http://www.policemisconduct.net/

http://www.policemisconduct.net/

Self-explanatory.

Why I DISLIKE Cops, part 47

Two newspaper articles below do most of the talking.  The first was in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and the second, linked to in the STrib article, appeared in the Winona Daily News and provides the original source material.

I will post comments in the article as thoughts appear.

The first headline, which drew my attention:

Houston County sheriff's deputy not disciplined for racing squad car while on duty

And the article [STrib] :

CALEDONIA, Minn. - Members of the Houston County Board are asking why a sheriff's deputy was not formally disciplined for drag racing in his squad car while on duty.

          --> INTERJECTION: That is a good question, isn't it?

The Winona Daily News reported Saturday that the deputy raced his Dodge Charger down a runway at the Houston County Municipal Airport in Caledonia on July 12 ( http://bit.ly/RRkVTz). A Caledonia police officer raced against him in a new Crown Victoria cruiser.

The Caledonia officer was suspended for a month when superiors learned what happened. Board members in the southeastern Minnesota county said there should have been consequences for the deputy too.

Sheriff Doug Ely declined to name the deputy to the newspaper or explain why he wasn't formally disciplined. Commissioner Jack Miller says he learned what happened from citizens, not the Sheriff's Department.

Chief Sheriff's Deputy Scott Yeiter defended the department's handling of the incident and described it as "an employee coaching session." He said the deputy's decision to race a squad car on duty "wasn't egregious enough to have a disciplinary letter placed in his file."

Ely, in an email to board members, declined an invitation to attend their next meeting to discuss the incident. Referring to both the racing incident and a previous dispute between his department and commissioners, he wrote that "more discussion about these items on their part will be considered harassment."

          --> INTERJECTION: Actually Sheriff Ely, you freakin' idiot, that's not harassment.  It's a fair, common sense question from those of us who are held to higher standards of behavior by your department.  Maybe you are as stupid as you look ...

Sheriff  Doug Ely: stupid as he looks?

Miller said the racing incident deserved a stronger response. He said if Ely skips the board meeting, that commissioners would have to consider their next move.

The sheriff "doesn't necessarily answer to the board, but we are the budgeting board, and I believe our jurisdiction does cover employees in his office," Miller said.

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And the original article, featuring the headline from the Winona Daily News.

On-duty officers drag race cruisers: Lack of formal discipline against deputy creates rift with Houston County Board

On the warm night of July 12, two squad cars driven by on-duty officers roared down the Caledonia municipal airport runway.

A Houston County sheriff’s deputy was behind the wheel of a Dodge Charger. A city of Caledonia officer drove a Crown Victoria.

The officers weren’t chasing a suspect.

They were chasing each other.

Apparently the drag race was inspired by the purchase of a new cruiser in Caledonia, according to Houston County Chief Deputy Scott Yeiter.

Once superiors learned about it, the Caledonia officer was suspended for a month.

The Houston County deputy, however, was not formally disciplined, a decision that has created friction between the sheriff’s department and the Houston County Board.

The incident became public this week at a county board meeting, where former commissioner Kevin Kelleher brought it up and asked commissioners to address what he alleged in an interview as a “culture of, quite frankly, bad behavior” within the sheriff’s department.

In an interview, Yeiter defended the way the department handled the incident and described it as “an employee coaching session.”

He said the deputy’s decision to drag-race a county squad car while on duty “wasn’t egregious enough to have a disciplinary letter placed in his file.”

          --> INTERJECTION: Did the asshole at least get a speeding ticket?  Seems only fair if you want to at least pretend that you place any worth in the written laws.

Yeiter declined to name the deputy, as did Houston County Sheriff Doug Ely. Ely declined to comment when asked to explain why the deputy wasn’t formally disciplined.

          --> INTERJECTION: Ah yes, the cover-up. Citizens ticketed or arrested routinely get the humiliation of seeing their names publicly in print.  But a guy speeding ON THE JOB, ON A RUNWAY ...?  Nah, let it slip.  Assholes.  That's the kind of crooked, Gestapo-style lack of accountability that featured so prominently in the reports on those Metro Gang assholes.  Good role models.

Caledonia Police Chief Kurt Zehnder also declined to comment on the incident and declined to release the name of the Caledonia officer involved.

The Houston County Board has asked Ely to attend the next meeting to brief commissioners on the incident and address Kelleher’s comments.

“The issue is a little bigger than what the sheriff and chief deputy are making it,” Commissioner Jack Miller said.

Miller said commissioners are frustrated because they were aware of the incident previous to the meeting — but not because they heard about it from the department.

