How Police Caught Officer Daniel Holtzclaw

Prosecutors say Officer Daniel Holtzclaw made a mistake after a series of sexual assaults on black women in Oklahoma City — he profiled the wrong woman. His family says he’s a victim of “solicited testimony” from women who have “personal motives” to lie. BuzzFeed News reports from the Oklahoma County courtroom where, Wednesday, prosecutors described a pattern of sexual harassment and assault.

Daniel Holtzclaw made a mistake, an Oklahoma County prosecutor argued on Wednesday: “He messed up.”

Holtzclaw’s mistake was pulling over the wrong person: A woman who, when he allegedly assaulted her, wouldn’t hesitate to call the police.

It happened around 2 a.m. on June 18, when Holtzclaw, a 27-year-old police officer, was ending his shift on the northeast side of Oklahoma City. He switched off his patrol car computer. Then, without calling for assistance or otherwise notifying his station, police said, Holtzclaw made a traffic stop.

The woman — identified in court documents as J.L. and in local media reports as a 57-year-old grandmother — said she was driving home after playing dominos with a friend, according to detective Kim Davis, who recounted J.L.’s story at length during a hearing at the Oklahoma County Courthouse.

When Officer Holtzclaw approached J.L.’s car, she couldn’t roll down her broken driver’s side window, Davis said. So Holtzclaw directed her to the rear passenger side seat of his patrol car. He asked if she had been drinking — he had noticed a Styrofoam cup in her front seat. She said no, according to Davis, and that the drink was Kool-Aid. He continued questioning her, and she suggested he go taste it. He walked over to her car, but J.L. couldn’t see what he was doing. When he came back, Holtzclaw asked if J.L. had anything else on her.

“If you have something on you and you tell me now, then I won’t take you to jail,” he allegedly told J.L., according to Davis. “But if you don’t tell me about it now, and I find something, then I’m gonna take you to jail.” J.L. said no, again. She was still sitting in his patrol car.

“He opens the door and he tells her, ‘I’ve got to check you,’” Davis said. “And he says, ‘Lift your shirt.’”

She lifted her shirt to her stomach, and Davis motioned. “He goes, ‘I can’t see that. There might be something in your bra.’ And so she grabs the bottom of her bra, she said, and just shakes it … And he goes, ‘Nope, that’s not good enough.’”

J.L. lifted her shirt and bra, Davis said, and Holtzclaw shined his flashlight on her exposed breasts.

“She said about that time, she noticed that he started playing with his penis,” Davis said. “Then he tells her to stand up … and he says, ‘Pull down your pants.’”

J.L. lowered her pants but left her underwear up, and Holtzclaw turned his flashlight to her “vaginal area,” Davis said. Holtzclaw then told J.L. to sit back down. She planted her feet on the concrete, sitting sideways in his patrol car.

When J.L. looked up, Davis said, Holtzclaw’s penis was in her face.

“She started begging him, ‘Please don’t do this. You’re not supposed to do this.’ … She kept thinking in her mind, OK, this is a police officer, and if he’s gonna do this, he’s gonna kill me. And I’m not gonna make it out of this alive …”

“And he put it in her mouth, and she pulled away. And she said, ‘Please, please don’t do this.’ And he put it back in her mouth. And she said for about 10 seconds. Then he pulled it out and stopped, and he told her, ‘I’m gonna follow you home.’”

J.L. went back to her car, Davis said. She pulled into what she thought was a driveway, then did a U-turn. Holtzclaw pulled his car around her and unexpectedly took off.

At home, J.L. and her daughter did what middle-class people in Oklahoma City do when they’ve been the victim of crimes: called the local police station. When no one answered, according to Davis, they went to report the alleged assault in person.

Davis was the on-call detective in the Oklahoma City Police Sex Crimes Unit that night and met J.L. at the hospital, where she was receiving a sexual assault medical forensic exam. Two and a half months later, on Wednesday afternoon, Davis and another detective recounted for a district judge how J.L.’s report was similar to an unsolved May 2014 assault report allegedly involving an officer. The connection led the detectives to identify six more women who said they’d been assaulted, raped, or forced to expose themselves to Holtzclaw while he was on duty.

Holtzclaw’s “mistake” — the slip-up that prosecutors said landed him in orange jail scrubs in an unremarkable fluorescent-lit courtroom on Wednesday — was believing J.L. was similar to his other alleged victims: all black middle-aged women, but women of a lower social status and with reason to fear the authorities. They had been caught with active warrants or drug paraphernalia. J.L., Davis said, had no criminal record to be held over her. She was driving through the neighborhood where the other women were confronted, but she didn’t live there.

“He’s stepping out,” Assistant District Attorney Gayland Gieger said Wednesday. “He’s getting bolder.”

J.L.’s report would put Holtzclaw on administrative leave and make up two of the state’s 16 charges against the young cop. But more broadly, it would launch a case that underscores how alleged police abuse of minorities goes far beyond Ferguson, Missouri — but how national attention does not.

Daniel Holtzclaw “vehemently denies each and every” charge brought against him, his lawyer said in a statement Saturday. Holtzclaw didn’t speak at Wednesday’s hearing. He would occasionally whisper to his attorneys, but his expression remained unreadable as he intently watched the witnesses — among them his father, a childhood friend who lived with Holtzclaw while he was at the police academy, and a sports reporter. Many more family members and friends sat in the front rows of the courtroom, including Holtzclaw’s girlfriend of six months, his defense attorney Scott Adams said.

Holtzclaw joined the Oklahoma City Police Department in September 2011, officials said in a press conference after his arrest. A year earlier, he had graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a criminal justice degree and had tried and failed to get drafted into the NFL.

Holtzclaw today looks the same award-winning linebacker he did then: 6-foot-2, 260 pounds, tree-trunk neck, short black hair. When he was arrested, it was outside his gym.

Holtzclaw’s father, Eric, is a 17-year veteran of the Enid Police Department. His mother, Kumiko, is unemployed but does some baking from their home, Eric Holtzclaw said. He has two sisters. One of them, Jenny, has been leading the movement to raise support for him online, selling shirts that say “Free the Claw” — his nickname.

Recently, on the Justice for Daniel Holtzclaw Facebook page she created, Jenny posted a message her father sent her after he passed a Coke machine at work and saw two bottles with their names — Daniel and Eric — side by side. He saw this as a “sign from god” and bought them. “I am determined to help him through these tough [times] for he is my son and I love him dearly!!!”

In a statement, the Holtzclaw family said much of the “witness and officer testimony presented by the prosecution … is based on solicited testimony by the police department of felons, prostitutes and others who would have personal motives beyond the basic truth to fabricate their stories.”

“We ask the public to wait to cast judgment on Daniel as he is entitled to the same rights under the law as any other citizen,” the family said.

AP / Sue Ogrocki

In May, a woman known as T.M. approached a group of officers and reported that an unknown officer had sexually assaulted her, Detective Rocky Gregory testified Wednesday.

Gregory said T.M. — an “admitted drug user, prostitute” — was at an apartment complex “kind of known for drugs,” around 9 p.m. on May 8. She left on foot but was stopped by Holtzclaw, whom she’d allegedly seen at the complex earlier that night.

Holtzclaw put her in the backseat of his patrol car and took her purse, Gregory said. He drove for about two blocks before stopping to check her name for existing warrants. He then went through her purse and allegedly found a crack pipe.

“What are we gonna do about this?” Holtzclaw asked, according to Gregory.

“She says, ‘Why don’t you just stomp out the pipe, we’ll call it good?’” Gregory said. T.M. was still sitting in the backseat, she said, when Holtzclaw got out of the car and exposed his erect penis to her.

“He’s made it very clear it’s basically this or jail,” Gregory said. “She then turns her head, places her mouth on his penis, and performs oral sex for a short period of time.”

Holtzclaw did not ejaculate, Gregory said, but he stopped after about two minutes. He offered to give her a ride, but she said no.

“He says, ‘No, I want to make sure that you’re safe,’” Gregory said. “He was supposed to take her to another location to let her go, but then he goes almost in the exact opposite direction, kind of zigzags through the neighborhood … And then he starts to pull off by an open-field park area. Once he stopped there, she got real worried. She started to scream, thinking that this is not where it’s gonna end.”

But then Holtzclaw drove back around again, taking her to the place she originally wanted to go and letting her out. Later, T.M. showed Gregory in person the route they went. Gregory then referenced the route with Holtzclaw’s automated vehicle locator, a GPS recorder on all patrol cars. It was an exact match, he said.

After connecting T.M. and J.L.’s reports, the Sex Crimes Unit began looking through Holtzclaw’s automatically recorded history of running names through the department’s two databases, looking specifically for people who’d been checked out multiple times. (One system shows information including someone’s arrest record, what kind of contact they’ve had with police, whether they’ve reported a crime, and their address. The other system is used to check for existing warrants.)

Davis and Gregory took two lists of names — created by the unit’s lieutenant through a victimology profile — into northeast Oklahoma City, telling each woman on the list that they had received a tip that she may have been sexually assaulted. An undisclosed “percentage” of the women said yes. By the end of the investigation, six more women joined T.M. — who initially did not want to prosecute — and J.L.

“They all matched up basically in age,” Gregory said. “The earliest one was probably in her thirties. The oldest in the fifties. They all kind of looked like they were in their fifties.”

They were all black women — a majority, he added, had “some kind of drug history, maybe a prostitution history.”

By allegedly focusing on poor black women with criminal records, Holtzclaw kept himself from being caught — until he met J.L., a black woman who was just passing through the neighborhood he patrolled. “Not only is this individual stopping women who fit a profile of members of our society who are confronted rightly or wrongly by police officers all the time,” said the prosecutor, Gieger. “He identifies a vulnerable society that without exception except one have an attitude for ‘What good is it gonna do? He’s a police officer. Who’s going to believe me?’”

