UK police misuse pre-charge bail to ban activists from protesting – report
RT | December 25, 2014
UK police forces are misusing pre-charge bail by banning hundreds of protestors from attending lawful demonstrations, The Guardian newspaper has revealed. Of all bailed protesters, eighty-five percent are never charged with any crime.
Since 2008 police have arrested at least 855 people in England and Wales and then released them on pre-charge bail, setting a date to return to the police station. Until their return, those bailed are prohibited from attending any demonstration. However, 85 percent, or about 732 people, have never been charged, according to data the Guardian collected using the Freedom of Information Act.
Of the 500 arrests by the Metropolitan Police since 2008, only 15 people have been charged. In the same way the City of London, Essex and Sussex police banned 120 people. On average only one in seven has been charged.
Citing “additional research”, The Guardian assumed the actual number of bans imposed could be far greater as some of the bail conditions given by custody sergeants were not picked up by the scope of the newspaper’s information requests.
In the UK, no court permission is required for a custody sergeant to hand out a protest ban. Should a protester violate this restriction, an arrest for breach of bail could follow. However, people on pre-charge bail can appeal to a magistrate.
“Bail is becoming an instrument that is being used by people without recourse to the judicial process. It is essentially to punish protesters and curb their right to demonstrate,” Rachel Harger of leading human rights law firm Bindmans told the newspaper. “It is effectively the police conducting their own extra-judicial justice without going to court.”
In the meantime, police managed to prove that in 123 cases they had enough evidence to start proceedings against the suspects.
However, civil liberties and protest groups insist that using bail is just a way of “disrupting protest activity without the inconvenience of dealing with a formal legal process.”
“As a result of the police’s long track record of misusing pre-charge conditions against protesters in an irresponsible way, we believe the only solution is the complete withdrawal of this power for all protest-related offences,” The Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol), a group which seeks to monitor public order, protest and street policing, said.
According to the policy officer of civil liberties group Liberty, Rachel Robinson, “the lack of limits on police bail make it liable to abuse and misuse, and can act to frustrate, rather than further, prosecutions.”
“Its use against protesters raises particular concerns, potentially chilling peaceful dissent for protracted periods without any prospect of criminal conviction,” she added.
The Guardian has also cited an example of Kelly Rogers who was one of those affected by the ban. She said West Midlands Police issued her a “blanket ban on all protests.” However no criminal charges were ever pressed against her.
“Ultimately, their only aim could have been to stop us protesting again, even though it is our right to do so,” she said.
UK Justice Minister Mike Penning said there will be consultation on pre-charge bail reform.
“The Home Secretary has been clear that it is wrong for people to spend months, or even years, on police bail with no judicial oversight or accountability,“ he said.
He added that in parallel, the College of Policing “is developing evidence-based guidance to bring consistency, transparency and rigor to the way in which pre-charge bail is used in criminal investigations.”
Israel charges 8 Palestinians over Facebook posts
Ma’an – 23/12/2014
JERUSALEM (AFP) — Eight Palestinians from annexed East Jerusalem were indicted on Monday for inciting anti-Jewish violence and supporting “terror” in postings on Facebook, an Israeli justice ministry spokeswoman said.
The eight men, aged 18-45, were charged at Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court with “incitement to violence or terror and supporting a terrorist group” on Facebook, a ministry statement read.
The incriminating posts were put online in recent months as a wave of violence rocked the city during which several Palestinians staged lone wolf attacks killing nine people.
The defendants “directly called for violence and terror against (Jewish) citizens and security forces and praised, encouraged and supported these deeds and their perpetrators” on the Internet, the statement read.
Among the remarks posted online were “It is good to kidnap soldiers”, “Zionists flee because you’ll soon be killed by a car” and words expressing hope that a right-wing Jewish activist, who survived an assassination attempt in October, would die a painful death, the indictment said.
All eight Palestinians were arrested earlier this month in what police said was their biggest operation yet aimed at halting incitement to violence on social networks.
Israelis on social media routinely and openly incite violence against Palestinians, especially during heightened periods of tensions such as this summer’s military offensive on Gaza.
Ma’an staff contributed to this report
Know Your Rights: Police Checkpoints
The Free Thought Project
Not only is the question, “am I being detained” very important, but so is remaining silent and making sure not to answer any of their questions.
Many INNOCENT individuals have been imprisoned, or otherwise harmed, merely because they chose to answer questions asked by some Law Enforcement Officer or government official, agent, representative, tribunal, or employee.
It is very important to understand that the 5th Amendment protects the innocent more than the guilty.
Knowing how to assert your rights is not only a good idea to prevent from being unlawfully kidnapped or caged, but it is also a successful catalyst for change when applied on a large enough scale.
In the video below, activist Kenny Suitter, shows how to properly remain silent during police interactions. It is as simple as stating, “I do not answer questions.”
Because of the SCOTUS ruling in Salinas v. Texas, you are now expected to know that you have a right against self-incrimination, and unless you specifically and clearly invoke this right, anything you say or do not say, including your mannerisms at the time you stop talking, can be used against you. You actually have to say, “I do not answer questions.”
Don’t concern yourself with what kind of interrogation you’re in. Don’t worry about whether Salinas applies in your particular situation. Just invoke your 5th Amendment right immediately, verbally, and clearly.
Just like this:
Being stopped by police can be a particularly stressful experience. An innocent individual can easily get tricked into self-incriminating themselves as the police officer badgers and pries for information.
Memorizing laws and and statutes can go a long way, however, having a business card handy, that states your rights for you, is much more convenient, especially when under the stress of a police stop.
Here is a good example of what that business card should look like:
Side 1:
“I hereby invoke and refuse to waive all of the following rights and privileges afforded to me by the United States Constitution. I invoke and refuse to waive my 5th Amendment right to Remain Silent. I invoke and refuse to waive my 6th Amendment right to an attorney of my choice. I invoke and refuse to waive my 4th Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. If I am not presently under arrest, or under investigatory detention, please allow me to leave.”
