AG Jennings unveils DOJ Human Trafficking Unit
There she goes again, our great Attorney General, Kathy, surpassing even our expectations!
Excerpts from the Article:
Closing out Human Trafficking Awareness Month, Attorney General Kathy Jennings joined advocates, State and local partners, and prosecutors Monday to announce the formation of the Delaware Department of Justice’s first dedicated Human Trafficking Unit (HTU).
“Human trafficking is among the direst human rights crises of this century,” said Attorney General Jennings. “Awareness has grown by orders of magnitude in recent years, and I’m proud of the work that our staff and our partners have been doing to target trafficking. That progress matters – but we know it’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s incumbent upon us to marshal every resource we can spare in this fight and to eradicate the scourge of human trafficking once and for all.”
In the last five years, Delaware law enforcement has made more than 50 human trafficking-related arrests, though that figure is widely believed to represent only a fraction of the full scale of sex and labor trafficking in Delaware given the inherently clandestine nature of the crime and the state’s location on the I-95 corridor.
The DOJ, together with its law enforcement partners, has investigated and disrupted human trafficking for years, including innovative work by Civil Division attorneys targeting illicit massage parlors and “front” businesses used to facilitate labor and sex trafficking. Monday’s announcement, however, marks the first time in the Delaware’s history that anti-human trafficking efforts will be housed full-time within a dedicated, centralized, and permanent unit.
The HTU will focus on a holistic approach that emphasizes collaboration with public and nonprofit partners, raising awareness, supporting survivors, engaging in community outreach, and eradicating trafficking through education, prevention, and, when appropriate, prosecution. The Unit is currently managing several ongoing investigations.
“This new Human Trafficking Unit will further provide an opportunity to give a voice to the voiceless. These efforts will be able to make a positive impact by giving resources and awareness to survivors but also holding traffickers responsible,” said Rep. Kim Williams, D-Marshallton. “I’m grateful to Attorney General Kathy Jennings for taking this important step, and I look forward to working with the Department of Justice on this issue as we continue to make a difference throughout our state.”
“I want to thank Attorney General Kathy Jennings for creating this new unit in the Department of Justice and allocating dedicated resources to help the victims of human trafficking find their way home,” said Sen. Nicole Poore, D-New Castle. “Today’s announcement is yet another major step forward in our fight against physical and sexual exploitation, and I look forward to working with the Attorney General and the new Human Trafficking Unit as they seek to bring the monsters who perpetuate these horrible crimes to justice.”
The HTU will consist of two full-time Deputy Attorneys General, in addition to Family Division Director Abigail Rodgers, who will lead the unit. Rodgers, a veteran prosecutor, has been a longtime advocate for disrupting trafficking and helping survivors. Rodgers has served as President of the Board of Directors for Prevent Child Abuse Delaware, as Commander of the Child Predator Task Force, and as the inaugural Chair of the Human Trafficking Interagency Coordinating Council from 2015 to 2016.
“One of the most devastating acts of violation is the act of destroying someone’s sense of humanity and hope,” said Brian Moore, Chair of the Human Trafficking Interagency Coordinating Council. “Those who fall prey to the horrific control of traffickers are robbed of their belief that they are anything more than property. Part of our role as a Council is to be the spokesperson, champion and advocate for those whose humanity has been stolen. And so today we thank Attorney General Jennings for giving a voice to the voiceless and for giving the immeasurable gift of hope for those who desperately want nothing more than to believe that someone cares. Her message today – all of our message today – is that we are here and that Delaware cares.”
Anyone who suspects human trafficking may be occurring should contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at (888) 373-7888, or call 911 if someone may be in imminent danger.
The Whole Story:
The Supreme Court’s new death penalty order should make your skin crawl. The Court’s new death penalty order is almost too cruel to be believed.
This article was sent to me by my good friend and a great lawyer, Steve Hampton. Since when do we want our state and federal governments to be cruel to people?! Since tRump started appointing people to the Supreme Court, that’s when!
