New documents in Laquan McDonald shooting suggest cops lied about what they saw, adding to questions about police dishonesty in Alabama and Missouri

Laquan McDonald, on a Chicago street, seconds before
cops shot him 16 times.

Five Chicago police officers who witnessed the Laquan McDonald shooting say the 17-year-old lunged threateningly at them before Officer Jason Van Dyke fatally shot him, according to documents the city released Friday night. That differs from events in a video released last week, which shows McDonald walking away from officers before being shot 16 times.

Were officers honestly mistaken about what they saw or was this part of an orchestrated campaign to lie and cover up for what now appears to be a gross misuse of deadly force?

If this was an effort to intentionally lie--and we suspect it was--it raises a number of troubling questions for my wife, Carol, and me, here in our current "home" of Springfield, Missouri. Carol is recovering from trauma surgery required to repair her left arm, which was shattered during an unlawful eviction that Greene County deputies conducted on September 9. Sheriff Jim Arnott was standing about five feet away when three of his deputies surrounded Carol as she was trying to retrieve our cat's litter box, slamming her to the ground and yanking on her arms so severely that both were badly bruised and one was broken to the point that the humerus almost came through the skin.

How unlawful was the eviction? The public record shows officers had no grounds to be at our rented property that day, much less to handcuff us both, rough us up, point weapons (including an assault rifle) at us, and break Carol's arm.

Before we were forced to leave Alabama, largely because of a dubious foreclosure on our home of 25 years in Birmingham, I was arrested and spent five months in the Shelby County Jail--all because of a preliminary injunction in a defamation lawsuit that was unlawful under more than 200 years of First Amendment law. Research indicates I'm the only journalist in U.S. history to be incarcerated under such circumstances.

In brutalizing Carol, Missouri cops have made statements--before, during, and after the event--that we know are false. Arnott immediately pointed at Carol and said, "She assaulted a police officer." This was laughably contrary to the facts and the law (more about Missouri law on this subject coming soon), but a Deputy named Scott Harrison drove Carol--with her broken arm handcuffed behind her--to the Greene County Jail and said she was facing a felony charge, with likely a $100,000 bond.

We've also seen evidence that officers concocted a claim that I had placed a 911 call, threatening any officers who attempted to evict us. I never made any such call, but comments on the scene that day indicate officers used their belief in such a "call" to justify acting like a SWAT team, pointing an assault rifle and multiple handguns at us as they burst into our apartment.

X-ray of Carol Shuler's arm, borken by
Missouri deputies.

Is flagrant dishonesty part of police culture? Consider this from a Chicago Tribune report on the McDonald shooting:

Hundreds of pages of newly released Chicago police reports from the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald are most striking for one simple reason: They are dramatically at odds with the dash-cam video that has sparked protests across the city, cost the city's top cop his job and embroiled Mayor Rahm Emanuel in scandal.

The reports, released by the city late Friday, show that Officer Jason Van Dyke and at least five other officers claim that the 17-year-old McDonald moved or turned threateningly toward officers, even though the video of the October 2014 shooting shows McDonald walking away, and the scenario sketched out by Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez in charging Van Dyke with murder contends he was walking away as well.

At least one patrol officer said McDonald was advancing on the officers in a menacing way and swung his knife at them in an "aggressive, exaggerated manner" before he was shot and killed. Officers claimed, too, that even after McDonald had been shot by Van Dyke, the teen tried to lift himself off the ground with the knife pointed toward the officers, and though he had been mortally wounded, still presented a threat.

The reports, a collection of handwritten statements from the night of the shooting, and follow-up reports in the days and months after, often refer to Van Dyke as VD and call him the victim. McDonald is O, for offender. Some are in police shorthand.

"VD believed O was attacking w/knife," said a report of Van Dyke's account. "Trying to kill VD. In defense of his life, VD backpedaled + fired. O fell to ground, continued to move/grasp knife. VD continued firing. O appeared to be attempting to get up, still holding knife. Pointing at VD."

Are these police accounts pure rubbish? We invite you to watch the video at the end of this post and come to your own conclusions.

Our conclusion is this: Chicago cops intentionally lied to provide cover for Officer Van Dyke,and we suspect a similar campaign of dishonesty is under way here in southwest Missouri to protect the officers who brutalized Carol--one cop in particular who appeared to be mostly responsible for breaking her arm.

We also suspect that institutional dishonesty was present in my unlawful arrest and incarceration in Shelby County, Alabama. The signs there are unmistakable, and we will address them in an upcoming post.


(To be continued)

Ashley Madison has customers among top executives at Harbert Management, Hoar Construction, Royal Cup, Southern Co., and many more Alabama firms

An astonishing array of corporate, legal, and institutional entities in Alabama have employees who engaged the services of the Ashley Madison (AM) extramarital-affair Web site.

In fact, one of the biggest names on the Alabama corporate scene--Harbert Management Corporation--has a top executive on the AM list. So does Liberty National. Hoar Construction, Royal Cup, Southern Company, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and Cadence Bank are among a long list of Alabama companies with employees who have paying AM accounts.

Research shows a similar number of high-level executives in Missouri have been AM customers. We will take a look at those in an upcoming post.

How is any work getting done these days in corporate America?

Alabama and Missouri are where I've lived over the past two years, so we have focused on those two states. In fact, we've focused primarily on the Birmingham metro area in Alabama and the Ozarks region surrounding Springfield in southwest Missouri.

Even with fairly limited research parameters, due to the massive size of the Ashley Madison files, it becomes quickly apparent that huge numbers of wealthy, powerful, connected, and seemingly smart individuals were stupid enough to fall for what easily should have been seen as a Web-based scam.

The Alabama AM customers we've found by name are overwhelmingly male. In fact, one researcher estimated that AM had 1,500 active female users, compared to about 20 million men. In other words, huge numbers of men were in hot pursuit of affairs with women who, by and large, did not exist. And many of the men who were stupid enough to fall for this con have high-paying jobs (in some cases, extremely high-paying jobs) at prominent companies and institutions.

