Pixiq

So what made him wait 8 years to come forward with this horrible horrible event? Seems like if he felt so strongly about it, he would have said something a bit sooner.

Is this guy facing any internal discipline for something? Has he had any recent work related issues that may have made him upset with the department? How are his last couple of performance evaluations?

Maybe this happened and maybe not but
something recent had to have happened to make him come forward with this claim.

Sadly you immediately illustrate the main issue. Cops will defend each other to the end, right or wrong. Even when wrong, and get away with it.

And to the 8 yrs he waited:
“From my experience, every time a police officer turns on his fellow officers to report abuse, he becomes ostracized and eventually forced out of the department.”

Sorry to come off accusatory, not my intent.

Also under FL 775.15 the statute of limitations on assault has expired.

Someguy,

So you just accept his story at face value? You don’t think there might be more to it? Just maybe?

No I don not, thankfully. Every story has many sides, and one truth; all the while each story told tells some shade of the truth. While I appreciate the search for the truth in all things, vilifying him without reason seems premature. While I will hold judgment overall in this case until more information is made available or comes to light, I was pointing out that you have already apparently sided against him.

I can only hope that those who are sworn to uphold the law seek the truth.

He did not wait 8 years. Read the entire story.

And in 2002, Adams started whistle-blowing. It began with the Henry Gaines incident. Adams had responded to a call for backup, he says, to find Officer Luis Pratts Martinez “on top of” Gaines, “chok[ing]” him with his right arm.

He probably just now decided to go to the media because he wasn’t getting results from the department.

No no no. Because you don’t really try and make things right at the time, the very first time you see something wrong.

You could stand up against it maybe once; decide it’s too hard, transfer out and give up; and then complain about it on your blog later.

Maybe the guy screwed up lately and needs to make himself look good or something of the like.

Or maybe he’s gotten so fed up with what’s going on (this beating from called out is just one of the alleged incidents) that he’s finally doing something about it, and really trying to make a change.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

Cops, like all people, commit crimes all the time. Not all cops, of course, just enough to fill up a website.

http://www.injusticeeverywhere.com/

They can’t do it alone. They need the blind loyalty of their fellow cops.

One thing you don’t see very often (something I’ve never seen, though it could have happened) is a disgruntled cop going to a paper to make up stories of brutality.

The website above clearly shows you don’t have to make them up.

Mike,

There is a world of difference in not liking a policy endorsed by your department and the DAs office and keeping quiet after witnessing an innocent man beaten and framed. If you can’t see that, perhaps you should try to gain some real world experience. I guess moral dilemmas are few and far between when you repair bike tubes for a living.

Hey thanks for the link though! Stay classy.

There is a world of difference. And if someone can’t even take “not liking a policy” that put possibly innocent people in jail, he’s got no business calling Adams’ motives and timing into question.

Speaking of classy.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

(btw – Getting a link on one page of a blog that already links to that place on every page anyway is pretty much negligible.)
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

@Johnny Law
I believe him. Cops wouldn’t lie.

“And if someone can’t even take “not liking a policy” that put possibly innocent people in jail, he’s got no business calling Adams’ motives and timing into question.”

Right…We should take him as the Gospel and break out the pitchforks without asking any questions. Critical thinking is sorely missing in some people.

The same kind of critical thinking that leads to the bizarre idea that I work as a bike mechanic (I don’t) and that it would somehow be demeaning if I did (it wouldn’t) and that it’s somehow relevant to recognizing hypocrisy (it’s not.)

Much like how a 5-year-old operates.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

Mike, that is an AMAZING link which goes straight to the heart of the matter i.e. that a person could experience a wrong, understand the wrong, verbalize the wrong, and still be unaware (or not care) they visit the exact same wrong onto someone else. It’s as beautiful as it is grotesque.

Great story and my hats off to Mr. Adams for coming forward with his story but honestly, you can’t have a discussion regarding dishonest Miami Dade County Police officers without mentioning Detective Jorge Baluja…

http://thestrawbuyer.blogspot.com/2009/12/lets-say-hello-to-lead-detecti...
The Straw Buyer recently posted..Yet another plea date come and gone for Mr John Romney

What I have read about this story looks to me like the officer has been trying to do something internal to the department since it occurred, but just recently went outside to the media.

I agree with Johnny, I would bet something else has happened recently with this officer, and he is using this past incident to to deflect the attention from himself.

It is possible that the recent incident was due to negative backlash inside the department towards him because of his internal issues with this incident, but I would guess that we will never know.

Either way, it is always good for this information to come out, even if the case is past the statute of limitations, I am sure the information will assist in other cases of misconduct regarding these officers.

He’s been fighting this EVER SINCE IT HAPPENED. He didn’t wait; he has merely been rebuffed in his efforts to report it and be taken seriously or get any sort of honor out of the established system which protected itself first and foremost.

He didn’t wait at all. It just took that 8 years for us to be hearing anything about it because HE dealt internally and through “proper channels” with the issue that bothered him from the start, and he got nowhere for 8 years of trying and having it all covered up by those channels.

Read all links before judging anyone.

If you read the entire article, and granted it is just an article, the police authorities have upheld Gaines story that he was abused by those officers. Which backs up Adams account.

And yes, it seems that Adams has become a gadfly as he reported this incident in 2002 and continued in that manner on at least one other incident. He wasn’t suddenly coming forward, he acted as a classic whistleblower: work internally; that fails, go public; suffer the consequences.

He did improperly investigate another officer, which got him in trouble in 2009.

This is an article by Balko in Reason that is tangentially pertinent. It shows to what lengths and sophistry organizations, in this case PDs, will go to operate in secrecy.

http://reason.com/archives/2010/08/30/trust-me-you-can-trust-us

@Ariel

Exactly. Which is why I tend to believe the “finally fed up” option myself.

And I wouldn’t be so sure that “improperly investigating” reprimand wasn’t just official punishment for not holding the line.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

Michael42 #23,

I think the improperly investigating is likely justified because that is the province of superiors and internal sub-groups assigned that responsibility. That is necessary for an organization to properly function.

However, fed-up whistleblowers will eventually ignore that line and cross it. So six-of-one, half-a-dozen-of-the other.

So, the cop’s side of the story is generally, if not always right, unless the cop’s side of the story is that another cop broke the law?

what. the. fuck. Johnny Law?
I was going to come on here and say “hey now let’s wait till we hear the whole story” but i am appalled that it was uttered without the slightest bit of irony AS THE FIRST COMMENT.

Cops beat people all the time. The war on drugs needs to end and our forces can be cut down to about 15% of what they are. When we are become smaller, then good and brave people can stay and we can let some of the riff-raff go. Our missions are too broad and our force/strength levels are too high. We are filled with terridied and frustrated cowards who have no honor, self-respect, or even respect for their own badges.

genewitch,

Easy on the drama buddy. If you are so shocked and appalled that I wondered why it was hitting the papers 8 years after the fact, I think you are too easily disturbed. I am amused that everyone here is so quick to believe a “whistleblower” but refuses to accept any facts on a police offense report in almost every incident posted on here.

I guess we all have our biases right?

Why someone would continue to confuse testimony from a police report with “facts” is kind of baffling, though. Unless you consider the person that’s confused.

In any case…

“It’s a lie, Adams says. He claims Gaines never resisted: The hand injury had occurred when another cop knocked Adams over while trying to kick Gaines. No criminal charges have been filed, but the claim was validated last month by the department’s Professional Compliance Bureau (PCB).”

…

“But there’s been some good news for Adams. In June, police authorities sustained Gaines’s complaint that cops had abused him.”

Police look like they believe the whistleblower, too.

