Why "Good Cops" Stay Silent: The Persecution of Officer Adam Basford

[Occam's Banana]

h/t LRC: http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/08/w...s-stay-silent/

Why "Good Cops" Stay Silent: The Persecution of Officer Adam Basford
http://www.freedominourtime.blogspot...rsecution.html
William Norman Grigg (22 August 2014)

“I can't get killed for this job,” observed one of Adam Basford's former colleagues in the Yakima Police Department, explaining why he had refused to come to Basford's aid during a hand-to-hand struggle with an armed suspect. “I thought we were going to get killed, so I had to leave you there.”

That officer was one of three who were in a position to help on August 18, 2013 when Basford attempted to arrest Antonio Cardenas, a recently paroled felon who was suspected of aggravated assault with a firearm. Concerned over the safety of bystanders, including a young girl, Officer Basford didn't pull his gun. He found himself grappling with a younger ex-convict who was several inches taller and at least sixty pounds heavier, while every other available nearby officer found something better to do.

Basford was able to subdue the suspect without killing him or risking the lives of people in the neighborhood. Rather than receiving a commendation, Basford is now off the force and facing criminal charges – not for taking down an armed, violent felon without using lethal force, but for filing a misconduct complaint against an erstwhile colleague.

Basford, an Air Force veteran who regarded himself to be a peace officer rather than a law enforcer, had patrolled a violent neighborhood riven with gang-related violence. On many occasions prior to August 18, he had called for backup, only to find – as he did that night – that no help was forthcoming. This wasn’t just because Basford’s fellow officers were afraid, but because he had violated the unwritten but binding rules of police solidarity by speaking out against routine misconduct and abuse within the department.

Basford had just finished an administrative call when he heard gunshots and saw an armed man later identified as Cardenas racing through the neighborhood. Basford pursued Cardenas into a nearby yard, overtaking him when the suspect failed to clear a fence.

“I didn't want to draw my gun, because there was a young girl just a few feet away,” Basford recalled to Pro Libertate. “Cardenas took a swing at me, and missed. I took his back while the two of us were still on our feet. He reached for my lapel microphone and broke it, then said he was going to kill me and that nobody would find my body.”

As they struggled, Cardenas reached for his .44 Desert Eagle and squeezed off a shot. Basford managed to wrench the shooter's hand away from his body at the last second, but still suffered a grazing gunshot wound to his knee. Already in severe oxygen debt from the struggle, Basford quickly began to feel the effects of blood loss. Worried that if Cardenas escaped he might finish killing him or attack a bystander, Basford applied a rear-naked choke – a potentially lethal hold that was, in this situation, used defensively.

The combatants hit the ground, and Basford saw his backup, Officer Booker Ward, arrive.

“He saw what was going on, heard me scream at him,” Basford later recalled. “We made eye contact, and he turned and ran away.”

Two other Yakima PD Officers were on bicycle patrol nearby.

“They heard me get shot,” Basford recounted to me. “They heard me scream for assistance. They were just two blocks away – but they were fifteen minutes from the end of their shift, and they went back to the station instead of coming to my aid.” Basford would find out later that the bike patrol officers “didn't think the overtime would be approved.”

[full article at link: http://www.freedominourtime.blogspot...rsecution.html]

[Mani]

Wow. That's a very insightful article.

[Origanalist]

Not down with the homies. Bad cop, no donut.

[Anti Federalist]

“We made eye contact, and he turned and ran away.”

Heroes...

[Suzanimal]

Two other Yakima PD Officers were on bicycle patrol nearby.

“They heard me get shot,” Basford recounted to me. “They heard me scream for assistance. They were just two blocks away – but they were fifteen minutes from the end of their shift, and they went back to the station instead of coming to my aid.” Basford would find out later that the bike patrol officers “didn't think the overtime would be approved.”

Heroes...

Yep.

