Victoria must pay tethered teen $30,000

Friday, November 28, 2008

VICTORIA – Willow Kinloch has been granted half of the $60,000 she won in a lawsuit after being tethered in Victoria police cells, with the payment of the rest hinging on an appeal of her case by the City of Victoria.

The city had applied for a stay, or suspension, of payment until the appeal is heard, perhaps sometime next spring. But Justice Mary Saunders of the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled Thursday that Kinloch is entitled to $30,000 now.

Kinloch’s case dates to 2005 when she was 15. A B.C. Supreme Court jury came up with the award earlier this year following a decision that officers had violated Kinloch’s charter rights.

Kinloch had been picked up by police in the downtown area for being drunk and was taken to police cells.

She spent about an hour screaming and banging on the walls before two officers tried to take her home to the apartment she shared with her mother.

The apartment intercom was broken and officers wouldn’t let Kinloch yell up to a window, so she was brought back to the police station. She did not want to return to a cell, and police described her as uncooperative. She ended up being bound at the ankles, tethered and left in the cell for four hours.

Kinloch is now in Thailand.

Here’s to hoping Ms. Kinloch is safe, given the unrest in Thailand at the moment.

See also:
The further education of Willow Kinloch
Victoria, BC citizenry to pay $60,000 to brutalized teen (includes video)

French face prosecution for ‘insulting’ civil servants

The offence — which carries a maximum sentence of six months in prison and a €7,500 fine — dates from Napoleonic times and is designed to protect “the dignity … of a person charged with a public service mission”. Behind the legalese is the belief that civil servants are the embodiment of a French State that deserves the respect and support of all its citizens. The number of prosecutions for insulting police officers and other civil servants has risen from 17,700 in 1996 to 31,731 last year in what critics say is an abuse of government power.

Post office employees, tax inspectors, railway staff and teachers are all starting to file lawsuits when they believe that they have been slighted.

Even Gérard Depardieu has fallen foul of the law. A description of three work inspectors as “jokers” when they raided the film set where the actor was performing left him with him a €3,500 fine.

A homeless man was given a one-month prison term for shouting out that Mr Sarkozy — Interior Minister at the time — was a “bloody Hungarian” in reference to his family origins. A 21-year-old was given a similar sentence for insulting the President’s mother.

Ahaaaa… I see… “fraternité” is about creating a privileged class to lord it over the rest of us with not only the relative impunity that goes with “sovereign immunity” and the like, but should also protected from the horrors of criticism from the slave class.

Also worth mentioning is that the Times, not atypically, puts the scare quotes in the wrong place. If they had written:

French face prosecution for insulting ‘civil servants’

they’d be a bit closer to the mark.

Hat tip to An Englishman’s Castle.

Repeat after me:

• Public school is about learning, not indoctrination or obedience training
• Children are property
• Initiating violence against someone is OK when the law says so
• Children are slaves
• Offending the State is a true crime
• Torture is OK
• The theory that people beaten as children go on to beat children and commit grander crimes is ridiculous

From KGBT-TV, Texas:

Lawsuit: Los Fresnos JP ordered spankings

5 June 2008

Texas: It's like a whole 'nother country

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS (AP) — A Los Fresnos family is going to court to prevent a Cameron County justice of the peace from ordering spankings in his courtroom.

A lawsuit filed today alleges Justice of the Peace Gustavo “Gus” Garza told a 14-year-old girl’s stepfather to strike her repeatedly on the buttocks in open court.

If he didn’t, the judge said the girl would be found guilty and fined $500 for truancy.

The lawsuit by Mary Vasquez and her husband, Daniel Zurita, described the paddle provided by Garza as large and heavy and fashioned from a thick piece of lumber.

In a story for The Brownsville Herald, Garza declined to comment on whether he has people spanked in his courtroom. He also said he had not seen the lawsuit.

Zurita says he didn’t feel as if he had a choice but to follow the order.

In an affidavit, Zurita says that when he was through, the judge told him he had not struck the girl hard enough.

