The Lucifer Effect: Special Edition

Here are a few police misconduct and murder cases that have recently taken place. This first one was sent to me by Jay, a reader. He sometimes sends me stories for my Lucifer Effect posts and it's a huge help. Thanks again Jay for the help!


From the msnbc.msn.com website:

Man killed by deputy after day of swimming
Cop confronts 24-year-old wearing only swim trunks for erratic driving
updated 6:31 a.m. MT, Wed., July 22, 2009


KASOTA, Minn. - A plainclothes sheriff's deputy shot and killed an unarmed 24-year-old man wearing only swim trunks after an argument ensued when he confronted the man for erratic driving, authorities and witnesses said Tuesday.

Le Sueur County Sheriff's investigator Todd Waldron, 37, shot Tyler Heilman after the two scuffled Monday in Kasota, a town about 60 miles southwest of Minneapolis, when Heilman returned from a day of swimming with friends. Those who saw the argument said it wasn't clear the man he was fighting with was a law enforcement officer.

"This ain't right," said Heilman's father, Mark Heilman. "I think the cop just freaked ... Why didn't he just say 'Freeze' or something? Or shoot him in the leg? He shot to kill ... I think he just flipped."

Authorities said Waldron was working another case and driving an unmarked sport utility vehicle on Monday when he saw Heilman driving a car erratically, and at times speeding, so he followed him. At one point, Heilman drove his car off the road and up an embankment.

Investigators with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension believe Waldron fired four shots. Bureau spokesman Andy Skoogman said Waldron was not in uniform, but he had a sheriff's badge on his belt. Waldron was not working undercover, and Skoogman said authorities are investigating whether the deputy identified himself.

Witnesses give a similar account. Kris Hoehn, who was in the car with Heilman and other friends, said the group was on its way back from a day of swimming at the Minnesota River when they noticed an SUV following them. Hoehn acknowledged the vehicle may have swerved some, and he said Heilman drove up a sledding hill at one point.

'That's when he seen the badge'

Hoehn said the group didn't know Waldron was a deputy. When they arrived at the apartment complex, Waldron asked Heilman for a driver's license, and then the two started arguing, Hoehn said. He said Heilman and the deputy ended up wrestling on the ground.

Heilman ended up on top of Waldron, but got up and "that's when he seen the badge — as he's getting up," Hoehn said. "Then came the gunshots, just as my buddy's hands were going up.

"It was too late. ... We had no idea who he was. If we would have known he was a cop, none of this would've happened," said Hoehn, 24.

Hoehn said Heilman was gasping for breath and said, "I'm done, man. I'm done." He staggered a few feet and fell, face down, on the grass.

It wasn't clear if alcohol played a role in the argument. Tyler Heilman was treated for alcohol abuse while in high school, but his father said he had kicked the problem, though he still drank a little bit. Hoehn said the group of friends had been drinking "a little" on Monday, but not enough to affect Heilman's driving. Authorities are conducting an autopsy, which will include toxicology tests.

Summoned by a friend who heard about the shooting, Heilman's father arrived at the scene moments later to find the area sectioned off by police tape, and his son lying on the ground as firefighters attempted to revive him. Heilman said his son was shot twice in the chest while another bullet grazed his right side, and he made the sign of the cross on his forehead a few times.

"I just knelt down by his head, brushed his head, brushed his scar," Heilman said in a telephone interview, noting that his son had brain surgery in May to remove a blood clot.

Investigation could take weeks

Skoogman said Waldron suffered non-life-threatening injuries, but did not elaborate. The incident — from the time Waldron started following Heilman to the shooting — lasted less than 20 minutes, he said. There was no weapon found on Heilman or in his car, Skoogman said.

Waldron, who has been a deputy with the department for 10 years, has been placed on standard paid administrative leave, and the investigation could take six to eight weeks, Skoogman said. The BCA said Waldron has never been disciplined. Waldron's resume indicates he also worked as a jailer with the department. He was promoted to investigator in 2004 and focuses on narcotics, sexual assaults and robberies, Skoogman said.

Waldron also served as a patrol officer with three small-town police departments and has a degree in law enforcement from Minnesota State University, Mankato. He's taken several continuing education training courses, including training in use of deadly force, according to his personnel records.

A working phone number for Waldron could not be found and his parents, whose house he visited on Tuesday, declined comment.

Heilman acknowledged his son had gotten into past trouble for stealing and getting into fights, but said he had no serious problems in the last five years. Court records show Tyler Heilman has more than a dozen convictions in recent years, mostly from 2004-2006, and mostly for traffic and alcohol violations. He pleaded guilty to burglary in 2004 and also has a petty misdemeanor drug conviction and a misdemeanor assault conviction. His most recent conviction was in 2008 for driving with a suspended license.




This next one clearly demonstrates the abuse of power that pigs often commit against innocent people. From blog.populistamerica.com:


Living in a Police State

July 23rd, 2009 by Dave Lindorff

The point about the arrest Monday by a Cambridge Police sergeant of Harvard Distinguished Professor Henry “Skip” Gates is not that the police initially thought the celebrated public intellectual, PBS host and MacArthur Award winner might have been a crook who had broken into Gates’ rented home. Anyone capable of seeing a 58-year-old man with a cane accompanied by a man in a tux as a potential burglar might make the same mistake, given that a neighbor had allegedly called 911 to report seeing two black men she thought were breaking into the house.

