Gangsters in Blue

Guest post from Hazel with Onlineclasses.org:

If you want to learn more about the history of your city, explore the history of corruption within the city’s police department. Police corruption, which can include kickbacks, shakedowns, and protection of or even direct participation in illegal activities, has been around since the creation of the country’s first police force. Initially, the police were not asked to “serve and protect,” but to mediate between criminal and political kingpins as they fought each other for power. Some may say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. But perhaps understanding the history of city and police corruption can help to provide the vision and leadership for a better future. Here are nine police departments with well-documented corrupt pasts.

1. New York Police Department

   Since its establishment in 1844, corruption has been a fact of police life in New York City. From the very beginning, New York’s underpaid and overworked police officers were expected to serve the needs of the city’s political leaders while collecting money from gang leaders, gamblers, and pimps for the privilege of operating relatively unmolested. Back in 1895, officer Alexander S. Williams, took advantage of his appointment as captain of the city’s 21st Precinct, which included the Tenderloin and Gas House districts, to collect money from criminals, including the madams of several brothels, and make a fortune as a result. Williams, who earned his nickname “Clubber,” once said, “There is more law in the end of a policeman’s nightstick than in a decision of the Supreme Court.” After investigation by two committees, Williams resigned, went into the insurance business, and died a multimillionaire. Who says crime doesn’t pay?

2. New Orleans Police Department

   New Orleans Mayor Landrieu released a hopeful, conciliatory statement in the wake of the sentencing of five New Orleans police officers to several years in prison for their roles in shooting unarmed citizens in the chaotic days that followed Hurricane Katrina. “We now have an opportunity to turn the page and to heal,” Landrieu said. “It is my commitment to the people of New Orleans to rebuild and reform the NOPD.” The first police force in the then-French New Orleans was established in 1803, only to be disbanded due to countless complaints from civilians. Given the history of the NOPD, Landrieu definitely has his work cut out for him.

3. Chicago Police Department

   By the end of the 19th century, the city of Chicago enjoyed the dubious reputation of being a haven for “dangerous classes;” a city that was more like an out-of-control frontier town “with an absence of moral virtue.” The Chicago Police department went without large-scale reform until 1960 when eight police officers from the city’s North Side or Summerdale district were charged with running a large-scale burglary ring. Known as the Summerdale Scandal, the case generated unprecedented media attention, and prompted the creation of a much-needed police superintendent role to oversee and enforce rules and regulations within the department.

4. Los Angeles Police Department

   The 1951 Bloody Christmas Scandal, a real-life scandal that appears in author James Ellroy’s book L.A. Confidential and its film version, involved as many as 50, mostly drunk, police officers who took time out from a Christmas party to beat six prisoners for more than 90 minutes. Since more than 100 people either witnessed or knew of the beatings, the incident became public, and prompted the city’s Mexican community to come forward with more charges of police brutality against citizens. In 1952, a grand jury succeeded in convicting only five of the officers involved, and none of them received a sentence amounting to more than a year in prison. And then there was the Rampart scandal and the Rodney King beating.

5. Miami Police Department

   Miami in the ’80s experienced an “epidemic” of police corruption due in part to the enormous amount of cocaine being smuggled into South Florida from Latin America. A cheap, deadly derivative of the drug known as “crack” would infiltrate other cities throughout the U.S., and transform many once relatively peaceful working class neighborhoods into war zones. Police corruption in Miami reached its height in 1986 when, as a result of an inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, more than a dozen officers from the police department faced charges that ranged from drug dealing to murder.

6. Sheriff’s Department, Dallas County, Alabama

   Students of Civil Rights history know that Selma, Ala. was the location of a brutal assault on a group of peaceful marchers led by John Lewis of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and Reverend Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by the Selma Police Department led by Sheriff Jim Clark, as well as state troopers, and recently deputized members of the community. Law enforcement officers used nightsticks, horses, and tear gas to indiscriminately attack the peaceful demonstrators. Televised images of the attack inspired even more support for the Civil Rights movement. Sheriff Clark later lost his bid for reelection, went on to sell mobile homes for a while, and in 1978, was busted for conspiracy to import marijuana.

