05/28/2005 - WEST PALM BEACH - A deputy needed
just nine words to justify firing his Taser stun gun at a 15-year-old
girl:
"Subject was given several
commands, but did not comply."
That was enough
for six Palm Beach County Sheriff's office supervisors to unanimously
approve knocking a 115-pound girl to the ground with a paralyzing
50,000-volt electric shock. The deputy's report is one of more than
1,000 that The Palm Beach Post examined in reviewing three years of
Taser use by police from Boca Raton to Fort Pierce, starting in 2001,
when the weapon arrived in South Florida.
While some of
the reports show that the weapons defused violent confrontations and
averted the use of lethal force, the investigation also found:
•
One out of every four suspects shocked with
Tasers was unarmed, non-violent and not posing an apparent immediate
threat.
•
While
health risks from Taser shocks remain under debate, officers have fired
them at the very young and the very old - at least 35 people 16 and
younger, including a 13-year-old girl, and seven people 61 or older,
including an 86-year-old man were shocked. The Post also found that at
least three women claiming to be pregnant were shocked.
•
Tasers were fired at more than 425 suspects
who were being arrested on misdemeanor charges.
•
Departments
vary widely in how they record and track Taser use, some requiring
little or no explanation for why officers fire the weapon.
"There is no
medical evidence to support the cavalier use by some police
departments," said Ed Jackson, a spokesman for Amnesty International,
which has called for a moratorium on the weapon's use. "Tasers are
being used in situations where guns, batons, pepper spray would never
be used."
Officers used
Tasers to stop people who ran, people who were verbally threatening,
people who refused to put their hands behind their backs. They used
Tasers on handcuffed people who refused to put their feet in police
cars.
"There are less
draconian tactics that can and should be used in those situations,"
said George Kirkham, a former police officer, Florida State University
criminology professor. They include reasoning, commands, guiding with
open hands and "pressure pain compliance" - pressing sensitive areas,
such as the jaw, he said.
"Officers are
taught these measures that are lower on the force continuum in
training. We have pictures of people who won't let go of a steering
wheel, and when pressure is applied, their hands come off and no harm
is done."
Instead, says Kirkham,
"Police are skipping up the use of force continuum through impatience
and lack of training."
From October
2001, when Boca Raton Police added Tasers to their arsenal, to last
December, 19 police agencies in Palm Beach County and the Treasure
Coast adopted the stun guns. Their use soared from 82 firings in 2002,
to 226 in 2003, to 712 last year.
The increase
reflects a nationwide trend, and as use has increased, so have calls
for moratoriums on the weapons until more is known about their effects
and whether they are being abused.
Chicago officials
halted distribution of new Tasers to officers after a 14-year-old
suffered a heart attack and another man died within a week.
Civic rights
activists in Houston called for police to stop and study the weapon's
use after 12 people were shocked for "verbal threats" to officers.
Police there, since receiving Tasers in late December, have averaged
one Taser firing a day.
Brevard County
police chiefs recently agreed on a unified policy that Tasers "will
only be utilized when the police officer reasonably believes that a
subject is an imminent physical threat or the person is demonstrating
an articulable threat to him/herself, the officer, and/or others."
Taser
International spokesman Steve Tuttle attributes the increasing scrutiny
given the weapons and how they are used to "phenomenal growth," which,
according to the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, caused the
company's revenue to climb from $2.2 million in 1999 to about $67
million in 2004.
No 'articulable threat'
Until November,
Taser International's Web site stated that the weapon is "solely
designed to stop the most hardened of targets: extremely violent,
aggressive, goal-oriented and drug induced suspects."
Taser's Tuttle
said that refers to "the 1-percenters, with superhuman strength and
mind-body disconnect." But he adds, the weapon can be used on suspects
"up to" that level of resistance as well.
The wording no
longer appears on Taser's Web site, but the company's manual used to
train Taser instructors, says: "The Taser is best utilized in
situations where a hostile or potentially hostile individual is
threatening himself or another person." On its Web site, the company
typically refers to the target of a Taser as "the attacker."
