A man filming a police encounter accused officers of confronting an innocent man for "walking while black" when they stopped him out of nowhere and demanded to see the contents of his backpack.
The post WATCH: Citizen Steps in to Defend Innocent Man Being Harassed by Cops for ‘Walking While Black’ appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
Santa Clara, CA — The taxpayers of Santa Clara will be shelling out a massive $6.7 million to settle a federal civil-rights lawsuit that was entirely preventable had a rogue cops not decided to violate their oaths and kick down the door of a family’s home—with no warrant.
On April 12, 2016, Danielle Burfine was in her home when multiple Santa Clara officers came to her door and demanded entry into her home to arrest Burfine’s 15-year-old daughter. They had no warrant.
Instead of simply going back to a judge and obtaining a warrant to constitutionally arrest the young woman, Sergeant Gregory Hill took it upon himself to kick down their front door. Because Burfine was attempting to prevent the officers from entering her home without a warrant, she was thrown down, causing her to hit a stone pillar which broke her leg, according to the lawsuit.
“This shocking video shows obvious excessive force, wrongful entry without a warrant, and extreme callousness as Danielle broke her ankle and cried in pain,” attorney Michael Haddad said.
As the video begins, Hill and Burfine are involved in a standoff as the mother refuses to allow the officers in her home until she sees a warrant. Santa Clara police claimed they had a right to enter the home of the teen on the basis of “on-view charges.” This term typically refers to a crime or evidence that an officer witness directly. However, the alleged crime was over a week old by this time, so it did not apply in this instance.
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“This is not like they were in hot pursuit of a suspect running from a crime,” Haddad said. “They were clearly in a zone where they now required a warrant.”
READ MORE: Florida Man Dies In Police Custody After Cops turn Away the Ambulance
But these officers felt no warrant was needed, so now the taxpayers are shelling out millions to pay for their careless mistake and brutality.
The officers tried to be polite even as they began kicking at her door. However, the fact that they were nice to her while violating her rights does not dismiss the outcome of this scenario.
“We’re going to arrest her. That’s going to happen,” Hill says before breaking into the woman’s home. “You’re going to want to stand back, because I don’t want you to get hit by the door when I kick it.”
Burfine replies, “No I’m not moving, and you do not have permission to kick down my door.”
Instead of listening to reason, Hill kicks down the door, Burfine is assaulted and then the mother can be heard yelling “No you are not allowed to come into my house!” before she falls and screams, “My ankle just broke! My leg just broke!” In the video, we can see the bone pushing outward on Burfine’s pant leg—a horrific sight indeed.
The city asserts that Burfine “lost her footing, tripped off the front porch and fractured her ankle.” However, even with body camera footage of the incident, they chose not to contest the lawsuit and settle for this record amount.
“Although there was significant disagreement about the extent of the injury, there was no dispute that the plaintiff sustained a broken ankle in the course of the entry to the plaintiff’s home without a warrant,’’ City Attorney Brian Doyle said in a statement. “The city’s insurer determined that the most prudent course of action was for it to pay an amount that would result in settlement.”
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As Mercury News reports, Haddad contends the aggressive confrontation was retaliation against Burfine for not allowing police to fully interrogate her daughter in the days after the fire and refusing on multiple occasions to discuss the case without their attorney present.
After her injury, Burfine can be heard saying, “I was simply doing what my attorney asked me.”
This should have been a cut and dry arrest as no one disputes that Burfine’s 15-year-old daughter is innocent of the crime of arson for setting a snack shack on fire at Santa Clara High School. However, because they chose to use force instead of the law, the taxpayers are now giving $6.7 million to this woman.
According to Haddad, Burfine developed Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, a chronic pain condition he said “is likely to be permanently disabling.”
As Mercury News reports, Haddad was also the attorney in a civil-rights case that ended last year with Santa Clara reaching a nearly $500,000 settlement with a family who sued claiming that police illegally searched their home multiple times in 2014, based on theft suspicions that never materialized.
“Now they’ve catastrophically injured an innocent mom,” Haddad said. “Will they finally fix their training and procedures?”
Below is the infuriating and hard to watch video illustrating what can happen when cops choose to go rogue instead of following the law.
As a side note (and an important one), this story needs to headline on ZH:
http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/05/virgin-islands-allows-national-guard-t...
excerpt:
"U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. Kenneth Mapp signed an emergency order allowing the seizure of private guns, ammunition, explosives and property the National Guard may need to respond to Hurricane Irma."