Selected, choice comments to the article:

A student who is truant is violating the law and causing the school to lose funding. The kid’s step father couldn’t control the kid (Is he a wimp?). Far too many judges refuse to enforce the law. Judge garza should be recognized for enforcing the law. The parent had three choices: Make thge kid go to school, pay a fine, or paddle the kid–and he is now crying about his choice. Again, I ask if he is a wimp?

— Terry Oberg, Mcallen

Spank Her Good

The judge should have had a police officer spank that brat. Getting a strong, muscle-head cop to do the spanking would have been ideal. Then I would have paddled the hell out of the parents too. They know when their child is not attending school. I bet you she will be pregnant and on public assistance before she is 18 years old. Thats all we need another dumb teenaged parent with an attitude. Sorry if it seems harsh but thats what it is. Just a thought!

— l deleon, harlingen

Ordered Spankings

Go Judge Garza! It’s about time someone taught kids now a days about discipline. This lawsuit is a joke. If we as parents don’t want to be at this point where we are at court having to spank our kids in front of a group of people, we need to start doing it at home. We as parents need to pay more attention to our kids and instill in them the importance of education and teach them discipline. Besides its the parents spanking the kids in court not anyone else. You as parents have a right to do that if you love your child and want him or her to grow up and become a good citizen. Believe me it will only take one good spanking for your child to know that you are serious about what’s good for them. Hey you’re even saving yourself $500 that you probably don’t have!

— N R, Los Fresnos

Good for Judge Garza

Lack of discipline is what is breaking down our society. Children will not learn, pay attention in class, or even attend class, as in this case, without proper discipline. The judge ordering the parents to “paddle” not beat the child is a clear indication that at least one judge realizes that a lot more parents need to take responsibility for their children’s discipline and not rely on the courts or the state for raising their children. Isn’t it interesting that these people can afford a lawyer to sue for tax payer dollars but they couldn’t afford to pay the $500 fine for their child’s truancy and instead oppted for the corporal punishment and are now crying foul. This is just another attempt to make a fast buck by milking the system. If we had more judges like Garza maybe some actual learning will take place in schools and the community would be a lot better off because this would raise the quality of life for everyone.

— Juan Ochoa, Hidalgo County

Aw heck, why don’t we just bring back the whip and the stocks while we’re at it? Nothing’s too good for our kids here in Texas!

From the Asbury Park Press:

Beaten in raid, man gets $350G

EXCESSIVE FORCE ALLEGED

A Toms River man, who claimed he was in an apartment to measure for curtains when he was kicked and stomped on by law enforcement officers during a drug raid four years ago, has won a $350,000 settlement in exchange for the dismissal of his excessive force lawsuit, his attorney said.

Jon Caldwell, 54, suffered chest trauma and fractured ribs after law enforcement officers “put their boots on his neck and started beating him by kicking and stomping on him,” according to the lawsuit, which attorney Eugene Melody said was filed in September 2006.

The lawsuit contends that on Dec. 17, 2004, the then-Dover Township Police Department and the Ocean County Narcotics Strike Force were executing search warrants on a pair of apartments in the Park Ridge Apartment complex on Walnut Street. The raids were part of an ongoing investigation into the distribution of marijuana in the Toms River area, according to the suit.

[...]

“Several men in SWAT-type gear broke down the door to his apartment and tackled him, slamming him face first to the floor. These men, . . . members of the Narcotics Strike Force, put their boots on his neck and started kicking and stomping on him,” the suit states. “None of these men ever identified themselves as “law enforcement’ to Mr. Caldwell or asked him what he was doing in the apartment.”

After law enforcement realized Caldwell had nothing to do with the drug raid, they let him go, the suit states. The next day, Caldwell was admitted to Community Medical Center, Toms River, according to the suit. His medical bills total nearly $100,000, according to the suit.

Instead, some commentary and some links.

Despite that the taser’s manufacturer, Taser International, claims with all sorts of paid experts and government shills to back them up that the device isn’t dangerous, people keep dying after being hit with tasers. The site Truth … Not Tasers is keeping a list, which currently runs to 345 in the US and Canada alone.

