Officer Friendly.

[milosz]

I hate cops as much as anyone short of Todd's crew in Breaking Bad, but all the story actually says is that they're taking them to a shooting range, not 'using them for target practice.' If you're looking for a place to put down an animal without getting in trouble for discharging your weapon in public, a shooting range probably looks like a reasonable solution. Cops are stupid, maybe they can't consider taking animals to a vet/etc. - or maybe they're prohibited from doing so.

If the cops are using animals for target practice, fuck them - but we don't have that info right now. If cops are doing a shitty job of euthanasia, fuck 'em again.

However, what 'animal rights activists' are up in arms about is the concept of using a gun to put down an animal (which they automatically link to 'target practice'), which is bullshit. The AVMA considers a gunshot to be a humane form of euthanasia if done right.

[DrDonkeyLove]

I hate cops as much as anyone short of Todd's crew in Breaking Bad, but all the story actually says is that they're taking them to a shooting range, not 'using them for target practice.' If you're looking for a place to put down an animal without getting in trouble for discharging your weapon in public, a shooting range probably looks like a reasonable solution. Cops are stupid, maybe they can't consider taking animals to a vet/etc. - or maybe they're prohibited from doing so.

If the cops are using animals for target practice, fuck them - but we don't have that info right now. If cops are doing a shitty job of euthanasia, fuck 'em again.

However, what 'animal rights activists' are up in arms about is the concept of using a gun to put down an animal (which they automatically link to 'target practice'), which is bullshit. The AVMA considers a gunshot to be a humane form of euthanasia if done right.

Might be doing a difficult and unpleasant kindness to these animals. More needs to be discovered before I release any new hate.

[Protobuilder]

It says the law states they can put them down if they are "too severely injured to move or where a veterinarian is not available and it would be more humane to dispose of the animal."

The odds that the cops tried to find the lawful owners, then tried to find a veterinarian then used their extensive training to determine that recovery was unlikely before loading an immobile animal in their car to drive them out of town to drop a few bullets in them would have to be fairly long.

[Schlegel]

NYPD shoots bystanders. Again.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/sho ... z2eyBcZ6zA

A dozen cops on ONE unarmed guy and they still can't take him without shooting innocent pedestrians?
They hit bystanders twice with bullets, without ever managing to shoot their target.

Video of completely ineffectual cops at the link. I guess the Academy doesn't teach unarmed takedowns anymore?
Anyway, after a while they get tired of standing around shooting New Yorkers and remember that they were all issued Tasers.

[The Crawdaddy]

The hits keep coming...
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/15/justice/n ... index.html

Jeeze. Take half a dealing heartbeat to think before you shoot some poor bastard.

[Cave Canem]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMDIK4bOpwk[/youtube]

The cop was involved in 7 shootings (6 fatal) in 10 years but he's a "good" cop.
My neighbor just retired after 20+ years with the NYPD, never fired a shot outside the range.

[Batboy2/75]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMDIK4bOpwk[/youtube]

The cop was involved in 7 shootings (6 fatal) in 10 years but he's a "good" cop.
My neighbor just retired after 20+ years with the NYPD, never fired a shot outside the range.

Prosecutors, Law enforcement, & Politicians; the troika that's bringing you legalized citizen muder.

Why? Because they can and they are more equal than the rest of us peons. Don't expect Justice from a group that has carved out special rights and privedges for themselves.

[Turdacious]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxMKjR5vJ_Y[/youtube]

An off-duty Richland County sheriff's deputy is in hot water after allegedly assaulting a woman, handcuffing her and slamming her head into a table at a Columbia restaurant on Monday.

Columbia police arrested 49-year-old Deputy Paul Allen Derrick at Buffalo Wild Wings on Devine Street and charged him with assault.

The veteran deputy, 49-year-old Paul Derrick, was placed on leave without pay after he was arrested following the October 7 incident at Buffalo Wild Wings on Devine Street.

According to a Columbia Police Department incident report, around 11 p.m. Derrick approached a female soldier from Fort Jackson who appeared to be upset. The report states 23-year-old Brittany Ball showed no interest in Derrick and the two started arguing.

Police say Derrick, who was not in uniform and was drinking alcohol, left the restaurant and returned with handcuffs he retrieved from his vehicle.

Derrick overpowered Ball, handcuffed her, pulled her to her feet, and slammed her head into a metal table, the report states. Ball, according to the report, was also drinking alcohol.

http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/236869 ... ier-at-bar

Kudos to the PD for handling this appropriately.

[Blaidd Drwg]

Derrick overpowered Ball, handcuffed her, pulled her to her feet, and slammed her head into a metal table, the report states. Ball, according to the report, was also drinking alcohol.

Officer friendly is not into foreplay.

[Bud Charniga's grape ape]

San Francisco cops just wanna party:

SFPD sergeant arrested on DUI, hit and run

A San Francisco police sergeant has been arrested on suspicion of drunken driving and hit and run after he allegedly crashed his private vehicle into a parked car in the Sunset District while he was off duty, authorities said Thursday.

S.F. cop accused of spending on-duty hours at home

Most of Officer Ronald Gehrke's neighbors liked seeing his police cruiser parked outside his house near San Francisco's Lake Merced. It made them feel safe.

Trouble was, his bosses thought he and his cruiser were over in the Inner Sunset District, where the 19-year police veteran was supposed to be walking a beat.

[powerlifter54]

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/201 ... g_say.html

Referees arrested at Friday night game 'did nothing wrong,' president of officials association says


The president of the Louisiana High School Officials Association said Monday that the two referees arrested on public intimidation charges during Friday night's Mandeville at St. Paul's game are "very well-respected," and he is "extremely disappointed" by the actions taken by the Covington Police Department.

Bryan Greenwood, who has led the LHSOA since its inception five years ago, said both head referee Jim Radcliffe and line judge Chris Gambino, who were released Saturday morning from St. Tammany Parish Jail on $250 bond each, followed protocol in trying to have Mandeville fans removed from the sideline area. He said the officials were "arrested for performing their duties and doing their jobs."

The incident began Friday night midway through the third quarter, as Gambino officiated along the Mandeville sideline. He approached Covington police Lt. Stephen Short, who was one of several police officers hired by St. Paul's to work the game, to ask for help in escorting several fans, who did not have sideline credentials, back into the area of the stands.

Several witnesses, all of whom except for one asked to not be identified, said Gambino was not satisfied with the way the situation was handled by Short, and things escalated from there. Mandeville Skippers Booster Club President Jim Treuting, who said he was on the sideline "about five feet" from where the incident took place, said Gambino never asked anyone on the sideline to move back, instead going directly to Short. At some point, Gambino became upset and told Short he would "throw him out, and 'get out, now.' "

"You don't say that to a cop who wasn't off-base in the demeanor he had until that was said to him" by Gambino, Treuting said.

