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[bureauofstupidity]

Former San Angelo Police Chief Found Guilty of Receiving A Bribe

By John Peccavi April 10, 2022

Above is the logo of a San Angelo, Texas band, “Funky Munky.” Drummer Tim Vasquez formed the band years ago to perform at parties and dances. Playing with the band did not conflict with his day job as a San Angelo police officer.

When he became police chief in 2004 he kept on playing. The band, he said, was “my stress relief to be able to come into the studio.”

When an electronics company wanted to sell San Angelo a new communications system, it began hiring Funky Munky to give performances. Valequez recommended the company to members of the city council, but did not mention that it had hired his band. Twice, the city awarded contracts to the company.

After his retirement in 2016, Vasquez continued to play with the band. But in 2020, federal prosecutors charged him with taking a bribe and with 3 counts of “honest services mail fraud,” a crime involving receipt of a bribe or kickback. Valequez entered a plea of not guilty.

Valequez’ trial began on March 21, 2022 in federal court. Prosecutors presented evidence that the electronics contractor had paid Funky Munky four times its usual rate. Over an 8-year period, the federal government alleged, Valequez had received $134,000 in bribes.

After a 3-day trial, the jury found Valequez guilty on all counts. He could receive a sentence of up to 70 years in prison.

[bureauofstupidity]

Oklahoma Sheriff Pays For Sex

By John Peccavi March 27, 2022

At the time of the photo above - the day Milton Anthony was arrested on a bribery charge - he indeed was sheriff of Carter County, Oklahoma. State investigators arrested the sheriff at his office, which was convenient, since they booked him into his own jail.

But Anthony quickly made bail and remained sheriff. Several months later, he agreed to a suspension with pay. Finally, he entered into a plea bargain which resulted in his resignation from office, forfeit of his law enforcement certification, and 2 years of unsupervised probation.

The bribe he took hadn't been money but sex. The 65–year–old sheriff had made a deal with a 26–year–old employee in his department. In return for sex, the sheriff hired her husband as a deputy.

When the woman stopped having sex with him, the sheriff threatened to fire her husband and to move her to desirable position working in the jail. Unfortunately for Anthony, he made these threats over the phone, in a call she recorded.

The sheriff should have been thinking less about sex and more about conditions in his jail. Shortly before Anthony's arrest, an inmate in his jail died because of inadequate medical care. In the 10 months before has death, 2 other inmates had died.

Anthony's replacement had a much less serious encounter with the law. Sheriff Chris Bryant was driving his car and – allegedly – speeding, in Wilson, Oklahoma, about 17 miles from his office in Ardmore. A local cop pulled the new sheriff over but apparently didn't recognize him.

Indignant, Bryant refused to give the officer his driver's license, instead telling him "I'm the sheriff." Finally, Bryant showed the cop his law enforcement identification and left without a ticket.

After he had cooled down, Bryant went to the Wilson police headquarters and apologized. However, the police officer's dash camera had recorded the incident and it made the news.

Other Oklahoma sheriffs have been persons of interest. Read more at Plain Old Justice.

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LAPD didn't try to verify her identity, even when she asked.

By John Peccavi March 6, 2022

A Texas court issued a warrant for the arrest of Bethany Farber, on the left in the photo above. She is not related to the Bethany Farber on the right. Guess who got arrested.

The blonde Farber was waiting to board a flight to Mexico for a vacation when she heard her name paged. TSA officers took her to a room, handcuffed her, and waited for Los Angeles police to arrive. She protested that she'd never even been to Texas but they didn't listen.

According to Farber's attorney, police did not check her birth date, fingerprints, social security number, or her phone. They just tossed her in the clink.

Farber's family hired lawyers in both California and Texas. Farber had been in jail about 11 days when LA police received a document from a Texas court showing that they had locked up the wrong person,That should have resulted in her release right then but it did not . Farber had to spend another 3 days behind bars.. Fiinally, using data from the GPS on her cellphone, Farber's family secured her release.

Now, Farber is suing LA for $2.5 million.

Read more at Plain Old Justice.

[bureauofstupidity]

PAID FOR BY A SPEED TRAP

By John Peccavi Feb. 10, 2022

A badge can give a grown man delusions of grandeur, tempt him to replay childhood fantasies with new, lethal toys.

Four years ago, the town of Brookside, Alabama hired Mike Jones to be its only fulltime police officer. With a population of less than 1,500 and very little crime, the town didn’t need a big police force.

And it couldn’t afford one. In this poor community, the only retail business is a Dollar General store.

But Mike Jones had ambitions and Brookside had an untapped resource: One and a half miles of Interstate 22 ran through the town’s jurisdiction. Money could be harvested from the stream of motorists passing through. However, the cops haven't always confined their ticketing to this 1-1/2 mile zone.

According to John McDonald, a columnist for Alabama.com, a state law prohibits the town’s police from issuing speeding tickets to drivers on the Interstate. McDonald said that Brookside cops circumvent this law by ticketing drivers for other things, such as supposedly following too closely or driving for too long in the left lane.

When court meets once a month, ticketed motorists form a long line. McDonald said that while a motorist is in court, a cop with a drug sniffing dog checks his car outside. The Brookside police department has two drug sniffing dogs, one of them named “K9 Axel” and the other, tellingly, “K9 Cash.”

