Another story out of New Haven regarding the reckless police department there. There are common threads to this article that are beyond New Haven:

-The president of the police union is brought out to assassinate the characters of people living in the ‘ghetto’ to justify why police might use heavy-handed tactics (“this is not Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood…”)

-A police officer is repeatedly accused of wrongdoing but continues to be defended as ‘basically a good cop’ and has never gotten in any trouble whatsoever.

New Haven officer sued over police brutality

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/connecticut/ny-bc-ct–brutalityclaims1129nov29,0,6291657.story

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – A New Haven police officer is facing two federal lawsuits accusing him of brutality and an illegal strip search, while records show he has been subject to a history of complaints of excessive force.

Union officials call Officer Dennis O’Connell “a good cop” who works in tough, violent neighborhoods. But the coordinator for the department’s Civilian Review Board said complaints against O’Connell are high.

“One person with eight complaints of the same type could be perceived as excessive,” said Reginald Thomas, coordinator of the Civilian Review Board. “It’s not the average for a New Haven police officer.”

A telephone message was left for O’Connell with Sgt. Louis G. Cavaliere, president of the police union, who said O’Connell declined to comment. O’Connell has been on the force for about a decade and makes about $59,000.

“This is not Mayberry U.S.A. or Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” Cavaliere said. “You’re dealing with the scum of the earth when you’re dealing with people with drugs and guns.”

The department has a recent history of scandal. Three detectives were sent to prison for planting evidence and stealing money from crime scenes.

The incidents sparked an independent review of the department, which found problems with investigations of complaints against police. Many cases were closed because those who filed the complaints did not pursue them, according to the report last year by the Police Executive Research Forum, a national group that evaluates police operations.

In one of the lawsuits, five men and a woman say O’Connell used excessive force. One man said he was repeatedly punched in the face and sprayed with chemicals while he was handcuffed, while another said he was beaten unconscious.

Dramese Fair, who is black, also filed a federal lawsuit earlier this year accusing O’Connell and two other officers of subjecting him to an illegal strip search last year.

Eight other residents have filed complaints in recent years accusing O’Connell of excessive force and other misconduct, according to records obtained by The Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Attorney Paul Garlinghouse, attorney for the six plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit, said his clients filed complaints with police but no action was taken. His lawsuit seeks $9.5 million in damages.

O’Connell often works in dangerous neighborhoods where repeat offenders will resist arrest to avoid returning to prison, Cavaliere said.

“He’s a good cop. He does an excellent job out there,” Cavaliere said. “Dennis is not a person who abuses people’s rights. They all jump on the bandwagon to get their pay day.”

None of the eight complaints resulted in any disciplinary action against O’Connell. Internal affairs investigators said the alleged victims did not pursue their complaints or they were unfounded or, in one case, missed a deadline for filing.

Police reports on the incidents contradict versions by the complainants. One of the complainants pushed O’Connell and threw a punch at him, and O’Connell said another man burned him with a cigarette, according to police reports.

Valerie Myles, who alleged that officers beat her and her cousin, said she did try to pursue her complaint but “evidently it disappeared.” A police report charging her cousin with drug violations was filled out by Det. Justen Kasperzyk, who was sentenced to 15 months in prison for planting drug evidence and stealing money from a crime scene.

Other alleged victims could not be reached for comment. Many had disconnected telephone numbers.

“They are hot to stamp ‘not pursued’ on these cases,” Garlinghouse said.

Fair’s lawsuit accuses the city of postponing a hearing to avoid scrutiny of illegal searches and refusing to act on disciplinary complaints against the officers.

City officials said they could not comment on pending litigation. They also declined to comment on complaints that have been closed.

Last year’s independent review also found that New Haven police do not have an early intervention system to identify officers with multiple complaints against them.

But the group said this week that New Haven police were making progress. About half of the 57 recommendations made by PERF in its 97-page report in 2007 have been implemented and the rest are in progress, reported police Chief James Lewis.

About 140 complaints are filed annually against New Haven police, Thomas said.

Thomas said he couldn’t say what an average number of complaints against officers would be, saying it depends on the officer’s assignment and length of time on the job. He said police were preparing to use computer advanced software to identify concerns such as one officer sparking many complaints.

