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.
Israel makes mosque a museum, while 10,000 have nowhere to pray
Ma’an – 21/12/2014
BEERSHEBA – Authorities in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba have recently converted an historic mosque into an Islamic museum despite the fact that 10,000 local Muslims still have nowhere to pray, locals said.
Locals told Ma’an that an exhibit showcasing a collection of Muslim prayer rugs was recently opened in the building that was formerly the Great Mosque of Beersheba, which was once used regularly as a mosque before the 1948 expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from what became Israel.
The exhibit, which locals say has no Arab or Muslim member on the technical supervisory team, will continue until June 2015.
The move comes after decades of protest from the area’s 10,000-strong Muslim Palestinian community, composed primarily of local Bedouins whose ancestors survived the Israeli expulsions as well as Palestinian citizens of Israel who have moved to the city from other parts of the country.
Representatives of the community have long petitioned Israeli authorities to allow them to open the mosque for daily prayers or at least once a week for Friday prayers.
However, the demands have been repeatedly rejected, and in 2011 the Israeli Supreme Court rejected a request for it to open as well, allowing the building to be transformed into a museum focusing on Islam.
The irony is not lost on local Palestinian Muslims, who have long complained that Israeli authorities neglect Palestinian heritage and frequently appropriate Palestinian symbols and architecture.
The Great Mosque of Beersheba was built in 1906 during the Ottoman era through donations collected from the Bedouin residents of the Negev.
It remained an active mosque until the Israelis occupied the city in 1948 and turned it into a detention center and headquarters for a magistrate court, following the expulsion of Beersheba’s approximately 6,000 Palestinian residents, mostly to Gaza.
Thousands of Jewish immigrants were subsequently brought in to populate the city, while the Palestinian refugees were never allowed to return, despite mostly living only kilometers away.
In 1953, the Israeli authorities turned a portion of the mosque into a museum, which was recognized in 1987 by the Israeli department of archeology as the Negev Museum.
However, in 1992, the museum was shut down because the building had become vulnerable. It has been retrofitted recently, however, paving the way for its reuse.
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)
Argentina sentences four ex-officers to life in prison
Press TV – December 19, 2014
A court in Argentina has handed down life sentences to four former military officers for committing crimes against humanity during the 1970s’ US-backed military dictatorship in the South American country.
On Thursday, the court in the capital, Buenos Aires, found the four guilty of “illegal deprivation of liberty, torture, rape and homicide,” involving 204 people out of the total 2,500 held at the Vesubio detention center between 1976 and 1978.
The four defendants are former colonels Federico Minicucci and Jorge Crespi, former intelligence officer, Gustavo Cacivio, and former colonel and prison official, Nestor Cendon.
The Vesubio detention center operated in the La Matanza district of Buenos Aires, until it was destroyed to prevent the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights from inspecting it during a country visit.
Famous comics writer, Héctor Oesterheld, author Haroldo Conti and filmmaker Raymundo Gleyzer were among those who died in the prison.
Former Argentine Major Ernesto “Nabo” Barreiro has recently broken his 31-year pact of silence by revealing the locations of graves of people who disappeared under the military regime during the so-called “Dirty War” from 1976 to 1983.
Barreiro said some two dozen people are buried inside two large earthen ovens at a military base outside the central city of Cordoba.
Previous Argentine governments have failed to investigate crimes committed during the almost seven-year dictatorship due to the so-called Full Stop law, which saw an end to prosecutions. However, the law was repealed ten years ago.
The US-backed dictatorship in Argentina jailed, tortured and murdered dozens of people and forced thousands to flee the country during the war.
Federal courts are seeking the whereabouts of an estimated 30,000 people who were killed or abducted and presumed killed during the dictatorship.
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.
Cop Stops Fellow Cop From Choking a Handcuffed Man, She Was Then Beaten and Fired
By Cassandra Rules | The Free Thought Project | December 18, 2014
Buffalo, NY – While killer cops get sent on paid vacations, it’s hard to imagine what one has to do to actually be fired. It turns out, the answer is be a good cop.
