Georgia correctional officers arrested after video shows attack on inmate

 

Georgia correctional officers arrested after video shows attack on inmate

VIDEO BELOW

A week after jail video was released showing several Georgia correctional officers repeatedly striking an inmate, three men have been arrested.



The Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced the arrests of Camden County Corporal Correction Officer Mason Garrick, 23, of Bryceville, Fla., as well as deputies Ryan Biegel, 24, and Braxton Massey, 21, both from Kingsland, Ga.
All three are charged with battery and violation of oath of public office.
Hobbs was placed in an isolation cell and suffered an injury when he was attacked and struck multiple times by the correctional officers.






THEY ARE WATCHING YOU BUT WHO IS WATCHING THEM

 San Francisco pilots program allowing police to live monitor private security cameras




Last week San Francisco city leaders approved a 15-month pilot allowing police to monitor live footage from surveillance cameras owned by consenting businesses and civilians without a warrant.

The 7-4 decision by the San Francisco board of supervisors was a major loss for a broad coalition of civil liberties groups that had argued the move would give police unprecedented surveillance powers. It also seemingly marked a departure from the progressive stance on surveillance the city’s leadership had previously maintained.

In May 2019, the board had made history by making the city the first to ban the use of facial recognition by any local government agency. At the time, supervisor Aaron Peskin said, the city had an “an outsize responsibility to regulate the excesses of technology”.

But more than three years, a pandemic and many protests against police injustice later, some members of the board now say they need to balance concerns for privacy with the need to allow law enforcement officials to “utilize certain technologies to make San Francisco safer”.

Privacy advocacy groups say the shift is part of a larger phenomenon in cities across the US, where fears of both perceived and real increases in crime have prompted police and elected officials to expand the use of surveillance technology, even if there isn’t always clear evidence those technologies are effective at deterring or solving crimes.


In Detroit, the city council is in the midst of a months-long back and forth on whether to expand its contract with gunshot detection company ShotSpotter. And the city of New Orleans this summer rolled back parts of its own pioneering facial recognition ban, allowing police to request the use of the controversial technology.

“People are being told there’s a rise in crime and maybe they’re experiencing some themselves and they want to see something being done about it,” Dave Maass, the director of investigations at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties organization, said. “And for elected officials, throwing money at surveillance technology is an easy political thing to do.”

It’s a continuation of tech solutionism, Maass argued: “Vendors come in promising the world with these technologies without talking about the risks or threats and policymakers just swallow it without questioning it.” -->

Like many cities in the US, San Francisco in the past years has seen complicated shifts in its crime dynamics, witnessing a rise in reported homicides and certain property crimes but a decline in overall reports of violent crime.

Still, many residents and business owners in the city say they perceive crime to be on the rise. And the city has made national headlines with high-profile smash-and-grabs; high rates of car break-ins and a persistent homelessness emergency, putting pressure on the city’s moderate mayor, London Breed.

Proponents have argued that accessing real time video footage will help alleviate deficiencies caused by staffing shortages at the San Francisco police department – a sentiment echoed by some of the city’s business improvement districts, non-profit groups created in partnership with the city that focuses on bettering specific commercial areas in SF. “With so many fewer officers, the easier we can make their job the better,” Tracy Everwine, who leads the Mid-Market business district, told the SF Standard.

The office of Breed, who sponsored the private camera legislation, praised the board’s decision and said it “balances the need to give our police officers another tool to address significant public safety challenges and to hold those who break the law accountable”.

The mayor’s office said the program was a “sensible” policy with “strong guardrails against misuse of this technology”.

That includes the “right of the owner or operator to refuse any request for access, a mandate that the police maintain a log of all written requests for access that are auditable upon demand, training for any officer who would have access to video, and explicit prohibitions against using temporary live video access to target anyone for exercising their first amendment rights”, the mayor’s office said.

The change in tone was not unanimous among all of the city’s legislators. Supervisor Dean Preston, who voted against the ordinance, told Axios he was “saddened” by how far the board had come from the shared “commitment to changing our city and our society from a society that over-polices, over-surveils, over-criminalizes and over-incarcerates people, particularly Black and brown people”.

