PoliceOne Daily News
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NYPD K-9 hurt breaking up subway catfight
By Natasha Velez The New York Post
NEW YORK — A brave NYPD police dog was kicked in the face while breaking up a catfight in a Midtown subway station.
Bear, a 6-year-old German shepherd, suffered four broken teeth and a cut on his tongue as he helped an officer break up the fight involving four women in the 59th Street/Lexington Avenue station.
Officer Vincent Tieniber, 36, was handcuffing Ravenia Matos-Davis, 22, when she allegedly booted the pooch in the teeth and snout at 11:15 a.m.
"Bear kept the woman's foot in his mouth, and held on until I could handcuff her," said Tieniber, who suffered a sprained wrist in the ruckus.
Bear was treated at an animal-care facility and released later in the day. He'll be back on the job today.
The dog will have two teeth capped and is expected to return to full duty.
Matos-Davis was charged with injuring a police animal, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
In 2011, Bear helped apprehend suspects in two other cases.
Copyright 2013 N.Y.P. Holdings, Inc.
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NYPD unions say bill would blindfold officers
By Kirstan Conley The New York Post
NEW YORK — Cops might as well wear blindfolds if the City Council passes a bill that would let them use little more than the color of a suspect's clothing in descriptions — or risk being sued for profiling, according to this provocative new ad from the NYPD captains union.
The ad asks, "How effective is a police officer with a blindfold on?"
And the answer is not very, says the NYPD Captains Endowment Association, which is fighting the measure, claiming it would handcuff cops and send crime rates soaring.
Union President Roy Richter — who is seen in the ad wearing a blindfold in Times Square — told The Post the bill is dangerous because "it will ban cops from identifying a suspect's age, gender, color or disability."
"When we have wanted suspects and patterns of crimes, those are very important descriptive terms to let officers know who to look for."
The ad warns that if cops transmit a description of a suspect that goes beyond the color of his or her clothing, they could be sued for racial profiling if the proposal becomes law.
The ad will appear in tomorrow's Post, in addition to the union's Web site, Twitter and Facebook - and provides links to contacts for City Council members to sway their vote on the measure.
The bill's sponsor, Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn), and Speaker Christine Quinn are going to bypass normal committee process and bring the measure directly to a vote.
Detectives-union President Michael Palladino blasted Quinn for supporting the rare expedited process - and said his union plans to place ads in newspapers next week.
"The [union's] ad will focus on . . . Speaker Quinn's political decision to sell the security of all New Yorkers for votes. Where was the speaker and her legislation for the last seven years?" Palladino asked.
A rep for Quinn said she sent the proposals to a floor vote because a majority of council members supported it and Public Safety Committee chair Peter Vallone Jr. — an opponent — refused to let it out of committee.
PBA President Pat Lynch said the "so-called biased policing" package was a misnomer.
"Rather than focus on unnecessary laws, the council should be supporting its police officers — not attacking them," he said.
"Racial profiling is already illegal — and should be."
Williams and fellow Brooklyn Democrat Brad Lander, a co-sponsor of the proposal, say it would only expand the city's existing racial-profiling law by adding other demographic groups that should be protected, such as the homeless and gay people.
They have said police are free, under the bill, to chase leads that include descriptions but cannot stop and frisk people based solely on those descriptions.
But the Bloomberg administration has warned that the bill could lead to an avalanche of lawsuits against the city by any members of a protected class who believe that they were profiled.
Copyright 2013 N.Y.P. Holdings, Inc.
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FBI hunt for Jimmy Hoffa's remains ends
By Corey Williams Associated Press
OAKLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A search of a rural field in suburban Detroit has failed to turn up the remains of former Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa, an FBI agent announced Wednesday as authorities ended the dig.
"We did not uncover any evidence relevant to the investigation on James Hoffa," said Robert Foley, head of the FBI in Detroit.
"I am very confident of our result here after two-days-plus of diligent effort," he said. "As of this point, we'll be closing down the excavation operation."
Authorities have pursued multiple leads as to Hoffa's whereabouts since his disappearance in 1975. He was last seen outside an Oakland County restaurant where he was to meet with a New Jersey Teamsters boss and a Detroit Mafia captain.
The latest tip about Hoffa's remains came from reputed Mafia captain Tony Zerilli, who, through his lawyer, said Hoffa was buried beneath a concrete slab in a barn in Oakland Township, north of Detroit.
The barn is gone, but FBI agents on Monday starting poring over the field where it used to stand.
On Tuesday, authorities used a backhoe to dig and move dirt around in the section of land. Authorities also called in forensic anthropologists from Michigan State University and cadaver dogs from the Michigan State Police.
