Around 10pm on January 29, Vidya Kaipa was on a train car heading toward Millbrae BART station, when a “large drunk, black man” got on around Glen Park, sat down next to her and started to talk to her. Although she felt a little uncomfortable, Kaipa said she “didn’t at all feel threatened by him.”

“He was a pretty nice guy, and was making harmless conversation,” she told me.

Twenty minutes later, a police officer got onto the car at the San Bruno station. He approached the black man, whose name Kaipa believed to be Robert, and politely asked him to get off the train so he could ask him a few questions.

“Someone must have tipped him off since he was waiting at the station,” Kaipa said. She thinks someone might have called the cop because they believed she—a small Indian woman—was being harassed by the man.

The police officer repeatedly asked the man to get off the train. "Get off the train, sir. Sir, get off the train," he kept repeating. Robert refused to obey the cop’s orders, instead asking why he was being taken off the train.

Kaipa chimed in, saying, "It’s fine. He’s not bothering me. It’s okay.”

“It went from being about me to being about the police officer,” Kaipa adds.

The cop repeated that he just wanted to ask Robert a few questions, and that Robert would be free to get onto the next train. Despite the police officer’s politeness, Robert refused to get off of the train. He kept demanding to know why.

By this point, the train had been stopped for five minutes. Then the officer pulled Robert up from his seat and he stood up.

That’s when the video starts. The police officer asks Robert to get off the train at least 15 more times. After a brief back and forth, the police officer tases him. Robert collapses onto the floor, howling and crying. The cop drags his limp body out of the way.

Kapia repeatedly says, “He wasn’t doing anything.” Other passengers on the train also pointed out the same thing. (You can read Vidya Kaipa’s full account here.)

Robert echoes many times,” I didn’t do nothing, you tased me for no reason.”

Other policemen file into the car. While Robert is on the floor, restrained and posing no real threat, he is again tased. Police officers later carry Robert out of the BART car.

Police officer abuses his authority and threatens Latino family with arrest and pepper spray while he invades private property.

I will never act officiously or permit personal feelings, prejudices, animosities,
or friendships to influence my decisions. With no compromise for crime and
with relentless prosecution of criminals, I will enforce the law courteously and
appropriately without fear or favor, malice or ill will, never employing unnecessary
force or violence and never accepting gratuities.

Authorized personnel may use the TASER when circumstances known to the individual officer at the time indicate that the application of the TASER is reasonable to subdue or control:Although not absolutely prohibited officers should avoid, absent extenuating circumstances, applying the TASER to any of the following individuals:

418.3 OFFICER CONSIDERATIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Any officer responding to or handling a call involving a suspected mentally disabled
individual or an involuntary mental illness commitment should consider utilizing the
following as time and circumstances reasonably permit:
(a) Any available information that might assist in determining the cause and nature of the
mental illness or developmental disability.
(b) Conflict resolution and de-escalation techniques.
(c) Language that is appropriate for interacting with a mentally disabled person.
(d) If circumstances permit, alternatives to deadly force.
(e) Any available community resources that can assist in dealing with a mentally disabled
individual.
Mental Illness Commitments - 334
Adopted: 2013/10/25 © 1995-2013 Lexipol, LLC

386.2 POLICY
Initiating law enforcement action while off-duty is generally discouraged. Officers should not
attempt to initiate enforcement action when witnessing minor crimes, such as suspected
intoxicated drivers, reckless driving or minor property crimes. Such incidents should be
promptly reported to the appropriate law enforcement agency.
Officers are not expected to place themselves in unreasonable peril. However, any sworn
member of this department who becomes aware of an incident or circumstance that he/she
reasonably believes poses an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death, or significant
property damage may take reasonable action to minimize the threat.
When public safety or the prevention of major property damage requires immediate action,
officers should first consider reporting and monitoring the activity and only take direct action
as a last resort.

Ex-NYPD cop and convicted rapist Michael Pena is calling his 75-year prison sentence for the rape of Lydia Cuomo “politically motivated” and an “injustice.”

