In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
Cops blaming the gun for their own STUPIDITY
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Experts Find Glocks Prone To Accidents
Three local probation officers have accidentally misfired their weapons in eight years.
August 07, 2002
By John O'BrienStaff writer
When a Syracuse man was struck last week by a bullet fired through the ceiling of his apartment, it marked the third time in eight years that an Onondaga County probation officer had unintentionally discharged one of the department-issued Glock pistols.
Those three incidents, and similar cases in Central New York and elsewhere, come as no surprise to Joseph Cominolli. Cominolli was a Syracuse police sergeant in 1987 when he was assigned to find the best semiautomatic handgun to replace that department's revolvers.
The hot new Glock pistol that other police agencies were then buying had two drawbacks that caused Cominolli to reject it. The Glock had no manual safety switch and no magazine safety that made the gun inoperable when the magazine was removed.
A Glock is a safe weapon, Cominolli said, but only if the person handling it knows how to use it. If the gun is unloaded in the wrong order, for example, a round of ammunition can be left in the chamber without the user realizing it, he said. With no manual safety, the gun will fire if the trigger is pulled.
"Even with good training, people forget," he said. "And guns are not forgiving."
On July 30, Stacey Nunn, a probation officer for about a year, was unloading her .40-caliber Glock when it fired into the floor of her second-story apartment at 1904 James St. The bullet struck her downstairs neighbor, Michael Chapman, in the chest as he was making dinner in his kitchen. Chapman's condition improved from critical to serious this week at University Hospital.
Nunn had removed the magazine from the gun before the weapon fired, according to police.
In 1994, probation officer Susan Beebe shot herself in the knee while unloading her Glock. In September 1998, a firearms instructor for the probation department unintentionally fired his Glock into a wall while teaching a class how to remove the weapon from a holster. The shot put a hole through a classroom wall at the Elbridge Rod and Gun Club.
The gun's inadvertent firing in the hands of a gun expert caused concern, Probation Commissioner Robert Czaplicki said.
"We took a look at what went on," Czaplicki said. "We had a group of people look at it. It raised some red flags."
The firearms instructor is still teaching probation officers, said Czaplicki, who would not identify the instructor.
Cominolli, who is retired from the police, has designed and patented a manual safety device that can be added to Glock pistols. Last year, he talked to Czaplicki about adding the device to the probation department's guns.
Czaplicki said the county then talked with Glock officials about having the device installed. But the county rejected the idea after Glock said it would void the warranty on the guns if the safeties were added, Czaplicki said.
Czaplicki said his department is reconsidering the safeties in light of last week's unintentional discharge that injured Chapman.
Cominolli said he knows of dozens of "unintentional discharges" of Glocks in Central New York over the past 15 years, and estimates there have been thousands across the country. He won't refer to them as accidents because that implies the shootings could not have been prevented.
Syracuse police use Smith & Wesson firearms.
No national statistics are available on which manufacturer's handgun has the most unintentional firings. The Washington Post reported in 1998 that District of Columbia officers, who use Glock 9mm handguns, unintentionally fired their weapons more than 120 times over 10 years.
In 1988, the FBI issued a report on Glock handguns giving them low marks, citing a "high potential for unintentional shots," according to the Post. The agency will not release the report, according to an FBI spokesman in Washington, D.C.
Despite that report, the FBI issues Glocks to its agents.
Last week, a Queens corrections officer fatally shot his son while the officer was unloading his 9mm Glock handgun in his home, according to Newsday. A police chief in Coral Gables, Fla., accidentally fired his .40-caliber Glock last month into his locker at a health club, according to The Miami Herald.
The Onondaga County Sheriff's Department, which has used Glocks since 1992, has had at least three unintentional discharges with the weapon, according to Lt. Thomas Morehouse, a firearms instructor. A deputy fired a shot that grazed his hand in 1992. A detective fired a round into the floor of his patrol car a few years ago. And a deputy accidentally pulled the trigger three years ago and fired a round into the ground at the training range, Morehouse said.
