Murder by Cop: a growing crisis in ‘Murica

It was happening before Rodney King, but that is when ‘Murica really seemed to take notice- violent beatings as the hands of those sworn to protect and serve.  Now it is no longer violent beatings…it is death by cop. And “death by cop” is something we are hearing about on a daily basis. WHY? I have plenty of my own opinions and I am sure you all do too, and I wont post my opinions here. Suffice to say, many of us would now never call the cops- we are afraid and with damn good reason. Here is just one:

Cops Taser Then Shoot Man to Death After Family Calls 911 for Help for His Depression

Killing not a cure for depression, family says.

Photo Credit: mikeledray/Shutterstock.com

 

A California sheriff’s deputy needlessly Tasered and then shot a man to death after his father called 911 seeking help for his son’s depression, the family claims in court.
Parents and two brothers of the late George I. Ramirez sued Stanislaus County, its sheriff’s department, Sheriff Adam Christianson, and Deputy Art Parra Jr. in Federal Court.
George Ramirez, the father, says he called 911 on April 16, 2012, seeking help for his son. Ramirez says in the complaint that he told the 911 operator that his son was depressed, but never said that the family was in danger or that a crime was in progress.
Deputy Parra responded, finding the father changing a headlight and the mother indoors doing housework. The family says Parra asked about the son’s whereabouts, but did not ask for details regarding his condition or why the family called 911.
Parra found Ramirez on the couch watching television, unaware that his family had called 911. Parra confirmed his identity and placed him under arrest by ordering him to stand up and turn around, according to the complaint.
“In the process of standing up and complying with orders, Ramirez asked Parra why he was under arrest and if he could see his credentials,” the complaint states.
“Parra refused to respond and again ordered Ramirez to turn around, demanding Ramirez put his hands behind his back.
“Ramirez complied with the orders of Parra.
“Parra then demanded Ramirez to put his hands closer together behind his back.
“Ramirez turned around and asked Parra in a calm, non-threatening manner to identify himself.
“At this time, and without providing any warning, Parra withdrew his Taser gun from his holster and deployed two darts into Ramirez’s chest and activated the Taser. Ramirez fell to the floor.
“Ramirez fell to the floor.”
Ramirez stood up after being Tasered, dazed and confused, but still non-violent, the family says in the complaint. Parra warned Ramirez that he could shoot him, the complaint states.
“Ramirez raised his arms and said ‘Shoot me.’
“At this time, Parra withdrew his firearm from his holster and shot four bullets at Ramirez.
“Parra was approximately eight feet away at the time he fired four shots at Ramirez, and three bullets struck Ramirez.
“Ramirez was approximately 5′ 11″ but weighed only about 120 pounds.
“Plaintiffs believe that Parra was physically much stronger than Ramirez.
“At no time was Ramirez armed or in the vicinity of a weapon. Ramirez did not threaten Parra’s safety or engage in any conduct that would cause a reasonable person to believe that Ramirez intended to threaten or harm Parra or anyone else, or to flee or otherwise attempt to avoid Parra. Ramirez did not commit any crime in Parra’s presence.”
While Ramirez lay bleeding out on the living room floor, Parra did nothing to help him, the family says. In fact, he prevented the family from going to him.
“Approximately five minutes after the shooting, George and Mercedes Ramirez were held at gunpoint in the living room by an unknown deputy sheriff who arrived on scene. They had not threatened anyone, and there was no basis whatsoever to point a loaded weapon at them or to prevent them from helping their son.
“Other sheriff’s deputies arrived on scene, none of whom rendered any first aid to Ramirez. Plaintiffs are informed and believe that Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department has a policy to not render aid if it appears that an individual, shot by a member of its department, will likely die without aid,” the complaint states.
An ambulance arrived nearly 40 minutes later and took Ramirez to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Meanwhile, deputies had arrested the rest of the family and interrogated them at department headquarters while officers ransacked the home, according to the complaint.
The Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department told the Modesto Bee that Parra went to the Ramirez home after a report of a family fight, but has declined further comment on the shooting. The family filed a $61 million claim against the county in October 2012, which officials rejected.
“Anything that results in death or bodily harm is a tragic event,” Stanislaus County Counsel John Doering told the Bee. “We are investigating to make sure the county did everything it could to make sure the safety of the public was addressed.”
Doering told the Bee the $61 million claim – $15 million for damages and $10 million to $12 million for four surviving family members – was excessive.
“When you are talking about a $15 million claim, it’s hard to imagine there is any reality in that number,” Doering said.
The Ramirez family calls Parra’s actions, and the lack of action from other Stanislaus County deputies, “completely uncalled for and an abuse of power.”
“We called law enforcement to see if we could get help for him and we didn’t get it,” Ramirez’s father told the Turlock Journal. “Instead, he shot him.”
The family is represented by Michael S. Warda of Turlock.

Via AlterNet

List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States

 

Epidemic of Police Murder Large and Growing

 

Police Brutality Statistics

Related articles

• Handicapped Texas Man Shocked To Death With Taser On Suspicion Of Drugs That Apparently Weren’t There (personalliberty.com)
• Florida Cops Taser A Llama (radio.foxnews.com)
• Shoot them in the face… (battlefieldusa.wordpress.com)
• Cops Taser Then Shoot Man to Death After Family Calls 911 for Help for His Depression (fromthetrenchesworldreport.com)

Cops Go Undercover at High School to Bust Special-Needs Kid for Pot: Why Are Police So Desperate to Throw Kids in Jail?

The school-to-prison pipeline strikes again.

Photo Credit: shutterstock.com

 

 

By Kristen Gwynne

 

Californians Doug and Catherine Snodgrass are suing their son’s high school for allowing undercover police officers to set up the 17-year-old special-needs student for a drug arrest.

In a video segment on ABC News, they say they were “thrilled” when their son — who has Asperger’s and other disabilities and struggled to make friends — appeared to have instantly made a friend named Daniel.

“He suddenly had this friend who was texting him around the clock,” Doug Snodgrass told ABC News. His son had just recently enrolled at Chaparral High School.

