Reasons for creating volunteer civilian review police board

[fruhmenschen]

http://www.davisvanguard.org/2016/02/sn ... aw-school/

Snowden Attorney Speaks at UCD Law School about Democracy in ...
The People’s Vanguard of Davis (subscription)-4 hours ago
He pointed out that one of the documents said “that FBI agents should 'enhance the paranoia among activists' and 'get the point across that there's an FBI agent .

[fruhmenschen]

ee but I do know those kids needed some help. I was glad to do it," he said.



___

Information from: The Macomb Daily, http://www.macombdaily.com

OMAHA, Neb. — A jury should decide whether a plainclothes deputy who had no visible badge or warrant was wrong to push his way into an elderly woman's home and later throw her to the ground and handcuff her, the Nebraska Supreme Court said Friday.

The high court's decision revives the lawsuit of Marilyn Waldron, 81, of Lincoln, against Lancaster County Sheriff's Deputy James Roark.

Court records show Roark and another deputy who were in plainclothes and an unmarked car were trying to serve an arrest warrant on Waldron's grandson, who lived with her, when Roark rang Waldron's doorbell in February 2012. Waldron said that as she was opening the door, Roark pushed inside, saying he was a sheriff's deputy. He also drew a gun and demanded to know the location of her grandson. Waldron said he did not show a badge or a warrant, despite her repeated requests.

Records show she later followed Roark into her basement after being ordered to remain upstairs. Roark then threw her to the floor, breaking her glasses and bruising her face, and handcuffed Waldron as she struggled. Waldron said she told Roark she had recently undergone shoulder surgery, but that he persisted and tore her rotator cuff in the process.

In a written release Friday afternoon

[fruhmenschen]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/pu ... story.html


Judge orders US taxpayers to pay $13.2 million in wrongful FBI hair conviction case

Santae A. Tribble, right, seen with his son Santae Tribble Jr. in 2011, served 28 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit due to a flawed hair analysis by the FBI. (Mark Gail/The Washington Post)



February 28 at 5:56 PM

A D.C. Superior Court judge has ordered the District government to pay $13.2 million to Santae A. Tribble, who was jailed for 28 years after being wrongfully convicted of killing a Southeast Washington taxi driver in 1978.

The award Friday brings to $39 million the damages amount the city has been ordered or agreed to pay over the past year to three District men wrongly imprisoned for decades.

They were convicted at trial through exaggerated claims about the reliability of FBI forensic hair matches, a pattern uncovered by the D.C. Public Defender Service and featured in a series of articles in The Washington Post.

[fruhmenschen]

March 1 2016



http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/nati ... 3112.html#


March 1, 2016 2:54 PM
Fired FBI agent who blew whistle over sex trips wins his appeal

FBI was wrong to fire Sacramento-based special agent, court rules

Fired agent claims firing was retaliation for his sexual-misconduct complaints

He oversaw secret surveillance of suspected terrorists


The FBI wrongly fired a former special agent based in Sacramento, Calif., who blew the whistle on his colleagues’ alleged sexual misconduct, a federal appeals court has ruled

Capping a battle that’s quietly raged across hearing rooms, courthouses and Capitol Hill, appellate judges rejected the bureau’s charge that led to the 2012 firing of former special agent John C. Parkinson. The ruling effectively means the bureau must rehire Parkinson or pay him.

“It should be appreciated that . . . the penalty of removal, which was predicated on the now-overturned lack of candor charge, cannot be sustained,” wrote Judge Richard Linn of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Parkinson’s attorneys call the court vindication, in the 35-page majority decision quietly released Monday, relatively uncommon for FBI whistleblowers and potentially meaningful for others who find themselves in the same shoes.

“We are thrilled at this victory,” attorney Jesselyn A. Radack, with the watchdog group ExposeFacts, said in an interview Tuesday. “It truly is a rare and historic ruling.”

Radack, who joined attorney Kathleen M. McClellan in the case, added that “in general, whistleblowers don’t have a great track record in the Federal Circuit.” The relatively obscure appellate court often handles patent and other technical cases.

The lack of candor charge . . . is unsupported by substantial evidence. Judge Richard Linn

The Parkinson ruling, though, follows years of claims and counterclaims that started with the salacious.

Parkinson joined the FBI in 1999 and arrived in Sacramento the same year, following initial training. By 2006, he was overseeing the Sacramento Division’s Special Operations Group, handling sensitive undercover surveillance operations. The team worked from a clandestine, offsite facility.

“Parkinson's team operated, often with little guidance, in order to determine the whereabouts and patterns of two international terrorism subjects,” one supervisor wrote, adding that the investigation required “several months of surveillance.”

In a 2008 whistleblowing letter, Parkinson alleged that one Sacramento-based colleague had a “career-long pattern of soliciting sex with prostitutes.” This agent, Parkinson alleged, “utilized the FBI’s plane to fly at night to Reno, Nevada, for the sole purpose of engaging prostitutes in acts of illicit sex.”

Another Sacramento-based colleague, Parkinson alleged, had a “history of viewing Internet pornography, both on government and personal computers during work hours.”

“Mr. Parkinson was concerned that (the two colleagues) would defile the furniture by engaging in sexual activity and masturbating on it and watching pornography on the television,” his attorneys recounted in a filing with the Merit Systems Protection Board.

An attorney and decorated Marine Corps Reserve lieutenant colonel who had deployed to Iraq in 2004, Parkinson was, in turn, given poor job evaluations and reassigned from his position.

He considered these moves retaliation for his whistleblowing, which came to the attention of Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley and eventually the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General. In time, Parkinson himself was investigated on suspicion of misusing funds involved in building new Sacramento quarters for the Special Operations Group.

“Throughout 2009, and until May 2010, Parkinson was interviewed repeatedly by OIG officials,” the appellate court noted.

The FBI ultimately concluded that Parkinson had obstructed investigators through crafting certain documents and conversing with potential witnesses. The bureau also concluded he’d lacked candor in some of his responses.

After the FBI fired him in 2012, Parkinson filed a complaint with the Merit Systems Protection Board. Usually, the board cannot consider complaints from FBI employees. As a member of the military, though, Parkinson enjoys special protections.

