Al Franken reads the Fourth Amendment to a DOJ official. Good to hear that Al’s a Fourther. His time in the Senate may be of more value than I thought.

Jack Shafer about sums up my thoughts on Andrew Breitbart and the ACORN videos.

Four New Jersey cops shot during 2am no-knock raid on drug suspect’s home. Stay tuned.

What does America’s biggest Nanny eat? A lot of the stuff he’s trying to stop you from eating.

Fire department saves man’s penis.

Nice story about an Indian girl who has become a national hero by refusing to become a child bride in an arranged marriage.

The ABA profiles Institute for Justice co-founder Chip Mellor.

Merced, California police tase weaponless double amputee, leave him handcuffed, pantless on the ground.

Ex-deputy settles with county after police wrongly raided his home in search of a homicide suspect. The interesting part of this story is that a camera crew from the TV show Cops was with the raid team. The Cops producers apparently destroyed the film of the raid.

Ex-Chicago cops plead guilty to warrantless raids in which they stole money, beat and threatened people, and in one case detained and withheld insulin from a diabetic until he told them where they could find more cash. They’ll get six months in jail.

Entire Jericho, Arkansas fire department resigns in protest of charges against their fire chief, who was shot in the back in court by police while protesting a traffic ticket.

Lawsuit alleges drunk, off-duty Pittsburgh cop stopped, detained, beat, and shot a man after mistaking him for someone the cop says assaulted him at a traffic stop. The cop is back on the job after an arbitrator determined his actions were “inappropriate, imprudent and ill-advised,” but not criminal. He also had three previous complaints against him with the city’s civilian review board.

Finally, a little comic relief.

I don't think most people with white skin on juries are making police brutality/atrocity decisions based on the evidence presented at trial. White people believe that the police are there to protect them (white people), so white people ignore the facts and make public poliicy decisions to support police regardless of the evidence presented at trial.

This is why it is so important for prosecutors to select an all-white jury, such as the one that tried Esteban Carpio (even though Providence, Rhode Island is over 50% Black and Latino). By getting an all-white jury AND favorable evidentiary decisions from the judge, prosecutors are more like (practically guaranteed) to get a conviction, regardless of the atrocities that police are shown to have committed during the arrest and questioning.

Of course many or most white people will disagree with what I've said here, but they'll also agree that if police beat or electrically shocked an arrestee, then the arrestee "probably got what he deserved". And white juries are unwilling to convict or punish police for their behavior when they believe that the defendant/victim "probably got what he deserved."

What this means is that many or most white people are willing to accept and support summary justice and pre-trial extrajudicial punishment of prisoners as well as a type of informal double jeopardy, in which arrestees for punished once by police at the time of arrest then a second time by the judge after a conviction.

When "justice" works this way, I'm not sure what distinguishes the United States from many other countries. I personally believe that the right to be tried by a jury or judge before punishment is meted out is a more fundamental and important right than the right to bear firearms. Most white people would strongly disagree with me, at least when it is most important -- when making a decision as a member of a jury, but also when delineating the role of police officers in society.

Most white people would insist that there is a significant difference between the police and the Klu Klux Klan, because police are part of the formal, legal criminal justice system. But when police regularly act summarily, as an angry lawless white-hooded mob would, and with impunity, then the difference between the police and klansmen is one of degree, but not one of substance.

Libertarianism creep over at Slate. Welcome, gang. Your decoder rings should arrive in a few weeks.

Cops take a break from drug raid to bowl a few rounds on their suspect’s Wii.

Ugly look at the absurd union protections for teachers in New York City’s public school system.

Virginia Beach cop who won awards for his DWI arrest rate convicted of DWI after a hit and run.

Texas Supreme Court finds no reversible error in death penalty case in which the judge and prosecutor had an undisclosed sexual relationship.

Mark Cuban says federal government has made unpaid internships illegal. I’m pretty surprised by this, given that I know of several people who have had unpaid internships with the federal government. Including me, although that was back in 1997.