O’Connell’s controversies date back to 2000, when he shot a man three times and left him paralyzed below the waist. Police said the man was wearing a bullet proof vest and had pulled out a handgun at officers before he was shot.

O’Connell was cleared of any wrongdoing.

This article touches on 2 key points that we at Malcom-Che constantly point out:

1)  Corrections Officers help bring in contraband to the prisons and are part and parcel of the illegal culture inside prisons.

2)  Prisons are schools for crime, not places for rehabilitation, and this article points out that many people go into prison unaffliated and leave as Bloods.

We’d also like to point out that this article states that 51% of all gang members incarcerated in N.J. are Bloods (as of July ‘08), something that is very interesting.

Bloods inmates exploiting N.J. jails

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/nj/20081119_Bloods_inmates_exploiting_N_J__jails.html

TRENTON – In some ways, the Bloods gang wields more power in Burlington County’s Albert C. Wagner Youth Correctional Facility than the corrections officers do, according to a former inmate.

Most of the inmates are Bloods. They smuggle drugs and cell phones into the Bordentown prison and extort protection money from other inmates. Corrections officers rarely bother inmates belonging to the gang; some even abet their crimes – and a few are Bloods themselves.

That’s according to sworn statements given to a state official by an unnamed inmate who said a group of Bloods there held a glass shard to his throat, threatened to kill him, and forced him to pay about $300 in protection money.

A video of his testimony was shown as part of a five-hour statehouse hearing yesterday on a 20-month investigation revealing the ease with which incarcerated gang members exploit vulnerabilities in New Jersey’s prison system.

The State Commission of Investigation found that despite hundreds of arrests in recent years that sent gang members to prison in record numbers, they were freely organizing crime from their jail cells. Weaknesses in the way prisons handle inmates’ financial accounts and visitation policies, along with a small group of corrupt corrections officials, have allowed gangs to retain their power even with key leaders behind bars, investigators found.

Law-enforcement officials, SCI investigators and inmates (by video) testified yesterday to the agency’s commissioners. The commission is expected to release a full report with recommendations early next year, and the state Department of Corrections already is enacting some reforms, the commission said.

The current system is “ripe for abuse,” SCI Special Agent Kenneth Cooley told the commissioners. Gang members “can operate in the same fashion inside the prison system that they operated in outside the prison system,” he said.

The investigation focused on the growing ranks of the Bloods in state prisons. Commission figures show Bloods went from 34 percent of incarcerated gang members in January 2004 to 51 percent in July 2008.

“These are horribly violent, evil people operating at a sophisticated level,” said Gary Hilton, former deputy commissioner of the Department of Corrections.

New Jersey prisons have become recruiting grounds for the Bloods. Inmates who join the gang there usually stay gang members when they return to society, SCI officials said.

One inmate jailed for drug possession, for instance, was forced to join the Bloods while he was in prison, following an initiation in which four men gave him a broken nose and black eye, according to testimony shown at the hearing.

The reason he joined: “You really don’t have a choice, because you are surrounded by them all day.”

Stressing that most corrections officers perform a tough job well, investigators said a small number have been smuggling cell phones and drugs in for the Bloods either because the Bloods paid them off or threatened – often subtly – their families with violence.

Cell phones are one of the gangs’ most potent weapons in prison, and they are a hotter item than drugs, sometimes going for as much as $1,000, officials testified. Gang members use the phones, smuggled in by visitors or prison officials, to call inmates in other prisons or gang members on the street to coordinate or order crimes.

Analyzing confiscated cell phones, investigators found that calls were going out across the state and the country, including to Los Angeles, where the Bloods gang took root in the 1960s and ’70s. Inmates also have gamed the prison telephone system, in one case holding a six-way conference call that included inmates at other prisons.

Another concern: the state prison system’s lax policies on inmates’ financial accounts, according to officials. Each inmate has an account, in which money comes from friends and relatives or is earned through prison labor. But prison business managers approve almost every inmate disbursement, even when the ostensible purpose is suspicious, according to testimony.

And it is too easy, officials testified, for anyone to walk in and drop off a money order for an inmate’s account. The SCI’s investigation uncovered that between fiscal years 2004 and 2008, inmates at all 14 state prisons received $63.8 million in their accounts.