Parkinson lost at the Merit Systems Protection Board, enabling him to appeal. The appellate court upheld the obstruction charge but rejected the more serious lack of candor charge, saying that “even assuming that Parkinson failed to be fully forthright, there is no substantial evidence that this failure was done knowingly.”

The most stringent penalty for obstruction would be suspension of up to 10 days, noted the appellate court, which also ruled that Parkinson should be able to raise a whistleblower defense if the merit board rehears what remains of the case.

The FBI declined to comment Tuesday.

The next steps could include, in theory, continued administrative hearings, reinstatement or, perhaps, a settlement involving back pay and other benefits for Parkinson, who is curre

[fruhmenschen]

March 4 2016




link du jour
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.2549939

http://koin.com/2016/03/03/gresham-poli ... i-program/


Bonus read

St. Paul officer on leave after she allegedly lied to a Tennessee
grand jury
She was put on paid leave after men were acquitted of sex trafficking.

March 3, 2016 — 10:45pm
http://www.startribune.com/st-paul-cop- ... 370991511/

A St. Paul police officer was placed on paid administrative leave
Thursday after a federal Court of Appeals in Tennessee said she lied
in a statewide sex-trafficking case involving three Twin Cities men
who were recently cleared of charges.

St. Paul police spokesman Steve Linders confirmed that Sgt. Heather
Weyker, the lead agent in the case, was placed on leave.

“We are aware of the judge’s decision, and the information in the
court documents,” Linders said. “They are extremely concerning to us,
and immediately upon hearing about the court documents … we launched
an internal affairs investigation.”

Idris Ibrahim Fahra, Andrew Kayachith and Yassin Abdirahman Yusuf each
spent more than four years in jail after being found guilty of
conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of children. After the jury
convictions, a district judge acquitted the three, saying the evidence
and testimony did not back the charges. The Sixth U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals upheld that decision this week, and questioned the
truthfulness of the police officer and a key witness.

The officer was caught lying to the grand jury and “likely exaggerated
or fabricated important aspects” of a story that a key witness, Jane
Doe No. 2, was taken in by the Somali gang members for sex, according
to the decision.

When Weyker, who served on an FBI task force on sex trafficking in
2008, tried to speak with Jane Doe No. 2, her parents objected.

According to the decision: Weyker then “met Jane Doe 2 surreptitiously
at her school.” They met in “secret meetings” more than 30 times. The
meetings also “produced a story in which Jane Doe 2 was not a troubled
runaway or juvenile delinquent, but was instead an innocent child
taken in by Somali gangs who used her for sex.”

The district court caught Weyker “lying to the grand jury and, later,
lying during a detention hearing, and scolded her for it on record.”
Weyker also lied on an application to get the witness’ family $3,000
in victim compensation by claiming that Jane Doe No. 2 was abducted,
when the witness denied that she was.

Jane Doe No. 2 told Nashville police that she willingly went on the
road trip to Tennessee with several boys and had sex with several
people.

The decision went on to say: “She also wrote out and signed a
statement saying the same. She did not mention any prostitution or sex
trafficking. But when the Nashville

1.

New FBI Program Instructs High School Teachers to Report 'Radical'
Students

http://sputniknews.com/us/20160305/1035 ... iling.html



02:50 05.03.2016
Apparently the FBI is starting its own "21 Jump Street" division, one
that unfairly targets Muslim students.

As part of its ongoing war on terror, the FBI has launched a new
program in which it instructs high school staff across the United
States to report students who show signs of being future terrorists.
airport

6-Year-Old on the No-Fly List: Toronto Family Demands Answers, Action

"High school students are ideal targets for recruitment by violent
extremists seeking support for their radical ideologies, foreign
fighter networks, or conducting acts of violence within our borders,"
the FBI guidelines read.

“[If you] see suspicious behavior that might lead to violent
extremism, [report it to] someone you trust."

Labeled “Preventing Violent Extremism in Schools,” the guidelines
instruct educators to look for loosely-defined indicators that a
student could be a threat. "Talking about traveling to places that
sound suspicious," "using code words or unusual language," "using
several different cell phones and private messaging apps," and
"studying or taking pictures of potential targets (like a government
building)," are all listed as potential warning signs.

Educators note that many of these so-called indicators are too broad
to be effective, as they could be applied to almost any teenager.
Other indicators seem specifically geared toward targeting Muslims.
Man beats Muslim store owner in Astoria; police investigates attack as
hate crime (print screen)
© Photo: pix11.com
Islamophobia Rising: New York Store Owner Attacked by Man Wanting to
‘Kill Muslims’

"In practice, schools seeking to implement this document will end up
monitoring Muslim students disproportionately," Arun Kundnani, a
professor at New York University, told AlterNet.

A similar program in the United Kingdom, known as "Preventing Violent
Extremism," relies on mass-surveillance of Muslim communities and
mosques, and has been expanded into the country’s public schools. This
program has been heavily criticized by rights groups.

"Our case studies show that children are being taken away from
mandatory school hours to be questioned on matters misconstrued as
markers of ‘extremism," Ibrahim Mohamoud, communications officer with
the Islamic advocacy group CAGE said in a statement.

"By alienating parents, turning teachers into informants, and
antagonizing students, [UK program] PREVENT is a divisive policy that
does an injustice to the education system."
Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old boy from Texas, was arrested for bringing
a homemade clock to school, the Dallas Morning News reported
© Photo: Youtube/The Dallas Morning News
Texas Police Arrest 9th Grader for Brining Homemade Clock to School

The expansion of these programs is especially troubling given that
there is little scientific evidence to suggest that they are
effective.

"Drawing on the junk science of radicalization models, the document
dangerously blurs the distinction between legitimate ideological
expression and violent criminal actions," Kundani stated.

Such programs rely on antiquated social theory that has not been
proven.

