As we all know, a dump of less-than-favorable information always happens on a Friday, and something of this magnitude — 71-year-old cancer survivor and war torture survivor John McCain’s health records — happened on the Friday of a holiday weekend — and the terms of review of them were curiously restricted. (Newsweek):

During his first presidential run, eight years ago, McCain disclosed hundreds of pages of records to reporters as he sought then to counter what aides called a “whisper campaign” questioning his mental fitness. In those records, medical personnel concluded that his years in prison, including solitary confinement, left him with no psychological wounds. Aides said McCain has had no mental evaluations in the past eight years.

This time, a small group of reporters reviewed 1,173 pages of medical documents that span 2000 to 2008 over several hours in a conference room at a resort just outside Phoenix and a few miles from the posh Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, where McCain receives most of his medical care under a pseudonym — which reporters were asked not to disclose.

By the way, we never learned in February that McCain had yet another cancerous growth removed from his face:

McCain’s most recent exams show a range of health issues common in aging: He frequently has precancerous skin lesions removed, and in February had an early stage squamous cell carcinoma, an easily cured skin cancer, removed. He had benign colon growths called polyps taken out during a routine colonoscopy in March.

The cancer issue, while a relevant health issue to consider when electing someone to the highest office in the land, is not nearly as critical as the fact Sen. John McCain hasn’t had a mental evaluation in eight years. More below the fold.
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This is beyond absurd. We’ve already got the police Taser-happy, now we have guards and citizens settling disputes (that would be settled in the past with a civil conversation) by pulling out the shock devices on one another. In this case, a guard claimed the co-owner of a Boulder restaurant had parked his van on property it didn’t belong on and was placing a boot on the vehicle, and then …

Harvey Epstein, co-owner of Mamacitas restaurant on The Hill, was arrested Saturday night after he got into an altercation with two officers from Colorado Security Services, one of whom had booted a company vehicle for being illegally parked in the alley behind his Mexican restaurant.

Epstein said the van was on his property and should never have been booted. When he tried to cut the device off with bolt cutters after the guard refused to remove it, the situation escalated.

“(The guard) pointed a stun gun at my mother’s face and I immediately responded with my personal Taser,” Epstein said Sunday evening, within an hour of being released from Boulder County Jail. “And we shot each other at the same moment.”

Epstein, 36, said one of the guards jumped on his back after the Taser duel and pressed the barrel of his pistol against the back of Epstein’s head.’

If you read the entire article, there are differing versions of the event, so it’s hard to tell who is at fault, but incidents like these are sure to escalate and increase in frequency in the new Taser Wild West.

In more positive Taser news, the stun-gun manufacturer is seeing a slump in sales due to tight police department budgets thanks to the Bush Economy. So sad:

Taser International Inc., the world’s largest stun-gun maker, may get a jolt as the U.S. economic slowdown drains tax revenue from police forces that supply more than two-thirds of its revenue.

Six of Taser’s 10 biggest investors that reported stakes in March 31 regulatory filings, including Veredus Asset Management LLC and Emerald Advisers Inc., said they sold shares. Taser has lost 48 percent this year and short interest, a gauge of bets against the stock, averaged 18 percent higher in the first four months of 2008 than in the past three years.

…Taser is a defendant in 37 lawsuits alleging wrongful death or personal injury and has won dismissals in 69 others, according to a May 12 regulatory filing.

…While two-thirds of U.S. police departments own at least one Taser, only a third of officers carry them, estimates Minneapolis-based analyst Steven Dyer of Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC. The figures show that some departments can’t afford more, he said.

…”Their customers are municipalities,'’ Dyer said. When cities have to scrape for money to finance schools and repair roads, “Tasers become a lot more discretionary.'’

Hat tip, Sue.

Out. Of. Control. Dateline Kamloops, British Columbia - Three Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers apparently couldn’t subdue an elderly patient. The sadistic sickness continues. BTW, you can see pics of the man’s stun gun burns at the CBC site.

Frank Lasser, 82, appeared fragile Thursday when he showed the stun gun marks on his body and talked about the ordeal he went through Saturday.

“They [police] should have known I had bypass surgery,” Lasser told CBC News.

Lasser has had heart surgery and needs to carry an apparatus to supply oxygen at all times. He was in the Royal Inland Hospital Saturday due to pneumonia but has since been released.

RCMP said nurses called police after Lasser became delirious and pulled a knife out of his pocket.

Lasser told CBC News that he sometimes become delusional when he can’t breathe properly. He said he couldn’t explain why he refused to let go of the knife even after the Mounties arrived.

“I was laying on the bed by then and the corporal came in, or the sergeant, I forget which it was, and said to the guys, ‘OK, get him because we got more important work to do on the street tonight,’” Lasser said.

The article also refers to the Taser as “the conducted energy weapon.”

Hat tip, Shane.

The Blend Taser files.

Apparently in the City of Brotherly Love the police training for cadets includes how to act like a punks in a schoolyard. I guess we have to be pleased that the Taser wasn’t whipped out as well for good measure. These men in the car may or may not have been guilty, but they certainly don’t look like they are resisting other than to stop the ass-kicking. Why do these officers have to whale on suspects in this manner when the person is already down on the ground?