Some is money they extorted from inmates or their families. The inmate who was threatened at the Wagner facility in Bordentown, for instance, said he was forced to send money to an address given to him by the Bloods. The reason he gave prison officials: paying fines in Pennsylvania.

The capitalist justice system is more than happy to get its hands on youngsters, beginning a process that is referred to in this article and is known as the “school-to-prison pipeline.”  Schools should be anything BUT a pipeline to prisons, but in a capitalist economy with fewer jobs the less desireables need to be routed towards their “spot” in this society.  There is nothing coincidental about these racist implementations of the law.  Poor minorities are singled out for arrest and “get tough” approaches, while students with more of a ‘chance’ are given another shot at life.  This is not unique to Hartford, and is played out all across America and the world.  No capitalist justice system operates in a uniform manner, as they are all riddled with prejudice, loopholes and selective implimentation.   A capitalist justice system exists to protect a rich, ruling minority and as such it cannot exist in any other way than is described in this article.

Minority Students Arrested More In East, West Hartford

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-aclu1117.artnov17,0,2984775.story

By JODIE MOZDZER and VANESSA DE LA TORRE | The Hartford Courant

November 17, 2008

When the “gang” tries to make a peace treaty between all other gangs, the police step up their harrassment and intimidation tactics.  To quote eminent sociologist Mike Davis:  “There is nothing police fear more than an end to gang violence.”  After all, without the scary spector of “gangs,” how would they get all their funding?

Pulpit Forum denounces gang leader’s arrest, allege harassment

http://www.news-record.com/content/2008/11/06/article/pulpit_forum_denounces_gang_leaders_arrest_allege_harassment

GREENSBORO – Members of the Pulpit Forum and the Beloved Community Center renounced the account police gave of the arrest of four members of the Almighty Latin Kings and Queens Nation on Saturday.

According to police, Jorge Cornell, the group’s leader, and three other members kidnapped a 15-year-old girl on Friday. The men were charged with felonies in connection with the alleged kidnapping.

But the girl was not a runaway or a kidnapping victim, said Gregory Headen, president of the Pulpit Forum, and Nelson Johnson, executive director of the Beloved Community Center at a press conference Thursday.

In addition, none of the men charged with crimes were present when the girl had an argument with her family that led them to contact police, Headen said.

Headen and Johnson also objected to the circumstances of the men’s arrest. Police officers in plain clothes arrested the men in Center City Park where several families were playing touch football.

Headen and Nelson said the arrests are the most recent example of a pattern of harassment Cornell and other members of the group have endured since coming forward in June, asking for peace among gangs.

“It is interesting that when he stepped forward and began to talk about peace, his struggles really began,” Headen said.

Capt. John Wolfe, who commands the police department’s gang unit, said the charges were based on statements the girl’s family made to police, and they used appropriate tactics for making an arrest.

“As many times as we’ve arrested (members of the group) we’ve never had a use of force,” Wolfe said.

“If they were unhappy about the way they were treated, they can lodge a complaint just like everyone else.”

The Pulpit Forum and the Beloved Community Center are holding a “Post Election Peace, Unity and Community Justice March” on Saturday.

Participants will assemble at Saint Philip AME Zion Church at 1330 Ashe St., Greensboro at 10:30 a.m. and march to the Governmental Plaza downtown.