Side 2:
“Officer, I Assert My Fifth Amendment Rights As Stated On This Card”Pursuant to the law, as established by the United States Supreme Court, my lawyer has advised me not to talk to anyone and not to answer questions about any pending criminal case or any other civil, administrative, judicial, investigatory or adjudicatory matter. Following his advice, I do not wish to talk to anyone about any criminal, civil, administrative, judicial, investigatory or adjudicatory matter, without my lawyer present. I waive no legal rights, nor give any consents, nor submit to any tests or other procedures, without my lawyer present. I ask that no one question or talk to me, without my lawyer here to advise me.
If you’d like a downloadable version of this card you can get it at this link.
Below is a video which shows the effectiveness of these business cards.
India opposition pressures Modi to clarify stance on forced conversions
Press TV – December 22, 2014
Indian opposition lawmakers have demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi clarify his position on the alleged ongoing forced conversion of Muslims and Christians to Hinduism.
Enraged lawmakers in the Indian parliament’s upper house on Monday demanded that Premier Modi address reports that groups linked to his ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coerced poor Muslims and Christians into converting to the Hindu religion.
The opposition lawmakers pointed out that Modi’s silence was damaging the religious freedom guaranteed by the Indian Constitution.
Political experts say the issue is stoking a sensitive debate that has stalled the parliament and threatened the prime minister’s economic reform agenda.
The developments came after right-wing Hindu groups allied to the ruling BJP held a series of ceremonies to convert Christians and Muslims to Hinduism.
The groups have allegedly bribed some 50 poor Muslim families into converting to Hinduism in the Taj Mahal in the city of Agra. Converts say the families were promised financial incentives and ration cards if they went ahead with the conversions.
The Muslims have been wary of Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP Party, which won a huge majority in general elections in May. Back then, the BJP won 274 seats in the 543-seat lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha.
However, the BJP lacks a majority in the upper house, where Congress and regional lawmakers routinely protest a range of issues.
Man charged with breaking a trooper’s fist with his face
By Larry Hohol | Police State USA | October 24, 2014
BRADFORD COUNTY, PA — A motorist was viciously beaten, tasered, and maced repeatedly, then charged with 24 separate crimes and maliciously prosecuted for every one of them. He was beaten four (4) times over the course of 11-hours, and not once had he acted maliciously. The incident stemmed from his driving while on an unusually high dosage of legally-prescribed bipolar medication and a subsequent fender bender. Dash-cam footage revealed the extraordinary exaggerations made about the case — 2 years after it took place.
The Traffic Stop
Around 8:20 p.m. on March 8th, 2010, police received a 9-1-1 call regarding a car that had failed to stop after a minor traffic collision. The accident resulted in no injuries and no damage, but one of the drivers did not stop to exchange information. Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) dispatched troopers to investigate this alleged hit-and-run.
A car driven by Robert Leone, 31 at the time, matched the basic description of the car in question. Mr. Leone was driving just across the Pennsylvania border from his home in Vestal, NY. He had just finished star gazing at the Kopernick Observatory and Science Center and decided to go for a ride in the country while listening to his favorite music. He had consumed no alcohol or illegal substances, but it seems that his decision-making abilities may have been affected by his legally-prescribed medication used to treat his bipolar disorder.
PSP attempted to pull over Mr. Leone, who was traveling at a speed significantly UNDER the posted speed limit — 10 to 30 mph under. Leone stated at first he did not think the trooper was trying to stop him as he believed that he had done nothing wrong prior to the encounter. Police dash-cam video clearly showed Mr. Leone driving very slowly and in a very controlled manner. The only vehicles ever seen crossing the center line or driving erratically were the state police cars that were involved in this low speed following — contrary to sworn statements later given by the troopers.
The five marked cruisers following Mr. Leone could have easily boxed in Mr. Leone at low speed and caused him to stop. Instead, the troopers deployed stop-sticks and rammed his vehicle. A “PIT maneuver” was used to smash Leone into a rock wall, while still at low speed.
Once his car was immobilized, the senior trooper on scene, Corporal Roger Stipcak, stood on top of Mr. Leone’s hood and ordered him out of his car while aiming a taser at him. Mr. Leone COULD NOT comply with the trooper’s order because a state police car was intentionally blocking Leone’s driver-side door.
Mr. Leone was then tasered through his open sunroof and forcibly dragged to the ground through the passenger-side door and beaten by fellow troopers. The senior trooper who was standing on the hood of Leone’s car was then seen jumping directly onto Leone’s back from the hood of the car.
“You’ve got a long f***ing night ahead,” the officer menaced. “Do ya hear me?? Do ya f***ing hear me?!”
This was but the first threat of many Mr. Leone was going to receive over the next 11 hours. It was also the mildest. At no time was Leone videoed resisting or attempting to strike the officers.
After his first beating he was handcuffed and questioned. At that point Leone was arrested and placed in the back of a patrol car. Without advising Mr. Leone of his constitutional rights he was questioned a second time and responded with respectful answers of “yes sir,” and “no sir.”
During the questioning, the trooper accused Leone of intentionally spitting in the trooper’s face and used that alleged behavior as a reason to beat Mr. Leone — who was still handcuffed. The trooper then hog-tied the victim.
“Who do you think you’re messing with?” one officer challenged. “We’re the Pennsylvania State Police… it’s not just some chumps.”
After analyzing the audio portion of the dash-cam it appears that the trooper fabricated the spitting incident in order to justify the beating, even though spitting does not allow an officer to beat a prisoner.
Watch as author Larry Hohol provides a play-by-play of the traffic stop:
An ambulance had initially been called to transport Mr. Leone, who had suffered multiple injuries. Instead, the trooper who had broken his hand while punching Leone received medical attention, and Mr. Leone — who was handcuffed and hog-tied — was transported to the hospital in the back of a patrol car.
Beaten Again in the Hospital
Robert Leone was still hog-tied when he was brought into the Towanda Hospital; a fact documented in his medical records. Mr. Leone attempted to quietly tell the attending nurse what happened to him and begged her for help.
Unfortunately for him, one of the troopers overheard his plea. The exam room was ordered cleared of all medical personnel and a third round of beatings and taserings occurred while Mr. Leone was handcuffed to his gurney.
