Police officers have a tough job that is far from predictable. Unfortunately, the public has to also deal with a police force that is far from predictable. They can either act in the selfless manner that the first two stories indicate and get praise, or they can act in a totally irresponsible power-hungry manner like in the other stories provided, and get almost universal condemnation.
For those who only want to read the best actions of police officers, read no further than the Jekyll and Hyde illustration. Unfortunately, these are becoming more of the exceptions rather than the rules for officer behavior.
One has to wonder whether the public officers and hospital personnel involved in the latter articles (one linked to) believe that what they did was serving the public in any manner, and whether they would believe that such tactics used against themselves or their own mother or father would be acceptable.
How can we further encourage the positive behaviors of the DePrimo's and the Blanchard PD, and discourage the negative behaviors of those that would allow such a breakdown of human rights against those who were innocent of any crime?
Back in November of 2012, NYPD officer Lawrence DePrimo, who was on counterterrorism duty in Times Square, saw an older homeless man without shoes sitting on 42nd Street. DePrimo, 25, left and then returned with a pair of $100 boots he bought at a nearby Skechers store.
"It was freezing out, and you could see the blisters on the man's feet," DePrimo, a three-year veteran of the department who lives with his parents on Long Island, told the New York Times. "I had two pairs of socks, and I was still cold."
This year, another amazing act of kindness was performed by the police officers of an Oklahoma city to the victims of a Grinch that tried to steal their Christmas. Be sure to check out the amazing attitude of the youngest victim in the video at the link provided at the end, who knew that Santa would come through for her.
BLANCHARD, Okla. —Shannon Hollins said she and her two daughters came home on Christmas Eve and found their Blanchard home burglarized.
"All the things that I had worked so hard to get for them," said Hollins. "It's not easy, single mom trying to provide for my kids."
Morgan Williams, 12, said she was mostly upset for her little sister.
"It's not all about the presents and everything, but since she expects everything to be there," said Morgan.
Lilly Williams, 7, said Santa Claus is her favorite person and told her mom not to worry.
"I said he'd still come," she said.
According to Hollins, all the presents under the family's tree were gone. Their TVs, laptops and even presents they bought for others were stolen.
Blanchard officers who investigated the Christmas Eve burglary were heartbroken for the family. Officer Brandon Wheeler said they teamed up with some McClain County deputies and jumped at the opportunity to help.
"I called every place that we could think of and finally got a hold of Target," said Wheeler. "They were only going to be open for about 10 more minutes."
But Wheeler said the manager of the Norman store kept it open for officers to buy gifts.
"It was spur-of-the-moment," he said. "We wanted to make sure the kids had something to open up in the morning."
Check out the heart-warming video at: KOCO News
But there was also a lot of poor police behavior in the news to offset the fine actions of the Blanchard Police Department and the McClain County Sheriff Department who came to save the day for three Oklahoma women. Just another state to the south, another incident not much unlike another one that was reported here in November entitled real-stories-of-the-hershey-highway-patrol which took place in Deming, New Mexico.
Police took the man in that story to a hospital to be repeatedly probed invasively by the hospital for illegal drugs without his consent or any stated probable cause within reason. Not only was there not any drugs to be found, but the man was later sent a bill by the hospital for the procedures the officers put him through. Think that could only happen once? Guess again; Federal border guards based in El Paso outdid the Deming PD, and once again, a New Mexico resident (this time a woman) was the victim.
Although the events happened last year on December 12, 2012, the lawsuit it inspired was filed just a few days before this Christmas.
The 54-year-old woman, who is not identified in the suit, is asking for an unspecified amount of money and to end the policy that gives federal agents and officers the authority to stick their fingers and objects up people's cavities when they search for drugs.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union in federal court in El Paso on behalf of the woman who was stopped as she crossed at the Bridge of the Americas a year ago. Despite the six-hour search at the port and then later at UMC, no drugs were found.
The woman is identified as Jane Doe in the lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, the woman was first frisked and strip-searched at the port of entry, where officers stuck their fingers inside her rectum and vagina. When that search came up negative, she was taken to University Medical Center.
"These extreme and illegal searches deeply traumatized our client," ACLU of New Mexico Legal Director Laura Schauer Ives said in the news release. "The fact that our government treated an innocent 54-year-old woman with such brutality and inhumanity should outrage all Americans. We must ensure that government agents never put another person through a nightmare like this ever again."
