At about 11:30 on the night of July 12, 2008, six teenagers brutally assaulted a Latino man in a Shenandoah, Pa., park while yelling “Fucking Spic, “Go Back to Mexico” and “Tell your fucking Mexican friends to get the fuck out of Shenandoah.”
As they gathered at one of their homes after the attack, the mother of assailant Brandon Piekarsky arrived to tell them they needed to “get their stories straight” because she had heard from her boyfriend that the victim might die. Before they left the house that night, they agreed not to tell police that Piekarsky had kicked the man or that they had attacked him because of his ethnicity.
As it turned out, the mother’s boyfriend was Jason Hayes, a Shenandoah patrolman who had stopped several of the attackers as they fled. His connection to Piekarsky is one example of the links between the attackers and three Shenandoah police officers who tried to cover up the teenagers’ involvement in the crime, according to federal indictments unsealed yesterday.
The officers face obstruction of justice and other charges in connection with the beating death of Luis Ramirez, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. In another indictment, Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak, who also took part in the attack, are charged with a federal hate crime that carries a maximum penalty of life in prison; Donchak is also charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice and related offenses. The federal indictments, greeted warmly by immigrant rights groups, came seven months after an all-white jury found the men guilty of a misdemeanor assault charge but acquitted them of more serious charges, including ethnic intimidation.
According to the indictment charging the three police officers, Piekarsky’s mother was also friends with Shenandoah Police Chief Matthew Nestor and had vacationed with him. In addition, Lt. William Moyer — who, along with Patrolman Hayes, stopped the attackers after the assault — had a son who played on Shenandoah’s high school football team with the assailants.
The indictment gives the following account: After the assault, Piekarsky accompanied police officers Hayes and Moyer to the park and told them about the attack. While at the crime scene, Piekarsky used his cell phone — which Hayes, his mother’s boyfriend, had given him and paid for — to call Donchak with the news that he had told police about the beating of Ramirez. He then went to Donchak’s home, where the assailants agreed to lie about what had happened that night — a pact they carried out in the days following the attack.
The next morning, Moyer showed up at the house of an assailant who is not named in the indictment and told him to speak with the other attackers so they could all give the same account to police. During the week after the assault, Moyer contacted the parents of a second unnamed participant with the suggestion that they get rid of the sneakers their son wore on the night of the attack. Shortly before July 24, 2008, he went to that participant’s home and, in an attempt to absolve Piekarsky, told the parents that their son “should take full responsibility for the assault.” In another effort to conceal Piekarsky’s involvement, Moyer and Hayes mischaracterized a witness’s account in an official report to make it appear that the second unnamed participant had a greater role in the attack than he actually did.
Moyer also falsely reported that an eyewitness who called 911 from the park that night did not identify any of the attackers and said there was a man wielding a gun. In fact, the 911 caller had identified Piekarsky, Donchak and other attackers to Moyer and Hayes. After stopping the assailants identified by the 911 caller, Moyer and Hayes released them. All three police officers deliberately wrote false reports in connection with the investigation, the indictment said. In addition, when a Shenandoah official recommended that the police department recuse itself from the investigation because of its ties to the suspects, the police chief refused.
Hayes’ lawyer, Frank Nocito of Kingston, Pa., said he does not comment on pending cases. Lawyers for Donchak, Piekarsky, and the police officers named in indictments did not return requests for comment.
According to a separate indictment, the corruption in the Shenandoah Police Department allegedly went beyond the case involving Ramirez’s death. Chief Nestor and his second-in-command, Capt. Jamie Gennarini, were charged with multiple counts of extortion and civil rights violations. In one incident described in the indictment, Nestor and Gennarini drove to the workplace of a local businessman, strode into his office and proclaimed, “This is the way we are going to do business in Shenandoah!” They then drove the businessman to the police station while Gennarini demanded money from him. After placing him in a holding cell, Nestor threatened to formally arrest him unless another individual brought $2,000 in cash for the two police officers. That person, who is not named in the indictment, told Nestor she needed to go to the bank. Nestor told her he would be getting paperwork ready for the businessman’s arrest while she made the trip. He then called her on her cell phone to ask why it was taking “so long,” the indictment said. After accepting the money, Nestor and Gennarini wrote “vague and misleading entries” in the department’s logbook to cover up the businessman’s detention.
Source: Southern Poverty Law Center
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Federal agents arrest six in Shenandoah
According to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice released this morning:
WASHINGTON - A federal grand jury has returned multiple indictments arising out of a fatal racially motivated beating and related police corruption in Shenandoah, Pa., the Justice Department announced. The three indictments include federal hate crime, obstruction of justice, conspiracy, official misconduct and extortion charges. The indictments were unsealed today, after being returned under seal on Dec. 10, 2009.
The first indictment charges Derrick Donchak and Brandon Piekarsky with a federal hate crime for fatally beating Luis Ramirez, a Latino male, while shouting racial epithets at him. According to the indictment, on July 12, 2008, the defendants, and others, were walking home from a local festival when they encountered Ramirez. The defendants then attacked Ramirez in a public street by striking and kicking him while members of the group yelled racial slurs at him.
Ramirez died two days later from his injuries. The indictment also alleges that, immediately following the beating, Donchak, Piekarsky and others, including members of the Shenandoah Police Department, participated in a scheme to obstruct the investigation of the fatal assault. As a result of this alleged obstruction, Donchak is charged in three additional counts for conspiring to obstruct justice and related offenses.
If convicted, Piekarsky and Donchak face a maximum penalty of life in prison on the hate crime charge. Donchak faces 20 years in prison on each of the obstruction charges and an additional five years in prison for conspiring to obstruct justice.
"Violence motivated by bigotry and hate has no place in America, and yet it remains all too prevalent in many of our communities," said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for Department of Justice. "The Civil Rights Division stands ready to bring perpetrators of hate crimes to justice."
A second indictment charges Shenandoah Police Chief Matthew Nestor, Lt. William Moyer and Police Officer Jason Hayes with conspiring to obstruct justice during the investigation into the fatal beating of Ramirez. Moyer has also been charged with witness and evidence tampering, and with lying to the FBI.
If convicted, the defendants face 20 years in prison on each of the obstruction charges and an additional five years in prison for conspiring to obstruct justice. Moyer faces an additional five years in prison for making false statements to the FBI.
A third indictment charges Chief Nestor and his second-in-command, Captain Jamie Gennarini, with multiple counts of extortion and civil rights violations. According to that indictment, from 2004 through 2007, Nestor conspired to extort cash payments from several illegal gambling operations in the Shenandoah area and obstructed the investigation of the extortion scheme. The indictment also alleges that on May 17, 2007, Nestor and Gennarini committed extortion by demanding a $2,000 cash payment from a local businessman and his family in exchange for releasing the businessman from their custody.
"The power granted to law enforcement officers does not place them above the law. We will continue to aggressively enforce the law to combat obstruction and corruption in law enforcement agencies," Assistant Attorney General Perez said. "We thank the FBI for their work in this investigation."
If convicted on these charges, Nestor and Gennarini face maximum penalties of 20 years in prison for each of the extortion counts. Additionally, the defendants face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for the conspiracy to violate civil rights. These cases were investigated by Special Agents Alan Jones and Adam Aichele of the Philadelphia Division of the FBI, and are being prosecuted by Civil Rights Division Trial Attorneys Eric L. Gibson and Myesha Braden.
The FBI wants to hear from anyone who may have information regarding alleged civil rights violations or public corruption in Schuylkill County, Pa. If you feel you have been victimized or have any additional information, please call FBI Special Agents Alan Jones or Anthony Cavallo at the Allentown, Pa., Resident Agency of the FBI at (610) 433-6488.
An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence of guilt. The defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Source: The Times-Tribune
WASHINGTON - A federal grand jury has returned multiple indictments arising out of a fatal racially motivated beating and related police corruption in Shenandoah, Pa., the Justice Department announced. The three indictments include federal hate crime, obstruction of justice, conspiracy, official misconduct and extortion charges. The indictments were unsealed today, after being returned under seal on Dec. 10, 2009.
The first indictment charges Derrick Donchak and Brandon Piekarsky with a federal hate crime for fatally beating Luis Ramirez, a Latino male, while shouting racial epithets at him. According to the indictment, on July 12, 2008, the defendants, and others, were walking home from a local festival when they encountered Ramirez. The defendants then attacked Ramirez in a public street by striking and kicking him while members of the group yelled racial slurs at him.
Ramirez died two days later from his injuries. The indictment also alleges that, immediately following the beating, Donchak, Piekarsky and others, including members of the Shenandoah Police Department, participated in a scheme to obstruct the investigation of the fatal assault. As a result of this alleged obstruction, Donchak is charged in three additional counts for conspiring to obstruct justice and related offenses.
If convicted, Piekarsky and Donchak face a maximum penalty of life in prison on the hate crime charge. Donchak faces 20 years in prison on each of the obstruction charges and an additional five years in prison for conspiring to obstruct justice.
"Violence motivated by bigotry and hate has no place in America, and yet it remains all too prevalent in many of our communities," said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for Department of Justice. "The Civil Rights Division stands ready to bring perpetrators of hate crimes to justice."
A second indictment charges Shenandoah Police Chief Matthew Nestor, Lt. William Moyer and Police Officer Jason Hayes with conspiring to obstruct justice during the investigation into the fatal beating of Ramirez. Moyer has also been charged with witness and evidence tampering, and with lying to the FBI.
If convicted, the defendants face 20 years in prison on each of the obstruction charges and an additional five years in prison for conspiring to obstruct justice. Moyer faces an additional five years in prison for making false statements to the FBI.
A third indictment charges Chief Nestor and his second-in-command, Captain Jamie Gennarini, with multiple counts of extortion and civil rights violations. According to that indictment, from 2004 through 2007, Nestor conspired to extort cash payments from several illegal gambling operations in the Shenandoah area and obstructed the investigation of the extortion scheme. The indictment also alleges that on May 17, 2007, Nestor and Gennarini committed extortion by demanding a $2,000 cash payment from a local businessman and his family in exchange for releasing the businessman from their custody.
"The power granted to law enforcement officers does not place them above the law. We will continue to aggressively enforce the law to combat obstruction and corruption in law enforcement agencies," Assistant Attorney General Perez said. "We thank the FBI for their work in this investigation."
If convicted on these charges, Nestor and Gennarini face maximum penalties of 20 years in prison for each of the extortion counts. Additionally, the defendants face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for the conspiracy to violate civil rights. These cases were investigated by Special Agents Alan Jones and Adam Aichele of the Philadelphia Division of the FBI, and are being prosecuted by Civil Rights Division Trial Attorneys Eric L. Gibson and Myesha Braden.
The FBI wants to hear from anyone who may have information regarding alleged civil rights violations or public corruption in Schuylkill County, Pa. If you feel you have been victimized or have any additional information, please call FBI Special Agents Alan Jones or Anthony Cavallo at the Allentown, Pa., Resident Agency of the FBI at (610) 433-6488.
An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence of guilt. The defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Source: The Times-Tribune
Two Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, Men and Four Police Officers Indicted for Hate Crime and Related Corruption
Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Two Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, Men and Four Police Officers Indicted for Hate Crime and Related Corruption
WASHINGTON – A federal grand jury has returned multiple indictments arising out of a fatal racially motivated beating and related police corruption in Shenandoah, Pa., the Justice Department announced. The three indictments include federal hate crime, obstruction of justice, conspiracy, official misconduct and extortion charges. The indictments were unsealed today, after being returned under seal on Dec. 10, 2009.
The first indictment charges Derrick Donchak and Brandon Piekarsky with a federal hate crime for fatally beating Luis Ramirez, a Latino male, while shouting racial epithets at him. According to the indictment, on July 12, 2008, the defendants, and others, were walking home from a local festival when they encountered Ramirez. The defendants then attacked Ramirez in a public street by striking and kicking him while members of the group yelled racial slurs at him. Ramirez died two days later from his injuries. The indictment also alleges that, immediately following the beating, Donchak, Piekarsky and others, including members of the Shenandoah Police Department, participated in a scheme to obstruct the investigation of the fatal assault. As a result of this alleged obstruction, Donchak is charged in three additional counts for conspiring to obstruct justice and related offenses.
If convicted, Piekarsky and Donchak face a maximum penalty of life in prison on the hate crime charge. Donchak faces 20 years in prison on each of the obstruction charges and an additional five years in prison for conspiring to obstruct justice.
"Violence motivated by bigotry and hate has no place in America, and yet it remains all too prevalent in many of our communities," said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice. "The Civil Rights Division stands ready to bring perpetrators of hate crimes to justice."
A second indictment charges Shenandoah Police Chief Matthew Nestor, Lt. William Moyer and Police Officer Jason Hayes with conspiring to obstruct justice during the investigation into the fatal beating of Ramirez. Moyer has also been charged with witness and evidence tampering, and with lying to the FBI.
If convicted, the defendants face 20 years in prison on each of the obstruction charges and an additional five years in prison for conspiring to obstruct justice. Moyer faces an additional five years in prison for making false statements to the FBI.
A third indictment charges Chief Nestor and his second-in-command, Captain Jamie Gennarini, with multiple counts of extortion and civil rights violations. According to that indictment, from 2004 through 2007, Nestor conspired to extort cash payments from several illegal gambling operations in the Shenandoah area and obstructed the investigation of the extortion scheme. The indictment also alleges that on May 17, 2007, Nestor and Gennarini committed extortion by demanding a $2,000 cash payment from a local businessman and his family in exchange for releasing the businessman from their custody.
"The power granted to law enforcement officers does not place them above the law. We will continue to aggressively enforce the law to combat obstruction and corruption in law enforcement agencies," Assistant Attorney General Perez said. "We thank the FBI for their work in this investigation."
If convicted on these charges, Nestor and Gennarini face maximum penalties of 20 years in prison for each of the extortion counts. Additionally, the defendants face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for the conspiracy to violate civil rights.
These cases were investigated by Special Agents Alan Jones and Adam Aichele of the Philadelphia Division of the FBI, and are being prosecuted by Civil Rights Division Trial Attorneys Eric L. Gibson and Myesha Braden.
The FBI wants to hear from anyone who may have information regarding alleged civil rights violations or public corruption in Schuylkill County, Pa.. If you feel you have been victimized or have any additional information, please call FBI Special Agents Alan Jones or Anthony Cavallo at the Allentown, Pa., Resident Agency of the FBI at (610) 433-6488.
An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence of guilt. The defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
09-1342
Civil Rights Division
Source: Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Two Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, Men and Four Police Officers Indicted for Hate Crime and Related Corruption
WASHINGTON – A federal grand jury has returned multiple indictments arising out of a fatal racially motivated beating and related police corruption in Shenandoah, Pa., the Justice Department announced. The three indictments include federal hate crime, obstruction of justice, conspiracy, official misconduct and extortion charges. The indictments were unsealed today, after being returned under seal on Dec. 10, 2009.
The first indictment charges Derrick Donchak and Brandon Piekarsky with a federal hate crime for fatally beating Luis Ramirez, a Latino male, while shouting racial epithets at him. According to the indictment, on July 12, 2008, the defendants, and others, were walking home from a local festival when they encountered Ramirez. The defendants then attacked Ramirez in a public street by striking and kicking him while members of the group yelled racial slurs at him. Ramirez died two days later from his injuries. The indictment also alleges that, immediately following the beating, Donchak, Piekarsky and others, including members of the Shenandoah Police Department, participated in a scheme to obstruct the investigation of the fatal assault. As a result of this alleged obstruction, Donchak is charged in three additional counts for conspiring to obstruct justice and related offenses.
If convicted, Piekarsky and Donchak face a maximum penalty of life in prison on the hate crime charge. Donchak faces 20 years in prison on each of the obstruction charges and an additional five years in prison for conspiring to obstruct justice.
"Violence motivated by bigotry and hate has no place in America, and yet it remains all too prevalent in many of our communities," said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice. "The Civil Rights Division stands ready to bring perpetrators of hate crimes to justice."
A second indictment charges Shenandoah Police Chief Matthew Nestor, Lt. William Moyer and Police Officer Jason Hayes with conspiring to obstruct justice during the investigation into the fatal beating of Ramirez. Moyer has also been charged with witness and evidence tampering, and with lying to the FBI.
If convicted, the defendants face 20 years in prison on each of the obstruction charges and an additional five years in prison for conspiring to obstruct justice. Moyer faces an additional five years in prison for making false statements to the FBI.
