Showing posts with label LEO. Show all posts
    Showing posts with label LEO. Show all posts

  • A few weeks ago, I wanted to make a compare/contrast between how authorities were handling the Oregon standoff led by Ammon Bundy and the standoff led by members of MOVE. I wound up not doing it not only because reading and researching what happened on May 13, 1985 angered me in a way very few things do, but because I knew people would point out there wasn't a direct connection. Whereas the so-called "showdown" at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge involved federal authorities (most notably the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), the MOVE bombing involved the Philadelphia Police Department (and with the blessing of Philadelphia's first black mayor, Wilson Goode).

    Nevertheless, the two events provide yet another stark contrast as to how authorities throughout the nation deal with perceived threats. Whereas Philly's finest elected to use extraordinary force when dealing with MOVE, resulting in 11 dead, 65 houses destroyed and over 250 people rendered homeless, the feds chose to wait out the Oregon standoff, only using the absolute minimum amount of force when left with no other choice.

    It's no secret that authorities often choose to ratchet up the force continuum faster when dealing with black individuals and black groups, but where they start out on the force continuum is often higher than where their white peers start out. In other words, LEOs have proven to not just escalate faster and with more force when dealing with black suspects, but also hold them with a higher level of suspicion to begin with.

    In short:



    It's true that the feds were feeling (and still feel) gun-shy about how to handle standoffs in the wake of Ruby Ridge and Waco, but the leniency of which the self-described militiamen at the heart of the event were treated still rankles the nerves of every black person who knew that a black group conducting itself under the same circumstances would not get the same courtesy.


  • If Tamir Rice was a blonde-haired, hazel-eyed 12-year-old Caucasian child, he would likely still be alive today. His parents would have been called and he would have been admonished about playing with a BB gun in the middle of a city park. There would be no guns drawn and the responding police officers would have felt a bit annoyed about being called out over some kid playing in the park with a toy gun.

    But Tamir Rice had the misfortune of being a black-haired, brown-eyed 12-year-old black child in a land where being black is considered a credible threat and where such threats are commonly terminated by law enforcement with extreme prejudice, even if you're just a child.

    But it's not like most white Americans see black children as actual children:

    In one experiment, a group of 60 police officers from a large urban police force were asked to assess the age of white, black and Latino children based on photographs. The officers were randomly assigned to be told that the children in the photographs were accused of either a misdemeanor or felony charge. The officers overestimate the age of black felony-suspected children by close to five years, but they actually underestimated the age of white felony-suspected children by nearly a year.

    Particularly relevant to the Tamir Rice case: "Black 13-year-olds were miscategorized as adults by police officers (average age error 4.59 years)."

    Similar experiments involving 169 mostly white students found that "participants began to think of black children as significantly less innocent than other children at every age group, beginning at the age of 10." These experiments also showed that respondents were more likely to see the black children as "culpable" of a hypothetical felony compared with white and Latino children.

    This research comports with other research done in the mid-2000s, which confronted police officers and civilians with photos of black and white armed and unarmed people, and asked them to press a "shoot" or "don't shoot" button for each image. Cops and civilians were more likely to press "shoot" for black images overall, but they were slower to press "don't shoot" for unarmed black images, and quicker to press "shoot" when an image showed an armed black man.

    The APA researchers sum up their findings this way: "Our findings suggest that, although most children are allowed to be innocent until adulthood, black children may be perceived as innocent only until deemed suspicious." The Tamir Rice case illustrates that for some black children, those biases can play out with deadly consequences in just a fraction of a second.

    Threats come in all shapes and sizes. Any "good guy with a gun" can tell you that. And yet:

    A North Carolina woman was arrested on Christmas Eve after she was spotted with a BB gun in front of the police department and pointed it at officers and told them to shoot her.

    Police received a 911 call about a woman in front of the police department with a gun around 7:30 p.m. Thursday. They found Elaine Rothenberg, 66, standing in front of a doorway at the police department with a gun raised and in a shooting stance.

    Police said Rothenberg, who was from North Carolina but had been staying on Cliffside Drive in the city, yelled about hating cops and told officers “what are you doing, shoot me!” and “what are you, scared?” She raised the gun at officers and yelled “boom, boom, boom.”