Latin Kings refute kidnapping charge

http://www.carolinapeacemaker.com/News/article/article.asp?NewsID=92498&sID=4

Members of the Greensboro Pulpit Forum held a press conference Thursday, Nov. 6 at Beloved Community Center to present a different side to a story printed by the local press.
According to Gregory Headen, president of the Pulpit Forum, “The core of the News and Record story was essentially false.”
Headen said, reports state that four men, who police say are members of the Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation (ALKQN), were charged with the abduction of a 15- year-old girl. Reverend Nelson Johnson of Beloved Community Center told those assembled that he spoke with the young girl’s mother and she gave her daughter permission to be in a relationship with one of the young men with whom she was with on Oct.31.
The alleged kidnapping occurred on Halloween (Oct. 31) and the Greensboro police proceeded to make arrests the following day at Center City Park in downtown Greensboro.
According to police, the mother reported the 15-year-old girl missing that same day. “When a citizen calls the police for help, it is our duty and responsibility to do all that we can,” said Sergeant G.G. Young of the Greensboro Gang Squad.
Johnson, who was present in the park during the arrests, referred to the actions of the Greensboro Gang Unit as “mean-spirited.”
A press release provided by the Pulpit Forum states, “The manner in which these arrests were carried out resulted in a tense situation that put in danger all who were present.” Detective W.C. Tyndall of the Gang Squad stated, “Standard procedure was used to make arrests. There was no physical force, pepper spray or tasers used. There were no injuries.” Young added, “If we don’t have a reason to arrest someone, then we don’t go after them.”
Members of the Pulpit Forum are concerned about the negative attention that has fallen on the ALKQN. “We’ve come to a different appreciation of what the word ‘gang’ means. We want to educate our community about what these groups are about,” said Headen.
Pulpit spokesmen also said they believe that community involvement is important in helping the ALKQN not feel victimized. “We have to stand up and say this will not happen in our community,” said Headen. “The community plays a big part in making these groups feel more comfortable in coming forward.”
Johnson said, “The members don’t feel safe in the park or walking down the street.” He added, “If this was the only time something like this happened, we probably wouldn’t be here. But this is a pattern. The ALKQN get projected as a group that is dangerous and should be feared. We’re saying what’s happened with this case is terribly wrong.”
Despite the negative attention his group has received, ALKQN leader Jorge Cornell still stands behind his call for gang peace and unity. “We’re not going to stop. Things are hard, but nothing’s going to stop us with the peace treaty. It’s a shame that it’s the police and government that are trying to hold us back.”

These cops are so trigger-happy that they’d shoot themselves if it were physically possible.

Pittsburgh Detective Fires At Mirror Reflection

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/cnn-news/17972464/detail.html

PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh police said a detective shot at his own reflection in a mirror while chasing a drug suspect in a dimly lit house in Pittsburgh’s North Side.

Detectives were investigating a drug complaint in the woods in the 300 block of Elsdon Street shortly before 4 p.m.

Police detectives on foot found two men near a fence. As the officers approached, one of the men pulled out a handgun from his waistband, police said. The detectives identified themselves as Pittsburgh police and both men began running through the rear yard of the Elsdon Street home, toward the front of the house.

One of the men ran inside a home and locked the door. The detective forced the door open and followed the suspect inside.

According to a news release from the police department, as the detective entered the kitchen, he saw what he thought was a male pointing a semi-automatic pistol at him from the living room area. The detective fired two shots, breaking a mirror. Police said they later determined it was the detective’s own reflection.

The man dropped his weapon and escaped through the front door. He is described as a black male, age 17 to 19 years old, 5 feet 7 inches to 5 feet 9 inches tall and 170 to 190 ounds. He was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with colored writing on the back, dark pants and a dark knit cap.

A teenage boy in the house was not hurt and police say they don’t know if the suspect lived there.

Anyone with information on the suspect is asked to call the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police Homicide at 412-323-7161.

In any “war” where promotion is performance based you’re going to have individuals that inflate their numbers in every way possible so as to get ahead.  In the “war on drugs” here in America this means that cops will plant evidence and make ’sweep’ arrests where innocents are regularly included with dealers.  In Colombia the effect is much more deadly, as civilians are murdered and counted among the army’s tally of “guerrillas killed in action.” 

Who to kill? Colombia army picks soldier’s brother

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hx7D8zSRQDgU1FRiOXpH0NhR3dGwD94DTV6O1

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The soldiers in Antelope Company’s Third Platoon hadn’t registered a guerrilla kill in months. And without results, they feared they wouldn’t be let off base for Mother’s Day.

So they hatched a plan, according to : Lure a civilian to their camp, murder him and register him as a rebel slain in combat.

Montes, 24, didn’t object — until he met the quarry. It was Leonardo, the older brother he hadn’t seen since he was 9.

Montes said he tried to dissuade his commander, who responded with threats. He slipped his brother out of the camp, he says, only to see him show up dead a week later, a “guerrilla kill” with three bullets in his torso and a gaping facial wound likely caused by a knife.

