by Garry Reed, Libertarian News Examiner

Libertarians concerned with America’s growing police state should know there is a small but growing resistance within law enforcement itself.

Even after the Colorado State University Student Senate resoundingly endorsed their longstanding right of concealed carry the board of governors voted to ban all guns from the campus.

But Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden had already told students in an email that his office would “not hold or detain a valid permit holder who violates that policy, nor would his department have anything to do with enforcing that policy.”

A legal battle over the anti self-defense decision is currently ongoing.

During a protest and counter protest between a Christian group and a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) group on the Kutztown University campus last summer campus police Corporal Steven Armbruster was ordered by his chief to “push” members of the Christian group off of the campus. When Armbruster refused the order on the grounds that it would violate their Constitutional rights he was immediately relieved of his duties and told to leave the scene.

Armbruster was suspended for five days, had a disciplinary letter placed in his personnel file, lost $600 in wages and claims in a lawsuit against the university that he has been passed over for “training and promotional opportunities.”

The Christian-based Alliance Defense Fund is defending him in the ongoing suit while Oath Keepers named Armbruster theirOath Keeper of the year at their October conference.

Oath Keepers is a relatively new “non-partisan association of currently serving military, veterans, peace officers, and firefighters” who promise to disobey unconstitutional orders.

Preceding Oath Keepers into the anti Police State fray was Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), founded in 2002 by members of law enforcement who oppose the Drug War and demand on their website, “Repeal Prohibition Now!”

Bill Masters, a speaker for LEAP, has served as sheriff of San Miguel County (Telluride), Colorado, since 1979, where he became the nation’s first Libertarian sheriff. In his book, Drug War Addiction, he tells how he was so good at fighting the war on drugs he earned a DEA award until “He discovered the drug war is itself an addiction.”

Read the rest at this link.

by William N. Grigg

“Twisted sense of entitlement”: Police extortionist David M. Cohen (left), and his accessory, former Chief Manuel Cachopa (below, right).

David Cohen, a nebbishy, balding fellow fromStoughton, Massachusetts, seemed poorly cast as a loan shark.

Unlike Chili Palmer, the mob debt collector created by Elmore Leonard (and played on screen by John Travolta), Cohen couldn’t pry open the bank accounts of recalcitrant debtors simply by fixing them with a steely gaze and hissing, “Look at me.”

Cohen was dispatched by a friend named PeterMarinilli to collect $9,000 from a businessman named Timothy Hills. Frustrated when his demand didn’t reduce Hills to a puddle of compliant jello, Cohen — a sergeant in the Staughton Police Department — tried a different approach: He placed Hills under arrest, handcuffed him, and detained him until the businessman signed a promissory note to Marinilli.

Hills had received $10,000 from Marinilli as an investment in a business deal, and he later admitted in court that he had taken the money under false pretenses. During the same trial, one of Hills’ former employees described him as chronically dishonest and entirely unreliable — in short, a terrible credit risk.

Given that history it seems odd that Cohen had Hills sign a promissory note, a document that most likely wouldn’t have been necessary had the debt to Marinilli been legally enforceable. Cohen, a part-time attorney in addition to being a police sergeant, must have understood that the debt couldn’t be collected without a legally valid contract.

What Cohen seems to have forgotten is that forcing a hostage to sign a contract at gunpoint is extortion.

Hills immediately filed a complaints against Cohen with the Staughton Police Department, the Board of Bar Overseers and the Massachusetts Attorney General.

This prompted an investigation of Cohen by Lt. Michael Blount of the department’s internal affairs unit. Blount’s inquiry didn’t sit well with Manuel J. Cachopa, who at the time was Chief of theStaughton Police.

“Why are you trying to f**k this officer?”Cachopa asked Blount on one occasion.

Cachopa refused to cooperate with the investigation in any way, demanding thatBlount simply “get rid” of it.

All of this took place between 2002 and 2004. During that period, Cachopa was demoted to Lieutenant after the town selectmen refused to renew his contract as Chief. Two of Cachopa’s critics were removed in a recall election, and Cachopa was reinstated — just in time to be hit with a felony indictment for being an accessory after the fact to Cohen’s extortion attempt.

Up to this point, the damage done by this sordid business was limited to those directly involved in a dubious business venture and a handful of less-than-upright police officers. However, whenCachopa was indicted, the local taxpayers were cut in for a share of misery: Cachopa was placed on “administrative leave” from 2005 until his conviction in 2009, which means that he collected his full annual salary of $139,000 for doing nothing while another paid official carried out the duties of Police Chief.

Cohen was convicted on four criminal counts and sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison.Cachopa was found guilty of acting as an accessory to extortion and given three years’ probation, in addition to 1,000 hours of community service. Cachopa could have received a seven-year prison sentence.

