Lest we forget Matt Shirk, another Floridian just elected p.d., John Wesley Hall Jr. at Law of Criminal Defense reminds us:
Jax Public Defender has "induction party" thrown by FOP
When the elected Public Defender getting sworn in has a party thrown for him by the Fraternal Order of Police, something is seriously wrong with the Public Defender's Office...
From the San Jose Mercury News:
New guide offers advice to teens on criminal behavior, cops
Hoping it will find a place along with "Animal Farm" and "Julius Caesar" in high school kids' backpacks, the San Jose Independent Police Auditor is coming out with an updated edition of the "Students' Guide to Police Practices." (pdf file)
IPA Director Barbara Attard and Police Chief Rob Davis hope the free 36-page pamphlet will help teens learn about how to make the right choices about criminal behavior — whether as a victim or as a potential perpetrator — and how to deal with cops...
From Police Link:
Not just kid stuff: Handling juveniles on patrol
(Y)our interaction with juvenile subjects will have repercussions for future officers who deal with these youths. This is all the more so for juveniles because their ideas, conceptions and opinions of police may still be forming, and how you handle an encounter may have a powerful effect in influencing their lifelong perception of the law and its representatives...
Always helpful to compare the advice law enforcement are given about dealing with my clientele, to the advice I give my kids for emerging unarrested from the same encounters.
You may have seen or heard something about the recent unpleasantness (pictures here) at our local liberal arts college. In-court coverage from the Olympian:
Five accused of destroying sheriff's patrol car plead not guilty
Five people arrested Wednesday morning in connection with the destruction of a sheriff's patrol car during a Feb. 15 riot outside a hip-hop concert at The Evergreen State College pleaded not guilty to their charges in Thurston County Superior Court Thursday...
Photographer Robert Whitlock knit together this nifty panorama of the media scrum in Judge Hirsch's courtroom. (via OlyBlog)
Here is State's Exhibit #1:
From the Olympian:
At least 12 arrested as protests move to downtown, I-5 entrance
At least 12 people have been arrested today as protests of military-cargo shipments from the Port of Olympia moved to downtown and the Plum Street entrance to Interstate 5... Protesters on foot blocked traffic at Fourth and Plum about noon by jumping in front of 18-wheelers towing cargo containers containing military equipment bound for Fort Lewis. But Olympia police in riot gear moved in quickly, spraying pepper spray in the faces of the protesters, pushing them with their batons and dragging them away from the road...
There are lots of photos to be seen at OlyBlog (here and here) and The Olympian's gallery. Also, you might like to read this OlyBlog post, "I'm sitting on the fence here instead of lining up against it". My past posts on the port protests are here.
This public service reminder from the Bear Whisperer and your friends at the Mammoth Lakes Police Department:
"There are no problem bears, only bears in problematic situations."
(Curiously, "Bad Bear!" is something that my wife has been known to yell at me.)
(hat tip to NPR)
From the Iowa Independent:
Law Students' Goal: Teaching Youths a New Kind of Street Smarts
Helping minority adolescents learn more effective ways to deal with law enforcement and criminal justice officials is the subject of an upcoming forum hosted by a group of African-American law students at Drake University.
"We felt a lot of minority people in general, not just youth, don't know how to interact with the police when they get confronted on the street," said Lauren Yates, 23, a second-year law student. "We want to show them how to de-escalate the situation so you don't go to jail for mouthing off to an officer..."
Reminds me of my stints as a guest lecturer for Magic Valley Alternative High School; good times, good times...
Innovative law enforcement idea from Slovenia: cardboard cut-out policemen!
Still a few bugs in the system...
Courtesy of The Glory of Carniola.
<--- Correct.
Incorrect. --->
From the Seattle P-I:
That 'bear sticker' on the window signals, 'Hey, I'm a cop'
Undue Influence: Bear stickers and other cop-outs
One way some police officers get favoritism from other cops is small, round and sticky. P-I reporter Lewis Kamb gives the story behind the story of those bear stickers.
Bear stickers, other cop-outs: Lewis Kamb
The stylized, striding bear is a wink-and-a-nod to other officers, meaning: "This car's owner is a cop..."
And all this time I thought these were parking permits for the local high school, home of the Bears. I can be so dumb.
The whole "Undue Influence" series - "when cops let fellow cops drive drunk" - is here.
That Lacey youth with the bomb - threat - making hobby? Someone was monitoring his MySpace and Gmail, and it wasn't Sanchovilla.
From Wired: FBI's Secret Spyware Tracks Down Teen Who Made Bomb Threats
FBI agents trying to track the source of e-mailed bomb threats against a Washington high school last month sent the suspect a secret surveillance program designed to surreptitiously monitor him and report back to a government server...
