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Cop gets probation for embezzling
from Fraternal Order of Police
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Associated Press January 17, 2007
Anderson, Indiana -- A former Anderson police officer has been sentenced to 24 months probation for his role in the theft of money from a Fraternal Order of Police lodge.
Chris Sollars pleaded guilty to two counts of official misconduct for transferring more than nine-thousand-dollars from the lodge's accounts into his personal accounts between 2003 and 2005.
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As part of the plea agreement a Madison County judge reduced the felonies to misdemeanors, allowing Sollars to keep his mortgage broker's license.
Sollars has a year to repay the money.
A special prosecutor was appointed last November to investigate after an internal lodge audit found more than 45-thousand-dollars missing from the lodge's bingo account, which Sollars oversaw.
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Comment: Probation, not punishment. A year to repay what was stolen. And these are misdemeanors, not felonies, so Mr Sollars can keep his real estate license (or easily find work as a cop again).
Is this the same treatment a non-cop would get, for embezzling at least $9-grand, perhaps up to $45-grand? (The article is unclear about the total...)
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The death penalty for illegal gambling
Jan. 12, 2007
The Liberty Papers
Fairfax County, Virginia — Last January, Salvatore Culosi was shot to death by members of the Fairfax County Virginia SWAT Team in the middle of a sting operation against illegal sports gambling. Now, the County's own police force has acknowledged that it went over the top...
Salvatore J. Culosi emerged from his townhouse about 9:30 p.m. to pay the undercover detective his weekend winnings. The detective signaled Bullock and another SWAT officer, who pulled up behind the detective. Officer Deval V. Bullock stepped out, his door hit him, and he fired one round through Culosi's side and into his chest, killing him instantly.
The officer was not charged with a crime and his punishment from the force will be 120 hours of suspension and a transfer out of the SWAT Team. Mr. Culosi, on the other hand, is dead. ... MORE ...
Cop gets probation for boinking 16-year-old sex assault victim
Jan. 13, 2007
Galveston Daily News
Texas City, Texas — A 10th State District Court jury Friday sentenced a former deputy constable to probation for sexually assaulting a girl, 16. Charles Cribbs, 32, befriended the girl in 2004 after members of her family asked him to help counsel her.
She had been sexually assaulted the previous year, court officials said. Instead of counseling her, Cribbs started a sexual relationship with her. The girl was able to describe Cribbs' pubic area while testifying. A friend of hers also testified to hearing the two having sex.
Testimony at the trial established that Cribbs had sex with the girl six times, including once at her home and once at the Precinct 5 Constable's Office where he worked.
Even though the girl reportedly was not forced into sex acts, Texas law holds that a person younger than 17 cannot consent to sex.
Prosecutor Kayla Allen told jurors Cribbs had abused his public trust to satisfy his prurient desires. She asked jurors to sentence him to prison.
The charge carried a possible prison term of two to 20 years, as well as a fine of up to $10,000.
After the trial, jurors told attorneys they gave Cribbs probation because they felt sorry for his young daughter.
Cop punished for trying to fine cricket star
Jan. 12, 2007
Reuters News Agency
New Delhi, India — An Indian traffic policeman has been transferred for trying to fine one of the country's biggest cricket stars, not realising that celebrities are sometimes above the law, newspapers reported on Friday.
Inspector Saifuddin Ahmed thought he was just doing his job when he stopped an expensive sports car in the eastern city of Ranchi for having dark tinted windows -- an offence in India.
But sitting behind those windows was cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni, one of India's hottest celebrities and a hero in his home state of Jharkhand, of which Ranchi is the capital. Early reports said an unfazed Ahmed insisted Dhoni hand over the 900-rupee fine (10 pounds).
Local police have since back-pedalled, saying Dhoni was allowed to drive on after waving a letter from local authorities giving him special dispensation to break the law.
Ahmed has now been transferred in what is an apparent demotion from the downtown commercial district to a downmarket residential bazaar, the Hindustan Times reported on Friday.
The state's chief minister was reported as saying that celebrities should expect special treatment when it comes to the law, a widely held notion in India's upper echelons.
"The police should be liberal while dealing with persons of his stature," Madhu Koda was quoted as saying by the newspaper. "What is the harm if a person of his standing uses a car with tinted glass windows?"
Officer ridiculed for helping homeless woman
Jan. 16, 2007
Associated Press
Bradenton, Florida -- A city police officer is being simultaneously celebrated and ridiculed after he went out of his way to save a homeless woman's shopping cart full of possessions.
After arresting Marie Brooks on an outstanding warrant early one morning last week, Officer Nicholas Evans pulled her shopping cart alongside his police cruiser for 12 miles to the county jail so Brooks wouldn't lose her meager belongings. The trip took him an hour.
"He wasn't obligated to have a generous, spiritual heart," said Mary DeLazzer, who manages Our Daily Bread, a soup kitchen in Bradenton.
But police are looking into whether Evans acted inappropriately and should be reprimanded. The act has made Evans the butt of jokes among peers who have heard the story, which was posted on a popular police Web site.
Evans is a three-year veteran officer who works the overnight shift. He told his bosses he was unsuccessful at trying to find someone to take the cart after arresting Brooks for violating a court order stemming from a misdemeanor drug arrest.
A call to Evans at the police department Tuesday was not immediately returned.
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There's much more than this at Unknown News.
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"Nothing will eliminate [police corruption]. As long as you have police officers, you always have the potential for corruption. As long as you have human beings, there is potential for crime."
Los Angeles Police Chief
William Bratton |
| SPECIAL THANKS EMERITUS, LON GARM |
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The bad news we're presenting here is, of course, only the tip of the tip of the iceberg.
As with any crime, only a tiny fraction of police misconduct is ever caught, and we can only guess what fraction of what's caught actually makes it into the newspapers, and of the rare police misconduct that is reported in the media, surely we stumble across only a tiny sliver.
Of that sliver, these are just a few selected highlights.
We welcome your clippings and comments; please send them to unknownnews at myway.com.
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Why we're doing this:
Cops are very nearly worshipped in our society. On endless TV shows, in movies, police procedural novels, in the newspapers and on the nightly news, police are usually presented as virtue personified -- as if it's heroic to button up a blue shirt and pin on a badge.
It's not.
What some cops do while wearing the uniform makes them heroes ... and what other cops do, on-duty and off, reveals them as thugs.
Well, if you're looking for more news of police heroism, you've come to the wrong place. If you want to be told that the policeman is your friend, that cops are the good guys and robbers are the bad guys, you'll find such reassurance on every 'news network,' in every newscast around the clock, and in every cop show from Dragnet to NYPD Blue.
This page serves a different purpose, for anyone brave enough to face facts:
All cops are not heroes.
But because of the myth that "all cops are heroes," there's minimal call for disciplining bad cops, and maximal call for "forgiving," and "understanding" the tough work of being a cop.
And that's despicable. And terrifying.
Police work is tough. It's among the most difficult jobs in the world. And turning a blind eye toward police misconduct -- allowing crooked, corrupt, outright criminal cops to have long careers in law enforcement -- only makes it more difficult and dangerous for the good cops.
Letting cops get away with crime ...
... Or "punishing" police misconduct with long, leisurely paid suspensions ...
... Or probation ...
... Or sweet deals that allow a policeman's own police record to be expunged ...
... Or any of the other special treatments cops typically receive when they're accused of wrongdoing ...
... is assinine and counterproductive.
We'd like to see good cops get a raise, and bad cops held accountable for their crimes.
Any other policy is an invitation to savages and brutes -- to button up a blue shirt, pin on a badge, and break the law with impunity.
Helen & Harry HighwaterLINK
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