"Sgt. David Clifford, a member of the Minneapolis SWAT team, turned himself in to authorities on Sunday after a father of four who he reportedly “sucker punched” for talking too loud spent Father’s Day in intensive care.
Mike Archambault told KMSP-TV that his longtime friend, Brian Vander Lee, was at a restaurant in Andover on Saturday when a stranger at another table asked him to be quiet.
“He did a Superman punch,” Archambault recalled. “Brian went back, feet up in the air, and the guy landed on top of him and his head bounced off the concrete.”
Archambault said the suspected fled the scene and Vander Lee was taken to a nearby hospital where doctors performed emergency surgery for bleeding on his brain.
Witnesses identified the assailant as Sgt. David Clifford but police did not find the officer at his home. Commander Paul Sommer said that Clifford finally turned himself in at about 1:30 p.m. on Sunday after retaining a lawyer. He is expected to be charged with third-degree assault.
“I think he realized now, I don’t think he realized how serious it was last night,” Archambault explained. “And now that word got out — that Brian is in the condition he’s in — that he better do what’s right.”
An online biography indicated that Clifford had served with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division as team leader of Personal Security Detachments in Kosovo and Iraq.
After two brain surgeries, Vander Lee was still on life support Sunday. Doctors are hopeful that he will recover."
Original post: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/18/man-on-life-support-after-minneapolis-cop-punches-him-for-talking-loud/#.T_17hGSiTGp.facebook
"It was just after midnight on New Year’s Day when Antonio Buehler spotted a pair of Austin cops manhandling a woman at a gas station during a DUI investigation, so he pulled out his cell phone and began taking photos.
That, of course, prompted one of the cops to storm up to him and accuse him of interfering with the investigation.
Austin police officer Pat Oborski shoved Buehler against his truck before handcuffing him. He later claimed in his arrest report that Buehler had spit in his face.
Buehler was charged with resisting arrest and felony harassment on a public servant, the latter punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
After spending 16 hours in jail, Buehler began seeking witnesses to the incident.
“We started posting flyers around the gas station,” Buehler said in an interview with Photography is Not a Crime Sunday afternoon.
“I went on Facebook and on Twitter and I put something up on Craig’s List.”
By January 4, he had obtained a video from a witness who had been standing across the street watching the exchange between Buehler and Oborski.
The video doesn’t show Buehler spitting on the cop but it might be difficult to capture that from across the street with a cell phone camera.
However, it does show Oborski pinning Buehler against the truck, making it obvious that the cop had stormed up to him rather than the other way around.
But in the arrest report, Oborski claims that Buehler was “in my face,” which is why he had to place his hands on his shoulders to “distance him away.”
Oborski also claimed that he wiped his face after Buehler had supposedly spit on him, then pulled out the handcuffs to arrest him, but the video doesn’t show that either.
All the video shows is Oborski pushing Buehler against the truck before wrestling him down to arrest him.
The video also shows Buehler's friend acting as if he is video recording the arrest, but Buehler says he was not recording.
Buehler also attempted to obtain Oborski’s dash cam video through a public records request, but that request was denied after the city attorney consulted with the Texas attorney general.
Buehler then filed an internal affairs complaint against Oborski in late January thinking that the cell phone video – coupled with dash video and audio from the patrol car, the footage from the gas station surveillance camera and audio from a recorder Oborski was wearing on his uniform – would prove that he was unlawfully arrested.
But as we’ve seen so many times before, internal affairs did not substantiate a single one of Buehler’s complaints against the officers.
Not only that, but the letter dated June 15 also informed that he would be forbidden to “view, posses or receive copies of the Internal Affairs Division’s investigation.”
The letter did say he was welcome to meet with a “Police Monitor for a Police Monitor’s Conference,” where a cop would go over the details of the investigation with him.
But naturally, he would be forbidden from recording that meeting, even though he would be allowed to take notes.
Buehler said this is a policy stemming from the police union’s contract that states the investigation will only be made public if the accusations against the officer were substantiated.
So in other words, the public must take their word that they did, in fact, conduct a thorough and honest investigation.
But despite all this and the fact the charges are still hanging over him, Buehler remains upbeat.
On July 2, he will plead his case before the Austin Citizen Review Panel, which is made up of seven cities and was created to provide oversight to the police department.
The board does not have the authority to discipline but it can make recommendations.
Buehler also took the police department up on its offer to review the investigation in person where he was allowed to view all the evidence he had not seen before.
He posted his findings on Faeebook on a post that received more than 140 “likes.”
“I found it very interesting that you can only see driver’s side, you can’t see the passenger’s side,” he said of the dash cam video.
“All the other dash cam videos I’ve seen show a wider angle where you can see both the driver side and passenger side.”
Buehler is referring to the car that police had pulled over that night prior to his altercation with them, which apparently has a tight crop of the driver’s side, which is rare indeed.
In the car were two women. The driver was undergoing a sobriety test. Oborski claims the passenger was interfering with that investigation by yelling out the window.
He also claims he had to twice walk over to the passenger side to tell the woman to settle down while he was conducting the sobriety test on the driver.
Buehler was pumping gas observing the situation. His friend was in the passenger’s seat.
“I didn’t hear her yell the entire time,” he said of the passenger. “She clearly wasn’t yelling to the degree that she was interfering like they claimed.”
But before he knew it, Oborski had yanked her out of the car and was manhandling her.
“We pull out our cameras and try to take pictures with our cell phones,” he said. “She sees me taking pictures and says, ‘please, take pictures and videos.’
“I asked the cop, ‘why are you hurting her, she didn’t do anything wrong, stop hurting her.’
“They pick her up and walk her right past us. Oborski then turns around walks back towards me.