When they arrest someone for possessing a joint, the Brookside cops may charge him both with possession of marijuana and with possessing “drug paraphernalia,” namely, the cigarette paper around it

In one instance, Brookside officers charged a man with possession of marijuana and then 5 separate counts of possessing drug paraphernalia, one count each for rolling papers, the baggie that held the marijuana, cigar wrappers, a small jar that once may have held marijuana, and a small tray that might have been used to roll a joint.. A judge fined him $6,000 and made him post a $12,000 appeal bond.

Brookside also makes money by seizing cars under the state’s forfeiture laws. In 2020, forfeitures and fines brought in $640,.000, more than half the town's budget.

The for-profit policing has allowed Jones to hire 9 more fulltime officers, possibly more. The police department’s secrecy makes the exact number hard to determine.

However, we do know that the Brookside department has 10 police vehicles, 9 of them unmarked. The cops, too, are unmarked. They wear no identifying insignia and identify themselves by their initials.

A retired Birmingham police officer, Montague Minnifield, was riding as a passenger in a car stopped by the Brookside cops. One approached the driver’s side and the other the passenger’s side. One of them tapped on Minnified’s window and said he was “Agent J.”

Minnifield replied “Agent J? I guess this man over here is Agent K, huh?” When the Brookside cop agreed, “Minnified said, “Oh, really? So y’all are the men in black now, huh?”

The conversation went downhill from there. Minnifield said the Brookside cops handcuffed him and put him in the back of the patrol car in a painful position. After half an hour, they released him without charging him.

In addition to the unmarked cars, the Brookside police department also acquired at least one armored riot control vehicle, on loan from the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs. But why would a tiny rural town need riot control vehicles?

Could it be that Jones has delusions of being a big city police chief? Along with his picture, the Brookfield police website lauded him for creating "a full time police department, with multiple divisions" and described him with language so awkward he might have written it himself: "Chief Jones is a Multi-Year veteran in Law Enforcement and has been recognized Tri-Fold for excellency in Law Enforcement by Local, State, and Federal Agencies."

What Jones really gave this small town is bushels and bushels of trouble. Five lawsuits are now pending against the Brookside police. The news outlet Alabama.com ran a series of stories about Brookside’s “policing for profit” and 31 people aired complaints at a townhall meeting hosted by a state representative and the county sheriff.

After that meeting, Jones resigned as police chief and his second-in-command also quit. The town has hired a retired judge to investigate. It also is marking all its police cars and returning the armored vehicle to the state agency which lent it.

But Brookside still will have to contend with the five lawsuits and investigations by the FBI and the state attorney general.

Read more at Plain Old Justice.

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GEORGIA TAX INVESTIGATOR IGNORES THE RULES

By John Peccavi October 9, 2021

For a while, Joshua Waites was riding high. The former deputy sheriff was director of the Office of Special Investigations in Georgia's Department of Revenue. The special agents he supervised did criminal investigations and also civil asset forfeitures, seizing the property of suspected tax cheats.

Waites seemed golden when his team went after Ruth Barr, who ran a tax preparation business and also served as an alderman in a small town near Atlanta. Barr pleaded guilty to making false statements, computer theft and attempted theft.

But Barr was an easy target. When she entered the guilty plea, she already was in prison on an unrelated matter. She had been convicted of swindling $100,000 from a dying relative.

Waites' downfall occurred after he began investigating Todd and Julie Chrisley, stars of the reality tv series "Chrisley Knows Best." Todd's son, Kyle, who was using drugs, had told authorities that his father and step–mother were hiding money in offshore tax shelters.

Waites and his agents seized furniture the Chrisleys stored in two warehouses. The picture in the banner atop this story shows two of the agents sitting on some of the furniture and obviously enjoying their work.

As director of Georgia Department of Revenue's OSI, Waites didn't run a very tight ship. It appears that the agents didn't bother to obtain a warrant before making the seizure.

The Crisleys decided to sue and their lawyer began digging. The lawyer reported what he learned about Waites to someone in the state attorney general's office, who passed the information along to the Georgia inspector general.

The inspector general began an investigation. It uncovered a number of instances when Waites failed to follow applicable laws and regulations. One of the most egregious violations involved the handling of funds obtained through civil asset forfeitures.

Georgia law allows police agencies to seize property used in the commission of crime. When Georgia cops team up with federal law enforcement in a joint operations, their department gets a share of the loot forfeited property.

However, unlike a local police department, if a state law enforcement agency makes it seizure, it must deposit the proceeds in the state treasury. The law does not allow the state agency simply to keep the money.

But that's what Waites did. The Georgia Inspector General found that Waites' OSI had failed to turn over more than $5 million in seizure proceeds.

The OSI used some of that money for legitimate expenses related to law enforcement, but the Inspector General found other expenses to be wasteful and unnecessary. Those included $321,000 for office furniture and $800,000 for vehicles, among them a Ford F150 pickup used by Waites himself.

The Inspector General found evidence that Waites had not acted out of ignorance but instead made a deliberate attempt to mislead. Waites had sought legal advice from the District Attorney's Council. However, before transmitting that advice to the commissioner of revenue, Waites apparently deleted a paragraph. It happened to be the paragraph about depositing the forfeiture funds in the state treasury.

