NEWARK – A Newark cop with what his bosses called an “extremely problematic and troubling” record of making dishonest claims in his police work found another job after being slapped with a termination notice in 2016: teaching criminal justice students.
In all, internal investigations found that former Officer Jeff Neithercutt was untruthful about three separate incidents and also lied to investigators looking into them, records released under the state’s new police transparency law, Senate Bill 1421, show.
“Your efforts to deflect blame and refusal to accept any responsibility for your statements and actions severely damage your credibility with the department and the public and cannot be tolerated,” then Newark City Manager John Becker wrote to Neithercutt in a termination letter.
The officer lied about conducting a high-speed chase through city streets, lied that he had looked up a parolee in a law enforcement database before stopping the man, and wrote a report about a DUI arrest attributing information to a witness that the witness never told him, documents show.
He fought the firing, but the City Council upheld the termination in a 5-0 vote in October 2017 after an arbitrator recommended it do so.
After receiving a final termination notice from Becker on July 21, 2016, Neithercutt quickly turned up as a part-time lecturer at California State University East Bay, state records show, teaching in the very Criminal Justice Department that his late father, Marc Neithercutt, founded in the 1970s.
“I’m teaching a course on Basic Criminal Investigations, and another on Cyber Crimes this quarter at my Alma Mater (CSU East Bay) and it’s an honor to follow in my father’s footsteps,” Neithercutt posted on LinkedIn in September 2016. He taught at least two classes in 2016 and 2017, records show. He is also the author of a textbook, “Introduction to Tactical Hacking, A Guide for Law Enforcement.”
CSU East Bay officials, the chair of the school’s criminal justice department, and the top spokesman for the CSU system all either declined interview requests or didn’t return numerous messages asking how Neithercutt was hired. A person who answered the phone at the school’s Criminal Justice Department said Neithercutt is “not currently teaching.”
A former Boston Police lieutenant who is now a criminal justice academic said someone with Neithercutt’s record shouldn’t have been teaching those aspiring to law enforcement careers.
There are no “appropriate or justifiable” reasons to hire “in criminology of all disciplines, a police officer who’s been terminated for lying in official police reports and being dishonest in reporting to superiors,” said Tom Nolan, visiting professor of sociology at Emmanuel College in Boston. University teaching “should be strictly off-limits to dirty ex-cops,” he added.
In an email, Neithercutt said he didn’t tell anyone at the campus about the termination because he was appealing it. “I don’t remember specifically speaking to anyone in HR after I was hired at CSU EB, for any reason.”
Under California’s strict police privacy laws in effect in 2016, it would have been difficult for the university to learn anything about Neithercutt’s status with the Newark Police Department that he didn’t volunteer, said Jim Ewert, general counsel of the California News Publisher’s Association.
“This is a clear example of why SB 1421 is so important,” Ewert said. It allows the “public understanding of officer behavior and the ripple effect of where they end up, like colleges.”
The new law allows public access to records of officers disciplined for dishonesty and sexual assault, as well as documents about serious uses of force, including all shootings, regardless of whether any cops were disciplined.
Records released since Jan. 1 to this news organization show at least 12 other Bay Area officers besides Neithercutt were fired between 2014 and 2018, including in Burlingame, Antioch, Fairfield and Rio Vista. Some of them landed back in law enforcement or in teaching positions.
San Jose State University Police fired an officer for excessive use of force, but he won reinstatement, resigned and was hired in Los Gatos. He resigned in July because of public outcry after what happened in San Jose became known.
The Alameda County Sheriff fired two deputies. One, who stole drugs from suspects, later became a high school teacher in the San Ramon Unified School District, where officials said they didn’t know about his firing at the time they hired him. The other, who had lied to another law enforcement agency about a break-in at his home, is now a Pinole police officer.
Neithercutt, in a phone interview, called the case against him “a crock.” He claimed he was the victim of a conspiracy among higher-ranking officers who “were gunning for command staff positions that only open once in a decade, and they didn’t care whose careers they ruined to do it.” He also said he had undiagnosed “memory issues.”
Further, Neithercutt claimed he disproved the allegations against him, even though a department hearing officer and an arbitrator found in favor of the department.
In a document written after the arbitrator recommended the City Council uphold the termination, Neithercutt’s lawyer, Julia Fox, called the department’s investigation “biased” and wrote that the probe paid “short shrift to its obligation to be fair in its investigation.” The lead investigator, Commander Renny Lawson, made “multiple, significant mistakes”  and showed “callous disregard” to Neithercutt.
Asked about Neithercutt’s conspiracy claims, Newark Police Capt. Jonathan Arguello replied, “Mr. Neithercutt was entitled to full due process regarding the underlying investigations.”
Teresa Drenick, a spokeswoman for the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, said Newark Police notified the DA’s office when Neithercutt was fired but did not supply reasons for the termination. Under the landmark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brady vs. Maryland, criminal defendants are entitled to any information about police officers, including instances of dishonesty, that can impeach their credibility.
But because the office didn’t “know of the underlying conduct” behind the termination, no review of cases in which Neithercutt testified was conducted, Drenick said.
According to a web profile posted by the International System Security Association, Neithercutt is now “a Senior Cybersecurity Consultant” for an unidentified company “specializing in public sector consulting.” The profile identifies Neithercutt as a former police officer who speaks at ISSA conferences. It does not say he was fired.


