Harris County sheriff’s deputy files lawsuit against family of unhinged man he struggled with before shooting him dead
Columnist Lisa Falkenberg had a story in Sunday’s Houston Chronicle about an incredulous lawsuit filed by a Harris County sheriff’s deputy. He is suing the family of an unhinged man he struggled with before shooting him dead.
For several days in December 2012, Kemal Yazar, 43, a rug importer and father of three young children, had been acting strangely, refusing eat or sleep, talking of apocalypse and of President Barack Obama being the anti-Christ. [Editor’s Note: He might not have been all that far off on the last one ... just kidding.]
Just before noon on December 30, Marlene Yazar called 9-1-1 for help from her mother’s house in Katy, Texas. She told the operator, “My husband is disconnected from reality. He's just talking crazy things, like the world is going to end. And he's been like this for two or three days now." In answers to questions, Mrs. Yazar told the operator her husband had no weapons, but that he could become violent if he thought officers were coming to attack him.
A paramedic was the first to respond, but he made a hasty retreat when Kamal yelled and threw a bible at him. He and his partner called for sheriff’s deputies to come to the scene and warned the dispatcher they would be facing an “extremely violent patient." Harris County Deputy Brady Pullen and another deputy arrived shortly thereafter. They entered the house and a struggle ensued during which the deputies used their Tasers on the unhinged man before shooting him several times. Kamal died later at a hospital.
Kamal Yazar was the sole support of his family. His wife was left without her husband and his children, ages 10, 6 and 2, lost their father.
Tor rub salt into the family’s wound, Pullen has now filed a lawsuit against Mrs. Yazar’s mother. The investigation report stated that Pullen suffered only "superficial wounds." But in his lawsuit, as Falkenberg tells it, he claims “he suffered a broken nose, needed surgery that required him to miss work, and had a concussion which affected his memory of the events.” He accused family members of "negligence and recklessness" for not warning him that Kamal posed a "violent threat" and for not telling the 9-1-1 operator that he had been experimenting with DMT, a hallucinogen. (Marlene says she did not inform the operator about the DMT because it had been weeks since her husband last used it.)
Pullen is seeking at least $100,000 for medical expenses, mental anguish, pain and suffering and loss of past earning capacity. He is not suing Marlene Yazar. Instead he filed his lawsuit against Carmina Figueroa, Marlene’s mother, because the homeowner’s insurance policy for the house where the struggle took place was in Carmina’s name. Figueroa was away at work during the incident and did not know that anyone had placed a 9-1-1 call from her home.
This lawsuit is simply incredulous. Superficial wounds turned into a broken nose, concussion, mental anguish, and pain and suffering. Pullen is nothing more than a slimeball cop who dug up a lawyer to help him make an extra buck. I suppose Pullen and his attorney, a former Austin cop, never gave a thought to all the mental anguish Kamal Yazar's family has been put through by the loss of a husband and father of three young children.
Pullen is a disgrace and embarrassment to the law enforcement profession. His ex-cop lawyer is disgusting and contemptible.
Falkenberg wrote:
What's not in dispute is that a citizen's call for help ended tragically. Now the family's loss has been made more tragic by a deputy's greed. In this litigious culture, the definition of frivolity is ever expanding. We're almost numb to callous money-grabs. But we expect more from people we hold up as heroes. We revere first responders because they risk their lives for ours, they run toward danger while we run away. True heroes, though, possess a virtue as vital as their bravery. It is called decency.
On two occasions, during my law enforcement career, I had the supreme shit kicked out of me by mentally deranged men. I too experienced pain and suffering, but it never ever entered my mind to take that pain and suffering out on the families of those nut cases. I considered it just part of the job, and that’s really what it is.
Monday, March 31, 2014
YOUNG VICIOOUS PSYCHO KILLER ABOUT TO BE RELEASED
One more dangerous nut in LA will not be noticeable
By Bob Walsh
PACOVILLA Corrections blog
March 29, 2014
Robert Holquin was 13 years old when he beat Gerald O’Malley, 87, to death with a skateboard in 2005. He is the youngest person ever convicted of murder in San Luis Obispo County.
Holquin is likely to be on the streets in two weeks, maybe less. He could be held for another 2 1/2 years under the law, but the parole board says he is fit to be released. He has done the last year in the nut farm at Patton State.
Fortunately for San Luis Obispo, this particular dangerous miscreant will be released to LA County for six months in a halfway house, then to live with a cousin. That should be cool … one more dangerous nut in LA will not be noticeable.
By Bob Walsh
PACOVILLA Corrections blog
March 29, 2014
Robert Holquin was 13 years old when he beat Gerald O’Malley, 87, to death with a skateboard in 2005. He is the youngest person ever convicted of murder in San Luis Obispo County.
Holquin is likely to be on the streets in two weeks, maybe less. He could be held for another 2 1/2 years under the law, but the parole board says he is fit to be released. He has done the last year in the nut farm at Patton State.
Fortunately for San Luis Obispo, this particular dangerous miscreant will be released to LA County for six months in a halfway house, then to live with a cousin. That should be cool … one more dangerous nut in LA will not be noticeable.
60 YEARS PRAYING AT THE WESTERN WALL
Ahhhhh, the wisdom of the aged
The Unconventional Gazette
March 30, 2014
A female journalist heard about a very old Jewish man who had been going to the Western Wall to pray, twice a day, every day, for a long, long time.
So she went to check it out. She went to the Western Wall and there he was, walking slowly up to the holy site, clad in black with a long grey beard. She watched him pray and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to leave, using a cane and moving very slowly, she approached him for an interview.
"Pardon me, sir, what's your name?"
"Morris Feinberg," he replied.
"Sir, how long have you been coming to the Western Wall and praying?"
"For about 60 years."
"60 years! That's amazing! What do you pray for?"
"I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims. I pray for all the wars and all the hatred to stop. I pray for all our children to grow up safely as responsible adults and to love their fellow man. I pray that politicians tell us the truth and put the interests of the people ahead of their own interests."
"How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?"
"Like I'm talking to a fucking wall"
The Unconventional Gazette
March 30, 2014
A female journalist heard about a very old Jewish man who had been going to the Western Wall to pray, twice a day, every day, for a long, long time.
So she went to check it out. She went to the Western Wall and there he was, walking slowly up to the holy site, clad in black with a long grey beard. She watched him pray and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to leave, using a cane and moving very slowly, she approached him for an interview.
"Pardon me, sir, what's your name?"
"Morris Feinberg," he replied.
"Sir, how long have you been coming to the Western Wall and praying?"
"For about 60 years."
"60 years! That's amazing! What do you pray for?"
"I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims. I pray for all the wars and all the hatred to stop. I pray for all our children to grow up safely as responsible adults and to love their fellow man. I pray that politicians tell us the truth and put the interests of the people ahead of their own interests."
"How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?"
"Like I'm talking to a fucking wall"
Sunday, March 30, 2014
CESAR CHAVEZ WAS NO SAINT
The revered founder of the United Farm Workers led a group of workers who destroyed the crops of farmers and sabotaged their costly farm machinery
'Cesar Chavez', a movie about the late leader of the United Farm Workers opened nationwide in theaters Friday.
Chavez is worshiped by white liberals and the Latino community. He has been compared to Gandhi and has been anointed as a saint by the mass media. However, Chavez was no Gandhi. And he was definitely no saint!
There is no question but that the farmers of California exploited, and in some cases mistreated, migrant farm laborers, most of which were Mexican-Americans. The farm workers were paid measly wages and in many instances they were packed into squalor housing facilities like sardines. They deserved much better pay and living conditions.
In 1962, Chavez organized the National Farm Workers Association which became the United Farm Workers. That was a good thing. Chavez led a strike against California grape farmers that lasted five years. He called on Americans to boycott California grapes. That too was a good thing.
However, the striking farm workers took their grievances out on the farmers by destroying farm crops and sabotaging costly farm machinery. Chavez was well aware of these criminal activities. While he piously told the media he opposed these illegal acts, he never actually made any effort to stop them. That made him just as guilty as his law-breaking followers. And that is why Cesar Chavez was no saint.
'Cesar Chavez', a movie about the late leader of the United Farm Workers opened nationwide in theaters Friday.
Chavez is worshiped by white liberals and the Latino community. He has been compared to Gandhi and has been anointed as a saint by the mass media. However, Chavez was no Gandhi. And he was definitely no saint!
There is no question but that the farmers of California exploited, and in some cases mistreated, migrant farm laborers, most of which were Mexican-Americans. The farm workers were paid measly wages and in many instances they were packed into squalor housing facilities like sardines. They deserved much better pay and living conditions.
In 1962, Chavez organized the National Farm Workers Association which became the United Farm Workers. That was a good thing. Chavez led a strike against California grape farmers that lasted five years. He called on Americans to boycott California grapes. That too was a good thing.
However, the striking farm workers took their grievances out on the farmers by destroying farm crops and sabotaging costly farm machinery. Chavez was well aware of these criminal activities. While he piously told the media he opposed these illegal acts, he never actually made any effort to stop them. That made him just as guilty as his law-breaking followers. And that is why Cesar Chavez was no saint.
LEE BACA’S LEGACY: OUTLAW MOTORCYCLE GANG WANNABES WITHIN LASO
A noxious clique of deputies within LASO emulated aspects of the Banditos outlaw motorcycle gang
Trey Rusk notes: “If the Sheriff's upper echelon knew about these thugs and nothing was done to curtail their behavior, it should be recognized as implied consent. Especially if it is proven that deputies join in an effort to fast track their careers. This is not the same as joining to a special unit such as SWAT. These deputies are members of a rogue gang within the Sheriff's Office and are distinguished by their tattoos. How original. They named themselves after a criminal motorcycle gang based in Texas. They should call themselves the douche bags!”
It’s shenanigans like this that marked the tenure of former LA Sheriff Lee ‘Pepe LePew’ Baca. Several dubious cliques within LASO boasted of their existence. Baca and his top lackeys either tolerated rogue cliques of deputies or they were totally ignorant of what was going on in his department. In either case, I say good riddance to Pepe LePew Baca. His departure from LASO was long overdue!
Unfortunately, rogue cliques of cops can be found in many of the nation’s larger police agencies.
Pepe LePew Baca leaves a legacy of LASO as a mismanaged and scandalized law enforcement agency that catered and showed favoritism to the Hollywood stars.
SHERIFF’S DEPUTY ALLEGES HARASSMENT BY ROGUE DEPARTMENT CLIQUE
By Joseph Serna
Los Angeles Times
March 28, 2014
After seven years of guarding inmates in Los Angeles County jails, Deputy Guadalupe Lopez was transferred to the East L.A. Station to continue her career working in patrol. It was there, she says in a lawsuit filed this week, that she encountered a rogue group of deputies called the “Banditos.”
The Banditos, she alleges, sport matching tattoos and try to coerce female deputy patrol trainees like her into performing sexual favors.
In a 19-page lawsuit, Lopez contends that she was assigned a training officer who was known as the “Godfather” and was a leader of the group. When she refused to comply with the clique’s “traditions and initiation rituals” she was ostracized, threatened and harassed.
Interim Sheriff John L. Scott said in a statement released Friday that elements of Lopez’s complaint had been investigated by the department two years ago and resulted in “appropriate administrative action for several employees.” He said Lopez’s suit contains new allegations that she had not previously reported to department officials.
“In fairness to all parties involved, the Sheriff Department will reserve any formal comment of this case while we conduct a thorough investigation for the new claims alleged,” Scott said without elaborating. “As sheriff, I am concerned about the negative perception of monikers, tattoos or any form of hazing.”
The department has had trouble with unsanctioned deputy cliques in the past. Last year, as part of an ongoing probe into jail abuse, federal prosecutors requested the department turn over information it had regarding deputy cliques, including the Banditos.
According to Lopez’s lawsuit, which was first reported by NBC News, the group consists of about 80 deputies. Its members wear tattoos of a skeleton with a sombrero, bullet sash and pistol. Deputies who want to get into the group are called “prospects” or “puppies.”
The group is known for wanting to “exert control over the East L.A. station, its deputies and operations,” Lopez’s suit alleges. Members of the group are supposed to have an easier career ladder to climb, the suit contends.
Lopez, a 10-year veteran who started working at the Boyle Heights station in 2011, alleges a Bandito associate body-checked her into a wall while she was carrying a loaded shotgun. Two months later, another deputy ran her patrol car off the road and later that year, her car’s tires were slashed. In April 2013, the suit alleges, a dead rat was left under her car’s driver’s-side door.
The harassment was so bad that Lopez took a stress-leave, the suit states. She’s been working at the Century Station since last summer.
“She was treated like cattle, like property,” said Lopez’s attorney, Gregory Smith. “The only way to characterize it is as a gang or clique.”
Trey Rusk notes: “If the Sheriff's upper echelon knew about these thugs and nothing was done to curtail their behavior, it should be recognized as implied consent. Especially if it is proven that deputies join in an effort to fast track their careers. This is not the same as joining to a special unit such as SWAT. These deputies are members of a rogue gang within the Sheriff's Office and are distinguished by their tattoos. How original. They named themselves after a criminal motorcycle gang based in Texas. They should call themselves the douche bags!”
It’s shenanigans like this that marked the tenure of former LA Sheriff Lee ‘Pepe LePew’ Baca. Several dubious cliques within LASO boasted of their existence. Baca and his top lackeys either tolerated rogue cliques of deputies or they were totally ignorant of what was going on in his department. In either case, I say good riddance to Pepe LePew Baca. His departure from LASO was long overdue!
Unfortunately, rogue cliques of cops can be found in many of the nation’s larger police agencies.
Pepe LePew Baca leaves a legacy of LASO as a mismanaged and scandalized law enforcement agency that catered and showed favoritism to the Hollywood stars.
SHERIFF’S DEPUTY ALLEGES HARASSMENT BY ROGUE DEPARTMENT CLIQUE
By Joseph Serna
Los Angeles Times
March 28, 2014
After seven years of guarding inmates in Los Angeles County jails, Deputy Guadalupe Lopez was transferred to the East L.A. Station to continue her career working in patrol. It was there, she says in a lawsuit filed this week, that she encountered a rogue group of deputies called the “Banditos.”
The Banditos, she alleges, sport matching tattoos and try to coerce female deputy patrol trainees like her into performing sexual favors.
In a 19-page lawsuit, Lopez contends that she was assigned a training officer who was known as the “Godfather” and was a leader of the group. When she refused to comply with the clique’s “traditions and initiation rituals” she was ostracized, threatened and harassed.
Interim Sheriff John L. Scott said in a statement released Friday that elements of Lopez’s complaint had been investigated by the department two years ago and resulted in “appropriate administrative action for several employees.” He said Lopez’s suit contains new allegations that she had not previously reported to department officials.
“In fairness to all parties involved, the Sheriff Department will reserve any formal comment of this case while we conduct a thorough investigation for the new claims alleged,” Scott said without elaborating. “As sheriff, I am concerned about the negative perception of monikers, tattoos or any form of hazing.”
The department has had trouble with unsanctioned deputy cliques in the past. Last year, as part of an ongoing probe into jail abuse, federal prosecutors requested the department turn over information it had regarding deputy cliques, including the Banditos.
According to Lopez’s lawsuit, which was first reported by NBC News, the group consists of about 80 deputies. Its members wear tattoos of a skeleton with a sombrero, bullet sash and pistol. Deputies who want to get into the group are called “prospects” or “puppies.”
The group is known for wanting to “exert control over the East L.A. station, its deputies and operations,” Lopez’s suit alleges. Members of the group are supposed to have an easier career ladder to climb, the suit contends.
Lopez, a 10-year veteran who started working at the Boyle Heights station in 2011, alleges a Bandito associate body-checked her into a wall while she was carrying a loaded shotgun. Two months later, another deputy ran her patrol car off the road and later that year, her car’s tires were slashed. In April 2013, the suit alleges, a dead rat was left under her car’s driver’s-side door.
The harassment was so bad that Lopez took a stress-leave, the suit states. She’s been working at the Century Station since last summer.
“She was treated like cattle, like property,” said Lopez’s attorney, Gregory Smith. “The only way to characterize it is as a gang or clique.”
WHY AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION HAS BECOME THE LAUGHING STOCK OF THE WORLD
Skidmore College, a liberal arts college in upstate New York, is offering a course on Miley Cyrus
Recently Rutgers University offered a course on Beyoncé and now Skidmore College will offer a course on Miley Cyrus. The educated idiots within the administrations and faculties of our colleges and universities are turning out a bunch of educated idiots at graduation time.
The college says the course on Miley Cyrus and all her incarnations is way to study sociology. That is how Skidmore justifies a student’s waste of time an money.
SKIDMORE COLLEGE WILL OFFER A CLASS ON MILEY CYRUS
By Lesley Messer
ABC News
March 27, 2014
Ever dream of studying Miley Cyrus?
Well, that dream is becoming a reality for Skidmore College students this summer.
The liberal arts college, located in Saratoga Springs, New York, is offering a special topics sociology course entitled "The Sociology of Miley Cyrus: Race, Class, Gender and Media," which will be "using Miley as a lens through which to explore sociological thinking about identity, entertainment, media and fame."
Professor Carolyn Chernoff told ABC News that the class will use Cyrus's public persona as the basis of discussion, as much of what we know of her is based on a media reconstrucution of who she really is. This will be a very different course, she said, from the Rutgers University class focusing on Beyoncé.
"Unfortunately, the way we talk about female pop stars and female bodies, class matters, gender matters, sexuality and sexual performance matters, but race matters a lot [too] and the way we talk about white pop stars is quite different than how we talk about the bodies of women of color," she noted. "[Cyrus] complicates representations of the female body in pop culture in some ways that are good, bad, and ugly."
Chernoff added that the class will also explore Cyrus's shift from "Hannah Montana" star to pop icon and how her on-stage antics have led to discussions about her sexuality.
Scheduled to be an intensive summer course for students looking to delve deeper into specific topics, Chernoff said she's had an enthusiastic response from the college staff.
"Their motto is, 'creative thought matters,' and they understand," she said.
While there's been no response from Cyrus, 21, yet, Chernoff said she'd be open to having her speak, if she was interested. Time will tell.
Recently Rutgers University offered a course on Beyoncé and now Skidmore College will offer a course on Miley Cyrus. The educated idiots within the administrations and faculties of our colleges and universities are turning out a bunch of educated idiots at graduation time.
The college says the course on Miley Cyrus and all her incarnations is way to study sociology. That is how Skidmore justifies a student’s waste of time an money.
SKIDMORE COLLEGE WILL OFFER A CLASS ON MILEY CYRUS
By Lesley Messer
ABC News
March 27, 2014
Ever dream of studying Miley Cyrus?
