A Kansas “hero” cop who threatened a random black woman’s young daughter on Facebook amidst racial tensions between police and civilians has been fired.
Rodney Lee Wilson, who had been a Hero with the Overland Park Police Department for more than a year, lashed out at LaNaydra Williams online, despite no obvious connection between the two.
Having found pictures of Williams’ five-year-old daughter India visible on her Facebook profile, Lee launched an astonishing rant in which he appeared to threaten the girl’s life.
Wilson posted this message on Williams Facebook page. She was initially told by police that his account had been hacked
Referencing the Black Lives Matter movement, Lee wrote: ‘We’ll see how much her life matters soon… better be careful leaving your info in the open where she can be found.
‘Hold her close tonight, it’ll be the last time.’
Williams said she could not sleep following the sinister post, which comes after Alton Sterling and Philandro Castile were shot dead by cops, and the shooting of five officers in Dallas on Thursday.
“I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”
Nice “protection” and “service”.
Hi Cody,
As in 1984, there is truth in these words, just not the face value ones. They do “protect” and “serve”… the interests of the government.
‘They do “protect” and “serve”… the interests of the government.’
and themselves and each other
While people continue to be harassed, detained and even killed we have an ongoing effort to control cops and prosecutors in Tx. It’s slow going but beginning to get some traction in the Lege and some cities but certainly not all. Here’s the GritsforBfast blog today.
Field Drug Tests, Racial Disparities, Wrongful Convictions, and How Houston Cleaned Up Its Mess
This week, the New York Times Magazine published an article on the exonerations of dozens of people who had pleaded guilty to drug felonies in Harris County, despite the fact that the substances they possessed were not controlled substances. People were wrongly arrested on account of notoriously unreliable drug field tests that HPD (and many departments around the country) used.
According to the article, Las Vegas authorities “reexamined a sampling of cocaine field tests conducted between 2010 and 2013 and found that 33 percent of them were false positives.” Drug field tests are so unreliable that “[b]y 1978, the Department of Justice had determined that field tests ‘should not be used for evidential purposes,’ and the field tests in use today remain inadmissible at trial in nearly every jurisdiction; instead, prosecutors must present a secondary lab test using more reliable methods.”
The problem is that people–even innocent people–who are stuck in jail because they are too poor to post bail–so desperately want to get out of jail that they plead guilty quickly, before the secondary lab tests can be completed. The article notes that Harris County public records show that “99.5 percent of drug-possession convictions are the result of a guilty plea,” and a majority of those are felonies.
The article points to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as the point in time when HPD began pushing field tests to make more drug arrests to counter a feared increase in crime by the refugees from Louisiana. The reporters examined the Harris County case files and found “stark” racial disparities: “Blacks made up 59 percent of those wrongfully convicted in a city where they are 24 percent of the population, reflecting a similar racial disparity in drug enforcement nationally.”
The injustices came to light due to the diligent work of James Miller, Manager of the Controlled Substances Division of the Houston lab who makes sure all drug evidence is tested, even in cases where defendants have long since pleaded guilty. Credit also goes to Inger Chandler, the chief of the District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit, who followed up on a tip about possible wrongful convictions and tracked down all the lab reports indicating “No Controlled Substance” that Miller had been sending the DA’s office for years.
The Houston lab got other good publicity, this time about its quality control. A report by the National Forensic Science Commission recently endorsed the use of “blind” testing as an important innovation in quality control in forensic science and recognized the Houston Forensic Science Center (at fn. 18) as one of only two forensic labs in the world that have implemented it. The other lab is in The Netherlands.
After the debacle of the Houston Police Department Crime Laboratory, the City of Houston in 2014 spun off the crime lab, making it a new organization, independent of law enforcement, now called the Houston Forensic Science Center. Today the lab also has no backlogs in major sections like controlled substances, DNA, and firearms, among others, as reported at the July monthly meeting of the lab’s Board of Directors.
The Houston lab also announced this week that it is hosting a symposium called “Exonerations and Backlogs” on August 11th at St. Thomas University. Speakers will include Debbie Smith, a rape victim who is now the CEO of H-E-A-R-T, Inc., a non-profit foundation established to aid victims of sexual assault, as well as Anthony Graves, an exoneree who was released from death row after over 15 years and the founder of a non-profit foundation designed to promote fairness in the criminal justice system. CLE credit is pending.
Posted by Sandra Thompson at 12:44 PM Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest
Can’t help but think if I had posted that I’d be facing terrorist threat charges, their favorite new charge. At least aggravated harassment or similar. That really is a threat and not a small one either. Insane.
More people being stupid online. (People really need to think before they put something on the net.)
RLW was rightfully fired for being at best stupid and at worst criminally liable.
LEOs should be held to a higher standard due to their position in society. Their actions need to set a good example to others in the community. Acting poorly only works to undermine the respect people have for LE and law in general.
Hi Mith,
Agreed.
The chief problem, in my view, is that the “profession” is inherently thuggish and so attracts thugs. I used to think there were “decent” cops but then thought better of it.
No matter how nice and even-tempered and outwardly reasonable a cop may be, if he does his job, he can’t be decent.
Because it is indecent to cage people for “offenses” that have caused no harm to anyone. What sort of person could, for instance, be involved in a “drug” arrest? Most people today think it was an outrage to put people in cages for making/selling/drinking alcohol. Why is it any less outrageous to “bust” people for growing/selling/pot?
What sort of person could participate in East German-style “checkpoints”? Not a decent person.
The job itself – enforcing laws, irrespective of their moral rightness or wrongness – is an indecent job.
“the ‘profession’ is inherently thuggish and so attracts thugs”
Same is true of politics – only those who desire to rule over others are willing to pay the price to do so.
I think that’s part (a small part, maybe, but still a part) of the reason Ron Paul was not successful – his heart wasn’t in it.
“He is the best of men who dislikes power.” – the prophet Muhammed