There has been continuing controversy over the heavy use of stop and frisks in New York — 700,000 in just 2011 alone. Only 2 percent turned up contraband and minority groups have objected to what they claim is profiling and harassment. This video gives an insight into the type of abuse that can occur in such incidents. In this video, a teenager named Alvin is stopped by three officers on the grounds that he looks “suspicious.” The officers are caught calling him a “fuckin’ mutt” and threatening to break his arm and beat him. He is roughed up and repeatedly told to “shut the fuck up” when he tries to ask questions.
The teen is never given any reason for the stop or the abuse. His secret recording capturing a torrent of abuse. One of the officer responds to his questions with “You want me to smack you?” while another tells him that he is being stopped “For being a fucking mutt.” Alvin’s arm is held behind his back as the first officer says, “Dude, I’m gonna break your fuckin’ arm, then I’m gonna punch you in the fuckin’ face.”
There is no indication by the NYPD of any punishment for the officers, though it generally takes public pressure to force departments to act on such YouTube videos. It is yet another example of how important these videos have become to deterring police abuse despite the efforts by prosecutors like Anita Alvarez in Chicago to arrest citizens recording officers. For a prior column, click here. As discussed in prior columns and blogs, police across the country have been arresting citizens who film them — a clear abuse of their rights and an effort to prevent citizens from creating incriminating videotapes increasingly used against police. This trend has continued (here) despite court rulings in favor of citizens. Politicians have done little to reaffirm the rights of citizens in these cases and officers are rarely subject to discipline for such arrests.
Source: Nation
artiewhifefox, That is just not true. The laws of god recognize the positive of courts as do the laws of people. The problem is that corrupt forces came to be in power but that doesn’t mean that the forces of corruption will always be in power.
idealist, I don’t think he was running drugs for the CIA, I think he was just selfish and doing illegal things for his personal financial gain.
The problem with planning for failure is that it is depressing. To me, it is much less stressful to plan for success. I realize that I was totally “screwed over” but given Judge John D. Bates, it is much less stressful for me to think that he will recognize what DOJ published in the Federal Register, recognize the tolling of the Privacy Act subsection g(5), and basically do the right thing even if it means acknowledging a pro se litigant.
And if not him there is always the Court of Appeals. Are they really going to rule against their previous rulings?
DOJ also, an inconsistent agency with some 40,000 employees. They can’t all be schmucks.
As I say good luck, you’ve made the best of it so far. You did get out with your life. You know running narcotics for the CIA makes him invulnerable. A possible connection for him. And don’t say his name here.
Here you say:
“Lawsuits don’t have to be decided behind the scenes. I think the Rules of Civil Procedure and the Rules of Evidence are actually fine, they just aren’t strictly enforced. If the rights of pro ses to strict observation of procedural rules are recognized, then the rights of litigants with lawyers to the same will follow.”
No, they don’t have to, but yours was. Accept that.
And plan for failure. Just opposite what I told my bosses when launching a new product—I told them plan for success. A peculiar company, the Swedish mindset.
Also, I think that it is better to have a lawyer than not to, but the lawyer is supposed to be the agent of the litigant, not the master.
Our lives in Steamboat Springs weren’t totally miserable. We did make some friends there. We went skiing a lot. It’s just that at a point I felt that he had just gone too far. And, our property was our major financial asset. And I was afraid of people selling drugs to our adolescent children.
Hindsight is 20/20. If I had known that Judge Nottingham would treat me so terribly I never would have filed a lawsuit. But at the time, the Internet was just beginning and I didn’t know how terribly pro se litigants were treated and of course, Nottingham’s prostitution issues weren’t public until late 2007. It was good that we moved because I think we could have been killed if we had stayed. But there was a lot of money involved not just with our house but also with moving our business.
Obviously I can’t do everything. But what I think I can do is get the Courts to acknowledge that DOJ can’t imprison people without a criminal charge. I am just hoping that that will happen within the next few months instead of my having to go through another appeal. Then once it is determined that DOJ is liable, I want the amount of economic damages to be set to the hearsay value of my lawsuits that DOJ screwed up based on Rule 804(6). If that happens then I will have some working capital to do another justice project.
Lawsuits don’t have to be decided behind the scenes. I think the Rules of Civil Procedure and the Rules of Evidence are actually fine, they just aren’t strictly enforced. If the rights of pro ses to strict observation of procedural rules are recognized, then the rights of litigants with lawyers to the same will follow.
