"In a $20 million lawsuit, a Baltimore police officer claims at least four of his fellow officers used a search warrant obtained with a perjured affidavit to burst into his home and hold him and his wife at gunpoint. Officer Michael Callands and his wife claim a police officer falsely accused them of dealing drugs out of this Spelman Road home, where they were living as part of the federally funded 'Officer Next Door' crime deterrence program. Finding no narcotics, the four defendants scouted the neighborhood for drugs and paraphernalia and then attributed those drugs to Officer Michael Callands and his wife, the suit alleges. According to the complaint filed in Baltimore City Circuit Court, Michael and Margaret Callands moved into the Spelman Road home in Brooklyn as part of the federally funded "Officer Next Door" program, which provides financial incentives for law enforcement officers to live in high-crime areas.
"They made up a search and seizure warrant and when they realized it was a cop's house they were like, 'Oh my God, we messed up,' said Timothy M. Dixon, an attorney for Michael and Margaret Callands along with his law partner, Neal M. Janey Jr... In an affidavit filed to support a search and seizure warrant, the pleadings state, Detective Cassidy Kampfhammer falsely stated that she bought drugs at 2833 Spelman Road. At the time, she did not know it was the home of a police officer. On March 25, 2005, Kampfhammer and Officers Joseph Donato, Francis Ebberts Jr. and others executed the warrant, "destroying [the Callands'] front door." Because the officers had no uniforms or identification, Michael Callands assumed they were burglars and he drew his service weapon as he left the bedroom, the complaint alleges. Michael Callands eventually realized what was taking place and surrendered his gun, but was nonetheless thrown into a glass table by the police officers...When Margaret Callands came downstairs to check on her husband Kampfhammer and the other officers pointed their guns at her, told her to get on the floor and handcuffed her.
"The suit says no drugs were found during the search. When the officers learned they had entered the home of a colleague, Dixon and Janey said yesterday, Kampfhammer called her husband, Lt. Sean Kampfhammer, who soon arrived at the house.
The two 'collectively contrived a plan to plant illegal drugs' to 'cover-up [sic] the fabrication in the affidavit of the search and seizure warrant"... "The officers canvassed the neighborhood for drugs, then told the department's Internal Affairs Division that those drugs belonged to the Callands.Dixon and Janey said an investigation by that division exonerated their client of any misconduct." .... "A false report about the Callands' was also made to the Housing Authority of Baltimore City. As a result of that report, the Callands no longer reside in the Spelman Road home" ... "Cassidy Kampfhammer and Donato serve in the Southern District, Ebberts serves in the narcotics section of the organized crime division and Sean Kampfhammer is with a special enforcement unit. All are listed as defendants in the suit."
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Off the Record
Did you know? We do have a second daily newspaper in Baltimore, but no no one reads it. The The Economist should buy it and make me publisher. Here's Daniel Ostrovsky excerpted liberally from today's TDR: "Officer Next Door" seeks $20M after home search
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Do we need a lawsuit in Charm City?
Judge says city is slow to reform LAPD
City officials scolded for failure to implement key measures
Thursday, March 23, 2006; Posted: 10:40 a.m. EST (15:40 GMT)
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A federal judge scolded city officials for failing to meet key provisions of a 2001 court consent decree to reform the Police Department.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/03/23/lapd.reform.ap/index.html
i think we're getting a third daily, too. It's the examiner. The Daily Record is geared only to the legal and business community.
Cases against criminals are being dismissed because officers' conduct is making them dubious witnesses in court. Meanwhile, officers have been informed that because of excessive crime in Charm City, they will be required to work 12-hour shifts.
Ahem. Isn't that overtime? It costs over 50% more per patrol hour to do that. Since the budget is about the same as last year, that means 50% less patroling.
Add to that the incredible stress associated with continous overtime and you virtually guarantee that officers will have short fuses and cut corners on good police work.
This Commissioner is such a rocket scientist! And Martin O'F#@khead told WBAL that he's 'going to stay focused' on 'getting new leadership into' Annapolis. Excuse me, Mayor McCheese, but you already have a job! Not that anyone'd know the difference between you and a vacant chair, mind you.
Can Hamm!
What an inept f#@king government.
This one's too good to pass up!
Baltimore has a capacity problem at Central Booking, but no difficulty locating eligible occupants.
Here's the solution, from CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/
'Jailbreak: $58 million prison sits empty
It might be one of the most expensive pieces of government property never to be used.
Oregon's Multnomah County, which includes the city of Portland, built a $58 million jail. The "Wapato Facility," as it is known, was completed two years ago, yet it's completely vacant. The local sheriff, Bernie Giusto, it calls an "echo chamber."
