Defense Attorney Says Undercover Cops Brought The Molotov Cocktails NOT The Defendants

Chicago cops start preemptive arrests on the eve of NATO Summit

Russia Today

 
Authorities in Chicago are gearing up for a weekend of anti-NATO activity in the Windy City, but it's already being reported that law enforcement there might be a little too eager to begin arrests. The home of known activists was raided Wednesday.

The National Lawyers Guild confirms that law enforcement agents broke down the door of a 6-unit apartment building in the Chicago, Illinois neighborhood of Bridgeport at around 11:30 pm on Wednesday. Once inside, they entered the apartment of known activists with guns drawn and then cuffed the residents.

For two hours, tenants were shackled and questioned by officers with the Organized Crime Division of the Chicago Police Department. The Chicago Tribune writes that police reports detailing the incident have been obtained by the newspaper and confirm that nine people were arrested in the raid for allegedly making or possessing Molotov cocktail explosives. Police sources add to the paper early Friday, however, that none of the suspects had been charged.

Attorneys for the accused attest to the innocence of their clients. The reason they cannot prove that they were making Molotov cocktails, they say, is because they weren’t — instead, police saw and seized equipment used for home brewing beer.

“As far as we know, there was no liquid in the bottles,” Kris Hermes, a spokesman for the lawyer’s guild, tells the Tribune on Friday in speaking of the alleged paraphernalia pilfered by law enforcement. Another source with ties to the police tells a Chicago ABC News affiliate that Molotov cocktails were discovered in the raid, but those claims have yet to be verified.

NYPD loses face and first Occupy Wall Street trial

Russia Today
Katerina Azarova

This case could have been a slam dunk for the NYPD, had it not been for one thing: the video showing police claims of disorderly conduct during an OWS protest to be completely untrue.

Hundreds have been arrested during the Occupy Wall Street protests, but photographer Alexander Arbuckle’s case was the first to go to trial – and after just two days, the Manhattan Criminal Court found him not guilty.

Supporters of the OWS protest movement have already hailed the ruling as a major legal victory.

Arbuckle was arrested on New Year’s Day for allegedly blocking traffic during a protest march. He was charged with disorderly conduct, and his arresting officer testified under oath that he, along with the protesters, was standing in the street, despite frequent requests from the police to move to the sidewalk.

But things got a little embarrassing for the NYPD officer when the defense presented a video recording of the entire event, made by well-known journalist Tim Pool. 

Pool's footage clearly shows Arbuckle, along with all the other protesters, standing on the sidewalk. In fact, the only people blocking traffic were the police officers themselves

His lawyers said the video proving that testimony false is what swayed the judge, and the verdict a clear indication that the NYPD was over-policing the protests.

The irony of the case, however, is that Arbuckle was not a protester, or even a supporter of the Occupy movement. He was there to document the cops’ side of the story.

A political science and photography major at NYU, Arbuckle felt the police were not being fairly represented in the media.

“All the focus was on the conflict and the worst instances of brutality and aggression, where most of the police I met down there were really professional and restrained,” the student said.

However, his good intentions only landed him in trouble. As with all the other detained protesters, the police offered Arbuckle an Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal (ACD), which basically means he would be let off the hook if he agreed not to fight the charges. But to Arbuckle, that meant an admission of guilt, and he decided to take the case to trial.

Hold cops personally liable for camera arrests? Connecticut bill says yes

ars technica
Timothy B. Lee

Sen. Eric Coleman (D-Bloomfield)

The Connecticut state Senate passed legislation last week that would hold police officers in the state personally liable for violating a citizen's First Amendment right to videotape their actions. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Eric Coleman (D-Bloomfield).

According to The Day, a Connecticut newspaper, Coleman cited the 1991 Rodney King beating as an inspiration for the legislation. The proposal was also prompted by a 2009 incident in which "a Catholic priest was arrested by East Haven police while recording officers harassing Latino business owners." A federal investigation resulted in charges being filed against four police officers.

"Sometimes we become aware of incidents where police officers have been overzealous or abusive and not act in a very complimentary way towards the citizens who deserve to be served and protected," Coleman said.