Baltimore prosecutor wants 790 'tainted' convictions erased


Associated Press•October 4, 2019

BALTIMORE (AP) — Baltimore's top prosecutor has begun asking judges to throw out nearly 800 convictions that she said were tainted by officers linked to a corruption scandal.
The Baltimore Sun reported Friday that State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby's review found 790 criminal cases handled by 25 city officers whom she says she has reason to distrust. Mosby updated the number of officers being scrutinized on Friday, saying it could fluctuate as her office investigates.
Eight members of the Gun Trace Task Force were convicted of racketeering crimes and sentenced to prison. Many of the other 17 officers cited by Mosby's office were named in testimony during the federal trial, though not necessarily charged with crimes. Mosby's office hasn't disclosed all of their names because of ongoing federal investigations.
The newspaper said three of the additional officers remain on the force, including a detective and two sergeants, citing confirmation from a department spokesman. One of the three has been suspended.
The police department didn't immediately respond to an email Friday from the Associated Press seeking comment on the officers who remain on the force.
Mosby said in an email to the newspaper that "our legal and ethical obligation in the pursuit of justice leaves us no other recourse but to 'right the wrongs' of unjust convictions associated with corrupt police officers."
Of the eight Baltimore officers sentenced to prison for racketeering charges, six accepted plea deals and two were convicted. Officers admitted to stealing money from people, lying in police paperwork and claiming unearned overtime pay. Officers found guilty also testified about potential wrongdoing by additional police officers who haven't been charged.
Prosecutors spent more than a year reviewing thousands of arrests by the task force and identified the 790, most of which are older cases in which the defendants have already been released.
With expanded authorities under a new state law, Mosby's staff will file 200 cases a week, with judges holding daily hearings to consider erasing bad convictions.
"It is still very early in the process, and we are hopeful for the swift vacatur of all of the many tainted convictions," said Melissa Rothstein, spokeswoman for the Baltimore public defender's office.
City Solicitor Andre Davis has said he's concerned that many defendants could file lawsuits against the city.
___
Information from: The Baltimore Sun, http://www.baltimoresun.com

 

 

Detective who raped victim while investigating her case gets 3 years in prison

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Detective-who-raped-victim-while-investigating-14300498.php

HTV National Desk
 Published 7:30 am PDT, Tuesday, August 13, 2019
·          
A Los Angeles County sheriff’s detective has been sentenced to prison for raping a 15-year-old girl he met while investigating her report of being sexually assaulted.
Neil Kimball, 46, of Agoura was given three years on Thursday. He pleaded guilty last month to unlawful sexual intercourse and committing a lewd act with a child. The crimes occurred in Ventura County.
Prosecutors say Kimball befriended the girl in 2017 after she reported being sexually assaulted in neighboring Los Angeles County.
According to The New York Times, Kimball was originally charged with raping the victim while she was tied or bound. Kimball was also accused of “witness intimidation by threat of force.”

 

 

Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office hit with corruption probe over concealed weapons permits

Santa Clara County agency again scrutinized over alleged political favoritism in issuing of scarce gun permits

By ROBERT SALONGA | rsalonga@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: August 7, 2019 at 5:35 pm | UPDATED: August 8, 2019 at 9:15 am
The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office served a search warrant at the Sheriff’s Office as part of an apparent corruption probe into alleged political favoritism in the agency’s issuing of concealed weapons permits, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
“The DA’s Office retrieved certain items from the Sheriff’s Office pursuant to a search warrant signed by a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge,” reads an official statement from prosecutors. “The retrieved items are part of an ongoing investigation, and therefore, nothing more can be said at this time.”
The investigation is being conducted by the DA’s Public Integrity Unit, which on its websitestates that it “supervises the investigation of cases involving corruption of public officials and employees in their official capacities or in the performance of their duties and initiates criminal charges when appropriate.”
Little else has been formally revealed about the investigation, first reported by San Jose Inside, other than agencies including the Sheriff’s Office itself, acknowledging it.
“The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office is aware of the District Attorney’s investigation and we are fully cooperating,” reads an agency statement. “Due to the fact this is an ongoing investigation, we are not going to disclose any additional information at this time. The Sheriff’s Office has made extensive efforts to increase transparency and trust with the communities we serve and will continue these efforts going forward.”
The County Counsel’s Office, which functions as the attorney for the Sheriff’s Office, declined comment and referred an inquiry to the DA’s office.

Related Articles

·         Santa Clara County sheriff draws legal fire for way she hands out concealed-gun permits
Sources confirmed that the investigation involves an alleged “quid pro quo” between political supporters and donations for six-term Sheriff Laurie Smith and those who have been able to obtain concealed-weapons permits from her office, which has been historically stingy about issuing the privilege. The sources also said the probe, while public surfacing over the past few days, had been in the works for far longer and is focused on some of Smith’s trusted advisers in the agency.
The issue has long been a source of criticism for the Sheriff’s Office, and dogged Smith each time she ran for re-election in the past decade. An investigation by this news organization in 2011, spurred by a federal lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Office, found that out-of-county residents and other questionably qualified applicants received the permits. Some political donors of Smith also got them, but the county at the time denied any connection between that support and the permits.
Check back later for updates to this story.

Editorial: Records expose revolving door for bad California cops

 

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/07/23/editorial-records-expose-revolving-door-for-bad-california-cops/

 

South and East Bay cases highlight questionable police department hires of officers canned elsewhere


