COPWATCH

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Re: COPWATCH

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Sep 25, 2014 2:04 pm

http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/unarmed-dri ... -1.2024340


http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/unarmed-dri ... -1.2024340

Thursday, September 25, 2014 1:46PM EDT


COLUMBIA, S.C. -- An unarmed man shot by a South Carolina trooper during a traffic stop repeated one question through his anguished cries as he lay wounded, waiting for an ambulance: "Why did you shoot me?"

Levar Jones' painful groans and then-Trooper Sean Groubert's reply -- "Well you dove head first back into your car" -- were captured by a dashboard camera in the trooper's car.

Groubert had stopped Jones on a seatbelt violation at a Columbia gas station and fired the shots moments after asking Jones for his license.
Photos
South Carolina State Police trooper Sean Groubert

South Carolina State Police trooper Sean Groubert poses for a booking photo. (AP / South Carolina State Police)

Later on the recording, Jones said he was just reaching into his vehicle for his identification after the trooper pulled up without his siren on. What appears to be his wallet can be seen flying through the air as Groubert fires four shots within seconds after confronting Jones.

Groubert's lawyer, Barney Giese, said the shooting was justified because the trooper feared for his life and the safety of others. But prosecutors and Groubert's boss disagreed.

The 31-year-old officer was charged with felony assault and fired less than three weeks after the Sept. 4 traffic stop.

The dashboard camera video was released by prosecutors Wednesday night after they showed it at Groubert's bond hearing. He was released after paying 10 per cent of a $75,000 bond.

Jones is recovering after being shot in the hip. He released a statement last week saying he hopes his shooting leads to changes in how police officers treat suspects.

So far in 2014 in South Carolina, police have shot at suspects 35 times, killing 16 of them, according to the State Law Enforcement Division. The number of officer-involved shootings has been steadily increasing over the past few years, with 42 reported in 2013.

Groubert is white and Jones is black, but neither state police nor the FBI keeps detailed statistics on the races of people in officer-involved shootings.

Much like the recent police shooting of a black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, the racial aspect of the South Carolina shooting bothers state Rep. Joe Neal, who wants a review of training for officers across South Carolina and police agencies to follow a law requiring them to collect data about the race of people stopped by officers.

"You are doing exactly what the police officer asked you do to and you get shot for it?" said Neal. "That's insane."
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Re: COPWATCH

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Oct 30, 2014 11:44 pm

Deputy Moses Baker: Former PBSO deputy accused of having sex with prostitutes in patrol car

see link for full story

http://www.wptv.com/news/region-c-palm- ... patrol-car

Oct 30, 2014


PBSO deputy resigns after prostitution allegations

A former Palm Beach County Sheriff's deputy was told to either give up his badge, or possibly face criminal charges for allegedly having sex with prostitutes in his patrol car.

Former Deputy Moses Baker resigned in July after an internal affairs investigation started in February.

According to the internal affairs investigation report, several prostitutes told investigators they had sexual relations with Baker.

The Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office contacted the governor's office because they felt uncomfortable handling the case due to Baker's law enforcement ties in the county.

Baker's father is a judge and his sister is a prosecutor with the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office.

The Martin County State Attorney's Office was selected to handle the investigation.

According to their executive assignment disposition memorandum: "During the week of February 23, 2014 PBSO Internal Affairs received information that Deputy Baker had engaged in sexual activity with known prostitutes while on duty."

A letter was sent to Governor Rick Scott on Oct. 23rd stating that the investigation was finished.

According to the letter, Baker had to:

1. Immediately relinquish his certificate as a law enforcement officer.
2. Take an HIV test and submit the results to the state attorney's office.
3. Complete a five hour class called "Prostitution Impact Prevention Education Class."

According to the letter, "As a result of this, no charges will be filed against Mr. Baker. Mr. Baker has completed these requirements, therefore this case is closed."

Former FBI Agent and attorney Stuart Kaplan reviewed the reports for WPTV.

"Clearly any deputy or any law enforcement officer having sex in a marked patrol car under any circumstances is inappropriate," Kaplan said.

He says the situation was handled correctly.

"I think they did an excellent job on the
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Re: COPWATCH

Postby fruhmenschen » Mon Nov 03, 2014 12:55 am

see link for full story


Media Release: Scientology suspicious death stonewalled by Clearwater Police


Today, Clearwater Police investigator, Rob Shaw and Commander, Major David Dalton were contacted for information concerning the suspicious death of Kyle Brennan. Twenty year-old Kyle Brennan died from a single shot to the head from his father's .357 Magnum pistol.

http://www.wireservice.ca/index.php?mod ... &sid=12997


(11/02/2014) - According to DeWitt, the mother of Kyle, Victoria Britton is investigating the possibility that Kyle Brennan's civil rights were violated. Victoria is seeking help from anyone who may have information about Kyle's death and the police investigation that followed.

Questions lead to more questions, and the issue is whether Scientology's dogmatic hatred of psychiatry and Kyle's contact with the FBI contributed to the death of the troubled 20-year-old.


Although Kyle's death occurred back on Feb. 16, 2007, documentary filmmakers and journalists continue to dig and press on for details and truth with little or no cooperation from the Clearwater Police department.

In a Skype interview this morning with researcher, Damian DeWitt, it is clear that the death of this young man is not going away anytime soon.

Clearwater police investigator, Rob Shaw, has refused to answer any questions concerning the death and/or, what many claim was a botched investigation. German filmmaker, Markus Thoess, was in Clearwater recently, and submitted a list of 18 questions to Rob Shaw with no answers. Today, another list of questions was sent to officer, Rob Shaw and Commander, Major David Dalton.

Major David Dalton


Researcher Damian DeWitt confirmed today that Victoria Britton is moving ahead to hold the Clearwater Police accountable and re-open an investigation into the suspicious death of her son Kyle Brennan. She is publishing a great deal of damning information not previously available at her blog The Truth For Kyle Brennan that has the police and Scientologists nervously circling the wagons.

Many say that the death of Kyle Brennan is highly suspect of being a homicide covered up to look like suicide.

According to DeWitt in a statement received by email, "Kyle's death was investigated by Clearwater Police Detective Stephen Bohling. Police at the scene of Kyle's death did not find the bullet that killed Kyle and did not find his fingerprints on the weapon or ammunition found at the scene nor on notes found stuffed into Kyle's pockets."

One expert who examined the forensic reports independently has declared that it would have been impossible for Kyle to have committed suicide and not left fingerprints on the weapon or the notes in his pockets. Another expert has pointed out that the nature of the head wound and trajectory of the bullet are indicative not of suicide but of homicide.

Despite this, the medical examiner, Dr. Martha J. Scholl declared the cause of Kyle's death to be suicide. She said that police had told her there was a suicide note, but there was no suicide note ever found.

Kyle's father, Tom Brennan, says that on the night of Kyle's death he came home at 10:30 pm and didn't call the police until an hour and a half later - shortly before midnight.

Also present at the apartment for at least forty-five minutes before the police arrived were Denise Miscavige Gentile, the twin sister of Scientology leader David Miscavige, and Denise's husband, Jerry Gentile.

Scientology was, without a doubt, involved in the aftermath and investigation of Kyle Brennan's death.

DeWitt states that, "Jerry Gentile re-appeared after the police appeared and spoke with Officer Jonathan Yuen and Tom Brennan, whom he took to his home after the police left and sealed off the apartment. Within 24 hours he submitted a report to the headquarters of Scientology's private intelligence agency, the Office of Special Affairs (OSA) in Los Angeles."

"Analysis has revealed that Gentile's report is a fabrication, which was submitted to the court who heard the wrongful death suit filed by Victoria Britton. Judge Stephen Merryday dismissed the suit in 2011 despite this and other fabricated documents submitted by OSA, who manage Scientology's legal affairs."

The plot thickens with Denise Miscavige being the Twin Sister of David Miscavige was Tom Brennan's employer and Scientology auditor or pseudo-psychotherapist and has described herself as his closest friend.


Denise Miscavige has a colourful history that questions her credibility. Denise was involved in an alleged inventory fraud scandal in the mid-1990s at the Digital Lightwave Company and was arrested in 2013 for drunk driving and marijuana possession while returning home from one of her rental houses being used as a drug house and private strip club.

DeWitt states that, "Kyle must have been apprehensive on the evening he was killed because in the five minutes before his father came home he called and left messages at the offices of three personal injury lawyers. A woman at one of the offices recalls Kyle pleading "Please help me."

Kyle was his way home to Charlottesville, Virginia, after a two month trip that had taken him to Iowa, California, and finally, Maui. He decided to visit his father in Clearwater before returning to his home and school in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Right before leaving for Clearwater Kyle had called the Clearwater police to let them know that he was coming to Clearwater and that he was concerned that someone in his family might try to harm him, and he wanted them to know in case anything should happen to him.

After Kyle's death police discovered that he had written the words "LOOK INSIDE" on his stomach hidden by his T-shirt. When Kyle's mother Victoria Britton learned of this she knew immediately it was a message for her. Kyle knew she had extensive training as a private investigator and would understand the message.

