An East Quogue woman who was arrested and held for four nights on a misdemeanor trespassing charge after taking photos of a model of a helicopter at the Air National Guard 106th Rescue Wing in 2009 was awarded $1.112 million in damages by a federal jury Thursday following a trial on her false arrest lawsuit.

Former Murray County Chief Magistrate Judge Bryant L. Cochran has been found guilty by a federal jury for arranging the false arrest of a woman who alleged that she had been sexually propositioned by Cochran, for tampering with a witness, and for sexually assaulting a county employee.
“Cochran abused the trust placed in him by the people of Murray County,” said United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates.
“Cochran used the power and influence of his judicial position in a way that is the fundamental opposite of justice, arranging to have a citizen falsely arrested after she accused him of sexual misconduct. There is no greater breakdown in the justice system than when a judge uses his authority to wrongly seek to deprive a citizen of her liberty.”
According to the charges presented in court: From January 1, 2004, to August 15, 2012, Bryant Cochran served as the Chief Magistrate Judge in Murray County, Ga. In that position, Cochran sexually assaulted a Murray County employee and unlawfully searched the personal cellular telephone of another Murray County employee.

In addition, on April 9, 2012, Cochran met with a female citizen regarding a legal matter. During the meeting, Cochran made inappropriate sexual advances towards the citizen. By mid-July 2012, the allegations of Cochran’s sexual misconduct towards the citizen had become public. In response, Cochran called several local police officers providing them with a “tip”—that the citizen carried drugs in her vehicle.

In an effort to discredit the citizen, on or about August 12, 2012, Clifford J. Joyce (who was a tenant of Cochran’s and who has been convicted of conspiring to distribute a controlled substance based on the attempted “framing”) planted a metal tin containing five packets of methamphetamine under the citizen’s car.

Two days later, on August 14, 2012, Murray County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Joshua Greeson (who has since been convicted of witness tampering) conducted a traffic stop on a car occupied by the citizen.

During the traffic stop, several officers and a police drug dog searched the car for approximately ten minutes—but did not find any drugs. Thereafter, Captain Michael Henderson (who is Cochran’s cousin and who has also been convicted of witness tampering) had an approximately two minute telephone conversation with Cochran.
Following that call, Henderson told an officer at the scene that according to his information; the citizen hid her drugs in a magnetic box under the left, rear of her car.

Upon receiving that information, Greeson found the metal box magnetically attached to the car in that precise location. Inside the box, Greeson recovered five small packets containing methamphetamine. Greeson then told the citizen that he had recovered drugs from her car. At that point, the citizen stated that she had been set up. Despite this, Greeson arrested the citizen and transported her to jail.

On August 15, 2012, the day after the arrest, Cochran resigned his position as Murray County’s Chief Magistrate Judge. On August 22, 2012, Joyce admitted to law enforcement officers that he planted drugs—after which the local District Attorney dismissed the charges against the woman.

Finally, in an apparent effort to cover up the framing of the woman, Cochran tried to persuade a witness to provide false information to law enforcement officers.

The video depicts Robinson, who graduated from the police academy two years ago, trying to arrest Vasquez for the expired sticker, grabbing his arm, but the elderly man pulled it away.

The officer then pushed Vasquez onto the hood of the police car, before wrestling him down to the ground out of view of the camera.

According to the Victoria Advocate, police said the officer used the Taser on Vasquez twice while he was on the ground.

“He just acted like a pit bull, and that was it,” Vasquez, who suffered minor injuries, told the paper. “For a while, I thought he was going to pull his gun and shoot me.”

“I feel like my rights were violated,” he said. “The police department is supposed to train their police officers to be more conscientious and use common sense. I don’t think he had any.”

Larry Urich, a 62-year-old sales manager at the car lot, said it made him sick to watch the officer grappling with Vasquez, and he wants Robinson fired and prosecuted for excessive use of force and causing bodily harm to an elderly person.

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On Friday, Robinson was placed on administrative duty pending the outcome of an internal probe regarding the use of force policy.

Police Chief J.J. Craig said the footage “raises some concerns,” and he has personally apologized to Vasquez, who was not cited for any wrongdoing.

He confirmed that since Vasquez was driving a car with dealer tags, the vehicle was exempt from having an inspection sticker.

An Albuquerque police officer accidentally shot an innocent bystander when his weapon discharged as he climbed through a window during a burglary investigation, authorities said on Monday.

The incident follows a federal investigation that concluded the police department in New Mexico’s biggest city used excessive, even deadly, force against passive civilians.

The officer was investigating a burglary and was trying to enter an apartment through a broken window when his gun fired on Sunday, Albuquerque Police Department spokesman Tanner Tixier said. The bullet pierced the floor and hit the resident in the apartment below.

Chad Chadwick has something many citizens can only covet - a spotless record.

"These cops are out of control. They are ruining good people's lives. I am a good man. I have done everything I can to show that, as a father, as a citizen, as a worker," said Chadwick.

But on the night of September 27th, 2011 Chadwick's commitment to living within the law did him no good at all.

It started when a friend concerned for Chadwick's emotional well-being called Missouri City police to Chad's Sienna apartment where he'd been distraught, drinking and unknown to anyone, had gone to sleep in the bathtub.

A SWAT team was summoned.

"They told a judge I had hostages. They lied to a judge and told him I had hostages in my apartment and they needed to enter," said Chadwick.

Chadwick did own a single shotgun, but had threatened no one, not even himself. Chadwick's firearm possession apparently prompted SWAT to kick in his door, launch a stun grenade into the bathroom and storm in, according to Chadwick, without announcing their identity.

