america

[WEB slicer]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/14/us/texas-woman-search/index.html

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[bryant.coleman]

Oh.. America.... the birthplace of AIDS..... and the country where the cops can rape you in public.

The female deputy replied that it didn't matter, pulled Corley's pants down and then told her to bend over, Corley told CNN.

"I bent over and she proceeded to stick her fingers in me, and I popped up immediately and I told her, 'No! What are you doing? You can't do that to me,' she said.

The deputy told her that she could do what she wanted because it was a narcotics search

So... the American cops can accuse anyone of marijuana possession, and then ask him or her to pull his pants down and bend over. Wow.. what a wonderful place. The Land of the Free, in every sense. 

[Trifixion713]

When cops are performing roadside body cavity searches, things have gotten way out of fucking hand. There have been several cases of this in the past several years here in Texas, two incidents I recall involved the same female state trooper. Things are only going to get worse and more bizarre, this is only the beginning.

The first video was graphic enough. Two women, as shown in a Texas state trooper’s dash cam recording, are probed in their vaginas and rectums by a glove-wearing female officer after a routine traffic stop near Dallas.

A few days later, a second video surfaced. It was an eerily similar scenario, but this time the traffic stop was just outside Houston, and with different troopers. Two women, pulled over for allegedly speeding, are subjected to body cavity searches by a female officer summoned to the scene by a male trooper.

Unlike the earlier tape, this one had clear audio. Yells can be heard as the female trooper shoves her gloved finger inside one woman.

In both invasive incidents, the female troopers don't change gloves between probes, according to the horrified victims.

Texas officials say the searches are unconstitutional. So do attorneys for the shaken women, who have filed federal lawsuits.

But lawyers and civil rights advocates tell the Daily News these cavity searches are really standard policy among the Texas Department of Public Safety’s state troopers, despite their illegality — not to mention that they were conducted on the side of the road in full view of passing motorists.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Dallas attorney Peter Schulte, a former Texas cop and prosecutor. “We would never put our hands anywhere near someone’s private parts,” he said of his time as a police officer in the city of McKinney. “When I saw that video I was shocked. I was a law enforcement officer for 16 years and I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw, who oversees state troopers, denied an interview request from The News. In an earlier statements about the videotaped traffic stops, McCraw said his department “does not and will not tolerate any conduct that violates the U.S. and Texas constitutions, or DPS training or policy.”

So how did Texas troopers hundreds of miles apart get captured on dash cams conducting body cavity searches under nearly identical conditions?

“The fact that they both happened means there is some sort of (department) policy” advocating their use at traffic stops, Jim Harrington of the Texas Civil Rights Project told the Daily News. “It’s such a prohibited practice. I don’t know why they think they can do this. It’s mind-boggling.”

Schulte said he doubts the policy is written, and that the practice may have spread from region to region, instead of from the top down.

“I think the Department of Public Safety is trying to figure out who in the world trained these troopers to think that this is OK,” Schulte said. “The law just doesn’t support that. It just doesn’t.”

There have also been two recent cavity-search controversies in other states: Last year in Florida a Citrus County woman, who’d recently been charged with driving under the influence, was pulled over by sheriff’s deputies while driving with her children. In a federal lawsuit, the woman claimed she was given a cavity search on the roadside; in Milwaukee, police were disciplined after 2012 reports surfaced that eight cops had conducted genital searches on arrested suspects without the legal authority to do so.

But those cases don't approach the blatantness of the Texas incidents captured on video, which appear to illustrate a pattern, rather than isolated incidents.

“The odds of two female troopers conducting the same kind of search within six weeks of each other? Come on,” attorney Scott Palmer told The News. He recently settled a federal suit filed against the Department of Public Safety on behalf of clients Angel and Ashley Dobbs, the aunt and niece who were cavity-searched in the first dash cam video to go viral.

No ticket was issued following the lengthy traffic stop in July 2012, and no drugs were found. Angel Dobbs, 38, told The News that trooper David Farrell pulled her over on a Friday night, while she was driving to Oklahoma with her niece, Ashley, 24.

