Category Archives: Cops are Still Fucked Up

Legally Not Very Sexy

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INDIANAPOLIS — A federal judge has upheld an Indiana law banning registered sex offenders from accessing Facebook and other social-networking sites used by children. Judge Tanya Walton Pratt said in an 18-page order Friday that the state has a strong interest in protecting children and that the rest of the Internet remains open to those who have been convicted.

“Social networking, chat rooms, and instant messaging programs have effectively created a ‘virtual playground’ for sexual predators to lurk,” Pratt wrote in the ruling, citing a 2006 report by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that found that one in seven youths had received online sexual solicitations and that one in three had been exposed to unwanted sexual material online.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed the class-action suit on behalf of a man who served three years for child exploitation, along with other sex offenders who are restricted by the ban even though they are no longer on probation. Federal judges have barred similar laws in Nebraska and Louisiana.

Courts have long allowed states to place restrictions on convicted sex offenders who have completed their sentences, controlling where many live and work and requiring them to register with police. The ACLU claimed that Indiana’s social-networking ban was far broader, restricting a wide swath of constitutionally protected activities. The ACLU contended that even though the 2008 law is only intended to protect children from online sexual predators, social media are virtually indispensable and the ban prevents sex offenders from using the Web sites for political, business and religious activities.

:: Federal Judge Bans Sex Offender from Social-Networking ::

This is serious misinterpretation of the point of restricted use.  It might make sense to prohibit a sex offender from visiting a playground because that’s a place explicitly designed for children but it’s entirely different to ban someone from anyplace that children could potentially be.  It’s comparable to banning a sex offender from airports, restaurants, or movie theatres because like Facebook they “don’t prohibit children.” It’s a fucking ridiculous ruling and I suspect that both the lawyers and the judge have no clear understanding of what’s going on.  I suppose a judge could ban a sex offender from seeing G rated films or going to restaurants specifically for children (McDonalds for example) but that’s too fine grained.  Furthermore, if a person is still such a threat to society that being on facebook constitutes a danger they should still be in prison.  Or we should send these people to places that actually help with rehabilitation.

NEXT

A Tampa rape victim can sue the Hillsborough County Sheriff for allowing a jail guard to refuse to give her a prescribed emergency contraception pill because it was against the guard’s religious beliefs, a federal judge ruled.     R.W., whose full name is not disclosed in court records, says she was raped on Jan. 27, 2007. After an examination at Tampa’s Rape Crisis Center, a doctor gave R.W. gave two anti-contraception pills, according to the complaint.     R.W. says she took one pill immediately and held the other to ingest 12 hours later, as directed.     While taking R.W.’s report of the crime, however, a Tampa police officer learned that there was an arrest warrant for R.W. for failure to pay restitution and failure to appear. At the Hillsborough County Jail, staff confiscated her second pill.     R.W. says she requested her second pill the next morning, but jail employee Michele Spinelli refused. “Spinelli told the Plaintiff that she would not give R.W. the pill because it was against Spinelli’s religious beliefs,” the first amended complaint states.

:: Rape Victim Can Sue for Denied Contraception ::

raped, held in jail, denied contraceptives.  wtf.  Note this article only reports that the guard CAN be sued not that WERE sued.

 

Quick Thoughts: Ahead of the Game

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I neither smoke weed nor eat meat but I still realize that putting a dispensary inside of an In and Out is one of the best business opportunities out there.

Forbes gets in on the action with

Let’s Be Blunt: It’s Time to End the Drug War

 Should drugs—especially marijuana—be legal? The answer is “yes.” Immediately. Without hesitation. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200 seized in a civil asset forfeiture.

The above perhaps being one of the single most amazingly tortured metaphors in the history of drug journalism.  Every article I read about marijuana makes me think of this brilliant Onion video.

 

Marijuana legalization is now definitely a matter of when not if.  Also Rob Kampia is all:

Top drug reformer: ‘Obama is worse than Bush’ on marijuana policy

Which I think is actually not true.  The DEA under Obama has gone after dispensaries but I don’t think has imprisoned people at the same rate or duration.  Jus’ sayin’

Heckovajob Federal Bureau of Investigation

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The FBI has received substantial criticism over the past decade — much of it valid — but nobody can deny its record of excellence in thwarting its own Terrorist plots. Time and again, the FBI concocts a Terrorist attack, infiltrates Muslim communities in order to find recruits, persuades them to perpetrate the attack, supplies them with the money, weapons and know-how they need to carry it out — only to heroically jump in at the last moment, arrest the would-be perpetrators whom the FBI converted, and save a grateful nation from the plot manufactured by the FBI.

