David J. Cieslak
PHOENIX - Maricopa County prosecutors are considering felony aggravated assault charges against a Phoenix police officer accused of pulling a knife on a restrained drunken driving suspect.
Officer Chris Treadway, assigned to the department's motorcycle patrol unit in north Phoenix, has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation into the Aug. 28 incident, said Detective Tony Morales, a Phoenix police spokesman.
Treadway, 30, who has been with the department since 1995, threatened the suspect with a knife when the man became verbally combative during a court-ordered blood withdrawal to test for alcohol in his system, Morales said.
The suspect, who Morales would not name, was tied to a chair when Treadway brandished the knife, a weapon not issued by the department, Morales said.
"For reasons unknown, apparently the officer displayed a knife in a threatening manner to this individual," Morales said without elaborating.
Detectives investigating the incident recommended that prosecutors charge Treadway with two counts of felony aggravated assault, said Bill FitzGerald, a Maricopa County Attorney's Office spokesman.
Prosecutors have yet to decide whether they will file charges.
Phoenix Police investigators submitted the case to prosecutors this month, FitzGerald said.
Treadway couldn't be reached for comment Thursday.
Senta Scarborough and Patricia Biggs
A scientific reconstruction of a police shooting of a teenage boy contradicted eyewitness family accounts and cleared Mesa officers who fired 15 shots in 2.2 seconds.
The parents of Mario Albert Madrigal Jr., 15, had garnered public attention immediately after the Aug. 25 shooting by demonstrating on television news broadcasts their execution-style account of his death.
The widely divergent accounts by police and family prompted Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley to supervise the two-month investigation by the Mesa Police Department and bring in Lucien Haag, an internationally renowned firearms expert.
Haag oversaw laboratory testing on bullets, casings, even paint chips from a carport wall. Specialists with the FBI analyzed a 911 tape to determine how long the shooting lasted.
On Wednesday, Romley said "nothing corroborates" the family's version.
"The family's account fails on every test. It did not happen," Romley told reporters.
He said the officers will not face criminal charges.
The teen's father, Mario Madrigal Sr., was unswayed by Romley's decision.
"Mesa police killed my son, Mesa police are doing the investigation, they can do whatever they want, come up with whatever they want," he said.
"Romley talks based on what Mesa police give him."
Edward Fitzhugh, the family's attorney, said the investigation by Mesa police of their officers can't be impartial.
"We have disagreed with that process from the very beginning," he said. "We're going to evaluate and have our own experts review it."
Three other civilians were shot by Mesa police in the 16 days after Madrigal's death, prompting calls for a civilian review board. Mesa City Council is appointing a task force to study the idea.
In an unusual move, Romley and Haag gave a 90-minute presentation to reporters Wednesday, taking them through the investigation.
Romley described Mario Jr. as "a very troubled young man" who became aggressive and combative when he drank. An autopsy placed the teen's blood-alcohol content at 0.13 percent, legally drunk. Martha Madrigal called police at 1:13 a.m. Aug. 25 saying her son had a knife and wanted to kill himself. Seven officers responded to the west-side Mesa home.
In less than four minutes, Mario Jr. lay dying from 10 gunshot wounds.
Haag, who is an expert in reconstructing shooting scenes, matched up bullets to bullet holes and officers' locations to cartridge casings.
He said the forensic evidence "irrefutably and absolutely" put Mario Jr. on the carport at least 4 feet outside the kitchen door when officers began firing, not inside as the parents claimed.
"It places him still facing the officers in a stooping and bent forward position," he said.
Sgt. Orlando Dean and Officer Jeffrey Wiedemann stood between a car and the carport wall. Officer Mark Beckett stood at the outside edge of the carport directly in line with Mario Jr. and the kitchen door. Officer Richard Henry stood at the outside of the carport about midway back along the car.
Wiedemann and Beckett fired Tasers. Wiedemann's missed the boy and Beckett's hit the teen's chest with only one probe and had no effect.
Henry and Beckett each fired six shots from their Glock .40-caliber handguns; Dean fired three.
The parents and younger brother all said that the Taser brought Mario Jr. down and that an officer shot him as he lay on the kitchen floor.
"There's no bullet damage anywhere on the floor," Haag said.