The men of Antelope Company of the 31st Rifle Batallion, 11th Brigade, 7th Division, did not get their “liberty passes.” Montes’ family filed a formal complaint, one of 245 complaints involving alleged killings of civilians by Colombian security forces last year that prosecutors are investigating.

It is among the most chilling examples of what the United Nations’ top human rights official, Navi Pillay, calls “widespread and systematic” extrajudicial killings by Colombia’s U.S.-backed military. Many of the killings were allegedly committed merely to inflate rebel casualty numbers.

Five of Montes’ fellow soldiers now face a criminal probe in his brother’s April 2007 death, joining some 480 soldiers under investigation for about 1,000 extrajudicial killings during the presidency of President Alvaro Uribe.

The scandal comes at a particularly delicate moment for Uribe. President-elect Barack Obama has cited human rights concerns in opposing the U.S.-Colombia trade agreement President Bush wants ratified before he leaves office in January. Obama told Bush on Tuesday that he opposes including the deal in an economic stimulus package the U.S. Congress is to begin debating next week.

Uribe, meanwhile, is cleaning house: A week before Obama’s election, he ordered the biggest-ever purge of Colombia’s military, firing 20 officers — including three generals and four colonels — for negligence. On election day, the army commander resigned.

Armed forces chief Gen. Freddy Padilla told The Associated Press that the Montes case contributed to the sacking of the commanding general of the 7th Division, based in Medellin. Prosecutors say there is no evidence Leonardo was a rebel — or for that matter anything more than a 33-year-old farm worker.

Montes, meanwhile, is isolated under special guard for his own safety at a military post outside Medellin.

“I can’t sleep. I’m awake all night, tossing and turning in bed,” he told the AP. “I have this psychosis that at any moment someone could come, something could happen to me, that they are going to kill me.”

Montes told his story last month to the Colombian newsmagazine Semana. In several telephone interviews, he declined to retell the details because he is under orders not to. But he said the magazine quoted him faithfully. His testimony is also supported by declarations made to judicial authorities by Montes and others.

Here is Montes’ account:

The 31st Rifles was bivouacked in the hamlet of San Juan in the northern province of Cordoba. Soldiers were listless, some malarial. Mother’s Day was coming.

Montes said his batallion had a policy: “For every enemy killed you get 15 days leave.” So soldiers in Montes’ company began talking about “legalizing” someone — cynical service slang for killing a civilian.

One moonless rainy night, Montes’ platoon leader, a corporal, told him they had chosen a victim, he said. It was a man from La Guajira, the Caribbean coastal province from which Montes himself hailed.

Curious, Montes went to see the man, gave him a cigarette and, not recognizing him in the dark, determined they were from the same town, the same street. It was Leonardo, with whom Montes shared the same father.

The two hugged and Montes, incredulous and outraged, told his brother of the sinister intentions of the soldiers who had befriended him and invited him to the camp.

Montes pleaded with the company commander, Capt. Jairo Garcia, to let him go, but said the captain told him that if he tried to stop them he would put Montes on point during patrols “so my legs could be blown off by a mine.” The captain, who is under criminal investigation, called Montes a liar and a chronic slacker in a sworn declaration.

Montes got Leonardo safely out of the camp that night and figured the episode was over. But a few days later, as he was being treated for malaria in a nearby town, he learned his company had scored a “positivo” and that soldiers tried to bury his brother in an unmarked grave.

The after-action report said Leonardo was killed in a firefight with a small group of rebels. It said the others got away. Montes, citing fellow fighters, told investigators that the 9mm Browning pistol and grenade found on the body were planted by soldiers.

Montes was enraged. His brother had been killed “for nothing more than a liberty pass.” The romanticized vision of soldiering Montes held when he joined the army in 2006, he says, was buried with Leonardo.

“Officers get promoted on merit and you win merit by … killing the most subversives. But that’s not so easy,” Montes said. “So what happens? They look for the easiest victims.”

An undercover cop gets robbed by a teen drug dealer while attempting to buy crack.  Okay, we get that part.  But then somehow afterward the cop shoots the teen up?  Was the cop mad that he got robbed, knowing that his Fraternal Order of Police brothers would make jokes about how he got robbed, so he decided to shoot the teen up?  It seems odd that the shooting took place AFTER the robbery.  It seems like the cop could have let the kid walk away.  Undercover cops are notoriously the most corrupt cops around, so Malcom-Che doesn’t even take the initial report as fact (that the teen robbed his supposed customer).  But its interesting to note that even by the cop’s own account it was after the robbery that he shot the teen.  Since the victim was a drug dealer under investigation Malcom-Che is sure that there will be no outpouring of sympathy and that this victim will not get true justice inside the police state’s “justice” system. 