Fifteen police officers were taken off the street as authorities investigate a video showing three suspects being kicked, punched and beaten after they were pulled out of a car during a traffic stop.

“At a glance it does appear to be a bit beyond the pale,” Doug Oliver, a spokesman for Mayor Michael Nutter, said Wednesday. “Officers are not allowed to operate outside of the law.”

…The video, shot by a WTXF-TV helicopter, shows three police cars stopping a car on the side of a road. About a dozen officers gather around the vehicle and pull three men out. About a half-dozen officers hold two of the men on the ground on the driver’s side. Both are kicked repeatedly, while one is seen being punched; one also appears to be struck with a baton. On the other side of the car, another group of officers can be seen kicking a third man who ends up on the ground.

I can’t believe I’m writing about even more Taser horrors so soon. Stop the f*cking madness. I just can’t take it any more. Via African American Political Pundit:

As reported by many News Outlets and USA: Amnesty International Nine months after Emily Delafield, 56, died after being tased by police, her family has few answers about the events that led to her death. “This has been a very tragic and sad situation,” nephew Ryan Delafield said… Ryan Delafield says he is his aunt’s personal representative. In the weeks after her death he needed a death certificate for matters of her estate. “May, June, July… it was three months before we got the death certificate,” Delafield said.

The officers have been cleared in the case - big surprise. From First Coast News (which has audio recordings from the 911 call).

Delafield, a schizophrenic, sounds calm at first on the audio tape. Police say when they got to her, she was armed with two knives and a hammer. Police say the wheelchair-bound woman was threatening to hurt herself and others.

Delafield is heard on the tape saying, “You better get back.” Police debated what to do and then used their tasers. In the audio recording, you can hear Delafield screaming.

“My aunt was basically tortured like an animal or something,” Delafield’s nephew, Ryan Delafield, told First Coast News months ago.

Let’s just wind the clock back before the advent of Tasers. Certainly the officers would have been able to subdue this woman without resorting to quasi-lethal methods. And when these officers drew out the devices, they applied the Tasing with gusto. Read in disbelief below the fold.
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Need I say more? Now it’s come down to official scrubbing the use and abuse of Tasers by law enforcement. From Ohio, a look at where the police state is going.

A Summit County Common Pleas judge ordered the county medical examiner to delete any reference that Tasers contributed to the deaths of three Ohio men.

All three men were in an ‘agitated’ state and ‘on drugs’ when police officers shot them with Tasers, and the judge ordered their deaths be ruled ‘accidental’ also that any reference to “homicide or “electrical pulse stimulation” should be deleted from death certificates and autopsy reports.”

Five sheriff’s deputies had been indicted on charges related to the death of one of the men, who also had a history of mental illness. The judge further ordered that man’s death be ruled as “undetermined” and to “delete any references to homicide and the death possibly being caused by asphyxia, beatings or other factors.”

Wow. Not only the Taser reference is scrubbed, but all the other kinds of abuses common in police brutality cases! My, my. And yes, someone from Taser International had something to say about the ruling. It’s after the jump.
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Uh huh. Here’s yet another reason why there is distrust out there about law enforcement “protecting and serving” everyone equally.

Los Angeles Police Department officials announced Tuesday that they investigated more than 300 complaints of racial profiling against officers last year and found that none had merit — a conclusion that left members of the department’s oversight commission incredulous.

It is at least the sixth consecutive year that all allegations of racial profiling against LAPD officers have been dismissed, according to department documents reviewed by The Times.

I’m sure the vast majority are claims that cannot be proven since you have to prove the officer’s intent to say, pull over a black driver more often than a white one. But the LAPD has a sorry history, and that makes it difficult for some to believe the outcome of the report.
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In Tennessee, an attempt to curtail PDA in school leads to outing young people. This is wrong on so many levels.

A public high school principal who posted the names of two boys on a list of students believed to be couples, revealing their relationship to their parents as well as other students and teachers, violated the students’ constitutional right to freedom of association, the American Civil Liberties Union charged Tuesday.

In a letter to school board officials in Memphis, the ACLU demanded that the school reprimand the principal and take steps to ensure such actions never happen again.

In September of 2007, the principal at Hollis F. Price Middle College High told teachers she wanted the names of all student couples, “hetero and homo,” because she wanted to monitor them personally to prevent students from engaging in public displays of affection.  

The two students now represented by the ACLU, Andrew and Nicholas (who have asked that their last names not be revealed), were two A students who had been seeing each other for a short time and were attempting to keep their relationship quiet and private. 

Without defending some of Garrison Keillor’s old man grumpy asshole tendencies, I have to say this article got a wry smile out of me, probably because I’ve done a lot of flying lately,* and his descriptions of the kabuki of airport security are well-rendered. I watch all that with interest, too, because the psychology of unusual situations fascinates me. People—all people—are creatures of habit, and I don’t care how smart you are, if you’re thrust into a situation where you don’t know the protocol, you act like a puppy that just learned that its paws are effective for locomotion. But human beings are flexible and adept at learning new things pretty rapidly, so it was just a matter of time before the security lines at airports became mundane. Basically, if you’ve done it once correctly, you can repeat the process again with very little trouble or hesitation, and the delays became shorter as more and more people in the security line had flown since 9/11 and learned the ropes. Now like 95% of people in line know what to do, yet like Keillor says, the security guards still yell at you. Of course, I’ve worked service jobs myself, and that 5% of idiots out there tend to occupy 95% of your time and brainspace, so I can’t blame security guards for preemptive yelling, but still it does create this environment where you are reduced to an inmate of sorts for 10-20 minutes.