When Kyle's belongings were returned she looked inside his cell phone and found a short video of Kyle explaining that he was going to get the FBI to investigate his father for crimes Kyle believed he had committed of embezzlement from the family catering business and an arson Kyle believed his father had committed to cover up the embezzlements.
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Re: COPWATCH

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Nov 06, 2014 1:34 am

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/2652 ... oss-the-us

Police Departments Retaliate Against Organized "Cop Watch" Groups Across the US
Thursday, 02 October 2014 10:13
By Candice Bernd, Truthout | Report


2014
Police on duty in New York City (Photo: Jamie Kenny)

When communities attempt to police the police, they often get, well... policed.
In several states, organized groups that use police scanners and knowledge of checkpoints to collectively monitor police activities by legally and peacefully filming cops on duty have said they've experienced retaliation, including unjustified detainment and arrests as well as police intimidation.
The groups operate under many decentralized organizations, most notably CopWatch and Cop Block, and have proliferated across the United States in the last decade - and especially in the aftermath of the events that continue to unfold in Ferguson, Missouri, after officer Darren Wilson fatally shot unarmed, black teenager Michael Brown.
Many such groups have begun proactively patrolling their communities with cameras at various times during the week, rather than reactively turning on their cameras when police enter into their neighborhoods or when they happen to be around police activity.
Across the nation, local police departments are responding to organized cop watching patrols by targeting perceived leaders, making arrests, threatening arrests, yanking cameras out of hands and even labeling particular groups "domestic extremist" organizations and part of the sovereign citizens movement - the activities of which the FBI classifies as domestic terrorism.
Courts across the nation at all levels have upheld the right to film police activity. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and photographer's assocications have taken many similar incidents to court, consistently winning cases over the years. The Supreme Court has ruled police can't search an individual's cellphone data without a warrant. Police also can't legally delete an individual's photos or video images under any circumstances.
"Yet, a continuing stream of these incidents (often driven by police who have been fed 'nonsense' about links between photography and terrorism) makes it clear that the problem is not going away," writes Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the ACLU's Speech, Privacy & Technology Project.
Sources who have participated in various organized cop watching groups in cities such as New York; Chicago; Cleveland; Las Vegas; Oakland; Arlington, Texas; Austin and lastly Ferguson, Missouri, told Truthout they have experienced a range of police intimidation tactics, some of which have been caught on film. Cop watchers told Truthout they have been arrested in several states, including Texas, New York, Ohio and California in retaliation for their filming activity.
More recently, in September, three cop watchers were arrested while monitoring police activity during a traffic stop in Arlington, Texas. A group of about 20 people, a few of them associated with the Tarrant County Peaceful Streets Project, gathered at the intersection of South Cooper Street and Lynda Lane during a Saturday night on September 6 to film police as they conducted a traffic stop. A video of what happened next was posted at YouTube.
Arlington police charged Janie Lucero, her husband, Kory Watkins, and Joseph Tye with interference of public duties. Lucero and Watkins were charged with obstructing a highway while Tye was arrested on charges of refusing to identify himself.
Arlington police have defended the arrests of the three cop watchers, but the watchers say they weren't interfering with police work, and were told to move 150 feet away from the officers - around the corner of a building where they couldn't film the officers.
"When we first started [cop watching, the police] seemed kind of bothered a little bit," Watkins told Truthout. "There was a change somewhere where [the police] started becoming a little bit more offended, and we started having more cop watchers so I guess they felt like they needed to start bringing more officers to traffic stops."
On the night of Watkin's arrest, his group had previously monitored two other traffic stops without any confrontation with Arlington police officers before the incident that led to the arrests.
Sometimes, though, retaliation against cop watching groups goes far beyond arresting cop watchers on patrol.
Cops Label Cop Watch Groups Domestic Terrorists

On New Year's Day in 2012, Antonio Buehler, a West Point graduate and former military officer, witnessed two Austin police officers assaulting a woman. He pulled out his phone.
As he began photographing the officers and asking questions about their activities, the cops assaulted and arrested him. He was charged with spitting in a cop's face - a felony crime.
However, two witness videos of the incident surfaced and neither of them showed that Buehler spit in Officer Patrick Oborski's face. A grand jury was finally convened in March 2013 and concluded there was not enough evidence to indict Buehler on any of the crimes he was charged with.
A few months after the New Year's Day incident, Buehler and other Austin-based activists started the Peaceful Streets Project (PSP), an all-volunteer organization dedicated to stopping police abuse. The group has held "Know Your Rights" trainings and a Police Accountability Summit. The group also regularly organizes cop watch patrols in Austin.
Since the PSP was launched, the movement has grown, with local chapters popping up in other cities and states across the United States, including Texas' Tarrant County chapter, which the three cop watchers arrested in Arlington were affiliated with.
But as the Peaceful Streets movement spread, police retaliation against the groups, and particularly Buehler himself, also escalated.
"[The Austin Police Department (APD)] sees us as a threat primarily because we shine a spotlight on their crimes," Buehler said.
The group recently obtained documents from the APD through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that reveal Austin police colluded to arrest Buehler and other cop watchers affiliated with the Peaceful Streets Project. Since the New Year's Day incident, Buehler has been arrested three more times by APD officers. At least four other members of PSP have been arrested on charges of interference or failing to identify themselves during their cop watching activities.
The emails indicate APD officers monitored Buehler's social media posts and attempted to justify arresting him for another felony crime of online impersonation over an obviously satirical post he made on Facebook, as well as reveal that some APD officers coordinated efforts to stop PSP members' legal and peaceful activities, even suggesting reaching out to the District Attorney's office to see if anything could be done to incarcerate members of the group.
Another internal email from APD senior officer Justin Berry identifies PSP as a "domestic extremist" organization. Berry writes that he believes police accountability groups including PSP, CopWatch and Cop Block are part of a "national domestic extremism trend." He believes he found "mirror warning signs" in "FBI intel." Berry makes a strange attempt to lump police accountability activists and the hacker-collective Anonymous in with sovereign citizens groups as a collective revolutionary movement.
"Sovereign citizens" groups generally believe federal, state and local governments are illegitimate and operate illegally. Some self-described sovereign citizens create fake license plates, identification and forms of currency to circumvent official government institutions. The FBI classifies the activities of sovereign citizens groups as domestic terrorism, considering the groups a growing "domestic threat" to law enforcement.
Buehler told Truthout the APD is working with a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) fusion center to attempt to identify PSP as a sovereign citizens group to associate its members with domestic terrorism with state and federal authorities. DHS fusion centers are designed to gather, analyze and promote the sharing of intelligence information between federal and state agencies.
"They have spent a fair amount of resources tracking us, spying on us and infiltrating our group, and we are just peaceful activists who are demanding accountability for the police," Buehler told Truthout. "They have absolutely no evidence that we've engaged in any criminal activity or that we've tried to engage in criminal activity."
APD officials did not respond to a request for comment.
"They've pushed us; they've assaulted us for filming them; they've used their horses against us and tried to run us into walls; they've driven their cars up on us; they illegally detained us and searched us; they get in our face and they yell at us; they threaten to use violent force against us," Buehler said. "But we didn't realize until these emails just how deep this intimidation, how deep these efforts were to harm us for trying to hold them accountable."
Buehler also said the group has additional internal emails which have not been released yet that reveal the APD attempted to take another charge to the District Attorney against him for felony child endangerment over the activities of a teenaged member of PSP.
He said he and other members of PSP were interested in pursuing a joint civil action against the APD over their attempts to frame and arrest them for their First Amendment activities.
This is not the first time a municipal police department has labeled a local cop watching group as an extremist organization.
In 2002, internal files from the Denver Police Department's (DPD) Intelligence Unit were leaked to the ACLU, revealing the unit had been spying on several activist groups in the city, and keeping extensive records about members of the activist groups. Many of these groups were branded as "criminal extremist" organizations in what later became a full-scale controversy widely known as the Denver police's "spy files." Some of the groups falsely branded as "criminal extremist" groups included three police accountability organizations: Denver CopWatch, End the Politics of Cruelty and Justice for Mena.
Again, from October 2003 through the Republican National Convention (RNC) in August 2004, intelligence digests produced by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) on dozens of activist groups, including several police accountability organizations, were made public under a federal court order. The NYPD labeled participants of the "Operation CopWatch" effort as criminal extremists.
Those who participated in "Operation CopWatch" during the RNC hoped to identify undercover cops who might attempt to provoke violence during demonstrations and document police violence or misconduct against protesters.
Communities Benefiting From Cop Watch Patrols Resist Police Retaliation Against Watchers

In some major urban areas, rates of police harassment of individuals drop considerably after cop watchers take to the streets - and communities band together to defend cop watch patrols that experience police retaliation, say veteran cop watchers.
Veteran police accountability activist José Martín has trained and organized with several organizations that participate in cop watch activities. Martín has been detained and arrested several times while cop watching with organized patrols in New York and Chicago.
His arrests in New York are part of a widely documented problem in the city. In fact, retaliation in New York against cop watchers has been so widespread that the NYPD had to send out an official memo to remind officers that it is perfectly legal for civilians to film cops on duty.
Martín described an experience in Chicago in which he felt police unjustly retaliated against him after a local CopWatch group formed and began regularly patrolling Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. After the group became well-known by the Pilsen community, residents gathered around an officer who had detained Martín after a patrol one night in 2009, calling for his release. The officer let him go shortly after.
"When cop watchers are retaliated against, if the community is organized, if there is a strong relationship between cop watch patrols and the community, but most importantly, if the cop watchers are people of the community, that community has the power to push back against retaliation and prevent its escalation," Martín said. "Retaliation doesn't work if you stand together."
Another veteran cop watcher, Jacob Crawford, co-founder of Oakland's We Copwatch, is helping the community of Ferguson, Missouri, organize cop watch patrols and prepare the community for the potential of police retaliation. His group raised $6,000 to pass out 110 cameras to organizers and residents in Ferguson, and train them to monitor police activity in the aftermath of the upheavals that rocked the city after Wilson killed Brown.
"I do expect retaliation, I do expect that these things won't be easy, but these folks are in it," Crawford told Truthout. "This is something that makes more sense to them than not standing up for themselves."
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