The Connecticut bill, which still must pass the state's House of Representatives, is part of a trend toward increased legal protection for citizens filming police officers in the line of duty. At least one appeals court has recognized that citizens have a First Amendment right to record the actions of on-duty police officers in public places. But police officers often enjoy "qualified immunity," meaning that liability for police misconduct falls on the city (e.g. taxpayers) rather than on individual officers. Sen. Coleman's proposal would change that, giving police officers a stronger incentive to respect the constitutional rights of Connecticut citizens.

The proposal includes several broad exemptions. Officers are not liable if they have a reasonable belief that their actions are necessary to enforce the law, protect public safety, preserve the integrity of a crime scene, or protect the privacy of crime victims or others.

The Senate rejected an amendment that would have added an exception for arresting someone whose actions "inconvenience or alarm" a police officer. Critics argued that such a broad exemption would render the legislation toothless.

Police who lie: False testimony often goes unpunished

The Star
Jesse McLean and David Bruser

A justice accused Niagara Region police
chief Wendy Southall of failing to act
after learning senior officers lied about a tip
that led to one of the largest drug busts
in Ontario history.

The first time Toronto police Det. Scott Aikman deceived the court, a judge denounced his “misleading” testimony and threw out a cocaine charge against a man.

The second time, Det. Aikman’s story explaining why he and his partner searched a minivan led to the acquittal of four suspects.

accused of masterminding an international credit-card data-theft ring.

Aikman “either fabricated or concealed evidence” to justify the van search, the judge said. The four suspects, charged with a total of 321 offences, walked free.

Was Aikman disciplined for his conduct in court?

“No. Of course not,” said Aikman, explaining to the Star that he had done nothing wrong.

A coast-to-coast Toronto Star investigation found more than 120 police officers have been accused by judges of outright lying, misleading the court or fabricating evidence since 2005. Many of the officers have gone unpunished.

Police who lie: How officers thwart justice with false testimony

There is so little oversight of the problem that in some jurisdictions police forces did not know judges found that their officers misled the court. Internal investigations into four cases — three in Peel, one in York — were started after the Star brought the courtroom misconduct to the departments’ attention.
Compounding the lack of oversight is a lack of accountability to the public.

Big-city forces, including Montreal and Calgary, refused to say whether their officers were disciplined.
At the Toronto Police Service, where at least 34 officers have come under fire from judges for being untruthful in court in recent years, there is little indication Chief Bill Blair considers the judges’ findings a call for change.

The chair of the civilian oversight Toronto Police Services Board, Alok Mukherjee, told the Star he is troubled by this “serious issue” and wants something done to stop the lies from eroding the public’s trust in his police force.

“If we say a police officer takes an oath of office to uphold the law, if we require that they must be of good moral character and integrity …then someone who is found to have lied or falsified their notes, can they be said to be upholding their oath? Can they be said to have demonstrated integrity?” he said. “My simple, non-legal mind says: That’s misconduct.”

The Star sent letters to police forces across the country asking how they responded to the judicial findings questioning their officers’ credibility. The reactions ranged from receptive to unaware to dismissive.

Police Officer Caught On Tape Saying He Can "Make Up" Evidence

The Problem with I.Q. Ceilings for Police Employment

Philidelphia Policeman Caught Lying in Court Will Receive No Penalty

Simple Justice
Scott A. Greenfield

It was a simple bust, as Police Officer Steven Lupo explained.

It looked like an open-and-shut case. A cop pulls over a car, walks up to the driver's door, and sees a plastic baggy of marijuana. He brings in a drug-sniffing dog to prove probable cause for a search, gets a warrant, and finds a kilo of weed in the trunk.

Text book all the way.  The request for a medal for excellence almost writes itself.  On cross-examination, Michael Diamondstein played the "are you sure" game, locking Lupo into his testimony.  Close your eyes and envision the smug cop on the stand, calmly testify with that half-smile on his face, believing that he, Police Officer Lupo, was king of the courtroom.

In court, Diamondstein asked Lupo to confirm that account, according to a transcript of the hearing.
"Before you got to Mr. Farsi, did you open the rear driver's side passenger door and take that individual out and pat him down?"

"No," Lupo said.