“Daniel,” however, was an undercover cop with the Temecula Police Department who ” hounded” the teenager to sell him his prescription medication. When he refused, the undercover cop gave him $20 to buy him weed, and he complied — not realizing the guy he wanted to befriend wanted him behind bars.

In December, the unnamed senior was arrested along with 21 other students from three schools, all charged with crimes related to the two officers’ undercover drug operation at two public schools in Temecula, California (Chaparral and Temecula Valley High School). This March, Judge Marian H. Tully ruled that Temecula Valley Unified School District could not expel the student, and had in fact failed to provide him with proper services.

 “Within three days of the officer’s requests, [the] student burned himself due to his anxiety,” Tully said. “Ultimately, the student was persuaded to buy marijuana for someone he thought was a friend who desperately needed this drug and brought it to school for him.”

In January, a juvenile court judge decided that extenuating circumstances applied to the student’s case, and ruled that he serve informal probation and 20 hours of community service, which would translate into “no finding of guilt.”

Since being allowed back to school, Snodgrass says his son has been “bullied” via suspensions and threat of expulsion. “Our son was cleared of the criminal charge, but the school continued to try and expel him,” Snodgrass said.

The Snodgrasses are now suing the school for unspecified damages. District administrators, they told ABC, should have protected their son, but instead “participated with local authorities in an undercover drug sting that intentionally targeted and discriminated against [him].”

“Sending police and informants to entrap high-school students is sick,” says Tony Newman, director of media relations at the Drug Policy Alliance. “We see cops seducing 18-year-olds to fall in love with them or befriending lonely kids and then tricking them into getting them small amounts of marijuana so they can stick them with felonies. We often hear that we need to fight the drug war to protect the kids. As these despicable examples show, more often the drug war is ruining young people’s lives and doing way more harm than good.”

Stephen Downing, a retired law enforcement veteran and former captain of detectives in the LAPD, said the behavior of the police in this case points to troubling trends in policy. ”It is evidence of just how far we have gone, and how callous we have become, in treating our children with the care and dignity they should be entitled.”

“The fact that the police officer chose to prey upon the most vulnerable” is “egregious” but not surprising, he said. He pointed toward  policing tactics and policies — like quotas, the increasing criminalization of America’s schools, and the war on drugs —  that put pressure on police to treat normal teen behavior as criminal.

Downing, who is a member of the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, also pointed out, “The less fortunate are always targeted.”

“Do we ever hear of an undercover operation like this conducted in an exclusive private school, or on a university campus, or on the stages of a movie studio in Hollywood? No, we don’t. Why? Because those people would complain, get lawyers and make life miserable for the status quo.”

“The parents of this child are right to bring a lawsuit, to take that needed step that will, hopefully, bring about the kind of change that will stop this kind of tyrannical corruption and harm to our children,” he said.

Drug crimes are not the only charges unfairly leveled against students. Marginalized youths are regularly the targets of the school-to-prison pipeline, as in the case of  Kiera Wilmot, a 16-year-old girl who was arrested less than a month ago for accidentally causing a small explosion during a science experiment.

Via AlterNet

Related articles

• Parents say special-needs student set up in drug bust (abclocal.go.com)
• Cops go undercover at Highschool to bust special-needs Kids for pott (childreninprison.wordpress.com)

Arrested for an old parking ticket, elderly woman dies in court “gasping for breath” after sheriff’s deputies refused to give her medication.

The deceased, who was fighting a traffic ticket, suffered from asthma — but deputies accused her of faking, suit filed in court argues.

A woman died on a courthouse floor because Alabama sheriff’s deputies refused to give her her medicine – after arresting her for an old traffic ticket, the woman’s daughter claims in court.

Ayunna Johnae London sued St. Clair County Sheriff Terry Surles, jail administrators Austin Nash and Terry Marcrum, Southern Healthcare Partners, and its employee Jennifer Eisel, in Federal Court.

London claims her mother, Dwana Voncia London-Richardson, died gasping for breath in court after callous and unconstitutional treatment from the defendants.

Richardson suffered from asthma and other serious health problems, but the defendants refused to give her her medication, accused her of faking, and let her die in the courtroom, her daughter claims.

Southern Healthcare Partners, which provided medical care to inmates at the St. Clair County Jail, failed to treat her mother properly, London says.

Her 45-year-old mother died in May 2011 at the St. Clair County Courthouse while in the sheriff’s custody.

Richardson was arrested on May 19, 2011, in Tarrant City, Ala., for failing to pay a 2008 traffic ticket. She was sent to the St. Clair County Jail.

London claims that when she visited her mom in jail two days later, her mother could hardly walk, had trouble breathing and complained of pain in both legs.

London claims the jail staff refused to give her mom her asthma medication and stopped other inmates from helping her.

“Ms. Richardson told Ayunna that she was sick, that both her legs were hurting her so badly that she could not walk to the tray area to pick up her food, and that they would not give her her medicine,” the complaint states.

“Ms. Richardson told Ayunna that several of the inmates were trying to help her out by going to get her tray for her, since she could hardly walk, but the jailers told them that they were ‘babying’ her, and moved Ms. Richardson to a different area in the jail, away from the inmates that were trying to help her.”

Jail staff refused to take Richardson to the hospital, despite her worsening condition, her daughter says.

On May 23, deputies took her mother to court and ignored her need for medical care until it was too late, London says.

“Ayunna headed to the St. Clair County Courthouse early that morning,” the complaint states. “She could not locate where court was being held. She saw deputy (or jailer) John Doe standing at the fire station, talking to a firefighter so she pulled into the station to ask where court was being held.

“When she pulled into the fire station, she saw her mother lying on the ground next to the police car with her legs extended under the police car.

“She asked them what had happened and her mother told her that she did not know, that she had just passed out. Ms. Richardson was sweating and struggling breathing.

“Ayunna had one of her mother’s asthma pumps in her car so she asked if her mother could sit in her car and get some air.

“Ayunna gave her mother the asthma pump but it was not working. Her mother’s breathing continued to get worse.”

London says the deputies still refused to take her mom to the hospital, and said would be locked up if she didn’t keep her court date.

