Brickbats: October 2024

Darien Harris served 12 years in prison for murder, but was released in December 2023 after it was discovered that an eyewitness against him was legally blind. Court records show that the witness denied under oath that he had vision problems, but he had advanced glaucoma and had been declared legally blind nine years earlier. A second eyewitness denied that Harris was the shooter.

Kansas law requires counties to destroy ballots after elections. But Johnson County backed down when Sheriff Calvin Hayden claimed to have a warrant authorizing him to seize the ballots as part of a five-year investigation into election fraud. When the elections office never received the warrant, it destroyed the ballots, leading Hayden to accuse it of destroying evidence. Hayden later admitted that no judge had signed his warrant; when it was pointed out that a judge must sign a warrant for it to be valid, Hayden responded, “I didn’t say it was valid.” In July, Hayden announced that he had suspended his investigation.

New York City sheriffs have raided and closed multiple stores and bars for violating COVID-19 shutdown orders. A group of sheriffs then created a “man cave” in a city storage facility filled with alcohol and tobacco products seized from closed businesses. They reportedly even blocked security cameras so they could drink and smoke there. Officials say 12 sheriffs have been suspended for 30 days without pay, but they would not release names.

Two Pennsylvania men who run a business that helps dairy farmers manage their cows’ pregnancies have spent nearly 30 days in jail for contempt of court. The state Board of Veterinary Medicine alleged that the men failed to respond to a subpoena for documents related to their use of ultrasound to perform pregnancy checks on cows; the Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association has filed multiple complaints alleging that the men’s use of ultrasound constitutes the unlicensed practice of veterinary medicine.

Police in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, arrested Jeff Adams for driving under the influence (DUI) in 2023. Adams requested a breathalyzer test but was denied one on the spot. Lab tests later confirmed Adams was not intoxicated, but that took four months. He was suspended from driving for Uber in the meantime, and while he didn’t lose his job as a teacher, he fears the arrest will damage his reputation. A local TV station found that police departments in the area have been arresting sober people for DUIs; many drivers request a breathalyzer test but aren’t given one because departments don’t use them, and it can take up to eight months to get their breathalyzer test back.

In 2022, San Francisco firefighter Robert Muhammad threatened co-worker Gabriel Shin because he refused to reveal who was discussing Muhammad’s personal business at work. He used a work computer to find Shin’s home address, then took a fire hydrant wrench to Shin’s house and repeatedly beat him with it, leaving Shin with broken arms and a concussion. Shin sued the department, but Muhammad was allowed to continue working and Shin said supervisors asked him to drop the lawsuit and not cooperate with the criminal investigation.

Ceci Flores searches for the bodies of people who have disappeared and are believed to have been kidnapped and killed, often at drug cartels’ dumping grounds. Mexican officials have repeatedly criticized her efforts: Her success in finding bodies undermines the government’s claims that it is searching and its attempts to downplay the scale of the violence in the country. After a recent find, prosecutors alleged that Flores found dog bones before admitting they were human.