Cops tout the
effectiveness of the weapon in such situations. At the Palm Beach
County Sheriff's Office, assaults on deputies went down from more than
400 in 2003, the year the department adopted the weapon, to 200
assaults the following year, said Captain Frank Demario, a training
supervisor for the department. During that year, officers fired their
Tasers 275 times.
In nearly 800
reports from Fort Pierce to Boca Raton, officers fired Tasers to subdue
armed, violent and threatening suspects and suspects who refused to
show their hands after repeated commands or who were running toward a
house or car from which a weapon could be retrieved.
Described in
those reports are a man reaching for a deputy's gun, a suicidal woman
holding a knife to her throat, a man armed with a machete who told a
deputy "God help you if you come near me" and a violently psychotic
man, covered with his own blood and urine, who fought off pepper spray
and baton strikes and injured six of seven police officers who grappled
with him. In nine instances, they were used on snarling dogs.
Of 1,017 accounts
of Taser use on humans examined by The Post, however, at least 237
described encounters with people who were not reported to be armed,
violent or posing any immediate potential harm to anyone, including
themselves. Of those, 143 were charged with misdemeanors, and at least
two were not criminally charged at all. They included:
•
In
Riviera Beach, a police officer used his Taser on a man he was trying
to question after finding him asleep on a park bench. The man cursed at
the officer and refused to stand to be searched. The officer shocked
him on his leg and his shoulder and then released him with a warning
about trespassing. A Riviera Beach Police supervisor said the officer
was reprimanded for the inappropriate use of force.
•
In
suburban Lake Worth, a deputy investigating a car theft fired his Taser
at a man who refused to follow orders. The suspect then complied but
wasn't arrested.
•
A
Boynton Beach officer stopped a man for riding a bicycle after dark
with no headlight. When the man dismounted and started to run, the
officer shot him with a Taser. The police officer took the man and his
bike to the police station, issued him a citation, then released him to
ride his bicycle into the night - with no headlight.
Officers and
their trainers say capturing fleeing suspects is part of what the Taser
is designed for; it is a "distance" weapon that works where others such
as pepper spray wouldn't.
Some police
departments encourage officers to fire their Tasers rather than chase a
fleeing suspect, according to Josh Ederheimer, director of the Police
Executive Research Forum's Center for Force and Accountability. That is
because foot pursuits can lead to ambushes and accidents. But, he
added, "You have to think about it. If someone is running away, the
darts can miss or disengage."
The St. Lucie
County Sheriff's Office is the largest agency in the three-county
region that has refused to issue Tasers to its officers.
"There are some
benefits to the tool, but I think that there are too many cases we have
seen where there are questions of abuse or excessive use," Chief Deputy
Gary Wilson said.
Until they see
more specific guidelines for use and more convincing studies showing
the effects of 50,000 volts of electricity flowing through the bodies
of the elderly, pregnant women and drug addicts, Wilson said, they will
not use the weapon.
Accountability varies widely
Some departments weigh
officers' cannisters of pepper spray at the start and end of every
shift.
Tasers come equipped with a
"dataport" in the weapon that is designed to record every trigger pull.
That record
protects police officers from unfounded complaints of abuse and allows
supervisors to track their use, Taser International points out.
Departments vary
widely, however, in how thoroughly they require officers to explain
each use and how much the use is scrutinized by supervisors. In
addition, only a handful of departments attempt to track how often
their officers point the weapons without firing.
In addition,
reports in which officers fired at "unknown" suspects who escaped
without being hit by the prongs don't in themselves raise a red flag,
according to Ederheimer of PERF, because it is understood that Taser
shots can go astray. Such incidents, however, leave only an officer's
account of why the Taser was used. Of 16 reports of "unknown subjects,"
nine from Riviera Beach cops did not report any description of who they
were firing at, including gender or race or why they were trying to
detain or arrest the person.
West Palm Beach
police require supervisors reviewing Taser incidents to interview
suspects and to evaluate the use of force in their own words.