Pena pleaded guilty in June 2012 to raping school teacher Lydia Cuomo. Cuomo was on the way to her first day of work at her new job when Pena, on his way home from a drunken night out, forced her into an apartment courtyard and raped her.

OMAHA — A family has filed a lawsuit after their home was violently invaded and they were beaten and abused by a swarm of police officers.

It began when Octavius Johnson noticed a group of officers outside of his home.

They were standing near his car and calling a tow truck over to have it impounded. They were doing this because Octavius’s car did not have new registration tags on the licence plate.

Octavius peacefully went outside and tried to dialog with the officers.

...

Then the officer threatened to murder Octavius.

“He went around my neck, threw me to the ground, choked me out to the point where I couldn’t breathe or speak and kept punching me in the face. Then he said ‘Do you want to die today?’”

Fortunately, Octavius’s brother came to the sidewalk and began filming the incident. He can be heard yelling “Why are you hitting him?!”

But officers ended up destroying the brother’s camera and memory card, the complaint states.

The bicycle had flipped forward and lay unattended in the street. The girl’s foot was bare and mangled, her chin bleeding. There was blood on her jacket, a puddle of it on the ground. Her name was Rebecca. “Where am I?” she kept asking. She was lucky to have been wearing a helmet. Josh, who had been giving her a ride on his handlebars, was wincing and bracing his shoulder.



Neither of them had working cell phones. When they asked me to, I immediately dialed 911. According to the record, it was 12:49am.

...

The firemen were examining Rebecca and Josh. Ben was still supporting Rebecca’s back when Sgt. Espinoza and Officer Gabriel grabbed him from behind without warning, putting him in an arm lock and jerked him backwards over the pavement. They told him sternly that he had to leave now that trained medical professionals had arrived, implying that he was interfering and justifying their violent actions. The officers dragged him across the sidewalk, propping him against the building. Rebecca was still holding Ben’s cellphone when she lost his support. “Where are they taking him?” she asked perplexedly.

It all happened within 5 minutes of the police’s arrival. The sirens and emergency vehicles, the sudden arrival of over half a dozen uniformed personnel, two of whom had grabbed my friend, transformed an intimate street scene into something chaotic. Officer Kaur shouted at me to cross the street. It was very sudden and I was, admittedly, in shock. I stammered that I intended to head home, but that my friend was over there. I pointed at Ben against the wall, and said I’d like to take him home with me.

Arrested

Without warning, I was shoved from behind by Officer Gerrans and then collectively tackled by Officers Gerrans, Kaur and Andreotti. As they took me to the ground, one of the officers kneed me in the right temple. On the pavement, I begged them to watch out for my recently broken right elbow. Knees on my back and neck pinned me to the ground. I was cuffed and left face down.

I was not told that I was under arrest, what the charges were, nor read my rights. I rolled over onto my back so that I could see the arresting officers and ask them their intentions.

...

We had a cordial conversation. They noticed I was shivering and propped me on the door of Radius restaurant. Then they asked me what I do for a living. I said that I write software that helps restaurants source food and indicated that the restaurant behind me uses our product.

What they said brought to light a fundamental rift between the residents of San Francisco and the police:

“Ah, you’re one of those billionaire wannabees in this neighborhood.”

...

As I sat cuffed and propped against the wall, another officer came over and reprimanded me for obstructing police work. If this were indeed the case, I said, I would agree. But I hadn’t interfered with the medical response, nor could I have. I was 15 feet away from Rebecca and Josh when I was tackled. I had good intentions, I said. I had called 911 and was following the operator’s instructions to remain on the scene until the ambulance arrived. That was all.

...

Standing in the cell for four hours, I knew that the sensible course of action would have been to keep my mouth shut and keep to myself. Once within the system, resistance is futile. I couldn’t help but recall a wise criminal lawyer’s (and friend’s) remarks: “Extricate yourself from the system, don’t try to vindicate yourself within it.”

But with my temple throbbing, I still insisted on seeing a doctor. When Deputy Terry walked away muttering, “I have had enough of you,” I banged on the door repeatedly and screamed, “I want to see a doctor. I WANT TO SEE A DOCTOR.”

