Isabella County Tenants Beware! Sheriff's Department Can & Will Evict You Without Due Process!

The Solution

The solution to the problem is both complex and lengthy. These are multifaceted issues and most of them have interlinking components. Police, all police, need to be made aware that they are not the Judge, Jury and Executioner empowered to rule over civil matters in the street. They also need to be trained to recognize the difference between actual crimes and civil issues.

1st, The officer that responded either didn't know the law or he chose to ignore it.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse for the citizens of the United States and certainly cannot be used to defend an officer of he law.

2nd, The officer claimed to be the entire court system. Judge, Jury & Executioner

This is easy to explain. Whenever you empower someone with absolute discretion, give them a badge and a gun and then shield them from accountability through "Qualified Immunity" This is what you get and not everyone is up to the challenge. "Power Corrupts but Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely". Like the IRS Reform Act of 1998. Authority inevitably gets carried away with itself and with its powers.

3rd, The officer honestly believed that not one single person on the planet could or would reverse his decision.

I for one understand that our Police need to have power in the field but at the same time I feel that there needs to be a qualification mechanism in place to help insure that the the officers we empower over us are competent enough to assume these awesome responsibilities! Trust me, not everyone serving today as a police officer is qualified or mentally suited to handle this awesome power and tremendous responsibility yet these same people are blanketed by qualified immunity. Why would a Sheriff's Deputy claim that there was no one that could or would reverse his decisions? If this same officer believed that his actions could and would be looked at by his superiors he would have been a little more willing to listen to the family he was throwing out of their home right?

4th, Powers of discretion can and will be abused

Anyone that has come to believe that they can do no wrong is artificially inflated with the wrong information and will care less if at all about the consequences involved with doing something wrong. This is simple human nature! We cant simply tolerate slapping a badge on someone and give them a gun and just expect them to do the right thing.

5th, No functional police misconduct reporting system exists

Every law enforcement agency that has sworn an oath to protect and to serve the people of the United States needs to be relieved of the responsibility of policing themselves. This is entirely dysfunctional. Cops beat up and killed a mental patient in Portland Oregon and the IAD broke it down like this... The man had a wet spot on his pants therefore he must have urinated in public, therefore, without proof of this act they chased him down, crushed his rib cage and was denied treatment by the arresting officers and IAD justified everything done wrong to this poor man because he had a wet spot on his pants. The officers were cleared of excessive force charges after killing a man because they claim that the force fit the crime. The police even tried to suggest that the man ran from the cops with the existing condition of 16 broken ribs! The cops involved were cleared of excessive force charges based on the unsubstantiated claims that this man had urinated in public. The justice served to this man was insufficient and untimely. The dead man and his family got a 1.6M settlement after three or four years of agony in the court system while the officers that killed him got to keep working as our police. Jon Tellis was personally involved with this and getting his men out of manslaughter charges as the head of the IAD. This has got to be the best example of conflict of interest there ever could be. This is like asking a wife to testify against her husband.

6th, Immediate claim of no-fault by superiors without an investigation

This is careless and reckless. As the commander of the Portland Police Bureau's IAD in Portland Oregon, John Tellis's job consisted of investigating police misconduct. Although John retired from that job after nearly 25 years, he had been hired by Isabella County because of this experience.

7th, No Equal Access to the Law really exists

People abused by the system need a place to go! Lawyers are disinterested in 1983 cases because they need to finance them themselves and after a three year battle they may or may not get paid at all. If the Plaintiff's lawyer wins, what they get paid if anything is entirely up to the presiding judge. Lawyers have no motivation to take on cases like this. Pro Bono is not mandatory in Michigan. The lawyers that do take on Pro Bono work take on about 30 hours a year. How does this help anyone facing a three year court battle? Pro Se Plaintiffs are guaranteed to get no compensation for their efforts even if they are successful and this simply isn't right particularly when the availability of competent legal representation isn't there.

8th, No functional reporting system for the abuse or denial of Individual Civil Liberties

I must have been really naive here... This has to be really hard to imagine if you haven't experienced this yourself personally. All in one day a family can loose their home and all of their worldly possessions just as if they lived in a country that didn't assure such freedoms and there is no way to report it? There is no one to tell about it? This really happened and no one can or will take a report on it?

9th, Absolutely zero Accountability from Police for their actions

Police do not police themselves with anywhere near the same measure of fairness. If someone were to calculate the total number of police officers and then take a random sampling of citizens of the United States in an equal amount and compare the quantity of speeding tickets, what would you find? I don't even really care about this! I am just using it as an example. Law enforcement Officers are conditioned to believe that they are not subject to the same laws as the people that they have sworn an oath to serve and protect. What happens when the bully on the playground isn't disciplined for his actions? All of the bully's negativity is positively reinforced and he continues on with a new found sense of power. This is fifth grade logic!

10th, The Mitigation of Damages

As disaster relief gets underway on a global scale to aid Japan, what are we doing to help our own on an immediate basis? Loss Mitigation is part of every insurance contract written. What this means is that the insured will take measure to reduce damages and make every effort to reduce the overall damages for any potential claim. How is it law enforcement can walk away from a mistake or intentional wrong doing without trying to mitigate the damages? There needs to be more done for families made destitute than allowing a two, three or four year law suit to be a family's only means to become whole again.

From my perspective the system needs a re-write. When a cop breaks the law their needs to be an effective and immediate measure or course of action that any citizen can take to report this abuse without putting themselves in harms way with he same authorities they are reporting against.

When the framers of the Constitution of the United States put together our Constitution and our bill of rights, I for one am quite sure that they intended the rights and liberties their work had outlined be within reach of the very people the same work was intended to protect.

But what do I know... I am just a simple carpenter...

A small donation will go a very long way
for this family as they continue to put
their lives back together!

The family would like to offer you their
sincere appreciation for your considerate
contribution!

Here is the old index page while it is being rewritten. Old Index