There was T.B., a woman who said she was confronted by Holtzclaw while sitting in a parked car in front of her house on Feb. 27, 2014. He ran her name and found existing warrants, Gregory said. He began asking her about drugs in the house and brought up the warrants, telling T.B. he could place her under arrest. He told her he needed to “check her for any drugs,” Gregory said.

“He then tells her to lift her shirt. He lifts her shirt to her belly, says, ‘Now I need to see everything.’ He then makes reference about the warrants and the arrest … She just goes ahead and lifts her bra and shirt according to what he requested.”

Oklahoma City Police Department policy is to call a female officer over to do a complete search when the suspect is required to lift her shirt above her belly. T.B. had been stopped before and knew that was the procedure, Gregory said. But according to court documents, Holtzclaw touched her bare breasts with his hand and without her consent.

Through Holtzclaw’s car GPS record, Gregory confirmed that the officer returned to T.B.’s house multiple times over the following month. In one instance, Holtzclaw allegedly broke into the house without permission, woke T.B.’s sleeping boyfriend — the only person in the house at the time — and told him to go outside, running his name for warrants.

Shortly afterward, T.B. pulled up to the house with her kids in the car, Gregory said, and Holtzclaw told her to step back to his patrol car.

He repeated the same motions, Gregory said — running her name for warrants, asking about drugs, and making “reference to, you know, ‘We can kind of take care of these warrants … Just play by my rules.’”

T.B. said she knew Holtzclaw meant that she could “do sexual favors and the warrants could probably disappear,” according to Gregory.

Holtzclaw told T.B. to lift her shirt again, and T.B. complied, though “it was obvious she did not have a bra on,” Gregory said. Then he looked down her pants; she said she didn’t have any underwear on, according to Gregory.

T.B.’s boyfriend, Terry Williams, testified on Wednesday that Holtzclaw woke him up and “ran me outside,” though he couldn’t recall many specific details — he was “kind of tipsy that day,” he said. But when T.B. later told him about her interactions with Holtzclaw, Williams “got kinda mad, and I just told her just to handle it the best way she can.”

“Afterwards, [Holtzclaw] told [Williams], ‘If I ever see you in this neighborhood or around this area, I’m gonna stop you every time,’” Gregory said. “He made it very clear he was not welcome around there, at this woman’s house.”

The next day, around dinnertime, Gregory said, T.B. saw Holtzclaw walking up to her house. She still didn’t know the officer’s name; she called him “Spike,” because of his hair. “She knew that she was gonna be harassed by him again,” Gregory said, and started to call her mother. Holtzclaw knocked at the door, and T.B. answered.

“She says, ‘I’m making dinner for my kids,’” Gregory said. “He asked to come in. She tells him, ‘No, you can’t.’ He says, ‘Well, I need to check your house for drugs.’” They argued, and Holtzclaw told her that he would be back, according to Gregory, while T.B.’s mother listened on from the phone. T.B.’s mother later allegedly told the detective she could hear Holtzclaw “bullying her daughter.”

T.B.’s allegations make up five of the 16 counts against Holtzclaw, including sexual battery, burglary, two counts of indecent exposure, and stalking.

Prosecutors said they believe that Holtzclaw gradually escalated his behavior; on March 14, one of the earlier instances of misconduct uncovered, he stopped a woman known as C.R. and had her expose her breasts in the same way he allegedly did the others.

“She said she had been stopped several times by officers, but this was the only time she felt like she was forced into doing something that she didn’t feel comfortable with, [and] was inappropriate,” Gregory said.

On Wednesday, the prosecutor asked Gregory why C.R. didn’t report the incident.

“The reason she didn’t is the reason that she would feel [like] a lot of females probably wouldn’t either,” Gregory said. “If they had turned in an officer, the officer would cause a lot more problems for them — maybe tell a drug house they’re a snitch — and then they have a lot of problems in the neighborhood. And she said that that would keep her from ever telling on an officer.”

On April 14, Holtzclaw allegedly stopped a woman known as F.M., following the pattern described by prosecutors: putting her in the backseat, asking about drugs and prostitution, running a check on her through the police systems, and telling her he needed to search her.

“She said that she kind of turned her back to him, because she thought he was going to do a pat search,” Davis said. Holtzclaw allegedly “reached up behind her and grabbed her butt and boobs” over her clothes. Davis added that when she first approached F.M. about the possibility she’d been assaulted, F.M. “immediately bowed her head and started crying.”

On April 24, a woman named R.G. had “just left a crack house,” Davis said, when Holtzclaw pulled his car beside her and asked what she was doing. She allegedly told him she was getting high.

Holtzclaw got out of the car and searched R.G.’s purse, Davis said. He found her pipe and made her break it on the ground in front of him. He put her in the backseat, and she acknowledged that she had been getting “some dates” that night, according to Davis. He offered to give her a ride home.

“Her words were, ‘He pulled up in the driveway like he lived there,’” Davis said. R.G. told Davis she noticed Holtzclaw was following her into the house, but she assumed it was because she was on probation and he was trying to verify her address.

“She kind of was giving him a tour,” Davis said. “She was like, ‘This is the living room, this is the den, this is where I live.’ He doesn’t say anything. He follows her upstairs.”

In her bedroom, Holtzclaw told R.G. to sit down. “He said, ‘This is better than the county,’ unzipped his pants, and, she said, he put his erect penis in her face,” Davis said.

R.G. began performing oral sex, according to Davis. Then “he told her to lay back, and she did, and he climbed on top of her and had vaginal sex with her and he did not use a condom.”

Afterward, R.G. told Holtzclaw she thought she heard the front door, Davis said. “He zipped up his pants and left.”

On May 7, Holtzclaw stopped a woman known as S.E. Like in the other alleged victims’ accounts, he put her in the back of his patrol car and asked her questions about drugs before getting out, standing next to her open door, and unzipping his pants. “His penis was erect, and he forced her to put it in her mouth,” Davis said, but he didn’t ejaculate.

Then he got back into the driver’s seat, Davis said, and headed down a dead-end street. He allegedly drove over a curb and toward an abandoned school.

“He pulled between a building and a tree, got out of the car, opened the back door, made her get out of the car, told her to bend over, and he put his penis in her vagina,” Davis said. “When he let her go, he said, ‘Have a nice night,’ and she walked off.”

The police computer system later showed that Holtzclaw had run S.E.’s name twice on May 7 and twice on May 8, the day after.

“I thought he was running her to see if she reported him,” Davis said.

On May 26, Holtzclaw allegedly stopped a woman known as C.J. and put her in the backseat of his car — asking about drugs, running her name, etc. He’d done this before with C.J., in March, but let her go before any misconduct occurred, Davis said. This time, during the search, “he fondled her boobs and he put his hand down the front of her pants and fingered her vagina,” Davis said.

When C.J. was later interviewed by Davis, the woman, like F.M., began crying.

In court on Wednesday, Davis also revealed that a DNA sample was found on a triangle-shaped flap on the inside of Holtzclaw’s uniform pants, near the zipper. Seven of the eight victims were tested against the sample, along with Holtzclaw’s girlfriend. The DNA did not match any of them.

When he cross-examined Davis, Holtzclaw’s defense attorney Scott Adams said, “it could also be that Mr. Holtzclaw could have cheated on his girlfriend and not wanted to tell anyone.” Davis confirmed this was a possibility. But the prosecutor later redirected the question.

“If that was the case and [he] had cheated on his girlfriend and didn’t want that to be uncovered, certainly he lied to you, because you asked specifically about that,” Assistant DA Gieger said.

“Correct,” Davis said.

In an interview with a local station later on Wednesday, Adams presented an alternate theory:

“It could be as simple as someone at the cleaners grabbing his pants and transferring the skin cells,” he told KOCO. “None of what the detectives said surprised me. They can make anything look sinister, and that’s what they attempt to do.”

“The facts are that there is no DNA linking him to any of these women as far as was presented in the hearing,” the family said in their statement.

In his closing argument at the hearing, Adams suggested that he didn’t have ample time with the prosecution’s discovery materials, and that Holtzclaw — being held in solitary confinement under $5 million — could not adequately defend himself either. The judge reduced Holtzclaw’s bond to $500,000, based largely on Holtzclaw’s lack of criminal record and under the conditions that he stay with his parents under house arrest, wear a GPS tracker, and not contact any of his alleged victims. He left jail on Friday afternoon.

Oklahoma NAACP President Anthony Douglas first learned of the Holtzclaw case on Thursday, Aug. 21 — the day Holtzclaw was arrested — while at a rally showing support for the people of Ferguson, who were still protesting the death of Michael Brown and the Ferguson police’s display of force in response to their protests. Local media began calling for Douglas’ reaction to the Holtzclaw case. On the heels of the Ferguson, Douglas prepared for a storm. But it never came.

“Where’s my media and where’s my women’s groups?” he asked BuzzFeed News on Thursday.

Douglas said Ferguson had no impact on how he approached the Holtzclaw case, but the media spectacle in Missouri made him examine how the media was “not providing the coverage as it should be brought to light.” Douglas’ contribution to the mostly local coverage has been to call for the Department of Justice to “look at whether this fits a pattern of racial profiling.” The president views Holtzclaw’s targeting of black women as a hate crime.

“[People] have not grasped the severity of the case,” Douglas said. “I don’t look at this gentleman as a sex offender or a rapist. I look at him as a racist, because he racially profiled and targeted African-American women.”

Garland Pruitt, NAACP Oklahoma City Branch president, suggested that cases involving abuse simply don’t get the kind of attention that cases involving death do. “How many folks have been beat down […] that didn’t die at the hands of the police officers? That did not get the recognition that’s possibly needed?” he said.

