Federal Lawsuit: Waukesha Cops Beat Man, Delete Video
By Tim – YouTube Channel MilwaukeeCitizenPress
Image credit Facebook (Lafavor is man on right)
When Waukesha police aren’t busy bar hopping in state vehicles, violating Terry v. Ohio, or running stop signs, they spend their time beating innocent men and women in our community. A Milwaukee suburb known for blowing minor incidents out of proportion with military style tactics Waukesha stands on par with the current day expectation that police will do what they want without any personal accountability.
June 19, 2010 Mark Schroeder was enjoying his evening with family near Waukesha when he received an urgent call from his teenage daughter that she had been involved in a car accident. He arrived soon to find that just one cop was on scene. As any father would do upon finding his off spring in an obviously scary situation, he attempted to speak with his young daughter. I would assume he wanted to give her a quick comforting hug as paramedics hadn’t arrived. Unfortunately this was unacceptable to the occupying force known as WPD.
Officer Ryan LaFavor was the only one on scene. The 25ish year old cop was half a year into his initial probationary period with Waukesha PD and is the son of a Waukesha County Sheriff’s Lieutenant. (According to a confidential source, Lafavor was also heavily involved in using illegal drugs shortly before this incident occurred.) When Schroeder, 48 at the time with no criminal record, attempted to speak with his daughter he was beat down and hospitalized by LaFavor. In true police state fashion, LaFavor charged Schroeder with resisting/obstructing.
But it gets worse. Although LaFavor never mentioned the beating was on video in his police report (picture this poor girl watching her dad beat down while sitting in her damaged vehicle) the prosecution and defense discovered it’s existence and subpoenaed it for inspection. When everyone got to court for a pre-trial hearing it was discovered the video had “accidentally been deleted.”
But one thing remained. The audit report of who viewed the video still existed, much to the dismay of the criminals who thought they had erased it. Waukesha cop Lt. Kevin Kober, who was “in charge” of the implementation of the dash cam system for WPD, claimed ignorance and testified it was all a big misunderstanding on whether the video should be held for evidence. Kober asserted he only had a year and a half to fully understand the relatively simplistic MAVRS system thereby absolving him of responsibility (try telling your employer after a year and a half that you still don’t know how to do your job.) But why was the video watched 22 times by top brass and others at WPD days before the hearing and still allowed to be purged?
Judge Stilling saw through the obvious lies as she dismissed the case and admonished Waukesha PD. She all but called the parties involved, including Deputy Chief Dennis Angle, outright liars. Her words, on the record, were that the PD acted in “Bad Faith” which is a legal threshold nullifying qualified immunity for those involved. She determined that Kober’s testimony was not credible. Welcome to the Brady list sir. Unfortunately the city (me and my neighbors) will likely indemnify the thugs involved and be forced by threat of violence to pay these people even more in property taxes than we already do.
Named in Lawsuit: Ryan Lafavor, Dennis Angle, Kevin Kober, Amanda Bauer, Tom Wagner, City of Waukesha, John Does.
Link to Waukesha Patch Article on the beating and deleting of the video.
Link to Journal Sentinel Article on the beating and deleting of the video.
Feel free to contact WPD non-emergency line at 262-524-3831
