Gangsters in Blue

You may remember back in March I posted “The Anti Rave Act of 2011“.  It was about California Assemblywoman, Fiona Ma, trying to pass a law banning party’s. Her proposed bill AB-74 was so broad, it would have made it illegal for anyone to have a party that lasted over 3.5 hours with pre-recorded music or music that she did not like. Our original post goes into great detail discrediting every single reason Fiona Ma gave for wanting to control where and how you spend your free time. It’s a great article I would suggest taking a look at if you are concerned with the lies the government is telling you and the war on drugs.

Although her bill was eventually shot down, Assemblywoman Ma, ( the state’s biggest party-pooper ) spent the next several months trying to find a way to restrict what you can and cannot do at a party. Her revised bill outlawing LED gloves, teddy bears or sucking on a pacifier at raves was signed into law on Oct. 9, 2011.

According to Fiona Ma, banning these children’s toys from raves will stop people from using recreational drugs. Do you agree? Should the government have a say in what you can place into your own body?

YouTube Link

The Anti Rave Act 2011, Part 2 is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

Below are links to the stories in episode 40 of the Police Accountability Report:

• TSA agents, cops arrested for drug trafficking
• Shaffer Library on Drug Policy

If you would like to submit a story or record a segment for the Police Accountability Report (on lack of accountability for police in your area) please email podcast[at]copblock[dot]org. We also welcome feedback.

You can also hear the podcast and other great liberty minded programs on LRN.FM. If you have an Apple iPhone or iPad, you can download the free LRN.FM app and have access to the live LRN stream as well as quick and easy access to the podcast archives for all of the shows in the LRN family.

Police Accountability Report – Episode 40 is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

Like many other people, I will never forget what I was doing on the morning of September 11, 2001.  I was returning home after visiting my brother and his new roommate (unbeknownst to me at the time, my future husband) at college.  I listened to the events unfold on the car radio.  The initial reports were chaotic and confusing, and I wanted to get home to see the images for myself.  I got to my apartment just in time to see the first tower fall.  I was in an utter state of shock, completely numb.  This numbness would last for two weeks, and then I finally sat down and cried.

The memories of that day are so vivid that it is hard to believe that 10 years have passed. Personally, I have experienced great joy in the decade since that day.  Shortly after 9/11, I fell in love with an amazing man.  I have had career success, traveled to and worked in one of the most remote places on earth, and I have welcomed two beautiful children into the world.  It has been the best decade of my life, but there are many things that have happened in the last decade that bring me sadness and many times, outrage.

The death toll on that day was staggering.  But the death toll and the steady erosion of individual rights since that day is beyond comprehension.  In the quest for vengeance, there has been more than 25,000 innocent Afghans killed, at least 100,000 innocent Iraqis killed, hundreds of innocent men, women, and children killed by drone attacks in Pakistan, 6,026 U.S. soldiers killed, and millions of people injured or displaced.  In the quest for security, we have been given The Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, torture and the suspension of Habeas Corpus, The Department of Homeland Security, The Transportation Security Administration with their naked scanners and “gate rape”, and the undeniable militarization of the police.

For the last decade the American people have been force fed a big dose of fear and the overwhelming majority has eaten it up.  In the wake of the immense vulnerability most of us felt on 9/11, Americans seemed willing to let the government do anything in the name of security.  Most have turned a blind eye to the death and destruction abroad and welcomed the intrusive nature of the War on Terror at home.  Few have batted an eye at invasive pat downs at the airport or border checkpoints nowhere near the border.  Few have shown concern with the fact that police departments across the country are procuring armored vehicles, military grade assault rifles, grenade launchers and unmanned drones that are far more likely to be used against Americans than terrorists. Few have protested the inevitable and rapid increase in paramilitary raids for nonviolent offenses that has occurred as the police have become more militarized.  Even fewer have called for the one thing that is most likely to bring us both security and prosperity; the pursuit of peace.

