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New "Laser" Weapon in LA County Jail

Posted by copwatch | Mon, 08/23/2010 - 9:25am story

This is an article from
By JOHN ADAMS
Updated 7:17 AM PDT, Mon, Aug 23, 2010

New "Laser" Weapon Debuts in LA County Jail

"Assault Intervention Device" comes to Pitchess Detention Center

Guards at the Los Angeles County jail complex in Castaic will start using a newfangled weapon that produces a deep burning sensation -- which is not to be confused with a “warm fuzzy feeling” -- in whomever it is aimed at.

Too Many Laws, Too Many Prisoners

Posted by copwatch | Sat, 08/21/2010 - 12:39am story

[article in The Economist!]

Never in the civilised world have so many been locked up for so little

Jul 22nd 2010 | Spring, Texas


THREE pickup trucks pulled up outside George Norris’s home in Spring, Texas. Six armed police in flak jackets jumped out. Thinking they must have come to the wrong place, Mr Norris opened his front door, and was startled to be shoved against a wall and frisked for weapons. He was forced into a chair for four hours while officers ransacked his house. They pulled out drawers, rifled through papers, dumped things on the floor and eventually loaded 37 boxes of Mr Norris’s possessions onto their pickups. They refused to tell him what he had done wrong. “It wasn’t fun, I can tell you that,” he recalls.

 

The Most Incarcerating Nation in the World

Posted by copwatch | Sat, 08/21/2010 - 12:07am story

Rough Justice [article in The Economist!]

America locks up too many people, some for acts that should not even be criminal

Jul 22nd 2010 | Spring, Texas


IN 2000 four Americans were charged with importing lobster tails in plastic bags rather than cardboard boxes, in violation of a Honduran regulation that Honduras no longer enforces. They had fallen foul of the Lacey Act, which bars Americans from breaking foreign rules when hunting or fishing. The original intent was to prevent Americans from, say, poaching elephants in Kenya. But it has been interpreted to mean that they must abide by every footling wildlife regulation on Earth. The lobstermen had no idea they were breaking the law. Yet three of them got eight years apiece. Two are still in jail.

Racial Profiling: Pulled over for being a "Car load of Mexicans"

Posted by copwatch | Fri, 08/20/2010 - 4:31pm story

On the morning of August 16, 2010 at 10:20 a.m. came this wording over the scanner.  "car load of Mexicans at Hwy. 162, mile marker 19".   Later it turns out there were only 3 people in the car, or at least they only called in with the names of 3, who happened to be clear all the way round.  It all sounds like now we are going to pull an Arizona and do racial profiling on dark skins.  There was not a reason for the stop, such as no brake light, driving erratic or anything, just the 'car load of mexicans.'

Marie Mason, Eco-Prisoner, Moved to CMU

Posted by copwatch | Sun, 08/15/2010 - 6:49pm story

[Read here about CMU's- CMU:  Communications Management [Prison] Unit
or download this flier about CMU's]

 

After spending nearly a month in segregation at the Federal Corrections Unit in Waseca, MN, Marie has been reclassified and transferred to the female CMU in Carswell, TX. Helen Woodsen has been imprisoned there for many years.

As of August 6, 2010, Marie Mason is at the federal prison in Carswell, Texas.

Mendocino Sheriff Officers Killed My Best Friend

Posted by copwatch | Thu, 08/12/2010 - 1:55pm story

[This happened on the same day that the Mendo Sheriff's Deputies also shot
and killed Angel Hernandez Farias. http://redwoodcurtaincopwatch.net/node/517]

My name is Anna Renee White. I am 25 years old. I am from Willits, Ca. and
currently a full time college student at Humboldt State University. When I am
not busy working, in classes or doing homework- you would usually find me at
the beach with my pit mix Tonka. He was my best friend.
Recently my best friend was unfairly taken away from me.

On July 27, 2010 the local Mendocino county law enforcement agencies
came to my parents home in Willits to serve a search warrant and question my
parents about an acquaintance of theirs. They obtained the search warrant
because a criminal they had been surveillancing for a couple of months stopped
by my parent’s home frequently to have my dad fix his vehicles. My father is

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