Whatever the reason, it is hard to escape the conclusion that police in this country are much too quick to shoot. We’ve seen the heartbreaking results most recently in the fatal shooting of 28-year-old Akai Gurley, an unarmed man who was suspected of no crime, in the stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project, and the killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was waving a toy gun around a park in Cleveland.

Which brings me to the issue of race. USA Today analyzed the FBI’s “justifiable homicide” statistics over several years and found that, of roughly 400 reported police killings annually, an average of 96 involved a white police officer killing a black person.

Two years ago, D. Brian Burghart, the editor and publisher of the Reno (Nev.) News & Review, launched FatalEncounters.org, an ambitious attempt to compile a comprehensive crowd-sourced database of fatal police shootings. Reports of the October 2012 killing of a naked, unarmed college student by University of South Alabama police made Burghart wonder how many such shootings there were; the fact that no one knew the answer made him determined to find it.

Burghart recently summed up what he has learned so far: “You know who dies in the most population-dense areas? Black men,” he wrote on Gawker. “You know who dies in the least population-dense areas? Mentally ill men. It’s not to say there aren’t dangerous and desperate criminals killed across the line. But African-Americans and the mentally ill people make up a huge percentage of people killed by police.”

Burghart and others who have attempted to count and analyze police shootings shouldn’t have to do the FBI’s job. All law enforcement agencies should be required to report all uses of deadly force to the bureau, using a standardized format that allows comparisons and analysis. Police departments that have nothing to hide should be eager to cooperate.

A 12-year-old boy said to have been waving a fake semi-automatic pistol in an Ohio playground dies after he was shot by police. (Reuters)

The Obama administration has been laudably aggressive in pressing cities with egregiously high rates of police shootings, such as Albuquerque, to reform. But no one can really get a handle on the problem until we know its true scope.

The Michael Brown case presents issues that go beyond race. An unarmed teenager was shot to death. Whatever his color, that’s just not right.

The epidemic of mentally unstable cops

Former CT officer charged with arson

By Joseph Wenzel IV, News Editor

A former Bridgeport police officer is accused of setting his house on fire with his wife and dog inside it earlier this year, sources said.

Thomas McMahon, 65, was charged with first-degree arson and providing a false written statement.

According to police, the fire was set at McMahon's residence in the 400 block of Golf Road in Orange on Oct. 27. No one was injured in the fire.

McMahon is being held on $50,000 bond and is expected to appear in Derby Superior Court on Jan 5.

The punks shot John Geer and then let him bleed to death and Show me the money Sharon Bulova never said a word about it

Texas Cop Nathanial Robinson Uses Stun Gun On Elderly Man Over Inspection Sticker

By Ed Mazza

A Texas cop is under investigation after using a stun gun on an elderly man he had stopped for an inspection sticker issue that the officer himself apparently didn't understand.

Dashcam video from the incident posted by Raw Story, above, shows officer Nathanial Robinson, 23, pull over Pete Vasquez, 76, at Adam's Auto Mart in Victoria, Texas, as "Under Ground Kings" by Drake blares from the cruiser's radio.

Vasquez gets out of the car, walks behind it and gestures toward the license plate and to the office of the dealer, where he works. He later told the Victoria Advocate newspaper that he was explaining that the dealer tags on the car make it exempt from inspection.

Victoria Police Chief Jeffrey "J.J." Craig confirmed to the paper that the car was exempt.

On the video, however, Robinson appears to try to snatch a piece of paper from Vasquez without success. Then, he grabs Vasquez's arm, twists it behind him and pushes him against the hood of the cruiser. After a brief scuffle, the cop reaches for both of Vasquez's arms and drags him the ground, out of camera range.

When the cop is next seen in frame, he's yelling and holding up a stun gun.

Police told the newspaper that Robinson used the device twice on Vasquez.

A man emerges from the dealer's office and yells at the cop.

"I told the officer, 'What in the hell are you doing?' This gentleman is 76 years old," sales manager Larry Urich told the newspaper. "The cop told me to stand back, but I didn't shut up. I told him he was a goddamn Nazi Stormtrooper."

When other officers arrive on the scene, they ask Vasquez for his side of the story and check to see if he's injured.

"Are you hurting anywhere?" the unidentified officer can be heard asking on the video.

"Not yet," Vasquez replies. "Probably later on. I'm 76 years old."

Vasquez was taken to a hospital, then released without being cited.

Craig later apologized to Vasquez.

"Public trust is extremely important to us," Craig said, according to the Advocate. "Sometimes that means you have to take a real hard look at some of the actions that occur within the department."

He told The Associated Press that Robinson has been placed on administrative duty pending an investigation.

District attorney Stephen Tyler told the paper he hasn't been contacted by police yet, but said the officer could face charges including official oppression, injury to elderly, aggravated assault and assault.

As many took to the department's Facebook page to express their concern, the agency posted a response reiterating that the incident is under investigation.

"We place incredible value in public trust and have worked diligently to build that trust. In the interest of transparency, and knowing that many of you are looking for an outlet to express your feelings on the matter, we are creating this post to allow your comments to be heard," the post said. "All we ask is that your comments stay within our established posting policy."

