Fogbow

Baton Rouge police accused of illegally strip-searching woman at 'BRAVE cave'; FBI contacted

BY LARA NICHOLSON | Staff writer
Sep 18, 2023

Weeks after a Baton Rouge police warehouse facility was permanently closed by city officials following allegations of abuse, more accusations have emerged — this time from a woman saying officers illegally performed a body cavity search on her there.

The woman, Ternell Brown, filed a federal lawsuit Monday accusing two Baton Rouge police officers of taking her to a narcotics processing facility — called a “torture warehouse” by several civil rights attorneys — after they found a gun and pill bottle in her car containing different prescription medications during a traffic stop.

The lawsuit also accuses a top administrator, Chief of Staff Myron Daniels, of protecting the BRPD Street Crimes Unit and its head from discipline because of his own business interests. State business filings show Daniels operates a security consulting firm with Lorenzo Coleman, who headed the Street Crimes Unit until it was shut down last month amid an investigation into how officers handled suspects.

Daniels did not respond to a request for comment. Coleman couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Regarding her arrest, Brown claims she offered to show officers that she had a valid prescription but was instead taken to the facility. There, the officers ordered the woman to undress and spread her vagina to two male officers and a female officer, the lawsuit alleges.

BRPD released her without a criminal charge after more than two hours, the lawsuit says.




https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge ... 02c71.html

County agrees to $12.2M settlement with man who was jailed for drunken driving
A Minnesota county has agreed to pay a $12.2 million settlement to a man who was jailed on suspicion of drunken driving but ended up losing both his hands — allegedly due to inaction of officials in the county jail

STEVE KARNOWSKI Associated Press
October 5, 2023, 1:24 AM

MINNEAPOLIS -- A Minnesota county agreed to pay a $12.2 million settlement to a man who was jailed on suspicion of drunken driving but ended up losing both his hands and suffering a heart attack, a stroke and skin lesions all over his body, allegedly due to the inaction of officials in the county jail, attorneys said Wednesday.

Terrance Dwayne Winborn spent about four months in hospitals, including two months on a ventilator, because Scott County jail officials failed during the 39 hours he was incarcerated to ensure he got the prompt treatment he needed, his lawyers said at a news conference.

It’s a case that highlights the vulnerability of prisoners who are dependent on authorities for medical care.

The attorneys said the settlement will cover the more than $2 million in medical bills Winborn has already incurred — a sum which they said the county didn't cover — as well as the millions he'll need for ongoing care. The county's insurance plan will cover the settlement.

“That deliberate indifference allowed a bacterial infection to run rampant within his body, leading to a heart attack ... and a host of other devastating and permanent injuries,” attorney Katie Bennett told reporters.




https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory ... -103739887

Clearwater police officer arrested for sexually battering tourist following pedestrian stop

FOX 13 Tampa Bay
17 Oct 2023

Clearwater Police Chief Eric Gandy announced an officer was arrested on Tuesday for sexually battering a tourist after stopping her for jaywalking.

Columbus police investigating viral video of officer saying 11-year-old child may be charged with making pornography

by: Daniel Griffin, Caleb Michael
Posted: Sep 18, 2023 / 10:39 PM EDT Updated: Sep 20, 2023 / 02:11 PM EDT

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Columbus police have launched an investigation after a video went viral over the weekend of an officer saying an 11-year-old girl could be charged with producing child pornography.

According to a department statement, the incident is being investigated by the Department of the Inspector General, “which investigates complaints of misconduct and/or excessive use of force by sworn personnel.”

The video, which has not been verified by NBC4, appears to have been posted sometime Sunday. Redacted Columbus police body camera footage released Tuesday shows the same interaction.

On Tuesday, Chief of Police Elaine Bryant said the officers lacked empathy and were not a reflection of the department.

“Every victim of crime deserves to be treated with dignity, compassion and decency,” Bryant said. “What I saw in that video did not reflect those actions.”

The viral video, captured by a home security system, showed two officers responding to a home at night. The 1:35 clip begins with an officer knocking on the home’s door, then knocking again after no one answers the door.

