Tag Archives: Colorado Springs Police Department

Colorado Springs police win round one against socialists, convince local jury that free speech obstructs order.

CONVICTED! The March 26, 2017 arrests of socialist marchers finally came to trial last Friday. We were all found GUILTY! OF MARCHING! YES! Because that’s a crime in Colorado Springs. It’s disguised as a misdemeanor offense called “Obstruction.” On the other hand, all four defendants were acquitted of the more serious charge of Failure to Desist or Disperse, of which we were equally culpable, if you consider the police dispersal order lawful.

While a complete not-guilty verdict would have been more comforting, and of course just, the silver lining is that we can now appeal this decision to a higher court.

Appeal
Next time round, the judge’s prejudice, the prosecution’s dishonesty, the police misconduct, and the impropriety of applying an obstruction ordinance to curb protest, can be reviewed by adjudicators with more authority, whose decision can set legal precedence. Though appealing to higher wisdom in Trump’s America has become a crapshoot.

The kangaroo aspect of municipal courts does get tiresome. Our railroading was well oiled so our court scheduled only one day of trial. Six to ten officer testimonies, plus ours, plus the various surveillance and body-cam videos, seemed sure to expend more than a day. We played along, hoping to spare the charade no more time than it deserved.

We were also confident a jury could not fail to see through the preponderance of bullshit. Ours seemed a sympathetic jury with smiles and eye contact. They rolled their eyes at the police overreach. We sympathized with their having to upend their schedules to listen to the bullshit and so we wanted to hurry it along for their sake. We abbreviated our testimonies and our cross-examinations of the idiotic cops to spare the jury excess misery. At the same time we feared a contempt charge from the judge if our testimonies strayed into subjects the judge had forbidden us to mention to the jury. Like the Outrageous Governmental Misconduct.

Censored topics
The verdict should not have been a surprise. Earlier in the week the judge forbid defense attorneys from instructing the jury about the First Amendment. And so Friday’s jury had only to decide, were they out on the street or not? None of us disputed being in the street, which the prosecutors defined as obstructing traffic, therefore we were found guilty.

Judge Kristen Hoffecker’s rationale for eliminating the standard First Amendment jury instruction, and prohibiting defense lawyers uttering the phrase “First Amendment Rights” was because prosecutors argued the charge of obstruction had nothing to do with free speech. But what charge does? If a law overtly infringes on free speech, it would be held unconstitutional. As a result, police and city prosecutors use tangential offenses to criminalize protesting. Obstruction is a local favorite.

If police officers don’t understand the First Amendment enough not to violate it, and city lawyers don’t respect it enough to persist with prosecutions, and judges don’t know enough to throw out abusive charges, are we really to expect common citizens sitting in the jury box to know where they’re supposed to draw the line?

Obstruction
By chance I have some familiarity with the obstruction pretext. The prosecutor kept telling the jury that had we marched on the sidewalk, we would have avoided citations. Had she asked me directly, I could have answered: not true. I have frequently been threatened with arrest for OBSTRUCTING THE SIDEWALK. And there’s more to that story obviously.

Likewise, walking in the street is not the only way to be targeted with obstruction. I’ve been charged with obstruction IN A VEHICLE ON A STREET. Both examples happened at protests. Police can accuse you of obstruction, on the street or off.

Obstruction is be a legitimate violation of course. If you’re preventing someone driving by, in this example, or walking by, or a government function, or a commercial activity, etc. However, if the accusation of obstruction is the pretext to obstruct YOU from expressive activity, that’s an abuse of the ordinance.

An indication of such abuse might be if police allow others to do what they’re disallowing you, perhaps because of your ideology. In Colorado Springs, authorities have allowed numerous political marches on the street without arrests or threat of arrest. Some recent examples include #MeToo, the Women’s March, Black Lives Matter, Anti-Fracking, Critical Mass, Occupy, to name demonstrations which have taken our downtown streets without arranging permits beforehand.

Those who’ve sought permits, by the way, learn they cost $7,000. Events have been cancelled for failing to fundraise the required fee. That very literally is not free speech.

Jail
Back on the stand, if I had been able to recount being charged with obstruction of a sidewalk, I could have emphasized I was JAILED for it.

Jail was another topic we were forbidden to broach. A jury is not supposed to consider the potential penalties to result from its verdict. Our jury had no inkling we could be jailed for our protest march. I say this because even our lawyers discounted its likelihood. But the first thing Judge Hoffecker did after dismissing the jury was to schedule all defendants for a Pre Sentencing Investigation. PSIs are unusual for misdemeanor convictions, though standard for felons, addicts and sex offenders.

The trial flaunted other indignities.

Objections
The jury pool from which we chose our jurors included an African American Teamster who spoke proudly of protest, even if it might block traffic. We wanted him on our jury and he was the only black person in the group. Naturally the city eliminated him first, without regard for the federal law which gives protected status to minority jurors. The judge repaired to her chambers and conjured another pretext to overrule our objection.

Two of our defendents exercised their Fifth Amendment right, not to testify, and as we all know, not to have that used against them. In her closing statement, our city prosecutor brought up the fact they’d chosen to avoid incriminating themselves. That’s a red letter all caps NO-NO which should produce a mistrial. Our judge ran to her chamber to consult the law (likely make a phone call) and reemerged steeled to shrug it off.

Lawful order
As I said, we were acquitted of Failure to Desist and Disperse. Most of us didn’t hear or understand the garbled commands which the police officers testified were lawful orders. Listening to the audio on the bodycam footage in court made it clear to me why those orders were not conveyed.

It turns out, instead of saying “This is Officer Keller with the Colorado Springs Police, I’m ordering you etc, etc”, the police were actually yelling “Get on the sidewalk! Get on the sidewalk!” We mistook them for hecklers responding to our chant of “Off the sidewalks! Into the streets!” And of course “Whose street? Our street!”

I didn’t hear the police barking at us on March 26, but I would recognize it now. I have since come to witness how police in their cruisers use their intercoms to communicate with the urban poor. They pull up on the homeless and from their cruisers dispense with all formality. “Get up! Stand up!” They yell to homeless not abiding by the new no-sitting ordinance. “Move it! Pick up your things!” They yell as they sweep the public parks and homeless encampments. Those apparently are lawful orders. If they say it twice, that counts as two warnings.

CSPD Intelligence doesn’t have much

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Lt. Mark Comte COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO- Like the term Military Intelligence, “police intelligence” is an oxymoron. At least that’s the old joke. Wednesday’s hearing about the CSPD’s undercover operation against the Colo. Springs Socialists reinforced the adage. The good news is that Metro VNI, that is, Vice Narcotics & Intelligence, doesn’t have much intelligence, as in smarts, haha, OR constructive data. The impetus of CSPD’s efforts to infiltrate local activists has been to track ANTIFA, a nefarious worldwide anti-fascist organization apparently. Lieutenant Mark Comte, who heads Metro-VNI, testified to what they know so far. ANTIFA members wear black and cover their faces. When protesters do that, they’re Antifa.

Springs municipal judge gives blessing to lucrative yet illegal I-25 speed trap.

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COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.- Local municipal court judge Matthew Ramirez was presented with evidence today that the city is operating an UNJUSTIFIED SPEED LIMIT TRAP in the construction zone at the intersection of Highway-24 and Interstate-25. Though drivers are regularly cited for exceeding a 30mph speed limit, the posted speed does not meet the 85% compliance rule, nor the “pedal test” for enforceable speed reductions. Both are characteristics of improper and legally unenforceable “speed traps”. Plus, it turns out, 30pmh is not even the minimum speed required to cross under I-25 before the traffic light turns red.

At 30pmh it takes a motorist 8.75 seconds to cross the intersection from West to East. But the traffic light allows only 2.75 seconds! No wonder drivers don’t want to slow down. Upon seeing the video, instead of calling traffic engineers to set appropriate speed restrictions and adjust the timings, Judge Ramirez instead put his stamp of approval on CSPD’s very lucrative speed trap.

YES, I got a speeding ticket. Haha. And yes, today I was found guilty. I’m not upset so much as disappointed that the judge made himself complicit with the city’s scheme.

I know that “speed trap” has come to designate anywhere that police monitor traffic speeds, sometimes in hiding, and issue tickets. But I’m not using the term in the general sense. “Speed trap” has a legal definition which describes a scenario where police are ticketing motorists who have been forced, by circumstances under the control of the police, to violate the law and thus become eligible to be asked to contribute to the local administration’s fee based tax. “Speed traps” are abuses by law enforcement to maximize citation revenues without having to come across and apprehend offenders operating autonomously to local fundraising schemes.

On August 31 of this year, I was clocked going 43mph in a 30mph construction zone. Except for a vague feeling that I had not been “speeding”, I had no intention of fighting the ticket. I support the enforcement of speed limits and I accept that being pulled over is more or less a random hazard of going with the flow. No objection. But my recent attendance at municipal cases brought against activists has meant a lot of time spent in courtrooms where I couldn’t help but notice that many, many drivers were being cited for the same ticket as me, crossing the same intersection, their fines doubled because it’s a construction zone, almost all of them taking a plea.

My decision to plead not guilty led to a fruitful survey of legal abuses perpetrated by our traffic courts; on the part of the city attorneys, on the part of the police officers, and on the part of the judges. It was worth the fight and I assure you it’s not over.

