F.B.I. Sued!
Posted: 03/02/2011 12:14:34 PM PST
Updated: 03/02/2011 02:14:42 PM PST
A Muslim advocacy group on Wednesday sued the FBI on behalf of a San Jose 20-year-old student who says he found a GPS tracker on his car last fall, alleging the device violated the young man's constitutional rights. Last week, the CAIR in Los Angeles Area and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California announced a federal class action lawsuit against the FBI for allegedly illegal surveillance of the Muslim community there.
The Council on American Islamic Relations' suit revolves around Yasir Afifi, a marketing student at Mission College in Santa Clara, who made headlines last fall when he posted the mysterious device online asking readers decipher what it was. The FBI showed up two days later "interrogating" him, the suit alleges, before taking the GPS tracker back. The lawsuit states the FBI was able to "continuously monitor Mr. Afifi's vehicle, and thus, Mr. Afifi himself, accurately within meters," acting as an "unlawful trespasser," in violation the Fourth Amendment. The suit also contends that by keeping an active file still open on Afifi, which documents where he prayed had dinner with his girlfriend, among other activities, is a violation of the First Amendment.
"The biggest thing here, is that the FBI is treating American Muslims as suspects instead of partners," said Zahra Billoo, Affifi's attorney and the executive director of CAIR in Santa Clara. "This targeting undermines cooperation with law enforcement and chills Muslims' civil rights. We want to ensure the FBI stops these types of practices. This should be an ongoing cause for concern for all Americans."
FBI spokeswoman Julianne Sohn said she couldn't specifically comment.
AFIFISUIT -
The defendants named are Attorney General Eric Holder, FBI Director Robert Mueller and unnamed FBI agents. The suit demands that the FBI never place another tracker on Afifi's car, return or destroy the documents on him, declare these type of warrantless searches illegal, and seeks and unspecified money for damages.
CAIR filed the lawsuit in Washington D.C., where the FBI has its headquarters and where the federal court there has declared it's illegal to place GPS trackers on cars without warrants, Billoo said, which is not the case within the Ninth Circuit that encompasses California. Afifi has said on Oct. 3, his mechanic spotted the tracker, when he took his car in for a routine oil change. The mechanic yanked it out, and Afifi brought the device home, worried that it may be a pipe bomb. He uploaded photos of it on the Internet, and a reader suggested it was a law enforcement GPS.
A couple days after he posted the photo, Afifi said FBI agents followed him in his car, and pulled him over to question him about his license. Records state Afifi has one prior, unrelated misdemeanor from when he was 19 years old. One agent identified himself only as Vincent, the suit alleges.
Then, the "interrogation" began, Afifi asserts in the suit. The agents asked about the tracking device and began threatening if he didn't turn it over, he'd face charges for possessing federal property. Vincent said he had a warrant to retrieve the device, but refused to show it to Afifi, the suit states. Billoo said in an interview that a copy of that warrant has never been produced for her agency. Afifi said he wanted to contact an attorney, who would make the "appropriate arrangements" with the FBI, but then "Vincent began yelling at Mr. Afifi and emphatically refused Mr. Afifi's request," according to the suit.
FBI agents finally acknowledged the tracker was theirs and they had attached it to Afifi's car, the suit states. Even after Afifi decided to return the device, agents continued asking questions: Was he was a national security threat? Was he was excited about an upcoming trip abroad? Did he have money troubles? Had he traveled to Yemen? Another agent, identified as Jennifer Kananan, "made clear that she knew intimate, private details of Mr. Afifi's life," by congratulating him on his new job and commending him on his taste in restaurants, the suit states. She even suggested that Afifi himself might one day work for the FBI.
Longmont Sued!
Publish Date: 2/1/2011
LONGMONT — The city of Longmont has agreed to a $130,000 settlement in a lawsuit brought by a 1996 rape victim. Renee Dulany was 19 when she was bound and raped at knifepoint by Rudy Gaytan. She later sued the police officer who led the investigation, saying she had identified Gaytan as a suspect within hours of the attack but that police didn’t seriously look into him at the time.
