Catch-all Cop Thread

[benjipwns]

The fact determination at issue in this case is one that necessarily must be determined by the Court based on its real world experience and common sense applied to the evidence. Officer Hiser cannot say whether the windows of his or Gray’s vehicles were rolled down and Gray points out persuasively. The Court agrees with Gray that it is incredible that Officer Hiser—who self-admittedly does not have a heightened olfactory system—could smell the scent of two resealable sandwich sized plastic baggies of unburnt marijuana coming from a moving vehicle when patrolling in his cruiser. This occurrence is not only contrary to any common experiences, but is “implausible” and seemingly “contrary to the laws of nature.”

[Skullfuckers Anonymous]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Newsweek/status/1417318033312428037

 

[Pissy F Benny]

The Jocks

[Lonewulfeus]

Holy shit, China is weaponizing planets for surveillance purposes 

[Madrun Badrun]

https://twitter.com/sivrajxx/status/1418999469241257990

[jorma]

https://twitter.com/sivrajxx/status/1418999469241257990

had to google that since it looked like "holy shit wtf", but turns out it probably wasn't

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=4348390018582565&id=140549396033336

[Madrun Badrun]

I saw the body cams - it still looks like they were trying to set shit up and stopped when they got caught.  The whole situation is just weird in conjunction with that they are doing these searches due to a minor speeding violation.   

[jorma]

I saw the body cams - it still looks like they were trying to set shit up and stopped when they got caught.  The whole situation is just weird in conjunction with that they are doing these searches due to a minor speeding violation.

i guess i don't get why they'd use an empty bag of weed to set them up with and so the explanation they gave seemed like the likeliest one

but i'm not exactly willing to die on a hill defending cops since i got experiences of my own with cops committing perjury like it was just another  tuesday 

[Transhuman]

And people wonder why cops hate citizens.

[Rufus]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj8xbq/police-are-telling-shotspotter-to-alter-evidence-from-gunshot-detecting-ai

[Great Rumbler]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj8xbq/police-are-telling-shotspotter-to-alter-evidence-from-gunshot-detecting-ai

 

[Skullfuckers Anonymous]

https://twitter.com/lib_crusher/status/1419424074548367366

 

[Great Rumbler]

Yeah, the stuff with the Tampa sheriff's office is just insane. Targeting people they've decided are likely to commit a crime and then just constantly harassing them and their family.

[Madrun Badrun]

https://globalnews.ca/news/8086014/vancouver-police-shoving-questions/

[benjipwns]

The San Francisco Sheriff’s Department will see a wave of resignations if the city enforces its policy requiring vaccinations for its employees, according to the Deputy Sheriff’s Association, the union representing sheriff’s deputies.

Mandated vaccines, “will result in law enforcement officers and fire fighters retiring early and seeking employment elsewhere,” the union wrote on its Facebook page Thursday.

“Public safety of San Francisco has turned into the Wild West and will get worse when officers quit due to the vaccine mandate.”

Union President Ken Lomba said he’s heard threats of resigning or retiring early because of the mandatory vaccine policy “from a large group within our membership.”

noooo don't go

[chronovore]

The San Francisco Sheriff’s Department will see a wave of resignations if the city enforces its policy requiring vaccinations for its employees, according to the Deputy Sheriff’s Association, the union representing sheriff’s deputies.

Mandated vaccines, “will result in law enforcement officers and fire fighters retiring early and seeking employment elsewhere,” the union wrote on its Facebook page Thursday.

“Public safety of San Francisco has turned into the Wild West and will get worse when officers quit due to the vaccine mandate.”

Union President Ken Lomba said he’s heard threats of resigning or retiring early because of the mandatory vaccine policy “from a large group within our membership.”

noooo don't go

[Great Rumbler]

Cops don't know how to deal with covid because they can't just shoot it death.

[Madrun Badrun]

https://www.wpri.com/target-12/prov-police-release-videos-of-suspended-officers-altercation-with-teens/

[benjipwns]

Shortly after midnight on Jan. 11, 2019, Phoenix police pulled over a car filled with four people suspected of committing an armed robbery earlier that evening. Three seconds after one of them, Jacob Harris, hopped out and started running, officers Dave Norman and Kristopher Bertz opened fire, fatally striking him in the back.

