Tag Archives: bad cop

Motion hearing for 4/29 protest arrest brings out affinity of cops and judges.

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DENVER, COLORADO- A local activist flipped off a municipal court judge. Yes, it’s not done, but the consequence was more severe than even the judge intended. She was attending a motions hearing of a fellow protester accused of disobeying a cop. During DPD testimony an officer was narrating a surveillance video which the audience was unabe to see. She tried to shift seats but was told to sit down. After two admonishments, she complied in silence but made a disrespectful gesture where she sat behind the flat screen monitor, where she thought the judge wouldn’t see. But a clerk did see the gesture and told the judge. Judge Nicole Rodarte, no friend of political activists and facing a roomful of them, immediately had her held in contempt of court for the remainder of the hearing. Contrary to instructions, the unnamed activist was taken across to the jail to serve a sentence of ten days. We’re not sure yet who was complicit with the mixup. Here’s what happened:

It was a hearing no Denver street activist wanted to miss. Habitual free-speech offender Jesse Benn is accused of disobeying a lawful order, being on the street, failure to disperse, etc, etc, at the April 29 march solidarity march for the people of Baltimore upset about the in-custody murder of Freddy Gray. Jesse’s jury trial will follow shortly.

At this motions hearing, the unpopular motorcycle cop Michael Rispoli was testifying as to the evidence against Jesse. Officer Rispoli is uniformly reviled for his tendency to ram his motorcycle into peaceful marchers. At the April 29 march, Rispoli dropped his motorcycle, feigning having been pushed by bicyclist Michael Moore. A SWAT crew piled on Moore, protesters rushed to his defense, this precipitated more arrests and prompted the police to pepperspray the crowd which included a number of small children. Justified by the attack on Officer Rispoli. Jesse Benn recorded the video which proved Rispoli’s lie. All charges were dropped against Moore, but the rest of the arrestees are being prosecuted, including Benn.

Rispoli by the way has been reassigned to DIA. After six years on the downtown motorcycle crew, monitoring and herding political demonstrations, he’s been demoted to the airport.

So at this hearing Bad Cop Rispoli was proudly testifying about the crowd-control techniques of the motorcycle unit. Very, very informative. At one point the prosecution played a police surveilance video so that Rispoli could give the play by play, point out offenders, and share his strategy. Except the audience couldn’t see the video screen. The content wasn’t forbidden, the judge just saw no need to make a screen available to the public. This being a public hearing.

It was frustrating, and said audience member rose to move about to catch a glimpse of the video. Judge Rodarte told her to sit down. She explained the problem, the judge only repeated her warning. She returned to her seat and apparently formed a finger with her left hand, thrown down behind the large screen monitor, where we couldn’t see, nor even the judge. The courtroom clerk spotted it however and told the judge.

Judge Rodarte promptly asked the deputees to remove the activist to an adjacent room used for in-custody defendants. She informed us that the activist was being held in contempt and her case would be handled at the close of the hearing, hopefully before the lunch break. The hearing resumed without further incident, except more lies from Rispoli. One lie prompted defendant Benn to hold a notepad aloft, for the audience’s eyes only, on which he’d scribbled “perjury!”

The hearing ended before lunch. Judge Rodarte excused herself to review the activist’s criminal record. Rodarte emerged from her chambers to announce that the matter would be addressed after lunch.

When court resumed at 1:30pm, Offender X was brought back in from the side door. Judge Rodarte gave a brief lecture about how X’s act had insulted the integrity of her courtroom and the justice system, etc. She asked if X had anything to say in anticipation of sentencing.

X gave a similarly brief speech about what she’d witnessed in Rodarte’s courtroom and the affront it represented to the public. X closed by declaring she welcomed whatever consequence the judge wanted to throw at her.

“I sentence you to two hours, time served” said Judge Rodarte. She ordered the sheriffs to release X, when they were done with her, or words to that effect.

We went to the jail to await X’s release, anticipating the usual booking delay. We eventually learned that X was supposed to serve a ten day sentence for contempt of court. It took us 35 hours before the error was sorted out. The detention center staff had admitted X with absolutely no authority to do so, certainly no documents remain on file. There is no paper trail and the Office of the Independent Monitor and Internal Affairs are trying to sort it out. Stay tuned.