“There’s no evidence that the kind of broader surveillance, especially the live surveillance … reduces crime or makes us safer in any way,” he continued.

Civil liberties advocates argued the expansion of surveillance camera access for police was another sign that business interests trumped those of the city’s residents. It’s a “circumvention of the public will”, said Steven Renderos, the executive director of the racial and economic advocacy group Media Justice. He described the facial recognition ban as a policy that came out of the will of the people and the new ordinance as one that was lobbied for by the city’s business districts and entrepreneurs.

“I fear for a city that has been shaped by the perspectives of the few and the perspectives of the few are the ones influencing policy decisions,” Renderos said.

The coalition has also argued there’s little evidence that accessing live feeds from surveillance cameras could help prevent or solve crimes, citing a 2008 UC Berkeley study that shows the presence of cameras did not significantly deter crimes from being committed. A 2016 study out of Newark, New Jersey, found similar results, indicating that with the exception of auto theft, a closed circuit camera network did not show a significant reduction in crime.

“A lot of the folks who came out to support the proposal and support the policy were business owners who work in the retail space who just have concerns about retail theft and crime,” said Jennifer Jones, a technology and civil liberties attorney at the ACLU. “Unfortunately, they don’t necessarily interrogate this presumption that live camera surveillance could actually do anything to prevent that or make that better.”

They also pointed to the potential for police to exploit the mechanism to infringe on first amendment protected activity like protests. Last year, the ACLU sued the SFPD for accessing live feeds from surveillance cameras in the city’s Union Square district during a protest against police brutality in response to the murder of George Floyd. The ACLU ultimately lost the lawsuit (and is now appealing the decision) but alleged in it that the police violated the city’s ordinance that requires prior approval for using any surveillance technology.

“The problem is SFPD has shown itself to be unaccountable when it comes to surveillance,” Maass said. “Even when there are rules in place they don’t want to follow the rules.”

Ultimately, the board decided that the 15-month trial period included enough guardrails to move forward and evaluate the program’s efficacy. “As I said the other day, is this perfect?” Peskin said to Axios. “Probably not. Is it worth a try? I think so.”

Supervisors Preston and Peskin did not respond to a request for comment.



Why Does The System Protect Criminal Cops

A SYSTEM THAT PROTECTS CRIMINALS INSTEAD OF VICTIMS


A 10-year-old girl called 911 and accused her father, a cop, of sexually abusing her. But the officer was charged only with battery, a misdemeanor

The arrest in March has raised questions about how the case was handled by fellow cops and by prosecutors.


A 10-year-old girl called police in March and accused her father, a Chicago police officer, of sexually abusing her.

“The victim was scared and called 911,” responding officers would later report, adding that the actions she described “were sexual in nature.”

The off-duty officer, on the force for 21 years, was taken into custody for what the arrest report called “aggravated criminal sexual abuse by family member.” But when he was charged later that day, it was only for domestic battery, a misdemeanor.

The arrest is raising questions about how the case was handled both by fellow cops and by prosecutors. Two separate investigations have been launched, one internally by the police department and another by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, the Sun-Times has learned.

In the days after the arrest, two officers and a sergeant involved in the case were stripped of their police powers, according to a law enforcement source, who said only that they were accused of failing to follow departmental policy.

A police spokesman confirmed the action but refused to release any details.

Police and court documents indicate there is confusion over what evidence was gathered on the day the officer was taken into custody on March 17.

In the arrest report, it was noted that the 49-year-old officer made an admission that was recorded on a responding officer’s body-worn camera. “I made a mistake,” he said, according to the report.

But nearly a month later, on April 21, Assistant State’s Attorney Thomas Frank told a judge that police officials responded to a subpoena by saying there was no body-worn camera footage related to the arrest.

Then last week, Frank said in court that the department had turned over footage in response to a second subpoena. But it was not clear why it took police so long to turn over the video and what exactly is on it.

It is also not clear why prosecutors did not pursue sexual abuse charges. If convicted of the battery charge against him, the officer would not have to register as a sex offender.

Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman for the state’s attorney’s office, said her office “concluded that the evidence was insufficient to meet our burden of proof to file felony charges.”