“’He said, ‘who do you think you are?’
Oborski walked up right up to Buehler, sandwiching him between the back of his truck.
That is where the cell phone video starts recording.
While that video doesn’t pick up much audio and the dash cam video doesn’t show the passenger’s side - and the recorder Oborski was wearing is conveniently undecipherable, coming across muffled as it had been covered - the dash cam video does provide clear audio of the interaction.
“The audio shows that he keep raising his voice escalating the situation,” Buehler said.
Oborski claimed in his report that it was Buehler who escalated the situation by continually raising his voice.
Then there is the chuckle.
“All of a sudden, he chuckles and says, ‘you spit in my face,’” Buehler said. “I said, ‘I didn’t spit in your face.’
“If someone spits in your face, do you chuckle?”
The gas station surveillance video shows the entire incident without audio, but from the beginning, unlike the cell phone video, which began recording once the two were in each other’s faces.
“It shows me taking pictures, then it shows the cops coming up to me, pushing me,” he said. “It shows I am completely passive in my demeanor.”
Today, more than six months after the incident, the case has yet to go before a grand jury, which will determine if the case will go to trial.
In the mean time, he created Peaceful Streets, a project will encourage Austin residents to record police in an effort to maintain accountability.
The program offers Know Your Rights workshops and will eventually hand out 100 video cameras to residents.
“We want to encourage people to take their liberty and security in their own hands,” he said.
Buehler has also created a petition where he is trying to gather 5,000 signatures to send a message to the district attorney to investigate Oborski and his partner.
As of today, the petition has 1,394 signature but more than 3,000 Facebook likes, which goes to show you just how lazy some of us have become.
Please send stories, tips and videos to carlosmiller@magiccitymedia.com."
Original post: http://www.pixiq.com/article/austin-man-facing-10-years-in-prison
An NYPD auxiliary cop was caught with a slew of sickening kiddie porn at his upstate home, the New York State Police said.
Daniel Sayer, 59, was arrested and charged with two felony counts of possessing child pornography, officials said, and is being held in lieu of $15,000 cash bail in Orange County Jail.
He was dismissed from his volunteer position as a Deputy Inspector of the Auxiliary unit at the upper West Side’s 20th Precinct as a result of the arrest, the NYPD said.
From 1972 to 1998, Sayer owned and operated “Dan’s Cougars Children’s Sports Club” in the city, coaching youngsters in sports, authorities said.
Police raided a vacant rental home in Blooming Grove, where they later discovered Sayer had been staying, on Jan. 26 and found photos of boys under 16 years old engaging in sexual acts. They found more graphic images at his residence in Greenwood Lake on Feb. 1, the State Police said.
February 3, 2012 10:13:14
A former New York City police detective found guilty of planting drugs on two innocent people was spared prison time after a dramatic courtroom mea culpa Thursday.
Jason Arbeeny, a 14-year-veteran of the NYPD and former member of the Brooklyn South Narcotics Team, was sentenced to just 5 years probation and 300 hours community service. He had faced up to four years in prison.
Arbeeny was found guilty of eight counts of falsifying records and official misconduct stemming from a 2007 incident in which he planted a bag of crack cocaine inside the car of a couple in Coney Island.
Arbeeny's defense claimed he was under enormous pressure to meet arrest quotas (or as the NYPD calls them, 'productivity goals') and resorted to the "flaking," a practice Arbeeny's trial revealed may be widely used by NYPD officers.
"I can't look at myself in the mirror anymore," Arbeeny tearfully told Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Gustin Reichbach, according to The New York Daily News. "Sir, I am begging you, please don't send me to jail."
He then apologized to his victims. "My oath went down the window, my pride went out the window," he said.
Arbeeny even mentioned that his young son, worried over his father's fate, was in therapy and threatening suicide.
It all caught Justice Reichbach by surprise. According to The Associated Press, the judge had shown up to court convinced Arbeeny's crime required jail time. Reichbach admitted that Arbeeny's pleas had gotten through to him. "I frankly didn't expect the defendant, at the 11th hour, to be making these claims," he said.
NYPD Cop Shoots And Kills Unarmed 18-Year-Old Ramarley Graham In The Bronx
February 3, 2012 09:13:43
For the third time this week, an NYPD officer has fatally shot and killed a suspect.
18-year-old Ramarley Graham was gunned down Thursday inside the bathroom of his Bronx home following a foot pursuit by a team of plainsclothes cops. He was unarmed.
Investigators say police spotted Graham--who's had 8 prior arrests on charges including robbery, marijuana possession and resisting arrest-- on White Plains Road when he started to run. Police chased Graham to his home at 749 East 229 Street. After a struggle, an officer fired one shot at close range from his 9mm semiautomatic handgun. The bullet hit Graham in the chest and he collapsed. It's unclear, according to The New York Times, if the gun was fired during the struggle or if the two were separated when the shooting took place. [UPDATE: The New York Post reports the two officers involved in the incident believed Graham was carrying a weapon. Commissioner Ray Kelly says the two officers have been placed on restrictive duty. The NYPD now believes Graham did not struggle with the cops. In the apartment, one of the officers reportedly screamed, "Show me your hands! Show me your hands!", followed by "Gun! Gun!" before firing the fatal shot.]
A small amount of marijuana was found in the toilet and police found no weapons in the house. According to The Daily News, officers had seen Graham moments before the shooting adjusting his waistband, and thought he had a gun.
Graham was pronounced dead at Montefiore Medical Center.
"Everybody's kids get into trouble," Graham's grieving mother, Constance Malcolm, told CBS. "He smoked a little weed, but you know, like all the little, young kids does. And that's what he had on him when they were chasing him."
She added, "In the bathroom they shot him. My 6-year-old son was there and saw everything," Malcolm said. "I'm going to get justice."
The teenager's neighbors struggled to comprehend the tragedy Thursday. From The Times:
Near a local deli on Thursday, Jessica Rodriguez, 34, said Mr. Graham had offered to pick up coffee for her every morning. "When I bring my kids to school, he's getting a peppermint tea," she said. "He played football in the backyard with my kids."
At the deli, a group of boys gathered, blasting a Jamaican song from a small set of speakers. The lyrics chronicled the death of a young man at the hands of the police, they said.
On January 26, an off-duty cop shot and killed a 22-year-old carjacking suspect. And on January 29th, another off-duty cop shot and killed a 17-year-old who was trying to mug him.
Adam Greene is on his stomach as a pack of police officers pile on him, driving their knees into his back and wrenching his arms and legs. One officer knees him in the ribs; another kicks him in the face. "Stop resisting," officers on the video yell, but Greene, his face pushed into the pavement, hasn't resisted. He doesn't even move -- maybe can't move -- because he's gone into diabetic shock caused by low blood sugar. The video, recorded more than a year ago by a police car dashboard camera, was released Tuesday by Greene's lawyers. The same night, the Henderson City Council approved a settlement of $158,500 for Greene. His wife received $99,000 from Henderson, which is just under the minimum amount that requires council approval.
Accuser back on stand in NYPD 'rape cops' trial: Admits drinking, but says 'I remember I was raped'
By Melissa Grace and Corky Siemaszko
Originally Published:Friday, April 15th 2011, 12:25 PM
The fashion exec who says two cops brutally raped her stuck to her story Friday as lawyers for the officers tried to shoot holes in it.
Parrying questions meant to undermine her credibility, the woman admitted she was drunk and "passed out" several times on the night of the alleged attack - but remembers clearly what happened to her.
"I remember, obviously, that I was in a cab," the 29-year-old Gap executive said at the trial of the two officers. "I remember that two police officers helped me in the hallway. And I remember that I was raped by them."
Several times, defense lawyer Joseph Tacopina suggested the woman might not have clear memories of her encounter with his client, Officer Kenneth Moreno, and the cop's partner, Officer Franklin Mata.
Each time, the woman insisted that while she might not recall all the details - like everything she drank, or what she might have told the cops - she remembers being violated.
"I think the memory I've held onto is the penetration," she said.
The woman lost her composure only when Tacopina asked her why she downplayed the violence in an e-mail to a pal.
"When something like this happens to you, the shock is so surreal that you just try to figure out what you need to do afterward," she said. "You tell people you're OK, even though you're not, just to get through it - and you want to get through it."
Prosecutors say Moreno, 44, raped the woman in her East Village apartment in December 2008 while Mata, 28, stood watch. Both officers deny any rape occurred and insist the woman was too bombed to remember what really happened.
Moreno drew the judge's ire before this accuser took the stand when he sauntered into court 20 minutes late.
"I will remand you," Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro told Moreno.
Carro said this wasn't the first time and threatened to revoke his bail if he was tardy again.
Tacopina grilled the woman a day after she faced down Moreno and Mata and described the sexual assault in graphic detail to a Manhattan Supreme Court jury.
By turns defiant and tearful, she testified they took advantage of her drunken state to launch a sexual assault so savage and sudden it left her with a bruised cervix.
"I woke up to being penetrated from behind," she said. "I woke up because the action of his penetration was so hard that my head was moving toward the window [at the head of her bed] like it was going to go through it."
The woman said she had no way to fight back "because I was so intoxicated, I was dead weight ... I couldn't say or do anything."
Her wrenching testimony came as prosecutors released the transcript of a recording she secretly made for prosecutors when she confronted Moreno outside a police precinct.
In it, Moreno admitted "it was only me" after she asked him repeatedly if they both raped her. She also got the cop to say, "Yes, yes I did," when she asked if he wore a condom.
Moreno and Mata are both charged with rape and face up to 25 years in prison, if convicted.
Prosecutors say the attack happened after they responded to a 911 call from a cabbie who said he had an intoxicated woman in his taxi. They say the cops returned to her apartment several more times that night.
The woman, who has moved to San Francisco, was at a going away party in Brooklyn before her encounter with Moreno and Mata, prosecutors said.
The women testified she showered after the attack because "I felt so dirty."
"You didn't us any feminine cleaning product - a douche - you didn't clean yourself internally?" Tacopina asked.
"No," she replied.
Prosecutors say there is no DNA to prove sexual contact between the woman and the cop.
Original Link http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/04/15/2011-04-15_accuser_back_on_stand_in_nypd_rape_cops_trial_admits_drinking_says_i_remember_th.html
“Basically what I heard them talking about is what equipment, what materialistic stuff could they take out of my house," said Simpson. “It seems like...that they were just trying to figure out what they could come out of here with."
The police wound up taking three pages worth of stuff from the house, including some of Rudy’s personal property: a 52” flat screen TV, a DVD player, two computers, a camera and a bunch of DVDs.
Lawsuit: Diabetic 'pummeled,' shocked by Hamilton County deputies
By Sharon Coolidge
John Harmon was coming off a late night at work when he left his downtown marketing firm for his Anderson Township home just after midnight in October 2009.
The 52-year-old longtime diabetic's blood sugar levels had dipped to a dangerously low level causing him to weave into another lane.
A Hamilton County sheriff's deputy spotted him on Clough Pike and suspected drunken driving.
What happened over the next two minutes and 20 seconds should never happen to anyone, Harmon said.
Deputies broke the window of Harmon's SUV, shocked him seven times with a Taser, cut him out of his seatbelt and wrestled him to the ground, severely dislocating his elbow, and causing trauma to his shoulder and thumb.
The deputies' actions prompted a state highway patrol trooper to pull one deputy away from Harmon because he was so concerned about how Harmon was being treated. That trooper alerted his bosses to the deputies' actions.
Even after learning the incident was a medical emergency, deputies charged Harmon with resisting arrest and failing to comply with a police officer's order.
"I thought for sure I was going to die," Harmon said. "I remember praying to God, 'Help me through this.'"
Harmon, a tall and burly black man, owns a marketing company with his wife. He said he moved to the mostly white township for its good schools, and said he believes he wouldn't have gotten the same treatment if it was a white man.
"I do think that maybe (race) was a factor," Harmon said. "Just out of common decency some of the things that were done here don't make sense, even if I were drunk."
Harmon and his wife, Stephanie Harmon, filed a civil rights lawsuit Dec. 20 in U.S. District Court against Hamilton County, the sheriff's office and four deputies: Ryan Wolf, Matthew Wissel, John Haynes and Shawn Cox, and their supervisor, Sgt. Barbara Stuckey.
The couple allege that Harmon's civil rights were violated because of his false arrest, malicious prosecution and the excessive force used. They also cited battery; malicious prosecution; intentional infliction of emotional distress and loss of consortium. They want an unspecified amount of compensation.
Settlement talks that started with a demand of more than $1 million deteriorated earlier this month. That's when Harmon filed the lawsuit.
A sheriff's office investigation found excessive force was used, and four of the officers involved were punished.
The deputies involved were asked through sheriff's officials to comment. None returned calls.
'A chilling experience'
The lawsuit details what happened on the morning of Oct. 20, 2009.
Deputy Wolf saw Harmon driving a 1998 Ford Expedition erratically near Wolfangel Road and pulled Harmon over.
Wolf, his gun drawn, and Wissel approached the SUV, the lawsuit said.
"The deputy's face was extremely contorted, he was screaming," Harmon said. "I remember being taken aback, recoiled and thought, 'What's going on?' I was being presented with pure evil, it was a chilling experience."
Wolf smashed the driver's side window.
Wissel shocked Harmon with a Taser for the first time. Deputy Haynes responded to the deputies' call for backup.
Harmon said the officers tried to yank him out of the SUV, but he was caught in his seat belt. He was stunned with a Taser again.
Wissel cut Harmon out of his seat belt. In his suit, Harmon said he was "violently dragged from the vehicle, thrown on the ground, kicked in the head by a boot, and stomped mercilessly while laying on his back."
"It all happened so quick, I didn't have time to think or react," Harmon said. "I just remember being on the ground, the intense pain and being pummeled."
The attack was so brutal Harmon said he thought it was a gang attack, not a traffic stop.
Harmon would be shocked five more times. In all, three times by Wissel and four times by Haynes.
As Harmon begged for mercy, Deputy Cox arrived.
Ohio State Highway Patrol Trooper Chris Sanger also drove up, his patrol car dashboard camera capturing some of what happened and the sounds of what appear to be a beating.
Sanger told sheriff's investigators he saw Harmon on the ground, crying out in pain, with several deputies on top of him. He added Harmon was complying and at least one of the Taser hits was excessive use of force.
Sanger separated Wolf and Harmon twice because of Wolf's abusive treatment, according to the lawsuit.
At some point, the deputies found Harmon's diabetic kit on the floor of the SUV. When asked if he was diabetic, Harmon replied, "Yes."
Paramedics called to the scene by the deputies found Harmon's blood sugar was dangerously low.
Still, Wolf filed felony charges. His boss, Sgt. Stuckey, signed off on them, according to the sheriff's office.
Harmon was taken to University Hospital where he was treated and released. He was then booked into the Hamilton County Jail and spent five hours in a holding cell.
Harmon said he prayed the whole time.
Meanwhile, Sanger told his bosses at the highway patrol what happened. They called the sheriff's office.
'Unacceptable' behavior
Col. Ramon Hoffbauer, the sheriff's patrol division commander, wrote in the investigation's conclusion that once the deputies learned Harmon had low blood sugar it should have been clear a medical emergency caused the erratic driving - not alcohol.
"In my opinion, the breaking of the window, the repeated use of the Taser and the manner in which Mr. Harmon was removed from his vehicle was clearly an excessive use of force and is unacceptable behavior," Hoffbauer wrote. "In addition to the use of force issue, the fact criminal charges were filed against Mr. Harmon, knowing his conduct was possibly the result of a diabetic emergency, was inappropriate to say the least."
Hamilton County Sheriff Simon Leis doesn't comment on pending litigation, but paperwork show four of those involved in the traffic stop were suspended without pay.
For violating the sheriff's office rules on use of excessive force, Haynes was suspended 10 days without pay. Wissel was suspended five days and Wolf for two days.
Stuckey was suspended for 10 days for violations related to the paperwork about the incident and for wrongly authorizing formal charges. No wrongdoing was found on Cox's part.
The patrol officers - who all earn about $56,000 a year - are still at work, reassigned to Colerain Township, said Lt. Edwin Boldt, the sheriff's lawyer.
Stuckey appealed her suspension to an arbitrator, who has yet to make a decision. She still works in Anderson Township and earns $65,930 a year.
After the incident, all sheriff's deputies were trained to recognize the medical symptoms of diabetes, Boldt said.
Harmon said it's disturbing the deputies weren't fired. Even the ones not directly involved in the attack watched it happen and didn't intervene, he said.
"I'm so thankful the state trooper got there," Harmon said. "If not, I believe I may have been killed."
Leis, during a settlement talk, apologized.
"I appreciated that," Harmon said. "I thought there are people who realize the outrageousness of this and want to do the right thing."