In December, an Oswego County sheriff's deputy accidentally fired his Glock handgun into the foot of a security officer at a nuclear power plant.
Cominolli, a nationally known firearms expert, said he's gotten dozens of calls from lawyers representing police officers who'd shot themselves with Glocks. He tells them he's never heard of a case of the gun malfunctioning. It's always operator error, he said.
'Brain fade' protection
That's why he designed the safety device and is marketing it to police agencies and private gun owners across the country. With the safety on, the trigger bar inside the gun can't move.
"If you have a brain fade and pull the trigger, it won't go bang," Cominolli said.
Newly hired probation officers in Onondaga County must carry a firearm after undergoing 35 hours of training on the shooting range and 14 hours in the classroom, Czaplicki said. Veteran officers in the department have the option of carrying a gun. Probation officers are trained by the department's two state-certified firearms instructors, he said. Forty-one of the county's 84 probation officers now carry a gun on the job. All carry Glocks.
In response to last week's shooting, the department is reviewing its training procedures, Czaplicki said. He wouldn't comment on details of the shooting, except to say it's certain that the trigger on the gun must have been pulled. Initial police reports erroneously said the gun had fired when the officer dropped it.
Mark Doneburgh, Glock's district manager for the Syracuse area, was an Onondaga County sheriff's deputy 14 years ago when he first looked at Glocks. He questioned whether they could hold up because they're made of plastic, so he took the gun up in a helicopter and dropped it to the ground. It didn't break and didn't fire, he said.
Glock doesn't fit its guns with manual safety switches because the guns have three internal "passive" safeties, Doneburgh said. Those safeties automatically disengage when someone pulls the trigger, but they prevent the gun from firing when it's dropped or when the trigger gets bumped from the side.
Remembering the safety
Glocks are popular with police because the revolvers they replaced had no manual safeties, he said. The fear was that officers would have trouble getting used to having to turn off the safety in a gunfight, Doneburgh said. He studied the Glock for the sheriff's department.
"We needed a gun that we could easily transition my people with and that they could feel confident with," he said. "It's a draw, point and shoot gun."
Onondaga County Corrections Commissioner Timothy Cowin said he would not outfit his officers with Glocks until they were fitted with Cominolli's manual safety last year.
"I've been in this business a long time, and I can tell you there are many, many accidental discharges that never get reported," Cowin said. "When people are holstering or drawing that weapon, they automatically put their finger in that trigger guard without even thinking about it."
With training, officers not accustomed to turning off a manual safety can make it a habit, Cowin said.
Cowin said it's unclear whether the added safety means Glock will no longer honor its warranty. He said he decided to make the change anyway because the weapon is unlikely to need any repairs that the correction department's own armorer can't fix.
Many accidental Glock discharges involve unloading. Doneburgh, who teaches gun safety courses at Onondaga Community College, said he always demanded perfection from his police recruits when they unloaded guns during firearms training.
"I used to tell them, No. 1, 'mag' out," he said of the need to remove the magazine before clearing the chamber. "I told them, 'Put your finger on the trigger and I'm going to take a knife and cut it off.' And they believed me. Hopefully, that's going to stay with them for 20 years."
Never found liable
Glock doesn't fit its guns with safeties because many police officers are used to not having to switch them off and because the company has never been found liable for any unintentional shooting, Doneburgh said.
"We've never lost a lawsuit," he said. Doneburgh said he didn't know how many lawsuits the company had settled, and a lawyer for Glock could not be reached for comment.
Cominolli said he's sold between 600 to 800 of the safeties to police agencies and private gun owners in the first year and has orders for more. He charges $75 a gun for law enforcement agencies. Local Glock owners can buy the device at Ra-Lin Discount in Syracuse.
The Kenmore Police Department, near Buffalo, wouldn't have bought Glocks without the added safeties, Cominolli said.
Twelve of the 17 police departments in Onondaga County, including the sheriff's department and state police, issue Glocks to their officers. The only ones that don't are Syracuse, DeWitt, Baldwinsville, North Syracuse and East Syracuse, Doneburgh said.