It was then that Short, who has a son who plays for the Mandeville High football team, seemed to lose his patience, telling Gambino, "You better watch what you're doing," Treuting said. "The white hat (Radcliffe) comes over and then starts the confrontation again, even to the point where it looked like he was daring (Short) to arrest him. He turned around, put his hands up and said, 'Go ahead, arrest me.'

"From my perspective, I wondered what these guys were doing," Treuting said. "I don't think the officer at that point in time had any choice but to arrest him."

Greenwood said he has spoken to both Gambino and Radcliffe and has concluded that "they have done nothing wrong." He said that under National Federation of State High School Association and Louisiana High School Athletic Association rules, once the game begins, a game official has "complete authority to remove whoever he needs to from (the sideline), the stands or anywhere else within the confines of the stadium."

Calls to the Covington Police Department and city administrators, including Mayor Mike Cooper, were not returned by Monday evening. Capt. Jack West, interim chief of the Covington Police Department, was not at work Monday, according to a dispatcher.

Short, the arresting officer listed on the police report for both Gambino and Radcliffe, was a candidate for Covington police chief after Richard Palmisano was fired in April. Meanwhile, as the arrest was taking place on Friday evening, West was in uniform next to Short.

The city will swear in Tim Lentz as police chief on Tuesday night at the Covington City Council meeting.

Louisiana Statute 14:122, titled, "Public Intimidation and Retaliation," states: "Public intimidation is the use of violence, force or threats upon any (public official, among others), with the intent to influence his conduct in relation to his position, employment or duty."

Treuting said he could not hear the entire context of the confrontation between the referees and Short, but neither he nor the other witnesses who asked to remain anonymous ever claimed to hear Gambino or Radcliffe threaten anyone except when Gambino told Short he wanted him ejected from the sideline.

Greenwood said neither Radcliffe nor Gambino was aware of Short's relationship to the Mandeville High football team when the incident took place Friday night. It also is unclear why there were unauthorized personnel in such close proximity to the field when there is a fence that separates the stands from the field area.

"We've never had this issue before," Greenwood said. "We've always worked hand-in-hand with law enforcement, and they have always been real good at moving people back. I had to do a lot of research, and I found one case in 1992 where there was something similar to this that occurred at a basketball game. Other than that, there's no precedent for this at all."

Gambino "asked (Short) to remove those people and move them back to a farther distance and move them into the stands where they belonged," Greenwood said. "I don't know what his tone was, I don't know any of those things, but it doesn't really matter.

Radcliffe and Gambino, who have 64 combined years of service as game officials, will continue to officiate games. In fact, Radcliffe worked the Brother Martin-St. Augustine game the day after his arrest.

"They absolutely will continue to work with us," Greenwood said. "They have done nothing wrong, and it is not going to affect them with our organization in any way."

St. Paul's defeated Mandeville, 20-3, in the District 6-5A game. It was the Wolves' 32nd consecutive district victory.

Jim Derry can be reached at [email protected] or 985.373.6482. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/JimDerryJr.

[powerlifter54]

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/201 ... g_say.html

Referees arrested at Friday night game 'did nothing wrong,' president of officials association says


The president of the Louisiana High School Officials Association said Monday that the two referees arrested on public intimidation charges during Friday night's Mandeville at St. Paul's game are "very well-respected," and he is "extremely disappointed" by the actions taken by the Covington Police Department.

Bryan Greenwood, who has led the LHSOA since its inception five years ago, said both head referee Jim Radcliffe and line judge Chris Gambino, who were released Saturday morning from St. Tammany Parish Jail on $250 bond each, followed protocol in trying to have Mandeville fans removed from the sideline area. He said the officials were "arrested for performing their duties and doing their jobs."

The incident began Friday night midway through the third quarter, as Gambino officiated along the Mandeville sideline. He approached Covington police Lt. Stephen Short, who was one of several police officers hired by St. Paul's to work the game, to ask for help in escorting several fans, who did not have sideline credentials, back into the area of the stands.

Several witnesses, all of whom except for one asked to not be identified, said Gambino was not satisfied with the way the situation was handled by Short, and things escalated from there. Mandeville Skippers Booster Club President Jim Treuting, who said he was on the sideline "about five feet" from where the incident took place, said Gambino never asked anyone on the sideline to move back, instead going directly to Short. At some point, Gambino became upset and told Short he would "throw him out, and 'get out, now.' "

"You don't say that to a cop who wasn't off-base in the demeanor he had until that was said to him" by Gambino, Treuting said.

It was then that Short, who has a son who plays for the Mandeville High football team, seemed to lose his patience, telling Gambino, "You better watch what you're doing," Treuting said. "The white hat (Radcliffe) comes over and then starts the confrontation again, even to the point where it looked like he was daring (Short) to arrest him. He turned around, put his hands up and said, 'Go ahead, arrest me.'

"From my perspective, I wondered what these guys were doing," Treuting said. "I don't think the officer at that point in time had any choice but to arrest him."

Greenwood said he has spoken to both Gambino and Radcliffe and has concluded that "they have done nothing wrong." He said that under National Federation of State High School Association and Louisiana High School Athletic Association rules, once the game begins, a game official has "complete authority to remove whoever he needs to from (the sideline), the stands or anywhere else within the confines of the stadium."

Calls to the Covington Police Department and city administrators, including Mayor Mike Cooper, were not returned by Monday evening. Capt. Jack West, interim chief of the Covington Police Department, was not at work Monday, according to a dispatcher.

Short, the arresting officer listed on the police report for both Gambino and Radcliffe, was a candidate for Covington police chief after Richard Palmisano was fired in April. Meanwhile, as the arrest was taking place on Friday evening, West was in uniform next to Short.

The city will swear in Tim Lentz as police chief on Tuesday night at the Covington City Council meeting.

Louisiana Statute 14:122, titled, "Public Intimidation and Retaliation," states: "Public intimidation is the use of violence, force or threats upon any (public official, among others), with the intent to influence his conduct in relation to his position, employment or duty."

Treuting said he could not hear the entire context of the confrontation between the referees and Short, but neither he nor the other witnesses who asked to remain anonymous ever claimed to hear Gambino or Radcliffe threaten anyone except when Gambino told Short he wanted him ejected from the sideline.

Greenwood said neither Radcliffe nor Gambino was aware of Short's relationship to the Mandeville High football team when the incident took place Friday night. It also is unclear why there were unauthorized personnel in such close proximity to the field when there is a fence that separates the stands from the field area.

