Police State - Official Thread

[Shockwave]

Glad to hear that... We want it to be a big time hit.

I guarantee that the single player will not disappoint.

Awesome. BF3's single player was pretty good, but felt more like it was a rolling testbed for their new engine.
The Multiplayer is awesome for the most part.
Im more of a single player guy though, so Im really stoked for Warfighter. Especially being former military, I really have a soft spot for realistic combat games (which are very few and far between, the recent CoD's have been terrible yet still commands such a great rep for some reason!)

[333386]

April 28, 2012
Terrorist Plots, Hatched by the F.B.I.
By DAVID K. SHIPLER
THE United States has been narrowly saved from lethal terrorist plots in recent years — or so it has seemed. A would-be suicide bomber was intercepted on his way to the Capitol; a scheme to bomb synagogues and shoot Stinger missiles at military aircraft was developed by men in Newburgh, N.Y.; and a fanciful idea to fly explosive-laden model planes into the Pentagon and the Capitol was hatched in Massachusetts.

But all these dramas were facilitated by the F.B.I., whose undercover agents and informers posed as terrorists offering a dummy missile, fake C-4 explosives, a disarmed suicide vest and rudimentary training. Suspects naïvely played their parts until they were arrested.

When an Oregon college student, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, thought of using a car bomb to attack a festive Christmas-tree lighting ceremony in Portland, the F.B.I. provided a van loaded with six 55-gallon drums of “inert material,” harmless blasting caps, a detonator cord and a gallon of diesel fuel to make the van smell flammable. An undercover F.B.I. agent even did the driving, with Mr. Mohamud in the passenger seat. To trigger the bomb the student punched a number into a cellphone and got no boom, only a bust.

This is legal, but is it legitimate? Without the F.B.I., would the culprits commit violence on their own? Is cultivating potential terrorists the best use of the manpower designed to find the real ones? Judging by their official answers, the F.B.I. and the Justice Department are sure of themselves — too sure, perhaps.

Carefully orchestrated sting operations usually hold up in court. Defendants invariably claim entrapment and almost always lose, because the law requires that they show no predisposition to commit the crime, even when induced by government agents. To underscore their predisposition, many suspects are “warned about the seriousness of their plots and given opportunities to back out,” said Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman. But not always, recorded conversations show. Sometimes they are coaxed to continue.

Undercover operations, long practiced by the F.B.I., have become a mainstay of counterterrorism, and they have changed in response to the post-9/11 focus on prevention. “Prior to 9/11 it would be very unusual for the F.B.I. to present a crime opportunity that wasn’t in the scope of the activities that a person was already involved in,” said Mike German of the American Civil Liberties Union, a lawyer and former F.B.I. agent who infiltrated white supremacist groups. An alleged drug dealer would be set up to sell drugs to an undercover agent, an arms trafficker to sell weapons. That still happens routinely, but less so in counterterrorism, and for good reason.

“There isn’t a business of terrorism in the United States, thank God,” a former federal prosecutor, David Raskin, explained.

“You’re not going to be able to go to a street corner and find somebody who’s already blown something up,” he said. Therefore, the usual goal is not “to find somebody who’s already engaged in terrorism but find somebody who would jump at the opportunity if a real terrorist showed up in town.”

And that’s the gray area. Who is susceptible? Anyone who plays along with the agents, apparently. Once the snare is set, law enforcement sees no choice. “Ignoring such threats is not an option,” Mr. Boyd argued, “given the possibility that the suspect could act alone at any time or find someone else willing to help him.”

Typically, the stings initially target suspects for pure speech — comments to an informer outside a mosque, angry postings on Web sites, e-mails with radicals overseas — then woo them into relationships with informers, who are often convicted felons working in exchange for leniency, or with F.B.I. agents posing as members of Al Qaeda or other groups.

Some targets have previous involvement in more than idle talk: for example, Waad Ramadan Alwan, an Iraqi in Kentucky, whose fingerprints were found on an unexploded roadside bomb near Bayji, Iraq, and Raja Khan of Chicago, who had sent funds to an Al Qaeda leader in Pakistan.

But others seem ambivalent, incompetent and adrift, like hapless wannabes looking for a cause that the informer or undercover agent skillfully helps them find. Take the Stinger missile defendant James Cromitie, a low-level drug dealer with a criminal record that included no violence or hate crime, despite his rants against Jews. “He was searching for answers within his Islamic faith,” said his lawyer, Clinton W. Calhoun III, who has appealed his conviction. “And this informant, I think, twisted that search in a really pretty awful way, sort of misdirected Cromitie in his search and turned him towards violence.”

THE informer, Shahed Hussain, had been charged with fraud, but avoided prison and deportation by working undercover in another investigation. He was being paid by the F.B.I. to pose as a wealthy Pakistani with ties to Jaish-e-Mohammed, a terrorist group that Mr. Cromitie apparently had never heard of before they met by chance in the parking lot of a mosque.

“Brother, did you ever try to do anything for the cause of Islam?” Mr. Hussain asked at one point.

“O.K., brother,” Mr. Cromitie replied warily, “where you going with this, brother?”