Hoffa's rise in the Teamsters, his 1964 conviction for jury tampering and his presumed murder are Detroit's link to a time when organized crime, public corruption and mob hits held the nation's attention. Over the years, authorities have received various tips, leading the FBI to possible burial sites near and far.
In 2003, a backyard swimming pool was dug up 90 miles northwest of Detroit. Seven years ago, a tip from an ailing federal inmate led to a two-week search and excavation at a horse farm in the same region. Last year, soil samples were taken from under the concrete floor of a backyard shed north of the city. And detectives even pulled up floorboards at a Detroit house in 2004.
No evidence of Hoffa was found.
Other theories have suggested he was entombed in concrete at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, ground up and thrown in a Florida swamp or obliterated in a mob-owned fat-rendering plant.
Zerilli, now 85, was in prison for organized crime when Hoffa disappeared. But he told New York TV station WNBC in January that he was informed about Hoffa's whereabouts after his release. His attorney, David Chasnick, said Zerilli is "intimately involved" with people who know where the body is buried.
Details are in a manuscript Zerilli is selling online.
Copyright 2013 Associated Press
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Man shot by Maine trooper found guilty of criminal threatening
By Nok-Noi Ricker Bangor Daily News
BANGOR, Maine -- An Edinburg man who was wielding a knife when he was shot last summer by a Maine State Trooper was found guilty Tuesday of criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon.
A jury of five men and seven women deliberated for about four hours at the Penobscot Judicial Center before finding Warren Frederick Dome, 55, guilty of the charge. Dome remains free on bail pending his sentencing hearing on Aug. 22. He faces up to 5 years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000. His bail conditions include a curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. during which he must remain at his home.
Earlier in the day, Dome took the stand and told the jury that he didn't recall much about that sunny August day.
"I don't remember calling the police or much of anything," Dome testified during the second day of his trial.
Maine State Police Trooper Christopher Hashey testified Monday that he feared for his life on Aug. 14 when he twice shot Dome, who was approaching him with a butcher knife in his hand. The trooper, one of many who responded to Dome's Edinburg home for the report of a suicidal man, said Dome was marching toward him when he fired his weapon at a distance of about 10 feet.
Penobscot County Sheriff's Deputy Ray Goodspeed, who also responded to the 911 call, testified Monday afternoon that he was ready to pull the trigger to shoot Dome when Hashey fired the second time. Dome was wounded in the thigh and testicles and has since recovered.
Defense attorney Hunter Tzovarras of Bangor told jurors in his closing statements that by the time police arrived, his client "was so far out of it he wasn't a threat."
While on the stand, Dome's attorney asked him whether he experienced a blackout during the incident, which occurred in his driveway.
"I don't know. It's like I fell into a black hole," Dome testified. "I can't [remember]. I tried. I just don't know."
Alice Clifford, assistant district attorney for Penobscot County, told jurors repeatedly in her closing statement that Dome "knew what he was doing." She said he called police using a fake name telling the dispatcher that he "didn't want to go on" and to bring the militia "because you're going to need it." He then followed through on his threats, she said.
"The officer's fear was real," Clifford said. "Remember his testimony. He didn't want to shoot him. He warned him repeatedly [to stop and put down the weapon]."
Clifford told jurors that if Dome was so out of his mind when the incident occurred, as the defense claims, why didn't he attack his two friends, who stopped by just before police arrived after seeing a fire burning at the end of his 180-foot driveway.
"He went after the police, just like he said he would," she said.
Trooper Barry Meserve testified Tuesday that when he arrived Dome was injured, and he was tasked with applying pressure to his wounds. The injured man was saying, "Just let me die. Let me die," Meserve testified.
Trooper Josh De'Angelo testified he took pictures of the scene, including Dome's garage, which a had a meat cleaver stuck in a woodpile, empty alcohol and beer bottles, and matches.
Trooper Brian Bean rode with Dome in the ambulance and testified that he heard him ask the ambulance crews to, "tell his family he loved them, and he told them, 'This was not police's fault. It was the fault of my own.'"
Trooper Tom Fiske spoke with Dome on June 2 and, "He stated he held no grudges for Trooper Hashey" and that he understood that Hashey "was afraid and was trying to protect himself."
The state rested its case at about 9:30 a.m., and a sidebar was held to discuss if the defense could rely on Dome's own testimony that he has post-traumatic stress disorder. District Court Judge John Lucy determined that Dome was not a medical expert and therefore the term PTSD would not be allowed during the trial.
"I will allow Mr. Dome to testify about how he was feeling, [that he was] seeing a doctor and taking medication," the judge ruled.