Well, that dream is becoming a reality for Skidmore College students this summer.
The liberal arts college, located in Saratoga Springs, New York, is offering a special topics sociology course entitled "The Sociology of Miley Cyrus: Race, Class, Gender and Media," which will be "using Miley as a lens through which to explore sociological thinking about identity, entertainment, media and fame."
Professor Carolyn Chernoff told ABC News that the class will use Cyrus's public persona as the basis of discussion, as much of what we know of her is based on a media reconstrucution of who she really is. This will be a very different course, she said, from the Rutgers University class focusing on Beyoncé.
"Unfortunately, the way we talk about female pop stars and female bodies, class matters, gender matters, sexuality and sexual performance matters, but race matters a lot [too] and the way we talk about white pop stars is quite different than how we talk about the bodies of women of color," she noted. "[Cyrus] complicates representations of the female body in pop culture in some ways that are good, bad, and ugly."
Chernoff added that the class will also explore Cyrus's shift from "Hannah Montana" star to pop icon and how her on-stage antics have led to discussions about her sexuality.
Scheduled to be an intensive summer course for students looking to delve deeper into specific topics, Chernoff said she's had an enthusiastic response from the college staff.
"Their motto is, 'creative thought matters,' and they understand," she said.
While there's been no response from Cyrus, 21, yet, Chernoff said she'd be open to having her speak, if she was interested. Time will tell.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
DEATH PENALTY AS A DETERRENT
Capital punishment opponents who claim the death penalty is not a deterrent are simply wrong, and most of them know they are being deceitful
On Thursday the Houston Chronicle published an op-ed by columnist Bill King, former mayor of Kemah, Texas, entitled Death penalty leaves no room for error. King gives the usual reasons why we should abandon capital punishment, placing special emphasis on his belief that the death penalty does not deter murders.
Here is an excerpt from King’s column:
I also knew that the deterrent effect of capital punishment has always been muddled at best. There have been a number of high-profile studies claiming a measurable deterrent effect. But those studies have increasingly come under critical attack by other researchers. Also, states without the death penalty consistently have lower murder rates than states with it.
Because murders are so frequently crimes of passion, the deterrent argument never made much sense to me intuitively.
Despite their high-profile media coverage, cold-blooded murders, those in which one could argue the murderers might have the presence of mind to be deterred, are actually quite rare. Interestingly, polling shows that the public, notwithstanding its support of capital punishment, has come to the conclusion that the death penalty does not provide much of a deterrent.
Now why has the public come to that conclusion? It is the result of the incessant bombardment of claims by the opponents of capital punishment that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent. And when they put forth that claim they are being deceitful. The death penalty does deter countless premeditated murders and the abolitionists damn well know it.
Let me acknowledge what the death penalty does not deter. King is right when he says capital punishment does not deter murders committed in the heat of passion. He is probably right when he says most murders are crimes of passion. And the death penalty no longer deters felony murders because the gangbangers, dope dealers, burglars, robbers and rapists who kill know that if they are caught and sentenced to death, they will not be executed for 10-20 years, if ever.
There was a time when executions were not delayed by endless appeals. That’s when the death penalty served to deter many burglars, robbers and rapists from murdering their victims. When I was a cop, we used to arrest many armed robbers who robbed their victims while using an unloaded gun. When asked why they did not load their guns, almost all of them would say something like this: If I carried a loaded gun I might shoot someone in a moment of panic, and I sure don’t want to get topped (executed).”
I doubt King is correct when in his op-ed he says that cold-blooded murders where the killer “might have the presence of mind to be deterred” are rare. There are far more of those kinds of murders than King thinks. The reason a killer might not be concerned about the death penalty is because he does not believe he will be executed if caught.
When King says “states without the death penalty consistently have lower murder rates than states with it,” he is basing that statement on misleading statistics. That claim ignores the demographics of the states that do not have capital punishment. Most of those states have relatively few urban centers with a high concentration of criminals. I’ll bet that the murder rates in New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Maryland are not lower now as compared to when those states had the death penalty. The abolitionists like to point out Michigan as a state with lower murder rates, but if you look at Detroit and Michigan’s other big cities, you will find that the murder rate in those cities is not lower than the murder rate of cities in death penalty states.
Let me conclude by asking: How many of you have ever given serious thought to killing someone? I know I have. There are two reasons why people do not carry out those thoughts. Some are deterred on moral grounds. But I suspect that most are deterred by the fear of getting caught and then sentenced to death. Accordingly, there are countless premeditated murders that are not committed because they are deterred by the death penalty.
On Thursday the Houston Chronicle published an op-ed by columnist Bill King, former mayor of Kemah, Texas, entitled Death penalty leaves no room for error. King gives the usual reasons why we should abandon capital punishment, placing special emphasis on his belief that the death penalty does not deter murders.
Here is an excerpt from King’s column:
I also knew that the deterrent effect of capital punishment has always been muddled at best. There have been a number of high-profile studies claiming a measurable deterrent effect. But those studies have increasingly come under critical attack by other researchers. Also, states without the death penalty consistently have lower murder rates than states with it.
Because murders are so frequently crimes of passion, the deterrent argument never made much sense to me intuitively.
Despite their high-profile media coverage, cold-blooded murders, those in which one could argue the murderers might have the presence of mind to be deterred, are actually quite rare. Interestingly, polling shows that the public, notwithstanding its support of capital punishment, has come to the conclusion that the death penalty does not provide much of a deterrent.
Now why has the public come to that conclusion? It is the result of the incessant bombardment of claims by the opponents of capital punishment that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent. And when they put forth that claim they are being deceitful. The death penalty does deter countless premeditated murders and the abolitionists damn well know it.
Let me acknowledge what the death penalty does not deter. King is right when he says capital punishment does not deter murders committed in the heat of passion. He is probably right when he says most murders are crimes of passion. And the death penalty no longer deters felony murders because the gangbangers, dope dealers, burglars, robbers and rapists who kill know that if they are caught and sentenced to death, they will not be executed for 10-20 years, if ever.
There was a time when executions were not delayed by endless appeals. That’s when the death penalty served to deter many burglars, robbers and rapists from murdering their victims. When I was a cop, we used to arrest many armed robbers who robbed their victims while using an unloaded gun. When asked why they did not load their guns, almost all of them would say something like this: If I carried a loaded gun I might shoot someone in a moment of panic, and I sure don’t want to get topped (executed).”
I doubt King is correct when in his op-ed he says that cold-blooded murders where the killer “might have the presence of mind to be deterred” are rare. There are far more of those kinds of murders than King thinks. The reason a killer might not be concerned about the death penalty is because he does not believe he will be executed if caught.
When King says “states without the death penalty consistently have lower murder rates than states with it,” he is basing that statement on misleading statistics. That claim ignores the demographics of the states that do not have capital punishment. Most of those states have relatively few urban centers with a high concentration of criminals. I’ll bet that the murder rates in New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Maryland are not lower now as compared to when those states had the death penalty. The abolitionists like to point out Michigan as a state with lower murder rates, but if you look at Detroit and Michigan’s other big cities, you will find that the murder rate in those cities is not lower than the murder rate of cities in death penalty states.
Let me conclude by asking: How many of you have ever given serious thought to killing someone? I know I have. There are two reasons why people do not carry out those thoughts. Some are deterred on moral grounds. But I suspect that most are deterred by the fear of getting caught and then sentenced to death. Accordingly, there are countless premeditated murders that are not committed because they are deterred by the death penalty.
STATE JOBS FOR CONVICTED FELONS?
By Trey Rusk
I do not agree with BarkGrowlBite in his opinion that ex-cons should not be banned from state jobs.
I once had an expired badge and I.D. stolen from my locked desk because a painter who had a record for burglary had been hired by the contractor to paint our office. Luckily he was pulled over by a State Trooper who knew me and the painter showed my badge and I.D. in an effort to get out of the ticket. He was arrested and my expired I.D. and badge were returned.
I don't agree with allowing convicted felons to be employed by the State of Texas or any place that holds sensitive information on the public.
In particular the article [STATE FIGHTING TO KEEP BANS ON HIRING EX-OFFENDERS by L. M. Sixel | Houston Chronicle | March 27, 2014] mentioned the Texas Department of Public Safety. Unlike other locations most law enforcement offices are equipped with high tech equipment. Computer terminals that have access to sensitive material and on going investigations that are visible at work stations. State law already prohibits allowing law enforcement computer screens to be visible to the public and most agencies have been audited to see if they comply.
A janitor that is a convicted felon or even has an arrest record for a high grade misdemeanor shouldn't be allowed to work in a law enforcement facility, hospital or DMV office because of the sensitive material at these locations.
Convicted felon or not, I wonder how much a devious attorney would pay for information from these locations. It happens and the temptation for a quick buck is there.
I do not agree with BarkGrowlBite in his opinion that ex-cons should not be banned from state jobs.
I once had an expired badge and I.D. stolen from my locked desk because a painter who had a record for burglary had been hired by the contractor to paint our office. Luckily he was pulled over by a State Trooper who knew me and the painter showed my badge and I.D. in an effort to get out of the ticket. He was arrested and my expired I.D. and badge were returned.
I don't agree with allowing convicted felons to be employed by the State of Texas or any place that holds sensitive information on the public.
In particular the article [STATE FIGHTING TO KEEP BANS ON HIRING EX-OFFENDERS by L. M. Sixel | Houston Chronicle | March 27, 2014] mentioned the Texas Department of Public Safety. Unlike other locations most law enforcement offices are equipped with high tech equipment. Computer terminals that have access to sensitive material and on going investigations that are visible at work stations. State law already prohibits allowing law enforcement computer screens to be visible to the public and most agencies have been audited to see if they comply.
A janitor that is a convicted felon or even has an arrest record for a high grade misdemeanor shouldn't be allowed to work in a law enforcement facility, hospital or DMV office because of the sensitive material at these locations.
Convicted felon or not, I wonder how much a devious attorney would pay for information from these locations. It happens and the temptation for a quick buck is there.
BIG BEER BUST BACKFIRES
College student sues for getting busted and traumatized at gunpoint by Virginia ABC agents after she had bought bottled water
The State of Virginia hopes to settle this lawsuit and I can understand why. If the case ever went to trial there is no telling how much a jury would award this victim of some really piss-poor police work.
STUDENT SUES FOR $40 MILLION AFTER BEING HAULED FROM HER CAR AT GUNPOINT AND ARRESTED FOR BUYING BEER UNDERAGE WHEN SHE ONLY BOUGHT BOTTLED WATER
By Peter Rugg
Mail Online
March 28, 2014
A University of Virginia student arrested by Alcoholic Beverage Control agents who wrongly believed she'd illegally bought beer when in fact she only had bottled water is seeking $40 million in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
Elizabeth K. Daly, 21, alleges malicious prosecution, six counts of assault and battery and failure to appropriately train ABC agents in the suit which names the state and seven agents involved in her arrest.
Daly was arrested on April 11, 2013 when ABC agents confronted her outside of a Charlottesville supermarket.
They believed she had purchased beer. She had actually purchase LaCroix sparkling water.
Daly claimed she attempted to flee from the agents because neither were in uniform, one pulled a gun, and the other tried to smash her car window with a flashlight.
'My roommates and I were terrified,' Daly told the Hook. 'We called 911 as we had been taught to do if you were ever unsure of the validity of people saying they are law enforcement.'
Daly said once they saw one of the agents draw a gun she sped away, only to be stopped and arrested at an intersection.
She was charged with two felonies for grazing the agents with her car and spent the night in jail.
Prosecutors withdrew the charges in June and her record was completely expunged in October.
Daly's lawsuit states that she now suffers a tremor in her right hand as well as intense anxiety and a host of other problems following the incident, CBS DC reported.
She further claimed that both she and her parents 'have incurred significant legal, medical, and other costs, and will continue to do so in the future due to the malicious, intentional' and negligent actions of the agents.
The state has deemed the case 'incredibly unfortunate,' according to a spokesman for Attorney General Mark Herring.
'As this case proceeds, the Attorney General’s office will defend the Commonwealth’s interests and work to ensure a just and reasonable outcome,' said spokesman Michael Kelly.
In November, the ABC admitted that the agents violated department policy during the arrest.
The agency said corrective measures against the agents had been taken but declined to specific steps were taken, as policy prohibits the release of individual personnel information and disciplinary proceeding results.
The State of Virginia hopes to settle this lawsuit and I can understand why. If the case ever went to trial there is no telling how much a jury would award this victim of some really piss-poor police work.
STUDENT SUES FOR $40 MILLION AFTER BEING HAULED FROM HER CAR AT GUNPOINT AND ARRESTED FOR BUYING BEER UNDERAGE WHEN SHE ONLY BOUGHT BOTTLED WATER
By Peter Rugg
Mail Online
March 28, 2014
A University of Virginia student arrested by Alcoholic Beverage Control agents who wrongly believed she'd illegally bought beer when in fact she only had bottled water is seeking $40 million in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
Elizabeth K. Daly, 21, alleges malicious prosecution, six counts of assault and battery and failure to appropriately train ABC agents in the suit which names the state and seven agents involved in her arrest.
Daly was arrested on April 11, 2013 when ABC agents confronted her outside of a Charlottesville supermarket.
They believed she had purchased beer. She had actually purchase LaCroix sparkling water.
Daly claimed she attempted to flee from the agents because neither were in uniform, one pulled a gun, and the other tried to smash her car window with a flashlight.
'My roommates and I were terrified,' Daly told the Hook. 'We called 911 as we had been taught to do if you were ever unsure of the validity of people saying they are law enforcement.'
Daly said once they saw one of the agents draw a gun she sped away, only to be stopped and arrested at an intersection.
She was charged with two felonies for grazing the agents with her car and spent the night in jail.
Prosecutors withdrew the charges in June and her record was completely expunged in October.
Daly's lawsuit states that she now suffers a tremor in her right hand as well as intense anxiety and a host of other problems following the incident, CBS DC reported.
She further claimed that both she and her parents 'have incurred significant legal, medical, and other costs, and will continue to do so in the future due to the malicious, intentional' and negligent actions of the agents.
The state has deemed the case 'incredibly unfortunate,' according to a spokesman for Attorney General Mark Herring.
'As this case proceeds, the Attorney General’s office will defend the Commonwealth’s interests and work to ensure a just and reasonable outcome,' said spokesman Michael Kelly.
In November, the ABC admitted that the agents violated department policy during the arrest.
The agency said corrective measures against the agents had been taken but declined to specific steps were taken, as policy prohibits the release of individual personnel information and disciplinary proceeding results.
THE GREEN DOT SCAM
Intended victim says the IRS imposter did not sound Nigerian
These IRS imposter scams are going on all over the country and many people are gullible enough to be relieved of their hard earned money.
HPD SHARES TALE OF SCAMS AND WALMART DEBIT CARDS
By Camilo Smith
Houston Press Hair Balls
March 28, 2014
If you ever needed another reason to hate Wal-Mart, Alice Lee's got one for you. She was almost a victim Tuesday night of the Green Dot Moneypack scam.
But we'll get to that in a minute.
Lee was a special guest during the Houston Police Department's news conference today on scams targeting the Asian Community. Eric Mehl from the HPD's swindle unit led the discussion where he also ave some details on a tax season ruse called the "IRS Impostor Scam" that's been targeting Indian and Afghani immigrants in Houston. In that one someone of very low moral character calls the unsuspecting victim and tell them that they owe back taxes and that they can be deported for non-payment.
Then there's the "you got a warrant scam", which is where Lee comes in. While she is Chinese American, police said this scam is equal opportunity.
From 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Lee got calls on her personal cell phone from a 281 area code number. The first call was from a person who said he was a Sheriff's office warrants division deputy. He told Lee that she missed a grand jury appearance on March 14 and that she could pay a fine and fees and be done.
Lee, who works at the Greater Sharpstown Management District, slowly picked apart the b.s. from the dude on the phone. She played along as he "rattled off a bunch of fines" and even named a judge and the address of the jail she would go to for failure to pay.
To get out of going to jail, the caller--who Lee assured Hair Balls later did not sound Nigerian (don't act like you don't know about the great Nigerian scam of the 00s)---asked Lee to go to Wal-Mart and fill up one of those Green Dot money cards with the fine amount, which including court fees, was about $750. The guy told her to call back in an hour with the card number.
Lee said she got a second call, where the scare-tactic got ramped up a notch and someone said he was a "supervisor" and wanted to verify that Lee would indeed head to Wal-Mart and cop these debit cards. Of course she didn't.
"If I didn't have any contacts within HPD I probably would've fallen for the scam," Lee said.
Asian immigrants have been the source of recent reports, Mehl said, which is why they decided to focus the presentation on them. He says he feels like immigrants in general are targets for scammers because of the fear of rocking the boat.
HPD officials said they've seen a rise in the IRS scams, and it's created a backlog. "They're hitting hard," Mehl said. To protect yourself, don't give out any info to anyone on the phone, and definitely don't fall for that Green Dot scam. Besides, said Mehl, if some agency wants to arrest you they aren't going to threaten you, they'll just show up and get you.
These IRS imposter scams are going on all over the country and many people are gullible enough to be relieved of their hard earned money.
HPD SHARES TALE OF SCAMS AND WALMART DEBIT CARDS
By Camilo Smith
Houston Press Hair Balls
March 28, 2014
If you ever needed another reason to hate Wal-Mart, Alice Lee's got one for you. She was almost a victim Tuesday night of the Green Dot Moneypack scam.
But we'll get to that in a minute.
Lee was a special guest during the Houston Police Department's news conference today on scams targeting the Asian Community. Eric Mehl from the HPD's swindle unit led the discussion where he also ave some details on a tax season ruse called the "IRS Impostor Scam" that's been targeting Indian and Afghani immigrants in Houston. In that one someone of very low moral character calls the unsuspecting victim and tell them that they owe back taxes and that they can be deported for non-payment.
Then there's the "you got a warrant scam", which is where Lee comes in. While she is Chinese American, police said this scam is equal opportunity.
From 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Lee got calls on her personal cell phone from a 281 area code number. The first call was from a person who said he was a Sheriff's office warrants division deputy. He told Lee that she missed a grand jury appearance on March 14 and that she could pay a fine and fees and be done.
Lee, who works at the Greater Sharpstown Management District, slowly picked apart the b.s. from the dude on the phone. She played along as he "rattled off a bunch of fines" and even named a judge and the address of the jail she would go to for failure to pay.
To get out of going to jail, the caller--who Lee assured Hair Balls later did not sound Nigerian (don't act like you don't know about the great Nigerian scam of the 00s)---asked Lee to go to Wal-Mart and fill up one of those Green Dot money cards with the fine amount, which including court fees, was about $750. The guy told her to call back in an hour with the card number.
