Friday, January 27, 2017
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Denver police horse dies after officer forgot he was tied in stall without food or water
A Denver Police Department mounted patrol officer has been docked one vacation day after he left his horse tied in a stall for 16 hours without food or water. The horse developed colic and was euthanized.
Denver police internal investigators did not believe Officer Joseph Teeter intentionally ignored his horse, MC Hammer, after a day of patrolling downtown, and veterinarians could not conclude that the illness was a result of being tied for so long, according to a disciplinary letter issued to the officer.
Teeter, who has been with Denver police since 2006, violated a department rule for carelessly leaving MC Hammer tied, said the Dec. 20 disciplinary letter obtained by The Denver Post.
Teeter remains a member of the department’s mounted patrol, said Christine Downs, a Denver police spokeswoman.
“Though not intentional on his part, Officer Teeter’s forgetfulness exposed a live animal to cruel and extreme conditions,” the letter said.
Teeter and MC Hammer patrolled downtown Denver on Sept. 26, when temperatures were in the upper 70s. Upon returning to the mounted patrol barn, Teeter unloaded the horse and tied him to an eyebolt in the stall and removed his saddle, the letter said.
Teeter took the saddle to the tack room, but he became distracted with paperwork and forgot about his horse. Someone else discovered MC Hammer tied in the stall at 6:15 a.m. the next day, the letter said.
The horse was given food and water and first appeared to be “bright, alert and responsive” for several hours. However, the horse began showing signs of pain around noon and he was taken to the Littleton Equine Medical Center.
MC Hammer was evaluated and monitored overnight.
The next morning, the horse was diagnosed with colic and veterinarians determined he would not recover.
“The medical experts who evaluated the horse were unable to conclude that the horse’s condition was caused by being left tied in the stall without food or water for sixteen hours,” the letter said.
MC Hammer was 10. He had been donated to the department in November 2015, Downs said.
The letter said Teeter had taken responsibility for his conduct and had shown genuine remorse.
“The officer feels horrible about this situation,” Downs said. “It was an accident. We love our animal partners.”
Thursday, September 8, 2016
Four Oakland police officers fired, seven suspended, in sexual misconduct case
The disciplinary actions stem from a major scandal involving a teenager who was sexually exploited by more than a dozen officers
Sam Levin in San Francisco
Sam Levin in San Francisco
The Oakland, California, police department has fired four officers and suspended seven in a major sexual misconduct case, but critics have questioned why officers haven’t faced criminal charges and why an exploitation victim at the center of the case remains behind bars.
The disciplinary actions, announced by city officials on Wednesday, stem from a case involving a teenage girl who was sexually exploited by more than a dozen officers across the northern California region, according to a numerous news reports and the young woman’s testimony.
In 2015, officer Brendan O’Brien reportedly killed himself and left a note that launched an investigation into widespread misconduct allegations. The Oakland newspaper East Bay Express uncovered that three officers had allegedly had sexual relations with a teenage girl when she was underage.
The girl, who goes by the pseudonym Celeste Guap on social media and in news reports, said she was working as a sex worker at the time. By law, however, those relationships would be considered statutory rape and human trafficking.
A total of at least 14 officers in Oakland as well as eight from other nearby law enforcement agencies are accused of taking advantage of the teenager.
Although the woman has provided numerous news outlets with copies of messages she exchanged with officers, critics of the department have lamented that months later, there are still no criminal charges.
On the contrary, the woman recently went to a rehab center in Florida where she was arrested for aggravated battery charges. The charges stemmed from an alleged incident at the drug rehabilitation center, and she remains incarcerated at a local jail.
Bay Area news stations subsequently publicized the real name of the young woman, prompting condemnations that the media was violating the privacy of a sex-crimes victim. Critics of the police department also said they were particularly disturbed that the exploited woman was behind bars while the officers who have allegedly engaged in misconduct have remained free – many of them still employed by the city.
At a hastily planned news conference on Wednesday evening at Oakland’s city hall, mayor Libby Schaaf said she was barred by law from naming the officers who have been disciplined. The local district attorney’s investigation into possible criminal offenses is still pending, and if the officers face charges, they will be named, she added.
City administrator Sabrina Landreth said the four terminated officers were fired for a range of offenses, including attempted sexual assault, engaging in lewd conduct in public, assisting in the crime of prostitution, assisting in evading arrest for the crime of prostitution, accessing law enforcement databases for personal gain, and being untruthful to investigators.
