I read about police abuses almost every day now.
The latest SWAT Team outrage involved holding small children at gunpoint during a home invasion — all in retaliation over their father having quarreled with a drunken off-duty cop at a veterans lodge.
The officers threw to the floor, kicked and handcuffed Georgeia, her stepfather and her adult son Billy. They also injured Mark’s shoulder and forced Billy to lie face down in broken glass, according to the complaint.
When Georgeia pleaded repeatedly that she had young children in the house, at least one officer allegedly stated, “You think you can get one of ours, and we won’t get one of yours?”
The family says the police proceeded to drag Georgeia’s 10-year-old son Trentino violently from the bathtub, injuring his ankles. They allegedly then made the boy stand naked at gunpoint next to his 4-year-old sister Briseis.
Other than citizens filing lawsuits, there is no accountability at all. Police will not be fired, SWAT Teams will not be disbanded, and nothing will change.
What I found even creepier was to read about was an unusual case in which an innocent man managed to save himself by having hidden video cameras in the business police had targeted. Luckily for him, the cameras caught the undercover agent planting crack cocaine, which led to the charges being dismissed.
Here’s the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=HewxquptWJ0
It also appears that racial profiling may have been involved:
Charlie writes, “There is a smoke shop in Scotia NY, owned by a young black man. There are many, many smoke shops in the capital region, but the rest are owned by white people. Undercover police decided to send an ‘undercover agent’ (an informant facing his own jail time) to investigate. Shortly after, the owner was charged with possession of crack cocaine. He was facing almost a decade in prison. Just one hitch though: the owner had video cameras set up in his shop. The videos captured the informant dropped a bag of crack on the counter; planting the drugs. The charges were dismissed, the informant has suddenly “disappeared” and the owner is now considering a law suit.”
I would love to hear the informant’s side of this story. If the cops put him up to planting the crack and he was already facing charges, little wonder he has “disappeared.” He is in a classic no-win, as the authorities now have every interest in making him the fall guy for their misconduct.
The problem is, how many people have cameras pointing in all directions to protect them against this sort of abuse? Absent such video evidence, the “evidence” speaks for itself and a conviction is all but assured. I can’t think of a more perfect illustration of what is wrong with laws criminalizing possession of things. Anyone can plant anything on anyone. How many people are serving hard time on the basis of planted evidence? There is no way to know. They are just screwed.
Not only do we live in a militarized police state, it is increasingly a lawless one. And why wouldn’t it be? When police can do anything they want, they become a law unto themselves.
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8 responses to ““Law and order” in a lawless police state”
The charges were dismissed, the informant has suddenly “disappeared” and the owner is now considering a law suit.”
I hope he sues and makes enough to retire on, after paying off his attorney. I also hope the informant serves jail time.
The AlterNet article linked above edited out a little information about the quarrel with the off-duty cop.
The policeman was knocked unconscious, his leg broken, and tooth chipped. Moreno, who would later be convicted of aggravated assault in 2012,…
William Moreno, who has a lengthy criminal record, is in the midst of serving an 8 ½ to 20 year prison sentence for his role in the initial bar fight.
http://www.infowars.com/pittsburgh-swat-sued-for-terrorizing-young-family-at-gunpoint/
More here:
http://www.wtae.com/news/local/allegheny/Lawsuit-says-SWAT-team-terrorized-Carrick-family-during-arrest/-/10927008/12995234/-/y6cs1z/-/index.html
***QUOTE***
“This wasn’t a Middle Eastern terrorist. This is a guy who was being sought because he was in a bar fight, and there were other ways they could have him turn himself in without doing what they did,” O’Brien said. “But even beyond that, once they were in the house and they seized this individual — which they did immediately, they knew who he was — they should have left. But they didn’t. They stayed in the house, terrorized other people, ransacked the house, caused thousands upon thousands of dollars of damages, and it was unlawful and unconstitutional.”
Police have not commented on the lawsuit yet.
Court records show William Moreno was convicted of aggravated assault and sentenced to 8 1/2 to 20 years.
In December 2010, police said they responded to a call about a large fight at the Polish Army Veterans Association on the South Side shortly before 3:30 a.m. and found off-duty officer Michael Murray bleeding from the head, with a lower leg injury. Murray had been a customer at the private establishment, and Moreno was identified as a suspect.
“Police obviously have a legitimate interest in protecting themselves, but how they go about doing that, and what’s reasonable in one situation and not reasonable in another has to be looked at,” O’Brien said. “There was no evidence in this case that the suspect was armed. There was no evidence that there was any issue about weapons. This is a suspect who was accused of hurting someone in a bar fight.”