Despite their criminal convictions, Cohen and Cachopa insist that they are entitled to nearly three-quarters of a million dollars from the long-suffering taxpayers of Staughton, Massachusetts – most of it going to pay the legal bills they ran up during their own criminal trials.

Through his attorney, David Cohen — who was released from prison while appealing his conviction(a consideration not many convicted extortionists receive) — has filed a demand for at least $113,000, a sum that includes “87 accrued vacation days, 125 unused sick days, 144 hours of compensation time accrued for not using sick time, 152 hours of supervisor comp time, 481 hours for court appearances related to his criminal case, 280 hours of overtime to prepare for his case, and least 61 percent education incentive pay for 2007, and 61 percent for accrued stipends and benefits,” reports the Brockton, Massachusetts Enterprise-News.

Not content with collecting $600,000 in salary and benefits during his four-year “administrative leave,” Cachopa is now demanding $549,000 to pay his legal bills, and $55,978 in vacation and sick pay. The Enterprise-News editorially lambasted Cachopa for his “twisted sense of entitlement” while pointing out that “the ill-considered contract language” agreed to by the City of Staughton “is loose enough to give his lawyers a fighting chance in court.”

“This is a union contract that clearly and unequivocally states that if charged with a criminal offense or sued, the town indemnifies you,” insists Kevin Reddington, a member of Cachopa’s legal team.

A much better arrangement would have been to put Cachopa on unpaid leave and, in the event he was cleared of charges, “give him back pay and benefits,” observed the Enterprise-News. “Instead,Cachopa was on extended vacation, able to collect his annual salary of $139,000 year after year while the town struggled to keep its financial head above water.” Assuming that Cachopa and Cohen are able to force the town to make good on the terms of their union contracts, the resulting financial undertow may drag Staughton down for good.

The “twisted sense of entitlement” displayed by those corrupt officers is entirely typical of the “public servant” class nation-wide. Yes, this self-serving arrogance is particularly acute among police, firefighters and other “public safety” employees, who – statistical evidence to the contrary notwithstanding – describe their jobs as so fraught with peril and stress that they shorten the life expectancy of those who somehow manage to live until retirement. But similar self-exalting attitudes suffuse government employees in every field that is blighted by the state’s influence.

As Steven Greenhut of the Orange County Register documents in his infuriating new book Plunder! How Public Employee Unions are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives, and Bankrupting the Nation, this pervasive sense of entitlement has been translated into financial burdens that are suffocating local economies.

During the past several decades, writes Greenhut, “politicians have been dramatically increasing the pay and especially the benefits for all categories of government workers [sic; I prefer the term "government employees" -- WNG]. The pay structure also has a sort of multiplier effect. Because they receive such generous pensions, public-safety workers are encouraged to retire at an early age, thus leading to `shortages’ in law enforcement in particular. The taxpayer gets hammered twice, as he pays full freight for retired employees and then has to pay for a full-time replacement.”

The coprophagous grin of an impenitent parasite: Meet Glenn Goss, the pension-spiking millionaire police chief of Highland Beach, Florida. Remember that smile next time you look at your 401(k).

Chief Cachopa’s case, in which he received a full salary for four years after being suspended following his criminal indictment, is a particularly obnoxious variation on the familiar scheme described by Greenhut. Another version that involves what has to be considered criminal fraud is the case of Glenn Goss, the Police Chief in Highland Beach, Florida.

In 2005, the same year Cachopa began his all-expenses-paid vacation, Goss retired from his $90,000-a-year job as a police commander in Delray Beach. At the age of 42 he began drawing a $65,000 annual pension — guaranteed for life, indexed to inflation, and including full health benefits. Goss draws that pension in spite of the fact that he immediately took a better-paying job as Chief of the Highland Beach Police Department.

At age 47, this “poor, honest cop” is now a tax-fed millionaire — merely one of countless others,Greenhut points out. With increasing frequency, government employees “are made instant millionaires just for taking a job and sticking with it over their career,” notes Greenhut. “This certainly is easier than taking the more traditional American route to becoming a millionaire, through risk-taking and entrepreneurship.”

Government employment rewards creative deviousness, rather than risk-taking and productivity. Former Fullerton, California Mayor Mike Clesceri presents a splendid case study.

In addition to being mayor — a part-time job – Clesceri worked as an investigator for the district attorney. When he had a falling-out with his boss, Clesceri filed for a disability pension of $58,000 (complete with COLA), claiming that he was crippled by Barrett’s Esophagus, a condition related to acid reflux.

While waiting for his disability pension to kick in, Clesceri “pursued a local police chief’s job and remained on the job as mayor and ran a tough re-election campaign,” recalls Greenhut. “He even had time to have his brother-in-law attorney send threatening letters to members of the community who commented on the absurdity of his disability pension.”

