Thin Blue Line

The Thin Blue Line – What You Need To Know About Cops Covering For Themselves:

Here is an example

Chief Jimmy Wilkins said to his knowledge, the teenagers were patted-down, not strip-searched as they claimed.

It all stems from a traffic stop one night in May.

Wilkins said one of his officers pulled over 18-year-old Britney Turner because one of her headlights was out.

The Union County Sheriff told News 4 last week the strip-search was legal because it happened in a dark area next to a building.

http://www.wyff4.com/news/20269026/detail.html

A police supervisor was given only a written reprimand for allegedly choking a handcuffed suspect, Chattanooga police Chief Freeman Cooper said he does not consider any discipline to be light. “Jonathan Bryant is a good police officer and has been a good supervisor, and he just made a bad choice in this incident,” Chief Cooper said.

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2009/jul/30/officer-reprimanded-for-allegedly-choking-suspect/?local

wasting taxpayers’ money on a traffic stop they say took too long and involved too many officers.

Mary and Carlton Keith say police pulled them over because their 2007 Toyota Sequoia SUV is an unregistered farm use vehicle.

Carlton says he couldn’t convince the officer that the newer model vehicle was, in fact, a farm use vehicle and that he actually is a farmer. The Keiths own over 35 acres of farm land in the county where they raise sheep for wool.

The couple says the traffic stop took 2 hours, six police officers and two commonwealth’s attorneys in the dispute over the tags on the SUV.

Unregistered farm vehicles in Virginia can display a sign that says “farm use.” Farmers are not required to register their vehicles or pay registration fees.

The Keiths say the officer did not understand the law and that what should have been a simple stop turned into a two-hour conference call on the side of the road involving several officers.

“How many unsolved crimes are there in Chesterfield?” Mary Keith said, “and you have 2 hours and 9 minutes stopping a farm use vehicle?”

The Keiths say they were about five miles from home, which is well within the law for a farm use vehicle. They say they were carrying a bag of wool to market at a spinner’s guild meeting at the county library.

“They may think it should be in a pickup truck, but you can’t carry wool or grain in a pickup truck,” Mary Keith said. “If it gets wet, you’ve had it.”

Chesterfield Police acknowledge that the traffic stop took too long, but say it was because of the driver.

Carlton Keith was charged with failure to obtain a registration. Police say he prolonged the stop by refusing to sign the summons.

In response to the Keiths’ claim that the police were wasting taxpayer money, the Chesterfield Police Dept. issued a statement saying that it does not enforce the law based on time or how many officers it uses.

The Police Dept. also says the officer was well within his rights to end the incident quickly and arrest Carlton Keith for failure to sign the summons. Instead, police say, the officer resolved the dispute with a simple traffic summons.

The case, which was set for traffic court Thursday, was continued.

The Keiths say they plan to fight the charge on principal, saying their civil rights were violated.
Virginia CODE ON FARM USE PLATES
Registered Farm Vehicles (F-tag)
For what purposes can I use a registered farm vehicle?

Vehicles that are registered for farming purposes can be used to transport:
agricultural products to market or to other points for sale or processing;
materials, tools, equipment, or supplies that will be used or consumed on the farm;
anything incidental to the routine operation of the farm;
farm produce, supplies, equipment, or materials to another farm through a mutual agreement with the owner of the other farm;
forest products to the farm including forest materials originating on a farm or related to the regular operation of the farm;
forest products which originate on the farm.

Vehicles used on a tree farm are not eligible for farm registration unless the tree farm is also a nursery, a Christmas tree farm, or is part of what is otherwise a farm

Essentially theses people were held and were not allowed to leave, this could be considered a constitutional violation. It seams this is common place with CCPD these days. It may be time for some training from the F.B.I since this “Accredited ” department can not control the rank and file? Maybe we should take up a collection to buy them code books (The big ones that explain the law!)

Lawsuit alleges police intimidation at SoCal event

The Associated Press

Posted: 09/08/2009 01:34:14 PM PDT

Updated: 09/08/2009 02:19:23 PM PDT

LOS ANGELES—A group of Southern California residents opposed to the way checkpoints were being conducted in Latino neighborhoods have sued Pomona police officers, accusing them of intimidation.

The plaintiffs include more than 50 people who attended an August 2008 community meeting to discuss the checkpoints, which some residents say targeted Latinos.

They say police officers in plainclothes came to the meeting at a local religious center and threatened and intimidated participants.

The lawsuit, filed last week in federal court in Los Angeles, accuses the officers of interfering with their rights to free speech, assembly and religion at that meeting.

"We expect the police to respect the Constitution of the United States," Angela Sanbrano, one of the plaintiffs and a member of a coalition organizing opposition to the checkpoints, said Tuesday.

Police in the city east of Los Angeles have said the checkpoints were set up to look for drunk drivers and traffic safety violations.

A four-way checkpoint held in a predominantly Latino neighborhood from afternoon to night in May 2008 angered some residents, who organized protests and the August 2008 community meeting.

Mark Gluba, assistant to the city manager in Pomona, said Tuesday that officials are studying the allegations.

www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_13292366

POLICE WANT PROTECTION TO COVER UP MISSCONDUCT ALLAGATIONS IN NJ

Police seem to be under increasing scrutiny. Rarely does this scrutiny expose misconduct, although those occasions receive intense media coverage.

In the back of every police officer’s mind lies the fear of unfounded allegations of misconduct leveled by suspects who themselves often have criminal records longer than your arm. In an attempt to gain leverage, defense lawyers commonly lodge complaints against police officers. Lawsuits are filed, and insurance companies often settle claims out of court to avoid the expense of litigation. The police end up looking like the bad guys.

When a police officer is charged with a criminal offense, current law allows the prosecution to offer the testimony of people who have lodged complaints of misconduct against an officer. These complaints, depending on their nature, have been thoroughly investigated by the police department or the county prosecutors office itself.

The concern of the law enforcement community comes after a complaint against an officer is found to be without merit and dismissed. Current law allows all unfounded, dismissed and untruthful allegations against an officer to be brought back, re-examined and often admitted into the trial, even though they were previously investigated and dismissed, possibly many years in the past. Of course any complaint against an officer that is found to be true, resulting in the punishment of the Officer, remains admissible; that is just and fair.

When do police get equal rights? Any citizen has the right to complain about an officer’s conduct; that is the American justice system. Past charges that a criminal was found not guilty of are not admissible, so why are past unfounded accusations admissible when prosecuting a police officer? We need equal treatment by the courts and by the justice system. Clearly, the law needs to be changed to protect police officers from this judicial double standard.

A jury acquitted two Richmond police officers yesterday in an alleged cover-up, ending criminal cases against three officers more than 18 months after the assault in a bar that had prompted the charges.

Two officers acquitted in obstruction case