[zombie]

Death Squad in Delaware: The Case of the Murdered Marine
by William Norman Grigg
by William Norman Grigg


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He survived Iraq, only to suffer Death By Government in the "Land of the Free": Sgt. Derek J. Hale, USMC, ret. ~ RIP

Delaware was the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. It may be the first state to be afflicted with a fully operational death squad – unless a civil lawsuit filed on Friday against the murders of Derek J. Hale results in criminal charges and a complete lustration (in the Eastern European sense of the term) of Delaware's law enforcement establishment.


Hale, a retired Marine Sergeant who served two tours in Iraq and was decorated before his combat-related medical discharge in January 2006, was murdered by a heavily armed 8–12-member undercover police team in Wilmington, Delaware last November 6. He had come to Wilmington from his home in Manassas, Virginia to participate in a Toys for Tots event.


Derek was house-sitting for a friend on the day he was murdered. Sandra Lopez, the ex-wife of Derek's friend, arrived with an 11-year-old son and a 6-year-old daughter just shortly before the police showed up. After helping Sandra and her children remove some of their personal belongings, Derek was sitting placidly on the front step, clad in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, when an unmarked police car and a blacked-out SUV arrived and disgorged their murderous cargo.


Unknown to Derek, he had been under police surveillance as part of a ginned-up investigation into the Pagan Motorcycle Club, which he had joined several months before; the Pagans sponsored the “Toys for Tots Run” that had brought Derek to Delaware. As with any biker club, the Pagans probably included some disreputable people in their ranks. Derek was emphatically not one of them.


In addition to his honorable military service (albeit in a consummately dishonorable war), Derek's personal background was antiseptically clean. He had a concealed carry permit in Virginia, which would not have been issued to him if he'd been convicted of a felony, a narcotics or domestic violence charge, or had any record of substance abuse or mental illness.


On the day he was killed, Derek had been under both physical and electronic (and, according to the civil complaint, illegal) surveillance. Police personnel who observed him knew that his behavior was completely innocuous. And despite the fact that he had done nothing to warrant such treatment, he was considered an “un-indicted co-conspirator” in a purported narcotics ring run by the Pagans.


The police vehicles screeched to a halt in front of the house shortly after 4:00 p.m. They ordered Lopez and her children away from Derek – who, predictably, had risen to his feet by this time – and then ordered him to remove his hands from his the pockets of his sweatshirt.


Less than a second later – according to several eyewitnesses at the scene – Derek was hit with a taser blast that knocked him sideways and sent him into convulsions. His right hand involuntarily shot out of its pocket, clenching spasmodically.


“Not in front of the kids,” Derek gasped, as he tried to force his body to cooperate. “Get the kids out of here.”


The officers continued to order Derek to put up his hands; he was physically unable to comply.


So they tased him again. This time he was driven to his side and vomited into a nearby flower bed.


Howard Mixon, a contractor who had been working nearby, couldn't abide the spectacle.


“That's not necessary!” he bellowed at the assailants. “That's overkill! That's overkill!”


At this point, one of the heroes in blue (or, in this case, black) swaggered over to Mixon and snarled, “I'll f*****g show you overkill!” Having heroically shut up an unarmed civilian, the officer turned his attention back to Derek – who was being tased yet again.


“I'm trying to get my hands out,” Derek exclaimed, desperately trying to make his tortured and traumatized body obey his will. Horrified, his friend Sandra screamed at the officers: “He is trying to get his hands out, he cannot get his hands out!”


Having established that Derek – an innocent man who had survived two tours of duty in Iraq – was defenseless, one of Wilmington's Finest closed in for the kill.


Lt. William Brown of the Wilmington Police Department, who was close enough to seize and handcuff the helpless victim, instead shot him in the chest at point-blank range, tearing apart his vitals with three .40-caliber rounds. He did this after Derek had said, repeatedly and explicitly, that he was trying to cooperate. He did this despite the fact that witnesses on the scene had confirmed that Derek was trying to cooperate. He did this in front of a traumatized mother and two horrified children.


Why was this done?