Hundreds, if possibly thousands, of motorists have been ticketed, and are still being ticketed, like I was. Unless they’re riding the brake as they approach the intersection, they are considered speeding. Often, hitting the brake at that approach means upsetting drivers around you impatient to build speed for the on-ramp or impatient to cross the long intersection. To slow to 30mph when surrounded by others causes you to “impede the flow of traffic”, which is itself a driving offense in Colorado. Yes, driving the speed limit, when it impedes speeders, is illegal because the disruption it causes is considered unsafe. A traffic instruction that causes a driver to commit a worse infraction is not enforceable.

Likewise, if you have to choose between maintaining your speed to cross an intersection legally, before the light turns red, or lingering in the middle at risk of colliding with cross traffic, the safest recourse is also clear.

Judge Ramirez rejected the necessity defense, which protects accused if their infraction is incurred while trying to avoid more hazardous violations. He did not find it troublesome that local drivers were being forced to decide between speeding or running a red light, knowing they could be punished in either case.

Colorado Springs traffic ticket revenues are relying heavily on drivers being fraudulently stopped and fined. At ten dollars per mile over the limit, doubled for the construction zone, the fines add up. These penalties are for driving the intuitive speed calculated by the engineers who designed the motorway, in this case also by the engineers who time the traffic lights to facilitate flow.

A FOIA request will probably reveal the revenue to number in the millions, coming from local citizens feeling wronged. And if they took their case to court, feeling further wronged by the unjust process.

To begin with, they won’t show you the evidence against you. And it gets worse from there. With just this case I’ve documented abuses to rival the ACLU’s condemnation of the corrupt court system of the Colorado town of Alamosa. Their chief judge resigned in disgrace.

Check back as I update this article to recount the unending duplicity of the city attorney’s office. Then there are the dishonest public safety managers. And the police officers who outright lie. Aided and abetted by judges who know better. It’s a long story and all the more ugly because it could happen to anyone. And if Judge Matthew Ramirez has his way it will happen to you.

Who is this El Paso Sheriffs undercover infiltrator provocateur? We don’t care!

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COLO. SPRINGS– Lawyers for the city are fighting defense team efforts to expose who, how, when and why local law enforcement agencies infiltrated a campus political activist group. The 2017 undercover operation was revealed in CSPD bodycam videos, but city courthouse lawyers and judges are preventing the evidence from being made public.

Alerted to the October 17 evidentiary hearing meant to shed light on the bodycam video, journalists and news crews instead witnessed stonewalling by city attorneys but made to look like a disorganized defense. They saw municipal Judge Kristen Hoffecker blame the defendants for not submitting to a sham proceding, when the judge should have confessed that the defense’s subpoenas had not been honored.

Today the city learned that our defense team went around them and served the subpoenas directly, requiring the responsible law agency parties to testify as witnesses at an evidentiary hearing on November 3. Now the city wants to use a November 1 status hearing to quash the subpoenas.

What’s the big deal? The city asserts the confidential identity of its undercovers is a stake. That is of course the least of it.

The city’s own evidence against the defendants, accused of marching in the street on March 26, 2017, documents police officers deciding to issue tickets. What’s clear from the video is that the police issued tickets, not to cite wrongdoers, nor to halt law-breaking, but to 1) “identify everyone”, 2) arrest an undercover agent, and 3) disperse a lawful assembly. It’s all on tape.

When defendants first grasped what they were seeing on the bodycam video, they brought it to the attention of the various municipal court judges who take turns directing the daily court matters. Asked to produce the written reports generated by the officers on the video but missing from the discovery evidence, the judges declined. Asked to subpoena the officers involved, the judges declined. After each defendant’s pro se arguments were rebuffed, one motions hearing after the other, the defendants sought legal help. Actually Judge Hayden Kane II did eventually grant a hearing to look into the video, but he told us he’d already watched it in private and was not inclined to find it relevant, so defendants were not encouraged that his opinion would change.

In the meantime civil rights lawyers were highly interested in the police activity documented by the video. They submitted 20 pages of argument for the dismissal of charges against the defendants, citing outrageous police misconduct in violation of the Code of Federal Regulations, part 23. They requested that the sheriff, the police chief, the commander of CSPD intelligence, and others named and unnamed, be subpoenaed to testify at an evidentiary hearing on October 17. That didn’t happen, as everyone saw. The subpoenas didn’t even go out.

The October 17 hearing misfire was simply the latest of months of attempts by the defendants to bring this story to light.

This time around the city wasn’t given the chance to sit on the subpoenas, they’ve been served directly. On November 1, will Judge Hoffecker invalidate the subpoenas two days before the witnesses are compelled to appear? The question reporters can ask is should she?

The city’s argument will be that the police undercover operation, however illegal, does not have anything to do with the guilt or innocence of the socialists charged with marching in the street. Outrageous police misconduct is a matter for federal court, that’s true. But have a look at the video. Notice that the first marcher fingered for arrest, the only one assigned an arrest team, was the undercover “Mark Jackson.” When the police shouted their warning that all who remained in front of City Hall would be issued citations, their only unequivocable target was Jackson.

Without the motive of arresting Jackson, whether it was to provoke the crowd or to embed their infiltrator, and until the order “LT wants everyone identified”, the police weren’t going to make any arrests. What does that say about the supposed guilt of the accused?

The police had already told the socialists “you’re free to carry on with your rally so long as you don’t step back unto the street.”

What the socialists were doing on March 26 was the essence of protected speech. But senior officers not on the scene had a crime of their own up their sleeves, and they needed an arrest or two to set it into motion.

Should we get to the bottom of this story, or let the city pretend it didn’t happen until the defendants get to turn the tables in federal court?

One presumes that undercover agents are only performing the intelligence function of surveillance, monitoring protest activity for hints of criminal behavior. At worse, we call them agent provocateurs, trying to encourage illegality, and believe that everyday nonviolent activists should know better than to be entrapped into illegal acts.

But undercover officers are much more disruptive than that. Undercovers sow dischord and mistrust among strangers who’ve come together to advocate for a common cause. Infiltrators pit activists against each other and confound organizers with sabotage. They volunteer for responsibilities then drop the ball. They complicate discussions with irrelevant, impractical, or illegal suggestions. When their ideas are rejected they express frustration by demeaning their fellow participants for being unmotivated. When “Mark Jackson” was found out, and it took many weeks for everyone to become convinced he was an undercover, he berated everyone for every personal failing in the book. He accused individuals of paranoia, ineptitude, or lacking courage. “Get back to me when you decide you want to DO SOMETHING” were his parting words.

Police infiltration harms every citizen effort to organize. The Code of Federal Regulations mandates that police agencies have suspicion of real crime before embedding infiltrators.

If CSPD or the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office or the Department of Homeland Security or the Colorado Bureau of Investigation has proof of a crime brewing among the Colorado Springs Socialists, wouldn’t we all benefit to know about it? We would if their motive is truly crime prevention.

The real identities of “Mark Jackson” and his partner “Aimee Walter” doesn’t matter at all. Who they work for is paramount. Are they “with the Sheriffs” or contracted or embedded from another agency? As the video shows, Jackson’s jittery hyperactive behavior while detained in the cruiser doesn’t give one much confidence about who law enforcement is entrusting with a loaded weapon in a crowd they hope to be inciting to riot.

The city’s determination to quash the question of whether or not such evidence exists points to police malfeasance, not the Socialists’.

Justice delayed is justice denied. Colorado Springs police infiltration operations against social justice activism should be brought to heel sooner rather than later.

OCTOBER 27 UPDATE:
According to Judge Hoffecker’s order: November 1st at 2:30pm will be the city’s next chance to quash the subpoenas. If they do not succeed, the evidentiary hearing is scheduled for November 3rd at 8:15am.

City plan to snuff socialist infiltration hearing blows up in courtroom’s face

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El Paso County undercovers
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO– If you attended today’s evidentiary hearing about the police infiltration of a local student group, you are no doubt left wondering what happened. Where were the defendants and why was the judge so angry? The outcome was not what either side wanted, but still it was a huge false step for the city. The defense was not provided the police witnesses it requested, but the prosecution was prevented from quashing those subpoenas outright. As a truant co-defendant, I had a unique vantage point on today’s anticlimax and I apologize I was unable to explain it in person.

Today’s hearing, it turns out, was supposed to exclude the defendants. The review of evidence relating to the police infiltration operation was intended to happen outside of public view. The lawyers signed the setting slips, not the defendants, who were kept uninformed of the October 17 hearing. The judge had specified lawyers only, to keep the details and identities of the undercovers confidential.

Can courts exclude defendants from their own hearings? Not really, but anyway.

It turns out the judge wanted privacy because she had no intention of conducting the hearing at all. Without an audience to offend, this judge planned to summarily quash the defense motions to make police administrators testify and that would be the end of it. Objections be damned, let the lawyers take it up on appeal. Push this hot potato off a year or two.

However, through documents obtained directly from the courthouse, the defendants did learn about the hearing. So the defendants made plans to attend the hearing regardless of a judge’s preferences, and they publicized the event for what it promised to be, a scandalous exposé of CSPD intelligence overreach. Subpoenaed to testify were El Paso County Sheriff Bill Elder, Colorado Springs Police Chief Peter Carey, Lieutenant Mark Comte of the CSPD Intelligence Divison, and Sergeant Clayton Blackwell, among others.

Colorado Springs prosecutors did not inform the defense team that they had no intention of honoring those subpoenas. Instead they planned to motion to quash the subpoenas and truncate the hearing. The city attorneys did not file those motions beforehand nor give the defense any indication they were contesting the subpoenas.