Two weeks after the traffic stop, prosecutors dismissed the charges against Harmon.
But, there are after effects - physical and mental.
Harmon has had three surgeries on his elbow and one on his thumb, which he couldn't move for weeks. Doctors tell him he may eventually have to get a shoulder and elbow replacement. He has insurance, but his medical bills are nearing $100,000.
Panic attacks come when Harmon simply sees a deputy driving nearby.
"Be calm," he has to caution himself. "Don't look their way."
A recent trip to Colerain Township - where the officers now work - prompted him to look over his shoulder the whole time.
"It's disturbing that I have to live like this," he said.
At that point, for the first time in the 90-minute interview, Harmon put his face in his hands and quietly cried. Article Link Here
DA: Framingham cop a whiz on the job
By Ira Kantor
October 1, 2010
An on-duty Framingham police detective accused of pulling over to relieve himself in a private yard, then drawing his gun on the home’s resident, has been indicted on criminal charges, the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office announced yesterday.
Detective Scott Brown, 38, of Mendon was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and making threats stemming from an April 29 incident taking place on private property in Framingham, said spokeswoman Cara O’Brien.
Prosecutors say Brown, who was on-duty but not in uniform and driving an unmarked vehicle, got out and began to urinate. A woman who lives at the unidentified address approached and asked what he and his partner were doing, O’Brien said.
After Brown allegedly told the woman to “stop looking” and returned to his cruiser, her husband - upon hearing the commotion - drove over in his golf cart and stopped next to Brown as he was pulling away, O’Brien said.
The two exchanged words, and Brown then got out and drew his firearm, pointed it at the victim, and said, “Move it or get shot,” prosecutors said.
The wife called 911. A video surveillance camera on the property captured the incident, O’Brien said. Messages left with Framingham police were not returned. Brown could not be reached for comment.
September 29, 2010
ORLANDO, Fla. -- All criminal charges have been dropped against an 84-year-old man whose neck was broken when he was thrown down by an Orlando police officer.
Daniel Daley's lawyer wants the grand jury to investigate the officer and he's going to sue police for as much as he can.
"We will be seeking the absolute maximum damages under the law and for every claim of action the law permits," Attorney Mark NeJame said during Wednesday's press conference.
NeJame told WFTV on Wednesday that, in addition to the neck brace supporting Daley's broken neck, a steel plate has been implanted to hold his head in place; Daley still might not make it.
With Daley's son at his side, NeJame came out swinging, saying Orlando Officer Travis Lamont is the only one who says Daley got physically aggressive with him, because all other eyewitnesses who came to the news conference said Daley did not.
"Mr. Daley was tossed high in the air and came crashing down on his neck and head with such violence and force that his neck was snapped and broken," NeJame said Wednesday.
NeJame wants the state attorney to take Officer Lamont's actions to a grand jury for criminal investigation.
"The actions taken by Officer Lamont were illegal, unjustified, constituted police brutality," he said.
The Orlando officer said the 84-year-old drew back his fist and that's when he took Daley down and arrested him.
"To be cuffed the way that he was, arms snapped behind him with the knee in the back, and then sat up Indian-style with his head hanging down, I will never lose that image," eyewitness Sean Hill said.
Police say Daley was drunk, with a blood-alcohol-level of .18, more than twice the legal driving limit. But Daley's attorney says police had no right to that medical information, because Daley wasn't driving, so he's also planning to sue Orlando police for invasion of privacy and slander.
Daley's family is devastated.
"To see him like that. Are you kidding me? I had to leave early the other night, because he's gagging for breath," Daley's son, Greg, said.
The state attorney said it has no plans to take the case to a grand jury and there will be no consideration of criminal charges against Officer Lamont for what happened unless a law enforcement agency investigates and sends a case to prosecutors.
The maximum Daley can sue for might be just $100,000 if the suit is taken to state court. There is a $100,000 cap on lawsuits against government agencies, unless the state legislature approves an exception.
But if the lawsuit is filed in federal court, the caps don't apply. A federal lawsuit against the Orange County jail, involving an inmate who died because the jail did not provide her methadone, brought a $3 million settlement from the jail.
A video uploaded to YouTube shows disturbing footage of a man on the ground being beaten by a Philadelphia Police officer, while other officers try to hold the man down.
The video begins with four Philadelphia police officers tackling a man on a sidewalk. As the man is on the ground, one officer in particular continues to beat the man on his head, back, arms and chest repeatedly with a metal-looking police baton.
The man being beaten, 29-year-old Askia Sabur, was standing outside a Chinese restaurant when police pulled up and asked him for his ID, according to Sabur’s attorney Evan Hughs. When Sabur turned to walk back into the Chinese restaurant, the police jumped out of the car and tackled him, Hughs told NBC Philadelphia.
Police tell NBC Philadelphia that Sabur was blocking the store's doorway and when they asked him to move, he refused and hit one of the officers.
“I didn’t do nothing wrong,” Sabur says repeatedly in the video.
At first friends yell at Sabur in the video to stop resisting the police, even though he’s already on the ground. But as the officer continues to beat Sabur, the people watching yell for the officer to stop.
“Yo, he’s not fighting! He’s not even fighting!” voices from the crowd shout.
The beating lasts for the duration of the 2-minute and 29-second video. At one point the officer pulls back and blood is visible on his shirt.
According to Hughes, the incident happened in the 19th police district. Sabur’s sister, Naimah Wilson, told NBC Philadelphia that it happened on Sept. 3 at about 9 p.m..
Police brought Sabur to Mercy Hospital after the incident, where he was treated for head trauma and a fractured left arm, according to Wilson. Wilson said that her brother was simply talking to men in the neighborhood while waiting for his Chinese food.