I don’t think that pro ses need special rules with the only exception being that there should be a mechanism similar to Rule 11 that will allow a hearing and punishment when the other side files total B.S. that is made up facts and laws.
The laws of people go counter to the laws of God.
Kay,
You are not taking a holistic view. Let us not forget the corporate tyranny which rules, and will continue to ignore the law with the aid of bribes, lobbying, etc to create laws, weaken regulating laws, and the agencies enforcing them, etc. A new law inhibiting EPA has been passed newly.
They bought their rights in 1840’s, if not before.
Not for nothing is a Koch organ called the Federalist something or other.
The law and legal system per se is a Potemkin village, where behind the scenery deals are made suiting he who has the most power. Witness Zimmerman vs FLA now. His father is not a man/magistrate who sells legal decisions to Washingtonians in exchange for power, por nada.
The second freeing of the slaves in 1954 and the resistance to that emancipatiion until now has been also a good example of social engineering opposed by secret cabals.
Good luck. Did you sell your house and move? To live next to such neighbors must have been unbearable.
Sorry if I get personal, but I wonder if that would not have been better. To sell, lose money and move.
To see a very few bleed for the many who shirk is sad to see. Good luck.
And I still believe that even judges have to follow the dictates of the system or suffer. Yes, and their children too, out unto the seventh led. Who said such condemnations?
I’m absolutely positive that the wheels of justice do turn even though they are slow to turn. Look at the entire civil rights movement. It used to be considered legal to have separate railway cars for minorities and for them to be barred from public restrooms. Less than 100 years ago minority rail passengers had to use the fields to relieve themselves. And the Supreme Court at the time ruled that that was legal.
kaysieverding 1, October 12, 2012 at 1:00 pm
I still think that the wheels of justice turn slowly but do turn.
————————————————————————-
Guess again.
idealist707 1, October 12, 2012 at 12:34 pm
It’s going to change. What the women don’t understand is they’re going to be wearing burqua’s if they don’t get on the train.
By the time they figure that out, it will be too late. They think they can do something about it, they can’t.
Quickly I add….. I speak of blood and sacrifices. I do not speak of offéring violence but we must face the violence that has been and will be offered us. And that will lead to our blood being shed and pain. Bodily pain.
Do I call for violence and the sacrificing of your childrens’ lives? Not at all, but taking a risk of being abused exercising your constitutional rights, is a sacrifice of security.
The security that we have purchsed by following Bush and Cheney, thus losing more liberty in the process, and some million lives, if we count Iraqiana snd Afghanistanians. And they had families, all the civilians and suspected combatants we eliminated. So they do count in my eyes.
Let me make some general observations, if they interest you, take them to heart at your OWN risk.
I am not inciting to revolt, but to change. To change our useless fight for change, which Obama did not deliver, and to get the one we long for. To escape the serfdom we see coming soon. Since the voting route does not work, other ways of effecting our situation must be found. And MLKjr and Gandhi are mre my choicess.
Don Quixote never won against a windmill, although he was brave.
Joan of Arc could not have won without the King’s army.
Fighting the system on the bsais of laws etc is a losing proposition. That is why it is a business idea for ACLU, who get compensated in other ways.
Why do lawyers don’t do civil rights, etc. of Kay’s type. Maybe it hurts their chances of survival, and of their families.
Why do judges not judge according to law, procedure, canons, etc etc.
Because he who bucks the system get to eat crap for the rest of his life. His honor will be dishonored and harassed the rest of his life. His kids will, his wife will, his car will, his house will—–everything will go to hades subtly, slowly, excruciatingly, very painfully.
Until we band together and stand, replacing the ones borne away from our group to the FEMA camps with fresh bodies, so freshly arriving that the one percent will finally despair and try to lure us into negotiations—-until then we will lose to the system. And maybe we will lose then also. Or of course thay could loose the drones/UAVs on us.
But, like I wrote on the Siegel thread. we are occupied by a foreign army and the one percent are the generals and we the colony.
When in order to create a more perfect union…….!
“It is the duty….” Independence, wasn’t that why we moved to America and westward in search of land and liberty.
It is bleed now or starve later. Starved not only for food, but the nourishment of life and liberty—the pursuit of happiness is your job to fix.
Is this a seditious act? My mentioning of civil disobedience to change the system, to shake off our bonds? A citizen’s duty is to know all the laws to be obeyed, even if you are in Yemen. Anybody know where the line goes between free speech and sedition? Obama is using 1918 more than all the cases previously. Best we learn what we can say that is not seditious. But voting? We know how that works, not at all well. Choosing a stooge of capital to replace a different color stooge is meaningless.