I can only surmise that the city prosecutors began receiving calls from the media about the anticipated testimony of the sheriff and chief of police, because it wasn’t until late morning on the day of the hearing, after our press release went out, that the city emailed the defense team to say that “Sgt Blackwell is on vacation.” Blackwell wouldn’t be attending the hearing, they said, and by the way, his was the only subpoena delivered.

To which I imagine our legal team said: WTF?! Now we needed a hearing to learn why the city thought it could unilaterally decide to whom to deliver our subpoenas.

It’s one thing to disrespect the rights of defendants. Our municipal court does it ALL THE TIME. Everyday, sadly. In fact, it’s done it repeatedly to the very defendants in this case, before we got lawyers. But it’s quite another thing to trample on our rights when a civil rights attorney is involved.

If Blackwell was on vacation, the case needed a continuance. And if subpoenas were going to be quashed, we needed a motions hearing. Oddly, the judge was demanding our defense attorneys show up in person. To arrange a continuance?! Riiiiiight.

Our lawyers quickly let us know there was to be no hearing. Since the defendants weren’t supposed to attend today’s hearing anyway, we deemed it prudent not to attend the prosecution’s switcheroo. Without defendants, whatever the prosecution planned couldn’t proceed. Meanwhile the defense lawyers weren’t going to abide a Podunk Springs Judge Roy Bean throwing the law book out the window. If subpoenas aren’t going to be honored, you have to present the legal basis beforehand. Them’s the rules, Hayseeds.

So the courtroom audience, including journalists and media crews who had to leave their television cameras outside, were left to witness a Colorado Springs judge fuming at being out-thunk. The defense lawyers weren’t there to let her quash away with her gavel, without regard for the Colorado Rules of Proceedure, and the judge’s original scheme excluded the defendants so as a result there were no defendants present to accept her rulings. The judge could do nothing but seethe and lecture the audience about big lawyers disrespecting municipal courts. Nevermind that our courts are corrupt mechanisms that trample rights for breakfast. (The ACLU recently released a report damning Alamosa’s city courts: Justice Derailed. Believe me, the identical abuses of power occur in Colorado Springs.)

Nevermind too, what today’s court hearing was supposed to be about: Outrageous Conduct on the part of CSPD and EPCSO, and violations of the Code of Federal Conduct. Today’s defendants were arrested on March 26, 2017, but not for walking in the street. The socialists were arrested because the Intelligence Division wanted to “arrest” an undercover officer, maybe two, in order to give them deeper cover as they infiltrated a student-led group just formed in Colorado Springs. The CSPD body-cam video released to the defendants already proves this. We wanted the decision makers responsible to explain it.

Instead of a comedy of errors spotlighting local law enforcement ignoring the people’s Bill of Rights, the courtroom audience today saw another facet of our corrupt judicial system. They witnessed a judge prepared to ride roughshod over further rights that protect citizens from authoritarian zeal. You may not care how police abuse “socialists” but the whims of a municipal court despot affect everyone caught in their dragnet, be it a ticket or a zoning dispute. Even with an expensive lawyer, you are powerless to object when a judge pretends there are no rules.

What the judge saw today was a courtroom filled with supporters of the defendants and a media interested in their story. She saw that she and her gavel are not going to make this story go away.

Police body cameras reveal Colorado Springs law enforcement used arrests to infiltrate a student socialist group.

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COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO- Police body worn camera footage accidentally discovered to defendants in the March 26, 2017, protest cases, has revealed a mysterious side story at the Colorado Springs Socialists’ “March Against Imperialism”. At that march, six participants were cited for marching in the street. Meanwhile, a curious seventh was detained, driven off, but not cited. CSPD Officer Krueger’s body-cam recorded what happened and more.

What happened at the March 26 rally, beside the police dispersing a fully legal assembly? This video documents that the CSPD tried to give deeper cover to a team of El Paso County Sheriff’s plainclothes operatives, by giving one of them the credibility of an arrest. In truth, it worked for three weeks and several socialist actions, until the undercover team spooked everyone with their excessively sketchy zeal. As the March 26 evidence was released to defendants, the contradictory police reports began to accrue. Then a file labeled KRUEGER BODY-CAM emerged.

1. Krueger-cam
The first thing you see is the twenty or so protesters, clad in black, waving red flags, rallying on the steps of Colorado Springs City Hall. Speakers are railing against capitalism and imperialism. CSPD Officer Krueger comes upon this scene, among the reinforcements called, because fourteen of the protesters, mostly masked, were observed to have marched on the street.

(Marchers had followed Nevada to Bijou to Tejon to Colorado back to Nevada, trailed by the cruisers of CSPD Officers Mark Keller and Roberto Williamson. Returning to City Hall, participants were told by CSPD Sergeant Clayton Blackwell that they could protest on the sidewalk but would be ticketed if they stepped back into the street.)

As the rally goes on, the officers hear that orders have changed and everyone is going to be ticketed. On camera, Officer Keller relates a possible motive: “LT wants everyone identified.”

(Most of the protesters are masked. Arrests will give police the pretext to register everyone’s identity, whether the person walked in the street or not. By “LT”, Keller may be refering to Lieutenant Webber, who dispatched officers to the scene, or Lieutenant Mark Comte, in charge of CSPD intelligence.)

As officers discuss whether to rush the group or detain two or three protesters at a time, CSPD Sergeant Blackwell discloses to his men: “There’s two UCs in there, and they’ll just take a ticket like everybody else.” Blackwell adds, jokingly: “So hopefully we don’t have to start spraying ‘cause I don’t know which ones they are.”

Officer Keller tells Krueger and Canaan he thinks one of the protesters is concealing a knife. He fingers a masked protester wearing a Carhartt jacket.

Though Krueger and his partner, CSPD Officer Dustin Canaan, were informed about undercovers, they don’t know that they are being tasked with arresting one.

Officers Krueger and Canaan are formally instructed that when the move is made to issue citations to the protesters, they are to apprehend “Carhartt”.

In fact, the first planned arrestee of March 26 is “Carhartt”. Aka the sheriff’s undercover.

Officers encircle the rally as Sergeants Ingram and Blackwell tell the socialists that “Everyone is getting a ticket!”

When the officers confront “Carhartt” he loudly abuses them with expletives proclaiming his innocence. He does this to incite fellow protesters to resist the police effort to detain him. Everybody else however is either walking swiftly away or calmly accepting their citations for Pedestrian-in-the-Roadway and Failure-to-Disperse.

Officers Krueger and Canaan ask “Carhartt” whether he has a weapon. The suspect responds with a strange command, voiced between clenched teeth: “Pat me down at the car.”

They don’t hear his response and so repeat their question. “Carhartt” sticks to his odd refrain: “Pat me down at the car!”

Krueger and Canaan walk “Carhartt” to their cruiser where he admits he has a weapon, a “M&P Shield 9mm”. He alerts the officers that his gun is tucked into his front waistline, with the safety off. In his pocket the officers find an additional magazine clip.

(Let us reflect for a moment, that only Officer Keller knew about this undercover. Imagine if events had escalated and any of the other dozens of police officers had caught a glimpse of the undercover’s gun. What kind of trigger-happy confrontation could have resulted with the socialist marchers caught in the middle? We might also wonder what Carhartt intended to do with two magazines full of bullets.)

Officer Canaan unloads the 9mm, removes the bullet from the chamber, and places everything on the front seat.

The officers ask “Carhartt” whether he wants to be cited and released on the spot, or taken to be booked at the station? The detainee responds he wants to go wherever the other arrestees are being processed.

Asked whether he has a concealed carry permit “Carhartt” replies no.

It occurs to the officers that they can’t catch and release someone, however cooperative, if they’ve apprehended you carrying a concealed weapon without a permit.

Officer Krueger leaves to consult his supervisor Sergeant Blackwell about this arrestee who is carrying a gun without a permit.

Blackwell asks Krueger: “Is he one of our UCs?” He explains again: “We have two UCs. Do you recognize him?”

Krueger says no.

Blackwell comes to the cruiser to see for himself.

Blackwell doesn’t recognize the detainee either.

As Sergeant Blackwell walks away from the cruiser, he tells Krueger the suspect is not one of their UCs, then he ponders: “…unless he’s with the sheriff’s office?”

The suspect gives his name as Mark Jackson, d.o.b. 7/20/75, last digits of SS# 1033, phone number (281) 606-0532. All of which is probably phony.

His partner “Amy Walter” has been sitting nearby on the curb. She didn’t flee like the other participants, but oddly, was neither cited nor unmasked like all those who remained.

(“Amy Walter” kept her cover for months after the arrests. She claimed to drive up from Pueblo and only appeared fully bloc’d up. She’s gregarious and eager, and speaks with an Eastern European accent.)

Jackson remains detained in the back seat. After a few minutes CSPD Officer Mark Keller comes to the window to look at the suspect. He walks off camera, probably to tell Sergeant Blackwell that he can confirm the detainee is indeed an undercover.

Blackwell returns shortly to the cruiser to tell Krueger “We’re good.” Lowering his voice, he adds: “He’s UC.”

After some thought, Krueger turns to Jackson and asks in a whisper: ”Are you with the Sheriffs?” The undercover answers in the affirmative.

Krueger turns off his body-cam.

