publicsafetyunleashed

The following Facebook live video was taken by an inmate in a South Carolina state prison. It shows a black inmate repeatedly slapping a white inmate in the face, while making him say black lives matter. Then he orders the man to say white lives shatter before slapping him one last time across his face.

A Rittman mother, Erica Stefanko, who was convicted on murder charges for the second time after an appeals court overturned her murder conviction in the death of Ashley Biggs was sentenced to life in prison. The jury deliberated for more than eight hours over two days before finding Stefanko guilty of both charges she was facing. Biggs, 25, went to work as a pizza delivery driver in Akron on June 20, 2012, and never returned home. Summit County prosecutors claim Stefanko placed a bogus pizza order that lured Biggs to a parking lot where Biggs was beaten and strangled to death by Chad Cobb, her ex-boyfriend and the father of her child. At the time, Biggs and Cobb were locked in a bitter custody dispute over their daughter, and Cobb was married to Stefanko. Cobb pleaded guilty to Biggs’ murder in 2013. He later implicated Stefanko and became a critical state witness. But it was Cobb’s pandemic-era testimony via Zoom that overturned Stefanko’s conviction. In the first trial, he tried to distance himself from Biggs’ murder and denied killing her. Cobb wasn’t the only person to implicate Stefanko in her first trial in 2020. The jury also heard from the teenage daughter of Biggs and Cobb, who testified that she overheard Stefanko place the pizza order using a false name. Cobb’s mother testified that she secretly recorded a conversation in which Stefanko admitted to placing the order and said that Cobb wanted Biggs’ skull as a trophy. Cobb’s friend, Mary Brinkman, testified Stefanko made no secret of her dislike for Biggs. Stefanko said she drove Cobb to the ambush location, Brinkman testified, and later defecated on Biggs’ grave “for all the (expletive) she put us through.” Stefanko’s defense argued that her contempt for Biggs was not evidence of involvement in a murder conspiracy. The defense tried to portray Cobb as a spiteful ex who implicated Stefanko after she divorced him and married Cobb’s best friend.

Leon Gary Plauché publicly killed Jeff Doucet, a child molester who had kidnapped and raped Plauché's son, Jody. On March 16, 1984, Doucet was flown back to Louisiana to face trial. He arrived at Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport and was led in handcuffs by police officers through the airport at around 9:30 p.m., where Plauché was waiting for Doucet. An employee of the local ABC affiliate, WBRZ-TV, had told Plauché when Doucet would be arriving at the airport. A news crew from WBRZ was waiting for Doucet and had set up their cameras to record his arrival. Opposite the news crew was a bank of payphones, where Plauché waited while talking to his best friend on a telephone. He wore a baseball cap and sunglasses so that no one would recognize him. As Doucet was escorted through the airport, he passed the news crew who were taping the scene. He then walked past Plauché, who fired at the right side of Doucet's head at point-blank range. Doucet fell to the floor, bleeding from a wound close to his right ear. Plauché placed the telephone receiver down before a police officer restrained him and removed the gun from his hand as the other attended to Doucet. The officers who grabbed hold of Plauché recognized him. They kept him pinned against the bank of telephones, asking him, "Gary, why? Why, Gary?" The incident was captured on ENG videotape. Doucet fell into a coma, and died from the gunshot wound the next day. Plauché was initially charged with second-degree murder, but agreed to a plea bargain in which he pleaded no contest to manslaughter. He was sentenced to seven years suspended sentence, with five years' probation and 300 hours of community service, which he completed in 1989.

Two Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputies put a man in a headlock and repeatedly punched him in the head outside his home in East Los Angeles, according to video and reports. In the video, you can see one L.A. County Sheriff's deputy keeping 34-year- old Alejandro Hernandez in a chokehold. The other deputy holds one arm back then punches him in the face. The deputy's knuckles are covered in blood. According to witnesses in the neighborhood who recorded the arrest, Hernandez was merely cleaning his car and not engaging in any suspicious activity. They believe he was racially profiled, leading to the aggressive response from the deputies. Hernandez is an amputee, missing part of his leg, and spends most of his time at home. Alejandro's mother, Gabriela Ortega, expressed her distress, emphasizing her son's vulnerability due to his amputated leg. She disputed the claim of resisting arrest, stating that the video clearly shows her son being repeatedly punched. In response, the LASD released a statement asserting that deputies observed Hernandez walking in the street, appearing to conceal something in his waistband. The department claimed that Hernandez resisted arrest, leading to the use of force. They reported the recovery of a loaded 9mm firearm from inside his pants, leading to charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm and battery on a police officer. "They're saying that a police officer had blood. But it was my son's blood," Ortega said. "You could see in the video how he's punching him so hard with his fist and elbow going back and forth. Of course he's going to have blood." Ortega feels that because of her son's criminal record, law enforcement officers continue to harass him and her family. In a separate incident, sheriff's deputies pulled over her husband because he didn't have a license plate on the front of his vehicle. She said a deputy pointed a gun at her husband during that incident. The LASD maintains that the case is under investigation. Both Hernandez and the involved deputies received medical treatment for their injuries at a hospital. Hernandez remains in police custody, according to jail records, with no bail set.