“I certainly would have liked the full story from the sheriff instead of having citizens tell me,” Miller said.

Ely said in an email to the commissioners that he won’t attend the next meeting.

“The DVD issue and the driving complaint are done and over with,” he wrote in the email, obtained by the Daily News. “Any more discussion about these items on their part will be considered harassment.”

The DVD issue Ely was referring to was a 2009 incident where county employees were accused of using county equipment to illegally copy DVDs and sell them. Two county officials — none in the sheriff’s department — were formally reprimanded. The sheriff’s department did not investigate the issue or request an independent investigation, a decision Kelleher continues to criticize the department for.

          --> INTERJECTION: Whoa, whoa, WHOA!  Hold on.  I gotta stop for a second here and really consider this.  So at a time when we are losing more and more internet freedoms because of concerns over the pirating of copyrighted material, some ASSHOLES use county property to copy and SELL DVD's and the Sheriff declines to investigate?  WTF is going on here?  One of the primary reasons I hate law enforcement is that these assholes seem to think they can pick and choose who the laws apply to. This is a great example.

“We have law enforcement that just does not want to be accountable,” Kelleher said. “That is not giving people confidence in the county that they have a law enforcement agency that is not only enforcing the law but obeying it.”

“Houston County law enforcement is the butt of a lot of jokes right now,” Kelleher added.

If Ely doesn’t come to the next board meeting, Miller said, the board will have to discuss its next move.

“(Ely) doesn’t necessarily answer to the board, but we are the budgeting board, and I believe our jurisdiction does cover employees in his office,” Miller said.

It’s unknown who won the race, or what speeds the two officers reached. Ely said he didn’t know, and Yeiter declined comment.

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Law enforcement, what a noble profession.  Assholes.  And in the case of Houston County Sheriff Doug Ely, stupid assholes.

Don't forget Doug, you're accountable to the citizens of your county. Hope you've got a new job lined up, I'd like to think there's no way a crooked loser like you retains his job.

American killed in Libya protest over film

Protesters angered over a film that ridiculed Islam's Prophet Muhammad fired gunshots and burned down the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, killing one American diplomat, witnesses and the State Department said. In Egypt, protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. embassy in Cairo and replaced an American flag with an Islamic banner.

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Above headline and paragraph courtesy of the AP.

I love it, this pic is from a Google search of "Muslim idiots."

Man, this is such a tired occurrence.  Islam, Muslim, whatever: settle the fuck down you small minded simpletons.

If Islam's prophet Muhammad would sanction killing others for having an opinion, then Mohammad is an asshole.

Suck on that Libya and Egypt!  You either worship an asshole ... or you're fucking stupid.

[directed at the fine fellows involved, not a blanket condemnation]

If I see a movie that aggravates me, I stop watching.  I usually don't murder anyone over it.

Like I said ...

These assholes in the now defunct Metro Gang Strike Force deserve to be shot in the head.  I've been saying this for over a year on this blog.  Again, if you can't behave at a job where you carry a gun, get a different job, asshole.

If you have a job carrying a gun, and you commit crimes on the job, you should be executed and left roadside for trash pickup.

This is the follow up article from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, regarding the payouts to victims of these guys who deserve to be shot in the head.

Equally criminal is how these Metro Gang assholes haven't been publicly identified and have been allowed to return to their former law enforcement agencies.  This is a fucking travesty and a prime example of why average citizens don't trust the police, nor should they.

This shouldn't be allowed to be swept under the carpet.  Support capital punishment for crimes committed with guns.

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Payouts reveal brutal, rogue Metro Gang Strike Force.


A toddler, not yet 2 years old, was kicked in the head by a Metro Gang Strike Force officer and his crib was destroyed during a botched drug raid. The government's payout to the child: $6,000.

A Lincoln Navigator SUV, seized by the Strike Force, was returned to the owner 18 months later, with 20,000 more miles on it. Payout to the owner: $25,000.

In other raids, officers improperly seized a blender, class rings, an ice augur and a stump digger. One man lost some Twins baseball hats he said were autographed by Joe Mauer. His compensation: $2,000 if the caps are not returned.

The stories and payouts to 96 victims of the now-defunct Strike Force, cited in 600 pages of documents released last week in a class-action lawsuit, provide the most detailed picture yet of an out-of-control police squad, and put a price on every wrongful seizure, unjustified punch or dubious raid.

The $3 million suit was filed on July 30, 2009, less than two weeks after the scandal-ridden unit, made up of officers from metro agencies, was shut down by then-Public Safety Commissioner Michael Campion. The collapse of the Metro Gang Strike Force revealed widespread illegal behavior by officers and prompted new laws and policies designed to improve oversight and accountability of police in Minnesota.