The software was sent to the owner of an anonymous MySpace profile linked to bomb threats against Timberline High School near Seattle. The code led the FBI to 15-year-old Josh Glazebrook, a student at the school, who on Monday pleaded guilty to making bomb threats, identity theft and felony harassment...
From C-Net: FBI remotely installs spyware to trace bomb threat
...(T)he county sheriff's office learned about the MySpace profile - timberlinebombinfo - when the creator tried to persuade other students to link to it and at least one of their parents called the police... In addition, the bomb hoaxster was sending a series of taunting messages from Google Gmail accounts... A representative excerpt: "There are 4 bombs planted throughout Timberline High School. One in the math hall, library hall, and one portable. The bombs will go off in 5 minute intervals at 9:15 am."
The FBI replied by obtaining account logs from Google and MySpace. Both pointed to... a compromised computer in Italy. That's when the FBI decided to roll out the heavy artillery...
(via the Olympian)
From the Twin Falls Times-News:
Man shot, killed by T.F. police
Shoppers were turned away from WinCo Foods Saturday afternoon after a shooting at the store. Two officers were called to WinCo at about 2 p.m. to pick up a shoplifter detained by the store's loss prevention employees... At 2:13 p.m., the officers reported that shots had been fired in the building, and requested an ambulance.
Logan Brizee, 19, of Declo was taken to St. Luke's Magic Valley Regional Medical Center where he was pronounced dead... The police department would not release any
more information Saturday night, and did not say if Brizee had a weapon...
Updates: News and video from KMVT, KTVB and KIVI, each with a slightly different twist. Look for the word "methamphetamine" to appear in follow-up news stories.
Update 07/03/07 from the Times-News:
T.F. police give details on shooting - Brizzee had bench warrant for previous charges
Police: Shooting was provoked - Shoplifting suspect had felony warrant
A shoplifting suspect at WinCo Foods pointed a loaded .38-caliber revolver at two police officers, who then opened fire and killed him Saturday afternoon... Brizzee faced a felony warrant for his arrest for failing to appear in court on a Minidoka County robbery charge...
Brizzee "rapidly stood up, backed away from the officers and pulled a handgun from his waistband and pointed at the officers while in very close proximity," said a police press release. "At that time, both officers pulled their weapons and fired..."
From the Seattle Times:
Cops posing as Federal Way students buy drugs in schools
Via Seattle writer John Moe's Monkey Disaster blog:
Federal Way High School: Too Freaking Stupid to Notice a 33-year-old Narc
From KXLY:
Three dead, two wounded in Moscow ambush
Timeline of the ambush in Moscow
Devoted church groundskeeper killed in Moscow ambush
Updates are available from Moscow bloggers Joe Huffman ("Shooting in Moscow Idaho," "Pictures from Moscow Idaho Shootings") and Submariner Dale ("Five shot, three dead in 'ambush'," "In Memory of First Presbyterian Church sexton Paul Bauer," "In Memory of Les Newbill: Husband, father, former Army Officer").
From the BBC:
Three killed in Idaho shootings - Three people have been killed and two wounded in a sniper attack in the town of Moscow, Idaho
From the New York Times:
Gunman Kills Officer in Idaho Courthouse
From the Seattle Times:
Church prays for shooting victims — including gunman
(besides going to the courthouse for legal aid clinic in third year, in my first year of law school I lived in an apartment on Van Buren right across from the church, as did Heather K. Poor Moscow)
From the Twin Falls Times-News:
Canoeists who pulled suicide victim to shore ticketed - Man says deputy could have used some discretion in issuing citations for having no life jackets
Dennis Bohrn paddled hard across the Snake River to get a suicide victim's body to land. When he and three others paddling canoes Sunday morning dragged the woman's body, they were stunned and crying - had she jumped? Had she been pushed? Had she slipped? And they were even more stunned when at the shore a deputy cited them twice for not carrying life vests in either canoe...
Update: Professor Childress at Legal Profession Blog takes this and runs with it - Why Prosecutorial Discretion Still Matters in a Democracy. 
(He also draws a parallel between Sheriff Wayne Tousley (left) and the Wallace Shawn character in The Princess Bride (right))
As a former resident of Canyon County, I just couldn't be prouder that the State is cracking down on Nampa's real crime problem. Read all about it, from Slate's Bonnie Goldstein:
Dirty Dancing in Idaho
Nampa is the second-largest city in Idaho and "a great place to live, work and play." This last category has attracted the attention of Idaho Attorney General and Eagle Scout Lawrence Wasden, who lives in Nampa. Wasden has filed on behalf of the Idaho Alcohol Beverage Control an impressively smutty summary of the goings-on at two local cocktail lounges, Satin Dolls and Club Z.
