Another dumb fucking New York City pig in handcuffs!
Via: NYTimes
Archive for the ‘Pig Enforcement’ Category
I love it when this happens to them!
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010LA photographer cleared of felony charges in graffiti case
Monday, May 17th, 2010LA Photographer Cleared of Criminal Charges
LA photographer Jonas Lara had his day in court today. The criminal charges against him were dropped and the judge issued a court order for the release of his camera equipment, which had been held as evidence since his arrest on February 2, 2010.
Lara was fighting a charge of aiding and abetting two graffiti artists whose work he was documenting when the three men were arrested in South Central Los Angeles. (More on the case here.)
The photographer established a legal fund and appealed for donations after he was unable to convince his public defender that his rights as a photographer to document the work of the artists had some bearing on the case against him.
In just over a week, enough friends and colleagues in the photo community responded with donations for Lara to pay the retainer for The Kavinoky Law Firm, a group of California-based criminal lawyers.
Joel Koury, the attorney who represented Lara in court this morning, says his strategy was to “go in with guns blazing,” which caught the prosecutor off guard, because key evidence—pictures that the police claimed they took showing Lara’s hands with paint on them—had apparently gone missing. Koury says he doubts that the police ever took them.
The prosecutor, judge and Koury then discussed a formal diversion plea for the vandalism charge, which would have required Lara to perform community service over the course of 18 months before the case would be dismissed. Koury told the judge he would talk to Lara about agreeing to a six-month probationary period, but instead Lara and the attorney decided to stay on the offensive, refused the deal and pushed for a trial.
Koury also showed the prosecutor character letters colleagues had written on Lara’s behalf, proof that Lara was in art school and had published books of his work, and proof that he had a photography business registered with the IRS.
“We’re not talking about some gang member, we’re talking about an actual photojournalist,” Koury says he told the prosecutor. “Just because a photojournalist takes a picture of someone committing a crime does not turn the photographer into a criminal,” he adds.
The prosecutor then offered to knock the charge down to trespassing and agree to an informal diversion plea, but again Lara and his attorney refused.
Koury says he asked the prosecutor what was really important to her in the case, and she responded that the property owner had paid $200 to have the graffiti murals cleaned off the wall of the building.
Koury says that though he believes he would have beat the trespass charge in a jury trial, he offered at Lara’s behest to agree to have Lara pay the $200 restitution fee to the property owner in exchange for the charge being reduced to a disturbing the peace infraction.
Though Koury says he feels “a little bad” that Lara paid the restitution, the deal guaranteed Lara could walk away from court today with no criminal record rather than having to go through a jury trial.
The LAPD has still refused to return Lara’s camera equipment despite the judge’s order. When Lara went to the police station to retrieve his equipment the police were “really pissed off,” he says, and attempted to question him further about the February 2 incident.
Koury says it is just a case of “cops being a little bit stubborn.” He expects Lara should have his gear back in a day or so.
Lara first met with and hired The Kavinoky Law Firm yesterday afternoon. The firm, which typically commands retainers in the five figures, agreed to represent Lara for far less “because we were pissed off,” Koury says. “It was ridiculous that [a photojournalist] would find himself in that position.”
Via: www.pdnpulse.com
LA Photographer Faces Criminal Charges, Appeals for Help
Thursday, May 6th, 2010Los Angeles-based photographer Jonas Lara faces up to a year in prison if convicted of aiding and abetting two graffiti artists whose work he was documenting when the three men were arrested on February 2, 2010 in South Central Los Angeles.
Lara has declined two plea deals and has pleaded not guilty to the charge, believing that he was within his rights as a photographer to be at the scene documenting the work of the artists. However Lara says his public defender, David Gottesmann, has so far refused to consider his rights as a photographer as part of the defense. “Every time I bring [photographer’s rights or First Amendment rights] up, he just laughs at me,” Lara says.
Jeff Sedlik, Lara’s former teacher, has offered to testify on his behalf to establish his credibility as a photographer, but Lara says Gottesman insists that the case has nothing to do with Lara being a photographer.
Lara has appealed for help with the case to rights organization like the ACLU, but Lara says the organizations have told him they do not get involved in criminal cases.
If convicted, the Art Center College of Design graduate and former US Marine would be unable to enter the MFA program at the School of Visual Arts, into which he was recently accepted, in September.