The weapons the officers fired eject empty casings to the right and rear. If an officer had leaned over the teen as he lay on the kitchen floor, the casings would have landed inside the house. But 15 casings were found in the carport.
There was no gunpowder residue on the teen, which would have been left from a close gunshot, Haag said.
Mario Jr. was dead less than 20 minutes after his mother called police.
An autopsy showed the teen had been grazed on the left thigh and chest, shot in the left shoulder, left chest, abdomen, twice in the left arm, twice in the left side of his back, and once in midback.
Haag demonstrated how Mario Jr. had likely been moving forward in a crouch, then turned as the bullets struck him from three directions.
Officers fearful
A 1,202-page police report gave statements by the three men who fired.
Dean, who told investigators he thought he was the first to fire, said Mario Jr. got within 10 inches of Beckett. Dean shot because "I thought Beckett's life was in danger."
Beckett told investigators he fired the Taser as soon as he saw Mario Jr. waving the knife. He said he was "absolutely" afraid and that the knife came close to hitting his arm.
Henry told investigators the boy "was going crazy."
"I thought he actually caught him (Beckett) with the knife, that's how close he was," Henry said.
The FBI, which has been conducting a civil-rights investigation into the shooting, will send the report to the U.S. Department of Justice for review.
Mesa Police Chief Dennis Donna said the department will begin its internal review to make sure officers followed procedures.
He said all officers will be attending a crisis-intervention program.
Phil Austin, Mesa Association of Hispanic Citizens president, said he is forging ahead for a police review board.
The symbiotic relationship between Mesa police and the county attorney, in which both sides work together every day to catch and prosecute criminals, made him doubt the investigation's credibility.
"You have this relationship that seems to be . . . no, I think it is a conflict," said Austin, also an attorney in Mesa.
Sarah Muench
MESA - Television news vans lined Johnson Street on Wednesday in west Mesa, where the father of a teen killed by police paced in his driveway, speaking passionately over a cellphone.
Reporters seeking Mario Madrigal Sr.'s reaction to a county report clearing three police officers in the Aug. 25 shooting of Mario Madrigal Jr., 15, heard the same things: grief and outrage.
"We knew they were going to come out with a report like that," Madrigal said. "Mesa police killed my son, Mesa police are doing the investigation. They can do whatever they want, come up with whatever they want."
For the past few months, Mario and Martha Madrigal have been sleeping in Mario Jr.'s bed. It makes them feel closer to him.
They keep a burning candle and a flower where his head rested after he was shot while they and their younger son watched.
"They pushed my wife out of the way, shot my son with the Taser and filled him with bullets when he was on the ground," Mario Sr. said Wednesday.
He and Martha point out bullet holes that are waist-level or lower in the side of their back door. Bullet holes in the kitchen island are circled with black marker.
Mario Jr.'s grandmother, Loreto Ontiveros, pointed out the bullet holes and said in Spanish, "I wish there was justice on this Earth."
In Mario Jr.'s room, his bed is still covered with a Pittsburgh Steelers blanket, his clothes for school on Aug. 26 still hang neatly in the closet and his math book rests on a shelf.
Wednesday's report by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office contradicts most of the statements the family has made about the shooting. But the couple say they aren't giving up.
"The truth will come out, we know that. The truth will come out eventually," Martha said.
Paradise Valley police picked the wrong black man to stop
BY ROBERT NELSON
"Town of Paradise Valley Police," the dispatcher answers the radio.
"This is Buck," Sergeant Buck Boehm says.
"Yes, Buck."
"You know where the Baskin-Robbins is by the Mobil station on Gold Dust and Scottsdale Road?"
"Okay."
"Okay. This vehicle is parked right in front of Baskin-Robbins. Looks like either two ragheads or two blacks in it. They're not eating ice cream. And the one guy is on the cell phone, man, they look real suspicious."
This Paradise Valley police dispatch tape was recorded the evening of December 13, 2001.
The dispatcher called Scottsdale police for help.
"There's two, either Arab or black males, sitting in the vehicle, and occasionally talking on the cell phone, but, you know, not doing
anything -- going into the stores or anything -- they're just sitting there scoping it out.""PV units be advised the registration address of this vehicle is south central L.A. from the Rodney King riots area."