CANDICE BERND

Candice Bernd is an assistant editor/reporter with Truthout. With her partner, Garrett Graham, she is co-writing "Don't Frack With Denton," a documentary chronicling the anti-fracking movement in Denton. Follow her on Twitter @CandiceBernd.
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Re: COPWATCH

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Nov 06, 2014 1:34 am

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/2652 ... oss-the-us

Police Departments Retaliate Against Organized "Cop Watch" Groups Across the US
Thursday, 02 October 2014 10:13
By Candice Bernd, Truthout | Report


2014
Police on duty in New York City (Photo: Jamie Kenny)

When communities attempt to police the police, they often get, well... policed.
In several states, organized groups that use police scanners and knowledge of checkpoints to collectively monitor police activities by legally and peacefully filming cops on duty have said they've experienced retaliation, including unjustified detainment and arrests as well as police intimidation.
The groups operate under many decentralized organizations, most notably CopWatch and Cop Block, and have proliferated across the United States in the last decade - and especially in the aftermath of the events that continue to unfold in Ferguson, Missouri, after officer Darren Wilson fatally shot unarmed, black teenager Michael Brown.
Many such groups have begun proactively patrolling their communities with cameras at various times during the week, rather than reactively turning on their cameras when police enter into their neighborhoods or when they happen to be around police activity.
Across the nation, local police departments are responding to organized cop watching patrols by targeting perceived leaders, making arrests, threatening arrests, yanking cameras out of hands and even labeling particular groups "domestic extremist" organizations and part of the sovereign citizens movement - the activities of which the FBI classifies as domestic terrorism.
Courts across the nation at all levels have upheld the right to film police activity. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and photographer's assocications have taken many similar incidents to court, consistently winning cases over the years. The Supreme Court has ruled police can't search an individual's cellphone data without a warrant. Police also can't legally delete an individual's photos or video images under any circumstances.
"Yet, a continuing stream of these incidents (often driven by police who have been fed 'nonsense' about links between photography and terrorism) makes it clear that the problem is not going away," writes Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the ACLU's Speech, Privacy & Technology Project.
Sources who have participated in various organized cop watching groups in cities such as New York; Chicago; Cleveland; Las Vegas; Oakland; Arlington, Texas; Austin and lastly Ferguson, Missouri, told Truthout they have experienced a range of police intimidation tactics, some of which have been caught on film. Cop watchers told Truthout they have been arrested in several states, including Texas, New York, Ohio and California in retaliation for their filming activity.
More recently, in September, three cop watchers were arrested while monitoring police activity during a traffic stop in Arlington, Texas. A group of about 20 people, a few of them associated with the Tarrant County Peaceful Streets Project, gathered at the intersection of South Cooper Street and Lynda Lane during a Saturday night on September 6 to film police as they conducted a traffic stop. A video of what happened next was posted at YouTube.
Arlington police charged Janie Lucero, her husband, Kory Watkins, and Joseph Tye with interference of public duties. Lucero and Watkins were charged with obstructing a highway while Tye was arrested on charges of refusing to identify himself.
Arlington police have defended the arrests of the three cop watchers, but the watchers say they weren't interfering with police work, and were told to move 150 feet away from the officers - around the corner of a building where they couldn't film the officers.
"When we first started [cop watching, the police] seemed kind of bothered a little bit," Watkins told Truthout. "There was a change somewhere where [the police] started becoming a little bit more offended, and we started having more cop watchers so I guess they felt like they needed to start bringing more officers to traffic stops."
On the night of Watkin's arrest, his group had previously monitored two other traffic stops without any confrontation with Arlington police officers before the incident that led to the arrests.
Sometimes, though, retaliation against cop watching groups goes far beyond arresting cop watchers on patrol.
Cops Label Cop Watch Groups Domestic Terrorists

On New Year's Day in 2012, Antonio Buehler, a West Point graduate and former military officer, witnessed two Austin police officers assaulting a woman. He pulled out his phone.
As he began photographing the officers and asking questions about their activities, the cops assaulted and arrested him. He was charged with spitting in a cop's face - a felony crime.
However, two witness videos of the incident surfaced and neither of them showed that Buehler spit in Officer Patrick Oborski's face. A grand jury was finally convened in March 2013 and concluded there was not enough evidence to indict Buehler on any of the crimes he was charged with.
A few months after the New Year's Day incident, Buehler and other Austin-based activists started the Peaceful Streets Project (PSP), an all-volunteer organization dedicated to stopping police abuse. The group has held "Know Your Rights" trainings and a Police Accountability Summit. The group also regularly organizes cop watch patrols in Austin.
Since the PSP was launched, the movement has grown, with local chapters popping up in other cities and states across the United States, including Texas' Tarrant County chapter, which the three cop watchers arrested in Arlington were affiliated with.
But as the Peaceful Streets movement spread, police retaliation against the groups, and particularly Buehler himself, also escalated.
"[The Austin Police Department (APD)] sees us as a threat primarily because we shine a spotlight on their crimes," Buehler said.
The group recently obtained documents from the APD through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that reveal Austin police colluded to arrest Buehler and other cop watchers affiliated with the Peaceful Streets Project. Since the New Year's Day incident, Buehler has been arrested three more times by APD officers. At least four other members of PSP have been arrested on charges of interference or failing to identify themselves during their cop watching activities.
The emails indicate APD officers monitored Buehler's social media posts and attempted to justify arresting him for another felony crime of online impersonation over an obviously satirical post he made on Facebook, as well as reveal that some APD officers coordinated efforts to stop PSP members' legal and peaceful activities, even suggesting reaching out to the District Attorney's office to see if anything could be done to incarcerate members of the group.
Another internal email from APD senior officer Justin Berry identifies PSP as a "domestic extremist" organization. Berry writes that he believes police accountability groups including PSP, CopWatch and Cop Block are part of a "national domestic extremism trend." He believes he found "mirror warning signs" in "FBI intel." Berry makes a strange attempt to lump police accountability activists and the hacker-collective Anonymous in with sovereign citizens groups as a collective revolutionary movement.
"Sovereign citizens" groups generally believe federal, state and local governments are illegitimate and operate illegally. Some self-described sovereign citizens create fake license plates, identification and forms of currency to circumvent official government institutions. The FBI classifies the activities of sovereign citizens groups as domestic terrorism, considering the groups a growing "domestic threat" to law enforcement.
Buehler told Truthout the APD is working with a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) fusion center to attempt to identify PSP as a sovereign citizens group to associate its members with domestic terrorism with state and federal authorities. DHS fusion centers are designed to gather, analyze and promote the sharing of intelligence information between federal and state agencies.
"They have spent a fair amount of resources tracking us, spying on us and infiltrating our group, and we are just peaceful activists who are demanding accountability for the police," Buehler told Truthout. "They have absolutely no evidence that we've engaged in any criminal activity or that we've tried to engage in criminal activity."
APD officials did not respond to a request for comment.
"They've pushed us; they've assaulted us for filming them; they've used their horses against us and tried to run us into walls; they've driven their cars up on us; they illegally detained us and searched us; they get in our face and they yell at us; they threaten to use violent force against us," Buehler said. "But we didn't realize until these emails just how deep this intimidation, how deep these efforts were to harm us for trying to hold them accountable."
Buehler also said the group has additional internal emails which have not been released yet that reveal the APD attempted to take another charge to the District Attorney against him for felony child endangerment over the activities of a teenaged member of PSP.
He said he and other members of PSP were interested in pursuing a joint civil action against the APD over their attempts to frame and arrest them for their First Amendment activities.
This is not the first time a municipal police department has labeled a local cop watching group as an extremist organization.
In 2002, internal files from the Denver Police Department's (DPD) Intelligence Unit were leaked to the ACLU, revealing the unit had been spying on several activist groups in the city, and keeping extensive records about members of the activist groups. Many of these groups were branded as "criminal extremist" organizations in what later became a full-scale controversy widely known as the Denver police's "spy files." Some of the groups falsely branded as "criminal extremist" groups included three police accountability organizations: Denver CopWatch, End the Politics of Cruelty and Justice for Mena.
Again, from October 2003 through the Republican National Convention (RNC) in August 2004, intelligence digests produced by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) on dozens of activist groups, including several police accountability organizations, were made public under a federal court order. The NYPD labeled participants of the "Operation CopWatch" effort as criminal extremists.
Those who participated in "Operation CopWatch" during the RNC hoped to identify undercover cops who might attempt to provoke violence during demonstrations and document police violence or misconduct against protesters.
Communities Benefiting From Cop Watch Patrols Resist Police Retaliation Against Watchers

