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Showing posts with label Bad Cops. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bad Cops. Show all posts

Monday, April 13, 2020

Cop Busted Threatening HA Member

Greeley, Colorado, USA (April 13, 2020) BTN — A lawsuit filed in federal court claims officers of the Greeley Police Department, LaSalle Police Department and Weld County Sheriff’s Office violated the First, Fourth and 14th Amendment rights of Anthony Mills, a Hells Angels Motorcycle Club member, during a 2018 traffic stop.


According to Mills’ attorney, Sarah Schielke, he was pulled over by a La Salle police officer for speeding the night of April 8, 2018. He was ticketed for driving 20-25 mph over the speed limit.

But during the 90-plus minute stop, Schielke argues officer and deputies treated her client like a criminal and was harassed strictly for his association to the Hells Angels MC. Schielke says body camera video she obtained through an open records request shows officers abused their power that night.


At one point during the body camera video, an officer is allegedly heard saying, “I’m shooting him. I need some paid vacation.”


“An officer can say, ‘I’m going to shoot him. I need more vacation time!’ and that’s a joke? And that gets laughter,” questioned Schielke.

She also points to a part in the footage that she says reveals the officers wanted the body cameras turned off and the one officer who did have his camera rolling must have done so by mistake.

READ: The lawsuit filed on Mills’ behalf

Schielke says her client wants an apology and to see changes to the departments involved.

“To take police seriously, to trust police to police us, those kinds of conversations can’t happen,” added Schielke.

A check on Mills’ background shows he was charged in 2017 with burglary, witness intimidation and assault. All three charges were dismissed.

In response to the lawsuit, the La Salle Police Department said it launched an internal investigation and the officer involved was notified of that investigation.

A spokesperson from the Weld County Sheriff’s Office said the department does not comment on pending litigation.

The Greeley Police Department did not respond to a request for comment as of Friday night.

SOURCE: WKRG

Friday, April 26, 2019

Fight breaks out during Bike Night

O'Fallon, Illinois, USA (April 26, 2019) BTN — Members of two motorcycle clubs got into a fight Thursday night at the Green Mount Road Harley Davidson dealership.

Around 6 p.m., police were called to a fight in progress at the business in the 1500 block of Green Mount Road, a news release from Capt. James Cavins stated. The dealership was hosting a Bike Night event.


When police arrived, the fighting had stopped, according to the release. It was determined that approximately 5 to 10 members of two motorcycle clubs, the Hells Angels and the Outlaws, and associates of both clubs, were involved in a physical fight.


According to the release, no injuries were reported and all parties refused medical treatment. The event was shut down for safety reasons, and there were no further incidents.

SOURCE: KSDK

Monday, April 22, 2019

Gary Gauger: Investigating innocence claims

McHenry County, Illinois, USA (April 22, 2019) BTN — Gary Gauger awoke early the morning of April 8, 1993, to a heavy rainfall beating on the windows of his Richmond home, dampening his plans to transplant seedlings on the family farm.

While Gauger went back to sleep, two members of the Outlaws motorcycle club made their way to the motorcycle repair shop that Gauger’s father operated in a garage near the farm. Although Outlaws members James Schneider and Randall Miller were responsible for robbing and murdering Ruth and Morrie Gauger that day, it would take law enforcement three years to come to that conclusion.


In the meantime, Gary Gauger was pinned for his parents’ murders and sentenced to death by lethal injection. After serving 3½ years in prison and nine months on death row, his conviction was overturned in 1996.

Exonerated McHenry County men weigh in on proposed legislation

Gauger was aided in his appeal process by Northwestern University Law Professor Lawrence Marshall, who founded the Center on Wrongful Convictions. “The police get a theory on what happened and they don’t seem to care if it doesn’t match the facts,” Gauger said. “They just work on their theory.”

Illinois Innocence Project co-founder Bill Clutter asked Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul last week to support legislation that would create a “conviction integrity unit” to investigate innocence claims. A statewide unit in Illinois would benefit counties that don’t have the funds to implement their own conviction review boards, or simply don’t see enough claims of actual innocence to justify an integrity unit, Clutter said.


Today Gauger, 65, lives on a farm just yards away from the site of his parents’ murder. He leads a quiet, secluded life with his wife, Sue Reckenthaler, and their dog, Diego. “This is my home,” Gauger said Wednesday. “I’m not going to let those guys run me out of my home.”

