K-9 Handlers in Florida have decided the usual trick of false alerts so authorities can seize assets was not exciting enough, and have taken to unleashing their dogs on people to inflict injuries and pain:
In the early afternoon of July 16, 2012, a frightened mother called the North Port Police Department to report that her 18-year-old son could be suicidal.
“My daughter … found a noose hanging in the garage,” the working mother told the police dispatcher. “I’m afraid he might try to hurt himself.”
North Port responded by sending police K-9 handler Keith Bush, the current leader of a unit that has won regional and national awards at police dog contests, but that has also come under scrutiny at home for unleashing its dogs on juveniles, unarmed suspects and at least one suicidal citizen who was not charged with a crime.
On this day, before he or any other officer reached Jared Lemay’s home, Bush sent a message to fellow K-9 handler Michael Dietz: “COME GET UR BITE.”
They then went to the residence, unleashed their dogs, and then lied about everything that happened. They did, however, leave a trail of texts:
“YOUR BITE OR (Dietz’s)?” McHale inquired.
“I LET (Dietz) HAVE IT,” Bush replied.
“NICE, HOW BAD?” McHale asked.
“BAD,” Bush wrote. “FACE AND BACK.”
“SKIN GRAFT BAD?” McHale asked.
“NO,” Bush wrote.
“COULDA BEEN WORSE THEN, HE SHOULD HAVE COMPLIED,” McHale said, ending the conversation.
To the surprise of no one, Officer Bush is still on the job.
He’s been promoted.
BGinCHI
Since it’s FL, I’m surprised the dog is not the new Police Chief.
Cheap, compliant, and no expensive retirement plan.
Plus, can lick his own balls.
E
I once represented a homeless man who was hospitalized for two weeks and suffered permanent loss of motion in his hand (as well as many deep, permanent scars, including to his face) after being mauled by a police dog who was sent into his camp at 1:00 AM, while he was sleeping. The officers pretended they were looking for a man who had fled a traffic stop in the area several hours earlier, but I became convinced during the proceedings that they were just having a little sadistic fun at the expense of a sleeping homeless person. In any event, there was little hope of catching the man who had fled, and the area they released the dog was pretty obviously populated with homeless campers.
The case never even made it to trial — the government persuaded the judge that the police were immune from error and not negligent in any way. These cases are insanely difficult to win.
Gin & Tonic
My wife has a FB friend who’s white, a retired military lifer, as right-wing as they come, frequently posts the wingnut talking points of the day. After the most recent shooting incident in Chicago, where two people were killed, one “accidentally,” he lost it, and put up an almost Cole-esque post criticizing police behavior and culture, saying they’re completely out of control. I was surprised.
c u n d gulag
What the fuck does the word “complied” even mean to the police anymore?
Is it, whenever the police arrive, that you decide to save them some time and trouble and shoot yourself, or tell your dog to attack you?
“Look, Officer! This gun’s pointed at me, not you!
BAM!
You… You’re welcome…
By the way, what did… did.. you come here… here… for?” Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack………………..”
Shell
It seems this country’s cops have turned into the peace keepers from ‘The Hunger Games’.
OzarkHillbilly
I got nothing to say anymore, cause nothing I might say could ever help.
lethargytartare
I’m becoming ever more convinced that neverending budget cuts have saddled us with police forces comprised entirely of roided up 2nd string high school football players lashing out at the world for forgetting how awesome they were.
Chicago cops killed another kid over the weekend, and their “stray” bullets killed a 55 year old women who lived in the same building.
where are the fvcking good apples in this basket anyway?
C.V. Danes
This sort of behaviour is nothing new. The police have always been the enemy of the poor. Orwell was writing about this 80 years ago. The diff is that more people who were previously middle class are becoming exposed to it.
Just Some Fuckhead
I believe the term you are looking for is “sadists”.
Just Some Fuckhead
At least one of them was prolly masturtexting.
ruemara
That’s the question, where the fuck are the good cops?