Former Buffalo Police Officer, Cariol Horne is fighting for her pension since she was fired after 19 years on the force, over an incident in 2006 when she stopped a fellow officer from choking a handcuffed suspect.
Horne had received a call that Officer Gregory Kwiatkowski was at the scene of a domestic dispute and in need of assistance. When she arrived, she witnessed Kwiatkowski violently punching the handcuffed suspect in the face.
Horne and other officers on the scene removed the suspect from the house, but once outside Kwiatkowski pounced again, this time choking the handcuffed man. Believing Kwiatkowski to be out of out of control, Horne removed his arm from around the man’s neck.
“Gregory Kwiatkowski turned Neal Mack around and started choking him. So then I’m like, ‘Greg! You’re choking him,’ because I thought whatever happened in the house he was still upset about so when he didn’t stop choking him I just grabbed his arm from around Neal Mack’s neck,” Horne told WKBW.
Infuriated that she had crossed the thin blue line, Kwaitkowski then punched Horne in the face. The punch was so hard that Horne ended up having to have her bridge replaced. She was then injured again as officers dragged her away from trying to defend herself.
Here is where things get crazy.
The good cop, who was trying to stop abuse by her peer, was fired for “jumping on Officer Kwaitkowski’s back and/or striking him with her hands,” something that Kwaitkowski himself denied ever happening in a sworn statement.
The bad cop, who was choking a man and then punched his female co-worker in the face, kept his job. It wasn’t until he choked another officer at a district station house that he was forced to retire. He was already under investigation for punching another officer while he was off-duty at a local bar.
In May of this year Kwiatkowski and two other officers were indicted for civil rights violations against four black teenagers, just days before the statute of limitations was due to expire. One of the teens was also the son of a Buffalo police officer.
Kwaitkowski is accused of using excessive force while the victim was already under arrest. His fellow officers then shot at a handcuffed teenager with the teens own BB gun, after the boy was aready handcuffed and in the back seat of their police vehicle.
Imagine if just one of the officers who stood around watching Eric Garner’s life being taken had the courage Horne had.
Unfortunately, they would probably be in the same situation she is.
This incident is hardly isolated either. Earlier this month we brought you the story of a 20 year veteran of the CSU Monterey Bay police force who was given a notice of termination for choosing NOT to immediately resort to violent escalation during a confrontation with a suicidal student.
In almost every single video we see, there are other officers present and allowing it to happen. Sadly, with departments across the nation upholding their reputation of vilifying anyone who dares to cross the thin blue line, it’s no wonder there is such a shortage of police willing to speak out against the atrocities we have been witnessing.
While many police may choose this line of work because they want to be “heroic,” Horne is a true hero- and she does not regret her actions. Nobody ever said being a hero is easy.
Just something to think about.
Ukraine wouldn’t have civil war if not for EU – Putin
RT | December 18, 2014
If EU authorities had called the organizers of Ukraine’s coup to order, the country wouldn’t have faced a civil war, believes Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I am sure that if such a position was taken, there would be neither civil war in Ukraine, nor the multitude of victims. Our colleagues [EU] took another position,” Putin said speaking at his annual Q&A with the press and public.
He says Moscow is ready to become a mediator to start talks between Kiev and self-defense forces from the east.
“We hope…to reach a political dialogue,” said Putin, adding that Russia sees Kiev’s military actions in Ukraine as a “punitive operation.”
“But it [the operation] is made by Kiev authorities, not vice versa. It’s not self-defense forces who sent their troops to Kiev, but the other way round – Kiev authorities sent their forces to the southeast.”
According to the president, if the Kiev government wants peace, then it has to respect the interests of people in eastern Ukrainian regions, not pressure them.
“No doubt [Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko] wants to regulate the situation and I have no doubts that he is looking forward to it, but he is not alone [in making the decision].”
Putin referred to the statements of Ukraine’s former acting president and chairman of the Rada, Aleksandr Turchinov, who said on Wednesday that Kiev’s ‘anti-terrorist’ operation should go on “till the end.”