A third indictment charges Chief Nestor and his second-in-command, Captain Jamie Gennarini, with multiple counts of extortion and civil rights violations. According to that indictment, from 2004 through 2007, Nestor conspired to extort cash payments from several illegal gambling operations in the Shenandoah area and obstructed the investigation of the extortion scheme. The indictment also alleges that on May 17, 2007, Nestor and Gennarini committed extortion by demanding a $2,000 cash payment from a local businessman and his family in exchange for releasing the businessman from their custody.
"The power granted to law enforcement officers does not place them above the law. We will continue to aggressively enforce the law to combat obstruction and corruption in law enforcement agencies," Assistant Attorney General Perez said. "We thank the FBI for their work in this investigation."
If convicted on these charges, Nestor and Gennarini face maximum penalties of 20 years in prison for each of the extortion counts. Additionally, the defendants face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for the conspiracy to violate civil rights.
These cases were investigated by Special Agents Alan Jones and Adam Aichele of the Philadelphia Division of the FBI, and are being prosecuted by Civil Rights Division Trial Attorneys Eric L. Gibson and Myesha Braden.
The FBI wants to hear from anyone who may have information regarding alleged civil rights violations or public corruption in Schuylkill County, Pa.. If you feel you have been victimized or have any additional information, please call FBI Special Agents Alan Jones or Anthony Cavallo at the Allentown, Pa., Resident Agency of the FBI at (610) 433-6488.
An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence of guilt. The defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
09-1342
Civil Rights Division
Source: Department of Justice
Saturday, May 23, 2009
San Diego Minutemen Leader Ordered to Pay $135,000 for Defaming Woman
Jeff Schwilk — the hot-tempered leader of the San Diego Minutemen, a nativist extremist organization with a reputation for violent confrontations and crude insults — has been ordered to pay $135,000 to a Korean-American civil rights activist who filed a defamation lawsuit against Schwilk and SDMM founding member and former spokesman Ray Carney in 2007.
Joanne Yoon sued Carney and Schwilk for $1 million after the men circulated photos of her in late 2006 along with comments referring to her as “the Korean anorexic ACLU slut.” Yoon, who was then 24, helped monitor SDMM rallies for the American Civil Liberties Union. The images of her were posted to a Yahoo group titled “Korean Kommie Kunt.” Ever the sensitive soul, Schwilk changed the name of the group to “Joanne Yoon ACLU Goon” after female SDMM activists objected. But that didn’t stop Carney from sending a mass E-mail to SDMM members suggesting that Yoon was interested in protecting the civil rights of Mexican immigrants because of her fondness for “Brown Schlong.”
Schwilk was ordered to pay compensatory damages yesterday after a Superior Court jury decided against him. Punitive damages will be decided May 26. The court also entered a default judgment against Carney, who did not file a response to Yoon’s lawsuit.
Schwilk’s attorney called the decision “an injustice” and vowed to file an appeal.
Source: SPLCenter
Joanne Yoon sued Carney and Schwilk for $1 million after the men circulated photos of her in late 2006 along with comments referring to her as “the Korean anorexic ACLU slut.” Yoon, who was then 24, helped monitor SDMM rallies for the American Civil Liberties Union. The images of her were posted to a Yahoo group titled “Korean Kommie Kunt.” Ever the sensitive soul, Schwilk changed the name of the group to “Joanne Yoon ACLU Goon” after female SDMM activists objected. But that didn’t stop Carney from sending a mass E-mail to SDMM members suggesting that Yoon was interested in protecting the civil rights of Mexican immigrants because of her fondness for “Brown Schlong.”
Schwilk was ordered to pay compensatory damages yesterday after a Superior Court jury decided against him. Punitive damages will be decided May 26. The court also entered a default judgment against Carney, who did not file a response to Yoon’s lawsuit.
Schwilk’s attorney called the decision “an injustice” and vowed to file an appeal.
Source: SPLCenter
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Justice reviewing immigrant's beating death in Pa.
The Associated Press
POTTSVILLE, Pa. - Two Pennsylvania teens acquitted of the most serious state charges in the beating death of a Mexican immigrant could still face federal charges.
Justice Department spokesman Alejandro Miyar says the civil rights division is reviewing evidence surrounding last summer's fatal fight between high school football players in Schuylkill County and 25-year-old Luis Ramirez.
A county jury last week acquitted 17-year-old Brandon Piekarsky of third-degree murder and ethnic intimidation and 19-year-old Derrick Donchak of aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation. Both were convicted of simple assault.
The case has exposed racial tensions in the predominantly white community. Some immigrants have moved to the area in search of farm and factory work.
Source: philly.com
POTTSVILLE, Pa. - Two Pennsylvania teens acquitted of the most serious state charges in the beating death of a Mexican immigrant could still face federal charges.
Justice Department spokesman Alejandro Miyar says the civil rights division is reviewing evidence surrounding last summer's fatal fight between high school football players in Schuylkill County and 25-year-old Luis Ramirez.
A county jury last week acquitted 17-year-old Brandon Piekarsky of third-degree murder and ethnic intimidation and 19-year-old Derrick Donchak of aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation. Both were convicted of simple assault.
The case has exposed racial tensions in the predominantly white community. Some immigrants have moved to the area in search of farm and factory work.
Source: philly.com
Monday, May 04, 2009
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Some satisfied, others outraged with verdict for immigrant's death
* Story Highlights
* Teens acquitted of murder, aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation
* Verdict sends "extremely dangerous" precedent, advocacy group says
* Schuylkill County prosecutors alleged the beating was racially motivated
* Incident drew national attention to small town of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania
By Emanuella Grinberg
CNN
Friends and relatives of two teens accused in the beating death of a Mexican immigrant struggled to contain their relief as not-guilty verdicts were announced on the most serious charges against the former high school football stars Friday.
Gasps filled the courtroom and some had to be restrained by sheriff's deputies as they tried to rush the defense table after Derrick Donchak, 19, and Brandon Piekarsky, 17, were acquitted of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and ethnic intimidation for the death of Luis Ramirez.
Piekarsky was also found not guilty of third-degree murder for the death of Ramirez, who died of blunt force injuries after an encounter with the teens last summer.
However, the all-white jury of six men and six women from Schuylkill County jury found Piekarsky and Donchak guilty of simple assault.
The case drew national attention to the small town of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, highlighting race relations and polarizing the community on who was to blame for the incident.
Lawyers for the teens never denied that their clients were involved in a physical altercation with Ramirez on a residential street the night of July 12.
Instead, they tried to cast Ramirez as the aggressor, and suggested that the other teens involved in the tangle of punches and blows were to blame.
"In my mind it was the lack of evidence to tie these kids to the serious charges that they brought," defense lawyer Frederick Fanelli said.
A cast of witnesses provided conflicting accounts regarding who initiated the encounter and who exactly did what, complicating prosecutors' efforts to assign blame.
"If you ask most prosecutors who are dealing with multiple defendants, and in this particular case there were at least four, it is extraordinary difficult to clear the fog of a fight," truTV anchor Ashleigh Banfield said.
The 25-year-old Mexican immigrant had settled in Shenandoah a year before his death with his wife, a lifelong resident of the faltering mining town, and their young children.
He was walking down a residential street with a friend when he encountered the group of teens, who had been drinking earlier in the evening. Donchak was convicted of providing alcohol to the other teens who were involved in the confrontation, including a juvenile co-defendant and another teen who pleaded guilty in federal court for his role in the fight.
Prosecutors alleged that the teens baited the Ramirez into a fight with racial epithets, provoking an exchange of punches and kicks that ended with Ramirez convulsing in the street, foaming from the mouth. He died two days later in a hospital.
Piekarsky was accused of delivering a fatal kick to Ramirez's head after he was knocked to the ground.
As they poured out of courthouse, the teens' supporters shouted "I was right from the start" and "I'm glad the jury listened" at cameras that caught the late-night verdict.
But Gladys Limon, a spokeswoman for the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said the jury had sent a troubling message.
"The jurors here [are] sending the message that you can brutally beat a person, without regard to their life, and get away with it, continue with your life uninterrupted," she said.
"In this case, the message is that a person who may not be popular in society based on their national origin or certain characteristic has less value in our society," she said.
The extent of Ramirez's injuries, which had left his brain oozing from his skull, according to medical testimony, should have sufficed for a conviction other than simple assault, Limon said.
"The acts here were egregious in brutality and it's just outrageous and very difficult to understand how any juror could have had reasonable doubt, especially as to the aggravated assault and the reckless enganderment charges," she said.
Limon said her group intends to press the Department of Justice to file federal charges against the teens.
"Luis Ramirez's family deserves vindication for his death," she said. "This incident has not only disrupted Luis Ramirez's family, but the entire community."
CNN's Brian Rokus contributed to this report.
Source: CNN
* Teens acquitted of murder, aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation
* Verdict sends "extremely dangerous" precedent, advocacy group says
* Schuylkill County prosecutors alleged the beating was racially motivated
* Incident drew national attention to small town of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania
By Emanuella Grinberg
CNN
Friends and relatives of two teens accused in the beating death of a Mexican immigrant struggled to contain their relief as not-guilty verdicts were announced on the most serious charges against the former high school football stars Friday.
Gasps filled the courtroom and some had to be restrained by sheriff's deputies as they tried to rush the defense table after Derrick Donchak, 19, and Brandon Piekarsky, 17, were acquitted of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and ethnic intimidation for the death of Luis Ramirez.
Piekarsky was also found not guilty of third-degree murder for the death of Ramirez, who died of blunt force injuries after an encounter with the teens last summer.
However, the all-white jury of six men and six women from Schuylkill County jury found Piekarsky and Donchak guilty of simple assault.
The case drew national attention to the small town of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, highlighting race relations and polarizing the community on who was to blame for the incident.
Lawyers for the teens never denied that their clients were involved in a physical altercation with Ramirez on a residential street the night of July 12.
Instead, they tried to cast Ramirez as the aggressor, and suggested that the other teens involved in the tangle of punches and blows were to blame.
"In my mind it was the lack of evidence to tie these kids to the serious charges that they brought," defense lawyer Frederick Fanelli said.
A cast of witnesses provided conflicting accounts regarding who initiated the encounter and who exactly did what, complicating prosecutors' efforts to assign blame.
"If you ask most prosecutors who are dealing with multiple defendants, and in this particular case there were at least four, it is extraordinary difficult to clear the fog of a fight," truTV anchor Ashleigh Banfield said.
The 25-year-old Mexican immigrant had settled in Shenandoah a year before his death with his wife, a lifelong resident of the faltering mining town, and their young children.
He was walking down a residential street with a friend when he encountered the group of teens, who had been drinking earlier in the evening. Donchak was convicted of providing alcohol to the other teens who were involved in the confrontation, including a juvenile co-defendant and another teen who pleaded guilty in federal court for his role in the fight.
Prosecutors alleged that the teens baited the Ramirez into a fight with racial epithets, provoking an exchange of punches and kicks that ended with Ramirez convulsing in the street, foaming from the mouth. He died two days later in a hospital.
Piekarsky was accused of delivering a fatal kick to Ramirez's head after he was knocked to the ground.
As they poured out of courthouse, the teens' supporters shouted "I was right from the start" and "I'm glad the jury listened" at cameras that caught the late-night verdict.
But Gladys Limon, a spokeswoman for the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said the jury had sent a troubling message.
"The jurors here [are] sending the message that you can brutally beat a person, without regard to their life, and get away with it, continue with your life uninterrupted," she said.
"In this case, the message is that a person who may not be popular in society based on their national origin or certain characteristic has less value in our society," she said.
The extent of Ramirez's injuries, which had left his brain oozing from his skull, according to medical testimony, should have sufficed for a conviction other than simple assault, Limon said.
"The acts here were egregious in brutality and it's just outrageous and very difficult to understand how any juror could have had reasonable doubt, especially as to the aggravated assault and the reckless enganderment charges," she said.
Limon said her group intends to press the Department of Justice to file federal charges against the teens.
"Luis Ramirez's family deserves vindication for his death," she said. "This incident has not only disrupted Luis Ramirez's family, but the entire community."
CNN's Brian Rokus contributed to this report.
Source: CNN
Friday, May 01, 2009
WTKK-FM suspends Severin for derogatory comments about Mexicans
April 30, 2009 08:20 PM
By David Abel, Globe Staff
Jay Severin, the fiery, right-wing radio talk show host on Boston’s WTKK-FM radio station, was suspended today after calling Mexican immigrants "criminaliens," “primitives,” “leeches,” and “women with mustaches and VD,” among other incendiary comments.
Jay Severin
Heidi Raphael, a spokeswoman for the station, said Severin had been suspended indefinitely from his afternoon drive-time show. She declined to say which of his comments – made since an outbreak of swine flu was linked to Mexico in recent days – sparked the suspension.
“I can assure you that the station has not been using the remarks for which he has been suspended in on-air promos,” she said, declining to comment further.
In an email, Severin, a bombastic voice whose views often mirror those of fringe conservatives and who rarely lacks something to say, referred questions to his lawyer. “I am simply not at liberty to discuss it at this time,” he wrote.
George Tobia, his lawyer, said it was not clear how long his client will be suspended. “All we know is it’s indefinite,” he said in a telephone interview. “We’re just learning of it, and we’re dealing with it.”
Severin’s comments sparked deep concern among Mexicans and other Latinos living in the Boston area, prompting what Tobia described as a flood of complaints to the station management in recent days about Severin’s comments about Mexicans and the swine flu.
“It would certainly be unfortunate if someone was suspended because some people didn’t like what he said,” Tobia said.
He did not know Severin’s precise comments.
In one of his broadcasts this week, Severin said: "So now, in addition to venereal disease and the other leading exports of Mexico – women with mustaches and VD – now we have swine flu."
Later, he described Mexicans as “the world's lowest of primitives.”
“When we are the magnet for primitives around the world -- and it’s not the primitives’ fault by the way, I’m not blaming them for being primitives -- I’m merely observing they’re primitive,” he said.
He added Mexicans are destroying schools and hospitals in the United States. He also criticized their hygiene.
"It's millions of leeches from a primitive country come here to leech off you and, with it, they are ruining the schools, the hospitals, and a lot of life in America,” he said.
He added: "We should be, if anything, surprised that Mexico has not visited upon us poxes of more various and serious types already, considering the number of crimaliens already here."
In a previous broadcast this week, Severin argued the Obama administration wasn’t taking sufficient action to seal the border.
"The usual 5,000 criminaliens that come across the Arizona border will probably be 8,000 tonight, and maybe tomorrow it will be 12,000, because even Mexicans are going to be trying to get out of Mexico at a greater rate."
Afterward, while talking to a nurse who called his show to complain about healthcare provided to immigrants, he commiserated with her when she said she was glad she didn't work in an emergency room.
"Yeah, well, that's become essentially condos for Mexicans," he said.
It’s not the first time Severin has faced criticism for derogatory comments about minorities on his weekday program. On a 2004 broadcast, he compared US Muslims to a fifth column, and when a caller suggested the United States should befriend Muslims, Severin responded: "You think we should befriend them; I think we should kill them."
He has called former Vice President Al Gore “Al Whore,” former First Lady and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “a lying [expletive],” and Senator Edward M. Kennedy “a fat piece of lying garbage."
Severin also has been criticized over the years for falsely saying he had won a Pulitzer Prize and that he had earned a master’s degree from Boston University.
Amparo Anguiano , deputy consul of the Consulate General of Mexico in Boston, called Severin’s latest language “hatemongering.”
“All he does is spread hate,” she said. “It’s not the first time immigrants have been denigrated unfoundedly for being dirty, uncivilized, and bringing in diseases. There’s nothing more to say, other than these statements spread unfounded biases, hate, and prejudice.”
Marcela Garcia, editor of El Planeta, a Boston-based publication distributed to Latinos throughout the region, said she shudders when she hears Severin on the radio.
“It’s aggravating, insulting, and disgusting,” she said. “I just can’t listen to him. He doesn’t just show a lack of respect; he shows a lack of knowledge about what immigration means to this country. What he says just fuels the racist dialogue going on about immigration.”
Franklin Soults, a spokesman for Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Coalition, called Severin’s language “dehumanizing.”
“What he said is just patently offensive,” he said. “There has been a huge rise in hate crimes against immigrants, especially Hispanics, and on the show, he doesn’t just talk about Mexicans as criminals, he talks about them as if they were animals and should be quarantined.”
Tobia, Severin's lawyer, said he does not know what’s going to happen, but he ultimately expects Severin back on the airways.
