whatawaytodie (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} whatawaytodie) wrote,@ 2002-05-10 11:54:00 |
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Last Day
It's my last day of work. I quit to take the summer off before going to grad school in the fall. Fuck yeah...
Today I have two very disturbing stories. One involves the U.S. Government breaking international laws regarding bio-weapons production and research (imagine that!). The other is fucked up on a whole other level...a Sacramento cop has been arrested for raping a 16 year old girl in the back of his patrol car. FUCKED UP.
(VillageVoice.com):
. Military Proposes Illegal Bioweapons Research
by Russ Kick
Acording to documents unearthed by a nonprofit government watchdog, the United States military has proposed the development of biological weapons that would violate international treaties and federal law. In fact, they may have already developed some of these illegal, treaty-busting bioweapons. Using the Freedom of Information Act, the Sunshine Project has recently pried loose some damning documents from the Marine Corps, which seems to be overseeing this area of research.
Exhibit A is a 1997 proposal from the Naval Research Laboratory to create genetically engineered bacteria and fungi that will corrode and degrade enemy matériel, such as roads, runways, vehicles, weapons, and fuel.
Then we have the document from Armstrong Laboratories at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas. The flyboys propose much the same thing as the navy—engineered microbes that can destroy enemy equipment, including explosives and chemical weapons.
The military scientists take great care to point out that the germs they want to create would be "nonlethal." But this doesn't matter. The international Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention treaty absolutely bans member nations from possessing or developing microbes, toxins, or any other biological agents for use in battle or other hostile situations. (Under the treaty, bioweapons can only be developed for defensive purposes, which is what lets the U.S. government brew anthrax with the supposed goal of developing a vaccine.) The U.S. was one of the original signatories, putting its John Hancock on the treaty in 1972.
Yet the navy lab is advocating these super-bugs for blatantly offensive purposes, saying they will "degrade opposing forces' mobility, logistical support and equipment maintenance programs prior to or during military engagements." Likewise, the air force proposal is for bioweapons that would be used to attack enemy forces: "Catalysts can be developed to destroy whatever war matériel is desired. All [military] Services would have an interest."
Both proposals claim that the destructive germs wouldn't violate the biological weapons treaty. "That's completely false," says Edward Hammond, a co-founder of the Sunshine Project. He notes that the convention makes no distinction between bioweapons that target humans and those that take out equipment or other targets. "If the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention was limited to humans, it would be disastrous. Weapons that target animals, like livestock, would be legal. Destroying crops would be legal."
And let's not forget that the actual use of biological weapons, as opposed to their development, was outlawed way back in 1925 by the Geneva Convention.
The military's proposed germ research would violate more than just international treaties. "U.S. federal law explicitly states that biological weapons that attack matériel are illegal," Hammond says. "The penalty is life in federal prison. If they lifted a finger to do this research, they have violated the [Biological and Toxin Weapons] Convention and federal law."
Which leads to another crucial point. The military's proposals from five years ago reveal that they already had developed similar bioweapons. The navy lab says it has a fungus that breaks down polyurethanes. In the air force document, Armstrong Laboratories brags that it's been doing "biotechnological research at the molecular level" for eight years. Specifically, it's cooked up a bio-agent that quickly destroys rocket fuel, plastic, and other organic and artificial polymers "without fire or explosion."
Does this mean that the military has already violated the bioweapons treaty and U.S. law? "I don't want to comment on that right now," Hammond says. "We're discussing it with lawyers."
***
(Sacramento Bee):
Teen: Rape was in cop car
Afidavit outlines accusations against Sacramento officer.
By Ralph Montaño -- Bee Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 8, 2002
A Sacramento police officer charged with multiple sexual assaults raped a 16-year-old girl in the back seat of his patrol car before taking her to Juvenile Hall, where he assaulted her again, according to a court affidavit obtained Tuesday.
The document provided details of the accusations made by the girl and five other women against Officer Darryl George Rosen, 26, who faces 17 felony and misdemeanor charges that include rape, sexual battery, assault by a public officer and false imprisonment.
Rosen, who has declined to comment, was arrested Monday and is expected to be arraigned today. He remains in jail without bail.
The women's statements to Internal Affairs investigators paint a disturbing pattern of an officer who, while patrolling northern Sacramento on the graveyard shift, apparently used his authority to abuse the young women between fall 2000 and December 2001.
Some were being arrested by him. Others were victims trying to report crimes. Each said they were forced to comply with his sexual demands because he was a police officer, according to the documents.
The 16-year-old told detectives she was afraid of Rosen because he warned her "he knew where to find her if she told anyone" about the rape.