Lee said she got a second call, where the scare-tactic got ramped up a notch and someone said he was a "supervisor" and wanted to verify that Lee would indeed head to Wal-Mart and cop these debit cards. Of course she didn't.
"If I didn't have any contacts within HPD I probably would've fallen for the scam," Lee said.
Asian immigrants have been the source of recent reports, Mehl said, which is why they decided to focus the presentation on them. He says he feels like immigrants in general are targets for scammers because of the fear of rocking the boat.
HPD officials said they've seen a rise in the IRS scams, and it's created a backlog. "They're hitting hard," Mehl said. To protect yourself, don't give out any info to anyone on the phone, and definitely don't fall for that Green Dot scam. Besides, said Mehl, if some agency wants to arrest you they aren't going to threaten you, they'll just show up and get you.
67-YEAR-OLD WOMAN NABBED FOR 22-YEAR-OLD TRIPLE MURDER
If this 67-year-old triple murderer is sentenced to death, she will very likely die of natural causes on Oklahoma’s death row before appeals on her behalf run their course.
OKLAHOMA ARRESTS WOMAN FOR TRIPLE MURDER COMMITTED 22 YEARS AGO
Thomson/Reuters
March 28, 2014
Oklahoma police on Friday arrested a 67-year-old woman suspected of murdering two women and a child who went missing more than 20 years ago and whose skeletal remains were discovered in 2013.
Beverly Noe was arrested on Friday in the murders of Wendy Camp, 23, her daughter Cynthia Britto, 6, and Camp's sister-in-law Lisa Kregear, 22, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) said.
The three have been missing since May 1992, after Noe picked up Camp, Britto, and Kregear in Oklahoma City to take them to see Camp's son. The three never returned.
At the time, Noe told investigators she dropped off the three at a Wal-Mart in Chandler, about 40 miles (60 km) from Oklahoma City.
The two-decade-old cold case took a turn about a year ago when law enforcement received a tip from Noe's brother that the bodies of the three might be found on a property that his mother once owned. The remains were then found, the OSBI said.
In January, the medical examiner's office positively identified the skeletal remains as those of Camp, Britto, and Kregear, and this month determined they were all victims of homicides that took place more than 20 years ago.
"An arrest warrant had been issued based on the investigation," OSBI spokeswoman Jessica Brown said.
An attorney for Noe was not immediately available for comment.
OKLAHOMA ARRESTS WOMAN FOR TRIPLE MURDER COMMITTED 22 YEARS AGO
Thomson/Reuters
March 28, 2014
Oklahoma police on Friday arrested a 67-year-old woman suspected of murdering two women and a child who went missing more than 20 years ago and whose skeletal remains were discovered in 2013.
Beverly Noe was arrested on Friday in the murders of Wendy Camp, 23, her daughter Cynthia Britto, 6, and Camp's sister-in-law Lisa Kregear, 22, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) said.
The three have been missing since May 1992, after Noe picked up Camp, Britto, and Kregear in Oklahoma City to take them to see Camp's son. The three never returned.
At the time, Noe told investigators she dropped off the three at a Wal-Mart in Chandler, about 40 miles (60 km) from Oklahoma City.
The two-decade-old cold case took a turn about a year ago when law enforcement received a tip from Noe's brother that the bodies of the three might be found on a property that his mother once owned. The remains were then found, the OSBI said.
In January, the medical examiner's office positively identified the skeletal remains as those of Camp, Britto, and Kregear, and this month determined they were all victims of homicides that took place more than 20 years ago.
"An arrest warrant had been issued based on the investigation," OSBI spokeswoman Jessica Brown said.
An attorney for Noe was not immediately available for comment.
POTENTIAL GOP CANDIDATES COURTING JEWISH GROUP AND CASINO MAGNATE SHELDON ADELSON
I believe GOP candidates like Chris Christie and Jeb Bush could get the votes of some liberal Jews, but ultra conservative candidates could not, even though they would be strong supporters of Israel.
CHRISTIE TO ADDRESS ADELSON, GOP JEWISH POW-WOW IN LAS VEGAS
Yes, there really is a serious Jewish GOP group and it does actually attract presidential front-runners
By Maddie Hanna
McClatchy-Tribune
March 12, 2013
TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who said Thursday that he has not ruled out running for president, will travel this weekend to Las Vegas, where he will address a crowd — and one mega-donor in particular — that could wield significant influence in the 2016 race.
Christie, along with other Republican leaders, on Saturday will address the Republican Jewish Coalition, a Washington lobbying group with prominent campaign donors.
The biggest among them is billionaire Sheldon Adelson, a casino magnate who with his wife, Miriam, spent at least $93 million on the 2012 elections, propping up the campaign of Newt Gingrich before throwing his support to Mitt Romney.
The investments, though enormous, largely didn't pay off for Adelson, who is now said to be looking to back a Republican with mainstream appeal who could win in 2016.
The Washington Post reported this week that Adelson would meet one-on-one with potential candidates invited to the coalition's three-day spring meeting, which started Thursday at Adelson's hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.
Besides Christie, other Republicans invited include Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
Asked whether Christie would meet with Adelson, Bill Palatucci, a close friend and adviser to Christie, said he "wouldn't be surprised."
"When you're going to somebody's home, you typically go by to say hi," said Palatucci, who will travel with Christie.
The governor's appearance at the meeting comes on the heels of Thursday's release of an internal review he commissioned that says he is clear of any wrongdoing in the George Washington Bridge controversy.
The governor is still facing investigations from state lawmakers and federal prosecutors. According to the Post, an Adelson friend said the billionaire has been concerned about the bridge scandal's impact on Christie.
In a nationally televised interview Thursday night with ABC's Diane Sawyer, Christie said the controversy had not caused him to rule out a presidential bid.
"Listen, I haven't made a decision about 2016, and I don't intend to make a decision about 2016 until a year from now, but it won't have anything to do with what's happened the past 10 weeks," Christie said.
"What's happened the past 10 weeks, I think, ultimately will make me a better leader," he said, "whether it's as governor of New Jersey or in any other job that I might take in the public or private sector."
Asked how his sometimes-brash style would fare in Iowa, Christie said, "They love me in Iowa, too."
Christie will likely be well received by the coalition, said Ari Fleischer, a former press secretary to President George W. Bush who serves on the coalition's board.
"It's a crowd that is really not focused on Bridgegate," but rather on foreign policy and support for Israel, Fleischer said.
Appearing before the coalition — which meets three times a year — is a "well-worn path to the White House," Fleischer said.
As for Adelson, "his support can be extraordinarily significant," Fleischer said. "It won't surprise me if everybody who's already here has asked for a one-on-one meeting with Sheldon."
Adelson will likely want to talk to potential candidates about Iran and Israel, Fleischer said.
The casino CEO is a fierce opponent of Internet gambling, which became legal last year in New Jersey.
Christie may "have to finesse that," said Jon Ralston, a longtime Nevada journalist and political analyst. "I don't think (Adelson) necessarily considers it a fatal issue, but I think he will do everything he can to change Christie's mind."
While it's too early in the cycle for Adelson to commit to a candidate, "I think he thinks a governor is the best person to win the presidency," Ralston said. "He understands how tainted anyone from Washington is."
Christie has appeared before the coalition before. During a talk before the group in 2011, he attacked President Barack Obama as a failed leader. The coalition helped pay for a trip the governor took to Israel in 2012.
Christie has supporters on the coalition's board, including Paul Singer, a New York hedge-fund manager.
Adelson also has supported Christie. While running for re-election last year, Christie attended a fundraiser arranged by Adelson in Las Vegas.
Adelson and his wife each gave Christie's 2013 campaign $3,800, the maximum allowed under New Jersey law.
After the 2012 elections, Adelson told the Wall Street Journal that he was prepared to double his donations.
"I'll spend that much and more," he said. "Let's cut any ambiguity."
CHRISTIE TO ADDRESS ADELSON, GOP JEWISH POW-WOW IN LAS VEGAS
Yes, there really is a serious Jewish GOP group and it does actually attract presidential front-runners
By Maddie Hanna
McClatchy-Tribune
March 12, 2013
TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who said Thursday that he has not ruled out running for president, will travel this weekend to Las Vegas, where he will address a crowd — and one mega-donor in particular — that could wield significant influence in the 2016 race.
Christie, along with other Republican leaders, on Saturday will address the Republican Jewish Coalition, a Washington lobbying group with prominent campaign donors.
The biggest among them is billionaire Sheldon Adelson, a casino magnate who with his wife, Miriam, spent at least $93 million on the 2012 elections, propping up the campaign of Newt Gingrich before throwing his support to Mitt Romney.
The investments, though enormous, largely didn't pay off for Adelson, who is now said to be looking to back a Republican with mainstream appeal who could win in 2016.
The Washington Post reported this week that Adelson would meet one-on-one with potential candidates invited to the coalition's three-day spring meeting, which started Thursday at Adelson's hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.
Besides Christie, other Republicans invited include Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
Asked whether Christie would meet with Adelson, Bill Palatucci, a close friend and adviser to Christie, said he "wouldn't be surprised."
"When you're going to somebody's home, you typically go by to say hi," said Palatucci, who will travel with Christie.
The governor's appearance at the meeting comes on the heels of Thursday's release of an internal review he commissioned that says he is clear of any wrongdoing in the George Washington Bridge controversy.
The governor is still facing investigations from state lawmakers and federal prosecutors. According to the Post, an Adelson friend said the billionaire has been concerned about the bridge scandal's impact on Christie.
In a nationally televised interview Thursday night with ABC's Diane Sawyer, Christie said the controversy had not caused him to rule out a presidential bid.
"Listen, I haven't made a decision about 2016, and I don't intend to make a decision about 2016 until a year from now, but it won't have anything to do with what's happened the past 10 weeks," Christie said.
"What's happened the past 10 weeks, I think, ultimately will make me a better leader," he said, "whether it's as governor of New Jersey or in any other job that I might take in the public or private sector."
Asked how his sometimes-brash style would fare in Iowa, Christie said, "They love me in Iowa, too."
Christie will likely be well received by the coalition, said Ari Fleischer, a former press secretary to President George W. Bush who serves on the coalition's board.
"It's a crowd that is really not focused on Bridgegate," but rather on foreign policy and support for Israel, Fleischer said.
Appearing before the coalition — which meets three times a year — is a "well-worn path to the White House," Fleischer said.
As for Adelson, "his support can be extraordinarily significant," Fleischer said. "It won't surprise me if everybody who's already here has asked for a one-on-one meeting with Sheldon."
Adelson will likely want to talk to potential candidates about Iran and Israel, Fleischer said.
The casino CEO is a fierce opponent of Internet gambling, which became legal last year in New Jersey.
Christie may "have to finesse that," said Jon Ralston, a longtime Nevada journalist and political analyst. "I don't think (Adelson) necessarily considers it a fatal issue, but I think he will do everything he can to change Christie's mind."
While it's too early in the cycle for Adelson to commit to a candidate, "I think he thinks a governor is the best person to win the presidency," Ralston said. "He understands how tainted anyone from Washington is."
Christie has appeared before the coalition before. During a talk before the group in 2011, he attacked President Barack Obama as a failed leader. The coalition helped pay for a trip the governor took to Israel in 2012.
Christie has supporters on the coalition's board, including Paul Singer, a New York hedge-fund manager.
Adelson also has supported Christie. While running for re-election last year, Christie attended a fundraiser arranged by Adelson in Las Vegas.
Adelson and his wife each gave Christie's 2013 campaign $3,800, the maximum allowed under New Jersey law.
After the 2012 elections, Adelson told the Wall Street Journal that he was prepared to double his donations.
"I'll spend that much and more," he said. "Let's cut any ambiguity."
Friday, March 28, 2014
STATE OF TEXAS: NO EX-CONS NEED APPLY FOR STATE JOBS
Texas is suing the EEOC, arguing that its guidelines for hiring ex-cons violate state hiring laws
I have long advocated that ex-cons be given a fair shot at employment, provided that the crimes they committed do not pose a threat to the employer’s business or to his employees. For that reason I do not agree with my state’s laws against employing those who have been released from prison. Actually, the state would be better served if it considered hiring ex-cons on a case-by-case basis. In that way an ex-con would at least have a shot at gainful employment and if hired, would be less likely to be counted in the recidivism statistics.
STATE FIGHTING TO KEEP BANS ON HIRING EX-OFFENDERS
By L. M. Sixel
Houston Chronicle
March 27, 2014
If you have a felony on your record - or, in some cases, even a misdemeanor - you can't work for the Texas General Land Office, the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services, the Texas Department of Public Safety or several other state agencies. In some agencies, all it takes is an arrest to be eliminated for consideration for a job.
And the state of Texas is trying to keep it that way.
The state sued the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, arguing that the federal agency's new guidelines designed to give ex-offenders a chance to be considered for a job violate state hiring laws. Texas also argues that the federal guidelines are a departure from the state's longstanding practice of not hiring ex-offenders.
The Texas Juvenile Justice Department, for example, has an absolute bar to employment of "any applicant convicted of or arrested for certain felonies" regardless of the nature of the position, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit, which was filed late last year, is the latest chapter in the debate that started after the EEOC put the nation's employers on notice that blanket exclusions against considering applicants with arrest or conviction records can violate civil rights laws.
The federal agency issued guidance to employers in 2012 on how to use arrest and conviction records during the employment screening process.
It warned employers that impose blanket prohibitions against hiring applicants with criminal backgrounds can have a "disparate impact" against black and Hispanic applicants, who tend to have higher arrest and conviction records than other applicants.
The EEOC urges employers to determine in each case whether the disqualification is job-related and a business necessity, and to consider such factors as the nature and gravity of the offense, how much time has passed since the conviction and the time served and the type of job that is being sought.
The federal agency has been pursing several high-level cases against companies with blanket rules against hiring ex-offenders.
The state of Texas, with several thousand employees, claims in its lawsuit that it has the right to enforce laws and policies that bar convicted felons from government jobs and argues that it doesn't need to perform the "individualized assessments" the EEOC "purports to require."
It also is asking the court to set aside the EEOC's enforcement guidance and prohibit the agency from giving any job applicants the right to sue the state of Texas over its rules regarding arrest and conviction records.
The EEOC didn't return requests for comment for this column. But in its response to the lawsuit, the federal agency noted that its guidance was simply guidance. It wasn't a rule employers had to follow, nor does it have the force of law.
The federal agency also noted that Texas, with its sweeping anti-felon policies, is failing to distinguish between risky job candidates and ones who likely pose little risk.
"No one wants a child predator working at a school," the EEOC said in its response.
"But there is no similarly strong justification for the Texas Lottery Commission refusing to hire as a janitor someone who was convicted years ago of unlicensed acupuncture," which is a felony in Texas, according to the EEOC.
Or refusing to consider for a clerical position, someone convicted nine years ago of littering in a cave, according to the EEOC. (In Texas, three convictions of cave littering constitutes a felony.)
One local management lawyer was puzzled about the state's goal in bringing the case because typically, lawsuits like this occur only after the state has been sued or there is a dispute over a contract.
"It's a head scratcher," said Charles H. Wilson, an employment lawyer who represents management with Cozen O'Connor in Houston.
"There is not an actual controversy here," said Wilson, who handles age, race and sex discrimination cases on behalf of corporate and government clients.
Even if the state is successful, he said, it probably won't stop the EEOC from targeting employers, including public ones, that don't consider ex-offenders for jobs.
And consider this: While some agencies have blanket policies against hiring ex-offenders, another state agency helps ex-offenders find jobs.
As part of its service for hard-to-place job seekers, the Texas Workforce Commission pays for the first six months of an insurance bond for employers that covers losses associated with employee dishonesty such as theft or embezzlement.
Convicted felons are allowed to have some jobs in Texas, said Lauren Bean, spokeswoman for the Texas Attorney General's Office. But state law excludes them from other jobs, she said, and that is what the state's lawsuit aims to uphold.
I have long advocated that ex-cons be given a fair shot at employment, provided that the crimes they committed do not pose a threat to the employer’s business or to his employees. For that reason I do not agree with my state’s laws against employing those who have been released from prison. Actually, the state would be better served if it considered hiring ex-cons on a case-by-case basis. In that way an ex-con would at least have a shot at gainful employment and if hired, would be less likely to be counted in the recidivism statistics.
STATE FIGHTING TO KEEP BANS ON HIRING EX-OFFENDERS
By L. M. Sixel
Houston Chronicle
March 27, 2014
If you have a felony on your record - or, in some cases, even a misdemeanor - you can't work for the Texas General Land Office, the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services, the Texas Department of Public Safety or several other state agencies. In some agencies, all it takes is an arrest to be eliminated for consideration for a job.
And the state of Texas is trying to keep it that way.
The state sued the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, arguing that the federal agency's new guidelines designed to give ex-offenders a chance to be considered for a job violate state hiring laws. Texas also argues that the federal guidelines are a departure from the state's longstanding practice of not hiring ex-offenders.
The Texas Juvenile Justice Department, for example, has an absolute bar to employment of "any applicant convicted of or arrested for certain felonies" regardless of the nature of the position, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit, which was filed late last year, is the latest chapter in the debate that started after the EEOC put the nation's employers on notice that blanket exclusions against considering applicants with arrest or conviction records can violate civil rights laws.
The federal agency issued guidance to employers in 2012 on how to use arrest and conviction records during the employment screening process.
It warned employers that impose blanket prohibitions against hiring applicants with criminal backgrounds can have a "disparate impact" against black and Hispanic applicants, who tend to have higher arrest and conviction records than other applicants.
The EEOC urges employers to determine in each case whether the disqualification is job-related and a business necessity, and to consider such factors as the nature and gravity of the offense, how much time has passed since the conviction and the time served and the type of job that is being sought.
The federal agency has been pursing several high-level cases against companies with blanket rules against hiring ex-offenders.
The state of Texas, with several thousand employees, claims in its lawsuit that it has the right to enforce laws and policies that bar convicted felons from government jobs and argues that it doesn't need to perform the "individualized assessments" the EEOC "purports to require."
It also is asking the court to set aside the EEOC's enforcement guidance and prohibit the agency from giving any job applicants the right to sue the state of Texas over its rules regarding arrest and conviction records.
The EEOC didn't return requests for comment for this column. But in its response to the lawsuit, the federal agency noted that its guidance was simply guidance. It wasn't a rule employers had to follow, nor does it have the force of law.
The federal agency also noted that Texas, with its sweeping anti-felon policies, is failing to distinguish between risky job candidates and ones who likely pose little risk.
"No one wants a child predator working at a school," the EEOC said in its response.