Excerpts from the Article:
Hamm v. Reeves, a death penalty order that the Supreme Court handed down Thursday night, is an epilogue to a longstanding tension between drug companies that do not wish their products to be used to kill people, and states that are willing to use unreliable drugs to conduct executions if effective sedatives are not available.
It’s also unsettlingly cruel.
The upshot of the Court’s 5-4 decision in Hamm is that a man was executed using a method that may have caused him excruciating pain, most likely because that man’s disability prevented him from understanding how to opt in to a less painful method of execution.
There is significant evidence that Matthew Reeves, a man convicted of murder that the state of Alabama executed after the Supreme Court permitted it to do so on Thursday, had an intellectual disability. Among other things, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted in a 2021 dissenting opinion, an expert employed by the state gave Reeves an IQ test and determined that “Reeves’ IQ was well within the range for intellectual disability.”
The Supreme Court held in Atkins v. Virginia (2002) that “death is not a suitable punishment” for someone with an intellectual disability. Nevertheless, in its 2021 decision in Dunn v. Reeves, the Supreme Court voted along party lines to effectively prevent Reeves from avoiding execution.
The issue in Hamm, the decision that the Court handed down Thursday night, is quite narrow. After Dunn, it was no longer a question of whether Alabama could execute Reeves. The only question was how Alabama could conduct this execution — and whether the state was allowed to use a method that may very well amount to torture, even over Reeves’s objection.
This time the Court split 5-4, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett crossing over to vote with the three liberal justices. But, in a Court with a 6-3 Republican supermajority, Barrett’s vote was not enough to save Reeves from the fate that Alabama chose for him. He was executed by lethal injection.
The Supreme Court’s decisions impose a terrible burden on death row inmates and their lawyers
Many states used to use a three-drug combination to execute people on death row. First, the inmate would be injected with sodium thiopental, an anesthetic that was supposed to prevent the inmate from feeling the effects of the drugs that would kill them. The inmate would then be injected with a paralytic drug, and finally with a lethal drug that would stop their heart.
But supplies of sodium thiopental dried up, at least for executioners, around 2010 — in part because pharmaceutical companies refused to sell the drug for use in executions, and in part because the European Union forbids companies from exporting drugs for such a purpose. As a result, some states turned to less reliable sedatives.
The result was botched executions, where inmates were visibly in excruciating pain during their executions. As Sotomayor wrote in a 2015 dissenting opinion, these unreliable execution drugs leave death row inmates “exposed to what may well be the chemical equivalent of being burned at the stake.”
But the Supreme Court’s Republican majority has not shown much sympathy for inmates who ask not to be tortured to death. Among other things, the Court has held that an inmate who objects to one form of execution must suggest an alternative method or their objection will fail. As Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the Court in Bucklew v. Precythe (2019), “a prisoner must show a feasible and readily implemented alternative method of execution that would significantly reduce a substantial risk of severe pain and that the State has refused to adopt without a legitimate penological reason.”
Meanwhile, some states have responded to these developments by authorizing new methods of execution. South Carolina, for example, recently enacted a law making electrocution the default method of execution in that state, and also permitting some inmates to be executed by firing squad.
Alabama, meanwhile, passed a law that nominally allows people on death row to choose a method of execution other than lethal injection, but only if they act within a very short window of time. As Justice Elena Kagan describes this Alabama law in her dissenting opinion in Hamm, “a recently enacted state law gave those inmates one month to select execution by nitrogen hypoxia” — where the inmate is placed in a gas chamber filled with nitrogen gas and asphyxiated — “rather than lethal injection.”
Many experts believe that nitrogen hypoxia is much less painful than lethal injection, especially if the state does not have access to reliable anesthetics. Although, for obvious reasons, it’s impossible to conduct an ethical experiment on actual people to determine if one method of killing is less painful than others.
