USAHitman | Conspiracy News |  |
- New Ferguson judge voids 10,000 arrest warrants
- White House ‘fence jumper’ fatally shot after attacking police with knife in PA court
- Hacktivist Jeremy Hammond kept in solitary confinement without explanation
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Posted: 25 Aug 2015 05:35 PM PDT
 The new municipal judge in Ferguson has recalled all arrest warrants issued before 2015. The decision gives many residents of the troubled Missouri city a fresh start, just days before a court reform law is to take effect. Issued by Ferguson Municipal Court Judge Donald McCullin, the order applies to all arrest warrants prior to December 31, 2014, whether for minor traffic violations or more serious offenses. Close to 10,000 warrants are affected by the decision, municipal prosecutor Stephanie Karr told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “These changes should continue the process of restoring confidence in the court, alleviating fears of the consequences of appearing in court, and giving many residents a fresh start,” said McCullin, who was appointed to the post in June. His predecessor, Ronald Brockmeyer, resigned in March following a scathing Department of Justice report accused Ferguson of unconstitutional practices and racial profiling. Voiding the warrants does not get rid of the charges for the original violations, however. To resolve those, defendants will be given new court dates as well as options to pay their fines, from payment plans to community service, Judge McCullin said. In addition, the Missouri Department of Revenue said it would reinstate drivers’ licenses suspended solely due to unpaid fines or failure to appear in court. “It is meaningful and will have a real impact on the lives of many,” Brendan Roediger, a St. Louis-area lawyer who has represented some of the protesters in Ferguson, told Reuters. “That being said, payment plans and community service do not solve racial profiling or excessive fines.” Last week, the municipal judge in nearby Velda City, Wesley Bell, canceled more than 5,000 warrants and all of the city’s failure-to-appear charges. Velda City has a population of 1,410. Bell is also a City Council member in Ferguson. Judicial practices in Ferguson and the St. Louis County came under the spotlight after the August 2014 death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager shot by Ferguson PD officer Darren Wilson during an altercation. While the US Department of Justice cleared Wilson of all charges, it issued a 102-page report in March 2015 accusing the city authorities of systemic racism against the town’s African-American community. The report accused Ferguson police and the courts of deliberately targeting black residents for citations, arrests and charges, motivated not by not by eliminating crime but increasing local revenue. A “strategy of revenue generation through policing has fostered practices in the two central parts of Ferguson’s law enforcement system – policing and the courts – that are themselves unconstitutional or that contribute to constitutional violations,” the DOJ report said. To combat the practice of “policing for revenue,” Missouri legislators have passed a municipal reform bill that will limit the amount of money local governments can keep from traffic fines and fees, and established new standards for municipal governments, police and courts. The law goes into effect on August 28. Under the new law, no one will face additional charges for failing to appear in court over a traffic citation, but can still get arrested for the original offense. People can still be charged for failure to appear in non-traffic cases. Defendants can’t be jailed to coerce the payment of a fine or fee, or for minor traffic offenses. However, the law does not limit the amount of general revenue municipalities can derive from serious offenses, traffic or otherwise. Source The post New Ferguson judge voids 10,000 arrest warrants appeared first on USAHM Conspiracy News.       |
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Posted: 25 Aug 2015 05:19 PM PDT
 The man who was charged for scaling the White House perimeter fence earlier this year was shot and killed by a sheriff’s deputy at a suburban Philadelphia courthouse, after stabbing another deputy with a knife. Gunshots were heard at Chester County Justice Center in West Chester, Pennsylvania around 11 am local time Tuesday, and the courthouse was put on lockdown. District Attorney Tom Hogan identified the man as Curtis Smith, of Coatesville in Chester County, WCAU reported. Smith, 34, entered the courthouse and shouted “I’m gonna getcha,” according to KWY. Hogan said that one deputy was treated for stab wounds to his arms and hand. Smith had achieved notoriety when he breached White House security by climbing over a stone wall of the presidential mansion on March 1 this year. He was immediately arrested and taken into custody by the Secret Service, and charged with unlawful entry. Smith’s trespass was the third in a series of similar but unrelated security breaches that occurred at the White House in 24 hour period. Smith was scheduled to face a preliminary hearing for unrelated burglary and harassment charges in October. It’s not clear why he was as at the Chester County Justice Center on Tuesday. Source The post White House ‘fence jumper’ fatally shot after attacking police with knife in PA court appeared first on USAHM Conspiracy News.    |
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Posted: 25 Aug 2015 05:07 PM PDT
 Jeremy Hammond, who is in prison for hacking servers of the private intelligence company Statfor and leaking its information to WikiLeaks, has been held in solitary confinement for more than six weeks and will stay there pending a prison investigation. Hammond entered a segregated housing unit (SHU) in mid-July based on a disciplinary infraction incurred while serving time at the Federal Correction Institution in Manchester, Kentucky. He was scheduled to spend 45 days there, with his release date expected to be around August 20. In a letter dated August 18, Hammond told his support network that he was still in the SHU and had no insight into how long he will stay there, according to FreeJeremy.net. Hammond, who has yet to be charged for the disciplinary issue, said he was informed by prison officials that he would stay in the SHU “pending SIS investigation,” by an internal prison police unit known as Special Investigative Services. Hammond said he was not told what the unit is investigating, nor how long he will have to wait for its conclusion. Prisoners can be held in an SHU for up to 90 days without being charged. If Hammond is charged for an infraction as a result of the investigation, the time he spent in the SHU since July would not count toward any punishment he receives, FreeJeremy.net explained. “We are speculating that this new, mysterious ‘investigation’ is in relation to another issue that has been ongoing for quite some time now,” FreeJeremy.net wrote, saying that Hammond’s phone and email privileges were suddenly revoked without warning or clear explanation just before being sent to the SHU, though these actions were not related to why he is in the SHU. Then while he was in the SHU, he regained email privileges, again without explanation. “While no one but prison officials know for certain at this point, the vagueness with which this new SHU designation is being communicated to Jeremy is eerily similar to the vagueness with which his privileges were revoked, and could very well be related,” FreeJeremy.net wrote. Hammond has been denied recent visits from family members as well, they wrote. Hammond’s 10-year jail sentence is one of the longest a US hacker has ever received. He pleaded guilty to breaking into the Stratfor intelligence company’s website, eventually entering prison on November 15, 2013. Hammond was one of the FBI’s most wanted cybercriminals and was placed on an FBI terrorist watchlist. Stratfor lost more than $1 million due to the Chicago native’s actions. He was eventually arrested after being outed to the authorities by a fellow hacker, who was working as an informant for the FBI. Hector Xavier Monseguer, who went by the name of Sabu, advised Hammond to hack the Stratfor website before he turned him into the authorities. It eventually came to light that Monseguer directed others towards vulnerable targets and orchestrated Anonymous cyberattacks against the websites of foreign governments, all while under the constant watch of the FBI, supporting Hammond’s claims that the FBI guided Anonymous into conducting cyberattacks at the agency’s behest despite the illegality involved. Hammond has said he was drawn to Anonymous given he believes in autonomous, decentralized direct action. “I had a lot to contribute, including technical skills, and how to better articulate ideas and goals. It was an exciting time – the birth of a digital dissent movement, where the definitions and capabilities of hacktivism were being shaped,” he said in a November 2014 interview with the Associated Press. He said that he was always motivated to target powerful entities with high-profile websites. “From the start, I always wanted to target government websites, but also police and corporations that profit off government contracts,” he told AP. “I hacked lots of dot-govs.” Source The post Hacktivist Jeremy Hammond kept in solitary confinement without explanation appeared first on USAHM Conspiracy News.   |
