2003 - Edward Lawson : Parking While Black (PWB)Parking While Black (PWB)
Complaint | Edward Lawson vs LAPD | 2003
Complaint And Demand For Injunctive, Declaratory and Compensatory ReliefSCENE # 1
On Tuesday, July 8, 2003, at approximately 00:15 hours, I was looking for an item, in my briefcase, in the rear of a 2001, white, Ford, Model E-150, cargo van. The van was legally parked on the street in front of 635 Mildred Avenue, in the canal area, in the Venice Beach District of Los Angeles, California. (Los Angeles Police Department division # 4214). The van had no keys in the ignition and no one in the driver's seat.
At that time, I observed bright floodlights beaming through the rear windows and I heard a loudspeaker voice order the occupants of the van to "get out of the van.” I exited the van. I was ordered to walk towards the car that was parked approximately sixty feet behind the van.
I complied.
I was ordered to turn around.
I complied.
I was ordered kneel on the ground.
I declined for medical reasons to kneel on my knees on the hard ground.
COMPLAINT # 1
a) The human body's knees can not support the weight of the human body on a hard concrete surface littered with stones, glass, or other debris, without inflicting or aggravating stress or injury.
b) This conduct is a violation of the eighth amendment of the United State Constitution, prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.
DEMAND #1
I, demand that: the Los Angeles Police Department and the City of Los Angeles cease and desist from the police practice of forcing citizens to kneel on hard, dirty and broken ground as part of the arrest protocol. The kneeling protocol causes physical injury, aggravates previous injuries and soils and ruins garments. The kneeling protocol causes psychological injury, humiliation and serves no legitimate law enforcement interest.
SCENE # 2And then I was hand cuffed and placed in the rear of the police car.
COMPLAINT #2 a) The handcuffs were so tight they hurt and injured my wrist and hands.
b) The handcuffs were not double locked.
DEMAND #2
I, demand that:
a) Los Angeles Police Department personnel training, supervising and executing police hand cuffing cease and desist from the painful and injurious application of hand cuffs.
b) Los Angeles Police Department personnel training, supervising and executing police handcuffing will double lock handcuffs.
c) The city of Los Angeles will compensate me for my physical and psychological pain and injury.
SCENE # 3And then I was forced to try to squeeze my legs and knees into the rear seat, which is clearly too small of a space for any one of my height (over 6 feet tall) or taller. And with my hands (non-double locked) cuffed behind my back, my struggle to fit into the hard plastic seat, of the police car, in the sub-human space only tightened the hand cuffs more.
On more than one occasion, I complained to Los Angeles Police Department officer Mr. M. Ibarra, about the condition of the cuffs and he did nothing to correct it.
On more than one occasion, I complained to Los Angeles Police Department officer Mr. Melendez, about the condition of the cuffs and he did nothing to correct it.
On more than one occasion, I complained to Los Angeles Police Department officer Mr. Roma, about the condition of the cuffs and he did nothing to correct it.
COMPLAINT # 3
a) Forcing me to try to fit into a space too small for my legs, knees and cuffed hands, was painful and injurious.
b) Forcing me to try to fit into a space too small for my legs, knees and cuffed hands, was a violation of the civil right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.
DEMAND # 3
I, demand that:
a) Los Angeles Police Department cease and desist from forcing citizens into spaces less then the size of the individual.
b) The City of Los Angeles will compensate me for the resulting physical and psychological injury, pain and suffering.
SCENE # 4And then Los Angeles Police Department officer, Mr. M Ibarra asked me for identification.
I asked Mr. M. Ibarra, would he care to offer any explanation, as to what he was doing to me.
Mr. M Ibarra stated that, this guy had phoned the Los Angeles Police Department and stated that a van of the same description and license plate as my vehicle was parked at the corner of Howland Street and Eastern Court (about five blacks from the arrest scene). This guy stated that there were at least two people in the van. And this guy stated the people in the van were burglars. This guy did not offer any reason, whatsoever, for his "burglar-boogey-man theory.” And the police did not request any reason for this guy's "burglar-boogey-man theory.”