If we learned anything from the bloody history of the 20^th century it should be that war will not bring peace; it will only bring more violence and more war.  World War I, the war to end all wars, led to the rise of Hitler and World War II.  World War II led to the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and half a century of a meddling foreign policy that culminated in the events of 9/11.  Even the domestic War on Drugs has led to nothing but more dangerous drugs and more violence, committed by street gangs and gangs wearing badges.  If history really does repeat itself, the War on Terror will not be our salvation, but our downfall.

Individuals in the government have not learned the lessons history has taught.  We should not make the same mistakes.  From time to time, comments on this site, call for reacting to the violence of the police with more violence.  It is easy to see the aggression and the atrocities committed by individuals in the government who purport to protect us both at home and abroad and want to lash out and return violence with violence, but we should be careful not to become what we despise.  Violence is the refuge of thugs and tyrants.  Violence is the tool of religious zealots who fly planes into buildings, murdering 3000 people.  It is the tool of generals who order bombs dropped on civilians.  It is the tool of presidents who order drone attacks on houses full of children.  It is the tool of thugs in blue who cage peaceful people.  Let it not be our tool.

This is not a call for pacifism.  You have every right, perhaps even a moral obligation, to proportionally defend yourself from aggression.  But wholesale aggression against an entire group of people, whether it is a group defined by their borders, their uniforms, or a shiny piece of metal on their chest, in response to the actions of individuals who belong to the same group cannot withstand any moral reasoning. You have every right to seek justice when you have been harmed.  The victims of 9/11 had every right to seek those responsible for the death and destruction of that day and hold them accountable for their actions.  You do not need to be a pacifist to live in peace with your neighbors, any more than the U.S. government needs to be isolationist or pacifist to live in peace with theirs.

On the tenth anniversary of September 11^th, we will no doubt once again face the images of that terrible day.  We will hear the names of the dead and we will be reminded to never forget. We should also take the time to reflect on the images of 10 years of war.  We should reflect on not just the names of those who died in those towers that terrible Tuesday morning, but of the unknown, nameless people who have been killed by our bombs and bullets abroad.  We should take time reflect on how we can be the peace that we seek.  We should take time today and everyday to remember that “There is no way to peace, peace is the way.”

Peace is the Way: Remembering 9/11 and the Decade Since is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

Hello fellow followers of CopBlock!  I’d like to apologize for the delay in communication first and foremost.  Following the chaotic trend in current events, my life has been a tug-of-war in all directions as of late, but I didn’t want my introduction to be a reflection of such.  Besides my disclaimer on my absence, I’d like to overview the topics of special consideration which I will delve into further as I embark on this new journey with fellow readers and compatriots here at CopBlock.

Life is a strange web of internodes and while avoiding the cliché hippy saying “we are all one, man…”, I will attempt my best at drawing up the relevance between the tangential nodes which my posts will surely implicate.  Previously, my profession was briefly in behavioral neuroscience.  My college path started in the political science field however, but it left my idealistic mind slightly jaded in the wake of the Iraq invasion.  My activist side has reemerged as I look upwards again, out of the micro topics of psycho-biology, and into the more macro realms of human interactions.  I have a deep appreciation for writing and the creative process from which I draws inspiration.  I feel similarly to how hip-hop artist Del The Funkee Homosapien lyrically describes music, in his song titled “Madness”, as existing;

“ But music is there without you or me, we just manipulate. For better or worse so let it situate.”

I feel the writing process is akin to this verse in the way that both creative activities draw upon abstractions embedded in the ether, are then channeled through a human medium, then materialized onto substrate as a concrete testament to withstand the test of time.  I hope to grasp a shred of truth from this absurdity called life and to be able to hear the echoes resounding as they ricochet recursively through the halls of your minds.  I think everything is already determined in life, so I just walk the path and just seek to learn the lessons provided by careful introspection and deliberation.  Activism is an art-form in its own right, and although I often find myself frustrated with current events, I more often than not find myself right back into the turbulent mix of being an outspoken member of society.