2. Canaan-cam
The body-cam worn by Krueger’s partner, Officer Canaan, has all the while recorded the same sequence of events, but he wasn’t paying attention to the whispers, so his camera continues to record.

Officer Keller walks back to the cruiser, this time to tease the undercover. Keller leans in and jokes about the arrest he arranged by pretending to suspect that Jackson had a knife.

Keller begins: “You really should hang out with a better crowd.”

Mocks Jackson: “I know. ‘Fuck the Police’. Ha ha.”

Keller goes on: “Hey, youse in the street, I figured you should get a ticket like everybody else.”

The undercover then says: “That’s why I yelled ‘COME FUCKING ARREST ME!’”

The two then discuss whether the undercover’s female partner should also be ticketed. Jackson theorizes that one ticket is enough.

Meanwhile an unspoken decision is made not to carry through with Jackson’s citation. This disturbs the undercover. He asks “How will it look when I don’t get a ticket?”

As Officer Mark Keller leaves the conversation at the cruiser, he looks directly at Canaan’s body-cam.

Undercover Jackson then notices that Officer Canaan did not grasp the development. He tells Krueger “You better tell your partner what’s going on.” Canaan turns off the audio on his body-cam.

ANALYSIS
To recap. Sergeant Blackwell revealed that the city had two UCs planted in the Socialist march. Officer Keller knew of the undercover Sheriff’s deputies “Jackson” and “Walter”. An effort was orchestrated to give a citation to “Jackson” but that plan was aborted. Wouldn’t it be interesting to know why?

Jackson’s detainment did not generate officer reports from either Krueger or Canaan, but the alias “Mark Jackson” was listed in three places. 1) on the March 26 police blotter, 2) in the radio log as “Mark Jackson in custody”, and 3) mentioned in passing in the report filed by Officer Roberto Williamson.

For three weeks “Mark Jackson” continued to infiltrate the socialist group, participating in several counterprotests, until everyone gave him the cold shoulder. His partner “Amy Walter” continues to contact group members.

The infiltration operation is extraordinary when you consider that the “Colorado Springs Socialists” essentially comprises the UCCS Socialist Discussion Group, a year-old student club chartered at the school. Though the students sometimes conceal themselves bandanas and hoodies when they attend social justice protests, they’ve committed zero acts of rioting, violence, or property destruction.

Once the video files had been released to the March 26 defendants, city prosecutors fought tooth and nail to quash the defendants’ subpoenas to the officers involved. The judge refused to review the body-cam footage, explaining that the El Paso Sheriffs Office had the discretion to refuse to provide further information.

Defendants insisted the prosecution was obligated to produce all the witnesses it knew to be on the scene of the alleged offenses, whether the witnesses were uniformed police or undercover. But the court won’t concede that the undercover operation merits looking into. The city stresses the importance of detectives being able to remain undercover to monitor ongoing crimes, in this case, jaywalking. The defendants are charged with obstruction and failure to disperse. If those are the crimes worth embedding undercovers, then the officers ought to be summoned to the trial to testify and secure convictions.

The defendants risked just that by insisting that the undercovers come forward as witnesses, but that risk was worth what the defendants were really after. What were those undercovers doing at the rally and at the march? Were they leading marchers into the street? Were undercovers taunting the cops as a demonstration that the protesters heard police orders to get off the street. Most marchers did not hear any orders, nor see police do much other than block traffic for their procession, contrary to the tone set by undercover Mark Jackson’s “COME FUCKING ARREST ME”. To prove the charge of Failure to Disperse” the prosecution has to prove that the accused wilfully defied the police. Jackson’s words seem meant to stand in for that proof.

Likewise, was Jackson’s belligerant response to police trying to arrest him meant to spark more resistance? Very often, riot cops target their own infiltrators who know to act outraged and resistive so that the crowd responds protectively. Jackson was clearly trying to do that.

Most of all, defendants wanted to get to the bottom of CSPD’s complicated operation to set their undercovers up to “take a ticket like everybody else.” How many officer were involved, and why didn’t officers recognize each other? Are the undercovers in fact with the El Paso Sheriffs Office or are they intelligence contractors or government agents? Who was coordinating this infiltration operation and who decided to call off issuing the ticket?

Who above all, thought they needed to insert an armed undercover, or two, possibly four, in the midst of a peaceful anti-imperialism march? Could a socialist group’s reckless co-opting of city streets warrant an undercover team’s reckless endangerment of unsuspecting activists surounded by very likley PTSD-addled police officers?

Jackson’s jittery behavior while detained in the back of the police cruiser hardly gives you confidence that even he should be trusted to wield a gun.

APPENDIX
The Krueger and Canaan body cam videos are circulating online. We’ll link to them as we locate stable copies. Below is an index of the events described above.

On the KRUEGER body-cam:

[0:45] Officer Mark Keller: “L.T. wants everyone identified.”

[3:05] Sergeant Clayton Blackwell: “There’s two UCs in there, and they’ll just take a ticket like everybody else. So hopefully we don’t have to start spraying ‘cause I don’t know which ones they are.”

[3:50] Off-camera officer: “Guy in the Carhartt [jacket] has a knife in his pocket.”

[9:00] Officers Krueger and Canaan discuss orders to arrest “Carhartt” suspected of carrying a knife.

[14:02] Sergeant John Ingram shouts: “Everyone is going to get a ticket!”

[15:20] Krueger and Canaan contact “Carhartt” who responds in a hostile and provocative manner. Unlike the other arrestees who are fully cooperative, he objects with loud profanity and derision.

[18:05] Krueger and Canaan discover “Carhartt” is armed with a 9mm handgun, tucked in his front waistband, and no concealed carry permit.

[20:04] Suspect gives his name as “Mark Jackson, d.o.b. 7/20/75”, and asks: “How do you know I was in the street?” Officer Canaan replies “An officer pointed you out. He’s been watching you the whole time.”

[23:38] Krueger consults Sgt. Blackwell who determines that “Jackson” is not one of their two UCs embedded in the march.

[28:56] Off camera Sgt. Blackwell tells Krueger “He’s U.C.”

[29:20] “Mark Jackson” admits he is with Sheriff’s Office.

[29:50] Krueger turns off body-cam.

On the CANAAN body-cam:

[16:41] Officer Dustin Canaan unloads the detainee’s “M&P Shield 9mm” and places gun, magazines, and extra bullet on front seat.

[22:02] Officer Mark Keller approaches cruiser to take a look at the detainee’s face.

[24:52] Sergeant Blackwell taps on cruiser window, says “We’re good.” Whispers to Krueger (inaudible, but it’s on the Krueger cam where we hear: “He’s UC”)

[25:03] Officer Keller returns to cruiser to joke with “Mark Jackson” about having arranged his fake arrest. Says Keller: “Hey, you’se in the street, I figured you should get a ticket like everybody else.” To which Jackson replies: “That’s why I said ‘Come fucking arrest me!’”

[25:25] Keller discusses with Jackson whether or not to ticket his female partner.

[26:27] Canaan turns off the audio of his body-cam.

Colo. Springs police disperse March 26 anti-imperialism rally because it was easier than listening to socialists

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COLORADO SPRINGS, CO- Local socialists assembled at City Hall on Sunday to “March Against Imperialism”. After a brief march and an half-hour rally while encircled by CSPD, the socialists were informed they were “free to carry on with their assembly” but whoever lingered would be issued a citation for having been in the street. Making no distinction for who had and who hadn’t, the police began handcuffing participants and the couple dozen others quickly dispersed. Five socialists were issued citations for “pedestrian in the highway” and “failure to disperse” while another was arrested and detained for failing to show an ID while filming the police. That person was taken to the downtown police station and held until officers finally informed her of the charges for which she was being cited, after which she identified herself. Throughout her detainment, multiple officers kept up a harassment of questions, refusing her requests that she contact her lawyer. CSPD never issued an order to disperse, a fact that is borne out by witness video. But in effect that is what the officers accomplished. They threatened the legal assembly with citations, for failure to disperse!

It made a funny scene. Around thirty self-declared socialists, blockaded by eight sometimes more CSPD cruisers, in a standoff that lasted until the police lost their patience. Socialists spoke against imperialism, the police officers being their main audience that quiet Sunday downtown. Immediately as the march had ended the police had announced that anyone stepping back into the street would be arrested, and so no one did. But a half-hour of speeches proved too much for the officers to bear and so they interjected again, this time to discuss the problem they had with what had happened earlier. We told those officers they were of course free to discuss such matters individually with whoever they considered a person of interest, BUT AFTERWARD, because they were otherwise interrupting our legal assembly. But the officers persisted in their interruption, deciding after the fact what charges to bring, regardless that they’d forgotten to provide the evidence to back them up. “See you in court” they laughed! We’ve heard that before.

On a serious note. What happened Sunday could have a chilling effect on the nascent kick-ass Colorado Springs Socialists. Unwarranted police attention is an unhappy tradition for socialist organizers, from anarchists to trade unions. Sunday’s denouement confirms all their parents’ worst worries, the folly of declaring yourself to be a socialist in a regressive backwater like Colorado Springs. People were arrested? Handcuffed?! Now you’re on a police watch list! I remember my father’s alarm when he learned his college sophmore had a subscription to Mother Jones Magazine.

Fun as it was, Sunday’s event was essentially uneventful: no altercations, no property damage, not even rhetoric to threaten infrastructure. Minus any media attention, or much of an audience at all on a sleepy Sunday evening, these socialists were determined to parade their dissent where and how those around could see, and reaped more law enforcement than the circumstances required.

