Missouri: Cop Website Contained Apparent Death Threat Against Video Vigilante

[ingac70]

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/19/1967.asp

<<"Unofficial website popular with Saint Louis, Missouri police contained a death threat against Brett Darrow three months before his recent encounter.

When stopped by an out-of-control St. George, Missouri police officer last Friday, motorist Brett Darrow feared for his life (view story and video). It turns out, he had legitimate reason for concern. Three months ago, participants in an online forum frequented by Saint Louis law enforcement personnel threatened to harass -- and even physically harm -- Darrow.

The messages appeared on St. Louis CopTalk, a site that describes itself as a site "for the use of law enforcement officers employed by the St. Louis Police Department and their supporters in the St. Louis Metropolitan area." While it has no official ties to the city, it does allow officers to log into official police email accounts from the front page. In June of this year, Darrow had sparked outrage among the forum's members after he videotaped a disputed traffic stop involving what Darrow argued was a perfectly legal turn and what a Saint Louis police officer said was not.

In the course of researching the incident, TheNewspaper learned from an inside source about a CopTalk posting dated June 29, 2007. A user calling himself "STL_FINEST" wrote the following item, presented unedited and in full:

in reply to "Who is this terd?"
I hope this little POS punk bastard tries his little video stunt with me when I pull him over alone- and I WILL pull him over - because I will see "his gun" and place a hunk of hot lead right where it belongs.">>

more at the link.......

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

1. Out-of-control is right.

I no longer see policemen as "good guys"- they forfeited all that when they put on black full face masks and started tossing flashbangs into bedrooms at 3 in the morning.

The term I now prefer to use is "jackbooted thugs".

Protect and serve, my ass.

[Mojambo]

2. I never assume I'm dealing with an honorable individual when I encounter police

That's not to say that there aren't, but in my experience the majority are power hungry thugs.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. St Louis and Kansas City are the only two police depts in the country

that are not controlled locally. Under MO law, they are run by a board of commissioners appointed by the governor. So cops in these cities report to the state rather than local authorities. This was set up over 60 years ago to clean up corruption. And it causes a lot of problems. We have really some shitty cops here in KC and I have heard even worse about St Louis.

[ingac70]

4. I hope this kid sues the shit out of the officer....

and the state.

[Mojambo]

6. I like how it says the video from the guy's police cruiser is currently missing

That's how easy it is for cops to erase their own record of what happened.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. There was an incident here in this area in July

Cops made a pregnant woman lay on her stomach by the side of an interstate highway while they held guns on her children in the car (the kids were 4 and 18 months). She had been at a JC Penney store and the store security called 911 and reported that she had been stealing cars from their lot.

She has an attorney now and when he asked for the security tape from the police car, he found out that the camera had stopped working from 10 pm until midnight that night. His client was pulled over at 10:05 pm.

I smell a huge lawsuit here.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. Me too

I have lived here all my life and am so tired of all these stories about bad cops.

[Downtown Hound]

5. And people wonder why cops are not trusted

Even on this liberal board, many people have stated that the kid was trying to provoke the officer by having a camera in his car. More like he feared for his life from a bunch of out of control thugs with the weight of the law behind them.

[1620rock]

9. The cops are going nuts again like they did in the 60's.

[Mojambo]

10. Has anybody been over to the St. Louis Coptalk board?

I poked around, but they've pretty much whitewashed everything about the incident off of the board.

Except for a post bitching about how thenewspaper.com was picking on them.

[ingac70]

12. The CopTalk thread about "thenewspaper"....

http://members.boardhost.com/stlouiscoptalk/msg/1189817533.html

[msongs]

11. expect to see lots of IRAQ war veterans & ex-blackwaters joining police forces soon..... nt

[Wiley50]

13. Link To Video and Transcript of the Incident

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/19/1961.asp

Worth a look and a read