4th Amendment is Dead

Court: No right to resist illegal Police entry into home.

INDIANAPOLIS | Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.

In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer’s entry.

“We believe … a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,” David said. “We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest.”

America’s Destruction is an Inside Job

Police State 4

Invisible Empire

U.S. troops’ continental insignia bears U.N. colors

NEW YORK – Troops in the United States’ USNORTHCOM ranks appear to have adopted a shoulder patch showing a North American continental design, with an emphasis on United Nations colors, giving evidence of the strength of a plan to integrate North America.

The patch reveals the continent of North America in the orange and blue colors typical to the U.N.

It also carries the image of a mosque to designate the unit’s service in North Africa in World War II.

The insignia patch is displayed on the 5th Army website, the home of U.S. Army North, USARNORTH, the Joint Force Land Component Command and the Army Service Component Command of USNORTHCOM.

The design of the patch with the U.S. eagle image superimposed seems to imply a hierarchy in which the U.S. 5th Army exerts its military command under the authority of USNORTHCOM, with its domain defined as all North America, including the U.S., Mexico and Canada, for the United Nations, as implied in the orange and blue motif.

Army shoulder patch of North American continent in U.N. colors

In 2007, WND published a six-part exclusive series detailing that USNORTHCOM is a U.S. military combatant command created to respond to national emergencies in North America.

WND also has reported that the U.S. and Canada signed a military agreement Feb. 14 allowing the armed forces from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a domestic civil emergency, even one that does not involve a cross-border crisis.

The USNORTHCOM logo similarly displays a continental design, but without the U.N. colors, as is clear from the emblem displayed in the upper left hand corner of the USNORTHCOM Internet homepage:

North America plot

WND reported last month the integration of the U.S. with Canada and Mexico, long deemed by many as little more than a fanciful “conspiracy theory,” actually was an idea promoted by the Council on Foreign Relations and sold to President Bush as a means of increasing commerce and business interest throughout North America, according to a top Canadian businessman.

Thomas d’Aquino, CEO and president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, the Canadian counterpart to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, confirmed in an interview recently published in Canada the accuracy of what WND first reported more than three years ago: The Council on Foreign Relations was the prime mover in establishing the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or SPP.

A close reading of an interview with d’Aquino published by the Metropolitan Corporate Counsel Oct. 4 confirms that the creation of the SPP was not a “conspiracy theory” but a well thought-out North American integration plan launched by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States.

The interview further confirmed President Obama wants to continue North American integration under the rebranded North American Leaders Summit, providing the North American Competitiveness Council can be recast to include more environmentalists and union leaders.

In the interview, d’Aquino traced the origin of SPP to his concerns after the terrorist attacks on 9/11 that “there was a pressing need to keep the border open for commerce while simultaneously addressing the security needs of the United States and North America as a whole.”

With this goal in mind, d’Aquino reported the CCCE by 2003 “launched an agenda that we called the North American Security and Prosperity Initiative, or NASPI.”

WND reported in July 2007 the term “Security and Prosperity” first was used by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives in a Jan. 23, 2003, report, “Security and Prosperity: Toward a New Canada–United States Partnership in North America.”

Then, in 2003, d’Aquino took the idea to Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

“I helped convince Richard Haass at the Council on Foreign Relations that we should put together a trilateral task force to look at the future of North America,” d’Aquino said. “We recruited John Manley on Canada’s side, along with William Weld, former governor of Massachusetts, and Pedro Aspe, the former Mexican economy minister, who had been so influential in promoting NAFTA.”

The result was a CFR Task Force on the Future of North America created Oct. 15, 2004, and chaired by Manley, Weld and Aspe, precisely as d’Aquino had recommended to Haass.

The CFR Task Force on the Future of North America issued an executive summary entitled “Creating a North American Community” on March 14, 2005, just days prior to the March 23, 2005, trilateral summit at Waco, Texas, in which President George W. Bush, then–Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and then–Mexican President Vicente Fox declared the SPP on their own authority, without any approval from the U.S. Congress.

