Monthly Archives: August 2016

Denver’s Office of the Independent Monitor moved, no one’s saying where

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Denver’s Office of the Independent Monitor moved from its offices on the 12th floor of the Wellington Webb Building. Staff for the City Attorney, who’ve moved in, are saying they don’t know where the OIM has gone. Convenient. FYI, it’s moved to the Denver Post Building, but the information desk there won’t tell you were it is either. So the bad news is that you have to know it’s there, you have to have an appointment, and you have to know who you’re seeing there before security will send someone to escort you up. Denver’s OIM recently made the news about city council renewing their commitment to its existance, but it’s becoming nearly invisible to the public it’s supposed to serve.

Park County Sheriff Wegener releases incomplete CBI report on Carrigan, Wirth murders, calls it Final Report.

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BAILEY, COLORADO- Under legal attack by the family of slain corporal Nate Carrigan, the Park County Sheriff has released the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s report. Trouble is, it’s 289 pages. Only. And while media outlets have been able to extract that alleged shooter Martin Wirth had a temper, was a womanizer, and made threats of a “shootout at OK Corral” based on interviews of estranged friends. What’s missing in the report is as obvious as if it was redacted. The report doesn’t connect any dots.

Sheriff Wegener’s interview is missing. So is the interview of neighbor Alice Plemons. Mentioned by omitted. Plemons’ video of the raid, not just missing, disposed of. But the biggest missing piece is Deputy Kolby Martin, absent from most witness accounts. In particular, how he got into Martin Wirth’s house. In all of the officers’ accounts, Kolby Martin wasn’t at the front door. But he was the only everyone saw get wounded.

According to the deputee interviews, Deputy Kolby Martin, armed with a Colt AR15, wasn’t at the doorstep with the four who breached the door. He approached the house from the back and just before the “green light to breach the door” he radioed Deputy David Leffner to abandon his “spotter” vantage point and join the officers at the front of the house. Then Kolby Martin was extracted wounded from the house.

Also missing is anyone who saw Martin Wirth until he was downed in the snow. No officers “saw” Nate Carrigan being shot. They can only record discovering he was mortally wounded. Deputies saw neither who fired nor when bullets hit Carrigan.

On the front drive, in order of their vehicles: Carrigan, Hancock, Wegener, then Leffner when called by Martin.

Approaching the house from the back: Lowrance, Martin, Threckel and Hannigan. Lowrance and Hannigan were called to join team at the door.

Preparing to breach door: Carrigan, Hancock, Lowrance and Threckel.

Armed with Colt AR15 assault rifles: Lowrance, Threckel and Martin.

Captain Hancock “opened up” his 9mm into Martin Wirth’s back, after Wirth was downed by Deputy DJ Hannigan. No dispute there.

There’s exhaustive documentation of bullets calibers, minus WHICH matched WHOSE rifles. Seriously. Deputy Koby Martin suffered multiple gunshot wounds and was pulled from the house by fellow officers. Captain Mark Hancock was grazed in the neck and ear. Btw, he called paramedics before launching the attack. He wanted an ambulance on the scene in advance.

The CBI witness testimonies exclude those from key bystanders to the scene. Neighbor Alice Plemons was seen videotaping the event. She was interviewed, but it’s not in the report. The report mentions that her phone was seized, its contents copied, then returned to her, minus the video. CBI reports that the phone contained 51 photos, and no video. They told her if it turns up, to contact them. Kinda like OJ telling the public when he tracks down Nicole Simpson’s killer he’ll let us know.

CBI asked the neighbor why she hadn’t mentioned taking the video when interviewed earlier. But that interview, which would have revealed whatever she saw that day, was not included in this week’s FINAL REPORT. Another neighbor told TV reporters he witnessed a miitary assault like the Marines on Iwo Jima. If you know about Iwo Jima, you know we shelled the hell out of that island before we kicked in the door.