This stance is one built upon a foundation of love and compassion for humanity, while attempting to keep rational skepticism close at hand.  I’d argue that I’m a revolutionary at heart, but also see the value of “living to fight for another day,” even if it means losing a battle to have the opportunity to win the war.  The spectre I cast is one which radiates through the prism of writing, to be magnified by societies third eye which yearns for illumination.  I merely bring a new relative perspective to the table.  Truth is what you determine for yourself and those whom bring you happiness.  I can only wish that my posts encourage lively constructive discussions to ensue.

In this post, I feel it important to provide a preamble to readers, so that the connections between seemingly distant nodes can more easily emerge to form a cohesive picture.  My first decade of life called the third world “home.”  Upon relocation, poverty was starkly contrasted against my new American home.  Perplexed about being ridiculed for not “sporting” Nike’s like most of my classmates, I had a lot of resentment at the time for my new American life, but, as with most people who are matured by life experiences, quickly realized misguided people exist on all continents of this planet as do true friends who see through appearances.  Through this lens, my posts will often promote the interests of the underdogs of the world.

College placed me at the crossroads between vastly different interstates leading into the murky future beyond the ever sliding present.  I experimented frequently while always keeping the wise words of a past hippy professor in mind,

“Life is a path, you can sometimes go off that path, but always remember there is a path…”

In spirit with what I have learned thus far on my life journey, I will often draw upon lessons learned on the topics of substances and the ethics of regulations concerning such.  I will discuss my observations living inside a prison nation sheltering a quarter of the worlds prisoners and the crusade called the “drug war” along with the war against a military technique called “terrorism.”  I’ll anchor these subjects within the larger umbrella of economic theory and updates on human abuses committed by those elected to protect the populace.

So for all you prototypes “never even considered for mass production” as Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, I welcome you to embark upon this strange journey with me, towards the weird event horizon of human singularity, and beyond, by checking back with me from time to time…

Warm Welcome From ShadowLegion is a post from Cop Block - "Something must be done about vengeance, a badge, and a gun"

One crooked sheriff gets indicted, while another cops a plea. Meanwhile, the border generates another three cases of corruption or thuggery. Let’s get to it:

In Shreveport, Louisiana, the Winn Parish sheriff was indicted August 2 on charges he helped his girlfriend cover up methamphetamine deals. Sheriff A.D. “Bodie” Little is one of 11 people charged with dealing meth in the Winn Parish and Shreveport areas. A state trooper testified that Little came under investigation by a joint state-federal task force after he asked the Caddo Parish sheriff to get a task force together to investigate Winn Parish drug dealers. The trooper testified that “it’s clear he wanted everyone arrested except his girlfriend.” Little has pleaded not guilty and was set to be released on $100,000 bond sometime this week.

In Carlisle, Kentucky, the Nicholas County sheriff pleaded guilty Tuesday to stealing asset forfeiture money. Sheriff Dick Garrett was accused of taking more than $43,000 from the forfeiture account and and using at least $10,000 to pay his homeowners insurance and pay off personal loans. He pleaded guilty to theft by unlawful taking and abuse of public trusts. A jury had recommended five years in prison on each charge. Garrett will have to pay restitution of $38,237.60 within five years and resign immediately as sheriff. He will be sentenced in November.

In Phoenix, two Border Patrol agents were indicted August 4 on charges they forced accused drug smugglers to eat marijuana and flee barefoot and nearly naked into the desert. Agents Dario Castillo, 23, and Ramon Zuniga, 29, were charged with five civil rights violations by a federal grand jury in Tucson stemming from the November 2008 incident. According to prosecutors, the pair caught four men taking part in a marijuana smuggling operation. They forced the men to eat some of the weed and strip down to their underwear, burning their outer clothes and shoes and socks, then told them to flee into the desert night, where the temperature was around 40 degrees. Prosecutors said the actions deprived the four men of their civil rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. The two face 10 years each on the civil rights charges, while Castillo faces up to 20 years for a count of witness tampering.