Then Diamondstein asked, "I just want to make sure that we are clear that you certainly didn't just open the door prior to any conversation, take him out, and pat him down. That definitely didn't happen?" Diamondstein said.

"Correct," Lupo replied.

Change the names and this could be the transcript from a thousand other trials.  Except what came next doesn't happen often.

Then defense attorney Michael Diamondstein produced the video.
Turned out reality was different.

The video taken from nearby surveillance cameras contradicted key facts in Lupo's report and sworn testimony. Most crucially, Lupo and an unidentified supervisor are seen rummaging through the trunk hours before a warrant was issued.

Straight down the line, Lupo lied, secure in the mistaken belief that he could plop his donut encrusted butt on the witness chair and tell a completely fabricated story about how he's just about the dandiest cop ever, just doing his job, applying the Constitution and keeping us safe from the bad guys.  Except he was a liar, and Diamondstein had the video to prove it.

Judge Lydia Y. Kirkland tossed the case after the video was played.  Had no video been played, she would have been sentencing the defendant instead.

"I can just tell you from my experience," said veteran defense attorney Diamondstein, "in the majority of cases, while the clients may not deny having narcotics, in the vast majority of cases the circumstances surrounding the arrest did not happen as it was described in the paperwork or in court."
Years ago, New York Daily News columnist Murray Kempton coined the phrase, "there they go again, framing the guilty."  It's one I repeat often, as its point reflects the most problematic part of law enforcement and law.  Despite the fact that Lupo turns out to be a liar, there will be a great many people who think to themselves, "so what?"  The guy was a drug dealer, and who cares that a cop stopped a drug dealer, seized the drugs and then said what he had to say to lock the scum away.

The ends justify the means, especially when there's an undercurrent that if it wasn't for criminal-coddling technicalities that make a cop's job so difficult, he wouldn't have any need to lie.  In fact, in a perfect world, there wouldn't have been a trial at all, Lupo's word being all any law-abiding citizen needed.

This story was sent to me by a young Philadelphia civil litigator who was shocked (shocked!) that police officers would so brazenly lie.  He was outraged that such a thing could happen.

NYPD Face Gun Smuggling Charges

U.S.-backed Afghan police force accused of human rights abuses

GlobalPost

A disturbing report into human rights abuses by the U.S. backed Afghan police force - including rape and murder - has raised serious questions about the exit plan of the West.

Human Rights Watch published a report on Monday which found that in three of seven provinces it visited and conducted interviews there was evidence of arbitrary detentions also, AFP reports.

The 102-page report found that armed groups supported by NATO and the Afghan government are terrorizing and robbing communities, Reuters reports.

Murder, torture, illegal taxes, theft and the gang rape of a teenage boy are among the abuses by government-backed militias, and the NATO-funded Afghan local police, documented in the 102-page report, "Just Don't Call It a Militia", Reuters reports.

The 7,000-member Afghan Local Police was set up last year and put up by the U.S. as central to a successful handover by the deadline of the end of 2014.

But the report by HRW has raised concerns about handing full control over to the Afghan forces by then.

AFP reports:

The force arms residents protecting their communities in areas where the Afghan army and regular police have only limited reach.

They do not have law enforcement powers.

HRW found evidence of ALP abuses including killings, rapes and arbitrary detentions in three provinces -- Baghlan, Herat and Uruzgan -- out of seven where it conducted interviews.

It said such cases raised "serious concerns" about ALP vetting, recruitment and oversight and urged improvements including the establishment of a complaints body to deal with problems.

"Pressure to reduce international troop levels should not be at the expense of the rights of Afghans," said HRW's Asia director Brad Adams."Poor governance, corruption, human rights abuses and impunity for government-affiliated forces all are drivers of the insurgency and these issues need to be addressed if true stability is to come to Afghanistan."

General David Petraeus, former commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, in March called the ALP "arguably the most critical element in our effort to help Afghanistan develop the capability to secure itself", AFP reports.
A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-Colonel Jimmie Cummings, said that it would work with the Afghan government to probe the report's claims.

"The ALP program is a critical component to bringing governance and security to the Afghan people at the local level," he said.

"Where relevant, we will endeavor to improve this program and work diligently to correct these observations."

A previous report, released in May by Oxfam, also highlighted grave human rights abuses including child sex abuse.

