The truth of these allegations hasn't been established, but it's undisputed that Marvin Driver, Jr. was hospitalized after his encounter with the Houston police. The incident merits mention here because Marvin is the father of beloved Green Bay Packers wide receiver Donald Driver, who missed two days of practice this week to visit his dad in a Houston hospital.

According to the Driver family, Marvin was stopped by Houston police and arrested on outstanding traffic warrants.

"Later, the family found out he never made it to the jail, he was picked up by the paramedics several blocks from his parents home laying in the street bloody and unconscious and the police were no where to be found."

According to Marvin, who had to write out the details on paper towels because he was unable to speak: [more ...]

If the Democratic Party had a few dozen more Congressmen like John Conyers and Henry Waxman, the nation would know a whole lot more about its recent past. Conyers has been doggedly pursuing the Justice Department's firing of U.S. Attorneys who refused to bring groundless prosecutions against Democrats, or who brought legitimate prosecutions against Republicans, or who just didn't follow Karl Rove's dictates.

During that investigation, Conyers' Judiciary Committee considered evidence that former Alabama governor Don Siegelman's prosecution for corruption was politically motivated. Today Conyers wrote a letter (pdf) to Attorney General Mukasey detailing startling new information that was leaked by a whistleblower.

Conyers says the evidence raises "serious questions" about the U.S. Attorney in the Siegelman case, who, documents show, continued to involve herself in the politically charged prosecution long after she had publicly withdrawn to avoid an alleged conflict of interest relating to her husband, a top GOP operative and close associate of Bush adviser Karl Rove. Conyers' letter also cites evidence of numerous contacts between jurors and members of the Siegelman prosecution team that were never disclosed to the trial judge or defense counsel.

Unauthorized contacts with jurors? Yikes! [more ...]

Yes, the application for a job with the Obama administration seems unnecessarily intrusive, but let's remember what happens when the executive branch doesn't screen candidates adequately. The Bush administration's hiring of federal air marshals should leave us wondering whether anyone asked about the character of air marshal job applicants.

[A]n examination of police reports, court records, government reports, memos and e-mails shows that 18 air marshals have been charged with felonies, including at least three who were hired despite prior criminal records or being fired from law enforcement jobs. A fourth air marshal was hired while under FBI investigation. Another stayed on the job despite alarming a flight attendant with his behavior.

[more ...]

Remember Mark Foley? He'd like to make a comeback.

"I'm trying to find my way back," Foley said in an interview with The Associated Press, his first public comments on the scandal since resigning from Congress on Sept. 29, 2006.

Foley had "lurid, sexually explicit" electronic chats with teenage interns when he was a Congressman. If Foley wants to "find [his] way back" to a political or public career, or even a job as a previously owned car salesman, he needs to show a bit more understanding of his conduct than this: [more ...]

The Chicago Police are under investigation for multiple complaints of using pepper spray against election night revelers celebrating Barack Obama's victory. One incident sparked a lawsuit.

A family filed a federal lawsuit charging officers in unmarked squad cars pepper-sprayed and shouted racial slurs at their young children as they drove on the West Side.

There are unconfirmed reports of as many as 50 pepper spray incidents in the same Chicago district.

The jury in John Connolly's latest trial heard a "sordid story about how people looking to give information to the FBI in Boston had this funny habit of turning up dead.” As early as 1965, FBI agents in Boston were protecting serious criminals from prosecution -- effectively enabling them to continue victimizing the innocent -- in exchange for the information they provided about other criminals.

FBI Agent John Connolly was at the heart of the corrupt alliance between Boston's FBI office and criminal informants who were given a virtual license to conduct crimes of their own. In 1982, Connolly tipped off his informant, gun and drug runner James Bulger, that gambling executive John Callahan might implicate him in a killing. Callahan was soon shot to death. On Thursday, Connolly was convicted of second degree murder for the role he played in Callahan's death.

Long-time TalkLeft readers might remember Connolly's name and the scandal in which he was involved. [more ...]

Almost two years ago, TalkLeft began a series of posts addressing the death of Kathryn Johnston, a 92 year old woman who was killed by police officers during a drug raid in Atlanta. The officer who swore to the search warrant application invented an undercover drug buy in the woman's residence that never occurred.

