AKRON, OH – Civil rights-violating Akron cop Natalie Tassone has made Patrick King a poster child for why Issue 1 should pass if word about his arrest gets around the state. Tassone is asking Akron prosecutors to support her claim that the 3 grams of marijuana she found on him justified him being tazed, beaten down and arrested.
Tassone was administered an oath of office on February 8, 2012 to perform the duties of a police officer found in R.C. 737.11. She swore to obey and enforce all federal, state and local criminal laws.
The Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed twice in 2016 that Tassone committed violations of the 4th Amendment under the color of law. A 4th Amendment violation is a civil rights violation that’s supposed to be prosecuted federally under 18 U.S.C. 24 1 and 242 for every law enforcement involved in the conspiracy that concealed cop unlawful acts.
Akron prosecutors have not used the court’s rulings as the basis for prosecuting Tassone’s past confirmed and felonious acts of detaining, questioning, searching and arresting citizens without probable cause as a cop. Akron’s prosecutors have a “policy” of refusing to accept citizen complaints of crimes against cops filed pursuant to R.C. 2935.09 and 2935.10.
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It’s why Tassone continues to be a liability to Akron’s taxpayers with her latest violent arrest of King on October 21, 2018. It’s why Rev. Gregory Harrison, a former Akron police officer, continues to call for a federal investigation of the city’s criminally-corrupt cops and its union.
EJBNEWS obtained a copy of the incident report Tassone created under the color of law in support of her decision to stop, question, detain, search and initiate King’s arrest. The same unlawful behavior she exhibited in the arrest and charges the state supreme court voided in Tassone’s interaction with Janelle Oberholtz was evident in her interaction with King.
Tassone’s report shows she stopped King to question him without probable cause and without activating the lights and sirens of the public safety vehicle that activates the dash cam. She asked for his name and decided to search it in the NCIC / LEADS database in violation of R.C. 2913.04 (C) and (D). It’s a 5th degree felony law that was used to terminate ex-chief of police James Nice. The former chief supervised Tassone when she was hired in 2012.
NCIC is owned by the federal government and LEADS is owned by the state. The FBI manages NCIC and it’s NCIC 2000 Manual instructs law enforcement officers that “an NCIC hit alone is not probable cause to arrest.”
The “Bill Williamson” name King gave Tassone as she detained him without probable cause to search it produced results that turned out not to be associated with him. Tassone claimed she “suspected” that the wrong name was the result of King being wanted for a warrant, so she used that rationale as her probable cause reason to initiate an arrest.
The cop’s report doesn’t show that she sought to support her decision to act on her “suspicion” with any reasonable articulable facts that would lawfully allow her to search the FBI and state’s criminal records history databases or arrest a citizen. The only facts Tassone knew about King was that he was walking down the street after leaving a home. Under the 4th Amendment King had the right to be left alone unless Tassone could identify specific facts that led her to know by his acts that he had violated a city ordinance, state or federal law she could cite in a complaint by statutory reference.
Under the heading “data and probable cause” in the NCIC 2000 manual, Tassone was required by the general assembly to be trained to know that even if she learned of a warrant she had to first confirm the “hit” with the originating agency before she could act on the information. The Government Accounting Office advised Congress in a February 2015 report that the information the FBI stores in its NCIC database is inaccurate for half the citizens who’s names are in it. It’s the basis for instructing them not to use the federal government’s database to establish probable cause. Congress has also been advised by the GAO in a 1993 report to prosecute cops who abuse the NCIC database.
Testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 1966 revealed to Congress that the FBI was ordered in 1947 by U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle to stop using its databases to establish probable cause. Biddle in a memo to then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover instructed him that his database was inaccurate and that searches of the individuals whose names were stored in it without warrants violated the 4th Amendment.
Before Tassone’s version of the stop, detention, search of King’s name, body search and arrest was released, Captain Dave Laughlin issued a statement that did not articulate a reasonable suspicion of a violation of a local ordinance, state or federal law Akron police could identify King as violating while walking along Para Avenue on Sunday, October 21st.
