Main Menu

Lt. Israel "Izzy" Gonzalez, Sgt. Jose "Pepe" Quintero, and Officer Jorge "Termite" Garcia betrayed no emotion as the jury returned the verdicts, reached after days of contentious deliberations. A dismissed juror who disagreed with the majority said she was told, "Go back to Cuba," by another juror.

The veteran police officers were members of elite plainclothes details put on the street in response to a rash of tourist robberies during the 1990s. Now, they are convicted corrupt cops looking at long federal prison sentences.

"This verdict establishes that no one is above the law," even if he carries a badge, Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Stamm said. In the end, he added, the officers were no better than the criminals they pursued.

"They became criminals themselves," said Stamm said. "They didn't uphold justice, they obstructed it."

Gonzalez, 45, once a rising star in the department, was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury for lying to a grand jury probing the circumstances of a Nov. 7, 1995, police shooting of Antonio Young and Derrick Wiltshire, two fleeing smash-and-grab robbery suspects.

Garcia, 41, was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury for falsely stating he saw guns in the suspects' hands as they leaped from the Interstate 395 overpass to North Miami Avenue, 20 feet below. Both of the unarmed men were shot in the back as 37 police bullets rained down on them.

Gonzalez and Garcia could be sent to prison for 10 years when U.S. District Judge Alan S. Gold sentences them July 2.

Quintero, 40, was convicted of conspiracy for lying about finding a gun in an alley where Wiltshire fell dead. He could receive a 5-year federal prison sentence.

***************

03/23/04 - Florida - After four hours Monday, attorneys selected six jurors to decide whether a former Cape Coral Police Officer engaged in unlawful sexual activity with a minor.

John P. Murphy, 37, faces the charges of unlawful sexual activity and sexual battery by a police officer.

Murphy also has four similar charges pending in Lee County.

Circuit Judge Donald Pellecchia will decide whether the alleged victims from the Lee County cases will testify in the current Charlotte County trial during a hearing this morning.

Murphy, who is no longer a police officer, was working at a an explorer camp from March 30 to April 2, 2001 at the Boy Scout Campgrounds off State Road 74, in eastern Charlotte County. Teens involved in police and hospital Explorer groups from around the state attended the camp.

After engaging in sexually oriented conversations with some of the young female campers, Murphy commented to one 16-year-old girl that she would be legal in one more year. On the second night of camp, Murphy was alone with the girl and began kissing her, according to the arrest report.

She pulled away from the graying Murphy, saying "she was too young and he was too old," the report states.

Murphy allegedly began giving her a back massage which progressed to rubbing other parts. The teen told him to stop, the report states.

"Officer Murphy told her that since she was a virgin, that before giving herself to someone she really cares about, she should first have sex with someone experienced, that way she could learn to better satisfy her partner," according to the report.

The former cop then exposed himself, grabbed the victim's hand and began fondling himself. Murphy allegedly asked the girl to perform oral sex, telling her he wouldn't allow her to return to camp unless she obliged, police reported. He then pulled her head into his lap.

Jury selection began around 2 p.m. Monday at the Charlotte County Justice Center.

Most prospective jurors thought they were going to decide a DUI case, or perhaps, a burglary.

But when the judge announced the charges of the case, some jurors cringed, put their hand to their head or looked down.

==============

12/01/2005 - Two Florida parents are furious about an incident on their daughter's school bus. They said a police officer on the bus roughed up their daughter and handcuffed her for something she didn't do and they have videotape to prove their case.

The parents of the 13-year-old girl were stunned when they saw the surveillance video of what happened to their daughter.

"I was outraged. I just couldn't believe it," said the girl's father, Luis Mitchell.

It started when a motorcycle officer behind the bus said someone tossed a golf ball out the bus window. It hit a car's windshield and nearly caused an accident.

The officer boarded the bus and tried to find out who did it. Instead, several students started shouting, including 13-year-old Ashley Mitchell, who stood up.

That's when the officer confronted her and slapped on the cuffs.

"That might not have been the smartest thing to do. The police officer just went a bit too far," Luis Mitchell said.

It turned out Ashley was innocent. Another student confessed. That student and his family have since moved out of the area.

===============

12/01/2005 - A Lake County family said the very people charged with protecting citizens left a threatening phone call by mistake.

Danielle Holdway and her family have a long history of run-ins with law enforcement, WESH 2 News reported.

So, when Holdway and her mother got into a fight with the owner of a mobile home over rent, it came as no surprise when Lake County sheriff's deputies called.

What did surprise Holdway was the voicemail that deputies left on her cell phone by mistake.