The specific legal issue in Hamm concerns the paper form that the state gave inmates, which allowed them to choose nitrogen hypoxia over lethal injection. As Kagan notes, “the form was written in legalese, and according to unrebutted evidence, an inmate needed at least an 11th-grade reading level to understand it.” But Reeves had “cognitive limitations.” He had “the same reading ability as an elementary-school child,” and “one expert testified that Reeves’s ‘reading comprehension was at the 1st grade level.’”
A lower court determined that, under the Americans With Disabilities Act, the state needed to help Reeves understand the form before he could be executed. But five justices, in a two-sentence order that offers no explanation whatsoever of why they reached this decision, permitted Alabama to move forward with the execution — and to do so using lethal injection.
If you’ve read this far, your skin is probably crawling right now. The Eighth Amendment is supposed to prohibit “cruel and unusual punishments.” But the Court has held that the death penalty enjoys a kind of super-constitutional status that requires executions to move forward, even if there is no way to conduct them humanely.
This was the holding of Glossip v. Gross (2015), one of several Supreme Court decisions confronting the shortage of reliable anesthetics for use in executions. “Because it is settled that capital punishment is constitutional,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the Court in Glossip, “it necessarily follows that there must be a [constitutional] means of carrying it out.” (The name of the logical fallacy on display in Alito’s opinion is “begging the question.”)
So if the only available method of killing a death row inmate is “the chemical equivalent of being burned at the stake,” Glossip’s response to this dilemma is to allow the execution to happen anyway.
Several justices, moreover, have indicated that they have a different, more personal reason for denying relief to death row inmates. As an execution draws nigh, lawyers representing the inmate typically file a flurry of motions seeking to save their client’s life — or, at least, to make the execution less painful. Often, this last-minute litigation involves issues that neither the lawyers nor the client could reasonably have known about in advance. In one case, for example, a prison did not inform an inmate about key details of its execution policy until about two weeks before his execution.
But many of the justices appear quite bothered by the fact that they need to decide these last-minute appeals, which may arrive at the Court on a night when a justice has other plans. In Bucklew, Gorsuch complained that “last-minute stays should be the extreme exception,” and he claimed that death row inmates and their lawyers are engaged in “manipulation” of the system.
More recently, during an oral argument concerning the religious liberties of death row inmates, several justices complained that, if the Court honored the particular application of the First Amendment rights of the inmate in that case, it would open the floodgates to future litigation seeking to vindicate similar rights. As Justice Brett Kavanaugh complained to the inmate’s lawyer, “if we rule in your favor in this case, this will be a heavy part of our docket for years to come.”
One might think that, given the gravity of killing another human being, the courts should pay special attention to death penalty cases — if for no other reason than because an execution can never be reversed if a court later discovers that it was unlawful or unjustified. But that is not the attitude of this Supreme Court.
Nazi rallies in Central Florida spark outrage Orlando mayor, Orange County sheriff condemn hateful demonstrations
More blatant racism in DeSantis’ Florida.
Excerpts from the Article:
More than a dozen self-proclaimed Nazis yelled antisemitic slogans outside a Central Florida shopping plaza and waved a swastika flag from a highway overpass before authorities broke them up over the weekend.
The demonstrators, wearing Nazi garb, protested at an intersection at Waterford Lakes near the University of Central Florida on Saturday and on a highway overpass on Sunday. Authorities from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and the Florida Highway Patrol said in a statement that they had disbanded the group on the overpass, along with sheriff’s deputies.
“It is against the law to obstruct highway traffic or hang signs on the overpasses and violators will be prosecuted,” according to the statement.
Orange County Sheriff John Mina said any reports of criminal activity by the group would be investigated by his agency. Orange County is home to the nation’s biggest theme park resorts.
“The investigation is ongoing and if detectives determine a crime was committed, they can file the charges at large with the state attorney’s office,” an Orange County sheriff’s spokeswoman told News 6.
“I along with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office deplore any type of hate speech,” Mina tweeted. “This hatred has no place in our society.”
Video of the demonstration at Waterford Lakes was shared on social media and is a part of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office investigation.
Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, Democratic Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and other elected leaders issued statements declaring that antisemitism and hatred have no place in Florida. The demonstrations took place a week after antisemitic flyers were distributed to hundreds of homes in Florida cities with large Jewish populations.