The officers lied to a judge, smashed in Johnston’s door and unloaded 39 shots at the elderly woman as she fired a shot at the invaders with an old revolver. One officer then handcuffed Johnston as she lay dying. Drugs were then planted in her basement.

Two involved officers were convicted of manslaughter in state court and federal civil rights charges. They are awaiting sentencing. A third just entered a guilty plea to a federal charge of conspiring to violate civil rights in exchange for a recommended sentence of about 10 years. That officer is already serving a 4 1/2 year sentence for lying to investigators about the botched raid.

This is tragic:

A newlywed killed by police after he stepped outside his home to confront suspected burglars was shot in a case of mistaken identity, police said. Julian Alexander died after being shot twice in the chest by a police officer who was chasing four burglary suspects early Tuesday morning. Police Chief John Welter said the officer ran into Alexander, mistook him for one of the four juvenile suspects and shot him. ...

"He was a good kid, trying to protect his house," said Alexander's mother-in-law Michelle Mooney. "And the police, instead of asking questions, they just shot first. Somebody has to be held responsible for this." ... Alexander got married last weekend and his 19-year-old wife is expecting a baby in December.

More here.

In 1982, Chicago's Dailey administration was indifferent to reports that "police killer Andrew Wilson's face looked normal going into an interrogation room, but resembled ground beef hours later." A few years later, the Chicago Police Department was indifferent when a police watchdog "raised serious questions about the electro-shocking of suspects."

In 1990, another watchdog "catalogued 50 cases of alleged police torture." The police department suppressed the report and retaliated against the watchdog. The report created a brief sensation when it became public in 1992 and a few strong voices in the alternative media and civil rights community tried to sustain an interest in reform, but public and media indifference soon prevailed.

Janet Reno was indifferent. So was the Reagan administration. In an atmosphere of indifference, Jon Burge and the detectives under his command found unchecked power to torture suspects, primarily black, on the south side of Chicago. [more ...]

On television and in the movies, when a police detective wants a killer to confess, he whacks the killer upside the head and the killer obliges with a written admission of guilt. In real life, coerced confessions are prohibited by the Constitution. That doesn't stop the occasional officer from using TV tactics to get what he wants.

Jon Burge is a former Chicago police lieutenant whose interrogation tactics (primarily directed toward black suspects) included beatings, electric shocks, and mock Russian roulette. The torture of suspects in which he and his colleagues engaged resulted in civil rights suits against Chicago and a federal investigation.

Burge lied to the federal investigators and he lied to lawyers who questioned him with regard to the civil rights suits, consistently denying any knowledge of, or involvement in, the abuse of suspects. Today an indictment of Burge for perjury and obstruction of justice with regard to those lies was unsealed. Burge was arrested before dawn this morning in his Florida home. [more ...]

A federal law that "prohibits the use of public funds or resources for partisan political activities" didn't stop Bush administration officials from traveling around the country in 2006 to "to lend prestige or bring federal grants to 99 politically endangered Republicans that year."

[A] draft report released by the Democratic majority of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform ... said the trips were freely described as political in subpoenaed e-mails and interviews. A master list prepared at the White House two weeks before the election listed the names and dates of appearances by cabinet secretaries in 73 key congressional districts, all under the heading "Final Push Surrogate Matrix."

"This is," the report said, "a gross abuse of the public trust."

Granted, there is often an ambiguous line between politics and policy, and it isn't unusual for presidents to use their office to help members of their political party. The report concludes that the Bush administration's approach was markedly different from that of previous White House occupants. [more ...]

The Inspector General's blistering 392 page report on the Bush Administration's firing of 9 U.S. Attorneys has been released. You can read it here (pdf.)

Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced he will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and decide if criminal charges should be brought against former AG Alberto Gonzales.

“The report makes plain that, at a minimum, the process by which nine U.S. attorneys were removed in 2006 was haphazard, arbitrary and unprofessional, and the way in which the Justice Department handled those removals and the resulting public controversy was profoundly lacking,” Mr. Mukasey said in a statement. The report called for further investigation to determine whether prosecutable offenses were committed either in the firings or in subsequent testimony about them.

[More...]