“As prosecutors, we have both an ethical and legal obligation to make charging decisions based on the evidence, facts, and the law,” she added.

Laura Morask, the officer’s attorney, said she believes her client “will be vindicated and that it was all based on some type of misunderstanding. This case will be resolved in a manner that is consistent with the values of my client being a father and a policeman.”

After calling 911, the girl told investigators that her father kissed her cheek and lips and told her he “wanted more,” sucking her tongue, according to the arrest report and a charging document.

When the officer was taken into custody, it was noted in police records that “felony charges are pending.” Hours later, however, a watch commander wrote that “felony charges will not be pursued at this time.”


The officer was charged with domestic battery and was released on his own recognizance after a court appearance on March 18, records show.

The officer was initially ordered to surrender any firearms and to stay away from his daughter, her school and the home where the alleged abuse occurred “pending completion of Department of Children and Family Services investigation.”

Less than a week later, on March 24, the order was amended allowing him to see the girl “with consent of assigned DCFS worker.”

The documents don’t say why the conditions of the officer’s release were changed. The prosecutor told the judge last week that the DCFS investigation is expected to wrap up by May 17.

During the same hearing, Judge Sabra Ebersole granted a defense request for an order blocking the public release of any body-worn camera footage showing the officer’s daughter.

The police department has already refused a Sun-Times request for any body cam video of the arrest and other records in the case, citing a state law that protects the privacy of child victims of sex crimes as well as any ongoing investigations.

“Release at this time could affect witness testimony and possibly jeopardize the progress of the investigation,” the department said in its reply to a public records request by the Sun-Times seeking the body cam footage. “Requested records pertain to an open and ongoing investigation into allegations of police misconduct.”

It added: “Release of the victim’s statements to the public could be disturbing for the victim and cause the victim to relive the traumatizing experience. ... Explicit details of the incident that are captured on body-worn camera video are exempt and were withheld.”

A status hearing was set for June 1.






COVID COPS RAID PARTY ONLY TO FIND CARDBOARD PEOPLE

 10 Cops Raid Covid-Secure Zoom Party FIND GUESTS WERE CARDBOARD PEOPLE


To mark the 56th birthday of socialite Lisa Tchenguiz, her boyfriend, the American private jet tycoon Steve Varsano, 64, thoughtfully organised a surprise online party.

He planned for Miss Tchenguiz to enter his company’s offices in Park Lane, Mayfair, and be presented with dozens of screens on which 70 of her best friends would greet her online. To add to the amusement, he ordered 70 cardboard cut-outs with images of each of the guests to be placed around the room.

Guests included restaurant tycoon Richard Caring, the Marquess of Bath and his wife, former Strictly Come Dancing star Emma Weymouth, top model Christina Estrada, and property developer Bruce Ritchie.

However, while workmen were organising the elaborate set-up, a passer-by saw what was going on from outside the building and called the police – apparently convinced that a big party was being prepared. 

The tip-off is thought to have come from a passenger on the upper deck of a bus travelling down Park Lane who could see into the building.

To Mr Varsano’s horror, his offices were then visited by not one, not two, but almost a dozen Metropolitan Police officers, arriving in multiple vehicles.
‘There were about ten officers,’ he explained. He said they refused to believe the party was online-only and proceeded to search for guests hidden in the building. 

‘They went to all the rooms in my offices like I was some criminal,’ he said. 

‘Someone must have called and said I was having a party because they saw trucks delivering lights and balloons and images.

‘They quickly understood that it was not attended in real life by people but by 70 cardboard cut-outs and Zoom people. I had an operator for lights and he was behind a glass, had a mask and was doing social distancing.’

He added: ‘I went through unbelievable efforts to adhere to the rules. The police were surprised that there were no people that they could issue a fine to.’ 

However, they were apparently not fully convinced by his explanations because two officers returned later that evening to check the guests were really made of cardboard.

He said: ‘It was a little bit funny, but we had to take it seriously. They were very nice and realised there wasn’t anything illegal. They bid us farewell, but it was a bit alarming.’