"We've never had this issue before," Greenwood said. "We've always worked hand-in-hand with law enforcement, and they have always been real good at moving people back. I had to do a lot of research, and I found one case in 1992 where there was something similar to this that occurred at a basketball game. Other than that, there's no precedent for this at all."

Gambino "asked (Short) to remove those people and move them back to a farther distance and move them into the stands where they belonged," Greenwood said. "I don't know what his tone was, I don't know any of those things, but it doesn't really matter.

Radcliffe and Gambino, who have 64 combined years of service as game officials, will continue to officiate games. In fact, Radcliffe worked the Brother Martin-St. Augustine game the day after his arrest.

"They absolutely will continue to work with us," Greenwood said. "They have done nothing wrong, and it is not going to affect them with our organization in any way."

St. Paul's defeated Mandeville, 20-3, in the District 6-5A game. It was the Wolves' 32nd consecutive district victory.

Jim Derry can be reached at [email protected] or 985.373.6482. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/JimDerryJr.

[Blaidd Drwg]

DALLAS, TX — Disturbing video evidence contradicts a pair of Dallas police officers in their account of shooting a supposedly knife-wielding man. A residential surveillance camera shows the mentally ill man standing in the middle of a cul-du-sac, with his arms hanging at his sides, making no motions towards officers, when they shot him for no apparent reason.

On Monday, October 14, two Dallas police officers pulled into a cul-du-sac to deal with a man who was seen sitting in a rolling swivel chair in the middle of a neighborhood cul-du-sac. The man was 52-year-old Bobby Gerald Bennett, who lived on the street and allegedly suffered from mental illness — schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

The two officers parked their car and walked toward the man. Bennett can be seen on video rolling his chair about ten feet backwards and then standing straight up. Video of the incident shows that his arms were at his sides and he was just standing, facing officers from a distance of roughly 15 feet.

Officer Cardan Spencer raised his gun and shot Bennett 4 times in the abdomen. Bennett collapsed to the ground.

The officers had been on the scene for only a matter of seconds before killing Bennett. The video documents it all. At roughly 0:05 the officers emerge from their vehicle and casually walk toward Bennett as he sat in his chair. At 0:17, Bennett stands up and the officer raises his weapon. At 0:22, Bennett was on the ground.

It took officers about 17 seconds to shoot Bennett.

All of this took place in front of onlooking neighbors and surrounded by houses, one of which had a camera fixed on the street.

A police report states that Bennett walked toward Spencer and his partner with a “knife raised in an aggressive manner.”

But the video does not appear support their claim.

Disregard voice over.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bovryt6l1aw[/youtube]

[Bud Charniga's grape ape]

Oh Dallas, you shine with an evil light.

[Turdacious]

The Miami Police officer who was fired after he was arrested for speeding down the Florida Turnpike at 120 mph is trying to get his job back, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.

Fausto Lopez attended an arbitration hearing Tuesday, where he said Miami Police Chief Manuel Orosa promised him he wouldn't be fired following his reckless driving arrest.

"For someone to suggest that I drove willfully or wantonly is irresponsible," Lopez said, according to the Sun Sentinel. "For someone like me who has children, I don't want to jeopardize anybody else. An allegation that I was driving recklessly is incorrect."

Orosa called Lopez "the Michael Jordan of speeding" and said when Lopez asked him whether he'd be fired, Orosa told him "It depends on what happens in your criminal case. You should talk to your attorney about it."

Lopez, who was pulled over at gunpoint by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper on Oct. 11, 2011, was fired last September after he pleaded no contest and was ordered to do 100 hours of community service and pay $3,300 for the cost of prosecution.

Lopez, 36, had initially been suspended for a month but an official reprimand from Orosa noted he had been recorded speeding some 53 times on South Florida highways in September and October 2011.

http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/Speeding-M ... 25951.html

[Turdacious]

There was a time, back when manual transmissions were the only option and the slightest incline could potentially transform any car into an unstoppable projectile, when it made sense to have a law requiring drivers to use their parking brake.

Those days have long since passed. Automatic transmissions are now almost universal, and putting a car in park is a perfectly adequate defense against runaway vehicles.

Texas law has not kept up with the times. The provision requiring drivers to set the parking brake on any unattended vehicle remains on the books, which means that it's fair game for the opportunistic cop whose ticket book is burning a hole in his pocket.

Fort Worth PD has at least a couple of such cops. NBC 5 reports that, in the early morning hours of August 24, seven or eight cars in the Chadwick Farms neighborhood of Fort Worth were ticketed for failure to apply the parking brake.

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairp ... cketin.php

[TerryB]

DALLAS, TX — Disturbing video evidence contradicts a pair of Dallas police officers in their account of shooting a supposedly knife-wielding man. A residential surveillance camera shows the mentally ill man standing in the middle of a cul-du-sac, with his arms hanging at his sides, making no motions towards officers, when they shot him for no apparent reason.

On Monday, October 14, two Dallas police officers pulled into a cul-du-sac to deal with a man who was seen sitting in a rolling swivel chair in the middle of a neighborhood cul-du-sac. The man was 52-year-old Bobby Gerald Bennett, who lived on the street and allegedly suffered from mental illness — schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

The two officers parked their car and walked toward the man. Bennett can be seen on video rolling his chair about ten feet backwards and then standing straight up. Video of the incident shows that his arms were at his sides and he was just standing, facing officers from a distance of roughly 15 feet.

Officer Cardan Spencer raised his gun and shot Bennett 4 times in the abdomen. Bennett collapsed to the ground.

The officers had been on the scene for only a matter of seconds before killing Bennett. The video documents it all. At roughly 0:05 the officers emerge from their vehicle and casually walk toward Bennett as he sat in his chair. At 0:17, Bennett stands up and the officer raises his weapon. At 0:22, Bennett was on the ground.

It took officers about 17 seconds to shoot Bennett.

All of this took place in front of onlooking neighbors and surrounded by houses, one of which had a camera fixed on the street.

A police report states that Bennett walked toward Spencer and his partner with a “knife raised in an aggressive manner.”

But the video does not appear support their claim.

Disregard voice over.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bovryt6l1aw[/youtube]

What's the problem? We should be thankful these men and women in blue put their lives on the line every day to protect and serve. They never know if they'll go home alive or in a box.