San Jose police officer suspended over tweets threatening protesters

Phillip White wrote that ‘I will use my God given and law appointed right and duty to kill you’ and alluded to slogans used in protests against police violence

A police officer in San Jose, California, has been suspended for tweets he sent from his personal account in which he made threatening remarks towards protesters marching against police violence.

“By the way if anyone feels they can’t breathe or their lives matter I’ll be at the movies tonight, off duty, carrying my gun,” one tweet by Phillip White said.

The next said: “Threaten me or my family and I will use my God given and law appointed right and duty to kill you,” and was marked with the hashtag “#CopsLivesMatter”.

The tweets, and then later White’s Twitter account, were deleted, but not before Buzzfeed managed to take a screengrab of them.

The internet reacted swiftly to his remarks. A petition on Change.org demanding that he be fired now has over 12,000 signatures.

White is a 20-year veteran of the San Jose police department, and has previously won plaudits for community outreach in gang prevention.

He was also an assistant basketball coach at Menlo College, a business school, which has now severed ties with him. “The college will not be represented by expressions of intolerance and bigotry on the campus, on social media, or on the internet,” the university said in a statement.

Police chief Larry Esquivel announced that White would be on paid leave pending an investigation. “The San Jose police department recognises the sensitive nature of this matter,” he said, adding that the tweets did not represent “the thoughts or feelings of the men and women here at the San Jose police department”.

“Nor do we condone this type of behaviour,” the statement said.

Sam Liccardo, the mayor-elect of San Jose, told the Mercury-News that White’s tweeting “undermines everything that our officers are working to accomplish in our police department to build relationships with trust in our community”.

New Mexico police officer accidentally shoots man

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, say an officer accidentally shot a man during a burglary investigation.

Police spokesman Simon Drobik said the officer's gun discharged as he climbed through a broken window of a second-floor apartment while investigating a burglary early Sunday.

Drobik says the bullet went through the apartment's floor and into the unit below, where it struck a man in the back.

Drobik says the man, whose name was not released, was hospitalized in stable condition with injuries that were not life-threatening.

He says the shooting occurred after officers took another man into custody.

The shooting comes after city officials recently signed an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department to overhaul the police force.

Mayor Richard Berry on Monday is scheduled to unveil a new initiative on community meetings

Is Gerry Hyland a suck up to the Fairfax County Police?

Westfield Officer fired, appeal denied

By Carl E. Hartdegen

WESTFIELD, Mass. (The Westfield News) – The decision by the leadership of the city police department to terminate an officer believed to be unfit for duty has been upheld by the Civil Service Commission after a lengthy appeal process.

A former city police officer, Michael C. Puza, terminated in 2011 because the department found him to be unfit for duty, had appealed the department’s decision to the commission and was granted a reprieve when the commission set aside his termination and substituted a one-year suspension.

Puza had been an officer for more than a decade when he was fired and had a history of disciplinary issues extending over much of that time.

He had undergone an evaluation to determine his fitness for duty by a licensed psychologist before he was terminated and was re-evaluated by a psychiatrist before he returned to work after the commission rejected his termination in favor of a one-year suspension.

The commission’s report details a number of incidents considered in the two evaluations, several of which involved off-duty alcohol use, that ultimately contributed to findings in both evaluations which found him to be unfit for duty as a police officer.

In one 2005 incident, Puza had been drinking with a fellow officer who was experiencing marital discord and Puza called the man’s wife on the telephone and “called her a highly offensive name.”

Later in 2005, Puza was in a city bar when he became involved in an altercation with a bouncer and police were called. Puza called the station in an effort to forestall a police response.

As a result of the second incident, the commission’s report states, “the WPD demoted the Appellant (Puza) from Detective to Patrolman.”

In 2007, the report notes, Puza failed to appear in court and was working a paid road detail when he was due in court.

In 2009, Puza was suspended for a day for making hours-long personal phone calls on his city-issued phone while working. In an evaluation interview Puza “asserted that he wasn’t shirking his duty during the lengthy calls because he was writing a report while he was on the phone.”

In 2011, Puza was reprimanded for providing confidential Registry of Motor Vehicles information to a friend who used it to harass another person and child. In discussing that incident with an evaluator Puza said that “other officers give out information like this and, incredibly, that his only error in this regard was that he should have told his friend not to use the confidential information.”

Also in 2011, the report relates, Puza “was involved in an off-duty high-speed chase with passengers in his car and evading the State Police.”

In discussing that incident, he told the doctor evaluating his fitness “that he had only one drink that night and that he was just horsing around, that other police do the same and that it was just a joke” but went on to acknowledge that “in hindsight, it was poor judgment and not funny, that he could have put people in jeopardy, and it was a mistake.”

Later in 2011, Puza was suspended for 13 days “for calling in sick for a shift so that he could attend a close friend’s 30th birthday party.”