Cops taze wheelchair-bound double amputee.

Not an Onion story.

I feel like it is foam finger time again. USA! USA! USA!

Monday, September 21, 2009

Police taser unarmed, legless black man in a wheelchair

Black man said he was humiliated after his pants fell down during the incident. The officers allegedly left him outdoors in broad daylight, handcuffed on the pavement, nude below the waist. Williams said the Sept. 11 arrest also left him with an injured shoulder, limiting his mobility in his wheelchair.

A handful of residents in Williams' apartment complex said they witnessed the incident and supported Williams' charges. A short video clip, shot by a neighbor and obtained by the Sun-Star, shows Williams sitting on the pavement with his pants down, his hands cuffed behind his back.

Hat Tip to Tasered While Black.

http://taseredwhileblack.blogspot.com/2009/09/police-taser-unarmed-legless-black-man.html

Black man said he was humiliated after his pants fell down during the incident. The officers allegedly left him outdoors in broad daylight, handcuffed on the pavement, nude below the waist. Williams said the Sept. 11 arrest also left him with an injured shoulder, limiting his mobility in his wheelchair.

A handful of residents in Williams' apartment complex said they witnessed the incident and supported Williams' charges. A short video clip, shot by a neighbor and obtained by the Sun-Star, shows Williams sitting on the pavement with his pants down, his hands cuffed behind his back.

http://taseredwhileblack.blogspot.com/2009/09/police-taser-unarmed-legless-black-man.html

A 14-year-old girl had to have a Taser dart removed from her skull after she was shot with the device by Tucumcari, New Mexico, Police Chief Roger Hatcher. Her mother, Stacy Atkins, says the two had been fighting over a cell phone and she took her daughter to the police station. The girl ran away, and Hatcher later found her at a park. When he approached her, she ran away, so he fired his Taser at her.

*This story originally misidentified the location of Tucumcari, New Mexico.

You see Donald Rumsfeld on the street. A man with a gun jumps Rumsfeld, apparently bent on killing him.

Who will you defend?

We’re probably all talking past each other, but this is a followup to “Why I am not specifically a voluntaryist“.

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Berwyn Heights, Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo has an op-ed in the Washington Post about his experience trying to get some accountability for the violent, mistaken 2008 raid on his home.

Let me give you three specific concerns underscored by our case.

First, the Prince George’s Police Department’s internal affairs function is broken. When the Justice Department released the county police from federal supervision in February, internal affairs was the one area that was not cleared. Internal affairs division (IAD) investigations were required to take no longer than 90 days. More than a year after our ordeal, my family awaits the IAD report on what happened at our home. The statute of limitations for officer misconduct is 12 months, which means that any wrongdoers are off the hook.

Next, there is significant evidence that the county is broadly violating the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. After initially claiming that they had a “no-knock” warrant to forcibly enter our home, county police acknowledged that they did not have one. But they went on to contend that there is no such thing as a “no-knock” warrant in Maryland. But this isn’t true. A statewide “no-knock” warrant statute was passed in 2005. Effectively, the county is denying the existence of state law. We can’t get the county to say whether it has ever followed the law or, at a minimum, even acknowledges it.

Finally, and perhaps most disturbing of all, county police may be lying to cover up their civil rights violations. A county officer on the scene told Berwyn Heights police a fabricated tale to justify the warrantless entry into our home. The lie disappeared after police learned that I was the mayor. Charges of a police coverup are hardly unusual, but there is significant evidence that county law enforcement engaged in a conspiracy on our lawn to justify an illegal entry. Nothing strikes at the heart of police credibility like creative report writing and false testimony to cover up a lie or even put innocent people behind bars.

Calvo is really an impressive guy. I’ve never talked to him whether he’d ever consider running for higher office, but there’d be some poetic justice in seeing him become the next Prince George’s county executive.