"But there is no similarly strong justification for the Texas Lottery Commission refusing to hire as a janitor someone who was convicted years ago of unlicensed acupuncture," which is a felony in Texas, according to the EEOC.
Or refusing to consider for a clerical position, someone convicted nine years ago of littering in a cave, according to the EEOC. (In Texas, three convictions of cave littering constitutes a felony.)
One local management lawyer was puzzled about the state's goal in bringing the case because typically, lawsuits like this occur only after the state has been sued or there is a dispute over a contract.
"It's a head scratcher," said Charles H. Wilson, an employment lawyer who represents management with Cozen O'Connor in Houston.
"There is not an actual controversy here," said Wilson, who handles age, race and sex discrimination cases on behalf of corporate and government clients.
Even if the state is successful, he said, it probably won't stop the EEOC from targeting employers, including public ones, that don't consider ex-offenders for jobs.
And consider this: While some agencies have blanket policies against hiring ex-offenders, another state agency helps ex-offenders find jobs.
As part of its service for hard-to-place job seekers, the Texas Workforce Commission pays for the first six months of an insurance bond for employers that covers losses associated with employee dishonesty such as theft or embezzlement.
Convicted felons are allowed to have some jobs in Texas, said Lauren Bean, spokeswoman for the Texas Attorney General's Office. But state law excludes them from other jobs, she said, and that is what the state's lawsuit aims to uphold.
WHY THEY ARE CALLED EDUCATED IDIOTS
Houston area college professor did not realize she was teaching an advanced chemistry class to students enrolled in introductory chemistry
The chairman of the college’s science department apologized by email to a complaining student for her having been taught the wrong course, while the Lone Star College administration insists the professor taught the correct course. And that’s why they are called educated idiots.
COLLEGE PROFESSOR ‘SPENT THE ENTIRE SEMESTER TEACHING THE WRONG SUBJECT BEFORE ADMITTING HER MISTAKE JUST BEFORE THE FINAL … AND ALL SHE DID WAS CURVE UP THE GRADES’
Intro chemistry student Lauren Firmin claims Professor Thao Shirley Nguyen admitted just before the final that she had been teaching them an advanced chemistry course
By David McCormack
Mail Online
March 27, 2014
A college student who signed up for an introductory Chemistry course claims that their professor told the entire class shortly before final exams that she had been mistakenly teaching them an advanced course instead.
Professor Thao Shirley Nguyen has since refused to confirm what student Lauren Firmin alleges that she told the class, while officials at the Lonestar College-University Park in Harris County, Texas, also deny any wrong doing.
Firmin said she was a student with a 4.0 grade average, but found herself unexpectedly struggling with the subject during the Fall 2013 semester.
‘I was getting 40’s on every test,’ Firmin told KHOU. ‘I studied as hard as I could, did everything in my power to try.’
Then, shortly before the class’ final exam, Firmin claims that Nguyen admitted to teaching the wrong course all semester.
‘She told her mistake in class to all of the students,’ said Firmin.
Nguyen told students she would add extra credit to their grades to compensate for her mistake.
For Firmin that meant her F grade became a B, but still ruined her straight A, 4.0 grade point average.
‘4.0 students, we are really stressed out altogether, but this just added to it to see what I have been working for, for two years destroyed,’ she said.
When KHOU tracked Nguyen down she refused to comment on the story, while college administrator John Powell said the teacher had ‘followed the syllabus and taught from the 1405 textbook’.
But this explanation doesn’t tally with an email from the head of the college’s science department that Firmin received when she complained about Nguyen.
‘This was not intentional on Ms. Nguyen’s part,’ the science chair wrote. ‘She was new to the introductory level of material and did not realize it until just a week ago.
'Ms Nguyen has made every effort to be fair in the distribution of the grades and I am confident that she will assign the grades justly. If you feel that your grade is inaccurate, there is a grade appeal process that you can go through to try to get the grade changed.'
Firmin appealed her B grade, but Lonestar has ruled against it and has said it has no plans to carry out a formal investigation into her claims.
The chairman of the college’s science department apologized by email to a complaining student for her having been taught the wrong course, while the Lone Star College administration insists the professor taught the correct course. And that’s why they are called educated idiots.
COLLEGE PROFESSOR ‘SPENT THE ENTIRE SEMESTER TEACHING THE WRONG SUBJECT BEFORE ADMITTING HER MISTAKE JUST BEFORE THE FINAL … AND ALL SHE DID WAS CURVE UP THE GRADES’
Intro chemistry student Lauren Firmin claims Professor Thao Shirley Nguyen admitted just before the final that she had been teaching them an advanced chemistry course
By David McCormack
Mail Online
March 27, 2014
A college student who signed up for an introductory Chemistry course claims that their professor told the entire class shortly before final exams that she had been mistakenly teaching them an advanced course instead.
Professor Thao Shirley Nguyen has since refused to confirm what student Lauren Firmin alleges that she told the class, while officials at the Lonestar College-University Park in Harris County, Texas, also deny any wrong doing.
Firmin said she was a student with a 4.0 grade average, but found herself unexpectedly struggling with the subject during the Fall 2013 semester.
‘I was getting 40’s on every test,’ Firmin told KHOU. ‘I studied as hard as I could, did everything in my power to try.’
Then, shortly before the class’ final exam, Firmin claims that Nguyen admitted to teaching the wrong course all semester.
‘She told her mistake in class to all of the students,’ said Firmin.
Nguyen told students she would add extra credit to their grades to compensate for her mistake.
For Firmin that meant her F grade became a B, but still ruined her straight A, 4.0 grade point average.
‘4.0 students, we are really stressed out altogether, but this just added to it to see what I have been working for, for two years destroyed,’ she said.
When KHOU tracked Nguyen down she refused to comment on the story, while college administrator John Powell said the teacher had ‘followed the syllabus and taught from the 1405 textbook’.
But this explanation doesn’t tally with an email from the head of the college’s science department that Firmin received when she complained about Nguyen.
‘This was not intentional on Ms. Nguyen’s part,’ the science chair wrote. ‘She was new to the introductory level of material and did not realize it until just a week ago.
'Ms Nguyen has made every effort to be fair in the distribution of the grades and I am confident that she will assign the grades justly. If you feel that your grade is inaccurate, there is a grade appeal process that you can go through to try to get the grade changed.'
Firmin appealed her B grade, but Lonestar has ruled against it and has said it has no plans to carry out a formal investigation into her claims.
GUN CONTROL ADVOCATING CALIFORNIA STATE SENATOR BUSTED FOR ARMS TRAFFICKING
Bob Walsh says: “I realize it might be a tad early, but I think we can safety call Yee an arrogant, hypocritical bastard under these circumstances. I will certainly enjoy doing so. Probably more than once. With luck we will be able to call him Former Senator / Now Convict Yee in the not too distant future.”
CALIFORNIA STATE SEN. LELAND YEE ARRESTED ON BRIBERY, ARMS DEALING CHARGES
CBS News
March 26, 2014
SAN FRANCISCO -- A California state senator who advocated gun control legislation asked for campaign donations in exchange for introducing an undercover FBI agent to an arms trafficker and told him how to get shoulder-fired automatic weapons and missiles from a Muslim separatist group in the Philippines, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday.
The allegations against state Sen. Leland Yee were outlined in an FBI affidavit in support of a criminal complaint. The affidavit accuses Yee of conspiracy to deal firearms without a license and to illegally import firearms. He was arrested Wednesday and appeared later in federal court, where bail was set at $500,000.
Yee's arrest came as a shock to Chinese-Americans who see the senator as a pioneering leader in the community and a mainstay of San Francisco politics, said David Lee, director of the Chinese American Voters Education Committee.
"That''s shocking news to me," San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said when asked about Yee's arrest, according to CBS San Francisco. "It's many years of public service so, I don't know what's occurred there ... I hope for the best."
Yee is also accused of accepting tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and cash payments to provide introductions, help a client get a contract and influence legislation. He or members of his campaign staff accepted at least $42,800 in cash or campaign contributions from undercover FBI agents in exchange for carrying out the agents' specific requests, the court documents allege.
Yee discussed helping the agent get weapons worth $500,000 to $2.5 million, including shoulder-fired automatic weapons and missiles, and took him through the entire process of acquiring them from a Muslim separatist group in the Philippines to bringing them to the United States, according to the affidavit by FBI Special Agent Emmanuel V. Pascua.
He was unhappy with his life and told the agent he wanted to hide out in the Philippines, according to the affidavit.
"There's a part of me that wants to be like you," he told the undercover agent, according to the affidavit. "You know how I'm going to be like you? Just be a free agent there."
The introduction with the trafficker took place at a San Francisco restaurant earlier this month, according to the documents. Yee said he wouldn't go to the Philippines until November.
"Once things start to move, it's going to attract attention. We just got to be extra-extra careful," he said, according to court documents.
The affidavit names Yee and 25 others, including Raymond Chow, a onetime gang leader with ties to San Francisco's Chinatown known as "Shrimp Boy," and Keith Jackson, Yee's campaign aide. Jackson is accused of multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud.
Chow and Yee were arrested Wednesday during a series of raids in Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area.
According to court documents, Yee performed "official acts" in exchange for donations from undercover FBI agents, as he sought to dig himself out of a $70,000 debt incurred during a failed San Francisco mayoral bid.
Yee is also accused of accepting $10,000 in January 2013 from an undercover FBI agent in exchange for making a call to the California Department of Public Health in support of a contract was considering.
The agent who discussed arms with Yee presented himself as a member of Ghee Kung Tong, a fraternal organization in San Francisco's Chinatown that Chow reportedly headed. It was among the sites searched Wednesday.
Firefighters were seen going inside with a circular saw and later said they had cracked a safe. FBI agents were seen coming out with boxes and trash bags full of evidence that they loaded into an SUV.
Chow is accused of money laundering, conspiracy to receive and transport stolen property and conspiracy to traffic contraband cigarettes.
Yee, 65, represents western San Francisco and much of San Mateo County. He is best known for his efforts to strengthen open records, government transparency and whistleblower protection laws.
Chow ran a Chinese criminal organization with ties to Hong Kong and was convicted of gun charges. But he had recently been held up as an example of successful rehabilitation and was praised for his work in the community.
A man was charged last year for threatening Yee over legislation that he proposed to limit rapid reloading of assault weapons. The bill would have prohibited the use of devices that allow users to swiftly reload military-style assault weapons. Lee also authored legislation that that would have required the state to study safe storage of firearms.
Chow acknowledged in an unpublished autobiography that he ran prostitution rings in the 1980s, smuggled drugs and extorted thousands from business owners as a Chinatown gang member, KGO-TV reported two years ago.
In 1992, Chow was among more than two-dozen people indicted on racketeering charges for their alleged involvement in crimes ranging from teenage prostitution to an international drug trade mostly involving heroin.
He was later convicted of gun charges and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. He spent 11 years in prison and was released in 2003 after he cut a deal with the government to testify against another high-ranking associate, Peter Chong. Chong was later convicted of racketeering.
Chow told KGO-TV in a 2012 interview that he had changed and was working with at-risk children in San Francisco.
CALIFORNIA STATE SEN. LELAND YEE ARRESTED ON BRIBERY, ARMS DEALING CHARGES
CBS News
March 26, 2014
SAN FRANCISCO -- A California state senator who advocated gun control legislation asked for campaign donations in exchange for introducing an undercover FBI agent to an arms trafficker and told him how to get shoulder-fired automatic weapons and missiles from a Muslim separatist group in the Philippines, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday.
The allegations against state Sen. Leland Yee were outlined in an FBI affidavit in support of a criminal complaint. The affidavit accuses Yee of conspiracy to deal firearms without a license and to illegally import firearms. He was arrested Wednesday and appeared later in federal court, where bail was set at $500,000.
Yee's arrest came as a shock to Chinese-Americans who see the senator as a pioneering leader in the community and a mainstay of San Francisco politics, said David Lee, director of the Chinese American Voters Education Committee.
"That''s shocking news to me," San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said when asked about Yee's arrest, according to CBS San Francisco. "It's many years of public service so, I don't know what's occurred there ... I hope for the best."
Yee is also accused of accepting tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and cash payments to provide introductions, help a client get a contract and influence legislation. He or members of his campaign staff accepted at least $42,800 in cash or campaign contributions from undercover FBI agents in exchange for carrying out the agents' specific requests, the court documents allege.
Yee discussed helping the agent get weapons worth $500,000 to $2.5 million, including shoulder-fired automatic weapons and missiles, and took him through the entire process of acquiring them from a Muslim separatist group in the Philippines to bringing them to the United States, according to the affidavit by FBI Special Agent Emmanuel V. Pascua.
He was unhappy with his life and told the agent he wanted to hide out in the Philippines, according to the affidavit.
"There's a part of me that wants to be like you," he told the undercover agent, according to the affidavit. "You know how I'm going to be like you? Just be a free agent there."
The introduction with the trafficker took place at a San Francisco restaurant earlier this month, according to the documents. Yee said he wouldn't go to the Philippines until November.
"Once things start to move, it's going to attract attention. We just got to be extra-extra careful," he said, according to court documents.
The affidavit names Yee and 25 others, including Raymond Chow, a onetime gang leader with ties to San Francisco's Chinatown known as "Shrimp Boy," and Keith Jackson, Yee's campaign aide. Jackson is accused of multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud.
Chow and Yee were arrested Wednesday during a series of raids in Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area.
According to court documents, Yee performed "official acts" in exchange for donations from undercover FBI agents, as he sought to dig himself out of a $70,000 debt incurred during a failed San Francisco mayoral bid.
Yee is also accused of accepting $10,000 in January 2013 from an undercover FBI agent in exchange for making a call to the California Department of Public Health in support of a contract was considering.
The agent who discussed arms with Yee presented himself as a member of Ghee Kung Tong, a fraternal organization in San Francisco's Chinatown that Chow reportedly headed. It was among the sites searched Wednesday.
Firefighters were seen going inside with a circular saw and later said they had cracked a safe. FBI agents were seen coming out with boxes and trash bags full of evidence that they loaded into an SUV.
Chow is accused of money laundering, conspiracy to receive and transport stolen property and conspiracy to traffic contraband cigarettes.
Yee, 65, represents western San Francisco and much of San Mateo County. He is best known for his efforts to strengthen open records, government transparency and whistleblower protection laws.
Chow ran a Chinese criminal organization with ties to Hong Kong and was convicted of gun charges. But he had recently been held up as an example of successful rehabilitation and was praised for his work in the community.
A man was charged last year for threatening Yee over legislation that he proposed to limit rapid reloading of assault weapons. The bill would have prohibited the use of devices that allow users to swiftly reload military-style assault weapons. Lee also authored legislation that that would have required the state to study safe storage of firearms.
Chow acknowledged in an unpublished autobiography that he ran prostitution rings in the 1980s, smuggled drugs and extorted thousands from business owners as a Chinatown gang member, KGO-TV reported two years ago.
In 1992, Chow was among more than two-dozen people indicted on racketeering charges for their alleged involvement in crimes ranging from teenage prostitution to an international drug trade mostly involving heroin.
He was later convicted of gun charges and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. He spent 11 years in prison and was released in 2003 after he cut a deal with the government to testify against another high-ranking associate, Peter Chong. Chong was later convicted of racketeering.
Chow told KGO-TV in a 2012 interview that he had changed and was working with at-risk children in San Francisco.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
JUDGES RULE NYC SCHOOL BOARD OVERREACTED AFTER TWO WOMEN TEACHERS WERE FOUND IN JAMES MADISON HS PARTIALLY UNDRESSED WITH ONE HAVING HER HEAD UP BETWEEN THE LEGS OF THE OTHER
Appellate judges order fired lesbian teachers restored to their jobs because they were consenting adults and no students saw them making whoopee
What could possibly be wrong with one partially undressed teacher having her head up between the legs of another partially undressed teacher in a darkened classroom? Apparently nothing in the eyes of some judges. The appellate division of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan overturned their firing by a stuffy Victorian NYC school board.
COURT ORDERS REHIRING OF 2 BROOKLYN TEACHERS IN MISCONDUCT CASE
By Ariel Kaminer
The New York Times
March 21, 2014
It was a November night in 2009 when Alina Brito, a Spanish teacher at James Madison High School in Brooklyn, and Cindy Mauro, a French teacher there, went out with a colleague to a neighborhood restaurant for dinner, and a cocktail or two.
They returned to watch a student musical performance in the auditorium, but they did not stay long. Before the first intermission, Ms. Brito and Ms. Mauro left the show, walking up two flights to Room 337, a classroom Ms. Mauro often taught in.
“They had left the door to the room unlocked, and the lights were out. What were they doing?” asked a judge in an animated court ruling in 2012.
A custodian heard noises, peered inside and, he said, saw a woman on the floor, topless. He alerted security. A school safety agent then barged into the room, the judge wrote, and “saw a brunette woman (Brito is dark haired) completely naked, lying on the floor” and “a blond woman (Mauro is light haired) also naked on top of the brunette.”
They instantly became the most famous teachers in New York City, winning their school the tabloid nickname of “Horndog High.” But though it all might have sounded like the stuff of overheated high school fantasy, it had some very grown-up consequences: They were fired.
Their case has gone through a series of twists, the latest this week, when an appeals court ruled, more than four years after the episode, that Ms. Brito and Ms. Mauro must be put back on the city’s payroll.
Given that they were consenting adults, that no students were harmed as a result of their actions and that they broke no laws, the appellate division of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan ruled that terminating their employment was “shockingly disproportionate” to the misconduct. Their “behavior demonstrated a lapse in judgment,” it continued, but “there is no evidence that this incident was anything but a one-time mistake.”
The five-judge panel added, “Indeed, lesser penalties have been imposed where a teacher had an ongoing relationship or engaged in inappropriate behavior with a student.”
During the initial arbitration process, Ms. Brito and Ms. Mauro argued that there had been no impropriety whatsoever. Ms. Brito — who had required medical attention in the past — said she was suffering from reactive hypoglycemia, and Ms. Mauro was attending to her by laying her down, getting her sugar packets and elevating her feet, they said. Other than a sweater, which had been repurposed as a pillow for Ms. Brito, they said they were both fully dressed. They lost.
When they appealed their dismissal in court, the judge overseeing Ms. Brito’s case ruled that her offense did not warrant termination. The judge also ruled that Ms. Brito had been deprived of due process, because a surveillance tape showing the hallway outside the classroom, which could have shed light on the witnesses’ account, had been erased.
The judge overseeing Ms. Mauro’s case came to the opposite conclusion, however, upholding the arbitrator’s decision that she should be fired.
Barring an appeal, this week’s ruling, reported Friday by The New York Post, means both teachers’ cases will be sent back to arbitration for a lesser penalty, which could include a reprimand, suspension or fine.