Screen shot from a police video camera after a San Jose State officer beat a man in a university library. (Video screen shot)
By MERCURY NEWS & EAST BAY TIMES EDITORIAL BOARDS |
PUBLISHED: July 23, 2019 at 5:10 am | UPDATED: July 23, 2019 at 5:16 am
A San Jose State cop fired in 2017 for beating a man in the library then reinstated over the university’s objections went to work in September for the Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Department. On Friday, after this news organization revealed his troubled past, he abruptly resigned.
An Alameda County deputy sheriff fired in 2015 for soliciting prostitution and dishonestyafter he filed a false police report related to his divorce was later hired by the Pinole Police Department.
The two cases, recently disclosed under a new state law, raise serious questions about the revolving door for troubled cops and the hiring practices of California police departments that employ officers who have been canned elsewhere.
Not only might members of the communities have concerns about the police patrolling their streets, there’s another large question about whether the cops can be effective in their jobs — especially when called to testify in criminal cases.
Before this year, these cases probably would never have seen the light of day. But a new state law, created by last year’s approval of Senate Bill 1421, requires police agencies to release documents pertaining to cops’ discharge of firearms, use of major force, sexual assault and dishonesty.
As we noted earlier this month, the information in the records has been disturbing: Stolen drugs and bullets. A potentially deadly chokehold. Falsified reports. A person’s face smashed into the floor. Sexual assault in jail. Cavorting with sex workers. Domestic violence complaints against an officer ignored.
Equally disturbing is the police foot-dragging on release of the records. When it comes to transparency, a majority of the agencies across California responsible for enforcing the law are defying it.
Now come these two new cases that raise another key issue: The revolving door means that police departments are hiring cops who, because of their past behavior, cannot fully perform their jobs.
That’s because, under a 1963 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Brady v. Maryland, prosecutors must disclose to defense attorneys any evidence that could help them defend their clients. That includes information about past dishonesty or other bad behavior of the cops involved in the case.
It’s only fair. After all, if an officer has been fired for lying or misconduct, it goes to the heart of his or her credibility. The jury should know about it. And, from a practical perspective, a cop who can’t testify can’t carry out a critical part of the job.
District attorney offices across the state keep “Brady lists” of officers who have been identified as potentially problematic witnesses. But they’re not always complete. And they can miss cops who were hired after past jobs in other counties.
The new state law should help, making available some of the same records to not only police agencies, prosecutors and defense attorneys, but also to the public. Not surprisingly, in Los Gatos and Monte Sereno, residents who saw the disturbing video of the San Jose State library beating were not happy that the cop was working in their city.
In that case, Officer Johnathon Silva was first cleared by the university’s police chief at the time, Peter Decena, who decided the use of force was not excessive. But after the beating victim, who suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung, filed a claim against the university, it launched an independent investigation that found differently.
San Jose State fired Silva and settled the case for $950,000. But Silva appealed to the state personnel board, which ordered him reinstated. He nevertheless resigned and was subsequently hired by Los Gatos-Monte Sereno, where Decena had taken a job as chief. No reason was given for why Silva quit his latest job on Friday.
In the East Bay case, records released under the new state law and contained in the divorce proceedings of Officer Josh Shavies show that he was fired for soliciting prostitution and dishonesty after filing a false police report related to his divorce.
He also was accused in the divorce proceedings of abusing his wife and whipping his children with belts. His ex-wife says now that she exaggerated the abuse allegations, but her attorney says they were completely truthful.
These cases raise questions not only about the temperament and effectiveness of the cops but also about the potential liability for taxpayers. These sorts of cases are yet another reason why the transparency law was so desperately needed — and why more departments need to start complying with it.



///
The shitbag cop was Zachary Wester  

A Florida cop planted meth on random drivers, police say. One lost custody of his daughter.