“Ms. Richardson was unable to walk,” the complaint states. “Deputy (or jailer) Doe obtained an office chair from the courthouse and they used it to wheel Ms. Richardson to the courtroom.

“Ayunna set beside deputy (or jailer) Doe and her mother, fanning her mother, whose breathing continued to get worse.

“After sitting in the courtroom waiting for about twenty minutes, Ms. Richardson stated that she ‘could not take anymore,’ and she told deputy/jailer Doe that she needed help.

“Ayunna also pleaded with deputy/jailer Doe to get someone to help her mother.

“Deputy/jailer Doe responded as though he believed Ms. Richardson was just putting on.

“Ms. Richardson then stated ‘I need to lay down.’

“Ms. Richardson laid down on the courtroom floor and her body started to shaking.

“Deputy/jailer Doe took no action to assist Ms. Richardson or to clear the courtroom.

“Everyone in the courtroom watched as Ms. Richardson died in court, on the courtroom floor.

“Ayunna stayed beside her mother trying to do CPR to bring her back for about twenty minutes, but she failed.”

Emergency personnel arrived 45 minutes later and took Richardson, who was unresponsive, to the hospital.

London says her mother was pronounced dead within 5 minutes of arriving at the hospital.

She seeks punitive damages for constitutional violations, wrongful death and negligence.

She is represented by Charles Tatum Jr. of Jasper, Ala.

Via Courthouse News.

Related articles

• Deputies Watch Woman Die in Court (informationliberation.com)
• Deputies Watch Woman Die In Court, Refused To Give Her Asthma Medicine (libertycrier.com)

Police Shortage in the Golden State?

The famous “black and white” LAPD police cruiser (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Police forces are shrinking in the majority of California’s large and mid-size cities, while the state’s corrections staff is rapidly expanding, according to a new fact sheet by Barry Krisberg and Susan Marchionna of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

Data compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows a decline in total police officers in California’s 25 largest cities between 2008 and 2011, from 23,355 to 22,129.  An informal telephone poll found continued declines in 9 out of 11 cities in 2012.

“The losses in numbers of officers on the street are a result of layoffs and cutbacks as well as attrition through retirement or other departures,” the sheet’s authors wrote.

While law enforcement staffing is on the decline in California, the state has steadily increased its budget for corrections, which has seen an increase from 53,688 positions during fiscal year 2011-2012 to a projected 59,736 during fiscal year 2013-2014.

The authors note that FBI data showed an increase in violent, property crime or both, in 2012. However, they caution that “crime rates are affected by a complex set of factors; therefore, their relationship to numbers of police officers is not entirely clear.”

Read the fact sheet HERE.

Via The Crime Report

Mule Creek State Prison: Abuse, Neglect, Cover ups & MURDER….

The state of California, Governor Brown and CDCr can no longer deny what is truly going on inside its 33 prisons.  While they play their “human chess game”  ( read…Re Alignment) at the expense of the taxpayers, and public safety- the fact remains that prisoners are STILL dying and lacking adequate medical care. Realignment has been proven to have no lasting affect on the serious over crowding.

Women prisoners have been forced into one facility, where severe overcrowding is rampant. The women have been begging for tampons, and media attention. Yet Governor Brown screams he wants the Feds out, no more federal oversight. Here is an email I just received detailing years of abuse at Mule Creek State Prison.

While guards are raking huge salaries and great benefits walking the “toughest beat in the state,” people are losing their lives due to indifference, a lack of  morals, job responsibility and accountability. Do you really think CDCr deserves to be without Federal Oversight? Read this and then answer….

Hi Carol,

Sorry it took me a minute to get back to you…  I decided to get my facts straight on what I am going to share with you.

First, I want to share this with you about a man named Ty Lopes who died while custody at Mule Creek prison in 2011, I have been following this story since it happened and sources close to me  have stated the same thing over and over.  On the eve of  Ty Lopes murder by he cell mate  witnesses remember hearing and seeing what happened.  The cell mate went to the C/O to complain, he wanted Ty out of his cell or he would kill him, he repeated over and over, the C/O  told him to get out of  his site and return to the cell.  The Cell mate complied and returned to his cell; when went back he began to threaten Ty Lopes, by telling him over and over he was going to kill him if he didn’t get the C/O  to move him that day.  The cellmate was enraged beyond belief, many people surrounding the area heard it and Ty was nervous.

Ty Lopes spent most of the morning trying to get the on duty C/O  to move him.  The C/O  told Lopes, no he would not move him and to deal with it, Ty begged the C/O  and the C/O  told Ty Lopes “I need to go to lunch” and sent him back to the cell.  The guard never reported this to another C/O or to his next in charge.  But by the time staff checked on Ty Lopes and his cellmate again, there was blood all over the floor, matter a fact it was coming out from underneath the door according to eye witness accounts.  Eye witness accounts state that a broom handle was used to sodomize Ty Lopes, he was dead, strangled and sodomized.  During the altercation of the two men, Ty Lopes was heard for several hours screaming and begging for someone to come to his rescue, guards did nothing. When he was found it was to late.

It is clear that there is a problem here, but there was never any mention about this to the media.  It is clear that the guards did nothing to prevent a murder, it is clear that guards at Mule Creek did not apply safety and security for the prison during this moment, if anything they over looked a murder in the making.  But we all know the guards will be covering for each other on this one, which they have.  This instance clearly reminds me of the gladiator mentality  of other prisons in past years.  So many have been hurt or killed because the guards find amusement in watching or making this happen.  Guards with child like mentally of pranks gone bad… Playing or Bullying mentality of the weaker person…

These are just the publicized ones below:  But in this last month there has been at least 5 or more incidents of stabbing and numerous violent out burst leaving many unpublicized, with guards doing nothing to stop the out breaks that many men are facing at Mule Creek today.  Fighting has been going on and off at Mule Creek for years, stabbings have occurred at least 7 I can recall, with several fatal ones that have placed the prison on lockdown none of which made it to the media.

 9/3/09  David Noles age 73, supposedly found dead 4:05 pm Sunday strangulation by his cell mate.

 

 August of 2009 John Linley Frazier age 62, found hanging in cell so called suicide.

