Complaint Review: MESA PD

It's pretty obvious that these officers which are spoken of here are pure and simple cowards a lot like some of the cops we have here in East Tennessee. Like your local government, our local regimes have spun out of control also. This is what happens when people no longer hold folks in local small-time government accountable.

The cops up in Crossville, TN, like to shoot and mistreat animals also. When they were pursued for accountability for their slow-witted actions, nothing happened. NOTHING! I've often heard people say that the only true people in America who are truly free are the police. Free to kill innocent animals, free to speed wherever and whenever, free to drive drunk, free to wave a gun around which they did not receive proper training for, etc. These guys do whatever they want and have been doing that for a long time now.

Here's an example of this: I went to high school with a guy whose father grew marijuana. Not just everyday stuff, but highly potent hydroponetically grown marijuana. After graduating from high school, I went to college and my friend, well.....he........I'm not real sure what he did besides call his employer's wife and tell her that his boss was trapped in a fire. Yeah, he got in a lot of trouble for that one. He eventually hit the depths of worthlessness and became a Maryville City Cop. After a short period of time, I read about him shooting two dogs in Highland Acres Subdivision. Must be a right of passage for these idiots. After his whole dog execution thing, he arrested a guy who had broken into one of our local public pools. I'm sure his father is still growing the ganja but I'm sure that I'm the only one who asks him about that when I see him.

I really don't have any answers. All that I can offer is observations about what typical uneducated ex-jock cops get away with in this nation. They have too much power and too little brain power to be able to handle the authority.

It amazes me that technology has done away with so many jobs in every industry except law enforcement. Most of what police do in a regular shift is traffic related. Why couldn't we use cameras to catch speeders instead of warm bodies? Maybe this would cut back on the need for so many officers in a department. Maybe this cut back would weed out a few of the overzealous fascists that currently fill the ranks of most police departments.

Maybe it's time that these idiots are forced to get a degree like everyone else in order to get a good job. I'm sick of hearing cops whining about their pay. Well, let's see, officer, you have no degree and barely received your high school diploma.......I'd say that you're doing alright for yourself considering people who had the ambition to get a college degree are making less than most officers on average.

Not all officers are bad. Not all are good either. In fact, the vast majority of cops don't have enough sense to get in out of the rain. Fortunately for us common citizens, the "creme always has a tendency to rise to the top", and decent people end up in positions of authority within law enforcement groups. Unfortunately, they don't have eyes in the back of their heads and don't see a lot of what goes on behind their backs. (Maybe here's that need for a camera!)

Maybe we've come to a point in our nation's history that we need to seriously contemplate who is actually governing the police. Who's policing the police? Who's making sure that these morons LIVE by the laws that they are sworn to uphold?

Just remember: the next time you see a cop speeding without his emergency lights on; he's breaking the law. The next time you see a cop roll through a stop sign; he's breaking the law. The next time you think you see a cop running radar and sitting in the media; don't worry, he's probably sleeping and that my friends is breaking the law and stealing from all of us who pay taxes.

I'm sincerely sorry that you had to deal with such Nazis as the cops in Mesa, Arizona. Raise hell! Get with your state government people! Call the DA Genral for your state! Call all your Senators and Congressman! That's what they are there for.

PS If something ever happens and we have to rely on what this country currently considers a cop for protection, we are truly screwed. If most of our cops are considered "homeland security", then we need to go back and have Mr. Webster redefine the word "security." If most cops think that we are safer as citizens because of something law enforcement is doing, they think way too much of themselves. They do absolutely nothing that we couldn't do ourselves............and do it better with more thought and skill.

If you want to read detailed and
factual assessment of Mesa's
Police Department and general
"attitude", read report 26001, which
details a criminal procedure from beginning
to end and a bit beyond.

And if you aren't horrified, there is
something wrong with YOU.

This town does very strange things,
from illegal use of eminent domain
to bizarre applications of its warrant
and arrest powers.

I didn't write this....A reporter in Phoenix wrote this.....You going to call him a liar?

Dog Day Afternoon
Sheriff Joe 's goons launched an assault to make a misdemeanor arrest. The Raid left a burned house, a terrified neighborhood and a dead dog.

BY JOHN DOUGHERTY

An Ahwatukee residence looked more like a war zone, following a MCSO strike.

Justin Delfino looked out the window of his Ahwatukee home and couldn't believe what he was seeing.

It was shortly after noon on July 23 and several men dressed in black jeans and green shirts were getting out of an unmarked white Suburban, casually putting on flak jackets and helmets.

Soon the men were lingering in front of his neighbor's house in the upscale gated subdivision of quarter-million-dollar homes.

Delfino never would have guessed that he was witnessing the final preparations by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office SWAT team moments before it unleashed a barrage of tear gas grenades into his neighbor's home.

"They looked unprofessional. They were getting dressed on the scene. They weren't organized," Delfino, 22, says.

From his vantage point inside his home, Delfino couldn't see that deputies had rolled an armored personnel carrier into the neighbor's front yard as they prepared to storm the house.

Delfino could see no readily visible insignia on any of the men, so he figured the scene must be a prelude to a prank on the two men and a woman with a toddler who lived in the two-story stucco house across the street.

"I thought, these must be their friends and they are going to try and shoot paint balls at them," Delfino says.

But soon he knew that what he first thought was a gag must be about something deadly serious.

"I saw one of the guys was perched and aiming a gun at the window," he says. "All of a sudden, he fires off a tear gas round into the upstairs window.

"I immediately called 911. I didn't know what was going on."

Delfino says the men -- who he next thought must be members of a gang -- continued firing tear gas canisters through three upstairs windows in the front of the house. He saw others wearing flak jackets go around to the back of the house, where he heard them fire two more rounds at the upstairs windows of a back bedroom.

After a few minutes on the phone with a 911 operator, Delfino says, he was told that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office was serving a search warrant on the house and "not to worry."

That's when Delfino really got nervous. With good reason.

Delfino tells me he didn't know whether a huge gun battle was about to erupt 20 yards from his front door. No one from the sheriff's office had alerted him -- or any of his neighbors -- to evacuate.

Moments later, the situation deteriorated even further when the house erupted into flames. Now, the entire neighborhood of closely packed homes was threatened by the possibility of fire.

There wasn't a fire truck in sight.

Delfino's 'hood wouldn't have fared much worse if it had been a gang of street thugs blasting away at the house, rather than Sheriff Joe Arpaio's inept and bumbling SWAT team.
In less than 30 minutes, Arpaio's special forces unleashed an unprecedented wave of violence on this quiet community. Consider this:

Just after the tear gas canisters were shot, a fire erupted and destroyed a $250,000 home plus all the contents inside. (The home's occupants believe the tear gas canisters caused the fire. Phoenix fire officials say the blaze was probably started by a lighted candle that was knocked onto a bed during the confusion.)