[JimZipCode]

Deputies kill boy, 13, who was carrying fake rifle
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Son ... 918346.php

(10-23) 09:23 PDT SANTA ROSA -- Sonoma County sheriff's deputies shot and killed a 13-year-old boy Tuesday who was carrying what turned out to be a fake rifle in Santa Rosa, authorities and acquaintances of the boy said.
Andy Lopez died at the scene of the shooting near Moorland and West Robles avenues after being shot while carrying toy gun that belonged to a friend, friends said Wednesday.
The incident began about 3 p.m. when two deputies on patrol saw a "male subject" walking in the area with what appeared to be a rifle, said sheriff's Lt. Dennis O'Leary.
The deputies called for backup and ordered him to drop the rifle, O'Leary said.
"At some point immediately thereafter, the deputies fired several rounds from their handguns at the subject, striking him several times," O'Leary said.
He fell to the ground and "landed on top of the rifle he was carrying," O'Leary said.
Deputies told him to move away from the rifle and handcuffed him, O'Leary said.
The deputies called for paramedics after determining that he was unresponsive, authorities said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Deputies determined that the rifle was a "replica of an assault weapon" and that he also had a plastic handgun in his waistband, O'Leary said.

[Batboy2/75]

DALLAS, TX — Disturbing video evidence contradicts a pair of Dallas police officers in their account of shooting a supposedly knife-wielding man. A residential surveillance camera shows the mentally ill man standing in the middle of a cul-du-sac, with his arms hanging at his sides, making no motions towards officers, when they shot him for no apparent reason.

On Monday, October 14, two Dallas police officers pulled into a cul-du-sac to deal with a man who was seen sitting in a rolling swivel chair in the middle of a neighborhood cul-du-sac. The man was 52-year-old Bobby Gerald Bennett, who lived on the street and allegedly suffered from mental illness — schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

The two officers parked their car and walked toward the man. Bennett can be seen on video rolling his chair about ten feet backwards and then standing straight up. Video of the incident shows that his arms were at his sides and he was just standing, facing officers from a distance of roughly 15 feet.

Officer Cardan Spencer raised his gun and shot Bennett 4 times in the abdomen. Bennett collapsed to the ground.

The officers had been on the scene for only a matter of seconds before killing Bennett. The video documents it all. At roughly 0:05 the officers emerge from their vehicle and casually walk toward Bennett as he sat in his chair. At 0:17, Bennett stands up and the officer raises his weapon. At 0:22, Bennett was on the ground.

It took officers about 17 seconds to shoot Bennett.

All of this took place in front of onlooking neighbors and surrounded by houses, one of which had a camera fixed on the street.

A police report states that Bennett walked toward Spencer and his partner with a “knife raised in an aggressive manner.”

But the video does not appear support their claim.

Disregard voice over.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bovryt6l1aw[/youtube]

What's the problem? We should be thankful these men and women in blue put their lives on the line every day to protect and serve. They never know if they'll go home alive or in a box.

Nothing will change as long as the sheeple continue to do nothing when the Statist Criminal Troika (Police, Procecutors and Politicians) openly commit crimes and cover up them up. They don't see themselves as servants. Quite the opposite; they are above the rule of law and they know it.

Those two subhuman pieces of shit in blue will never spend a day in jail. In a just society they'd be swinging from a rope. They may lose their membership card to boys in blue statist club, but they'll be taken care of by thier little mafia friends.

I openly tell LEO family members, friends and acquaintances that I view their profession with contempt. They calim it's only a few bad apples. I call BS. However, if it is only a few bad apples within their ranks, why are they so willing to cover up and protect their own at the expense of the public? Strippers have more integrity and honor than your average cop. At least they don't hide their degeneracy.

[baffled]

Three students were injured Wednesday morning after the "accidental discharge" of a police weapon during a safety presentation at a Chino elementary school, police said.

The students -- whose ages were not immediately known -- suffered what were believed to be minor injuries and were taken to an area hospital as a precaution, said Tamrin Olden, crime prevention supervisor for the Chino Police Department. Additional information about their injuries were not immediately known.

"We're still sorting out the extent of the injuries and how it happened," Olden said.

Olden said the incident occurred about 11:15 a.m. during a "Red Ribbon Week" safety presentation at Newman Elementary School.

Calls to a district spokeswoman were not immediately returned. The school referred questions to Chino police.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... z2iTxce83H

[Turdacious]

Three students were injured Wednesday morning after the "accidental discharge" of a police weapon during a safety presentation at a Chino elementary school, police said.

The students -- whose ages were not immediately known -- suffered what were believed to be minor injuries and were taken to an area hospital as a precaution, said Tamrin Olden, crime prevention supervisor for the Chino Police Department. Additional information about their injuries were not immediately known.

"We're still sorting out the extent of the injuries and how it happened," Olden said.

Olden said the incident occurred about 11:15 a.m. during a "Red Ribbon Week" safety presentation at Newman Elementary School.

Calls to a district spokeswoman were not immediately returned. The school referred questions to Chino police.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... z2iTxce83H

At least he saved them from the squirrel.

[Protobuilder]

Three students were injured Wednesday morning after the "accidental discharge" of a police weapon during a safety presentation at a Chino elementary school, police said.

The students -- whose ages were not immediately known -- suffered what were believed to be minor injuries and were taken to an area hospital as a precaution, said Tamrin Olden, crime prevention supervisor for the Chino Police Department. Additional information about their injuries were not immediately known.

"We're still sorting out the extent of the injuries and how it happened," Olden said.

Olden said the incident occurred about 11:15 a.m. during a "Red Ribbon Week" safety presentation at Newman Elementary School.

Calls to a district spokeswoman were not immediately returned. The school referred questions to Chino police.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... z2iTxce83H

This is what happens when you have gun-free zones. The kids should have been armed and able to return fire.

[TerryB]

This Radley Balko fellow is alright.

October 24, 2013

This article is the first in a six-part series about the drug war and police reform.

OGDEN, Utah -- It's late summer, and the house at 3268 Jackson Ave. has been boarded up for months. The front door, riddled with bullet holes, is pasted over with police tape and a "No Trespassing" sign. As Erna Stewart pries open the door, shards of glass from the edges of its already shattered window fall to the ground.

The air inside is stale and hard to breathe. Belongings are strewn about. There's a dusty television, an answering machine, a computer printer still in its box, some video games stacked on bookshelves. The police have ripped up sections of floor that had been soaked with blood, leaving a scar in the bathroom and another in the kitchen.

More bullet holes call out from all sides: the walls, the doors, the ceiling, the floor, the windows, the molding, the kitchen cabinets. Two of the bullets hit the brick siding of a neighbor's house. One pierced a bedroom window. The trail of damage leads out to the pock-marked backyard and the shed where Erna's brother-in-law, Matthew, attempted to take refuge.

Between 130 and 250 bullets were fired in all, according to various accounts, an arsenal's worth. A cleaning service recently found a bullet while vacuuming.