[Anti Federalist]

Understandably, Ford filed a lawsuit that was eventually heard by a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that he had standing to sue the City of Yakima. Citing a similar case from Chicago, the panel observed that the “freedom of individuals verbally to challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.”

...

[FindLiberty]

Wow, just wow.


Secure the Movie/Script rights...

[limequat]

Alright, where's the legal defense fund for Basford?

[XNavyNuke]

Good cops remain quiet for the same reason that peaceful Muslims remain quiet about terrorists who commit atrocities in the name of their religion. Statism is a religion and LEOs are the deacons. To call a fellow officer out is the equivalent of blasphemy.

XNN

[phill4paul]

Good cops remain quiet for the same reason that peaceful Muslims remain quiet about terrorists who commit atrocities in the name of their religion. Statism is a religion and LEOs are the deacons. To call a fellow officer out is the equivalent of blasphemy.

XNN

Take a bow. +rep.

[phill4paul]

Not the first time and won't be the last....

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[aGameOfThrones]

Heroes...

that would have been contempt of cop if a mundane had done it.

[aGameOfThrones]

Alright, where's the legal defense fund for Basford?

Darren Wilson took it

[Occam's Banana]

Why "Good Cops" Stay Silent, Continued
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/...-adam-basford/
William Norman Grigg (23 October 2014)

When confronted with an allegation of official misconduct or corruption, a journalist will investigate the complaint. In the same situation, a state-licensed apologist will investigate the complainant, in order to vindicate power in the eyes of the public.

Thus it is probably significant that when Yakima NBC affiliate KNDO decided to follow up on my story about former Yakima PD Officer Adam Basford, the headline it chose was: “I-Team Investigates Blog Claiming Yakima Police Abandoned Officer in Struggle.”

Mr. Basford was shot in the leg while arresting a suspect in a previous shooting. Out of concern for bystanders, Basford didn’t pull his gun, choosing instead to go hands-on with the larger, younger, armed suspect. During the foot pursuit and struggle, Basford called for backup, and claims that none arrived until after he had subdued the suspect. (Although the suspect was a convicted felon who shot a police officer, he was allowed to plead guilty to “attempted first-degree assault.”)

While he was being treated for his wound, Basford relates, he became concerned that the suspect hadn’t been secured, and thought he saw him reaching for an object in his pants. He drew his weapon and held it at “low ready,” out of concern, he says, for the EMTs and police on the scene. One of the officers yelled that Basford was preparing to “execute” the suspect, and Basford was intercepted and compelled to surrender his weapon.

The video provided to KNDO – which wasn’t available to me at the time I wrote the original story – validates most of Basford’s account: It shows police responding after the altercation; documents that Basford was wounded (although at the time his wound – which proved to be very serious – was dismissed as “superficial”) – and that Basford was concerned about the suspect going for a gun; and it captures the image of Basford striding toward the suspect with a drawn gun at his side.

KNDO depicts Basford as a dangerous and undisciplined officer who was seeking to “execute” a suspect he had just risked his life to arrest without using lethal force. It also dismisses his claim that other officers had declined to intervene on his behalf by noting that “in all official accounts of the incident, there was no mention of officers witnessing the struggle and not helping.”

“That didn’t happen,” Chief Rizzi told KNDO correspondent Chris Luther. “I trust the integrity of all of these officers that they’re going to do the right thing….”

Rizzi’s assessment of an officer’s “integrity” is based on a sliding scale. As noted in my original report, the Yakima PD has been deluged with lawsuits in recent years, many of them filed by disillusioned officers complaining about institutional corruption. Chief Rizzi is still dealing with the degenerate corporate culture he inherited from former Chief Sam Granato, and his administration isn’t a substantive improvement over that of his widely despised predecessor.

Rizzi blithely ratified an internal review that permitted Officer Casey Gillette to escape punishment after he beat an unarmed man and unlawfully arrested him for “disorderly conduct,” which is not an offense under Yakima municipal statutes. As a Supervisory Review of that case demonstrated, the false charge was “chosen to justify Gillette’s [unlawful] use of force and possibly to protect the city” from a lawsuit.

