Miriam Carey
WASHINGTON – It’s called the “Blue Wall of Silence,” and it goes up when police officers close ranks and seal their lips to protect their own.
Critics say officials have erected a wall of silence around the details of the death of unarmed suburban mother Miriam Carey, who was shot five times, once in the head, three times in the back and once in the arm by federal authorities in the shadow of the nation’s Capitol.
And the evidence may back them up: Authorities will not provide crucial details about the case or even answer questions about it, and they appear intent on making sure the final report on the incident never sees the light of day.
As WND reported, on March 24, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Kim C. Dine testified before a congressional committee that he believed officers made the right call in shooting Carey to death, but, he said, he could not go into details because the case was still under investigation.
However, now the case is no longer under investigation, authorities are still not releasing details.
On Oct. 3, 2013, uniformed members of the Secret Service and U.S. Capitol Police officers chased down and shot to death the 34-year-old dental hygienist from Stamford, Connecticut, who was driving a black Nissan Infiniti with her baby in the backseat, after she apparently made a wrong turn at a White House entrance, made a U-turn to exit and fled the scene when officers confronted her. Somehow, the bullets all missed her 14-month-old child.
On July 10, after a more than nine-month investigation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia announced it would not file criminal charges against any of the officers or agents.
Police with guns drawn surround Miriam Carey near Capitol at Garfield traffic circle on Oct. 3, 2013
Carey family attorney Eric Sanders told WND that was not surprising, as a conviction would’ve required evidence “beyond a reasonable doubt” of an intent on the part of the officers, rather than negligence or a mistake.
He was also unsurprised at the lack of comment from police, telling WND, “The criminal investigation was a white-wash designed to fool the passive audience. However, the active audience is not fooled by their actions. Their collective reckless disregard for human life caused Miriam’s ‘avoidable’ death.”
Sanders was surprised, however, that officials would not release the final investigative report used to arrive at their conclusions.
He said that was far from standard practice.
It meant no details of the report conducted by the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police and reviewed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office were made public.
So WND contacted the U.S. Attorney’s Office and asked for a copy of the report.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office directed WND to the Metro Police.
WND contacted the Metro Police.
There was no response.
So WND asked both Metro Police and the U.S. Attorney’s Office questions about specifics of the case that have not been answered:
Based on your extensive investigation, if Miriam Carey were to have been arrested that day, what are the offenses she could have been charged with?
Will the full investigation report be released?
Can you tell us why still photos of Carey’s encounter with law enforcement personnel at the White House entrance were released but not the video?
Will the video ever be released?
Were any officers disciplined as a result of this incident and, if so, how?
Will any of the departments involved be making any policy changes as a result of this incident, or have they already made any changes?
Metro Police once again referred WND to the U.S. Attorney’s office, which issued this reply:
“We typically do not announce the decision to decline to pursue criminal charges, nor do we release to the public the legal analysis prepared by attorneys as part of internal deliberations about whether to prosecute. Because of the unique circumstances of this case, we chose to provide the public with a detailed factual statement that summarized the events leading up to the tragic death of Miriam Carey. We also released stills taken from video footage that showed events at the White House checkpoint, Garfield Circle, and Second and Maryland Streets NE.
“We have no further comment at this time.”
The note also said to check with U.S. Capitol Police and the U.S. Secret Service about the last two questions, whether any policy changes were made or officers disciplined.
U.S. Capitol Police did not respond to repeated inquiries.
The U.S. Secret Service replied:
“Now that the criminal investigation has concluded, our Office of Professional Responsibility will conduct an administrative review to determine if all Secret Service policies were adhered to during this incident.”
In sum, after a series of inquiries, WND received no responses that touched upon the substance of the case and no answers to its questions.
But what may have been most revealing about the U.S. Attorney’s response is what it didn’t say. It did not address whether the final investigative report would ever be released.
That may indicate authorities plan to ensure it is never released.
If authorities believe officers and agents were justified in the shooting of Carey, it would stand to reason they would want the report released to verify that claim, as Chief Dine appeared to suggest to Congress back on March 24.
However, Sanders made a telling observation on the day it was announced no criminal charges would be filed.
