another insane cop.....we need federal mental health testing of all police candidates

New Haven police chief resigns after two public outbursts where he berated a waitress and threatened to shut down a football game

•           Police chief, Dean Esserman, visited the White House twice in the past year

•           He resigned after launching a tirade against waiting staff at a restaurant

•           Esserman's outburst was so severe it caused other diners to move tables

•           He threatened to cancel a Yale football game during his tenure as chief 

By SIMON HOLMES FOR MAILONLINE

A Connecticut police chief who was invited to the White House twice in the past year to discuss law enforcement issues has resigned after being disciplined twice for berating people in public.

New Haven Mayor Toni Harp announced Tuesday that Police Chief Dean Esserman resigned by 'mutual agreement' effective September 2. She also praised him for the city's declining crime and violence.

'I'm grateful for the chief's successful legacy,' Harp said in a statement.

'Public safety in New Haven is improved after a return to grass roots community policing, productive partnerships with other law enforcement agencies, and positive interaction with community organizations.'

Esserman has apologized in the past for public outbursts but it seems the last straw was a July confrontation with a member of staff at Archie Moore’s bar and restaurant in New Haven. 

Harp investigated the matter after a witness said the chief's yelling prompted other diners to be asked to move further away from his table.

Esserman is said have been infuriated by poor service at the restaurant. 

He faced a packed room at police headquarters Tuesday afternoon, speaking briefly about his time as chief and the dedication of officers in the city.

He said it was 'very important' that he give those in attendance the 'respect they deserve,' and to let them know in person that he was moving on.

'It has been a privilege to serve Mayor Harp and work alongside the remarkable men and women of the New Haven Department of Police Service, who no doubt have earned the title, 'New Haven's Finest,'' Esserman said.

'Last and certainly not least, it has been my privilege to serve the wonderful people of New Haven.'

Esserman agreed in July to go on three weeks of paid leave and then went on temporary sick leave amid the latest allegations from the local restaurant.

This is not the first time the police chief has been caught up in controversy. Two years ago, Harp reprimanded Esserman for his angry confrontation with a Yale Bowl usher.

When he was police chief in Providence, Rhode Island, in 2011, Esserman was suspended without pay for one day for what media reports said was a threat to throw coffee in the face of a sergeant who was coughing during a speech by Esserman.

Officers in both New Haven and Providence voted no confidence in Esserman, accusing him of publicly berating officers, intimidation, favoritism and retaliation, among other things.

Esserman, a Dartmouth College graduate who never served as a rank-and-file officer, is a protege of New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton, former chief of the Los Angeles police and former Boston police commissioner.

He previously served as an assistant prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York, assistant police chief in New Haven from 1991 to 1993, police chief for the Metro-North Railroad and police chief in Stamford, Connecticut.

He became New Haven chief in 2011.

Esserman was among 30 law enforcement officials, civil rights activists and other people invited to a White House discussion in July on improving police-community relations. He also attended a White House discussion on reducing incarceration across the country in October.

Assistant Chief Anthony Campbell will continue to serve as Interim police chief in New Haven. 

Yet more cops arrested for child rape: This is a national police-molest kid epidemic

7 Current and Former Bay Area Officers to Be Charged in Sexual Misconduct Case

(OAKLAND, Calif.) — Prosecutors said Friday they will charge seven current and former San Francisco Bay Area officers in a sexual misconduct scandal involving a teenager.

The wide-ranging scandal surfaced when a teenage girl who described herself as a prostitute said she had sex with about 30 law enforcement officials in Oakland and elsewhere in the region.

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley said she was waiting to formally file charges until the teen could be returned to California from Florida, where she has been jailed in an assault case.

The prosecutor said she needs the teen to provide testimony in the case.

O’Malley said the officers who will be charged are former Contra Costa sheriff’s Deputy Ricardo Perez; former Livermore police Officer Dan Black; Oakland police Officers Brian Bunton, Giovani LoVerde and Warit Utappa; and former Oakland police Officers Tyrell Smith and Leroy Johnson.

The officers will be charged with a range of felonies and misdemeanors, O’Malley said.