And considering that security procedures are close to useless for preventing terrorist attacks, I can’t help but think that demoralizing people is the point of the security kabuki at airports. I know I sound paranoid—and again, I think it’s by design and no individual security guard is responsible, though some definitely enjoy the sadistic potential more than others—but it’s well worth remembering that it was a bunch of Republicans who instituted these rules and they do better electorally if people are living in fear and have grown accustomed to the idea of authoritarian society. Small sadisms are actually quite an effective tool in bringing others into the fear state where you can control them, as any schoolyard bully who has perfected the art of needling behind the teacher’s back can tell you. In Wired magazine, a recent article about the Stasi noted that one tactic used against a state opponent was to follow her around, letting the air out of her baby stroller’s tires when she wasn’t looking, to make her think she was losing her mind.

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Your tax dollars at work for the protection and security of white privilege — keeping those Negro agents in their place. Mind you, these are the folks charged with protecting the president, and currently, Barack Obama.

The U.S. Secret Service has placed a white agent on leave after an African American employee reported finding a noose hanging at the service’s main training facility outside the nation’s capital.

The service has acknowledged “an allegation of misconduct” at its J.J. Rowley Training Center in Beltsville, Md., and that an employee last week was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation. The employee is a veteran agent with the service, according to fellow agents.

The noose was found by an African American officer in the uniform division of the service during the week of April 14, according to those familiar with the alleged incident. That division protects the White House and surrounding grounds. He reported the incident to his supervisor and it was sent up the chain of command. He declined to comment for this story.

…The alleged incident happened as U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson is expected to decide next month whether to sanction the service for failing to turn over evidence in a long-running lawsuit alleging that the service created a racially hostile atmosphere that tolerated discrimination.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Atlanta native Reginald G. Moore, alleges that the Secret Service routinely discriminates against black agents seeking promotion in favor of white agents who scored lower on promotional exams.

Nearly 60 black agents have submitted sworn statements to the court in support of the lawsuit’s allegations.

Related:
* Dallas: weapons screening halted at Obama rally
* Other posts on the security breach

This perv has a rap sheet with 30 arrests for sex abuse, 13 for jostling and two for grand larceny, according to the NYPD, and his behavior is so compulsive that he was barely out of the clink before he started up with the sexual abuse again.

About two weeks after he was released from prison, Freddie Johnson boarded a crowded subway train in Manhattan and illegally rubbed up against a woman, authorities said.

It is a fairly common crime on subways in New York. But this was no common criminal. Johnson has been arrested a staggering 53 times — the majority for groping women on the subway, police and prosecutors said.

In his latest arrest, Johnson was being followed by plainclothes officers who recognized him from police photos, authorities said. He was charged with persistent sexual abuse, and if convicted this time, he could be sent away for life. The district attorney’s office branded him a “recidivist transit grinder” at a court hearing earlier this week.

But the fact that Johnson was roaming the subways in the first place has raised questions about how the state deals with the problem of repeat sex offenders. His case even drew the scorn of a newspaper editorial this week that labeled Johnson the “Subway Rat.”

I’m surprised this dick still has his wing-wang; surely if he rubbed up against my cousin, it would be swiss cheese by now.

My story of pervy subway behavior is below the fold.
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Jamaican Tourism Minister Shrugs off Violence Against Gays. Jim Burroway and Tim Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin have earned the scorn of the homophobic Jamaican government for daring to point out the increasing violence against its own LGBT citizens while courting U.S. tourism dollars. It’s worth the read.

Check out this bold letter to the editor from a die hard homophobe – the writer is miffed at the idea that people would stay away from the island nation because of its hostility toward gay citizens.

It fully angers me to hear that this group of foreigners think they can dictate the policy and laws of another sovereign nation because they trade products and services with them. It was selfish, shortsighted thinking like this that led to Haiti being in the state it currently is.

I always thought that the laws of a nation were dictated by what that society decided was right and wrong and that we were in a world where, if my countries laws and polices were not the same as yours, we could agree to disagree.

Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett apparently doesn’t give a damn about his countrymen and women either. Read below the fold.
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Will we see an outcry from the professional “Christian” set, the Dobsons, Perkins, and all the rest about this story of heinous abuse in Mississippi? Don’t hold your breath. They are too busy panicking over the Brown Menace and the Homosexual Agenda. Between the Taser misuse and abuse and the treatment detailed in this story, there are much bigger fish to fry. (CNN):

Represented by attorneys with the Southern Poverty Law Center, Erica and nine other girls housed at Columbia are suing the state, claiming they endured a range of sexual and physical abuse, including shackling. Don Desper, a licensed therapist and former employee at Columbia who opposed the practice, told CNN it was used to prevent the teens from escaping.

In a handwritten affidavit, a 15-year-old girl described a male guard molesting her. She wrote: “He came inside my cell half way half of his body and he started touching me and he tryed (sic) to kiss me and then he left he came back with my snack in his hand and he opened my cell again and he started grabbing me around my waist and he tryed (sic) to stick his hands in my pants and I started crying.”