The armored personnel carrier careened down the street and smashed into a parked car after its brakes failed.

And in the ultimate display of cruelty, a SWAT team member drove a dog trying to flee the home back into the inferno, where it met an agonizing death.

Deputies then reportedly laughed as the dog's owners came unglued as it perished in the blaze.

"I was crying hysterically," Andrea Barker, one of the dog's owners, tells me. "I was so upset. They [deputies] were laughing at me."

Making fun of the 10-month-old pit bull puppy's death wasn't enough.

Arpaio's goons then left the dog's body to rot in the ashes for the next five days of 105-degree temperatures. A pall of death hung over the neighborhood. It was a putrid reminder of Arpaio's reckless use of force and callous disregard for the public's welfare. Not to mention the heinous treatment toward the terrified dog.

And what did Arpaio's crack SWAT team net from the raid that left a needless trail of death and destruction?

MCSO stormed the house believing there was a cache of stolen automatic weapons and armor-piercing ammunition. But MCSO got bushwhacked. Instead of finding weapons of mass destruction, they discovered an antique shotgun and a 9 mm pistol that appear to be legal weapons.

There was no sign of the cop-killer bullets. Perhaps they are buried somewhere out in the desert, with Saddam's plutonium.

Given the overwhelming display of force deployed by Arpaio's deputies, one would have expected the arrest of a mass murderer.

Instead, the crack SWAT boys nabbed 26-year-old Eric Kush. Let me tell you, Kush is really a bad, bad guy.

He was wanted on a misdemeanor warrant for failing to appear in Tempe Municipal Court on a couple of traffic citations.

Thank God he's off the street. Well, not quite. He posted his $1,000 bond on the misdemeanor warrant and was quickly released from jail.

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Arpaio's Ahwatukee assault should have drawn banner headlines in the daily newspapers. But the Arizona Republic, where Arpaio's son-in-law, Phil Boas, serves as deputy editor of the editorial pages, buried the story in a community section. The East Valley Tribune ignored it entirely.
The local papers missed a helluva story.

Needless to say, neighbors are infuriated.

"The operation was completely and grossly mishandled," says Justin Delfino's father, Gene.

"They endangered my son and other people in this neighborhood," Gene adds. "I would love to see their reaction if this happened in their neighborhood."

I'm not criticizing the sheriff's department for investigating activities at the Ahwatukee home occupied by Gabrial Golden, Andrea Barker and Eric Kush.

There are clear indications that these young people living in an upscale rental home might have been engaged in some serious criminal activity.

My gripe is that Arpaio's SWAT team embarked on extreme and dangerous maneuvers that unnecessarily placed the entire neighborhood in mortal danger. A more measured, thoughtful and patient response likely would have achieved the same goal without the wholesale destruction of private property and the death of a puppy.

Gabrial Golden, 28, has a history of felony arrests dating back to 1996. He is on probation for an armed-robbery conviction. In July, he became the focus of a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department investigation in connection with the theft of automatic weapons and armor-piercing bullets.

Early on the morning of July 23, hours before MCSO rolled into Ahwatukee, Gabrial Golden was lured to a meeting with his probation officer, where he was arrested. He remains in custody.

According to press accounts, upon his arrest, Golden told MCSO that Kush was acting erratically and was armed. Kush, however, had no felony record, and his only legal ding was failing to appear in Tempe Municipal Court on a traffic warrant.

There were no other indications that Kush was about to unleash a rampage of cop-killer bullets on the neighborhood. In fact, Barker says she didn't even know Kush was at home when the SWAT team suddenly appeared in the front yard, complete with an armored personnel carrier.

The 22-year-old Barker says MCSO banged on her front door, announced they had a warrant and kicked in the door before she could respond.

"I was coming down the stairs and I heard them pound on the door," Barker says. "Literally two seconds later they kicked the door in mine and my daughter's face as I was trying to open it."

Barker says deputies yanked her and her daughter outside.

"They started yelling, 'This is the sheriff's department! Eric, come out with your hands up!'" Barker says.

But Eric didn't come out. Initially, he holed up in the attic.

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I guess he just got scared," Barker says.
With Kush crouched in the attic, the SWAT team could have entered the house and made their way upstairs to confront him. Instead, they started launching tear gas grenades.

"Three to five minutes after they shot the tear gas cans into my bedroom, I saw flames coming out the back of the arcadia door," Barker says.

Within minutes, the upstairs of the house was engulfed in flames. Kush, Barker says, could hear Dre, his prized pit-bull puppy, yelping, and he jumped from the attic to try to save the dog.

As black smoke billowed from the house, Barker says, Kush frantically tried to get Dre to run outside, the puppy yelping "like a baby."

At one point, Dre ran from the master bedroom and bolted down the stairs toward the front door, where it came face to face with a SWAT team member. Instead of letting the dog run outside, the SWAT member reportedly launched a counterattack.

"They shot the dog in the face with a fire extinguisher when he tried to come out of the fire," says Trisha Golden, Gabrial's younger sister, who helped raise the dog and was outside the burning home calling for it to come out. She did not live at the house, but hung out there frequently, she says. She heard about the fire and came immediately. "He turned and ran back into the master bedroom and burned [to death]."

Delfino says he asked one of the SWAT officers what happened to Dre and was told that the dog had been "neutralized" with the fire extinguisher. He asked the officer if the dog had attacked anybody, and the cop said no.

As smoke filled the house and Kush's efforts to save the dog failed, he finally fled from the burning home and was immediately thrown to the ground and his hands and feet were cuffed by four SWAT officers.

Meanwhile, Trisha Golden continued frantically to call for Dre to flee the house.

"We were like screaming for Dre, and [a deputy] turned around and said, 'Why don't you shut the f**k up?!'" Trisha Golden says.

I couldn't reach Eric Kush or Gabrial Golden for comment. But Kush, a biking and skateboarding enthusiast, told KTVK-TV Channel 3 that sheriff's deputies thought it was hilarious that his dog had burned to death in the fire.

"As they're hog-tying me, they have the nerve and the audacity to laugh at me and say, 'Did you hear that dog screaming upstairs?'" Kush told Channel 3. "I don't know how they have the audacity and the heart to say something like that."

Eric Kush is not an intimidating fellow. He's about five-feet-six-inches tall and weighs about 125 pounds. There was no indication he had taken anybody hostage or was endangering the neighborhood.

In fact, neighbors say he is a friendly and easygoing guy. His only legal blemish was the outstanding misdemeanor warrant.

If MCSO truly believed they were facing a madman armed to the teeth with armor-piercing bullets that would cut through the flimsy chicken-wire and stucco walls of homes in the neighborhood, they didn't have the sense to alert neighbors to get the hell out of Dodge.

Instead, they left the entire area at risk of getting mowed down by a spray of bullets fired from automatic assault rifles that easily could travel a mile. But who cares about innocent neighbors when Arpaio's morons take to the street to make a pinch?