The seven other officers were suspended for offenses including failing to report other officers who had sexual conduct with a minor, accessing law enforcement database for personal gain, and bringing disrepute to the police department. A twelfth officer was receiving training and counseling.
Text messages between police officers and Guap revealed that officers had leaked her confidential information about undercover prostitution stings, according to the Express.
The administrative investigation began last September and involved the review of 78,000 social media postings and 28,000 text messages, along with 11 interviews with Guap, according to the department.
“We will be changing several of our policies and training requirements to increase officer awareness and ability to recognize the signs of sexual abuse and exploitation and better help victims to escape such abuse,” Schaaf said. She cited tighter controls on accessing criminal databases and new social media policies and training.
In June when the scandal escalated, the police department lost three chiefs in one week, prompting national mockery of Oakland, which Donald Trump recently said was one of the “most dangerous” places in the world.
The Guap case has erupted at a time when police chiefs across the US have lost their positions on the heels of misconduct scandals and fatal shootings by officers, with notable controversies in San Francisco, Baltimore, Chicago andFerguson.
In addition to the exploitation case, Oakland has faced scrutiny over numerous shootings by police and unrelated misconduct allegations. Like the neighboring agency in San Francisco, there have also been accusations of racist text messageswithin Oakland’s police department.
Monday, August 29, 2016
KING: Black Indianapolis man shot by cops after calling police to report robbery
Few cases typify everything that is wrong with gun rights, police brutality and racial profiling like this one.
Early Tuesday in Indianapolis, an African-American woman was being carjacked in front of her home in her working class neighborhood. She ran back in the house, told her husband, who is also black, and they called the police to report the robbery. That seemed to be the right and safe thing to do.
As the police pulled up, the husband, who was later identified as 48-year-old Carl Williams, opened the garage to their home and was immediately shot in the gut by police.
They claim they believed he was the robber and that because he had a firearm of his own, he was shot in self-defense. Officials identified the officer who shot Williams as nine-year veteran cop Christopher Mills.
He, of course, was not the robber. In fact, police have yet to even say if they caught the robber. Since they dusted the car for fingerprints, it appears that the actual man committing a crime got away and the man who wanted to protect his wife and family was instead shot and currently fighting for his own life in the hospital.
"I think that's really crazy. What do we have, trigger-happy police officers out here now?" asked Angela Parrot, who lives in the neighborhood told the Indy Star.
Speaking to the Daily News, several reporters and neighbors all confirmed that the husband who was shot was black, but said that they do not yet know the ethnicity of the officer who shot him.
Whatever the case, the violent encounter should help illuminate the very real fears so many black families have when calling the police. This family needed help. They wanted to report a crime in their neighborhood. The husband wanted to protect his wife. These are all very basic rights we have, but day after day we see that gun rights don't really apply equally to African-Americans.
Merely reaching for his wallet got Philando Castile shot and killed in his own car. Having a gun in his pocket caused police to shoot Alton Sterling repeatedly in his back and chest.
Now this.
We do not yet know the extent of this man's injuries, but a bullet to the mid-section can wreak havoc. Yet again, without fully understanding the facts of what they were seeing, American police fired upon a man unjustly. It's just not right.
Friday, August 5, 2016
Videos of deadly cop shooting show procedural errors, confusion over shots
By Jeremy Gorner , David Heinzmann and Dan Hinkel Contact Reporters
Chicago Tribune
Videos from the fatal shooting of Paul O'Neal by Chicago police show a succession of apparent procedural errors, including police firing at a fleeing vehicle with other officers in harm's way and an admission by the officer who believed he fired the fatal shot that he had no idea if the 18-year-old was armed.
Chicago Tribune
Videos from the fatal shooting of Paul O'Neal by Chicago police show a succession of apparent procedural errors, including police firing at a fleeing vehicle with other officers in harm's way and an admission by the officer who believed he fired the fatal shot that he had no idea if the 18-year-old was armed.
Comments from that officer caught on video indicate he may have erroneously thought O'Neal had fired from a stolen car barreling in his direction. In fact, those shots were fired in the officer's direction by other police shooting at the stolen car in apparent violation of departmental policy.
Acting with uncharacteristic swiftness, Chicago officials on Friday made public nine videos in all. Shortly before the 11 a.m. release, the head of the Chicago police oversight agency called the video footage "shocking and disturbing" and said that her heart went out to the family of O'Neal.