In 7/30/2007  Robert Bardo, 37 was stabbed 11 times by inmates;  guards did not do anything after bringing  him back from the ER -they released  him to the general population again…  He ended up in another fight the next day…

It is very sad that instead of helping these men to over come conflict, they continue to breed retaliator  behavior within the institution placing some men there in bad situations where they are forced to defend themselves or be killed.  Even at the hand of the guards who continuously cover up to defend the murderous rampages they promote.  In my personal view, it will become again a way to murder lifers and LWOP rather than them dying of natural causes.  I see the writing on the wall, it is coming!

The lies and cover ups are endless….

Mule Creek locked down the prison when these incidents broke out through the day and a 6th incident that evening, last Wednesday13th through Friday 22nd -there were no phone calls to loved ones.  The incident on the yards are continuing, thanks to guards promoting it, even today 4/2/2013 guards intercepted a letter from an inmate who wanted to turn evidence of the drug operation at Mule Creek and guards shared with serveral well known prisoners showing that this inmate being held in AD Seg  is turning evidence over to the authorities in exchange for a reduced sentence since he him-self was just found with drugs in his possession; he was doing it to reduce the time he will have added to his stay…  You know what will be next if he is released from AD Seg…

Mule Creek C/o’s have a long history of cover up, Lies and twisted stories and even with the mentally ill and treating sick prisioners. 

As I learn more I will try to share with you….

Related articles

• Motion denied, Governor: Medical neglect is still killing prisoners (prisonmovement.wordpress.com)
• Federal judge accuses state of ethical lapses in prison case (sacbee.com)
• Fury at hearing on California prison mental health case (aboriginalpress.wordpress.com)
• They dont care about us….. (prisonmovement.wordpress.com)
• Sacramento hearing exposes CDCR’s hidden agenda (prisonmovement.wordpress.com)
• Professional Psych Staff fear retaliation at CDCR for testifying to the truth (prisonmovement.wordpress.com)

Frank Valdes, FLDOC & America’s Brutal Prisons

What happened to Frank Valdes is what started my journey/advocacy in Prison Reform.  I share with you now because we should never forget. I wont ever forget….and there are many more Frank Valdes’.  Just because you dont hear about these atrocities, doesnt mean they are not happening-because they are.

 

Via Kay Lee’s Making the Walls Transparent

 

Frank Valdez had broken ribs and boot prints on his body, a state attorney says.

By LUCY MORGAN, SYDNEY P. FREEDBERG and JO BECKER

St. Petersburg Times, published July 20, 1999

A death row inmate whose suspicious death has prompted a criminal investigation suffered broken ribs and boot marks on his upper body after a weekend confrontation with corrections officers at Florida State Prison, a prosecutor said Monday.

Gainesville area State Attorney Rod Smith said he also is looking into a reported delay of several hours between the time of the fight and the time prison authorities sought medical attention for inmate Frank Valdez.

“At first blush it appears that the cause of death had to do with the actions of one or more people in charge of the custody of this individual,” Smith said Monday night.

“I’m told the crap was beat out of him,” Smith said.  “He died from blunt trauma—a beating in all likelihood.”

Nine prison guards have been placed on paid administrativeleave by the Department of Corrections. Smith said the guards, whose names were not disclosed, have hired lawyers and are refusing to talk.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is conducting a criminal investigation into the death. Smith said he has notified federal authorities and advised them that he will take the lead in handling the investigation.

The FDLE briefed Gov. Jeb Bush about the investigation Monday. State Corrections Secretary Michael Moore, whom Bush hired from the South Carolina prison system this year, also was present at Monday’s meeting with the governor.

“This is being taken very, very seriously,” said Bush spokesman Cory Tilley.

An attorney for the guards said Monday night that the incident occurred when officers tried to subdue Valdez after he threatened to kill a guard. “All of what was done was done in compliance with department rules and regulations,” said Gloria W. Fletcher, one of the officers’ lawyers.

Valdez, 36, was sentenced to death for killing corrections officer Fred Griffis in Palm Beach County in 1987.  Valdez, 5 feet 8, 180 pounds, was an unruly inmate who frequently caused trouble with his guards, according to his lawyer and his ex-wife.

Ed O’Hara, the South Florida lawyer who represented Valdez, said his client had told him he was being “dogged” by guards because he killed a corrections officer.

“They would put him in areas they deemed punitive,” O’Hara said.

The lawyer quoted Valdez: “Whatever I do, they make things more difficult for me because they know I’ve been convicted of killing Griffis.”

A gap in time

The episode began late Saturday morning on X-Wing,

the solitary confinement unit that houses the most

disruptive inmates at Florida State Prison

Fletcher, the officers’ attorney, said the prison dispatched a five-member “extraction team” to Valdez’s cell because he had threatened an officer. They went to search his cell for contraband, but Valdez objected.

According to Fletcher, the officers sprayed a chemical agent at Valdez to get him out of his cell. He was taken to another cell. Officers filed what Bradford County Sheriff Bob Milner called a “use of force” report on the incident.

“When an officer did a routine check, he determined Mr. Valdez was in medical distress and he was taken immediately to the clinic,” Fletcher said.

Paramedics were called to Florida State Prison at 3:25 p.m. Valdez was pronounced dead at Shands Hospital in Starke about 4:18 p.m., according to State Attorney Smith.

Smith said he is trying to determine if there was a lapse between the time the altercation occurred and the time prison authorities sought medical attention for him.

“It is unclear,” Smith said. “But there was force used and reports of it were filed, minor injuries were reported and he was returned to his cell. I don’t know how much time elapsed, but when he was found for the last time around 3:15 p.m. Saturday, he was likely dead or dying.”

Bradford County authorities said two paramedics responded to a call of an inmate with a “respiratory problem.” The medics found Valdez in the prison clinic suffering from “a traumatic injury,” said Nelson Green, director of the Bradford County Department of Emergency Services.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement was notified at 4:35 p.m., according to an agency spokeswoman.  Bush’s office was not alerted until the next morning.