In Laredo, Texas, a former Laredo police officer was sentenced August 4 to 6 ½ years in prison for helping a drug trafficker move and store cocaine. Pedro Martinez III, 34, agreed to escort loads of cocaine in exchange for payment from undercover FBI and BATF agents he thought were smugglers and recruited fellow officer Orlando Hale to help out. He escorted three loads and Hale escorted two, with the pair receiving $1,000 for each load. The undercover agents also persuaded Martinez to lead them to a cocaine supplier, who has already pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges and awaits sentencing. Martinez testified against Hale when Hale took his case to trial last year. Hale lost and got 24 ½ years. Martinez pleaded to bribery charges.

In Laredo, Texas, a Webb County deputy constable was arrested Monday by FBI agents on charges he acted as an escort for a cocaine trafficker. Eduardo Garcia, 44, was indicted for escorting loads of cocaine through Laredo for a local trafficker for $500 a pop. Unfortunately for Garcia, the trafficker became a DEA informant and flipped on him, allowing the DEA to record meetings where they would discuss load arrangements. Garcia, wearing his badge and driving a law enforcement van, would escort the loads through the city. The snitch also asked Garcia to run a pair of license plates through a state law enforcement data base, which he did. He’s looking at up to 20 years in prison on three bribery charges and five more on one count of unauthorized access to protected computer information.

This Week’s Corrupt Cops Stories is a post from Cop Block - "Something must be done about vengeance, a badge, and a gun"

Cops cutting corners to make arrests, a cop caught providing protection for a load of cocaine, and a police force fired for its misbehavior make this week’s rogues’ gallery. Let’s get to it:

In Houston, a Houston police sergeant was arrested July 27 on charges he took a bribe to provide protection for a vehicle carrying several kilograms of cocaine. Sgt. Leslie Atkins, 46, faces federal charges of aiding and abetting the possession with the intent to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine and with accepting a $2,000 bribe to provide protection for a vehicle transporting seven kilograms of cocaine. He was arrested after a June 22 indictment was unsealed. The 19-year veteran has been suspended without pay. He faces a mandatory minimum 10-year sentence on the cocaine charge and could get life, and he faces up to 20 years for the bribery count. He is out on $50,000 bail.

In Oak Hill, Florida, the city council voted Monday to dissolve the police force over a number of issues, including the case of marijuana plants found on the property of 86-year-old Mayor Mary Lee Cook. Cook said publicly she believes the plants were placed there by someone within the department. Police Chief Diane Young and her six sworn officers were asked to turn in their guns and badges, and Volusia County is temporarily taking up some of the law enforcement slack until the city enters into a formal contract for services with the county.

In Tulsa, Oklahoma, a Tulsa man has sued the city and a Tulsa police officer alleging that he falsified a search warrant that led to his conviction and life sentence in prison. DeMarco Williams, 36, filed the lawsuit July 28 in federal court in Tulsa and becomes the fifth person to sue the city and current or former police officers accused of falsifying search warrants and other corrupt practices in a festering scandal that keeps on giving. Williams accuses indicted Officer John Henderson of falsifying the search warrant and thus depriving him of his civil rights. He also accuses the city of Tulsa of negligence for failing to keep its cops in line. Henderson and fellow Officer Bill Yelton were indicted a year ago on a slew of criminal counts and went on trial Monday. Henderson is charged with 58 counts: 22 related to perjury, 20 related to civil rights violations, 12 related to drugs, two witness tampering counts, one firearms count and one attempted bribery count. Some duplicate charges are expected to be reduced during the trial. Yelton is charged with eight counts: four related to civil rights violations, two related to witness tampering, one related to suborning perjury and one count of attempted retaliation against a witness, which was added in September 2010. Yelton is not involved in Williams’ case. Williams spent six years in jail and prison after being charged and convicted. He was released last year as the Tulsa corruption scandal broke wide open.