In some major urban areas, rates of police harassment of individuals drop considerably after cop watchers take to the streets - and communities band together to defend cop watch patrols that experience police retaliation, say veteran cop watchers.
Veteran police accountability activist José Martín has trained and organized with several organizations that participate in cop watch activities. Martín has been detained and arrested several times while cop watching with organized patrols in New York and Chicago.
His arrests in New York are part of a widely documented problem in the city. In fact, retaliation in New York against cop watchers has been so widespread that the NYPD had to send out an official memo to remind officers that it is perfectly legal for civilians to film cops on duty.
Martín described an experience in Chicago in which he felt police unjustly retaliated against him after a local CopWatch group formed and began regularly patrolling Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. After the group became well-known by the Pilsen community, residents gathered around an officer who had detained Martín after a patrol one night in 2009, calling for his release. The officer let him go shortly after.
"When cop watchers are retaliated against, if the community is organized, if there is a strong relationship between cop watch patrols and the community, but most importantly, if the cop watchers are people of the community, that community has the power to push back against retaliation and prevent its escalation," Martín said. "Retaliation doesn't work if you stand together."
Another veteran cop watcher, Jacob Crawford, co-founder of Oakland's We Copwatch, is helping the community of Ferguson, Missouri, organize cop watch patrols and prepare the community for the potential of police retaliation. His group raised $6,000 to pass out 110 cameras to organizers and residents in Ferguson, and train them to monitor police activity in the aftermath of the upheavals that rocked the city after Wilson killed Brown.
"I do expect retaliation, I do expect that these things won't be easy, but these folks are in it," Crawford told Truthout. "This is something that makes more sense to them than not standing up for themselves."
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

CANDICE BERND

Candice Bernd is an assistant editor/reporter with Truthout. With her partner, Garrett Graham, she is co-writing "Don't Frack With Denton," a documentary chronicling the anti-fracking movement in Denton. Follow her on Twitter @CandiceBernd.
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Re: COPWATCH

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Nov 13, 2014 12:20 am

Damning report slams NOPD response to sex crimes

A new investigative report could shatter the city's already shaken faith in the way the New Orleans Police Department handles sex crimes.

see link for full story


http://www.wwltv.com/story/news/local/o ... /18907687/



NEW ORLEANS – A new investigative report could shatter the city's already shaken faith in the way the New Orleans Police Department handles sex crimes.

The city's inspector general found that five detectives who were assigned to nearly 1,300 calls alleging sexual assault in a three year period, failed to follow up on an astonishing 86 percent of them.

And in some of the most shocking findings by Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux's investigators, detectives at times ignored or misrepresented DNA evidence and medical reports; created backdated follow-up reports years later when questioned about the absence of those reports; and, in the case of one detective, even told people that sex with an incapacitated woman should not be a crime.

One detective, identified by NOPD as Akron Davis, also failed to follow up on 11 of 13 cases of child abuse, including at least two cases involving infants with head trauma.

"These failures do have serious human consequences for all, and 15 involve children," Quatrevaux said. "These revelations suggest an indifference to citizens that won't be tolerated and they offend all of the good police officers who work diligently to enforce the law."

The new report adds disturbing detail to the picture of an NOPD sex crimes unit that former Police Chief Ronal Serpas acknowledged had a historical tendency to look for ways to disprove rape allegations rather than attempting to back them up.

Serpas replaced the sex-crimes unit leadership in 2013, and new Chief Michael Harrison says he has now revamped the unit again. Asked what will be different this time, he said NOPD is making a concerted effort to change the culture of the unit and improve training.

The five detectives in the report made up nearly a third of the 16 detectives in the Special Victims Section, and four of them made up half of the sex-crimes unit. Harrison vowed to keep closer tabs on whether the new leadership is tracking the work of the detectives left in the unit from here on out.

Harrison joined Quatrevaux at a morning news conference to say he found the report's findings "disturbing" and had launched a full Public Integrity Bureau investigation into the actions of the five detectives, all of whom have been reassigned to patrol duty pending the probe. Harrison said there may be administrative violations involved and that the backdated reports could constitute a crime, injuring public records.

The new report also buttresses the IG's audit findings from May that already questioned if large percentages of sex crimes were being improperly downgraded.

Following up on the audit that sampled 90 cases in the spring, Quatrevaux's office focused in on the five detectives who were assigned to cases in that sample that lacked key documentation.

Expanding their review to all 1,290 sex-crime-related calls for service that were assigned to those five detectives between Jan. 1, 2011 and Dec. 31, 2013, investigators found that 840 cases, or 65 percent of the calls, were classified as "miscellaneous incidents," not sex crimes, and closed without follow-up.

The remaining 35 percent, or 450 calls, were classified as actual sex-crime cases, but more than half of those didn't include any follow-up reporting either.

In all, the detectives produced follow-up reports on only 179 of the 1,290 sex-crime-related calls for service assigned to them – 14 percent.

Derrick Williams and Vernon Haynes
Derrick Williams and Vernon Haynes(Photo: NOPD)
The IG report does not name the five detectives, identifying them simply as Detectives A, B, C, D and E, but the New Orleans Police Department later identified them after a press conference to discuss the IG report. Detective A was identified as Akron Davis, Detective B as Vernon Haynes, Detective C as Merrill Merricks, Detective D as Damita Williams and Detective E as Derrick Williams.

In the IG report, two of them -- the ones later identified as Merrill Merricks and Derrick Williams -- failed to file any follow-up reports or information on more than 85 percent of their cases in 2011-2013 that were actually classified as sex crimes, the report says.

The report also says that shortly after investigators questioned why certain follow-up reports for those two detectives' cases were missing, Merricks and Derrick Williams created new reports and dated them as if they were produced two and three years earlier. The IG's chief investigator, former FBI agent Howard Schwartz, said the detectives created the backdated reports on the exact same day in 2013. Chief Harrison said that could be criminal if it's proven to have been done intentionally.

District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's office intends to look into the matter, spokesman Christopher Bowman said. But the DA's office may have its own issues. The DA's chief investigator is Kirk Bouyelas, who was the NOPD deputy


it sent the wrong rape kit, but got no response.
Wrote a supplemental report dated in 2010 and another dated in 2011, but created both of those computerized reports on the same day in 2013, shortly after the IG asked for them.

Nov. 12, 2014,
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Re: COPWATCH

Postby fruhmenschen » Fri Nov 14, 2014 3:01 am

2 reads
one read is about the men who rape then
test the rape test kits

1st read

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/lo ... s_13572169

Memphis says it's cutting into backlog of untested rape kits
November 13, 2014 — A small group gathered listens intently to updated information on the city’s backlog of rape kits during a Sexual Assault Task Force community meeting at First Baptist Church, Broad Chapel, Thursday evening.


Memphis is slowly making headway in whittling down the untested rape kits in the city’s backlog, officials said in the third “Community Conversation” on the issue Thursday night.

Through September, at least some tests have been done on 3,157 rape kits from the city’s extensive backlog that started with 12,374, officials said. An additional 2,495 kits have been sent to labs and are awaiting tests, leaving 6,722 still waiting to be processed, officials added.

City officials called that good news.

“It’s under 8,000 now,” said Doug McGowen, director of the Mayor’s Innovation Delivery Team and a point man on the backlog. “It’s still a lot, but we’re making progress.”

However, hardly anyone was there to hear the news, as the event at First Baptist Church-Broad attracted fewer than 30 people. And, of those, more than half were either city officials or media members.

Meaghan Ybos, who is part of a class-action lawsuit against the city over the untested kits, wasn’t impressed by the numbers the city offered.

“The city hasn’t thrown any of its own money into the budget to get it done. That speaks volumes. We can have community meetings all day long, but that doesn’t put more rapists in prison,” Ybos told a reporter.

“The mayor just views it as our responsibility to have a venue where people can come together and discuss and ask questions,” McGowen said. “It’s about keeping this issue in the spotlight in the community. We have to continue

2nd read

Chief Penny Harrington - Special Report - Driving While Female
http://www.pennyharrington.com/drivingfemale.htm
charges of fondling teenage girls during traffic stops. In 1998, a Washington, DC, police officer was convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and an ...
Reports and Articles | Samuel Walker
samuelwalker.net/books/reports-and-articles/
Driving While Female: Sam Walker and Dawn Irlbeck are the authors of two reports on police sexual abuse of women, including teenage girls. Read the reports:.
[PDF]Police Sexual Abuse of Teenage Girls: A 2003 Update on “Driving ...
samuelwalker.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/dwf2003.pdf
by S Walker - ‎2003 - ‎Cited by 4 - ‎Related articles
This report on “Police Sexual Abuse of Teenage Girls” is a 2003 update of a 2002 report on “Driving While Female” by the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
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Re: COPWATCH

Postby fruhmenschen » Fri Nov 06, 2015 9:46 pm

Detroit-area officer in 'RoboCop' case confirms racially charged text messages

Partner of officer charged with beating African American man replied affirmatively to text using racial epithet and encouraging violence, trial reveals
Floyd Dent takes part in a protest against police brutality outside the Inkster police department.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015 ... t-messages

Friday 6 November 2015 12.11 EST
Last modified on Friday 6 November 2015 13.40 EST



A Detroit-area police officer who attempted to handcuff an unarmed man while his partner beat him sent racially charged text messages following the incident, it emerged this week.

Pressed during a trial over the incident Thursday, auxiliary police officer John Zieleniewski confirmed his response to a text exchange in March in which he was asked: “At least give me the satisfaction of knowing you’re out there beating up niggers right now.”

Zieleniewski responded: “lol, just got done with one.”

The text messages came out in the trial of William Melendez, known as “RoboCop”, who faces three felony charges and up to 10 years in prison for beating Floyd Dent during a traffic stop.

Melendez, a former police officer in the town of Inkster, repeatedly punched Dent in the head and placed him in a chokehold during the arrest on 28 January – a move captured on video that was later released to the media and sparked a criminal investigation.

Inkster has a population that is 73% black and a police force that is estimated to be 80-90% white.

