<PRE> NEW JERSEY CRIME LINE - NJ-SPEAKOUT PUBLICATION e-mail: nj-speakout@igc.apc.org snail: PO Box 1214, Belle Mead, NJ 08502 Vol. 1 No. 4 September 4, 1995 ============================================================= SPECIAL ISSUE ON POLICE CORRUPTION Vol. 1, No. 4, is a special issue dealing primarily with issues of police brutality and corruption, particularly in Philadelphia. As we deal with issues of the war on crime and the prison system, we also have to consider, how some people end up in prison unjustly. Currently this journal will be posted to the following lists: nj-speakout@igc.apc.org parcer@igc.apc.org 3strikes@cmsa.berkeley.edu I invite your suggestions of other lists that might be open to publishing this journal and your feedback and invite you to forward the journal to other lists and individuals yourself. To subscribe to nj-speakout, send this message: subscribe nj-speakout to this address: majordomo@igc.apc.org This issue is broken into to posts, Vol. 1, No. 3 and Vol. 1, No. 4, due to length. The following are the contents of this post: >>01. PHILADELPHIA COPS ON FRAME 'EM UP RAMPAGE - 5 PARTS >>02. NJ COP ISSUES =============================================================== >>01. PHILADELPHIA POLICE - FRAMING 'EM UP BY THE THOUSANDS? Posted by Bob Witanek <bwitanek@igc.apc.org> 8/28/95 Today, the facts about the Philadelphia Police forces propensity for manufacturing evidence, planting contraband and perjuring themselves in court was finally the subject of a New York Times article. The following is a recent news report by Jose Santiago, radio journalist for our favorite listener sponsored, non- commercial listener sponsored radio station WBAI-99.5FM (NYC): JOSE: Attorneys for Mumia Abu-Jamal claim the activist was persecuted by the local police and an adverserial judicial system because of his work with the Black Panther Party, and because of the nature of his journalistic work which often focused on the many instances of police corruption and misconduct during the years when Frank Rizzo served as police commissioner and then as mayor. While Mumia's appeal remains in a temporary holding pattern, the issue of corruption and misconduct on the part of Philadelphia Police moves ever closer to center stage. Right now in the City of Brotherly Love, a US Justice Dept investigation is uncovering evidence of widespread police misconduct and corruption, not back in the Rizzo years, but today. RECORDED CHANTING: Stop Police Brutality in the Black Community! JOSE: A group of Mumia Abu-Jamal supporters chanted as they gathered at the entrance of a recent fundraiser which published reports had said would be picketed by police. While they were there to block any attempts by police to disrupt their event, their chant reflected the views of many Philadelphians who for the umpteenth time in the city's recent history are opening their pages of their morning newspapers these days to find more revelations of police corruption and misconduct. WILL GONZALES: Some officers have confessed to arresting people on false pretenses. Some officers have confessed to planting evidence. JOSE: Will Gonzales is executive director of Philadelphia's Police-Barrio Relations Organization, a watchdog group that monitors relations between the police department and various sectors of the community. LOU GONZALES: Officers have confessed to putting guns in people's mouths and playing Russian Roullette. Officers have confessed to lying in court and falsely stating that people were involved in criminal activity that has resulted in their arrest. These are statements of officers themselves that have done it. JOSE: For weeks he has been reading about what one local legislator has described as the worse police scandal in Philadephia history dwarfing even the 1979 Justice Dept lawsuit in which Philadelphia cops were accused of widespread racist attacks against the city's Blacks and Latinos. In the current investigation, 5 Philadelphia Police from the city's 39th. police district have admitted they maintained stashes of illegal drugs at local precints, drugs they used in order to plant evidence on innocent people who in many cases wound up spending time in prison for false arrest often made on the basis of search warrants obtained under false pretenses, and in most cases after police lied on the stand to obtain conviction. Published reports say some of the 5 original officers accused in the case have implicated other cops, and as many as 30 officers might eventually be indicted. In a related case, 2 officers have admitted they ran a fencing operation in which property stolen by police from innocent victims was sold by cops out of a Philadelphia store front. Representative David P. Richardson, a longtime activist in the Philadelphia Black community who has served in the state legislature for more than 20 years. REP. DAVID: If anybody believes for the most part that there is not conspiracy at times, with the police department, not only here in this city, but across this nation, they're crazy. We have witnessed it not only as a legislator, but before, and what happens at the 39th. district that has just been unveiled, it exists and it happens every single day. JOSE: Richardson and others say the scandal being uncovered in the 39th. District is but the tip of the iceberg. He says that only fear keeps more from speaking out, a view echoed by WIll Gonzales: WILL GONZALES: There is a very big fear factor that gets in the way of people coming forward to testify, to make statements, to officially do something about it. That's the only way that the authorities will get involved, if people will attach their name and their address and phone number, and are willing to go as witnesses, etc. It's very frustrating to try to address the problem of police abuse when people are so scared of coming forward. JOSE: Authorities working on the investigation were not available for comment. Published reports say that as a result of the probe, 40 people who were serving time in prison for false arrest have been released. And according to one report, before the probe is completed, as many as one thousand one hundred convictions may be thrown out. That is one thousand one hundred people now doing time in the Pennsylvania prison system whose convictions may have been obtained through fabricated evidence, false arrests and police lies on the witness stand, some of the same points being made by Mumia Abu-Jamal's attorney in his appeal. Again state representative David Richardson: REP. DAVID: People call here about cases that take place, a lot of times you say to them, well, do