Category Archives: Police Watch

Another SWAT Team Outrage

Crime and Punishment, Police Watch, The War on Drugs

On Tuesday, the Wharton Police Department in Texas shot a 17-year old boy, Daniel Castillo Jr. to death. The SWAT team was serving a search warrant looking for drugs after the police allegedly witnessed a drug deal take place at the residence. According to the family, Castillo was unarmed and asleep when the SWAT team burst into his bedroom door and killed him. Radley Balko has the details

According to [Rick] Dovalina [head of the local LULAC chapter], police say they found what appear to be stems and seeds of marijuana, either in the Castillo home or in the yard behind it. Contrary to earlier reports, the victim’s father, Daniel Castillo, Sr. was not arrested or charged with a crime.

Police did arrest a man in a white pick-up truck outside the house. The man was apparently dating one of the victim’s sisters, and police claim they found crack cocaine in the vehicle.

Dovalina says Daniel Castillo, Jr. was unarmed, had no criminal record, and according to his father, was not involved in the drug trade. The police affidavit for the search warrant claims an unidentified informant saw crack being sold from the house. It names “David Castillo” as a possible suspect, then later, “Daniel Castillo.” That tip and police observations of “traffic” at the Castillo home formed the basis of the forced-entry SWAT raid. No one but the police knows the identity of the informant.

According to his sister, Castillo was shot just below the eye as he rose up from his bed after hearing her scream. She was holding a 1-year-old child just a few feet from the shooting.

So here we have a SWAT team, in search of Demon Crack, that shoots a kid in the face after they wake him up. The kid was unarmed, there was no reason to shoot him. Sadly, these incidents are becoming all too common as a result of the War on (some) Drugs and use of no-knock raids and SWAT teams. Sadly also, there won’t be as much outrage to this incident as there was over the Kathryn Johnson and Sean Bell shootings because people have become desensitized over these killings.

Kevin Boyd
I’m one of the original co-founders of The Liberty Papers all the way back in 2005. Since then, I wound up doing this blogging thing professionally. Now I’m running the site now. You can find my other work at The Hayride.com and Rare. You can also find me over at the R Street Institute.
https://thelibertypapers.org/2005/11/22/a-bit-about-kevin/

62-Year-Old Woman Gets Tasered By Cops

Police Watch

Q: What’s missing from this story?

A 69-year-old woman who was shocked with a stun gun after she honked her car horn at a police cruiser has been convicted of resisting arrest for sparking a quarrel with officers.

A Circuit Court jury refused to send Louise Jones to jail, fining her $650 instead.

Jones’ attorney, Basil North, said he might appeal. “We don’t think she should have been convicted of anything,” he said.

On June 15, 2004, police officers Cory Le Moine and Ryan VanDeusen responded to a domestic disturbance call near Jones’ home. The officers were cruising the street slowly, watching for trouble. Jones was in her car behind the police vehicle when she honked her horn and pulled into her driveway.

Police, spooked by the horn, parked and questioned Jones, leading to a scuffle after they threatened to write her a ticket. The stun gun of one of the officers discharged during the altercation, according to testimony.

A: Any indication that these policemen will face disciplinary action for Tasering a 62-year-old woman.

Note that there was no mention of the woman packing heat. There was no mention of the woman being a threat to the police. Unlike the UCLA incident, unfortunately, we don’t have video of this. But it was the 62-year-old woman, who did nothing more than honk her horn, who gets tasered at convicted of “resisting arrest”.

So remember, dear citizens, it’s not your place to ever question the “authorities”. Don’t treat the cops like your equals, and certainly don’t act like they’re here to serve you. Keep silent and remain docile, or you just might end up getting tasered and pulled up on charges.

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

Balko On The Johnston Case

Crime and Punishment, Police Watch, The War on Drugs

Radley Balko of The Agitator brings up some interesting points on the Kathryn Johnston case. As Jason Pye pointed out yesterday, there are still a lot of ways that the punishments that are likely warranted and the lessons that need to be learned might not come to fruition. Balko explains it quite well:

There are some concerns, here, though. First, Johnston’s family is upset because the DA’s charges may upend the federal investigation. Local crime enforcement is generally preferable to federal enforcement. But civil rights cases (via the 14th Amendment) are a bit different. Johnston’s family may have a legitimate gripe. If the failures that led to her death are as thorough and system-wide as they appear to be, political pressure, cronyism, and conflict-of-interest may prevent the DA’s office from conducting a complete investigation.

Second, and somewhat related, it’s important that these charges don’t allow public officials in Atlanta to dismiss Johnston’s death as the result of a few bad apple cops. There were systemic failures, here.

Atlanta officials need to look at the system that allowed these narcotics officers to think they could get away with making up an informant, then attempting to cover it up. A cop’s not going to try something like that in a system that has the proper oversight and accountability. Officer Tesler, for example, had previously lied about an automobile accident he was involved in, but got off with barely a slap on the wrist. It’s imperative that a police officer be trustworthy. As the Johnston case shows, his word — on an affidavit for a search warrant, for example — can literally mean life or death. Why was he not fired? Why was he allowed to continue work on narcotics cases?

