Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper pleads no contest in kicking case
BY MICHAEL BAKER
Published: March 26, 2010
OKMULGEE — A state trooper accused of kicking a handcuffed woman pleaded no contest today to a misdemeanor assault and battery charge.
Barry Rowland, 33, of Bixby entered his plea in Okmulgee County District Court and was given a one-year deferred sentence. He also agreed to resign from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol and give up his CLEET certification, meaning he can no longer serve as a law enforcement officer in Oklahoma.
Rowland was accused of kicking Dana Walls, 36, on Nov. 21, 2008, outside a bar in Henryetta. Walls allegedly spit on Rowland before he kicked her.
http://newsok.com/oklahoma-trooper-pleads-no-contest-in-kicking-case/article/3449323Former SC officer facing civil rights charge
The Associated Press
GREENVILLE, S.C. -- A former South Carolina police officer is facing a federal civil rights charge.
Court documents filed Friday show former Greenville police officer Matthew Scott Jowers has been accused of grabbing or pushing someone who was in his custody.
Acting U.S. Attorney Kevin McDonald says prosecutors have reached a plea agreement with Jowers, who McDonald said is expected to plead guilty Tuesday in Greenville.
McDonald says the charge against Jowers is part of an ongoing investigation. He says Greenville police have cooperated with the FBI and state authorities.
Greenville police say Jowers worked for the agency for about three years and left in September. Jowers' attorney Beattie Ashmore says the charge is a misdemeanor and carries up a year in prison.
http://www.thesunnews.com/2010/03/26/1389183/former-sc-officer-facing-civil.htmlDid a Racist Coup in a Northern Louisiana Town Overthrow Its Black Mayor and Police Chief?
by Jordan Flaherty / March 26th, 2010
In Waterproof, a small northern Louisiana town near Natchez, Mississippi, the African-American mayor and police chief assert that they have been forced from office and arrested as part of an illegal coup carried out by an alliance of white politicians and their followers. In a lawsuit filed last week, Police Chief Miles Jenkins asserts a wide-ranging conspiracy involving the area’s district attorney and parish sheriff, along with several other members of the region’s entrenched political power structure. These events come at a time when the validity of federal power is being questioned because of the race of the US president, and in a state where white political corruption and violence have been, and continue to be, used as tools to fight Black political power.
About 800 people live in Waterproof, a rural community in the south of Tensas Parish. Tensas has just over 6,000 residents, making it both the smallest parish in the state, and the parish with the state’s fastest declining population. The parish’s schools remain mostly segregated, with nearly all the Black students attending public schools, and nearly all the white students attending private schools. With a median household income of $10,250, Waterproof is also one of the poorest communities in the US. The only jobs for Black people in town are in work for white farmers, according to Chief Jenkins. “Unless you go out of town to work,” he says, “You’re going to ride the white man’s tractor. That’s it.”
Bobby Higginbotham was elected mayor of Waterproof in September of 2006. The next year, he appointed Miles Jenkins as chief of police. Jenkins, who served in the US military for 30 years and earned a master’s degree in public administration from Troy University in Alabama, immediately began the work of professionalizing a small town police department that had previously been mostly inactive. “You called the Waterproof police for help before,” says Chief Jenkins, “He would say, wait ‘til tomorrow, it’s too hot to come out today.” He also sought to reform the town’s financial practices, which Chief Jenkins says were in disorder and consumed by debt.
Chief Jenkins asserts that a white political infrastructure, led by the Parish Sheriff Ricky Jones and District Attorney James Paxton, were threatened by their actions. This group immediately sought to orchestrate a coup against the two Black men, including clandestine meetings, false arrests, harassment, and even physical violence. Court documents describe how Paxton, Jones, and their allies formed an alliance “designed to harass intimidate, arrest, imprison, prosecute, illegally remove plaintiff from his position of police chief, prevent plaintiff from performing his law duties as police chief and/or force plaintiff to leave the town of Waterproof.”
Ms. Annie Watson, a Black school board member in her 60s who was born and raised in Waterproof, worked as a volunteer for the mayor. She says that the mayor and chief, who had both lived in New Orleans, brought a new attitude that Parish officials didn’t like. “The Mayor and the Chief said you can’t treat people this way, and the Sheriff and DA said you got to know your place. If you’re educated and intelligent and know your rights and in this parish, you are in trouble,” she says. “They are determined to let you know you have a place and if you don’t jump when they say jump, you are in trouble.”
