Onetime Paso Robles cop sues, cites former chief as sexual groper

Bringing new meaning to the phrase “cop a feel,” a former Paso Robles police officer filed a lawsuit against the city Tuesday, alleging former Police Chief Lisa Solomon-Chitty made repeated sexual advances toward him, and terminated him when she was rebuffed.

In the action lodged by Brennan Lux, Solomon-Chitty and Paso Robles city staff and officials are additionally accused of creating a hostile work environment and ignoring allegations of retaliation.

Following a two-year investigation, CalCoastNews reported January 12 on Solomon-Chitty’s alleged sexual conduct with, and in the presence of, department subordinates, including Lux and numerous others. Previously, CalCoastNews published reports of Solomon-Chitty’s public behavior in local saloons, where she sometimes danced on bars, and described herself as “an entertainer.”

Since January, additional officers and police department employees have been interviewed by CalCoastNews regarding Solomon-Chitty’s reported behavior. These individuals have alleged their former boss threatened them with trumped-up criminal charges if they rebuffed her advances or questioned her management practices. She has become the subject of intense public scrutiny. But she has yet to publicly comment on, or deny, the mounting allegations.

And this week, several sources interviewed regarding these allegations have told CalCoastNews they are being physically threatened by police officers close to Solomon-Chitty — and at least one of those threatened plans to leave town.

Following numerous allegations of sexual misconduct and poor management practices, Solomon-Chitty and Paso Robles officials reached a confidential agreement March 20 calling for payment of severance and back pay of more than $250,000. The agreement cited adverse “online reports” as having caused “irreparable harm” to her reputation and adversely affecting her ability to perform her job duties.

City Manager Jim App and members of the city council praised Solomon-Chitty following council’s approval of her parting package. App called her “a great asset” to the city and “a dedicated public servant,” adding that he was personally distressed by Solomon-Chitty’s departure.

In his lawsuit, Lux notes that he was hired as an officer in 2000 by then-Lt. Solomon-Chitty. Then, at a 2006 after-party for a charity event, Solomon-Chitty reportedly made her first move on Lux by caressing his leg and asking him for a ride home.

Lux refused, suggesting they should remain just friends, according to the lawsuit.

A short time later, after being named chief in early 2007, Solomon-Chitty called Lux and asked if she could stop by his home to talk. While there, she allegedly initiated oral sex on her subordinate after sharing a few beers.

Following the encounter, Lux claims he began limiting his contact with the chief.

According to the lawsuit, Solomon-Chitty became angry, and accused Lux of being distant. Lux responded by telling his boss that “he believed that a professional relationship between the two of them was best for both of them,” the lawsuit says.

In 2008, Solomon-Chitty required all members of her command staff to attend a team-building workshop at the Carmel Valley Lodge during Super Bowl weekend.

After the first day of workshop events, Solomon-Chitty ordered the seven attending officers to join her in the hot tub. Solomon-Chitty, who was becoming increasingly intoxicated, according to the lawsuit, stood and flashed her breasts.

She then allegedly sat down next to Lux, slid her hand into his shorts and grabbed his penis. Lux objected, quickly got out of the hot tub, and jumped into the unheated pool.

However, because of the temperature of the pool on that cold and rainy day, Lux needed to warm up and stepped back in the hot tub.

According to the lawsuit, Solomon-Chitty then repeated her groping, while Lux continued to object to the allegedly unwanted sexual contact. Lux then left the hot tub.

The following day, Solomon-Chitty reportedly warned Lux that information about the sexual assault was not to be repeated.

Up until that time, Lux had received exemplary performance reviews. But after he rebuffed her advances in the hot tub, Solomon-Chitty began retaliating against him by directing department supervisors to scrutinize Lux’s activities, according to the lawsuit.

In Nov. 2011, Solomon-Chitty terminated Lux for allegedly committing battery, use of excessive force and unlawful detention during the arrest of a combative suspect.

Officer Dave Hernandez, the watch commander at the time, said he saw the video of the arrest and contends that Solomon-Chitty trumped up the charges in a failed attempt to have the officer charged with a crime. And while Solomon-Chitty sent reports of the alleged assault to the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s office, no charges were ever filed.

Additional allegations include those made by Officer T.J. McCall, who told a city investigator that Solomon-Chitty grabbed his penis while he sat in her car.

Hernandez also says Solomon-Chitty touched him inappropriately. In 2007, Hernandez and another officer in full uniform entered a saloon then called the Crooked Kilt, to do a bar check.

Solomon, who had been out on the dance floor, approached Hernandez in a room full of people and allegedly pushed the officer’s face into her breasts.

After Hernandez complained to the Paso Robles City Council about Solomon-Chitty’s management practices, she allegedly attempted to have him charged with negligent operation of a vehicle, and of being discourteous to a member of the public. Hernandez resigned Jan. 11 and is contemplating filing a civil lawsuit suit against the city.

In his lawsuit, Lux seeks a judgment against the city of Paso Robles and up to 50 currently unnamed defendants for unspecified monetary general damages, economic damages, prejudgment interest and attorney’s fees.