It was significant, he said, that there was not a claim that the police should have acted as they did.
“They didn’t say the police actions were justified,” Sanders observed, with the experienced eye that comes from his previous career as a former New York City Police officer.
In other words, the investigators did not really defend the actions of the officers and agents on that fateful October day. They just found that the actions of police didn’t rise to the level of criminality.
Officers forced Carey’s car to come to a final stop one block from the Capitol on Oct. 3, 2013
The question then is: Did officers act negligently in firing at Carey, killing her without just cause?
The U.S. Capitol Police and the uniformed U.S. Secret Service do not publish their guidelines on when it is permissible to use deadly force, so WND asked both to provide the “Use of Force” policies they currently have in place on discharging service weapons toward moving vehicles.
Neither agency responded to that request.
Sanders said most large police departments use similar guidelines, and they generally adhere to the standards set by the Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement, or CALEA.
WND reached out to CALEA for comment on the Carey case. Although the organization said it does not make a practice of commenting on particular cases, it did forward its guidelines on whether to shoot at suspects in public:
Use of Deadly Force
A written directive states that an officer may use deadly force only when the officer reasonably believes that the action is in defense of human life, including the officer’s own life, or in defense of any person in imminent danger of serious physical injury.
The Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department is certified by CALEA, and it’s policy on the use of deadly force even has a specific rule on when to fire at a moving vehicle.
“Use of Force,” Chapter IV. “Rules,” subsection A, line 3, states:
“No member of the Metropolitan Police Department shall discharge his/her firearm under the following circumstances:
3. At or from a moving vehicle unless deadly force is being used against the officer or another person. For purposes of this order, a moving vehicle is not considered deadly force. Members shall, as a rule, avoid tactics that could place them in a position where a vehicle could be used against them.
The IRS does publish its guidelines for the use of deadly force, which Sanders said are similar to those used by all federal agencies.
9.2.3.6 (08-14-2012)
Use of Firearms by Special Agents (Firearms Policy)
4. Special agents may not fire their firearms solely to disable a moving vehicle. Special agents may fire their firearms at the driver or other occupants of a moving motor vehicle only when:
A. special agents and others are in imminent danger of serious physical injury or death; and
B. public safety benefits of using such force outweigh the safety risk to special agents or others.
Officers and agents did not appear to obey those standards when they first opened fire on Carey at the Garfield traffic circle, just below the Capitol.
As WND previously reported, Sanders maintained the reason authorities did not release photos of officers shooting at the circle is because their excuse is so weak.
“Officers were (supposedly) concerned because she was driving toward people on the sidewalk,” he said. “They didn’t show pictures of anyone on the sidewalk. They didn’t show she was about to run anybody over, either.”
Sanders explained what he saw as the absurdity of that reasoning.
“Think about that one for a minute,” he said. “Let’s assume there was someone in front of her car. And you morons are shooting at her from the back? What are you, stupid? So you miss her and then you shoot (innocent bystanders?)”
Officers can be heard firing at least seven shots, and can be seen shooting in the direction of the sidewalk, on a video recording that also shows them failing to box-in Carey’s car at the Garfield traffic circle.
Sanders said the bottom line is, what authorities did reveal leaves more questions than answers. And he’s apparently not the only one who feels that way.
Three days after authorities announced there would be no criminal charges filed, a Washington Post editorial, “Questions remain in the shooting death of Miriam Carey,” stated the decision left a critical question unanswered:
“Was there a better, nonlethal means of dealing with the situation?”
In other words, did officers make the wrong call?
The answer may have to come from a $75-million civil suit the Carey family plans to file, which could force the final investigative report on the shooting to be released as evidence.
The defendants may try to settle the case, but Miriam’s sister, Valarie, a former NYPD sergeant, has told WND that getting to the truth is more important to the family than money.
Miriam Carey
A multi-million-dollar claim has been filed as a precursor to a suit against the U.S. government, the uniformed division of the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Capitol Police for “numerous intentional, grossly negligent and reckless actions of police officers, supervisors, managers and other related employees.”
Sanders said that after months of waiting for the release of the official investigation and after an exhaustive review of all publicly available data, the Carey family had concluded the shooting was not justified.