    After a brief standoff Rothenberg told officers the gun was fake and threw it to the ground, police said. She was taken into custody and police determined she had been holding a BB gun.

    Rothenberg was charged with first-degree threatening, second-degree breach of peace, seven counts of reckless endangerment and interfering with police.

    There was no split-second threat assessment needed. After all, she wasn't a 12-year-old black kid.

  • Yours truly has learned something these past few months watching and reading up on current events, especially those affecting black Americans:

    1. The value of a black life in the United States remains marginal, at best. At worst, that value is nonexistent.
    2. At any given moment, said life can be put to an end at the whim of a white American, whether under color of law or as a concerned citizen who "feared" for their safety and well-being.
    3. The value of a black life in the United States is determined and enshrined by mainstream America's view of the black community, and then verified and validated in its treatment at the hands of law enforcement and other institutions throughout the nation.
    4. Said law enforcement members have been given card blanche to respond to the black community and other ethnic and social minority groups as aggressively as possible.
    5. Respectability politics has long since proven to be absolutely ineffective in improving the black community's image in mainstream America's eyes or preventing further life-ending incidents at the hands of law enforcement and concerned citizens.
    6. When confronted with the above, many mainstream Americans will resort to blaming the black community for these problems based on a strict adherence to the Just World fallacy and their belief of black Americans as a morally bankrupt people. They'll also support law enforcement officials and concerned citizens who've put black lives to rest, at least as far as polite society will allow.
    7. Overt racism is still taboo and a serious faux pas in polite discussion. However, coded talk remains perfectly acceptable and preferred among many.

    The entire black blogosphere has undergone an airing out of grievances and a sharing of thoughts, feelings, experiences and the pain suffered by many within the black community. There have been protests, marches, demonstrations, the works. There have been a few indictments and even a few cases where authorities have quickly acted, if only out of self-interest and self-preservation.

    Still, the killings and the beatings continue.

    Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Rekia Boyd, Aiyana Stanley-Jones - the list goes on. And it's one that grows longer with each passing day.

  • Another day, another dead black American, another outrage.

    These days, black Americans are being murdered like clockwork by men and women charged with protecting the public. Except protecting and serving the public takes a back seat to a whole host of corrupt behaviors, none least the brutalization and wanton murder of black individuals.

    Judging by history, these things are to be expected. Bigotry against the dreaded Other has always been iron-clad policy, even in today's so-called "post-racial" environment. Institutional enforcement of said bigotry has also been de rigueur, especially when fears of being overrun by said Other has always lurked in the back of mainstream America's collective mind since colonial times.

    So Freddie Gray's death at the hands of the Baltimore Police Department is, in history's grand scope, nothing out of the ordinary. The only remarkable thing about it is the reaction it elicited from the city's black residents.


    And even that response doesn't seem out of the ordinary. Protests and demonstrations have been the default method of expressing outrage by a people who feel otherwise powerless to prevent these atrocities from happening, The attendant rioting and looting is another side of that response, mostly done by those whose sheer anger and fury explode into a whirlwind of fire and shattered glass, interspersed with opportunists in search of a quick profit from chaos.

    Mainstream America has always looked at these displays with a bit of bemusement, especially when burned-out businesses and overturned cars come into focus. If anything, these displays are treated as proof positive of law enforcement's raison d'etre - to prevent so-called lawless elements from initiating these displays in the first place.

    So it's not out of the ordinary for a white American to see a phalanx of police officers in full riot gear facing down a lone demonstrator and dismissing the entire thing as the taxpaying public getting it's money's worth. In a way, they would be absolutely correct.

    It's also not out of the ordinary for the mainstream American media to write off the entire exercise as just another mass exhibition of black America's latent criminality. Acknowledging the unreconstructed public's confirmation bias happens to be a great way of raising viewership, even if it's at the expense of a people who suffer day in and day out.

    It's no wonder that mainstream American media outlets are more interested in slow-panning property damage and opportunists with stolen goods in hand. It's those sort of things that make for good ratings and even better outrage porn among unreconstructed minds.


    There's no arguing that Freddie Gray in no way deserved what happened to him. No human being deserves to be brutalized to the point of paralysis, coma and eventual death. There's never an excuse for it and there never will be.