As a result of the unlawful acts of the defendants, the lawsuit alleges that Lux “suffered and will suffer physical, mental, and emotional injuries, pain, distress, suffering, anguish, fright, nervousness, grief, anxiety, worry, shame, mortification, injured feelings, shock, humiliation, indignity, damage to reputation, aggravation, inconvenience, and other non-economic damages in a sum to be ascertained according to proof.”

A current officer, Jon Tatro, has also filed a lawsuit against Solomon-Chitty and city officials, claiming the former chief initiated an illegal ticket quota scheme and punished officers who didn’t make their quotas.

And more recently, CalCoastNews reported that Solomon-Chitty has for years been tweaking crime statistic data supplied to state and federal justice departments, which were used to facilitate grant applications.

Plaintiff Terrence Thomas, testifying in Springfield

Plaintiff Terrence Thomas, testifying in Springfield Ma. police brutality suit, says officers yanked down his pants in middle of busy street

A plaintiff in a police brutality case took the witness stand in U.S. District Court on Wednesday morning, telling jurors police swarmed his car, yanked down his pants in the middle of a busy street, and beat him during a 2007 arrest.

Terrence Thomas, 38, of Springfield, is the second and final witness in his case against the city and four police officers he is suing in connection with the incident. Lawyers for the city have said Thomas suffered a concussion and lacerations to his face during a scuffle prompted by Thomas, whom an informant said was carrying drugs as he left the Blue Eagle restaurant and bar with a friend on May 18, 2007.

Plaintiff’s lawyer Alan J. Black suggested in his complaint and through his client’s testimony that police planted cocaine and marijuana on Thomas after coming up empty during three searches on the street and at the police station.

Thomas was acquitted of drug trafficking during a 2008 criminal trial in Hampden Superior Court. However, U.S. District Judge Michael A. Ponsor has barred the defense verdict from testimony, leaving lawyers to refer to transcripts of “a prior proceeding” in the federal trial.

Thomas is suing for unspecified monetary damages and lawyer’s fees, alleging civil rights violations, assault and battery, negligent hiring and other infractions by city police and their supervisors. Thomas is black while the police standing trial are white. Of 10 officers originally named in the lawsuit, the four remaining are Sgt. Steven Kent and officers John Wadlegger, Gregg A. Bigda and Robert Patruno. Complaints against six others were dismissed before trial.

During more than two hours of testimony, Thomas portrayed Wadlegger as the primary aggressor in the clutch of officers who allegedly manhandled and mistreated him during the arrest. However, Kevin B. Coyle, a lawyer for the police union, suggested Thomas tailored his story to target Wadlegger after the fact. Coyle also referred to Thomas’ pants “falling down”during the arrest as he quizzed the plaintiff.

Referring to the “prior proceeding,” Coyle on cross-examination noted that Wadlegger testified just before Thomas in the 2008 criminal trial yet Thomas didn’t name Wadlegger specifically and simply identified his alleged attacker as “an officer.” Coyle also

On direct testimony, Thomas told jurors that police roughly searched him on the street, in a holding area at the police station and when they stripped him naked in a holding cell.

“(Wadlegger) started asking me all these questions about drugs … He was yelling. Every time I responded saying I didn’t know what he was talking about, I got struck,” Thomas testified, later adding that Wadlegger grabbed him in a choke-hold. “I was dangling. I couldn’t even breathe … I was kicking and I was swinging.”

Thomas said that when Wadlegger left the room with his clothes and returned, he had drugs clenched in his fist and told Thomas he was going to jail for 10 years.

“Do you know where those drugs came from?” Black asked.

“No, I don’t,” Thomas responded.

The trial is expected to continue through the end of the week or into the beginning of next week.

Readstown police chief arraigned on sexual assault, misconduct

Readstown - A judge in Vernon County has entered not guilty pleas for a police chief accused of sexual assault and misconduct in office.

Shay Larson stood mute in court Tuesday. He's facing two felony counts and six misdemeanor charges. Prosecutors say Larson used his position as chief in Readstown to leverage sexual favors while he was on duty and lied to investigators.

The 30-year-old Gays Mills man was arrested in March. Larson is Readstown's only law enforcement officer. He was placed on administrative leave after an investigation began last September.

The La Crosse Tribune reported that Larson's attorney, Luis Delgado, plans to file a motion to dismiss the charges. Prosecutors say Larson encouraged a woman to drive after she had been drinking to rendezvous with him at the village park, among other accusations.

DeKalb cop probed in pedestrian death had prior misconduct

Jason A. Cooper was disciplined last year for sending an “inappropriate” Facebook message to the woman he had pulled over during a traffic stop, department records show. He also was disciplined early in his career with DeKalb police after he failed to correctly report an apparent kidnapping.

The records show Cooper to otherwise be a capable police officer.

Authorities now are trying to determine whether he was at fault for the death of Clinton Hightower. The man was hit and killed walking across Memorial Drive the night of May 14 as Cooper sped to the scene of a fatal shooting at the Starlight Six Drive-In on Moreland Avenue.

