Funny Drunk Guy Refuses Ticket | LAWSUIT

Andru Kulas was arrested by the Fort Collins Police Department in the early morning hours of August 29, 2021. He was pretty drunk and was expressing some criticism of the officers as they wrote him a citation for trespassing at a rooftop bar. When he refused the actual piece of paper, one of the officers attempted to shove it into his shirt pocket, which escalated the situation into the man being pepper sprayed at close range, among other things. He just filed a federal civil rights lawsuit.

Here’s the media coverage, including the raw bodycam footage.

Here’s the full Complaint:

Here’s the full Internal Affairs report:

Crooked Cop Sent Innocent Girl to Prison For 2 Years!

Police officer Heather Weyker, of the St. Paul, Minnesota, Police Department, was found by the federal courts to have fabricated false charges against several dozen Somali refugees, including Hamdi Mohamud, who spent 2 years in prison for it. Hamdi is now represented by the Institute for Justice, who represents her in an almost decade-long lawsuit against Weyker, which so far has been unsuccessful. Believe it or not, Weyker is still working a six figure job at the St. Paul Police Department, despite having been adjudicated as a liar. Her attorney, Patrick Jaicomo, of the Institute for Justice, joined me to explain this insane story.

Even though the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals found in 2016 that Officer Weyker had fabricated false charges against numerous individuals, the St. Paul Police Department used her in a recruiting video in 2017!

DONATE to the Institute for Justice: https://ij.org/support/give-now/thecivilrightslawyer/

SWAT Team Shot My Client in Bed | Update!

There’s a huge update to the case where my client, Darius Lester, was shot by a SWAT team, while trying to sleep in his home. As explained previously, he had no criminal record and had committed no crime. The West Virginia State Police was executing a search warrant for that residence that was entirely unrelated to Darius. They claimed that Darius confronted them and came at them with a hammer, for which they charged him with a felony. That charge has now been to court….

Cops Shot Kid Who Called For Help | HUGE Settlement!

The family of Christian Glass, who was shot and killed by police last year after calling for help from the side of the road, will receive $19 million from the state of Colorado and local authorities as part of a settlement, making it the largest police settlement paid by the state and one of the largest in the country.

COVERUP: Cop’s 44 Criminal Charges Dropped

A judge in Hamilton County, Tennessee, dismissed a 44-count indictment against a former Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office deputy Friday morning. This is the same officer featured in a prior video, detailing the multiple lawsuits against him, including the time he forcibly baptized a woman he arrested.

More here on the Klaver traffic stop, including a breakdown on the law regarding the length of traffic stops.

Cops Point Guns Over THEIR Dumb Mistakes | “It’s Policy”

Have you seen these videos where innocent people get pulled over by the police due to a mistaken belief that their car is stolen? Then the police point their firearms at them and treat them like a criminal, before realizing the mistake. That can’t be constitutional, can it?

In April of this year, several people, including one child, were pulled over by the Lehi City Police when an officer said he received an alert and confirmed from dispatch that a vehicle had been stolen after running a license plate. The only problem was, it was a mistake. The vehicle was not stolen. The department has not explained the reason the officer ran their license plate in the first place. 

They get pulled over and next thing you know, they see police officers approaching with guns pointed at them. One of the vehicle’s occupants pulled out his cell phone and began recording the incident. One thing led to another. The media began to report on it. KUTV reported that a high-risk traffic stop was performed on the vehicle, because according to the police statement, “routine protocol is to have guns pointed at the vehicle during a high-risk vehicle stop.”

A statement released Monday by the Central Utah Emergency Communications Center revealed that the dispatcher failed to recognize that the flagged information they reported back to the officer was actually a NCIC wanted HIT which was verified only by a partial vehicle identification number taken down in the incident which was never confirmed. The incomplete VIN of the stolen vehicle was identical to a string of seven numbers from the VIN of the vehicle that was wrongly pulled over. So, “the dispatcher failed to see that the actual plate number given was not stolen,” according to the Lehi Police Department statement. They said they have taken corrective action with the dispatcher involved. 

So, the vehicle stopped was not stolen, nor was it displaying a stolen plate. The vehicle occupants were released from custody after about 20 minutes and then left the scene in their vehicle. Officials of the Lehi City Police Department called the incident “rare” and “unfortunate.” But this is not an isolated occurrence. This happens all the time. 

Aurora, CO: A father records from a distance as cops approach his wife, guns drawn. His three year old child, still in the vehicle. This woman thought it was just going to be a regular traffic stop. But she was wrong. Bodycam footage shows the officers discussing the fact that they’re going to perform a so-called high-risk stop, with guns drawn, as per their department policy. This was apparently the result of officers marking the wrong box on a form. The vehicle had been previously repossessed and then reclaimed. But on the form it was marked stolen by mistake. 

But that wasn’t the only time. It happened to another family. A woman with her car full of kids was in a parking lot in Aurora, looking for a nail salon, when all of a sudden police descended on her, allegedly because a license plate reader flagged her car as stolen. The family in the car, kids included, were made to exit the vehicle and lay on the ground. 

The car was not stolen. Another mistake. What was the mistake this time? The actual stolen vehicle flagged by the plate reader was a motorcycle with the same number – but from a different state. So yet again: innocent people in a non-stolen car; police make the mistake; yet the innocent people get guns pointed at them. Why? They say it’s their policy. Officer safety, of course. 

Raymore, MO: In August of 2022, a Raymore, Missouri couple was held at gunpoint by the Raymore Police. The video went viral first on Tik Tok and then hit the TV news. 