DeWitt police Capt. Bruce Wahl said he chose the Smith & Wesson semiautomatic partly because it has a manual safety and another safety that makes the gun inoperable without the magazine. Officials at other police agencies, such as Camillus, said they've never had an unintentional firing of a Glock.
"The Glock is accepted by 70 percent of law enforcement agencies in North America," Doneburgh said.
He said he's heard reports of a Glock being unintentionally fired, and each time it's because someone messed up; the gun itself has never malfunctioned.
"We're in a society where we're making inanimate objects responsible for our stupidity," he said. "You have to put warnings on things. You can't put your dog in a microwave oven to dry him. Common sense has to take over here."
http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/news-3/102872038119601.xmlc 2002 The Post-Standard. Used with permission
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Three local probation officers have accidentally misfired their weapons in eight years.
August 07, 2002
By John O'BrienStaff writer
When a Syracuse man was struck last week by a bullet fired through the ceiling of his apartment, it marked the third time in eight years that an Onondaga County probation officer had unintentionally discharged one of the department-issued Glock pistols.
Those three incidents, and similar cases in Central New York and elsewhere, come as no surprise to Joseph Cominolli. Cominolli was a Syracuse police sergeant in 1987 when he was assigned to find the best semiautomatic handgun to replace that department's revolvers.
The hot new Glock pistol that other police agencies were then buying had two drawbacks that caused Cominolli to reject it. The Glock had no manual safety switch and no magazine safety that made the gun inoperable when the magazine was removed.
A Glock is a safe weapon, Cominolli said, but only if the person handling it knows how to use it. If the gun is unloaded in the wrong order, for example, a round of ammunition can be left in the chamber without the user realizing it, he said. With no manual safety, the gun will fire if the trigger is pulled.
"Even with good training, people forget," he said. "And guns are not forgiving."
On July 30, Stacey Nunn, a probation officer for about a year, was unloading her .40-caliber Glock when it fired into the floor of her second-story apartment at 1904 James St. The bullet struck her downstairs neighbor, Michael Chapman, in the chest as he was making dinner in his kitchen. Chapman's condition improved from critical to serious this week at University Hospital.
Nunn had removed the magazine from the gun before the weapon fired, according to police.
In 1994, probation officer Susan Beebe shot herself in the knee while unloading her Glock. In September 1998, a firearms instructor for the probation department unintentionally fired his Glock into a wall while teaching a class how to remove the weapon from a holster. The shot put a hole through a classroom wall at the Elbridge Rod and Gun Club.
The gun's inadvertent firing in the hands of a gun expert caused concern, Probation Commissioner Robert Czaplicki said.
"We took a look at what went on," Czaplicki said. "We had a group of people look at it. It raised some red flags."
The firearms instructor is still teaching probation officers, said Czaplicki, who would not identify the instructor.
Cominolli, who is retired from the police, has designed and patented a manual safety device that can be added to Glock pistols. Last year, he talked to Czaplicki about adding the device to the probation department's guns.
Czaplicki said the county then talked with Glock officials about having the device installed. But the county rejected the idea after Glock said it would void the warranty on the guns if the safeties were added, Czaplicki said.
Czaplicki said his department is reconsidering the safeties in light of last week's unintentional discharge that injured Chapman.
Cominolli said he knows of dozens of "unintentional discharges" of Glocks in Central New York over the past 15 years, and estimates there have been thousands across the country. He won't refer to them as accidents because that implies the shootings could not have been prevented.
Syracuse police use Smith & Wesson firearms.
No national statistics are available on which manufacturer's handgun has the most unintentional firings. The Washington Post reported in 1998 that District of Columbia officers, who use Glock 9mm handguns, unintentionally fired their weapons more than 120 times over 10 years.
In 1988, the FBI issued a report on Glock handguns giving them low marks, citing a "high potential for unintentional shots," according to the Post. The agency will not release the report, according to an FBI spokesman in Washington, D.C.