The final report from the group, called “Building a North American Community,” was issued in March 2005, immediately following the Waco summit.

D’Aquino appears to agree the CFR task force was instrumental to the trilateral summit in Waco in which the SPP was declared, saying in the published interview, “The result of all these efforts [by the CFR Task Force on the Future of North America] was that in 2005, Prime Minister Martin, President Bush and President Fox decided to sign what they called the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America – the SPP.”

WND has reported that the two reports issued by the CFR Task Force on the Future of North America were the “blueprint” for the SPP declared at the Waco summit meeting.

The final CFR report’s own statement of purpose is: “The Task Force’s central recommendation is establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter.”

Next, d’Aquino confirmed that the North American Competitiveness Council was hand-picked by the chambers of commerce in the three countries, without any legislative approval in any of the three nations, again as WND had reported.

“At their next summit meeting, in 2006, the three leaders invited leading members of the CEO communities in the three countries to provide private-sector input on issues related to competitiveness,” he continued. “From that idea, the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC) was born, to be composed of 10 frontline CEOs from each of Canada, the United States and Mexico.”

How the CFR plan became SPP

“We produced 10 of our most senior CEO’s, while the Americans established an executive committee of 15 representing a broad range of large companies with rotating memberships. The Mexicans produced some heavy-duty people – many names you know well.”

As WND reported at the time, the NACC dominated the third annual SPP summit meeting held in Montebello, Quebec, Canada, in August 2007.

“The first meeting of the NACC with the three leaders took place in Montebello, Quebec, in 2007,” d’Aquino confirmed. “Our Mexican and American counterparts graciously asked us to write the first NACC report. It was very well received, albeit heavily criticized by unions on the left and others as elitist: ‘Why did these people have access to the national leaders while everyone else was left out?'”

He then reported the NACC continued to advise the SPP leaders behind closed doors at the fourth annual SPP summit meeting in New Orleans in April 2008.

“The second meeting of the NACC with the three leaders took place at their summit in New Orleans in 2008 – we were in the room with the leaders for a full hour and a half,” he said.

D’Aquino then confirmed Obama would only want to continue with the SPP initiative if more environmentalists and union leaders were included in the private advisory group that had consisted entirely of business leaders under the aegis of the NACC.

“When President Obama came to power, he faced a lot of pressure to shelve the SPP and not follow through with the NACC because his advisers were looking for an institution that would also involve environmentalists, union leaders, et al.”

Still, d’Aquino continued to argue that the NACC should not be abandoned, a decision WND has reported the Obama administration made.

“But at the North American Leaders Summit in Guadalajara this summer, President Calderon and Prime Minister Harper both told President Obama that the NACC was very useful,” d’Aquino said. “In fact, the Canadian NACC group met with our prime minister and his key ministers for an hour and a half on the eve of his departure for the Guadalajara summit. He said that, regardless of whether the NACC continues formally on a trilateral basis, he welcomes our advice on trilateral issues.”

WND repeatedly has reported the unannounced goal of the SPP was to create a North American Union by advancing the trade integration realized in NAFTA into continental political integration through the creation of some 20 trilateral bureaucratic working groups and the North American Competitiveness Council, or NACC, composed of 30 North American business executives – 10 each hand-picked by the chambers of commerce in the three countries.

Hoyer Says Constitution’s ‘General Welfare’ Clause Empowers Congress to Order Americans to Buy Health Insurance

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that the individual health insurance mandates included in every health reform bill, which require Americans to have insurance, were “like paying taxes.” He added that Congress has “broad authority” to force Americans to purchase other things as well, so long as it was trying to promote “the general welfare.”

The Congressional Budget Office, however, has stated in the past that a mandate forcing Americans to buy health insurance would be an “unprecedented form of federal action,” and that the “government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.”