“I think we’re going to sit down with them [station officials] soon and just go forward and put it past us …. I’m confident he’ll be back on the air soon, but I don’t know when or what the particulars are.”
David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com.
Source: boston.com
By David Abel, Globe Staff
Jay Severin, the fiery, right-wing radio talk show host on Boston’s WTKK-FM radio station, was suspended today after calling Mexican immigrants "criminaliens," “primitives,” “leeches,” and “women with mustaches and VD,” among other incendiary comments.
Jay Severin
Heidi Raphael, a spokeswoman for the station, said Severin had been suspended indefinitely from his afternoon drive-time show. She declined to say which of his comments – made since an outbreak of swine flu was linked to Mexico in recent days – sparked the suspension.
“I can assure you that the station has not been using the remarks for which he has been suspended in on-air promos,” she said, declining to comment further.
In an email, Severin, a bombastic voice whose views often mirror those of fringe conservatives and who rarely lacks something to say, referred questions to his lawyer. “I am simply not at liberty to discuss it at this time,” he wrote.
George Tobia, his lawyer, said it was not clear how long his client will be suspended. “All we know is it’s indefinite,” he said in a telephone interview. “We’re just learning of it, and we’re dealing with it.”
Severin’s comments sparked deep concern among Mexicans and other Latinos living in the Boston area, prompting what Tobia described as a flood of complaints to the station management in recent days about Severin’s comments about Mexicans and the swine flu.
“It would certainly be unfortunate if someone was suspended because some people didn’t like what he said,” Tobia said.
He did not know Severin’s precise comments.
In one of his broadcasts this week, Severin said: "So now, in addition to venereal disease and the other leading exports of Mexico – women with mustaches and VD – now we have swine flu."
Later, he described Mexicans as “the world's lowest of primitives.”
“When we are the magnet for primitives around the world -- and it’s not the primitives’ fault by the way, I’m not blaming them for being primitives -- I’m merely observing they’re primitive,” he said.
He added Mexicans are destroying schools and hospitals in the United States. He also criticized their hygiene.
"It's millions of leeches from a primitive country come here to leech off you and, with it, they are ruining the schools, the hospitals, and a lot of life in America,” he said.
He added: "We should be, if anything, surprised that Mexico has not visited upon us poxes of more various and serious types already, considering the number of crimaliens already here."
In a previous broadcast this week, Severin argued the Obama administration wasn’t taking sufficient action to seal the border.
"The usual 5,000 criminaliens that come across the Arizona border will probably be 8,000 tonight, and maybe tomorrow it will be 12,000, because even Mexicans are going to be trying to get out of Mexico at a greater rate."
Afterward, while talking to a nurse who called his show to complain about healthcare provided to immigrants, he commiserated with her when she said she was glad she didn't work in an emergency room.
"Yeah, well, that's become essentially condos for Mexicans," he said.
It’s not the first time Severin has faced criticism for derogatory comments about minorities on his weekday program. On a 2004 broadcast, he compared US Muslims to a fifth column, and when a caller suggested the United States should befriend Muslims, Severin responded: "You think we should befriend them; I think we should kill them."
He has called former Vice President Al Gore “Al Whore,” former First Lady and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “a lying [expletive],” and Senator Edward M. Kennedy “a fat piece of lying garbage."
Severin also has been criticized over the years for falsely saying he had won a Pulitzer Prize and that he had earned a master’s degree from Boston University.
Amparo Anguiano , deputy consul of the Consulate General of Mexico in Boston, called Severin’s latest language “hatemongering.”
“All he does is spread hate,” she said. “It’s not the first time immigrants have been denigrated unfoundedly for being dirty, uncivilized, and bringing in diseases. There’s nothing more to say, other than these statements spread unfounded biases, hate, and prejudice.”
Marcela Garcia, editor of El Planeta, a Boston-based publication distributed to Latinos throughout the region, said she shudders when she hears Severin on the radio.
“It’s aggravating, insulting, and disgusting,” she said. “I just can’t listen to him. He doesn’t just show a lack of respect; he shows a lack of knowledge about what immigration means to this country. What he says just fuels the racist dialogue going on about immigration.”
Franklin Soults, a spokesman for Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Coalition, called Severin’s language “dehumanizing.”
“What he said is just patently offensive,” he said. “There has been a huge rise in hate crimes against immigrants, especially Hispanics, and on the show, he doesn’t just talk about Mexicans as criminals, he talks about them as if they were animals and should be quarantined.”
Tobia, Severin's lawyer, said he does not know what’s going to happen, but he ultimately expects Severin back on the airways.
“I think we’re going to sit down with them [station officials] soon and just go forward and put it past us …. I’m confident he’ll be back on the air soon, but I don’t know when or what the particulars are.”
David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com.
Source: boston.com
Saturday, April 25, 2009
All-white jury set in Schuylkill racial trial - Men allegedly shouted slurs during beating of illegal Mexican immigrant
By John J. Moser | Of The Morning Call
April 23, 2009
The trial of two of the three men charged with fatally beating an illegal immigrant in Schuylkill County while shouting racial slurs in July will be heard by an all-white jury.
The six-man, six-woman panel was selected Wednesday to hear the cases of Brandon J. Piekarsky, 18, and Derrick M. Donchak, 19, both of Shenandoah, who are scheduled to be tried starting Monday in the death of Luis Ramirez, 25, a Mexican who had lived in the borough for six years.
Four alternate jurors are scheduled to be chosen today.
Ramirez died two days after a July 12 beating, which police said came after the teens and others, after a night of drinking, encountered Ramirez in a dark borough alley.
Piekarsky and Donchak, both white, also face ethnic intimidation and other counts.
The jury was seated after less than eight hours of questioning by county President Judge William E. Baldwin, prosecutors and defense attorneys.
Nearly a dozen potential jurors were dismissed after they said they couldn't be impartial in a case involving an illegal immigrant.
''If [immigrants] weren't here illegally, it wouldn't have happened,'' one woman told Baldwin.
Another, asked what she knew about the case, told the judge, ''Some boys picked on a Hispanic man and he was accidentally killed. ... I don't think they meant to kill him.''
A man said, ''I feel that anyone who's here illegally doesn't have the same rights as someone who's here legally.''
Schuylkill County's population is 96.6 percent Caucasian, and just 1.1 percent Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Just one of the more than 60 potential jurors was of color. That resident was dismissed because he also said he couldn't be fair in a case involving race.
''I personally had some hatred toward me in the past,'' he told Baldwin. ''I think it'd be hard for me to be fair and impartial.''
Outside the courtroom, the man who declined to give his name or ethnicity said, ''We live in an area that's not ethnically aware.''
District Attorney James P. Goodman declined to comment about the jury's racial makeup or potential jurors' comments.
But attorney Frederick Fanelli, who represents Piekarsky, and Jeffrey Markosky, who represents Donchak, were pleased with the selected jury, Fanelli said.
''The jurors we picked seemed alert, honest and attentive,'' Fanelli said. ''I can't comment on how someone feels or doesn't feel about a particular issue, but I'm glad they were honest and forthright about their personal beliefs.''
The case has generated national interest because of its alleged racial motivation. There were protests at the preliminary hearing last year and court officials expect more for the trial. Baldwin last week barred protests within a quarter-mile of the courthouse to keep them away from jurors. There were no signs of protests Wednesday.
A third man charged in the case, Colin Walsh, 18, of Shenandoah, on Friday had all charges filed against him in Schuylkill County Court dropped after court documents indicated he has pleaded guilty in federal court. Records of the pleas have not been made public, and it's unclear to what charges Walsh has admitted.
The charges withdrawn were third-degree murder, voluntary and involuntary manslaughter, aggravated and simple assault, reckless endangerment and ethnic intimidation in the death.
Piekarsky faces the same charges. Donchak is charged with assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault.
Walsh's name was on a lengthy list of potential witnesses Baldwin read to potential jurors to gauge whether they knew or have had any dealings with them. No potential jurors said they knew him or the other defendants.
Baldwin told the jury pool there may be an argument of self-defense in the case and, ''if that comes up, it will be up to the commonwealth to prove that was not the case.'' He also said the defendants have no burden to prove their innocence and may choose to not testify or present evidence.
Source: mcall.com
April 23, 2009
The trial of two of the three men charged with fatally beating an illegal immigrant in Schuylkill County while shouting racial slurs in July will be heard by an all-white jury.
The six-man, six-woman panel was selected Wednesday to hear the cases of Brandon J. Piekarsky, 18, and Derrick M. Donchak, 19, both of Shenandoah, who are scheduled to be tried starting Monday in the death of Luis Ramirez, 25, a Mexican who had lived in the borough for six years.
Four alternate jurors are scheduled to be chosen today.
Ramirez died two days after a July 12 beating, which police said came after the teens and others, after a night of drinking, encountered Ramirez in a dark borough alley.
Piekarsky and Donchak, both white, also face ethnic intimidation and other counts.
The jury was seated after less than eight hours of questioning by county President Judge William E. Baldwin, prosecutors and defense attorneys.
Nearly a dozen potential jurors were dismissed after they said they couldn't be impartial in a case involving an illegal immigrant.
''If [immigrants] weren't here illegally, it wouldn't have happened,'' one woman told Baldwin.
Another, asked what she knew about the case, told the judge, ''Some boys picked on a Hispanic man and he was accidentally killed. ... I don't think they meant to kill him.''
A man said, ''I feel that anyone who's here illegally doesn't have the same rights as someone who's here legally.''
Schuylkill County's population is 96.6 percent Caucasian, and just 1.1 percent Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Just one of the more than 60 potential jurors was of color. That resident was dismissed because he also said he couldn't be fair in a case involving race.
''I personally had some hatred toward me in the past,'' he told Baldwin. ''I think it'd be hard for me to be fair and impartial.''
Outside the courtroom, the man who declined to give his name or ethnicity said, ''We live in an area that's not ethnically aware.''
District Attorney James P. Goodman declined to comment about the jury's racial makeup or potential jurors' comments.
But attorney Frederick Fanelli, who represents Piekarsky, and Jeffrey Markosky, who represents Donchak, were pleased with the selected jury, Fanelli said.
''The jurors we picked seemed alert, honest and attentive,'' Fanelli said. ''I can't comment on how someone feels or doesn't feel about a particular issue, but I'm glad they were honest and forthright about their personal beliefs.''
The case has generated national interest because of its alleged racial motivation. There were protests at the preliminary hearing last year and court officials expect more for the trial. Baldwin last week barred protests within a quarter-mile of the courthouse to keep them away from jurors. There were no signs of protests Wednesday.
A third man charged in the case, Colin Walsh, 18, of Shenandoah, on Friday had all charges filed against him in Schuylkill County Court dropped after court documents indicated he has pleaded guilty in federal court. Records of the pleas have not been made public, and it's unclear to what charges Walsh has admitted.
The charges withdrawn were third-degree murder, voluntary and involuntary manslaughter, aggravated and simple assault, reckless endangerment and ethnic intimidation in the death.
Piekarsky faces the same charges. Donchak is charged with assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault.
Walsh's name was on a lengthy list of potential witnesses Baldwin read to potential jurors to gauge whether they knew or have had any dealings with them. No potential jurors said they knew him or the other defendants.
Baldwin told the jury pool there may be an argument of self-defense in the case and, ''if that comes up, it will be up to the commonwealth to prove that was not the case.'' He also said the defendants have no burden to prove their innocence and may choose to not testify or present evidence.
Source: mcall.com
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Email sparks allegations of racism against Austin Capital Management
An email sent earlier this week from local hedge fund manager Austin Capital Management Ltd. has raised the eyebrows and ire of at least one Austin group.
The U.S. Hispanic Contractor’s Association de Austin sent a statement out April 16 in reaction to the email, which reads “Tax Reminder...April 15, 2009” and has a picture of four Hispanic males with a caption that reads “Muchas Gracias! 21 million illegal aliens are depending on you!” The email went out to a list of undisclosed recipients.
“The content of the email...is beyond offensive to the Hispanic community,” Frank Fuentes, chairman of the U.S. Hispanic Contractors Association, said in the statement. “Messages, such as the one sent out by [the company] serves to do nothing more than propagate fear and fans the fires of ignorance and hatred toward a group that toils tirelessly, in oftentimes underappreciated crafts, for the good of themselves, their families and for ALL individuals who call America their home.”
A spokesman for Austin Capital Management released a statement saying "we sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by this email. Neither [parent company] KeyCorp nor Austin Capital Management authorized or condones the insensitive content of the email or its distribution. As all employee matters are confidential, we are unable to comment on details of this particular situation. Please be assured we take these matters very seriously, and are taking appropriate action."
Fuentes said Austin Capital Management executives have contacted him, confirmed that the email was sent from the company, apologized and requested a meeting with him.
“The email speaks for itself, and in our opinion, was incredibly racist. We felt like we had to make a statement,” Fuentes said. “Austin Capital Management’s Web site says [the company is] active in the community. They need to know the community they’re working in.”
Austin Capital Management made headlines earlier this spring when two law firms filed a class action lawsuit against the company over its role in the Bernard Madoff debacle.
Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP filed a suit in early April on behalf of investors in Austin Capital hedge funds during the period between Jan. 2, 2005 and Dec. 11, 2008. The suit seeks to recover losses resulting from Austin Capital’s placement of investors’ money into funds managed by confessed Ponzi-scheme organizer Madoff and his firm.
And in February, Philadelphia-based law firm Spector Roseman Kodroff & Willis filed a similar class action suit led by the Pension Fund for Hospital and Health Care Employees — Philadelphia and Vicinity and a group of similar funds.
Source: bizjournals.com
kvue.com
The U.S. Hispanic Contractor’s Association de Austin sent a statement out April 16 in reaction to the email, which reads “Tax Reminder...April 15, 2009” and has a picture of four Hispanic males with a caption that reads “Muchas Gracias! 21 million illegal aliens are depending on you!” The email went out to a list of undisclosed recipients.
“The content of the email...is beyond offensive to the Hispanic community,” Frank Fuentes, chairman of the U.S. Hispanic Contractors Association, said in the statement. “Messages, such as the one sent out by [the company] serves to do nothing more than propagate fear and fans the fires of ignorance and hatred toward a group that toils tirelessly, in oftentimes underappreciated crafts, for the good of themselves, their families and for ALL individuals who call America their home.”
A spokesman for Austin Capital Management released a statement saying "we sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by this email. Neither [parent company] KeyCorp nor Austin Capital Management authorized or condones the insensitive content of the email or its distribution. As all employee matters are confidential, we are unable to comment on details of this particular situation. Please be assured we take these matters very seriously, and are taking appropriate action."
Fuentes said Austin Capital Management executives have contacted him, confirmed that the email was sent from the company, apologized and requested a meeting with him.
“The email speaks for itself, and in our opinion, was incredibly racist. We felt like we had to make a statement,” Fuentes said. “Austin Capital Management’s Web site says [the company is] active in the community. They need to know the community they’re working in.”
Austin Capital Management made headlines earlier this spring when two law firms filed a class action lawsuit against the company over its role in the Bernard Madoff debacle.
Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP filed a suit in early April on behalf of investors in Austin Capital hedge funds during the period between Jan. 2, 2005 and Dec. 11, 2008. The suit seeks to recover losses resulting from Austin Capital’s placement of investors’ money into funds managed by confessed Ponzi-scheme organizer Madoff and his firm.
And in February, Philadelphia-based law firm Spector Roseman Kodroff & Willis filed a similar class action suit led by the Pension Fund for Hospital and Health Care Employees — Philadelphia and Vicinity and a group of similar funds.
Source: bizjournals.com
kvue.com
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Baptist pastor beaten + tazed by Border patrol - 11 stitches
I told them I was a US citizen.
I told them I was on a business trip.
I told them I had no drugs or humans in the car.
That wasn't enough. They wanted to search the car, and I invoked my 4th amendment rights.
I DID NOT RESIST OR FIGHT BACK. YET I WAS TAZERED REPEATEDLY AND SHOVED IN BROKEN GLASS REPEATEDLY!
I was IN the United States!!! I had crossed no international border!!!
This occured on the night of April 14/15, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
AP IMPACT: Citizens held as illegal immigrants
By SUZANNE GAMBOA
Associated Press Writer
Pedro Guzman has been an American citizen all his life. Yet in 2007, the 31-year-old Los Angeles native - in jail for a misdemeanor, mentally ill and never able to read or write - signed a waiver agreeing to leave the country without a hearing and was deported to Mexico as an illegal immigrant.