7. Ahome Municipal Police Force

   Ahome is a municipality in the Mexican state of Sinaola. Just last November, Ahome’s entire Police Department, 32 officers and commanders, were arrested by state police for the department’s connection to two powerful drug cartels. Amazingly, the director of the state police who carried out the arrest, “Chuytoño” Aguilar Iniguez, was at one time one of Mexico’s Attorney General’s most wanted men for his connections to kingpins within the Sinaloa drug cartel. After having fled to Cuba in 2004 while undergoing investigation for corruption, Iniguez was granted a sort of immunity in 2009 by a federal court, and returned to Mexico to profit from, er, whoops, we mean “fight” crime.

8. Philadelphia Police Department

   You know you’ve got a corrupt police department when it comes under the scrutiny of Human Rights Watch. HRW has stated that, “the Philadelphia police department (in terms of) corruption and brutality … has one of the worst reputations of big city police departments in the United States.” In the early 1990s, a group of PPD officers, some known throughout the city as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, conducted a series of unreported raids on crack houses where officers would steal from suspects. The arrest of Mumia Abu-Jamal for the murder of a police officer, and the public outcry at his being sentenced to death (this sentence was recently overturned), brought national attention to the PPD’s reputation for brutality and corruption.

9. Baltimore Police Department

   In March 2012, a Baltimore police officer was sentenced for his part in what is known as the Towing Scandal, a criminal ring that included more than 50 other members of the Baltimore Police Department. Vehicles were towed from accident scenes by a towing and repair company owned by two police officers. Other officers were paid to participate in the scam, which generated hundreds to thousands of dollars for those involved. Accident victims were even encouraged by officers not to talk to their insurance companies.

9 Police Departments With Corrupt Pasts is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

In the past couple of years, CopBlock has covered a wide range of stories involving police murder.  John Williams, a half-deaf, disabled, hobbling Native American man was basically executed in the streets of Seattle by on-duty officer Ian Birk. Birk was never criminally charged. Westpoint and Duke graduate Erik Scott was executed at Costco for no legitimate reasons when police were called to the scene. His killer of course was found to have been “justified” in the murder.

Trevon Cole, an unarmed father-to-be was shot and killed in his bathroom during a mistaken drug raid. Grandfather of 12, Eurie Stamps was similarly unarmed and killed during a botched drug raid. Former Marine Jose Guerena was shot multiple times by police during an alleged drug warrant entry by police. He lay dying for over an hour until he bled to death because police refused medical care. Allen Kephart was tasered to death for honking his car horn at police. Douglas Zerby was shot and killed for holding a garden hose spigot which police purportedly mistook for a gun.

The list goes on and on, but a girl can only maintain so many murder victims’ names in her head before going insane. At any rate, without exception, police involved in these murders were found to have acted reasonably or were determined to have been justified in their murder. Even before they were found to have behaved in a “justified manner,” they were not immediately arrested or charged (or ever arrested or charged).

On the other hand, in recent news, one Officer Dayle Long had the misfortune of murdering someone and actually not getting away with it. Long was drunk at a bar when a bystander ribbed him for not being good at playing darts. Long responded, “That’s why I’m a cop, I can do whatever I want to do.” Things got heated, and Long ended up shooting and killing a third man, Sam Vanettes, who was attempting to break up the fight. Surprisingly, Long was actually arrested and held on $1 million bail. This is a good thing. Barely, though (yay! A cop was actually treated like a normal person, for once!)

Long had one part right. Police pretty much can do what they please. They get away with murder with much more success than ordinary people. They certainly get away with more innocuous violations they engage in almost daily, such as driving while talking on cell phones (illegal in California, apparently except for the police), parking in red zones, parking in handicapped zones, speeding, jaywalking, etc.