you have any supporting documents, information that can substantiate your point of view. Becauseyou can't go agaisnt hte police knowing that htey have the upper hand. And the corruption that exist right now in the 39th., if you can compare this to what's taking place with Mumia, I have not heard, any prosecutor, any DA's office, saying anything negative about the police and what should happen to them. But Mumia was assassinated character-wise, as soon as a police officer was involved. PHILADELPHIA POLICE - FINE TIME TO DIMANTLE THE CIVILIAN POLICE REVIEW BOARD? Posted by Bob Witanek <bwitanek@igc.apc.org> 8/29/95 JOSE: While the scandal seems to indicate that the police should be monitored more closely, there is a move in Pennsylvania to shut down Philadelphia's recently established civilian complaint review board. The current board which was established despite Mayor Ed Randell's veto and for which Mumia Abu-Jamal and other activists lobbied heavily since the early 1970's could be dismantled under a new bill now being debated in the Pennsylvania state legislature. Pushed by the Fraternal Order of Police and supported by soncervatives of both parties, the bill would eliminate Philadelphia's civilian complaint review board and force it to turn over all of its investigations to the District Attorney, the same DA that has never returned an indictment against a police officer and who currently pursues the death penalty in a higher percentage of cases than any DA in the country. In addition the bill would make it illegal for any other municipality to establish a civilian complaint review board. Juan Ramos, a Latino rights activist for many years anad current member of Philadelphia's civilian complaint review board. JUAN RAMOS: We expect that to be a very tough legislative battle in Harrisburg ... We think it's going to be a very tough fight. I'm not in a position to predict which way it will go but, all the forces against the urban cities and the people in the big cities like Philadelphia have really teamed up against us. We have a hell of a battle up there. JOSE: But that battle may not be limited to Pennsylvania. Nancy Rose is with the NCOPA group, the National Coalition for Police Accountability: NANCY ROSE: These kinds of multi-pronged, multi-leveled strategies to undermine police accountability seem to be a step up from what has happened in the past. We've always had police guilds and police lobbies be very well organized at the state level. In any state you want to go to, there's lots of piecemeal legislation that occurs regularly that removes police from scrutiny, from our point of view. This seems to be kicking it up to the next level, this legislation that would actually bar any kind of citizen oversight in an entire state. I think there's some concern that if this works in Pennsylvania, then in any other state police will try it. JOSE: Across the country says Rose, police are lobbying and finding much conservative support to limit the ways private citizens can influence police conduct. One of the arguments that has been echoed by Mayor Rudolph Guiliani in New York is that the civilian review boards interfere with investigations being carried out by local district attorneys. But Rose says that argument does not hold water: NANCY ROSE: That's something that district attorneys and people who oppose any kind of oversight tell the public. In fact, anyone familiar with criminal or legal kind of investigations aknow that multiple investigations are very common. This is not anything that is rare or out of the ordinary. That there are often any number of investigations going on. What happens is you set up a system, there's an order in which the investigations go, and some people hold off and other people go first, and that's normal. This really is an insincer argument. And it plays on what lay people don't know about how the justice system works. There are often multiple investigations. JOSE: The Pennsylvania anti-civilian complaint review board bill is currently making its way through the leggislature, although it has a ways to go before it is voted on. For progressive Philadelphians who fought for more police accountability for years, it is ironic that the civilian complaint review board that they set up may be dismantled at a time when the city is facing numerous multi-million dollar lawsuits from what might wind up being more than 1000 people who have been falsely arrested. And also at a time when the history of the police department's abuses is under such close scrutiny because of the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Again Juan Ramos, who sits on the Philadelphia review board: JUAN RAMOS: There's a move to the right. And one of the targest are these review boards. Just 2 years ago, 32 out of 50 major US cities had civilian review boards. In the last couple of years, with this change in Washington, there's this move to get rid of us at the local level. Interesting enough, recently I saw that in Washington, the NAR and some other folks are proposing a civilian type review board to overlook the FBI and the ATF. There's a bill in the house being proposed by republican legislators. They see it as something good for them and this business of militias and gun control, but they don't see it as something that is good for the cities, and I think because the cities are inhabited by minorities. It's good for them up there, but it's not good for us down here. PHILLY COPS ON A 'FRAME 'EM UP' RAMPAGE - MICHAEL NOVICK INTERVIEW Continuing this mini-internet series on Philly Cops, the following is from the Monday, August 28, 1995 news report by Jose Santiago, radio broadcast correspondent for listener sponsored, non- commercial radio station WBAI-99.5FM (NYC). Included is an interview with author Michael Novick which puts developments in Philadelphia in a national context. JOSE: New York City's corruption plagued police department pales in the light of the revelations of police misconduct and corruption now surfacing in Philadelphia in a story reported here on WBAI about 2 weeks ago (posted by nj-speakout in last 2 days). The New York Times today ran a front page article detailing instances of beatings, false arrests and perjury on the part of Philadelphia's 39th. Police District, which covers one of the city's largest Black communities. In what one elected official has called the worse police scandal in Philadelphia history, a justice department probe has uncovered as many as 1100 cases in which people may be serving time in Pennsylvania's prisons as a result of false testimony and in some cases evidence