Bad Cop Videos

Sometimes I wonder if videos like that are fake.


Some might be. But I've seen enough of them where I've been able to match it up with an actual article that I'm usually pretty comfortable posting them.
 
Not a video, But I think it will work here:




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The town of Edison, New Jersey, just learned the last place you want to be is in the line of FIRE.

Last night, the township that booted resident Joel Bassoff from a council meeting for waving a small American flag and holding a copy of the Constitution passed a motion to schedule a repeal of its ban on "props."

After we heard about Joel's case, FIRE leapt into action.
  • We explained to the council why the ban was unconstitutional.
  • We were on the ground in Edison teaching people about the First Amendment and attending the meeting to support Joel.
  • We spread the story in the media.
  • We even drove around town with a truck that read, "The flag is not a prop."
The council cited FIRE's pressure in its decision to repeal the ban, scheduled for Jan. 8.

Video of Edison Councilmember

It all started when the Edison town council established new rules of "decorum" for its meetings, which included banning the use of "props" while addressing the council.

So when Joel was booted from the meeting, we knew that was our cue.

There's nothing disruptive about holding up a small American flag or a copy of the Constitution. It's a form of symbolic expression that's clearly protected under the First Amendment.

Now, thanks to FIRE's advocacy, Joel and the residents of Edison whose speech was threatened by these rules can rest a little easier.

Take it from Joel: "I felt that if I could push back against the infringement of someone else's free speech rights, it was incumbent on me as an American to do something. Hopefully, local officials throughout the country have learned that if they try to insulate themselves from criticism by restricting the manner in which members of the public can address them, the public and FIRE will fight back — and win."

FIRE​
 
Not a video, but I think LS will forgive me on this one:


A Las Vegas jury awarded $34 million on Thursday to a woman who had been wrongfully convicted for murder in 2001.

Kirstin Blaise Lobato served 16 years in prison for the murder of Duran Bailey. However, the jury found that two retired Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) detectives, Thomas Thowsen and James LaRochelle, fabricated evidence against the inmate, which resulted in her conviction.
Lobato was exonerated in 2017 after her conviction was overturned. The court found that she had received ineffective counsel. She was later released in early 2018. A state court issued a Certificate of Innocence to her in October 2024. Yet, Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill and District Attorney Steve Wolfson have continued to challenge her innocence, writing a letter to the state attorney general questioning the evidence and her legal team’s tactics.

She later filed a lawsuit against the police department and two detectives...

Jury Awards $34 Million to Innocent Woman After Investigators Framed Her for Murder
 

A suburban New York police department routinely violated residents’ civil rights, including making illegal arrests and using unnecessary strip and cavity searches, according to a new US Department of Justice report.

The report on a pattern and practice of police misconduct at the department in Mount Vernon, just north of New York City, is one of 12 investigations opened by the DOJ into local policing agencies since 2021, including those sparked by the killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky.

No single incident prompted the investigation into Mount Vernon’s approximately 160-officer force. But the illegal strip search in 2020 of two women, one age 65 and the other 75, were emblematic of the department’s shortcomings, said the report, which was released Thursday.

Arrested on suspicion of buying drugs, officers searched the women’s car, found nothing, and hauled them into a police station in handcuffs, the report said. Supervisors there approved a fully nude strip search by detectives who “told them to bend over and cough.”

After an internal investigation found that the officers had lied about the pair buying drugs, those involved were docked a few vacation days, the report said.

The police union representing officers in the department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Until at least the fall of 2022, it was the Mount Vernon force’s practice to strip search every person it arrested, according to the report. Officers also strip-searched people they did not arrest, detained and interrogated people without formally arresting them, and arrested people for verbally criticizing police officers.

Illegal strip and cavity searches continued until at least 2023, the report found. The investigators said that while the practice was “curtailed” during its probe, “we are not confident that these practices have ended.”

Among a catalog of unconstitutional arrests, the DOJ identified a case where officers took the mother of a shooting victim to a police station and interrogated her, even as her dying daughter was rushed to the hospital. The daughter, struck by a stray bullet, died while her mother was in custody. Officers didn’t articulate probable cause for her detention.

The department also suffered from financial mismanagement, which exacerbated pervasive human rights violations rooted in illegal policies and lack of training, the report said. It noted that low salaries make it hard to attract and retain quality officers, train staff and pay its bills, starving its supply budget.

The report noted that the city is already taking steps to improve its policing. It offered a series of recommendations, including implementing measures “to ensure that unconstitutional strip and body cavity searches do not take place.”

In a statement, Mount Vernon Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard said the city would work with the DOJ to address its findings.

“We wholeheartedly support our good officers and at the same time will not tolerate and will punish unconstitutional policing,” said Patterson-Howard, a Democrat.

The statement noted that three police officers and two civilian employees had been fired following an investigation in 2021. A spokesperson for the mayor did not immediately respond to questions about when and why those people were fired.
 
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