Waites did other questionable things. The Patriot Act gives the federal treasury department authority to identify and confirm bank accounts and to provide some of that information to a requesting state agency under certain narrow circumstances. The state agency can only get the information if it reasonably suspects, based on credible evidence, that the target is engaged in terrorism or money laundering.

The treasury department requires a requesting law enforcement agency to certify on a special form that its investigation involves credible evidence of terrorism or money laundering. According to the inspector general, Waites had a member of his staff make such a certification to obtain banking information about Todd Chrisley.

But Waites didn't suspect Chrisley of either terrorism or money laundering and, in fact, was not even conducting a criminal investigation! To the contrary, higher–ups in the Department of Revenue had told Waites not to turn the civil investigation of Chrisley into a criminal case.

According to the inspector general's report, Waites also had done something which wasn't unlawful but still raised questions.

Before becoming director of the OSI, Waites had been a deputy sheriff. That job carried the authority to arrest for any violation of a state law. By comparison, OSI agents had puny law enforcement powers. Waites solution: Make them deputy sheriffs.

By the time the inspector general issued a public report describing these problems, Waites no longer was director. One news account suggests hr was fired, but other reports indicate that he quit before the ax fell.

In any event, he never should have been hired. On his job application, Waites claimed to have earned an associate's degree in criminal justice from the University of Northwest Florida.

Someone should have checked. There is no University of Northwest Florida.

Banner photo from Georgia Inspector General's report.

[bureauofstupidity]

ORLANDO EX-COP CHARGED WITH SEXUAL BATTERY BY LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER

By John Peccavi September 27, 2021

In 2014, two Orlando cops in a patrol car received a bulletin to be on the lookout for a gray Toyota Corolla. When they saw a silver Nissan Sentra they pulled it over.

They checked the identification of the driver and passenger and decided these weren't the people being sought. But one of the officers, Jonathan Mills, thought he smelled marijuana. At least, that's what he said later.

The passenger Clayton Fair, later testified that Officer Mills pulled on Fair's genitals and then, despite the handcuffed Fair's protests, penetrated his anus with a finger. In Fair's words, "I never felt so violated in my life."

Neither Fair nor the driver was charged. Fair filed a complaint with the Orlando Police Department but the department took no action against the cop. The department's internal affairs unit investigated Fair's complaint but said allegations "could not be proved or disproved." The officers had not been wearing bodycams.

Fair sued Orlando and the city settled the lawsuit for an undisclosed amount. And now, 7 years after the incident, the state's attorney has charged Mills with a first degree felony, sexual battery by a law enforcement officer.

So, where is the stupidity? Was it when the cops mistook a silver Nissan Sentra for a gray Toyota Corolla?

Was it when Mills, allegedly, grabbed Fair's genitals and penetrated his anus? If he did those things, it certainly qualifies as serious stupidity.

But if we are going to award a stupidity medal, it really should go to the higher-ups in the police department who let Mills continue to be a cop for years, notwithstanding various reports of misconduct.

The Orlando Police Department's civilian review board received a number of complaints against Mills. Attorney Caila Coleman, who heads the board, said that it had repeatedly recommended that Mills be discharged. "His cases came before us several times," Coleman said, "and every time we reviewed a case, his actions were egregious."

The police department did remove Mills from its tactical unit in 2016. During a traffic stop, Mills reportedly had made comments, which the civilian review board described as "racist," about a Black woman's hair.

In 2017, Mills' actions in other instances figured in two excessive force lawsuits which cost the city $130,000.

In 2019, Mills did receive a reprimand after a bodycam recorded him, in the words of a later departmental review, "taunting teens during an arrest and acting in an unprofessional manner."

Mills also received a reprimand in 2019 after slapping a soda can out of a man's hand and tackling him. That incident prompted the state's attorney's office to review bodycam footage. The prosecutors identified seven other incidents in which Mills' behavior was questionable. The problems included use of excessive force, trying to provoke a suspect to fight, and instances in which bodycam footage contradicted what Mills said in his reports.

The police department removed Mills from law enforcement duties and, after 18 months, discharged him on February 1, 2021. Curiously, the official reason for firing Mills was not misconduct.

Mills had applied for disability retirement. He applied for and received two unpaid leaves of absence, each for 45 days, but the department would not grant him a third. Mills had asserted he had heart problems and duty–related hand injuries, but the police pension board found these problems did not amount to "total and permanent disability."

Then came the criminal charges. After his arrest in mid–September, Mills posted a $16,500 bond to get out of jail. He faces arraignment on October 5.

Police management displayed a high degree of stupidity – or maybe indifference – in ignoring the warning signs and allowing Mills to continue as a cop. But it gets even stranger.

On one occasion in 2017, Mills helped a man fill out a job application. For that good deed, the Orlando Police Department named Mills "patrol officer of the year."

[bureauofstupidity]

By John Peccavi September 11, 2021

Actually, the police chief saw two pictures – the one above and another, below – before heads rolled. To explain, I must start with some background.