The teen, now 19, said she had sex with four officers before she turned 18 and sometimes traded sex for protection from arrest or tips about planned prostitution stings.

The Associated Press generally doesn’t identify people who say they are victims of sex crimes.

O’Malley said she found much of the conduct “morally reprehensible” but noted the actions of the officers on social media did not violate criminal statutes.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf previously said disciplinary action has begun against a dozen officers, including dismissal proceedings against four.

Seven will serve a range of unpaid suspensions before being allowed to return to duty and another will be required to attend training classes.

The Oakland department previously said two officers implicated in the scandal had resigned and another killed himself last year.

The department cycled through three chiefs in 10 days in June after the allegations were first reported in the media.

Six Richmond police officers and personnel at other law enforcement agencies have also been implicated.

A Livermore officer who had been on administrative leave resigned Thursday after seeing the results of his department’s investigation.

Letters to the Editor (Washington Post)

We cannot ignore the need for serious reform of law enforcement

Another police shooting in Fairfax County, this time of a mentally disturbed man who had told a police officer earlier on the day he was shot that he was suicidal [“Family of man shot by Fairfax deputy says he had sought help,” Metro, Aug 25]. Is this going to be the tipping point where we actually make changes so that citizens in crisis don’t get killed and our law enforcement officers don’t kill them?

The fatal shooting of Giovanny Martinez was outrageous. So were the deaths of Natasha McKenna, a mentally ill inmate who died in the Fairfax County jail last year, andJohn B. Geer, who was shot in the doorway of his Springfield home in 2013. Shoot-to-kill is not an acceptable way to defuse a crisis, and the police in Fairfax County (and elsewhere) need better tools and training to serve and protect the community.

Non-lethal technology exists, so why isn’t it being used in these types of situations? There is no good excuse when the alternative is the death of someone’s loved one. The Martinez family is mourning this time, but it easily could be any of us. After the requisite investigation, let’s have the courage to make some real changes this time.

Benjamin W. Glass III, Fairfax Station

Why? Because they can get away with murder and they know, that's why

Fairfax County Deputy Who Shot Hospital Patient Also Linked to 2015 Death

A Virginia deputy who fatally shot a hospital patient wielding a metal sign post was also involved in the death of an inmate last year shot multiple times with a stun gun.

Police on Thursday identified Patrick McPartlin, an 18-year veteran of the Fairfax County Sheriff's Office, as the deputy who shot and killed Jovany Martinez outside Inova Fairfax Hospital last month.

McPartlin is on administrative leave while the shooting is investigated. Police say Martinez was having a mental episode and had already injured one person when he charged McPartlin with the post.

McPartlin was also part of a team that restrained Natasha McKenna last year as she was removed from a jail cell. McKenna, who also suffered from mental illness, died after receiving four Taser shots during a 15-miunte struggle.

"Deputy McPartlin pulled her legs out from under her and took her to the ground," according to a report released by the Office of the Commonwealth's Attorney after McKenna's death.

McPartlin is mentioned a total of nine times in the report.

Atlanta officer James Burns indicted for murder of Deravis Caine Rogers

Rogers, 22, was unarmed and sitting in his car when Burns shot him in the head and killed him, and dashcam video showed ‘no provocation’ for the shooting

Former Atlanta police officer James Burns was indicted by a grand jury Wednesday for the murder of Deravis Caine Rogers.

Rogers, 22, was sitting in his car when Burns shot him in the head and killed him, and dashcam video showed “no provocation” for the shooting, according to the police investigation.

Despite the overwhelming evidence in his case, the indictment marks a shift in prosecutions of police killings, both nationally and in Georgia.

A 2014 Wall Street Journal analysis found that over a seven-year period ending in 2011, just 41 people were charged nationwide. For Georgia, Burns is now the second law enforcement officer in over five years to be indicted for killing a civilian while on duty. The previous indictment took place earlier this year, when former Dekalb County police officer Robert Olsen was charged with the murder of Anthony Hill, also young, unarmed and black.

 “Though nothing can bring our son back, we know this is a powerful first step,” Rogers’ parents said in a statement after the indictment.