In the cases where internal police inquiry or survivors’ lawsuits force the issue, it’s now verboten to talk about the taser as having been a cause of death. The manufacturer has begun pursuing lawsuits against medical examiners who issue reports stating that the electric shocks delivered by the devices were contributory factors. Chilling effect, anyone?

Taser X26, jasonesbain @ flickr

The new term for the condition that kills people in police custody who have been subjected to 50,000-volt “non-lethal” discharges is “excited delirium“. One will note that the postmortem diagnosis of “excited delirium” seems to occur only in victimsthose who died after being shocked.

Apparently the theory that jolting a person with an electrical discharge might affect their cardiopulmonary performance just doesn’t matter when the jolts are being administered by the State’s clown-suited agents.

The deaths are really only the smallest portion of the abuse that’s going on here, though. Police are being encouraged to use the taser to “get control” of situations in which a suspect is being less than cooperative. Those I’ve read about include ones in which suspects failed to immediately respond to an order, struggled while being held in painful (and sometimes dangerous) restraint positions and holds, or simply seemed to be acting a bit “off”. And the rapid escalation from things like not behaving “properly” at traffic stops to the application of electroshock control seems to be increasing rapidly.

I have no faith whatsoever in the United Nations, but it’s worth quoting that its Committee Against Torture in 1997 “was worried that the use of TaserX26 weapons, provoking extreme pain, constituted a form of torture, and that in certain cases it could also cause death, as shown by several reliable studies and by certain cases that had happened after practical use.”

And now the links. These are a few of the sites that are chronicling the taser story on a day-to-day basis, and quite instructive.

• Truth … Not Tasers
• Taser Times
• Excited-Delirium.com

Somehow unable to manage taking an intoxicated, frightened young woman back to her mother, the cops take her back to a jail cell. Things get really out of hand when Ms. Kinloch kicks a shoe at a poor defenseless jail matron. She’s pinned against a wall, thrown to the ground by two police officers, bound at the hands and ankles and left sitting against the cell door like that. For four hours. Without a toilet. With nothing to eat or drink.

Kinloch took the uniformed bullies to court, and won. The Victoria PD has been ordered to pay her $60,000 to settle the case.

The sanctimonious police chief was quoted by Canwest News Service:

B.C. teen who was tethered in jail cell wins lawsuit

Jury says police used excessive force

[...]

Victoria’s interim police Chief Bill Naughton said the police department will be reviewing the jury’s decision and assessing its next steps.

“While it was always our intention to keep Ms. Kinloch safe, I do regret the distress the incident has caused Ms. Kinloch and her family,” Naughton said.

He said as soon as he became aware of the incident, he advised the office of the Police Complaint Commissioner and initiated an external investigation now being conducted by the Vancouver Police Department. He has also ordered a review of policies regarding the restraint of people in custody.

Naughton said he was surprised at the verdict but would not elaborate.

Asked what would happen to the officers involved, he said he would be in a better position to comment after thoroughly reviewing the jury’s comments.

“I think it is critical to understand that while the jury has found fault on behalf of the officers, they did not find it necessary to punish them by awarding punitive damages, and I think that’s very significant,” Naughton said.

A local radio station reports:

VICTORIA POLICE REACT TO KINLOCH LAWSUIT VERDICT

[...]

IT’S THE DEPARTMENT WHO HAS BEEN ORDERED TO PAY THE $60-THOUSAND, NOT THE OFFICERS PERSONALLY.

And the burly jail matron whose ridiculous overreaction to being hit in the leg by a flying sneaker is having second thoughts about having been assaulted, according to the Vancouver Sun:

Guard backs off from claim teen assaulted her

Jail matron admits video doesn’t support story

Presented with video evidence in court Friday, a Victoria jail matron named in a civil suit backed away from a statement she signed three years earlier claiming a local teen assaulted her.