Despite that report, the FBI issues Glocks to its agents.
Last week, a Queens corrections officer fatally shot his son while the officer was unloading his 9mm Glock handgun in his home, according to Newsday. A police chief in Coral Gables, Fla., accidentally fired his .40-caliber Glock last month into his locker at a health club, according to The Miami Herald.
The Onondaga County Sheriff's Department, which has used Glocks since 1992, has had at least three unintentional discharges with the weapon, according to Lt. Thomas Morehouse, a firearms instructor. A deputy fired a shot that grazed his hand in 1992. A detective fired a round into the floor of his patrol car a few years ago. And a deputy accidentally pulled the trigger three years ago and fired a round into the ground at the training range, Morehouse said.
In December, an Oswego County sheriff's deputy accidentally fired his Glock handgun into the foot of a security officer at a nuclear power plant.
Cominolli, a nationally known firearms expert, said he's gotten dozens of calls from lawyers representing police officers who'd shot themselves with Glocks. He tells them he's never heard of a case of the gun malfunctioning. It's always operator error, he said.
'Brain fade' protection
That's why he designed the safety device and is marketing it to police agencies and private gun owners across the country. With the safety on, the trigger bar inside the gun can't move.
"If you have a brain fade and pull the trigger, it won't go bang," Cominolli said.
Newly hired probation officers in Onondaga County must carry a firearm after undergoing 35 hours of training on the shooting range and 14 hours in the classroom, Czaplicki said. Veteran officers in the department have the option of carrying a gun. Probation officers are trained by the department's two state-certified firearms instructors, he said. Forty-one of the county's 84 probation officers now carry a gun on the job. All carry Glocks.
In response to last week's shooting, the department is reviewing its training procedures, Czaplicki said. He wouldn't comment on details of the shooting, except to say it's certain that the trigger on the gun must have been pulled. Initial police reports erroneously said the gun had fired when the officer dropped it.
Mark Doneburgh, Glock's district manager for the Syracuse area, was an Onondaga County sheriff's deputy 14 years ago when he first looked at Glocks. He questioned whether they could hold up because they're made of plastic, so he took the gun up in a helicopter and dropped it to the ground. It didn't break and didn't fire, he said.
Glock doesn't fit its guns with manual safety switches because the guns have three internal "passive" safeties, Doneburgh said. Those safeties automatically disengage when someone pulls the trigger, but they prevent the gun from firing when it's dropped or when the trigger gets bumped from the side.
Remembering the safety
Glocks are popular with police because the revolvers they replaced had no manual safeties, he said. The fear was that officers would have trouble getting used to having to turn off the safety in a gunfight, Doneburgh said. He studied the Glock for the sheriff's department.
"We needed a gun that we could easily transition my people with and that they could feel confident with," he said. "It's a draw, point and shoot gun."
Onondaga County Corrections Commissioner Timothy Cowin said he would not outfit his officers with Glocks until they were fitted with Cominolli's manual safety last year.
"I've been in this business a long time, and I can tell you there are many, many accidental discharges that never get reported," Cowin said. "When people are holstering or drawing that weapon, they automatically put their finger in that trigger guard without even thinking about it."
With training, officers not accustomed to turning off a manual safety can make it a habit, Cowin said.
Cowin said it's unclear whether the added safety means Glock will no longer honor its warranty. He said he decided to make the change anyway because the weapon is unlikely to need any repairs that the correction department's own armorer can't fix.
Many accidental Glock discharges involve unloading. Doneburgh, who teaches gun safety courses at Onondaga Community College, said he always demanded perfection from his police recruits when they unloaded guns during firearms training.
"I used to tell them, No. 1, 'mag' out," he said of the need to remove the magazine before clearing the chamber. "I told them, 'Put your finger on the trigger and I'm going to take a knife and cut it off.' And they believed me. Hopefully, that's going to stay with them for 20 years."
Never found liable
Glock doesn't fit its guns with safeties because many police officers are used to not having to switch them off and because the company has never been found liable for any unintentional shooting, Doneburgh said.