At 50 seconds into the video, a man inside the home opened the door and spoke with police. He told officers he wanted them to respond earlier in the day, but a timeframe was not specified. A caption on the video claims a call was made to police at 6, but officers didn’t respond until midnight. An investigation report filed by the officer who responded said the initial call by the man was made at 6:54 p.m. on Sept. 14; the officers responded to the call at 12:18 a.m. on Sept. 15, according to the report.

The man said he initially asked for police to respond in order to talk to the child about what the caption claims to be an online predator situation.

The man said to the officer that he realized there probably isn’t much they can do about it, which is when the police officer said, “I mean, she can probably get charged with child porn.”

The man then said the girl is 11 years old, to which the officer responded, “She’s creating it, right… It doesn’t matter. She’s still making porn.”

“No she’s not,” the man said. “She’s being manipulated by a grown-*** adult over the internet.”

“Is she still taking pictures, though?” the officer asked, at which point the man told the officers to have a nice evening and thanked them for responding to the home before going back inside.

“Are you serious right now?” the man said as the door closed. The officers then leave the property.



https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/c ... rnography/

Legal claim: Lake Havasu City police excessively tasered man with disabilities

ABC15 Arizona
28 Oct 2023

A man with developmental disabilities has filed a legal claim against the Lake Havasu City Police Department saying officers excessively tasered him during an arrest.

Police investigation underway after children left behind following arrest at traffic stop in Hazelwood

By Alexis Zotos
Published: Oct. 27, 2023 at 5:22 AM CEST

HAZELWOOD, Mo. (KMOV) - Hazelwood Police Chief James Hudanick says an internal investigation is underway after a traffic stop Wednesday night.

It happened around 11:30 pm near Lindbergh and McDonnell. Joseph Hibler was pulled over for an expired license plate on his way home from a funeral.

Hibler says the officer told him he had an open warrant. The warrant stemmed from a citation from 2018 over no vehicle insurance. He described what was going through his mind when the officer told him to get out of the car and handcuff him.

“My children are in the car. There’s no way they’re going to take me away from my children,” Hibler said

A bystander captured the traffic stop on camera. Hibler is heard saying it “isn’t even serious” as police hold him against the squad car and moments later tase him.

Meanwhile, the four kids, ages 14, 13, 11 and one year old, sit in the car. The video shows police drive Hibler away and then check on the kids, asking if any of them have a driver’s license. But then officers leave the scene. Video from the bystander shows the car on the side of the road with the children inside.

“What the hell? Who would leave minors in the car by themselves late at night,” is the question JaCee Robertson can’t stop asking.

She was still at her father’s funeral when she got the text from her fiancé that he had been pulled over. She finally reached her children who were hysterical. She drove the route home and found them.

“We see them on the side of the road, with the door open, the headlights on, the car still running,” said Robertson.

Hazelwood Police Chief Hudanick says it is their policy that minors should not be left unattended. The internal investigation will look into use of force from this incident as well as the policy surrounding passengers in the car. First Alert Four is working to learn the status of the offices and additional details of the investigation.

Hibler was released Thursday morning and no charges have been filed surrounding the traffic stop at this time.



https://www.kmov.com/2023/10/27/police- ... hazelwood/

VERY strange story developing: four former or current LASD deputies took their own lives on the same day.

Not so strange when you consider that a recent investigation found SIX ACTIVE DEPUTY GANGS running parts of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.

That's right, LASD has a gang problem INSIDE the station houses!

Google ... How many police departments are being investigated by DOJ? ... 23
https://justice.gov/opa/file/797666/download

poplove wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2023 5:19 pm Possibly related to my post above.

Google ... How many police departments are being investigated by DOJ? ... 23
https://justice.gov/opa/file/797666/download

The vast majority of law enforcement agencies enter into voluntary agreements, however, the department has filed
suit when agencies have been unwilling to correct patterns or practices of misconduct. The department is currently
in litigation with regard to two law enforcement agencies:

 Alamance County (North Carolina) Sheriff’s Office; Colorado City (Arizona) Police Department

northland10 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 8:11 pm From the article:

 Alamance County (North Carolina) Sheriff’s Office; Colorado City (Arizona) Police Department

Colorado City is the Arizona side of those towns controlled by Warren Jeffs FLDS group (Hildale is the Utah side). I'm soooo shocked.

raison de arizona wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 10:43 pm

northland10 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 8:11 pm From the article:

 Alamance County (North Carolina) Sheriff’s Office; Colorado City (Arizona) Police Department

Colorado City is the Arizona side of those towns controlled by Warren Jeffs FLDS group (Hildale is the Utah side). I'm soooo shocked.