Cooper remains on paid administrative leave while the accident is investigated, DeKalb police spokeswoman Mekka Parish said.

A DeKalb police internal investigative report obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution under the Georgia Open Records Act showed that Cooper, in his fourth year with the department, was suspended for 10 hours for the Facebook incident.

According to the report, Cooper stopped the woman the morning of March 12, 2011 for failing to obey a stop sign. Later that day, the report said, Cooper told investigators he learned that he and the woman had mutual friends on Facebook, and he sent her a message.

“Ya sexy [butt] I shouldn’t have gave u that ticket,” the message read, according to the report and what the woman showed investigators when she reported Cooper five days later.

Police leaders placed Cooper on restricted duty and found him guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer on or off duty. It is unclear how the woman's traffic ticket was resolved.

Cooper could not be reached for comment, but in his statement for the investigation of the Facebook message, he admitted wrongdoing.

“This was poor judgment upon my part on sending a message to [the woman],” Cooper said.

He served his day-long, unpaid suspension in June.

The other disciplinary incident involving Cooper happened after he responded to an apparent kidnapping on Aug. 23, 2009.

The officer reported the incident to detectives assigned to the case as only an assault or battery, according to internal investigation files. A 12-year-old had been grabbed from in front of a church by a man in a pick-up truck and pulled by her hair into the truck before being kicked out a block away.

The internal investigation said Cooper completed his field report of the incident as a “simple battery” and failed to change the status of the case when corrected and instructed by his sergeant for several hours, keeping detectives “from promptly responding to the scene,” the internal report says.

Cooper was found guilty of neglect of duty and suspended for 10 hours. He had been on the streets for five months at the time of the investigation, and his precinct captain considered it a teaching moment in the memo recommending disciplinary action.

“Officer Cooper is still in the learning stages of law enforcement,” then-Tucker precinct Capt. S.R. Fore said in his recommendation. “This incident alone I believe will serve as an excellent training/learning experience.”

Police brutality suit against Springfield alleges police yanked down man's pants, beat him in middle of busy street.

The city on Tuesday will begin defending itself in federal court against a police brutality lawsuit filed by a city man who said police yanked down his pants in the middle of a busy street and beat him during a 2007 arrest.
Terrence Thomas, of 120 Fargo St., in 2010 filed a complaint against the city and 10 police officers alleging a conspiracy to violate his civil rights, negligent hiring, assault and battery and infliction of emotional distress. He is seeking unspecified monetary damages and attorneys’ fees.
The lawsuit states that Thomas, 37, and a friend left the Blue Eagle bar on May 18, 2007. Police tailed Thomas’ car to the corner of Dwight and Congress streets, ordered him out and pulled his pants down during a search, then repeatedly kicked and punched him, according to the complaint.
Kevin B. Coyle, a lawyer for the patrolman’s union, said “there was a struggle that was precipitated by Thomas’ behavior” during the stop. Thomas was treated for a concussion and facial contusions at Wing Memorial Hospital in Palmer, according to the plaintiff.
Of the 10 officers originally named in the lawsuit, only four remain: Sgt. Steven Kent and officers John Wadlegger, Gregg A. Bigda and Robert Patruno.
Allegations against the remaining six were dismissed but they will likely be called as witnesses in what is expected to be a four-day trial in U.S. District Court.
Settlement talks characterized in a pretrial hearing on Wednesday as “90 percent there” by lawyers on both sides of the case fizzled by Thursday afternoon. Alan J. Black, a lawyer for Thomas, declined to detail the stalemate.
A lawyer for the city did not return a call for comment. City attorneys have argued a police informant tipped investigators that Thomas had at least an ounce of cocaine on him when he left the bar that night. Black countered that no drugs were found on Thomas when he was originally searched, or during a strip search at the police station.
“No illegal drugs were recovered during the search in the middle of the street when Mr. Thomas was humiliated and beaten,” Black wrote, later noting that a quantity of cocaine and marijuana only fell out of Thomas’ clothes after police returned them.
Thomas was acquitted of drug charges brought in connection with the incident in 2008.
The Springfield Police Department endured a public relations drubbing earlier this year when – after a trial in Chicopee District Court – former officer Jeffrey M. Asher was convicted for brutally beating a man during a traffic stop on Rifle Street. Asher was sentenced to 18 months in Franklin County jail and was stripped of his city pension.
Asher’s victim, Melvin Jones III, has since been charged with drug trafficking in an unrelated case and his trial started Friday in Hampden Superior Court.
Jones has a pending lawsuit of his own against police and the city in federal court, scheduled for trial on Oct. 15. He was left partially blind in one eye and suffered other injuries.

Former Southern View officer indicted over groping incident

“It’s becoming a disturbingly familiar scene in America - mentally unstable cops”

A former Southern View police officer has been indicted on various counts in connection to an alleged incident where he groped a female in his squad car while on duty

D.C. cop charged with shooting at trans women denied release

“It’s becoming a disturbingly familiar scene in America - mentally unstable cops”

D.C. Superior Court Judge O'Reagan Keary refused to release Officer Kenneth Furr, who is awaiting trial on attempted murder charges.