For almost three months, Guzman slept in the streets, bathed in filthy rivers and ate out of trash cans while his mother scoured the city of Tijuana, its hospitals and morgues, clutching his photo in her hand. He was finally found trying to cross the border at Calexico, 100 miles away.
These days, back home in California, "He just changes from one second to another. His brain jumps back to when he was missing," said his brother, Michael Guzman. "We just talk to him and reassure him that everything is fine and nobody is going to hurt him."
In a drive to crack down on illegal immigrants, the United States has locked up or thrown out dozens, probably many more, of its own citizens over the past eight years. A monthslong AP investigation has documented 55 such cases, on the basis of interviews, lawsuits and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These citizens are detained for anything from a day to five years. Immigration lawyers say there are actually hundreds of such cases.
It is illegal to deport U.S. citizens or detain them for immigration violations. Yet citizens still end up in detention because the system is overwhelmed, acknowledged Victor Cerda, who left Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2005 after overseeing the system. The number of detentions overall is expected to rise by about 17 percent this year to more than 400,000, putting a severe strain on the enforcement network and legal system.
The result is the detention of citizens with the fewest resources: the mentally ill, minorities, the poor, children and those with outstanding criminal warrants, ranging from unpaid traffic tickets to failure to show up for probation hearings. Most at risk are Hispanics, who made up the majority of the cases the AP found.
"The more the system becomes confused, the more U.S. citizens will be wrongfully detained and wrongfully removed," said Bruce Einhorn, a retired immigration judge who now teaches at Pepperdine Law School. "They are the symptom of a larger problem in the detention system. ... Nothing could be more regrettable than the removal of our fellow citizens."
Jim Hayes, ICE director of detention and removal, said he is aware of only 10 cases of U.S. citizens detained over the past five years. Even if combined with the cases found by the AP, "that's not an epidemic," Hayes said. He refused to identify any cases, citing privacy laws.
He added that agents investigate any claims to U.S. citizenship, but they often turn out to be false. He said U.S. citizens sometimes claim to be foreign-born, and that immigration officials never knowingly hold someone they can "definitively" determine is a citizen.
It's impossible to know exactly how many citizens have been detained or deported because nobody keeps track. Kara Hartzler, an attorney at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project in Arizona, testified at a U.S. House hearing last year that her group alone sees 40 to 50 jailings a month of people with potentially valid claims to citizenship.
"These cases are surprisingly, painfully common," she said.
The nonprofit Vera Institute for Justice found 322 people with citizenship claims in 13 immigration prisons in 2007, up from 129 the year before. That number does not include possible citizens in the nation's more than 300 other immigration prisons.
What is clear is that immigration detentions - including those of citizens - have soared in recent years. One reason is a heightened concern for security that arose out of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Another is a political climate that encouraged a tough stance on illegal immigration, especially after Congress failed to pass immigration reform legislation almost three years ago.
After 2003, the nation launched several programs to detain more immigrants, including one that called on local police and sheriffs for help. Before 2007, just seven state and local law enforcement agencies worked with immigration. By last November, more than 950 officers from 23 states had attended a four-week program on how to root out and jail suspected illegal immigrants.
A Government Accountability Office investigation has since found that ICE did not ensure local officials properly used their authority and failed to collect data to assess the program. As a result, ICE is rewriting agreements with 67 agencies.
The program came under fire partly because it gives local officers so much leeway to decide who to stop. Almost one in 10 Hispanic adults born in the U.S. report that police or other authorities stopped them and asked about their immigration status in 2007, according to a Pew Hispanic Center survey of more than 2,000 people.
---
It was a local sheriff's office that sent Guzman out of the country.
He was picked up near his home in Lancaster, Calif., on March 31, 2007, by Los Angeles County sheriff's department officers on a misdemeanor trespassing charge. He had tried three times to board a private plane, showing lottery tickets for passage on one attempt, officers said in a report. He had also stolen a car and told officers his mother's car was broken.
A judge gave him three years' probation and three months in jail for vandalism.
At the jail, Guzman told officers he was born in California, a response noted in official records. But a sheriff's employee still got Guzman to sign an agreement to leave the country without a hearing.
On the day he arrived in Mexico, Guzman called a relative to say he didn't know where he was, and asked a passer-by. The answer: Tijuana. Then the phone cut off.
Guzman was finally returned to California legally in August 2007.
Now he can no longer stand the sun because it reminds him of Mexico. His family will not let him talk about the ordeal because it upsets him. He has frequent counseling sessions, but he is shaky, stutters and seems to hear voices, according to his brother.
"He is our brother, somebody's son, that they deported," said Michael Guzman. "California is like the main capital of Latin Americans. It doesn't matter whether you are a citizen or not. If you look Hispanic, they can question you. Deportation can happen to anybody."
Neither the sheriff's office nor immigration officials would discuss the case, citing pending litigation. The family has sued Los Angeles County and the federal government.
"When the whole story is told, people will see and understand what has occurred," said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office.
In the meantime, Guzman's mother, Maria Carbajal, often works the graveyard shift at a Jack in the Box because she is afraid to leave him alone during the day.
---
American citizens also have been caught in the net of increased workplace arrests and jail sweeps.
Workplace arrests rose from 517 in fiscal year 2003 to 6,274 in 2008. Julie Myers, former Homeland Security assistant secretary overseeing ICE, said agents quickly sort out which workers are citizens during raids. She added that federal law, court decisions and search warrants give immigration agents the authority to enter workplaces to question everyone inside, including citizens.
But the raids have already led to several lawsuits.
In 2007, 114 U.S. citizens and permanent residents sued after a raid on Micro Solutions Enterprises, a computer printer equipment recycler in Van Nuys, Calif. They alleged illegal detention and sought $5,000 damage each.
In 2008, the union representing workers at six Swift & Co. meatpacking plants sued on behalf of eight citizens and legal residents caught up in raids.
In one case, three citizens and nine others, all Hispanic, sued after ICE agents raided their New Jersey homes as part of what was dubbed Operation Return To Sender. The lawsuit alleges that an immigration agent pulled a gun on one of the citizens, a 9-year-old boy.
A program to sweep jails and deport immigrants who have committed crimes is more popular. But critics fear the temptation is to deport anyone for anything because they are seen as bad seeds, even if they are American citizens.
---
Rennison Castillo arrived early at the Seattle immigration office on Oct. 28, 1998, to take his citizenship oath. He was dressed in a freshly starched Army uniform and was eager to grab a good seat. He sat in the second row.
Born in Belize, Castillo had lived in the U.S. since he was 7 and had served two years in the Army. But his superiors told him he could not stay in the Army without citizenship. So he took the citizenship test and passed easily, missing only one question, on the name of a locally elected official.
"I felt pretty good. I felt I definitely accomplished something, because having a citizenship to the United States was something that I felt proud of," Castillo said.
Seven years later, the U.S. government locked Castillo in a Tacoma, Wash., immigration jail. He had been picked up at the Pierce County jail, where he had spent eight months for violating a restraining order and for residential burglary.
At the holding cell, an officer asked if he wanted to go home. He thought she meant his home in Lakewood, Wash. "Yes," he answered. "I'd love to go home."
She chained him up and told him he would be deported.
Over and over, Castillo said, he told officers he was a citizen. He pleaded with them to check their computer files.
But officials said nothing in their records confirmed his citizenship or his military service. One officer actually recognized Castillo from their Army days at Fort Lewis, Wash., and mentioned their battalion, but told Castillo he couldn't help.
Then Castillo saw a number posted on the wall for the Northwest Immigration Rights Project. On the group's advice, he contacted a friend who pulled his military document from the trunk of his car.
Nearly eight months after he was transferred to ICE custody, Castillo was released. He discovered that immigration officials had two files on him, with different numbers, and has since filed a lawsuit. ICE declined to comment because the lawsuit is pending.
"I understand that nothing is perfect, nothing will be perfect, but I don't understand how they could make a grave mistake like that," he said. "Because if this happened to me, I'm quite sure it's happened to somebody else. What's going to happen to the next person it happens to?"
---
For Ricardo Martinez, born in McAllen, Texas, it was not being able to get back into his own country.
Even though he was a U.S. citizen, Martinez lived in Mexico between the ages of 5 and 17.
Like many border residents with family on the other side, he made frequent trips to Mexico. When he tried to return to the U.S. after a visit to Mexico in July 1999, he was turned away by border officers at Nogales, Ariz., because two copies of his birth certificate, issued years apart, had different hospital registration dates. Not proficient in English, Martinez said he had never noticed the error.
Told to get his documents in order, he got a U.S. passport and was able to get into the country. But the problem was not over.
In January 2006, he went back to Mexico to be with his dying grandmother. When he tried to cross back at Laredo, Texas, in March, he carried his birth certificates, his birth registration card, his passport and state ID cards from Nebraska, California and Texas, where he had worked.
But by that time border security had become far stricter. Agents looked up Martinez in their database and found the earlier problem at Nogales. They claimed his U.S. passport was fake, he said.
Martinez was taken to an inspection room, forced to remove his shoes, searched, handcuffed to a chair and held for two hours while officers questioned his documents, he said. He was told unless he confessed to fraud, he would be sent to prison for six to eight months, according to a court document filed in Martinez's lawsuit against the government.
"They told me if I didn't say I was from over there, they would put me in jail. I was frightened," Martinez said.
He said he asked to call his mother to help prove his citizenship, but was refused.
Martinez's stepfather, Florentino Mireles, said in a Feb. 27, 2008, affidavit that he called border inspectors to ask why they had taken Martinez's documents. The response, he said: An officer didn't believe Martinez was a U.S. citizen because he didn't speak English.
Afraid of jail, Martinez signed the papers. In an affidavit in his lawsuit, Martinez said he didn't understand that by signing he was admitting to not being born in the U.S.
It took his parents two years to find an affordable attorney. Finally, at a meeting in Hidalgo, attorney Lisa Brodyaga showed border officers a copy of Martinez' birth certificate from his parents that included his footprints and a thumbprint and tax records showing he had worked legally in the U.S. Officials agreed he was a U.S. citizen and allowed him to cross the border.
Lloyd Easterling, spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, declined comment because Martinez has sued. In court filings, the agency said Martinez denied being physically assaulted or subjected to excessive force and never filed a complaint against the officers.
Brodyaga said the cases of U.S. citizens detained or deported show more than bureaucratic bungling.
"I've been doing this for 30 years and I've seen bureaucratic bungling. This is more than that," she said. "This is an atmosphere of suspicion and hostility, particularly for Mexican-Americans on the border."
---
Associated Press staff writers Traci Carl and Peter Prengaman contributed to this report.
© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.
Source: Associated Press
Associated Press Writer
Pedro Guzman has been an American citizen all his life. Yet in 2007, the 31-year-old Los Angeles native - in jail for a misdemeanor, mentally ill and never able to read or write - signed a waiver agreeing to leave the country without a hearing and was deported to Mexico as an illegal immigrant.
For almost three months, Guzman slept in the streets, bathed in filthy rivers and ate out of trash cans while his mother scoured the city of Tijuana, its hospitals and morgues, clutching his photo in her hand. He was finally found trying to cross the border at Calexico, 100 miles away.
These days, back home in California, "He just changes from one second to another. His brain jumps back to when he was missing," said his brother, Michael Guzman. "We just talk to him and reassure him that everything is fine and nobody is going to hurt him."
In a drive to crack down on illegal immigrants, the United States has locked up or thrown out dozens, probably many more, of its own citizens over the past eight years. A monthslong AP investigation has documented 55 such cases, on the basis of interviews, lawsuits and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These citizens are detained for anything from a day to five years. Immigration lawyers say there are actually hundreds of such cases.
It is illegal to deport U.S. citizens or detain them for immigration violations. Yet citizens still end up in detention because the system is overwhelmed, acknowledged Victor Cerda, who left Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2005 after overseeing the system. The number of detentions overall is expected to rise by about 17 percent this year to more than 400,000, putting a severe strain on the enforcement network and legal system.
The result is the detention of citizens with the fewest resources: the mentally ill, minorities, the poor, children and those with outstanding criminal warrants, ranging from unpaid traffic tickets to failure to show up for probation hearings. Most at risk are Hispanics, who made up the majority of the cases the AP found.
"The more the system becomes confused, the more U.S. citizens will be wrongfully detained and wrongfully removed," said Bruce Einhorn, a retired immigration judge who now teaches at Pepperdine Law School. "They are the symptom of a larger problem in the detention system. ... Nothing could be more regrettable than the removal of our fellow citizens."
Jim Hayes, ICE director of detention and removal, said he is aware of only 10 cases of U.S. citizens detained over the past five years. Even if combined with the cases found by the AP, "that's not an epidemic," Hayes said. He refused to identify any cases, citing privacy laws.
He added that agents investigate any claims to U.S. citizenship, but they often turn out to be false. He said U.S. citizens sometimes claim to be foreign-born, and that immigration officials never knowingly hold someone they can "definitively" determine is a citizen.
It's impossible to know exactly how many citizens have been detained or deported because nobody keeps track. Kara Hartzler, an attorney at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project in Arizona, testified at a U.S. House hearing last year that her group alone sees 40 to 50 jailings a month of people with potentially valid claims to citizenship.
"These cases are surprisingly, painfully common," she said.
The nonprofit Vera Institute for Justice found 322 people with citizenship claims in 13 immigration prisons in 2007, up from 129 the year before. That number does not include possible citizens in the nation's more than 300 other immigration prisons.
What is clear is that immigration detentions - including those of citizens - have soared in recent years. One reason is a heightened concern for security that arose out of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Another is a political climate that encouraged a tough stance on illegal immigration, especially after Congress failed to pass immigration reform legislation almost three years ago.
After 2003, the nation launched several programs to detain more immigrants, including one that called on local police and sheriffs for help. Before 2007, just seven state and local law enforcement agencies worked with immigration. By last November, more than 950 officers from 23 states had attended a four-week program on how to root out and jail suspected illegal immigrants.
A Government Accountability Office investigation has since found that ICE did not ensure local officials properly used their authority and failed to collect data to assess the program. As a result, ICE is rewriting agreements with 67 agencies.
The program came under fire partly because it gives local officers so much leeway to decide who to stop. Almost one in 10 Hispanic adults born in the U.S. report that police or other authorities stopped them and asked about their immigration status in 2007, according to a Pew Hispanic Center survey of more than 2,000 people.
---
It was a local sheriff's office that sent Guzman out of the country.
He was picked up near his home in Lancaster, Calif., on March 31, 2007, by Los Angeles County sheriff's department officers on a misdemeanor trespassing charge. He had tried three times to board a private plane, showing lottery tickets for passage on one attempt, officers said in a report. He had also stolen a car and told officers his mother's car was broken.
A judge gave him three years' probation and three months in jail for vandalism.
At the jail, Guzman told officers he was born in California, a response noted in official records. But a sheriff's employee still got Guzman to sign an agreement to leave the country without a hearing.
On the day he arrived in Mexico, Guzman called a relative to say he didn't know where he was, and asked a passer-by. The answer: Tijuana. Then the phone cut off.
Guzman was finally returned to California legally in August 2007.
Now he can no longer stand the sun because it reminds him of Mexico. His family will not let him talk about the ordeal because it upsets him. He has frequent counseling sessions, but he is shaky, stutters and seems to hear voices, according to his brother.
"He is our brother, somebody's son, that they deported," said Michael Guzman. "California is like the main capital of Latin Americans. It doesn't matter whether you are a citizen or not. If you look Hispanic, they can question you. Deportation can happen to anybody."
Neither the sheriff's office nor immigration officials would discuss the case, citing pending litigation. The family has sued Los Angeles County and the federal government.
"When the whole story is told, people will see and understand what has occurred," said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office.
In the meantime, Guzman's mother, Maria Carbajal, often works the graveyard shift at a Jack in the Box because she is afraid to leave him alone during the day.
---
American citizens also have been caught in the net of increased workplace arrests and jail sweeps.
Workplace arrests rose from 517 in fiscal year 2003 to 6,274 in 2008. Julie Myers, former Homeland Security assistant secretary overseeing ICE, said agents quickly sort out which workers are citizens during raids. She added that federal law, court decisions and search warrants give immigration agents the authority to enter workplaces to question everyone inside, including citizens.
But the raids have already led to several lawsuits.
In 2007, 114 U.S. citizens and permanent residents sued after a raid on Micro Solutions Enterprises, a computer printer equipment recycler in Van Nuys, Calif. They alleged illegal detention and sought $5,000 damage each.