An agreement between the FDLE and the state

Department of Corrections mandates that the FDLE be notified any time a homicide, suicide, shooting death or any other suspicious death occurs in Florida’s prisons. The FDLE is also supposed to be notified of any life-threatening injuries in which “death is imminent.”

A long rap sheet

Valdez, who had a long rap sheet for burglary, drug

trafficking and assault on a police officer, was sent to death

row for gunning down corrections officer Fred Griffis, 40, a

highly decorated Vietnam veteran, in 1987. Griffis had just

retired from the Army two months before becoming an officer

at the Glades Correctional Institution in Palm Beach County

Officers Griffis and Steve Turner were transporting a manacled prisoner, James O’Brien, to a doctor’s office when Valdez and an ex-prison pal, William Van Poyck, decided to spring O’Brien.

O’Brien had served previous stretches in Florida prisons with Valdez and Van Poyck.

Griffis was shot three times in the head after he refused to give Valdez and Van Poyck the keys to the van O’Brien was locked in and threw the keys in the bushes.

After arriving on death row in 1990, Valdez and Van Poyck had a series of run-ins with officers, which repeatedly landed both men in the toughest disciplinary units of Florida State Prison. The prison, in rural north central Florida, is home of the electric chair and widely regarded as the most maximum security prison in Florida.

In 1993, Van Poyck challenged what he called overly harsh conditions in solitary confinement, suing the Department of Corrections, said his former lawyer, Randall Berg, executive director of the Florida Justice Institute in Miami.

“The conditions were atrocious,” said Berg, adding that Valdez planned to be a witness at Van Poyck’s court showdown.

Berg said neither man had to testify because the

Corrections Department, rather than risk a court battle, agreed to settle with Van Poyck for what the lawyer said was about $45,000 to $50,000.

“The entire way Van Poyck was treated was based on who he allegedly murdered,” Berg contended.

Little information released

Susan Cary, a Gainesville attorney for death row inmates, said that in the past year she has received complaints from inmates of beatings on X-Wing, the solitary confinement unit where prison officials send the hardest disciplinary cases, including Valdez.

About a year ago, she said, she turned over some complaint letters to federal authorities, but she’s not sure what happened. “It’s really a no man’s land,” she said of the prison.

On Monday, corrections officials refused to talk about the wing, Valdez or the prison. They said they did not want to jeopardize an ongoing investigation.

“Until the investigation is completed, we cannot comment further on this matter,” corrections spokesman C.J.  Drake said in a news release.

Department officials would not say whether any of the suspended guards had been disciplined previously.  They also refused to make public the initial report filed after the incident, even though an assistant attorney general said the report should be public.

Pat Gleason, an assistant for Attorney General Bob Butterworth who specializes in Florida’s public record law, said police agencies must release copies of initial incident reports even when a criminal investigation is ongoing.

She pointed to a 1996 opinion written for St.  Petersburg police Chief Darrel Stephens. In that opinion, Butterworth said initial incident reports are generally considered to be open to public inspection and are not considered criminal intelligence.

The Murdering of Mr. Valdes

The Story

Frank Valdes was beaten for being human: for loosing it after helplessly listening to a week long series of savage attacks being committed on other inmates.The man closest to him had been targeted for punishment.. Seems several inmates at Hamilton “C”I. had caused a rucus and had been moved to FSP for punishment. The guards had reportedly been literally hanging up the inmates, putting cloth around their heads, and beating them viciously day after day most of the week. Good old boys just having a little fun.

The screams were disturbing to other inmates, and Frank grew desperate as the days went by, until One day he couldn’t take it any longer. He began to scream at the guards to quit, that he was going to tell the outside world about them.

That got their attention alright, and on July 16th, C/O Montres Lucas reportedly beat Frank Valdes severely enough to leave him lying on the floor with a broken jaw. The next day, on July 17th, nine guards, according to most reports, entered Mr. Valdes’ cell early in the morning, woke him, handcuffed him and slowly and methodically beat him to death.

The coronor’s report says all Frank’s ribs were crushed, boot prints were imbedded in his chest, and his testicles were swollen to the size of a man’s head! I got reports from others that when the guards first saw his body it was black from bruising.  How did this happen?  The guards were asked.  “He threw himself off the top bunk over and over, until he did this to himself!”

 

---

That’s the DOC’s Story and they’re stickin’ to it!

http://www.patrickcrusade.org/miami_herald_valdes.htm

Watch America’s Brutal Prisons

Prisoners at the mercy of abusive guards?

We know it happens and yet we look the other way. Daily, prison guards are doling out their own form of ‘justice’ ( read….ABUSE).  Society apparently is OK with this, after all ‘they’ are prisoners, and they MUST be in prison because of some horrendous crime, right?

WRONG.  Just about 85% of prisoners are incarcerated because of  NON VIOLENT crimes. Why are we ok with those who are sworn to upkeep the law, breaking the law on a daily basis? Further demonizing and dehumanizing the mentally ill prisoner, the non violent prisoner, all prisoners? Prison guards are not judge and jury-their JOB is not to further punish. The are over seers, peace keepers.

Here is just one horrifying  example:

The video here is NOT for the squeamish, or faint of heart. Carl Toersbijns  is one of my followers on Twitter. watch if you can….and know that this happens much too often.

http://www.azcentral.com/video/2183631440001

and from todays headlines:

Kim Millbrook, a federal prisoner serving 31 years on a variety of charges, says on March 5, 2010, three corrections officers took him to a basement at the U.S. Penitentiary, Lewisburg, Pa., where one forced him down to perform oral sex on a second officer while the third officer stood watch. He wants to sue.