The suit maintains Carey was still alive after she was shot numerous times by officers then taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Also, according to the suit, despite being mortally wounded by gunfire during the chase, she continued driving out of panic, until she finally came to a stop and was taken from her car, a few blocks away from the initial shooting and a block from the Capitol.
The suit said the incident began because Carey “mistakenly drove past the first guard post at the White House entrance because the entrance was negligently maintained, covered and supervised by police officers, supervisors, managers” and others, and then tried to make a lawful U-turn to leave.
However, according to the claim, “for some inexplicable reason,” instead of simply allowing Carey to leave, a police officer “without provocation or legal justification, inconsistent with his or her police training, negligently and recklessly threw a bicycle rack at the vehicle, striking it.”
The suit goes on to maintain that Carey had not violated any law, and, therefore, police had “no legal basis to stop her or use any amount of physical force against her.”
Sanders claims it is officers who endangered Carey’s safety, not the other way around. He contends the ensuing car chase also endangered the public, outweighing “the benefit of investigating a harmless mistaken entrance through the White House entrance gate.”
When the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced on July 10, after its nine-month investigation, that no criminal charges would be filed in the Caret case, Sanders was livid.
Carey family attorney Eric Sanders
Speaking to WND, the attorney let loose a torrent of scathing observations and delivered a damning indictment of the investigation.
He first zeroed in on the one officer who was not in uniform.
That officer was seen in pictures released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, when it announced on July 10, that “the evidence was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the officers who were involved in the shooting used excessive force or possessed the requisite criminal intent at the time of the events.”
The Miriam Carey scandal: Exclusive: Joseph Farah is flummoxed at nation’s lack of compassion for slain mother
Sanders began quietly, telling WND in a soft but simmering tone, “It’s about male bravado,” then adding, “I’ll tell you why I know that.”
He pointed out one of the pictures shows that plain-clothes officer confronting Carey in her car, and that he has a cooler in one hand and a metal barrier in the other.
Plain-clothes officer tries to block Miriam Carey from leaving White House entrance. Photo provided by U.S. Attorney’s office.
Sanders notes the initial police report even got that simple detail wrong, referring to it as a “bike rack.”
According to that report, Carey struck the “rack” with her car after the officer placed it in front of her, and then it struck him, although it certainly looks like he is the one pressing the rack against her car.
“He’s in plain clothes. How is she supposed to know that he’s an officer?” the attorney wondered.
Additionally, what the still pictures taken at the White House gate don’t show is whether Carey tried to avoid or go around that officer.
Sanders thinks it is significant investigators released only still photos, and not the surveillance video of the incident, because they “conveniently” show only the pictures the police want seen.
“If that’s the best they can do to show what this case is all about, then the public should really be afraid of these people,” he said. “This is a complete cover-up.”
Sanders then picked up his analysis of the photos by noting that the plain-clothes officer appears again, at the Garfield traffic circle, where shots were first fired at Carey.
Officers draw guns on Miriam Carey at Garfield traffic circle. Photo provided by U.S. Attorney’s office.
“What the hell’s he doing there?!” he asked rhetorically, then answered his own question.
Sanders, uncharacteristically using profanity, said he believes the officer chased down Carey because the one overriding thought in his mind was: “This b—- f—— hit me with her car.”
“I told you this was all about bravado from the beginning, didn’t I?” said the attorney, insisting that the officer chased Carey only because he was upset at what happened at the gate, and that she had done absolutely nothing illegal.
Sanders said, as former police officer, the more he’s looked at it, the more he is convinced that his first hunch was correct, that the investigation was all about officers protecting their own.
“They covered up misconduct and criminal activity in this case, because what those guys did was willful,” he said.
Sanders said he will demand the Department of Justice review the investigation by the U.S. Attorney.
“The whole investigation is B.S. The investigation is beyond B.S. It was designed to get certain results,” he said. “They should be ashamed of themselves. I’m going to increase the damages we’re asking for in our civil lawsuit because what they did is a cover-up. They engaged in serious misconduct.”
The former officer expressed amazement authorities would simply announce there is insufficient evidence to press charges without showing what evidence is there.
