I noted earlier the stop-and-harrassment of a group of libertarians passing through Jones County, Mississippi. The Jones County sheriff has dug himself in a bit deeper with his explanation of the arrest. Among the highlights of Sheriff Hodge’s explanation:
Uncertain of who or what they were dealing with, Hodge said deputies arrested the suspects and subsequent investigation revealed the individuals had an agenda which included not complying with orders given by authorities. They were discovered to be motorhomediaries.com activists.
Oh, no! They have an agenda!
More details about it here.
Even as a fellow officer of the Court, I fear stops like these.
they arrested first and asked questions later. just imagine if the suspects were french tourists or undocumented guatemalans? time to probe the department.
Sounds like our new Department of Homeland Security.
I heard some of Gallo’s show this morning where he interviewed these young men. You could almost hear the tramp-tramp-tramp as he goosestepped all over the place and treating the victims very unfairly.
Most of the callers also supported this gestapo outrage.
So much for Gallo and his listeners being “conservative” and supporters of “smaller government.”
Dixon Pyles had a case in Jones County challenging some aspect of the status quo back in the 60′s. One of the locals once advised Pyles “he had 10 seconds to get his @#$ out of Jones County.” Pyles used to brag ” You know I still have nine of those seconds left”.
This isn’t just a problem in south MS. Try driving anywhere in Prentiss, Lee OR Union county. You will be required to show ID at several Road Blocks on any given day. If you dare venture out on a holiday you might go through more than one maybe several. I offer this 4th of July trip I took two years ago as a typical problem in our area. I left Baldwyn MS towing a boat to go to Bay springs at 11:00am. I first went through a city of Baldwyn road block, Then about 2 miles from Baldwyn I went through a Prentiss county road block. 10 Miles from there I went through a Highway patrol road block. At the entrance road to Bay Springs I went through a Tishamingo County “Safety Check”. Upon unloading my boat and cruising the lake we were checked twice by the water patrol. My wife and kids at that point were laughing at the whole days events even though I was finding it hard to believe.
It gets better……
Upon leaving Bay Springs I decided to take the Natchez Trace back to the Mantachie / Pratts exit. I went through a Road Block on the Natchez trace another one on HWY 363, finally I went through the last one ( LEE County)outside of Baldwyn. I thought we lived in the “Home of the Free”? These road blocks in the name of safety are pure BS!! Talk about a waste of tax payer money. In Tupelo MS you can rob a bank in broad daylight (5 in the last 2 years) and get away scott free….
But just let your car tag or inspection sticker or any other police state tax be deliquent and you are going to be shaken down…… WELCOME TO MISSISSIPPI!!!!!
This is outrageous behavior by so-called “law enforcement”, many of whom (the subjects of this blog) are simply “goons with guns and badges”. But Storm Trooper tactics are not limited to Mississloppy. Let me tell you about my abduction, torture, false impreisonment and civil rights violations by State-employed “goons” here in Louseyanna in the aftermath of KATRINA. At 5 minutes past midnight on Tuesday AM, 9/20/05, a full 3 weeks after KATRINA (the “worst” was already a fading memory here in the “Cesspool” we call New Orleans), within 12 hours of my filing the first “Victims of KATRINA” lawsuit in Federal Court againsy the United State of America, the Governor, the State, the Mayor, the City and others, I was sitting at my patio table, which I had moved to my driveway on St. Charles Ave. in uptown New Orleans, watching TV (I had a generator, and one station could be viewed clearly). Suddenly 3 or 4 dark SUV’s with “State Police” emblazoned on the doors screeched to a halt to block my driveway, and I was approached very aggressively by 3 to 5 “Storm Troopers” who were wearing dark SWAT-like uniforms, armed with automatic weapons and sidearms. I stood up and said: “HALT! Get off this property. You are not authorized to be on this property unless you are coming to serve a warrant or to make an arrest. Now, get off my property and get back on the sidewalk!” Then one of the “goon squad” walked up to me and whispered in my ear, “Sir, you are coming with us. Either you will come voluntarily or we will remove you from your property by force. Now what’s it going to be?” I replied, “I will not resist, but you will have to remove me from my property by force “, which they did, brusing my right ribcage in the process, by “roughing” me up, which was totally unnecessary, because I was not resisting, although I would have been within my rights to do so, because I knew that what they were doing to me was illegal. To make a long story short (the facts are reported in exquisite detail in my personal litigation, Civil Action No. 06-7280 on the docket of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana), I was taken to the Union Passenger Terminal (Camp Amtrak), which was the temporary “callaboose” in New Orleans, post-KATRINA. Once there I was pepper-sprayed 30 to 40 times, and shot repeatedly (6 to 8 times) in both thighs at point-blank range with a 12-gauge shotgun loaded with bean-bag rounds. At the end of my torture I was a “bloody mess”, but I never “begged” them to stop the torture, and they never succeeded in knocking me down. Although I told them they were going to have to kill me, because “Ashton O’Dwyer is now your worst f%$#@*g enemy, fortunately (for me) they did