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Who cares that there was a far easier and safer way to nab Kush for questioning?
The most prudent, cautious and least costly way to pick up Kush would have involved only a handful of officers. That wouldn't have been anywhere near as much fun as whipping out the big assault rifles and putting on all that manly body armor.

And MCSO wouldn't get to deploy Arpaio's beloved armored personnel carrier if they opted for the low-key approach to community policing. Lucky the d**n tank didn't run over some kids playing in the street!

Arpaio unleashed his SWAT team on Ahwatukee without bothering to give Phoenix police, which has primary jurisdiction in the community, a heads-up about his latest Joe Show.

The sheriff's failure to alert Phoenix police about the planned SWAT assault will be the focus of a high-level meeting between the two police agencies. Phoenix City Councilman Greg Stanton says Phoenix police should have been notified before MCSO launched such a dangerous and ultimately unnecessary SWAT maneuver.

Most police agencies would consider the afternoon's outing disastrous. But for Arpaio's idiots, it was a good day -- at least they made an arrest. No matter that they arrested Kush on a misdemeanor warrant and found none of the automatic weapons that were supposed to be stashed in the house.

As fire spread throughout the house and engulfed the dog, the SWAT team soon had another crisis erupt.

The armored personnel carrier was pulled back from the house as the fire raged. But a deputy apparently failed to set the brakes on the heavy vehicle and it began rolling down a hill and smashed into a parked car.

The combat vehicle caused at least $4,000 damage to Julie Madrigal's car. The 44-year-old mother and her 9-year-old daughter had already been terrified by the tear gas assault as they fled from their car and ran into their house. At least Madrigal and her daughter weren't in the path of the carrier as it careened down the hill.

"I heard three shots as we were running in," Madrigal says. "I thought, 'Oh my God. They are shooting at us.' I didn't know what was going on."

Madrigal says she watched the house burst into flames and moments later was shocked to see the "tank" roll down the road toward her car.

"All of a sudden, I saw my car jump back three feet and the tank land on top of it," she says.

The grand scale of the assault by Arpaio's Barney Fifes made neighbors wonder if Osama himself was holed up in the house. As details about the raid circulated through the community and word spread about the absence of any serious and immediate threat to the peace, neighbors became enraged over Arpaio's ludicrous use of force.

"We gathered all around all afternoon to talk," Madrigal says. "We were all saying this was just ridiculous. They just went way overboard. This was just crazy. They should have given us some kind of warning."

Finally, MCSO packed up its toys and went away.

But the stench from their operation would continue to linger for almost a week.

MCSO's callousness toward the dog, its owners and the neighborhood continued for another five days as the dog lay decomposing inside the burned-out house.

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Delfino says the stench permeated his car and left neighbors gagging when they went near the house.
"When I finally went in [to the house], it was enough to make you throw up," Delfino says.

It never occurred to the MCSO that the rotting dog was a health hazard and a public nuisance. Once Arpaio's deputies finished their so-called investigation, they walked away from the mess they created, leaving Dre's body embedded in the rubble.

It was only then that the occupants were allowed inside.

Delfino says he was with Kush and Trisha Golden when, while digging through burned debris on the kitchen floor, they came across Dre's remains. Kush, Delfino recalls, fell to his knees and began vomiting.

They could only stay in the room for a few moments, but long enough to gather some evidence of the animal cruelty inflicted by Arpaio's deputies.

"I took a picture of [Golden] with a shovel holding the dog's head," Delfino says.

The Ahwatukee fiasco is just the latest in a long string of bumblings and constitutional breaches by Arpaio and his nimrods. This comes on the heels of last November's botched prostitution raid where Arpaio's bozo posse men got naked and, in some cases, had sexual relations with hookers -- leaving Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley little choice but to throw out the cases.

Then there was the publicity-stunt televised arrest of two Peoria firefighters on arson charges during the middle of their night shift. The arrest sidelined a fire truck for the rest of the evening, putting lives needlessly at risk. Two months later, Arpaio's detectives haven't filed a police report with Romley's office, and no charges have been filed against the firefighters.

And there was the Glen Campbell charade, where Arpaio insisted to the press that Campbell would be treated like any other inmate. Of course, he was put up in a clean, air-conditioned cell at a seldom-used holding facility in Mesa. Campbell brought along his favorite guitar, a cell phone and an orthopedic back mattress. Toward the end of his cushy 10-day jail sentence, Campbell stroked Joe with the now-infamous Tent City concert.

While the incidents listed above are bad enough, they don't get at the more serious problems during Arpaio's 12-year reign. Inmates continue to be killed and maimed in Arpaio's county dungeons, ranked as among the worst in the world by Amnesty International. About 9,000 people are stuffed into the county's jails, which were built to hold a maximum of 5,000 inmates.

Increasingly paranoid, Arpaio routinely uses his police powers to illegally investigate political opponents and silence any employee and, in some cases, any private citizen, who dares to criticize his office.

At the same time, Arpaio refuses to comply with Arizona's public records law, flagrantly ignoring my requests for routine records concerning the financial operations of the jail. My demand for the financial documents relating to the jail commissary comes on the heels of my discovery that Arpaio has invested an inordinately large amount of cash ($800,000) in three commercial real estate ventures. His spokeswoman insists that nothing is amiss here, but Arpaio refuses to divulge the details of these transactions.

Now, members of Sheriff Joe's SWAT team have laughed over the death of a dog and at its owners who were tearfully trying to coax their pet out of the burning house.

Again, Sheriff Joe is hiding, refusing to return my repeated requests for an interview about why he let his goons do what they did to Dre.

The really sick thing is that Arpaio has gotten huge publicity for his campaign against animal abuse. He's diverted scarce sheriff's office resources to duplicate services already provided by Maricopa County Animal Care and Control so that he can be seen as the ultimate animal protector.

Arpaio likes to brag that he spends more money feeding dogs and cats than he does feeding inmates. This, you see, makes him a tough guy, something voters in the past have dearly loved. There's story after story in the press featuring Arpaio boasting how he puts abused pets inside air-conditioned cells while inmates and pre-trial detainees are dangerously packed into stifling overcrowded cells, dormitories and tents.

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The sheriff's office formed the Animal Cruelty Enforcement posse in the wake of the ritualistic slaying of several cats in the Ahwatukee area in 1998. As the cases of animal cruelty increased in number, Arpaio formed the Animal Cruelty Unit in January 2000.
According to the MCSO Web site, "This Unit responds to calls all over Maricopa County dealing with everything from complaints of no food and no water, to animals being starved, beaten, tortured, even killed by suspects."

Hey, Joe, what do you think about your SWAT team chasing the dog back into a burning house? Maybe your vaunted Animal Cruelty Unit should investigate the SWAT guys for contributing to the needless death of this animal.

Not only did your boys cause the house in which Kush was living to burn down with their assault, they stood by and watched in amusement as the dog's frantic cries gave way to eerie silence.

