Girl police allegedly mistook for hooker on trial in Galveston

[Cronopio]

http://www.khou.com/news/local/stories/khou090207_mp_police-thought-girl-was-a-hooker.2bbb0691.html

by Chris Paschenko / The Daily News

GALVESTON — Closing arguments are expected Monday in the trial of a girl accused of assaulting a police officer, but her defense attorney claims police are to blame because officers mistook the 12-year-old for a prostitute.

On Aug. 22, 2006, police were dispatched to the 2200 block of 24th Street to investigate three prostitutes propositioning two men selling drugs.

Attorney Anthony Griffin represents Dymond Larae Milburn in the criminal case that began this week. Griffin also filed a federal lawsuit Aug. 22, 2008, against Galveston police alleging officers violated her constitutional rights.

In the criminal case, Milburn is accused of injuring an officer when three policemen got out of a van and ran toward her. She grabbed a tree and screamed for her father, who was also charged with interfering with police. The interfering charge was dismissed.

After Milburn was released from the hospital, police arrested her at school Sept. 15, 2006. A mistrial in Milburn’s case was declared Oct. 3, 2007.

An attorney representing the officers in the federal case has denied they failed to properly identify themselves.

Milburn took the stand Friday morning and testified in her own defense, Griffin said. Her mother, Emily Milburn, also testified, he said.

Griffin and prosecutors Veronique Cantrell Avloes and Ella Anderson rested their cases Friday.

Police encountered Milburn when her mother sent her outside to try to flip a circuit breaker.

The electricity failed as Emily Milburn was preparing her children for school, the federal lawsuit claims.

Griffin asked County Court Judge Roy Quintanilla to acquit Milburn on grounds the state didn’t meet the probable-cause burden of Dymond’s detention and subsequent arrest.

All of the conduct proven in the case was legal, Griffin told the court Friday. All of the officers’ testimony was inconsistent about where they were standing when they approached Milburn, he said.

“But their testimony is consistent with her walking in her own yard and messing with the electrical box,” Griffin said. “It’s all legal. At some point, they came into the yard and saw her doing nothing illegal. There’s no evidence the child did anything wrong.”

Griffin’s federal lawsuit alleges police failed to property identify themselves to Milburn, who was then 12 years old.

[K Gardner]

1. I read this, and yet I simply cannot believe it. How did this get to trial?!

[Taverner]

4. It's the "cops are always right" mentality that infects our courts

Even some of the more liberal Judges believe this...

[FiveGoodMen]

7. "Even some of the more liberal Judges believe this"

Just look around DU and you can find plenty of comments defending cops no matter what they do.

[Danger Mouse]

8. I'd love to see somebody defend this here. I'd love it.

[Crunchy Frog]

14. If they do, it should be an immediate TS.

[WolverineDG]

39. You must not come here often

when it's a group that is unpopular, there are many on DU who don't care if that group's constitutional rights are violated, no matter how egregious the violations are.

dg

[Taverner]

12. Yes, yes that is true

[Danger Mouse]

5. It's in Texas. She's lucky she's not facing the death penalty.

[K Gardner]

24. I would laugh, but it resembles too closely the truth !

[NashVegas]

19. I Think It Was to Intimidate Them Into Dropping a Lawsuit

There was a mistrial in 2007, then nothing, then the lawsuit was filed.

[Danger Mouse]

2. What the fuck? What the fuck is wrong with these police officers?

It was a girl screaming for her father when she was grabbed by three strangers. This is fucked up on so many levels it makes me want to puke.
EDIT: And they weren't in uniform! How the fuck is this even at trial!!

[NashVegas]

11. Three Men Not Wearing Police Uniforms Jump Out of An Unmarked Van and Grab a 12 YO Girl?

Something tells that if the girl's name had been more along the lines of Kirsten instead of Dymond Larae, these officers could have wound up shot, and the law would have been on the side of whomever did the shooting.

Also of note: according to this, they were looking for Caucasians.

http://blog.operation-nation.com/2009/02/01/young-dymond-milburns-assault-ignored-by-euroamerican-media.aspx?ref=rss

[Danger Mouse]

16. So to add extra spice, an element of racism...she's black, so she's obviously guilty

heh.

[tom_paine]

33. Yep. But didn't you get the memo? Obama's election means there is no racism in America.

The Bushies said.

The TV said it.

It MUST be true.

:puke:

[Iktomiwicasa]

25. Damn shame...

...her Papa didn't have a shootin' iron handy.

[Winterblues]

30. A black man with a gun in Texas pointed at police.

You are kidding right, when you say it is a shame he didn't have a gun?

[Iktomiwicasa]

35. No

I am not kidding. I am a non white person in a state that has as many racists as Texas. Anyone tried that with one of our kids would be lucky to survive.

[me b zola]

20. WTF is wrong with the prosecuting attorney?

:grr:

[Danger Mouse]

23. Seriously.

[The Doctor.]

36. Those cops should be thanking God, on their knees, every day that the father didn't run out and

murder them all.

Seriously... what would you do?

You see your little girl being kidnapped from her own yard by three guys in a van... what would you do?

[DCKit]

38. It's not "murder" when you're defending your child dear Dr..

But that's a can of worms all of us are sure glad didn't get opened. There's no way it would have turned out well for any involved.