Meagan Flynn
The meth seemed to appear out of thin air.
Benjamin Bowling couldn’t figure it out. He had been clean ever since his release from prison on a DUI conviction, but now a Jackson County, Fla., sheriff’s deputy was accusing him of possessing a minuscule amount of methamphetamine.
It was October 2017 and Bowling was on his way to the store to pick up diapers with his friend Shelly Smith when they saw the flashing lights swirl in the rearview mirror. He had been out of prison for less than a year, doing everything he could to get his life back on track. He passed all his drug tests. He had recently been awarded custody of his daughter. But deputy Zachary Wester was escalating a traffic stop for swerving over a white line into a search for illicit drugs.
Bowling and Smith, confident they had nothing to hide, told Wester to go ahead and search the car after he claimed to smell marijuana, assuring him he wouldn’t find any.
He emerged with meth.
Now, nearly two years after Bowling lost custody of the daughter he had just gotten back, after he was convicted of felony meth possession, he knows exactly how it got there. Wester, state investigators now say, planted it himself — and Bowling was far from the only victim.
Wester, who was fired last September, was arrested Wednesday and charged with 52 counts of racketeering, false imprisonment, official misconduct, fabricating evidence and possession of controlled substances, among other charges. He’s accused of indiscriminately targeting innocent drivers and hauling them off to jail after planting meth or marijuana in their vehicles while feigning a “search."
“There is no question that Wester’s crimes were deliberate and that his actions put innocent people in jail,” Chris Williams, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s assistant special agent in charge, said in a news release.
Bowling, who has since been cleared, is just one of 11 known victims named in the affidavit, although the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Wednesday that there may be more victims who have not yet been identified, and the case remains under investigation. At least 119 cases involving Wester have been dropped, the Tallahassee Democrat reported. In addition to the dropped charges, Circuit Judge Christopher Patterson ordered at least eight inmates released from correctional facilities last fall, as 263 cases remained under review.
Investigators said at a news conference Wednesday that there did not appear to be any rhyme or reason to the drivers Wester, 26, singled out for false arrests on drug possession. Some were parents with a diaper bag in the back seat. Others were young men and women, some crying as they insisted they had never touched drugs, let alone meth, in their lives.
Asked by reporters why Wester would do this, State Attorney William “Bill” Eddins of Florida’s 1st Judicial Circuit said that was a good question. Investigators were still trying to figure it out themselves, he said.
“You’re never certain of what lies in the heart of man,” he said.
Eddins said he does not plan to offer a plea bargain, and that Wester faces up to 30 years in prison. Wester’s defense attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.
Wester, who joined the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office in 2016, fell under suspicion last year after a prosecutor noticed inconsistencies in what Wester wrote in his reports and what was captured on his body camera — if he turned it on. The problem was he seemed to leave the device off most of the time, conveniently only recording after drugs were already “found” in a vehicle. In most cases, as in Bowling’s, he typically pulled someone over for a minor traffic infraction before asking if he smelled marijuana.
Yet, even after reporting on affidavits that he smelled or even thought he saw marijuana, he typically emerged finding meth. According to the affidavit, meth, marijuana and 42 pieces of drug paraphernalia were found in Wester’s trunk.
One case, that of Teresa Odom, was illuminating — appearing to capture Wester holding an unknown object in his left hand shortly before “discovering” meth in her truck, in the rare case his body camera was left on.
“Hi, how are you?” Wester asked her in a friendly voice as he rolled up to her window, according to footage released to the news media. “The reason for is, um, your brake lights: They work one minute, and then the next minute they don’t work.”
He took her license, left momentarily, and returned to ask if he could search her vehicle. She said it was no problem with a shrug, as long as she could take her phone with her. “Hang tight, Ms. Odom,” He grabbed a pair of gloves from his cruiser — then appears to be holding a tiny plastic baggie inside his left hand, according to the video and affidavit.
The affidavit describes it like a magician’s sleight of hand: “Without putting on the glove, Deputy Wester’s left hand dropped out of view, down toward the front of the driver’s seat, and after a brief pause, reappeared empty.”
Shortly thereafter, Wester pulls a tiny plastic bag out of Odom’s purse: “Oh, Ms. Odom, how about this?” Wester asked, confronting Odom with the drugs.
“That is not mine,” she said. “No, sir. No, sir. What is it?” As another deputy who arrived for backup teased her that she was about to go to jail, she responded tersely: “It damn sure ain’t mine.”
It wasn’t. The Democrat reported that Odom wept at the news conference Wednesday announcing, saying she felt “overwhelmed."
In a few cases, some drivers were already suspected of other crimes, such as driving with a suspended license or having an outstanding warrant, or even admitting to having marijuana in the car — and yet Wester still planted meth on them, according to the affidavit.
But mostly the drivers were guilty of nothing. Erika Helms — whose brother, Lance Sellers, has sued the sheriff’s department alleging false arrest — told the Democrat that Wester “ruined lives.” Sellers, she said, had to spend a year in residential rehab after his arrest for possession of meth. The charges were later dropped. In addition to Sellers, more than a dozen people have filed notices of intent to sue, the Democrat reported.
“People are losing their lives, their freedom, their children, their marriages — all because of this one man,” Helms told the Democrat. “It’s not just innocent men. It’s innocent children. It goes a lot deeper than everyone realizes.”
It’s unclear if Bowling regained custody of his daughter since his arrest, or whether other parents faced the same fate.
At least one innocent mother feared she would, according to the affidavit.
Kimberly Hazelwood and her husband, Jeremy, were pulled over in June 2018 with their small children in the back seat, as Wester alleged that the Hazelwoods’ car insurance had lapsed. Wester zeroed in on a bottle of Excedrin he saw in her possession. He told the couple that he was calling in the K-9 unit to search the vehicle.
Soon enough, Wester claimed the Excedrin pill bottle contained methamphetamine, pulling Jeremy aside to tell him that he was going to arrest his wife for possession. “Jeremy appeared shocked and said Kimberly had never done drugs a day in her life,” the affidavit says.
Wester told the distraught father that he could tell Kimberly used meth “by the way her face was sunk and her teeth . . . Jeremy stated his wife has always been like that."
On the way to jail, Kimberly cried in the back of Wester’s cruiser, asking whether she was going to lose custody of her children.
It’s unclear whether she did. According to the affidavit, months later, Wester pulled over Jeremy again, asking where Kimberly was this time. “This upset Jeremy,” the affidavit says, “and he told Deputy Wester that it was none of his business."
Wester let him go.

 

 

Social media investigations unearth hundreds of police officers in the US involved in fascist or racist groups