"I think it was a big joke to them," says Trisha Golden. "They knew how bad we were freaking out about the dog."

As usual, Arpaio is trying to blame his deputies' latest fiasco on someone else.

The scene hadn't even cooled down after the fire before the MCSO was trying to pin the blaze on Kush.

"They said I was upstairs in the attic burning all these missing guns," Kush told Channel 3. "Why would I burn myself in my own house?"

Especially since the only guns found in the house were the shotgun and pistol, which appear at this point to be legal weapons.

While Kush offers a plausible denial for starting the fire, a raging debate is quickly surfacing over what did cause the blaze. MCSO and the Phoenix Fire Department are vigorously trying to focus attention away from the tear gas canisters as the likely cause of the fire.

Meanwhile, the occupants of the house are convinced that the fire was triggered by the tear gas attack.

Phoenix fire officials tell me that four tear gas canisters were fired through upstairs windows in the front of the house, which matches eyewitness accounts by Barker and Delfino. A fifth canister, fire officials say, was reportedly fired into the attic of the house.

Two other tear gas canisters were fired at the arcadia window in front of the master bedroom, the room where the fire originated.

Phoenix Fire Department spokesman Bob Kahn says those canisters never entered the master bedroom. One reportedly bounced off a balcony rail and landed in the yard, and the second hit the arcadia window, but did not enter the bedroom.

Despite the highly suspicious fact that the fire erupted minutes after the tear gas was fired into the house, the Phoenix Fire Department's preliminary report is blaming a lighted candle located near the bed in the master bedroom for sparking the blaze.

"The cause was probably the candle on top of the refrigerator knocked onto the bed by either the pit bull or the occupant," Kahn says.

Kahn says fire investigators were told by MCSO Detective Mike Traverse that Kush reportedly stated that there was a "lit aromatic candle located on the refrigerator next to the bed."

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Investigators, Kahn says, found a wax residue near the corner of the bed where the refrigerator was located.
Barker isn't buying this explanation.

She repeatedly told me during two interviews that there was not a lighted candle in the bedroom. She says the aromatic candle was located in the bathroom, but that it was not lighted.

"The only thing I had on my refrigerator next to my bed was an alarm clock and some pictures," she says.

Barker says she knew the MCSO fired at least two tear gas canisters at her bedroom window based on information she derived from sitting in the SWAT command vehicle.

She says she "heard it break the window."

"Two or three minutes after they shot it into the room, we had a fire in the master bedroom," she says.

Barker believes at least one canister landed on the down comforter on her bed and set it on fire.

Last week, I entered the burned-up house through an open front door. It was clear the fire started in the master bedroom, and there was a huge hole in the floor beneath the bed. It appeared that Dre fell through the floor and landed in the kitchen, where the dog was covered by charred debris.

There were other holes in the floor where a canister could have possibly ignited a fire, burned through the floor and fallen into the kitchen below.

As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter whether a candle or a tear gas canister started the fire that burned the house and killed the dog.

There would have been no fire if Arpaio's overzealous and unsophisticated SWAT deputies hadn't needlessly launched a dangerous assault in a densely populated area. Such operations should be reserved for the most dangerous situations, where innocent lives are at stake.

In this case, there was one guy with a misdemeanor warrant holed up in the house. He hadn't fired a single shot. He wasn't threatening anybody. There were no hostages. There was no clear indication that the house was full of heavy automatic weapons.

All Arpaio's deputies had to do was show a little patience and a modicum of common sense.

But these are traits that neither Arpaio nor his deputies seem to possess.

Instead, an entire neighborhood was subjected to a dangerous assault that left children traumatized, residents furious, and a puppy on fire.

"It was totally uncalled for," says Gene Delfino. "You don't go hunting for deer with a tank."

That's All Folks!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Patrick,

I hope you will provide the proof that this is the same officer.

Thanks for the jab, kind of weak. Come on use all of the cells not yet killed by pot and come up with a better one than that. LOL

One, I commend Mesa PD for acutally investigating.

Two, remember what I said about mesa PD pulling over women in the middle of nowhere at night time.

Aaron, my tin foil hat fits fine and you're right, mesa PD is the poop that atracts flies. Now I see what you like about "ride" alongs so much.

Tom, is this a negative media trend, actually reporting the facts?

Jeff, yeah sexually assualting a 17 year old girl is really being on the ball.

Nancy, you probably only wish Officer Driver pulled you over.

http://www.kpho.com/Global/story.asp?S=2703433&nav=23KuUI2C

Yes, I know I said I was done posting but I couldn't resist pointing out another atrocity of Mesa PD.

I just read an article in the East Valley Tribune that says a Mesa PD officer was arrested on 3 charges of sexual abuse. This is supposedly the same officer who fired the shots in this report. They are still trying to find out if there are more victims of abuse.

The abuse is alleged to have occurred while the officer was on duty during the night shift in the Superstition area. If we can't trust those who enforce the law, who can we trust? I am not knocking all police officers, but there seems to be something inherently wrong with the Mesa PD.

The day I put Mesa permanently in my rear view mirror will not come soon enough.

In response to the now infamous report that started this whole conundrum, all you have to read is "an officer of MCSO approached the car and ID me I had an outstanding warrant for a unpaid fine out of Maricopa county and was arrested and went down town to mesa pd," to know this is bogus.

It is the duty of the Sheriff of the county to house prisoners before conviction. If you were picked up by MCSO (the county), you are guaranteed a one-way ticket to Madison St. Jail. IN THE MAJORITY of arrests by Mesa PD, you will be transported to the county jail, and bypass the city all together. Unless of course, you did something stupid that Mesa wants to hold you for.

I agree with the comment, there are 3 sides to every story. There most certainly is. I am a bail enforcement agent. With that position comes the luxury, and sometimes the headache, of dealing with police agencies around the country. I assure you, Mesa PD is not the most corrupt out there.

Every department has bad eggs. Just like every company has bad managers that do horrible things to people.

More over, to follow with my title here, has anyone ever stopped to notice that only negative things get publicity? Sure, you hear about an officer involved shooting every time it happens. What you DON'T hear is all the information about the times the police DON'T shoot!

As I said before, I am a bail enforcement agent. For those who don't know what that means, I am a bounty hunter. I chase down felons for a living. I put myself into harms way for a fee. The danger doesn't always come from the skip... Sometimes I have to fear the police even more.

To illustrate my point: I have had a police officer's gun pointed at me, and ready to shoot several times. 3 times in Mesa.