Dent testified on Thursday that a former officer in the town of Inkster, William Melendez, approached his vehicle with his firearm drawn and said: “Get out the car or I’ll blow your motherfucking head off.” The 58-year-old said he didn’t resist officers who attempted to arrest him, despite earlier testimony that contradicted his remarks.

“I didn’t resist in any way,” Dent said on the witness stand in Wayne County circuit court Thursday.
The Counted: people killed by police in the United States in 2015 – interactive
The Guardian is counting the people killed by US law enforcement agencies this year. Read their stories and contribute to our ongoing, crowdsourced project
Read more

Dent said Melendez choked him so tight he struggled to breathe.

“After he choked me for so long, I gave up,” Dent, a quiet 58-year old with a round jaw and dolorous eyes, said.

The Wayne County circuit court judge overseeing the case, Vonda Evans, agreed to allow into evidence a s
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Re: COPWATCH

Postby fruhmenschen » Wed Nov 11, 2015 3:10 pm

Cops Working With Anti-Muslim Activists

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... vists.html



11.11.151:00 AM ET

Imagine a white supremacist being paid with taxpayer dollars to teach police officers about Black Lives Matter. Or a person with a long history of demonizing the LGBT community being hired by your local police department to warn officers about the “homosexual agenda.”

The response to either of these scenarios would be an explosion of outrage. And rightfully so. However, a scenario very similar is repeatedly happening across our country with law enforcement agencies teaming up with two anti-Muslim activists, John Guandolo and Walid Shoebat, to teach them about Muslims.

Typically these anti-Muslim indoctrinations happen with police departments in red states (shocking, I know.) But surprisingly the Ocean County Police Academy in Southern New Jersey sponsored a lecture given by Shoebat just this past weekend. Shoebat’s seminar was intended for police officers in the South Jersey area and was titled “Know your enemy.” (One guess who the enemy is.)

So who is Shoebat? Well that’s a great question. The problem is that no one—except Shoebat—truly knows. As CNN reported, Shoebat’s claimed life story is simply not true. Shoebat boasts that he’s a former radicalized Muslim who joined the PLO in the 1970s, carried out a terrorist attack, and was imprisoned by the Israeli military. But then Shoebat saw the error of his ways
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Re: COPWATCH

Postby fruhmenschen » Fri Nov 13, 2015 1:43 pm

1.


https://personalliberty.com/fbi-agents- ... l-problem/



FBI infiltrated nonvoilent protest outside Georgia army base

Young people join a rally during the SOA Watch protests outside
Fort Benning, Ga., Nov. 22, 2009.





Nov. 12, 2015
A Freedom of Information Act request has revealed that School of the
Americas Watch, a nonviolent human rights organization founded by a
Maryknoll priest, was investigated and infiltrated by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation for at least a decade.

The 429 pages of documents, which were obtained by Washington
D.C.-based lawyer Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, also show SOA Watch was
under surveillance by a consortium of law enforcement agencies that
included the FBI’s counter-terrorism division, said Loyola Law School
Professor Bill Quigley of the SOA Watch Legal Collective, and who is
referred to in one FOIA document without mentioning his name.

In comments to NCR, Quigley, who authored a summary of the FBI
documents, said the FBI surveillance has had a chilling impact on some
SOA Watch activists. “Even people who have been involved in this
movement for a long time were chilled by the fact that they were being
subject to counter-terrorism monitoring and surveillance,” Quigley
said.

The released files, which are heavily redacted and did not include 75
pages that were withheld from the release, cover the years 2001-2010.
The report was released just a week prior to the SOA Watch’s 25th
anniversary gathering at Ft. Benning in Columbus, Ga., where most of
the FBI’s surveillance was conducted.

The annual protest, began as an effort to close the U.S. Army School
of the Americas, an Army training school for Latin American soldiers,
some of whom carried out human rights abuses and murders in their
native countries. The school is now called the Western Hemisphere
Institute for Security Cooperation. SOA Watch was founded in 1990 by
former Maryknoll priest, Fr. Roy Bourgeois, a former Latin American
missionary.

Support the independent Catholic news source that's on the ground
bringing you the full story. Subscribe to NCR today!

In a document, dated Oct. 3, 2005, the FBI requested that the SOA
Watch protest be designated as a “Special Events Readiness Level”
(SERL). Quigley said SERL events involve coordination between local
law and state law enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security,
the FBI, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency “with the U.S.
Secret Service designated as the lead agency.”

Despite no incidents of violence over the multi-year period of the
gatherings, the FBI justified its activities by claiming that other
groups, such as anarchists, could join SOA Watch events and cause
problems. “The peaceful intentions of the SOA Watch leaders has been
demonstrated over the years,” the 2005 report noted. “The concern has
always been that a militant group would infiltrate the protestors and
use of the cover of the crowd to create problems. At this time, there
are no specific or known threats to this event.”

An Oct. 23, 2003, FBI memo refers to “The Americas Anarchist Movement”
and notes that the bureau was “concerned that factions of a radical
cell will travel to [the SOA protest] and may implement or instigate
violent and destructive behavior.”

Past media accounts in NCR have shown that nothing like that has ever
occurred at any of the two dozen annual SOA Watch protests at Ft.
Benning.

Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the Partnership for Civil
Justice Fund, the group that made the FOIA request, said the FBI has
an institutional history of justifying its actions as necessary to
prevent otherwise nonviolent groups from being infiltrated by those
with bad intentions.

“When you criminalize dissent or make peaceful dissent have the
appearance of criminal character because of its response to it, it
can’t help but impact people’s ability to come out and express their
point of view,” Verheyden-Hilliard told NCR.

“But at the same time, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security
engage in this following a long tradition of American law enforcement
and intelligence agencies acting this way against political and social
justice movements in the United States. …

“It’s basically where federal and local enforcement begin to set
themselves up as if they’re engaged in paramilitary operations against
peaceful protesters.”

Verheyden-Hilliard said the SOA Watch files show a pattern used by the
FBI to justify its actions from year to year.

“Every year they acknowledge that it’s peaceful and just about every
year they have some type of alarmist warning that ‘While it’s
peaceful, you never know when something will turn unpeaceful. While
it’s peaceful you never when someone will infiltrate it and more
radical groups will show up.’ And by that logic every single mass
gathering in the United States could be deemed by the FBI to have
potential terrorist activity,” she said.

Verheyden-Hilliard said the FBI’s monitoring of SOA Watch was “a
significant expenditure of taxpayer dollars” used to monitor the
activities of what she called a group of “pacifist nuns.” Ironically,
said

Verheyden-Hilliard, “SOA Watch is an organization that had dedicated
itself to actually trying to find U.S.-trained terrorists, who are
then sent to other countries. They’re as far from terrorists
themselves as you can get.”

FOIA documents show that in September 2004 the FBI communicated with a
confidential informant who handed over a “compiled manual for affinity
groups, with telephone number of Legal Advisor from Loyola University
(Louisiana)” and provided the FBI with the names and email addresses
of people associated with SOA Watch.

“To have this event and this movement for human rights categorized as
subject to counter-terrorism and these sorts of things is scary to
people, and it’s very sad,” Quigley said.

Bourgeois said local law enforcement and other groups like the FBI,
were never able to show that SOA Watch was anything but peaceful.

“Our actions were always rooted to nonviolence; connected in
solidarity with the people of Latin America, Bourgeois said. “Our goal
to shut down the School of the Assassins as it became known. There
were times that I felt they [law enforcement agencies] were kind of
hoping maybe to find something they could use to discredit us. They
never did.”

SOA Watch has made all 429 pages from the FBI files available on its
website along with a summary of the material.



2.




http://motherboard.vice.com/read/a-list ... anda-movie


Motherboard
Newsletter
A List of the Dumb Swag the FBI Made to Promote Its Dumb Propaganda
Movie
November 12, 2015 // 09:00 AM EST

Earlier this year, a friend brought me a mysterious FBI-branded
mousepad she had gotten from a conference in Washington, DC. It has a
massive pawn chess piece on it, with the words “Don’t Be a Pawn” and
“Game of Pawns” plastered across the middle of it.

I immediately Googled Game of Pawns, and found that it’s a very bad,
pretty expensive anti-spying drama the FBI commissioned to persuade
impressionable youths to not sell secrets to foreign governments.

The film, which is heavy-handed and unwatchable except as a piece of
ironic entertainment for those who love to cringe, is based on Glenn
Duffie Shriver, an American who studied abroad in Shanghai, was asked
to provide the Chinese government with classified information, and was
ultimately arrested. The film, a fictionalized version of his story,
uses blatant shots of Washington DC's Chinatown to serve as "downtown
Shanghai" and suffers from awful dialogue, bad timing, weird
stereotypes, etc.

How much money had the agency spent on these damn mousepads? And
was it only mousepads? How else had the agency promoted this piece of
art?

The movie was created specifically so study abroad offices and
university professors could warn their students that selling secrets
to foreign governments is an illegal endeavor. From the film's
original press release:

"The movie has played a significant role in our outreach efforts to
educate American academia on how foreign intelligence services target
and attempt to recruit American students studying abroad,” Frank
Montoya, the National Counterintelligence Executive, said.
“Productions such as the movie Game of Pawns are essential and very
practical tools for sensitizing the public and private sectors to our
nation’s growing counterintelligence mission.”

I immediately wondered why the FBI was creating totally crazy, mostly
fictional propaganda movies that tell people not to be spies, and
wondered how much money the agency (and FBI Academy TV Studios, which
is a thing) had wasted on this endeavor. Motherboard contributor Shawn
Musgrave had previously learned that this cinematic masterpiece cost
the agency at least $650,000 (the invoice docs he obtained are opaque
and hard to parse). It's been viewed on YouTube 117,403 times, which
has been its primary distribution method. Not exactly a blockbuster
considering its budget.

