4 posts tagged “times union”

Awesome: spinning my wheels before work.  I'm so cozy sitting here sipping my tea with a warm kitty on my lap and a window open to one of the rockin-est thunderstorms we've had in a while.  It is coming down so hard out there and it's constantly thundering.  Love it!!

Not Awesome: Having to get up and shower in a minute (maybe I can just take a bar of soap outside with me).

Awesome: Someone writing a book about Route 20.

Not Awesome: cops tracking citizens with GPS.

The Albany Times Union recently reported two stories of the local police department's abuse of searches.

The first case is of a man who was picked up at the bus station.  Police say they considered him suspicious because he was wearing a back pack...at a bus station..yeah, suspicious.  Oh wait!  I forgot, he's black!  That must be it.  Did they charge him for traveling while black?  He was forcibly sedated and searched.  They never found anything.  The hospital later billed him for his trouble.  Read the whole thing here.

He was quickly handcuffed and falsely arrested. He was taken to a station to be strip-searched and then to a hospital, where doctors forcibly sedated him with a cocktail of powerful drugs, including one that clouded his memory of the incident.

A camera was inserted in his rectum, he was forced to vomit and his blood and urine were tested for drugs and alcohol. Scans of his digestive system were performed using X-ray machines, according to hospital records obtained by the Times Union.

The search, conducted without a search warrant, came up empty.

Our second story is of a woman who fit a profile - she apparently was a white woman in a rental car. That was enough to pull her over and search her vajayjay on the side of the road.  The police officer also took her cell phone and started calling people on it.  Read about this gross violation here.

The actions of police in the minutes that followed would end in controversy rather than with an arrest. They would also leave Shutter, a 28-year-old single mother from Ravena, shaken and angry after one of the officers allegedly inserted his finger into Shutter's vagina on a public street during an apparent search for drugs.

This brings me to the informative portion of our lesson today: know your rights.  I highly recommend downloading and reading this informative booklet from the ACLU.  UPDATE: HERE IS A LINK TO THE WALLET CARD.

Sadly, in both cases above knowing one's rights probably would not have mattered at the time as it seems the police officers were going to do whatever the hell they wanted to do anyway.  At least when you know your rights have been violated you can later press charges.

Show us the headline on your local paper.

It's so weird, I wasn't planning on posting today, but happened to read something in the morning paper that I thought I'd share.  Today's Vox Hunt ended up being a nice coincidence.

This morning's headline is brought to you by the fine folks of Schenectady, New York.  First, a few fun facts about Schenectady's finest.  I'll start at the top - Kurt Vonnegut lived in Schenectady while working at GE. Also, Chester Arthur attended college in Schenectady.  The world should be so thankful for Schenectady resident David Kaczynski, the man who narc'ed on his brother, Ted.  Ann B. Davis, everyone's favorite maid from the Brady Bunch, was also born in Schenectady.

Lets head to the bottom of the list.  There was that guy who was driving a truck full of illegal aliens in Texas, never turned on the air in the trailer, and when he discovered 17 of them had died in the back of the truck he fled.  He kinda sucked.

And now, my good friends, I will share with you this headline that tells a story of yet another classy Schenectady resident.

SCHENECTADY -- In what one officer called one of the most despicable acts he can recall, a Saratoga County woman is accused of prostituting herself and then snorting cocaine from the stomach of her newborn son while breast-feeding him.

[snip]

After her arrest, she allegedly told a friend she had been thinking about selling the two kids to get more money for drugs, according to the police report.

[snip]

Edit: There's an update over at the paper's website...here's a snippet from the judge today:

"I have never come across such an atrocity in my life and that's saying a lot," said Judge Vince Versaci, who has been on the City Court bench for the last three years.

I've known a few judges and they aren't lying when they say they've seen a lot.

Check it out, a shortened version of my Heaven and Hell review was published in my local paper.