As an example of unexplored questions, he returned to the plain-clothes officer who confronted Carey by leaning on her car.
Sanders said it is “Police 101″ for plain-clothes officers to avoid contact because citizens may have no idea it is an officer confronting them, and that can easily cause a person to panic.
He believes that is exactly what happened to Carey, that she panicked when an unknown man, not in uniform, threw a rack in front of her car.
And that is why, he believes, she sped away.
“People get spooked. They keep saying she was mentally disturbed. There’s not one shred of evidence to support that.”
The problem is, Sanders insisted, the mainstream media take everything the authorities say at face value.
“For example, it says in the press release that she confronted the officers. How did she confront the officers? The officers confronted her.”
As for the two uniformed officers in another photo taken at the White House gate?
Miriam Carey drives past two uniformed Secret Service agents while departing White House entrance. Photo provided by U.S. Attorney’s office
“She somehow got past them. You know how she got past them?” he asked. “Because they were over there, smoking and joking and lackadaisical, just like I said from the beginning. That’s why they don’t want to show the video!”
Sanders has told WND numerous reasons why he insists officers should never have shot at Carey.
Media reports claimed Carey tried to ram a White House gate or barrier with her car, but the initial police report did not;
The police report said Carey tried to make a U-turn after arriving at a White House checkpoint;
She apparently broke no laws until fleeing after being confronted by heavily armed guards;
Police justified the shooting out of fear Carey might be a terrorist, but Sanders pointed out, if officers feared Carey had a bomb, that would be reason not to shoot at her;
Additionally, WND found information that officers would have known within minutes that Carey was not a terrorism threat;
Sanders and law enforcement experts also told WND that the policy of most major police departments is to never shoot at moving vehicles;
Non-lethal means, such as tire spikes, apparently were not used to try to stop the car.
Non-lethal means, such as pepper spray or a Taser, apparently were not used to subdue Carey before officers shot her to death;
Video showed officers shooting at Carey in a crowded public space at least seven times after officers inexplicably failed to block her car at a traffic circle.
Sanders wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder to request a civil rights investigation but told WND he never received a response.
Valarie Carey is also calling for a congressional investigation.
“The United States Congress using its legislative powers must investigate Miriam’s death. It is in the public’s interest to ensure our government acted responsibly not only from a criminal or a civil perspective but from an internal agency perspective. It is also in the public’s interest avoid a similar tragedy in the future,” she said.
WND contacted dozens of lawmakers in Congress for comment on the case but did not received a single reply.
No terrorism threat
When the Secret Service and U.S. Capitol Police were pursuing a vehicle they feared might pose a terrorist threat last October, they quickly learned the car actually belonged to the young mother and dental hygienist from Connecticut, according to information in a report by Associated Press.
Troops arrive near where Carey was killed. WND photo by Garth Kant.
The information raised even more serious questions as to why law-enforcement agents shot and killed the woman in her stopped car rather than attempting to subdue her with non-lethal means.
According to AP, when authorities began chasing Carey’s vehicle, which had Connecticut license plates, State Police Maj. Louis J. Fusaro Jr., the head of his state’s Intelligence Center, led an effort with the Motor Vehicles Department to run the license plates and identify the driver.
“Within a matter of minutes of the incident happening, we were able to give back information that was key to the investigation down there,” said Fusaro, who is also commander of emergency services and the Office of Counter Terrorism for state police.
“Our job is to validate information, then refer it to the proper agencies for investigation,” he told AP.
Sanders told WND he suspects police received the information about Miriam “within seconds, long before she was shot and killed.”
He said the information presented even more reason to believe she should never have been killed.
The former NYPD officer said the question is: When were the record searches about Miriam requested? Before, during or after the police chase?
“My law enforcement experience tells me, one or more officers during the police ‘pursuit’ sent at least one if not more messages through the mobile digital computer in their police vehicles to NLETS (National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, now known as the International Justice and Public Safety Network), and via police radio to their dispatcher, they received the information about Miriam within seconds long before she was shot and killed.”
Meanwhile, police have virtually admitted they have video of law-enforcement officers shooting to death the unarmed 34-year-old woman, but they’re deliberately withholding it from the public.
WND attempted to obtain video of the shooting death of Carey by filing a Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, request.
