Chief fires officer who arrested U. nurse; lieutenant demoted
10PM: Chief fires officer who arrested U. nurse; lieutenant demoted
Andrew Adams, KSL TV
SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake Police Chief Mike Brown fired detective Jeff Payne on Tuesday and demoted Lt. James Tracy for their involvement in the controversial arrest of University Hospital nurse Alex Wubbels.”I have lost faith and confidence in your ability to continue to serve as a member of the Salt Lake City Police Department,” Brown wrote to Payne in a scathing letter notifying him of his termination.
“I am deeply troubled by your lack of sound, professional judgment and your discourteous, disrespectful and unwarranted behavior, which unnecessarily escalated a situation that could and should have been resolved in a manner far different from the course of action you chose to pursue,” the chief wrote.
A man in an Anonymous mask, who was sitting peacefully, was harangued by police and arrested. All caught on camera, bystanders recorded the event while a multitude of witnesses yelled out that he did nothing wrong or illegal. The incident took place in the House Gallery, during the Maricopa County hearing over the suspected election fraud.
Two officers attended the arrest of the man. Although the man in question didn’t have his face concealed by the mask—the mask had been resting on the top of his head—the first arresting officer approached from behind and kicked at him lightly until he left his chair.
Bystanders went to the man’s defense, with several phones filming the event. One bystander even said the arrest was made because the man was sporting an Anonymous mask.
In the video, another bystander accuses the police of choking the man as the officers unduly restrained him while he was quietly sitting between the chairs. Chants of “shame” and “the whole world is watching” were cried as the man was forced to his feet and escorted away.
After the removal of the man, one of the bystanders states: “you promised us if we were silent you wouldn’t remove us.” Officials then began to plead with the crowd. At the end of the video, one official agreed that the man with the mask did nothing wrong.
Janet Higgens, who uploaded one of the videos, stated: “We were at the point of chaos. All brought on by the police. For a man sitting quietly. With dreadlocks. His name is Jonathan S. McRae. He is currently in jail, charged with trespassing and resisting arrest. I disagree. He was harassed, held to the floor for over 5 minutes, and kidnapped. I don’t know if he was injured in the attack.”
“We the people of the United States are tired of this stuff,” another witness yelled as a bystander warned that this would all end up on YouTube.
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through our home
Not a creature was stirring but CNN’s gnome;
The stockings were hung by the family tree,
In hopes that St. Nick would come visit Philly.
The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
Except my wayward son, a sugar plum head;
With mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
He snuck to the porch and sold 40 bucks of smack.
Then out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Downstairs, to the entrance, I flew like a flash,
A yell of “Police!” and the front door was smashed;
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But cops with guns drawn, not a single rein-deer,
One arrested my son so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he was not St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles, my house they did seize,
“How can you do this?” I pleaded from my knees.
“It’s called civil forfeiture,” bellowed the cop,
“I’ll take what I want, and I’m not gonna stop.”
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had so much to dread.
“In just Philly alone, in just 10 years’ time,
One thousand private homes are now mine, all mine!”
“Loitering, jaywalking, BS traffic stops:
All excuses to rob you—’cuz we’re the cops! TVs, cash, cars galore: everything is fair game,”
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
Then with that last word, he went straight to his work,
And stole all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a snort, he said “Sucks your son blows.”
He sprang to his cruiser as his team he advised:
“The rest of our wish list, we’ll seize from good guys!”
And I heard him exclaim, ere they drove out of sight–
“Happy Christmas to all. On to the next house tonight!”
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Written by Justin Monticello. Production by Monticello and Paul Detrick. Editing by Detrick. Voice over by Alex Manning. Illustrations by Jason Keisling.
You can’t make this shit up. ======================
Copfuk eating lunch
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In another tale of bogus meth madness, Georgia cops arrested and jailed a 23 year old woman because of a suspicion that a residue coated spoon in her car was evidence that she was a drug user. Ashley Gabrielle Huff of Commerce, GA was arrested by Gainesville City police officers during a routine traffic stop after one of the deputy dawgs overreacted in misidentifying the substance on the eating utensil. She was arrested, jailed and then ordered to attend mandatory drug counseling sessions. When she missed a session she was re-arrested and kept in jail for well over a month until the authorities had their Uh Oh SpaghettiOs moment leading to much embarrassment and a likely lawsuit.