While you might say the outcome was predictable, it needn’t have been. Students from the wealthier Colorado College have free range on downtown streets, protesting racism or election outcomes on the street without arrests or citations. Every full moon CC students ride the length of downtown’s main street on bike, skate or skateboard, without even police escort. Sunday’s fledgeling socialist organization is a student club of the UCCS campus. UCCS is more working class, for many a commuter campus, and obviously isn’t shown any deference by city administrators.

Compared to the liberal arts curriculum of Colorado College. UCCS is considered more conservative. UCCS hosts business and military related classes. It even has a Brazil-esque Department of Homeland Security -um- Department. So I think it’s all the more admirable that UCCS has spawned a bonafide socialist group that dwarfs even their school’s Young Republican franchise. I’ve no doubt those socialists I met on Sunday will not be cowed by CSPD’s preemptive aggressions. Hopefully their more timid members will take heart.

Public protests are regularly given use of the streets, which like parks are considered traditional free speech zones. The Tea Party and Occupy took to the streets of Colorado Springs without incurring arrests. More recently people have marched for Black Lives Matter and for solidarity with Native Americans fighting oil pipelines. These have produced zero arrests.

In the meantime it will be important to debrief on what happened and unify the legal strategies. All defendants face the traffic offense of being a pedestrian on the highway [sic] and the misdemeanor of failure to disperse, no doubt tacked on to be a droppable charge as fodder for plea bargains. The recalcitrant videographer faces an added charge of misdemeanor interference for failing to produce her ID. They give her no extra credit for providing a pretext for interrogation because she wouldn’t say zilch without a lawyer present, except to explain where and when they were violating her rights. It used to be that cops had to read us our rights.

Police can issue all the tickets they want when there’s probable cause. They can’t threaten to issue tickets for the solitary purpose of disbanding a legal assembly. In the end, the only socialists who got citations were punished not for being in the street but for standing their ground in front of City Hall.

Now Colorado College students have to ask permission if they want to protest

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COLORADO COLLEGE- How do you protest having to seek permission to protest? Do it without. But Colorado College students learned on Wednesday that protesters risk arrest for trespassing: trespassing on the private property of a private college ostensibly protecting the non-dissenting students from having to see dissent. It would be interesting to see college administrators have to explain that on their campus, the freedom to speak didn’t include the freedom to hear.

On #D12 #OccupyCS takes on Walmart, company store of the global plantation.

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OCCUPIED COLORADO SPRINGS- Showing the flag today on the Occupy corner of Acacia Park in advance of tomorrow’s 12/12 WALMART BOYCOTT. You might well ask why we passed on a sunny, pre-Chrismas shopping weekend to picket the 8th Street Walmart on a MONDAY. Easy. Our boycott is timed with other OCCUPY actions on #D12, the shutdown of Oakland’s port by #OccupyOakland and #OccupyDenver’s blocking of the Loveland Colorado Walmart distribution center. Solidarity. So we thought we’d dry our new signs today and recruit for tomorrow’s event. The cops came early.

In the interest of FULL DISCLOSURE, here’s the entirety of what was happening on the corner today. Something Native American, related to Hispanic American culture, involving to a troubling degree a number of Catholic clergy, having to do with what, the first occupation? The motorcycle cops were there to escort their procession along Tejon.

News 5 Report: “cost to taxpayers of Occupy CS”

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What extreme fucking gall. Their station, and their Pathetic Used-Snot-Rag of a Newspaper partner The Gazette are owned by a failed Corporation called Freedom Corp. That means for the past two years while they’ve been BANKRUPT they’ve been getting enormous tax breaks and even TAX REBATES to keep flooding our airwaves and “news” stands with their Extremist Right-Wing Garbage. The ultimate example of a Corporate “person” which cannot feed itself depending on Corporate Welfare to do it for… damn what pronoun should I use? “it’ would be singular, rather than the suppurated oozing scab on the ass of humanity made up of thousands of parasites. He or She, same problem plus, the cesspool contains both, and quite a few of the parasites are neither.
And what does this festering gaping open wound on our collective arse say is the cost to the taxpayers?
The cost of the police constantly harrassing us.
That’s right(wing), they’re making a statement that would be like the Gestapo sending a bill to the Jewish people for the cost of the Holocaust. Like the Sons of Confederate Veterans sending a bill to black people for their cost in trying to preserve slavery.
The Arrogant sons of perdition have actually expressed that level of pure chutzpah.
Did they ever challenge the escalating cost of invading Iraq and lynching Saddam? Hell to the No they didn’t. They CHEERED when the CSPD beat up demonstrators in ’03 and again in 07, for daring to question their “god” George Bush and his explanation for why he and his Oil Corporation ~~frien~~ errr ~~comrades~~ errr Accomplices started the war based on lies

Nor did they question the financing scheme that’s as of this year costing us TWICE what it would have if he had simply raised taxes at the start of the war.

“no new taxes” said he, just like his equally LYING father had said before. They left out the remainder of the sentence “…until the bonds come due in ten, 20 and thirty years with an interest rate of 10% annually” Yep, set the first payments of a ballooning debt come in an administration they can blame for the original debt.

And there’s enough right wing retards who will allow them to get away with it because they’re successfully indoctrinated by FOX and by “Freedom” Corp.

Self-named snake in grass Jason Warf presses charges against Occupy Jack

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OCCUPY COLORADO SPRINGS has an asshole problem, fortunately it’s just one asshole, and it’s not Occupy Jack Semple. Colorado Springs Occupiers passed a no-snitch policy Tuesday, in line with Occupies nationwide, but that doesn’t stop Jason Warf, as permit holder for his personal “occupy” franchise, from calling the police on activists trying to make the Acacia Park encampment about more than Warf’s media-whore ego. Fellow occupiers are forbidden to speak and act as anything other than solitary individuals, whether addressing City Council about the 1st Amendment, or answering media questions about what they hope to achieve with OWS. Whereas Jason Warf, self-officialized spokesman talks only about divisions and who’s not part of his movement.

So now Warf has called the police on four-times arrested Jack Semple and is personally pressing charges of trespass, for infringing on his city permit, the same charges he’s filed against Raven Martinez, and an unverified number of others. If the GA can’t fire Warf from his own permitted movement, we can repeal his Occupy license. The city may be okay with granting Jason Warf a permit to muck up real protest, but I’m certain that Occupy Wall Street would pull any permit he thinks he has for his pro-Capitalism, pro-war, pro-police snitch camp.

PS. BTW, the asshole reference was to Mr. Warf’s circulating a memo of instructions of how to rid protest movements of assholes. It was a guideline for snitching basically, but some of the methods of confrontation seemed like they could be used to address Warf, especially if HE thinks they are commendable. Unfortunately the ultimate “intervention” step was already attempted without success, his shit smells that good. BTW P2, Jason Warf dubbed himself a “snake in the grass” when observed sulking far off in the park, videotaping what he considered the transgressions of others. Can someone send me a large photo of Mr. Warf which we can use for a warning poster? And please no pics of anuses.

War is over, so they say…

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Said, in different words, that the illegal conquest Iraqi Oilfields and National Prison-camp Ghetto Rebuilding has been secured and that the Iraqi Puppet Army and Police are sufficiently trained in Western Style Police Brutality.
What a victory for Righteousness and Decency!
Strange that they never found all those WMDs, though, ain’t it? Meanwhile neighboring Syria and Iran are targeted and Guess Which Really Stupid Lie They’re Telling Us to justify that? Go on, guess…
Ok I’ll tell you. WMDs. Apparently a nation like the U.S. which employs torture and assassinations that have historically killed about twenty times as many non-combatants as they do “terrorists” and many of whose political leaders believe they should establish a fundamentalist religious dictatorship worldwide, is the only nation morally fit to have WMDs. Add in that the U.S., which has more of every class of weapon than the entire rest of the world combined, is also the only nation to have used all three classes of WMD, Biological, Nuclear and Chemical.
And routinely uses gas and is experimenting with mass Pain weapons against “their own” citizens. Sort of a high-tech version of what they accuse Gadafi and Hussein of doing.
And make no mistake, the American Cop or Soldier using torture or killing anybody anywhere in the world, gets just as big a sadistic thrill from his use of violence as any of Saddam or Moammar’s worst Gestapo-esque Goon Squad member.
They get a bigger thrill when the victim is a Child, elderly or disabled.
Yeah. Even the CSPD. I bet they show the Explorers videos of their torture sessions to weed out those who aren’t as depraved as Real Cops.
There’s also the matter of Afghanistan….

And leave us not forget Pakistan. Which General Betray-us has in his sights now that he’s the chief of the Central Global Intelligence Agency.
The military and Intelligence services have united, wholeheartedly, behind the Conquest of The World for the profit of the 1%.

Afghanistan, which they cheerfully predicted would be a cakewalk, like Iraq, which neither of them actually WAS a “cakewalk”… because of their relative poverty, really small populations and lack of actual Weapons of Any Destruction…
Afghanistan was ranked the poorest country on earth, had 5 aircraft in the entire country which were destroyed within the first several minutes of the intensive bombing.
The second and subsequent waves of bombing were, as one analyst boasted, “stirring up the rubble from the first”. I’m not going to apologize for saying this, if any of the Right Wing Trolls who read this haven’t figured that out, too damn bad, but Aerial Bombardment is Babykilling and always has been. What the U.S.A.F. has done in Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya is morally equivalent to what the Italian, Spanish and Luftwaffe “volunteers” did in Guernica and Ethiopia.