[Seen the light]

3. Texas™ nt

[panader0]

6. I've been following this. It's this kind of shit that makes me hate cops.

[Zodiak]

9. Worse than just Texas....Galveston

That's where I was hit with a billy club by a cop for "not moving fast enough". This was after he starting harassing my college room-mate and me because we were changing a tire on his car at 10 PM. Apparently tires are not supposed to blow out after dark or it makes you a criminal worthy of striking...who knew?

[Danger Mouse]

10. Good thing you're not a 12-year-old girl, they would've beat you up and arrested you..

and put you on trial for it.

[Zodiak]

21. Yeah, they just beat me the one time

and drove off after they thought they tormented my room-mate and I enough...

[NashVegas]

17. These Guys Are So Freaking Corrupt ...

http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=e777d123d1c089c9

These little fuckers, after assaulting a 12 YO girl went back and tried to intimidate her family with more arrests:


Two days following Wilfred Milburn’s Aug. 22, 2006, arrest on a misdemeanor interfering charge, police charged him with cocaine possession and with having an invalid driver’s license.

Three misdemeanor charges, including the interfering charge, against Wilfred Milburn were dismissed in exchange for his pleading guilty to cocaine possession, Bennett said. Milburn received a two-year, state-jail sentence, Bennett said.

[Zodiak]

22. Tried to?

Looks like dad got a two year sentence! Wonder if the cocaine was planted?

[NashVegas]

26. Of Course It Was

I suppose it is possible it was his, but under the circumstances, not likely, IMO.

[Zodiak]

31. Well, considering the circumstances, if I were the judge...

I entertain the possibility.

But of course this never went to trial....it was plea bargained.

[Crunchy Frog]

13. Un fucking believable. I can't even think of anything to say.

[THUNDER HANDS]

15. cops make the worst witnesses

ask anyone who's ever been in a court case with one. I've been in dozens. They are horrible.

[Danger Mouse]

18. why? inability to admit being wrong? insistence that their version is right?

[THUNDER HANDS]

32. horrible memories

when you're being questioned by a lawyer, they ask VERY specific questions, and unless the cop has a great memory, he's not going to remember hwo many feet away he was from a suspect when he first saw him, how many other cops were around at the time, how many seconds it took for him to go from point A to point B.

Part of that is just human nature. Can you remember what you were doing at 5:15 P.M. on December 20, 2006?

Imagine making multiple arrests in some month a few years ago and having to testify as to what exactly you were doing at the time as well as what everyone around you was doing. It's practically impossible.

You'd have to have some sort of total recall memory to not slip up on the stand. Fact that in with a cop having a job that requires him to do multiple things at once, getting everything right in order is really really hard.

It's one thing for a victim of an accident to remember what happened, because usually that's the most major thing that's happened in their life at that point. But for a cop to remember something that, while huge to the person they arrested, was probably rather routine to them - well, you're going to get different versions of the same story.

[The Doctor.]

37. "Can you remember what you were doing at 5:15 P.M. on December 20, 2006? "

Actually, what's funny is that I do...

I'd been at a gym open house considering a membership, but then I found I'd locked my keys in the car. I then waited at a bar across the street, and right about 5:15pm I ordered a beer just 10 minutes before my friend showed up with my spare key... just in time to finish my beer.

How strange.

[JFN1]

27. We seriously need to start limiting police power

They should not get to tackle and hospitalize twelve year old girls, or shoot unarmed men in the back while they are handcuffed face down on the floor, or chase some guy who stole $20 of gas at 100 mph through a crowded city until he wrecks and dies and possibly kills innocent bystanders.

Police are totally out of control. We must fear them, given stories like this, when we should never fear them.

[Tommy_J]

28. This really deserves national coverage,

but there doesn't seem to be any. Or have I missed it due to avoiding TV?

[NutmegYankee]

29. This went to Trial?

WTF! She is a twelve year-old child scared that she was being abducted. We teach our children to fight back against rapists and muggers, Hello!

[Canuckistanian]

34. They must be making weaker cops these days

There was a time when a cop would be ashamed to admit that a 12 year old girl assaulted him, let alone arrest her.

And by most accounts, he had it coming.

[MadHound]

40. Cops thought that a twelve year old girl was a hooker?

Gee, makes me wonder who have the cops been diddling with to come to this assumption. There's only one girl I've known in my fairly long life who had the physical characteristics to come close to a hooker, and that was twenty five years ago.

Twelve year old girls look like, well, twelve year old girls, not hookers.

More assinine police.

[benEzra]

41. Three policemen DRESSED IN STREET CLOTHES jumped out of a van and grabbed her...

The officers who grabbed her were undercover, NOT in uniform, and jumped out of an UNMARKED van.

If MY daughter were grabbed by three tough-looking young guys and dragged toward their car, I hope she'd fight like hell even if they claimed to be police. To the girl, those men weren't acting like police officers; they were acting like they were looking to commit an abduction and gang rape.

And then to charge the girl for resisting abduction? Do we really want our kids to be compliant when strangers in street clothes try to abduct them, on the off chance the kidnapper is really a police officer on an adrenaline kick?

http://www.carliescrusade.org/

I teach my kids to RESIST abduction, thank you...

[20score]

42. This kind of crap happens waay too often. It's time for the prosecution of corrupt cops and

prosecutors.The pendulum needs to swing back to sanity and away from this false 'Law and Order' bullshit. It's not 'Law and Order' when the cops and prosecutors are the problem. Which they all too often are.