Special Report: Brutality Of Diane White, Associate, Managing Writer & Editor, Webmaster, Philadelphia Front Page News
Even though I have been ready to go to trial since January 2008 and have never authorized any continuances on behalf of my defense, on February 10, Judge Klienfelter granted the Commonwealth's motion to continue my case until September 14, 2009, a full 2 years and 12 days after the alleged charges were brought against me stemming from an ACORN supported "Back to School Block Party" in my neighborhood in September 2007. This ruling comes after the Commonwealth had been trying to threaten and intimidate me into a plea agreement and continuing the case for over a year for no other reason than abusing their power and attempting to intimidate me into copping a plea to bogus charges. The prosecutor to date has never had to justify any of their continuances, they just continued and blamed it on the defense. At times I was wondering whose side my attorney was on.
I had made it perfectly clear to my attorney from the door that I wanted no parts of any deal. Yet he just let the DA keep blaming the continuances on us without being challenge by my attorney. Isn't that an ethics violation? In fact my attorney was hired under the condition that he defend me, not play let's make a deal. That's another chapter, not only is it unethical he forfeited my civil rights in the process and billed me for it.
The officer filed a false police report and lied under oath twice. I am willing to bet that we did not go to court because the officer did not want to continue to perjury himself or take the fall for a mistake that he had already admitted to making. The officer filed a false report and he perjured himself during the so-called internal affairs investigation(Another thing that disappeared along with Officer Bailey, the internal affairs officer who conducted the investigation. Rumor has it that she has been demoted to security at the high school.) and again at the preliminary hearing. He casually stated that he had been on the Harrisburg Police force for 3 years and had responded to many calls and made many arrests. Then he actually said under oath that he had never encountered anyone in the community during that time who was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol. He said he had just assumed the same about me until he got downtown and realized that I was not under the influence of anything. He even went on to say that he sprayed me in the face while I was on the ground trying to run while holding onto a fence, what sense does that make? To top it all off, the officer admitted under oath that I had not spit on him as previously reported in the Patriot News. When he made that statement under oath, the DA jump up out of his seat and immediately asked that the felony assault charge against me be dismissed. Yet, I was still bound over for trial by District Justice LaVon A Postelle, a black man, even though no evidence whatsoever was presented against me regarding any of the charges and no other police officers or witnesses testified for the prosecution, just Officer Chance and he was getting so caught up in all the lies that he broke down and told the truth.
In September 2008, after a year of continuance after continuance by the DA's office and blaming it on the defense, and trying to intimidate me into plea agreement knowing full well that I wanted no parts of it, (I was ready to go to trial. My witnesses had been subpoenaed to testify at least 3 times in addition to testifying the preliminary hearing.) Officer Chance was ordered to Iraq on active duty. The transcript from the preliminary hearing had mysteriously disappeared. According to the Public Defender who was initially assigned to my case by Dauphin County, the transcript was destroyed in the flooded basement of the court reporter in December 2007, yet I received a message in January 2008 that I needed to send the Court Reporter $200 for a copy of the transcript. I was told in March 2008 when I met with the public defender that I didn't have to pay the $200, "...that's one of ours," he said you don't have to pay for that, I can get it. That Public Defender walked out of the office and came back about 5 minutes later to tell me that the transcript had been destroyed and that the police officer who assaulted me was going on active duty to Iraq, "I can give you ARD", he said. I said, ARD for what? To that question he had no reply. I told him no thanks, I think I need to hire a lawyer. When the Public Defender said the Officer was going to Iraq I assumed he would be leaving in April or May, so I knew I needed a lawyer right away. According to the ADA Officer Chance did not leave until some 6 months later. He didn't leave until September 2008.