In 2008, the union representing workers at six Swift & Co. meatpacking plants sued on behalf of eight citizens and legal residents caught up in raids.
In one case, three citizens and nine others, all Hispanic, sued after ICE agents raided their New Jersey homes as part of what was dubbed Operation Return To Sender. The lawsuit alleges that an immigration agent pulled a gun on one of the citizens, a 9-year-old boy.
A program to sweep jails and deport immigrants who have committed crimes is more popular. But critics fear the temptation is to deport anyone for anything because they are seen as bad seeds, even if they are American citizens.
---
Rennison Castillo arrived early at the Seattle immigration office on Oct. 28, 1998, to take his citizenship oath. He was dressed in a freshly starched Army uniform and was eager to grab a good seat. He sat in the second row.
Born in Belize, Castillo had lived in the U.S. since he was 7 and had served two years in the Army. But his superiors told him he could not stay in the Army without citizenship. So he took the citizenship test and passed easily, missing only one question, on the name of a locally elected official.
"I felt pretty good. I felt I definitely accomplished something, because having a citizenship to the United States was something that I felt proud of," Castillo said.
Seven years later, the U.S. government locked Castillo in a Tacoma, Wash., immigration jail. He had been picked up at the Pierce County jail, where he had spent eight months for violating a restraining order and for residential burglary.
At the holding cell, an officer asked if he wanted to go home. He thought she meant his home in Lakewood, Wash. "Yes," he answered. "I'd love to go home."
She chained him up and told him he would be deported.
Over and over, Castillo said, he told officers he was a citizen. He pleaded with them to check their computer files.
But officials said nothing in their records confirmed his citizenship or his military service. One officer actually recognized Castillo from their Army days at Fort Lewis, Wash., and mentioned their battalion, but told Castillo he couldn't help.
Then Castillo saw a number posted on the wall for the Northwest Immigration Rights Project. On the group's advice, he contacted a friend who pulled his military document from the trunk of his car.
Nearly eight months after he was transferred to ICE custody, Castillo was released. He discovered that immigration officials had two files on him, with different numbers, and has since filed a lawsuit. ICE declined to comment because the lawsuit is pending.
"I understand that nothing is perfect, nothing will be perfect, but I don't understand how they could make a grave mistake like that," he said. "Because if this happened to me, I'm quite sure it's happened to somebody else. What's going to happen to the next person it happens to?"
---
For Ricardo Martinez, born in McAllen, Texas, it was not being able to get back into his own country.
Even though he was a U.S. citizen, Martinez lived in Mexico between the ages of 5 and 17.
Like many border residents with family on the other side, he made frequent trips to Mexico. When he tried to return to the U.S. after a visit to Mexico in July 1999, he was turned away by border officers at Nogales, Ariz., because two copies of his birth certificate, issued years apart, had different hospital registration dates. Not proficient in English, Martinez said he had never noticed the error.
Told to get his documents in order, he got a U.S. passport and was able to get into the country. But the problem was not over.
In January 2006, he went back to Mexico to be with his dying grandmother. When he tried to cross back at Laredo, Texas, in March, he carried his birth certificates, his birth registration card, his passport and state ID cards from Nebraska, California and Texas, where he had worked.
But by that time border security had become far stricter. Agents looked up Martinez in their database and found the earlier problem at Nogales. They claimed his U.S. passport was fake, he said.
Martinez was taken to an inspection room, forced to remove his shoes, searched, handcuffed to a chair and held for two hours while officers questioned his documents, he said. He was told unless he confessed to fraud, he would be sent to prison for six to eight months, according to a court document filed in Martinez's lawsuit against the government.
"They told me if I didn't say I was from over there, they would put me in jail. I was frightened," Martinez said.
He said he asked to call his mother to help prove his citizenship, but was refused.
Martinez's stepfather, Florentino Mireles, said in a Feb. 27, 2008, affidavit that he called border inspectors to ask why they had taken Martinez's documents. The response, he said: An officer didn't believe Martinez was a U.S. citizen because he didn't speak English.
Afraid of jail, Martinez signed the papers. In an affidavit in his lawsuit, Martinez said he didn't understand that by signing he was admitting to not being born in the U.S.
It took his parents two years to find an affordable attorney. Finally, at a meeting in Hidalgo, attorney Lisa Brodyaga showed border officers a copy of Martinez' birth certificate from his parents that included his footprints and a thumbprint and tax records showing he had worked legally in the U.S. Officials agreed he was a U.S. citizen and allowed him to cross the border.
Lloyd Easterling, spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, declined comment because Martinez has sued. In court filings, the agency said Martinez denied being physically assaulted or subjected to excessive force and never filed a complaint against the officers.
Brodyaga said the cases of U.S. citizens detained or deported show more than bureaucratic bungling.
"I've been doing this for 30 years and I've seen bureaucratic bungling. This is more than that," she said. "This is an atmosphere of suspicion and hostility, particularly for Mexican-Americans on the border."
---
Associated Press staff writers Traci Carl and Peter Prengaman contributed to this report.
© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.
Source: Associated Press
Press Release: LULAC Applauds New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson For Signing HB 428, Prohibiting Racial Profiling In The State.
New Mexico will join 23 other states in banning profiling practices by law enforcement officers and agencies.
April 8, 2009
For more information contact:
Lizette Jenness Olmos, (202) 365-4553 mobile
Washington, DC - The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the largest and oldest Hispanic civil rights organization, is pleased that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signed House Bill 428 into law accompanied by LULAC leadership in Santa Fe yesterday.
“The new law makes it illegal for law enforcement officers to investigate anyone relying solely on the person's race, ethnicity, color or national origin among a list of other things," said LULAC National President Rosa Rosales. "We hope other states will follow in banning racial profiling."
"Forty five years ago the Civil Rights Act was passed yet in America the struggle for equality and justice continues to this day,” said LULAC Vice President for the Southwest Ray Mancera. "Thanks to State Rep. Nathan Cote, sponsor of the bill, and Governor Bill Richardson for signing it into law, New Mexico stands tall for passage of this bill banning bias based profiling!"
"This will send a strong message to communities like Roswell and Chaparral that racial profiling is unacceptable and has no place in the state of New Mexico," said LULAC New Mexico State Director Pablo Martinez. "The Roswell Mayor and Chief of Police have placed the Hispanic community in fear by implementing such egregious policies that not only promote and condone racial profiling, but encourage the victimization of immigrants because most of these immigrants will be discouraged to report crimes in fear of reprisal and deportation. Roswell's current practice is bad policy. With this new law in effect, in communities like Roswell and Chaparral, there will be some light at the end of the tunnel."
"This is a positive step in the right direction by prohibiting discriminatory practices against people of color. We thank Representative Nathan Cote, the New Mexico Legislature and Governor Bill Richardson for making a strong effort to end a practice that has caused poor race relations with law enforcement agencies," said LULAC National President for Youth Jessica I. Martinez."This will set a major milestone not only in the state of New Mexico but throughout the nation. It proves New Mexico is a leader when it comes to promoting positive race relations in the entire country."
The bill also allows for oversight and investigation of profiling complaints by the Attorney General's office.
The League of United Latin American Citizens advances the economic condition, educational attainment, political influence, health, housing and civil rights of Hispanic Americans through community-based programs operating at more than 700 LULAC councils nationwide.
Source: LULAC
April 8, 2009
For more information contact:
Lizette Jenness Olmos, (202) 365-4553 mobile
Washington, DC - The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the largest and oldest Hispanic civil rights organization, is pleased that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signed House Bill 428 into law accompanied by LULAC leadership in Santa Fe yesterday.
“The new law makes it illegal for law enforcement officers to investigate anyone relying solely on the person's race, ethnicity, color or national origin among a list of other things," said LULAC National President Rosa Rosales. "We hope other states will follow in banning racial profiling."
"Forty five years ago the Civil Rights Act was passed yet in America the struggle for equality and justice continues to this day,” said LULAC Vice President for the Southwest Ray Mancera. "Thanks to State Rep. Nathan Cote, sponsor of the bill, and Governor Bill Richardson for signing it into law, New Mexico stands tall for passage of this bill banning bias based profiling!"
"This will send a strong message to communities like Roswell and Chaparral that racial profiling is unacceptable and has no place in the state of New Mexico," said LULAC New Mexico State Director Pablo Martinez. "The Roswell Mayor and Chief of Police have placed the Hispanic community in fear by implementing such egregious policies that not only promote and condone racial profiling, but encourage the victimization of immigrants because most of these immigrants will be discouraged to report crimes in fear of reprisal and deportation. Roswell's current practice is bad policy. With this new law in effect, in communities like Roswell and Chaparral, there will be some light at the end of the tunnel."
"This is a positive step in the right direction by prohibiting discriminatory practices against people of color. We thank Representative Nathan Cote, the New Mexico Legislature and Governor Bill Richardson for making a strong effort to end a practice that has caused poor race relations with law enforcement agencies," said LULAC National President for Youth Jessica I. Martinez."This will set a major milestone not only in the state of New Mexico but throughout the nation. It proves New Mexico is a leader when it comes to promoting positive race relations in the entire country."
The bill also allows for oversight and investigation of profiling complaints by the Attorney General's office.
The League of United Latin American Citizens advances the economic condition, educational attainment, political influence, health, housing and civil rights of Hispanic Americans through community-based programs operating at more than 700 LULAC councils nationwide.
Source: LULAC
Friday, April 03, 2009
Police: 14 killed in N.Y. rampage - Gunman blocks back door, opens fire at immigrant offices in Binghamton
A law enforcement official checks vehicles in a parking lot behind the American Civic Association in Binghamton, N.Y., where a gunman opened fire Friday, killing 13 people and himself.
NBC News and news services
updated 50 minutes ago
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. - A gunman walked into an immigrant services center and opened fire on Friday, killing 13 people before he killed himself, police said. Another four people were in critical condition.
The suspected gunman carried identification with the name of 42-year-old Jiverly Voong of nearby Johnson City, N.Y., a law enforcement official said. But the name is an alias that the man has used in the past, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and was talking on condition of anonymity.
"It obviously was premeditated," said Binghamton Police Chief Joseph Zikuski, noting the gunman blocked the rear exit with his car. "He made sure nobody could escape."
Earlier, the number of dead had been variously put at 12 to 16 by Gov. David Paterson and law enforcement officials.
At a news conference, Zikuski said a receptionist who was the first person shot survived by pretending she was dead, and was able to call 911. Another receptionist was killed.
The gunman then moved to a room inside the American Civic Association and shot dead 12 people before killing himself, Zikuski said. A man found with ammunition around his neck was believed to be the gunman, he added.
As soon as the shooting started, 26 people hid in the boiler room and by the end of the siege 37 people were safely removed from the building, Zikuski said.
Zikuski said police were still trying to confirm the name of the gunman, but had reason to believe he was "no stranger" to the immigrant services center.
Gov. Paterson said he spoke for all of New York in offering "my prayers for the victims and families of this tragedy," which began when the gunman used his car to block the back door of the services center, walked in the front door and opened fire.
Laid off IBM employee?
Rep. Maurice Hinchey, whose district includes Binghamton, said the gunman appears to have been a man who was recently let go from IBM in Johnson City.
Mayor Matthew Ryan initially said the gunman had a high-powered rifle but law-enforcement sources later told NBC that he had actually used two handguns.
The receptionist who called 911 described the gunman as a man in his 20s between 5 feet, 8 inches, and 6 feet tall, wearing a bright green nylon jacket and dark-rimmed glasses.
Police locked down a nearby high school and advised local business owners to stay inside.
Binghamton, with a population around 45,000, is about 150 miles northwest of New York City. The American Civic Association helps immigrants in the area with naturalization applications, counseling, resettlement, citizenship, family reunification and translators.
Mary Pat Hyland, who teaches classes at the center, told MSNBC that many of the immigrants served there are from Vietnam and Laos. "We have a very diverse ethnic area," she said.
The association’s president, Angela Leach, “is very upset right now,” said Mike Chanecka, a friend who answered a call at her home as Leach wept in the background.
“She doesn’t know anything; she’s as shocked as anyone,” Chanecka said. “For some reason, she had the day off today. And she’s very worried about her secretary.”
Redeemer Lutheran Church in Binghamton planned a prayer vigil on Friday night for those affected by the shooting.
Source: MSNBC
Saturday, March 28, 2009
California County Hires Hate Group Founder to do PR for Supervisor
The founder of a nativist hate group who allowed neo-Nazis to join his anti-illegal immigration rallies has a new job doing public relations work for a government official in Southern California.
Joe Turner was hired Tuesday by the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors to serve as a special projects coordinator. Turner’s responsibilities will include writing press releases and newspaper opinion pieces reflecting the views of Supervisor Neil Derry, county spokesman David Wert told Hatewatch. His salary will be $54,995.
Turner’s appointment has provoked an outcry from some community members, who point to his controversial statements and acceptance of open white supremacists at anti-illegal immigration rallies. “I guess David Duke wasn’t available,” quipped Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
Turner founded and led Save Our State, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated a hate group since it first appeared in late 2004. On Turner’s watch, Save Our State regularly failed to turn away neo-Nazis and racist skinheads, some uniformed and carrying white power-themed flags, who joined its rallies on the streets of Southern California. Later, he led efforts to get the city of San Bernardino to pass an ordinance aimed at penalizing undocumented immigrants. That led to his being hired by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which is also listed as a hate group by SPLC, in late 2006. He left FAIR under unclear circumstances in December 2007.
Save Our State’s online forum also included blatantly racist posts that Turner failed to delete. Turner himself contributed controversial comments to the forum, including one that amounted to a defense of white separatism. “I can make the argument that just because one believes in white separatism, that does not make them a racist,” he wrote in 2005. “I can make the argument that someone who proclaims to be a white nationalist isn’t necessarily a white supremacist. I don’t think that standing up for your ‘kind’ or ‘your race’ makes you a bad person.”
But Turner’s unsavory history didn’t seem to dissuade the San Bernardino supervisors, who voted 4-0 to approve his employment contract. Although neither Derry nor Turner returned calls from Hatewatch, county spokesman Wert defended Turner’s selection. The former Save Our State leader has done nothing to indicate he has neo-Nazi leanings, Wert said, though he was advised to tone down his rhetoric on illegal immigration. “He’s become kind of a lightning rod for those who are supportive of illegal immigration, and we understand that. But Mr. Derry feels he will do a very good job with the duties he’s been assigned to in this position.”
Levin, the California State professor, says the debate surrounding Turner isn’t about immigration. “There are people of goodwill who hold conservative views on immigration. This is someone who has used egregious race-baiting, and that should disqualify him from any position of trust in government, especially in a county that has such a high proportion of Latinos.”
It’s not Turner’s first job with the county. He currently works as an analyst for the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, which “place[s] a high value on strong working alliances with local community groups representing the diverse populations who live in all areas of our large county,” according to its website.
It’s also not the first time Turner has been the focus of controversy. In 2006, a San Bernardino Unified School District union retracted its endorsement of Turner’s school board candidacy after members raised concerns about racism.
Nonetheless, Turner can feel confident he has the support of Save Our State activists, who yesterday wrote laudatory messages on the organization’s web forum. “Congrats Joe,” said one post. “It’s a new day, and your voice is being heard.”
Source: splcenter.org
Joe Turner was hired Tuesday by the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors to serve as a special projects coordinator. Turner’s responsibilities will include writing press releases and newspaper opinion pieces reflecting the views of Supervisor Neil Derry, county spokesman David Wert told Hatewatch. His salary will be $54,995.
Turner’s appointment has provoked an outcry from some community members, who point to his controversial statements and acceptance of open white supremacists at anti-illegal immigration rallies. “I guess David Duke wasn’t available,” quipped Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
Turner founded and led Save Our State, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated a hate group since it first appeared in late 2004. On Turner’s watch, Save Our State regularly failed to turn away neo-Nazis and racist skinheads, some uniformed and carrying white power-themed flags, who joined its rallies on the streets of Southern California. Later, he led efforts to get the city of San Bernardino to pass an ordinance aimed at penalizing undocumented immigrants. That led to his being hired by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which is also listed as a hate group by SPLC, in late 2006. He left FAIR under unclear circumstances in December 2007.