According to Sgt. Steven Elliot of the WPD, Brown slaughtered Derek Hale because he “feared for the safety of his fellow officers and believed that the suspect was in a position to pose an imminent threat.” That subjective belief was sufficient justification to use “deadly force,” according to Sgt. Elliot.


The “position” Derek was in, remember, was that of wallowing helplessly in his own vomit, trying to overcome the cumulative effects of three completely unjustified Taser attacks.


When asked by the Wilmington News Journal last week if Hale had ever threatened the officers – remember, there were at least 8 and as many as 12 of them – Elliot replied: “In a sense, [he threatened the officers] when he did not comply with their commands.”


He wasn't given a chance to comply: He was hit with the first Taser strike less than a second after he was commanded to remove his hands from his pockets, and then two more in rapid succession. The killing took roughly three minutes.


As is always the case when agents of the State murder an innocent person, the WPD immediately went into cover-up mode. The initial account of the police murder claimed that Derek had “struggled with undercover Wilmington vice officers”; that “struggle,” of course, referred to Derek's involuntary reaction to multiple, unjustified Taser strikes.


The account likewise mentioned that police recovered “two items that were considered weapons” from Derek's body. Neither was a firearm. One was a container of pepper spray. The other was a switchblade knife. Both were most likely planted on the murder victim: The police on the scene had pepper spray, and Derek's stepbrother, Missouri resident Jason Singleton, insists that Derek never carried a switchblade.


“The last time I saw Derek,” Jason told the News Journal, “he had a small Swiss Army knife. I've never seen Derek with anything like a switchblade.”


Within hours, the WPD began to fabricate a back-story to justify Derek's murder. Several Delware State Police officers – identified in the suit (.pdf) as “Lt. [Patrick] Ogden, Sgt. Randall Hunt, and other individual DSP [personnel]” contacted the police in Masassas, Virginia and informed him that Derek had been charged with drug trafficking two days before he was murdered. This was untrue. But because it was said by someone invested with the majestic power of the State, it was accepted as true, and cited in a sworn affidavit to secure a warrant to search Derek's home.


Conducting this spurious search – which was, remember, play-acting in the service of a cover story – meant shoving aside Derek's grieving widow, Elaine, and her two shattered children, who had just lost their stepfather. Nothing of material consequence was found, but a useful bit of embroidery was added to the cover story.


Less than two weeks earlier, Derek and Elaine had celebrated their first anniversary.


The Delaware State Police officer is guilty of misprision of perjury, as are the officials who collaborated in this deception. And it's entirely likely that the Virginia State Police had guilty knowledge as well.


Last November 21, in an attempt to pre-empt public outrage, the highest officials of the Delaware State Police issued a press release in conjunction with their counterparts from Virginia. The statement is a work of unalloyed mendacity.


“Hale resisted arrest and was shot and killed by Wilmington Police on November 6, 2006,” lied the signatories with reference to the claim that he "resisted." “Hale was at the center of a long term narcotics trafficking investigation which is still ongoing.”


As we've seen, Hale did not resist arrest, as everyone on the scene knew. And he was not at the “center” of any investigation; before his posthumous promotion to “un-indicted co-conspirator,” he was merely a “person of interest” because of his affiliation with a motorcycle club.


Most critically, the statement – which bears the august imprimatur of both the Delaware and Virginia State Police departments, remember – asserts: “Both [State Police] Superintendents have confirmed that there was never any false information exchanged by either agency in the investigation of Derek J. Hale, or transmitted between the agencies in order to obtain the search warrant.”


This was another lie.


“Delaware State Police spokesperson Sgt. Melissa Zebley conceded last week that no arrest warrant for Hale was ever issued,” reported the News Journal on March 22. Three days after Hale was murdered, police arrested 12 members of the Pagans Motorcycle Club on various drug and weapons charges, but identified Hale at that point only as a “person of interest.”


Last Friday (May 23), the Rutherford Institute – one of the precious few nominally conservative activist groups that gives half a damn about individual liberty – and a private law firm in Virginia filed a civil rights lawsuit against several Delaware law enforcement and political officials on behalf of Derek's widow and parents. They really should consider including key officials from the Virginia State Police in the suit, as well.




Those who persist in fetishizing local police – who are, at this point, merely local franchises of a unitary, militarized, Homeland Security apparatus – should ponder this atrocity long and hard.

