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Tag Archives: Abuse of Power

SSCC West Palm Beach

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A West Palm Beach Police officer was arrested early this morning on a domestic battery charge.

Patrol officer Francisco A. Maldonado, 28, was arrested by Greenacres police and booked into the Palm Beach County Jail at 8:20 a.m.

He was released was released this afternoon from the Palm Beach County Jail on his own recognizance, an employee in the jail’s inmate records division said.

Best part is, he walked out of jail and right straight into work!

City spokesman Elliot Cohen said Maldonado has since been placed on desk duty.

And remember, he gets to continue having a firearm because he’s special while anyone else charged with the same crime would have his rights suspended without conviction.

State Sponsored Criminal: Francisco A. Maldonado

Because cops get a free pass where everyone else is held accountable for their actions.

SSCC North Bend OR

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A former North Bend police officer avoided a prison sentence Tuesday when he pleaded guilty in federal court in Eugene to tipping off an illegal steroid distributor about an ongoing investigation.

William Blair Downing, 43, was placed on probation for five years and ordered to perform 400 hours of community service as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors. He also must undergo a mental health evaluation and will have all of his medications monitored while on probation.

If it’s so minor that he tipped off the criminal about the ongoing investigation, one should wonder should the activities in question be illegal?  Maybe it’s just to create a protective racket where those who work for the state are the only one’s allowed to benefit.  Not to mention the fact the officer in question was using steroids himself.

State Sponsored Criminal: William Blair Downing

Because illegal drugs are only a problem because we make them one.

SSCC Slaton

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Slaton police came to this woman’s house, who wishes to remain anonymous, to arrest her son. But by asking one simple question, she found herself behind bars instead.

“I told him, ‘I will release my son to you upon viewing those orders.’ Those were exactly my words,” The complainant said. “He said, ‘This is how you want to play?’ He took two steps back, turned around to the officer and said, ‘Take her.’ They turned me around, handcuffed me, and took me in.”

Well she had good reason to ask…

The complainant said she was aware police would be coming to apprehend her 11-year-old son based on a criminal complaint, and that she just wanted to see the warrant. As it turns out, that warrant didn’t exist. She spent the night in jail while her son was left at home.

So basically they made her spend a night in jail for exercising her legal rights and protecting her child’s rights as well.  The biggest clue those officers f’d up?

McDonald said the Slaton Police Department will issue an apology as long as the mother agrees not to file a lawsuit. He said unless she is compensated for her expenses and the trauma she’s been through, a lawsuit won’t be out of the question.

I hope she doesn’t.  That is a textbook case of wrongful arrest and deprivation of rights under color of law if I ever saw one.

State Sponsored Criminal: Officer John Doe of the Slaton Police department

Because heaven forbid someone actually verify your legal authority to do something.  They need to follow orders blindly and just throw away their rights!

SSCC North Ridgeville

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Accorti responded to a home Monday afternoon where a feral mother cat and her five kittens were living in a woodpile.

He allegedly told the homeowner that shelters were full and that the cats would be going to kitty heaven. He then pulled out his gun and shot the five, 8- to 10-week-old kittens.

Accorti allegedly told the homeowner that he isn’t supposed to do this, but it was justifiable. The woman ran into the house to shield her children, who were screaming and crying.

The police chief has justified the actions of the officer.  Why does this end up in the count?  Because if you or I had done the same thing and someone saw us, we would be arrested at minimum for reckless discharge of a firearm within city limits.  There was no immediate threat to life or even property and there were other methods to deal with the problem.

Further, you’re telling me that no one out in the middle of nowhere Ohio needs barn cats?  No this man exercised poor judgment and was looking for an excuse to exercise some trigger time on a living animal.  If it had been a dog the argument would be it was coming right for him.

I guess cops have decided that killing every dog they find is no longer enough, they’ve decided to move onto killing cats too.

State Sponsored Criminal: Barry Accorti

Because reckless discharge of a firearm is only reckless if you’re not a cop and you make up a good reason, like “killing kittens that were coming right at you!”.  In that case you can do whatever you want and get away with it.

SSCC Cleveland

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Incase you can’t see the video:

An Ohio prosecutor who was fired for creating a fake Facebook account to chat with witnesses in a murder trial insists he acted in the interest of the public.

Aaron Brockler confessed to posing as a woman on the social network in an attempt to coax the accused killer’s alibi witnesses to change their testimony, the Cleveland Plain-Dealer reports.

“Law enforcement, including prosecutors, have long engaged in the practice of using a ruse to obtain the truth,” Brockler told the newspaper. “I think the public is better off for what I did.”

Remember, it takes a great prosecutor to convict an innocent man.