The officers didn’t face any consequences for the shooting. Instead, prosecutors laid the blame on Harris’s three friends in the car. Even though none of them had fired a single shot, 19-year-old Sariah Busani, 20-year-old Jeremiah Triplett, and 14-year-old Johnny Reed were charged with first-degree murder. More than two years later, they remain in jail awaiting trial.

Prosecutors charged them under a legal provision unavailable in most of the country. Most states have the “felony murder” rule, which dictates that a person can be held liable if, while they are committing certain felonies, someone dies as a result of their actions or those of a coconspirator. But in at least 13 states, including Arizona, liability for deaths under the felony murder rule is extended even further: A person can be tried for the fatal actions of a third party, such as a police officer, if the death is deemed a reasonably foreseeable outcome of the crime. In Harris’s shooting, prosecutors argued that the four young adults were fleeing an armed robbery, establishing a chain of events that led to the death. Since 2010, at least 22 people nationwide have been charged with felony murder for deaths directly caused by police, according to a BuzzFeed News review. At least 13 have been convicted.

The 13 states where civilians can be charged with felony murder in police killings, according to an analysis by legal scholar and author of Felony Murder, Guyora Binder, are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wisconsin.

Illinois, which was previously among those states, changed its law in February as part of a sweeping criminal justice reform bill that narrowed its felony murder rule to prohibit first-degree murder charges in cases where a third party, like a police officer, causes the death. A 2016 investigation by the Chicago Reader found at least 10 such cases in Cook County between 2010 and 2016.

However, the bill did not apply retroactively. Among those imprisoned under the previous felony murder statute is Tevin Louis, who participated in the robbery of a restaurant in Chicago’s South Side with his cousin, 19-year-old Marquise Sampson, in 2012.

Chicago police officer Antonio Dicarlo shot and killed Sampson as he was running away. Sampson was carrying a gun. Louis, who was then 19 and unarmed, had left the scene earlier and wasn’t present during the shooting, but was arrested and charged with felony murder.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Louis was sentenced to 32 years for armed robbery and an additional 20 years for murder. Dicarlo received a Superintendent's Award of Valor after the shooting, according to the Citizens Police Data Project.

[close]

[benjipwns]

The San Francisco Sheriff’s Department will see a wave of resignations if the city enforces its policy requiring vaccinations for its employees, according to the Deputy Sheriff’s Association, the union representing sheriff’s deputies.

Mandated vaccines, “will result in law enforcement officers and fire fighters retiring early and seeking employment elsewhere,” the union wrote on its Facebook page Thursday.

“Public safety of San Francisco has turned into the Wild West and will get worse when officers quit due to the vaccine mandate.”

Union President Ken Lomba said he’s heard threats of resigning or retiring early because of the mandatory vaccine policy “from a large group within our membership.”

noooo don't go

https://twitter.com/createcraig/status/1430595241350926342

[Great Rumbler]

Cop unions really are the worst.

[chronovore]

Cop unions really are the worst.

FTFY

I mean, I'm reading that felony murder story, and HOLY SHIT, that's something that should be fucking impossible, but apparently there are people serving time for MURDERS that the court acknowledges are committed by cops, but the cops face NOTHING. What in the actual fuck?

[Skullfuckers Anonymous]

There is a bright side to cops not getting the vaccine…

https://twitter.com/tplohetski/status/1430979167408082955

[benjipwns]

The San Francisco Sheriff’s Department will see a wave of resignations if the city enforces its policy requiring vaccinations for its employees, according to the Deputy Sheriff’s Association, the union representing sheriff’s deputies.

Mandated vaccines, “will result in law enforcement officers and fire fighters retiring early and seeking employment elsewhere,” the union wrote on its Facebook page Thursday.

“Public safety of San Francisco has turned into the Wild West and will get worse when officers quit due to the vaccine mandate.”

Union President Ken Lomba said he’s heard threats of resigning or retiring early because of the mandatory vaccine policy “from a large group within our membership.”

noooo don't go

https://twitter.com/createcraig/status/1430595241350926342

https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1435472901818372097

[Great Rumbler]

The San Francisco Sheriff’s Department will see a wave of resignations if the city enforces its policy requiring vaccinations for its employees, according to the Deputy Sheriff’s Association, the union representing sheriff’s deputies.

