Ferguson PD Lies About Why It Released Videotape Of Store Robbery, Lies Some More When Confronted With The Facts

from the worst.-wagon-circling.-ever. dept

In the wake of the shooting of Michael Brown, the Ferguson Police made several ill-advised moves. The biggest was the paramilitary force that greeted protests, looking for all the world like a unit flown in from Kabul, followed shortly thereafter by the detainment of several journalists. The decision to withhold the officer's name was also received poorly, but this was complicated by one baffling move -- the release of a store surveillance tape that appeared to show Brown stealing cigarillos from a local store shortly before he was shot dead.

This tape's release was purely self-motivated. Even the Dept. of Justice -- which had stepped in shortly after everything went to hell in Ferguson -- advised against it. The only conceivable reason for the release was a post-facto "justification" of Officer Darren Wilson's decision to shoot an unarmed man several times.

But the Ferguson PD tried to cover up this motivation. Matthew Key at TheBlot has dug into the events surrounding the release of the surveillance tape and found nothing but Ferguson PD lies.

The chief of police for the Ferguson Police Department misled members of the media and the public when he asserted that his hand was forced in releasing surveillance footage that purported to show 18-year-old resident Michael Brown engaged in a strong-arm robbery at a convenience store minutes before he was fatally shot by a police officer.

The tape -- released on the same day the PD belatedly revealed the name of the officer who shot Brown -- was supposedly released as the result of "multiple" FOIA requests from journalists and other citizens.

“We’ve had this tape for a while, and we had to diligently review the information that was in the tape, determine if there was any other reason to keep it,” Jackson said at the press event. “We got a lot of Freedom of Information requests for this tape, and at some point it was just determined we had to release it. We didn’t have good cause, any other reason not to release it under FOI.”

But another FOIA request exposed this claim for what it is. TheBlot used a FOIA request to obtain all FOIA requests sent to the Ferguson PD. And it couldn't find a single one that specifically requested that tape.

Last month, TheBlot Magazine requested a copy of all open records requests made by members of the public — including journalists and news organizations — that specifically sought the release of the convenience store surveillance video. The logs, which were itself obtained under Missouri’s open records law, show only one journalist — Joel Currier with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch — broadly requested any and all multimedia evidence “leading up to” Brown’s death on Aug. 9.

With that lie uncovered, the Ferguson Police decided to double down. A statement issued to TheBlot claimed that multiple other FOIA requests were made orally, due to heavy traffic to the city's website and email server. Possibly believable, but was anyone logging these verbal requests? And could this be where the multiple requests for the surveillance video originated? The answers are "yes," "well, actually no," and "shut up."

The first response:

City of Ferguson attorney Stephanie Karr said that “many requests were made verbally due to the fact that the City’s website and email were down at several points during that week” and that “city personnel cataloged all requests and treated them in the same manner as it would any Sunshine Law request.

So, if they were logged, there'd be some record of a bunch of people asking for the release of the surveillance tape, right? Cue backpedal #1:

Karr responded to a request for comment Saturday afternoon by denying the City of Ferguson had a log of verbal records requests.

“You assume that the Custodian of Records, somehow, logged every single question, statement or request for information, verbal or otherwise, made to every single police officer, city employee, consultant, appointed official or elected official,” Karr told TheBlot by e-mail. “That assumption is, quite simply, wrong and unrealistic.”

Actually, TheBlot didn't "assume" anything. It simply took Karr's first statement at face value. Apparently, everything about the first statement was a lie. On top of that, the Ferguson PD may have violated the Sunshine Law by not logging requests it filled or denied. TheBlot has a request in for the logged verbal FOIA requests and in the meantime notes that the PD is still withholding both the incident report for the shooting (which may not even exist) as well as the incident report for the robbery.

Just a little more evidence pointing towards the unreliability of public officials, especially when caught in the middle of misconduct. Not only has the PD apparently lied about its reasons for releasing the tape, but it continues to withhold information about its involvement in the shooting of Michael Brown. Earlier, it claimed Officer Wilson suffered injuries -- possibly severe -- during his "interaction" with Brown. Those have proven false as well, with Wilson's own post-shooting text messages saying nothing about sustaining an injury as well as citizen video showing Wilson standing around the shooting scene for several minutes without seeking medical attention.

Odds are, no one directly requested this video. The release of the video coincided with the forced release of the officer's name in a blatant attempt to provide justification for his actions. While undoubtedly true that the city's website and email server have been hit pretty hard during the past few weeks, that's no excuse for city employees to fulfill or deny FOIA requests without documentation -- especially when its track record so far shows an urge to bury and obfuscate.

Filed Under: ferguson, foia, lies, mike brown, missouri, police, release, videotape

California Highway Patrol Seizes Medical Records Of Woman An Officer Was Caught On Tape Beating

from the all-part-of-the-exoneration-process dept

Today's demonstration of post-brutality scrambling is brought to you by the California Highway Patrol. First off, we'll take a look at the "alleged" brutality, which looks incredibly similar to non-alleged brutality. (Apologies for the watermark the person who recorded the incident slapped all over the video.)

This head-punching (David Diaz, who recorded the incident, counts 15 punches in total) was performed as an act of civil service, according to the CHP.

Speaking to the television station ABC7, the California Highway Patrol said that the officer had ordered the woman to stop walking, out of fears for her safety.

She failed to follow this order, possibly due to mental illness. After the unnamed officer's fists were finished ensuring her safety, the CHP sent the woman to a mental health facility and refused to allow her family to see her. The video surfaced shortly thereafter, forcing the CHP to make further statements about how "physically combative" the woman was, as well as expressing its utmost desire to find a way out of this to see justice done.

