Cruel Hand Lucas...
A woman claimed a police officer slammed her head against a wall, punched and kicked her in the torso. A man said he was beaten with a flashlight. A woman blamed an officer for restraining her boyfriend so violently that it killed him.
Each of these people allege misconduct by Minneapolis police officer Lucas Peterson, a decorated cop who joined the force in 2000. Since then, he has been named in at least 13 excessive force complaints that so far have cost the city and other agencies more than $700,000 in settlements, court and city records show. Since 2006, the city has settled nine claims involving Peterson, more than any other officer over the past seven years.
Peterson, who became a Minneapolis police officer on Oct. 22, 2000, started out on the night shift in Southwest and then south Minneapolis, according to his personnel file. He was named to the Metro Gang Strike Force in 2006, but was one of the officers investigated three years later when the state Department of Public Safety shut the force down amid allegations that Strike Force members conducted improper searches, seized property without authorization and injured people who were not suspects. The unit’s actions led to a $3 million settlement for victims of Strike Force misconduct.
Attorney Kenneth Udoibok said in the last four years, Peterson “stands out” as a cop who is not afraid to use force, at times excessive.
Udoibok sued Peterson in 2011 on behalf of Bill Dumas, who claimed the officer, as part of the Strike Force, kicked and punched him when he was face down on the ground. The League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust settled the case for $15,000.
“He’s not the only cop going out and putting himself in these high-risk situations,” Udoibok said. “But they don’t get sued.”
In a complaint filed by Symone Taylor in 2006, Taylor alleges Peterson “slammed” her “head into the side of the building, causing injury to her head, cheek, and face. Plaintiff Taylor was further beaten, assaulted, thrown to the ground and viciously kicked in the torso and back.” The case was settled in 2009 for $15,000.
In 2006, Peterson and officer Mark Kaspszak struggled with Derrick Simmons after a traffic stop, according to a lawsuit filed by Johnson. Peterson wrote in a police report that Nancy Johnson, Simmons’ partner, jumped on a police officer’s back as he fought with Simmons, but a surveillance camera later showed Johnson didn’t touch the officers. The city settled the two claims for $100,000.
Stephen Smith, Johnson’s attorney, was shocked that Peterson was still on the force. “At least slap him on the wrist,” Smith said. “But I suppose I was assuming too much.”
In 2002, the Minneapolis NAACP called for the firing of Peterson and officer Mark Johnson after the death of Christopher Burns. On Nov. 1 of that year, the officers had responded to a reported domestic dispute between Burns and his fiancée, Bernadine McWhorter, when they put him in a neck hold that led to cardiac arrest, the complaint said. The Hennepin County medical examiner ruled Burns’ death a homicide. In 2003, a grand jury determined that the officer’s use of a neck hold was appropriate to subdue Burns, but in 2007, the city paid $300,000 to settle the excessive force lawsuit filed by McWhorter.
... or 'Dirty Harry' Peterson?
Yet, his supervisors and fellow officers praise Peterson as a courageous and exemplary cop.
Peterson’s work history includes a letter of reprimand from 2008 for a policy violation, according to a department spokesperson. No further information was immediately available. His personnel file also reveals an officer revered by his peers and supervisors.
He was named the [Minneapolis] officer of the year for the Fourth Precinct, which covers the city’s North Side, in 2009, 2010 and 2012. He has twice been awarded the department’s Medal of Valor, most recently last month.
“He’s kind of, in my opinion, what we wish every cop could be,” said John Delmonico, president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis. Delmonico said he’s known Peterson since he was a kid growing up in south Minneapolis. Peterson’s grandfather, father and uncle were all police officers. “Clearly it’s in the family blood,” Delmonico said
As for the city’s payouts, Delmonico said there’s no correlation between the city’s decision to settle a case and the police officer’s guilt. Each of the cases was reviewed by the department’s internal affairs unit. Cases may also get reviewed by the Hennepin County attorney’s office, a grand jury and, if civil rights allegations are made, the FBI.