Mandated vaccines, “will result in law enforcement officers and fire fighters retiring early and seeking employment elsewhere,” the union wrote on its Facebook page Thursday.

“Public safety of San Francisco has turned into the Wild West and will get worse when officers quit due to the vaccine mandate.”

Union President Ken Lomba said he’s heard threats of resigning or retiring early because of the mandatory vaccine policy “from a large group within our membership.”

noooo don't go

https://twitter.com/createcraig/status/1430595241350926342

https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1435472901818372097

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/pefrase/status/1437933700973535236

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/MnDPS_DPS/status/1438584957597896711

[Madrun Badrun]

https://www.wlbt.com/2021/09/16/us-marshals-investigating-after-handcuffed-suspect-hit-face/

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/Jordan_Patu/status/1439919445141458946


tyranny 

[Pissy F Benny]

i bet the fat bastards ate it all too

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/SallyMayweather/status/1441096095963123712

[benjipwns]

https://reason.com/2021/08/17/dea-seizes-life-savings-of-new-orleans-grandfather-without-charging-him-with-a-crime/

In 2016, a USA Today investigation found the DEA seized more than $209 million from at least 5,200 travelers in 15 major airports over the previous decade.

https://twitter.com/JodyBarr/status/1440856486280785922
https://twitter.com/JodyBarr/status/1440856525757583369
https://twitter.com/JodyBarr/status/1440856572859617286

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/KvshSinn/status/1441075280668364810

[Madrun Badrun]

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/fbi-investigates-woodson-terrace-police-in-wake-of-video-of-department-k-9-biting-a/article_d14b3700-f060-5fea-9d8d-27cc041baf6d.html

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/sfchronicle/status/1441543754662428688

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/FiveTimesAugust/status/1441427256132476928

 

[benjipwns]

look at this dude:
https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1443009420670156805

[benjipwns]

News The Bire Can Use:

New life was injected into a free speech legal saga over an "I Eat Ass" bumper sticker yesterday when a federal judge ruled that the expression might violate Florida's obscenity law and would thus be unprotected by the First Amendment.

At the center of the odyssey is Florida man Dillon Shane Webb, who was pulled over in May of 2019 after Columbia County Sheriff's Deputy Travis English took exception to the sticker. Webb declined to censor it on the spot, his vehicle was searched, and he was subsequently arrested and booked in jail for "obscene writing on vehicles" and "resisting an officer without violence." (The "resisting" in question refers to his refusal to alter the sticker's appearance at the officer's demand.)

Those charges were dropped shortly thereafter, with the State Attorney's Office citing the First Amendment.

But the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida ruled yesterday that the case is not so cut and dry, awarding qualified immunity to English and thus dooming the suit Webb brought against him for allegedly violating his free speech rights and for falsely arresting him.

"While Webb denies the Sticker was in fact obscene, in interviews he repeatedly acknowledged the sexual nature of his Sticker," wrote Judge Marcia Morales Howard in Webb v. English, "albeit couched as an attempt at humor, showing that the notion that an erotic message was more than hypothetical—it could reasonably be viewed as the predominant message being communicated." She added that "if the Sticker depicted a sexual act, it would be protected speech under the First Amendment only if it had serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." English, as well as Corporal Chad Kirby—who via phone agreed Dillon should be arrested—thus can't be held liable over their subjective determination and the subsequent arrest.

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/_ladygooch/status/1443199971449360385

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/GLFOP/status/1443744132132900873

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/JennyENicholson/status/1445584328075857923

spoiler (click to show/hide)

https://twitter.com/Upmind_/status/1445591683521921028
https://twitter.com/bethbourdon/status/1445559140877697029

[close]

[Madrun Badrun]

https://www.startribune.com/attorney-for-man-cleared-of-returning-fire-in-self-defense-at-minneapolis-police-during-riots-releas/600103932/

https://kstp.com/news/new-bodycam-video-shows-officers-discussed-hunting-down-protesters-with-less-lethal-rounds/6261110/

[benjipwns]

Chrystal Templeton, the police officer investigating the video, wanted to arrest every kid who watched the fight and “get them all in front” of Davenport, she would say later during an internal police investigation. Charging them was helping them, Templeton believed, because “juvenile court is about rehabilitation.”

