Police Corruption Media Articles
Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.
Can you invent a realistic scenario wherein you shoot a man dead; justify it with a story witnesses contradict; confiscate any surveillance video; claim a "glitch" makes it impossible to show the video to anyone else all while enjoying the support of state legal apparatus? Police in Las Vegas did that last month, after they shot Erik Scott seven times as he exited a Costco. Cops say Scott pointed a gun at them; witnesses say Scott's licensed weapon was in a concealed holster, and five of those seven shots hit him in the back. The confiscated surveillance video might settle the question; too bad about that glitch. At least Costco's not in trouble for recording police actions. That's illegal in 12 states, even (or especially) when you record police misbehaviour. Even in states where it's allowed, officers are wont to ignore the law and go after photographers anyway, and they can always record you with their own dashboard cams. Whenever Tasers are issued, they're used with shocking (sorry) frequency. With guns, police at least have to argue "Oops, I thought he was dangerous", after shooting you; Tasers don't even require that. In 2004, Malaika Brooks, then seven months pregnant, was stopped for speeding in Seattle. She refused to sign the ticket a non-arrestable misdemeanour at the time, though she was arrested for it anyway and was Tasered three times. Last March, a federal appeals court ruled that the Tasering, which left permanent scars, was not "excessive force" since it only inflicted "temporary, localised pain".
Note: The short video in this article of a mother being tazed for no apparent reason is particularly revealing.
It wasn't his daredevil stunt [on his motorcycle] that has [Anthony Graber] facing the possibility of 16 years in prison. For that, he was issued a speeding ticket. It was the video that Graber posted on YouTube one week later -- taken with his helmet camera -- of a plainclothes state trooper cutting him off and drawing a gun during the traffic stop near Baltimore. In early April, state police officers raided Graber's parents' home in Abingdon, Md. They confiscated his camera, computers and external hard drives. Graber was indicted for allegedly violating state wiretap laws by recording the trooper without his consent. Arrests such as Graber's are becoming more common along with the proliferation of portable video cameras and cell-phone recorders. Videos of alleged police misconduct have become hot items on the Internet. YouTube still features Graber's encounter along with numerous other witness videos. "The message is clearly, 'Don't criticize the police,'" said David Rocah, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland who is part of Graber's defense team. "With these charges, anyone who would even think to record the police is now justifiably in fear that they will also be criminally charged." Carlos Miller, a Miami journalist who runs the blog "Photography Is Not a Crime," said he has documented about 10 arrests since he started keeping track in 2007. Miller himself has been arrested twice for photographing the police.
Note: To our knowledge, no one has ever been prosecuted for videotaping police doing good things, which they often do, yet many have been arrested for catching police doing bad things. Where's the justice here?
*Lulu Maxwell, 17, Grade 12, Rosedale Heights: Maxwell and a friend were hanging around near Queen and Dufferin Sts. at a convergence centre for protesters on Sunday afternoon when police started making arrests. My friend was blowing bubbles and I was scribbling peace signs on the sidewalk. Within minutes, her friend was grabbed and Lulu was put up against a wall. Her backpack was searched and Lulu says an officer said she could be charged with possession of dangerous weapons because I had eyewash solution in my backpack. She was taken to the detention centre and almost 12 hours after her arrest was allowed to call her parents. She was released, without charges being laid, at 5 a. m. *Erin Boynton, 24, London, Ont. She was arrested at The Esplanade early Sunday morning after police boxed dozens of protesters in. I was with a protest marching peacefully down Yonge from Dundas Square, she said. When the cops came at us, many people scattered and those who were left in front of the (Novotel) got arrested. She said police came from all sides and squished us in. They didnt give us a warning to leave. just announced that we are arresting all of you. She said a lot of people at the detention centre were innocent bystanders. The police violated all our rights . . . there was police brutality. Quite frankly, it was quite disgusting. Boynton wasnt charged.
Note: For lots more from major media sources on mounting threats to civil liberties, click here.