 
Two separate social media investigations completed within the last month have identified hundreds of police and correctional officers that were or are currently members of right-wing extremist groups on Facebook or who have posted violent, racist or fascistic content on the platform. Screenshots compiled in both investigations show officers posting original racist and fascist content on their personal Facebook walls, in private groups such as the Oath Keepers, Confederate Brotherhood or the “NORTH AMERICAN DEFENCE LEAGUE AGAINST ISLAM,” and also on public news posts.
Each research project positively identified active-duty officers in departments throughout the country, leading to over 50 separate investigations. In St. Louis, Missouri, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, over 100 officers have been either put on paid leave, suspended, or relegated to desk duty, pending internal investigations. However, many more departments have chosen to simply ignore the findings.
The Plain View Project (PVP) was the culmination of a nearly two year investigation beginning in the fall of 2017, and conducted by Philadelphia based attorneys. During the summer of 2016 the group of attorneys, led by lawyer Emily Baker-White, became aware of dozens of Facebook posts of current Philadelphia police officers that had endorsed violence, racism and bigotry. The PVP obtained the published rosters of police officers employed by eight departments in Philadelphia, St. Louis, Dallas and Denison, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; York, Pennsylvania; and finally, Twin Falls, Idaho.
Philadelphia Police Headquarters April 2019 [Credit: Wikimedia Commons User “Beyond My Ken”]
Using the lists, the PVP team searched Facebook for the officers’ names and when they could positively link an active account to a police officer the name was added to the PVP database. In many cases officers posted pictures of themselves in uniform, discussing arrests or performing other police related duties. Through this process the PVP verified over 3,500 Facebook accounts and compiled more than 5,000 screenshots with images, posts or comments made by officers that “could undermine public trust and confidence in the police.” Through the PVP website, users are able to search by name, rank, jurisdiction, pay-grade, badge number or specific keywords.
A second research project, conducted by Reveal journalists Will Careless and Michael Corey, sought to discover how many police officers nationwide were members of right-wing “extremist” Facebook groups. Using a list of more than 1,200 extremist groups compiled by Megan Squire, a computer science professor at Elon University, the journalists downloaded the private membership lists of the groups before Facebook disabled this feature in 2018. They then proceeded to download the membership lists of self-identified police groups and loaded the approximately one million names into a database which cross-examined the lists to see which profiles appeared in at least one extremist group and one police group.
This resulted in over 14,000 matches or “hits.” The journalists did not comb through every single match, instead just focusing on “a fraction of the list to vet.” Similar to the PVP, law enforcement officers’ identity and employment was verified by reviewing their biographies, photos or matching names to public police records. The journalists identified nearly 400 users they confirmed are either currently employed as police officers, sheriffs or correctional officers or had previously worked in law enforcement.
The totality of each investigation confirms the vast promotion and acceptance of fascistic ideology within police departments throughout the country.
The officers identified have worked at all levels of law enforcement, from patrolmen to detectives and even several captains. It is not a localized phenomenon, the cops identified work in rural jurisdictions from West Virginia to Washington and in urban cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago. Officers in the Reveal investigation were part of several right-wing anti-government militia groups, including over 150 officers who were or are currently members of the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters. Earlier this week members of the Oath Keepers, in conjunction with the Oregon Republican party, forced the state legislature to shut down following violent threats.
These two groups have been seen at several rallies organized by white supremacist groups, including the 2017 Unite the Right fascist rampage in which 32-year-old Heather Heyer was murdered by neo-Nazi James Fields. Fields, who also injured 35 others when he rammed his vehicle into the crowd of counter-protesters, was sentenced to life in prison on federal hate crime charges on Friday. Fields had pleaded guilty earlier this year to 29 federal hate crime charges to avoid the death penalty. In December 2018, Fields was also convicted on state charges, including first-degree murder, for which a jury recommended that he spend life plus 419 years in state prison.
In addition to anti-government right-wing militias, hundreds of officers belonged to openly Islamophobic groups or frequently posted content denigrating Muslims in general. Several officers were former veterans, who brought their experiences, tactics and state-sanctioned racism to their departments. Others, such as Sgt. Michael Vincent of the Philadelphia Police Dept., badge number 8706, shared memes comparing the refugee crisis caused by imperialist wars and interventions to a fox raiding a chicken coop, extolling his friends and followers to “Stop the invasion of Islam to the free world!”
While both investigations focused primarily on police officers, prison guards and corrections officers were also identified. Geoffrey Crosby, a prison guard at the barbaric Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana, belongs to 56 different extremist groups, 45 of which are Confederate in nature, such as “Confederate Resistance,” or “REBELS RULES, the south will rise again .!!” Crosby also claimed membership in anti-Muslim groups such as “Stop Radical Islam in America.” Crosby, who was reached by phone by Reveal, declined to be interviewed but instead advised reporters not to “call me at work again.” The Louisiana Department of Corrections emailed the independent investigative news outlet to state an investigation into Crosby is open and ongoing.
Sheldon Best, a Wisconsin corrections officer at Jackson Correctional Institution in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, is still a member of a group named “Crusades Against Degeneracy,” which frequently posts racist, Islamophobic, homophobic and anti-Semitic content. In an interview with Reveal, Best admitted that “some people” could view his membership in the hate group as problematic however he stated that he did not hold any prejudiced views. On a 2017 National Public Radio article posted in the group regarding demographic changes within US census results, Best opined that whites will remain the majority of adults in the United States due to “minority on minority homicide.” The Wisconsin Department of Corrections has not responded to Reveal’sinquiries regarding any pending investigation into Best.
Another group which claimed membership from police officers around the country, including officer John Valdez of the Los Angeles Police Department, is the anti-communist “Anti-SJW Pinochet’s Helicopter Pilot Academy.” Members of the group shared helicopter memes depicting the extrajudicial murder of 75 people during the 1973 US backed coup in a positive light and frequently posted violent threats against Democrats, socialists and communists.
The whipping up and promotion of these attitudes within the state police is a stark warning to the working class. The far-right militia movements have been actively infiltrating police departments and prison guard units, and have been allowed to fester and recruit whether the local leadership is white, black, gay or straight, in the Democratic coastal states and the Republican interior. Both parties in the ruling class have overseen the mammoth expansion of repressive federal agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CPB) while also allowing the transfer of military equipment to departments around the country, which have been used against all members of the working class regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation.
Baker-White has said she began PVP with the aim of spurring nationwide reforms in policing. “I hope that police departments make changes to increase accountability, but also to try to shift culture,” she told the Washington Post .
Her call for reforms is misguided at best. The reactionary role of the police stems not from the personal political opinions or racism of individual cops, but the other way around. Their backwardness is the product of their function as defenders of the capitalist status quo of exploitation and record social inequality.
The police are recruited and trained for this purpose. In many cases their experience in the military, and in the Middle East in particular, has encouraged the views they post on Facebook. The adult lives of the current generation of police have been spent while the US has been engaged in a continuous war from the first Persian Gulf War, through to the current preparations for war against Iran, Russia and China.
Undoubtedly the incessant tweets of the fascistic President Donald Trump have also produced a climate in which many of the cops see no particular reason why they should not express themselves in language not that different from that used by the White House.
Far more than Trump is behind this, however. The Democrats’ alternative is calls for the censorship of the internet, targeting left-wing and socialist websites under the guise of combating “Russian meddling.” In response to the unmistakable signs of growing class struggle—strikes involving teachers, auto workers, flight attendants and many others—the ruling class is turning more and more to authoritarian forms of rule, including the unleashing of the police, armed with the weapons of war, against the working class.
This is an international process, as shown by Germany, where the ruling coalition has adopted much of the agenda of the ultra-right Alternative for Germany (AfD); in France, where President Macron has praised the World War II-era Nazi collaborator Philippe Pétain while unleashing the police against “yellow vest” protesters; and in the emergence of neo-fascist and dictatorial regimes on every continent.


The Philadelphia Police Department placed 72 officers on desk duty as it investigates offensive social media posts by current and former officers. An advocacy group released thousands of Facebook posts and comments by the officers with racist, violent or Islamophobic themes, among other offensive material.

According to Killedbypolice.net, at least 808 people have been killed by police so far this year, outpacing last year’s deaths by 20 victims.... and they ALL GET AWAY WITH IT!