On the evening of August 24, 2019, in Aurora, Colorado, a 23–year–old man, Elijah McClain, was walking home from the grocery store. Because of anemia, he was wearing a ski mask and jacket to keep warm, but he had committed no crime.

Police (not those shown in the photo above) stopped him. They pushed him against a wall, render him unconscious with a carotid artery hold and then held him down while paramedics injected a massive dose of a powerful sedative. He went into cardiac arrest and never regained consciousness.

The local prosecuting attorney, citing an inconclusive autopsy report, declined to prosecute the officers. At this point it looked like the cops involved in McClain's death would suffer no consequences.

Those mourning McClain's death created a memorial for him near the place he was assaulted. Apparently on a lark, 3 other cops, who had not been involved in subduing McClain, visited this site and took selfies. In one of the shots, two of the officers appear to reenact the "choke hold" used on McClain.

One of the cops uploaded the selfies to a chat room. There, other officers could see it. However, nothing happened to the 3 cops in the pictures right away.

Public protests, and the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, created political pressure. The Colorado legislature enacted a law outlawing choke holds, creating a duty for a police officer to intervene if another officer is violating the law, and eliminating the defense of qualified immunity.

The Colorado attorney general investigated McClain's death, resulting in the indictment of 3 officers and 2 paramedics.

Meanwhile, the city of Aurora got a new police chief. She found out about the selfies and fired two of the cops in the picture. The other officer, Jaron Jones, quit before the ax fell.

The new chief told the rest of the police force: "If any officer in this police department disagrees and thinks that this was acceptable, I will gladly accept your resignation today." The city's civil service commission upheld the firings.

One of the indicted cops, Jason Rosenblatt, had seen the photos in the chat room and had replied "haha." The police chief fired him, too.

Not to accuse anyone of stupidity but, to put it tactfully, the Aurora police department seems to be a work in progress. An earlier blog post described how Aurora cops had made women and children lie face down on the pavement, and handcuffed all but the 6–year–old, because their SUV's license plate number matched that of a stolen vehicle. However, the vehicle reported stolen was a motorcycle in Montana, not the SUV, which had Colorado plates.

LOVELAND, CO – Remember our story about Loveland, Colorado police roughing up a 73–year–old woman with dementia? To a settle a lawsuit, the city has agreed to pay the woman $3 million.

The woman may not get much enjoyment out of the money. Her attorney said that she was in declining health and in a memory care facility.

Meanwhile, two cops involved now face criminal charges and have resigned from the force. Former officer Austin Hopp has been charged with second degree assault, which is a felony, and ex–cop Daria Jalali has been charged with violating the new Colorado law requiring one officer to intervene if another is violating the law.

Such penalties may be necessary to change a police culture which approves of the way the woman was treated. An internal investigation found the amount of force used was "reasonable and appropriate for the situation."

After the bodycam video of the arrest became pubic, prompting a strong public reaction against the officers, the police chief said "what you saw on the video was not the Loveland Police Department." However, not all of his officers may agree.

Another video has become public. In it, a police sergeant seems to defend the way the officers treated the woman. However, it appears that this video may have been taken well before either the indictment of the officers or the $3 million settlement.

Now, after those events, if any cop still thinks that the amount of force used was proper, he or she definitely has achieved a stupidity level worthy of the Mortimer Award.

[bureauofstupidity]

By John Peccavi    August 31, 2021

Someone's acting stupid.  But who?

        a.  Anna Harris (above)

        b.  Texas Judge Eli Garza

        c.  Reporter Radley Balko

        d.  A Victoria County deputy sheriff

        e.  None of the above

Radley Balko, writing in the Washington Post, described a conflict between Harris, who founded an organization to help criminal defendants, and Eli Garza, a judge in Victoria, Texas.

Balko's article describes Harris favorably.  In connection with her organization, JUST US, she provides defendants with information about drug programs and the availability of expert witnesses and offers to write letters for them.  She also goes to various courts, watches the proceedings and take notes.  Balko described friction between Harris and Judge Garza:

         On one occasion in July, Garza ordered Harris out of the courtroom as she tried to set up a projector for an attorney with whom she was working. In another incident, Garza called Harris to the front of the court and demanded to know why she was there. He later ordered her to leave the courtroom. (Garza did not return a request for comment.)

Balko reported that after Harris "did a silly dance in a courthouse conference room" and posted it on TikTok, Garza barred Harris from the courthouse entirely, warning that she would be arrested if she came back.

After Harris' lawyers sued to enjoin enforcement of the warning, the sheriff's office and district attorney told them the warning would not be enforced.  However, later that same day, a deputy pulled Harris over and, according to Balko, arrested her for littering and for changing lanes without using a turn signal. Balko reports that Harris was taken to jail and not released until 1:00  a.m.  Then, the charges were dropped.

Balko's story does not indicate that he made any attempt to interview the district attorney, the sheriff or the deputy sheriff involved.  If he didn't, why not?

Although the judge did not respond to Balko's "request for comment," a local newspaper, The Victoria Advocate, quoted transcripts which recorded what the judge said from the bench.  Judge Garza was concerned that Harris had approached potential jurors during jury selection, and because jurors later told the bailiff that Harris was making faces as she sat in the courtroom.