Two days later, the informer told him, “Allah has more work for you to do,” and added, “Revelation is going to come in your dreams that you have to do this thing, O.K.?” About 15 minutes later, Mr. Hussain proposed the idea of using missiles, saying he could get them in a container from China. Mr. Cromitie laughed.

Reading hundreds of pages of transcripts of the recorded conversations is like looking at the inkblots of a Rorschach test. Patterns of willingness and hesitation overlap and merge. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” Mr. Cromitie said, and then explained that he meant women and children. “I don’t care if it’s a whole synagogue of men.” It took 11 months of meandering discussion and a promise of $250,000 to lead him, with three co-conspirators he recruited, to plant fake bombs at two Riverdale synagogues.

“Only the government could have made a ‘terrorist’ out of Mr. Cromitie, whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in its scope,” said Judge Colleen McMahon, sentencing him to 25 years. She branded it a “fantasy terror operation” but called his attempt “beyond despicable” and rejected his claim of entrapment.

The judge’s statement was unusual, but Mr. Cromitie’s characteristics were not. His incompetence and ambivalence could be found among other aspiring terrorists whose grandiose plans were nurtured by law enforcement. They included men who wanted to attack fuel lines at Kennedy International Airport; destroy the Sears Tower (now Willis Tower) in Chicago; carry out a suicide bombing near Tampa Bay, Fla., and bomb subways in New York and Washington. Of the 22 most frightening plans for attacks since 9/11 on American soil, 14 were developed in sting operations.

Another New York City subway plot, which recently went to trial, needed no help from government. Nor did a bombing attempt in Times Square, the abortive underwear bombing in a jetliner over Detroit, a planned attack on Fort Dix, N.J., and several smaller efforts. Some threats are real, others less so. In terrorism, it’s not easy to tell the difference.

David K. Shipler is the author of “Rights at Risk: The Limits of Liberty in Modern America.”

[333386]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/05/uc-san-diego-student-dea-jail-outrage.html

[333386]

'Help me,' homeless man begs as cops fatally beat him in videotaped incident

By the CNN Wire Staff
 
updated 7:21 AM EDT, Tue May 8, 2012

One tells Thomas: "You see my fists? They're getting ready to f--- you up."
 
(CNN) -- A graphic video played at a hearing Monday to determine whether two California police officers should stand trial in the beating death of a homeless man showed them kicking and punching the mentally ill man as he lay on the ground -- screaming in pain and begging for help.
 
The victim, Kelly Thomas, died five days after the beating on July 5.
 
Manuel Ramos, a 10-year veteran of the Fullerton, California, police department, is charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter, while Cpl. Jay Patrick Cicinelli faces charges of involuntary manslaughter and felony use of excessive force in the same case.
 
Both have pleaded not guilty.
 
The black-and-white video was played during a preliminary hearing for the two officers.


Revealing details of Kelly Thomas' death

Head trauma caused Thomas' death

It begins with Thomas -- a 37-year-old homeless man with schizophrenia -- sitting and being told by Ramos to put his feet out and hands on his knees.
 
The officers were responding to a call about a homeless man looking into car windows and pulling on handles of parked cars.
 
In the video, Thomas is slow to cooperate.
 
Ramos then tells him: "You see my fists? They're getting ready to f--- you up."
 
Thomas, who is unarmed and shirtless, stands and another officer walks over. They hit him with their batons and hold him on the ground as he begs for help.
 
"Ok, I'm sorry, dude. I'm sorry!" he screams. At one point, Thomas says he can't breathe. The officers tell him to lie on his stomach, put his hands behind his back and relax.
 
"Ok, here, here, dude, please!" he says.
 
Other officers arrive.
 
At times, trees block the view of the camera and it's not always clear who is doing what as officers pile on top of Thomas.
 
One uses a Taser stun gun.
 
Thomas cries out for help and. toward the end of the beating, for his father: "Dad! Help me. Help me. Help me, dad."
 
His voice gets softer and trails off.
 
By the end of the video, he is lying in a pool of blood as the officers wonder out loud what to do next.
 
One can be heard saying: "We ran out of options so I got to the end of my Taser and I ... smashed his face to hell."
 
Thomas suffered brain injuries, facial fractures, rib fractures, and extensive bruising and abrasions, according to prosecutors.
 
The Orange County coroner listed his manner of death as a homicide and said he died after having his chest compressed, leaving him unable to breathe.
 
The FBI is investigating possible civil rights violations in his case.
 
Six Fullerton officers, including Ramos and Cicinelli, were put on paid leave after his death. The case drew widespread attention to the police department of Fullerton, located about 25 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.

[poldaktalos]

Horrible story.
Video and details here:

http://www.pixiq.com/article/shocking-video-of-kelly-thomas-released-watch-with-caution

(the pro police crowd will probably enjoy the sick video)

[333386]

The Way The Pentagon Is Predicting Your Potential To Become A National Threat Is Frightening
Eloise Lee|May 7, 2012, 2:40 PM|15,255|33

Screengrab
 
Tom Cruise made "pre-crime'" a futuresque and controversial method of law enforcement in the 2002 movie Minority Report.
 
Ten years later, the idea of preemptively identifying a criminal — particularly an inside threat — is taking shape within the U.S. Defense Department, reports Joe Gould at Army Times.
 