At a news conference Friday afternoon, O'Neal's sister, Briana Adams, 22, grew emotional as she told reporters that the family was devastated by what they saw on the videos.
"I want every one to know that Paul had goals," she said and then lowered her head and began crying.
Her brother had graduated from high school and wanted to go to a trade school and perhaps work for ComEd one day, she said.
"We just want answers – the truth," she said.
Chicago police officers had tried to stop O'Neal about 7:30 p.m. July 28 in the South Shore neighborhood as he drove a Jaguar convertible reported stolen in Bolingbrook, police said. O'Neal struck two Chicago police vehicles in the car, and two officers fired at him while he was in the car, authorities said. O'Neal fled from the car, police said, and a third officer chased him behind a home and fatally shot him.
O'Neal, who was unarmed, died of a single gunshot wound to the back, authorities said.
Meanwhile, activists disrupted an afternoon news conference scheduled for outside police headquarters, shouting down Superintendent Eddie Johnson.
"We are dissatisfied! Bridging that gap between African-Americans and Chicago police? Impossible! It is impossible!" activist Lamon Reccord, 17, shouted.
"(Mayor) Rahm Emanuel is using you as a scapegoat for the black community!" another activist shouted at Johnson.
Before Johnson retreated into headquarters, he told several reporters he understood the activists' concerns in light of the videos.
"At the same time were trying to do the right thing, to be transparent," said Johnson, as activists continued to shout over him.
The videos show officers firing on the reportedly stolen Jaguar as it drove away from them, and their shots appear to place officers farther down the street in danger of being shot.
The videos capture at least 15 shots being fired in about five seconds as the Jaguar passed the officers and drove away.
The video then showed the Jaguar hitting a police SUV, and O'Neal took off running as police pursued him behind some homes, running up driveways and jumping fences. The clips do not show the actual fatal shooting that happened in a backyard, but the devices record the sounds of about four more shots.
The fatal shot itself was not captured on video, department officials said, even though the officer who chased and shot O'Neal was wearing a body camera. Department officials have not said why the camera did not record the shooting.
The videos, which contain audio, showed a confusing scene in the shooting's aftermath. The officer who believed he had fired the fatal shot had initially thought shots had been fired at his police car from the speeding Jaguar when it actually came from officers down the street shooting toward the fleeing Jaguar.
While the body camera attached to the uniform of that officer did not capture the fatal shot, a video showed that the officer's body cam was indeed operating after the shooting and was still recording when police processing the scene asked him to walk through the backyard where he fired his gun and help them find the shell casings.
A sergeant asked whether the shots fired at the officer came from the rear of the yard. but the officer corrected him, saying the shots fired in his direction happened back on the street moments before the stolen car chase ended in a collision.
"No, the shots were coming at us when the car was coming at us," the officer said before describing how he ended up in the back yard chasing O'Neal on foot.
"I took off this way, he was coming over this way," he said, indicating different sections of the back yard. "When I approached this, I didn't know if he was armed or not."
As seconds passed in the backyard, the officer grew distraught and feared that it would be judged a bad shooting.
"Man, this is so f----- up. I don't want nothing to happen to that f------ guy, dude," he said to the sergeant. "The way s--- (is) going, man. I'm going to be f------ crucified, bro."
At that point, the sergeant sought to reassure the officer, citing the car theft as justification for what happened.
"Relax, he was in a hot car. Nothing to worry about."
The officer asked whether a weapon was recovered from the Jaguar.
"I'm not sure, but just relax," the sergeant said. "Don't worry about it. They were in a hot car."
After O'Neal's family viewed the videos Friday morning at the offices of the Independent Police Review Authority, which is investigating the shooting, attorney Michael Oppenheimer called the footage "beyond horrific" and said he plans to call for a special prosecutor to look into the shooting of the unarmed teen.
"There is no question in my mind that criminal acts were committed," said Oppenheimer, a former prosecutor who is representing O'Neal's family. "What I saw was pretty cold-blooded."
O'Neal's family is suing the department.
Ja'Mal Green, a spokesman for the O'Neal family who is free on bail after he was charged with felonies for assaulting a police commander at a recent protest over officer-involved shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota, said he was disturbed by one video that showed a few officers appearing to commend each other after the shooting, shaking hands.
"They did everything but high-five each other," Oppenheimer said.
Oppenheimer said the videos expose the need to improve officers' training.