The local NAACP also disagrees with how the neighborhood where Holtzclaw’s alleged attacks occurred has been portrayed. During the Wednesday hearing, a detective said there was an unknown man lying in T.B.’s yard on a day Holtzclaw dropped by her house. The prosecutor asked the detective if that was an “unusual occurrence in this part of the city.” The detective said no. At another point in the hearing, in addressing the victims’ struggle to remember specific dates, the prosecutor said, “These people don’t live by calendars.”

Douglas challenged that assumption, saying the northeast side is a low- to middle-class neighborhood of “hardworking families” and professionals, while acknowledging “every neighborhood has issues with drugs.”

“They attempt to paint this as a depressed area,” he said. “That’s not the truth.”

The neighborhood’s real struggle going forward, Douglas said, will be having trust in the police — something the chief of police himself acknowledged in a press conference last week, when he said he hopes the community “realizes that our officers, 99.9% of them are trustworthy.”

But even outside Oklahoma City, many people are talking about Oklahoma City and Holtzclaw in the same sentence as Ferguson and Darren Wilson.

“The only thing that I can say is that anytime a police officer anywhere in the country makes a mistake or indulges in misconduct, police officers around the country are held in that same light regardless of the circumstances,” Oklahoma City Police Department spokesman Capt. Dexter Nelson said in an email. “OKC is not Ferguson, Missouri and there is no comparison. Our departments are very different in many ways. Our department and community demographics are different, and our working relationship with the community is different.”

This is certainly true — the population of Ferguson is not even 4% that of Oklahoma City. And while black police officers make up only 6% of police forces in both cities, only 15% of Oklahoma City residents are black, compared to 67% of Ferguson residents.

Oklahoma City Police also opened an investigation the day the first report about an unknown officer came in, and closed it within two months of identifying Holtzclaw as a suspect. They kept the investigation quiet for that entire time, in an effort to make sure the women bringing forward allegations weren’t influenced by media reports or neighborhood gossip.

Still, both incidents of violence deeply affect black communities. And with them occurring so close together, the comparisons have been unavoidable, particularly in light of how people have rallied around the alleged offenders.

On Aug. 24, Holtzclaw’s sister, Jenny, created a GoFundMe page for her brother (“JUSTICE FOR DANIEL HOLTZCLAW”) two days after a judge set his initial bond at $5 million in cash. On Aug. 26, GoFundMe verified the page, making it fully visible to the public. On Sept. 2, GoFundMe pulled the campaign, which had raised more than $7,000.

“GoFundMe reviews campaigns that have received a high number of complaints on a case-by-case basis,” a customer service representative wrote in an email to Jenny. “In this particular case, your campaign contains subject matter that GoFundMe would rather not be associated with.”

Jenny was livid. “PEOPLE DO BELIEVE IN DANIEL’S INNOCENCE and not into the media hype that everyone is believing into!!!!” she wrote in a statement. “It looks like clearly they have caved into the media hype and social pressure rather than stand on the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty.”

GoFundMe is still hosting a campaign to raise funds for the Ferguson officer who shot Michael Brown. When asked what distinction it drew between the two campaigns, GoFundMe did not respond, only saying it conducted “an internal content review.”

In the meantime, Jenny has become the family spokesman on the Facebook page, where she sells T-shirts, deletes negative comments, and shares messages from Holtzclaw’s friends and family. One of the recent messages appears to hint at what’s to come as Holtzclaw’s case inches toward a trial.

Someone claiming to be Holtzclaw’s childhood friend who attended the court hearing Wednesday later wrote about how “disgusted” he or she was by the lack of “physical evidence” presented:

“The media is giving one side of the story and leaving out major details like the fact that all of these women are active drug addicts and prostitutes from the same area of town who ‘happen to not know each other.’”

It appears the prosecutor is prepared for more reactions like this one. At the hearing on Wednesday, Gieger told the judge he could see “what’s coming for these ladies … ‘You’re liars. Look at your lifestyle.’”

Prison Guards Tortured a Mentally Ill Man Until His Skin “Shriveled from his Body” & He Died

The purported details of Darren Rainey’s last hour are difficult to read.

“I can’t take it no more, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again,’’ he screamed over and over, according to a grievance complaint from a fellow inmate, as Rainey was allegedly locked in a shower with the scalding water turned on full blast.

A 50-year-old mentally ill inmate at the Dade Correctional Institution, Rainey was pulled into the locked shower by prison guards as punishment after defecating in his cell and refusing to clean it up, said the fellow inmate, who worked as an orderly. He was left there unattended for more than an hour as the narrow chamber filled with steam and water.

When guards finally checked on prisoner 060954, he was on his back and dead. His skin was so burned that it had shriveled from his body, a condition referred to as slippage, according to a medical document involving the death.

But nearly two years after Rainey’s death on June 23, 2012, the Miami-Dade medical examiner has yet to complete an autopsy and Miami-Dade police have not charged anyone. The Florida Department of Corrections halted its probe into the matter, saying it could be restarted if the autopsy and police investigation unearth new information.

“They told people that he had a heart attack,’’ said a source close to the prison system with knowledge of the case.

The shower treatment was only one form of punishment inflicted by the prison’s guards to keep mentally ill patients in line, according to the inmate/orderly and two other sources privy to the goings-on at the state prison.

The inmate/orderly, a convicted burglar named Harold Hempstead serving a decades-long sentence, filed repeated formal complaints, beginning in January 2013, with the DOC inspector general, alleging that prison guards subjected inmates — housed in the mental health unit — to extreme physical abuse and withheld food from some who became unruly. The complaints were sent back, most with a short, type-written note saying the appeal was being returned “without action” or had already been addressed.

In September, another inmate was found dead inside his cell. Richard Mair, 40, hanged himself from an air conditioning vent.

According to the police report, Mair left a suicide note in his boxer shorts claiming he and other prisoners were sexually and physically abused on a routine basis by guards.

DOC officials declined to be interviewed for this story. A spokeswoman said Friday that the agency would provide public records in response to the newspaper’s formal written requests, but no comments.

Over the past several weeks, the newspaper has requested maintenance records, grievance logs, prison death records, guards’ disciplinary records and emails by administrators, including DCI Warden Jerry Cummings.

As of Friday, the agency had released a handful of documents: a single report about a prison guard admonished for falling asleep on duty last year; brief, coded disciplinary records for Hempstead, Rainey and several other inmates who Hempstead says were also subjected to searing hot showers as punishment; and a heavily redacted copy of the DOC inspector general’s report on Rainey’s death.

On Friday, the Herald learned from three independent sources that Cummings and four of his top aides had been temporarily relieved of duty last week.

It’s not clear why Cummings and other administrators were suspended, or for how long.

The DOC did not respond to an email query about the suspensions late Friday.

Rainey’s family, meanwhile, finds the silence surrounding his death disturbing.

“Two years is a very long time to wait to find out why your brother was found dead in a shower,’’ said Rainey’s brother, Andre Chapman.

Rainey, who was serving a two-year sentence for possession of cocaine, was scheduled to be released in July.

Numerous complaints

Between January and February 2013, Hempstead filed numerous grievances and complaints with DOC officials about Rainey’s death, all alleging that the circumstances were being covered up.

His reports, replete with the names of other inmate witnesses and prison guards on duty that evening, describe what he and others purportedly saw and heard that night. The details in his complaints match the wording in the inspector general’s report — at least the parts not redacted.

The inspector general’s report said that the video camera in the shower area showed DOC officer Roland Clarke place Rainey in the shower at 7:38 p.m.

Hempstead said the shower had sufficient room for an inmate to avoid a direct hit from the spray, but that the extreme heat would eventually make the air unbreathable as the scalding water lapped at inmates’ feet.

Hempstead wrote that he and other inmates, whose cells are directly below the shower, began hearing Rainey’s screams about 8:55 p.m. It went on for about 30 minutes before it sounded like he fell to the shower floor, he said in his complaint.

The DOC inspector general’s report said Clarke found Rainey dead at 9:30 p.m. and called for medical assistance.

“I then seen [sic] his burnt dead body naked body go about two feet from my cell door on a stretcher,’’ Hempstead wrote.

Miami-Dade homicide investigators were called to the prison.

But another inmate, a convicted murderer named Mark Joiner, wrote in a letter to the inspector general that he was ordered to “clean up the crime scene’’ prior to the area being secured.

Early in the week after the incident, maintenance workers at the prison disabled the plumbing that fed the shower, Hempstead told the Herald in an interview at the prison.

Despite all his written complaints, Hempstead was never interviewed by anyone from the prison system, he said. Another inmate was spoken to, according to the report. That’s presumably Joiner, although the DOC will not divulge the name. The Herald is waiting for a transcript of that interview, which DOC officials said would be redacted of any information pertaining to an open criminal investigation.

As for the video camera in the shower area, the inspector general’s report noted that it malfunctioned right after Clarke put Rainey in the shower. As a result, the disc that may have recorded what happened was “damaged,’’ the report said.

The redacted report doesn’t say how Rainey’s body was found, whether the water was on or off when he was found or whether state investigators ever questioned any of the guards or nurses in the unit at the time of Rainey’s death.

The union that represents the prison guards was not aware of the incident as of this past week. No record was provided to the Herald to indicate that anyone has been held accountable for what happened.

A suicide note

Mair was found hanging in his cell on Sept. 11, 2013. A braided rope, made from cut sections of bed sheets, was attached to the ceiling air vent and looped around his neck, according to a Miami-Dade police report.

Tucked into a pocket sewed into his boxer shorts was a suicide note in which Mair, serving life for second-degree murder, described a litany of abuses against inmates in the mental health unit.

“Life sucks and then you die, but just before I go, I’m going to expose everyone for who and what they are,’’ he wrote.

“I’m in a mental health facility...I’m supposed to be getting help for my depression, suicidal tendencies and I was sexually assaulted.’’