The request was denied by Metro Police.
By telling WND that releasing the video might adversely affect any criminal proceeding, police essentially admitted such video might cast a bad light on the conduct of officers and agents.
A WND investigation revealed the presence of at least seven security cameras in position to capture video of the shooting at Constitution Avenue NE & 2nd Street. The incident was also likely captured by numerous dash-cams on police cruisers.
Meanwhile, police departments in other major cities such as Philadelphia and Las Vegas have released videos of officer-involved shootings before their investigations were complete.
Video of the first shooting incident involving Carey (at the Garfield Monument traffic circle) is already public. Withholding existing video on the second, fatal, shooting involving Carey (at the guard house at Constitution Avenue NE & 2nd Street NE) would not serve the public interest, WND had argued to Mayor Gray.
WND confirmed the existence of video of the shooting by approaching the guard shack where Carey was shot, about a block from the Capitol dome, and asking a U.S. Capitol police officer on duty a few simple questions:
If a major crime such as a rape or murder were to happen within blocks of the Capitol, would there be video of it?
“Oh yeah,” he answered, nodding his head vigorously.
What about the shooting of Miriam Carey, is there video of that?
“Yes,” he said without hesitation, while adding he had not seen it personally.
Apparently no one has seen it, other than perhaps a few select members of law enforcement.
Police could be reluctant to release that video because it might confirm what legal experts and civil libertarians from both left and right sides of the political spectrum have told WND, that they believe Carey was, in effect, murdered by police.
After Sanders previously called upon Congress to investigate the shooting death, he told WND no members of Congress have contacted the family.
In fact, lawmakers, who were told that police fired because of concerns of terrorism, congratulated officers for shooting the young, unarmed mother with a 30-second standing ovation, shortly after her death.
Did police murder Carey?
First Amendment expert Nat Hentoff told WND the evidence that officers killed recklessly was strong.
“[T]his is a classic case of police out of control and, therefore, guilty of plain murder,” he said.
Constitutional law expert John Whitehead, president and founder of the nonprofit civil-liberties organization the Rutherford Institute, agreed, telling WND that from what he’d seen, it looked like murder.
Press waiting for a police statement. WND photo by Garth Kant.
Political activist and former Graham County, Ariz., Sheriff Richard Mack called it “sloppy” police work and saw “no justification whatsoever” for the use of deadly force against Carey.
Dan Bongino, former Secret Service agent and author of the New York Times bestseller “Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away From It All,” was reluctant to second-guess the actions of law enforcement officers in a fast-moving and confusing situation and loath to evaluate their decisions in hindsight.
But even he felt the situation, involving Secret Service agents at the White House, could have been handled better and doubted that those involved, or their superiors, would dispute that.
Saying the incident was absolutely not handled effectively, Bongino predicted it would lead to changes, including retraining and security modifications.
Serious questions from the start
WND reported from the scene of the shooting that there were immediately serious questions as to how Carey ended up dead.
Carey was initially portrayed in the media as a national security threat, but when that proved not to be true, she was characterized as mentally unstable.
WND interviewed the victim’s sister, Valarie.
She took exception to the media’s description of her sister.
Miriam, Valarie and Amy Carey
“The media tried to depict my sister as some kind of mentally ill person,” she said. “For some reason, that makes people think it was sort of OK that she was shot. She was not mentally ill. She had postpartum depression. If that’s a reason to kill a person, that’s a very sad lesson.”
Sanders declared: “I don’t care if she suffered from 15 mental conditions! And, by the way, police are trained to deal with those types of situations, too. So you can disregard that. We don’t know. The only thing we know is that the police pulled the trigger.”
The question, he said, is, “Why?”
All four of the experts who spoke with WND agreed the incident was mishandled by law enforcement from the beginning, but it was also mishandled by the media.
Establishment media outlets such as the New York Times, NBC and ABC News all reported that Carey tried to ram a White House gate or checkpoint.
However, the police report did not mention a White House gate, a barrier or any attempt to ram anything.
Read the initial police report on the Miriam Carey case, Page 1 and Page 2.
The report described the location as “a vehicle checkpoint to the White House” and said the driver “refused to stop at the vehicle checkpoint and made a U-turn and began to flee.”