Who are some of those big-time employers? Let's look first at a sampling from Alabama, and we will publish a similar list from Missouri soon.

It's important for readers to know that this is based on a very small sample size in both states. We know, for example, that Alabama has roughly 8,000 paid AM users--and that is the list we have searched so far. But the state has roughly 220,000 total AM users, so there is much, much more data to be explored.

Alabama companies or institutions that are home to Ashley Madison customers

* Harbert Management

* Sterne Agee

* Royal Cup

* BBVA Compass

* Hoar Construction

* Capstone Collegiate Communities

* ACIPCO

* Royal Automotive

Harbert Management Corporation is one of the many
Alabama companies with at least one high-level
executive on the Ashley Madison list.

* UAB

* Nowlin and Associates

* HealthSouth

* Southern Company

* Cadence Bank

* Blue Cross/Blue Shield

* Pangea Two

* Protective Life

* Raytheon

* Wells Fargo

* Daimler

* Regions Bank

* Western Steel

* Birmingham-Southern College

* Bhate Engineering

* Liberty National

* BioHorizons

* Bradley Arant law firm

* Wiggins Childs law firm

* Cabaniss Johnston Gardner law firm

* Lightfoot Franklin White law firm

* Ogletree Deakins law firm

* SEC Network

* LAH Commercial Real Estate

* Gentle Sexton Turner law firm

* ReMax

* U.S. Steel

* Bromberg's

* Cochran law firm

As concerns about police dishonesty grow, new footage in Laquan McDonald shooting raises questions about possible police tampering with Burger King video

Image from the Laquan McDonald shooting video.

Just two days ago, we asked: Does police dishonesty pose almost as big a threat to society as police brutality? We pointed to signs that law enforcement officials had lied in statements about the Laquan McDonald shooting in Chicago and in the eviction-related assault that left my wife with a shattered arm in Missouri.

New reports last night in the McDonald case suggest the answer to our question might be yes. Meanwhile, the free-lance journalist who brought video of the McDonald shooting to light says he is far from finished seeking details about the case via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Raw Story was among news sites reporting yesterday that still images taken inside a nearby Burger King on the night of the McDonald shooting show officers checking video from surveillance camera. Those are the same cameras from which the restaurant's manager said more than 80 minutes of video were missing.

Manager Jay Darshane said officers spent more than three hours at the restaurant that night, and the new images appear to support his story. Were the officers gathering evidence or tampering with evidence? The answer to that question is not clear, but we do know this:

* A police official originally had said McDonald lunged at officers with a knife, but video shows that did not happen.

* According to Raw Story, before McDonald’s family could even file a lawsuit, the city gave them a $5 million settlement on the condition that the family agreed not to publicly release the dashcam footage of the teen’s death. After suppressing the video for 13 months, the city received a court order to release the footage.

Does that sound like a police department that believes in transparency? Not exactly. But journalists are pushing for information anyway, led by Brandon Smith, who publishes the blog muckrakery! In an article yesterday at The Daily Beast, Smith said his efforts to shine light on the McDonald case are ongoing:

I’m the journalist who sued Chicago and won the release of the video that showed Laquan being shot to death 16 times on Oct. 20, 2014. But I’m not stopping there. With the help of attorneys, I’m continuing my Freedom of Information Act request of the city to release officer statements made to investigators, emails from city officials, and more. The public needs to know what as many as eight officers did immediately after the shooting, as well as how the department handled what should’ve been plainly seen as murder by one of its own officers that night.

Raw Story provided information about the minutes leading to the fatal encounter with police in Chicago:

Surrounded by officers and suspected of breaking into cars on October 20, 2014, Laquan McDonald, 17, was attempting to walk away from a group of Chicago cops when Officer Jason Van Dyke exited his patrol car. According to initial reports, McDonald was armed with a knife and lunged at Officer Van Dyke. Fearing for his life and the lives of his fellow officers, Van Dyke shot the teen in the chest out of self-defense.

But according to witness statements and police dashcam video, McDonald was walking away when Van Dyke opened fire. After McDonald had collapsed to the ground in a near-fetal position, Van Dyke continued firing his weapon until emptying his clip. As Van Dyke began reloading his gun, a fellow officer had to order him to cease firing at the dying teen.

McDonald’s autopsy revealed that Van Dyke shot him 16 times, including two bullets in the back, seven in his arms, two in his right leg, once on each side of his chest, and single bullets wounds to his right hand, scalp, and neck. Nine of the 16 entrance wounds had a downward trajectory. None of the five other officers at the scene fired their weapons.

What about the case here in Springfield, Missouri, where deputies brutalized my wife, Carol, and left her with a shattered left arm--as Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott watched from a few feet away? We've shown that Arnott's first instincts were to lie and cover up--falsely claiming that Carol had assaulted a police officer and ordering her arrested and taken to the county jail. Carol was told that she faced felony charges and a likely $100,000 bond, and that only changed when X-rays showed her arm had been severely broken just above the elbow, suggesting she was the victim, not the perpetrator, of an assault.

We've also shown that officers had no lawful grounds to be on the property that day because the eviction was unlawfully scheduled and was stayed by our Notice of Appeal filed the day before.

My guess is that the police dishonesty is just beginning in Carol's case. For example, we've seen evidence that officers concocted a claim that I had placed a 911 call, threatening any officers who attempted to evict us. I never made any such call, but comments on the scene that day indicate officers used their belief in such a "call" to justify acting like a SWAT team, pointing an assault rifle and multiple handguns at us as they burst into our apartment.

Scott Harrison, the deputy who drove Carol to jail, said he had heard the 911 call, and it had been traced to our phone and our apartment. That is impossible, but we will see what an investigation turns up.