I found my skip, and was in the process of arresting him. I do not wear a uniform. I DO carry a gun. If you've ever seen a felony traffic stop, you know the routine. As I was directing the skip to the ground, I had my gun pointed at the his back (guy was on trial for aggrevated assault with a deadly weapon). During the apprehension process, a concerned neighbor called Mesa PD and told them an armed man was going to shoot this guy laying on the ground. So, of course, Mesa PD shows up sirens blarring and tires screaching. As the officers get out of the cars, there must have been at least 12, they immediately draw their weapons on the visible threat.. a.k.a ME. Through their yelling to "drop the gun" and "hands on your head," I do my best to inform them I am a bail enforcement agent making an arrest.

One of the officers yells out, "we have him covered, drop your weapon." I look over to see an officer with his gun pointed at my skip. Satisfied, I stand upright, put my left hand on the back of my head, and with the right hand, toss my gun away from me, out of reach.

The police detain me, through proper felony arrest procedure. I don't mind. Let's not forget, as far as they know for SURE, I had a gun pointed at a guy who was laying on the ground. My skip is also cuffed and detained. Once the officer's were able to verify my identity and my reason for being there, they uncuffed me, gave me back my wallet, papers, cuffs, and even my gun. After verifying the warrant for my skip, they offered to drive him to the jail for me. I accepted, and insisted that they let me accompany so I could sign the proper papers at the jail. Not only did the officer agree to let me tag along, I finished his shift with him!

What is the point to this story? Simple. I was ordered to put down my weapon. I did not. I had the clear and obvious ability to end the life of someone laying on the ground. Because of the professionalism of Mesa PD, a very dangerous situation was brought down to a simple misunderstanding, and I did not get shot. Even though it would have been justifiable to kill me on the spot, they did not, and I am grateful.

I wish I could say the same for Las Vegas PD. Roughly the same situation occured, but the outcome was different. Instead of telling me to drop my gun when they showed up, LVPD showed up, opened the door, and fired at me! Thankfully, the jack-a*s missed, and I was able to find cover and drop my weapon before he shot again. Even though I was pissed that he shot at me, it was, again, justifiable. All he knew, was that I had the ability and potential to kill someone.

Sure, some Mesa PD officers don't belong on duty. Same goes for almost EVERY department on the planet. The problem with training police officers correctly, is the PUBLIC! The public and the media are so concerned about themselves, and crying because things don't go their way, that the courts order the police to change their ways.

For example, Phoenix PD is not taught to shoot at people. They are not allowed to personlize the situation. Becuase some jack a*s civilian sued them for shooting and killing his family member, Phoenix PD is no longer allowed to think of their potential 'target' as a human being. Instead, they are trained to think of the human they are about to shoot, as a grey, fuzzy outline of a body.

How do you stop cops from becoming corrupt and abusing their power? How do you teach a cop to be more civilized when dealing with crime? Easy, STOP SUEING THE SH** OUT OF THEM FOR DOING WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE!

The police deal with TENS OF THOUSANDS of calls a year. Are you really suprised to hear of 4,5,6, maybe even 7 people being shot and killed a year? Frankly, I'm suprised the police don't kill more people. They certainly are justified in doing so.

**For every officer of the law who may read this, I applaud you IF you have ever placed your life in danger for the sanctity of someone elses**

Aaron

1) I'm not sure you read what I wrote. Deflection is not a defense. We are responsible for our actions. A life is gone. The driver flinched, the bullet traveled from the driver to the passenger, etc are not defenses. They don't change the fact of what occured. The only valid defense is the passenger was an active threat. No I don't have all the facts but I don't see how that is possible from what we do know.

2) I'm not poop, see my above statement titled "Mesa PD is out of control". When I had long hair I was stopped constantly by Mesa PD without cause. Since my hair has been short I have been stopped only once and for a valid reason (speeding). And the officer was polite to boot.

I'm sure like me you are clean cut and white.
Mesa PD does profile and they are abusive. Just to reiterate what I mean.

A long time ago I noticed a car around extension with it's hazard lights on. I have always felt the need to help people. I pulled over and approached the car. It was dark so I peered into the window to see if anyone was in there. There was not so I drove off. A security guard followed me claiming I was up to no good. The security guard ordered me to remain. I asked if he was a police officer, he stated no, I stated have a nice day and left. He called the police and claimed I had tried to steal the car (how do you steal a broken down car?)The police pulled me over which is there job and they are allowed to so they may check things out. I signaled then turned on my hazards and pulled over. I had four units block me in and pull me out of my car at gunpoint (ever had a gun pressed against your head with a lot of young officers in an adrenaline rush?), extremely scary, I'm surprised I didn't soil myself. To make matters worse my friend (whom I had picked up after being stopped by the guard)was in the backseat and my child locks were activated. The police were screaming with guns aimed at him to get out. I screamed he can't as the doors don't open from the inside, they made him crawl over my front seats and exit. Now given that an officer only has seconds to think and he was "non compliant" he is very lucky to be alive. I was 18 and he was 17 at the time. We did absolutley nothing wrong. I actually refused to do any good deeds for over a year after that incident as I fully believed no good deed goes unpunished. Oh and you can bet after the guns were holstered I did a lot of yelling and screaming at cops. They let me go after I advised them to dust for prints (I only leaned against the car with my face to peer in) and after they found the car locked tight when supposedly we were trying to steal this car and took off when this security gaurd "caught us"

As an aside at that time my car was less than a year old and the thing on the road was a hunk of junk, I told the cops if I even knew how to steal a car I would pick a much nicer one.

This was not one isolated event, this was a pattern by the Mesa PD. They tried to search me several other times as well and every time I told them NO. Not because I had anything to hide but because I fully believe in my rights. The government (police too) are not there to do as they please, they are there to do as we please.

I have interacted with the police in Showlow, Payson, Chandler, and Glendale. No criminal allegations in these, I called in most cases. They were all professional and courteous.

Last comment I have to make as I will not waste my time replying on this matter again.

I have spoken with several Mesa PD who were respectful and polite. All of them were senior officers. The real problem in my opinion with Mesa PD is they hire these officers who are too young and hot headed. I also remember that Mesa used to advertise for cops from L.A. which if these people were hires from there would also explain a lot.

Pat: Thanks for the info

As I said before there is three sides to every story. Just like this post started out in a very one sided convoluted interpretation of the facts. I did read a great deal of conjecture and opinion but not a lot of bilateral facts. I am extremely open minded and do not take any thing I read or hear at face value. I can say I have not suffered from the corruption since I moved here in 2002. I did not see it in the two dozen or so trips I made out here in the decade or so before I moved out here.