Now, Sabur is charged with aggravated assault, robbery and attempting to take an officer's equipment, firearm, but internal affairs is investigating the case to see if the use of force was within police guidelines, according to Philadelphia Police spokesperson Lt. Frank Vanore.
“There’s things that happen before the video and obviously things that happen after and we’ll have to get the whole picture together,” says Vanore.
City responds to LoDo police beating video
By Heidi Hemmatr
Story posted 2010.08.18 at 09:18 PM MDT
DENVER - Coloradans are outraged and demanding action from city leaders after seeing our investigative report about a dog owner beaten by two Denver Police officers.
It's a story FOX 31 News broke Tuesday night.
Now the Denver police independent monitor says he's responding to the public outcry and reviewing the video to see if a larger investigation is warranted.
Mark Ashford was walking his dogs near 20th and Little Raven, when he witnessed police pull over a driver for failing to stop at a stop sign. He told the driver he saw him stop and would be willing to testify in court.
His attorney, Will Hart, said the police officers overheard Ashford's comment and "weren't happy about it."
Hart said the officers demanded Ashford's I.D. and wouldn't let him leave. "They had no reason to stop him or detain him, that's a violation of his fourth amendment rights," said Hart.
Ashford then tried to take a picture of the officers to document the incident, but both the officers pulled his hand behind his back and attempted to arrest him. Ashford appeared to struggle before he was slammed into a railing, punched repeatedly in the face and wrestled to the ground.
Ashford was charged with interference and resisting arrest, but the charges were later dropped, "because the city attorney agreed his fourth amendment rights were violated," said Hart.
Excessive force complaints were filed against the officers.
A Denver police department spokesperson said the internal affairs investigation is closed, but the independent police monitor says he is reviewing the surveillance video to determine if the police officers used excessive force.
Richard Rosenthal said it is likely he will recommend a more thorough investigation.
Ironically, it's the police department's own surveillance camera that may provide the proof.
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper was notified about the alleged beating caught on tape. A spokesperson tells FOX 31 the mayor is aware of the latest video.
Story posted 2010.08.18 at 09:18 PM MDT
Death of teen on bike shows risks of expanded use of Tasers
By Meg Laughlin, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Sunday, August 1, 2010
PENSACOLA
Late one night in October, a 17-year-old on a bike was chased by a police officer in a cruiser. When the boy refused to stop, the officer aimed his Taser out the driver's window and fired. The boy fell off the bike and the cruiser ran over him, killing him.
Victor Steen was the fourth person who died in Florida in 2009 in an incident in which a Taser was used. It was the 57th such death since 2001, according to statistics compiled by Amnesty International and the St. Petersburg Times. At the time this placed Florida first in the nation as the state with the most fatalities related to Tasers, a weapon that delivers an incapacitating electrical jolt.
Number 54 was a mentally ill man in Fort Lauderdale who was hit with a Taser in April as he wandered in traffic, refusing to go with police. He had a heart attack and died at a hospital.
Number 55 occurred in Bradenton one week before Victor's death. Police tried to stop him because he didn't have a light on his bicycle. When he ran, police hit him with a Taser. He died within 35 minutes. The autopsy showed heart disease and a small amount of cocaine in his system.
Four days later, police in Panama City fired a Taser "at least twice" at a man who tried to conceal cocaine by swallowing it. He went into cardiac arrest and died.
Taser International, the maker of the weapon, denies that these deaths were caused by its product. Yet, these four unconnected cases illustrate a worrisome trend in Taser use.
There is no question that Tasers frequently save lives by offering law enforcement officers a nonlethal means of stopping people who present a threat to the officers, the public or themselves. But as the four fatal cases from 2009 show, Tasers are also being used to subdue people who appear to pose no threat.
Victor lived with his mother, Cassandra Steen, in a two-bedroom house in West Pensacola. His father died a few years ago from diabetes. Victor had never been in trouble and was about to get his high school diploma, join the U.S. Army, then go to college in a few years.
Victor's pastors, teachers, family and friends repeatedly described him as "respectful" and "loving," with a "great sense of humor."
"I work with a lot of kids who need guidance, but Victor wasn't one of them. He has a very caring and considerate family and their light shone in him," said Pensacola pastor Guy Johnson, 54.
On the night of his death, Victor went to a high school homecoming football game then over to a friend's house to plan the birthday party of a child in the family.
"We wanted Victor's help because he was so good with little kids," said Victor's friend, Mike Moultrie.
About 12:45 a.m., said Moultrie, Victor left on a borrowed bike. From there to where the chase started was about 41/2 miles. But it was about 1:45 a.m. that Officer Jerald Ard spotted Victor. Where Victor went after leaving Moultrie's house is unclear.
Ard would later say that he tried to stop Victor because he had seen him at a construction site and thought he may have stolen something. But witness Victor Stallworth said he saw Victor ride his bicycle past the construction site without stopping. Months later, Ard gave investigators a different reason for stopping Victor: He didn't have a light on his bike — only two reflectors.
A video camera on the dashboard of Ard's squad car recorded the brief chase:
Ard spotted Victor and did a fast U-turn to stop him. When Victor didn't stop, Ard veered to the wrong side of the street and up on the sidewalk behind the teenager.
The officer revved the motor, his tires screeching, as he followed Victor into the side yard of an apartment building. With his flashers and PA system on, Ard yelled at Victor to "stop the bike."
It is unclear why Victor disobeyed the order to stop, but the teenager continued pedaling, trying to escape. Ard followed his every move, driving in and out of the wrong lane of traffic and up onto the sidewalk again. One minute and seven seconds into the chase Ard fired his Taser at Victor, who made a turn into a parking lot. About two seconds later, Victor fell to the ground and Ard ran over him.