Whether it's a low-ranking soldier intent on dumping secret information to WikiLeaks, or a rogue Sergeant going on a shooting rampage, insider threats can seriously plague the military and the government as a whole.
 
Taking a novel approach, the Pentagon is spearheading research into studying the predictive behavior of personnel in the lead-up to a betrayal.
 
From Army Times:
 
The Army’s efforts dovetail with a broader federal government initiative. President Obama signed an executive order last October that established an Insider Threat Task Force to develop a government wide program to deter, detect and mitigate insider threats.
 
Among other responsibilities, it would create policies for safeguarding classified information and networks, and for auditing and monitoring users.
 
In January, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget issued a memo directing government agencies that deal with classified information to ensure they adhere to security rules enacted after the WikiLeaks debacle.
 
Beyond technical solutions, the document asks agencies to create their own “insider threat program” to monitor employees for “behavioral changes” suggesting they might leak sensitive information.
 
Gould points to a DARPA research solicitation for Suspected Malicious Insider Threat Elimination (SMITE) which would track employees' actions on their networked computers — in particular, seemingly insignificant "observational data of no immediate relevance" — to determine if the user's overall behavior is leading to something malicious.
 
"Forensic-like techniques can be used to find clues, gather and evaluate evidence and combine
them deductively. Many attacks are combinations of directly observable and inferred events," states the solicitation, emphasizing the word "inferred".
 
Behavioral studies try to "look beyond computers to spot the point when a good soldier turns" — whether the attack at hand is an information leak, or even a homicide.
 
A solicitation for another program — Anomaly Detection at Multiple Scales, or ADAMS — uses accused Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan to frame the problem. It asks how to sift for anomalies through millions of data points — the emails and text messages on Fort Hood, for instance — using a unique algorithm, to rank threats and learn based on user feedback.
 
The Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon sheds light on what kind of character profile a once trusted employee-turned-threat would display. There are two noteworthy profiles of someone who would steal and leak intellectual information from his/her workplace:
 The Entitled Independent: "disgruntled with his job who typically exfiltrates his work a month before leaving."

 The Ambitious Leader: "steals information on entire systems and product lines, sometimes to take to a foreign country, such as China."
 
All of the government's ongoing research and exploration into "computer forensics" will culminate in new standards of defense against internal attacks later this year. The Insider Threat Task Force is expected to be unveiled in October.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-number-of-ways-the-pentagon-is-working-on-to-predict-your-behavior-is-frightening-2012-5#ixzz1uJeGdJ29

[333386]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-government-is-the-looter/2012/05/18/gIQAUIKVZU_story.html



Disgusting.   

[333386]

Dad saves boy before car plunges down cliff -- and gets pair of traffic tickets
 

By Greg Wilson
 
Published May 21, 2012
 
FoxNews.com
 







Frank Roders' Jeep took a bath, but he saved his son.
 


A New Jersey dad got the scare of his life when his 5-year-old son almost ran off a steep embankment, and though the man saved the boy from falling, he couldn't stop his Jeep from going over the precipice and into a river below.
 
The reward for his ordeal? Two traffic tickets from local police.
 
Frank Roder, a construction worker from the town of Winfield Park, had taken his son, Aidan, down to the Rahway River to feed ducks Thursday. But when he stopped briefly before settling on a parking space, the impatient boy jumped out and took off -- straight toward a ledge 35 feet above the river, Roder recalled.
 
"He hopped out, and I thought that was OK, I was just going to park," Roder, 38, said, but "he just took off, made a beeline for the edge."
 



"Um, Daddy ..."
 
- Aidan, as he watched his dad's Jeep roll off an embankment.
 

The panic-stricken father jumped out of the cab of his 2006 Jeep Commander and raced after the errant boy, catching him just feet from the edge.
 
That's when Aidan, eyes as big as saucers, looked behind Roder and said, "Um, Daddy ..."
 
Roder turned in time to see the Jeep nosedive down the embankment and land in the muddy water.
 
Roder hugged the boy and waited as Union County police converged on the scene over the next few hours. A crane pulled the Jeep out, and amazingly, it started right up, though Roder is pretty sure his insurance company will count it as totaled.
 
He was counting his blessings when a young cop approached him and handed him two tickets. One was for failure to produce the insurance card, which was somewhere in the waterlogged cab. The other was for failing to use his emergency brake.
 
"I couldn't believe it," Roder said. "He said, 'If you would have taken the five seconds to apply the brake, this never would have happened!'
 
"I say, 'Really? And if I did and my boy stepped over the edge and fell instead of the Jeep, then were would I be?' He says, 'Jail, for child endangerment.'"
 
Too awful to contemplate is the fact the Roder almost took his six-week-old son Joel along for the ride.
 
"At the last minute, I told my wife to take him," Roder said. "I can't even think about that."
 
Union County Police Chief Daniel Vaniska told FoxNews.com that his officers have some discretion about when and when not to write a ticket. But he said he just didn't have enough information to second-guess what this officer did.
 
"It probably could have gone either way," Vaniska said. "I can't comment on the discretionary practices of an officer, but certainly, the fellow will have an opportunity to tell his story in court."
 