Kryptik
@lethargytartare:
All the Good Apples seem to be either crowded out or intimidated out, and the ones left are just kept in the quiet rooms, seems.
FlipYrWhig
@ruemara: They should have to denounce their blue brothers ritualistically, the way the media makes famous black people and Muslims distance themselves from anything untoward in those communities.
NotoriousJRT
I tried calling Tim McGinty’s office today at 3:05 EST to let him know what I think of his handling of the Tamir Rice case. Got a message that their offices are closed. Bull shit.They don’t want to take calls about the Rice case. Well, that is too bad. I will be calling every day until I get them. Our justice system is fucked.
John Revolta
@c u n d gulag: A cousin of mine who was briefly a Chicago cop some 30 years ago once described standard police prodedure to me:
BANG!
“HALT!!”
Betty Cracker
We really need to rethink the considerations that go into judging police “use of force” cases. It can’t be focused solely on the split-second decision when the shots are fired, the taser is deployed or the hounds are released. It needs to include the actions the officers took prior to getting to that moment. What did they do to deescalate the situation? What were the alternatives to a violent confrontation?
ruemara
@FlipYrWhig: if the fucking DAs, Mayors & Governors would do that, I’d be a bit more satisfied.
NotoriousJRT
@lethargytartare:
I think there are many good apples, but they are unwilling to call out the bad ones. So, that makes them an accessory to the bad acts of cops they do not call out. The mediocre and bad ones are just as you described.
NotoriousJRT
@Betty Cracker:
This – one million times.
Germy
A dog’s natural desire is to please his person, and these people take advantage of that. The dogs will do anything they’re trained to do and they don’t ask questions. There are no police cats.
I don’t trust the sniffing dogs because they’ll “find” something nonexistent to please their trainer.
boatboy_srq
I can’t speak for BC’s part of the world, but Sarasota County relies (or at least used to rely) on the sheriff’s department for law enforcement and the city PDs for harassment. When in trouble there, head for the green-and-white and the tan uniform, not the black-and-white and the blue uniform. Life in the unincorporated county is far less… um,… interesting.
There were rumours not so very long ago that Sarasota’s own PD narc squad busted dealers, confiscated the stuff, turned in only a portion of the bust – and sold the rest back to other dealers still working. That this happened in North Port is not particularly surprising.
boatboy_srq
@Just Some Fuckhead:
That is now SO stolen.
kc
Jesus Christ, this is horrible.
goblue72
@ruemara: What good cops? The tiny, infinitesimal number who whistleblow and then find themselves ostracized, in fear for their lives and unemployed?
The Chicago PD was operating a black site torture farm for years.
The NOLA PD was so corrupt that the incoming Democratic Mayor had to beg the DOJ to come in and take over.
The Seattle PD – in a city that is ground zero for progressive politics – recently entered into a consent decree with the DOJ because they couldn’t stop shooting mentally ill homeless people.
The Oakland PD is operating under a close to 13 year consent decree due to a habit of planting evidence, beating suspects and rendering false statements.
Detroit PD recently had its consent decree lifted, but the DPD fought the reforms tooth and nail every step o the way.
Cleveland PD recently entered into consent decree with the DOJ.
Pittsburgh PD was under a 5 year decree starting 1997 and ending 2002 due to corruption. They are now under the DOJ scope for a possible 2nd decree in connection with their police chief being indicted for corruption in 2013.
The LAPD was under a 5 year decree starting 2001. It wound up not being lifted until 2013.
And so forth. And these are just big city police departments in areas where the municipal political structure is (generally) strongly Democratic controlled and thus at least marginally sensitive to critics of police abuse. Republican controlled cities (let alone the small towns where the GOP dominates) fight this tooth and nail and don’t even go through the relatively modest reforms of a consent decree.
This problem isn’t about a few bad apples, anymore than the issue of racism in the U.S. is about a handful of rednecks. The problem is systemic and institutional. The entire system needs to be reformed.