My actions seemed to strike a nerve, and when Deputy Terry returned, he was accompanied by cadre of friends. It was ominous.

“So you want to see a doctor?” They may well have said in chorus.

They ordered me to approach the cell door with my back, and when it opened, to step out with hands extended behind me. Suddenly, I was back in handcuffs and being led down a hallway, away from the lab coats, to the right, and down another hallway.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You worried or something? You wanted to see a doctor, so you’ll see a doctor alright.”

A heavy steel door was opened in front of me. The room was padded, sparse even by the Spartan standards of my previous cell.

...

I was led into a corner.

“First we have to get you ready,” one of the deputies said. His arm undid the button of my pants, which at first I thought was a cruel joke, and then he yanked them down to my ankles.

They pushed me forward against the wall. I stumbled in my handcuffs and pant shackles.

“Step out of your pants,” they ordered. And as soon as I did: “Step out of your socks!”

Naked from the waist down, someone said, “Take off your shirt.” It was topologically impossible, given the cuffs. One of the deputies said, “I’ll do it.” I was uncuffed, my shirt was stripped with force, getting caught on my neck, tugging my head backwards, then up, then off.

The night shift deputies were cruel. They responded to questions in the tone of schoolyard bullies—tauntingly. They giggled as they slammed the door behind me. “You’ll see the doctor alright.”

On the floor lay a straight jacket made from the material used to pad furniture when it is being moved, and a second piece of the same fabric that I later used to cover the dirty floor in an attempt to sleep.

There were no ***** or protrusions in the room, just soft corners. The toilet was a hole in the ground, no toilet paper. The hole dropped down a few feet where it was intersected by a grate of prison bars. The flushing happened automatically, periodically, though I never felt the urge. Even one’s feces left prison upon evacuation, presumably to leave the subject without anything to play with.

I say this, because while the room was dirty, it was not as dirty as the next two cells I experienced the following day, which were smeared with feces and peanut butter. Approximately every 6 hours, a pushcart made its way around the prison with regulation peanut butter sandwiches. Only a fraction were consumed. Many were used for wall decoration or splattered against the ceiling.

...

While the metal door was too thick for me to be heard if I did not scream, I could hear the muted screams of others across the jail. The din was anything but soothing.

When I asked for water, I was given enough (a couple Dixie cups’ worth) to barely keep my throat lubricated.

I was cold. The two pieces of fabric were not enough to spread on the filthy ground and also cover my naked body. I tried to sleep but it proved fruitless. Every 15 minutes, the metal peephole was creaked open, and I was expected to react, presumably to confirm that I was still alive. This was noted on a clipboard hanging beside the door.

Eventually, I found it most comfortable to stand by the cell door with the coarse fabric draped over my body. I looked out through a narrow slit of Plexiglas and tried to call attention from passers’ by. “Sir, Ma’am, could you please tell me… how long should I expect to be in here?”

A streak of being ignored was broken by a couple disheartening responses. “Usually we put people in there for 24 hours.”

Now I really felt like I was going crazy. Those weren’t the reassuring answers my inner optimist had hoped for. When I had told the arresting officers that I accepted my lot, this wasn’t the lot I was referring to. I didn’t expect a medal for fulfilling my civic duty, but I still felt like I had some fleeting right to something other than this. I banged on the metal door repeatedly until Deputy Terry showed up.

“Why am I in here?”

“You are crazy. You are a lunatic,” he pronounced.

“Do you know how I got here?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“This place—being in here—will make me crazy,” I pleaded.

“Good. That’s what you are and where you belong.” He spiraled his index finger by his muscular temple.

I tried to respond as he started walking way.

“Sir, might you consider for a moment that I am having a sane response to the conditions I’m being subjected? I was arrested by the very police I called to the scene of a medical emergency less than a block from my house, while heading home for the night.”

He stared at me bewildered, and never came near again.

...

“Once you are in the safety cell, we can’t release you without a psychiatric evaluation. Those gals tend to arrive around 8am, though this depends if they’re needed in other jails first. When they do arrive, they’ll come to see you, and if you give them the right answers, wink wink, we’ll let you go.”