planted by police. The probe has focused on 5 corrupt officers who have been named and as many as 30 who already have been implicated but whose identity has not been released. So far Pennsylvania's corrections officials have been forced to release about 50 people from prison because of the pattern of false arrest. Many of those released are planning to sue the city. One grandmother recently released after serving 3 years in prison for a crime she did not commit has already sued for $7 million. Tonight as we continue to follow the situation in Philadelphia, we bring you the comments of Michael Novick, author of WHITE LIES, WHITE POWER: THE FIGHT AGAINST WHITE SUPREMACY AND REACTIONERY VIOLENCE. Novick knows that these days what is often portrayed as the work of a handful of police officers is actually part of a much braoder and sinister agenda: MICHAEL NOVICK: My analysis of this is that these are not just individual and isolated cases but represent both the tendency within the police forces and a strategy of the white supremacist groups to advance goals that both white supremacists and the police have. What we're seeing in the current period is an increasing wole by police agencies and members of police departments and the military, to play a role in politics that is exceedingly reactionery. In California, we have a case where a Compton police officer was recently elected to a city council locally and one of the suburban cities and said that the problem with gangs is insoluble because there are 200 years of gang members from father to son in the Mexicano community. I know that in Philadelphia we've been seeing a role played by the FOP trying to suppress any support for Mumia Abu-Jamal, and apparently that is not only in Philadelphia, but around the country, we've seen a great deal of repression. There were mass arrests in San Francisco, over 200 arrested and charged with arson because someone set fire to a trash can. We've heard of cases of intimidation of people attempting to have programs. At Verso Books, they felt they couldn't have a tbale outside of an activity to support Mumia because they were afraid it would draw attention from the police station. We've heard of many similar stories of people trying to speak at public activities, at libraries, where calls were received making threats of police shutting down the facility if the events are held. JOSE: You make an interesting connection between the right and the police. Looking at what is happening in Philadelphia, in the context of Mumia Abu-Jamal, many of the things his defense attorneys have said went wrong, in terms of the police and some of the evidence they came up with, and evidence they suppresses, back during his trial, seem to be happening right now, in terms of this 39th. police district and some of the revelations that are coming out today, with the New York Times story. A lot of the people who were incarcerated on lies by police and lies on the witness stand, planted evidence, it's so difficult to be able to say, yes this is part of a larger movement when the police are saying that it's basically 5 cops, an isolated situation. It always seems to come down to 4 or 5 rogue cops taking the blame. Have you found a connection between activity by individual cops to a larger philosophy. MICHAEL NOVICK: I think there's a problem between the police department and the prosecutors. For example, in Southern California, there have been a number of cases. First of all, there was a recent police shooting of a 14 year old Mexicano youth in Los Angeles. The officer who did it was one of 44 so-called problem officers identified on the force by the Christopher Commission, Warren Christopher, at that time was investigating police brutality in the wake of the Rodney King beating by the LAPD. And even though these 44 rogue officers were identifies, 34 of them are still on the LAPD, 4 years later. This particular one internally was ordered expelled from the force by an executive agency of the police department, and was reinstated on suspension by the police chief, and retained on the force. This is a pattern we particularly see around the white supremacy cases. We have a situation on the LA Sheriff's Dept, where an officer burned a cross inside the county jail. It was investigated by the FBI. He was fired and reinstated by the sheriff who is an elected official in LA. Subsequent to that, he shot and killed a Mexican national in an incident on New Years Eve where the man was firing a gun into the air to celebrate New Years Eve and this Deputy Sheriff took a gun out and told people he was planning to get somebody. The latter half of this incident was reported by a commission that investigated the sheriff's department, a Judge Colts (?) here. Colts specifically cited the fact that the district attorney refused to press any charges against this officer as an example of the inadequacy of the supervision of the sheriff's by either the sheriff himself or by the prosecuting officials in the county. He never talked about the earlier incident of open white supremacy by the same officer where he burned the cross. The pattern where the district attorneys do not hold the police accountable or answerable is something that goes on around the country, again here in Los Angeles, the district attorney recently announced because of budget cuts, he's eliminating entirely the unit in his department that prosecutes police for shootings and brutality. The situation is that the prosecutors work together with police departments and probably coach them. The system functions on this basis. Not that there are one or two rogue cops who falsify evidence. They are told what standard they are suppsed to meet to make a case and they proceed to fulfill that standard by whatever means they have to, to lock somebody up. JOSE: I see the FOP and other police organizations to lobby at the state level in a number of states, like Pennsylvania. The situation in Philadelphia where the community has fought for 20 years to get a civilian complaint review board. They finally got it and now there's a bill being pushed by republicans in the state legislature that calls for the disbanding of the board and turning over of their investigations to the local district attorneys. Any thoughts? MICHAEL NOVICK: Its a longstanding trend. When I was in New York in the 60's, the PBA was instrumental in winning a referendum to end the civilian complaint review board that was established by Mayor Lindsey in New York at that time. They did so with the support of the John Birch Society, and the American Nazi Party was the lead group