“I’m confident there [were] good checks and balances to determine if it was misconduct or not,” he said.
The actions of Peterson and other officers have come under scrutiny as the Hennepin County attorney’s office reviews whether police were justified in shooting Terrence Franklin in the basement of an Uptown house May 10. Two officers were wounded by gunfire in that confrontation.
Sources said Peterson was the one who shot and killed Franklin, whose death prompted protest marches and pressure on Chief Janeé Harteau to release more details on the deadly encounter.
In the Franklin case, said Delmonico, “if Luke Peterson is the one who shot [Franklin], then he is a hero because he stopped him from shooting cops.”
Harteau and Peterson did not respond to requests for comment.
Peterson’s work investigating gangs in north Minneapolis helped the department make several big arrests, according to his personnel file. He was first named the Fourth Precinct officer of the year in 2009. The first award cited Peterson’s work, saying his street contacts helped police stop a gang shooting; capture a violent felon who had kidnapped, raped and tortured a woman; and led to the capture of a St. Paul drug dealer and gang member who had two handguns, a hand grenade, 9 kilos of marijuana and $3,300 in cash.
He also acted quickly in the fall of 2009, using contacts he had developed to find a wanted felon who had escaped police hours earlier after pointing a gun at a Minneapolis police officer. That incident won him praise from the department’s top leadership, including Harteau, then the deputy chief.
He was awarded the Medal of Valor in 2006 for helping two other officers pursue a violent burglary suspect, who stabbed an officer and was killed by another. He won it again May 13 for actions in 2012.
“Luke has been a great performer for the MPD,” said Tim Dolan, who was Minneapolis chief from 2006 to 2012.
As gleaned from: http://www.startribune.com/213718651.html
The Taser Trio and the Errant Assailer...
Ludington has its own accounts of brutality and outrageous right infringements from people mishandled by the local police. According to Shelly Jo Burns in her lawsuit, Ludington Police Department (LPD) Officer Aaron Sailor entered the home of her sister without being invited in or showing any warrant allowing him that course of action. While Burns' back was to him, he shoved her from behind forcefully and purposefully hard to the ground, damaging her greatly.
She was denied the opportunity to get medical attention for an hour due to Sailor and LPD securing the scene. She was later treated for chest pain, painful respiration, neck pain, and head pain. As noted in full here.
This was not the first of Aaron Sailor's assaults that resulted in federal lawsuits. When serving as a Pontiac cop in 2003 he responded to a call, hit the complainants with fists and flashlights, even when he perceives them as non-threatening to himself and his fellow officers. He then proceeds to help with a baseless prosecution of the plaintiffs to apparently help cover up the misdeeds he was part of. This he admits to in a deposition.
In 2007 once again in Pontiac where Chief Barnett served his pre-Chief time at, Officer Sailor and Miracle respond to a call by a third party, decide to evict the house sitter and her passed-out guest. They proceed to aggressively assault a sleeping drunken person who was invited onto the property by the person responsible for the property, unlike the police. Punching, choking, striking with nightsticks, throwing into walls, and leading the badly injured man out into the February night in his boxers. They followed this up by arresting the house sitter, innocent of any crime (without ever calling the homeowner), allegedly slamming her head into an appliance, and leading her outside in her pajamas in handcuffs. These two Pontiac incidents are documented here.
Joseph McAdam was the passenger in a traffic stop in Ludington back in the summer of 2009. His mom was given sobriety tests, and he decided to film the encounter. A LPD officer slapped his hand to stop him from doing so. A couple of Mason County deputies arrived on scene, at which point McAdam was denied the right to get his two dogs in the back of his car. "Last opportunity to leave or you're going to jail." they told him as he recorded, and walked away. Once he put his phone in his pocket, the three cops rushed him from behind, tripping and taking him face first to the ground.