"We're looking at every possibility, every fact, every circumstance that have contributed to this situation, and we're going to try to come to a just conclusion," Highway Patrol Assistant Chief Chris O'Quinn said at a news conference on Friday.

"Just," in this context, seems to actually mean "exonerating." The investigation continues, apparently, albeit in unexpected (and terrible) directions.

California Highway Patrol investigators have seized the medical records of a woman seen on video being repeatedly punched by one of its officers on the side of a Los Angeles freeway.

Chris Arevalo, executive administrator for psychiatric services at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, confirmed that the CHP served the search warrant Tuesday for Marlene Pinnock's records.

Why the CHP would need to seize the records, rather than just view them, is completely inexplicable. The person served the warrant noted that it was issued to grab "property or things" as part of a felony investigation, which apparently included communications with her doctor about her well-being and "references to her attorney."

I'm sure the ongoing investigation will clarify the CHP's need to violate its victim's privacy before this debacle is wrapped up. That's how it works. But it looks like an uphill battle. The statement released by the CHP commissioner sounds like even he was caught off-guard by this bizarre, smells-like-a-cover-up records seizure.

"I think what they're trying to do is, they don't have a statement from her, and they're trying to find that out," Farrow said. "I don't think the CHP is trying to put her on trial or make it an issue about her. What I'm looking at is entirely about the circumstances, we all saw what happened. Our job is to find out the why and the how."

So, the CHP gets statements by hospitalizing someone and seizing their medical records. While these records may offer some insight as to why she didn't immediately follow the officer's instructions, they really don't fill the "statement" void -- unless the CHP is going to further violate her privacy by releasing a statement on its own behalf using information gleaned from the seized records. As it stands now, it looks exactly like the CHP is planning to "make it an issue about her." If it isn't, then perhaps it might quid pro quo with the release of the disciplinary records of involved officers.

Moving on from this larger wrongness, I'd like to take a little time to point to the complicity of the Associated Press in the low-level whitewashing of this latest development by using that famous law enforcement standby, the passive voice.

My first notification came to me via Officer.com, whose headline read:

CHP Seizes Medical Records of Woman Seen Punched

"Seen punched?" Punched by whom? By the CHP, of course, not that this headline indicates that. As far as this headline goes, it may have just been a random mugging. A more accurate headline would be "CHP Seizes Medical Records of Woman They Were Seen Punching." Clumsy, but more honest. Considering this AP story was reposted by a police-centric site, the passive voice is completely expected. But it's not just cop sites like Officer.com. It's other places as well.





The AP buries the lede and other media sites run the feed without even altering it. Of course, Police One took the AP's weak title and made it even worse.

CHP seizes medical records of woman in scuffle with cop

Not only does it side more with the CHP, but it also makes it appear as though the CHP seized her records during the "scuffle."

We expect this use of the passive voice from police officers. The media doesn't really need to assist law enforcement spokespeople in their blame-deflection efforts. When misconduct allegations arise, they're always followed by details of "weapons discharging" and innocent bystanders "receiving gunshot wounds" and officers never striking anybody but always "responding" to actions, movements or words from some person whose personal safety was ensured by hospitalization.

Filed Under: california highway patrol, chips, medical records, videotape

FAA Investigates Congressman's Use Of Drone To Help Videotape His Wedding

from the watching-the-watchers-watching-themselves dept

Drones: they're a thing. They were once reserved for the military to use to remote control the fiery death of scary people most of us have never met, some of whom may occasionally, ahem, be, you know, American or whatever. Now all kinds of commercial applications are being explored for these sky-borne death-machines, like getting me my damned tacos delivered through the sky, the way God intended. Well, the FAA went all crazy-pants over the idea of businesses using UAVs, which was followed by the NTSB ruling that the FAA had no jurisdiction over commercial drones. Following an FAA appeal, the agency then decided to claim that drones were only for fun, not profit. You know, like sex.

That brings us to today, where we get to read news about the FAA investigating the use of a drone to take sky-recordings of the wedding of a US Congressman who sits on the subcommittee that oversees the FAA.

The agency's carefully worded statement doesn't mention Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., by name, but said it was looking into "a report of an unmanned aircraft operation in Cold Spring, New York, on June 21 to determine if there was any violation of federal regulations or airspace restrictions."

Maloney has acknowledged hiring a photographer to produce a video of his wedding using a camera mounted on a small drone. The wedding took place in Cold Spring on June 21. Maloney is a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's aviation subcommittee, which oversees the FAA.

Well, if the NTSB can't get the FAA to calm the hell down about minor commercial uses of drones, darkening the memories of a congressman's wedding with a pointless investigation sure as hell might. Particularly when that congressman is directly involved in overseeing said FAA. Boys, you may just have bit off a little more than you can chew.

And this all comes off as particularly silly, given that this particular drone is the increasingly common small helicopter with a video recorder attached to it. The chances that this thing is going to interfere with airborne Boeings seem, shall we say, slim.

"On their wedding day, Sean and Randy were focused on a ceremony 22 years in the making, not their wedding photographer's camera mounted on his remote control helicopter," Stephanie Formas, spokeswoman for Maloney, said in a statement. Formas, citing the judge's ruling, said there was "no enforceable FAA rule" or regulation that applied to "a model aircraft like the helicopter used in the ceremony."

I rather expect that point to be driven home at an upcoming subcommittee meeting.

Filed Under: commercial use, drones, faa, house transportation and infrastructure committee, ntsb, patrick maloney, uav, videotape, weddings