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Holy da shit.
- Thread starter Maurice Boscorelli
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Here we go again.
ShowmeThemoney
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Bad cop stories.
Bad cop stories.
Reading so many threads about cops that lie or just bad cops. This thread should be for them.
Will start with this one.
1- [h=1]Police who lie: Illegal searches by Peel Police allow alleged gun offenders to walk free[/h][h=2]Judges in Peel Region have let at least eight alleged gun offenders walk free after finding police made illegal searches and, in some cases, misled the court to cover up the misconduct[/h]
Adrian Thompson, 28, was acquitted of gun and drug charges after a judge found a veteran Peel Regional Police Officer performed an illegal arest and vehicle search, then misled the court while testifying.
Judges in Peel Region have let at least eight alleged gun offenders walk free after finding police made illegal searches and, in some cases, misled the court to cover up the misconduct.
A “disturbing pattern,” Justice Bruce Durno recently called it before tossing the case against Jahmarr Sterling-Debney, who was found with a .22-calibre pistol and faced a minimum of three years in prison if convicted.
The judge said Peel officers Stephen Porciello and Michael Bishop broke the law by arbitrarily detaining, searching and arresting the suspect on Derry Road in Mississauga, and then attempted to mislead the court about how they seized the man’s gun.
“The public has an interest in having these serious charges prosecuted to a verdict,” Justice Durno said but added the officer’s behaviour was the more serious threat to the reputation of the justice system. “It is essential that the court (dissociate) itself from the police misconduct at the roadside and in court.”
Durno’s ruling is yet another message from Ontario courts that police misconduct undermines public trust in the justice system and must be condemned.
A 2012 Star investigation revealed more than 100 cases of police dishonesty in courts across the country.
The series on thestar.com:Police who lie
How officers thwart justice with false testimony
Crown must now report police who lie
The articles, which also found Ontario had no formal method of reporting such incidents, prompted the attorney general to make a new policy requiring prosecutors in the province to do just that.
In Peel Region, though, the problem continues.
The Star found five recent cases where judges said Peel officers illegally searched suspects’ cars and uncovered guns. Eight accused gun offenders were acquitted as a result.
In these instances, officers followed hunches and found reliable evidence of crimes. Whether out of laziness, overzealousness or poor training, they violated laws put in place to protect citizens from abuse of police power.
In two of the cases, officers gave misleading evidence in court after the Attorney General’s new policy came into effect in January.
All of the officers named in this story either refused to comment or did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Peel Police is looking into the issue after being notified by the Crown attorney’s office of recent court decisions denouncing officers’ actions and testimonies, a police spokeswoman said.
“All of the cases you have identified have either been, or will be reviewed and the appropriate action taken.”
Following the misconduct of veteran Peel officer Sgt. Stephen Ceballo, a loaded handgun was excluded as evidence in two cases and the suspects walked. When reached at his home, Ceballo refused to comment.
In March 2013, Justice Casey Hill found Ceballo misled the court about the shoddy arrest of suspect Adrian Thompson, a repeat gun offender found with a loaded pistol, marijuana and cocaine in his vehicle.
After receiving a call about a man suspected to have a gun, Ceballo and three other officers approached Thompson in the parking lot of a Brick furniture store. They did not tell Thompson the reason he was being detained nor of his right to contact a lawyer. After they searched the SUV and found drugs and the gun and placed Thompson in cuffs, they did not immediately tell him the reason for his arrest.
In court, Ceballo was argumentative, “shifted dramatically” when describing his reason for searching the car, and frequently paused and struggled for answers.
“The sergeant’s evidence was transparently and deliberately misleading as he sought to dodge the inevitable press of questioning establishing his absence of grounds and unlawful authority,” Justice Hill said.
After the judge’s findings, Thompson, who had two prior gun convictions, walked free.
“The disturbing aspect of these warrantless search cases is that they represent only a small fraction of the number of unlawful searches which evidently occur on a regular basis in Peel,” said Thompson’s lawyer Peter Bawden in an interview. “The intent of the court with these decisions is to enforce the rights of everyone in Peel to be free from unreasonable police searches.”
At his home in Brampton, Thompson, 28, who now works part-time as a forklift operator, said he carried the Glock 17 handgun because “I have enemies” and because “I had drugs” to protect.
“Everything in the car was mine. The gun, the drugs. I admitted I put it there. There was no warrant. Peel cops, they don’t like to follow protocol.”
The president of the Peel Regional Police Association said the cases should be viewed in the context of all gun offences before Peel’s courts since 2010.
“There are five cases being talked about — how about all of the other ones where everything was fine? Is this a disturbing pattern or are these just one-offs?” said Wayne Omardeen.