It’s a weird little part of AZ that you can’t actually get to from AZ, you have to come from UT to access it.

'Hood rats': Ohio police officers caught on scanner talking about public

WCPO 9
16 Nov 2023

During one conversation, an officer spoke about an Elmwood Place woman, stating "She can ingest a satchel of Richards." Officers could be heard coming up with nicknames for residents and saying they just love "f**king with people."

Police Tase 20-Year-Old Car Crash Survivor

Inside Edition
20 Nov 2023

Jordan Rivero says the injuries he suffered in a car accident were made worse when he was tased by police. The 20-year-old tells Inside Edition he was on a fishing trip in Florida when the car crash happened. In a newly released police bodycam video of the July 2022 incident, he can be seen climbing out of the wrecked vehicle. First responders try to reassure him. Authorities say he was “aggressive” and “uncooperative.” However, Rivero says he was so dazed and disoriented from the crash, he got up twice and found himself restrained by officers. He was later tased by cops.

Mississippi sheriff rolls out reforms after deputies and an officer plead guilty to torturing 2 Black men

By Ryan Young, Pamela Kirkland and Chelsea Bailey, CNN
Updated 5:59 PM EST, Fri December 1, 2023

CNN — On a Tuesday night in January, five sheriff’s deputies from Rankin County, Mississippi, and a police officer from a neighboring department forced their way into the home where Eddie Parker and Michael Jenkins were living in Braxton, Mississippi.

The six White law enforcement officers called themselves the “Goon Squad,” according to a lawsuit filed this summer, “because of their willingness to use excessive force and not to report it.”

That night, Parker and Jenkins would become the “Squad’s” latest victims.

The two Black men were tortured, tased, and say they were sexually assaulted for hours. Jenkins and Parker said they were called the N-word and other racial slurs throughout the beating.

Then a deputy put a gun in Jenkins mouth and pulled the trigger, the lawsuit says.

The bullet lacerated his tongue, broke his jaw and then exited out of Jenkins’ neck, according to the lawsuit. He later told CNN officers left him lying in a pool of his blood.

Then, according to court documents, they tried to cover it up.



https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/01/us/r ... index.html

How a ‘Goon Squad’ of Deputies Got Away With Years of Brutality
They barged into homes in the middle of the night, then held people down while they beat and choked them, witnesses said. For years, signs of the violence went ignored.

By Brian Howey and Nate Rosenfield Photographs by Rory Doyle for The New York Times
Nov. 30, 2023

Brian Howey and Nate Rosenfield investigated dozens of arrests made by Rankin County deputies to report this article, which is part of a series by The Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship examining the power of sheriffs’ offices in Mississippi.

For nearly two decades, a loose band of sheriff’s deputies roamed impoverished neighborhoods across a central Mississippi county, meting out their own version of justice.

Narcotics detectives and patrol officers, some who called themselves the Goon Squad, barged into homes in the middle of the night, accusing people inside of dealing drugs. Then they handcuffed or held them at gunpoint and tortured them into confessing or providing information, according to dozens of people who say they endured or witnessed the assaults.

They described violence that sometimes went on for hours and seemed intended to strike terror into the deputies’ targets.

In the pursuit of drug arrests, deputies of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department shocked Robert Jones with a Taser in 2018 while he lay submerged in a flooded ditch, then rammed a stick down his throat until he vomited blood, he said.



https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/us/r ... eriff.html
share link https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/us/r ... =url-share

𝐁𝐞𝐤𝐬 @antifaoperative wrote: Arkansas police officer & school resource officer, Roy Mitchell, who was arrested in October for the rape of 2 children, has been arrested again for the rape of a child under the age of 14, while he was out on bond.

Bodycam: 'Family, family!' Guatemalan teen repeatedly cries out during fatal St. Johns arrest
SCOTT BUTLER Jacksonville Florida Times-Union

Newly obtained officer-worn body camera video shows the circumstances behind the arrest of a young man who speaks little English and appeared not to understand what was happening when he resisted and was repeatedly jolted with a taser. The 52-year-old arresting officer, St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Michael Kunovich, collapsed and died of heart attack following the struggle, court records show.

