This is the second week in a row that there were enough videos involving police misconduct that I could make a whole post out of them… if this keeps up, it might become a regular feature… though I wish there weren’t any cases to report at all.
(Older “The Week In Video” pieces are here and here)
| Portland Police officer shoots 12-year-old with beanbag gun. |
In Portland Oregon, a police officer who is already facing disciplinary action for the 2006 death-in-custody of a mentally ill man who suffered numerous broken ribs when tackled by police is now under investigation again for firing a beanbag round from a shotgun at point-blank range into a 12-year-old girl’s leg while she was being arrested for using a train she was allegedly banned from. While the young girl does appear resistant, there are questions as to what the department’s policy is in regards to firing beanbag rounds from shotguns at such close ranges.
In San Jose California, The San Jose Mercury News has hired a video expert to enhance the audio portion of a cellphone video showing San Jose police beating and tasering SJ State student Phoung Ho. The student was hit about 13 times with a baton and tasered once for trying to find his glasses while sprawled out on the floor underneath two cops.
In the transcribed audio the student can be heard pleading for his glasses 7 times as well as saying please and sorry about 8 times… between cries and sobs. The officers, meanwhile, are apparently heard saying things like “I wanted to punch the fucker in the mouth” “That’s hurting ya?” and “Go back home to your mom.”
In Milford Connecticut, police officer Jason Anderson has been charged with two counts of 2nd degree manslaughter for the above accident where he was recorded going 94mph at 100% throtle when he hit the car driven by David Servin, killing both him and his passenger Ashlie Krakowski, both age 19. The officers were rumored to have been drag racing even before this video was released and both were accelerating fast when the accident occurred. The teens never stood a chance since they couldn’t gauge the speed of the rapidly accelerating officers and, if the officer who hit them had been going 84 instead of 94 in that 45mph zone, they never would have collided. Both officers were not responding to a call at the time.
….
Finally, via email, I received this message from someone who is working on documentaries for various innocence projects. While most innocence projects will only take cases where DNA evidence is available, the ones this man his highlighting take on the more challenging cases where no DNA evidence is available.
In his words…
My name John Maki. I do new media work for midwest innocence projects, including the Center on Wrongful Convictions, the Wisconsin Innocence Project, the Ohio Innocence Project, and the Michigan Innocence Clinic.
As part of my work, I make short youtube documentaries about wrongful convictions. Some of these documentaries focus on exonerations, and include exclusive footage of people walking out of prison and interviews with their lawyers, while others focus on pending actual innocence cases, case histories, and issues related to wrongful conviction reform.
The goal of my work is to raise public awareness of wrongful conviction reform and the work of my innocence project partners. Given the focus of your blog, I was wondering if I could send you links to my work. Also, if you have any suggestions about videos you’d like to see and feature, as well as other bloggers who might be interested in this work, please let me know.
Here are two videos I just published this week:
“No DNA to Test: The Wrongful Conviction of Dwayne Provience”
This is a recent Michigan Innocence Clinic case. Provience, a native of Detroit, was given a new trial a couple weeks ago, and his official exoneration is imminent. This case is an incredible example of police and prosecutorial misconduct. Provience spent almost 10 years in prison for murder, even though the Detroit police department possessed evidence at the time of his conviction that proved he was innocent.
“It Could Happen to Anyone: The Wrongful Conviction of Alan Beaman”
This is a Center on Wrongful Conviction case. Alan was a college student from a conservative Republican, Christian family in Rockford, IL, when he was wrongfully convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend. This was an egregious example of prosecutorial overreaching. There was no direct evidence that linked Alan to the crime, while there was powerful evidence that he was in fact 140 miles from the crime when it took place. In 2008, the Supreme Court of Illinois reversed and vacated his conviction, finding that the conviction rested on “tenuous circumstances,” and that the prosecutor had failed to disclose exculpatory evidence. The video focuses on Alan’s parents and how they dealt with their son’s wrongful conviction. Here’s more on Alan’s case: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/cwc/exonerations/ilBeamanSummary.html
If they want to convict you there is almost nothing you can do without solid evidence of your innocence. And lord help you if it is a federal issue, even with evidence they will get you if they want. They are not above lying, cheating, beating, and stealing. You are now guilty until proven innocent.
“If the government comes to you, and tells you, We know he did it,
The tendency is to believe that version.”
Defense Attorney Robert Udell
In the defense of Cindy Summer
The saddest part about this is that this is just par for the course. Most judges used to be prosecutors. At the very most, not releasing exculpatory evidence will lose their job, and usually, they consider this tactic valid for a ‘win’. When lawyers put their track record ahead of someone they know to be innocent, that is judicial malpractice of the highest degree.
Hey Packratt,
The videos are a punch in the gut each & every time. It appears that they are either aware of being taped and don’t care or not aware and don’t care. Both are dangerous attributes. What’s more sad is when the grand juries decline to indict.
Thanks for introducing John Maki to us.