Save Our State’s online forum also included blatantly racist posts that Turner failed to delete. Turner himself contributed controversial comments to the forum, including one that amounted to a defense of white separatism. “I can make the argument that just because one believes in white separatism, that does not make them a racist,” he wrote in 2005. “I can make the argument that someone who proclaims to be a white nationalist isn’t necessarily a white supremacist. I don’t think that standing up for your ‘kind’ or ‘your race’ makes you a bad person.”
But Turner’s unsavory history didn’t seem to dissuade the San Bernardino supervisors, who voted 4-0 to approve his employment contract. Although neither Derry nor Turner returned calls from Hatewatch, county spokesman Wert defended Turner’s selection. The former Save Our State leader has done nothing to indicate he has neo-Nazi leanings, Wert said, though he was advised to tone down his rhetoric on illegal immigration. “He’s become kind of a lightning rod for those who are supportive of illegal immigration, and we understand that. But Mr. Derry feels he will do a very good job with the duties he’s been assigned to in this position.”
Levin, the California State professor, says the debate surrounding Turner isn’t about immigration. “There are people of goodwill who hold conservative views on immigration. This is someone who has used egregious race-baiting, and that should disqualify him from any position of trust in government, especially in a county that has such a high proportion of Latinos.”
It’s not Turner’s first job with the county. He currently works as an analyst for the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, which “place[s] a high value on strong working alliances with local community groups representing the diverse populations who live in all areas of our large county,” according to its website.
It’s also not the first time Turner has been the focus of controversy. In 2006, a San Bernardino Unified School District union retracted its endorsement of Turner’s school board candidacy after members raised concerns about racism.
Nonetheless, Turner can feel confident he has the support of Save Our State activists, who yesterday wrote laudatory messages on the organization’s web forum. “Congrats Joe,” said one post. “It’s a new day, and your voice is being heard.”
Source: splcenter.org
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Toughest Sheriff in America Treats Inmates Guilty Until Proven Innocent
Maricopa County Jail
The Maricopa County Jail ls the worst jail facility in the Country, which was deemed condemned and unclean, where inmates are starved and neglected.
Getting Medical treatment is often impossible and when a Life Threatening Medical Emergency arises, The Detention Officers often ignore any plead for help from inmates, justifying in their own mind that the "Inmate shouldn't have come to jail." This isn't
a prison, it's a county jail, which means the inmates there are
INNOCENT people who have not yet gone to trial. In fact, only a very small percentage of the inmates there have been convicted and sentenced, which is about 20% and they are housed outside in the smoldering desert heat in tents that have no air and it reaches temperatures in the triple digits. Please be aware, that this small percentage of convicted inmates are serving time for a "MISDEMEANOR" charge, usually traffic violations, driving on a suspended license, failure to pay a fine, failure to appear in court, or trespassing, dog unleashed, littering, or jay-walking, simple misdemeanor charges, meaning petty... non-violent and non dangerous.
Nothing that the people in the community should find threatening. those types of crimes are classified as felonies and therefore have to be served in the State Prison Correctional Facility, NOT in the County Jail. Keep in mind that the county jail is for people awaiting their trial. The State Prison is for convicted felons.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio thinks it is okay to treat non-convicted, un-sentenced, detainees as if they have been found guilty. You will see no difference in the way he treats those who have been convicted of a crime and those who have not. I do not condone the abusive treatment of any inmate, convicted or not... Guilty or Not Guilty,... But I don't think it is fair, nor right that a persons rights can be violated as harshly as they are by the Maricopa County Jail systems employees, without any regard to the person whatsoever. For one thing... deprivation is on a grand scale here in the facility where inmates are denied decent healthy food, and are fed only twice a day, once at 9am and not again until 8pm at night... that is a long time to go without anything to eat, especially for the pregnant inmates and the food that is served in the morning is often spoiled.
The inmates are denied health care on a very high level... and if an inmate has a seizure or a life threatening injury, something that requires immediatemedical attention, it is most likely that the inmate will die first before they get it.
Unfortunate is the praise for the Maricopa County Jail system that the sheriff administers.
Abuse
If it's one thing the Detentions Officer's (D.O's) enjoy, is power. They are all on Power Trips, and just because they can, they will often write up an inmate and send them to the hole for 30 days just for getting up off of their bunk and going to use the restroom. If the inmate tries to challenge this, it often results in the inmate getting tasered and taken down by a mob of over zealous Detention Officer's bored on their shift and will jumpat the chance for some action. The inmate is just trying to explain their reason for being up (i.e, had diarrheal, needed a tampax,) but that is viewed as confrontational and the D.O's will even come down on them harder, and yell out "Stop Resisting!" when in-fact the inmate is doing no such thing... but the D.O's will make it appear that they are and very roughly bend their arms WAY up behind their back, and drag them around by their elbows, the pain is excruciating but they won't stop, despite the inmates pleas, all the yelling and screaming out in pain by the inmate will be made to look like resisting and fighting by the Detention Officer. Several Inmates have Died in this Jail for no good reason at all. Would you want your kid in this jail? even if they were Guilty? A Misdemeanor is not that serious and does not constitute such harsh , inhumane treatment by these over zealous power tripped wannabe sheriff deputy Detention Officers.
Detention Officers
Joe Arpaio's detention officers saw a mentally challenged 19 yr old boy as such a threat, they strapped him into a medieval restraint chair and broke his neck. Detention officers at the Madison Street Jail pulled a hood over his head and slammed him into this medieval-looking restraint chair and left him there to die. Also no other inmates, even an inmate who witnessed this brutality made an attempt to contact any of the other detention officers, MCSO said. But of course that's not an inmates job or responsibility to supervise the D.O's, it is the D.O's job and responsibility to supervise the inmates, not hand out justice as they see fit, and certainly not to kill them.
Arpaio began to serve inmates surplus food (mainly outdated and oxidized green bologna) and limited meals to twice daily. He serves the inmates surplus food like green bologna and limits meals to twice a day and thinks its okay, he tells them , "You shouldn't have come to jail." It seems to me that the current system of housing inmates does not give them the least bit chance to turn their life around, that is , IF they are guilty of anything. Arpaio has been housing inmates in tents for years...He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work for him on county and city projects. He created chain gangs, so the inmates could work on these projects at no cost to the taxpayers. Arpaio believes that inmates should be treated as harshly as legally possible to emphasize the punishment aspect of their incarceration. One of them is to draw state or city legislative districts around large prisons and pretend that the inmates are legitimate constituents. It's despicable, the praise he receives for the Maricopa County jail system and the treatment that they administer. Especially if you are counting on these inmates to police themselves by telling the guards, when they will just be beaten later for snitching. Seriously, the guy has let over 60 inmates die on his watch, not from riots or violence but from treatable health conditions. What next, a girl who was a "diabetic" but ignored for 36 hours without any food, who's blood sugar goes up sky high and she dies too! or who isn't fed but just twice a day at 12 hour intervals. Eating only twice a day will drop your insulin level down, very low and you can die.
In the past the jail had to send away inmates due to overcrowding, but Joe came up with a solution, just pile them up outside in the tents. The County Jail wouldn't BE so crowded if law enforcement weren't so petty and arresting people for the smallest and pettiest of things, like walking your dog without a leash, YES , you cango to jail for that. And not just a couple of days, try a couple of months! Detention Officers at the Madison Street Jail and Guards at the Estrella Jail do not hesitate to abuse inmates physically or verbally. They even enjoy doing it. Why? because there are no repercussions for doing so... they can even get away with murder.
Inmates are constantly being deprived of humane treatment, food, necessities, but also "The failure to transport inmates to their court dates." this dramatically affects the timely resolution of criminal cases and deprives victims of their rights to a speedy trial, making them sit in jail longer, to further endure more massively abusive and neglectful treatment. It's a win-win situation: his toadies get their power and money while executing the most horrific of horrific treatment, while Arpaio gets the exposure that he so craves, the media photo ops and news coverage, where he likes to act tough and show off his bully tactics. He forces inmates to live in deplorable, inhumane conditions and brags about it on TV. But, his denial of even the most basic medical care to inmate at his jail is really inhumane. People are dying here people... Even innocent ones, Wake Up. Many inmates, including those claiming innocence, have actually signed plea bargains just to be transferred to the prison system where at least the treatment and conditions were tolerable, and where they can at least be fed and not be hungry all the time. Eating only twice a day will drop your insulin level down, very low and you can die. He's had more prisoners, men and women and even pregnant women, die on his watch. But, for now I want to speak for the family members and friends of inmates in this jail, convicted or not.
Most people are also not aware that the majority of jail inmates have never been convicted of anything. You can label the inmates at tent city as criminals but most of the people there are not hardened criminals. It shouldn't matter whether the inmate is guilty or not, the fact of the matter is no one should be denied medical attention and food- any human beings basic needs. They are, after all, responsible for all inmates' well being and health care and some that die there in that jail deserve life. He also doesn't allow the inmates to have salt, pepper, sugar or any other condiments. Total and Complete deprivation on a large if not grand scale.
Also, most people are not aware that the vast majority of inmates incarcerated today are mental ill. They need a hospital not a jail cell.
There is more to being Sheriff than serving county inmates green baloney on stale bread, expired milk and housing them in 115 degree weather, or if your lucky enough to be housed indoors you get to share the space with rats and roaches. I have seen where an inmate was suspected of having contraband, the inmate was placed into what is called a dry cell, one without a toilet. and without water.
Some are left there and simply forgotten about. And they become gravely ill. The Detention Officers where notified that an inmate was ill, but they did not respond to the other inmates request for immediate help. As the jail refuses to treat insect bites, other inmates sometimes help inmates squeeze out pus and salt the wounds.
Eat the same slop, sleep in the heat on a metal cot, take showers with all of the other inmates and do manual labor. The permanent states of hunger cause inmates to forage in trashcans and to inflict harm on each other over insignificant amounts of food. We're not saying that drunk drivers shouldn't go to jail, we're arguing over the horrible treatment of inmates. Sheriff Joe continually puts unsentenced inmates in jails deemed condemned by the state health board. I'd rather a few stupid college kids get in accidents than put thousands of essentially innocent people through a process like this.
The mob mentality of the Salem Witch Trials and the fun in public displays of vindictiveness are embodied in Arpio's constant self promotion. If Sheriff Joe's policy with inmates deters anyone who is not in jail from going to jail, then it is worth the effort. Bush appointee, ruled that the MCSO detention system violated legal standards of inmate treatment. Also, I think that those who died from abuse, deserve more respect than that, but I guess at least they are being buried.
TRUTH: Jails and prisons here in Arizona and all over the county feed surplus food that is spoiled rotten to inmates and have done so for many years. When the inmates complain, he tells them, "This isn't the Ritz/Carlton, You shouldn't have come to jail". The Sheriff said it wasn't his problem if the inmates refused to eat it. This one does Joe Arpaio one better, by not only serving bad food, but requiring inmates to pay for it or starve. He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them.
Inmates sit in processing tanks for hours unattended by the guards, where they can get beat up on by other inmates and not even get any help from the staff. From time-to-time the inmates may attempt to get an officer's attention by banging on the door or writing help on the fogged up glass. Whether or not the officer responds or even acknowledges them, is a different story.
If you think like Joe Arpaio and say, "Well, they shouldn't have gone to jail"... and you don't think you or someone you love and care about can ever get caught up in Maricopa County's black hole of injustice, think again. Like I warned, you can be taken to jail for simply not having your dog on a leash. And you will be treated with such severe cruelty, you will wish that no one you know or love will ever end up in that place.
As the saying commonly goes,
"Arizona... Come Here On Vacation, Leave On Probation."
Sources:
http://judiciary.house.gov/news/090212.html
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/rights/126986/finally%2C_the_law_goes_after_joe_arpaio_--_the_most_abusive_sheriff_in_america/
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2008-10-23/news/are-joe-arpaio-and-his-mcso-s-fiscally-wasteful-and-inhumane-antics-finally-catching-up-with-him/
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/125767
http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking08/Arpaio_Jail_Staff_Abuse.html
http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking08/Judge_Rules_Against_Arpaio.html
http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking3/SheriffJoeBBC.html
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
I am an advocate for human decency and fair treatment no matter who you are. No Human being should ever have to endure such deplorable and harsh treatment by anyone and especially not while in custody of law officials. Sheriff Joe Arpaio hang your head in shame you ought to be brought into your own jail and prosecuted for your crimes against humanity.
Source: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1518885/joe_arpaios_maricopa_county_jail_treats.html?singlepage=true&cat=17
The Maricopa County Jail ls the worst jail facility in the Country, which was deemed condemned and unclean, where inmates are starved and neglected.
Getting Medical treatment is often impossible and when a Life Threatening Medical Emergency arises, The Detention Officers often ignore any plead for help from inmates, justifying in their own mind that the "Inmate shouldn't have come to jail." This isn't
a prison, it's a county jail, which means the inmates there are
INNOCENT people who have not yet gone to trial. In fact, only a very small percentage of the inmates there have been convicted and sentenced, which is about 20% and they are housed outside in the smoldering desert heat in tents that have no air and it reaches temperatures in the triple digits. Please be aware, that this small percentage of convicted inmates are serving time for a "MISDEMEANOR" charge, usually traffic violations, driving on a suspended license, failure to pay a fine, failure to appear in court, or trespassing, dog unleashed, littering, or jay-walking, simple misdemeanor charges, meaning petty... non-violent and non dangerous.
Nothing that the people in the community should find threatening. those types of crimes are classified as felonies and therefore have to be served in the State Prison Correctional Facility, NOT in the County Jail. Keep in mind that the county jail is for people awaiting their trial. The State Prison is for convicted felons.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio thinks it is okay to treat non-convicted, un-sentenced, detainees as if they have been found guilty. You will see no difference in the way he treats those who have been convicted of a crime and those who have not. I do not condone the abusive treatment of any inmate, convicted or not... Guilty or Not Guilty,... But I don't think it is fair, nor right that a persons rights can be violated as harshly as they are by the Maricopa County Jail systems employees, without any regard to the person whatsoever. For one thing... deprivation is on a grand scale here in the facility where inmates are denied decent healthy food, and are fed only twice a day, once at 9am and not again until 8pm at night... that is a long time to go without anything to eat, especially for the pregnant inmates and the food that is served in the morning is often spoiled.
The inmates are denied health care on a very high level... and if an inmate has a seizure or a life threatening injury, something that requires immediatemedical attention, it is most likely that the inmate will die first before they get it.
Unfortunate is the praise for the Maricopa County Jail system that the sheriff administers.
Abuse
If it's one thing the Detentions Officer's (D.O's) enjoy, is power. They are all on Power Trips, and just because they can, they will often write up an inmate and send them to the hole for 30 days just for getting up off of their bunk and going to use the restroom. If the inmate tries to challenge this, it often results in the inmate getting tasered and taken down by a mob of over zealous Detention Officer's bored on their shift and will jumpat the chance for some action. The inmate is just trying to explain their reason for being up (i.e, had diarrheal, needed a tampax,) but that is viewed as confrontational and the D.O's will even come down on them harder, and yell out "Stop Resisting!" when in-fact the inmate is doing no such thing... but the D.O's will make it appear that they are and very roughly bend their arms WAY up behind their back, and drag them around by their elbows, the pain is excruciating but they won't stop, despite the inmates pleas, all the yelling and screaming out in pain by the inmate will be made to look like resisting and fighting by the Detention Officer. Several Inmates have Died in this Jail for no good reason at all. Would you want your kid in this jail? even if they were Guilty? A Misdemeanor is not that serious and does not constitute such harsh , inhumane treatment by these over zealous power tripped wannabe sheriff deputy Detention Officers.
Detention Officers
Joe Arpaio's detention officers saw a mentally challenged 19 yr old boy as such a threat, they strapped him into a medieval restraint chair and broke his neck. Detention officers at the Madison Street Jail pulled a hood over his head and slammed him into this medieval-looking restraint chair and left him there to die. Also no other inmates, even an inmate who witnessed this brutality made an attempt to contact any of the other detention officers, MCSO said. But of course that's not an inmates job or responsibility to supervise the D.O's, it is the D.O's job and responsibility to supervise the inmates, not hand out justice as they see fit, and certainly not to kill them.