When the lawsuit was filed in 2007, a U.S. Justice Department monitor was making periodic inspections at Columbia as part of a 2005 settlement with Mississippi in a previous case. The Justice investigation that led to that settlement found Columbia youths were hog-tied, forced to strip and eat their own vomit and were held in isolation in what was called the “Dark Room,” a windowless room with a hole in the floor used as a toilet. Read the Justice Department report that describes girls being shackled to poles

In Ohio, things aren’t any better. Read below the fold.
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In DeKalb County, Georgia, a grand jury found that 1 in 12 fatal shootings by the police are unjustified and in one case a medical examiner planted evidence to help officers. (AP, hat tip, Tasered While Black):

A special grand jury questioned in a report released Thursday whether the right training is being provided to a suburban Atlanta police department whose officers killed 12 people in 2006, four times as many as the year before.

The panel said that one of those shootings by DeKalb County police was unjustified, and that one of the two officers involved should be investigated for potential criminal prosecution.

It also asked the district attorney’s office to determine whether someone from the county medical examiner’s officer planted a knife at the scene after the unjustified Sept. 12, 2006, fatal shooting of 21-year-old Lorenzo Matthews.

Given that swill, what kind of solution do you think is necessary? How about handing the officers Tasers to run wild with?

The panel also recommended that all law enforcement officers, including those in DeKalb County, get more training at night, in use of force and how to de-escalate situations. It also suggested that law enforcement officers should be equipped with Tasers, and that all law enforcement officers should undergo alcohol and drug screening immediately after a use of deadly force incident. DeKalb County police currently don’t use Tasers.

Given the growing Taser files here, does this sound like a good idea?

Another case — and today’s video — are below the fold.
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A truck with bomb near the Capitol goes undetected for three weeks.

According to an indictment filed in District of Columbia Superior Court, Michael Gorbey, 38, of Rapidan, Va., faces charges of planning to set off a bomb. He also is accused of making or transporting an explosive device with the intent of using it against people or property and multiple firearms charges.

Gorbey allegedly tried to manufacture a “weapon of mass destruction, that is, an explosive device capable of causing multiple deaths or serious bodily injuries to multiple persons, or massive destruction of property,” according to the indictment.

He was arrested Jan. 18 for carrying the shotgun and a sword outside the Capitol. Gorbey told police he was headed to an appointment at the Supreme Court. No one was injured in the incident, which caused gridlock for hours on Capitol Hill.

U.S. Capitol Police discovered the explosive device three weeks later when they returned with a search warrant to check the truck, which was in a government parking lot.

Terrance Gainer, the Senate sergeant-at-arms, told The Washington Post the device in Gorbey’s truck, which was parked about two blocks from the Capitol, “could have caused serious injuries,” if detonated.

With this and the news that perhaps only 1% of flights in the U.S. have air marshals on them (pilots and marshals told CNN about the dearth of agents out there), what is all that Homeland Security cash going?

One marshal said that while security is certainly one reason the numbers are kept secret, he believes the agency simply doesn’t want taxpayers to know the truth.

“I would be very embarrassed by [the numbers] if they were to get out,” one air marshal said. “The American public would be shocked. … I think the average person understands there’s no physical way to protect every single flight everywhere,” the air marshal said. “But it’s such a small percentage. It’s just very aggravating for us.”

More Taser insanity. The mounting incidents of violence being perpetrated by the inappropriate use of Tasers is unnerving. The stories from readers keep flooding into my inbox.

Here’s one from my state that will turn your stomach (h/t n8nyc and Virginia F.). Darryl Wayne Turner was a cashier and bagged groceries at a local Food Lion. He lifted a couple of Hot Pocket lunches and his mother told him to do the right thing — go back to the store and fess up. Then something went horribly wrong.

A 17-year-old died at Carolinas Medical Center Thursday after a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer shocked him with a Taser during a confrontation at a grocery store in northeast Charlotte.

…Around lunchtime, Turner had come home to eat and told his mom that he had stolen a couple of Hot Pockets from the store. A supervisor planned to get a district manager involved and he feared disciplinary action, she said.

She said she told him to go back to the store and face up to what happened.

It wasn’t long after lunch she got a call from one of her son’s co-workers, who told her about the incident, she said.

After Turner was hit, police called the Charlotte Fire Department and paramedics, department policy anytime an officer uses a Taser gun, the release said.

Homicide detectives are investigating Turner’s death and will present their findings to the district attorney, the news release said.

Turner had no criminal record and no health problems.

Not to be topped, read what happened in the case of a Matteson, IL man, who was on the wrong end of a Taser — he has been acquitted of assaulting an officer.

Read that, and see a video about the use of Tasers in Eugene, Oregon, after the jump.
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An aside - why does it seem like when I go out of town that come back with a cold of some kind? It feels like my head is about to explode today, and I’m hacking up a lung. Speaking of health care, check this out.

Nothing to see here, move along — Hospitals Reuse Medical Devices To Lower Costs.

In a bid to save costs and stem a rising tide of medical waste, hospitals are recycling a growing number of medical devices labeled as single-use, from scissors and scrubs to the sharp blades surgeons use to saw through bones.