He then goes on to allege that guards forced inmates in the unit to perform sex acts and threatened them if they filed complaints.

He said guards — identified by name in the note — gambled on duty, sold marijuana and cigarettes, and stole money and property belonging to inmates.

“If they didn’t like you, they put you on a starvation diet,’’ he wrote.

He also alleged that guards encouraged racial hatred by forcing white and black inmates to fight each other in the yard, claiming that the guards would place bets on who would win.

Mair’s next of kin was in prison in Maine and unavailable for comment.

There’s no evidence that the state inspector general’s probe into Mair’s death addressed any of the allegations in the suicide note.

The probe concluded that guards had been negligent in failing to adequately check on Mair the evening he killed himself.

Les Cantrell, state coordinator for Teamsters Local 2011 — the union representing the state’s 17,000 corrections and probation officers — said there has been a spike in prison complaints across the state. Employee turnover is staggering, he said, particularly among prison guards who are often forced to work long hours to compensate for officers they have lost and failed to replace.

“In general, we have a difficult time retaining good officers,’’ Cantrell said. “Assaults on officers have risen and inmates know they are short-staffed.

“It makes it unsafe for the officers and for the inmates,’’ he said.

The six-page inspector general’s investigation into Rainey’s death was completed in October 2012. DOC Inspector General Jeffrey Beasley closed the case, concluding there was not enough information to issue any finding.

“...the exact cause of death has not been determined by the Medical Examiner. Upon receipt of the autopsy report, it will be included in the investigative file,’’ the report said, noting that if “administrative matters” subsequently arise as a result of the autopsy, they will be addressed at a future time.

The report, which includes brief written statements by Clarke as well as other guards and nurses, has large passages that have been redacted — obscured with a black marker.

The Department of Corrections has not responded to requests from the Herald to provide the legal justification for each redaction, as required under the state’s public records law.

After Hempstead was interviewed at the prison by a Herald journalist on April 14, Miami-Dade homicide investigators also paid him a visit to interview him about the two-year-old case, he wrote in a letter emailed to Gov. Rick Scott last week through a family member.

According to the letter, three corrections officers, including a sergeant, responded to the visits by threatening to set him up with false disciplinary reports and to place him in solitary confinement if he didn’t stop talking to the media and police.

He said he feared for his safety and wanted to be relocated to a different prison.

Last week, the Herald sought clearance to speak with Hempstead in the prison a second time after receiving a letter from him authorizing the return visit.

Jessica Carey, spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections, responded that Hempstead “had a custody classification which prohibits interviews at this time.’’

When pressed further about whether he was being punished, Carey said she had made “a mistake’’ and directed a Herald reporter to fill out a visitation form.

Neither Miami-Dade police nor the Miami-Dade medical examiner responded to requests for information about the Rainey case. Each say his death is still an open investigation, but did not address why it has taken almost two years.

Deputy Sheriff Joseph Quiles' Arrest SOBER Woman After He Crashes Into Her Car

Wisconsin woman is still fighting to make things right after a sheriff’s deputy allegedly hit her with his car and then arrested her for drunk driving more than a year ago.

Tanya Weyker’s Camry was allegedly struck by Milwaukee County Deputy Sheriff Joseph Quiles’ patrol car last February and she suffered a broken neck in the collision.

Since she was unable to blow into a breathalyzer due to her injuries, Quiles charged Weyker with OWI despite causing the crash himself.

“She was in traction and just sitting there. She was crying and said they accused her, they arrested her and accused her of something she didn’t do,” Weyker’s mother told WITI-TV.

Blood tests later revealed that Weyker had no alcohol or drugs in her system at the time of the crash and the district attorney declined to file charges.

Weyker has filed a complaint against Quiles and is trying to get her medical bills paid. A civil suit against the county is also a possibility.

Quiles has since admitted he was at fault and was suspended for nine days.

Officer Michael Valdez Arrest Man for Filming Another Arrest

A Florida man is facing criminal charges after an officer arrested him – all for taping the officer as he attempted to detain another individual.

The incident began on St. Patrick’s Day, when Miami-Dade Officer Michael Valdez arrived at a store in Cutler Bay in order to arrest the owner on misdemeanor traffic charges. Freelance disc jockey Lazaro Estrada was performing a promotional event at the time Valdez arrived, and started recording the arrest on his smartphone.

According to CBS Miami, Estrada said he started taping the incident when the officer threw the handcuffed owner down onto the sidewalk. Valdez can be seen signaling to Estrada to move away, and the disc jockey can be seen stepping back into the store, though he continues recording.

“I backed off into the building and I stayed behind the glass doors,” Estrada said to CBS 4. “Obviously, all I had was my phone in my hands in clear sight…and he only told me once. I did what he told me.”

When more officers arrived at the scene, they told Estrada they needed his information. Estrada asked what he did wrong, and later Valdez criticized Estrada for not listening to his orders.

“The guy’s armed, three times my size, I’m telling you to back off,” Valdez told Estrada. When the officer says Estrada will be arrested, the disc jockey asks what for and the officer’s reply can’t really be heard.

Ultiamtely, Valdez charged Estrada with misdemeanors: obstruction of justice and resisting arrest without violence.

According to CBS Miami, the police report on the incident states Valdez gave “verbal commands to back away and he refused to do so.” Valdez also wrote that he “felt threatened” by Estrada’s presence.

Lawyers for Estrada -- Frank Gaviria and Jonathan Perazzo – claim their client did nothing wrong.

“At no point did he interfere, impede or obstruct the officer in the performance of his duties,” Gaviria told CBS 4. “The video clearly shows Mr. Estrada was a very safe distance away from the officer.”

“Just like police officers have their dash cams, private citizens have their cell phones. There’s no difference,” Perazzo added.

This isn’t the first time police have reacted to being filmed with arrests. Earlier this year, a Massachusetts man was detained and charged with violating the state’s wiretapping rules when he took out his cell phone and recorded an officer cursing while he worked a street detail. The officer stated the resident was “secretly audio taping,” but the man claimed his phone was out in full view.

In a particularly dramatic case last year, California police arrested a man for allegedly disturbing a crime scene with loud music and video recording them. As they attempted to arrest the man, his dog jumped out from the car and was shot dead at the scene.

Meanwhile, police in Dallas, Texas, came out earlier this month and asked citizens to stop filming police, since the behavior was creating “major safety issues.” As RT reported, police argue that it’s not clear who is following them many times and why they are filming their actions.

A 2012 ruling by the Supreme Court, however, upheld the citizen’s right to record on-duty police officers.

Homeless Man Shot by Officer Chrissie Coon

The Clark County Coroner's Office said a man shot during an encounter with a North Las Vegas police officer Monday died of a gunshot wound of the head.

Medical examiners identified the person as 38-year-old David L. Robinson.

According to NLVPD Public Information Officer Chrissie Coon, a uniformed officer was patrolling the area of Woodard Street and Tonopah Avenue about 1 a.m. when he saw a man identified as Robinson walking in a crosswalk. Coon said the officer informed dispatchers he was going to stop the person.

According to Coon, the encounter with the 38-year-old homeless man grew violent.

Within minutes of the encounter, the officer called dispatchers to say there had been shots fired and medical assistance was needed, according to police.

Police said the person shot by the officer died at the scene. There were no injuries to the officer.

An investigation revealed the officer stopped his patrol vehicle along the sidewalk and attempted to approach the man on foot. Police said the man was being uncooperative and he began to back way from the officer towards the backyard of an abandoned residence.

It wasn't until the officer walked towards the man that the incident escalated, police said.

Coon said a knife was recovered from the scene.

"At some point, the suspect presented a knife. The officer fired his weapon, striking the suspect multiple times," Coon said.

Police said the entire incident took place within 2 1/2 minutes.

"We really have to take our time to break that two minutes into pieces and see what exactly that officer was presented with when this incident occurred," said Coon.

Police said they target the area because of its high number of abandoned homes and buildings.

"It's becoming a public safety danger to have people in and around these house. Code enforcement is coming out and boarding up these houses. The homeless are coming in and taking those boards down, and you know there's electrical hazards and things of that nature," said Coon.

The officer in the shooting was only identified as a 31-year-old, five-year veteran of North Las Vegas police. He was placed on paid administrative leave.

The incident marked the first officer-involved shooting for North Las Vegas police this year.

Joe Arpaio Facing Justice Department Lawsuit Over Alleged Civil Rights Violations

Federal authorities said Wednesday that they plan to sue Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and his office over allegations of civil rights violations, including the racial profiling of Latinos.

The U.S. Justice Department has been seeking an agreement requiring Arpaio's office to train officers in how to make constitutional traffic stops, collect data on people arrested in traffic stops and reach out to Latinos to assure them that the department is there to also protect them.

Arpaio has denied the racial profiling allegations and has claimed that allowing a court monitor would mean that every policy decision would have to be cleared through an observer and would nullify his authority.

DOJ officials told a lawyer for Arpaio on April 3 that the lawman's refusal of a court-appointed monitor was a deal-breaker that would end settlement negotiations and result in a federal lawsuit.

The "notice of intent to file civil action" came Wednesday from Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas Perez in a letter to an Arpaio lawyer.

Perez, who heads the DOJ's civil rights division, noted that it's been more than 100 days since the sheriff's office received the DOJ's findings report and federal authorities haven't met with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office counsel since Feb. 6 to discuss the terms of a consent agreement.

At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Arpaio defended himself in the face of the pending lawsuit.
"If they sue, we'll go to court. And then we'll find out the real story," he said. "There's lots of miscommunication emanating from Washington. They broke off communications.
"They're telling me how to run my organization. I'd like to get this resolved, but I'm not going to give up my authority to the federal government. It's as simple as that," Arpaio added.