Amazing that the one person here who doesn’t is probably the one in the worst position to even say a word about it.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

” In June, police authorities sustained Gaines’s complaint that cops had abused him.”

Interesting statement but it doesn’t give any details. Did they physically abuse him? Verbally abuse him? If physically, was it to the extent the whistleblower claimed? What about the allegation of making up the charges? If the police have agreed with him claims, why run to the papers afterwards?

Mike,

You may not be aware of this but people are routinely convicted off of information in police reports. I’ve been to many trials where I said one thing and the suspect said another with no physical evidence. Guess how those end up?

I know it burns you up but the court typically gives more weight to the testimony of the officers. Take your head out of the sand (and other areas) and accept it.

Check out this comment from “Detective Dick” over on the Denver PD Topix thread.

http://www.topix.net/forum/source/kdvr/T92ELGVSO7M09BOKT/p31

Detective Dick
“Holding Their Feet To The Fire”

Actually, Jeremy, the “good” cops, as well as the police culture are responsible for bad cops continuing to wreak mayhem on the American public.

Because it’s the good cops who keep their mouths shut and look the other way while the bad cops commit their crimes and violate people’s civil rights.

Though it is difficult to blame the good cops for keeping their mouth shut when they witness bad cops screwing over the public. Why, you ask?

Because in my experience the good cops are severely outnumbered by the bad cops. If a good cop opens his mouth and tells the truth about what he witnessed another cop doing wrong, the bad cops will make his life a living hell. I’ve seen a few good cops step forward and do the right thing when they witnessed a bad cop(s) in action. The bad cop’s reaction to a good cop doing the right thing is pretty much the same way a father would react if he caught a stranger molesting one of his children. Believe me, it ain’t pretty.

70% of all cops I have ever worked with in my 23 years were no better than John Gotti and his family of criminal creeps.

Sadly, the system and the officials ELECTED to run the system protects bad cops. Why, I don’t know.

Over my way a cop committed perjury in front of a grand jury.

A sharp defense attorney caught him in his lies. The cop was arrested and charged with felony perjury. The system allowed the cop to plead guilty to a misdemeanor AND keep his job. The system even gave the cop a conditional discharge that allowed the convicted cop to expunge the conviction from his record after two years.

Like I said, the people we elect to office allow bad cops to exist.

I loved police work, but hated many of the people I worked for and with. They were no better than scum you wipe off your shoes after walking through a gutter.

Testimony does not always equal facts, but can, depending on the source in the specific situation.

Just because people are routinely convicted on the word of a cop alone doesn’t necessarily mean the cop was telling the truth.

I wouldn’t think these things would be hard to grasp by an adult.

As for the rest of the Gaines complaint, and the other allegations, RTFA.

But we can see what Johnny’s most likely angry about here. Adams stood up for what was right, despite personal difficulty and possible retribution.

Johnny gave up, because it was difficult and he couldn’t deal with it.

…

He asked, “Detective, she lied again! Don’t you care about the truth?”

I replied, “I used to but not anymore. Get an attorney and move out or else this is going to happen again. Either that or move to a different city.”

…

At least we know Johnny doesn’t care about the truth when it makes his life difficult.

Johnny has to speak out against Adams. Adams is the good cop he couldn’t be.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

@Johnny Law
I guess our doubt kind of starts to balance the fact that every officer’s word is taken as gospel in court. Maybe it shouldn’t be? Everybody in a robe is so quick to believe a “peace officer” but refuses to accept any facts from an actual citizen in almost every one of your posts.

Mike,

LOL You are making an awful lot of assumptions and sure are quick to give this guy a parade. Hey maybe it’s true, maybe not, but you are apparently incapable of taking a moment to consider the possibilities.

You really have no clue what you are talking about with my experiences and once again you seem to be incapable of telling the difference between a disagreement with policy and procedure vs an obviously illegal (if this guy is telling the truth) beatdown and framing. You attempts to turn this around into something about me is amusing. Keep reading my blog though. Maybe you will learn something about real life

Let me pose these three questions to you, JL, just these three questions.