An off-duty D.C. police officer who was arrested last August for allegedly firing his service revolver into a car in which three transgender women and two male friends were seated was ordered held in jail on Thursday while he awaits trial.

During a court status hearing on Thursday, May 24, D.C. Superior Court Judge Ann O’Reagan Keary denied a request by attorneys representing Officer Kenneth D. Furr that he be released or that the conditions of his bond be changed.

A trial has been scheduled to begin Oct. 15.

Furr, a 21-year veteran of the police force, has been held without bond since the time of his arrest on Aug. 26, 2011 on a charge of assault with a dangerous weapon. A D.C. police arrest affidavit says witnesses saw Furr climb on the hood of a stopped car occupied by five people near First and Pierce Streets, N.W., and fire several shots at the occupants through the windshield.

Two of the women and one of the men in the car suffered non-life threatening gunshot wounds in the incident, the affidavit says. Police and the prosecutor in the case said later that the three could easily have been killed in the shooting.

On March 7, a D.C. Superior Court Grand Jury handed down a 9-count indictment against Furr, which includes six counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, one count of assault with intent to kill while armed, and two counts of solicitation for prostitution.

The affidavit says the incident began when Furr allegedly solicited one of the women for sex at a nearby CVS drugstore and became angry when she refused the offer. During the incident her male friend intervened on her behalf. Furr later threatened the male friend with a gun when the two crossed paths outside the store, according to the affidavit.

The male friend and the other victims followed Furr in their car as Furr drove away from the store, saying they wanted to get his license number and report him to police, the affidavit says. It says Furr stopped his car and pulled out his gun when he noticed the other car was following him. The car driven by the male friend of the trans women then crashed into Furr’s car after the driver ducked for cover when he saw Furr brandishing the gun, says the affidavit.

It says Furr responded by climbing on the hood of the car occupied by the five victims and began firing his gun through the windshield. Police initially charged Furr with driving while intoxicated, saying they determined his blood alcohol level was above the legal limit. Authorities later dropped that charge.

At an earlier hearing, Furr’s attorney said Furr was acting in self-defense, saying he feared for his own safety after noticing that the individuals with whom he got into a verbal altercation at the drugstore were “stalking” him in their car.

Although the police affidavit says Furr solicited one of the two trans women for sex at the start of the incident, the indictment charges him with having “invited, enticed, offered, persuaded, and agreed with [the two women] …to engage in prostitution…”

Transgender activists who know the two trans victims have said the women were not engaging in prostitution and that Furr approached at least one of them for a sexual encounter.

The incident outraged LGBT activists, who said it came at a time when transgender women had been victims of assaults and violent hate crimes in a number of previous incidents.

“This indicates that the prosecutors are getting serious about our (LGBT community) complaints or that a reasonable plea agreement was refused,” said transgender activist Jeri Hughes in commenting on the grand jury charge against Furr of assault with intent to kill while armed.

Chief listed as sex offender

TROY — A former Washington County town police chief whose 50-year prison term for rape was thrown out by a higher court because of prosecutorial misconduct is now a Level 1 sex offender.

Thomas Levandowski appeared before Judge Robert Jacon for a hearing Wednesday on what sex offender level he will be assigned and was given the lowest level for those deemed least likely to re-offend. He is eligible for parole in February 2014.

Assistant District Attorney Michele Poole argued that the former Cambridge police chief should be given the more stringent Level 2.

William Roberts, Levandowski's attorney, argued that Jacon's ruling should reflect a state review board determination that Levandowski should get Level 1 status. Level 1 offenders are not publicly listed.

Levandowski was convicted by a jury Aug. 23, 2002, of raping a girl between September 1996 and June 2001 when she was between the ages of 10 and 15.

The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court threw out 38 of 43 counts and the sentence and ordered a new trial on the remaining charges. The appellate justices cited several trial errors by the prosecutor, Patricia DeAngelis. DeAngelis prosecuted the case before she became Rensselaer County district attorney.

Levandowski, who also worked as a Hoosick Falls police officer and Washington County sheriff's deputy, pleaded guilty in May 2004 as the new trial date approached. He is serving a four- to 12-year sentence on three counts of possessing Internet photos of a sexual performance of a child under the age of 16. The photos were not of his original victim but came to light during the investigation of that case. He also pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child and four counts of criminal contempt regarding his original victim, charges the higher court left intact. Those counts deal with Levandowski grabbing the girl by the arm and going to her school four times in violation of an order of protection to stay away from her.

The appellate justices faulted DeAngelis for repeatedly questioning a witness after the judge sustained objections by Levandowski's lawyer.

The justices also found improper that family members and friends of the victim as well as employees of the district attorney's office had seated themselves up front by the jury wearing ribbons of support during summations. The justices noted an instance in which DeAngelis had cross-examined the girl's mother, who testified the girl fabricated her accusations. DeAngelis said, ''The grand jury thought otherwise, didn't they?'' With the jury out of the courtroom, the judge ''severely reprimanded the prosecutor for pursuing such a line of questioning,'' the justices wrote.

