It is always controversial when society “allows the criminal to go free because the constable blundered,” but what about allowing the constable to go free because the constable blundered? Shreveport police officer Wiley Willis became a national figure after shocking pictures were released of a woman who was beaten in his custody — after he turned off a camera in a police station. Now he has been reinstated because a polygrapher failed to record the result of a test of Willis. Not only was Willis never charged criminally, but he will now receive full back pay at the insistence of the Shreveport police officers union.
After turning off the camera, Willis left Angela Garbarino (who was arrested for DWI) with a broken nose and other injuries.
The Civil Service Board ruled that Willis’ rights, under the Police Officer Bill of Rights, were violated because an expert failed to record a polygraph examination Willis took as part of the Police Department’s investigation into Garbarino’s injuries, including two black eyes and a broken nose. Willis asks if the camera is on before turning it off. When he turns the camera on again, Garbarino is beaten and bloody.
The Police Chief has denounced the “technicality” and the reinstatement.
For the full story, click here.
Not for nothing, but what’s stopping the civil suit against the officer and the city?
Blinding justice.
And some people are so appalled at what Michael Vick did.This lady is a human being.They should show this on the “MSM”.
Is there some kind of link limit or time limit you can have this window open and be activly typing to with this software? I just did a kinda’ long posting regarding the rest of puzzling’s post with 2 links in it and it didn’t show up. That happens to many of my postings. If I don’t keep it short and mostly link-free (1 link gets through, more are a gamble) my posts just dissapear. Posting directly, which can take awhile, is not my posting method of choice for a long post may take me up to a time limit but even if I construct a posting in ultra-edit and then copy it here it has about a 50/50 chance of getting through. Maybe it’s a hint?
puzzling
“Perhaps Naomi Wolf is correct that the United States has nearly completed its fascist shift.
In her ten step program (which includes para-militarized police and a thug caste shown here), ”
And the ‘thugs’ are out in force:
Video: Police bodyslam 80-year-old woman in Columbus, OH:
http://thedailyvoice.com/voice/2009/08/video-police-tackle-80-year-ol-002183.php
A bit off-topic, but it does relate to some of the comments:
John Brennan’s dangerous national security advice
Under Bush he pushed domestic wiretapping. Now he’s advocating expansion of abusive spying on Americans
Marcy Wheeler Aug. 14, 2009)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/08/14/domestic_spying/print.html
The “spying” that’s going on is definitely abusive and now we have another advocate for its expansion.
Apparently there was a DoJ investigation of this event, but no charges were brought against Officer Willis. I would love to know how the DoJ reached the conclusion that assault and battery of this woman was not actionable – that must have taken a mountain of rationalization on the part of the investigators. Maybe there just wasn’t enough evidence to convict Willis in a trial. But the fact that this violent bully was reinstated with back pay and benefits is bound to give him a sense of vindication for his actions.
If I lived in Shreveport, knowing that this guy was back on the force and feeling his actions were justified and legal, I would be calling the moving van and getting the hell outta town.
It’s a sad day when those who took an oath to defend the Constitution, (military, law enforcement, and lawyers) are feared by the mainstream.
These are people that take orders, not those that look for power and publicity. Their allegiance is not to you or I, but to the Constitution they swore to support and defend.
“We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.” -C.S. Lewis
what a fucking disgrace.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/ten-steps-to-close-down-a_b_46695.html
“Puzzling” is largely correct. Having said this, the thugs and goons have #9 well under way. Most people just aren’t seeing it yet.
The Southern Poverty Law Center issued another report on August 12th, titled “Return of the Militias.”
“One law enforcement agency has found 50 new militia training groups — one of them made up of present and former police officers and soldiers. Authorities around the country are reporting a worrying uptick in Patriot activities and propaganda.”
(My apologies for this rather lengthy excerpt, but it’s relevant and important, in my opinion.)
Swearing at the Government
Oath Keepers, the military and police organization that was formed earlier this year and held its April muster on Lexington Green, may be a particularly worrisome example of the Patriot revival. Members vow to fulfill the oaths to the Constitution that they swore while in the military or law enforcement. “Our oath is to the Constitution, not to the politicians, and we will not obey unconstitutional (and thus illegal) and immoral orders,” the group says. Oath Keepers lists 10 orders its members won’t obey, including two that reference U.S. concentration camps.
