HIGHWAY DAREDEVILS

Well.. As far as I can tell, there isn't much chance of that happenin' in
our metroplex.. Last time Ft.Worth got on a rampage and commenced harassing
the bikers who frequented the stockyards, there was such a stink, it
discouraged the police dept. from running that ticket scam again.. Course,
needless to say that we are not nearly as desperate of character as all you
guys in the Houston area.. LOL.. Seriously.. the thing up here seems to just
amount to the media putting out feelers to test the waters about the public
sentiment .. I have the feeling that Mike Snyder of channel five, got
blistered enough to inform the powers that be, that this crackdown would
result in quite a backlash... Here's hoping..

Your friend in Irving
Bill Walker

 

yah, no kidding. it may not have been apparent in my post because i
snipped all his original, but that was a response to Oma who requested
more info about it since i had alluded to that fiasco in another post.

the media knew nothing about this until it went down, and really didn't
get on the case until the massive arrests at wal-mart. they mentioned
the bikers at James Coney Island getting arrested that saturday day, but
it went apeshit after wal-mart that saturday nite. It got sooooo
stinky; the chief of police had to go to trial for perjury and a bunch
of higher ranked officers got suspended and so on. it's very
convoluted, with lots of finger pointing, and was, imo, mainly the
result of a completely inept lame duck mayoral administration, and his
crony police chief (who recently got the major salary bump, thereby
locking in his pension significantly higher and then promptly, like
within the week, retired before city council could do anything about
it). mayor's finally term limited out and none too soon. this is just
one manifestation of that overall disaster of a mayor. hundreds
arrested and scads of resultant lawsuits the city has to deal with. i
also like the city councilman who rode along with the police on the
raids, who started flipping positions after the public response went
apeshit. the whole thing is a real clusterfug.

aguirre, the sergeant who ran the raids, wasn't operating in his usual
geographic area for that matter; he normally rousted bums and vagrants
from the downtown area where such tactics are used against people who
won't or can't afford to fight back. this time, aguirre found himself
in a better part of town with people who could afford attorneys and
generally weren't lowlife/criminal element. now how and why aguirre
ended up running this raid and who knew what when is a whole topic in
and of itself as he and chief bradford had crossed before, aguirre says
bradford approved the plan back in May, but bradford played Sgt Schultz
and sez "I Know Nuzzing!" and so and so forth. dats life in the big
city...

"Ah the city, t'aint no place for a woman,
but pretty men go thar..."
-The Fatal Glass of Beer-
W.C. Fields

--
jm

'73 R75/5 Toaster (not for sale)
'99 R1100RT (in use)
'00 FLHRCI (sold!)
Iron Butt Assoc, WATR 3X, EIEIO, AEIOU etc blah blah

 

We got kind of a situation here with a mayor who was once some kind of
reporter.. Channel five is her lightning rod and Mike Snyder is her
sniffer.. Channel five aired the broadcast about the daredevil bikers and my
instinct told me that Mayor Laura was testing the water to see how the
public would react, if the city commenced a crackdown on all of us.. When I
talked to Mike Snyder, he all but concurred with me, that the documentary
was just a pilot to sense the public "feeling".. I must admit, there have
been a few isolated incidents on a couple of the freeways, of some
stunting.. Nothing that would make any cager feel threatened.. The revenue
shortfall in Dallas has been well known for some time and I believe that is
what the main gist was all about.. Hopefully, we were able to get to the
messenger and convince him that infraction attack on a particular group
isn't a good way to raise revenue.. We'll see..

