Last weekend, Lena Reppert, a wheelchair-bound, 95-year old woman suffering from a terminal case of leukemia arrived at the Northwest Florida Regional Airport to board a flight to Michigan where she planned to spend time with her family before she passes away. When she arrived at the TSA checkpoint in the airport, TSA agents brought her to a glass partition where they subjected her to one of their infamous pat-down searches. After completing the pat-down, the TSA agents still weren’t convinced that the elderly woman wasn’t a terrorist, so they brought her to a private room to subject her to a more invasive search. During the search, the TSA agents ordered her to remove an adult diaper she was wearing, claiming that it was impeding their ability to search her. The search took approximately 45 minutes.
The woman’s daughter, Jean Weber, filed a complaint with the TSA about the incident and was allegedly told that the TSA agents followed the proper procedures for conducting a search.
According to Sari Koshetz, a TSA spokeswoman, “TSA cannot exempt any group from screening because we know from intelligence that there are terrorists out there that would then exploit that vulnerability.”
A Broward County, Florida, sheriff's deputy spotted Robin Brown when she was bird watching one day. He thought that the sage she had with her was marijuana, and a field test seemed to confirm that. He didn't arrest her then, but confiscated the sage and sent it to the crime...
Want to guess how much compensation she might be able to get from police and state prosecutors to make up for the harassment, arrest, abduction, sexual assault, torture, and confinement that they inflicted on her, a completely innocent bird-watcher, based on nothing more than belligerent ignorance, a fraudulent "field kit," and pure, callous negligence?
Ha, ha, it's a trick question. Even if she does win her lawsuit (which will be hard; the system overwhelmingly favors immunity for government violence), the police and prosecutors will never pay anything for the damages she's awarded. Government police and state prosecutors never pay for what they do to innocent people; you pay for their crimes instead, when they send the tax bill on to you.
6/15/11 6 more activist arrested in Orlando for Sharing food with the hungry. 2 young children are being served as close to 20 police officers swarm in and arrest the food servers. This brings to total number of arrest for this horrendous crime up to 21 people within a two week time period!
The first thirty years of the Food Not Bombs movement.
Food Not Bombs is one of the fastest growing revolutionary movements and is gaining momentum throughout the world. There are hundreds of autonomous chapters sharing free vegetarian food with hungry people and protesting war and poverty. Food Not Bombs is not a charity. This energetic grassroots movement is active throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia. Food Not Bombs is organizing for peace and an end to the occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. For nearly 30 years the movement has worked to end hunger and has supported actions to stop the globalization of the economy, restrictions to the movements of people, end exploitation and the destruction of the earth.
The first group was formed in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1980 by anti-nuclear activists. Food Not Bombs is an all-volunteer organization dedicated to nonviolent social change. Food Not Bombs has no formal leaders and strives to include everyone in its decision making process. Each group recovers food that would otherwise be thrown out and makes fresh hot vegan and vegetarian meals that are served in outside in public spaces to anyone without restriction. Many Food Not Bombs groups also share groceries and organize other efforts to support their communities. Each independent group also serves free meals at protests and other events. The San Francisco chapter has been arrested over 1,000 times in government’s effort to silence its protest against the city’s anti- homeless policies. Amnesty International states it will adopt those Food Not Bombs volunteers that are convicted as “Prisoners of Conscience” and will work for their unconditional release. Volunteers are currently being arrested in Orlando, Florida and Minsk, Belaruse. Even though we are dedicated to nonviolence Food Not Bombs activists in the United States have been under investigation by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, Pentagon and other intelligence agencies. A number of Food Not Bombs volunteers have been arrested on terrorism charges.
Food Not Bombs is often the first to provide food and supplies to the survivors of disasters. During the first three days after the 1989 Earthquake, Food Not Bombs was the only organization in San Francisco providing hot meals to the survivors. Food Not Bombs was also the first to provide hot meals to the rescue workers responding to September 11th World Trade Center attacks. Food Not Bombs volunteers were among the first to provide food and help to the survivors of the Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Our volunteers organized a national collection program and delivered bus and truckloads of food and supplies to the gulf region. We were one of the only organizations sharing daily meals in New Orleans after Katrina. Food Not Bombs is now preparing for the economic crash organizing Food Not Lawns community gardens, housing the homeless with Homes Not Jails, organizing additional meals each week and starting new Food Not Bombs chapters.
Food Not Bombs works in coalition with groups like Earth First!, The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, Anarchist Black Cross, the IWW, Homes Not Jails, Anti Racist Action, Farm Animal Rights Movement, In Defense of Animals, the Free Radio Movement and other organizations on the cutting edge of positive social change and resistance to the new global austerity program. Food Not Bombs provided the meals for the protesters at Camp Casey outside Bush’s ranch in Texas and was the frist to provide food to the survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Volunteers also helped organize and shared meals at the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle and provide logistical support for many other anti-globalization actions. Kiev Food Not Bombs fed the tent city protest during the Orange Revolution and groups in Slovokia started animal rescue shelters in 24 cities. We are also sharing meals at protests responding to the global economic crisis.