along with the PBA in opposing that. This question of white supremacy linking up with police forces is a longstanding problem. I think that civilian police review boards are a bandaid solution at best. The Christopher Commission offered a brief civilian review and reform proposal, what they served to do was derail an organized effort from the grassroots for community control of the police. That is a much different aspect where the if the city had had that put on the ballot and passed in LA, from the grassroots, the community would have elected boards supervising the police entirely, not just reviewing their conduct in some cases. It would have set up a special prosecutor to deal with all police brutality and abuse cases. Civilian review boards in my study have become coopted, by the agencies themselves proving to be not too scary to the officers, in terms of holding them accountable. JOSE: Here in New York, after an investigation, the best they can do is make a recommendation which the commissioner does not necessarily have to follow. MICHAEL NOVICK: That's pretty typical around the nation. JOSE: We've seen here in New York, a couple of Sunday's ago, there was a what church goers out in Queens say was a police assault with a helicopter, and apparently someone high enough in the police department was able to get those light turned out on the entire block. And down in Philadelphia, a few weeks earlier, there had been a very similar situation, with police going in and arresting a man that they could have arrested at any time but chose to to arrest him at the largest Black Church while he was in the process of being married. A lot of boldness there, are they sending a message? MICHAEL NOVICK: When they talk about community based policing, we sometimes talk about police based communities, and I think that this whole view that police function as an occupying army, and that there's a role of terror. A group I'm with is called People Against Racist Terror. And that terror is carried out not only by nightriders in robes, I think that the police have a history of terrorizing communities as a way to maintain control. There's a magazine called LAW AND ORDER, which is one of the police trade magazines in which they communicate to each other and try to sell the hardware for surveillance. This magazine pretty openly refers to community based policing as the domestic equivalent of psychological operations in warfare. They do have the mentality that says that they're at war, and both the military type of activites they carry out, and the whole crime bill on the heels of previous federal aid to police departments has basically been about federalizing and militarizing the police. It is important for people to see that community based policing is only an aspect of that militarization. It is not a reform or transformation of the role the police play. JOSE: Are we headed toward a situation where we have a national police state like some of the countries in Latin America? MICHAEL NOVICK: We always have the federal system which has proven resilient and useful for them in terms of increasing the size of the police force. I doubt that they will completely nationalize the police agencies. The federal division of local, state and national police forces is being broken down ever since the law enforcement assitance administration in the Nixon years continuing with the crime bill, with the funding and the equipment coming from the federal government. In the Waco hearings, it was startling that they had one whole day of testimony from the military. Unblinkingly, they didn't mind at all the fact they said its policy, this Southwest joint task force 6, that all law enforcement is able to make use of, all the resources and the manpower, training, equipment of the army, and other military forces in the border region of the Southwest under the control of 6 federal agencies that transfer along to local agencies. The border patrol, the INS, DEA, ATF are able to call upon the army in joint operations with local police forces throughout the Texas, Arizona, Colorado . . . INTERVIEW WITH PASTOR WHERE PHILLY COPS MADE THEIR INFAMOUS WEDDING CEREMONY BUST Posted by Bob Witanek <bwitanek@igc.apc.org> 8/31/95 "In Philadelphia, in many instances and parts of this city, when you're confronted with the criminal at one end of the block and the police at the other, you don't know which way to run." - Rev. Joseph Patterson INTERVIEW WITH PASTOR WHERE PHILLY COPS MADE THEIR INFAMOUS WEDDING CEREMONY BUST Philadelphia cops recently storm trooped in on a wedding ceremony to arrest the groom at Philadelphia's largest Black Church. Jose Santiago, reporter for Pacifica radio station WBAI 99.5FM (NYC) recently conducted the following interview with the Pastor from the church. JOSE: Earlier today, we spoke with the Reverend Joseph Patterson, President of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia, who described what happened at the Zion Baptist Church earlier this summer, when police raided the church during a wedding, interrupting the service and arresting the groom who was wanted for missing a court appearance. Here is a segment of the conversation we had earlier today with the Reverend Joseph Patterson of Philadelphia: REV. JOSEPH PATTERSON: In our church there are 3 major sacraments. There's the sacrament of Holy Baptism, Holy Community and Holy Matrimony. The police went in during the ceremony, started some pushing and shoving ... They were walking on the pews in the Church. And when they got outside, a larger scene was caused by the police and the way that they had gone into the church, in gear, in their uniforms, to apprehend a person who was wanted by the police. They tried to make an issue to say that we were against them arresting this fellow. We have no sentiments at all as far as the criminal was concerned. That was not the case. The case was that they violated the sanctity of the Church. This fellow was not considered to be a public enemy number 1. He was not even considered to be public enemy number 101. But when it came time to arrest John Dillinger, they didn't break into the theatre. They waited until he came out because they said someone could get hurt on the inside. Likewise, with Noriega. The whole army was after him. The navy, the army, the marines and we chased him all over Panama. And he ran into a church and we had Howlitzers, and Sherman tanks and all sorts of weaponry. Aimed at that church, but we would not go in because we wanted to respect the church. If we could do that with the army, if we could do that with public enemy number 1, then