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Even though the suspected methamphetamine turned out to be one of America’s most popular cheap food items, Huff was subjected to a nightmare of legal purgatory of the type that has become commonplace in this once great country. An innocent woman with no criminal record ended up stuck in in jail until the inept and slower than a glacier crime lab discovered that the mistaken “schedule II substance” was actually dried tomato sauce from a can of Campbell’s wonderful pasta treat.
An innocent woman had several months of her life destroyed when she was arrested and charged with a felony because of a spaghetti-encrusted spoon found in her possession.
Ashley Gabrielle Huff, 23, had no criminal history and insisted that “there’s no way in hell” that there could have been any drugs in her possession during a traffic stop in July. Nonetheless, a Gainesville police officer honed in on a spoon that was “on her or near her” in the vehicle in which she was riding as a passenger.
Suspecting that the spoon had drug residue on it, the officer arrested Ms. Huff and charged her with possession of methamphetamines. Even for trace amounts, the charge of possessing “Schedule II substances” Georgia is punishable by 2-15 years in prison.
After her July 2nd arrest, she spend an unconfirmed number of days in jail before she was released and required to attend a number of obligatory drug appointments. When she was unable to make all the appointments, she was rearrested and made to sit in jail from August 2nd until September 18th.
Ms. Huff insisted that she wasn’t a drug user, but had little means with which to defend herself. She relied on a public defender to represent her in court.
Finally in late September, a crime lab analysis revealed that the “residue” on the spoon was not an illegal drug. It was actually tomato sauce from a can of SpaghettiOs, as the woman had claimed all along.
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The internet is replete with tales of cops abusing their power in perverse and violent ways these days but the Georgia incident is just rank stupidity as well as an example of Barney Fife style hayseeds who do not belong in the law enforcement profession.
Drug charges have been dropped against a Commerce woman after crime lab analysis confirmed her claim that a spoon she had in a vehicle leading to her arrest did not contain methamphetamine residue but spaghetti sauce.
Ashley Gabrielle Huff, 23, initially was charged with possession of methamphetamine. She maintained the residue on a spoon was spaghetti sauce, not meth.
After the analysis agreed, the charge was dismissed. She was released from the Hall County Jail on Thursday night.
“I think she said it had been SpaghettiOs,” Hall County assistant public defender Chris van Rossem said.
Huff was arrested July 2 by the Gainesville Police Department, suspected of having meth residue on a spoon, van Rossem said.
“From what I understand, she was a passenger in a car and had a spoon on her, near her, and I guess the officer, for whatever reason, thought there was some residue,” he said.
According to the Hall County Comprehensive Justice Information System, Huff had not been charged with any type of felony or drug-related offense prior to the incident.
“She’s maintained all along that there’s no way in hell that’s any sort of drug residue or anything like that,” van Rossem said.
Attempts to obtain the original arrest report from the Gainesville Police were unsuccessful, and van Rossem was unfamiliar with other details related to the arrest. Gainesville Police spokesman Cpl. Kevin Holbrook said the department would defer to the district attorney’s office.
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The story also stated that Huff was to have begun the “process of a plea deal” which speaks to the rampant form of systemic prosecutorial misconduct that is an offshoot of our vast national for profit prison gulag. Chalk up yet another example of the abysmal failure of the war on drugs. The tale of Huff’s bogus arrest and imprisonment is now a national story and will hopefully result in the type of shaming that leads to firings of local officials.
Copfuks are not a dog’s best friend or your best friend. They are dangerous. They are not employed to protect you. They are employed to protect their employers from you and to milk you like cows through tickets, fines, and violations of ridiculous laws and statutes. Don’t trust cops.
Police Shoot Black Lab Through Vehicle Window, Claim It Was ‘Lunging’ Pit Bull
“We came outside and saw a police officer with a gun in his hand…”
by Mikael Thalen | Infowars.com | July 10, 2014
An Idaho police officer who shot and killed a small black lab sitting inside a vehicle this week has been telling investigators that the dog was a “vicious” pit bull.