According to the newspaper, Judge Garza barred Harris from sitting in the front row or using her cellphone and cautioned her that she could be hurting the defendant's case.  Most courts do not allow people to use cellphones and some do not even allow cellphones in the courtroom at all.

As for Judge Garza's order barring Harris from the courthouse, the Texas publication reported that Garza took that action after he saw a TikTok video that showed Harris "climbing onto a judge's dais and dancing to a Destiny's Child song."

Balko's story described Harris dancing in a conference room open to the public but said nothing about her climbing onto the judge's dais.  However, KAVU reported that in the video, Harris “is seen walking and getting on top of the desk area where a judge would sit and starts dancing to a song while the courtroom was not in use.”

This room does not appear to be the courtroom where Judge Garza sits when court is in session.  The KAVU story states that Harris did the video “in one of the two administrative courtrooms on the third floor of the county courthouse. These courtrooms are commonly used by lawyers to speak to their clients when they’re in custody and are often opened for the public to view.”

A space where lawyers speak with clients sounds more like a conference room than a courtroom.  So, I doubt that Harris actually got on the bench used by Judge Garza when court is in session.  Needless to say, in a courtroom the dais is the holy-of-holies.

But all 3 accounts agree that Harris did a “silly dance” somewhere in the courthouse.  Why would she do that?

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Harris is not a serious reformer but rather is something of a nut.  That still doesn't justify arresting her and taking her to jail for littering or failing to signal before a lane change!

Balko's story is the only one which reported such an arrest.  So I have to wonder why his story did not indicate he made any attempt to contact the sheriff or the district attorney.  That's sloppy.

We really don't know what happened.  But it's probably safe to say that at least one person - whoever it may be - is acting stupid.

[bureauofstupidity]

At Indian Reservation In A Swamp

Cop Forces Two Teens To Undress

by John Peccavi August 5, 2021

Michael Martinez has begun serving time for a really stupid thing he did 5 years ago this month. At that time, Martinez was an officer with the Miccosukee Tribe's police department.

Although the tribe has only about 550 members, it has 3 reservations in south Florida. On the smallest, in Miami-Dade, the tribe built a resort and casino, which generates enough revenue to support a police department with more than 30 officers.

Martinez was working at the tribe's "Alligator Alley" reservation. That name refers to the stretch of I-75 running straight east from Naples to Fort Lauderdale. The Miccosukee reservation - about 75,000 acres, mostly swamp - lies about halfway. At this exit, motorists getting desperate for a place to stop will find a convenience store and gas pump.

In August 2016, Kyle Shoulta and his girlfriend, Remy Riley, both 18, decided to make a pit stop. They were on their way from Tampa to Fort Lauderdale.

Officer Martinez, claiming they ran a stop sign, pulled them over. After finding alcohol and marijuana, the cop gave the teenagers a choice: He could arrest them, or they could take off their clothes and run naked.

They followed him as he drove to a secluded location. Shoulta took off his clothes. Riley stripped to underwear and bra, exchanged glances with the cop, then turned her back to him and finished undressing. She tried to cover herself but Martinez told her to move her hands away so he could see.

Martinez lost his job a year later and stood trial in 2019. A jury convicted him of extortion and unlawful compensation. The court sentenced him to 10 years in prison, but allowed him to remain free on bond while he appealed.

Last month, Martinez ran out of appeals and began serving his term.

But the problems at the Miccosukee Police Department go deeper than this one cop. This past March, another officer was driving in Alligator Alley when his right rear tire blew. The car flipped over several times, before it came to rest in the median.

As the patrol car flipped, it ejected the officer, who wasn't wearing a seatbelt. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Ten years ago, 21 officers signed a petition calling for an investigation of a police sergeant. The tribe fired 7 officers and the interim police chief.

Two years after that, the department discharged 4 more cops. A fifth, reportedly fearing she also would be fired, committed suicide. It doesn't sound like a good place to work.

Read more about the department's troubles at Plain Old Justice.

Banner: Photo of alligator in Alligator Alley by David Balmer (Wikimedia Commons). Alligator Alley Aerial Photograph by formulaone (Wikimedia Commons).

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Two Judges Are Suspended

For Their Actions On The Bench

By John Peccavi

June 26, 2021

Arrogance is an occupational hazard for anyone entrusted with power over others, whether that person is a cop or a judge. And arrogance begets stupidity.

The Pennsylvania Court of Judicial Discipline has suspended Court of Common Pleas Judge Lyris Younge for 6 months. Allegations against her included that she illegally jailed parents, had parents handcuffed in the courtroom, and insulted people who appeared before her.

CBS News in Philadelphia reports that on one occasion, Younge ordered that a grandmother be jailed because the grandmother’s adult daughter would not turn her baby over to the Department of Human Services. Neither the mother nor the baby were parties in the case before the judge.

The Arkansas Supreme Court has suspended Little Rock Circuit Judge Barry Sims for 30 days, with the possibility he may be suspended for another 60 if his conduct does not improve. It based the suspension on a report filed by the Arkansas Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission.

Sims treated lawyers and witnesses rudely. The court order suspending him also requires the judge to get a life coach and take a course on mindfulness.

