Archive for January 2007
Deputized Phonemen Wanted
In a fight on the war on drugs (and to remain elected), Rusk, Texas jails are monitored by local Cherokee County Sheriff’s office with FBI consent. Several local LCTX linemen are deputized giving District Attorney’s office telephone tapping discretion. Cherokee County Sheriff Department provides annual mediocre drug busts for Tyler/Longview FBI and DEA agents via phone taps, and has access to and “owns” all rural telephone lines.Phone lines of suspects and political enemies are spliced into the spare lines of “informants.” VOX tape recorders are hooked up to spare lines, i.e. “extension” and run into homes of District Attorney’s political allies. Informants are usually reserve Deputies that live in rural areas of Cherokee County often in the same area as the home being surveyed. Junction boxes in front of “informant’s” house are used as switching stations and the spare lines on their phone drop are used as “slave” or piggy-back extensions.
Many informants have 24 conductor cables as phone drop that is run into their home and serviced by Lufkin Conroe Telephone Exchange. These “extensions” from unsuspecting homeowners are undetectable, unless granted access by court order to examine telephone junction box. Hence, anyone complaining about the neighbors intercepting their phone calls to Sheriff’s Department and FBI Tyler office are charged with Felony Criminal Mischief, for ostensibly opening telephone pedestals/junction boxes and tracing their lines into their neighbor’s house.
Cherokee County Sheriff’s Deputies who pick up the tapes pay informants a monthly monitoring “donation.” The money comes from mainly from the District Attorney’s fund. Current and former District Attorney Investigators are custodian of cassette tapes used in voir dire and selection of grand jury pools. Tyler and Dallas FBI offices, the US Attorney’s office in Lufkin, as well as the Department of Justice office in Beaumont have been notified of over 15 years of illegal phone tapping activities of current and former District Attorney’s office.
Federal grant monies are distributed to local precincts for drug enforcement. Instead, substantial Federal dollars are used by Cherokee County Commissioners and Constables to pay Southwestern Bell and GTE linemen and their families to monitor “party lines” established by District Attorney’s Investigator.
County Commissioners routinely vote down installation of fiber optic phone line for Cherokee County because “party lines” cannot be created on fiber.
Old news articles highlight the ongoing harassment of minorities, a tactic of falsely generating 911 calls, in order to have a Cherokee County deputy knocking on the doorstep in the middle of the night.
This overt intimidation tactic, after being discovered, was quickly reported as the telecommunications miracle of “lightning strikes generating the 911 calls.” This during the time period of record draught and 0.0 inch rainfall records.
The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department would have those (who had been harassed by a deputy arriving unwelcome, unannounced and unsolicited) actually believe lightning could strike and send pulse phones to dial out “9,” “1″ and then “1″ again. Even on phonelines that were not in service. For tone dialing, the actual frequency would have to be achieved in order to do what?
The hand of God dialed the 911 preset? Another lie because Cherokee County did not offer tone dialing until 1998; all telephone exchanges operated on pulse. It takes 9 electrical pulses to ‘click’ the relay at the telephone exchange, then 1 more, then 1 more. The Cherokee County Texas Sheriff’s Department should have had the headline “Lightning Strikes Same Place 11 times in 3 Seconds… but doesn’t burn up the phoneline…” Transient voltage in the air? Lies.
There is nothing more jarring than having an unannounced visit from the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department during your late night house party…or as they call it “exigent circumstances” allowing for a warrantless search.
A typical Cherokee County intimidation tactic highlighted by the Cherokeean Herald. Precipitation loggers and historical data indicate no lightning strikes nor rainfall for this time period. This type of civil rights violations has been operating in Cherokee County, Texas for decades.
Murder quota needed for small town prosecutor
Does a district attorney need to meet a quota of capital murder convictions to declare himself a “victim’s rights advocate?” Simple trials, as the Richard Cobb case in 2002 can make a big impact in a small town.