According to reports, an officer with the Coeur d’Alene Police Department was called out to a local coffee shop Wednesday after the shop’s owner spotted a “suspicious” van in the parking lot. The van, owned by Craig Jones, allegedly matched the description of a vehicle in a child luring case.
Upon arriving, the officer approached the vehicle with his weapon drawn when 2-year-old “Arfie” began barking from the driver’s seat. The officer claims that is when the dog, which he described as a “vicious” pit bull, “lunged” out of the half-open window and attempted to bite his face.
The officer “defended his life” by firing through the window, striking the dog once in the chest.
Jones, who was inside the coffee shop eating breakfast at the time, was shocked to look up and see a bullet hole in his van.
“This still isn’t even real,” Jones told KREM 2 News. “This is so unrealistic to me.”
Jones says Arfie never displayed violent behavior towards others, refuting claims by the officer that his dog was violent or vicious.
“He was raised with me from day one,” Jones said. “He goes with me everywhere.”
Police later determined that Jones’ van was not the vehicle wanted in connection with the child luring case.
“If my dog is barking and wondering who’s peering in the windows, whether your a cop, judge, attorney, President Bush, he doesn’t know any difference,” Jones said. “So really? You’re just going to shoot somebody’s dog?”
Jesse Johnson, who was across the street at her home during the shooting, says the incident was completely unjustified.
“We came outside and saw a police officer with a gun in his hand,” Johnson said. “I was scared when we heard the gun shots you know. I have kids.”
A Coeur d’Alene police sergeant responded to the incident by saying that the officer was “very distraught” and unable to use his pepper spray because all dogs react differently in “attack situations.” The sergeant made no comment on why the officer had told investigators that the dog was a pit bull.
Unfortunately, such situations have become increasingly common.
Just last March, a Michigan police officer shot and killed a 10-month-old puppy after wandering into the owner’s yard during a foot pursuit. The officer claimed he “feared for his life” when the puppy suddenly “charged” towards him.
That same month, a Pennsylvania state trooper unloaded his firearm at a family’s dog as it stood only feet from a 5-year-old’s bedroom window. A suspect alleged to be in the home had moved from the residence months prior.
Responding to a domestic violence call, a police officer in Austin, Texas shot and killed a dog playing Frisbee with its owner after walking onto the wrong property in 2012.
I don’t have to deal with Border Cops. Maybe you folks who do can tell me this is just an isolated incident …that border cops have a tough job and that they are generally nice guys. I won’t believe you though. That’s because most cops (95% plus) are psychopath fuckwads. That ruling is final.
If this was your wife and children … wouldn’t you want to hunt those fuckers down and make them pay? I would.
Quick discussion on living in a trailer ….. trailer trash.
I HATE that fucking term!!!! I was 18 years old the first time I dated a gal who lived in a trailer … it was in Topeka, Kansas. She was a nice young lady, and did the best she could. The last time was after my divorce when I moved back to NJ. She was a nice older lady, and she did the best she could. (Fact is, it was a double-wide and it was rather nice inside, as was the property.) I watched a 20/20 show this week and it showed people living in trailers in West Virginia. They are doing the best they can. I don’t know exactly why, but it just pisses me the fuck off to denigrate someone just because they can’t afford a “regular” house. Fucking snob elitist motherfuckers can go to hell.
As a matter of fact, I think this lady has better living arrangements than we do. We live in a nice neighborhood … but it’s in New Fuckin Jersey, crowds everywhere, free shitters galore, several cities where white people dare not venture, highest taxes in Amerika, and ruled by a fat-fuk Crispy-Cream traitor. She lives out in the open, under blue skies, bothered by no one (until recently). She should be sending ME a sympathy card! End of rant.
On to the story.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=nZN4KryFuzY
Family terrorized by taser-wielding, tire-slashing border agents
THREE POINTS, AZ — A mother says that while driving her children home from school on a dirt road in Arizona, she was stopped by lawless Border Patrol agents who threatened her with weapons, forcibly searched her, slashed her tire and left her stranded in the desert.
Clarisa Christiansen had just picked up her 7-year-old daughter from elementary school, and was traveling down a backcountry road. She also had her 5-year-old son in the truck. All three are U.S. citizens that reside in Three Points, Arizona, about 40 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Border Patrol agents. (Source: Getty Images)
The family was completing the 15-mile journey when they were stopped by a group of 3 federal agents performing a roving border patrol stop. The stop took place about 2:15 p.m. on May 21st, 2013.