A few months later that same Officer Gillette shot and killed Rocendo Arias, an innocent man who was sleeping in his car. That shooting was ruled “justified” because of the “perceived threat” reported by Gillette after killing the victim.

It is a bit precious of Rizzi to feign outrage over Basford’s behavior after getting shot while countenancing the execution-style shooting of a sleeping man.

It would have been appropriate for Mr. Luther or other reporters from KNDO to ask Chief Rizzi about these matters. If those questions were asked, Chief Rizzi’s answers were not made available to the public. But remember: The purpose of the KNDO report was to investigate the complainant, not the complaint.

Adam Basford, who arrived at an “amicable separation” from the Yakima PD following his injury, told me that he was often left without backup because of complaints he had made regarding misconduct by fellow officers. After leaving the force, he filed a complaint against Officer Ryan Yates arising from what he described as a confrontation in the parking lot of a sporting goods store.

KNDO was provided with what it described as “inconclusive” security camera footage of the confrontation. Luther’s story also noted that Basford’s complaint was dismissed, and he was charged with “filing a false report.” An actual journalist might have asked Chief Rizzi to explain whether it is standard procedure for a citizen to be charged with a crime when his department doesn’t sustain a misconduct complaint. He might also point out that the Yakima PD and the DA apparently consider it to be a more serious “crime” for a citizen to file an unsustained complaint about police misconduct, than for a convicted felon to shoot a police officer who had complained about misconduct by his colleagues, given that Basford actually faced more time behind bars than the man who shot him. A journalist might ask Rizzi for comment about that matter.

Luther had the opportunity to ask those questions. His apparent refusal to do so tells us which of the two roles described in the first paragraph above he has chosen to play.

Luther contacted me late in the evening on October 21 – less than 24 hours before KNDO’s story was broadcast. I replied by sending him several hundred pages of documents I had obtained through public records request and other means.

“I really appreciate you getting back to me so quickly,” Luther replied. “I will review all the documents tomorrow.”

No, he didn’t. Absent the gifts for speed-reading and comprehension enjoyed by the psionically enhanced Gary Mitchell, it would have been humanly impossible to review all of the documents I provided to Mr. Luther.

It’s reasonable to surmise that by the time Luther contacted me, the copy had been written, the footage had been interviewed, and all that was left were a few inserts and the obligatory stand-up in front of the Yakima PD Office.

“There will not be any on-camera [interview] where I’m speaking with any news affiliate, outlet, or agency,” Basford told Luther in an email exchange that occurred less than five hours before KNDO broadcast its story. “I’ve been advised by both my attorneys that I cannot do official interviews at this time. Besides, my whole story is actually in my police report.”

Mr. Basford’s refusal to speak with Luther was the product of a gag order imposed on him through a “Stipulated Order of Continuance” arising from the vindictive and unjustified charge of filing a false report. As explained to him by his attorney, this is a type of probation during which time he would face a “stipulated trial” if he were arrested and charged with any criminal infraction. This is a procedure in which “the judge reads the police reports and makes a determination. A stipulated trial would most likely result in a conviction.”

What this means, obviously, is that the Yakima PD can tell whatever story it wants about Adam Basford, and Mr. Basford faces the prospect of imprisonment if he speaks in his own defense. A journalist would be expected to ask questions about that arrangement or, at the very least, explain it to the public. It’s a pity that KNDO doesn’t have anybody meeting that description on its payroll.


"Why 'Good Cops' Stay Silent, Continued" by William Norman Grigg is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

[thoughtomator]

Tell me when Basford takes the final step of logic and realizes who the true criminals who are a threat to public safety are.

[green73]

Not the first time and won't be the last....

http://********************************...bw-300x300.jpg

Great drug warrior, that guy.