No dash cam video, and... cops exonerated cops. Shocking.
Quote:
Officer threatens to make up evidence after arrest of innocent men
SEATTLE -- A Seattle police officer has been caught on tape talking about "making up" evidence while two wrongly arrested men sit in jail. It's the latest shocker uncovered by a KOMO 4 Problem Solver investigation into the Seattle Police Department's vanishing dashcam videos.
Josh Lawson and Christopher Franklin filed a claim against the city Monday for excessive force and wrongful arrest.
The two were arrested at gunpoint on November 16, 2010 and said the incident changed their lives forever.
"I thought I was gonna die," Lawson said about that night.
Franklin said it was "the most terrifying thing I've ever experienced."
Both men said they suffered facial bruises and swelling after one was kicked and the other man-handled into the pavement while being arrested. But then listen to what an officer says on an audio recording after he takes the two to holding cells: "Well, you're going to jail for robbery that's all."
You then hear Franklin ask, "for robbery?" And the officer responds, "Yeah, I'm gonna make stuff up."
Franklin believed him.
"He showed me that he has the power to do whatever he wanted that night," he said. "He has a badge, and all we can do is nothing."
We watched the partial video of their arrest together with Lawson and Franklin. Neither man has a criminal record and they were not charged with anything after the arrest. They both work full-time and go to school. But the night of their arrest they were in the neighborhood near Seattle Center, several blocks away from where an assault was reported.
In a 911 call, a witness described those assailants: "It was two tall, skinny African Americans."
Lawson is six feet tall, and Franklin is just five feet nine inches tall.
The person who called 911 to report the attack told a dispatcher the assailants "were both wearing jeans."
But in police booking photos Lawson is wearing white sweat pants.
A booking photo shows that Franklin's jeans are allowed to fall to his knees after his shoes are taken away, and at the scene an officer pulls Franklin's hood up over his head.
"I felt like he was making me look like the part," Franklin said.
"These guys are guilty of being black in Seattle," said attorney Lizanne Padula, who represents Lawson and Franklin. She believes if they'd been white "I think the most that would have happened with those kids police officer would have rolled down his window and said, 'hey, were you guys over in this area?'"
But Officer Brad Richardson, the arresting officer, never questions the two about an assault. Instead, Richardson makes what's called a felony stop, taking cover behind his car door with his gun drawn.
In a "Use of Force" report filled out after the arrest, Richardson wrote, "both males ignored his commands to stop and continued walking right toward him."
Franklin and Lawson say that's crazy -- that there's no way they'd keep walking toward a cop who had a drawn gun.
"We got on the ground and we froze," Franklin said.
Lawson said he was terrified. "I thought I was gonna be murdered in cold blood."
We showed Seattle Police Sergeant Sean Whitcomb the arrest video, and he admits the 'make stuff up' comment was inappropriate. But he says the department's Office of Professional Accountability investigated the complaint and exonerated the officer.
"I can tell you we take (complaints) seriously but people have to believe that and they have to trust the system they have to trust the process," Whitcomb said.
Another problem: none of the arrest is caught on tape -- only the aftermath, once the two are on the ground in handcuffs, with Lawson's angry questions of why Officer Richardson kicked him in the face, which Richardson disputes saying he only "kicked him in the chest."
For more than a year the KOMO 4 Problem Solvers fought to get access to the Seattle Police Department's video database, knowing that dash cam videos could play a critical role in citizen oversight of the troubled department. We are now suing SPD for what we believe is a violation of the Public Records Act. Our investigation uncovered, among other things, that the department had lost tens of thousands of dash cam videos.
Attorney Padula contacted us, wondering if her clients were among that group.
"It wasn't really until I was able to communicate with you and your knowledge of what's out there and what the videos mean and your investigation that it was like 'oh, wait, there's not just one video that we don't get - there's more.'"
We discovered at least three other dash cam videos exist of the Lawson/Franklin arrest. But none show Officer Richardson during the critical time period, when he had Lawson and Franklin at gunpoint and later kicked Lawson.
We asked Whitcomb if the department was going to hold officers accountable when dashboard cameras aren't turned on.
"We do, we actually do, look at our OPA reports," Whitcomb said. But when we reminded him it didn't happen in this case, he said, "well maybe not in that case, but there's other cases."
Attorney Padula's take on the lack of dash cam video? "I think it's reprehensible, to me there's no excuse for that."