Templeton thought an appropriate charge might be conspiracy to commit assault. But then she met with Amy Anderson and Sherry Hamlett, two judicial commissioners authorized by Rutherford County to issue arrest warrants. Anderson told Templeton that she thought the only child who could be charged with conspiring was the kid who recorded video of the fight on a cellphone.

So they went in search of another charge, with Hamlett checking the state’s criminal code on a computer.

...

Templeton wanted guidance. She believed the boys throwing punches were too young to be charged with a crime. An assistant district attorney agreed. The assistant DA also told Templeton she didn’t believe there was any single charge appropriate for all the kids gathered around. But Templeton still wanted to charge them all.

Inside the judicial commissioners’ office, Hamlett discovered an alternative to conspiracy to commit assault.

Her search turned up a Tennessee statute defining “criminal responsibility for conduct of another.” It says, in part: A person is “criminally responsible” for an offense committed by another if “the person causes or aids an innocent or irresponsible person to engage in” the offense, or directs another to commit the offense, or “fails to make a reasonable effort to prevent commission of the offense.”

Hamlett shared her find with Templeton. They went through the statute line by line, with Anderson joining in.

“I looked at the charge to the best of my ability, from my experience was like, ‘Yeah, that’s, that’s the charge,’” Templeton would later say.

...

When Hamlett came up with “criminal responsibility for conduct of another” as a possible charge, there was a problem. It’s not an actual charge. There is no such crime. It is rather a basis upon which someone can be accused of a crime. For example, a person who caused someone else to commit robbery would be charged with robbery, not “criminal responsibility.”

But in the judicial commissioners’ office that Friday afternoon, 10 petitions were issued, each charging a child with “criminal responsibility.” The petitions didn’t distinguish the kids’ actions; the documents were cookie-cutter, saying each child “encouraged and caused” two other juveniles to commit an assault.

Templeton signed each petition. Anderson also signed at least some of them. Templeton then left the judicial commissioners’ office, the 10 petitions in hand.

After the four arrests at Hobgood, other children named in the petitions were brought in by their parents or rounded up by police.

[Madrun Badrun]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/10/the-forgotten-city-hall-riot.html

[benjipwns]

“Defund! Reclaim! Reinvest!” about two dozen people called out from the darkened Dallas street. A few weeks later, the police chief resigned over her handling of large-scale protests. Then the City Council voted to cut how much money the department could use on overtime and hiring new officers.

That was last year.

This year has been very different.

In cities across America, police departments are getting their money back. From New York to Los Angeles, departments that saw their funding targeted amid nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd last year have watched as local leaders voted for increases in police spending, with an additional $200 million allocated to the New York Police Department and a 3 percent boost given to the Los Angeles force.

The abrupt reversals have come in response to rising levels of crime in major cities last year, the exodus of officers from departments large and small and political pressures. After slashing police spending last year, Austin restored the department’s budget and raised it to new heights. In Burlington, Vt., the city that Senator Bernie Sanders once led as mayor went from cutting its police budget to approving $10,000 bonuses for officers to stay on the job.

But perhaps nowhere has the contrast been as stark as in Dallas, where Mr. Johnson not only proposed to restore money to the department but moved to increase the number of officers on the street, writing over the summer that “Dallas needs more police officers.”

After the mayor proposed increasing funding, no protests followed. When the Council backed a budget that restored many of the cuts made last year, few came to the public hearing, and even fewer spoke against the plan, which included the hiring of 250 officers. It passed with little fanfare last month.

we're back baby

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/WMUR9/status/1448774891348578306

[Madrun Badrun]

https://www.opb.org/article/2021/10/15/dozens-of-oregon-law-enforcement-officers-joined-far-right-oath-keepers-militia/

[benjipwns]

Canada:
https://twitter.com/TorontoStar/status/1452961970420912129
https://twitter.com/TorontoStar/status/1452964172795367429

[Madrun Badrun]

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/22/javier-ortiz-florida-police-misconduct-protections-516231

[benjipwns]

[benjipwns]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/05/new-jersey-covid-10-years-prison-terrorism-charges

While she was in custody, police said she coughed “in close proximity” to officers, and said she had Covid-19, though no dashboard, body or in-station videos exist to prove the assertion either way.