Any young persons to sacrifice? Well educate them and don’t let them volunteer for Afghan or Iran.
I still think that the wheels of justice turn slowly but do turn.
US Courts is slowly responding to the needs of pro se litigants. Now, according to pro se wikipedia, 18 of 94 federal district courts let pro se litigants use ECF. The Third Branch, the magazine of federal judges, found that prisoner litigation often has value.
DOJ is actually pursing a lot of police departments for misconduct.
Citizens are more willing to sit on juries and if pro ses could get through a motion to dismiss I think a lot of the juries would rule pro pro se.
Judges aren’t at risk for ruling pro pro se or anti government corruption. Really, nothing bad will happen to them. They aren’t going to lose their jobs and their kids aren’t going to be harassed at school.
Judge Bates is a hard one because he is a former DOJ employee and therefore has a perspective based on that. And he hasn’t let me use ECF, hasn’t allowed any oral hearings and hasn’t cut me any slack. But, he is a Presbyterian “The Compassion, Peace and Justice ministry area helps Presbyterians respond to the needs of the world’s most vulnerable people, address injustice in all areas of life and advocate for peaceful solutions to conflict.”
“Jesus frequently witnessed to the priority of the poor in the reign of God. He challenged the rich young ruler, he sharply criticized the hard-heartedness of religious leaders, and he taught that those who reached out to marginalized persons were serving him (Luke 18:18-25, Matthew 19:16-24 and Luke 10:25-37). In addition, Christ speaks of the accountability of nations to do justice in Matthew 25 and states, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
Presbyterians believe that one’s acts determine your salvation, not just expressions of faith. It’s what you do that counts.
If I can get Judge John D. Bates to recognize pro se rights including that DOJ shouldn’t use the Prisoner Tracking System to imprison pro ses to stop them from filing in court, I think it could make a huge difference. Judge Bates is a respected judge and the U.S. Federal Court it the District of Columbia has more impact than other federal courts.
Matt — thank you.
shano — As per my previous postings I don’t have a criminal record but DOJ detained me without a criminal charge. That changed my perspective on law enforcement. Previously I thought it didn’t concern me because I wasn’t planning to commit any crimes.
So anyway I was held for 124 days in a facility that had 40% federal prisoners and 60% state prisoners. One woman who I met was detained for about two weeks because she failed to timely renew her auto registration. The only phone was in a communal area so everyone knew everyone else’s business plus she was open about it. She said she did’t have a criminal record. She said the reason that she didn’t renew her auto registration when she was supposed to was because her daughter had cancer so they were broke. Georgetown Colorado where this was was formerly a coal mining area and the only income to the area seemed to be people stopping on the way to the mountain resorts. All the jobs there were probably minimum wage. It took her husband two weeks to raise bail, which was $450, and during that time her husband was trying to earn an income as well as take care of their children including the daughter with cancer.
You cannot tell me that she had any criminal intent. Excessive bail is supposed to be against the 8th Amendment and when workers are making about $250 take home per week and most are living paycheck to paycheck, then $450 minimum bail is way too much. The officer didn’t have to arrest her, he could have just told her to renew her registration and given her a month to do so.
This is the way the majority of these kids are treated by the NYPD. The cops have become armed THUGS. Armed and dangerous THUGS who harass and violate peoples rights all day long.
This is the norm for police now. It is part of our security state to keep people in fear of losing whatever small freedoms they currently have. They will arrest you for having bad manners or perceived ‘disrespect’ that violates no law on the books.
Americans do not have rights now, we all are just animals in the jungle being hunted by various factions, and the cops are one of the most dangerous groups you can encounter. Avoid them.
Kay, you have my respect. I wish you the best. I know what your motivations are, and I hope you win.
I think a lot of fascism is people not wanting to be involved, not wanting to risk anything personally. That is why it is important for judges to take a stance, because they have guaranteed jobs, at least federal judges do.
I am hoping that Federal Judge John D. Bates will recognize that the Prisoner Tracking System isn’t supposed to be used without a criminal charge and that DOJ attorney David Cotter Rybicki misrepresented that the PTS can be legally used without a criminal charge.
If pro se litigants are going to be imprisoned by the U.S. Department of Justice for filing in federal Court, as I, Kay Sieverding, was, then it should be Congress that decides when that happens after holding public hearings and the laws allowing summary imprisonment of pro se litigants for filing in Court, as well as procedures for issuing orders against self-representation, should be consistent across the country and published. When I went into federal litigation I was under the impression that as long as I told the truth at all times I would be safe, but instead all my property, my professional and personal reputations, and my liberty were taken from me. As I stated before, there were no rule 11(c)(6) orders against me, no motions to impeach my testimony, and no complaints that even a single sentence that I wrote was perjury even though I verified thousands of pages of filings under penalty of perjury.