“Pension-spiking” scams of this variety are plentiful in California, a state being driven into financial ruin by its rampant “public employee” unions. Thanks to the terms of their union-negotiated contracts, many firefighters and police (particularly in the upper echelons) are afflicted with “Chief’s Disease” — a mysterious malady that causes those who suffer from its multifarious symptoms to go on disability pay during their final year of employment.

As the Los Angeles Daily News pointed out, this means that the final year’s salary is tax-free, which “creates an artificial boost in take-home pay, which is how the final pensions are tabulated. The [spurious] injury also paves the way for a disability retirement with half the income being tax-free. The bottom line is more money for firefighters [as well as police] during their lifetime pension at the expense of a public that will be lucky to retire on a paltry Social Security check.”

Often several scams will operate in synergy, resulting in huge profits for tax-feeders and a much larger burden for the productive. For example: A lucrative new pension plan for Orange County deputy sheriffs resulted in a wave of early retirements. At the same time, the Sheriff’s Office, in compliance with union demands, went to a three-day “work” week. The Orange County Registerdescribed the predictable results: “After enhanced pensions led to a large number of retirements, deputies with four days a week off were happy to fill up the empty shifts with overtime.”

Cops as Robbers: Remember Fahrenheit 451, in which the “Firemen” were sent to start fires? Police in Detroit today serve a similar function, stealing cars and other assets in order to make up for tax “shortfalls.”

Orange County employs more than one hundred deputy sheriffs. Nearly all of them make more than $100,000 a year, despite the fact that “culture and discipline problems” are rampant in the department.

Scams of this kind are more plentiful in California than in some other states, but asGreenhut demonstrates, few if any municipalities have been spared from the ravages of omnivorous public employee interest groups.

“At all levels, state and local government employment grew by 13 percent across the United States from 1994 to 2004,” he writes. During the past half-century, the country’s population has grown 115 percent. During the same period, the sub-population of tax-feeders increased by 492 percent. The federal government is now the nation’s largest single employer.

“I fear that the nation has reached critical mass — the number of government employees at every level has gotten so high that it is politically impossible to roll back the bureaucracy and rein in the costs,” Greenhut observes. Be that as it may, he suggests several very sensible reforms, among them the quite sensible proposal that “public employee” unions be banned.

Summoning the political will to enact such measures will be difficult, however, in an electorate long inured to the repellent notion that it’s proper to live at the expense of others. This suggests that the parasite class will continue to propagate itself until it entirely kills its host economy. And then — what…?

Robbed by the Police: Detroit resident Jacque Sutton, who was never charged with a crime, had to pay $1,000 to recover his 1989 Ford Mustang after it was stolen (“forfeited”) by the police. “It’s like legalized stealing,” he complains. No, it is “legalized” stealing.

Michigan offers a glimpse of what may become a common future. In 2006,Greenhut notes, total government employment in Michigan exceeded the number of manufacturing employees for the first time in recorded history. Already teetering on the edge of the economic abyss in 2006, Michigan — particularly Detroit and its immediate environs — is now plummeting rapidly into the bottomless pit of a depression.

In Detroit, municipal authorities, led by the local police, have dealt with the downturn by resorting to undisguised theft. The Detroit News reports: “Local law enforcement agencies are raising millions of dollars by seizing private property suspected in crimes, but often without charges being filed — and sometimes even when authorities admit no offense was committed.”

Between 2003 and 2007, Romulus, Michigan witnessed a 118 percent increase in forfeiture revenues (the theft, by police, of money and property from people not charged with criminal offenses) despite the fact that there has not been a corresponding increase in criminal activity. Well, make that unofficial criminal activity. One township, Novi, went from $12,278 in 2003 to $2.7 million in 2007. The Wayne County Sheriff’s Office netted $8.69 million in 2007, four times the haul its banditti seized in 2001.

Sgt. Dave Schreiner, who is in charge of Canton Township’s forfeiture unit — which is to say that he’s the kingpin of that community’s most notorious criminal gang — is astonishingly candid: “Police departments right now are looking for ways to generate revenue, and forfeiture is a way t offset the costs of doing business…. You’ll find that departments are doing more forfeitures than they used to because they’ve got to — they’re running out of money and they’ve got to find it somewhere.”

When it can afford to, the Brotherhood of Plunder prefers to shroud its criminality in the sanctimonious argot of “public service.” That veil is being lifted, and the Robber State is revealing itself in the full malevolence of its criminal corruption.

by Digby, Salon.com

Like Glenn, I write a lot about civil liberties, which have been at the heart of the national conversation since the beginning of the War On Terror and the expansion of the national security state. But my interest in civil liberties predates 9/11 and until then was usually pointed at the far more prosaic issues of police and prosecutorial misconduct (and the inevitable conclusions any study of those things brings to the issue of the death penalty). Nowadays, the theme of civil liberties seem to be a sub-plot to a James Bond flick rather than “To Kill A Mockingbird.” And yet, I think the two are intertwined much more closely that we think. In our apparent acceptance of torture as a legal method of interrogation, the bar of civilized official behavior has been lowered to the point where we are accepting torture in everyday life as if it’s nothing. Indeed, we are using it as a form of entertainment.