So, the goverment can seize such items in such an event. Imagine that...
FUBAR
“Is this patient under arrest?” Alex Wubbles asks the officer, being instructed by legal counsel on the phone.
“Nope,” the officer says.
“Do you have an electronic warrant?” She asks, searching for a way to legally comply with the officers.
“No,” The officer admits bluntly, getting annoyed.
The police did not have a warrant. The police did not have probable cause. The man was not under arrest. The unconscious patient could not consent.
The nurse, Alex, printed out the hospital’s policy which the Salt Lake City Police Department agreed to. She showed it to the officers. She clearly and calmly listed the three things which would allow her to give the police the blood sample: a warrant, patient consent, or a patient under arrest.
The police had none of these things.
“Okay, so I take it, without those in place, I am not going to get blood?” The Officer Jeff Payne is heard saying behind his body cam.
The legal counsel on the phone tries to tell the officer not to blame the messenger, and that he is making a big mistake.
Then, the officer attacks the nurse, Alex Wubbles. He drags her outside, and handcuffs her, while she cries.
“What is going on?!” She says exasperated, wondering why they are doing this to her.
She couldn’t just break the hospital policy and put her job in jeopardy because some police officers illegally told her to. She couldn’t simply collude with the lawbreakers–the police–and illegally hand over a blood sample on behalf of an unconscious patient.
That would have opened her up to lawsuits and job loss.
The officers were, in fact, breaking the law. They had no legal right to demand blood from an unconscious patient who could not consent.
The man they wanted blood from was a truck driver who had struck a vehicle being pursued by the police. It is unclear why they would even need a blood sample from the victim.
But none of these legal facts stopped the police from placing the nurse under arrest.
Wubbles was handcuffed and placed in a police vehicle. She was never actually charged.
You could chalk this up to one crazy officer, Detective Jeff Payne with the Salt Lake City Police.
But then his supervisor showed up to the scene. While the nurse was handcuffed in the cruiser, the supervisor started to lecture her.
“There are civil remedies,” he said, telling her she should have broken the law when the officer told her to. Of course, this ignored the fact that she would have been caught up in the civil action against the officers!
It’s like an episode of the Twilight Zone as the Supervisor lies and says the nurse was obstructing justice. All the nurse wanted was a warrant signed by a judge, the legal requirement to execute a search! And yet not just Officer Payne, but his Supervisor insist that she should have given them what they wanted, without a warrant.
Listening to the Supervisor’s justification is a real trip. He repeatedly says, things like, “If you already have a sample, we can just go get a warrant, but all I’m hearing is no, no, no.”
What? Yes, go get a warrant! That is what you have been repeatedly told by the nurse and hospital staff!
You can tell from the video she is not some anti-cop crusader. She was legitimately trying to do her job and follow the law to the best of her ability. Before she is arrested, you can tell she is worried and uncomfortable, trying her best to keep the situation calm and professional.
And then the police handcuffed and dragged a crying nurse out of the building to intimidate and harass her further.
She is a strong woman. She stood up to their bullying and lies and did not give in. Despite the best efforts of the police, she would not help them violate the Fourth Amendment rights of her patient.
Police should not be able to just handcuff people and drag them to a car as an intimidation method. Payne should be fired and charged with assault.
The supervisor should also be fired, for continuing to harass that poor woman after learning quite clearly that his officer was attempting to break the law. These people are a threat to the public.
But all too often Police Cheif’s and other officers line up behind their disreputable colleagues.
And that is why people have such a problem with the police. Fire the bad officers, and maybe the good ones can take the public spotlight.
But if the police treat nurses like this, surrounded by hospital staff, how can we expect them to treat the rest of us?
This is the Salt Lake City Police Facebook page if you would like to leave a friendly note.
A bill that will allow homes to be searched without a warrant was passed with overwhelming support by the United States Congress, and signed into law by President Trump—and it happened with no media coverage and very little fanfare.
On the surface, House Judiciary Resolution 76 looks harmless. The title of the bill claims that its purpose is “Granting the consent and approval of Congress for the Commonwealth of Virginia, the State of Maryland, and the District of Columbia to enter into a compact relating to the establishment of the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission.”