why would they go into our church. JOSE: Is it your sense that the police had more than enough opportunities outside the church to arrest this person? REV. JOSEPH PATTERSON: Certainly. One of the reasons they said they didn't arrest him outside is because there was a fair going on across the street in the parking lot. That was the weakest excuse because where the fair was going on, there was an 8 foot fence. That was about 100 yards away and so, there was really no justification for what they did. JOSE: I understand that the church and the police district these officers are from, is that the same district where there has been all the revelations of police corruption? REV. JOSEPH PATTERSON: Exactly. JOSE: Do you think that there's any connection there. REV. JOSEPH PATTERSON: I think that when you have a poorly disciplined police station, you have a real problem, because first of all you have men with a badge, with revolver and with the authority to abuse people. They're just discovering this. This has been going on for a multiplicity .. you have men who have spent time in prison because of the what the police like these fellow have done. I think that is what gives impetus to the OJ Simpson trial. To show you how police manufacture proof, or evidence, against criminals, against people who have been incarcerated for being criminals. Not fair! When you think of the lives of men have been ruined. This 39th. district, they just discovered it in yesterday's paper. New revelations where they believe some of those policemen beat a man to death. In Philadelphia, in many instances and parts of this city, when you're confronted with the criminal at one end of the block and the police at the other, you don't know which way to run. JOSE: Let me ask you, is your sense that what happened at the church was just merely bad judgement or bad police practices on the part of some cops, or do you have any sense that they were trying to provoke something. REV. JOSEPH PATTERSON: I wouldn't say they were trying to provoke. I won't say that about the Sergeant. I think it's bad judgement and the abuse of power. I think that's what it amounts to. But there have been times when the police have tried to provoke things in the city. They provide them, and once they get them started, then they hide the hand. Throw the stone and hide the hand. ANd then those persons who have been provoked into retaliation are then labelled as troublemakers, renegades, what have you. This thing going on in Philadelphia, especially up around that 39th. police district, which is not the only district by itself. This thing is widespread across the city but, it's almost like nazi Germany. When they began their takeover, it happened the same way. The abuse and flagrant use of power against minorities in particular. They have a field day in Philadelphia. JOSE: It's strikes me as ironic that this continues to happen while at the state level there's a move to disband the civilian complaint review board. REV. JOSEPH PATTERSON: Of course. JOSE: Is that something that the clergy has been involved in? REV. JOSEPH PATTERSON: We've been trying our best to combat against this. I'm not talking as a partisan man. But when you have republicans who are hellbent on turning back the clock, when you have them in authority, in high and key positions, there is very little you can do. Because they are going to disregard whatever you say with hope that they can go back to the good old days, as they call them. There's the frustration because we can't go back to those days. It's the same thing with Moses not wanting to go back to Egypt. You can rest assured, we're not going back to those good old days when we were abused and misused without any consequences at all. JOSE: How would you gauge the community sentiment in regard to the increase in abuse by police. REV. JOSEPH PATTERSON: The community is becoming more aware of it. Before, there was little if any belief. They are now becoming more aware of the truth about these things that we've been claiming over the years. As a matter of fact, I got several letters from Jewish groups offering there support to whatever we were striving to do. The Catholic Community, they sent us letters, from Cardinal Devolaqua (?), stating their dismay over what had happened in the church. The community is beginning to wake up. We're beginning to face the 21st century. If we take these patterns in full bloom into the 21st. century, our country is doomed for destruction, the same way the things have come apart in Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia, Poland and all these other places, ... the same thing will happen here. I don't think it will be as devastating. But I think more bloodshed will be realized when you begin to pit groups against groups. That is the most ridiculous thing. And it has no positive consequences, none whatsoever. This is where they're headed with all of this verbalization coming out of Newt Gingrich and Jesse Helms and that crowd. All they're doing is exciting the American people and turning up some flames into the minds of those who have some philosophical or social problems within their own being. I think the city fathers need to really do some soul searching and not allow this thing to get out of control. Especially in a city like New York. The song "I like New York?" We all like New York. Let's not make New York the Selma, Alabama of yesteryear. NEW YORK TIMES ON PHILLY COP FRAME-UP SCANDAL PHILADELPHIA SHAKEN BY CRIMINAL POLICE OFFICERS, 8/28/95 by Don Terry PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 23 - The congregation at Refuge Evangelical BaptistChurch was rocking here last Sunday to glory songs, trumptes, and the word of the Lord. But no one has a reason to shout "Hallelujah," louder than Betty (Mizzy) Patterson, a stout, 54-year-old grandmother in a flowered sun dress. Mrs. Patterson, a widow, who cleaned other people's floors and clothes to keep her family together and now delivers newspapers before dawn with her grandson, was framed by corrupt police officers and spent 3 years in prsison in the early 1990's after being falsely convicted of selling crack cocaine. Mrs. Patterson and her church always knew whe was innocent, but only in the past couple of months has the rest of the city learned the truth. And although Philadelphia has been rocked by one police scandal after another in recent years, the new charges reveal a group of officers so corrupt, so calloused to the rights and welfare of residents, that the details have shaken the city to its roots. Mrs. Patterson is one of dozens, perhaps even