Latest news with #policemisconduct
Fox News
a day ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Former Louisville police officer sentenced for violating Breonna Taylor's civil rights
A federal judge has sentenced former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison to 33 months in prison for violating the civil rights of Breonna Taylor, who was killed in 2020 by law enforcement during a botched drug raid. Hankison, 49, was convicted last year of violating Taylor's civil rights, which could have resulted in a maximum sentence of life in prison. U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, handed down the sentence on Monday afternoon. Last week, the U.S. Justice Department asked a federal judge to sentence him to just one day in prison and three years of supervised probation, noting in a court filing that he "did not shoot Ms. Taylor and is not otherwise responsible for her death." "It is unfathomable that, after finally securing a conviction, the Department of Justice would seek a sentence so drastically below the federal guidelines," a statement from national civil rights attorneys Ben Crump, Lonita Baker and Sam Aguiar, who represent the family of Taylor, said in a statement. "This sets a dangerous precedent. When a police officer is found guilty of violating someone's constitutional rights, there must be real accountability and justice," it said. Taylor, a Black woman, was killed by police in 2020 after they executed a no-knock warrant during a botched raid of her home. Her boyfriend, who was carrying a legally owned firearm, shot at police, prompting them to fire back 22 times into the apartment. Her death, as well as the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, sparked mass racial justice protests around the country. The Civil Rights Division during former Democratic President Joe Biden's tenure brought criminal charges against the officers involved in both Taylor and Floyd's death. A separate jury deadlocked on federal charges against Hankison in 2023, and he was acquitted on state charges of wanton endangerment in 2022.
CTV News
5 days ago
- CTV News
Vancouver police officer retires after suspension, demotion for sexual harassment
Keiron McConnell was demoted and suspended without pay for 20 days after admitting that he sent inappropriate sexualized messages to female students and fellow officers. A Vancouver police sergeant, who was demoted and suspended without pay in May after admitting to sexually harassing female students and fellow officers, has retired from the force. Keiron McConnell had served with the Vancouver Police Department for more than three decades, including 18 years as a sergeant, before B.C.'s police complaint commissioner opened an investigation into his conduct last year. 'McConnell has retired and is no longer a serving member of the Vancouver Police Department,' a VPD spokesperson said in an emailed statement Thursday. In May, the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner ordered McConnell demoted to constable and suspended for 20 days after he admitted to sending inappropriate sexualized messages to the victims. The OPCC adjudicator also recommended the department adopt a 'standalone' policy and training to eradicate workplace sexual harassment. Retired judge Carol Baird Ellan also ordered McConnell to undertake counselling and training on proper workplace boundaries with women. Ellan's ruling said the 35-year police veteran 'had issues respecting or recognizing reasonable boundaries.' 'His behaviour capitalized on his superior position, which afforded him access to these younger individuals for whom, with respect, he might not otherwise reasonably be considered age appropriate, or eligible,' the adjudicator said. McConnell admitted to sending unwanted texts and Facebook messages to colleagues and criminology students he taught in B.C. universities between 2015 and 2019. McConnell engaged in 'a pattern of inappropriate behaviour with multiple women,' and claimed to be 'oblivious' of its impact, despite some of his messages indicating he was aware that they crossed boundaries. Read more: Veteran Vancouver police sergeant demoted, suspended for sexual harassment Lawyers from the commissioner's office claimed McConnell's conduct had 'a clear complexion of grooming' and that he was 'either oblivious to social boundaries, or contemptuous of them.' The allegations against McConnell first came to light in December 2021, when a photo of the sergeant with two senior VPD officers was posted on social media. The OPCC said the photo drew comments calling McConnell a 'sexual predator' with a 'history of sexually assaulting his students' at Royal Roads University. The following month, a Vancouver police colleague went to the department's professional standards section with a series of Facebook messages she had allegedly exchanged with the sergeant, which she felt were sexually inappropriate, according to the commissioner's notice announcing the hearing in June 2024. Ellan said the Vancouver Police Department should work with experts to develop training and a policy on sexual harassment, and ensure complainants are protected from 'negative consequences' for speaking out. 'We must seek to address any officer behaviour that causes victims not to come forward due to fear of intimidation and retaliation,' he said. With files from The Canadian Press