The executive director of the Arkansas Judicial Discipline Commission told a reporter that Sims had been suspended for a continuing pattern of rudeness. “Bullying is a harsh word,” the official said, “but everyone knows what it means.”

Banner based on drawing of English judge by anonymous artist, found in the 1923 American Type Founders Specimen Book, via Wikimedia Commons.

[bureauofstupidity]

SWAT TEAM HITS WRONG HOUSE

by John Peccavi June 18, 2021

A SWAT team in Henry County, Georgia, intent on arresting a drug dealer, went to the address listed on the warrant. The house at that address looked vacant, so they decided the correct address must be next door.

In that house, a 78–year–old man was watching television when the SWAT officers battered the door open and tossed in a flash–bang grenade. The cops swarmed in, cuffed him and hauled him off, only later realizing that they'd nabbed the wrong guy.

If the SWAT team captain had read the warrant, he might have noticed that the house his men invaded didn't quite match the description of the drug dealer's house. But the SWAT team was just there to provide the muscle for some county narcotics officers, and the SWAT team captain had relied on them to know which house to raid.

(And who did the narcotics cops rely on? Must have been the SWAT team captain.)

I would call that operational stupidity. But this story ends with legal stupidity.

The old man sued the SWAT team captain. However, the court of appeals threw out the suit, holding that the captain had "qualified immunity."

In another, earlier case, the court didn't let cops off the hook when they stormed the wrong house. The court explained that in the present case, the officers had made careful plans, while in that earlier case, the cops had not.

These judges hadn't invented the doctrine of "qualified immunity." That was the Supreme Court's brainchild. Worse than that, the Supreme Court has issued a number of precedents requiring lower courts to enforce the doctrine so strictly that many people injured by police misconduct have no recourse.

That's really stupid.

Read more at Plain Old Justice.

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Feds Arrest Police Chief Who Threatened Facebook Poster

by John Peccavi June 11, 2021

Who hasn't thought, at one time or another, "Gee, wish I hadn't said that"? The tongue can be a potent Weapon of Self Destruction.

On March 4, 2020, Police Chief Brian Buglio's tongue went nuclear. But only later did he feel the blast.

Buglio had become upset when he saw a posting on Facebook which criticized him and his West Hazleton, Pennsylvania police department. So the chief decided to talk to the guy who had posted the criticism. News reports later identified the poster as Paul Delorenzo.

On March 4, Buglio met Delorenzo and threatened to have him arrested on bogus charges if he did not remove the critical material and promise not to post any more criticisms. Delorenzo agreed and they shook hands

Buglio must have felt pretty good at this point. Mission accomplished! Or was it?

Soon, agents from the FBI and Internal Revenue Service would be investigating the incident. They were part of a public corruption task force working out of the United States attorney's office. The task force also included people from the Pennsylvania state police and the Pennsylvania attorney general.

The feds charged Buglio with violating a law which Congress passed right after the Civil War to protect former slaves. The statute makes it illegal for anyone acting "under color of law" to deprive a person of federal civil rights. Buglio's threat deprived Delorenzo of his constitutional right to criticize government officials and therefore violated the law.

If a time traveler could go back to 1866 and tell the congressman about this application of their new law, what would they say? Well, their first response likely would be "What's Facebook?" Their second question might be, "What's the Internet."

The statute has been, and remains, one of the most important laws Congress ever passed, protecting freedom in ways the legislators could not even have imagined. But any law depends on the willingness of officials to enforce it.

Buglio was a small fish in a small pond. His entire police force consisted of 9 officers, 4 of them part–time. Do federal officials have the guts to reel in bigger fish?

In Tennessee, a man scanned an album cover showing two men urinating on a tombstone. He then Photoshopped the picture to add a photograph of a police officer who had been killed while on duty, and posted it online.

A local prosecutor involved the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which arrested the man on charges later dropped, but only after the man had spent 11 days in jail. The TBI director bragged about the arrest.

The arrested man sued, relying on another law which Congress passed right after the Civil War to protect former slaves. This law allows civil actions by private parties. That suit just began.

But will the feds bring criminal charges against these cops? It hasn't happened yet. Will it? 

[bureauofstupidity]

Were They Undercover Assignments or Sexual Harassment?

By John Peccavi May 27, 2021

In England, a constable is a police officer of lowest rank, like a private in the army. In Texas, a constable is an elected official similar to sheriff, except a constable polices a smaller geographical area, just part of a county.

Still, in Texas, a constable's "precinct" can be pretty big. Some Texas constables have more than 500 officers working for them.

The smiling guy shown above is Chris Gore, assistant chief in one of the Houston area's large constable precincts. He's also a defendant in a lawsuit brought by three women, two of whom are deputies.

The deputies allege that, using the pretext of an undercover investigation, he had them pose as prostitutes and then molested them.

The complaint also alleges that management retaliated against those who reported the abuse. This retaliation allegedly included the discharge of an employee who complained to the internal affairs division about the harassment.

Not all the allegations concern the "sting operation" in which the deputies posed as prostitutes. The complaint describes the investigation of a massage therapist who reportedly had sexually assaulted a client. (That victim, incidentally, was the constable's chief of staff.)