The part Long failed to take into consideration is that the key to this distinction is the badge and the uniform. People don’t care about murder when it is committed by police in uniform. The response is usually, “well then [the victim] shouldn’t have disobeyed/talked back/drank alcohol/[insert petty violation here].” People most definitely don’t care when police in uniform break traffic laws, because of course police are just “doing their jobs” and “keeping people safe” by speeding, parking in fire lanes, and talking on their cell phones while driving. But when the uniform comes off, to a certain extent, they are viewed once again as regular old losers like the rest of us.

Regular old losers can’t jay walk, speed, or murder with impunity. You have to have a uniform and a badge to do that. Long’s mistake wasn’t murder; his mistake was committing murder out of uniform. And as a side note to all you regular old losers out there, regardless of uniform, never honk your car horn at a cop or challenge his dart skills – someone could end up dead.

Tip to all cops: if you feel like murdering someone, be sure to do it on duty and in uniform is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

CCRKBA TO BLOOMBERG: ‘EXPLAIN THIS ONE’ AFTER NYPD COPS BUSTED FOR GUN SMUGGLING

BELLEVUE, WA – While Michael Bloomberg has been running around blaming gun laws in other states for his city’s crime problems, eight New York City police officers were allegedly involved in a gun smuggling operation “right under his nose,” the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Reuters reported that eight officers have been charged in connection with the case. All were working in Brooklyn, and according to the District Attorney’s office, they “exploited their experience and credentials to assist in a variety of schemes involving the illegal interstate transportation…” of guns, cigarettes, counterfeit goods and slot machines, the news agency said.

“If I were a member of Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “I’d say it was time for Bloomberg to mind his own business. While he was busily suing legitimate gun dealers all over the country and going on television to brag about it, he should have been paying closer attention to what was happening in his own back yard. After all, it was his city employees that have been charged in this illegal gun trafficking scheme.”

Gottlieb said Tuesday’s revelation clearly underscores what is wrong with Mayor Bloomberg’s relentless campaign to “erode gun rights through the demagoguery of public office.”

“Bloomberg’s fiasco is steeped in irony,” Gottlieb continued, “because this New York gun trafficking operation was happening right under the mayor’s nose, and he didn’t even know about it. He was paying too much attention to telling everyone else what was wrong with their gun laws, when he couldn’t even keep his own cops from breaking the gun laws he thinks should be used as a model all over the country

“It may be time for Bloomberg to stop looking everywhere else for gun trafficking activity and focus his attention closer to home,” he observed. “It’s pretty hard to accuse citizens in other states of feeding New York’s illegal gun trade when some of Bloomberg’s own cops appear to be up to their badges in it.”

This story was submitted to CopBlock.org via the submit tab.

Editor’s Note by Ademo – I’d like to point out that the problem is more internal than this article states. It’s so close that it’s the actual government, in this case Bloomberg’s war on guns, that allows for such corruption and violence in the first place. Anytime government attempts to and/or does prohibit the trade of any good or service (whether that be guns, drugs or prostitution) they subsequently create a black market. The increased risk to trafficking banned goods the customers are the ones that suffer. Often times this leads to violence, since there’s no other way to recoup loss, and customers pay a higher price for such goods because violence – and bribery – aren’t cheap. If people would remove the restrictions government places on the free market, nothing should be prohibited, then there would be a great reduction in the amount of violence and corruption that stems from prohibition of goods and services.

NYPD officers caught smuggling guns by CCRKBA is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/28/nypd-officers-surrender-i_n_1063515.html?ir=Crime

An anonymous tip about a crooked cop grew during the past three years into a sweeping internal corruption probe on the under-the-table practice of fixing tickets, with dozens of wiretaps, 10,000 intercepted calls and an officer undercover as a barber in a sting, authorities said.

Thirteen New York Police Department officers, two sergeants and a lieutenant were slapped with criminal charges Friday, just three days after the embarrassing arrests of five officers in a separate gun-running probe.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said it was “difficult” to have to announce for the second time in a week that his officers had been arrested for misconduct.

“These misdeeds tarnish the good name and reputation of the vast majority of police officers who perform their duties honestly,” he said.

Kelly said the probe included 300 cases that are being handled internally. Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson said he hoped the criminal charges send a message that corruption would not be tolerated. The city lost about $2 million in killed-off tickets, he said.

