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As a kid, I got used to being stopped by the police. I grew up in an inner-ring suburb of St. Louis. It was the kind of place where officers routinely roughed up my friends and family for no good reason.

I hated the way cops treated me.

But I knew police weren’t all bad. One of my father’s closest friends was a cop. He became a mentor to me and encouraged me to join the force. He told me that I could use the police’s power and resources to help my community.

So in 1994, I joined the St. Louis Police Department. I quickly realized how naive I’d been. I was floored by the dysfunctional culture I encountered.

I won’t say all, but many of my peers were deeply racist.

One example: A couple of officers ran a Web site called St. Louis Coptalk, where officers could post about their experience and opinions. At some point during my career, it became so full of racist rants that the site administrator temporarily shut it down. Cops routinely called anyone of color a “thug,” whether they were the victim or just a bystander.

This attitude corrodes the way policing is done.

As a cop, it shouldn’t surprise you that people will curse at you, or be disappointed by your arrival. That’s part of the job. But too many times, officers saw young black and brown men as targets. They would respond with force to even minor offenses. And because cops are rarely held accountable for their actions, they didn’t think too hard about the consequences.

Once, I accompanied an officer on a call. At one home, a teenage boy answered the door. That officer accused him of harboring a robbery suspect, and demanded that he let her inside. When he refused, the officer yanked him onto the porch by his throat and began punching him.

Another officer met us and told the boy to stand. He replied that he couldn’t. So the officer slammed him against the house and cuffed him. When the boy again said he couldn’t walk, the officer grabbed him by his ankles and dragged him to the car. It turned out the boy had been on crutches when he answered the door, and couldn’t walk.

Back at the department, I complained to the sergeant. I wanted to report the misconduct. But my manager squashed the whole thing and told me to get back to work.

I, too, have faced mortal danger. I’ve been shot at and attacked. But I know it’s almost always possible to defuse a situation.

Once, a sergeant and I got a call about someone wielding a weapon in an apartment. When we showed up, we found someone sitting on the bed with a very large butcher knife. Rather than storming him and screaming “put the knife down” like my colleagues would have done, we kept our distance. We talked to him, tried to calm him down.

It became clear to us that he was dealing with mental illness. So eventually, we convinced him to come to the hospital with us.

I’m certain many other officers in the department would have escalated the situation fast. They would have screamed at him, gotten close to him, threatened him. And then, any movement from him, even an effort to drop the knife, would have been treated as an excuse to shoot until their clips were empty.

* * *

I liked my job, and I was good at it.

But more and more, I felt like I couldn’t do the work I set out to do. I was participating in a profoundly corrupt criminal justice system. I could not, in good conscience, participate in a system that was so intentionally unfair and racist. So after five years on the job, I quit.

Since I left, I’ve thought a lot about how to change the system. I’ve worked on police abuse, racial justice and criminal justice reform at the Missouri ACLU and other organizations.

Unfortunately, I don’t think better training alone will reduce police brutality. My fellow officers and I took plenty of classes on racial sensitivity and on limiting the use of force.

The problem is that cops aren’t held accountable for their actions, and they know it. These officers violate rights with impunity. They know there’s a different criminal justice system for civilians and police.

Even when officers get caught, they know they’ll be investigated by their friends, and put on paid leave. My colleagues would laughingly refer to this as a free vacation. It isn’t a punishment. And excessive force is almost always deemed acceptable in our courts and among our grand juries. Prosecutors are tight with law enforcement, and share the same values and ideas.

We could start to change that by mandating that a special prosecutor be appointed to try excessive force cases. And we need more independent oversight, with teeth. I have little confidence in internal investigations.

The number of people in uniform who will knowingly and maliciously violate your human rights is huge. At the Ferguson protests, people are chanting, “The whole damn system is guilty as hell.” I agree, and we have a lot of work to do.

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A reasonable police officer, considering the totality of the circumstances, would reasonably suspect criminal activity might be afoot upon viewing someone riding a bicycle, with an ax, at 3 a.m., even though no recent “ax crime” had been reported.


While Foranyic insists there was nothing about him which suggested criminal activity, he is unable to suggest, and we cannot conceive of, much in the way of noncriminal activity which is accomplished with an ax in the dead of night. The officer could reasonably eliminate firefighting and lumberjacking from the list of possible pursuits Foranyic might have been engaged in. And while there are doubtless some reasonable explanations which might be conjured up, “The possibility of an innocent explanation does not deprive the officer of the capacity to entertain a reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct.”


We view this as such conduct. While it is true that there are many legitimate uses for an ax, they are generally daylight activities. A consensus seems to have developed that recognizes the inadvisability of wielding an ax in darkness.


Nor can we ignore the long history of the ax as a weapon. While no one refers to a “gun-murderer” or “knife-murderer” or “crowbar-murderer,” the equivalent usage with regard to an ax is well ensconced in American usage. The ax, like the machete and the straight razor, is an implement whose unfortunate utility as a weapon sometimes overshadows its value as a tool.


This incident did take place during the hours of darkness. Stygian darkness. No one who has ever worked a graveyard shift can underestimate the significance of any bicycle traffic at that hour, much less lethally armed bicycle traffic. In People v. Holloway (1985) 176 Cal.App.3d 150,155 [221 Cal.Rptr. 394], the court upheld a detention based upon the defendant's presence in a high-crime area with four other men. While acknowledging the defendant's right to be in such an area conversing with acquaintances, the court explained, “Three a.m., on the other hand, is both a late and an unusual hour for anyone to be in attendance at an outdoor social gathering, particularly in a residential neighborhood where he does not reside.” (Id. at p. 155.)We consider it equally unusual to be abroad at that hour on any errand that requires an ax.