    Regardless, what happened to Freddie Gray is just one of a long, depressing and seemingly unending line of atrocities committed mainly by law enforcement officials throughout the U.S., with the occasional "concerned citizen" or vigilante delivering a helping hand*. The slave patrols, "heroic" klansmen and angry mobs of "respectable Christian" whites might not be taking part in these modern-day tragedies, but their spirit remains in full effect.

    * As seen in the murder of Trayvon Martin

  • The fine chap in the above photo is one Jeffrey Leehoust Williams, recently arrested in connection with the recent shooting of two of Ferguson's finest. Now, gunning after law enforcement in response to the massive injustice that was the Michael Brown saga isn't something that's advocated here at DDSS or anywhere else, for that matter. Let's just say that aside from breathing a sigh of relief over said officers being alive and relatively well, there wasn't much sympathy to be had around these parts.

    With that said, here are some of the facts behind the shooting, courtesy of St. Louis County prosecutor and possible Alcoholics Anonymous attendee Robert McCulloch:


    1. Turns out Williams wasn't gunning at the cops, after all. Williams was reportedly involved in a separate altercation towards the end of the demonstrations. He admitted firing the shots, but claimed he was aiming at someone else. That "someone else" remains unknown at this point...
    2. As a result, Williams is only being charged with first degree assault and not attempted murder.
    3. McCulloch claimed information from "members of the public" led to the arrest. Aside from that, it's unknown precisely how Williams was found to be the suspect.
    4. Police retrieved a .40 handgun whose bullets matched the casings left behind by the shooter, presumed to be (and self-confirmed as) Williams.
    5. Williams apparently had a prior conviction for receiving stolen property. It's unknown how he managed to get access to a gun.

    But here's the big question that many in the Ferguson protesting community have been asking:



    Survey says...







    So no one knows who this guy is, where he came from and whether he was really a part of the protest. Most of the well-known figures involved in the protests agree that he wasn't a regular.



    Nope. No one knows who he is and how he came to be.

    Why is this important? Because in light of massive levels of police misconduct in this and other departments throughout the U.S., most people tend to have...trust issues...when it comes to police information. No one's taking the circumstances surrounding the shooting and Williams' arrest at face value.

    For all anyone knows, Jeffrey Williams could have been an elaborate scapegoat or, worse, a convenient plant whose actions would have done damage to the ongoing protests and destroyed its message.

    In the meantime, there's plenty of questions being asked:









  • Anyone who's bothered to read through this blog knows how I feel about gun ownership. In my opinion, there's no stark black-and-white or good/bad about it - it's your intent and the level of responsibility you take in owning one that defines whether it's a good or bad thing to own one.

    On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of open carry, if only for the following reason:

    Last but not least, one has to be careful not to get sucked into the "cowboy/tough guy" image that comes with certain aspects of gun ownership. For some, having the ability to end someone's life in an instant is the ultimate rush and it's one that often leads them to adopt cavalier attitudes and to do stupid things and take idiotic risks that they otherwise wouldn't have taken had they not had instant death in the palm of their hands.

    Sadly, a lot of open carry advocates are prone to take a cowboy/tough guy stance whenever someone challenges them on the necessity of what they do, constitutional issues notwithstanding, even when confronted by law enforcement:



    Which is where the double standard comes in. Law enforcement officials have shot unarmed people for much less, yet here are several LEOs conversing with a guy who's openly armed and near a school, no less. Considering the spate of school shootings in recent years, it's no wonder why administrators would be a bit on edge around a guy who's supposedly exercising his 2nd Amendment rights.

    John Crawford III was shot for examining a BB gun in a Walmart. Could you imagine a person of color being given the same sort of leeway as the person in the video was afforded?*


    *Speaking of which, the last time black men open carried in significant numbers, it provoked a fear response in an entire state legislature.

  • 24-year-old Jonathan Ferrell was in bad shape. Some time around 2:30 A.M. early Saturday morning, the former FAMU safety wrecked his Toyota Camry in the Bradfield Farms section of Charlotte, North Carolina.



    The above is the car he was driving. As of yet, the cause of the accident is unknown, but it was serious enough that he was forced to climb out of the rear window.

    Ferrell sought help at the first house he could find. Instead of finding help, he found a woman who mistook Ferrell's urgent door knocks for her husband's, but upon opening the door believed Ferrell to be an intruder. She hit her security system's panic alarm and called 911 to report a breaking and entering attempt.