That officer doesn't sound like the tall, shy young man who dreamed of becoming a cop while bagging groceries at Albertsons in Granite Bay a decade ago.
"He was so excited about becoming a police officer, completely gung-ho. He was always that way, completely excitable about everything he was into," said a friend of Rosen's, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I have to wonder if this isn't a case where being in a position of power went to his head."
Rosen comes from a law enforcement family and always wanted to be a cop, said the friend.
He was always going to movies and was a fan of the nocturnal comic-book crime fighter Batman.
Rosen attended Roseville High School, but officials contacted there Tuesday said they didn't remember him as a student who stood out; they only recalled that he was tall, about 6-foot-4.
The friend characterized him as being chronically shy.
"You had to put a lot of beer in him before he would even approach a woman in a bar," the friend said. "He always said he was going to be single forever."
The friend saw less of Rosen after he became an officer and began dating another Sacramento police officer. They were married last May and moved to Lincoln.
But according to court records, his assaults on women while on duty had already begun.
On Dec. 14, 2001, a woman complained to the Police Department that Rosen came to her house for a burglary report five days earlier and made her unzip her sweater before he fondled her breast.
The woman said she felt she had to comply because she was on probation.
Police were investigating the complaint when another officer was told by two women that Rosen had assaulted them. That officer, unaware of the ongoing investigation, reported the complaints.
Detectives interviewed the two women who told them that in July 2001, Officer Rosen forced both women to fondle him as he sat in his patrol car. Rosen reportedly knew one of the women because he had arrested her on suspicion of burglary earlier that year, records said.
Rosen was placed on paid leave Dec. 28, 2001, and the department expanded its investigation to all the cases he handled.
While looking at the officer's previous arrests, they found two more women who claimed they were sexually battered by Rosen. One victim allegedly was assaulted on at least two occasions while Rosen conducted probation searches of a house; the other said she was stopped while working as a prostitute, the court records said.
The investigators also found the 16-year-old, who was arrested May 29, 2001, for an unspecified warrant. Rosen raped the girl in the back of his patrol car after pulling to the side of the road, according the the affidavit.
Once at Juvenile Hall, according to the record, he told the girl whose hands were cuffed behind her to fondle him. When she resisted, he tightened the handcuffs until she complied and then told her to touch him again while inside the booking room, according to the record.
While on paid leave, Rosen called his longtime friend and characterized the complaints against him as harassment claims. "He said it was the department trying to get rid of him," the friend said.
It's my last day of work. I quit to take the summer off before going to grad school in the fall. Fuck yeah...
Today I have two very disturbing stories. One involves the U.S. Government breaking international laws regarding bio-weapons production and research (imagine that!). The other is fucked up on a whole other level...a Sacramento cop has been arrested for raping a 16 year old girl in the back of his patrol car. FUCKED UP.
(VillageVoice.com):
. Military Proposes Illegal Bioweapons Research
by Russ Kick
Acording to documents unearthed by a nonprofit government watchdog, the United States military has proposed the development of biological weapons that would violate international treaties and federal law. In fact, they may have already developed some of these illegal, treaty-busting bioweapons. Using the Freedom of Information Act, the Sunshine Project has recently pried loose some damning documents from the Marine Corps, which seems to be overseeing this area of research.
Exhibit A is a 1997 proposal from the Naval Research Laboratory to create genetically engineered bacteria and fungi that will corrode and degrade enemy matériel, such as roads, runways, vehicles, weapons, and fuel.
Then we have the document from Armstrong Laboratories at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas. The flyboys propose much the same thing as the navy—engineered microbes that can destroy enemy equipment, including explosives and chemical weapons.
The military scientists take great care to point out that the germs they want to create would be "nonlethal." But this doesn't matter. The international Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention treaty absolutely bans member nations from possessing or developing microbes, toxins, or any other biological agents for use in battle or other hostile situations. (Under the treaty, bioweapons can only be developed for defensive purposes, which is what lets the U.S. government brew anthrax with the supposed goal of developing a vaccine.) The U.S. was one of the original signatories, putting its John Hancock on the treaty in 1972.
Yet the navy lab is advocating these super-bugs for blatantly offensive purposes, saying they will "degrade opposing forces' mobility, logistical support and equipment maintenance programs prior to or during military engagements." Likewise, the air force proposal is for bioweapons that would be used to attack enemy forces: "Catalysts can be developed to destroy whatever war matériel is desired. All [military] Services would have an interest."
Both proposals claim that the destructive germs wouldn't violate the biological weapons treaty. "That's completely false," says Edward Hammond, a co-founder of the Sunshine Project. He notes that the convention makes no distinction between bioweapons that target humans and those that take out equipment or other targets. "If the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention was limited to humans, it would be disastrous. Weapons that target animals, like livestock, would be legal. Destroying crops would be legal."
