Thursday, August 26, 2021

Ex-Ohio Correctional Officer Garrett Osbon bragged in text messages and social media he helped paralyze a "cho"

Garrett Osbon epitomizes the expession, "If you want to see the scum of the earth, go to any prison and wait for the shift to change." Hopefully soon he'll be an inmate in the very prison he once worked, along with his patners in crime. 

https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2021/08/26/ohio-sued-over-prison-abuse-case-left-man-paralyzed/8199394002/

Ohio prison guards tackled and then repeatedly dropped a handcuffed 20-year-old man, leaving him paralyzed

Laura A. Bischoff

The Columbus Dispatch

Seth Fletcher, 21, suffered a spinal cord injury when state prison guards tackled, handcuffed and dropped him at Chillicothe Correctional Institution. He is now paralyzed from the chest down.

Guards at Chillicothe Correctional Institution tackled and then dropped a handcuffed 20-year-old man on his face over and over and failed to take seriously his complaint that he couldn't feel or move his legs.

Seth Fletcher is now paralyzed from the chest down.

But no one was charged with a crime – even after a guard bragged about paralyzing Fletcher on social media and in text messages.

Earlier this year, the Ross County prosecutor's office declined to bring criminal charges in the case. After an inquiry by the USA TODAY Network Ohio bureau, Prosecutor Jeffrey Marks said he will review the recently released Department of Rehabilitation and Correction investigation for any new evidence. 

Lawyer: 'Most horrific case I've seen' of law enforcement misconduct

Within days of his injury, Fletcher hired a team of lawyers and filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court. That case is pending.

"It is probably the most horrific case I've seen and I've been litigating police misconduct cases for 20 years," said Fletcher's attorney, James J. Harrington IV of Fieger Law in Michigan.

Due to pending litigation, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction officials declined comment about Fletcher.

Inmate death:Prison cameras show handcuffed Columbus man tackled, pushed to the ground multiple times by corrections officers

A year after Fletcher was injured, the state prisons department fired three people and gave a one-day working suspension to two staff members involved. Additionally, six others resigned and one lieutenant took medical retirement.

State investigations paint vivid details

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction released its 239-page internal investigation in response to a public records request submitted by USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau. Likewise, the Ohio Highway Patrol released its 29-page investigation report in response to a records request. Here is an account of what happened according to those records.

During a strip search on April 3, 2020, guards caught Fletcher with a cigarette they suspected was laced with drugs. They handcuffed him and took him to the medical clinic shortly after 6 p.m.

The trouble started during the escort from the clinic to the segregated housing unit.

Corrections Officer Christopher Coy said Fletcher tried to pull away from him. When Coy failed to take Fletcher down with a leg sweep, he tackled the 5-foot-9-inch handcuffed man to the ground. 

Fletcher said he knew right away something was terribly wrong: He couldn't move his legs and his neck hurt.

Guards picked him up, facing down, by his arms and legs and carried him back to the clinic. Nurse Krista Wooten patted his back and neck and decided Fletcher was okay to be taken back to the segregation unit.

Again, face down and handcuffed, guards carried Fletcher by his arms and legs through the yard, dropping him along the way. Staff brought out a backboard to finish the trek to the segregated housing unit, where cameras were inoperable that day.

Other guards dropped him on his face again before depositing him on a bed in a suicide watch cell. His right arm hung limply over the side of the bed. Fletcher repeatedly said, "I can't move, where am I at?"

Fletcher asked for water. Guards poured it on his face. 

When Acting Capt. Ta-Rance White checked on him at 2:22 a.m., Fletcher told him he couldn't move. But White didn't take action. It wasn't until psychologist Eric Anderson visited him at 9:49 a.m. that medical help was summoned. He underwent emergency spinal surgery at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center.

During an interview with the patrol investigators, a corrections officer admitted that he poured water into Fletcher's mouth but some went up his nose. 

