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Police Corruption News Stories
Excerpts of Key Police Corruption News Stories in Major Media


Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.


Note: This comprehensive list of news stories is usually updated once a week. Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.


Texas cops waited 77 minutes to attempt entering Uvalde classrooms under attack
2022-06-18, New York Post
Posted: 2022-06-26 13:44:10
https://nypost.com/2022/06/18/uvalde-cops-waited-77-minutes-to-try-entering-c...

Security footage shows cops at the Uvalde, Texas school massacre waited 77 minutes before even trying to open the doors to two classrooms where the shooter killed 19 children and two teachers last month, a new report said. The latest revelation, published Saturday by The San Antonio Express News, is the latest detail that shows a botched police response to the massacre, which is now under investigation by the Texas Department of Public Safety. Video shows that gunman Salvador Ramos, 18, was able to open the door to classroom 111 on May 24, even though it was supposed to lock automatically when shut. Once inside the classroom, Ramos was able to access classroom 112 through another interior door. It was unclear if the door was locked while Ramos conducted the shooting spree, but police did not even check or try to open it, despite having access to a Halligan tool which could have broken the lock. Uvalde school district police Chief Pete Arredondo was in charge of the operation. He previously told The Texas Tribune that he waited for 40 minutes for keys from the custodian to try to open the classroom door. Finally, at 12:50 p.m., police breached the door and shot and killed the suspect who had first broken into the school at 11:33 a.m. through an exterior door that had also failed to automatically lock. Texas investigators say Arredondo mistakenly treated the shooting as a barricaded suspect incident instead of an active shooter situation.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


Deputy: 2 officers had chance to shoot Uvalde school gunman
2022-06-18, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
Posted: 2022-06-26 13:42:16
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Texas-committee-still-trying-to-question-...

Two Uvalde city police officers passed up a fleeting chance to shoot a gunman outside Robb Elementary School before he went on to kill 21 people inside the school, a senior sheriff's deputy told The New York Times. That would mean a second missed opportunity for officers to stop Salvador Ramos before the May 24 rampage inside the school that killed 19 children and two teachers. Officials said that a school district police drove past Ramos without seeing him in the school parking lot. The unidentified officers, one of whom was armed with an AR-15-style rifle, said they feared hitting children playing in the line of fire outside the school, Chief Deputy Ricardo Rios of nearby Zavalla County told the newspaper. Rios said he had shared the information with a special Test House committee investigating the school massacre. Uvalde police officials agreed Friday to speak to the committee investigating, according to a Republican lawmaker leading the probe who had begun to publicly question why the officers were not cooperating sooner. "Took a little bit longer than we initially had expected," state Rep. Dustin Burrows said. On Thursday, Burrows signaled impatience with Uvalde police, tweeting that most people had fully cooperated with their investigation "to help determine the facts" and that he didn't understand why the city's police force "would not want the same." He did not say which members of the department will meet with the committee, which is set to continue questioning witnesses in Uvalde on Monday.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


Uvalde Police Didn't Move to Save Lives Because That's Not What Police Do
2022-05-27, The Intercept
Posted: 2022-06-12 13:30:30
https://theintercept.com/2022/05/27/uvalde-texas-shooting-police-law-enforcem...

The more details that emerge about how police responded to the massacre in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday, the clearer it is that the already well-funded, heavily armed and amply trained law enforcement officers on the scene failed to save the lives of 19 children and two of their teachers. Salvador Ramos murdered 21 people. Despite earlier, misleading claims from law enforcement officials, it appears that no police officers engaged with the shooter before he entered the school. Instead of rushing in to protect the children and staff when reports of a gunman approaching the school were made at 11:30 a.m., police instead waited outside and aggressively confronted parents who were begging them to enter. The parents were threatened with arrest – one cop brandished a Taser – as they attempted to access the school to save their kids themselves. The police failed at protecting the schoolchildren, yes, but we should not be under the illusion that this is an example of the cops failing at their jobs. As far we can tell from reports, police at the scene acted as they usually do, in accordance with standard policing practice: Rather than risk a hail of gunfire to stop the killer, they kept themselves safe. It is disgusting, not shocking, that police officers would sooner harass and handcuff parents – parents begging them to save their children from a massacre – than they would run in and put themselves in the line of fire.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