But what about the mousepad? How much money had the agency spent on
these damn mousepads? Had there been internal discussion about what
taglines to put on it? Various designs to choose from? Who put these
together? Do people even use mice anymore?

3.


Now that you know FBI agents and their informants created the 1993 1st World Trade Center bombing; the Oklahoma City bombing; the Omargh bombing; the Mumbai attack, did I forget 911, TWA Flight 800, , the Lockerbie bomb; and lest we forget the Boston Marathon bombing


The following stories exemplify why FBI agents create terrorist events.
Can you name the FBI agent perps behind these terrorist attacks?


two stories 40 years apart

1.



November 13, 2015
NYPD: the New Red Squad
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/13/ ... red-squad/

Are you being illegally surveilled by the New York Police Department (NYPD)?

The Gothamist website recently exposed a NYPD undercover officer, “Melike Ser,” who had been spying on Muslim students at Brooklyn College. As it reported, three college graduates had “intimate ties” with the officer, with “her presence during some of the most private moments of their lives, and the fear they endured when they learned her true identity.” No charges were brought against anyone the agent supposedly investigated.

The NYPD dismissed the story. “There’s truth in the Gothamist story, if you pick out certain facts you can say, ‘Well, this is true,’ or ‘That’s true’,” claimed John Miller, Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism. “But it’s wrapped around this narrative that there was this over-arching blanket surveillance, which is not the case,” he claimed. He also suggested that the undercover agent had, in April, exposed the role of two Queens women as Islamic State terrorists by building and planning to deploy a home-made bomb.

The Brooklyn College episode is but the latest example of how the NYPD uses undercover officers, really secret police, to investigate — and sometimes provoke through agents provocateurs — illegal actions. This practice dates back more than a half-century and is part of the establishment of a new Red Squad and is unlikely to change anytime soon.

* * *

In 2012, the Associated Press (AP) broke the Pulitzer-Prize winning esposé on the NYPD surveillance of Muslim throughout the Northeast. It reported that the NYPD’s Intelligence Division Cyber Unit surveilled students throughout the City University of New York (CUNY) system including Brooklyn and Baruch Colleges as well as using “secondary” undercovers operatives Hunter, CCNY, Queens and LaGuardia colleges during at least from 2003 to 2006.

The NYPD surveillance activities raised a host of questions as to their legality. The AP found that some CUNY personnel may have shared student records with the police in violation of the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA); if convicted, a school could lose federal funding. In addition, undercover cops may have violated a 1992 agreement between CUNY and the NYPD that restricted police “to CUNY campuses, buildings and other property only upon the request or approval of a CUNY official.”

More troubling, on Octoer 12th, the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Philadelphia, ruled to reinstate a lawsuit, Hassan v. City of New York, originally brought by a group of 11 Muslim people, businesses and organizations that were allegedly the subject of NYPD surveillance by its now-disbanded Demographics Unit.

The Muslim Advocates and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed the original lawsuit in June 2012; it was dismissed in 2014. According to CCR, “the NYPD’s goal under this program – both ambitious and chilling – was to create a human mapping system that monitored Muslims all along the Eastern Seaboard and beyond. No Muslim individual or entity appears to have been beyond suspicion.” The NYPD targeted adherents of the Muslim faith from 28 “ancestries of interest” including Egyptian, Pakistani, Somali, Sudanese and an array of other Asian, Middle Eastern and African ancestries along with “American Black Muslim.”

In its reversal, the Third Circuit judges noted in their 60-page opinion that the NYPD’s practices recalled now-condemned government actions from the past, “We have been down similar roads before. Jewish-Americans during the Red Scare, African-Americans during the civil-rights movement and Japanese-Americans during World War II are examples that readily spring to mind.”

* * *

In the wake of the colossal federal intelligence failures that culminated in the September 11, 2001, attacks, the NYPD both “federalized” and “militarized” its counter-terrorism operations. It began working closely with the CIA, FBI and DHS, among others federal agencies, and received a considerable amount of military gear, including machine guns, ammunition and armored personnel carriers, from the Pentagon and DHS.

Following 9/11, four CIA operatives were embedded in the NYPD and, in 2002, it launched a clandestine surveillance campaign of regional Muslims and Muslim organizations through its Demographics Unit that led to the recent Third Circuit decision. (These activities were in violation of National Security Act of 1947 and the 1981 Executive Order 12333 that barred the CIA from engaging in domestic spying.) Also in 2002, it marshaled its forces against protesters of the World Economic Forum (WEF), infiltrated various anti-globalization organizations, including the NYC Independent Media Center, and arrested 500 people. Nevertheless, a half-million people came out to voice their rage, the largest protest in the city’s history.

In 2004, the NYPD employed an aggressive counter-terrorism strategy to suppress popular protest against the Republican National Convention (RNC). It deployed its “RNC Intelligence Squad” to conduct massive surveillance of political groups and to arrest (some preemptively), detain and fingerprinting over 1,800 protesters, journalists, legal observers and bystanders; in 2014, the city paid out nearly $18 million for the unlawful arrests.

In 2011, the NYPD lead a massive campaign against Occupy Wall Street that was distinguishing by the active collaboration of the police and a host of national security agencies and corporate representatives. The NYPD’s worked with DHS, including ICE, the Coast Guard, the TSA’s Federal Air Marshals, as well as the FBI, the Secret Service and U.S. Marshals Service. According to a DHS memo, its officials were “actively engaged with local law enforcement and trade partners to establish contingency plans.”

* * *

The NYPD has a long history as an undercover security service. In 1955, it established the Bureau of Special Services (BOSS), popularly known as the “Red Squad.” Like similar groups operating in Los Angeles, Detroit and other cities during the Cold War, its goal was, in the words of New York State’s chiefs of police, “to drive the pinks out of the country.” Two undercover female police officers and numerous FBI agents infiltrated the Communist Party (CP) and various municipal agencies, including the schools; it even kept a file on Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker from 1955 to 1968.

From 1957 to ’71, the NYPD actively collaborated with the FBI’s COINTELPRO (i.e., Counter Intelligence Program) and, initially, targeted the CP and Puerto Rican nationalists. In July 1959, HUAC held hearings held in New York and San Juan on “Communist activities among Puerto Ricans in New York City and Puerto Rico.” More then a dozen witnesses were subpoenaed; most of the alleged communist witnesses refused to testify. One of those who testified was Mildred Blauvelt, an undercover BOSS officer. “I became a member of the New York City Police Department in December of 1942, and upon entrance into the department was assigned by them to infiltrate the Communist Party as an undercover agent,” she revealed. Her actual infiltration of the party is a bit unclear: “I succeeded in doing so by becoming a member of the Communist Party in April of 1948. I was expelled from the Communist Party in September 1943, but gained reentrance into the party once again in April of 1944, and stayed in the Communist Party until my expulsion in November of 1951.”

In the ’60s, a BOSS undercover cop, Gene Roberts, served as Malcolm X’s chief of security and was at the Audubon Ballroom when Malcolm was assassinated. During the ‘60s and ‘70s, the Red Squad targeted political groups like the Black Panthers, Yippies, Young Lords, antiwar activists and “white hate groups.” In the mid-‘60s, it began to deploy video surveillance that is now ubiquitous. In the wake of the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, the NYPD joined forces with the FBI and the CIA to fight terrorism.

Deeply troubling, the NYPD has violated legal agreements limiting its surveillance powers. Over the last three decades, it has circumvented what is known as the Handschu Consent Decree. It is named for Barbara Handschu, an attorney defending the Black Panthers and Abbie Hoffman, who filed suit against the Red Squad in 1971. After nine years of litigation, the NYPD agreed to cease investigating any individual or group without specific information of criminal intent; it also agreed to release secret files it kept on 250,000 New Yorkers. In 2002, the Decree was modified in the wake of 9/11, but in 2007 the NYPD was found in violation of the agreement due to its videotaping of public demonstrations.

* * *

The attacks of 9/11 introduced the era of “war on terror” and paramilitary policing. Now, a decade-and-a-half later, a potential national security threat can include any disturbance, whether political protest, civil uprising, publicity spectacle like the pope’s visit or simply being “Muslim,” a very ill-defined category. Mass preventive arrests are common; undercover agents and agents provocateurs are assumed to infiltrate local activist groups; isolated incidents can rapidly metastasize; and nonviolent actions can quickly be turned into criminal activities.

NYPD conducts surveillance operation using both undercover operatives and high-tech equipment. One of its surveillance “toys” is a sophisticated Bell 412EP helicopter costing $10 million and acquired through a Justice Department grant. It operates through a shell company and maintains a special FAA “undercover” registration so it can’t be tracked. It is equipped with sophisticated photo- and video-surveillance capabilities that Wired magazine says can capture “clear images of license plates—or the faces of individuals—from 1,000 feet away.” The story noted that it could even “pick up the catcher’s signals at Yankee Stadium.” John Diazo, crew chief for the aircraft, replied, “Obviously, we’re not looking into apartments. We don’t invade the privacy of individuals. We only want to observe anything that’s going on in public.” And who would know if they did?

Another NYPD device is known as the StingRay, an IMSI catcher (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) that is a cell site simulator. It appears as a cellphone tower and services as a mobile wiretapping device and is used to capture metadata, record the content of phone conversations and SMS text messages.