The allegation has landed Lewis, who otherwise has no criminal history, with a potentially ruinous terrorism charge – one that could land her in prison for 10 years and leave her with a $150,000 fine.

The rare and serious penalty was available to prosecutors only because New Jersey was in a state of emergency, in this case because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Lewis is among nearly four dozen people hit with life-altering terrorism charges – the sort of charges normally brought against people who perpetrate bomb threats – after the former New Jersey attorney general led a campaign to show law enforcement “we have their backs” amid the early days of the pandemic.

“It’s a miscarriage of justice,” said Lewis’s attorney, public defender Logan Terry. The most recent plea agreement offered to Lewis would sentence her to five years in state prison with restitution.

The first apparent terroristic threat charges in New Jersey came on 14 March 2020, two days before the White House would call on Americans to stay home for 15 days to “slow the spread” of Covid-19. The charges were brought against a Bergen county woman who allegedly coughed on an officer during a domestic violence incident.

From there, the former New Jersey attorney general Gurbir Grewal would continue to bring serious charges against people throughout New Jersey, tacking them on to otherwise minor arrests.

Grewal has since joined the Biden administration as the director of enforcement for the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“By ensuring that prosecutors filed serious charges in each of these cases, we let our officers know that we have their backs and that we appreciate the dedicated and professional way that they have met the challenges of this unprecedented emergency,” Grewal told the Guardian in June, before he joined the administration.

Despite these warnings, some New Jersey defendants charged under anti-terrorism statutes found themselves detained for far longer periods than they might during a non-emergency situation. That is because New Jersey waived a requirement that defendants be indicted within 90 days of arrest, as backlogged courts struggled to adapt to the pandemic.

In one case, a northern New Jersey man spent eight months in jail awaiting indictment. His crime, his attorney said, was telling arresting officers, “I have corona,” when he was asked if he had any health problems.

“It’s obviously not a threat in the common definition of the threat nor in the legal definition of the threat, and it was a direct response to their questioning,” said the man’s attorney, who asked not to be named to protect their client from retaliation.

After release, he was asked to return to jail indefinitely to get a coronavirus test.

All told, the New Jersey attorney general’s office publicized charges of terroristic threats in the second degree against at least 45 people, possibly the most concerted campaign to criminalize threats of Covid-19 transmission in the US.

Prosecutors have apparently stopped bringing new second-degree terroristic threats charges. The last anti-terrorism charge related to the pandemic, according to the attorney general’s office, came in December 2020, when a Secaucus man arrested for drunk driving coughed on police and said he had coronavirus.

“We will not tolerate those who endanger the first responders working on the frontlines of this pandemic,” the acting attorney general of New Jersey, Andrew J Bruck, said in a statement to the Guardian.

“We are committed to safeguarding our law enforcement officers and other emergency workers, and we will hold accountable individuals who deliberately threatened to expose these heroes to a deadly virus,” he said.

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/1468321665494966278

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/StarTribune/status/1470055844498661377

[Madrun Badrun]

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article256581741.html

12-year-old girl arrested at Manatee school after officials wanted a fight video deleted

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/michaelwhitney/status/1474196916472795144
https://twitter.com/michaelwhitney/status/1474351290952134658

[benjipwns]

They needed 19 correction officers whom they had posted at the Queens criminal courthouse to fill in at the massive jail complex, where staffing was short, slashings and stabbings were up and detainees had gained control over some housing units. It was Columbus Day, a holiday, and the workload at the Queens courthouse was comparatively light.

But when the bus to Rikers arrived at the courthouse, many of the guards refused to board it. Instead, according to interviews, they claimed the onset of sudden illness. Seven of them dialed 911, complaining of chest pain, leg injuries, lightheadedness and palpitations. One produced a cane as proof of disability. More than a dozen officers left in ambulances. Rikers remained understaffed.