Arpaio began to serve inmates surplus food (mainly outdated and oxidized green bologna) and limited meals to twice daily. He serves the inmates surplus food like green bologna and limits meals to twice a day and thinks its okay, he tells them , "You shouldn't have come to jail." It seems to me that the current system of housing inmates does not give them the least bit chance to turn their life around, that is , IF they are guilty of anything. Arpaio has been housing inmates in tents for years...He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work for him on county and city projects. He created chain gangs, so the inmates could work on these projects at no cost to the taxpayers. Arpaio believes that inmates should be treated as harshly as legally possible to emphasize the punishment aspect of their incarceration. One of them is to draw state or city legislative districts around large prisons and pretend that the inmates are legitimate constituents. It's despicable, the praise he receives for the Maricopa County jail system and the treatment that they administer. Especially if you are counting on these inmates to police themselves by telling the guards, when they will just be beaten later for snitching. Seriously, the guy has let over 60 inmates die on his watch, not from riots or violence but from treatable health conditions. What next, a girl who was a "diabetic" but ignored for 36 hours without any food, who's blood sugar goes up sky high and she dies too! or who isn't fed but just twice a day at 12 hour intervals. Eating only twice a day will drop your insulin level down, very low and you can die.
In the past the jail had to send away inmates due to overcrowding, but Joe came up with a solution, just pile them up outside in the tents. The County Jail wouldn't BE so crowded if law enforcement weren't so petty and arresting people for the smallest and pettiest of things, like walking your dog without a leash, YES , you cango to jail for that. And not just a couple of days, try a couple of months! Detention Officers at the Madison Street Jail and Guards at the Estrella Jail do not hesitate to abuse inmates physically or verbally. They even enjoy doing it. Why? because there are no repercussions for doing so... they can even get away with murder.
Inmates are constantly being deprived of humane treatment, food, necessities, but also "The failure to transport inmates to their court dates." this dramatically affects the timely resolution of criminal cases and deprives victims of their rights to a speedy trial, making them sit in jail longer, to further endure more massively abusive and neglectful treatment. It's a win-win situation: his toadies get their power and money while executing the most horrific of horrific treatment, while Arpaio gets the exposure that he so craves, the media photo ops and news coverage, where he likes to act tough and show off his bully tactics. He forces inmates to live in deplorable, inhumane conditions and brags about it on TV. But, his denial of even the most basic medical care to inmate at his jail is really inhumane. People are dying here people... Even innocent ones, Wake Up. Many inmates, including those claiming innocence, have actually signed plea bargains just to be transferred to the prison system where at least the treatment and conditions were tolerable, and where they can at least be fed and not be hungry all the time. Eating only twice a day will drop your insulin level down, very low and you can die. He's had more prisoners, men and women and even pregnant women, die on his watch. But, for now I want to speak for the family members and friends of inmates in this jail, convicted or not.
Most people are also not aware that the majority of jail inmates have never been convicted of anything. You can label the inmates at tent city as criminals but most of the people there are not hardened criminals. It shouldn't matter whether the inmate is guilty or not, the fact of the matter is no one should be denied medical attention and food- any human beings basic needs. They are, after all, responsible for all inmates' well being and health care and some that die there in that jail deserve life. He also doesn't allow the inmates to have salt, pepper, sugar or any other condiments. Total and Complete deprivation on a large if not grand scale.
Also, most people are not aware that the vast majority of inmates incarcerated today are mental ill. They need a hospital not a jail cell.
There is more to being Sheriff than serving county inmates green baloney on stale bread, expired milk and housing them in 115 degree weather, or if your lucky enough to be housed indoors you get to share the space with rats and roaches. I have seen where an inmate was suspected of having contraband, the inmate was placed into what is called a dry cell, one without a toilet. and without water.
Some are left there and simply forgotten about. And they become gravely ill. The Detention Officers where notified that an inmate was ill, but they did not respond to the other inmates request for immediate help. As the jail refuses to treat insect bites, other inmates sometimes help inmates squeeze out pus and salt the wounds.
Eat the same slop, sleep in the heat on a metal cot, take showers with all of the other inmates and do manual labor. The permanent states of hunger cause inmates to forage in trashcans and to inflict harm on each other over insignificant amounts of food. We're not saying that drunk drivers shouldn't go to jail, we're arguing over the horrible treatment of inmates. Sheriff Joe continually puts unsentenced inmates in jails deemed condemned by the state health board. I'd rather a few stupid college kids get in accidents than put thousands of essentially innocent people through a process like this.
The mob mentality of the Salem Witch Trials and the fun in public displays of vindictiveness are embodied in Arpio's constant self promotion. If Sheriff Joe's policy with inmates deters anyone who is not in jail from going to jail, then it is worth the effort. Bush appointee, ruled that the MCSO detention system violated legal standards of inmate treatment. Also, I think that those who died from abuse, deserve more respect than that, but I guess at least they are being buried.
TRUTH: Jails and prisons here in Arizona and all over the county feed surplus food that is spoiled rotten to inmates and have done so for many years. When the inmates complain, he tells them, "This isn't the Ritz/Carlton, You shouldn't have come to jail". The Sheriff said it wasn't his problem if the inmates refused to eat it. This one does Joe Arpaio one better, by not only serving bad food, but requiring inmates to pay for it or starve. He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them.
Inmates sit in processing tanks for hours unattended by the guards, where they can get beat up on by other inmates and not even get any help from the staff. From time-to-time the inmates may attempt to get an officer's attention by banging on the door or writing help on the fogged up glass. Whether or not the officer responds or even acknowledges them, is a different story.
If you think like Joe Arpaio and say, "Well, they shouldn't have gone to jail"... and you don't think you or someone you love and care about can ever get caught up in Maricopa County's black hole of injustice, think again. Like I warned, you can be taken to jail for simply not having your dog on a leash. And you will be treated with such severe cruelty, you will wish that no one you know or love will ever end up in that place.
As the saying commonly goes,
"Arizona... Come Here On Vacation, Leave On Probation."
Sources:
http://judiciary.house.gov/news/090212.html
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/rights/126986/finally%2C_the_law_goes_after_joe_arpaio_--_the_most_abusive_sheriff_in_america/
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2008-10-23/news/are-joe-arpaio-and-his-mcso-s-fiscally-wasteful-and-inhumane-antics-finally-catching-up-with-him/
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/125767
http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking08/Arpaio_Jail_Staff_Abuse.html
http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking08/Judge_Rules_Against_Arpaio.html
http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking3/SheriffJoeBBC.html
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
I am an advocate for human decency and fair treatment no matter who you are. No Human being should ever have to endure such deplorable and harsh treatment by anyone and especially not while in custody of law officials. Sheriff Joe Arpaio hang your head in shame you ought to be brought into your own jail and prosecuted for your crimes against humanity.
Source: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1518885/joe_arpaios_maricopa_county_jail_treats.html?singlepage=true&cat=17
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Lawsuit Charging Sheriff Arpaio Illegally Targeted Latinos In Maricopa County Can Go Forward
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org
PHOENIX – A federal court ruled that a class action lawsuit charging that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio illegally profiled Latinos can proceed.
In July 2008, five individuals and Somos America, a Latino community-based coalition, sued Arpaio, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) and Maricopa County, claiming that they or their members were unlawfully stopped and mistreated by law enforcement agents because they were Latino. The county asked the U.S. District Court in Arizona to dismiss the lawsuit in October, but today's ruling clears the way for the lawsuit to go forward.
The court recognized that Latino appearance is of "little or no use" in determining which individuals should be stopped by law enforcement seeking "illegal aliens," and that reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation does not justify questioning of drivers or passengers about immigration status.
"At stake in this case is a matter of acute public importance. Law enforcement practices that target a group based solely on the color of their skin have no place in America," said Peter Kozinets, an attorney at Steptoe & Johnson LLP in Phoenix who argued the case. "This is a critical step in protecting the rights of all people in this country."
The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Arizona, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and lead counsel Steptoe & Johnson LLP are representing the five individuals and Somos America and charge that the policies and practices of Arpaio and the county are discriminatory and unlawfully violate the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Arizona Constitution. The amended lawsuit builds upon an earlier complaint filed in December 2007.
"We're encouraged that the sheriff's office's practice of targeting people simply because of the color of their skin can now be fully examined in a court of law," said ACLU of Arizona Legal Director Dan Pochoda, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs. "Sheriff Arpaio's discriminatory policies have no place in a free country. We do not want to live in a place where you can be stopped for no reason and asked for 'your papers please.'"
Arpaio has launched a series of so-called "crime suppression sweeps" in Maricopa County in Latino neighborhoods and in areas where Latinos work as day laborers. Maricopa County residents and local officials alike have complained that the conduct of the sheriff and his office go well beyond the scope of the MCSO's legal authority and often results in the harassment of Latinos.
"We are very pleased that this important case will be heard," said MALDEF staff attorney Kristina Campbell. "In America we value fairness and equality, but Sheriff Arpaio's sweeps have resulted in the harassment of Latinos and violated their civil rights. There's nothing fair about that."
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon has denounced Sheriff Arpaio and last April, after the MCSO engaged in sweeps in the town of Guadalupe, Gordon formally requested that former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey launch a Justice Department investigation into Sheriff Arpaio's and the MCSO's "discriminatory harassment, improper stops, searches and arrests" of Latino persons in Maricopa County. Gordon has also publicly stated that the sweeps are interfering with the work of undercover city police officers and federal agents.
Lawyers on the case, Ortega Melendres, et al. v. Arpaio, et al., include Mónica RamÃrez of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project; Pochoda of the ACLU of Arizona; Campbell and Nancy Ramirez of MALDEF; and Kozinets, David Bodney, Karen Hartman-Tellez and Isaac Hernandez of Steptoe & Johnson LLP.
Today's ruling is online at: http://www.aclu.org/immigrants/gen/38709lgl20090210.html
The complaint is online at: http://www.aclu.org/immigrants/gen/35998lgl20080716.html
The letter from Mayor Gordon to Attorney General Mukasey is online at: http://www.aclu.org/immigrants/gen/35981res20080404.html
More information about the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project is online at: http://www.aclu.org/immigrants/index.html
More information about Steptoe & Johnson LLP is online at: http://www.steptoe.com
Source: aclu.org
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org
PHOENIX – A federal court ruled that a class action lawsuit charging that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio illegally profiled Latinos can proceed.
In July 2008, five individuals and Somos America, a Latino community-based coalition, sued Arpaio, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) and Maricopa County, claiming that they or their members were unlawfully stopped and mistreated by law enforcement agents because they were Latino. The county asked the U.S. District Court in Arizona to dismiss the lawsuit in October, but today's ruling clears the way for the lawsuit to go forward.
The court recognized that Latino appearance is of "little or no use" in determining which individuals should be stopped by law enforcement seeking "illegal aliens," and that reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation does not justify questioning of drivers or passengers about immigration status.
"At stake in this case is a matter of acute public importance. Law enforcement practices that target a group based solely on the color of their skin have no place in America," said Peter Kozinets, an attorney at Steptoe & Johnson LLP in Phoenix who argued the case. "This is a critical step in protecting the rights of all people in this country."
The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Arizona, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and lead counsel Steptoe & Johnson LLP are representing the five individuals and Somos America and charge that the policies and practices of Arpaio and the county are discriminatory and unlawfully violate the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Arizona Constitution. The amended lawsuit builds upon an earlier complaint filed in December 2007.
"We're encouraged that the sheriff's office's practice of targeting people simply because of the color of their skin can now be fully examined in a court of law," said ACLU of Arizona Legal Director Dan Pochoda, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs. "Sheriff Arpaio's discriminatory policies have no place in a free country. We do not want to live in a place where you can be stopped for no reason and asked for 'your papers please.'"
Arpaio has launched a series of so-called "crime suppression sweeps" in Maricopa County in Latino neighborhoods and in areas where Latinos work as day laborers. Maricopa County residents and local officials alike have complained that the conduct of the sheriff and his office go well beyond the scope of the MCSO's legal authority and often results in the harassment of Latinos.
"We are very pleased that this important case will be heard," said MALDEF staff attorney Kristina Campbell. "In America we value fairness and equality, but Sheriff Arpaio's sweeps have resulted in the harassment of Latinos and violated their civil rights. There's nothing fair about that."
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon has denounced Sheriff Arpaio and last April, after the MCSO engaged in sweeps in the town of Guadalupe, Gordon formally requested that former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey launch a Justice Department investigation into Sheriff Arpaio's and the MCSO's "discriminatory harassment, improper stops, searches and arrests" of Latino persons in Maricopa County. Gordon has also publicly stated that the sweeps are interfering with the work of undercover city police officers and federal agents.
Lawyers on the case, Ortega Melendres, et al. v. Arpaio, et al., include Mónica RamÃrez of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project; Pochoda of the ACLU of Arizona; Campbell and Nancy Ramirez of MALDEF; and Kozinets, David Bodney, Karen Hartman-Tellez and Isaac Hernandez of Steptoe & Johnson LLP.
Today's ruling is online at: http://www.aclu.org/immigrants/gen/38709lgl20090210.html
The complaint is online at: http://www.aclu.org/immigrants/gen/35998lgl20080716.html
The letter from Mayor Gordon to Attorney General Mukasey is online at: http://www.aclu.org/immigrants/gen/35981res20080404.html
More information about the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project is online at: http://www.aclu.org/immigrants/index.html
More information about Steptoe & Johnson LLP is online at: http://www.steptoe.com
Source: aclu.org
Sheriff Joe Arpaio under federal investigation
HIGH-PROFILE ARIZONA SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT TARGET OF FEDERAL PROBE
PHOENIX — Federal authorities have told a high-profile Arizona sheriff that they will investigate his department over allegations of discriminatory practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures.
The U.S. Justice Department said in a letter delivered Tuesday to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio that the investigation will focus on alleged patterns of discrimination based on a person's national origin.
Arpaio told The Associated Press that he will cooperate with the Justice Department.
Arpaio, who describes himself as "America's Toughest Sheriff" and is best known for feeding jail inmates green bologna sandwiches, clothing them in pink underwear, and making them work on chain gangs, received praise for his anti-immigration efforts from many who believe the federal government isn't doing enough to remove people in the U.S. illegally.
But his raids and sweeps of illegal immigrants in Phoenix and nearby Guadalupe have drawn protests from community leaders and civil liberties advocates. Arpaio, a Republican, has also been criticized for letting thousands of felony warrants go unserved while he chased illegal immigrants.
According to the Arizona Department of Public Safety, there are about 59,000 outstanding, unserved felony warrants in the state. The majority are in Maricopa County, the state's most populated county.
Source: foxnews.com
PHOENIX — Federal authorities have told a high-profile Arizona sheriff that they will investigate his department over allegations of discriminatory practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures.
The U.S. Justice Department said in a letter delivered Tuesday to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio that the investigation will focus on alleged patterns of discrimination based on a person's national origin.
Arpaio told The Associated Press that he will cooperate with the Justice Department.
Arpaio, who describes himself as "America's Toughest Sheriff" and is best known for feeding jail inmates green bologna sandwiches, clothing them in pink underwear, and making them work on chain gangs, received praise for his anti-immigration efforts from many who believe the federal government isn't doing enough to remove people in the U.S. illegally.
But his raids and sweeps of illegal immigrants in Phoenix and nearby Guadalupe have drawn protests from community leaders and civil liberties advocates. Arpaio, a Republican, has also been criticized for letting thousands of felony warrants go unserved while he chased illegal immigrants.
According to the Arizona Department of Public Safety, there are about 59,000 outstanding, unserved felony warrants in the state. The majority are in Maricopa County, the state's most populated county.
Source: foxnews.com
Minutemen Leader Threatens Judge Over Lethal Force Decision
San Diego Minutemen leader Jeff Schwilk has long taken pleasure in harassing immigrants.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that he wrote a vicious E-mail to supporters threatening a federal judge who ruled in favor of an undocumented immigrant killed by a Border Patrol agent.
“This judge should be immediately dragged out, arrested and sent to Gitmo for crimes against our country!” Schwilk wrote in the E-mail titled “Death Penalty for Rock Throwers.” “Or better yet, tie him to a post near the border fence in Douglas [Ariz.] and attach 10 burritos to him as bait for these innocent little Mexican rock throwers! Put a sign next to him that says, ‘I work for the U.S. Border Patrol.’ He wouldn’t last 10 minutes. B@st@rd!”
Along with his comments, Schwilk forwarded an Associated Press article about the ruling in a civil lawsuit brought by the victim’s family, who was awarded $350,000. According to the AP story, U.S. District Judge Raner Collins decided that the Border Patrol agent used excessive force when he fatally shot an undocumented immigrant, 22-year-old Ricardo Olivares Martinez. The shooting occurred after an agent encountered a group of undocumented immigrants near the Arizona-Mexico border in 2003. Among them was Martinez, who tossed rocks at Agent Cesar Cervantes even after he was ordered to stop. Cervantes said he responded with deadly force because his life was in danger. The judge disagreed, saying the agent “was not in imminent danger from the deceased.”