“Whereas the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, an interstate compact agency of the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the State of Maryland, provides transportation services to millions of people each year, the safety of whom is paramount; Whereas an effective and safe Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority system is essential to the commerce and prosperity of the National Capital region; Whereas the Tri-State Oversight Committee, created by a memorandum of understanding amongst these 3 jurisdictions, has provided safety oversight of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.”
The proposal for a safety commission to act as a wing of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority may sound logical, when its power includes thing such as the ability to “Adopt, revise, and distribute a written State Safety Oversight Program” and to “Review, approve, oversee, and enforce the adoption and implementation of WMATA’s Public Transportation Agency Safety Plan.”
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However, there is one major red flag buried within the text of the bill that stems from the list of “powers” given to the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission, and it violates one of the basic tenants of the U.S. Constitution.
“In performing its duties, the Commission, through its Board or designated employees or agents, may: Enter upon the WMATA Rail System and, upon reasonable notice and a finding by the chief executive officer that a need exists, upon any lands, waters, and premises adjacent to the WMATA Rail System, including, without limitation, property owned or occupied by the federal government, for the purpose of making inspections, investigations, examinations, and testing as the Commission may deem necessary to carry out the purposes of this MSC Compact, and such entry shall not be deemed a trespass.”
The text gives the Commission the authority to enter property near the Metro Rail System “without limitation” and without a warrant, for the purpose of “making inspections, investigations, examinations, and testing.”
This clearly goes against the Fourth Amendment, which states that Americans’ rights “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.”
When the bill was brought to a vote in the House of Representatives, there were only five Congressmen who voted against it: Representatives Justin Amash, a Republican from Michigan; Walter Jones, a Republican from North Carolina; Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky; Alex Mooney, a Republican from West Virginia; and Mark Sanford, a Republican from South Carolina.
READ MORE: Breaking: Congress Passes Bill Giving Police Unlimited Access to Citizens" Private Communications
Amash called out the hypocrisy surrounding the fact that even though this legislation is in clear violation of the Constitution, it was passed by Congress with overwhelming support. “Only 5 of us voted against bill allowing govt to enter/search private property in parts of VA, MD & DC w/o warrant,” He wrote on Twitter.
Only 5 of us voted against bill allowing govt to enter/search private property in parts of VA, MD & DC w/o warrant. https://t.co/SVhTWqbPaB
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) July 18, 2017
This is not the first time Congress has quietly passed a bill that will take away some of the most basic rights from law-abiding citizens in the U.S., and it won’t be the last. One of the most important things to remember about this legislation is that it was ignored by the media, and while it may only affect the Washington D.C. metro area now, it could be laying the blueprint for future legislation across the country.
Edina, MN — An Orwellian precedent is underway just outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota, which could be the downfall of internet freedom as we know it. Police in Edina, MN, have been granted a warrant requiring Google to determine everyone in an entire city who has used its search engine to look up a specific term and identify them to authorities.
The case doesn’t involve some massive terror plot to destroy an entire city or a high-level child trafficking ring. It is for a wire-fraud crime — worth less than $30,000. However, if Google caves to the warrant, it could set off a precedent that will undoubtedly be used by police across the country.
According to Ars Technica, investigators are focusing their probe on an online photo of someone with the same name of a local financial fraud victim. The image turned up on a fake passport used to trick a credit union to fraudulently transfer $28,500 out of an Edina man’s account, police said. The bogus passport was faxed to the credit union using a spoofed phone number to mimic the victim’s phone, according to the warrant application.
According to the warrant, Google must help police determine who searched for variations of the victim’s name between December 1 of last year through January 7, 2017.
The ominously worded warrant makes some chilling demands — all over a small fraud case.
A Google search, the warrant application says, as reported by Ars Technica, reveals the photo used on the bogus passport. The image was not rendered on Yahoo or Bing, according to the documents. The warrant commands Google to divulge “any/all user or subscriber information”—including e-mail addresses, payment information, MAC addresses, social security numbers, dates of birth, and IP addresses—of anybody who conducted a search for the victim’s name.
READ MORE: Police Chief Shot an Unarmed Man and Actually Went to Trial for It, Judge Declares Mistrial
Independent journalist and public records activist, Tony Webster discovered the warrant and posted photos of it online. He has also expressed the grave reality surrounding such broad and sweeping dragnets — and their ability to sweep up innocent people in the process.