Would cops lie to cover up their own misconduct--in Illinois, Missouri, or anywhere else? Here is video about the Laquan McDonald story that suggests a disturbing answer to that question:

How many executive types in Alabama and Missouri were stupid enough to sign up with Ashley Madison, the Web site that says, "Life is short, have an affair"?

(From techworld.com)

Are some people too stupid to use an extramarital-affair Web site like Ashley Madison? By "some people," I mean Charles J. "Chuck" Dean, a reporter with al.com, and Rob Campbell, an attorney with Birmingham-based Bradley Arant.

Here perhaps is a better question: How stupid do you have to be to fall for a scam like Ashley Madison? More on that question in a moment--and in a series of upcoming posts.

But first, more about Chuck Dean and Rob Campbell. We outed Dean as an Ashley Madison (AM) user in early September and even showed how he quoted Mark Twain in an effort to pick up women other than his wife. Campbell, the husband of Birmingham lawyer/politico Minda Riley Campbell and the son-in-law of former governor Bob Riley, got outed in late August--and we learned that Rob Campbell likes to provide oral sex, but apparently not to his wife.

What makes Dean and Campbell's extracurricular activities so stupid? Well, both of them claim in their Ashley Madison profiles that they are single. (See the profiles at the end of this post.) Now, the whole purpose of Ashley Madison is to perpetuate affairs--among people who are married or otherwise attached. If you are single and looking for someone to date, the Web is filled with sites for folks like you. (Here's an article about the 15 most popular dating sites, as of this month.)

Charles J. Dean
(From al.com)

But Ashley Madison? It's for people who are married and want to cheat on their spouses--that's the site's reason for being. It's the desire to cheat, not necessarily the desire to have sex, that seems to have driven AM's membership numbers into the stratosphere. So why are Dean and Campbell claiming on the site that they aren't married? Are they ashamed to admit that they are attempting to cheat? Do they each think that will somehow preserve what's left of his conscience? Can it only be attributed to clinical stupidity?

Heck, even Artur Davis, who has seen his political career go from "promising" to something that approximates "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," was not that stupid. Artur had the sense in his Ashley Madison profile to admit that he is "attached." Another word for attached is married. (Artur also describes himself as "shapely toned." Has another man in human history used those two words to describe his appearance?)

Here is the good news for Dean, Campbell, and Davis: They hardly are the only clodheads who were dense enough to use Ashley Madison--they have plenty of high-level, executive types as company.

Our Legal Schnauzer Computer Forensics and Accuracy Research Team (C-FART) has been pouring over Ashley Madison data from the infamous Team Impact hack, and the results are astounding. In fact, our research is nowhere near complete--and it's already astounding.

Our focus so far has been on Alabama and Missouri--the two states where I've lived in recent years--and the number of corporate, legal, political, executive types who fell for the AM scam is . . . well, if you think people who make lots of money by running businesses are smart, this might cause you to think twice about that.

According to one knowledgeable researcher, AM appears to have about 1,500 active female users, compared to 20 million men. In other words, millions of mostly married men were out there scrambling for affairs with women who, for the most part, did not exist. And these guys didn't see this coming?

Rob Campbell
(From babc.com)

You might think that men from big-time, established companies and institutions would be too smart (and maybe too busy) to get involved in such a charade. But our research indicates you would be wrong. And our upcoming posts will provide plenty of specifics on just how wrong you would be.

What are some of the Alabama entities we've seen with Ashley Madison users, and this is mostly from checking only the Birmingham metro area? What about similar entities in Missouri?

We will address both questions in upcoming posts, and then we will get down to shining light on the prominent individuals involved. But first, here are summaries of Ashley Madison data for Chuck Dean, Rob Campbell, and Artur Davis.


(To be continued)

Charles J. Dean Ashley Madison Profile by Forensic Schnauzer

Robert Campbell Ashley Madison Profile by Forensic Schnauzer

Artur Davis Ashley Madison Profile by Forensic Schnauzer

Shooting of Laquan McDonald in Chicago, and shattering of my wife's arm in Missouri, shine light on the growing threat to society from police dishonesty

Laquan McDonald
(From crooksandliars.com)

Police brutality remains front-page news around the country, with the latest outrage coming from Chicago, where video was released last week of the Laquan McDonald shooting.

The McDonald story has far-reaching dimensions. In a roundabout way, it touches on the political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. It has sparked a scathing rebuke of police officials from a Harvard-law graduate, writing at the nation's No. 1 law blog. And it prompts this troubling question: Is police dishonesty more common--and perhaps an even bigger threat to society--than police brutality?

My wife, Carol, and I have been asking ourselves that question since deputies in Greene County, Missouri, invaded our apartment on September 9--with an assault rifle and roughly a half dozen handguns drawn--for an "eviction" that was unlawfully scheduled and had been automatically stayed when we filed a Notice of Appeal the day before.

Carol and I both were handcuffed and led outside--even though there was no indication either of us had engaged in criminal activity--and a deputy eventually slammed Carol to the ground and broke her left arm so severely that it required trauma surgery for repair. Carol now is in intensive physical therapy for at least eight weeks, and caregivers have said she is expected, at best, to regain 75 percent usage in her arm.

How could this happen? Carol had been given permission to enter our apartment and retrieve personal belongings. She already had placed several items in our car and was about to make a second trip--primarily to retrieve our cat's litter box--when three officers surrounded her just off the front porch, slammed her to the ground and yanked violently on her arms, badly bruising both of them and shattering the humerus (just above the elbow) in the left one.

Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott was present for the eviction--why, we have no idea--and his immediate instinct was to lie. Standing roughly five feet away as Carol was being brutalized, Arnott pointed at her and said, "She assaulted a police officer."

I saw the same scene from about 15 feet away and almost guffawed when I heard Arnott's words; Carol did not initiate contact with anyone. But she was handcuffed behind her back--with one arm broken--placed into the back of a police cruiser, taken to the county jail and told she was going to be hit with a felony charge and likely $100,000 bond. Never mind that Carol had a bone that was fractured in four to five places and bruises all over, while there was no sign of injury on any officer.

X-ray of Carol Shuler's broken arm before
repair by trauma surgery

We've already shown that Arnott's actions were wildly contrary to Missouri law, and we will address that issue further in upcoming posts: Did the Missouri sheriff and perhaps other members of his staff commit federal crimes in causing Carol's false arrest and imprisonment? She was only released from custody after X-rays at Cox North Medical Center revealed the severe break in her arm. Maybe that gave Arnott some clue that Carol was the assaultee, not the assaulter.

Carol and I have seen police dishonesty in an up-close-and-personal way, but we are far from alone. Consider the Laquan McDonald case. The video that shows Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting McDonald 16 times never would have come to light if a free-lance journalist named Brandon Smith had not filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), seeking its release. Ironically, the McDonald family did not support Smith's efforts to bring the video to light.

As those who have followed the case of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman know, the government (sometimes with the help of corrupt judges) can stonewall FOIA requests for years. Somehow, the Smith case must have landed before an ethical judge in Chicago, and roughly a year after the McDonald shooting, we now have a sense of what actually happened on that night in October 2014. We certainly were not going to get that from Chicago police sources.

The day after Laquan McDonald died, a police-union official said Laquan had lunged at police. Here is an account from The Chicago Tribune, quoting Fraternal Order of Police spokesman Pat Camden:

Officers remained in their car and followed McDonald as he walked south on Pulaski Road. More officers arrived and police tried to box the teen in with two squad cars, Camden said. McDonald punctured one of the squad car's front passenger-side tires and damaged the front windshield, police and Camden said.

Officers got out of their car and began approaching McDonald, again telling him to drop the knife, Camden said. The boy allegedly lunged at police, and one of the officers opened fire.

The video released last week shows that McDonald did not lunge at officers. (See video at the end of this post.) Meanwhile, the manager of a Burger King near the shooting site said police tampered with surveillance video from the restaurant. From a report at aol.com:

The restaurant's manager has insisted for months that his surveillance system was tampered with by the very police officers he was trying to help. He says 86 minutes of video from around the time of the shooting was erased. His statements Friday support what lawyers for the McDonald family first told WGN news back on Nov. 18.

"A police detective and a technician went into the Burger King...and the Burger King employees, including the manager, looked at the video, and found about 83 minutes of video that were missing, which included the time the shooting occurred, " attorney Michael Robbins said.

State prosecutors and police officials adamantly deny that anyone tampered with video. But what kind of credibility do law-enforcement officials have these days? Not much, would be our reply.

Is the police dishonesty Carol and I have witnessed--along with that apparently surrounding the Laquan McDonald case--isolated? It doesn't look that way. A recent report at usuncut.com examines four instances where officers lied about being shot.

I might have had a hard time believing that at one time. But not anymore.

Elie Mystal, who has a J.D. degree from Harvard and writes at Above the Law, provides a disturbing perspective on police dishonesty in the aftermath of the Laquan McDonald shooting. The title of Mystal's article is "When Cops Do Their Jobs Black People Die."

I don’t think most cops think their job is to shoot unarmed black people to death. But I do think most cops think their job is to protect other cops — including the ones who shoot unarmed black people to death. Black people die not just because there are a few racist cops, but because there are many, many more cops who refuse to do anything about the violent racists in their ranks.

Police culture creates a world where a black teenager can be shot 16 times for jaywalking, and his killer can walk around free for a year while his superiors try to hide the evidence of the crime. This happens all the time. This has been happening all the time.

This isn’t news to me. Cops lie all the time, I’ve known that because I’ve had to know that as I try to get through this world without being shot to death. I didn’t need the damn snuff film to “prove” that racist cops in Chicago kill black people and the police department covers it up.

Why is the Jessica Medeiros Garrison story so important? Evidence suggests it is about much more than her affair with Alabama AG Luther Strange

Jessica Medeiros Garrison

The careful reader might ask, "Schnauzer, why have you spent so much time lately on Jessica Medeiros Garrison and her attack piece at marieclaire.com? I realize this must be a topic that inflames your passions, but isn't it time to move on to something else?"

That's a fair question, and here (I think) is a reasonable answer: Substantial evidence suggests Garrison's defamation lawsuit never has been about my reporting on her extramarital affair with Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange; that story is true, and Garrison, of all people, has to know that.

From a legal standpoint, Garrison has done nothing at trial, before a jury (as required by law), to show that my reporting was false and defamatory. On top of that, substantial evidence suggests she committed perjury during a hearing that led to a $3.5-million in her favor, and it's possible that a transcript of the proceedings would show that AG Strange also lied under oath.

That suggests Garrison's lawsuit, and her recent rant at women's fashion site Marie Claire, involve ulterior motives. I submit that's the reason Garrison's recent statements are filled with numerous falsehoods; it's pretty easy to keep your story straight when you are telling the truth--but Garrison isn't.

One of her bogus claims involves weighty, constitutional matters, and that's why I have pursued the story in considerable detail. Garrison portrays herself as a victim of defamation--even though my reporting never has been found to be false or defamatory at trial or in any adversarial proceeding--and she claims to be protecting other women from journalists. Given Garrison's political background, that is laughable.

In fact, Garrison is attacking journalism itself--and the First Amendment that is supposed to ensure a free press. That's why this story matters so much.

First, Garrison isn't just ranting about my reporting at Legal Schnauzer. She reportedly is trying to get Google to hide my posts in searches--even though they've never been found to be false or defamatory at trial. That is a blatant attempt at censorship. Google would be wise to steer very clear of that path.

Garrison also reportedly might speak at a National Lawyers Association (NLA) panel discussion on defamation law in the digital age. The public record, however, shows that, by law, she has not been defamed--at least not at Legal Schnauzer. Statements she might make at such a discussion likely would result in Garrison and the NLA defaming me. I sent an e-mail to the NLA, asking for information about the event, seeking a transcript (when it's available), and warning of the possible repercussions about possible false statements about me and my reporting on their platform. I have not received a reply.

Garrison likes to brag these days about trips to Apple Inc. in Cupertino, California, to apparently solicit funds for the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), which was started by her mentor, the virulently homophobic Bill Pryor, now a Bush-appointed federal judge. (Apple's Tim Cook is the first openly gay CEO in American history.) But what is really going on with Garrison? What points to her lawsuit, and her recent PR attack, being about something other than our coverage of the Luther Strange affair? We spelled that out in a post dated September 11, 2013. Here is the key material:

We've established that the first of my two communications with Jessica Medeiros Garrison came on July 12, when I sent her an e-mail requesting an interview about her relationship with Attorney General Luther Strange. I gave Garrison more than four days to respond, and I never heard from her, so my first report on her extramarital affair with Strange was published on July 17.

From that date until August 13, I published six posts about the affair, and I never heard from Garrison or her attorney, Bill Baxley.

My second e-mail to Jessica Garrison was sent at 1:50 p.m. on August 14 and included questions about two issues that have little, if anything, to do with Luther Strange. One issue was her purchase of a house that was appraised for almost $440,000 in the Crestline section of Mountain Brook. The other involved her business relationship with a man named Erik Davis Harp, who was indicted in 2009 as one of two kingpins in an illegal gambling ring based in Panama. According to published reports, leaders of the ring had ties to the Gambino and Genovese crime families.

Regular readers probably remember my first e-mail to Garrison, requesting an interview about her relationship with Luther Strange. But readers might have forgotten that the first e-mail generated no response from Garrison or her lawyer--not even when I wrote six posts about the Luther Strange affair in the aftermath, Readers might also have forgotten that I sent a second e-mail, one month and two days later, and that prompted an almost instant response from Garrison and Baxley.

Here are the contents of that second e-mail, dated August 14, 2013:

Ms. Garrison:

I am a journalist in Birmingham, reporting on justice/legal issues at a number of Web sites, including the blog Legal Schnauzer. I have been reporting about your relationship with Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange and would like to ask you a few questions for upcoming related articles:

(1) A document from your custody case, dated 5/23/12, states that you had a new address of 119 Main Street, Mountain Brook. Another public document shows that the property was sold at "public outcry" on two different dates, 6/12/12 and 7/20/12.

A. How could you have this new address in May when the property wasn't sold to you at public auction until June and July?

B. Was there really a public auction, where the property was available for open bids, or was the house somehow cherry picked for you? If so, who assisted in this matter, and why?

(2) Public records indicate you've had a business relationship with a man named Erik Davis Harp, formerly of Tuscaloosa. Published reports show that Mr. Harp was indicted for helping to run an illegal offshore gambling operation, based in Panama. Published reports further state that the operation had connections to the Gambino and Genovese crime families.

A. What was the nature of your business relationship with Mr. Harp? Is that relationship ongoing?

B. Given your public statements against gambling, and considering Luther Strange's strong opposition to gambling, how could you be connected to a gambling kingpin with ties to major criminal factions?

I ask that you respond to this request by 5 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 16.

Thank you,

Roger Shuler

legalschnauzer.blogspot.com

(205) 991-7438

As you can see, the second e-mail had almost nothing to do with the Luther Strange affair. It primarily involved the following issues:

* Garrison's apparent sweetheart deal on a house valued at more than $400,000 in the Crestline section of Alabama's snazziest suburb, Mountain Brook;

* Garrison's business ties to Tuscaloosa native Erik Davis Harp, who was indicted for his role as one of two kingpins in an offshore gambling operation that was based in Panama and drew scrutiny from the district attorney's office in Queens, New York;

The late Mafia kingpin
John Gotti, of the
Gambino family

* The gambling ring's ties to the Gambino and Genovese crime families--which, given Garrison's ties to Harp, raise questions about her connections to organized crime;

* Garrison's stunning hypocrisy on gambling.

So what's the real reason Jessica Garrison filed a defamation lawsuit against me for reporting about her affair with Luther Strange that has never been proven to be false?

Garrison's own actions suggest the lawsuit, and her recent Marie Claire rant, have nothing to do with the Strange affair. The real reason behind her jihad, I would suggest, lie somewhere in that second e-mail published above.

Translation: I likely wasn't sued for anything I reported; I was sued because of questions I was asking.

An attack on journalism? That's exactly what Jessica Medeiros Garrison is involved in.

Protests at the University of Alabama are not symbolic; racism resides in high places on campus, with "N word" used to describe Crimson Tide football players

UA students Kaylin Lee, Maiya Gaspard, and Alexis
Moody gather for a protest at Rose Hall
(from al.com)

The University of Alabama is one of several campuses around the country where students and faculty are protesting over race-based issues, in solidarity with students who recently forced leadership changes at the University of Missouri.

In fact, a student-faculty group called "We Are Done" staged a protest yesterday morning near Foster Auditorium on the UA campus. The group has issued a list of 10 demands that it claims will foster an environment of diversity and tolerance at UA.

We suspect the protests at several campuses are largely symbolic. But that should not be the case at the University of Alabama, where we have shown racism exists in very high places--and it's even directed at the powerhouse and supposedly beloved Crimson Tide football team.

Some students already have called attention to the ugliness that rests beneath the surface at UA. Several of them recently released a video about their encounters with racism on the Tuscaloosa campus. (See video at the end of this post.)

How high does racist rhetoric go at UA? As high as the private box of Paul Bryant Jr., a trustee emeritus and perhaps the Crimson Tide's most powerful booster.

J.T. Smallwood, the tax collector for Jefferson County, was in Bryant's box at an Alabama football game when he looked down over the enormous crowd and was heard to say the following:

"Can you imagine this many people pay us to watch n-----s beat up on each other?"