If the DA's office wanted the Officer's s testimony why didn't they bring me before the court before he left? Now that the Officer has been deployed and we have file a Motion to Dismiss under Rule 600, the DA filed for a Continuance, using the Soldier's and Sailors Relief Act as a pretext for the fact that they have no case. The fact that the Officer has been ordered to active duty in Iraq is not the the reason the case has not gone forward, its the fact that the DA's office is violating the spirit of the act in the name of a pretext. Our motion to dismissed is denied and the DA's continuance is granted. What's up with that? Inquiring minds want to know. Rumor has it that a certain Ass't DA is running for a vacant Commonwealth Judge seat in the upcoming election. Could it be that someone is looking for a notch on her gun?
Even though I have been ready to go to trial since January 2008 and have never authorized any continuances on behalf of my defense, on February 10, Judge Klienfelter granted the Commonwealth's motion to continue my case until September 14, 2009, a full 2 years and 12 days after the alleged charges were brought against me stemming from an ACORN supported "Back to School Block Party" in my neighborhood in September 2007. This ruling comes after the Commonwealth had been trying to threaten and intimidate me into a plea agreement and continuing the case for over a year for no other reason than abusing their power and attempting to intimidate me into copping a plea to bogus charges. The prosecutor to date has never had to justify any of their continuances, they just continued and blamed it on the defense. At times I was wondering whose side my attorney was on.
I had made it perfectly clear to my attorney from the door that I wanted no parts of any deal. Yet he just let the DA keep blaming the continuances on us without being challenge by my attorney. Isn't that an ethics violation? In fact my attorney was hired under the condition that he defend me, not play let's make a deal. That's another chapter, not only is it unethical he forfeited my civil rights in the process and billed me for it.
The officer filed a false police report and lied under oath twice. I am willing to bet that we did not go to court because the officer did not want to continue to perjury himself or take the fall for a mistake that he had already admitted to making. The officer filed a false report and he perjured himself during the so-called internal affairs investigation(Another thing that disappeared along with Officer Bailey, the internal affairs officer who conducted the investigation. Rumor has it that she has been demoted to security at the high school.) and again at the preliminary hearing. He casually stated that he had been on the Harrisburg Police force for 3 years and had responded to many calls and made many arrests. Then he actually said under oath that he had never encountered anyone in the community during that time who was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol. He said he had just assumed the same about me until he got downtown and realized that I was not under the influence of anything. He even went on to say that he sprayed me in the face while I was on the ground trying to run while holding onto a fence, what sense does that make? To top it all off, the officer admitted under oath that I had not spit on him as previously reported in the Patriot News. When he made that statement under oath, the DA jump up out of his seat and immediately asked that the felony assault charge against me be dismissed. Yet, I was still bound over for trial by District Justice LaVon A Postelle, a black man, even though no evidence whatsoever was presented against me regarding any of the charges and no other police officers or witnesses testified for the prosecution, just Officer Chance and he was getting so caught up in all the lies that he broke down and told the truth.
In September 2008, after a year of continuance after continuance by the DA's office and blaming it on the defense, and trying to intimidate me into plea agreement knowing full well that I wanted no parts of it, (I was ready to go to trial. My witnesses had been subpoenaed to testify at least 3 times in addition to testifying the preliminary hearing.) Officer Chance was ordered to Iraq on active duty. The transcript from the preliminary hearing had mysteriously disappeared. According to the Public Defender who was initially assigned to my case by Dauphin County, the transcript was destroyed in the flooded basement of the court reporter in December 2007, yet I received a message in January 2008 that I needed to send the Court Reporter $200 for a copy of the transcript. I was told in March 2008 when I met with the public defender that I didn't have to pay the $200, "...that's one of ours," he said you don't have to pay for that, I can get it. That Public Defender walked out of the office and came back about 5 minutes later to tell me that the transcript had been destroyed and that the police officer who assaulted me was going on active duty to Iraq, "I can give you ARD", he said. I said, ARD for what? To that question he had no reply. I told him no thanks, I think I need to hire a lawyer. When the Public Defender said the Officer was going to Iraq I assumed he would be leaving in April or May, so I knew I needed a lawyer right away. According to the ADA Officer Chance did not leave until some 6 months later. He didn't leave until September 2008.