Yes, Okeme Oziwo had been raised in and lived in the "Rodney King riots area" of Los Angeles. That fact made his attainment of a master's degree in social work from Arizona State University, his current pursuit of a Ph.D. and his overcoming of a horrible car accident to reach fame as a Harlem Globetrotter that much more of an inspirational story.
But, this night in Paradise Valley, Oziwo was just a black guy who didn't leave a PV ice cream store quickly enough.
For that, PV police decided that Oziwo was such a threat they needed to conduct what they called a felony stop on Oziwo's car. Oziwo had no police record, his car's registration was valid and he broke no traffic laws as he drove away from the Baskin-Robbins.
Still, six police cars swarmed Oziwo's car as it came to a stop at 64th Street and Shea Boulevard, near his passenger's home. With guns drawn, police ordered Oziwo out of the car, ordered him to march 30 feet with hands on his head, drop to his knees, then place his hands behind his back for handcuffing.
His passenger, Matt Lyons, who looks about as Arab or African American as John Ashcroft, was told to do the same.
Stories diverge at this point. Oziwo says police cuffed him "extremely hard, to the point I was in a lot of pain." Oziwo says he then asked officers to loosen the cuffs.
"So they proceeded to squeeze the cuffs three times," Oziwo tells me recently in a phone call from his parents' home in Los Angeles.
"It hurt like hell."
PV Police Lieutenant Ron Warner, who's in charge of field operations, says that an investigation of the incident, which, it must be noted, entailed PV police officials talking to the police officers involved, says officers did no such thing.
"There was no intentional tightening of the cuffs -- period," Warner says. "Handcuffs are by their nature a hard device. They can cause bruising. But they were not intentionally tightened in this case."
After Oziwo and Lyons were tossed in police cruisers, the two got an amazing break. Within a few minutes, Lyons' father, Hal, a well-known and influential ASU booster, arrived home and saw his son and his buddy being treated as felons. He quickly explained to police that Oziwo was a visitor at his house. Lyons and Oziwo were released.
But for Oziwo, the incident has left lasting anger.
That anger, he says, was punctuated by searing pain in his wrists and right hand, the right hand that was critical to the shooting, dribbling and dunking tricks he performed as a member of the Harlem Globetrotters.
That alleged injury began a bizarre chain of events that led to Oziwo's dismissal from the Globetrotters.
Now, Oziwo wants compensation from Paradise Valley police. He filed a lawsuit last month.
As with most such lawsuits, the particular wrong is deemed by the plaintiff's attorneys to be a part of systemic wrong. Oziwo's attorney, Joel Robbins, argues that not only did PV police wrongfully seize and injure Oziwo, they did so, possibly, because they had no black officers, no specific racial profiling training for officers and a pattern of brushing off claims of racial insensitivity made against the department.
Looking at the case, the broader charges by Robbins look like a case of an attorney trying to stretch a triple into a home run.
But, you can be the judge.
The Paradise Valley police force has no African Americans among its 34 officers. It has two Hispanic officers and one female officer. There were no blacks on the force at the time of the Oziwo incident.
That's because, Warner says, PV police have had trouble recruiting both minority officers and young officers. The force advertises positions in minority police association literature around the country. But Paradise Valley's reputation for being a sleepy enclave of rich white people isn't very inviting to new recruits or minorities, Warner says.
"We definitely have tried, but we can't seem to excite recruits about coming here," he says. "We also have the problem, if you can call it a problem, of having a very low turnover rate. Our officers are mostly in their mid- to late 40s."
Recruiting minority officers can be a genuine problem for smaller police forces around the country, especially if the community has little resemblance to the community the recruit is from.
And I don't buy the idea that just because an African American isn't present in a group, that group is automatically anti-African American.
Robbins points to the fact that PV police investigations of themselves in the last five years have always come to the same conclusion as the conclusion in Oziwo's case:
"Allegations of excessive force is unfounded. All Paradise Valley officers cleared. No correction action needed."
Perhaps this is true in previous cases, of which there are few.
However, I don't believe this is true in this particular case.
What happened to Okeme Oziwo may not be part of a sinister pattern, but it still was a major screw-up that quite possibly damaged a remarkable young man's life.
PV police admit no wrongdoing in Oziwo's case and see no need to add special racial profiling training, address their dearth of minority officers or have their internal investigations reviewed by an outside source -- ideas raised in Oziwo's lawsuit. The only problem in the incident, Warner says, was with the language used by Officer Boehm.