Management allegedly sent a woman deputy, in plain clothes, to the massage therapist, with instructions to let herself be assaulted. According to the complaint, the therapist was not arrested until after the deputy was "penetrated in both her vagina and anus. . ."

Allegations, of course, are claims yet to be proven, and in this case they are emphatically disputed. Constable Alan Rosen stated that when he learned about the allegations he instructed the internal affairs division to conduct an investigation.

"Upon conclusion of our internal investigation," Rosen said, "our Administrative Disciplinary Committee found no violations of law or policy."

In Sussex, England, police constable Steven Green has received a final warning after a disciplinary panel determined that he had engaged in misconduct. Among other things, the panel found that Green intruded on a female staff member while she was showering, and also told her that he had stirred her tea with his penis.

Photos from website of Constable, Precinct 1, Houston, Texas. Seal of Essex police from Wikipedia.

[bureauofstupidity]

Artificial Stupidity and Human Stupidity Team Up

By John Peccavi May 8, 2021

The newest dangerous weapons in the police arsenal: Computers that supposedly possess “artificial intelligence.” That’s what the sellers claim, anyway. The machines get dangerous when cops believe the hype.

Consider that sheriff in Pasco County, Florida, who really thought a computer could predict who would commit a crime. He sent his deputies out to harass innocent people the computer had identified as future criminals, and to keep harrassing them until they moved away. Some of them sued the sheriff in federal court.

Although software makers promise police departments “artificial intelligence,” what they often deliver is artificial stupidity. When cops let the machine do the thinking, they add human stupidity to the mix.

Face recognition software provides a good example of how "artificial intelligence" can do something stupid. Consider what happened to Najeer Parks.

In 2019, someone at the Hampton Inn in Woodbridge, New Jersey, called the police to report that a man had shoplifted snacks from the hotel gift shop. When officers arrived, the man was talking to a Hertz car rental agent in the hotel lobby. He was asking for an extension on his rental car agreement.

The man gave the officers a fake driver’s license. One of the cops spotted what appeared to be a bag of marijuana in the man’s pocket. When they tried to handcuff him, he ran, losing a shoe on the way to the rental car.

An officer had to jump out of the way as the suspect drove off in the rental car, hitting a police car as he left. He abandoned the rental car in a parking lot about a mile away.

All the police had was the fake driver’s license (and, presumably, the shoe). A Woodbridge detective gave the fake license to a New Jersey state agency which had facial recognition software. News reporters have tried to learn exactly what law enforcement agency actually tried to match the photo on the fake license with a database, but there have been a confusing number of denials. The agency may even have been in New York rather than New Jersey.

However, the Woodbridge police received word that the picture on the fake license matched that of one Najeer Parks, who lived in Patterson, New Jersey. Parks doesn’t think he looks much like the suspect, but judge for yourself. In the picture below (and on the banner), Parks is on the right.

When Parks learned that that he was named in an arrest warrant, he went to the police station. He had been 30 miles away at the time of the crime and, apparently, thought he could convince the police he was innocent. He couldn’t.

Because of another type of artificial stupidity, Parks spent 11 days in jail. The court did not use the typical bail system, which results in poor people spending months behind bars, but instead determined a defendant’s flight risk by using a computer algorithm.

That sounds fairer, doesn’t it? However, Parks had a couple of felony convictions from a decade earlier. It didn’t matter that he had cleaned up his life and was now a responsible citizen. The computer has a long memory.

Fortunately, at the time of the crime, Parks had been trying to send money, by wire, from a location in Haledon, New Jersey, about 30 miles away from that Hampton Inn. Western Union provided evidence which ultimately cleared him.

Facial recognition software has misidentified at least two other innocent people. Those individuals, like Mr. Parks, are black.

Studies have shown that such software has a higher error rate when the person is a member of a minority group. Computers have learned other human biases as well.

The attorney general of New Jersey has imposed a moratorium on the use of the particular facial recognition program which misidentified Parks. And Parks has filed a lawsuit against the city of Woodbridge.

But here’s what appalls me most. Presumably smart people are letting machines do their thinking for them.

Looking at the pictures of Parks and the suspect, it is tempting to paraphrase a quote often attributed to Groucho Marx: Who are you going to believe, a computer, or your own eyes.

See a clip here.

[bureauofstupidity]

Loveland Cops Beat Up Elderly Woman

By John Peccavi April 30, 2021

Is the motto of the Loveland, Colorado police department "To Serve and Protect" or "Move Fast and Break Things"? The latter is free for adoption. "Move Fast and Break Things" once belonged to Facebook, but the social media platform gave it up.

A 73-year-old woman is suing the Loveland police for breaking her elbow, and other injuries. According to her lawyer, the woman suffers from dementia and aphasia, which makes communicating with her difficult. The police arrested her after receiving a report that she had left a Walmart without paying for an item. Its price was less than 14 dollars.

The CBS affiliate in Denver broadcast bodycam video of police arresting the woman and taking her to the ground. The woman's lawyer released video of cops carrying the woman into the police station for booking.

When you watch this video, listen to the cops' comments as they appear to be watching the bodycam video of the arrest. Are they making fun of the woman? Her family thinks so.

More about this story at Plain Old Justice.

UPDATE: The city of Loveland has agreed to pay the woman $3 million to settle her lawsuit, and the officer who broke her arm has been indicted.