Ms. Watson explains that Paxton and Jones were threatened by Chief Jenkins’ efforts to professionalize the town’s police force. Aside from representing a challenge to Sheriff Jones’ political power, this also took away a source of his funding. “Before Mayor Higginbotham, all traffic tickets went to St. Joseph,” she says, referring to the Parish seat, where Sheriff Jones is based. “So he cut their income by having a police department.”
Jack McMillan, an African American deputy sheriff in Tensas Parish, says he tried to warn Chief Jenkins to back down. “You’ve got to adapt to your environment,” he says. “You can’t come to a small town and do things the same way you might in a big city. Like the song says, you got to know when to hold ‘em, and know when to fold ‘em.”
The Rest:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/03/did-a-racist-coup-in-a-northern-louisiana-town-overthrow-its-black-mayor-and-police-chief/Feds file new indictment against Sleepy Hollow cop
BY TIMOTHY O'CONNOR • TPOCONNOR@LOHUD.COM • MARCH 25, 2010
WHITE PLAINS — Federal prosecutors have filed a superseding indictment against a Sleepy Hollow detective already accused of brutalizing two people in the village.
Jose Quinoy, 37, was charged with witness tampering in addition to two counts of civil rightsviolations in an indictment filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in White Plains.
The new charge stems from an April 4, 2008, incident in which Quinoy "did knowingly use intimidation, threaten and corruptly persuade another person ... with intent to influence, delay, and prevent the testimony of a person in an official proceeding," according to the indictment.
Quinoy was indicted in April 2009 on charges of violating the rights of Mario Gomez during an altercation on Oct. 17, 2006, outside the Sleepy Hollow police department. The incident allegedly stemmed from Gomez's belief that the married Quinoy was romancing his daughter, a charge that Quinoy denied. Quinoy was also charged with violating the rights of Luis Vilches during a Dec. 17, 2006, altercation. In both incidents, Quinoy is accused of assaulting the men after they were already restrained and under the control of other officers.
Quinoy now faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of all charges in the case.
http://www.lohud.com/article/20100325/NEWS02/3250435/-1/newsfront/Feds-file-new-indictment-against-Sleepy-Hollow-copDavidson sheriff's deputy who pulled out grill from inmate's mouth gets fired
Victim received a $95,000 settlement from Metro Council
DAVIDSON COUNTY
The Davidson County Sheriff's deputy who pulled the grill out of an inmate's mouth last year has been fired.
Tanya Mayhew was a lieutenant when she pulled out the gold jewelry affixed to inmate Anthony McCoy's mouth in November. As a result of the incident, Metro agreed last week to a $95,000 settlement with McCoy, who suffered severe dental damage.
Initially Mayhew was demoted and suspended five days. But since her suspension, Mayhew took time away from work on the Family and Medical Leave Act, according to sheriff's department spokeswoman Karla Weikal.
During her time away from work, Mayhew worked another job, which violated a department policy, Weikal said.
Mayhew had not worked in the jail after the grill incident, Weikal said.
— NATE RAU
THE TENNESSEAN
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100325/NEWS0202/3250354/Davidson%20sheriff%20s%20deputy%20who%20pulled%20out%20grill%20from%20inmate%20s%20mouth%20gets%20firedFormer West Jordan police officer sentenced to jail, probation
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News)- Former West Jordan police officer Nelson Tuatagloa was sentenced Thursday on two counts of custodial sexual relations.
Tuatagaloa was arrested in 2008. Police say he took a woman into custody, who was threatening to kill herself. But instead of taking her to the hospital, officers say he took her took a dark corner of the parking lot and molested her.
He pleaded guilty to the charges last month.
Tuatagaloa was sentenced to one year on jail and 3 years probation.
http://www.abc4.com/mostpopular/story/Former-West-Jordan-police-officer-sentenced-to/nhQE12THRESYSFvuxD4ViA.cspxPolice battle not only crime but public trust
By Anna Song KATU News and KATU.com Staff
PORTLAND, Ore. - An exclusive KATU News/Survey USA poll found Wednesday that just over half of those surveyed said they trust the Portland Police Bureau, raising the question whether the bureau has a public relations problem after two high-profile police shootings.
The survey, which polled 500 adults who live in Portland, found that 56 percent trust the police, 36 percent don’t, and 8 percent aren’t sure.
The same people were also asked if Portland police are too quick to use lethal force and if they use lethal force appropriately.
The results on those questions were more evenly split: 45 percent said it’s too quick, 42 percent said officers use lethal force appropriately, and 13 percent aren’t sure.