In the basement, in a small room to the left of the stairs, there's a large pile of tubing and plastic containers. It's here that Matthew David Stewart, a 37-year-old Army veteran, committed the crime that precipitated the armed raid on his home -- an assault that left one police officer dead and five others wounded, and eventually led to Stewart's death as well. It's here that he grew marijuana.

Michael Stewart says his son, a former paratrooper, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety, and may have been self-medicating. Others have suggested that he smoked pot to alleviate his shyness and social awkwardness. Perhaps the pot was simply for pleasure. There were 16 plants in all. But there is no evidence that he ever sold the drug, and there were no complaints from neighbors.

Still, on the night of Jan. 4, 2011, 12 members of the Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force assembled in the parking lot of the church across the street from Stewart's house. At 8:30 p.m., according to a neighbor, they exchanged high-fives. Then they broke down Stewart's door with a battering ram.

The police claim to have knocked and announced themselves several times. But Stewart said he never heard them. He worked the graveyard shift at a local Walmart and was asleep at the time. Awaking to the sound of armed men storming into his house, he jumped out of bed, naked, threw on a bathrobe and grabbed his 9-millimeter Beretta.

Who shot first remains in dispute. But after exchanging fire with the officers for about 20 minutes, Stewart dove out a bedroom window and attempted to take shelter in the shed behind his house. The police opened fire on the shed, "lighting it up," as one officer later put it. Stewart, who had been shot in the arm and the hip, crawled out and surrendered.

One of the members of the strike force, Jared Francom, 30, had been shot seven times, and died at the scene. Stewart was arrested, taken to the hospital for his injuries, and charged with murder.


Weber County Attorney Dee Smith speaks during a news conference Friday, May 24, 2013, in Ogden, Utah.
Francum's death elicited a wave of "cop killer" outrage directed at Stewart. Eight days after the raid, Weber County Attorney Dee Smith announced that he'd be seeking the death penalty. As more details emerged, however, a growing chorus of critics began to question whether the aggressive police tactics had really been necessary, and whether the battle on Jackson Avenue could have been avoided entirely.

An editorial in the Salt Lake Tribune asked why the police decided to wage "a military-style attack on a small-time weed grower." The editors of Ogden's Standard-Examiner expressed similar concerns over "beefed-up police tactics" and called for a "re-evaluation of how local law enforcement handles its duties, particularly concerning raids and late-night police procedures."

"It’s very clear that middle-of-the-night arrest warrant servings by armed officers need to be reconsidered," the editors wrote.

In the months following the raid, a number of other controversial police actions hit the news. Police in Salt Lake City broke into the home of a 76-year-old woman during a mistaken drug raid. A SWAT team in Ogden went to the wrong address in search of a man who had gone AWOL from the Army and ended up pointing its guns at an innocent family of four. Two narcotics detectives shot and killed a young woman in a suburb of Salt Lake City as she sat in her car.

Together, these incidents have spawned a budding police reform movement in Utah. At the head of it, Stewart's family members have been joined by a political odd couple: Jesse Fruhwirth, a longtime progressive activist rabble-rouser, and Connor Boyack, a wonky libertarian with a background in Republican politics. And independently, in Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County, the police chief and lead prosecutor have already begun to adopt some unconventional, reform-minded approaches to crime and punishment.

That Utah, one of the most conservative states in the country, would become a hotbed for police reform, is surprising. But these reformers have carefully crafted their approach, honed a message that seems to be resonating with the community, and won over some early converts. As botched raids and excessive SWAT-style tactics have gained increasing notoriety around the country, other communities may soon be looking to Utah as a model for less aggressive but more effective approaches to public safety.

* * * * *
The tip about the marijuana plants came from an ex-girlfriend of Stewart's named Stacy Wilson. They had dated for about a year and a half but broke up in the summer of 2010. Erna Stewart introduced them. "I still feel guilty about that," she says. "He caught her cheating on him, they broke up, and it ended really badly. She was angry with him. He was heartbroken. She tried to get him fired from his job. She really had it out for him."

Wilson reported Stewart to a tip line that the Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force, a federally funded anti-drug task force that serves both counties, set up to collect information about illicit drugs.


In a bus ad promoting the initiative, the strike force members pose in full SWAT attire: armor, face masks, camouflage and guns. The tip line number is at the top of the ad, along with a plea for citizens to report "drug abuse," a term more often associated with drug use than with distribution. Below the photo, the ad reads, "We've got your back!"

According to police documents, Wilson called the tip line in November 2010, two months before the raid, and spoke with Officer Jason Vanderwarf. Vanderwarf visited Stewart's house three times, but no one answered. After finding what he described as signs of a marijuana grow, however, he filed an affidavit to get the warrant.

That appears to be the extent of the investigation. The police never ran a background check on Wilson to assess her credibility. In fact, after their initial conversation, Vanderwarf said that he was "unable to contact her." He later told investigators that "She kinda fell off the face of the earth."

Neither Wilson nor officials from the Ogden Police Department and Weber County Sheriff's Department responded to requests for comment.

There was also no investigation of Stewart himself, and the warrant makes no mention of any evidence that Stewart had ever sold drugs. The Salt Lake Tribune later obtained a threat assessment document -- the criteria some police departments use to determine whether to send a SWAT team, or to ask a judge for a no-knock warrant. For Stewart's case, all of the criteria -- the presence of dogs, weapons, surveillance and "other" factors -- were listed as "unknown."

As a result, when the members of the strike force moved on Stewart's house, they weren't wearing bulletproof armor or carrying the ballistic shields and powerful rifles typically used in SWAT raids.

"I don't think they thought anyone was living there," Erna Stewart says. "They called it a 'low-level' raid."

A few months earlier, Stewart's brother Gabriel -- his roommate at the time -- and some friends had gotten into an altercation at a party. The other men had followed Gabriel Stewart back to the house, where the fracas continued. After someone called the police, the men left -- but they promised to come back to burn down the house.

Matthew David Stewart played no part in the altercation, and he was asleep when it happened. But Gabriel told him about the threat later. "I think it may have been in his head when he woke up the night he was raided," Erna Stewart says.

Statements by Matthew David Stewart's neighbors support his assertion that he didn't know police officers were in his house. They told Stewart's attorneys and the local media that they heard gunshots first, then lots of yelling, but never any police announcement.

Photos of the police taken after the raid show strike force members wearing dark, dingy clothes. Some are wearing black hoodies. One is wearing a Cheech & Chong t-shirt. The police say the raid team wore bulletproof vests that clearly identified them as police, and removed them after the raid, before the photos were taken. But there's evidence that at least some of the officers weren't. One police dashcam video, for example, shows several of them scrambling back to their cars to get their vests after the shooting begins.