“Despite displays of hate in Central Florida this weekend, our collective commitment to building an inclusive, compassionate community for all is stronger than ever,” Dyer said in a tweet.
Local Democratic lawmakers said they were appalled by the demonstrations and urged Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to condemn the demonstrators. The governor’s spokeswoman, Christina Pushaw, said in a tweet that Democrats were insinuating that DeSantis’ policies were responsible for the demonstration.
New York woman who spat on children, said ‘Hitler should have killed you all’ has been arrested
Good!
Excerpts from the Article:
Across the country, hate crimes against minority communities are on the rise. In a recent incident, a woman was arrested Jan. 21 after allegedly threatening and spitting on a group of Jewish children in New York, authorities said. While the children were not injured, the children’s father told CBS New York that his kids remained distraught after the incident.
Surveillance footage released by the New York Police Department (NYPD) depicted the incident occurring outside of a synagogue in Brooklyn. In the video, the woman is seen storming up to three children and then spitting on them.
Identified as 21-year-old Christina Darling, the woman was charged with multiple counts, including aggravated harassment as a hate crime, acting in a manner injurious to a child, and menacing as a hate crime, the NYPD told CNN. According to officials, the woman not only spat on the children but also made “anti-Jewish statements.”
“Hitler should have killed you all,” police said the woman told the children, according to The Washington Post. “I’ll kill you and know where you live.”
The incident follows a pattern of antisemitic incidents nationwide. Just a day after Darling spat on the children, four people, including a rabbi, were held hostage at Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, during Sabbath services.
Additionally, antisemitic flyers were also found outside the homes of hundreds in Miami Beach this week, Local News 10 reported. Titled “Every single aspect of the COVID agenda is Jewish,” the flyers, contained in a plastic bag with small pebbles, listed the names of Jewish officials who work at government health agencies and for pharmaceutical companies. The flyers blamed these individuals for the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Detectives are looking into the origin of the flyers, the Miami Beach Police Department announced on Twitter Sunday. Patrols have also been dispatched in neighborhoods and at religious institutions, authorities said.
“There is no place for hate in our community and it will not be tolerated,” the department said in a separate tweet.
Similar flyers have been previously found in California and Texas, according to local news reports. According to the Anti-Defamation League, at least nine reported incidents of antisemitism have occurred across the U.S. since the start of 2022.
“The 2020 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents documents alarmingly high levels of antisemitism in the United States, which require a concerted whole-of-society response,” the Anti-Defamation League said in its annual report. “When one individual is targeted by a hate crime, it hurts the whole community, and leaves people feeling vulnerable and afraid.”
New Castle County Settles Sex Harassment Lawsuit New Castle County says it has settled a federal lawsuit claiming decades of sexual harassment, largely by an officer who rose to the police department’s second-highest rank.
Why is Lt. Col. Quinton Watson allowed to retire “in good standing”? He should be charged with sex crimes! Too bad that the Statute of Limitations has run.
Excerpts from the Article:
New Castle County announced Tuesday night it has settled a federal lawsuit claiming decades of sexual harassment and cover-ups in its Police Department, largely by an officer who rose to the agency’s second-highest rank.
The announcement came a little over an hour after the County Council passed a pair of proposals to allow the county to dip into its tax reserve to cover legal fees to the tune of about $3 million. About $1.7 million of that will go to “partially fund” settling claims that various members of the county allowed now-retired Lt. Col. Quinton Watson to continue decades of sexual harassment and abuse.
“There is no place in the County for harassment in any form, particularly when based on sex, race, age, disability, or any other protected category,” read a joint statement issued by a spokesman for County Executive Matt Meyer on behalf of New Castle County and the six women who filed the lawsuit. “No individual should be expected to tolerate such conduct, and the County is grateful for these brave women that brought this disturbing conduct into the light, and applauds their courage.