This guy stated that the van lingered at the intersection of Howland Street and Eastern Court, for a few minutes. And when the van drove away, this guy (a la Rambo) jumped into his car, chased after the subject van, finally finding it parked in front of 635 Mildred. After this guy's low-speed chase of a parked van, this guy cell-phoned the Los Angeles Police Department and reported the new "stake out location of the crime wave van.”
And then the Los Angeles Police Department, in the persons of uniform officers, Mr. M. Ibarra and Mr. Melendez, arrived in a black and white, marked, Los Angeles Police Department vehicle shortly thereafter.
I proceeded to give Mr. M Ibarra and Mr. Melendez a lecture on "reasonable suspicion," "probable cause" and "arrest standards," generously citing from, Terry vs. Ohio, Florida vs. Mark Royer, Arizona vs. Miranda, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and the Sixth Amendment.
Mr. M. Ibarra and Mr. Melendez appeared to lack anything close to the mental prowess to understand the lecture or any basic constitutional law.
And they only angered, with further explanation.
So, in the presence of two excited, angry, not very intelligent, armed, semi-white men, I informed Mr. M. Ibarra and Mr. Melendez, that I was invoking my Miranda rights to remain silent, and my sixth amendment right to not be questioned without the presence of my legal council.
This made them angrier and more aggressive.
And (Surprise!, Surprise!) Mr. M. Ibarra announced, that as a matter of policy, the Los Angeles Police Department had unilaterally decided that they did not like the United States Supreme Court’s Arizona vs. Miranda decision and that they had chucked it like an empty beer can and no longer was obliged to follow its restraints.
It was painfully clear, that I was trapped in an escalating situation, with dangerous and foolish louts. And so I again stated and reiterated, over and over, again and again, "I would not say or sign anything," consistent with the Miranda Decision of the United States Supreme Court, which I assumed, was still the law of the land, outside of the City limits of Los Angeles.
But all this was in vain. For the rest of the entire night, over and over again, police personnel ad infinitum, would hammer me, with demands to say or sign something, or something else.
We can train police dogs. Why can’t we train police officers?
"Donavan Jackson," "The Rampart Division," "Rodney King" and the rest of the sorted history of the City's finest, flashed before my eyes.
COMPLAINT # 4
Los Angeles Police Department officers, Mr. M. Ibarra, Mr. Melendez, Mr.
Roma, and Messer. Doe # 1 through ad infinitum continued to question me after I had invoked and explained the United States Supreme Court’s Miranda prohibitions.a) This action deprived me of various constitutionally protected rights.
b) This action placed me in fear for my life and caused emotionally and psychological stress and injury.
DEMAND # 4
I, demand that:
a) Los Angeles Police Department officers, Mr. M. Ibarra, Mr. Melendez, Mr.
Roma, Los Angeles Police Department Messer. Does ad infinitum, be regularly randomly tested for sobriety, intelligence and constitutional law.b) And that as a matter of policy, training, supervision and standard procedure, all Los Angeles Police Department personnel inform and honor Miranda rights, at the beginning of all contacts.
c) And that the contact's invocation of Miranda, immediately stop any and all questions, comments and conversation.
d) and that a specific and prominent check box appear on all arrest and processing paperwork, to notify any subsequent police custodians, that the contact/detainee/arrestee, is under the protection of the United States Supreme Courts Miranda prohibition, and is not to be questioned, commented or conversationed.
SCENE #5And then Los Angeles Police Department field supervising officer Mr. Roma was called to the arrest scene. Mr. Roma arrived and promptly went through the same vaudeville act already auditioned by Mr. M. Ibarra and Mr.
Melendez.The Federal Court Consent Decree Mandate, that a superior Los Angeles Police Department officer, review any pre-arrest scene, is predicated on the assumption that in a superior officer, the Los Angeles Police Department's professional interest, and the City's liability interest are "protected and served.” In theory, this superior officer is a cooler head, a smarter head, and a seasoned head. In practice, Mr. Roma has failed us all, and in that same clumsy calamity, crushed the constitution and the citizens who live under it.