hundreds of victims of a band of 5 renegade offciers who for at least 3 years haunted her predominantly poor and Black North Philadelphia neighborhood, beating, robbing, lying and planting phony evidence on the good and the bad, Federal and local prosecutors said. "She went to jail for 3 years for something she was completely innocent of.," said Lynne Abraham, the Philadelphia District Attorney, "This whole thing has made me physically ill. This is the ultimate betrayal of the public trustm and it has some very destructive consequences. It justifies people's suspicions of the police." Earlier this year, the officers pleaded guilty in Federal Court to being criminals in blue; nearly 50 drug cases that they were invovled in, including Mrs. Patterson's have been overturned by the courts and the District Attorney's office. Hundreds more could also be thrown out. Scheduled for sentencing in October are Officer Hohn Baird, 40, Sgt. Thomas BeGovanni, 44, Officer Steven Brown, 48, Officer James Ryan, 39, and former officer Thomas Ryan, 38, who is on disability. Most of them have apparently been cooperating with investigators. A sixth officer, Louis J. Maier, 38, from the same district, was charged today in Federal District Court with conspiracy to violate civil rights. There are reports that even more officers will be charged, expanding the scandal and the city's potential liability. Ken Rocks, a vice president of the local Fraternal Order of Police said he expects more arrests any day, an expectation he called "very, very distressing." "This is killing morale," Mr. Rocks said of the department which has already endured several brutality and corruption scandals over the last 2 decades. At least 1400 drug-related cases are expected to come under review, and the scandal could cost the city millions of dolalrs in lawsuits - dollars that Mayor Edward G. Rendell says "we desperately need for human needs and basic services." Prosecutors and defense lawyers also say they expect several murder convictions to be reviewed or thrown out as a result of the scandal. Mrs. Patterson;s lawyer, Jennifer St. Hill said that 3 of 5 officersm who had already pleaded guilty, used a warrant secured with lies to illegally search her client's home, and at least one of them planted drugs in her bedroom. None of the officers has officially admitted doing thatm but during an interview with investigators, one officer said his partner had planted drugs as they searched for evidence against Mrs. Patterson's 3 sons, who were suspects in a drug related killing. "When the police are indistinguishable from the bad guys,: Mrs. Abraham said, "then society has a serious problem." So far about a dozen people have been freed from priosn or parole. Mrs. Patterson was on parole before her case was vacated last month, and most of the other overturned cases involved people on probation, many of whom had criminal records. "Shaking down drug dealers is no excsuse for breaking the law," Mrs. Abraham said. Bradley S. Bridge, a local public defender asked the DA to dismiss the cases after the foficers were indicted last February on Federal charges including conspiracy, obsrtuctoin of justice and "pocketing more than $100,000 ni cash they robbed from suspected drug dealers through beatings, intimidations, illegal searches and denying suspects their constitutional rights.: The first batch of dismissals included 42 cases and nearly as many defendants. Mr. Brudge has written prosecutors asking that another 60 cases be dismissed and, he said thaae other day with a sigh, "The end is nowhere in sight." Mr. Bridges said the scandal could change how juries perceive the police. IN the past, Mr. Bridges said, many jurors took what police officers said on the witness stand almost as the gospel truth. "Too much credibility has always been given to the police in court," Mr. Brudge said. Maybe that will change a little bit now. Noe one who comes to court should be given a ticket to be believed." The revelations of police corruption have already given encouragement to the supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a Black radio journalist condemned to die for killing a police officer here in 1981. MR. Abu-Jamal is seeking a new trial partly on the ground that he had been framed by the police. On the other side of the country, conjuring suspiscions of police misconduct is a major strategy being employed by OJ Simpson's lawyers to convince a jury that he was framed in the slayings of his former wife and her friend. Judge Lance Ito is considering allowing Mr. SImpson's lawyers to give jurors hours of tape recorded conversations in which a former detective Mark Fuhrman boasted of beating suspects and other abuses. The 5 indicted Philadelphia officers were assigned to the 39th. District, but they roamed through other rough patches of North Philadelphia, a part of town plagued with unemploymentm poverty and the deadly violence that often accompanies drug money. Tjey were aggressive officers and several of them were well known on the streets where drugs are almost as available as newspapers. When the young men in he neighborhood saw the officers coming, they would run or disappear in doorways. The other day, Rashine Brown, 20, and Cynthia Taylor, 24, who works for the IRS were puttng oil in their cars on their block in North Philadelphia. Both said they had known about the renegade police officers long before they were charged. "I can't even remember all the bad stories I heard about these cops,: Mr. Brown said. "They used to beat people down, take their money. A lot of people were scared of them." Mrs. Taylor said the officers operated for so long outside of hte law because they patrolled a poor neighborhood ignored and abandoned by the city, a naighborhood not ulinke Chicago's South Side or Harlem, where a scandal in the NYC police department is unfolding. "You can't trust the cops around here," Mrs. Taylor said. "They're in it for themselves, not the community. I guess they forgot why they took the job. : The human toll of the scandal will be difficult if not impossible to calculate. Unlike Mrs. Patterson, George Porchea, 27, was still in prison when the years of police lies became public. But on July 20 after being locked up for nearly 3 years, Mr. Porchea was able to watch his daughter graduate from pre-school a few hours after he walked out of a courtroom in City Hall a free man. He has not seen his oldest daughter yet. She was placed in a foster home in N. Carolina while he was in prison. "I'm trying to geth her back," he said. "i'm trying to get my whole life back." Mrs. Patterson