DOJ's new policy requires officers to stop others from using excessive force
2022-05-24, NPR
Posted: 2022-06-06 18:03:02
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/24/1100920286/doj-new-policy-excessive-force

The Justice Department is updating its use of force policy for the first time in 18 years, saying explicitly that federal officers and agents must step in if they see other officers using excessive force. The policy takes effect on July 19. The new policy is outlined in a memo Attorney General Merrick Garland sent to senior Justice leaders. The rules apply to all agencies under the Justice Department, including the FBI, DEA, ATF and U.S. Marshals Service. "It is the policy of the Department of Justice to value and preserve human life," the policy begins. It later adds, "Officers may use force only when no reasonably effective, safe, and feasible alternative appears to exist and may use only the level of force that a reasonable officer on the scene would use under the same or similar circumstances." The policy's first portion deals with deadly force, barring tactics such as firing guns to disable cars. But the next section calls for de-escalation training, and the next two spell out situations in which officers have an "affirmative duty" – to prevent or stop other officers from using excessive force, and to render or call for medical aid when it's needed. Law enforcement officers should be able to recognize and act on "the affirmative duty to intervene to prevent or stop, as appropriate, any officer from engaging in excessive force or any other use of force that violates the Constitution, other federal laws, or Department policies on the reasonable use of force," the policy states.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


FBI Provides Chicago Police with Fake Online Identities for "Social Media Exploitation" Team
2022-05-20, The Intercept
Posted: 2022-05-31 01:19:10
https://theintercept.com/2022/05/20/chicago-police-fbi-social-media-surveilla...

The Social Media Exploitation, or SOMEX, team ... had been set up to help the FBI find informants and intelligence using information gleaned from social sites. The Intercept and Chicago-based transparency groups obtained more than 800 pages of emails and other documents about the team through public records requests. These show that the team's officers were given broad leeway to investigate people across platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, using fake social media accounts furnished by the FBI, in violation of some platforms' policies. The week that followed George Floyd's murder by a white police officer was an intense moment in Chicago's – and U.S. – history. Thousands of people took to the city's streets to peacefully demonstrate against police violence. Despite ample warning, the Office of Inspector General report found, Chicago's police were unprepared. When they did react, their response was chaotic and excessively violent, with officers variously hiding their badge numbers, turning off their body cameras, blasting people with pepper spray at close range ... and telling an arrestee that they would be raped in jail. The SOMEX team's reaction was also troubling. The team's mission was to provide both the FBI and the CPD with useful intelligence. What the SOMEX officers did instead: flag potential damage of police cars, investigate the social media connections of people who had made threats online, and cull videos for the department's YouTube channel.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


California cities spent huge share of federal Covid relief funds on police
2022-04-07, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: 2022-04-17 16:15:34
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/07/covid-relief-funds-california...

Cities in California spent large portions of their federal Covid relief money on police departments, a review of public records has revealed, with several cities prioritizing police funding by a wide margin. As part of the American Rescue Plan Act (Arpa), the Biden administration's signature stimulus package, the US government sent funds to cities to help them fight coronavirus and support local recovery efforts. The money, officials said, could be used to fund a range of services. But most large California cities spent millions of Arpa dollars on law enforcement. Some also gave police money from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (Cares) Act, adopted in 2020 under Donald Trump. San Francisco received $312m in Arpa funds for fiscal year 2020 and allocated 49% ($153m) to police, 13% ($41m) to the sheriff's department, and the remainder to the fire department. San Francisco also gave roughly 22% ($38.5m) of its Cares funds to law enforcement. Los Angeles spent roughly 50% of its first round of Arpa relief funds on the LAPD. In Fresno, the city allocated more than double of its Cares money to police than it did to Covid testing, contact tracing, small business grants, childcare vouchers and transitional housing combined. Cities using relief funds for police have typically funneled the money to salaries, although The Appeal recently reported that some jurisdictions were using stimulus dollars to buy new surveillance technology and build new prisons.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and police corruption from reliable major media sources.