Hoyer, speaking to reporters at his weekly press briefing on Tuesday, was asked by CNSNews.com where in the Constitution was Congress granted the power to mandate that a person must by a health insurance policy. Hoyer said that, in providing for the general welfare, Congress had “broad authority.”

“Well, in promoting the general welfare the Constitution obviously gives broad authority to Congress to effect that end,” Hoyer said. “The end that we’re trying to effect is to make health care affordable, so I think clearly this is within our constitutional responsibility.”

Hoyer compared a health insurance mandate to the government’s power to levy taxes, saying “we mandate other things as well, like paying taxes.”

The section of the Constitution Hoyer was referring to, Article I, Section 8, outlines the powers of Congress, including raising taxes, but not the purchasing any type of product or service. The opening paragraph of Section 8 grants Congress the power to raise taxes to, among other things, “provide for the … general welfare of the United States.”

Section 8 partly reads: “The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”

The Constitution then details the specific powers of Congress, including raising an Army and Navy, regulating commerce between states, and to “make all laws necessary and proper” for the carrying out of these enumerated powers.

“To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof,” concludes Section 8.

CNSNews.com also asked Hoyer if there is a limit to what Congress can mandate that Americans purchase and whether there is anything that specifically could not be mandated to purchase. Hoyer said that eventually the Supreme Court would find a limit to Congress’ power, adding that mandates that unfairly favored one person or company over another would obviously be unconstitutional.

“I’m sure the [Supreme] Court will find a limit,” Hoyer said. “For instance, if we mandated that you buy General Motors’ automobiles, I believe that would be far beyond our constitutional responsibility and indeed would violate the Due Process Clause as well – in terms of equal treatment to automobile manufacturers.”

U.S. Constitution

Hoyer said that the insurance mandate was constitutional because Congress is not forcing Americans to buy one particular policy, just any health insurance policy.

“We don’t mandate that they buy a particular insurance [policy] but what we do mandate is that like driving a car — if you’re going to drive a car, to protect people on the roadway, and yourself, and the public for having to pay your expenses if you get hurt badly – that you need to have insurance,” said Hoyer.

In 1994, the Congressional Budget Office reported the following about health insurance mandates: “A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States. An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.”

Under all five of the health care bills currently being considered in Congress, every American adult would have to have a policy that conformed to government standards for coverage and premiums. Each bill creates Bronze, Silver, and Gold health insurance plans and mandates that Americans buy one of them, either through their employer or through government-run exchanges.

David B. Rivkin, a constitutional lawyer with Baker & Hostetler, told CNSNews.com that Hoyer’s argument was “silly,” adding that if the general welfare clause was that elastic, then nothing would be outside of Congress’ powers.

“Congressman Hoyer is wrong,” Rivkin said. “The notion that the general welfare language is a basis for a specific legislative exercise is all silly because if that’s true, because general welfare language is inherently limitless, then the federal government can do anything.

“The arguments are, I believe, feeble,” he said.

Criminalizing Everyone……Police State Rising

By Brian W. Walsh

“You don’t need to know. You can’t know.” That’s what Kathy Norris, a 60-year-old grandmother of eight, was told when she tried to ask court officials why, the day before, federal agents had subjected her home to a furious search.

The agents who spent half a day ransacking Mrs. Norris’ longtime home in Spring, Texas, answered no questions while they emptied file cabinets, pulled books off shelves, rifled through drawers and closets, and threw the contents on the floor.

The six agents, wearing SWAT gear and carrying weapons, were with – get this– the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Kathy and George Norris lived under the specter of a covert government investigation for almost six months before the government unsealed a secret indictment and revealed why the Fish and Wildlife Service had treated their family home as if it were a training base for suspected terrorists. Orchids.

Evil Orchid Growers

That’s right. Orchids.