And even easier to give yourself a “Law and Order Award” immediately afterwards.
According to Cherokee County District Attorney Elmer Beckworth, “juries pay attention to evidence and details.”
What about the evidence that has been fabricated or tampered decade after decade in Cherokee County, Texas, a la Troup Chief of Police Chester Kennedy?
Veteran police officer Chester Kennedy was in East Texas law enforcement for 12 years, while he stole pistols from the Troup city hall. How many similar search warrants, grand juries and drug seizures has Elmer Beckworth, Chester Kennedy, et al sign off on, during Kennedy’s 12 year tenure? In a town of 2000 in northern Cherokee County, it takes Smith County and federal agents to stop the blatant miscarriage of justice.
To stave off the stench of the corruption within his district, Todd Staples (R), Palestine
and District Attorney Elmer Beckworth co-wrote and sponsored the meaningless “Faye Harris Amendment” otherwise now known as Proposition 4. East Texas is not known for its champion of the 4th Amendment, rather its pulling the wool over the eyes of the populace.
This bill allows district attorneys to set the conditions and amount of bail, based on the nature of the accusation, without the messiness of waking up a district judge and having a hearing. Why not save the taxpayers some more money and just let Texas’ district attorneys try murder cases in their heads, and forego the ruse of having an untainted/unbiased jury? Out of 20,000 registered voters, only a handful have served on Cherokee County grand and petite juries in the last 20 years. Small case load.
From 2002 to 2004 there have been only 2 murders committed in Cherokee County, the Vandeer case and the Faye Harris case. Larger counties like Travis, Tarrant and Harris counties see hundreds of murder trials in their respective district courts. Cherokee County has one or two every 2 to 3 years. And these murder trials are exploited by the locals to make it seem like they were living in the homicide center of the universe, instead of a drug dealing pile of microscopic sh*t.
As in the Faye Harris case in 2003, her estranged husband Michael Harris was repeatedly arrested and placed on bond for threatening to kill his wife. Arrested repeatedly, though his initial bond for a pending felony arson trial (Harris allegedly burned down his ex-wife’s home) was never pulled by the Cherokee County district courts. Perhaps in hope that Harris would gun down his wife and the locals could again get their names in the paper for being ‘victim rights advocates.’ It’s easy to prove murder in the first degree when the continual pleas from Faye Harris to “lock up her soon to be ex-husband” were deliberately ignored and his bond not rescinded. Was it that Michael Harris was too valuable an asset to have arrested, being that he was seeking drug treatment at the Rusk State Hospital, under guard and escorted by the Cherokee County Sheriff Department? No reports of Michael Harris being a Confidential Informant for local law enforcement either. Habitual drug addicts face a revolving door sentencing process when they cop pleas with the district attorney’s office.
Notice Beckworth has to take the case to another grand jury to get drug informant Michael Harris to cop a plea.
Every 6th grader knows that if the conditions of bail are violated, as in Michael Harris re-arrested for harassing his wife REPEATEDLY, not to mention his drug charges, then he would have been locked up the first time FOR VIOLATING HIS BOND. Bond would have been denied after he was caught spitting on the sidewalk. Does this impress the misinformed?
Knowing that a potential murderer is repeatedly attacking your daughter does not a Christian make, Mrs. Bell.
Your daughter would be alive if the Cherokee County district attorney’s office was not more interested in keeping Michael Harris out of jail and on the streets of Jacksonville, than revoking his bail with one phone call to the district judge. Better to have a dead woman to champion, than a convicted drug addict not giving up his contacts to Cherokee County law enforcement. Maybe Michael Harris was one of bailiff Randal Thompson’s dealers.
Only a county that corrupt would produce a district attorney so arrogant as to tell the world that he alone, found a “flaw in the Texas Constitution.” With Proposition 4 still fresh in their East Texan minds, they have collectively butchered the Fourth Amendment. And they are eagerly waiting for the next Cherokee County homicide to grand stand on.