Police alleged that Leone “reached” at an officer — all the justification they needed for beating him with batons and using tasers multiple times.
The trooper later admitted at Leone’s trial that he was never hit by the defendant. But that did not stop Mr. Leone from being found guilty of assault for what took place in that room.
Mr Leone was discharged from the Towanda General Hospital in worse condition than he had arrived in.
Beaten Again at Police Barracks
After his treatment at the hospital, Mr. Leone was taken to the PSP Barracks Towanda for processing. While at the barracks, an arraignment was set up with an on-call judge who was located remotely and used a video-feed to connect with the police.
Mr. Leone was instructed not to look into the video camera during this arraignment and to only answer questions that he was asked. As soon as the video link was established, Mr. Leone looked directly into the camera and begged the judge for help. The trooper immediately disconnected the video link, claiming that a malfunction had occurred. With no cameras recording, Mr. Leone was severely beaten for a third time.
Beaten Again During Transport
While at the barracks, Leone stated that troopers told him that they could make it look like he committed suicide while in custody or they could throw him off of a bridge and state that somehow he got the rear door of the patrol car open and then jumped off of the bridge himself.
The prisoner was so sure the troopers were going to kill him that night, he tried to shuffle away when he was being escorted to the patrol car for transportation to the county jail, even though he was handcuffed and his feet were shackled.
His pathetic escape attempt gave police an opportunity to beat him once again, and this time douse him with pepper spray. His injuries were so severe at that point that he was unconscious when he was delivered to the hospital for his second evaluation.
According to the hospital report, all of the injuries on Mr. Leone’s body were on his back and none were frontal, indicating that his injuries were not caused while being subdued because of any aggressive behavior. Apparently, the hospital staff themselves were so fearful of these troopers that they released Mr. Leone back into police custody only 26 minutes later — without treatment and while Mr. Leone was still semi-conscious. Mr Leone’s vital signs at this point showed him to be in serious physical distress.
Arrival in Jail
Mr. Leone was transported via patrol car in a semi-conscious state to the Bradford County Correctional Facility. He was received in such poor condition that the jail called their on-call staff physician to the jail to evaluate Mr. Leone.
“They put him on the phone and he starts screaming that he has been beaten within an inch of his life,” Robert’s mother, Joan Leone told WBNG. “They tried to kill him through the night. He has been threatened that they are going to kill him and make it look like a suicide or an accident.”
Numerous pictures of Leone’s injuries were taken by the prison staff in order to defend the prison — should it later be accused of mishandling the already-ravaged prisoner. (Subsequently, when the photographs were requested, the prison claimed that these pictures do not exist.)
A prison guard [name withheld] who befriended Leone told him that the jail administrators were lying because the guard saw the pictures for himself. The picture featured in this article is a copy of the actual booking photo taken by the prison.
Mr. Leone laid in a jail cell for days without proper treatment and probably should have died from his injuries. The prison would not release any information to Mr. Leone’s family about his condition for over 5 days. His family was not allowed to speak to him in person or on the phone nor would the prison allow any other visitors or legal counsel to visit him.
Since Robert Leone could not pay his outrageous $250,000.00 bail, he remained incarcerated for six months until his trial. While he languished in jail, he was denied any additional medical treatment — particularly for his head injuries — even though he had excellent private heath insurance to pay for it if necessary.
“The corruption in PA is so widespread that they’re going to keep him in for four years. Because they have no intention of letting him out because he’s going to be speaking about what’s happened to him,” Joan Leone said.
Railroaded With Charges
Robert Leone’s traumatic physical experience was followed by being charged with twenty-four (24) separate crimes: aggravated assault; driving while under the influence of alcohol or a controlled substance; escape; simple assault; reckless endangering another person; resisting arrest; fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer; disorderly conduct; failure to stop at the scene of an accident; harassment; failure to provide the proper information following an accident; and failure to notify the authorities after an accident had occurred.
To go with his black eye and brutal beating, Mr. Leone was literally charged with breaking a trooper’s fist with his face — “aggravated assault” on a police officer. The 2 dozen charges included four serious felonies for which he could feasibly be spending the rest of his natural life in prison.
It appears that the cover-up of Leone’s beatings became so important that the Bradford County District Attorney personally took up the task of prosecuting the case. Despite having dash-cam video evidence in his possession — the same dash-cam video of which I made a documentary — DA Daniel Barrett attempted to prosecute all 24 counts against Robert Leone.
“I’m sorry if the fella got a black eye or if he got scraped up. His picture look pretty pathetic. But he was the one that brought this on and continued it,” Barrett said to WETM TV.
All district attorneys have two basic requirements — not options — when fulfilling their Oaths of Office. One is to prosecute the guilty, and the other is to protect the innocent. In this case DA Daniel Barrett did neither. At the very least the dash-cam video contradicted sworn statements made by troopers and in many instances proved Mr. Leone’s innocence. Instead of dropping the charges, the Bradford County District Attorney knowingly prosecuted a man that he knew was innocent of everything except his failure to stop (Leone is guilty of this for sure).
Leone’s Trial
Robert Leone’s trial began on August 31, 2010.
District Attorney Barrett claimed at trial that Mr. Leone was a drug-addled maniac that endangered the general public because of a substance abuse problem.
But that was not the case. Mr. Leone’s lab results showed that he had a 0.00 BAC and the only drug in his system was a prescribed medication for his diagnosed bipolar disorder. For some reason, Leone’s physician had assigned him a very high dosage. Nonetheless, the DA waved an empty prescription bottle before the jury and told them it was evidence that Mr. Leone had taken a significant number of pills at once.
At another point in the trial, the DA introduced as evidence part of an internal investigation that was conducted by the Pennsylvania State Police Office of Integrity and Professional Standards. The DA only showed part of the report to the jury which consisted of the troopers’ own sworn statements. He then asked one of the troopers if they were punished or reprimanded in any way following their conduct in this case. The trooper told the DA and the jury that he and his colleges were cleared of any wrongdoing (the investigation was conducted by a fellow trooper from the same barracks).
When the Public Defender demanded a copy of the complete report, her demand was denied by Bradford County President Judge Jeffrey Smith with no explanation. To this day, the Leone family and every outsider has been denied access to a copy of the full report.