While police officers can randomly stop vehicles to check vehicle safety or a driver’s paperwork, they must otherwise have reasonable grounds to believe an offence is being committed to stop a car, detain a person or search a house. Mere suspicion of criminality is not enough.
A year before Thompson’s case was tossed, in April 2012, another judge in another gun case found Ceballo ordered the unlawful search of a suspect’s car.
After stopping the vehicle for running a red light, police discovered neither the driver nor passenger had a valid licence. Ceballo, in what he called a “teaching moment,” directed the younger constables that the car be seized, towed and searched.
But police had no basis to seize or search the car, Justice David Corbett ruled.
“The supervising officer engaged in an investigative technique that should not be taught to junior officers,” the judge said, adding that excluding the gun as evidence was “the best way to discourage this sort of illegal search.”
The suspects were acquitted.
(Ceballo’s investigative techniques also came under fire in a 2012 drug case. After the officer seized a package containing heroin, a judge ruled police did not have legal grounds to detain the driver or search his trunk. The judge said Ceballo “seemed as if he tailored his evidence to fit the facts.” The heroin was excluded as evidence.)
# 2 and more...Other cases found by the Star include:
Four men were acquitted of weapons charges in September 2010 after Justice John Sproat ruled their arrest and vehicle search was “unlawful,” and the weapons seized, including a loaded rifle, were excluded. The judge also criticized an officer’s evidence about an informant who tipped police off about the car, calling it “highly misleading.”
In a December 2012 decision to allow as evidence a loaded gun Peel officers found hidden in a car, Justice Durno said the evidence “demonstrated an apparent common, but incorrect, (belief) amongst Peel Region Police that an arrest provided grounds to search a vehicle without a warrant, which showed a disturbing ignorance of the law.”
In the case of Sterling-Debney, found with a loaded .22-calibre handgun in his car, Justice Bruce Durno found the officers “were going to stop and search the vehicle in any event based on nothing more than speculation or a hunch.”
The accused testified that just before midnight on June 23, 2012, he left his girlfriend’s apartment, walked through the apartment building’s parking lot and opened the trunk to look for his girlfriend’s son’s baseball hat.
Then, while using his cellphone to call a friend, Sterling-Debney turned on to Rexwood Road and drove toward Derry Road, where he was pulled over by the two officers. They searched the car and found a loaded gun in the trunk.
Why the officers followed the Honda and how they made the arrest was disputed at trial was.
The officers testified that they stopped the car not because the driver was talking on a cellphone but because moments earlier they saw him put what they believed was a handgun in the trunk. They said their experience guided them to take the suspect and his weapon off the street.
Durno found a number of major problems with the two officers’ testimony.
Like when, during the preliminary inquiry stage of the case, Porciello testified that the suspect sat in the Honda for two-and-a-half minutes before pulling out of the lot. If the officers strongly believed he had a gun, this would have been the time to approach and make the arrest, the judge said.
“That that option was never discussed, if they honestly believed he had put a gun in the trunk, is incredible. It makes absolutely no sense to let the driver drive away in the car and potentially away from them or to choose an option that may have resulted in a high-speed pursuit.”
At trial, the officer tried to change his testimony about how long the Honda was in the lot before departing.
The judge also noted Porciello was “combative . . . , argumentative, defensive, evasive and unresponsive . . . belligerent and defiant . . . (and) appeared nervous and fidgety.
“It was not the adrenalin flowing that caused the nervousness. It was apprehension about his evidence, knowing some of the things he had committed to at the preliminary inquiry. When confronted with some of those comments, he tried to distance himself from them, not elaborate on them. . . . He was not a credible witness.”
Durno also noted the officer sometimes paused while struggling to come up with answers that would “assist his position.”
“That type of mental scrambling had the effect of attempting to mislead the court . . . . His manner of testifying and attitude . . . were most troubling.”
Sterling-Debney’s lawyer, Jeff Hershberg, told the Star that the ruling shows a police force’s pattern of conduct in such cases will factor into judges’ rulings on future similar cases. “The public needs to know that one Peel judge after another is worried the Peel police have no respect for the Charter and the truth.”
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada...allow_alleged_gun_offenders_to_walk_free.html
Bad cop stories.
Reading so many threads about cops that lie or just bad cops. This thread should be for them.
Will start with this one.
1- [h=1]Police who lie: Illegal searches by Peel Police allow alleged gun offenders to walk free[/h][h=2]Judges in Peel Region have let at least eight alleged gun offenders walk free after finding police made illegal searches and, in some cases, misled the court to cover up the misconduct[/h]
Adrian Thompson, 28, was acquitted of gun and drug charges after a judge found a veteran Peel Regional Police Officer performed an illegal arest and vehicle search, then misled the court while testifying.