Laughlin’s statement claimed that on scene cops used the “known drug area” reason the U.S. Supreme Court rejected in Adams v. Williams 1972 that “an individual’s presence in a high crime area, standing alone, is not enough to support a particular suspicion of criminal activity.” Tassone’s report did not make reference to King’s presence in a known drug area as her basis for stopping, questioning and wanting to search his name in criminal records databases and person.
Laughlin stated that on scene Akron cops claimed King “ingested a large amount of drugs” as another reason for their armed and violent interaction. Laughlin did not identify the type of drugs he claims on scene cops alleged King ingested.
Tassone in her report of the taking of a citizen off Akron streets by government officials makes no reference to witnessing King ingesting “a large amount of drugs” as Laughlin claimed in his statement. She notes only how King admitted while in the hospital that he took Xanax. For that he was charged with destroying evidence. Even the measly three grams of weed was discovered in King’s pants after he was beaten and handcuffed.
None of the “beat down” citizens recorded was mentioned in Tassone’s report. She doesn’t make any individual reference to the officer who tazed or beat King.
Court confirmations of suppression motions or those to vacate charges provide evidence to prosecutors that the cops they’re defending engaged in felonious criminal acts while operating under the color of law.
The U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation of the Cleveland police department identified a “conspiracy” of acts committed by every police officer who observed or participated in the commission of felony rights violations of law as criminal acts. It also revealed collusion by the city’s prosecutors in moving legally-unsupported charges they know are bogus forward. Even now King’s attorney, Eddie Sipplen, said city prosecutors want to offer a “drop the charges” deal in exchange for a “not to sue” agreement instead of dealing with Tassone and the other cops’ felony and federal violations of his civil rights.
“Fuck that,” Sipplen said his client told him.
Incident reports like the one Tassone filed that were supported by supervisor “D. Rouse” were viewed by federal prosecutors in the Northern District of Ohio and in Hartford, Connecticut as criminal tools. In East Haven, Connecticut federal prosecutors in 2012 indicted the police officer who participated in an assault and the up-the-ladder supervising officers who signed off on and approved his incident report. Four officers were indicted, prosecuted and convicted in a top down approach to holding police officers accountable by federal prosecutors.
The Supreme Court of Ohio’s two 2016 rulings show Tassone has a “pattern and practice” of violating and conspiring with others to violate the civil rights of U.S. citizens under the “color of law.”
In State v. Oberholtz the state’s supreme court supported Janelle Oberholtz’s request to suppress evidence Tassone obtained in the same but less violent manner that she got from King. Oberholtz and her boyfriend were arguing. Tassone approached her on private property and was told they were fine. Tassone asked Oberholtz to search her after she had already started to search. She found a baggie of meth or heroin in her pocket and a syringe in her bra and arrested her. The court agreed with Oberholtz that Tassone’s acts as described in the citizen’s suppression motion were unlawful. The city’s prosecuting attorneys, however, did not use the ruling from the court as the basis for filing criminal charges against Tassone.
In State v. Franchi evidence reveals Tassone searched Ritzi Franchi and claimed he consented when he said he didn’t. She claimed to have stopped him for a cracked windshield and no turn signal; and turned it into a drug investigation with “detaining” questions like those she asked King and Oberholtz. Like in King and Oberholtz, Tassone in Franchi did not articulate any facts that led her practice of “detaining by questioning” citizens she wants to search without probable cause for drugs.
Tassone did not activate lights and sirens to record her interaction with King during her stop. In Oberholtz, Tassone claimed her microphone was muffled. In Franchi the recordings of her interaction with the citizen were “accidentally erased.”
EJBNEWS notes that the city of Akron employed a police officer named Donald Schismenos who audio and video recorded interactions with citizens that were discovered to have included exculpatory evidence to support their innocence. Schismenos’ criminal acts were known by the city’s prosecutors. Evidence of the ex-cop’s felony violations of law appear to have been covered-up in a settlement agreement and not reported to the appropriate federal authorities in violation of 18 U.S.C. 4, “misprision of felony.”
“Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”
