Hypocritical Pulaski County Judge bends over for LR mayor and police chief that defied his court order last year

Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Herbert T. Wright

 

In 2020 we filed four Arkansas Freedom of Information appeal from denial of rights lawsuits against the feckless Little Rock mayor and deadbeat police chief.

Two of the cases were assigned to Judge Wright and two were assigned to Judge Wendell Griffen.

Wright unsuccessfully tried to wrangle the two cases from Judge Griffen to no avail.

Initially,  Wright failed to follow the law and set the cases for a hearing within seven days of the petitions being filed.

We had difficulty getting Wright to set a date for the hearing and that necessitated that we file a motion for his recusal. 

That filing resulted in his setting a date for a hearing.

In that hearing the city attorney, Tom Carpenter, motioned that all four cases we filed be consolidated. This would require Judge Griffen to agree to step away from the two cases in his court (he didn't - more on those cases in another post).
 

Little Rock City Attorney Tom Carpenter

So on March 3, 2020 the LR mayor and police chief appeared before Wright to answer for their refusal to turn over public records. 

 

 The first case involved copies of the non-exempt portions of each uniformed, plain clothed non-undercover LRPD officer's personnel record. 

According to records LRPD had previously provided to us, they had approximately 529 non-undercover cops. In response to our request for copies of personnel files, they only provided 79 files and closed the request. Hence our appeal.

Wright ordered the city to provide those records to us by the close of business on the next day, March 4, 2020.

The other case was not addressed at the hearing.

On March 4th, the city provided us with a thumb drive containing 432 personnel files all jumbled up in 18 PDF's.

 

Five of the files were duplicates of files in the initial 79 files provided out of 529 files. We raised our concerns with the city attorney about the missing 23 files.

On March 5, 2020, the city filed a notice of compliance with the court in which they admitted to have not provided all the records as ordered.

So on March 9, 2020 we filed a motion for contempt as the city had not provided all the records as ordered.

Then COVID-19 happened and the courts for all practical purposes shut down.

When the courts opened back up in 2021 we asked for a hearing on our motion for contempt and for a hearing on the second case.

Initially Wright wanted to have the hearing via Zoom. That was fine, but he wanted us to be present in the courtroom while the defendants and city attorney could call in from their office or home. That showed a bias and preferential  treatment for the defendants.

We objected.

After some additional court filings, Wright agreed to have all parties in his courtroom.

We must point out Wright's hypocrisy as he is a participating in a research project with Advancing Pretrial Policy and Research (APPR).

Here are some clips from the article about the project. The  article is titled "Fairness and Efficiency Are at the Forefront of Reforms in Pulaski County".

 

 

 

The treatment we received from Wright was anything but equitable or fair.

At the hearing today he found no problems with the defendants not being present and would not hold the mayor or police chief in contempt and dismissed the second case.

That second case involved LRPD permitting an individual to have access to records (videos) that they refused to provide to us.

The message Wright sent out today is that his court orders are not worth the paper they are written on.

But the jokes on him. 

We obtained all the records we asked for. We were given them last year.

In fact we almost skipped the hearing today. Wonder if he would have held us in contempt?

 

LRPD cop going door to door to get pledges to stop violence has history of domestic abuse

by Russ Racop

 

 

 

LRPD cop Brandon Middleton was featured in a recent story on a local television station about LRPD's newest public relations gimmick, "Operation Ceasefire".

 

 

 

What most don't know is that Middleton has a history of domestic violence and other troubling behavior, including showing up drunk for work and being a documented liar.

 

 

We had long complained about all the LRPD cops branded liars by LRPD that remain on the public payroll and the problem that creates as they are Brady Cops. You can check out the LRPD Liars List by clicking here.

 

It is ironic that Middleton is schlepping around trying to get folks to sign a pledge to stop violence given his background. Wonder if he gives a testimonial to folks about his own personal experiences with violence?

 

His estranged wife, we say that as they are in the process of divorcing, called 911 on June 6, 2019 to report Officer Middleton battering her.

 

 

 

As a result of the incident an internal investigation was opened.