Afghanistan's security forces number over 300,000 and the United States has spent billions of dollars ahead of the planned withdrawal of all foreign troops by the end of 2014.

The report comes as two Afghan civilians were killed and nearly 80 NATO soldiers were wounded after a truck of explosives drove into a military base in eastern Afghanistan, military officials said Sunday, the Washington Post reports.

The Taliban took responsibility for the attack, which occurred on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Timing of Sean Hoare's Death Requires Independent Investigation

Police Convicted for Post Katrina Shooting

Texas Observer

The burnt car in which the remains of Henry Glover were found.

Last year, A.C. Thompson won the MOLLY National Journalism Awards for his article If It Moved, You Shot It—White Vigilante Violence After Katrina. Funded by The Nation and ProPublica, the story detailed his investigation into the killing of Henry Glover in the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina. He revealed that two former New Orleans police officers killed Glover and incinerated his body. Below is an update on a federal judge's sentencing of those two officers.  

OR - Guns traded among Redmond, Ore. police

The Bulletin

REDMOND, Ore. (AP) -- Court documents show that guns and equipment taken from the Redmond Police Department armory by a former officer now under investigation were sold or traded to other officers.

The Bulletin newspaper in Bend reports that former police Lt. Larry Prince was described in the Deschutes County Circuit Court documents as a gun enthusiast with a "phenomenal" collection of rare and expensive firearms.

The 48-year-old Prince was also described as an often disorganized manager of the police armory that he supervised for about 10 years. The court records also say he had an affair with a woman he met while on duty.

Prince is under house arrest and faces more than a dozen counts of theft and official misconduct. He resigned earlier this week.

Prosecutors' conduct can tip justice scales

USA Today

ORLANDO — The jurors who helped put Nino Lyons in jail for three years had every reason to think that he was a drug trafficker, and, until July, no reason to doubt that justice had been done.

For more than a week in 2001, the jurors listened to one witness after another, almost all of them prison inmates, describe how Lyons had sold them packages of cocaine. One said that Lyons, who ran clothing shops and nightclubs around Orlando, even tried to hire him to kill two drug suppliers.

But the federal prosecutors handling the case did not let the jury hear all the facts.

Instead, the prosecutors covered up evidence that could have discredited many of Lyons' accusers. They never revealed that a convict who claimed to have purchased hundreds of pounds of cocaine from Lyons struggled even to identify his photograph. And they hid the fact that prosecutors had promised to let others out of prison early in exchange for their cooperation.

Federal prosecutors are supposed to seek justice, not merely score convictions. But a USA TODAY investigation found that prosecutors repeatedly have violated that duty in courtrooms across the nation. The abuses have put innocent people in prison, set guilty people free and cost taxpayers millions of dollars in legal fees and sanctions.

Judges have warned for decades that misconduct by prosecutors threatens the Constitution's promise of a fair trial. Congress in 1997 enacted a law aimed at ending such abuses.

Yet USA TODAY documented 201 criminal cases in the years that followed in which judges determined that Justice Department prosecutors — the nation's most elite and powerful law enforcement officials — themselves violated laws or ethics rules.

In case after case during that time, judges blasted prosecutors for "flagrant" or "outrageous" misconduct. They caught some prosecutors hiding evidence, found others lying to judges and juries, and said others had broken plea bargains.

Such abuses, intentional or not, doubtless infect no more than a small fraction of the tens of thousands of criminal cases filed in the nation's federal courts each year. But the transgressions USA TODAY identified were so serious that, in each case, judges threw out charges, overturned convictions or rebuked prosecutors for misconduct. And each has the potential to tarnish the reputation of the prosecutors who do their jobs honorably.

In July, U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell did more than overturn Lyons' conviction: He declared that Lyons was innocent.

Neither the Justice Department nor the lead prosecutor in the Lyons case, Bruce Hinshelwood, would explain the events that cost Lyons his home, his businesses and nearly three years of freedom. The department investigated Hinshelwood but refused to say whether he was punished; records obtained by USA TODAY show that the agency regulating Florida lawyers ordered him to attend a one-day ethics workshop, scheduled for Friday.