was released on parole in 1994, but long before that she had much to be thankful for. Her church and its interracial congregation stood by her since the day she was arrested in 1989. And she remained loyal to her church. As soon as she could, Mrs. Patterson got a job in the prison laundry, where she made less than 50 cents a day. Still ,each month she sent her $5 tithe, said the Rev. Wilbert S. Richardson, her pastor. To pass the time, Mrs. Patterson who made it to the 10th grade, buried herself in her Bible and became a mother figure to many of the younger inmates who called her "Miss P." One of the women was Patricia Lytle, who was serving time on a drug charge that she admits she was guilty of. On Sunday, Mrs. Patterson brought Ms. Lytle to her church. "The whole time" in prison, Ms. Lytle said, "you wouldn't believe how the women would look to her. She was grinning and smiling while the rest of us were crying. She was always hugging and praying. Girls would come to her for comfort." Last Sunday, Pastor Ruchardson asked Mrs. Patterson to come forward and testify about her faith. She carried her Bible to the front of the church and read from the Acts of Apostles where Herod had thrown Peter into prison unjustly. "That's me," Mrs. Patterson told the congregation, her voice heavy with the accent of her native south. "I, too was like Peter in prison. When people see me they are amazed at what can happen to a person.." When she closed her Bible and smile, the church suddenly surged with song and the sound of trumpets. Mrs. Patterson waved her hand in the air and in a clear, free voice, shouted, Hallelujah." =================================================================== Posted by Bob Witanek <bwitanek@igc.apc.org> 09/01/95 A TALE OF 3 CITIES AND THE COPS THAT OCCUPY THEM: NEW YORK TIMES ON COPS IN PHILLY, LA AND NYC . . . AP ARTICLE IN NEW YORK TIMES, 9/1/95 US IS SAID TO SEEK PHILADELPHIA LOGS Philadelphia, Aug. 31 (AP) - Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed the records of more than 100,000 arrests in 6 police districts in the city as part of a widening investigation of police corrpution, a newspaper reported today. The subpoenas, some for logs dating to 1985, were served on Monday, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. 42 drug convictions have already been overturned because of falsified police reports, illegal tactics and perjury by 6 police officers in the 39th. District. In addition, 5 murder cases are being reinvestigated because some of the officers were on the cases. On Wednesday a former 39th. District police officer, Louis Maier, became the 6th. from his district to plead guilty to 1 count of conspiracy to violate civil rights. Prosecutors said Mr. Maier and his partner, John Baird, took the law into their own hands to arrest drug suspects. They said Mr. Maier and Mr. Baird, both now dismissed from the police force, took drugs from a district building stash to use as evidence. They also said the former officers lied on arrest reports to justify their illegal searches, bullied suspects and stole their money. After pleading guilty earlier this year, Mr. Baird gave investigators the information they needed to charge his partner. Mr. Maier, the 6th. officer from the 39th. District to plead guilty in the growing scandal, admitted his part in 4 incidents in May and June 1990. He agreed to cooperate with and ongoing Fed investigation into police corruption in exchange for possible leniency for his sentencing which is scheduled for Dec. 15. "He's been upset for a while now," Mr. Maier's lawyer Felipe Restrepo said after his client's appearance before Judge Harvey Bartle 3d of Fed District Court here. "He feels very sorry." In May, 1990, the plea agreement said, Mr. Maier and Mr. Baird repeatedly rammed John Clouse's car with their unmarked police car. When Mr. Clouse pulled into a parking lot, one of the men smashed the driver's side window, pulled Mr. Clouse from the car and ordered him face down on the ground. Mr. Maier and Mr. Baird charged Mr. Clouse with possession of 12 vials of cocaine. Mr. Clouse, who told investigators he was a drug addict at the time, denied having any drugs but said that a female companion might have dropped some in his car. Mr. Baird falsified a police report that said he and his partner saw Mr. Clouse buying vials of crack. The report said that they got out of their car and identified themselves as police officers and that Mr. Clouse then smashed into their car. FUHRMAN IS NOT AN EXCEPTION, The following opinion piece by Joe Domanick, author of TO PROTECT AND SERVEL THE LAPD'S CENTURY OF WAR IN THE CITY OF DREAMS, appears in today's New York Times (9/1/95): 30 years ago, James Baldwin described the hate a white policeman feels in every Black neighborhood in America: "He is facing, daily and nightly, people who would gladly see him dead, and he knows it. He moves ... like an occupying soldier in a bitterly hostile country, which is exactly what he is." This is the world Mark Fuhrman moved in for much of his career, and it is clear from the hate-filled tapes in the Simpson trial that this is exactly how the former detective felt. It's not unusual. The most common reaction for a white policeman is to sink into deep cop cynicism that culminates in detesting everyone who doesn't see the world through his own narrow prism. After all, learning to respect how hard it is for people in South Central LA and blighted neighborhoods everywhere to survive their crushing lives requires an effort and an empathy that most of us don't possess. So to claim that the former detective's attitudes and apparent actions are a gross aberration, as the LA political and police union leaders are trying to do, is disingenuous at best. Mr. Fuhrman' attitudes toward minority groups and women are not unique to LAPD. Cops, as Anthony Bouza, the former Minneapolis police chief has pointed out "have been given the very confusing and unpleasant task of being society's char cleaners ... so they lie ... and stick together." Just as the Knapp and Mollen Commissions revealed corruption particular to, though not solely the province of, the NYPD, the Fuhrman tapes tell us a lot about the LAPD: how 40 years of unchecked power of the chiefs of police produced a tolerance, even encouragement of racial attitudes and street justice. William H. Parker, the chief from 1950 to his death in 1966, was so openly racist that he would not allow patrol cars to be integrated until the early 60's. In 1959, expressing his feelings about Mexican- Americans, he said, "Some of these people have been