Last year, the FBI subjected 19-year-old Somali-American Mohamed Osman Mohamud to months of encouragement, support and money and convinced him to detonate a bomb at a crowded Christmas event in Portland, Oregon, only to arrest him at the last moment and then issue a Press Release boasting of its success. In late 2009, the FBI persuaded and enabled Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a 19-year old Jordanian citizen, to place a fake bomb at a Dallas skyscraper and separately convinced Farooque Ahmed, a 34-year-old naturalized American citizen born in Pakistan, to bomb the Washington Metro. And now, the FBI has yet again saved us all from its own Terrorist plot by arresting 26-year-old American citizen Rezwan Ferdaus after having spent months providing him with the plans and materials to attack the Pentagon, American troops in Iraq, and possibly the Capitol Building using “remote-controlled” model airplanes carrying explosives.

None of these cases entail the FBI’s learning of an actual plot and then infiltrating it to stop it. They all involve the FBI’s purposely seeking out Muslims (typically young and impressionable ones) whom they think harbor animosity toward the U.S. and who therefore can be induced to launch an attack despite having never taken even a single step toward doing so before the FBI targeted them. Each time the FBI announces it has disrupted its own plot, press coverage is predictably hysterical (new Homegrown Terrorist caught!), fear levels predictably rise, and new security measures are often implemented in response (the FBI’s Terror plot aimed at the D.C. Metro, for instance, led to the Metro Police announcing a new policy of random searches of passengers’ bags).

…..

(6) As usual, most media coverage of the FBI’s plots is as uncritical as it is sensationalistic. The first paragraph of The New York Times article on this story described the plot as one “to blow up the Pentagon and the United States Capitol.” But the FBI’s charging Affidavit (reproduced below) makes clear that Ferdaus’ plan was to send a single model airplane (at most 1/10 the size of an actual U.S. jet) to the Capitol and two of them to the Pentagon, each packed with “5 pounds” of explosives (para. 70); the Capitol was to be attacked at its dome for “psychological effect” (para 34). The U.S. routinely drops 500-pound or 1,000-pound bombs from actual fighter jets; this plot — even if it were carried out by someone other than a hapless loner with no experience and it worked perfectly — could not remotely “blow up” the Pentagon or the Capitol.

This is the keeper quote from the entire article

Wouldn’t the FBI’s resources be better spent on detecting and breaking up actual Terrorist plots — if there are any — rather than manufacturing ones so that they can stop those?

:: full article w links via Glenn Greewald ::

Sanity Gaining a Foothold [War on Some Drugs]

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Kentucky on Thursday became the latest to make the shift when Gov. Steve Beshear signed into law a measure increasing spending on rehabilitation programs and intensive drug testing. The law also reduces penalties for many drug offenses and may allow some traffickers and users of smaller amounts of drugs to avoid prison.

While the changes are part of broader belt-tightening efforts, they also reflect a growing belief among state lawmakers that prosecuting drug offenders aggressively often fails to treat their underlying addiction problems and can result in offenders cycling in and out of prisons for years—a critique long voiced by groups that advocate in favor of defendants’ rights.

“If you just throw everyone in jail, it’s terribly expensive and they get out and they are in the same boat,” said Tom Jensen, a Republican state senator in Kentucky who voted in favor of the law.

:: more at WSJ ::

On a different side of the coin, the prosecutor who went after Paris Hilton and someone named Bruno Mars for cocaine possession was busted in Vegas for buying coke all the time. Hilarity ensues.

Also, in case you missed it, a woman in was caught with 54 bags of heroin in her vagina. Whoa there.

This Day in {Awwwkwarrd} History

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“Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care … The evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record.”
— DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young, September 6, 1988

Ooops, kinda sucks when your own judge holds extensive hearings and concludes that the whole mission of your organization is bogus. AWWWWKWARRRD!!!! Luckily the DEA just ignored him, which spawned a hilarious lawsuit questioning the DEA’s right to put it’s hands over it’s ears and shout “NHAHAHAHHA I CAN”T HEAR YOU.” In a staggering opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit actually ruled that was chill from a legal perspective.