Recognizing the need to hire a private attorney, Lara has established a legal fund to solicit help from friends, family and colleagues. Lara’s jury trial is scheduled for next Tuesday, May 11.
Lara’s camera, lenses and memory cards, which he uses to make a living, were also seized, and have not been returned to him.
When he was arrested, Lara was working on a long-term project for which he has documented the work and creative processes of 30 visual artists. Lara met the two graffiti artists at an abandoned building in South Central Los Angeles to photograph the pair as they worked on the illegal mural.
An LAPD helicopter spotted the group of three men and a patrol car was quickly on the scene. The artists attempted to walk away from the scene and were apprehended, Lara says. He remained at the scene and was arrested, although the arresting officers never let Lara know what he was being charged with.
The photographer says the officers were understanding when he explained his reason for being at the scene. They told him they needed to process him, and that he would be free to go in the morning. After advising Lara that it would be dangerous to leave his car in the neighborhood, one of the officers even drove Lara’s car to the police station so he could avoid a towing fee.
Once he got to the police station, however, Lara’s situation became much more precarious. The police held Lara for eight hours before telling him he was being charged with felony vandalism. He was held for 26 hours in total.
Two weeks after being bailed out by his wife, Lara was arraigned and the charge of felony vandalism was downgraded to a misdemeanor. At a pretrial hearing Gottesman told Lara that rather than vandalism, he was now being charged with damaging a fence at the scene. Then the charge was later switched again, this time to the misdemeanor of aiding and abetting. Prosecutors now claim Lara was acting as a lookout for the two graffiti artists.
Lara started his legal defense fund when it became clear to him that the charges against him would not be dropped. Those interested in donating to Lara’s legal defense fund can do so here:
Jonas Lara Legal Defense Fund Paypal Page.
Paypal payments can also be directed to donate@jonaslaradefensefund.org.
Via: www.pdnpulse.com
Art Crime: Graffiti Wars – “the crackdown may only have emboldened them”
Monday, February 22nd, 2010Law enforcement agencies, judges and politicians around the country are stepping up their battle against graffiti artists. But the crackdown may only have emboldened them.
In March 2009, a man identified by Pittsburgh Police as “HERT,” the city’s second most-wanted graffiti artist, entered the Allegheny County Courthouse for an appearance stemming from a prior arrest.
But when he arrived, he was informed that police also had warrants for his arrest on 69 misdemeanors and four felony counts of criminal mischief based on estimated damages from vandalism caused by the 22-year-old’s alleged activities of spray-painting his tag on public and private buildings, railroad properties, and nearly a dozen neighborhoods in and around Pittsburgh’s downtown corridor. HERT was then handcuffed and escorted from the courtroom.
TV cameras were there to capture the moment, and Detective Daniel Sullivan of Pittsburgh Police Bureau’s Graffiti Task Force, made sure the media knew the significance of the arrest.
“He was the number-two tagger in the city, hitting more than 100 pieces of property, and that doesn’t include outside boroughs,” Sullivan told reporters, adding that HERT had caused an estimated $212,000 in damages to private and public property during his graffiti career.
The case of HERT, who is still awaiting trial, illustrates what some observers believe is an increasing crackdown on graffiti across the country. While, nationwide statistics on graffiti crime do not exist, the reallocation of police department budgets and resources suggests that cities are increasingly using prosecutions as a weapon to end the practice. For example, Graffiti Tracker, an Omaha, Nebraska-based company, which investigates graffiti crimes under contract with law enforcement agencies or sells them analysis software, is doing a thriving business. According to Timothy Kephart, Graffiti Tracker’s CEO, the company has over $1 million in contracts with police departments in 45 cities, towns and municipalities.
And more cities like Pittsburgh have created “vandal squads” dedicated to capturing high-profile graffiti artists, similar to the force New York City instituted decades ago.
But the subtext of this battle is cultural.
Utah is out of jail!
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
It’s official: Danielle Bremner aka Utah, is finally a free woman, after sitting down for a 6 month bid on Rikers followed by an additional sixer in Boston. Debt to society now served and free to admit that she is indeed the infamous daredevil that has adorned the world’s trains and walls over the last 10 years, the 27 year old student and artist is ready to take on the internetz with her new blog.