"This goes down to training on race, this goes down to training on the community," he said. "There's a lot that needs to be done. Some of it has been done. We have a long way to go."
Oppenheimer accused the officer who fired the fatal shot of intentionally shutting down his body camera so no footage would capture that moment.
"They decided they would control this, so the cover-up has begun," he said.
Before the release of the videos, Sharon Fairley, IPRA's chief administrator, said in a statement that the agency is proceeding "as deliberately and expediently as possible in pursuit of a swift but fair determination" into the black teen's shooting. She said she expected to wrap up the probe in several weeks, much sooner than the embattled agency once took.
The footage, "as shocking and disturbing as it is," Fairley said, "is not the only evidence to be gathered and analyzed when conducting a fair and thorough assessment of (the) conduct of police officers in performing their duties."
Johnson took quick action after the shooting, stripping three officers who opened fire at O'Neal of their police powers and saying it appeared they had violated departmental policies.
The city's quick moves after O'Neal's shooting show how much has changed in the eight months since the release of video of a white police officer shooting black 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times. The officer who shot McDonald, Jason Van Dyke, is charged with first-degree murder.
The McDonald video — and long-simmering dissatisfaction with police use of force among many African-Americans — led to sustained protests, and the U.S. Justice Department launched an investigation to determine whether police had systematically violated residents' rights. Federally enforced changes could come from that ongoing investigation, and Emanuel has announced or enacted a raft of reforms to policing and officer oversight.
Johnson broke with tradition by saying police appeared to have violated departmental policy in the O'Neal case. The superintendent, who was appointed by Emanuel amid the political crisis sparked by the McDonald video, issued an unusual departmentwide memo saying that the information he had on the shooting "left (him) with more questions than answers."
Chicago Tribune's Annie Sweeney, Steve Schmadeke, Todd Lighty, Jeff Coen and William Lee contributed.
dhinkel@chicagotribune.com
dheinzmann@chicagotribune.com
jgorner@chicagotribune.com
Copyright © 2016, Chicago Tribune
Northland woman says officers had no reason to shoot, kill her dog
POSTED 12:35 PM, AUGUST 2, 2016, BY JOHN PEPITONE, UPDATED AT 08:22PM, AUGUST 2, 2016
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A northland woman claims that a law enforcement officer shot and killed her dog for no apparent reason.
The incident was captured on surveillance video Saturday night, July 30, near Parvin Road and North Cleveland Avenue.
Brandee Buschman says the two officers who showed up on her doorstep about 11:30 p.m., never announced who they were.
"I saw it was two guys who were a little taller," Buschman said. "One of them was a little heavier, standing there with guns. I saw the flash of the gun. My dog went down, and I went down with my dog."
Surveillance video from Buschman's home shows the officers approaching with guns drawn. As Brandee opens her door, her 13-year-old dog, Sierra, runs out. One of the officers immediately fires at the shelter rescue dog. The first shot did not hit the beloved pet, and the animal turned back toward the house. A second shot was fired. That shot hit and killed Sierra. The video shows Buschman coming out the door and immediately kneeling to the ground to cradle her longtime companion in her arms.
"As I opened the door my dog is running toward me," Buschman recalled. "I heard another pop and she’s down on the ground. Bleeding. All I could say was, 'Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!' I remember saying that before the second pop went off and the taller officer was like, 'Oh, too late.'"
According to Buschman's boyfriend, who came outside immediately afterwards, one of the officers said he wasn't going to give the dog an opportunity to bite.
"Please know most officers are dog owners and it is unfortunate when these incidents occur. Unfortunately, if officers fear being attacked b y a dog they defend themselves from personal injury," said Capt. Stacey Graves, KCMO Police Dept, in an email to FOX 4. "No one wants to see a family pet injured or killed. Officers are put in a difficult position in these situations."
But the couple insists that the dog posed no danger.
Buschman still doesn't know why officers were at her home. Scott Morrison, Buschman's boyfriend, says an officer told him someone called 911 about hearing breaking glass or some sort of disturbance nearby. But Buschman says there was nothing wrong on her property.
The officers left without making any arrests or apologizing for killing a beloved animal that Brandee says has been part of her family for more than 10 years. Kansas City police say they are checking into the incident.