It's not like there's a shortage of potential inmates. Portland actually has a jail overcrowding problem. Last year, the county released more than 4,500 inmates because they ran out of jail beds, according to the sheriff's department. What's going on here?
Voters signed-off on the money for the jail to be built, but the county didn't and still doesn't have the money to operate it. Local leaders say shrinking taxes are to blame, which is forcing tough choices between funding classrooms or prisons, for example.'
On the other hand, maybe those 4,500 criminals should just move to Baltimore. Many in the nation do, you know. We are a basin of attraction for criminals looking to avoid the tough enforcement regimes in their home counties in other states.
more from wbal tv http://www.thewbalchannel.com/11investigates/8216989/detail.html
Today I called 311 to report a group of teenagers who were loitering in front of my house. About a half hour later, a BPD officer knocked on the door and asked my girlfriend about a burglary that occured at our house (if the officer thought there was a burglary, why did it take him 30 minutes to arrive???). After she told him that we had called 311 to report kids loitering, the officer waved his hand in frustration and stormed off before she had a chance to tell him that she thought the loiterers may have been dealing drugs. Thanks to the ineptitude of my 311 operator, my neighbors (and possibly the loiterers) know that I called the police. Way to go, morons!
Do we need an independent audit of Baltimore Criminal Statistics?
Sign the petition today!
http://www.auditbdp.com
Audit the stats, investigate the First Deputy Mayor for conspiracy, and get rid of that useless Commissioner.
Call 911 for an incident in progress, never 311. 311 is for situations that do not have a time element, such as a pothole in the street. A group of kids loitering that could be dealing drugs should be a 911 call.
That's what our BCPD community relations rep has said. If it's important enough that you want them to actually do anything, call 911.
However, disgruntled officers have and will arrest complainants using 911 for calls they deem 'lesser' crimes. I've been so arrested. Never charged, cuz it wouldn't stick.
So, there's a risk. It's part of why people in my community just won't call. People watch their neighbor being broken into and won't call. Anonymous callers get cop cars in front of their houses. It's just so antisocial.
A house in our neighborhood got sprayed with bullets, which ran through the living room. No one called. No one told their neighbors. They just pull the curtains shut and get down.
Some pearls of wisdom from Marty O':
Quotes from his 9/27/02 address at Brown Univ. on The Future of American Cities:
Today, our maxim is “Things that get measured are things that get done.”
And if you aren't doing anything, at least go rig the measurements.
We had a chronic absentee problem, which lead to a chronic overtime problem. We saved $6 million dollars the first year just getting people back to work and reducing overtime.
Your Police Commissioner has vastly overspent the allocated police overtime by millions and has no clue where the money's coming from. Yet, at time and a half, we're getting very little police manpower and rising crime.
We’ve had fewer than 300 homicides for 2 years in a row, we want to get it down below 200 and then we’re going to set a realistic goal like 50.
50? I like 50. But, wasn't it like, 279 ?
We must go through our ghettos if we are to save our cities.
Mr. Mayor, at the rate you're going, with one percent of the population (the working part)leaving each year and the City increasingly being synonymous with your downtown Disneyland (luxury condos, sports Stadia, municipal Convention Hotels, and Inner Harbor tourist traps), there won't be any city left other than the ghetto, for those of us who actually live here.
Revisiting our discussion of criminality and corrections,
from usdoj, ojp
year since release year 1 year 2 year 3
cum. Arrests, % 44 59 68
cum. Convictions , % 21 36 47
cum. Reincarceration, % 10 19 25
Baltimore year 1 2 3
year 1 releases 10,000
year 2 releases 10,000
year 3 releases 10,000
less year 1 reincarceration - 1,000 - 900 -600
less year 2 reincarceration -1,000 -900
less year 3 reincarceration -1,000
net 9,000 8,100 7,500
In the stabilized year, year 3, the correctional system injects 7,500 net inmates into society, of whom 4,500 are rearrested within the observation period.
Sorry, the blogsite has messed up my columns. Numbers should appear set into three columns, one for outcomes in each of years 1, 2, and 3.
Thanks for the advice. I was always reluctant to call 911 unless the situation was life threatening or involved property, but I'll do so in the future. Hopefully, they're not as surly as the 311 operators.
Update the news... its been 4 days and im itching for some new crime to read about.
then post some links, lazy bastard. I've been driven out of the city by dope whores and will not be posting for at least a week until verizon decides to connect my phone and Internet in my new suburban location.
My God, she's escaped!
The Cybrarian's over the wall.
Kilroy wuz here.
BTW, what happened to TT Chuck ?
Didn't he have Sys Admin privileges ?
I'd rather see the police concentrate on crime rather than serve out-of-town interests with an audit.
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