In New Orleans, a New Orleans police officer resigned last Friday as he was being investigated for allegedly lying about a January drug arrest in the Algiers section of the city. Officer Samuel Birks, a four-year NOPD veteran, was charged in state court late last month with filing false public records and malfeasance in office. Birks and his patrol partner, Joshua Hunt, are accused of falsely arresting Alvin Bean, planting a rock of cocaine on him, and lying about the incident. Hunt resigned in June. The charges against Bean were dropped after his defense attorney was able to convince prosecutors that the officers’ stories didn’t add up. The district attorney’s office then dropped the charges against Bean and filed them against Birks and Hunt. They have both pleaded not guilty.

This Week’s Corrupt Cops Stories is a post from Cop Block - "Something must be done about vengeance, a badge, and a gun"

Ziggy Marley recently did an interview with US Magazine with the release of his fourth solo album on the horizon. They talked about the new album, his family, the 30th anniversary of his fathers death, and of course his views on marijuana. Here is an excerpt of the interview:

US: Marijuana is also a topic on the album and your new comic book, Marijuana Man. Why do you think it should be legalized in America?

ZM: Alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical drugs are legal but they can hurt a lot of people. People get high from cough syrup that they can easily purchase at the pharmacy. Marijuana has a lot of benefits that we should utilize. People shouldn’t go to jail for smoking marijuana in the privacy of their homes or be criminalized or demonized by that. I don’t think it is as detrimental as alcohol in terms of the effects it has on society and people’s lives. Anything can be abused and overdosed so you have to be responsible. Plus, the industrial aspect of marijuana has had a bigger impact on society than even the recreation or medicinal uses. If people can utilize a natural resource properly, the impact it would have on the environment and the economy would be great. The argument against marijuana is confusing and hypocritical and stupid. It is a natural resource that we should use.

Ziggy nails it on the head, it’s absolutely disgusting that people think they can rule over your own body, that they know what’s best for you. People got upset over the NYPD confiscating 2.5 tons of illegal fireworks and blowing them up, claiming freedom this and that. But a plant? No, no, no, confiscate that shit, we can’t have people making their own decision there, that’s dangerous. Ziggy also spoke about his comic book

US: Why did you launch the comic book?
ZM: It was a creative outlet for me since I had a lot of ideas my head. I grew up in the comic book world and I used to read comics all the time. It was just a way for me to express the ideas I have about hemp. I have also always wanted to have a superhero. The superhero in my book is just like a kin to Superman and the Green Lantern guys, a superhero for the next generation.

Enforcement of the Drug War in the United States has resulted in 32 deaths so far in 2011, the latest being Nelson Reeves, a 17 year old in the Bronx who was shot by a NYPD narcotics officer when a drug deal went awry. Whenever you outlaw something, the demand does not go away and the supply, manufacture and selling goes underground to the black market, which attracts many shady people.

Some people are block-headed enough to think that drugs need to be illegal because of all the violence associated with people who use or sell them. They aren’t with it enough to realize it’s the illegality that leads to all the violence. Before alcohol prohibition you never had gangs running around and killing each other over alcohol, and you don’t have it now that it’s legal. Without alcohol prohibition you never would have had Al Capone and events like the St. Valentines Day Massacre.

Alcohol prohibition brought us bathtub gin, gin made by amateurs in their bathtubs and contaminated with god knows what. Just the same, drug prohibition has brought us amateurs cooking meth in their kitchens and lacing other drugs with deadly chemicals whether on purpose or by accident, leading to medical related deaths. Deaths that most likely would not happen if all drugs were legal and able to be made in controlled environments by professionals.

Drug prohibition, just like alcohol prohibition, leads to a number of cops becoming corrupt. Drug dealers are always looking for ways to get their products past law enforcement in order to meet their customers demand, so they buy off easily corruptible cops to look the other way as they move their merchandise. The more the government cracks down, the more expensive the drugs become and the more they have to pay the cops to allow them to continue business. The police are even sometimes just as bad as the drug dealing gang members they vow to fight, as one teenager in Pakistan just found out when he reported on some local cops dealing drugs.

