Cop Block

This cop stopped at the DMV for awhile this afternoon. The location is just inside the city limits. It appeared to me that his only business was to laugh and chat with the front desk gal.

fromjanesville2waukesha

Always film the police, for your safety and theirs. Then send the video to CopBlock.org via the submission tab.

If you spend any amount of time reading the laundry list of crimes committed by police officers at Injustice Everywhere, you may start to think to yourself, “Man, what does a cop have to do to get fired?”  Corrective counseling, short suspensions, or just a good ole talking to, seems to be the punishment of choice for crimes that would land you or me in jail.  Every once in a while a deserving cop gets fired, but as the case of King County Sheriff’s Deputy Kevin Savage demonstrates, it can take a long list of egregious behavior to finally end up in the unemployment line.  Deputy Savage was fired recently after 22 internal investigations and 26 finding of misconduct over the course of two years.  Not 26 accusations, but 26 actual sustained findings of misconduct.  That is apparently what it takes for a cop to get fired in King County.

Deputy Savage came to work for the King County Sheriff in 2006.  In 2010, he was assigned to patrol Vashon Island where because of its small size, he worked without the supervision of a sergeant.  According to residents, he quickly gained a reputation for being a bully.  During his time on the island he was accused of buying alcohol while in uniform, playing pool in local bars while on duty, physically threatening and intimidating witnesses in a effort to have them change their stories, and breaking into a home without a warrant and arresting a woman without probable cause.  In just 9 months on the island, it was found that Savage committed misconduct 18 different times.  His punishment?  He was given a 5 day suspension and reassigned.

It did not take long before Savage was again racking up complaints on his new beat, including allegedly telling a teenage girl that he could sexual assault her with a pen and that there was nothing that she could go to stop him.  Savage was finally put on paid vacation administrative leave in June.  Between that time and his firing, he received over $28,000 in pay.

Christopher Harris after being slammed into a wall by Matt Paul

It should come as no surprise that it took this long for Savage to be fired.  It is more surprising that he was fired at all.  Remember, King County Sheriff’s Deputy Matt Paul?  He slammed an innocent man, Christopher Harris, into a wall so hard that the he was left paralyzed.  He also has a long history of using violence, up to six times more often than other officers who walked same beat as him.  His superiors were aware of his tendency to escalate situations and to cause injuries.  He still has a job with the King County Sheriff.

Of course, the proclivity for not firing bad cops is not limited to King County Washington.  A Superior Wisconsin police officer, Kirk Babic, who has admitted to stealing more than $5,000 from his fellow officers will receive a suspension, and extra training, but will not be fired for his felony theft.  Can you guess the reason the Police and Fire Commission decided not to fire Babic?  Because they NEVER fire police officers for committing crimes!  They decided it would be unfair to fire Babic for committing a crime when they have never fired other officers for committing crimes, including a hit and run, domestic assault, damaging property, and giving false testimony.  This decision, along with the admission that they can’t fire an officer for breaking the law, because they never have before, gives other officers in the department permission to just go ahead and commit crimes, because they are indeed above the law.

Maybe we are being to hard on these departments for not firing bad cops.  The reality is that many times they will be forced to rehire the bad cop anyway by a judge or an arbitrator, so why go through the trouble in the first place?  Early this year I told you the stories of several bad cops who were fired, then rehired and then continued to be their normal thuggish selves.  One such cop, Boynton Beach Florida Police Officer David L. Coffey, has now once again been fired for excessive force.  This time, for slamming a man into a game-console at a restaurant while making an arrest without trying to first handcuff the individual.  He is also facing charges stemming from an incident in which he activated his taser inches from a fellow officer’s ear in retaliation for her honking her horn at him.

Even incompetent police officers can get their jobs back.  San Jose Police Officer, Matty Hrncir, was fired in 2010 for mishandling several sexual assault cases. Hrncir’s incompetence, which included failing to follow up on leads, not turning over crucial evidence to prosecutors, misquoting victims and witnesses, and even minimizing crimes in her reports, resulted in criminals walking free without being charged for their crimes.  An arbitrator recently ruled that she should be reinstated with back pay.   Can you imagine keeping your job if you sucked at it that bad?

We can only hope that Deputy Savage doesn’t get reinstated, but with the apparent job security provided to police officers I wouldn’t hold your breath.

On September 16 I blogged about 4 individuals who were arrested for filming the public assembly of the Wisconsin House of Representatives. It’s been almost two months and nothing has changed. Below are several videos of folks being arrested – AGAIN – for the peaceful act of filming public officials. Several members of the committee stated that the protestors should be left alone, that the police have been things to do.