Municipal Court is where Roder might get some sympathy -- and maybe forbearance on those tickets, which are for $50 and $60. His date is May 30.
 
"I don't care, I'll pay it," Roder said. "It's just the principle. When something like that happens so fast, I could give a rat's a-- about the car."


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/05/21/saves-his-kid-loses-his-car-and-gets-ticket/?test=latestnews#ixzz1vcNl4tFO




wtf!!!!!

[poldaktalos]

"He said, 'If you would have taken the five seconds to apply the brake, this never would have happened!'
 
"I say, 'Really? And if I did and my boy stepped over the edge and fell instead of the Jeep, then were would I be?' He says, 'Jail, for child endangerment.'"

Crazy.

[333386]

HIGHWAY ROBBERY: Civil Forfeiture Allows Police To Extort Thousands From Innocent Americans
Alex Biles|32 minutes ago|399|5
 
George Reby was driving along Route 40 in Putnam County, Tennessee when he was pulled over by a Monterey police officer for speeding.
 
"Do you mind if I search your vehicle," the officer asked.
 
Knowing that he had not been speeding, let alone carrying anything illegal, Reby let the officer search away.
 
It just so happened that Reby, a New Jersey native, was carrying $22,000 in his car at the time, not uncommon for a professional insurance adjuster like himself.
 
Larry Bates, the police officer, seized the cash on suspicion that it was drug money and fled.
 
An investigative report by NewsChannel 5, a Nashville CBS affiliate, broke the story — one of the latest of these law enforcement abuses deemed "policing for profit."
 
When asked why he never arrested Reby, Bates responded that, "he hadn't committed a criminal law."
 
The state of Tennessee returned Reby's money four months later, a result of the NewsChannel 5 investigation — forcing Reby to travel all the way from his New Jersey home back to Monterey. The only condition: Reby would have to sign a statement waiving his constitutional rights, promising not to sue.
 
And Reby was fortunate. In other cases in Tennessee, victims have had to wait until the police officers drop their case, usually extorting a cut of the seized cash. Some state lawmakers have attempted to investigate "policing for profit," says NewsChannel 5, but every attempt to introduce a bill has been shot down to this point.
 
How can the police get away with this, you ask?
 
Civil asset forfeiture laws allow police departments to seize your property on the suspicion that it was used for a crime. This can include your car, your guns or your money. The way that the law is written in many places it can seem as if you are guilty until proven innocent. In these cases, the US Government sues the item of property based on probably, not the person. And the onus is on the owner to show that there was no good reason for it.
 
The Volunteer State isn't alone. In The Huffington Post, Radley Balko writes of similar police corruption in Wisconsin:
 
When the Brown County, Wis., Drug Task Force arrested her son Joel last February, Beverly Greer started piecing together his bail.
 
She used part of her disability payment and her tax return. Joel Greer's wife also chipped in, as did his brother and two sisters. On Feb. 29, a judge set Greer's bail at $7,500, and his mother called the Brown County jail to see where and how she could get him out. "The police specifically told us to bring cash," Greer says. "Not a cashier's check or a credit card. They said cash."
 
...The Greers had been subjected to civil asset forfeiture, a policy that lets police confiscate money and property even if they can only loosely connect them to drug activity. The cash, or revenue from the property seized, often goes back to the coffers of the police department that confiscated it.
 
The practice of seizing property from citizens has grown into an epidemic in recent years. In 1986, the Department of Justice's civil forfeiture fund was $94 million. As of 2010, it exceeded $1 billion.
 

Please follow Politics on Twitter and Facebook.
 Follow Alex Biles on Twitter.

Tags: Police, Law Enforcement, Corruption | Get Alerts for these topics »


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/highway-robbery-civil-forfeiture-allows-police-to-extort-thousands-from-innocent-americans-2012-5#ixzz1vcSejHJd

[avxo]

Dad saves boy before car plunges down cliff -- and gets pair of traffic tickets

Hey, at least he wasn't threatened with having a cock jammed into his mouth from a cop who was "doing God's work" [http://reason.com/blog/2012/05/21/cop-doing-gods-work-threatens-to-face-ra]

[poldaktalos]

"Do you mind if I search your vehicle," the officer asked.

The standard reply to this question should be "I do not consent to any search."

I remember a similar case with civil forfeiture in Tenaha,TX.

[tu_holmes]

The standard reply to this question should be "I do not consent to any search."

I remember a similar case with civil forfeiture in Tenaha,TX.

I always say No... I have all the time in the world if they do.

[avxo]

The standard reply to this question should be "I do not consent to any search."

Good advice. Never consent to a search, since there's nothing that you can gain from it.

I always say No... I have all the time in the world if they do.

To each their own, I guess.

[333386]

Good advice. Never consent to a search, since there's nothing that you can gain from it.


To each their own, I guess.

Not true - didnt himdenPedo say he enjoyed getting beaten or something like that? 

[tu_holmes]

Good advice. Never consent to a search, since there's nothing that you can gain from it.


To each their own, I guess.

I don't understand your response to my negative on allowing them to search.

[avxo]

I don't understand your response to my negative on allowing them to search.