"The officer was talked to about what everybody agrees was a poor choice of words," Warner says. "But that is the extent of the problem here."
Warner asserts that Boehm "wasn't even aware" that he was pulling over a black man when he made the stop.
But, Warner says, Boehm had a right to be suspicious because cops were on the lookout for "a black gang from Los Angeles" that had been responsible for jewelry thefts in the area.
Okay.
Then I read him the dispatch transcript in which Boehm says he's spotted "either two ragheads or two blacks" outside the Baskin-Robbins.
Warner responds with what I rate as the top piece of spin I've heard this year.
"The officer said black or Arab,'" Warner says. "So, like I said, he didn't know."
"How was this not racial profiling?" Oziwo asks. "The most important thing is to make sure they don't do something like this again. Because with all their guns pulled and all the screwed-up assumptions in their heads, somebody could get killed."
In Oziwo's case, it was a relatively minor injury. But in his profession, a minor injury, especially after the grisly series of major injuries he had already suffered, can mean the end of a career and a dream.
Oziwo, whose father immigrated from Nigeria, was born and raised in Los Angeles. Growing up, he was a very good student and an even better basketball player.
In the late 1990s, Oziwo came to ASU to play basketball and pursue a degree in social work.
In August of 1999, just before his sophomore year, Oziwo was driving back to Tempe from his home in California when he fell asleep at the wheel. When he came to, both his car and his body were mangled. He broke several bones, including his pelvis, and almost lost his arm. During his two months in the hospital, several doctors said he'd be lucky to walk again, let alone play basketball.
But with the help of Rich Winter, the strength coach at ASU, Oziwo did make an almost full recovery. He had lost some quickness, which stopped him from being a top college player, but he regained his unique ball-handling skills around the basket.
"Rich Winter just did amazing work," Oziwo says. "I owe so much to him. My life is so much different because of the help and insights he gave me."
One of Oziwo's teammates at ASU got invited to try out for the Globetrotters. Oziwo tagged along. Enamored of Oziwo's ball-handling and dunking skills, as well as his character and personality, the Globetrotters offered him a job.
In his first tour with the Globetrotters, he traveled throughout Europe and South America. Then came September 11, 2001, which disrupted travel plans, and worse, December 13.
After the police incident, Oziwo says he awoke with numbness and pain in his wrists. The numbness in his right hand extended up into his middle finger.
Doctors said the ligament in the finger was strained.
He stayed away from practice for a month. Even when he returned, though, the numbness remained.
During the first practice with the injury, he got that same finger caught in the net as he went up to dunk. This time, the ligament was fully torn.
"I had an option to get surgery or to play," he says. "And I decided to try to play."
But he was clearly damaged goods on the court. His middle finger would no longer bend.
That middle finger led to one of the strangest stories I've heard. Oziwo's take on what happened is supported by court documents.
During a particularly grueling public relations tour along the East Coast, Oziwo and other Globetrotters had to pass through security at three different small airports.
Each time, likely because of the Muslim name, Oziwo was picked for a full search.
At the third airport, the security officer doing the search took offense at what he thought was Oziwo was flipping him off.
"I'm standing there, hands in the air and because my middle finger won't bend, it's just standing up straight for everyone to see," he says. "Then I feel this tap on my shoulder. It's this officer who says, Look, you don't have to be a jackass.'"
So Oziwo brings his hand down and gives the officer a close-up of his finger.
Weeks later, the Globetrotters receive word that one of their players had been detained for harassing airport security. Oziwo was let go from the Globetrotters, even though the officer and everyone involved later admitted the whole incident was a mistake.
"I was damaged goods by then," he says. "It was going to be over one way or another."
Which marked the end of his basketball career. Oziwo will soon return to ASU to begin working toward his Ph.D. in social work. He wants to have the education in place to start up a community program for underprivileged kids.
But while he's finished with the Globetrotters, he's not finished with the Paradise Valley police.
His lawsuit seeks damages for assault, false arrest and unreasonable seizure, all charges the Paradise Valley police will fight.
"You know, I would maybe expect that kind of thing to happen here in L.A.," Oziwo says. "But nothing like that had ever happened to me in Arizona. Well, until I went to Paradise Valley."