Sources indicated to me that the nurse who witnessed the the round of beatings inside the Towanda Hospital was not brought into the trial to testify out of extreme fear for her safety. This statement was made by Mr. Leone’s public defender to Leone’s parents. The nurse was not afraid of Mr. Leone.
When the prosecution rested it’s case, Mr. Leone’s court-appointed public defender had an opportunity to rip the DA and the arresting troopers to shreds — especially for their outright and provable misstatement of facts. An exposure of these details could have proved helpful to Leone’s fate. Instead of a rebuttal, the public defender offered three (apparently) magic words when it was time for her to defend her client: “The defense rests.”
Despite a non-existent defense effort, Leone was found guilty by the jury of only four of the two dozen charges. They were: hit-and-run, attempting to flee from officers, resisting arrest, and one count of simple assault. Most importantly, he was found not guilty all four of the felonies.
It appears that the trial judge did not like the decision the jury had rendered, and rather than sentencing Mr. Leone to time served, Leone as sentenced to 2.5 to 4 years in prison.
With a sentence this severe, it is customary for an inmate to serve his time in a state facility. Judge Jeffrey Smith instead ordered Mr. Leone to be held in Bradford County. An appeal by the hapless public defender was filed on behalf of Mr. Leone and subsequently rubber stamped “denied” by the Superior Court.
Parole Denied
The warden of the Bradford County Correctional Facility commented to Mr. Leone’s parents that if all of the prisoners in his facility acted like Mr. Leone, he wouldn’t need any guards. Despite his apparent good behavior in the eyes of the warden, Mr. Leone had been denied release from prison by the parole board multiple times.
The first parole denial was because, as they stated, that Mr. Leone did not finish taking a drug and alcohol abuse class while incarcerated. This was a dubious claim because Mr. Leone had not been convicted of any substance-related crime, and his blood was proven to be free of alcohol and illegal drugs.
The second parole denial was because the board “lost the paperwork.” This could have been part of a conscious effort to keep Mr. Leone incarcerated until the expiration on a statute of limitations that would have allowed him to file a federal lawsuit against the officers involved.
Fortunately, we beat this date by 4 days and have filed a federal lawsuit in the Middle District of Penna.
No Accountability
The Pennsylvania State Police officially cleared its own troopers of any and all wrongdoing regarding the entire handling of the Robert Leone case from start-to-finish. Corporal Roger Stipcak and all of the other four participating troopers kept their jobs and faced no legal repercussions.
What might have been turned into major scandal in the Pennsylvania State Police and Bradford County was completely swept under the rug.
Bullies with Badges and their Support Network
It is difficult for the average United States citizen to wrap his or her mind around the concept of widespread police brutality and judicial culpability. We are taught at an early age that the police are good and they are here to protect us from evil. We are never taught that occasionally some police officers are in-fact evil themselves.
As a society, and in general terms, it is repetitively hammered into our psyche that if a person is arrested, he must have committed a crime. The public perception also wrongly assumes that if a person is beaten by the police, he probably deserved that beating. Only a minority questions that paradigm, and it is often reinforced with media reports biased toward the police.
In the months following the Towanda traffic stop, Robert Leone was “convicted” in the eyes of the public and media long before his sentence fell on him. It began when the state police reported that they had arrested Mr. Leone after he was involved in a hit-and-run accident and a lengthy “car chase” that ended with Leone “fighting with officers,” thus requiring him to be “forcibly subdued.” The local media regurgitated exactly what the troopers fed them as if it were factual (See more: Man Charged With Assaulting State Troopers | The Daily Review). The District Attorney for Bradford County helped to demonize Mr. Leone by spreading more erroneous info (See more: WETM News).
Reading the official press release and then watching the county DA justify the troopers’ actions would likely satisfy most law-abiding citizens in the belief that their police officers were acting righteously on the streets. However, the actual dash-cam footage — released 2 years after the incident — told us another story.
If this dash-cam video did not exist Mr. Leone would probably be spending most of his adult life in prison. Even with this evidence I cannot get the FBI, U.S. Attorney General, or the DOJ to open a criminal or civil rights investigation. I believe there has been so much misconduct by so many players in this case that the Feds simply do not want to open what appears to be a huge can of worms. I am talking specifically about seven police officers, the District Attorney, the Pennsylvania State Police Office of Integrity and Professional Standards, the trial judge, the Superior Court, the prison, and last but not least, Mr. Leone’s Public Defender.
How could so many safeguards fail and fail with such magnificence? The ONLY safeguard that almost got it right was Mr. Leone’s trial jury. Leone was found guilty on only 4 of 24 counts and zero of them were felonies. Although Mr. Leone was charged with breaking a trooper’s fist with his face, he was found not guilty of that crime.
Since Mr. Leone’s trial, I was told by one of the jurors through a third party that the even the jury was intimidated by the troopers and the DA in this case. So much so, that they felt they had to give them something or fear for their own well being.
We as Americans are willing to go to foreign lands and spill our own blood in the defense of freedom (both ours as well as someone else’s), yet here at home our freedoms are being directly attacked on a daily basis by the very agencies that are in place to assure us things like this never happen. Not only are injustices happening, they are happening on a large scale. I directly blame the chain of command as much as I blame the individual offending officers. In most instances not only does the chain of command attempt to cover-up and justify misconduct, but they actively chastise any officer who might step forward in an attempt to right a wrong. In addition, I blame the Judicial Conduct board as they directly oversee the courts, and I blame the Bar Association as most of the players here (except for the police) are attorneys including the elected officials that should be intervening.
Mr. Leone will soon have his day in federal court. Out of sheer coincidence, the federal judge that was assigned to hear his case is the very federal judge I wrote about in my book about judicial corruption in Pennsylvania. I have no confidence this judge will act appropriately.
The big question that we should all be asking ourselves is, “How do we fix all of this”?