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
Vancouver police officer retires after demotion, suspension for sexual harassment
A Vancouver police sergeant, who was demoted and suspended in May after admitting to sexually harassing five women, has now retired, the force has confirmed. Keiron McConnell had been the VPD's longest-serving sergeant when he was demoted. "McConnell has retired and is no longer a serving member of the Vancouver Police Department," the VPD said in an emailed statement. The department provided no additional information. McConnell was the subject of disciplinary proceedings in the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner earlier this year. The complaints concerned incidents that took place between 2015 and 2019, including sending unwanted sexualized messages to two female officers who worked under his command when he was one of the leaders of the gang squad. McConnell — who first joined the VPD reserves in 1988 — was promoted to sergeant in 2004, becoming part of the leadership of the VPD's gang squad while also earning a doctorate that saw him teach at Royal Roads, Kwantlen and Simon Fraser universities. Three other women, who were students at the universities where he taught, were also targeted by McConnell. Another female officer, who was the first to come forward, had her complaint dismissed as part of a deal that led McConnell to admit to sexually harassing the five other women.
CBC
5 days ago
- CBC
Vancouver police officer retires after demotion, suspension for sexual harassment
A Vancouver police sergeant, who was demoted and suspended in May after admitting to sexually harassing five women, has now retired, the force has confirmed. Keiron McConnell had been the VPD's longest-serving sergeant when he was demoted. "McConnell has retired and is no longer a serving member of the Vancouver Police Department," the VPD said in an emailed statement. The department provided no additional information. McConnell was the subject of disciplinary proceedings in the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner earlier this year. The complaints concerned incidents that took place between 2015 and 2019, including sending unwanted sexualized messages to two female officers who worked under his command when he was one of the leaders of the gang squad. McConnell — who first joined the VPD reserves in 1988 — was promoted to sergeant in 2004, becoming part of the leadership of the VPD's gang squad while also earning a doctorate that saw him teach at Royal Roads, Kwantlen and Simon Fraser universities. Three other women, who were students at the universities where he taught, were also targeted by McConnell. Another female officer, who was the first to come forward, had her complaint dismissed as part of a deal that led McConnell to admit to sexually harassing the five other women.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Yahoo
‘Big Boys' Club': ‘The degradation of women'
LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — An unsettling culture came into focus as Megan Moryc settled into her new position on the night-shift squad at the Lakeview Post of the Michigan State Police. 'It wasn't until I got to night shift and this particular squad where they would sit in the Post, and this one particular trooper was not bashful about his extracurricular life,' Moryc said. 'He would brag about Tinder dates and having threesomes with couples and all the pictures and videos he had on his phone.' That trooper was Timothy Moreno, and Moryc said Moreno regularly would show off naked photos sent to him, while on duty, through Snapchat. An interrogation conducted by MSP Professional Standards Section investigators in 2020 revealed that Moreno's sharing of sexually explicit videos and photos was known by other troopers and a law enforcement agent from another agency. MSP's handling of Moreno and cases like that are the foundation of the departmental culture that Moryc, fired twice by the agency, said has discriminated against her as she has tried to reclaim her career with the support of arbitrators and courts during a nearly 5-year battle. 'Now, I wasn't interested in that kind of thing,' Moryc said. 'So, I would either, you know, focus on what I was doing, or I would take myself out of the situation and put myself in another room.' But Moryc said whenever the men on her night squads were together, 'they would always talk about this kind of stuff, and he'd share videos and things like that.' As troopers were reassigned from other posts or new recruits joined, they were brought into the photo and video sharing as well, Moryc said. 