Doctor = Psychiatric Evaluation

Eventually I did get to see “the doctor,” though it took longer than my messenger indicated and we didn’t discuss my ailments. Chase conducted her evaluation through the same peephole that was used to hand me Dixie cups of water. I stood naked as I recounted my story.

“You don’t belong here,” she told me outright.

...

After 12 hours in jail, more than 6 of them in solitary confinement, the process of checking out was unremarkable. I signed a few papers. Retrieved my backpack. Confirmed the contents — laptop, wallet, phone, books and keys.

“The charges will be dropped if you show up on Tuesday. If you don’t show up, there will be a warrant for your arrest,” I was casually informed.

“Deputy, should I have been here in the first place?”

“No”

It was almost too good to hear. “Then why did I end up here?”

“You have to consider the source.” This phrase I remember verbatim.

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, there are a lot of young cops on the street, trying to make a name for themselves.”

...

In the hope that it might help some other idealistic, nerdy people from following me down that rabbit hole, I conclude with several public service announcements:

A Kentucky state trooper told a trial board last month that he would like to have his job back after he was fired for having sex with a 15-year-old girl, calling the relationship a “moral mistake.”

In a transcript obtained by WDRB, former Kentucky State Trooper Jerry Clanton asserted to the Kentucky State Police Trial Board that he was under the false impression that the 15-year-old girl was 18 years old when he started having sex with her.

In the early morning hours of June 27, 2013, a team of Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies pulled up to the home of Eugene Mallory, an 80-year-old retired engineer living in the rural outskirts of Los Angeles county with his wife Tonya Pate and stepson Adrian Lamos.

The deputies crashed through the front gate and began executing a search warrant for methamphetamine on the property. Detective Patrick Hobbs, a self-described narcotics expert who claimed he "smelled the strong odor of chemicals" downwind from the house after being tipped off to illegal activity from an anonymous informant, spearheaded the investigation.

The deputies announced their presence, and Pate emerged from the trailer where she'd been sleeping to escape the sweltering summer heat of the California desert. Lamos and a couple of friends emerged from another trailer, and a handyman tinkering with a car on the property also gave himself up without resistance. But Mallory, who preferred to sleep in the house, was nowhere to be seen.

Deputies approached the house, and what happened next is where things get murky. The deputies said they announced their presence upon entering and were met in the hallway by the 80-year-old man, wielding a gun and stumbling towards them. The deputies later changed the story when the massive bloodstains on Mallory's mattress indicated to investigators that he'd most likely been in bed at the time of the shooting. Investigators also found that an audio recording of the incident revealed a discrepancy in the deputies' original narrative: Before listening to the audio recording, [Sgt. John] Bones believed that he told Mallory to "Drop the gun" prior to the shooting. The recording revealed, however, that his commands to "Drop the gun" occurred immediately after the shooting.

When it was all over, Eugene Mallory died of six gunshot wounds from Sgt. John Bones' MP-5 9mm submachine gun. When a coroner arrived, he found the loaded .22 caliber pistol the two deputies claimed Mallory had pointed at them on the bedside table.

Mallory had not fired of a single shot. The raid turned up no evidence of methamphetamine on the property.

To find out more about this case, including details about what the police did find, watch the above video, featuring Mallory's widow Tonya Pate. Pate has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, an agency plagued by prison abuse scandals, questionable hiring practices, and allegations of racial profiling and harassment in recent years.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department declined multiple requests to comment on this story.

DENVER — Deputies shackled Anthony Waller before he appeared in the courtroom in September of 2012. In a video posted online and obtained by the Colorado Independent,
Waller can be heard asking the judge a legitimate question before looking back.

“The investigation should come first and then the arrest?” says Waller.

That’s when Deputy Brad Lovingier loses control. The video shows Lovingier, who is the son of a former Denver county sheriff, grabbing Waller and smashing his head into the wall.

Lovingier then drags Waller into the holding cell and musters this explanation for his actions.
“You don’t turn on me!,” he says.

One person who was watching, Judge Doris Burd, promptly filed an internal affairs complaint with the Denver County Sheriff. But the Denver District Attorney’s office declined to prosecute the deputy.

