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http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/January/12-crt-054.html
The U.S. Justice Dept's Official Press Release over its "finding the WPD engaged in a pattern and practice of civil rights violations, against its citizens. This investigation began after a series of lawsuits were filed in 2004 alleging civil rights excessive force."
The wheels of justice turns very slowly but...at least...it turned ...and this decree becomes another major milestone in the work of the DOJ Civil Rights Division into Eastern Ohio rust belt cities who maintained police departments over its citizens that resembled occupational forces rather than true servants of the public...
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the U.S. Justice Dept undertook the Warren, Ohio 14141 pattern and practice investigation after i met with their contact official in Washington DC in August of 2003, soon after the Kimble beating video went National via Diane Sawyer of ABC....
I told the DOJ special litigation unit officials, that i felt, after my initial experience in speaking with the poor and minority residents of warren, that "this city may be worse than steubenville" in its pattern civil rights abuse that i felt it contained, after my own on the ground interviews and experiences in the warren local courtrooms, that same summer...
after eight years, four major civil rights cases dealing with opposing Counsel from Weston Hurd of Cleveland and a very hostile local federal judge, Peter Economus, and having my law license being impinged by my friends at the Mahoning County Bar Association and area judges and certain officials at the Ohio Supreme Court, the U.S. Justice Dept decided it was time to make their findings of a pattern and practice public...
the old nemisis police Chief, Mando, the greek local tyrant over the City with his good squad led by Officer Hoso, died just after this Justice Dept press conference....
His friend, and fellow Greek local federal judge, Peter Economus, had taken a senior status, well before the announcement but soon after my law license was impinged not in minor part at his own urging and effort in combination with the lead counsel at Weston Hurd...
mocking my efforts at every turn, rudely disavowing my allegations and the depth of my civil rights cases complaints, the U.S. Justice Dept once again, but very late, sadly for myself and most of my beleagued poor friends and clientile, including Lyndal Kimble most importantly, the announcment came and at least a certain kind of miinimum vindication came to pass....
a year before Obama would be re elected to the Presidency again
its a very taxing, tiring and simply under valued, unappreciated experience in total...
and one that leaves a person with an empty feeling...except to know
that at least, the US. Justice Dept made a finding, too late for any real good to come of it, for those poor families i first began this journey with, almost a decade ago ...and for the main clientile...
and for my law practice and legal reputation which as a result of doing such high wire acts, i no longer have much if any of both...left
i also had plead in everyone of my federal civil rights cases arising out of warren, a "pattern" city "policy" claim, against the city officials of Warren, not just the police
and in one instance, was allowed to develop a deposition which would prove to be critical to the justice dept's original invesigations, a deposition i took of the former mayor and the public safety director, who basically gave enough testimony to incriminate the city and its police chief in a "pattern and practice" issue.....
this deposition was both used in support of the Kimble case pending before Judge Economus at the time and i also provided a copy of the same to the US Justice Dept and to several other private attorneys who were beginning to pick up the torch and began to file their own civil rights 1983 claims against the city...which i encouraged...
....the Justice Dept never took any further depositions of any officials other than this one, that i am aware of...
....i get the bill for this deposition even still...years later...
judge econumus favored the machinations of Defense Counsel for the City, Hilary Taylor, and allowed a very strange thing to happen to the "policy claim" part of the Kimble case...
he allowed AFTER this deposition was taken...for this part of the case's challenge by his good friend Atty Taylor, to "withdraw the summary judgment motion"
...thereby, avoiding any kind of a messy, pre justice dept "district court finding" of this issue
i think it was the lowest of the low manevuers i had ever seen a federal judge in my experience engage in....
and Judge Economus did it, with venom and maliciousness towards my personal standing and status as it then stood before the bar of ohio and the various federal courts knowing that the U.S Justice Dept was already well engaged in their years long investigation into the City of his fellow greek police chief, Mando...
...it was a very dark legal moment among many dark moments, that i would experience in the "Warren Campaign"
...and with this, i would never quite see personally, the results that i sought and wrote and litigated and lead the charge on , in trying to demonstrate to a watching world and to the federal judiciary of northeastern Ohio and all the watching national media
that indeed, what my poor clientile and few rag tag teammates had first witnessed, and described and then i spoke up boldly about, both inside of legal courtrooms and in public in measured public disclosures about the same when asked to do so...
but ...hear, years later, some six years or more later, i would see something of a personal vindication, in that the US Justice Dept special litigation dept would finally confirm and detail and support thru their official findings and reports and statements by their civil rights division heads and their local US attorny from Cleveland
about the deep issues surrounding the police of Warren and some of its city officials who for years were truly indifferent to the suffering their own 'trusted officers' had done to their own town's citizens
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