'So, it'd be like a whole 'big boys' club' going on at the post,' she said. Moreno, who is stationed at the Hart Post, did not respond to a phone message left on his MSP-issued cell phone. There is no publicly available email address for Moreno, and calls for him were transferred by the Hart Post's main number. Moryc, 40, a trooper since 2016, was fired by MSP in 2020 after a drunken incident she described as horseplay outside a hotel at a police union gathering in Traverse City. She was charged with two counts of assault and battery and two counts of criminal sexual conduct fourth degree, and in 2021 she entered a 'no contest' plea to the two counts of assault and battery. The other charges were dismissed as part of the deal. Moryc District Court Register of ActionsDownload The presiding judge threw out the sentencing portion of the deal that would have been probation, and she spent 21 days in jail. She was fired by the department shortly afterwards. An arbitrator and the courts said the charges against her were spurious and required her to be restored to active duty. She was put on state payroll again Oct. 2, 2024, only to be served with notice she was on paid administrative leave while investigators determined if she had lied under oath during a divorce hearing on Oct. 9, 2018, in Montcalm County. Moryc signed notification of administrative interview in perjury internalDownload She was fired a second time on Feb. 13, accused of perjury — something a special prosecutor declined to charge. She's fighting that termination through an arbitration process. 2024 DEC 20 PSS-627-23 Moryc – SOC TERMINATIONDownload The 6 News Investigates Team since August has been investigating this dispute between Moryc and the MSP, reviewing hundreds of pages of internal investigations, court filings, court opinions, emails and prosecutorial communications. Moryc has sat for hours of on-camera interviews, but officials for the state of Michigan, including the MSP, have declined to respond to numerous specific questions from the 6 News Investigates Team. This dispute, which at one point reached the Michigan Supreme Court, is chronicled in this ongoing report by 6 News Investigates about a sexualized 'big boys' club' at the Lakeview Post of the Michigan State Police. Not a 'team player' All of this began at the Lakeview Post, where, Moryc said, she grew 'sick' of the activities and began to isolate herself. She would find another room or go elsewhere in the detachment to complete her reports. 'I very much felt a shift in how they treated me and how they were acting towards me,' Moryc said. 'And it was a negative shift as far as I think they worried I would say something.' Her fellow troopers began telling her she wasn't a 'team player' because she had withdrawn from the sexualized rituals in the squad room. 'But I was getting sick of the kind of boys club going on and the degradation of women being told by both the one who was sharing the video and his friend that, you know, they said to me one night in the post — right to my face, and they said it in a joking way – but I know it really wasn't a joke, especially because they had said that to other women,' she said. 'Well, women don't, don't belong in law enforcement. Women don't belong in law enforcement is what they said to me.' She said Sgt. Scott Ziesman, who supervised the night squad on which she served, participated at times in the banter about photos. On March 4, 2020, Moryc was given a special assignment investigating sex crimes and possible cover-ups in the Grand Rapids Diocese of the Catholic Church. That assignment took her off the road, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was hitting the state and lockdowns began. Informing Moryc of the new assignment, Ziesman told her she would need to be 'a team player,' noting her withdrawal from the other troopers at the Post. 'I said, 'Excuse me?' and he goes, 'You know, some of the squad has been saying that you're not a team player, and you've distanced yourselves' – something to that effect,' Moryc said of the conversation. 'I said, 'Do you understand what I've been dealing with?' 'I said, 'I've been watching. I have heard them degrade women. I have heard them talk about how, you know, their wives – they shouldn't have to ask for sex, or they shouldn't have to plead for it. I've had to, you know, have them playing porn or, you know, watching all this stuff at the post.' I said, 'This has been going on, and this is why I've distanced myself, and I felt them kind of coming after me for it. Scared, I'm going to go tell on them.' 'And his response to me — which I was very taken aback by – but he said, 'Yeah, that's why I stopped going there, too.'' Moryc alleged Ziesman was unable to report the conduct up the chain of command because the troopers were aware of his extramarital affair with a county dispatcher and would use that against him. Ziesman did not respond to messages left for him at the Lakeview Post. 'Learn to accommodate' Distancing from such hypersexualized situations is a common response for employees, said Wendy Murphy, a professor at New England Law in Boston and leader of the Women and Children's Advocacy Project at the school. 