This is a stunning abuse of power.

According to the alleged victim's mom, the 19-year-old woman called [Scottsdale] police Sunday morning about intruders in her apartment complex. The mom claims one of the officers, who came to investigate, ordered the teen to get naked. Afraid and confused, she complied with the strip-search.

Officer Chong Kim resigned after the department commenced an investigation.

The FBI may look into whether Officer Kim infringed on the teen's civil rights under color of law.

May look into? [more ...]

From Radley Balko's first post about Ryan Frederick:

Officer Jarrod Shivers was shot and killed while executing a search warrant in Cheseapeake, Virginia Thursday night. ... [Frederick said] in an interview from jail he had no idea the undercover cops breaking into his home were police. ... Though the raid was apparently part of a drug investigation, police aren't saying what if any drugs were found.

Turns out they were searching for a large marijuana grow operation. They found only a small amount of pot.

Botched drug raids by SWAT teams that employ military tactics too often end in tragedy. Whether or not there was good reason to think Frederick was growing some weed, there are ways to address that crime without senselessly risking lives.

Today's post points to evidence that raises serious questions about the murder charge against Frederick : [more ...]

The Huntsville Times wonders "how the Huntsville Police Department investigates itself and whether its review policy is so lacking in balance and so opaque as to undermine public confidence in it."

When an officer shoots a citizen, and the federal courts say there's strong evidence that department policies weren't followed, yet that department doesn't condemn the officer's involvement, the public must be troubled.

Ricky Scheuerman ran over Officer Jeffrey Weaber's foot. He says it was an accident. Weaber shot Sheuerman three times in the chest. That was not an accident.

An internal investigation by the HPD exonerated Weaber despite a less than stellar work record that includes "a dozen or so wrecks in his police car." A federal judge has nonetheless concluded that the evidence of misconduct is strong enough to warrant a trial in Scheuerman's lawsuit against Weaber. [more ...]

Whether allegations of police misconduct during a raid -- including claims that several women were stripped searched in front of male officers and that officers "stole cash from a safe and coin-operated video games" -- are true, they beg the question: Why did the raid occur?

Police confirm they began the raid with a flash grenade, and that it happened at 11:30 p.m. May 30, 2008 .... That night, just over 20 people were attending a party inside the La Familia Motorcycle Social Club, 2500 W. Fullerton, and the department says the officers, wearing body armor and wielding assault weapons, were responding to a tip that illegal drugs were being used or sold there.

Does the war on drugs necessitate that level of force at a private party? All because of a tip? What's the point? [more ...]

Withheld evidence could have changed the verdict in David Flores' murder trial from guilty to not guilty. The Des Moines Register reports:

Prosecutors and judges have acknowledged that the case against David Flores, now 31 and serving a life prison sentence, was weak at the time he was convicted in 1997. One element that will be central to Flores' hearing is whether police had access to an FBI report that pointed to [Rafael] Robinson as another suspect in [Phyllis] Davis' death.

Flores' defense first learned in 2003 that the report existed — after his appeals were exhausted. But it took them years to discover the contents of the report.

Davis was inadvertently caught in the middle of an exchange of gunfire. Three witnesses say Robinson shot her. Robinson was shot three months later. Flores' lawyers want to examine the police reports concerning Robinson's unsolved killing, but the police and prosecution are resisting, claiming the examination could compromise an ongoing investigation. That excuse would be more persuasive if the investigation had actually produced a strong suspect in the last 12 years. [more ...]

Poor judgment and unnecessary violence on the part of a police officer in Seattle will cost local taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. Here's what happened:

[Romelle] Bradford was a 20-year-old volunteer at the Rainier Vista Boys & Girls Club in 2006 and was chaperoning a dance when rival groups began to make trouble. Police were called, and Bradford, according to testimony and court records, was wearing a red staff T-shirt and identification when a rookie police officer, Jacob Briskey, ordered him to stop running toward the altercation.

Bradford, who testified he did not know the officer was speaking to him, continued on when the then-24-year-old officer knocked him hard to the ground and threatened to "knock him the [expletive] out" if he tried to get back up. Bradford was arrested and spent a night in jail.

A federal jury awarded Bradford $269,000. The city hired a private law firm that has billed more than $138,000 to defend the case and the court will probably order the city to pay Bradford's attorneys' fees (although likely less than the $271,000 they're requesting). If the city loses a planned appeal, thousands more will be paid to the attorneys on both sides of the case. All because a police officer roughed up and arrested a young man who was just trying to do his job.