Lisa, sister of property tycoons Vincent and Robert Tchenguiz, said: ‘The police didn’t dampen my spirits. They were kind enough to say hello to my friends. They were doing what they need to do.’

She added of her boyfriend’s efforts: ‘It was incredible. I saw these cut-outs and they looked so real and then I turned around and saw a screen of my friends from all over the world.’

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: ‘Police received six reports about a gathering of people at premises in Park Lane. Officers attended the premises. No further action was taken.

Tennessee Cops Piss On The Constitution, When They Arrest Man For Photoshopped Image

MAN ARRESTED FOR HARASSING A DEAD OFFICER 


 A Tennessee man, presumably disenchanted with local law enforcement, posted the above image to social media. The image shows two people urinating on a headstone crudely edited to include a portrait of Sgt Daniel Baker, a Dickson County cop who was killed in the line of duty in 2018. The original photograph is the cover of a 2009 album released by a band called The Rites.


Dickson County police, however, believed it was a genuine photo of Baker's grave. With the assistance of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation—and a trip to the cemetery—they realized that it was merely a "tasteless and disrespectful photoshop".

Even so, they tracked Joshua Andrew Garton down anyway and charged him with Harassment over what the TBI described as "desecration" in a Twitter posting announcing his arrest. Garton is being held on a $76,000 bond at Dickson County Jail.

Garton's arrest may satisfy local outrage, but comes with its own costs. The heavy-handed response has already been widely condemned as an infringement of Garton's constitutional rights.

When it comes to First Amendment free speech, the First Amendment really was designed to protect a debate at the fringes. You don't need the courts to protect speech that everybody agrees with, because that speech will be tolerated. You need a First Amendment to protect speech that people regard as intolerable or outrageous or offensive — because that is when the majority will wield its power to censor or suppress, and we have a First Amendment to prevent the government from doing that.

Tennessee attorney Daniel A. Horwitz, who specializes in First Amendment litigation noted, the specific conduct the TBI arrested Garton for is simply “not a crime.”

“The First Amendment clearly and unmistakably protects this man’s right to post an offensive photo about a police officer,” Horwitz told Law&Crime. 

“The only people who broke the law here were the police officers and TBI agents who participated in this flagrantly unconstitutional arrest.”-Daniel A. Horwitz

"The Police set out to arrest Joshua Andrew Garton for one thing, quickly realize they can't, and made up something else in frustration," wrote lawyer Daniel A. Horwitz on Twitter. "… I am riled up about the government imprisoning someone for disrespecting them."

Now this whole situation is also an example of the Streisand Effect, when is an attempt at censorship that results only in broad attention to the material in question. Thanks to the arrest, an image seen by only a few locals has now gone viral online.


IN ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF COPS OVER REACTING TO A SITUATION, CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO


Don't Talk & Ride In Australia Without Installing Hands Free Devise On Your Horse

Man Riding Horse Stopped By Police For Using His Phone


When you next ride your horse down the street, don't pick up that phone ringing in your pocket.

A Hill End man charged with using a mobile phone while riding a horse, who elected to have it heard in Mudgee Local Court, had the matter dealt with without a criminal conviction being recorded - where it was labelled 'trivial'.

The 30-year-old was seen riding the horse along the Hill End Road at Tambaroora, north of Hill End, at 11.08am on Saturday, October 19, 2019.

While travelling at an estimated speed of 10km/h, he was seen to be holding the phone up to his right ear, before he was stopped by police.

The magistrate did not record a criminal conviction and labelled the matter 'trivial'.

The 30-year-old, from Hill End in the NSW Central West, was seen riding the horse along the Hill End Road at Tambaroora, north of Hill End, at 11:08am.

While travelling at an estimated speed of 10km/h, he was seen to be holding the phone up to his right ear, before police stopped him.

It was noted that at the time the traffic on the road was light.

Police prosecutor Kris O'Brien tendered the paperwork to the court for the charge of 'Driver use mobile phone when not permitted', and noted "it's not made clear in the charge, but the vehicle is a horse".

Magistrate David Day appeared to wince with laughter and suggested this was perhaps something that Equestrian Australia should educate riders on.