"The whole concept…is based on the conveyor belt theory – the idea
that ‘extreme ideas’ lead to violence," Michael Germ



1 1/2.


http://motherboard.vice.com/en_uk/read/ ... ecommended

FBI Warrant Used to Hack Child Porn Visitors Was Unconstitutional, EFF
Argues
Written by Joseph Cox
3 March 2016 // 04:30 PM CET

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's shuttering of dark web child
pornography site Playpen is one of the more controversial moves by the
agency in recent years. The FBI ran the site from its own servers for
13 days in order to deploy a network investigative technique (NIT)—the
agency's term for a hacking tool—in an effort to identify its
visitors.

The NIT hacked over a thousand computers, but all of those malware
infections were authorised by one warrant, a point covered in a new,
strongly-worded amicus brief from attorneys with the Electronic
Frontier Foundation (EFF).

The brief, which was filed on Wednesday, says that the warrant was
“unconstitutional.”

It is signed by Mark Rumold, Nate Cardozo, and Andrew Crocker from the
EFF, and Venkat Balasubramani, an attorney who is representing the
EFF.

Judging by court documents in related cases, the warrant used to
authorise the deployment of malware allowed the FBI to infect anyone
who logged into the site (the warrant and its supporting affidavit are
currently sealed). However

2.


Baltimore school police chief and officers suspended after video
emerges of cop slapping, kicking young man
BY JASON SILVERSTEIN NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Wednesday, March
2, 2016, 9:18 AM A A A
facebook246Tweetemail
SHARE THIS URL


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.2549939
00:00 / 00:29
They've been slapped with suspensions.

The head of the Baltimore school police force and two of its officers
were put on administrative leave Tuesday for a video showing an
officer slapping, kicking and cursing out a young man.

The five-second cell phone clip, which was covertly filmed by a Lake
Clifton Eastern High School student, shows an officer loudly slapping
a man three times in the face at the school.

“Go the f--- home!” the officer yells, with a fellow officer standing
next to him.

As the man stumbles away, the officer kicks him in the back and says,
“Get the f--- out of here!”

It’s unclear when the video was filmed or what led to the officer’s
attack. Sch


FBI informant Withers was standing next to Martin Luther King taking
photos when Dr King was killed by a FBI bullet. Wither's photographs
were used by FBI agents to destroy any incriminating evidence at the
crime scene the next day.
see link for full story
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nati ... 3115.story


5.


March 4 2014




Alabama state trooper charged with raping woman while on duty gets six
months in jail



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/e ... -1.2552957



Updated: Friday, March 4,

Samuel H. McHenry II pleaded

GREENVILLE, Ala. — An ex-Alabama state trooper who was accused of
raping a woman while he was on duty was sentenced to six months in
jail after he pleaded guilty Thursday to a misdemeanor sexual
misconduct charge.

Felony charges of rape and sodomy against Samuel McHenry II were
dismissed as part of a plea agreement he filed in Butler County
District Court in Greenville.

McHenry’s Alabama Peace Officers’ Standards and Training Commission
certification will be revoked and he’ll have to register as a sex
offender, according to the plea agreement.

EX-OKLAHOMA COP DANIEL HOLTZCLAW GETS 263 YEARS IN PRISON FOR RAPING
WOMAN

The plea deal comes amid increased national attention on allegations
of sexual misconduct by law enforcement officers.

In a yearlong investigation of sexual misconduct by U.S. law
enforcement, The Associated Press learned of about 1,000 officers who
lost their badges in a six-year period for offenses including rape and
propositioning citizens for sex while on duty.

The figure includes only officers whose licenses have been revoked.
Not all states take such action, maintain accurate records or have a
statewide system to decertify officers for misconduct.

In McHenry’s case, the trooper drove a woman away from the scene of a
car accident the night of Dec. 6 and threatened to take her to jail if
she didn’t have sex with him, according to a warrant.

The former trooper made the demands after he found pill bottles and an
empty nasal spray bottle in her car at the accident scene,
investigators have said.

McHenry drove the woman to a closed store after having sex with her,
then let her out and drove off, investigators have said. Alabama Law
Enforcement Agency spokesman Sgt. Steve Jarrett said McHenry began
working as a trooper in 2009.

McHenry was ordered to report to the Butler County Jail by March 12
and pay court costs, fines and crime victims’ compensation fees.

Officials at the Alabama Attorney General’s Officer were not
immediately available to comment on McHenry’s plea deal Friday
morning.

“Both sides have to agree to it, so in that sense there was that
discussion about is this acceptable to both sides,” said James
Williamson, one of the attorneys who represented McHenry.

Williamson said state prosecutors offered McHenry the plea deal.
Prosecutors and McHenry’s defense team reached an agreement after
about three hours of negotiations, said Judge J. MacDonald Russell
Jr., adding that judicial ethics rules prevent him from giving further
details on the case.

“I suppose the court can always refuse a plea bargain but that’s not
done very often,” he said. “I’ve nev

[fruhmenschen]

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/pba ... -1.2554677


EXCLUSIVE: PBA will call for firing of CCRB Chairman Richard Emery in scathing new ad

Updated: Sunday, March 6, 2016, 1:41 PM



Richard Emery, the chairman of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, has come under fire after he called the cop union pigs.

Richard Emery, the chairman of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, has come under fire after he called the cop union pigs.

The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association will call for the firing of beleaguered Civilian Complaint Review Board Chairman Richard Emery with a new TV ad, the Daily News has learned.

The 30-second ad, slated to air on Tuesday and run through March 14, reiterates pleas from the Sergeants Benevolent Association and PBA for Mayor Bill de Blasio to oust Emery — and uses the NYPD watchdog chairman’s own words against him.

“We call them cops, police officers, New York’s Finest, but this is what Richard Emery, the chairman of the CCRB, calls them,” the commercial begins, before displaying the Daily News’ front page with the headline reading: “Blaz big calls cop union ‘pigs.’”
The front page of the New York Daily News for Feb. 25 is about Richard Emery and Patrick Lynch in a war of words. New York Daily News
The front page of the New York Daily News for Feb. 25 is about Richard Emery and Patrick Lynch in a war of words.

“Emery is supposed to handle civilian complaints fairly and independently, but his law firm is seeking fees for those very same cases,” the ad continues. “And he calls cops ‘pigs?’”