The powerful correction officers’ union has said that hiring more guards would solve the problems. But records and interviews show that there is no staffing shortage in the jail system. In fact, on days this year when guard posts in volatile Rikers housing units went unfilled, hundreds of other correction officers were stationed elsewhere in less dangerous positions, including as secretaries, laundry room supervisors and even bakers.

The groundwork for the violence and disorder on Rikers was laid over the years by successive mayoral administrations, which allowed power to shift to lower-level wardens and the guards’ union and then to incarcerated gang members themselves. As a result, guards have been posted throughout the system in wasteful and capricious ways, generous benefits like sick leave have been abused and detainees have had the run of entire housing areas.

The failures are especially stark given the vast sums the city has spent on the Correction Department. At an annual cost to taxpayers of more than $400,000 per inmate — more than six times the average in the nation’s other biggest cities — New York has operated a jail complex that has broken down in fundamental ways, leaving some detainees to roam unsupervised and others to go without food or basic health care.

The fallout has occurred largely out of sight, on an island in the East River that most New Yorkers never visit or even think about.

It can be measured in loss of life — more than 16 men have died in the jail system this year — and in the thousands of injuries inflicted on other detainees, who, by September, had been slashed, stabbed, beaten or otherwise harmed at a pace of 38 per day for more than 270 days straight. Most of the detainees at Rikers have never committed violent acts in jail, and more than half suffer from mental illness or other serious ailments.

It can also be gauged by the rising number of assaults — more than 2,000 this year — endured by jail guards. Some officers responded by lashing out at incarcerated people. Others were accused of joining them in criminal acts. In May, seven officers were charged with taking bribes to smuggle drugs, scalpels and cellphones into the jails.

New York operates the best-staffed jail system in the nation, employing more guards per detainee than any other major American lockup. So many officers are on the city payroll that, on days in September when as many as 2,000 of them missed work — more than the total number of guards employed by the jails in Indianapolis and Jacksonville combined — there were still about 5,800 who reported for duty.

With so many correction officers on hand, it can be difficult to track what all of them are doing on a given day, according to Mr. Schiraldi and others. Even as the pandemic raged and concerns about staffing shortages spilled into public view, there was little transparency about who was posted where, and why.

But interviews and internal city records obtained by The Times reveal a system that uses uniformed officers in ways that other jail agencies do not.

Guards act as drivers for wardens. Guards answer phones and file papers for administrators. Guards supervise lawn-mowing crews. Guards oversee tailor shops. Guards help run a bakery.

An internal staffing report shows that of the more than 8,900 sworn officers on the department’s payroll in February, about 850 were stationed at the department’s Queens headquarters, at its training academy or in other positions requiring little or no contact with detainees.

Nearly 750 guards were assigned to daily posts at the Manhattan Detention Complex during a period in which the Lower Manhattan jail was holding, on average, just 16 people a day.

Those officers who return to work from sick leave can still avoid being assigned to guard detainees, thanks to another policy embraced by union members. This one allows officers who are deemed by their doctors to be in need of light-duty assignments to remain in those posts indefinitely.

Concerned in 2016 that the policy was being abused, Angel Villalona, a top Correction Department administrator, urged then-Commissioner Joseph Ponte to curb it, even proposing a rule that would have limited the amount of time officers could spend in modified-duty posts. Mr. Ponte, who did not act on the proposal, said he did not recall receiving it.

During the pandemic, the number of guards who were out sick or on the so-called medically modified status lists ballooned into the thousands, in part, according to a person with knowledge of the situation, because the department’s Health Management Division is so backed up with appointments that it can take months to verify that officers are suffering from ailments.

[Madrun Badrun]

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/california-man-paralyzed-police-pain-compliance-82100373

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/unioncounsel/status/1480649318381998083

[Madrun Badrun]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-police-sergeant-accused-grabbing-officer-throat-rcna12236

[benjipwns]

Five times since last May, sheriff's deputies in Kansas and California have stopped armored cars operated by Empyreal Logistics, a Pennsylvania-based company that serves marijuana businesses and financial institutions that work with them. The cops made off with cash after three of those stops, seizing a total of $1.2 million, but did not issue any citations or file any criminal charges, which are not necessary to confiscate property through civil forfeiture. That process allows police to pad their budgets by seizing assets they allege are connected to criminal activity, even when the owner is never charged, let alone convicted.