Levandowski's wife, Sharon Levandowski, was charged with endangering for knowing about her husband's alleged abuse but doing nothing to stop it. She also faced additional charges for threatening the girl to keep her quiet and later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of endangering and got three years probation.

Colstrip police chief fired for misconduct

The city of Colstrip fired its police chief after a female employee complained he invited her to view pornography on a city computer.

Mayor Rose Hanser announced the firing of Larry Reinlasoder at a city council meeting on Tuesday.

Hanser and City Attorney Gary Ryder told The Billings Gazette ( http://bit.ly/KyjcJy) that Reinlasoder's employment was terminated for several reasons, including making large purchases without council approval and using the city's Internet connection to transmit pornographic materials.

Reinlasoder's attorney, Bill D'Alton of Billings, said earlier Tuesday that neither he nor Reinlasoder would comment on the termination.

Reinlasoder worked for the Billings Police Department for 20 years before retiring in 2001, a day before he was to be fired for using city resources to benefit his private business

Veteran Claims Cop Raped Him With a Club

HOUSTON (CN) - A man claims in Federal Court that a jailer beat and raped him with a billy club in a Houston city jail, saying, "How do you like this, you faggot?" - then said he would not have done it had he known he was assaulting a veteran.
DL sued the City of Houston, its Police Department, John Doe Jailer No. 1 and Jane Doe Jailer No. 2.
DL says two people tried to rob him with a knife in a restaurant parking lot on Jan. 9, 2011, and he tried to call 911 several times during the attack.
He says when four police officers arrived, they told all the witnesses to leave.
He says he "again dialed 911 due to the complete lack of responsiveness of the officers on the scene in an effort to obtain effective police assistance. Plaintiff was then arrested for telephone/communication harassment," according to the complaint.
DL says he was booked into Houston City Jail where he "declared" his homosexuality, after reading a sign on the wall instructing prisoners to declare if they are gay so they can be segregated from the general jail population.
"As he was being booked into custody, plaintiff began to be harassed by the jailers and was called a 'faggot.' Plaintiff was then placed in an ad seg holding cell as two (2) jailers stood outside the cell and mocked him," according to the complaint. "Plaintiff continued to be verbally harassed by jailers.
"John Doe Jailer No. 1 ('Jailer No. 1') told plaintiff 'Oh, so you're the faggot,' and 'I will teach you something, faggot.' Jailer No. 1 is a large Hispanic man weighing over 250 pounds. Jane Doe Jailer No. 2 ('Jailer No. 2') is an African-American woman who is of average size and build.
"Jailer No. 1 then opened the cell door and handcuffed plaintiff and took him down the hall and around the corner. Jailer No. 1 told plaintiff that where he was taking him to a place in the jail that did not have video coverage and they would be alone.
"Once in the private portion of the jail where no security cameras maintain surveillance, Jailer No. 1 proceeded to pull down plaintiff's shorts and underwear. After stripping plaintiff of his clothes Jailer No. 1 hit plaintiff with a black police club in both knees, causing plaintiff to fall to the ground. Jailer No. 2, observing the attack, began laughing at plaintiff.
"After plaintiff fell to the ground, Jailer No. 1 began to kick plaintiff in the ribs while stating, 'How do you like this, you faggot?' Plaintiff pleaded for the jailers to stop and called for help to no avail.
"Jailer No. 1 then threatened plaintiff with the club, stating 'I bet you'd like this up the ass.' Jailer No. 1 then inserted the police club into plaintiff's rectum."
DL says Jailer No. 1 kicked him some more, then pulled him up by his handcuffs and put him in solitary confinement in a urine-soaked cell.
"There was no toilet in the cell and plaintiff's requests to use the restroom were denied; and plaintiff urinated upon himself as a result. Plaintiff was eventually returned to his original holding cell," the complaint states.
"A short while after the attack, Jailer No. 1 returned to plaintiff's holding cell and said that he, Jailer No. 1, did not know plaintiff was a United States armed services veteran and Jailer No. 1 said he would not have assaulted plaintiff if he had known plaintiff was a veteran."
DL says he suffered "multiple injuries during the attack, including bleeding from the mouth and bruised knees, and injuries from being raped with the police club."
He says he asked for medical assistance but did not receive any.
"Plaintiff reported to the sergeant on duty that he was raped, and the sergeant informed plaintiff that he didn't care," the complaint states.
After being transferred to the Harris County Jail on Jan. 13, 2011, DL says, he was released on personal bond, and he went to the VA Hospital's emergency room in Houston the next day to get treatment for his injuries.
"On or about January 15, 2011, plaintiff reported the rape and assault to the Houston Police Department Internal Affairs officer. The assigned IAD investigating officer and another officer with that department interviewed [DL] and videotaped the interview," according to the complaint.
"During that time, [DL] described the attack and completed forms and reports requested by the IAD officers."
DL adds: "The IAD officers interviewed the accused jailers, who perjured themselves and denied the assault and rape occurred. It is also believed that either the IAD investigation officers or the Harris County District Attorney's office secured the Houston City Jail videotapes of the booking and of [DL], his time in the holding cells and his transport down the hallways of the jail the day of his assault; however, according to the Harris County District Attorney's office, certain critical portions of the jail videotape are missing.
"Still, the jail videotape shows [DL] visibly shaken and collapsing in the holding cell once he was taken back there after the assault.
"After additional investigation by the district attorney's office, Jailers No. 1 and No. 2 were called before a grand jury. On information and belief, the defendant jailers again perjured themselves and denied the attack in front of the grand jury. After reviewing the available evidence, the grand jury declined to no-bill the jurors."
DL seeks punitive damages for assault, battery, excessive force, due process violations, cruel and unusual punishment, sexual assault, wrongful refusal of medical treatment, conspiracy, false arrest, false imprisonment, abuse of process, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence and gross negligence.
He also wants the city ordered to keep all evidence related to his case including statements, videotape, medical records and incident reports.
He is represented by David Van Susteren of Houston.