And then there is the Z Backscatter Van, a mobile fortress used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to scan for drugs and explosives costing between $729,000 and $825,000. Two were reportedly deployed at the 2004 Republican convention, one on each side of streets near Madison Square Garden, to X-rayed every vehicle that passed for explosives.

Over the last century, New York has witnessed innumerable civil disturbances that can be divided into four categories: (i) race riots (i.e, whites attacking blacks) like the 1900 riot; (ii) urban riots (i.e., blacks uprising against racist conditions) like the 1935 Harlem riot and those in 1964, 1991 and 2013; (iii) civil disorders like the 1977 blackout that witnessed widespread arson and the looting of over 1,500 stores (the 1965 Blackout did not result in disorder); and (iv) mass political protests like the 2002 mobilization against the WEF and the 2011 Occupy mobilization.

A violent militant protest by political activists or a riot by African-American or other people-of-color in New York in the near future seems unlikely. If economic conditions get significantly worse, a relatively inconsequential act, like the ones that sparked the riots or protests of the past, could precipitate a very violent civil disturbance. In the face of such a disruption, one can expect the coordinated might of the integrated security state – with its army of undercover secret police — rain down mercilessly.

Be prepared for the worst.

David Rosen is the author of the forthcoming, Sex, Sin & Subversion: The Transformation of 1950s New York’s Forbidden into America’s New Normal (Skyhorse, 2015). He can be reached at drosennyc@verizon.net; check out http://www.DavidRosenWrites.com.


2.


Big Brother in Blue : PROTECTORS OF PRIVILEGE: Red Squads ...
articles.latimes.com/1991-01-20/books/bk-1017_1_red-squad
Jan 20, 1991 - Big Brother in Blue : PROTECTORS OF PRIVILEGE: Red Squads and Police Repression in Urban America, By Frank Donner (University of ...
Book review: Protectors of Privilege: Red Squads and Police ...
conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/166434
Book review: Protectors of Privilege: Red Squads and Police Repression in Urban America. By Frank Donner. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford: University of ...
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Re: COPWATCH

Postby fruhmenschen » Mon Dec 07, 2015 1:25 pm

2 stories


1.





http://www.engadget.com/2015/12/07/fren ... blic-wifi/


French police want to ban public WiFi during emergencies
The 'Gendarmes' also want to ban the Tor network outright.
December 7 2015

The FBI isn't the only law enforcement agency that wants to restrict privacy for the sake of national security. Following the Paris attacks of November 13th, French police and gendarmes have submitted a wish list of security measures for a new bill, according to a document discovered by LeMonde. Among other things, police want to ban public WiFi during states of emergency, "because of the difficulty of identifying people connected to it," according to LeMonde. French law enforcement also wants the Tor network banned completely and would force companies like Microsoft to hand the encryption keys for apps like Skype to police.

The bill could go up for a vote as early as January 2016, but there's no guarantee that the proposed measures will be in the final draft, let alone passed into law. In the US, the FBI has also requested that companies like Facebook, Apple and Microsoft give it backdoor access to encrypted voice, video and chat messages. However, companies have pointed out that such measures would make such applications less secure for everybody, or drive users to other apps.

The idea of banning Tor also seems unrealistic, given that it is a loose, volunteer-run network with servers located around the world. It's also used by journalists and other groups with legitimate needs for privacy, and not just terrorists and drug dealers. The French police proposal seems like it would be difficult to implement, and also be problematic given that privacy is a huge concern across Europe. With recent events, however, security has obviously become


2

for the uneducated and the uneducable

high school dropout can't find work so he joins the Marines to Semper Fi
and collect some money.
High school dropout is sent to Paris Island to be all he can be. He is trained to kill women and children and a occasional freedom fighter trying to protect his wife from being raped by Mr Semper Fi.
High school dropout ships out to invade Iraq for USEmpire and US oil companies.
American oil companies are struggling with the problem of Peak Oil.
Peak oil means we no longer have a infinite supply of oil.Maybe you saw the documentary film END OF SUBURBIA see
http://www.endofsuburbia.com/previews.htm

high school drop out didn't because his high school teachers were too busy DUMBING him down
see
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/bookstor ... nblum1.htm

High School dropout manages to kill a couple hundred women and children while throwing in a occasional rape. Mr Sempi Fi has now been transformed into Mr serial killer.
Mr high school dropout/serial killer now begins to experience extreme depression from his actions. Mental Wealth workers call it Post Traumatic
Stress Syndrome. But the only people who experience traumatic stress in Iraq are the Iraqi women being raped by Semper Fi's before they shot and killed them.
Good thing serial killer/high school dropout has never read the research
of Ian Stevenson MD whose groundbreaking study of 3,000 children who remember previous lives provides the science for the existence of reincarnation. see
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituar ... enson.html

What this means for high school dropout is that he will be coming back
again for another life . Of course so will the people he murdered , so for practical purposes he has another couple hundred lives he has to live getting "wacked" by the life forms he semper fi'd.

The difference this time is the raped and murdered have had some time to ponder while they wait for him to pass over, how they will "do" Mr Semper Fi- the high school drop out serial killer.

Mr high school dropout comes back from Iraq out of work unless he re-enlists. There are not to many job openings for serial killers until he lands a job working with his be all you can be buddies at the local police department or the FBI.[/quote]
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Re: COPWATCH

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Dec 10, 2015 5:13 pm

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Re: COPWATCH

Postby fruhmenschen » Wed Dec 16, 2015 7:48 pm

couple of stories


1.


http://www.latimes.com/local/california ... story.html





Border Patrol supervisor gets prison time for recording female co-workers in bathroom

A former U.S. Border Patrol supervisor who set up a secret restroom camera to record female co-workers has been sentenced to 21 months in prison, a punishment some of his victims said was too lenient.

"It's not over for us, it's not over for the other victims and it never will be given the realities of the Internet, where a single image can haunt a victim and family forever," said one woman who has worked in federal law enforcement for more than 20 years.

Armando Gonzalez, 46, pleaded guilty in May to one count of making false statements to federal officers and seven counts of video voyeurism. U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez sentenced Gonzalez on Monday to priso and also ordered him to pay restitution to his victims.

The motion-activated camera was discovered Jan. 9 at the border patrol station in San Ysidro. Gonzalez initially told supervisors he had placed it there as part of a drug investigation into one of his employees, but later admitted that was a lie.

Investigators found 338 videos on storage devices in the camera and in his office. They showed victims, including law enforcement officers and women on the cleaning staff, who were changing or using the restroom.




2.


This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/201 ... ps_stories

December 16, 2015, 05:55pm
Posted in:

News Brief Police Corruption

A sticky-fingered Ohio cop heads for prison, so does a gun-smuggling Miami cop, an Indiana cop gets busted peddling dope, and more.

In Anderson, Indiana, an Anderson police officer was arrested last Thursday after he allegedly sold drugs to an undercover FBI agent. Donald Jordan, 52, went down after a tipster told the FBI Jordan had offered to sell him marijuana. The FBI then sent an undercover agent to seek Xanax and hydrocodone from him and succeeded in scoring. He was then arrested. It's not clear what the precise federal charges are, but he's looking at up to 15 years in prison.

In Chicago, a former Cook County jail guard pleaded guilty December 5 to smuggling marijuana, alcohol, and tobacco into the jail. Jason Marek, 30, copped to one count of federal program bribery, which carries a maximum 10-year sentence. He smuggled the contraband into the jail inside sandwiches. He had agreed to smuggle in the pot and booze for an inmate after the inmate paid him $200 for used (!) chewing tobacco.

In Newark, New Jersey, a former Miami-Dade police lieutenant was sentenced last Wednesday to 10 years in federal prison for teaming up with cocaine smugglers to smuggle guns through airport security. Ralph Mata had been an internal affairs lieutenant, one of the agency's most sensitive jobs. He admitted buying six guns for an established cocaine smuggling ring, smuggling them through checkpoints at Miami International Airport, and onto planes bound for the Dominican Republic. He was a 23-year veteran of the force.

In Cleveland, a former Warrensville Heights police officer was sentenced Monday to three years in prison for stealing drugs and some $41,000 in cash from the department. Andre Harmon, 54, must also pay $10,000 in fines and $41,000 in restitution. He pleaded guilty last month to drug possession, theft in office and tampering with records. He was responsible for destroying seized drugs, but instead took them home and filed false affidavits that he had destroyed them.



3.


http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

L.A. County probation agency chief steps down amid allegations of a romantic relationship with aide
Jerry Powers in 2013

Jerry Powers' resignation was accepted in a unanimous vote by county supervisors during closed session and is effective Jan. 4.

Los Angeles County’s Probation Department chief, Jerry Powers, resigned Tuesday amid allegations that he had an inappropriate romantic relationship with one of his top deputies.



4.


http://www.latimes.com/local/california ... story.html


City Council concerns spur delay on vote to buy LAPD body cameras
Los Angeles Police officer wears an on-body camera

A Los Angeles Police officer wears an on-body camera during a demonstration in Los Angeles.

Faced with growing concerns from his colleagues about cost and logistics, L.A. City Council President Herb Wesson on Tuesday put the brakes on a scheduled vote to purchase thousands of body cameras for police officers.

Council members had been scheduled Wednesday to approve a plan to spend $57.6 million over five years on the LAPD camera initiative, which is backed by both Mayor Eric Garcetti and police Chief Charlie Beck. Wesson delayed that vote until next month after hearing "outstanding questions" from city lawmakers, said Vanessa Rodriguez, the council president's spokeswoman.