Dome said he saw two people commit suicide during his 10 years in the U.S. Navy, between 1976-1986, and "it never leaves you."
He said he called a VA crisis hotline a month or two before the incident. Dome was the only person to testify for the defense.
The jury asked to hear the 911 calls again and to rewatch the video from Hashey's cruiser before making their determination. The two minute video recorded from when Hashey arrived at the end of Dome's driveway to the time of the shooting. Hashey gets out of the cruiser and can be seen waving for Dome's friends to leave, which they do several seconds later in a burgundy colored car.
The trooper then walks in front of his cruiser, pulls his sidearm and walks out of view down the driveway.
Shortly afterward, Hashey comes back into view backing away from the driveway. Dome is seen walking toward him with the knife and then he grimaces, he grabs his crotch and then falls to the ground. Hashey comes back into view and appears to kick away at something on the ground, apparently Dome's knife.
Dome told the jury that he had experienced other blackouts during previously stressful moments in his life, including a breakup in Arizona where he walked in front of a truck, and that he suffered a lot of stress in the last couple of years from a divorce, the death of a beloved pet dog and the death of three lifelong friends. The lifelong friends were from the same family in New York. He grew up on Long Island, he said.
He also said he had run out of his medication, which Dome described as anti-depressants he took daily. But an audiotape of the interview conducted by state police Detective Greg Mitchell with Dome in the hospital on Aug. 29, 2012, revealed the accused man said he was prescribed Valium, which is used to treat anxiety disorders.
In that interview and on the stand, Dome said he spent the morning doing chores around the house, including catching squirrels to keep them out of his attic.
Dome testified he woke up in the hospital with no memories of the event and that he learned what happened from the news.
"That is when I was clued in," Dome said.
Copyright 2013 the Bangor Daily News
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2 Ga. cops lose badges over 'punching' incident
By PoliceOne Staff
ATLANTA — Georgia's Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Council has decided to revoke the certification of Officer Brian Thomas and Officer Nicholas Dimauro of the Atlanta Police Department.
The two officers had been seen on cellphone video punching and kicking a suspect in an incident from April 2013.
The incident began when Clemmin Davis was pulled over for a traffic violation. When the vehicle’s passengers suddenly fled the vehicle, Davis, allegedly not knowing whether those individuals had left “weapons or drugs or anything in the vehicle” decided to run as well, according to a report by WSB-TV Channel 2 Action News.
Officers apprehended Davis in a wooded area, whereupon a passerby recorded the event on video.
Officer Thomas resigned during the subsequent investigation, after admitting kicking Davis repeatedly, according to WSB-TV. Officer Dimauro was fired.
The department had recommended firing Thomas four different times prior to the beating, and Dimauro had multiple previous disciplinary issues during his time with the department.
According to Georgia POST rules, the two officers have 30 days to appeal the revocation of their certification.
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NJ cop tangles with former mayor over misconduct charges
By Darran Simon The Philadelphia Inquirer
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. — A Washington Township police officer pleaded not guilty Monday to official misconduct, falsifying records, and other offenses stemming from a traffic stop last summer of Assemblyman Paul D. Moriarty (D., Gloucester).
Joseph DiBuonaventura, a 17-year veteran of the force, wrote in a police report that he stopped Moriarty on July 31 on the Black Horse Pike in Turnersville after the legislator cut him off. He said he smelled alcohol on Moriarty's breath and ordered him out of the car.
Video footage from DiBuonaventura's car showed his vehicle parked on the median and then his chasing Moriarty.
Moriarty, a former Washington Township mayor, showed the footage at a news conference days after the arrest. He said that he was driving lawfully in the right lane and did not change lanes without signaling.
Last month, a grand jury indicted DiBuonaventura. Shortly afterward, a Superior Court judge dropped the charges against Moriarty of driving while intoxicated, refusal to submit to a chemical test, and driving on marked lanes.
DiBuonaventura entered his plea in Superior Court in Gloucester County, said Bernie Weisenfeld, a spokesman for the county Prosecutor's Office.
Weisenfeld said Michael Curwin, an assistant prosector, told the court that if DiBuonaventura agreed to plead guilty, the Prosecutor's Office would recommend the mandatory official misconduct sentence of five years in state prison.
If convicted on all the charges, including tampering with records, DiBuonaventura would face decades in prison.
He has been suspended without pay since Nov. 26.
A spokesman for Helmer, Conley & Kasselman, the Haddon Heights law firm representing the officer, could not reached.
In the video from DiBuonaventura's car, Moriarty appears to pass field sobriety tests. He declined to submit to a breath test, later saying he did not think he could trust the process.
