In Limerick, Maine, three Maine State Police troopers arrived at the home of Justin Savage and his girlfriend Shawna Morse on a disturbance call. Within fifteen minutes of their arrival, they would basically beat and torture Justin, throwing him in a police car handcuffed, with leg restraints, bloodied, and with a hood covering his face so that he couldn’t see or breathe. They charged him with numerous crimes and issued a press release two days later, accusing him of numerous crimes, including breaking the ankle of one of the troopers during the incident. The officers were not wearing body cams. Fortunately however, video just recently surfaced showing what actually happened that night…
My last two videos are both updates on a video I made back in February, where an employee of a firearms-related company in Virginia Beach, owned and operated by former Navy SEALs, was arrested for allegedly stealing a missing AR-15 lower. Only 10 minutes after the arrest, while James was being interrogated, the missing lower reappeared somehow. My first update video discussed the fact that the former SEALs want my first video removed. Here’s that video:
You can watch the original video here. Yesterday I posted yet another update video about the fact that the Virginia Beach Police Department is apparently attempting to coverup this incident:
After the first update video, several of you served FOIA requests on the VBPD for the police report from this incident. Some of you received outright denials. At least one of you received a basic report with basically no substance:
But one of you actually did manage to obtain the report, after threatening to sue the VBPD over their denial to provide the report. But unfortunately, this is what they provided:
This is their explanation as to why they redacted basically the entire report:
This is the law they’re relying on to hide the substance of the report, which clearly documents their own misconduct. Here’s a great explanation as to how this is possible, from the guy who obtained the report:
For a short time after the passage of HB2004 in 2021, records of closed police investigations in Virginia were opened to public scrutiny. With the changes from that bill, the Virginia Freedom of Information Act made disclosure of criminal investigative files mandatory when the investigation was “not ongoing.” After the law took effect, the family of Kionte Spencer was able to obtain video of his fatal shooting at the hands of Roanoke County police officers—video that the department had refused to show his family since his death in February 2016.
That newfound transparency dimmed less than a year later, with the passage of HB734. In a swift reversal, legislators amended the law to give police departments and other law enforcement agencies complete discretion to decide whether or not to release records of closed investigations. Legislators who voted for the bill evidently believed the change was necessary to protect victims and their families from the release of sensitive photos of their loved ones. “We do want to protect victims as much as we can. We don’t want those pictures out on the internet,” Sen. Richard Stuart said during a committee hearing on the bill. In fact, the 2021 law already prohibited release of such photographs.
Unsurprisingly, what’s happened is that the Virginia legislature has created a mechanism whereby police agencies can hide their own misconduct from the public under the guise of protecting sensitive crime-victim information.
While the statute appears to have all sorts of exceptions and varying applications, the key word is “non-mandatory,” which renders most of it meaningless. It puts disclosure entirely within the discretion of the police agency. If they want to produce it, they produce it. If they don’t, they don’t. So if it makes you look bad, they’ll produce it. If it makes them look bad, they won’t. This is unacceptable.
There is no public interest in allowing the government to coverup its own misconduct. Thus they either tricked the public with this legislation, or the law enforcement lobby tricked the legislature. Either way, it’s outrageous.
Also, here’s the 2nd Circuit opinion that was released yesterday that I discussed in yesterday’s video regarding de facto arrests:
About 6 months ago I made a video about the daughter of the Sheriff of Berkeley County, West Virginia, who was involved in a car wreck under suspicious circumstances. It appeared that she was given special treatment and basically allowed to skate on what would have been a DUI charge/investigation for the rest of us. Well, she’s back in the news, and this time she’s been charged. You can read her father’s statement here. Thanks to Spike Cohen for discussing the situation with me.
The cover up is always worse than the crime, isn’t it? I mean, if you’re an elected sheriff, wouldn’t it be better to allow your irresponsible 22 year old daughter who drove drunk and crashed her car to get a DUI, than to use your position to protect her from the consequences of her actions, and thereby possibly destroy your career, as well as public confidence in their local government?
This video comes to us from Berkeley County, West Virginia, where the daughter of the local sheriff was allegedly returning home from a night of drinking at a bar, but failed to make it home, instead crashing her car. A Berkeley County deputy – a subordinate of Sheriff Nathan Harmon (her father) – arrived at the scene. His body cam captured what he saw….
On May 10, 2019, officers attempted to stop Ronald Greene over an unspecified traffic offense around midnight. A high-speed pursuit began, ending in brutal treatment at the hands of police officers. They did everything in the book to Mr. Greene, who repeatedly cried out that he was scared. Just this week, the other surviving police officers involved in the death of Ronald Greene were criminally charged in Louisiana State Court with crimes ranging from negligent homicide to malfeasance.
The 46-minute clip shows one trooper wrestling Greene to the ground, putting him in a chokehold and punching him in the face while another can be heard calling him a “stupid motherf——.”
Greene wails “I’m sorry!” as another trooper delivers another stun gun shock to his backside and warns, “Look, you’re going to get it again if you don’t put your f——- hands behind your back!” Another trooper can be seen briefly dragging the man facedown after his legs had been shackled and his hands cuffed behind him.
Facing the most serious charges from a state grand jury was Master Trooper Kory York, who was seen on the body-camera footage dragging Greene by his ankle shackles, putting his foot on his back to force him down and leaving the heavyset man face down in the dirt for more than nine minutes….