In the legal complaint, an Idaho state trooper and a Nampa city cop allege that these establishments permit "any person on the premises… to expose… the female breast below the top of the areola, or of any portion of the pubic hair, anus, or cleft of the buttocks." We learn that one dancer's "G-string did not appear to be the correct size" and that various "prohibited acts" were witnessed by the cops...
Note to Wasden: brassiere should be spelled with an "e" at the end...
Alert readers of A&C will remember the last time that the lead DAG on the case, Stephanie Altig, made the headlines, it was also for snooping: she was caught intercepting and reading legal mail between Idaho prison inmates and their lawyers, behavior which did not sit well with the Ninth Circuit and the Idaho State Bar.
Boise Guardian has faint praise for the latest BPD happy fun time initiative:
Beer and Pizza have always gone together, but under a new Boise Police internal contest, drivers with too many beers under their belt may inadvertently buy pizza for a cop... (E)ndorsed by Chief Mike Masterson, (o)fficers who win a monthly DUI arrest contest are rewarded with certificates for pizza, dinners and movie tickets...
Masterson told the GUARDIAN, "There is no reason you can’t have a little fun in law enforcement. I have no problem with it." The feature is in this week’s Boise Weekly by Shea Anderson. He talked to a public defender who didn’t seem pleased with the plan...
The public defender quoted is my good old Ada County boss, Al Trimming ("T-R-I-M-M-I-N-G, as in trimming your hair"). Here's what the chief p.d. had to say:
"A contest has certain cause for concern. I would hope, that in a desire to win the contest, that there would be no corner-cutting of any kind..." "There's a really strong public sentiment about DUI," Trimming said. "The public are the ones that fill juries. Public sentiment and public perception dictate law enforcement and design, and legislative intent."
But he remains skeptical of a contest among officers to haul in the most drunken perpetrators. He is wary, he says, of a crusader-like mentality among officers that can result in overzealous enforcement. "We rely, as citizens, on the fundamental integrity of our police officers," Trimming said. Therefore, having an officer in the room who is trying to win the city's contest, he said, is worrying...
From the Idaho Supremes, this ruling:
The “subjective feeling” of a police officer that his safety was threatened by an individual pulled over for a routine traffic violation is not enough to justify an extended search for a weapon... especially when the officer is unable to articulate why a person might cause such danger.
Via The Courthouse Steps, the case is out of Jerome County, State v. Henage, 01/26/07 (pdf file).
1. We had an officer show up for court in a short sleeve shirt, and wearing full-length sleeves. Same cop. One arm looked like Speed Racer, the other was anime - esque too. OPD seems very broad-minded. Apparently when the officer is on the beat downtown, the tats are an icebreaker with the hip kids and the street people. Lesson: tattoos can help you in your job.
2. If you're a foster kid and you misbehave, before calling law enforcement, at least one group home will first try sending you to a De-Escalation Room. Lesson: if the prosecutors had one of these rooms at the main courthouse, I might still doing adult cases.
From the Idaho Statesman:
Coroner will not call inquests - Sonnenberg plans on ‘trying something different' in the DiPaola and Lowery cases
Ada County Coroner Erwin Sonnenberg doesn't plan on calling public coroner's inquest hearings on two fatal shootings by police officers this fall... Sonnenberg said he is going to "try something different" to look into the deaths of Jonathan DiPaola and Tyler Lowery.
He said he plans to work with special prosecutors from outside Ada County and the local multiagency police task force to release a public report when the investigations are completed... The coroner's decision to ditch the inquest hearing comes about a year after the controversial inquest into the death of 16-year-old Matthew Jones...
Ada County Prosecutor Greg Bower recused himself from the two current officer-involved shooting cases, asking Twin Falls Prosecutor Grant Loebs to review the Dipaola shooting and Bannock County Prosecutor Mark Hiedeman to review the Lowery shooting...
Bower, Loebs and Hiedeman have entered into an agreement to handle investigations into officer-involved shootings for each other so the impartiality cannot be questioned, Bower said. "I think we recognize the perception might be we are too close to officers involved," Loebs said...
Bruce Jones, Matthew's father and the only witness to the shooting, said he thinks the changes — getting rid of the inquest process, having a visiting prosecutor review evidence and publicly releasing a detailed report — are good.
I do too. In my home town, police seem to shoot people with some frequency, and could stand some outside scrutiny. Bully for Sonnenberg, Heideman, and Loebs.
What's the worst thing about cops posting pictures of p0rn stars and narcotics on their MySpace pages?
Even a public defender could get a criminal off with these photos.
Even? (insert your own punchline here)