LA jail guards routinely punch incarcerated people in the head, monitors find
2022-04-08, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: 2022-04-17 16:13:32
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/08/los-angeles-jail-sheriffs-dep...

Los Angeles jail guards have frequently punched incarcerated people in the head and subjected them to a "humiliating" group strip-search where they were forced to wait undressed for hours, according to a new report from court-appointed monitors documenting a range of abuses. The Los Angeles sheriff's department (LASD), which oversees the largest local jail system in the country, appears to be routinely violating use-of-force policies, with supervisors failing to hold guards accountable and declining to provide information to the monitors tasked with reviewing the treatment of incarcerated people. The report, filed in federal court on Thursday, adds to a long string of scandals for the department. The monitors [were] first put in place in 2014 to settle a case involving beatings. The monitors, Robert Houston, a former corrections official, and Jeffrey Schwartz, a consultant, alleged that the use of "head shots", meaning punches to the head, had been "relatively unchanged in the last two years or more, and may be increasing". They also wrote that deputies who used force in violation of policy were at times sent to "remedial training" but that "actual discipline is seldom imposed." And supervisors who failed to document violations were also "not held accountable." The authors cited one incident in which a deputy approached a resident. "With no hesitation ... Deputy Y punched [him] 5-9 times in the head, and Deputy Z punched [him] 6-8 times in the head as they took [him] to the floor.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in policing and in the prison system from reliable major media sources.


The hidden billion-dollar cost of repeated police misconduct
2022-03-09, Washington Post
Posted: 2022-03-27 18:47:38
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/police-miscond...

In Detroit, Tony Murray was getting ready for bed. He glanced out of his window and saw a half-dozen uniformed police officers with guns drawn. Officers searched Murray's home. One [officer] handed him a copy of the search warrant, which stated they were looking for illegal drugs. Murray noticed something else: The address listed wasn't his. It was his neighbor's. Months after the 2014 raid, Murray, who was not charged with any crimes, sued Detroit police for gross negligence and civil rights violations, naming Officer Lynn Christopher Moore, who filled out the search warrant, and the other five officers who raided his home. The city eventually paid Murray $87,500 to settle his claim, but admitted no error. Between 2010 and 2020, the city settled 10 claims involving Moore's police work, paying more than $665,000 to individuals who alleged the officer used excessive force, made an illegal arrest or wrongfully searched a home. Moore is among the more than 7,600 officers – from Portland, Ore., to Milwaukee to Baltimore – whose alleged misconduct has more than once led to payouts to resolve lawsuits and claims of wrongdoing, according to a Washington Post investigation. The Post collected data on nearly 40,000 payments at 25 of the nation's largest police and sheriff's departments within the past decade, documenting more than $3.2 billion spent to settle claims. More than 1,200 officers in the departments surveyed had been the subject of at least five payments. More than 200 had 10 or more.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


Thousands of calls later, Denver's acclaimed program that provides an alternative to police response is expanding
2022-02-20, Denver Post
Posted: 2022-03-27 18:37:49
https://www.denverpost.com/2022/02/20/denver-star-program-expansion/

Since June 2020, the mental health clinicians and paramedics working for Denver's Support Team Assisted Response program have covered hundreds of miles in their white vans responding to 911 calls instead of police officers. They've responded to reports of people experiencing psychotic breaks. They've helped a woman experiencing homelessness who couldn't find a place to change, so she undressed in an alley. They've helped suicidal people, schizophrenic people, people using drugs. They've handed out water and socks. They've helped connect people to shelter, food and resources. The program, known as STAR, began 20 months ago with a single van and a two-person team. More than 2,700 calls later, STAR is getting ready to expand to six vans and more than a dozen workers – growth the program's leaders hope will allow the teams to respond to more than 10,000 calls a year. The Denver City Council last week voted unanimously to approve a $1.4 million contract with the Mental Health Center of Denver for the program's continuation and expansion. The contract means the program that aims to send unarmed health experts instead of police officers to certain emergency calls will soon have broader reach and more operational hours. "STAR is an example of a program that has worked for those it has had contact with," Councilwoman Robin Kniech said. "It is minimizing unnecessary arrests and unnecessary costs – whether that be jail costs or emergency room costs."