"Then I'm going to go by and jack that mother fucker up," someone on her voicemail said.

The Lake County Sheriff's Office said the voice on the message is Deputy Daniel "Scott" O'Neil talking to Deputy Daniel Hirsch.

The deputies did not realize that they failed to hang up when they called Holdway and she didn't answer. So, her cell phone's voicemail recorded every word as they talked about serving Holdway with a restraining order in the fight over the mobile home.

"It being a civil matter, they're not going to fuck with it," O'Neil allegedly said.

On the tape, the deputies show they know that her case is not criminal and that any charges won't stick. O'Neil then made a startling statement.

"It ain't going to fly because it's not a criminal injunction. It's civil. If that was a criminal matter we could technically hook him up on a, uh, a obstruction," he said.

The "he" they are referring to is acquainted with Holdway. He had called her to tell her the deputies were coming.

"But, uh, the judge would throw it out. He'd go for the ride, but he just wouldn't, which I mean, it doesn't matter to me you know. You may fucking beat the rap but you ain't going to beat the ride. The ride's all the fun. So, I mean, fuck him," he said.

WESH 2 I-Team reporter Stephen Stock played the tape for Lake County Sheriff Chris Daniels.

"It sounds like he's going to trump up charges. He knows it's not going to be criminal and yet he's going to charge him," Stock said.

"And that's the part that concerns me the most, Steve, when you look at the totality of the call. Cleary, the profanity concerns me," Daniels said.

It wasn't the cussing, but the threat the deputies would make up false criminal charges that prompted Daniels to launch an internal affairs investigation.

"The focus of our investigation is on the possibility that the deputy would arrest somebody with less than probable cause knowing full well that the arrest was not valid," Daniels said.

"He's a shit bag. He doesn't know any different," the deputy said on the tape.

"I didn't think that was the way cops operated at all," Holdway said.

"Is it the policy of the Lake County sheriff's deputies to arrest people knowing full well that the charges won't stick?" Stock asked.

"Oh, absolutely not," Daniels said.

"I'll go by and jack his ass up. 'Look mother fucker.' I love getting in somebody's ass," the deputy on the tape said.

Even though Daniels does consider this a serious matter, he also is allowing both deputies O'Neil and Hirsch to continue working on the job, making arrests, earning $32,000.

The reason: Right now, Daniels believes the conversation caught on Holdway's cell phone is harmless bragging by two officers who've been on the job for only about a year.

"We just want to make sure that it is locker room bragging versus actual practice," Daniels said.

It's too late for Holdway who says she's has lost whatever faith she had in law enforcement.

"They're the people that are supposed to protect us, not set us up," Holdway said.

When the sheriff's internal investigation is complete, the deputies face a variety of possible punishments, from no punishment to a reprimand to a suspension, even termination from the Lake County Sheriff's Office.

===========

12/01/2005 - A school resource officer is being accused of excessive force after using a taser on an autistic student. Now, that boy's mother says a misunderstanding has left her child confused and bruised.

Dennis Caliguri, 15, has bruises to show for what happened when he encountered a school resource officer and his taser. Investigators said Dennis was so violent and out of control that it took five faculty members to restrain him and the taser was used to calm him down.

Dennis is autistic and functions at the level of a six-year-old. But at 5'8" tall and 220 pounds, his mother, Susan Caliguri, said he is big but harmless. So she was shocked to get a call from Cypress Lake High School saying he was acting out. When she got to the school, she was horrified.

"It was a nightmare. They had him handcuffed, his legs were tied, he was on the ground. They had four sheriffs on top of him. I mean, he is bruised down his back, they were stunning him and he was already down. He couldn't do anything," she said.

Susan calls it excessive force, but the Lee County Sheriff's Office said the taser was the only way to calm him down.

"The matter is that the deputy, if he is that tired out and he has a fear of being overpowered, his weapon being taken away from him, he has to be able to overpower and be able to take control of the situation," said Charles Ferrante, Lee County Sheriff's Office

School administrators said Dennis got upset after being told not to come to school one day last week. He misunderstood and thought he was in trouble and started throwing papers.

Despite his mother's concerns, Dennis was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace and resisting arrest.

=========

11/30/2005 - Winter Haven -- A Polk County deputy sheriff has been accused of illegally obtaining a prescription of the painkiller Demerol from a Winter Haven pharmacy.

Deputy Tim Ellis, 36, was arrested by Winter Haven police Monday after he tried to fill a prescription at a Publix grocery with what investigators said was a forged prescription, the Sheriff's Office reported.