No charges in Mesa police killing of knife-wielding teen
Senta Scarborough and Patricia Biggs
Three Mesa police officers who shot and killed a 15-year-old Mesa boy in front of his family two months ago will not face criminal charges, prosecutors have decided.
Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley announced Wednesday afternoon after his office reviewed the Aug. 25 shooting of Mario Albert Madrigal Jr., who held a knife and reportedly ignored repeated commands by police to drop his weapon.
Mesa police had been called to the boy's home by his parents after he threatened to kill himself with a knife.
After unsuccessfully using a Taser, officers shot Mario Madrigal Jr. as his parents and a 9-year-old brother watched.
Police said the teenager, who had been drinking, failed to respond to commands and came towards them in a threatening manner, but family members said Mario Jr. dropped the knife after being Tased and was not threatening officers.
The shooting prompted church vigils and protests, and a renewed community cry for creation of a police civilian review board and additional police training. City Council is in the midst of naming a task force to study the idea of a review board.
The Madrigal was the first of four police shootings in less than three weeks in August and September. Madrigal was one of two deaths. Both he and the other fatality, Mary Ann Minchew, 27, were brandishing knives, police say.
Independent news article
On October 23, 2003 about 45-50 citizens appeared at the Mesa Police Department to hold a peaceful "silent vigil" and burn a few candles. Afterwards, a prayer was offered and free literature was handed out. The next rally in Mesa will be held in Patriot Park across from the Mormon Temple where peaceful demonstrators will silently offer prayers for their departed loved ones on Sunday, November 2nd at sundown. In order for the numbers of attendees to improve, involved citizens must spread the word and legal action must be more successful than in previous cases. There is no scheduled changes in Police Policy for the recent rash of "Cop assisted suicides." [4 people shot in 17 day period, 3 fatal]. Previous peaceful protests have gone unnoticed. Montini wrote a News article in the AZ Rep prior to the Silent Protest in which he stated: "There are a few public demonstrations planned by citizens troubled by recent deaths at the hands of police. I'm wondering if anyone will take them seriously." Obviously, since the "butter knife" killing in Apache Junction, no one has taken the "silent," "troubled" "protesters" seriously, as the killing continues, unabated and with increasing intensity. No one took the Ruby Ridge Tragedy seriously until a jury awarded 3.1 million dollars to the husband and family of Victoria Weaver who was killed by a BATF sniper, Lon T. Horiuchi, [also infamous at Waco]. The family also lost Sammy, their 14 year old boy to U.S. Marshals who shot Sammy in the back after the Marshals killed his dog. It is believed the U.S. Marshals killed one of their own by friendly fire, since no one reported on where the bullet came from that killed Marshal Dugan. The Federal Civil case in Waco Texas, brought by the families of the victims was dismissed. [See Isabell G. Andrade v. Phillip J. Chojnacki, Case Number W-96-CA-139] People of Waco should be ashamed of themselves to allow injustice, as it indirectly caused McVey to bomb the OKC building two years later. At least in Idaho, juries disapproved of Police/Marshalls' killings. As a result of the two lawsuits regarding the Circle K killings of a teenage boy and his girl friend (criminal case and civil case against City of Mesa), the juries have found to approve Police Killings. City of Mesa Citizens should be ashamed of themselves. I have enclosed a copy of Montini's article - titled:
Carlos Miller
More than 50 self-described anarchists and pacifists marched through downtown Phoenix Wednesday evening in commemoration of the eighth annual National Day of Protest Against Police Brutality.
Chanting anti-police slogans and holding up signs that called for the disarmament of officers, the protesters marched down Washington Street to the Phoenix Police Department headquarters.
There, under the watchful eye of police officers on horse, foot and bicycle, the protesters directed their rage toward the building.
Some jeered and danced. Others sneered and made obscene gestures. And others simply held their signs up in defiance.
The protesters consisted of the following groups:
• Phoenix Copwatch and Tempe Copwatch, which try to prevent police brutality by videotaping officers as they interact with civilians.
• Women in Black Phoenix, part of an international network of women opposed to war and militarism.
• Food Not Bombs, a local chapter of the national anti-war group that helps feed the homeless.