They should contemplate not only the inexplicable eagerness of Lt. William Brown to kill a helpless, paralyzed pseudo-suspect, but also the practiced ease with which the police establishments of two states collaborated in confecting a fiction to cover up that crime.


According to the lawsuit, Lt. Brown, Derek's murderer, “has violated the constitutional rights of others in the past through the improper use of deadly force and has coached other WPD officers on how to lie about and/or justify the improper use of deadly force.” Rather than being cashiered, Brown was promoted – just as one would expect of any other dishonest, cowardly thug in the service of any other Third World death squad.


Derek J. Hale survived two tours of duty in Iraq, a country teeming with Pentagon-trained death squads, only to be murdered by their home-grown equivalent.


March 29, 2007

William Norman Grigg [send him mail] writes the Pro Libertate blog.

Copyright © 2007 William Norman Grigg

original article

Death Squad in Delaware: The Case of the Murdered Marine by William Norman Grigg

whatever way you look at it , this young man was killed in cold blood and hopefully the people responsible will be held accountable

[elwood206]

if thats all true, thats terrible. Im surprised this hasnt been all over the news, thanks for the info.

[highsider]

The Delaware State Police have had a bad reputation for years. Back in 2000, the state legislature considered requiring them all to put trigger locks on their service weapons, because 4 or 5 of them literally shot themselves in the foot trying to get their weapon out.

[MissTwisties]

This is fucked up. I can't even imagines how this guy felt, and his friend with her kids witnessing the whole thing.

[old timer]

Shit like this happens every day...sad but true .

[highsider]

I haven't done any research to prove it, but I just about guarantee you there is a lot more to that story.

[zombie]

Originally Posted by highsider

I haven't done any research to prove it, but I just about guarantee you there is a lot more to that story.

not a lot more to it other than they killed this young man in cold blood and I hope the fuckers are held responsible. They then lied to get search warrants and try to name him as an unidicted co-conspirator whatever the fuck that is.

[benVFR]

This was apparently part of a larger bust where 16 Pagans were arrested for criminal racketeering, criminal street gang offenses, and drug trafficking.

Wrong place at the wrong time. The killing happened at the house of another Pagan who is under arrest as part of said bust.

Military service does not make up for poor decisions as to join a gang, and Toys for Tots does not exonerate selling drugs to the same Tots.

[benVFR]

Here is the other side of the story, judge for yourself:

Delaware State Police News Release

Sergeant Melissa Zebley
November 21, 2006

Dover-Colonel Thomas F. Mac Leish, Superintendent of the Delaware State Police, and Colonel W. Steven Flaherty, Superintendent of the Virginia State Police, have, jointly and separately, reviewed the circumstances surrounding the issuance of a Virginia search warrant for Derek J. Hale’s home. Both Superintendents have confirmed that there was never any false information exchanged by either agency in the investigation of Derek J. Hale, or transmitted between the agencies in order to obtain the search warrant. Hale resisted arrest and was shot and killed by Wilmington Police on November 6, 2006. Hale was at the center of a long term narcotics trafficking investigation that the Delaware State Police was conducting which is still ongoing. Officers from the Wilmington Police Department were attempting to take Hale into custody in the 1400 block of West 6th Street of Wilmington under Delaware’s warrantless arrest law (11 Delaware Code Section 1904).

The Virginia State Police subsequently applied for and obtained a search warrant for Hale’s Manassas, Virginia home on November 7, 2006. This search was conducted independently of the Delaware State Police and not at the request of the Delaware State Police. The warrant was executed professionally and thoroughly by Virginia troopers who were conducting their own independent investigation of Hale. The search warrant was also conducted under the authority of the Virginia courts and in accordance with all aspects of the law in the Commonwealth.

Colonel Mac Leish commented: "At no time did a Delaware Trooper provide any inaccurate information to the Virginia State Police concerning Derek Hale.” Colonel W. Steven Flaherty also confirmed this fact after speaking with the Virginia case agent.