Gauger’s case is one of two in McHenry County in which perjury or false accusations, official misconduct, and false confessions have led to convictions and subsequent exonerations since 1989, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. 

Mario Casciaro was convicted in March 2013 of killing Johnsburg teen Brian Carrick. He served 22 months in the Menard Correctional Center on a 26-year sentence before the Second District Appellate Court overturned his conviction in September 2015. 

Although he doesn’t feel McHenry County is “progressive enough” for its own integrity unit, the area would benefit from a statewide effort, he said. “McHenry County specifically is probably a little bit too small right now, but in the future, if there’s continued growth in the population, I imagine there should be an independent conviction investigation unit,” Casciaro said.

Illinois has a history of wrongful convictions. Former Gov. George Ryan labeled the state’s system of capital punishment “haunted by the demon of error” when he halted executions in 2000. 

By the time Illinois abolished the Death Penalty in 2011, wrongful death sentences imposed on 20 people had been reversed, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. 

The Illinois Second District Appellate Court, which includes McHenry County, saw 445 criminal appeals in 2017, according to the Administrative Office of Illinois Courts. Of those, 393 cases were disposed. 

In Cook County, where former state’s attorney Anita Alvarez created a Chicago-based conviction integrity unit in 2012, the office receives about 150 applications annually from those convicted of felonies, but many do not meet criteria for review, spokeswoman Tandra Simonton said. 

Seventy convictions have been reversed since 2017, Simonton said. 

A similar system in Lake County successfully helped exonerate Jason Strong, a man previously convicted of killing Carpentersville resident Mary Kate Sunderlin. “I thought, ‘Man what’s going on?’ This doesn’t happen,” Strong said. “This is like what happens only in the movies.”

For a case to be considered by Lake County’s panel, the defendant’s claim must contain new evidence that was not known at the time of trial, previously untested evidence, or some other affirmation of innocence. Strong is a proponent for the conviction integrity panel that helped exonerate him, and attributes its success to objective thinking within the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office. 

“I admire that, and I think that if you have that kind of quality in a prosecutor then you’re going to get a better integrity unit,” Strong said. Both Gauger and Casciaro generally are proponents for conviction integrity units. Gauger’s experience, however, has left him with doubts about whether McHenry County could handle a unit of its own. “How do you get politics out of McHenry County?” Gauger said. “It’s difficult.”

Casciaro has also been critical of how McHenry County prosecutors handled his case, going as far as to call State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally “delusional.” Kenneally has stood by his office’s handling of the case, and said he’s a proponent of taking every reasonable step to prevent wrongful convictions. The state’s attorney is reserving judgment on the idea of a statewide conviction integrity, however, until he can review an actual Attorney General Office’s policy.

In an email Tuesday, Kenneally cited an analysis by University of Utah law professor Paul Cassell to emphasize his belief that people often overlook the context surrounding wrongful convictions. Cassell estimated the wrongful conviction rate in the U.S. to be between 0.016% and 0.062%, Kenneally said.

“In other words, the criminal justice system gets it right in more than 99.9% of the cases,” he said. “In a system where, in keeping with basic democratic rights, the fundamental decision-makers are ordinary, everyday and imperfect human beings, this is incredibly good.” 

Monday, April 8, 2019

Cop suspended for assaulting club member

Quebec, Canada (April 8, 2019) BTN — A Sûreté du Québec officer has been suspended for 60 days without pay for assaulting a member of the Rock Machine Motorcycle Club while the latter was in custody in 2014.

The sanction against Bruno Landry was issued by the Quebec Police Ethics Committee last week and follows Landry’s conviction for assault in connection with the same incident in Quebec Court in 2016. However, the police officer’s guilty plea was followed by an unconditional discharge, meaning Landry would not have a criminal record.


In October 2014, Landry was called in as backup in the arrest of Jean-François Émard, a member of the Rock Machine, on suspicion of possession of drugs. After Émard had been placed in a cell, Landry’s colleague asked him three times to accompany him to question the suspect. Landry finally agreed, and the officers said they were subjected to string of insults and provocations from Émard during the process.

Landry began to leave the cell but the insults continued and, finally, the officer turned around and struck the suspect. The ethics committee heard that after the fight had been broken up, Landry felt tremendous remorse and realized he had made a mistake. He was suspended from duty by the SQ days later.