“The County acknowledges and is sorry that these women experienced such inappropriate conduct. The County remains unwavering in its commitment to eliminate inappropriate conduct in the workplace. The County is taking steps to expand its policies and practices in furtherance of this commitment.”
News of the agreement comes after the county spent more than $1.2 million in legal fees since the lawsuit’s filing in 2020, according to the proposal passed Tuesday.
While it’s unclear what the terms of the settlement are, the ordinance says the county, on the advice of its counsel, “has agreed with the plaintiffs to settle the lawsuit, contingent on Council’s approval of the funding of the settlement amount ….”
Watson has agreed to pay an amount directly to the plaintiffs to settle their claims against him, according to the passed ordinance. The law also stipulates no portion of the $1.7 million would be used to “pay the amounts Watson has agreed to pay the plaintiffs.”
Ten council members voted to pass the items, while Councilwoman Dee Durham voted present on both ordinances and Councilmen Penrose Hollins and Bill Bell were absent.
The lawsuit, filed in June 2020, came after six women detailed their experiences at the department to Delaware Online/The News Journal earlier that year. The women shared their stories with the newspaper after what they called years of inaction by the department and county.
Even before the lawsuit was filed, the women said they were not interested in money from the county but rather public acknowledgment that this conduct happened. The attorney representing the women could not be reached for comment.
Tuesday night’s statement from the county said none of Watson’s “incidents of misconduct” took place under the current county executive’s tenure, which began in January 2017.
Watson retired in “good standing” in 2019 while the investigation into these claims was ongoing. The investigation was conducted by the Wilmington Police Department, which sent letters to five of the women saying their claims were sustained.
Tuesday’s statement also claims that as a result of this litigation, Watson has surrendered his police certification issued through the Delaware Council on Police Training and has further surrendered his New Castle County retiree credentials, which include his police retirement badge and police retirement identification card issued by the New Castle County Police Department.
After Wilmington police’s investigation, the women approached the state Attorney General’s Office, and a second investigation into their complaints was quietly initiated. This investigation by the Division of Civil Rights and Public Trust found that the three-year statute of limitations had passed to prosecute sexual harassment crimes by a public employee. But Chief Deputy Attorney General Alexander S. Mackler wrote in a letter to New Castle County Council’s attorney that the findings were “disturbing.”
Though they could not criminally prosecute, the Delaware Department of Justice retained the private law firm Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP “to investigate whether the NCCPD has engaged in a pattern and practice of discriminatory conduct in violation of Delaware law, and if warranted, initiate enforcement proceedings against the County in Delaware’s Court of Chancery,” Mackler wrote.
He also wrote that given the investigation’s findings, the matter is not considered closed. The Depar tment of Justice, on Tuesday, said the investigation is ongoing.
In their 40-page complaint, the women argued that Watson “set workplace precedent and spawned a hostile environment of rampant sexual harassment, sexual assault, overt misogyny, and retaliation among female employees within the NCC government.”
The 40-page lawsuit goes on to say Watson “normalized the practice of preying on subordinate female employees which Defendant NCC covered up for years, allowing Defendant Watson, as an abuser, to thrive.”
The women – who at the time were five current officers and one retired – argue in the filling that not only were they discriminated against because of their sex, but they also endured a hostile work environment, sexual harassment and an abuse of power at the hands of numerous county officials, including former Col. Vaughn Bond, Meyer and county Chief Administrative Officer Vanessa Phillips.
Bond, who retired last year as the Police Department’s colonel, heads the county’s Public Safety Department.
After the claims against Watson came out, county officials said they instituted mandatory sexual harassment training and hired an outside law firm to review the patterns and practices within county government regarding bias in the workplace.
Tuesday’s statement also said the county will institute a phone line to allow employees to anonymously report workplace misconduct.
“The County will also retain an outside monitor as an additional layer of oversight and this individual will independently ensure that complaints from employees are received and addressed appropriately,” according to the county’s joint statement. “Finally, the County will continue its bi-annual harassment- prevention training, designed to help all employees understand the boundaries of appropriate workplace conduct, and what to do when those boundaries are crossed.”