Judges in Peel Region have let at least eight alleged gun offenders walk free after finding police made illegal searches and, in some cases, misled the court to cover up the misconduct.
A “disturbing pattern,” Justice Bruce Durno recently called it before tossing the case against Jahmarr Sterling-Debney, who was found with a .22-calibre pistol and faced a minimum of three years in prison if convicted.
The judge said Peel officers Stephen Porciello and Michael Bishop broke the law by arbitrarily detaining, searching and arresting the suspect on Derry Road in Mississauga, and then attempted to mislead the court about how they seized the man’s gun.
“The public has an interest in having these serious charges prosecuted to a verdict,” Justice Durno said but added the officer’s behaviour was the more serious threat to the reputation of the justice system. “It is essential that the court (dissociate) itself from the police misconduct at the roadside and in court.”
Durno’s ruling is yet another message from Ontario courts that police misconduct undermines public trust in the justice system and must be condemned.
A 2012 Star investigation revealed more than 100 cases of police dishonesty in courts across the country.
The series on thestar.com:Police who lie
How officers thwart justice with false testimony
Crown must now report police who lie
Video
- Sammy Yatim Funeral
[*]Sammy Yatim funeral set to begin
The articles, which also found Ontario had no formal method of reporting such incidents, prompted the attorney general to make a new policy requiring prosecutors in the province to do just that.
In Peel Region, though, the problem continues.
The Star found five recent cases where judges said Peel officers illegally searched suspects’ cars and uncovered guns. Eight accused gun offenders were acquitted as a result.
In these instances, officers followed hunches and found reliable evidence of crimes. Whether out of laziness, overzealousness or poor training, they violated laws put in place to protect citizens from abuse of police power.
In two of the cases, officers gave misleading evidence in court after the Attorney General’s new policy came into effect in January.
All of the officers named in this story either refused to comment or did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Peel Police is looking into the issue after being notified by the Crown attorney’s office of recent court decisions denouncing officers’ actions and testimonies, a police spokeswoman said.
“All of the cases you have identified have either been, or will be reviewed and the appropriate action taken.”
Following the misconduct of veteran Peel officer Sgt. Stephen Ceballo, a loaded handgun was excluded as evidence in two cases and the suspects walked. When reached at his home, Ceballo refused to comment.
In March 2013, Justice Casey Hill found Ceballo misled the court about the shoddy arrest of suspect Adrian Thompson, a repeat gun offender found with a loaded pistol, marijuana and cocaine in his vehicle.
After receiving a call about a man suspected to have a gun, Ceballo and three other officers approached Thompson in the parking lot of a Brick furniture store. They did not tell Thompson the reason he was being detained nor of his right to contact a lawyer. After they searched the SUV and found drugs and the gun and placed Thompson in cuffs, they did not immediately tell him the reason for his arrest.
In court, Ceballo was argumentative, “shifted dramatically” when describing his reason for searching the car, and frequently paused and struggled for answers.
“The sergeant’s evidence was transparently and deliberately misleading as he sought to dodge the inevitable press of questioning establishing his absence of grounds and unlawful authority,” Justice Hill said.
After the judge’s findings, Thompson, who had two prior gun convictions, walked free.
“The disturbing aspect of these warrantless search cases is that they represent only a small fraction of the number of unlawful searches which evidently occur on a regular basis in Peel,” said Thompson’s lawyer Peter Bawden in an interview. “The intent of the court with these decisions is to enforce the rights of everyone in Peel to be free from unreasonable police searches.”
At his home in Brampton, Thompson, 28, who now works part-time as a forklift operator, said he carried the Glock 17 handgun because “I have enemies” and because “I had drugs” to protect.
“Everything in the car was mine. The gun, the drugs. I admitted I put it there. There was no warrant. Peel cops, they don’t like to follow protocol.”
The president of the Peel Regional Police Association said the cases should be viewed in the context of all gun offences before Peel’s courts since 2010.
“There are five cases being talked about — how about all of the other ones where everything was fine? Is this a disturbing pattern or are these just one-offs?” said Wayne Omardeen.
While police officers can randomly stop vehicles to check vehicle safety or a driver’s paperwork, they must otherwise have reasonable grounds to believe an offence is being committed to stop a car, detain a person or search a house. Mere suspicion of criminality is not enough.
A year before Thompson’s case was tossed, in April 2012, another judge in another gun case found Ceballo ordered the unlawful search of a suspect’s car.
After stopping the vehicle for running a red light, police discovered neither the driver nor passenger had a valid licence. Ceballo, in what he called a “teaching moment,” directed the younger constables that the car be seized, towed and searched.
But police had no basis to seize or search the car, Justice David Corbett ruled.