    A short time later, police arrived on the scene and located Ferrell a short distance away, according to a description given by the woman. According to accounts from Charlotte-Mecklenburg police, Ferrell ran towards the officers, possibly in a state of shock or confusion. One officer fired a Taser at Ferrell, but it either missed or otherwise failed to stop him. The lethal rounds fired from 27-year-old Randall Kerrick's service weapon, however, did.

    Ferrell died shortly afterwards.


    Kerrick was charged with involuntary manslaughter on the same day. That afternoon, he turned himself in and was later released on a $50,000 bond. Two other officers who accompanied him were placed on administrative leave. An investigation found that Kerrick had used excessive force:

    "The evidence revealed that Mr. Ferrell did advance on Officer Kerrick and the investigation showed that the subsequent shooting of Mr. Ferrell was excessive," police said in another statement issued late Saturday night. "Our investigation has shown that Officer Kerrick did not have a lawful right to discharge his weapon during this encounter."

    Kerrick's rather swift arrest and charging may have been policy, or it could have been in response to the events surrounding the death of Trayvon Martin. Some are playing the cynic's gambit, assuming that Kerrick won't be convicted and will be back on active duty in due time.

    Meanwhile, many are wondering whether Ferrell's ultimate fate was determined by his skin color. Given the countless encounters between black Americans, whites and majority-white law enforcement that have gone terribly wrong - perhaps.

    For instance, was the woman's genuine reaction was based on ethnic prejudice rather than actual concern for her safety? It's unclear whether or not she knew he had just been involved in an accident. If so, then why did she choose to report her encounter with Ferrell as a B&E instead of a car crash? And if Ferrell was white, would she had been more inclined to help him?

    As for the police, what led Kerrick to use his service weapon as opposed to his own Taser or even pepper spray/OC spray after the first tazing attempt failed? Would Kerrick had been less inclined to shoot and ultimately kill Ferrell if he was white? Could there have been any other way to secure their own safety and that of Ferrell's if it had been possible? If so, would this alternative had been exercised if Ferrell wasn't black?

    According to reports, Ferrell was as straight as an arrow with nary a criminal record to be seen, so the narrative that's sure to follow shouldn't come into play here.

    Plenty of details need to be fleshed out before further study can be done. On the face of it, however, it seems like just another case of a young, promising life snuffed out by prejudice and over-zealousness.




  • - Ariel Castro might not think of himself as a monster, but he is, at least as far as the law and the rest of America's concerned. He was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 1,000 years:

    Castro pleaded guilty to 937 counts, including murder and kidnapping, in connection with the kidnapping and abuse of Michelle Knight, Georgina DeJesus and Amanda Berry, whom he held captive for a decade in his Cleveland home. As part of the plea deal, the death penalty was taken off the table.

    - Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private who passed over 700,000 documents to Julian Assange's WikiLeaks Foundation, was found not guilty of "aiding the enemy," a charge that could have earned him the death penalty had prosecutors not chosen to seek a life sentence instead. However, he was found guilty on 19 of the 22 charges laid against him, charges that would likely keep Manning behind bars for the rest of his life.

    - The Russian government just gave Edward Snowden asylum:

    On Thursday, Snowden was granted temporary asylum in Russia and was allowed to enter the country’s territory.

    According to the issued documents, the former CIA employee who broke PRISM spying scandal to the world is free to stay in Russia until at least July 31, 2014. Then the asylum status may be extended.

    With that in hand, Snowden cannot be handed over to the US authorities, even if Washington files an official request. He can now be transported to the United States only if he agrees to go voluntarily.

    - I bet NYPD Community Affairs Bureau chief Douglas Zeigler didn't think he would be a target for "driving occupying a vehicle merely existing while black":

    Chief Douglas Zeigler, 60, head of the Community Affairs Bureau, was in his NYPD-issued vehicle near a fire hydrant when two plainclothes cops approached on May 2, sources said.

    One officer walked up on each side of the SUV at 57th Ave. and Xenia St. in Corona about 7 p.m. and told the driver to roll down the heavily tinted windows, sources said. What happened next is in dispute.