Protesters marching at the G20 summit next month may be greeted with ear-splitting sound cannons, the latest Toronto police tool for quelling unruly crowds. Toronto police have purchased four long-range acoustic devices (LRAD) often referred to as sound guns or sound cannons for the upcoming June 26-27 summit. Purchased this month, the LRADs will become a permanent fixture in Toronto law enforcement, said police spokesperson Const. Wendy Drummond. They were purchased as part of the G20 budget process, Drummond said. Its definitely going to be beneficial for us, not only in the G20 but in any future large gatherings. But critics say they are really non-lethal weapons and infringe upon protester rights. LRADs can emit ear-blasting sounds so high in frequency they transcend normal thresholds of pain. LRADs are being increasingly employed as a crowd-control device and at last years G20 summit in Pittsburgh, police used them on protesters before deploying tear gas and stun grenades. The acoustical devices can also be pointed at specific targets, transmitting a laser of sound that is less aggravating for anyone standing outside its beam.
Note: This is the sort of thing on which the $1 billion in security preparations for the upcoming G8 and G20 meetings is being spent. For revealing reports from reliable sources on the grave risks posed by so called "non-lethal" weapons, click here.
Last Sunday's Observer claimed to expose how "an officer from a secretive unit of the Metropolitan police" worked "undercover among anti-racist groups in Britain, during which he routinely engaged in violence against members of the public and uniformed police officers to maintain his cover". Despite this sensationalist introduction, "Officer A" does not describe his involvement in any violent incidents. No wonder. The organisation he infiltrated, Youth Against Racism in Europe (YRE) is a peaceful organisation of young people, which in the 1990s organised mass protests against racism and the BNP [British National Party]. YRE [has often faced] violence from the far right, and unfortunately also from the police. The police not only used violence against [YRE] demonstrations but also carried out a secretive, unaccountable and clearly expensive infiltration operation. They gained nothing from it. Far from being secretive [YRE] publicly advertised [its] events. The Observer's revelation is not unique. Christopher Andrew's The Defence of the Realm: the Authorized History of M15, published last year, also describes state infiltration of Militant, the National Union of Miners and others. Surveillance of peaceful protestors has mushroomed. Police brutality also, as the tragic death of Ian Tomlinson showed, is not a thing of the past.
Note: Why would police place officers promoting violence in peaceful groups working against racism? Could it be that key elements within the police are racist?
Former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, once selected to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was sentenced ... to four years in prison for tax evasion and lying to White House officials. Kerik, 54, who as head of the city's police worked closely with former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani at the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks, pleaded guilty to the federal charges in November. A former police detective, and once Giuliani's driver, Kerik headed the New York City jail system before taking charge of the police department in 2000. His career began to unravel during background checks when President George W. Bush nominated him in 2004 to become Secretary of Homeland Security. Kerik withdrew, but his legal troubles later embarrassed Giuliani in his unsuccessful bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. Along with pleading guilty to lying and evading taxes, Kerik admitted receiving apartment renovations from a construction firm suspected of organized crime ties and helping the company win city contracts. The four-year sentence imposed ... exceeded the sentencing guidelines of less than three years, as laid out in Kerik's plea deal, but fell far short of the maximum possible term of 61 years.
Note: The NY City chief of police at the time of 9/11 is now in jail. The former head of the NASDAQ stock exchange, Bernie Madoff, is now in jail. Do you think there is corruption at the highest levels of government? How many more have engaged in gross corruption and gotten away with it? To see how deep it goes, click here.
Simon Glik, a lawyer, was walking down Tremont Street in Boston when he saw three police officers struggling to extract a plastic bag from a teenagers mouth. Thinking their force seemed excessive for a drug arrest, Glik pulled out his cellphone and began recording. Within minutes, Glik said, he was in handcuffs. The charge? Illegal electronic surveillance. Civil libertarians call [such arrests] a troubling misuse of the states wiretapping law to stifle the kind of street-level oversight that cellphone and video technology make possible. The police apparently do not want witnesses to what they do in public, said Sarah Wunsch, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. With the advent of media-sharing websites like Facebook and YouTube, the practice of openly recording police activity has become commonplace. But in Massachusetts and other states, the arrests of street videographers, whether they use cellphones or other video technology, offers a dramatic illustration of the collision between new technology and policing practices. Police are not used to ceding power, and these tools are forcing them to cede power.
Note: For lots more on increasing government and corporate threats to civil liberties, click here.