“The supervising officer engaged in an investigative technique that should not be taught to junior officers,” the judge said, adding that excluding the gun as evidence was “the best way to discourage this sort of illegal search.”
The suspects were acquitted.
(Ceballo’s investigative techniques also came under fire in a 2012 drug case. After the officer seized a package containing heroin, a judge ruled police did not have legal grounds to detain the driver or search his trunk. The judge said Ceballo “seemed as if he tailored his evidence to fit the facts.” The heroin was excluded as evidence.)
# 2 and more...Other cases found by the Star include:
Four men were acquitted of weapons charges in September 2010 after Justice John Sproat ruled their arrest and vehicle search was “unlawful,” and the weapons seized, including a loaded rifle, were excluded. The judge also criticized an officer’s evidence about an informant who tipped police off about the car, calling it “highly misleading.”
In a December 2012 decision to allow as evidence a loaded gun Peel officers found hidden in a car, Justice Durno said the evidence “demonstrated an apparent common, but incorrect, (belief) amongst Peel Region Police that an arrest provided grounds to search a vehicle without a warrant, which showed a disturbing ignorance of the law.”
In the case of Sterling-Debney, found with a loaded .22-calibre handgun in his car, Justice Bruce Durno found the officers “were going to stop and search the vehicle in any event based on nothing more than speculation or a hunch.”
The accused testified that just before midnight on June 23, 2012, he left his girlfriend’s apartment, walked through the apartment building’s parking lot and opened the trunk to look for his girlfriend’s son’s baseball hat.
Then, while using his cellphone to call a friend, Sterling-Debney turned on to Rexwood Road and drove toward Derry Road, where he was pulled over by the two officers. They searched the car and found a loaded gun in the trunk.
Why the officers followed the Honda and how they made the arrest was disputed at trial was.
The officers testified that they stopped the car not because the driver was talking on a cellphone but because moments earlier they saw him put what they believed was a handgun in the trunk. They said their experience guided them to take the suspect and his weapon off the street.
Durno found a number of major problems with the two officers’ testimony.
Like when, during the preliminary inquiry stage of the case, Porciello testified that the suspect sat in the Honda for two-and-a-half minutes before pulling out of the lot. If the officers strongly believed he had a gun, this would have been the time to approach and make the arrest, the judge said.
“That that option was never discussed, if they honestly believed he had put a gun in the trunk, is incredible. It makes absolutely no sense to let the driver drive away in the car and potentially away from them or to choose an option that may have resulted in a high-speed pursuit.”
At trial, the officer tried to change his testimony about how long the Honda was in the lot before departing.
The judge also noted Porciello was “combative . . . , argumentative, defensive, evasive and unresponsive . . . belligerent and defiant . . . (and) appeared nervous and fidgety.
“It was not the adrenalin flowing that caused the nervousness. It was apprehension about his evidence, knowing some of the things he had committed to at the preliminary inquiry. When confronted with some of those comments, he tried to distance himself from them, not elaborate on them. . . . He was not a credible witness.”
Durno also noted the officer sometimes paused while struggling to come up with answers that would “assist his position.”
“That type of mental scrambling had the effect of attempting to mislead the court . . . . His manner of testifying and attitude . . . were most troubling.”
Sterling-Debney’s lawyer, Jeff Hershberg, told the Star that the ruling shows a police force’s pattern of conduct in such cases will factor into judges’ rulings on future similar cases. “The public needs to know that one Peel judge after another is worried the Peel police have no respect for the Charter and the truth.”
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada...allow_alleged_gun_offenders_to_walk_free.html
A
Al Bumin
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What's wrong with our cops?.
Do they need more training on how to behave?.
Do they need more training on how to behave?.
Maurice Boscorelli
Senior Member
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- May 30, 2010
- Messages
- 19,322
- Thread starter
- #385
The fact is that there are bad apples in every barrel and let us face it we never hear about all the good cops out there.
One has to balance the good with the bad in looking at the whole picture.
Which is not too say that the bad ones should not be weeded out because they should be.
One has to balance the good with the bad in looking at the whole picture.
Which is not too say that the bad ones should not be weeded out because they should be.
There is a reason why Police forces will no longer police themselves. The corruption was getting out of hand.
Police forces across the province will no longer police themselves when it comes to public complaints of discrimination.
The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal says it will now hear cases of alleged police discrimination even if a similar complaint has already been dealt with by another oversight body — a factor that usually disqualified a case for consideration.
The ruling ends years of successful arguments by police lawyers that the tribunal should dismiss discrimination cases against officers that were originally filed with the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), usually the first avenue for public complaints.
That body refers most police conduct complaints back to the originating force for investigation.