Just so you know, I am lucky enough to call her a friend and got to catch up with the very pretty, petite, and unusually chipper young lass, who was kind enough to grant an interview. That and more after the jump…
If you’ve never heard of Utah, either you know nothing about graffiti, don’t read the paper, or live in a cave in Williamsburg. Her arrests and subsequent court appearances produced numerous write-ups in the media in the last couple years – the vast majority of which have painted her and partner/boyfriend Ether as a modern day Bonnie and Clyde. But there’s more than that – Bonnie and Clyde robbed banks for riches, Utah and Ether painted cities all over the world for nothing more than the satisfaction of getting over and leaving with a nice photo of their work. Being that nowadays risk for anything but monetary reward is pretty unheard of, Utah stands to remind us that self-satifaction can still be found elsewhere, and that somethings are worth doing just to do them…(Read More)
Via: blogue.us
Utah Blog: utahoner.com
New program shedding light on graffiti problem
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010Vista officials declare war on graffiti writers
Thursday, December 31st, 2009Vista authorities have their own message for taggers:
“We want them to know that we’re going after them, and it’s going to cost them a lot of money — not only that but jail time,” said Elvys Cabrera, the graffiti investigator for the Vista sheriff’s station.
The arrest Monday of a 16-year-old boy who is believed to be responsible for $100,000 in damage from graffiti vandalism over the past year marks the latest of more than a dozen arrests by Vista deputies since March.
The boy has been booked into Juvenile Hall on 232 counts of felony vandalism. The Sheriff’s Department is investigating 85 other acts of vandalism that also may be connected to the teenager, Cabrera said.
The latest arrest was significant, because no one else in recent memory has come close to causing as much damage as the suspect arrested Monday, Cabrera said. Last week, deputies arrested a tagger allegedly responsible for $40,000 in damage over a two-year period.
Texas graffiti writer to serve two, not eight years – Two years is still to long for 7′Gs of damage!
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
CORPUS CHRISTI — Last week a judge gave a graffiti vandal the maximum sentence: eight years. But it turns out the most he can serve is two.
Sebastian Perez, 18, pleaded guilty Dec. 11 to three graffiti charges along with possession of marijuana, all state jail felonies.
He admitted to a spray-painting spree that lasted from March to August and caused more than $7,300 in damages.
He gave a tearful plea to 148th District Judge Marisela Saldaña for probation. Instead she had handed down the maximum two years in state jail on each count and stacked the sentences.
But Perez’s attorney, Steven Giovannini filed motions on Thursday asking the graffiti terms either be redone to run at the same time or reduced to probation.
He cited law that says if a defendant is found guilty of more than one offense arising out of the same criminal episode and prosecuted in a single action, the sentences must run concurrently. There are some exceptions, but he said none applied.
He also pointed out in another motion that judges are required to place defendants on probation for a first-time felony marijuana charge in cases where the amount is less than a pound and the defendant has no prior felony convictions. Both instances applied in Perez’s case.
Saldaña brought Perez back to court. She ordered he serve the three, two-year graffiti sentences at the same time along with two years probation on the drug charge.
District Attorney Carlos Valdez said his office had been pleased Perez received eight years, but after talking to his attorney agreed that it had to comply with the law.
Valdez added prosecutors would continue to seek the maximum sentence for graffiti vandals.
Giovannini said on Friday that Perez had shown remorse for his actions long before his guilty pleas. He said even when he visited Perez in county jail on Tuesday Perez had talked of wanting to join a graffiti cleanup crew before being transferred to state jail.
“He was really repentant and remorseful,” he said.
Via:www.caller.com
Judge Marisela Saldaña
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
This is Judge Marisela Saldaña and she giving out 8 years sentences to graffiti writers.
Graffiti writer gets eight years.
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A south Texas district judge has sentenced an 18-year-old man to eight years in prison for habitually vandalizing property with graffiti .
Sebastian Perez had pleaded guilty in a Corpus Christi state district court to three graffiti charges, as well as to marijuana possession.
Perez told the judge that spray-painting graffiti had become became a habit, but he stopped when he realized it was getting him nowhere. He cried and asked for probation, saying he would finish high school, get a job and help clean up the mess. The judge, unmoved, assessed the maximum sentence.Police say Perez spray-painted more than two dozen properties from March to August. The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reports that police blamed him for more than $7,300 in damage, leaving his mark on everything from fences and homes to a medical clinic and traffic signs.
via:www.bostonherald.com