It turns out, [Adam Greene] was innocent and suffering a diabetic episode, and the ugly incident cost the city of Henderson more than $250,000 in a settlement with the man and his wife.
Wolfson decided not to prosecute. I don’t envy him, having to make a tough call less than two weeks into a new job.
But his decision will further erode the community’s already flagging confidence in police agencies while stoking a long-held belief that there are two sets of rules, one for police officers who kick people in the head and another for the rest of us. [...]
Wolfson told Ralston he consulted with “senior lawyers” in the office to make his decision. Let’s not forget, these senior lawyers all recently worked for Wolfson’s predecessor as district attorney, David Roger, who is now the attorney for the Las Vegas Police Protective Association. That’s the police union.
Anyway, just because juries haven’t convicted police officers accused of police brutality, does that mean we’ll never bring charges against an officer ever again? What message does that send?
Also, unlike the other cases, this has video evidence.
Wolfson said he could prove the kicking in the head but not criminal intent. Apparently sometimes there are perfectly valid and legal reasons to kick someone in the head. I learn something new every day.
By the way, here's what Coolican is talking about. Jon Ralston put Wolfson on the hot seat last Thursday.
Wolfson said he initially did a poor job of explaining why he's not prosecuting. He initially claimed statute of limitations (too much time had passed to file charges), but that turned out to only apply to misdemeanor charges that could have applied here. Ralston then asked why he didn't file felony charges, and Wolfson claimed that he believes there isn't a strong enough case to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Seekatz committed a felony level crime.
Apparently, Seekatz has a history of complaints from the community. What happens if we see him kick another innocent driver in the head? And what will happen to the other infamous cases of police brutality across Clark County? Will the families of Trevon Cole, Erik Scott, Stanley Gibson, and Deshira Selimaj ever see justice served?
And what happens to our communities? What happens to our relationship with our local police? What happens to our relationship with our local government? Has Steve Wolfson really thought about the message he's sending by not prosecuting Brett Seekatz? And are the Clark County Commission and Henderson City Council ready to make a real effort to curb police brutality and restore public trust in law enforcement?
Embattled Henderson Police Chief Jutta Chambers announced in a meeting with staff Thursday that she would retire effective March 1, a city spokesman said.
Chambers’ retirement comes in the wake of criticism and calls for her resignation) after a video was released last week showing a Henderson Police officer kicking a restrained driver in the head five times during an October 2010 traffic stop. The driver was suffering insulin shock.
The motorist, Adam Greene, and his wife agreed to approximately $158,000 settlement with the city last week.
In a news conference Thursday morning, Mayor Andy Hafen said the Greene incident troubled the city council and that members asked City Manager Mark Calhoun, who announced his retirement earlier this week, to discuss the matter with Chambers.
Deputy Police Chief James White will take over as acting chief, and the new city manager will have the responsibility of hiring a permanent replacement, Hafen said.
Well, at least this is a start. It would also help if Sgt. Brett Seekatz, the officer who kicked Adam Greene in the head, is finally properly reprimanded for his despicable behavior. And Henderson PD needs to make sure officers know that this is unacceptable behavior that should never be repeated.
At least it looks like the City of Henderson is finally realizing the severity of this problem. A growing number of residents just don't trust the police any more. And if law enforcement can't be trusted to follow the law themselves, then who can be effective at enforcing the law?
Hopefully, this is the start of Henderson cleaning house at police headquarters.
On Thursday, Henderson Mayor Andy Hafen (D) sought to put the city's best foot forward in his State of the City Address. Was it too late? Earlier this week, outrage broke out over this. And due to the violence in the video below, viewer discretion is definitely advised.
The City of Henderson markets itself as "A Place to Call Home". But after watching this video, I must admit I feel less proud of calling this place home.
One of the videos shows [Adam] Greene swerving as he drives east on Lake Mead [Parkway] for about three minutes until he stops for a red light at Boulder Highway. At that point, a trooper gets out with his service weapon pointed at the driver, who is still seated. The trooper kicks the window with his foot.
“Don’t move! Hey driver, do not move!” the trooper says. “Hands up!”
A trooper opens Greene’s door, and four officers — troopers and Henderson police — pull him out of the car.
A series of commands follows: “Get on the ground! Stop resisting, (expletive), stop resisting (expletive)!”
Greene groans as four law enforcement officers push him onto the pavement and, joined by a fifth, restrain and handcuff him. At that point, a Henderson police officer walks into camera view, steps up to Greene and kicks him five times in the head, twice with his left foot, three more with his right. The officer then walks away nonchalantly, and turns briefly toward the direction of the [Nevada Highway Patrol] NHP cruiser whose camera is pointed his way.
