Lawyer: Pasadena police scapegoated 911 caller

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PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — A lawyer for a man who wrongly reported an armed robbery to 911 says Pasadena police are scapegoating his client in the shooting death of a college boy.

Oscar Carrillo's lawyer Andres Bustamante said Friday that Pasadena police are doing damage control at his client's expense and wrongly blaming Carrillo in 19-year-old Kendrec McDade's death.

Carrillo called 911 to report an armed robbery March 24.

Chief Phillip Sanchez says Carrillo's call led them to believe McDade was an armed robbery suspect when they opened fire, but McDade was unarmed.

Bustamante says Pasadena police felt pressure from the community to dodge blame and scapegoated Carrillo in the 19-year-old's death.

Pasadena police, LA county prosecutors and a watchdog agency have opened investigations. The FBI is assessing whether to open a formal investigation.

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Lawyer: Man believed behind French killing spree claimed his innocence to police

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PARIS - An Algerian lawyer says she has evidence the young man accused of killing seven people in attacks on French soldiers and a Jewish school claimed his innocence to police. Separately, France announced it was expelling several foreign Islamist extremists on its soil.

Mohamed Merah, 23, was killed after a more than 30-hour standoff with police at his apartment in Toulouse after being identified as the suspect behind the killing spree last month. Authorities have said that during negotiations Merah claimed to have links to al-Qaida and confessed to the killings.

But Zahia Mokhtari, a lawyer for Merah's Algerian father, told BFM television on Monday that she had two identical videos of Merah that contradict the police narrative. "In these videos, he says, 'I am innocent. Why are you killing me? I didn't do anything,'" she said.

Mokhtari would not detail how she got the videos, saying she would reveal more on their origin once she files a lawsuit in French courts against the elite police force, RAID, that killed Merah.

Merah is alleged to have killed three paratroopers, a rabbi and three Jewish schoolchildren, attacks that put French authorities on edge. President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed a crackdown on foreign Islamist radicals, and the Interior Ministry said Monday that deportations are in progress.

An Algerian Islamist radical convicted for a role in 1994 attacks in Marrakech and said to have recently started linking up again with extremists was deported Monday along with an imam from Mali who preached anti-Semitism and the rejection of the West, the Interior Ministry said.

A Saudi imam who has systematically preached the need to isolate women among other things is to be forced home imminently. Efforts to deport two other people are in progress and more such actions can be expected "shortly," the statement said.

A police official with knowledge of the investigation into the Merah case cast doubt on the Algerian lawyer's claims about the videos Monday, noting that Merah led police to evidence that proved he was the perpetrator.

Prosecutors say Merah spoke at length with negotiators from the RAID force throughout the standoff while he was holed up in a Toulouse apartment.

During these conversations, authorities say, Merah told them where to find a video he took of the crime spree. Al-Jazeera television has said it received a copy of the video, which shows the deaths of three paratroopers, three Jewish children and a rabbi from the killer's point of view.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of police rules, added that Merah had toyed with police during the standoff, initially agreeing to surrender but later vowing to "die with his weapons in his hands."

Police have said that Merah said he had links to al-Qaida but have cast doubt on that claim. They are holding his brother on suspicion he helped to prepare the attacks and are looking for a possible third man who may also have been involved.

The killings have left France reeling, reviving worries about Islamist extremism and shaking up the French presidential campaign.

___

Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten contributed to this report.

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Lawyer guilty of assaulting police union boss - Herald Sun

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Trayvon lawyer: Police trying to blame victim - CBS News

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(CBS News) The attorney for the parents of Trayvon Martin said the Sanford Police Department is blaming the victim in the case by leaking information beneficial to George Zimmerman and by "correcting" the testimony of witnesses whose stories diverged from the shooter's claims of self-defense.

A police report was released Monday stating that, according to Zimmerman, Martin had attacked and punched the neighborhood watch volunteer on February 26. The Associated Press also reported that Martin had been suspended from school after an empty plastic baggie containing traces of marijuana was found in his book bag. The AP also said Martin had no juvenile offender record.

New details deepen Trayvon Martin Controversy

Sanford city manager Norton Bonaparte said the information about Martin's school suspension should not have been released, and wants whoever leaked it fired.

Appearing on "CBS This Morning," Martin family lawyer Ben Crump said that the police are "trying to attack his reputation, blame the victim, and that has been the pattern of the Sanford Police Department.

"There is no relevance any of this has on what happened on February 26," Crump told Charlie Rose. "The only thing that matters on February 26 is George Zimmerman disobeyed the police and got out of his car and pursued and stalked Trayvon Martin to cause this fatal encounter.

"Charlie, all you need to do is listen to the tape," Crump continued. "Zimmerman did not know Trayvon Martin before this tape. He said why he was suspicious and he says why he ran after Trayvon Martin. And if the police want to leak information, why don't they leak the witnesses who say they saw him pursuing Trayvon?

"But they have only [done] things that are beneficial to Mr. Zimmerman's claim of self-defense, and the only reason we can think [why is] that, from day one, they made a decision they were not going to arrest George Zimmerman. And each day goes by, the whole world is saying, 'You at least got to arrest this guy.'"

Some witnesses report that police who interviewed them "corrected" their testimony, with officers telling the witnesses that it was Zimmerman, not Martin, who was being attacked and crying out for help. Another witness said police refused to hear her story that Zimmerman did not act in self-defense, saying the police "blew us off."

Crump told Erica Hill of one witness, a child, whose mother said "the police were asking him very confusing questions and he was confused, and like the other witnesses there's a pattern that the Sanford police 'correct' witnesses when it doesn't go with their version of it. Three witnesses have now said that the Sanford police changed their testimony."

Hill asked about another, anonymous witness, who corroborated Zimmerman's story that Martin was the aggressor in the confrontation to a local Florida TV station. The lawyer said the family was not told of the witness, and blamed the police: "That's leaked information that we don't know because the police only leak information to the media, not to the family.

"If that was your son, Erica, wouldn't you think the police would tell you first before they go tell the world and sully his name?" he said. "That is the whole disrespect that they have given to this family, for what reason?

"That's why people are so outraged. The whole way the police have conducted this investigation has been that Trayvon Martin is the subject ... then that makes George Zimmerman the victim. That is the problem. The investigation was never fair and impartial."

Martin's parents have met with the special prosecutor and have conveyed their concerns about the investigation, Crump said. "I hope that the state attorney will look at that, and I hope they will at least arrest" Zimmerman.

"The family isn't asking for a conviction. They only want what would happen to Mr. Zimmerman what would happen to their son had he pulled the trigger, and that's equal justice and a fair and impartial investigation. They deserve that. That's the least that they deserve."

To see Crump being interviewed by "CBS This Morning" co-host Charlie Rose, click on the video in the player above.

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