A couple of stories today, first, in Worcester, Massachusetts where the Department of Justice has found a pattern of excessive force and sexual abuse in the police department:
A two-year investigation by the Justice Department found patterns of “outrageous” conduct by the police in Worcester, Mass., including excessive use of force and sexual contact between undercover officers and women suspected of prostitution.
In a report released on Monday, the department’s civil rights division detailed police misconduct dating back at least five years in Worcester, a city of 207,000 in central Massachusetts. It corroborated repeated reports by women’s advocates in the city that officers had “tricked or misled” women suspected of being prostitutes into providing sex acts and “offered less, or no, punishment in exchange for sex.”
Federal investigators found that the Worcester Police Department’s “inadequate” policies, training, supervision, investigations and discipline “fostered these unlawful patterns.” They also raised “serious concerns” that the department’s enforcement practices could result in biased and discriminatory policing of Black and Hispanic residents, who were disproportionately arrested and subjected to force, according to the report.
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Worcester is the second city in Massachusetts where the Justice Department has found a pattern of police misconduct in recent years. An investigation of the narcotics division of the Springfield Police Department concluded in 2020 that officers there had used excessive force because of deficient policies and a lack of accountability.
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In Worcester, examples of excessive force included “unreasonably stunning people with Tasers, striking people in the head, using police dogs to bite people and escalating minor incidents, including during calls related to behavioral health,” according to the Justice Department report.
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The report cited multiple examples of Worcester officers hitting people in the head and face, including one instance in which an officer punched a handcuffed man three times in the face when he resisted an escort to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.
Another officer responding to a mental health call, who had previously received 40 hours of training in crisis intervention, hit a man in the face while he was restrained and lying on a hospital stretcher, the report said. The officer described his action as an “open hand distraction technique.” He did not report his use of force against the man, who had spit at him, until a bystander’s video later attracted public attention.
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Still, despite longstanding complaints about inappropriate sexual conduct by officers — and “multiple credible accounts that W.P.D. officers have sexually assaulted women under threat of arrest” — leaders of the Worcester police failed to develop responsive policies or training, the Justice Department found.
In addition, officers who admitted to sexual misconduct were never disciplined, according to the report.
If you think that this is horrifying, the fact that police all over the country are reselling automatic weapons on the black market.
By automatic weapons, I mean things like, "90 machine guns, including an M134 Gatling-style minigun capable of shooting up to 6,000 rounds of ammunition every minute."
That makes me safe.
In related news, the the former sheriff of Culpepper County Virginia is going on trial for selling deputy positions to people who wanted to buy guns.
By selling, I mean taking envelopes of cash for a badge:
When Democrats took power in Richmond five years ago and trained their attention on tightening gun laws, a rural sheriff named Scott Jenkins stood before the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors and vowed to fight back, pledging to use the authority of his office to skirt what he called “ridiculous” and “insane” attacks on the Second Amendment.
“If the legislature decides to restrict certain weapons that I feel aren’t a harm to our community, I will look to swear in thousands of auxiliary deputies in Culpeper,” Jenkins declared at that December 2019 supervisors meeting, positioning himself at the vanguard of resistance to perceived liberal interference.………
In fact, federal authorities allege, Jenkins, now 53, already had begun appointing auxiliary deputies — but not purely out of concern for citizens’ self-defense.
When the ex-sheriff goes on trial Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville, charged with multiple counts of bribery and fraud, prosecutors said, the jury will hear about a long-running scheme in which Jenkins enriched himself and his political campaign by selling badges and law enforcement powers to untrained, well-to-do people, including a felon.………
Six men paid a total of about $65,000, much of it in cash stuffed in envelopes, for deputy credentials, which they could use for personal privileges, such as dodging traffic tickets, prosecutors said. Three of the six were indicted with Jenkins; the others have not been charged. Prosecutors said two undercover FBI agents posing as wannabe auxiliary deputies gave Jenkins an additional $15,000 in cash.
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The two accused conspirators referred to the businessmen as “money guys,” the filing says. “The ‘money guys’ were motivated to purchase sheriff’s badges primarily because Jenkins and Individual 1 told them that the badges gave them authority to carry a concealed weapon in all 50 states. … In addition, Jenkins and Individual 1 told the ‘money guys’ that if they were pulled over by law enforcement while driving, they could show their badges and credentials to request ‘professional courtesy’ and avoid a ticket.”
Here is a quick way to identify corrupt cops, if they brand themselves as "2nd
Amendment" cops, they are dirty.
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