Victoria’s taxpayers, who will be forced to foot the bill for these thugs’ misdeeds, were not interviewed. They can rest easy, though, that the police are still out there “protecting” people, and that “protecting” their city from the nightmare horror of a drunken teenager cost them only $60,000. Plus legal fees. Plus court fees. Plus the salaries of everyone involved. Plus… oh never mind.

Of course we’ll wait for all the “facts” to come out in court, where the deck will be stacked heavily in favor of the trigger-happy uniformed thugs, as usual.

Just remember here, it could have been worse for Mr. Fields. The ultimate penalty, after all, for insufficient obeisance to the State, is death.

UPDATE: New at AlterNet: Why the Police Wouldn’t Tase Me When I Asked Them to

From the Mansfield News Journal, Ohio:

May 12, 2008

Mansfield man’s lawsuit alleges excessive police force

BY LINDA MARTZ
News Journal

MANSFIELD — A West Third Street man has sued Mansfield, claiming police used excessive force in a traffic stop after he suffered head wounds and a collapsed lung. The suit says the injuries required surgery to his ankle, and he spent several days on life support.

Phillip Fields Jr., 36, of 191 West Third St., contends the police department failed to properly train officers on the use of the taser and failed to use good faith investigating his complaint about the incident.

Defendants in the lawsuit, filed May 6 in Richland County Common Pleas Court, are the City of Mansfield, Officers Richard Dittrich, Terry Rogers, Philip Messer Jr., and up to 10 unnamed employees of the police department.

Fields was arrested July 6, 2007, when he pulled into his driveway at 334 West Longview Avenue.

“He was supposedly pulled over because he had an expired license tag. He exited his vehicle and gave his ID, and the officer said he was under arrest,” attorney Daniel R. Mordarski said. “When Mr. Fields tried to find out why, the police officer threatened him with a taser, then actually used the taser on him. He shot him anywhere between 5 and 10 times.”

The lawsuit contends Fields immediately fell to the ground after the taser was first used, and got tangled in the long wires attached to his body via the taser darts. Fields contends he had difficulties complying with Dittrich’s order to place his hands behind his back because of the wires and the electrical current traveling through his body.

Court filings maintain the suspect’s brother Jimmy called the police department asking for additional officers to respond to the scene to stop Dittrich from using the taser again. He tried to remove the wires from his brother, and was arrested.

“Phillip went inside the house with his mom and sat at the kitchen table and had a cigarette and waited for police to come for him,” Mordarski said.

According to the lawsuit, a team of officers entered the house and tackled Fields after he held his arms out and told police he would come with them. Fields claims he was kicked and punched by Officers Rogers, Dittrich and Messer Jr. He contends he received a serious ankle injury, a serious head injury, burns from electricity, a collapsed lung and other injuries that required him to be on a medical life support system at the hospital.

The lawsuit alleges the city tried to cover up the use of excessive force and minimize the extent of Phillips’ injuries — with only three officers filling out a Response to Resistance/Aggression Report, listing Fields only injury was a minor cut to the head or forehead.

The lawsuit said Fields was taken to the hospital and remained in intensive care and on a ventilator for several days, with severe injuries.

“It does appear that he had some memory loss and some pretty difficult emotional distress,” Mordarski said.

According to Mordarski, an internal affairs investigation conducted by the city “attempted to justify the actions of the officers, rather than actually investigate the details of the brutal attack.”

The lawsuit contends the city took no action to discipline any of the officers, and tacitly authorized their conduct.

“I don’t know anything about it,” Mansfield Service-Safety Director Ron Kreuter said. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

Kreuter said he wasn’t sure if the citizens police review board has looked into the incident.

“I imagine if there was a use of force case, it went through the review board, because we take everything through them, where a use of force is involved.”

Field’s attorney said the 36-year-old’s past history of arrest should not have made a difference in how officers treated him.

“The Constitution says that a police department can only use a reasonable amount of force. Mr. Fields was being arrested for a non-violent traffic violation,” Mordarski said. “They cannot use a taser to simply get a defendant to comply with the order of a police officer.”

Mordarski said Monday a jury trial will be sought, along with payment of Fields’ medical costs, as well as some changes in police department procedures.