What is clear, however, is that if instead of raiding the house, the police had simply arrested Stewart as he was leaving to go to work, or as he was coming home, or even at his job at Walmart, there would have been two fewer funerals in Ogden.

* * * * *

Before the raid, Erna Stewart, 31, had considered becoming a cop. "I had done some ride alongs. I had bought my own gun, and I knew how to clean it. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and I thought I'd either be a police officer or a personal trainer."

She's now a personal trainer. "It wasn't even the raid itself that turned me off to cops," she says. "It was the way they treated my family after it happened. We got hate mail from cops and their families. I mean, the way we were treated in the community ... it just made me jaded. And angry."

It also motivated her. Soon after the raid, Erna quickly became the family's liaison to the press, and she's since become a leading advocate of reform.

In the days and weeks after the raid, the task force, the district attorney and other Weber County officials began to malign Matthew David Stewart in the media. A "source close to the investigation" first told the Ogden Standard-Examiner that police had found a picture of Stewart "dressed as a terrorist," and "posing in a suicide bomber's vest" in the house. The police reported that they had found a bomb in Stewart's closet and child pornography on his computer.

Matthew David Stewart during the third day of his preliminary trial at Second District Courthouse in Ogden on Nov. 2, 2012.
He was portrayed as a violent, anti-government extremist. Wilson, his ex-girlfriend, told investigators that Stewart had once told her that if the police ever came for his marijuana plants, he'd "go out in a blaze," and he'd "go out shooting." She claimed that he didn't believe the federal government had the authority to collect taxes, and that he had told her of plans to shoot up the IRS after he lost his job there working as a security guard.

Family members say that Stewart was a government skeptic who could sometimes indulge in conspiracy theories, but that Wilson and the police's portrayal of Matthew was an exaggeration.

"I know the drug war really bothered him," his father Michael says.

"He was passionate about the way the government was going. He didn't like it," Erna adds. "I remember he was really upset about what Obama was doing with indefinite detention. But he was never volatile about it. I think he just internalized it. It made him sad."

In one postcard he sent to his sister from jail, Stewart cautioned her against vaccinating her son, because, he explained, he didn't trust pharmaceutical companies. In another, he told her that despite his depression, he refused to take anti-depressants. He didn't trust them or the companies that made them.

Michael Stewart, a private investigator, says his son lost his security job for accessing IRS computers without authorization. "He worked the night shifts. He got bored. So he started surfing the web on the computers inside. He probably accessed some conspiracy websites," Stewart says. "That's what got him fired."


Sonja Stewart holds pictures of her son Matthew David Stewart.
"He would sometimes go on the Internet and read sites like Infowars. He'd start to question things like how 9/11 happened. I would get on him about it, because it always put him in a bad mood," Erna Stewart says. "But he never expressed any desire to hurt anyone."

The photo of Stewart dressed as a terrorist was actually him posing in an Osama bin Laden Halloween costume, his family says. Regarding the bomb that police allegedly found in a closet, an agent from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms later told the Salt Lake Tribune, "to characterize it as a bomb or device is not accurate."

"He and his brother were trying to build smoke flares once. Remember, they were in the Army," Erna Stewart says. "So he probably had some chemicals to make smoke flares. That's probably what it was."

"Matt was really shy. He was introverted. A little nerdy. You could tell he was a child of the 80s," she says. "He wore his jeans up high, he liked video games and fantasy novels. We'd give him a hard time about it. Socially, he didn't have a lot of friends. But once he felt comfortable, he was the sweetest guy."

Stewart didn't do well in jail. Judging by the letters he wrote to his family, his mood clearly darkened as the months wore on. The jail conditions, the way the public perceived him, and the isolation began to break him down. At one point, the extremely fit former paratrooper told one of his sisters that he had quit exercising.

"Everyone says I'm looking great in the newspaper pictures of me. I see a man that was betrayed by someone he thought he loved, who's [sic] world was destroyed, where everything he once cared about was stolen from him, everything he found holy was defiled," he wrote. "Now he is locked in a box away from those he loves, with the worst weight on his shoulders."

In May, a judge ruled that the search warrant for Stewart's home and the raid were both legal -- a huge setback for Stewart's argument that he was acting in self defense. A little over a week later, at 12:50 a.m. on a Friday morning, a guard found Stewart hanging in his jail cell. His was the third suicide at the Weber County Jail in seven months.

"Matthew had his problems. He had severe social anxiety," Erna Stewart says. "And things got worse after the breakup. But we were working on all of that. He was getting so much better. He was doing so fricking good until all of this happened. He was going to the gym with us. He was laughing a lot. He was just doing so well."


At a public forum in August, where this reporter also spoke as part of a book tour, Stewart fought back tears while talking about her late brother-in-law. She then quickly collected herself to confidently tick off a list of changes wants to see from area police.

She wants an end to home-invasion raids to serve search warrants for non-violent crimes. She wants more transparency. She wants a civilian review board, so police accused of wrongdoing aren't investigated by their fellow cops. The audience bathed her with applause.

Stewart says her role as family spokesperson -- and later, as a voice in the broader reform movement in Utah -- came naturally. "I knew that no one in the family was fully operational after the raid," she says. "So I had to step up. I've always been outspoken, and not easily intimidated. And the more and more I got involved, the more I thought this is where I belong."

In August, Stewart received a phone call from the Ogden police. More than 19 months after the raid, they were calling to let her know that, despite their earlier allegations, they had never actually found any child pornography on her brother-in-law's computer.

"That's about par for the course," she says. "They told the world he was a pedophile, attacked him in the press. Now, months after he's dead, they quietly call to say they were wrong."

HuffPost writer and investigative reporter Radley Balko is also the author of the new book Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces.

[Batboy2/75]

This Radley Balko fellow is alright.

October 24, 2013

This article is the first in a six-part series about the drug war and police reform.

OGDEN, Utah -- It's late summer, and the house at 3268 Jackson Ave. has been boarded up for months. The front door, riddled with bullet holes, is pasted over with police tape and a "No Trespassing" sign. As Erna Stewart pries open the door, shards of glass from the edges of its already shattered window fall to the ground.

The air inside is stale and hard to breathe. Belongings are strewn about. There's a dusty television, an answering machine, a computer printer still in its box, some video games stacked on bookshelves. The police have ripped up sections of floor that had been soaked with blood, leaving a scar in the bathroom and another in the kitchen.

More bullet holes call out from all sides: the walls, the doors, the ceiling, the floor, the windows, the molding, the kitchen cabinets. Two of the bullets hit the brick siding of a neighbor's house. One pierced a bedroom window. The trail of damage leads out to the pock-marked backyard and the shed where Erna's brother-in-law, Matthew, attempted to take refuge.