One.

Do you think he is lying?

Two.

Have you ever seen fellow officers needlessly abuse another human, wether it be to teach someone in a cell a lesson or because of rage in a heated situation?

Three.

If so, did you report them?

Question three can be disregarded if the answer to question two is ‘no’. Keep in mind that you won’t be held accountable for your answers, so I hope you’ll answer truthfully.

I also think it’s a point to make sure you know I will only respond to answers to these three questions. So please give me a break, I’m not your worst enemy on this site, and you know it.

I know several retired cops. They are, believe it or not, more severe in their criticism than I am. The words punk, thug, goon, and coward are frequently used. They all say the same thing, that they never behaved the way the current crop does and their agencies wouldn’t tolerate it. Federal “training” and interference are usually mentioned as mechanisms that encourage such conduct. Ask the fine citizens of Artesia, NM what they think of the FLETC (Glencoe West). Arrogance is a typical response there. The oil town experienced an influx of people who treat everyone as the enemy.

Mike, Johnny is right that if keep reading his blog, you’ll learn something about real life.

In real life, police officers frequently choose easy, expedient methods over difficult, long term methods to solve complex problems. In real life, police officers believe that there’s nothing wrong with giving concussions to suspects who don’t act aggressively during an arrest.

When people express skepticism at such extreme (though thoroughly documented) claims, you need only point them to Johnny’s blog and his comments here. In a sense, he’s helping expose some of the most pernicious negative attitudes among LEO’s. Maybe that’s his way of doing his civic duty.

Norwegian,

Sure I’ll answer your questions.

1. I don’t know if he is lying. None of us do. I will admit my initial stance is that he probably is either making it up or exaggerating something to take attention off his own issues whatever they may be. However I will admit that I don’t know for sure either way.

What gets me is that everyone here is ready to call all cops liars unless one is saying something negative about the department. Then it is all parades and medals for being so brave. Yet these same folks won’t even begin to acknowledge that there are some questions that should be answered before a 8 yr old incident is allowed to slander or ruin the career of officers.

2. Yep. I have seen an incident that I felt was excessive force involving an officer and a handcuffed prisoner. However I have never seen an officer lie on an arrest affidavit or needlessly beat a subject. The above incident was where a subject was taken to the ground (concrete) while handcuffed and this caused a head injury. The takedown would have been fine if the guy had been uncuffed but there were plenty of ways to better take control of him in this particular situation.

3. Yep. I immediately stepped in and got the prisoner medical attention, told the officer that I did not agree with the methods used. I then went directly to that officer’s supervisor and told him what I saw. I then wrote a supplement to the offense report detailing that information. That case is currently going through the chain of command and I expect Internal Affairs to pick it up soon.

In another incident, I observed an officer sexually harassing female civilian employees and I told him that he was going to damage his career if he did not stop. An investigation was initiated soon after and I told Internal Affairs everything that I had observed him do.

Back when I was a detective for a street crime unit, there were several times I refused to write a search warrant or approve an arrest affidavit because I felt that there was not sufficient evidence for an arrest. This caused the officers to release the subjects and they weren’t usually happy about it.

When I was in domestic violence, there was one particular judge that I had a good rapport with and I would go to him whenever I had a case I did not want to file even though policy required me to. In these cases I would tell the judge that I personally did not agree with the case but I am required to issue a warrant for the subject due to my departments zero tolerance domestic violence policy. In many of those cases, the judge would reject the affidavit and I was in the clear due to him using judicial discretion.

What exactly does all that have to do with me being skeptical of an 8 yr old claim of abuse? Would an answer of “no” to questions 2 and 3 really make a difference on how we should approach this particular story?

