We have discussed a long litany of taser controversies including the recent tasering of a 10 year old boy. Now, in University Place in Washington, Ron Hillstrom is dead after he was reportedly tasered by four officers — each tasering the man. Hillstrom died after the encounter with the police.
Continue reading “Police Accused of Tasering Washington Man Four Times Before He Collapsed and Died”
We have a long list of cases where police have arrested citizens for filming them in public despite repeated court rulings that this is a protected practice. I previously discussed this issue in a column. Massachusetts’s police and prosecutors have been particularly aggressive to pursuing citizens. That record has continued this week with Karen Dziewit, 24, of Chicopee who has been charged with unlawful wiretapping after she recorded her arrest.
We have previously discussed the increasing use of tasers by police in circumstances where other avenues were available, including cases involving young children (here and here and here and here and here and here) or the elderly (here and here and here and here). Now we have a case where two Indiana police officers tasered a 10-year-old, 94-pound boy at the Tender Teddies Day Care in Martinsville.
Continue reading “Taser Tots: Indiana Police Taser Ten Year Old Boy At Day Care”
The Sao Paulo police are distributing a pamphlet for tourists coming to the country for the World Cup next month and presumably those who will be coming for the next Olympics. The police strongly encourage people not to “react, scream or argue” because that will only make robbers angry or nervous and push them to greater acts of violence. It is probably sound advice but the optics are not great for a country accused of rampant corruption and abuse in the police forces as well as runaway crime.
Continue reading “Brazilian Police: Please Don’t Scream When You Are Being Robbed”
Many stories that we discuss raise concerns whether police officers and other public officials sometimes get advantages as criminal defendants. The case in Pennsylvania of former Scott Township police Chief James Romano has raised precisely those same concerns. Romano has agreed to a plea deal to admit that he had sex with an alleged victim and witness in a case that he was investigating. He reportedly told the witness not to admit to the sexual relationship and faces a charge of hindering prosecution. That is all pretty straightforward, but Romano has demanded that he not be actually sentenced for seven years to guarantee that he gets a pension. So far, it appears to be working.
Saudi Arabia has given the world a new example of Sharia abuse. Sharia law continues to be used to target homosexuals, religious dissidents, women, and reporters. The latest sentence was handed down against Raif Badawi, who started the “Free Saudi Liberals” website. He has now been sentenced to 10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes.
Continue reading “Saudi Arabia Sentences Blogger To 10 Years In Prison and 1000 Lashes”
There is a highly troubling report out of Washington that former Secret Service director Mark Sullivan pulled a special team of secret service agents called the Prowler Surveillance team to protect his assistant, Lisa Chopey, after she said that a neighbor was harassing her. Such an assignment is highly questionable in the use of public resources for such matters. If there was a criminal threat, it should have been handled by the local authorities since it was not related to the service.
Procter & Gamble has issued an apology after its new campaign for Ariel laundry detergent in Germany does not suggests a powerfully whitening soap as much as a white power soap. The Ariel powder boxes featured a soccer jersey with a prominent “88.” The problem is that neo-Nazis use “88” to get around laws criminalizing the use of such phrases as Heil Hitler.” “H” is the eighth letter in the alphabet. The company has apologized for “any false connotations” and changed the exterior of the product. The number 88 for the company represented the number of loads that you can wash with one package. For others, any promise to make your “whites the whitest” had a more disturbing historical meaning.
Submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Weekend Contributor
I was going to write this last weekend on the actual 44th anniversary of a very sad event. For some reason, I had a hard time focusing on what I wanted to say, in light of the many emotions that were going through my head. I don’t want the anniversary to go by without writing about the personal significance that day in May had on my life, and I believe on the lives of many in my generation. The Pulitzer Prize winning photograph by John Filo, included above from Wikipedia, is one that I have never forgotten. Nor should anyone forget it. Continue reading “May 4th, 1970, The Day My Generation Lost Its Innocence”
By Mark Esposito, Weekend Contributor
Author’s Note: Grace Under Pressure is an ongoing series of posts honoring everyday people who courageously make positive differences in their own lives and consequently in the lives of others. It is my own personal affirmation that unexpected heroes live among us and that their service is quiet but unshakable proof that virtue really is its own reward – and ours, too.
They buried little eight-year-old Martin Cobb, Jr. here in Richmond (Va.) on Friday afternoon. Rev. Theodore L. Hughey, pastor of Abundant Life Church, praised the youngster for his courage and then went on to condemn the community and the bureaucrats who oversee it for letting crime fester and forgetting about the children who suffer from it. A handmade sign above the tiny coffin read “Pound for pound, year for year, few greater heroes … if any.”