I did however, frequently get shaken down for money in China and spent countless hours in interrogation until I agreed to pay a fine. I saw my drivers papers (ID driving permit etc) taken because he parked on the wrong street. A uniformed officer made him pay some civilian a fine before he could get his papers back. I saw the police demand 3K from the factory I was at when they came out to calm a labor dispute or they would not come back next time. I even had the customs agent tell me that if he had the factories S500 Mercedes to drive home every day my shipments would get out of China faster. This was all in a period of about 6 months (spread out over 6 years). I guess my view of corruption is a bit skewed because I have not seen anything like that here in Mesa. I did see things not too far from that with the Mafia influence in NYC when I lived there. I just haven't seen enough evidence to say that there is or is not a corruption issue in Mesa

Patrick:

I appreciate your point. But neither I nor you have all of the facts. The PD briefing I attended the day of my ride along, the shooting was discussed. The unit leader for this unit (not the one involved in the shooting) stated that all the knew was both occupants had just committed theft and were fleeing. It was only known that the driver was hit first and it was believed the same bullet entered the head of the accomplice (passenger). The unit leader did not know if the bullet deflected (like the magic JFK bullet) or the passenger was in the line of fire. It was believed that he was not in the direct line of shooting but the unit leader said the investigation would determine this.

All I am saying is there is only a very few people that know exactly what happened. Most of us can only speculate and spew conjecture. I can say that my neighbor was hired as defense council to represent the officers in the shooting of the mentally disturbed woman with a massive knife about a year ago. He told me that the investigation was handled as a criminal investigation (just as it should be) and no slack was cut, he had to work his a$$ off as a criminal defense attorney. Frankly, he half expected it to be the good old boy club and would be a walk in the park because they wouldn't be working too hard to jam the cops up. Not true.

I expected people to lie to the police. But I was amazed how every single person lied in some way to us that night. I have never lied to a cop. It was also amazing how nearly every call (non auto accident) we went to the subject had been arrested at least once recently. I have never been arrested. It might just be that poop attracts flies.

Aaron,

As I had suggested above, search this website for City of Mesa and Mesa PD. It is very eye-opening reading. Although I have not witnessed any of the corruption first hand, all of these reports can't be made up.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, as am I. That is what makes this country a great place to live. I understand there is corruption of one kind or another in every town, no matter how big or small, but no matter what the level of corruption, it is still not justified.

I have only lived in the Valley since Feb 2003, and only in Chandler and Gilbert, thank god. For a year and a half, I had heard nothing of the corruption. Now that I have, I watch myself closely every time I have to go into Mesa.

And don't get me wrong about the Mormons. My wife is a member, and I attend church with her almost every Sunday. It is only the "good ole boys" in the upper echelons of the City of Mesa that are corrupt. I have even spoken with members of my wife's Ward about it, and they are disgusted with them and their reputation, as they give a bad name to their faith.

All I ask is that you keep an open mind, and read the reports here. Don't base your opinion of Mesa strictly on a single ride-along.

Aaron:

My point is officers are accountable under the law too.

If I "feared" for my life or someone around me and I killed a bystander (even the passenger) I would be charged with manslaugher at the very least.

Officer Ray should be charged with manslaughter unless he can justify killing the unarmed passenger.

From what has been reported his fears were based on the sound of the engine revving, the motion of the vehicle, and the motion of the driver.

What does that have to do with the passenger?

Pat:

I think you are seriously embellishing the corruption levels here in Mesa. You should try living in a place like New York City or better yet as Patrick suggested I am from China. Having been there on business dozens of times I can tell you that is one place you can see corruption in full swing. This is my first time living in Mormanville and have not found the corruption you speak of. I did see the city council get spanked for trying to shaft that auto repair place downtown. But I think the kickbacks on the Los Arcos shopping center in Scottsdale was even bigger. Were those mormons too? I didn't hear that.

All I am saying is do a ride along it won't hurt. It might surprise you.

Patrick:

It sounds like you have already conducted an investigation and have drawn a conclusion on the facts. So hopefully you can tell me, did the bullet pass through glass? If so how much deflection was caused by the glass. What was the linear progression achieved within that distance? How much if any defection was caused by the bullet passing through the arm of the driver? Since you obviously have all the facts, fill me in.

And BTW: I never defended the actions or even mentioned them. I do not have enough facts to draw a conclusion. I learned when I was investigating fraud and insurance claims that there are not two sides to every story. There are in most cases three. His, hers and the truth. And that the truth is not mutually exclusive to either. Just like the post that started this whole debate out. I think it is safe to say that the truth was not completely represented in the post. It may not have been represented in the article either.

Aaron,

We realize that not all Mesa cops are bad. As a matter of fact, most are upstanding officers. Unfortunately, those with the power in the Mesa PD and City Council are the real bad guys.

Lots of good cops have cycled through Mesa, only to move on when they discover how corrupt the city is.

It is unfortunate, but until the "old school" Mormon boys release their stanglehold on the City of Mesa, it will never be a good place to live.

Search these reports for Mesa. Read all of the things that have gone on there for decades. Seems nothing ever changes in that town, except maybe get worse.

Tell me how you would have felt if you were on a ride along and you watched a passenger get his brains blown out because of an action by the driver.

You can't seriously be defending the murder of a passenger when officer Jerald Ray feared the Driver can you?

If so you have no understanding of what freedom means and you belong in China.

I did a ride along on Saturday night with Mesa PD. I was impressed with how professionaly they acted when people were rude and disrepectful. I was amazed at how many people were obviously lying. Like smelling like booze, staggering, slerring words and swaring that they had not had anything to drink. Or the lady that left her toddler in the car unattended in the parking lot and swore that it was only five minutes but we had been called 10 minutes before and the Fire department been there for 10 minutes and the mother who was getting her nails done had no idea.

I have never been pulled over in Mesa. I drive a lot, but I do not give them any reason to pull me over. I do not walk down the street at odd hours, I do not loiter on corners so I guess I just dont meet the profile.

Do a ride along I think your opinion will change some on the Mesa PD. I pesonly think anyone who wants to critisize the police and has a brain would choose to see things from thier perspective in order to make a sound judgment.

I did a ride along on Saturday night with Mesa PD. I was impressed with how professionaly they acted when people were rude and disrepectful. I was amazed at how many people were obviously lying. Like smelling like booze, staggering, slerring words and swaring that they had not had anything to drink. Or the lady that left her toddler in the car unattended in the parking lot and swore that it was only five minutes but we had been called 10 minutes before and the Fire department been there for 10 minutes and the mother who was getting her nails done had no idea.

I have never been pulled over in Mesa. I drive a lot, but I do not give them any reason to pull me over. I do not walk down the street at odd hours, I do not loiter on corners so I guess I just dont meet the profile.

Do a ride along I think your opinion will change some on the Mesa PD. I pesonly think anyone who wants to critisize the police and has a brain would choose to see things from thier perspective in order to make a sound judgment.

I did a ride along on Saturday night with Mesa PD. I was impressed with how professionaly they acted when people were rude and disrepectful. I was amazed at how many people were obviously lying. Like smelling like booze, staggering, slerring words and swaring that they had not had anything to drink. Or the lady that left her toddler in the car unattended in the parking lot and swore that it was only five minutes but we had been called 10 minutes before and the Fire department been there for 10 minutes and the mother who was getting her nails done had no idea.