As the global economy was starting to fail the city of Orlando passed a law restricting the sharing of meals with the hungry. The Orlando Police arrested Food Not Bombs volunteer Eric Montanez on April 4, 2007. Many other America cities were also introducing laws to discourage the feeding of the hungery and Food Not Bombs volunteers were arrested in Nevada, Connecticut and several other states. Eric was found innocent and Food Not Bombs challenged the law in Federal Court. After winning at the district level the Eleventh Circut Court of Appeals rule that Orlando could restrict Food Not Bombs to twice a year per park. The city started arresting the volunteers for sharing meals at Lake Eola Park on June 1, 2011. The arrests continue. Volunteers in Minks, Belaruse are also being arrested for sharing food with the hungry. Their capaign also continues.
Many groups organize Really Really Free Markets giving away all kinds of items for free, planting Food Not Lawns community gardens and housing people with the Homes Not Jails project. Many chapters also organize Bikes Not Bombs programs collecting and repairing used bicycles to provide to people in low-income communities. We also provided meals to protesters at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in the United States. We will provide meals to the families of striking workers and help organize actions encouraging alternatives to the failure of capitalism.
Food Not Bombs activists are currently making plans to celebrate our 30th year of cooking for peace. Along with organizing the celebration each local chapter collects and distributes food every week and there are several other projects that support the Food Not Bombs movement. One collective called “A Food Not Bombs Menu.” helps people find or start local chapters. They also maintain the website www.foodnotbombs.net, organize tours and support Food Not Bombs gatherings. They also provide books, t-shirts and other materials to promote the principles of Food Not Bombs. We hope you will join us in taking direct action towards creating a world free from domination, coercion and violence. Food is a right, not a privilege.
Please visit these pages to find out how you can help us work for peace and justice.
Jeff, who lives in Florida, noticed a police command bus filling up at a local gas station and decided to take some video of this monstrous machine. He later contacted CopBlock.org and had this to say about the video he took:
While trying to get some video of a Florida Highway Patrol mobile command vehicle I was confronted by two Florida State Highway troopers. The Troopers told me that I could not film their top secrete vehicle even though you can view pictures this same vehicle at the FHP website. When I mentioned that this was a first amendment issue, Trooper (badge #2154) told me “it doesn’t matter”. When I pointed out that he could not “SNATCH” my camera without a warrant #2154 again said “it doesn’t matter”. So the first and fourth amendments don’t matter to Trooper #2154! Luckily an FHP Sargent pulled into the gas station and after a brief explanation the Sargent straightened things out for me.
Yes, Jeff was lucky that one Florida Trooper knew that filming police in public space is NOT a crime. Yet, the video highlights (again) the attitude of police when being filmed. The trooper may have used the excuse that he didn’t want the command center photographed but in reality he was only worried about himself being recorded. As most cops do because they know people are watching and not happy with the service provided by such folks.
In Sweetwater, Florida, a police officer grabbed a handcuffed detainee by the throat, threw him to the ground, dragged him across the floor with the help of a fellow officer, then lied about his reason for attacking the man in his arrest report.
But don’t worry, the police assure us that nothing he did was illegal.
The video speaks for itself. You can view the full video here and the news story here. Sorry, they did not give me an embed code for the video so I can’t post it to our site. But the attack is brutal enough it’s worth everyone seeing.
ORLANDO, Fla. — A veteran Orlando police officer is under investigation after Local 6 News started asking questions about surveillance video that shows the officer using an “arm bar” technique on a 100-pound woman whose teeth were broken after she landed face-first on the ground.
The video, captured by a city camera and obtained by investigative reporter Mike Holfeld, shows Officer Livio Beccaccio taking 20-year-old Lisa Wareham by the left arm before she hits the pavement.
The incident happened Feb. 25 around 1:45 a.m. in the 100 block of East Central Boulevard across from the Orlando Library and was caught on video by an Innovative Response to Improve Safety (I.R.I.S.) camera mounted at Magnolia Avenue and Central Boulevard.
The incident broke Wareham’s front teeth.”It happened so fast. I was so scared. There is no way to describe it,” she said.Wareham, a single mother who was out with her friends at the time of the incident, said she could not believe what happened.”I went to sit up and I felt something in my mouth. I spit (my teeth) out. I didn’t even know what to think,” she said.
I have written before about fired cops having little trouble finding new jobs as police officers. Sometimes they are hired by other departments, other times the same police department is forced to rehire the officer due to the decision of an arbitrator or by a judge. Either way, fired then rehired cops often continue to be the thugs they were before being fired.