According to Webster:
But search warrants require supporting probable cause, not just mere suspicion or theory. For that reason, “anyone-who-accessed” search warrants like Detective Lindman’s can be risky to execute, as evidence could potentially be thrown out in a pretrial motion. Moreover, it’s possible that such a wide net could catch completely routine and non-criminal searches of the victim’s name by neighbors, prospective employers or business associates, journalists, or friends.
Could this type of search warrant be used to wrongly ensnare innocent people? If Google were to provide personal information on anyone who Googled the victim’s name, would Edina Police raid their homes, or would they first do further investigative work? The question is: what comes next? If you bought a pressure cooker on Amazon a month before the Boston bombing, do police get to know about it?
Holy shit. Case name should be In re Minnesota Unconstitutional General Warrant. Nice job unearthing @webster https://t.co/lGUd6s32dt
— Andrew Crocker (@agcrocker) March 16, 2017
Prior to the actual warrant, Edina police sent Google an administrative subpoena “requesting subscriber information for anyone who had performed a Google search” for the victim’s name. However, according to the documents posted by Webster, Google easily refused to comply with that order as it does not have a judge’s signature.
However, after Google balked at complying, authorities pushed back even harder.
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“Though Google’s rejection of the administrative subpoena is arguable, your affiant is applying for this warrant so that the investigation of this case does not stall,” officer David Lindman wrote the judge in the warrant application.
The good news is that Google, while they declined to specifically address the warrant, appears to be fighting it.
“We aren’t able to comment on specific cases, but we will always push back when we receive excessively broad requests for data about our users,” Google said in an e-mail to Ars.
If Google does comply with this order, the implications for what comes next are shocking, to say the least. Political activists, peaceful anti-establishment folks, and any generally but peaceful subversive individual could be identified and rounded up through this process. If ever there was a time to change your habits and begin using startpage.com, it is now.
As the Free Thought Project has previously reported, Google maintains a record of not only your entire search history but also your browsing history and voice recordings of all sounds associated before and after you say the words, “Okay Google.”
If you would like to know how to find out what Google has on you, how to stop it, and how to clear all of your data from their database, you can do so by clicking this link.
Disney | ABC Television Group/FlickrA November 7, 2016, Heatstreet exclusive report concludes that a wiretap warrant was in fact issued by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court thus allowing authorities to secretly surveil Trump and associates and their alleged ties to Russia.
The FISA warrant was flagrantly granted from within the Obama Administration in Oct. 2016 after an initial request was turned down by the court in June which listed Donald Trump as a specific target.
Shockingly the warrant’s request may have been based on what a malware hunter, who goes by the name of “Tea Leaves,” purportedly discovered in the spring of 2016 while on a quest to find out if the Russian’s were indeed meddling with the U.S. electoral system.
While rifling through Trump Tower server logs specifically for the domain “trump-email.com” Tea Leaves allegedly found what looked like malware emanating from Russia while looking into irregular data patterns which researchers later said they discovered were human chatter, as reported by Slate on Oct. 31, 2016.
But a screen capture of an earlier whois request for “trump-email.com” shows that the domain is registered to “Cendyn,” which nothing more than a hotel marketing company as reported by Infowars’ Mikael Thalen on Nov. 1 in an article titled ‘Trump Server Communicating With Russia’ Story Gets Debunked.
Screen captureAccording to Heatstreet, “The FISA warrant was granted in connection with the investigation of suspected activity between the server and two banks, SVB Bank and Alfa Bank. However, it is thought in the intelligence community that the warrant covers any ‘US person’ connected to this investigation, and thus covers Donald Trump and at least three further men who have either formed part of his campaign or acted as his media surrogates.”
After taking in the big picture, it’s safe to say that the Deep State in conjunction with the Obama Admin used FISA and may still be using FISA to extort their number one political enemy — Donald J. Trump. And it’s clear they don’t plan on giving up without at fight.
A barrage of baseless attacks on President Trump continued in the press early this week following several controversial tweets the president made on Sunday in which he accused Barack Obama of ordering a wiretap on Trump Tower leading up to the election.
H/T: Tabertronic/Twitter
If you’ve ever taken your computer in for service at the GEEK Squad inside your local Best Buy, then you know when you hand over your laptop to the technician, he/she has your entire life in his/her hands. Your search history, your financial accounts, your private emails, and your photo album can all be accessed, copied, deleted, or shared. When you give them your computer, you trust that no one will see your most private matters. However, you’d be wrong.
