Police Watch Archives - Page 7 of 38

Category Archives: Police Watch

On The Empire State Building Shooting

August 25, 2012 tarran Crime and Punishment, Fascism in America, Keep and Bear Arms, Police Watch

The news that all the wounded bystanders were injured as a result of police gun-fire will prompt many to condemn the officers who confronted Mr Jeffrey Johnson yesterday morning on a sidewalk in Manhattan. I write in their defence.

As facts dribble out, we have an increasingly complete picture of what actually occurred. Mr Johnson had a grudge against Mr Steven Ercolino – a manager at a company he had worked at in the past – and had decided to lie in wait with a hand-gun and to murder him in an ambush as Mr Ercolino walked to work. As Mr. Ercolino walked towards his office from purchasing some food at a coffee shop, Mr Johnson shot him in the head from behind, and fired two more rounds into his torso, killing him.

Mr Johnson then walked away and tried to escape by blending into the crowd of similarly attired people on their way to work. However, he was trailed by a construction worker. Mr Johnson’s escape route took him past a police detail, and the construction worker trailing him alerted the officers on that detail that Mr Johnson had just murdered someone and was armed.

Two officers hustled to catch up with Mr Johnson. They challenged him. He drew (but did not fire) his weapon, and the police fired 16 rounds in quick succession into him. Bystanders were struck by police bullets, the fragments of the bullets, and fragments of masonry turned into shrapnel by the police bullets.

We at The Liberty Papers are often critical of the government and its agents, but in this case, the police appear to have handled the matter properly. The officers were approached by a citizen and made aware of a serious felony and were pointed to a suspect.

The first choice the officers faced was the question of whether or not to confront Mr. Johnson. I believe the police did the right thing in confronting him, for several reasons:

First, when people commit murders – especially when they ambush people on their way to work – it is often part of a spree killing – where a person goes to multiple locations, killing all the people they have grudges against in one go. Had police failed to confront him, who knows what would have happened, who else he might have killed? After all, Mr Jefferson had several clips on his person – despite clearly planning to fire only a few shots into his victim.

Secondly, had they tried to tail Mr Johnson, they ran the risk of losing him in the crowd. They would have had to abandon their posts to do so.

Thirdly, what if Mr Johnson was innocent and the construction worker was mistaken? In that case tailing him would have distracted police from finding the real killer.

In confronting Mr Johnson immediately after the allegations against him were communicated to them, the police officers were doing good police work.

When Mr Johnson pulled the gun out of his bag, and attempted to point it at the men confronting him, the dynamic then changed. In effect, he was committing an act of assault on people who happen to be police officers.

In shooting him, the police were defending their lives as any citizen should be able to do in a free society. In shooting that many rounds the police were not guilty of excess – people are rarely killed or incapacitated instantly by a bullet from a handgun and the police appear to stop firing almost instantly after Mr Johnson dropped his gun and flopped down to the pavement. I judge what I see in the video to be a legitimate act of self-defence by the officers.

The person guilty of depraved indifference in this affair is Mr Johnson, who chose to ambush and murder someone on a crowded sidewalk and to initiate a gun-fight on another crowded side-walk. We will never know what Mr Johnson intended to accomplish when he set out to murder Mr. Ercolino, whether he had other people in his sights, or what made him snap. Those secrets died with him as he lay hand-cuffed, face down, on the pavement. In the end, though, the responsibility for the carnage falls squarely on his shoulders.

In all likelihood, this case will be picked over for what people could have done differently. Certainly, the accuracy of the police fire, their training, and their doctrine for confronting people like Mr Johnson should be reexamined for possible improvements. But, at this point, it appears that the police made the correct decisions to confront and then shoot Mr Johnson, despite how awfully everything turned out.

tarran

I am an anarcho-capitalist living just west of Boston Massachussetts. I am married, have two children, and am trying to start my own computer consulting company.

https://thelibertypapers.org/author/tarran/

DEA Uses Truck Under False Pretenses; Refuses to Pay Truck Owner $133,532 in Repairs Resulting from Botched Sting Operation

July 31, 2012 Stephen Littau Dumbasses and Authoritarians, Government Incompetence, Legal, Police Watch, The War on Drugs

In the era of Fast and Furious, nothing should come as much of a surprise with how incompetent and reckless federal agencies can be but here, the DEA reaches a new low.

The Houston Chronicle reports:

The phone rang before sunrise. It woke Craig Patty, owner of a tiny North Texas trucking company, to vexing news about Truck 793 – a big red semi supposedly getting repairs in Houston.

“Your driver was shot in your truck,” said the caller, a business colleague. “Your truck was loaded with marijuana. He was shot eight times while sitting in the cab. Do you know anything about your driver hauling marijuana?”