He was booked into the Polk County Jail on one count of possession of a controlled substance and one count of uttering a forged prescription. He posted $2,000 bail and was released from jail.

Ellis has been with the Sheriff's Office since 1993. He is suspended from duty pending the outcome of an internal investigation.

=========

11/21/2005 - A police officer in Orlando is facing criminal charges after he allegedly beat a homeless man to the point that the victim suffered permanent brain damage.

Authorities said 30-year-old Officer Edward J. Michael turned himself in Friday on aggravated battery causing great bodily harm and felony battery for intentionally striking a person against his will.

An Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation determined Michael fired his Taser stun gun at Jeffrey J. Goff until it ran out of power.

Michael is accused of then hitting Goff with a baton and punching Goff in the face repeatedly, crushing the bones in his face.

Michael was arresting Goff on a trespassing warrant at the time.

Michael declined to comment. He was suspended with pay.

=======

11/03/2005 - ST. CLOUD -- The police chief has recommended that one of his officers be fired after an internal investigation determined that the man had sex with a 17-year-old girl and lied to internal investigators and on his employment application.

The case led to St. Cloud police tightening employment-application procedures for prospective police officers.

Officer Joey Donald Bishop, 37, who was arrested Sept. 29 on a charge of having sex with a minor, has been on an unpaid leave ever since. The Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office said it plans to file a charge against Bishop today accusing him of engaging in a sexual act with a 17-year-old, a spokeswoman said. It is illegal in Florida for a person 24 or older to have sex with anyone younger than 18.

Police Chief Patrick Kelly said that Bishop had violated several departmental and city rules. In a memo to City Manager Paul Kaskey, Kelly wrote that Bishop had abused a member of the public, engaged in conduct unbecoming a public employee, falsified records or statements, engaged in immoral conduct and been untruthful.

In an interview with internal investigators, Bishop denied having an improper relationship with the girl. Neither Bishop nor his attorney, Blair Jackson of Orlando, could be reached Thursday. Bishop has until today to appeal to the city manager. If Kaskey upholds the firing, Bishop can request a review by a five-member personnel board appointed by the city manager.

The officer, who earns about $42,000 annually, is suspended without pay.

According to police documents, Bishop has known the girl for about two years, and she had previously baby-sat his son. She told investigators that she spent 20 or 25 minutes on Sept. 18 at Bishop's home, which the internal investigation showed belongs to his girlfriend, and had sex with him on a couch. Police documents show that Bishop was on a meal break from work.

Investigators, with the girl's consent, taped Bishop talking to her on the telephone. Based at least in part on information obtained during the taping, the internal investigation concluded that Bishop lied about his relationship with the girl.

The investigation also concluded that Bishop lied on his employment application in July 2000 when he said his drivers license had never been revoked. St. Cloud investigators determined that his license was revoked in Virginia in 1989 because he failed to pay a traffic fine.

The St. Cloud police file on Bishop includes a polygraph examination that Bishop took in January 1999 and a background investigation conducted when he applied for a job at the Kissimmee Police Department.

A Kissimmee sergeant concluded that Bishop "lacks the integrity and credibility to be a police officer" because he admitted to shoplifting, driving under the influence of alcohol, having sex with a 15-year-old when he was 18 and being arrested on a charge of fleeing and eluding police as a 14-year-old, documentation shows.

St. Cloud police said they were unaware of many of the findings and would not have hired Bishop had they known. Because of his case, police-officer applicants are now asked whether they have committed a crime that would preclude their hiring. Previously, candidates -- including Bishop -- were asked if they had committed such a crime in the past five years.

===========

10/28/2005 - A fourth Fernandina Beach police officer has been arrested in an investigation into allegations of sexual activity with a minor.

Fernandina Beach Police Officer Ernest (Ernie) Haskins was arrested by the Nassau County Sheriff's Office.

The charge results from an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate sexual assault allegations levied against Fernandina Beach Police Department officers and former officers by an underage accuser.

The FDLE investigation was done at the request of the Fernandina Beach police.

Previously charged in this investigation were officer Christopher Duffy, officer James Allen Branning and officer Joseph Simon Ramia.

============

10/25/2005 - Palm Harbor, Florida - On October 22, at approximately 4:00 pm, deputies from the Pinellas County, FL Sheriffs Department arrested a 16-year-old boy who was engaged in a peaceful roadside demonstration.

The groups St. Pete for Peace, St Pete Food Not Bombs, and the Curlew Bloggers were having a street corner demonstration against the Iraq war and the Bush administration.

