Penny Dean and Your Rights

A recent ruling by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals marks a notable shift in how courts are viewing qualified immunity. The court denied this protection to a Jackson, Mississippi detective who wrongfully arrested an innocent man. While this is a positive outcome for accountability, what makes the case extraordinary is the court’s candid admission that qualified immunity is a flawed, judge-created doctrine without legislative foundation.

Patrick "Tate" Adamiak, a former U.S. Navy E-6, is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence despite never committing a crime. Adamiak, who ran a website selling firearm parts (but not firearms), became the target of an ATF investigation after an informant provided false information. When heavily armed ATF agents raided his home, they found nothing illegal. However, Firearms Enforcement Officer Jeffrey Bodell manipulated evidence to classify legal firearm parts as illegal, leading to Adamiak’s conviction.

A gun range may feel like a world away from a doctor's office, but some medical professionals in Wisconsin are training at one to save lives by learning about firearms.

"I felt like I had a real deficit in talking about firearms with patients," said Dr. James Bigham, a primary care doctor and clinical associate professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Bigham runs a class for medical students and staff about the basics of firearms at Max Creek Gun Range, alongside shop and gun owner Steve D'Orazio.

A California man named Thomas Perez Jr. received a $900,000 settlement from the city of Fontana after enduring a harrowing 17-hour police interrogation in 2018. Key details of the case are Perez reported his 71-year-old father missing after he didn't return from walking the dog. Police interrogated Perez for 17 hours, falsely claiming they had found his father's body and pressuring him to confess. Officers denied Perez sleep, medication, and threatened to euthanize his dog. Under extreme duress, Perez falsely confessed to killing his father and attempted suicide in the interrogation room.

Perez's father was found alive at Los Angeles International Airport, but police did not immediately inform Perez. Perez filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, alleging unconstitutional psychological torture.

Liz González’s neighborhood in East San Jose can be loud. Some of her neighbors apparently want the whole block to hear their cars, others like to light fireworks for every occasion, and occasionally there are gunshots.
In February 2023, San Jose began piloting AI-powered gunshot detection technology from Flock Safety. During the first four months, Flock’s system alerted police to 123 shooting incidents. However, data from San Jose’s Digital Privacy Office showed that only 50% of those alerts were confirmed gunfire, while 34% were false positives. After recalibrating the sensors, 81% of alerts were confirmed gunshots, 7% were false alarms, and 12% were indeterminate.

Thanks perplexity.ai for the following summary:

The US Secret Service has reiterated its denial of any involvement in retrieving paperwork from the gun store where Hunter Biden purchased a Colt Cobra revolver in 2018, despite recent FBI filings suggesting otherwise.

According to an article in The Guardian ( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccinations-osam... ) the CIA orchestrated a fake vaccination program in Abbottabad, Pakistan, to gather DNA evidence from Osama bin Laden's family.

Following a botched raid by the ATF on March 19, Little Rock airport executive Bryan Malinowski was fatally shot in his own home. Despite public outcry, it appears no one will be held criminally accountable for the incident.

Two separate investigations typically follow when a law enforcement officer is involved in a fatal shooting. The first is conducted by local officials to determine potential criminal charges, while the second, by the officer's employer, assesses whether policies were violated.