Now some of the Educated Morons in the State Department and Military are making ~~plans~~ Open Threats to do the same to Pakistan and Iran.

Let’s do some comparison figures to show the accuracy of my next statement shall we?
Iraq (by CIA estimates) 30 million.
Oklahoma (approximate equivalent geographic size) 3 million
Most of Iraqi population concentrated in three cities.

Afghanistan, 29 million.
Iran 72.9 million.
Whoa now, that’s 120% of the combined populations of Iraq, Afghanistan.

Y’all MightMakesRight Wingnuts still following that, or do actual and correct numbers frighten you? Like they do with Gun Death statistics in America or the percentage of White people on welfare…

Pakistan 170 million.
and Pakistan actually HAS nuclear weapons, developed and deployed using American foreign aid (buy the countries guns instead of butter)
Libya built hospitals throughout Africa with their “socialist” nationalized oil money. The U.S. sent in guns and military “advisers” aka “Provincial governors”. Same with Chavez/Castro in the Americas. They built medical schools, sent in doctors… and the U.S. spent trillions propping up puppet Corporate Dictatorships like Panama and Costa Rica.
U.S. supplied rifles and ammunition are being used to assassinate labor leaders and doctors in Panama and Costa Rica even as I write this, and the people targeted for death, their identities and locations were provided to the Panamanian and Costa Rican Dictators by U.S. Military and CIA “advisors”.

So, here’s that statement I mentioned the Population Comparisons would bear out the truth thereof…
The scenario for conquering Iran and Pakistan involves a nuclear exchange. U.S. bases in the region, including the soldiers who were NOT pulled out of Iraq, (only combat soldiers were, there’s still U.S. Air Force and Army bases there… once we take a country we don’t voluntarily give it back) to back up the Puppet Regime.
All U.S. bases in the region will be placed in direct line of retaliatory strikes.
And it would take nuclear strikes on the part of the Koalition of The Killing (U.S., U.K., the rest of NATO) to neutralize Iran and Pakistan.

Oh, and did I mention, at least in this post, that three other Nuclear Armed states adjoin Iraq and Pakistan.
China, India and (I’m counting it like it was still Soviet) Russia.

The scenario the Pentagon describes is in the “Best Case” annihilation of Pakistan and Iran before there can be a retaliatory strike and hopefully before Iranians and Pakistani soldiers and militia swarm over the porous borders of Iraq and Afghanistan to avenge the (projected) U.S. led murders of their countrymen.
Teheran would have to be “sacrificed”, undoubtedly. 8 million people and the fast read of the population reports don’t show how many kids that is. Doesn’t matter though because the Bomber Boys enjoy the prospect of Killing More Babies. Doesn’t bother them a bit.

The worst case scenario is one of global nuclear holocaust.
A temper tantrum by the Corporate Empire based on “If we can’t have it, nobody can!”

Yep, the war is over.

CSPD Junior Police Explorers learn early to swagger and menace like pros

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2011 DIVERSITY FAIR, NOTES, PART 1- What is our police department doing with high school age “explorers?” They’re uniformed and have their own shoulder patch. Exploring what? The limits to which they impose their weight against peoples’ rights? I’m at a civic festival in Confluence Park, across from a canopy whose shade does not conceal a mass of blue uniforms, adult officers bulky with bullet-proof vests and leather, holstering all manner of law enforcement weaponry, and CSPD apprentices, skinnier for lack of the armor and accouterments, but otherwise dressed exactly like police officers, and adopting the swagger which comes of trooping the colors, emboldened by the anonymity of the requisite Ray-Bans.

I don’t know what the CSPD think they’re doing. Community outreach would be far better accomplished in t-shirt and shorts. I can’t help but think that the authority communicated by the uniforms is being abused in this setting. I’m reminded immediately of the menace which fascist youth groups projected over even their parents. These kids are strolling around the event like appointed hall monitors. Patrolling, some of them would you believe, with their thumbs looped on their leather belts. If they had clubs they’d be twirling them.

Of course, they stroll pretending it means assimilation, as if submission to authority is a normal ingredient of any balanced community. I suspect that’s what the early indoctrination “explores.”

Actually, the Explorers get their name because they’re “exploring law enforcement as a career.” Yes any profession would be something an apprentice might want to explore, but police craft is one which requires alerting the public that this uniformed person does not have full-on authority/responsibility over you. Well, responsibility is probably what they’re most concerned about.

No one should doubt the craft of policemanship bears complexities worthy of journeymen, but I’d rather recruits came into law enforcement in the more common manner, after a college education.

Well, this IS the EVERYBODY WELCOME Diversity Fair, so we can’t exclude the Fascists. But do the city’s traditionally marginalized populations really feel welcomed by such an asserted police presence? I’m thinking of the immigration-challenged circles. But in general, how welcome do you suppose Hispanic, African, or Native Americans feel with white kids semi-officially playing cop?

Presumably the Klan was excluded from invitation, like any hate-group, because it offends the hatees. Probably law enforcement should take a backseat too, and not pretend that policing be considered a cultural component of a community.

It’s given me an idea however. Maybe the point could be brought home if we injected the event with worse than these crew-cutted crackers. How about a para-militarized presence?

I’m thinking cops in riot gear, patrolling like it was no big deal. In protest situations it’s become the norm, imagine if the average non-protester were to see the face of the US police state. Would citizens be so comfortable if instead of officer friendly, or junior uniformed friendlies, the event was patrolled by storm troopers. The CSPD knows better than to expose itself like that, but imagine a riotous development to draw them out.

Or, why not assert a pseudo-authoritarian presence for them?

If not riot gear, maybe a paramilitary uniform, American dark blue, with plenty of USA insignia, the American eagle made to look a little Germanic, let’s say. Jack boots, riding pants, leather straps, and black gloves a must.

Technically, the force could pretend to be a secret service, community outreach for the NSA or the plethora of intelligence agencies. The idea would be to present a dark, ominous authority. Handing out small fliers that read “Please take no notice of us, if you’ve done no wrong, you’ve nothing to be afraid of.”

Princess Lisa, “conservative” spends city funds threatening opposition.

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Princess Lisa sent this Email, cc’ed to Dennis Hisey, Amy Lathen and Sallie Clark, her TeaBag Terrorist accomplices, and to the Fascist Sheriff and Police Chief: I assume these are copyright violations.

Ed,
I am forwarding this on to Chief Meyers of the Colorado police department and El Paso County’s Sheriff Maketa. Your videos are inappropriate, threatening, include sexual content, promote violence and hate, you have written defamatory statements against elected officials, and are probably violating copyright laws. I will ask for appropriate instruction to go through the formal process to keep you away from me.

End Quote

I watch Ed’s videos. Sex? Violence? Nope. Defamatory? How does one Defame the Infamous?

Promoting HATE? You’re a TeaBag, for God’s Sake! The ones with the endless supply of Deranged Lone-Wolf Social Misfits who you talk into doing your dirty deeds for you, the ones YOU and your fellow ChickenHawks are afraid to do for yourselves.

And a “limited government” candidate spending Taxpayer Money to demand the Police do your thug work for you. Shame on you, Princess!

Ok… So, if she’s still playing along… Lisa, look, hun, it’s like this. Calling the Cops is for CRIMINAL offenses, not for pointing out that your pals are a bunch of Nazi freaks who pack automatic weapons IN America because they want to kill AMERICANS..

Not forgetting that none of your Ku Klux Klown amigos are going to do the real killing for yourselves. Don’t you worry your Little Princess head none, though, because I’m sure you’ll find another Jared Loughner or Scott Roeder or Jim Adkisson to ideologically cleanse at least a few Colorado Springs citizens.

There’s enough lunatics in the right wing section of the world and your Hate-Mongers are good at finding them, arming them and setting them loose.

And as for pasting your face on a perfectly good movie poster for a really awful movie.

If anybody is going to file copyright claims it would be the producers of that really stinky movie. It would NOT be something that the Colorado Springs Gestapo should investigate.

Lisa, are you reading this, sometime in the near future relative to the time which I wrote this? Please, do consider this. You’re allegedly a “fiscal conservative” but really, you come off as being a hate-filled rich errr… “witch” yeah, that’s the ticket, a rich-witch MY SINCERE APOLOGIES TO REAL WITCHES who will waste the already slashed to the bone city funds by using the Publicly Funded Police like they’re your own private Goon Squad because you can’t handle people making fun of you.

Please, lady, for the love of God (Montressor) drop the hell out of the race and go back to your Barbie Dream House.

Oh, me forgetted… Tea Bags no read good.

The “for the love of God, Montressor!” part was from a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, “The Cask Of Amantillado” and I’m pretty sure the only place you saw Poe’s books was at your semi-seasonal Book Burnings. You could look it up at the Librar… oh yeah, I forgot, you want to ban libraries too. Never Mind.

Ms Czeladtko, temper temper…

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Threatening people with police action for making fun of you? That’s not the actions of somebody who isn’t Fascist. Especially when the most pointed barbs were about your sneering condemnation of people you consider inferior because of their economic status. Apparently, making the arbitrary decision that people who are so desperately poor that they’re actually not able to find housing… are “insane”.. That’s a little over the top, don’t you see? Saying further that anybody who even LOOKS homeless should be banned from parks and other publicly funded places and services, “to protect the children” was really just God-damned stupid. Also hateful. Vicious. And displays the attitude that PikesPeakOcean and JCP1800 lampooned so thoroughly.