I interpreted your answer (when coupled with the "I have all the time in the world if they do.") to mean that you don't mind:

Office: "Do you mind if I search your vehicle?"
tu_homes: "No."

[tu_holmes]

I interpreted your answer (when coupled with the "I have all the time in the world if they do.") to mean that you don't mind:

Office: "Do you mind if I search your vehicle?"
tu_homes: "No."

Ah... sorry... I meant if they ask, I say "No... You can't search."

They will say they will bring a Dog out and I will say, go ahead... I have all the time to wait like you do.

[333386]

Sanford judge rules in favor of motorist who flashed his headlights
By Rene Stutzman, Orlando Sentinel

6:33 p.m. EST, May 22, 2012


A judge in Sanford ruled Tuesday that a Lake Mary man was lawfully exercising his First Amendment rights when he flashed his headlights to warn neighbors that a deputy had set up a speed trap nearby.

That decision is another victory for Ryan Kintner, 25, who sued theSeminole County Sheriff's Office last year, accusing it of misconstruing a state law and violating his civil rights, principally his right to free speech.

He was ticketed Aug. 10 by a Seminole County deputy, but Kintner alleges the officer misapplied a state law designed to ban motorists from flashing after-market emergency lights.

Circuit Judge Alan Dickey earlier ruled that that state law does not apply to people who did what Kintner did, use his headlights to communicate.

On Tuesday the judge went a step further, saying people who flash their headlights to communicate are engaging in behavior protected by the U.S. Constitution.

"He felt the police specificially went out of their way to silence Mr. Kintner and that it was clearly a violation of his First Amendment free speech rights," said his attorney, J. Marcus Jones of Oviedo.

Jones has filed a similar but much broader suit in Tallahassee against the Florida Highway Patrol.

A hearing in that case is scheduled next month.

"This stuff is fun," Jones said after Tuesday's hearing.

Each suit asked that police agencies be ordered to halt writing those tickets. The highway patrol stopped voluntarily, awaiting the outcome of the suit. So have theSeminole County Sheriff's Officeand other agencies.

In addition to Kintner's civil suit against the sheriff's office, he also is fighting the ticket. It is still pending in county court in Sanford.

The officer also ticketed him for running a stop sign, saying Kintner had pulled beyond a stop bar before coming to a complete halt.

In an interview in August, shortly after filing suit, Kintner said, "I felt an injustice was being done. … I have nothing against officers … keeping speeding down, but when you cross a line and get into free speech, I feel it's gone too far."

According to his suit, Kintner was home Aug. 10 when he saw a deputy park along a street and pull out his radar gun. Kintner then got in his car, drove a couple of blocks away, parked and pointed his vehicle at oncoming traffic and began flashing his lights.

He was ticketed a short time later.

rstutzman@tribune.com or 407-650-6394.

[Skip8282]

Sanford judge rules in favor of motorist who flashed his headlights
By Rene Stutzman, Orlando Sentinel

6:33 p.m. EST, May 22, 2012


A judge in Sanford ruled Tuesday that a Lake Mary man was lawfully exercising his First Amendment rights when he flashed his headlights to warn neighbors that a deputy had set up a speed trap nearby.

That decision is another victory for Ryan Kintner, 25, who sued theSeminole County Sheriff's Office last year, accusing it of misconstruing a state law and violating his civil rights, principally his right to free speech.

He was ticketed Aug. 10 by a Seminole County deputy, but Kintner alleges the officer misapplied a state law designed to ban motorists from flashing after-market emergency lights.

Circuit Judge Alan Dickey earlier ruled that that state law does not apply to people who did what Kintner did, use his headlights to communicate.

On Tuesday the judge went a step further, saying people who flash their headlights to communicate are engaging in behavior protected by the U.S. Constitution.

"He felt the police specificially went out of their way to silence Mr. Kintner and that it was clearly a violation of his First Amendment free speech rights," said his attorney, J. Marcus Jones of Oviedo.

Jones has filed a similar but much broader suit in Tallahassee against the Florida Highway Patrol.

A hearing in that case is scheduled next month.

"This stuff is fun," Jones said after Tuesday's hearing.

Each suit asked that police agencies be ordered to halt writing those tickets. The highway patrol stopped voluntarily, awaiting the outcome of the suit. So have theSeminole County Sheriff's Officeand other agencies.

In addition to Kintner's civil suit against the sheriff's office, he also is fighting the ticket. It is still pending in county court in Sanford.

The officer also ticketed him for running a stop sign, saying Kintner had pulled beyond a stop bar before coming to a complete halt.

In an interview in August, shortly after filing suit, Kintner said, "I felt an injustice was being done. … I have nothing against officers … keeping speeding down, but when you cross a line and get into free speech, I feel it's gone too far."

According to his suit, Kintner was home Aug. 10 when he saw a deputy park along a street and pull out his radar gun. Kintner then got in his car, drove a couple of blocks away, parked and pointed his vehicle at oncoming traffic and began flashing his lights.

He was ticketed a short time later.

rstutzman@tribune.com or 407-650-6394.

Nice...and what a great citizen to help people out like that.