John Revolta
@NotoriousJRT:” (W)hen a man puts that uniform on…..he is the paid protector of things of the present time. he is here to see that things stay the way they are. if you like the way things are, then all cops are good cops. if you don’t like the way things are, then all cops are bad cops.”
-Bukowski
MomSense
Dear all that is good, words fail me. What does protect and serve mean anymore?
goblue72
@NotoriousJRT: Thank you (sincerely) for making the effort.
goblue72
@John Revolta: You left out the even more damning part of that quote that immediately precedes your except from Tales of Ordinary Madness – and especially germane to the type of crap you seen in comment threads of newspapers in connection with these kinds of police abuse –
goblue72
@MomSense: They protect and serve those they are paid to protect and serve – the established order.
gbear
I’m starting to realize how lucky (as in privleged) I’ve been in St. Paul.
I was burning a CD for my sister on Christmas Eve and put it on the stereo at about 10:45 pm while I printed out and trimmed a paper insert for a jewel case. About 11:00 there was a knock on the door. I wasn’t expecting anyone and it was way too late for any of my friends to be visiting. I went to the door and there were two St. Paul cops standing on the porch looking concerned. I’m thinking “hell, my stereo wasn’t that loud” and opened the door to talk with them. They stayed on the porch asking if anyone had called in about an assault in progress at my address. I let them know I was home alone and there were no assaults. They insisted that the address given was mine, and we talked for about 10 minutes while a squad cruised the neighborhood shining a spot light into everyone’s driveways and yards.
I was lucky that I’d left the exacto knife back at the table. If I had been in another city or I had been a different color, Christmas eve could have turned out a whole lot differently (worse).
The cops came to my house a couple years ago after I’d called a crisis line for severe depression. They assessed the situation pretty calmly (more calmly than me), found the ‘note’, put the pills back in the medicine cabinet and kept me out of the bathroom, and then let me know that they were going to take me to the hospital (of my choice). I wound up in a lockdown ward for a couple of days but the cops were incredibly kind and professional about the whole thing.
It always tears me up when I see stories about how shitty the cops are to POC in the Twin Cities (and everywhere else).
Poopyman
@MomSense:
Not “What”, but rather you should be asking (*) “for whom?”
(* – rhetorically, I’m afraid)
Rafer Janders
@NotoriousJRT:
A supposedly good apple unwilling to call out the bad ones is itself a bad apple.
David Hunt
@John Revolta:
I once watched some comedy special in the late 80s that was filmed at Second City in Chicago. It was a bunch of famous comedians that had performed there early in their careers. IIRC Rita Rudner was doing the intro when a guy runs across the stage the behind her. Then Jim Belushi, in a cop uniform, runs out after the guy. Belushi fires about 20 shots, the guy falls immediately and he keeps firing at the “corpse.” After he finishes unloading into the guy, Belushi shouts, “Freeze!” On cue, Rudner says, “It’s nice to see nothing’s changed in Chicago.”
The cops have been doing this shit forever. It’s just that video technology is making it easier to expose it, and (I hope) we’re a little less willing to tolerate it when we get our noses rubbed in it.
boatboy_srq
@MomSense: Far as I can tell, the only things that have changed are that a) cameras are now everywhere, b) at least some of us have waked to the idea that females and Blahs are people too and c) LEOs now treat everyone as perps.
NotoriousJRT
@John Revolta:
Not buying it or not understanding it.
chopper
a psychopathic asshole named Bush? that’s unpossible!
goblue72
@NotoriousJRT: Having read the internal newsletters of various police unions where they let their freak flags fly – and having had to deal with police unions professionally – you have no idea how far the rot goes. The sociopathy, the casual racism, the refusal to reform – it is embedded within the police culture itself, it is systemic, and it is institutional.
scav
@goblue72: Thing is, they don’t care who knows it anymore. Out and Proud, and secure in there being no real repurcussions.
goblue72
@scav: Oh I know. They never get punished. And far too many are far too willing to stick to the “but there are lots of good cops” bullshit. The system is broken – and that means cops need to start going to prison.