Georgia’s grand jury investigations in officer-involved shootings like have been the subject of significant backlash: until a new law passed this year, officers in Georgia were allowed to sit in on the entire hearing, including the prosecution’s evidence against them, and had the opportunity to make a statement at the end without being challenged or questioned – privileges granted to officers only in Georgia.

The law was cited as one symptom of a justice system that did not hold one officer responsible for police shootings over a more than five-year period. Of 184 Georgians shot and killed by police officers since 2010 – nearly half of whom were unarmed or shot in the back – none of the officers involved were indicted, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation last year.

The new law curtailing these privileges took effect on 1 July this year, but because Rogers was killed prior to that it did not affect this hearing.

In the hours before the indictment was announced, roughly 200 people gathered for a vigil that lasted 24 hours before and during James Burns’ hearing. Supporters stayed outside the Fulton County courthouse overnight, and held signs listing the names of people killed at the hands of cops. The list included Jamarion Robinson, a 26-year-old shot and killed by US marshals last month while being served arrest warrants.

“We know that we’ve got to continue fighting to make sure that he is sent to jail,” said Dre Norman, who stayed outside the courthouse overnight, referring to Burns.

Burns was charged with two violations of oath of office, aggravated assault, felony murder, and making a false statement.

Shean Williams, a partner at the Cochran Law Firm, placed blame on the police department for failing “to provide adequate training and discipline to officer Burns” such that it is “ultimately responsible for the death of Caine Rogers through the actions of officer Burns”.

After Rogers’ death, Xochitl Bervera, director of the Racial Justice Action Center, called on Atlanta police chief George Turner to take responsibility for his department’s role in the incident.

“Chief Turner needs to acknowledge that killings happen when officers are trained to see community members as enemies and neighborhoods as combat zones to occupy,” she said. “Until we get rid of broken window policing and policing for profit, we will continue to see officers violating the rights of – and sometimes ending the lives of – our friends, neighbors and fellow residents.”

When asked about changes to training protocol since Rogers death, Atlanta police spokesperson Sgt Warren Pickard answered:

“The actions that Burns took in this incident were the result of his decision-making, not as a result of training.”

Why are so many cops involved with kiddie porn?

...including the spokesman for the Fairfax County police?

Department of Justice

U.S. Attorney’s Office

Western District of Tennessee

________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, August 29, 2016

Former Millington Reserve Officer Receives 26 Years for Producing Child Pornography

Memphis, TN – A former Millington reserve police officer has been sentenced to serve more than a quarter century in federal prison for producing child pornography of three female minors. The defendant also transported a minor across state lines with intent to engage in unlawful sexual activity. Edward L. Stanton III, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, announced the sentence today.

"Anyone who chooses to prey on the most vulnerable members of our society deserves to be behind bars," said U.S. Attorney Stanton. "As a former reserve police officer, Friar was sworn to serve and protect the citizens of our community from crime. But he broke that oath to satisfy his own abhorrent fetishes, and will spend the next 26 years in federal prison because of his egregious acts."

According to information presented in court, on July 13, 2015, a Shelby County Sheriff’s Office Deputy responded to a call at the Millington residence of Rickie Friar, 67. The call was made by Friar’s housekeeper, who had stopped by the defendant’s residence to do some chores. Friar was out of town at the time. While there, a female minor who accompanied the housekeeper opened Friar’s iPad and showed the housekeeper sexually explicit images of children who regularly spent time with Friar.

A forensic examination of Friar’s iPad, along with other electronic devices seized during a search of his residence revealed additional videos and images of female minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Friar is visible in some of the images and videos, and his voice can be heard in others. The videos and images were produced between July 2013 and May 2015. Two of the victims were under 12 years old at the time; one was under the age of 18 years old.

Hours after his housekeeper notified law enforcement of what had been seen on Friar’s iPad, Friar was located in Arkansas, returning from a trip to Oklahoma. He had a female minor with him. Law enforcement agents found receipts, dated a day or two earlier, for sex toys and lubricant in Friar’s vehicle.