CCRB CHAIRMAN RICHARD EMERY APOLOGIZES FOR CALLING NYPD UNIONS 'PIGS'

Emery came under fire last month when The News revealed his law firm had been retained by Stefon Luckey, a Queens man suing an NYPD sergeant and a cop cited by the CCRB for misconduct.

Soon after The News’ report, police union leaders publicly urged the mayor to give Emery the boot.

Emery later likened the calls for his removal to the union heads “squealing like a stuck pig,” — invoking a pejorative term for police officer.

“I’m not going to deprive the public and people who are abused by police officers of having access to excellent lawyers because some union is squealing like a stuck pig.”

On Sunday, Emery sought to distance himself from the epithet.

“Never ever in my life have I called any police officer, whose job I respect and admire, that term,” he told The News.

The chairman’s private firm, Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP, has since withdrawn from representing Luckey.

“My law firm has never — and is not now — benefiting from any CCRB case, or even handling any CCRB case that occurred while I was chair,” he said, adding, “I’ve fully and carefully complied with the requirements that were set forth when I took the position.”

The de Blasio administration continued to stand with Emery. “Under Chairman Emery, the CCRB is working more effectively for community members and police officers alike, driving average case processing times and backlogs down dramatically,” de Blasio spokeswoman Amy Spitalnick said in a statement.

“Chairman Emery has already apologized for his unfort

[fruhmenschen]

Star DEA agent finds himself at center of sprawling probe as drug task force comes under scrutiny
March 12 2013

http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/ne ... r-scrutiny


The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for years considered Chad Scott a golden boy among its special agents, a prolific narcotics officer who earned countless plaudits for the DEA’s New Orleans field division. Others knew him as a champion waterskier, a tan, blond boss of the single ski.

His legend extended to the world of drug traffickers, where Scott styled himself the “white devil,” a ruthless cop who strong-armed informants and boasted to suspects that he was “the baddest (mother)” along the Interstate 12 corridor.

One dealer loathed Scott so much that he hatched a plan to have the agent executed for $15,000.

Scarface, a popular Houston rapper, name-checked Scott in a controversial album that taunted the DEA — music the brash agent liked to play at high volume following drug arrests.

Some colleagues, though, thought Scott — now at the center of a widening investigation — played fast and loose with the rules, even comparing him to the crooked detective played by Denzel Washington in the movie “Training Day.”

[fruhmenschen]

Link du jour

http://thesullenbell.com/


Blink Tank

http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org ... bill-ayers

Bill Ayers
Educational Theorist, Professor, Writer, Anti-War and Civil Rights
Activist: b. 1944
"There is, after all, no basis for education in a democracy outside of
a faith in the enduring capacity for growth in ordinary people and a
faith that ordinary people … can, if they choose, change the world."


Bonus read

http://www.madcowprod.com/


Donald Trump and The Palm Beach Homies
Posted on March 9, 2016 by Daniel Hopsicker

Donald Trump’s history with the Mob—beginning with early business
partners in Atlantic City who were ‘dese dem & dose’ guys with crooked
noses who knew where Jimmy Hoffa was really buried —is a virtual
travelogue through 30 years of ever-more sophisticated organized
crime.


1.

Chicago
Top Chicago prosecutor loses primary focused on handling of police
killing
Voters backed Kim Foxx in Democratic race amid criticisms that Anita
Alvarez’s office waited over a year to charge officer for fatal
shooting of Laquan McDonald


Cook County state’s attorney Anita Alvarez was subject of intense
criticism and calls to resign after the release of tape that showed
Laquan McDonald being shot and killed by police. Photograph: Zuma
Wire/Rex Shutterstock
Associated Press
Tuesday 15 March 2016 22.37 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 15 March 2016
22.51 EDT

Share on Pinterest Share on LinkedIn Share on Google+ Share on
WhatsApp

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016 ... n-mcdonald


Voters ousted the Chicago area’s top prosecutor on Tuesday, backing
Democratic primary challenger Kim Foxx in a campaign dominated by
questions about Cook County state’s attorney Anita Alvarez’s handling
of the shooting death of a black teenager by a white police officer.

Foxx, who had served as a former chief of staff to the county board
president, was among the harshest critics of Alvarez over the Laquan
McDonald shooting. The teenager was shot 16 times in October 2014, an
incident that was captured on squad-car video. Alvarez charged the
police officer with murder, but not until November, more than a year
after the incident and hours after a judge ordered city officials to
release the tape publicly.

The video sparked near daily protests throughout the city, with
activists who called the investigation a “cover-up” showing up to her
office, home and outside public appearances. It put Alvarez on the
defensive; she explained the yearlong investigation



2.

http://www.wired.com/2016/03/apple-fact ... est-brief/

Author: Kim Zetter. Kim Zetter Security Date of Publication: 03.16.16.
03.16.16


Apple’s Brief Hits the FBI With a Withering Fact Check

Apple’s latest brief in its battle with the FBI over the San Bernardino iPhone offered the tech company an opportunity to school the Feds over their misinterpretation and misquotations of a number of statutes and legal cases they cited as precedent in their own brief last week. Many viewed Apple’s arguments as a withering commentary on the government’s poor legal acumen.

According to Apple, many of the cases the government uses to support its argument that the All Writs Act can be used to compel Apple to help crack the phone don’t actually have anything to do with the All Writs Act, or encryption, or anything of relevance to the current case.

[fruhmenschen]

http://www.examiner.com/article/amnesty ... ga-s-death

Amnesty International investigator on Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa's death
Next: Former Navy Seal says Obama asking military leaders if they'll disarm Americans
March 18, 2016 4:39 PM MST

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Linkedin Google Plus Comment

Waposhitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa died at the Nebraska State Penitentiary
Waposhitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa died at the Nebraska State Penitentiary
Mary Loan

Amnesty International investigated the case of the Omaha Two, Edward Poindexter and Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa, former David Rice, in the late 1970's. Mondo and Poindexter were Black Panther leaders in the National Committee to Combat Fascism and had been convicted in April 1971 for the bombing murder of an Omaha policeman. The two men had been targets of both the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Division and rival Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Omaha Two were victims of COINTELPRO counterintelligence measures but much of the story was still hidden in classified files.