Denver Cop Breaks Cyclists Teeth

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Moral of the story: Carry a camera with you, always record police activity. Haven’t decided yet if it’s better to do it secretly. Pro: less likely to have police attack you out of rabid spite. Con: Open filming probably prevents brutality.

Also, holy shit, that was a great piece of journalism. It had an expert, a police response that didn’t seem totally insane, video documentation and a followup. Good work Nine News!!!

Jeff Luers Sentence Cut in Half

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Luers’ original sentence of 22 years 8 months by Judge Lyle Velure was illegal, and the appeals court remanded the case back to Lane County Circuit Court for re-sentencing. Following the appeals court decision, negotiations have resulted in the decision to reduce Luers sentence to 10 years, bringing his release date to late December 2009.

In June 2001, then 23 year-old Jeffrey “Free” Luers was arrested for the burning of three trucks at a Eugene car dealership. His stated purpose was to raise awareness about global warming and the role that SUVs and trucks play in that process. Despite the fact that this action hurt no one, caused only $28,000 in damages and the cars were later resold, Luers received the draconian sentence imposed by Velure.

Luers gained support locally as well as all over the world as a political prisoner. It is widely believed that Luers received such a drastic sentence because of the political nature of the action he took. Following his original sentence, Amnesty International and the Eugene Human Rights Commission (EHRC) issued letters of support citing that the sentence appeared to be politically motivated. During the course of his trial, statements were made by the police and prosecuting attorney that indicated it was Luers’ political views on trial, not merely his actions. His defense successfully proved that evidence had been tampered with, officers had lied and that the prosecutor had manipulated evidence to get a legal search warrant at his residence. Luers was given a sentence that attempted to send the message to environmental and social justice activists that even a merely symbolic act of property destruction could be punished more harshly than many crimes against persons.

:: via IndyBay.org ::

A lot of people probably don’t support these kinds of direct actions by activists but the situation is a little more complicated than it may initially appear. Rational environmental policy would make a hummer so expensive that it wasn’t worth driving. Instead, our government gives hummer tax credits. Since our original framework for justice is so skewed it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to judge someone inside the context of that system. Sure, lighting some shitty suv’s on fire may be unethical, but selling them is certainly more unethical. A government that stands hopelessly intransigent in the face of global temperature catastrophe stands as the worst ethical violation of all.

Fucked Up Cop Gets What He Deserves

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This video is really worth watching, ESPECIALLY the last 5 seconds. But really the best part is what happened to him afterwards.

A police officer shown on a YouTube video berating and roughly handling a skateboarder at the Inner Harbor was suspended on Monday. The incident involving Officer Salvatore Rivieri, a 17-year-old veteran, is the subject of an internal affairs investigation, said Sterling Clifford, a spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department and the mayor’s office.
“The entire incident raised red flags for all of the members of the command staff who watched the video,” Clifford told The (Baltimore) Sun.

:: Article via ABC ::

I’d like to start by giving the Associate Press the Shitty Journalism award for failing to mention how long this guy was suspended for. This is buttressed by describing the situation as “berating” a 14 year old. What about ranting wildly? or flying off the handle? could we please get an accurate descriptor here?

It’s too bad the video had to go to youtube instead of directly to the police station. Whenever possible I think police officers should be videotaped. My experience is that about half of them behave like this guy. Also, cell phones should be able to automatically upload video to youtube.

The comments on youtube are also fascinating

-”The kid obviously didn’t show any respect to the officer and deserved to get pushed around”
-”punk ass kids talking to him like their equals.”
-”its unfortunate that the cop pushed the kid when he tried to get up because everything he said to that idoit kid was completely right.”

I’m not really clear on why people think that police officers automatically ought to be treated with the utmost deference. It’s probably a good idea since they have guns and are generally incompetent, angry and stupid. That just means you should avoid them at all costs and massage their egos when you do come into contact with them.

-No one got slammed, he was forced to the ground and by police standards he was pretty gentle about it. He was well within his rights as a Police Officer to confiscate the skateboard, and when he resisted, that’s when it got physical. So there is the threat and use of force, the officer was fully justified and showed restraint when he really didn’t have to.