That same pugnacious attitude was on display after conservatives attacked an April report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that suggested a resurgence of radical right-wing activity was under way. “We will not fear our government; they will fear us,” one man, who appeared to be on active duty in the Army, said in an angry video sent to the Oath Keepers blog. In another video at the site, a man who said he was a former Army paratrooper in Afghanistan and Iraq described President Obama as “an enemy of the state,” adding, “I would rather die than be a slave to my government.” The Oath Keepers site soon began hawking T-shirts with slogans like “I’m a Right Wing Extremist and Damn Proud of It!”
In April, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes — a Yale Law School graduate and former aide to U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (a Texas Republican and hard-line libertarian) — worried about a coming dictatorship. “We know that if the day should come where a full-blown dictatorship would come, or tyranny … it can only happen if those men, our brothers in arms, go along and comply with unconstitutional, unlawful orders,” Rhodes told conspiracy-minded radio host Alex Jones. “Imagine if we focus on the police and military. Game over for the New World Order.”
He’s not the first to think so. In the 1990s, retired Phoenix cop and conspiracy enthusiast Jack McLamb created an outfit called Police Against the New World Order and produced a 75-page document entitled Operation Vampire Killer 2000: American Police Action Plan for Stopping World Government Rule.
It’s not known how large Oath Keepers is. But there is some evidence beyond the group’s mere existence to suggest that today’s Patriots are again making inroads into law enforcement — the leak of the DHS report, along with those of a couple of similar law enforcement reports, was likely the work of a sworn officer. Rhodes claims to know a federal officer leaked the DHS report, and says Oath Keepers is “hearing from more and more federal officers all the time.”
The group does seem to be on the radar of federal law enforcement officers. In May, a member complained on the group’s website of a visit to his farm by FBI agents who asked him, he said, about training he provides in firearms, survival skills and the like.
One Oath Keeper is longtime militia hero Richard Mack, a former sheriff of a rural Arizona county who collaborated with white supremacist Randy Weaver on a book and who, along with others, won a U.S. Supreme Court decision that weakened the Brady Bill gun control law in the 1990s. “The greatest threat we face today is not terrorists; it is our federal government,” Mack says on his website. “One of the best and easiest solutions is to depend on local officials, especially the sheriff, to stand against federal intervention and federal criminality.” Mack’s views echo those of the Posse Comitatus, which believed that sheriffs are the highest law enforcement authorities in America. “I pray for the day that a sheriff in this country will arrest an IRS agent for trespassing or attempting to victimize citizens in that particular sheriff’s county,” Mack said in a video he made for Oath Keepers. (end of excerpt)
http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?aid=392
We’re in trouble. I know. Based on personal experience.
Gates was lucky this didn’t happen to him. My God, what a mess. Once again, this does not surprise me. As an African American I’ve seen police abuse all my life. It is scary. Nobody deserves this. Nobody.
The subject here is accountability. In the just olde days this guy would go down, but since the Department Of Just Us daze the Obama Administration created the doctrine of “anything an administration does is policy” and therefore a following administration cannot prosecute for merely differing policy.
Well, here is a clue, the policy of the Mafia is crime. So far that notion of “policy” has not exonerated them.
Perhaps bad cops, war criminals, and other scum have the right to a policy no matter what it is.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/08/crawford-birmingham-jail.html
I should add,
Buddha,
What you said.
Puzzling,
I will agree that classifying what is shown in the video below as carrying swastikas is misleading. Only a Nazi would call someone else a Nazi for calling them a Nazi.
Of course calling the Obama administration and other Democrats Nazis is wrong. The use of Nazi imagery is the best and quickest way to say “I have nothing substantive to say.”
Down here in Philly, a grand jury refused to indict eight police officers who brutally beat two black mean after a chase. The entire beating was captured on tape. The DA said the tape didn’t tell the whole story, and that the actions, including a cop using his foot to stand on the head of one of the suspects who was handcuffed and on the ground, were well within normal use of force guidelines. They were not held overnight in the hospital, which appeared to be her definition of having suffered a beating. Incidentally, the men were never charged with any crime.