The insane Drug War has caused a lot of damage to cops reputations across the United States and around the world as well. With so much money to be made due to the black market aspect, some cops will become drug dealers themselves, often selling drugs confiscated during raids of other dealers homes. Three Philadelphia police officers were arrested for this very thing last summer. And two years ago a undercover cop in North Carolina was caught selling drugs to another undercover cop. I could go on and on, or you could look it up for yourself. I googled  ”Cops Dealing Drugs” and received over 62 million results.

There is more to the rise in crime than just selling drugs. As the prices continue to rise with every crackdown, a drug users habit becomes more and more expensive and they get more desperate. They begin robbing places like convenience stores and banks and break into homes, and some even kill during the robberies. And nothing highlights the governments failure in the War on Drugs better than their inability to keep drugs out of their own prison. Prison guards are arrested constantly for smuggling drugs into prison, and why not, it pays well and they have a family to feed during a recession.

And then there is the jails where they keep all these drug offenders. In what is always labeled as the Land of the Free, prisons are constantly overcrowded as some holler for more prisons to be built to house all these lawbreakers. The “Land of the Free”(sic) over 2.5 million people were in jail as of 2006, the number of people in prison in the entire world at that time was estimated at 9.25 million. If you do the math it comes out to 27% of the worlds prison population(The US has less than 5% of the worlds total population), many of them peaceful people who chose to put something into their body the government decided to say they couldn’t.

To better put those numbers into perspective, nations generally regarded as being totalitarian and oppressive like Russia and China have far less people in prison. Russia’s prison population was just under 870,000 in October of 2006, down from over 1 million in 2002. China’s prison population was estimated at 2 million in 2005. But as you can see in the map below, China only had between 100-150 people per 100,000 in prison in 2008. Russia has nearly 600 per 100,000 people. The “Land of the Free” is the only country with over 700 people per 100,000 in prison.

You might think that we just have a lot of violent people who are doing terrible things, except that of the over 2.5 million people in US prisons, nearly half of them are drug users. According to Drug Sense, over 967,000 people have been arrested in the United States so far in 2011 for Drug War offenses. That number is expected to exceed the 1,663, 582 arrests in 2009.  And that budget crisis everyone is worried about, well the Feds spent $15 billion last year on the Drug War alone, or $500 a second. So far they have spent $8.75 billion this year. The prison population in this country has grown by more than 43,000 prisoners a year on average since December 31,1995. Twenty-five percent of that are people who violated some form of drug law. The number of people in state prisons for drug offenses has increased 550 percent over the last 20 years. (A Salon article last year put the number in federal prison at half the total population

If you support the drug war, you are supporting gangs, corrupt police, robbery, murder and overcrowded prisons. So don’t blame us when we judge you for it.

Supporting the drug war means supporting innocent deaths at the hands of police, who sometimes get the wrong addresses. Some of those stories have been covered here at Cop Block (see here, here, and here)

There are many brutal consequences to this War on Drugs and it’s time to end this abject failure. Some state governments are beginning to realize this, my state of Indiana being the latest.

Ziggy Marley is the man for speaking out and for that we should all support this man

Ziggy Marley: Why Marijuana Should Be Legal is a post from Cop Block - "Something must be done about vengeance, a badge, and a gun"

A sheriff whose alleged theft from the evidence room might be excused, a prison guard who also heads a violent biker gang, another prison guard with dope and an eye for the ladies, a pill peddling suburban cop, and a bribe-taking small town cop all make the rogues’ gallery this week. Let’s get to it:

In Ashford, Georgia, the Turner County sheriff is under a criminal investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation over allegations he removed a large amount of marijuana from his department evidence room and gave it to a friend who is a cancer patient. Sheriff Roy Wiley has been keeping a low profile since the investigation began July 8. Wiley allegedly instructed one of his officers to take the pot so he could give it to the friend with cancer. The GBI won’t confirm that, but they did acknowledge they are investigating Wiley.