Between 130 and 250 bullets were fired in all, according to various accounts, an arsenal's worth. A cleaning service recently found a bullet while vacuuming.

In the basement, in a small room to the left of the stairs, there's a large pile of tubing and plastic containers. It's here that Matthew David Stewart, a 37-year-old Army veteran, committed the crime that precipitated the armed raid on his home -- an assault that left one police officer dead and five others wounded, and eventually led to Stewart's death as well. It's here that he grew marijuana.

Michael Stewart says his son, a former paratrooper, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety, and may have been self-medicating. Others have suggested that he smoked pot to alleviate his shyness and social awkwardness. Perhaps the pot was simply for pleasure. There were 16 plants in all. But there is no evidence that he ever sold the drug, and there were no complaints from neighbors.

Still, on the night of Jan. 4, 2011, 12 members of the Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force assembled in the parking lot of the church across the street from Stewart's house. At 8:30 p.m., according to a neighbor, they exchanged high-fives. Then they broke down Stewart's door with a battering ram.

The police claim to have knocked and announced themselves several times. But Stewart said he never heard them. He worked the graveyard shift at a local Walmart and was asleep at the time. Awaking to the sound of armed men storming into his house, he jumped out of bed, naked, threw on a bathrobe and grabbed his 9-millimeter Beretta.

Who shot first remains in dispute. But after exchanging fire with the officers for about 20 minutes, Stewart dove out a bedroom window and attempted to take shelter in the shed behind his house. The police opened fire on the shed, "lighting it up," as one officer later put it. Stewart, who had been shot in the arm and the hip, crawled out and surrendered.

One of the members of the strike force, Jared Francom, 30, had been shot seven times, and died at the scene. Stewart was arrested, taken to the hospital for his injuries, and charged with murder.


Weber County Attorney Dee Smith speaks during a news conference Friday, May 24, 2013, in Ogden, Utah.
Francum's death elicited a wave of "cop killer" outrage directed at Stewart. Eight days after the raid, Weber County Attorney Dee Smith announced that he'd be seeking the death penalty. As more details emerged, however, a growing chorus of critics began to question whether the aggressive police tactics had really been necessary, and whether the battle on Jackson Avenue could have been avoided entirely.

An editorial in the Salt Lake Tribune asked why the police decided to wage "a military-style attack on a small-time weed grower." The editors of Ogden's Standard-Examiner expressed similar concerns over "beefed-up police tactics" and called for a "re-evaluation of how local law enforcement handles its duties, particularly concerning raids and late-night police procedures."

"It’s very clear that middle-of-the-night arrest warrant servings by armed officers need to be reconsidered," the editors wrote.

In the months following the raid, a number of other controversial police actions hit the news. Police in Salt Lake City broke into the home of a 76-year-old woman during a mistaken drug raid. A SWAT team in Ogden went to the wrong address in search of a man who had gone AWOL from the Army and ended up pointing its guns at an innocent family of four. Two narcotics detectives shot and killed a young woman in a suburb of Salt Lake City as she sat in her car.

Together, these incidents have spawned a budding police reform movement in Utah. At the head of it, Stewart's family members have been joined by a political odd couple: Jesse Fruhwirth, a longtime progressive activist rabble-rouser, and Connor Boyack, a wonky libertarian with a background in Republican politics. And independently, in Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County, the police chief and lead prosecutor have already begun to adopt some unconventional, reform-minded approaches to crime and punishment.

That Utah, one of the most conservative states in the country, would become a hotbed for police reform, is surprising. But these reformers have carefully crafted their approach, honed a message that seems to be resonating with the community, and won over some early converts. As botched raids and excessive SWAT-style tactics have gained increasing notoriety around the country, other communities may soon be looking to Utah as a model for less aggressive but more effective approaches to public safety.

* * * * *
The tip about the marijuana plants came from an ex-girlfriend of Stewart's named Stacy Wilson. They had dated for about a year and a half but broke up in the summer of 2010. Erna Stewart introduced them. "I still feel guilty about that," she says. "He caught her cheating on him, they broke up, and it ended really badly. She was angry with him. He was heartbroken. She tried to get him fired from his job. She really had it out for him."

Wilson reported Stewart to a tip line that the Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force, a federally funded anti-drug task force that serves both counties, set up to collect information about illicit drugs.


In a bus ad promoting the initiative, the strike force members pose in full SWAT attire: armor, face masks, camouflage and guns. The tip line number is at the top of the ad, along with a plea for citizens to report "drug abuse," a term more often associated with drug use than with distribution. Below the photo, the ad reads, "We've got your back!"

According to police documents, Wilson called the tip line in November 2010, two months before the raid, and spoke with Officer Jason Vanderwarf. Vanderwarf visited Stewart's house three times, but no one answered. After finding what he described as signs of a marijuana grow, however, he filed an affidavit to get the warrant.

That appears to be the extent of the investigation. The police never ran a background check on Wilson to assess her credibility. In fact, after their initial conversation, Vanderwarf said that he was "unable to contact her." He later told investigators that "She kinda fell off the face of the earth."

Neither Wilson nor officials from the Ogden Police Department and Weber County Sheriff's Department responded to requests for comment.

There was also no investigation of Stewart himself, and the warrant makes no mention of any evidence that Stewart had ever sold drugs. The Salt Lake Tribune later obtained a threat assessment document -- the criteria some police departments use to determine whether to send a SWAT team, or to ask a judge for a no-knock warrant. For Stewart's case, all of the criteria -- the presence of dogs, weapons, surveillance and "other" factors -- were listed as "unknown."

As a result, when the members of the strike force moved on Stewart's house, they weren't wearing bulletproof armor or carrying the ballistic shields and powerful rifles typically used in SWAT raids.

"I don't think they thought anyone was living there," Erna Stewart says. "They called it a 'low-level' raid."

A few months earlier, Stewart's brother Gabriel -- his roommate at the time -- and some friends had gotten into an altercation at a party. The other men had followed Gabriel Stewart back to the house, where the fracas continued. After someone called the police, the men left -- but they promised to come back to burn down the house.

Matthew David Stewart played no part in the altercation, and he was asleep when it happened. But Gabriel told him about the threat later. "I think it may have been in his head when he woke up the night he was raided," Erna Stewart says.

Statements by Matthew David Stewart's neighbors support his assertion that he didn't know police officers were in his house. They told Stewart's attorneys and the local media that they heard gunshots first, then lots of yelling, but never any police announcement.

Photos of the police taken after the raid show strike force members wearing dark, dingy clothes. Some are wearing black hoodies. One is wearing a Cheech & Chong t-shirt. The police say the raid team wore bulletproof vests that clearly identified them as police, and removed them after the raid, before the photos were taken. But there's evidence that at least some of the officers weren't. One police dashcam video, for example, shows several of them scrambling back to their cars to get their vests after the shooting begins.