What happened to me was in some ways similar to what happened in Gerold Missouri. In both Gerold and in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, criminal prosecution was instituted by an individual who was not a government employee. In Steamboat Springs, Colorado, Jane Bennett, then the wife of the city council president, initiated the criminal prosecution of me by signing a police form that was supposed to be signed only by police and the apparent reason she did so was so that she could keep the buildings she and her husband Kevin Bennett built that violated the zoning. They paid a lot of money for those extra buildings but the Bennetts knew when they built them that they violated the zoning. The transcript in the District of Kansas, 05-2510, document 18, shows that the D.A. didn’t participate and that there was no evidence that I did anything criminal. The local judge, James Garrecht, predicted on the transcript that I wouldn’t be able to get a lawyer to sue the City of Steamboat Springs because law firms in the area don’t have that sort of practice. No one there cared about my rights, all they cared about was money, which was highly controlled by Kevin Bennett, the convicted felon who was the president of the city council in a town with no mayor.
http://shii.org/knows/Fascism_comes_wrapped_in_the_flag
Do you know that the Americans thought the Germans were a lot like them.
It is worth reading and re-reading Gonzalo Lira’s famous (or infamous as per political leanings) post titled:
“Is the U.S. a Fascist Police-State?”
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/06/gonzalo-lira-is-the-u-s-a-fascist-police-state.html
Makes for very uncomfortable read, but it’s like physical exercise: can’t get in better shape by staying in your comfort zone all the time
How about a 9mm pistol in the middle of their head. Or a 41 Magnum revolver. Or a 22 hollow point.
Think about the constitution.
Kay Sieverding points out some things about the legal profession which are quite accurate. When it comes to civil rights litigation 99% plus do not know nuthin bout burthin babies. The things that they might have learned in law school are gone with the wind. Yet there is a demand for lawyers of intelligence who have knowliedge and skill in pursuing civil rights claims. There is a statute (42 United States Code Section 1988) which provides that a successful plaintiff in a civil rights suit be paid attorney fees. The hourly rate can be around $450. If you have to go all the way through district court and then a court of appeals the fees might run $450,000. A cop charged under the civil rights act is liable. If his superior is charged and the plaintiff wins then he/she is liable. If the municipality is also tagged they are liable–jointly. So, sue the cop, the superior officer, the chief of police and the town. Sue for conspiracy, it makes the evidence flow better. See: 42 U.S.C. Sections 1983, 1985(3) and 1988.
The dearth of lawyers who are familiar with civil rights litigation reveals some things about law schools and the folks who attend and graduate. There are few souls teaching in the schools with experience in court, much less federal court and civil rights litigation. The area of law is easy to teach however. The students who graduate from law schools this year are basically went in dumb, come out dumb too. They gravitate to the easiest and dumbest little sectors of law practice such as divorce or bankruptcy. If you go to the so called legal sevices offices (free services for the poor) the folks there no longer have big scope views of their client problems and do not use the civil rights act to protect their interests on an individual or class basis.
If enterprizing lawyers knew of the rewards available in civil rights litigation more would look into it. If you want to see an on-going case involving suits against bad cops, and now the attorneys fee end of it, then go to Findlaw or Westlaw and look up Michael Holland v. City of Gerald, MO, in U.S, District Court Eastern District of Missouri. A decision on attorney fees will be coming shortly.
Gyges,
Nice rut if you can get it. Actually I liked the premise of the first and only one I tried to read.
Keep the society as it is today, but do a Burroughs on it, adding the mind-changing new items. Keep the morés and the moral essentially as today, so as to
parody/emphasize our weaknesses as humans.
I think I was too tired or unable to master all the new lingo. Reading Brunner at Amazon re-emphasixed my limitations. Does it get easier as you get into the books?
No answere necessary.
idealist707
One of my theories is that my neighbor was blackmailing locals. Someone told me about sleeping with a married man and going cocaine in my neighbors’ hot tub. That I actually included in a document I filed in court in 2003 with their names. Anyway, that was blackmail material.
Kevin Bennett, the convicted felon who was president of the city council, built something really weird in his yard. Some electronics on a pole. I thought it might be a listening device, that maybe he was listening to us. But we didn’t give him any blackmail material.