Gaytan was arrested in 2006 when a match was made with a DNA sample he gave in another criminal case. He was convicted of the rape in 2007 and sentenced to 72 years in prison. In 2010, Gaytan also pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of Tammera Tatum, for which he is serving a concurrent sentence.
City attorney Eugene Mei said the agreement was signed by Jan. 24, 2011 but that some defendants still need to approve it.
Under the terms of the settlement, Dulany will be paid within 15 days after the agreement becomes effective. That is, after everyone involved has signed it. But Dulany said she’s not happy with the delay. She’s considering withdrawing from the settlement, in part because she thought the 15-day clock began ticking on Jan 14 — when the terms of the agreement were reached, she said. She noted that if the lawsuit still went ahead, there were steps she would need to take in early February.
“If they’re not going to honor the settlement we came to pretty soon, within 24 to 48 hours, then we have a timing problem and I’m going to have to make a choice,” Dulany said.
Mei said the city had every intention of honoring the settlement and that both Dulany and her attorney had signed their agreement to the terms.
“If there was some issue with the timing, the plaintiff and the plaintiff’s attorney shouldn’t have consented to the settlement,” Mei said.
“Our position would be that we have an agreement,” he said.
Los Angeles Shooting Verdict!
March 2, 2011
FILE - This undated family photo provided by Rukhsana Chaudhry, shows Mohammad Usman Chaudhry, an autistic man who was shot and killed by Los Angeles police officer Joseph Cruz in 2008. Chaudhry's family is suing the LAPD over the death. A civil jury has awarded $1.7 million to the family of Mohammad Usman Chaudhry Attorney Olu Orange said Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011, that the jury awarded $1 million in compensatory damages to the estate of Mohammad Usman Chaudhry and $350,000 to each of his parents. Former officer Joseph Cruz was found to have used excessive force in the March 2008 killing of Chaudhry, though a police probe had largely cleared Cruz after he said he shot Chaudhry when the 21-year-old man lunged at him with a knife. Cruz was later fired from the Police Department on an unrelated matter.
Los Angeles Sued!
January 19, 2011
The family of a man shot and killed by an LAPD officer in 2008 has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the department and the former policeman, who was fired for dishonesty on another case. Mohammed Usman Chaudhry was a 21-year-old autistic man who sometimes wandered away from his parent's home in favor of a transient existence on the streets in Hollywood.
DOCUMENTS: Read the use of force report filed by the Los Angeles Police Commission
On March 25, Officer Joseph Cruz spotted Chaudhry near Curson Avenue south of Sunset Boulevard and struck up a conversation with him. Chaudhry acted calmly and did not seem to pose a threat, authorities said. Cruz instructed his partner to return to the patrol car to run Chaudhry's name through a computer database for any outstanding warrants. From where the vehicle was parked, his partner could not see Cruz and Chaudhry clearly, court and police records show.
According to Cruz's account of the shooting contained in court and police records, Chaudhry suddenly reached into the front pocket of his sweatshirt, pulled out a knife with a nearly 4-inch blade and lunged at him. Cruz drew his gun and fired three shots in quick succession, and, with Chaudhry still on his feet, fired a fourth shot a second or two later. His partner saw Cruz fire only the fourth shot, and there were no other witnesses.
In opening statements to the jury Tuesday, Chaudhry’s family attorney Olu Orange said, "Today's case is about truth and the evidence will show that Joseph Cruz was fired from his position as an LAPD officer … that it was the city of Los Angeles that fired him … and the reason he was fired was that he was dishonest, that he would not tell the truth during an official investigation."
Joseph Cruz!
In his short time as a Los Angeles police officer, Joseph Cruz earned a reputation as a hard-charging cop. He opted to work nights in a "very aggressive unit" in Hollywood, using force on suspects when the circumstances called for it, court records show. A supervisor once testified that he wished he had 40 officers just like Cruz.