The majority of the arrested are officials with the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, arguably the most powerful law enforcement union in the nation, with 23,000 members. Union leaders say the practice of making a ticket disappear for a friend or family member was not only sanctioned, it was condoned at the highest levels of the nation’s biggest police department.

Union President Patrick Lynch vowed that when the dust settled, they’d prove it.

“Taking care of your family, taking care of your friends is not a crime,” he said. “To take a courtesy and turn it into a crime is wrong.”

Hundreds of union members went to support the officers, some in suits, others dressed in jeans and sweat shirts, clogging the street near the Bronx courthouse, filling the hallways and applauding in court after the officers left. Detective Steven McDonald, a city hero paralyzed decades ago, was in the courtroom in a wheelchair, with an American flag on this lap.

The officers pleaded not guilty to hundreds of charges including misconduct, grand larceny, records tampering and obstructing governmental administration. Among those charged was Jennara Cobb, an internal affairs bureau lieutenant who pleaded not guilty to charges she leaked information to union officials about the probe.

As a result of her meeting, word quickly spread and union delegates started to alter the way they fixed tickets, prosecutor Jonathan Ortiz said.

“The investigation was significantly compromised because of her actions,” he said.

Her attorney, Philip Karasyk, said she had been unfairly singled out.

“That wiretap was leaking like a sieve,” he said.

The case started with an anonymous tip in 2009 that a 40th Precinct officer, Jose Ramos, was selling drugs in his barbershop. An undercover officer hired as a barber monitored Ramos, who also was accused of shuttling drugs while in his police uniform.

“He sold his shield, he violated his oath,” Assistant District Attorney Omer Wiceyk said.

Ramos was recorded saying he “stopped caring about the law a long time ago,” the prosecutor said.

Ramos pleaded not guilty to drug and other charges. His attorney, John Sandleitner, said the charges were ridiculous.

“The DA’s office basically made a circus of this,” he said.

While officers were listening to Ramos on a wiretap, they caught calls from people seeing if Ramos could fix tickets for them, prosecutors said. The conversations led to more wiretaps that produced evidence of additional officers across the borough having similar conversations, they said.

There are generally three ways the citations are fixed: They are voided by a ranking official, a copy is ripped up before it reaches court or the officer doesn’t appear on the day of the summons.

Kelly said the case exposed departmental weaknesses that were swiftly addressed. The NYPD installed a new computer system that tracks tickets and makes it much more difficult to tamper with the paper trail. Kelly also created a new unit to sit in on traffic court testimony and comb through paperwork to ensure none of the methods is being wrongly employed.

He said the practice was wrong and can’t be glossed over as “courtesies” or as part of an acceptable culture.

“Members of the public don’t accept favoritism,” he said. “They resent it, as well they should.”

Earlier this week, federal prosecutors in Manhattan brought conspiracy and other charges against five current and three former officers, alleging they were part of a gun-running ring. In two other recent unrelated federal cases, one officer was charged with arresting a black man without cause and using a racial slur to describe the suspect and another was charged with using a law enforcement database to try to trump up charges against an innocent man.

Longtime police historian Thomas Reppetto said it’s “not the best time for the department.”

“Does it rise to the level of the great scandals that have occurred in the past? No,” he said. “Ticket fixing is not on the same level as drug dealing.”

Kelly said the cases could undermine morale, “But I look at the work done every day and it’s outstanding.”

The highest-ranking union members charged in the probe were Joseph Anthony, Michael Hernandez and Brian McGuckin.

The other officers were union representatives, and all were stationed in Bronx precincts: Virgilio Bencosme, Luis R. Rodriguez, Jaime Payan, Eugene P. O’Reilly, Christopher Manzi and Jason Cenizal.

Ramos’ supervisor, sergeant Jacob G. Solorzano, also was charged.

The officers pleaded not guilty and were released.

While on the wiretap, investigators also uncovered that three other officers and a sergeant covered up an assault for a friend, prosecutors said. Sergeant Marc Manara and Officers Ruben Peralta, Jeffrey Regan and Christopher Scott, all from the same precinct, were arrested as well. The friend was arrested on the initial assault charge, prosecutors said. The officers pleaded not guilty.