Retired Lt. Col. Quinton Watson faces sexual assault and harassment allegations from six women who worked in the department.
Troopers Offer Safety Tips to Help Prevent Vehicle Thefts Date Posted: Thursday, January 27th, 2022 THEFTS
These work if you DO it!
Sussex County, DE- During the last week, the Delaware State Police have seen an increase in vehicle thefts in Sussex County, with many occurring in the western part of the county. In an effort to help reduce the chance of becoming a victim, the following safety tips are offered as a reminder:
Park in well-lit areas.
Lock and secure homes and garage doors. Doors left unlocked allow vehicle theft suspects an opportunity to search for keys and steal vehicles undetected.
Close and lock all windows and doors when you park. Most vehicle thefts can be prevented by locking your car doors.
Secure your valuables.
DO NOT leave your keys in your vehicle. Keys and FOBs should NEVER be left in a vehicle, whether at home, work, or running errands. Take your keys with you!
DO NOT leave your vehicle running unattended. Warming your car up on a cold winter morning or going inside a convenience store while your car is left running and unattended, make you vulnerable. A car thief is looking for these easy targets!
It only takes seconds for your vehicle to be stolen. However, you can prevent yourself from becoming the next victim by taking the necessary precautionary measures.
You can follow the Delaware State Police by clicking on:
Delaware State Police Official Web Site
Nextdoor
The Whole Story:
Family of Brandon Roberts files federal lawsuit claiming wrongful death by Milford police
Once they get to court this one could go either way. It depends whom the jurors believe.
Excerpts from the Article:
The family of Brandon Roberts, the Milford man shot and killed by police in January 2020, is suing the city of Milford and the two officers who shot him in federal court.
The wrongful death lawsuit claims Cpl. Nigel Golding and Patrolman Patrick Karpin violated Roberts’ Fourth Amendment rights and the city violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Golding is still employed at the department, while Karpin left the department in good standing, according to Milford Police Department Sgt. Robert Masten. He declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Darlene White, Roberts’ mother; could not be reached for comment. She and Erica Jones, the mother of Roberts’ two children, are being represented by Wilmington attorney Joseph Longobardi III and Marc Maguire of the Philadelphia law firm McEldrew Young Purtell Merritt.
Maguire is part of a team of lawyers specializing in excessive force led by attorney Lee Merritt. Merritt is a prominent national civil rights lawyer who has worked on many high-profile cases. Most recently, he represented the family of Ahmaud Arbery.
A motion has been filed to allow Maguire, who is licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania and not Delaware, to prosecute the case.
The Delaware Attorney General’s Office investigated the events that unfolded the night Roberts died. The office later released 911 calls, body camera footage, interviews and other items related to the incident. Those items, as well as court documents and interviews with Jones, detail the events leading up to his death.
On Jan. 5, 2020, Roberts was at his home at Silver Lake apartment complex in Milford with a pregnant 28-year-old Jones and their 1-year-old child.
He was experiencing a mental health crisis, according to Jones. Later, according to the Attorney General’s Office report, she told police he had been drinking alcohol and consumed Xanax and “molly” (MDMA).
A postmortem toxicology report found Roberts had cannabinoids in his system and a blood alcohol level over 0.1%, according to the Attorney General’s Office report. The report did not indicate the presence or lack of presence of any other drugs.
It started with Roberts calling 911 multiple times and hanging up, telling the dispatcher there was a domestic dispute. Delaware Online/The News Journal’s review of the calls found, at first, Roberts mostly spoke too quickly to understand or spoke over the dispatcher. Some things he said were audible, though, such as, “He has a gun; he’s about to shoot everybody,” and “I’m holding ’em hostage.”
Eventually, Jones got on the phone with the dispatcher. Security camera footage captured the entire incident between Roberts and police, which lasted less than five seconds. “I can’t use my phone because somebody here keeps trying to hit on me while I’m pregnant and he won’t let me use my phone,” she said in the recording.