The report did say a Secret Service officer “attempted to block the vehicle with a bicycle rack, however, the vehicle pushed over the bicycle rack, knocking the officer to the ground.”
Bongino believes the problem actually originated almost 200 years ago because the South entrance to the White House, although secure, was designed in the early 1800s.
He thinks there will be “a serious remodel” of some of the security on the South side of the White House, following the incident. The former protector of the president didn’t want to divulge too much about security measures there, but he said there did appear to be an access-control issue.
“She turned into a little pocket there, and anybody can turn in there,” he said. “She got caught up and sped off. You wouldn’t be able to do that at another secure government building. They use vehicle traps.”
Bongino had tremendous empathy for his former colleagues in the uniformed branch of the Secret Service and declined to second-guess their split-second decisions in a confusing situation.
Noting the unique nature of the White House, he pointed out how agents working up to 20-hour days are surrounded by threats.
The White House is a big target, he explained. The president is an even bigger target.
“When the president’s in the White House, it’s even worse,” he said. “You’re constantly on edge.”
Still, Bongino conceded that the authorities may have overreacted.
“The libertarian in me thinks this was a very dangerous incident for civil liberties,” he said. “The fact you could have, perhaps, a condition and an extremely bad day and wind up dead, of course, should bother all of us.”
Alternatives to death
A WND review of the known facts revealed police may have posed a greater threat to public safety than Carey did.
It appears she never violated any law until police began pursuing her car. Officers, on the other hand, fired numerous shots at her in a crowded public space near the White House, as the video above shows.
“What happened to this woman is an extraordinary example of how police have no limits when they get into this sort of situation,” maintained Hentoff.
Mack and Whitehead both strongly believe the police should have handled the car chase much differently and that they ignored a number of non-lethal alternatives.
Bongino felt it wasn’t a black-and-white situation.
“When you watch that video … you see that car being whipped around,” he said. … [I]t should be obvious to anyone watching that a car is a weapon like anything else. As a matter of fact, sometimes it’s even more dangerous a weapon than a firearm, especially when you don’t know who is behind the wheel.”
WND asked Whitehead, could the actions of the police have been warranted because of so-called high-value targets at the Capitol and the White House?
He said no, adding that he believes police overreacted by shooting at Carey when they could have employed an alternative. He wondered, why didn’t they just shoot her tires out?
“Or why not use non-lethal weapons?” he asked, “They’re stacked with them. Stop the car. She’s a female with a kid in the car. If it turns out she’s crazy, you can take her down with a Taser. Or pepper spray. Do it properly.”
Mack said police missed an opportunity when they first had her car surrounded, which was precisely when they should have blocked her in with their vehicles.
Indeed, the video shot at the Garfield Monument shows police had that opportunity. Instead, two, perhaps even three, cruisers parked behind Carey’s car, rather than boxing her in on the passenger side.
Because officers did not surround Carey then and there, they left her a clear path to leave the scene. The audio on the video recorded police firing at least seven shots as she departed.
The former sheriff said firing those shots under those circumstances is against policy in most police agencies.
“Regardless, Carey’s action did not even come close to allowing police shooting at her,” he said.
The fact there was a child in the car further complicated the decision to shoot. The police report does not say whether officers saw the child in the car.
But the video shows five of the six officers who surrounded her vehicle on foot appeared to get an extremely close and clear look inside. It would seem difficult to believe that at least one of them did not see the toddler in the car seat.
Mack said the officers must have seen that a child was in the car, making the need for restraint by the police even more necessary. Furthermore, he said the use of deadly force under those circumstances should have been absolutely forbidden.
Miriam Carey shooting press conference. WND photo by Garth Kant.
“The police showed utter indifference for the safety of the baby and fired their guns without provocation,” he concluded. “The decedent (Carey) did violate some traffic laws, but such does not give police justification for using lethal force.”
Valarie told WND: “As an officer, you have to ask yourself, ‘What is going on here?’ No one is firing a weapon at you, so why are you firing?”
Why did it happen?
So, why is Miriam Carey dead?
Many wonder why police did not simply use pepper spray or a Taser, or why they did anything at all when they caught up with Carey.