'It's a learned behavior,' she said. 'At some point that a woman thinks to herself, 'I know I'm supposed to complain about this. I know it's illegal. I learned this in, you know, our training on what Title 7 [federal civil rights law] forbids. … But the last time I complained about it, I, you know, didn't get any overtime pay or, or something like that happens to them where they know damn well that's because they filed a complaint.' They suffered in some way in their job. 'So, women learn to accommodate. They learn to look the other way, or if they find it intolerable, they learn to avoid situations, and that makes it a lot harder for them to work with men. Work alongside men. It makes it harder for women to develop that trust that you really have to have with your partners and your colleagues when you are in law enforcement.' Moryc said she was explicitly told not to be like another female trooper who had left the post after complaints of the inappropriate sexual environment were lodged. Troopers accused that female trooper of filing those complaints, but a subsequent investigation of Moryc's concerns revealed that the female trooper had not filed a complaint. Someone else in the Post had. There are no available documents on the outcome of the complaints alleged to have originated with the other female trooper. Moryc said her concerns about the hypersexualized nature of the Post escalated when she learned of potential criminal activity involving Moreno and his sex videos. Specifically, a female law enforcement agent told Moryc she believed the agent had been secretly videotaped while having sex with Moreno. Shared videos investigation Isabella County FOIA response Moreno criminalDownload In early 2020, a female law enforcement agent working for a county in the Lakeview Post's service territory – which encompasses Gratiot, Ionia and Montcalm counties – became aware Moreno may have had videos of the two of them having sex, a criminal report obtained by the 6 News Investigates Team states. That information, verified by documents from the Isabella County Prosecutor's Office and MSP's internal reports, was verified by Moryc and that female agent. 6 News Investigates Team agreed not to identify the woman or the agency for which she worked at the time to allow her freedom to discuss sensitive information. Moryc and the agent told 6 News they believed these videos had been shared with fellow troopers in the squad room in late 2019. Moryc said the law enforcement agent told her that she had a 'friends with benefits' relationship with Moreno. For his part, Moreno characterized the sexual interactions between himself and the woman in the same way. The woman told 6 News in a phone interview that she got the first inkling there might be a video of her having sex with Moreno when a trooper from the Post referenced a tattoo she has on her rib cage, a tattoo that no one would have seen unless they'd seen naked pictures of her. She said the trooper who had referenced it wouldn't tell her how he knew about the tattoo. But she was concerned enough, she said, to confide in Moryc, who had become a casual acquaintance through their shared work. The former law enforcement officer told 6 News that Moryc listened to her concerns. The woman stated that on February 20, 2020, she informed Moryc that she was prepared to file a formal complaint against Moreno. As a result, Moryc reported the situation to her Post command. The next day, the agent was interviewed by detectives from MSP. That same day, Moreno was suspended with pay from the Post, and a search warrant was executed on his home, an MSP criminal report revealed. The report reveals two iPhones, a laptop, external hard drives and other digital storage items were seized from Moreno's home in Cedar Springs. A supplemental report provided by the MSP Computer Crimes Unit in Grand Rapids detailed that six of the eight items seized from Moreno's home contained sexually explicit images and videos. On one of the iPhones, digital forensic examiners found an app called Vault. The Apple store describes Vault as a way to 'hide photos and videos.' The app contained 243 sexually explicit photos and 20 videos, the CCU report disclosed. 'Multiple videos have been tagged that contain sexual activity for possible identification of the females,' a CCU investigator wrote of videos identified in the Vault app. Investigators, the report revealed, took no action to identify any woman other than the law enforcement agent involved. Facing four complaints 6 News Investigates asked MSP spokesperson Shanon Banner if detectives had attempted to confirm the identities of any of the women in the videos and photos identified by the CCU investigator. She did not respond. Some of the other digital storage devices contained images and videos of Moreno engaged in sexual activity, the reports said. The exact number of videos and photos discovered as a result of the search warrant and forensic examination of Moreno's items is unclear. On Sept. 11, 2020, the