“It’s been an ongoing issue for many decades — how to police the police in terms of their conduct,” said Bruce Best, a lawyer with the Human Rights Legal Support Centre. “The police complaint process, as set out in the Police Services Act, is primarily the chief disciplining his or her officers. It’s an internal mechanism.”
In 2011-12, the OIPRD referred 1,520 cases back to the police service where the complaint originated. The organization retained 121 cases.
In the past, the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal dismissed cases based on Section 45.1 of the Human Rights Code, which was there to prevent duplication.
“In some cases it’s clear that the same issues have been addressed and it doesn’t make sense to relitigate it if someone is trying to have a second kick at the can,” said Best.
But the new ruling differentiates between the two bodies, noting that the police complaint process can only result in discipline to the officer whereas a human rights application could result in the tribunal ordering the police service to make systemic changes.
The decision means a number of human rights applications, which have been held for years pending the decision, can now go forward.
Two involved Toronto men who alleged they were stopped by police because of racial profiling.
The decision “means a lot not for me only, it’s for the community,” said Dave Ferguson, who launched a human rights complaint after he was stopped by Toronto police twice in 2010 while on sick leave from his job at Pearson airport.
In one instance he was given a ticket for loitering while smoking a cigar outside the Lawrence Ave. apartment building where he was visiting his wife, who sponsored him to come from Jamaica, and his children.
“The driving force behind me doing something like that is when I’m on the balcony and I see the kids outside — 14-year-old boys and girls — and they run when the police drive up . . . when I step out now to go about my business, I realize I’m in the same position as those 14-year-olds,” said Ferguson.
He originally filed a complaint with the OIPRD, which referred the case to the Toronto Police Service. The force concluded that Ferguson’s complaint was unsubstantiated. He could have asked the OIPRD to review the decision but choose not to.
The Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police will review the tribunal’s decision at a meeting in September.
“From our perspective, we know there will be some significant challenges for us moving forward,” said Toronto police Insp. Reuben Stroble, vice-chair of the association’s professional standards subcommittee. “We have to look at the impact it’s going to have. There could be conflicting judgments.
“That could there be a problem.”
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20..._police_themselves_in_human_rights_cases.html
Police forces across the province will no longer police themselves when it comes to public complaints of discrimination.
The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal says it will now hear cases of alleged police discrimination even if a similar complaint has already been dealt with by another oversight body — a factor that usually disqualified a case for consideration.
The ruling ends years of successful arguments by police lawyers that the tribunal should dismiss discrimination cases against officers that were originally filed with the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), usually the first avenue for public complaints.
That body refers most police conduct complaints back to the originating force for investigation.
“It’s been an ongoing issue for many decades — how to police the police in terms of their conduct,” said Bruce Best, a lawyer with the Human Rights Legal Support Centre. “The police complaint process, as set out in the Police Services Act, is primarily the chief disciplining his or her officers. It’s an internal mechanism.”
In 2011-12, the OIPRD referred 1,520 cases back to the police service where the complaint originated. The organization retained 121 cases.
In the past, the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal dismissed cases based on Section 45.1 of the Human Rights Code, which was there to prevent duplication.
“In some cases it’s clear that the same issues have been addressed and it doesn’t make sense to relitigate it if someone is trying to have a second kick at the can,” said Best.
But the new ruling differentiates between the two bodies, noting that the police complaint process can only result in discipline to the officer whereas a human rights application could result in the tribunal ordering the police service to make systemic changes.
The decision means a number of human rights applications, which have been held for years pending the decision, can now go forward.
Two involved Toronto men who alleged they were stopped by police because of racial profiling.
The decision “means a lot not for me only, it’s for the community,” said Dave Ferguson, who launched a human rights complaint after he was stopped by Toronto police twice in 2010 while on sick leave from his job at Pearson airport.
In one instance he was given a ticket for loitering while smoking a cigar outside the Lawrence Ave. apartment building where he was visiting his wife, who sponsored him to come from Jamaica, and his children.
“The driving force behind me doing something like that is when I’m on the balcony and I see the kids outside — 14-year-old boys and girls — and they run when the police drive up . . . when I step out now to go about my business, I realize I’m in the same position as those 14-year-olds,” said Ferguson.
He originally filed a complaint with the OIPRD, which referred the case to the Toronto Police Service. The force concluded that Ferguson’s complaint was unsubstantiated. He could have asked the OIPRD to review the decision but choose not to.
The Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police will review the tribunal’s decision at a meeting in September.
“From our perspective, we know there will be some significant challenges for us moving forward,” said Toronto police Insp. Reuben Stroble, vice-chair of the association’s professional standards subcommittee. “We have to look at the impact it’s going to have. There could be conflicting judgments.
“That could there be a problem.”