[333386]

MILLER: SWAT rampage destroys Iraq vet's home over guns


By Emily Miller
May 28, 2012, 07:55PM




While Army Sgt. Matthew Corrigan was sound asleep inside his Northwest D.C. home, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) was preparing to launch a full-scale invasion of his home. SWAT and explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) teams spent four hours readying the assault on the English basement apartment in the middle of the snowstorm of the century.



(This is part two of a four part series on Sgt. Corrigan's case. Click here to read the first story.)

The police arrested the veteran of the Iraq war and searched his house without a warrant, not to protect the public from a terrorist or stop a crime in progress, but to rouse a sleeping man the police thought might have an unregistered gun in his home.

It all started a few hours earlier on Feb. 2, 2010, when Sgt. Corrigan called the National Veterans Crisis Hotline for advice on sleeping because of nightmares from his year training Iraqi soldiers to look for IEDs in Fallujah. Without his permission, the operator, Beth, called 911 and reported Sgt. Corrigan “has a gun and wants to kill himself.”

According to a transcript of the 911 recording, Beth told the cops that, “The gun’s actually on his lap.” The drill sergeant told me he said nothing of the kind, and his two pistols and rifle were hidden under clothes and in closets, to avoid theft.

So around midnight, the police arrived at the row house at 2408 N. Capitol Street. Over the next two hours, several emergency response team units were called to the scene, calling in many cops from home.



Police memos from that night describe the situation as involving a man who is, “threatening to shoot himself,” but “doesn’t want to hurt anybody.”

None of the cops’ documents indicate a threat that warranted a “barricade” and the closure of several streets to create “an outer perimeter that prohibited both traffic and pedestrian access.” With dozens of cops on the scene, they created a “staging area” two blocks away.

‘Rambo’

Around 1 a.m., the police knocked on the door of Tammie Sommons, the upstairs neighbor in the row house.  Ms. Sommons had lived there since 2008 with her three roommates and, in that time, had become a close friend of Sgt. Corrigan. She had a key to his apartment and often walked his dog Matrix.

“I opened the door to this scene with three cops with guns pointed at Matt’s door,” she recalled in an interview this week. “One officer told me that Matt called a suicide hotline and was about to kill himself. I said that was impossible, he wasn’t that kind of guy. I told the police I see him every day and would know if he was suicidal.”



Over the next hour, Ms. Sommons repeatedly told the police she was sure that Sgt. Corrigan was merely sleeping. She knew he took prescription sleeping pills because of repeated nightmares from his year in Iraq. The cops wouldn’t listen to her. 

“I said to the police, ‘You guys are making a big mistake. He’s not what you think,’” recalled Ms. Sommons. She offered to go downstairs and clear up the situation, but the police would not let her.

The officers asked her whether Sgt. Corrigan owned any guns. “I said, of course he has guns, he’s in the military,” she replied. Ms. Sommons had never seen the sergeant’s guns, but she is from a military family, in which gun ownership was the norm. She was truthful with the police because she was not aware the District requires registration of every gun.

This month, the U.S. House passed a nonbinding amendment, sponsored by Rep. Phil Gingrey, that said active military living in or stationed in D.C. should not be bound by the stringent firearm laws. Were such a law in place two years ago, Sgt. Corrigan would not have been targeted by the police.



MPD told Ms. Sommons that someone had reported that there was the smell of gas coming from Sgt. Corrigan’s apartment. “I told them that there was no gas in his apartment --  it was all electric,” she recalled. “I said if they smelled something, it’s just my roommate who was cooking chicken parmesan.”

Still, the police refused to accept the simpler explanation. “The cops said we needed to leave our house because Matt was going to shoot through the ceiling,” Ms. Sommons said. “They painted this picture like Rambo was downstairs and ready to blow up the place.”

At 3 a.m., the police called in an EOD unit -- the bomb squad.  They brought in negotiators. They had the gas company turn off the gas line to the house.  A few minutes before 4 a.m., they started calling Sgt. Corrigan’s cell phone, but they got no answer because he turned it off before going to bed. They woke him up by calling his name on a bullhorn. He then turned on the phone and was told to surrender outside.

Arrested Without Cause

When the police wouldn’t accept Sgt. Corrigan’s word that he was fine, he was forced to leave his home and surrender. When he stepped outside, he faced assault teams with rifles pointed at his chest. He immediately dropped to his knees, with his hands over his head.

Officers in full protective gear zip-tied Sgt. Corrigan's hands behind his back and pulled him up from his knees, forcing him into a large tactical command center called the “BEAR” which was parked at the staging area.



Although police did not read Sgt. Corrigan his Miranda rights, they questioned him inside the tactical truck.  They asked the Iraq veteran basic questions about his life from various angles to get him to admit to owning guns. He remained silent about his two handguns and one rifle, which he had not registered after moving into the city.

Suddenly a police commander jumped in the truck and demanded to know where Sgt. Corrigan put his house key. He refused.

“I’m not giving you the key. I’m not giving consent to enter my house,” Sgt. Corrigan recalled saying in an interview with me last week at D.C. Superior Court after the city dropped all 10 charges against him.

“Then the cop said to me, ‘I don’t have time to play this constitutional bullshit with you. We’re going to break your door in, and you’re going to have to pay for a new door.’”