Vergilio Aguilar Mendez, the 18-year-old who later confirmed he feared being deported back to Guatemala, is charged with aggravated manslaughter of an officer and resisting an officer with violence. He is being detained without bail, which his attorney is seeking to have set after filing a motion on Nov. 21.

The confrontation happened on May 19 about 9 p.m. when Kunovich saw the young man in the Super 8 motel parking lot on Florida 16 next to a closed Howard Johnson hotel in St. Augustine, according to the arrest report. The veteran lawman determined it was suspicious and began to question him, though it wasn't a call for service. When he attempts to pat him down, Aguilar Mendez resists and a struggle ensues. Other deputies arrive and a taser is used in an attempt to control him.

While fighting on the ground with the deputies, Aguilar Mendez grabs the taser to try to take it away or stop them. They get him handcuffed, but he still retrieves a folding pocket knife from his shorts pockets, according to the report. Shortly after they disarm him, Kunovich collapses from medical distress.

The physical struggle lasted about 6 minutes, the Sheriff's Office said. At least three deputies were involved in securing the teen, whose attorney notes is 5-foot-4 and 115 pounds.

Sheriff Robert Hardwick said during a news conference the sergeant did everything by the book and that Aguilar Mendez was trespassing. "All the suspect had to do was comply," Hardwick said.

The Times-Union was denied this portion of the bodycam footage from the Sheriff’s Office but obtained it through court records filed by the defense.

What does Sgt. Kunovich’s bodycam video show?

Kunovich pulls up to Aguilar Mendez in his patrol vehicle as he’s slowly walking away while holding his phone and wearing a T-shirt and shorts. Kunovich gets out and yells “Stop” and calls in a signal 13 for a suspicious person as Aguilar Mendez stays put looking at his phone (records say he was talking with his mother).

Aguilar Mendez sighs and takes one step before Kunovich orders him to stop again. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the teen says.

Kunovich begins to question him, “Why when I was driving around,” and the teen in very broken English tries to say something while pointing to the Super 8 hotel. But the sergeant cuts him off ordering him to “Stop, stop.” The teen says “eating, eating.” “OK, but why did you get up and walk away,” Kunovich says in an accusatory tone. “When you saw me and you got up and walked away, why, why?”

Aguilar Mendez sounds and looks confused and points in both directions, mumbling something about going far and drinking, motioning like he’s taking a drink. Kunovich asks where is he staying, and Aguilar Mendez points to the hotel.

“Here?” Kunovich questions. And the teen says yes. “Then why aren’t you eating inside,” the sergeant asks. The teen again says he’s sorry, and Kunovich asks if he’s got any ID. He points to the room. Kunovich asks for his name and he responds he doesn’t speak English.

The sergeant then asks if he has any weapons, and he says no. Kunovich asks him to turn around and grabs his right arm. The teen doesn’t look like he knows what to do and says “No, no.” “Don’t walk away from me,” the sergeant says. “Sorry, sorry,” Aguilar Mendez says again. “Don’t pull away from me,” Kunovich says angrily.

Bodycam shows arrest of Guatemalan who can’t understand commands by St. Johns deputies
Vergilio Aguilar Mendez is shown struggling with deputies and being tased before Sgt. Michael Kunovich goes into medical distress.
He begins to try to search his pockets, but Aguilar Mendez resists, and then the struggle ensues as other deputies arrive and assist in taking him down. The teen repeats “I’m sorry” several times. One of the deputies screams, “Do you want to be tased!” He continues to resist and cry for family and they use the taser on him multiple times. He grabs at the taser. They engage him again with another electric jolt.

They appear to have him stopped with one of the deputies on top of him. They tell him to get down and engage him again with the stun gun as he screams over and again. He says he doesn’t speak English when given a command. But he’s able to get back up and reach for what sounds like a deputy says is a weapon, and they take him down again and get him handcuffed and make him let go of a knife. He begs for what sounds like “familia” multiple times for family.

The video doesn’t show Kunovich collapse afterward.





https://eu.jacksonville.com/story/news/ ... 771288007/