ACLU sues over man’s arrest for videotaping police

By Jill King Greenwood
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, August 13, 2009

The ACLU of Pennsylvania has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a Hill District man who was arrested for recording an incident between his friend and police.

The suit, filed today, stems from an April 29 incident between a friend of Elijah Matheny, 29, and University of Pittsburgh police officers. Matheny and his friend, who isn’t named in the suit, went to Oakalnd to search for furniture and other items discarded by Pitt students leaving for the semester and were picking through a Dumpster outside Bouquet Gardens on Oakland Avenue when the University police approached, according to the suit.

The officers asked Matheny and his female friend for identification. His friend gave police her name but did not have ID and was placed in handcuffs after police could find no record of her in their system, the suit states.

Matheny took out his cell phone and began recording the incident. Police were able to verify his friend’s identity and she was released but Matheny was arrested for violating the state’s Wiretap Act, said Witold Walczak, ACLU-PA legal director and one of the attorneys representing Matheny.

Matheny was also charged with “possession of an instrument of crime” in regards to his cell phone, Walczak said.

The Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office is also named in the lawsuit because Assistant District Attorney Chris Avetta talked to Pitt officers and agreed that Matheny had violated the state statute and authorized the arrest, Walczak said.

In July, a judge dismissed all charges against Matheny.

A message left with University of Pittsburgh police Chief Tim Delaney and with Mike Manko, spokesman for District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. were not immediately returned.

Walczak said the state law is “absolute” in its terms regarding obtaining permission to record people in public but said case law states that public officials — including police officers — are exempt.

“This is a widespread misunderstanding among law enforcement and the staff at the District Attorney’s office,” Walczak said. “If the police are doing something wrong, a citizen has a right to record it. For the same reason the police want cameras on the front of their police cars, citizens should be able to record the behavior and actions of police officers. It’s for everyone’s benefit.”

Walczak said he worries that “dozens of lawsuits” will result in September if police arrest protesters and others recording interactions between them and officers at the Group of 20 summit.

“If there are problems at the G-20 you can bet people will be whipping out their cell phones and recording what is happening,” Walczak said. “The police will have enough going on with people vandalizing and breaking things, and they don’t need to be arresting people who are simply recording them. We need to educate local police before the G-20 or this is going to be a nightmare.”

Oakland cop shot by parolee taken off life support

By MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press Writer

  Reuters – Undated mugshot of suspect Lovelle Mixon, who was involved in the shooting of 5 police officers resulting …

• Slideshow:Police officers killed in Oakland shootings
• Play Video Video:Oakland, Calif. mourns slain officers AP

SAN FRANCISCO – An Oakland police officer shot by a man wanted on a parole violation was taken off life support after vital organs were removed for transplantation, a hospital spokeswoman said Tuesday.

The officer’s death brings to five, counting the gunman, the number of people killed in Saturday’s confrontation.

Officer John Hege was taken off life support Monday night and his heart, liver and kidneys were removed, said Andrea Breaux of Alameda County Medical Center.

The 41-year-old officer had been declared brain dead on Sunday but the hospital kept him on life support so his organs could be donated, in keeping with his wishes.

Four patients received the organs, she said.

Police said Hege and his partner, Sgt. Mark Dunakin, were gunned down when the two motorcycle officers pulled over parolee Lovelle Mixon on Saturday.

In the manhunt that followed, two more officers died when the city’s SWAT team stormed an apartment where Mixon was hiding. The two officers who were killed at the apartment were Sgt. Ervin Romans, 43, and Sgt. Daniel Sakai, 35. Mixon also was killed.

“This is the biggest tragedy ever to hit our department,” Oakland police Sgt. Mark Schmid said Monday. “We’re just numb and walking around like zombies. We feel each other’s pain but we don’t know how to explain it.”

Flowers piled up outside Oakland police headquarters. A vigil was planned for Tuesday evening at the corner near where the two motorcycle officers stopped Mixon.

The incident has prompted California’s attorney general to call for better monitoring of parole violators.