Enbridge Dakota Access Pipeline and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stopped by who else but Standing Rock Sioux

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Native American activists have been converging in North Dakota to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline which is encroaching without permission on tribal lands. They’ve delayed construction though the industry already secured an injunction against them. Their main complaint is that it threatens their water. Fittingly the first step authorities took against the growing protest was to take their water. Purportedly because some campers were allegedly endangering corporate surveillance planes with laser pointers.

DIY legal strategies for defendants to give their lawyers a running start

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If you’ve been arrested at a protest action you’ve got more legal options than paying the fine or taking a plea deal. Whether or not your act was constitutionally protected, or should be, or whether it was civil disobedience and was meant not to be, there are a couple good reasons to fight your charges in court. First, to draw further attention to your issue, and second, to give your prosecutors more incentive to offer a better plea deal. They might even drop your charges altogether.

Let’s assume you have the time to attend multiple court dates and that your low income means you qualify for a public defender.

Don’t have the time?
If you don’t have the time, make it. Every court appearance is a chance for a press release. Example: City Prosecutes Activists Instead of Indicting Killer Cops. Not only are you forfeiting the opportunity for more publicity, you are resigning yourself to a stiffer plea offer. Probation, or deferred judgement, or deferred prosecution for a probationary period, will take a larger chunk of your time from activism than a few court dates.

If you are eventually planing to hire a private lawyer, the same initial strategy applies. Your inconvenience is nothing compared to the wrench you’re throwing into the city’s injustice machine, by merely fighting your case.

Let’s assume also that you have bonded out of jail. Your first court appearance will be a BOND RETURN DATE. If you did not bond out and remain in custody, your first court appearance will usually be the morning after your booking and will be called an ARRAIGNMENT. Both are supervised by a magistrate before whom you will be expected to plead guilty or not guilty.

You are going to do neither.

That said, if you are still in custody, your first objective would be to hasten your release, hopefully on a PR bond. In such case, the following steps need not be uncompromising.

City Attorneys
If your event is a bond return date, you will first be called out of the courtroom by a city attorney to discuss a plea deal. Here’s where most people think they can candidly argue their case in hope that the prosecutors will decide to drop the charges. Those defendants are only giving the city more cards to deal against them. Your first move will be to DECLINE TO SPEAK TO CITY ATTORNEYS. You can ask what deal they are offering, but you say nothing about your case and admit to nothing. You are better off not even sitting down. Tell them from the hall that you have nothing to discuss, have them please bring your case before the magistrate.

The Magistrate
When the magistrate calls you up, tell him or her that you DO NOT CONSENT TO A MAGISTRATE adjudicating your case, you want the judge to which you are entitled. The magistrate will have to reschedule your court date before a judge, in the division to which your case was assigned. This might be one or two weeks later.

Bond Return Date, Round Two
Your second date, this time titled an “Arraignment” will be another chance for the city attorneys to pretend they have a right to interview you. Again you brush them off. When you’re finally called before the judge, he or she will ask you what you plead. Say that you CANNOT PLEAD BEFORE CONSULTING AN ATTORNEY. Asked if you have an attorney, say no, you require a public defender.

The judge will tell you a public defender will only be assigned after you’ve entered a not-guilty plea. Stand your ground, ask how are you supposed to make a legal decision without the advice of the public defender? The judge will decide to enter a not-guilty plea on your behalf, to which you will OBJECT.

A plea made over your objection will be a potential element of a future appeal. Likewise was the attempt by city attorneys to pretend they had authority to discuss your case without your having an attorney present. These will be two factors that will give you leverage in negotiating a better plea offer.

The judge will ask if you want a jury trial, to which you will answer YES. You’ll be assigned a pretrial conference date, or reset date, and a trial date. Your next task will be to apply for a public defender.

Representation
If you make too much money to qualify for a public defender, you might want to hire a lawyer, or find one who is sympathetic to your cause who can represent you Pro Bono. If you are smart enough on your feet, you can represent yourself PRO SE.

One possible advantage to proceeding Pro Se is that the city might eventually drop the charges, calculating that if you couldn’t find an attorney to defend your criminal case, you are unlikely to find one to bring a civil suit against the city for false arrest. They risk little to drop your case instead of spending an awkward day in court trouncing a DIY defendant in front of a sympathetic jury of his peers.