Thus, while it is true no “ax crime” had been reported, and while it is true the officer was not asked what specific crime he might have thought he was investigating when he ordered Foranyic to dismount, it was nonetheless reasonable, logical and legal for the officer to require Foranyic to spend a few minutes explaining himself and these circumstances, which were not *191 only unusual, but unique in the annals of reported California decisions. Some things cannot be ignored.


The judgment is affirmed.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 testicles 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.

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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“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.

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A federal judge has ordered Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker to turn over documents to a court-appointed official who is investigating why the city is losing many arbitration cases filed by officers who have been disciplined for alleged wrongdoing.

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In 2003, Henderson approved the settlement of a police misconduct lawsuit that requires Oakland police to implement 51 reforms in a variety of areas.

The suit was filed by 119 Oakland citizens who alleged that four officers known as the “Riders” beat them, made false arrests and planted evidence on them in 2000 while they were part of a police operation that was trying to crack down on drug dealers in West Oakland.

Criminal charges were filed against three of the officers but they weren’t convicted of any charges in two lengthy and highly-publicized trials. The fourth officer fled the country before he could be prosecuted.

The court-mandated reforms include improved investigation of citizen complaints, better training of officers and increased field supervision.

In August, Henderson ordered an investigation into why independent arbitrators have often overturned discipline that been imposed against Oakland police officers, saying, “Any reversal of appropriate discipline undermines the very objectives” of the reform program.

Henderson said those objectives including promoting police integrity, preventing police conduct that deprives people of their rights and having the best available police practices and procedures.

Warshaw said in a report in July that Oakland was closer than ever to completing the court-mandated reforms.

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An auxiliary officer with the Fairview Park Police Department, who had written that black people should be “exterminated,” resigned from the force last week.

The Cleveland Scene first reported that Aaron McNamara had a position as a volunteer officer as he finished his college degree and prepared for a full-time job on the force. But those plans were derailed when comments he had made on the Internet over the last two years came to light.

According to the Scene, McNamara like to hang out in the YouTube comment area, where he was caught “regularly dropping racial and gay slurs, unambiguously expressing hatred towards minorities and anyone who dare not comply with what police say.”

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An auxiliary officer with the Fairview Park Police Department, who had written that black people should be “exterminated,” resigned from the force last week.

The Cleveland Scene first reported that Aaron McNamara had a position as a volunteer officer as he finished his college degree and prepared for a full-time job on the force. But those plans were derailed when comments he had made on the Internet over the last two years came to light.

According to the Scene, McNamara like to hang out in the YouTube comment area, where he was caught “regularly dropping racial and gay slurs, unambiguously expressing hatred towards minorities and anyone who dare not comply with what police say.”


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“Abolishing slavery was the worst thing we could have done,” McNamara opined. “These people should be exterminated.. Unbelievable.”

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They went to the 35th District where my neighbor is being held. He was released without any charges against him.

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In April of 2012, officers shot 35-year-old Danny Gonzales. Antioch police claimed Gonzales fired first. ABC7 New has obtained police video and internal reports that show Gonzales never fired a shot.

There's no argument that Danny Gonzales was heavily intoxicated when he called a friend and threatened to kill police. What's being disputed now that police helicopter video has emerged is how it all happened.

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She hired an attorney who obtained police helicopter video of Danny Gonzales walking out of his home holding a handgun. He was already surrounded by Antioch SWAT officers. It's not clear what startled him, but police believed he fired first. They returned fire with nearly 60 rounds that killed Danny Gonzales. He was shot in the back twice.

"One of the officers was overly excited and fired a shot as soon as he came out and that led other officers to believe shots were fired and it was just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom," said Rob Cartwright, the plaintiff's attorney.

Attorneys for Gonzales' widow say a video proves he never fired a shot. A forensic analysis found that his gun was still on safety.

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As GeekWire reports, about 80 people—including developers, community members, and law enforcement agents—attended the Seattle Police hackathon. The goal was to work on techniques for redacting things captured in streamed dashboard or body cam video such as people's faces or license plate numbers. The hackathon was specifically looking to address these topics as they relate to Washington’s privacy laws, but the work could be relevant all over the country.

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Chicago Police beat two men and cover up the attack at Arturo's Tacos, February 7, 2010. Matthew Clark and Gregory Malandrucco, two friends from University of Chicago doctorate programs, are violently assaulted in a vicious, calculated attack at the hands of plainclothes police officers. Uniformed Chicago police officers arrive during the assault, beat one of the assault victims, join in the attack with plainclothes assailants, cover up the attack, allow the assailants to leave the scene, and then proceed themselves to leave the assault victims concussed and bleeding at the scene.

The uniformed Chicago officers who arrive on the scene are alleged to have a personal relationship with the three plainclothes police officers. Uniformed officers walk the plainclothes officers to their car, where together they have a conversation lasting a minute. Uniformed officers then usher the plainclothes officers to their car and let them leave the scene of their crime.

Clark and Malandrucco plead with the uniformed officers -- Brian Postrelko, Michael Torres, and Nelson Crespo -- to make arrests and call for an ambulance. Instead, the uniformed officers say, "Just go home and forget it ever happened." Uniformed officers then drive off, leaving Clark and Malandrucco concussed and covered in blood in the Arturo's parking lot.

There is a $10,000 REWARD for information that leads to the naming of the plainclothes police officers in the Federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Chicago. Individuals with information should call the tip-line:

1-800-621-3908

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Anderson worked in the Queens and Brooklyn South narcotics squads and was called to the stand at Arbeeny's bench trial to show the illegal conduct wasn't limited to a single squad.

"Did you observe with some frequency this ... practice which is taking someone who was seemingly not guilty of a crime and laying the drugs on them?" Justice Gustin Reichbach asked Anderson.

"Yes, multiple times," he replied.

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