“We hear many warlike statements. I think that President Poroshenko is ready for regulation [of the crisis], but we need concrete actions.”
Putin expressed regret that the planned exchange of prisoners between Kiev and self-defense troops in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday was disrupted by Kiev.
“Yesterday [Wednesday] there was an agreement to exchange 30 people. The representatives of self-defense troops arrived at the place of prisoners’ exchange; an official from Kiev authorities appeared and said ‘No. We won’t exchange [the prisoners] until the Minsk talks.’”
Putin urged both Kiev and self-defense forces to exchange prisoners before the Christmas holidays using the ‘all for all’ principle.
“I think they [both parties] should exchange all for all without any conditions.”
Putin cited information from self-defense forces, saying that in the lists of exchange prisoners there are people who hadn’t been detained war-stricken Donetsk or Lugansk Regions.
“When the lists emerge, it turns out that from Ukrainian side there are certain people who had been arrested not in connection with military action in the country’s southeast, but somewhere in Odessa or Kherson [southern Ukraine].”
“Anyway I believe that people [prisoners] returned home before New Year, before Christmas, regardless of circumstances.”
Putin also spoke on the reports of Russian citizens fighting alongside self-defense forces in the Ukraine’s east.
“All those people who fulfill their duty or voluntary take part in some military action, including those in Ukraine’s southeast are not mercenaries, as they don’t get money for that,” he said.
READ MORE: Putin’s 2014 Q&A marathon LIVE UPDATES
Would You Buy An Obamamobile From This Man?
By Howard Wait | Black Agenda Report | December 17, 2014
Consider the prospect of buying a car at a certain price, but not knowing what the costs for gasoline, oil changes, tires or other repairs would cost until after you made a purchase. Parking this Obamabile might cost $5 per hour, maybe $500; who knows? Maybe that defective air bag or gas pedal is covered under the warranty: maybe it isn’t. That doesn’t seem right, or legal, does it?
That’s basically what people are doing when they purchase individual health insurance, especially Affordable Care Act Insurance. For those inclined to read all the fine print on dozens of health insurance plans, familiarize themselves with arcane terms like split deductibles, coinsurance and balance-billing and then review the provider lists and drug formularies for ailments they may not even have yet, there is a chance, but no guarantee, they could select the least-worst plan available.
What if you contract cancer, or HIV, and the drug formularies and specialists you need aren’t included? What if the provider lists and formularies are complete fabrications? Well, they probably are, at least in the managed care plans surveyed by HHS Inspector General:
“We found that slightly more than half of providers could not offer appointments to enrollees. Notably, 35 percent could not be found at the location listed by the plan, and another 8 percent were at the location but said that they were not participating in the plan. An additional 8 percent were not accepting new patients.”
With all the money flowing into the coffers of managed care companies, they can’t be bothered to update their provider lists? There should be a law, but there isn’t. If you bought a useless health plan, blame yo’self. Caveat emptor.
The idea that individual patients are capable of sifting through all the contingencies of hundreds of insurance plans, devised by teams of industry professionals intent on fleecing them, to arrive at an optimal choice that will promote better healthcare through market competition is a wonderful fantasy for those who stand to profit from this scheme, but it’s not reality. The truth is that only 11% of people surveyed are capable of understanding the terms and costs of a single health insurance plan, when the plan is sitting in front of them on a table.
Carnegie-Mellon’s George Lowenstein surveyed 202 employer-based policy holders and asked them to compute costs of a 4-day hospital stay. They can’t. Funny thing is, he can’t either:
“I have a PhD in economics and I’ve spent a bunch of time giving insurance companies feedback about policies, and I still find them difficult to understand,” Loewenstein said. Just 14% of white people and 30% of people with a bachelor’s or greater are “proficient” in health literacy, says health.gov.”
Clearly people cannot effectively understand and manage health costs, despite all the PR blather otherwise, in a system designed not to. We’re not managing health costs, we’re being managed. The hyper-vigilance required to navigate the minefield of financial hazards we are continually defending against is itself a health hazard and dealing with a con artist when you’re deathly sick is the last thing your doctor would advise.