Recycling medical devices labeled for single use is legal as long as certain Food and Drug Administration guidelines are followed. But the practice, which involves shipping devices to reprocessing facilities to be cleaned, sterilized and tested for reuse, has raised concerns about safety. Medical device makers say their single-use products are just that, and pose a higher risk of failure and harm when recycled.

…At Catholic Healthcare West, the nation’s eighth-largest hospital system, a wide range of medical devices labeled as “single use” are reprocessed each year. Last year, the San Francisco-based concern figures it reduced waste volume by 41 tons and saved $1.8 million.

“The safe use of these reprocessed devices helps us conserve resources so we can be more cost-effective in delivering care” says Sister Susan Vickers, vice president of community health. “And we are diverting significant amounts of medical waste, which definitely benefits our planet.”

OK. Saving the planet is a laudable goal, but I wonder what controls are in place to ensure appropriate oversight of the reprocessing. It seems like a situation ripe for corruption at the expense of good (safe) health care.

When I posted this at the Blend, one reader made this unsettling comment:

Disclaimer: I work for a medical device company, but have held these views since the time when I was working in hospitals as an employee.

Mad Cow and CJD are caused by prions, snippets of protein that can invade cells and damage them. no sterilization technique can guarantee to eradicate prions.

I encourage everyone to advocate for their own health care and ask your health care providers whether they reuse single-use medical devices and to ask for new product if you (or your SO or family) need some kind of invasive care.

A couple of you emailed this one in for the Taser files — I’m sure there are plenty more where this came from.

A man died Tuesday night after Chicago police shocked him with a Taser stun gun because he was combative during an arrest on the West Side, authorities said Wednesday morning.

Police sources say the man was on drugs and “acting suspiciously,” walking away from police near the 2600 block of South Trumbull Avenue in the South Lawndale neighborhood. When police tried to stop him, he was combative, and was sprayed with a chemical spray and shocked with the gun, sources said.

…The Taser used was one of the department’s newer models, equipped with a camera that allows the incident to be videotaped. Investigators will be reviewing that tape, said Monique Bond, spokeswoman for the Chicago Police Department.

A new and improved model, you don’t say? Now the suspect had a rap sheet and was a known gang member, so we’re not talking about a choir boy. But the issue here is that a “non-lethal” weapon seems to be proving itself to be dangerous. In this case, the police would have been better off shooting the guy in the arm or leg in a non-fatal area than Tasing him, but because the device is being used at what seems like the drop of a hat, we’re seeing more incidents like this.

Like what happened in Roswell, New Mexico. Read after the jump.
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What is wrong with people?!

A 21-year-old Harris County woman filed a $200,000 lawsuit against American Airlines alleging employees on a flight to Los Angeles from Dallas/Fort Worth Airport failed to protect her while she slept from another passenger who masturbated to her and ejaculated in her hair, according to a lawsuit she filed last week in Tarrant County.

…The woman slept most of the flight, but awoke about 20 minutes before landing when the pilot announced the plane was on decent into Los Angeles. When the woman opened her eyes, she saw that an unknown man had moved into the seat next to her and was staring at her as he masturbated, the suit states.

The woman turned toward the window in embarrassment and in an act of nervousness began to run her fingers through her hair where she noticed “a substantial amount of an extremely sticky substance in her hair,” the suit states.

OK. This incident reminds me of something that happened to a cousin of mine in NYC who encountered a perv like this on the subway. He was one of those classic raincoat pervs. She was sitting down on the train, and a man came up to her and opened his coat and started going at it. She whipped out this keychain, which was actually a giant safety pin (about 6 inches long), and opened it up and said she was going to “put this right through your dick if you don’t get it out of my face.”

Needless to say, he closed the coat and got off at the next stop.

Can this get any worse?! After blogging about Lisa Shutter being sexually violated during a “traffic stop” by the Albany, NY police department — where one of the officers allegedly inserted his finger into Shutter’s vagina on a public street during an apparent search for drugs, I wondered what else goes on in that department. You know it’s not the first time when the behavior alleged is so beyond the pale.

Well, in the comments of that thread, a reader put up another link that shows the Albany, NY police are equal opportunity alleged rapists, as yet another incident of police abuse hit the papers earlier this month.

Two years ago, Tunde Clement stepped off a bus at the city’s main terminal downtown.

Clement, a black man, was carrying a backpack and coming from New York City. That may have been enough to pique the interest of undercover sheriff’s investigators scanning the crowd with their eyes.

They cornered Clement and began peppering him with questions.

He was quickly handcuffed and falsely arrested. He was taken to a station to be strip-searched and then to a hospital, where doctors forcibly sedated him with a cocktail of powerful drugs, including one that clouded his memory of the incident.

Oh yes, it also gets much worse below the fold.
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Beyond speechless — as if police sadism with Tasers isn’t enough to give you agita, look at what occurred during a traffic stop in Albany, NY:

It was early evening and already dark when the patrol car’s emergency lights flashed in the rearview mirror of Lisa Shutter’s Mitsubishi sedan on Quail Street, just off Central Avenue.

Police records show the officers called out a “Signal 38″ to alert a dispatcher they were onto something suspicious and about to pull someone over. They would later write in a report that they had pulled her over for “failure to signal,” although no ticket was issued, according to police records shared with the Times Union.