Boynton Beach Florida Police Officer, David L. Coffey, was arrested and charged with improper exhibition of a dangerous weapon or firearm and culpable negligence after he sneaked up behind a fellow officer and activated his taser just inches from her ear to get back at her for honking her horn at him in the parking garage. His victim, Officer Rachel Loy, is now being treated for hearing loss because of the incident.
This was not Officer Coffey’s first misuse of a taser. He was fired in 2007 for attacking a suspected drunk driver in a holding cell and then tasering him four times while the man was in handcuffs. Not only was Coffey not charged with assault in that case, but because an arbitrator decided he should be rehired, Boynton Beach was forced to give him his job back in 2008. Bureaucrat-on-serf violence was not enough to cost him his badge, but maybe bureaucrat-on-bureaucrat violence will be. He is now on paid vacation pending an internal investigation into this latest incident.
Lindal Hairston of the Gary Indiana Police Department fought for several years to get his job back after being fired in 2003 for an off-duty altercation in which he threatened a teenager with a gun. The city settled the lawsuit Hairston filed against them a year ago, by not only rehiring him, but PROMOTING him to Sargent. This promotion was awarded to him despite the fact that he never had to take the tests or go through the other processes usually required for such a promotion. Now Hairston is accused of losing his cool once again, this time while on duty.
Russell Thomas, 50, who owns Prestige night club on Broadway, claims Hairston struck him in the head after handcuffing him, then swore at him and threatened him as he took him to the police station. A verified complaint submitted to the Gary Police Civil Service Commission charges Hairston with violating seven commission rules, one city ordinance and one state law. Charges include willful mistreatment, making a false report, mishandling evidence, neglect of duty and failure to comply with a proper order from a superior officer.The commission accepted the complaint at its meeting Thursday and will assign a hearing officer to preside over the disciplinary matter and make a recommendation on what action the board should take.
Before being hire as a deputy for the Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Office in New Mexico, Algin Mendez, was fired from the New Mexico State Police Department in 2010 for refusing to take a report from a victim of domestic violence. Now Mendez is once again in trouble, this time for his off-duty conduct. Mendez has been wreaking havoc at the Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino in Pojoaque, New Mexico. According to KRQE 13, Mendez “has started at least one fight, intimidated citizens and security guards and exhibited drunk and disorderly behavior”, much of which has been caught on surveillance video.
Of course the arbitrators or the judges that force police departments to rehire bad cops have no personal liability if and when these officers hurt someone once they are back on the job. Even the Police Chiefs or Sheriffs who decide to hire officers that were fired from another department have little to lose. Sure their departments may have to pay out a lawsuit to that officer’s next victim, but when they use funds taken from the public, there is little incentive for them to be more discriminating in their hiring practices. As long as as we have monopoly police services, we can expect more of the same.
I have written before about fired cops having little trouble finding new jobs as police officers. Sometimes they are hired by other departments, other times the same police department is forced to rehire the officer due to the decision of an arbitrator or by a judge. Either way, fired then rehired cops often continue to be the thugs they were before being fired.
Boynton Beach Florida Police Officer, David L. Coffey, was arrested and charged with improper exhibition of a dangerous weapon or firearm and culpable negligence after he sneaked up behind a fellow officer and activated his taser just inches from her ear to get back at her for honking her horn at him in the parking garage. His victim, Officer Rachel Loy, is now being treated for hearing loss because of the incident.
This was not Officer Coffey’s first misuse of a taser. He was fired in 2007 for attacking a suspected drunk driver in a holding cell and then tasering him four times while the man was in handcuffs. Not only was Coffey not charged with assault in that case, but because an arbitrator decided he should be rehired, Boynton Beach was forced to give him his job back in 2008. Bureaucrat-on-serf violence was not enough to cost him his badge, but maybe bureaucrat-on-bureaucrat violence will be. He is now on paid vacation pending an internal investigation into this latest incident.
Lindal Hairston of the Gary Indiana Police Department fought for several years to get his job back after being fired in 2003 for an off-duty altercation in which he threatened a teenager with a gun. The city settled the lawsuit Hairston filed against them a year ago, by not only rehiring him, but PROMOTING him to Sargent. This promotion was awarded to him despite the fact that he never had to take the tests or go through the other processes usually required for such a promotion. Now Hairston is accused of losing his cool once again, this time while on duty.
Russell Thomas, 50, who owns Prestige night club on Broadway, claims Hairston struck him in the head after handcuffing him, then swore at him and threatened him as he took him to the police station. A verified complaint submitted to the Gary Police Civil Service Commission charges Hairston with violating seven commission rules, one city ordinance and one state law. Charges include willful mistreatment, making a false report, mishandling evidence, neglect of duty and failure to comply with a proper order from a superior officer.The commission accepted the complaint at its meeting Thursday and will assign a hearing officer to preside over the disciplinary matter and make a recommendation on what action the board should take.