***END QUOTE***
So, Moreno hit the cop during a melee, and they had a warrant to arrest him and leave. Which they didn’t. What happened to his family was simply payback.
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-city/pittsburgh-family-sues-police-over-2010-raid-on-their-home-635185/
***QUOTE***
It’s what happened after the arrest — to Ms. Moreno, her stepfather and child — that prompted the lawsuit in U.S. District Court, which alleges unlawful search and seizure and seeks punitive damages.
“Then they threw us all on the ground and were handcuffing us, kicking us, screaming,” Ms. Moreno said. “They had assault rifles pointed at our heads.”
The officers demanded that she name another individual in a photo taken from the club’s surveillance cameras, but she didn’t know him. When she started to pray, they kicked her, she said.
Officers wrenched the surgically repaired arm of the father-in-law, Mark Staymates, 59. He said he’ll need further surgery.
They broke down the bathroom door and pulled Ms. Moreno’s 10-year-old son from the shower, injuring his ankles to the point where he can’t play baseball, the family said. They questioned him while he was naked, she said.
Police did about $10,000 in damage to the home, roughly half of which was covered by insurance, the family said.
“They just ransacked the house,” Mr. O’Brien said. The warrant allowed them to enter to make the arrest, but not to search it or restrain and question other residents, he added.
***END QUOTE***
Maliciously going after that man’s family with a SWAT Team is an outrage.
And if this is true, the SWAT Team raid (which involved 23 officers) was completely unnecessary, as Moreno had offered to turn himself in.
http://beforeitsnews.com/libertarian/2013/07/lawsuit-alleges-that-pittsburgh-swat-team-engaged-in-gang-style-retaliation-2517570.html
***QUOTE***
Defendant Morosetti obtained a warrant for the arrest of William
Moreno and a warrant to search the plaintiff’s residence for
the purpose of locating William Moreno. Defendant Morosetti
had been informed that Moreno would voluntarily turn himself
in to the police. Nevertheless, Defendant Tersak approved the use
of the SWAT team to carry out the warrants. Defendant
Englehardt planned the SWAT operation, including determining
the number of officers to use to invade Plaintiffs’ home.
***END QUOTE***
While all the gruesome details you have laid out are outrageous and reminiscent of the Gestapo, the police are resembling the NKVD of the USSR more than ever. They are becoming dependent on federal help, given surplus military equipment, military training, hiring ex-military police, and are being tied into an all encompassing federal database. Real, jack-booted tyranny is at hand.
The NKVD contained the regular, public police force of the USSR, including traffic police, firefighting, border guards and archives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD
As a side thought, anyone wanting to get out before the SHTF should consider emigrating now. In the near future our borders could be sealed, especially after the Republicans get through doubling or tripling the border patrol and completing the fences. You know, what can keep people out can also keep people sealed in.
Not increasingly, not becoming, are.
We are living under an illegitimate, lawless, malevolent violent regime. This includes all levels and all branches of government, all elected and appointed officials and the civil service. No political party will help us. They’re all complicit in this despotism.
The police have become violent criminals, running amok and killing people almost at random. When their sociopathic violence is combined with their surveillance techniques, our situation is worse than that of the Europeans under the Gestapo, KGB or Stasi.
[…] but wait; it gets even better still, when the topic is outlandish abuses by thug […]
The police are out of control. That means our governments are out of control.
It’s come to the point that any vote for an incumbent is acquiescence to tyranny.
The following lengthy letter by the attorney representing Edward Snowden’s father, Lon Snowden, is a masterpiece. It relates directly to “unreasonable” search and seizure of the type police are using everyday. Read the whole thing – it’s worth the time:
Posted by Chupacabra-322
at Zerohedge 8/1/2013
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-01/edward-snowden-leaves-moscow-airport
July 26, 2013
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500
Re: Civil Disobedience, Edward J. Snowden, and the Constitution
Dear Mr. President:
You are acutely aware that the history of liberty is a history of civil disobedience to unjust laws or practices. As Edmund Burke sermonized, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
Civil disobedience is not the first, but the last option. Henry David Thoreau wrote with profound restraint in Civil Disobedience: “If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.”
Thoreau’s moral philosophy found expression during the Nuremburg trials in which “following orders” was rejected as a defense. Indeed, military law requires disobedience to clearly illegal orders.
A dark chapter in America’s World War II history would not have been written if the then United States Attorney General had resigned rather than participate in racist concentration camps imprisoning 120,000 Japanese American citizens and resident aliens.
Civil disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act and Jim Crow laws provoked the end of slavery and the modern civil rights revolution.