Last December, the DOJ released a scathing report accusing Arpaio's office of racially profiling Latinos, basing immigration enforcement on racially charged citizen complaints and punishing Hispanic jail inmates for speaking Spanish in Arizona's most populous county.

The DOJ also accused Arpaio of having a culture of disregard for basic constitutional rights.
The civil rights allegations have led some Arpaio critics to call for his resignation, including the National Council of La Raza, a prominent advocacy group for Latinos.

The sheriff's office also is facing criticism over more than 400 sex-crimes investigations – including dozens of alleged child molestations – that hadn't been investigated adequately or weren't examined at all over a three-year period ending in 2007.

Arpaio has apologized for the botched cases, reopened 432 sex-crimes investigations and made 19 arrests.
Separate from the civil rights probe, a federal grand jury has been investigating Arpaio's office on criminal abuse-of-power allegations since at least December 2009. That grand jury is examining the investigative work of the sheriff's anti-public corruption squad.

The self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America has been a national political fixture who has built his reputation on jailing inmates in tents and dressing them in pink underwear, selling himself to voters as unceasingly tough on crime and pushing the bounds of how far local police can go to confront illegal immigration

Officer Donald Schismenos Has More Citizen Complaints Than Any Other Officer

His chiefs have steadfastly defended him over the years.

All the citizen complaints, his use of force, fighting bad guys who resist arrest — it all comes, they have said, with Officer Donald Schismenos being an aggressive street-gang cop in Akron.

Internal police documents, however, do not appear to support the contentions of the Akron chiefs, past and present.

In fact, no street-gang officer working alongside Schismenos comes close to generating the number of citizen complaints, or resorting to force to corral a resisting suspect, according to documents released by the city's law department.

Schismenos is facing a 45-day suspension for disobeying a sergeant and arresting a woman who refused to surrender the video she shot of him making an arrest.

He also is to begin light-duty desk work Monday, a temporary assignment that takes him off the city's gang unit and his off-duty jobs.

This is the first time Schismenos, a 17-year veteran, has ever been disci
plined.

Six years ago, Akron police Chief Michael Matulavich was asked about the escalating number of complaints against Schismenos.

Matulavich, a stern, sometimes gruff, old-school cop, defended the officer's record, describing Schismenos as ''committed and conscientious.'' Those traits, according to the now-retired chief, naturally generated complaints.

''He's always poking sticks at the bears. That's why we send him out there,'' Matulavich said in a 2004 interview.

'Nature of the job'

Fast-forward six years. Current police Chief Gus Hall found himself in a position of explaining more complaints against Schismenos.

In a recent interview, Hall basically reiterated what Matulavich said years ago.

''He works the gang unit, where you're not dealing for the most part with ordinary citizens,'' Hall said. ''It's just the nature of the job and with the groups of people he's dealing with, you will have more use of force, resisting arrests than officers just handling routine traffic stops.''

There are six officers assigned to the department's gang unit. On a daily basis, they work the tougher neighborhoods of Akron, trying to trump the gangbangers.

Over the years, Schismenos has emerged as the face of the unit. He is often invited to speak to neighborhood watch clubs and civic groups about the perils of gangs inside Akron's borders.

He also is regarded as an expert in gang affiliation identification, and county prosecutors have used his testimony to win longer prison terms for defendants accused of gang activity.

In turn, his personnel file is filled with letters of thanks and commendations for his gang work.

Schismenos, however, leads the gang unit with 71 instances of use of force and suspects who resist arrest since 1997. The next closest gang unit officer has 35 such reports.

As for citizen complaints, Schismenos has 32 over his career, three times as many as the next gang officer, who has 10.

Messages and e-mails to Schismenos seeking comment have not been returned for several weeks.

But in a 2004 interview with the Beacon Journal, he attributed the complaints and use of force to his gang-unit work.

''I'm an aggressive officer that is proactive,'' Schismenos told a reporter. ''Our unit is one of the only units that are proactive. We don't just react to reports coming in. We go out and try to get criminals off the streets before they commit more crimes.''

Officers are required to document instances in which they must use physical force or suspects resist arrest.

Union defends record

Paul Hlynsky, the department's union president, defended Schismenos' record. He said the officer's expertise on gangs has made him a highly sought source for other units in the police department, placing Schismenos in the thick of homicide, drug and other investigations.

Hlynsky said this interaction leads to more contact with gang members than other officers in the unit have. This potentially adds to the number of complaints against Schismenos.

In addition, Schismenos has taken off-duty jobs in tough, public-housing neighborhoods and at nightclubs notorious for attracting rougher crowds, Hlynsky said.

As a result, he said, Schismenos' record is being unfairly attacked by city officials, particularly Police Auditor Phil Young and Mayor Don Plusquellic, who last week tripled Schismenos' original unpaid suspension from 15 days to 45.

The suspension has yet to take effect. Schismenos is expected to appeal the mayor's decision to an arbitrator, a process that could take several months.

''I think Don's stuff has been grossly exaggerated by the mayor and the supposed independent auditor,'' Hlynsky said. ''He's already been tried and convicted in the press.

''Here, Schismenos is being made to defend himself and these gang members continue to run amok in the city.''

Under review

Early in his career, when Schismenos was piling up complaints and use-of-force reports, his supervisors counseled him to practice defusing, rather than escalating, his confrontations with citizens.

At the time, he had 47 citizen complaints and use-of-force reports in his first three years of duty. The numbers have since grown to about 118.

In an interview last week, Hall said the department is reviewing Schismenos' record. He has been temporarily taken off the gang unit and is prohibited from working his off-duty jobs until a ''fit for duty'' evaluation is conducted. The evaluation gauges an officer's mental and physical health.

Hall said the department will also study Schismenos' record against other gang unit officers.

''Those are some issues that we need to look into,'' he said. ''It's one of the reasons we requested a 'fit for duty' evaluation.''

Young, the city's police auditor, said the department's defense of Schismenos over the years has done a disservice to the city. When told of the numbers by the Beacon Journal, he said statistics should back up the comments of the chiefs who have defended Schismenos in the past, ''but it's not even close.''

''[The chiefs] make those statements because they are easy to say and I think it steers our citizens in the wrong direction,'' Young said. ''[They say] that this guy is out there hammering people and getting criminals off the streets and that's why he's getting the complaints and most of the complaints and use of force involve bad people. I think that's very misleading.''

Tenure appears to have no bearing on Schismenos' numbers.

Sgt. Michael Zimmerman, Officer Rod Criss and Schismenos have each worked with the unit for at least 10 years.

Criss and Schismenos have been officers for about 17 years. Zimmerman has been with the force since 1977.

But while Schismenos has generated the most citizen complaints among gang officers, Criss and Zimmerman have garnered 13 complaints combined. Zimmerman has no use of force or resisting arrests reports; Criss has 28.

Zimmerman, who supervises the unit, did not return a phone message or an e-mail seeking comment.

Growing scrutiny

Schismenos' record is under growing scrutiny since his confrontation last summer with an Akron woman who videotaped his arrest of a disorderly suspect. Sarah Watkins, 48, refused Schismenos' request for her camera and a sergeant eventually intervened and ordered the officer to ''let it go.''

Schismenos, however, filed felony charges against Watkins, which led to her arrest. She spent parts of two days in jail before making bond. The charges were eventually dismissed.

An internal investigation ended with a recommendation that Schismenos receive a 15-day, unpaid suspension.

Schismenos contended he did not hear a sergeant's order to drop his demands for the camera and he appealed the suspension to Mayor Don Plusquellic, hoping to see the penalty lessened.

Instead, the mayor criticized Schismenos' arrest of Watkins as a ''personal vendetta'' and tripled the suspension. He also ordered Schismenos to undergo a psychological evaluation that could determine whether the officer stays in the gang unit.

''Where has the accountability been for all these years?'' Young asked. ''Where is it? What are we doing here? Are we just making statements about being a gang officer and that this is the way it is? These are questions that need answers.''

Staff Fears Sheriff Joe Arpaio

As conflicts between Maricopa County's Board of Supervisors and the sheriff and county attorney escalated in 2009, rank-and-file county employees were plunged into a yearlong emotional roller coaster.

This month's announcement of a federal grand jury entering the fray brought county workers some relief and hope for an end to the extraordinary tensions. The grand jury is looking into allegations of abuse of power by Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his chief deputy, David Hendershott, in their dealings with judges and county officials.

Now, as they wait to see what will happen, a cross-section of county employees spoke with The Arizona Republic, talking publicly for the first time about life inside the county offices during the political battles, lawsuits and arrests going on above them at the highest levels of county government. Most have little connection to the conflicts. Still, their runaway fears were such that they worried that Arpaio's deputies would come after them as well.

Fears first spiked in December 2008, when county administrators spent $10,000 to sweep county offices for illegal wiretaps they worried had been installed by Arpaio. None was found. But rank-and-file workers still became terrified of possible surveillance, lawsuits or even arrest. Arpaio's frequent retort to critics that the innocent had nothing to worry about did not allay their concerns.

Unsure what or whom to believe, many county workers quit talking about sensitive matters on the telephone or in e-mails, even when using their personal home computers.

Conversation in hallways and elevators stopped.

Some feared they would be arrested while pulling into the same parking garage where deputies took Supervisor Don Stapley into custody.

Others worried that even minor infractions - a chipped windshield, having a beer before driving home after work - would be an excuse for deputies to pull them over or arrest them.

One Superior Court judge moved meetings with her staff and other judges to the chamber restroom, believing it would be a less likely spot for a listening device.

Working for a county often at war with itself put employees on edge and stressed relationships with co-workers and spouses.

Anxiety at work

Worries took hold at work immediately after the wiretap sweeps and grew through 2009 with each exchange among the sheriff, board and county attorney.

As a compensation supervisor, Darrien Ellison spends a lot of time researching money requests from the Sheriff's Office.