The actions of police in the minutes that followed would end in controversy rather than with an arrest. They would also leave Shutter, a 28-year-old single mother from Ravena, shaken and angry after one of the officers allegedly inserted his finger into Shutter’s vagina on a public street during an apparent search for drugs.

When it was over, “I pulled off down the road and I just cried for probably a half hour,” Shutter said. “I called my dad. … I felt like I had been basically raped.” The incident has triggered an ongoing internal affairs investigation by the Albany Police Department.

Even worse, Shutter is watching the wagons circle…read on, it gets worse after the jump.
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Jack Douglas of the Star-Telegram has a follow up to his original story about the halting of weapons screening at an Obama rally in Dallas this week. Readers have flooded the comments of the original article with stories of equally lax security at other Obama events (a few are below the fold).

It takes a lot to get the Secret Service to respond. Based on this statement, someone is not telling the truth, as the USSS challenges the veracity of the Dallas law enforcement’s observations reported in the Star-Telegram. Is this a satisfactory explanation? (UPI):

The U.S. Secret Service Friday denied reports that security measures at a recent Barack Obama rally in Texas were relaxed or deviated from established plans.

Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren said there was no order from the Secret Service to stop screening people going to the Obama rally Wednesday at Dallas’s Reunion Arena. He said that the event’s security plans didn’t involve having each participant pass through a magnetometer, as may be the case at other events.

The Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram reported that some police at the event expressed concern about people not passing through metal detectors.

“Any allegations to the fact that we had suspended screening or deviated from the original security plan would be entirely inaccurate,” Zahren said.

More below the fold.
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In light of an earlier post over at my pad (I’ve included it below) on a white supremacist conference being held in Virginia this week and the racist threats and hatemongering about Obama reported by Hatewatch, this is mind blowing. How on earth could security halt a weapons screening of the attendees an hour before an Obama appearance in Dallas? Good god. (H/t to Sean Paul Kelley)

Security details at Barack Obama’s rally Wednesday stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena.

The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security.

Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department’s homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order — apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service — was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena’s vacant seats before Obama came on.

“Sure,” said Lawrence, when asked if he was concerned by the great number of people who had gotten into the building without being checked. But, he added, the turnout of more than 17,000 people seemed to be a “friendly crowd.”

The Secret Service did not return a call from the Star-Telegram seeking comment.

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Virginia: ‘Academic’ white supremacists gather at conference

Folks in the white supremacist camp are starting to really ratchet up the hate and fear machine as it looks like a Barack Obama nomination could become reality. From Hatewatch:

“OBAMA WILL DIE, KKK FOREVER,” concludes a Feb. 15 post by “Rodney” to a blog run by a person identified only as Strider333. Above that signoff, Rodney wrote: “The KKK or someone WILL assassinate Obama! If we get a NIGGER President all you NIGGER’s [sic] will think you’ve won and that the WHITE people will have to bow to you[.] FUCK THAT.”

On traditional white supremacist and neo-Nazi sites (for instance, here and here), there are lengthy discussion threads about what would happen if Obama were elected president. Dozens of those posts are derogatory and employ all kinds of racist slurs.

The benign-sounding American Renaissance Conference begins this week (Feb. 22-Feb. 24), located at the Crowne Plaza Dulles Airport Hotel. It will be a gathering of “racial-realist thought” attendees, convening to discuss the fate of the white world.

More, including an update, below the fold.
(more…)

Man, this bigot is busy. Besides being a racist (x2), homophobe and defender of intelligent design, Utah State Senator Chris Buttars has a solution for the plethora of incidents of taxpaying citizens tased for sh*ts and giggles by law enforcement officers who seem to have forgotten tactics to engage the public that fall somewhere between a civil conversation and unloading their weapon into them. (KUTV):

A new bill proposed at the legislature would allow for police to withhold misconduct reports from the public. Supporters of the bill believe that police misconduct should be kept secret from the public so to not discredit police testimony. Others say that a forthright police unit is essential to the community.

In September, Jared Massey was zapped with a taser by Trooper John Gardner. A video of the incident was recorded from Gardner’s patrol car. Gardner can be seen shocking Massey until he hits the ground while Massey’s wife screams from the side of their SUV.

More than a million people watched the video on “YouTube.” Massey was shocked to see his new found fame. The footage may have never been seen had Massey not made a records request to obtain the tape.

Currently, misconduct reports are available in Utah with an official records request. Under the bill SB260, sponsored by Senator Chris Buttars, the video and investigation report from Massey’s tazering might have been kept secret from the public and journalists.

Meanwhile, over in the U.K., police have been given the thumbs-up to tase children.

Police have been given the go-ahead to use Taser stun guns against children.

The relaxing of restrictions on the use of the weapons comes despite warnings that they could trigger a heart attack in youngsters. Until now, Tasers - which emit a 50,000-volt electric shock - have been used only by specialist officers as a “non lethal” alternative to firearms.

…Amnesty International claims Tasers have been responsible for 220 deaths in America since 2001. Many cities and police forces there have banned their use against minors.

Two years ago in Chicago a 14-year-old boy went into cardiac arrest after being shot with one. Medics had to use a defibrillator four times to resuscitate him.

Taser International, the American firm that makes the device, said tests on pigs suggested the weapons were safe.

