Posted on 01/16/2006 10:28:24 AM PST by paltz
Officer Stephanie Mohr with her police dog, Valk. Stephanie, facing a 10 year sentence, is concerned about her 2-year-old son, Adam.
Prince George’s County (Maryland) Police Officer Stephanie Mohr could be sentenced to serve 10 years in jail because her police dog chased a fleeing suspect and bit him.
The incident goes back to 1995 in Takoma Park, Maryland, where Officer Mohr was patrolling in a P.G. County Canine squad car. Responding to a call in which two burglary suspects were on the roof of a building, Officer Mohr, along with several other officers and a helicopter above, ordered two suspects, Ricardo Mendez and Herrera Cruz, to face the wall. Mendez, instead, apparently started to flee, and Officer Mohr released the police dog to chase him. This was completely within the police guidelines of standard operating procedure. The dog bit suspect Mendez on the leg. Subsequently Mendez and the other suspect were charged with 4th degree burglary. They were deported, but re-entered the U.S. illegally and were arrested for selling crack cocaine at which time they were again deported.
One day before the statute of limitations was set to expire, the federal Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice indicted Officer Stephanie Mohr, along with two other policemen, on civil rights violations and conspiracy charges. The Takoma Park Police Department, under investigation by federal authorities, suddenly brought up this incident almost five years after it occurred.
Their version of the event had officers at the scene asking if the canine could take a bite out of the suspects, and when the senior officer said "yes," Officer Mohr released the dog without just cause. Officer Mohr was found not guilty of conspiracy but the hung jury (11 to 1 for acquittal of Mohr) was unable to reach a unanimous decision on the civil rights violations. A re-trial was sought even though jurors interviewed from the first trial said that the case lacked merit. The second trial was held in August 2001. This time, the prosecution convinced the jury that Mohr had released her canine on innocent minority citizens. Officer Mohr was convicted of a federal criminal civil rights violation and is expected to be given the maximum sentence allowed — 10 years. The sentencing is scheduled for December 10, 2001. While the sentence cannot be suspended, it is possible that the judge could allow her to be free pending the appeal.
The principal reason that Mohr was convicted is because in the second trial, unlike the first one, the judge allowed highly prejudicial testimony into evidence that Officer Mohr had used racial epithets in making a prior arrest using her canine. The litigation had not started out as racial, but the prosecutors used this last resort tactic in a desperate move to save their case. This questionable evidence should never have been allowed and is one of the main arguments in Officer Mohr’s appeal.
Stephanie Mohr, who has received more than 25 letters of commendation and two awards for her police work since 1993, resigned after the August 15 conviction. A mother of a 2-year-old son, Mohr appealed to LELDF for assistance with her case. As we think she was unjustly convicted, we are helping Mohr with legal costs for an appeal.
This is lunacy.
This is lunacy.
Just goes to show that no good deed ever goes unpunished especially if you go after illegals.
According to the article, the sentencing was scheduled for December of 2001, which means first that this is a really old story, and 2nd we are talking about the Clinton civil rights division.
Any reason to post this today?
This is a dupe, however IMO she should have gotten a few years and had her POST license pulled, her Sgt. should have gotten the 10 Years he authorized it.
"Officer Mohr had used racial epithets"
10 Years for the word police. This is nuts.
This is from 2001, is that correct?
Check the facts in the case! She asked permission to have her dog attack a unresisting suspect. This was not her first questionable use of k-9's
"The sentencing is scheduled for December 10, 2001."
Hello?
So how did it turn out?
The sentencing is scheduled for December 10, 2001.
So, are you gonna tell us what happened?
Owl_Eagle(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
This is making the rounds. It's a fundraiser for an unworthy cause.
HUH??!!?!!??
They weren't innocent and they weren't US citizens. Sounds like PG needs to toss the DA staff out onto the unemployment lines at the next election as a start.
note that white male don't get to have the DOJ backing them.
What civil rights? They were illegals.
Traitors and bigots working in our own government
Sergeant Dennis Bonn, responded. Bonn then asked for assistance from Prince George’s County and specifically requested a K-9 dog. Prince George’s K-9 officers Mohr and Anthony Delozier arrived with Mohr’s police dog. Bonn also called for a Maryland State Police helicopter, which illuminated the entire roof with a powerful light called a "night sun." Bonn, with corroboration from three other police eyewitnesses, testified to the government’s version of how and why Mohr released her police dog on Ricardo Mendez, one of the suspects on the roof. After the helicopter arrived, the officers ordered the suspects to come to the back of the roof. Mendez and the other suspect, Jorge Herrera-Cruz, did so and held their hands in the air, as directed by the officers. Then, again as directed by the officers, the suspects climbed down from the roof, keeping their hands in the air, and eventually facing the officers, who surrounded them in a semicircle, some with their guns drawn. Bonn testified that the suspects followed all police commands. As the suspects stood with their hands up in the air, Delozier approached Bonn and asked: "Sarge, can the dog get a bite?" Bonn "responded with one word, which was yes." Bonn testified that "[a]t that time, [the suspects] still had their hands in the air and they weren’t doing anything." Bonn then witnessed Delozier and Mohr have "a very, very brief exchange," followed by Mohr releasing the dog. The dog attacked Mendez, who "still had his hands in the air when . . . the dog bit him in the leg. [He] went down screaming and continued to scream." Bonn testified that, prior to Mohr’s release of the dog, Mendez did not make "any sudden movement," did not "fail to comply with police command[s]," did not "lower his hands," and did not "attempt to flee in any way." Bonn did not hear any K-9 warning prior to Mohr’s release of the dog or at any point during the evening.2 As a result of the incident, Bonn pled guilty as an accessory-after-thefact to a civil rights violation and testified for the government pursuant to a plea agreement.
No good deed goes unpunished.
If true, it should be removed.
According to an e-mail (funds soliciting variety)I received, she's in jail.
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