[bureauofstupidity]

COP MAKES STUPID MISTAKE? OR MANSLAUGHTER?

By John Peccavi April 14, 2021

You've probably heard of the guy who couldn't tell shit from Shinola. You've also probably heard about the cop who fired her pistol, thinking it was a Taser.

At worst, the guy only wound up with stinking shoes. In the cop's case, a 20–year–old man is dead.

Police in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota – a suburb of Minneapolis – stopped a car with expired license registration. When officers learned of outstanding warrants on the driver, Daunte Wright, they tried to arrest him. He resisted.

Officer Kimberly Potter warned the man she was going to tase him and then shot him, not with her Taser but with her gun. A bodycam recorded her exclaiming, "Holy shit!"

To the police chief, it sounded like a mistake. Maybe it was. A really, really stupid mistake.

But was it? Consider these facts:

Officer Potter was no rookie. She'd been on the police force a quarter century, since 1995. Isn't that long enough to tell a Taser from a Glock? Even by feel?

The police department had instructed officers to wear their firearm on one side of the body, the side with the dominant hand, and their Taser on the other.

The loaded pistol weighs more than 34 ounces. A Taser weighs 8 ounces.

Lawyers for the victim's family issued a statement disputing that the shooting was accidental: "This was an intentional, deliberate and unlawful use of force. Driving while Black continues to result in a death sentence. A 26-year veteran of the force knows the difference between a taser and a firearm."

The officer now faces a second degree manslaughter charge, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and/or a fine up to $20,000. Can she raise a stupidity defense?

That wouldn't help. The issue doesn't concern how smart she is but whether or not she was negligent.

To convict her of second degree manslaughter, the prosecution must prove that Wright's death resulted from the defendant's "culpable negligence whereby the person creates an unreasonable risk, and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another..."

The facts are still coming out, but my gut reaction is that the prosecution will have a difficult time convincing a jury. In a recent article, law professor Jonathan Turley discussed other instances in which officers have mistaken handguns for Tasers. Such evidence might create a reasonable doubt that Potter was so negligent it amounted to a crime.

The victim, Daunte Wright, was black. The cop was white. Did racial prejudice play a role?

Brooklyn Center's mayor, Mike Elliott, is black. Last September, he took a look at data the police department collected. He concluded that the numbers showed a pattern of racial disparity.

Some members of the city council disagreed, as did City Manager Curt Boganey. The data concerned a time period of about 14 months. Boganey said that it was "far too early to draw conclusions from the limited data."

Of 2,144 motorists stopped, 62 percent were black and 25 percent were white. However, 29 percent of the Brooklyn Center population is black and 44.5 percent white. What do you think?

Following the shooting of Daunte Wright, the police chief resigned and the city council fired the city manager.

[bureauofstupidity]

Should These Cops Have Been Taught How To Use A Garage Door Opener?

By John Peccavi March 13, 2021

Being good at doing something doesn't mean you should just go out and do it. That's particularly true when your skill is blowing things up.

The McKinney, Texas Police Department's SWAT team is one of the best in the state. The team won the 2017 annual competition sponsored by the Texas Tactical Police Officers Association.

Team members can shoot with precision. They're also handy with explosives. But being trained in how to blow things up doesn't mean they know when to blow things up.

And when not to blow things up.

After surviving cancer, Vicki Baker decided to sell her house in McKinney and move to Montana. She left her adult daughter Breanna to live in the house until it was sold.

They hired a handyman to make repairs but when he started acting strangely Breanna fired him.

A buyer entered into a contract to purchase the house. Then on July 25, 2020, Vicki saw a troubling post on Facebook. A woman wrote that a man had run off with her 15-year-old daughter.

Vicki recognized the man's name. It was the handyman they had hired and then fired.

Vicki, who was in Montana, telephoned her daughter. Good thing. Later that same day, Breanna answered the door. There was the ex-handyman with a teenage girl.

He said that he needed to park his car and stay in the house a while. Breanna told him that he could park his car in the garage after she pulled her own car out.

She left and went to a Walmart parking lot, where she phoned her mother. Then, they called the police, who met Breanna in the parking lot.

Breanna gave the police the key to the house and the garage door opener.

The police SWAT team went to the house. The teenager managed to escape and told the officers that she believed the handyman might have seven guns.

Instead of using the garage door opener and key, the cops decided to use "shock and awe."

With explosives they blew opened the garage door, then fired about 30 tear gas canisters into the house. Cops in an armored vehicle did further damage.

In addition to the property damage, all the "shock and awe" had blinded and made deaf Breanna's dog.

Inside the house they found the handyman's body. He had committed suicide.

All together, the SWAT team inflicted about $50,000 damage. The buyer backed out of the deal.

The city refused to pay for repairs. Recently, the Institute for Justice sued the city on the Bakers' behalf.

Do you wonder why the cops fired 30 tear gas canisters into the house? Did they get a little too exuberant?

And why didn't they just use the garage door opener and key?

Read more about it at Plain Old Justice.

Banner photograph and photo of McKinney SWAT team at 2017 competition from the Texas Tactical Police Officers Association website. Photographs of damage from Institute for Justice.