The case against activist Jesse Benn raises the penultimate question about the right to march in protest. Jesse Benn is charged with being in the street. Traffic laws favor cars over people in the use of public roads, but does a vehicle’s right of way always abridge the people’s right to assemble? Hundreds of demonstrators marching to seek redress of grievances need the road too. Very often authorities tolerate protesters taking the streets for that very reason. Or because authorities have already blocked the streets. It’s complicated, and Jesse Benn might be being punished here because he took the video that implicated a bad cop. The system wants to use Jesse Benn as an example. Activist need to use Benn as their example, to teach the city a lesson about wrongful arrest and our civil liberties.

Is there a Solution to the Crooked Cop?

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There is a simple solution to the ‘Crooked Cop” and “Killer Cop” that America is infected with. It is a plagued, but like all plagues there is a cure. In every major city across America, young men and women will be recruited, their identity will be protected, these recruits will be squeaky clean and above reproach. Their assignment will be documented at the start of this program. They will then apply for a position with their local law enforcement with the purpose to gather information and document all incidents of criminal abuse within the department.

They will be working undercover and protected by a nation governing body. At the end of one year, a report will be published with national support. All those cops who are identified will be dismissed and charge with their respective crimes just as any citizen is charged.

In a free and democratic society, no one is above the law. The choice is now yours; you can remain silent or you can come forward and say I will support this program with something more than a comment.

Backing Obama when you know better

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Overheard from a celebrated activist who normally advocates direct-action over electoral wait-and-see, having joked that voting only encourages false expectations:
 
“I voted for Obama, but after he renewed the Patriot Act,
I vowed never to vote again.”
(Applause.)
“But if Sarah Palin runs again, I’ll vote.”
(Applause.)
 
And that’s the role Sarah Palin plays: bad cop to the lesser evil.

ARD, Tent State surrogate for DNC cops

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ARD, Tent State surrogate for DNC cops

IVAW ARD march
DENVER- Accounts of the Wednesday march from the Colosseum to the DNC are only getting half the story. Can I recount my small part? We were at the Pepsi Center entrance, laying the groundwork for the arrival of the IVAW parade and became concerned when workers positioned large dump trucks to block the way, to corral the marchers into the fenced gauntlet traversing the Auraria campus.

When I caught up with the already diverted march, I found out the coordinators had been on the lookout for me. Legal observers informed me that marchers were being forewarned of a man with a green banner who would be trying to instigate trouble. The message was being spread as if coordinators had intercepted this information from police scanners. In reality this was deliberate disinformation being given them by their police liaisons. The common goal being to keep out of trouble.

Well it wasn’t disinformation, because I most definitely wanted to disrupt this surprising and disastrous turn. I sought to prevent the march from being led like sheep into a dead end. But the ARD collective had clearly promised an uneventful march, and they were bent on delivering it. At every turn, at every temptation, they policed the march so the police didn’t have to. Stay on the sidewalk, stay off the grass, go this way unless you want to be arrested, etc. Like overly cautious boy scouts.

Navigating the Auraria enclosures, the coordinator monkeys would circulate alongside their restless marchers admonishing them “Hey guys, let’s keep the focus: on the vets and off the fence.”
Bullhorn
So let me be less harsh in my criticism of the IVAW. A number of them are bright, well-motivated guys, but they are governed by committee decisions made by the predominant lessers, some about as daft as soldiers can get. On the Wednesday march too often the bullhorn was in the wrong hands. I have no sense yet of what their dressed-to-the-nines Marine official spokesman was thinking. But the other corrosive element in the event was mentioned in a comment to my previous post on this subject. Tent State/ARD.

Tent State idealists helped coordinate the Rage concert and the march. The parade monkeys who kept everyone in line were Tent State/ARD workers bent on civil disobedience minus any trace of disaffected incivility. Who do they think they are, telling angry constituents that they must accept their lot in the police state?