Police are gathering the personal details of thousands of activists who attend political meetings and protests, and storing their data on a network of nationwide intelligence databases. The hidden apparatus has been constructed to monitor "domestic extremists". Detailed information about the political activities of campaigners is being stored on a number of overlapping IT systems, even if they have not committed a crime. Senior officers say domestic extremism, a term coined by police that has no legal basis, can include activists suspected of minor public order offences such as peaceful direct action and civil disobedience. Three national police units responsible for combating domestic extremism are run by the "terrorism and allied matters" committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo). In total, it receives 9m in public funding, from police forces and the Home Office, and employs a staff of 100. The main unit, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), runs a central database which lists thousands of so-called domestic extremists. It filters intelligence supplied by police forces across England and Wales, which routinely deploy surveillance teams at protests, rallies and public meetings. Vehicles associated with protesters are being tracked via a nationwide system of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras. Police surveillance units, known as Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT) and Evidence Gatherers, record footage and take photographs of campaigners as they enter and leave openly advertised public meetings. Surveillance officers are provided with "spotter cards" used to identify the faces of target individuals who police believe are at risk of becoming involved in domestic extremism. Targets include high-profile activists regularly seen taking part in protests.
Note: This important article should be read in its entirety. For further revelations of the magnitude of this surveillance and "rebranding protest as extremism " program, click here.
Three undercover officers accused of inciting protesters to attack riot police at the 2007 North American leaders summit in Montebello are being summoned to testify before Quebec's independent police ethics committee. The decision from the committee released this week overrules an independent review that exonerated the officers. It also comes more than two years after the black-clad trio were first exposed on YouTube. Dave Coles, the union leader who confronted the men at the time and filed a complaint against the police ... said he suspects an inquiry would find there was political involvement. This is the big question: Who sent them in? asked Mr. Coles. And don't give me some lame excuse that it was a low-level officer. Video images of the incident posted on YouTube showed three officers disguised as protesters wearing black tops and camouflage pants. Their faces were covered by black and white bandanas. One of them, wearing a sideways ball cap marked with graffiti, held a large stone in his hand. Mr. Coles yelled at them to show their faces and the officer carrying the rock responded with a two-handed shove.
Note: Click on the link above to watch the astonishing YouTube video of this police provocation. This is just one case that happened to be caught on film. Why are undercover police infiltrating activist groups and inciting violence at demonstrations around the world?
The Maryland State Police surveillance of advocacy groups was far more extensive than previously acknowledged, with records showing that troopers monitored -- and labeled as terrorists -- activists devoted to such wide-ranging causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes. Intelligence officers created a voluminous file on Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, calling the group a "security threat" because of concerns that members would disrupt the circus. Angry consumers fighting a 72 percent electricity rate increase in 2006 were targeted. The DC Anti-War Network, which opposes the Iraq war, was designated a white supremacist group, without explanation. One of the possible "crimes" in the file police opened on Amnesty International, a world-renowned human rights group: "civil rights." The [surveillance] ... confirmed the fears of civil liberties groups that have warned about domestic spying since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "No one was thinking this was al-Qaeda," said Stephen H. Sachs, a former U.S. attorney and state attorney general appointed by Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) to review the case. "But 9/11 created an atmosphere where cutting corners was easier." Maryland has not been alone. The FBI and police departments in several cities, including Denver in 2002 and New York before the 2004 Republican National Convention, also responded to [dissent] by spying on activists.
Note: For wide coverage from reliable sources of disturbing threats to civil liberties, click here.
Officials with the New Jersey attorney generals office said on Monday that the state had agreed to a $400,000 settlement in a lawsuit filed by a former state trooper who said that he was beaten and harassed by members of a secret group of rogue officers within the State Police. The former trooper, Justin Hopson, filed the lawsuit in 2003. In it, he described a series of beatings, threats and acts of vandalism that he said occurred after he refused to support an arrest by another trooper in 2002. Mr. Hopson said that he was attacked by members of a loose-knit group within the State Police known as the Lords of Discipline. For years, minority and female troopers have complained that they have been harassed by members of the group. In 2005, the state attorney generals office issued a report that found seven troopers guilty of harassing their colleagues. The troopers received punishments ranging from reprimands to 45-day suspensions. Mr. Hopson, 33, filed suit after the March 2002 arrest of a woman for drunken driving, which he said was improper because the woman had not been behind the wheel. When Mr. Hopson refused to endorse fellow troopers versions of events surrounding the arrest, court papers said, a campaign to silence him began. First, there were threatening notes left around his station house. Then, Mr. Hopson said, his car was vandalized. By the time he sued the state in December 2003, Mr. Hopson said that he had been the victim of a series of beatings at the hands of another trooper.