In October, he filed a criminal complaint against DiBuonaventura, accusing him of official misconduct, perjury, and other infractions.
Copyright 2013 Philadelphia Newspapers, LLC
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NSA chief: Surveillance program foiled NYC plot
By Kimberly Dozier and Donna Cassata Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The U.S. foiled a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange because of the sweeping surveillance programs at the heart of a debate over national security and personal privacy, officials said Tuesday at a rare open hearing on intelligence led by lawmakers sympathetic to the spying.
The House Intelligence Committee hearing provided a venue for officials to defend the once-secret programs and did little probing of claims that the collection of people's phone records and Internet usage has disrupted dozens of terrorist plots. Few details were volunteered.
Army Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency, said the two recently disclosed programs — one that gathers U.S. phone records and another that is designed to track the use of U.S.-based Internet servers by foreigners with possible links to terrorism — are critical.
But details about them were not closely held within the secretive agency. Alexander said after the hearing that most of the documents accessed by Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former systems analyst on contract to the NSA, were on a web forum available to many NSA employees. Others were on a site that required a special credential to access. Alexander said investigators are studying how Snowden did that.
He told lawmakers Snowden's leaks have caused "irreversible and significant damage to this nation" and undermined the U.S. relationship with allies.
When Deputy FBI Director Sean Joyce was asked what is next for Snowden, he said, simply, "justice." Snowden fled to Hong Kong and is hiding.
In the days after the leaks, House Intelligence committee Chairman Mike Rogers cited one attack that he said was thwarted by the programs. In the comments of other intelligence officials, that number grew to two, then 10, then dozens. On Tuesday, Alexander said more than 50 attacks were averted because of the surveillance. These included plots against the New York subway system and a Danish newspaper office that had published cartoon depictions of Muhammad.
In a new example, Joyce said the NSA was able to identify an extremist in Yemen who was in touch with Khalid Ouazzani in Kansas City, Missouri, enabling authorities to identify co-conspirators and thwart a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange.
Ouazzani pleaded guilty in May 2010 in federal court in Missouri to charges of conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization, bank fraud and money laundering. Ouazzani was not charged with the alleged plot against the stock exchange. Joyce said the arrest was made possible by the Internet surveillance program disclosed by Snowden.
Joyce also said a terrorist financier in San Diego was identified and arrested in October 2007 because of a phone record provided by the NSA.
The individual was making phone calls to a known designated terrorist group overseas, Joyce said. He confirmed under questioning that the calls were to Somalia.
Alexander said the Internet program had helped stop 90 percent of the 50-plus plots he cited. He said just over 10 of the plots thwarted had a connection inside the U.S. and most were helped by the review of phone records. Still, little was offered to substantiate claims that the programs have been successful in stopping acts of terrorism that would not have been caught with narrower surveillance. In the New York subway bombing case, President Barack Obama conceded the would-be bomber might have been caught with less sweeping surveillance.
Officials have long had the authority to monitor email accounts linked to terrorists but, before the law changed, needed to get a warrant by showing that the target was a suspected member of a terrorist group. In the disclosed Internet program named PRISM, the government collects vast amounts of online data and email, sometimes sweeping up information on ordinary American citizens. Officials now can collect phone and Internet information broadly but need a warrant to examine specific cases where they believe terrorism is involved.
Rogers and Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the intelligence panel's top Democrat, said the programs were vital to the intelligence community and assailed Snowden's actions as criminal.
"It is at times like these where our enemies within become almost as damaging as our enemies on the outside," Rogers said.
Ruppersberger said the "brazen disclosures" put the United States and its allies at risk.
Committee members were incredulous about the scope of the information that Snowden was able to access and then disclose.
Alexander said Snowden had worked for 12 months in an information technology position at the NSA office in Hawaii under another contract preceding his three-month contract with Booz Allen.
Copyright 2013 Associated Press
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Man found in plane's cockpit to be deported
Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA — A French man who gained access to the cockpit of a plane at Philadelphia International Airport by impersonating an airline employee has been sentenced to time served and will be deported.
Sixty-one-year-old Philippe Jeannard was sentenced Tuesday in federal court after pleading guilty to a fraud count.
Jeannard is from La Rochelle, France. He's been in custody since March 21, one day after authorities say he unsuccessfully sought a seat upgrade on a Florida-bound flight and then used a fraudulent Air France ID card to gain access to the cockpit. He was found sitting in the jump seat behind the pilot.
His public defender has said he never meant to cause any problems.
A judge says Jeannard won't be permitted back into the United States without written permission from the secretary of Homeland Security.
Copyright 2013 Associated Press