Detective Shoots Teenage Drug Suspect During Investigation

http://www.myfoxcleveland.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=7844289&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1

CLEVELAND — An undercover Cleveland narcotics detective shot and critically wounded an armed teenage drug suspect late Tuesday night, Fox 8 News reports.

Cleveland Police Lt. Thomas Stacho tells Fox 8 News that the officer was on a drug investigation at the Riverside Estates housing projects on Rocky River Drive when a man tried to sell him crack.

The man then pulled out a gun and robbed the detective, who fired at the 19-year-old suspect.

The suspect was in surgery Wednesday morning. The officer, however, was not hurt.

The Cleveland Police Use of Deadly Force Investigative Team, comprised of detectives assigned to the Homicide, Internal Affairs and Crime Scene and Records units, are charged with investigating this matter. Once its investigation is finished, the facts will be presented to the city prosecutor for review.

When my friends from New Haven used to contantly tell me that the New Haven cops were real corrupt I took their word for it, but thought that it was similar to all police departments.  Little did I know that the New Haven nartcotics division was distinguishing itself in this field to the point that the FBI investigated and convicted some of its members (including the head of the narcotics enforcement unit).  This article is about a conviction that was made on planted evidence, but the defendant pleaded guilty.  Why would he plead guilty, you might ask.  Well, his public defender advised him that it was the only way to get out by christmas.  How many times is this situation repeated across Amerikkka?  People facing ‘insurmountable’ evidence and lacking proper legal representation plead guilty and get totally railroaded by a system designed to send them away.

Man Sues New Haven Over Planted Drug Evidence

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-nhsuit1111.artnov11,0,2321456.story

A New Haven man is suing the city for $10 million, claiming political pressure to crack down on drug dealing led to his arrest and incarceration two years ago by corrupt detectives who planted drugs in an apartment he was visiting.

Norval Falconer charges in the suit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in New Haven that pressure by the mayor and chief of police to clean up drug-plagued city neighborhoods created a culture of lawlessness among narcotics detectives that led to the falsification of evidence and widespread civil rights abuses.

Despite its claim of systemic law-breaking, Falconer’s suit is so far the only one to emerge from the arrests a year-and-a-half ago on corruption and civil rights charges of former Lt. William White, head of the city police department’s narcotics enforcement unit, and Dets. Justin Kasperzyk and Jose Silva.

The three police officers were arrested in March 2007 following an undercover investigation by the FBI and state police. During the investigation, a state police detective joined the city’s police narcotics unit to document the planting of evidence and theft by the three officers of money they thought had been discovered in the residences — and in one case an automobile — of suspected drug dealers.

White and Kasperzyk are in prison. Silva has completed his sentence.

Falconer’s lawyer, Diane Polan, names the three detectives, as well as the city and former New Haven Police Chief Francisco Ortiz, in the lawsuit, claiming that lax or nonexistent supervision by the chief and city officials led to a police culture of “widespread corruption and pattern of violating individuals’ constitutional rights.”

“The failure of Ortiz and City of New Haven to properly supervise White, Kasperzyk and Silva created a pattern and or custom of tacit approval to the custom of unlawful practices and policies that ultimately resulted in the violation of plaintiff’s constitutional rights,” Polan wrote in the lawsuit.

Ortiz, who resigned as chief in January and became a senior security official at Yale University, did not return a call. A city spokesman said Mayor John DeStefano Jr. condemns the corrupt behavior, but said that the FBI and a private consultant have concluded that it was limited to the three officers.

“Obviously, we deplore the actions of White, Kasperzyk and Silva, which we think were clearly illegal and corrupt,” Robert Smuts, New Haven’s chief administrative officer, said Monday.

“But we think that the FBI investigation as well as the internal review that we commissioned show that the corruption stopped there. The mayor expects the police department to put a stop to illegal narcotics activity but he does not think — and did not think — that translates to systemic law-breaking and corruption.”