...

On May 17, Dickinson County Sheriff's Deputy Kalen Robinson pulled over one of Empyreal's vans on Interstate 70 in Kansas, ostensibly because the Colorado tag number was partially obstructed by the license plate frame. Robinson grilled the driver, who explained that she planned to pick up cash from licensed medical marijuana dispensaries in Kansas City, Missouri, the next day, then take it to a credit union in Colorado, which would entail traveling through Kansas again on the same highway. Robinson let the driver proceed on her way without issuing a citation, but the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) kept an eye on the van the following morning as it visited the Missouri dispensaries.

Later that day, Robinson stopped the van again as it traveled west on Interstate 70, seizing more than $165,000 in cash from its vault. In September, the Justice Department filed a civil forfeiture complaint seeking to keep the money. If the government prevails, the Dickinson County Sheriff's Department will get up to 80 percent of the loot under the Justice Department's "equitable sharing" program.

...

The stops and seizures in California raise additional legal issues, because that state, unlike Kansas, allows the sale of marijuana for medical or recreational use. It also explicitly protects companies like Empyreal from harassment by local or state law enforcement agencies. A 2020 law says a business that "transports cash or financial instruments, or provides other financial services does not commit a crime under any California law…solely by virtue of the fact that the person receiving the benefit of any of those services engages in commercial cannabis activity as a licensee pursuant to this division." Despite that law, San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies stopped Empyreal vans three times in November, December, and January, seizing more than $1 million.

On November 16, Sheriff's Deputy Jonathan Franco pulled over one of the company's vehicles, supposedly because it was following a tractor-trailer truck too closely. Like Robinson, Franco did not issue any citations. But after the driver told him the van was carrying cash, the lawsuit says, Franco "asked many questions about the nature of Empyreal's business." Even though it should have been clear that Empyreal was not violating any state laws, the cops seized about $700,000. The sheriff's office later told the company's lawyer the money "was transferred to the FBI for civil forfeiture."

On December 9, Empyreal says, the same deputies pulled over the same vehicle, driven by the same employee, ostensibly because he "slightly exceeded the speed limit and prematurely activated his turn signal." But once again, no citation was issued. According to the lawsuit, "the driver's operation of the Empyreal vehicle was completely lawful." The company says "the deputies had planned the stop in advance and would have pulled over the driver and the Empyreal vehicle regardless of how carefully or lawfully it was driven."

The deputies claimed a drug-sniffing dog alerted to the van, which Empyreal says also is not true: "Video footage from the vehicle does not show the dog alert on the vehicle. Instead, it shows the dog is barely interested in the vehicle."

This time the cops seized about $350,000. The deputies, who were audibly excited about the $700,000 haul, were somewhat disappointed by the relatively small size of the second seizure. Based on an audio recording by the van's security system, the lawsuit describes this exchange: "One of the deputies said, 'That's it?' and chuckled. He then said: 'You set the bar too high.' When another deputy remarked that he thought they'd get 'a million or two,' the [first] deputy responded, 'At least we got over a million'"—apparently referring to the combined take from the two seizures. The FBI later told Empyreal's lawyer it had also taken possession of the money seized on December 9, pending federal forfeiture proceedings.

From San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus' perspective, involving the feds has clear advantages. Money earned by state-legal marijuana businesses is not subject to forfeiture under California law. Even if it were, law enforcement agencies would be entitled to just 65 percent of the proceeds, compared to as much as 80 percent under federal law. And for cash forfeitures involving $40,000 or more, California requires "clear and convincing evidence," while federal law says "a preponderance of the evidence" is good enough.

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The third California stop sheds some light on that strategy. On January 6, the lawsuit says, San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies stopped an Empyreal driver who was "picking up an order of rolled coin boxes from Empyreal's vendor, which happens to be located in San Bernardino County, in order to replenish its rolled coin supply." After the deputies realized that the coins had nothing to do with cannabis, they decided not to seize them. "When the Empyreal driver asked a deputy why Empyreal vehicles were being stopped so frequently," the company says, "the deputy told him it was 'political' but declined to elaborate."