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Congress Has Closed The Loophole That Allowed Federal Officers To Claim Sex With A Detainee Is Consensual
2022-03-16, Yahoo! News
Posted: 2022-03-20 23:24:57
https://news.yahoo.com/congress-closed-loophole-allowed-federal-155928392.html

Congress passed a bill last week explicitly prohibiting federal law enforcement officers from having sex with people in their custody, closing a loophole that previously allowed them to avoid a rape conviction by claiming such an encounter was consensual. The legal loophole gained widespread attention in 2018, after an 18-year-old woman in New York, Anna Chambers, said that two detectives raped her inside their police van. The detectives, who have since resigned, said she consented. Prosecutors ultimately dropped the sexual assault charges, and the men were sentenced to five years of probation after pleading guilty to bribery and official misconduct. In February 2018, BuzzFeed News reported that laws in 35 states allowed police officers to claim that a person in their custody consented to sex, and that of at least 158 law enforcement officers charged with sexual assault, sexual battery, or unlawful sexual contact with somebody under their control from 2006 to 2018, at least 26 were acquitted or had charges dropped based on the consent defense. Last week ... the Closing the Law Enforcement Consent Loophole Act passed the House and Senate as part of a broader appropriations bill. The act also requires states that receive certain federal grants to annually report to the Department of Justice the number of complaints alleging a sexual encounter between a local law enforcement officer and a person in their custody. The ... Act applies to the 100,000 or so law enforcement officers across all federal agencies.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Fatal police shootings in 2021 set record since The Post began tracking, despite public outcry
2022-02-09, Washington Post
Posted: 2022-02-21 19:10:57
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/02/09/fatal-police-shootin...

Police shot and killed at least 1,055 people nationwide last year, the highest total since The Washington Post began tracking fatal shootings by officers in 2015 – underscoring the difficulty of reducing such incidents despite sustained public attention to the issue. The new count is up from 1,021 shootings the previous year and 999 in 2019. The total comes amid a nationwide spike in violent crime. Despite setting a record, experts said the 2021 total was within expected bounds. Police have fatally shot roughly 1,000 people in each of the past seven years, ranging from 958 in 2016 to last year's high. The number of fatal police shootings ... suggests officers' behavior has not shifted significantly since The Post began collecting data. Advocacy for policing overhauls has intensified since the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. More than 400 bills were introduced in state legislatures last year to address officers' use of force. Police departments increasingly partnered with mental health experts to respond to people in crisis. Cities established civilian review boards for use-of-force incidents. None of it decreased the number of people shot and killed by officers last year. Last year, all but 15 percent of people shot and killed by officers were armed. Ninety-four percent were men. Roughly 14 percent had known mental health struggles, down from about one-fifth in the two previous years and about one-fourth in 2016 and 2015.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


He wore a wire, risked his life to expose who was in the KKK
2021-12-23, ABC/Associated Press
Posted: 2022-01-31 13:50:16
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/wore-wire-risked-life-expose-kkk-81...