DNA found at the scene of a February rape was a probable match to Mixon, Oakland police spokesman Jeff Thomason said Monday night.

Investigators got that information Friday, the day before the routine traffic stop ended in gunfire.

California prison records show that authorities had issued a warrant for Mixon’s arrest after he missed a mandatory meeting with his parole officer on Feb. 19.

His family said Mixon, 26, had served six years in state prison for assault with a firearm during an armed robbery in San Francisco. More recently, he served several months in prison last year for a parole violation.

State Attorney General Jerry Brown said he will examine how Mixon was monitored following his release from prison in November. Mixon also was a suspect in a December 2007 murder but was never charged because of lack of evidence, officials said.

“Mixon was certainly a character that needed more supervision,” said Brown, the former mayor of Oakland. “In Oakland, the highway patrol has an office there, sheriff and police. And all those agencies should have a list of the more dangerous, threatening parolees so they can keep a watch on them.”

Mixon was one of 164 Oakland parolees in mid-March who had outstanding arrest warrants for parole violations, state prison records show.

The city of 400,000 residents had more than 1,900 total parolees at the time, including nearly 300 who had been returned to custody or whose parole was about to be revoked.

During traffic stops, police often check vehicle records to find whether the driver has outstanding warrants. But police have not disclosed how Saturday’s shooting unfolded.

Mixon’s family members said he was upset that he was unable to find work, felt his parole officer was not helping him and feared he would be arrested for a parole violation.

State prison officials said Mixon’s parole officer was responsible for 70 parolees. A caseload of that size is nearly unmanageable, but not unusual, said Lance Corcoran, spokesman for California’s prison guard union, which includes parole officers.

“There is no control,” Corcoran said. “It’s simply supervision, and supervision at distance.”

___

Associated Press writers Josh Dubow, Lisa Leff and Juliana Barbassa in San Francisco and Terry Collins in Oakland contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS that harvesting of organs completed late Monday not early Tuesday, reflecting change from hospital)

Ex-transit cop accused of murder posts $3M bail

By TERENCE CHEA and TERRY COLLINS, Associated Press Writers Terence Chea And Terry Collins, Associated Press Writers – 1 hr 8 mins ago

AP – In this Jan. 14, 2009 file photo, Johannes Mehserle, right, appears in the East Fork Justice Court in …

• Slideshow: Oakland Train Station Shooting

OAKLAND, Calif. – The former California transit officer charged with fatally shooting an unarmed man was freed Friday on $3 million bail as protesters gathered outside City Hall railed against his release.

Johannes Mehserle, 27, was released from Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, according to Alameda County Sheriff’s Sgt. J.D. Nelson. He had been in custody since his Jan. 13 arrest.

Mehserle has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder in the Jan. 1 shooting of Oscar Grant on an Oakland train platform.

Prosecutors said Mehserle shot Grant, 22, in the back while the man lay facedown and restrained on the ground. Mehserle’s lawyer said his client may have mistakenly pulled his pistol instead of a stun gun.

The shooting, caught on cell phone cameras and broadcast on TV and the Internet, has sparked numerous protests against the former Bay Area Rapid Transit officer, including several that resulted in arrests for arson and vandalism.

Protesters outside Mehserle’s bail hearing last week had demanded that he remain jailed. Judge Morris Jacobson had said he set bail at a high amount in part because the former officer fled to Nevada during the initial investigation.

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums called on protesters outside City Hall on Friday to remain peaceful. About 150 of them had gathered when Mehserle’s release was announced.

“We must treat each other and our city with respect and dignity while the outcome of this case is determined by judge and jury,” Dellums said in a statement.

John Burris, who is representing Grant’s family in a $25 million wrongful-death claim against BART, urged the public to “not create any social unrest as a consequence of this.”

“The family wants peace and the process to flow in the normal course of events,” he said.

As a condition of release, Mehserle was ordered to surrender all weapons.

It’s unclear where Mehserle was headed after posting bail. His attorney, Michael Rains, did not immediately return a call.

The judge has imposed a temporary gag order in the case until the next hearing, set for Feb. 13.