You’ve sent out a clear message that you’re intending to represent the Rich more “equally” than the Poor. And that was before you pulled the Typical Colorado Springs Establishment stunt of threatening dissidents with police actions.

Publicly. Shoot, even the cops are usually smarter than that, announcing publicly beforehand that they intend to violently repress dissidents. Does your paid boyfriend Chacon of the Gazette have the power to spin this? Sorry, Chacon, but don’t you wish, ever, that you worked as a REAL journalist for a REAL newspaper that has things like Ethical Standards? No wonder their parent corporation is in bankruptcy.

It’s almost superfluous to point out that the “leaders” of the Colorado Springs Establishment are morally challenged. Unfortunately there are some people in town who Just Don’t Get It. They get the Gazette instead.

Being openly in favor of the “Give More Money to the Rich and everything will work better for everybody” Politico-economic structure, the one which has consistently tanked, time after time after time, leaving more people in poverty each time, pretty much seals the deal.

Why not just work as a Paid Lobbyist for the Very Rich? Oh, that’s right, you’re running for office HERE. My bad.

Grandmas Against The War…

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I LOVE the way these kids operate These are the ones who went to the Recruiting Offices in Manhattan and tried to enlist. In their 70s and 80s. This has an other link off on the sidebar to your right, on The Rag Blog. But I figured the more the merrier.

Meanwhile, Napolitano said that we have the highest risk of Terror Attack since 9/11 and calls on the Local Constabularies and the Citizens to profile anybody who doesn’t look right. You know, like Black Folks, Mexican or Native American or Asian or anybody with more melanin in his/her skin hair and eyes than your average Norther European. So if you see a Black Person on the bus or Train like Ojore Lutalo you now have the full permission of the Federales to call Nine Eleven on him.

Enhanced quotation from the “Good (white) Citizens” who cost him a week of his liberty for the crime of riding Amtrak as though he were a Human Being with rights and dignity and shit like that…

He was lookin’ at us like he was angry or somethin’ just cause all of us Old Peckerwoods wuz starin’ at him and whisperin’. Then he got on a cell phone and acted all angry that we wuz trying to eavesdrop on him. Obviously a Terrorist.

Also news, the House tried to “ram the bill down our throats” as in, Republican leaders decided to have an “emergency vote” on extending Government Powers to treat Americans as shitty as they do suspects in Iraq.

Because of the procedure call it would have taken a straight two-thirds majority to pass. It got a majority but not the two thirds. Conspicuously absent on the Nay vote list was any representative from Colorado. ChickenHawk Lamborn for instance.

They’re going to try again because the Fascist Secret Police Powers expire Monday if not extended.

Why do Right Wing Lunatics hate Constitutional Freedoms for anybody other than Wealthy White People?

Protest of police state lures police

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COLORADO SPRINGS- Outnumbered! Though we comprised a perfectly respectable half-dozen on the hastily organized protest of FBI tactics meant to intimidate, scouting the city blocks which formed our periphery revealed motorcycle cops poised unseen behind corners. Is that merely obligatory, post-9/11, when activists speak out against intelligence agencies? Except for a building security guard who warned us the elevated planters along the sidewalk were private property, CSPD and state troopers kept an unobtrusive distance — well, enough to mask their number. Our sign-holding was the usual peaceful vigil, but our minders parked a solitary unmarked cruiser smack in our faces to keep up with [menacing] appearances. The proverbial chill on free speech.

PPJPC drops justice & peace in favor of Judas kiss & Participatory militarism

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You don’t care what our neighborhood Pikes Peak Justice & Peace Commission has gotten its leash tangled around –I shouldn’t– but the latest is just too funny. FIRST, in November they sponsored an Israel-BDS protest to boycott a local Ahava outlet and promptly got two participants arrested. Wrongly of course, but the police were awaiting them with a letter fashioned for the occasion by the City Attorney giving the CSPD authority to drive the activists from the private property. Although planning had been kept on the QT, do you think the reception might have been due to monthly confabs which the PPJPC executive director keeps with city law enforcement? Later in debriefing, the director pronounced his incredulity that the “new policy” hadn’t been spelled out to him at the last meeting. So what kinds of things do the PPJPC & CSPD discuss? SECOND, just as the PPJPC fell for the Save Darfur intervention-as-peacemaking faketivism, then zipped it for Obama’s false hopetivism, now the pitiful dupes call their Muslim-Jewish-Christian “Evening in Jerusalem” gathering a THREE CUPS OF TEA PARTY! Would this be in deference to Greg Mortenson‘s Western Empire [school] building enterprise? That puts the PPJPC in the company of the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, Mortenson’s biggest boosters. The next chance I get I will ask known J&P’ers I promise you — who are the Idiot Iscariots taking this tack? The PPJPC is soliciting donations from earnest yous and mes in the name of peace and justice, to advocate for forfeiting civil liberties and 3CoT’s participatory militarism.

On the AHAVA arrests, do we know who tipped off the cops? Not really, but we know the city’s actions didn’t spring from the media press releases which went out the day before. How much lead time do you figure is required to solicit a written policy from the city attorney’s office? Who had that kind of foresight?

The official word was that the “new policy” delineating which shopping centers might be major enough to be considered public spaces, and which were only average-sized neighborhood no-free-speech zones, was drafted to preempt populist petitioner Doug Bruce from assailing shoppers at will. But he prevailed against the trespassing charges pressed against him by Costco didn’t he. So that pretext doesn’t wash, and by no stretch of the law would a Costco parking lot be considered public.

There is already legal precedence for shopping centers not being considered the new town squares, and the state of Colorado has already put freedom-seekers aspiring to assemble in malls that they must abide by individual mall rules of conduct. At Chapel Hills mall is means, by permit, one at a time, no more than one day per quarter, no handouts, and a moratorium on all social causes over the holiday shopping period.

So a city-wide policy penned by their counsel giving explicit authority for police to remove activists from private property would seem redundant and by its intentional breadth, unconstitutional. But it gives cops-on-the-beat ground not to vacillate.

However CSPD learned about the J&P plans, wouldn’t it seem a crippling limitation to be meeting with the police on a regular basis to give them a heads up about any events that might concern them?

Keep in mind, the PPJPC executive director is avowedly protest-averse. He’s stated he doesn’t see the value to public demonstrations, and they certainly disrupt his ongoing strategy to ingratiate himself and his non-profit into the fabric of local conformist NGOs.

In the case of the Ahava boycott, though the protest was organized by a subcommittee of the PPJPC, toward the press the activists were told to identify themselves only as Middle East Peace Project. That was the PPJPC wouldn’t be tainted by any negativity which the action might draw. You’d think that choosing to distance yourself from motivated peace activists would be justification enough to pretend not knowing of their plans when the police are chatting you up for clues.

What good does it serve organizers if a parent organization is going to maintain plausible deniability but at the same time is helping law enforcement keep tabs on your plans.

There was nothing illegal about the plan to picket the Ahava store. There was nothing illegal about assembling on a shopping center parking lot which is open to the public. There is no need to alert the local police if the only result is that they will finagle a ruling by which you are prevented from exercising your constitutional guaranteed rights.

CSPD intimidates student activists with threat of arrest and inferred brutality

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COLORADO SPRINGS- When word got round to CSPD that local college students might be planning a camp out to protest the inhumanity of the city’s recent anti-homeless ordinance, a police commander put another message up the grapevine: all would be summarily arrested. The courtesy call to a local organizer was simply to ensure, he said, that participants be prepared for arrest, and wouldn’t result in chaos with the potential for unintended brutality. The warning worked its charm, never mind the police offering no basis for how and why such a protest would be illegal.

Being without a home is not a crime

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The CSPD and Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful are proposing an ordinance to make camping illegal. On February 5th, Coloradans For Peace will be joining Ed Billings’ call: DON’T CRIMINALIZE THE HOMELESS. “Bring a sign, and a friend” Friday at noon, in front of Colorado Springs City Hall, 107 N. Nevada Ave.

Ed’s made an ad to promote the protest:

Boycott vs. Chapel Hills Mall monitors

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Please contact CFP if you can take a half-hour shift tomorrow. Gaza remains imprisoned, the FGM activists and aid convoy are still forbidden entry. The peace protesters are being roughed up in Egypt, and DAY 2 of our little Chapel Hills Mall action wasn’t without excitement either.

chapel hills mall security

At the height of our numbers, we were watched over by three police cruisers, a mall security SUV and what turned out to be an unmarked pickup. The law enforcement contingent eventually dissipated, only to reconstitute itself quickly when we decided to drive around the mall parking lot in search of a photographic angle that included the mountains in the backdrop.

As we drove between lots trying to frame the shot, the various police and security cars would weave into adjacent lanes keeping us in their sights. Funny and creepy. I confess to becoming too intimidated to take any pictures lest they pretend we were casing the joint. Did they think we were going to make a break for the mall doors?

In fact, the boycott message is suitably conveyed from the public sidewalk. The mall has written rules which severely constrict circulating fliers and petitions inside. If your application is accepted, for one day per quarter year, the mall administrators can assign you a location far from the bulk of the customers. Political messages cannot interfere with commerce, and the entire holiday shopping season is off limits.

For the most part, holding the placards was uneventful. Most shoppers pulling into the mall responded with blank expressions of confusion. Every so often we had to answer queries shouted from their windows as they waited at the light. Several times we received thumbs up, waves, and honks of support. Other times we could see drivers share words with the police cars keeping watch.

