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| NEWS > 24 May 2007 |
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Mexican federal investigators
MEXICO CITY The office of Mexican attorney general Daniel Cabeza de Vaca lashed out at the mayor of the border city of Tijuana, saying Jorge Hank Rhon has tolerated — and may even have tried to cover up — a municipal police force that is corrupt at all levels and protects drug smugglers.
In an unexpected, statement late Friday night, Cabeza de Vaca's office said it had succeeded in dismantling much of the powerful, Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug smuggling syndicate, capturing more than 30 of its top operatives and hit men since 2005 alone. But uncontrollable
violence persi... Read more
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Seattle Post Intelligencer - S
24 May 2007
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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Seattle Police Department, WA
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Ex-U.S. attorney says Seattle
SEATTLE -- Two city police officers lied about the arrest of a convicted small-time drug dealer and one apparently pocketed some marijuana from another man, according to a civilian police auditor and former U.S. attorney.
Officers Gregory P. Neubert and Michael A. Tietjen should be "tagged for lying and failing to cooperate with the investigation" into their arrest of George "Troy" Patterson, 26, on Jan. 2, said Katrina C. "Kate" Pflaumer, auditor of the police department's internal investigations unit.
"It was more than just sloppy," Pflaumer said.
Pflaumer agreed with police investigators who rejected Patterson's claims that Neubert and Tietjen used excessive force and planted drugs on him, but said she had a "spirited" and "frank" e-mail exchange last month with Chief Gil Kerlikowske before he cleared them of major ethics and honesty breaches.
Kerlikowske said Wednesday he believed the officers merely had difficulty remembering details of the arrest.
"No, I don't believe they lied," the chief said.
In recent weeks a forensic expert who examined surveillance videotape of the arrest has challenged the officers' account, a Superior Court judge has agreed with the expert's conclusions, the FBI has opened a preliminary civil rights review of the case and NAACP leaders have said Kerlikowske should resign.
King County prosecutors declined to file charges against Patterson, who uses a wheelchair, after viewing the video and sent letters notifying defense lawyers in at least 17 other cases of the investigation into the officers' credibility.
Neither officer has commented on the matter. Sgt. Richard F. O'Neill, president of the Seattle Police
Officers' Guild, has said the issue is being "blown out of proportion."
According to reports filed by the officers an hour after the arrest, they were watching through a telescope from the ninth floor of a parking garage and saw Patterson selling crack cocaine on a street corner, then approached him on their bicycles and arrested him after seeing crumbs of cocaine on his lap.
The tape, however, showed they also handcuffed another man at the scene, then let him go without mention in their report or getting clearance from a sergeant to release the second man as required by police policy.
Neubert got a written reprimand and Tietjen a one-day suspension for failing to report the detention.
The man who was detained and released, a New York native who had never met either officer, told internal affairs detectives that when he was frisked, Tietjen found a "dime bag" of marijuana in his pocket. He said the officer kept the pot.
No marijuana was booked into evidence, and when questioned by detectives Tietjen denied he had confiscated any.
Pflaumer concluded that the man's account was credible.
"Why would he lie about having drugs?" she said.
Both officers "deep-sixed the whole event" of the unreported detention and "I think the exclusions were purposeful," she said.
O'Neill said the officers made an honest mistake and simply forgot to report detaining the man but would never have kept a bag of marijuana.
"They would have to be complete fools to do that," he said.
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