But after Prof. Gates had shown the cops his faculty ID and his drivers’ license, and had thus verified his identity, and after he had explained that he had just returned home on a flight from China and had been getting help from his limo driver in opening a stuck door, the cops should have been extremely polite and apologetic for having suspected him and for having insisted on checking him out.

After all, a man’s home is supposed to be his castle. When you violate that sanctity, you should, as a police officer, appreciate that the owner might be upset.

But where it really goes wrong is what happened next.

Prof. Gates, who was understandably outraged at the whole situation, properly told the sergeant that he wanted his name and his badge number, because he intended to file a complaint. Whether or not the officer had done anything wrong by that point is not the issue. It was Gates’ right as a citizen to file a complaint. The officer’s alleged refusal to provide his name and badge number was improper and, if Gates’ claim is correct, was a violation of the rules that are in force in every police department in the country.

But whatever the real story is regarding the showing of identification information by Gates and the officer, police misconduct in this incident went further. Gates reportedly got understandably angry and frustrated at the officer for refusing to provide him with this identifying information and/or for refusing to accept his own identification documents, and at that point the officer abused his power by arresting Gates and charging him with disorderly conduct.

There’s nothing unusual about this, sadly. It is common practice for police in America to abuse their authority and to arrest people on a charge of “disorderly conduct” when those people simply exercise their free speech rights and object strenuously to how they are being treated by an officer. Try it out sometime. If you are given a ticket for going five miles an hour over the posted speed limit, tell the traffic officer he or she is a stupid moron, and see if you are left alone. My bet is that you will find yourself either ticketed on another more serious charge, or even arrested for “disorderly conduct.” If you happen to be black or some other race than white, I’ll even put money on that bet. (If you’re stupid enough to go out and test this hypothesis, please don’t expect me to post your bail!)

There is no suggestion by police that Gates physically threatened the arresting officer. His “crime” at the time was simply speaking out.

What is unusual is not that the officer arrested Gates for exercising his rights. That kind of thing happens all the time. What’s unusual is that this time the police levied their false charge against a man who is among the best known academics in the country, who knows his rights, and who has access to the best legal talent in the nation to make his case (his colleagues at the Harvard Law School).

Very little of the mainstream reporting I’ve seen on this event makes the crucial point that it is not illegal to tell a police officer that he is a jerk, or that he has done something wrong, or that you are going to file charges against him. And yet too many commentators, journalists and ordinary people seem to accept that if a citizen “mouths off” to a cop, or criticizes a cop, or threatens legal action against a cop, it’s okay for that cop to cuff the person and charge him with “disorderly conduct.” Worse yet, if a cop makes such a bogus arrest, and the person gets upset, he’s liable to get an added charge of “resisting arrest” or worse.

We have, as a nation, sunk to the level of a police state, when we grant our police the unfettered power to arrest honest, law-abiding citizens for simply stating their minds. And it’s no consolation that someone like Gates can count on having such charges tossed out. It’s the arrest, the cuffing, and the humiliating ride in the back of a cop squad car to be booked and held until bailed out that is the outrage.

I’m sure police take a lot of verbal abuse on the job, but given their inherent power—armed and with a license to arrest, to handcuff, and even to shoot and kill—they must be told by their superiors that they have no right to arrest people for simply expressing their views, even about those officers.

Insulting an officer of the law is not a crime. Telling an officer he or she is breaking the law is not a crime. Demanding that an officer identify him or herself is not a crime. And saying you are going to file a complaint against the officer is not a crime.

As someone who, although white, spent his youth in the 1960s and early 1970s with long hair and a scraggly beard–both red flags to police back in the day–and who had his share of run-ins with police for that reason alone, I can understand to some extent what African-Americans, and especially African-American men, go through in dealing with white police officers. I used to be “profiled” as a druggie/lefty/hippy and was stopped regularly for no reason when I lived in Los Angeles and drove an 20-year-old pick-up truck. I’d be pushed up against the vehicle, frisked, shouted at, talked to threateningly. I’d have my vehicle searched (without a warrant). And if I objected, I’d be threatened with arrest, though I had done nothing. Under those circumstances, you quickly learn to be very deferential around police.

Prof. Gates was simply experiencing the frustration that young black men feel routinely, and that I used to feel back when I had hair and chose to grow it long—the feeling of being at the mercy of lawless, power-tripping cops.

In a free country, we should not allow the police, who after all are supposed to be public servants, not centurions, to behave in this manner. When we do, we do not have a free society. We have a police state.

Dave Lindorff, is an award-winning investigative reporter who has been working as a journalist for over 33 years. He writes frequently for Salon.com, BusinessWeek, The Nation, and many other publications. Dave's most recent book, The Case for Impeachment, is now available. Find all of Dave Lindorff's works on his website, www.thiscantbehappening.net.