ET
I go onto my hometown paper the Times Picayune today – and a truly terrible blast from the past rears his head – Len Davis NOPD officer convicted of murder and sentenced to death is still appealing his case. Honestly this all happened in 1994/95 and this was a federal case. Guess we should be lucky he was found guilty (though it may be because it was a federal case that he was found guilty).
Waldo
From the report of the Christopher Commission, appointed in L.A. in the wake of the 1991 Rodney King beating:
“Ugly incidents will not diminish until ranking officers know they will be held responsible for what happens in their sector, whether or not they personally participate.”
Sadly, that’s worked better as a prediction than a prescription.
MomSense
@boatboy_srq:
I think because of camera phones and social media, the difference is now we know how bad it has always been for POC. The most important question is what are we all going to do about this now that we know?
The thing that spooks me is that they are getting away with this even when there is video. We are also seeing how bogus the police reports can be when written before knowledge of video exists. Even with bogus police reports and video evidence they are still getting away with it.
mclaren
This is what you get in a massively militarized society.
How many of these police are ex-military? How many of them treat Americans in the U.S. when they’re on patrol outside white suburbs the same way they treated Iraqis overseas when they were on Patrol outside the Green Zone?
VOR
@goblue72: Not long ago (Oct 2014?) the Minneapolis PD fed a local news channel a story that the Mayor of Minneapolis was flashing gang signs on camera. Turns out the Mayor was out with a local group doing voter registration and a camera crew came along. The white, middle-aged, female Mayor posed with one of the workers and they pointed fingers at each other. That was the supposed gang signs. The local news channel forgot to mention that the Chief of Police was standing about 5 feet away, just off camera, the entire time.
gene108
@Gin & Tonic:
There’s a subset of right-wingers, who do not trust law enforcement at all. whether from bad experiences they’ve personally had or friends and/or relatives have had.
They are big on conceal carry and owning weapons to protect us from the government.
JKC
@BGinCHI: Since it’s Florida, the dog is probably overqualified.
KithKanan
@Rafer Janders: The actual saying is “one bad apple spoils the whole bunch”. Which, if you’ve ever had a bunch of apples, is true. If you don’t look through the apples regularly to catch the bad ones and get them the hell out of there before the rot spreads, you have a whole bunch of bad apples before you know it!
Gin & Tonic
@gene108: I honestly don’t think he’s that type. He was a high-ranking officer when he retired, so I believe (or hope) that in his career he had to work with people of all races and backgrounds. In his posting he specifically mentioned the disparate police treatment of minority people. I don’t think he carries. And when you’ve fired Tomahawks for real, I don’t think you have any illusions about the might of the government.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
@goblue72:
Oakland PD is the classic example of were are the good cops; working in rural or suburban police departments. No one wants to be a cop in Oakland so they get only rookies looking to prove themselves or the cops who can’t work at any other department.
Patricia Kayden
@Shell: Or they were always that way with Black people. Remember all those videos of White cops attacking Black peaceful protesters in the South? This is how cops have always been when it comes to Black people.
Sad_Dem
@goblue72: How about not even having to file a false report? Shopping for garden supplies and drinking loose-leaf tea can get you a SWAT raid.
danielx
Back when, used to be that there were three reasons people joined police forces – 1) protect and serve, all that good stuff, 2) civil service job with decent bennies and damn near impossible to get fired, and 3) it provided an opportunity to carry a badge and a gun and push people around with impunity.
It does seem that type #3 predominates these days. Although anybody who joins a police department for any reason has an authoritarian/confrontational streak, to greater or lesser degree. There’s a quote somewhere to the effect that police work requires the highest type of men (or women), but unfortunately there’s nothing about the job to attract the highest type of men.
Goblue72
@Enhanced Voting Techinques: If you actually think the cops in Oakland are bad because because the “good” cops are in rural and suburban police departments than you need to put the KoolAid down.