I went to Colorado judge Joel Thompson to try to get an order that my neighbor should contain his construction within the zoning.
( I thought Thompson would rule for us because he had ruled for another Steamboat man who had sued the city, a David Criste, that the City had to give him an occupancy permit. They wouldn’t give Criste an occupancy permit because they claimed he had violated the zoning by 18 inches although it was caused by circumstances and people beyond his control — the City wanted to tear down his house because of the 18 inches but didn’t care about Bennetts’ extra buildings. Criste told me that a city council member, a lawyer named Richard Tremaine, had asked him for 10K which was supposed to go 2/3rds to Criste’s neighbor, 2/3rd to Tremaine because he was the neighbor’s lawyer as well as a city council member. That I can’t prove though it was “hearsay”.)
Anyway Judge Thompson ruled that adjoining neighbors don’t have standing to make sure that the zoning is enforced. There wasn’t any legal authority given for that. So I didn’t understand why. It didn’t make sense to me at the time and now I know that neighbors do have standing to intervene in zoning matters and that the Judge shouldn’t have accepted a motion made without legal authorities. (See the Law of the Law Blog by Patricia Salkin)
Then a year later, Judge Joel Thompson’s girlfriend fiance, Vreeman, was arrested by the DEA. It was weird the way it came out too. Thompson was presiding over a murder trial. He criticized the police so then the police sprouted off that Thompson’s girlfriend was under investigation and then she was arrested.
This is in the Steamboat Pilot and I think there is a more complete version in the Craig Colorado newspaper. It was in 2001. So various people knew about Vreeman and her involvement with cocaine as well as the DEA investigation. And, rumor had it that my neighbor was a long time heavy cocaine user possibly a cocaine dealer. I don’t know for sure if that was true but I heard the rumors from multiple parties and when I told the police they didn’t want to discuss it. Anyway, this was a small community so if it did involve cocaine then probably everyone in the community that used or sold cocaine would have known. So that would be another opportunity for blackmail.
The police turned me away because I wanted to report perjury. The perjury was cut and dried. The director of city planning, Wendy Schulenburg, now Wendie Roonie, said in Court while she was under oath that she was a certified planner a member of the AICP. I have a masters degree in city planning but was never certified. Being a certified planner is actually a big production involving testing, references, and agreements to abide by ethics. I contacted the AICP and they said that Wendie Schulenburg Roonie wasn’t certified. Anyone can verify that she said that because I filed the transcript on PACER in Federal Court district of Kansas 05-2510 document 18.
Yes they already hurt me a lot. I just don’t think they can do anything else to me other than murder me and if I were to turn up murdered, they should be the suspects because I’m not picking up men in bars or doing anything else to get murdered.
I don’t think that it was difficult for them to get Magistrate Schlatter and Judge Nottingham to hurt me. My personal belief is that they were both bribed, that they were bribed or influenced more than once, and that it wasn’t very expensive to bribe or influence them.
All I really want is some sort of resolution in Court.
DOJ made this announcement recently:
_____________________________________________________
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The First Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the federal court conviction and sentence of Robert S. Ciresi, 78, a former attorney and former North Providence town solicitor, announced United States Attorney Peter F. Neronha.
Ciresi was convicted by a federal court jury in April 2011 of conspiracy, bribery and Hobbs Act Extortion. In August 2011, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Mary M. Lisi sentenced Ciresi to 63 months in federal prison and fined him $10,000 for his role as a middle-man in a corruption and kickback scheme run by three North Providence town councilmen.
Former councilmen Joseph S. Burchfield; Raymond L. Douglas III; and John A. Zambarano pled guilty for their roles in the kickback scheme and are currently serving sentences ranging from 64 to 78 months in federal prison. North Providence businessman Edward Imondi pled guilty to acting as a middle-man in the scheme and was sentenced to serve a 12 month and 1 day federal prison sentence.
_______________________________________________________
I think that kind of scenario is not uncommon. Even when I lived in Steamboat I suspected the city attorney of collecting funds and distributing them to local politicians. I filed a lot of detailed material in court and one of the things I included was a comment former assistant city attorney Melinda Sherman made to me that “Tony [the city attorney] was the front man”. I looked up “front man” and found “one who lends respectability to some nefarious activity”.
ne·far·i·ous/niˈfe(ə)rēəs/
Adjective:
(of an action or activity) Wicked or criminal: “the nefarious activities of the organized-crime syndicates”.
So these are Kay Sieverding’s opinions and not those of Jonathan Turley