Florida man gets US$37.5M settlement for being wrongfully arrested after cop mistook Krispy Kreme donut glaze for meth
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Friday, October 13, 2017 06:51 PM EDT | Updated: Friday, October 13, 2017 07:49 PM EDT
ORLANDO, Fla. — A man arrested in Florida after police mistook donut glaze in his car for meth has received a US$37,500 settlement.
Daniel Rushing told the Orlando Sentinel that he received a cheque last week from the city of Orlando.
Rushing was arrested in December 2015 when Cpl. Shelby Riggs-Hopkins spotted flakes of glaze on his car’s floorboard and thought they were pieces of crystal methamphetamine. Rushing told officers it was likely sugar from Krispy Kreme donuts he’d eaten, but roadside drug tests were positive for the illegal substance.
A state crime lab test cleared Rushing several weeks later, and he filed a lawsuit.
Orlando police ended up training more than 730 officers how to properly use the field-test kits.
Riggs-Hopkins was given a written reprimand for making an improper arrest.
Man arrested after cops mistook doughnut glaze for meth gets $37,500 from Orlando - Orlando Sentinel
Florida man gets US$37.5M settlement for being wrongfully arrested after cop mis
Ohio cop, seen on video punching unarmed black man, fired
Dake Kang, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Friday, October 13, 2017 07:09 PM EDT | Updated: Friday, October 13, 2017 07:18 PM EDT
CLEVELAND — A white police officer who punched an unarmed black man more than a dozen times during a traffic stop outside Cleveland was fired for use of excessive force and other rule violations, the town’s mayor said Friday.
Euclid Mayor Kirsten Holzheimer Gail said Officer Michael Amiott was dismissed for the Aug. 12 arrest of 25-year-old Richard Hubbard III. Dashcam video shows Amiott wrestling Hubbard to the ground within seconds of ordering him to “face away.”
Amiott had been suspended for 45 days without pay after an internal hearing in August and was fired two days before he would have been allowed to return. Gail said she received other complaints about Amiott’s behaviour after he was suspended.
“After a review, I found Amiott to have violated additional departmental rules, ... calling into serious question his suitability as a Euclid Police Officer,” Gail said.
Hubbard was charged with resisting arrest and driving under suspension after the incident, and his attorney said he hopes Amiott’s firing will help clear Hubbard’s name.
“Today’s a victory not only for my client, but for police accountability,” said attorney Christopher McNeal. “Bad cops not only endanger citizens and abuse constitutional rights, they also impugn the badge that every officer wears and undermines the credibility of the entire legal system.”
Amiott, police and Euclid’s police union didn’t immediately respond to calls and emails seeking comment.
Documents show Amiott violated police protocol by failing to tell Hubbard he was under arrest before grabbing him. Video and records show Amiott and Hubbard were tussling when Amiott’s partner shocked them both with a stun gun, sending them falling to the ground.
The video shows Amiott then punching Hubbard multiple times in the head as Hubbard raises his arms. Amiott said in a police report that Hubbard was “resisting in a violent manner”. Hubbard has said that he did not resist arrest, and that he held up his hands to deflect Amiott’s punches. Some of the punches came after it appeared that Hubbard had spread his arms out while passively lying on his stomach.
After Amiott handcuffed Hubbard, Amiott requested an ambulance and was advised to go to a hospital. Documents show that Hubbard requested treatment for his injuries twice but was told he didn’t need to be hospitalized and was jailed.
Cellphone video of Hubbard’s arrest was viewed more than 7 million times on Facebook. It sparked outrage across the country and inflamed racial tensions in Euclid, about 46 per cent white and 54 per cent black according to the 2010 census.
Other Euclid residents stepped forward after Hubbard’s arrest to express concern about Amiott’s conduct. Amiott received four letters of reprimand and one formal citizen complaint as a Euclid officer but was never disciplined beyond written citations. He was cited for pistol-whipping a driver with a handgun, mishandling evidence, losing his temper in front of his commanding officer and being involved in two crashes in police vehicles.
Amiott had earlier been allowed to resign rather than be fired from another suburban Cleveland department in April 2014 for lying to other officers about why he stopped a man for a suspended license. He was hired in Euclid five months later.
The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office has said it’s investigating the arrest and has conferred with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Cleveland.
Hubbard’s attorney has asked a judge to dismiss Hubbard’s charges.
[youtube]12y_twVJnbU[/youtube]
Ohio cop, seen on video punching unarmed black man, fired | World | News | Toron
OHHH! A cop was charged with SOMETHING? AND HOW IS THIS NEWS?
LIE-berals routinely CHARGE cops with many things- and then let them go after the trial reveals that the people complaining about cops are BOTH much DUMBER than either cops or LIE-berals and CRIMINALS to boot!