- Kim Millbrook, a federal prisoner serving 31 years on a variety of charges, says on March 5, 2010, three corrections officers took him to a basement at the U.S. Penitentiary, Lewisburg in Pa., where one forced him down to perform oral sex on a second officer while the third officer stood watch. He wants to sue.Millbrook had his day in the U.S. Supreme Court last week.The inmate’s veracity is not at issue — many question whether he is telling the truth — but whether federal prisoners have access to the courts when they make allegations of abuse. The case has implications for all federal law enforcement that might be accused fairly or unfairly of prisoner abuse, not just corrections officers — U.S. Marshals, the FBI, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, among others.In a brief filed at the high court, the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a group that promotes civil rights for gays and lesbians, and a coalition said, “Access to the courts is critical to deter sexual assault of inmates by prison officers, an acknowledged national problem arising from the nearly absolute power that prison officers wield.”A brief filed by the non-profit Lewisburg Prison Project, a group that provides legal and other assistance to prisoners in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, said prisoners “confined in the federal government’s most restrictive penal institutions are uniquely vulnerable to abuse,” and “prisoners are persons with incontestable rights to justice and compassion.”Specifically, the question before the justices is whether two provisions of the Federal Tort Claims Act “waive the sovereign immunity of the United States [against suit] for the intentional torts [legal wrongs] of prison guards [and other law enforcement officers] when they are acting within the scope of their employment.”

After Millbrook filed suit, the lower courts ruled against him. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which includes Pennsylvania, said a provision of the act allows suits against the federal government only when a law enforcement officer is “executing a search, seizing evidence, or making an arrest.”

Millbrook then beat tremendous odds, filing his handwritten pauper petition at the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices each term reject thousands of such pauper petitions, many of them filed by prisoners, but they accepted Millbrook’s for argument.

The Obama administration first opposed Supreme Court review of Millbrook’s case, contending the act’s waivers should be read narrowly. The administration also doubted his allegations.

“After [Millbrook] reported to prison authorities that he had been assaulted, officials conducted an internal investigation which included a medical assessment. The investigation found petitioner’s claims to be unsubstantiated,” the administration’s brief in opposition said.

But during the course of the case, the administration changed its mind and last November filed a brief advocating the reversal of the appellate ruling.

Millbrook was convicted in 2007 on one count of possession a firearm after being convicted of a felony, one count of possession with intent to distribute cocaine base, three counts of witness tampering and one count of witness intimidation.

Though supporting review of the appellate ruling against him, the brief concedes Millbrook “filed multiple administrative complaints … falsely alleging misconduct by correctional officers.” Lewisburg is a special unit for “inmates difficult to manage.”

The New York Times reported in October Millbrook, “an inmate at a federal prison in Pennsylvania, has 31 years of hard time on his hands. He has been using it to sue people.”

NPR said Millbrook “is known in the trade as a ‘frequent filer’ — he files lots of cases against the prisons where he has been forced to reside. And he has not yet won a single one of them.”

But without reaching a conclusion on Millbrook’s truthfulness, the Obama administration in its latest brief said the appellate court’s “reading of the law enforcement [provision] cannot be reconciled with the statutory text and structure of the [provision's] legislative history.”

The Third Circuit’s reading of the immunity waiver in the Federal Tort Claims Act conflicts with the interpretation of some other federal courts.

Because the administration now supported Millbrook, the U.S. Supreme Court appointed a lawyer to defend the Third Circuit ruling. A brief filed by the present counsel of record for the Third Circuit argued that the act’s waiver only covers officers acting in their “investigative or law enforcement” capacity.

During argument last week, the justices spent a lot of time asking questions about what is a law enforcement officer, and what constitutes law enforcement activity, Lawyers.com reported.

Justice Anthony Kennedy expressed concern a high court ruling in favor of Millbank would “vastly expand the number of cases in which the government is the defendant.”

An article posted Feb. 15 on SCOTUSBLOG.com, written by Washington lawyer Kevin Russell, a partner at Goldstein & Russell, explains why the issue is so complicated.

Russell said if Millbrook actually was sexually assaulted by a federal prison guard, his constitutional rights were violated. But whether the assault took place is not at issue before the Supreme Court.

“The question in the case is whether the federal government can be held liable for that violation by its employees,” Russell said. “Ordinarily, the government is immune from suit for even the most egregious conduct of its agents. But Congress waived the government’s immunity to a significant degree in the Federal Tort Claims Act, which generally waives immunity for any negligent or wrongful act committed by a federal employee acting within the scope of his employment.

“So that would seem to allow Millbrook’s suit for an assault by a guard,” he wrote. “But there is an exception — there is no waiver for certain intentional torts, including assault and battery. So Millbrook would seem to be out of luck, given that sexual assault is a kind of assault.”

But the twists and turns don’t end there, Russell explained.

“There is an exception to the exception — the so-called ‘law enforcement proviso’ allows suit for ‘any claim’ of ‘assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest, abuse of process, or malicious prosecution’ arising out of the acts of federal ‘investigative or law enforcement officers.’”

The Supreme Court should rule in the case, untying the legal knots, sometime over the next few months.

Via  UPI

Related articles

• Argument preview: Examining the scope of the federal government’s liability for law enforcement abuses (scotusblog.com)
• The Untold Story of American Women Raped by Government (armstrongeconomics.com)
• Prison Guard’s Watch On Video And Do Nothing As 19 Year Old Hangs Herself (theintelhub.com)

Cops with Machine Guns & Michael Lee Nida

In October 2011, the police-related shooting death of unarmed man, Michael Nida, 31, raised serious questions about the state of policing in the city of Downey, California, a suburb of Los Angeles.

Why did it raise questions? The father of four who worked in construction wasn’t shot with a handgun by one of the Downey Police Department’s officers. He was shot with an MP5 submachine gun, the same gun used by the Navy Seals.

“Why would he have a machine gun?” asks Jean Thaxton, one of Nida’s guardians since birth. “We’re not in a war zone, I didn’t think. I didn’t think this was a war zone.”

“An ordinary patrolman isn’t going to be carrying something like a submachine gun,” says Timothy Lynch, the director of the Project on Criminal Justice at the CATO Institute. Lynch says that even if they have those types of weapons, they should only be using them in rare circumstances, such as when they are confronting a heavily armed suspect.

But for decades police have been arming themselves with military equipment like M16s, grenade launchers, and armored personnel carriers.

“At first when they got it, the idea was, yeah, this is extraordinary weaponry, we’ll have it just in case we’ll ever need it.” But as decades went by, police started to use them to enforce drug warrants and then started carrying them on routine calls.

Nida’s Rydas , Have been on the streets for a year now. The locals love them, but the mainstream media is nowhere. Michael was an innocent man gunned down by Downey police for running. Committed no crime, just buying smokes, while his wife got gas.