Landry sought therapy to control his emotions and, during his absence from the force, went to university to study cybersecurity and did volunteer work. When he was returned to duty, Landry worked in administrative roles at the SQ’s highway patrol section.

After his guilty plea in Quebec Court, Landry had to face the SQ’s internal disciplinary committee in 2017. After hearing the facts of the case, including details of the stress that Landry was dealing with in his personal life at the time of the incident, the disciplinary committee decided Landry should be suspended for 85 days rather than dismissed from the force, as called for by the nature of the offence.

Finally, the police ethics committee heard the case and, considering a joint recommendation from the defence and the prosecution, buttressed by Landry’s reiteration of his remorse and avowals of confidence in the officer from his superiors, ruled he should be suspended for 60 days.

SOURCE: Montreal Gazette

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Cop and firefighter ringleaders in drug ring

Middletown, NY  (February 6, 2019) BTN — A Middletown firefighter and a retired Spring Valley police officer were among the dozens arrested as part of a sweep of allegedly drug dealing bikers in Orange County Tuesday.




Authorities say more than 20 people were taken into custody when search warrants were executed at 15 locations in connection with two separate drug rings, with the same man -- fire Lieutenant Paul Young -- at the center of both.

In all, 29 people were targeted for arrest, and investigators say leaders of the drug rings were so brazen that they sometimes met at the fire house.



Officials say the investigation, dubbed "Operation Bread, White and Blues," centered on several motorcycle organizations that allegedly distributed cocaine, fentanyl, marijuana and steroids.

The suspects were identified as:

--Paul Smith, 48, of Deerpark
--Robert Dunham, 46, of Middletown
--Marquis Gable, 34, of Nyack
--John Beltempo, 49, of New Windsor
--Kenneth Nunez, 39, of Spring Valley
--Garry Michel, 48, of Wallkill
--Joel Gamble, 44, of Cuddebackville
--Samuel Marino, 30, of Campbell Hall
--Arthur Mays, 30, of Middletown
--George Thomas, 61, of Bloomingburg
--David Lebel, 55, of Middletown
--Jennifer Peterson, 46, of Chester
--Vincenza Ferrante, 35, of New Windsor
--Shawn Daniels, 52, of Monroe
--Salvatore DiStefano, 36, of Westtown
--Melissa Delrosso, 35, of Middletown
--Raymond Chong, 49, of Middletown
--Tara Schoonmaker, 48, of Wurtsboro
--Crystal Crozier, 36, of Middletown
--Donald Johnston, 46, of Middletown
--Anthony Fields, 44, of Middletown
--Desmon Pierson, 36, of Middletown
--Dominick Guardino, 55, of Middletown
--Sunshine Wall, 40, of Cuddebackville
--Nicholas Ciccone, 47, of Port Jervis
--Charles Kavanaugh, 31, of Newburgh
--Gary Caldwell, 33, of Wappingers
--Justin Antona, 27, of Slate Hill
--Andrew Bendig, 23, of Middletown

The drugs reportedly came from both domestic and foreign sources, with the suspect allegedly selling the drugs throughout Orange County.

Most raided locations were in Orange County, but one location where the bikers allegedly purchased the drugs was at the Warren Hills apartment complex in Nyack, Rockland County. Authorities say they were then sold in Orange County.

State police, DEA agents and the FBI agents executed the warrants. Law enforcement officials recovered more than $200,000 in cash, 25 handguns, one assault rifle, multiple rifles, 10 vehicles, two motorcycles, more than 2.5 pounds of cocaine and 1,300 Fentanyl pills.

Authorities say Smith, a paid lieutenant of the City of Middletown Fire Department, has been charged with crimes including operating as a major trafficker as the alleged ringleader of both operations, working in tandem with Dunham.

Gamble and Michel, also charged with crimes including operating as major trafficker, are alleged to have been "profiteers" in the conspiracies to sell cocaine and narcotics pills. It is alleged that it was Gamble's role to provide cocaine to other members of the conspiracy, while Michel was to sell narcotic pills that were marketed to buyers as containing oxycodone but which actually contained fentanyl.

The pills were colored, stamped, and marked to appear to be oxycodone pills.

Beltempo previously worked for the Village of Spring Valley Police Department, the Orange County Sheriff's office and the Town of Wallkill Police Department.

SOURCE:  ABC7