Before being hire as a deputy for the Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Office in New Mexico, Algin Mendez, was fired from the New Mexico State Police Department in 2010 for refusing to take a report from a victim of domestic violence. Now Mendez is once again in trouble, this time for his off-duty conduct. Mendez has been wreaking havoc at the Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino in Pojoaque, New Mexico. According to KRQE 13, Mendez “has started at least one fight, intimidated citizens and security guards and exhibited drunk and disorderly behavior”, much of which has been caught on surveillance video.
Of course the arbitrators or the judges that force police departments to rehire bad cops have no personal liability if and when these officers hurt someone once they are back on the job. Even the Police Chiefs or Sheriffs who decide to hire officers that were fired from another department have little to lose. Sure their departments may have to pay out a lawsuit to that officer’s next victim, but when they use funds taken from the public, there is little incentive for them to be more discriminating in their hiring practices. As long as as we have monopoly police services, we can expect more of the same.
This video discusses Taser International’s latest weapon, the Taser Extended Range Electronic Projectile (XREP). Like traditional Taser devices, the XREP is an electroshock weapon, however, it is fired from a shotgun as though it were ammunition and can hit targets up to 100 feet away.
You can read more about XREP rounds from the manufacturer here, but they’re currently only being marketed to law enforcement.
Cops ripping off drug dealers, cops offering information to drug defendants, sheriffs escorting cartel dope loads, and, oh, yes, prison guards gone bad. Here’s this week’s rogues’ gallery:
Prohibition's filthy lucre is hard for some to resist
In New York City, a former NYPD officer pleaded guilty Monday to ripping off at least 100 drug dealers with a gang that scored a million dollars in cash and more than 500 pounds of cocaine during its decade-long spree. Emmanuel Tavarez, 31, an eight-year veteran of the force, used his badge, service weapon, and stolen NYPD raid jackets to stage fake searches of drug dealers and seizure of their stashes along with his co-conspirators. Tavarez went down after a lengthy investigation into the robberies. He now faces up to life in prison after pleading guilty to robbery conspiracy, conspiracy to distribute heroin and cocaine, and using a firearm in the commission of a crime. A dozen of his co-conspirators have charges pending, including four of his in-laws.
In McAllen, Texas, the former Sullivan City police chief was sentenced April 20 to 10 years in federal prison for his role in protecting Mexican drug traffickers moving two tons of pot through his town. Hernan Guerra, 45, had been arrested at his office last June by FBI agents after they wiretapped his office as part of Operation Deliverance, a massive, nationwide, 430-person bust targeting the cartels. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute drugs. He faced a minimum of seven years and four months in prison, but his sentencing judge gave him some bonus time for being a crooked cop. He’s also got four years of probation to do.
In Tallahassee, Florida, a Florida prison guard was arrested April 20 on charges he was scheming to sell drugs to prisoners. Guard Janus Isaiah Edwards went down after an inmate snitched him out and corrections and Leon County Sheriff’s investigators set him up with undercover officers. Edwards agreed to smuggle in 100 hydrocodone tablets and 11 grams of cocaine in return for $1,000. He is now charged with introduction of drugs to a prison, unlawful compensation, trafficking in hydrocodone, possession of cocaine, and possession with intent to deliver.
In Lebanon, Tennessee, a Wilson County sheriff’s deputy was arrested April 20 for trying to sell information about a federal drug investigation to a target of that investigation in return for $100,000 and a Range Rover. Deputy John Patrick Edwards, 38, had been a member of the FBI’s regional drug task force, but lost that gig after being arrested in March on an unrelated theft charge involving his wife and another woman. He was also suspended without pay, leaving him in need of some quick cash. Edwards approached a business partner who knew someone who was a target of the investigation and offered to sell information that could help the target “lessen the blow” and end up with less prison time. But now, Edwards looks to be the one doing prison time; he’s looking at 20 years in prison for attempting to obstruct, influence, and impede an official proceeding.
Last weekend, Lena Reppert, a wheelchair-bound, 95-year old woman suffering from a terminal case of leukemia arrived at the Northwest Florida Regional Airport to board a flight to Michigan where she planned to spend time with her family before she passes away. When she arrived at the TSA checkpoint in the airport, TSA agents brought her to a glass partition where they subjected her to one of their infamous pat-down searches. After completing the pat-down, the TSA agents still weren’t convinced that the elderly woman wasn’t a terrorist, so they brought her to a private room to subject her to a more invasive search. During the search, the TSA agents ordered her to remove an adult diaper she was wearing, claiming that it was impeding their ability to search her. The search took approximately 45 minutes.
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