Larry Hohol
Former Police Officer / Author
Contact info: LarryHohol@live.com www.WorseThanRodneyKing.com
REFERENCES:
1. Summary of charges against Robert Leone
2. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Robert Leone (Criminal trial transcript)
3. Robert Leone v. Towanda Borough, Pennsylvania State Police, et al (Complaint)
Innocent Man Raided, Tased, Beaten, & Shot By a Corrupt SWAT Team who Lied to Get the Raid
By Matt Agorist | The Free Thought Project | December 18, 2014
Houston, TX — A completely innocent man was shot, tasered, brutally beaten, and had stun grenades thrown at him by vicious and incompetent SWAT officers. Then, those same officers tried to cover up their mistake by charging the victim, Chad Chadwick, with six criminal offenses including felony assault on a police officer.
This incident happened in 2011, but it has taken Chadwick three years and his entire life savings, to finally beat the charges that he was falsely accused of. Last month, a jury found Chad Chadwick not guilty of interfering with police. With tears in their eyes members of the jury offered the exonerated defendant comforting hugs, according to My Fox Houston.
“They tried to make me a convict. It broke me financially, bankrupted me. I used my life savings, not to mention, I lost my kids,” said Chadwick.
Chadwick had been drinking and went to sleep in his bathtub on the night of September 27, 2011, when police were given a tip from a friend of Chadwick’s who said they were concerned with his emotional well-being. So naturally the police responded by mobilizing a heavily militarized SWAT team.
“They came in did what they did, figured out that they messed up and now they are doing everything they can to cover it up. They treated a normal American citizen like an animal. It’s not right,” Chadwick said in an interview with FOX 26.
The SWAT team lied to the judge to get the warrant by telling the judge that Chadwick had hostages. “
They told a judge I had hostages. They lied to a judge and told him I had hostages in my apartment and they needed to enter,” said Chadwick.
When SWAT broke down his door without identifying themselves, they launched a stun grenade into his bathroom, according to Chadwick.
“While I had my hands up naked in the shower they shot me with a 40 millimeter non-lethal round,” said Chadwick.
Another stun grenade was fired.
“I turned away, the explosion went off, I opened my eyes the lights are out and here comes a shield with four or five guys behind it. They pinned me against the wall and proceeded to beat the crap out of me,” said Chadwick.
That’s when SWAT officers shot Chadwick at point blank range with a taser in the back of his head.
“They claimed I drew down with a shampoo bottle and a body wash bottle,” said Chadwick.
Tased, shot and with multiple SWAT officers smashing him into a corner with a shield, a brutal beating ensued.
“They grabbed me by my one hand that was out of the shower and grabbed me by my testicles slammed me on my face on the floor and proceeded to beat me more,” said Chadwick.
Chadwick was then hauled off to Ft. Bend County Jail with a fractured nose, bruised ribs and what’s proven to be permanent hearing loss. He was kept in an isolation cell for two full days. Remember, Chadwick has never broken a law; he had committed no crime.
“Instead of apologizing to this man and asking let us see what we can do to help you to make you whole again, they concocted criminal charges against this man, one after another, after another,” said activist Quanell X, who believes the prosecution of Chadwick was designed to fend off civil liability.
The SWAT team that took Chadwick into custody and testified against him was comprised of officers from Missouri City, Sugar Land, Stafford and the Ft. Bend County Sheriff’s Department. To this date, none of them have faced any disciplinary action.
According to FOX 26, Ft. Bend County District Attorney John Healy declined to comment on camera, but did say he stands by his decision to prosecute Chadwick, despite the multiple no-bills and not guilty verdict. Asked how much the case cost taxpayers, Healy said “I wasn’t keeping a tally.”
Chadwick is now pursuing a civil suit against the police agencies involved and they will most assuredly know how much money that will cost the taxpayers.
Interview: Mexico Gov’t Claims on Disappeared Students Exposed
teleSUR | December 16, 2014
Explosive allegations were published in Proceso, one of Mexico’s leading news weeklies, this past Sunday, revealing strong evidence pointing to direct participation by federal authorities in the presumed killings of dozens of education students from the drug war-torn state of Guerrero.
The investigation also revealed that Mexican federal, state and municipal authorities were tracking the exact movements of the students on the same night of the massacre in question this past September 26 and that according to the government’s own documents, and in at least five clear instances, key testimony obtained by officials to sustain their version of the events was actually induced via illegal interrogation techniques that amounted to torture, which included electric shocks to testicles and extreme beatings.
The investigation’s revelations are not only a stark contrast with what has been officially maintained by the Peña Nieto administration, but also contradict most of what most mainstream news has reported from Mexico and beyond.
The Official Version
The official version of what happened on September 26, the night of the disappearance , largely emanates from a press conference that has by now become widely known and has even served as a reference point for a nation-wide movement that has been ongoing since soon after the presumed massacre occurred. That is because the Attorney General leading the press conference, Jesus Murillo Karam, mentioned that he was “tired” at the end of the hour-long conference. The #YaMeCanse Twitter hashtag arose almost as soon as the conference itself ended, and has actually served as the battle-cry for a nation-wide movement that has attracted international support and attention, including a day of protests which featured over 200 actions across the globe and cross-border protests, as previously reported by teleSUR English.
During the press conference, and reiterated through a variety of official accounts since that time, authorities have claimed that Iguala Mayor José Luis Abarca and his wife ordered local municipal police to attack several buses of the “normalistas” (students training to become teachers) on several occasions. The attacks wound up killing at least three people and disappearing 43 students. The Guerreros Unidos (Warriors United) drug gang was then given the 43 kidnapped students which went on to brutally assassinate, dismember, torture and burn the victims to death, again, according to official accounts, but disputed by the parents.
The ex-Mayor and his wife have since been detained in connection to the presumed massacre. Acting on a tip from the couple’s landlord in Itzapalapa, the “imperial couple,” as local media dubbed them, were considered by federal officials to be the main culprits behind the crime. The official allegation was that the couple acted in cahoots with a gang that had long suspected, close ties to the Mayor and his wife.