The DA was clearly instrumental in guiding the grand jury to not indict. I’m sure she made similar prejudicial statements while she presented the case. Fortunately, four cops were fired and four cops suspended for the incident, and the police chief stands by his judgment based on his review of the tape.
The police union is also seeking full reinstatement. The police unions have become as thuggish as the teamsters were in the fifties. If we keep this up we will have more to fear from the police than from the bad guys, like in Mexico with the Federales. Qui custodiet custodes? (For you Latin scholars).
What would justice REALLY be in this case?
Perhaps justice would be for some old ex-boyfriend of hers who lives in another state to show up, follow this guy around for a few days when he is off duty. And then pick a time when its nice and dark, and nice and private, and then have a few of your buddies show up to help you “instruct” this “officer” about how the law is enforced. Not so big and tough without his gun, badge and buddies, I suspect.
The above is a TOTALLY fictitious scenario, but it is a scenario that reflects TRUE JUSTICE. As we can all tell, the justice dulled out by the “justice officals” in the case of this “officer” was anything but that — no charges and all your back pay! Nice.
Unfortunately, our system has turned in to a system of protecting itself (the State), it bureaucracy and procedures, and its agents (they are many in force, with the police being the most visible). When a state exists to protect itself instead of people, people are viewed as expendable, not as something to protected, helped, and when needed, incarcerated or investigated. The very foundations of the (this) State begin to erode because the primary ideas this nation was founded upon — freedom and justice — are visibly dying.
There is no moral authority left in our law enforcement ranks when even ONE of these characters is allowed to remain on the force. If his fellow “brothers in blue” where any kind of men at all, they would refuse to work with this pig. If his chief had any kind of personal integrity, if he really cared about how his grandchildren might view him after he is dead, he would fight for justice. Instead, he speaks of technicalities.
There is no justice left in this system, and the ones running the enforcement side, have no integrity left. They are lairs and cheats. They are criminals with badges, guns and tasers.
People don’t realize,they could be this close to similar actions if they find themselves,in police custody.
Perhaps Naomi Wolf is correct that the United States has nearly completed its fascist shift.
In her ten step program (which includes para-militarized police and a thug caste shown here), the last major steps we have to look forward to are:
9. Dissent = treason
Right now we’re only up to “unamerican” and “swastika carrying” dissenters, but it’s getting closer.
10. Suspend the rule of law
I think the suspension of the rule of law could come with either a major disease outbreak, a significant terrorist attack, or the economic panic and shortages that would result from collapse of the US dollar on the global markets.
“The Civil Service Board ruled that Willis’ rights, under the Police Officer Bill of Rights, were violated because an expert failed to record a polygraph examination Willis took as part of the Police Department’s investigation into Garbarino’s injuries, including a broken nose.
Shreveport Police Chief Henry Whitehorn called the panel’s finding a technicality and said he is “disappointed with the board’s ruling.” The police chief said he is moving forward with the city’s legal department to pursue an appeal.”
*************************
. . . and the Mustard Baster left the hearing with out saying a word. The city settled with her for 400k and did not charge her for her DWI and the US DAtty declined to prosecute him?
WTF, well after all Buddha has more of the ability to speak on the issues of what is the likely outcome other than gator bait. It seems the only person wanting to do the reasonable thing is the Chief of Police. Maybe he’ll be rewarded [fired] for actually doing his job.
“The Police Chief has denounced the “technicality” and the reinstatement.”
Then the Police Chief should fire him and let the Civil Service Board and the “officer” see him in court. The officer committed felony battery at his place of employment exposing the city to massive civil liability – that is more than cause for dismissal.
The Chief is Henry Whitehorn. His number is (318) 673-6900.
The head of Internal Affairs is Lt. Bill Offer. His number is (318) 673-6924.
The D.A. of Caddo Parish is Charles Scott. His direct office number is (318) 226-6960. The direct line to the criminal section of the office is (318) 226-6826.
I think some serious questions about why there have been no criminal charges filed against this “officer” are in order.