The Palm Beach
County Sheriff's Office, in contrast, requires supervisors only to read
the officer's report and conclude whether the use was within department
guidelines.
Sheriff Ric
Bradshaw, who was West Palm Beach Police chief when that department's
Taser policy was crafted, said the use of force policy at the sheriff's
office soon will be as extensive. "Uses of force will be tracked by
incident and tracked for early warning systems."
Police chiefs in
Palm Beach County are now working on countywide guidelines for Taser
use. A panel headed by Boca Raton Police Chief Andrew Scott has
examined restrictions on stun gun use, circumstances under which the
weapons should be used and medical treatment following Taser shootings.
Scott declined to point to specific changes being considered but said
resulting guidelines are likely to go beyond issues addressed in
existing local policies.
"Obviously you're going to
prohibit use of Tasers on pregnant, elderly, children, people in high
places," he said.
================
05/24/2005 - An
officer has been suspended for zapping a 13-year-old girl at least
twice with a stun gun while she was handcuffed in his caged patrol car.
An internal report by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said Llahsmin
Lynn Kallead was handcuffed and in the back seat of the patrol car when
Officer G.A. Nelson stunned her, the Florida Times-Union reported for
Tuesday editions.
Nelson and his partner had been called to the
apartment Kallead shares with her mother Rosie Vaughan because they
were fighting Feb. 7. Vaughan wanted police to help get medical help
for her daughter, who had been hospitalized for observation in the past
for emotional disorders, the newspaper said.
Nelson, a
6-foot-2 officer weighing 300 pounds, allegedly used the low-setting
stun mode when the 4-foot-8 Kallead wormed the handcuffs from behind
her back and would not do as directed. "The situation was under control
at this point," the internal report said.
Sgt. D.E.
Smith, who was called to the scene, said, "Please don't tell me this is
the person you Tased." Department spokesman Ken Jefferson said Nelson
has been suspended for three days.
"A supervisor questioned the
judgment of the officer, and he began the investigation process,"
Jefferson said Monday. Nelson did not violate written guidelines on
using stun guns, but his actions showed poor judgment, the report said.
He had been trained to use Tasers and received training as an
instructor in January.
=================
05/24/2005 - A
police officer and two other men were arrested Monday, accused of
entering the home of a Brazilian man, threatening him and stealing a
rare watch and more than $47,000 in cash.
Police said Officer
Milton McKinnon, 35, joined Michael Alexis Kuryla and Justin Tavis
Bohanan, both 31, in the raid. All three were released from jail after
posting $250,000 bail each. On April 17 the three men went to Fransisco
Decarvalho's home in the Brickell neighborhood. Decarvalho is a
Brazilian national, police said.
McKinnon was in uniform and the
other two told Decarvalho that they were police officers, investigators
said. According to police spokesman Lt. Bill Schwartz, the men were
allegedly hired by Miami jewelry store owner David Levison to collect
$61,000 in a business debt.
Schwartz said Decarvalho had
purchased watches from Levison under the assumption that one of them
was a very rare timepiece. After Decarvalho found out the watch was
counterfeit, he stopped payment on a check to Levison. Levison then
employed Kuryla to get the money or watches back, Schwartz said.
Police
do not know if McKinnon was paid for his participation, during which he
was on duty, dressed in full police uniform, driving a marked vehicle
and carrying his service firearm, police said.
"Anytime a police
officer anywhere is involved in illegal activity of any kind we're
angered and embarrassed by it," Schwartz said.
While at the
apartment, Kuryla took four expensive watches worth more than $100,000
and pocketed more than $47,000 in cash. McKinnon withheld the victims'
passports and returned them along with three of the watches before
leaving the apartment, police said. The watch stolen was worth $50,000,
police said.
They trio was charged with armed home invasion
robbery and armed false imprisonment. Kuryla and Bohanan were charged
with impersonating police officers, while McKinnon was charged with
helping them impersonate police.
