Have fun perusing these:
Just another bullshit encounter with the (Sarasota) police.
Last night, after my roomate and I decided to drive to a local pool-hall and shoot a game of pool. Completly sober abiding all laws, valid license, tag, lights, insurance, we drove into the parking lot. As I pulled into an empty space a burgandy undercover suburban blocked me in and two officers exited the vehicle. "Dont move, stay in the vehichle" they told me. One approached my door and asked for my liscense, and asked if I had any drugs, alchohol, or weapons in the car.I told him no, and asked him why he had stopped me he said he saw white light coming from my brake lights which was total bullshit. He also took my roomates license and ran both for warrants. After about 20 minutes they returned our licenses and again asked if we had anything in the vehicle. I once again told him no. He asked "do you mind if I take a look"? In fear of him planting somthing if I refused consent, I let him search. After they didn't find anything, they searched us, again finding nothing. After wasting an hour of our time, leaving me shaken and pissed off they let us go. Is this America,"LAND OF THE FREE"ITS A FUCKING JOKE!! Please e-mail me if you know of any local groups, so I can make a change. kedron@lycosmail.com
http://mediafilter.org/guest/Pages/January.23.1999.13.31.05
sdn-ap-015scfairp0435.dialsprint.net. Monday, November 4, 2002 13:14:07
This is in regard to what has happened to my nephew, Greg Kendrick. Now, Greg suffers from Fabrys Disease, a debilitating genetic disorder which runs in our family. He has had both hips replaced, suffers from Bell's Palsy which involved partial paralysis of the muscles in his face, and he is almost totally deaf in one ear. But that is not why I am asking for assistance. His story follows. Greg was pulled over in traffic by a police officer in Sarasota, Florida, in May of this year (2002). The police officer was soon joined by a county deputy, and the two police officers hand-cuffed Greg and proceeded to beat him. (Sadly, there is no known video of this as the police officer's car is not thusly equipped with video. We are still hoping that someone may have witnessed this beating or might have video taped it, and will come forth.) Anyway, they rammed his face into the trunk of his car, kicking him in the hip joints, and stomping his foot so hard that even now in November, (more than 5 months later) the swelling has not gone down. In addition, he is having hemorrhaging in the back of his eye, probably due to the head trama he suffered in the beating. The police officer said when he stopped him he was 'sluring his words.' He tried to tell the officers that he was not drunk, but that he has Bell's Palsy (which is symptomatic of his disease), that he was not 'swaggering', but because he had two hip replacements, that is the way he walks. They wouldn't listen to him. They told him to walk the line, but when he tried to tell them that because of his two replacement hips, he couldn't walk that way, they told him to 'shut up!' and beat him again. They charged him with DUI, and told him when they got him to the police station that they had also found marijuana in his car. (Now, this is a man who wouldn't even take legal prescription pain killers for the pain he experiences with his disease because he did not want anything to interfere with his consciousness.) He lives with his parents and a sister and nobody in the family has ever seen him smoke marijuana or even have it in his possession. We all know in our hearts and mind that if marijuana was in his car, that marijuana was planted there by the police officers. Greg knew he was being framed, particularly when they told him they found marijuana in his car. Once at the jail he told them he would submit to any alcohol tests, but that he wanted his attorney present. At this point, after having been beaten, he was really scared, and he didn't trust them so he asked to first call his attorney. They refused to let him call his attorney, so they said "That's a refusal!" In hindsight, he wishes he hadn't declined to take any alcohol tests because if the test results could not be faked, he would have proof that he wasn't drunk. But he had just been beaten and had marijuana planted in his car, so he wasn't about to trust them and was afraid of fake results on the tests. Once in court, his attorney proved that the testimony of police officer and the deputy were so far apart on the particulars of the arrest, that one or both must be lying. Even the prosecuting attorney told Greg's attorney during the trial recess, 'You have won because you proved my officers lied.' Yet, on the lies of the police officers, the jury still found him guilty on the charges of possession of marijuana and DUI! The judge then proceeded to throw the book at him. He got 9 months in jail, $10,000 fine, has to pay $4700 for a drug rehab program (for what?), and his car is to be impounded. It is always in the news that Sarasota has one of the best conviction records in the nation for DUI. It is not hard to understand why. But there is something terribly wrong with the arrest and beating of Greg, and subsequent conviction of these lies and trumped up charges. Now, if something is not done to appeal his conviction, he will most likely spend the last days of this life in jail. Due to the medical progression of his inherited genetic disease (Fabrys, fully medically documented in his medical records), in all probabillty, he may not live another 9 months. So, unless we can find a way to get him an appeal, then he will most likely die in jail. And the thought of that is almost more than I can bear. We spent our last dollar paying the attorney who represented Greg in his trial, so we don't know else where to turn.
James Byrd, age 74 02/10 Sarasota, FL: Shot shot and killed by police
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/flm/pr/041602gut.pdf
SARASOTA POLICE SWEEP HOMELESS CAMPS BEFORE CENSUS
SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) _ Police swept through more than a dozen camps where homeless people sleep this week, just as social service officials prepared to conduct their annual count of the city's homeless.
Police officials say they conducted the two-day operation to identify people who need help and to clean up city property and vacant lots.
The count began Friday.
Advocates for the homeless questioned the timing of the police operation, saying it could affect social workers' efforts to count the elusive population. Agencies use the numbers from the annual counts to apply for grants and determine what services are needed.
``Do we want to know how many people are homeless in Sarasota or don't we?'' said Dan Dunn, president of the Sarasota Coalition for the Homeless. Dunn feared that social workers won't be able to survey the entire population and detail what obstacles people are facing.
Police Chief Gordon ``Skip'' Jolly said the Wednesday and Thursday night sweeps were planned before the date for the count was set and the police department plans to share information gathered at the sweeps with those doing the counting.
``We had so much already in motion, by the time I found out we were going to conflict with the homeless count we weren't prepared to stop it,'' he said.
Some advocates for the homeless were baffled by the decision by Jolly, who heads Sarasota and Manatee counties' Continuum of Care program, which organizes the count.
``It's a sad day when the city's initial response to the issue of homeless people living in the woods is to roust them out of the woods,'' said April Charney, an attorney with Gulf Coast Legal Services. ``These people are just going to move along to the next place.''
The program is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and it brings together government officials, community leaders and social service providers to determine priorities for ending homelessness in their areas.
On Thursday night, police officers offered bags to the few homeless people they found camping out near railroad tracks so they could collect their possessions. They then took them to the Salvation Army, where they were provided beds.
Jolly said he was surprised at how few homeless people they found.
http://projects.is.asu.edu/pipermail/hpn/2001-December/005113.html
http://www.sptimes.com/2002/11/13/State/Ex_NAACP_leader_won_t.shtml
Her stint in Sarasota taught the police it was better to give her a straight answer than to dodge her. She reported that deputies were getting naked with prostitutes and then arresting them for prostitution.
http://www.cjr.org/year/01/3/dillon.asp
In November 2001, a Sarasota woman brought a $3 million lawsuit against five Manatee County sheriff's duputies who planted drugs in her home. All five deputies were sentences to prison for various offenses, including planting drugs on suspects, stealing money from people under arrest, and lying. the men were part of an elite drug-fighting group called the Delta Task Force and presecutors said the offenses occurred from 1995 to 1999. The woman lost custody of her baby for 18 month after she was convicted in 1997 on drug charges during a trial in which the duputies lied to jurors.
http://www.drugpolicy.org/docUploads/police_corruption_report.pdf
http://www.yerridlaw.com/verdict27.cfm
More to come.
