Policing Ourselves

Campbell, Wisconsin… police chief Tim Kelemen on leave… admitted using a Tea Party activist's name and email address to create accounts on pornographic, dating and insurance websites from both his home and work computers. …apparently upset that Tea Party activists… filed a federal lawsuit over the city's decision to bar political protests on a pedestrian walkway on Interstate 90.

…a terrific example of citizen accountability through filming cops [video at link]

“I come outside, jump in the truck, and the whole thing’s been torn apart inside, wires had been yanked out, the paneling had some scratches on it…” It was the police: "Sir, your car was checked by TPD K-9. The vehicle was searched For marijuana due to a strong odor coming from the passenger side of the vehicle. Any questions call [phone number] - Cpl. Fannin"

a Columbus family visiting the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force when four police officers in three cruisers drew guns and forced a grandmother and a mother to the ground as two young children screamed in fear from what authorities thought was a “stolen” vehicle. …

“My grandchildren are screaming,” Alice Hill recalled. “I mean they are hysterical, they saw the gun."

"My 5-year-old daughter is asking, ‘Is grandma going to get shot?’”

After a two-minute beatdown, another eight police officers arrive and handcuff Halevi, who appears to be unbloodied, the video shows. "I regret making the call. I should have let him sleep. It spiraled out of control," said Trappler.

one officer, who argued with reporters in the road’s median, telling them that they must move. When they refused, he insisted: “Your First Amendment right can be terminated if you’re creating a scene or whatever.”

Challenged by reporters that they had not created a scene, the officer replied: “Your presence is creating a scene.”

One of the reporters’ responds: “But this is what we do for a living! What we do for a living is creating a scene?” Another reporter adds: “You’ve got a lawsuit coming.”

“I don’t care about no damn lawsuit!” the officer answers. “F*ck a lawsuit. Just ’cause you sue doesn’t mean you’re going to win.”

Authorities in North Miami Beach say a man carrying what was later determined to be a toy rifle was shot and killed by police.

41-year old Illinois mechanic Michael Allison faces life in jail for recording police officers after authorities hit him with eavesdropping charges based on the hoax that it is illegal to film cops, a misnomer that has been disproved by every other case against people filming police officers being thrown out of court. ... The notion that it is illegal to film police officers is a mass hoax that is being promulgated by authorities, the media, and police officers themselves. [Video]

In recent years police forces across the country have become increasingly militarized. To a small degree, that trend represents a rational response in an arms race against the criminal element's escalating firepower. But more of it has to do with the lavishing of federal Homeland Security funds on local law-enforcement agencies. Local departments have used the money to buy themselves all kinds of fancy toys.... In "Overkill," a 2006 paper for the Cato Institute, Radley Balko traces the rise of paramilitary policing to the 1980s and the war on drugs. One of the earliest developments was the Military Cooperation With Law Enforcement Act, whose purpose was to let the military lend a hand in drug interdiction. In the three decades since, the trend has only spread. ... The paramilitary approach to law enforcement flies in the face of the idea that the police and the citizens are on the same side. Officer Friendly, strolling the block in a blue uniform and playing a paradiddle with his baton on a white picket fence, looks like he is ready to help carry groceries for the little old lady who lives on the corner. A cop in combat gear with an assault rifle slung over his shoulder looks like he is ready to go to war. In war, there is no presumption of innocence—and the opposing side is not a fellow citizen with constitutional rights. He is the enemy.

The recent police-related deaths of 43-year-old Allen Kephart in Lake Arrowhead, California and 37-year-old Kelly Thomas in Fullerton, California have sent shockwaves through the their respective communities. Indeed, both are being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The death of Thomas, a homeless schizophrenic beaten into a coma by Fullerton police, is also being investigated by the Orange County District Attorney's Office. His case is not the first time Orange County law enforcement has been accused of applying excessive force to a mentally ill homeless man.

On May 11, 43-year old Allen Kephart died after being tased multiple times by three San Bernardino, California sheriff's deputies during a routine traffic stop. Kephart, a quiet and well-liked member of the tight-knit mountain community around Lake Arrowhead, allegedly ran a stop sign and became "combative" during the stop. But local residents say this claim is wildly out of character for Kephart.... a case study in how law enforcement can lose the support even of citizens who believe strongly in law and order.

Led by FBI Special Agent Karen Springmeyer, about a dozen officers used a battering ram to enter Adams' rented Orchard Street home in a search for Sondra Hunter, then 35. But Hunter hadn't lived at that address for almost two years.

A Tucson, Ariz., SWAT team defends shooting an Iraq War veteran 60 times during a drug raid, although it declines to say whether it found any drugs in the house and has had to retract its claim that the veteran shot first. And the Pima County sheriff scolded the media for "questioning the legality" of the shooting.