In addition, three others were charged along with Ramos with insurance fraud and other crimes.

The last serious corruption scandal for the NYPD was the so-called Dirty 30 case from the early 1990s. More than 33 officers from Harlem’s 30th Precinct were implicated in the probe, with most pleading guilty to charges including stealing cash from drug dealers, taking bribes, beating suspects and lying under oath to cover their tracks.

merlin10
Submitted using CopBlock.org’s submit tab.

NYPD Officers Surrender in Corruption Probe is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

Seems that the city of St. Louis, like many cities, allows the police to confiscate the cars of people suspected (but not necessarily convicted) of certain crimes. They have a contract with a city towing firm, and said firm was allowing police officers and their families to "rent" confiscated cars free of charge, sometimes for months on end. Officers and their families could also sometimes purchase the confiscated cars at a fraction of the cars’ value.

All of that is pretty outrageous. But it gets better.  The St. Louis Post-Dispatch stumbled onto the story after investigating the daughter of the city’s police chief. She had been involved in a number of accidents with different cars. On several occasions she had wrecked a car, then simply gone down to the towing service to get a 60-80 percent discount on a new one. After one accident, her blood-alcohol concentration tested at .17. She wasn’t arrested or charged. The department says it has "no idea" why she was let go.

The police department hired a law firm, which concluded that the towing arrangement broke no rules or laws. The chief improbably claims he was oblivious to the deals his daughter was getting (her relationship with the towing service apparently goes back to 2002). The Post-Dispatch reports that the chief’s last public statement on the matter was that, "the absolute necessity in maintaining transparency in the eyes of the public."

He has since declined to comment.

(Via TheNewspaper.com)

As it turns out, they were just plain ol’ chocolate chip cookies.

The initial story about the guy’s arrest was circulated all over the world.

Police officers in Blue Mound didn’t think much of the cookies dropped off at their station Monday night – until they got a whiff of them.

Overpowering the chocolate chips was the pungent smell of marijuana.

“It reeked of it,” said Lt. Thomas Cain, a Blue Mound police spokesman. “It wasn’t hard to tell. Anyone that’s been around marijuana before would have known.”

Makes you wonder what to think the next time this guy writes in a police report that his probable cause to conduct a search was the scent of marijuana coming from a car or apartment, doesn’t it?

Also, why is it that these field tests police use turn up so many false positives? If you’ll remember back a bit, Dallas police had similar problems when the informant they were using was planting ground up pool chalk on targets. Cops doing field tests in those cases claim the tests showed the chalk (also known as sheet rock) to be cocaine. Several times.

Last year in California, a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap came back positive for GHB.

Not the Gambinos. NYPD. 

Last year, New York police officers were seen dancing in the streets just before arresting four men in a city nightclub on charges of selling $100 worth of cocaine.  It took six months and the men’s life savings, but their names were finally cleared when prosecutors took the unusual step of announcing in court that the men had committed no crime.

That’s because club surveillance video shows that the undercover cops had no contact with the accused men in the two hours they were in the club.

Now, club owner Eduardo Espinoza says the police are retaliating against him.

Espinoza said he thinks police are retaliating against him because of a strange phone call he received shortly before the harassment began.

A man who identified himself as the officer who made the drug arrest in his club demanded to know if Espinoza had taped the events of that night.

"I said I already gave it to the defendants," Espinoza said, "He said, ‘Oh s–t.’ He hung up."

Espinoza had received just two summonses in the two-and-a-half years he owned the club prior to turning over the videotapes.  He has received more than a dozen since.

"I been harassed so much, I’m selling my business," said Espinoza, owner of Delicias de Mi Tierra on 91st Place in Elmhurst.

"Every two to three weeks, there’s cops in here, searching the bar. If there’s no violation, they’ll make it up. I lost all my clients - everybody’s scared to come in my place right now."

The officers implicated by the surveillance tapes are being investigated, but still on duty.