What we do know is bad enough. Let’s remember the census reports in 2011 that the median wage earner in the US earns just $26,965. Half earn LESS. For anyone inclined to dismiss it as just a few poor people, please check your privilege at the door. A cursory review of silver plans available for Cook County on Healthcare.gov has seven silver level plans from Blue Cross. After the ACA subsidy, the premiums range from $245 to $416 for a single, 45 year-old person who smokes and earns $26,965 before taxes. That’s $2,940 to $4,992 annually before health care or BHC®. The “subsidy” is $76.28 per month. Ha ha.
“The truth is that only 11% of people surveyed are capable of understanding the terms and costs of a single health insurance plan, when the plan is sitting in front of them on a table.”
Here we should note the idiocy of “cost-sharing reduction” which in this example is negligible. In the 200%-250% FPL tier above “poverty” level, it would increase actuarial value of his silver plan from 70% to 73%, and isn’t worth discussing here. It may help people just over the Medicaid cutoff more, but they’re in such dire straits, they may not care either.
Let’s deduct about $5,000 for various taxes, $4,000 for premiums, and maybe $8,000 for rent (in lousy neighborhood in a middle tier city) and our patient has $9,965 left, for food and transportation and clothing and utilities and… medical costs. The deductibles on these plans average $3,821 before the insurance company kicks in a dime. Goodbye food, clothing and transportation. More likely, goodbye health care.
Realistically, the person with about $191 per week for all those expenses will “chose” food and bus fare and lights. After all, these things are essential to his health. The chances he will spend $100 on medication, $50 on a specialist visit, $500 on an MRI or $900 to visit an emergency room are vanishingly small. After the deductible is paid, which will be never, health care is free! Let’s hope that pain in his side isn’t appendicitis! The Commonwealth Fund Health Care Affordability Tracking Survey spells it out:
“Having health insurance doesn’t guarantee that Americans with lower incomes can afford needed care… Two of five adults with private insurance who had high deductibles relative to their income said they had delayed needed care because of the deductible.”
That means missed prescriptions, medical appointments skipped, or just not seeing a doctor in the first place. Most likely the other three-fifths didn’t need health care at the time, which tends to skew the results more favorably than the reality of needing health care actually is.
With catastrophic junk plans like this, healthy people are in a lot of trouble if they need health care. Their best scenario is getting hit by a truck and not caring that total costs for them, although bankrupting, will be capped – sort of – if they can stay awake long enough to insist that no out-of-network anesthesiologists at their in-network hospital work on them.
Chronic care patients are another story. They need medical care every month without which their lives are endangered. Like Medicare’s famously crappy “donut hole” that left elders on the hook for 100% of prescription costs each August, the ACA’s donut hole starts over every year at January 1st in the form of a huge deductible for which “some costs may not apply” and will be ruinous for chronic patients and beyond the reach of many, depending on actual costs for their illnesses.
Has anyone looked lately at the cost of cancer drugs? Or the huge spike in generics like humalog for diabetics? How many sick, low-income people can come up with $3,000 out-of-pocket on January 1st? Oh yeah, we already know: “A majority, or 64%, of Americans don’t have enough cash on hand to handle a $1,000 emergency expense.”
After they finish their health insurance literacy class, they can attend the financial literacy class offered by their credit card company. Deadbeats.
We’ve heard endlessly how many people have enrolled in “coverage.” The ad campaigns blare “are you covered?” At the modest rate of 2.4 physicians per 1,000 patients (Cuba has 6.7 per 1,000), we need 38,400 new doctors to treat 16 million new patients, or 120,000 for 50 million uninsured. Never mind that no one asked where the doctors were coming from. For a bunch of corporate and government types swooning over data and metrics, they’re doing a lousy job of collecting data on anything that counts for actual patients. You know, basic stuff, like: what percentage of policy holders receive any cash benefit after premiums and out-of-pocket costs that run about $12,400? What percentage of chronic care patients can afford their prescriptions? How much health care is provided to typical policy holders, not just the sickest tier, for all the money they spend? And what about the sickest? Or, maybe: are health outcomes any better for all this? At what cost?