If your application for a public defender is accepted, they’ll also waive the $25 jury fee. If you can’t apply for the public defender within 30 days of your forced not-guilty plea, you should file the jury trial request yourself and pay for it.

No not under any circumstance elect a trial by judge. Denfense lawyers call that a “slow motion guilty plea.” You’ll soon learn that judges work for the same side as the prosecutors. So do the public defenders, but they can serve your purpose for the time being.

In a future article I’ll discuss what to do with public defenders.

Whether you’re an America idiot or not, Trump is the candidate you deserve.

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It’s easy to say Donald Trump is the presidential candidate America had coming. The traditional exceptionalist xenophobe at last has a candidate crafted in their image. You want to ban all outsiders? Donald Trump has the solutions for you. But Trump doesn’t just speak to the simpletons. Trump is exactly what the doctor ordered for his critics too.

Trump shows us that sarcasm doesn’t translate over hostile media either.

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Sarcasm does’t work on the internet because the general comprehension level there doesn’t rise above dense. Owing to the same common denominator, Poe’s Law applies to the corporate media too, except the adage doesn’t come up when content isn’t crowdsourced. When the public has no hand in the content creation it has no reason to scrutinize a usage manual. Presidential election troll Donald Trump makes utterances everyday that pundits seize upon to discredit which are obviously sarcastic. But to recognize sarcasm as intended would mean conceding to the implicit truth at which he is digging. The US regime did birth ISIS. If both the justice department or the FBI are uninterested in investigating illegal official emails, the Russians may as well be called upon to check into them. If nuclear weapons are too big to detonate, we ought to stop producing them.

UPDATE: Deaf blind judge gives Shadoe Garner 75 DAYS JAIL for possession of Wicca ritual athame and for littering.

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DENVER, COLORADO- Shadoe Garner was found guilty today by a judge who didn’t blink at the public defender having no time to prepare, at discovery evidence not being provided to defense, at prosecutors withholding half their witnesses and videos (depriving the defense of knowing what might have be exculpable evidence), at being forwarned that a 35C Appeal was virtually guaranteed, and despite two police videos making very clear that Shadoe’s rights were violated, if only the judge had ears and eyes to see it.

The courtroom staff should have seen trouble brewing earlier in the morning when an attorney announced “the court will call Emanuel Wilson” and the old judge replied “I’m sorry, did you say Javier Lopez?” Uh, no.

Judge Frederick Rogers is a dead ringer for filmmaker John Huston, with none of the latter’s sense of humor. He tried a case before Shadoe’s, a young black vet with PTSD who was awarded a large settlement for a traumatic brain injury and who went off on his lawyers for witholding the award in a conservatorship. The judge found him guilty of making threats, however exaggerated, giving no allowances for his mental disability.

In Shadow’s case, Judge Rogers denied all motions to wave speedy trial, and declared he wouldn’t suppress the prosecution’s evidence based on the defense not having seen it. The judge wanted to see it presented first so he could assess its worth to the charges before considering suppression. Essentially, motion quashed.

The evidence wound up supporting Shadoe’s claims, that he identified himself, that he had served papers on Commander Tony Lopez, not littered, and that the “weapon” he carried was a religious talisman, if also a knife.

“My name is Shadoe Garner”
Three times on the video Shadoe Garner told officers his name when asked, both first name and last. He even provided his date of birth. From that the officers could have run a check on his identity without having to take him into custody for not having an ID. The officers even testified that they heard Shadoe say all that. But the judge only heard the defendant say “Shadows” and so felt the defendant was being evasive. Officers can even be heard on the video using Shadoe’s name as they talked to him!

Instead of cross-checking his info in their system, the officers took Shadoe from the crowd and that operation required a pat down. Before doing that, Officer Montathong asked Shadoe, “do you have a weapon or anything that could poke me?”