Consider this mess made by Black Lives Matter- only to LIE-berals:
Here is another article illustrating how far from the main stream of society are the values of Black Lives Matter reverse racists. These left wing bigots apparently don’t just hate cops- they hate the entire society they live in. With some comments of my own in brackets):
Protests after white ex-cop acquitted in killing of black man in St. Louis
(Lets get it straight and honest here- the guy WAS a cop ON DUTY when he encountered the black guy! He subsequently retired in disgust!)
JIM SALTER, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS.FIRST POSTED: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2017 10:48 AM EDT | UPDATED: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2017 11:26 AM EDT
ST. LOUIS — A white former police officer was acquitted Friday in the 2011 death of a black man who was fatally shot following a high-speed chase, and hundreds of demonstrators streamed into the streets of downtown St. Louis and later an upscale neighbourhood to protest the verdict that had stirred fears of civil unrest for weeks.
(Yeah, so what if a jury of the dead guys peers had listened to evidence presented by lawyers for both sides and considered it all carefully before deciding to acquit! A bunch of loud mouth reverse racists who hate everything about the society they live and have discovered that the louder they scream, the more govt grants and attention they get- have decided- before the verdict is even in and without bothering to review the full body of evidence- that justice would not be done- so rioting will somehow make it right! It would never occur to these goofs that They might be in the wrong!)
Ahead of the acquittal, activists had threatened civil disobedience if Jason Stockley were not convicted, including possible efforts to shut down highways. Barricades went up last month around police headquarters, the courthouse where the trial was held and other potential protest sites. Protesters were marching within hours of the decision.
(Gosh- BLM does not approve of white lynch mobs so what makes them convinced that black lynch mobs are more fair and just?)
More than a dozen arrests were made, and several officers were hurt as the day went on.
The case played out not far from the suburb of Ferguson, Missouri, which was the scene of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, the unarmed black 18-year-old who was killed by a white police officer in 2014. That officer was never charged and eventually resigned.
Stockley, who was charged with first-degree murder, insisted he saw 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith holding a gun and felt he was in imminent danger. Prosecutors said the officer planted a gun in Smith’s car after the shooting.
In an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch , Stockley said he understands how the video of him fatally shooting Smith looks bad to investigators and the public, but he said the optics have to be separated from the facts and he did nothing wrong.
“I can feel for and I understand what the family is going through, and I know everyone wants someone to blame, but I’m just not the guy,” he said.
Stockley, 36, asked the case to be decided by a judge instead of a jury. Prosecutors objected to his request for a bench trial.
“This court, in conscience, cannot say that the State has proven every element of murder beyond a reasonable doubt or that the State has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act in self-defence,” St. Louis Circuit Judge Timothy Wilson wrote in the decision .
In a written statement, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner acknowledged the difficulty of winning police shooting cases but said prosecutors believe they “offered sufficient evidence that proved beyond a reasonable doubt” that Stockley intended to kill Smith.
(And oh gosh- a judge listened to it all carefully and acquitted! The case was Not a clear winner for BLM goofs! And how odd that nobody wants to talk about the drug deal that attracted cops to the scene in the first place? Nor does anybody want to aks if the dead guy followed typical drug dealer habit and usually CARRIED a gun to his `business`?)
Assistant Circuit Attorney Robert Steele emphasized during the trial that police dashcam video of the chase captured Stockley saying he was “going to kill this (expletive), don’t you know it.”
Less than a minute later, the officer shot Smith five times. Stockley’s lawyer dismissed the comment as “human emotions” uttered during a dangerous police pursuit. The judge wrote that the statement “can be ambiguous depending on the context.”
Stockley, who left St. Louis’ police force in 2013 and moved to Houston, could have been sentenced to up to life in prison without parole.
The case was among several in recent years in which a white officer killed a black suspect. Officers were acquitted in recent police shooting trials in Minnesota, Oklahoma and Wisconsin. A case in Ohio twice ended with hung juries, and prosecutors have decided not to seek a third trial.
(In the Minnesota case the jury determined that the dead man- Castile was a stoner who forgot ALL the firearm training he had received before getting his license to carry a concealed weapon- and when subsequently pulled over for a traffic stop- he behaved so foolishly that the cop ended up shooting him in self defense! Sadly, Castile met the description of an armed robber that cops were searching for so he MAY not have been a harmless goof at all.)
(But then its often harder to identify an average black guy than a white one! Recently, Toronto media interviewed a cop about a homicide and got this description of the suspect: “he was a black male, slim build, about 5ft 8 inches”. No need to mention eye colour cause black people generally have brown eyes and no reason to discuss hair colour cause you are usually working with black and curly. This compares badly compared to a white guy with red hair and green eyes- or a blond guy with blue eyes. White guys come with a wider range of identifying details; so cops gave a harder time picking out and separating good and bad black guys! With the added handicap that the black guy being dealt with at one moment may NOT be the one you think he is- BUT he may very often have outstanding warrants for something else that the cop is not yet aware of and thus may respond with violence for reasons unknown to the cop!)