Witnesses watched from in front of Sluggo's, a hipster vegan restaurant and bar directly across the street, about 50 feet from where Victor was killed. Elementary schoolteacher Rachel Moore said she saw the squad car on the wrong side of the street and heard the "loud click-click" of the Taser. She described the officer's driving as "careless" and said she feared he would hit the bicyclist.
"When the Taser clicked, the kid swung hard to his left over grass into the parking lot. The bike wobbled and he lost control. I don't know if the Taser hit him or the sound of it scared him. But he went down, and the cop turned into the parking lot and immediately ran over him," said Moore, who called 911.
Ard's cruiser dragged Victor, nearly breaking him in half. When the car stopped on top of a low concrete barrier in the parking lot, Ard called for an ambulance and jumped out of the car, yelling, "Dude, you all right? Are you alive? You hear me?"
• • •
Before her son's funeral, Cassandra Steen joined about 125 people in the parking lot where Victor died. Some were family and friends, but most were Sluggo's patrons haunted by what they viewed as the officer's recklessness.
James Lopez, who works in a bookstore, told the St. Petersburg Times: "If you or I hit someone and killed them, we'd be facing vehicular homicide. I don't want this wrong to be dropped."
Jorge Torrens, a sound editor for the local public radio station, saw the end of the chase from his seat at Sluggo's. Torrens, along with about a dozen other patrons, frequently rode his bicycle to Sluggo's.
"The police never stop us," he said. "You have to wonder if it's because we're white, and Victor was ordered to stop because he's black. Did this tragedy have anything to do with racial profiling?"
Victor's mother was so grief-stricken her knees kept buckling and she had to be held up by two friends. One told her: "Look at all of these different people coming together for Victor."
"Yes, yes, I know," she sobbed, "but it hurts too much."
The day after the funeral, Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigator Eli Lawson called Cassandra Steen's newly-hired attorney, Aaron Watson, and told him that TV news was about to report that a paramedic had found a gun in Victor's pocket.
A video, taken from the dashboard of another officer's car, recorded what happened in the minutes before the discovery:
Three officers squatted next to Ard's car, looking under it at Victor. Ard unlocked the passenger side of his car and got something out. The object is light-colored and floppy, but isn't clearly visible. Ard, holding the object, crawled under the car next to Victor's body and stayed there for 40 seconds. Two minutes later, paramedics found a 9mm silver and black semiautomatic in Victor's pocket.
Lab tests showed the gun had been wiped clean. No fingerprints were on it — not Victor's, not anyone's. Victor's family, as well as his pastors and friends, were aghast. Victor was scared of guns, they said. He would not have carried a gun around.
Aaron Watson, who wondered if the gun might have been planted to make the teenager appear dangerous, worried aloud that it would be a distraction from the officer's "reckless pursuit."
"The focus here," Watson told the Times, "should be on why Ard was pursuing Victor in the first place and why he fired a Taser at a kid on a bike from a moving vehicle. The gun really has nothing to do with the issues."
Lawson, the FDLE investigator, was suspicious enough of what he had seen in the video to ask the four-year officer about it.
"Did you put that gun on Victor Steen?" Lawson asked in a taped interview.
Ard answered no, and the investigator changed the subject.
• • •
At first, Cassandra Steen said she didn't want Ard punished, but suspecting the gun was a plant, she became less forgiving.
"Victor died a horrible, brutal death and, after that, his reputation was ruined by the gun. Someone besides Victor needs to be held accountable," she said.
A coroner's inquest was held in February so a Pensacola judge could decide who that should be. An assistant state attorney asked questions of witnesses and law enforcement. As is standard in an inquest, Steen family lawyers were not allowed to verbally question or cross-examine anyone.
Escambia County Judge John Simon concluded: "Mr. Steen desired to avoid apprehension on Oct. 3, 2009. That desire led to Mr. Steen's ill-advised decision to ignore lawful commands … and enter a dimly lit parking lot unaware that a potential hazard was present i.e., the existence of a raised curb. Once Mr. Steen struck the raised curb, he was ejected directly into the path of Officer Ard's vehicle. … It was impossible (based on perception reaction time) for Officer Ard to avoid striking Mr. Steen."
The judge did not find Ard's driving or firing the Taser out of his car window to be questionable in any way.
"Mr. Steen was actively fleeing Officer Ard. … Officer Ard violated no traffic laws in light of the fact that he was actively pursuing Mr. Steen."
Afterward, Victor's lawyers spoke on the courthouse steps: "This ain't the old Wild West. It's Pensacola 2010. It's absolutely outrageous that a boy would be run over and killed for no tail light on a bike," said Bill Cash.
On Oct. 3, when Victor died, the Pensacola Police Department policy didn't specifically prohibit firing a Taser from a moving squad car at someone on a bike. But less than a week later, the deputy chief issued a memo, saying: "Firing a Taser from a moving vehicle or into a moving vehicle is prohibited."
Officials said nothing about whether it was appropriate to use a Taser in cases in which there was no threat to public safety.
At the request of the St. Petersburg Times, nationally known use-of-force expert Dave Klinger, who is a retired Los Angeles police officer and now a senior research scientist at the Police Foundation in Washington, D.C., reviewed documents and videos related to the case.
It didn't make sense to fire a Taser at Victor on the bike, said Klinger, because of the likelihood he would get hurt. Furthermore, he said, Victor was not a suspect in a serious crime.
"You don't Taser people in circumstances that increase the likelihood of injury unless they're a suspect for something like rape or murder," said Klinger.