The Virginia State Police and the Delaware State Police are highly-principled, well-trained and ethical organizations which serve their citizens with a great deal of professionalism, integrity and fairness. Now is not the time to allow sensationalism or speculation to form public opinion about these cases. The Delaware State Police and Virginia State Police are proud to serve our citizenry, and will continue their missions of doing justice and operating transparently within the bounds of the law, and with due respect for the rights of officers and involved parties. We thank the public for your continued support and encourage the media to be equally fair and vigilant, but also be respectful that we cannot and will not reveal the complete facts of the investigation until it is appropriate and lawful.

Colonel Thomas F. MacLeish

Superintendent

Delaware State Police Police

Colonel W. Steven Flaherty

Superintentendent

Virginia State Police

[hessogood]

Originally Posted by benVFR

Here is the other side of the story, judge for yourself:

That doesn't sound like the other side of the story to me. All of the sudden the guy that was a person of interest is now the guy at the center of the drug ring? However EVEN if he was, which I HIGHLY doubt, there is no justification for tasering him multiple times and then shooting him 3 times in the chest at close range and in front of small children as well. I'd like to see how someone with electrodes and that much current pumping through them could stand up or even be able to flip someone the finger, let alone being a threat to anyone. The Virginia police had no warrent and weren't investigating him until after he was murdered, and it's obvious that they did it on request. I believe I read in another article that it was after being contacted by the delaware police. And they also found NOTHING in the search.

[benVFR]

I think this one is going to be just like Mumia Jabal... the cops are going to get cleared after conflicting witness reports and so on and so forth.

And then the widow & special interest groups will appeal/fight it for many years with mixed results.

The press has clearly already tried & convicted the police.

The only other thing that makes no sense is it took 6 months for the lawsuit to show up.

You start reading what you can find on google you will see it is 90% blogs with an agenda, but then there are other news stories with different accounts. Some say he was loading stuff in a van when the police rolled up, not sitting with kids on the porch. Some say he pulled the taser probes out and/or they were uneffective. Some (including the lawsuits) say the police didn't identify themselves, others don't.

[hessogood]

One time when i was arrested it was nearly 8 months before my first hearing. The court system isn't really known for it's speed.

edit: I mean a guy I know....a guy I know was arrested.

[benVFR]

Ok I'm reading the case.. it was indeed filed promptly, so you're right, just a slow working court.

They are suing a huge # of people all the way up and down multiple police forces and everything, they fully admit he was previously under investigation, they're trying to invalidate the entire investigation against the Pagans, not just the events that took place at the house.

e.x. he was killed by the local police. But the lawsuit is also suing all the way up the heads of the state police in both Delaware and Virginia.

[highsider]

I'm not saying that the police acted properly, or that they didn't; I'm just saying that the story originally posted sounds like either the most heinous act completed by a police officer in recent history OR a huge, steaming load of shit. Knowing LEOs as I do, I am leaning towards the latter, but anything is possible.


That letter Ben posted gives little or no info; I'll be interested in what they have to say after the investigation is complete.

[benVFR]

Google search pulls up the actual case.

The case itself offers up the following:

- He was there as "protection" as the house was a pagan drug house of some sort which was under investigation, wiretap, etc..

- He had turned away multiple burglary/attack attempts (from who?) in the previous 24 hours

- He was in contact with other suspects in the case in the preceeding days which were wiretapped

The case is trying to make it out like the Pagans are a lily-white organization and there was absolutely no reason at all for any of them to be under investigation.. it's a lot more complicated then "Innocent heroic marine at random house gets killed by death squad."

The case is also an attack on all kinds of other stuff going back to 2001... hard to imagine it could ever succeed with how much they are claiming unless someone inside the police department is going to turn and be their start witness.

All those wiretaps, etc.. are all going to come out in the case... they might as well wait for the case to actually go through court before making judgements.

The case makes extremely intricate claims about what the police did & about police procedures.. those will be interesting to see how they turn out.

[hessogood]

I'm not saying there isn't more to the case on both sides. I am however standing by my point that the man is dead without trial and without cause. There is no changing that no matter what the case finds. He was in contacts with fellow members of his club days before he came to their state to participate in a charity event with them? No kidding? People were trying to attack and rob the house and he was defending it? The nerve! A 'pagan drug house'? Call it whatever buzzword you like. What did they say they turned up in the search of the house?