New Haven State’s Attorney Michael Dearington said his office dropped the charges against Falconer after the arrests of the three officers. He said his office has found no additional cases tainted by police misconduct.

“When asked, we’ve reviewed cases,” Dearington said. “When a defendant makes a claim, we will look at the file. So far we haven’t found any where a red flag has gone up.”

According to information provided by the FBI, the state police and Polan, Falconer was visiting an apartment on Truman Street in New Haven on Nov. 9, 2006, when members of the city’s now-disbanded narcotics unit broke down the door and announced they had a warrant to search for drugs. Falconer was detained as he was leaving a rear bedroom.

During the confusion, according to court records, Kasperzyk transferred drugs he found in the building basement to the bedroom. Falconer was arrested based on a fraudulent report written by Silva.

White, who was later arrested for stealing money planted in the room by the undercover state police detective, supervised the raid.

Polan said in the suit that Falconer was charged with eight drug-related crimes and jailed when he was unable to make bail. Falconer pleaded guilty to reduced charges in December after being advised by a court appointed lawyer that it was the only way he could get out of jail for Christmas, Polan said.

Groups unite in rally seeking peace, justice

King J – Inca of North Carolina Latin Kings

http://www.news-record.com/content/2008/11/09/article/groups_unite_in_rally_seeking_peace_justice_0

For corrections officers at penitentiaries across the country and the world, inmates are a form of entertainment.  Tasked with the difficult job of being the overseer to modern-day slaves, these CO’s often become criminals themselves outright or through neglect.  But since the CO’s gang is more powerful than any other gang in the prison walls, they can operate with near impunity while still avoiding the wide brush that paints everyone else inside prison walls as ‘animals’ and ‘beasts’.  The following story is indicative of a pattern of behavior and should not be looked at as an isolated case (e.g. the CO’s that bet on fights in the California system that they forced the inmates to participate in).  For more on the brutality of life inside Rikers Island be sure to see the excellent documentary “Scarface 4 Life” one of the greatest prison documentaries ever made (one of the first to directly compare the slave trade to the prison industrial complex).

Rikers Island guard made me fight thug, ex-inmate says

inside Rikers Island

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/queens/2008/11/02/2008-11-02_rikers_island_guard_made_me_fight_thug_e.html

A former inmate says a Rikers Island guard with a twisted sense of justice forced him to fight a prisoner who had been tormenting him.

Jeffrey Treffy of Sunnyside, Queens, was in Rikers for two weeks on a misdemeanor assault charge, but ended up in the hospital after he was beaten for 10 minutes for the correction officer’s entertainment, he alleges.

Treffy, 30, said the officer forced him to fight after watching the other inmate – a wanna-be Bloods gangster – throw hot water into his cell while screaming racial slurs.

“He was like the referee,” said Treffy, a Columbian-American.

After the Dec. 3, 2007, fight, the officer allowed Treffy to visit the infirmary only after he promised to tell doctors he hurt himself accidentally, according to a suit his lawyer, prisoner rights advocate Leo Glickman, filed last week in Manhattan Federal Court. Treffy is suing the city and the correction officer.

Treffy was released from Rikers two days later when his family raised bail. He wound up in Elmhurst Hospital, where he received four stitches in his head and was treated for broken blood vessels in his right eye, the suit says.

Glickman called the alleged match typical of the “culture of brutality” at Rikers.

On Oct. 17, an 18-year-old inmate was found beaten to death in his cell.

Other inmates told relatives of Christopher Robinson that correction officers let at least three young men beat the teen, and then refused to let him go to the infirmary. The family plans to sue the city for $20 million.

Correction Department spokesman Stephen Morello declined to talk about specific incidents, but said city jails are safer than ever.

Last year, there were only 19 stabbings or slashings in city jails – a record low. Serious inmate-on-inmate assaults also dropped; they were down 13% in 2007 to 181 incidents, compared with 209 the year before.

Glickman says officers just aren’t reporting the violence – a charge the city dismisses.

“When misconduct or corruption are suspected, we immediately seek the involvement of police, district attorneys, the city Department of Investigation and outside oversight agencies who pursue independent investigations,” Morello said.