In a statement, the city’s Law Department said lawyers were considering their options.
Both women are off the payroll, though they are likely to receive back pay if the ruling stands. An Education Department spokesman could not say if the teachers would be allowed back into classrooms.
Michael A. Valentin, a lawyer for the women, did not respond to messages left Friday.
What could possibly be wrong with one partially undressed teacher having her head up between the legs of another partially undressed teacher in a darkened classroom? Apparently nothing in the eyes of some judges. The appellate division of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan overturned their firing by a stuffy Victorian NYC school board.
COURT ORDERS REHIRING OF 2 BROOKLYN TEACHERS IN MISCONDUCT CASE
By Ariel Kaminer
The New York Times
March 21, 2014
It was a November night in 2009 when Alina Brito, a Spanish teacher at James Madison High School in Brooklyn, and Cindy Mauro, a French teacher there, went out with a colleague to a neighborhood restaurant for dinner, and a cocktail or two.
They returned to watch a student musical performance in the auditorium, but they did not stay long. Before the first intermission, Ms. Brito and Ms. Mauro left the show, walking up two flights to Room 337, a classroom Ms. Mauro often taught in.
“They had left the door to the room unlocked, and the lights were out. What were they doing?” asked a judge in an animated court ruling in 2012.
A custodian heard noises, peered inside and, he said, saw a woman on the floor, topless. He alerted security. A school safety agent then barged into the room, the judge wrote, and “saw a brunette woman (Brito is dark haired) completely naked, lying on the floor” and “a blond woman (Mauro is light haired) also naked on top of the brunette.”
They instantly became the most famous teachers in New York City, winning their school the tabloid nickname of “Horndog High.” But though it all might have sounded like the stuff of overheated high school fantasy, it had some very grown-up consequences: They were fired.
Their case has gone through a series of twists, the latest this week, when an appeals court ruled, more than four years after the episode, that Ms. Brito and Ms. Mauro must be put back on the city’s payroll.
Given that they were consenting adults, that no students were harmed as a result of their actions and that they broke no laws, the appellate division of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan ruled that terminating their employment was “shockingly disproportionate” to the misconduct. Their “behavior demonstrated a lapse in judgment,” it continued, but “there is no evidence that this incident was anything but a one-time mistake.”
The five-judge panel added, “Indeed, lesser penalties have been imposed where a teacher had an ongoing relationship or engaged in inappropriate behavior with a student.”
During the initial arbitration process, Ms. Brito and Ms. Mauro argued that there had been no impropriety whatsoever. Ms. Brito — who had required medical attention in the past — said she was suffering from reactive hypoglycemia, and Ms. Mauro was attending to her by laying her down, getting her sugar packets and elevating her feet, they said. Other than a sweater, which had been repurposed as a pillow for Ms. Brito, they said they were both fully dressed. They lost.
When they appealed their dismissal in court, the judge overseeing Ms. Brito’s case ruled that her offense did not warrant termination. The judge also ruled that Ms. Brito had been deprived of due process, because a surveillance tape showing the hallway outside the classroom, which could have shed light on the witnesses’ account, had been erased.
The judge overseeing Ms. Mauro’s case came to the opposite conclusion, however, upholding the arbitrator’s decision that she should be fired.
Barring an appeal, this week’s ruling, reported Friday by The New York Post, means both teachers’ cases will be sent back to arbitration for a lesser penalty, which could include a reprimand, suspension or fine.
In a statement, the city’s Law Department said lawyers were considering their options.
Both women are off the payroll, though they are likely to receive back pay if the ruling stands. An Education Department spokesman could not say if the teachers would be allowed back into classrooms.
Michael A. Valentin, a lawyer for the women, did not respond to messages left Friday.
TEXAS POLICE OFFICER RESPONDS TO ILLEGAL PARKING TICKET PLACED ON COP CAR BY 14-YEAR-OLD GIRL
I nominate Officer Tommy King for Baytown ‘Police Officer of the Year’ because of the way he handled this case.
TEEN TICKETS BAYTOWN OFFICER FOR VIOLATION
Teen spots patrol car parked on curb painted red designated as a 'no parking' zone
By Jennifer Bauer
Click2Houston.com
March 21, 2014
BAYTOWN, Texas - A Baytown teenager turned the tables on a police officer when she wrote him a ticket.
Annie James, 14, lives at the Bay Oaks Apartment complex. She got upset when she spotted a patrol car parked on a curb that was painted red and was designated as a "no parking" zone.
"He was parked on the side of the building," James said. "It said it was a fire lane all the way around."
Officer Tommy King, with the Baytown Police Department, patrols the apartment complex and keeps the criminals away. On this particular day, he parked his car next to the leasing office.
"I came to get my car and I saw a piece of paper on my windshield," King said. "I took it off, read it and started laughing."
James told King in her note that he was in violation for parking in a fire lane, parking on a curb and for backing into the spot.
The apartment complex requires all residents to pull "head first" into spots when parking, a rule that is clearly stated all over the property.
James asked the officer to pay a $10 fine to the manager.
"I thought it was neat that she made it for $10 but she didn't make it to herself," said King.
At that moment he decided he was going to pay up, but in a better way. He bought James a $20 gift card to Toys "R" Us. The store matched his contribution and put in $20, too.
"He gave me a $40 gift card to Toys 'R' Us," James said. "I was excited, really excited."
James told Local 2 she has never been to Toys "R" Us before. She just moved to Baytown one month ago with her dad and older brother.
"Turns out we're both from Alabama," said King. "And we ended up in Texas. We talked and now I have a new friend."
James said she was only kidding when she wrote King the note but King appreciated her humor and said there's a lot to be learned from this.
"I would say the lesson is not to be afraid of law enforcement, we're here to help," he said. "From the officer's side of things, we learn not to take ourselves so seriously. There's a lot of responsibility and power that comes with a badge but every once in a while we can step back and say, 'You know what, a lot of these people we're protecting, not everyone is a bad guy.'"
TEEN TICKETS BAYTOWN OFFICER FOR VIOLATION
Teen spots patrol car parked on curb painted red designated as a 'no parking' zone
By Jennifer Bauer
Click2Houston.com
March 21, 2014
BAYTOWN, Texas - A Baytown teenager turned the tables on a police officer when she wrote him a ticket.
Annie James, 14, lives at the Bay Oaks Apartment complex. She got upset when she spotted a patrol car parked on a curb that was painted red and was designated as a "no parking" zone.
"He was parked on the side of the building," James said. "It said it was a fire lane all the way around."
Officer Tommy King, with the Baytown Police Department, patrols the apartment complex and keeps the criminals away. On this particular day, he parked his car next to the leasing office.
"I came to get my car and I saw a piece of paper on my windshield," King said. "I took it off, read it and started laughing."
James told King in her note that he was in violation for parking in a fire lane, parking on a curb and for backing into the spot.
The apartment complex requires all residents to pull "head first" into spots when parking, a rule that is clearly stated all over the property.
James asked the officer to pay a $10 fine to the manager.
"I thought it was neat that she made it for $10 but she didn't make it to herself," said King.
At that moment he decided he was going to pay up, but in a better way. He bought James a $20 gift card to Toys "R" Us. The store matched his contribution and put in $20, too.
"He gave me a $40 gift card to Toys 'R' Us," James said. "I was excited, really excited."
James told Local 2 she has never been to Toys "R" Us before. She just moved to Baytown one month ago with her dad and older brother.
"Turns out we're both from Alabama," said King. "And we ended up in Texas. We talked and now I have a new friend."
James said she was only kidding when she wrote King the note but King appreciated her humor and said there's a lot to be learned from this.
"I would say the lesson is not to be afraid of law enforcement, we're here to help," he said. "From the officer's side of things, we learn not to take ourselves so seriously. There's a lot of responsibility and power that comes with a badge but every once in a while we can step back and say, 'You know what, a lot of these people we're protecting, not everyone is a bad guy.'"
FLORIDA POLICE SERGEANT PRETENDING TO BE A TEEN GIRL SOLICITS BOYS FOR SEX ON FACEBOOK
If I were this creep’s lawyer, I would claim he was just doing his job of protecting society by conducting an undercover sting operation to take dangerous young sex-crazed boys off the streets.
COP, 30, WHO USED TO WORK IN SCHOOLS, ‘POSES AS A TEENAGE GIRL ON FACEBOOK SO HE COULD GET NAKED PHOTOS OF BOYS AND SOLICIT CHILDREN FOR SEX
Posing as a girl, Sgt. Michael Gerard Stavris contacted teenage boys and asked them to send nude photos of themselves, promising sexual favors for sexually explicit pictures
Mail Online
March 26, 2014
A Florida police officer was arrested Tuesday night after allegedly posing as a teenage girl on Facebook in order to get photographs of naked boys.
Michael Gerard Stavris II, 30, of Palm Coast, was arrested on two counts of computer pornography under the child exploitation prevention act and one count of criminal use of personal identification information.
The arrest was a long time coming. According to officials, the police sergeant had been posing as a girl for more than a year.
According to the felony warrant issued March 25, Stavris allegedly created a fictitious profile on Facebook profile of a 16-year-old girl on November 25, 2012.
Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents began investigating Stavris in December 2013 after receiving a complaint.
Stavris allegedly created a fraudulent Facebook account using someone else's image in order to pose as a teenage girl.
Agents said he used the fake account to solicit teenage boys and then began to turn the conversations into those of a sexual nature before requesting sexually explicit photos.
The 6-foot-3, 400-pound man promised to perform oral sex on his victims in exchange for the pictures and even sent a picture of a woman's breasts to one victim.
The officer befriended at least 30 teenagers in the process, some of whom attended Flagler Palm Coast High School, where Stavris graduated from in 2002.
Posing as a girl, he asked for pictures of their penises. After the victims sent the photos, 'she' promised to perform oral sex behind their schools.
The affidavit said that in one case, a student was asked to meet if he would send the 'girl' a picture of his genitals.
According to the arrest report, he would solicit the male victims through the Facebook page and discuss what sexual acts they had committed. The page had between 30 to 40 friends younger than 18.
Stavris, a sergeant with the Bunnell Police Department, was arrested at the Bunnell City Hall, where all of the government offices are located.
He was booked and then released on a $125,000 bond. The charges carry a penalty of five years in jail.
'We will do everything in our power to see that all potential victims are identified and this person is charged with each crime that's committed,' said Dennis Bustle, special agent in charge of the FDLE's Jacksonville regional office.
Stavris worked as a patrol officer for the Duval County school system from October 2009 to July 2010, school officials said.
His job began after school hours were over and involved patrolling and responding to school-related calls citywide,
Before becoming a police officer, Stavris worked for the Flagler County school system from 2000 to 2006 teaching activities and safety to children through the eighth grade, said his Duval County school board personnel file.
COP, 30, WHO USED TO WORK IN SCHOOLS, ‘POSES AS A TEENAGE GIRL ON FACEBOOK SO HE COULD GET NAKED PHOTOS OF BOYS AND SOLICIT CHILDREN FOR SEX
Posing as a girl, Sgt. Michael Gerard Stavris contacted teenage boys and asked them to send nude photos of themselves, promising sexual favors for sexually explicit pictures
Mail Online
March 26, 2014
A Florida police officer was arrested Tuesday night after allegedly posing as a teenage girl on Facebook in order to get photographs of naked boys.
Michael Gerard Stavris II, 30, of Palm Coast, was arrested on two counts of computer pornography under the child exploitation prevention act and one count of criminal use of personal identification information.
The arrest was a long time coming. According to officials, the police sergeant had been posing as a girl for more than a year.
According to the felony warrant issued March 25, Stavris allegedly created a fictitious profile on Facebook profile of a 16-year-old girl on November 25, 2012.
Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents began investigating Stavris in December 2013 after receiving a complaint.
Stavris allegedly created a fraudulent Facebook account using someone else's image in order to pose as a teenage girl.
Agents said he used the fake account to solicit teenage boys and then began to turn the conversations into those of a sexual nature before requesting sexually explicit photos.
The 6-foot-3, 400-pound man promised to perform oral sex on his victims in exchange for the pictures and even sent a picture of a woman's breasts to one victim.
The officer befriended at least 30 teenagers in the process, some of whom attended Flagler Palm Coast High School, where Stavris graduated from in 2002.
Posing as a girl, he asked for pictures of their penises. After the victims sent the photos, 'she' promised to perform oral sex behind their schools.
The affidavit said that in one case, a student was asked to meet if he would send the 'girl' a picture of his genitals.
According to the arrest report, he would solicit the male victims through the Facebook page and discuss what sexual acts they had committed. The page had between 30 to 40 friends younger than 18.
Stavris, a sergeant with the Bunnell Police Department, was arrested at the Bunnell City Hall, where all of the government offices are located.
He was booked and then released on a $125,000 bond. The charges carry a penalty of five years in jail.
'We will do everything in our power to see that all potential victims are identified and this person is charged with each crime that's committed,' said Dennis Bustle, special agent in charge of the FDLE's Jacksonville regional office.
Stavris worked as a patrol officer for the Duval County school system from October 2009 to July 2010, school officials said.
His job began after school hours were over and involved patrolling and responding to school-related calls citywide,
Before becoming a police officer, Stavris worked for the Flagler County school system from 2000 to 2006 teaching activities and safety to children through the eighth grade, said his Duval County school board personnel file.
RELEASED FROM PRISON, ROBS SAME STORE, SAME CLERK
One day after his release from a New Jersey prison, the robber strides right into the same Stride Rite shoe store and holds up the same clerk he robbed 15 years earlier
In 1999, Christopher Miller, then 25, strides right into a Stride Rite shoe store in Tom River, New Jersey. He robbed the store by threatening the female clerks with a box cutter. He forced the employees into a rear storage room and tied them up before leaving with the store’s cash. Miller was quickly caught and ended up being sentenced to 15 years in prison for the shoe store robbery and some other crimes.
On Friday, Miller now 40 was released from prison. On Saturday, he strides right into the same Stride Rite store. The store manager recognized him right away because she was one of the clerks he robbed 15 years earlier. The two employees refused Miller’s demands for them to hand over their car keys and go to the back of the store. An angry Miller ripped out the store’s cash register drawer and took off with $389 in cash and the cellphones belonging to the two employees.
Unfortunately for the same old, same old Miller, a cop caught him just a few blocks away. He had discarded the cellphones in a garbage can and had stuffed the cash inside a storm drain. He is being held in Ocean County jail on $100,000 bail.
A New Jersey state correctional employee said, “The guy is either really stupid or he just really likes it in jail.” I think it’s probably both.
In 1999, Christopher Miller, then 25, strides right into a Stride Rite shoe store in Tom River, New Jersey. He robbed the store by threatening the female clerks with a box cutter. He forced the employees into a rear storage room and tied them up before leaving with the store’s cash. Miller was quickly caught and ended up being sentenced to 15 years in prison for the shoe store robbery and some other crimes.
On Friday, Miller now 40 was released from prison. On Saturday, he strides right into the same Stride Rite store. The store manager recognized him right away because she was one of the clerks he robbed 15 years earlier. The two employees refused Miller’s demands for them to hand over their car keys and go to the back of the store. An angry Miller ripped out the store’s cash register drawer and took off with $389 in cash and the cellphones belonging to the two employees.
Unfortunately for the same old, same old Miller, a cop caught him just a few blocks away. He had discarded the cellphones in a garbage can and had stuffed the cash inside a storm drain. He is being held in Ocean County jail on $100,000 bail.
A New Jersey state correctional employee said, “The guy is either really stupid or he just really likes it in jail.” I think it’s probably both.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
FIRE A COP FOR UTTERING A RACIAL SLUR?
LAPD cop’s firing for using a racial slur and lying about it is overturned by Chief Charlie Beck
On January 14, 2012, Shaun Hillman, an off-duty L.A. cop, and his wife were at the Maverick Saloon in Norco when shortly before the 2 a.m. closing time he got into a scuffle with a black man. His wife had been dancing with the man and suddenly pushed him away. She told her husband that the man had groped her breasts. Hillman then got into a shoving match with the man before a bouncer and the bar’s manager evicted him from the bar. During the scuffle Hillman used a racial slur which was subsequently reported to LAPD.
When questioned about the incident by his superiors, Hillman denied he used any racial slur. LAPD had an audio recording of him uttering the racial slur and several witnesses told investigators they heard him using it. LAPD administrators recommended Hillman be fired. In January of this year a disciplinary board voted unanimously to terminate him. Police Chief Charlie Beck overruled the board and suspended Hillman for 65 days instead.
Chief Beck has been accused of showing favoritism to Hillman because his father is a retired L.A. police officer and Michael Hillman, his uncle, is a former LAPD deputy chief. Beck, who served alongside Michael Hillman, denied he showed the nephew any favoritism, saying that he bases disciplinary decisions on the gravity of an officer’s misconduct, his disciplinary history and his job performance. Hillman had a clean record and had received several commendations.
My question is: Should a cop be fired for using a racial slur? I’ll answer that question with two other questions. Is there anyone who has not used a racial or ethnic slur at some time or another? Is there anyone who is not prejudiced to one extent or another against a racial, ethnic, religious or gender group? If there is someone out there who has never used a racial or ethnic slur and/or is not prejudiced against some group, he must surely be able to walk on water.
As for Hillman and his wife, I wonder how much they had to drink before she got groped and he got into that scuffle? I suspect that he is not a racist because all he did was shove the man. Had he been a racist, he would never have allowed his wife to dance with a black man. He uttered the slur out of anger, not as a result of prejudice. A racist would probably have killed a black man for groping his wife’s breasts.
Hillman deserved to be disciplined, but not for using a racial slur while off-duty. His sin was lying to his superiors. And a 65-day suspension is a pretty hefty punishment for what he did, especially since he had a clean record and was the recipient of several commendations.
As for cops using racial slurs, it has been my experience that they are used quite frequently, and that includes black officers using the ‘N’ word. What police administrators need to be concerned about is the possibility of an officer mistreating minorities because of his prejudices. That kind of behavior cannot be tolerated and calls for his expulsion from the police force.
On January 14, 2012, Shaun Hillman, an off-duty L.A. cop, and his wife were at the Maverick Saloon in Norco when shortly before the 2 a.m. closing time he got into a scuffle with a black man. His wife had been dancing with the man and suddenly pushed him away. She told her husband that the man had groped her breasts. Hillman then got into a shoving match with the man before a bouncer and the bar’s manager evicted him from the bar. During the scuffle Hillman used a racial slur which was subsequently reported to LAPD.
