Tag Archives: Philadelphia Police Department

Civil Liberties, Police State, US

TSA holds man for 20 hours after incident at airport

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A traveler from Philadelphia, who was attempting to fly to Miami to run a half-marathon in January 2013, was detained by TSA agents for close to 20 hours after an airport incident.

Roger Vanderklok, 57, was detained by the TSA agents after he allegedly asked to file a complaint against the airport workers. Instead, Vanderklok was escorted to a holding cell. Once inside the cell, according to the AP, Vanderklok was not questioned by police officers or given the chance to call his wife for nearly a day.

According to Philly, Vanderklok had placed some PowerBars and a heart-monitoring watch for the race in his carry-on luggage which had looked suspicious to agents. After 30 minutes of explaining the items were in his luggage, Vanderklok asked to file the complaint.

Charles Kieser, the TSA supervisor on duty at the time, then allegedly became confrontational and had ordered Vanderklok to be placed in the cell.

Kieser testified at a criminal trial against Vanderklok in April 2013, he had monitored the interaction between Vanderklok and the agents and testified in court saying, “Hands were in the air. And it’s something we deal with regularly. But I don’t let it go on on my checkpoint.”

After watching the incident unfold, Kieser then says Vanderklok, “put his finger in my face. And he said, ‘Let me tell you something. I’ll bring a bomb through here any day I want.’ And he said you’ll never find it.”

However, airport surveillance videos do not backup Kieser’s account of what happens. Instead, Vanderklok allegedly appears calm on the footage and does not raise his hands in a menacing manner. The police report on the incident also shows Kieser told officers Vanderklok said “Anybody could bring a bomb in here…” which differs from what Kieser testifies Vanderklok had said.

Thomas Malone, Vanderklok’s lawyer, did not challenge the agents investigating the material in Vanderklok’s luggage, but he says the footage from the airport contradicts Kieser’s account of the incident.

Now, months after the initial trial, Malone filed a suit against the TSA, as well as the Department of Homeland Security and the Philadelphia Police Department, saying his client was stripped of his liberties because he wanted to file a complaint.

A TSA spokesman said the agency does not discuss pending lawsuits.

Police State, Politics, US

Six Philadelphia Officers Arrested, Facing Multiple Charges After Corruption Investigation

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Philadelphia, PA- Six Philadelphia narcotics officers were arrested early Wednesday morning for allegedly robbing, assaulting suspected drug dealers and falsifying reports to cover up the abuses following a lengthy federal corruption investigation.

The officers arrested were Thomas Liciardello, Perry Betts, Brian Reynolds, Michael Spicer, John Speiser and Linwood Norman. The officers are either current or former narcotics officers, and face a multitude of charges including racketeering, drug dealing, extortion, robbery, and kidnapping.

An investigation by the Philadelphia Police Department and the FBI alleged a disturbing game played by the accused officers in which they awarded points to one another based on different methods of assaulting suspects. Another accusation includes an incident where an officer allegedly held a suspect 30 feet off the ground over a balcony in an attempt to gain information from the suspect. The officers also stand accused by officials of  stealing over $500,000 in cash and goods such as electronics and designer clothes between 2006 and 2012, and selling drugs that they’d seized from suspects.

The indictment states that the officers used “extreme force” to obtain the cash and personal property, and made false police reports to avoid attracting attention to themselves.

Warren Layre had spoken of his experience with the officers in an interview last year with The Philadelphia Inquirer. Layre said that Officer Liciardello, one of the officers named in the 26-count indictment, was among several other officers who raided Layre’s auto repair shop without a warrant in 2011 on suspicion of drug dealing. Layre went on to describe how officers broke the door of his shop down with a battering ram. According to Layre, Liciardello hit him in the head with a metal pipe, rendering him unconscious. Layre said that when he came to, Liciardello then kicked him in the face and knocked his front teeth out.

After a search warrant was obtained, a large quantity of methamphetamine was found in the shop. Liciardello reported that $6,650 was seized from the shop; Layre said the amount was closer to $41,000. Layre theorized that the drugs were placed there by an acquaintance who may have been a police informant.

Layre’s story is just one of many allegations against the officers named in the indictment. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said the accusations amount to “one of the worst cases of corruption I have ever heard.” Ramsey suspended the six officers on Wednesday with “intent to dismiss”.

If found guilty, all officers but Speiser could face life sentences in prison; Speiser faces a maximum sentence of 40 years.

Ramsey seeks to change current police union rules to allow narcotics officers to be rotated out of the unit every five years to curb long-term corruption such as this case. “We need to be able to move people from these sensitive units if there’s any hint at all that they are engaging in misconduct,” said Ramsey.

The police union has been against changing this rule, stating that more time spent in the narcotics unit builds expertise and a stronger bond with police informants. Fraternal Order of Police president John McNesby argued that “they already had to have a background check to get into narcotics. You have plenty of supervision, a disciplinary system in place, and a commissioner who is obviously not bashful about firing people.”