Levison did not immediately
return a message left at his store for comment. McKinnon has been
relieved of duty and is facing termination, Schwartz said.
===============
11/05/2004 -- A
Florida sheriff's deputy chased, tackled, punched and arrested a
freelance investigative journalist from Long Island who was
photographing voters outside of Palm Beach County's main elections
office.
Henry, a
freelance journalist and economist, ran away from the 600-person line
of voters after Sheriff's Deputy Al Cinque tried to confiscate his
camera. Cinque chased Henry for 100 feet and tackled him to the
pavement where he punched him in the back before handcuffing him within
a few feet of a Post reporter and Marcus Warren of
the London Daily Telegraph . When Henry tried to
hand the officer his identification cards that were later found on the
ground, Cinque punched him again.
But Assistant Palm Beach
County Attorney Leon St. John, who represents the elections supervisor,
said Cinque told him that Henry "took off running and tripped and fell
in the parking lot," after saying something inappropriate to the deputy
and taking a picture of him.
===================
10/14/2004 - -Michael F.
Fagan, formerly an officer with the Marco Island Police Department,
formally filed suit against the City of Marco Island, City Manager A.
William Moss, and Police Chief Roger Reinke, individually.
Fagan's
counsel is Debra A.
Rowe of Fort Myers. Fagan states in his complaint that on Jan. 1 of
this year, while on routine patrol, he discovered a vehicle engulfed in
flames and called for backup law enforcement.
Further investigation showed
"A 15-year-old boy who had been drinking at a party had, without
authorization, taken the vehicle that belonged to someone else, wrecked
it and fled the scene."
Fagan was later advised that
City Councilman E. Glenn Tucker, attorney, had been retained to
represent the 15-year-old boy. Fagan said Tucker had advised the case
agent who interviewed the boy that, "The only thing the boy was going
to be charged with was leaving the scene of the accident and that the
police chief and city manager had confirmed this."
According
to Fagan, "The investigation was closed and the boy was charged with
the single violation and released on a summons."
Frank Pollara, who asked him
if he was aware of a case where a boy at his daughter's school had
bragged about stealing a car, wrecking it and leaving it to burn "and
all he got was a ticket for leaving the scene of an accident because
his family was 'connected'."
Pollara requested and
received a copy of the report "pursuant to Florida's public records
law" and subsequently wrote a letter "alleging police misconduct and a
"cover up'" to media sources radio, television, newspapers as well as
officials such as the attorney general.
===================
Officer
Involved: Shawn Pringle
7/12/2004 -- A former
Jacksonville officer pleaded not guilty to sexual battery in court
Thursday. This is the second sex charge he's faced in a month.
Former
Detective Shawn Pringle
is accused of sexually battering an acquaintance and using his squad
car to pull her over and attack her.
This
is the second time Pringle has been accused of using his position as an
officer to sexually assault someone.
The
latest charges stem from
an assault that occurred in 2000. JSO received a tip about the incident
while they were investigating Pringle for another sexual assault.
He was charged a few weeks earlier for assaulting a confidential
informant while working as a narcotics detective.
=====================
July 22, 2004 -- Fort Pierce
Police Chief Eugene Savage suspended a 3-year veteran of the force this
week after "egregious" allegations of criminal misconduct were made
against the officer.
Dwight Toombs, 30, was
relieved of duty and suspended with pay on Monday until the result of
the "serious criminal complaint that has been lodged" is known,
according to a Fort Pierce police memo.
Savage
said a person came forward with information that was "disconcerting."
"The
allegations were egregious enough to cause me to place him on leave,"
Savage said.
The
allegations alone did not lead to the decision to relieve Toombs of
duty, Savage said.
"It's
corroborated by the
actual physical evidence," Savage said. He would not go into detail
about the complaint or the evidence.
Toombs,
who could not be
reached for comment, was ordered to turn in his patrol car, badge and
any department weapons, according to the memo.
The
Fort Pierce Central High School graduate and former Marine received
average reviews on his annual evaluations.