Asked about Presnell's ruling exonerating Lyons, Hinshelwood said only, "It is of no concern to me."

The circumstances of Lyons' conviction did trouble Presnell, who oversaw his trial nine years ago. Presnell savaged the Justice Department in a written order for "a concerted campaign of prosecutorial abuse" by attorneys who, he wrote, covered up evidence and let felons lie to the jury.

Records from the Justice Department's internal ethics watchdogs show the agency has investigated a growing number of complaints by judges about misconduct they observed. In 2001, the department investigated 42 such complaints; last year, 61.

The department will not reveal how many of those prosecutors were punished because, it said, doing so would violate their privacy rights. USA TODAY, drawing on state bar records, identified only one federal prosecutor who was barred even temporarily from practicing law for misconduct during the past 12 years.

Even high-profile cases have been affected. Last year, a judge in Washington, D.C. — saying the department could not be trusted to investigate its own prosecutors — launched his own probe of the attorneys who handled the corruption trial of former Alaska senator Ted Stevens. After a jury found Stevens guilty, the department admitted that prosecutors had hidden evidence, then dropped the charges. (Stevens died in an August plane crash.)

Stevens' lawyers question how misconduct could have tainted such a closely watched case — and what that might mean for routine prosecutions. "It's a frightening thought and calls into question the generally accepted belief that our system of justice performs at a high level and yields just results," said Brendan Sullivan, Stevens' attorney.

Full Story

Come Show Your Support for Subsidized Housing through the Coronado Hotel

Once liquidated, does the Downtown Development Corp. of Arizona have an obligation to return the assets initially provided by the city? This question and more will be considered by tonight's Tucson Mayor and Council meeting. Please come and support the low income elderly and disable who are removed in favor of Rio Nuevo Developers.

Tucson City Council, 5:30 PM, November 24th
255 W. Alameda Street

Here is a clip re-posted for more information:

Katrina Was Not A Natural Disaster

Katrina was a man-made disaster. Signifying the continued decline of U.S. infrastructure, a judge ruled that the failure of the Army Corps of Engineers' maintenance of a navigation tunnel caused most of the flooding in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Here's the article:

Judge: Corps' negligence caused Katrina flooding

NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Army Corps of Engineers' failure to properly maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding in Hurricane Katrina.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval sided with five residents and one business who argued the Army Corps' shoddy oversight of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet led to the flooding of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish. He said, however, the corps couldn't be held liable for the flooding of eastern New Orleans, where one of the plaintiffs lived.

Duval awarded the plaintiffs $720,000, or about $170,000 each, but the decision could eventually make the government vulnerable to a much larger payout. The ruling should give more than 100,000 other individuals, businesses and government entities a better shot at claiming billions of dollars in damages.

Joe Bruno, one of the lead plaintiffs lawyer, said the ruling underscored the Army Corps' long history of failure to properly protect the New Orleans region.

"It's high time we look at the way these guys do business and do a full re-evaluation of the way it does business," Bruno said.

The corps referred calls seeking comment to the Justice Department. The corps had argued that it is immune from liability because the channel is part of New Orleans' flood control system, but the judge allowed the case to go forward.

Many in New Orleans have argued that Katrina, which struck the region Aug. 29, 2005, was a manmade disaster caused by the Army Corps' failure to maintain the levee system protecting the city.

The Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet is a shipping channel dug in the 1960s as a short-cut between the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans.

Arizona detention officers caught on camera swiping document from case file

This is shocking courtroom footage of a Maricopa County detention officer snooping through a defense attorney's file at a sentencing hearing. Maricopa County Sheriff's Department detention officer Adam Stoddard takes a piece of paper from the middle of the attorney's file and hands it off to another officer while the defense attorney, Joanne Cuccia, has her back to them. The only witnesses (aside from the stunned defendant) were the judge and the prosecutors. As well as being an in-your-face violation of attorney-client privilege, Officer Stoddard has committed crimes plural, starting with theft. It's not too surprising to see the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department officers act like the law does not apply to them. After all, this is the law enforcement body, under the guidance of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and AG Terry Goddard, that transported the ballots out of Pima County and "secured" them for several weeks at an undisclosed location. Still think the RTA election was clean?