On the patrol car’s loudspeaker, he ordered her off the highway and onto a side road, she said.

He told the women they had thrown cigarette butts out of the car's  windows. That wasn’t true, Dobbs said, but she didn’t argue. A long series of questions followed: Where were they going? Who were they going to see? Why were they going? Why was her niece with her?

Then he said he smelled marijuana. The women denied having any. He took the women’s IDs and went to his patrol car.

“He was back there for like 25 minutes,” Dobbs said. “My niece said ‘What's taking him so long?’”

They were ordered out of the car and told to stand in a field by the roadside. Farrell told them he had called for a female office to come and search them, Dobbs said.

“Do you have anything in your socks? In your shoes? In your underwear?” Dobbs said she was asked. Then trooper Kelley Helleson showed up.

At this point Dobbs started protesting, saying the situation was ridiculous and that she had no drugs and had done nothing wrong. The female officer told her to “shut up and turn around,” Dobbs said.

She did as she was told. Then the trooper’s gloved hand went down her sweat pants in the back and in the front.

The trooper's attorney has said there was no penetration and that both women submitted to the searches.

Dobbs disagrees: “She knows there was penetration. On both sides. Along the side of the road. She knows what she did.”

The dash cam video shows the aunt and niece alternately standing in front of Farrell’s patrol car, holding their arms out while Helleson pats their breasts and puts her hand down the front and back of their pants.

“They didn’t even search my socks or my shoes,” Dobbs said. "I just couldn’t fathom how you could search someone’s butt and their vagina, and not search their socks or shoes.”

Finally, and after Dobbs passed a field sobriety test, she was given a written warning for littering and told she could go.

“We were assaulted on the side of the road,” Dobbs said.

She complained to the troopers’ supervisor in August. In October, investigators from the Texas Rangers interviewed her about what happened. She was frustrated it had taken more than two months to get a response.

Then she got a lawyer. Her lawsuit was filed in December. “We had a press conference the next day,” Dobbs said. In January, the case was presented to a Dallas County grand jury. Helleson was later charged with two counts of sexual assault and was fired.

Farrell was indicted on one charge of theft, over a missing bottle of Vicodin from the aunt’s purse, and was suspended pending an internal investigation.

“Until the news got involved, nothing happened,” Dobbs said.

“My heart goes out those ladies,” in the Houston incident she continued. “I know how it feels.”

In late June, Dobbs and her attorneys settled their case for $184,000. Criminal trials against Helleson and Farrell are pending.

“Someone is telling (troopers) that this is a reasonable policy,” said attorney Palmer. “They’re just refusing to acknowledge this is a policy.

Across the state, no criminal charges have been filed in the Houston area traffic stop. But it began in much the same way.

Brandy Hamilton and Alexandria Randle were pulled over for speeding in Brazoria County by Texas state trooper Nathaniel Turner on Memorial Day in 2012. They were on their way home to Houston after spending the day at Surfside Beach on the Gulf of Mexico.

Turner said he smelled marijuana, then ordered Hamilton, the driver, out of the car. “Can I please put on my dress, because I have on a swimsuit,” she asks the trooper, according to the dash cam video.

“Don’t worry about that,” he says, “come on out here.”

By the side of Highway 288, Hamilton, wearing a bikini, and Randle, in shorts, are asked a series of questions about whether they have drugs on them or in the car. They say no, just some cigars.

“Is there anything in your bra or underwear?” Turner asks Hamilton. She says no.

Turner calls for a female officer to come and search the women.

Trooper Jennie Bui arrives, and asks for gloves because she doesn’t have any.

“She is about to get up close and personal with some womanly parts,” Turner tells Hamilton. “She is going to search you, I ain’t, because I ain’t about to get up close and personal with your woman areas.”

Hamilton, who is handcuffed, is bent over the patrol car’s passenger seat and probed by Bui.

“Do you know how violated I feel?” Hamilton pleads.

According to the women’s federal lawsuit, filed in June, Randle is then penetrated by Bui, who is wearing the same set of gloves from her search of Hamilton.

The video captures the sound of her screaming.

