No wonder they don't want to be filmed on duty

From the Injustice Everywhere Blog:

September 4th, 2010

Since I was unable to scan for reports for extended periods of time today the number of reports for this Friday are lower than normal. Hopefully I’ll be able to pick the ones I missed up over the weekend.

With that in mind, here are the 15 reports of police misconduct tracked in our National Police Misconduct News Feed for this Friday, September 3, 2010:

• Seven Burkburnett Texas police officers are the subject of a federal civil rights pattern and practice lawsuit that was filed by four different people who joined their various excessive force and false arrest complaints into a single suit.

• A now-former Ravenna Nebraska police officer has been sentenced to 30-60 years in prison after convicted on five counts of 1st degree sexual assault and one count of sexual assault on a child involving a girl who was 15 when he began a sexual relationship with her that lasted about two years. This was the officer’s third trial in this case after the first two trials ended with hung juries. [0]

• A now-former Norwalk Connecticut police lieutenant has been sentenced to 30 days in jail in a plea deal for misdemeanor interfering with an investigation, coercion, and reckless endangerment charges related to allegations that he had sex with two 15-year-old boys and attempted to lure a third boy to his apartment in order to have sex. The deal came after the sexual assault case fell apart when questions about whether one of the boys was 16 at the time of the incident arose while another boy backed out of testifying, saying that he was worried about the effect it would have on his family. [1]

• Officials in Middletown Connecticut are allegedly reviewing their policies after two police officers tasered a 17-year-old student while attempting to arrest him on allegations that he stole a “Jamaican pattie” from the school cafeteria during lunch. [2]

• In an update to a story we covered yesterday, another Arvada Colorado police officer has resigned in association with an investigation into an alleged excessive force incident. This brings the total resignations associated with this case up to four officers with a fifth officer still on paid leave while under investigation. While officials are apparently refusing to release any specific details involving the case it appears as though only one of the officers engaged in excessive force but the others attempted to cover it up by failing to report it or even lying on their reports about the incident. Incidentally, two other officers have also resigned from the department recently as well but officials say those two were unrelated to this case, but refuse to say what those were about. [3]

• A Will County Illinois deputy has resigned while under investigation on allegations that sexually harassed a woman, forcibly kissing her on the mouth at one point, after she called police for help in handling problems she was having with her ex-husband. The same deputy faced similar allegations in 2007 when a woman who had shown him some apartments 15 days after he was hired complained that he attempted to kiss and grope her inside the woman’s office. No charges were filed and the sheriff refused to discipline the deputy since the conduct occurred while he was off-duty. [0]

• A Riverside County California deputy is on paid leave after being arrested for suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and spousal battery after an alleged brawl he had with a fellow deputy that left that man seriously injured with a broken jaw and several broken teeth. The spousal battery charge allegedly stems from the deputy shoving his own wife when she tried to intervene and stop the argument when it started becoming physical. [1]

• A Michigan State trooper is facing a felony assault and battery charge on allegations that he attacked a fellow trooper while both were on-duty attending a training session. No specifics about the incident have been released though. [1]

• The police chief of Quincy Illinois is accused of targeting a reporter after he wrote an article that was critical of how the police there handled a murder investigation. Public records requests appear to have yielded information that backs his claims in that the chief of police was recorded looking up DMV information on the reporter days before he was stopped for an alleged traffic violation and police radio traffic on that day appears to indicate that the officer who stopped and arrested him was actually waiting for him to get into his car and drive. [4]

• Police in Romeoville Illinois are accused of sexually harassing a former stripper who claims that officers asked her if her breasts were real when they arrested her on allegations that she made threats via text messages to someone. She further alleges that officers looked at nude pictures she had of herself on her cell phone and that she wants it back out of fear that those images might make their way onto the Internet. While the chief insists nobody looked at any images on her phone, she claims she heard the officers laugh and comment about the photos while she was being booked. [2]

• A Washington County Virginia deputy is on paid leave after a juvenile female relative filed assault and battery along with destruction of property charges against him saying that he ripped a bag that she had packed and threw her to the ground during a domestic dispute. The alleged incident is under investigation by the Department of Social Services while an internal investigation is also underway. [0]

• A Monroe County New York deputy who had previously lost a brother to a drunk driver has been charged with a misdemeanor count of driving while intoxicated himself after he allegedly sent his car airborne and crashed into a clump of trees while drunk, injuring a female passenger. [0]

• A Catoosa County Georgia deputy has been placed on paid leave after being arrested on drunk driving charges when he crashed into a utility pole while off-duty. [0]

• A New Brunswick New Jersey police officer has been charged with election law violations for voting in four general elections when he lived in a different town and on theft by deception charges on allegations that he defrauded an insurance company out of $500 by failing to report his divorce while continuing to list his former wife as his spouse for about two years. [0]

• And finally, a New Haven Connecticut police officer has turned himself in on a warrant for a 2nd degree harassment charge over allegations that he placed over 70 hang-up calls to a fellow officer’s cell phone over a period of several weeks. Officials are refusing to identify the alleged victim or give out any other details in the case. [1]

That's all for today, stay safe out there !