COMPLAINT # 5
Mr. Roma's arrival at the scene of the crime was the intellectual equivalent of the difference between "Three Blind Mice" as opposed to "Two Blind Mice."
The difference in pay scale was not reflected in performance.
DEMAND # 5
I, demand that: God save us all, because the United State Federal Court Consent Decree will not.
SCENE # 6And then on orders from Mr. Roma, Mr. M Ibarra and Mr. Melendez searched the subject van.
COMPLAINT # 6
Mr. M. Ibarra and Mr. Melendez damaged and disheveled the content of the van, in the process of that search.
DEMAND # 6
I, demand that: the city compensates me for all items damaged, lost, stolen or disheveled in the search of the subject van.
SCENE # 7And then, the subject van was towed, by Bruffy's Towing, an official Los Angeles Police Department towing company. And therein the van was dented in the right front passenger's door. Los Angeles Police officers Mr. M. Ibarra and Mr. Roma negligently or fraudulently, falsified the vehicle damage chart on the State of California, Department of California Highway Patrol, Vehicle Report, 180 (Rev. 2-99) OPI 061, by drawing false, excessive and ambiguous marks, on the car damage chart, at the bottom of the subject report.
COMPLAINT # 7
a) The van was damaged by Bruffy’s Towing Company.
b) As a matter of standard procedure, the vehicle damage report was deliberately falsified, to prevent the vehicle owner from making claims of damages resulting from the towing and storage.
DEMAND # 7
I, demand that:
a) The City of Los Angeles will pay for the damages caused by the towing and storage of impound vehicles.
b) The Los Angels Police Department will photograph impound vehicles with pre-towing damage. And the Los Angels Police department will end the dubious, subjective, sloppy, present practice of kindergarten-crayon-art, as a shabby excuse for professional police work.
SCENE # 8And then I was arrested for a violation of Los Angeles Municipal Code 85.02.
COMPLAINT # 8
Los Angeles Municipal Code 85.02 is unconstitutional on its face and in any application.
DEMAND # 8
I, demand that: The Los Angeles Police Department cease and desist enforcing Los Angeles Municipal Code 85.02.
SCENE # 9And then I was driven to various locations, in the black and white police car by driver, Los Angeles Police Department officer Mr. M. Ibarra, with passenger Los Angeles Police Department officer Mr. Melendez. From the right rear passenger's seat, I observed and if called, would testify under oath that:
a) Mr. M. Ibarra drove in excess of the posted speed limit.
b) Mr. M. Ibarra at no time wore his seat belt.
c) Mr. Melendez at no time wore his seat belt.
d) The police car had no rear seat passenger seat belt, so the transported prisoner (me) had no seat belt, bouncing around on the hard plastic, back seats, in the sub-human size rear compartment, in a reckless high speed "high school joy ride," touring popular police sights in greater Los Angeles.
COMPLAINT # 9
As the driver, Los Angeles Police Department Officer Mr. M Ibarra's witnessed conduct is a violation of various State of California vehicle codes and Los Angeles Police Department regulations, practices and procedures.
DEMAND # 9
I, demand that:
a) Based on my observation, information and complaint, Los Angeles Police Department officer H. Ibarra will be ticketed and cited for the subject violations of the California vehicle code, in exactly the same procedure that is applied to any other Californian citizen.
b) All Los Angels police vehicles, used for prisoner transportation will be equipped with seat belts for all occupants.
c) Moreover, I am not filing a complaint with the Los Angeles Police Department Internal Affairs Department, because it has an almost unblemished history, as the pre-retirement, graveyard, where all the lame, the halt and the blind, old police careers are sent to die.
These “bad cop boosters” blunder through every conceivable effort to “protect and serve” the criminal, incompetent and insane elements, in the Los Angeles Police Department.