One woman walked by us scanning our signs with a deliberate scowl. “Actually, she she informed us, I like the Israelites.” I didn’t take issue with her, but suggested that what the “Israelites” were doing to the people of Gaza was not right. She disagreed, turning on her heels hissing: “The people of Gaza are Muslims.“

Colorado Springs government and police continue to lie about their raids on the Homeless

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liars myers HOMELAND INSECURITY REPORT- The CS police, under the direction of Police Cap Ricky ‘Liars’ Myers, are continuing to fudge and pretend their innocence about their raids and harassment against the Homeless population in the city, on behalf of the Business Community which simply hates these unfortunate people. They want them all gone but can’t find a way to get it done without attracting public attention. So they have to play all sorts of mind games using the local press as conduit for their song and dance.

‘The cleanups first received negative publicity last fall after homeless advocates charged the monthly sweeps include improper searches and that personal belongings are routinely tossed out. The ACLU contends the cleanups violate the Fourth Amendment and the Colorado Constitution. ….. In bullet-point fashion, ACLU staff attorney Taylor Pendergrass describes its findings after it “interviewed dozens of persons who claimed to have had private property seized and destroyed by CSPD and KCSB.” Among them is that the cleanups were typically unannounced and conducted when homeless people were away from their camps and couldn’t protect their belongings. “Numerous different CSPD officers have been involved in seizing and destroying property, but many interviewees consistently identified CSPD Officer’s Olav Chaney and Tracey (sic) Fox,” Pendergrass wrote in the letter.’

Taken from ACLU: Cops look into sweeps at camps

Springs ranks 3rd in arresting drinkers

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IS COLORADO SPRINGS THE NATION’S 3RD DRUNKEST CITY? Relax, we rank third in criminalizing social drinkers for the sake of city revenues. The statistics used in the Men’s Health Magazine study do not measure per capita consumption of alcohol as the title might imply, but are weighed heavily with law enforcement figures, among them, the number of DUI arrests and number of M.A.D.D. programs mandated.

Denver ranked first in the nation, which could indicate the law enforcement methods are related. Both are cities spread over large expanses, with terrible public transportation systems. If there is more drinking in the Rocky Mountains than elsewhere, obviously the Front Range is the most inhospitable environment.

The regions also share the same MADD administrator, publicity hound Pam Vanoverbeke, who’s always ready to tell anyone within earshot that drinking + automobile = death. Vanoverbeke will often ignore the vehicular variable altogether. After all, and increase in drinking does mean an increase in accidents, the number of vehicles remaining fixed.

For example, arguing against relaxing enforcement of drinking on college campuses, Vanoverbeke warns: “If you make alcohol more accessible to youth more youth are going to die.”

Vanoverbeke tells her captive audiences at the court-ordered MADD events that she’s been personally impacted by five drunk driving accidents. Apparently that personal epidemic is translating into an ever alarmist image for the Front Range. And building municipal revenues. This funding method amounts to a regressive tax, because those who can afford it can opt out of the corrections treadmill with a good lawyer.

COS drops convention trespass charges

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Park sidewalk
COLORADO SPRINGS- At this morning’s motions hearing in Municipal Court, the city attorney asked Judge Spencer Gresham to dismiss their case. Due to “discovery issues we cannot resolve” and “internal misunderstandings,” the city dropped the trespassing charges against Peter Sprunger-Froese and I. So let’s see. They arrest us in front of hundreds at the World Arena, detain us until our chance to protest the State Convention is over, put us through five court appointments, then decide we shouldn’t have been arrested? And they didn’t even say that.

It was rather hard to stomach. A city prosecutor explaining that complications with the evidence led them to conclude the case wasn’t worth pursuing. No apology, no admission of error. Simply that taking us to trial was now thought be too inconvenient.

This after claiming there was no additional evidence from World Arena surveillance cameras, no tape from a the police observation van across the street, no recordings from the spooks with parabolic dishes above the Hampton Inn, no better audio track and additional footage to accompany the chopped up inaudible video they did offer us, no transcript of the public meetings beforehand where contradictory descriptions were given of a planned demonstration area.

This after maintaining that a “Free Speech Zone” was clearly marked when their own video showed that it wasn’t.

This even after fighting our request for a jury trial.

We walk into court and the same stonewalling city prosecutor declares that the City of Colorado Springs has decided to be magnanimous and drop the charges.

To his credit, Judge Gresham did ask if the city’s request was based on finding the new evidence exculpable. No, your honor, said the city prosecutor, this was just about the mounting difficulties of complying with the requested discovery.

The judge asked if the defendants had any objections. Our attorney said no.

This was not something we’d discussed as being an available options, but our lawyer answered on our behalf. Peter and I would be apprised later that voicing any objections would have been deleterious to being cleared of the charge. Otherwise, we for damn sure had objections!

Can you usurp someone’s free speech only to admit later you had no cause? There was no apology actually. Can they do that? I am Goddamn incensed that my rights were shoved aside, handcuffed, escorted, photographed, fingerprinted, detained, driven to the other side of the city, made to wait for a ride back to my car, denied the chance to return to what I was doing before I was arrested, now it turns out, for no cause!

What about the repercussions? I’ve got friends thinking I’m a troublemaker, when in fact I didn’t make trouble. It was heaped on me by uniformed misapplication of authority. Can they do that? Others are now sheepish about expressing themselves publicly because those police officers acted illegally. That’s the chilling effect of law enforcement given too much power. Now what? Honestly I’ve got friends who in the past have shown great courage in the face of repression and injustice, made into sheepish cowards who think speaking up means being insufficiently peaceful.

This is the result of the City of Colorado Springs police making arrests however they damn please. Is that going to stand? How many more acts of police intimidation are we going to tolerate before the chilling effect silences everyone?

Probably you’ve discerned where the meat of this case might have been found. It would seem to be what the city wants to avoid coming to light. It’s where a civil case is going to find incredibly flammable fuel.

Will free speech arrest merit a jury trial?

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COLORADO SPRINGS- I figured our Motions Hearing today would be a perfunctory affair. Wrong! The city is denying there is more evidence, they want us to waive our right to a speedy trial, and, they asked the judge to deny us a jury trial. Can they do that? The judge will give his written decision by Friday. On whether we have a Constitutional Right to a Trial by Jury.

A trial by a jury of one’s peers
It seems between the first appearance at which we were granted a continuance, then the arraignment where our attorneys set a pretrial date, neither of the judges asked about a jury trial. We entered a plea of not-guilty, but were never asked if we wanted a jury trial, nor asked to deposit a $25 payment. It wasn’t until the pretrial conference that the judge looked over the paperwork and noticed no deposit had been made to reserve a jury trial. A motions hearing was scheduled, where among our requests, we would have to ask for a jury trial.

Our attorneys cited precedent today, that even in the event of attorney negligence, the right to a trial by jury is considered so important that it’s been granted to defendants who’ve previously declined it. Regardless whose mistake, they argued, Peter and myself were clearly never asked and could under no circumstance be considered to have waived the right.

The city on the other hand explained that precedent in municipal court has long established that a trial by jury in petty offenses is not a Constitutional Right, and instead is a “Statutory Right.” Meaning that if the defendants have not followed every provision of the statute, they sacrifice their opportunity for a trial by jury.

Judge Hayden W. Kane II declared that he would issue a written decision on the matter, by the end of the week. This move does not look encouraging to us. The judge faced two very competent defense attorneys and perhaps didn’t dare rule against them in light of rebuttals they might have offered.

Evidence withheld from Discovery
Through discovery, the city has offered that the only evidence they have to show us, besides officers’ accounts, is a hand held video with unintelligible sound. Nothing else. At today’s motions hearing we proffered affidavits to the effect that men were observed with parabolic dishes above the Hampton Inn. As well, some CSPD officers observed the arrests from the basement of the World Arena, indicating that surveillance footage would be available from there.

The city has denied any of this exists, and in making the argument that cameras don’t always record their footage, the city lawyer explained that she learned policemen were observing from a van across the street, but that their cameras were only capturing a live feed, and weren’t recording. Whether you believe that or not, in either case those “witnesses” had not been revealed to us in discovery.

Peter and I are quite interested in video evidence because it was very plain to us that we hadn’t stepped over any tape. Surveillance footage would show that there was no division between a “booster zone” within the “free speech zone.” Audio will also demonstrate that our conversation with police was amicable and betrayed our earnest interpretation of where our speech was permitted.

But the judge appeared to give the rather novice city lawyer all the slack, offering her ten days to get the evidence to the defendants. If the judge decides we don’t have the right to a trial by jury, our lawyers will have to appeal. To my knowledge this will spoil our opportunity to have a speedy trial. A trial date has been set for August 29.

Not My Tribe

the myth of middle ground

Tag Archives: Colorado Springs Police Department

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Now Colorado College students have to ask permission if they want to protest

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War is over, so they say…

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Grandmas Against The War…

Protest of police state lures police

PPJPC drops justice & peace in favor of Judas kiss & Participatory militarism

CSPD intimidates student activists with threat of arrest and inferred brutality

Being without a home is not a crime

Boycott vs. Chapel Hills Mall monitors

Colorado Springs government and police continue to lie about their raids on the Homeless

Springs ranks 3rd in arresting drinkers

COS drops convention trespass charges

Will free speech arrest merit a jury trial?