If the DA's office wanted the Officer's s testimony why didn't they bring me before the court before he left? Now that the Officer has been deployed and we have file a Motion to Dismiss under Rule 600, the DA filed for a Continuance, using the Soldier's and Sailors Relief Act as a pretext for the fact that they have no case. The fact that the Officer has been ordered to active duty in Iraq is not the the reason the case has not gone forward, its the fact that the DA's office is violating the spirit of the act in the name of a pretext. Our motion to dismissed is denied and the DA's continuance is granted. What's up with that? Inquiring minds want to know. Rumor has it that a certain Ass't DA is running for a vacant Commonwealth Judge seat in the upcoming election. Could it be that someone is looking for a notch on her gun?
I pleaded not guilty and requested a jury trial at my arraignment in January, 2008.
Looking back over the sequence of events I recall coincidentally it was DA Ed Marsico who I ran into in the hallway when I walked into the courthouse that Tuesday, two days after the assault. Merely five minutes after leaving city hall where Harrisburg Police Captain Ritter, had referred me to the DA's office when I told him I wanted to file charges against the Officer Chance with the Harrisburg Police Deptartment. Captain Ritter was unable to file charges against a Police Officer and he referred me to the DA's Office to file charges against a police officer. Needless to say I was given the boiler plate treatment in the DA's office by someone that Marsico had referred me to. After having to listen a tall tell about another Black Woman who I didn't know, but was supposed to have known, who had beaten up 6 police officers singlehandedly, I finally told that the Harrisburg Police Department had to conduct an internal investigation first and at the conclusion of that investigation the DA's office would be called in by the police department if warranted. I left the DA's office immediately and returned to the Harrisburg Police Department the next day and filed the complaint with Captain Ritter who had already given me the form during our meeting.
I filed the complaint with the Harrisburg Police Department and the investigation was started but never concluded. It was sweep under the rug and I was never notified of the results of the investigation. For some strange reason DA Marsico took a special interest in my case after the preliminary hearing. Apparently, the decision was made in the DA Office that I would be denied a fair and speedy trial in a court before a jury of my peers. Instead my attorney relayed to me that he had been told in no uncertain terms by someone in the DA's office that before they would allow a jury trial the DA would drop all the charges necessary for a jury trial and prosecute me on the drug charges before a judge and give me jail time. If I don't accept the ARD (As far as I am concerned, ARD is an admission of guilt and the paying of thousands of dollars to be in a drug program even though my drug test have all been negative, and forfeiting my right to file a 1983 Federal Civil Rights suit. ARD however would not prevent me from filing a charge of Excessive Force. I'm definitely not trusting that in light of the fact that nothing they have done so fare resembles the truth and there is no excessive force if they are allowed to get away with the cover-up.) they are going to take me before Judge Klienfelter (Due to retire December 31, 2009) and give me 90 days in jail, period.
Never mind the fact that Officer Chance admitted during the preliminary hearing among other things, that he responded to me the way he did because he assumed that I was drunk when I walked over to him. The fact is I was only walking over to where Officer Chance was to find out what was going on. The music had been lowered because the DJ had blown a speaker earlier, it was 9:00pm and although we had a permit to continue until 10:00pm were winding down; cleaning up and showing video's on the wall for the little kids to keep them out of the street while we finished cleaning up. We weren't doing anything to warrant Officer Chances actions or behavior. He just walked up out of no where and started snapping out.
Officer Chance was not responding to a complaint about me or any activities that were taking place at the block party, he was responding to a traffic from a lady who wanted to turn the corner a block away from where we were. Either Officer Chance took it upon himself to shut us down or someone from downtown told him to do it. All I know is he was standing in the middle of the street yelling obscenities at the children. (He also admitted to using profanity under oath at the preliminary hearing.) The kids started calling me and I went to see what was going on, after all I was the responsible party and I had the permit. When I asked Officer Chance what was going on and why he was talking to the kids like that he said...
Looking back over the sequence of events I recall coincidentally it was DA Ed Marsico who I ran into in the hallway when I walked into the courthouse that Tuesday, two days after the assault. Merely five minutes after leaving city hall where Harrisburg Police Captain Ritter, had referred me to the DA's office when I told him I wanted to file charges against the Officer Chance with the Harrisburg Police Deptartment. Captain Ritter was unable to file charges against a Police Officer and he referred me to the DA's Office to file charges against a police officer. Needless to say I was given the boiler plate treatment in the DA's office by someone that Marsico had referred me to. After having to listen a tall tell about another Black Woman who I didn't know, but was supposed to have known, who had beaten up 6 police officers singlehandedly, I finally told that the Harrisburg Police Department had to conduct an internal investigation first and at the conclusion of that investigation the DA's office would be called in by the police department if warranted. I left the DA's office immediately and returned to the Harrisburg Police Department the next day and filed the complaint with Captain Ritter who had already given me the form during our meeting.
I filed the complaint with the Harrisburg Police Department and the investigation was started but never concluded. It was sweep under the rug and I was never notified of the results of the investigation. For some strange reason DA Marsico took a special interest in my case after the preliminary hearing. Apparently, the decision was made in the DA Office that I would be denied a fair and speedy trial in a court before a jury of my peers. Instead my attorney relayed to me that he had been told in no uncertain terms by someone in the DA's office that before they would allow a jury trial the DA would drop all the charges necessary for a jury trial and prosecute me on the drug charges before a judge and give me jail time. If I don't accept the ARD (As far as I am concerned, ARD is an admission of guilt and the paying of thousands of dollars to be in a drug program even though my drug test have all been negative, and forfeiting my right to file a 1983 Federal Civil Rights suit. ARD however would not prevent me from filing a charge of Excessive Force. I'm definitely not trusting that in light of the fact that nothing they have done so fare resembles the truth and there is no excessive force if they are allowed to get away with the cover-up.) they are going to take me before Judge Klienfelter (Due to retire December 31, 2009) and give me 90 days in jail, period.
Never mind the fact that Officer Chance admitted during the preliminary hearing among other things, that he responded to me the way he did because he assumed that I was drunk when I walked over to him. The fact is I was only walking over to where Officer Chance was to find out what was going on. The music had been lowered because the DJ had blown a speaker earlier, it was 9:00pm and although we had a permit to continue until 10:00pm were winding down; cleaning up and showing video's on the wall for the little kids to keep them out of the street while we finished cleaning up. We weren't doing anything to warrant Officer Chances actions or behavior. He just walked up out of no where and started snapping out.
"Shut it down, shut this shit down now, I'm tired of this shit. This is the 4th time I have been out here, I could be somewhere else doing something important and I am out here for this shit, shut it down, shut this shit down right now goddamit."
Officer Chance was not responding to a complaint about me or any activities that were taking place at the block party, he was responding to a traffic from a lady who wanted to turn the corner a block away from where we were. Either Officer Chance took it upon himself to shut us down or someone from downtown told him to do it. All I know is he was standing in the middle of the street yelling obscenities at the children. (He also admitted to using profanity under oath at the preliminary hearing.) The kids started calling me and I went to see what was going on, after all I was the responsible party and I had the permit. When I asked Officer Chance what was going on and why he was talking to the kids like that he said...