Weapon vs. Athame
“Yes” Shadoe replied, I have an Athame” and he gestured to his left thigh. The officers retrieved what they alerted each other was a knife. Shadow countered “It’s not a knife, it’s an athame, a ceremonial object.” He repeated that explanation several times on the video.

It might be relevant to point out that Shadoe was wearing his robe, a distinct purple garment which officers would recognize over and over on the 16th Street Mall or at Stoner Hill, where the Dirty Kids live.

Shadow thinks of himself as a Wiccan druid, and the ceremonial dagger he refers to as an athame is as ritualistic as his robe. Shadoe told me he had ground-scored the robe weeks before. It’s a hooded cape that can only be described as a theatrical vestment.

The “knife” too was theatrical. The prosecutor constantly pointed out that its length was longer twelve inches, much too long for a pocket knife. It’s length was more like a kitchen knife or, more obviously, a SWORD.

The weapon pulled from a sheath strapped to Shadoe’s leg was a 12″ bowie knife manufactured by “Force Recon”. Sargent Martinez recognized it from his Marine days as a military combat weapon.

The First Amendment isn’t a pass to COSPLAY in urban environments, but a homeless person doesn’t have much choice about what possessions they can leave at home and which they have to carry.

Both Sargent Martinez and Officer Montathong said Shadoe was wearing a trench coat, even though the videos depicted the robe clearly. What trench coat has a hood? The officers stuck to their story because it’s regulation they say to suspect protesters wearing trench coats. Officer Montathong said protesters “always hide pee containers under their trench coats to throw at police.”

I’ll note here the officers removed Shadoe from the protest because they felt unsafe in the crowd. Sargent Martinez was calling the shots that day and testified the crowd numbered “five to six” peaceful, seated, protesters. Though the police numbered twenty, Martinez didn’t feel safe. For backup Commander Lopez called in Metro SWAT too.

“I am a process server”
Shadow repeated multiple times that he was a “process server”. No one questioned the officers whether it was customary to charge process servers with littering.

Shadow was arrested for littering because he served Commander Tony Lopez with an 11-page notice of a federal lawsuit. Lopez refused to take the document so Shadoe thrust it at his chest and it bounced to the sidewalk. “Cite him for littering” barked Lopez. Officers gave Shadoe a chance to pick up his “trash” or be ticketed for littering. Shadoe replied that he couldn’t retreive the papers, they now belonged to Lopez. Lopez had been officially served, documented by a witness video. If Shadoe took back the papers the transaction would be undone. As he explained this, Shadoe cast aside a cigarette butt. “Pick that up” ordered the officers, “or you’ll be cited for littering.” Shadoe dutifully bent and retrieved the cigarette butt. He wasn’t about to be given a ticket for littering.

He didn’t have an ID. Like many homeless, he’d lost it in a previous interaction with DPD. The police confiscate IDs from Denver homeless, probably as a deterrant to further contact. But Shadoe gave his name when asked, even though the police inquiry was unwarranted.

Appeal
The next step will be for Shadoe to appeal, but he’s got to do it from jail. The public defender’s office has to meet with Shadoe before the deadline expires and that’s not a likely priority for them. His next hearing is August 22 in District Court, division 5G. Shadoe is charged with felony weapons possession on account of a second offense, his persisting in carrying a ceremonial athame.

Shadoe’s single request to Judge Rogers, as the judge considered his sentencing, was to ask that the weapon not be destroyed, as called for by Denver ordinance. The city objected but the judge ruled that the evidence was required for Shadoe’s appeal. By his plea, Shadoe demonstrated that the evidence means more to him than a mere knife.

Shadoe has a very good case. The DPD abused his Fourth Amendment protection against illegal search and seizure. There’s the First Amendment right to his religion practices. And there’s the right to effective counsel which Shadoe was denied.

Judge Rogers has made a lot of work for the courts above him. Who knows how many other defendants are going to be jailed before judicial superiors figure out that Rogers has got to go.

Shadoe Garner jailed because Denver police fear the homeless Dirty Kids.