By March 2004, federal prosecutors were well on their way to turning 66-year-old retiree George Norris into an inmate in a federal penitentiary – based on his home-based business of cultivating, importing and selling orchids.

Mrs. Norris testified before the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime this summer. The hearing’s topic: the rapid and dangerous expansion of federal criminal law, an expansion that is often unprincipled and highly partisan.

Chairman Robert C. Scott, Virginia Democrat, and ranking member Louie Gohmert, Texas Republican, conducted a truly bipartisan hearing (a D.C. rarity this year).

These two leaders have begun giving voice to the increasing number of experts who worry about “overcriminalization.” Astronomical numbers of federal criminal laws lack specifics, can apply to almost anyone and fail to protect innocents by requiring substantial proof that an accused person acted with actual criminal intent.

Mr. Norris ended up spending almost two years in prison because he didn’t have the proper paperwork for some of the many orchids he imported. The orchids were all legal – but Mr. Norris and the overseas shippers who had packaged the flowers had failed to properly navigate the many, often irrational, paperwork requirements the U.S. imposed when it implemented an arcane international treaty’s new restrictions on trade in flowers and other flora.

The judge who sentenced Mr. Norris had some advice for him and his wife: “Life sometimes presents us with lemons.” Their job was, yes, to “turn lemons into lemonade.”

The judge apparently failed to appreciate how difficult it is to run a successful lemonade stand when you’re an elderly diabetic with coronary complications, arthritis and Parkinson’s disease serving time in a federal penitentiary. If only Mr. Norris had been a Libyan terrorist, maybe some European official at least would have weighed in on his behalf to secure a health-based mercy release.

Krister Evertson, another victim of overcriminalization, told Congress, “What I have experienced in these past years is something that should scare you and all Americans.” He’s right. Evertson, a small-time entrepreneur and inventor, faced two separate federal prosecutions stemming from his work trying to develop clean-energy fuel cells.

The feds prosecuted Mr. Evertson the first time for failing to put a federally mandated sticker on an otherwise lawful UPS package in which he shipped some of his supplies. A jury acquitted him, so the feds brought new charges. This time they claimed he technically had “abandoned” his fuel-cell materials – something he had no intention of doing – while defending himself against the first charges. Mr. Evertson, too, spent almost two years in federal prison.

As George Washington University law professor Stephen Saltzburg testified at the House hearing, cases like these “illustrate about as well as you can illustrate the overreach of federal criminal law.” The Cato Institute’s Timothy Lynch, an expert on overcriminalization, called for “a clean line between lawful conduct and unlawful conduct.” A person should not be deemed a criminal unless that person “crossed over that line knowing what he or she was doing.” Seems like common sense, but apparently it isn’t to some federal officials.

Former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh’s testimony captured the essence of the problems that worry so many criminal-law experts. “Those of us concerned about this subject,” he testified, “share a common goal – to have criminal statutes that punish actual criminal acts and [that] do not seek to criminalize conduct that is better dealt with by the seeking of regulatory and civil remedies.” Only when the conduct is sufficiently wrongful and severe, Mr. Thornburgh said, does it warrant the “stigma, public condemnation and potential deprivation of liberty that go along with [the criminal] sanction.”

The Norrises’ nightmare began with the search in October 2003. It didn’t end until Mr. Norris was released from federal supervision in December 2008. His wife testified, however, that even after he came home, the man she had married was still gone. He was by then 71 years old. Unsurprisingly, serving two years as a federal convict – in addition to the years it took to defend unsuccessfully against the charges – had taken a severe toll on him mentally, emotionally and physically.

These are repressive consequences for an elderly man who made mistakes in a small business. The feds should be ashamed, and Mr. Evertson is right that everyone else should be scared. Far too many federal laws are far too broad.

Mr. Scott and Mr. Gohmert have set the stage for more hearings on why this places far too many Americans at risk of unjust punishment. Members of both parties in Congress should follow their lead.