We've learned that the arrest video could have been salvaged from the hard drive in Officer Richardson's dash cam system, but wasn't.
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Maybe it was a birdy bread-bomber from the future?!
But he says the department's Office of Professional Accountability investigated the complaint and exonerated the officer.
Any questions Wis?
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- Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats. H. L. Mencken - These are the times that try men's souls. - T. Paine
Video and audio recording proliferation is making white America aware of what "colored" America has known for decades.
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"Winter is coming." -Motto of House Stark "Mo'lon La'be"- Leonidas "Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general" - Mark Rippetoe "Its like Calvinball."-MarvinMartian
I would say the JBT are worse, since you can defend yourself against the non-badge carrying thugs.
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"Winter is coming." -Motto of House Stark "Mo'lon La'be"- Leonidas "Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general" - Mark Rippetoe "Its like Calvinball."-MarvinMartian
Video and audio recording proliferation is making white America aware of what "colored" America has known for decades.
Most of us knew what was going on. We simply didn't care as long as the cops kept the bad behavior confined to criminals. The crime of the 70s and 80s and the judges who kept letting harden criminals out to prey on the public again and again convinced most of us that having cops bring the beat down was the only solution. But I think it was primary the much longer prison sentences that reduced crime in the 90s and the bad behavior of the police started spilled over from the truly criminal to decent people. The cops no longer view people as good people and criminals, they view it as the cops vs the prey. Every arrest is money in their coffers, every violent act demonstrates dominance of the police over the public, and every bad prosecution against a innocent man re-enforces our serfdom.
I would say the JBT are worse, since you can defend yourself against the non-badge carrying thugs.
Not necessarily. Ever hear of the knock out game or polar bear hunting? Old people/whites/Asians/Mexicans are often targeted for sucker punches to the back of the head without warning even in good areas of Seattle by roving gangs of thugs. Some people even die after the being kicked repeatedly on ground from such an attack. The Thugs kill far more innocents than the JBT do.
This is NOT a shocker to me at all. Spank is 100% correct, but I don't expect many on TF to give a crap about this story, and THAT is the problem. It's alright as long as it is "them" and not "us". The problem is that it eventually does affect "us".
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"Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world." - Napoleon Bonaparte
"Circulation ceases first at the outer edges [Europe and Japan]. It will take a while yet for the decay to reach the heart [America]." - Foundation & Empire by Isaac Asimov
Im not colored and like i said in a post in the bar,once these guys get a grip on you,you are screwed,im not even going to type the BS i have been through at the hands of Bellevue,Redmond,Seattle police or the thousands of dollars in fines here and there and the courts lol you dont stand a chance.
As far as those thugs Redwolf,trust me i will take my chances with them over the Badge any day.
Oh and Redwolf in the mid to late 80's there was about 100,000 or 80,000 criminals that were the largest contributors to about 75% of felonys,that was the big crack cocaine and gang wave,,,those guys are rotting in prison or dead for the most part but their mark on the black community is still being felt.
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"The rules were simple: Never pay in cash, never tell the truth and never play by the rules"
Oh i know,i was not trying to be rude or smug or anything just giving my 2 cents if you will.
The way we handle the Police and the Justice system needs a very seriuos overhaul not to mention the wharehousing of people in these jails,prisons because they are creating more hardened criminals upon leaving imo,i mean what do expect when you lock up people with other people that are very violent? you get released and you cannot not have outright RAGE and utter hatred to the system,any sane person would conclude that they are your enemy,i know there is some good people in the courts,police but at the expense of what people like me have been through? no that doesnt make up for it.
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"The rules were simple: Never pay in cash, never tell the truth and never play by the rules"
The way we handle the Police and the Justice system needs a very seriuos overhaul not to mention the wharehousing of people in these jails,prisons because they are creating more hardened criminals upon leaving imo,i mean what do expect when you lock up people with other people that are very violent? you get released and you cannot not have outright RAGE and utter hatred to the system,any sane person would conclude that they are your enemy,i know there is some good people in the courts,police but at the expense of what people like me have been through? no that doesnt make up for it.
Actually no. Keeping violent low impulse control people locked up during their sexual maturity actually reduces crime quite a bit. It's during the teens through 35 that the majority of crimes are committed. So prison serves a very useful purpose in keeping criminals away from the general population until they pass beyond this most violent of periods. Take a look at "When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment" by Mark A. R. Kleiman for some real research into criminality. Mark Kleiman may be a progressive nanny statist who wants to control everything, but he's also an honest guy.