Goblue72
@Sad_Dem: Radley Balko may be a Libertarian, but he has been consistently and diligently spot on about the militarization of the police and the insanity of the drug “war”.
We don’t live in a democracy anymore.
rikyrah
I’ve got nothing on this.
Nothing.
Sad_Dem
@Goblue72: Agreed. I’m no fan of Reason and the people who fund it, but Radley Balko is a real reporter. Just as it is possible to have no love for Gulf state royalty, but when that odious class hires real journalists for its news network, it’s OK to read their news.
J R in WV
@ruemara:
I know a good cop. He told me that if you do it right, it’s mostly social work. He had a degree. Now he’s retired, so technically he isn’t a good cop any more. His fellow cops didn’t like him, as he wasn’t willing to lie for them. He was still driving a cruiser in the remote hollows of the county when he retired, even though he kept taking the civil service tests and getting promoted his whole career.
So there’s your answer. the good cops are mostly retired. Shame, isn’t it?
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
A friend of mine is from a southern military family. The friend is a highly educated professor of epidemiology who is now a minister, having had the calling.
Uncle was buried at West Point. Father was a pilot in the USAF years ago. After pisssing off some higher ranked officers, he was assigned to fly big USAF cargo planes from Vietnam, lay over in Hawai’i then to Dover SFB in Delaware. His cargo was coffins – plane loads of dead soldiers.
He is now a pacifist, retired Col. who won’t have guns in his home. So he learned something from his superiors.
Of his children, none is in the military. His wife once protected the family from communist terrorists coming over the garden wall in Greece with a .45. My friend is a good shot. But a pacifist like Dad.
batgirl
@ruemara: Just like the good priests. Looking the other way.
NotoriousJRT
@goblue72: @goblue72:
Got it. But a very dear friend of my niece and a good and educated person was gunned down in the line of duty with three others in Oakland a few years back. His death destroyed his family and friends, wnd I am not willing to say there are no good police officers.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
You misunderstand. As far as the police are concerned, one good apple spoils the bunch.
oz29
@J R in WV: WV is an exception, in that a lot of cops have degrees. Four guys I went to school with as an undergrad became troopers. That seemed to be a pretty popular career path — three years at Concord, Bluefield, or Tech followed by the academy, with some moving to county so or city pd slots. Most states have POST, or something similar, which means 80 hours of training for a basic patrol certification, give or take — roughly half of what is required for non-troopers in WV.
I have dealt with cops at every level in Idaho and Washington, and few patrol officers have degrees. A lot of detective types do, but it is rare for a patrol deputy or a city officer.
Pogonipx
@goblue72: Do you have quotes you can show to your city council? Your Congresscritter?
Villago Delenda Est
@boatboy_srq: Entrepreneurship in action, that’s what it is!
Pogonipx
My experience with cops is about half and half. So there are good ones, or at least ones who are doing their job properly. And they may be scared to take on the baddies (remember Frank Serpico and the Walking Tall officer). I wonder if there is any way we the people can make common cause with the good cops.
a different chris
@Germy: The dog doesn’t have to alert to anything. If the cop says the dog alerted, then the dog alerted. Manufacturing probable cause is what sniffer dogs are for.
Oatler.
@goblue72:I said it before: treat the cops like a rogue paramilitary force in our own country and eliminate it accordingly.
Paul in KY
@NotoriousJRT: I guess they’re afraid that the bad ones will fuck them over in some manner.
Paul in KY
@goblue72: Blade Runner said it (thru a character) many years ago: ‘You’re cop or you’re little people’.
Paul in KY
@jake the antisoshul soshulist: Sad to say, probably a lot of truth there. Frank Serpico would agree.
pseudonymous in nc
@goblue72:
The basic problem is that police departments are self-perpetuating fiefdoms that are at best representative of a small sliver of the broader community — in lots of cities, still dominated by ‘white ethnic’ officers — and at worst treat the places they police as if they were an occupying force. American cops are mostly as badly trained and badly adjusted as American drivers.