The Association of Chief Police Officers, which issues guidance to forces on the use of weapons, said Tasers would be made “readily available” for “conflict management” at incidents of “violence and threats of violence of such severity that they will need force”.

Here’s a great read — a Salt Lake Trib column by Rebecca Walsh that sheds more light on Buttars and people who don’t seem to remember voting for him, Buttars is craggy face of homophobia, racism.

Related:
* Pam’s House Blend Taser files
* Taser of the Day blog
* Tasered While Black blog

For the one you love…in pink. TASER International is advertising its latest personal protection device, the C2, as the perfect Valentines Day gift for the style-conscious partner. Leopard and camo print are available.

The TASER C2 is a self-defense electronic control device. Electronic Control Devices (ECDs) use propelled wires or direct contact to conduct energy to affect the sensory and motor functions of the nervous system. The TASER C2 uses a replaceable cartridge, containing compressed nitrogen, to deploy two small probes that are attached to the TASER C2 by insulated conductive wires with a maximum length of 15 feet (4.5 meters). The TASER C2 transmits electrical pulses along the wires and into the body affecting the sensory and motor functions of the peripheral nervous system. The energy can penetrate up to two cumulative inches of clothing.

You won’t believe what I saw when I surfed over to the TASER International site.

The product of tomorrow - in partnership with iRobot, the future of the “non-lethal” device is tethered to a robot. And TASER International proudly features an actual demonstration of its weapon of nervous system assault on a big black brother. I sh*t you not. UPDATE: No need for a screen grab. The “Terminator”-style video is below.

Related:
* January body count: five men die after being Tasered
* Pennsylvania man tased in his own home
* Out of control tasing continues
* Taser sadism on tape
* More out-of-control tasing - Ohio
* Police taser parties
* Taser of the Day blog
* Tasered While Black blog

People, what will it take to get this under control? In Tampa, Florida, a man paralyzed from the chest down was tossed out of his wheelchair by a law enforcement officer who didn’t believe Brian Sterner was a quadraplegic.

Sterner, who can drive, was arrested on a traffic violation. When he was booked into the Orient Road Jail last month, Sterner couldn’t believe what happened.

He says a deputy looked at him and didn’t believe he was a quadriplegic. She walked behind him, took the handles on the back of the hospital-grade wheel chair and dumped it forward.

Sterner says he tried to roll as he was going down, but hit so hard he thought he had broken two ribs. Then, while he was on the floor, deputies frisked him and tried to get him back into the chair…Sterner says it’s incredibly degrading and it’s an example of how poorly trained the Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office is. He adds, if they’re trying to figure out if somebody needs to be in a wheelchair or not, there are many other ways to do it than to dump somebody on their face.

The deputy, Charlette Jones is suspended without pay pending the outcome of the investigation.

Counting down until trolls show up defending this behavior…

Also:
* This is your police state - woman violently strip searched
* The Blend TASER brutality files

Regular readers know that I’ve been following the seemingly endless violent, sadistic Taser incidents involving law enforcement. Below is something equally heinous — the disgusting strip search of a woman by police in Stark County, Ohio. (Raw Story):

Hope Steffey’s night started with a call to police for help. It ended with her face down, naked, and sobbing on a jail cell floor. Now, the sheriff’s deputies from Stark County, Ohio who allegedly used excessive force during a strip search 15 months ago face a federal lawsuit, and recently released video won’t help their case.

According to the policy of the sheriff’s office, strip searches conducted must be with officers of the same sex as the person arrested. In Steffey’s case, both men and women ripped her pants down.

Steffey’s ordeal with the Stark County sheriff’s deputies began after her cousin called 9-1-1 claiming Steffey had been assaulted by another one of their cousins. When a Stark County police officer arrived, he asked to see Steffey’s driver’s license. But instead of handing over her own ID, she mistakenly turned over her dead sister’s license, which she contends she keeps in her wallet as a memento. That’s when the situation became complicated.

…Eventually, Steffey was arrested and taken to the Stark County Jail, charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. But once in custody, her attorney says seven jail workers, male and female, forcibly removed Steffey of all her clothes, including her undergarments, while she lay face down in handcuffs. Local news footage shows Steffey wailing, asking “What are you doing?!?”

“And you have to ask yourself, what was the purpose of the strip search?” said Steffey’s lawyer. “What was the necessity of it? This was a disorderly conduct claim.”

The lawsuit says that Steffey remained in the cell for six hours and wrapped herself in toilet paper to stay warm. During that time, she was not allowed to use a phone or seek medical assistance for injuries she accrued that night, including a cracked tooth, bulging disc, and bruises.

Hat tip to The Dark Wraith, who said:

When you’re finished watching the video of the strip search, go ask your favorite candidate of “hope” and “change” and all those other lies just exactly what he or she is going to do to end this rising nightmare of an authoritarian state.

No, seriously. Don’t find some reason why your choice for Heir to Empire is not responsible. He or she is. They all want to lead this country? Then let them explain precisely how they plan to lead it away from this mess.

Ask those Democrats and Republicans running for office when enough will be enough. Ask them when they plan to stop spewing their sweet little nothings. Ask them if they will vow to their very God or perhaps even to that piece of paper we call the Constitution of the United States of America to take upon themselves the enormous task of putting every monster of this spreading blackness of sovereign violence—from George W. Bush and Dick V. Cheney all the way down to the very last, badge-wearing jackboot on the beat—into prison to rot.