More broadly, the entire country needs to have a conversation about drug policing. The informant system is too ripe for abuse. Not because all police officers are dishonest, of course. Nor are even most of them. But the confidentiality we grant to drug informers — judges and prosecutors sometimes don’t even know who they are — allows for the few cops who do take shortcuts to get away with it. Anyone think this is the first time there’s been a phantom informant in Atlanta? Hell, many of the same narcotics cops conducted a similarly botched raid on the same block just a year earlier.

Kathryn Johnston, and the people of Atlanta, deserve a full and fair investigation of this case. It’s unclear whether the DA will have the inclination or the ability to provide that in a way that impartial federal investigators could.

But beyond that point, are the procedures the police used in Atlanta good procedures? Do they achieve their objective in a effective way, without a lot of collateral damage? I, and most observers, would say no. This case shows a nearly top-to-bottom negligence, and it’s being passed off like it’s simply a few rogue bad apples. It needs the intervention of a legal team well versed in civil rights and high-stake matters, such as https://www.essaylibrown.com/, on behalf of those affected by this display by the police.

The use of paramilitary-style raids to fight an unwinnable War on (Some) Drugs is the root problem. The actions of these cops are just a tragic symptom. Let’s cure the disease, not just treat the symptoms.

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

Warrantless GPS Tracking Isn’t A “Search”

Police Watch, Privacy, Technology, The Bill Of Rights

According to the 7th Circuit, cops can place a GPS tracking device on your vehicle, without warrant, based on a claim of suspicion. That claim doesn’t ever have to be justified to a judge, and since it doesn’t require a warrant, “probable cause” is whatever the officer thinks it is. The device will be similar to those available from firms who specialise in fleet tracking to ensure businesses can manage their drivers and trucks whereabouts. If you’d like to find out more, you can click here to go to the Autoconnect website.

From engadget:

Earlier this month, the Seventh Circuit of the US Court of Appeals “ruled against a defendant who claimed that the surreptitious placement of a GPS tracking device amounted to an unconstitutional search,” essentially giving the coppers the green light to add a GPS module to a suspicious ride sans a warrant. While we’re sure the privacy advocates out there are screaming bloody murder, the district judge found that they had had a “reasonable suspicion that the defendant was engaged in criminal activity,” and it seems that a well-placed hunch is all they need for lawful placement. Interestingly, the government argues that no warrant was needed since “there was no search or seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment,”

I guess my post over the weekend on RFID tracking didn’t even take into account that they’re already doing it with GPS.

Now, I don’t really like the idea of government being able to track with GPS. Just like I don’t like the idea that the Department of Homeland Security might tap our phones. What is truly disturbing, though, is when they try (and courts uphold) their ability to do it without any sort of oversight. I worry about giving government power; I’m truly terrified of giving them unaccountable power.

As I pointed out in my RFID post, most of you won’t ever have to worry about this. After all, you haven’t done anything wrong. And the bulk of the usage that cops and politicians will get out of these sort of technologies will be for actual lawbreakers (even if they’re breaking stupid laws like those of the War on Drugs). But the tools are also tools of harassment. And as the Manassas Park story shows us, it’s a tool to harass YOU if you make powerful enemies.

But it can spread wider. The state has the power, and libertarians are consistently making themselves enemies of the state. With the labyrinth of laws, so widespread that nobody can exist without breaking laws; this gives the state power to “legally” harass people who don’t serve its purposes or actively work against them. You know, people like me. It’s just fine to call the state a bumbling, stumbling fool, but it’s pretty difficult to defend yourself when that fool takes aim at you.

Hat Tip: Radley Balko @ Hit & Run

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

More from Manassas Park

Police Watch

I’ve written before about the plight of the David Ruttenberg and his bar. There’s been some new developments, and the police look worse than ever. Radley Balko’s Cliff’s Notes version: “David Ruttenberg hires a guy named Tom Kifer to head up security for his bar. Kifer is specifically charged with keeping drug activity out of Rack n’ Roll. Ruttenberg later finds out that Kifer is working for the police, who have instructed him to set up drug deals in the bar, which they then plan use against Ruttenberg, who would later lose his license for — wait for it — failing to stop drug activity in his pool hall.”

What is one supposed to do in this situation? You know there is drug activity going on in your bar, so you hire bouncers specifically charged to deal with that drug activity. You install sophisticated security devices to help with the problem. You even go so far as to invite police into the bar, because as a good citizen, you want to cooperate with the law. The police repay that cooperation by setting you up and coopting your security in order to help them implicate you in a drug deal. Where do you have left to turn?

This whole story stinks to high heaven, and it looks like it’s about to blow wide open. Make sure to check out Radley Balko’s site and Black Velvet Bruce Li for further updates.

mike
http://noangst.blogspot.com
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