State Sponsored Criminal: Aaron Brockler

Because when you think that someone’s guilty, do everything you can to intimidate others into lying to support your version of the story.

via Rob Halvorson

SSCC: LAPD

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Los Angeles County prosecutors say a former police officer has been sentenced to 19 years in prison after pleading no contest to sexually assaulting five women while on duty in 2006 and 2007.

A district attorney’s statement says Ryan Allen West entered the plea Tuesday to five felonies including two counts of rape and three counts of penetration with a foreign object.

Remember though, these men should be allowed to be armed while you are forcibly disarmed and the act of defending yourself against them automatically a felony.

State Sponsored Criminal: Ryan Allen West

Because when you’re a cop, you get the authority of the state behind you and a gun on your hip while your victims are just allowed to cower in fear.

Quote of the Day–Brian Hauss(6/6/2013)

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To be sure, rummaging around through people’s personal papers may well turn up the occasional bad guy, but that is not the only consideration. No doubt law enforcement agents would also find it useful to walk into people’s homes at will, but we don’t allow them to do so because that would intrude on our reasonable expectation of privacy in our homes. And just as we reasonably expect privacy in our homes, so, too, do we expect that border agents will not base their decisions to search through our electronic information on a whim or a hunch. Put another way, requiring law enforcement agents to possess objective reasons for a search is a feature of our constitutional framework, not a bug.

(Emphasis mine.)

Brian Hauss – DHS Releases Disappointing Civil Liberties Report on Border Searches of Laptops and Other Electronics

June 5th, 2013

[For those who haven’t heard yet.  The DHS is claiming the following line of BS regarding searches at the border.

[A]dding a heightened [suspicion-based] threshold requirement could be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefit. First, commonplace decisions to search electronic devices might be opened to litigation challenging the reasons for the search. In addition to interfering with a carefully constructed border security system, the litigation could directly undermine national security by requiring the government to produce sensitive investigative and national security information to justify some of the most critical searches. Even a policy change entirely unenforceable by courts might be problematic; we have been presented with some noteworthy CBP and ICE success stories based on hard-to-articulate intuitions or hunches based on officer experience and judgment. Under a reasonable suspicion requirement, officers might hesitate to search an individual’s device without the presence of articulable factors capable of being formally defended, despite having an intuition or hunch based on experience that justified a search.

Translation:  “We don’t need to specify a reason why we are seizing and searching your property.”

Now many may have forgotten so I will provide you an extra reminder of the area the DHS would like to claim as free from that pesky 4th Amendment.

For more on that go back and read my article on it (dated 2008).  So think about what the department of homeland security is claiming as within their legal abilities, and then think long and hard about that map where they can put up “border inspection points” at will.  Think your safe just because you don’t regularly travel out of the country?  Get real.

Listen folks, you either have these rights or you don’t.  They’re not predicated on some theory that you surrender them because you want to do X.  NO!  If the government wants to search my personal effects, they must present a case including evidence that I have committed a crime, or that I intend to harm another.  *Note I said harm, the war on drugs needs to go to!*  The only way you end up with this current view of the law is through twisted perversion and a lackadaisical attitude that say “I don’t care, what’s it matter?”

Just because I want to fly to visit my friends in Nashville, doesn’t mean I surrender my 4th amendment rights and agree to have someone fondle me and my wife.  It’s horse crap and frankly if we don’t stop it, it will just get worse.  There’s two options for stopping it, we get the courts to do their damn job, or well, use your imagination for the second option.

News flash folks, in a free land bad people some times end up doing bad things.  Its comes with territory.  Honestly though even in your perfect police state, the crazy guy can still do damage, even more so due to the delayed response.  Grow a pair, embrace the responsibility and with it experience freedom.  It’s freaking AWESOME. –B]

SSCC Box Elder County

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A former Box Elder County sheriff’s deputy has pleaded guilty to federal charges related to illegally strip-searching women at traffic stops.

Scott R. Womack, 37, admitted in U.S. District Court last week to two misdemeanor counts of deprivation of rights under color of law. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed to drop six other counts.

I’d be interested to know what the sentencing guidelines are for this.  But I can tell you even at the maximum sentence it is merely a slap on the wrist relative to what he’s done.

Why does he make the full count though beyond the lenient sentence?  Well his department covered for him.

According to one suit, several women complained to the Box Elder County Sheriff’s Office with similar stories about Womack. One woman says she called the office about the incident and was told: "I don’t think officer Womack is that type of person."

State Sponsored Criminal: Scott R. Womack

Because when you’re a cop, they can’t say no to what you tell them to do on the side of the road.  Their only option is to pray they get caught, even then they’ll only slap my wrist.