When you thought American cops couldn’t find any new ways to disgrace the badge they are so proud to wear and disgrace their profession, they show that there is no floor to how low they will go to abuse their power.
What makes their actions even more reprehensible is (a) the Government’s insistence on interfering in smaller countries policing practices and taking punitive measures against them, & (b) that there is a huge part of the country for whom criminals can do no wrong as long as they wear police uniforms.
The sad reality for the country is that as violent crime begins to creep up again after decades of decline, police reputation across the country is in tatters, except for the political right for whom police is a vital party of their white supremacist infrastructure.
The nation is so heavily invested in the police state that it has created that it is impossible to see how it could extricate itself from the cocoon in which it has woven itself. Whether it be the need for the over 18’000 departments nationwide, as a means to keep its black community on the reservation, or the privately run prisons that operate on the express understanding that jail cells must be filled to a stated capacity, policing as we know it, brutal, corrupt, racist, criminal, is going nowhere soon.
The myriad departments in some cases operate as guns for hire, speaking of the sheriff’s departments that are run by elected county officials who provide their services to the county.
It is a convoluted web of deceit and deception in which the cops, prosecutors, and judges all share the same goal, and that goal does not always line up with the goals and aspirations of black and native people.
We have tried to bring to your attention some of the facts that support our claims that justice in many instances is what [they]determine it to be.
When the average person of color can be locked up on manufactured charges after some cop abuses them physically, not to mention their rights being violated, but a cop can commit blatant criminal offenses and prosecutors do not prosecute, you know the system is a farce.
But please do not take it from me see for yourselves, and the irony of it all is that their crimes are no longer a problem just for black and brown people. In fact, their crimes are also affecting their own members, past and present.
When they break the laws, they are sent on leave for a bit until things quiet down. They sell that to the sheep who give them their money and ore power as a significant part of their investigations. The reality is that cops who commit crimes get paid leave.
Even when they engage in conduct that is too egregious to ignore, they allow them to resign instead of firing them. But even when they are fired, they simply go to the next town down the road and they are hired and back on the streets in no time.
Complaints of misconduct pile up to dozens and dozens, and instead of firing them, they promote them.
When they kill, they make them cop of the year.
Here is one case in which prosecutors ignored a felony prosecution and turned the other way simply because the offender wears a uniform and has a badge.
This makes the prosecutors and their offices criminally complicit in the crimes these police officers are committing.
Orange County Pays Out $195K to Teen Threatened at Gunpoint by Off-Duty Sheriff’s Deputy
By Brandon Phở
Two years ago, an off-duty Orange County Sheriff’s deputy pulled his gun on an unarmed South County teen during a confrontation at a San Clemente skatepark.
This month, Orange County Supervisors approved a $195,000 settlement agreement with the teen, Max Chance III of San Juan Capistrano, after he sued the county over negligence, assault, emotional distress and civil rights violations around the incident.
Sheriff officials have since determined the deputy, Michael Thalken, violated department policy through his actions, which includes Thalken yelling “Get on your knees or I will shoot you in the fucking face” as he pointed a gun at Chance on Oct. 12, 2019.
Yet Thalken remains employed at the department in a “non-field capacity,” said Sheriff spokesperson Carrie Braun in a Wednesday statement, adding that unspecified “discipline was issued and served.”
Chance — whose father, Max Chance Jr., happens to be a retired deputy who once supervised Thalken, according to attorneys — was 16 at the time of the incident.
The OC Board of Supervisors approved the settlement on July 13.
Representing Chance in his lawsuit against the county were father-and-son attorneys Eric and Connor Traut, the latter of whom is the current mayor of Buena Park.
“I think they need to go over their written policies again to ensure that people aren’t subjected to this sort of thing again,” said Eric Traut in a Wednesday phone interview.
Traut said his team called in an expert review of OC Sheriff policies “that relate to conduct of Sheriff’s deputies on and off duty, and this conduct was prohibited in their own written policies, so it’s my hope they’ll … ensure this conduct doesn’t happen again.”
Braun, in an email response to questions about that, said “the Department routinely reviews policy through briefing items for sworn staff” in the jails, courts and field deputies on patrol.
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Chance, in his lawsuit, alleges he suffered emotional anguish, as well as post traumatic stress following the incident.
The teenager was at the skatepark with some friends when Thalken walked over from the adjacent little league field that night.
The lawsuit says Thalken appeared intoxicated and angered by the music playing from a nearby live band, shouting “Where is the tough guy” while another bystander mimicked Thalken’s drunk-like walk.
Chance had done nothing to instigate Thalken besides raising his skateboard and backing away in self defense, the lawsuit says, when Thalken tried to grab the teenager’s wrist.
That was when Thalken pulled his gun on Chance, captured on video by observers.
Thalken only identified himself as law enforcement once Chance complied with his demands to get on his knees, according to the lawsuit, which also alleges that Thalken misrepresented what happened when other deputies arrived on scene and when the teen’s father called Thalken and revealed that the teenager was his son.
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The lawsuit was filed in Orange County Superior Court on March 9.
“As part of a settlement agreement like this, you can’t make it contingent that the deputy is fired,” Traut said. “However, I do hope there is some disciplinary action other than removing him from duty for a short period of time, which they did after this incident and took some limited internal steps with him.”
Braun, in the Sheriff’s Dept. statement, said Thalken was “immediately” placed on administrative leave “while the case was investigated and submitted to the District Attorney’s office.”
The D.A.’s office under Todd Spitzer ultimately opted not to file criminal charges.