A German investigator, Claus Walischewski, was assigned the case. Walischewski and his team studied the case for two years before concluding Mondo and Ed Poindeter were political prisoners: “The cooperation with the FBI, the FBI’s own activities, the promise of leniency to Peak, even evidence—all these were kept secret at the trial. The key witnesses disappears after the trial. There is only one conclusion to these peculiarities: Rice and Poindexter were readily implicated with a murder because they were the most prominent political activists in Omaha and had to be silenced.”

“They became victim of a frame-up by the police and the FBI and of the racial and political biases in court. Mr. Kingman Brewster, President of Yale University, stated in 1970 that he was “skeptical of the ability of black revolutionaries to achieve a fair trial anywhere in the United States,” wrote Walischewski.

The Amnesty International work group stated their opinion: “David Rice and Ed Poindexter are political prisoners. They were sentenced for a crime they didn’t commit because of their radical political beliefs….The murder of patrolman Minard appeared to be a welcome pretext to incriminate the two activists and strike a blow against the NCCF from which it couldn’t recover. The legal system was misused and they were unjustly convicted.”

Forty-five years later, Claus Walischewski still believes in Mondo's innocence. Walischewski commented on Mondo's recent death at the Nebraska State Penitentiary: “I just want to express my shock and disbelief when I learned of Mondo's death....I had heard that Mondo's health problems had worsened but I had no idea how serious they were, that's why the news of his death took me by surprise.”

“I deeply deplore the fact that he had to spend most of his life in prison for a crime I believe he didn't commit. He was born the same year as I and that makes it the more horrendous to me: so many years confined in prison, such injustice, no chance of living a normal life - how could he endure all this? Amnesty International took on his case in 1977 and only one year later I joined AI and started working on this case. In the 1990s I went to Nebraska and Minnesota and had a chance to meet Mondo and Ed in prison and thus developed a more personal commitment to their case. Numerous letters I wrote on their behalf - to no avail,” complained Walischewski.

“It makes me sad to know how harshly the US legal and political system deals with supposed enemies and is rarely willing to make up for injustices and manipulations that victims of racism have suffered. Another precious life spent! Can we hope that one day Mondo will be rehabilitated and cleared of the crime? That is still important, not only for Ed Poindexter, but als

[fruhmenschen]

Link du jour

two stories


1.


http://www.unz.org/Pub/InTheseTimes-1989sep06


Hot on the Press
by Gregory Flannery
, p. 7 - PDF
Did Police Torch a Cincinnati Paper?

2.

https://www.unz.org/Pub/InTheseTimes-1989mar22

Reach Out and TAP Someone
by Gregory Flannery
, pp. 12-13 - PDF




http://www.whistleblowers.org/index.php ... Itemid=247


http://robertscribbler.com/2016/03/21/w ... ords-away/




1.

Prosecutors detail evidence that former FBI agent and Bulger witness
lied about finding gun that killed MLK
Federal prosecutors said they want to present historical records
surrounding the assassination, including police scanner transcripts,
FBI reports and court records to prove that Robert Fitzpatrick is a
liar.



http://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2 ... killed-mlk


March 21, 2016

Federal prosecutors want to present evidence that a former FBI agent
who testified on behalf of James “Whitey” Bulger repeatedly lied about
recovering the gun that killed Martin Luther King Jr. in the agent’s
upcoming perjury trial.

Robert Fitzpatrick, 76, was charged in April with several counts of
obstruction of justice and perjury. He was the first witness who
testified for the defense in Bulger’s 2013 racketeering trial, telling
jurors that Bulger wasn’t an informant.

“Bulger was looking for a witness to corroborate his absurd claim that
he was not an FBI informant,” prosecutors wrote in a motion filed
Monday. “The defendant was just the man for the job.”

Prosecutors say Fitzpatrick lied about several key points during his
testimony. Fitzpatrick said that Bulger said he wasn’t an informant.
He said he was given a special assignment in the Boston FBI office,
and that he left the FBI because of retaliation. He claimed to have
personally arrested a major Boston mob boss, in addition to being the
first to find the rifle that killed King.

At one point during his cross examination, prosecutor Brian Kelly
asked Fitzpatrick: “It’s fair to say that you’re a man who likes to
make up stories?”

His testimony also touched on other, stranger points, including his
attempt to see into Bulger’s soul.
Related Links

Former FBI Agent Pleads Not Guilty to Perjury, Obstruction in
Bulger Trial
The Weirdest Testimony Robert Fitzpatrick Gave During the Bulger
Trial

Fitzpatrick’s attorney did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Fitzpatrick told jurors of his involvement in the MLK assassination
this way: “I found the rifle when I was at the scene. I was the first
FBI agent at the scene, and I found a rifle coming down the stairs,
having just missed James Earl Ray, the shooter.”

Federal prosecutors said Fitzpatrick’s fibbing on the MLK case was
“designed to enhance his credibility with the Bulger jury … [and] his
credibility as a former FBI agent was central to Bulger’s core defense
strategy of proving FBI corruption and government misconduct.”


Prosecutors want to enter into trial historical records surrounding
the assassination, including police scanner transcripts, FBI reports,
court records and others. They also want





http://ticklethewire.com/2016/03/21/usa ... t-airport/

How Invasive TSA Aggressively Handled Me at Airport

body images airportJames Bovard
USA Today

The Transportation Security Administration finally obeyed a 2011
federal court order March 3 and issued a 157 page Federal Register
notice justifying its controversial full-body scanners and other
checkpoint procedures. TSA’s notice ignored the fact that the “nudie”
scanners are utterly unreliable; TSAfailed to detect 95% of weapons
and mock bombs that Inspector General testers smuggled past them last
year while the agency continues to mislead the public about its
heavy-handed treatment of travelers.

The Federal Register notice is full of soothing pablum about how
travelers have no reason to fear the TSA, declaring that “passengers
can obtain information before they leave for the airport on what items
are prohibited.” But it neglects to mention that TSA can invoke
ludicrous pretexts to treat innocent travelers as suspicious terrorist
suspects.