With Greene subdued on the ground, an officer searches his pockets and finds a vial of insulin and announces it to everyone, looking up to the sky.
“He could be a diabetic,” he says.
“Yeah, I see that,” someone answers.
Someone else says to a dispatcher over the radio: “He’s a diabetic. He’s probably in shock, semiconscious.” [Emphasis mine.]
Both the city and the state should be thanking their lucky stars that they are settling this law suit for only $292,000. Greene may have been able to get more after a full trial. And frankly, he probably deserves it after being kicked to the head so brutally, and being kicked simply because he was experiencing diabetic shock.
And now, more questions are arising as to why the city didn't respond more quickly to this, and why Henderson's City Council was apparently left in the dark. Coolican dedicated his Sun column today to this growing scandal, and he seemed genuinely baffled by how Henderson does business.
A problem I had reporting this story Friday is that Henderson takes Fridays off. How Greek. (OK, to be fair, they work four 10-hour shifts.) Hafen didn’t return a message to his home. The police spokesman told me the chief was off.
[Ward 1 Council Member Gerri] Schroder said when she saw the video Monday she was “shocked” and “disappointed” and then happy to learn that Henderson Police “used this incident to further train officers to ensure this does not happen again.”
I asked if she had talked to [Jutta] Chambers, the police chief, about discipline meted out to [Sgt. Brett] Seekatz [one of the offending officers]. Or about disciplinary procedures more generally. Or about whether the officer is still interacting with the public.
Schroder said the city charter prohibits her from interfering in personnel matters. She’s right, and for good reason: We don’t want part-time city council members meddling and micromanaging. The council supervises the city clerk, city attorney and city manager.
But she can’t even ask questions?
OK, Coolican. Let me explain what's going on.
For some time now, Henderson has shut down city offices on Fridays to save money. Yes, it's actually about saving money... Not being "Greek". If folks here are genuinely angered by this, then we need to be willing to pay more taxes if we want an open-5-days-a-week city hall.
And in regards to Gerri Schroder being reluctant to meddle in police affairs, this can't be pinned on just her. The entire culture of Henderson City Hall has been about a smooth and very trusting relationship between the city council and city staff. Usually, this results in positive developments. While the rest of the valley has been rocked by local governments waging war against public workers, Henderson has managed to negotiate staff reductions and "employee buyouts" with the public worker unions. And while other local governments have become accustomed to complaints of being non-responsive to citizen requests, Henderson has pioneered ways to make government more accessible (such as the city's iPhone app).
However, not everyone has always been happy with this attitude at city hall. During the Pittman Wash concretization controversy last year, I heard several complaints about how City of Henderson Public Works often seemed to keep everyone else in the dark over its internal workings, as well as its unwillingness to take constructive criticism and the council's past willingness to go along with virtually whatever Public Works proposed. I remember the Wednesday night public hearing on concretization back in July and how Public Works seemed to show a tin ear to the public's demands.
I paid attention to what city engineers were saying. I listened as they were building their case for concretization.
I then asked them one important question, a question they would continue to be asked all evening. "Have you considered the alternatives?" Interestingly enough, the only options they ever considered were a trapezoidal concrete channel and a rectangular concrete channel. So all along, the only options they've cared to look at are concrete and even more concrete.
Thankfully, that seemed to be the low point that led to some needed rethinking on that whole affair. After several weeks of more negotiation with Project GREEN, along with Mayor Andy Hafen and Ward 4 Council Member Sam Bateman showing interest in a compromise that all sides can live with, Henderson Public Works ultimately agreed to building a less environmentally intrusive arch culvert at the UPRR railroad crossing. Construction is set to begin later this year, along with revegetation of the wash near Valle Verde Drive that was part of last year's deal with Project GREEN.
So perhaps there's hope for the police department, as well. While city officials often pride themselves in keeping Henderson's "small town feel", we can no longer deny that we're becoming a big city... And a big city with all those "big city problems" that Las Vegas has already become accustomed to grappling with. Especially since The R-J began its series examining Metro Police shootings, Las Vegas and Clark County have had to ask tough questions on why the authorities who are supposed to protect the community have caused the greater community to ask for protection FROM them.