In the course of his normal work over the past year, he denied two pay-raise requests for a high-ranking Sheriff's Office employee. Later, the thought crossed his mind several times that authorities might come after him. When he had to call sheriff's staff, he assumed he was being recorded. "Who knows what they would use from a conversation on one of their employees against me," he said.

Dexter Thomas is a senior management and budget analyst who works with the judicial branch's budgets.

He loved his job, but then, the easygoing atmosphere at work changed. After wiretap sweeps around him on the 10th floor, Thomas wondered who might be spying on him.

He instructed his wife and daughter to never call him on his work phone. He stopped using e-mail for personal matters. When colleagues copied him on chain e-mails, he asked to be removed from the distribution list in case authorities were reading his e-mails.

"You never know who's watching," Thomas said. "You look over your shoulder before you push the button to the 10th floor. And I don't talk to anyone anymore."

Supervisor Max Wilson was once an Arpaio supporter, even volunteering for years as a member of Arpaio's volunteer-posse program.

But as the infighting intensified, so did Wilson's stress levels. He braced for his own arrest. His wife, like many county worker spouses, tensed up whenever sheriff's cars cruised through the neighborhood.

In March 2009, Arpaio warned in a speech that Wilson "better be careful on cutting my budget." Wilson took that as a threat and pulled in his chief of staff to talk about whether he should resign.

Wilson stopped volunteering with the posse. Later, his son-in-law also turned in his posse-member badge.

Fears at home

Fear followed employees home. Many talked with their wives, husbands and children to warn them deputies might show up or follow them around town.

Marla Schofield is a compensation analyst who studies salary data and personnel information. At first, she doubted sheriff's deputies would ever have a reason to contact her.

Then, the battles heated up over the county's decision to build a new court complex.

Deputies showed up at her home twice one summer weekend to ask questions. She didn't answer the door. A deputy left his business card on her car windshield, just below a crack in the glass.

Later, she went out for groceries and gas. She scanned the road and parking lots for sheriff's deputies. She worried the card was strategically placed to send her a message about the cracked windshield, "a tactic to pull me over."

She quickly had the crack repaired.

Compensation supervisor Darrien Ellison and his family were away visiting in-laws last summer on the day deputies came to his house to question him.

When he didn't come to the door, deputies talked to his neighbor. They asked about Ellison and his job at the county. Later, Ellison felt like some kind of suspicion had been cast on his family.

"Your neighbors obviously probably think something has been done wrong," he said, asking how does anyone explain that it's "just politics."

Lee Ann Bohn is a deputy budget director. She led last year's budget negotiations with the Sheriff's Office. Later, while she was out of town with her two daughters, sheriff's deputies questioned employees from her department. Her personal cellphone voicemail filled up with messages from workers asking for help. One employee was so rattled she could barely speak.

From then on, Bohn was extra careful about driving under the speed limit. She also took good care of her swimming pool so it didn't turn green and provide anyone an excuse to enter her property.

Stress takes a toll

As the conflicts continued through 2009, the months of fear at work and home took its toll on county employees.

Scott Isham is chief of staff to Wilson. He tried not to let fear of arrest take hold of his family or staff. But, as time went on, he also tried to be realistic.

Isham called a criminal defense attorney for advice. He asked how much it would cost to get him out of jail. He put the attorney's phone numbers in his cellphone and business cards in his car. Regular after-work beers with his buddies ended. Isham told his wife to be careful. No U-turns. Never leave the kids in the car when returning videos. Who knows what they might call child endangerment?

Kenny Harris oversees construction of the county's court tower. It's the most expensive project in county history, a major point of contention between the warring factions of the county and the target of one of Arpaio's investigations.

In December, Harris got a panicked call from his 70-year-old mother-in-law. Deputies had been at the door of their home. His two young daughters asked if he was in trouble.

As a budget supervisor, Ryan Wimmer works on financial matters
involving the sheriff and county attorney.

Wimmer felt like a likely target. Early on, he didn't expect to be arrested or subpoenaed. But, after Stapley's arrest, Wimmer had more restless nights. Then, deputies came to his apartment with questions about the court-tower project.

Wimmer lay awake after that wondering: How would he find an attorney? How would he pay for an attorney?

Sometimes, Wimmer worked at home. He wondered if they could seize his home computer.

Wimmer stopped expressing any personal opinions about county officials and operations. He struggled to explain to his girlfriend and family what was happening at work.

"Everything I do," he said, "I just assume it will be used against me."

Couple File Civil Suit Alleging Abuse of Power

A couple has sued North Carolina's largest city and a former Charlotte police officer who is accused of sexually assaulting women while in uniform.

The Charlotte Observer reports the couple filed the civil suits Friday, alleging abuse of power by former Office Marcus Jackson and "inept" hiring practices.

They say the 26-year-old officer pulled them over Dec. 28 and made them follow him to a church parking lot. They say he fondled the woman, claiming he needed to search her, then ordered her boyfriend to fondle her as Jackson watched.

Six women over the past month have accused Jackson of sexually assaulting them. A grand jury has indicted Jackson in three cases. Jackson was arrested Dec. 30 and is in the Mecklenburg County jail.

An attorney for the city declined comment.

American Law Enforcement Must Demand the Removal of Sheriff Arpaio from Duty

In my 29-year career as a police officer and detective with the Madison Police Department, in Madison, Wisconsin, I have witnessed and experienced many instances of hatred, violence and racism. In most cases, those negative things were not initiated by law enforcement; sometimes, unfortunately, they were.

The 95% of us who sincerely strive to "serve and protect" are tarnished by the 5% of us who intentionally "disserve and destroy." Nowhere is this more apparent in current American law enforcement than in Maricopa County, Arizona, where Sheriff Joe Arpaio has taken the law into his own hands, at the expense of the Constitution, professional ethics, and proper police conduct. Earlier this year, the mayor of Phoenix wrote a letter to the U.S. attorney general's office, asking the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division to investigate Arpaio's aggressive illegal immigration crackdowns. Mayor Phil Brown wrote that Arpaio's sweeps show "a pattern and practice of conduct that includes discriminatory harassment, improper stops, searches and arrests."

Using local law enforcement to enforce Federal immigration laws, as Sheriff Arpaio is doing, weakens the very community links local police and sheriffs' departments work so hard daily to maintain and build upon. Having community members who are afraid of local police should not be the goal of a department; instead, a far more wide-reaching and positive effect is gained by police-community trust, interaction and collaboration.

This might sound too much like social work to Sheriff Arpaio, whose top-down, dictatorial methods favor humiliation, degradation, prisoner abuse, racial profiling, terrorizing Latino residents, and cavorting with local neo-Nazi groups. And according to a 2008 policy report on effective law enforcement by the Goldwater Institute, a libertarian-leaning watchdog group based in Phoenix, Sheriff Arpaio's department "falls seriously short of fulfilling its mission." The report found that Maricopa County has "diverted resources away from basic law-enforcement functions to highly publicized immigration sweeps, which are ineffective in policing illegal immigration."

As we all know, police need the community's trust to help solve crime and make our country stronger and safer for everyone living here, regardless of immigration status. I'm sure Sheriff Arpaio's department is having a terrible time finding Latino witnesses and victims of crimes willing to report incidents or testify, but that supposes that he cares about them enough to take reports or help develop their cases for court in the first place. Dehumanizing is another strategy used by Sheriff Arpaio, parading inmates through the streets in funky clothes, "sheltering" them in sweltering desert tents, treating them like vermin, forgetting that he is as bound to them by a universal bond of humanity as much as he is bent on eradicating them.

When chief executives of local law enforcement agencies effectively target subgroups of persons who are not committing crimes, they not only alienate the community, they make it much harder for their agencies to recruit high caliber persons with integrity who reflect the faces of the community to take on the very hard job of policing. A sheriff like Joe Arpaio must have the hardest of times making those hires, and the more the world hears about him, the harder it is for more grounded, public spirited police agencies to hire the best of the best.

American law enforcement must demand the removal of Sheriff Arpaio from duty. He is truly a menace to the residents of Arizona, and our country. Simply stated, Sheriff Arpaio has marred the reputation of law enforcement for generations to come.

His warped sense of "justice" has no place in our society, unless we support Japanese internment camps, the ghetto-ization of African-Americans, and the deaths of countless Latinos attempting to survive their own countries' destruction at the hands of US foreign and economic policies by struggling to come here to live, work and protect their families. I call upon the International Association of Chiefs of Police, as well as the US Department of Justice, to work diligently to remove him from the office he has squandered with racism and hate. Those of us in law enforcement working hard to build bridges of respect and trust with our communities don't need another Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor erasing our progress.

Originally posted on Imagine2050, by Detective Alix Olson, Madison Police Department, Wisconsin

Sheriff Arpaio Investigated for Abuse of Power

The chief financial officer for the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office has been summoned to appear this week before a federal grand jury that's examining whether Sheriff Joe Arpaio and others on his staff abused their power.

Loretta Barkell, who manages the sheriff's $271 million budget, said Monday the FBI asked her to appear at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at the federal courthouse in downtown Phoenix.

Barkell said she was issued a subpoena on Dec. 18.

Barkell will be at least the third Maricopa County employee testifying that day as County Manager David Smith and Deputy County Manager Sandi Wilson are slated to give their testimony that morning.

Barkell has worked nine years for the sheriff.

Arpaio last week denied knowledge of the grand jury, but Barkell said she told the sheriff and Chief Deputy David Hendershott about the subpoena right after she received it. She said both men told her to tell the truth. Barkell said she has not been told what kind of questions the U.S. Attorney will ask.

Federal grand juries are composed of local residents who meet once a month to hear testimony and determine if there is enough evidence to hold a trial. The proceedings are secret. Witnesses are free to say if they have been subpoenaed.