Police Officer tells Protester “this is Not America Anymore

As if Corporal Punishment isn’t already powerful Enough

Earlier models of the wired taser, above, delivered a five-second shock. The XREP projectile can deliver a 20-second, 500 volt blow.

A new Taser that fires wireless electric shock projectiles up to 30 metres is being considered for use by UK police forces, the Home Office has confirmed.

The eXtended Range Electronic Projectile (XREP), which went on sale in the US last month, attaches itself to its target with a series of barbed electrodes and delivers a 20-second, 500 volt shock.

If the subject tries to grab the device to pull it off, “reflex engagement electrodes” activate to complete a circuit that sends the shock through the subject’s body out to their hand.

The makers of the XREP, Taser International, say it is a “revolutionary” step that will allow police to safely immobilize potentially dangerous suspects from a much greater distance than before – the traditional hand-held Taser stun guns used in the UK only fired darts up to 25 feet – and then give them time to reach the target before he or she is able to move again. Previous Tasers have only delivered a five-second shock, which could be re-triggered.

But Amnesty International said it was “seriously concerned” about the XREP and worried by the news it could be authorized in the UK.

“This is effectively a shotgun that fires electric-shock bullets,” Amnesty International UK’s arms programme director, Oliver Sprague, said, adding: “Because this bullet can be fired wire-free from a standard shotgun there is a heightened risk of causing serious injury to the face and head.

“We’re also concerned by the fact that these weapons will deliver an excruciatingly painful shock for 20 seconds. Amnesty would be very alarmed if the Home Office were to consider authorising this weapon to police officers in the UK.”

Taser’s footage of the device being manually activated on already wired-up volunteers shows them tensing up in pain, groaning and slumping towards the floor.
Watch Taser’s promotional footage Link to this video

On the Discovery Channel’s Future Weapons programme, one heavily muscled volunteer was asked afterward s how the shock had felt.

“Like my toes curled back to touch my behind,” he said. “There’s no way I could fight through that.”

Rick Smith, Taser International’s CEO, told the show the device “can drop the largest, scariest people on the planet”.

Last month Taser co-founder Rick Smith told analysts the wireless systems would “leave more of a mark”.

“It’s a bigger projectile to reach out to extended ranges,” he said in a conference call. “It’s moving faster; it’s going to, potentially, cause a much bigger bruise, contusions. It’s going to be a pretty bad thing.”

This meant law enforcement would use the devices more sparingly, in only very high risk situations, Smith added.

The Home Office confirmed it was evaluating the XREP for possible use by law enforcement in Britain. “The Home Office Scientific Development Branch are considering it as part of their ongoing remit to evaluate new less lethal technologies” a spokesman said.

Taser rejected Amnesty’s concerns, saying the XREP would cause less pain when it hit than other “less lethal” impact munitions and was a safer way to immobilize someone than shooting them with live ammunition.

“The premise behind the XREP is not to cause or impart physical pain, it is to cause incapacitation,” spokesman Steve Tuttle said.

“I’m not saying this is risk free: it will leave potential bruising and it could cause a contusion. But when you compare it to a traditional impact munition it will be significantly less likely to cause injury and much more accurate.”

A persistent blogger annoys police — and winds up in jail

Monday, August 10, 2009

A 34-YEAR-OLD woman, the mother of a 12-year-old girl, has been locked up in a Virginia jail for three weeks and could remain there for at least another month. Her crime? Blogging about the police.

Elisha Strom, who appears unable to make the $750 bail, was arrested outside Charlottesville on July 16 when police raided her house, confiscating notebooks, computers and camera equipment. Although the Charlottesville police chief, Timothy J. Longo Sr., had previously written to Ms. Strom warning her that her blog posts were interfering with the work of a local drug enforcement task force, she was not charged with obstruction of justice or any similar offense. Rather, she was indicted on a single count of identifying a police officer with intent to harass, a felony under state law.