[highsider]

delawareonline ¦ The News Journal ¦ Family of Pagan killed by police files lawsuit

A link to a local newspaper article. Some interesting info:

...The police said Hale refused to remove his hands from the front pockets of a hooded sweat shirt...Police have said Hale, who has no arrest record in Delaware, had a switchblade knife and a can of pepper spray, but was not brandishing either...

So, he's sitting on the front step of a house being considered part of a drug ring with a switchblade and a can of pepper spray.

The officers ordered Hale to take his hands out of the front pockets of his sweat shirt.

“About a second later, they Tasered him,” Mixson has said. “He was just sitting there. He didn’t do anything.”

Seconds later, police repeated their command for Hale to show them his hands, and they Tasered him a second time, after which he rolled onto his left side and vomited into a flower bed, the Mixsons said.

Hale rolled back to his right, into a sitting position, still shaking, and police Tasered him a third time, Mixson said.

And he can roll over and get up, but can't take his hands out of his pockets, which conveniently contain pepper spray and a switchblade? I call

The story in the original post here in a very typical criminal's spin on a police officers necessary use of force.

[hessogood]

Tell me when you're sitting on the top of a steep 6 foot tall set of steps and have just been tasered to the point of throwing up are you going to stand up and walk down. You think the guy that was screaming not in front of the children was just getting ready to fight with 12 plus police officers armed to the teeth surrounding him? I've seen someone tasered before, they're disoriented and can hardly understand or respond to anything around them and that was a much lower level taser than the police carry.

I have my suspicions about him having pepper spray and a switchblade. Who the hell carries a switchblade for defense when you have a conceal/carry permit? Stange no gun on him, maybe since there are seriel numbers on those and not on knives or sprays.

According to the complaint, the surveillance team observed:

• Lopez’s arrival at the house, and the presence of her two young children who were playing on the front steps.

• Hale chasing the dogs down the street, “and that due to the nature of his clothing it was unlikely that he possessed a weapon in his sweatshirt pocket.”

• Hale and Lopez talking and playing with the young children.

• Hale did not act in a threatening or suspicious manner.

• Hale did not display a weapon.

The complaint states that the surveillance team radioed their observations to an assault team of Wilmington cops and state troopers gathering nearby.

[benVFR]

Every one of those "facts" still has to stand up in court & be declared under oath.

Those are the plaintiffs claims about what the surveillance team saw/heard.

If he was being lawful he would not have been carrying a gun as he did NOT have a concealed carry permit for Delaware - he was a VA resident and had a CCP for VA. If he had been actively defending the house (as the suit claims) that would explain having the knife & spray.

[g®eg]

so....
if he wasn't a former Marine... would anyone even care? would it have made the news?

just another inner-city killing.

*shrug*

[benVFR]

It's weird that the case really tries to play up that he was a former marine, as if it proves he's innocent or has anything to do with the case at all.

This one is not even as big of a deal as most of the other police killings, as most of them do not involve gang members guarding gang houses during stakeouts.

[hessogood]

Yeah, because the only reason we cared about Rodney King was because he was a marine.

What's the difference between a gang and a club by the way?

[benVFR]

Club is what you call yourself.

Gang is what everyone else calls you after your members tally up a nice criminal record.

[highsider]

Hey, this could be a bunch of trigger happy scumbag cops. I dont know.

I'm just saying that the first article posted on this topic seemed like a bunch of crap, and very well may pan out to be just that. I've already got some doubts about the story being told to the press, based on the article I read.

[highsider]

Originally Posted by hessogood

Tell me when you're sitting on the top of a steep 6 foot tall set of steps and have just been tasered to the point of throwing up are you going to stand up and walk down.

I'm going to take my hands out of my pockets, and I'm not going to keep trying to get up after I'm tased. Which is what I would advise anyone else to do in that situation.

I feel like I'm being a bit one-sided here, so let me explain my point of view a bit. I work with criminal offenders all day long. The biggest common denominator is that they are all victims of over-eager police who just *happened* to catch them doing something that was against the law. A number of them end up getting tased or beat on for "no reason". This is usually precipitated by either trying to run, or do something stupid, and could be completely avoided by simply being compliant with a police officer.