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Judge says citizen had every right to resist:
Homeowner freed after beating up cops
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by Todd Ruger, Sarasota [FL] Herald-Tribune March 14, 2007
SARASOTA -- John Coffin won't spend any more time in jail for beating up two sheriff's deputies inside his house, striking one in the head with a Taser gun he took from the other.
Circuit Judge Rick De Furia said at Coffin's trial Tuesday that he doesn't condone the violence against the deputies.
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But Coffin, 56, had a right to defend his family and property because the deputies had no right to be in Coffin's house in the first place, De Furia said.
"Law enforcement was responsible for the chain of events here," De Furia said. "I think in situations like this, officers become so frustrated they go beyond what the law allows them to do."
The fight started when Coffin heard his wife screaming in pain, went into the garage and saw two deputies arresting her on the floor.
The deputies were trying to serve
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Commentary by Helen & Harry Highwater:
The deputies had no warrant, no legal reason to enter John and Cynthia Coffin's house.
It's true, as an attorney states, that this whole matter "could have been over in five seconds" if the homeowners "had simply come out and cooperated" with deputies who broke into their residence. But until America is officially declared a police state, Americans have the Fourth Amendment right to go about their business in their homes.
So what I'd like to know is: Why haven't deputies James Lutz and Stacy Brandau been prosecuted for trespassing? And why are they still employed as deputies?
Helen & Harry
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Coffin with civil papers that had been given five days earlier. They had entered the garage even though they did not have a search warrant or arrest warrant.
And they arrested Coffin's wife, Cynthia, 50, on obstruction charges even though she had no obligation to follow their orders to bring her husband outside.
"The most critical is the fact the officers broke the law by stopping the garage door from going down," and then entering the garage, De Furia said.
A jury was picked for the trial Monday. But the judge granted a motion by Coffin's attorneys, Derek Byrd and Brett McIntosh, and acquitted John Coffin on five of six felony charges Tuesday morning.
Coffin pleaded no contest to the remaining charge of taking a Taser gun from one of the deputies during the fight.
Before handing down the sentence, De Furia asked how long Coffin spent in jail after his initial arrest.
"You spent eight days in the Sarasota County jail," De Furia said. "That's your sentence. No probation."
Relatives applauded, and Coffin walked out of the courthouse with only a $358 bill for court costs. The sentence surprised even defense attorneys, who had suggested De Furia sentence Coffin to probation.
Prosecutors had asked for more than a year of prison time because of "the totality of the case" and the injuries to deputies James Lutz and Stacy Ferris, whose name is now Stacy Brandau.
The two deputies testified about their injuries Tuesday -- three blows to the head with the butt of the Taser gun knocked Lutz unconscious.
"I just ask that he doesn't get away with this," Brandau told the judge.
Assistant State Attorney Jeff Young told the judge the case "could have been over in five seconds" if the Coffins "had simply come out and cooperated."
"That is a man who took it upon himself to beat up two police officers," Young said.
De Furia said that while he believed the deputies' mistakes were not intentional, the Coffins had every right to lock doors, try to close their garage door and not cooperate.
"What took place in the house was unfortunate," De Furia said, "but Mr. Coffin ... had a right to resist."
Archived from original publication
More and more and more
and MORE BAD COPS
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Mother, son surrounded as police arrest convenience store owner |
Beacon Journal [Beacon, OH], March 6, 2007
Georgette Prince was making a quick run to the store last Thursday morning for orange soda and lottery tickets -- a venture that should have been an uneventful five-minute trip but became a terrifying 20-minute ordeal.
The unsuspecting Prince was caught in the storm of a SWAT team raid that had her in fear for her life.
''I thought I was going to be shot. I thought I was going to die,'' Prince recalled over the weekend as she sat in the living room of her Grace Avenue home.
She said she was just stepping out the front door of Mr. Pantry, a Copley Road convenience store, when her world became a frantic, frightening blur of guns, shouts and shoves of helmeted, armored men with guns.
''I didn't know what was going on,'' Prince said.
What was happening was Operation Milkman, an investigation of a multimillion-dollar, multicounty shoplifting ring that led last Thursday morning to raids at nine businesses and the arrests of nearly two dozen people in Summit, Portage and Medina counties.
Summit sheriff's deputies and Akron police swooped down on Mr. Pantry and seven other small neighborhood stores in Akron, confiscating allegedly stolen goods and arresting the stores' owners.
Prince said she and her 12-year-old son, Davonte, drove to the store around 10 a.m. He waited for her in the their Jeep as she made her purchases and started back.
''I was holding the pop in my arms and was backing out the door, pushing it open with my back,'' Prince said.
''The next thing I know, I'm being shoved back into the store and someone is pointing a rifle at me, yelling at me to get back, get back and to get down on the floor.''
With the rifle trained on her and an officer clad in helmet and body armor advancing toward her, Prince went to the floor face-down. She said her hands were pulled behind her back and she was handcuffed.
''I was crying and telling them my son was outside in the car,'' she said.
According to Prince, another customer, a man, ran toward the cooler when officers barged in and she saw the owner of the store at the counter.
''He had a gun on his hip... ,'' Prince said. ''I was just hoping he didn't do anything. I was thinking if the owner made any kind of move, I was going to get killed.
''They (the officers) kept yelling: 'Tell us where the guns and money are.' I was so scared.''
Outside the store, Prince's son found himself in an equally frightening situation as he stared down the barrel of a rifle.
''I was just sitting in the car waiting for my mom'' when a SWAT officer pointed a rifle at him, Davonte said.
''He was looking at me through the rifle's scope and telling me to get out of the Jeep, get on the ground and put my hands behind my back,'' Davonte said.
The Perkins Middle School student said he complied and lay on the ground, which was wet from the morning's rain.
The officer ''asked me how old I was, searched me, then took me to the back of the jeep,'' said Davonte, who acknowledged he was frightened.
After questioning the officers involved, the sheriff's office confirmed the Prince family's version of the day's events for the most part, but noted that standard entry procedures were followed.
''We believe everything was done according to the book,'' said Keith Thornton, an inspector with the sheriff's office. He stressed that officers ''did nothing wrong and followed protocol and procedure.''
Capt. Richard Roach, who was at the scene as the tactical command leader, concurred with Thornton's assessment.
''It was a standard SWAT entry,'' Roach said. ''It is designed to be quick, loud and startling.''
Roach and Thornton explained that a SWAT entry was used because the ''target,'' the store owner, allegedly had a violent background and carried a gun.
Roach said it was understood that there was ''the potential for customers'' inside the store. But he said SWAT operations are done in a carefully coordinated and precise time frame.
''Once we are rolling, we are rolling,'' Roach said.
According to Roach, Prince was cuffed with plastic flex cuffs (Prince contends the cuffs were metal) as part of the operation to secure the scene. He said once the store was secured, which he said took about 10 minutes (she says 15 to 20 minutes), Prince was helped to her feet and eventually released. Roach said that once it was determined
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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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