It’s fair to say that Ms. Strom was unusually focused on the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement task force, a 14-year-old unit drawn mainly from the police departments of Charlottesville, Albemarle County and the University of Virginia. (Her blog at http://iheartejade.blogspot.com, expresses the view that the task force is “nothing more than a group of arrogant thugs.”) In a nearly year-long barrage of blog posts, she published snapshots she took in public of many or most of the task force’s officers; detailed their comings and goings by following them in her car; mused about their habits and looks; hinted that she may have had a personal relationship with one of them; and, in one instance, reported that she had tipped off a local newspaper about their movements.
ad_icon

Predictably, this annoyed law enforcement officials, who, it’s fair to guess, comprised much of her readership before her arrest. But what seems to have sent them over the edge — and skewed their judgment — is Ms. Strom’s decision to post the name and address of one of the officers with a street-view photo of his house.

All this information was publicly available, including the photograph, which Ms. Strom gleaned from municipal records. The task force’s officers may have worked undercover on occasion, but one wonders about their undercover abilities, given that Ms. Strom was able to out them so consistently. Chief Longo warned Ms. Strom that her blog posts were scaring off informants and endangering the officers and their families, but he provided no evidence. At no point did Ms. Strom’s blog express a threat, explicit or otherwise, to police or their sources.

Ms. Strom is not the most sympathetic symbol of free-speech rights. She has previously advocated creating a separate, all-white nation, and her blog veers from the whimsical to the self-righteous to the bizarre. But the real problem here is the Virginia statute, in which an overly broad, ill-defined ban on harassment-by-identification, specifically in regard to police officers, seems to criminalize just about anything that might irritate targets.

It should not be a crime to annoy the cops, whose raid on Ms. Strom’s house looks more like a fit of pique than an act of law enforcement. Some of her postings may have consisted of obnoxious speech, but they were nonetheless speech and constitutionally protected. That would hold true right up through her last blog post, written as the police raid on her home began at 7 a.m.: “Uh-Oh They’re Here.”

Cops use Americans for Target Practice

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Alonzo Heyward carried a rifle around his low-rent neighborhood one day last month, ranting about suicide and ignoring the pleas of friends for hours before six Chattanooga police officers surrounded him on his front porch and decided it had to end.

His father says Heyward told the officers, “I’m not out here to hurt anybody.”

But the police, who tried unsuccessfully to disarm Heyward, fired 59 rounds to kill him on July 18. The medical examiner found 43 bullet wounds in his chest, face, arms, hands, legs, buttocks and groin. Police contend Heyward was a danger to others and threatened the six officers.

Chattanooga police spokeswoman Jerri Weary described the case as “suicide by cop.”

As questions continue to surround the shooting, Heyward’s family and civil rights leaders take issue with the police response.

“We have a large concern about the amount of shots fired,” said Valoria Armstrong, president of the NAACP branch in Chattanooga.

A Chattanooga Times Free Press editorial cartoon asked “IS THIS EXCESSIVE FORCE?” — spelling out the question with letters labeling the wounds in a drawing based on Heyward’s autopsy report.

His father, James Marine, 61, does not believe Heyward really wanted to kill himself or that he was trying to commit “suicide by cop.”

“He just needed somebody to talk to,” Marine said. … “I believe he was just depressed at that time.”

A Tennessee Bureau of Investigation probe is ongoing. Federal and local authorities are awaiting the TBI report before they do their own examinations of the case. Hamilton County District Attorney Bill Cox said he wants to see the TBI report before deciding whether to pursue a criminal case.

Heyward, a 32-year-old moving company employee, was black. The six officers are white. They were temporarily placed on administrative leave but have since returned to work.

Police spokeswoman Weary said the officers confronted Heyward when they responded to a report of three men wrestling over a gun in the street just after 4 a.m.

Heyward’s father said there was never any wrestling over the .44 Magnum rifle that his son was carrying and sometimes pointing at his chin.