Flying home from Portland, Ore., on Thanksgiving morning, I had a
too-close encounter with TSA agents that spurred me to file a Freedom
of Information Act request. On March 5, I finally received a bevy of
TSA documents and video footage with a grope-by-grope timeline.

As a silent assertion of my rights, I opted out that morning from
passing through the “nudie” full-body scanners. A TSA agent instead
did a vigorous pat-down and then, after running his glove through an
explosive trace detector (ETD), announced that I showed a positive
alert for explosives. He did not know what type of explosive was
detected and refused to disclose how often that machine spewed false
alarms. Regardless, I was told I would have to undergo a an additional
special pat-down to resolve the explosive alert. I was marched off by
three TSA agents to a closed room. TSA states that “a companion of his
or her choosing may accompany the passenger” but I was never notifie

[fruhmenschen]

March 22 2016




City & Region
Bookstore owner turns tables, questions why he was target of FBI probe
Bookstore owner was target of 2-year investigation



Theresa Baker-Pickering and her husband, Leslie Pickering, have learned that they were the subjects of an FBI investigation.
on March 17, 2016 - 8:06 PM, updated March 18, 2016 at 6:29 AM

http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/ ... e-20160317


Pickering, long a target of the FBI, turns his story into an art exhibit
FBI asked for tracking of Pickering mail in 2012
Former Earth Liberation Front spokesman files federal suit for information from FBI



The FBI kept tabs on a Buffalo bookstore owner for two years.

Agents watched Leslie Pickering’s home and store, monitored his mail and used grand jury subpoenas to gather information about him.

At the core of the investigation was the allegation, still unproven, that Pickering, a longtime environmental activist, was operating an eco-terrorism cell out of Burning Books, his West Side bookstore.

The investigation turned up no evidence of a threat and was shut down after a confidential informant recanted part of her story, according to newly released FBI documents

[fruhmenschen]

1.
http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/20 ... s-and.html

Pro Libertate
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Merrick Garland, Richard W. Roberts, and the Kenneth Trentadue Murder: The Deep State Takes Care of Its Own


Not a suicide victim: Kenneth Trentadue's brutalized body in his open-casket funeral.



“You have to trust the government,” Justice Department attorney Richard Roberts unctuously told Jesse Trentadue. Seeking to understand why his younger brother Kenneth had died while in federal custody, Jesse, a trial attorney in Salt Lake City, had asked to see the findings of a federal grand jury investigation of the case.

In an incandescent response to Roberts’s patronizing dismissal, Trentadue reminded the Justice Department functionary that the proper relationship between citizens and the government is not one of “trust,” but rather of “accountability from that government to the citizens.”

“The Department of Justice has yet to account to the family for the death of my brother,” Trentadue pointed out. “There is no love between us, and there certainly is no trust.”
By the time Jesse had sent that October 16, 1997 letter to Roberts – who was Chief of the Justice Department’s Criminal Section – more than two years had passed since his brother Kenneth had died in a federal prison cell in Oklahoma City. In the August 22, 1995 phone call notifying Kenneth’s mother Wilma about her son’s death, the warden casually mentioned that the body was scheduled for cremation within hours.

Wilma demanded to know if Kenneth’s wife had authorized the disposition of his body. The warden replied that she hadn’t been aware that Kenneth was married. After making it clear that her son’s remains were not to be cremated, Wilma joined Jesse in Oklahoma City, where they took custody of Kenneth’s body.

After carefully scraping away several layers of ineptly applied makeup, Wilma and Jesse understood why authorities had been determined to dispose of Kenneth’s body. The official story was that he had committed suicide by hanging himself in what was described as a suicide-proof cell. This wouldn’t explain why his face and torso were mottled with bruises testifying of a severe beating inflicted by several people, or why his throat appeared to have been cut and his scalp was split open.
"Trust the government": Judge/prosecutor/rapist Roberts.
By the time Kenneth’s family had collected his body, all of the evidence in the crime scene had been destroyed. In violation of Oklahoma state law, the floors and walls of the cell had been sanitized, erasing fingerprints and wiping away blood and DNA evidence. The victim’s clothing and bedding had been confiscated by FBI Special Agent Jeff Jenkins, who kept this evidence hidden in the trunk of his car until putrefaction set in, rendering it useless to the FBI Crime Lab.

One witness in a nearby cell testified that he heard the sounds of a struggle shortly before Kenneth’s lifeless body was “discovered” by a guard. Several other witnesses reported seeing bloody riot gear, uniforms, and batons belonging to the facility’s SORT (Special Operations Response Team) unit.

The Bureau of Prisons designated “suicide by asphyxia” as the cause of Kenneth’s death, insisting that his other injuries were “self-inflicted.”

Dr. Fred Jordan, Oklahoma’s Chief State Medical Examiner, was pressured to validate the official story that Kenneth was a suicide victim, despite the fact that his body was “covered in blood … soaked in blood, covered with bruises,” as Jordan would later recall. He was forbidden by federal officials to have access to the death scene until five months after the death. An application of Luminol, a blood reagent, left the cell “lit up like a candle because of the blood still present on the walls after four or five months.”

Rather than acceding to federal demands, Jordan listed the cause of Kenneth’s death as “unknown.” Kevin Rowland, chief investigator for the ME’s office, filed a complaint with the FBI describing the incident as “murder.” He also consulted with Col. William T. Gormley of the United States Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, who concurred with Dr. Jordan’s findings.


Rowland, intriguingly, was recently subjected to the pointless torment over a “sexual battery” charge arising from an incident in which he allegedly twisted a male co-worker’s nipple. That alleged incident, furthermore, occurred decades ago. Bear in mind the nature of that charge, and the institutional memory that led to it being filed against this whistleblower; this will become relevant anon.

All of the pertinent facts about Kenneth’s murder were exhumed by Trentadue and his colleagues long after the Justice Department had concluded what Criminal Section Chief Richard Roberts claimed was a “flawless” and “thorough” investigation – one that began on August 21, 1995, and was closed the following day. The findings of that one-day “investigation” were submitted to a federal grand jury – not one on Oklahoma City – which ratified the Justice Department’s official story.