And went onto say he hadn't dealt with such a matter before and added: "I've had someone charged with being drunk on a horse before - but just one".

The defendant's solicitor, Tim Cain, submitted that the matter was "trivial" and that his client pleaded guilty "because he concedes that the horse was in motion".

Magistrate Day said, "under the road rules a horse is a vehicle ... and he didn't have a hands-free device fitted to the horse".

Although, questioned whether the incident occurred on "a quiet day", and concurred it was "trivial - in the extreme".

"Especially in a rural area where animals are a form of transport," he said.

A three-month Conditional Release Order was imposed without a conviction recorded.

**Under NSW legislation, Road Rules 2014, Road users and vehicles, a 'vehicle' includes an animal-drawn vehicle, and an animal that is being ridden or drawing a vehicle. With a 'ride' defined as the rider of a motor bike or animal-drawn vehicle, includes to be in control of.

THE PRACTICE OF HIRING GYPSY COPS MUST END

 


VIDEO BELOW

Florida gave thousands of tarnished officers a second chance. Hundreds blew it

More than 500 officers who were allowed to continue their law enforcement careers went on to commit offenses that resulted in their decertification

Joseph Floyd turned Florida’s Crestview Police Department into a criminal enterprise, the judge said at his 2013 sentencing, but his willingness to break the rules didn’t start there.

Story after story from witnesses, including fellow officers, illustrated the “irreparable” harm the judge said the police major caused: accusations of excessive use of force, false arrests, sexual assault, bribery, planting drugs, falsifying police reports and intimidating other officers to force them to go along with his crimes.

A woman lost her unborn child after Floyd intentionally rammed her car with his police vehicle, flipping it multiple times, leading to a $75,000 legal settlement with the city in Florida’s Panhandle, according to court records.

“The volume of the evidence presented to the jury was remarkable, astounding really,” said Judge Michael Flowers in rejecting the minimum sentencing for racketeering and ordering Floyd to prison for 12 years.

“He ruined lives,” special prosecutor Russ Edgar said. “He perverted justice, and he did everything a police officer should never do. He used his badge to break the law. He had no respect for it, no observance for it in these incidents.”

But Floyd crossed legal and ethical lines long before Crestview hired him.

“A background investigation would have revealed that Floyd has demonstrated that he did not have the necessary character traits to be a good officer,” the grand jury foreman wrote when Floyd was indicted in 2012.

Before he became a cop, Floyd was arrested for battery, disorderly conduct and resisting a law enforcement officer, the grand jury found. As an officer, Floyd was terminated for misconduct or forced to resign from three other agencies — the Bay County Sheriff’s Office, Sneads Police Department and Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office — for offenses similar to those he was accused of in Crestview.

Thousands of tarnished officers around the state have been forced out from another Florida agency for misconduct in the last 30 years. At least 505 of those law enforcement and corrections officers who were given a second chance, including Floyd, later committed an offense that led to decertification, an investigation by the Naples Daily News and The News-Press found.

The vast majority of those officers committed some form of crime, ranging from drug offenses to sexual assault to murder, leaving a trail of victims and at least two dozen lawsuits.

These officers were able to find work because the main burden for weeding out bad hires in Florida is put on local agencies, and the minimum requirements for officers, established by a state law that some criminal justice experts criticize as weak, did not explicitly disqualify them from employment.

The same minimum requirements have left hundreds of questionable hires currently on agency payrolls, including dozens of officers with such poor character that they could be barred from testifying in court.

The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and others at the hands of law enforcement have spurred calls for police reform. But Florida lawmakers have largely failed to address how troubled officers get hired, as evidenced by the lack of proposed legislation spanning nearly a decade. A bill is in the works that calls for the creation of a misconduct registry, but that information is already public record in Florida. Another would reduce qualified immunity for police, which limits their personal liability. 

“What I found is it is a terrible system for hiring officers,” said former Oak Hill (Florida) Police Chief Walt Zalisko, a policing practice expert who also had decades of law enforcement experience in New Jersey. “You can have an officer who’s been under investigation and resigns and it will say something like it was a voluntary separation. Cities will do that to avoid possible litigation down the road. We’ve seen officers who have changed departments eight times.”