And let's not forget that the actual use of biological weapons, as opposed to their development, was outlawed way back in 1925 by the Geneva Convention.
The military's proposed germ research would violate more than just international treaties. "U.S. federal law explicitly states that biological weapons that attack matériel are illegal," Hammond says. "The penalty is life in federal prison. If they lifted a finger to do this research, they have violated the [Biological and Toxin Weapons] Convention and federal law."
Which leads to another crucial point. The military's proposals from five years ago reveal that they already had developed similar bioweapons. The navy lab says it has a fungus that breaks down polyurethanes. In the air force document, Armstrong Laboratories brags that it's been doing "biotechnological research at the molecular level" for eight years. Specifically, it's cooked up a bio-agent that quickly destroys rocket fuel, plastic, and other organic and artificial polymers "without fire or explosion."
Does this mean that the military has already violated the bioweapons treaty and U.S. law? "I don't want to comment on that right now," Hammond says. "We're discussing it with lawyers."
***
(Sacramento Bee):
Teen: Rape was in cop car
Afidavit outlines accusations against Sacramento officer.
By Ralph Montaño -- Bee Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 8, 2002
A Sacramento police officer charged with multiple sexual assaults raped a 16-year-old girl in the back seat of his patrol car before taking her to Juvenile Hall, where he assaulted her again, according to a court affidavit obtained Tuesday.
The document provided details of the accusations made by the girl and five other women against Officer Darryl George Rosen, 26, who faces 17 felony and misdemeanor charges that include rape, sexual battery, assault by a public officer and false imprisonment.
Rosen, who has declined to comment, was arrested Monday and is expected to be arraigned today. He remains in jail without bail.
The women's statements to Internal Affairs investigators paint a disturbing pattern of an officer who, while patrolling northern Sacramento on the graveyard shift, apparently used his authority to abuse the young women between fall 2000 and December 2001.
Some were being arrested by him. Others were victims trying to report crimes. Each said they were forced to comply with his sexual demands because he was a police officer, according to the documents.
The 16-year-old told detectives she was afraid of Rosen because he warned her "he knew where to find her if she told anyone" about the rape.
That officer doesn't sound like the tall, shy young man who dreamed of becoming a cop while bagging groceries at Albertsons in Granite Bay a decade ago.
"He was so excited about becoming a police officer, completely gung-ho. He was always that way, completely excitable about everything he was into," said a friend of Rosen's, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I have to wonder if this isn't a case where being in a position of power went to his head."
Rosen comes from a law enforcement family and always wanted to be a cop, said the friend.
He was always going to movies and was a fan of the nocturnal comic-book crime fighter Batman.
Rosen attended Roseville High School, but officials contacted there Tuesday said they didn't remember him as a student who stood out; they only recalled that he was tall, about 6-foot-4.
The friend characterized him as being chronically shy.
"You had to put a lot of beer in him before he would even approach a woman in a bar," the friend said. "He always said he was going to be single forever."
The friend saw less of Rosen after he became an officer and began dating another Sacramento police officer. They were married last May and moved to Lincoln.
But according to court records, his assaults on women while on duty had already begun.
On Dec. 14, 2001, a woman complained to the Police Department that Rosen came to her house for a burglary report five days earlier and made her unzip her sweater before he fondled her breast.
The woman said she felt she had to comply because she was on probation.
Police were investigating the complaint when another officer was told by two women that Rosen had assaulted them. That officer, unaware of the ongoing investigation, reported the complaints.
Detectives interviewed the two women who told them that in July 2001, Officer Rosen forced both women to fondle him as he sat in his patrol car. Rosen reportedly knew one of the women because he had arrested her on suspicion of burglary earlier that year, records said.
Rosen was placed on paid leave Dec. 28, 2001, and the department expanded its investigation to all the cases he handled.
While looking at the officer's previous arrests, they found two more women who claimed they were sexually battered by Rosen. One victim allegedly was assaulted on at least two occasions while Rosen conducted probation searches of a house; the other said she was stopped while working as a prostitute, the court records said.
The investigators also found the 16-year-old, who was arrested May 29, 2001, for an unspecified warrant. Rosen raped the girl in the back of his patrol car after pulling to the side of the road, according the the affidavit.
Once at Juvenile Hall, according to the record, he told the girl whose hands were cuffed behind her to fondle him. When she resisted, he tightened the handcuffs until she complied and then told her to touch him again while inside the booking room, according to the record.
While on paid leave, Rosen called his longtime friend and characterized the complaints against him as harassment claims. "He said it was the department trying to get rid of him," the friend said.