I’m speaking of the ever more common use of the Taser, an electrical device used by police and other authorities to drop its victims to the ground and coerce instant compliance. The videos of various incidents make the rounds on the internet and you can see by the comments at the YouTube site that a large number of Americans find tasering to be a sort of slapstick comedy, the equivalent of someone slipping on a banana peel, with a touch of that authoritarian cruelty that always seems to amuse a certain kind of person. “Don’t tase me bro” is a national catch phrase.

Tasers aren’t benign however. They kill people. Nobody knows exactly why some people die from being tasered, and they certainly don’t know how to tell in advance which ones are at risk. But there have been hundreds of deaths similar to the one below, which nobody can adequately explain:

A Detroit teenager who police say fled a traffic stop Friday died after being subdued with a Taser. He is the second Michigan teen to die following a Taser stun in less than a month. Warren Police say they don’t know why the 15-year-old bailed out of a Dodge Stratus he was riding in during the stop on Eight Mile near Schoenherr, leading officers on a half-block chase that ended in an abandoned house on Pelkey in Detroit. The car was stopped for having an expired license plate. In the scuffle, officers shocked the teen one time with a Taser, police said. Shortly after, he became unresponsive and died.

Taser International has successfully defended themselves in lawsuits by attributing the deaths to drug use and if that doesn’t work do to the fact that drugs were not present in the victim, they rely on an unrecognized medical condition called “excited delirium”,a disease that only afflicts people who die in police custody. Juries apparently find this convincing. Taser has only lost one case.

But that isn’t the real problem, although it may eventually be the path by which tasers are banned for use in civilized countries. As awful as the possibility of death is, tasers would be a blight on any free people even if they weren’t so often deadly. Tasers were sold to the public as a tool for law enforcement to be used in lieu of deadly force. Presumably, this means situations in which officers would have previously had to use their firearms. It’s hard to argue with that, and I can’t think of a single civil libertarian who would say that this would be a truly civilized advance in policing. Nobody wants to see more death and if police have a weapon they can employ instead of a gun, in self defense or to stop someone from hurting others, I think we all can agree that’s a good thing.

But that’s not what’s happening. Tasers are routinely used by police to torture innocent people who have not broken any law and whose only crime is being disrespectful toward their authority or failing to understand their “orders.” There is ample evidence that police often take no more than 30 seconds to talk to citizens before employing the taser, they use them while people are already handcuffed and thus present no danger, and are used often against the mentally ill and handicapped. It is becoming a barbaric tool of authoritarian, social control.

Last week there were three taser episodes that made the rounds on the internet. (There may have been more, but these were the three most discussed.) The first was of a drunken, belligerent man at a baseball game who after 41 seconds of discussion was tasered while sitting in his seat. Indeed, the video shows that the taser threw him down onto the cement steps where he rolled down several. Since this scene must have happened literally thousands of times over the years, you have to wonder what they must have done in the past. Somehow I doubt they pulled out a gun and shot them.

The second incident was this sad tale of a man who allegedly refused to come out of a store restroom. Police blew pepper spray under the door, kicked it open and instantly tasered the man. It was only afterward that they discovered he was deaf. Police tried to book the man anyway, but the magistrate refused to accept the charges.

It was the third incident, however, that should get civil libertarians’ serious attention. It featured an Idaho man on a bicycle who happened to ride past a police stop in progress on the side of the road. He had nothing to do with the stop, but was pulled over by the police and told to produce his ID. He said, correctly, that he had no legal obligation to produce ID and the police insisted he must. The situation escalated and he demanded that they call a supervisor to the scene when the police said they were going to arrest him. He ended up being tasered seven times — you can hear him moaning in pain on the tape at the end. (In an especially creepy moment, the police try to confiscate the tape of the incident.)

Now, many people will say that he should have just showed his ID, that it’s stupid to confront police, that like Henry Louis Gates you get what you deserve if you mouth off to the cops. And on a pragmatic level this is certainly true (although I would reiterate what I wrote here about a free people not being required to view the police in the same way they view a criminal street gang, which is to say in fear.) But the fact remains that there is no law against riding a bicycle without ID, and there is no law against mouthing off to the police. Certainly, there can be no rationale behind using a weapon designed to replace deadly force seven times against someone under these circumstances.

These are just three incidents that happened last week. There’s nothing special about them. They happen every day.

Click here to read the rest and see video of some incidents.