State Sen. Bobby Powell, D-West Palm Beach, who will sit on the criminal justice committee during Florida’s upcoming legislative session, said the issue needs to be explored. “We need to look at the backgrounds of people being hired.”

Hundreds of officers given a second chance were later decertified

               

             
Florida’s minimum requirements to become a police officer, which are established by law, don’t prevent officers forced out from other agencies from being hired at another agency.

Since 1988, thousands of Florida law enforcement officers who were fired for misconduct or who resigned in lieu of termination were given multiple chances to continue their careers, according to a study published in April in the Yale Law Journal by Duke University professor Ben Grunwald and University of Chicago professor John Rappaport.

They made up about 2% of employed officers during that time, which the researchers said translated to nearly 800 of these officers working in any given year. The study also found that these officers were nearly twice as likely as other hires to be fired again and 75% more likely to be accused of a serious offense.

In addition to being forced out for misconduct at a higher rate than others, tarnished cops were also more likely to commit an act that resulted in decertification, according to an analysis by the Naples Daily News and The News-Press that tracked the work histories of decertified officers using employment records.

The 505 law enforcement and corrections officers who went on to commit another serious offense after being forced out for misconduct from another agency make up about 6% of the more than 8,000 decertifications since 1990, according to the analysis. Corrections officers in Florida are held to the same minimum employment requirements as law enforcement officers.

The analysis is likely an undercount based on Zalisko’s explanation of how departments have sometimes categorized officer separations.

At least 433 of the complaints against tarnished officers that led to decertification were criminal in nature, though not all of the offenses were prosecuted.

Drug offenses were the most common reason for decertification of the officers identified in the analysis, with 20% of the officers committing offenses including drug possession, sales or driving under the influence.


Sheriff’s offices have been sued at least 24 times since 1990 as a result of the actions of these officers, according to local and federal court records. This figure does not include notices of claim submitted to the cities or agencies, which could have been resolved before litigation was filed.
In some of the most serious cases, there were connections between past misdeeds and the offenses that led to decertification. 

Jimmy Dac Ho was fired from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office after he was accused of domestic abuse. He was then hired by Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, which fired him after he shot and killed 29-year-old Sheri Carter in 2011. He’s serving two life sentences for murder.

Before the murder, Ho also was accused of being overzealous as a police officer at Florida Atlantic University, leading to complaints about excessive use of force. The university had to settle a lawsuit by a student whom Ho injured during a false arrest and required surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff, according to court records. 

The university also settled a lawsuit filed by Carter’s mother.

Also among the officers identified in the newspapers’ analysis is former Biscayne Park Police Chief Raimundo Atesiano, who was hired at the agency in 2008 despite being forced out at the Sunny Isles Police Department in 2006.

Before Atesiano became police chief, he accepted an offer to resign from Sunny Isles in exchange for the state attorney’s office declining to file criminal charges after he admitted to forging the signature of a suspect on a promise-to-appear affidavit, according to an internal affairs investigation completed by the agency.

The Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission, the body that certifies and decertifies officers, also declined to issue any further punishment, instead sending a letter of guidance to Atesiano.

“The Panel decided to take no disciplinary action against your certification, and that the profession would be best served by allowing you to learn from your mistakes,” then-Commissioner Gerald Bailey wrote. 

After he became a police chief, Atesiano pleaded guilty in 2018 to directing officers to frame people through false arrests and to claim false confessions in order to clear unsolved burglaries.
A Sunny Isles Police Department memo documents an agreement with Raimundo Atesiano in which he would resign in exchange for the state attorney’s office not pursuing criminal charges against him for forgery.

“Putting an arrest statistic above the rights of an innocent man instead of working to protect all our citizens undermines the safety goals of every Miami-Dade police department,” State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said. “Miami-Dade’s residents deserve honesty and integrity, qualities that Raimundo Atesiano deliberately failed to deliver.”

Atesiano is serving a three-year prison sentence.

The officers whom Atesiano instructed to make false arrests settled with two of Atesiano’s victims. 