“‘Looks like I’m buying a new door,’” Sgt. Corrigan responded. “He was riffed”

Realizing quickly that his house would get raided without his permission, he asked for one thing from the police. “I said, ‘Please don’t hurt my dog. He’s friendly. He’s a good dog. Please don’t hurt him.’ They said they wouldn’t.”

The police then took Sgt. Corrigan to the VA hospital, still with his hands restrained. He didn’t want to be put in the hospital against his will, so he was okay with being left there temporarily. He signed himself in for help.

“After having all those guns at me, I was broken,” he said, pointing again at his chest, where he’d seen the rifle red laser dots. “I hadn’t slept in days, I just wanted to sleep.”

The reservist spent three nights in the hospital. When he got out, the police were waiting to arrest him for the unregistered guns found when they raided his home, without a warrant.

Search, Seizure, but no Warrant

Since Since Sgt. Corrigan refused to permit a search of his house, the police had to break down his door. The cops, however, didn’t bother to wait for a search warrant before doing so. “They were all keyed up because they had been there and ready to go all night,” surmised Sgt. Corrgian’s attorney Richard Gardiner.

The first to enter the apartment with the supposedly dangerous apartment was the Emergency Response Team, which secured the dog Matrix and gave him over to animal control, according to police reports. Only then did the EOD personnel enter to search using portable x-ray equipment.

During the “explosive threat clearing efforts,” police reported finding the sergeant’s “hazardous materials,” which included two pistols and a rifle, binoculars and ammunition. The report also details how it took the combined efforts of the police, EOD and the D.C. Fire Department to seize the  “military ammunition can that contained numerous fireworks type devices.” These were fireworks left over from the Fourth of July.

Also taken into evidence was what the police described as a “military smoke grenade” and  “military whistler device.” This smoke-screen canister and trip wire were put in Sgt. Corrigan’s rucksack in 1996 by his squad leader and had long been forgotten over the years.  EOD took custody of the smoke grenade and whistle. The rest of the the materials were handed over to the crime scene search department at 7:30 a.m.



Police Lt. R.T. Glover was pleased with the seven hour operation that resulted in finding three unregistered guns in D.C. In his report to Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier, he concluded that, “as a result of this barricade incident, there are no recommendations for improvement with respect to overall tactical operations.”

Police Destruction

The dry after-action notes from the police following the operation give no clue to the property damage done to Sgt. Corrigan’s home. They tore apart the 900 square foot place.

Instead of unzipping luggage, the police used knives to cut through and destroy the bags. They dumped over the bookshelves, emptied closets, threw the clothes on the floor.

In the process, they knocked over the feeding mechanism for the tropical fish in the sergeant’s six-foot long aquarium. When he was finally released from jail two weeks later, all of his expensive pet fish were dead in the tank.



The guns were seized, along with the locked cases, leaving only broken latches behind. The ammunition, hidden under a sleeping bag in the utility closet, was taken. They broke Sgt. Corrigan’s eyeglasses and left them on the floor. The police turned on the electric stove and never turned it off and left without securing the broken door.

When Ms. Sommons came back to her home the next day, she looked into Sgt. Corrigan’s apartment. “I was really upset because it was ransacked. It made me lose respect for the police officers involved,” she said, the stepdaughter of a correctional officer.

“Here was Matt, who spent a year fighting for our country in Iraq -- where these police would never set foot in -- and they treat him like trash off the street.”



In February, Sgt. Corrigan filed a civil suit against the District asking for a minimum of $500,000 in damages for violating his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable  searches and seizures. His attorney, Mr. Gardiner, intends to add some of the individual officers to the suit when they are identified in discovery.

NEXT IN THE SERIES: Iraq vet is lost in DC jail

"Emily Gets Her Gun" is a series following senior editor Emily Miller as she tries to legally get her hands on a gun in the nation's capital. You can also follow her on Twitter and Facebook.









Disgusting. 

[333386]

Man Loses $22,000 In New 'Policing For Profit' Case


 Posted: May 09, 2012 9:52 AM EDT

Affidavit from $22,000 seizure in Monterey

By Phil Williams
Chief Investigative Reporter



 
MONTEREY, Tenn. -- "If somebody told me this happened to them, I absolutely would not believe this could happen in America."
 
That was the reaction of a New Jersey man who found out just how risky it can be to carry cash through Tennessee.
 
For more than a year, NewsChannel 5 Investigates has been shining a light on a practice that some call "policing for profit."
See previous stories:
"NC5 Investigates: Policing For Profit"
 
In this latest case, a Monterey police officer took $22,000 off the driver -- even though he had committed no crime.
 
"You live in the United States, you think you have rights -- and apparently you don't," said George Reby.
 
As a professional insurance adjuster, Reby spends a lot of time traveling from state to state. But it was on a trip to a conference in Nashville last January that he got a real education in Tennessee justice.
 
"I never had any clue that they thought they could take my money legally," Reby added. "I didn't do anything wrong."
 
Reby was driving down Interstate 40, heading west through Putnam County, when he was stopped for speeding.

A Monterey police officer wanted to know if he was carrying any large amounts of cash.
 
"I said, 'Around $20,000,'" he recalled. "Then, at the point, he said, 'Do you mind if I search your vehicle?' I said, 'No, I don't mind.' I certainly didn't feel I was doing anything wrong. It was my money."
 