    In his briefing to Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, Zeigler said the two cops, who are white, had no legitimate reason to approach his SUV, ranking sources said. After they ordered him to get out, one officer did not believe the NYPD identification Zeigler gave him.

    The cops gave a different account:

    When one officer spotted Zeigler's service weapon through the rolled-down window, he yelled "Gun!" according to sources who have spoken with the officers. Both cops raised their weapons and ordered the driver out of the car, sources said. Instead of saying he was an armed member of the NYPD, Zeigler shouted, "Don't you know who I am?" the sources said.

    When one cop reached over to check the identification badge around Zeigler's neck, the chief pushed him away, sources said. Only then did Zeigler tell the two officers his name and rank, those sources said.

    Zeigler, in his discussions with Kelly, said the officers never yelled "Gun!" sources said. One cop got into a heated argument with the chief even after seeing the ID, sources said.

    Even being a part of the thin blue line doesn't make you immune to the Stop and Frisk phenomenon if you happen to be the wrong skin color. In fact, your mayor might think he's being a bit too soft on you and your kind.

    - Gilberton Police Chief Mark Kessler has the next 30 days off to buff up his Second Amendment bonafides:

    In a closed meeting, the council voted 5-1 to suspended Kessler for 30 days, “for use of borough property for non-borough purposes without prior borough permission.” In one of the videos, the tiny town’s sole police officer used automatic weapons, which he was only legally authorized to do in his official capacity.

    He's already being hailed as a "Second Amendment leader" by numerous gun rights advocates. But seriously, can the town of Gilberton afford to have an individual this mentally unstable in charge of its police department?



    As a law-abiding citizen and a supporter of the Second Amendment, I wouldn't want someone like this pulling me over.
  • Image courtesy of the U.S. Air Force

    Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVS), also known as drones, are aircraft either controlled by ‘pilots’ from the ground or increasingly, autonomously following a pre-programmed mission. (While there are dozens of different types of drones, they basically fall into two categories: those that are used for reconnaissance and surveillance purposes and those that are armed with missiles and bombs.

    The use of drones has grown quickly in recent years because unlike manned aircraft they can stay aloft for many hours (Zephyr a British drone under development has just broken the world record by flying for over 82 hours nonstop); they are much cheaper than military aircraft and they are flown remotely so there is no danger to the flight crew.

    While the British and US Reaper and Predator drones are physically in Afghanistan and Iraq, control is via satellite from Nellis and Creech USAF base outside Las Vegas, Nevada. Ground crews launch drones from the conflict zone, then operation is handed over to controllers at video screens in specially designed trailers in the Nevada desert. One person ‘flies’ the drone, another operates and monitors the cameras and sensors, while a third person is in contact with the “customers”, ground troops and commanders in the war zone. While armed drones were first used in the Balkans war, their use has dramatically escalated in Afghanistan, Iraq and in the CIA’s undeclared war in Pakistan.

    - Sourced from Drone Wars UK
    The new face of the ongoing forever war to root out suspected terrorists, further cement American hegemony in the Middle East and South Asia and to make the guys running Iran feel rather uncomfortable is what at first glance appears to be an overgrown RC plane with funny-looking fins. It's also an ever-growing bone of contention between the president, numerous Democrats, pundits fascinated with "poutrage" and the art of martyrdom for purity's sake and ordinary Americans who don't want to see some overgrown RC plane loitering over their house while grilling burgers in the backyard. Or get taken off this mortal coil by one.

    The president's taken a beating over the use of drone warfare in the War on Terror time and again, mostly on the grounds of what he can and can't do in regards to using them and where. Most recently, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus issued a letter to the administration demanding a little more transparency when it comes to drone use and the declassification of several DOJ memos that discuss the legal ramifications of targeting Americans in the commission of counterterrorism drone strikes. Some Senate Democrats are also asking questions:

    President Barack Obama faced a tough question on drone policy from a fellow Democrat during a Senate meeting Tuesday and defended his administration's program, according to sources in the meeting.

    The administration's drone program captured national attention last week when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) carried out a nearly 13-hour filibuster to protest elements of it.

    Rand specifically wanted clarification from the White House as to whether it believes it has the authority to use a drone to kill an American citizen on American soil who is not engaged in combat, as it feels it does when a citizen is on foreign soil. The day after Rand's filibuster, Attorney General Eric Holder answered that no, the president does not have such authority.