If Tent State has any role in the planned RNC protests, we must forewarn the activists in Minneapolis. They’re collaborator scum, every bit as fraudulent as the Democratic Party of good cop to the GOP bad cop. If we can salvage anything from our Debacle in Denver, it’s to ferret out these Quislings. Tent State, ARD, UFPJ, Code Pink and the Greens. Derelict saboteurs.

I love the spirit and wit of Code Pink, they show determination and stamina, but ultimately no savvy. Their I MISS AMERICA gag is dead on, but it’s a lament, isn’t it? She’s gone, their America. Where the occasion calls for drums, Code Pink would march us into battle to the beat of Kum ba yah.

Will the Obama speech trump tribalism?

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The press misleads us about the war, the economy, the environment, our health, even our food. Would you care to proffer one topic for which they do not present a perspective skewed by corporate interest? I can’t. Our national media cannot still broach the suggestion that our president is an imbecilic jackass. And now they’re fawning over Obama.

Oh the usual Fox buffoons are raising their objections, but I suspect it’s their turn as good cop bad cop, further building this perfect storm of electoral excitement. Everywhere I go, I hear friends talking about Obama’s speech. Oh it was some speech. Historic? Momentous? But are those their words? To compare it to JFK means to eclipse MLK like he was unsliced bread. Have you heard the speech? Is this buzz generating from you?

As a theatrical chorus setting the tone, the media is showing a wildly selective memory in rationalizing their adulation. Did we/they mean to skip over Reagan? He gave good speech. Many actors have made memorable speeches. And politicians. I favor James Galloway’s speech before the Senate, before that, I remember Oliver North’s.

Men of substance can make great speeches. Literary heros come to mind. What would happen if Americans held the presidential candidates to those standards? Czechoslovakia did. Couldn’t the most powerful elected office in the world command a higher wisdom quotient?

Barack Obama is certainly quick witted and persuasive. Has he persuaded you with the intelligence he’s displayed as a legislator? Going to war, the Patriot Act, Torture, Impeachment? Has he voiced concerns for health care reform, for example? You think Obama isn’t at liberty to be candid about those problems NOW?

Back to the media: who do you suppose our corporations, Wall Street, the World Bank, and the Military Industrial Complex want to see in our highest office? Bush is term limited, so who’s the next “best man for the job?”

I can see Americans voting for a woman, half the population are women, one hundred percent of everybody’s mothers are women. We’ve always entrusted teaching and nursing to women. More and more of our professors, judges, mayors, and governors are women. Hillary Clinton not only has political experience, she’s had a close personal brush with the top job. And to assuage any chauvinists, Hillary will have a male presidential chaperone, the traditional spouse and mentor, himself a role model to chauvinists. Is this woman electable? You have only to look beyond the media defamation to see a fully competent “bitch”.

Barack Obama’s speech may have addressed the issue of race in America with a finesse to make you swoon. So did he resolve it, put it to bed, as the media would like our own excited buzzings to conclude? Racism is in our hands, isn’t it?

I’d like to ask you, if you’ll turn off the telly for a mo, in your heart of hearts, will American voters, 90% of them who are white and can get into the polls unobstructed, will they vote for a black man? Visualize the red state voters who returned Bush to office for a second term. Visualize the ugly operatives, Christians and Blacks among them, who conspire to uphold Neo-conservative power, will they acquiesce to a black challenger?

I too would like to hope, but I’d like to hope Americans wake up to the difficult, self-critical rhetoric it’s going to take to reclaim our democracy. God Damn the anti-democratic corporate mouthpieces for offering us a calculated false hope. When Obama looses, they’ll shame us for not showing faith enough in hope.

Black gloves

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Standard GI uniformCan somebody explain the psychology of our boys in their black gloves? Am I too distracted by the bad-guy movie image? Black gloves remind me of hired assassins, mafioso, bad cops, sadists, interrogators and torturers.
 
Did I miss any good guys who wear black gloves? Scuba divers? Al Jolsen?

The French para-military sent to put down the Algerian Islamic freedom fighters wore black gloves. They were notorious torturers. Did the gloves have to be black to hide the blood?