Obamacare is the leading edge, the template for future health insurance for the rest of you. HDHP’s—High Deductible Health Plans—with skinny networks, overpriced medicines and more tricks and traps than a Halloween funhouse. The woefully misnamed Affordable Care Act is designed to deliver $8,000 per year to insurance companies and $5,000 per year to medical providers before it delivers a dime to patients. That’s $208,000,000,000, give or take a few bucks, per year to the medical complex. And it’s working exactly as planned.
Howard Wait writes to unveil the reality behind the cultural trance that permeates American life. He lives in Chicago.
Palestinian woman who stabbed Israeli settler was defending herself: official
Al-Akhbar | December 17, 2014
A Palestinian woman suspected of stabbing an Israeli settler on December 1 was defending herself after being harassed by the man, a Palestinian official claimed Tuesday.
Amal Jamal Taqatqa, 22, was shot and critically wounded by soldiers near Gush Etzion on December 1 after allegedly stabbing an Israeli settler.
The director of Bethlehem’s military liaison department told Ma’an news agency that officials requested an investigation into the shooting, but that it has been delayed due to the political atmosphere.
“Is it reasonable that 46 surveillance cameras in Gush Etzion settlement bloc have failed to document what really happened between Amal Taqatqa, 22, from Beit Fajjar and an Israeli settler who claimed that she attempted to stab him?” Khaled Qaddura said.
Taqatqa reportedly engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with the settler after he verbally abused her, causing a minor scratch to the settler’s neck, Qaddura said.
“At that point, the settlers asked an Israeli soldier who was in the area to shoot the girl, and the soldier immediately shot her in the chest. The girl fell to the ground then tried to get up and run away, but the soldier shot her again in the feet causing her to fall down again then he approached her and shot a last round,” the official added.
Taqatqa is still receiving medical treatment at Hadassah hospital and is in a stable condition.
Qaddura slammed Israel’s labeling of Taqarqa as a “terrorist”, noting that the term “terrorism” is used automatically when Israelis – whether civilians or soldiers – are injured.
He urged Palestinians who witness such incidents to film them or record the registration number of the military vehicles involved.
Unrest has gripped Jerusalem and the West Bank on an almost daily basis for the past five months, flaring up after a group of Zionist settlers kidnapped and burned a young Palestinian to death because of his ethnicity, and worsened by the deadly Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip in July and August.
(Ma’an, Al-Akhbar)
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Book Review
‘Why Fauci Must Rot in Prison’: A Tale of Two Diaries
By Jill Erzen | The Defender | October 13, 2026
Dr. Anthony Fauci’s private diary reveals a “mind-numbing” contradiction between what the former top U.S. infectious disease official knew about COVID-19 and what he told the public, senior White House adviser Peter Navarro, Ph.D., said last week on “American Thought Leaders.”
In his new book, “Why Fauci Must Rot in Prison,” due out Oct. 20, Navarro compares Fauci’s private entries to his own pandemic-era diary, and uses what he calls “a tale of two diaries” to argue that Fauci should face criminal prosecution.
“I show, actually, how a prosecution can and should happen … at the state level, most likely,” Navarro said. “He should wind up in prison, and we’ve got the receipts in this book to put him there.”
Navarro said Fauci repeatedly acknowledged important facts in private, then publicly pursued policies that contradicted those facts — with devastating consequences.
“What he says many times privately in his diary is so at odds with both his public behavior and public statements that it’s mind-numbing,” Navarro said.
Navarro examines the lasting damage caused by lockdowns and other pandemic policies, and the ongoing toll of long COVID.
His book also addresses questions about vaccine safety, including why healthy young people faced COVID-19 vaccination mandates despite concerns about myocarditis, and why women were not warned about miscarriage risks linked to the shots. … continue
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