HOLYOKE, Mass. (WWLP) – A Holyoke police sergeant has been suspended for the second time in a little more than two years for misplacing a department gun.

Chief James Neiswanger said that Sgt. John Hart was suspended ten days without pay for leaving his gun in a restroom at the Holyoke Mall in November. The weapon was recovered.

Hart was suspended for five days without pay in December 2011 for losing a department issued sniper rifle in September of that year. The rifle was recovered months later.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) -
The Minnesota Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision Wednesday, threw out a lawsuit against a Hennepin County deputy who crashed into a car and critically injured its driver while responding to a burglary call on Christmas Day in 2009.

Jolene Vassallo of Minneapolis filed a lawsuit against Deputy Sheriff Jason Majeski and Hennepin County, alleging negligence on behalf of the deputy in turning off his siren before entering the intersection.

...

Thinking he was close to the suspects, and not wanting to alert them of his presence, the deputy turned off his siren but kept his lights flashing as he entered the intersection of 93rd Avenue and West Broadway in Brooklyn Park.

As Deputy Majeski's squad entered the intersection, Vassallo's car came toward him. The deputy tried to avoid Vassallo's car, but could not.

Since the deputy's actions "did not involve a willful or malicious wrong, he was entitled to official immunity," Justice Alan Page wrote in the majority opinion.

Multnomah County and Portland police this week suspended a new program that supplied data-gathering ID scanners to Old Town bars after WW raised questions about whether it was legal.
The state-funded program allowed Portland police to equip downtown bars and clubs in recent weeks with high-tech ID scanners that captured patrons’ names, ages and photos for upload to a central database, which police could then access.

There’s no indication patrons knew they were being tracked.

“We tried to say ‘no’ at the very beginning, and police strongly encouraged that we should do it,” says Mike Reed, general manager of the Boiler Room and Jones Bar, both located in Old Town. “We don’t want to track people’s every move. We considered that a possible issue.”

Despite his misgivings, Reed gave the scanners a try. So did a dozen other downtown clubs.

With government agencies already surreptitiously gathering information without warrants, the Portland program raised questions about transparency and privacy.

It might also have been illegal.

...

Acting Police Chief James Behre was placed on paid administrative leave today, less than 48 hours after he spoke at a council meeting and claimed that a councilman asked him to trade favors to ensure Behre’s appointment as permanent chief.

Behre, 50, said that he received a letter today from Township Administrator Ted Ehrenburg relieving Behre of his duties, effective immediately. Behre said he’s been scheduled for a “fitness of duty evaluation” with a doctor on March 3.

Mayor Michael Venezia confirmed that Behre was placed on paid leave today but said it was due to concerns over Behre's health and not due to his comments regarding Councilman Carlos Bernard.

DALLAS — Edgar Sanchez admits he was afraid.

In fact, he still is.

"I got scared. I said, 'This is a person that got mad; they want to do harm to me; they want to kill me.'"

Sanchez, 30, almost collided with off-duty Dallas police Officer Demont Hickman in the 3900 block of East Jefferson Street in Grand Prairie last July.

The resulting road rage included aggressive actions by Hickman.

"He followed me in his car,” Sanchez said. “I lowered my window. I said, 'I’m sorry,' and the person pointed a gun at me and he followed me."

Hickman was in his personal pickup truck wearing a white T-shirt and dark tactical pants. His badge was on his waist. Sanchez said he didn't know Hickman was a cop until he already was on the ground.

Months after asking, Dallas police officials finally released the Internal Affairs report detailing the July incident. Among other things, it said, "Officer Hickman did not point his weapon at anybody."

But an independent witness told investigators he saw Hickman's gun pointed at Sanchez's head.

"You had it on his head and he wasn't doing anything," the witness said on video he recorded of the incident.

...

Still, Dallas conducted its own internal affairs investigation and suspended Hickman for 10 days for getting involved in a disturbance using unnecessary force and profane language.
Flores said that's not enough.

"The punishment faced or the actions that were taken against this officer were a slap on the wrist," he said.