The teenager was standing on the side of the road holding a sign that said “Fuck Bush”. The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Marianne Pasha told the St. Petersburg Times the arrest resulted from the disruption to traffic and the teen's refusal to move. When I contacted the department on Saturday they refused to discuss the case or any of the issues of the arrest. (Because of his age, the department cannot release the teenager's name. )

Deputies told me they were called to U.S. 19 and Curlew Road after a motorist called to complaint about the sign. "The complainant had to steer around (the teenager)," Pasha said. During the incident the deputies claimed to have recieved over 25 complaints and admitted people were using 911 to report the sign and also complaining about the demonstration in general.

After remaining on scene with the teen in the cruiser for over thirty minutes, deputies finally took him to the juvenile assessment center. He was released to his mother’s custody approximately an hour after the incident.

The original responding deputies and an additional ten to fifteen deputies then went across Curlew Rd. and threatened to arrest the entire group of protesters for not having a demonstration permit. The protest continued for approximately thirty more minutes before the demonstrators dispersed. Numerous threats of arrest and a state of general harassment continued for the entire time that the protesters were gathered.

Chris Ernesto of St. Pete for Peace says the peace groups will return to the same corner to protest in the future. “They are not going to use something like this to keep us from doing what we have a right to do,” he said angrily. “This is a bunch of crap, they are just trying to keep us from having free speech and to protest where it might offend some Republicans. We’ll be back, and we’ll have our lawyers ready to enforce our rights to be here.”

When I called the sheriff's department today, 10/25, to discuss what I had recorded on tape and personally observed, they refused to talk to me about it. The claim there is an ongoing investigation and that there is no reason to have any doubt's about deputies reports and details of the incident.

by Jay Shaft

*****

On Saturday, October 22, a peaceful demonstration at the corner of Curlew Road and U.S. 19 in Clearwater attracted no less than five squad cars due to the presence of a sign deemed "obscene" by some anonymous motorist that phoned in a complaint. In yet another display of spectacularly heavy-handed police tactics, the protester was arrested instead of merely being asked to put down his sign.

About midway through the 2 hour peace cornering, two Pinellas County sheriffs approached a 16 year old protester, asked for his ID and told him to put down his sign. While he put down his sign when asked, he questioned why he was being asked to produce ID. He was then informed that it was because he was being arrested and he was removed to a waiting squad car.

Immediately, the rest of the peace cornering group converged several feet from the squad car with both conventional and video cameras. Police were asked to explain what the protester was being charged with, a subject upon which the arresting officers were curiously mute. Shortly afterwards, several other squad cars arrived and at one point, no less than six cops were seen clustered around a pamphlet of some sort in an apparent attempt to locate a crime that would be sufficiently heinous to warrant an arrest. (The final consensus, it seems, was "public obscenity" and blocking a public road, although the protester in question was standing on the public easement next to the roadway with many other protesters who were not arrested.)

At one point, the cops were inexplicably joined by a member of the Department of Transportation (perhaps they needed an outside consultant?) who remained at the site of the arrest until the protest disbanded almost an hour later.

Although the protester's mother was present and had requested both that a supervisor be summoned and that she be informed as to the charges, her questions were never answered. A supervisor eventually arrived, but several of the other cops prevented her from speaking to him. At one point, another protester who was leaning on a sign turned around to speak with someone behind her and the sign brushed against the cop who informed her that if she "hit him with that sign again" she would be arrested.

It is interesting, also, to note the rationale given by the anonymous motorist for removal of the sign (as communicated to the group by the Sheriff's Department)...something about having to explain it to his or her eight-year old daughter.

One wonders how this motorist explains children with limbs blown off by U.S. cluster bombs. One wonders how he might explain the concept of pre-emptive war and of the torture and indefinite detentions of people who may or may not be terrorists. One wonders how he might explain how U.S. sanctions punish the leader of a country by slowly starving the innocent civilians who have the audacity to live in a place we have decided that we don't like.

Oh yeah...that's right...he probably doesn't.

War is obscene. Torture is obscene. Stealing people's resources is obscene. Poisoning the earth for millions of years with depleted uranium weapons is obscene. Spending billions of dollars to promote death, while there is poverty, homelessness, disease and despair aplenty in your own hometown is obscene. These are far greater obscenities than a simple four-letter word, and yet the perpetrators of those crimes are not only allowed their freedom, they are supported in their profiteering by law enforcement officials all over the country who must scour pamphlets and call for reinforcements in order to find something, anything, that will trump the Constitution and stifle dissent.

Several hours after his arrest, the protester was released after being booked at the local juvenile facility. There were no additional arrests, and the struggle for justice will continue...

by Carol Schiffler

******

See the Video

From the video -

Next Page