The cop didn’t say that he was going to confiscate the skateboard, he just walked up and assaulted the kid. Resistance would be based on the kid knowing what the cop wanted to do by perhaps reading his mind or something and then trying to avoid it.

Anyway, this is insane and I’m really glad that the cop got suspended. Record cops whenever possible and upload it to youtube.

Exerpt: How America Lost the War on Drugs

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Reading an article in Rollingstone and these lines really caught my attention

The tragedy of the War on Drugs is that this knowledge hasn’t been heeded. We continue to treat marijuana as a major threat to public health, even though we know it isn’t. We continue to lock up generations of teenage drug dealers, even though we know imprisonment does little to reduce the amount of drugs sold on the street. And we continue to spend billions to fight drugs abroad, even though we know that military efforts are an ineffective way to cut the supply of narcotics in America or raise the price.

…

The federal budget that Brown’s office submitted in 1994 remains a kind of fetish object for certain liberals in the field, the moment when their own ideas came close to making it into law. The budget sought to cut overseas interdiction, beef up community policing, funnel low-level drug criminals into treatment programs instead of prison, and devote $355 million to treating hardcore addicts, the drug users responsible for much of the illegal-drug market and most of the crime associated with it. White House political handlers, wary of appearing soft on crime, were skeptical of even this limited commitment, but Brown persuaded the president to offer his support, and the plan stayed.

…Most politicians were skeptical about such a radical departure from the mainstream consensus on crime. Congress rewrote the budget, slashing the $355 million for treatment programs by more than eighty percent.

:: How America Lost the War on Drugs, an Anatomy of a Failure ::

Pretty Fucking Close

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PHILADELPHIA – A man was acquitted Tuesday after being arrested for refusing to heed a police officer’s command he stop singing in a public park. A judge found Anthony Riley not guilty of disorderly conduct, saying “This is America, not Afghanistan.” Riley, 20, had faced a three month sentence after loudly singing “A Change is Gonna Come” in Rittenhouse Square in downtown Philadelphia in March. Greg Wilkinson, the arresting officer, testified Riley was singing so loud his voice drowned out his police radio. “All he had to do was lower his voice and this never would have happened,” prosecutor William James said.

Witnesses testified that Riley had asked Wilkinson what the law was restricting him from singing in the park. Wilkinson responded that he was the law. When Riley asked Wilkinson whether he was still in America, Wilkinson replied “this is Afghanistan,” according to witnesses. The city is now reviewing what sorts of music should be allowed in its public parks. Defense attorney Evan Shingles said Riley had every right to ignore the officer’s unlawful command.

This is a great article but this kind of bullshit happens all the time and there usually aren’t judges around that are sympathetic to defendants.

Cops Admit To Planting Marijuana on 92 Year Old Woman Killed in Botched Drug Raid

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Two police officers pleaded guilty Thursday to manslaughter in the shooting death of a 92-year-old woman during a botched drug raid last fall. A third officer still faces charges.[..]
The charges followed a Nov. 21 “no-knock” drug raid on the home of Kathryn Johnston, 92. An informant had described buying drugs from a dealer there, police said. When the officers burst in without warning, Johnston fired at them, and they fired back, killing her.
Fulton County prosecutor Peter Johnson said that the officers involved in Johnston’s death fired 39 shots, striking her five or six times, including a fatal blow to the chest.
He said Johnston fired only once through her door and didn’t hit any of the officers. That means the officers who were wounded likely were hit by their own colleagues, he said.[..]
Assistant U.S. Attorney Yonette Sam-Buchanan said Thursday that although the officers found no drugs in Johnston’s home, Smith planted three bags of marijuana in the home as part of a cover story.

This part of the article has spawned a new category, Shitty Journalism Award.

The case raised serious questions about no-knock warrants and whether the officers followed proper procedures.

WHAT THE FUCK?!??! Shooting eachother while murdering someones great grandmother raises “serious questions” about following the proper fucking procedure?? Is there something in the goddamn manual about protocol for planting drugs?

Shitty Journalism Award just doesn’t do this justice, anyone out there have some ideas?

::: Better Article via Marijuana Policy Project :::