"This is a major policy. It is a major shift for the Los Angeles Police Department and has national significance," she added. "The council president feels he owes it to his community and the city that the best policy is what's voted on."

The agreement to purchase more than 6,000 cameras had been on an accelerated schedule this week, right before lawmakers went on holiday recess. But over the last two days, several city lawmakers sounded increasingly nervous about the project's price tag and the potential drain on other police resources.

On Monday, four council members recoiled at suggestions that the LAPD may need 122 additional positions to oversee the video program, which would place cameras both on officers' uniforms and in squad cars. Councilman Bob Blumenfield said he was experiencing "sticker shock."


A day later, Councilman Joe Buscaino said constituents in the harbor area of his district would rather see the money spent on extra patrols and the reopening of a jail in San Pedro. "It's hard for me to go back to my community, who's demanding … more cops on the street," said Buscaino, a former police officer.

Interested in the stories shaping California? Sign up for the free Essential California newsletter >>

Lawmakers were being asked to sign off on a $31.2-million contract with Taser International Inc. to purchase 6,140 cameras — plus upgrades and video storage — and 4,400 Tasers. Another $26.4 million would be spent on cellphones and other support services.

Buscaino said he planned to vote, albeit reluctantly, for the camera agreement. But Councilman Paul Krekorian, who heads the budget committee, was not yet willing to make that commitment on Tuesday.
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Re: COPWATCH

Postby Grizzly » Wed Dec 16, 2015 11:37 pm



Cop Shoots Unarmed Man In The Neck After Serious Car Crash, Shooting Claimed As An Accident!


Andrew Thomas, 26, made a deadly decision to get behind the wheel after he’d been drinking on Thanksgiving night. With his 23-year-old wife, Darien Ehorn in the passenger’s seat, Thomas left the Canteena Bar and was immediately pursued by Paradise police officer Patrick Feaster. In a pursuit that barely lasted a minute, Thomas loses control of his Toyota Four-Runner, hit the median and flipped over. Tragically, his wife was ejected from the vehicle and died on the scene. Officer Feaster then gets out of his vehicle, gun drawn, and as Thomas attempts to get out of the vehicle, in a likely attempt to check on his wife, the cop shoots him in the neck. Thomas posed absolutely no threat to the officer who was 10-20 feet away from Thomas when he fired. There was no possible way the department could spin the shooting into Feaster somehow fearing for his life. So, they did something entirely different. They claimed it was an accident. Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey announced on Tuesday that Feaster would not face any charges, claiming that Feaster’s gun merely “went off” when it struck Thomas in the neck, hitting him in the C7 and T1 vertebrae, which will likely mean he will never walk again.


4-6 minutes after the dashcam video concluded, Officer Feaster finally tells someone that he discharged his weapon.

http://bearingarms.com/officer-shoots-w ... s-charges/
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

― Joseph mengele
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Re: COPWATCH

Postby fruhmenschen » Fri Dec 18, 2015 8:15 pm

couple of reads about what is hot about the FBI


1.


The FBI Agents That Arrested Martin Shkreli Are Pretty Hot
NextShark-22 hours ago
The two FBI agents flanking the 32-year-old CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals in arrest photos have been singled out for their good looks and tailored suits.


2.


https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/20 ... -in-brief/




Texas: In February, 2004, John Conditt Jr., 53, the former head of the FBI's internal affairs unit at the Office of Professional Responsibility was sentenced to 12 years in prison in Tarrant County court after he admitted molesting the daughters of two FBI agents after he retired in 2001. Conditt had been an FBI agent for more than 30 years before retiring. A retired FBI whistleblower said she had brought allegations of child abuse on Indian reservations to Conditt's attention and the FBI had not aggressively pursued the allegations. She now questions whether having a pedophile in charge of an FBI office would influence how aggressively child abuse charges were investigated.





3.

FBI kept quiet about sexual relationship between agent, star witness in Jefferson trial
Bruce Alpert, NOLA.com | Times-Picayune By Bruce Alpert, NOLA.com | Times-Picayune
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on September 27, 2009 at 5:58 AM, updated September 27, 2009 at 3:57 PM




http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2009/09/post_4.html




As the corruption case against former Rep. William Jefferson was about to go to trial in June, prosecutors learned from their star witness that she had had a sexual relationship with the undercover FBI agent who drove her to all the meetings where she secretly taped and delivered cash to the New Orleans Democrat.



william-jefferson.JPGMichael DeMocker / The Times-PicayuneOn Monday, Judge T.S. Ellis III denied a request by Jefferson's lawyers for a new trial, a request based in part on defense claims that Ellis erred in not letting them bring up Lori Mody's relationship with an FBI agent at trial.

But according to court documents unsealed last week, the FBI and its Office of Professional Responsibility knew at least as far back as last December that the agent, John Guandolo, "had had an intimate relationship with a confidential source that he thought could damage an investigation." But they never passed that information to the U.S. attorney's office prosecuting Jefferson or the lead FBI agent in the investigation.

The failure to provide the court and the prosecutors with such explosive information raises questions about FBI conduct, even as the revelation about Guandolo's relationship with Lori Mody, the northern Virginia businesswoman at the center of the Jefferson probe, adds a new layer of intrigue to the case.

It also shows how the actions of a single agent could have wrecked the long and meticulous Justice Department pursuit of Jefferson. Mody did not testify at the trial, but the tapes she secretly recorded were allowed to be played for the jury and were a key to the conviction of the nine-term congressman on 11 of 16 corruption charges.

"This is just unbelievable, " said George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who has followed the case closely. "If the FBI was aware that an agent had an improper relationship with a confidential source, it is information that should have been disclosed to the court."

"It's very disturbing, " said Harvey Silverglate, a Boston lawyer and author of a recent book critical of the federal law enforcement. "First of all, an agent shouldn't be having an affair with a government informant. And if it does happen, of course it must be disclosed because it could affect the credibility of the informant and the individual agent and investigation."

FBI agent resigns

Guandolo resigned from the FBI on or about Dec. 1, before the bureau's Office of Professional Responsibility could question him about his sexual liaisons with Mody, as well as with women FBI agents, relationships detailed in a document Guandolo had prepared.

FBI spokesmen at the Washington, D.C., field office and at national headquarters said Friday that they could not comment on personnel matters. William Carter of the FBI National Press Office said he had brought the question of why the FBI did not pass along what they knew about Guandolo to the federal court, to the FBI's Office of General Counsel for their review.

On Friday, Guandolo declined to go beyond a statement he gave to the FBI on June 7, in which he expressed his "deep remorse" for his sexual relationship with Mody, and his hope that it wouldn't damage the case against Jefferson.

After Mody told prosecutors of her relationship with Guandolo, the government announced that they would not call her as a witness and scrambled to have the lead FBI agent in the case provide the testimony to establish the surveillance tapes.

On Monday, Judge T.S. Ellis III denied a request by Jefferson's lawyers for a new trial, a request based in part on defense claims that Ellis erred in not letting them bring up Mody's relationship with Guandolo at trial. After sentencing Oct. 30, fter sentencing Oct. 30, the defense is expected to appeal Ellis' decision to deny a new trial.

Chance of appeal

Turley and other expert observers said that defense chances of a successful appeal based on the new information are slim. But Turley said that Guandolo's brazen behavior in such a high-profile case raises questions about the "FBI culture, " especially in light of somewhat similar claims in the botched prosecution of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.

Stevens was convicted of corruption last October, but on Dec. 2 -- right when Guandolo was leaving the FBI -- one of two FBI agents assigned to the Stevens case filed a complaint suggesting, among other things, that there has been an "inappropriate relationship" between Mary Beth Kepner, the lead FBI agent in the case, and the key government witness, Bill Allen. Earlier this year, Attorney General Eric Holder dropped the charges against Stevens.

Ellis ruled that Guandolo's relationship with Mody was irrelevant, and telling the jurors would have had a "prejudicial" effect on their deliberations.

But, Turley said, "the judge was very forthcoming with the government in allowing highly damaging and personal facts about Jefferson to go before the jury, including the fact that he had slept over at the house of a female aide." The aide said they slept in separate rooms.

The relationship between Guandolo and Mody is all the more stunning because she was described as being a volatile and vulnerable figure, especially in her relationships with men.


'Mild intimacy'

According to a statement from Mody included in the unsealed document, she and Guandolo engaged in "mild intimacy" in New Orleans in April 2005, and that on subsequent occasions Guandolo made "inappropriate sexual advances" in a car, at her townhouse and at her parents' home. On one occasion, she said, he was "overly aggressive" but she fended him off. Then once or twice, between late April and the end of May 2005, they had consensual sex.

lori-mody.JPGLori Mody


On May 12, 2005, Mody and Jefferson shared a four-hour dinner at which she talked to Jefferson about her problems with men while Guandolo, posing as her driver, waited in the car.

According to the law enforcement Web site "Tickle the Wire, " the FBI learned of Guandolo's misbehavior because he had, on the advice of his therapist, made a list of his sexual affairs so he could better see the damage he had done to his marriage.

Asked how the list came into the hands of FBI officials, Guandolo said Friday, "it's a lot simpler than you think." He did not elaborate.

At his last meeting with Mody, in early 2006, after the Jefferson investigation had ended, Guandolo, a counter-terrorism expert in the FBI, asked her to contribute $75,000 to one of several anti-terrorist organizations.

Since leaving the bureau, Guandolo has been writing and speaking about the Islamic terrorist threat in America, which he has said the leadership in the FBI is being inadequately aggressive in combating
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