"While I had my hands up naked in the shower they shot me with a 40 millimeter non-lethal round," said Chadwick.

A second stun grenade soon followed.

"I turned away, the explosion went off, I opened my eyes the lights are out and here comes a shield with four or five guys behind it. They pinned me against the wall and proceeded to beat the crap out of me," said Chadwick.

That's when officers shot the unarmed Chadwick in the back of the head with a Taser at point blank range.

"They claimed I drew down with a shampoo bottle and a body wash bottle," said Chadwick.

And it wasn't over.

"They grabbed me by my the one hand that was out of the shower and grabbed me by my ********* slammed me on my face on the floor and proceeded to beat me more," said Chadwick.

Chadwick, who hadn't broken a single law when SWAT burst through his door, was taken to the Ft. Bend County Jail with a fractured nose, bruised ribs and what's proven to be permanent hearing loss.

He was held in an isolation cell for two full days.

A Philadelphia police officer with a history of stalking and harassing his former lovers fatally shot his ex-girlfriend and wounded her daughter on Monday, police said.

WCAU reported that Colwyn Borough Police Department identified 32-year-old Stephen Rozniakowski as the man who opened fire on both women in a Delaware County home. Neighbors identified the ex-girlfriend as Valerie Morrow.

Morrow’s teenage daughter reportedly was also shot, but her injuries were not life threatening.

Just before Thanksgiving last year, a UPS Store employee turned over a box containing about 5 lbs. of marijuana to Richmond police officer Joe Avila.

Avila took the parcel and radioed to dispatch that a formal report of the incident would follow.

But the marijuana he carried from the shop that afternoon was never booked into evidence at the precinct. And the report he promised in follow-up to the call for service, which he had specifically asked dispatchers to assign to him, was never filed.

According to a search warrant issued by the Contra Costa Superior Court in September, the drugs didn’t make it to the Richmond Police Department’s property vault, but ended up at Avila’s home in Oakley, 44 miles away.

One of the pending lawsuits against the city is by Jeffrey Walz, who was demoted from sergeant in 2010, a year after reporting what he believed was an attempt by Hellwig to meet with a male prostitute.

Walz said he found a three-page email printout of an exchange between Hellwig and the masseuse in the center console of a police vehicle on July 22, 2009. The emails were in response to a Craigslist ad and had the subject "Re: Hook-up."

In the emails, Hellwig describes himself as a 55-year-old with "a very nice body with athletic build," 5-foot-11 and "smooth."

26-year-old Cesar Baldelomar, a Harvard University graduate, who is currently attending law school, says that his rights were violated by a local police officer on Thanksgiving morning after he was playing loud music on his car stereo.

Baldelomar says that the officer pulled him over because he was listening to N.W.A.’s classic song “F**k the Police.”

When Officer Harold Garzon came up to the window he allegedly asked the young man, “Really? You’re really playing THAT song? Pull over.”

The officer then reportedly told Baldelomar that it is illegal to play loud music within 25 feet of another person, but Baldelomar is well versed in law and knew enough to tell the officer that the Florida Supreme Court had recently made it illegal to pass any law that bans loud music.

“In 2012 the state supreme court struck down any law banning loud music, I knew that because it was a case I had actually studied in law school,” he said.

After a lengthy argument, officer Garzon reportedly gave Baldelomar a number of bogus tickets for violations that he hadn’t even committed. Garzon wrote Baldelomar tickets for having an out-of-state driver’s license with no proof of insurance, and for not wearing his seat belt. However, Baldelomar says that he was wearing his seat belt and he did provide the officer with adequate proof of insurance.

Baldelomar also asked him why he did not receive a ticket for playing loud music, and the officer told him not to “get smart.”

A federal judge on Monday tossed evidence that was gathered by a webcam—turned on for six weeks—that the authorities nailed to a utility pole 100 yards from a suspected drug dealer's rural Washington state house.

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The judge noted that the webcam surveillance was extensive, too. The detective, Aaron Clem of the Kennewick Police Department, "usually aimed the video camera at Mr. Vargas’ front yard; yet, Detective Clem could also remotely pan and zoom the camera so that he could focus on anything in the front yard, including the front door, items in the open parking structure, vehicles (and open trunks and doors), individuals, and surrounding area. The video camera operated twenty-four hours a day and its feed was saved to an external hard drive connected to Detective Clem’s computer."

Strangely, the judge noted, when the authorities raided the house in May 2013, the camera was panned on nearby sagebrush and not the house.

Stephen Rozniakowski, an officer with the Colwyn Borough Police Department, wore a bulletproof vest when he kicked down the door of Morrow’s home on Glenfield Avenue in Glenolden, Pennsylvania around 9 p.m. Monday and began firing, according to investigators. The shooting came just three hours after police served Rozniakowski with an court order to stay away from Morrow, and days before he was due in court in a separate stalking case.

“If we won’t get support when we do our jobs, if we’re going to get hurt for doing what’s right then we’re going to do it the way they want it," he said last Friday. "Let me be perfectly clear. We will use extreme discretion in every encounter.”

He also said, “Our friends, we’re courteous to them. Our enemies, extreme discretion. The rules are made by them to hurt you. Well now we’ll use those rules to protect us.”

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Lynch also encouraged officers to sign an affidavit saying that in the event they’re killed in the line of duty, they do not want the mayor at their funeral or wake, a letter that has been criticized by the mayor, NYPD Commissioner and even Timothy Cardinal Dolan.

“If they’re not going to support us when we need ‘em, we’ll embarrass them when we can,” he said.