Valarie insisted “deadly force was not necessary.”
“They could have rammed the car or disabled the car. But in this incident, they used very, very poor judgment,” she said. “And this is something those officers will have to live with.”
Sanders wondered, “How do you shoot at a person who is unarmed, sitting in a car?”
He said the threat of a bomb in the car was even more reason to exercise caution, “because if there is a bomb in the car and you are shooting in the car, you are endangering everybody!”
The day after Sanders held a press conference announcing he was calling for the Justice Department to look into the death of Miriam Carey, the attorney was arrested.
The New York Post reported Sanders was arrested after a judge had decided the attorney had missed too many payments owed to a former employee.
When WND asked Sanders if he felt his arrest was an attempt to either silence or intimidate him, the attorney laughed aloud.
“Of course I think it was! I can’t prove it,” he said. “I loved the timing of it – the day after our press conference. Exactly one day after I said don’t trust the government.”
Sanders added: “I am clean. That’s the way I was as a cop. That’s the way I am as an attorney. I was a police officer in New York. I’ve never been arrested in my life. The questions is, why was I picked up?”
Shoot first, ask later
Hentoff and Whitehead both firmly believe the case is an example of a growing “shoot first, ask questions later” mentality spreading across the nation among law enforcement agencies.
They argue it is directly related to a change in training and a militarization of police departments across the country.
Whitehead said the danger the officers created to public safety reminded him of a Sept. 14 incident when New York police officers fired three shots on a crowded Manhattan street near Times Square, missing the man they mistakenly believed had a weapon but hitting two bystanders.
(And that followed another one in August 2012, when New York police fired 16 shots and hit nine bystanders, outside one of the world’s most popular tourist attractions, the Empire State Building, as a large crowd watched.)
Whitehead told WND the “shoot first, ask later” problem begins at police academies. He said a chief of police who teaches at academies informed him that rookies are learning a militarized version of law enforcement.
“They shoot when told to,” said the attorney. “They’re not acting like peace officers anymore. They’re not questioning authority at all. They operate like an army. There’s a mentality now that they’re the bosses because they have the guns.”
He said a range of psychological factors condition officers to act more like soldiers, from the militarized, black uniforms to the ubiquitous use of SWAT teams.
“All the federal agencies have SWAT teams now,” said Whitehead. “As I show in my book, the Department of Education has SWAT teams. There have been SWAT team raids on people for overdue loans.”
He said his book also documents all the “crazy examples of the strip searches and rectal exams on the streets.”
Whitehead said he works with many police officers who tell him it has become a problem but they don’t know what to do. One even told him he dropped out of the police academy because of what he called “the thug complex” they’re teaching police.
“They’re so ‘code blue’ … ‘We’re a gang, we move together, and if something happens we don’t rat on each other.’”
He believed the militarization of the police began in the 1980s, when the Department of Defense “began handing out all this equipment” such as MRAPs, or Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles.
When WND asked if the equipment was introduced to fight rising crime, Whitehead instead saw a profit motive by the corporations that make the tank-like vehicles and have made a lot of money by lobbying the government.
Whitehead said there’s a sinister alliance between federal and local authorities that results in suppressed dissent and basic First Amendment rights.
“There’s a mentality now that’s led to Homeland Security raiding veterans’ homes for anti-Obama rants, those kinds of crazy things,” he said. “They’re working with the local police. They work in teams now.”
Whitehead said the militarization of local police slowed under former President George W. Bush but picked up speed under Obama.
“It’s a standing army now,” he said. “I am surprised sometimes, how local police approach citizens. Very authoritative, for minor offenses.”
Police state?
Whitehead indicated he believes Homeland Security is actually turning into a national police force.
“We don’t even have local police in the true sense anymore,” he said. “They’re extensions of the federal government.”
The legal scholar said that’s because most Americans don’t understand the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution prevents police from such outrageous practices as strip searches without probable cause.
“The average American, if you mention the Fourth Amendment, a huge question mark forms in their brain,” Whitehead said. “Then they go watch TV.”
Hentoff told WND “there is no question” about the growing militarization of the police.