Thank you for your candor. The reason I ask the questions is that you seem quite ready to believe police if their accusations are towards civilians, while you seemed quite ready to almost dismiss (or at least hint that you think it’s probably wrong/exagerated/whatnot) when the accusations are put to police officers.

You probably know it already, as you point out the oposite position of the people who never believe police testimony when accusing civilians, but jump at the opertunity to believe a cop accusing other cops.

Lemme put it this way. I’m not a cop hater. But I know, just as you do, that there are clear cases of police violence and abuse every day all over the world. And I know that it takes a lot of guts to accuse one of your own, let alone a large group of your own. It’s like reporting your brother for doing a bit of fencing on the side.

I don’t think it’s unthinklable that this happened. I think it’s likely to be true. As we know, it does happen. Put that together with the fact that the accusation comes from an officer, and it would seem more logic that it’s true than that it’s false.

There’s little that hints at this not happening. There’s quite a few things hinting that it did. We can’t conclude, we weren’t there. But it’s likely.

I’m not saying it is unthinkable. Unfortunately abuses do happen. The difference is I think they are usually isolated incidents and most of the folks on here seem to think they are the norm. Maybe the culture of my department is different but will not tolerate someone going rogue and administering a beatdown. Of course there seems to be people on here who equate every police use of force with being excessive and that is simply not the case.

Let me say this, if an investigation shows that these guys did the things they are accused of, they should lose their jobs and go to jail. However I refuse to condemn them until the facts are out and the investigation is completed. I also refuse to apologize for being skeptical of an allegation that hits the paper almost a decade after the fact.

Cops are cops.

They are not friends.
They are not intelligent, bellow average.
Their trainings are not to help, but to enforce, including to kill.
They lie and cheat whenever they can.

We are cops’ bosses because we pay them. We need to monitor them as much as we can. Cameras and camcorders are our tools.

Cameras may be your tools but apparently spellcheckers aren’t.

Johnny Law // Sep 1, 2010 at 12:01 AM

So what made him wait 8 years to come forward with this horrible horrible event? Seems like if he felt so strongly about it, he would have said something a bit sooner.

Is this guy facing any internal discipline for something? Has he had any recent work related issues that may have made him upset with the department? How are his last couple of performance evaluations?

Maybe this happened and maybe not but
something recent had to have happened to make him come forward with this claim.

——————————————————-

Let’s face it. “Johnny Law” will never change his colors. Once again he shows who he really is.

Rail Car Fan

THE POLICE CAN DO NO WRONG!!

Hey JL,
Why did you just report the incident (your answer to #3), why didn’t you arrest your fellow piggy? Or perhaps taze the fat f***er?
You are a loser.

Here’s another example of cops being good cops, in the eyes of some other cops.

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/north_bay&id=7639987

If you need a TASER to control an elderly man, you have no business being a cop, never mind having no business being in the home and pushing him around like that in the first place.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

No, but see Mike, they gave him a lawful order. They had the authority to take him into custody. When a police officer gives you a lawful order and then tells you to submit to arrest, if you don’t obey, the officer has every legal right to use whatever non-lethal force at their disposal in order to take you into custody. If someone is injured in this process, it isn’t the officer’s fault.

/authoritarian robot

LJM,

It’s too bad you are trying to be sarcastic because that is actually a correct statement.

@LJM

The sad thing is that some people can see that as being a lawful order even when they’re not lawfully in the residence in the first place.

There need to be swifter, more painful consequences for that sort of home invasion. Would it make officers afraid to enter without a damn good reason?

Yeah, but that’s kind of the point.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

Johnny Law #48,

You are not right. The courts have repeatedly acknowledged that there is a scale of force and that the force used must be the minimum necessary. An alleged suicidal, unarmed, elderly man verbally disagreeing with an officer warrants the use of a taser? Your terse response would seem to indicate that you have a warped concept of “excessive force” that does not extend beyond a gut feeling (with regard to your previous statement about taking down a hand-cuffed individual to concrete being excessive).