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Rocky Mountain Police in Virginia

Several Police Officers Busted For Attacking Capitol

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

Several police officers across the country are now facing federal charges for allegedly taking part in the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., that left five people dead.

On Wednesday, Jacob Fracker and Thomas Robertson, officers with the Rocky Mount Police Department in Virginia, were arrested on two federal charges, knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, according to a criminal complaint.

"The defendants Thomas Robertson and Jacob Fracker were photographed in the Capitol Building making an obscene statement in front of a statute of John Stark," The U.S. attorney's office in D.C. alleged in a statement of facts, noting that they were off-duty.

The court document cited their ensuing social media posts, in which Robertson was quoted saying, "CNN and the Left are just mad because we actually attacked the government who is the problem and not some random small business ... The right IN ONE DAY took the f***** U.S. Capitol. Keep poking us."

Fracker, in a since-deleted Facebook post, wrote, "Lol to anyone who's possibly concerned about the picture of me going around... Sorry I hate freedom? …Not like I did anything illegal…y'all do what you feel you need to…" according to the document.

Fracker is a corporal in the Virginia National Guard, while Robertson is an Army veteran who served five years, according to The Daily Beast.

A third officer from the Houston Police Department also faces a "high probability" of federal charges for his alleged participation in the Capitol riot, according to Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo.

"There's a high probability this individual will be charged with federal charges, and rightfully so," saidAcevedo, telling a local ABC affiliate that the officer is an 18-year veteran of the police department without any disciplinary issues.

A local Houston affiliate said their sources identified the officer as Tam Dinh Pham, but the American Independent Foundation has not independently verified his identity.

Acevedo has also not released his name, but announced that the officer had resigned on Thursday morning.

"The @houstonpolice officer in question tendered his resignation this morning. The Department will release his name upon the conclusion of our joint ongoing criminal investigation with @FBI and @TheJusticeDept," Acevedo tweeted Thursday.

Across the country, other police officers are being investigated or have been suspended for allegedly taking part in the mob. Twenty-eight officers from 12 states attended the rally just before last Wednesday's attack at the Capitol, according to the Appeal.

In Maryland, for instance, an officer with the Anne Arundel County Police Department was suspendedwith pay while under investigation for their involvement in the Capitol insurrection.

In Washington state, the Seattle Police Department placed on administrative leave two officers who attended the rally prior to the riot.

Officials continue to look into whether other law enforcement officers or military members were involved, as well as whether there was any coordination prior to the insurrection.

U.S. Capitol Police Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman announced on Monday that "several USCP officers have already been suspended pending the outcome of their investigations."

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) said separately on Monday that two Capitol police officers had been suspended, one of whom had directed people around the building during the attacks.

"We have a couple Capitol Police we talked about before with taking selfies, and another Capitol Police evidently put on a MAGA hat. They have been suspended," said Ryan in a virtual press conference.

As many as 17 Capitol police officers are being investigated currently, a House aid told CNN.

Members of the military may have also been involved in the attack.

The Army is investigating Capt. Emily Rainey, an active-duty Army Special Forces officer, for her alleged presence and actions at the Capitol last Wednesday, according to Fort Bragg, North Carolina's Maj. Dan Lessard, spokesperson for the 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne).

As the Military Times noted, Defense Department officials are unsure of how many troops may have been at the Capitol that day, but clarified that "investigations into service members fall under the services" and any investigations into retired or former service members would be conducted by the Justice Department.

Meanwhile, some Democratic lawmakers said evidence suggested Capitol Police may have aided and abetted the Capitol attack.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

Houston Police End Use Of Drug Tests That Helped Produce Wrongful Convictions

Houston Police End Use Of Drug Tests That Helped Produce Wrongful Convictions

Reprinted with permission fromProPublica.

The Houston Police Department has ended its longstanding practice of using $2 chemical kits to make drugs arrests, a policy that had contributed to hundreds of wrongful convictions in recent years.

In announcing the change, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said the department was abandoning the use of the kits, known formally as chemical field tests, because conducting the tests in the field had exposed officers to the dangers posed by potentially lethal drugs such as fentanyl. He did not address the recent scandal that had shown the unreliable tests to have often been the only evidence used to gain guilty pleas from innocent defendants.

The hundreds of wrongful convictions, reported on by ProPublica and the New York Times last July, had moved then-Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson to require that any positive field test be confirmed in the crime lab before a guilty plea could be won. ProPublica, in a subsequent article on the field tests used to identify fentanyl, had highlighted the threat to police officers.

The Drug Enforcement Administration last year warned local police that fentanyl, a synthetic opioid sold on the street, is toxic in tiny doses when breathed in or exposed to skin. In May, a police officer in Ohio collapsed and was hospitalized after merely brushing the drug off his uniform with his bare hand. Acevedo said Houston police recently recovered three kilos of fentanyl.

“That’s quite a few doses, lethal doses, of this pretty bad substance,” Acevedo said. The Houston Forensic Science Center also identified another potent synthetic opioid, carfentanil, in a drug evidence sample earlier this year.

The field tests have been used by police departments across the country for decades. Officers simply drop a suspicious substance into a pouch of chemicals and use supposedly telltale changes in color to make arrests for cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana and other illegal drugs. But virtually everyone in the criminal justice system – prosecutor, judges, lab scientists, defense lawyers – has had plenty of reason to know the tests are faulty. Courts in most states, in fact, bar the tests from being used in evidence in a criminal trial, saying the tests do not constitute forensic science.

But as increasing numbers of criminal drug cases are resolved through plea bargains, the tests have become enormously consequential. District attorneys in many jurisdictions allowed prosecutors to use the tests to gain guilty pleas even without confirmation by a lab.

ProPublica’s reporting on the long and troubled use of the tests prompted the district attorney’s office in Portland, Oregon, to alter its practice and require lab confirmation before guilty pleas were entered. A modest review of recent cases in Portland done by the prosecutor’s office resulted in the vacating of five criminal convictions.

In 2016, a panel created by lawmakers in Texas formally termed the field tests too unreliable to trust in criminal cases, and called on crime laboratories across the state to confirm drug evidence in every prosecution.

Without field tests, Acevedo said officers in Houston and across Harris County will instead use their own “expertise” in deciding when to make drug arrests. Officers have “a wealth of training and experience into what narcotics look like, what they feel like in terms of the packaging, the color, the appearance,” he said.

Joe Gamaldi, president of the Houston Police Officers’ Union, said that dropping field tests makes officers’ jobs both safer and easier. Gamaldi acknowledged that making arrests based only on officers’ beliefs about whether substances are illegal drugs does create a risk of wrongful arrests. “There is certainly that fear,” he said.

Former Houston Police Chief Charles A. McClelland had told ProPublica last year that he thought the field tests should be abandoned, saying officers were not chemists and shouldn’t be conducting experiments on the hoods of their patrol cars.

On Friday, McClelland told the Houston Chronicle that the policy change was “a very positive step for the criminal justice process.”

“I don’t think any law enforcement agency in America should be doing this anymore,” he told the Chronicle.

Alex Bunin, Harris County’s chief public defender, said he had no love for the field tests, calling them erratic and unreliable. But leaving decisions about arrests to an officer’s mere observations, he said, could wind up producing wrongful convictions too, maybe even greater numbers.

Ryan Gabrielson is a reporter for ProPublica covering the U.S. justice system.