Baltimore police detective Charles Hagee was part of an "elite" team investigating drug trafficking. His credibility was important to the outcome of hundreds of cases. It is therefore distressing that the chief of the state's attorney's police misconduct division, Thomas Krehely, deliberately kept himself in the dark about misconduct allegations that called Hagee's integrity into question.

Krehely ... testified that he does not routinely review police misconduct files after he decides not to press criminal charges, mainly to avoid being subpoenaed by defense attorneys.

Krehely decided not to press criminal misconduct charges, without bothering to review the file, because internal misconduct charges that the police department leveled against Hagee -- charges that the department didn't pursue aggressively -- were resolved in a deal that favored Hagee with a dismissal of the charges that impugned his integrity. Krehely's "see-no-evil" approach meant that (in his mind, at least) he was not required to disclose information to defense attorneys that destroys Hagee's credibility as a police witness. Had Krebely done his job responsibly, resources would not have been wasted on the dozens of prosecutions that have been dismissed because they are tainted by Hagee's involvement. (more ...)

Civilian oversight of police departments is essential for the reasons advanced by Oakland's city attorney:

[T]aking Internal Affairs out of the Oakland Police Department would clarify the line between officers and the investigators who hold them accountable for misconduct. The concentration of investigators in Internal Affairs is a result of the Oakland Police Department's not-too-distant history of not investigating its own. In the past, Internal Affairs did a poor job of holding fellow officers accountable. A few years ago, for example, newly assigned commanders found boxes containing about 700 inquiries and possible complaints of misconduct that were never investigated.

Yet the concept is often resisted by police departments (large and small) that apparently see a danger in civilian oversight. What's wrong with accountability? And, for that matter, why shouldn't Chicago's aldermen be entitled to learn the names of "the 662 Chicago police officers with more than 10 complaints filed against them"? Police officers work for, and are accountable to, the public. Shouldn't the public's elected representatives be entitled to know what public employees are up to?

Two veteran Miami police officers have been charged in an FBI undercover operation:

Two veteran police officers were charged Friday with providing protection for purported shipments of cocaine and stolen goods in what was actually an undercover FBI operation.

Officer Geovani Nunez and Detective Jorge Hernandez are accused in court documents of helping protect shipments of what they thought were stolen televisions and computers and at least 12 kilograms of cocaine — sometimes by using their police cars to escort trucks.

The officers have been fired. This isn't the first time cops have gone bad in Florida.

The case is similar to a recent FBI sting that led to guilty pleas from five officers in Hollywood, Fla. Four received lengthy prison sentences.

More...

Do you suppose we'll ever have the pleasure of watching Karl Rove do the perp walk?

Via Politico's The Crypt:

Just off the House floor today, the Crypt overheard House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers tell two other people: "We're closing in on Rove. Someone's got to kick his ass."

Asked a few minutes later for a more official explanation, Conyers told us that Rove has a week to appear before his committee. If he doesn't, said Conyers, "We'll do what any self-respecting committee would do. We'd hold him in contempt. Either that or go and have him arrested."

The bolded option would be a satisfying outcome.

Capturing brutal police misconduct on tape isn't always enough to convince a jury to convict the officers of a crime. It isn't surprising that juries often give cops a pass when they abuse arrestees, despite seemingly obvious visual evidence of their guilt. Sometimes the district attorney doesn't prosecute with vigor; sometimes the jury returns a verdict of "he had it coming." Juries bring democracy into the courtroom by reflecting the sense of the community, even when that sense is offensive to those who don't share the community's biases. That's how democracy works -- or doesn't, depending on your point of view.

In Philadelphia:

Fifteen Philadelphia police officers will be taken off the street as authorities investigate a video showing three suspects being kicked and beaten by city police.

Philadelphia officers have been "on edge" since one of their own was killed two days ago, according to Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey. A bit of the video is shown in this newscast. More information here.

On his wedding day in Manhattan, Sean Bell was gunned down by 50 police bullets. Three New York police officers have been on trial for the past 8 weeks for manslaughter. Today, the judge acquitted them of all charges.

[Michael]Oliver, who fired 31 times and reloaded once, and [Gescard]Isnora, who fired 11 times, had been charged with manslaughter, felony assault and reckless endangerment. They faced up to 25 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

[Marc]Cooper, who fired four times, faced up to a year in jail if convicted of reckless endangerment. None of the detectives testified, although their grand jury testimony was read out loud at the trial.

The case was tried before Queens Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman who decided the state didn't prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.

Cooperman said justification was used as a defense, he had to consider the "mindset of the defendants, not the victims. What the victims did, was more important to resolve the issues at hand than what was in their minds."