For nearly 10 years, Joseph Moore lived a secret double life. At times the U.S. Army veteran donned a white robe and hood as a hit man for the Ku Klux Klan in North Florida. He attended clandestine meetings and participated in cross burnings. He even helped plan the murder of a Black man. However, Moore wore something else during his years in the klan – a wire for the FBI. He recorded his conversations with his fellow klansmen, sometimes even captured video, and shared what he learned with federal agents trying to crack down on white supremacists. [Moore] would help the federal government foil at least two murder plots. He was also an active informant when the FBI exposed klan members working as law enforcement officers in Florida at the city, county and state levels. "The FBI wanted me to gather as much information about these individuals and confirm their identities," Moore said of law enforcement officers who were active members of or working with the klan. "It is more prevalent and consequential than any of them are willing to admit." At klan gatherings, Moore noted license plate numbers and other identifying information of suspected law enforcement officers who were members. Moore said he noted connections between the hate group and law enforcement in Florida and Georgia. He came across dozens of police officers, prison guards, sheriff deputies and other law enforcement officers who were involved with the klan and outlaw motorcycle clubs.

Note: Read more about how white supremacist groups and militias have infiltrated law enforcement agencies. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


How Paid Experts Help Exonerate Police After Deaths in Custody
2021-12-26, New York Times
Posted: 2022-01-03 10:07:16
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/26/us/police-deaths-in-custody-blame.html

When lawyers were preparing to defend against a lawsuit over a death in police custody in Fresno, Calif., they knew whom to call. Dr. Gary Vilke has established himself as a leading expert witness by repeatedly asserting that police techniques such as facedown restraints, stun gun shocks and some neck holds did not kill people. Officers in Fresno had handcuffed 41-year-old Joseph Perez and, holding him facedown on the ground, put a spinal board from an ambulance on his back as he cried out for help. The county medical examiner ruled his death, in May 2017, a homicide by asphyxiation. Dr. Vilke, who was hired by the ambulance provider, charged $500 an hour and provided a different determination. He wrote in a report ... that Mr. Perez had died from methamphetamine use, heart disease and the exertion of his struggle against the restraints. Dr. Vilke ... is an integral part of a small but influential cadre of scientists, lawyers, physicians and other police experts whose research and testimony is almost always used to absolve officers of blame for deaths, according to a review of hundreds of research papers and more than 25,000 pages of court documents, as well as interviews with nearly three dozen people. Their views infuriate many prosecutors, plaintiff lawyers, medical experts and relatives of the dead, who accuse them of slanting science, ignoring inconvenient facts and dangerously emboldening police officers to act aggressively. Many of the experts also have ties to Axon, maker of the Taser.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


Torrance police traded racist, homophobic texts. It could jeopardize hundreds of cases
2021-12-08, Los Angeles Times
Posted: 2021-12-27 01:28:06
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-12-08/torrance-police-traded-ra...

The caption read "hanging with the homies." The picture above it showed several Black men who had been lynched. Another photo asked what someone should do if their girlfriend was having an affair with a Black man. The answer, according to the caption, was to break "a tail light on his car so the police will stop him and shoot him." The comments represent a sliver of a trove of racist text messages exchanged by more than a dozen current and former Torrance police officers and recruits. The Times examined some of the contents of the until-now secret texts and identified a dozen Torrance police officers under investigation for exchanging them. The broad scope of the racist text conversations, which prosecutors said went on for years, has created a crisis for the Torrance Police Department and could jeopardize hundreds of criminal cases in which the officers either testified or made arrests. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said Wednesday his office will investigate the department in the wake of the scandal. The officers' comments spared no color or creed. While no officers currently face criminal charges in direct relation to the text messages, the racist exchanges have led to the dismissal of at least 85 criminal cases involving the officers implicated in the scandal. County prosecutors had tossed 35 felony cases as of mid-November, and the Torrance city attorney's office has dismissed an additional 50, officials said. In total, the officers were listed as potential witnesses in nearly 1,400 cases in the last decade.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


USA TODAY investigation finds widespread retaliation against police whistleblowers
2021-11-12, USA Today
Posted: 2021-12-05 21:59:06
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/11/12/usa-today-investigation-sho...