Officer Kenny Lewis Arrested for Raping Lap Dancer

A police officer raped a lap dancer after handcuffing her in her own home, a court heard yesterday.

Kenny Lewis, 26, also had sex with a woman after she was arrested, taking her to a beauty spot in his police car, jurors were told.

It is claimed that when the woman moved house in an effort to escape him, he tracked her down using the police computer.

The married officer abused his power and position and told his victims that nobody would believe them if they complained, it is alleged.

Lewis met one of his alleged victims, a 33-year- old lap dancer, after she witnessed a road accident. He visited her at home where she was watching a recording of her own performance in a pole dancing competition.

She told the court: 'He saw me watching a DVD and asked where I worked and started making jokes. He handcuffed me and pushed me on to a sofa.'

She said the policeman forced her to perform a sex act and then told her to 'shut up about it'.

The dancer, who is married with children, added: 'He then came back on numerous occasions and handcuffed me two other times.

'The last time he came round the door was open and he let himself in and started watching pornography on my computer.

'He told me if I complained nobody would listen to me because I'm only a dancer and he is a cop.' She said the other two attacks were very similar and she did not resist because she was scared.
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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/10/15/cop-raped-pole-dancer-in-cuffs-115875-21748130/

Officer Mark Lunsford Charged with Stealing Money & Jewelry

A Baltimore police officer assigned to a federal drug task force was arrested by the FBI and charged Thursday with stealing money and jewelry from houses hit on drug raids and with embezzling from funds used to pay confidential informants, according to the Maryland U.S. attorney's office.

Officer Mark J. Lunsford, 40, who has been on the force for six years, was placed by a federal judge on home detention with electronic monitoring during an appearance in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. He had been assigned to Baltimore's Drug Enforcement Administration, which conducts high-end narcotics investigations.

"These allegations represent an egregious abuse of trust," Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said in an interview. FBI agents arrested the officer Wednesday night after he left work. He was charged with making a false claim, making a false statement and embezzlement.

Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department, said Lunsford is being suspended without pay. "The department doesn't tolerate any behavior that undermines the integrity of the agency or the hard work of our police officers," he said.

Neither Lunsford, who earned $97,196 with overtime in fiscal 2008, nor his attorney could be reached for comment.

Authorities said a confidential informant used by the DEA and city police tipped them off to the allegations. One of the items stolen from a drug raid at a hotel room, according to court documents filed Thursday, was a stainless steel Aqua Master diamond watch that retails for $18,000. The source told the FBI that Lunsford ordered him to "repair the watch and sell it and share the proceeds with him," according to the affidavit. The watch was sold for about $4,200 in New York.

The court documents describe the informant as unreliable because of his "inability to follow instructions and candor issues." The FBI dropped him as an informant, but court papers said the DEA and Baltimore police continued to use him for information.

After the informant came forward to FBI agents, prosecutors said in court documents, they secretly recorded conversations between Lunsford and the informant.

The affidavit alleges that Lunsford listed the informant on drug cases that the informant hadn't worked and would then tell his superiors that the informant deserved bonuses. In one case, he falsely linked the informant to a secret wiretap on a drug case "in the county" and then got the informant a $10,000 bonus from the DEA, according to prosecutors.

The prosecutors said Lunsford then split the money with the informant.

On July 1, the FBI said, agents caught Lunsford meeting with the informant outside a federal office in Elkridge and discussing a drug case: "I put in there that you gave me the information about ah ... what's the guy's name? That's that [expletive] house we're gonna hit. Who knows? We might get lucky," Lunsford told the informant, according to the court documents.

During that same conversation, prosecutors said, Lunsford told the informant "that he stole three [PlayStation] video games from the residence of a person [federal agents] had interviewed," according to court documents.

Lunsford then told the informant, "Me and you are the only ones that know we split that ten grand, right?" the documents say. The informant answered, "Oh yea, nobody knows."

Later, authorities said, Lunsford arrested a man during a raid and seized $17,490. Prosecutors said Lunsford put the informant, who had nothing to do with the case, in for a 20 percent bonus.

According to prosecutors, Lunsford wrote that "without the valuable intelligence provided by the [informant], the [suspect] would not have been arrested." Prosecutors said, "As Lunsford well knew at the time he submitted the claim for an award to DEA, the [informant] had provided no intelligence to him."

Prosecutors said the DEA allowed the informant to receive a $3,498 bonus and cut a U.S. Treasury check to the informant. The informant cashed the check and handed the money back to a DEA supervisor, who gave the informant marked $100 bills. Prosecutors said the informant then met with Lunsford to give him his share of the bonus in a parking lot in Sykesville. The FBI said agents had that meeting under surveillance.

Sgt. Hector Montes Arrested for Official Oppression

El Paso County Sheriff's Sgt. Hector Montes, 42, is arrested on suspicion of abusing his authority.

Montes has been booked and released from the El Paso County Jail, and while few details are coming out about what he has done, the sheriff's office has already said it does not condone his behavior.

Montes was charged with official oppression. According to the penal code, the charge is that Montes used his position as a sergeant in the El Paso County Sheriff's Office to his advantage. That could mean he mistreated or arrested someone unlawfully, denied someone his or her rights and/or subjected someone to sexual harassment. It is a misdemeanor charge.

According to what KFOX found in a search of jail records, 42-year-old Montes was booked at the El Paso County Jail a little after 5:30 p.m. on Thursday on a $5,000 bond, and that the incident for which he was charged for happened a week and a half ago on Sept. 16.

He was released less than an hour later on a cash bond.

A spokesman, Deputy Jesse Tovar, said the incident was uncovered by the sheriff's office, calling it "a disturbing incident." Tovar also said they will investigate any additional allegations.

Sheriff's officials said Montes is a 13-year veteran of the sheriff's office, and has been relieved of his duties and placed on administrative leave.

Since Montes is a peace officer, the sheriff's office will not release his mug shot until after an indictment.

Former Officer Wilson Lee Newman on Trial for Stealing Beer

Witnesses testified Wednesday in the trial of a former Mineral Wells police officer accused of abuse of official capacity and official oppression for allegedly stealing a 12-pack of beer during a traffic stop.

Wilson Lee Newman, 32, of Graford, retired from his position as a corporal in the patrol division in December after nearly five years with the Mineral Wells Police Department.

During the trial, Newman admitted to removing the beer from a vehicle while making two arrests on Dec. 6, placing it in his own vehicle when he got off his shift and later throwing it away in front of the officer who reported him. Newman said he never decided to steal the beer.

“I had no intention of taking his beer for my personal use,” Newman said.

Because Newman was acting as a police officer when the beer was taken, he is charged with the class A misdemeanors involving official conduct rather than theft.

According to testimony at the trial, Newman was responding to a disturbance call at a gas station on South Oak just after midnight on a Saturday morning when he pulled over a pickup matching the description of the vehicle involved.

A passenger who initially got out of the vehicle was arrested for public intoxication and the driver, who admitted to drinking but passed a field sobriety test, was arrested for driving without a license.

The vehicle was released by the driver to another passenger who, according to Newman, did not seem impaired from alcohol.

An in-dash recording of the stop appears to show Newman retrieving the pack of beer from the vehicle just before releasing the vehicle to the driver’s friend.

“I hate to ruin your night, but you’re not getting this back,” Newman appears to tell him.

Detective Neal Davis said the value of the sealed pack of Bud Light was believed to be less than $10.

Michael Guzman, a resident of Mineral Wells and driver of the truck that night, testified that he gave money to his friend go into the gas station and purchase the beer so they would have drinks when they got home.

Guzman said he did not give any officer permission to take his beer and did not get the beer back.

Newman told the jury he went back to the police station to help book the men and write the arrest and incident reports but forgot about the beer in the back of the patrol vehicle.

Police Chief Mike McAllester said proper procedure for dealing with evidence is to determine if the property has evidenciary value, note seized property in the report, log the property in the computer system, tag the object with a number and place the item in the evidence room.

McAllester told the jury there would usually not be an occasion to take a sealed pack of beer during an arrest for driving while intoxicated.

Newman told the jury that he did not want the man, who had admitted to drinking earlier in the evening, to have the beer in the car when he drove off and he wanted to use the beer as evidence in the public intoxication arrest.

Any seized property is also required to be noted in the report but was not on the reports signed by Newman, McAllester said.

The beer remained in the bed of the patrol pickup until he got off work, according to Newman.

Patrol officer Kody Acuff said Newman asked to borrow his collapsible baton around 6 a.m. during shift change that morning move the beer from the middle of the truck.

“[He] said ‘I got to get my beer out of the truck,’” Acuff said.

Acuff said he initially assumed Newman had purchased beer while on duty, a violation of department policy.

“During conversation it was mentioned that he dealt with intoxicated subjects during the night,” Acuff said.

Acuff said he then reported the incident to his immediate supervisor.

When asked why he placed the drinks in his own truck, Newman said, “You know I’ve been thinking about it for nine months and I still don’t have an answer.”

Newman said he did not call the beer his own during his interaction with Acuff.

“I was on my way home … when it popped into my head that I put that beer in the back of my truck,” Newman said. “I decided to come back early and take care of the beer.”

“I was almost to Graford and was tired,” Newman said. “I should have [turned around and dealt with it], yes.”

When he returned for work that evening, Newman said he met a supervisor in the hall, who Newman claimed initially tried to cover for him by saying loudly, “‘If anyone asks, I bought the beer for Newman.’”

“[He] said, ‘Look, Kody’s throwing a fit about that beer,’” Newman said. “I was trying to act surprised but I wasn’t because I know Kody.”

Newman then met Acuff, who was coming off his shift.

“He said ‘Hey, can I talk to you for a second,’” Acuff said.

Acuff said Newman told him if he had a problem with something, he wouldn’t do it around him.