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DENVER, COLORADO- Credit Shadoe Garner and his fellow Dirty Kids for Denver’s current police crackdown on the downtown homeless. Credit might not be the word you choose, because the consequences have been disastrous for those living and panhandling on the street, but the homeless teens known by their community as the “dirty kids” were the first to stand up against the abuse. They refused to abide being commanded to stand when they needed to sit, or make themselves scarce on public property.

In May 2016 a dozen were arrested defying Denver’s sit-lie ordinance, to test the law’s constitutionality, but DPD found other infractions with which to charge them. Shadoe was jailed for possession of an illegal weapon, but the pretext for taking him in was even more contrived.

As a Wiccan druid, Shadoe carries a ritual dagger called an Athame. He wasn’t threateding anyone with it, but a second stop and frisk revealed a repeat offense, so now Shadoe’s bond is set at $10,000, beyond what any homeless person can raise. The pretext for Shadoe Garner’s arrest wasn’t the weapon, but a charge of LITTERING.

On the third day of their sit-in protest at the 16th Street Mall, Shadoe was trying to serve District Six Commander Tony Lopez with notice of a federal suit being filed against the DPD by 27 homeless complainants, for their continued harassment downtown. Though Garner informed Lopez that he was a contracted process server, Commander Lopez refused to take the 11 page document. When Shadoe dropped it at his feet, Commander Lopez gave the order to have Shadoe arrested.

Shadoe appears in court on Thursday, August 11, in division 3F of the Lindsey Flanigan Courthouse. Shadoe will be brought into the courtroom in shackles and will likely be represented only by a public defender.

Michael Phelps wins gold to “right the wrong” of USA missing out on a medal

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Minutes after winning the first of his 2016 gold medals, Michael Phelps interjected into an interview of his teammates “this [victory] was to right a wrong” referencing a loss in 2012 in which he was robbed of a medal apparently. Not because somebody cheated, or a bad call was made, but because Michael Phelps had willed a win that he didn’t then earn. Being “wronged” by not being given a medal. Doesnt that pretty much illustrate American Exceptionalism?! As if the US sports media was interested in explaining such a thing. Last minute decisions to let Michael Phelps intercede in further relay teams, for the sake of breaking medal hording records, as opposed to physical feats, comes at a price obviously to the other relay swimmers. We’ve heard about the hopes of would-be Olympians dashed by the boycotts of 1980 and 1984. Add the Phelps-first priority of 2016.

Crowdsourcing vigilante justice against mass-shooter Dylann Roof? Not for me.

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White supremacist mass-shooter Dylann Roof was brutalized by a fellow inmate of the Charleston County Jail and social media is applauding the news. Some are even trying to raise money for his attacker, Dwayne Stafford, who breached Roof’s protective custody area, unquestionably with inside help. Do you see nothing wrong with encouraging extrajudicial retribution when the justice system fails to give you blood? This is the essence of what drove lynch mobs to storm jails and courthouses. Dylann Roof, like George Zimmerman, and fellow murderous racists, are products of systemic racism, they’re not driving it. They should bear the full brunt of legal remedies, no more. The people’s fight against racism and violence is against the system. If we are wishing for equitable treatment of white and black suspects under the law, let’s cheerlead for more humane treatment for all, not equitable brutality. Let’s propose that all suspects detained by police be served burgers instead of lead bullets. We don’t have to like Dylann Roof, very likely schitzophrenic, but while Roof is in the custody and at the mercy of our court system he is entrusted to our care, to be treated as we would wish to be treated. I believe violence is a prerogative of individual human beings, a right measured by social contract. But where the machinery of law enforcement is concerned, I favor it be held to strict adherence. Someone punched George Zimmerman in the face for bragging about killing Trayvon Martin? I’m okay with that.

At Colorado Springs UCCS rally protest, Trump critics make his fans look smart.

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COLORADO SPRINGS, CO- While protesting Trump’s appearance at UCCS, I found myself on the worng side of the shouting match. Trump supporters were yelling “JAIL HILLARY” and their protesters were drowning them out with chants of “USA USA!” WTF. And our side was shouting “America is Already Great” but that’s what you’d expect from Colorado Springs white people.