No doubt the cops that responded to the call had Middleton's back.  Look at this document.

 

 

At first Mrs. Middleton was very cooperative with the investigation. She even provided details about previous instance of his physical abuse.

But as many LRPD cop wives and girlfriends/baby momma's have done in the past, they stop cooperating or are unwilling to assist in the prosecution of the abuser because if convicted, these abusive cops would loose their jobs and the child support they would receive would be much less than if they remained on the job as a cop.

Notes in the internal investigation file indicate that Mrs. Middleton would not cooperate with the Prosecuting Attorney in the  prosecution of her husband. 

 

 

After the completion of the internal investigation, Middleton only received a 24 hour suspension and mandatory anger management classes.

 

 

Cops like Middleton is one of the reasons citizens of Little Rock have little trust in the Little Rock Police Department.

Complete list of Homicide/Killings that have occurred to date in 2021

Here are the LRPD reports.

 

We have some reports from the Pulaski County Coroner and will post them when the forward the remaining ones. 

LRPD identifies a confidential informant and provides Social Security Numbers of a witness and some LRPD cops in a response to a Freedom of Information request

by Russ Racop

Lt. Michael "Lil' Bang" Ford, Jr. - Supervisor of the LRPD FOI Unit

 

In a response to a Freedom of Information request we made to the Little Rock Police Department for a Internal Affairs investigation file, the LRPD FOI Unit not only failed to protect the identity of a Confidential Informant ("CI"), they provided the Social Security Numbers of a witness, a former LRPD cop and two current LRPD cops.

The Arkansas Attorney General has long opined that the personally identifiable information LRPD released to us is in fact exempt from release.

 

So when we found that the Internal Affairs Investigation file we requested revealed the identity of a confidential information that had worked with LRPD and the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office we were shocked.

 

One of the documents listed the Social Security Number of a witness. 

NOTE: We placed a green rectangle over the Driver's License number and SSN of the witness. On the document LRPD provided they were clearly visible.

 

The documents included on that displayed  the SSN of a disgraced, former LRPD cop Tina Moore.

They also leaked the SSN of two current LRPD cops - Clark Sheffield (one of the cops on the LRPD Liar's List) and Eric Hedgecock. Additionally LRPD leaked that both cops had been orally reprimanded for departmental violations. 

Disciplinary actions that do not result in a suspension or termination are not subject to release under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.

We can't be certain if proving us with these confidential records was intentional or inadvertently released due to incompetence. 

We asked the mayor, police chief, city attorney and the two cops for comments about the release of these records. No one responded.

We will introduce you to the members of the LRPD FOI Unit in an upcoming post.

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***UPDATE- 06/19/21***

Apparently LRPD does not make notifications to their employees when they for whatever reason release exempt information in a FOI response.

We provided notification to the city and LRPD of the release of exempt information. We requested copies of the notification sent to the individuals that had their exempt information provided to us.

LRPD said they had no records to provide. That means they did not apprise these individual that they had given us their SSN's.

 

Then on Friday June 18th, we got a call from Lt. Michael "Lil' Bang" Ford.  He wanted to know which of their FOI responses contained that SSN information.   

We suspect he asked so that they can "discipline" the employee that provided the SSN's.

We also told him that we had been provided personal email addresses of several LRPD cops in another of their FOI responses. 

Their bucket has a hole in it at the LRPD FOI Unit. Wait until you see the post about the individuals that are assigned to that unit.

City employee says her name is "confidential"

A city of Little Rock employee told a citizen that her name was "confidential".

We did some sleuthing and discovered the "confidential" name of the public employee. It's Amy L. Sinks. 

Sinks is employed as a Court Administrator at the Little Rock District Court, 3rd Division, Environmental and Small Claims. The Judge elected for that seat is Mark Leverett.

From other public records we located it appears that Sinks was once a probation officer for the Little Rock District Court, 2nd Division.

We also used readily available public resources to gather more public information about this "confidential"public employee.   

Sinks is registered to vote as a Republican.

 

She and her husband own a home in West Little Rock.

So much for "confidentiality".

 

Sneak Peak - LRPD Undercover Cops Revealed