I have never been pulled over in Mesa. I drive a lot, but I do not give them any reason to pull me over. I do not walk down the street at odd hours, I do not loiter on corners so I guess I just dont meet the profile.

Do a ride along I think your opinion will change some on the Mesa PD. I pesonly think anyone who wants to critisize the police and has a brain would choose to see things from thier perspective in order to make a sound judgment.

Mesa police shot two men and killed one the other day for "failure to comply"

The cops felt threatened because the driver made a threatning movement and reved his engine.

Guess I'm very lucky to be alive since I yelled at a cop on more than one occasion and have "failed to comply".

If the people of this community don't speak up it will never end.

Jeff,

Even though I posted earlier in this report that the complaintant was totally wrong, further research has proved that there is something very wrong with the Mesa PD.

Although I still agree that Randy and his cohorts were up to no good, it now seems that excessive force may have been used in this case, depending on who you believe. The story in the paper says they tried to run the cops down with their vehicle. If this is true, then they had every right to open fire to protect themselves. Somehow now I tend not to believe everything I read in the paper or see on TV.

However, if even just a few of the many reports on here are to be believed, then there are some serious problems in Mesa.

Since I live in Gilbert, less than one mile from the Gilbert/Mesa line, I am constantly alert to the goings on when driving through Mesa, which I do as infrequently as possible now. I have even stopped shopping in Mesa. Once they build the new San Tan center in Gilbert, things will be better for us.

So Jeff I have a suggestion for you. DO NOT apply for a job with the Mesa PD (unless of course you are in with the good ole boy Mormons who run the city). Your 22 years experience will be wasted in that cess pool of a community.

I'm a police officer now for 22 years. I am glad that they are on the ball.

In a few years I plan on moving out there, I am building in that area of AZ.

Let me tell you Randy, stop by during the night and see how things are going on my new construction. (It was probably my joint you were sniffing around you unscrupulous cretin.)
Try doing that out here on the east coast. You'll get the same reception you moron. What did you think was gonna happen?

People like you give people like me JOB SECURITY.
We love it.

Why is this on rip-off report? Oh, I get it, you're ripped off that you still have your miserable life, and that it wasn't taken by a new officer who would have to deal with the justified shooting for the rest of his life. Consider yourself lucky. You my friend are the rip-off.

Have a nice day on the rock pile, maggot.

Hmm, lets count the times Mesa PD has wrongfully accused me of a crime.

1) While walking to work down Power road I was stopped and told I matched a vandalism suspect "to at t". I was placed in custody and brought to a witness. The witness exclaimed "that's not him, the guy was a mexican!" The officer did drive me to work so that was nice.

2)I was with a group of friends on country club and mckellips(north- east side) and was stopped by a cop who stated we were yelling slurs at a group of mexicans on the south-east side. None of us even noticed the mexicans and nor were we racist or looking to fight! The cop asked if he could search us and I said no and we went home (without being searched, I know my rights!)

3)This one is funny! I floored my car to get into an open gate in my girls neighborhood, a cop stopped me (I did seem suspicous flooring it into a gated community) and said he had heard shots fired. He asked if he could search my vehicle. I allowed him. He was totaly cool. Cops are nice if they think you shot someone.

4)My girlfriend was driving her car in Queen Creek (it used to be the middle of nowhere back then) and me and a group of friends were following in my parents minivan. She was pulled over by an officer and I pulled over behind them. I asked the officer why he pulled her over and he stated a lot of kids have beer in their trunks. I said I don't think so! You don't have just cause to pull her over. He let us go. I think he had other ideas on his mind when he pulled her over, a single female and all, but he didn't realize that group of people in the minivan behind her were with her

5) That reminds me of when my mom was pulled over near FT mcdowell because she was "swerving".
That was in my long-hair days so the officer probably thought he was pulling over two girls. He asked me if I noticed her swerving and I advised no because she wasn't. Then he tried to say her taillight was out. I advised I would get out and look. He refused. He let us go. I checked when we got to where we were going and our taillight was NOT out.

4)Not funny at all! I saw a car broke down near extension and broadway. I approached the car to see if someone was in the car and needed help. A security gaurd for some business, not cop, told me to stop. He accused me of trying to steal the car. Like I would try to steal a broken down car much less any other car. I told him no and to have a nice day. I drove off and picked up a friend. He called the police. The police turned on their lights, I turned on my hazards and pulled over. They pulled me and my friends out of car at gunpoint. That is very scary. Even worse is that my child locks were on and my friend couldn't open his door. They were screaming "GET OUT NOW!" I thought they were going to shoot him because he couldn't open his door. A female cop cuffed and searched me. She grabbed my privates hard. No good deed goes unpunished.

The problem with Mesa PD is that they are too young to be in a position of power, they have too much to prove and no experience.

I will say I used to be a long haired man (not a criminal though!) and since I cut it a couple of years ago I have not had a problem at all. Seems the Mesa PD does profile. But since I'm a white male who now has short hair they treat me respectfully. Last time I was pulled over for speeding the officer thanked me for my patience while he wrote me a ticket! Now that's service!

There is something very fishy here,
but my suspicion is it comes from the usual
source: the lying maggots at the City of
Mesa's bogus "police department", the most
corrupt and dishonest organization I have
ever even heard of.

These are the same slime who brought you
the Markley and Brown cases, murdered half
a dozen people in 2003 on simple-assed,
cowardly excuses like "we were scared"...

About the only thing of which you can be
absolutely sure in this town is that if
the Mesa "boys in blue" say it, it is either
a lie or an exaggeration.

Remember, this same scumbag organization
pumped ten bullets into a 135-pound child
who I could have disarmed (I have disarmed
bigger kids, easily, with much more dangerous
weapons, recent, and I am 58) in a heartbeat.
These are wimps, sissies, cowards, and liars,
and they LIE FOR A LIVING.

There is no law enforcement in this fourth
rate cesspool. You can buy methamphetamine
and crack easier than a decent cup of coffee,
but if you leave a bar after ten p.m. these
sissy maggots will be on you like flies on
poop. Big deal! They actively promote crime,
and serve no useful purpose at ALL. These scum
start at $40,000, in the academy, easily 4 times
what these smegma are worth. Most of them,
apart from their connections with the local
LDS wards, could not hold jobs at car washes
or slinging burgers.

I made a point of naming names, in public,
and specifying the details of half a dozen perjury cases against these pukebags any jerk
lawyer could win. Local response from the
buzzards who surround the city manager Hutchinson, lap puppy of Charles Luster: none.
Well, then again, I did get arrested pretty
much every time I decided to walk down a street

You may be exaggerating, slightly. But it
sounds basically true to me. Mesa P.D. is
pretty much penitentiary material, out making
too much money, doing crimes and being protected
by sleazewads like the local judges--Eppich is
one of the primary judiciary criminals. Nobody
decent has a chance in this dump. Which is why
serious business is leaving, pretty much daily,
for more sensible places.

