Three police officers in Springdale, Utah have been accused of taking roughly $12,000 from foreigners caught in a speed trap set up near the Zion National Park. While city officials are not apparently upset with the speed trap used to generate funds for the city, they are ticked that they never saw the money.
From January through October of 2011, the officers are suspected of collecting money at the scene from foreigners and then keeping it. An audit found 138 citation documents missing from files — believed to be citations written at the scene and then destroyed after shaking down the drivers.
In October 2011 a Spanish tourist reported that she was told to pay a fine immediately in cash by a Springdale officer.
There is now a criminal investigation.
Source:
in my opinion, all traffic stops should be voice and video recorded. that would deter a lot of corruption.
The cops have finally started waterboarding people, it was just a matter of time, imho:
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/04/10/45478.htm
FRESNO, Calif. (CN) – Fresno police drowned a man by Tasering and hogtying him, then sticking a garden hose “onto (his) face and mouth” when he pleaded for water, the man’s two children claim in Federal Court.
The two minor children, I.R. and H.R., claim that in the summer of 2011 Fresno police restrained their father, Raul Rosas, at a friend’s house while responding to a domestic disturbance call.
The children say their father was not armed and “had not committed a crime.”
After an altercation with a John Doe officer, police pepper-sprayed Rosas and then Tasered him a “countless number of times,” the complaint states.
The children claim their father was Tasered “for eight to ten more minutes,” then he was “hogtied with his ankles tied to his handcuffs behind his back.”
The complaint continues: “Decedent was then slammed onto a table in the residence’s backyard face down. An officer was observed with his knee on decedent’s back while decedent was hogtied, handcuffed, and face down.
“Decedent stated that he couldn’t breathe and that he needed water; an officer ran water from a hose onto decedent’s face and mouth to the point of making it more difficult for decedent to breathe. Decedent tried to move his mouth away from the water and gasp for air. A witness yelled ‘He can’t breathe, you’re drowning him,’ but the officer continued running water over decedent’s face.
Here is a clip from “The Newsroom” series on HBO, which JT has reminded me of in this post:
http://youtu.be/FKklog0T9a4
I am sure that this office will be fired and charged with a criminal offense, right? 🙂
Basic internal audits will catch all kinds of things unless the auditor is in on it.
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Collusion is avoided by separation of authority.
Who was the person with her own deli familiar with? Finance person should have documented everything and threatened to report it to the press. Might have to change jobs anyway.
Basic internal audits will catch all kinds of things unless the auditor is in on it.
School finance person put in a procedure that all purchases submitted for reimbursement had to have a receipt. (flak returned) She noticed a number of things that didn’t add up and reported them. (flak returned) The she noticed a lot of ham was ordered for the school cafeteria. She started paying attention to how often ham was actually on the menu. Things didn’t add up. The person doing the ordering had her own deli/cafe. Finance person reported through channels. (lots more flak) School finance person had to change jobs.
Balancing your checkbook and reviewing your credit card statements are audits.
Matt,
What are these things you call audits?
An audit found 138 citation documents missing from files — believed to be citations written at the scene and then destroyed after shaking down the drivers.
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Basic internal audit procedures would have prevented that. The citations are in numerical order. If one is missing, why? Who had the citation booklet containing the missing citation? Just do a numerical check on the citations issued every day.
These officers should go into the Banking and Finance profession. This type of behavior is considered business as usual.
yep…Texas is especially known for this..scary!
Happens not only in Utah……
Dont you have any lawyers out there in Utah (Five Wives State) who know where the federal courthouse is and who can find the volume of 42 United States Code Section 1983 at the library or perhaps subscribe to Weslaw and have the ability to look up the civil rights statute? There is an over abundance of lame lawyers coming out of an over abundance of law schools each semester. There is not room enough for all of them to specialize in bankruptcy, divorce and dwi law. Cant some of these dumb schmucks gravitate into federal civil rights law and go after the criminals in the criminal justice system?
Everyone involved wants their fair share, and while at it they want to define what is “fair”.
Anarchy?