Robbins Officer Arrested

A Robbins police officer indicted on several sex offenses late last year was arrested yesterday by SBI agents.

Travis Baker, 32, of the 500 block of Sandwoods Farm Road, Pinehurst, is charged with Second Degree Rape, Second Degree Sexual Offense, two counts of Sexual Battery, Crimes Against Nature, and Obstruction of Justice.

Agents took Baker to the Moore County Jail.

The incident that led to those charges is alleged to have happened Aug. 16, 2011, when Baker was a member of the Robbins Police Department, according to Noelle Talley, a spokesperson for the State Bureau of Investigation.

Baker was dismissed from the Robbins Police Department prior to his December indictment from the grand jury, according to town officials.

He had worked with the Robbins department as a full-time officer since July 2011.

Denver may settle lawsuit over shooting for which cop was fired

Denver's City Council on Monday will consider paying $40,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a bystander who was injured by bullet fragments shot by a Denver police officer outside a nightclub on July 2, 2010.

Diamond Demmer sued the City and County of Denver in federal court after the shooting, alleging negligence, battery, assault and other claims.

The settlement comes a few days after Denver's Civil Service Commission upheld the firing of Denver officer Robert Fitzgibbons, who fired the bullets that hurt Demmer.

Fitzgibbons was fired last year after an internal investigation found the officer had unauthorized military tracer bullets in his .223-caliber Smith & Wesson rifle when he fired at an armed suspect.

The investigation found police were justified in their use of force, but that Fitzgibbons had used unauthorized ammo.

Bullet fragments from two of the rounds hit Demmer in the legs and torso. She had been a bystander and was not involved in any altercation.

She was transported to Denver Health Medical Center and underwent exploratory surgery.

Multiple bullet fragments remain lodged in her body and legs. The lawsuit says Demmer's body is "peppered with unpleasant and unattractive scars, and she has been emotionally scarred for life."

On the night of the shooting, Fitzgibbons and partner Cpl. John Schledwitz were responding to multiple reports of fights breaking out near East 11th Avenue and Broadway outside Club Vinyl.

The officers reportedly opened fire on Sori Shead, who allegedly was firing shots in the air to scare off a potential assailant.

Reports say Schledwitz and Fitzgibbons both fired their weapons.

Fitzgibbons' use of a .223-caliber Smith & Wesson rifle also was not authorized under Police Department policies.

Jury: Cops must pay $33K to beating victims

A federal jury on Friday awarded a combined $33,700 in damages to four men who accused several off-duty Chicago police officers of an unprovoked beating inside the Jefferson Tap Bar & Grille in 2006.

The jury did not award any damages against the city, which had also been sued.

Four of the six officers who were hit with damages by the jury are responsible for paying the damages themselves.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs did not seek a specific amount in damages.

The release of a videotape of the tavern beating hastened the retirement of then-police Superintendent Phil Cline, who was already under fire for abuses by the Special Operations Section and a high-profile, videotaped beating of a female bartender by another off-duty police officer.

Collinsville officer indicted over traffic stop

EDWARDSVILLE - A Collinsville police officer has been indicted on four counts of obstructing justice after a defense attorney reported concerns about the way he conducted a traffic stop and drug arrest.

Luke J. Tillman, 34, is accused of lying when he said a vehicle that he stopped lacked a proper registration.

Three of the counts are variations on the basic accusation that the driver, a woman from Maryville, did have a valid, temporary registration, and Tillman was aware of the fact but failed to report accurately.

A fourth count claims he concealed from evidence a video and audio recording of the traffic stop and arrest.

Tillman's lawyer, however, said the charges are based on nothing more than "paperwork errors."

"It is important for Luke that he defends these charges, not only for himself, but for his fellow law enforcement officers who are asked to perform an important service under difficult circumstances," attorney Dave Fahrenkamp said.

The attorney said his client is not guilty and that the stop involved a known drug user and convicted felon with crack paraphernalia and a passenger with an outstanding felony warrant.

A spokeswoman for the Madison County State's Attorney's Office said Tillman pulled over a driver on Nov. 16, 2011, for failure to display any registration.

A search turned up a possible crack pipe, and the driver was taken into custody. After lab tests, the Collinsville Police Department obtained a felony charge of unlawful possession of a controlled substance.