“It’s a sad day in St. Louis, and it’s a sad day to be an American,” the Rev. Clinton Stancil, a protest leader, said regarding the acquittal.
(Yes it is a very sad day that cops have to be so scared of armed bigots and criminals wandering around and willing to shoot it out with cops just doing their jobs!)
The crowd of protesters included blacks, whites and other races. Some people carried guns, which state law allows.
Efforts at civil disobedience were largely unsuccessful. When several demonstrators tried to rush onto Interstate 64, they were blocked on an entrance ramp by police cars and officers on bikes. When they tried to enter the city’s convention centre, the doors were locked.
At times, things escalated. Earlier in the day, protesters stood in front of a bus filled with officers in riot gear, blocking it from moving forward. When officers began pushing back the crowd, protesters resisted and police responded with pepper spray. Later, protesters surrounded a police vehicle and damaged it with rocks. Some in the crowd threw rocks and pieces of curbing at police who tried to secure the vehicle. That led to officers using pepper spray again.
As night came, hundreds of protesters moved to St. Louis’ upscale Central West End section, where they marched and chanted as people looked on from restaurants and hospital windows lining busy Kingshighway. The group tried marching onto I-64 again, but police blocked their path.
(And how does any of this public stupidity persuade politicians that the protestors have a valid claim? As opposed to the cop argument- accepted by much of the public- that too many black people are heavily armed criminally irresponsible powder kegs that will explode on contact with a cop as they seek to avoid arrest for outstanding warrants?)
Following a mostly silent sit-in, protesters resumed marching. Some demonstrators burned an American flag as others cheered.
After protesters broke a front window and splattered red paint at St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson’s home, police in bulletproof vests and helmets arrived and demanded they get off the lawn and out of the street in front of the house. Officers used tear gas to try to move the crowd out of the area.
Krewson had called for calm and understanding ahead of the verdict and later said she was appalled by what happened to Smith and “sobered” by the outcome.
Some journalists covering the protests said they were targets of threats and violence from demonstrators. A freelance Associated Press videographer said a protester threw his camera to the ground and damaged it. He said later he was using a different camera and protesters told him they would beat him if he didn’t put it away. A KTVI reporter said water bottles were thrown at him after a protester taunted him, drawing a crowd.
(OH Yes- justice and democracy are best served by armed goons who intimidate the media into silence whenever it suits them!)
The St. Louis area has a history of unrest in similar cases, including after Brown’s death, when protests, some of them violent, erupted.
(And here is yet more detail of the events leading up to the shooting of Smith):
In Smith’s case, the encounter began when Stockley and his partner tried to corner Smith in a fast-food restaurant parking lot after seeing what appeared to be a drug deal. Stockley testified that he saw what he believed was a gun, and his partner yelled “gun!” as Smith backed into the police SUV twice to get away.
Stockley’s attorney, Neil Bruntrager, argued that Smith tried to run over the two officers. Stockley fired seven shots as Smith sped away. A chase ensued.
(Is it not amusing that black leaders decry the drug culture that is gutting their neighbourhoods and yet they oppose cops actually trying to arrest what looks like a drug dealer? Just how muddled is black thought? And how `innocent` do you have to be to RAM a cop car TWICE before fleeing at high speed simply because cops want to talk to you?)
At the end of the chase, Stockley opened fire only when Smith, still in his car, refused commands to put up his hands and reached along the seat “in the area where the gun was,” Bruntrager said. Stockley said he climbed into Smith’s car and found a revolver between the centre console and passenger seat.
(I have said it before- black people just do not know how to behave in the presence of a cop. Too many of them want to roll the dice and shoot it out and hope for the best! And too many black goofs roll snake eyes and end up dead for it since they are usually drunk or stoned and thus not effective gun fighters!)
But prosecutors questioned why Stockley dug into a bag in the back seat of the police SUV before returning to Smith’s car.
The gun found in Smith’s car did not have his DNA on it, but it did have Stockley’s.
(OH my- should we ask if Smith had recently handled the gun while wearing gloves and later the cop HAD removed it from Smiths reach right after the shooting- thus getting cop DNA on it? Its just so damned easy to jump to conclusions if you have not sat through the trial! And nobody is explaining Why a cornered black guy would not get out of his vehicle when ordered? WAS he preparing to shoot it out with cops? Or simply seeking a chance to run over the cops and flee-AGAIN- and if this is true then it serves Smith right to be ventilated with cop bullets!)
And there is the entire problem with the BLM position- they want to prejudge and to punish cops for doing their jobs. Being a pimp or drug dealer or armed thug and fleeing felon is certainly a career choice but it is a choice that will eventually get you shot by cops just doing their job- the job the MAJORITY of us WANT DONE!)
Associated Press Writer Summer Ballentine contributed to this report.