    Senate Democrats were largely absent from Paul's filibuster last week. But on Monday, a group of progressive Senate Democrats pressed Obama on the issue. Details of the exchange so far are scarce.

    "There was an exchange, but I don't want to get into the specifics," said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.).

    "Basically, the president said that they're doing everything they can to comply with the law and to give information to members of the Intelligence Committee," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who paused for a long moment before answering. "And he said they would continue on that path."

    A source in the meeting said one question was posed by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a member of the Committee on Intelligence. A spokesperson for Rockefeller didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

    I'm all for a little clarification and a definite restraint on power, in this case. Getting comfortable with the idea of drone warfare opens the doors to drones as a general solution for every "problem." Law enforcement agencies are chomping at the bit for a chance to deploy drones for surveillance and the FAA's accommodating them with a law that will, among other things, open up the nation's airspace to drones. A few states are attempting to put a damper on that fun before it even begins.


  • If you've checked the ACLU's site or most other blogs within the past three to four hours or so, you've probably heard this about the National Defense Authorization Act:

    “The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself,” writes Chris Anders of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.

    Under the ‘worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial’ provision of S.1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which is set to be up for a vote on the Senate floor Monday, the legislation will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who supports the bill.

    The bill was drafted in secret by Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), before being passed in a closed-door committee meeting without any kind of hearing. The language appears in sections 1031 and 1032 of the NDAA bill.

    “I would also point out that these provisions raise serious questions as to who we are as a society and what our Constitution seeks to protect,” Colorado Senator Mark Udall said in a speech last week. One section of these provisions, section 1031, would be interpreted as allowing the military to capture and indefinitely detain American citizens on U.S. soil. Section 1031 essentially repeals the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 by authorizing the U.S. military to perform law enforcement functions on American soil. That alone should alarm my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, but there are other problems with these provisions that must be resolved.”

    The key provisions to watch were Sections 1031 and 1032, which enclosed the language apparently authorizing the U.S. military to get all John Pike* on their own people. And that's where I ran into a little problem.

    You see, there's no "Section 1031". Just a "Section 1032". The money shot?
    (b) Applicability to United States Citizens and Lawful Resident Aliens-
    (1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS- The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.
    (2) LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS- The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to a lawful resident alien of the United States on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States, except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.
    I know bills get amended, and that may have been what happened. Still, this is not to discount the concern of the NDAA bill, but I just hate it when people run away with a shitload of misinformation.

    *I plan to spread the use of "John Pike" as a euphemism for causal, yet cruel violence as perpetuated by a police officer. Help me spread it.
  • Imagine you live in a not-so-great neighborhood and you wake up to find your truck's been stolen. And like any other civil-minded and law-abiding person, you pick up the phone and report it to the police.

    Now imagine that, instead of taking a report and hopefully getting down to the bottom of who did it, they place you under arrest on the basis of you having the same first name as someone who was wanted on an aggravated assault charge.

    That happened to Teresa Culpepper, and she ended up spending 53 days in county lockup before her publicly-appointed lawyer brought the victim of the assault in to clear the innocent Teresa's name.


    Teresa Culpepper says she called police to report that her truck had been stolen in August. But when they showed up at her home, they arrested her for aggravated assault committed by another Teresa.

    "All she has is the same first name. The only descriptions that match are 'Teresa' and 'black female,'" Culpepper's attorney, Ashleigh Merchant told The Lookout. Culpepper, who is 47, didn't have the same address, birth date, height, or weight as the Teresa who was supposed to be arrested.

    Merchant says Culpepper, who was legitimately convicted of a misdemeanor in the 90s but otherwise has no criminal record, lives in a rough neighborhood where police are frequently on patrol. She and her family were unable to post the $12,000 bond to get her out of jail, so she wasn't released until her public defender found the victim of the assault and brought him to the court to say Culpepper was not the "Teresa" he had accused.

    Wrong address, wrong birth date, wrong height and weight. Was this the case of lazy police work, with the arresting officers and administrative staff figuring it didn't matter who they brought in since they all look alike and did the same things? Keeping the wrong person locked up for 53 days is a sign of a systemic failure of process and procedures. Then again, we execute the wrong people on a regular basis in this country.
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