Garrett Osbon, who resigned from his corrections officer job, said in text messages and on Facebook: "we also water boarded him LMAO" and "I broke a dudes nose today, yeah this was not reported, there was way too much blood so I mopped it up."

The patrol report referenced the Facebook postings. Fletcher's attorney released copies of Osbon's text messages he obtained through the lawsuit.

Osbon's bragging in text messages continued after Fletcher was taken to Ohio State Medical Center: "the dude I broke his nose is now paralyzed with a broken neck, and they say his face looks like he had been dropped and dragged through concrete, LMAO" and "It feels good to know that I played a small part in paralyzing a cho, LMAO."

"Cho" or "cho mo" is prison slang for child molester.

Fletcher was sentenced in Fulton County to two years in prison for pandering sexually-oriented material involving minors. Fletcher's attorneys said the offense involved a consensually made videotape with his girlfriend, who was a couple of years younger than Fletcher. Fletcher entered prison at age 18.

'Nobody deserves this'

Fletcher filed his federal civil rights case against two dozen Ohio prison security and nursing staff members on April 15, 2020. The Ohio Attorney General's office, which represents state agencies and employees in their official capacity, asked the court for permission to withdraw as counsel for nurse Wooten, Lt. Randolph Hester and three corrections officers who were working in the segregation housing unit: Summer Alley, Daniel Lambert and Osbon.

Lambert and Osbon resigned before the investigations concluded.

Fletcher, who is on parole and living in an Alliance-area nursing home, is a permanent quadriplegic confined to a wheelchair, Harrington said. He is now 21 years old.

"It's been very hard. It's been a struggle," said April Jacobsen, Fletcher's mother. "My son has a lot of health conditions because of this situation. It's been very costly, very expensive to just go see him."

Jacobsen said she makes the four-hour one-way trip between her home in Bryan to the nursing home once a month and she raided her 401(k) and used her stimulus to begin remodeling her house to make it wheelchair accessible so she can eventually care for him there.

Fletcher is able to talk, turn his head and lift his arms up and down. But activities he used to love, like playing guitar or mowing the lawn, are a distant memory.

"The last time I visited him, all he talked about was running. He just wanted to get up and run," she said.

Jacobsen said she wants money for her son's ongoing care and she wants the corrections officers responsible for the injury to pay.  "Nobody deserves this to happen to them."

Saturday, August 21, 2021

Elk Grove (CA) police say they discourage vigilante behavior while arresting a person entrapped by online vigilante scum

 If you are against vigilantes, why use their dubious evidence for an arrest?

http://www.egcitizen.com/news/youtube-host-leads-police-to-arrest-suspected-sex-offender-in-eg/article_06254b1c-008e-11ec-80a5-bb8a25a2a768.html

YouTube host leads police to arrest suspected sex offender in EG

By Cameron Macdonald - Citizen News Editor Aug 18, 2021 Updated Aug 18, 2021 

The Elk Grove police on Aug. 11 arrested a 20-year-old man who allegedly visited Morse Community Park to have a sexual encounter with a minor in a restroom.

“Ghost,” who is a YouTube channel host and the anonymous leader of an self-described movement called, Creep Catching (CC) Unit, announced that their decoy operation led authorities to arrest Timothy Brock of Elk Grove.

CC Unit targets sexual predators online and then releases their video-recorded confrontations with them on YouTube. They also submit evidence to law enforcement in order to have the suspects arrested. The CC Unit in June reportedly led authorities to arrest a suspected sex offender in Roseville.

“The mission is to expose adults who prey on children,” Ghost told the Citizen about the CC Unit’s work. “Get these adults arrested and convicted for their crimes. Change laws to where predators get harsher punishments for their crimes against children.”

During the Elk Grove incident, the CC Unit confronted Brock at Morse Park before the police arrived. Ghost said that he then gave officers the text messages and online chats between the suspect and the decoy who posed as a 13-year-old boy.

“He was on our radar for four months,” he told the Citizen about the suspect.