Upclose look at one man’s arrest with others:

Overview video from SSWIDTMS

Update on CJ and Thi – Released from Jail

As posted in the previous post, here is the contact information to the Wisconsin State Troopers:

Captain Charles R. Teasdale, Commander – Head of Troopers in Madison
Lieutenant Brad Altman, Executive Officer

911 W. North Street
DeForest, WI 53532-1971
Phone: (608) 846-8500

Wisconsin State Patrol Division Headquarters

Superintendent Stephen Fitzgerald
Colonel Benjamin Mendez
Hill Farms State Transportation Building
4802 Sheboygan Avenue, Room 551
P.O. Box 7912
Madison, WI 53707-7912
Phone: (608) 266-3212
Fax: (608) 267-4495

Join the forum discussion on this post

Prohibition's filthy lucre is too much for some to resist

In Modesto, California, a Modesto police officer was arrested Monday after an internal investigation found he had seized drugs and failed to turn them in as evidence. Officer Anthony Trock, a four-year veteran of the department, is charged with possession of a controlled substance, furnishing illegal drugs, and embezzlement. Trock went down after a citizen complained and Internal Affairs investigated. The investigation turned up several instances where Trock seized drugs from people while on duty, but did not turn them in. In one incident, Trock gave marijuana he seized to another person. He is on administrative leave.

In Decatur, Alabama, a Morgan County jail guard was arrested March 22 on charges he was selling drugs at the jail. Guard Marquez Laroy Goodwin, 22, sold marijuana to undercover agents, and when he was later pulled over in a traffic stop, was found in possession of a handgun and marked money from the buy. He is charged with unlawful distribution of a controlled substance. The sheriff says he will be fired, and that other guards could be involved. Stay tuned.

In Montello, Wisconsin, a former Marquette County Sheriff’s deputy was sentenced March 23 to six months in jail for stealing drugs from an evidence room. Former deputy Daniel Card, 34, had pleaded guilty in January to misdemeanor charges of theft and entry into a locked room without permission. He had been found guilty in March 2009 of felony drug possession for taking drugs from the evidence room in April and May 2007. Investigators also found drugs missing from cases in 1996, 1997, and 2006. Card must also undergo a drug and alcohol assessment and possible treatment.

Nick Milroy, a Democratic state representative from Wisconsin, was attempting to enter the state capitol building when he was accosted by a group of police officers who threw him to the ground and tackled him.

Time magazine speculates that the officers “mistook Milroy for one of the hundreds of protesters who have been camped out inside the building and were reluctant to leave.” After all, if Milroy had been an average Joe trying to enter a public building rather than a state rep, then it would have been perfectly reasonable for the officers to attack him.

According to the 3rd Quarter Report of The National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project, police officers were accused of sexual assault at a rate of 79 per 100,000 law enforcement personal. The rate of accusations for the general public is 28.7 per 100,000 general public.  When corrected for gender these numbers tell us that there are 1.5 times more accusations of sexual assualt among  male law enforcement officers than among the general male population.  The fact that rapists seem to be concentrated among a group of armed individuals who have the purported authority to detain and arrest other individuals should be more than a little alarming for even the most prolific police bootlicker. In just the last month, several stories of officers committing disgusting crimes have been in the news.

Read the full story

A Wisconsin narc crosses the line, and cops in Houston and Philadelphia pay for getting too greedy. Let’s get to it:

Denise Markham

In Madison, Wisconsin, a Madison Police officer has resigned in a negotiated settlement as she was being investigated for alleged misconduct. Denise Markham, a 22-year veteran of the department, was assigned to the Dane County Narcotics and Gang Task Force, but had been on paid leave since June 2009, when an investigation into her activities commenced. The investigators found no evidence of illegal conduct, but found that she violated departmental policies by filing inaccurate reports, conducting improper searches, conducting improper seizures of private property, improperly handling seized drugs, and engaging in “overbearing, oppressive or tyrannical conduct.” In other words, illegal conduct.

In Philadelphia, two former Philadelphia police officers pleaded guilty Monday to plotting to rip-off a suspected heroin dealer. Robert Snyder and James Venziale plotted with another former officer, Mark Williams, to stage a traffic stop as a pretext for stealing heroin from a supplier. Williams has pleaded not guilty. Venziale cooperated with prosecutors and faces a five year mandatory minimum sentence, while Snyder, who did not cooperate with prosecutors, faces a mandatory minimum 10 years on gun and drug charges. Sentencing is in May.

In Houston, a former Harris County Sheriff’s deputy pleaded guilty Monday to stopping drug dealers and ripping-off their loads. Richard Bryan Nutt Jr., 43, pleaded to one federal count of extortion after getting caught in a Houston police sting operation. While in uniform, Nutt stopped a vehicle supposedly carrying drugs, and one of his co-conspirators entered the vehicle and retrieved a package containing two pounds of fake cocaine. The sting was set up after Houston police received information that someone was ripping off drug couriers. Nutt is free on bond pending sentencing in June. He’s looking at up to 20 years in federal prison.