When Trentadue requested access to the federal grand jury’s findings, Roberts parried that petition with a patronizing admonition to “trust the government.” The following year, Roberts was selected by Bill Clinton to serve on the District Court for the District of Columbia, an appointment that could be seen as a reward for his role in consummating a vital cover-up.
Kenneth Trentadue, Jesse learned from an anonymous caller shortly after his brother’s death, was “murdered by the FBI” in a lethal case of mistaken identity. In appearance, body type, distinguishing features (including, however implausibly, tattoos), age, and criminal background, Kenneth was a near-twin of Richard Lee Guthrie – who was in the custody of the federal prison system when Kenneth was arrested for an alleged parole violation shortly after the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

For several years, Guthrie was involved in an FBI-protected gang called the Aryan Republican Army (ARA), which staged bank robberies to fund white supremacist activities across the country. The ARA was an asset of the FBI’s PATCON (Patriot Conspiracy) program, which seeded “radical right” groups with informants and provocateurs.

The Oklahoma City bombing was the result of a PATCON operation – most likely a security theater production that went badly off-script. Guthrie is one of several very good candidates for the enigmatic “John Doe #2” whom many witnesses saw in the company of Timothy McVeigh on the morning of the bombing – and whose identity the government has sought to conceal ever since. Just a few months after Kenneth’s traumatized body was “found” dangling in a cell at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma, Guthrie died in a similarly unconvincing “suicide.” Shortly before he was killed, Guthrie had somewhat imprudently announced his intention to write a memoir disclosing critical secrets regarding the Oklahoma City bombing.

Implacably pursuing justice: Jesse
The source who told Jesse that Kenneth had been killed by the FBI described the murder as “an interrogation gone wrong.” Before his parole, Kenneth had been a bank robber, albeit one not affiliated with the alpha gang of the criminal underworld, the FBI. He couldn’t answer any PATCON-related questions, and so he was tortured to death. His captors may have really believed that he was Guthrie. They may have realized that he wasn’t, but decided that it would be compromising to let him live. In either case, the objective was to tie up a loose end quickly. Fortunately, enough of a thread was left dangling for Jesse to find it. He has been tugging on it for more than twenty years.

Learning the identity of “John Doe #2” is necessary to solve the mystery of his brother’s murder, Jesse believes, and the identity of that PATCON asset remains a protected state secret.
In response to a July 2009 Freedom of Information Act request by Jesse, the FBI turned over six DVDs that supposedly contained all of the video recordings collected after the bombing. Missing from that collection – and pointedly ignored in the FBI’s response to Jesse’s request – is a video captured by the exterior surveillance camera located on the Regency Tower
Apartments near the ill-fated Murrah Building.

In May 2011, a federal judge ordered the FBI to conduct additional searches and turn over all video records collected, from whatever source, of the Oklahoma City bombing. The bureau has refused to comply with that order, claiming that if the video exists it is irretrievably lost in a long-forgotten evidence vault.
The existence of that video is proven by the testimony of FBI Special Agent Jon Hersley during McVeigh’s April 27, 1995 preliminary hearing. Hersley, who was among those agents tasked “to further identify and locate other individuals who may have been involved in the bombing,” testified that within “two or three days” of the bombing he had been shown “still photos” culled from a the video captured by the Regency Tower surveillance system. The film itself, he explained, was in the control of other agents within the bureau.

During cross-examination, defense counsel John Coyle, challenging the foundation for video evidence implicating his client, asked Agent Hersley, “who are those agents that are tasked with the responsibility of reviewing photographs and film footage?”
That entirely reasonable question prompted an objection by the lead prosecutor, a Justice Department attorney named Merrick Garland. The objection being overruled, Hersley identified the agent in question as Walt Lamar. As Coyle continued to pursue this line of inquiry, Garland objected a second time, protesting that “we are going in the area of discovery now.”

The second objection was sustained, the matter was dropped, and potential “discovery” of evidence that could have revealed the identity of John Doe #2 was foreclosed by the man who, two decades later, would be chosen to fill a critical vacancy on the Supreme Court.

Assuming that the Senate holds confirmation hearings on the Garland nomination, some senators reportedly plan to ask why he recused himself in a judicial misconduct case involving a colleague – none other than Richard Roberts, who resigned a few days later for “health” reasons. Roberts was under investigation by the Utah Attorney General’s Office and both the House and Senate oversight committees regarding allegations that he had raped a 16-year-old witness during a civil rights case in Utah in 1980.

At the time, the 27-year-old Roberts was an attorney with the Justice Department’s civil rights division. He was dispatched to Salt Lake City to head the federal civil rights prosecution of Joseph Paul Franklin, a white supremacist serial killer who murdered two African-American joggers, Ted Fields and David Martin from an ambush in August 1980.

Terry Mitchell (whose last name at the time was Elrod) had accompanied the two men and a girlfriend during the jog. She was hit by shrapnel but survived. Two months earlier she had been raped by a man named Philip George Moore, which was merely the latest of several such assaults she had endured since childhood. As if the cumulative trauma of those events hadn’t been sufficient, Terry and her family were subjected to hostility and suspicion owing to the fact that the father was involved in a local motorcycle club called the Barons, a fact seized on by some to suggest that Terry had lured the victims into an ambush.
Terry Mitchell in 2016.
A few weeks after the shooting, Terry fled to Arizona to live with grandparents. She returned the following October to testify in the trial.

During the following January and February, the 27-year-old Roberts sexually exploited the 16-year-old, beginning with an episode in which he lured her into his office on the pretext of reviewing her testimony. Once he had separated the teenager from her mother, Roberts quickly disposed of the fiction that they were going to discuss the case and invited her to dinner.

While Terry was puzzled and concerned, and wanted to go home to fix dinner for her younger sisters, “she complied because … Roberts was an authority figure and she had learned to comply with those in positions of authority,” recounts a lawsuit she recently filed against the former judge. With the practiced, methodical patience of a veteran sexual predator, Roberts lured the intimidated girl into his hotel room, where he compelled her to service him sexually, “then raped her twice.”