“They basically raped them on the side of the road,” said Houston attorney Allie Booker, who represents the women. They were part of a two-car caravan of family and friends that had spent the national holiday at the beach...

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/troopers-texas-probe-genitals-women-traffic-stops-article-1.1414668

[n2004al]

People don't blame a nation which is the best place in the world to live and to work. The country of the freedom and the justice. Every country of the world have problems. But in no country of the world cannot be find the right and the wrong like in USA and in no country in the world like in USA can be punished the wrong and valuated the right.

Cannot be defined a country from a case; every kind of case can be that.

[BurtW]

People don't blame a nation which is the best place in the world to live and to work. The country of the freedom and the justice. Every country of the world have problems. But in no country of the world cannot be find the right and the wrong like in USA and in no country in the world like in USA can be punished the wrong and valuated the right.

Cannot be defined a country from a case; every kind of case can be that.

I assume English is your second language so I will cut you some slack on that.

This is not an "isolated case".

This country used to be the country of freedom and justice, it no longer is.

This is an obvious case of cops being trained to police for profit.  It would not surprise me in the least if this was not some new training coming from Desert Snow (Please read this.  Long but very informative.).

If they can find anything on you or the car they get to keep the car so they will go to any measures to find the pot, cash or whatever in order to seize the car.

[bryant.coleman]

People don't blame a nation which is the best place in the world to live and to work.

According to whom? For the third world citizens, the United States might be one of the top destinations. But for others, it rank far below other countries such as Sweden, Germany, France, Australia, New Zealand, and even Asian countries such as Singapore and UAE.

The country of the freedom and the justice.

Are you serious? Really?

Every country of the world have problems.

In other countries, if the cops asks someone to drop his pants and bend over, then the cops will lose their jobs in a matter of minutes.

[panju1]

Why on earth is there a race sub-text to it?
This should be condemned, white woman or black woman.

[saddampbuh]

these cops belong in prison

[PaoloSerBit]

This country used to be the country of freedom and justice, it no longer is.

You have any kind of proof that now it's worse than it used to be? No nation is happy about the state their country is in. Also,  as you're getting older you get to to remember everything regarding your youth as better than it really was. Everywhere around the world the police abuse it's power sometimes. That's a thing that can't be avoided.

We can compare for example the stats showing the number of people being killed by the police every year and I'm sure that the USA will  still come out much better than all the countries of South America. That's a huge country, with many different ethnicities living there. Probably because of that the crime rate has to quite high, and the police sometimes get's to be, let's say, overzealous in their "responsibilities" 

[bryant.coleman]

Why on earth is there a race sub-text to it?
This should be condemned, white woman or black woman.

It doesn't have much to do with the race. If you read the article, it is clear that the policewoman who raped the victim was also an African American. This has more to do with police brutality than race profiling. By needlessly dragging the race card in to this, the victim is trying to create unnecessary hype and I am afraid that she will end up losing the argument.

[andysbizz]

People don't blame a nation which is the best place in the world to live and to work. The country of the freedom and the justice. Every country of the world have problems. But in no country of the world cannot be find the right and the wrong like in USA and in no country in the world like in USA can be punished the wrong and valuated the right.

Cannot be defined a country from a case; every kind of case can be that.

    
Do you consider the USA a better country?

[BurtW]

You have any kind of proof that now it's worse than it used to be?

Personally yes, I am 53 years old and had never been arrested until now.  

I do remember the time before the massive use of civil asset forfeiture was used to bypass the constitutionally mandated checks and balances between the branches of government and used to self fund the current police state.

I do remember the time when a person had to be charged and convicted of a crime before the goverment could seize your assets.  Now they just seize your assets and charge the assets with the crime and it is up to you to prove that your assets did not commit the crime.  Sure this procedure started all the way back in the 1920s but it has not been until the last few years that it has been done to the tune of billions of dollars per year.

I do remember the time before citizens united totally destroyed the democratic process in this country.

I do remember the time before 9/11, the time before marshal law was declared and implemented (patriot act).

I do remember the time before the implementation of the "homeland security" state.

I do remember the time before the police killed an average of one citizen per day.