I hope the City of Henderson doesn't wait until The R-J or Sun does a series on its struggles with police brutality before taking decisive action to curb this abuse of our own people. The police department is obviously in need of more public oversight. The city again needs to pay attention to the people living here and allow for independent review of the police department so we can see what needs to be done to fix the department and restore trust in local law enforcement.
Do you notice there's no Wikipedia today? And that Google blacked out its logo? And that many more of your favorite web sites are down or redirecting you to a special page today?
If passed, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and/or its Senate counterpart, the Protect IP Act (PIPA), would essentially cripple the internet. How?
The internet is built on freedom: the freedom to create, the freedom to express oneself, and the freedom to share ideas with anyone anywhere. But if passed, SOPA and/or PIPA would destroy the foundation of the internet by forcing internet companies to monitor everything we do on their sites and act as "club bouncers" for big media corporations that are more interested in protecting their profits than protecting our free expression. These companies, such as Nintendo, Sony, Comcast (which now owns a 51% controlling stake of NBCUniversal), and Time Warner, have unleashed their lobbyists on Capitol Hill to try to grease the House floor to pass SOPA. And while the latest updates from DC look to be good as House members retreat from SOPA, PIPA is still quite alive in the Senate and still needs to be stopped.
But why must they be stopped? Isn't copyright enforcement important any more? Yes, it is. However, SOPA and PIPA as written go way beyond that and require social media sites to either censor their users (as in "We the People"!) or risk expensive law suits that force them to try to explain sophisticated technology to judges that (smart as they are on the law) most likely know nothing about it. Simply put: This shit is SCARY, and it must be stopped ASAP.
If SOPA and/or PIPA become law, say goodbye to "social media revolutions". And especially if other countries follow our lead and propose similar anti-internet legislation, say goodbye to democratic movements like "The Arab Spring", "The Orange Revolution", and #Occupy. In the wrong hands, the broad authority given to governments and big corporations in SOPA and PIPA threaten the entire internet as we know it. And even if our federal government doesn't aim to abuse that power, there's obviously plenty of room for multinational media conglomerates like NewsCorp (which has already caused mischief in this department), Viacom, and Disney to shut down global competitors and kill off internet start-ups that threaten their "sacred business model" of making us pay up the wazoo for their (and only their!) bread and circuses.
What's really funny here is that the supposed goal of SOPA and PIPA is to stop online piracy and protect artists' work, but they wouldn't do anything to actually stop that piracy if passed. These kinds of criminals aren't stupid. They can and will easily change their IP addresses and find new ways to showcase their stolen goods. All SOPA and PIPA would really do if passed would be to create a new "online black market" for stolen content while forcing law-abiding web sites to essentially create an "online police state" for all the rest of us and/or risk those infamous frivolous law suits from multinational corporations that certain politicians supposedly hate so much.
So please, please, PLEASE (!!!!!) do your part to stop SOPA and PIPA from tearing apart the internet as we know and love it. Check out Nevadans Against SOPA/PIPA, then call Harry Reid at 202-224-3542 and Dean Heller at 202-224-6244, and ask them to drop PIPA and SOPA. Also make sure to tweet them at @SenatorReid and @DeanHeller.
I'm really wondering now. After yesterday's arrests at The Hard Rock's Rehab Pool, I'm wondering if our good ol-fashion'd "Judeo-Christian-Mormon values" are ruining what's supposed to be "Sin City".
Think about it. The Sapphire Pool (topless) at Rio closed because of arrests. Prive at Planet Hollywood is hanging on by a thread after the arrests and temporary shutdown there. And now, we're hearing rumors about possible future raids on Pure and The Palms' clubs. WTF happened??!!
OK, OK, I know we need some type of regulations to keep people safe. I am a Democrat, after all, and I am a progressive. I do believe there's a purpose in having a government.
But come on, that purpose isn't supposed to be some Taliban or Saudi style "Vice & Virtue Police"! Honestly, I don't know why Metro wants to suddenly kick out the prostitutes, harass the junkies, and push around the drunks when they know Vegas is desperate for tourism. Come on, we promote ourselves as the "What Happens Here, Stays Here" town... So how do they think this will help our "libertarian wonderland" image?
Just how is it that Clark County and Nevada supposedly can't afford community health care and full-service DMVs, but can afford to bust into casinos and mess with patrons like this? Maybe we don't always like the behavior of these tourists, but that doesn't give us the right to tell them how to live their lives. Unless there are real, dangerous, violent crimes being perpetrated in the casinos, Metro needs to stop with the "Vice & Virtue" bullshit. Did I miss when Vegas was annexed by Utah?