In March, Assistant Madison County Public Defender Tyler Bateman reported to the State's Attorney's Office that the driver had a valid temporary registration attached to her car at the time of the stop.

Bateman also asked about a video recording of the incident, but there was no mention of such a recording in the written police report.

The State's Attorney's Office said the in-car video must be logged in cases involving a felony charge.

An investigation allegedly determined that the driver had a temporary registration, the State's Attorney's Office said Friday, but this was not recorded in the officer's report, nor was the video reported or logged.

A review of the backup video showed there was a temporary license attached to the car, the spokeswoman said. Charges against the driver were dropped.

The Collinsville Police Department started an investigation on March 13, and Tillman was suspended. He remains on the police force.

"Our system is not based upon convicting persons at all costs," State's Attorney Tom Gibbons said.

He said the attorney from his office who reviewed the case was given false, misleading and inaccurate information. He commended the Collinsville Police Department for investigating the matter.

"The public must be able to have confidence that the justice system is fair and that no one is above the law," Gibbons said.

Prosecutors presented the evidence to a grand jury on Thursday. Bail was set at $10,000. The penalty for a conviction ranges from probation up to three years in prison.

Fahrenkamp said his client served in the infantry in Afghanistan and has placed his life on the line as a soldier and as a police officer.

He said police officers must make split-second decisions every day.

"He does not have the luxury of a bureaucratic review when lives are on the line," Fahrenkamp said.

He said his client has taught law enforcement classes and believes he has acted at all times in a professional manner.

"He intends to defend these charges and looks forward to a speedy trial in which he can clear his name," Fahrenkamp said in a news release.

Macon officer accused of exposing himself at salon

 42-year-old Sgt. John Horton was charged with indecent exposure Friday. Jail records say Horton was released on a $1,300 bond about an hour after his arrest.

Lars Anderson, the attorney of Horton, says his client denies the allegations of exposing himself at the salon. Anderson says the alleged incident occurred April 30 while Horton's wife was "getting her hair done" and in the presence of his wife and children.

Police say Horton has been suspended for five days pending termination. Horton has been employed by the police department for 15 years.

U.S. Justice Department closes case on Lorain police

LORAIN — The U.S. Department of Justice has closed its investigation into allegations of excessive force and sexual abuse by members of the Lorain Police Department, concluding that while those issues existed in the past, there is no longer a pattern of such misconduct by officers.

“During our investigation, we found that there were instances of excessive force in the years preceding our investigation, along with allegations of sexual misconduct,” Jonathan Smith, chief of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, wrote. “LPD’s management did not adequately address this misconduct, and failures in LPD’s accountability and discipline systems may have allowed the use of excessive force and sexual misconduct to continue.”

Read the complete reports below.

The Justice Department offered up a 30-page technical assistance report that recommends sweeping changes to the Police Department’s policies and procedures governing use of force, complaints about officers and how internal investigations are handled.

The report also recommends the city “investigate and remedy command deficiencies that permitted LPD’s past use of excessive force.”

With the release of the report, the Justice Department has concluded its investigation and has no further plans to take action against the department.

Lorain Mayor Chase Ritenauer said although the investigation, which was launched in November 2008, pointed out numerous problems, the Justice Department would have taken far more serious action if those issues persisted. He said he still has faith in the Police Department’s officers and leadership.

“It removes a black cloud that was hanging over the department and the city,” Ritenauer said.

Although the Justice Department has never commented on what sparked the investigation, it is widely believed to have been the result of complaints forwarded to Washington by Lorain City Councilwoman Anne Molnar and former Councilman Mitch Fallis.

Molnar said that while she hasn’t read the report, she’s hopeful that the recommendations will be followed by police and city officials.

“The general public should know about it, and I hope everything they put in there will be rectified,” she said.

Sexual misconduct

Some of the harshest language in Smith’s letter deals with how Lorain police handled allegations of sexual misconduct by its officers, and he wrote the department needs to adapt a “zero-tolerance approach” to such behavior.

Smith wrote that “at best” the department demonstrated a “passive attitude toward allegations of sexually assaultive behavior by its officers.”

“At worst, LPD’s failure to timely investigate and pursue prosecution against the offenders demonstrates a double standard for conduct by LPD officers that would not be tolerated from civilians, and permits LPD officers to escape just prosecution,” Smith wrote.

The investigation concluded that there had been “credible” reports of police officers committing sexual assaults while serving as officers. Some of those allegations weren’t investigated until years later despite the fact that Lorain police knew about them.

That is likely a reference to former Lorain police officers Jesus Sanchez and Stanley Marrero.

Sanchez was convicted in 2009 of stalking a woman in 2001 and 2002, and the city later paid the victim in that case $175,000.

Marrero was convicted of intimidation, dereliction of duty and public indecency for exposing himself to a woman and asking her for oral sex. He also threatened to withhold police protection from the woman if she told anyone about what happened. Marrero also failed to break up a January 2007 fight between two women with whom he was having affairs.

Marrero was later cleared of charges he raped a woman in 1993. Those charges weren’t filed until 2008, although the victim testified that she tried to tell police about her problems with Marrero when they happened.