Your friend in Irving
Bill Walker

 

heheheh, don't kill the messenger. (read the message)

--
jm

'73 R75/5 Toaster (not for sale)
'99 R1100RT (in use)
'00 FLHRCI (sold!)
Iron Butt Assoc, WATR 3X, EIEIO, AEIOU etc blah blah

 

ya, my short attention span, sorry; the story was properly reflected in
the links of to the story i posted previously from the chronicle and
ktrk-tv. k-mart, wal-mart, dreck-mart... they're all the same to me,
crappy box stores.

and that case involved... <drum roll pleeze>
none other than Aguirre, who was accusing Chief Bradford!
lots more on that in a second.

not hardly, i just unintentionally used wal-mart instead of k-mart; the
rest is pretty damn accurate and hardly misinformation. check this out:

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/news/82902_local_chief.html

Headline and Excerpt :


Perjury complaint against HPD chief
leads to grand jury probe

By Gina Gaston
ABC13 Eyewitness News
(8/29/02) ‹ A perjury complaint
against Houston's top cop is now
leading to a grand jury
investigation.
Eyewitness News has learned a
controversial police captain will
testify
before that grand jury next week.

We spoke
exclusively with the attorney for Captain
Mark Aguirre, who led a much publicized
crackdown on drag racing in west
Houston. HPD suspended Aguirre, saying
he coerced other officers to make false
statements about the arrests two weeks
ago. Now, Aguirre is going before the
grand jury to testify against the chief.

Excerpt 2 :

The perjury case stems from a disciplinary
hearing in May, at which Chief Bradford
accused Captain Aguirre of cussing at his
subordinates. Aguirre says the chief was
lying, so he filed a perjury suit against
Bradford.

"This is why we feel Chief Bradford is
biased, has been out to, if you will, get
Captain Aguirre and it appears in this
investigation, they've tried to use Captain
Aguirre as a scapegoat from day one," said Yates.

********************
as you can see, there was bad blood between aguiire and bradford prior
to and way beyond the k-mart busts. was augirre made a fall guy on the
k-mart raids? remember, west side wasn't his normal working area, who
ordered that move? hmmmmm.... yes, it's convoluted with lots of finger
pointing.
***********************

KTRK-TV presents the following today :

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/

has video link and front page headline

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/news/82802_local_chief.html

has the article

Excerpt :

HPD Chief C.O. Bradford told city council,
"I never saw this plan, never heard about this plan,
until the week
after the event. It is my understanding that this
particular plan was
discussed at a lower level in the organization, as
well as being
disapproved of parts of that particular plan"

**************

Bradford does a helluva impressions of Sgt Schultz from Hogans' Heros,
eh? that story gets blown out of the water too.

*********************

*************************

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/topstory/1559794


Excerpt :
Sept. 3, 2002, 5:15PM

Police chief, suspended captain testify before
grand jury

By DALE LEZON
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle

The rift between Houston Police Chief C.O.
Bradford and suspended
Capt. Mark Aguirre deepened as the two men
testified before a Harris
County grand jury today investigating perjury
allegations against
Bradford.

Bradford and Aguirre have been at odds
publicly over a police raid at a K-Mart
parking lot Aug. 18 that netted 273
arrests, mostly teenagers, and outraged
residents. Aguirre is suspended with pay
pending an investigation into the arrests
and claimed Bradford made him a
scapegoat for it.

The grand jury is looking into an
unrelated case stemming from Aguirre's
allegations that Bradford lied during the
captain's civil service grievance hearing in
May.

***********************
**************************************
*but wait, there' still more!! *
**************************************

Paper: Houston Chronicle
Date: THU 11/21/02
Section: A
Page: 27 Metfront
Edition: 3 STAR

Testimony heard on police raid / Lawyer: Focus is on Aguirre,
sergeant

By ROMA KHANNA
Staff

Houston police Capt. Mark Aguirre and a sergeant who works closely with
him appear to be the only targets of an investigation into
the mass arrest of people in a Kmart parking lot, a lawyer for an
officer cooperating with authorities said.

"After reviewing all the evidence, my impression is that Aguirre and
one other sergeant who is his right-hand man are the targets of
this probe," said Clint Greenwood, who is representing Lt. Frank
Jackson. Greenwood would not identify the sergeant.

Jackson was among four people who testified Wednesday before a Harris
County grand jury about the Aug. 18 raid that led to
more than 270 arrests, the suspension of 13 police supervisors and
spurred widespread criticism of the Houston Police Department.
He was among those suspended.