The others who faced various counts of malfeasance and obstruction included a trooper who denied the existence of his body-camera footage, another who exaggerated Greene’s resistance on the scene, a regional state police commander who detectives say pressured them not to make an arrest in the case and a Union Parish sheriff’s deputy heard on the video taunting Greene with the words “s—- hurts, doesn’t it?”
Law enforcement attempted to coverup their misconduct and to suppress the body cam footage from the public.
Greene’s May 10, 2019, death was shrouded in secrecy from the beginning, when authorities told grieving relatives that the 49-year-old died in a car crash at the end of a high-speed chase near Monroe — an account questioned by both his family and even an emergency room doctor who noted Greene’s battered body. Still, a coroner’s report listed Greene’s cause of death as a motor vehicle accident, a state police crash report omitted any mention of troopers using force and 462 days would pass before state police began an internal probe.
All the while, the body-camera video remained so secret it was withheld from Greene’s initial autopsy and officials from Edwards on down declined repeated requests to release it, citing ongoing investigations.
But then last year, the AP obtained and published the footage, which showed what really happened: Troopers swarming Greene’s car, stunning him repeatedly, punching him in the head, dragging him by the shackles and leaving him prone on the ground for more than nine minutes. At times, Greene could be heard pleading for mercy and wailing, “I’m your brother! I’m scared! I’m scared!”
Not surprisingly, this wasn’t the first time. Now the DOJ has instituted a broad investigation into the Louisiana State Police.
The AP later found that Greene’s arrest was among at least a dozen cases over the past decade in which state police troopers or their bosses ignored or concealed evidence of beatings of mostly Black men, deflected blame and impeded efforts to root out misconduct. Dozens of current and former troopers said the beatings were countenanced by a culture of impunity, nepotism and, in some cases, racism.
Such reports were cited by the U.S. Justice Department this year in launching a sweeping civil rights investigation into the Louisiana State Police, the first “pattern or practice” probe of a statewide law enforcement agency in more than two decades.
What you see here is Bluefield West Virginia off duty police officer, James Mullins, on October 24, 2021 physically attacking multiple individuals, including a local business owner, his girlfriend, and multiple coworker police officers. He had just been involved in a shootout with multiple people in this parking lot. There are bullet holes in his car and shell casings laying around on the ground. At the end of the day, nobody was charged for the parking lot shootout, including the off duty officer. In fact, despite all the crimes you are about to see committed, only one misdemeanor charge of domestic violence resulted, for the video taped violent push of the officer’s girlfriend. And today, that charge was supposed to go to trial. Instead it was dismissed without prejudice. My original video on this was pretty long, but take a look at these few snippets, and let me know if you think the off duty officer appears to you to have committed any crimes.
For some reason, the special prosecutor assigned to the case, and the West Virginia state trooper assigned to investigate it, only saw fit to charge one count of domestic violence. Nothing for the shootout; nothing for physically assaulting the bar owner; nothing for physically assaulting the multiple police officers.
Today that case was scheduled to go to trial. A conviction for domestic battery would have prevented the off duty officer from ever possessing a firearm again legally, and therefore preventing him from ever being employed as a police officer again in the future. But that didn’t happen. The charges have been dropped and he has been released from bond. He’s currently perfectly capable of now possessing a firearm and also to work as a police officer. Unbelievably, as far as I know he’s still certified to be a police officer through West Virginia’s LEPS subcommittee on law enforcement certification. When I previously asked them if they were going to take steps to investigate or decertify Officer Mullins, they responded that he was being prosecuted criminally, so no they weren’t. Oops. Government fails us once again.
The reason given to the news media regarding the dismissal was that the victim was allegedly “uncooperative.” Okay, that’s common in domestic violence prosecutions. But why is that dispositive here, where the crime was caught on video? Do you even need the victim to testify? What if she doesn’t show up? Who cares. What is she going to show up and say, “nothing happened?” It’s on video. Is justice achieved if violent domestic abusers can persuade their victims to not cooperate? No, of course not.
Now, to be fair, the dismissal documents did note on them that the charge was being dismissed without prejudice, meaning that they can be refiled at a later date, and also noting that “related” charges are going before a grand jury. So, it’s possible that more charges are coming, including possible felony charges, which require grand jury indictment. However, the expected date for the grand jury decision is October. West Virginia has a one year statute of limitations for misdemeanor crimes. So if they wait until after October 24, 2023, he’s in the clear and cannot be prosecuted for this, or any other misdemeanor arising from this incident. That does not prevent indictment for felony charges, which do not have a statute of limitations in West Virginia.
Also, I know from past experience that the favorite way of prosecutors generally to coverup acts of police misconduct, especially shootings, is to present it to a secret grand jury where they return a “no true bill,” or a decision not to indict. This would clear the officer, and make it look like it wasn’t the decision of the prosecutor. In reality, we know that prosecutors are known to be able to indict ham sandwiches, controlling the flow of evidence and law to the grand jurors.
Make sure you subscribe to follow along to see what ends up happening. It would be a travesty of justice, as well as a clear and present danger to the public, to allow this to fade away at this point. The public and politicians should look into West Virginia’s LEPS subcommittee on law enforcement certifications and find out why they haven’t decertified this police officer.
Original full video:
Also, let’s not forget about the fact that he appears to have been drinking from an open container in his car before and during this incident:
