Christian Conrad (From ozarksfirst.com) |
A Probable Cause (PC) Statement from Deputy Debi Wade, which was used to bring bogus "cover charges" against Carol, suggests Conrad used such force against Carol that her broken arm required trauma surgery for repair. Given all the inaccurate information in Wade's PC Statement, we're not ready to take her Conrad information to the bank. Plus, we've found photos in the press of Conrad, and we are not sure he's the same guy who assaulted Carol and broke her arm.
That raises this question: Was someone, not named in Wade's PC Statement, actually responsible for Carol's injuries? Is the Greene County Sheriff's Office (GCSO) trying to protect someone, perhaps because he occupies a relatively high position in the department's chain of command?
We don't have answers to those questions at the moment, but we do have this, from the last sentence of Wade's PC Statement. This comes right after Wade had described her fantasy of Carol "barreling" into her and causing her to lose her balance. I was a witness to the event, and nothing like that happened. But something like the following did happen:
At this time, both Lt. Conrad and Deputy Harrison came in from either side to secure Carol's arms and place her in handcuffs.
This, and the preceding sentences, are peculiar for a number of reasons:
(1) Wade conveniently leaves out that one of the officers slammed Carol, butt-first, to the ground so violently that it likely caused (or added to) a concussion;
X-ray of Carol Shuler's broken arm |
(2) Wade fails to mention that, upon bursting into our apartment, officers threw open the door, causing Carol to be slammed head-first against a wall. While putting handcuffs on her then, one or more officers banged her head against the wall multiple times. She might have sustained a concussion then, with the body slam outside, adding to it. But Wade claims Carol was the perpetrator of an assault, not the victim of one. Is it any wonder many people have zero trust in law-enforcement?
(3) Lt. Conrad doesn't have a first name, based on Wade's account. Every other person she mentions -- other than the "adviser," who has no name at all -- has both a first and last name. Why is Lt. Conrad's first name left out?
Wade does get one thing right in her PC statement: Carol's encounter with the cop thugs ended with her surrounded by three officers -- Wade, Scott Harrison, and (maybe) Christian Conrad. Here's our rundown on these three "public servants":
* Wade was the only female officer on the scene, we've run her photo several times, and we know she did not body slam Carol and break her arm;
* Harrison is the guy who apparently concocted the scenario that I had called 911 to threaten any cops who might try to evict us. He also was the one who, upon bursting into our apartment, pointed an assault rifle right at my head. He was the one who, after Carol had been placed in handcuffs (broken arm and all), drove her to the county jail. He was the one who, once someone at the jail noticed Carol was in agonizing pain, drove her to nearby Cox North Medical Center, where X-rays showed the bone in her upper left arm had been snapped in two, just above the elbow. Finally, Harrison gave Carol his card and said he was releasing her. That's how we know Harrison has sandy/reddish hair, and while he did bend down to help put her in handcuffs, he did not body slam her and yank on her arms.
Scott Harrison (From facebook.com) |
* Via Web research, we learned the GCSO has a Christian Conrad, apparently the only "Lt. Conrad" in the outfit. He is in the Springfield-area news fairly frequently. (See here, here, here, and here.) In every image we've found of Conrad, he is wearing a hat. The officer who broke Carol's arm was not wearing a hat that day, but he was wearing dark/reflective sunglasses, which made it impossible to see his eyes.
Bottom line: Conrad might be the guy who brutalized Carol, but we aren't 100 percent sure about that. We are dealing here with a thoroughly corrupt department, so it would not beyond them to put Conrad out as a straw man to protect a higher-ranking officer. We will need extensive discovery to sort all of that out.
The following is from Carol's Motion to Dismiss, which (with the PC Statement) is embedded at the end of this post:
Who is the real criminal here, the one who really did assault someone. It’s the unknown male officer who brutalized Carol. In the last sentence of her PC Statement, Wade mentions a “Lt. Conrad” and “Deputy Harrison,” who “came in from either side to secure Carol’s arms and place her in handcuffs. (“Secure” her arms? That must be copspeak for breaking someone’s arm.) The Shulers know Harrison has sandy/redish air, and he was not the one who yanked on Carol’s arm. Based on Wade’s fantastic version of events, that leaves only Lt. Conrad.
Published reports show a Christian Conrad with the GCSO. Is he the one who broke Carol’s arm? The Shulers aren’t certain. Conrad is wearing a hat in all the photos the Shulers have seen. The guy who broke Carol’s arm was not wearing a hat, but he was wearing sunglasses (ones that either were real dark or reflective; you could not see his eyes) and a light blue shirt. (Other officers were wearing black uniforms or civilian clothes.) At this point, it’s unclear to the Shulers if the officer was Conrad or someone else, perhaps someone Debi Wade has been told to protect in her PC Statement.
23 comments:
Probably have better luck looking at photos on Springfield-FBI web site.
@7:56 --
Want to make sure I follow you? Are you equating cops to the photos of criminals you might find at the FBI office? If so, I agree with you 100 percent. If so, your comment is mucho funny. And it's funny because there is a lot of truth in it. The line between cops and criminals can be awfully thin sometimes.
So, you think this is the POS who broke your wife's arm? His life would be in serious danger if he broke my wife's arm. I'd like to kick his ass for breaking Carol's arm.
@9:53 --
If you look at the last sentence in the probable cause statement embedded at the end of this post, it says "Lt. Conrad" and "Deputy Harrison" came in from either side to "secure" Carol's arms. We know which cop was Harrison, and he was right there, but he didn't slam Carol to the ground and yank on her arms. That leaves Conrad, but the image of him with the post was taken from a news video that ran here on a local station. In that image, it's night, and he's wearing a hat, and a black shirt. In our situation, it was daylight, the guy was wearing no hat, had a blue shirt, and had on dark/reflective sunglasses. Conrad, in the photo, looks somewhat like the guy, but we are not certain it's him. I'd say it's 50-50.
This guy looks like the kind of SOB who would get his kicks from beating up a woman. Sick bastard!
Got to love the Cop Talk in that probable cause statement. They say these two deputies came in from the side to "secure" Carol's arms. By that, I guess they mean they "broke" her arm.
Cops don't even speak the same language most of us speak.
@10:28 --
Reminds me of a classic scene from "Scrubs," where Dr. Kelso tells Dr. Cox that he has to attend a "medical boondoggle" in "Cleveland."
Then, Kelso says:
"By 'medical boondoggle,' I mean 'golf outing.' And by 'Cleveland,' I mean 'Hawaii.'"
Hah, love that show.
Have to wonder about the female deputy who signed the probable cause statement. If she has daughters, how would she feel about someone brutalizing them? Would she lie to protect the abuser?
@10:37 --
Interesting point. Deputy Wade, based on her FB page, does have daughters --
https://www.facebook.com/debi.paynewade
I'm a bit concerned that you can't tell if this is the guy or not.
@10:54 --
I assume you are talking in terms of a possible court case? There will be ways, via discovery, to determine exactly who broke Carol's arm. Plus, the possibility that it was someone else, a higher-ranking officer, is not a total guess on our part. We have someone specific in mind. We know that person's name, and we have photos of him. Just not ready to report on that yet.
Another point: Given the volume of false information in the PC Statement, we're not about to take anything in there as true. They've lied about almost everything else, so I don't put it past them to lie about ID of guy who broke Carol's arm.
What's the lawyer guy who tends to pop up in the comments, making excuses for the cops and the landlord? Will be interesting to see if he pops up here. What a pathetic waste of carbon.
@11:06 --
That would be Craig Lowther. His firm represents both the landlord and the sheriff in this case. No wonder he tries to spin things for their benefit. What he does actually isn't "spinning." It's just flat-out lying, with no regard for the truth.
He's been laying low lately, so not sure if he will surface now or not.
Whoever did this, whether it was Conrad or someone else, is a criminal.
@1:00 --
You are correct, maybe in a more literal sense than you realize. To deprive someone of their civil rights "under color of law," is a federal crime. We've written about that subject before. We will be pursuing both civil and criminal remedies here.
Forgot to include URL to post where we covered this subject previously:
http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2015/06/did-alabama-officer-commit-crime-when.html
Such cases are crimes under 18 U.S.C. 242 ("Deprivation of rights under color of law")
Here is key section from earlier post:
Can this amount to criminal behavior? A recent case from Georgia, styled United States v. House 684 F. 3d 1173 (11th Cir., 2012), shows that the answer is yes. Ironically, Birmingham-based federal judge Bill Pryor, who has curious connections to 1990s gay pornography, wrote the opinion in House.
The case involved Stephen G. House, a former officer of the Federal Protective Service who made it a habit to stop people in traffic for no lawful reason. House wound up being convicted in federal district court on eight counts of willfully depriving a person of the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizure by a law enforcement officer, 18 U.S.C. § 242. An 11th Circuit panel, headed by Pryor, upheld most of the convictions.
The feds should have arrested this bastard already. I hope they also arrest the sheriff who OK'd the SWAT team, and anyone else who was complicit in this scheme.
We are preparing documents now for civil and criminal remedies. And yes, that will involve not only the guy who broke Carol's arm, but the sheriff and lawyer (Craig Lowther) and landlord (Trent Cowherd) who unlawfully made this happen, plus other individuals (from Missouri and perhaps from Alabama) who played a role in this deprivation of rights.
Criminally, we're talking 18 U.S.C. 242.
Civilly, we're talking 42 U.S.C. 1983, including Fourth Amendment and more.
Next time a cop asks if he can help "secure my arms," my answer is going to be: "Uhhhhh . . . I don't think so, dude."
@5:58 --
Hah! Good answer. You might also try running like hell.
Thought I had posted this the other day... If these folks went in as a SWAT team with claims of potential violence, they'd better fork over some visual backup right soon. No mention yet about dash and body cams footage... tsk, tsk, tsk!
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/police-report-blames-bloodied-united-passenger-for-his-own-injuries/
"Former United Airlines passenger Dr. David Dao is being blamed for his own injuries sustained while being forcibly removed from his seat and dragged down the aisle of the plane.
According to a report released Monday in the Los Angeles Times, the aviation officers attribute the blood dripping down his face to injuries he incurred while being threatening."
Referenced police report: http://documents.latimes.com/incident-report-about-passengers-removal-united-flight/
@8:04 --
Thanks for sharing. We've already encountered that crap in Carol's case. They claim she "fell." Dao is lucky they haven't brought criminal charges against HIM. The probably would have without the video.
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