"We've never lost a lawsuit," he said. Doneburgh said he didn't know how many lawsuits the company had settled, and a lawyer for Glock could not be reached for comment.
Cominolli said he's sold between 600 to 800 of the safeties to police agencies and private gun owners in the first year and has orders for more. He charges $75 a gun for law enforcement agencies. Local Glock owners can buy the device at Ra-Lin Discount in Syracuse.
The Kenmore Police Department, near Buffalo, wouldn't have bought Glocks without the added safeties, Cominolli said.
Twelve of the 17 police departments in Onondaga County, including the sheriff's department and state police, issue Glocks to their officers. The only ones that don't are Syracuse, DeWitt, Baldwinsville, North Syracuse and East Syracuse, Doneburgh said.
DeWitt police Capt. Bruce Wahl said he chose the Smith & Wesson semiautomatic partly because it has a manual safety and another safety that makes the gun inoperable without the magazine. Officials at other police agencies, such as Camillus, said they've never had an unintentional firing of a Glock.
"The Glock is accepted by 70 percent of law enforcement agencies in North America," Doneburgh said.
He said he's heard reports of a Glock being unintentionally fired, and each time it's because someone messed up; the gun itself has never malfunctioned.
"We're in a society where we're making inanimate objects responsible for our stupidity," he said. "You have to put warnings on things. You can't put your dog in a microwave oven to dry him. Common sense has to take over here."
http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/news-3/102872038119601.xmlc 2002 The Post-Standard. Used with permission
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
What Do Consumers Learn From Gun Dealers?
Sandra M. Sanguino, MD, MPH; M. Denise Dowd, MD, MPH; Sean A. McEnaney, MD; Jane Knapp, MD; Robert R. Tanz, MD
Objective To explore the type and quality of handgun safety information a typical consumer would obtain from a licensed gun dealer.
Methods Semistructured, interactional on-site interviews were conducted with licensed handgun dealers in 2 metropolitan areas. A variety of dealers (gun shops, pawnshops, general merchandise stores, and sporting goods stores) were visited. Investigators posed as customers interested in buying a handgun. During the interview, investigators expressed concern that as the parent of a 4-year-old child, they needed suggestions about keeping their child safe with a gun in the home. Information collected included basic dealer demographics, opinions on whether a 4-year-old child could pull a handgun trigger, handgun safety advice and recommendations, and the type of safety devices and handgun safety educational materials that were available in the store.
Results There were 96 visits made to gun dealers. The typical salesperson was a man who appeared to be older than 40 years. Trigger locks were the most common safety devices available. When asked what a consumer should know about purchasing a handgun, 85% of salespeople did not mention safe storage. Only 9 (9%) offered advice that included all of the following: keeping the gun securely locked, keeping the gun unloaded, and storing the gun separately from the ammunition. One third answered "no" or "don't know" or "uncertain" when asked if a 4-year-old could pull the trigger. The majority (92%) did not have any handgun safe storage educational materials on site.
Conclusions Salespeople offered potential buyers little or no education about safe storage of handguns. The information provided was often inconsistent with the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2002;156:777-780
View Full Text
Author/Article Information
From the Department of Pediatrics, Division of General Academic Pediatrics, Children's Memorial Hospital, Chicago, Ill (Drs Sanguino and Tanz); and the Department of Pediatrics (Dr McEnaney), and the Division of Emergency Medicine (Drs Dowd and Knapp), Children's Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, Mo.
Corresponding author and reprints: Sandra M. Sanguino, MD, MPH, Division of General Academic Pediatrics, Children's Memorial Hospital, 2300 Children's Plaza, Box 16, Chicago, IL 60614 (e-mail: ssanguino@northwestern.edu).
Accepted for publication April 25, 2002.
This study was presented in part at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies, New Orleans, La, May 3, 1998.
We thank Jennifer Spradley Jones, MSW, for her assistance with data collection.