The praise, however, soon turned to suspicion and later disbelief. In 2007, a witness said he saw the 25-year-old Cruz pistol-whip a suspect, leaving a bloody gash on the man's head. Cruz claimed the man caused the injury himself by lifting his head into the butt of the gun. Ultimately, Cruz was fired for dishonesty after he gave shifting accounts of another detainee's escape from his custody.
When Cruz went to court to try to get his job back, city lawyers told a judge the former officer's "actions have damaged beyond repair his credibility."
So it is a strange scene playing out this week in a federal courtroom in Los Angeles, where the LAPD and the same city attorney's office that essentially denounced Cruz as a liar are now vouching for his credibility in a lawsuit alleging that he wrongly killed a man. They say Cruz's actions in a 2008 shooting were justified, although they have reached that conclusion largely on the word of a man they say they don't trust.
The awkward arrangement highlights the complications and inconsistencies that can arise for the LAPD and the city attorney's office. The Police Department fires, suspends, or otherwise disciplines hundreds of officers for misconduct each year, while at the same time working with city lawyers to defend some of the same officers in civil lawsuits alleging wrongdoing.
"This is one of the messes that classically gets left behind when an officer is found to be corrupt," said USC law professor Rebecca Lonergan, a former federal prosecutor.
The shooting at the center of the current lawsuit occurred in the darkness of a March morning in 2008. A few minutes before 4 a.m., Cruz and his partner were driving down Curson Avenue south of Sunset Boulevard when Cruz spotted Mohammed Usman Chaudhry lying behind some bushes in the shadows of an apartment building.
Chaudhry was a 21-year-old autistic man who sometimes wandered away from his parent's home in favor of a transient existence on the streets in Hollywood. Cruz struck up a conversation with Chaudhry, who acted calmly and did not seem to pose a threat, police and court records show. It does not appear that Chaudhry's behavior gave the officers an indication of his mental disorder. Cruz instructed his partner to return to the patrol car to run Chaudhry's name through a computer database for any outstanding warrants. From where the vehicle was parked, his partner could not see Cruz and Chaudhry clearly, court and police records show.
According to Cruz's account of the shooting contained in court and police records, Chaudhry suddenly reached into the front pocket of his sweatshirt, pulled out a knife with a nearly 4-inch blade and lunged at him. Cruz drew his gun and fired three shots in quick succession, and, with Chaudhry still on his feet, fired a fourth shot a second or two later. His partner saw Cruz fire only the fourth shot, and there were no other witnesses.
Three of the bullets struck Chaudhry in the chest area, killing him. Cruz was treated for a small cut on his hand that he said he suffered when he raised his arm to block Chaudhry's attempt to stab him. A knife was recovered at the scene.
The Los Angeles Police Commission, a civilian board that oversees the LAPD and reviews all serious use-of-force cases, concluded that Cruz's decision to use deadly force was justified. The board criticized Cruz and his partner for failing to search Chaudhry for weapons and for ignoring a basic tactical rule that requires one officer to always keep watch over his partner during a stop.
Chaudhry's parents filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Cruz and the LAPD, alleging that their son's civil rights were violated in the shooting.
In his opening statement to the jury Tuesday, a lawyer for the family made it clear he would try to cast doubt on Cruz's trustworthiness and his account of the incident, in part by driving home the fact that the LAPD and city lawyers concluded he was not credible.
"Today's case is about truth," attorney Olu Orange said. "And the evidence will show that Joseph Cruz was fired from his position as an LAPD officer … that it was the city of Los Angeles that fired him … and the reason he was fired was that he was dishonest, that he would not tell the truth during an official investigation."
The city has a strong interest in defending Cruz in court. If the jury awards the Chaudhry family monetary damages, it is likely — although not certain — that the city will be responsible for the cost since Cruz killed Chaudhry in the line of duty.
The city is paying Peter Ferguson, a private attorney, to defend Cruz in the case. Craig Miller, a deputy city attorney who specializes in defending LAPD officers, is also at the defense table. And an LAPD detective from the department's Risk Management Section has served as Miller's investigator on the case, helping him to build the case that Cruz's account of the shooting is truthful.