"Shut the f@#k up right now before I take you downtown for "Drunk and Disorderly"
I don't know what Officer Chance found or where he found it because he never searched me. What he did do was verbally and physically assault me, spray pepper spray directly into my eyes, choke me, slammed me into a fence and then a car and drop kicked his knee into my back three consecutive times before finally sitting on on my back and calling in a 10-78 "Officer needs assistance", while I was doing everything I could do to maintain my breathing. I thought I was going to die.I was totally shocked and amazed by his comment. I was exhausted and I told Officer Chance that. I told him that I had been out with the kids all day and that I had not had anything to drink all day and asked him what his problem was. That was it, he snapped. First he grabbed my left arm and put it in a chicken wing slapping a handcuff on and squeezing it until I screamed, then he put me in a choke hold with my arm behind my back and still squeezing the hand cuff on my one arm and choking me at the same time until I started gagging, then he move his arm and tried to turn me around my my left shoulder, with left arm still behind my back and still squeezing the handcuffs, I grabbed the fence with my free hand to keep from falling. With my left arm still twisted behind my back, he tried to pull me keep when from grabbing on to the fence with my right arm. At that, point he decided to pull out the pepper spray an spray it directly into my eyes, one long bust that blinded me immediately. At that point I was was in a blinded semi-conscious state. I just just went with the darkness and allowed him to sling me back and forth, kicking me first in my left ankle to take my feet from under me then kneeing me in my back as I was going down and then finally one last knee in the back before coming to rest on my back. My left hand was still behind my back, with the cuff on it and my right hand was under my body across my chest, as I had landed on my arm, which luckily prevented my face from smashing into the concrete sidewalk. The force of being thrown down and him coming down on my back shattered a pin I had on my chest and I could barely breathe. At that point I just laid there in the darkness trying to maintain my breathing g while Officer Chance sat on my back and radioed for assistance. I think he called in a 10-78. Another officer arrived a few minutes later maybe 5-7 minutes later. It seemed like forever, I was focusing on breathing with him on my back. I could tell by the sound of the other Officer's voice that someone else had arrived. This person was different. He was calm. He asked me for my other arm and I gave it to him. He cuffed my other arm behind my back and he picked me up off the ground. I was asking him to make sure that the other officer didn't touch me again. He told me the other Officer was not there and he helped me up off the ground and carefully guided me to the police car. I kept asking him what his name was, I knew he was not the officer who had assaulted me and he told his name was Bates. "My name is Bates, Officer Bates". He said, "I am going to have to search you before I put you in the car", then he asked me if I have anything in my pockets. Before I could answer him, to my amazement I heard the voice of the Officer who had just assaulted me, he said something about paraphernalia. I had no idea what he was talking about. All I wanted was for him to stay away from me. I don't know what he was talking about and I did not see anything, because had been blinded by the pepper spray. Officer Bates patted me down, he may have went in my pockets I'm not sure, I just wanted him to get me away from that Chance and my face was burning really bad. Officer Bate put me into the me in the car and they took me to the station where I sat blindly with my face on fire.
As is typical in most police abuse cases, the department and the DA is attempting a full and complete cover up of the entire incident, and they want me of all people, former Captain in the AG Corp and Adjutant General (In charge of MP's) in the Army, former state police, former Affirmative Action Officer, former Civil Rights Compliance II Office, former Airport Security, former Hospital Security, and current elected official and public servant to play this game. How little regard for the institution of justice. What ever happened to integrity.
It's obvious that the DA is attempting to drag this whole thing out so that the statute of limitation runs out on me, thwarting any planned civil suit that I might be contemplating. The DA and unfortunately my attorney are trying to convince me that I don't need to bring in the Feds, on an unlawful arrest and gross civil rights violations. I disagree, they want to pee on me and tell me its raining. Like I am that stupid. Well I'm not, I know the deck is stacked against me and I am not dealing with honorable people, but there is always a higher power.
Officer Chance is not exempt from the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) or Federal Civil Rights Statutes. When Chance assaulted me he assaulted a law abiding citizen, a superior officer, an elected public official and a minister. The judge may have granted the DA's continuance but all is not lost. This whole thing may end up right where it was supposed to be in the first place, outside of the Police Department, District Attorney's Office and the Commonwealth's jurisdiction.
Officer Chance is not exempt from the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) or Federal Civil Rights Statutes. When Chance assaulted me he assaulted a law abiding citizen, a superior officer, an elected public official and a minister. The judge may have granted the DA's continuance but all is not lost. This whole thing may end up right where it was supposed to be in the first place, outside of the Police Department, District Attorney's Office and the Commonwealth's jurisdiction.