The right-wing flamethrower didn’t have a problem with racial profiling back when the main faces of terrorism were brown, but now that white folks are being recruited by Al-Qaeda, she may want to rethink that position. From The Scotsman’s screaming headliner — Al-Qaeda’s white army of terror:

HUNDREDS of British non-Muslims have been recruited by al-Qaeda to wage war against the West, senior security sources warned last night.

…Security experts say the growing secret army of white terrorists poses a particularly serious threat as they are far less likely to be detected than members of the Asian community.

Since the 7/7 and 21/7 London bombings, police and intelligence services have had considerable success in identifying, disrupting and stopping extremist plots. As a result, groups such as al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen have been forced to change tack. Converting white non-Muslims has been one response.

…One British security source last night told Scotland on Sunday: “There could be anything up to 1,500 converts to the fundamentalist cause across Britain. They pose a real potential danger to our domestic security because, obviously, these people blend in and do not raise any flags.

…The trend is well established in the United States. American-born Adam Gadahn is one of the FBI’s top 10 most-wanted terrorists after converting to Islam and rising through al-Qaeda’s ranks to become a prominent spokesman.

Kate gets pulled regularly because she has an Arabic surname. One time she signed onto an airline’s web site to download boarding passes (I think it was for Thanksgiving), and when she logged in, she was unable to do so, receiving a message to the effect: “due to enhanced security measures, some customers will not be able to download boarding passes.”

Rejected.

I sign on — we were obviously on the same flight — and ping — I breezed through and downloaded both of our passes. Way to go Homeland Security measures!

And you thought the Patriot Act and warrantless wiretapping was a big deal. Hah — look at what Uncle Peeping Sam wants from you now.

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is drawing up plans for cyberspace spying that would make the current debate on warrantless wiretaps look like a “walk in the park,” according to an interview published in the New Yorker’s print edition today.

Debate on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act “will be a walk in the park compared to this,” McConnell said. “this is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens.”

The article, which profiles the 65-year-old former admiral appointed by President George W. Bush in January 2007 to oversee all of America’s intelligence agencies, was not published on the New Yorker’s Web site. (It can be read here in pdf).

.McConnell is developing a Cyber-Security Policy, still in the draft stage, which will closely police Internet activity.

“Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving the government the authority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer or Web search,” author Lawrence Wright pens.

And if that isn’t enough, look at the Golden State’s plan to control the climate in your home:

A Blender shot me this link: California Seeks Thermostat Control.

The proposed rules are contained in a document circulated by the California Energy Commission, which for more than three decades has set state energy efficiency standards for home appliances, like water heaters, air conditioners and refrigerators. The changes would allow utilities to adjust customers’ preset temperatures when the price of electricity is soaring. Customers could override the utilities’ suggested temperatures. But in emergencies, the utilities could override customers’ wishes.

OK. So it’s to control blackouts and such. I certainly understand the impulse to keep full-on power failures in the state when everyone turns on the A/C in 100 degree heat.

But think about it — it’s easy to imagine select manipulation of energy usage, such as keeping the surgically enhanced set in Hollywood studios cool, for instance, while poor areas of L.A roast. You can’t tell me politics and power wouldn’t factor into who goes into brownout if controls can be controlled by bigoted state government officials — or those willing to be paid off.

First we have Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle's proposal to put a portable "robo-potty" in beach restrooms to deter specifically man-on-man sex. Now we have a new device being debated over in Martin County — a talking camera that announces it will start rolling if people (of any orientation) on the beaches there don't stop boinking. (Palm Beach Post):

FlashCAM devices sense motion and then flash a bright light, said David Graham, assistant to County Administrator Duncan Ballantyne.

After being activated, the cameras issue a pre-recorded verbal warning to let people know they are under surveillance, Graham said. Sixty seconds later, they start recording.

The cameras, which the California company of Q-Star Technology makes, are solar powered and can be connected to light poles or even trees along the shores, Graham said.

In July, a sheriff's office sting caught six men at two county beaches on charges of either exposing themselves to undercover officers or soliciting them for sex.

Last weekend, a Martin County teacher was arrested and charged with exposing himself to an undercover deputy.

DiTerlizzi's call for surveillance also comes after several high-profile arrests statewide and nationally involving elected officials soliciting sex in bathrooms.

…The logistics of wiring all beaches for continuous broadcasting to the Internet would be difficult, Graham said. A county worker would use a computer to go to the beaches and download footage from the camera, he said.

You must check out The General’s letter to DiTerlizzi. A snippet:

According to the Palm Beach Post, the cameras are triggered by motion sensors. That could prove troublesome don’t you think? I mean, while I like to discourage any motion on the beach, sometimes it’s unavoidable, like when I’m adjusting the big ball of socks I keep in my Speedo to provide proper moisture control.

Then there’s the motion that occurs from just lying on the sand. Often the wind will create ripples across my very manly gut and chest, much like those you’ll see on a properly prepared jello salad. If you combine that with the constant adjusting, it might appear as if I’m really going to town on my Mighty Staff of Patriarchal Authority. I could wrongly be accused of committing a naughty crime just like 78% of your state legislature’s republican caucus.