So this was another mistake situation. Their son’s truck had been stolen just days before. But then it was recovered. The police then failed to take the truck off the stolen vehicle registry. So they got the “high risk stop” or “felony stop” treatment. Like the other victims, they were pissed and no longer back the blue types. This couple’s son is actually an attorney and he’s apparently pissed too – and summed it up well. 

Fairfax, VA: In October of 2022, a mom and her 5 year old and 1 year old daughters were on their way to Walmart in Fairfax County, Virginia when they noticed a police car trailing them. Next thing you know, the vehicle pulled up beside them, then the police car rammed them, the police car striking their car head-on. Guns were drawn and she was handcuffed and her kids were put in a police car. Police later just said she ended up not being the person they were looking for. Another mistake.  Apparently the vehicle was listed as “wanted.” But it wasn’t. 

Norwalk, CT: It can even happen to the General Manager of the Yankees, Brian Cashman. Same old story. His Jeep was stolen and then recovered. But government employees did what government employees do. They just kept the stolen classification and then gave him the “high risk stop” treatment at gunpoint. At least for a few minutes before recognizing him and kissing his ass. 

This is obviously far from an isolated incident. This apparently happens all the time. There are more examples out there. What do they all have in common? Innocent people – could be your father, mother, sister, wife – all held at gunpoint by your government agents, not in response to anything they did, nor any threat presented by them. Rather, it’s just their policy. 

What happened to protect and serve? These are the people police officers have sworn to protect. All to often, those individuals are victimized in the interests of officer safety. In all of these incidents, though the police will apologize, they say it’s policy. Because it’s a “high risk” or “felony” stop. But is that enough to aim a gun at someone? I argue that it’s not. 

What’s the law? Here, with Lehi, Utah being in the 10th Circuit, we have two real cases that happened that the courts have contrasted:

In Maresca v. Barnalillo County (10th. Cir. 2015), officers at gunpoint ordered a family out of a suspected stolen truck. The officers forced the family of two parents and three minor children to exit the vehicle and lie face down on the highway. The officers first removed the parents, who pleaded with the officers that there had been a mistake, that they should check the father’s license, and that there were children and a dog in the car. Even though one officer on the scene considered the situation “a little weird,” the officers ignored the parents’ repeated pleas to recheck whether the vehicle was in fact stolen and proceeded to order the three children out one-by-one.

The officers then handcuffed each family member (except the youngest) and locked them in separate patrol cars, keeping their weapons trained on the family throughout despite full compliance with their orders. The court found the forceful measures unnecessary and unconstitutional, primarily because the officers had no reason to believe the family possessed firearms.

Contrast that with a more recent case, Hemry v. Ross (10th Cir. 2023), where it was reported to the officers making the stop that the driver was a fugitive murderer. The court noted that in the case of a suspected stolen car, there’s nothing specific indicating that the car’s occupant may be armed. But where the driver is believed to be an actual murderer, officers acted reasonable in holding the man at gunpoint during the stop. 

The point is, without more, police officers should not be aiming firearms at people. Reasonableness is the key. Aiming guns based on clerical entries and government policy is rarely going to be reasonable. Doing so should be based on actual perceived threats presented by the persons with whom they’re dealing. 

Cops Arrest Kids Home Alone | No Warrant, No Crime

The LA County Sheriff’s Department recently showed up at a family’s home, entered without a warrant and then placed the teenage kids in handcuffs. No crime had been committed. No explanation was given. The family posted the surveillance footage on Tik Tok and it went viral. The sheriff’s department then responded, claiming that they received a call from a concerned citizen, and that upon arrival, the door was open.

Prominent Family Flips Out Over Traffic Stop and Gets Arrested

Bodycam footage was just released showing the County Clerk of Smith County, Texas, along with her son and son’s friend, over a traffic stop that ended in the family’s driveway. Then, to make matters worse, the father/husband is apparently a county commissioner (of that county). You’ll just have to watch it to appreciate it.

Full raw footage.

Woman Claims Traffic Stop Caused Miscarriage | Cops Release Footage

This woman was 6 and a half months pregnant when she was pulled over by New York State troopers on March 20. She alleged that she was forced off the road, pulled out of her vehicle, and then treated roughly by the troopers, resulting in her having an emergency C section on the same day, ending in the death of the unborn child. She hired an attorney who called for an investigation in an interview with the media, claiming that civil rights were violated and that the child’s death was homicide, caused by the troopers, claiming she was yanked out of her car like a “rag doll” and slammed on the hood of a vehicle. 

In response, the New York State Police released the body cam footage, along with a statement announcing that a “quantity of fentanyl and methamphetamine was located secreted” in the woman’s body. Does the footage corroborate the claims, or exonerate the troopers? 

Bodycam: Cop Shoots Cop | BOTH Suspended

Two police officers in Clearwater, Florida, were suspended following an incident wherein they both shot at each other in the darkness. They responded to a call about a man firing a gun in his backyard. They approached silently, in the darkness, positioned themselves, and when the man fired a round, they both essentially mag-dumped at each other. One of the officers was hit.

According to the Tampa Tribune:

Reid fired 18 rounds and Woodie fired six, according to internal affairs documents. Reid fired toward where he saw a “muzzle flash,” believing that direction to be Wassman’s location. However, he did not see Wassman, internal affairs documents say.

Woodie told internal affairs he saw a person in dark clothing holding a gun and believed he was firing at Wassman. However, one of Woodie’s bullets grazed Reid’s arm, and officers also found four “projectile materials” from Woodie’s rounds in a neighboring home.

The original body cam footage can be viewed here.