This “chamber of commerce for corruption” counters any honest efforts by innocent injured citizens to bring a little law and order to Los Angeles' oldest, uninterrupted, unrepentant and entrenched source of gang violence and terrorist threats to the citizens and the Constitution of the United States of America.
The essence of what we are saying was summarized in the 60’s by the famous American Philosopher and the poet laureate of pre-rap rap; Mohammad Ali, the heavy weight champion of the world.
Mohammad Ali spoke for black America.
Mohammad Ali spoke to white America. But white America, then as they do now, refused to hear. They were drunk on the liquor of their own lies and in wild mass hallucinations and paranoid dilutions, about imaginary “dominos,” in a place called Viet Nam.Mohammad Ali could see the police departments from Georgia to Virginia; from Selma to Shreveport; from Chief of Police “Bull “Connors to The southern white Sheriff who delivered northern college students Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner to the gates of hell.
White America could see Viet Nam and nothing else.
So when white America drafted Mohammad Ali into the defense of white priorities, Ali the philosopher said, “no Viet Cong ever called me nigger.” That is the poetic equivalent of the declaration of independence.That is the essence of where we are in America today.
Viet Nam then, al-Qaid now.
You didn’t understand then. You don’t understand now.
Ali, the old warrior, whose voice maybe muted by age and injury, does daily battle in the bodies and bravado of black kids on every black corner in every black “hood” in every white lapd precinct, in every white court, in every white prison, on every white death row.
Black America, that generation, this generation and the next generation ask white America again, to carefully count up the score cards, in the contest of al-Qaida vs. The Los Angeles Police Department over the entire life, of their respective reigns of terror in America and the body bags pile up in favor of L.A.'s finest, in a century old pattern of a racketeering influenced and corrupt organization.
That’s the law. That’s the truth.
But today in post “911” America, any semblance of justice, morality or reason is routinely raped in an orgy of patriotism.
You can hear nothing above the din of your own delusions.
When the American people will not listen, will the constitution protect us and hear our plea for help?
d) The Los Angeles Police Department should stop treating criminal complaints by citizens against Los Angeles Police Department police officers as private, internal affairs, personnel matters. And that the Los Angeles Police Department subject citizens' criminal complaints against Los Angeles Police Department personnel, to the same scheme of open and public, "checks and balances," that all the rest of America seems to have been able to live with for the last couple of centuries.
e) Close down the Los Angeles Police Department, Office of internal Affairs (or whatever you are calling it these days). At best, it is a useless waste of taxpayer’s money. At worst, it is an active collaborator in the crimes it purports to investigate.
f) Establish a local independent Civilian Review Board, which is a branch of the United States Justice Department. The members of this board are appointed by the president of the United States of America. And the board would have the full force of The United States Justice Department to investigate, indict or advise. The boards would be placed in cities over a curtain population size or by the court order of a federal court.
SCENE # 10And then, for the next couple of days, I would rot, without food or water, in the windowless, dudgeons of the Los Angeles Police Department jail.
It’s no mystery why the chef at the L.A. County Jail, this year, has again failed to make “Michelin’s Five Star Rating” for fine cuisine. Nowhere in the menu could I find any organic, vegetarian, vegan and raw food choices, or even kosher for that matter. And the tap / toilet water has been substituted for the wine list one might hope to find. Outlawed in most of Europe, the tap / toilet water is chlorinated and fluoridated, both chemicals are recognized toxins and carcinogens, by the rest of our nation who drink bottled water, which was nowhere to be found in the Los Angeles Police Department “gulag.”
So I ate nothing, I drink nothing, I slept; drifting in and out of consciousness, in the ocean of the other inmates assembled as “The Who’s Who” of America’s indigent, ignorant, illiterate, and insane silent minority.
When the state takes the ultimate action of incarceration, with its absolute abrogation of all personal rights and power, the state also takes the responsibility, for taking care of the prisoner, at lease as well as the prisoner would take care of himself.