I believe prison are useless mental torture systems, but removing a criminals from the general populace is and continues to be very effective in reducing crime. A better solution would be exile to someplace like Liberia after the second violent crime. I would urge the same on the first offense of violence under the color of law.
Reading a book and seeing it yourself and being through the system is two different things.
Prosecutors rarely give a dam whether your guilty or not and court appointed Attorneys are a joke,the system is about money,not Law and Justice.
Believe me,it doesnt take much to get locked up anymore,fail to keep your car insurance payment up,get ticket go to court,get fine,then if your broke but still employed you roll the dice and drive,whoops get pulled over guess what? license suspended and another fine,,,,yah see once they have you they do not let go.
Last time i was in jail a kid yes kid in my eyes around 18 or 19 was in there for arguing with his mother,he mailed his mother from in jail and they spoke and she wanted all charges dropped but oh hey they found out about the letter and he was looking at another year in jail due to that letter because the courts with DV have gone crazy,,dont ever call the cops if your arguing with your spouse someone will always go to jail or even your mother or brother.
There is those with money that can get away with stuff and those peasants who cannot,that is the reality add in the mix of power tripped Cops that have quota for tickets and yes they do,anyone can be affected,maybe the cop is just having a bad day and doesnt like you for whatever reason,yah know.
DWI two years probation and two year classes,but guess what the mayor of Redmond didnt do that nor anyone else that serves the public,nope seperate laws for them,but you better dam well lock up them youngs kids.
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"The rules were simple: Never pay in cash, never tell the truth and never play by the rules"
My town just cut the 3am to 7am shift back to one cop.
It's a start.
(Those hours around here pretty much the only thing going on is deer and coyotes moving around. So, a couple DWIs get home without a ticket in a month ...)
The union of course is putting letters in the local paper - oh, you'll regret it when you're burglarized at 4am ... but that don't fly, as the only regretful person in a burglary at 4am likely to be the buckshot thief!
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"There are fluctuations in the market that don't mean anything."Ira Gluskin, February 14, 2012
I don't care if it makes sense -- only if it makes money. -- Me Bank (n): See scam, fraud and theft.Eat a bankster -- they're low-carb. What part of "shall not be infringed" was unclear?
The union of course is putting letters in the local paper - oh, you'll regret it when you're burglarized at 4am
You'll regret it more after you call the cops and the bugler has been gone for 45 minutes...and the cops show up and kill your dog.
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I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know they do not approve, and what they approve I do not know. - Epicurus Oderint dum metuant - Caligula & Police State USA
The union of course is putting letters in the local paper - oh, you'll regret it when you're burglarized at 4am
What about during the day when a mentally disturbed father grabs two children then proceeds to hack the children up before blowing the house up that is filled with gasoline.
TACOMA, Wash. (AP) – Emergency call logs show that nearly eight minutes elapsed between when a social worker called 911 to report that Josh Powell's children were in danger and when sheriff's deputies were dispatched, and it took another 14 minutes for a deputy to get to the home. The Associated Press obtained the logs Wednesday night under a public records request. Recently released audio tapes of the 911 calls raised questions about the dispatch center's handling of the social worker's calls, which detailed that Powell, the husband of a missing Utah woman, had locked her out of the house during what was supposed to be a supervised visit with his two young sons. Minutes later, Powell torched the home, killing all three. The recordings showed that the man who took her call engaged in nearly seven minutes of questioning that ended with him saying he didn't know how long it would be before a deputy could respond. The audio didn't make clear when the deputy was dispatched. The logs show that apparently happened about a minute after the call ended. It wasn't known if a quicker response could have saved the boys, who had also been attacked with a hatchet.
It took almost two minutes from the start of the call for the dispatcher to learn Powell's address and more than three minutes to understand that she was there to supervise a child custody visit. Near the end of the call, she asked how long before officers could get there.
"I don't know, ma'am," he said. "We have to respond to emergency life-threatening situations first."
She responded: "This could be life-threatening … I'm afraid for their lives!"
Authorities said the call could have been handled better, and that it was unfortunate for the dispatcher to leave the social worker with the impression no help was immediately on the way. The agency that runs the call center said it would review the matter and start a disciplinary investigation if necessary.
Still, the recordings raised questions about an emergency response to a custody visit that ended with Powell killing himself and his boys.