not kill me and dispose of my body, unfortunately (for them). At the end of my 16 1/2 hour ordeal, I was handed a piece of paper saying that I had been arrested (I was NEVER told I was under arrest for anything, although I demanded to learn that rtepeatedly during my ordeal) for “public intoxication”. I was not intoxicated (they never breathylized me or field sobriety tested me, nor did they ever draw blood) and I was not in public, but on my own property. I aver that this was a totally illegal and false arrest, which wasn’t really an “arrest” at all, but rather a “carefully orchestrated, criminal gangland-style ‘hit’”, which was ordered by then-Attorney General Charles Foti, now Chief Justice Catherine Kimball of the Louisiana Supreme Court, and her “pimp”, Chief Disciplinary Counsel Charles Plattsmier, and other State Official and private actors, all of whom belong behind bars. If you can believe it, I am actually LOSING in the litigation, because “the System”, which includes Judges who are just “high-fallutent” politicians, has closed ranks around a bunch of criminals. Because I am a white lawyer (but disbarred and disgraced and humiliated to boot) who lives on St. Charle Ave., rather than a Negro pimp or drug addict (who would have IMMEDIATELY become the “darling” of the MSM), the Main Stream Media is not the least bit interested in my story. I tried to get LOTUS interested, but she demurred. NMC knows the story, but hasn’t done anything with it. I aver that my abduction, torture, false imprisonment and disbarment are directly related to the CORRUPTION of the “Victims of KATRINA” litigation, which I also have reported to NMC, and which I promise you is a story which is “Way Beyond Blagojevich” and way beyond the “Dicky, Joey, Tim, Ed, P.L and Bobby” scandal/story. If any of you are interested in hearing “the rest of the story”, then tell NMC. Thanks for listening. What happened to me, a U.S. Citizen who was on his own property and breaking no laws, should not have happened in “Amerika”.
I too heard the story on Gallo and agree with JPH @ 341 that you could tell by their comments that both Gallo and most of the callers, at least while I was listening, thought it acceptable. While being primarily conservative on some issues, this type behavior is extremely disturbing to me. Of course a lot of people are okay with behaviors like this that don’t involve them or their family. Crying shame too.
How ironic that this group ran into trouble in the Free State of Jones. Brought to mind a song about Jones County (SoSo, MS to be exact) called “Sweet Magnolia Blues” which was locally popular in the ’70s. It is on You Tube. The very end of the record has an interview with a fictional local law enforcement type who had been trained at the Narcotics Training Prevention in Tupelo, Mississippi.
You’d think that 30 years later law enforcement training had gotten better.
MadCoMs @ 6:45 pm: “You’d think that 30 years later law enforcement training had gotten better.”
Actually, it’s gotten much worse!
“Law Enforcement Training” = POST = “Peace Officer Standards and Training”, which weren’t followed in Jones County or in Orleans Parish.
Any sheriff worthy of the badge would make it clear to his deputies that, so far as he’s concerned, they should comport themselves on the job as if someone were filming them every minute.
This probably explains why Jones County Deputies are afraid of video. BTW Law enforcement training at OleMiss is a vast improvement. I feel confident that when they leave us our students are trained and dedicated to avoiding this type of conduct. I do sometimes fear, though, for what happens to them when they get absorbed into forces like these. Training alone will not withstand the zeitgeist if there is no leadership.
(CNN) — Five police officers brutally kicked and beat an unconscious suspect after a high-speed chase through Birmingham, Alabama, in an incident caught on camera and discovered a year later.
Video shows one black and four white officers beating and kicking unconscious man ejected from car.
Video shows one black and four white officers beating and kicking unconscious man ejected from car.
The five officers have been fired, Mayor Larry Langford said at a news conference Wednesday. An internal inquiry is continuing.
5 Alabama police officers fired over beating caught on camera
Hey, NMC – I got the link right the first time. I am not yet too old to learn!
KBL:
We should go eat some oysters to celebrate. Where have ya’ll been?
Didn’t realize the video was a year old. Was the “unconscious man who was ejected from the vehicle” charged with attempted murder of a policeman, which also is clearly shown at the beginning of the video? Did he recover sufficiently to stand trial and do any “hard time”?
The sheriff of Jones County has handed the potential plaintiffs a case on a platter. Affiriming the official policy of Jones County as supporting the behavior of his deputies, the pre-condition of the Monell case appears to have been satified! Plaintiffs in a federal civil rights litigation (Sec. 1983) may not only seek damages from the individual officers involved, but from the political subdivision that employs them — plus attorney’s fees! I hope they go for it!
KBL:
There is a blog devoted to public officials trying to prevent someone from taking pictures and police corruption/brutality:
http://carlosmiller.com/
He started the blog after being arrested in Miami for taking pictures of police activity, and he wasn’t even involved in the original cause. His term for why the deputies arrested the men: Contempt of Cop.
consider them sued.
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-mssdce/case_no-2:2009cv00103/case_id-68833/