"Police in the United States are trained to see the working class and poor as a hostile
enemy. Anything less than complete submissiveness is grounds for officers to unleash
deadly force on their victims. In some instances, even the most casual encounters with
police have proven to be deadly."


"In the overwhelming majority of police killings, of which there are more than one thousand every year, no officer is ever charged. In the few cases where charges are brought, most are found not guilty. The Supreme Court has made it nearly impossible to convict a police officer for murder stating that an officer is permitted to use deadly force as long as he or she believes that either they or others are in danger."
COP MURDERS IN AMERICA   - THOUSANDS SHOT IN THE HEAD. JUDGES GIVE THE THUG COPS A PASS TO DO IT AGAIN!

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/12/cop-crimes-in-america-fourth-year-of.html

 

 

A somewhat desperate suggestion to fix corruption in our law enforcement agencies

 

By Michael N. Mattia

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/05/a_somewhat_desperate_suggestion_to_fix_corruption_in_our_law_enforcement_agencies.html
No matter the outcome of the investigations authorized by the new attorney general, William Barr, and the supposedly ongoing investigation by the DOJ inspector general, the basic facts cannot be denied.  Law enforcement at the highest levels in this country has proven to be corrupt.  The faith that the American people once placed in the federal justice system has been lost and may never be regained.  The consequence of this universal distrust is permanent damage to the underlying belief and faith in the entire system and our country. 
The Department of Justice, the FBI, the CIA, and other domestic intelligence agencies have once again been shown as political weapons to be used against political enemies.  This is not new.  J. Edgar Hoover used the FBI as his personal investigative tool to keep various members of Congress in check and prosecute various enemies of his and the presidents he served during his reign of terror.  Robert (Bobby) Kennedy was John F. Kennedy (the president)'s brother.  Could there have been any undue family influence on how Robert Kennedy carried out his duties?  Strangely, no one at the time in the press seemed to have had a problem with this relationship.  The attorney general and the DOJ are primarily political tools of the president, who appoints the attorney general.  Why would the president appoint an enemy?  But suddenly this has become page one since it involves Trump and his appointees.
Congressional oversight of the activities of the DOJ and its subsidiaries is 100% political.  Facts, truth, and the law have nothing to do with how members of Congress, especially Democrats, carry out their supposed "oversight" functions.  The uproar regarding the Mueller investigation would never have occurred if Hilary Clinton had been elected president.  No investigation of anything would have been initiated.  The attorney general would have been a friend and supporter of Clinton, just as Holder and Lynch were friends and supporters of Obama.  Why is Trump different?  Because the    Democrats hate him for "stealing" their rightful power and control.
True oversight of the Department of Justice can be accomplished only by a separate and distinct investigative unit not under the direct political control of the Congress.
Much of the Judicial Branch of the government is highly politicized.  One need only look at the Ninth Circuit in California or the naked overreach of district judges issuing rulings against this president that have national implications and effect. 
Given the political history of the judicial system, I still suggest that the oversight function of the DOJ and its subsidiaries be vested in the Supreme Court as the least of all evils.  I recognize the dangers inherent in giving nine unelected judges such power.  But history has shown that the present procedures are seriously flawed.  Trusting elected political animals, whose existence depends on the whims of the mobs to which they cater, to behave in a rational, logical, and lawful manner is like asking elephants to walk a tightrope.
A separate Supreme Court–monitoring unit whose function would be akin to the existing inspector general's office of the various agencies with an independent I.G. in each organization reporting to the Court might make more sense.  Another option would be a monitoring unit funded and populated by the states.
Both of these suggestions would be akin to the Civilian Review Boards that exist in many cities to monitor the actions of local police departments.  Members of such commissions or boards could be drawn from the wide spectrum of civic-minded civilian occupations, not just judges or law enforcement people.  The tasks would be so great as to negate the possibility of volunteer members.  This would call for full-time dedicated, honest citizens.  Where are Diogenes and his lamp when so desperately needed?
Certainly, a lot of thought and honest evaluation would have to be given to the exact development, function, makeup, and legality of any such board, but I submit that something must be done to rectify the dangerous situation that now exists.  Neither Congress nor the president will ever agree to this type of monitoring, which would mean giving up some of their political grandstanding activities in front of the TV cameras.  But what is to stop the Court from instituting a parallel monitoring ability on its own?  Inadequate or no funding from Congress?  Where there is a will, there is a way.
Is this another item of change to be considered by the so-called Convention of States? 
Can any republic such as the United States continue to exist when its philosophy of equal justice for all is built on a foundation of shifting political sands?  From fixing speeding tickets to manufacturing evidence to spying on citizens, the trust the people have had in law enforcement at all levels has always been looked upon by the populace with a wink and a nod.  We cannot continue down the path to an equivalent KGB or Gestapo type of justice system.
The existence of corrupt law enforcement agencies and individuals is certainly not unique in history.  One needs only to remember the famous quote of the Roman poet Juvenal: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"  ("Who guards from the guards themselves?")

Police: 80 California High School Students Attack Officers, Cause Lockdown

Alex Edelman/AFP
ALANA MASTRANGELO
28 May 20194,403
2:08

Bear Creek High School in Stockton, California, was placed on lockdown last week after an estimated 80 students attacked police officers who arrived on campus to detain one student for fighting with school staff.