"Dwight
follows organizational
policies and procedures," according to one evaluation. "In most
situations, Dwight is able to keep promises and honor the commitments
he has made."
Toombs'
personnel file
includes only one disciplinary action. He was suspended for one day in
2003 after he failed to report that he drove off from the city's fuel
pumps with a gas nozzle still connected to his patrol car, causing
damage to the pump and vehicle, according to the report.
=====================
Officers
Involved: Arturo Trevino
Location:
Florida
6/24/04 -- Exactly one week
after his termination was recommended, former police Lt. Arturo Trevino
resigned amid accusations of abuse of authority, spreading false rumors
and lying under oath. Trevino, a 16-year veteran of the Winter Haven
Police Department, received $27,628.32 in severance pay, including
accrued vacation, holiday and sick pay. He signed the agreement June
17. At the time of the agreement, a due process hearing was pending
regarding the findings of a recent internal investigation by the Police
Department into Trevino's conduct.
The
results of the
investigation were released June 10. Police Chief Paul Goward
determined that Trevino lied under oath, abused his authority by unduly
punishing a subordinate and spread false rumors that a female officer
had been molested by a male officer during a trip to a Devil Rays
baseball game.
In
a five-page memorandum
listing his final recommendations regarding Trevino, Goward wrote that
Trevino had been unable to effectively respond to the allegations. In
the memo, Goward also stated that Trevino's final response to the
allegations often contradicted statements he made originally . Goward
recommended Trevino be fired. Trevino was set to discuss those charges
in a due process hearing, which could have been his last effort to
retain his job. Now with the agreement between he and the city, a due
process hearing will not take place. Trevino had filed a racial
discrimination complaint Dec. 29, claiming that as a Hispanic officer,
he had been treated differently than other members of the police force.
Because
Trevino chose to
resign instead of facing termination, his complaint will go unresolved,
the agreement states. Trevino was originally suspended with pay in
November. At the time, his salary was $47,132. In his racial
discrimination complaint, Trevino also wrote that he believed he had
been treated differently because he spoke openly about his goal of
becoming Winter Haven police chief one day.
=========================
Officers
Involved: James Bott
Location:
Florida
6/24/04 -- Officer James Bott
was arrested on charges that he had a months-long relationship with a
13-year-old girl he met while she rode her bicycle through a
neighborhood where he was working. James Bott, 30, faces charges that
include six counts of lewd or lascivious battery, and 15 counts of lewd
or lascivious molestation. He was booked at the Palm Beach County jail,
and released on $50,000 bond.
Bott met the girl, who was
then 12, a year ago. He later invited her to his house, which he shares
with his girlfriend, his sister and her husband, according to an arrest
report. The girl told Palm Beach County sheriff's investigators that
Bott first fondled her in December, and their relationship then
escalated. The girl's family allowed her to spend the night at Bott's
house, but grew concerned about the relationship this week and
contacted authorities.
=======================
Officers
Involved: Allen St. Germain and Sgt. George Alvarez
Location:
Florida
6/17/2004 -- Two police
officers have been indicted following an investigation by the state
attorney's office. Officer Allen St. Germain and Sgt. George Alvarez
are accused of severely beating a teenager after they arrested him a
year ago. Peter Daniel, 19, said Sweetwater police arrested him June 18
on charges of evading a traffic stop. His attorney said that officers
beat Daniel after the arrest because they suspected him of stealing a
Jet Ski that belonged to one of the officer's relatives.
Daniel was reportedly
transported to the police station in Sweetwater Mayor Manuel Marono's
SUV. Daniel said that an officer struck him again while he was being
transported, and he said Marono saw it happen. St. Germain and Alvarez
reportedly gave very differing accounts of what happened to Daniel to
cause his injuries. One police report said Daniel threw himself against
the floor of the police station and the wall of his cell several times.