State Version Undermined
The investigation, which was penned by acclaimed Mexican investigative journalist Anabel Hernandez and the University of California at Berkeley-based journalist Steve Fisher, blows the lid off of official accounting in a number of ways, in alleging that: federal, state and local officials closely tracked, monitored and were quite aware of the whereabouts of both the killed, disappeared and presumably murdered education students; key testimonies obtained by officials were garnered through illegal torture techniques; federal police and soldiers from the military were present at the scene of the killings; the government has deliberately withheld this information in an attempt to maintain their own official accounting of the events in question.
The allegations also come during a time in which the government’s version of the events was already being questioned by other sources. A research team headed by a group of scientists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, argued that the government claims that the Guerreros Unidos gang incinerated to death all 43 students lacked any “scientific explanation.”
In an extended interview via a three-way telephone call with the authors of the investigation with teleSUR English, Anabel Hernandez and Steve Fisher discussed and detailed their findings.
Journalists Discuss Disturbing Findings
The ever-passionate and expressive Hernandez is no stranger to explosive investigations and allegations, so much so that her home was raided by official authorities late last year. The award-winning and internationally acclaimed journalist has also been subjected to harrowing threatening acts, such as having found animal body parts at the doorstep of her home. In her latest investigation, however, Hernandez made the case that her co-authored findings starkly revealed that governmental responsibility for the presumed massacre is much higher than what has been previously admitted.
“The point is that we know that the federal police were there, we know that they knew when the students [were] abducted and we know that many of the testimonies that the PGR [Mexico’s Attorney General’s office] were obtained and acquired through torture techniques. But in Mexico, evidence obtained through torture is illegal,” Hernandez told teleSUR.
In contrast to the official version, which maintains that the federal government was unaware of the massacre, Hernandez and Fisher allege that federal police and military soldiers directly participated in the presumed massacre itself and were one of three levels of government closely monitoring the students whereabouts throughout the night of the presumed massacre.
According to Hernandez and Fisher’s accounting of the unedited Guerrero state report they obtained, which was drawn up for the Interior Ministry (SEGOB) and obtained by the magazine about a month and a half ago, students were monitored as soon as they left their school grounds at 5:59pm. Both federal and state police were monitoring the students while they traveled from the Chilpancingo-based Control, Computational and Communications Center (C4).
The article goes into further detail, noting that at 8pm, the federal and state police arrived to the highway where the students were fielding donations; at 9:21pm, a federal police chief – Luis Antonio Dorantes – was advised of the student’s arrival; and at 9:40pm the C4 center reported the first gunshots.
The report was also based on 12 videos recorded by surviving students on their cell phones, whereby one now publicly released video has audio clearly noting a surviving student yelling in distress: “The police are now coming, the federales are staying and they are going to want to screw us over!”
In sum, various levels of government were much more aware of the students and more present at key points throughout the evening in question, than what has been previously admitted.
Hernandez made it clear to teleSUR, however, that their investigation didn’t reveal whether or not the United Warriors gang were involved with the massacre. Fisher elaborated on this point: “We cannot say whether or not Guerreros Unidos was ultimately involved with this, or not, but we can say that the evidence we have acquired was that they were tortured [before their testimonies were given]. It is thus suspect that they could actually get proper testimonies considering the fact that they were tortured brutally, including electric shocks to testicles and extreme beatings.”
Hernandez added that other telltale signs of torture were uncovered in their investigation, including bruised ribs, blackened eyes and black-and-blue marks on the neck. Such findings were especially damning, Hernandez pointed out, considering that, “the attorney general’s version was based solely on testimony by presumed drug traffickers.”
Fisher spoke to this point, telling teleSUR that, “I would say that in any case where there is torture involved, it brings into question the entire investigation. It would be interesting to know why the PGR would base this very important investigation on, according to their own documents, information obtained through people that were brutally beaten and tortured.”
Hernandez and Fisher wrote that the Peña Nieto administration has withheld the information they reported on.
Soon after the disappearance of the education students, the Guerrero Attorney General’s office requested that the Mexican Federal Police, their investigation notes, hand over extensive documentation related to the potential participation of federal police agents, including the exact registries of when agents clocked in and out while on the job the night of the attack. However, the investigation added that since the Peña Nieto administration took over the investigation this past October 4, the requested documentation was never handed over to the Guerrero office.
“It is clear that the PGR has been manipulating the case, that the federal government has been manipulating the case, and that now, the official version of the case has been shown to not be trustworthy,” Hernandez passionately asserted during the extensive interview, adding that in subsequent conversations with government officials, none of their allegations were officially denied to either of the reporters.
Investigation Points to a Number of Implications
Considering the many contradictions between the investigation and official accounts , many questions can be asked. Since Mexican officials have long claimed that Warriors United was the group which took custody of the students from local police authorities who had initially detained them, have there been any false arrests among the 74-some people that have been rounded up since September 26?
The accused leader of Warriors United, Sidronio Casarrubias, is among the many detained, which include an array of local law enforcement officials. Casarrubias has since revealed to officials the kind of relationship he had with Abarca while he was mayor, but it is not clear whether or not he was among the five people tortured in Herandez and Fisher’s account.
“Warriors United has sewn a web of complicity with several mayors and above all with security officials,” Murillo previously told the press. “In Iguala, the complicity was between the authorities, the local police and the Warriors United,” Murillo added.
If there is one official acknowledgment which Hernandez and Fisher do not dispute, it is the systematic relationship that exists between drug cartels and the Mexican state. It is that very relationship which has served as a spark plug to a nation that has undertaken a significant amount of resistance since September 26.
Nation-wide Movement Continues to Wage Protest
The revelations by Herandez and Fisher come at a time that the nation’s ire was already raised to a feverish boiling point. In one of the largest countries and economies of Latin America. Mexico has witnessed near daily and nation-wide actions of resistance.
Since the disappearance of the “normalistas” on September 26, the country has been brimming with mass marches, candle-light vigils, university-campus and labor-union-led strikes, occupations of official and university buildings, riot police-led arrests of demonstrators, property destruction of official buildings, sit-ins, panels ruminating over the ills of narco-state violence and international bridge closings.
Most recently, at least 22 people were injured this past Sunday during protests in Chilpancingo, Guerrero which featured police opening fire on demonstrators. TeleSUR English reported that three parents of the forcibly disappeared, a journalist, a student from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and a member of an education union were among those injured.