I do remember the time before police used military equipment, clothing and techniques.

For my case see www.burtw.com and www.jmwagner.com

In summary:  I was accused of "selling Bitcoins without a license", a few days in solitary confinement and $300,000 later, including a blatant $80,000 extortion payment directly to the United States asset forfeiture fund and I am a "free" but broke man.

Just a few years ago the government would have simply sent me a letter telling me to get a license.  End of story.  

But today, with the push to self fund their police state, instead they charge me with a felony that carries a five year prison sentence, take all my property and charge it with crimes, all in order take by force or force me to give up cash and Bitcoins directly to them.

So, you are totally wrong.  Things have gotten much much worse in my lifetime.  It is not an illusion.  You are dead wrong.

[BurtW]

Here are some statistics for you on police killings from:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States

List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2015 (listed: 323)
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2014 (listed: 623)
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2013 (listed: 337)
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2012 (listed: 602)
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2011 (listed: 166)
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2010 (listed: 284)
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2009 (listed: 62)
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States prior to 2009 (listed: 215)

[BurtW]

Here are your 2014 numbers:

http://www.justice.gov/afp/reports-congress/fy-2014-total-net-deposits-fund-state-deposit#FN2

What is up with Delaware?  They sure don't seem to be "pulling their weight" when it comes to self funding the police state.

Answered my own question about Delaware.  It is not that they don't steal from their people it is that the Federal government is not getting their cut of the action:

Delaware has terrible civil forfeiture law, scoring an F on the law grade.  The state’s final grade is pulled up to a C only by limited use of equitable sharing (an evasion grade of A) to date.  In Delaware, the government only needs to show probable cause to forfeit property.  If an innocent owner objects, the owner has the burden of showing that the property was wrongfully seized or not subject to forfeiture.  These problems are compounded by the fact that law enforcement in Delaware keeps 100 percent of the revenues generated by civil forfeitures, creating a perverse incentive to seize as much property as possible.  Fortunately for Delaware citizens, law enforcement in the state does not seem to have used forfeiture as aggressively as the law permits.  It is hard to know the extent of forfeiture in Delaware, though, because there is no provision under state law that requires data to be collected or reported.

[MakingMoneyHoney]

This country used to be the country of freedom and justice, it no longer is.

You have any kind of proof that now it's worse than it used to be? No nation is happy about the state their country is in. Also,  as you're getting older you get to to remember everything regarding your youth as better than it really was. Everywhere around the world the police abuse it's power sometimes. That's a thing that can't be avoided.

We can compare for example the stats showing the number of people being killed by the police every year and I'm sure that the USA will  still come out much better than all the countries of South America. That's a huge country, with many different ethnicities living there. Probably because of that the crime rate has to quite high, and the police sometimes get's to be, let's say, overzealous in their "responsibilities" 

It's worse than it used to be. 20 years ago I was proud to live here, now I shake my head. But apparently those who believe in the constitution are crazy, and some US citizens are so stupid they are ready to give up their bill of rights. 

[BurtW]

Wow, both videos are painful to watch.  Note on the first video:

When homeland security [state] searched the office I was using at my client's site (causing me to lose that client) they confiscated many things:  all of the computers, paperwork, electronics, etc.

For many years I have carried a copy of the constitution of the United States in my briefcase.  Not sure exactly why.  I got it many years ago and it had just remained in there since I got it.

They confiscated my copy of the constitution of the United States!

I have a couple of theories on this:

1) Having never seen or read the document themselves they opened it up, started to read it, and then confiscated it as an obviously subversive document.  Counter to their actions that day.  For example this little bit:  

[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

2) They actually knew what it was (but still not having actually read it for themselves) and confiscated it as evidence that I was some sort of "constitutionalist nut job" - in other words someone who has read it and does know what it says.

Note on the second video:

We noticed very quickly that the public school education being foisted on our daughter was less than shit.  As far as we could tell any actual learning was purely accidental.  She knew everything about how bad people are destroying the planet, how to recycle, and tried to learn the scores of petty rules that changed daily.

Teach civics?  Not a chance.  However, they did have, every year, a decent sized unit on "how to be a good consumer".