“What did you say?” Patty recalled asking. “Could you please repeat that?”

The truck, it turned out, had been everywhere but in the repair shop.

Commandeered by one of his drivers, who was secretly working with federal agents, the truck had been hauling marijuana from the border as part of an undercover operation. And without Patty’s knowledge, the Drug Enforcement Administration was paying his driver, Lawrence Chapa, to use the truck to bust traffickers.

Chapa, who was working on behalf of the DEA paid with his life. It’s bad enough that someone was killed in one of Patty’s trucks but the story doesn’t end there.

The article continues:

But eight months later, Patty still can’t get recompense from the U.S. government’s decision to use his truck and employee without his permission. His company, which hauls sand as part of hydraulic fracturing operations for oil and gas companies, was pushed to the brink of failure after the attack because the truck was knocked out of commission, he said.

Patty had only one other truck in operation.

In documents shared with the Houston Chronicle, he is demanding that the DEA pay $133,532 in repairs and lost wages over the bullet-sprayed truck, and $1.3 million more for the damage to himself and his family, who fear retaliation by a drug cartel over the bungled narcotics sting.

[…]

Copies of letters and emails from Patty’s insurance company state that it won’t pay for repairs because the truck was part of a law-enforcement operation. Patty drew from his 401K retirement fund to repair the truck, which was out of operation for 100 days.

“I was not part of this,” he said. “I had absolutely no knowledge of any of it until after it happened.”

[…]

Houston lawyer Mark Bennett, who is advising Patty, said if Patty’s initial claim is not resolved, the next step would be to sue.

I sincerely hope the DEA is taken to the cleaners on this one. Beyond the financial hardship the DEA has caused to Patty, he now fears for his family’s safety.

Perhaps most unnerving, Patty says, is that drug mobsters now likely know his name, and certainly know his truck.

Panic at the Patty home these days can be triggered by something as simple as a deer scampering through the wooded yard or a car pulling into the driveway. One morning as his wife made breakfast, one of his young sons suddenly bolted across the house yelling, “Get the guns!”

This is no way to live. And for what? To keep a little marijuana from reaching people who will just as easily find another supplier?

The war on (some) drugs is no joke. There are real casualties in this idiotic and unrealistic goal of a “drug-free America.” Chapa and Patty are only among the war on (some) drugs latest victims.

Hat Tip: The Agitator

Stephen Littau

http://fpffressminds.blogspot.com/

The Nutmeg State’s Senate Passes Bill Protecting Right to Record Police AND Abolishes the Death Penalty in the Same Week

April 26, 2012 Stephen Littau Civil Liberties, Crime and Punishment, Criminal Justice Reform, Death Penalty, Democrats, Free Speech, Freedom of the press, Government Transparency, History, Human Rights, Individual Rights, Know Your Rights, Legal, Police Watch, Republicans, Strategies For Advancing Liberty

This week, the State of Connecticut made progress in the right direction on the criminal justice front on two issues I care deeply about: the right of individuals to record the police in public and abolishing the death penalty.

Earlier today, the Connecticut Senate passed a bill 42-11 that would hold the police liable for arresting individuals who record their activities in public. Carlos Miller writing for Pixiq writes:

The Connecticut state senate approved a bill Thursday that would allow citizens to sue police officers who arrest them for recording in public, apparently the first of its kind in the nation.

As it is now, cops act with reckless immunity knowing the worst that can happen is their municipalties [sic] (read: taxpayers) would be responsible for shelling out lawsuits.

Senate Bill 245, which was introduced by Democratic Senator Eric Coleman and approved by a co-partisan margin of 42-11, must now go before the House.
The bill, which would go into effect on October 1, 2012, states the following:

This bill makes peace officers potentially liable for damages for interfering with a person taking a photograph, digital still, or video image of either the officer or a colleague performing his or her job duties. Under the bill, officers cannot be found liable if they reasonably believed that the interference was necessary to (1) lawfully enforce a criminal law or municipal ordinance; (2) protect public safety; (3) preserve the integrity of a crime scene or criminal investigation; (4) safeguard the privacy of a crime victim or other person; or (5) enforce Judicial Branch rules and policies that limit taking photographs, videotaping, or otherwise recording images in branch facilities.

Officers found liable of this offense are entitled, under existing law, to indemnification (repayment) from their state or municipal employer if they were acting within their scope of authority and the conduct was not willful, wanton, or reckless.

While I think the fourth and fifth exceptions to the law could be problematic, this should go a long way toward holding the police accountable.

As if this wasn’t enough good news, just yesterday Gov. Dannel Malloy signed a bill to abolish the death penalty in the Nutmeg state. CNN reports:

(CNN) — Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy signed a bill into law Wednesday that abolishes the death penalty, making his state the 17th in the nation to abandon capital punishment and the fifth in five years to usher in a repeal.