The violent law enforcement response to the protests, specifically that of Sunday’s occurrences, prompted the National Human rights Commission to demand that authorities conduct themselves within the law.
The disappearance clearly served as the catalyst for the movement’s inception, much of the country has long been weary of the systematic problem of disappearances and the eerie official impunity which has often surrounded them. Nothing less than some 22,000 disappearances, over the course of the last three years alone, account for official estimates. Other analysts estimate the actual total as being higher than that.
Mass Graves Point to Narco-State Crimes
The disappearances of the normalistas are emblematic of a long-running problem in Mexico: thousands upon thousands of cases of disappearances, many of whose investigations were found ‘inconclusive’ and long ago closed, exist throughout the country. Some estimates range as high as 24,000 disappearances having occurred since 2011 alone, the overwhelming amount of which were “unsolved” and/or “closed” cases.
In another case of official law enforcement involvement in a crime, 22 alleged kidnappers were summarily executed by Mexican soldiers in Tlatlaya in June 2014. A federal judge recently charged three soldiers with murder and four others with abuse of authority and other charges in relation to the massacre.
At least a dozen mass grave sites have been discovered since the time of the Ayatzinapa disappearances. Meanwhile, movement activists and organizers alike have alleged that many more mass grave sites exist than what has been officially acknowledged.
Regardless of the actual total of mass grave sites, their undisputed existence still point to a problem more familiar to locals and residents of the area: Guerrero is not only a drug war-torn state, but a complex nexus of corruption and corroboration between local, regional and state authorities and their allies in street gangs and powerful drug cartels. Even federal officials have since admitted that the disappeared students pointed to a larger, narco-state reality.
While the troubles of living under a narco-state is one which local residents of Guerrero have long been familiar, in the wake of what seemingly is a never-ending case of the disappearances of the Guerrero students, it has now become a reality with which the whole nation of Mexico, and well beyond, are becoming familiar with as well.
But now, in light of the explosive allegations revealed by Hernandez and Fisher, it will become yet a more complex reality with which the nation will have to come to grips and to which the government may have to provide yet more answers during tiring press conferences.
128 Journalists Killed so Far This Year
teleSUR | December 15, 2014
At least 128 journalist have been killed so far in 2014, according to the findings of the Swiss-based Press Emblem Campaign in its annual report released Monday.
While the deaths occured in some 32 countries, the Palestine-Israel conflict has been the most dangerous for the coverage this year “with 16 journalists killed by Israel during the Operation Protective Edge.”
The 2014 total is one more than last year’s record, yet the number is perceptibly growing since the organization started to track the figures in 2006. Since then, over 1,000 journalists and reporters have been killed.
This situation for journalists worsens as armed conflicts continue without reaching a political solution, emphasized PEC director Blaise Lempen. In these scenarios, journalists are increasingly being taken as hostages.
The most dangerous countries over the past five year-period have been Syria, Pakistan, Mexico, Iraq and Somalia.
Latin America is the third most violent region with 27 journalist killed after Middle East (46) and Asia (31), and includes three countries in the top 10 most dangerous places for journalists (Mexico ranks 6th, Honduras 7th and Brazil 10th). Paraguay, Peru and Colombia are also noted in the report.
The authors explain that have been taking into account both “journalists intentionally targeted in the exercise of their profession as well as those killed accidentally and otherwise unintentionally,” arguing that the cause of the death was difficult to determine.
However, half of the journalists killed in 2014 are estimated to have been targeted intentionally by governments, various armed groups or criminal gangs.
Journalist Faces Sentencing Today for Daring to Investigate Government Insiders
By Andrew Meyer | PINAC | December 16, 2014
Barrett Brown faces eight and a half years in prison today for the crime of being a journalist. For any U.S. media outlet that claims to practice journalism, this story should be front page news.
Officially, Brown is charged with three crimes: (1) transmitting a threat in interstate commerce, (2) obstructing the execution of a search warrant, and (3) being an accessory after the fact to an unauthorized access to a protected computer.
Unofficially, Brown is being prosecuted for founding Project PM, a WikiLeaks-like website which dares to investigate “the intelligence contracting industry, the PR industry’s interface with totalitarian regimes, the mushrooming infosec/’cybersecurity’ industry, and other issues constituting threats to human rights, civic transparency, individual privacy, and the health of democratic institutions.”
On March 6, 2012, FBI agent Robert Smith raided Brown’s apartment and Brown’s mother’s house, supposedly looking for information on the hack of intelligence firm HBGary. Agent Smith took away Brown’s computers, which contained Brown’s research into contractors who spy or conduct information warfare on behalf of government and corporate clients.
Following the raid, Barrett Brown faced 100 years in prison for sharing a link on the leaked Stratfor emails, emails which revealed that Stratfor (called the “shadow CIA” by some) had allegedly partnered with a former Goldman Sachs director and other informants in order to profit from insider trading, among other dirty laundry. After prosecutors dropped the 11 charges related to Brown’s sharing a link, the only “crimes” the government had left to charge Brown with resulted from the raid on Brown’s apartment, where Brown allegedly hid his own laptops (aka obstructing the execution of a search warrant) and tried to protect Jeremy Hammond , now in prison for hacking Stratfor, from getting caught (being an accessory after the fact to an unauthorized access to a protected computer). As the FBI held on to his computers, Brown posted a pissed-off YouTube video lashing out at Agent Smith (transmitting a threat in interstate commerce).
While the government would argue that Brown is not being politically prosecuted, the government has taken many actions that say otherwise. Beyond seeking 100 years of jail time for Brown, the government has prosecuted Brown’s mother for obstruction (resulting in six months probation and a $1,000 fine), tried to seize Brown’s legal defense fund, obtained a gag order preventing Brown from speaking about his own case, tried to identify contributors to the website where Brown and others researched links between intelligence companies and governments, and argued that Brown seeks to overthrow the U.S. government.
For anyone horrified that the government would equate researching intelligence companies with trying to overthrow the government, today’s sentencing of Barrett Brown is a major event. Barrett Brown has already spent two years in prison for daring to be a real journalist.