The veteran journalist feels New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has taken his department’s “stop and frisk” policy beyond constitutional limits by stopping people on the street without sufficient cause, a position echoed by the city’s liberal establishment.
Hentoff finds the Carey case a particularly ominous harbinger, indicating the country is in “severe danger” of becoming a police state. The nation is not there yet, he said, because the First Amendment is still working, and independent media such as WND are still free to sound the alarm.
But, the civil libertarian believes the Carey case dramatizes some serious underlying tendencies toward becoming a police state, judging by reports he has heard from around the country.
According to Hentoff, what happened to Carey is “an extraordinary example of how police have no limits when they get into this sort of situation,” and how they are out of control in many areas around the country.
He said the only thing that can put a limit on police power would be accountability.
Near where Miriam Carey was shot.WND photo by Garth Kant.
Because the evidence is so strong that the police recklessly killed Carey, Hentoff said, the officers involved and their superiors must be held to account for her death, for the sake of the country.
Valarie told WND, “Everyone should realize we can’t allow our civil liberties to be stripped in front of us. If my sister was traveling and came across a roadblock – we’re not even sure it was a checkpoint, there was some training going on in the area – she should not have to be in fear of those sworn to protect us. And neither should we.”
Valarie noted how the news cycle died down once it became clear she was not a terrorist threat.
“The media should have reported an innocent and unarmed woman was killed by police,” she said. “That’s unacceptable. They cannot justify their actions. It was wrong, and America needs to know that.”
Hentoff worried that if stories like this are allowed to die, the danger of becoming a true police state will only increase. That is why he believes it is such an important story.
“Because, if we are ever going to become a police state, eventually the First Amendment will die along with this poor woman,” he said.
The highly acclaimed journalist commended WND for pursuing the story.
Hentoff said when he broke into journalism, one of the first things his colleagues taught him was, “Remember kid, stay on a story that’s important.”
And he called this story important, because, if police can get away with murder, “What kind of country are we?”
Another national gravely concerned about the Carey shooting is Blackwater security-firm founder and former Navy SEAL Erik Prince.
While defending the record of his private security company in Iraq, Prince described to an interviewer on MSNBC how dangerous things happen not just in war zones, but even in the nation’s capital.
Prince recounted how Carey ended up dead at the hands of Secret Service agents and U.S. Capitol Police officers.
He pointed out, even though Carey had no weapons and no explosives but did have her infant daughter in her car, “federal police officers opened fire and killed an unarmed, innocent woman.”
Other attempts to obtain video
Filing a FOIA with police wasn’t the only way WND tried to obtain video of the Carey shooting.
Authorities initially feared the incident was an act of terrorism, so it would seem logical that the National Security Agency might have monitored the chase and the shooting with its satellites.
But an NSA spokesman said it does not have video of the incident: “We are a foreign-intelligence agency.” The NSA advised WND to check with the FBI or DHS.
An FBI spokeswoman claimed there is no satellite video of the incident, stating, “That did not happen in this case.”
Also, the bureau would not confirm or deny the existence of dash-cam or security-cam videos of the shooting.
And a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security declined to comment.
See these other WND stories on the Miriam Carey Mystery:
Congress willing to ‘trust DOJ’ on mom’s killing
No charges for D.C. cops in mom’s killing
New revelations about mom killed by Capitol cops
6 months since mom killed by Capitol cops
D.C. police chief grilled on shooting
Cops opt for ‘the fix’ after mom’s puzzling death
‘Seeking justice for my sister’
Who was the mom who paralyzed D.C. for a day?
News media silent on scandalous mystery
Police slaying of unarmed mom goes global
U.S. sued over unarmed mom’s D.C. killing
Ex-NYPD cop hunts for truth on mom slaying
Cops knew suburban mom was no terrorist
D.C. cops stonewall release of Capitol shooting video
Congress urges to investigate ‘murder’ by D.C. cops
Missing! Video of mother killed by police
Famous security expert: Was this murder?
Legal experts: D.C. cops ‘murdered’ woman
Why did Capitol cops cut down ‘my innocent sister’?
The strange death of Miriam Carey
Covering chaos: The Capitol Hill shooting
Follow Garth Kant @DCgarth