Press release 01 September 2002
= = = = = FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
San Diego, 01 September 2002
The trial date has been reset to 19 February 2003 in a Civil Rights Lawsuit against 3 San Diego Police officers for excessive force.
Trial will be held before The Honorable Napoleon A. Jones, Jr. in the San Diego Federal Courthouse.
Plaintiff, Rodney F. Mitchell, a 30-year retired Naval Officer and Vietnam Veteran currently residing in Escondido, is representing himself.
The lawsuit was filed in January 2000 in relation to incidents in January 1999 where the 3 defendant officers attacked Mr. Mitchell while Mr. Mitchell was in the process of attempting to lodge a citizen's complaint.
The defendants, Robert W. Dare, Gregory R. Bisesto and Daniel A. Burow are being represented by the San Diego City Attorney. Burow is the same officer that, a few weeks following this incident with Mr. Mitchell, ran through a red light in Mira Mesa at high speed and killed a young mother; he was determined to be guilty of reckless behavior leading to this death of an innocent person and was suspended from SDPD for 3 days.
The case number is 00-CV-0033-J-(JAH).
The actual lawsuit can be found on the web: http://www.itsforthekids.com/SDPD.htm
Rodney F. Mitchell Escondido, CA
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The following addendum was sent with the press release:
02 February 2003
Addendum to press release
Rodney F. Mitchell, Escondido, CA
We have a couple high profile cases going on or approaching here in San Diego that relate to serious misconduct on the part of law enforcement and the district attorney:
The Demetrius DuBose federal civil suit against San Diego Police Department for gunning down Mr. DuBose in the streets is currently underway. The police and DA, as usual, saw nothing wrong with the police firing and striking Mr. DuBose at least twelve times, six shots in the back and several when he was on the ground.
The federal civil suit against numerous police-related officials for the exceptional violations of citizens’ rights in the Stephanie Crowe murder case is heading for trial in May. There are a lot of elements of police and DA misconduct in this case that I can only, by personal experience, guess at to include manufacturing a case where the evidence did not support it simply because of the pressure to solve a case. The, at that time, San Diego DA Paul (never seen a cop shooting a citizen event I did not like) Pfingst appears to have been so averse to finding police and prosecutorial misconduct that he dumped the case on the California Attorney General. Look this one up on PACER: 3:99cv00241. http://pacer.uscourts.gov/
Nestled in between these high-profile cases is a similar case of egregious treatment towards a citizen by 3 officers of San Diego Police Department. The victim of this mistreatment is still alive, thus no real interest on the part of the news media. Of course as a given, as in the above high-profile cases, the “Blue wall of silence” is alive and well. I am certain, by my personal experience in moving this case to trial, that the elements of cover-up to protect the police may be proven in the above 2 cases as well.
My case is a perfect example as to why the public never hears of or the media never acts on these “Everyday” occurrences of police misconduct: most of the victims of this misconduct are still alive and cannot afford the attorneys’ costs to bring the case to trial; in my personal case my attorneys’ fees would be approaching $300,000. I am, of course, not taken seriously in this case because I am representing myself.
So far, since filing this lawsuit on 06 January 2000, exactly one year following the incident, the docket consists of 26 pages and 228 items as of 14 January 2003. You can check it out on PACER or I can send the docket to you in either html or text format.
It took six months of battles, one federal magistrate’s and one federal judge’s orders to force San Diego City Attorney and San Diego Police Department to release to me (under court order not to release the information, modified to allow release to law enforcement) the SDPD Internal Affairs and perpetrator personnel records to me; these records show I am right in my claims so the City Attorney has fought to keep them out of court.
It is admitted by San Diego Police Department, in papers filed with this case, that SDPD admonishes any officer undergoing interview by Internal Affairs that anything they reveal cannot be used against them in a criminal proceeding; you heard it right, that a cop can dump his guts about a life of crime in an IA interview and the worst that will happen is for him/her to be fired … which is doubtful. Cover-ups of police misconduct in police internal files, argued to be personnel files, is a normal mode of operation of most police departments. Unfortunately I am forbidden by court order to reveal all I know.
My case includes the FACT that the San Diego County Sheriff, 30 days after receiving a subpoena, destroyed video tape evidence showing SDPD officers engaging in one of the acts of excessive force claimed in the lawsuit. It appears that the San Diego City Attorney representing SDPD was aware this was occurring yet did nothing to stop it … a civilian would be accused of conspiracy to obstruct justice. One of the defendants in this case appeared to attempt to intimidate me by making a claim for injury through San Diego Risk Management over this incident then refused to supply any supporting information when requested and demanded through the court. The FBI has been notified of these crimes, but is reluctant to act.
Rodney F. Mitchell v. City of San Diego Police Department, Sgt. Robert Dare, Officers Bisesto and D. Burow. Case number 00cv00033 J (JAH).
We know you never saw this press release printed or the story covered, but it was sent to the following:
Roger Hedgecock roger@rogerhedgecock.com Associated Press pr@ap.org news 10 bmclellan@kgtv.com; gcreighton@kgtv.com; jweber@kgtv.com San Diego Headline News news@primenews.com;newsdirector@primenews.com newstips@fox6.com North County Times editor@nctimes.com San Diego Magazine tblair@sandiegomag.com San Diego Business Journal sdbj@sdbj.com HomeTownFreePress editor@HomeTownFreePress.com Activist San Diego info@ActivistSanDiego.org San Diego Union Tribune ron.james@uniontrib.com;jeff.rose@uniontrib.com San Diego Daily Transcript editor@sddt.com SAN DIEGO METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE mail@sandiegometro.com