In May 2016, Friar pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge John T. Fowlkes Jr. to:

• one count of knowingly transporting a minor under the age of 18 years old between the states of Tennessee and Oklahoma for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity;

• tw0 counts of attempting to and knowingly using a female minor under 12 years old to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of such conduct;

• one count of attempting to and knowingly using a female minor under the age of 18 years old to engage in sexually explicit conduct.

On Monday, August 29, 2016, Judge Fowlkes sentenced Friar to 312 months in federal prison.

This case was investigated by the Memphis Child Exploitation Task Force. The collective is comprised of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Homeland Security Investigations; Shelby County Sheriff's Department; Memphis Police Department; U.S. Postal Investigation Service; U.S. Marshals Service; and the U.S. Secret Service.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Ireland prosecuted this case on the government’s behalf.

Anyone who believes they may have information about this case or related activities is asked to contact the Memphis Child Exploitation Task Force at 901.747.4300.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood (PSC), a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, PSC marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about PSC, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/. For more information about internet safety education, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/resources.html and click on the tab "resources."

Joseph Patrick Gamerl of the Fairfax County PoliceAccused of Soliciting Minors for Sex

Former Police Captain Accused of Soliciting Minors for Sex

The former captain was arrested in June on charges he inappropriately touched a 10-year-old girl

By Jackie Bensen

A former police captain is behind bars for a second time this summer after police believe he solicited minors for sex online.

Fairfax County Police said 53-year-old Joseph Patrick Gamerl, of Fairfax, Virginia, had been arrested in June on charges he inappropriately touched a 10-year-old girl and exposed himself.

According to search warrants obtained by News4, Gamerl was then fired from his contractor job for the Department of Justice Office of Diversion Control.

In a routine screening of his work laptop, the Office of Professional Responsibility found a child pornography image, according to documents.

"Our detectives were able to obtain more evidence, especially electronic evidence that showed that there's more victims out there, possibly with ties to the Loudoun County or Prince William County areas," said Fairfax County Police Officer Monica Meeks.

Gamerl used to be a police captain in North Miami Beach before moving to Fairfax, Virginia.

Authorities said anyone who may have information about Gamerl's contact with any children should call police.

In Police Misconduct Lawsuits, Potent Incentives Point to a Payout

By ALAN FEUERAUG. 16, 2016

When lawsuits against the police are settled, like the one announced this week in which New York City agreed to pay $4 million to the family of Akai Gurley, people tend to focus on the amount of money changing hands. Sometimes overlooked are the institutional reforms embedded in the deals, and the difficult decisions made by plaintiffs and their lawyers in trading a full public airing of the facts for the recovery of damages.

In many police misconduct cases, the victims and their families are people of limited means for whom a six-figure check could be life-changing. At the same time, lawyers said, those who file, and settle, such suits belong to what might be called a community of the wronged, and often have a strong desire to tell their stories or force the system to change.

“Frequently, plaintiffs in these cases are badly damaged and want or even need compensation,” said Barry Scheck, a lawyer who helped negotiate the $9 million settlement for Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant who was sexually assaulted by the police with a broomstick inside a Brooklyn station house in 1997. “But you have to trade that off sometimes with their aspirations to expose what happened, and to find solutions.”

Mr. Louima’s suit, which was filed against the city and its main police union, was a rare example of litigation that produced enormous monetary damages and real alterations to policing policy. When the settlement was reached in 2001, Mr. Louima said that he had dropped his three-year battle because he was convinced that the city and the union had started to improve the ways the Police Department trained, monitored and disciplined its officers.

Ultimately, the decision of whether to settle a suit or to air the facts of the case, hoping to both win a judgment and secure reform, is up to the client, said Scott Rynecki, who handled the suit involving Mr. Gurley, an unarmed man killed two years ago by an officer on patrol in a Brooklyn public housing project.

“Our primary job is to get our clients” — in this case, it was Mr. Gurley’s domestic partner, Kimberly Ballinger, and their daughter — “a decent recovery,” Mr. Rynecki said. “If the recovery is fair, we have an obligation not to go forward just to ‘go forward.’”