Schwilk took exception to that finding. “If an illegal alien ever throws a rock (deadly weapon) at me, he’s a dead man! Only lethal force will be used in deadly situations. This is absolutely outrageous!”
Read more here: splcenter.org
So perhaps it’s no surprise that he wrote a vicious E-mail to supporters threatening a federal judge who ruled in favor of an undocumented immigrant killed by a Border Patrol agent.
“This judge should be immediately dragged out, arrested and sent to Gitmo for crimes against our country!” Schwilk wrote in the E-mail titled “Death Penalty for Rock Throwers.” “Or better yet, tie him to a post near the border fence in Douglas [Ariz.] and attach 10 burritos to him as bait for these innocent little Mexican rock throwers! Put a sign next to him that says, ‘I work for the U.S. Border Patrol.’ He wouldn’t last 10 minutes. B@st@rd!”
Along with his comments, Schwilk forwarded an Associated Press article about the ruling in a civil lawsuit brought by the victim’s family, who was awarded $350,000. According to the AP story, U.S. District Judge Raner Collins decided that the Border Patrol agent used excessive force when he fatally shot an undocumented immigrant, 22-year-old Ricardo Olivares Martinez. The shooting occurred after an agent encountered a group of undocumented immigrants near the Arizona-Mexico border in 2003. Among them was Martinez, who tossed rocks at Agent Cesar Cervantes even after he was ordered to stop. Cervantes said he responded with deadly force because his life was in danger. The judge disagreed, saying the agent “was not in imminent danger from the deceased.”
Schwilk took exception to that finding. “If an illegal alien ever throws a rock (deadly weapon) at me, he’s a dead man! Only lethal force will be used in deadly situations. This is absolutely outrageous!”
Read more here: splcenter.org
Sheriff Arpaio's Deputies Break Woman's Arm
Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a woman suspected of being undocumented Thursday night after it was determined that her arm had been broken while she was in MCSO custody.
Maria del Carmen Garcia Martinez was released on her own recognizance, her left arm slung in a cast after she received treatment at St. Joseph's. She had been turned over to ICE earlier in the day by the MCSO. ICE took her to St. Joseph's for medical attention, photographed her injuries and released her with a pending court date around 8 p.m. from its offices on Central Ave.
You may view the latest post at
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Sunday, February 22, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
House Judiciary Committee Presses Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano to Investigate Sheriff Joe Arpaio
By Stephen Lemons
Friday, Feb. 13 2009 @ 12:08PM
Dennis Gilman/Adolfo Maldonado
Has Joe finally run into someone he can't flip off?
In what may be a watershed moment in the battle to end Sheriff Joe Arpaio's anti-Hispanic pogroms and his abuse of his federal 287(g) authority, the leadership of the House Judiciary Committee is pressing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security czar Janet Napolitano to investigate Sheriff Joe and to make sure his use of his 287(g) power to enforce immigration law, "is not used to justify the racial profiling of any resident of Arizona."
Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), along with other members of the House committee that has jurisdiction over both Holder and Napolitano's departments, made the request in a strongly worded letter dated February 12. The letter is highly critical of Arpaio's media stunts, such as the "200 Mexican March," which took place last week, wherein Arpaio brought back the bugbear of racial and ethnic segregation after several decades of it being declared unconstitutional.
The letter also cites Arpaio's sweeps of Latino communities, as well as the recent MALDEF/ACLU lawsuit brought against the MCSO for racial profiling, and notes that "Arpaio's actions have triggered numerous civil rights lawsuits." Yet, the committee states that our corrupt top cop's "repeated course of conduct, which values publicity opportunities over the civil rights of the residents of Arizona, is too disturbing to leave enforcement of the civil rights laws to private litigants."
The correspondence references several federal laws that Arpaio may have run afoul of, such as Section 242 of Title 18 of the U.S.Code, which "prohibits anyone from acting under the color of law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States."
As for the 287(g) agreement, under which Arpaio has 160 federally trained thugs ready to do his bidding, the committee indicates that if Napolitano cannot get Arpaio to comply with the dictates of that agreement, then, "We urge that such agreement be terminated..."
The press release issued today announcing the letter is even more forceful in its condemnation of Arpaio's actions.
"Racial profiling and segregation are simply not acceptable." Chairman Conyers is quoted as stating concerning Joe. "Media stunts and braggadocio are no substitute for fair and effective law enforcement."
Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-California) declared that, "The basic premise of our justice system is that people are innocent until proven otherwise...I'm concerned that in Maricopa County that basic premise appears to have been turned upside down and that Latino members of community are considered `undocumented' until proven otherwise. That's not how our Constitution works and it's time for the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to take a closer look."
Constitution Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) didn't hold back either:
"We cannot tolerate vigilantes using the police power to violate the fundamental rights of anyone they can get their hands on. Sheriff Arpaio has consistently abused his office in violation of federal law. It is time for the federal government to step in and uphold the rule of law in this country, even in Maricopa County."
Finally, those in Congress with oversight over the DOJ and DHS have heard the cries of the oppressed in Joe Arpaio's Maricopa County. Now is the time to keep the pressure on to ensure that swift action follows. If Holder and Napolitano do not respond with the appropriate speed and force, then Congress should hold hearings and subpoena Arpaio to testify. It's long since past time for him to be held accountable for his reign of terror and error. There's no elected official in this state with the gonads to challenge him. So only the federal government can finally make him comply with the law or face the consequences
Source: phoenixnewtimes.com
Friday, Feb. 13 2009 @ 12:08PM
Dennis Gilman/Adolfo Maldonado
Has Joe finally run into someone he can't flip off?
In what may be a watershed moment in the battle to end Sheriff Joe Arpaio's anti-Hispanic pogroms and his abuse of his federal 287(g) authority, the leadership of the House Judiciary Committee is pressing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security czar Janet Napolitano to investigate Sheriff Joe and to make sure his use of his 287(g) power to enforce immigration law, "is not used to justify the racial profiling of any resident of Arizona."
Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), along with other members of the House committee that has jurisdiction over both Holder and Napolitano's departments, made the request in a strongly worded letter dated February 12. The letter is highly critical of Arpaio's media stunts, such as the "200 Mexican March," which took place last week, wherein Arpaio brought back the bugbear of racial and ethnic segregation after several decades of it being declared unconstitutional.
The letter also cites Arpaio's sweeps of Latino communities, as well as the recent MALDEF/ACLU lawsuit brought against the MCSO for racial profiling, and notes that "Arpaio's actions have triggered numerous civil rights lawsuits." Yet, the committee states that our corrupt top cop's "repeated course of conduct, which values publicity opportunities over the civil rights of the residents of Arizona, is too disturbing to leave enforcement of the civil rights laws to private litigants."
The correspondence references several federal laws that Arpaio may have run afoul of, such as Section 242 of Title 18 of the U.S.Code, which "prohibits anyone from acting under the color of law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States."
As for the 287(g) agreement, under which Arpaio has 160 federally trained thugs ready to do his bidding, the committee indicates that if Napolitano cannot get Arpaio to comply with the dictates of that agreement, then, "We urge that such agreement be terminated..."
The press release issued today announcing the letter is even more forceful in its condemnation of Arpaio's actions.
"Racial profiling and segregation are simply not acceptable." Chairman Conyers is quoted as stating concerning Joe. "Media stunts and braggadocio are no substitute for fair and effective law enforcement."
Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-California) declared that, "The basic premise of our justice system is that people are innocent until proven otherwise...I'm concerned that in Maricopa County that basic premise appears to have been turned upside down and that Latino members of community are considered `undocumented' until proven otherwise. That's not how our Constitution works and it's time for the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to take a closer look."
Constitution Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) didn't hold back either:
"We cannot tolerate vigilantes using the police power to violate the fundamental rights of anyone they can get their hands on. Sheriff Arpaio has consistently abused his office in violation of federal law. It is time for the federal government to step in and uphold the rule of law in this country, even in Maricopa County."
Finally, those in Congress with oversight over the DOJ and DHS have heard the cries of the oppressed in Joe Arpaio's Maricopa County. Now is the time to keep the pressure on to ensure that swift action follows. If Holder and Napolitano do not respond with the appropriate speed and force, then Congress should hold hearings and subpoena Arpaio to testify. It's long since past time for him to be held accountable for his reign of terror and error. There's no elected official in this state with the gonads to challenge him. So only the federal government can finally make him comply with the law or face the consequences
Source: phoenixnewtimes.com
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Columnist Ann Coulter Defends White Supremacist Group
Posted in Extremist Propaganda by Mark Potok on February 13, 2009
Rabid far-right commentator Ann Coulter is known across America for sliming everyone and everything she disagrees with. Al Gore is a “total fag” and another one-time presidential candidate, John Edwards, is the same. Democrats are “gutless traitors” and their convention a “Spawn of Satan” gathering. Muslims are “ragheads” and America should “kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” Jews are people who need to be “perfected.” The New York Times building and its editorial staff should be bombed. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens should have “rat poisoning” mixed into his food. Princess Diana “ostentatiously [had] sex in front of [her] children.” The Rev. Al Sharpton is “a fat, race-baiting black man.” President Bill Clinton was “a very good rapist,” and North Korea should be “nuked.”
But despite denouncing school desegregation as a “spectacular” failure, Coulter has generally avoided bolstering white supremacist hate groups. Until now, that is.
In her latest foaming-mouth tome — Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America, released on Jan. 6 — Coulter spends the better part of three pages defending a group called the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), which The New York Times had described as a “thinly veiled white supremacist organization.” Coulter begs to differ. The CCC, Coulter opines, is “a conservative group” that has unfairly been branded as racist “because some of the directors of the CCC had, decades earlier, been leaders of a segregationist group.” “There is no evidence on its Web page that the modern incarnation of the CCC supports segregation,” she says. “Apart from some aggressive reporting on black-on-white crimes — the very crimes that are aggressively hidden by the establishment media — there is little on the CCC website suggesting” that the group is racist. Indeed, its main failing is “containing members who had belonged to a segregationist group thirty years earlier.”
Coulter could hardly be more wrong. And even if she can’t find time to read beyond a page of the CCC’s website, she really ought to know — after all, the organization where she frequently speaks, the Conservative Political Action Committee, has publicly banned the CCC from its annual gathering because it is racist. Also in the late 1990s, Jim Nicholson, then-chairman of the Republican National Committee, asked GOP members to stay away from the CCC because of its “racist and nationalist views.”
How could conservative Republicans be inspired to say such ugly things? Let us count the ways.
The CCC’s columnists have written that black people are “a retrograde species of humanity,” and that non-white immigration is turning the U.S. population into a “slimy brown mass of glop.” Its website has run photographic comparisons of pop singer Michael Jackson and a chimpanzee. It opposes “forced integration” and decries racial intermarriage. It has lambasted black people as “genetically inferior,” complained about “Jewish power brokers,” called gay people “perverted sodomites,” and even named the late Lester Maddox, the baseball bat-wielding, arch-segregationist former governor of Georgia, “Patriot of the Century.”
One day, the CCC ran photos on its home page of accused Beltway snipers John Muhammad and John Malvo, 9/11 conspirator Zacharias Moussaoui and accused shoe-bomber Richard Reed. “Notice a Pattern Here?” asked a caption underneath the four photos. “Is the face of death black after all?” On another occasion, its website featured a photo of Daniel Pearl, the “Jewish Wall Street Journal reporter” who had just been decapitated by Islamic terrorists. In the photo, Pearl was shown with his “mixed-race wife, Marianne.” The headline above the couple’s picture was stunning even for the CCC: “Death by Multiculturalism?” The CCC Arkansas chapter ran an essay waxing nostalgic for the days “when racial separation was the norm.”
But to Ann Coulter, there is “no evidence” on its website that the CCC “supports segregation.” Mostly, she says, the group — which was formed from the debris of the White Citizens Councils that Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall once called “the uptown Klan” — is about “a strong national defense, the right to keep and bear arms, the traditional family, and an ‘America First’ trade policy.” Indeed, she says, The New York Times and other critics of the CCC are simply liberals “who have no principles.”
Source: splcenter.org
Rabid far-right commentator Ann Coulter is known across America for sliming everyone and everything she disagrees with. Al Gore is a “total fag” and another one-time presidential candidate, John Edwards, is the same. Democrats are “gutless traitors” and their convention a “Spawn of Satan” gathering. Muslims are “ragheads” and America should “kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” Jews are people who need to be “perfected.” The New York Times building and its editorial staff should be bombed. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens should have “rat poisoning” mixed into his food. Princess Diana “ostentatiously [had] sex in front of [her] children.” The Rev. Al Sharpton is “a fat, race-baiting black man.” President Bill Clinton was “a very good rapist,” and North Korea should be “nuked.”
But despite denouncing school desegregation as a “spectacular” failure, Coulter has generally avoided bolstering white supremacist hate groups. Until now, that is.
In her latest foaming-mouth tome — Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America, released on Jan. 6 — Coulter spends the better part of three pages defending a group called the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), which The New York Times had described as a “thinly veiled white supremacist organization.” Coulter begs to differ. The CCC, Coulter opines, is “a conservative group” that has unfairly been branded as racist “because some of the directors of the CCC had, decades earlier, been leaders of a segregationist group.” “There is no evidence on its Web page that the modern incarnation of the CCC supports segregation,” she says. “Apart from some aggressive reporting on black-on-white crimes — the very crimes that are aggressively hidden by the establishment media — there is little on the CCC website suggesting” that the group is racist. Indeed, its main failing is “containing members who had belonged to a segregationist group thirty years earlier.”
Coulter could hardly be more wrong. And even if she can’t find time to read beyond a page of the CCC’s website, she really ought to know — after all, the organization where she frequently speaks, the Conservative Political Action Committee, has publicly banned the CCC from its annual gathering because it is racist. Also in the late 1990s, Jim Nicholson, then-chairman of the Republican National Committee, asked GOP members to stay away from the CCC because of its “racist and nationalist views.”
How could conservative Republicans be inspired to say such ugly things? Let us count the ways.
The CCC’s columnists have written that black people are “a retrograde species of humanity,” and that non-white immigration is turning the U.S. population into a “slimy brown mass of glop.” Its website has run photographic comparisons of pop singer Michael Jackson and a chimpanzee. It opposes “forced integration” and decries racial intermarriage. It has lambasted black people as “genetically inferior,” complained about “Jewish power brokers,” called gay people “perverted sodomites,” and even named the late Lester Maddox, the baseball bat-wielding, arch-segregationist former governor of Georgia, “Patriot of the Century.”
One day, the CCC ran photos on its home page of accused Beltway snipers John Muhammad and John Malvo, 9/11 conspirator Zacharias Moussaoui and accused shoe-bomber Richard Reed. “Notice a Pattern Here?” asked a caption underneath the four photos. “Is the face of death black after all?” On another occasion, its website featured a photo of Daniel Pearl, the “Jewish Wall Street Journal reporter” who had just been decapitated by Islamic terrorists. In the photo, Pearl was shown with his “mixed-race wife, Marianne.” The headline above the couple’s picture was stunning even for the CCC: “Death by Multiculturalism?” The CCC Arkansas chapter ran an essay waxing nostalgic for the days “when racial separation was the norm.”
But to Ann Coulter, there is “no evidence” on its website that the CCC “supports segregation.” Mostly, she says, the group — which was formed from the debris of the White Citizens Councils that Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall once called “the uptown Klan” — is about “a strong national defense, the right to keep and bear arms, the traditional family, and an ‘America First’ trade policy.” Indeed, she says, The New York Times and other critics of the CCC are simply liberals “who have no principles.”
Source: splcenter.org
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Court: Lawsuit accusing Arpaio of racial profiling will proceed
A class action lawsuit accusing Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio of racial profiling will proceed, a federal court ruled Wednesday.
In July 2008, five individuals and Somos America, a Latino coalition, sued Arpaio, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and Maricopa County, claiming that they or their members were unlawfully stopped and mistreated by law enforcement agents because they are Latino.
Officials from the county asked the U.S. District Court in Arizona to dismiss the lawsuit in October, but the new ruling clears the way for the lawsuit to go forward.
According to a news release, the court recognized that Latino appearance is of "little or no use" in determining which individuals should be stopped by law enforcement seeking undocumented immigrants, and that reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation does not justify questioning of drivers or passengers about immigration status.
Copyright 2009 The E.W. Scripps Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Source: abc15.com
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