Are you going to try to tell everyone that you couldn't tell on the first reading of the original report that it was bogus?

Have you ever seen me in any of the other Mesa cop reports on this site? No. I didn't do a rebuttal on this report to get into a pissing contest about the Mesa PD, I did it to point out the lies Randy was spewing.

I've seen other rebuttals you've done on this site, I have no problems with you, but on this we will probably have to agree to disagree. After reading the report by Randy and then later reading the newspaper article that Pat so kindly pointed out to us, I stand by everything I said.

These people were NOT first time offenders. They are liars. They broke the law and got caught. If I was that cop and had a perp in a truck trying to run me over, I'd be shooting at them too! Nothing was done wrong in this incident.

I must admit, I have just read the threads on this website about the Mesa PD, and I can see how the initial post above could have some truth to it.

But as Nancy pointed out, there needs to be an explanation of what the parties were doing at a newly constructed home late at night.

Randy, I submit that you are not telling the whole story here. The majority of the Mesa PD may be corrupt, but not all of them. It still seems to me that there was a reason the "victims" were fired upon. C'mon Randy, give us the whole story here.

I must admit, I have just read the threads on this website about the Mesa PD, and I can see how the initial post above could have some truth to it.

But as Nancy pointed out, there needs to be an explanation of what the parties were doing at a newly constructed home late at night.

Randy, I submit that you are not telling the whole story here. The majority of the Mesa PD may be corrupt, but not all of them. It still seems to me that there was a reason the "victims" were fired upon. C'mon Randy, give us the whole story here.

I must admit, I have just read the threads on this website about the Mesa PD, and I can see how the initial post above could have some truth to it.

But as Nancy pointed out, there needs to be an explanation of what the parties were doing at a newly constructed home late at night.

Randy, I submit that you are not telling the whole story here. The majority of the Mesa PD may be corrupt, but not all of them. It still seems to me that there was a reason the "victims" were fired upon. C'mon Randy, give us the whole story here.

I must admit, I have just read the threads on this website about the Mesa PD, and I can see how the initial post above could have some truth to it.

But as Nancy pointed out, there needs to be an explanation of what the parties were doing at a newly constructed home late at night.

Randy, I submit that you are not telling the whole story here. The majority of the Mesa PD may be corrupt, but not all of them. It still seems to me that there was a reason the "victims" were fired upon. C'mon Randy, give us the whole story here.

Here ya go folks. I'll save you the trouble of going to the newspaper website to read it. This is the REAL story of what happened the morning of December 9, 2003.
--------
Suspect injured in officer-involved shooting, 3 arrested

11:26 AM MST on Tuesday, December 9, 2003

The Associated Press

MESA -- A man was shot by a Mesa police officer early Tuesday after he allegedly tried to run the officer down.

It happened shortly before 4 a.m. in the area of Signal Butte and University Drive in northeast Mesa.

Police say an officer responding to a report of suspicious activity arrived to spot three individuals inside a home under construction.

The three took off and ran around back, where they got into a truck.

The officer followed and gave the three commands to stop.

Instead, police said, the driver accelerated toward the officer. The officer opened fire.

The truck continued for about a quarter of a mile before stopping. The driver was airlifted to a hospital with a bullet wound to the upper part of the body. He's expected to survive.

Two other suspects were arrested.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

When the Mesa cops have you dead to rights Not Mormon, the best thing to do is run like hell and hope they're bad shots. It doesn't matter if you've committed other crimes or not.

They're not going to stray far from the security of their patrol car on a foot chase, or risk the expense and possible injury to Mormons of a car chase. Once you get out of town, ask yourself what the **** you went into Mesa for in the first place. You're not dealing with conventional law enforcement there; these guy's version of "cops and robbers" doesn't include the traditional rule about not shooting unarmed people in the back.

They don't care whether crooks go to jail or not, as long as they either die or get out of town.

Nancy,

After reading this post, I went to the AZ Family website and found a story about 2 officer involved shootings on 12/9/03. Seems that in both cases officers were being threatened with a weapon. I'm assuming that the story above relates to the shooting that night. I agree with your assessment, what were they doing there at night, at a newly constructed home, other than to burglarize it?

I say keep on taking the dangerous criminals off our streets and let them get a taste of Sheriff Joe's justice.

You start out with the title of your report saying "I HAVE A BULLET SCAR ON MY SHOULDER" and then you open your report by saying "my loved one was shot by mesa police, officer Driver".

Which is it? Were you shot or was your lover shot?

"my loved one was in a newly constructed home in east mesa."

Now we are getting somewhere, they were committing a 3rd degree burglary if the home was empty, 2nd degree if someone lived there.

"my loved one and a 1 male and 1 female saw him and got scared ran for the truck which was parked in the back of the newly constructed home."

Most perps do tend to take off running when the cops show up if they are in the commission of a felony criminal act. I would expect no less.

"The officer shot through the fence firing all of his bullets"

Cops don't shoot at people unless their life is in danger. You left out what they were doing to make this officer feel threatened, to the degree he felt the need to defend his own life. You do know when you are told to 'stop' by a cop, that you drop anything you have in your hands, you keep them where they can be seen and you STOP .. right? Or did your momma never teach you that?

"well this officer gross, negligent and improper police procedure has caused my loved one severe and painful injuries"

Had he stopped running when told to, he wouldn't have gotten injured. He's lucky it's hard to hit a moving target and he's still alive, it would have been ruled a righteous shoot had he been killed I have no doubts.

"my loved ones mother hired a private investigator he said the witness statements were enough to not pursue it any further when the witness were with him in the newly constructed home and one is a known suspect with MCSO."

Great! This P.I. saved you some money by informing you that your lover's witnesses were known criminals, committed the crime with him, so he couldn't help you.

"the other one a female is only 16 and her mother is a known felon on probation for fraudulent schemes."

Like mother like daughter.

"I was at the nearby incident and sat in a vehicle wondering if they got medivac or an ambulance yet."

You weren't a very good lookout for them, they got caught!

"an officer of MCSO approached the car and ID me I had an outstanding warrant for a unpaid fine out of Maricopa county and was arrested"

So you aren't a law abiding citizen either...

"Even while being booked other arrestees and even other officer were repeating "officer involved shooting' rookie cop.

You may have heard 'officer involved shooting' but cops don't say 'rookie cop' along with it. You don't know the lingo cops use, so don't try to fake your way thru it here. No one is buying it.

"we need to take this to court and file the law suit so this doesn't happen again to any one else."

What lawsuit? Your lover broke into a new home and tried to rip it off. He is a criminal and is in jail where he belongs so he can't do it again to anyone else.

"We are targeted by these so called cops. Go after real killers and bad guys, leave us alone."

Hate to tell you this, but you ARE the bad guys and they did go after you. You weren't targeted, you were committing a felony act and you got caught. Live with your actions and do the time.