 Please support by trying to make it to candle light Vigil on 10/22-There is no acceptable number for the loss of Innocent lives to police the public.

Justice For Michael – Justice For ALL!

California: To cut state prison budget, start with perks for guards

By Arthur B. Laffer

 

California’s voters will soon consider two ballot initiatives that aim to reduce the state’s unsustainable spending on prisons. The cost of jail is punishing – and not just for the prisoners. Incarcerating an inmate runs an average of $47,000 a year.

That figure certainly is not chump change, but the folks behind bars are not the reason that the finances for California’s prison system are falling apart. Rather, the state’s unionized prison guards – specifically, their excessively generous pay and benefits – are to blame. Reforming the Golden State’s broke – and broken – correctional system should start by taking on the prison guards.

The crisis in California’s prisons was cast into stark relief last year when the U.S. Supreme Court found that the state was violating the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The high court ordered the state to release tens of thousands of prisoners or find another way to ease overcrowding in order to prevent “needless suffering and death.”

It’s not as if the prison system lacks sufficient funds. Roughly 10 percent of the state’s general fund – or about $9 billion a year – is devoted to Corrections and Rehabilitation expenditures. And California doesn’t just spend a lot on its prison system in aggregate; California’s per-capita prison costs are also 54 percent higher than the national average.

How could California spend top dollar on its prisons – and yet still subject inmates to inhumane living conditions?

Six-figure salaries for some prison guards provide a big chunk of the answer. Cadets at the prison-guard academy make about $3,000 a month. Once they get out, they can look forward to starting base salaries of up to $65,000. Prison guards get time-and-a-half whenever they clock in more than 40 hours a week. According to columnist Allysia Finley, one sergeant collected more than $200,000 in salary, overtime and bonus in 2010. And his income wasn’t even tops among his peers.

Guards can retire at the relatively young age of 55 – and receive 85 percent of their final year’s salary.

Continue Reading @ The Sac Bee

 

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Bombshell……

Well folks, I almost dont know what to say here, but I must address an ugly issue that I just now became aware of. Those who know me and my work KNOW that I have no tolerance for lying, and under handed dealings of any type.

 

I was just made aware via a blog post by Dan Dailey of WanderVogel Diary and the Redemption Project for Kids about serious issues surrounding one of their FORMER advocates, Steve Sydebotham.  Steve has been advocating tirelessly for James Prindle and Blade Reed. Many of us were enlisted by Steve to highlight these cases. Let me say that I do NOT relinquish my support for James or Blade, only Steve Sydebotham. I would like to see justice for those boys.

 

Let me state that these cases are valid, true and any of us that have been spreading awareness about their cases was in the interest of the juveniles. Not anyone else or anything else. Rumors are swirling and all over the net at this time. Our only interest and intent are the children who are affected. There are always three sides to any story- his, hers and the truth. And the truth is what we are uncovering at this point. Here is what we know so far- and Steve has indicated that it is not entirely truthful- which leads me to think – WHY would something so damaging even be put out? I have contacted Dan Dailey  and am awaiting a response. The following is copied from the Wandervogel Diary:

 

the predator

posted 8/25/12

 

By dandailey

 

Lately things haven’t been right behind the scenes at The Redemption Project. In fact, there have been days when things seemed like they couldn’t be more wrong.

Beginning with the “disappearance” on July 27 of evidence that was to have been provided to me to confirm the allegations of the mysterious informant I had been calling “Deep Throat,” I’ve been living with a growing sick feeling in my stomach that we have been played and taken advantage of.

Stephen Sydebotham had claimed to be in possession of photographs and audio recordings which would prove beyond all doubt that the Deep Throat allegations he was providing to us were true. But the evidence never got into my hands. There had been a full week of frustrating delays, supposedly caused by technical difficulties created by cyber-attacks. Audio recordings were e-mailed to me, but the voices in them were electronically modified and there were puzzling inconsistencies in the content.

Based on Stephen’s word, I had scheduled a Friday afternoon interview with a child sex trafficking investigator at Homeland Security to arrange for the turning over of this evidence as required by law. On the morning of the scheduled interview, Stephen called and said, “We have a problem.” The file with all the evidence in it had been stolen, he said.

How convenient, I thought. As I discussed this strange turn with colleagues who have known Stephen longer than I have, we discovered many inconsistencies in the stories he had been telling us all along. We realized that Stephen had continually mediated contacts between us in such a way that we would have limited opportunities to compare notes.

One of the first things I did was to send James Prindle a postcard suggesting that we begin communicating directly, and not through Stephen. I gave him my phone number and put $25 on a prepaid calling account.

On July 29 I had all references to Stephen, the accounts he managed for Blade and James, etc. removed from The Redemption Project websites.

After I received a message from the Homeland Security investigator that they would not be pursuing an investigation because they did not consider the audio recordings and other leads to be credible, I sent Stephen an e-mail on August 2 formally severing our relationship based on the fact that I no longer had confidence in him or the information he was providing. A copy of this e-mail was sent to James’ new attorney Mike Scholl.

We launched an internal investigation of Stephen, his identity, background, claims, and practices. Background checks had been run previously but had turned up nothing to raise our suspicions. But this time we dug deeper, interviewed people who had previously worked with him, and we found troubling evidence of a pattern of lying and fraud. Our investigation is continuing, but on the basis of what we have already learned, we have concluded that we’ve been the victims of an elaborate deception which has endangered the welfare of the young people for whom Stephen has been advocating, as well as our other work.

I have raised and disbursed a little more than $30,000 for Blade Reed and James Prindle (most of it paid directly to lawyers and other third parties) based in part on information provided to me by Stephen—information which I now believe to be questionable and unreliable.

This is very serious, and I have informed our largest donors most directly affected. (The first donor I informed not only expressed his continuing confidence in The Redemption Project, but raised his commitment to James’ defense. This experience has been repeated.)

On August 12 I finally received a call from James Prindle and I learned that at least one of my blog posts was based on reports that were not factually true, so I took down that post right after I got off the phone with James. I have also taken down two other July posts about which I no longer have confidence in their basis in fact.