The survey had a margin of error of about 4.5 percent.
The bureau’s PR problem plays out in at least three ways. First, it affects what parents tell their children about how to perceive police officers; second, it affects the way everyday police officers do their job, and third, in an extreme but perhaps tangential way, it boils over to violent confrontations between police and protesters.
One such confrontation was captured by a KATU News photographer Tuesday night when a protester threw a bicycle at a Portland motorcycle police officer. It is only the most recent visual demonstration of those not happy with the police.
“I see tensions on a daily basis,” said Portland police Officer Jason Jones who patrols the Cully neighborhood in Northeast Portland.
He said building trust with certain pockets of the community is especially difficult after Monday’s shooting of a homeless man at Hoyt Arboretum and an unarmed and distraught Aaron Campbell last January.
“We’ll be driving and a couple, say, younger kids will be on the street corner, they’ll see us, and they’ll spit on the ground as a sign of disrespect,” he said. “There are certain families and groups that actually say ‘don’t talk to the police, don’t trust the police - much the same way my parents taught me, don’t talk (to) or trust strangers.”
At a neighborhood park, young mothers said they were conflicted about what to tell their kids about police officers.
“I didn’t feel quite comfortable telling her that I fully trusted the police department,” said Leah Mayes.
“That’s a hard question, because I have little kids, and I’m trying to teach them that police officers are your friends,” Jessica Katz said. “What’s been going on lately just gives you a little bit of a pause.”
Portland State University sociologist Randy Blazak said police need to know they can’t get away with bad behavior, but they must also help the public understand their jobs by explaining to them how police are trained to eliminate a threat – not just by shooting an armed man in the leg.
“There is a real PR problem here, and the PR problem is the perception that the Portland police are unrestrained when it comes to violence,” Blazak said.
Jones said “we’re not very good at advertising or marketing ourselves, and I don’t know how to change that.”
For Jones, making daily connections with people in the community will have to do for now.
One other thing of note in the poll, 67 percent of Portland blacks said they don’t trust the Portland Police Bureau. For Hispanics, the number was 82 percent.
The trust level among whites was much higher.
http://www.katu.com/news/local/89096382.htmlMarch 24, 2010
NAPD officer reportedly made racist remarks
NAACP calls for review of officer’s arrests
By MATT THACKER
Matt.Thacker@newsandtribune.com
NEW ALBANY — The New Albany Police Department will require the entire department to go through diversity training after a police officer reportedly made racist comments during roll call on Jan. 22.
Nicole Yates, president of the New Albany chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said officers present at the roll call told her that Patrolman Jack Messer said “the worst thing they could have ever done is give African-Americans their civil rights.”
She said Messer also has insulted civil rights leaders, such as Jesse Jackson.
NAPD Chief Greg Crabtree said Messer’s comments “brought it to our attention” that so much time had elapsed since the last diversity training, but he would not say they are the reason for the training.
“We’re updating our training due to the fact it’s been eight to nine years,” Crabtree said. “I thought we had had it in the past year.”
Crabtree said he and Lt. Col. Mike Lawrence investigated what was said and spoke to all three supervisors present at the time the comments were made.
“We see no civil rights violation,” Crabtree said.
Yates said she spoke with Crabtree a few weeks ago and he said he was investigating the situation.
“It’s really disappointing,” Yates said of Messer’s comments. “We’d like to have a written apology and some type of discipline.”
Dustin White, legal redress for local NAACP chapters, says he would push for an internal investigation by the police department or prosecutor reviewing all of Messer’s arrests to see if there are any questionable cases or if his cases reflect any bias.
“They need to decide if that’s the type of police officer they want to have and whether that questions the integrity of the police force,” White said.
Crabtree said he has reviewed Messer’s record and determined “there wasn’t anything racially motivated.”
All department heads will receive training next month, and they will then pass it along to those working for them. White said the entire department should not have to go through training because of one officer’s racist comments.
“I don’t think this whole thing is a question of sensitivity or diversity training,” White said. “It’s a question of whether he thinks everyone should have civil rights according to the constitution.”
Messer is also a New Albany city councilman and is a Democrat. He has said he may switch parties, but White and Yates, both Democrats, reject any suggestion their criticism is politically motivated.
“This has nothing to do with politics,” White said. “My concern is with someone who’s sworn to uphold the Constitution believing civil rights don’t apply to everyone.”
Messer declined to comment for the article.
http://news-tribune.net/local/x769241892/NAPD-officer-reportedly-made-racist-remarks
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