Cop Block

In September, I told you the story of KC activist, Michael Mikkelson, and his mission to warn Kansas City drivers of the checkpoints that he viewed as intrusive and a violation of an individuals right to be secure in their person and property.  In the course of Mikkelson’s activism, he has endured harassment by the Kansas city police department, including being handcuffed and placed in a patrol car and having his “Checkpoint Ahead” sign stolen out of his hands by an officer.  In response to the theft of his property, Mikkelson filed an official complaint that was investigated by the KCPD Internal Affairs and reviewed by the Office of Community Complaints.  Unsurprisingly, the Office of Community Complaints found that no policies or procedures were violated by the offending officer and that no further action will be taken.  Here is the first page of the letter Mikkelson received in response to his complaint.

Apparently, the Kansas City police department has no policy against stealing someone’s property.  The author of the letter, Director I. Pearl Fain, somehow seems to believe that the fact that the property was not destroyed is important to the matter.  Can I use that as a defense if I steal someone’s property?  “But I didn’t destroy it judge, I only took it!” It seems apparent that the Office of Community Complaints did not approve of the message on Mikkelson’s sign and therefore chose to ignore the blatant misconduct on the part of the officer.

Fain also makes the ludicrous claim that Mikkelson was somehow interfering with official police business, even though he was almost a mile away from the checkpoint.  How did Mikkelson interfere with something he was not near?  The “official police business” of a DUI checkpoint is to stop every car that comes through the checkpoint.  Mikkelson’s actions did not prevent them from doing just that.

It should also be noted that the KCPD publicizes these checkpoints before hand, so Mikkelson is only doing what the police do themselves.  The only difference is that he takes his public announcement to the streets instead of to the newspaper.

The get tough on drunk driving crowd will inevitably side with the police in this case because they believe that Mikkelson is protecting drunk drivers, but they should save their ire for the police themselves.  Checkpoints are intrusive and much less effective then the less expensive DUI saturation patrols.  If anything is interfering with the “official police business” of supposedly keeping the streets safe from drunk drivers, it is the police themselves, and their insistence on holding these checkpoints instead of the more effective alternative.

If you would like to contact I. Pearl Fain, Director of the Office of Community Complaints to voice your concerns about this case, you can call 816-889-6641.

Sleazy, sleazy. That’s what a Missouri drug court monitor is accused of being, plus we have a crooked Puerto Rican cop and a sticky-fingered Louisiana narc. Let’s get to it:
 In St. Louis, Missouri, a former Lincoln County sheriff’s deputy was indicted November 3 on federal charges he sexually abused five female drug court participants he was monitoring. Scott Edwards, 49, was a part-time tracker for the drug court program between February 2009 and November 2010. He had sexual contact with three of the victims and “engaged in acts that resulted in bodily injury and included aggravated sexual abuse” with two others, according to the indictment. He also allegedly “restrained and confined one of the female victims by force, intimidation, and deception.” He faces five civil rights-related charges: two felony counts of deprivation of rights under color of law including aggravated sexual abuse, one felony count of deprivation of rights under color of law including kidnapping, and two misdemeanor counts of deprivation of rights under color of law including sexual contact. An attorney for the five women said Edwards threatened them with jail time if they didn’t have sex with him, used drug court funds to rent hotel rooms so he could have easier access to them, and that when the women complained to drug court team members, they were ignored.

In San Juan, Puerto Rico, a former Puerto Rico police sergeant was sentenced November 4 to 12 ½ years in federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to import drugs from Colombia aboard ships. Victor Esquilin Rosa had also been charged with providing protection to drug traffickers who visited the US Caribbean territory. Esquilin is the latest of dozens of Puerto Rico police officers accused of drug trafficking in recent years.

In Bastrop, Louisiana, a Morehouse Parish Sheriff’s office narcotics deputy has resignedfollowing an audit that found what the sheriff called “a very small amount of funds” missing from an account used to purchase drugs from unsuspecting dealers. Lt. Chris Balsamo, a 14-year veteran with the department, submitted his resignation Tuesday. The sheriff said $100 was missing from a safe where money to make buy-bust cases was kept. An internal investigation is ongoing and its results will be forwarded to the 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office for review.

Dirty cops popped up all across the South this week, and a crooked California prison guard, too. Let’s get to it:

 In Helena, Arkansas, five Helena-West Helena police officers were arrested Tuesday as part of a major drug trafficking crackdown that also involved public corruption. More than 800 federal and local police took part in mass arrests that targeted 70 people on federal charges. The police action, code named Operation Delta Blues, targeted crack cocaine sale and money laundering, but also swept up the Helena-West Helena police on corruption charges. The officers arrested are Helena-West Helena Police Department officer Herman Eaton, 46; Helena-West Helena officer Robert “Bam Bam” Rogers, 35; Helena-West Helena Sgt. Marlene Kalb, 48; Marvell police officer Robert Wahls, 42; and former Phillips County Deputy Sheriff Winston Dean Jackson, 44, who’s now a Helena-West Helena police officer. They face a variety of drug trafficking and other charges.