• Free to Camp Coalition, a Tempe group that is trying to repeal the city ordinance that forbids homeless people from sleeping on the streets.
On Friday, the groups will attend a candlelight vigil for Mario Madrigal Jr., the 15-year-old killed by Mesa police on Aug. 25. The vigil will begin at 6 p.m. in front of the Mesa Police Station, 130 N. Robson.
Why does CPS get more heat than COPS?
Arizona Republic
Oct. 23, 2003 12:00 AM
I'm wondering why Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley isn't using the same strong-arm tactics with local police departments that he has been using with the folks at Arizona's Child Protective Services. I'm wondering why Gov. Janet Napolitano and members of the state Legislature aren't all up in arms over the need to reform law enforcement procedures the way they are about reforming CPS procedures. I'm wondering, ultimately, why the death of 15-year-old Mario Madrigal is somehow less important than the death of any other child. The politicians I've spoken with say that it isn't so. They say that Madrigal's death is just as tragic and significant as the death of children who've come into contact with CPS. But I don't see any of them calling for a special session of the Legislature or contemplating a special grand jury. I didn't hear any speeches about the need for reform after police shot four people during a 17-day period in August, killing two of them. Or after the many other incidents that have occurred in the past several years. Romley's office now has the homicide report that Mesa police filed in the Madrigal case, outlining what happened between the time Madrigal's family called police for help and when he was killed for allegedly threatening officers with a knife. Romley hasn't said if he plans to prosecute any of the officers involved, though most people expect him to decide that no crime was committed. Most of us would agree with that. Most of us would say that the officers who shot Mario Madrigal are good guys doing a tough job under difficult circumstances. Which is exactly the same spot CPS workers are in. Only for less money and less respect. And they don't get to carry guns. When I first asked Romley's office why police reform wasn't as high on his agenda as CPS reform I was told that all of the Valley's different departments make up their own procedures and are out of his jurisdiction. But then, the same is true of CPS. Neither police officers nor CPS workers get into their professions to become rich. Instead, they're doing the necessary and sometimes dirty work that the rest of us avoid. I just haven't heard many high-profile politicians demanding "reform" or a review of procedures following the deaths of those who confront police. It can't be because police deal only with criminals, because sometimes we're talking about people with mental and emotional problems. In addition to criminal intent, police deal with confusion, ignorance and every other social disorder. Which is what CPS workers must deal with. I haven't heard the governor or the county attorney demanding civilian review boards for all local police departments or threatening to cut state funds to cities that don't give police departments all the additional people and additional training they may need to carry out the complex work that policing has become. Based on his prosecution of a Chandler officer for shooting a woman, along with his willingness to consider cases like Madrigal's, Romley says that he IS tough on police. "Cops don't like me either," he said. "They're asking, 'Is that dumb county attorney going to prosecute me?' Hey, they don't want to shoot anybody. The more training and the more we look at different techniques, the better. And if there has to be additional investment of money, so be it. We need to do more. I think that there is a discussion that is beginning to go on that will take training to another level." It's a good idea, stated reasonably. I'm wondering why CPS people aren't spoken of the same way. I'm wondering if maybe it's because social workers are easier to criticize publicly than police departments. Romley told me that he is raising the problems of CPS to "a political level" because he's "hoping in the long term to get some changes." I'm wondering if the same could be done with police issues. With the problems of suicide-by-cop. With the problems of family disputes. With the problems of the mentally ill. There are a few public demonstrations planned by citizens troubled by recent deaths at the hands of police. I'm wondering if anyone will take them seriously. Reach Montini at (602) 444-8978.