The Gestapo wore black gloves. And before them Hessian mercenaries. Americans had to fight black-clad Hessians during the Revolutionary War. Is that why black has such an ingrained stigma?

All the more reason why Americans would be sensitive to projecting themselves as heavies. Unless, like Hitler’s Death Head division, we want to create a fearful impression. How about a name? Brown Shirts. Jack-Boots. Black Gloves.

Objectivity on local radio

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Dec 5 procession
This week some colleagues and I marched on our knees to the Colorado College president’s office to present signed petitions which asked that the college radio station carry a news program called DEMOCRACY NOW! (Exclamation theirs.) We’ve yet to receive a reply, but I wanted to explain our actions.

First of all, what is DEMOCRACY NOW? DN is a daily radio and television news show out of New York City that stands nearly alone in covering the stories which are being kept out of the corporate owned media. For example, every year the Colorado Springs Independent covers the year’s ten most censored stories. DN reports those and more, usually as they happen.

Do you know the story of Khaled al-Masri, the German Muslim who is currently being represented by the ACLU in a lawsuit against the CIA, for unlawful abduction, rendition, incarceration and torture? DN reported his story a year ago, after al-Masri found himself freshly drugged and dropped into a field in Macedonia. His story sounded so strange but had the ring of truth to it. Experts were planning to analyze strands of his hair to verify his account. It took more than a year before al-Masri was able to break national news. In between, how many extra-judicial abductions have been allowed to take place?

And the recent attention paid to the U.S. use of Napalm, and their use of White Phosphor as a chemical weapon? DN reported such incidences from the very first day the U.S. assault began.

Why KRCC? Because local community radio station is our great hope, and our first impediment.

By now it is widely accepted that FOX and the network media are mouthpieces for corporate moneyed interests. People of education turn to NPR and the NYT for example for what they believe is the balanced picture. But it’s not, and critical thinkers are beginning to see that the media has been playing a good cop bad cop psych-op routine. One side of the media plays the good cop, with its supposed liberal bias, but ultimately has the same agenda as its partner.

The local community looks to KRCC as a trusted advocate of objective news. But a growing number who supplement their news from the internet and from the Indy see that NPR really doesn’t cut it anymore. Have you heard NPR advancing the “Christmas” vs “holiday” war-on-Christmas canard? Elsewhere this story has been exposed as a concoction of the far right, but NPR is dutifully giving it legs.

Why go to the president of CC? Because KRCC station manager Mario Valdes has repeatedly rebuked everyone’s requests. Community members have been after him for years and his reply has been the same. Mr. Valdes has even slandered the effort by categorizing it as a small minority who want a political bias on KRCC. No one is asking for bias, just objectivity. And the number of people who’ve made this request has not been small. And it’s always been growing.

Plenty of public radio stations have adopted DN and can provide wonderful testimonies. They testify that DN beats out Morning Edition and All Things Considered in popularity. In some cases DN is their leading fund-raiser. While it might be hard right now to mount a large rally in front of the station to advocate for this change, it’s clear that if KRCC carried DN, and then threatened to take it away, crowds would protest en mass.

What next? Give station manager Mario Valdes the chance to argue for what values he stands when he opposes DEMOCRACY NOW. Let’s hear beyond the arguments which NPR advances to try to stem their eroding control over their affiliates. NPR has always fought the intrusion of a spoiler like DN in their line-up because it significantly hampers their editorial discretion.

Let’s schedule a townhall meeting, a public debate. To make it interesting public viewing, let’s make it a tag team debate. If Mr. Valdes is so concerned that Colorado Springs is such an uneducated community, too easily put off by issues of social justice and human rights, let’s cater to his mythical plebeian audience. The debate can be tag team, open to all, WWF rules!

Mr. Valdes will then get to see just how small is the group of DN advocates. As we’ll see how many people share Mr Valdes’ opinion against more objectivity on KRCC. Mr Valdes may bring the support and sympathy of many listeners, but how many will stand up next to him to argue against freedom of the press, Democracy Now’s many prestigious journalism awards, and the growing movement to reclaim the airwaves for the people?

Reprinted from MyKRCC.org