Puza was subsequently terminated but, when he appealed to the commission, “The Commission found that the only reason for termination supported by a preponderance of the evidence was the speeding incident involving the State Police and modified the Appellant’s employment termination to a one year suspension.”

The commission allowed the department to obtain another evaluation of his fitness for duty, with a different examiner, before he returned to work.

The department exercised that option and required a re-evaluation by a psychiatrist, Julia Reade, who was assisted by a psychologist who administered a number of tests “widely recognized for their reliability.”

In addition to the testing results, Reade examined the reports of other practitioners who had met with Puza and herself interviewed him for four and a half hours.

Her evaluation, as reported by the commission, includes statements such as “Mr. Puza has a long history of problematic alcohol use” and “Mr. Puza is at high risk for return to active alcohol abuse.”

She states he “has entrenched maladaptive personality traits that include psychological rigidity, difficulty taking responsibility for his own behavior and trouble reflecting on his contributions to a conflict. He is prone to blame others for his difficulties, to trivialize his problematic actions and to sanitize his account of his behavior.”

She concludes “Mr. Puza is not currently fit for unrestricted duty as a police officer. It is unlikely, in my view, that he can be restored to fitness, even with specialized treatment, given his severe and problematic personality factors.”

After the commission’s examination of the relevant reports and testimony the report, written by Commissioner Cynthia Ittleman, found that “Time and again, the Appellant disregarded his duties and appropriate conduct as a police officer.”

It further states “the Appellant is not able to conduct himself pursuant to Department rules and regulations at all times and does not uphold the higher standard to which police are held.”

The commission thus denied Puza’s appeal saying “Therefore, the Respondent has proved, by a preponderance of evidence, that the Appellant is unfit to perform the function of a police officer, providing it just cause to terminate the Appellant’s employment.”

The appeal process, which extended for about two years, had precluded the department from hiring a replacement but, at the most recent meeting of the Police Commission, a full time officer was appointed to fill the vacant slot on the police roster.

Fuck police policy reform just insist on a national IQ test for cops, problem solved

SUSPENDED WOONSOCKET POLICE OFFICER TO SERVE 6 MONTHS FOR ABUSING HALF-SISTER

By Donita Naylor

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A suspended Woonsocket police officer found guilty in October of abusing his 9-year-old half-sister in 2012 was sentenced Monday in Superior Court to serve six months of a 10-year term.

Patrick Cahill, 25, was convicted in October by Judge Daniel A. Procaccini of one count of second-degree child abuse for using unnecessary force against his half-sister on Aug. 20, 2012, while she and her sister were in his care.

Procaccini said that after Cahill serves six months, he’ll be on probation for the remainder of the 10-year sentence. Cahill was ordered to have no contact with the victim, to undergo anger management and mental health counseling and to turn over any firearms, said Amy Kempe, spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s Office.

The start of the sentence was stayed until Jan. 14, the court date for execution of the sentence or a hearing on bail pending appeal, Kempe said.

Cahill has been suspended without pay since his arrest on Aug. 21, 2012.

Jones to show council videos that got officer suspended

 By Rachel Molenda, Staff writer

Tonight, Charleston City Council members will see the videos that got a Charleston police officer suspended, Mayor Danny Jones said.But members of the public won’t see the videos, which were allegedly taken from Lt. Shawn Williams’ personal computer. Instead, council members will view them behind closed doors.Sources have told the Gazette that the videos show Williams’ young daughter dressed in what appear to be articles of a police uniform and dancing to an anthem of the Ku Klux Klan. 

Sources have also told the Gazette that Police Chief Brent Webster recommended that Williams be fired.Jones said he wants to show council members the videos because a council member is advocating on Williams’ behalf.“He’s got one strong advocate on council, who’s lobbying for him, and I think that they need to see exactly what’s going on,” Jones told the Gazette.Jones said there were seven short videos obtained by the police department.“Someday you’ll see those tapes, and they’re not very pretty,” the mayor said during a meeting last week between police officers and clergy about race and community relations.Williams was suspended pending an investigation by the department’s personal conduct division that was triggered by an internal complaint. Webster has not commented on the investigation because of personnel laws.Jones said Williams has made “some very serious allegations against the police department,” referring to a television interview Williams did in November with WCHS-TV.In the interview, asked if he thought the investigation was political, Williams answered, “Without a doubt.”“I was contacted back in the spring and summer by some City Council people that thought the department needed to go in a different direction,” Williams said.Williams also said Jones told his lawyer that he needed to listen to reason or Jones would release the tapes to a local news station.The suspended officer said the police department is likely using the investigation “as a tool that, ‘We’re not going to tolerate racism in the Charleston Police Department.’ Well, if you think that this is the first and only incident of racism in the Charleston Police Department, people, I guess ‘Stand by,’ ” Williams said.“If everybody on council rises up and supports Shawn Williams, that’s their business,” Jones said. “It’s a significant case and a significant issue, and he’s made some allegations against our police department that I don’t think are fair.”City Council meets at tonight at 7 in City Hall.Reach Rachel Molenda - See more at: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20141215/GZ01/141219575/1101#sthash.DiOfzxOO.dpuf