Prosecutor Tommy LaFon, who is presenting the case to the grand jury ,
would not comment on the targets of the investigation.

"I don't feel comfortable talking about that because nothing is static
here," LaFon said.

Jackson's testimony opened a grand jury hearing expected to stretch
into next week as jurors review the controversial parking lot
roundup to determine if any officers broke the law and deserve criminal
indictment.

Two women arrested in the raid , Emily Demmler, 19, and Sarah Sponsel,
20, also testified. Both declined to comment. Charges
against the women and all people arrested in the raid were dropped in
September.

Jackson spent three hours before the grand jury giving details about
the plan he authored, at the request of Aguirre, for curbing
drag racing on Westheimer - the initial intent of the parking lot raid
that has sparked the largest internal investigation in HPD's
history.

The manner in which the sweep occurred was drastically different from
Jackson's plan, Greenwood said. For example, Jackson's plan
only called for four passenger vans to transport those arrested, which
never would have held the 270 people.

"My client is probably the person with the best overview of what
happened from beginning to end," Greenwood said. "He was there
from May, when Aguirre hatched the idea, until they took down the crime
scene tape in the parking lot."

Jackson has willingly cooperated with the district attorney's office
and the police Internal Affairs Division because he has no criminal
liability for the incident, Greenwood said. The night of the raid
Jackson distributed ticket books and pens and did not make any
arrests.

"My client drew up the plan that was approved all the way up to the
top," Greenwood said. "Other than that, he did what Aguirre told
him to do."

LaFon confirmed that Jackson is not a target of the investigation and
said Jackson has not received anything in return for his
testimony. LaFon said nearly all of the officers involved in the
incident have been cooperating with investigators and that no one has
been offered immunity in exchange for their testimony.

When the grand jury reconvenes Friday, it will hear from Aguirre and
two sergeants from his patrol division, J.E. Zitzmann and
Ken Wenzel, LaFon said.

Aguirre, a 23-year HPD veteran, was suspended with pay because of
allegations that he tried to influence other officers' statements
about the incident. Zitzmann and Wenzel are among 12 other supervisors
- including a captain, two lieutenants and seven sergeants -
also suspended without pay.

To date, a total of 10 witnesses have been subpoenaed to appear before
the grand jury , LaFon said, though that list may expand.
More than 60 police officers and numerous civilian witnesses may be
called.

Jurors also will review the findings of an independent investigation by
the district attorney's office.

Though all trespassing and curfew charges resulting from the arrests
were dropped, the city faces one lawsuit and 89 claims for
damages filed by people seeking millions of dollars.

...

Suspended officers

About 80 HPD officers participated in the Aug. 18 raid at a westside
Kmart. Thirteen officers were suspended with pay. They are:

Capt. Mark Aguirre, South Central.

Capt. John Mokwa, Westside.

Lt. B.W. Music, Westside.

Lt. Frank Jackson, South Central.

Sgt. J.E. Zitzmann, South Central.

Sgt. S.A. Cain, Clear Lake.

Sgt. B.E. Roberts, Southeast.

Sgt. Andrew King, Eastside.

Sgt. Ken Wenzel, South Central.

Sgt. Kenneth Maeker, Westside.

Sgt. John McClellan, Westside.

Sgt. J.T. Lewis, Southwest.

Sgt. D.S. Shoppe, Southeast

*******************************

i have around 19 different mailings with many quoted and sourced news
excerpts and links from that period of several months regarding the
case. like i said, i ran a small mailing list about this for some other
riders around the country who were interested, until it concluded.
anyway, this is way beyond my response to Oma who only wanted to know a
little bit more about it. I think he can take it from here <g>

but as you can see, and as Bill is wondering with the Ch 5 news program
that started this thread, there's always more to things than meets the
eye.

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! I am Oz, the Great and
Powerful!"
-The Wizard of Oz-

--
jm

'73 R75/5 Toaster (not for sale)
'99 R1100RT (in use)
'00 FLHRCI (sold!)
Iron Butt Assoc, WATR 3X, EIEIO, AEIOU etc blah blah