Jones told the dispatcher she didn’t want to provide their apartment number “because he keeps trying to go out there with a knife,” but Roberts gave the apartment number in the background.
“And any cops that pull up here, I’m killing all y’all (expletives), pull up,” he said. “Yeah, I’ve got a weapon, I got a big (expletive) machete, I got an AK-47 and a bomb strapped to me. I’m part of ISIS. I’m about to blow this whole (expletive) up.”
The dispatcher could hear Jones say to him, “You put your hands on me and you hit (the child) by accident.”
“Y’all gonna have to shoot me ’cause I’m not going to jail,” Roberts said.
Roberts then said heard saying Jones could leave, but Jones told the dispatcher he wouldn’t let her out of the room. He had “only a knife,” a “house knife,” and no gun, she said. When asked if she needed an ambulance, Jones said she did.
“He’s been punching me in my head, punching me in my back and everything, and in my ribs and stuff and I’m pregnant,” she said. Jones told the dispatcher multiple times Roberts has mental disabilities, according to the recording, and dispatch communicated to police that Roberts might be “a mental patient,” according to body camera footage.
As Golding approached the apartment complex, a dispatcher can be heard in his body camera footage telling him, “(Roberts) is threatening a machete and an AK-47. He said he is going to be violent with law enforcement.”
The last thing Jones said to the dispatcher before police arrived was, “Please take it easy on him because his is bipolar and he is schizophrenic. And yes, he does have a mental disability, anxiety and a lot of other problems that we don’t know yet.”
Golding and Karpin climbed the stairs to the second-floor apartment with their guns drawn at about 6:30 p.m. Golding knocked on the door and said, “Milford police.”
“Corporal Golding and Patrolman Karpin did not make any attempt to communicate with Mr. Roberts or (Jones) through the door of the apartment or de-escalate the situation in any manner,” the lawsuit claims.
Roberts opened the door slightly, and both officers began yelling, “Let me see your hands!”
Continuing to yell at Roberts to raise his hands, Golding pushed open the door. Forcing the door open “escalated the interaction,” according to the lawsuit. Roberts, with a knife in one hand at his side, said, “Shoot me!” as he took two or three steps into the hallway, toward Golding.
Golding told investigators that Roberts was “raising the knife towards him” and that he thought he was “a dead man.” The Attorney General’s Office report says Roberts “began to raise his knife.”
The lawsuit claims Roberts never raised his knife. Delaware Online/The News Journal found it to be unclear in the video.
Karpin discharged his weapon first, and firing seven shots total. Golding fired three shots. Roberts was hit eight times.
“Oh, my God, they really shot him,” Jones said, and the dispatcher hung up. Roberts dropped the knife and fell to the ground, bleeding. The video shows less than five seconds passed between the time he first opened the door and he was shot.
The Attorney General’s Office found Golding and Karpin were justified in their use of force and committed no crime.
The lawsuit claims Roberts “posed no imminent risk of death or serious bodily injury to the officers” and that he “died an agonizing death.”
Roberts had a disability, the lawsuit states, and the officers’ conduct demonstrated the city of Milford’s failure to develop procedures and policies to accommodate it, which is required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Roberts, according to the lawsuit, died due to that failure.
White and Jones are asking for damages from both the officers and the city.
A court date has yet to be scheduled.
Letter to the Editor or Op Ed Submission – Thank a Cop Today – 1/25/22
Letter to the Editor or Op Ed Submission – Thank a Cop Today – 1/25/22
Are there bad cops in the system? Sure. We have seen a recent spate of attacks on police, and a jury soon will decide whether the police who did not intervene to stop some of their brethren from killing George Floyd should be held accountable.
But the vast, vast, majority of police are “good cops”. They joined their Departments to protect and serve us, and they do a fine job of it, day in and day out. Bashing “the police” is unwarranted and counter- productive.
I suggest that the next time you see a police officer you approach that person, and say something like: “Thank you for your service to our (town, county, state)”. They deserve it and will appreciate it.