Note: Read a follow-up article on how this good man is calling for all of us to step up. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing police corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews. From Albuquerque to Montreal, San Francisco to Miami, undercover New York police officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists. They made friends, shared meals, swapped e-mail messages and then filed daily reports with the departments Intelligence Division. In hundreds of reports stamped N.Y.P.D. Secret, the Intelligence Division chronicled the views and plans of people who had no apparent intention of breaking the law. These included members of street theater companies, church groups and antiwar organizations. Three New York City elected officials were cited in the reports. In at least some cases, intelligence on what appeared to be lawful activity was shared with police departments in other cities. In addition to sharing information with other police departments, New York undercover officers were active themselves in at least 15 places outside New York including California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montreal, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Washington, D.C. and in Europe. To date, as the boundaries of the departments expanded powers continue to be debated, police officials have provided only glimpses of its intelligence-gathering.
A highly-organised paedophile ring involving Victorian police and former politicians had been operating in the state since the 1970s, anti-child abuse groups claimed today. Dr Reina Michaelson of The Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Program (CSAPP) and Bravehearts founder Hetty Johnston today said they had been told by child sex abuse victims that former Victorian elected politicians and police members were involved in child pornography and prostitution. Dr Michaelson said she was working with child sex abuse victims who said they had witnessed significant police corruption and protection of paedophilia rings. The allegations come in response to a damning report released by Victoria's Ombudsman George Brouwer yesterday into Victoria Police's botched handling of four cases of child sex abuse. Ms Michaelson and Ms Johnston today called for the confidential Ombudsman's report to be made public and for a royal commission into child sexual abuse and corruption. "When problems within Victoria Police are shown to have extended into the investigation of serious sex crimes against children, as has been revealed by the Ombudsman's investigation, it is time for the Victorian government to act," Dr Michaelson said.
Note: Because of intense pressure from politicians and police and disturbing threats, Dr. Michaelson eventually gave up trying to push for justice in these sexual abuse cases. For lots more solid information on this disturbing news, click here and here. And if you are willing to explore how investigations into a massive child sex abuse ring have led to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available here.
Fifty police officers across Britain have been arrested as part of a crackdown on suspected paedophiles who pay to access child pornography websites, detectives revealed today. The officers were among 1,300 people arrested on suspicion of accessing or downloading indecent images of children - some as young as five - from US-based Internet sites. Thirty-four men were arrested in London this morning as part of the investigation - codenamed Operation Ore - following raids on 45 addresses across the capital. In addition, 40 children nationwide - 28 of them in London - had been identified as being at risk of being abused and appropriate steps had been taken with other agencies to ensure that all the youngsters were safe. Before today's arrests, the Metropolitan Police had executed 75 warrants across the capital with 65 arrests and more than 130 computers seized. The Met's Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Carole Howlett, said today's raids represented the single largest operation of its kind mounted so far by the force. Operation Ore is the UK wing of a huge FBI operation which traced 250,000 paedophiles worldwide last year through credit card details used to pay for downloading child porn. The names of British suspects were passed on by US investigators.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on child sexual abuse, click here.
A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower courts decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test. This kind of puts an official face on discrimination in America against people of a certain class, Jordan said today from his Waterford home. I maintain you have no more control over your basic intelligence than your eye color or your gender or anything else. Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training. The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average. Jordan alleged his rejection from the police force was discrimination. He sued the city, saying his civil rights were violated because he was denied equal protection under the law. But the U.S. District Court found that New London had shown a rational basis for the policy. In a ruling dated Aug. 23, the 2nd Circuit agreed. The court said the policy might be unwise but was a rational way to reduce job turnover. Jordan has worked as a prison guard since he took the test.
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