Mr. Rynecki said it was also important to create a public record and push for structural change. As part of his negotiations with the city, he said, he urged officials to improve training at the Police Academy in areas like firearms handling and emergency medical care. “I have made repeated calls for this, both in public and in private, with politicians and on TV,” he said. “It’s a constant mantra. We have the greatest police force in country, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.”

In Mr. Gurley’s case, as in some others, litigation was preceded by an extensive criminal trial which produced a detailed narrative about everything that had happened. Sometimes, the revelatory nature of a criminal proceeding can persuade a plaintiff, like Ms. Ballinger, that she does not need her day in civil court. But sometimes, even a long criminal trial can leave the record incomplete.

Howard Hershenhorn, a lawyer who represented the family of Amadou Diallo, a Guinean immigrant who was shot 41 times by the police in 1999, said he “had no choice but to fully litigate the civil case” because the officers who had killed Mr. Diallo were acquitted and the story of his client’s death was never fully told. Working with his partners, Mr. Hershenhorn took numerous depositions during the case’s discovery phase, unearthing information that never emerged fully at the criminal trial. Much of it concerned the Street Crimes Unit, a plainclothes patrol in the Police Department that employed the officers who shot Mr. Diallo and was eventually disbanded.

“We never would have settled the case without assurances from the right people that that would happen,” Mr. Hershenhorn said. “The unit was on its way to being disbanded because of information that we produced in discovery and that, frankly, the city didn’t know.”

Since by definition plaintiffs in these cases have suffered the apparent trauma of personal injury or the death of a loved one, there are powerful incentives to take a settled payout and not relive it all at trial.

“These cases aren’t easy for the plaintiffs; they’re very difficult and emotional,” said Jonathan Moore, a lawyer who won a $5.9 million settlement in a lawsuit by the family of Eric Garner, who died after an officer placed him in a chokehold while arresting him for selling untaxed cigarettes on Staten Island. “It may not be exactly what they want, but settling a case at least puts an end to it.”

Then there is the question of the money, which can be a godsend for plaintiffs.

“More often than not, when we first meet our clients they tell us in all sincerity that ‘it’s not about the money,’ but in the end, even a jury verdict is a dollar figure,” said Andrew Stoll, who has represented several plaintiffs in police misconduct cases. “It’s the rare victim that has the luxury of refusing that money to make a bigger point.”

Dummy

Party

tough guys

Don't have any friends, romance or purpose to your life? Boy do we have a job for you!

Citizens explain complaint to Fairfax County Police by drawing picture for them

$300,000,000 million a year budget and they all they do is give each other awards

That money could be spent on our schools

that money could be spent on our roads

that money could be spent on a hundred good things

but it should not be spent on fucking government workers giving each other awards that we have to pay for

33rd annual "Dear God will some guy please marry a Fairfax County Police Woman" auction begins in October

WE ARE FAIRLY CERTAIN THE ONE ON THE RIGHT IS THE WOMAN 

Not all Gay men wear mustaches .....

I'm just say'n, that's all. I mean just because you have a mustache, hang around other men all day in a job known to attract males with low self esteem, DOSE NOT MEAN YOU ARE GAY.

I'm just say'n, that's all.

   

NYPD brutally beat a man in the Bronx

These punches and knees to the back of his head are BANNED in the UFC because they could cause brain damage or death. This is NOT how you arrest a man. Horrifying. Horrifying! 

Racial bias isn't the problem...the quality of cops and the lack of mental wellness in cops is the problem

U.S. Justice Department to Release Blistering Report of Racial Bias by Baltimore Police

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr., SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and MATT APUZZOAUG. 9, 2016

The Justice Department has found that the Baltimore Police Department for years has hounded black residents who make up most of the city’s population, systematically stopping, searching and arresting them, often with little provocation or rationale.

In a blistering report, coming more than a year after Baltimore erupted into riots over the police-involved death of a 25-year-old black man, Freddie Gray, the Justice Department is sharply critical of policies that encouraged police officers to charge black residents with minor crimes. A copy of the report was obtained by The New York Times.