Ken Abraham, former Deputy Attorney General, founder of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE, Dover, DE 302-423-4067
……………………………..
I get lots of letters published, and ghost write for others. The keys to getting your Letter published are:
1. Keep it to 250 words or fewer.
2. Do not make it about “poor little old me”. Describe the problem as one which not only affects the individual, but is a senseless or ineffective measure, policy, or law which also harms communities and society. For example, with reentry, the obstacles make it unnecessarily difficult for the individual, but also harm society by making it hard to become productive, spending money and paying taxes in the community, and they cause increased recidivism = increased crime.
3. Speak from your heart.
4. Google any facts you are not sure about.
5. Do not name-call.
Do what works: Write that Letter! 🙂
…………
Letter to Editor – sign name, town, state, and your phone number (they often call to verify that you sent it), and “Member of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE” if you like – shows you are part of a large group.
Send the email to yourself, and put on the “bcc” bar the email addresses for Letters to the Editor for the top ten newspapers in your state and several national ones – The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, U S A Today (google the Letter to Editor email addresses). Any questions, CALL me at 302-423-4067! 🙂
Need a Letter on some criminal justice issue and not a great letter writer? NO EXCUSE! Email me a rough draft and call me and I’ll polish it up! kenabraham3138@gmail.com .
DOJ wants Oath Keepers leader to remain in jail pending trial
This idiot should not get out on bail!
Excerpts from the Article:
The Justice Department is arguing that Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes should remain in jail as he awaits trial for seditious conspiracy related to the attack on the US Capitol.
“There are no conditions of release that can reasonably assure the safety of the community or the defendant’s appearance in court,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing on Thursday. “And based on Rhodes’s evidence destruction aimed at hiding his crimes and the identities of his co-conspirators, he poses a risk of obstructing justice should he be released.”
The Justice Department last Thursday charged Rhodes and 10 other defendants with seditious conspiracy related to the attack on January 6, 2021. The filing comes as Rhodes and another new arrestee have early hearings in their case on whether they should stay in jail and would be dangerous to the community if released, before their cases move to DC District Court. Neither has formally had the opportunity to enter a plea yet before a judge in DC, but both are expected to fight their charges.
When unsealed last week, the seditious conspiracy case immediately became the boldest attempt by the DOJ to hold accountable participants in the Capitol riot, and potentially one of the toughest among more than 700 federal criminal cases to try.
“Rhodes stood at the center of the seditious conspiracy — orchestrating plans to use force, recruiting and financing co-conspirators, purchasing weaponry and tactical gear, inciting support and action, and endeavoring to conceal his and other co-conspirators’ crimes,” prosecutors wrote.
Rhodes is set to go before a judge in Texas for a detention hearing on Monday.
Also on Thursday, Edward Vallejo — another member of the Oath Keepers group charged with seditious conspiracy — was ordered to remain behind bars without bail.
“There is compelling evidence regarding your potential for danger,” federal Magistrate Judge John Z. Boyle said during a detention hearing in Phoenix.
Prosecutors allege that Vallejo volunteered to maintain a cache of weapons for a “Quick Reaction Force” of Oath Keepers in the nation’s capital, awaiting further instructions from Rhodes.
“It is clear to this court … that if Mr. Rhodes had given the order, you would have complied,” Boyle said. Vallejo’s attorney, public defender Debbie Jang, argued that there was no evidence that his release would pose a danger to the community. “Mr. Vallejo played a minor role, if at all,” Jang said.
Prosecutors insisted that Vallejo’s comments about responding to the 2020 presidential election showed he was prepared to resort to violence. “We urge the court to recognize the danger Mr. Vallejo poses to the United States and take his words at face value,” they said. Vallejo, attending Thursday’s hearing via telephone, did not speak in his own defense, only responding to the judge that he understood what was happening.
Vallejo, the judge said, will be transferred to the District of Columbia — where he was indicted — as soon as the US Marshals Service can arrange for transportation.
Contact Us
Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE
430 Kings Hwy
Ste 414
Dover DE 19901
302.423.4067