here since before we were, but some of them aren't far removed from the wild tribes of Mexico." During the 1965 Watts riots, he warned of the growth of the Black population: "It is estimated that by 1970, 45% of the metro area of LA will be Negro. If you want any protection for your home and family .. you're going to have to support a strong police department. If you don't do that, come 1970, God help you." Ed Davis, the chief in the 70's was not overtly racist, but he found his own ways to echo Bill Parker. Mr. Davis seemed to think that the only good cop was a white, male, x-marine. He railed against the idea of women on patrol and bitterly fought increased hiring of women and minorities. He said that homosexuals could not become officers because no one would be able to use the radio microphones in police cars after they did. He answered complaints that too many Blacks were being killed by the police by pointing out that more white people had been "fatally shot by police officers last year than Black people ... so we don't discriminate." These attitudes continued under Daryl Gates, who became police chief in 1978 and served until he was forced to resign after the riots in 1992. He once differentiated Blacks from "normal people;" "joked" that Latinos who were slow to rise through the LAPD ranks just might be "lazy;" and advised the Senate Judiciary Committee that casual drug users "ought to be taken out and shot." The sign sent by the leaders of the police force were crystal clear to the Mark Fuhrmans on the force. So clear that the Christopher Commission, which had been appointed after the Rodney King beating to investigate the department, spent 23 pages of its report documenting the extent and virulence of the LAPD's sexism and racism. In response to that report, the new police chief Willie Williams, was brought into root out these entrenched problems. Maybe the Fuhrman tapes, postions of which will be used in the Simpson trial, will now give him the backbone to do that. The message officers received in years past was that a good cop was willing to confront people constantly and be hard-nosed and aggressive as a matter of course. As the complaints rolled in, the tacit understanding was that they would be ignored. As the Christopher Commission documentedm out od more than 2000 complaints of excessive use of force filed by the public against the police from 1966 through 1990, only 2% were sustained. None of this is any great revelation to anyone living ni LA. We've seen the Fuhrman attitudes before from the shooting and chokehold deaths of scores of unarmed suspects in the late 70's and early 80's to the baton blows to Rodney King's back. When will the LA political establishment stop pointing to Mark Fuhrman as if he sprung out of a vacuum of just dropped down from Mars? GHOULIANI ENDORSES POLICE RIOT AGAINST JAMAICA, QUEENS CHURCH We recently posted the comments of Rev. Emmanuel Osei-Acheampong regarding a police attack on his congregation in which roughly 30 of his followers were wounded. Yesterday, NYC Mayor Guiliani endorsed the vicious assault, saying that the police were responding to provocations, including bottle throwing. In response to Guiliani's comments, the Rev. Osei-Acheampong stated "When you sit in this office and say that people coming out of a church with Bibles are throwing things, it bothers me because its a revelation that he has no facts." (New York Times, 9/1/95) =============================================================== >>02 NJ COP ISSUES COP ESCAPES INDICTMENT - SHOOTING VICTIM DOES NOT Posted by Bob Witanek <bwitanek@igc.apc.org> 08/30/95 Paterson Officer Heriberto Rodriguez, shot Colombian immigrant Jiovani Ruiz on May 27. The officer claims that Ruiz was holding a gun. Witnesses have disputed those claims. They say that Ruiz's hands were in the air when he was shot. A grand jury declined to indict the officer, but instead has indicted Ruiz for unlawful possession of a weapon. Ruiz faces a 3-5 year jail term and $7500 fine if convicted. He has suffered brain damage and has speech problems from the shooting. The witnesses who refute the police side of the story were not called to testify before the grand jury. (Star Ledger, 8/30/95) ========================= KEARNY VICTIM OF POLICE BRUTALITY SUES COP Posted by Bob Witanek <bwitanek@igc.apc.org> 08/31/95 Austin Burke was a witness whose testimony helped convict Kearny Cop Ronald Johnstone on federal police brutality charges. He says that his head was bashed into the side of a cop car before he was chargesd with damaging the car, and has filed a civil right suit against the brutalizing cop. The lawsuit has been filed by Denville Attorney Anthony Macri. It names the Town of Kearny and Johnstone as defendants. The suit requests an extension of the statute of limitations given alleged bad advise Burke received from another attorney about such statute. Shortly after Johnstone's conviction, town workers received a request from the payroll office to authorize 'police brutality tax' deductions from their paychecks. Assistant US Attorney Lisa Russell-Charles who prosecuted the cop, stated during the trial that Burke was returning from a nightshift job when he was accosted by Johnstone without cause. She testified that Burke was hospitalized as a result of his head bashing. (Star Ledger, 8/31/95) ==================================================== W ORANGE CHIEF ACCUSED OF TIPPING WOMAN TARGETED IN INVESTIGATION OF ILLEGAL DRUG USE AND CHILD ABUSE IN COP'S LAWSUIT Posted by Bob Witanek <bwitanek@igc.apc.org> 09/01/95 W. Orange Police Chief Robert Spina, already trying to fend off repercussions from having been found guilty in civil court of wife abuse, having been sued for alleged non-enforcement of a protection order and having been suspended from the force in 1985 for admitted cocaine use, has a new worry. W. Orange cop Gregory Boyle has filed a lawsuit charging that the chief, who was asked to extend a 6 week leave with pay by the township council, tipped off a target of a police investiagation of illegal drug use and child abuse that she was being so targeted. Boyle charges that he was demoted from his detective rank when Spina, the son of W. Orange mayor Samuel Spina, was given the police chief job 7 months ago. He claims his demotion was retaliation for reporting Spina for having tipped off the target of his investigation. (Star Ledger, 9/1/95) </PRE>
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
COINTELPRO, WAR ON DRUGS, WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?
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