Pierce County Sheriff's Detective Ed Troyer said he did not believe the conversation caused unnecessary delays.
"Are we unhappy with the etiquette and the manner? Yes," Troyer said. "Did it affect the response time? No. Dispatchers are typing information and addresses while they're on the phone with callers."
The social worker had driven the Powell boys, 5 and 7, from their grandparents' home to their father's house on Sunday. Josh Powell had lost custody of the boys last fall, after his father, with whom they lived, was arrested in a child pornography and voyeurism investigation. When she arrived, the boys ran into the house, and Powell slammed the door in her face, locking it. She called her supervisor and 911 using her cellphone, reaching the call center in Tacoma about 10 miles away from Powell's house just outside Puyallup, authorities said.
In the first minutes of her first 911 call, the woman quickly laid out the situation: "Something really weird has happened. The kids went into the house and the parent — the biological parent — whose name is Josh Powell will not let me in the door. What should I do?… I could hear one of the kids crying, and he still wouldn't let me in."
Nearly 20 seconds into the call, the dispatcher asked her for the address. The social worker didn't know and needed to look for it. It took her about 90 seconds to find it in her car.
At one point, she asked, "You can't find me by GPS?"
He responded: "No." And then there was a pause of approximately 10 seconds.
Pierce County, the second largest in the state and home to about 800,000 people, has an enhanced 911 system that is designed to give police an approximate location of the cell phone caller. It wasn't immediately clear if the call center used that feature to locate the social worker.
While she was still looking for the address, she said, "But I think I need help right away."
The dispatcher proceeded to question her repeatedly about who she was and her role.
"Who is there to exercise the visitation?" he asked.
"I am," she said. "The visit is with Josh Powell. And he's the husband of …"
"And who's supervising?" he asked.
"I supervise."
"So you supervise and you're doing the visit? You supervise yourself?" he asked.
"I supervise myself. I'm the supervisor here."
"Wait a minute. If it's a supervised visit, you can't supervise yourself if you're the visitor."
After getting it straight, the dispatcher told her: "We'll have somebody look for you there."
"OK, how long will it be?" the woman asked.
That's when the dispatcher responded by saying he didn't know.
Moments later, the house erupted in flames.
The woman screamed in a separate call: "He exploded the house!"
Authorities also released a 911 call Josh Powell's sister made Sunday, saying she received emails from her brother explaining what to do with his property and saying he couldn't live without his sons. Alina Powell told a dispatcher she feared her brother was going to do something because of pressure he faced after his wife, Susan, disappeared two years ago in Utah. Authorities considered him a "person of interest" in the case. It's unclear what time Alina Powell's 911 call was Sunday, but it appears the dispatcher had some knowledge of who Josh Powell was.
Crying, Alina Powell told the dispatcher: "I'm terrified to drive over there. I'm not afraid of him. He's never hurt me. I'm afraid of seeing something I don't want to see."
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It's gotten too big to hide behind the sofa pillow anymore. The ugly head is protruding and people are waking up from their sleep only to realize the nightmare is real.
Her phone (or carrier) didn't transmit the information. It happens. I happen to have worked on this software (on the phone side) and it doesn't always go through, especially if you have an older phone or if you haven't recently used the GPS and it has no warm start coordinates and thus cannot send a position. In that case all the center gets is your cell tower information which only gives you a position within a few thousand feet (not enough to locate you unless you're on an interstate or similar and it's known you're on the only road in the immediate area.)
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I don't care if it makes sense -- only if it makes money. -- Me Bank (n): See scam, fraud and theft.Eat a bankster -- they're low-carb. What part of "shall not be infringed" was unclear?
Doesn't sound like there's much of anything anyone could have done there. It's very hard to stop people who are willing to kill themselves. Sad story.
A huge number of these murder suicide/killing the kids and suicides happen over child custody cases. There appears to be an animal instinct to kill your young that gets triggered sometimes when people decide to kill themselves.
Asimov
Posts: 104615
Incept: 2007-08-26
East Tennessee Eastern Time
Online
It's not an animal instinct, it's to hurt the other party - in this case the mother.
Think she would have cared if he'd offed himself? Hell no. Take the kids with him though? How much worse could he hurt her?
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It's justifiably immoral to deal morally with an immoral entity. If you trade based on what other people say, you will lose money. Especially what I say. I won't be held responsible. Festina lente.
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