Each officer proceeded to drive stun McAdam at least once apiece, while handcuffing him, using such force without any justification that anything McAdam did was unlawful. He was then taken to the hospital, where he realized his phone had been taken by the officers, as 'evidence'. The content of his recordings were erased when it was eventually returned three months later, after McAdam had been brought up for five counts of assault by the Mason County Prosecutor.
He was then threatened with being tased again if he did not receive treatment he did not want or agree to. A deputy and the LPD officer both tased him to show they meant what they said. In agony from the tasings, McAdam had the medical procedure performed, all this was presented in his federal complaint. Read more here.
...Or the Three Heroes
Yet, try to find any news or description of these two federal cases outside of what you will find in published court documents or right here, at The Ludington Torch, with your favorite search engine, and all you will find are references of the Ludington City Council going into closed session to discuss them.
Twice, Mayor Henderson defended Aaron Sailor at city council meetings when a citizen brought the incident up. At the last meeting defending the actions of Sailor and Warmuskerken: "...we have great officers who recently put their life in danger to defend our community. They're stand up individuals and I'll challenge those who say they are not... Aaron Sawyer had every right to do what he did."
Back in April, he declared: "Officer Sailor has done a wonderful job for us. These type of things come up and go down, and the particulars of this lawsuit we can deal with in a future thing but the accusations of that and the carrying on is.. I don't think is fair for him, it's a poor characteristic of him; it's not right, he's not here to defend himself. But someone has the right to stand up and say what they want, and not give another person the right to defend themselves. This is just making a poor choice to attack somebody, so if you would (to Police Chief Barnett) you know, you honored him, he deserved that honor, nobody should try to take that from him, and if you would pass that on to him or have him stop by my residence, I'd be sure to square that up with him."
Officer Aaron Sailor (2nd from left), Deputy Oscar Davila (4th), Deputy Derek Wilson (5th)
The honor came before, at the March 4, 2013 Ludington City Council meeting, where Officer Sailor, and the two deputies involved with the McAdam suit, Oscar Davila and Derek Wilson, got awards for their heroic actions in apprehending Lowell Fetters, who allegedly shot another officer that day. Officer Sailor was first unit at the scene (with another officer), and something happened in their exchange that made Fetters go into his house, grab a gun, and start firing towards the police.
All three of the policemen received an award for acting "above and beyond the call of duty by disregarding his own personal safety to assist other officers who were under fire. [Their] bravery personifies the finest traditions of the law enforcement profession." So said LPD Chief Mark Barnett that day.
As far as McAdam, the Ludington officer and two Mason County deputies involved were declared victims in the incident previously described involving McAdam being tasered on the street and at the hospital. McAdam had been charged with multiple accounts of assault and battery for his actions that night, and had a local lawyer plea it down to one charge. LPD's Warmuskerken had a red mark on his face from a squirming McAdam after all.
When McAdam declared multiple violations by the officers in his own lawsuit, immunity was declared (and denied) and never has there been a discouraging word said about the three officers involved outside of the criticism you will find here. Officer Warmuskerken now works for the Mason County Sheriff's Office, Deputy Davila was promoted to Sergeant Davila, and Derek Wilson is still going strong at the MCSO. They're heroes after all, according to their superiors and all our public officials that look out more for the interests of their fellows than for the interests of the innocent people they serve that have been truly victimized.
Escambia County Sheriff's OfficeEarly Saturday morning, Roy Middleton was rummaging through his mother's car in the driveway of his Warrington, Florida, home, looking for a cigarette, when he heard someone bark, "Get your hands where I can see them!" Middleton initially thought it was a neighbor playing a joke on him, but when he turned his head he saw Escambia County sheriff's deputies standing in his driveway. The next thing he knew, he says, they were shooting at him. "It was like a firing squad," Middleton told the Pensacola News Journal. "Bullets were flying everywhere." Middleton was lucky the deputies were terrible shots. His injuries were limited to a leg wound. "My mother's car is full of bullet holes though," he said. "My wife had to go and get a rental." 