We submit that Edward J. Snowden’s disclosures of dragnet surveillance of Americans under § 215 of the Patriot Act, § 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments, or otherwise were sanctioned by Thoreau’s time-honored moral philosophy and justifications for civil disobedience. Since 2005, Mr. Snowden had been employed by the intelligence community. He found himself complicit in secret, indiscriminate spying on millions of innocent citizens contrary to the spirit if not the letter of the First and Fourth Amendments and the transparency indispensable to self-government. Members of Congress entrusted with oversight remained silent or Delphic. Mr. Snowden confronted a choice between civic duty and passivity. He may have recalled the injunction of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.” Mr. Snowden chose duty. Your administration vindictively responded with a criminal complaint alleging violations of the Espionage Act.
From the commencement of your administration, your secrecy of the National Security Agency’s Orwellian surveillance programs had frustrated a national conversation over their legality, necessity, or morality. That secrecy (combined with congressional nonfeasance) provoked Edward’s disclosures, which sparked a national conversation which you have belatedly and cynically embraced. Legislation has been introduced in both the House of Representatives and Senate to curtail or terminate the NSA’s programs, and the American people are being educated to the public policy choices at hand. A commanding majority now voice concerns over the dragnet surveillance of Americans that Edward exposed and you concealed. It seems mystifying to us that you are prosecuting Edward for accomplishing what you have said urgently needed to be done!
The right to be left alone from government snooping–the most cherished right among civilized people—is the cornerstone of liberty. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson served as Chief Prosecutor at Nuremburg. He came to learn of the dynamics of the Third Reich that crushed a free society, and which have lessons for the United States today.
Writing in Brinegar v. United States, Justice Jackson elaborated:
The Fourth Amendment states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing
the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
These, I protest, are not mere second-class rights but belong in the catalog of indispensable freedoms. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart. Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government. And one need only briefly to have dwelt and worked among a people possessed of many admirable qualities but deprived of these rights to know that the human personality deteriorates and dignity and self-reliance
disappear where homes, persons and possessions are subject at any hour to unheralded search and seizure by the police.
We thus find your administration’s zeal to punish Mr. Snowden’s discharge of civic duty to protect democratic processes and to safeguard liberty to be unconscionable and indefensible.
We are also appalled at your administration’s scorn for due process, the rule of law, fairness, and the presumption of innocence as regards Edward.
On June 27, 2013, Mr. Fein wrote a letter to the Attorney General stating that Edward’s father was substantially convinced that he would return to the United States to confront the charges that have been lodged against him if three cornerstones of due process were guaranteed. The letter was not an ultimatum, but an invitation to discuss fair trial imperatives. The Attorney General has sneered at the overture with studied silence.
We thus suspect your administration wishes to avoid a trial because of constitutional doubts about application of the Espionage Act in these circumstances, and obligations to disclose to the public potentially embarrassing classified information under the Classified Information Procedures Act.
Your decision to force down a civilian airliner carrying Bolivian President Eva Morales in hopes of kidnapping Edward also does not inspire confidence that you are committed to providing him a fair trial. Neither does your refusal to remind the American people and prominent Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate like House Speaker John Boehner, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann,and Senator Dianne Feinstein that Edward enjoys a presumption of innocence. He should not be convicted before trial. Yet Speaker Boehner has denounced Edward as a “traitor.”
Ms. Pelosi has pontificated that Edward “did violate the law in terms of releasing those documents.” Ms. Bachmann has pronounced that, “This was not the act of a patriot; this was an act of a traitor.” And Ms. Feinstein has decreed that Edward was guilty of “treason,” which is defined in Article III of the Constitution as “levying war” against the United States, “or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”
You have let those quadruple affronts to due process pass unrebuked, while you have disparaged Edward as a “hacker” to cast aspersion on his motivations and talents. Have you forgotten the Supreme Court’s gospel in Berger v. United States that the interests of the government “in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done?”
We also find reprehensible your administration’s Espionage Act prosecution of Edward for disclosures indistinguishable from those which routinely find their way into the public domain via your high level appointees for partisan political advantage. Classified details of your predator drone protocols, for instance, were shared with the New York Times with impunity to bolster your national security credentials. Justice Jackson observed in Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. New York: “The framers of the Constitution knew, and we should not forget today, that there is no more effective practical guaranty against arbitrary and unreasonable government than to require that the principles of law which officials would impose upon a minority must be imposed generally.”
In light of the circumstances amplified above, we urge you to order the Attorney General to move to dismiss the outstanding criminal complaint against Edward, and to support legislation to remedy the NSA surveillance abuses he revealed. Such presidential directives would mark your finest constitutional and moral hour.
Sincerely,
Bruce Fein
Counsel for Lon Snowden
Lon Snowden