Ms. Christiansen was then approached by one of the agents, as she sat parked in the driver’s seat with her children strapped in the back seat. The agent began to question her. First she was asked if she was a U.S. citizen. She responded affirmatively, “Yes. Is there a problem?”
The agent peered into her windows and observed her children strapped helplessly in the back seat. The agent then requested that she exit her vehicle so that he could search it, according to the account provided in an ACLU document. Christiansen declined, saying she did not consent to searches. She requested to know why she was stopped. The agent refused to tell her, and kept demanding that she exit. As the two went back and forth, the agent became “clearly agitated” at her exercising her rights.
“You’re not going anywhere….This one’s being difficult. Get the Taser.”
“I was put in a situation where I was in the middle of nowhere,” Christiansen later narrated. “Three agent men against one woman with her two children in the middle of the desert, where nobody’s around, they could have done anything to me and my kids.
Ms. Christiansen then stated that if there was no reason for stopping her that she would be on her way. She began to put her vehicle in gear.
The agent stopped her. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. You’re not going nowhere,” the agent said according to Christiansen. He told the other 2 agents, “This one’s being difficult. Get the Taser.”
“Ma’am, do I need to tase you to get you out of your vehicle?” the CBP agent asked, after opening her door.
The argument continued. Christiansen feared for the safety of her children. “Mommy what’s going on?” they asked.
The agent then whipped out a retractable knife and threatened to cut her out of the vehicle. He forced his hand into her car and snatched her keys from the ignition.
The tire that was found slashed when border patrol drove away.
Ms. Christiansen had no choice but to exit the vehicle. The agents made her show them her papers and ran checks on her. The entire stop dragged on for 35 minutes. Then, without saying a word, the agents left.
When Christiansen tried to drive away, she noticed that one of her tires had been sliced open along the firewall. Her family was left stranded in the desert. “They slashed my tire,” she said. “It was a pretty obvious slash, straight cut on the side wall.”
With no one else around for miles, Christiansen had to contact a family member to come and help them. Later, she followed up with a complaint to the agency.
Richard Hill, one of the DHS officials who “investigated” her incident, told her he believed the tire had been “torn” and not intentionally cut. He disclosed the name of one agent who was present at the scene as “Agent Laguna.”
“They just seem to think they can do whatever they want and bully everybody around,” said Christiansen. “It’s just not right. It’s just not right. They scared me. They scared my kids. They changed my view on basically the way I look at them now.”
LEAWOOD, KS — An innocent family was terrorized by a paramilitary SWAT raid on their home that lasted 2.5 hours; yielding nothing. It took the family 2 years and $25,000 to discover the real reason their house was targeted: discarded tea leaves in their garbage and the purchase of indoor gardening equipment.
‘You’re in the wrong house!’
Robert and Adlynn Harte discovered how easily an innocent family can become the targets of state-sanctioned violence when a SWAT team showed up at their home looking for contraband. The terrifying experience took place at 7:30 a.m. on April 20, 2012.
“It was just like on the cops TV shows. It was like ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ ready to storm the compound.”
The Harte home was surrounded by paramilitary police. There was a sudden pounding at the door, which Robert quickly answered. If he had delayed opening the door, a man carrying a battering ram was prepared to breach the front door.
Robert was pushed to the floor and made to clasp his hands behind his head as strange men poured into his home. Rifle-toting, armored troopers stood over him with rifles screaming, “Where are the children in the home?”
The Hartes’ 7-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son had both been sleeping in their bedrooms, and were “shocked and frightened” as they were shuffled into the living room and made to watch as the invaders snooped through their belongings.
“We just kept saying ‘You’re in the wrong house!’”
Johnson County Sheriff’s deputies and police canines tore through the family’s living space for 2.5 hours. They took interest with the Hartes’ indoor garden, which was a family project to grow vegetables such as tomatoes, squashes, and melons in the basement.
The Hartes said that the deputies “made rude comments” and implied their son was using marijuana. Yet the deputies left empty handed. A receipt was left, saying “no items taken.”