In Caruthersville, Missouri, the Caruthersville police chief and an officer were arrested October 6 and charged with forgery and theft. Chief Chris Riggs and Officer Marcus Hopkins each face multiple counts of forgery, while Riggs also faces one count of theft. Their exact misdeeds have not been revealed, but the investigation was conducted by the Missouri Highway Patrol Drugs and Crime Division. Both men are free on $200,000 bonds. Riggs remains police chief.

In Bayou La Batre, Alabama, a former Bayou La Batre police officer was arrested October 7 after a months-long investigation into missing drug money by the Alabama Bureau of Investigation. Former officer Jason Edwards had been in charge of confiscated drug money when some turned up missing in March. He resigned over the summer. At last report, Edwards was out on bail pending trial.

In St. Martinsville, Louisiana, a St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Office jail guard was arrested October 5 for allegedly smuggling contraband into the St. Martin Parish Correctional II Facility. Officer Freddie Abraham, 20, is charged with malfeasance in office, criminal conspiracy, attempted introduction of contraband in penal institutions, and possession with intent to distribute marijuana. He was last reported in jail trying to make a $30,000 bond.

In Blacksburg, South Carolina, a former Cherokee County sheriff’s department narcotics officer was arrested October 5 for engaging in sex acts with a confidential informant who had pending charges. Albert Phillips, 41, is charged with misconduct in office for the acts, which took place between December 2008 and January 2009. He resigned in January 2009.

In Petaluma, California, a guard at San Quentin state prison was arrested October 6 for selling drugs at the prison and accepting bribes. Robert Alioto, 48, was booked on suspicion of requesting or receiving a bribe, possession of marijuana for sale, sales or transportation of marijuana, conspiracy and selling drugs to a person in custody. Officials had few details. Alioto is free on $50,000 bail.

Armed with Twitter, Ustream, and a “Checkpoint Ahead” sign Michael Mikkelsen, of Kansas City, hopes to bring attention to the Fourth and Fifth Amendment violations inherent in DUI checkpoints and to help drivers avoid such checkpoints in the Kansas City area. In the course of Mikkelsen’s checkpoint protests he has endured harassment by Kansas City police officers, including being handcuffed and placed in a patrol car.  Recently, in a brazen act of armed criminal theft, a Kansas City police officer stole Mikkelsen’s “Checkpoint Ahead” sign right out of his hands.  According to Mikkelson:

I was engaged in a 1st (First) Amendment protected political protest. There was an obvious public interest for the speech that I was providing to the community. Officer Stewart observed my protest for approx. 10 to 15 minutes from across the intersection. I was holding a 2ft by 4ft coroplast sign. Officer Stewart was in a white marked police van with lights. She turned on the lights and pulled up next to the sidewalk that I was holding my sign on. She got out of the vehicle and approached me asking what I was doing. She did not ask me to leave or accuse me of a crime. She grabbed my sign and I said, “Please do not touch my sign.” She then pulled the sign out of my hands bent/folded it and put it in the passenger seat of her van. I asked her nicely “will you please give me back my property?” She said, “No.” I asked her for her name and she said it was officer Stewart. I turned and walked away. She drove up beside me as I was walking away and asked my name. Then she drove off with my sign.

I went to the police station at 1200 E. Linwood to report the theft of my sign, the violation of my free speech rights, and to inquire about getting my property back. I spoke with Office Zeplin and then Sgt. Cutburth (#692) who refused to take my criminal complaint of theft. After multiple inquiries about the location of my property, Cutburth informed me that officer Stewart took my property to the DUI checkpoint. I went to the DUI checkpoint and inquired. I was told that my sign had been put in truck #308 and taken to the police gas station at 1245 Prospect. I recovered my sign on a bench at the front of the service station building.I spoke with Sgt. Sticken at East Patrol who was told by Officer Stewart’s supervisor Sgt. Lenz, that there was not an incident  report regarding my property and the custody thereof.

 

I know some who read this will say, “But drunk drivers are dangerous, I support these checkpoints, Mikkelson deserved to get his sign stolen”.  I will not argue here whether or not DUI should be a crime.  I will argue, however, that even if you think DUI should be illegal, checkpoints are not effective and the money spent on this type of enforcement is mostly wasted.  In fact, checkpoints are so ineffective that the intrusion on our right to be secure in our person and papers cannot be justified and neither can the cost.

Based on self-reporting surveys, there are 147 million incidents of driving while impaired by alcohol every year.  That is over 400,000 incidents of alcohol impaired driving every day. Of these incidents, 0.00007% (30 per day) result in death.  The overwhelming majority of alcohol-impaired drivers make it home safely.  The number of drunk drivers who will actually cause  fatal accidents is so low, that it is unlikely that taking the 1.7 million arrested every year off the road would have much of an impact on the number of fatalities.  It is even more unlikely that an alcohol-impaired driver who would have caused a fatal accident will be caught during a checkpoint.  Despite this fact, millions of dollars are spent to enforce DUI laws utilizing checkpoints. Knowing these numbers, would you voluntarily write out a check to support enforcement using checkpoints?

Some of you would no doubt say yes, you are willing to fund the millions that are spent on enforcement because you think it would be worth it if it saved even one of those 30 people a day.  You should still be very skeptical of the usefulness of checkpoints.  Saturation patrols, where officers saturate an area known to have a high rate of alcohol-related accidents, have been shown to be more effective in catching drunk drivers.  The officers on these patrols look for signs of impaired driving, such as crossing over the middle line, and then make a stop.  Instead of just herding every vehicle on a particular street into a line and demanding “your papers, please”, they actually make stops based on the suspicion that someone is impaired.  Also, since they are looking for obvious signs of impaired driving, they are more likely to catch the drivers who are the most drunk and therefore the most dangerous (67% of drunk drivers involved in fatal accidents have a BAC greater than 0.15.)

Saturation patrols are not just less intrusive and more effective than checkpoints, they are also  less expensive.   Between 2006 and 2007, for example, Independence, MO, which is a suburb of Kansas City, spent $247.09 per arrest using checkpoints, and only $31.79 per arrest using saturation patrols.

Should we continue to put up with the intrusiveness of DUI checkpoints when they are unlikely to save lives?  Should we tolerate their intrusiveness when there are less meddlesome and less expensive alternatives?

This week, it’s drug task forces gone bad! And a dope-snorting and -peddling sheriff, too. Let’s get to it:

In Nashville, Tennessee, an audit of West Tennessee’s 24th Judicial Drug Task Force has found abuses, including thefts by the group’s administrative assistant and jail trustees partying with seized crack cocaine. The investigation conducted by the state Comptroller’s Division of County Audit, which also found that District Attorney General Hansel McCadams and Henry County Sheriff Monte Belew liked to drive around in a seized BMW Z-3 on personal business. Auditors found that items seized from drug defendants were stolen or misused, with the administrative assistant and her ex-husband admitting to taking drugs, utility trailers, and a flat-screen television from the task force. Auditors also found that jail trustees had access to seized items and were not adequately supervised. Some trustees gained access to drug case files, smoked pot and crack while at the task force headquarters, and stole cash, coins, and other items. Prosecutor McCadams was cited for using a variety of seized vehicles including a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, a golf cart, a go cart, a four-wheeler and a trailer for his personal use. He flew on task force airplanes and a helicopter on non-official business, according to the report. No word yet on whether anyone is going to face criminal charges.

In San Francisco, the former commander of an East Bay drug task force was indicted Monday on a slew of federal corruption charges along with a friend who is a private investigator. Norman Wielsch, the former commander of the Contra Costa County Central Narcotics Enforcement Team (CNET), and private eye Chris Butler face numerous counts in an ongoing scandal that has already enveloped other members of the squad. They allegedly ripped-off marijuana and methamphetamine from the evidence room and resold it, provided protection to a bordello, and committed armed robberies of prostitutes, among other corrupt activities made possible by Wielsch’s command position with the task force. They are charged with narcotics conspiracy, two counts of methamphetamine distribution, five counts of marijuana distribution, four counts of theft from programs receiving federal funds, three counts of civil rights conspiracy, and two counts of extortion. They were being held pending a bail hearing at last report.

In Greenville, Missouri, the former Carter County sheriff was ordered last Friday to stand trial on three drug-related felonies, including distribution of methamphetamine and cocaine. Tommy Adams, 31, appeared at a preliminary hearing after which Associate Circuit Judge Randy Schuller found probable cause to believe he had committed those crimes. During the hearing, criminal investigators testified that Adams had consented to searches in April that led to the discovery of a small amount of cocaine in an evidence bag in his department-issued vehicle and that an evidence bag containing cocaine was missing from the evidence room. Investigators also found five bags of methamphetamine hidden under the vehicle’s gas pedal. The searches came after an informant wearing a wire bought meth from Adams. After being arrested in May, Adams tested positive for methamphetamine. Adams resigned after his May arrest. He now awaits trial.

Last year I wrote about Ted White and his five year nightmare. Mr. White spent five years in prison after a police officer, who was sleeping with his wife, perjured himself in court. The officer’s testimony helped secure to Mr. White’s wrongful conviction for child molestation. Mr. White was eventually exonerated and released after it was learned that the prosecution knew of the the officer’s affair with Mr. White’s wife and that the prosecution was most likely complicit in the perjury.

After his release Mr. White filed a lawsuit against the city of Lee’s Summit Missouri, the chief of police, and the officer himself, Detective Richard McKinley. In 2006, as part of a settlement that would remove the city from the lawsuit, Lee’s Summit city government agreed to pay “any final judgment entered by the court in favor of White”, which indemnified Detective McKinley. In 2008 the court ruled that McKinley had violated White’s due process rights by withholding evidence. The court awarded White almost $16 million.  Lee’s Summit then refused to pay. Lee’s Summit’s mayor, Randy Rhoads, said that “Despite an indemnification agreement which removed the city as a defendant in this case, it has been determined after an extensive review that paying for any damages would be a violation of city ordinances.”  Rhoads went on to say that when the agreement was signed there was no way to know that the verdict would rule that McKinley violated White’s Constitutional rights and that “In light of the verdict, it’s unlawful under ordinance for the city to indemnify the defendant, Lee’s Summit city ordinances specifically state that if a city employee violates the rights of another person, the city shall not indemnify that employee.”

Ted White celebrating settlement with friends

Earlier this this year, U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey threatened Lee’s Summit with a crime fraud hearing if they did not pay up. The city of Lee’s Summit has now changed course and has agreed to a settlement of $15.5 million. Mr. White will finally get some justice, but what he really wants is his children back in his life.  He has not seen them since his ordeal began.

When speaking of of moving on, Mr. White said “There is no room in a person’s heart for hate or revenge, so true forgiveness was the only way for me to take back control of my life…The detective stole my children — how hard is that for me to get past that? I haven’t seen them for years. They are worth more to me than $15 million… I used to pray for that man to take care of my children, and he was the one who put me in jail.”

One of the most widely watched police brutality videos from last year showed members of the Columbia Police Department’s SWAT team breaking into a man’s home in the middle of the night, shooting his two dogs, terrorizing him and his family, and finally arresting him for a tiny amount of marijuana. A newly released video shows a second raid conducted by Columbia SWAT. Like the first video, this one shows the police serving a search warrant for marijuana and gratuitously shooting a dog. (the video description claims two dogs were shot, but I only saw one). The cops appear to have planned shooting the dog. You can hear one officer bring up the possibility of killing the dog at the 1:45 mark in the video and, furthermore, the dog was clearly running away from the officer who shot it. The video also shows the police assaulting the home with several deadly flashbang grenades, one of which reportedly landed near a woman who was visiting.

As with most SWAT raids, no warning was given to the residents before the police broke into the home. The video shows that police only announced their presence for about 3 seconds before breaking in — hardly enough time for people who are sleeping to wake up and realize what is going on. In fact, it sounds as though the police set off one of their flashbang grenades in the home before announcing their presence at all.

10 minutes into the video, the police tell one of the men they are arresting that they’ve shot his dog, then one officer begins to lecture him: “When you deal dope, and the police have to come to your house, that’s what…” The end of his sentence is unintelligible due to problems with the video’s audio, however, I’m willing to bet that the officer said “that’s what happens.” He was clearly trying to blame the homeowner for the fact that the police shot his dog.

The raid starts 5:30 into the video.

The most important thing to understand about this video is that it is not an “isolated incident.” In fact, according to a recent USA Today interview with Peter Kraska, a criminologist whose work focuses on police militarization, SWAT teams are currently deployed about 70,000 and 80,000 per year. The main reason SWAT teams are used is to serve routine search or arrest warrants especially for drug suspects. SWAT teams have even been used to investigate suspected underage drinking and unlicensed barber shops.

Even if you haven’t broken the law, you still might fall victim to one of these raids. According to a study a government study about SWAT teams in Maryland, more than one third of SWAT raids conducted last year failed to end with even a single arrest. Dozens of innocent people have even been killed in SWAT raids.

Please share this video with as many people as you can. It might make them angry or upset, but people need to be angry and upset about the fact that raids like this are happening about 200 times per day across the United States. These SWAT rampages are nothing more than acts of terrorism and it’s time they stop.

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Recently released surveillance video from the City Jail in Bridgeton, Missouri shows police officers attacking William Billingham, a DUI suspect, for no apparent reason:

The police chief claims that the officers responsible for the attack on Billingham can’t be fired until the police department conducts an investigation into the matter, yet the incident took place nearly two years ago. If the chief actually had any intention of holding these officers accountable, then he would have carried out his investigation back in 2009. If police have video of a use of force incident, there’s simply no excuse for not reviewing the footage immediately after the incident takes place.