Police said the officers tried but failed to disarm Heyward with a stun gun. Weary said Heyward ignored repeated commands to drop the rifle and officers fired when they felt threatened by the way he moved it.

Police accounts and a patrol car video indicate the shots were fired in three volleys, all within 30 seconds. Each officer used a .45-caliber pistol. Some officers emptied their magazines, reloaded and fired again, while others didn’t fire all their bullets, Weary said.

Some of the gunshots ripped through the unoccupied front room of the house Heyward was renting from his employer, the owner of a local moving company. No one else was injured.

The FBI and Justice Department do not keep national “suicide by cop” statistics. FBI records from September 2008 show 391 “justifiable homicides” by law enforcement in 2007, up slightly from the previous year.

Eugene O’Donnell, a former policeman and prosecutor who is now a professor of police studies at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, said there is “no magic number” when it comes to officers firing at a suspect.

If death is believed to be imminent “there isn’t anybody in the country who can tell the cops 10 shots and no more,” O’Donnell said.

“Unfortunately this is replicated all over the country. When you send the police they bring deadly force with them. They come armed and they come predisposed to use force,” O’Donnell said.

According to court records, Heyward had been charged three times in the past with domestic assault. The first two were dismissed. The third, from a January 2008 incident, remained pending at the time of his death.

He was sentenced in 2005 to 11 months, 29 days in the county workhouse for passing worthless checks, but the sentence was suspended for good behavior and he was given probation.

He also had a few driving related charges on his record, including a violation of the auto registration law for which he received a 30 day suspended sentence in 1997.

The morning he died, Heyward was distraught after returning from a party where he had been drinking, his father said.

“He didn’t think anybody cared about him,” Marine said.

Heyward was also upset about not seeing his children — a daughter and two sons — according to brother James Heyward.

The video shows that police were told Heyward was drunk and talking about killing himself before they started shooting.

Chattanooga police officers get two to four hours of training annually on dealing with people who are mentally ill or under the influence of drugs or narcotics. But Weary said the training could not be applied in this case because the situation was too fluid and unfolded too quickly.

Weary wouldn’t say whether Heyward had a history of mental health problems, citing the ongoing investigation. Marine said his son had no history of mental illness.

Amanda Counts, Heyward’s girlfriend, and neighbor Darrell Turner said they witnessed the shooting. They said Heyward was lying on the porch on top of the rifle when officers opened fire.

“Before the first shot was fired he was down,” Counts said. “Not one time did he threaten anyone.”

Citing the ongoing investigation, police declined to answer questions about Heyward’s position when officers started shooting.

Counts and Turner both said that during the first brief interruption in the barrage of police gunshots, they heard Heyward ask, “Why are you shooting me?”

That cannot be heard in the recording provided by police.

Police Chief Freeman Cooper this month told Chattanooga radio station WGOW the simultaneous shooting by all six officers shows they acted properly.

“We are saying that our people did what we trained them to do,” the police chief said.

The officers involved in the shooting had between three and six years on the force.

Heyward’s father said he thinks a different police response could have brought the incident last month to a peaceful conclusion.

“I believe he would have put that weapon down,” Marine said. “They should have said, ‘Mr. Heyward, put the weapon down. We’re here to help you.’ … He wasn’t threatening no one.

Protect & Serve FBI to probe Minneapolis police beating

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

The FBI has agreed to investigate the beating of a man by Minneapolis police officers, after a video of the incident was released.

Derryl M. Jenkins was arrested in February 2009 during a traffic stop, and charged with assault and refusing to submit to alcohol tests.

The charges were later dropped but police chief Tim Dolan has admitted that some of the responding officers’ actions are cause for concern.

A video of the incident has since been released on the request of Jenkins.

It shows several officers arrive at the scene after one policeman tried to make the initial arrest. Many of the backup officers are seen punching and kicking Jenkins as they try to handcuff him.