Several Best Buy employees have now been revealed to be working with the FBI to prosecute pedophiles. And while busting pedophiles is most certainly in everyone’s interests, wholesale invasion of privacy and corporate spying is certainly not.
According to the LA Times, Dr. Mark Albert Rettenmaier, a gynecological oncologist who practiced at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, CA, was indicted on two felony counts of possession of child pornography after he took his hard drive to Best Buy for repair. The drive was then sent to a GEEK Squad repair facility located in Kentucky. There, Justin Meade, a supervisor at the Geek Squad center, found suspicious photos of nude underage girls on the hard drive and contacted the FBI. Meade was then paid $500, but the FBI agent working the case did not indicate for what purpose he was compensated. Tracey Riley, the FBI agent Meade contacted wrote in a statement, “I never asked or ordered Mr. Meade or any Best Buy employee to search for child pornography or gather information on child pornography or any other crimes on my behalf or on behalf of the FBI.” But Rettenmaier’s attorney is calling that statement into question after learning Meade received compensation for his work with the FBI, dating back to 2009.
READ MORE: Former Head of DHS Warns Americans About the Horrors of Govt-Mandated Crypto “Backdoors”
“The doctor’s attorney (James Riddet) says the FBI essentially used the employee to perform warrantless searches on electronics that passed through the massive maintenance facility outside Louisville, Ky.,” wrote the LA Times. According to Riddet, since 2009, “the FBI was dealing with a paid agent inside the Geek Squad who was used for the specific purpose of searching clients’ computers for child pornography and other contraband or evidence of crimes.” But those searches are illegal, according to Riddet, because no search warrant was obtained to peruse Rettenmaier’s hard drive. And it’s against Best Buy’s policies to receive compensation from authorities for reporting crimes. It is, however, company policy to report such crimes as the employee deems necessary.
“Meade showed an FBI agent photos on Rettenmaier’s hard drive, and the agent recognized them as child pornography, according to court records. The Geek Squad had to use specialized technical tools to recover the photos because they were either damaged or had been deleted, according to court papers,” the Times states, a fact which is crucial to the defense’s case. If the files were deleted, then they were not being used for nefarious purposes. Also, as the Times writes, “Riddet contends it is impossible to tell when the files were placed on the hard drive or who accessed them,” a fact which does not incriminate his client. But the FBI used the deleted photos, nonetheless, to obtain a “search warrant for Rettenmaier’s Laguna Hills home, which it raided in February 2012, court documents state,” writes the Times.
READ MORE: Latest Snowden leak reveals NSA’s goal to continually expand surveillance abilities
While The Free Thought Project has absolutely no sympathy for pedophiles and purveyors of child pornography, we do have a stake in the way the government goes about getting the dirt on private citizens. Meade, who was considered a paid employee of the FBI, used his occupation to gain access to private information, from private computers, and from a private contract to repair said hard drive. The courts will have to decide whether or not Rettenmaier’s privacy was violated, along with his 4th amendment rights to unreasonable searches and seizures, which require a warrant signed by a judge. If Meade was acting in his capacity as an employee of the FBI, the courts will most likely decide Rettenmaier deserves to go to prison. After all, a search of his phone and home turned up a reported 800 photos of nude girls. On the other hand, critics contend the FBI was out of line and should have gotten a warrant to look through the hard drive in question. UC Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, an expert on constitutional law told the times, “If the government wants to look at somebody’s computer, they need to get a warrant.”
Not acquiring search warrants, using dubious methods to obtain incriminating evidence on suspects, and creating systems which could entrap child pornography users, are just a few of the ways the government has been exposed breaking the law. No wonder people have lost trust in their government. Suspects are no longer innocent until proven guilty. All so-called authorities, working under the auspices of the federal government, must be above board in how they conduct their business, and getting a search warrant builds a stronger case.
READ MORE: FBI Caught Covering for Local Police, They Do Not Want You to Know You"re Being Spied On
As The Free Thought Project has faithfully reported, the government has a myriad of ways it can spy on people, without warrants. Don’t they realize or do they even care that their methods are contributing to the success or failure of their court cases? If their aim is to put away pedophiles, they need to learn to work within the law. Conflicts of interest arise when informants are paid to dig up dirt on people. The value of the 4th amendment must be protected for all Americans to live in freedom. As for Riddet, he is asking the judge in the case to throw out the evidence against his client because it was gathered without a valid search warrant.