I now believe the very existence of “Deep Throat” was an invention, and that the revelations reported in the two posts titled “Allegations” 1 and 2 are a blend of fact, theory, and fiction which can now be sorted out only with great difficulty. All post deletions now appear as white dates on the July calendar appearing in the right-hand column of the blog.

Because these allegations were revealed after the guilty verdict in James’ trial, I believe that Stephen’s motive must have been to create more “reasonable doubt” than had been available for James’ defense in the trial and to influence the actions of the judge through public pressure. But remember, Stephen has never admitted to me that Deep Throat and his revelations were an invention; in fact, Stephen has even tried to convince me that someone matching Deep Throat’s description was in Stephen’s Wisconsin hometown after July 27 making inquiries about Stephen. Lies buttressing lies—or so it appears to me.

As I explained to James, the introduction of any falsehoods into his defense could undermine everything.

Dishonest prosecutors regularly get away with spinning innocuous things into damning evidence. But for the accused, the truth is the only source of exculpatory evidence. It is bad enough when a kid who is wrongfully accused of a crime tries to lie his way to exoneration, but for an adult advocate to facilitate any deception for that purpose—well, that is simply beyond the pale.

Now we have discovered that certain disbursements made directly to Stephen for the benefit of his kids were never used for their intended purposes. For example, nearly a year ago I sent him two payments totaling $1,650 that were have to been used to pay a paralegal named Torm Howse to prepare a writ of habeas corpus for Blade Reed. I was told by Stephen that the work was completed by Mr. Howse and utilized by Blade’s attorneys. E-mails from Mr. Howse were forwarded to me to pressure our prompt payment. Now we have doubled back on Stephen’s representations, checked with Mr. Howse, and are dismayed to learn that: “I recall the sporadic email conversation, but nothing really happened eventually, so I don’t believe an actual price or time required was even figured out. The guy writing about doing something for Blade never took it that far, as best I can remember–yes, clear back sometime last year.” Blade’s attorneys have also told me they never had anything to do with the presentation of a habeas corpus writ.

In other words, Stephen tricked me into raising $1,650 to pay for legal work for Blade Reed which was never done. The money was deposited into a UGMA account ostensibly for Blade Reed’s benefit, but it was apparently not disbursed from that account for the purpose that Stephen said it was. This is likely not the only such instance.

In the June 15-July 18 time period surrounding James Prindle’s trial and last two court dates, Stephen spent a little more than a month in Memphis on The Redemption Project’s dime. Originally Stephen was to have spent only about a week in Memphis and then returned for the sentencing hearing.

However, with the appearance of “Deep Throat” and the revelations he was supposedly sharing, it seemed to make all the sense in the world to keep Stephen in Memphis if the information he was developing there might exonerate James, so I kept  transferring cash to him through MoneyGram. Now we see that this hope—and the rationalization for sending him money—was a chimera.

We provided Stephen with a total of $3,500 to cover his expenses, not including phone. While there, we calculate that his motel bill was only something like $1,000. He claimed to have been eating at Burger King and other modest venues, but because of car trouble and other purported problems, he kept running out of money. Now we have learned that Stephen also borrowed money from James’ grandparents and owes them about $300. Where did all our money go? I have asked for an accounting of Stephen’s expenses including receipts, but the deadline I set has come and gone.

This is adding up to only one reasonable conclusion: that Stephen has likely been engaged in fraud. Instead of helping the kids for whom he has been advocating, it’s more likely he’s in fact been using them—and us—for his own personal gain and who-knows-what other nefarious purposes. The staff at the Shelby County Jail have nicknamed him “The Predator.” Indeed, the man does give every appearance of being a predator, and a smooth and cunning one at that—as long as he is working the phones and Internet.

By all accounts, Stephen creates a much different impression when you meet or see him in person. People who observed him in the courtroom in Memphis have said that, based on his personal grooming habits and the way he was dressed, he looked to them like a “homeless person.”

When James’ dad Sam Prindle and I discussed this recently, all Sam had to say is that Stephen seemed so caring, competent, and convincing. Sam was taken in, too.

Stephen Sydebotham needs to be sidelined so he can never again do damage to the kids and families who trust him. I keep thinking about the profound disappointment and sense of betrayal James and Blade will experience when they learn the truth. Theft of money is a serious offense, but taking advantage of vulnerable kids is the worst of all possible sins in our work.

Even if we never recover any of the money he has apparently stolen from us and from the kids we serve, it would be worth it to see this predator taken out of circulation. Or at least, that is how I am rationalizing it right now.

We have reported all of this to the authorities in four states, and we will see (in this instance, at least) if the System is capable of dispensing honest and appropriate justice. Unfortunately, we are not off to a promising start.

The sheriff’s department in Sauk County WI, for example, wants to see the financial fraud as a civil matter and has declined to pursue it as a criminal offense. The FBI declined to get involved because the amount of money involved does not cross a six-figure threshold. So far just about everybody says Sydebotham is another jurisdiction’s problem. Nobody seems to give a damn about the damage being done to the kids, who (to them) are seemingly of the throw-away variety.

Only in Tennessee is there a shred of hope that law enforcement will open an official investigation. Several days ago we heard from someone close to Shelby County officials that the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is looking into the Prindle Case and Stephen Sydebotham’s role in it. I contacted the TBI investigator I had spoken to earlier to check on this rumor. “At this time the TBI does not have an active investigation on the Prindle matter,” she said. “However, the information you provided has been forwarded to the proper authorities for review.”

Looking at this from law enforcement’s perspective, the bottom line is that the amounts of money involved are relatively small and the complexity (because of the multiple jurisdictions involved) is high—and most people, even cops and prosecutors, are basically lazy.

As I said to the agent I talked to at the FBI, it looks like we may just have to take matters into our own hands. There are plenty of perfectly legal things we can do. “Outing” Stephen as a wolf in sheep’s clothing through this post is one of them.

We are taking concrete steps so that this will never happen again.

One way or another, justice will be done.

We will see to it.

http://wandervogeldiary.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/the-predator/

 

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