‘Operation Constant Gardener’
The Hartes had no idea why they had been targeted. They were not involved in any illegal activities and had impeccable records — good enough to pass the rigorous background checks to get clearance with the Department of Defense.
The department would not give them any answers about the raid, only that they were looking for narcotics. No records were provided willingly.
“We were chosen more or less at random for this drug raid and we were like ‘what do you mean we can’t get the records? They raided our house,” Addie explained.
The family was forced to sue the department to get any answers about the incident — a year later. Documents later showed that their hydroponics equipment that had played a role in attracting the attention of SWAT. The police believed they were growing the forbidden cannabis plant inside their home using grow lights and hydroponics.
The couple discovered that the raid even had a name. It had been a part of “Operation Constant Gardener” — a drug sweep conducted by multiple police agencies in the region.
“With little or no other evidence of any illegal activity, law enforcement officers make the assumption that shoppers at the store are potential marijuana growers, even though the stores are most commonly frequented by backyard gardeners who grow organically or start seedlings indoors,” the couple stated in a lawsuit.
‘This isn’t a communist country’
It took an additional year and $25,000 to get the rest of the story.
It turned out that the police had first seen Bob Harte at a local hydroponics shop called The Green Circle in August 2011. Harte exited the store with a small bag, prompting police a surveillance effort. For months, cops began snooping through the family’s trash.
The shopkeeper of the hydroponics store, Bennie Palmentere, said he was disturbed that government spies were sorting through his customers’ trash. “This isn’t a communist country,” he said to KSHB.
The 5:00 a.m. garbage searches yielded some plant-like materials which they assumed to be marijuana. Using an unreliable field-testing kit, the plant material created a false-positive for marijuana, and a search warrant was acquired.
“We cannot understand how the low level of police work, which included using an unreliable field test, could have permitted a SWAT-style raid on our home,” the Hartes said in a public statement.
The plant material was never taken to a lab to pursue more definitive results. The warrant was handed out with little effort or evidence on the part of the police.
Bob knew instantly what the “plant-like materials” were: his wife’s discarded tea leaves from her daily hot beverages.
“You shouldn’t have to have that kind of money to find out why people came raiding your house like some sort of police state.”
“If this can happen to us and we are educated and have reasonable resources, how does somebody who maybe hasn’t led a perfect life supposed to be free in this country?” said Addie Harte to the AP.
The fact that it took 2 years and $25,000 to get the complete details about how their home was targeted a the source of contention for the family.
“This not what justice in the United States is supposed to be,” Addie Harte said. “You shouldn’t have to have $25,000, even $5,000. You shouldn’t have to have that kind of money to find out why people came raiding your house like some sort of police state.”
The Hartes’ experience sheds some valuable light on a dilemma that is faced all over the country. Their family is fortunate to have the resources and patience necessary to fight through expensive lawsuits required to provide answers about the investigation in which they were involved. Exposure is the best way to push back on the police state. However, most people would not have the resources to to do the same. The majority of the time, clandestine police raids are allowed to remain shrouded in secrecy.
The plant material was never taken to a lab to pursue more definitive results. The warrant was handed out with little effort or evidence on the part of the police.
Bob knew instantly what the “plant-like materials” were: his wife’s discarded tea leaves from her daily hot beverages.
“You shouldn’t have to have that kind of money to find out why people came raiding your house like some sort of police state.”
“If this can happen to us and we are educated and have reasonable resources, how does somebody who maybe hasn’t led a perfect life supposed to be free in this country?” said Addie Harte to the AP.
The fact that it took 2 years and $25,000 to get the complete details about how their home was targeted a the source of contention for the family.
“This not what justice in the United States is supposed to be,” Addie Harte said. “You shouldn’t have to have $25,000, even $5,000. You shouldn’t have to have that kind of money to find out why people came raiding your house like some sort of police state.”
The Hartes’ experience sheds some valuable light on a dilemma that is faced all over the country. Their family is fortunate to have the resources and patience necessary to fight through expensive lawsuits required to provide answers about the investigation in which they were involved. Exposure is the best way to push back on the police state. However, most people would not have the resources to to do the same. The majority of the time, clandestine police raids are allowed to remain shrouded in secrecy.