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/issues/v156n8/abs/poa20082.html
NOTE: By this "study," the reader might come away thinking we're to conclude that the American Academy of Pediatrics is the best organization to oversee gun safety training.
If this is what AAP is suggesting, because the doctors will be so busy teaching people how to field strip firearms to remove obstructions and how to load, unload, shoot and clean weapons, we'd like to nominate their replacements:
Gun Owners of America and the National Rifle Association can take over ear, nose and throat diagnoses and treatment nationwide;
Front Sight Training Center in Nevada can instruct doctors on how to care for young children's broken bones; and
GunCite in Arizona can oversee the training of pediatric surgeons.
It's a good thing we've got smart doctors like this in our country -- we'd never have come up with these brilliant ideas on our own.
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Former cop on trial for murdering his wife says shooting death was "an accident"
By LISE FISHER
Sun staff writer
PALATKA - A defense attorney for a former Interlachen police officer accused of shooting to death his estranged wife told jurors it was a case of self-defense.
Tim Alessi fired his gun, attorney Tricia Jenkins said, because his brother-in-law, who was standing behind his sister, was armed and Alessi believed he had to defend himself.
"The death of Polly Alessi was a terrible accident," Jenkins said in her opening statement at the trial in the Putnam County Courthouse.
Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence without parole for Alessi, 45. He is charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and armed burglary of a dwelling in the death of his 28-year-old wife and the shooting of her brother, Kevin Herron, 34, on Aug. 29. The shooting took place at her home at 114 Rica Road, five miles east of Hawthorne.
"Kevin was in the mix and he had a gun," Jenkins said. That's when Tim Alessi became "all police officer," she said. "He's in close quarters, he's in danger and he reacted."
But Assistant State Attorney Noah McKinnon said Herron was not armed at the time of the shooting. He got his gun after he and his sister had been hit. That weapon was never fired.
McKinnon said the veteran officer, who was off-duty at the time, shot the two after an argument erupted between him and Polly outside her home. At the last minute, she apparently had changed her mind about letting him take their son, Joey, home with him.
The couple's 11-year marriage had been rocky, family and friends have said. In the weeks before her death, it apparently hit a low point with Polly Alessi filing for divorce and a restraining order against her husband, court records show. She later asked that a temporary injunction against him be dismissed.
Jurors viewed boxes and bags of evidence including Polly Alessi's bloody clothes and the alleged murder weapon, found in a storm drain near The Oaks Mall in Gainesville.
The prosecution also played a 911 call made by Polly Alessi's sister-in-law in which she frantically asks for help for the two shooting victims.
As the clothes were removed, displayed for jurors and the tape played, Tim Alessi's face grew red and he bowed his head while wiping away tears.
Dan Alessi, a South Florida minister, watched with his other two brothers from the audience. "Tim is a wonderful brother and terrific father," he said. "We all love Polly very much. We're just very, very sad about this tragic accident."
The trial continues today and is expected to last through the week.
Lise Fisher can be reached at 374-5092 or fisherl@
http://www.gainesvillesun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Site=GS&Date=20020807&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=208070333&Ref=AR&Profile=1007&SectionCat=LOCAL
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
LINDA DEUTSCH
AP Special Correspondent
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A former police officer who was a key figure in a sweeping corruption scandal was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison for perjury and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Nino Durden, 33, will serve the state sentence in federal prison at the same time he serves a three-year federal term for civil rights violations and possession of an illegal firearm.
He was sentenced for a variety of crimes including the 1996 shooting of gang member Javier Francisco Ovando. Durden and his partner, Rafael Perez, shot Ovando, placed a firearm in his hand and testified falsely that Ovando threatened them.
Ovando, who was paralyzed, was convicted of assault, but was released three years into his sentence after the officers admitted they framed him.
A federal investigation revealed that members of the police department's anti-gang unit in the Rampart area west of downtown beat and framed scores of innocent people. Numerous criminal cases were overturned because they were tainted by the illegal actions of officers.