The other report said that when Daniel attacked the officer, he struck
him several times in the mid-section, and then Daniel "became
compliant." According to an affadavit, officers at the station ignored
Daniel's requests for medical help for hours, until an officer
intervened when he found Daniel looking gray and "near death." Daniel
had surgery to repair his liver and kidney and was hospitalized for
some time. Both the FBI and the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office
investigated the case. St. Germain and Alverez are charged with battery
and official misconduct, third-degree felony offenses.
State Attorney Kathy
Fernandez-Rundle said Thursday that St. Germain and Alvarez violated
the trust of their fellow officers and the public by committing a crime
when they severely beat Daniel. In a press release, Fernandez-Rundle
said, "The saddest comment from this investigation is how a room full
of trained investigators can admit to seeing nothing even as they
reluctantly disclose that they heard something going wrong. No police
department can ever be the personal tool of any individual officer or
officers."
================================
Officers
Involved: Derek Roberts
Location:
Florida
06/17/04 -- The FBI arrested
of a veteran Hollywood police officer on charges of trying to buy two
children for use as sex slaves. Police officer Derek D. Roberts, 29,
worked the past four years with the Hollywood force as a dispatcher and
later as a patrol officer. He was relieved of duty without pay after
his arrest. He was arrested in Miami after agents said he arrived at a
pre-set meeting place complete the deal with a cash payment and
expecting the minors were at the hotel to have sex with him.
Roberts
earlier put a down
payment for two children using his credit card. The FBI said Roberts
was trying to import two children young girls from Latin America and
they were to be used solely for sex. Roberts used a computer in his
search, agents said.
Roberts
was charged with child sex trafficking, which carries a possible
20-year prison sentence.
====================
Officers
Involved: Derek Roberts
6/16/2004 -- A Hollywood
police officer found himself on the wrong side of the law. Officer
Derek Roberts appeared in federal court after being arrested by FBI
agents, reportedly in connection with illegal activities outside the
United States. Roberts has been with the department three years.
Roberts was reportedly released on bond Monday afternoon. He has been
relieved of duty.
=====================
May 21, 2004 -- WEST
MELBOURNE, Fla. - A police officer involved in a nightclub quarrel
resigned after an internal affairs review showed he pressured a victim
not to file a battery charge, officials said Thursday.
Sgt.
Steve Hunt, who joined
the West Melbourne Police Department in 1996, resigned Tuesday after
the internal investigation on official misconduct allegations was
completed.
Reports
show Hunt lied to his supervisors about contacting a man he had gotten
into an argument with on Oct. 11.
The
incident happened at the
702 Nightclub in downtown Melbourne, said Sgt. Sean Riordan, spokesman
for the Melbourne Police Department.
"It
was a disturbance where
one person pushed another," Riordan said. No arrests were made, but
West Melbourne investigators found Hunt placed multiple calls to the
other man and convinced him not to pursue a battery charge, reports
show.
==========
May 25, 2004 -- HAINES CITY -
The father of an accused Northeast Haines City drug dealer Monday
alleged his son was beaten by Haines City narcotics investigators last
week.
Charles
Russell Sr. of
Davenport, accused three members of the city's vice unit, including its
commander, of battering his son, Charles "C.J." Russell Jr., before his
arrest last Wednesday. The father and son filed a complaint with Haines
City Police Chief Morris West. The case is under investigation.
At about 6:15 a.m. Wednesday,
narcotics detectives found a small quantity of marijuana and drug
paraphernalia during a warrant search at 1126 Ave. J. Russell Jr. was
reportedly staying with his parents during the raid. He was charged
afterward with possession of marijuana, possession of drugs without a
prescription, resisting arrest, battery on a law enforcement officer,
possession of drug paraphernalia, threatening a public servant and
disorderly conduct.
The major drug charges relate
to a previous drug sale to an informant, investigators said. West
denied the misconduct allegations, but declined to comment any further
on the case.
Police
in March arrested C.J.
Russell after reportedly finding more than 2 1/2 pounds of marijuana,
one ounce of cocaine, 105 marijuana plants and $4,800 in cash at the
residence.