Language doesn't get much more vile and racist than that. When you consider that it was directed at football players, including those wearing crimson jerseys . . . well, it looks like "We Are Done" has a lot of work to do in Tuscaloosa.

Ironically, it was a threatened boycott from football players that apparently led Missouri's president and chancellor to announce their resignations after a series of race-based incidents on campus. Alabama, ranked No. 2 in the country, has a much better football team than Missouri. But that apparently has not earned much respect for Crimson Tide players among certain high-level fans and administrators.

Jefferson County tax collector
J.T. Smallwood
(from YouTube)

What was yesterday's protest like? Here is an account from Nick Privatera in The Crimson White student newspaper:

[Yesterday] morning, students with the We Are Done organization gathered in protest on campus at the Malone Hood Plaza and then marched to the steps of Gorgas library, where several students spoke at length and the protestors chanted for change.

The demonstration was held to promote changes on the issues of race, gender, sexuality, religion and socioeconomic status. We Are Done is also calling for the administration and the Board of Trustees to acknowledge the existence of the Machine and make strides to bring it above ground.

Some of the main goals for the group is to remove names of white supremacists and Confederate generals from University property, or at least erect markers denoting the racist history of the buildings’ namesakes.

Who is behind "We Are Done" at UA? The answer is not clear, but a recent article by Alyx Chandler in The Crimson White provides insight. From Chandler's article:

The group of concerned students, none representing specific organizations, collectively wrote a letter titled “We only have one demand” and placed it in University president Stuart Bell's secretary's possession that morning before classes started. The secretary confirmed that she received the letter.

“We want the administration to actually acknowledge that racism exists on campus," said Maiya Gaspard, a sophomore majoring in general health studies and one of the students standing in front of Rose. "We want for people to call it what it is, so we can start change."

The UA students stood for two reasons.

One was as concerned students for the University of Missouri, where the University president stepped down on Monday after controversies in which minority students demanded action from school leaders over what student activists called a climate of racism for the predominately white campus. . . .

“It's [Mizzou] creating a bridge,” said Kaylyn Lee, a senior majoring in political and communications studies.

The second reason dealt with students' grievances about administration involvement and acknowledgement on the UA campus about diversity and racism. The letter addressed the need for a diversity officer, a cultural diversity space and an updated version of the University's 2008 strategic diversity plan.

It should not be hard for university administrators to acknowledge that racism exists on campus. It easily can be found in the luxury box of perhaps the university's best known official. If it can be found there--directed toward Crimson Tide football players--God only knows where else it is present.

Alabama woman pleads guilty to violating grand-jury secrecy laws, while AG Luther Strange ignores apparent violations by powerful political, legal figures

LaToya Ware
(from MySpace)

A Montgomery, Alabama, woman this week pleaded guilty to attempting to reveal confidential grand-jury information. LaToya Ware is black, and the charges against her stem from proceedings related to a federal-state drug investigation, where most of the targets appear to be people of color.

All of which raises this question: LaToya Ware was charged with one count of violating the Alabama Grand Jury Secrecy Act, so why haven't similar charges been brought against white, conservative political/legal figures who apparently revealed grand-jury information related to the investigation in Lee County of House Speaker Mike Hubbard (R-Auburn)?

Court documents in the Hubbard case indicate Hubbard, former Governor Bob Riley; his son, Birmingham attorney Rob Riley; former Hubbard aide Josh Blades, and former Deputy Attorney General Sonny Reagan either leaked or received leaked grand-jury information. According to a report from Bill Britt of Alabama Political Reporter, evidence also suggests that Birmingham attorney Bill Baxley has been involved in schemes to obstruct the Hubbard grand jury.

Information about apparent efforts to corrupt the grand-jury process in Lee County has been known at least since September 2014. So why have charges not been brought against any of the possible participants? Are such charges more likely to be brought if you are a black female hearing a drug-trafficking case--such as LaToya Ware--than if you are a white male, with legal and political ties to ruling Alabama conservatives--such as the individuals in the Hubbard case?

Attorney General Luther Strange was quick to bring charges against Ms. Ware. But we've seen no sign that he intends to bring charges against Bob or Rob Riley, Josh Blades, Bill Baxley, or anyone else who--based on e-mail evidence in the Hubbard case--apparently released or sought secret grand-jury information.

Is Strange sitting on his hands because he has been political allies of the Rileys, with all of them having strong ties to the powerful Bradley Arant law firm in Birmingham--and all with apparent addictions to Indian gambling money, which has led them to attack non-Indian gaming facilities in Alabama, such as VictoryLand in Macon County and Center Stage Alabama in Houston County, near Dothan?

Is Strange giving Baxley a pass because the veteran Birmingham lawyer represents former Strange campaign aide Jessica Medeiros Garrison in a defamation case against this blog and me? Garrison has crowed about receiving a $3.5-million default judgment in the case, even though my reporting about her extramarital affair with Strange never has been proven false or defamatory at trial, before any jury.

Here is a disturbing question: Is Luther Strange practicing a smelly form of politics while serving as Alabama's chief prosecutor and law-enforcement official?

Luther Strange

I have no idea what kind of legal representation LaToya Ware had, but a first-year law-school student should be able to argue that Strange's prosecution violated equal-protection provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Alabama Circuit Judge William Shashy already has found that Strange's crusade against VictoryLand violated equal-protection principles.

Here is an uber disturbing question: Should the Mike Hubbard prosecution be dismissed because Luther Strange clearly is playing politics, by going after LaToya Ware while keeping hands off on Bob Riley, Rob Riley, Bill Baxley, etc.?

All evidence we've seen strongly points to Mike Hubbard being guilty. But as evidence mounts that Luther Strange is a political game player, Hubbard's claim that the AG targeted him for political reasons--to remove a prime opponent in a future race for governor--gains traction.

Those of us who opposed the political prosecution of former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman should also stand up for Mike Hubbard's right not to be targeted for political reasons.