In Louisville, Kentucky, a state prison guard was arrested was arrested July 12 on federal murder and racketeering charges, and he allegedly heads the Louisville chapter of a violent, drug-funded motorcycle gang, too. Carlos Wesley “Pit Bull” Rose, 48, was arrested on evidence that he conspired in gang activities and acquired materials for a pipe bomb to kill members of a rival motorcycle club in Chicago. His arrest was one of 18 arrests of Wheels of Soul members in a two-year investigation charging them with various acts of violence, robbery, drug trafficking and extortion in four cities across the Midwest. The Wheels are a biker gang operating in at least 20 states. Rose worked as a guard at the Kentucky State Reformatory in La Grange beginning in 2006.

In Hempstead, New York, a Hempstead police officer was arrested July 20 on charges he was peddling pain pills. Brian Jones, 38, a nine-year veteran of the force, allegedly sold oxycodone and oxymorphone tablets to a confidential informant on two separate occasions in May, and had more than a half-ounce of oxycodone tablets in his vehicle when he was arrested. He is charged with second degree criminal sale of a controlled substance, four counts of third degree criminal sale of a controlled substance, fifth degree criminal sale of a controlled substance and third degree criminal possession of a controlled substance. He has been suspended without pay and faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

In Frankfort, Kentucky, a guard at a women’s prison was arrested last Friday on dozens of charges he sexually abused prisoners and supplied drugs to them. Sgt. James Johnson, serving at the Kentucky Correctional Institute for Women in Peewee Valley, went down after a brief investigation occasioned by a complaint filed against him. He was arrested at the Frankfort state police quarters, and faces 25 counts of second-degree sexual abuse, 50 counts of official misconduct, one count of second-degree trafficking in a controlled substance and one count of first-degree promoting contraband. At last report, he was being held at the Shelby County Detention Center Friday night.

In St. Louis, a former Bridgeton police officer was sentenced July 21 to two years in prison for taking a $5,000 bribe and obstructing a federal law enforcement investigation. Scott Haenel went down in an FBI sting in which he agreed to cooperate in a money laundering scheme involving drug money, and was paid for his help. That money came from the FBI. He also used his official position to tell his co-conspirators that DEA agents and local police were going to search his residence and tell them to get the cash out of there before the officers arrived. He pleaded guilty in April to one felony count each of accepting a bribe and obstruction of justice.

This Week’s Corrupt Cops Stories is a post from Cop Block - "Something must be done about vengeance, a badge, and a gun"

In 2001, a group of police officers broke into Cory Maye’s home in the middle of the night looking for drugs. Instead of announcing their presence and giving Maye time to answer the door, the police forcibly entered their way into Maye’s home. Maye, thinking he was being robbed, grabbed his gun and shot Officer Ron Jones, killing him. Maye was arrested that night and charged with capital murder.

Though Maye’s shooting of Officer Jones was done in self-defense and the police had raided his house on a questionable search warrant, a jury convicted Maye and he was sentenced to die.

After spending a decade in prison, Maye was finally allowed to plea to a lesser charge earlier this year and released from prison.

Russia Today put together this great video about Maye’s case:

And this interview with Ben Vernia, one of Maye’s attorneys:

For more on Cory Maye, check out Radley Balko’s coverage at The Agitator. Balko has been the most important journalist writing about Maye’s case.

Cory Maye finally free after a decade in prison is a post from Cop Block - "Something must be done about vengeance, a badge, and a gun"

This past week, Seymour Police Officer John Newcomb was charged with DUI by State Police after hitting a parked car with his truck. In an amusing twist of irony, Newcomb was hauling a trailer for DARE, the government’s ineffective anti-drug and alcohol abuse program. Newcomb was off-duty at the time and was reportedly borrowing the trailer to move.

According to the Seymour Police Department’s website, Newcomb is a School Resource Officer responsible for seven schools. The site specifically mentions that he “conducts lectures with the students on police related issues such as narcotics and alcohol and their effects on driving.”

Newcomb was given a paid vacation by his department pending a hearing scheduled for August 11.

Indiana cop charged with DUI while hauling DARE trailer is a post from Cop Block - "Something must be done about vengeance, a badge, and a gun"