Brock was arrested on felony charges of communicating with a minor to commit sex offenses, meeting with a minor for purposes of lewd behavior, and attempting to possess obscene matter of a minor in a sexual act. He is currently being held in the Sacramento County Main Jail on a $100,000 bail, according to jail records. Brock is also reportedly scheduled for a settlement conference at the Sacramento Superior Court on Aug. 25.

Elk Grove police spokesperson Hannah Gray confirmed that officers responded to the call at Morse Park and they took the suspect into custody.

“However, we highly discourage this type of activity, due to the propensity for danger,” she said about private groups targeting suspected criminals.

Gray added that her agency advises people to instead contact law enforcement to report any possible or known crimes. She mentioned the work of the Sacramento Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which targets sexual predators online.

Sunday, August 15, 2021

Comment in Denver Post article provides evidence that so-called "Predator Hunters" are not in it to protect the kids

Years ago, members of Perveryted Justice had admitted they were motivated by, as the put it, "the lulz" (i.e., fun, laughter, or amusement, especially that derived at another's expense, a term that hit its peak usage in the late 2000s). Not much has really changed. Modern "predator hunters" are primarily in it for the fame and for the fun of bullying people. 

The Denver Post article featuring yet another group of Internet Vigilante thugs, this one named "Colorado Ped Patrol", is trying to lure an adult looking for a casual encounter. the Post adds the following:

https://www.denverpost.com/2021/08/11/colorado-ped-patrol-tommy-fellows-police-reaction/

"On this day, the man chatting with (Celeste) Hilton sent a flurry of text messages, many of them vile, about his plans for her. He told Hilton via text that he would drive from Colorado Springs to meet her at a park in Lakewood.

“I give them multiple outs. I don’t just tell them I’m 13 once. I tell them multiple times I’m 13,” she said.

This man takes the out.

Just as (Tommy) Fellows and Hilton were packing their gear for the meetup, the man texted that he wasn’t coming. His message said he was only role-playing and needed someone older than 18.

The excitement evaporated.

“That’s a bummer,” Fellows said."

The reaction to a person who says he has no desire to meet with a 13 year old should be a relief if you truly believe your goal is "protecting children." Instead, Tommy Fellows is "bummed". Why? At least partly because of money:

"When Fellows goes live on his YouTube channel, people immediately tune in. The comments, most of them cheering Fellows on, pour in. He often responds to them as he is confronting a predator, thanking them for their donations and support. People also pay between $4.99 and $19.99 a month to support his mission and receive exclusive video content."

Colorado Ped Patrol is in it for the fun and the money. These groups are simply bullies that found a way to be allowed to ply their trade in a way that gets cheers and beer money. 

The Colorado Springs PD decided not to entertain Fellows. Fellows told KRDO 13, "They’ve never come out like that and said we’re not going to take care of any of your shenanigans." (In the video interview, healso claims his motivation ids because his kid was molested.) Any excuse to try to justify his behavior huh?

As noted by KRDO 13:

CSPD lieutenant James Sokolik says groups like Colorado Ped Patrol are dangerous.

"If you have contacted somebody who is now fearful they are going to be held responsible for a criminal act, there is that potential you could get hurt," Sokolik added.

Sokolik says it's important to note that people like Fellows aren’t police-trained interviewers, and there’s a chance his videos wouldn’t hold up a courtroom.

But Woodland Park Police and CSPD fall under the same district attorney’s office.

"I certainly can’t speak to what Woodland Park [police] did or didn’t do, what information they had ahead of time, or any of that," Sokolik said. "So these are very much different things."

Fellows though, thinks his group is doing important work, and that they are doing the work police agencies, like CSPD, should be doing.

"If they could have got it— well they would have never ran into the guy. That’s the problem, there’s not enough of them out there," Fellows added.

"That would be a ridiculous assumption," Sokolik said. "This is not a competition, that somebody has beat us to it. Somebody would have to have probable cause to affect a lawful arrest, and that’s not given to us by somebody saying 'I had a conversation online.'”

These groups should be outlawed, and Fellows and his cohorts should be locked up.