“Just based upon what we’ve learned so far, we believe he (Dittrich) either was not adequately trained in the use of the taser, or that he disregarded what he learned. It’s a tragic situation for Phillip Fields, being abused and beaten and put in the hospital for an expired license violation.”

S.F. settles excessive force suit for $235,000

Sunday, May 11, 2008
Kelly Medora, a petite preschool teacher who weighed about 118 pounds, went out with a friend in North Beach one Saturday night in 2005 for some fun.

Instead, San Francisco police officer Christopher Damonte, who weighed about 250 pounds, arrested her for jaywalking, twisted her arm behind her back and broke it with an audible crack.

Although Damonte and the city denied wrongdoing, the city recently mailed Medora a check for $235,000, the largest amount ever to settle a lawsuit claiming San Francisco police used excessive force not involving a weapon.

The Office of Citizen Complaints, meanwhile, has found that Damonte used excessive force in the incident and that another officer failed to investigate Medora’s complaint. Damonte faces a disciplinary hearing at the Police Commission and potential punishment including dismissal.

Damonte, 41, a six-year veteran of the department, has been the subject of other misconduct complaints, according to city sources. He was admonished in 2003 for inappropriately threatening to arrest a woman without authority, and he is among more than 18 officers disciplined for their role in the controversial 2005 Bayview Police Station videos, which Mayor Gavin Newsom denounced as racist, sexist and homophobic.

Good for Ms. Medora for getting something approximating justice out of the situation.

There’s just so much wrong with this situation though.

• SF taxpayers forced to pay put this uniformed gangster out on the street, for their “protection”, of course
• Uniformed gangster, despite a solid career of citizen abuse, is out on the prowl
• Uniformed gangster decides to pick on young woman for victimless crime (jaywalking)
• Uniformed gangster assaults young woman
• Uniformed gangster breaks young woman’s arm as retribution for not being sufficiently submissive
• SF taxpayers forced to pay for court and prosecutor in the case
• SF taxpayers forced to pay compensation to young woman for uniformed gangster’s crime
• SF taxpayers forced to pay plaintiff’s legal fees in the case
• Uniformed gangster faces, at worst, loss of uniform and pension, and a not-so-glamorous career as an even more surly uniformed gangster working for mall security

But let’s read on:

According to Medora’s account, Damonte seemed “irate” and “angry” from the start.

“I was fearful just of his demeanor,” she testified. “He was definitely very threatening with the questions he was asking and his body language and his facial expression, the tone of voice he was using.”

Damonte grabbed her friend’s arm, held it up by her face and demanded she tell him her age, Medora said. Damonte said he would cite her, but didn’t say why.

Medora saw the name “R. Fitzpatrick” on Damonte’s jacket – he had borrowed it from another officer – and asked if that was his name. This seemed to set him off, she said. He said yes and demanded why she wanted to know.

“I don’t believe you’re treating my friend appropriately,” she replied, court records show. “You haven’t told us what we’re being cited for. Please let go of her arm.”

Medora said Damonte started to scream at her. Fearful, she said she turned and walked up to another officer and complained about Damonte.

By her account, Damonte then demanded Medora’s driver’s license. Medora said she’d give him her license if he told her what she did.

Instead, Damonte said “detain her,” by this account, and he and two other officers surrounded her. She said she did not resist them, but merely clutched her purse. Then Damonte grabbed her right arm.

“It all happened very quick,” she testified. “Like he physically took my arm and twisted it up back by my neck to a point where I was completely immobilized. And I said ‘ow, ow.’ And he pulled even harder, and he snapped it.”

There was an audible “pop,” according to a police report.

The city’s lawyer said in court papers that Damonte used an approved method of holding her arm, but she struggled. Then “in an effort to escape,” she squatted down and “broke her own arm.”

Ah yes, they do so often break their own arms…

Besides the insult and injury to Ms. Medora and everything mentioned above, the real injustice here is that the people, not this uniformed gangster, are getting saddled with the bill for his misdeeds.