Sunday, August 7, 2011

Fear and Loathing in Prince George's County

In Misconduct Abounding in Prince George's County, I explained how I came to learn of the sorry state of justice in Prince George's County, Maryland. I also detailed how their canine unit was at one time the most dangerous in the country. In this post, I examine how they handled unruly students after a "March Madness" basketball game last year.

I'll begin with a video from a Washington Post article. The video pretty much speaks for itself. Keep an eye on the guy who dances in from the right side of the screen and approaches the officer on horseback. You decide whether or not he struck  the horse or the officer. I apologize for the 15 second lead-in commercial asking you to help save the planet. Make sure you embiggen the video so that you can see the attack in all its disgusting glory.



You may not have been able to see the student attack the police, but the police apparently had no trouble seeing it. After beating him with riot sticks they, charged him with striking a mounted police officer. Once the homemade video surfaced and made the rounds, the charges were dropped.

Note that the attack by the police was well coordinated, as if the police were trained to suppress imminent threats with overwhelming force and violence.

More to come regarding Prince George's County. Stay tuned.

The Impending Execution of Martin Robles

Martin Robles sits on death row awaiting execution by the people of Texas. He apparently claims to be innocent. As evidence of that, I offer the following pen pal request he has posted on the DeathRow-USA web site.
Hello. My name is Martin Robles and I am looking for a penpal. I am from Corpus Christi, Texas and seeking someone who is cool with writing a death row inmate in their spare time.
I am a 25 year old Mexican who was wrongfully convicted and condemned to die for a double homicide involving gang members. I have little faith in the judicial system for I am a gang member myself and gang members just don't win. So I've accepted my fate and would like to make new friends before I pass away.
I'm 5'6'' with tattoos, bullet wounds, scars, and a pretty smile. I weigh about 180 and work out to stay in shape. I'm an ex-convict so I've spent 6 years in prison before for a murder conviction when I was 17 years of age. I got to spend 13 months of freedom before I was set up by the cops.
I like to fight, shoot dice, and explore the club scene. I like drinking on occasion and love sex. I've been incarcerated most of my adult life, so there's lots of things I've never experienced but I regret nothing.
I come from a loving family and wish to spend my remaining years getting to know someone as a friend. With that said, I leave as I came, with smiles and good intents.

Martin Robles
Martin Robles is one of those somewhat rare instances when I am unable to find much information about his crime, one way or the other. From one appellate decision I find this rather thin statement of facts.
Robles and an accomplice entered a dwelling while the occupants were asleep and shot and killed two persons. He was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.
From another appellate decision I infer that some or a substantial portion of the evidence against Robles came from a snitch, and you should all know by now what little value I put in snitch testimony. Robles and his alleged accomplice were also portrayed as gang members who killed gang members.

In the case of Martin Robles, I have too little information on which to make an assessment. I find that troublesome. If we are going to execute people, we should at least make the basis for the execution well known. Certainly we should publicly provide more information than he was convicted by a jury.