Clarens Desrouleaux, whose settlement was subject to a confidentiality clause, spent five years in prison before he was deported to Haiti, which separated him from his wife and children, court records show. The court system also vacated Desrouleaux’s conviction.

Officers are held to a lesser standard when hired

The checkered pasts in many officers’ backgrounds show that the higher standards and expectations of law enforcement do not necessarily apply in the hiring process.

State rules require agencies to verify that officers they hire are of “good moral character” through the vetting of government databases, past employment checks and history of drug use. 

Beside the training, physical and academic standards to become certified, the only disqualifiers include a dishonorable discharge from the armed services, any felony conviction or any misdemeanor conviction involving perjury or a false statement.

However, good moral character is subject to interpretation by local agencies, Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokesperson Gretl Plessinger said, and is not necessarily inclusive of the moral character violations that could lead to loss of certification once someone becomes an officer.

Moral character violations, which are established by state law, include any felony offense or specific misdemeanors such as assault, battery, DUI, theft, possession of drugs, falsifying records, making false statements, exposure of sexual organs and prostitution regardless of prosecution.

They also can include noncriminal offenses such as sex on duty, excessive use of force, subverting testing or training and false statements during the employment application process.

Roger Goldman, a professor at St. Louis University and a national expert on police licensing laws, said the state’s interpretation has essentially created two different character standards for hiring and decertifying officers because there is no uniformity.
For example, Matthew Vandetti was one of 51 deputies hired by the Hendry County Sheriff’s Office since 2009 who had a history of personal or professional misconduct.

Before he was hired by the Clewiston Police Department and the Hendry County Sheriff’s Office, at least nine other agencies rejected or disqualified Vandetti, many of which stated it was because of his past conduct, selection records show.

According to pre-employment disclosures and polygraph reports, Vandetti admitted to at least 10 vehicle burglaries in North Naples, using drugs, soliciting a prostitute, having sex with a minor and inadvertently exposing his genitals at a drug store in Lee County. He was also accused of falsifying applications and using countermeasures during polygraph exams.

While Vandetti said most of those offenses occurred when he was a juvenile, according to a 2003 polygraph report, a Collier County Sheriff’s Office polygraph examiner noted “significant responses” to questions about involvement in illegal activities, use of marijuana more than 20 times and the sale of illicit drugs for profit after he became an adult, the report stated.

Vandetti said he did not remember making those admissions or the events ever happening when he applied again to the agency nearly a decade later, employment records show.

Vandetti could have been decertified if he had committed those offenses as an officer. 

His past conduct did not prevent Clewiston from hiring him in 2015 and Hendry in 2018 even though the agencies were aware that he had disclosed those offenses to the Collier County Sheriff's Office, employment records show.

THE PRACTICE OF HIRING GYPSY COPS MUST END





Framed Philadelphia Man is free After 19 Years After Police Used A "DROP GUN" To Frame Him

 The Gun Was Registered To An

Active-Duty Officer

Framed Philadelphia man is freed 19 years after he was jailed

Three Philadelphia police officers have been reassigned pending an internal investigation into the arrest of Termaine Joseph Hicks, who was cleared of a 2001 rape last week after spending 19 years in prison.

That decision comes after an investigation by the Innocence Project and the District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit raised serious questions about whether police had fabricated evidence, planted a gun, and arrested Hicks under false pretenses — all to conceal a police shooting of an innocent bystander who had rushed to aid a rape victim.

“They lied under oath to cover up for shooting an innocent man three times in the back,” Innocence Project lawyer Vanessa Potkin said.

A police spokesperson said the DA provided details on the allegations only after Hicks’ case was resolved. “As a result of receiving this information, we have opened an Internal Affairs investigation into the allegations of police misconduct,” the spokesperson said in an email.

Officer Martin Vinson, who testified that he fired because Hicks was reaching for a gun and lunging toward him, and his then-partner Sgt. Dennis Zungolo, who testified he saw Hicks pulling up his pants when police arrived, were both placed on restricted duty, the spokesperson confirmed. 
Vinson, most recently assigned to the Third Police District, has not responded to requests for comment. Zungolo, of South Detectives Division, declined an interview and referred questions to John McGrody, vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5. McGrody did not return phone calls on Tuesday.