Lawyers for the Chaudhry family are expected to focus, in part, on DNA evidence taken from the knife. Tests conducted for the LAPD found only one person's DNA on the knife's handle and blade, court records show. And Chaudhry's DNA, the tests concluded, did not match the DNA on the knife.
Representatives from the LAPD and city attorney's office refused requests for comment. Ferguson also declined to comment or let Cruz speak for this article.
The shooting came in the wake of two other incidents that put Cruz under scrutiny and eventually resulted in his being fired.
In April 2007, the pistol-whipping incident occurred, according to police records. Despite Cruz's explanation that the wound had been accidentally caused by the suspect, the Police Commission concluded that the witness' account was more credible and determined that Cruz had been unjustified in making the head strike. It does not appear that finding led the LAPD to open an investigation into whether Cruz had been dishonest with investigators.
Several months later, Cruz and a partner were sent to pick up a girl who had run away from a juvenile shelter, according to court records. On the drive back to the LAPD's Hollywood area station, the girl escaped from the patrol car and fled.
During the investigation into the incident, Cruz offered the explanation that the girl, who was handcuffed, had thrown herself head-first out the window while the car was moving. And, in three interviews with investigators, he gave a changing account of what he did in the moments after she fled. At first, he said he had tried to contact a supervisor over his department radio. When investigators told Cruz there was no record of any radio transmission, he said he recalled that he had instead used his mobile phone to contact the station.
Department officials accused Cruz of oversights that led to the girl's escape and of making false statements — a charge he denied. He went before a three-person disciplinary board, which included two LAPD captains. The two captains rejected Cruz's explanations, found him guilty of dishonesty and recommended that he be fired.
"There are too many events that do not make sense, as explained by Officer Cruz, to give this board any confidence in his statement," the captains concluded in their decision. Cruz, they wrote, had offered up a "calculated set of false facts" that amounted to a "concocted story."
Damages: $8 million !
January 19, 2011SPRINGFIELD, Ill. • The Illinois Court of Claims awarded $8 million in damages today to the parents of two Collinsville teens killed by a state trooper who crashed his squad car at 126 mph while e-mailing and talking on his cell phone.
Brian Uhl and Kimberly Schlau, the parents of Jessica Uhl, 18, and Kelli Uhl, 13, had sought damages in excess of $24 million from former state trooper Matt Mitchell and the state, and later increased it to $46 million. Still, the $8 million award is considered large.
"To my knowledge, this is the largest tort claim ever awarded (against the state)," said Michael Mathis, a lawyer for the Illinois Court of Claims.
The court awarded $4 million for Kelli Uhl's death, and $4 million for Jessica Uhl's death.
Schlau said at a press conference today that the award won't make her family whole. But, she said she hopes it will deter negligent behavior in the future. "We are hopeful this ruling has an impact," Schlau said. Schlau said the money will help the family fund scholarships in the girls' names.
Mitchell lost control of his police car on Interstate 64 near Fairview Heights while driving 126 mph in response to an emergency that was already being handled by other agencies. In the moments before the November 2007 crash, Mitchell had been talking on his cell phone to his girlfriend and e-mailing another trooper. Larry Trent, the former director of the state police, testified that Mitchell's actions were "indefensible."
The Uhl sisters were headed home from a post-Thanksgiving photo shoot when their car was struck by Mitchell's marked Chevrolet and was engulfed in a raging fire. The teens died at the scene. Two others in another vehicle were injured. Mitchell resigned from his job last year, after he pleaded guilty of two counts of reckless homicide in a deal for 30 months on probation.
Now, the monetary award must be rolled into a special bill and approved by the Illinois Legislature. Such bills are usually approved toward the end of April.
Mitchell was in two previous crashes: A single-vehicle crash in 2002 with no injuries, and a 2003 crash that resulted in a $1.7 million judgment.
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