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20..._police_themselves_in_human_rights_cases.html
Anonymous69
Senior Member
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- May 28, 2013
- Messages
- 1,211
Curly said:
LOL, true.
B
Boing
Guest
Just don't lie.
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Prick
Guest
[h=1]Teenager Israel Hernandez Dies After Miami Beach Cops Catch Him Tagging, Taser Him UPDATED[/h]
https://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2013/08/teenager_israel_hernandez_tase.php
https://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2013/08/teenager_israel_hernandez_tase.php
Beef Jerky
Senior Member
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2012
- Messages
- 1,405
Sal Culosi’s last words were to Baucum, the cop he thought was a friend: “Dude, what are you doing?”
https://www.alternet.org/shot-death...4.225373.YK4sQn&rd=1&src=newsletter879809&t=3
Excerpted from
Sal Culosi is dead because he bet on a football game — but it wasn’t a bookie or a loan shark who killed him. His local government killed him, ostensibly to protect him from his gambling habit.
Several months earlier at a local bar, Fairfax County, Virginia, detective David Baucum overheard the thirty-eight-year-old optometrist and some friends wagering on a college football game. “To Sal, betting a few bills on the Redskins was a stress reliever, done among friends,” a friend of Culosi’s told me shortly after his death. “None of us single, successful professionals ever thought that betting fifty bucks or so on the Virginia–Virginia Tech football game was a crime worthy of investigation.”
Baucum apparently did. After overhearing the men wagering, Baucum befriended Culosi as a cover to begin investigating him. During the next several months, he talked Culosi into raising the stakes of what Culosi thought were just more fun wagers between friends to make watching sports more interesting. Eventually Culosi and Baucum bet more than $2,000 in a single day. Under Virginia law, that was enough for police to charge Culosi with running a gambling operation.
And that’s when they brought in the SWAT team.
On the night of January 24, 2006, Baucum called Culosi and arranged a time to drop by to collect his winnings. When Culosi, barefoot and clad in a T-shirt and jeans, stepped out of his house to meet the man he thought was a friend, the SWAT team began to move in. Seconds later, Det. Deval Bullock, who had been on duty since 4:00 AM and hadn’t slept in seventeen hours, fired a bullet that pierced Culosi’s heart.
Sal Culosi’s last words were to Baucum, the cop he thought was a friend: “Dude, what are you doing?”
In March 2006, just two months after its ridiculous gambling investigation resulted in the death of an unarmed man, the Fairfax County Police Department issued a press release warning residents not to participate in office betting pools tied to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. The title: “Illegal Gambling Not Worth the Risk.” Given the proximity to Culosi’s death, residents could be forgiven for thinking the police department believed wagering on sports was a crime punishable by execution.
In January 2011, the Culosi family accepted a $2 million settlement offer from Fairfax County. That same year, Virginia’s government spent $20 million promoting the state lottery.
The raid on Sal Culosi was merely another red flag indicating yet more SWAT team mission creep in America. It wasn’t even the first time a Virginia SWAT team had killed someone
during a gambling raid. In 1998 a SWAT team in Virginia Beach shot and killed security guard Edward C. Reed during a 3:00 AM raid on a private club suspected of facilitating gambling. Police said they approached the tinted car where Reed was working security, knocked, and identified themselves, then shot Reed when he refused to drop his handgun. Reed’s family insisted the police story was unlikely. Reed had no criminal record.
Why would he knowingly point his gun at a heavily armed police team? More likely, they said, Reed mistakenly believed the raiding officers were there to do harm, particularly given that the club had been robbed not long before the raid. Statements by the police themselves seem to back that account. According to officers at the scene, Reed’s last words were, “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book.”
As the Texas Hold ’Em craze picked up momentum in the mid-2000s, fans of the game started hosting tournaments at private clubs, bars, and residences. Police in many parts of the
country responded with SWAT raids. In 2011, for example, police in Baltimore County, Maryland, sent a tactical unit to raid a $65 buy-in poker game at the Lynch Point Social Club.
From 2006 to 2008, SWAT teams in South Carolina staged a number of raids to break up poker games in the suburbs of Charleston. Some were well organized and high-stakes, but others were friendly games with a $20 buy-in. “The typical police raid of these games . . . is to literally burst into a home in SWAT gear with guns drawn and treat poker players like a bunch of high-level drug dealers,” an attorney representing poker players told a local newspaper. “Using the taxpayers’ resources for such useless Gestapo-like tactics is more of a crime than is playing of the game.”
https://www.alternet.org/shot-death...4.225373.YK4sQn&rd=1&src=newsletter879809&t=3
Excerpted from
Sal Culosi is dead because he bet on a football game — but it wasn’t a bookie or a loan shark who killed him. His local government killed him, ostensibly to protect him from his gambling habit.