What is clear, however, is that if instead of raiding the house, the police had simply arrested Stewart as he was leaving to go to work, or as he was coming home, or even at his job at Walmart, there would have been two fewer funerals in Ogden.

* * * * *

Before the raid, Erna Stewart, 31, had considered becoming a cop. "I had done some ride alongs. I had bought my own gun, and I knew how to clean it. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and I thought I'd either be a police officer or a personal trainer."

She's now a personal trainer. "It wasn't even the raid itself that turned me off to cops," she says. "It was the way they treated my family after it happened. We got hate mail from cops and their families. I mean, the way we were treated in the community ... it just made me jaded. And angry."

It also motivated her. Soon after the raid, Erna quickly became the family's liaison to the press, and she's since become a leading advocate of reform.

In the days and weeks after the raid, the task force, the district attorney and other Weber County officials began to malign Matthew David Stewart in the media. A "source close to the investigation" first told the Ogden Standard-Examiner that police had found a picture of Stewart "dressed as a terrorist," and "posing in a suicide bomber's vest" in the house. The police reported that they had found a bomb in Stewart's closet and child pornography on his computer.

Matthew David Stewart during the third day of his preliminary trial at Second District Courthouse in Ogden on Nov. 2, 2012.
He was portrayed as a violent, anti-government extremist. Wilson, his ex-girlfriend, told investigators that Stewart had once told her that if the police ever came for his marijuana plants, he'd "go out in a blaze," and he'd "go out shooting." She claimed that he didn't believe the federal government had the authority to collect taxes, and that he had told her of plans to shoot up the IRS after he lost his job there working as a security guard.

Family members say that Stewart was a government skeptic who could sometimes indulge in conspiracy theories, but that Wilson and the police's portrayal of Matthew was an exaggeration.

"I know the drug war really bothered him," his father Michael says.

"He was passionate about the way the government was going. He didn't like it," Erna adds. "I remember he was really upset about what Obama was doing with indefinite detention. But he was never volatile about it. I think he just internalized it. It made him sad."

In one postcard he sent to his sister from jail, Stewart cautioned her against vaccinating her son, because, he explained, he didn't trust pharmaceutical companies. In another, he told her that despite his depression, he refused to take anti-depressants. He didn't trust them or the companies that made them.

Michael Stewart, a private investigator, says his son lost his security job for accessing IRS computers without authorization. "He worked the night shifts. He got bored. So he started surfing the web on the computers inside. He probably accessed some conspiracy websites," Stewart says. "That's what got him fired."


Sonja Stewart holds pictures of her son Matthew David Stewart.
"He would sometimes go on the Internet and read sites like Infowars. He'd start to question things like how 9/11 happened. I would get on him about it, because it always put him in a bad mood," Erna Stewart says. "But he never expressed any desire to hurt anyone."

The photo of Stewart dressed as a terrorist was actually him posing in an Osama bin Laden Halloween costume, his family says. Regarding the bomb that police allegedly found in a closet, an agent from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms later told the Salt Lake Tribune, "to characterize it as a bomb or device is not accurate."

"He and his brother were trying to build smoke flares once. Remember, they were in the Army," Erna Stewart says. "So he probably had some chemicals to make smoke flares. That's probably what it was."

"Matt was really shy. He was introverted. A little nerdy. You could tell he was a child of the 80s," she says. "He wore his jeans up high, he liked video games and fantasy novels. We'd give him a hard time about it. Socially, he didn't have a lot of friends. But once he felt comfortable, he was the sweetest guy."

Stewart didn't do well in jail. Judging by the letters he wrote to his family, his mood clearly darkened as the months wore on. The jail conditions, the way the public perceived him, and the isolation began to break him down. At one point, the extremely fit former paratrooper told one of his sisters that he had quit exercising.

"Everyone says I'm looking great in the newspaper pictures of me. I see a man that was betrayed by someone he thought he loved, who's [sic] world was destroyed, where everything he once cared about was stolen from him, everything he found holy was defiled," he wrote. "Now he is locked in a box away from those he loves, with the worst weight on his shoulders."

In May, a judge ruled that the search warrant for Stewart's home and the raid were both legal -- a huge setback for Stewart's argument that he was acting in self defense. A little over a week later, at 12:50 a.m. on a Friday morning, a guard found Stewart hanging in his jail cell. His was the third suicide at the Weber County Jail in seven months.

"Matthew had his problems. He had severe social anxiety," Erna Stewart says. "And things got worse after the breakup. But we were working on all of that. He was getting so much better. He was doing so fricking good until all of this happened. He was going to the gym with us. He was laughing a lot. He was just doing so well."


At a public forum in August, where this reporter also spoke as part of a book tour, Stewart fought back tears while talking about her late brother-in-law. She then quickly collected herself to confidently tick off a list of changes wants to see from area police.

She wants an end to home-invasion raids to serve search warrants for non-violent crimes. She wants more transparency. She wants a civilian review board, so police accused of wrongdoing aren't investigated by their fellow cops. The audience bathed her with applause.

Stewart says her role as family spokesperson -- and later, as a voice in the broader reform movement in Utah -- came naturally. "I knew that no one in the family was fully operational after the raid," she says. "So I had to step up. I've always been outspoken, and not easily intimidated. And the more and more I got involved, the more I thought this is where I belong."

In August, Stewart received a phone call from the Ogden police. More than 19 months after the raid, they were calling to let her know that, despite their earlier allegations, they had never actually found any child pornography on her brother-in-law's computer.

"That's about par for the course," she says. "They told the world he was a pedophile, attacked him in the press. Now, months after he's dead, they quietly call to say they were wrong."

HuffPost writer and investigative reporter Radley Balko is also the author of the new book Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces.

Fuck the pigs and their political masters! I'm looking forward to the day their little racket is dismantled and they're all swinging from lamp posts.

[irish]

Those cops go out to do a hard job every day.

Every time they get in their cruiser they think, will I make it home today?

We owe them a debt of gratitude for their service.

I'm going to disagree here. Doing a "hard job" doesn't excuse making lethal mistakes. It's not that I don't understand how this could have happened. In the dark the old man might not have been able to tell they were cops, and might have pointed a gun at them. The police would have to have shot him at that point, regardless of whether or not he was innocent. That doesn't excuse the discrepancy in the location where the man was shot. The police seemed like they were trying to pad the deck a bit, and make it out that the 72-year old man was acting more aggressively than he actually was. This is upheld by the fact that one of the two police in question has now been fired for making untrue statements in an arrest affidavit.