Stockton police estimated that about 80 Bear Creek High School students were involved in a physical altercation with police officers on Friday morning as the officers were detaining one student for fighting with school staff, according to Stockton Record.
Video footage captured the chaotic brawl, which shows scores of students surrounding the officers in what appears to be an attempt to stop them from detaining the student. Moments later, one student in the crowd can be seen throwing a garbage can at the officers while the others jeer and shout.
Watch below:
Stockton police arrived at the high school on Friday morning to detain one student who had been reported for fighting with school staff, but when the student resisted arrest, it spurred around 80 other students to engage in a physical struggle with officers and school staff members, according to police.
“During this detention, officers were struck by several students and a garbage can was thrown at officers and school staff,” said the Stockton Police Department.
The incident resulted in the Lodi Unified School District placing the school on lockdown.
“I don’t know what’s going on with these kids,” said a concerned parent to FOX 40 News, “I don’t know, even with the authority there and they’re still being too much. It’s scary, it’s dangerous.”
“When you go to school, you’re supposed to respect the authority that’s trying to keep you safe while you’re here on campus,” added former Bear Creek High student Kira Elkins.
Stockton police did note, however, that no officers, students or staff members were injured during the physical altercation, adding that the student who had been initially detained was cited for resisting arrest.
It remains unclear whether the other students involved will be charged.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo and on Instagram.



Horrifying moment Phoenix police point guns at a black family and tell the father they're 'gonna put a f**king cap in your head' after 'his daughter, four, walked out of a store with a $1 Barbie doll'

·         Chilling footage from May 29 shows cops surround Dravon Ames and his family
·         They tell the 22-year-old: 'I'm gonna put a f***ing cap in your f***ing head'
·         His pregnant fiancée, Iesha Harper, 24, stands by in tears, pleading with officers and desperately holding onto her two young children as the horror unfolds
·         The incident is understood to have been sparked by accusations of a $1 theft 
·         Two videos taken by onlookers show the full extent of the shocking encounter 
·         In one clip officers can repeatedly be heard swearing in front of the youngsters
·         One says: 'You're gonna f***ing get shot' and 'put your f***ing hands up' 
·         The family is now said to be seeking $10 million in damages from the police 
·         Phoenix police say they are now investigating the incident in which neither Ames or Harper are thought to have been arrested
This is the horrifying moment Phoenix police hold a black family - including a pregnant woman and her two little girls - at gunpoint after their four-year-old daughter is said to have walked out of a store with a $1 doll. 
Chilling footage from May 29 shows cops, some with guns drawn, telling 22-year-old Dravon Ames: 'I'm gonna put a f***ing cap in your f***ing head' as they surround him and his loved ones.  
His pregnant fiancée, Iesha Harper, 24, stands by in tears, pleading with officers and desperately holding onto her two young children as the horror unfolds.
She cries: 'I can't put my hands up, I have a baby. I'm pregnant.' 
The incident is understood to have been sparked by accusations one of their young girls walked out of a dollar store with a $1 doll. 
Two videos taken by onlookers show the full extent of the encounter between the young family and cops.  
In one clip officers can repeatedly be heard swearing in front of the youngsters, telling their parents to 'put your f***ing hands up' . One can be heard saying: 'You're gonna f***ing get shot.'
Ames frantically tells them: 'My hands are up. My hands are up.' 
In a lawsuit they claim police 'grabbed the mother and the baby around both of their necks, and tried to take the baby out of the mother's hand'. It adds: 'Island [the couple's 1-year-old child] has been having nightmares and wetting her bed, which she has not done before this incident.'
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Chilling footage from May 29 shows cops surround Dravon Ames and his family with guns drawn. They tell the 22-year-old: 'I'm gonna put a f***ing cap in your f***ing head'
As Ames is held against a police car his partner desperately tells police she is unable to lift her arms as she is carrying her one-year-old baby. At least one child can be heard crying as they are taken to safety by witnesses. 
The officer screams: 'If I tell you to do something you f***ing do it.' 
Ames replies: 'Yes, sir.' 
In the second clip onlookers call out to ask to take the children away to avoid them from seeing their parents being detained.  
The family is now said to be seeking $10 million in damages from the police with former Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne representing them. 
Ames told The Phoenix New Times: 'We're thinking we're gonna get shot cause he kept threatening, "I'm gonna shoot you in the face". We were so scared.' 
It is understood the parents had just pulled into the parking lot to leave their children with a babysitter when their car was surrounded. 
Ames said: 'A police officer, we don't know who he is, a guy, random guy came up to the door banging on the window with a gun, says he's going to shoot us in our face, telling us to get out of the car. He hasn't alerted us that we're being pulled over anything.
'If you look at the video pretty good I'm snatched out the car and I fly back and that's when he grabs me out the car. My hands were up the whole time.' 
Neither Ames or Harper are thought to have been arrested. 
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Two videos taken by onlookers show the full extent of the shocking encounter. In one clip officers can repeatedly be heard swearing in front of the youngsters
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His pregnant fiancée, Iesha Harper, 24, stands by in tears, pleading with officers and desperately holding onto her two young children as the horror unfolds
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Reporter Meg O'Connor tweeted about the incident, posting the videos online 
Their claim states: 'The police officers committed battery, unlawful imprisonment, false arrest, infliction of emotional distress, and violation of civil rights under the fifth and 14th amendments of the United States Constitution.
'The first officer grabbed the mother and the baby around both of their necks, and tried to take the baby out of the mother's hand. He told her to put the baby on the ground, which she was unwilling to do because the baby could not walk, and the ground consisted of hot pavement.
'The first officer pulled the baby by the arm to get her away from the mother, which injured the arm, in a condition known as 'dead arm.' Island [the couple's 1-year-old child] has been having nightmares and wetting her bed, which she has not done before this incident.'
Arizona senator Martín Quezada has condemned the footage on Twitter, writing: 'This is everything that's wrong with #LawEnforcement today. My #LD29 #Maryvale community deserves better than this type of inexcusable and unjustifiable rage and abuse of power from the @phoenixpolice.' 
Phoenix police say they are now investigating the incident. 
They told KNXV-TV the officer who swore is on a 'non-enforcement assignment.' The other officer who drew his gun is understood to still be on patrol. 

Police murder in Memphis

The brutal murder on Wednesday of 20-year-old Brandon Webber by US federal marshals is the latest eruption of police violence in a country where youth and workers are gunned down on the streets by uniformed killers with numbing regularity.

