A Marion County (Florida) Sheriff’s Deputy saw a couple sitting in their car, on their own property, where they were building a new “barndominium” in the middle of a large field behind their home. The deputy pulled onto the property, got out of his police cruiser, approaching the couple, who were sitting in their car eating a meal, as it was raining. There had been no report of criminal activity. The deputy just thought they looked suspicious and that they could be trespassing.
On July 31, 2024, Kentucky State Police Trooper Myron Jackson took exception to Christen Johnson, a dental assistant and mom of 3 young children, silently filming his illegal traffic stop from her front porch. Trooper Jackson stormed up to Christen and threatened her, “Go inside of the house or I will take you from your kids and take you to jail.”
When Christen remained filming on her porch, Trooper Jackson grabbed her, forcefully pulled her from her porch, and dragged her across the ground. Christen’s two, seven, and ten-year-old children screamed and cried, watching helplessly as their mother was violently hand- cuffed and dragged away to jail. When she got out of jail the next day, she was forced to walk several miles home, and when she got there, she found her children gone.
In Margate, Florida, Officer Sohn of the Margate Police Department observed a man sitting in his parked car during daylight hours in a local park. He approaches the driver’s side window of the car and begins to ask questions and demand identification. The officer refuses to take no for an answer, and the situation escalates to eventually holding the man in handcuffs. Once the supervisor arrives however, Officer Sohn is unable to justify his actions.
In Milton, Florida, Deputy Zachary MacPherson observed 20 year old Aleczander “Zander” Cash, who is autistic, walking across his residential street and into his home. Becoming angry that he couldn’t hear him (due to his wearing headphones), MacPherson banged on the front door, and when Cash answered, yanked Cash out of the front door of his home and onto the ground, handcuffing and arresting him. Not only was no crime committed by Cash, but Deputy MacPherson admittedly did not have a warrant.
In Bowling Green, Kentucky, a man and his girlfriend were trying to have a yard sale when police officers from the Warren County Sheriff’s Office and the Bowling Green Police Department appeared and accused them of shoplifting, due to there being multiple duplicate items for sale on the tables in the front yard. Despite not having a warrant, the officers refused to leave, detaining a man and attempting to interrogate him on the home’s front porch for over 45 minutes.
Monongalia County Sheriff’s Deputy Lance Kuretza was indicted by the Feds as a result of this never-before-seen bodycam footage showing him suddenly confronting and arresting an innocent man, who was sleeping in a hotel room. I tried to get the footage over two years ago. Since then, he was acquitted by a federal jury in his criminal prosecution. Now he’s back to work as a deputy. But should he have a badge in light of this footage, showing what really happened that night?
The hatemail that jogged my memory about the incident:
Viral Twitter post about the indictment that first got people talking about it:
The US Attorney’s statement about the incident, from a radio show appearance (IIRC):
Here’s the press release by the DOJ about the indictment of Deputy Kuretza:
Photo taken by the police during arrest processing:
Monongalia County Sheriff’s Quote (recently retired now) about the trial result, commenting that he was “glad” the jurors came to the same conclusion he/his department had:
A media report about the trial, revealing shocking testimony from an EMT an unnamed deputy lied to her about the cause of Mr. Graciano’s injuries:
EMS was eventually called to the department and the jury heard from one of the emergency medical technicians (EMT) who responded to the call.
Camden Boggs, who worked as an EMT with Star City at the time, said a deputy in a black shirt told him Graziano “was drunk downtown starting fights and got beat up.” He could not say whether that deputy was Kuretza.
Boggs said a fight made sense because he initially saw blunt force trauma and at minimum a fracture to the nose or eye and at maximum a traumatic brain injury. He testified that Graziano’s right eye was so swollen, EMTs could not pry it open to evaluate his pupils for brain injuries.
Initially, Boggs said Graziano wanted to go to the hospital, but after being told by an unidentified deputy that by not going to the hospital he could see the magistrate sooner and go home sooner, Graziano then refused to go with the EMTs.
Fourth Circuit caselaw I referred to in the video regarding the 4th Amendment rights of hotel tenants is here. This is based on the US Supreme Court opinion from Stoner v. California.
The RAW footage, showing that not only did I not edit in a misleading way, I substantially censored the footage in order to comply with Youtube’s guidelines. The raw footage is much worse. Here is the full, unedited, footage from Lance Kuretza’s bodycam from January 18, 2018:
The full, unedited, uncensored, footage from Isaac Coe’s bodycam from January 18, 2018:
The full, unedited, uncensored, footage from Lance Kuretza’s bodycam during the arrest processing portion of January 20, 2018:
The full, unedited, uncensored, footage from Sgt. J.D. Alexander’s bodycam from January 20, 2018:
Here’s the full complaint from the civil lawsuit that was settled for $175,000:
Here’s a clip of Deputy Ethan Mongold encouraging Deputy Kuretza to give Mr. Graciano “the solution.”
Here’s the portion of the trial transcript (from above) that features Deputy Ethan Mongold testifying under oath to the jury that he admits that is indeed his voice that can be heard encouraging Kuretza to “give him the solution,” but unfortunately doesn’t remember saying it, and doesn’t remember why he would have said it – and also doesn’t know what “the solution” was.
Elkins Police Department (former) Officer Christian Mayle has now been terminated, following my last video detailing his recent arrest. As promised, here’s new video footage showing the likely reason that he resigned from his last department, the Barbour County Sheriff’s Department, the day prior to being hired by Elkins Police Department. It shows then-Deputy Mayle trespassing onto an innocent homeowner’s property and confronting him during a deer-strike call that occurred in front of the man’s home. When the man asked the deputy to move is police cruiser so that it didn’t block his driveway, Mayle went anabolic…
In Marysville, Michigan, Jake Kidder was washing his truck at a self serve car wash. An off duty police officer claims to have seen a black man in a Cadillac hand a suspicious bag to Mr. Kidder. Assuming he handed him drugs, he called his on-duty buddies, who responded within minutes. They confronted Mr. Kidder, who responded that the black man was his coworker, who handed him a cigarette. This occurred in St. Clair County, Michigan.
Why would two separate police officers from two separate counties in rural Georgia both happen to end up harassing this super nice guy, driving this super nice vehicle, who incidentally is transporting his super adorable monkey that he has a YouTube channel with? And what were the chances that both officers would pull the vehicle over for “following too closely” to a tractor trailer, where coincidentally, both of the officers’ dash cameras would show the claims to be completely bogus?
My client was driving in Martinsburg, West Virginia. He saw a police car belonging to the Martinsburg Police Department. Desiring to express some protected First Amendment speech, he flipped them the bird – the middle finger. They immediately pulled him over. A federal civil rights lawsuit is currently pending.