Stories courtesy of StopTheDrugWar.org.

William Norman Grigg is one of my favorite bloggers when it comes to covering police. This is his latest piece about a case of a Kenosha, WI man murdered by police on November 9, 2004 and the effect it had on one of the officers involved in the murder.

The Conscience of a Killer

Eric Strausbaugh of Kenosha, Wisconsin, a 34-year-old husband and father, killed himself last October 31. Friends recall that he was experiencing marital difficulties and a great deal of job-related stress. A large part of his emotional burden was the result of his actions on November 9, 2004, when he was an accomplice in the murder of Michael Edward Bell.

Strausbaugh, an officer with the Kenosha Police Department, confronted Bell in front of his home at about 2:10 a.m. He has never provided an unambiguous legal rationale for the stop: He first claimed that Bell was speeding, then later asserted that he had run a stop sign. Neither of those claims was validated by the dash cam video from Strausbaugh’s cruiser (which actually shows that Strausbaugh blew through a stop sign on the way to Bell’s home).

The video shows a visibly puzzled Bell emerging from his vehicle. Within seconds Strausbaugh is literally at the 21-year-old’s throat, pushing him up against the vehicle then dragging him off-camera. A brief argument ensues, in which Bell can be heard exclaiming “I know my rights!” and Strausbaugh is heard demanding that the young man submit to a field sobriety test. Near the end of the five minute video clip we can hear Strausbaugh order Bell put his arms behind his back, followed by the unmistakable sound of a Taser being fired.

Three other Kenosha police officers — who were reportedly within a few blocks of Bell’s residence — arrived on the scene a few minutes later. Strausbaugh insisted that he called for backup because Bell “ran,” but there is no evidence to corroborate that claim.

No more than ten minutes after the confrontation began, Bell was dead from a gunshot wound to the head. The actual killing was carried out by Officer Albert Gonzalez, who, in the clinical language of Dr. Douglas Kelly, former Chief Medical Examiner for Fond Du Lac County, “made [a] contact wound by pressing his gun against [Bell's] head at the time the shot was fired.”

When Gonzalez pulled the trigger, Bell was being restrained by at least two other police officers. Strausbaugh maintained that Bell — a much smaller man — somehow managed to bulldog him up against a nearby car, and grab for his gun before being shot to death. Bell supposedly accomplished this feat despite being  Tasered twice, as well as enduring several punches and knee strikes to the ribs inflicted by Strausbaugh and Officer Erich Weidner (who arrived within minutes of the initial stop).

As depicted in a work of dramatic fiction the Kenosha Police Department wittily calls a “reenactment” of the homicide, Officer Gonzalez supposedly shot Bell in the right side of the head, despite the fact that this would have endangered Lt. David Krueger, who was standing directly behind the victim.

There most significant problem with this story is that “it is forensically impossible” for the shooting to occur as depicted in the Kenosha PD’s little skit, according to Dr. Kelly. Gonzalez couldn’t have shot Bell as portrayed  “without either [Bell's] neck being extremely hyper-extended or his body being bent backwards.”

Not to worry: The Kenosha PD — after offering the most solemn assurances regarding the scrupulous accuracy of its original story — devised two different versions of the event in an attempt to demonstrate that it was possible for Gonzalez to have shot Bell on the right side of his head. This was done despite the fact that the initial witness statements, and the location of the shell casing following the shooting, made it clear that the gunshot was fired to the left side of the victim’s skull.

This detail is critical: If he had been positioned to shoot Bell from the right, Gonzalez would have been able to verify that the victim had been attempting to grab Strausbaugh’s gun. During the initial deposition in a civil suit filed by Bell’s family, the officers involved in the killing all claimed that the shot was fired to the left side of Bell’s head. Those accounts underwent a dramatic revision once the significance of that detail was made clear; suddenly they all ardently maintained that the gunshot had been fired from the right side.

As the version of the killing performed by the Kenosha PD’s Perjury Playhouse Theater Troupe demonstrates,  a killshot fired from the left would have placed Lt. Kreuger in the line of fire. Even if Kreuger had avoided being shot, his uniform wouldn’t have escaped without being decorated by skull fragments and brain tissue. Yet this wasn’t the case. Furthermore, although skull fragments were reportedly found on the scene, they were never provided to Dr. Kelly for forensic analysis.

Wherever Gonzalez was positioned when he shot and killed Michael Bell, this much is certain: The officer could not have seen the young man grab for Strausbaugh’s gun, because he never did so. Tests run by the Wisconsin State Crime Lab found no fingerprint or DNA evidence indicating that Bell had ever touched Strausbaugh’s gun or holster.

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