Webber, the father of three and a student at the University of Memphis, was, according to eyewitnesses, shot up to 20 times after he had been handcuffed and subdued by marshals who had come to his home to serve felony arrest warrants. Webber, an African American, was the third victim of homicidal police violence in Memphis so far this year.
Just two days before, in the far northeastern corner of Tennessee, a young white man was killed by police in a strikingly similar manner. Police went to the home of Terry Frost, 32, in rural Sullivan County to serve him with an arrest warrant. As with Webber, police claim that Frost used his vehicle as a weapon as he attempted to escape. Sheriff’s deputies opened fire and killed him.
Between the killing of Frost on Monday and that of Webber on Wednesday, it was announced Tuesday that the Memphis police officer videotaped last year killing unarmed Terrance Carlton, 25, as he lay on the ground in a fetal position, will face no criminal charges.
On Wednesday evening, heavily armed Memphis riot police attacked several hundred angry residents of the Frayser neighborhood where Webber was killed, firing tear gas into the faces of unarmed youth and workers. Three people were arrested, including one who was charged with inciting a riot.
The media emphasized the claims of the authorities that 25 police officers were injured, none seriously, by rocks and bottles thrown by protesters. Mayor Jim Strickland, a Democrat, told a local television station that a “violent response” to any police shooting was “absolutely unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
Every year in America, some 1,000 people, overwhelmingly working class, are killed by police. According to a database compiled by the Washington Post, Webber’s death is the 406th police killing so far in 2019.
It is just short of five years since the police chokehold killing of Eric Garner in New York and the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri sparked a wave of protests across the country. But in the subsequent years, the toll of police killings has only risen.
The conditions in Memphis, a city of 650,000 people, and particularly in the Frayser neighborhood, exemplify the underlying economic and social conditions behind the reign of police violence in working class communities throughout the United States. In 2011, the Census Bureau declared Memphis “the poorest big city in America.” Median household income in the city is $38,826, and the poverty rate is 26.9 percent.
In Frayser, the poorest neighborhood in Memphis, the corresponding figures are $31,065 and 44.8 percent.
Like scores of US cities, Memphis was hit by factory closures in the 1970s and 1980s, leaving communities such as Frayser economically devastated, with nothing but the toxic waste left behind by shuttered plants to serve as a reminder of vanished jobs.
Police violence is an expression of the acute class contradictions that permeate a society dominated, behind the increasingly tattered trappings of democracy, by a wealthy and criminal corporate-financial oligarchy. The police serve as a front line of state repression in a country where the richest three billionaires have more wealth than the bottom 175 million Americans combined, and where the entire political establishment and both of its major parties are focused on propping up the stock market by pumping trillions more into Wall Street, paid for by slashing jobs, wages, pensions, health care and education.
A quarter-century of endless war abroad, waged to protect the global interests of the oligarchs, has its domestic counterpart in the militarization of the police. Billions of dollars’ worth of military hardware—tanks, helicopters, armored vehicles, drones—has been handed over to state and local police departments in recent decades. Like the redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top of society, the process has been presided over by Democrats no less than Republicans.
The Trump administration has formally adopted a policy of preparing for war against America’s “great power” competitors, beginning with China and Russia. The strategists of this policy speak of “total war,” involving centrally the militarization of the home front and suppression of social and political opposition. Hence Trump’s open encouragement of the police to “get tough” and his setting up of concentration camps for immigrants. The Democrats remain virtually silent on the persecution of immigrants, while overwhelmingly voting for massive increases in Pentagon spending.
With the police killing in Memphis and the eruption of protests, the purveyors of racial politics are once again seeking to obscure the fundamental class questions underlying police brutality and present the issue as purely a racial matter. Pamela Moses, founder of Memphis Black Lives Matter and a candidate for mayor, told Time magazine that police “are supposed to be trained to apprehend without deadly force, but when it comes to us, we always have to die.”
As a matter of fact, more whites are killed by police than blacks, although the latter, along with Hispanics, are killed at a disproportionate rate. According to the Washington Post list, of the 181 police killings so far this year in which the race of the deceased is known, 82 were white, 52 were black and 44 Hispanic. Astonishingly, police killings have taken place in 46 of the 50 states, including in such largely rural, sparsely populated and overwhelmingly white states such as Vermont and Wyoming. What the vast majority of victims of police violence have in common is not their race, but that they are working class.
While racism no doubt plays a role in police attacks on minorities, the basic reason that blacks and Hispanics are so frequently victimized is that they make up a disproportionate percentage of the most impoverished and oppressed sections of the working class. With few exceptions, it is not wealthy blacks and Hispanics who are subjected to police terror.
The role of racial and other forms of identity politics is to divert attention from the real source of police violence and repression, as well as poverty, inequality and war, i.e., the capitalist system. Politically, it serves to divide the working class and channel social opposition behind the Democratic Party, a party of Wall Street, the military-intelligence complex and privileged sections of the upper-middle class.
It was the African American, Democratic President Barack Obama who expanded the program of military arms to the police and repeatedly intervened on the side of the police when challenged in court for illegal and unconstitutional violations of civil liberties. Under Obama’s watch, with only the rarest exceptions, killer cops got away with murder without even being charged. Trump bases his naked support for police violence on the foundations laid down by his predecessor.
The police are part of what Engels called the “special bodies of armed men” that comprise the capitalist state. They cannot be reformed by adding more minorities or more civilian oversight. The state is not a neutral body. It is the repressive arm of the ruling class.
Under conditions of mounting economic, social and political crisis of the capitalist system in the US and internationally, and a growing movement of the American and world working class against social inequality, the ruling elite in the US and every other country is turning more and more openly to dictatorial forms of rule.
Youth and workers who want to fight against the plague of police violence and murder must turn to the growing movement of workers of all races and nationalities—to the teachers, health care workers, industrial workers who are striking in the greatest numbers in decades—and fight to unite them on the basis of a struggle for genuine equality and democracy under socialism.