That's when Officer Larry Bates confiscated the cash based on his suspicion that it was drug money.
 
"Why didn't you arrest him?" we asked Bates.
 
"Because he hadn't committed a criminal law," the officer answered.
 
Bates said the amount of money and the way it was packed gave him reason to be suspicious.
 
"The safest place to put your money if it's legitimate is in a bank account," he explained. "He stated he had two. I would put it in a bank account. It draws interest and it's safer."
 
"But it's not illegal to carry cash," we noted.
 
"No, it's not illegal to carry cash," Bates said. "Again, it's what the cash is being used for to facilitate or what it is being utilized for."
 
NewsChannel 5 Investigates noted, "But you had no proof that money was being used for drug trafficking, correct? No proof?"
 
"And he couldn't prove it was legitimate," Bates insisted.
 
Bates is part of a system that, NewsChannel 5 Investigates has discovered, gives Tennessee police agencies the incentive to take cash off of out-of-state drivers. If they don't come back to fight for their money, the agency gets to keep it all.
 
"This is a taking without due process," said Union City attorney John Miles.
 
A former Texas prosecutor and chairman of the Obion County Tea Party, Miles has seen similar cases in his area.
 
He said that, while police are required to get a judge to sign off on a seizure within five days, state law says that hearing "shall be ex parte" -- meaning only the officer's side can be heard.
 
That's why George Reby was never told that there was a hearing on his case.
 
"It wouldn't have mattered because the judge would have said, 'This says it shall be ex parte. Sit down and shut up. I'm not to hear from you -- by statute," Miles added.
 
George Reby said that he told Monterey officers that "I had active bids on EBay, that I was trying to buy a vehicle. They just didn't want to hear it."
 
In fact, Reby had proof on his computer.
 
But the Monterey officer drew up a damning affidavit, citing his own training that "common people do not carry this much U.S. currency."
Read Officer Bates' affidavit
 
"On the street, a thousand-dollar bundle could approximately buy two ounces of cocaine," Bates told NewsChannel 5 Investigates.
 
"Or the money could have been used to buy a car," we observed.
 
"It's possible," he admitted.
 
NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Bates if Reby had told him that he was trying to buy a car?
 
"He did," the officer acknowledged.
 
"But you did not include that in your report," we noted.
 
"If it's not in there, I didn't put it in there."
 
So why did he leave that out?
 
"I don't know," the officer said.
 
Bates also told the judge the money was hidden inside "a tool bag underneath trash to [deter] law enforcement from locating it."
 
"That's inaccurate," Reby said. "I pulled out the bag and gave it to him."
 
And even though there was no proof that Reby was involved in anything illegal, Bates' affidavit portrays him as a man with a criminal history that included an arrest for possession of cocaine.
 
That was 20-some years ago," the New Jersey man insisted.
 
"Were you convicted?" we wanted to know.
 
"No, I wasn't convicted," he answered.
 
But Officer Bates says that arrest -- which he acknowledged was old -- was still part of the calculation to take Reby's money.
 
"Am I going to use it? Yes, I'm going to use it because he's been charged with it in the past -- regardless of whether it's 10 or 15 years ago," he said.
 
Attorney John Miles said he's frustrated with attitudes toward Tennessee's civil forfeiture laws, which make such practices legal.
 
"We are entitled not to be deprived of our property without due process of law, both under the Tennessee Constitution and the federal Constitution -- and nobody cares," Miles said.
 
"Nobody cares."
 
This year, state lawmakers debated a bill to create a special committee to investigate these "policing for profit" issues. That bill died in the last days of the legislative session.
 
After Reby filed an appeal, and after NewsChannel 5 began investigating, the state agreed to return his money -- if he'd sign a statement waiving his constitutional rights and promising not to sue.
 
They also made him come all the way from New Jersey, back to Monterey to pick up a check.
 
He got the check, but no apology.
 
"If they lied about everything in the report, why would they apologize?" Reby said.
 
And, with that, he was ready to put Tennessee in his rearview mirror.
 
"I really don't want to come back here," he said.
 
As for the appeals process, Reby was able to provide us and the state with letters from his employers, showing that he had a legitimate source of income.
 
It took him four months to get his money back, but it usually takes a lot longer for most people.
 
And that, Miles said, works to the benefit of the police.
 
He had two clients where police agreed to drop the cases in exchange for a cut of the money -- $1,000 in one case, $2,000 in another. In both cases, that was less than what they might have paid in attorney fees.
 
Miles called that "extortion."
 
E-mail: pwilliams@newschannel5.com

[Agnostic007]

"He had two clients where police agreed to drop the cases in exchange for a cut of the money -- $1,000 in one case, $2,000 in another. In both cases, that was less than what they might have paid in attorney fees.
 
Miles called that "extortion."


Sounds like it to me

[333386]

http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/cops-gun-down-man-for-legally-carrying-firearm



Disgusting beyond words.   And people wonder I loathe most cops.     .

[Agnostic007]

http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/cops-gun-down-man-for-legally-carrying-firearm



Disgusting beyond words.   And people wonder I loathe most cops.     .

No, we just figure because you are insane