Russell
Sr. made no excuses
for the activities, spurring police to try seizing the rooming house
under the state's forfeiture law. The residence is technically owned by
Russell Sr.'s wife, Brenda. The case will probably go before a judge.
Russell Sr. said that he'd rather sell the property for a fair price.
Russell
Sr. claims that his
son was enraged by damage to the property from the latest raid. He
phoned Green at the police station after inspecting the rooming house.
Russell Jr. allegedly made a derogatory comment related to the new
police sergeant's wife and hung up.
The Russells reportedly were
driving to police headquarters to complain about the damage when they
noticed "three carloads" of investigators traveling back to the rooming
house. The Russells turned their own car around and followed, meeting
Green and other investigators at 1126 Ave. J.Russell Sr. said his son
exited the car at police gunpoint with his hands raised before being
handcuffed, thrown to the ground, maced and assaulted. Green reportedly
told Russell Jr., "don't you ever call to my job anymore disrespecting
me."
In
written and recorded
statements, Russell reported pleading with investigators demanding,
"why are you beating my son like this?" as he was held at gunpoint. "No
one answered me," he said Monday.
===========
Officers
Involved: Robert E. Dempsey
Location:
Florida
5/19/2004 -- A federal jury
awarded a former Roosevelt man $2 million after concluding that Nassau
police arrested him for murder without sufficient evidence, fabricated
a confession and tricked him into signing it, attorneys in the case
said. Shonnard Lee, 25, was acquitted of murder and manslaughter
charges in 1999, clearing him of any wrongdoing in the 1997 beating
death of his next door neighbor, Sammy Jones, 22. Lee said his
confession was coerced. Afterward, Lee sued Nassau County, the police
department and retired Det. Robert E. Dempsey,
alleging they
violated his civil rights. The eight-member jury awarded Lee
compensatory damages of $750,000, payment for the 21 months Lee spent
in the Nassau County jail while awaiting trial. The panel also ordered
Nassau County and Dempsey, who the jury found fabricated the
confession, to pay Lee $1.25 million in punitive damages.
==========================
Officer
Involved: Robert Nelson
Location:
Jacksonville, Florida
5/03/04 -- Investigators are
saying that officer Robert Nelson took guns out of the evidence room
and couldn't explain what he did with them. Internal Affairs after
questioning Nelson IA officials recommended that he be fired for
mishandling evidence and lying. Nelson took firearms out of the
property room on three occasions, and then kept them for up to three
months. On another occasion he kept the guns for three-and-a-half
years.
=========================
Officers
Involved: Keith Burns
Location:
Florida
04/27/04 -- Officer. Keith
Burns surrendered to police after being charged with beating a West
Palm Beach man bloody and breaking his arm. Burns was released hours
later on $5,000 bail.
=====================
Officer
Involved: Richard "Ricky" Brandenberger
Location:
Florida
04/27/04 -- A former
corrections officer will spend the next 14 months in jail for his role
in smuggling drugs to inmates at the Orange County Jail. Richard
"Ricky" Brandenberger's sentence will be followed by two years of
supervised release. He also must pay a six-thousand dollar fine.
Brandenberger was taken into custody immediately after yesterday's
sentencing. He pleaded guilty three months ago to possession with
intent to distribute and distribution of Ecstasy and marijuana.
Brandenberger was one of three police officers arrested last fall after
a two-year probe by federal, state and local agents into jail
corruption. Five other corrections officers were suspended with pay. A
videotape showed Brandenberger accepting a packet of 50 tablets of
Ecstasy and an ounce of marijuana from an undercover agent. He was paid
between 200 and 80 dollars for each delivery he made to inmates.
======================
Location:
New Port Richey, Fla.
4/09/2004 -- A 9-year-old
girl was arrested and handcuffed after she was accused of stealing a
rabbit and $10 from a neighbor's home. A Pasco County sheriff's deputy
read the girl her rights and took her away in the back of his patrol
car. The girl, whose name was not released, began to cry during
questioning at the police station Tuesday and admitted taking Oreo the
rabbit but denied taking two $5 bills and some change.
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