Thursday, August 4, 2016
'Please send the police. I've been shot,' said man mistakenly shot by police
By
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on August 03, 2016 at 7:57 AM, updated August 03, 2016 at 5:29 PM
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on August 03, 2016 at 7:57 AM, updated August 03, 2016 at 5:29 PM
UPPER DEERFIELD TWP. — When Gerald Sykes woke up in the hospital Saturday morning, one of the first things he asked his family was "did they get the bad guys that shot me?"
"Jerry, you were shot by the police," his step-daughter Diana LaFalce told him.
The 76-year-old man was "flabbergasted," LaFalce recalled Tuesday from her family's Upper Deerfield Township home where the shooting occurred.
"His eyes got huge and said 'no way, that was not the police that shot me' and I said 'I'm sorry that absolutely was'."
"He just kept shaking his head," LaFalce said. "He couldn't believe it."
What began as a 911 hang-up on Friday night ended with Sykes laying in a hospital bed Tuesday morning, with three bullets still inside him.
Officials say Sykes was shot by New Jersey State Police troopers after officers were sent to his Centerton Road home — the wrong address, officials have since said — to check on a 911 hang-up call.
The New Jersey Attorney General's Shooting Response Team which is investigating the shooting said two uniformed officers were sent to the house in error. After no response at the front door, they went around back to a deck where they knocked and announced themselves, according to the investigation. Then there was "an exchange of gunfire" with one trooper firing four rounds and Sykes firing one round.
The state does not say who fired first. Sykes' family say police fired and then Sykes — armed with a shotgun with birdshot in it to wound intruders but not kill them — shot back, thinking those on his deck were intruders.
On Tuesday, LaFalce and Rich Kaser, a longtime family friend and attorney, walked around the Sykes' home as they recounted the events of that night.
A pool of dried blood remained on the porch and step just outside of the front door. Scattered around the yard were gloves and other disposable protective gear left by the rescue squads.
In the backyard, two sets of French doors line the deck — one still marked with three bullet holes and shattered glass from where its believed the troopers fired through into the house.
In the other door, lower, is a larger hole, apparently the result of the single shotgun blast fired by Sykes.
LaFalce said the Sykes' miniature Doberman, Sarah, woke them up the night of the shooting. Margot Sykes, 80, looked out onto the deck and saw shadows and woke her husband. They both went into the great room and saw "dark figures" through the doors on their deck outside. It was then that Sykes retrieved his shotgun and soon after, the shooting took place.
Around midnight, LaFalce got the call from her mother.
"She was crying, close to hysteria," LaFalce recounted Tuesday. "She said 'Jerry's been shot. They shot him right through the door ...'"
After calling 911 to summon help for Sykes, LaFalce and her husband, Ronald, "jumped into the car and drove right over," but Centerton Road, near her parents' home, was blocked.
Later, when she was finally able to get information from police, she was told her mother was taken to the state police's Bridgeton station but she still didn't know what had come of her step-father. Her mother, her nightgown still covered in blood, told LaFalce what happened.
Sykes himself had called 911, too. He was so weak from losing blood that he had gone back to his bed and made the call.
"He told them 'Please send the police. I've been shot. I am going to die,'" Kaser recounted from his conversations with the family.
Kaser said Sykes told him the 911 operator asked about guns in the house.
"What are you worried about guns for? I am dying," Kaser said Sykes told the operator.
LaFalce said the family believes it was about 45 minutes before an ambulance arrived. Her mother propped Sykes up the best she could on her shoulder and got him to the front door, but was told by a 911 operator that he had to come down the steps by himself, LaFalce said. He did, but then collapsed on the lawn.
The family and their attorney say Sykes was handcuffed before being taken and flown to Cooper University Hospital, Camden.
In previous requests for comment on details in the case other than what was provided in the Attorney General's Office's official statement, the state has said it could not comment, citing the ongoing investigation.
The two unidentified troopers involved have been placed on paid administrative leave, authorities said. One of those two was injured by either the birdshot from Sykes' gun or flying glass, authorities believe.
The couple, married for about 22 years and living for the past 15 years in the Centerton Road home that they built, still hasn't been contacted by any authorities, LaFalce said.
Kaser, who has been one of Sykes' regular visitors at Cooper since the shooting, said he asked Sykes what he wanted to say about the incident.
"He is angry that this happened because it should not have happened. He can't understand how or why it happened," Kaser said.
"He still respects law enforcement, but he certainly is looking at that in a little bit different light."
Bill Gallo Jr. may be reached at bgallo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Bill Gallo Jr. on Twitter @bgallojr. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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