Thursday, January 26, 2012

Change,org Petition

In 2011, I filed a petition on Change.org demanding that the U.S. DOJ and President Obama take action to prevent Diop Kamau from defrauding and harassing people. I also asked them to improve and simplify federal procedures for filing complaints against law enforcement officers. My petition garnered over 100 signatures until it was taken down by Change.org at the end of December 2011.

Just prior to taking down my petition, Change.org sent me an email offering me the chance to extend the length of time my petition was posted on their site. However, when I clicked on the link for this that was provided in the email, I got a message saying I could not make any changes to my petition. I immediately sent a reply email telling Change.org I wanted to extend the posting of my petition but couldn't, and I asked them for their help in doing this. I never received any reply from them, and my petition was taken down.

Since Change.org will no longer let me post it on their site, I'm posting a copy of my petition here for your consideration. If, after reading it, you agree with my position, I'd appreciate your adding your signature and any comments you might have using the comment feature at the end of this post. You can do this anonymously here if you like, but I would greatly appreciate it if you would at least leave a general location where you're from, because this information is very important to me for a number of reasons.

Here then is my petition:


Title

Demand an end to police complaint fraud!


Description

U.S. citizens trying to file complaints against police officers are being deliberately directed to the website of a criminal who defrauds, defames, stalks, and harasses them. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is aware of this but does nothing to stop it—and may even be encouraging it.

Persons attempting to file complaints of police misconduct or corruption have had to search hard on the Internet to locate the official DOJ site for doing this, which described a slow and involved procedure that required sending the complaint and supporting documentation by regular mail. This site was set up ten years ago and never updated.

Much easier to find is the website of the Police Complaint Center (PCC) of Washington, D.C., since there are numerous links to it on legitimate law enforcement websites, and its website pops up first on all the major search engines with searches for “File police complaints”, “Police abuse”, “Report police corruption”, and the like. Instead of the dull, outdated, and complicated DOJ website, visitors to the PCC site find a slick and attractive site that boasts of past Emmy award-winning investigations done for all the major media outlets (which are mentioned by name) and promises of all manner of help and assistance for victims of every sort of police misconduct.

The truth, which victims usually do not discover until it’s too late, is sordid and shocking. The PCC’s Washington, D.C. address is simply a mail drop. The PCC’s “Executive Director” is Diop Kamau, a former Los Angeles-area police officer named Don Jackson, who changed his name and moved to Tallahassee, Florida in an effort to escape a criminal past. Kamau, who has also served as an adjunct professor of criminal justice at Florida State University and Florida A & M University, is a former licensed private investigator in Florida; his license was revoked in 2009. Kamau and his various PCC associates are not known to hold valid private investigators’ licenses anywhere in the U.S. at the present time. The PCC’s Florida address is also simply a mail drop.

Persons contacting the PCC to request help are told their situations do not qualify for any of the free assistance promised on the PCC’s website. Instead, they are conned and manipulated in various ways into purchasing various expensive goods and services they never receive.

When victims eventually discover they’ve been defrauded and try to file complaints, their nightmares begin in earnest. Kamau and his associates begin openly stalking and harassing them, both online and in person. Victims are threatened, defamed, and extorted for additional money. Some of those who try to file serious complaints against Kamau also become victims of illegal surveillance, organized stalking, and computer hacking.

Kamau and his associates don’t just victimize those trying to file complaints, either. If the subject of the victim’s complaint is a well-connected officer backed by the right people, they are tipped off about the complaint against them and given the complainant’s personal information for a fee. If the officer being complained about is in a weaker position, he or she can expect to be blackmailed.

Worse, anyone trying to file complaints against the PCC, Kamau, or any of his associates very quickly discovers that law enforcement at all levels won’t do anything at all with regard to investigating or prosecuting the PCC, even when the complaints are extremely serious and very well-documented. Victims have sought relief and justice by filing complaints with the Washington, D.C., Florida, and their own states’ OAGs; the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (the agency that licenses private investigators in Florida); the Federal Trade Commission (FTC); the FBI; iC3; and the U.S. DOJ. These complaints are routinely ignored.

One victim filed an open records request with the FTC for copies of all the complaints they had on file against the PCC. They received over thirty pages of these that did not even include many complaints filed by known victims. A similar request sent to the Washington, D.C. OAG resulted in documentation of just a handful of complaints, all of which were already known to the victim filing the request.

Victims of the PCC and Kamau also report that private attorneys flatly refuse to represent them in civil lawsuits because of threats they’ve received. Angry victims with no other recourse have turned to the Internet, where they attempt to warn potential victims by posting poor ratings and complaints against the PCC at various consumer and law enforcement sites. These victims quickly find themselves on the receiving end of Kamau’s wrath. He posts heavily doctored voice recordings of them or about them that are so misleading as to be utterly false. He posts their personal information on his websites, including their social security numbers. He defames them in ways that are clearly criminal. He posts unflattering photos with their names on them that are actually of someone else.

The U.S. DOJ is aware of all of this yet does nothing to stop it. Worse, there are signs that the DOJ may actually be deliberately sending potential victims to the PCC’s website. In fact, when this was recently pointed out online, someone at the DOJ quickly removed all the content from their official police complaint website.

The U.S. DOJ needs to immediately stop aiding, abetting, and covering up the national disgrace of serious police complaint fraud and start actively prosecuting it!


For general information, including a link to the U.S. DOJ’s former webpage for reporting police complaints: http://medawarscornflakes.blogspot.com/2010/11/bent-american-police-federal-agents-how.htm.

For extensive documentation of a complete case that includes criminal fraud, criminal conspiracy, illegal surveillance, wire fraud, mail fraud, and law enforcement complicity: http://kamaudocs.blogspot.com (includes proof of Kamau’s private investigator’s license having been revoked; also includes sample complaints filed by multiple victims)

The PCC’s main website: http://policeabuse.com

Comments by law enforcement about the PCC, along with sample responses from Kamau: http://forums.leoaffairs.com/viewtopic.php?f=52021&p=553100


Information about Kamau and PrePaid Legal Services: http://vocct.blogspot.com


List In

Criminal Justice

Filed By: M.L.


Target Email

askDOJ@usdoj.gov


Target Official

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder


Letter

Subject: Stop police complaint fraud!

Salutation: Attorney General Holder:

I’m asking you to instruct the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to immediately stop aiding, abetting, and covering up serious nationwide criminal fraud and other very serious crimes being committed by Diop Kamau and other persons associated with The Police Complaint Center against people attempting to file complaints against police officers. Furthermore, I’m asking you to lead the DOJ in aggressively investigating and prosecuting these crimes.

U.S. citizens trying to properly file complaints of police misconduct and/or corruption are entitled to full protection under the law. They should not be victimized twice, first by the officer or officers they are attempting to file complaints about, and then by the people they are sent to for help! And when they are victimized, their very serious complaints need to be thoroughly investigated and aggressively prosecuted by the DOJ and other law enforcement agencies at all levels. Law enforcement appears to be conspiring to punish citizens for filing complaints instead of helping them.

I’m also asking you to instruct the U.S. DOJ to carefully examine its procedures for the proper filing of complaints against law enforcement officers, repair or replace the official website set up for this purpose, and take steps to insure that persons wishing to file these kinds of complaints can easily find and use it.