One Taser probe was found embedded in an outer T-shirt Victor was wearing over another T-shirt. The second probe was on the ground. The medical examiner was unable to determine if the probes pierced Victor's skin because so much skin had been scraped away. And, while the Taser can shock through two inches of clothing, it was impossible to know whether Victor felt the jolt of electricity through his clothes.
"You can hear (the Taser) cycling, sending juice along the wires, but nothing tells you — not the sound or anything else — whether it embeds in his skin," Klinger said. "The moan and wobbling bike before Steen hits the concrete bump suggest he is affected briefly by it, but it's not certain. You just can't say one way or the other."
Maybe, said Klinger, the Taser shocked him — either through skin contact or through his clothes — or maybe the sound of the Taser firing was enough to make him lose balance.
"Something caused the bike to wobble before he hit the bump," he said.
The use-of-force expert didn't understand the officer's driving: "Why doesn't he stay in the appropriate lane and broadcast for help to set up a perimeter?"
And: "He has one hand on the steering wheel and is looking out the window when he fires the Taser, which means he doesn't have complete control over the car. What will happen if Steen falls off the bike?"
In an April memo suspending Ard for two weeks without pay, Pensacola police Capt. Jay Worley faulted Ard with exposing Victor "to unreasonable risk of harm and injury."
From that memo: "Ard drove his cruiser so close to the suspect's bike that it would have been difficult if not impossible for him to stop if the suspect fell from the bike. I also found it disturbing that Officer Ard attempted to Tase the suspect on a bike as he rode next to him."
Dave Klinger: "What the memo says is true, but the department is blaming the officer to overcome problems with its own policy. The focus should be on omissions in the policy at the time of the death."
Klinger's conclusion: "The kid should have stopped. But he shouldn't have died because he didn't."
BY Rocco Parascandola
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU CHIEF
Wednesday, July 28th 2010, 4:00 AM
A Brooklyn teen who was about to start college spent four days in a coma after he was slammed to the ground by cops in a post-barbecue beatdown, his mother and lawyer say.
Rahiym Holmes, 18, suffered a fractured skull and brain damage in the July 11 incident.
He cannot walk without help and may never fully recover, said his lawyer, Leslie Kelmachter, who will file a notice of claim against the NYPD today. "We want there to be a full and thorough investigation," Kelmachter said. "We believe there should be criminal charges.
"There was no evidence that Rahiym was doing anything wrong when he was tackled."
The NYPD said Internal Affairs is investigating the incident.
Police would not say why Holmes was stopped or why he was issued a desk appearance ticket for misdemeanor reckless endangerment.
His mom, 37-year-old Channell Barber, said it pains her to see her son, a high school football player who was about to start classes at Kingsborough Community College.
And it is just as frustrating to explain the incident to her 11-year-old son, Donte, she said.
"I always stressed to them to keep a clean record, stay in school and do good," said Barber, who works for Con Edison. "For something like this to happen, it's very, very difficult."
The circumstances around the injury are still murky. His family said Holmes was not able to speak about the incident and did not remember what happened.
That night, Holmes was at a barbecue at the Canarsie Pier when police arrived about sunset to disperse the crowd.
Holmes and two friends set out to walk the mile back to East New York, where they live.
Witnesses told Kelmachter that at some point, uniformed officers taunted Holmes, then got out of their patrol car on Cozine Ave., near Pennsylvania Ave.
Holmes put his hands up, Kelmachter said, to no avail.
"The officer - and we don't know why he zoomed in on Rahiym - he basically body-slammed him," she said. "He struck his head on the ground and was vomiting and bleeding at the scene."
It is unclear why Holmes was given the ticket, which was handed to his mom at the hospital. Holmes spent four days in a coma and has since been transferred to Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center. The notice of claim accuses police of excessive force, assault, false arrest and false imprisonment.
LOS ANGELES -- A former Bay Area transit police officer on Thursday had trouble remembering key details of the events leading up to the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by a fellow officer on an Oakland train platform.
Marysol Domenici, who was fired in March from Bay Area Rapid Transit, testified that when she heard the gunshot - she described sounding like "a firework" go off - she wasn't sure who may have been injured.
By the reaction of officers, "I knew it wasn't one of us," Domenici said. "No one had their guns out."
Domenici was the first officer who responded to the New Year's Day 2009 shooting and was called to testify at the trial of Johannes Mehserle, who is white and has pleaded not guilty to killing Oscar Grant, 22.
On direct examination by Deputy District Attorney Dave Stein, Domenici couldn't recall information she provided at a preliminary hearing last year. Stein read portions of her previous testimony in which she said she heard Grant and his friends tell her and other officers they were scared of being shot with a Taser stun gun.
"I don't remember them saying the tasing part, but I do remember them cooperating," Domenici said.
Mehserle's attorney has said his client meant to use his stun gun instead of his .40-caliber weapon. Stein has argued that Mehserle, 28, intended to shoot Grant and used his weapon because officers were losing control of the situation.
Domenici said she also didn't remember Grant grabbing her arm minutes before he was shot, but she said a video taken by a bystander showed it. Stein played the tape in court and the grainy resolution couldn't confirm Domenici's account.
SEATTLE (AP) — Seattle police say they'll review police tactics and training after an officer was shown on video punching a young woman in the face.
Acting deputy police chief Nick Metz said Tuesday that the department's civilian-led Office of Professional Accountability is investigating the 39-year-old officer's actions.
Officer Ian P. Walsh was trying to cite several people for jaywalking just before Monday's incident, which was captured on cell phone video.
Metz says two of the women who were stopped bear much of the responsibility for not cooperating and resisting arrest.
Seattle Urban League CEO James Kelly says the punch was an overreaction that brought to mind a video taken April 17 of two Seattle officers seen kicking a Hispanic suspect.