She said at one point she called now-Police Chief Cel Rivera to report she was being harassed by an officer. He asked which one, and said he would handle it before hanging up, the woman testified, adding that she never had a chance to tell Rivera she had been raped.

Rivera did not return a call seeking comment Wednesday.

Excessive force

Smith’s letter details similar problems of lack of oversight in how the Lorain police handled excessive force accusations against officers.

“We found that LPD failed to investigate allegations of excessive force adequately, failed to take disciplinary actions against officers involved, and, in some instances, appears to have taken steps to conceal the use of excessive force by LPD officers,” Smith wrote.

There were “numerous examples” of excessive force by Lorain police prior to 2008, Smith wrote, but he noted there no longer appears to be a pattern of excessive force.

Still, he cautioned that there was “little evidence that steps had been taken to prevent such violations from recurring.”

In the past, Smith wrote, officers have “too frequently utilized force in response to minor violations of the law.”

He cited incidents in which officers have used Tasers against suspects when police knew only “that the subject was fleeing for an unknown reason after a minor infraction, such as walking in the roadway or jaywalking.”

Smith noted that, in one instance, an officer deployed a police dog to pursue and eventually bite a person who fled from a car that was pulled over “only for a window-tint violation.”

In another instance, a police dog was sent after a person who was “wanted only for riding a bicycle without a light.” The dog only bit the person’s clothing in that incident.

“Such use of force against individuals for minor infractions not only is legally unsupported, but also could alienate LPD from the community,” Smith wrote.

Smith also wrote that in some cases, the use of force, even if justified, could have been avoided had officers used less confrontational tactics.

“There are a number of instances in which officers stopped individuals for relatively minor offenses and took action (verbal or otherwise) that escalated the situation to a use-of-force confrontation,” Smith wrote.

Improvements

The 30-page technical assistance report contains suggestions that Lorain police could implement to prevent future problems. The suggestions range from weighing pepper spray canisters to monitor how often officers are using them to streamlining the department’s use-of-force policy, which is referred to by Lorain police as “aggression response.”

“ ‘Aggression Response’ suggests that all uses of force by LPD are responses to aggressive acts, but that may not always be the case,” according to the report, which recommends using the phrase “use of force” instead.

Ritenauer said the Police Department has made numerous changes already to its policies and procedures since the investigation began. Still, he said that suggested policy improvements will be carefully considered.

One change centers on when non-lethal weaponry, such as Tasers and pepper spray, should be used. Current policy allows those weapons to be used in “passive-resistance situations.”

The current policy has led to “poor outcomes, namely, the abundant use of (Tasers) to apprehend subjects for minor offenses when officers’ use of force reports present no articulated threat to officers or others.”

The report also suggests that officers should begin writing use-of-force reports for all instances that “go beyond un-resisted handcuffing,” including whenever an officer draws and aims his firearm.

The Police Department also should increase the level of review for use-of-force incidents, the report said, including conducting more thorough investigations.

Another weakness within the Lorain Police Department, the report said, is its complaint process, which currently requires all department employees to assist residents in making complaints, but only supervisors are supposed to hand out complaint packages. Complaint forms should be readily available, including online, and easy to file, the report said.

The report noted that Justice Department officials heard numerous allegations that residents had tried to complain about officers and that “LPD failed to respond to such allegations,” leading to the officers committing similar misconduct again. There were also accusations that police dispatchers may have discouraged complaints against officers.

The department also shouldn’t discount anonymous complaints, the report said.

“We recommend that LPD formally document, investigate, respond to, and track all allegations of misconduct,” the report said.

Those complaints should also be tracked to allow the department to spot trends, supervisors should routinely review officer files and the city’s safety/service director and prosecutors should have more oversight of misconduct allegations, according to the recommendations.

The Lorain County Prosecutor’s Office should also “consider occasional audits of LPD’s misconduct investigations” to see if an allegation should be prosecuted.

The department’s search-and-seizure policies, including those for street stops, strip searches and body cavity searches, also need updating to provide clear guidance to officers, the report said.

Origins

Lorain police Detective Buddy Sivert, a past union president now serving as a trustee, said he hadn’t read the report Wednesday, but personally felt that the end of the investigation is vindication for his fellow officers.
“I know nobody was doing anything improper, illegal or abusive,” he said.

A lot has changed in police work over the past 20 years, Sivert said, and he feels Lorain has a modern police department.

Sivert also said that while he would support suggested changes favored by Rivera and other department brass, he still believes the investigation was unwarranted and the Police Department was unfairly maligned.

City and police officials have previously said they believe the investigation came about in part because of an investigation into former Lorain police officer and convicted sex offender Joseph Montelon, who is suspected of writing a string of anonymous anti-police letters to public officials and journalists.

Police raided Montelon’s Wickliffe home in August 2008, although he has not been charged with a crime. Federal officials are reviewing the propriety of that raid.

Montelon also is suing the city and Rivera for allegedly violating his constitutional rights. Rivera has filed a countersuit accusing Montelon of defamation.