While maintaining the pretense that he and his victim were engaged in a consensual “affair,” Roberts made it clear that Terry couldn’t disclose what was going on. A mistrial would have resulted, and Franklin – who had yet to be tried for the murders – may have been let loose. If this were to happen, Roberts told his victim, it would be her fault.

After securing Franklin’s conviction, Roberts left, and Terry rarely heard from him again. In 2013, after the serial killer wasexecuted for a murder committed in Missouri, Roberts contacted Terry anew. Terry recorded the phone call and submitted it to investigators for the Utah Attorney General’s office, which verified the substance of her story.

Roberts has admitted to preying upon the then-sixteen-year-old witness, but continues to characterize the matter as a “consensual” affair and a regrettable “lapse in judgment.” Under current state law, the conduct to which Roberts confesses would be statutory rape or perhaps even child molestation. At the time, however, the age of consent was sixteen. Roberts never faced the prospect of serious criminal charges arising from his calculated exploitation of a traumatized and vulnerable girl.

Today (March 22) Roberts has learned that the misconduct case against him has been dropped, meaning that he will be able to enjoy h

[fruhmenschen]

http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/03/2 ... n-test.htm

Thursday, March 24, 2016Last Update: 2:11 PM PT

Cops Call Cheating Rampant in NYPD Promotion Test


MANHATTAN - Aspiring lieutenants have gamed the New York City Police Department's civil-service exams through a cheat sheet posted on a popular online message board, nine sergeants claim in a federal lawsuit.
On April 18, 2015, more than 2,400 sergeants filed into high school classrooms spread throughout Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan to take an exam for a promotion.
Sgt. Jonathan Blatt and eight of his comrades say that only 164 - or 6.8 percent of all test-takers - passed, but those who flunked the first time saw their luck suddenly improve upon reexamination.
Roughly 48 percent of the 80 sergeants who took the makeup passed.
That's because, between the two test dates, many police reviewed the answers on the department's online message board "Rising Star," according to a 13-page complaint filed on Thursday.
The lawsuit filed by sergeant's lawyer Randolph McLaughlin, from Newman Ferrarra LLP, reads a report from a poorly supervised grade school.
"Prior to sitting for the exam, cellphones and other electronic devices were not removed from the test-takers," the complaint states. "In fact, on at least one occasion, a proctor instructed test-takers who had a telephone to turn it off."
"In a number of classrooms," it continues, proctors would either take their eyes off the police or leave the room entirely.
If test-takers had to use the bathroom during the nearly seven-hour exam, they did not have to sign out of or back into the room, the sergeants say.
"Test-takers in the restroom were observed to be whispering among themselves regarding the ongoing examination," the complaint states.
Beyond "lax supervision," the sergeants say in their lawsuit that the "less-than-ideal" test settings included classrooms with "their windows open and outside noises were noticeable throughout."
"Furthermore, activities were being conducted throughout and outside of the high schools where the exams were being administered," the complaint states.
On Feb. 17 this year, New York's Department of Citywide Administrative Services published a list of 204 candidates who got passing scores, including the alleged cheaters, the sergeants say.
"Allowing officers who cheated and/or who disseminated information regarding the Lieutenants Exam's questions or answers prior to the makeup exam (and have thus not shown to be qualified) to be promoted to lieutenant could endanger the lives of police officers working under them and the public at large," the complaint states.
With officers set to be promoted on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer set a hearing date on Monday afternoon for the sergeants to show cause for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction delaying that date.
Sgt. Blatt said in a statement that he was "pleased" with the development.
"We filed this suit to protect the integrity of the promotion process, and hope that the court agrees with us," he said.
When asked to confirm an investigation within the department, the NYPD replied that it was "aware of certain issues that have been raised concerning the 2015 lieutenant promotional make-up exam."

[stephanddoody]

This is a case I have been tracking.

The fix has been in from the start.

If these was a volunteer civilian review board
the Sheriff and prosecutor would have bewn fired.









Ex-FBI agent, daughter charged with murdering woman's husband
Published January 05, 2016


http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/01/05/fo ... r-two.html

A North Carolina woman and her former FBI agent father have been charged in the August murder of the woman's husband.

Molly Martens Corbett, a 31-year-old former model, and her father, retired FBI agent Thomas Michael Martens, were charged with second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter in the death of Corbett's husband in August, according to grand jury indictments unsealed Monday.


“It was an extremely thorough investigation,” Davidson County Sheriff David Grice told The-Dispatch newspaper Monday. “We are pleased with the decision of the grand jury."

Authorities found 39-year-old Jason Paul Corbett, of County Limerick, Ireland, with fatal head injuries when they responded to a 911 call about an assault just after 3 a.m. on Aug. 2 at Corbett's Davidson County, N.C., home.

According to police reports obtained by The-Dispatch, the caller, believed to be 65-year-old Martens, told a Davidson County 911 operater he had been in an argument with his son-in-law and struck him with a baseball bat.

Corbett and Martens, of Knoxville, Tenn., were immediately identified as persons of interest in the case.

Jason Corbett had two young children from a prior marriage. His first wife, Margaret Fitzpatrick Corbett, died in November 2006 of a sudden asthma attack, according to the Winston-Salem Journal. Corbett married Martens in 2011.

Corbett's death caused a bitter custody battle between Molly Martens Corbett and her late husband's family in Ireland. The children’s aunt and uncle in Ireland ultimately gained custody, according to multiple media reports.

Mike Earnest,, Molly Martens Corbett's uncle, told UTV Ireland that the two are expected to claim self-defense, arguing their actions were necessary and justified.

Earnest released a statement to the media Monday, saying, “I have known Tom Martens for 44 years and Molly since she was born 32 years ago; there are no finer people

Hi
I have been waiting ages to post a reply to your post. I'm wondering are you still following case and have you seen everything since the first few weeks. I am from Ireland . I have a lot of information regarding this case and would love your thoughts and input on this

[fruhmenschen]

Why don't you tell us your view of the case?