Two people nearly deported to Mexico in 2008 may have been the biggest winners. Strike Force police searched them at the Minneapolis impound lot, found no drugs but took $100 from them and turned them over to immigration authorities. Deportation proceedings were canceled last October and they won special visas because they were Strike Force crime victims. They were awarded $33,500 in the suit.

"It was a tremendous outcome," said Randy Hopper, the attorney who won the settlement in the civil rights suit.

The payouts were issued last week by attorney Mark Gehan who was appointed special master by the U.S. District Court.

Gehan cited 15 people he believed were victims of excessive force and nine whose residences were torn apart during Strike Force raids, mostly between 2006 and 2009, records show. He awarded compensation to four people who lost flat screen TVs and 11 whose vehicles were seized.

Gehan rejected 120 claims, including one from a man who alleged the Strike Force took $100,000 from his backpack in 2003.

He awarded about $840,000 to Strike Force victims and ordered various property returned. Fifty-six people began filing appeals Friday of Gehan's decisions. U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen will issue decisions in those cases.

The payouts come from the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust, which insured the Strike Force. About $2 million will be used for training law enforcement statewide on proper seizure methods and racial and cultural sensitivity.

Some who won awards were accused of trafficking in illegal drugs or associated with gangs. Some of the raids did recover illegal drugs and lead to arrests.

Gehan did not state the overall criteria he used in calculating the payouts, but it was apparent that some Strike Force behavior particularly offended him. "I do not see how a plasma television or an ice auger constitutes evidence of a crime," wrote Gehan in the case of Joseph Kujawa, who had both items seized and was awarded $25,000. The Strike Force found 2 pounds of marijuana in his house, although he was apparently never convicted for it, Gehan said. Kujawa was later convicted and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison on methamphetamine charges.

Some raids led to collateral damage. In July 2006, the Strike Force kicked in the door of a St. Paul house, conducted a search and took a dog owned by Mohamed Aboubaker.

Gehan reviewed photos of the raid, writing, "It is quite clear that the residence was 'trashed.' It goes beyond the 'disarray' described in the defendants' response."

Gehan awarded Aboubaker $5,000 for property damage and $225, the cost of retrieving his dog from the pound.

In August 2006, Strike Force officers and the Minneapolis police SWAT unit broke into a residence, based on an informant's information about the sale of cocaine. They found a small amount of marijuana, but no cocaine or two drug dealers they were looking for. An officer tried to kick a woman, but instead kicked her toddler. A photo showed a bruise on his forehead. A $289 crib was destroyed.

In its defense, the Strike Force called it "a high-risk raid and that officers are permitted to use force commensurate with the danger," Gehan wrote.

"I am unable to discern why it would be necessary to kick claimant's mother," Gehan wrote, issuing a $6,000 award.

"Is that all?" Joe Neeland, 63, asked this week after told by a reporter he'd been awarded $5,000, plus $3,000 if authorities can't find the computer and peripherals the Strike Force took in 2008.

They also took a 42-inch flat screen TV, a class ring on a necklace and 60 pain pills prescribed after his back operation. He was never arrested.

Seated in his kitchen at the Little Earth of United Tribes housing project in Minneapolis, Neeland said, "I was so mad. I had that ring since 1968 when I graduated from Park Rapids Area High School."

A few blocks away, Zenaido Rivera Garcia, lead plaintiff in the suit, said he never expected to win. He and Veronica Nunez Guevara, his sister-in-law, had gone to the Minneapolis impound lot in 2008 to retrieve her 1991 Nissan Maxima.

They were patted down by the Strike Force who called them "illegals" and took $100 from them, according to their claim.

Gehan said police never gave him a reason for stopping the two Mexican immigrants. "It is inescapable that it was because they were Hispanic," he wrote.

The Strike Force handed the two over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which jailed them for five days and began deportation proceedings. The two found support from immigration attorneys Phil Fishman and Khanh Nguyen and from Hopper.

Gehan ordered Rivera Garcia be paid $15,500 and Nunez Guevara, $18,000.

Under a special provision in immigration law that rewards crime victims who cooperate with prosecutors, both have won visas and Rivera Garcia's wife, Gloria Nunez Guevara, Veronica's sister, also won a visa. "Justice has been served," Rivera Garcia said in an interview through a translator. "Many times the police acted wrongfully and thankfully through God, I used great attorneys to help us and the Hispanic people get justice."

A day late, but still ...

Happy Birthday Brian Wilson, big seven-oh!