We got a touching email Wednesday from a 30-year veteran of a Massachusetts police force. He wrote that his distinguished career "was all tarnished ... after I reported (an) officer lying on the stand and going to the FBI." He was responding to an investigative story we published this week, Behind the Blue Wall, that documented how often police whistleblowers face retaliation for reporting misconduct. They have been threatened, fired, jailed, one was even forcibly admitted to a psychiatric ward. "I want to personally thank you for bringing this to light," the officer wrote. "You were able to write what I have experienced for the last 6 years. After reading this I took a deep breath and for the first time since this began I feel liberated from the stigma of being a rat, untruthful, discredited." Police covering for colleagues, and punishing those who don't, isn't new. But with this investigation, we wanted to quantify, for the first time, the extent of the problem and how it impacts the whistleblowers. Reporters sent out 400 public records requests and secured tens of thousands of pages of records. They found 300 cases in the past decade where an officer helped expose misconduct – a small window into how the system works. The vast majority of those cases ended with those whistleblowers saying they faced retaliation. "Whistleblowing is a life sentence," former Chicago undercover narcotics officer Shannon Spalding told our team. She faced death threats ... after she exposed corruption that led to dozens of overturned convictions.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


Pulled Over: What to Know About Deadly Police Traffic Stops
2021-10-31, New York Times
Posted: 2021-12-05 21:57:45
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/31/us/police-killings-traffic-stops-takeaways...

When Daunte Wright was killed last spring by a police officer in Minnesota after being pulled over for expired registration tags, the case drew national attention. So have several other seemingly avoidable deaths of motorists. Now, a New York Times investigation reveals the scope of such cases across the country – and why traffic stops for minor offenses can escalate into fatal encounters. Over the last five years, The Times found, the police killed more than 400 drivers or passengers who were not wielding a gun or a knife or under pursuit for a violent crime. Traffic stops – which are often motivated by hidden budgetary considerations because of the ticket revenue they generate – are the most common interactions between police officers and the public. Yet the police consider them among the most dangerous things they do. Presumption of peril has been significantly overstated, but it has become ingrained in police culture and court precedents – contributing to impunity for most officers who use lethal force at vehicle stops. In case after case, officers avoided criminal liability when they claimed to have acted in self-defense. In the roughly 400 deaths, five officers were convicted. Nearly two dozen cases are still pending. While prosecutors deemed most of the killings justifiable, local governments paid at least $125 million to resolve legal claims in about 40 cases.

Note: Another NY Times article on this is available here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


Police case gave Supreme Court a chance to protect your rights to record cops. It whiffed.
2021-11-05, USA Today
Posted: 2021-12-05 21:56:14
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/todaysdebate/2021/11/05/denver-police-...

The Supreme Court had an opportunity this week to protect your right to record the misbehavior of rogue police officers. Instead, the court looked the other way while cops who sought to seize such a recording are shielded from accountability. So much for First Amendment protections. By declining to hear a case from a federal appellate court, the Supreme Court let stand a dangerous ruling granting qualified immunity to Denver police officers accused of snatching a computer tablet from a man who had used it to record them punching a suspect in the face and grabbing his pregnant girlfriend, causing her to fall to the ground. In recent years, such recordings have been vital to a national movement against racial injustice and excessive police force. In a few cases, the recordings have been a key to holding police accountable for a person's brutal death. By refusing to take Frasier v. Evans, the Supreme Court managed to set back both the public's right to record police and efforts to hold police accountable for violating citizens' constitutional rights. The decision in this case makes the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals an outlier and leaves people living in the six states it covers – Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming – with weakened constitutional rights. Six other federal appeals courts, covering nearly half of the states, have ruled that citizens have a clear constitutional right to record police in public.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in policing and in the judicial system from reliable major media sources.


FBI says fortune seized in Beverly Hills raid was criminals' loot. Owners say: Where's the proof
2021-09-19, Los Angeles Times
Posted: 2021-10-31 18:36:06
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-19/fbi-seizure-cash-beverly-...

