Talk Radio Sucks -- Smart Politics

[Jackson County, Fla., sheriff’s deputy] Wester, who was fired last September, was arrested Wednesday and charged with 52 counts of racketeering, false imprisonment, official misconduct, fabricating evidence and possession of controlled substances, among other charges. He’s accused of indiscriminately targeting innocent drivers and hauling them off to jail after planting meth or marijuana in their vehicles while feigning a “search."

I sincerely hope this lying sack of shit does serious time.

I sincerely hope this lying sack of shit does serious time. And, of course, Flori-DUH.

https://www.washingt...m=.95cbd0b2dd46

I sincerely hope this lying sack of shit does serious time. And, of course, Flori-DUH.

https://www.washingt...m=.95cbd0b2dd46

Ain't it grand to be sheriff! The country needs to get rid of this 18th Century (or earlier) concept. A sheriff should be hired just like a police chief is. That will help remove a bit of the arrogance that my local sheriff exhibited when he locked an appointed Inspector General out of the sheriff's office. He said he is only accountable to the voters.

According to Rule 41 of the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure, a “body cavity search” is defined as “an inspection, probing or examination of the inside of a person's anus, vagina or genitals” in order to determine whether an individual is concealing something such as a weapon or controlled substance.

Cavity searches are indistinguishable from rape unless:

• Informed consent is given or
  
• Consent is impossible (child or impaired) and life or limb is at stake or
  
• Court-ordered search

and generally outside of critical emergency a witness (ideally family member and generally of same sex) is present.

Best I can tell, none of those apply in the alleged instances.

I would sure hope so. I was shocked and appalled at this video. It looked like premeditated violence and routine at that judging by the cop who was casually chewing gum. I would be very interested to know what percentage of suspects actually use that place to carry dope.

Quite a few -- but the real problem is the judges who issue warrants so casually. Especially when all they have is that a supposed drug-sniffing dog alerted, because as many a double-blind test has shown dogs alert on signals from their handlers far more than they do from smell (false positive rates are enormous, yet they're still treated as probable cause) and a dog is not going to get much scent from a plastic bag that's been cleaned and inserted. Double especially if it's been swallowed and they just wait for it to take its course.

What we've seen in far too many cases, though, is that a cop does a "cavity search" without so much as a warrant and does it precisely as a rape.

The U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York announced on Tuesday that the Justice Department wouldn’t pursue federal civil rights charges against the New York police officer involved in Eric Garner’s death.

A DOJ spokesperson confirmed to TPM that Attorney General Bill Barr made the final decision after he was briefed on the investigation by the department’s Civil Rights Division and the EDNY.

EDNY U.S. attorney Richard Donoghue, who was first appointed as interim U.S. attorney by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, said during a press conference that there was “insufficient evidence” to prove without a reasonable doubt that the NYPD officers involved in the incident “acted in violation of the federal criminal civil rights statute.”

The Philadelphia Police Department is expected this week to begin the process of firing police officers whose racist or offensive Facebook posts were documented in an online database, according to three sources with knowledge of the situation.

The anticipated terminations would represent the most significant step in a scandal that has attracted national attention, and led to protests and public outcry.

The sources, who asked not to be identified discussing a pending matter, said as many as 13 officers were expected to be suspended with intent to dismiss beginning Friday. It was not immediately clear who the officers are or what they may have posted.

Commissioner Richard Ross said last month that 72 officers had been taken off street duty pending the department’s investigation into the posts, and that he expected dozens to face internal consequences and at least several to be fired.

Ross did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

Capt. Sekou Kinebrew, a police spokesperson, said only that the department’s investigation into the scandal — which encompasses more than 3,000 posts allegedly made by more than 300 officers — is ongoing.

John McNesby, president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, declined to comment.

The fallout from the scandal in other affected locations has taken different forms.

In Phoenix, Police Chief Jeri Williams reassigned an unknown number of officers to desk duty “so that they can’t engage with the public.”

And last month in St. Louis, Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner placed 22 officers on a list of police whose testimony will not be used by prosecutors, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

During her research, Baker-White connected with Injustice Watch, a nonprofit news organization in Chicago, which produced a story about the data in collaboration with BuzzFeed, said Rick Tulsky, codirector of Injustice Watch and a former Inquirer reporter.

The story, published Saturday morning, said that 139 of the Philadelphia officers who posted troubling content appeared to have been defendants in one or more federal civil rights lawsuits. Of those suits, Injustice Watch and BuzzFeed reported, 100 ended in settlements or verdicts against the officers or the city.

What do you see as addressing the real problem?

U.S. Attorney William McSwain, appointed by President Donald Trump, blamed Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner for promoting a “culture of disrespect for law enforcement” that he claims led to a Wednesday night shooting that left multiple officers injured.

“We’ve now endured over a year and a half of the worst kinds of slander against law enforcement — the DA routinely calls police and prosecutors corrupt and racist, even ‘war criminals’ that he compares to Nazis,” McSwain wrote in a shocking statement. “This vile rhetoric puts our police in danger. It disgraces the Office of the District Attorney. And it harms the good people in the City of Philadelphia and rewards the wicked.”

Responding to a judge's order, the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office has released a secret list of current and former police officers whom prosecutors have sought to keep off the witness stand after a review determined they had a history of lying, racial bias, or brutality.

The names of the 29 officers were included among a larger roster of 66 provided to the Philadelphia Defender Association on Monday and obtained Tuesday by the Inquirer and Daily News. The full list combined two groupings — the officers whose serious misconduct rendered them problematic as witnesses and 37 officers who have been charged with lesser offenses or have been involved in other legal conflicts, often while off duty. Under prosecution policy, the second group can testify, but defense attorneys must be told of their legal issues.

In a detailed fact summary about each officer on the "Do Not Call" list, prosecutors said that the 29 former and current officers had engaged in a wide range of wrongdoing and had, as a result, often faced criminal charges or been found guilty by the department's internal Police Board of Inquiry. The offenses included numerous cases of lying to police investigators, filing false police reports, use of excessive force, drunken driving, burglary, and others.