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May 7, 2013
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www.hoescantstopme.biz
May 7, 2013
13,348
16,244
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www.hoescantstopme.biz
CORRECTIONS QUIETLY BANS BOOK DONATIONS TO PRISONERS FROM NONPROFITS

The Washington State Department of Corrections quietly rolled out a new policy via a memo on their website last month which disallows books to be donated to prisons via nonprofit organizations. So quietly, in fact, that one of the largest nonprofits that works to get donated materials to prisoners was taken by surprise to discover the change. They weren’t informed before it was implemented.

“We’re ready to fight it,” said Books to Prisoners, located in Seattle, in a tweet.
 
May 7, 2013
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An African-American employee who claimed she was subject to stress and racial harassment after she complained about a coworker's "Blue Lives Matter" flag and after she put up an "equity wall" has settled her lawsuit with an Oregon county, her attorney said Friday.

As part of the $100,000 agreement, Karimah Guion-Pledgure resigned from her job with the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice, her attorney, Ashlee Albies, said in an email.

Guion-Pledgure, who was a corrections technician until Friday, can reapply for other positions, Albies said.

About a month before the probation officer put up the Blue Lives Matter flag in 2017, white supremacist demonstrators displayed that same flag alongside Confederate flags during a "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the lawsuit notes.

One person died and dozens of others were injured when a man deliberately rammed his car into the crowd of counter-protesters. Members of Blue Lives Matter condemned the use of their flag at the rally.

After the probation officer's flag had been on the wall for more than six months, Guion-Pledgure erected an "equity wall" that displayed photos of minorities killed by police, the suit stated.

Managers told her to take down the photos, the lawsuit says, but she refused because the Blue Lives Matter flag remained.
 
May 7, 2013
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Two police officers inadvertently shot each other in Elk Grove while attempting to apprehend a burglary suspect on Saturday night, according to the Elk Grove Police Department.

Both officers sustained apparently minor gunshot injuries to their legs and were later released from an area hospital.

Officers responded to reports of a suspicious person near Tegan Road shortly after 11 p.m. on Saturday, according to a news release. The caller said the suspect was pulling on the doors of a recreational vehicle and moving a firearm from his pants to his sweatshirt.

When they arrived at the scene, officers found a male and a female, and ordered them to sit on a curb. While another officer was arriving, the male suspect, who the Elk Grove Police Department has only identified as a 41-year-old Sacramento man, stood up and ran away.

Officers chased the man both by cruiser and on foot to a nearby shopping center, the release said. The two officers stood on either side of the suspect, who then moved toward one of the officers with “his hands near his midsection area,” the release said.

The two officers shot the suspect, but during the altercation, both officers sustained gunshot wounds to the lower legs. The suspect did not shoot at the officers, Elk Grove Police Department spokesman Jason Jimenez said, and both wounds were a result of the other officer’s gunshots.
 
Jan 29, 2016
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Two police officers inadvertently shot each other in Elk Grove while attempting to apprehend a burglary suspect on Saturday night, according to the Elk Grove Police Department.

Both officers sustained apparently minor gunshot injuries to their legs and were later released from an area hospital.

Officers responded to reports of a suspicious person near Tegan Road shortly after 11 p.m. on Saturday, according to a news release. The caller said the suspect was pulling on the doors of a recreational vehicle and moving a firearm from his pants to his sweatshirt.

When they arrived at the scene, officers found a male and a female, and ordered them to sit on a curb. While another officer was arriving, the male suspect, who the Elk Grove Police Department has only identified as a 41-year-old Sacramento man, stood up and ran away.

Officers chased the man both by cruiser and on foot to a nearby shopping center, the release said. The two officers stood on either side of the suspect, who then moved toward one of the officers with “his hands near his midsection area,” the release said.

The two officers shot the suspect, but during the altercation, both officers sustained gunshot wounds to the lower legs. The suspect did not shoot at the officers, Elk Grove Police Department spokesman Jason Jimenez said, and both wounds were a result of the other officer’s gunshots.
Krow out there having cops shoot at each other
 
Props: StillHustlin
May 7, 2013
13,348
16,244
113
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www.hoescantstopme.biz
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a decision that may curb the rise of financial penalties and property seizures in the U.S. criminal justice system, the Supreme Court on Wednesday for the first time ruled that the U.S. Constitution's ban on "excess fines" applies to states as well as the federal government.

The nine justices ruled unanimously in favor of an Indiana man named Tyson Timbs who argued that police violated his rights by seizing his $42,000 Land Rover vehicle after he was convicted as a heroin dealer.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, back on the bench for a second straight day after undergoing lung cancer surgery in December, wrote the court's opinion, which clarified the applicability of the "excessive fines" prohibition contained in the Constitution's Eighth Amendment.

"For good reason, the protection against excessive fines has been a constant shield throughout Anglo-American history. Exorbitant tolls undermine other constitutional liberties," Ginsburg said in court as she announced the ruling.

The vehicle was taken in a process called civil asset forfeiture that permits police to seize and keep property involved in a crime.

"The Supreme Court recognized rightly that the excessive fines clause is a vital check on the government's power to punish people and strip them of their property," said Sam Gedge, a lawyer at the Institute for Justice, a libertarian legal group that represents Timbs.

Civil liberties activists have criticized an increase in the use of fines and other penalties in the federal and state criminal justice systems in the past three decades. Organizations from across the ideological spectrum backed Timbs, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce business group.

'SEE PEOPLE AS DOLLAR SIGNS'
"The excessive fines clause is now clearly held to be a safeguard when state and local courts and police see people as dollar signs," ACLU lawyer Nusrat Choudhury said.

U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, wrote on Twitter, "Like our broken cash bail system, excessive fines and confiscation of property lead to the criminalization of poverty."

The case will now return to Indiana courts to determine whether the seizure was excessive.

"Although we argued for a different outcome, we respect the court's decision," Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill, a Republican, said in a statement.

Timbs pleaded guilty in 2015 to one count of dealing in controlled substances and one count of conspiracy to commit theft after selling four grams of heroin to undercover police officers for $385 in Marion, Indiana in two separate transactions two years earlier, according to legal filings.

He was sentenced to one year of home detention and five years of probation, and authorities seized his 2012 Land Rover LR2 SUV, which he had used to purchase, transport and sell the drugs. The decision means that Timbs now has a chance to get his Land Rover back.

The Eighth Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, the Constitution's first 10 amendments that were ratified in 1791 as guarantees of individual rights and curbs on governmental power.

The Supreme Court has held that various parts of the Bill of Rights apply to the states, not just the federal government, including the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. In a 2010 gun rights decision, it ruled that the Second Amendment right "to keep and bear arms" applies to the states.

Timbs, who has admitted he was a drug addict, purchased the Land Rover in 2013 with money he obtained from a life insurance policy following the death of his father.

Timbs argued that his vehicle's seizure constituted an excessive fine because he had dealt drugs only twice, was convicted of only one drug-dealing offense and the maximum fine for the offense was $10,000, much less than the vehicle's value.

Timbs appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court after the Indiana Supreme Court in 2017 reversed an Indiana state judge's 2015 ruling in his favor.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)
 
May 7, 2013
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PLANO, Texas (AP) — Authorities in suburban Dallas have arrested a bartender who served drinks to a man who later went to his estranged wife's home and fatally shot her and seven others as they gathered to watch the Dallas Cowboys play.

Lindsey Glass was arrested last week and charged with a misdemeanor violation of "sale to certain persons." The law prohibits the sale of alcohol to a "habitual drunkard or an intoxicated or insane person."
 
May 7, 2013
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