COMPLAINT # 10
a) The absence of organic, vegetarian, vegan, raw or even kosher food is hazardous to your health.
b) The consumption of the so-called “food,” that was served in jail is hazardous to your health.
c) The chlorinated and fluorinate tap / toilet water is hazardous to your health.
d) Not being able to eat or drink, for the time one is incarcerated, is physically and mentally painful, stressful and harmful.
DEMAND # 10
I, demand that:
a) The Los Angeles Police Department provides organic, vegetarian, vegan, raw and even kosher food.
b) The Los Angeles Police Department provide non-chlorinated and non-fluoridated, bottled drinking water.
Being thus advised of your tortuous and illegal conduct, any future actions of this kind would constitute compounding and gross negligence.
Being thus advised of your tortuous and illegal conduct, any future actions of this kind would constitute elements of a criminal and/or civil conspiracy of a racketeering influenced and corrupt organization.
SCENE # 11And then suddenly, I was released, without any “rhyme or reason.” I never had my day in court. I was released, and in theory, any minute now, any time any place, I can be arrested, incarcerated, released, arrested, incarcerated, released, arrested, incarcerated, released… Until I’m too old for social security.
COMPLAINT # 11
Luddite legislators and their epidemic of “zealot zero tolerance law,” have loaded police with:
a) Laws not intended for prosecution, but aimed only to provide police with the tools to terrorize unpopular people by the perpetual cycle of field interrogation, search, arrest, incarceration and release.
b) Vague laws, which give the cop on the street, an open ended hunting license against those Americans, who were memorialized by the Statue of Liberty, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and “The Grapes of Wrath.” And they were gifted with the last full measure of devotion by the martyrs and “Real American Heroes,” of our revolution, our constitution and the American way of life
c) Preferential laws that only apply to curtain unpopular, unfamiliar or unwanted people.
DEMAND # 11
Recall them all.
Today, in America, angst in the stormy winds of change, the three branches of government have failed and fallen from the “tree of liberty.” And they slowly drift towards the tyranny of indifference, in an ocean of apathy.
“The liberty tree” that bore the three branches of government is rooted in “we the people.”
In the ultimate scheme of individual responsibility; the problem was not Hitler, the problem was the German people. The problem was not Mussolini.
The problem was the Italian people. The problem is not Washington, Sacramento, City Hall or the police station. The problem is the American people.
All of this is about you.
“America the beautiful”; history tells us how we began the beginning. And History warns us how we begin the end.
Somewhere in Germany, sometime in the 1930’s, some Gipsy, Jew or Slav, innocently looks for something, in his brief case, in the back of his van.
Laziness and Stupidity, on routine patrol, inflict some petty humiliation on this insignificant victim with a minuscule breach of constitutional law or justice. But these are special times that teeter on an invisible slippery slope, at the edge of an abbess, in the rip tide of people, politics and the passions of change.
You are there.
What did you do?
The pragmatist versus the patriot, what would you do?
To do nothing in the face tyranny is treason.
This is how the pages of the history begin.
Is this your history?
Will this be American History?
If you don’t stop them, who will.
If not now, than when?
Is this the stitch in time that will save nine? Or maybe 6 million?On Tuesday July 8, 2003, at approximately 00:15 hours, I was looking for an item, in my briefcase, in the rear of a 2001, white, Ford, Model E-150, cargo van… What was I looking for?
Maybe I was looking for your page in history.Maybe I was looking for America’s place in history.
I rummage through The Egyptian Empire, The Greek Empire, The Roman Empire, as I search through my briefcase looking for America.
Where are you?EVIDENCE
I further demand that you, preserve and do not destroy all recordings, records, facsimiles, documents and evidence of telephone conversations, radio communications, reports, logs, investigations and any other material related to this matter and its constituent elements, to protect the interest of all parties should, investigators, courts, prosecutors, litigators, legislators or administrators, request or require as much.
CONCLUSION
If you fail to advise me in writing, within ten working days, that you concur and comply with my above stated demands, that will constitute your formal refusal to accede to my demands.
Have a nice day.
I affirm, under the penalty of perjury that the above is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge.
Edward C. Lawson
Dated: August 11, 2003
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