The critique is the latest example of the Obama administration’s aggressive push for police reforms in cities where young African-American men have died at the hands of law enforcement.

The findings, to be released Wednesday, are the first formal step toward the Justice Department’s reaching a settlement with Baltimore — known as a “consent decree” — in which police practices would be overhauled under the oversight of a federal judge. The department started the inquiry at the invitation of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

To show how officers disproportionately stopped black pedestrians, the report cited the example of a black man in his mid-50s who was stopped 30 times in less than four years. None of the stops led to a citation or criminal charge. Black residents, the report said, accounted for 95 percent of the 410 individuals stopped at least 10 times in the five and a half years of data reviewed.

The most pronounced racial disparities were in arrests for the most discretionary offenses: For example, 91 percent of those arrested solely for “failure to obey” or “trespassing” were African-American, even though the city is 63 percent black, the report found.

In one telling anecdote from the report, a shift commander provided officers with boilerplate language on how to write up trespassing arrest reports of people found near housing projects. The template contained an automatic description of the arrestee: “A BLACK MALE.”

“The supervisor’s template thus presumes that individuals arrested for trespassing will be African-American,” the report stated, describing the sort of detentions the language was intended to facilitate as “facially unconstitutional.”

The report indicated that the frequency of arrests without probable cause was reflected in the fact that booking supervisors and prosecutors had declined to file charges, after arrests by their own officers, more than 11,000 times since 2010.

Two weeks ago, Maryland prosecutors dropped charges against the last of six officers charged in the April 2015 death of Mr. Gray, who sustained a fatal spinal cord injury while in custody. With that, Baltimore joined a growing list of cities where police-involved deaths sparked outrage, and even riots, yet no one was held accountable in court.

While no consent decree has been reached, the report states that the city and the Justice Department have agreed in principle to identify “categories of reforms the parties agree must be taken to remedy the violations of the Constitution and federal law described in this report.”

FINDINGS OF THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT REPORT

In its report, the Justice Department concluded that the Baltimore Police Department “engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct” that was unconstitutional or violated federal law, including:

•           Making unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests.

•           Using enforcement strategies of stops, searches and arrests that unfairly target African-Americans.

•           Using excessive force.

•           Retaliating against people engaging in constitutionally-protected expression.

“I don’t think at this point, it’s about justice for Freddie Gray anymore,” said Ray Kelly, a director of the No Boundaries Coalition, a West Baltimore group that provided its own report on police abuses to the Justice Department. “Now it’s about justice for our community, for our people.”

City Councilman Brandon Scott,vice chairman of the council committee that oversees the department, said the next fight could be over how to pay for the police overhaul.

Baltimore is among nearly two dozen cities that the Obama administration has investigated after they were accused of widespread unconstitutional policing. Using its broad latitude to enforce civil rights laws, the Justice Department has demanded wholesale change in how cities conduct policing. In several cities, including Seattle; Cleveland; and Ferguson, Mo., those investigations began in the aftermath of a high-profile death that sparked protests and in some cases riots.

Police chiefs, prosecutors and experts say the investigations have forced cities to address longstanding, entrenched issues far beyond the targeted cities.

“Chiefs are constantly looking at these reports, not just to learn lessons and best practices from each other, but also what pitfalls we can avoid,” said Scott Thomson, the police chief in Camden, N.J., who is also the president of the Police Executive Research Forum.

But court-ordered reform can take years, which does little to ease the frustration of activists who say that police officers too often go unpunished for deadly encounters with unarmed people.

Sheriff Raids House to Find Anonymous Blogger Who Called Him Corrupt

Naomi LaChance

AFTER A WATCHDOG BLOG repeatedly linked him and other local officials to  corruption and fraud, the Sheriff of Terrebone Parish in Louisiana on Tuesday sent six deputies to raid a police officer’s home to seize computers and other electronic devices.

Sheriff Jerry Larpenter’s deputies submitted affidavits alleging criminal defamation against the anonymous author of the ExposeDAT blog, and obtained search warrants to seize evidence in the officer’s house and from Facebook.