When questioned about the incident by his superiors, Hillman denied he used any racial slur. LAPD had an audio recording of him uttering the racial slur and several witnesses told investigators they heard him using it. LAPD administrators recommended Hillman be fired. In January of this year a disciplinary board voted unanimously to terminate him. Police Chief Charlie Beck overruled the board and suspended Hillman for 65 days instead.
Chief Beck has been accused of showing favoritism to Hillman because his father is a retired L.A. police officer and Michael Hillman, his uncle, is a former LAPD deputy chief. Beck, who served alongside Michael Hillman, denied he showed the nephew any favoritism, saying that he bases disciplinary decisions on the gravity of an officer’s misconduct, his disciplinary history and his job performance. Hillman had a clean record and had received several commendations.
My question is: Should a cop be fired for using a racial slur? I’ll answer that question with two other questions. Is there anyone who has not used a racial or ethnic slur at some time or another? Is there anyone who is not prejudiced to one extent or another against a racial, ethnic, religious or gender group? If there is someone out there who has never used a racial or ethnic slur and/or is not prejudiced against some group, he must surely be able to walk on water.
As for Hillman and his wife, I wonder how much they had to drink before she got groped and he got into that scuffle? I suspect that he is not a racist because all he did was shove the man. Had he been a racist, he would never have allowed his wife to dance with a black man. He uttered the slur out of anger, not as a result of prejudice. A racist would probably have killed a black man for groping his wife’s breasts.
Hillman deserved to be disciplined, but not for using a racial slur while off-duty. His sin was lying to his superiors. And a 65-day suspension is a pretty hefty punishment for what he did, especially since he had a clean record and was the recipient of several commendations.
As for cops using racial slurs, it has been my experience that they are used quite frequently, and that includes black officers using the ‘N’ word. What police administrators need to be concerned about is the possibility of an officer mistreating minorities because of his prejudices. That kind of behavior cannot be tolerated and calls for his expulsion from the police force.
RACE HUSLERS MAKE A BIG LIVING PORTRAYING BLACKS AS VICTIMS
Bill O’Reilly says race hustlers don’t want to solve inner-city poverty because it keeps them in power
While O’Reilly was addressing his remarks at U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee and likeminded politicians, he could have easily included poverty pimps Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson in the lot.
O’REILLY: ‘RACE HUSTLERS’ DON’T WANT TO END POVERTY
By Greg Richter
Newsmax
March 25, 2014
Rep. Paul Ryan says he has no ill will toward Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee, who accused him of racism after he criticized inner-city poverty.
"I'm a big boy. I understand that if you challenge the status quo . . . sometimes you'll be misinterpreted," Ryan said Tuesday on Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor."
But host Bill O'Reilly was not so forgiving, saying people such as Lee don't want to solve the problem because it keeps them in power. Instead, he said, they accuse Republicans of racism when they suggest the problem is tied to the breakdown of the family.
"These race hustlers make a big living and they get voted into office by portraying their constituents as victims," O'Reilly said. "And it's all your fault and it's my fault. It's the rich people's fault. It's the Republicans' fault."
People can't find jobs because there is no stability in their lives "and they grow up with no skills, and they can't read and speak, and they have tattoos on their neck, and they can't compete in the marketplace." O'Reilly said. "And if you say that, you're a racist."
While O’Reilly was addressing his remarks at U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee and likeminded politicians, he could have easily included poverty pimps Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson in the lot.
O’REILLY: ‘RACE HUSTLERS’ DON’T WANT TO END POVERTY
By Greg Richter
Newsmax
March 25, 2014
Rep. Paul Ryan says he has no ill will toward Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee, who accused him of racism after he criticized inner-city poverty.
"I'm a big boy. I understand that if you challenge the status quo . . . sometimes you'll be misinterpreted," Ryan said Tuesday on Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor."
But host Bill O'Reilly was not so forgiving, saying people such as Lee don't want to solve the problem because it keeps them in power. Instead, he said, they accuse Republicans of racism when they suggest the problem is tied to the breakdown of the family.
"These race hustlers make a big living and they get voted into office by portraying their constituents as victims," O'Reilly said. "And it's all your fault and it's my fault. It's the rich people's fault. It's the Republicans' fault."
People can't find jobs because there is no stability in their lives "and they grow up with no skills, and they can't read and speak, and they have tattoos on their neck, and they can't compete in the marketplace." O'Reilly said. "And if you say that, you're a racist."
LAWSUIT BY ‘SEX VICTIM’ AGAINST TEXAS TEACHER AND SCHOOL DISTRICT SHOULD BE TOSSED
Young man claims he was emotionally and physically damaged to the extent that he could not enter the Marine Corps because his teacher had sex with him
Now this is what I call a Chutzpah Lawsuit. The lucky bastard has the nerve to file this phony lawsuit. A judge should toss the suit forthwith and hold the lawyer who filed it in contempt of court.
And if getting lucky with his teacher so traumatized him that it delayed his plans to join the Marine Corps, he doesn’t deserve to be a U.S. Marine.
TEACHER, DISTRICT SUED OVER SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP
By Elizabeth Campbell
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
March 24, 2014
A former student is suing the Eagle Mountain-Saginaw school district and a former forensic science teacher alleging that he suffered emotional and physical damage during a sexual relationship with the teacher.
Mark Smith — a pseudonym to protect the student’s privacy — alleged in a lawsuit filed Friday in Tarrant County civil court that Rachelle Heenan took advantage of his immature and underdeveloped mental state of mind when she repeatedly engaged the boy in sexual encounters during school events, in various hotels and in her vehicle.
Heenan was placed on administrative leave in May 2012, and was indicted in February 2013 on a charge of an improper relationship between an educator and student. She was given five years of deferred adjudicated probation in a plea bargain agreement, according to the Tarrant County district attorney’s office. She also voluntarily relinquished her teaching certificate.
Bobbie Edmonds, an attorney for the former student, said that the relationship with Heenan damaged Smith mentally and emotionally and that it has also delayed his plans to begin his career in the Marine Corps.
“He was mentally impacted by what happened,” Edmonds said. “He was impressionable, and there was the age difference and the fact that she was a teacher.” she said.
Heenan was 34 at the time of the illegal relationship with the student. She did not return calls seeking comment
Kristin Courtney, a spokeswoman for the Eagle Mountain-Saginaw district, said the district obtained a copy of the lawsuit but could not comment.
“We are not able to comment on any pending litigation, so therefore are not able to speak about the lawsuit,” she said.
Court documents described how the relationship began when Smith, then 17 and a minor, was a student at the district’s Hollenstein Career and Technology Center during his senior year, when he was preparing for a career as a diesel mechanic in the Marine Corps. He was to enter the military a day after graduation in June 2012.
In February 2012, Heenan and Smith met in her forensic science class and soon began sending elicit text messages. The “sexting” continued, and the relationship soon escalated to the point where Heenan and Smith met in a private gym parking lot and also checked in to a hotel, where they had sex.
Edmonds alleges that Heenan took advantage of his self-confidence, immaturity and dependency issues and “assaulted, raped and battered him in her capacity of teacher/educator, in violation of the law,” according to court documents.
The suit also described how the boy damaged school district property in excess of $24,000. Edmonds declined to discuss what the student did out of concern that he might be identified but said the emotional trauma of what happened led the former student to cause the damage.
The Saginaw district also “failed to provide proper supervision, failed to act to warn or otherwise protect young victims and failed to secure the school premises from the sexual assaults that occurred on school premises and at school sponsored events and activities,” the lawsuit states.
Now this is what I call a Chutzpah Lawsuit. The lucky bastard has the nerve to file this phony lawsuit. A judge should toss the suit forthwith and hold the lawyer who filed it in contempt of court.
And if getting lucky with his teacher so traumatized him that it delayed his plans to join the Marine Corps, he doesn’t deserve to be a U.S. Marine.
TEACHER, DISTRICT SUED OVER SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP
By Elizabeth Campbell
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
March 24, 2014
A former student is suing the Eagle Mountain-Saginaw school district and a former forensic science teacher alleging that he suffered emotional and physical damage during a sexual relationship with the teacher.
Mark Smith — a pseudonym to protect the student’s privacy — alleged in a lawsuit filed Friday in Tarrant County civil court that Rachelle Heenan took advantage of his immature and underdeveloped mental state of mind when she repeatedly engaged the boy in sexual encounters during school events, in various hotels and in her vehicle.
Heenan was placed on administrative leave in May 2012, and was indicted in February 2013 on a charge of an improper relationship between an educator and student. She was given five years of deferred adjudicated probation in a plea bargain agreement, according to the Tarrant County district attorney’s office. She also voluntarily relinquished her teaching certificate.
Bobbie Edmonds, an attorney for the former student, said that the relationship with Heenan damaged Smith mentally and emotionally and that it has also delayed his plans to begin his career in the Marine Corps.
“He was mentally impacted by what happened,” Edmonds said. “He was impressionable, and there was the age difference and the fact that she was a teacher.” she said.
Heenan was 34 at the time of the illegal relationship with the student. She did not return calls seeking comment
Kristin Courtney, a spokeswoman for the Eagle Mountain-Saginaw district, said the district obtained a copy of the lawsuit but could not comment.
“We are not able to comment on any pending litigation, so therefore are not able to speak about the lawsuit,” she said.
Court documents described how the relationship began when Smith, then 17 and a minor, was a student at the district’s Hollenstein Career and Technology Center during his senior year, when he was preparing for a career as a diesel mechanic in the Marine Corps. He was to enter the military a day after graduation in June 2012.
In February 2012, Heenan and Smith met in her forensic science class and soon began sending elicit text messages. The “sexting” continued, and the relationship soon escalated to the point where Heenan and Smith met in a private gym parking lot and also checked in to a hotel, where they had sex.
Edmonds alleges that Heenan took advantage of his self-confidence, immaturity and dependency issues and “assaulted, raped and battered him in her capacity of teacher/educator, in violation of the law,” according to court documents.
The suit also described how the boy damaged school district property in excess of $24,000. Edmonds declined to discuss what the student did out of concern that he might be identified but said the emotional trauma of what happened led the former student to cause the damage.
The Saginaw district also “failed to provide proper supervision, failed to act to warn or otherwise protect young victims and failed to secure the school premises from the sexual assaults that occurred on school premises and at school sponsored events and activities,” the lawsuit states.
MS VICTIM BRUTALLY RAPED, IGNORED BY HOSPITAL AND COPS
She got short shrift from the first hospital she went to and the cops, who asked her if she was a prostitute and drug addict, did not take the rape seriously for 18 days after she reported it
There is absolutely not excuse for the shameful treatment this multiple sclerosis victim received from the Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center in Hamilton, New Jersey and the Trenton Police Department. Heads should roll over this incident, but instead the hospital and police are coming up with excuses and bragging about their outstanding records.
ALLEGED NEW JERSEY RAPE VICTIM SAYS PLEAS FOR HELP WERE IGNORED
An alleged rape victim says her cries for help were all but ignored by bystanders who would not call 911 and later by Trenton police and the Mercer County Prosecutor’s office who she claims waited weeks before taking her rape report seriously
By Jonathan Dienst, Hilary Weissman and Fred Mamoun
NBC 4 New York
March 25, 2014
A woman with multiple sclerosis says she was knocked out by strangers on a New Jersey street and taken to an abandoned house where she was beaten and raped, and claims that authorities did not take her rape report seriously for weeks.
The alleged victim, who asked to be identified only as Kris, said she fell asleep on a bus on Dec. 5 and wound up lost in downtown Trenton. She got off the bus and tried to look for her route back home to Hamilton when a man began to follow her. Then everything went black, she said.
She woke up inside an abandoned house on Farragut Avenue, on a mattress on the floor, surrounded by dishes and garbage.
“You know when you get a new mattress and it has that plastic sheet on it? I remember that, and my leg hitting plates and dishes and you heard clinking sounds or whatever, and someone was on top of me,” Kris told NBC 4 New York.
She said one of the two men was extremely violent, continuously striking her face and covering her mouth.
The suspects eventually fled. Kris stumbled out onto the street bleeding, her jaw broken and hanging inside her skin. She tried to speak and ask for help.
“Three or four people I first saw, and they wouldn’t give me the time of day," said Kris. "And then I saw four people across the street and … they told me to go away."
She limped for more than a mile and eventually stumbled into Mario and Frank’s Pizzeria along Nottingham Way. Pizzeria owner Frank Colella recalls Kris walking in "shaking, crying, bleeding."
"It was a mess,” he said.
Colella said his workers called 911, and Kris was taken by ambulance to Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center in Hamilton.
At the hospital, a sexual assault nurse performed a rape exam and a Hamilton police detective took preliminary information. Hours later, on the morning of Dec. 6, Kris, a Medicaid patient, was discharged from RWJ and sent home with instructions to go see an oral surgeon.
“This wasn’t just a cut on her hand or a sprain of her ankle. She had five fractures of her face,” said Kris’s mom. “It’s wrong. It’s totally wrong. If it was their family member they would not have sent her home.”
Kris eventually turned to a hospital in Neptune to undergo multiple surgeries to repair her jaw.
In a statement, an RWJ spokesman defended the hospital’s reputation but said it is now conducting a full review of the matter.
“RWJH has a solid reputation for quality health care and patient comfort. And, although we may differ on any claims made, we believe that no patient should have such a negative view of their care at RWJUHH,” the hospital said.
“That is why we have undertaken a thorough review of the facts and continue to reach out to this patient to confidentially discuss those concerns.”
In the meantime, the police investigation that began with a meeting at Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center would be volleyed from Hamilton's police department over to Trenton's because the attack had taken place inside the Trenton city line. Kris and her mother say the first formal police interview about the attack took place on Dec. 23, and a Trenton detective and a Mercer County Prosecutor investigator questioned whether Kris was a prostitute and a drug addict, she said.
She told them that she was a multiple sclerosis patient on a medical pain patch prescribed by her doctor in part for a spine injury she suffered from an MS-related seizure. Her longtime doctor confirmed to NBC 4 New York he'd prescribed a narcotics patch, Fentanyl, due to the injury.
Kris says she gave a detailed account of what she remembered about the rape, but says the detectives began a hostile form of questioning and that they treated it like "it was a big joke and a waste of time."
“When he asked his partner if there was one question they would like to ask, the one and only question he could come up with, out of everything in the book, was: ‘Did you voluntarily pull down the man’s pants before he raped you?’" said Kris.
“They tag-teamed," said Kris. "'Was I out there soliciting? Was I out there buying drugs? Why did I get off the bus at that spot?'"
Kris’s mom said the detectives kept pressing her about her daughter’s illness.
“'You sure about her MS?' That’s all they kept asking me," said Kris' mother. "'Are you sure she didn’t fall and this isn’t MS?' They wanted to turn everything around, make her the victim all over again, and it was crap. Plain and simple crap. They didn’t want to do their job.”
Records show Kris has no criminal history for drugs or prostitution. She had one past shoplifting case where charges were later dismissed.
Trenton police vigorously deny mistreating the family. In a separate statement, the office of Mercer County Prosecutor Joseph Bocchini said that detectives waited until Kris was out of the hospital on Jan. 9 to do an official interview about the Dec. 5 attack because of her multiple surgeries and complications from them, and that Kris' family had repeatedly turned away investigators until that date.
Kris' family denies that claim and points out that detectives visited her in the hospital on Dec. 23.
The prosecutor’s office said the rape kit taken on Dec. 5 was sent out for testing on Jan. 2. Sperm and pubic hairs were discovered, but DNA results are still not in.
In a statement Tuesday, one day after NBC 4 New York's initial report aired, the Mercer County prosecutor's office said it was expediting analysis of the DNA and expects "a result will be returned by the end of this week."
A spokeswoman added that a sample put into a national database -- or CODIS system -- will be returned next week.
Hal Sherman, a retired NYPD crime scene detective who's investigated more than 2,000 cases in his career, says in cases like this, offenders often have committed previous crimes and their DNA could be in a computer database. He said the DNA profile could have been sent and returned in a matter of days to try to identify any potential suspects.
“The longer it takes in order to solve this case, which really does seem to be a forensic case, the longer it takes to get the bad guys off the street,” Sherman said.
He also wondered why testing wasn't expedited in the first place for a multiple sclerosis patient who was allegedly gang-raped.
New Jersey state attorney general John Hoffman said Tuesday he would look into why the DNA sample was not processed sooner.
Kris’s mother remains angry.
“You go to the police for help, you go to the hospital for help, you expect help from your fellow citizen some way and she got no help all the way around. None," she said.
There is absolutely not excuse for the shameful treatment this multiple sclerosis victim received from the Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center in Hamilton, New Jersey and the Trenton Police Department. Heads should roll over this incident, but instead the hospital and police are coming up with excuses and bragging about their outstanding records.
ALLEGED NEW JERSEY RAPE VICTIM SAYS PLEAS FOR HELP WERE IGNORED
An alleged rape victim says her cries for help were all but ignored by bystanders who would not call 911 and later by Trenton police and the Mercer County Prosecutor’s office who she claims waited weeks before taking her rape report seriously
By Jonathan Dienst, Hilary Weissman and Fred Mamoun
NBC 4 New York
March 25, 2014
A woman with multiple sclerosis says she was knocked out by strangers on a New Jersey street and taken to an abandoned house where she was beaten and raped, and claims that authorities did not take her rape report seriously for weeks.
The alleged victim, who asked to be identified only as Kris, said she fell asleep on a bus on Dec. 5 and wound up lost in downtown Trenton. She got off the bus and tried to look for her route back home to Hamilton when a man began to follow her. Then everything went black, she said.
She woke up inside an abandoned house on Farragut Avenue, on a mattress on the floor, surrounded by dishes and garbage.
“You know when you get a new mattress and it has that plastic sheet on it? I remember that, and my leg hitting plates and dishes and you heard clinking sounds or whatever, and someone was on top of me,” Kris told NBC 4 New York.
She said one of the two men was extremely violent, continuously striking her face and covering her mouth.
The suspects eventually fled. Kris stumbled out onto the street bleeding, her jaw broken and hanging inside her skin. She tried to speak and ask for help.
“Three or four people I first saw, and they wouldn’t give me the time of day," said Kris. "And then I saw four people across the street and … they told me to go away."
She limped for more than a mile and eventually stumbled into Mario and Frank’s Pizzeria along Nottingham Way. Pizzeria owner Frank Colella recalls Kris walking in "shaking, crying, bleeding."
"It was a mess,” he said.
Colella said his workers called 911, and Kris was taken by ambulance to Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center in Hamilton.
At the hospital, a sexual assault nurse performed a rape exam and a Hamilton police detective took preliminary information. Hours later, on the morning of Dec. 6, Kris, a Medicaid patient, was discharged from RWJ and sent home with instructions to go see an oral surgeon.