Independent news article
National Day Against Police Brutality Annual Rally - October 22, 2003, Phoenix, Arizona
A group of approximately 75 met at Patriot Park, downtown Phoenix at 5:00 p.m. Various groups participated from around the valley. Soup was brought by one group. Thanks. After meeting, most of the group walked several blocks West to the front of the Phoenix Police Department to voice their concerns of Police Brutality stemming from before the Edward Mallet incident several years ago where Phoenix Police choked Mr. Mallet to death. Two bicycle Cops followed the group. Notably Mr. Mallet had no legs and was taken by force from his car by the Police. Since that time, a few changes have occurred in Phoenix Police Policy; however, the brutality continues, as citizens are targeted by DNA Blue Forces and Rogue Cops. Chandler Rogue Cop Lovelace killed Dawn Rae Nelson from Awatukee at an Osco Drug Store by shooting her in the back, while other Cops killed Rudy Buchanan, Jr., and Ali Altug. Mesa Cops killed two teenagers at a Circle K on Main and Longmore several years ago, while killing Mario Madrigal, Jr., and two other women recently. Apache Junction Cops killed a young man allegedly wielding a butter knife. Criminal charges against the Mesa Cops in the Circle K incident were dismissed. Civil charges against the Mesa Cops in the Circle K incident went to a jury who found the Cops not guilty and no restitution was awarded to the parents of the victims. Nationwide, persons released from jail after new DNA evidence proved their innocence have not been compensated for their wrongful incarceration or have been awarded only a pittance for their loss of liberty, except in a few states such as New York, New Jersey and Ohio. Missouri is not one of them. Some states limit the amount of an award for wrongful incarceration to sums such as $200,000.00. [Note: 20 years is only $10,000 per year compensation, and substantially amount to nothing for their loss of liberty.] ASU has written a document: Model Prevention & Remedy of Erroneous Convictions Act, 33 Ariz.St.LJ. 665 (2001); however, nothing significant has been done in the legislature. More effort needs to be applied here. The "Ring v. Arizona" (cites unavailable), decision that juries not judges are required to pronounce death sentences needs to be investigated and further work needs to be done in those states which still have the death penalty to commute the sentences and prevent further killing of innocent (and guilty) persons on death row. Someone needs to investigate the "Snaggle-tooth" killer incident where the accused was released recently, whether a lawyer is bringing suit against Arizona and others for his wrongful incarceration. We should watch the outcome of this case. Anyone with information should provide it or route it to this E-mail. Copwatch has instituted vigilance procedures to randomly video tape Police Stops in order to document further abuses and brutality. Interested individuals should take the training classes offered by them to further the reach of random video taping. Another group has proposed and is organizing random, secretive surveillance by video taping police stops, without the cops realizing they are being tape recorded. Long range narrow field microphone dishes have been used effectively to pick up voices during stops, and further programs are being proposed in adjacent cities. Everyone is encouraged to support the silent candlelight vigil in memory of Mario Madrigal, Jr. In Mesa on October 25, 2003 at 6:00 p.m., at the Mesa Police Station at 130 North Robson and asked to bring candles for the vigil.
Senta Scarborough
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 22, 2003 12:00 AM
MESA - Nearly two months after Mario Madrigal Jr. was shot and killed, Mesa police have sent a homicide report into the teen's death of around 1,150 pages to Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley. The report is expected to be publicly released early next week, said Bill FitzGerald, a Romley spokesman. His office could bring charges against officers in the case. Madrigal, 15, was killed at his west Mesa home in an Aug. 25 incident involving Sgt. Orlando Dean and Officers Mark Beckett and Richard Henry. The Women In Black, a local peace advocacy group, and Mesa Association of Hispanic Citizens are organizing a vigil on Saturday, the second-month anniversary, at 6 p.m. at the Mesa Police Department at the corner of Robson and First streets. "We want to remind the police and the city that we haven't forgotten about Mario's death and the other shootings," said Amy Shinabarger, a group member and Mesa resident. Madrigal was the first of four civilians shot by police in a 17-day period in August and September. Both he and the other fatality, Mary Ann Minchew, threatened police with knives and, witnesses said, had been drinking heavily. "Citizens are demanding changes in the Mesa Police Department," Shinabarger said. City officials are forming an ad hoc committee of 12 to 15 people to study setting up a police review board. Residents who have volunteered so far include Berha Sepulveda, Sylvia Garcia-Suttle, James G. LeCheminant, Marshan L. Andre, Phillip Edward Lowry, Henry Castillo Jr., Mary Lou St. Cyr, Alan Cohen, Louis Stradling, Ramona (Tequila) Sepulveda, Scott Kerr and Joan Newth. Madrigal's father, Mario Sr., said Tuesday that he'll be at the vigil. "I am waiting to hear what the county attorney has to say about it," he said. "But no matter what they say, the bullet holes my son has in his body is not going to change. I am not going to stop until the officers are prosecuted." Reporter Adam Klawonn contributed to this article.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/1022madrigal.html