The officer, Wayne Anderson, works for the police department of Houma, the county seat of Terrebone Parish — and according to New Orleans’ WWL-TV, formerly worked as a Terrebone Sheriff’s deputy.

Anderson was placed on paid leave about an hour and a half after the raid on his house, Jerri Smitko, one of his attorneys, told The Intercept. She said that he has not yet been officially notified about why.

Smitko said Anderson denies that he is the author of ExposeDat.

But free speech advocates say the blogger — whoever he or she is — is protected by the First Amendment.

“The law is very clear that somebody in their private capacity, on private time, on their own equipment, has a First Amendment right to post about things of public concern,” Marjorie Esman, director of the ACLU of Louisiana, told The Intercept.

Larpenter told WWL: “If you’re gonna lie about me and make it under a fictitious name, I’m gonna come after you.”

Esman said the Sheriff and his deputies were forgetting something.  “The laws that they’re sworn to uphold include the right to criticize and protest. Somehow there’s a piece in the training that leads to them missing that.”

ExposeDAT calls itself a “watchdog group,” posting articles that use public records to identify institutional corruption in the Parish. Since it launched in late June, it has accused various public officials and business owners of nepotism, tax evasion, polluting and misuse of government funds.

It promises to “introduce articles that explore the relationship between certain Public Officials and the flow of money in South Louisiana.”

The Sheriff’s office, in order to obtain the warrants, said the blog had criminally defamed the Parish’s new insurance agent, Tony Alford, WWL reported.

One ExposeDAT blog post titled “Gordon Dove and Tony Alford’s Radioactive Waste Dumping,” briefly describes the relationship between Alford and the parish’s president, who jointly own a Montana trucking company that has been cited for dumping radioactive waste in Montana. That citation was originally reported in the Missoula, Mont., newspaper The Missoulian.

In a post titled “You Scratch Mine and I’ll Scratch Yours,” the blog uses public records to call attention to the fact that Sheriff Larpenter gave Alford a parish contract despite that fact that his wife manages Alford’s office.

“When decent, law abiding citizens try to speak out on matters of public importance, they’re treated like criminals,” Smitko said. “If this is what happens to a police officer with 12 year of impeccable service what the hell kind of justice do criminals get?”

The Sheriff’s office, the police department and the district attorney’s office did not return requests for comment.

This isn’t the first time that Louisiana law enforcement officers have challenged those who criticize them. In 2012, Bobby Simmons, a former police officer, was arrested and jailed on a charge of criminal defamation for a letter he wrote to a newspaper regarding another police officer. The charge was later dropped, and Simmons filed a civil suit alleging that his civil rights were violated. 

one drink away

wrong neighborhood

wake up call

California Deputies Shoot Man Recording Them with Phone

Fearing for their lives, California deputiesopened fire on a man who wasrecording them with a cell phone from the garage of his home, claiming they thought it was a gun.
Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies then searched the man’s home, finding no guns, before they apologized and went on their way.
Fortunately, Danny Sanchez survived the shooting, ending up with only bullet fragments in his legs.  And although deputies apologized to Sanchez, 
they are pretty much unapologetic for their actions because, you know, officer safety.
The incident took place in Rancho Cordova as Sacramento County deputies were arresting Sanchez’s next-door neighbor after a two-hour standoff. 
Let’s not forget that the only person accused of a crime in that situation was Ledford, whom they were already taking into custody when they shot Sanchez. 
Gosh, is there anything that the cops AREN’T afraid of? I mean, rly, they only saw a damn CELL PHONE and started shooting… How are they meant to protect, if they’re getting feared so easily? 

The problem is that cops aren’t held accountable for their actions, and they know it. These officers violate rights with impunity. They know there’s a different criminal justice system for civilians and police. Even when officers get caught, they know they’ll be investigated by their friends, and put on paid leave. My colleagues would laughingly refer to this as a free vacation. It isn’t a punishment. And excessive force is almost always deemed acceptable in our courts and among our grand juries.— former cop  Redditt Hudson, “ The Washington Post 

Fairfax County Police, where getting with murder means a larger budget