The law is effective immediately, though prospective in nature, meaning that it would not apply to those already sentenced to death. It replaces the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of release as the state’s highest form of punishment.

“Although it is an historic moment — Connecticut joins 16 other states and the rest of the industrialized world by taking this action — it is a moment for sober reflection, not celebration,” Malloy said in a statement.

Connecticut isn’t a state that comes to my mind when I think of a death penalty state and for a good reason: only 2 people have been executed in that state in the last 52 years (both of which wanted to be executed), according to the governor. So, if the administration of the death penalty is so infrequent, why does this abolishing of the death penalty even matter? I think Gov. Malloy said it quite well in his signing statement: “Instead, the people of this state pay for appeal after appeal, and then watch time and again as defendants are marched in front of the cameras, giving them a platform of public attention they don’t deserve.”

Keep up the good work Connecticut!

Hat Tip: The Agitator

Stephen Littau

http://fpffressminds.blogspot.com/

Frontline Investigates the State of Forensic Science in “The Real CSI”

April 19, 2012 Stephen Littau Crime and Punishment, Criminal Justice Reform, Death Penalty, Government Incompetence, Government Transparency, Human Rights, Legal, Media, Multimedia, Police Watch, Technology

Is the forensic science used in the courtroom reliable? The PBS documentary series Frontline makes an attempt at answering this question in an episode entitled: “The Real CSI.”

I cannot recommend this episode enough.

Watch The Real CSI on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Also, the producers of this episode hosted a live chat for viewers to ask some follow-up questions (I’m sorry I missed it). Here is the archive from the chat.

Stephen Littau

http://fpffressminds.blogspot.com/

SCOTUS: Police Placing GPS Tracking Device on a Vehicle Without Warrant Violates the Fourth Amendment [or Does it?]

January 23, 2012 Stephen Littau Civil Liberties, Constitution, Crime and Punishment, Know Your Rights, Legal, Police Watch, Privacy, Property Rights, Security, Supreme Court, Technology, The Bill Of Rights, The Surveillance State, Theory and Ideas

How about some good news on the civil liberties front to kick off the week for a change? Robert Barnes writing for The Washington Post reports that SCOTUS ruled 9-0 in United States v. Jones stating that the police placing a GPS tracking device on a person’s vehicle and tracking said vehicle over days, weeks, or months without a warrant violates the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable searches.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that police must obtain a search warrant before using a GPS device to track criminal suspects. But the justices left for another day larger questions about how technology has altered a person’s expectation of privacy.

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the government needed a valid warrant before attaching a GPS device to the Jeep used by D.C. drug kingpin Antoine Jones, who was convicted in part because police tracked his movements on public roads for 28 days.

“We hold that the government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search’ ” under the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, Scalia wrote.

[…]

Alito’s point was that it was the lengthy GPS surveillance of Jones itself that violated the Fourth Amendment and that “the use of longer term GPS monitoring in investigations of most offenses impinges on expectations of privacy.”

“For such offenses,” he wrote, “society’s expectation has been that law enforcement agents and others would not — and indeed, in the main, simply could not — secretly monitor and catalogue every single movement of an individual’s car for a very long period.”

The only disagreement among the Justices was whether or not the decision went far enough to protect individuals in a 21st century world based on a 18th century law (i.e. the Fourth Amendment).

Hey, even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in awhile and in even rarer cases, 9 Supreme Court Justices.

***Correction/Further Analysis***
If you followed the link to The Washington Post article, you might notice that the parts I quoted don’t match up exactly. This is because the article has since been edited with a more complete explanation of what United States v. Jones really means. It appears that I put entirely too much trust into what was being reported in the media here and elsewhere (and I still haven’t gotten around to reading the opinion for myself).

Doug Mataconis (who is a lawyer; I am not) was the first to point out that the coverage of this ruling isn’t quite as good from a civil liberties perspective as the media would have us believe:

I think all you can really say is that, under circumstances of this case, the Court found that the use of the tracking device without a warrant was impermissible. As the majority opinion notes, however, the Government attempted to raise in their arguments to the Supreme Court the theory that the search was supported by reasonable suspicion and/or probable cause to believe that Jones was the leader of a drug gang. Under such a theory, the use of the tracking device would have theoretically been justified even without a warrant.

You can read a more detailed analysis from Doug here Outside the Beltway.

Doug also pointed me to this article by Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy post entitled “What Jones Does Not Hold”

It seems that I wasn’t the only one mislead about the true impact of this ruling. Even Radley Balko at The Agitator had to make some corrections to his post regarding this case and made reference to the same post by Kerr as well as an even more discouraging analysis from Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSblog.

Stephen Littau

http://fpffressminds.blogspot.com/

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