And little Martin, as his neighbors in the Mosby Court public housing project knew him, was a hero. A small stature caused by an open heart surgery while he was just three-months-old hid a fighting spirit. Many neighbors thought he was only three or four years old. One of them, Harry Hunter, recalled that “He was so small, I used to carry him in my book bag.”
But no one “carried” Little Martin on Thursday evening a week ago when he died defending his sister from a sexual attack at the hands of an alleged 16-year-old sexual predator who, at his young age, had already been charged with viciously assaulting another young boy and has suffered mental health issues.
Continue reading “Grace Under Pressure: Little Martin Cobb, Jr. And The Courage of Change”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
The government of Mexico demobilized a vigilante group fighting the drug cartel Knights Templar in the State of Michoacan. The group, consisting of manly ranchers and farmers, was successful in largely expelling the cartel while the government was not able.
At a ceremony in the city of Tepalcatepec, where the group began in February of 2013, uniformed members of the now official Self-Defense Council of Michoacan (CAM) were assigned arms and uniforms. 120 officers were sworn in as a rural police force.
The group’s spokesman, Estanislao Beltran proclaimed. “Now we are part of the government. Now we can defend ourselves with weapons in a legal way.”
There are hopes in the government the creation of this new police force will end the lawlessness in the state and the vigilantism of the civilian population. The federal commissioner for Michoacan, Alfredo Castillo said that action would be taken now against “false self-defense groups” but said of the CAM “[You] will have the responsibility of defending your neighbors from delinquency and organized crime.”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Absolute monarch Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei announced in January a harsh form of sharia law will be enacted. Effective in three phases beginning now and spanning two years, the edict eventually allows for the stoning to death of homosexuals, adulterers, and apostates; for amputation of limbs for those convicted of theft; and flogging for abortions and the consumption of alcohol. The capital offense provisions of the law reportedly apply only to Muslims.
Sultan Bolkiah claims this is a step in solidifying a long cultural tradition in the sultanate which was established in the fourteenth century. Increasingly conservative Muslim politicians and officials in Brunei, Malaysia, and Indonesia are beginning to move from sharia being limited to family matters to now criminal law and capital offenses. Acheh in Indonesia is included especially. While Brunei enjoys one of the highest per capital income in the world, has many social benefits such as effectively free health care and education, its population of over 416,000 individuals now is seeing human rights restricted in a trend that is generating international condemnation in the West. Al-Jazeera reported that many members of the Muslim ethnic Malay majority have voiced cautious support for the changes. However, non-Muslim citizens, who are fifteen percent of the population, led a rare burst of criticism on social media earlier this year, but largely went silent after the sultan called for a halt.
“Theory states that God’s law is harsh and unfair, but God himself has said that his law is indeed fair,” the sultan said.
But will Western governments be willing to isolate countries engaging in abuses of individuals and oppression of the human rights of populations or is trade and money going to become the focus and inconveniences such as abuse continue to be ignored?
The legal profession this week lost one of our best and bravest. Pretending to be potential clients in a matrimonial case, two people entered the law firm of Rashid Rehman Khan and shot him to death. Rashid Rehman, a coordinator for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), had faced death threats for years after he courageously represented a university professor accused of blasphemy. Unable to kill the accused, Islamic extremists appear to have now killed the lawyer. Rehman never flinched in his commitment to the rule of law and to this country.
There is an interesting ruling out of Arizona where an appellate court has overturned a Scottsdale municipal ordinance barring people from being intoxicated in public. The ordinance was found to be in conflict with a 1972 state law that prohibits municipalities from criminalizing “being a common drunkard or being found in an intoxicated condition.” The intent behind the law was to recognize alcoholism as a disease as opposed to a crime. The case is Arizona v. Coles, 2014 Ariz. App. LEXIS 78 (May 6, 2014).
Continue reading “Arizona Appellate Court Strikes Down Scottsdale Public Intoxication Ordinance”
New details have emerged in the shooting last December of two men in Miami Dade County. Police were looking for Adrian Montesano, 27, who had shot a police officer after robbing a Walgreens at gunpoint. They spotted him in a car with another man and gave chase. The Blue Volvo crashed and was wedged between a light pole and a tree. Police surrounded the vehicle and then opened fire — hitting the car with some 50 bullets. There was then another period of quiet and the men were told to surrender. Some witnesses say that the wounded men were raising their hands. Police say that they saw movement and unleashed a barrage of bullets. In all, some 377 rounds were fired — hitting other cars, businesses, and a home with children inside. Some are calling this a case of a police “frenzy” where the officers lost control in two rounds of massive shooting.