After the FBI seized Joseph Ruiz's life savings during a raid on a safe deposit box business in Beverly Hills, the unemployed chef went to court to retrieve his $57,000. A judge ordered the government to tell Ruiz why it was trying to confiscate the money. It came from drug trafficking, an FBI agent responded in court papers. Ruiz's income was too low for him to have that much money, and his side business selling bongs made from liquor bottles suggested he was an unlicensed pot dealer, the agent wrote. The FBI also said a dog had smelled unspecified drugs on Ruiz's cash. The FBI was wrong. When Ruiz produced records showing the source of his money was legitimate, the government dropped its false accusation and returned his money. Ruiz is one of roughly 800 people whose money and valuables the FBI seized from safe deposit boxes they rented at the U.S. Private Vaults store in a strip mall. Federal agents had suspected for years that criminals were stashing loot there, and they assert that's exactly what they found. The government is trying to confiscate $86 million in cash and a stockpile of jewelry, rare coins and precious metals taken from about half of the boxes. But six months after the raid, the FBI and U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles have produced no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by the vast majority of box holders whose belongings the government is trying to keep. About 300 of the box holders are contesting the attempted confiscation.

Note: In the recent past, police have been caught using asset forfeiture to pad departmental budgets. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.


How the N.Y.P.D. Is Using Post-9/11 Tools on Everyday New Yorkers
2021-09-08, New York Times
Posted: 2021-09-13 20:46:54
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/08/nyregion/nypd-9-11-police-surveillance.html

It was an unusual forearm tattoo that the police said led them to Luis Reyes, a 35-year-old man who was accused of stealing packages from a Manhattan building's mailroom in 2019. But the truth was more complicated: Mr. Reyes had first been identified by the New York Police Department's powerful facial recognition software as it analyzed surveillance video of the crime. His guilty plea this year ... was part of the sprawling legacy of one of the city's darkest days. Since the fall of the World Trade Center, the security apparatus born from the Sept. 11 attack on the city has fundamentally changed the way the country's largest police department operates, altering its approach to finding and foiling terrorist threats, but also to cracking minor cases like Mr. Reyes's. New Yorkers simply going about their daily lives routinely encounter post-9/11 digital surveillance tools like facial recognition software, license plate readers or mobile X-ray vans that can see through car doors. Surveillance drones hover above mass demonstrations and protesters say they have been questioned by antiterrorism officers after marches. The department's Intelligence Division, redesigned in 2002 to confront Al Qaeda operatives, now uses antiterror tactics to fight gang violence and street crime. The department's budget for intelligence and counterterrorism has more than quadrupled, spending more than $3 billion since 2006, and more through funding streams that are difficult to quantify, including federal grants and the secretive Police Foundation.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


Portland's Bizarre Experiment With Not Policing Proud Boys Rampage Ends in Gunfire
2021-08-23, The Intercept
Posted: 2021-08-29 18:24:06
https://theintercept.com/2021/08/23/portland-police-proud-boys-protest/

Portland narrowly avoided tragedy on Sunday as the city's police force abandoned its duty to secure the streets and officers made no effort to stop assaults on residents by members of the far-right Proud Boys gang, many of whom had traveled from around the country to live out their fantasies of attacking anti-fascist protesters. The absence of the police, in line with a policy on nonintervention announced beforehand by Portland Police Bureau Chief Chuck Lovell, reinforced a sense among anti-fascists that they were on their own. So when a right-wing gunman fired in the direction of black-clad protesters who had chased him away from their protest at gunpoint, it was shocking but perhaps not surprising that one of the anti-fascists fired back, according to witnesses. The fact that the right-wing gunman – 65-year-old Dennis Anderson from the neighboring city of Gresham – was arrested within minutes by an undercover officer and two uniformed colleagues underscored for many protesters that the police could have intervened earlier but had chosen not to do so. The gunfire came after a Proud Boys rally, devoted to the "political prisoners" of the January 6 Capitol attacks ... had devolved into violence, with attacks on left-wing protesters who fought back with paintballs, fireworks, and pepper spray. Although multiple assaults were captured on video by journalists on the scene, the police failed to intervene.

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