“This wasn’t just a cut on her hand or a sprain of her ankle. She had five fractures of her face,” said Kris’s mom. “It’s wrong. It’s totally wrong. If it was their family member they would not have sent her home.”
Kris eventually turned to a hospital in Neptune to undergo multiple surgeries to repair her jaw.
In a statement, an RWJ spokesman defended the hospital’s reputation but said it is now conducting a full review of the matter.
“RWJH has a solid reputation for quality health care and patient comfort. And, although we may differ on any claims made, we believe that no patient should have such a negative view of their care at RWJUHH,” the hospital said.
“That is why we have undertaken a thorough review of the facts and continue to reach out to this patient to confidentially discuss those concerns.”
In the meantime, the police investigation that began with a meeting at Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center would be volleyed from Hamilton's police department over to Trenton's because the attack had taken place inside the Trenton city line. Kris and her mother say the first formal police interview about the attack took place on Dec. 23, and a Trenton detective and a Mercer County Prosecutor investigator questioned whether Kris was a prostitute and a drug addict, she said.
She told them that she was a multiple sclerosis patient on a medical pain patch prescribed by her doctor in part for a spine injury she suffered from an MS-related seizure. Her longtime doctor confirmed to NBC 4 New York he'd prescribed a narcotics patch, Fentanyl, due to the injury.
Kris says she gave a detailed account of what she remembered about the rape, but says the detectives began a hostile form of questioning and that they treated it like "it was a big joke and a waste of time."
“When he asked his partner if there was one question they would like to ask, the one and only question he could come up with, out of everything in the book, was: ‘Did you voluntarily pull down the man’s pants before he raped you?’" said Kris.
“They tag-teamed," said Kris. "'Was I out there soliciting? Was I out there buying drugs? Why did I get off the bus at that spot?'"
Kris’s mom said the detectives kept pressing her about her daughter’s illness.
“'You sure about her MS?' That’s all they kept asking me," said Kris' mother. "'Are you sure she didn’t fall and this isn’t MS?' They wanted to turn everything around, make her the victim all over again, and it was crap. Plain and simple crap. They didn’t want to do their job.”
Records show Kris has no criminal history for drugs or prostitution. She had one past shoplifting case where charges were later dismissed.
Trenton police vigorously deny mistreating the family. In a separate statement, the office of Mercer County Prosecutor Joseph Bocchini said that detectives waited until Kris was out of the hospital on Jan. 9 to do an official interview about the Dec. 5 attack because of her multiple surgeries and complications from them, and that Kris' family had repeatedly turned away investigators until that date.
Kris' family denies that claim and points out that detectives visited her in the hospital on Dec. 23.
The prosecutor’s office said the rape kit taken on Dec. 5 was sent out for testing on Jan. 2. Sperm and pubic hairs were discovered, but DNA results are still not in.
In a statement Tuesday, one day after NBC 4 New York's initial report aired, the Mercer County prosecutor's office said it was expediting analysis of the DNA and expects "a result will be returned by the end of this week."
A spokeswoman added that a sample put into a national database -- or CODIS system -- will be returned next week.
Hal Sherman, a retired NYPD crime scene detective who's investigated more than 2,000 cases in his career, says in cases like this, offenders often have committed previous crimes and their DNA could be in a computer database. He said the DNA profile could have been sent and returned in a matter of days to try to identify any potential suspects.
“The longer it takes in order to solve this case, which really does seem to be a forensic case, the longer it takes to get the bad guys off the street,” Sherman said.
He also wondered why testing wasn't expedited in the first place for a multiple sclerosis patient who was allegedly gang-raped.
New Jersey state attorney general John Hoffman said Tuesday he would look into why the DNA sample was not processed sooner.
Kris’s mother remains angry.
“You go to the police for help, you go to the hospital for help, you expect help from your fellow citizen some way and she got no help all the way around. None," she said.
FLORIDA WOMAN CLAIMS COPS FORCED HER TO POOP AND UNDRESS IN HER FRONT YARD
Sometimes cops go overboard in amusing themselves … at someone else’s expense.
FLORIDA WOMAN FUMBLED SUIT OVER PUBLIC POO
Courthouse News Service
March 21, 2014
ORLANDO - A Florida woman who says the police officers searching her home for methamphetamine forced her to poop on her yard in front of them must amend her civil rights claims, a federal judge ruled.
Dawn Brooks sued Volusia County and the city of New Smyrna Beach for allegedly making her defecate in her front yard during a search of her house for meth.
A March 14 ruling on her case does not reveal what the search produced.
It says Brooks had allegedly been brought outside her home and handcuffed when officers refused her requests to defecate in a private place.
They "told her to 'just use the restroom right there' in the front yard, which plaintiff did," U.S. District Judge Roy Dalton Jr. wrote, summarizing the allegations.
Brooks claimed that the officers then would not help her cleanse and dress herself after she defecated in front of them.
Eventually they allegedly made her undress and change into a plastic jumpsuit. Instead of helping, the officers looked, laughed and yelled at Brooks while she was undressing, the complaint states.
Brooks said she should have been allowed to use the restroom in her house or in the officers' truck, and that the ordeal violated her rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, causing her mental anguish and humiliation.
She also claimed the city failed to properly train their officers.
U.S. District Judge Roy Dalton dismissed the claims against Volusia last week, finding no allegation that deliberate indifference was responsible for the city's alleged failure to train.
Likewise Brooks did not show that the need for training was "plainly obvious" based on prior instances, the court found.
Dalton also said Brooks did not state any specific practice or policy that caused the officers to infringe her rights.
Brooks has until April 4 to amend her complaint.
FLORIDA WOMAN FUMBLED SUIT OVER PUBLIC POO
Courthouse News Service
March 21, 2014
ORLANDO - A Florida woman who says the police officers searching her home for methamphetamine forced her to poop on her yard in front of them must amend her civil rights claims, a federal judge ruled.
Dawn Brooks sued Volusia County and the city of New Smyrna Beach for allegedly making her defecate in her front yard during a search of her house for meth.
A March 14 ruling on her case does not reveal what the search produced.
It says Brooks had allegedly been brought outside her home and handcuffed when officers refused her requests to defecate in a private place.
They "told her to 'just use the restroom right there' in the front yard, which plaintiff did," U.S. District Judge Roy Dalton Jr. wrote, summarizing the allegations.
Brooks claimed that the officers then would not help her cleanse and dress herself after she defecated in front of them.
Eventually they allegedly made her undress and change into a plastic jumpsuit. Instead of helping, the officers looked, laughed and yelled at Brooks while she was undressing, the complaint states.
Brooks said she should have been allowed to use the restroom in her house or in the officers' truck, and that the ordeal violated her rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, causing her mental anguish and humiliation.
She also claimed the city failed to properly train their officers.
U.S. District Judge Roy Dalton dismissed the claims against Volusia last week, finding no allegation that deliberate indifference was responsible for the city's alleged failure to train.
Likewise Brooks did not show that the need for training was "plainly obvious" based on prior instances, the court found.
Dalton also said Brooks did not state any specific practice or policy that caused the officers to infringe her rights.
Brooks has until April 4 to amend her complaint.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
SEN. FEINSTEIN AGAINST LEGALIZATION OF POT
“I oppose marijuana legalization because I worry about stoned drivers”
On Wednesday I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming while I was reading a news report about Sen. Dianne Feinstein telling the Associated Press that she opposed the legalization of marijuana. To my surprise, I was not dreaming.
Sen. Feinstein gave two reasons for her opposition to the legalization of pot:
(1) Feinstein is concerned about stoned drivers. "The risk of people using marijuana and driving is very substantial."
(2) Feinstein said that during the ‘60s, when she served on the California Women's Board of Terms and Parole, she saw how marijuana led to bigger problems for many women inmates. "I saw a lot of where people began with marijuana and went on to hard drugs."
Proponents of pot legalization were quick to label Feinstein as wrong-headed and they accused her of being a DINO (Democrat in name only). They claim that legalization of pot would actually make driving safer:
In fact, since alcohol impairs driving ability more dramatically than marijuana does, legalizing pot might actually reduce traffic fatalities, to the extent that more pot smoking is accompanied by less drinking.
And of course, the proponents of pot also discredited Feinstein’s concern about pot as a gateway drug:
The "gateway drug" theory espoused by Feinstein is at least 63 years old, and it is no more credible today than when Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger was citing it as a reason to fear marijuana.
The preposterous contention that legalizing pot could reduce traffic fatalities indicates the people who came up with this outrageous fairy tale were stoned when they made it up. And the gateway drug theory is a good reason to be concerned about marijuana because that theory has been discredited only by the proponents of pot. While it is true that many marijuana users do not graduate to the use of harder drugs, it is also true that almost all hard drug users began their use of drugs with marijuana.
Based on my experience as a former law enforcement officer and criminal justice educator, I say Sen. Feinstein is absolutely correct on both counts. And to the pot legalization advocates who labeled her wrong-headed, I say better a wrong-head than a pothead.
On Wednesday I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming while I was reading a news report about Sen. Dianne Feinstein telling the Associated Press that she opposed the legalization of marijuana. To my surprise, I was not dreaming.
Sen. Feinstein gave two reasons for her opposition to the legalization of pot:
(1) Feinstein is concerned about stoned drivers. "The risk of people using marijuana and driving is very substantial."
(2) Feinstein said that during the ‘60s, when she served on the California Women's Board of Terms and Parole, she saw how marijuana led to bigger problems for many women inmates. "I saw a lot of where people began with marijuana and went on to hard drugs."
Proponents of pot legalization were quick to label Feinstein as wrong-headed and they accused her of being a DINO (Democrat in name only). They claim that legalization of pot would actually make driving safer:
In fact, since alcohol impairs driving ability more dramatically than marijuana does, legalizing pot might actually reduce traffic fatalities, to the extent that more pot smoking is accompanied by less drinking.
And of course, the proponents of pot also discredited Feinstein’s concern about pot as a gateway drug:
The "gateway drug" theory espoused by Feinstein is at least 63 years old, and it is no more credible today than when Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger was citing it as a reason to fear marijuana.
The preposterous contention that legalizing pot could reduce traffic fatalities indicates the people who came up with this outrageous fairy tale were stoned when they made it up. And the gateway drug theory is a good reason to be concerned about marijuana because that theory has been discredited only by the proponents of pot. While it is true that many marijuana users do not graduate to the use of harder drugs, it is also true that almost all hard drug users began their use of drugs with marijuana.
Based on my experience as a former law enforcement officer and criminal justice educator, I say Sen. Feinstein is absolutely correct on both counts. And to the pot legalization advocates who labeled her wrong-headed, I say better a wrong-head than a pothead.
ISRAELIS COMPARE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S DEMAND FOR APOLOGY TO A CHILDISH TANTRUM
The State Department continues to suffer from an apoplectic attack brought on when Israel’s defense minister told the truth in criticizing the Obama Administration’s blunders - the red line declaration against Syria, the Russian aggression against Ukraine, and the Iranian nuclear negotiations.
LIKE A PETULANT SCHOOLGIRL, U.S. DEMANDS APOLOGY FROM ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER
By Ryan Jones
Israel Today
March 24, 2014
The Obama Administration on Sunday continued acting in a way that Israeli experts likened to a childish tantrum by taking personal offense at and demanding an apology for remarks made by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon.
Speaking at a closed-door event at Tel Aviv University last Monday, Yaalon said Israel could not rely on a “weak” United States to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons.
The defense minister said the Obama Administration’s blunders in handling the Syria and Ukraine crises, as well as being clearly outclassed in nuclear negotiations by a wily Iranian regime, had severely diminished America’s image on the international stage.
The outcry from Washington was immediate and exaggerated.
US Secretary of State John Kerry personally phoned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bellyache over his defense minister’s transgression. State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki (pictured) later told reporters she was “confused” by what the White House is pretending is Yaalon’s earth-shattering position and his impertinence for stating it publicly.
Last Thursday, Yaalon phoned US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to clarify that he intended “no harm to the United States or our relationship with it.” But for Psaki, that wasn’t nearly good enough.
When asked on Friday about the status of this enormously dire situation, Psaki said that the Obama Administration had “clearly expressed our displeasure at [Yaalon’s] offensive comments and an apology would be a natural next step.”
A source in Israel’s Ministry of Defense told the Ynet news portal that Yaalon loves America and fully appreciates Israel’s relationship with it, but will never shy away from speaking his mind. The source charged that the Obama Administration is “out to get” Yaalon because it doesn’t like having to deal with Israeli officials who stand their ground.
Another Israeli political expert told The Times of Israel that Washington’s reaction to Yaalon’s remarks was nothing short of “childish.” He said the Obama Administration is already fully aware that Yaalon is a man who “doesn’t mince words,” and more often than not is saying exactly what most other Israelis, including Netanyahu, are thinking.
LIKE A PETULANT SCHOOLGIRL, U.S. DEMANDS APOLOGY FROM ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER
By Ryan Jones
Israel Today
March 24, 2014
The Obama Administration on Sunday continued acting in a way that Israeli experts likened to a childish tantrum by taking personal offense at and demanding an apology for remarks made by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon.
Speaking at a closed-door event at Tel Aviv University last Monday, Yaalon said Israel could not rely on a “weak” United States to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons.
The defense minister said the Obama Administration’s blunders in handling the Syria and Ukraine crises, as well as being clearly outclassed in nuclear negotiations by a wily Iranian regime, had severely diminished America’s image on the international stage.
The outcry from Washington was immediate and exaggerated.
US Secretary of State John Kerry personally phoned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bellyache over his defense minister’s transgression. State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki (pictured) later told reporters she was “confused” by what the White House is pretending is Yaalon’s earth-shattering position and his impertinence for stating it publicly.
Last Thursday, Yaalon phoned US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to clarify that he intended “no harm to the United States or our relationship with it.” But for Psaki, that wasn’t nearly good enough.
When asked on Friday about the status of this enormously dire situation, Psaki said that the Obama Administration had “clearly expressed our displeasure at [Yaalon’s] offensive comments and an apology would be a natural next step.”
A source in Israel’s Ministry of Defense told the Ynet news portal that Yaalon loves America and fully appreciates Israel’s relationship with it, but will never shy away from speaking his mind. The source charged that the Obama Administration is “out to get” Yaalon because it doesn’t like having to deal with Israeli officials who stand their ground.
Another Israeli political expert told The Times of Israel that Washington’s reaction to Yaalon’s remarks was nothing short of “childish.” He said the Obama Administration is already fully aware that Yaalon is a man who “doesn’t mince words,” and more often than not is saying exactly what most other Israelis, including Netanyahu, are thinking.
DESALINATION PLANTS SUPPLY ISRAELI WATER NEEDS
Despite drought and limited natural water sources, Israelis no longer have to conserve water because now desalination plants provide an ample water supply
As usual though, environmentalists object to the plants on grounds of possible harm to the environment. It’s the same as with their objection to the proposed ‘Ike Dike’ that would protect homes, industry and countless lives in the Houston-Galveston area from a catastrophic hurricane storm surge.
ISRAEL NO LONGER WORRIED ABOUT ITS WATER SUPPLY, THANKS TO DESALINATION PLANTS
By Joel Greenberg
McClatchy-Tribune
March 20, 2014
HADERA, Israel — Israel has gone through one of the driest winters in its history, but despite the lean rainy season, the government has suspended a longstanding campaign to conserve water.
The familiar public messages during recent years of drought, often showing images of parched earth, have disappeared from television despite weeks of balmy weather with record low rainfalls in some areas.
The level of the Sea of Galilee, the country’s natural water reservoir, is no longer closely tracked in news reports or the subject of anxious national discussion.
The reason: Israel has in recent years achieved a quiet water revolution through desalination.
With four plants currently in operation, all built since 2005, and a fifth slated to go into service this year, Israel is meeting much of its water needs by purifying seawater from the Mediterranean. Some 80 percent of domestic water use in Israeli cities comes from desalinated water, according to Israeli officials.
“There’s no water problem because of the desalination,” said Hila Gil, director of the desalination division in the Israel Water Authority. “The problem is no longer on the agenda.”
The struggle over scarce water resources has fueled conflict between Israel and its neighbors, but the country is now finding itself increasingly self-sufficient after years of dependency on rainfall and subterranean aquifers.
Israel’s experience might also offer some important lessons, or at least contrast, for states like California. Now gripped by drought, with the all-important snowpack averaging only 26 percent of normal, California has struggled with desalination efforts in the past.
At present, more than a dozen desalination projects are at various stages of planning in the state, and the California Department of Water Resources will be announcing a new round of desalination grants in May. The grants are very modest, though; the last round, for instance, offered just $45,000 to study the technology in southern San Luis Obispo County.
The plants themselves, meanwhile, are costly and frequently controversial. One big plant built two decades ago near Santa Barbara, in the final years of an earlier drought, is now dormant. Officials estimate it would cost $20 million or more to reactivate it.
A proposal for a 50 million-gallon-per-day facility at Huntington Beach in Southern California would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build. In November, the California Coastal Commission postponed granting the project a permit pending more studies.
Each of Israel’s plants cost between $300 million and $450 million to build. The plants are privately owned and operated, under a contract with the government, which buys the water from the plants. The budget for water purchases comes from water charges to consumers. The plants are not subsidized.
Israel’s efforts to solve its water shortage haven’t ended with desalination. The country treats and recycles more than 80 percent of its wastewater, using it primarily for agriculture, making it a world leader in that field.
By easing its own water crunch, experts say, Israel could free up more of the precious resource in a possible peace agreement with the Palestinians.
At a water desalination plant on the sea near the northern Israeli town of Hadera, water pumped in from the Mediterranean is pushed through rows of multi-layered plastic membranes and, through a process called reverse osmosis, emerges after 90 minutes as tasty drinking water.
The company that runs the facility, IDE Technologies, which is based in Israel, recently showed foreign visitors around the plant, touting its performance along with another plant at Soreq, near the southern Israeli coast, the largest reverse osmosis desalination plant in the world. That plant produces 150 million cubic meters of potable water a year.
IDE is also involved in building seawater desalination plants abroad, including what is expected to be the largest such plant in the Western Hemisphere at Carlsbad, Calif., able to provide 50 million of gallons of potable water a day.
The Israeli plants, mostly located along the coast, operate at high energy efficiency and are some of the most cost-efficient in the world, when measured against similar plants in other countries, according to official figures. Desalinated water at the Soreq plant is produced at the price of 52 cents a cubic meter, according to terms of a government tender, and while actual rates fluctuate according to energy costs, currency exchange and the cost-of-living index, they remain significantly lower than in other nations.
But environmental experts caution that desalination has its costs, among them high energy consumption from power plants that emit greenhouse gases, use of scarce land on Israel’s crowded seacoast, and emission of highly concentrated saline water and chemicals into the ocean, with unclear environmental consequences.