Needless to say she no longer attends public school.  Even if this new school does not teach her what the bill of rights is, what it says, or how it applies to her she has already learned more about rights, duty, and the broken "justice" system than most adults through her personal life experiences.

Not many 9 year old kids have testified in front of a State Judiciary committee hearing on civil asset forfeiture and are looking forward to testifying in front of the US congress, given a chance to do so.

www.burtw.com and www.jmwagner.com

[MakingMoneyHoney]

Wow, both videos are painful to watch.  Note on the first video:

When homeland security [state] searched the office I was using at my client's site (causing me to lose that client) they confiscated many things:  all of the computers, paperwork, electronics, etc.

For many years I have carried a copy of the constitution of the United States in my briefcase.  Not sure exactly why.  I got it many years ago and it had just remained in there since I got it.

They confiscated my copy of the constitution of the United States!

I have a couple of theories on this:

1) Having never seen or read the document themselves they opened it up, started to read it, and then confiscated it as an obviously subversive document.  Counter to their actions that day.  For example this little bit:  

[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

2) They actually knew what it was (but still not having actually read it for themselves) and confiscated it as evidence that I was some sort of "constitutionalist nut job" - in other words someone who has read it and does know what it says.

Note on the second video:

We noticed very quickly that the public school education being foisted on our daughter was less than shit.  As far as we could tell any actual learning was purely accidental.  She knew everything about how bad people are destroying the planet, how to recycle, and tried to learn the scores of petty rules that changed daily.

Teach civics?  Not a chance.  However, they did have, every year, a decent sized unit on "how to be a good consumer".

Needless to say she no longer attends public school.  Even if this new school does not teach her what the bill of rights is, what it says, or how it applies to her she has already learned more about rights, duty, and the broken "justice" system than most adults through her personal life experiences.

Not many 9 year old kids have testified in front of a State Judiciary committee hearing on civil asset forfeiture and are looking forward to testifying in front of the US congress, given a chance to do so.

www.burtw.com and www.jmwagner.com

I want to say it's all unbelievable, but I know it's not. It's the truth. We're stuck with it now, nothing we can do.

[PaoloSerBit]

Personally yes, I am 53 years old and had never been arrested until now.  
So, you are totally wrong.  Things have gotten much much worse in my lifetime.  It is not an illusion.  You are dead wrong.

I'm very sorry about the way you're being treated by the US legal system - no person should ever experience something like that. I don't have enough knowledge to be able to discuss with you, especially given the hard data you're showing. Probably I shouldn't even have spoken in the first place. The reason for that was the situation from my native country(Poland). Around here there're a lot of people saying that before the fall of Soviet Union everything was in a better shape, there was no poverty etc. The problem is that back then practically everybody was poor so that wasn't any distinction. Also what speaks through them is that these 20 years ago or so they were much younger and healthier, they were living the best moments of their lives etc

But I see clearly that what's happening in the USA isn't that case. I'm sorry if I offended you somehow by what I wrote. And by the way, why did the police start to kill so many people since the year 2009?(that would be logical if it had started in 2001).

[Possum577]

People don't blame a nation which is the best place in the world to live and to work.

According to whom? For the third world citizens, the United States might be one of the top destinations. But for others, it rank far below other countries such as Sweden, Germany, France, Australia, New Zealand, and even Asian countries such as Singapore and UAE.

I'd agree with this. The best of the major US cities - New York, Chicago, and San Francisco - struggle to compete with the high-end tourism that other major cities in the world have. By the way, the UAE isn't in Asia (minor but important correction.)

This story is just f**cking ridiculous. Especially with the run of police-violence driven episodes (which were almost always against some legitimate criminal). People come out and stick up for the police (you see it everywhere on social media) and then something completely stupid like this comes out.

For those of you who don't live in the US or haven't visited the US...I wouldn't let the actions of anyone in Texas speak for the rest of the country. Texans do things different, the think differently about a lot of political issues, and they don't represent the vast country.

[Scream]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/08/13/in-texas-police-stick-hand-up-womans-vagina-to-search-for-marijuana/