The more Luther Strange plays softball with those who apparently violated grand-jury secrecy laws, the more it appears the Mike Hubbard case should be dropped.

Missouri Sheriff Jim Arnott caused my wife to be falsely arrested, and now he's turning away inmates because he claims the Greene Co. Jail is overcrowded

Sheriff Jim Arnott
(From KSPR)

The Missouri sheriff who caused my wife, Carol, to be falsely arrested--and to have a deputy shatter her arm, requiring trauma surgery--now is claiming the Greene County Jail he operates is overcrowded.

Sheriff Jim Arnott was standing about five feet from Carol on September 9 when three deputies surrounded her, brutally slammed her to the ground, and yanked so violently on her arm that it snapped the humerus and pulverized portions of the bone to the point that they were useless in the repair effort.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, Arnott pointed at Carol and said, "She assaulted a police officer."

How is that for law-enforcement hypocrisy? On one hand, Arnott falsely causes a citizen to be arrested--and a deputy told Carol the sheriff planned to hit her with a felony charge and $100,000 bond--leading to her being handcuffed, placed in the back of a squad car, and driven to the Greene County Jail. On the other hand, Arnott claims the jail is overcrowded, and he has adopted a policy of turning away municipal inmates that traditionally have been housed in the county jail.

In fact, the City of Springfield has filed a lawsuit against Arnott over his change in policy. The following is from a news report about the impact of Arnott's decision on public safety:

The report says local police agencies, between April 3 — when Arnott changed the policy — and Oct. 21, "came face-to-face with 2,812 people wanted on 2,763 warrants" and were forced to release them.

It says those nearly 3,000 crimes have gone "essentially unpunished" and have included 701 stealing warrants, 56 assault warrants and 53 DWI warrants.

The report includes excerpts from police reports in which alleged offenders taunted police using "the jail situation as evidence that there was nothing that could be done."

Does Sheriff Jim Arnott care if public safety is compromised because of the policies at his supposedly overcrowded jail? Doesn't look like it. Can Arnott concoct a bogus arrest of my wife in order to provide cover for the deputies who brutalized her and broke her arm? Sure does look like it? Is Jim Arnott willing to ignore jail crowding when it suits his unethical (and likely unlawful) purposes? Yep.

Cowherd Construction

Arnott apparently wasn't just trying to protect rogue deputies. He also was trying to protect Trent Cowherd, landlord and owner of Cowherd Construction, which seemingly was hell-bent on conducting an unlawful eviction against us. Cowherd had given us a notice to vacate that violated the terms of the lease. (See lease at the end of this post.) Specifically, Cowherd sought to have us re-qualify because the cosignor (my mother) wanted off our lease, even though there is no language in the lease that required us to re-qualify. Cowherd's own representative at trial admitted there was no such language in the lease.

We challenged the eviction as wrongful in trial court and had timely filed a Notice of Appeal, which put an automatic stay on the eviction. Cowherd, his law firm, the sheriff's department, and my own brother (attorney David Shuler, representing our mother) all chose to ignore the stay. On top of that, Cowherd and its law firm (Lowther Johnson) scheduled the eviction inside the 10-day window, where no such action can take place under Missouri law.

Does Jim Arnott take directions from Trent Cowherd and his law firm, regardless of what the law says? Does David Shuler do the same thing? Sure looks that way from here.

As for Carol, once X-rays at the nearby Cox North Medical Center showed the large bone in her upper arm had been shattered, jail personnel allowed paramedics to transfer her to Cox South, where she eventually underwent seven hours of trauma surgery, performed by Dr. Brian Buck. Carol now is facing at least eight weeks of physical therapy, with the "best case" outcome probably being a return of 75 percent usage in her arm.

The sheriff's department--with evidence showing that Carol was assaulted and not the other way around--apparently has decided that filing a bogus "assaulting an officer" charge would not be a good idea. But if Carol's arm had not been broken, it's likely she would have been facing a bogus charge and would still be in jail. With $100,000 bond, I would have had to pay $10,000 to get her released, and I'm not sure I would have been able to do that. Thanks to Jim Arnott, Carol would have been in jail for more than nine weeks, with no end in sight. All for a "crime" she did not commit--in fact, for a crime where she was the victim, not the perpetrator.

How do we know that is the case? There are two forms of felony assault in Missouri. Here is the description of Assault of a Law Enforcement Officer in the first degree under Section 565.008.2 of the Revised Missouri Statutes.

565.081. 1. A person commits the crime of assault of a law enforcement officer, corrections officer, emergency personnel, highway worker in a construction zone or work zone, utility worker, cable worker, or probation and parole officer in the first degree if such person attempts to kill or knowingly causes or attempts to cause serious physical injury to a law enforcement officer, corrections officer, emergency personnel, highway worker in a construction zone or work zone, utility worker, cable worker, or probation and parole officer.

I doubt even Jim Arnott could claim with a straight face that Carol tried to kill an officer or cause serious physical injury, especially since it seems clear no deputy on site that day left with a scratch on him/her.

Here is the definition of Assault on a Law Enforcement Officer in the second degree:

A person is guilty of the crime of assault in the second degree against a law enforcement officer, corrections officer, emergency personnel (such as a firefighter, emergency room personnel or emergency medical technician), highway worker, or probation and parole officer if he:

* knowingly causes or attempts to cause physical injury to the victim by means of a deadly weapon or other dangerous instrument

* recklessly causes serious physical injury to the victim

X-ray of Carol Shuler's broken arm,
before repair via trauma surgery

* while intoxicated by drugs or alcohol, operates a motor vehicle with criminal negligence and causes physical injury to the victim

* acts with criminal negligence and causes physical injury to the victim by means of a deadly weapon purposely threatens the victim with immediate serious physical injury, or

* acting with criminal negligence, creates a substantial risk of death or serious physical injury to the victim.

