Friday, December 9, 2016

Four Oakland police officers fired in wake of sex scandal

3:30 AM Bilal Muazin No comments

Story highlights

Four officers fired, seven suspended for involvement in sex scandal
Probe began after suicide of officer accused of having sex with underage prostitute

An additional seven officers were suspended without pay, and another is receiving counseling, according to CNN affiliate KRON4.

The four Oakland Police Department officers who were terminated also face charges of attempted sexual assault, lewd conduct in public, assisting in the crime of prostitution, being untruthful to investigators, and failing to report a violation of law for not disclosing that a minor had sexual contact with police.

The seven suspended officers are accused of accessing a law enforcement database for personal gain, failing to report a violation of the law, and bringing disrepute to the department.

Schaaf said at the press conference that the firings and suspensions send "a loud and clear message that we hold our officers to nothing but the highest standards of professionalism and integrity."

Sex, suicide and failure to report: How Oakland police scandal unfolded

Disturbing allegations

The punishments bring some resolution to the scandal that began last fall with the suicide of OPD officer Brendan O'Brien. Officials say an investigation into his death uncovered disturbing allegations.

An 18-year-old former prostitute alleged she had sex with O'Brien, as well as with a number of other officers from the department and officers from nearby jurisdictions.

The young woman, who goes by the pseudonym Celeste Guap, said it all started when she was 17 years old and became romantically involved with O'Brien, who she credits with saving her from a dangerous pimp.

"He saved me when I was 17," Guap told CNN in a phone conversation. "Instead of taking me to jail, we just kind of started something there, you know."

O'Brian, she said, later introduced her to other officers who became customers.

As the investigation widened, other officers became embroiled in the scandal. Ultimately, four police chiefs resigned and 28 officers across five departments were alleged to have had sexual contact with Guap.

Officers reassigned over Bay Area police sex scandal

Multiple relationships

Some of the officers paid to have sex, Guap said. Others exchanged confidential information, such as tipping her off about prostitution stings, for sexual favors.

Of the 28 officers, Guap said 14 were from the Oakland Police Department. The others included five Richmond police officers, several Alameda County Sherriff's deputies, a Livermore police officer and a Contra Costa County Sheriff's deputy.

The Oakland Police Department is no stranger to scandal. Since 2003 a federal monitor has been in place to ensure the department complies with a negotiated settlement agreement stemming from a police corruption scandal.

Officers had been accused of planting evidence and assaulting suspects. No accused officers were ever convicted, but one officer fled prosecution and to this day remains at large. The city paid out more than $10 million to more than 100 plaintiffs and agreed to make reforms, eventually ending up under federal monitoring.

Wednesday's announcements were "about making department-wide changes," Schaaf said.

"We see you, we are here for you, we are here to help you," she added, addressing victims of sexual abuse in the city.

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An astonishing number of people believe Pizzagate, the Facebook-fueled Clinton sex ring conspiracy story, could be true

9:30 AM Bilal Muazin No comments

Hereâ€™s a question I never thought Iâ€™d ask: Do you think Hillary Clinton is connected to a child sex ring being run out of a pizzeria in Washington, D.C.?

If you voted for Donald Trump, thereâ€™s a decent chance you think itâ€™s true. Or, at least, youâ€™re not sure, one way or another.

Nearly 50 percent of Trump voters think the Pizzagate theory is either true or could be true, according to a new poll released today from Public Policy Polling.

Itâ€™s yet another reminder that â€œfake newsâ€ â€" an admittedly lousy term used to describe a wide range of untrue things on the internet â€" has a depressingly receptive audience.

In this case, the non-story is a made-up tale about Clinton, her associates and an underage prostitute network. It started up this fall in dark corners of the internet, but quickly bubbled up through Facebook, which weaponized the meme with its sharing tools.

And itâ€™s the same tale that prompted Edgar Welch, a 28-year-old North Carolina man, to drive to a Washington, D.C., pizza place on Sunday, armed with a semi-automatic assault rifle, so he could â€œshine some lightâ€ on the claims. He was arrested after firing the gun inside the restaurant.

Welch told the New York Times that he didnâ€™t vote for Trump last month. But people who did were particularly likely to think that Pizzagate was true, or might be.

Public Policy Polling, which surveyed 1,224 registered voters this week, says that 14 percent of Trump voters believe Clinton is connected to the nonexistent child sex ring, while another 32 percent arenâ€™t sure. Nationwide, those numbers are 9 percent and 19 percent, respectively.

Public Policy Polling

Grain of salt? Sure: For starters, itâ€™s possible that Welchâ€™s story, which generated lots of attention earlier this week, helped seed the theory with poll respondents who might never have heard about it otherwise.

And more broadly, itâ€™s a poll, so itâ€™s going to have some noise in it. Which is the only plausible explanation for the fact that Public Policy Polling says that 5 percent of Clinton voters thought Pizzagate was true.

Or, in the words of Jim Williams, a Public Policy Polling analyst who worked on todayâ€™s survey: â€œYou can ask anything to anyone, and youâ€™re going to get 3 percent or 4 percent or 5 percent saying â€˜yes.â€™â€

Itâ€™s also true that crazy conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton and her husband arenâ€™t new, and have had a large national audience for decades. If you listened to talk radio during Bill Clintonâ€™s presidency in the 1990s, you heard many tales about mysterious deaths, deals with drug cartels and more.

The difference now is that the internet, and Facebook in particular, makes this stuff so much easier to transmit, so quickly. This non-story didnâ€™t exist a couple months ago, and now it has national traction. Imagine what weâ€™re going to believe next.

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