Durden pleaded guilty in March to six state charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice, perjury, grand theft and filing a false report. His federal sentence was reduced by more than 30 years because he cooperated with investigators.
"All in all we are pleased with the total sentence," Durden attorney Bill Seki said. "But we're not pleased with the fact that Ray Perez doesn't do more time. He does 24 months. Nino, who was the follower, gets five years."
Durden must surrender to federal authorities Sept. 12.
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/nation/3817758.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
LONG BEACH (AP) -- Police here are accused in a lawsuit of using excessive force in detaining a couple in April 2000 as they walked through a wooded area with pellet guns.
Frank and Denise McMullen, formerly of Long Beach, filed the suit against the city of Long Beach, officer Ray Willoughby, and former officers Anthony Kallas and Rusty Schultz. It is the second lawsuit filed against Kallas and Schultz in the last two months.
The lawsuit, which was filed last week in Harrison County Circuit Court, alleges Long Beach officers caused physical and mental injuries to the couple and Denise McMullen's three minor children.
The police officers were responding to a report that four men and a woman were walking in a wooded area in Long Beach with a machine gun, the lawsuit states. The McMullens, who were living in Long Beach at the time, said they had pellet guns.
The couple claims Kallas, Schultz and Willoughby deprived them of their constitutional rights and caused "severe physical injuries," even after they complied with the officers' orders.
City attorney Jim Simpson said Monday he was familiar with the incident, but was not aware that the couple had filed the lawsuit.
Kallas and Schultz are also at the center of another lawsuit.
Coast Attorney Billy Miller said Monday he filed a lawsuit last month against Kallas and Schultz on behalf of Nicole Brown.
Brown, 15, was charged with truancy in March 2001. She claims Kallas tackled her and Schultz jammed his knee into her back during the arrest.
Kallas and Schultz resigned from the department a few weeks after the incident with the McMullens. Willoughby is on medical leave.
Miller represents both Brown and the McMullen family.
http://www.picayuneitem.com/display/inn_news/12pellet.txt
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By Matt Krasnowski
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
Manhattan Beach police officer Eric Eccles, already facing criminal assault charges for allegedly beating a man with his flashlight, was named Tuesday in a federal civil rights lawsuit stemming from the same incident.
The suit filed by Daniel Wayne Chance also names the city and another police officer as defendants. Chance contends that Eccles struck him in the arms, legs, head and body even though Chance offered no resistance during a Dec. 29, 2001, arrest.
Eccles "took a flashlight that weighs 6 pounds and beat a person who was not resisting," said Chance's lawyer, Peter Goldstein. "This is one of the most outrageous cases I've ever seen."
The suit calls for no specific cash award, but Goldstein filed a $5 million claim with the city earlier this year. The city has acknowledged receipt of the claim but has not formally accepted or rejected it, Goldstein said.
Efforts to contact anyone with the Manhattan Beach City Attorney's Office were unsuccessful Tuesday.
A lawyer representing Eccles in his criminal case did not return a message.
Eccles, 26, was indicted in May on state charges of assault under the color of authority and filing false statements in a police report. He is on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the criminal case.
According to the suit, Chance, 20, who now lives in Texas, was a passenger in a car during a traffic stop on Rosecrans Avenue shortly after midnight.
Chance was "scared so he did an imprudent act - he opened the passenger side door and ran into a darkened back yard" to elude the officers, the suit states.
The suit contends Eccles indicated he would beat Chance when he was discovered and it quotes Eccles as saying he would make Chance "do a tap dance."
When the officer found Chance hiding under a piece of plywood in a back yard, he struck Chance repeatedly "without warning, without provocation and without uttering a single command," the suit states. Chance suffered serious and permanent injuries to his head, ankle, knee, shoulder and torso.
The suit also named officer Victor Guzman as a defendant. Goldstein said Guzman is partly responsible for the incident because, on Eccles request, the officer turned off his flashlight so no one could witness him striking Chance. Guzman stopped Eccles after being ordered by a supervisor.
http://www.dailybreeze.com/content/bln/nmbeating7.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878