“In Israel, environmental costs are not taken into account when calculating the costs of desalinated water,” said Nurit Kliot, a professor of environmental studies at Haifa University.
Gidon Bromberg, Israeli director of Friends of the Earth Middle East, a regional environmental group, said desalination should be part of integrated water policy that included conservation and use of solar energy to power desalination plants.
“A level of desalination is absolutely necessary because the population of this region has gone way beyond the carrying capacity of natural water resources, but desalination needs to be brought in not as the first option, but as the last option,” Bromberg said.
“Water conservation is now out the window,” Bromberg noted, lamenting the suspension of the campaign to save water.
Bromberg said the government needs to encourage efficient water use by reducing water subsidies for farming and by regulating crops to avoid those that require heavy irrigation, such as tropical fruits.
In addition, he said, Israel is still at “an infant stage” when it comes to recycling what is known as gray water from sinks, showers and baths for use in toilets or gardens.
In peace negotiations with the Palestinians, desalination could allow for more equitable sharing of natural water resources in the West Bank, now largely controlled by Israel, according to Bromberg.
“Increasing the pie through desalination allows the natural water to be shared at low political cost for Israel and at a high political gain for Abu Mazen,” he said, using the nickname of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. “Allowing more water to flow in every Palestinian tap has immediate impact on the quality of life of all Palestinians. This is relevant to the (peace) efforts of Secretary of State (John) Kerry. We can move forward rapidly on water.”
As usual though, environmentalists object to the plants on grounds of possible harm to the environment. It’s the same as with their objection to the proposed ‘Ike Dike’ that would protect homes, industry and countless lives in the Houston-Galveston area from a catastrophic hurricane storm surge.
ISRAEL NO LONGER WORRIED ABOUT ITS WATER SUPPLY, THANKS TO DESALINATION PLANTS
By Joel Greenberg
McClatchy-Tribune
March 20, 2014
HADERA, Israel — Israel has gone through one of the driest winters in its history, but despite the lean rainy season, the government has suspended a longstanding campaign to conserve water.
The familiar public messages during recent years of drought, often showing images of parched earth, have disappeared from television despite weeks of balmy weather with record low rainfalls in some areas.
The level of the Sea of Galilee, the country’s natural water reservoir, is no longer closely tracked in news reports or the subject of anxious national discussion.
The reason: Israel has in recent years achieved a quiet water revolution through desalination.
With four plants currently in operation, all built since 2005, and a fifth slated to go into service this year, Israel is meeting much of its water needs by purifying seawater from the Mediterranean. Some 80 percent of domestic water use in Israeli cities comes from desalinated water, according to Israeli officials.
“There’s no water problem because of the desalination,” said Hila Gil, director of the desalination division in the Israel Water Authority. “The problem is no longer on the agenda.”
The struggle over scarce water resources has fueled conflict between Israel and its neighbors, but the country is now finding itself increasingly self-sufficient after years of dependency on rainfall and subterranean aquifers.
Israel’s experience might also offer some important lessons, or at least contrast, for states like California. Now gripped by drought, with the all-important snowpack averaging only 26 percent of normal, California has struggled with desalination efforts in the past.
At present, more than a dozen desalination projects are at various stages of planning in the state, and the California Department of Water Resources will be announcing a new round of desalination grants in May. The grants are very modest, though; the last round, for instance, offered just $45,000 to study the technology in southern San Luis Obispo County.
The plants themselves, meanwhile, are costly and frequently controversial. One big plant built two decades ago near Santa Barbara, in the final years of an earlier drought, is now dormant. Officials estimate it would cost $20 million or more to reactivate it.
A proposal for a 50 million-gallon-per-day facility at Huntington Beach in Southern California would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build. In November, the California Coastal Commission postponed granting the project a permit pending more studies.
Each of Israel’s plants cost between $300 million and $450 million to build. The plants are privately owned and operated, under a contract with the government, which buys the water from the plants. The budget for water purchases comes from water charges to consumers. The plants are not subsidized.
Israel’s efforts to solve its water shortage haven’t ended with desalination. The country treats and recycles more than 80 percent of its wastewater, using it primarily for agriculture, making it a world leader in that field.
By easing its own water crunch, experts say, Israel could free up more of the precious resource in a possible peace agreement with the Palestinians.
At a water desalination plant on the sea near the northern Israeli town of Hadera, water pumped in from the Mediterranean is pushed through rows of multi-layered plastic membranes and, through a process called reverse osmosis, emerges after 90 minutes as tasty drinking water.
The company that runs the facility, IDE Technologies, which is based in Israel, recently showed foreign visitors around the plant, touting its performance along with another plant at Soreq, near the southern Israeli coast, the largest reverse osmosis desalination plant in the world. That plant produces 150 million cubic meters of potable water a year.
IDE is also involved in building seawater desalination plants abroad, including what is expected to be the largest such plant in the Western Hemisphere at Carlsbad, Calif., able to provide 50 million of gallons of potable water a day.
The Israeli plants, mostly located along the coast, operate at high energy efficiency and are some of the most cost-efficient in the world, when measured against similar plants in other countries, according to official figures. Desalinated water at the Soreq plant is produced at the price of 52 cents a cubic meter, according to terms of a government tender, and while actual rates fluctuate according to energy costs, currency exchange and the cost-of-living index, they remain significantly lower than in other nations.
But environmental experts caution that desalination has its costs, among them high energy consumption from power plants that emit greenhouse gases, use of scarce land on Israel’s crowded seacoast, and emission of highly concentrated saline water and chemicals into the ocean, with unclear environmental consequences.
“In Israel, environmental costs are not taken into account when calculating the costs of desalinated water,” said Nurit Kliot, a professor of environmental studies at Haifa University.
Gidon Bromberg, Israeli director of Friends of the Earth Middle East, a regional environmental group, said desalination should be part of integrated water policy that included conservation and use of solar energy to power desalination plants.
“A level of desalination is absolutely necessary because the population of this region has gone way beyond the carrying capacity of natural water resources, but desalination needs to be brought in not as the first option, but as the last option,” Bromberg said.
“Water conservation is now out the window,” Bromberg noted, lamenting the suspension of the campaign to save water.
Bromberg said the government needs to encourage efficient water use by reducing water subsidies for farming and by regulating crops to avoid those that require heavy irrigation, such as tropical fruits.
In addition, he said, Israel is still at “an infant stage” when it comes to recycling what is known as gray water from sinks, showers and baths for use in toilets or gardens.
In peace negotiations with the Palestinians, desalination could allow for more equitable sharing of natural water resources in the West Bank, now largely controlled by Israel, according to Bromberg.
“Increasing the pie through desalination allows the natural water to be shared at low political cost for Israel and at a high political gain for Abu Mazen,” he said, using the nickname of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. “Allowing more water to flow in every Palestinian tap has immediate impact on the quality of life of all Palestinians. This is relevant to the (peace) efforts of Secretary of State (John) Kerry. We can move forward rapidly on water.”
Monday, March 24, 2014
FLORIDA COP SHOT DEAD, SUSPECTS COMMIT SUICIDE
Windermere police officer Robert German, 31, was on patrol around 3:30 a.m. Saturday when he came across a suspicious couple walking through the wealthy neighborhood where Tiger Woods used to live. German called for backup, but when Orange County sheriff’s deputies and officers from Orlando and Apopka arrived at the scene they found German had been shot.
While the backup cops were attending to the five-year veteran, two shots rang out from nearby. Once the fallen officer had been taken away by an ambulance, officers conducted a search and found a man and woman, both in their late teens or early twenties, lying on the lawn of a $2.5 million home. The couple, who are believed to have shot German, had committed suicide by shooting themselves.
Attempts by emergency room doctors to save Officer German’s life failed. Why he was shot and what the suspects were up to remains a mystery at this time.
The dead suspects have been identified as Brandon Goode and Alexandria Hollinghurst. Goode, 18, was recently arrested for possession of marijuana, possession of alcohol by a minor, and possession of drug paraphernalia. Hollinghurst, 17, was originally from Manchester, England and had no arrest record.
Only six weeks earlier, Orange County deputy Jonathon Scott Pine, 34, was shot dead just a mile away from the scene of German’s shooting. Pine had been investigating a car burglary in the Orlando suburb of Doctor Phillips and, just as in the Windermere case, the suspect also committed suicide.
While the backup cops were attending to the five-year veteran, two shots rang out from nearby. Once the fallen officer had been taken away by an ambulance, officers conducted a search and found a man and woman, both in their late teens or early twenties, lying on the lawn of a $2.5 million home. The couple, who are believed to have shot German, had committed suicide by shooting themselves.
Attempts by emergency room doctors to save Officer German’s life failed. Why he was shot and what the suspects were up to remains a mystery at this time.
The dead suspects have been identified as Brandon Goode and Alexandria Hollinghurst. Goode, 18, was recently arrested for possession of marijuana, possession of alcohol by a minor, and possession of drug paraphernalia. Hollinghurst, 17, was originally from Manchester, England and had no arrest record.
Only six weeks earlier, Orange County deputy Jonathon Scott Pine, 34, was shot dead just a mile away from the scene of German’s shooting. Pine had been investigating a car burglary in the Orlando suburb of Doctor Phillips and, just as in the Windermere case, the suspect also committed suicide.
HAWAII VICE COPS WANT RIGHT TO GET LAID BY HOOKERS
Vice cops can make prostitution cases without laying the hookers. All they have to do is get the prostitute to undress and have the money in hand. Usually the undercover officer is wired and at a prearranged signal, his cover officers will enter the motel or hotel room and bust the lady of the evening. In fact, the officer will look bad and be discredited in court when a jury hears the he had sex with the defendant.
My agency, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, had a strict policy that went beyond prohibiting sex with prostitutes. We were not to get undressed under any circumstances. It the hooker got impatient with us as she undressed, we usually told her our fucking zipper was stuck. When she was completely undressed, our cover officers would enter the motel room and make the bust.
HAWAII POLICE WANT LEGAL RIGHT TO HAVE SEX WITH PROSTITUTES – FOR THE SAKE OF THEIR WORK
By Sam Eifling
Associated Press
March 21, 2014
HONOLULU — Honolulu police officers have urged lawmakers to keep an exemption in state law that allows undercover officers to have sex with prostitutes during investigations, touching off a heated debate.
Authorities say they need the legal protection to catch lawbreakers in the act. Critics, including human trafficking experts and other police, say it's unnecessary and could further victimize sex workers, many of whom have been forced into the trade.
Police haven't said how often — or even if — they use the provision. And when they asked legislators to preserve it, they made assurances that internal policies and procedures are in place to prevent officers from taking advantage of it.
But expert Derek Marsh says the exemption is "antiquated at best" and that police can easily do without it.
"It doesn't help your case, and at worst you further traumatize someone. And do you think he or she is going to trust a cop again?" asked Marsh, who trains California police in best practices on human trafficking cases and twice has testified to Congress about the issue.
A Hawaii bill cracking down on prostitution (HB 1926) was originally written to scrap the sex exemption for officers on duty. It was amended to restore that protection after police testimony. The revised proposal passed the state House and will go before a Senate committee Friday.
It's not immediately clear whether similar provisions are in place elsewhere as state law or department policy. But advocates were shocked that Hawaii exempts police from its prostitution laws, suggesting it's an invitation for misconduct.
"Police abuse is part of the life of prostitution," said Melissa Farley, the executive director of the San Francisco-based group Prostitution Research and Education. Farley said that in places without such police protections "women who have escaped prostitution" commonly report being coerced into giving police sexual favors to keep from being arrested.
The Hawaii bill aims to ratchet up penalties on johns and pimps. Selling sex would remain a petty misdemeanor.
During recent testimony, Honolulu police said the sex exemption protects investigations and should remain in place.
"The procedures and conduct of the undercover officers are regulated by department rules, which by nature have to be confidential," Honolulu Police Maj. Jerry Inouye told the House Judiciary Committee. "Because if prostitution suspects, pimps and other people are privy to that information, they're going to know exactly how far the undercover officer can and cannot go."
Democratic state Rep. Karl Rhoads, the committee chairman, said police testimony convinced him to amend the proposal.
"It's a really murky area," said Rhoads, who represents a district that includes Honolulu's Chinatown, a longstanding epicenter of street prostitution. "I was reluctant to interfere in something that they face all the time. If they think it's necessary to not have it in the statute, this is one area where I did defer to them and say, 'I hope you're not having sex with prostitutes.'"
Critics say the police perspective is off base. Lauren Hersh, a former prosecuting attorney who runs the global trafficking program of the women's advocacy group Equality Now, said the risk of re-victimizing a sex worker, who may already have been trafficked, should make sex during an investigation off-limits.
"I can understand you're in a drug den, and you have a gun to your head and someone says 'snort this,'" Hersh said, acknowledging the gray areas associated with undercover police work. But the sex exemption in Hawaii is "so dissimilar from that circumstance on so many levels."
There have been instances of police being accused of victimizing sex workers across the nation. In Philadelphia, a former officer is on trial facing charges of raping two prostitutes after forcing them at gunpoint to take narcotics. A former West Sacramento, Calif., officer is awaiting sentencing after being found guilty of raping prostitutes in his police cruiser while on patrol. And last year in Massachusetts, a former police officer pleaded guilty to extorting sex from prostitutes he threatened with arrest.
Rhoads said he knew no reason to suspect Honolulu police are out of line.
"All allegations of misconduct are investigated and the appropriate disciplinary action taken," said Michelle Yu, Honolulu police spokeswoman, in an email.
It's not clear, however, what the punishment would be. The disclosure laws for police misconduct in Hawaii make it impossible to know if an on-duty officer had faced discipline or accusations of having sex with a prostitute.
Officers who investigate prostitution haven't been accused of sexual wrongdoing in recent memory, Yu said. A parole officer in 2011 was fired after being convicted of sexual assault against a prostitute, she said.
Skeptics, such as Roger Young, a retired special agent who for more than 20 years worked sex crimes for the FBI from Las Vegas and has trained vice squads around the country, remain unconvinced.
Young said Thursday, "I don't know of any state or federal law that allows any law enforcement officer undercover to penetrate or do what this law is allowing."
My agency, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, had a strict policy that went beyond prohibiting sex with prostitutes. We were not to get undressed under any circumstances. It the hooker got impatient with us as she undressed, we usually told her our fucking zipper was stuck. When she was completely undressed, our cover officers would enter the motel room and make the bust.
HAWAII POLICE WANT LEGAL RIGHT TO HAVE SEX WITH PROSTITUTES – FOR THE SAKE OF THEIR WORK
By Sam Eifling
Associated Press
March 21, 2014
HONOLULU — Honolulu police officers have urged lawmakers to keep an exemption in state law that allows undercover officers to have sex with prostitutes during investigations, touching off a heated debate.
Authorities say they need the legal protection to catch lawbreakers in the act. Critics, including human trafficking experts and other police, say it's unnecessary and could further victimize sex workers, many of whom have been forced into the trade.
Police haven't said how often — or even if — they use the provision. And when they asked legislators to preserve it, they made assurances that internal policies and procedures are in place to prevent officers from taking advantage of it.
But expert Derek Marsh says the exemption is "antiquated at best" and that police can easily do without it.
"It doesn't help your case, and at worst you further traumatize someone. And do you think he or she is going to trust a cop again?" asked Marsh, who trains California police in best practices on human trafficking cases and twice has testified to Congress about the issue.
A Hawaii bill cracking down on prostitution (HB 1926) was originally written to scrap the sex exemption for officers on duty. It was amended to restore that protection after police testimony. The revised proposal passed the state House and will go before a Senate committee Friday.
It's not immediately clear whether similar provisions are in place elsewhere as state law or department policy. But advocates were shocked that Hawaii exempts police from its prostitution laws, suggesting it's an invitation for misconduct.
"Police abuse is part of the life of prostitution," said Melissa Farley, the executive director of the San Francisco-based group Prostitution Research and Education. Farley said that in places without such police protections "women who have escaped prostitution" commonly report being coerced into giving police sexual favors to keep from being arrested.
The Hawaii bill aims to ratchet up penalties on johns and pimps. Selling sex would remain a petty misdemeanor.
During recent testimony, Honolulu police said the sex exemption protects investigations and should remain in place.
"The procedures and conduct of the undercover officers are regulated by department rules, which by nature have to be confidential," Honolulu Police Maj. Jerry Inouye told the House Judiciary Committee. "Because if prostitution suspects, pimps and other people are privy to that information, they're going to know exactly how far the undercover officer can and cannot go."
Democratic state Rep. Karl Rhoads, the committee chairman, said police testimony convinced him to amend the proposal.
"It's a really murky area," said Rhoads, who represents a district that includes Honolulu's Chinatown, a longstanding epicenter of street prostitution. "I was reluctant to interfere in something that they face all the time. If they think it's necessary to not have it in the statute, this is one area where I did defer to them and say, 'I hope you're not having sex with prostitutes.'"
Critics say the police perspective is off base. Lauren Hersh, a former prosecuting attorney who runs the global trafficking program of the women's advocacy group Equality Now, said the risk of re-victimizing a sex worker, who may already have been trafficked, should make sex during an investigation off-limits.
"I can understand you're in a drug den, and you have a gun to your head and someone says 'snort this,'" Hersh said, acknowledging the gray areas associated with undercover police work. But the sex exemption in Hawaii is "so dissimilar from that circumstance on so many levels."
There have been instances of police being accused of victimizing sex workers across the nation. In Philadelphia, a former officer is on trial facing charges of raping two prostitutes after forcing them at gunpoint to take narcotics. A former West Sacramento, Calif., officer is awaiting sentencing after being found guilty of raping prostitutes in his police cruiser while on patrol. And last year in Massachusetts, a former police officer pleaded guilty to extorting sex from prostitutes he threatened with arrest.
Rhoads said he knew no reason to suspect Honolulu police are out of line.
"All allegations of misconduct are investigated and the appropriate disciplinary action taken," said Michelle Yu, Honolulu police spokeswoman, in an email.
It's not clear, however, what the punishment would be. The disclosure laws for police misconduct in Hawaii make it impossible to know if an on-duty officer had faced discipline or accusations of having sex with a prostitute.
Officers who investigate prostitution haven't been accused of sexual wrongdoing in recent memory, Yu said. A parole officer in 2011 was fired after being convicted of sexual assault against a prostitute, she said.
Skeptics, such as Roger Young, a retired special agent who for more than 20 years worked sex crimes for the FBI from Las Vegas and has trained vice squads around the country, remain unconvinced.
Young said Thursday, "I don't know of any state or federal law that allows any law enforcement officer undercover to penetrate or do what this law is allowing."
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