Isabella County Prosecutor's Office declined to bring charges against Moreno for eavesdropping, the charge that would address his having images without the consent of another. An internal investigation by MSP found he had violated departmental policies, documents obtained by the 6 News Investigates Team revealed. Isabella County reviewed the criminal case because Montcalm County prosecutors recused themselves. After all, that office worked closely with Moreno, who patrolled Montcalm County at the time of the investigation. Banner of MSP said Moreno had faced four complaints during his time at MSP. In one of those complaints, the allegations were determined to be true, or 'founded.' The other three were closed as 'unfounded.' Banner did not explain if the complaints against Moreno were sexual in nature or if they arose from the criminal complaint. She also did not respond to questions as to what, if any, discipline Moreno faced for the one 'founded' complaint. Moreno, who is stationed at the Hart Post, did not respond to a phone message left on his MSP-issued cell phone. There is no publicly available email address for Moreno, and calls for him were transferred by the Hart Post's main number. The law enforcement agent who had complained told 6 News that those investigators worked to prevent a prosecution in the case. First, she said, they told her repeatedly and aggressively that the video of her having sex with the trooper would be made public and played over and over. She said she didn't want that to happen. If she were to decline to push this forward on criminal charges, the videos would be deleted, and they would disappear forever, she recalled investigators telling her. Despite this assurance, the 6 News Investigates Team learned in December that the videos remain on file with and are still maintained by the Isabella County Prosecutor's Office as part of the files related to the investigation of Moreno. An official in that office told 6 News that the sexually explicit videos are password-protected. Secondly, using multiple Facebook conversations between the woman and Moreno, investigators concluded she had consented to the video recording. The woman said investigators only provided portions of the communications to prosecutors. She said the full thread showed she had refused to be recorded. The conversation, she told 6 News, was a ploy to get Moreno to admit the existence of the videos. 'It was not me actually agreeing to the recording. It was me getting him to admit it,' she told 6 News. Moreno told investigators the woman had consented to the recordings because she was trying to change their 'friends with benefits' arrangement to something more serious. Moryc's 'special' assignment By the time a prosecution decision was made in that case, Moryc had been on special assignment for months, investigating sexual abuse and cover-up allegations in the Grand Rapids Catholic church. That assignment had reduced the concerns she had while working in the Lakeview Post in the first two months of 2020, she said. As she had grown more isolated from her peers in Lakeview, she said she feared members of the squad would not provide backup to her while she was in a dangerous situation in rural Montcalm County. Backup was often 20 to 45 minutes away, and that's with a trooper traveling with lights and sirens on. With the special assignment, Moryc said, she was no longer in immediate fear for her life. Her colleagues, however, were expressing discontent that Moryc had been given the special assignment. Sgt. Robert Metivier told an MSP PSS investigator during an interview in 2023 that there was 'jealousy.' 'I know a lot of it was, you know, she gets to work at home. We get to come, you know, we still got to come in and do it,' Metivier said during the recorded interview that 6 News obtained from Moryc. Metivier, reached by text, referred the 6 News Investigates Team to the MSP's legal department for comment. Investigating Moreno Investigation from Moryc complaintDownload On Sept. 25, 2020, Moryc participated in Professional Standards Services' investigation into Moreno's conduct. During that interview, Moryc said she disclosed what she called 'the harassment I had been through.' She alleged the investigator, Special Lt. Matt Williams, told her, 'I'm sorry you've had to go through all that. … This is my last case I'm trying to wrap up before I start my new position.' It wasn't until November 2024 that Moryc learned Williams had initiated an investigation into her concerns about harassment. That investigation did not result in any of her claims being substantiated, including allegations of sex videos being played in the squad room during work times. That's despite two troopers' confirmation to investigators that Moreno had viewed sex videos in the squad room, and both said they had been shown or heard the videos in September 2019. Investigators asked another female trooper, who had left the Lakeview Post – and whom Moryc said she was told not to 'be like' because she had allegedly filed a complaint for sexual