Carol had no deadly weapon or dangerous instrument in her possession, she didn't cause serious physical injury to anyone, she doesn't drink or use illegal drugs and she was not driving, she didn't have a deadly weapon with which to threaten anyone, and she created no risk of death of serious physical injury to anyone.

The only one who was seriously injured was her. And the whole incident, when taken in context with the overcrowded Greene County Jail, shows that Sheriff Jim Arnott is both a liar and a monumental hypocrite.

Cowherd--Rental Agreement by Roger Shuler

Americans have been tolerating terrorists on our soil for years; we give robes and call them "Your Honor"

Terror attacks in Paris
(From Getty Images)

If you watched news coverage last night about terrorist attacks in Paris, you probably had the impression that the United States will not tolerate terrorists on its shores. In fact, you might have come away with the impression that America is on the verge of engaging in a holy war against terrorism. After all, 27 governors, all but one Republicans, have said they will not allow Syrian refugees to enter their states for fear that one refugee, or more, will turn out to be a terrorist.

But what is the truth? America has tolerated terrorists on our soil for years. In fact, we not only tolerate them, we elevate them--we let them wear robes, we give them immunity from almost all lawsuits, we give them lifetime appointments (in some instances), and we call them "Your Honor."

Yes, we are talking about American judges as terrorists, and regular readers of this blog know that we have presented mountains of evidence to show that some judges (one would be too many) use their exalted positions to terrorize certain parties that come before them. We've also shown that individuals in certain professions--lawyers, law-enforcement officials, corporate executives--all too often serve as enablers and accomplices for corrupt judges.

Terrorist networks in the United States might not always engage in violence, but there is no universally accepted definition of terrorism. Violence often is considered part of the equation, but not always--use of intimidation and threats can be enough. Some use the term "illegal use of force," which might not always entail violence.

We have used the term "financial terrorism" (see here and here) to describe terror tactics associated with U.S. judges and lawyers.

Greene County, Missouri, Sheriff Jim Arnott
(From KSPR)

But my wife, Carol, and I have experienced abuse over the past two years or so that matches almost any definition of terrorism--including the element of violence. Consider the following:

Roger Shuler apparently is the only journalist in U.S. history to be incarcerated because of a preliminary injunction that violates 200 years of First-Amendment law--Beginning in January 2013, I wrote a series of posts about Birmingham lawyer Rob Riley (son of former GOP governor Bob Riley) and a lobbyist named Liberty Duke. This apparently upset Alabama's ruling conservative elites, so Riley and Duke filed a defamation lawsuit against me and Carol (even though Carol had nothing to do with the posts, or the blog in general, at the time.) Riley and Duke asked Circuit Judge Claud Neilson to violate more than 200 years of First Amendment by issuing a temporary restraining order and permanent injunction. In short, Riley and Duke sought a "remedy" that is not available under the law, but Neilson granted their request--essentially finding that my reporting was false and defamatory, even though there had been no discovery, no trial, no jury.

To this day, there never has been a finding at trial that my reporting on Rob Riley and Liberty Duke was false or defamatory. But I still was arrested and spent five months in the Shelby County Jail because Riley and Duke (and probably others) wanted me punished in a way that the law does not allow. I planned to challenge Neilson's ruling on several fronts--first, by showing that Carol and I were unlawfully served during a traffic stop that violated the U.S. Fourth Amendment, and second, by showing that the remedies Riley and Duke sought were blatantly unconstitutional.

I filed a Motion to Quash Service and was waiting for a ruling on that when Deputy Chris Blevins entered our garage on October 23, 2013--without showing a warrant, stating he had a warrant, or stating his purpose for being there--and beat me up (knocking me to a concrete floor three times) and spraying mace in my face before hauling me to jail.

Was this violent? Without a doubt. Was it designed to intimidate and threaten for political reasons? Absolutely. Was it terrorism on American soil? No doubt in my mind.

Missouri deputies shatter Carol Shuler's arm as she was trying to retrieve our cat's litter box during an unlawful eviction--Cowherd Construction, of Springfield, Missouri, was seeking to evict us from an apartment late this summer (in violation of the terms in our lease). An eviction date was set for September 9, which is inside the 10-day window where, under Missouri law, a landlord cannot carry out (the legal term is "levy") an eviction. That was not the only problem owner Trent Cowherd faced--we also had filed a Notice of Appeal (clearly shown in court records), and that put an automatic stay on the eviction.

With the help of the Lowther Johnson and Shuler law firms (headed by my own brother, David), Cowherd moved forward anyway. Deputies burst through our door, pointing at least one assault rifle at me (along with multiple handguns) and immediately handcuffing Carol and me, even though we had been accused of no crime.

X-ray of Carol Shuler's arm before
trauma-surgery repair
(From Carol Shuler and Cox North
Medical Center)

In the chaos that followed, Carol was given permission to enter the apartment to retrieve items that we could put in our car. She was in the process of doing that--specifically, trying to get our cat's litter box--when at least three deputies surrounded her. One or more slammed her to the ground so hard that I still think she suffered a concussion. As Sheriff Jim Arnott stood watch a few feet away, a deputy yanked and twisted on Carol's arm so violently that her left arm was shattered--requiring trauma surgery and at least eight weeks of physical therapy--and her right arm was mostly purple from bruising.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, Arnott claimed Carol had assaulted a police officer, ordered her handcuffed again, and transported to the Greene County Jail, where she apparently was facing a felony charge and bail of $100,000. When X-rays showed that Carol's arm was broken, someone in the sheriff's hierarchy apparently decided that the evidence didn't support an "assaulting a police officer claim." In fact, it supported an assault charge against the police officer in question. (We still don't know his name.)

Was this violent? Without a doubt. Was it designed to intimidate and threaten for political reasons? Absolutely. Was it terrorism on American soil? We invite you to take a look at the X-ray of Carol's arm, before repair via trauma surgery, and decide for yourselves.