Several months earlier at a local bar, Fairfax County, Virginia, detective David Baucum overheard the thirty-eight-year-old optometrist and some friends wagering on a college football game. “To Sal, betting a few bills on the Redskins was a stress reliever, done among friends,” a friend of Culosi’s told me shortly after his death. “None of us single, successful professionals ever thought that betting fifty bucks or so on the Virginia–Virginia Tech football game was a crime worthy of investigation.”
Baucum apparently did. After overhearing the men wagering, Baucum befriended Culosi as a cover to begin investigating him. During the next several months, he talked Culosi into raising the stakes of what Culosi thought were just more fun wagers between friends to make watching sports more interesting. Eventually Culosi and Baucum bet more than $2,000 in a single day. Under Virginia law, that was enough for police to charge Culosi with running a gambling operation.
And that’s when they brought in the SWAT team.
On the night of January 24, 2006, Baucum called Culosi and arranged a time to drop by to collect his winnings. When Culosi, barefoot and clad in a T-shirt and jeans, stepped out of his house to meet the man he thought was a friend, the SWAT team began to move in. Seconds later, Det. Deval Bullock, who had been on duty since 4:00 AM and hadn’t slept in seventeen hours, fired a bullet that pierced Culosi’s heart.
Sal Culosi’s last words were to Baucum, the cop he thought was a friend: “Dude, what are you doing?”
In March 2006, just two months after its ridiculous gambling investigation resulted in the death of an unarmed man, the Fairfax County Police Department issued a press release warning residents not to participate in office betting pools tied to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. The title: “Illegal Gambling Not Worth the Risk.” Given the proximity to Culosi’s death, residents could be forgiven for thinking the police department believed wagering on sports was a crime punishable by execution.
In January 2011, the Culosi family accepted a $2 million settlement offer from Fairfax County. That same year, Virginia’s government spent $20 million promoting the state lottery.
The raid on Sal Culosi was merely another red flag indicating yet more SWAT team mission creep in America. It wasn’t even the first time a Virginia SWAT team had killed someone
during a gambling raid. In 1998 a SWAT team in Virginia Beach shot and killed security guard Edward C. Reed during a 3:00 AM raid on a private club suspected of facilitating gambling. Police said they approached the tinted car where Reed was working security, knocked, and identified themselves, then shot Reed when he refused to drop his handgun. Reed’s family insisted the police story was unlikely. Reed had no criminal record.
Why would he knowingly point his gun at a heavily armed police team? More likely, they said, Reed mistakenly believed the raiding officers were there to do harm, particularly given that the club had been robbed not long before the raid. Statements by the police themselves seem to back that account. According to officers at the scene, Reed’s last words were, “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book.”
As the Texas Hold ’Em craze picked up momentum in the mid-2000s, fans of the game started hosting tournaments at private clubs, bars, and residences. Police in many parts of the
country responded with SWAT raids. In 2011, for example, police in Baltimore County, Maryland, sent a tactical unit to raid a $65 buy-in poker game at the Lynch Point Social Club.
From 2006 to 2008, SWAT teams in South Carolina staged a number of raids to break up poker games in the suburbs of Charleston. Some were well organized and high-stakes, but others were friendly games with a $20 buy-in. “The typical police raid of these games . . . is to literally burst into a home in SWAT gear with guns drawn and treat poker players like a bunch of high-level drug dealers,” an attorney representing poker players told a local newspaper. “Using the taxpayers’ resources for such useless Gestapo-like tactics is more of a crime than is playing of the game.”
A Hamilton, Ont., man alleges that when he was wrongfully arrested for refusing to take a breathalyzer, Peel Regional Police left his pregnant wife and their two children stranded at the side of a Brampton road.
He also alleges that police broke his wrist during the arrest.
Ian Hanniford, 37, and his wife, Kelly-Anne Hanniford, 38, who is nine months pregnant, said they were stopped by a Peel police officer around 11 p.m. Sunday night while travelling with their three-year-old-daughter and 13-year-old son.
The Hannifords said the officer may have thought they had been at a customer appreciation party at a nearby Jamaican restaurant. Ian Hanniford said the officer asked him if he had been drinking and he replied that he had not.
The Hannifords said they told the officer they had spent the day in Brampton attending a communion at a local church, and visiting with family at a barbecue. They said they tried to show the officer church clothes in the back seat, but he ordered the driver out of the vehicle.
Ian Hanniford said he got out of the car to take a breathalyzer test, but returned to his vehicle when he saw two other officers leaning into the car and speaking with his son.
When he shut the car door and told the officers that they had no right talking to his son, his wife said that five officers swarmed her husband.
She alleges he was handcuffed, put in the back of a cruiser and taken to 22 Division in Brampton.