A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a prepared statement that the agency could not talk about a specific lawsuit.
"As a practice CBP does not comment on pending litigation," the statement said. "CBP stresses honor and integrity in every aspect of our mission, and the overwhelming majority of CBP employees and officers perform their duties with honor and distinction, working tirelessly every day to keep our country safe. We do not tolerate corruption or abuse within our ranks, and we fully cooperate with any criminal or administrative investigations of alleged misconduct by any of our personnel, on or off-duty."
University Medical Center also declined to get into specifics of the lawsuit.
"Hospital policy is to obtain consent from all patients who receive medical services at UMC," spokeswoman Margaret Altoff-Olivas said in a statement. "Because this case involves litigation, UMC will not be commenting further."
The search took place at about 2 p.m. Dec. 12, 2012, when the woman was coming back from seeing a family friend, whom she calls "uncle" and tries to visit once a month.
As her passport was swiped, a CBP officer told her she was "randomly" picked for a secondary inspection, where Portillo and Herrera frisked her through her clothing.
"One of the agents ran her finger over Ms. Doe's genital area during the frisk," the lawsuit said.
Then the woman was told to squat as one of the officers "inserted her finger in the crevice of Ms. Doe's buttocks." The frisk did not show any evidence of contraband or drugs, the lawsuit said.
Then the woman was told to stand in a line with other people as a drug-sniffing dog walked by.
The officer with the dog "hit the ground by her feet, but did not hit the ground by any of the others in the line," the lawsuit said. "The dog responded by lunging onto Ms. Doe and landing its front paws on her torso."
Ives said she does not believe this was a proper signal to indicate a drugs were present, but officers used it to continue the search.
The woman was taken to another room and asked to take off her pants and crouch as her anus and vagina were examined with a flashlight, the lawsuit said.
The woman, now crying, was taken to University Medical Center after the strip search did not find anything.
"During the car ride to the Medical Center, Ms. Doe asked if the agents had a warrant," the lawsuit said. "One of them responded that they did not need a warrant."
While handcuffed to an examination table, the woman was searched again by both officers and Cabanillas and Parsa. She was given a laxative and had a bowel movement in a portable toilet in front of both officers, the lawsuit said.
Then the woman's abdomen was X-rayed, but there were no signs of drugs or any other contraband in the woman's body. A speculum was used to probe her vagina and Parsa's fingers were used to inspect both her vagina and rectum while the door to the examining room was left open, the lawsuit said.
At this point the lawsuit claims, "Ms. Doe felt that she was being treated less than human, like an animal."
The last test was a CT scan of the woman's abdomen and pelvis, which resulted in no evidence of illegal activity being found.
The lawsuit said after the CT scan one of the officers told the woman she could sign the medical consent form and CBP would pay for the exams, but if she did not sign, she would be charged. The woman refused to sign and eventually she was charged more than $5,000 for the examinations.
According to the lawsuit, she repeatedly refused to consent to any of the searches.
University Medical Center's search of patients policy states, "Associates, members of Medical Staff, Residents or Allied Health Professionals may search a patient only when necessary to comply with a search warrant." Under the subhead procedure, the policy states, "...unless a patient consents, an invasion of the patient's body to obtain evidence requires a search warrant."
A warrant was not obtained, the lawsuit said.
"However, in practice, the Medical Center staff and CBP agents routinely conduct invasive cavity searches without warrant, consent or sufficient suspicion to justify the searches," the lawsuit said. "When Ms. Doe expressed dismay about the unreasonable searches she suffered, a Medical Center employee responded that these procedures were routinely followed when an individual is brought in by CBP agents."
In a phone interview, Ives said searches like the one the 54-year-old woman went through are illegal and becoming common among law enforcement.
"When the less intrusive search didn't find any evidence of drugs, more intrusive searches should have not been used," Ives said. "Any one of those searches should have eliminated any suspicion of drugs. A second search should make it clear and at most a third search should have been the last."
She said: "The fact that this happened to a 54-year-old woman should outrage anyone. She did ask to talk to an attorney and she did ask for a warrant. I don't know what guarantees there are to our rights other than a lawsuit like this one that hold the government agencies responsible."
http://www.elpasotimes.com/latestnews/ci_24750069/woman-sues-over-d...