harassment against the squad – was asked if she had experienced sexual harassment. She told the investigators, 'No.' But she also, after conferring with a sergeant, told investigators that while she hadn't filed a complaint, another person had. Investigators provided no information as to when such a complaint had been made. They also did not investigate that allegation in the final report on Moryc's complaint. A review of the investigative reports by 6 News Investigates revealed that the female trooper was interviewed for 2 minutes. The recording was paused for 8 minutes while she conferred with the sergeant, and the interview continued for 2 minutes. The length of her recorded interview was 4 minutes, with half of the time spent consulting with the sergeant. In addition to the one female trooper, eight men were interviewed during this investigation, between Oct. 1 and Oct. 9, 2020. Three of those men were considered 'principals' in the investigation, meaning they were the targets of the allegations. Five of the men were witnesses. The duration of the interviews with the five male witnesses is unclear from the report, but the record shows three were interviewed individually on Oct. 1. The first interview began at 6 p.m. that day. The second began at 6:26 p.m., and the third was initiated at 6:59 p.m. The two other interviews occurred on Oct. 5, 2020, with the first beginning at 9:09 a.m. and the second at 7:33 p.m. In each of the summations of the male witness interviews, the Investigator wrote the same statement: 'I asked [REDACTED NAME] if he ever witnessed other members of the squad or of the post engage in behavior that would reasonably make a female trooper feel uncomfortable, harassed, or discriminated against. advised that he had not. I asked if had ever heard any other troopers make disparaging comments about women in law enforcement advised that he had not.' 'Unfounded' complaints That same day, Oct. 5, 2020, two of the principals – or subjects of the investigation – were interviewed as well. The first of these two interviews began at 9:48 a.m. and ended at 9:59 a.m. – 11 minutes total. The second began at 6:21 p.m. and concluded at 6:36 p.m. – 15 minutes total. The third principal was interviewed Oct. 9, 2020, beginning at 9:12 a.m. His interview concluded at 9:57 that day, 45 minutes total. The investigation was formally closed on Nov. 19 with the claims being 'unfounded.' Murphy, the law professor, reviewed this information for 6 News. 'The legal standard is 'sex-based words or conduct that is unwelcome & offensive,'' she wrote in an email. 'The test is subjective as well as objective, so use of the word 'reasonably' is improper, as if it asks only what the observer thinks of as reasonable; it ignores how a female trooper subjectively experiences the event. And use of the words 'uncomfortable,' 'harassment,' and 'discrimination' in the questioning are silly because uncomfortable is not part of the legal standard and discrimination and harassment are legal jargon that need to be defined so people can answer. It's like asking, 'Were you ever raped?' Most people would say 'no,' but if you ask, 'Were you ever made to have sex when you didn't want to?' most people say 'yes.'' No responses 6 News asked the MSP's Banner how the investigation into allegations of a sexually hostile workplace could be unfounded when two troopers had already told a criminal investigator they had heard or seen the video of the former law enforcement agent played by Moreno in the Lakeview Post. She did not respond. Banner also did not respond to an inquiry as to why the interviews with each witness were so short, or why the female witness had a male sergeant with her who called for an 8-minute pause to consult with her. Williams did not respond to an email seeking comment. Dozens of emails and phone calls to county prosecutors, troopers and command staff identified in the reports have gone unreturned. On July 1, MSP Col. James Grady III told 6 News Investigates the agency takes allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination '.' 'The Michigan State Police has a long-standing tradition of demanding the highest possible standards of professional conduct from its enlisted and civilian members. All allegations of misconduct are aggressively investigated,' Banner said in a statement. 6 News Digital Content Manager Duncan Phenix contributed to this report. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic or sexual violence, there is help. If you are in immediate danger, call 911 or your local law enforcement agency. For support related to domestic violence, call: 1-800-799-7233 For support related to sexual assault, call: 800-656-HOPE (4673) Read this series in order: Discontent in the Michigan State Police 'Wolf in the hen house' 'I never wanted to cheat on my husband' The 'womanizer' 'Too much room in the law … to discriminate' Frequently Asked Questions 'The degradation of women' 'Gender discrimination and harassment, including sexual' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