Kelly-Anne Hanniford told CBC News that her family's BMW was towed away, and she and her children were stranded at the side of the road.
She said a police officer told her to catch a bus or hail a cab.
Her uncle, George Hanniford, said he received a phone call from his niece shortly after the incident.
“She was so upset. She was shouting 'they're towing the car. What do I do?'” said the City of Toronto social worker, who left his Brampton home close to midnight to rescue the stranded family.
Ian Hanniford was charged with refusing to give a breath sample, and was released in 30 minutes. His car was impounded and his licence suspended for 90 days.
He said he went to Brampton Civic Hospital where he had a blood sample taken. He said the results showed that he had no alcohol in his system. Also, X-rays revealed his wrist was broken, according to Hanniford.
Peel Regional Police said they are looking into the accusations.
“Professional Standards has been made aware of the information and is currently looking into the matter,” said Staff Sergeant Dan Richardson in an email to media outlets.
Richardson said Peel police “remain committed to being a caring and transparent organization."
“Whenever allegations such as these are brought to our attention by way of a complaint, an internal investigation is launched. Community trust is important to us and we will continue to work towards maintaining the trust that the community has in Peel Regional Police.”
He also alleges that police broke his wrist during the arrest.
Ian Hanniford, 37, and his wife, Kelly-Anne Hanniford, 38, who is nine months pregnant, said they were stopped by a Peel police officer around 11 p.m. Sunday night while travelling with their three-year-old-daughter and 13-year-old son.
The Hannifords said the officer may have thought they had been at a customer appreciation party at a nearby Jamaican restaurant. Ian Hanniford said the officer asked him if he had been drinking and he replied that he had not.
The Hannifords said they told the officer they had spent the day in Brampton attending a communion at a local church, and visiting with family at a barbecue. They said they tried to show the officer church clothes in the back seat, but he ordered the driver out of the vehicle.
Ian Hanniford said he got out of the car to take a breathalyzer test, but returned to his vehicle when he saw two other officers leaning into the car and speaking with his son.
When he shut the car door and told the officers that they had no right talking to his son, his wife said that five officers swarmed her husband.
She alleges he was handcuffed, put in the back of a cruiser and taken to 22 Division in Brampton.
Kelly-Anne Hanniford told CBC News that her family's BMW was towed away, and she and her children were stranded at the side of the road.
She said a police officer told her to catch a bus or hail a cab.
Her uncle, George Hanniford, said he received a phone call from his niece shortly after the incident.
“She was so upset. She was shouting 'they're towing the car. What do I do?'” said the City of Toronto social worker, who left his Brampton home close to midnight to rescue the stranded family.
Ian Hanniford was charged with refusing to give a breath sample, and was released in 30 minutes. His car was impounded and his licence suspended for 90 days.
He said he went to Brampton Civic Hospital where he had a blood sample taken. He said the results showed that he had no alcohol in his system. Also, X-rays revealed his wrist was broken, according to Hanniford.
Peel Regional Police said they are looking into the accusations.
“Professional Standards has been made aware of the information and is currently looking into the matter,” said Staff Sergeant Dan Richardson in an email to media outlets.
Richardson said Peel police “remain committed to being a caring and transparent organization."
“Whenever allegations such as these are brought to our attention by way of a complaint, an internal investigation is launched. Community trust is important to us and we will continue to work towards maintaining the trust that the community has in Peel Regional Police.”
Easy_Money
Member
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2011
- Messages
- 12
YOU COULDN’T RESTRAIN A LITTLE GIRL OFFICERS?
YOU COULDN’T RESTRAIN A LITTLE GIRL OFFICERS?
Tough one to swallow.
https://thelibertarianrepublic.com/cops-taser-12-year-old-girl/#.Ui4l28YQYSv
YOU COULDN’T RESTRAIN A LITTLE GIRL OFFICERS?
Tough one to swallow.
https://thelibertarianrepublic.com/cops-taser-12-year-old-girl/#.Ui4l28YQYSv
jumpingjackflash
Reviewer
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- Jan 7, 2010
- Messages
- 2,940
What is going on with the cops in North America??
H
HOF
Guest
:no:
papasmerf
Senior Member
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2010
- Messages
- 33,614
before we all get bent out of shape we need to see any videos showing this incident and read the official reports.
From there and after interviewing all parties involved then you sort through the crp and determine what happened.
If we take the copy from any rag as truth we become blind followers to what they preach
From there and after interviewing all parties involved then you sort through the crp and determine what happened.
If we take the copy from any rag as truth we become blind followers to what they preach
Maurice Boscorelli
Senior Member
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- May 30, 2010
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- 19,322
- Thread starter
- #400
papasmerf said:
I couldn't agree more.
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