The question now is, how much longer will the First Amendment be locked in a jail cell?
BOMBSHELL INTERVIEW: Eric Garner’s Death a Retaliatory Move by NYPD
By Matt Agorist | Free Thought Project | December 15, 2014
New York, NY — The Free Thought Project has been given exclusive information as to why Eric Garner may have been killed by the NYPD. This new information paints an entirely different picture as to why police were harassing Garner that fateful day back in July.
The information comes from an interview that took place last Thursday with Benjamin Carr. Benjamin Carr is Eric Garner’s stepfather, who was in the media recently peacefully resolving a situation with an angry protester.
The brief clip, obtained exclusively by the Free Thought Project, is part of a much larger collection of video which is going to be part of a documentary on police misconduct, which is why the videographer who gave it to us, has placed a watermark over it.
In the interview, Carr tells us that police didn’t show up that day because Garner broke up a fight or sold loosey cigarettes; they were there because police had a history of harassing Garner.
Carr explains that police had actually stolen money from Garner, who subsequently planned to file charges against the NYPD for this theft. Police were there that day, Carr says, not to shake Garner down for selling smokes, but to retaliate against him for filing charges against them.
When the interviewer asks Carr if he thinks that the police singled out Garner because he was black, this is what he said,
“I wouldn’t really say [he was killed] because Eric was a black man. It’s due to the fact that they stole money from him and refused to give him his money, and he filed charges against them. This is why they had a vendetta against him.”
The Free Thought Project tried multiple times to confirm this complaint against the NYPD by reaching out to their Staten Island precinct. However, after being placed on hold by the NYPD for long periods of time, hung up on, and eventually ignored, we were unable to get a statement from them in regards to this case. The recordings of these calls will be put up on our Radio Show youtube channel for review.
However, we did confirm with a member of Garner’s family that Eric Garner was frequently harassed by these officers, and it goes much deeper than money. Garner had actually been sexually assaulted by the NYPD, on multiple occasions, according to our sources.
Of course, this sounds ridiculous. How would the NYPD sexually assault a man like Eric Garner, and why? But if we dig a little deeper we see that officer Daniel Pantaleo, the man who was responsible for Garner’s death, has been sued three times for violating the constitutional rights of other black males in the area, by performing humiliating strip searches and fondling the genitalia of his victims, some of them in public view.
The most recent of these lawsuits was just filed in November and comes from Kenneth Collins, who says in the lawsuit that he “was subjected to a degrading search of his private parts and genitals by the defendants.”
The NYPD paid out a settlement last year to two men who sued the city because Pantaleo forced them to strip naked in public as he “touched and searched their genital areas, or stood by while this was done in their presence.”
According to another lawsuit, victim Rylawn Walker, was charged with marijuana possession and underwent similar rights violations by Pantaleo. The charges were dismissed against Walker and the case sealed on a motion from prosecutors. His lawsuit against the NYPD stated that Walker “was committing no crime at that time and was not acting in a suspicious manner.”
Defense lawyer Michael Colihan summed up this atrocity when he wrote a letter in August 2014 to U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos. In his letter, Colihan said:
“To put it mildly, many police on Staten Island have been playing fast, loose and violently with the public they seem to have forgotten they are sworn to protect,” wrote Colihan. “After litigating about 200 of these civil rights matters in the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York since 1977, I have seen no interest by the managers of the New York City Police Department, or anyone employed by the city of New York, in doing anything to stop this.”
After knowing what the NYPD is capable of, these allegations by Benjamin Carr are not surprising in the least. In fact, just 2 months ago, an NYPD officer was actually caught on film stealing over $1,000 in cash from victim Lamard Joye, during a “stop and frisk.” The entire incident was caught on film and we were told that it’s “under internal investigation,” yet nothing has happened.
How many incidents like this one happen daily without consequences for the perpetrators?
Is it any surprise now, seeing why Garner reacted to police with such contempt and non-violent resistance? We are looking at a man being shaken down by people, who’ve allegedly sexually assaulted him multiple times, as well as stolen money from him. And from the video of the incident, it appears that they wished to cause him harm as well.
Would you have been as cordial if armed men with a history of stealing from you and feeling up your private parts, were there to do it all again?
Featured Video
Seyed M. Marandi: US-Iran War Inevitable: Kuwait and Bahrain May Fall
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Oil and the Israel Lobby
Reknowned economist M. Shahid Alam offers this excellent critique of Noam Chomsky’s defective analysis of the relative influence of Oil versus the Israel lobby over US foreign policy: … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- ICC ignored ‘very well-documented’ NATO crimes – ex-Libyan minister
- SNSC secretary dismisses US response to Iran’s conditions as ‘inadequate’
- Sanaa says Taiz roads open, secure for residents, warns Saudi forces
- Iraqi resistance group urges Saudi leadership to admit defeat, lift Yemen siege
- Trump’s Retreat: How Al-Aqsa Flood Took Down the US Empire
- Israel’s Military Actions in Lebanon Grossly Violate International Law — Lavrov
- Seyed M. Marandi: US-Iran War Inevitable: Kuwait and Bahrain May Fall
- Leaders Condemn Ansarallah Attack on Saudi Arabia While Ignoring Illegal War Against Yemen
- Leaked: Britain’s Covert Iraqi Psyops Network
- Yemeni Armed Forces Warn Airlines Against Using Saudi Airports, Exempt Mecca and Medina
- If Americans Knew
- Israel’s Destruction of Southern Lebanon Intensified After the Cease-Fire
- The Last-Minute Decision That Gave Israel Its Name
- The American Conservative: How Trump Made the World Go Nuclear
- Meet the US generals and admirals advancing Israeli policy
- Opinion: Why news organizations should boycott Israel
- The Israeli witch hunt of Sami Abu Shehadeh exposes the lie of the ‘Jewish and democratic’ state
- No state has a ‘right’ to exist – least of all Israel
- Testimonies about Gaza’s civilian death toll expose Israel’s atrocities – Daily Update
- How Israel Conquered the Latin American Right
- Agents search Rep. Omar’s Washington home in criminal probe as she vows she won’t ‘be silenced’
- No Tricks Zone
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