“‘I’m not going to go out on a limb and say we’ve all done it, but most of us have,’” Acuff quoted Newman as saying to him during their second conversation.

Newman then threw the beer in a trash can in front of him.

“It kind of infuriated me because I’d never done anything like that and I’d never seen anyone do that,” Acuff said.

Both Burns and Newman’s attorney, Jim Lane, rested after presenting evidence and are expected to continue with closing remarks Thursday morning.

Sheriff David Kinney Charged with Abuse of Power

The suspended Hockley County sheriff said he won't resign and plans on fighting civil charges of incompetence and abuse of power.

David Kinney says he was not aware of nor responsible for the behavior of two of his deputies arrested on drug trafficking charges.

Two Hockley County deputies were arrested last month on federal drug charges related to a major methamphetamine ring. About a third of the deputies are either under federal indictment or investigation or been fired, according to a petition for Sheriff David Kinney's removal.

Speaking to supporters Monday on the Hockley County Courthouse lawn, Kinney said for him to "take responsibility for others is crazy."

District Judge Blair Cherry signed an order Thursday temporarily ousting Kinney as sheriff.

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Some information from:

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, http://www.lubbockonline.com

Jonathan Bleiweiss Arrested for Sexual Assault

In a series of events that Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti called ``an abuse of power'' and ``a tarnish to the badge,'' law enforcement agents arrested one of their own Monday and accused him of sexually assaulting victims -- while in his uniform, in marked vehicles and on the job.

Jonathan Bleiweiss, 29, of Fort Lauderdale, who in March was honored as employee of the year for the Broward Sheriff's Office's Oakland Park District, was booked at 11 a.m. on 14 charges, including sexual battery, false imprisonment and stalking in connection with abusing one of the victims, a 30-year-old male. Bleiweiss was held without bail Monday.

Investigators said Monday they were preparing to file charges involving seven more male victims, and said there might be even more. The alleged victims range in age from 17 to 30, but all have something in common: They are undocumented immigrants, mostly from El Salvador and Mexico, who speak little English.

``I can't think of a worse betrayal of public trust,'' Lamberti told reporters Monday evening, adding: ``The fact is, he preyed on one of our most vulnerable communities.''

The investigation began in April, when an attorney contacted the Fort Lauderdale Police Department to say two of his clients claimed to have been assaulted by Bleiweiss. BSO's sex crimes unit took over the investigation.

Lamberti said they gave Bleiweiss ``the benefit of the doubt'' until they fully substantiated the allegations in July, which is when he was placed on restricted administrative duty. He is now suspended without pay.

Detectives said Bleiweiss used his authority to manipulate recent immigrants who feared the police. About 6 a.m. April 23, investigators said, Bleiweiss approached a 30-year-old man who was waiting for a ride to work outside the man's apartment complex.

The man told BSO that he was then frisked and fondled, with Bleiweiss sticking his hand inside his underwear. He said Bleiweiss demanded his cellphone number, then continuously called and sent him text messages.

According to the arrest warrant, Bleiweiss is accused of performing oral sex on the man on at least four occasions between that day and June 7. He ordered the man to comply or risk deportation, said BSO Detective Graciela Benito.

She said that when BSO investigators interviewed residents at the apartment complex, they discovered a similar pattern: On multiple occasions, she said, Bleiweiss stopped a victim, demanded an ID, then sexually abused them when he determined they were undocumented.

Bleiweiss, a graduate of Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, came to BSO in 2002 after serving almost two years with the St. Petersburg Police Department.

The only consistent criticism in his BSO personnel records concerned his penmanship. However, in March he was suspended for one day after improperly reporting an illness, according to an internal affairs report.

His base pay in 2008 was $61,098 a year.

In his 2008 nomination letter for the Oakland Park District's employee of the year, Sgt. Kelvin Phillips championed Bleiweiss as a deputy who projects ``a constant and present reminder of the Broward Sheriff's Office determination to serve the community.''

In March, Bleiweiss was featured in a glowing article in The South Florida Blade as a pioneering openly gay police officer.

Lamberti emphasized that immigrants should not be afraid to report crime, regardless of their status. He encouraged anyone else Bleiweiss may have abused to call Benito at 954-321-4249.
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http://www.miamiherald.com/news/broward/story/1171644.html

Hollywood Officers Accused of Abuse of Power

After a Hollywood police officer rear-ended a car in February and then arrested its driver on drunken-driving charges, he and other officers talked about doctoring the report -- it said a jumpy cat created a distraction -- to cover up the cause of the crash.

Unknown to the officers, the exchange was recorded by a dashboard camera in one of the patrol cars.

``I don't want to make things up ever, because it's wrong, but if I need to bend it a little bit to protect a cop, I'm gonna,'' one of the officers can be heard saying. ``We'll do a little Walt Disney to protect the cop because it wouldn't have mattered because she is drunk anyway.''

Alexandra Gabriela Torrensvilas, 23, of Hollywood, ended up charged with four counts of drunken driving and cited for an improper lane change.

On Tuesday, Hollywood police officials placed Officer Dewey Pressley, 42; Officer Joel Francisco, 36; Sgt. Andrew Diaz, 39; and civilian Community Service Officer Karim Thomas, age unavailable, on administrative duty pending an internal affairs investigation and a review by the Broward state attorney's office, said department spokesman Lt. Scott Pardon.

Francisco was driving the car in the crash; Pressley wrote the report and made the arrest.

Pressley's report detailing the Feb. 17 midnight crash in the 2800 block of Sheridan Street said ``a large gray stray cat'' that had been sitting on Torrensvila's lap jumped out of her car window and distracted her, causing her to veer into Francisco's lane, where she abruptly braked, and he hit her.

``I will do the narrative for you,'' one of the officers says on the tape. ``I know how I am going to word this, the cat gets him off the hook.''

Torrensvilas' attorney, Larry Meltzer, said this was a disturbing ``abuse of power.''

``Actually seeing it transpire on video in front of you, it really kind of sickens you,'' he said. ``It's really nauseating to sit there and watch your client's rights go out the window.''

Torrensvilas' four DUI charges carry a maximum penalty of almost three years in jail, Meltzer said.

He declined to say what would become of her case: ``In my opinion, as of this time, it's being handled appropriately.''

A spokesman for the Broward State Attorney's Office declined to comment on the case or how it would proceed.

Pressley, a 21-year veteran with the department, wrote that when Francisco approached Torrensvilas' car after the crash, she blurted: ``It just jumped out.''

The ``it'' was ``a large, gray stray cat'' that had been sitting on her lap while she drove, the report said.

Francisco, who has been with the department for almost 11 years, smelled ``a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage.''

Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein on Tuesday sent a letter to Hollywood Police Chief Chadwick Wagner calling for answers and accountability.

``Not only did these officers make a conscious decision to shift the blame to this young woman, but they made a concerted effort to write a narrative to fit `their facts,' '' Finkelstein wrote. He said his office has at least 27 pending cases in which these four officers are listed as material state witnesses.

Pardon, the police department's spokesman, declined to respond to the allegations. ``We'll see where the investigation goes,'' he said.

Officers Josehp Szelenyi & Booby Hoover on Trial for Tasering Woman while Handcuffed

A jury will decide whether two Newburgh Heights police officers were following department protocol or abusing their power when they shocked a Cleveland woman repeatedly with a Taser while she was handcuffed.

Officers Joseph Szelenyi, 32, and Bobby Hoover, 33, stand trial this week in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, accused of holding Kim Bankhead captive for hours at their police station and torturing her with a Taser, an electroshock weapon that temporarily incapacitates its target.

Prosecutors say the officers shocked the woman at least a half-dozen times until she complained of chest pain and was taken to a hospital.

Szelenyi and Hoover are charged with felonious assault. Judge Brendan Sheehan threw out charges against a third officer, Christopher Minek, 26, because prosecutors could not produce enough evidence to suggest he participated in shocking the woman.

In opening statements Monday, defense lawyers argued that police used the Taser to control Bankhead, who was so intoxicated she could not perform the basic field sobriety test.

At her Municipal Court hearing in February 2008, Bankhead pleaded no contest to operating a vehicle while intoxicated. Charges of disorderly conduct, driving in a prohibited area, failure to yield and resisting arrest were dismissed.

But she has since filed a civil lawsuit in federal court, in which she is asking for $1.5 million in damages from each of the officers who used the Taser, saying the experience left her traumatized, anxious and chronically depressed.

Bankhead and her husband, Michael, had been drinking at the Crankshaft bar in Newburgh Heights on Nov. 25, 2007, and were on their way home around 9 p.m., when Bankhead said police lights surrounded her car.

Police ordered her out of the driver's seat, she said. And when she demanded to know why she had been pulled over, Bankhead said, Szelenyi slammed her head against the hood of his police cruiser, busting her lip and knocking her out cold. When she regained consciousness, Bankhead struggled against the officer, who had handcuffed her and was loading her into the backseat of his car. Without warning, Szelenyi shocked her in the leg, she said.

At the police station, the officers handcuffed Bankhead to a bench while they prepared to book her on charges of driving under the influence and resisting arrest. Afraid and distraught, Bankhead panicked, screaming for help and trying to wriggle free from the handcuffs, she testified.

Hoover shocked her repeatedly, she said. He even told her, in lewd language, that he was enjoying it and encouraged her to give him a reason to do it again, Bankhead told the court.

Defense lawyers countered that Bankhead was so drunk that she nearly collided head-on with a police cruiser and parked her car on a tree lawn when she finally pulled over. She could hardly walk, let alone complete a field sobriety test. And she was aggressive, yelling for her husband to attack the police who were arresting her, they said.

Attorneys for the officers also argued that Bankhead produced no evidence or documentation of injuries inflicted by the Taser and that she only experienced chest pains, a symptom of anxiety, after police tried to book her in jail.

The trial continues Tuesday.